Latest Features
Feature Nintendo Life's Switch Game Of The Year 2020
NL's staff picks for the Nintendo Switch GOTY 2020
As 2020 draws to a close (finally!) and the fresh-faced 2021 peeks at us from over the horizon, it's time to look back at the best Switch games to release over the past 360-odd days. In what ended up being an extremely tough year for many people, there were positives to be found — at least in the...
Reminder What's The Best Switch Game Of 2020? It's Time To Rate Your Favourites
Switch GOTY 2020 incoming!
Update: Thanks to everyone who has participated so far! We'll be publishing the full top 50 tomorrow, but there's still time to rate your favourite games of 2020 beforehand. We've tinkered around behind the scenes and the not-very-shortlist below now only includes 2020 games we've reviewed on Nintendo Life. If you want to...
Feature NES Creator Masayuki Uemura On Building The Console That Made Nintendo A Household Name
"Back then, we didn’t know if it was going to be popular or not"
There's no denying that the NES – or Famicom as it was known in its native Japan – is one of the most important pieces of video game hardware ever made. Not only did it turn Nintendo from an outsider player to industry leader, it laid down the foundations of an industry which...
Feature 10 Nintendo Games We'd Love To See Finally Come To The West
Nintendo games that never officially left Japan
These days there are very few first-party or Nintendo-published titles that don't get an international release, but back in the day it was common for games to remain in their Japanese homeland for months or even years, if they ever came overseas at all. No, we're not just talking about the countless...
"We used to be the only band with a computer on stage"
Almost anyone can hum the original NES theme of Super Mario Bros., but if you asked them what genre of music it fell into, most probably wouldn't know what to say. Sure, one could just describe it as video game music, but it could also be described as chiptune. The word chiptune is used to...
Feature Star Trek On Nintendo Consoles - Where Are The Great Star Trek Games?
Live long, and prosper
Whether you're a final frontier fan or not, you've probably noticed the onslaught of advertising for the latest entry in CBS' ever-growing catalogue of Star Trek series. The impending return of Jean-Luc Picard to television screens this week is a massive media event and seeing the iconic captain once again going boldly in the...
Feature 17-BIT's Jake Kazdal On The Journey From Nintendo Game Counsellor To Making Games In Japan
"I’m a lifelong hardcore Nintendo fan"
You could say that Jake Kazdal stands out as he walks the streets of Kyoto on the way to the office of his company, 17-BIT. Thanks to his towering presence and a look that wouldn't be out of place in a metal band, he's not what you would call your "typical" Kyoto-based games developer – but then this is an...
Feature No Anime Please, We're Westerners - When Anime Was Taboo In Western Games
A time when anime and western games didn't mix
Japanese animation – or 'anime' as many call it – is huge business these days. While it is naturally most popular in its homeland, we've seen numerous anime properties cross over to the west and find the kind of success that is usually reserved for home-grown cartoons and media franchises. Series...
Feature Feral Interactive On The Pleasures And Pitfalls Of Porting To Switch
"Setting the bar high is good for everyone, players, platform holders and developers"
Against all the odds, Nintendo Switch has hosted some stunning third-party ports since launching back in 2017. Disproving the idea that third-parties and Nintendo platforms don't mix well, Switch has attracted some truly excellent (and unexpected) games that manage...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 19th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
The fantastic Horace is discounted to just over £1 on the eShop at the moment! It's been a busy old week in the world of Nintendo, with a brand new Smash fighter, more retro NES
Soapbox Animal Crossing: New Horizons Is Easily My Most Nerve-Racking Game Of 2020
Cute and calming, but there's a catch
If you're a fan of nerve-shredding tension, there are plenty of video games that'll get your pulse racing. Love a steep challenge? Why not test your reflexes against a rock hard shmup or grind through an intimidatingly expansive RPG? Want to give your grey matter a workout? There's no shortage of mind-bending...
Hands On We Test Our Cheeks On The Herman Miller X Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair
If it's good enough for Reggie...
