So um, oof, this took way too long to get out.

Between the bunch of news we got at the start of the week, to my work schedule, to the State of Play coverage, to the Nintendo Direct announcements, I haven't had a lot of time to work on this the past week. It also didn't help that I got carried away summarizing Metroid Fusion's entire end-game.

Let's not waste any time and get right into this.

• Ordered by first play of the week.
• All Switch/Switch 2 play data on my console is sourced from the Nintendo Store mobile app.
• All 3DS play data sourced from the 3DS Activity Log application.
• Play data marked with a * is estimated.

Donkey Kong Bananza (NS2)

• Played on Monday for approx. ~1 hr

So, I did it!

Last week I talked about my efforts to clear the final challenge of the DK Challenge, that being clearing the Final Rehearsal with no skills unlocked. I only spent about 45 minutes on it last Sunday night, but I quickly determined it was easily the hardest official challenge posed by Bananza in any shape or form, specifically because of the first area, covered in thorns, becoming a nightmare to traverse without certain skills like Ostrich Bananza's Glide.

So, on Monday night, I put some YouTube videos on in the background and got to grinding. As expected, most of my attempts ended in the starting thorny area, as it is by FAR the hardest area to complete without skills. But I eventually started to get more runs past the first area. From there, the biggest challenge was handling my nerves, as everything after that wasn't too bad. It's just that the sheer difficulty of the first area added a tension to the mix that made it feel like every move needed to be calculated, lest I risk having to do the beginning over again, which could end up taking a bit.

But, within an hour of play time, I had conquered the challenge, and MAN did it feel sweet.

This was such a fun and satisfying challenge to overcome, and made for a great way to cap off the DK Challenge and secure my rights to that sweet, sweet physical card set that I want so much.

The key factor to my victory was absolutely a piece of equipment for either DK or Pauline (I can't remember who, I think it was Pauline) that gradually restored health when a Bananza was active. I used this during the 0 Skill Boss Rush Challenge as well, and it came in super clutch here towards the end of the Final Rehearsal, in the final 2D section. There's a pair of Banadium Melons right before the two final challenges of the stage, restoring your Bananergy, allowing you to use Bananzas again if your meter was depleted. Again, this came in SUPER clutch when combined with the gear I had equipped, allowing me to keep refreshing my Bananergy until my health had been fully restored before heading into the next section. As mentioned, there were two of these melons, one before the section with the fiery barrels, and one before the final section where you run across water while avoiding falling barrels to reach a mine cart that takes you through a thank you message and to the end of the stage. Being able to use these melons as a means of fully restoring my health probably made the difference between winning on that attempt, and having to try again from the beginning, as otherwise, I likely would've died to the barrels in the first half of this final section.

I'm glad to have finished the DK Challenge so that it is no longer looming over my head with the deadline approaching. I really enjoyed this event, especially the Bananza side of it. These challenges have made me play the game in different ways that I wouldn't have otherwise, such as tackling some of its difficult post-game challenges with no skills unlocked, making them that much harder. It makes me hope to see more of these 'challenge' events in the future for other franchises, or, better yet, see Nintendo implement a system-wide achievements system. The likelihood of that happening mid-generation is probably pretty low, but that would be the dream. A system-wide achievements system has been among my most wanted features for any Nintendo platform for a long time now, and the DK Challenge offered a tantalizing glimpse into what that could look like.

Metroid Fusion (GBA: NC on NS2)

• Played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for an approx. total of ~3 hrs

I beat another game!

I've honestly been on a bit of a roll lately, and Metroid Fusion is the latest addition to the pile of games I've finished recently, which also includes Metroid Samus Returns, Rhythm Heaven Fever, and Splatoon Raiders.

According to the play time metric in the GBA: NC app, it took me a little over 10 hours to beat the game, which sounds about right.

I'll be talking about my experiences with Fusion's end-game here, which is really, really good by the way, so, spoilers for a 24 year old game below.

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Okay, let's go.

When I left off last week, I had just entered a Restricted Zone in the research ship despite instructions from Adam to return immediately to the Navigation Room after eliminating the rogue security robot in Sector 6.

Upon heading deeper into the Restricted Zone, I was flabbergasted to find a lab where new Metroids were being created. For those of you that don't know about Metroid lore, the plot of Metroid II saw Samus wiping out all remaining Metroids in the galaxy, except for one: a hatchling that hatched in front of Samus and imprinted on her at the very end of the game. In Super Metroid, this last Metroid is stolen from a lab by the Space Pirates, prompting Samus to return to Planet Zebes, where the first Metroid game took place. At the end of Super, the Metroid hatchling, having grown incredibly large, comes to Samus's aid in her time of great need when facing Mother Brain, sacrificing itself to grant Samus the power to defeat the monster, therefore sending the Metroid species into extinction.

This was a piece of the Metroid story I've known about for a long time, so I was genuinely shocked to discover this lab housing real, LIVING Metroids.

