Intro
As fellow gamers, the Selective Hearing team has been immersed in various games this month. The holidays came in like a storm, and things got very busy. Were we able to keep up with a few games in our backlog?
Allen
What Have You Been Playing in December?
- Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake
- Marvel Tōkon Fighting Souls Closed Beta
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
- Various Rhythm Games
What Are Your Thoughts?
SPOILERS AHEAD
I went through the main story of DQ II, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I may have been a bit overpowered as I kind of cakewalked the final boss, but I did have a good setup for my team.
So then the post-game content offered the challenges I was looking for with the Cave of Confusion and the return of Citadel Tower and Xenlon from Dragon Quest III. The Cave of Confusion was great, as I was having flashbacks to certain parts of DQ III. Plus it felt like an endurance test to see if I could clear all 25 floors on a single run.
I did take some time to grind on Citadel Tower to level up and take on Xenlon. He has similar rewards from DQ III, where you can get wishes from him if you can beat him under a certain number of turns. I did get him under 35 and 25 turns pretty easily, but trying to take him down under 15 turns was where RNG kind of hurt me. Took some time to level up, fix strategies, properly buff, and I was able to take him down in 10 turns consistently.
After getting all the wishes and items I wanted, it was time to beat the game again. I loved how they hyped up the final fight; it really got me excited. I didn’t expect to be flying on Ramia for the final battle.
The final boss wasn’t too difficult, but it did pose a bit of a challenge. I think I was pretty well prepared, had all the best armour, like the Liquid Metal Armours and Erdick Armours. Plus, the previous grind to challenge Xenlon had me better prepared to take down the final boss without overthinking or worrying much. I was able to take him down in one try.
I’m glad to have finally finished Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D. I think I’m a little bit over 2D pixel games for now, which is great because I’m excited for the art style of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. I don’t have very fond memories of playing DQ VII on DS, so I’m super excited to jump back in with the updated entry from Square Enix.
I was able to play the 2nd closed beta for Marvel Tōkon Fighting Souls. Looks amazing, sounds amazing, scratches the Marvel itch. However, I might be over tag fighter games and prefer the one-to-one kind of fighters. This was really more one-to-one, with three assists that you have to go and find during your match. Not sure if I enjoy that aspect, let alone using my actual assists. I was still trying to figure out the mechanics of using the easy commands for special moves versus using the motions. I felt like I was spamming the easy inputs instead of learning the actual motions. It’s like if you took the Classic and Modern controls of Street Fighter 6 and put them together. I’d rather have the control schemes be specific and not mashed up together.
Ended up with Dr. Doom being my main character while having Captain America, Storm, and Spider-Man as my assists. It was great to use Doom and catch people off guard with all his projectiles and his reflector. Captain America, I used the second most; he felt more like a shoto than any of the other characters.
Looking forward to more of the changes and hopefully a lot more characters; they should really take a lot more time with the game. Maybe even put it off until 2027 to get everything in order before it’s full release.
I can finally dust off the Switch 2 because I have another game to play. After 84 years, the 4th entry in the Prime series is out, and I am excited. I haven’t touched any Metroid Prime games since Metroid Prime Corruption back on the Wii in 2007. That was almost 18 years ago…
Well, it certainly looks like a Metroid Prime game, certainly plays like one with all the scanning and shooting. The camera sensitivity had to be ramped up because it felt so slow when moving the camera and aiming on the default options. I did not try the mouse controls, opting to use the Pro controller instead.
I haven’t gotten too far in the game yet, only just got through Volt Forge. I want more upgrades to feel powerful. I do think the psyching beam, where you control your shot, is kind of dumb; it just slows the game down to try to knock out multiple targets on an enemy or hit a switch after a long corridor. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find time at the beginning of the new year to finish the game.
There is a new Round1 that just opened during the holidays, and I went to check it out. A few friends went ahead of me and got to play some of the rhythm games there.
I finally got to play a Pump It Up Phoenix machine, and it was the 2024 version. The panels were responsive, so no lag, unlike the other DDR games they had. I played some of the STAYC songs as well as IVE and G-IDLE ones that they had.
However, the game that had my attention most was Chrono Circle. I’ve never gotten to play a Chrono Circle cab before; I never saw one IRL. I spent a lot of time learning the many mechanics, as there were so many. Not just the buttons on the perimeter, but turning the whole circle was fun as well as the small touch screen actions too. It fired up all my senses, and I felt so engaged playing. I spent most of the night trying to get better.
I tried DanceRush Stardom again. I’ve played it in the past, but I never really felt like I was in control of the scoring, even with a lot of flexibility in freestyling.
They have a Wacca machine, but sadly, it was not working; only the left half was responding. A lot of the machines were under maintenance. Hopefully, they are all working the next time I visit. I really like Wacca.
I played Gitadora for the first time; it was the evolution of GuitarFreaks. I thought I could channel my old Guitar Hero instincts, but sadly, I have none of them anymore. It was fun hearing how bad I was doing, though.