Back when the all-powerful Reggie Fils-Aimé announced his retirement from Nintendo in 2019, he shared a photo online through his brand spanking new Twitter account, and some eagle-eyed office chair aficionados noticed that Reggie had been sitting his readied body in an outdated 12-year-old office chair – a Herman...
Round Up Cats And Betrayal Were Big Themes In Nintendo's Indie World Showcase
A-meow-ng Us. Yeah? No?
Fluffy cats!! All your friends are aliens and they want to kill you. Adorable creatures!! Existential horror. Did that Indie-themed direct leave you with emotional whiplash? Yeah, us too. On the one hand, a whole host of cuteness is coming to the Switch: Calico has you running a cat café (we hope cats tip big) and...
Feature Dynasty Warriors: A Series That's Remarkably Adept At Producing Spin-Offs
Omega Force's crossovers which led to Persona 5 Strikers and Age of Calamity
When you consider how few main Dynasty Warriors / Musou entries have come to Nintendo platforms, it’s almost strange how much influence Koei Tecmo’s hack-and-slash series has upon the Switch library. Developed by Omega Force, their main Nintendo output has mostly been...
Feature Why Open A Video Game Shop During A Global Pandemic?
How one man is bucking the trend
2020 may have been a bumper year for video game sales, but it's impacted other businesses in a very negative way. Cinemas and restaurants have been forced to close to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and while video game sales have been buoyant thanks digital and online purchases, physical retail stores with no means...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 12th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
With another week down, this time bringing with it the news of a brand new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter and (finally) the launch of DOOM Eternal, we can start to wind down and discuss our weekend gaming plans. Members of Nintendo Life have done just that, and we'd love for you to join in via our comment...
Feature What Does Nintendo Have Planned For Zelda’s 35th Anniversary?
Our predictions for 2021's biggest gaming birthday
The 35th anniversary year of Super Mario Bros. will soon draw to a close and although Nintendo has extended the celebrations to 31st March 2021 (a day which Mario himself will do well to survive, it seems), 2021 marks the 35th birthday of the next-most celebrated series in the Kyoto company's...
Feature No Pain, Just Game - Healthy Gaming Tips To Help Avoid Common Issues
Stay at the top of your game
Whatever your age and whatever the context, taking decent care of yourself and recognising potential health issues before they become serious problems is always good advice. Anybody who plays video games will likely have experienced related physical discomfort of one form or another, be it a cricked neck from hunching...
Community 12 Switch Games We Missed, As Recommended By You
Part 2: A dozen more that slipped through our fingers
The Switch eShop is stuffed to the brim with downloadable video games that run the gamut when it comes to quality. In an ideal world we'd review absolutely everything, but that's simply not possible. Therefore, we endeavour to pick and choose games that look interesting and that we think will...
Talking Point Nintendo's Focus On Younger Players Is A Positive, Not A Negative
It means more fun for everyone in the end
Remember the days of the NES, Game Boy and SNES? Back then, video games seemed to be the sole domain of children. Every commercial showed a kid playing the console, games were marketed in comics and other children's publications, and a vast array of licenced titles were released which covered everything from...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects - November 2020
November's best Switch eShop games!
It hasn't been the strongest of months for top digital releases, but November still offered up a decent number of eShop treats to keep us busy and entertained. 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...
Feature 10 Years Later, We Return To Our Abandoned Animal Crossing: Wild World Village
Never go back?
For much of this year, Nintendo's latest entry in the Animal Crossing series has been a safe space for many Switch owners who have started a new life on Tom Nook's deserted island. Today marks 15 years exactly since the brilliant DS entry first arrived in North America, so it's the perfect time to revisit this feature — originally...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 5th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
Another week has come and gone, with festive toys appearing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the announcement (finally!) of a release date for
Community Found A Great Game On Switch eShop? Send Us Your Recommendations
Let us know the hidden gems we've missed
As we roll into the final month of the year, it's natural to be looking back over the Switch games that have come and gone and wondering if you've missed anything. Many of us here at Nintendo Life are trying to catch up with things that slipped our personal nets and, as we've noted before, there are...
