Some Games I Played Today (Day 3724 - 2/4/20)

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Stephen talks to Sagan about how he has been sitting on the couch in the office for the entire day. He says that a lot of cat hair has accumulated on the couch which sticks onto his pants when he sits down. Sagan likes to sit on Stephen's lap when he sits on the floor. Stephen says that he finished his antibiotics and still has to keep using his ear drops for 3 more days. But, he hasn't had ear pain for 2 days.

Today, Stephen did an extended First20 stream. He usually tries to play 4 games for the stream, so that all the First20 videos are done for the month. However, the chat reacted really positively to him doing a 5th game so he decided to play another game. The 1st game he played was Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore which was a Wii U game that was ported to the Switch. He received the game from Nintendo.

Stephen says that that game was good, but the story was crazy. A lot of events in the game happened all of a sudden. Stephen talks about how the character you play as is confused at first and then suddenly knows how to use his newly obtained powers. Then, he talks about how the game has a cool system of combos where it depends on the weaknesses of the enemy you're battling, the members in your party, and the skills your character uses. He also likes the UI design and the pause screen. He likes how the pause screen has the members of the party lying in a field of flowers.

The 2nd game was Ōkami HD which has been out for a long time. Stephen had really been wanting to play this game for a while. He says that the graphics are very beautiful and he can see why a lot of people like it. Stephen hopes that he will be able to cover the full game sometime in the future. He also wants Mallory to be able to experience it, so that she will be able to make a painting based on the game. Stephen mentions that this game has been the most requested game for Mal to make a painting of. A lot of people associate this game with art because art is a part of the plot since you're doing ink drawings that correspond with the world. Stephen says that it feels similar to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess because your play as wolf in both games.

The 3rd game was the demo for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX which he did on a whim. He mentions that the DX version was coming out on the Switch. Stephen doesn't want to spoil which Pokémon he got after doing the quiz, but it was really funny. He vaguely remembers parts of the game since he had played a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game on the GameBoy Advance version during Extra Life 2016. Stephen says that the graphical improvements are nice and fans of the series will get to enjoy the nostalgia from the game. He talks about how bringing this game to the Switch will also allow a new generation of people to experience the game. This is part of the reason why Stephen likes ports, remakes, and re-releases.

The 4th game was Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Stephen decided to play the first game of the trilogy. Before he started, he was told by chat that he had actually done a First20 of the original game on the PlayStation which he forgot about. Stephen says that he probably covered the same exact amount of stuff in the original First20 as he did for this one. He says that the game is pretty and that he is jealous of people that grew up playing the PlayStation. They got to experience a feeling of nostalgia with the Spyro and Crash remakes because they grew up playing the original games. However, Stephen didn't grow up playing any of these games. His fondest memory of Spyro was playing a demo of the game at different department stores. He is not sure why he has such vivid memories of this though. Then, he says that the game is very short and the areas feel small. Stephen says that the game design is simple, but charming in it's own way. He also really likes Spyro as a character.

Stephen really enjoyed getting a chance to see Spyro and the older dragons come to life in the remake. He gets really excited anytime games get a remake. Stephen hopes that Earthbound will someday get a remake. He remembers when Final Fantasy 3 on the DS was unveiled and it was presented in a new style from the previous games. Stephen thought that the idea of an old game being presented in a new style was really cool.

The 5th game was Not For Broadcast. Stephen usually doesn't cover early access games, but he received an email from the developer about it and it looked interesting. You play as a person working at a TV station where you control how the live broadcast of an interview is shown to the public. Most of the responsibilities revolve around switching cameras and censoring swear words in order to keep the ratings up. Stephen says that the game is fun and unique, but frantic. He wasn't able to talk much while playing the game because he was focused on making sure he was doing things correctly.

Then, he talks about how he has nothing against games or indie developers, but he has played a lot of games that fall into very similar genres. Stephen has played a lot of Metroidvania games and 2-D platforming games especially in the last 2-3 years. There is a general rule that some games should be new and unique, but it's rare to find a game that's completely off the wall. Stephen says that Not For Broadcast had a similar feeling to Night Trap and Five Nights At Freddy's, but in a way that hasn't been seen in video games before.

Stephen says that he was streaming from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM. He was able to record 5 First20 videos which means that he doesn't have to worry about First20 videos for 5 weeks. So, he can focus on other things. Stephen says that this time there were no audio issues and thanks StephenPlays viewers for being patient with him regarding there being oddities in the First20. He talks about how it's hard to immediately fix issues in a live setting, but everything works fine now. Next, he talks about how most of the Wii U first party titles have been ported to the Switch or another console. There has even been a KickStarter for The Wonderful 101 that was just launched recently. Stephen backed it at a physical level in case they didn't do a retail release, so that he could get a physical copy.

He asks viewers what remaining Wii U games they would like to see being ported over to the Switch or any other consoles. Stephen assumes that the obvious answers will be Super Mario 3D World and Pikmin 3. He then talks about how Nintendo did a good job of moving games from the Wii U to the Swtich. Stephen says that the Wii U was good software, but it just didn't sell well. He says that Super Mario 3D World will definitely be ported to the Switch, but he's not sure if Pikmin 3 will. Finally, Stephen says that he has finished a lot of work for February, so he will be able to focus on one thing.