The Adventure of Elliot: The Millennium Tales Debut Demo (Switch 2)

Not another fairy game!

Watched the July 2025 Nintendo Partner Showcase direct and as most people it wasn't that much to write home about, but they at least announced a demo for a new game from SquareEnix in the 2D-HD engine. So I got it and since there wasn't any other games at the moment in the wait for the Kirby game. So I started playing it and it has some similarities to games like the Mana-series with different weapons... no co-op though. Story is that this kingdom is protected by a barrier from monsters and some new ruins have been discovered so the king ask the adventurer Elliot to investigate the ruins together with his fairy companion (which after playing Bravely Default sends out some different warnings than maybe the creators anticipated... or I don't know really). So you go out and fight monsters till you reach a dungeon where you fight a boss and suddenly you stand before the Door of Time.

Now, what is the Door of Time (besides being named after the door of Time in Ocarina of Time)? Don't know, the game didn't tell me about it before but the fairy wonders if this is the Door of Time and Elliot seems to know what that entails. And after entering the demo ends. I'm driven more by story than gameplay loops, so I can't say that this demo did it for me, since I don't know what I should care about in this game. No one has told me what the importance of the ruins is, or the Door of Time. In the wilds there was no one to talk to except the fairy and they never commented anything important.

We will see if I get it, but since it's SquareEnix I assume a Game Key Card from the get go and since the storage is limited it might be digital and a sale before getting it. It looks great though and I like 2D action adventure games. I didn't find the scythe so wonder if that will effect anything.

Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2)

 

The Journey to the Center of the Earth!

Well, it took the postal service a week to get it to my home. It arrived Friday the week after it was supposed to come out. Took me 2 weekends and two hours per day during the week, but now again I have a 100 % cleared games on the Switch 2 (no, don't look at my stack of unfinished or even played Switch 1 games). The game begins on Ingot Island where DK is mining for Golden Bananas until a meteor-looking thing crashes on the island dragging it into the depths of the earth. There he meets a talking crystal person that tries to escape from the Void Company CEO... Void Kong and his two henchmen. First time I've seen evil Kongs in a DK game, but since Metroid have already put in evil Chozos I'm already comfortable with the idea. The crystal person turns out to be Pauline that was kidnapped for her singing voice after you release her from the crystal. You meet different races on your way to the center of the earth in search of the Banandium Root for a way to get home and stop Void Kongs plans.

It's a rather fun game. You break most things and collect golden bananas in order to upgrade your abilities and then you collect gold to buy stuff and banadium chips to use to get more golden bananas or later musical discs. There are a couple of animal elders that allow you to use the Banaza that transform you into different animals, like snake, zebra, elephant, ostrich... and a gorilla. Gorilla form feels a bit weird since you already are a Kong, maybe I thought it would be a rhino as a callback to Rambi, but since there is a layer where you ride on Rambi they maybe thought it was enough. 

The final stretch of the games just ramps up the intensity. You have defeated Void Kong's henchmen and duke it out with the CEO himself, beat him and suddenly King K. Rool appears, beats up Void and get the Root for himself. That came by surprise. I gather that Cranky might imply him during the talks with him, but I didn't get it until he showed up. And now Kremlings appears and buzzaw bees so suddenly it feels like a Country game again. You corner K. Rool at the center of the earth and defeats him and your wish is about to get you back and credits roll, and it's the Kredits from Donkey Kong Country so you know the fight ain't over. K. Rool follows you with his barrel jet packs and you have to occupy him until you can reach the surface. You get to New Donk City where Pauline lives, K. Rool steals the root again and you have to platform to the boxing ring from Donkey Kong 64 and beat him again. Took me three tries, but I did it. Credits roll again and DK returns to Ingot Island while Pauline stays in NDC. 

