I’m all for it. As is true of remasters/remakes, the original will probably always be there to play, so if you don’t want to play the remake but only the OG, you are free to do that. The fact that a remake exists doesn’t diminish the OG and shouldn’t hinder your enjoyment of the OG in any way. I know it won’t for me. I can enjoy both. Bring on a remake, I say!

I would use a Game Genie for my NES when I was young to make them easier and more fun for me.

@Anti-Matter I think the big takeaway here is that everyone has their own preferences so what makes ACNH better for you might make it worse for someone else

Don’t play the game that young then
Buy a colouring book

I've said it already and I'll say it some more, Wonder needs difficulty options. In the broad sense of the term. It needs its easy modes sorted out AND most importantly (to me) it needs a hard mode. If only it had these it would be on par with the classic Mario games. They are this close it is infuriating.

I have a Christmas (actually Boxing Day) gaming tradition. It involves setting up a multiplayer Doom LAN party and firing up a specially selected Doom WAD file and playing with my sons and their cousins.

Great write up. It's pretty awesome how games attach themselves to memories like that. I get red pretty anytime I play SF2 because after all these years I still suck terribly at it, but love the game all the same.

My traditional game has been one that came right before the day, back when my mom finished a late shift at Blockbuster on Christmas Eve Eve and brought home Earthworm Jim on Genesis for me and my siblings. That gesture amid the holiday misery she was enduring, and having a good taste in games imprinted deep on me.

Great article. I remember unwinding every last combo I could with my young mind. And frame drops are part of life, you can't predict how fast it comes at you.

I never really had a tradition until my mother dug up a secondhand copy of Earthbound because they never really showed up on shelves where I lived. The battle system is clunky, it is grindy and tedious, the graphics weren't even great for its day, and I loved it so much. I was so happy it showed up on the SNES Classic and have adult money and a fortunate break on career interests.

The great thing is roping your kids into it as they side eye you for this artwork of the ancestors, and then see them start to get into it.

Wow! Nice to see a trails game at the top spot.
Nintendo first party titles have not been bad by any means but also not great if I am being honest. Hope 2026 is gonna be better. Fire Emblem could be nice and also the splatoon spin off, maybe. But I doubt at this point we will be seeing lots of innovative ideas.

@Cipher36 Huh, weird. Guess it changed. Oh well, still pretty high!

I already own the game on Xbox Series X. But at $25 CAD I picked it up. Didn’t know it was some big sale (or error) was just browsing the E-shop and was like, “oh wow. That’s awesome”.

So happy to double dip in this case.

Merry Christmas everyone!

@Strawblaze
But, that's exactly the huge changes on ACNH that make me obsessulated with the game.
I'm more interested with The Sims style aspect, designing, customizing than dealing with my losing villagers for not playing the game for one day.

@HugoGED that sounds horrible.... What happened to call of duty? I know they went all crazy with girl boss stuff and other stuff and I'm not allowed to mention here, but why are they into such bloat? I think I would have a lot of fun if they made a call of duty. That's like the games that they used to make 10 or 15 years ago.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from yours truly! I hope you all have a wonderful day. 🎄❤️

Shes 3 tho lol, I mean even as nabbit the game will be too hard after 2 levels. Its not a age appropriate game from a difficulty standard from the start.

Concerning New Leaf vs New Horizons, I have to go with New Leaf.

New Horizons is a lot of fun if you like to decorate. But if you don’t, and I am one of those people, there just isn’t a lot to do. In New Leaf, your Town felt a lot more alive, and there was the whole multiplayer Island on top!

I hope we get these aspects back in the next Anima Crossing Game.

I want Citizen Sleeper 2 so much, but I have been waiting for a Switch 2 update with mouse controls.

@electrolite77 wait... What? You guys can live without Nintendo?

My daughter is three since this 18, december.

With only two years Old:

She finished, Alone, Super Mario 3D World, including the extra Islands (but not the last secret Island).

She has, playing Alone, 188 moons on Odyssey.

And Mario Wonder she plays Peach only. And for strange reasons, Thais game IS more difficult to her but not so much. She is fighting browser.

She prefers Odyssey, bowsers fury and 3d World than wonder

@Anti-Matter That's precisely my issue with ACNH, though. It's much more of an spin-off than a main-series games. They compromised Villager interactions and general immersion (such as Villagers actually having opinions and decisions of their own, including picking a spot for their houses and leaving the village whenever they want) just so everything would be more convenient for players. Except the convenience still isn't quite there, because now you have to bother with crafting, inventory bloating, tools breaking and a lot of nonsense that didn't really add much to the game in my opinion (especially as existing furniture and features end up removed).

That's not to say I'm blind to what ACNH did right. Fingers crossed the next entry manages to mix the best of both entries.

@CaleBoi25
I'm the opposite.
I'm obsessulated with ACNH for being more The Sims and villagers never moving out by themself.
That's exactly what I want from Animal Crossing.

