Anachronism

I have some confused feelings about Monolith Soft. They worked on what might be my two absolute favorite games, Xenoblade 1 and Skyward Sword, but while they've never made an outright bad game, nothing that's come after those two has gotten close to them for me. Zelda dropped the semi-open metroidvania design that no one else gets quite right and Xenoblade became a lot more dependent on all the worst anime tropes. BotW/TotK are still technical marvels and Xenoblade 3 was my favorite game that year despite its flaws, but it's frustrating knowing someone can give you exactly what you want and simply has no interest in doing so.

I hope it's separate from the main game. I already got my 100% completion and having it get decompleted would sort of feel like having someone open the back of a book I just closed and shove a bunch of extra pages in it. The only reason I even bought Silksong at launch is because I assumed they couldn't have anything else they wanted to add after spending all that time on it.

@Luigia Oh it's definitely a cool game. Shinen's just known for doing magic with Nintendo's hardware, so it's a shame Fusion feels like it had to make some compromises.

I wonder how Fast Fusion would look with the standard DLSS model. I know it already has like five graphics settings, but considering four of them seem to use the light DLSS model that breaks down when things move quickly and the last one cuts back a bunch of effects, I still wouldn't mind another option or two.

@Pillowpants @Smithicus I think they've achieved an iconic status by sheer virtue of their visuals and world design, at least if the number of people still watching them is anything to go by. Even with the first one, I always felt like the story was mostly just an excuse to create a bunch of gorgeous CGI set pieces.

We see a similar attitude with a lot of video games, especially Nintendo's, and even some popular book series are held up more by clever writing and moment to moment events than a good overarching narrative, so I'd say you don't always need a great story to make a great piece of media.

I'd like to give about twenty of these a go. Can't wait to finally get around to one or two of them some time in the 2030s.

@rvcolem1 Good news, they're both getting released on Switch 2 the same day as RE9. There's even a $90 three-pack. All key cards of course, but I guess that's technically a step up from cloud.

@Smithicus The games have almost no story, so you can start pretty much anywhere. As others have said, Rise is one of the best and probably the most friendly to new players.

Your other option on Switch is Generations Ultimate. It's the last entry that could really be called old school Monster Hunter, and is basically a greatest hits collection with nearly all the coolest monsters from the games before it.

Rise + Sunbreak for $10 is ridiculous. I finally gave in and bought just Sunbreak for more than that a year ago. I'd be really looking forward to the next game if only I had the storage space it's guaranteed to demand.

I love the look of this game. Can't think of anything else that emulates that classic anime style quite as well. With how many cool co-op focused titles we've been seeing lately, I'm really starting to regret my solo gaming habits.

@Solid_Python I'll wait to see some video before really setting any expectations, though even in those shots it looks likely the hair has suffered similarly to what we've seen from RE9's Switch 2 version. It might be that the game's already running at the lowest framerate/resolution most people would consider acceptable, but if not, I'd rather they drop those further before dumbing down the visual effects if at all possible.

It's always cool to see a modern visual showcase making it to Switch 2, though I can't help but wonder what condition it'll be in when it gets there.

Love this game's art style, though I've heard the gameplay is a bit lacking. I still might give it a go just to get something a bit different from the endless tide of realistic action games, cartoony platformers, and anime rpgs.

Still a few sets back pulling for the 3* Lugia. I'll get it any day now, I'm sure.

It sounds like they care about WB Games roughly as much as Microsoft cared about Tango Gameworks. Guess that's one more on the pile of bad omens for the future of gaming.

@Reprise AI development works on a trial and error system, a lot like natural selection. Throwing more computing power at it lets them do more trials and eliminate more errors. But the holy grail of creating an AI that's good at everything is a lot harder than making one that's only good at one thing, and the tech giants are trying to overcome that problem by throwing every computer they can into the training programs to speed up their AIs' evolution.

I do wonder if all the guys competing to create a digital god will eventually drive demand on these components so high that even Nintendo can't get enough anymore. I'd hope they have all kinds of long-term contracts set up to prevent that, but it would be crazy if they just couldn't build any more hardware because all the parts got dumped into the AI arms race.

@theberrage Sure they get something out of it, but considering the real shovelware strategy is just putting out seventeen different versions of an M-rated, AI generated puzzle game, I still think they deserve some bonus points.

Have they fixed that tree in Whiterun not loading correctly yet?

