Tag: nintendo

PS5 Pro: The Most Expensive Way to Notice a Frame Rate

Hardware Review · Purchased December 9, 2024 · $1,075.18 CAD via EB Games

PlayStation 5 Pro console
The PS5 Pro. Photo via Best Buy Canada.

This was the single biggest console purchase of my year, and it is also the one I have gone back and forth on the most while writing about it.

The Background

Sony announced the PS5 Pro in September 2024 with Canadian pricing set at $959.99 before tax, positioning it as a mid-generation refresh rather than a true next console: better and more consistent ray tracing, higher and steadier frame rates in supported titles, and a beefed-up GPU, all while keeping the same basic PS5 software ecosystem and game library rather than starting over. It also ships with a built-in 2TB SSD, up from the base model’s smaller drive, which mattered to me given how quickly modern installs eat through storage.

I picked mine up at EB Games in early December, and the total I paid ($1,075.18) reflects tax plus whatever accessory or bundle got attached at checkout on top of that base $959.99 price. By the time I bought in, launch week chaos had settled and stock was reasonably available, which was one small mercy in an otherwise expensive month.

Living With It

The honest starting point here is that the PS5 Pro is a real, measurable upgrade, but only in games that specifically support its enhancements. Sony calls this “PS5 Pro Enhanced,” and through the back half of 2024 that list was still filling in rather than covering the full library. In supported titles, the difference is genuinely noticeable: steadier frame rates during busy scenes, meaningfully improved ray-traced reflections and lighting, and in some cases the ability to run performance-mode frame rates at what used to be quality-mode resolution. In anything outside that enhanced list, you are playing the exact same experience as a base PS5, just on more expensive hardware.

The built-in 2TB drive is a genuinely welcome quality-of-life improvement on its own, and it means less immediate pressure to add an internal expansion drive the way base PS5 owners often need to.

Where this purchase gets harder to defend is the price-to-benefit math. Going from a base PS5 to a PS5 Pro costs roughly the same as buying a second console, for improvements that, outside of enhanced titles, you will not notice at all during actual play. This is squarely a purchase for people who already care about frame pacing, resolution, and ray tracing fidelity at a level most casual players simply do not track moment to moment.

What I Liked

  • Noticeably better and steadier performance in PS5 Pro Enhanced titles
  • Meaningfully improved ray tracing quality where supported
  • Built-in 2TB SSD solves the storage anxiety base PS5 owners deal with
  • No ecosystem changes, every existing game and save just works

What I Didn’t

  • Enhanced title support was still incomplete through the back half of 2024
  • No visible benefit at all in non-enhanced games, which is most of the existing library
  • At over $1,000 CAD out the door, this is priced like a luxury upgrade, not a necessary one
  • Requires you to already own or be replacing a base PS5, so the real cost comparison is steep

The Value Verdict

Rating: 3/5

I do not regret this purchase, but I also cannot recommend it to everyone. If you are the kind of player who genuinely notices frame pacing dips and resolution compromises, and you have the specific games in your rotation that support the Pro enhancements, this delivers real, tangible improvement. If you are a more casual player, save the money and put it toward the games themselves.

Where to Buy

Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale, More of a Formula I Still Enjoy

DLC Review · Purchased November 20, 2024 · $71.76 CAD via Xbox.com

Key art for Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale
Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Background

Disney Dreamlight Valley built a loyal audience by blending cozy life-sim mechanics (farming, decorating, friendship building) with actual Disney and Pixar characters and storylines, and The Storybook Vale is a premium expansion pack adding new realms, characters, including Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, and story content on top of that established foundation.

Living With It

This is the priciest DLC purchase in my entire 2024 spreadsheet, and coming in above the $70 mark puts it in a different category than the roughly $12 PowerWash packs and $21 currency bundles that make up most of this section. That price is more defensible than it might first appear, given how much new content the expansion actually adds: new realms to explore and decorate, meaningful character-specific storylines rather than generic filler quests, and enough new systems and content to genuinely extend the life of a game that some players had already worked through the bulk of.

