Monster Hunter Rise

We're at the end of yet another week – this time bringing with it another mass DMCA takedown from Nintendo, and then ironically a case where Nintendo appears to have used a piece of fan-made art on its own website – so it's finally time to take a bit of a breather and think about the games we'll be enjoying over the weekend.

Members of the Nintendo Life team have discussed their weekend gaming plans below, and we'd love for you to join in with your own entries via our comment section. Enjoy!

PJ O’Reilly, reviewer

Hello. This weekend I’m going to be continuing to ignore the absolutely terrifying state of actual reality in 2021 by jumping into the Monster Hunter Rise demo - alongside probably pretty much anyone else who owns a Switch – as well as a bunch of stuff I’ve picked up in the ongoing eShop sales. I’ve got myself The Innsmouth Case to scratch that H.P. Lovecraft itch, finally picked up Mortal Kombat 11 and even double-dipped on Immortals Fenyx Rising, a game I’ve completed on Series X and am properly excited to get stuck into all over again in portable mode here. I hope you’re all having a good new year so far and have a great weekend whatever you’re playing!

Jon Cartwright, video producer

I've had a complicated history with Monster Hunter, – I've always wanted to love the series and I've dabbled in essentially every mainline entry but I just haven't had that moment where everything clicks. Monster Hunter Rise has dogs though, so maybe that will do it. I want to give Rise my full undivided energy, maybe this will finally be the one that retroactively makes me love all the prior games too. Everything looks really promising so we'll see if the demo alone can do it.

If that fails, I'm itching to replay Chrono Trigger! The DS box has been staring at me from my shelf begging to be played. It is a new year after all, and every year should have Chrono Trigger.

Gavin Lane, features editor

I’ve wanted the Super Nintendo variant of the New 3DS XL for years now, and I finally decided to take the plunge with a present from the Three Kings this week. It’s a beautiful piece of kit and despite the smaller faceplate-equipped model remaining the ‘best’ 3DS overall (for the average person, all factors considered), my tired eyes and aching joints welcome the XL dimensions. Will I actually play anything on it this weekend? Almost certainly not – gotta wait for the screen protectors to arrive! – but before long I’ll be enlisting my little Pikmin dudes to transfer all my games and data for a… *counts* fourth time.

Games-wise, despite having more games than I know what to do with on my Switch, I’ve been dipping back into Breath of the Wild over the past week or so. I’ve got 140-ish Koroks left to find and my completion rate is sitting at 88.27% or something like that. If I can find even one every half hour or so, I’m more than satisfied.

Boring and predictable? I think we could all do with a little ‘boring and predictable’ in our lives right now.

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

I got ridiculously addicted to Bloody Roar: Primal Fury on GameCube for some reason so I assure you there will be plenty of that this weekend. Made my way to the siege of Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age and should clear the game soon. More worrying signs of my insanity: I’ve bought a new GameCube game, something I haven't done for nearly a decade! Time to hunt Death in Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death. Call Resyk, this is gonna get messy citizens!

My game of the week is Shadow Gangs. Was not expecting the game to jump so fast to the Switch considering it was released only last year on Steam, but I very much welcome this cheesy, hardcore take on Shinobi. Highly recommended for everyone who has exhausted SEGA AGES Shinobi and is looking for further ninja related challenges.

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave us a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days...