So I'm trying to stick to the years 1995 to 1999 as the core of Console Generation 5, but it is often that i get tired of the retro and just do a genre search for the latest RPGS and see what I can play for free or cheaply.

With the Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake coming out on Switch this month, I thought it would be fun to go back and rate all the games in the Paper Mario series.  We’ll do this from worst to best, and only games in the Paper series are going to be on this list.  Well, with one exception.  OK, let’s begin!

Princess Peach is one of the most popular Mario characters and she’s recently getting her own game on the Switch called Princess Peach Showtime!  And that’s not even the first time she’s gotten her own game either!  And even though she spends much of her time as a damsel in distress waiting for Mario to save her, there are plenty of other times when Nintendo lets her shine and be a hero.  So in honor of her new game, I thought I’d go back and look at Princess Peach’s best moments.

Wow, 2023 has been an incredible year for gaming, one of the very best! And here we are at the end of the year, so let’s look back at some games, shall we? You guys probably know that I’m a big Nintendo guy. In fact, I don’t even have the other consoles (mostly because I don’t have time to play them all). This was a great year for Nintendo, we got so many fantastic games on the Switch. This year I beat a total of 26 games! (I was hoping to beat 30, but you know how it goes)

I went through the game releases of 2023 on wiki and came up with a list of games I'm interested in for Switch (as if I could get to them all this month . . not). I looked for games exclusive to Switch, but some of these are also on PS4, PC or mobile. As long as they were not on Xbox or something I feel goes with Playstation like GrimGrimoire Once More (and I was strongly interested in playing them) I put them on the list. So here goes in reverse chronological order (the order I'm playing them in):

I'm surprising myself by actually sticking to a few titles for long periods instead of jumping all around. 

It’s the end of the year so you know what that means?  It’s time for my “Best Video Games of 2023 Awards Show!”  Keep in mind that this is my list only and no other outside opinions contributed.  And if a game isn’t on this list, it either just didn’t appeal to me as much or I haven’t had a chance to play it yet.  Ok with that out of the way, let’s begin!

Finally, I am Switch exclusive right now. I already have youtube running for meal times, and I'm exploring the story and news apps thoroughly. I'm also just as impatient with every game I'm playing, taking breaks and jumping around like a manic flea from game to game. Well, maybe I've found a game I will stick to for a while in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. Details below. 

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I played quite a few games on Xbox. I'll try and list them below, but December, which starts today, is going to be nothing but Switch games, especially the Super Mario RPG remake I got last month. I've discovered that if I don't put the Xbox away, I will never get to anything else, so into a case it goes. I have plans for 2024, so I may not use it again until next September. More on that later. Onto the last two weeks' plays. 

Wow, we’re really coasting into hiatus without a care, aren’t we? We didn’t even realize that this is the penultimate listener interactive episode of the year, but here we are! At least it’s a fun little discussion, plus lots of games, including a dedicated spoiler conversation about Spider-Man 2 (check the show notes if you need to skip that). Enjoy!

New Switch game, new console and new retro game buys at Classic Game Junkie where they're having a pre-black friday sale. Here are some pics. 

I love that feeling when a new game totally takes over game time. This happened this week with DPS Idle, a free-2-play autobattler. Who knew? It swept the field of everything else mentioned below. 

Playstation won the console wars. Super Mario 64 won at home worldwide. Firaxis, Valve and IGN were all founded this year. Coolness! That year I and my friend Mad Krammer were playing mostly FPS games ported from PC to PS, N64 and Saturn. Over the years, though, I've discovered quite a few others. 

Around this time of year, I like to make a list of my best games SO FAR, because usually the AAA titles are released later in the year during the holiday season, and the titles that came out earlier tend to be forgotten.  So here’s when those games get their due.  Keep in mind that this is my list only and no other outside opinions contributed.  And if a game isn’t on this list, it either just didn’t appeal to me as much or I haven’t had a chance to play it yet.  Ok with that out of the way, let’s begin!

This is a list of the games I played the most in the 90s. There are plenty of ties and a shortlist of games I really want to play still. 

Of all of Nintendo’s game series, the Paper Mario titles have probably had the most ups and downs.  On one hand, you have what many consider to be one of the best RPGs ever made!  And on the other end, you have what others, including myself, believe to be one of Nintendo’s worst games!  Ouch!  The newest game in the series, Paper Mario: The Origami King, came out earlier this year, so I thought it might be fun to rank them.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!  Step right up for the latest theme park attraction!  It’s a theme park based around Mr. Driller, and it’s all underground!  Sounds safe enough, right?  Anyway, Mr. Driller Drill Land was an awesome GameCube title, but it only stayed in Japan.  But now you can download it on Nintendo Switch in the US!  Finally!  Each attraction represents a game mode in this theme park, and I’m going to take you on a tour of all of them!  So let’s begin!

I've actually been playing a lot, thanks to the Genesis Mini (even booted up the SNES Mini to play Secret of Mana yesterday), GameFly, and Yakuza, so I'm just going to dump brief takes on all the games I've been playing.

Boring life update (you can skip, there's gaming stuff later/anyone else's keyboard type in the same letter a bunch of times when you hit it only once, especially on this site? Stupid $1000 ASUS ROG laptop, what the hell?!): 

It has uhhh... been quite some time since the last blog I see....wow I honestly fell off the face of the earth for a while there. Honestly, life the last few months even before last year ended was not the best for me. I was under a lot of stress and I was not in a happy place at all mentally and basically just pretended everything was fine till I suddenly broke down at the beginning of March and just realized I am not okay and I need to escape. Thankfully a business trip I had coming in March helped a lot more than I realized it would have and seriously got me back to a much better state of mind. I'm more positive and better managing the stress still in my life.

Last year, Nintendo released the NES Classic Edition, a smaller sized 8-bit NES shaped console with 30 classic games.  It’s been notoriously hard to find, and I’ve been a bit bummed that I haven’t been able to get one.  But I wasn’t TOO upset because most of the games I played on the NES were from Capcom, not Nintendo (Mega Man and Disney games).  But the 16-bit Super Nintendo is my all-time favorite console ever.  It was the gaming console that really cemented my preference for console games, and the system just clicked for me for some reason.  So when Nintendo released the SNES Classic Edition in the same vein this year, I REALLY wanted to get it.  Luckily, my family got it for me for my birthday!  Nintendo DID say they were making more of the SNES Classic Edition, and I don’t know if that’s really true or not, or if we were just more prepared this time.  But not only was I able to get one, but three of my brothers got one, too!  So to celebrate me getting a SNES Classic Edition, here’s a blog about all the games on it!

My more regular schedule has left me with little time to blog, but I found some tonight (Sunday) and maybe I'll get into this habit every Sunday night while I do wash. I did manage to find time to game though. I'm making good progress in Dragon Quest VII on 3DS and I'm still gaming on the the weekends with my buddy Mark. And oh yeah! I went to a gaming convention, Retro Con. Here's a quick breakdown. 

Hey folks.  Before I go to PAX West in Seattle this coming weekend, I thought I’d post some more reviews I’ve written lately over at GamerDad.com. Plus update you all on some things in my life.  Anyway, please click on and read as many reviews as you can, and maybe even post a comment or two.  I’d really appreciate it. 

BaD #28