Ahh, another Christmas, another comment section being weirdly hostile towards someone offering them free things. Anyway, glad No Gravity's keeping up the tradition. I've gotten some fun time wasters and a couple games with cool art styles from them. I'll still boot up Destropolis once in a while because of how fun that weapon/upgrade system is until you stop leveling up.

I was wondering why such an established name would even want to sell itself, but looking through its history, the actual Warner Bros. company has been mashed into, split from, and tossed around by so many other big players that it's a miracle they've maintained any kind of positive reputation. Hopefully the brand and all the classics tied to it manage to weather whatever comes next as well.

I was a day one adopter on Switch 2, largely because there was so much uncertainty around availability and rising costs at the time. I don't regret it, but I probably would have held off if I'd had any reason to think it would actually get a discount within its first year. The screen doesn't matter to me, I trust all the big exclusives will come out eventually, and I suspect the opposite about an affordable microsd being available in the next few years, so I can't see much reason to wait now.

I've only gotten through Mario Kart World, Fast Fusion, and Silksong, and I've put them all dead even at 8/10. They're games with some really cool aspects to them, but also with some disappointments that prevented them from blowing me away. I think I'll be rooting for DK Bananza to win game of the year because it's still the one I most want to play.

This is the first time I've owned a game console for half a year and not bought a single physical game for it. A decent part of that is the sizable Switch backlog I'm still working through, but the rest is all down to the pricing and key cards. There are plenty of games I'd like to play, but I just don't feel right buying them, and that dampens my enthusiasm for the console as a whole.

@kal_el_07241 I still consider any decent port of a realistic open world from this decade a miracle. These games truly would be impossible on Switch 2 if it weren't for DLSS, because in terms of raw numbers it is not close to Series S. Nintendo's very lucky their partnership with Nvidia and the timing of hardware releases allowed them to get a console with that technology out at a competitive price well ahead of Sony/Microsoft.

Glad they're continuing to fix up the game. There's still plenty more to improve, but considering they'll likely be making back several times their development costs over the next decade, they'll hopefully feel motivated to keep working on it.

Well since we've gotten 1 and X remastered in the style of the new games, it's obviously only fair if they remake 2 and 3 in the style of the old games now.

As a general rule, I do like to have some side characters in my games. There's not much point in saving the world if there's no one to actually save. That said, a series so well known for its sense of isolation should probably make interacting with those characters mostly optional, and definitely shouldn't make any of them chattering quip dispensers. For the sake of all the people who've waited eight years for this game, I hope the drama around them ends up being severely overblown.

No surprise they had to make some cutbacks, but the clips on the page this info comes from still look pretty solid. I'll be interested to see digital foundry pick it apart. Though regardless of how the game turns out, I'll have to hold off until it no longer requires me to sacrifice a quarter of my storage.

That was a beautiful example of how not to edit a video. It'd make me want to apply, if only I had any inclination toward public speaking and hadn't spent years commenting on and criticising things here through various levels of sleep deprivation.

Nintendo's recent acquisitions feel pretty different from what's been going on in the rest of the industry lately. While other companies seem to be cannibalizing each other left and right just to add to their hoards of IP, most of Nintendo's recent purchases are just people they have good working relationships with. To be fair, Nintendo's hoard is already so big that they're reluctant to expand it further, but building up a network of competent teams still seems like a much healthier business model than continuously driving franchises into the ground by buying out the people who built them up and immediately firing half of them.

@BaldB3lper78 Can you look at these side-by-sides and honestly say the Switch versions ever look better? The game's whole visual identity has been stripped away.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QhMKXGXo8Ig

@Inaroomalone Transferring virtual cards between the same account on different consoles doesn't work the same as loaning them to another account. As far as I know, the only restriction is that you can't split your games between more than two systems.

@JayJ Cool, good to know.

Awesome. This is one of the Switch games I saved for Switch 2 so I could get the best experience out of it. Glad it's finally ready to go.

I've been looking at some comparisons, and I'm pretty sure the "definitive edition" looks worse than the original release on 360/PS3. They've taken out some visual effects, removed foliage interaction, and changed the lighting in a way that ruins the moody atmosphere and makes everything look more plasticky. All the frame rate and resolution boosts in the world aren't worth compromising a game's artistic design.

So to ask the obvious question, could you load up all your virtual cards on one of your consoles, disconnect it from the internet, remove it from your account, and then still freely play your games offline on it?

Also, I find it really funny that they left in the pre-virtual card sharing function, but turned it off by default despite there being, as far as I know, zero downsides to leaving it on. The only benefit I can think of is that they might lower server costs a bit by not having a million Switches constantly checking whether they're allowed to play a game.

