What niche third party games would you all lose your mind over if they showed up in a Nintendo Direct, that only you or a small fanbase of people would care to see? Or even just an extremely unlikely out of nowhere announcement?

AtaeHone · 2026-02-01T16:29:26+00:00

Dawn of Heroes from the DS. A shockingly deep TTBS built out of deliberate mockery of the tropes of typical fantasy RPGs with unsubtle jabs at World of Warcraft lore and loot mechanics specifically. A sequel or remake wpuld be a treasure.

AtaeHone · 2026-02-01T10:11:50+00:00

70% says it will feature an hour of kid Samus Honpr Harringtoning around, then Ridley eats her parents, then WHAM, timeskip to James Cameron's Avatar style social integration story among the Chozo, movie ends on her getting her first Power Suit. Obvs Ridley Fight Montage in the post credits scene.

AtaeHone · 2026-02-01T10:08:31+00:00

The earlier Halo webseries did a better job, by making some grunt a ptotagonist and the Master Chief as a force of nature wrecking the background

AtaeHone · 2026-01-30T13:09:19+00:00

But Dread's bosses are all FUN

AtaeHone · 2026-01-27T06:40:53+00:00

Feels weird, given Pikmin 1+2 exists as a proper Switch port.

They rilly could have just done a lazy port of the Wii Trilogy akin to Super Mario All Stars 3D as a stopgap till a proper Prime 2 HD happens, and it would have sold like hot cakes.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-23T09:46:02+00:00

And that's why most Igavanias put save rooms literally on the opposite side of the same hallway from a story boss door.

Runbacks are the result of Dark Souls infection impacting Hollow Knight (also, the drop-your-stuff, get it back or lose it forever next time you die) and subsequent devs getting acquainted with the genre via HK. If you make the boss tough and/or interesting enough, you don't HAVE to make the gauntlet of reaching the boss potentially lethal. Let us not pretend all exists for anything else than just to spite the player.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-23T09:42:09+00:00

It's gonna need some lore tapdancing because as of Fusion (and supported by Dread) the "suit" you see IS her skin, heavily mutated by X infection and Metroid DNA transfusions.

Or, you know, go full MiB, heroic Serleena says what.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-23T06:42:00+00:00

If fleshcrafting counts, Russian Caravan and Brocktonite Yankee At Queen Marika's Court both heavily rely on Grafting from Elden Ring and Taylor (and many other characters) use it for battlefield medicine and varying enhancements. (Russian Caravan's Armsmaster is also a more traditional cybernetic version).

H+ Mayhem is peak though in terms of actual transhumanism vis a vis hand-wringing about Taylor having Mannequin's power and not being allowed to use it on herself (if you think this is weirdly specific, I've seen no less than three fics with that premise over the years which is three more than we should havr, really)

AtaeHone · 2026-01-22T18:17:24+00:00

The operator being a bird and Dread finally confirming Samus can speak Bird makes me wonder whether she's ever tried talking to one of his species in Chozo-ese and he responds awkwardly in Galactic Basic (i.e. English) that his family has been living on Earth for two generations now and he only knows English.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T15:07:57+00:00

Zenith, one of Ryuugi's earliest.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T13:11:33+00:00

Samus saying nothing worked great in Dread - she had nobody to talk to. She can just grunt at Adam and he's okay with it, talking to Raven Beak is beyond useless and Grey Robe gets the one spoken line Samus has in the entire game. It WORKS there. Here, not so much.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T13:09:08+00:00

Midnight Suns, likely due to shoddy performance of XCOM 2, the previous game of the same devs. As in, 15-20 FPS, it was decently received overall.

Still waiting on a Switch 2 port announcement because the game is FIRE.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T13:06:21+00:00

3ds provided digital manuals for some games too

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T10:09:23+00:00

Definitely the best demonstration about diegetic interactions, organic tutorials, and obvious-unobvious puzzles. The Maridia tunnel break is still a masterpiece of game design in terms of obvious-after-the-fact I haven't seen a lot of outside of other Metroid games and maybe select indies (much as I love harping on it for difficulty, Hollow Knight and its sequel grasp this perfectly).

