Although on the surface the two Sing and Dance games I played earlier this year look like they might be part of the Just Dance series, I felt some relief going back to an actual Just Dance game, in this case, the somewhat awkwardly named Just Dance 2 Extra Songs for Wii. The game consists of songs that were originally DLC for the megahit Just Dance 2 and were subsequently collected on disc. I hadn't realized it, but Extra Songs was the game's European title, whereas in the US it was released as Just Dance Summer Party.

For the most part the game is your typical Just Dance experience, but the UI and presentation and controls feel noticeably better than the other series. The song selection of this particular entry is a little lacking compared to some of the other games in the series, but it's not too bad. What is noteworthy, however, is that somehow I managed to completely 100% the game, i.e. I got the highest ranking (5*) in every song. Go me! ;) I don't bother to 100% games in general (the last major game I can think of was Wario World for Gamecube, back in 2018), so I'm pretty proud of my accomplishment (although the game barely acknowledges the achievement, with just a still graphic of some stars without even a mention that it's because you got 5* on all songs).

I've definitely gotten more used to the way that the Just Dance games want you to hold your controller, but for the last few songs it was still a mystery how I was supposed to hold the controller for some moves, even after much experimentation. Still, the series has become a sort of comfort video gaming for me and a decent way to get up and off the couch, and the choreography is generally pretty solid, varied, and enjoyable (and only occasionally painfully cheesy). I have a few other dance games lined up before I resume my trek through the Just Dance series with Just Dance 2014, and although I'm looking forward to it, I am a little daunted by how far behind I am with a series that has annual releases.

I've mentioned previously that I'd gotten a PAL Wii a while back so I could play some of those regional exclusives, and a curiosity I came across along the way was the Today and Tomorrow Channel, a Wii Channel that never made it to North America. The Wii Channels ranged from useful (e.g. Weather, Wii Shop, YouTube) to mildly diverting, such as the Everybody Votes Channel, which had entertaining two-option polls that I enjoyed checking regularly, and the Check Mii Out Channel, which ran little contests where you designed and submitted Miis according to a prompt and voted for the ones you thought fit it the best.

The Today and Tomorrow Channel is pretty nonessential, even as far as Wii Channels go. You input your birthday and get astrological predictions, including an overall luck rating, ratings out of five across multiple categories (love, work, study, communications, and money), and daily suggestions for food and fun activities, and "care hints" (e.g. clean your room). You can also compare compatibility with a fellow Mii, and as its title suggests, you can choose to get predictions for the current day or the following day.

It's all very simple and basic, both in terms of its presentation and its features. Maybe astrology enthusiasts will get more out of this, but for the rest of us, this app is not much more than a funny little piece of Nintendo history and not worth a daily check-in. I'm glad I got to try it out, though.

I honestly don't remember why I picked up Tumblestone. I'm a fan of puzzle games in general, but I was afraid the game would be a little simplistic, and the art style didn't grab me either. Maybe I got it confused with the similarly named indie titles TumbleSeed or Grindstone? Anyway, as with the puzzle modes of various match-3-type games such as Puzzle League, you're presented with a board of variously colored squares and your job is to clear them all. You clear tiles by shooting at three in a row of the same color, and you can only shoot at tiles that are in the bottommost position of each of the board's five columns. There are only a small number of solutions, and if you hit a dead end you have to restart from the beginning, but a bit of logic (and perhaps combined with a little trial and error) will get you to the solution. Unfortunately, on the longer stages you have to work yourself through multiple puzzles, and if you reach a dead end on the last one you have to go all the way back to the first one of the set, which is fairly annoying.

I played through all of the first world of the solo story mode and some of the multiplayer versus modes, and although the main game mechanics are solid, they're not particularly distinctive or addictive. As you advance you get introduced to new types of tiles that provide various types of hindrances, and these carry over to the multiplayer mode (or you can choose to have them all unlocked and active). Although I didn't mind trying it out, in a crowded field of match-3-types puzzle games Tumblestone doesn't really stand out and I don't really see myself returning to it anytime soon. I would definitely recommend this be a game that you try before you buy, if possible.

I'm a pretty firm fan of the Warriors series by now, so I knew that getting Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was just a matter of time. I've poured tons of hours into the first Hyrule Warriors game on both Wii U and 3DS, but I wasn't really rushing to play HW2 since somewhere in the back of my mind I was kind of assuming it would have less variety since it's focused on the world of Breath of the Wild. Unlike the majority of Zelda series fans, BOTW wasn't my favorite Zelda game, so that also contributed to my slowness to get around to playing HW2.

It turns out that HW2 was wholly enjoyable, and I ended up playing it straight through with barely any breaks. The game has slightly more complicated controls than the other Warriors games in that on top of all the regular character-specific attacks, every character has access to the four runes from BOTW (stasis, magnesis, remote bombs, and ice), each with their own variations of them. In addition, each character also has access to four items, lightning, ice, and fire rods, and apples for restoring health. And on top of that, the mechanics for each character are generally a little more complex in that a lot of them use the ZR button to trigger various effects. At first it's all confusing and somewhat overwhelming to keep track of everything that's going on, but I got into the groove of it pretty quickly and it was pretty much all smooth sailing from there.

As with the first Hyrule Warriors game, Link gets more costumes than the other characters and he gets three distinct types of weapons whereas almost everyone else only gets one. Link with his sword and Mipha and Daruk play very similarly to the sword Link, Zora, and Goron characters respectively from the first game, but otherwise most of the rest of the characters feel new. Although the four champions are a given, there are some fun surprises amongst the roster, and it's also impressive how many cutscenes there are. The story isn't that deep, but it was fun to revisit the world of Breath of the Wild and get to see more of its characters.

HW2 was a good length and I didn't really rush through it, although I did make use of the training camp feature where you can spend currency to level up your characters so that I kept all my characters roughly the same level. I know that there were complaints about the sections where you have to pilot the divine beasts. Although these sections are slow, it is in keeping with the Warriors MO of mowing down hordes of enemies. You're not required to do that many of them, so they didn't really bother me that much. Overall I enjoyed the game and will definitely be picking up the DLC at some point. Unfortunately, it did push me over the edge and I picked up the Switch version of the first Hyrule Warriors game, even though I've already played through the previous two versions. I've already dipped into it, and it's funny how basic it feels compared to Age of Calamity, but it's still fun. I'll probably hold off on playing through the story mode again, though, until if I can find someone to play it co-op with me.