Reviews at launch (and my own time with it) landed on similar ground: this is a well-produced, content-rich expansion that clearly understands what the existing Dreamlight Valley audience wants, more of the same core loop, done well, with new characters and settings to wrap around it. What it is not is a reinvention of the formula, and a small number of reviewers specifically flagged that as a minor disappointment given the price point, wanting the premium expansion to push the format somewhere genuinely new rather than expanding it along the same lines.

For someone already invested in the base game’s rhythm, spending an evening building out a new Rapunzel-themed area of the valley delivered exactly the kind of relaxing, satisfying progression loop that made the base game worth playing regularly in the first place.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely substantial amount of new content, not a thin premium reskin
  • Rapunzel and Flynn Rider’s storylines are well written and true to the source material
  • Extends the life of a game I was already invested in rather than replacing what worked

What I Didn’t

  • The priciest DLC purchase of my entire year, worth going in with clear expectations
  • More of the same established formula rather than a meaningful evolution of it
  • Value is heavily dependent on already being invested in the base game’s core loop

The Value Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Reasonable if you are already invested in Dreamlight Valley as an ongoing game, this delivers real, substantial content. Just know going in that this is a “more of what you already like” purchase rather than a must-have reinvention.

Where to Buy

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, A Discount-Bin Curiosity That Confirmed the Discourse

Game Review · Purchased October 20, 2024 · $20.15 CAD via PSN

Key art for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

Rocksteady’s live-service superhero shooter launched earlier in 2024 to a rocky reception, a genuine surprise given the studio’s beloved Batman: Arkham legacy, and by the time I picked it up in October at a steep post-launch discount, the game had already become something of a cautionary tale in the industry about chasing live-service trends with a studio and franchise built around single-player storytelling.

The Review

Coming in with lowered expectations and a heavily discounted price actually made for a more fair assessment than launch reviews probably allowed for: the core shooting and traversal mechanics are genuinely fine, even solid in short bursts, with each character controlling distinctly enough to matter. The problems reviewers and the community flagged at launch are still present though: a live-service structure bolted onto characters and a universe that fans wanted a proper single-player Arkham-style story from, and narrative choices (without spoiling specifics) that a large portion of the existing fanbase found genuinely unwelcome.

Playing this months after launch, once the initial backlash had already reshaped the wider conversation around the game, it was hard not to view it as a case study in mismatched expectations between what a studio’s fanbase wanted and what got built.

What I Liked

  • Solid core shooting and traversal mechanics
  • Distinct character playstyles
  • At a steep discount, low financial risk to see the discourse firsthand

What I Didn’t

  • Live-service structure clashes with what fans of the studio’s prior work actually wanted
  • Narrative choices proved divisive within the existing fanbase
  • Full launch price would be very hard to justify given the reception

The Verdict

Rating: 2/5

At the deep discount I paid, this was a reasonable curiosity purchase. At full launch price, this would be a hard no, and the wider gaming community’s reaction backs that up.

Where to Buy

Dead Island 2 Deluxe Edition: Buying the Whole Meal Instead of Ordering Extras Later

Game Review · Purchased January 16, 2024 · $70.50 CAD via PSN

Key art for Dead Island 2
Dead Island 2. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

Dead Island 2’s Deluxe Edition bundles the base game with its full expansion pass and a handful of cosmetic extras, essentially pre-purchasing both the story expansions I reviewed separately elsewhere in this series and the core game in a single transaction.

The Review

The base game earned its positive reception honestly: gory, physical melee combat with genuine weight behind every swing, and a strong, distinct sense of place across a zombie-infested, sun-bleached version of Los Angeles that manages to feel different from the series’ earlier tropical island settings despite the shared DNA. Character progression through the skill card system gave real room to build a personal combat style, whether that meant leaning into elemental weapon effects, crowd control, or straightforward melee damage.

