The idea of Hextreme Void sounds cool—roguelike Breakout could totally work!—but yeah, what a lousy implementation. I guess that's what Ball x Pit is but I haven't even watched video of that game, so I'm not sure.
The thought of putting over 200 hours into a single game is almost painful, though I'm glad to hear that AC Shadows is a good game! That seems to be the general concensus. I know that for me, my gaming time really dropped once I started having kids but began to climb again when I got a Switch (especially when I got a Lite that was just for me). But still, 40 hours is probably the max I can manage on a game in a month, and that's only if it cannibalizing all other leisure time activities. Playing Ys VIII did that to me last year but I think that was the only game I put that kind of attention into. I have a bunch of games that I never get around to starting just because I know how long they are 
I've heard that Ys Origin is very hard and it sounds like that's your experience too!
Just remember that Sticker Star isn't really an RPG like the earlier Paper Mario games. It's an adventure game with (superfluous) RPG battles. I think it's a good game as long as your expectations going in line up with reality.
The Extreme G games blew my mind on the N64. It was so fast! I remember the first one had a battle mode, too, that totally missed the point of the game. It wasn't fun to slowly slink around trying to line up shots on the other players. I'm pretty sure the devs ditched that for the second game.
The third game came out on the GameCube and was quite fun as well. Eventually you could upgrade your bike enough to break the sound barrier and it had the coolest visual effect where the whole screen rippled and the sound damped out. Really great A/V design. Later F-Zero GX came out and did the whole fast racing thing even better but I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Extreme G series.
As much as I love the Metroid Prime games—and I really do—I hope they try some new things with the franchise rather than rehashing past successes like this.
Hmm, now you're making me wonder if I should give it another go myself, though one of my complaints was the mission-based hub area, and presumably that hasn't changed. And drabness...
I haven't heard that about the Goof Troop devs eventually becoming Flagstaff (though it is certainly possible) but I know that one of the main designers of the game was Shinji Mikami, who went on to creat Resident Evil a couple years later.
Oh yeah, I saw that about the Disney Afternoon Collection! I'm surprised it took them so long to bring it to Switch (if memory serves, it orginally came out around the same time that the Switch launched) but it's really cool that they are adding more games
I haven't paid much attention lately to what is coming out this year—I'm always so behind—but I have always been intrigued by the Fatal Frame games despite never playing one, so I'll have my eye on that remake that comes out.
It's funny that you mention the Mega Man Star Force collection because I just got the Battle Network collection earlier this month and I'm playing the first one right now. I never touched any of these back in the day but the sheer GBA-ness of the game gives me warm fuzzies.
Glad to see you blogging again!
Those dedicated emulation machines have gotten really impressive in recent years O_O
