Anachronism

@batmanbud2 I'd argue a partially open-ended ending is the best kind, even for something that never gets a sequel. An ending where there's nothing interesting for the characters to do after the tiny glimpse of the world's timeline the story covers isn't even a happy one.

As you said, the story ends with the danger passed, the protagonists' original goals more or less achieved, and the project of rebuilding and exploring their new world that should have kept them busy and satisfied for the rest of their lives. But thanks to the later games, that last part ends up not happening at all. 2 comes in and, aside from stitching its mess of a story onto the original's like some kind of deformed siamese twin, also ruins Klaus/Zanza by changing him from a man whose conflicting megalomania and loneliness ultimately lead to his destruction to just the "evil half" of a more even-tempered guy.

Then you have Future Connected, a literal new ending to the first game which adds pretty much nothing of value to the story and completely throws out the future that Alvis had predicted in the original ending, changing that final story beat from confident optimism to looming uncertainty over some unknown threat.

And finally in 3, we see that the new world they were set to explore has ended up completely destroyed, with no clue what's going on in the new new (new old?) world we see in Future Redeemed. And while I'm on that, I also hate that they pulled the exact same split personality nonsense on Alvis, who had a ton of potential for interesting character growth as he was, turning him into a dull as dirt emotionless machine and a snarky girl with a catchphrase. They also pulled that trope writers recently seem to love and audiences always hate with Shulk and Rex where you take the old protagonists and just make them older, more beat up, more full of doubts, and ultimately weaker than the new protagonists to show off how cool they are. So nope, I definitely think the original ending was better as it was than with anything they've added to it since.

@xcape1587 I'd say there's a very good reason for the glacial pace of their retro releases, though most players (myself included) won't be particularly happy with it. If Nintendo released their entire library from say Wii U backward today, a lot of people would check it out, maybe play a couple games, and then never touch it again.

On our side, delaying releases has the minor benefits of reducing choice paralysis and giving us something to look forward to, but on Nintendo's side, it has the massive benefit of keeping the service relevant. It's basically the same reason why shows that come out one episode at a time tend to have a larger impact than ones that release a full season at once. Every article about a newly added game or wave of complaints about one not showing up yet is a chance for someone to find out or be reminded that the service exists. And once there's nothing left to add to it, there's nothing left to talk about and it stops being a reason to stay subscribed for anyone not looking to constantly replay any of those games. If they want that discussion to keep going indefinitely, they basically have to slow the pace to releasing one generation of retro games per new console generation.

A cool thing I hope they eventually do to boost the overall speed of new releases is get some Xbox retro collections to go along with the Sega ones. Microsoft is practically done with exclusives at this point and were already happy to allow Rare's games on the N64 service, so I think the idea has decent potential.

I honestly don't know the metrics to judge this by. With the recent 3D Zeldas, you've got a big open world with a heavy physics system, lots of particle effects, and potentially a bunch of enemies on screen at once, so some slowdown was expected. But even they run beautifully on Switch 2. This has a fully destructible voxel-based environment, but Minecraft also has that along with several of the things I mentioned from Zelda, and it could more or less run on a potato a decade ago. And sure, that game's graphics are obviously extremely basic by design, but from my understanding destructible environments are much harder on the cpu than the gpu, so all Bananza's more detailed visuals shouldn't have much to do with the slowdown in this case. So yeah, I guess I just don't know where the bottleneck is here. Are Bananza's voxels dramatically smaller than Minecraft's? Are there some other demanding elements I'm not aware of? A game made by one of the best dev teams on the planet just being poorly optimized seems like the least likely scenario, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what's going on.

@SabreLevant That's not even true on PC though, is it? There are still games that come with mandatory frame rate caps, and some of those will even start to fall apart if you remove the cap with mods. I can't speak to every game, but I just saw yesterday that a popular build in Tears of the Kingdom that could solo a Gleeok now does even more damage because of the Switch 2 frame rate boost. There's no telling how many other frame rate dependent gameplay elements they might have had to test and rework just to keep the game functioning smoothly, so acting like they're charging you $10 to flip a settings toggle is a bit unfair.

@SabreLevant It sounds like you just don't understand the point of frame rate caps. A game that wildly fluctuates between say 25 and 45 fps feels worse than one that only goes between 25 and 30 because the changes in frame rate are a lot more noticeable. Heck, even a game that runs at a consistent 50 fps arguably looks worse than one that runs at 30 on most tvs because it doesn't fit cleanly into the fixed refresh rate that most tvs still use. And even more importantly for a portable like the Switch, having an uncapped frame rate would basically mean always draining the battery as quickly as possible no matter how simple a game's graphics are. If no one used caps, you might end up playing a 273 fps version of Picross and gain practically nothing over a capped version while making your fan whir like it's trying to take off and draining your battery in under two hours. We already knew which Switch games were capped at 30 or 60 before the Switch 2 was even announced since they absolutely never went above their targets, so I'm not sure why you were expecting anything different.

