Tag: Opinion - Page 3
Opinion The Hyped-Up New Pokémon TCG Set Is A Total Bummer To Open
Pokéntial earnings
It must have been tough for chocolate lovers to get any chocolate when Willy Wonka was hiding golden tickets inside the wrappers. Joking aside, that's more or less been the vibe from Prismatic Evolutions, the just-released, mega-hyped Pokémon card set that’s memorable for its heavy representation of the fan-favourite Pokémon...
Opinion Nightdive Studios Had Its Best, Most Prolific Year Yet In 2024
And it can only get better
For the younger readers amongst you, I suspect that many 3D games from the ‘90s and ‘00s seem rather quaint at best and downright unplayable at worst. It was a period in which the medium was geting to grips with a completely new third dimension; couple this with the limited graphical capabilities of the PlayStation and...
Opinion It's Not My GOTY, But This Nintendo Game Was A Standout 2024 Memory
How Nintendo World Championships helped me ‘git gud’
I’ll admit, I’ve never been fond of speedrunning. The thought of shaving milliseconds off a time in a video game while playing the same sequence over and over sounds, in theory, more frustrating than fun. Sure, as a spectator, there is definitely joy in appreciating the wizardry of players...
Opinion The Biggest Question Of The Generation: Er, Why Isn’t Nintendogs On Switch?
All bark and no mic
If there were a trophy for missing open goals, Nintendo would have a fair few in the cabinet. For example, why didn't we get a new Donkey Kong game back when the Super Mario Bros. movie launched last year? Why wasn't the Wii U called 'Wii 2'? And why, for the love of god, is there no Nintendogs game on Switch? There was a part...
Opinion At Last, Vanillaware Hit The Big Time With Unicorn Overlord
"A unicorn is worth more than riches"
In 2009, in the run-up to Christmas, I remember poring over a recent issue of Official Nintendo Magazine looking for games I might want for the holiday season. Flicking through the pages and taking in every single word, one review in particular jumped out at me. The art style was something I’d never seen in a...
Opinion Nintendo Needs To Let Us Block The Crap On Switch 2's eShop
Block and move on
It's been years now since Nintendo opened the eShop floodgates and started letting everything in. In stark contrast to the Wii U days when even established developers had trouble getting their games on Nintendo platforms, the weekly update is now filled with games that would have been unthinkable just one console generation ago...
Opinion Raise A Glass To The Nintendo DS' Peculiar Peripherals
Let there be cartridge
I've been noodling with my old DS in the last week. Whether it was to celebrate its 20th anniversary, reaffirm it as my favourite system of all time, or simply help me forget that it has been two decades since I first played Nintendogs, I can't be sure. But what I do know, is that I've been having a blast. Naturally, I went...
Opinion Chrono Trigger Isn't The Only Great Time-Travel RPG On DS
Chronologically perfect
No less than an hour into Radiant Historia, Stocke – a special agent in Astiel’s Special Intelligence Unit and the game’s main protagonist – is on the brink of death. His mission to rescue a spy who has infiltrated the Granorg army has failed, and his subordinates Raynie and Marco have been killed. But it’s not...
Opinion No, Zelda: The Minish Cap's Worst Sidequest Isn't The Kinstones
Go figure
I've banged the Minish Cap drum so many times by this point that my adoration for Link's littlest adventure is old news. With today marking 20 years since this GBA gem landed in Europe, it felt too easy to sit down at my desk and gush over the tight six-dungeon structure, the brilliant puzzle design or the somehow still under-discussed...
Opinion Hyrule Really Needs To Take A Look At Its Prison System
In the c(Link)
My first hour in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom left me with a single, unshakeable thought: God, Hyrule's prisons are terrible. Yes, I was besotted with how traditional the whole thing felt and still somewhat in shock that I had a brand new Zelda game in my hands a mere 18 months after its predecessor. But all that went out of...
Opinion I Didn't Realise How Much I'd Missed 'Traditional' Zelda Dungeons
(Boss) Key to my heart
Last year, hot off the back of Tears of the Kingdom, I wrote a piece expressing my love for Zelda's 'Modern' dungeons. These puzzle-centric areas had been a little hit or miss, sure, but I found that there was a lot to like in each once I got past the general terminal-activation-ness of it all. I thought I was over Zelda's...
Round Table Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'
Lament of the Pal gamer
Less than a week out from its launch in Early Access on Steam and Xbox, Palworld has proved itself to be a massive commercial success for developer Pocketpair and has dominated gaming discourse online since the weekend. Switch gamers can't access it on Nintendo's console, of course, but with its aesthetic parallels to...
Opinion What Did You Think Of Today's Nintendo Direct?
So many announcements!
Following last week's Nintendo Direct delay due to the earthquake in Hokkaido, the presentation - hosted by Shinya Takahashi - has now been and gone. The broadcast didn't waste any time, immediately revealing Luigi's Mansion 3 would be coming to the Switch in 2019. A brief segment focused on the 3DS was next in line,...
