Latest Features
Feature Someone Did An AGDQ Speedrun Of Legendarily Awful CD-i Game, Zelda's Adventure. Why?!
"Radical dude, totally!"
Speedrunner Douggernaught almost exclusively plays bad games. With world records in Ripened: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (the Japan-only sequel to Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland) and legendarily awful CD-i game, Zelda's Adventure, Doug's self-described hobby is "Bad Games Fast". Awesome Games Done Quick is an...
Talking Point Don't Worry, Microsoft Probably Isn't Going To Buy Nintendo - Here's Why
It's not just about money
With this week's unprecedented news that Microsoft is kickstarting the process to acquire Activision Blizzard for a little under $70 Billion, there's been a lot of talk about what the company could do next. The likelihood is not very much for the next 12-18 months; like with the Bethesda deal the process will have...
Back Page After Spending $70B On Activision Blizzard... What If Microsoft Buys Nintendo Next?
We don't talk about Bobby
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have pages on the internet, but we still love terrible jokes —...
Talking Point How Does Microsoft's Purchase Of Activision Blizzard Impact Nintendo?
The latest extraordinary power move by MS
Microsoft caused a stir last year when it confirmed that its intended purchase of Zenimax had gone through, known better as the Bethesda deal. For over $7 billion Microsoft picked up Bethesda and a range of talented studios, with lots of discussion at the time over the impact of franchises like Fallout,...
Feature Our Verdict On The LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog Green Hill Zone Set
Nothing but blue skies
Ever since Sonic's last brush with the world's most famous Danish plastic (as a Level Pack set for Lego Dimensions) fans have been clamouring for a 'proper' Sonic Lego set. The release of the Super Mario line of knobbly bricks gave Nintendo aficionados plenty to spend their money on — with the excellent Lego Super Mario 64...
Feature Our Totally Infallible Predictions For Hisui Forms In Pokémon Legends: Arceus
60% of the time, we’re right every time
Few Nintendo franchises ignite as much speculation as a new Pokémon game. Leading up to release, dozens of new ‘mons are trickled out, making headlines and setting Pokémon communities ablaze. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, while not the beginning of a new generation, sparked a similar fervor when they showed...
Feature These Incredible Game Boy Mods Are All By The Same Guy
He is the 'Game Boy' Boy
Some people are blessed with all the talent, and one of those people is Andy Sexton, who's not only content with being the Creative Director at Hi-Rez Studios (Smite, Paladins) — he's also a very good Game Boy modder in his free time. We can't be too mad, though, because he also takes wonderful photos of those mods and...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 15th)
What are your gaming plans?
Another week down in this new and mysterious year of 2022. This week we got a new trailer and a March release date for the lovely-looking Kirby and the Forgotten Land, news hit of Among Us getting a manga, the fifth anniversary of the very
Talking Point What Could NFTs Mean For Gaming, And Why Are They So Divisive?
We try to make sense of blockchain technology in games
If there's a topic that's led to consistent debate and occasional toxicity in online gaming discourse over the past few months, it's NFTs. Non-fungible tokens aren't actually particularly new to early adopters of blockchain technologies, but 2021 was the year when they broke into mainstream...
Random Remember Those AI-Generated Pokémon? Now You Can Catch One Of Your Own
Ultra Beasts ain't got nothin' on these
A few weeks back, as 2021 was coughing and spluttering to its final days, we wrote about a Buzzfeed data scientist named Max Woolf, who had created a Pokémon-inventing AI algorithm. The results ranged from "awww, look at that... pile of limbs and eyes" to "oh dear lord, does anyone have a flamethrower?" But...
Poll Kirby And The Forgotten Land Looks Mighty Impressive - How Hyped Are You?
A whole new world
There's little doubt that when Nintendo announced Kirby and the Forgotten Land last year, the reveal trailer caught the eye and imagination. It needed to, as well, with the franchise very much in danger of becoming overly predictable and safe. There had been some experimentation in recent-ish times, such as Kirby and the Rainbow...