Soapbox If The Smash Community Wants To #SaveSmash, It Needs To Start From Within
The community needs to deal with the abuse scandals of 2020 first
Soapbox features enable our individual writers to voice their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that may not necessarily be the voice of the site. In this piece, Alan Lopez discusses the recent online campaign to "save" Super Smash Bros., and why it's papering over a far more...
Feature Atelier Ryza 2 Producer On Exploration, Censorship, And The Potential For Seeing More Ryza
"There is definitely a possibility of Ryza starring in another sequel"
Koei Tecmo and Gust Co.'s Atelier RPG series has been going for for well over twenty years now — debuting back on Playstation with Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg back in 1997 — and Switch has several entries in its library already. Each game in the series usually has...
Feature DOOM Eternal Finally Gets A Switch Release Date - We Speak To Port Wizards Panic Button
"We had to take it to eleven"
It's taken a little longer than originally anticipated, but after battling through this calamitous year to get to Nintendo's console, Doom Eternal is finally coming to Switch on 8th December. Following its release on other consoles back in March (on the same day as Animal Crossing: New Horizons,
Guide Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday 2020 Best Deals - Console Bundles, Games, Micro SD Cards And More
Grab yourself a bargain
Cyber Monday 2020 is here, and if you're anything like us you're keeping an eye out for Nintendo Switch best deals this Monday 30th November. Jostling for deals in crowded stores isn't something we'd recommend at the best of times, but this year the Black Friday 2020 weekend is more of an online extravaganza than ever before...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 28th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
Another long week has now been and gone, with huge Nintendo eShop sales across Europe and North America, an internet-melting Pokémon character voice reveal, and
Feature Ace Attorney's Hidden Legacy: The Evidence Capcom Didn't Present To The West
Despite long-standing objections, it seems the Great Ace Attorney is finally being localised
To say Capcom is having a rough time recently would be putting it mildly. Having been subjected to a "customised ransomware attack", we’ve witnessed no end of leaks about upcoming plans for the next few years, but amongst this all,
Soapbox 10 Years On, We Need More Brave, Worthwhile Experiments Like Epic Mickey
The Brave Little 'Failure'
In some ways, the Wii era feels further away than it actually is. The modern gaming landscape, though certainly influenced by Nintendo's approachable little console, seems so laser focused on pixel counts, framerates and raytracing that Wii feels incredibly old-school in 2020. The idea that just ten years ago we were still...
"I’d love to bring back F-Zero, SSX or Ridge Racer"
Nintendo Switch may have been slow off the starting line when it came to racers, 'realistic' or otherwise, but in the years since launch it's slowly but surely built up a fine catalogue of racing games in addition to everyone's favourite kart racing plumber. Criterion's evergreen Burnout Paradise...
Feature GBA Mod Company Creates The Game Gear Sega Should Have Released In 2020
Showing them how it's done
The Game Gear Micro was a neat little product and all, but it wasn't exactly practical – it's absolutely tiny, so playing it for longer than five minutes is an exercise in pain, and the fact that Sega only included a handful of games on each unit means you have to buy five different consoles to get the whole collection...
Hardware Classics Super Famicom
Still super after all these years
To many, it's the greatest video game console ever made. The Super Famicom — or Super Nintendo Entertainment System as it is more commonly known outside of its native Japan — is host to some of the finest pieces of interactive entertainment ever made. It was on this console that Nintendo refined so many of the...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 21st)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
With new updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Mario 3D All-Stars, as well as the revelation that you can feed squirrels in Zelda: Breath of the Wild – we know
Hands On Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise - More Of The Same, And That Might Be Fine
Will the sequel hook you?
The first Fitness Boxing launched two years ago, when Nintendo and developer Imagineer presumably decided it was their duty to eradicate obesity around the world. Last time we checked, though, a load of us are still packing plenty in the podge department, so now the pair are back with a sequel to make sure they get the...
