What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

SNK Gals' Fighters (Switch)

July 20th, 2024

I feel super scrambled this weekend, but, even if it is because of doctor's appointments, I have a three day weekend ahead and am planning to enjoy it!

Last night, I was remarkably fried after work, so I decided to try Disney Illusion Island just thinking it looked cute and relaxing. It is, and in the first hour or so, has some "My First Metroidvania" vibes, which is fine! The jumps feel really good, and I'm looking forward to some more laid back exploring.

I did another playthrough on SNK Gals Fighters, too, with Athena being last night's competitor. I usually like Athena quite a lot, but in this, I feel like she's weighed down with gimmick moves that make her fiddly to play as. They're all pretty cute- I especially like her using Kensou as a shield and then throwing him- but it does leave her feeling "off" here to me. It's cool to have different takes on characters and their playstyles for different games, though, so I kind of appreciate that.

June 23rd, 2024

This will be a pretty quick post today, because malls and sushi lay ahead for me! Last night, though, I got to play some versus matches in SNK Gals' Fighter, with one joycon per player and the Switch standing up on a couch, just as Nintendo's commercials prophesied! The joycons are too tiny to be ideal controllers individually, but for a two-button game, they were good enough. I'd always wanted to play the Neo Geo Pocket fighters against someone back in the day, but no one else around had one. The Switch ports of these have made that tiny dream come true.

Right after doing my post yesterday, I also played about 20 minutes of Fitness Boxing 2. Stretching before a 4 hour drive was a decent idea, and one that I shall have to remember for the future.

June 21th, 2024

Last night, I did two playthroughs on SNK Gals' Fighters, because it was fun and I wanted to. I'm just running through the characters by column on the character select screen, so I tackled Yuri's arcade mode first. I like Yuri as a character- I think she's funny, and she has a nice, classic, not too overboard design- so I try to use her in a lot of games. This invariably ends in me getting wrecked, because for whatever reason, her moveset and capabilities just don't click with me. Last night was no exception. I did get through to her ending, though, so I felt a little accomplished.

Shermie was next, and as a high schooler, these Neo Geo Pocket fighters were the first time I'd seen her. King of Fighters '99 was my first SNK fighter, so I initially missed the Orochi saga games entirely. Back then, I didn't like her because her name was weird, she was slow, and she wasn't cute. As an adult, however, I understand that being able to confidently throw someone across the room is much more important than being cute. Shermie is actually great.

Past that, I did some good ol' utility gaming. Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star led me into another regular length daily workout, and I zoned out through most of it, forgetting the start of a workout by the time I hit the end. I got through it, though, and that's what counts!

I also got a little overexcited playing fighting games late at night, so I turned on Love Colors to go to sleep. I was out after two screens. Doctors should know about the powers of this game.

June 20th, 2024

Yesterday, I pretty much stayed on the same game path I'd been on the day before. In SNK Gals' Fighters, I ran the arcade mode as Nakoruru, which was fun. I've played as Mai in piles of games for hundreds of rounds through the years, so last night, I was kind of able to sleepwalk through her playthrough. It's not like I've never played Samurai Shodown, but I've used Nakoruru infrequently enough that I didn't feel on such sure footing when I started last night. Getting her combos down and figuring out her speed and range gave me a better chance to explore what the game is offering, and it was still extremely zippy and fun.

I also had the energy to go back to Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star last night, but after looking at the daily missions, I ended up just doing a regular length daily workout set to clear them. Even if the gameplay is the same as plain Fitness Boxing for something like that, I like having different vibes to pick from when I'm pretending to punch for the day.

June 19th, 2024

After some errands a bit late last night, I built the first Lego I'd done for a while, and it was an honest-to-God brand name one, too. I'd been at Target to pick up a lawn chair for an outdoor concert next week and picked up the little five dollar Animal Crossing set, Maple's Pumpkin Garden. It's really cute, and I love the little villager minifig! It was less than 30 pieces, though, so it did seem very small for the cost. Still, it looks great up with all my little storefronts!

From there, I wanted to start a new, relatively quick game before bed, so I decided to do an all-characters run in SNK Gals' Fighter. I played this on original hardware maybe 20 years ago, and the Switch controls aren't as good at all as the Neo Geo Pocket Color joystick, but that's pretty forgivable, considering how good the NGPC was. This is still super fun. I started with Mai, and should unlock all the "secret" characters naturally as I go. I'm looking forward to this journey of headkicking!

For my daily workout game, I just did another daily workout in Fitness Boxing 2 to keep things simple. Poor Karen hasn't gotten to change her outfit in days, but her tracksuit at least looks comfy.