Super Mario All-Stars and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy

I haven't been buying many games lately due to the expensive nature of game collecting nowadays, not to mention other expenses (I did fly to Florida to record games in August, after all).  But for Christmas this year, Keet gave me a copy of Yoshi Topsy-Turvy for the Game Boy Advance.  He managed to find a near complete copy on eBay for a surprisingly low price.  It was just missing the cartridge, which I picked up separately.  This copy is really clean.

I had thought about getting this game for a while now, but I was hesitant due to the increasing price and the fact that it allegedly could not be played on the Game Boy Player (making recording difficult).  It turns out that you can in fact play the game on a Game Boy Player, but you will basically need a second person to tilt the system itself.  Luckily, I can get Keet to do that, so maybe next time I'm in Florida, Keet and I can record the only true Game Boy Player playthrough on Youtube.

Keet also gave me the Player's Guide for Super Mario All-Stars, which I had been looking to get.  That meant, of course, that I needed to pick up a copy of Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES as well, which I did after Keet gave me the guide.

I don't normally buy remakes, but people tend to watch my Mario footage on Youtube, so I think it's worth it for that.  I would like to record another two-player playthrough of Super Mario Bros. 3, but this time from All-Stars with Keet as the second player.  I'll have to do that next time I visit Florida.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Switch Pro Controller

I managed to fry my original Switch Pro Controller from launch day by unintentionally shooting static electricity from my thumb into the D-pad.  The result was that I probably electrocuted the circuit board, and now the D-pad tries to bring up the pause menu every time I press right, and it tries to take a capture every time I press left.  It also fights me whenever I press down, and oh yeah, the L and R buttons don't work anymore.

I've never heard of this happening before.  I've been playing video games since the NES era and I have never fried a controller until now.  Very weird.  The Pro Controller served me well for the past few years, but I always hated the D-pad on it because any time you wanted to just press up, down, left or right, it would also try to press to the nearest corner as well.  So pressing right could accidentally turn into up-right or down-right, which was annoying.  It was as if the D-pad was sitting on the edge of a razor blade and the slightest tilt would cause the D-pad to unintentionally push to one side.

Anyway, I heard that Nintendo allegedly fixed this problem with the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Pro Controler that it released later on, so once I fried my original controller, I decided to go with the Xenoblade version, even though I've never played those games.  After briefly testing out the Xenoblade controller with the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, I can say that the D-pad on it feels a little better, but it nowhere near the level of a proper D-pad on something like the NES, SNES, or even N64.  But I needed a new controller anyway, so it's good enough.  Now if Nintendo would only release a Joy-Con with an actual D-pad.  Oh yeah, and no drifting.