After the credits you start at Ingot island again and reunite with Pauline that needs help finding a song she can sing. So you meet the elders again and do their rehearsal which is a gauntlet of platform challanges for each Bananza that forces you to use every power (and hopefully you upgraded every Bananza to the full). Zebra was the worst with the timed I thought, but then elephant wanted me to lure monsters into different areas to change shape and so on. After I remember to use the snake's time stop ability that one wasn't that hard. And after all that you have the Harmoneel. A true test of skills since you had to do it all in one go which I learned when I died on the very last stretch. After getting enough resources and changing outfits I went in again and cleared it. Rewarded with yet another credit scene, but I'm a bit disappointed since I thought I could get to New Donk City and just wander around, but no such luck. After that I cleared out the fossil to get every costume since you just could buy maps for those (and bananas as well, but those could be hard to get). 

So overall it was fun platformer. Some people complained that the ending was a bit to long, and if I had played it at the middle of the night before work and just wanna go to bed I might have felt the same, but instead I did it in the early afternoon so to me it was a great escalation. And here comes a reason why I prefer the Mario team to do these games, the bosses have pretty much a cycle of three which means that I can memorize the sequence within reason. Maybe the fact I played through 4 Donkey Kong Country games before I didn't have that hard of a time. Something I noticed though is that if this was Journey through the Center of the Earth and Mario Odyssey would be Around the World in 80 Days, I assume the devlopers at Nintendo seems to be on a Jules Verne binge. Gotta finish the collection of books I have at the night stand before Star Fox returns as a Captain Nemo rip-off... oh wait, that was Steel Diver for the 3DS. (And to be clear, this was written before the Star Fox game for Switch 2 was announced.)

Mario Kart World (Switch 2)

 

This will not help with the tour.

So like everyone else there is basically one new game for the Switch 2 at launch and as stated, I got it at the launch bundle with my Switch 2. And it's Mario Kart. I drove through the coursers and unlocked the final Grand Prix with Rainbow Road in it. I gathered it was an unlockable course since Mario Kart needs a Rainbow Road as the final. 

Overall, it's Mario Kart and it looks and sound great. I'm not a competitive player or plays online so I don't get as much out of it. My first Mario Kart was Mario Kart 64 and I think the most enjoyment was playing with friends and my sisters. Took years until I managed to unlock mirror mode since we played it more as battle mode or two. Dubble Dash for the GameCube was better that way since we could all four play in the Grand Prix. But what I did when I played on my own was driving around the coursers looking around. The train level I followed the tracks into the tunnel or found Peaches castle at the Mario Circuit level so when this game introduced the Free Roam mode, I would have loved it as a kid. I even got vibes of Diddy Kong Racing and the adventure mode. You got to collect Peach coins, ?-panels and find missions to solve. Meanwhile you can find food that unlocks new costumes for your characters. 

As a kid I would have loved it, as an adult that have a gigantic backlog it's busy work I don't really feel like going through. Meanwhile there isn't anything else to play beside older games and such so what else are you gonna do. I got it was a mirror mode you can unlock as well, but then you have to collect ten off everything in free roam and then beat all coursers in 150cc I think. Maybe I will someday, but we will see. A thing I would have wished they added from Diddy Kong Racing was a plane mode to fly around the stages instead of just gliding. 

Online I gather there is some controversy regarding the intermission tracks, instead of standard 3 laps coursers they put in Intermission tracks where you travel around the world. In one way it showcases the free roam mode, but I get it for those that want to learn the coursers since you need the repeating tracks to do it since the tracks gets long in intermission mode. Especially irritated for people was that there was a workaround, but after a patch people couldn't get past that in the same way I gathered. I can understand peoples irritation over it and maybe this is one of the times when Nintendo maybe should give the people what they want? Then on the other hand, people doesn't always know what they want or what they need? Then again I don't really care since I don't play online.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD (Switch 2)

 

Love in the Crossfire!

I thought I had written about the original game since it came out in 2014, but apparently I didn't began writing my synopsis on finished game until half a year later in 2014 so I never did it. The closest when I was writing about the follow up demo for the second game, Bravely Second. Still haven't finished that main game so might continue with that, but that will be a while since the first game has a tendency to overstay it's welcome. And I had hoped just writing about the differences from the 3DS version and skip the story and such. 