Soapbox Here's How I'd Fix The Pokémon Series
Alex decides to pika-part the mainline games
Soapbox features enable our individual writers to voice their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that may not necessarily be the voice of the site. In this piece, senior video editor Alex Olney explains how he would "fix" the Pokémon series... Pokémon is a series that has always been extremely dear...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 14th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
It's been a pretty hectic week for the industry this week with the new console launches, and while Nintendo's been a little quieter, we've still had the launch of the special Game & Watch system, a Smash Ultimate update and details of
Feature How A Donkey Kong Clone Almost Scuppered Nintendo's Ambitions In The West
This Kong be CRAZY
The following feature is an excerpt from Ken Horowitz's excellent Beyond Donkey Kong: A History of Nintendo Arcade Games and has been reproduced here with the kind permission of both Horowitz and the publisher. 1981's arcade smash-hit Donkey Kong created a surge in revenue that lifted Nintendo’s prospects for its North...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 7th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
It's been another busy week with plenty of new data from Nintendo revealing that the Switch has now outsold the NES, that Super Mario 3D All-Stars sold over 5 million copies in just 12 days, and even an updated list of
Talking Point What's Your Comfort Food Game?
When you find yourself in times of trouble
What with one thing and another, it's fair to say that 2020's been a challenging year, and many of us have been retreating into digital spaces for comfort and escape in our off-hours. Whether you find comfort in an old familiar favourite, or prefer to lose yourself in something unknown, the ability to...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects - October 2020
October's best Switch eShop games!
Another month has flown by with another bunch of quality games launching on Switch eShop in October, including an eccentric little game which managed to earn a coveted 10/10 score from this very website. These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's digital store, giving some love and attention to the games...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 31st)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
Another eventful week down in the year 2020AD, and Nintendo dropped a surprise Direct Mini on us all, with games cropping up unexpectedly on eShop, including cloud versions coming the the West, and a prominent prognosticator p
Interview "There Would Be No Control On Switch Without The Cloud," Says Remedy
We speak to the team behind the game
It's fair to say that few Nintendo Switch fans expected to see Control hitting their consoles in 2020, even if the version they've gotten leverages the power of the cloud rather than the Switch's built-in processing grunt. Remedy's award-winning action title is a welcome addition to the Switch library...
Talking Point Cloud Gaming On Switch – The Pros And Cons Of The Cloud
Cloudy with a chance of frame drops
In the years since Switch first launched, we've seen some remarkable ports of games we really didn't expect to see running on the handheld's mobile chipset, let alone running well. Getting cutting-edge cross-platform games on Switch requires hard work and real skill, and with exceptional examples like Witcher 3,...
Feature Evercade's Latest Cart Is Offering A Vital Connection To Nintendo History
You're making me Dizzy, my head is spinning
We've covered the Evercade console a few times on this site, mainly because we love the idea of a brand-new handheld system which uses old-school cartridges. This pocket-friendly device doesn't have the backing of a Nintendo or Sony-sized company behind it, yet the team involved have managed to not only...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 24th)
Here are our picks, but what are yours?
Here we are at the end of another week, which this time brought us a seriously hot take on Nintendo's business practices, a Super Mario Bros. 35 bombshell, and the announcement of an iconic
Feature We've Had Tetris 99 And Mario 35... So, What's The Next Nintendo Battle Royale?
99 Links drop onto an Eventide Island...
The recent arrival of Super Mario Bros. 35 as the second Battle Royale-inspired online multiplayer experience to come following the excellent Tetris 99 poses the question of what other classic Nintendo franchises could be given similar treatment. As enticements to sign up for the Nintendo Switch Online...
Hands On Immortals: Fenyx Rising Could Be The Switch Adventure You Need This Holiday
A Greek Mythological take on the Breath of the Wild formula
Last year at E3, the world was given the first look at a brand new, animated adventure from Ubisoft named Gods & Monsters, and after a year's worth of radio silence, we were finally treated to our first look at gameplay, along with a new take-it-or-leave it name, Immortals: Fenyx...
Poll What Was The Best Switch Launch Game (That Wasn't Zelda: Breath Of The Wild)?
No Link option
As great as the Wii U was (and there's a good reason why the majority of its library has reappeared on its successor), it was never a 'cool' console. Nintendo's mixed messaging and marketing did little to endear it to anybody who wasn't a total devotee to all things Mario — something the company remedied with its next hardware...