Feature 14 Nintendo Switch Ports We'd Still Love To See
So many have arrived, but we can still dream
As soon as the Switch was revealed, attention swiftly turned to "ooh, do you think this and that game will be on it, I want to play that one while riding in a hot air balloon / sitting in a park / on the loo". Since that day dreams have been fulfilled as some iconic games have been available in portable...
Hands On Could This $1,300 Switch 'Rival' Hold The Answer To Joy-Con Drift?
Aya Neo Next uses 'Hall Effect' sensors for its analogue inputs
Remember the Aya Neo 2021 Pro, the super-powered and super-expensive portable PC we covered a short while ago? Well, the company behind it is releasing a new handheld this year which boasts a feature that should be very interesting to long-suffering Switch owners. The Aya Neo Next is a...
Talking Point As Lifetime Switch Sales Jostle With The Mighty Wii, Can It Possibly Catch DS?
Well, it depends...
The benefit of hindsight makes it easy to declare that the Switch was a masterstroke in design that could not fail. That'd be revisionism, of course, as Nintendo released the system against a rather challenging backdrop in early 2017. The Wii U had been a failure, and that's not hyperbole — it managed lifetime sales of just...
Hands On 'Infernax' Blends The Best Of Zelda II And Castlevania II While Skipping The Flaws
Gifting gore and irreverence this Valentine's Day
The eShop is not short of retro-styled titles that show due reverence to iconic games of the 8- and 16-bit eras. From feisty ninjas in the likes of The Messenger and Cyber Shadow, to high profile efforts like Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and its sequel, there are plenty of titles that are both...
Talking Point Could 'Mario Kart 9' Be The Smash Bros. Ultimate Of Racers?
Rarely does a project have so much time to simmer
Optimism is a wonderful state of mind, especially if it's rewarded. Around all of the recent renewed talk about Mario Kart 9 being in 'active development' we've definitely succumbed to giddy positivity about its prospects, and with some very good reasons. Nintendo rarely has so much time to work on a...
Poll How Can Summer Game Fest And E3 2022 Improve On Previous Years?
More streams, fewer streams? More Sonic Symphony?
The last two years have been rather strange in various ways, with game expos being a particular casualty in the game industry. The norm previously was for a number of expos throughout the year packed with big crowds of gamers, media and stressed game developers; the loss of these events has had a...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects - December 2021
December's best Switch eShop games!
Rounding off 2021 in style, December was yet another cracking month for downloadable delights on the Switch eShop. These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's digital store, giving some love and attention to the games that could so easily be missed in the Switch's ever-growing library. So, let's get...
Soapbox After 25 Years, Pokémon Legends: Arceus Will Be My First Pokémon Game
Can it be the Dark Souls of Pokémon (nah, probably not)?
Soapbox articles give our team a chance to share some personal perspectives; today it's the turn of Tom Whitehead to make a confession. We all have our hidden shames and gaming gaps, and it's time to share one of mine. Despite writing words about Nintendo for nearly 8 years I've always...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 8th)
New year, new(ish) games
The first week of 2022 has passed, and it was relatively quiet as everyone settled back into their routines. That said there were still some interesting bits and bobs, such as the revelation that producing the grass was a bit of a pain for the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity team. Elsewhere we had Metacritic listing...
Feature 33 Indie Games We're Excited About On Switch In 2022
Make room on your SD card!
It's a new year — one with loads of 2s in it, whatever that means — and that means getting ready for a whole lot of things to look forward to. We've already covered 30 games that we're excited for in 2022, but there are so many more than fly under the radar: Indie games! So, why not shine our spotlight on some of the...
Hands On Knobs, Bums, And 4D Armrests - Getting Comfy In Secretlab's New Pokémon Chair
Well, it's more like "bums on"
If a person's life story can be told through the state of their office chairs, then mine would be near-unpublishable. I have left a trail of destruction in the wake of my sedentary lifestyle: hard-wearing workhorses passed down from my parents, a fancy Herman Miller at my former job, and the peeling faux-leather...