The SA-X soon shows up, and, with Metroids being the natural predator of the X Parasites, attempts to destroy the X, and in doing so, causes the wing of the ship housing this lab to split from the ship and crash into the planet SR388 below. Samus, having narrowly escaped this, is then berated by her computer for disobeying orders, who also tells her that the recreation of Metroids was a project the Federation was conducting for personal gain. She then learns that there are more than one SA-X onboard- as many as 10! This exchange also sees the first instance of spoken dialogue from Samus in the game as she expresses shock at the reveal of multiple SA-X. This caught me highly off guard, as the only instance I've experienced of Samus speaking out loud was in Dread, when she meets Quiet Robe, and that was in the Chozo language. If they ever remade this game, I'd be curious to see how they'd handle this, especially as it's not the last time Samus would talk in this game.

Moving on, after exploring Sector 1 a bit, which was revealed in that same exchange to be a recreation of SR388's habitat for the artificially created Metroids, I'd stumble upon the next boss- an X Parasite copy of Ridley, which I referred to as X-Ridley. And let me tell you, this boss gave me a lot of trouble, to the point of growing incredibly frustrated. A controller may have been thrown.

But after taking a break and coming back with the right mindset, I was able to lock in and defeat X-Ridley with over 500 health to spare. Considering how much damage I was taking in my many failed attempts, I still don't know how I did that. I really was just that locked in.

Okay so, this segment is getting long enough, so let's speedrun the ending.

Samus learns that HQ has called her mission off, and members of the Federation are on their way to capture the SA-X. Samus, having encountered the SA-X on multiple occasions in the past, knows how horrible of an idea this is, fearing that by taking over the Federation members, the X would be able to spread far and wide across the galaxy, leading to the end of galactic civilization.

Samus tries and fails to reason with her computer (she actually talks a lot here, like, a full on conversation, which caught me highly off guard), who locks her in the navigation room so she can't intervene. She continues to try and get through to the computer what would happen if the Federation tries to capture the SA-X, eventually invoking the name of Adam, upon which the computer, which is later revealed to be something of a digital copy of the late Adam (what is this Kingdom Hearts?), finally relents and tasks Samus with redirecting the research ship's orbit to collide with SR-388 to wipe out both the X on board and on the planet's surface.

Samus heads to the Operations Room, where she's confronted with the SA-X, now finally strong enough to take it on. I found this to be one of the easier late game bosses, especially compared to the Nightmare and X-Ridley. I find it pretty funny that the second of three phases in the fight, the one with the most intimidating appearance, is probably the single easiest phase of any boss fight in the entire game. Just run back and forth when it leaps and hit it with missiles three times.

Upon dispatching the SA-X, the core flees before it can be absorbed, allowing Samus to begin the ship's crash course towards SR-388, beginning the franchise's trademark end-game escape sequence. With three minutes until impact, Samus books it to her ship, only to find it's not in the docking bay upon arrival! She's ambushed by an Omega Metroid, likely one of the Metroid's from the Restricted Lab that grew incredibly quickly due to the experiments being done on them. It's far too powerful for Samus at first, cutting her energy down nearly to zero with a single swipe before the SA-X appears and 'saves' her. Of course, it's not like the heartless monster had a change of heart- it's simply trying to take out the Omega Metroid, which serves as a threat to it as the Metroids are the X's natural predators.

The Omega Metroid defeats the SA-X, allowing Samus to absorb it and regain her full strength, with which she defeats the Omega Metroid and escapes on her ship... y'know, unless you're like me and spent too long screwing around during the escape sequence not expecting a boss fight in the docking bay, ultimately running out of time right as the Omega Metroid fell. Yeah, uh, that kinda stung, but I had no one to blame but myself.

I got through on the second go, however, and Samus's ship returns to the docking bay to collect her and escape right before the research station collides with SR-388. Samus has a heart to heart on board with the computerized Adam, and the credits roll.

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So, yeah, the story got way deeper than I was anticipating, but I really enjoyed it. It makes me want to go back and replay Dread, now with the added context provided by having experienced Fusion.

Overall, I really enjoyed Metroid Fusion! It started a bit slow, with its linear, somewhat repetitive structure, but it went on to subvert that structure so many times as the game went on that I never could be sure what would happen next. It was also quite challenging. Though some of the bosses could be a bit obnoxious, it was never anything I couldn't overcome! Plus, the music and sound design were excellent at creating a tense and harrowing atmosphere, especially for a GBA title.

I've now played the original version of every 2D Metroid game, with Zero Mission being the only game I have yet to play. I don't know when I'll get around to it, but hopefully it'll be soon!

Super Mario Sunshine (GC: NC on NS2)

• Played on Tuesday for approx. ~30 mins

So basically, I just had some time to kill, so I hopped on Sunshine, did a couple Shines in Pinna Park and Bianco Hills, collected some Blue Coins, and called it a day. That's pretty much my intention with this game now that it's on Nintendo Classics, just to play it when I've got some time to kill and can't think of what to play.

