Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Top 5 Mario Games I Still Need to Play

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 102025
 

Happy Mario Day!

March 10 is Mario Day, and even though I’ve played and loved quite a few Mario games in my time, there are still several notable ones that I haven’t played.

So today, I decided to take a look through at the top 5 Mario games I haven’t played yet, but would like to someday.

5. Bowser’s Fury

When Nintendo brought Super Mario 3D World to the Nintendo Switch, they added a new side story called Bowser’s Fury. Unlike the main game, it’s more of a free-roaming collect-a-thon, which is the type of 3D Mario game I enjoy the most. I was interested in Bowser’s Fury ever since we saw what it was like, but I still haven’t picked it up.

I didn’t enjoy 3D World enough to play the main game again, so I’d really be buying it only for Bowser’s Fury. I’ll probably pick it up someday if it gets a good sale, but right now it’s not a priority.

4. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

I’ll never forget how quickly my opinion on Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle turned around, from complete negativity toward the idea when it was rumored to unexpected interest once it was revealed. It’s an idea that sounded terrible to me but ended up looking great when I actually saw it.

I still find rabbids unappealing, but the strategy RPG gameplay has me intrigued. I picked it up in a sale a while back, so one of these days I’ll get around to playing it.

…Since I also picked up its sequel in a sale, I sure hope I enjoy it.

3. Paper Mario: The Origami King

My feelings on Paper Mario: The Origami King are all over the place. It’s gotten the most positive feedback of any of the newer Paper Mario games, with many people saying it’s a fantastic game, but I still hate the thought of having scissors and staplers as bosses. Still, my feelings toward it have softened, due to both Bug Fables giving me what I wanted and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door being remade.

I’d still like to see another true RPG Paper Mario, but in the meantime I might just check out Origami King to see for myself what it’s like.

2. Super Mario Galaxy 2

For someone who rambles about loving 3D platformers as much as I do, it might be a bit of a surprise that I still haven’t played Super Mario Galaxy 2. There are a few reasons for that, but the biggest one is that while Super Mario Galaxy is closer to my preferred style than 3D World is, for example, its levels are still more linear than those of 64/Sunshine/Odyssey. So while I enjoyed Galaxy, I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to play Galaxy 2 (especially since I heard it’s even more linear).

Still, I have it and I love 3D platformers, so I should play it one of these days.

1. Mario & Luigi: Brothership

The newest entry on this list is, of course, Mario & Luigi: Brothership. When they announced a new Mario & Luigi game during that amazing Nintendo Direct, I couldn’t believe it. I preordered it right away and waited eagerly for it to arrive…

…except my backlog got in the way, so instead of being played at launch, Brothership got politely set aside to wait for later, and it’s been waiting ever since. I’m still eager to dive into it to see how the return of my beloved Mario & Luigi series stacks up against the previous ones, but it just hasn’t happened yet.

Conclusion

Maybe I should start one of these today to celebrate Mario Day with…

Anyway, these are the top 5 Mario games I still need to play, but what about you? Got any Mario games you’ve been meaning to play but just haven’t gotten around to yet?

Mystery Visual Novel Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders Announced

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 072025
 

A new mystery visual novel has been announced by the Japanese developer Coly.

Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a visual novel based on Seishi Yokomizo’s 1946 mystery novel The Honjin Murders, the first in a series of detective stories starring a detective named Kosuke Kindaichi.

I was unfamiliar with the books, but apparently they started getting English translations in 2020.

This visual novel will have the player connect testimonies and clues to piece together the truth of the murder. (It reminds me a little of the Logic gameplay mechanic in Ace Attorney Investigations, except with longer sections of dialogue that need to be connected.)

It will be out on Steam on March 20 with Japanese, English, and Chinese language options, with a Switch version to follow near the end of March.

The announcement page says it will cost 1500 yen, so although the dollar price hasn’t been revealed yet, it should be fairly inexpensive. I wonder if that means it’s going to be a short game. The nature of the title makes me think they want to turn it into a series with subsequent games based on the other Kosuke Kindaichi stories.

Now, I was curious about the developer since I hadn’t heard of them before, so I looked around their website. When I looked at their past games, I still didn’t recognize any… except for Stand My Heroes, a Japanese-only mobile otome game I know only because it has an Ace Attorney collaboration back in 2022. That wasn’t a title I expected to see while researching a new mystery game!

All in all, Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a game I’ll want to keep an eye on. What do you think about it so far?

Suikoden Anime and Mobile Game Announced

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 052025
 

The Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is out tomorrow, and Konami held a special Suikoden broadcast on Monday to celebrate.

It was hard not to hope they’d announce a remaster of Suikoden III or a brand-new game, especially when they said the Suikoden I & II remaster was only the first step of their Suikoden plans.

Then they announced Step 2…… which turned out to be an anime.

Suikoden: The Anime is an anime adaptation of Suikoden II and will be produced by Konami Animation. It’s not the news I was hoping for, but it was neat to see.

After that, they said the anime was only the first part of Step 2. Step 2 also includes a new game… for mobile devices.

All right, that was the part that hurt, especially because Suikoden: Star Leap actually looks beautiful. If this was a regular game, I’d be excited for it without question. But it’s going to be a mobile gacha game, and even though they claimed the gacha is just an additional aspect that you don’t have to worry about, I’m too skeptical to accept it that easily.

Is there a chance I’ll give Star Leap a chance? Sure, if it comes out and people say the gacha really is non-intrusive, I might give it a try after all. I would much rather see a regular, non-gacha game come out, though.

They also announced a stage play as the final part of Step 2.

Well, this does leave the door open for a “Step 3” that could include more remasters or a new (non-mobile) game, but it was a little disappointing (if funny) to watch them keep announcing other things instead.

For my part, though, I’m still at the very start of the series. I played and enjoyed Suikoden back in 2016, but I never got around to starting Suikoden II before the remasters were announced. I’ll probably play the remaster, since it seems to be well-received. Maybe by then, it’ll be time for Step 3?

What do you think about the latest Suikoden announcements?

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