Nintendo Download: 30th December (North America)

Only 3 games that must be the slowest week ever on the eshop!

I woke up in a daze, saw Hollow 2 and nearly lost my mind thinking it was Silksong 🙄

Hey on the upside, the offer menu above is more limited and less intimidating... I actually want to go look at each one and decide if I want to buy all on my own rather than being overwhelmed and having the masses just go unnoticed.

Wow! looks like the Wii U days

I selected all 5 options because I can, LOL. But definitely only getting Deathsmiles when I get home.

Never seen such a light release day. Better for my wallet.

Slow week but damn this holiday was wack, got myself over 50 new games both on PC and Switch through those massive Steam and eShop sales.

This amount of games in a week would be appropriate and more than enough if the games were good. I've heard some horrible things about Hollow, so I'm surprised it even got a sequel. But who knows, maybe they've succeeded this time?

@nintendolife could you start putting the names of the games you show in screenshot?

@John_Deacon This week it’s Mutant Night, there’s an article about it that was posted today. Last week was Liquid Kids. The streak continues.

I added Hollow 2 to my wish list so I will be getting it at some point for sure

Wait, what?

Really?

Ordered Deathsmiles physical from Playasia, waiting for it to arrive.

I was considering Deathsmiles I & II despite the $40 price, but releasing add-on content so close to the date of the main game is a real turn-off for me, especially at $25. I know I don't have to buy the extra content, but I still find the practice sleazy and makes me wonder if the content was originally planned to be included in the game to begin with. Just program the goddamn game and develop the extras later like they used to to in PC games. Everything is ***** "tier" now and it's annoying!

Slow week, would have thought more people would prey on ten year olds who got a eshop gift card for Christmas.

Disco Elysium is finally on sale, no need for new games when it has yet to be played.

@DrDaisy In this case, the DLC is actually extra since the characters come from their current mobile f2p vertical shmup, Gothic wa Mahou Otome, which is set in the Deathsmiles world. While the original games came out over 12 years ago, that mobile game originally came out in 2016, so it's probably safe to say any connection between this current-gen port and the mobile game is primarily for fans of that game. Also, since GwMO is a vertical shmup, entirely new models, rigs, 2D assets, etc. were made for the DLC, in addition to new voice lines for the characters. All that and making sure their attacks translate well to the original Deathsmiles, that's enough work to justify the price, IMO.

I don't plan buy it right away, though. Maybe on a sale.

@blindsquarel I don't think releasing new titles in the midst of holiday sales is the best of ideas. People will be spending more on discounted titles over full priced new releases.

@masterLEON Then it would have made sense to release it as a standalone game. I remembered that Deathsmiles I & II is a port of two old-ish games a few hours after I made that post but didn't feel like coming back to correct it yet. My issue with same-day DLC is that I am sick to death of it being a constant thing to the point that it annoys me even when it's not tacked on to a new game. Maybe it's compulsive anger or something. Is jaded the right word?

@DrDaisy Jaded would be it, yes. We've gone from sporadic day 1 DLC to...frequent, it seems. Certainly not "Day 1 patch" bad, but it's almost. It's annoying, especially from the physical collector's standpoint. I probably haven't paid attention lately, but I remember 3-5 years ago Day 1 DLC was almost literally everywhere, mostly by the AAA publishers, so I can see where you're coming from.

That said, Deathsmiles I & II is an exception. CAVE is a tiny company, and they know their products are niche and they understand what works with their user base. 98% of CAVE's ports are one and done, everything plus extras crammed into one complete package. The only other times I can recall them releasing DLC is the JP 360 port of Mushihimesama Futari where the 1.01 version of the game was a download (free with limited physical copies, then on JP XBLA), and I believe they did something similar with the first Mushihimesama port. Maybe it was them experimenting, I don't know. What I do know is that after they stopped producing original arcade games in 2013-14, due to the arcade decline in Japan, the Mahou Otome mobile game helped keep their lights on. And thanks to the shmup community maintaining interest in CAVE games, collaborating with M2 and Degica Games to bring some of their titles to PS4, XBox ONE, and Steam, and now using LiveWire to port more titles to Switch and current systems, CAVE can now start doing a little more. A new game would cost too muchstill, but this DLC was at least doable and something for them to try out. And it's something nice for the new fanbase they built up. We'll have to see if they'll do it again, or come up with something new.

@masterLEON I miss the times that DLC was released months or even years after the game to breathe new life into it. At least that's how I understood add-ons for PC games in the 1990s. For all I know, the Tomb Raider add-ons for PC could have come out the very next day, but that's not how I remember it.

@DrDaisy I didn’t have Tomb Raider but I remember expansion packs were like whole games, thinking of old Blizzard games like Starcraft and Warcraft. I also remember seeing packages of Doom maps, not just Final Doom but actual “1,000’s of Levels” packs on the shelves. I always wanted to try one and see what they’re like. Looking back, they’re probably just levels combed off BBS’s without the original author’s consent. The budget software section in the 90’s was a wild time.

@masterLEON BBS?

@DrDaisy (Oh no, I'm showing my age...) Bulletin Board Service, an early form of website hosted on someone's computer that you can connect to directly via landline phone modem connected to your computer. People would usually share games, hand-typed programs, fanfiction, or just have discussions in user groups. And from the late 70's to the early to mid 90's it was the dominant form of file sharing until the internet took off and retail shareware became a thing.

For the record, I never used one myself since I only had a C64 (and my brother got his games from classmates at shcool). But I did go over to a friend's house where he dialed a BBS and downloaded a cracked copy of Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle on his IBM. Sure, it took a number of hours, but it worked. This was about a year after the game came out, so around 1994.