@Orwellian87 This is the full quote from Miyamoto that the article implies the Imamura quote mentioned in the title is commenting on, which, by the way, I don't even see any actual evidence for. Please at least read the last paragraph, as it contains his firsthand opinion on game design rather than what a guy who's not even working for Nintendo anymore says his opinion is. Then maybe consider why it's a bad idea to make snap emotional responses based on attention-grabbing titles on the internet.

"Mr. Hachiya is a media artist who is active beyond the framework of games, and I have known him personally for a long time. I have been discussing with Mr. Furukawa about the topic of the backgrounds of our directors, and we have been exploring various possibilities. Mr. Hachiya engages in unconventional activities, such as researching video games and building his own equipment. We believe that a connection between Mr. Hachiya and our company could lead to an interesting future, which is why we wanted him to join us as an outside director.

I am co-producing the animated film based on the world of Super Mario Bros. with Chris. We have reached a point where we are confident that the new movie will be an entertaining film, so we have announced its theatrical release for next spring. We do not want to set a release date first and then force the production schedule to meet it. This is similar to game development; we want to release something that we are confident will satisfy our consumers. I always tell our teams to “work for the consumer, not for your boss.” Because Chris is also on stage today, I would like him to say a few words."

@Olliemar28 That title is proving very inflammatory for those who don't bother to read past it. Considering you also have a direct quote from Miyamoto on his design perspective that's much harder to misinterpret, maybe it would be better to focus on that over one from a secondhand source.

@Orwellian87 I think you're interpreting it a bit more negatively than what he's actually trying to say, especially considering the quote from Miyamoto that he was supposedly responding to. For Imamura, choosing to look at games more as products than as works of art basically means designing them with the main goal of being desirable and enjoyable for other people rather than as a means of sharing your own creative vision. No one can argue Miyamoto hasn't put a ton of creative effort into the games he's contributed to. He just sees himself more as a toymaker trying to put a smile on someone's face rather than an artist producing his next masterpiece.

Think I ran into that wall glitch a few times. Just stopped dead in my tracks when going around a sharp gravity turn. Not great considering how hard the highest speed setting already is, so I'm glad it's been resolved.

I just happened to start Echoes of Wisdom yesterday. I kind of feel like they ruined the opening by putting it in trailers, but once you get out into the world, running around like a little kid picking up and playing with whatever random things you come across is very entertaining.

I think there are justifications for live service games that are pretty much useless without access to the company's servers, and for those companies needing to shut those servers down at some point. But I also think any game in that situation should be operating on a free to play model, and I personally avoid buying or putting a lot of money into anything from that genre. Still, it shouldn't be outright illegal to sell a full price live service game. Customers just need to wise up and not buy into things they'll likely end up feeling disappointed by. At worst, those games should maybe have a clear differentiator labeling them as a service rather than a product.

@OrtadragoonX That'd definitely be the best thing for the fanbase as a whole, but with how much work it would take, Capcom might earn more profit by just making another game like Rise that targets lower end hardware from the start. Either way, the chances of Monster Hunter skipping the Switch 2 entirely are pretty slim, so for now I'm content to just wait and see what we get.

So basically the Switch 2's not getting Monster Hunter Wilds unless they completely rebuild the game, but it could probably manage a competent version of something like Hellblade 2 without too much work.

I didn't have my expectations set too high, and while I haven't gotten quite as much enjoyment as I'd have liked out of the system's new games, the boost to so many backwards compatible ones has just about made up for it. I'd give the console itself a solid 8/10 so far, but the actual launch gets docked a point or two for all frustrating and confusing caveats that have come along with it.

Microsoft's big shopping spree has really become one of the most disastrous events in the history of gaming. I've given up on them redeeming themselves in any way, so now I just want to know how many of these layoffs and closures were planned from the start so I can decide whether to be more angry about their callousness or their incompetence.

I've taken to deleting the Switch 1 games I brought over as soon as I finish them. They're all still saved to my original Switch, but it's a shame I can't keep them on the platform where they run the best. Even with that, I'll be surprised if I don't run out of space long before getting my hands on a new microsd.

@Pak-Man I mostly agree with the analogy, although I think you're being a bit too dismissive of the appeal of older formats. Some songs and games are genuinely better with a softer presentation where the different elements blend together more. Even with things that weren't designed for them, it's still a pretty fun novelty if nothing else.

I could do with some more coop PvE. I think the last time I got invested in a shooter like that was with Destiny.

I've been wanting to give some of these a go for two decades. Glad I'll finally have the opportunity. I'll also take any excuse Nintendo gives me to play through my favorite Mario game again.

