Tag: Previews - Page 3
Feature Oxenfree II: Lost Signals Looks Like Oxenfree, But Better
Walking, talking, and walkie-talkie-ing
The haunting, narratively experimental Oxenfree came out back in 2016 to rapturous reviews, combining a coming-of-age story with some seriously unnerving supernatural goings-on involving radios, triangles, and something waiting beyond a rift in space and time. Oxenfree’s unique tone, aesthetic, and setting,...
Video We've Actually Played Metroid Dread, Does It Meet Our Expectations?
[The same 'dread' pun everyone else has made]
That's right, we've finally managed to get our mitts on Metroid Dread (temporarily); Nintendo UK were kind enough to invite us down for a good old fashioned preview in their showroom so we could have a go on it using one of those swanky new Switch OLED Model consoles to boot. Our expectations were high,...
Hands On We Created A GameCube Pad In Minecraft-Style Farm Sim 'Staxel'
We tried, okay?
Gather round, folks, for a tale of love, loss, and failure: For never was a story of more woe, than this of Kate and her, er, GameCube controller. Let's back up a little. 'Twas a Friday night after a long and tiring week, and my partner and I sat down for a game of Staxel, which is a sort of Minecraft-Animal Crossing-Harvest Moon...
Hands On PowerA's Spectra Controller For Switch Is A Light Show With A Catch
LEDs on a lead
We're not sure if you noticed, but there are LEDs on everything these days. If you've dabbled in the realm of PC gaming you'll no doubt have noticed the proliferation of colourful lights on keyboards and mice, and that trend is carrying over to console accessories, too – including joypads which light up like the 4th of July during...
Hands On One Man's Vision Shaped The GBA-Style GameForce CHI
...but is it any good?
If you're familiar with the raft of emulation-focused handhelds that have been emerging from China over the past few years, then the work of Anbernic and Bitt Boy will no doubt be on your radar already. While these are clearly small-fry when compared to the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, they're still firms with a fair...
Feature Zooming Through Sonic Colors: Ultimate And Getting The Switch Lowdown
Sonic customisation, the new Wisp and that Switch framerate
SEGA has had various events and tie-ins to celebrate 30 years of Sonic the Hedgehog, but the big event from a gaming perspective is the upcoming Sonic Colors: Ultimate, which will see the previous Wii-exclusive come to various platforms including, of course, the Nintendo Switch. We were...
Hands On Streets Of Rage 4's Mr. X Nightmare DLC Is A Dreamy Add-On
Packs a punch
Streets of Rage 4 was a big hit in 2020, tempting in newcomers with its stylish visuals and weighty combat, and delighting series veterans of a certain age that had been waiting many years for an official sequel. It's a game with plenty of replayability, too, with a good number of unlockable characters and a generally moreish campaign...
Hands On It's Time To Judge The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Law blimey
It's been six years since the release of The Great Ace Attorney — known as Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Naruhodō Ryūnosuke no Bōken in Japan — and in that time, although a fan translation was made, the game was never released in the West. Many people speculated as to the reason: it's hard to localise, it relies on the player having basic...
First Impressions Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin Is An RPG Of Monstrous Potential
Yian-Kut-Kool
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin in out in just a few short weeks, but ahead of that launch we were able to get our hands on it and were granted the luxury of giving you all a bit of a whack from the ol’ impressions stick. The first game came out on the 3DS in the West after the Switch had launched and didn’t perhaps get the...
Hands On LEGO Builder's Journey Is A Tiny, Beautiful Experiment About The Joy In Play
Creative block
LEGO Builder's Journey might fly under the radar on Switch, despite bearing the name of the mega-popular brick manufacturer, purely because it's quite different to their normal fare — but we really hope it doesn't. For the past couple of decades or so, the LEGO games have been dominated by other massive franchises — Star Wars,...
Hands On NEO The World Ends With You Has Us Caught In A Twister
A true evolution of touch controls
If you were a Kingdom Hearts kid back in 2008, you probably played or at least had ambitions to try out The World Ends With You on DS. Between its sharp, stylized visuals, pull no punches attitude, a bopping soundtrack, and the way it utilized touch and button controls, there's plenty of reason it sits very high on...
