Matty 🐻 🏳️‍🌈

Is the dream project Stray Children by chance? 👀 Just teasing. Thanks for all the insight and laughs on the podcast. Been listening to y'all forever and every other Friday is always a treat haha

ElecHead was one of my favorite games of 2021 (it made my top 3!) so I can't wait to play Takahashi's next game. I have slightly high expectations haha!

An image of the title screen from Donkey Kong Bananza.

An image of dialogue from Pauline saying, "No matter how strange things get, it's nice to have something familiar and comforting to hold on to".

Artwork from the post-credits "true ending" showing Pauline performing her new song on a stage, wearing her iconic red dress and hat.

An image of the save file screen showing 631 bananas collected and two of the three profile stars.

Game #22 of 2025: Donkey Kong Bananza; the first 3D platformer starring DK and (some) of the gang in 25+ years. I'll have more to say about it later but I absolutely loved it. I completed the game and did the required post-game content to see the "true ending". I'll shoot for 100% down the road.

I'm a little mixed on it. It looks great and plays well enough, but I'm not too hot on the OST. There's also something about the level design I don't like but I can't articulate my thoughts on it right now haha

There's also a color-coded, "order of operations" enemy mechanic I'm not sure about yet.

Sooo, I beat Earthion already (Normal difficulty). I was going to wait for the physical copy, but I couldn't resist. I have no self-control (usually). It's incredible. Easily one of the best shoot 'em ups I've ever played. Love how the upgrade system works. The music and visuals, etc. LOVED IT.

Gonna be real hard not to impulse purchase the fuck out of Earthion and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound digitally when their physical variants don't ship until later this year ugh

OH, BANANA! We went to the California State Fair last night to see the husband's favorite band. Also, all carnival games are impossible lol

I also finally reached the max rank (50) in Balloon World in Super Mario Odyssey.

I'm going to replay the base game and do a low-moon run to see if I feel any differently about the game before the end of the year, but 90+ hours and 8 years later, I'm finally 100% done with this game lol

I just can't believe they went for certain things. I'm glad I grew-up with an NES/SNES and lived long enough on this godforsaken earth to see this lol that's where I'm at 😂

I just rolled credits on DK Bananza. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic and there's definitely some recency bias here but I think it's one of my favorite games of all time. Easily one of the best straight-up Nintendo ass games I've ever played. It's also easily my current GOTY.

Happy b-day!!! 🎂🎉

I think I'm well over the half-way point in DK Bananza and it's been incredible? I have some (relatively) major critiques of the game, but I'm extremely impressed by how the designers sort of nestled these "traditional" stage design ideas into nearly fully destructible semi-open worlds. I love it.

I bought it at launch and have been playing it 😭 just haven't really posted much about it yet. It's long as fuck.

Ok, Shadow Labyrinth is mega jank but maybe not in a fun/cool way anymore lol level design is aggressively bad. I think it has outdone Ender Lilies in that respect 🫠

I'm so behind on my writing. I've just had no energy/motivation to put words towards certain games I've played over the past few months.

This showed up a day after DK. It's kind of ass so far but it's really cool lol reminds me of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising for whatever reason.

Gotcha, that's more or less what I heard! I'm really curious if the game keeps up with unique area ideas and enemy designs, etc. that first major dungeon with the nurses and bony skeleton was so fucking cool.

I'm still in and around that graveyard area with the old ghost man haha

I put the game down for a bit but need to get back to it soon. About how many hours do you have on the game? I hear it's pretty long?

I do hope they patch a new game+ into the game. The first major boss bugged out on me near launch so I didn't get to experience the fight fully.

Obligatory I'm so fucking excited!

People are surprisingly still playing this game after all these years, too? The balloons I've hidden are almost always popped by other players within a minute or two.

But also, many of the balloons are out-of-bounds which often leads to failed attempts. What a mess of a mode lol

I've gotten weirdly into Balloon World from Super Mario Odyssey since Luigi's balloons apparently turn gold when you reach Rank 50 and it's a looong grind.

This is some true completionist shit lol only 600+ more balloons to pop!

I hope I get there! I can only try and do 1 rally with 3 stars every other day or so before I want to explode lol

I haven't watched the run yet but I definitely haven't wrapped my head around the wall riding techniques and shortcuts, if that's what the SGDQ guy was busting out haha

I'm definitely playing the game like it's still MK8, etc.

Trying to get 3 stars in Knockout Tour in Mario Kart World is sort of miserable? You need to be in first at each checkpoint and the AI/RNG rubber-banding is brutal, so it's suggested to play worse (don't always drift, for example)?

It's been working so far, but this kind of sucks lol

YouTube video by Deftones deftones - my mind is a mountain [official music video]

New Deftones is familiar, but good. They're one of the few 90s bands (despite forming in the late-80s) I grew-up with that I still listen to.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqZ...

Even with enough time removed from FF16, looking back on that game hasn't done it any favors haha the bestiary/enemy variety was just so blah.

An image of the title screen for Gradius: The Interstellar Assault for Game Boy.

An image from Gradius: The Interstellar Assault showing a ship approaching a giant statue of a winged creature.

An image from a cutscene in Gradius: The Interstellar Assault showing your ship escaping an explosion with a planet in the background, similar to the Super Metroid intro.

An image from the credits sequence in Gradius: The Interstellar Assault showing the "END" screen with a score of 292,600.

Game #21 of 2025: Gradius: The Interstellar Assault; the second Gradius game for Game Boy. It does some neat things (like seamless stage transitions and cutscenes) considering the hardware's limitations. I finished the game on all three difficulties but did a 1CC on Hard. I really liked it!

The little skeleton buddy is like top characters of the year and those nurse enemies in that first major dungeon (along with their bestiary entry)? So fucking cool.

I think I had something spoiled about the game forever ago and it completely demotivated me from playing it at the time. Not the game's fault obviously. I'll give it its due time eventually.

I've started and stopped both Death Stranding and Undertale a bunch over the years. I really want to see them through over the next few months.

I started a fresh playthrough of DS back in December but I'll need to restart Undertale. It's an endless cycle haha