This was a month of Smash Brothers, at least until the last week of the month when I got both Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse and Bayonetta 2. Next month should be pretty free until near the end of the month again. That at least will clear some time for me to complete NaNoWriMo.

Beaten

Bayonetta 2 –

I’ll have a full post about this sometime in the next week or so. It is a great game, but that is to be expected from a PlatinumGames title. It doesn’t quite reach the highs of its predecessor, but it is overall a slightly better game. It is a much more even experience; while it doesn’t reach the astounding highs it also doesn’t have the lows. By which I mean the instant death surprises and QTEs. I think the team at Platinum knew they weren’t likely to get another chance at this series (fingers crossed that I’m wrong) and they went all out to make this the best game they could. It is polished and inventive and just damn great.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse – wrote about it here.

Smash Brothers 4 3DS – wrote about it here and here.

The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks – wrote about it here.

Art of Balance –

This is a puzzle game, with previous versions releases for Wiiware and the 3DS, where the player stacks oddly shaped blocks, trying to keep them from falling off the platform. When the game starts adding special blocks, like breakable ones or blocks that reverse gravity it starts to get really intense. I really enjoy puzzle games, I can zone out for hours solving things like this. Art of Balance is a damn fine puzzle game. It doesn’t quite have the presentation of PushMo, but it is much easier to wrap one’s head around, though not necessarily easier to solve. This is a good game.

Ongoing

Yakuza 4 – I’ve played a few chapters of this, but I couldn’t make much more progress. I expect it is the last Yakuza game I’ll get to play in English and I want to savor the experience.

Mario and Luigi Dream Team – I started this up when I was sick of Smash Bros. I don’t know what I think about the new graphical style, it looks different from the previous Mario & Luigi games but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. The rest of the game seems to play about the same as the rest of the series. Honestly, I didn’t stick with much past the prologue, but this is what I have to play on my 3DS until Persona Q hits.

Bayonetta
–

I’m not finished with this yet, but I am ready to call it the definitive version of Bayonetta. I’ve never played it on 360, but it certainly runs much better than the PS3 version. And the 360 version doesn’t have Nintendo themed costumes. This is a great game on any system, but the silliness of Link and Samus costumes make it even better.

Tomb Raider Underworld – wrote about it here. I haven’t managed to finish it, but I am still playing it.

Cursed Mountain – My attempts to clear out my Wii backlog started with this survival horror game. It isn’t a great game, the controls are clunky and some of the motion controls are awkward. But it does have some great atmosphere and a unique setting. I haven’t made it too far into the game, I had planned to play it on Halloween but ended up playing Bayonetta instead, but I will come back to finish it. It is a solid 7 of a game, flawed in many ways, but interesting nonetheless.

Earthbound
– I ambled around Fourside for a while this last month. I think I know where I’m supposed to be going now, but I’ve got distracted by other things. I’ll get back to it.

Upcoming

Persona Q – This is the only big 3DS game I am buying the rest of the year. My budget won’t allow for me to get this and Fantasy Life and Pokemon. I am going with the Atlus game. A combination of the Persona and Etrian Odyssey series, this looks like exactly the sort of game I’ll love.

Smash Bros WiiU – I spent 40 odd hours with the 3DS game already; I expect to double that with the WiiU pretty quickly. It looks so good.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – This is the last game in my Zelda replay, assuming I can’t track down 4 Swords Adventure, (I am baffled about what happened to that game. I’ve searched everywhere) and I will get it finished before the end of the year.

Okami HD – I picked this game up cheap at the same time I got Tomb Raider Underworld, but I played that first since I was fresh off of the Tomb Raider reboot. I am eager to play this again.