First Impressions 10 Things We Learned About Game Builder Garage
We'll be in the garage if you need us
For the most part, all of the big-name console developers have tried their hand at giving the everyday Joe a fun and approachable way to make their own games. Sony and Media Molecule released Dreams last year, Microsoft dropped Project Spark back in 2014, Nintendo released a couple of games that gave us the keys...
Hands On Book4Games "Precision Game Storage" - Fancy Warehousing For Your Loose SNES Carts
We go hands-on with the fanciest alternative to a shoebox yet
Many years ago, some wise penny-pincher at Nintendo decided that shipping games in flimsy cardboard boxes was a sound business decision, and as a result, NES, Game Boy, SNES and even N64 owners had to endure packaging that was annoyingly delicate when compared to that seen on rival...
Hands On From Xbox Series X To Nintendo Switch, The Falconeer: Warrior Edition Soars
An impressive port of a fascinating game
The Nintendo Switch has a broad library of multi-platform games, but publisher Wired Productions has confirmed one of the more intriguing download titles to transition to the hybrid system. Yes, it was beaten to the punch by an early eShop game page, but The Falconeer: Warrior Edition is announced and...
Hands On Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne Still Has The Power To Shake You Up
Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series
Ahead of the game's launch on 25th May, we recently had the chance to sit down with a pre-release version of Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster. Here follows our hands-on impressions from intrepid Nintendo Life (p)reviewer, Mitch Vogel... Before we get into impressions, let’s set the scene...
Hands On The EverDrive GBA X5 Mini Solves The Only Real Issue We Had With The Original
Small but still mighty
When we tested the original EverDrive GBA X5 flash cart back in 2016, we had plenty of good things to say about it, but the fact that it was bigger than your typical GBA cartridge was ever-so-slightly irksome. It meant that the cart protruded from the GBA's cartridge slot – a "first world problem" without a doubt, but one...
First Impressions 13 Things We Learned in New Pokémon Snap
A Pokémon game with voice acting!
Nintendo were kind enough to invite to an extensive viewing of the long anticipated sequel to Pokémon Snap. We got to see multiple playthroughs of the Beach level during different times of day and even caught a glimpse of the games tutorial which revealed even more details, many of which have yet to be publicly...
Preview Story of Seasons: Pioneers Of Olive Town Is Not Quite As Pioneering As We'd Hoped
Can the series keep up with Stardew Valley?
How does Story of Seasons continue to innovate when Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing have done so much to develop the 25-year-old formula? Well, with Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, the answer is twofold: one - borrow the ideas of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, and two - change things for...
Preview Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection Is Going To Hurt You, A Lot
Hell and high water
Blood is red, spirits are blue, here come Ghosts ’n Goblins, to murder you. If you’re a gamer of the old-school persuasion or just a masochist who enjoys agony, you will be undoubtedly titillated by the torture that Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection promises to deliver later this month. The first new console game in...
Hands On We've Played Bravely Default II On Switch, And Here's What We Think So Far
Classic gameplay meets classic grind
The original Bravely Default launched during a time where it felt like everyone had moved on past the tried and true turn-based RPG. Even the king of the formula, Square-Enix, seemed like it had given up on the genre as it had been (unfortunately) pouring its everything into the action RPG, Final Fantasy XIII,...
Hands On We've Played Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, And Here's What We Think So Far
Cat's entertainment?
When it started to become clear that Nintendo was porting many of its Wii U games to the Switch, a lot of fans naturally hoped that Super Mario 3D World would be one of the games making the jump. It's hard to believe it’s taken nearly four years, but we're finally just a matter of weeks away before this much-requested Mario...
All aboard with the chart-topping hit
This digital board game's only been out a few months, and yet in that short period of time, Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban! has utterly dominated the Japanese charts and sold over 2 million copies (digital and physical sales combined). It topped the Japanese multi-format charts when it...
Preview Monster Hunter Rise Feels Like A Glorious Homecoming For The Series, Not A Side-Story
Our impressions of the new demo
Monster Hunter has gone mainstream. With 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, Capcom finally managed to get the storied franchise to break through to become a smash-hit internationally, selling over 21 million cumulative sales (including Iceborne) as of the time of writing. But, the series has traditionally been positioned...
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...
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...
Hands On Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Makes You Wish You Didn't Know How It Ends
Breath of the Wild prequel makes a strong first impression
Silence, they say, is golden, and while Hyrule's own golden boy hasn't had much to say for many years now — beyond the odd 'hyaaa!' or 'eurghhh!' — the motormouth cast of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity highlight Link's stoic silence all the more. These characters spoke a lot in Breath...
