The 8bit games were known for being difficult and sometimes frustrating. The Legacy Collection on Switch has a rewind feature to help with the hard parts.
My favourite Mega Man ever is the first Mega Man X, originally for the Super Nintendo. It built up on everything that came in the 8bit era and is easier to handle/more forgiving. I'd recommend that one as a start, I love it and still play it every now and then. The first stage is a master piece in design, teaching you how to play as you go.
Yeah, an official Capcom press release called it the 12th entry in the main series, so they're not shying away from that. But it's interesting to see. The graphics still look pretty similar to the style of Mega Man 11.
I've been playing it on and off on my Game Cube. It definitely holds up and it's fun! The stages have fixed camera with 3D platforming and some puzzles. The game mechanics are entertaining and it's fun to hear Wario's voice during the game. I really like Wario as a character since the Game Boy times and I'd love to see him return to these World/Land games, see what they could make these days with the character.
Yeah, I've been looking all over for a trailer or some gameplay footage, but I can't find anything.
Starting today, iam8bit is opening preorders on Xcavator 2025, a brand new NES game, on a real NES cartridge, with 100% of the profits going directly toward our preservation work here at the VGHF.
This isn't just any NES game- this is based on a prototype made all the way back in 1991! You might remember our story about recovering and rebuilding an unreleased Days of Thunder game for the NES from the archives of its programmer, Chris Oberth. What we didn't tell you at the time was that we found an unfinished demo by him for another game, Xcavator.
An act of altruism from the industry After we recovered the data, our friends at Incredible Technologies, where Xcavator was originally created, were kind enough to donate all of the game's copyrights to us. Developer Mega Cat Studios stepped up to donate their time finishing and polishing up Oberth's work, and Lost in Cult stepped up to donate the brand new key art on the game's packaging. Finally, iam8bit agreed to publish and market the game on our behalf, eschewing all profits and sending them straight to us!
This really is a first-of-its-kind: a lost game that was donated back to the archivists who recovered it, and a multi-company effort to publish it as what just might be the first commercial game to fund a preservation charity.
The cartridge is available to preorder now. We have plans to make the original prototype and its source code available for free as an educational resource as well, stay tuned for that!
From the Video Game History Foundation newsletter.
There were some interesting moments in the story, specially near the end, something I never thought I’ll say about a Warriors game.
That's one of the things I've liked most about the Hyrule Warriors games. They do a better job at storytelling than Nintendo for sure. And it's great on Age of Imprisonment too!
I played 100% of the content in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, including the new content from the latest update and all the upgrades for every character. The only thing I'm missing for 100% completion is the Aside Quests (e.g. Kill 100 lizalfos with x character). If you finish them all for a given character, they give you an extra conversation with them. It's a lot, and I think I'd need a lot more hours of replaying the same missions to finish them.
I'll probably go back to replaying it for a few missions every now and then, but I'm not going to focus on 100%ing it. I had the chance to play it co-op last weekend, and it was really fun, so I might go back to doing that too. If they release some DLC in the future, I might get it. It's been a really fun game which I'll definitely replay in the future, and it's mostly ruined the previous two games with how good it looks and plays.
I got Metroid Prime 4 delivered a few minutes ago. I've only put the cartridge into the Switch 2 to download the updates, but I haven't opened the game yet. That'll be what I'll be playing tonight and probably most of the rest of the weekend 😬
I pre-ordered it from the official Nintendo store, but it didn't arrive today. I'm done with Hyrule Warriors, so my body is ready for Metroid. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow in time for the weekend 🤞
More reviews:
IGN - https://www.ign.com/articles/metroid-prime-4-beyond-review
Famitsu - 8/9/7/8 [32/40] https://www.gematsu.com/2025/12/famitsu-review-scores-issue-1926
Eurogamer - https://www.eurogamer.net/metroid-prime-4-beyond-review
Bioshock is unfinished business for me! I remember seeing the first one at a friend's house back in the day and playing a bit. I loved it at the time. I then got the collection on Steam for cheap, maybe on a Humble Bundle. I played very little of the first one (remasterd) but never gave it enough time to get to the exciting parts. And I think I tried a bit of Infinite. I just don't play games on Steam that much, since the computer is at my desk where I also work, and I'd rather be gaming on the couch with my Switch. But anyway, I am constantly thinking I should get back into those games every time I see them mentioned!
I finished the main story in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. The content update couldn't have come at a better time! I was still doing some post-game content anyway. I think I'm mostly done with actual new content, so I'm replaying some missions to try and get the Aside Quests and any materials for side quests that I'm missing. As with the main games in the series, it's a pain to find all the Korok seeds, but at least now I got a thing where I can see their location on the map. And I need a few of those as materials for some quests. I think I'll definitely go for 100% if I can make it before Metroid Prime 4 arrives next week! Although this is the kind of game that's been fun to come back to after a while and play a few missions.
It's a long weekend for me, so hopefully I'll have more time for gaming. I'll probably get back to some Nintendo 64 games on the Analogue 3D!
I am definitely not going for 100% in Calamity now, but I might for Imprisonment. I'm done with the main story and the post-game content still has me hooked! So no Nintendo 64 games for me yet, there's only Hyrule Warriors...
I haven't finished it yet, but I had the thought while playing that it'll be cool to see what they do on Metroid Prime 5 (if it ever comes out). It still feels like Metroid Prime in essence, and the flaws are not that big. I thought the bike was a cool addittion, they just didn't make it too interesting (at least not yet for me). The tutorial for the bike felt so disconnected, why am I playing F-Zero in Metroid now? And the desert is kind of monotonous. But there's some potential! And great that they're trying new stuff.
Most of the original people who worked on the initial trilogy are probably gone from Retro. My understanding is Prime Remastered was a way to get the new folks on the team up to date with development for Prime 4. So now that they have the talent and skill, a new title would hopefully take less than 8 years, and they could build up on what the did for Prime 4 and learn from the feedback. Just wishful thinking! (And please, don't make another Jar Jar Binks type NPC for the next one).