I'd much rather get something more in line with their other games, or even just more ports, over a competitive multiplayer one. Though I do still hope it does well enough to reinforce the slowly growing relationship between FromSoft and Nintendo, if only so that we're more likely to get those ports.

Considering I've maxed out my Switch 1's 1TB card without having to worry about nearly as many big digital-only games, I'd rather wait until there's a 2TB one available for Switch 2...and then probably wait some more until it doesn't cost half the price of the console. Until then, I'll be trying to stick with proper physical games and indie digital ones.

Link looks good enough, though I'm not a big fan of the recent Zelda designs. A dress and tiara might have been a bit too impractical if she's going to be wandering around outdoors, but I still definitely prefer straight hair or the long, dangly braids to the wrap-around type on her.

Guess Silksong is my choice as the only one I've played. I didn't enjoy it as much as the original Hollow Knight, with the controls never quite becoming natural and some of the bosses getting boring long before my muscle memory caught up enough to beat them, but the world design and the sheer quantity and variety of content still make it an exceptional game. Pipistrello and Blue Prince also seem cool, so I'd like to check them out at some point.

@RobLife1 Think that's one of the playable characters from Absolum.

Think I've had enough reminders that most of my favorite games are not other people's favorite games. Seeing half of them in the bottom 50 and the other half not making the list while your biggest disappointments fill up the top 10 gets a bit depressing after the twentieth time or so.

It's become more of a monkey's paw situation for me. There's just too much, and even after filtering out all the garbage, I often feel like I'm digging through piles of good but not quite great games in hopes of finding the rare ones that manage to leave a lasting impact. It might be easier if I was willing to drop things and move on after a couple hours, but my combined perfectionism, desire to respect my games, and refusal to waste money compel me to play all the games I buy until I either finish them or hate them.

I think going high on the console price ultimately worked out better for them than if they'd gone as low as possible and then been forced to raise it. The game and accessory prices are still a sore point, though, so I'm not sure how they'll do with attach rate in the long run.

Looking at AI right now, it kind of feels like competing against someone who gets both more competent and more unhinged with every passing moment. Assuming its development doesn't hit some unavoidable dead end, or somehow kill us all, it could very well result in the largest societal shift in recorded history.

With every practical measure of value being potentially thrown out the window, something with subjective value like entertainment might be one of the few refuges for economic stability, so it's probably pretty important to work out all the legal details on that sooner rather than later.

Despite playing New Horizons religiously at launch and hopping back onto the daily grind a few times since then, I've never felt quite done with the game, so I don't mind having an excuse to dump even more time into it. I'm also fine with the next entry likely being a long way off. I'll need a good break before I'm ready to start from scratch again. Plus, that leaves an opportunity for them to release the original Animal Crossing through the GameCube library.

The one deal I'm really looking at right now is the half price Blasphemous 2 bundle. Not sure if it's officially part of the sale, but it's suitably spooky and the sequel to one of my favorite metroidvanias.

I don't have too many complaints, but I'm definitely only playing for the nice card art and to get my collecting fix. I've tried to get into the actual game, but the solo content, which I prefer, is pretty limited. And I really don't want to play more than a few ranked battles a month, so even maintaining a rank above great ball 1 is annoying, never mind climbing to master ball. But like I said, I don't care about those modes enough to really be bothered by it. The one thing that's really bugging me right now are the tons of duplicates and shinedust I put into unlocking flares, and whether I'll get any of that back now that they're going to be free. If I put all those resources into unlocking them, alongside putting up with a minute-long load time on every card I unlocked them for, only to fall behind all the people who didn't even bother with them, that's going to leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Even if it was bound to happen after they brought all their other games over, this still feels like the closest thing to Sonic ending up on Nintendo consoles in the last 20 years. It's the true end of an era. I guess we'll just have to hope the next one reaches heights equal to the last.

As for Halo coming to Switch 2, ideally, I'd just want to have the whole list of Bungie games with no modifications, including the version of Reach from before 343 got control and messed with things. Failing that, a decent port of the Master Chief Collection would still be nice.

Huh, this might be the first time I actually want to play a game on easy mode. Pikmin was one of the first games I ever owned, and the series has always held a special significance for me, but I've never gotten close to finishing a single entry because I just can't stand to send my pikmin to their deaths. If that mode actually makes it feasible to get through the game without any losses, then I might finally be able to fulfill that decades-old wish.