Splatoon Raiders (NS2)

• Played on Wednesday and Friday for an approx. total of ~ 1 hr 15 mins

Not too much to say here other than I wanted to keep playing the post game beyond the story content now that I'm done with it. As I've said before, this is a game I'm likely to keep coming back to going forwards, as there's still so much depth even after beating the post-game final boss!

Rhythm Heaven Groove (NS on NS2)

• Played on Wed, Thurs, Sat and Sun for an approx. total of ~4 hrs 15 mins

I finished Beatspell! And man it was way more of a challenge than I anticipated.

The final boss is brutal, and marked the first couple times I died in the entire playthrough. It was super satisfying to finally overcome, and the music freaking slapped.

I'm not gonna go into too much more detail here, as you really should experience it for yourself if it's something you're interested in. Especially considering that the story is... actually good??? Not like, anything unbelievable, but the story for Beatspell goes so far beyond what they needed to do for an RPG side mode in a silly rhythm game, and for that, I love it.

I also just want to comment on how shockingly in-depth Beatspell is. It's fairly short, with only 8 main chapters. But they manage to pack so much into those 8 chapters that it ends up feeling like so much more than a side mode. It constantly introduces new mechanics throughout to keep you on your toes, and has a great difficulty progression that ends with the aforementioned quite challenging final boss. I feel like this has the potential to be spun off into its own full game, which I would love to see!

I also finally figured out how to access Night Mode... by looking it up, as I would never have figured the method out for myself. And, yeah, it's pretty much exactly what I thought it would be, in that it blacks out the screen, removing all visuals so that you have to play off of audio alone. In other words, nothing I can't replicate by turning my chair away from the TV. I got a Perfect on Hoop Trundling with Night Mode, and that's about as far as I intend to pursue it, what with how difficult it is to even unlock it for each individual rhythm game (you have to get a Perfect three times in a row without failing). It's cool that it's there as an extra challenge for the highly skilled Rhythm Heaven players, but it just isn't for me. My time is better spent elsewhere.

Rhythm Heaven Megamix (3DS)

• Played on Saturday for 9 mins

Don't have much to say here, other than I'm continuing to slowly but surely work my way through Megamix. I'll have more to say here in the next play log.

Kingdom Hearts III + ReMind Demo Version (NS2)

• Played on Sunday for approx. ~1 hr 30 mins

When I got home from an early work shift Sunday afternoon, I was suddenly in the mood for Kingdom Hearts. So, remembering the demo for III that I had downloaded, I said "screw it" and proceeded to spend most of my afternoon on it. And wow, it's a surprisingly meaty demo.

I started from the beginning of the game, and played all the way through the first third of Olympus, and to my surprise, the demo just kept going beyond that. Not to mention the demo allows you to play some of the Toy Box world as well. I decided to stop there, as I do intend to replay KHIII at some point after the collection comes out next month, and was really just looking to get a feel for how it plays on Switch 2.

The verdict? It plays really well! It's not as smooth as playing it on PS5 particularly, which is where I finished out the Platinum trophy after originally playing both the base game and DLC on PS4, and there does seem to be some occasional stuttering when I turn the camera, but other than that, it felt great! One complaint I do have is attack being on 'A' and jump on 'B'. This doesn't sound like too big of a deal, but I'm very used to playing Kingdom Hearts on PlayStation, where attack is 'X' and jump is 'circle', which are in the opposite respective locations of the A and B buttons on a Switch 2 controller. It's not a massive deal, just something I'm gonna have to get used to. Though, I do wish there was an in game option allowing me to swap the functions of the A and B buttons to make the control scheme more familiar to me, which there does not seem to be.

Worth noting that I only played in docked mode and have yet to try it in handheld mode, though I'm sure it'll be a surreal feeling once I try it, much like titles such as Super Mario Galaxy and Persona 5 felt surreal to finally take portably.

All in all, my experience was very positive, and it was great to play Kingdom Hearts III again, as it's my personal favorite in the series. Very much looking forwards to the collection!

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So yeah, I'm going to speedrun this outro for the sake of getting this out before the end of the week.

I'm not gonna set goals for the week ahead as, well, that week is pretty much over now, so, here's how I did on the goals for last week!

• Complete the DK Challenge (ACHIEVED)
• Beat Beatspell in Rhythm Heaven Groove (ACHIEVED)
• Beat Metroid Fusion (ACHIEVED)
• Start Playing Tears of the Kingdom Again (NOT ACHIEVED)

So, pretty good! Setting these weekly goals is really helping me move things along. And while I wouldn't play Tears of the Kingdom last week, I've been playing it a ton this week! More on that in the next play log installment, which... uh, considering I've got a busy work week, a monthly roundup to work on, and TWO Nintendo Directs to cover, it might be another late one. I'm working on getting my workflow sorted out, promise!

Until then, happy gaming!