I keep seeing people say that if Nintendo didn't offer key cards, they'd just have people doing a code in a box. I have two problems with this.

First is that it ignores the obvious possibility of Nintendo offering cheaper carts, either by producing smaller storage sizes or even just letting third parties use the Switch 1 cart format for Switch 2 games that don't particularly need faster loading speeds.

And second, as far as I'm concerned, a key card is worse than a code in a box. At least with the latter you get all the benefits of a digital purchase along with some kind of physical representation of the game you bought. Key cards give you all the drawbacks of digital and physical with the only benefit being resale value, which is completely irrelevent to anyone planning to maintain their library.

I was wondering how I ended up getting a couple European versions of games as gifts. Guess it's because Amazon doesn't have a steady supply of the US ones.

Sounds to me like he just needs a bit more convincing. I've tried many Sonic games over the years, and Adventure 1 and 2 are the only ones I've ever really been attached to, so I'll keep waiting as long as I have to for more games like them.

People who don't understand that an aggregate score is not supposed to reflect their individual opinions really don't have two brain cells to rub together. I have more complaints about this game than any previous Mario Kart, but I still wouldn't rate it lower than an 8, and I doubt even these guys would go below 6 or 7 if they were trying to use the platform for its actual purpose.

I probably won't be able to declare a game of 2025 until at least 2027. It's already unusual that I've even played a couple games from this year, and I doubt I'll get to most of the rest any time soon. That said, I think DK Bananza, Fantasy Life i, and Silksong (if it actually releases) have the best shot at it.

@RejectedAng3L I'm at 1TB on my Switch with a decent physical library and already filled up my Switch 2's internal storage. I also have a backlog that's between a couple dozen and maybe a hundred games depending on how I feel like counting it. Doesn't change the fact that I can't meaningfully expand my storage without spending $100+.

I'm developing a similar opinion towards early HD games as a lot of people have towards games designed for CRTs. I think they just were not intended to be seen at higher resolutions and many of them end up looking worse for it. It's a lot easier for me to ignore the original blurriness than the flat textures and angular geometry that are made obvious by higher image clarity.

@DaftSkunk I played it for the first time on Switch, and since I prefer jam-packed semilinear worlds to oversized open ones, I enjoyed it a lot more than last generation's 3D Zeldas. Good game design is timeless, so I'd say taking the original game's solid foundation and rebuilding it from the ground up more than justifies the price.

Might be we got some extras because of all the tariff concerns, but I'd say they were pretty easy to find in the US at least. I had a few friends who all managed to get one at launch without a preorder. Actually, I'm pretty sure mine was originally headed for Europe given some of the settings it defaulted to.

Too many games, too little time. And money. And storage space. And motivation honestly. I need to go back a couple decades so I can be bored from a lack of entertainment rather than an excess.

I'm kind of surprised their median pay is even over 100k, though with inflation and the rising cost of living, I guess a six figure salary isn't as impressive as it used to be.

Regardless, I've never had a clue what kind of deranged math these companies use to decide that their handful of executives are worth the same as all their other employees put together. If the guys in charge were making two times, maybe even ten times what most of their subordinates made, you could maybe pass it off as their decisions just being that vital to a company's future, but I don't see any world where a guy signing papers and sitting in fancy meetings all day is offering hundreds of times the value of the people putting in the work their customers actually pay them for.

Unless the prices on these things really come down, storage is looking to be my biggest perennial frustration this generation. I've already made my peace with leaving most of the Switch 1 library behind on that console, but even the few that are really worth transferring over for the performance boost won't all fit in the Switch 2's internal storage, and that leaves me with nowhere to put any of the hundreds of wishlisted last-gen games I'd still like to keep in consideration. All of that is without even thinking about the actual Switch 2 library, and especially the unexpected burden of digital-only AAA games. I don't know how third parties plan on charging even higher prices for their games if they keep making the actual products worse. Even more than microsds, I'm really hoping the prices of the actual Switch 2 game carts come down so all those companies feel comfortable using them.

So far I have a couple of these played and around a dozen more I'd like to buy, though half of those are on indefinite hold with all my storage space occupied by unplayed, performance-boosted Switch 1 games. Considering the cost of microsds and that I'll probably want to keep a lot of those Switch games on there permanently, I have no idea if or when I'll get around to the rest of the new ones.

Nintendo likes to do things their own way, and seems to generally avoid following trends or public opinion. Still, seeing their userbase deliberately push back against the way they intended them to play and responding by reducing the players' ability to do so is a pretty pigheaded decision. I hope they intend to expand on the game and eventually allow everyone to play the way they want to, but until then, this is just one more on a list of inexplicably anti-consumer choices they've made recently.

