Hmmmmm

A bug fix for an 8 year old game, for a mode that is liiterally dead (sadly)?

Interesting...

Welp, everyone who said it was Pikmin related, y’all were spot on. Still no better idea what it actually is though…

9pm start time seems really late? Usually the fests start at 8pm.

Also that’s a typo in the article: the North American times should all be moved back (decreased in value) by an hour (one number).

Would the Covert Dock 3 work well enough to be a second dock for the TV downstairs, so that I wouldn’t have to spend quite so much on the official dock set?

@Markiemania95 WHAT oh my goodness (actually I don't know why I'm surprised, that'd be my age, and I'm 26, lol). I'm so old actually 😭

I would imagine that a lot of the development staff at Nintendo these days are young enough to have grown up with classics like arcade Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, so it’s understandable that there’d be little references, callbacks, and easter eggs throughout the next few generations of games.

And with Nintendo Music having the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack, you can read the story just like Rosalina did in the game.

If nothing else, it's a great outlet for some tears. 🥲

@Croctopus I wouldn't expect anything past the seasonal fests earlier this year tbh. The game seems to be in a really good spot, and I think Nintendo might want to leave it that way.

That being said, Nintendo did announce a new North American League event for late this year, that sounds very similar to Leagues Under The Ink, except for the addition of another format at the beginning (Personally I with they'd used swiss, but I'm biased.), so I could be completely wrong.

I'm glad you've been enjoying DK Bananza! I take it you really haven't been playing Splatoon recently then?

A slightly more focused splash, along with rain and vac buffs, are where my interest mostly lies. Douuser and recycle buffs probably don’t amount to much, and it’ll be really interesting to see how the .52 changes will pan out.

@Croctopus dev-n, did you change your username? 😅 I tried playing s3 again last night, for the first time since I left competitive. It went alright, I think!

@Sambuc thank you for calling it the "cross button". Your accuracy warms my heart, lol.

@OctolingKing13 in the same position, but for the downstairs TV. $125 is just too expensive, especially for something that’s only available through the Nintendo online store.

This interested me during the Indie World, and once I saw it was only $10, I bought it right away. It’s so cute, and it’s great for pickup and play. Some of the puzzles really make me think, and I like that gameplay flow a lot! If I had known it was on mobile and not just switch, I probably would’ve gotten it there and played it on my iPad.

@Suketoudara “Do they think by doing stuff like putting UFO 50 in the Sizzle reel they'll get people talking about it more because everyone will be commenting on their bizarre behaviour? Are they purposely trying to start micro dramas to keep Switch 2 being talked about?"

I hate to be the one to break to ya, but even if it's entirely unintentional, it's working very, very well on you and some others in the comments here.

This is the first I’m learning that they were ever owned by anyone…

@Krambo42 would trying the demo for Another Code give me a good feel for it and this game?

How does something like this (or Another Code) compare to Emio? Obviously the story is going to be different, but will I otherwise like these games?

@Shmoo I think the final nail in the coffin for me was when they started heavily pushing the whole "wiki guide" idea, and how some of the guides started to make zero sense after that.

@Duncanballs Unfortunately that seems to come with the territory of being a mainstream Nintendo news site. I know I personally stopped visiting IGN a long, long time ago (back in 2015, if I remember correctly).

@The_Pixel_King The base game of “Super Mario Party Jamboree” is fantastic, and it comes highly recommended. The “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition” is a lie, because the base game is literally indifferent from the Switch 1 version, other than GameShare support that’s more limited than DS Download Play on Mario Party DS. The “Jamboree TV” expansion is fine, actually quite fun, but it’s completely siloed off from the base game, to the point of being a completely separate menu, and having no interface between it and the base game.

@CaleBoi25 Hey Caley Boy! EDIT: I didn’t read your comment closely enough 😭 how do you feel about what the guy said????

Every time this man speaks, I just get a bad feeling. I can’t explain it, he just says everything in a way that is like an awful punch to the gut.

@TheSaneInsanity huh, interesting. I can't say I understand that one, lol.