Poll It's The Year Of Splatoon 3 - Are You Excited?
It's keen to make a splash
Cast your mind back to the original concept trailer for Nintendo Switch (or watch it above, up to you). Nintendo had shown photogenic people playing Switch in the park, on a plane, at rooftop parties, and also in esports. Though Nintendo has generally gone for a relatively low-effort approach to pushing its role in...
Talking Point Nintendo's Lining Up A Huge Year Of Gaming In 2022
Setting its stall early
Even in more 'normal' times Nintendo would often head into a new year with a lot of its big hits still under wraps. A 3-6 month turnaround from announcement to release isn't uncommon from the company even for its most important games, and it still follows this template for some titles - Metroid Dread being a good example in...
Feature Hidehiro Funauchi Mastered The Game Boy's Sound Chip, Then Seemingly Disappeared
The man behind the music for Castlevania, Contra, Parodius and more
They say that you create some of your best work when you're put in a difficult situation, and for the many composers who had to make the Game Boy's crude audio hardware sing, that does seem to have been the case. Despite its humble nature, the console is home to some truly memorable...
Soapbox Sonic Frontiers' Open World Has The Potential To Deliver On An Old Promise
Boom or bust
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Stuart takes a look at the upcoming open-world Sonic game and ponders the promise it has, and pitfalls it has to negotiate... The Game Awards were a double-header for us Sonic fans. A...
Feature 10 Overlooked GameCube Gems You Must Play
Small(ish) library, BIG surprises!
The North American 20th anniversary of Nintendo's cube-y console is upon us and we’ve come to realise that two entire decades is long enough for people to either forget the GameCube’s charming boxy shape or even grow to adulthood without ever handling Nintendo’s handled hardware. "0 years is also plenty of...
Feature Masayuki Uemura, The Nintendo Engineer Who Helped Define The Modern Games Console
A look back over the career of the NES and SNES' lead architect
The sad news broke today that Masayuki Uemura, the lead architect on the NES and Super NES consoles, died on 6th December at the age of 78. Uemura was an instrumental figure in the formation of Nintendo as the video game company we know and love today — his hardware design credits...
Soapbox 8 Times I Ugly Cried At Kingdom Hearts
Gawrsh!
SPOILER WARNING! In the following article Stuart discusses some rather whopping spoilers as he takes us on an emotional and tearful Kingdom Hearts journey. If you haven't played the games and you're sensitive to spoilers, we recommend coming back in a year or so once you've played the lot. Otherwise, be warned that certain unfortunate events...
Feature 14 Wii Games That Deserve Switch Ports
Swiitch ports
It's now 15 years since Wii launched and the world was introduced to the inclusive delights of Wii Sports, waggle gaming, and Wii elbow. That little three-DVD-case-sized box of tricks delivered some real gems over its long life — many of which were tailor-made for the system's innovative remote-style motion controller and nunchuk and...
Feature Nintendo Hotliner Life 1990–93: Manning The Phones During The Console Wars
The curious tale of a Nintendo UK Hotliner
“Video Game Enthusiasts Wanted!” teased the advert in the Portsmouth Evening News. Other than a phone number, this mysterious call to arms offered no further information. But as a gaming obsessed 18-year-old looking for a job after finishing a BTEC in Computer Studies, I was mesmerised by the...
Best Of 2021 8 Games That Missed Nintendo Hardware
The most mysterious omissions in Nintendo history
Over the holidays we're republishing some of our best features, interviews, opinion pieces and talking points from the previous 12 months from staff and contributors alike — articles that we feel represent our best of 2021. In them you'll find our usual mix of thoughtfulness, frivolity, retro...
