I recently discovered Arlo, a gaming YouTube channel featuring a puppet and shared a video a few days ago about Arlo's predictions for 2020. He just released a new video cataloging Nintendo's accomplishments in 2019 and not surprisingly, Nintendo had a really full year. The standouts for me were the new Pokemon game release, Link's Awakening and I've also been hearing a lot of good things about Ring Fit Adventure. I think we're looking at an even stronger 2020 and if the rumors are true we are in for two Wii U game ports to launch soon. I'm fairly certain Super Mario 3D World is one of the games but the other one i'm less certain of.

What Wii U ports would you love to come to Switch in 2020?

https://www.nintendoenthusiast.com/emily-rogers-says-there-are-two-unannounced-wii-u-ports-in-the-works/

Video game documentary channel Noclip recorded an incredible documentary about Doom 2016 and while they were at iD headquarters also shot a short with Tim Willits about the history of Quake. Quake is a pretty special game to me because it's the first shooter I played over a LAN with my friends. At the time I only had the demo which meant we could only get about 3 people in the game at a time but it was a ton of fun anyway. Later on Half-life and Counter-Strike dominated LAN parties but until I was able to buy Half-Life Quake was my LAN shooter of choice.

Tonight at Midnight PT the first season of Tale of the White Wyvern begins. This game will run alongside our main Wyvern game and see some changes to the base rules that make it a bit different. The biggest change is that our first season game will end on March 1st when the winners will be forever immortalized in-game.

There are a few other posts about the new season game as well as a podcast we recording talking about it. Check those out below and we'll see you January 1st 2020 for our first competitive season game!

https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4294/the-state-of-the-wyvern-december-2019-fishing-for-seasons

https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/4275/competitive-season-races-are-coming-to-tale-of-the-white-wyvern-in-january

The Angry Video Game Nerd has reviewed many games some consider classics and when I saw that he recently released a video reviewing Majora's Mask I figured it would be another review praising it. While Majora's Mask has been enshrined with nearly universal acclaim it's a game I picked up and played recently on 3DS but didn't get further than the first full dungeon. One of the Nerds biggest complaints is that if you go over time the whole dungeon resets and when that happened to me I was quite surprised and stopped playing it. I thought I did something wrong and the dungeon reset really caused me to instantly lose interest. Now that I know that part of the game I think I'd come at the dungeons differently, but still, it's quite frustrating and the Nerd really doesn't stop there with critiques for Majora's Mask.

In the end he notes that Majora's Mask is a work of art and incredible storytelling but falls flat in terms of gameplay. Curious what everyone else thinks of Majora's Mask and also this review?

Now that Nintendo has focused all of it's attention to the Switch many people are clearing out their old 3DS libraries and systems and because of that, if you collect for the system now is your time. I've been collecting DS and 3DS games a bit at a time and have nearly everything I need. The games I have yet to acquire are mentioned in this video such as Bravely Default and the Ultimate NES Remix. I'd also love to get Shovel Knight on the 3DS but I have it on PC and Switch so it's not essential yet the collector in me really wants to pick it up and compare it to the rest of the versions I have. Any 3DS/DS collectors out there looking for anything hard to find?

I've recently discovered a new gaming YouTube channel by the name of Arlo. The premise is Arlo is a puppet that is into gaming. Arlo's puppetry style is akin to Sesame Street and the humor and puppetry is top notch. That said, Arlo has focused a bit on Nintendo in the last few years and recently dropped a prediction video that is very specific about what Nintendo will do in 2020. It all seems entirely plausible and the prediction that Arlo makes that I'm most keen to see happen is a port of the Super Mario 3D World from the Wii U to Switch. Arlo notes, and I totally agree, that it seems like we should have got many more Wii U to Switch ports and also predicts this is the year Nintendo will bring Super Mario 3D World to Switch because it's a great game and it would sell a lot of units. Along the way he predicts a lot more so clicky clack that video for all the details and afterward let me know what you think is likely in 2020 and what you'd like Nintendo to launch.

On Sunday we are going to record our Cheerful Ghost Radio review of Rise of the Skywalker and if you want us to read your thoughts on the show, private message me directly on Cheerful Ghost! In the comments i'll have a thread open where you can tap or click the message icon to send me your thoughts directly and make sure you focus them down to some easy to read on the air!

Back in 2013 a new Indie game hit Kickstarter that we covered here on Cheerful Ghost called Shovel Knight. We were immediately interested in its hilarious premise and chunky pixel art indie vibe. A month after Travis covered the Kickstarter for Shovel Knight we were able to interview Sean at Yacht Club games and it's a piece that I look back and am fairly proud of (interview linked below). Since then Shovel Knight launched to critical acclaim and later saw the base game morph into Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove which is a collection of the base game Shovel of Justice with every other new expansion game such as Plague of Shadows and Specter of Torment included. Recently Yacht Club games released the final two pieces to the shovel puzzle in the all new King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown.

