Pokémon Legends Z-A, Next Fest Favorites, and a Rorschach Surprise
Your Source for Family-Friendly Weekly-Geekly News
Welcome back to TWIG, your weekly, geekly, family-friendly news roundup! Whether you’re catching up from Twitch, YouTube, or the podcast, we’ve got a lot to cover—from Pokémon Presents to the best games from Next Fest, and even an unexpected Watchmen/Big Lebowski crossover. Buckle in!
What We’ve Been Watching, Playing, and Reading
We kicked things off, as always, by talking about what we’ve been into this week.
Watching
Flow – An Oscar-nominated animated movie that I finally got around to watching. Loved it!
Telltale’s The Walking Dead – One of my favorite Let’s Players is revisiting this classic, so I’ve been following along.
Playing
Avowed – Rolled credits and gave it a solid 5/5 stars (or a 9/10 if I had to be more technical).
Everhood 2 – Rushing through but loving every second.
Lost Records & Calico – About to start both.
Reading
The Bones Beneath Our Skin – Good so far.
Snowball Earth (Manga) – I made fun of the title, but it turned out to be fantastic.
Firefly Wedding (Manga) – A romance that didn’t bore me, which is rare for me lately.
What have you been into this week? Let me know!
Pokémon Presents Recap
The Pokémon Presents event delivered some big updates. While I was secretly hoping for a Switch 2 tease, we didn’t get that. Instead, the headline was Pokémon Legends Z-A, a new entry in the Legends series.
Key Announcements:
Pokémon Legends Z-A – A futuristic setting, a Chikorita/Totodile mystery for starters, and potential Zygarde involvement. If it follows Legends: Arceus' evolution tweaks, I’m hyped.
Pokémon Champions – A mysterious multiplayer battle mode that looks like Pokémon Stadium, but no details yet.
Pokémon Concierge Season 2 – More cozy stop-motion Pokémon in September 2025.
New updates for Pokémon Go, Pokémon Unite, and somehow, Café Remix is still alive.
Final verdict? A thumbs-up from me—mainly because I got exactly what I wanted (Pokémon Legends Z-A news) and a little extra.
Steam Hits 40 Million Users & Monster Hunter Wilds
Steam just broke a new record with 40 million concurrent users, thanks in part to the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. The game peaked at 1.38 million players in 24 hours, but PC performance issues have led to mixed reviews. Personally, I’ve never been a Monster Hunter player, but the character designs are fantastic.
Next Fest February 2025: The Best Games I Played
Next Fest is one of my favorite times of the year, and this February was no different! I played nine demos, and here’s my ranking:
Top 3: The Must-Play Games
🥇 Everhood 2 – No surprise here. It’s quirky, deep, and the combat is as addicting as ever.
🥈 The King is Watching – A crunchy management sim with Tetris-like mechanics that sucked me in for hours.
🥉 Fretless – A music-based RPG with fantastic mechanics. If you like Super Mario RPG, this will be your jam.
The Rest of the Pack:
4️⃣ Haste Broken Worlds – A Sonic-style roguelike, gorgeous but clunky controls.
5️⃣ Pachinko TD – Minimalist tower defense meets pachinko. Simple but stupidly fun.
6️⃣ Bokura Planet – Looked cute, but unexpectedly dark.
7️⃣ Rain Breaker – A Hades-like, but didn’t stand out enough.
8️⃣ Dark Deity 2 – Fire Emblem-style tactics that I wish I had more time with.
9️⃣ Wander Stop – A cozy tea-making game with surprising emotional depth.
I’ll be adding more demos to this list when June’s Next Fest rolls around, so stay tuned!
IGN FanFest Highlights
IGN FanFest spanned five days and delivered some surprises. Here are the standouts:
Adi Shankar’s Devil May Cry anime – Drops April 3rd and looks amazing.
Gex Trilogy Remaster – Yes, really.
Elden Ring movie tease – George R.R. Martin did not confirm anything, but hey, it’s on the table.
Keanu Reeves’ docuseries "Visionaries" – Focuses on creative minds, launching March 7th.
Universal Studios Fan Fest Nights – A new theme park experience for nerds.
A Wild Crossover: Rorschach Reads The Big Lebowski
Okay, hear me out. March 6th is the release anniversary of both The Big Lebowski and Watchmen (2009). That got me thinking—what if Rorschach read The Big Lebowski’s opening monologue?
So, naturally, I threw on a green-screen mask and did the bit live. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. It was peak TWIG chaos. If you missed it, go watch the VOD—it’s a moment.
Upcoming Releases to Watch
Here are three things dropping this week that have my attention:
🎬 Mickey 17 (March 7) – A sci-fi thriller from Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), starring Robert Pattinson.
🎮 Split Fiction – A co-op adventure from the It Takes Two team.
📖 Never7: The End of Infinity – A remaster of a 2000s visual novel from the Zero Escape creator.
Meme of the Week
Shoutout to Maybe30Bats for this week’s top meme, a Legoland vs. Legolas crossover that had me laughing. If you want to win Meme of the Week, drop your best ones in our Discord’s memes and goofs channel.
See You Next Week on TWIG!
That’s it for this week! TWIG airs every Thursday at 7 PM Eastern on Twitch and YouTube.
Remember the three things we believe at Checkpoint Church:
1️⃣ God loves you.
2️⃣ We love you.
3️⃣ You matter.
Until next time, stay nerdy and stay awesome! 🚀🎮
Thats a lot to cover! Wow. Some interesting games you mentioned I have not heard of and will have to check out :)