I’ve gotten so used to looking at the details that I didn’t even notice the blatant fire-in-the-tent.

The key to a 10HP run is honestly not to waste your turns. When you can end combat in one attack and have both Mario and his partner’s turn, use the extra turn to top off your HP/FP with Sweet Treat or Appeal to get the Star Power back. Also, know your Stylish Moves for extra Star Power. It fills up so fast that you can regularly toss out the quite OP Earth Tremor whenever you’re full on everything. No need to run around with full resources. I also like the Badges that randomly regenerate you and the defense increases are also very important.

Muto and Chono are retired wrestlers from Japan (the former being more famous in the West as The Great Muta). An in-game they also use their real names. Yakuza tends to have real people make cameo apperances, but most of them wouldn’t be well known outside of Japan. Some characters appearing in side quest feel like they would be based on real people based on the way they talk about being famous, but I wouldn’t know.

I’m about halfway through Paper Mario at this point. I remember the 10HP run being a bit more difficult, I don’t even find myself using Sweet Treat on the occasional free turn anymore. And I only use items once in a blue moon, too.

What I like most about the remake so far is the battle music getting a different remix for every area.

Played a lot more Yakuza Kiwami 2. Had some issues with the game crashing, but a fresh install fixed that. Unlocked the Majima Construction game, which I’m not a huge fan of. I’d like it more if it was turn based or if you could pause and look around the field. Or just a way to zoom out at least, I tend to lose sight of my units. But yo, I had no idea Keiji Muto and Masahiro Chono were the main villains of that story! I freaked out when they first walked into the scene (and kudos to the people who modeled the faces, I recognized Muto immediately!). And then other New Japan Wrestlers join my side as well? I know they appear in a later Yakuza title, but I had no idea they got recycled into this one.

I also have yet to see anything on the Completion List that stops me from completing it. The previous games always had something that was just stupidly tedious.

Here’s a game I loved and hated at the same time. I was a big fan of Jango Fett and it was fun to play the game in theory, but good luck being in a room with dozens of enemies and trying to scan them to find the one guy with the bounty and isolate him to take him alive when they’re all coming after you. I don’t think you actually need to do much bounty hunting, but I forget if it’s completely optional. I remember the game definitely being more action than stealth though.

If they completely reimagined this game and made it more like the Hitman games though…

Not at all. But now that Hunters is more directly tied into the story and not just a spinoff it would be nice to have the full context.

I hope we get a surprise Metroid Prime Hunters Remaster before this because I have no idea who the villain is.

Donkey Kong Country Returns Returns. How many extra levels did the 3DS version add? I doubt it’s enough to get me to buy the game again, unfortunately.

I like that they went with the Breath of the Wild approach of “Let’s just give the players everything and let them figure it out.” I hope that wand is just the cornerstone of gameplay though, I don’t think it can carry an entire game. I am a little worried that it’s all they showed, especially for combat.

That’s very cool, but I think they should have waited a bit, maybe even move it to the Switch 2. We’ve just had remakes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario TTYD, is a third Mario-themed RPG within a year really necessary? Who knows when the next one after this comes…

Honestly, 99% of what I know about Mahjong I learned from the ingame tutorials in Yakuza 0 and I went in with zero knowledge. I knew so little, I thought the tiles you threw out were your hand.

Been playing Paper Mario some more. Beat Chapter 2 and got the quest to go a few floors down the Pit of 100 Trials to save a Toad’s dad, which is always my cue to go way further down to level 50 and get the inventory upgrade, since I’m already there. It’s quite nerve-wracking to go down there with 10HP, but I made it and I was only caught by surprise and lost my Life Shroom once. Would have been easier if I hadn’t insisted on tattling every new enemy, but you just gotta! It was a nice preview, it’s not like I’ll have any more health at the end of the game when I go all the way.

Progressed further in Yakuza Kiwami 2 and unlocked the Mahjong Parlor. And I have finally done it, I’ve won a game with Thirteen Orphans, a hand I have been chasing for literal years! Not just in Yakuza games, but Mahjong games on the Super Nintendo as well. And while doing that, I have learned that you can steal tiles from a Kan. I thought it was all over when the last tile I needed was put to the side in a pile of 4, but I was allowed to call Ron! I guess I should return to the story now. I think someone important was bleeding out or something…

I was just making a joke that the entire main story of a Yakuza game is a side dish to Mahjong. I just always spend way too much time in the parlor ever since Yakuza 0 taught me how to play.

I had plans for what my next game on Switch was going to be, but I spontaneously decided to play Paper Mario instead. I didn’t expect to finish both of my games at once, so I’d rather have one of the replacements be something I don’t have to think about too much. I’ve beaten the original game half a dozen times, so this will be a rather chill playthrough. As chill as it can be without any HP upgrades, I guess. I want those badges, baby!

I had plans for what my next game on PC was going to be, but I spontaneously decided to play Yakuza Kiwami 2 instead. I wish I’d had the chance to get into the series earlier, I have so much catching up to do! I think there’s 10 games by now? I have yet to find the Mahjong parlor, gotta get through more of this silly side story involving Yakuza to get to the real game!

I’ll try not to make plans anymore.