Buying the Deluxe bundle upfront, rather than the base game alone with the intention of grabbing the expansion pass later, turned out to be the financially smarter move: bundled together, the combined price undercuts what buying both pieces separately at full price down the line would have cost, a fairly rare case of a “deluxe” tier actually representing straightforward savings rather than just cosmetic upselling.

The expansions themselves (covered in more depth in their own post in this series) landed as solid, if not essential, extra content, which does put a small dent in the overall value proposition of the bundle, but the core game alone was strong enough to make this purchase worthwhile even setting the expansions aside entirely.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely satisfying, weighty melee combat
  • Distinct, well-realized setting
  • Bundled pricing meaningfully undercuts buying the pieces separately later
  • Flexible skill card system supports different playstyles

What I Didn’t

  • Included expansions are decent rather than essential, slightly softening the bundle’s overall value
  • Open-world structure occasionally repeats itself across the map’s different districts

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Buying the Deluxe bundle upfront was the smarter financial call versus buying the base game and expansion pass separately later at full price, and the core game’s combat and setting hold up well enough on their own to justify the purchase regardless.

Where to Buy

Hot Wheels Mario Kart Rainbow Road: Closing Out the Year With a Genuinely Fun Track Set

Toy Review · Purchased December 29, 2022 · $150.00 CAD via Amazon.ca

Hot Wheels Mario Kart Rainbow Road Raceway
Hot Wheels Mario Kart Rainbow Road Raceway. Photo: Mattel

The Setup

An 8-foot translucent Hot Wheels track set styled after Mario Kart’s famous Rainbow Road, with electronic light-and-sound start/finish gates, a spinning “Item Box” randomizer, and two exclusive 1:64 die-cast racers, Mario and King Boo.

The Review

The last purchase of the year closed things out on a genuinely fun note. Assembly took about the promised 15 minutes, and the translucent track pieces with the light-and-sound gates capture the Rainbow Road aesthetic surprisingly well for a physical toy set. Racing up to five cars at once with the spinning Item Box randomizer adds a real element of chaos that makes repeated races stay entertaining rather than becoming predictable.

Individual races are over fast — there’s nothing on the track to slow cars down, so a race is more of a quick burst than a sustained competition — and at $120-140 depending on where you find it, this isn’t a cheap track set, especially once you factor in that extra racer cars are sold separately. It also needs a genuinely large amount of floor or shelf space to set up fully. None of that stopped it from being a great, high-energy way to close out the year’s purchases.

What I Liked

  • Over 8 feet of track with light-and-sound effects that capture the Rainbow Road look
  • Comes with two exclusive die-cast racers not sold separately
  • Spinning Item Box randomizer keeps repeated races entertaining
  • Quick, roughly 15-minute assembly

What I Didn’t

  • Pricey for a track set, especially with extra cars sold separately
  • Individual races finish very quickly with nothing to slow racers down
  • Needs a lot of floor or shelf space to use fully assembled

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A genuinely fun, high-energy way to close out the year’s purchases — pricey, but it delivers on the Rainbow Road fantasy.

Where to Buy

The Mighty Bowser (Compatible Version): A Great Design, Sourced From a Less Great Place

Toy Review · Purchased November 11, 2022 · $100.00 CAD via Jooooooy.com

Large Bowser brick figure build
The Mighty Bowser design, compatible build. Photo: Jooooooy

The Setup

LEGO’s own official 71411 “The Mighty Bowser” is a genuinely well-regarded 2,807-piece set with a poseable battle platform base. What I actually bought here, sold through Jooooooy under a different item number, is a piece-for-piece compatible clone of that design rather than genuine LEGO product — same piece count, same overall build, different bricks.

The Review

Whatever the box says, the underlying design here is a genuinely great one — Bowser’s posability is the standout feature, and at this scale he has real screen presence sitting on a shelf. The battle platform base is a clever inclusion that gives the whole piece a sense of place rather than just being a static figure, and the build itself stays engaging across the full 2,807 pieces without ever feeling padded.