Feature The Man Making Brand New NES Games In 2021
Alastair Low explains 8-bit love and how he's making games more dyslexia-friendly
Alastair Low hadn’t even been born when the NES was originally released in the UK. But he spent much of his childhood joyously playing on Nintendo’s 8-bit wonder machine after picking one up for a pittance at a car boot sale in the mid-1990s. “I remember getting...
Feature "The eShop Is Just Way Too Slow" - Deku Deals Creator On Nintendo's Switch Storefront
The best way to search for Switch deals sure ain't on Switch
Most fans would agree that Nintendo’s current eShop for Switch could use some work. Sure, it serves its purpose well from a purely transactional standpoint, but there are some glaring issues at the heart of it. The layout makes it difficult to just casually browse and find interesting...
Soapbox 2022 Is Looking Glorious For Tactics Games On Switch
Throw in a Fire Emblem to really treat us, Nintendo
Nintendo already has a number of high profile games lined up for Switch in 2022, and when you add third-parties to the mix it's looking very exciting indeed. One genre that is looking particularly good for the coming period is tactical games, in particular turn-based strategy tactics games. For...
Feature Best WarioWare Microgames Ever
Our Top 25, but what's at number WAAAAH-n?
With the latest in Nintendo’s utterly bonkers WarioWare series – WarioWare: Get It Together! — recently hitting shelves, we thought it seemed like a ripe old time to have a look back across the entire series and pick out the 25 very best Microgames of the whole thousand-odd we’ve seen so far...
Feature Where Does Competitive Pokémon Go From Here?
Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng on what the future holds
Two years have passed since Pokémon Sword and Shield inaugurated the eighth generation of Pokémon games. With it came indignation from some fans, though most agreed Sword and Shield didn’t flounder when it came to its competitive scene. Pokémon tournaments are played under the Video Game...
Back Page The Dark Secrets Of Brewster's 'Pigeon Milk' In Animal Crossing
We've got a latte questions
Brewster is finally coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and we're going to find out more about everyone's favourite coffee-loving winged beast on Friday the 15th October — which is Brewster's birthday, don'tcha know. Players have been asking about/demanding Brewster for ages, like that one clip from The Mandalorian...
Feature Nintendo's Year In Review - Our Team Chat Switch, Games, And Silly 2021 Things
It sure was a year
The year is drawing to a close, and 2021 was another interesting period in the broader gaming industry and in the world of Nintendo. There were big online events, fantastic games, controversies and of course some enjoyable and humorous times. It was also, by most metrics and with consideration for the various challenges it faced,...
Feature Steven Spohn On Strides In Accessibility For Gaming, And Nintendo's Room For Improvement
"Back in the day Nintendo was at the forefront of accessibility, at some point they just stopped"
Earlier this year Steven Spohn hit an incredible fundraising landmark prior to his 40th Birthday; in forming alliances with a lot of creators and gamers globally, along with some welcome support from influential figures, he raised over one million...
Feature How The Super Mario Musical Got Made, And Avoided Nintendo's Cease & Desist
The secret is making Luigi a Scottish woman
The internet might be divided over Chris Pratt as Mario in the upcoming Super Mario movie, but we don't have to be satisfied with Hollywood's take on the plumber brothers, do we? The enterprising British theatre group Transfer Productions has just finished their first run of Mario! A Super Musical, which...
Feature Seriously, What The Heck Is Going On Inside Samus’ Morph Ball?
5 theories to solve an armour-plated mystery rolled up in an enigma
The Metroid series is now in its 35th year, and over that lengthy period of time Nintendo has happily elaborated on everything from its star’s childhood to flappy parent-killing nightmare Ridley, Metroids, Chozo, and even creepy Phazon-created evil clone. In short, virtually every...
Soapbox In Defence Of Balan Wonderworld, 'The Worst Game Of 2021'
And after all, you're my Wonderworrrld
Soapbox features enable our individual writers to voice their own opinions on hot topics or random stuff they've been thinking about. Today, Stuart discusses his love and admiration of a game dubbed 'the worst' of the past year... Hello, my name is Stuart Gipp, and I think Balan Wonderworld is quite good...
