Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Retro

Some Thoughts About Nintendo

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post is dedicated to some thoughts about Nintendo. First of all I have to respect this company. Back in the 1980s when NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was released it really brought video games back to life again. There was a huge depression on video games. This was mainly because many low quality titles were getting released and consumers were disappointed in the overall quality of games. Nintendo showed the way for Sega and many other companies while we started to head for the video game competition of the early 1990s.

In my mind Nintendo is a company that has deep roots in gaming historically and also even today. Now I am a Sega fan and my first console was Mega Drive. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t like some stuff that Nintendo has released. I have had a keen interest in past consoles, like NES and SNES, with some GameCube and Wii stuff also and I do have Switch, Switch Lite and Switch 2. I also do like some Game Boy titles that have been released through the history of video games. For me it isn’t all about Nintendo. I am a huge fan of Sega, Xbox and PlayStation also.

Last year I did buy Switch 2 very soon after it was released. When I had my latest vacation I brought my Switch Lite with me while I was at our summer cottage. Switch Lite is a very nice handheld type of gaming device that has some very good games. During this trip I played some Disney Illusion Island. IT was a good game and I played it for maybe three hours. Somehow I didn’t continue playing when I was back at home. I really don’t know why. The game is a good platformer type of game.

When thinking about the whole history of Nintendo you definitely have a huge library of games on several gaming consoles. Nintendo has been a bit strict against its old titles. It is a known fact that Nintendo doesn’t like its retro titles to be shared freely. This is a difficult issue to think about. Nintendo has tried to solve this with its online service that offers many retro games if you pay for the service. The price of this service is 20 euros for a single user. This service offers also some other features that I am not going to go so deeply into. There has been some serious debate about some GameCube emulators. The most popular of them seems to be Dolphin emulator.

I have really enjoyed Switch 2. When it was released last year (2025) it was thought to be an expensive product. If you think about the price today it seems to be a low price for such an advanced console. We have seen the prices of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles rising recently. We shall see how high the price of PS6 is going to be when it gets released. It is considered that the release will happen maybe at late 2027 or early 2028 or something like that. We are not going to get PS6 or a new Xbox this year. That can certainly be said at this stage.

I have really liked the Switch 2 Pro Controller that I bought with my Switch 2 back in the last year. It is of a very good quality. We have seen many awesome games already getting released for Nintendo Switch 2. I have really liked titles such as Donkey Kong Bananza, Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata. There are many Switch exclusive titles. Someone might say that Nintendo’s exclusive games are a bit childish. I don’t really have an opinion about that.

What more can I say? I very much enjoy playing every game that I own for Switch 1 and 2. I do have maybe one hundred (I really haven’t counted them) games for Switch 1 and some tens of games for Switch 2. I also like very much of the fact that Nintendo is keen on releasing some games from smaller or independent developers. The library of games is convincing. This is all from me this time. See you soon!

Hyperkin DuchesS Is a Joy to Use

Posted on by Viljami

It has been already almost three weeks since I bought Hyperkin DuchesS. It is a game pad that works on Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One and PC. It is available in three different colors that are black, white and green. The button layout is very familiar to gaming fans that have played video games on original Xbox. IT also has the so called “select” and “start” buttons of a modern Xbox game pad on the left side of the controller. This controller costs currently about 55 euros. So, it isn’t actually a very expensive controller to buy.

The Hyperkin DuchesS is a wired controller. So, you hook it up to your console or computer with a long cable that has a USB-A, as is usual nowadays, connector. I had sligh issues because the cable pressed some of my keyboard buttons accidentally. I don’t think that is a huge matter. The game pad feels light. The button layout feels very nice and the controller works very nicely when you play some original Xbox game on an emulator or with your Xbox Series S/X or Xbox One.

I have had some good gaming moments using this Hyperkin DuchesS with Xemu. It is a piece of software that allows you to play some original Xbox games on your PC. Xemu does have some issues and all the games aren’t playable using it. I was able to play some Forza Motorsport. This game works very nicely. Also Hyperkin DuchesS is a good choice also for modern games. I played Rush Rally 3 for a while. It is a decent rally racing game from this year (2026). I bought it for my Windows PC from Steam a while ago.