Buying a clone of an official set is a different calculation than buying an unofficial MOC design like the mega-figure busts — there’s no ambiguity here about whether this could have been an official set, because it already is one, just not the copy I actually received. The clone bricks carry the same color and clutch-power inconsistencies as my other bootleg purchases this year, and it’s worth being upfront that this was, functionally, a counterfeit of a real LEGO product rather than an unlicensed fan design filling a genuine gap.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely excellent design with real posability and screen presence
  • Battle platform base adds a sense of place to the display
  • Stays engaging across the full piece count without feeling padded

What I Didn’t

  • A direct counterfeit of an existing official LEGO set, not an unlicensed fan design
  • Same clone-brick color and clutch-power inconsistencies as other bootleg purchases
  • The genuine official set exists and would have been the better purchase

The Verdict

Rating: 3/5

A great design that deserved to be bought as the genuine official set — the build is a win, the sourcing is the actual problem here.

Where to Buy

Sonic Colors: Ultimate, A Nostalgia Remaster That Knows It’s a Nostalgia Remaster

Game Review · Purchased November 22, 2022 · $30.00 CAD via Amazon.ca

Sonic Colors Ultimate key art
Sonic Colors: Ultimate. Photo: Steam

The Setup

A 4K/60fps remaster of the 2010 Wii original, with Sonic infiltrating Dr. Eggman’s “Interstellar Amusement Park” to free enslaved Wisps — alien creatures granting temporary powers like laser-drilling or rocket boosts — from being used to power a mind-control weapon.

The Review

This is exactly what it says on the box — a visual and performance upgrade over a well-liked 2010 platformer, with a handful of genuinely nice additions like new Rival Rush races against Metal Sonic and some character customization. The Wisp power-up loop is still the most inventive part of the design, giving each stage a reason to feel a little different from the last, and at $30 it’s an easy, low-stakes pickup for anyone wanting a lighter platformer between bigger releases.

Judged against 2022’s platforming competition rather than 2010’s, the level design feels samey and the challenge stays firmly on the easy side even for an experienced player, and the 4K/60fps coat of paint can’t fully disguise that this is, structurally, a 12-year-old game. It’s a fine, comfortable choice for a younger or less experienced player, or for pure nostalgia — just don’t expect it to compete with anything genuinely new.

What I Liked

  • Wisp power-up system still gives levels real variety
  • New Rival Rush races and customization add worthwhile extra content
  • Visual/performance upgrade to 4K/60fps is a genuine improvement
  • Low price point makes it an easy, low-stakes pickup

What I Didn’t

  • Overly simplistic, floaty platforming for experienced players
  • Level design feels samey across the whole game
  • Still visibly a 12-year-old game structurally, despite the coat of paint

The Verdict

Rating: 3/5

A perfectly fine budget nostalgia trip, but not much more than that — fine for younger players or pure Sonic nostalgia, skippable otherwise.

Where to Buy

  • Steam listing (also on Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store)

Paper Mario: The Origami King, A Great Adventure Wearing an RPG’s Clothes

Game Review · Purchased January 25, 2022 · $50.85 CAD via Amazon.ca

Paper Mario: The Origami King key art
Paper Mario: The Origami King. Photo: Nintendo

The Setup

Peach’s Castle has been wrapped in giant paper streamers by the origami villain King Olly, who’s folded most of the Mushroom Kingdom’s inhabitants into paper along with it. Mario and new companion Olivia set out to remove the streamers one region at a time, in the latest entry to swing the Paper Mario series away from traditional RPG mechanics and toward pure adventure-game structure.

The Review

The headline mechanic is the ring-based battle system: enemies are arranged on a rotating circular battlefield, and before you can attack you have to rotate and slide segments of the ring to line everyone up in a row or a 2×2 block. It’s a clever spatial puzzle wrapped around combat, and for the first several hours it’s genuinely fun to solve. The writing carries just as much weight — Olivia is a fantastic companion, the jokes land consistently, and the papercraft art direction gives every region its own distinct, charming look, especially in the boss fights, which are the clear highlight of the whole game.

