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Kirby’s Dream Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I always forget that in this, the very first Kirby game, Kirby’s well known basic power of inhaling in baddies and copying their abilities doesn’t exist. Well, he can suck them in, but he can’t gain powers from doing so.

It’s also very easy. As in, I didn’t die. You can avoid a load of things by just flying over them or sucking them up, and there’s health pickups everywhere, so it’s only really the bosses that provide any sort of challenge. Except they don’t.

Not that any of that matters though, because despite the age, lack of difficulty, and limited nature of Kirby himself, it’s still a lot of fun to play through.

WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Nintendo added a load of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to their online subscription service this week, and although I’m hyped to get to play through The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap I’m leaving that until I’m done with Fire Emblem Warriors. In the meantime, however, I thought I’d play this.

It’s… very easy, isn’t it? Have I really remembered how to play every single minigame, accurately and with skill, from 20 years ago? To the point where I think I failed only about five times in total and only one of them was on a boss? And then went through Endless Mode (on Easy, to be fair) and got to 400 before I gave up? Yes, it’s easy.

But it’s fun. And there’s more to do now, like unlock the few remaining games and VS mode games.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (Switch)

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Completed again. After finishing it with Edelgard’s Empire and being baffled by the logic of her decisions, I decided to New Game+ it and play through as Hufflepuff (or Faerghus Kingdom or whatever Dimitri’s blue lot are called). New Game+ carries over all your character levels, weapons, base facility unlocks and so on, so any characters that overlap between Red and Blue, plus Shez, were all incredibly overpowered to start with.

Well, not quite to start with, as for the first couple of missions you’re set to Level 1 again, but after that, indestructible. Which obviously meant the entire game was very easy. Not least because I already had super-powerful weapons and nothing to spend money on bar more level upgrades.

The plot for Dimitri made a lot more sense. Edelgard was under the control of Those Who Slither In The Dark and so most of it wasn’t her fault. I also managed to recruit Byleth and Jeralt this time through, meaning I got a few more chapters, a bizarre other-worldly mission, and a totally different ending.

So, at 75 hours in, time for New Game++ and Claude’s yellow lads.

Squiggle Drop (iPad): COMPLETED!

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Squiggle Drop is a simple idea but done in such a way to make you feel monumentally stupid.

The idea is that you draw a shape, which then (usually) drops down onto some objects and, hopefully, completes a task. So you might have a button that needs pressing, so you draw a brick and drop it on. Or there’s a chasm for a car to cross, so you draw a bridge. Things are somewhat more complicated when you need to draw shapes that move in a certain way once they land, or that perform two or more separate actions in order – but you can only draw one, unbroken, squiggly line.

Some real headscratchers were the one where you had to knock a cow out of a UFO tractor beam, only the cow is under the UFO, the object you draw is above it, and the UFO can’t be moved. Also, one where you have to pull a nail from a board but nail is vertically upright and the shape is, again, above.

It was enjoyable, but drawing with a finger wasn’t precise enough for some of the levels and so drawing seemingly the exact same shape on consecutive attempts caused wildly different outcomes due to the very tiny variations. Even with the hints (which show you the sort of shape you should draw) on, it’s near impossible to be exact, and so a few levels were unnecessarily frustrating. Still, physics games tend to be a bit random, and it wasn’t enough to prevent me from completing it. Well, complete until they decide to add some more levels, anyway.

68: One Handsome Dog

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Yes, yes. We know the last episode was a mere shadow of a proper show. A snifter. A tease. Well, we’re back with a Real One, you lucky, lucky people.

In Episode 68, which somehow unexpectedly became a Chinese New Year Special, deKay, Toby, Orrah and Kendrick do chats about How To Speak Chinese Proper Like, Wo (like “oh-woah”) Long Fallen Dynasty (and related Chinese history), the death of Stadia, tech layoffs, AND! Games! Such as:

  • Football Manager 2023
  • Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
  • Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
  • Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition
  • Animal Crossing (obviously)
  • Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
  • Vampire Survivors
  • Valkyrie Elysium
  • Panorama Cotton
  • Monster Hunter Rise
  • Bayonetta 3

Plus, as you should expect from us by now, so much deviation we’re surprised we haven’t ended up on someone else’s podcast by mistake.

(Direct link here)

Intro music credits: Helm’s Temple from the Baldur’s Gate soundtrack.

Don’t forget, if you want to contact us with questions or comments for or about the show, you can email podcast@ugvm.org.uk or publicly shame us @ugvmpodcast on the Twittors, and https://mas.to/@ugvmpodcast on the Mastodons.