Soapbox Wave Race 64 Is Now 25 Years Old, And It Still Rules
Maximum Power!
Let's get the controversial early opinion out of the way, just so any pitchfork wielders can start sharpening their implements right away: a lot of Nintendo 64 games haven't aged very well. Of course they haven't, because it was a console in which Nintendo was at the bleeding edge of 3D graphical technology, a bold move that seized it...
"I think what they're gonna see is a nice live-feeling and chaotic show"
Listen, Rob's not messing around here. He knows his games As we reported just a few days ago, Scottish comedian, writer, poet and self-professed "God of Games" Robert Florence has been announced as host of the upcoming reboot of Channel 4's iconic GamesMaster. Alongside...
Feature Nintendo Life's Alternative Game Awards 2021
Best Late Arrival! Best Non-2021 Game! Best Game That Doesn't Fit Anywhere Else!
Ah yes, that idle final week in December where some people head back to work, and others relax until new year filling their days with what they love — video games, for example. Good choice! We've already totted up our personal scores and bestowed our staff Game of...
Feature What Is The Zelda 'Formula'? We Break Down The Secret Recipe
12 ingredients that make a game feel like Zelda
Have you ever played a game and thought, “This feels a bit like Zelda?” Only the other week, we described the excellent Eastward as “quite a bit like a 2D Zelda game”, and the PC/Xbox game Death's Door — a title that our sister site Pure Xbox called "a 2021 GOTY contender" when awarding it a...
Talking Point Remember When People Thought Switch Would Fail?
Nintendo is DOOMED
2016 is a long, long, loooong time ago now, but I'll try to take you back to October 20th, 2016, the day the Nintendo Switch was announced. The US Presidential Election was looming, Brexit was still a massive question mark, and Disney's Moana, Disney's Rogue One, Disney's Captain America: Civil War, and Disney's Finding Dory were...
Lena Raine talks Chrono Trigger and wanting to write "a really rowdy anime opening"
Lena Raine's meteoric rise over the past few years has taken her from working in Quality Assurance at ArenaNet, all the way to being nominated for a BAFTA and an award for Best Music at The Game Awards — pretty impressive for someone who's technically only nine...
"Leave it to the big companies to overwhelm the players... let's do what only we can do!"
Here at Nintendo Life we're huge fans of Ancient, the company set up by composer Yuzo Koshiro and his family which has worked on some absolute brilliant games over the last three decades — including Mega Drive classics Streets of Rage 2 and Beyond Oasis, and...
Feature How Accessible Are Zelda, Pokémon And Animal Crossing For Blind Gamers?
Top Nintendo Switch games evaluated for players with vision loss
When it comes to accessibility options in video games, some companies have been quicker than others to acknowledge the need and introduce basic features into their games. While progress has been made over the past few years, there's still much room for improvement and even the most...
Feature 30 Years Of Sonic The Hedgehog - The Many Faces Of Mario's Biggest Rival
The personal recap of the fastest thing alive
Over the last three decades, many types of Sonic fan have emerged and evolved. The type of fan you are often depends on where you jumped aboard the platforming franchise. You've got your 2D purists, your handheld advocates, your 3D defenders, your Werehog worriers, your people who say the 8-bit games...
Feature Artist Kamui Fujiwara Talks Terranigma Amid Drive To Resurrect Classic SNES RPG
"It means the quest is not over, right?"
Terranigma is a SNES title that holds a special place in the heart of many an RPG fan, which is remarkable when you consider that it was only released in Japan and Europe, and bypassed North America entirely. Part of Quintet's loose RPG trilogy (which also includes Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia),...
"Switch would, indeed, be a very good fit for them"
Charles Cecil needs no introduction to lovers of adventure games. The veteran designer co-founded Revolution Software in 1990 and produced a series of classic graphic adventure games including Lure of the Temptress and the Broken Sword series. His most recent project, Beyond a Steel Sky, released...