What Are You Looking Forward to in January?
As it looks for the future of this year, I may not get around to playing as many games as I did in 2025. I will have to finish Metroid Prime 4 within the month; that’s one goal. The next one I might fire up will be Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. I haven’t played TicTacs since the days on the PSX, so this one is high on my backlog.
Greg
What Have You Been Playing in December?
- Ghost of Yotei
- Street Fighter 6
What Are Your Thoughts?
The end of December gave me some time to finally complete the main missions of Ghost of Yotei. I only had two things left in the game to do: defeat Takezo on Mount Yotei and then avenge my family by taking down Lord Saito.
I spent two days fighting Takezo on that damn mountain. Thanks to him, I got very good at parrying and dodging, and it made fighting Saito a breeze. He was a creampuff compared to Takezo. I was a little disappointed that the final storyline fight was so easy. But I guess getting my ass handed to me for two days hardened my resolve and gave me the skills to dispatch Saito quickly.
Regardless, I can say that I was satisfied that I finished the game, and I have been going back through the world to chase the trophy achievements. Although I’m not sure I will get platinum in this game, since I don’t want to do the boring stuff like searching for all the Ainu artifacts. I’ve been having more fun finding the shrines, alters and bounties.
With my time in Ezo coming to an end, it was back to playing Street Fighter 6 and seriously investing time in learning my dude, Sagat, properly. In Tokyo, when I was in the game center, I only barely understood the character and only survived thanks to defence. In December, I had more time to invest in learning the SF6 version.
I learned quickly that the Tiger Knee is now more of a core offensive option for Sagat than ever. The fact that the motion is just a simple fireball rather than DP solidified that. Of course, that changed a bit of his moveset as you can’t do low fireballs with any of the kick buttons anymore. That has been reassigned to a singular lowshot using the fireball motion and LP.
The range of his DP felt a bit different, too, and I liked the addition of a charged version that initiates a wall bounce. Some of his other new moves and link combos I’m still figuring out how to execute in actual fights with humans, but I think I know which ones are the most effective for my play style online.
With a better understanding of the character, I have slowly been working my way through the ranks online. It’s a grind, and it has exposed some glaring weaknesses in my game that I have been working on correcting to prevent a blowout round for my opponent.
For the most part, I am still a defensive player who pushes for an opening to allow for more offence. It’s against my nature to go full YOLO unless it’s well within my favour after the first match ends. And with how slow and lumbering Sagat can be, YOLO isn’t exactly the best way to go against smaller and faster characters.
But it’s been fun getting back into online play again.
What Are You Looking Forward to in January?
I have nothing particularly exciting loaded up in my new game queue. But I’ll see what backlog games I want to finish instead.
BigFreaky
What Have You Been Playing in December?
- Pokémon: Legends Z-A – Mega Dimension DLC
- New Pokémon Snap
What Are Your Thoughts?
Pokémon: Legends Z-A – Mega Dimension DLC
100 HOURS
As if Playing Pokémon: Legends Z-A for 80+ hours wasn’t enough. The grind that is DLC arrived quickly to us in December, after just being initially released in October. Per my bold text, I ended up playing the DLC for 100 (plus) hours past the base game. This would be awesome if it were not for a quite heavily weighted GRIND. Yes, I do expect Rare, Legendary, and related Pokémon items to take some time and effort. However, some of the content felt a little egregious. I could have easily stopped at any time, but something has changed in my mind, and I’m all about filling that Pokédex to 100% nowadays. I also finished all the research and all the side quests. A little bit of shiny hunting and getting a few extra rare items for the future.
New Pokémon Snap
Hello?? Yes, this is 2021 calling…
After grinding those 100 (plus) hours of Pokémon Z-A DLC, I somehow wanted to play some more Pokémon (go figure).
I thought I would fire up NEW Pokémon Snap after almost 5 years.
I did “finish” the game years ago, but there was no shortage of things I never completed. A lot of Pokémon I’ve never taken a photo of, and plenty of “Photo Requests” unfulfilled.
After logging on, I realized how much was left unfinished. I’m not sure if I will finish the game completely. The list is quite long and will take some time. I did put a dent in the research and took many treks through the Lental Region.
One of the issues this time, as before, is that some of the research tasks are not spelled out very well, and some require a bunch of different factors or goals to be met, not to mention the perfect timing of the shot. This is probably the reason I stopped playing so long ago. The game is fun, yes, but its grind was a little over-the-top.
I think I will put in some more time into this game in 2026. Not sure how hardcore I’ll go. I’d like to finish up most things, cuz that’s just how I am now. But it might depend on what other games come out this year or on whether I get to my backlog.
What Are You Looking Forward to in January?
Not sure if there is anything on my playlist. PoGO continues to look pretty chill, and that’s ok. This year will have no shortage of things to play/do, being the 10th anniversary of PoGO, and the 30th anniversary of Pokémon as a product.
Still deep in the backlog
Playing pre-switch Pokémon games as the 30th anniversary is upon us.