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...
First Impressions Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition On Switch
Our thoughts on a hands-off demo with developer Frontier
It's rare that a game launches these days without a dreary, ill-defined subtitle hanging off the end, and that's doubly true of Switch ports. 'Definitive', 'Enhanced' and 'Special' Editions are ten-a-penny, and it generally takes some digging to find exactly what makes them so. Frontier's...
Hands On Pikmin 3 Deluxe - This Wii U Classic Is Shaping Up Well On Switch
I'll send Olimar loving to you
As the Switch continues to receive ports of Wii U games, the number of true exclusives on Nintendo's previous console is starting to dwindle. Pikmin 3 is the latest game to be given the Switch treatment, and while the majority of its improvements are minor, so far it looks like they're all positive ones. For those not...
First Impressions Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
Don't get RC about it, you might like it
You probably don't need us to tell you that Mario Kart is one of Nintendo's crown jewels; the series has sold a staggering 150 million copies to date, with 35 million of those attributable to the most recent mainline instalment, Mario Kart 8 – which, in a rather unique twist, is currently the best-selling...
Hands On Is Genshin Impact The Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Clone Fans Thought It Was?
It's out now, so we had a look
There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding a game called Genshin Impact ever since it was revealed back in June 2019, and not because it looks fantastically original; quite to opposite in fact. It didn’t take long for fans to see similarities between Genshin Impact and the latest mainline entry in the popular Zelda...
Hands On Blue Fire's Platforming And Zelda-Style Dungeon Combat Shows Promise
Blue Fire walk with me
Over the past few months we've seen an influx of incredible games from smaller studios on Switch and Nintendo's platform feels like a perfect fit for them. We here at Nintendo Life highlighted a bunch of titles in our recent Nintendo Life Indie Spotlight, and the platform holder's Indie World Showcase broadcasts regularly...
Hands On Using Dream Glass 4K Is Like Strapping A 200-Inch TV To Your Face
And it works will any HDMI console
The notion of strapping a huge TV to your face might seem like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, but with £180,000 of crowdfunding raised so far, DreamGlass 4K isn't some ill-conceived fantasy – it's happening right now, and we've been lucky enough to get some hands-on time with a beta unit to see what all of...
Hands On Fuser Cues Up A Potent, Peripheral-Free Mix Of Harmonix's Music Game History
The crowd say "Bo selecta"
What exactly is Fuser? The upcoming title from Harmonix--the musical maestros behind Frequency, Amplitude, the original Guitar Hero titles and the Rock Band series--can be difficult to parse from screenshots alone. There's no mesmeric note-filled runway rolling towards you, and while the coloured decks along the bottom of...
Hands On Sci-Fi Horror FPS The Persistence Makes A Good, If Familiar, First Impression
Making the Switch from PSVR
You know how it is: you go to sleep on a creepy space-faring colony vessel which has a run in with a spacial anomaly and you wake up to find the halls of the ship stalked by a nightmarish enemy. Before you know it you're in a violent, existential fight for survival. That old chestnut. Actually, that does sound familiar...
Hands On First Impressions Of Sea Of Stars, The Next Project From The Messenger Dev Sabotage
Hands off, actually
There is certainly no shortage of retro-inspired titles across all platforms these days. In fact, it can sometimes feel like every other game is a pixel art 'homage' to a retro classic. Still, when those games are done well and do more than fondle your nostalgia zones, the results can be potent. Sabotage Studio's first game, The...
Hands On The Dongii Is A Switch Dock That Fits In Your Pocket, And We Love It
Update: Kickstarter campaign is live once more
Update #3 [Sun 15th Mar, 2020 15:00 GMT]: The Kickstarter is now live again, and we've had an official statement from Better Digi: Dear Dongii fans, First of all, thanks to all backers’ love right from the beginning. A few days ago we got a little problem with Nintendo copyright. Our company highly...