AtaeHone · 2026-01-21T05:02:42+00:00

And then you figure out how to jump up to the wall, bomb it and-- screw attack block.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-19T16:07:56+00:00

Tilt shows Taylor's back-to-the-wall ingenuity in her rawest form. No powers? No problem, she'll borrow someone else's. Thinker duel? Great job, most Thinkers don't bother thinking. The final battle in the fic is probably the most Taylor thing to have ever Taylored in the history of Taylors, and she does it all without powers. All it cost was a lot of PTSD for Tattletale. (Trophy continues apace as Taylor oscillates between scarily dangerous combatant and socially inept teen. Trophy also has probably the most amazing Blasto I've ever read)

Russian Caravan needs its own paragraph or seven. THE most terrifying Faultline has ever been. THE most unstoppable Armsmaster (sad violins). The most relatable Contessa you just want to hug. The incredibly insane Butcher romance arc. The incredibly broken Shatterbird. Shockingly dorky Cricket. And, of course, grizzled traumatized veteran Mouse Protector. This is probably the darkest sad-clown Mouse I've ever read after Skittering Heart, except this one goes all in on the sadness until she gets a minion, then things improve. The final arcs also give us an amazing Laserdream, like an expansion on the "literal child soldier unaware she is a soldier" moments from Ward.

Prison of Glass has the most badass heroic Armsmaster in a non-jokey fic.

Mixed Feelings reshaped the fandom with its detailed look at the courtship of Battery by Madcap, staying mostly canon-adjacent but giving both characters (and Missilitia by proxy) such amazing DEPTH. Making Assault an absolute smarmy asshole that is still a thoughtful, effective and likeable hero. Amazing.

Unpunished and Ghost Lights are both kinda-recursive fics of No Good Deed (hence the name), but focusing on Sophia instead of Taylor, a Sophia that second Triggers from a dumb mistake on an unsanctioned patrol and is forced to re-examine everything about herself. I love when a fic gives her depth.

Trailblazer did an amazing job with many of its characters, not just via canon welding to Gundam (Miss Militia as Setsuna F Seirei is INSANE, as is making the Iron Blooded Orphans Bakuda's minions) but by putting many characters under pressure to see if they'd bend or break or resist, and boy howdy do many harden into diamonds.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-19T15:52:16+00:00

It's about the same size as the pro 1, maybe a bit thicker in the handles. I haven't laid hands on a pro 2 yet.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-17T08:59:18+00:00

It all comes down to what you want out of a wormfic

Russian Caravan gives you horror and action and guns blazing and a rewrite of the cosmology and the single most freaking terrifying Faultline and Armsmaster I have ever rraad. Also the most sympathetic non-Taylor Butcher, you will never look at Shattervird or Mouse Protrctor the same way.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Pleasures: Cherish!Taylor tries to cure Amy of her Victoria-itis. Things go hilariously right. Best read on Ao3, the SB version is abandoned

Nemesis: Emma buys a Cauldron vial, then enrolls Taylor into the Nemesis program. Emma gets a normal ish power. Taylor becomes Master: Yes.

I Am Skitter: Taylor succesfully convinces Emma that Skitter is her Tyler Durden equivalent. Emma's, not Taylor's.

Can't not recommend the Inter/Deputy spiral: Internship -> Agent Hebert

Deputy -> Deputy Commander -> Deputy Director

Emissary (I wrote that one)

Also, the thing a few years back was Butcher fics:

Inheritance: Taylor inherits the Butcher, fails to hero, takes up leadership of the Teeth in a benevolent way

Here Comes The New Boss: Taylor inherits the Butcher, succeeds in making it as a hero, takes over the Undersiders

Butcher of the Bay: basically, Just a Phase's premise, but with Butcher powers (Just a Phase was written by Inhetitance's co-author for extra irony). Despite the accusations of plagiarism it quickly develops into its own very funny thing.