ACNH is WAY.... MUCH BETTER than ACNL.
I love the more customization in ACNH and the villagers will NEVER moving out by themself.

Also, DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION is WAY.... MUCH BETTER than Just Dance.
Stepping on the arrows intensified is way more interesting activity than following the silly dance movements.

@StarCollector
So far SWO is my port of the Switch 2.

Discontinuing Gold points? No Nintendo Selects? NSO+ being exclusive to 12 months purchases? Game key cards? $10 tech demo? Locking a basic feature on Metroid Prime 4 behind an Amiibo? No price drops?

So none of that qualifies the company as greedy? Come on... You wouldnt be so kind towards your neighborhood convenience store if they took the same approaches.

I appreciate that Nintendo seems to value their games. Do I think BOTW from 8 years ago should still be $70 (here in the UK it's the same price as TOTK. Smash Ultimate is also $70)? No, but I at least agree with the idea that games should retain at least some of their value over time, so long as they hold up today, which most modern Nintendo games do.

If it were me, prices of new games would go down by £10 to £15 after a few years, so Mario Odyssey would sell for £35 instead of £50. Or like someone has already mentioned, do Nintendo Selects again. I'm hopeful that Nintendo has been saving them to introduce them this generation for old Switch 1 games that need a push.

I grew up on ACNL and had a literal obsession. I am talking "genuinely unhealthy to the point that I think my parents wouldn't have been wrong to get me into some form of therapy." I could name every villager, their personality, their coffee blend, and most of their quotes. I could tell you about every NPC and what they did. I could describe most of Dr. Sheunk's comedy bits, some of them verbatim. I talked about it to everyone (parents, siblings, friends, pastors, Walmart cashiers). It was bad. Then, ACNH came along. I refused to buy it for about 3 years, because I remembered how I had been with New Leaf and did not want to be that obsessed with anything ever again. It worked, I think: I still play New Horizons to this day, and am eagerly awaiting the 3.0 update, but I only boot it up occasionally, about 3 or 4 times a month. I can treat it as a game, rather than a second life (and one that I nearly valued more than my real life). So even though New Leaf had a stronger hold on me, New Horizons has a heathier relationship with me. But that's just my two cents

_{.....also I swear I didn't mean to say 6|7 in my letter, and I didn't even realize I had until I was reading just now lol}

Its a badly made ripoff of the indie rouglike hit Megabonk
Its unfinished, has only one level, one hero and no weapon pickups.

Best case its shovelware, worst case its a blatant copy

@OldGamer999 I'm most looking forward to the next Xenoblade, though it probably won't be until 2027. Monolithsoft are known for pushing hardware pretty hard to make impressesive games, and given how good games like FF7 and Star Wars look on the console, I have big expectations for them.

Merry Christmas everybody!
Wishing you all a holly jolly time with friends & family.today.

The gift opening frenzy has subsided here now and I’m ready for a nap! 😴
Santa brought my younger daughter Pokémon ZA and a couple other expensive Switch games, yet right now she’s playing MagiCat, a 99¢ eShop purchase from years ago. 😊🎄

Nice to see a letter from a Nintendo ringer. 🙄

I don’t mind paying or a bit of greed as long as I get those big N top AAA.
Which I’m hoping for some 2026, but none really announced from their own studios.

They need to follow MKW and DKB with some more.

@Ristar24 cracking memories! Imagine kids playing SoR4 for the first time now and reminiscing in 2035!

I was 16 and got the SFII bundle too, along with Pilotwings and MK. I also got the Whitney song on CD, so I was playing on my SNES while listening to that.

I play Secret of Mana every year 🙂

I think if nintendo wants less complaints about greed they could bring back Nintendo Selects. They probably don't want to do for 1 mil+ sold. So maybe instead do it for older games to make the series more approachable. Like Fire Emblem or Xenoblade.

Or definitive editions for those games.

I sold my OG switch to family for 100. I left loads of games on there and left my micro sd card in it. Sadly only left them with system memory of 32gb. Because the digital games that I gave them made up the rest. I also gave them anamial crossing and luigis Mansion 3 physical games. Of course only that cheap cause it's family. And enjoying Switch 2 and the Switch 1 games I decided to keep for myself.

I play Donkey Kong Country 3 with the Christmas cheats on.

Merry Christmas NL team and community!

Merry Christmas everyone.
I hope we'll all get an extra Christmas present a bit later today, as Space Invaders (the video game that really made the whole video games "thing"/business take off in a big way) is being released on Arcade Archives today as their 500th release (I'm hoping there'll be a big Arcade Archives sale as well to celebrate its release).

A gaming related tradition I have is listening to "A Snow Light", the theme music for Flanoir in Tales of Symphonia. I've done this every Christmas Day for maybe 15 years now. Just makes me feel all wintery and Christmassy.