So basically the story is that the great chasm swallows Norende, the pastoral town where Tiz Arrior lives together with his brother. His brother dies in the Chasm and Tiz wakes up in the nearby capital being saved from drowning in a river. He returns to the Chasm and meet Agnes Oblige, the vestal of Wind that looks into the Chasm together with Airy the Cryst-Fairy. They are being hunted by the Eternian forces that are intent on destroying any believers of the Crystal followers. They meet with Ringabel that have lost his memory and joins them after following instructions in his journal. They also meet Edea Lee, daughter of the Grand Marshal of Eternia that switches side after the cruelty shown by the Eternian forces. Together they travel to the four crystals to awaken them and banish the darkness.

The story is pretty much callbacks to Final Fantasy I-V. The order of the crystals is reversed from Final Fantasy I with wind, water, fire and earth. The class system is brought over from Final Fantasy III and V. Braev the Templar looks a bit like paladin Cecil (and Artemis looks like his dark knight version, but that looks like all dark knights in the series) from Final Fantasy IV. The other classes looks a bit like other classes from the games. The magic system is basically the same as Final Fantasy and so on. The biggest difference being the summons that are unique and looks like modern things like planes and trains, but stylised to look like summons so like the plane looks like a bird and so on. Had they done them like in Final Fantasy with Raruh, Bahamut and so on togheter with Moogles and Chocobos it would be the continued series if they hadn't done VI and so on. 

So you get the crystals awakened, fight the asterisk bearers to get the classes and some story bits. Each country is being undermined by the Eternians in different ways so you have to clean it up. You also meet the Sage Yulyana that helps you and then Lester the vampire. After defeating them all and fixing the crystals a pillar of light appears that you enter, Artemis Dim, the dark knight follows you and after defeating him his face is revealed showing Ringabels face and then you are transported back to the beginning of the game. The game is in a time loop like the original Final Fantasy as well. SO you fight the bosses again to awaken the crystals and get more story bits. You do this five times and is in one way kinda admirable for them to stick to it, but it gets repetitious since the dialog repeats as well, making you wonder do they remember what happens between each jump? Especially when the game pretty much spells out the plot for you, Airy is a lying fairy (which at the reveal shows up on the title screen as well). She pushes our heroes to go through this since she is in actuality a demon from the abyss that helps her lord Ouroboros to connect 10 000 worlds to release Ourobors from his prison and invade the celestial realm. I got it and the numbers on her wings showing how many there is left is kinda neat when you notice it, but the characters didn't seem to get it.

You defeat Airy and then fights Ouroboros on a stage that looks like the battle with Chaos from Final Fantasy I and he begins destroying world after world (if you where a bit more social on the 3DS or Switch I have the feeling they would have named the worlds after that compared to "Someone World". Our heroes almost gives up, but then heroes from other worlds helps out (named after my AI buddies since I'm a very anti-social person). Our heroes stand up for a final battle and the background have my mii in the background (Ouroboros hints that a celestial is in Tiz and on the 3DS they used the camera to show the players face making it kinda obvious that the celestial realm is our own). You defeat Ouroboros, everyone returns to their own world (meaning Ringabel went back to the world prior to the starting world).

It's a fun game, but the endgame really drags. In both versions I maxed all jobs and levels. It doesn't make you overpowered, you still need to figure out how to break the game and I don't know if I did it on normal on the 3DS, but I got to the final subplot battles in chapter 8 and tried to go directly to Airy but got beat up so bad. That's when I needed a break with Minish Cap, but after that I just lowered the difficulty to easy and ran through the game as quickly I could. On the 3DS I spent over 100 hours and on this I was something like 90 hours and it's to much. The classic games take something like 20-30 hours and at the 40 hour mark you enter the pillar of light for the first time and would have been better if you maybe had done 2 passes, but no, 5.