Very interesting to hear the tracks referred to as “stages”. Does Japanese just have one word for all of these types of things? Since maps in Splatoon are also referred to as “stages”, and the same for levels in 2D/3D Mario. Or is it “stages” in regards to being like a play, a musical, or a production of some sort?

I believe, even more than in the past, that the time period between Iwata-san’s passing and introduction of the Switch was a period where the Nintendo we all knew and loved began to transform into the corporation we know today. Just as the new management was setting up for success, they were also ripping out the soul, the relatability, the humility out of the company. As an example, Iwata said that online would always be free, but as soon as he was no longer present, Nintendo began charging for online. Generally, it feels as though, the second half of the 2010s were a transition period, and since Reggie left in 2019, it’s somewhat soulless compared to a decade ago.

While I haven’t won by getting first place, I have gotten very close a handful of times. So far, I’ve gotten 2nd one time, been eliminated in 5th one or two times, gotten knocked out in 9th through 12th many times, and had a small handful of times where I never even made it past 21st.

So, it’s very fun. I’ve also had a surprisingly fun time with battle mode.

@Anachronism I got them to work using @CobaltFan's link, but now they're small. Oh well, thank you both!

Here are some highlights of my own photo mode adventures:

Edit: what am I doing wrong with posting? I inserted imgur links inside the tags, so it should just work, right?

Funny, I was just mentioning this to friends last night:

Dino Dino Jungle is one of my favorites, as it was in Mario Kart 7 (the new remix of the music is so good).

Other favorites so far of mine include: Great ? Block Ruins, Mario Bros. Circuit, Peach Stadium, Crown City, and Rainbow Road.

Out of all of the tracks, there are a few I straight up dislike: Dry Bones Burnout, Desert Hills, Boo Cinema, and anything with extensive use of water physics.

One thing I really, strongly dislike is the text size of most of the UI elements that are interacted with most, such as the in information stands. I understand that my vision is far from perfect, and so I’m not exactly the largest target demographic for video game design, but even compared to something like Mario Kart World or older games like Super Mario Odyssey, I’m sitting here, around 10-12 feet away from a 65 inch TV, and I’m struggling to see the text and detail, in a similar way to around 14 years ago, playing Skyward Sword on the Wii on a 32 inch CRT TV from 7 or 8 feet away (towards the end of the Wii’s life, games like Skyward Sword, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Donkey Kong Country Returns no longer included 4:3 display modes, and instead rendered a letterboxed 16:9 image). It’s just kind of frustrating and sad, especially since the accessibility options for text size don’t actually affect the games themselves.

This might be pessimistic of me, but I feel like the shift in Miamoto’s involvement kind of coincided with the last year or two of games landing in the 8/9 range instead of getting perfect 10s across the board? Not necessarily a drop in quality, but a drop in breadth and perfection at all costs?

Maybe I’m just online too much…

Will this also change the NSO apps to use the Nintendo Classics branding?

I got 11/13, only missing the questions about the name of the guide feature and the total number of galaxies in the game. I remember I got all but one but of the regular and green stars in my original playthrough as a kid, but the final challenge of the final galaxy was just a bit too much for me. Still one of my favorite Mario games of all time, much more so than the original game for me.

@JimNorman there was also a Nintendo Today article on how you can have up to 8 controllers on a single system yesterday. As far as I know that wasn’t available on the original Switch?

Splatoon, of course. Also 3D Mario. And I really hope Nintendo gives us another take couch co-op, similar to It Takes Two or Split Fiction.

@N00BiSH don't give them anymore ideas!!!!!

I was going to trade in my OLED model after receiving my Switch 2 from pre-order, just like I did when moving from my launch-day OG model to the OLED, but it turns out that I won’t be able to fit the foreseeable future, since the majority of the regional and local tournament operators (at least for the Splatoon side of things; Smash and Mario Kart might be different) have decided that it’s better to set a blanket rule on no Switch 2 consoles being used at LANs than to create the expectation that everyone must have a Switch 2 as soon as possible in order to continue competing.

So, at least for now, I’ll be handing down my OLED model to my mom, for Animal Crossing and whatever else she wants to play.