The nicest thing about Hyperkin DuchesS is definitely the button layout and also the similar feel to an original Xbox controller. I think this green color was the most appealling at least for me. So, I had the opportunity to buy it. I think this might be the most popular color out of all three of them. The controller really gives you a touch of a real gaming experience with a real original Xbox.

I have recently played original Xbox games mainly through emulation. I emulate Xbox with Batocera or a regular Windows PC. The experience is deeper with my Batocera computer since I have connected it to my television. So, I can play original Xbox games from my couch. It has been several years since I last time had a real working original Xbox connected to my TV. There are a bit over 60 games for original Xbox that actually do work through backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X. Some games are available as digital versions from Xbox store.

I really hope that Xemu keeps getting better. At some earlier times it wasn’t as good of a solution in a way that it currrently is. Some gamers say that it is able to run about 80 percentage of games out of the whole original Xbox game library. Original Xbox has almost one thousand games that were actually released. I think Xemu is a good and solid emulator. It just still has some slight problems and there are some ways it could be improved as an emulator. You can just compare it to PS2 and/or GameCube emulation that works without issues with emulators like PCSX2 and/or Dolphin.

Also you can use Hyperkin DuchesS with Xenia. This is a Xbox 360 emulator. You do need a powerful modern PC to use Xenia. Xbox 360 has 2157 games in its game library. I have played Colin McRae Dirt 2 for some hours with Xenia. You can probably find Xenia and Xemu using your favorite search engine.

Playing Some Onimusha 2 (PS2)

Posted on by Viljami

I put some hours into playing Onimusha 2. This game was released by Capcom back in 2002 for PlayStation 2. This game was part of a purchase I made recently (maybe a week ago or something like that). That time I bought seven games for PS2. These games weren’t so expensive and Onimusha 2 had a price of 25 euros alone. It was the most expensive game out of all the games I bought. I also bought one “loose” game for PS1. That game was Ridge Racer Revolution.

I played Onimusha 2 for a bit over eleven hours. A bit sadly I got stuck badly to a point very near to the ending of the game. It was a very tough part and I just couldn’t get past it. I spent maybe half an hour alone in that part and decided to give up for now. This is not a rewarding way to end playing and trying to beat a game. But I want to be honest and tell you this fact.

Onimusha 2 is a good game. There are however some slight flaws in it. The camera angles make it a bit difficult to navigate at times. Luckily there are some maps in the game that make this a bit easier. There are several puzzles that might be difficult to figure out and solve. I can thank modern internet for being able to solve these issues very quickly. So, I actually didn’t get stuck with them at all. It is a bit difficult to try to figure the progression but I was able to manage to progress all the way to near of the ending of the game.

We can discuss a bit about the gameplay and how the character is getting involved in the action parts of this game. You have several melee weapons in the game and also some projectile weapons can be used. There are endless amounts of enemies and there is no point in trying to kill every enemy you see. Sometimes killing all of them in some area might help you to explore it more thoroughly. You get some health points from killed enemies. You don’t have to use an item every time your health is getting low.

Onimusha 2 is a bit old game. Some retro fans probably can feel some real nostalgia playing this game. You also have this view of how Capcom has developed itself as a game company all the way through the history of video games. You can compare this game to some of the latest games that have been developed by Capcom. I am of course talking about games like Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem. You can rally see how the technology and also game design has been developing all the way from 2002 all the way to 2026.

At this moment I have many games only waiting on my gaming shelf for me to get my hands on them. Just yesterday I bought the new Halo remake. That game is titled “Halo – Campaign Evolved”. I was going to buy the physical copy but ended up buying it as a digital version. At least I don’t have to wait for the game to be delivered. I also bought “Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1” since it featured a very interesting Atari 2600 game named “Saving Mary”. I might write something about it to this blog some day. This collection of games has in total 50 games for Atari 2600.

I haven’t yet touched the other PS2 games that I bought a bit over a week ago. Maybe I do have time for them at some moment. There are also some games that are going to be released that I am waiting for. We have already in this blog touched GTA VI. Also I am waiting for Control Resonant and Rayman Legends Retold. There are also many other exciting games going to be released soon.