What did they add then? Since it's a launch game for the Switch 2 they added things to show the systems functions. They added two minigames that is mouse based. One is a rhythm game and the other is a game where you pilot the airship. By playing you unlock entries in the journal about people you meet and you also get flower points which you can use to get equipments and items. Played mostly Love on the Battlefield-theme, and by looking at the whole Linked Horizon concert the sound was taken from I learned that Motoi Sakuraba was the man playing the synths, you know, the Golden Sun music guy. Best song ever! I spent a couple of hours playing the rhythm game with the song the singer sings. It's rather good so that wasn't a problem, but I thought I could get several ribbons so I grinded up to over 150 points and turned out I could only got 1 of them from the store. There is another in the game, but that was the moment my carefully thought out plan went away and I stuck with easy mode instead. Still, I got a silver sword as fast I got to the mini games and that was useful at the very next part of the game since it was great against undead that was all over the next area. 

So, buy it if you are interested. I got it as a game key card and I wonder if it will be the only one I got like this. As I said, haven't finished the direct sequel and haven't started Bravely Default 2 either even though I have it for Switch. Will take some time before I play it though. The new Donkey Kong game comes out next week (in 2025 when I write this) so I will play something short in between.

Nintendo Switch 2

 

Can it get any more black? Well, yeah obviously, but you know what I mean.

So it has finally arrived, 8 years after the original Switch I now have the Switch 2. Got it delivered and could pick it up on release day 5th of June 2025. A pity I had a political meeting until 20:30, but the store was at least still open so I could get my hands on it. Spent the rest of the night to install and update it. Getting a bit crowded in the console area so I had to get power from where I have the window lamps plugged in. Need more outlets I gather. 

A bit of a hassle to order. I got a preorder in at the same day they allowed it, but got the Mario Kart World bundle. I thought I would get it physical, but when I learned about the download code it was already sold out from my regular supplier. I did look around to see if I could find a non-Nordic version since I could save something like 150 $ or €, but the only places I found didn't export to Sweden so that a no. So stuck with my first order. Still a bit cheaper than other suppliers in Sweden so at least that was a plus.

And then followed bad news after bad news. The game key card debacle, the prices, the micro sd express memory cards and so on (some caused by the tariff war currently going on due to the US). I got one game key card and that was Bravely Default since I liked that game. Got the Zelda-duology as well so I can give my dad the Switch versions and save memory for me plus being up to date with patches and such. Turns out the Switch 2 versions work on the Switch 1 without hassle so that was an unexpected plus (even though I probably won't use it).

Transferred the saves and such things. Had to stop the console from downloading all my digital games since that goes around 600-700 GB and I have no extra micro sd Express card. I try to wait until they hopefully get cheaper and larger. I probably need 1,5 - 2 TB to be satisfied. And still only downloading things from physical editions I got left me with something like 60-70 GB out of 256 GB (mostly due to Konami's Metal Gear Solid collection that seems like a proto-game key card in hindsight since there isn't much on the card). I also already noticed that if I'm going to only go physical I would need to get Switch versions since of course the other companies go for game key cards on things like Dragon Quest I+II HD Remake and Final Fantasy Tactics (I getting a bad feel from you Square Enix). Well, apparently scratch that number since after some updates I pretty much hit the ceiling so I had to get rid of some software, like the Metal Gear Extra section that took over 20 GB of memory. I really need an Express Card.

Now for some positive, I really love how fast the eshop is now. No stagger crashes and restarts it feels quick this time. I can actually browse it and my wishlist without having to start over all the time. The console also feels very nice in my hand, I especially love the pro-controller even if the d-pad doesn't work as good. Not only does it feel great, but the earphone jack in it makes it really great to play at night to not disturb neighbors (or family or others if you don't live alone). A bit low on the sound until I found out how to adjust it to max. Bravely Default had some mini-games that used mouse support and I tried it. One was a music game where you has to use the mouse to align with bars or music notes to get a high score, the other game being a airship minigame where you control the airship with all bells and whistles to find a boss and then fight it. You use the mouse in order to steer and activate all the things in the cockpit like radio, fireworks and so on. Works rather well. The only issue I had was the music game when the pointers ende up on the wrong side which disoriented me, but that was it. Played it on my living room table in front of the TV and it worked as advertised. Tried it on my legs as well just to test it and it was responsive enough, but I didn't try any of the minigames so don't know how prolonged play would affect me. I haven't gotten Welcome Tour and due to that a couple of features will be unknown for me. Agree with others it should have been free with the console since it's a techdemo on the console, but here we are.