Quick Beats Streets Of Rage Composer On Musical Heroes And The Series He'd Love To Work On
10 rapid-fire questions for VGM legend Yuzo Koshiro
Throughout the Nintendo Life Video Game Music Festival we're speaking to a range of composers and musicians for a mixture of in-depth interviews and shorter, sharper (and perhaps a little goofier) Q&As where we ask just ten rapid-fire personal questions; we're calling these shorter features...
Quick Beats Grant Kirkhope On How Batman Inspired Banjo-Kazooie
"I’ve used [those chords] a gazillion times, it’s in everything I write"
Throughout the Nintendo Life Video Game Music Festival we're speaking to a range of composers and musicians for a mixture of in-depth interviews and shorter, sharper (and perhaps a little goofier) Q&As where we ask just ten rapid-fire personal questions; we're calling...
Feature Ranking The Playable Instruments Of The Legend Of Zelda, From Worst To Best
Link, the one-man orchestra
Our Nintendo Life Video Game Music Festival will be coming to an end soon, and we can't think of a better way to send it off than spending way too much time analysing musical instruments in the Legend of Zelda series. Everyone knows and loves the Ocarina of Time, it's true — but it's far from the only instrument the...
Feature Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, Or That Time Mario Got Movin’ To Mozart
The funky rhythm comin’ at ya!
On the surface Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix appears to be the ordinary and obvious by-product of Konami and Nintendo continuing to operate in the same creative space. After all, by the time of the game’s 2005 release, Mario had already been doing non-Mario things for a very long time — he could paint, ride...
Feature Tee Lopes Talks Sonic, Streets Of Rage, And Making Music On A PS1
"Video games were a portal that allowed me to discover music"
Fans of certain beloved Sega franchises should be very familiar with this composer's name by now. Tee Lopes started out on the VGM scene releasing remixed and reimagined versions of some of gaming's most beloved music, with a special focus on one blue hedgehog in particular, and his...
Soapbox The Term 'Indie' Is Losing Meaning, But Maybe That's A Positive Sign
The games industry has come a long way in a short time
Back in the pre-internet / download store days of the Console 'Bit' Wars, the way we bought and enjoyed games could not have been more different. Video games were expensive store purchases, and often you'd rely on renting games that you couldn't afford or couldn't 'commit' to buying. No...
Feature Nintendo Switch Ports We'd Love To See In 2022
Golden op-port-unities
Another year, another 12 months of quality Switch ports. The past couple of years we've published a small wishlist of ports we'd love to see come to Switch and, on the whole, we've been pleased to see several games crossover to our favourite handheld hybrid. Last year, for example, we were jonesing for Fall Guys, Outer Wi
Feature Doki Doki Literature Club Creator On Revisiting The Club Members In 'Plus'
"The characters stick with you because they feel like friends"
It's not every day that a visual novel has the chance to shock and awe the world like Doki Doki Literature Club did on PC back in 2017. The game proved to be a hit, but console gamers were left waiting for some way to experience the tale this anime dating sim tells. Flash forward to the...
Feature Ex-Nintendo Employee On 'Holy Grails', Meeting Heroes, And Preserving A $10K Kirby Card
"As a fan, I was mortified at the thought of destroying any of it"
Over the holidays we're republishing some of our best features, interviews, opinion pieces and talking points from the previous 12 months from staff and contributors alike — articles that we feel represent our best of 2021. In them you'll find our usual mix of thoughtfulness,...
Speaking to the minds behind NEO: The World Ends With You
While NEO: The World Ends With You seemingly didn't meet its publisher's sales expectations, there's clearly a sizeable fanbase surrounding the series – and we were lucky enough to sit down with the minds behind this captivating universe for an exclusive interview. We spoke to Tomohiko...