Where it stumbles is the thing longtime Paper Mario fans actually wanted: there’s no experience points, no leveling, and nothing meaningful gained from fighting regular enemies at all, which makes the ring puzzles start to feel like a toll booth rather than a reward the longer the game goes on. A weapon-durability system on top of that adds friction without adding much fun. It’s a genuinely funny, gorgeous adventure game that happens to have Mario’s face on it — just don’t go in expecting an RPG.

What I Liked

  • Olivia is one of the best companion characters in a Mario game, full stop
  • Consistently funny, well-written dialogue throughout
  • Boss battles are creative, varied, and genuinely challenging puzzles
  • Papercraft art direction gives every region real personality

What I Didn’t

  • No experience points or character growth from regular combat
  • Ring puzzles feel tedious by the back half of the game
  • Weapon durability adds friction without adding fun
  • Puzzle difficulty swings unevenly between trivial and frustrating

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Judge it as the charming adventure game it actually is, not the RPG its name promises, and this is one of the funniest, best-written Mario games around.

Where to Buy

PowerA’s Blood Moon Zelda Controller, the Closest Thing to an Official Zelda Pad

Hardware | Bought August 17, 2021 | $50 CAD from Walmart

PowerA Blood Moon Zelda Enhanced Wireless Controller for Nintendo Switch
Photo credit: Amazon listing photo

Why I Bought It

Nintendo has never actually made an official Zelda Pro Controller, which surprised me when I went looking for one. PowerA’s licensed “Blood Moon” Zelda Enhanced Wireless Controller is about as close as it gets — officially licensed, Breath of the Wild themed, and a fraction of the price of a real Pro Controller. I grabbed one at Walmart to go with my Switch setup.

Living With It

The Blood Moon art print on the front is genuinely striking, and the controller itself is comfortable for long sessions despite being a third-party product. It lacks the Pro Controller’s HD rumble and amiibo reader, and it’s wired rather than wireless despite the name on the box implying otherwise for some SKUs, but as a display piece and a backup controller it more than earns its spot.

The Good

  • Striking Blood Moon Breath of the Wild artwork
  • Comfortable grip for a budget third-party controller
  • Officially licensed, so it doesn’t feel like a knockoff

The Bad

  • No HD rumble or amiibo reader like the real Pro Controller
  • Still no actual official Nintendo Zelda controller exists, which is a shame

Final Call

Rating: 3.5/5. A solid stand-in for a controller Nintendo should have made themselves by now.

Grab One Here

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, an Old Favourite Plus a Genuinely Fresh Bonus Mode

Games | Bought February 14, 2021 | $70 CAD from Eb Games

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury
Photo: Nintendo

Why I Bought It

A Switch port of the Wii U’s Super Mario 3D World, a 3-4 player co-op 3D platformer, bundled with an all-new mode called Bowser’s Fury — an open-hub, semi-sandbox take on 3D Mario where a giant corrupted Bowser periodically rampages across the map and you team up with Bowser Jr. to stop him. I never owned a Wii U, so this was my first time playing 3D World at all.

Living With It

3D World’s level design is some of the tightest, most creative platforming Nintendo has ever made, and it’s genuinely chaotic fun in 4-player co-op. Bowser’s Fury is a fresh, atmospheric little experiment that I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I did. Bowser’s Fury is fairly short as a standalone mode, and the 3D World multiplayer camera can get chaotic enough to cause a few cheap deaths.

The Good

  • Some of Nintendo’s tightest, most creative 3D platforming
  • Genuinely chaotic fun in 4-player co-op
  • Bowser’s Fury is a fresh, atmospheric bonus mode
  • Big visual/performance upgrade over the Wii U original

The Bad

  • Bowser’s Fury is fairly short as a standalone mode
  • Multiplayer camera gets chaotic and causes cheap deaths
  • Not much new for anyone who already owned it on Wii U

Final Call

Rating: 5/5

Grab One Here