Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Image: Nintendo Life

And just like that, it's the middle of July... happy weekend, everyone!

We might be out of summer showcase season, but there has still been plenty of good things on the table here at Nintendo Life this week. We ran through 21 vintage Nintendo games that you can only buy for original hardware, saw lots of goodies at the Limited Run Games' showcase, and got another totally tubular look at the upcoming TMNT: Shredder's Revenge DLC, Dimension Shellshock.

But wait, there's more! We also provided a swift Pikmin story recap ahead of Pikmin 4 and gushed over that Master Sword moment from Tears of the Kingdom.

In reviews, we went hands-on with the latest "good, not great" DLC wave for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and gave our thoughts on OXENFREE II: Lost Signals, which we considered to be almost "tuned to perfection".

Now, a handful of the NL team have come together to share their gaming plans for the weekend. Take a look at what we're up to and then leave us a comment to get involved too!

Jim Norman, Staff Writer

I once again made the mistake of starting one of the GBA games in the NSO library "just for ten minutes" and quickly lost a whole evening to the damned thing. Curse you, Fire Emblem, and your gorgeous little sprites.

Otherwise, I have a sudden hankering to play Majora's Mask 3D again. Can't tell you exactly where it's come from, but I suppose that I can only go for so long without a Zelda replay on my mind.

Ollie Reynolds, Staff Writer

So last week, I mentioned my intention to start Xenoblade Chronicles 3 from scratch and that’s indeed what I’ve done. So I’ll be playing that this weekend; I’m only at the beginning, so I’ve got a long way to go. It’ll keep me busy in the quieter Summer months, anyway!

Over on the PS5, I think I’m nearly done with Final Fantasy XVI. It feels like the story is about to come to a close, so I’m spending a bit of time mopping up some remaining Hunts and seeing if I can craft myself a beast of a sword before I encounter the final boss.

Gonçalo Lopes, Contributor

An unexpected return to Nintendo 64 library with WCW/nWo Revenge, Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 and Final Soldier all making up this weekend’s deep dive. Great deliveries on the Switch Physical front: the hilarious UnMetal, Oceanhorn 1 & 2, Star Wars KotOR II, Shadowrun Trilogy, ANNO: Mutationem and the exhilarating Espgaluda II. I'll try to stay away from Gamecube and Dreamcast this week because my musical career is being neglected for far too long.

Game of the week is F-Zero AX. I got the cheat code to make the Gamecube version of F-Zero GX run the hidden AX arcade version and let me assure you, racing against 29 opponents plus the checkpoint clocks changes the game into tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it sessions of pure arcade adrenalin rushes. We REALLY need (at the very least) a Switch remaster.


Inspired by any of our choices? Drop the game that you are going to be mainlining this weekend into the following poll and then take to the comments to let us know if you have anything else on the cards.

What are you playing this weekend (15th/16th July)?