Feature The Many Faces Of Donkey Kong, Nintendo's 40-Year-Old Gorilla
Four decades of DK
Nintendo’s monkey of manifold mantles – one Donkey Kong, Esq. – recently turned 40. Forty years young and still so vital, but it could be reasonably argued that the ol’ Kongmeister has been undergoing a bit of an identity crisis for most of his lifespan. The man-ape has turned from heel to face to heel more times than The...
Feature Why Was Among Us Translated Into Irish?
Fuist!
Last week, it was announced that Among Us, the fantastically popular friend-murdering game, was localised officially into Irish. For many (mostly, the Irish) it was an exciting thing; for others, the response was mostly: "But why?" It's a legitimate question — Irish, or Gaeilge, is only spoken by around 40% of the Irish population, and is...
Feature Treasure Games That Need Switch Ports Or Sequels
We’re going on a Treasure hunt
The aptly-named Japanese studio Treasure — in spite of its fondness for focusing on less popular formats and its infrequent and occasionally Japan-only releases — has long been a developer famed throughout all of game-dom for the consistent originality and sheer quality that runs through its work. Formed in 1992...
Talking Point New Super Mario Bros. Is 15 Years Old, And It's Still Fantastic
Celebrating Mario's big 2D comeback on its anniversary
It’s quite funny to consider that the highest-selling Nintendo DS game of all time - shifting in excess of 30 million copies worldwide – is still a title I’d consider to be under-rated. If anything, it’s respected as the formative entry in a divisive series that’s considered to never...
Back Page To All The Low-Level Enemies I've Slaughtered
It's time to kick ass and feel bad, and I'm all out of ass
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have pages on the internet, but...
Feature A Look Back At Nintendo's Long History Of Art, Music And Game Making Software
Over 35 years of programmin', paintin' and makin'
Between the Super Mario Maker games, Miitopia, and now the soon to be released Game Builder Garage, the last decade has seen Nintendo embrace the creativity of its players to produce fun content for all to experience. It’s amazing to see the creativity of the communities that form around these...
Feature The Story Of The Game Genie, The Cheat Device Nintendo Tried (And Failed) To Kill
The cheat cartridge that cost Nintendo millions
Much has been written about cheating in games. The history of which is so old and entwined it's difficult to find its origins. Developers included cheats to aid development, from Manic Miner to Gradius. In computer games, it was possible for players to 'POKE' data values and change things, with old...
Feature The Best Hidden Gems And Underrated Switch Games Of 2021
Some overlooked games you might have missed
The sheer wealth of software coming to Switch eShop on a weekly basis has been hard to keep up with since launch and, try as we might, over time it has become increasingly difficult to review every Switch game we'd like to. In 2021 more than ever, even intriguing-looking titles have had to be passed-over...
Feature From Famicom Disk System To Switch - The Evolution Of Nintendo's Miis
Love Mii do
Ah, the Mii. We remember when we first made our own Miis back in 2006. Back then the most character customisation we had experienced was probably with The Sims, so making Miis of our friends, family and favourite video game characters was a fun pastime. It's a real shame, then, that Nintendo stepped away from their Miis, presumably in an...
Feature 'Arcade Perfect' Be Damned: R-Type DX Is Still Portable Perfection
Bydo To The Future
R-Type may be 34 years old but the beyond-enthusiastic reception for R-Type Final 2's Kickstarter proved Irem’s long-running series is much more than a nostalgic memory held close by a few greying fans, or vintage shmup still hazily respected from a great distance. R-Type can still generate hype and open up wallets; the thought...
Soapbox Nintendo Pocket Football Club Really Needs A Sequel On Switch
Open goal
Nintendo Pocket Football Club was one of my highlights on the 3DS and it’s about time we got a sequel to ParityBit’s simple football management sim on the Switch. Yes, I’m well aware that Football Manager Touch is available on the Switch, with its real-world players, teams, and leagues, but it lacks the Nintendo charm and more...