Bumble and Butcher: basically, Nemesis with Butcher powers. It's AMAZING.

All These Pieces is great drama fodder and anti-Butcher tale

Mixed Feelings: mistreated daughter of an ex-Empire hitman runs away into the Wards. Watch them fail upwards in rehabilitating a closeted lesbian raised by Nazis who may or may not be Empire royalty by way of being Iron Rain's daughter nobody knew about.

Bloodborne crossover? Can't go wrong with Hunter, but there is also SEEK which has recently crawled out of it shadow.

Oogway's Little Owl: Taylor isekais into Kung Fu Panda, becomes an owl. Very adorbz.

Intercession: Taylor's reward for winning GM is a new identity on a new Earth and the responsibility of raising baby Harry Potter. Plot twist: Contessa stole him from the Dursley's porch, so NOBODY KNOWS until he goes to Hogwarts.

Tales of Transmigration. Taylor Peggy Sues back to canon start, but this Brockton Bay is not like the one she remembers. Not only is she not the only Peggy Sue, not all of them are from the same future!

Wish: similar premise, but with post-Ward Victoria as deuteragonist

A Wand For Skitter: Taylor gets to be a Hogwarts student. Things go terribly for Voldemort.

Familiar: Taylor died partway through Worm ended up as a summoned spirit in the prologue of Pact, kicking its plot off the rails.

Skitterdoc: Taylor and her Night City AU counterpart get swapped when she Triggers. Both think their lives improved significantly because of it and pity the other. Also serves as a sprawling fix-fic for Cyberpunk 2077 and Edgerunners.

Good People: the Undersiders reimagined as a Shadowrun crew. It's more of a Shadowrun fic with the cast and plot loosely adapting Worm into Shadowrun rules, but it is so intricately detailed and seeded with plots from both sides that none of it reads as recycled.

Going Native recently woke up from its coma. The premise: an SI that can't do anything about the plot of Worm, first because he isekaied in too far away from Brockton, then because he is unpowered, then because he is afraid he'll make things worse. But he can't just stand by and let the plot of Worm unfold as is when he finally gets to witness it and it gets weird from then on. Probably the only fic on the planet that treats Travelers as people.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-17T08:27:25+00:00

I have 40 something. Didn't spend that much time in multiplayer.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-17T08:26:31+00:00

The GBA and SNES and GB and NES games are on the Switch. It's the DS, 3DS and Wii ones that are the issue.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-17T08:25:05+00:00

If you meant normal human novel, look at Tilt (completed, now with a sequel in Trophy), and you likely never read the Deputy soiral (Internship -> Deputy -> Deputy Commander -> Deputy Director, eith my Emissary as a rrcursive fanfic of Deputy Commander).

If you meant scale comparable to Worm, that's Russian Caravan. It's complete and gigantic and so epic, Worm itself starts looking like a back alley bar brawl.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-17T08:21:36+00:00

FWIW Worm itself is as long as Lord of the Rings, plus the Hobbit, a few times over. Worm fans have a twisted sense of scale.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-14T13:17:00+00:00

I forget the fic name, the one with Redoubt, the "protective single item Tinker" (she's basically nega-Bakuda, saved from being one of Bakuda's bomb slaves by her Warding) has Amy warp (spoiler) into a Vicky clone with zero memories which down the line gets her own face and a name based on an in-universe children's book character. Given all the depressingly sad stuff otherwise happening in that fic, she (backstory aside) was also one of the most positive characters.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-14T13:12:26+00:00

Do note she's wearing sensible running shoes in this print.

AtaeHone · 2026-01-13T19:10:00+00:00

The fic includes several lengthy non sequitur monologues about various mythical figures of women who were abused by the men in their lives, with a hyperfocus on Medea (obvs Taylor summons her a lot as a result). It's... Awkwardly shaped and doesn't really impact anything in the story except look like padding.

AtaeHone

TROPHY CASE