Shovel Knight Showdown

"Duel with up to 4 players locally and scramble after gems, or take control of your favorite character and dig into Story Mode! Master every move, explore a vast array of items and locales, and discover new revelations in this platform fighting game. Note: Not available on 3DS or Vita versions."

Shovel Knight Showdown is one of those game modes that didn't seem like something I was going to like until I finally sat down to play it. Frankly I'm not a huge fan of the team battle games such as Smash Brothers so when this game mode was announced I wasn't too excited. That said, Showdown isn't _JUST_ a battle brawler it also adds mechanics to each stage such that to win, you don't need to be the most skilled person at PVP. When I sit down to play Smash Brothers or Street Fighter casually I get wrecked every time because the skill divide between playing a lot and playing a little is huge. Shovel Knight Showdown fixes this by making levels have goals that don't involve fighting. Fighting might help you on the way to a goal but it's possible you could win by avoiding fighting and simply completing the brawl stage objective such as being the first person to collect the required gems.

Pair Shovel Knight Showdown with your Switch or PS4 and a couple friends and this mode seems like an essential part of the Treasure Trove.

King of Cards

"Step into the gilded boots of King Knight in the biggest and most regal Shovel Knight game of them all! Leap, Shoulder Bash, gather new subjects, and strategize your way through this prequel in your quest to become King of Cards!"

Once you get used to how King Knight plays the new campaign and levels of King of Cards are a joy. It took me a few tries to fully understand how to use King Knights jump and Yacht Club's level design does help that learning process quite a bit. That said, passing over some jumps seemed entirely impossible until I had that "ah ha" moment where I figured out to pass over the first level bubbles I had to come at the jump in a certain way to trigger King Knights spin to bounce off the bubble to the other side. I'm not too far in the King Knight campaign to comment on all of it yet but so far it seems like a very worthy addition to Treasure Trove and if you are a Shovel Knight fan entirely essential.

One awesome thing that came from Shovel Knight is the speedrun community and it's been a treat to watch the various speedruns especially at Games Done Quick 2017 and 2019. I hope one of the expansion games is run at GDQ and because of the fun acrobatic gameplay i'd pick King of Cards if I could flag a run i'd love to see in a future event. (Here's hoping for SGDQ 2020!)

Jake Kaufmans Score Is Superb

The original pixel-tune score for Shovel Knight by Jake Kaufman i'd already consider a classic score worthy of some of the best chiptunes i've heard. With each new expansion Jake released an entirely new OST and King of Cards and Showdown were no exception. I think Jake wanted to close the Shovel Trove strong because the King of Cards & Showdown OST runtime clocks in at an hour and a half and contains 50 tracks! I'm including a link to Bandcamp below where you can listen to the whole score and also download it by way of naming the price you feel reflects the albums value to you. I've personally downloaded all Jake's tunes from all the Shovel games and really enjoy it when his songs pop up in my video game playlists.

https://virt.bandcamp.com/album/shovel-knight-king-of-cards-ost

The Best Time To Play Shovel Knight is Now

If you haven't played Shovel Knight the best time to jump in to the Treasure Trove is now as the game is finally complete and contains five total games! If you are interested in having a physical copy Yacht Club has released new versions of Treasure Trove with all the expansions including King of Cards and Showdown on Switch and XBox One as well as digitally on nearly everything else including your toaster*.

I want to send a super special thank you for Yacht Club games for providing me a shiny new Switch key to play Treasure Trove with. They've been a really cool video game company to reach out to over the years in doing an interview back in the day and providing us with more than our fair share of review keys and also making Shovel Knight, a game I know many people on Cheerful Ghost love. It's also fun to see Yacht Club finally close the first chapter of Shovel Knight so strongly. The original Kickstarter lit the indie scene on fire and to wrap things up with two killer expansions is admirable.

https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1235/interview-with-sean-velasco-about-shovel-knight
https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/1135/it-s-time-for-shovel-justice
* - not really your toaster unless you use your PS4's CPU to toast bread.

On December 20th Nintendo Online is adding a handful of retro titles to the Nintendo and Super Nintendo to help ring in the new year. On the NES front players are getting two games such as the classic RPG Crystalis and Journey to Silius. On the Super Nintendo people can enjoy Star Fox 2, Super Punch-Out!!, Kirby Super Star & Breath of Fire II. After the Super Nintendo hit Nintendo online they mentioned that the monthly flow of retro titles wouldn't be coming in favor of a handful every few months and this seems to be the first launch of games to fill that promise. The stand out title of this release pack are Star Fox 2 which originally released on the Super Nintendo Classic giving this game a much wider audience.

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker is coming to theaters December 20th and LucasFilm is in full hype mode. As part of that a brand new featurette is out that focuses on the relationships the cast has built up over 40 years as the series finally comes to an end. This short seems like it would be the kind of thing to hit the special features of a blu-ray release so it's fun to see it now.