What does this dev expect to happen when he sends an unfinished product through the process? I’d be far more concerned if Nintendo has approved it in such a state, since that would set an ugly precedent for devs who would not provide a later patch.

Instead of blaming Nintendo’s process, the developer should finish making the initial release build, and then submit that through the process, with perhaps a small day-one update to fix any remaining inconsequential bugs.

(Now, it’s worth pointing out that Nintendo themselves basically did a similar thing to what this dev did with Splatoon 3 in its launch state. Both cases are inexcusable, imo, even though in the case of S3 the pandemic very clearly caused issues.)

It’s still a highly-unusual level of transparency from Nintendo, but this fills in the missing pieces of why it’s so complicated. Really interesting that the system is literally brand new, that’s kind of surprising considering the Switch 2 name.

@UltimateOtaku91 this has been my take ever since they announced virtual game cards last week, this just further proves my point.

Did anyone else completely forget the Nintendo Today app exists?

I had submitted for the raffle to attend this experience, but didn’t make it in. As it turns out, I’ll be in NYC next weekend, so maybe in between Splatoon sets I’ll have to see what it’s all about. Can’t wait for the launch lol!

@squidduforeal I meant in terms of not going through the process of learning charger aim in order to play pencil, which previously was the cooler weapon. Even Heavy Edit is a bit much for me. I would like to be a support flex, but maybe it's just not right for me.

@Dev-N @CaleBoi25 hello friends! I think zap is in my future again!

I had 796 hours in total.

My top 3 games were:
1. Splatoon 3 (639 hours)
2. TotK (49 hours)
3. Splatoon 2 (19 hours)

At the risk of sounding like Anti-Matter, here is my comment:

The Game Awards 2024: How and When to Watch? Don’t.

Question: Will you be watching the Game Awards? Answer: No.

( of course I feel like Anti-Matter would probably watch it if there were kids games in it. You do you man.)

@Chimichanga lol I scrolled all the way down here to comment just that! I think Halo-style multiplayer in Metroid Prime 4 would be so cool! It would probably even scratch that itch for Halo that I sometimes have!

I wonder how it compares to Sonic Superstars?

I never played the original Generations, and I’m not sure about this one quite yet.

The Wii Vitality Sensor returns!

On topic, I made a comment about this exact thing on The Verge’s review of Astro Bot, that I’ll copy and paste here:

“ I’m two hours in to the game, and I would say an apt description would be “Kirby and the Forgotten Land x Super Mario Odyssey x Super Mario Galaxy”. It’s joyful, playful, wonderful fun, and for anyone on the fence, play the built-in Astro’s Playroom, as Astro Bot takes the basic mechanics of that game, blends it with the ethos of the three games I mentioned above, and results in something memorable. The controls can be a bit finicky at times, and it’s not quite toe-to-toe with Mario Odyssey in terms of polish, but it’s the closest anyone’s ever gotten outside of Nintendo’s own games. Astro’s Playroom was my first and so far only PS5 platinum trophy, but it might not be for long…”

@Anti-Matter There’s no lines of text or voice acting to speak of? The cameos in Astro Bot are akin to something like seeing a Donkey Kong reference in the Super Mario movie.

As I stated in a previous comment, I had never played (or even heard the concept of) a visual novel prior to this game (except for maybe Doki Doki Literature Club, but even then I didn’t get it). However, after playing all 3 demo chapters for Emio FDC, I’m sold on the concept, so much so that I bought the full game. It’s really nice to be able to effectively read a “book” while having just enough guidance, guardrails, and stimulation to keep my ADHD brain focused and intrigued. It also helps that the story really is so, so good. My previous comments on the typeface chosen being a little too thin still stand, and I also can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing a dialogue or two in each scene because of there being so many menu options and it not being entirely clear at all times what to press when.

Overall, so far, as of having finished chapter 4:

Story: 9/10
UX design: 7/10
Art design: 9/10
I’d say, for me personally, it’s closer to something I’d pay $30 or $40 for, but not quite $50. (technically, since I had a Best Buy reward certificate that I used for a code, I paid about $35, which this game is definitely worth.)