Just picked this up and have been having a pretty good time with it. I do feel like the game is pretty blurry even at high resolutions, though I can't tell how much of that is DLSS vs intentional motion blur, so I''ll be looking forward to seeing how much this pure mode affects image clarity.

I'm less concerned with AAA projects turning to AI tools for help than I am with their further acceleration of the shovelware landslide that's already overtaken pretty much every digital store. The big companies that abuse the technology will end up digging their own graves, but the small teams that try to do things the right way are in ever-greater danger of being buried under the swarms of opportunistic parasites pumping out soulless garbage. The Switch eshop is practically a lost cause already, so I genuinely hope Nintendo at least keeps up their reported strategy of firmly restricting what's allowed into the Switch 2 library.

I'm ok either way, though I definitely prefer the focus being on the Mario universe. 8's inclusions from other series were cool, but I'd say they work better in Mario Kart as a fun bonus rather than a core element of the franchise.

I don't have any real complaints about the Switch 2's portable mode besides it not remotely fitting my definition of portable. I'm a very big guy with big hands and pockets, and the Switch 1 was already pushing it enough that I didn't feel comfortable casually taking it out of the house. I'd have a hard time finding any pocket big enough for this thing and it's way too big to comfortably hold in front of me, so I question how any normal-sized adult hopes to use it that way, never mind children.

I'm guessing a lot of the people dismissing this either don't use Nintendo as their primary platform or don't care about maintaining their library. For anyone who plans to buy several large Switch 2 games a year, wants to keep all those games accessible permanently, and doesn't want to spend $200 on another microSD every couple years, this is a major issue.

While going for perfect grand prix scores, I was mostly sticking with Biker Bowser + Reel Racer in hopes of making the game feel a bit faster. Other than that I pretty much spent all my time trying to unlock costumes without farming them, so it's hard to say if I have a favorite.

Aside from whatever slice of the pie chart both outright dislikes Donkey Kong and loves 3D Mario above all else, I doubt most people will be terribly broken up about trading the former for the latter for now. From my perspective, it's unlikely we'll get more than one game per generation in each flagship series anyway, so as long as they keep releasing something worthwhile every two or three months, I don't really care what order the games come in.

I've already gone on a couple Gamecube nostalgia trips, first in my teens and again when I picked up a CRT a few years back, though the one thing I didn't have either time was someone to play it with. With this supporting online play, I'm hoping to get some friends together for a few rounds of all my childhood favorites...whenever they get around to adding them.

@xmkbest First off the image has to exist somewhere else on the internet. Then you take the address of the image and put it in this format without the spaces.
[ i m g ] www.placeholder.com/whatever [ / i m g ]

@AccessibleDaydream Not sure about imgur specifically, but it might be that you need the address for the image itself rather than its regular page. I usually get this on my phone by long-pressing a picture on a website and selecting open image in new tab.

I noticed racers stick their legs out when drifting on bikes and took advantage to get a shot of Waluigi doing the Akira slide.

I don't suppose anyone's checked if the upgrade pack on a non-japanese account will work with an imported physical copy, have they? I know DLC doesn't usually work that way, but considering the game should benefit from improved stability and load times either way, I honestly might prefer having this game physical over having the Switch 2 upgrades.

I'll take all those reasons besides #3 and throw in "Everything costs more." as a bonus. If this was a $300/350 console with $60 games and if I hadn't been considering upgrading my Switch 1 games and NSO AND whether or not I needed any expensive new peripherals, none of which I've actually bought so far thanks to choice paralysis, by the way, then I would have been a lot more inclined to pick up one or two extra games at launch.

I'll definitely be getting it. No idea when though. I've got too much else to play and the $70 price tag still hurts a bit, so I might wait and see if I can get it for 60 eventually.

I haven't renewed my NSO subscription yet, but I would do it right away if they added Mario Kart World's soundtrack on there. It's the best part of the game by a wide margin.

@The-Chosen-one I honestly wouldn't be surprised if most of the third parties who had early dev kits were in the first Switch 2 Direct. Considering that and Nintendo's preference for announcing things pretty close to release, it might be a bit before they're ready for another big showcase. Though with the alternative being the repeated delays that have plagued Metroid Prime 4, the 3D Zeldas, and countless games from other studios, I actually kind of prefer it this way.

I like open world design in theory, but in practice it almost always ends up feeling like a sacrifice of quality for the sake of quantity. With an ever-expanding backlog always pushing me to make progress, I'm kind of tired of playing the guessing game of which far off, hard to reach corner will hold a cool thing I really want to see or do, a forgettable collectable, or nothing at all. The best solution to this would be for developers to only make worlds as big as they need to be to fit all the content made for them, but barring that, I'd take the less elegant map markers or an arrow pointing at the nearest box I haven't ticked, maybe made available after finding half the collectables myself so it feels a bit less like handholding.