Hands On Dipping Into Island Life In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Book with the Nook
Animal Crossing games don’t come around all that often – at least not mainline games – so it’s hardly an understatement to say that hype surrounding Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a touch feverish recently. Well, we were lucky enough to get our hands on i
Hands On Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Could Give The Game The Second Chance It Deserves
The Kingdom Hearts of Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei
What started out originally as a strategy RPG crossover of the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei series ended up taking quite a dramatic twist early in development and ended up forging a more unique identity in the form of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, a Persona-style turn-based RPG that has it
Hands On Overland Is A Game Where You Don't Always Get To Save The Dog
"We broke most strategy game rules"
Overland has been in development for a long time now. Developer Finji – which began life back in 2006 when it was founded by Adam and Rebekah Saltsman – has been involved in several major releases over the years, including (deep breath) Canabalt, Gravity Hook, Hundreds, Feist, Panoramical, Runaway Toad and...
Hands On The Most Fun Game At PAX Was About Helping People Move Out
Making the move
Here are the most dreaded five words in the English language: “Can you help me move?” So hey, why not make a video game about it? Australian developer SMG is doing just that with its upcoming Switch game, titled Moving Out. It takes the concept of helping people move and puts it on its head... and its side, and its face, and...
Hands On Trust Us, You Guys Are Really Going To Dig Shovel Knight Dig
It rocks, honestly
You know what Shovel Knight needs? More digging. At least that’s what developers Yacht Club Games and Nitrome (developer of Bomb Chicken) seem to have on their minds with their recent announcement of Shovel Knight Dig, a Shovel Knight spin-off game for the Nintendo Switch, promised to fans early next year. Unlike the spry...
Hands On Sayonara Wild Hearts Is Pop Perfection In Video Game Form
Say goodbye to your eShop credit when this launches
“Sayonara” is Japanese for “goodbye". Alright, you probably didn’t need help with that one. On the other hand, with Sayonara Wild Hearts, a new video game on the Nintendo Switch developed by Swedish developer Simogo, you’ll probably need some help, both to understand it and to master it...
Hands On We've Played Witcher 3 On Nintendo Switch, And It's A Work Of Magic
"It’s the same as you’ll find on other platforms, how it looks and feels"
Switch has the pick of extraordinary, open-world RPGs. With Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim from Bethesda, both story-led and user-guided experiences are gloriously catered for. While Switch gamers may have held out...
Hands On Enter The Gungeon's Physical Edition Is Sure To Brighten Up Your Gaming Shelves
Pew! Pew!
Devolver Digitial and Dodge Roll's twin-stick roguelike Enter The Gungeon launched on Switch all the way back at the end of 2017 and has finally received a physical release thanks to Nighthawk Interactive and Special Reserve Games. Beyond the case and game card (which includes the full game, all of its previously released DLC, and an...
Preview Astral Chain Mixes Bayonetta, Wonderful 101 And Metal Gear Rising, And You'll Love It
Trust us on this one
You’d think it’d be a little easier to relax when you’re lounging inside a hotel suite playing a video game, Platinum Games’ Astral Chain, to be exact. High above Comic-Con, Seagulls were flying face level to the glass panes of the room, while sailboats were lazily drifting off in the San Diego bay; yet all anyone could...
Video We've Been Playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses And Now We're Excited For More
Going hands-on with this mighty RPG
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is just around the corner and being the lucky so-and-sos that we are, we've been playing through the game's opening stages to bring you our initial impressions. Well, when we say 'we', we actually mean our lovely video producer, Zion, who has shared his thoughts in the video above. We'd...
Hands On This $50 Handheld Plays Pretty Much Every Game From Your Misspent Youth
The BittBoy Pocket Go really is something
We've covered previously BittBoy handhelds on the site before, so you guys should know the drill by now. These are super-cheap emulation-focused portables that feature off-the-shelf SoC tech and cost peanuts, and the latest addition – the BittBoy Pocket Go – is no different. Where this new version...
Preview Astral Chain Is The 2019 Switch Game Everyone Should Be Talking About
Off the chain
When Astral Chain was announced earlier this year, it was easy to forgive some mild scepticism from Nintendo fans. Wait, another anime-styled action title from PlatinumGames, and one that's less than a year from release? While the studio has built up an incredibly solid reputation with titles like Bayonetta, The
Preview Things We've Learned Playing Super Mario Maker 2
Five tidbits from our time with the game so far
Super Mario Maker 2 is a game we've hardly been quiet about, except maybe during that whole 'E3' thing. Well, now we can say with confidence that we actually have the game in our collective hands, and we've been digging right ruddy deep into it and learning as much as we can. In short (and before the...
