Anachronism

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.

@Cia I'll start by saying I don't think we're going to agree on much of anything, but I'll take your complaints point by point anyway. Double Dash might not have that many tracks compared to other entries, but a lot of the ones it introduced have become fan favorites. Personally, about half its courses would probably hit the top 10% if I was going to rank every track in the series. It also had some pretty cool battle mode arenas. Gameplay-wise it introduced double items and allowed item switching, which a lot of people still miss in the modern games. I was also a fan of the game's character-specific items, though that's a more controversial mechanic. As for the graphics, the GameCube is what I grew up with, so of course I'm going to have some bias towards it, but I see it as the oldest Nintendo console where stylized 3D visuals still hold up well, and in fact I prefer those more blatantly videogamey material properties to the plasticky/rubbery look cartoonish designs tend to get using modern 3D rendering techniques. All that to say that while it might be unreasonable these days to call Double Dash the best Mario Kart, there are still plenty of reasons for people to call it their favorite.

Nope. Knockout Tour is kind of killing my motivation to go for 3* at all since one blue shell is likely to ruin a run. Did manage to get it first try on Special Cup, though.

The comments here have really been turning against digital foundry lately. Guys, it's okay that a Nintendo portable isn't on par with the Sony/Microsoft home consoles. The fact that it's even getting close to Series S in performance is honestly really impressive. The few complaints they do have, while not a big deal for a lot of people, are perfectly valid for a team of graphics mega nerds, and still haven't stopped them from being overall positive about the hardware and software.

It's pretty much what it says on the tin; a better Switch and not much else. In terms of meeting expectations it's done a perfectly fine job, and although the hybrid nature still doesn't do much for me and I'd have preferred something a bit more innovative, I'll be content as long as they deliver innovation in their actual games.

I bought 11 on a whim a while back and decided to finally give the story mode a go on the new hardware. It was a good movie overall, but I'm not sure why they stuck all those button-mashing segments between the cool action scenes.

Joking aside, I doubt the game looks as good as other versions, but it played perfectly fine and has plenty of impressive visual effects. The only major graphical glitch I ran into was various fighters' hair becoming extremely discolored in a couple segments.

If there's one brand where I agree with the rest of the world on the quality of American chocolate, it's Hershey's. Despite what the ingredients lists say, I have a hard time believing there's any actual cocoa in there.

@Ogbert It's nice that it's an option somewhere, but playing VS to practice for the other modes would have just made me burn out. Open worlds are always so bloated that trying to "complete" them is an exercise in frustration. Since I've already hit my minimum requirement to say I've finished the game, I'm better off quitting before my dissatisfaction starts to outweigh my enjoyment. Hopefully that will leave some room for enthusiam if they do add more worthwhile content down the line.

It's not my favorite Mario Kart, or my second favorite...or third, but it is still a solid game. On the negative side, due to the lack of repeating laps, I barely know most tracks' basic layouts, never mind their shortcuts or how to pull them off. I've hit gold in every race and found a few hundred collectables, and I still feel like I barely know the map or how to play. On the positive side, the new movement mechanics are fun on the rare occasion I manage to use them correctly, and all the characters and costumes add some nice variety. It also might have my new favorite Mario soundtrack. If they'd add a more traditional Grand Prix mode and 200cc, that might be enough for it to pass Mario Kart 7 in my rankings and enter the conversation with Double Dash and 8.

My two big winners so far are Hellblade, which I could swear is loading in better textures, and LEGO City, whose load times have gone from unacceptably long to only moderately annoying. Finally being able to bump Sky up to max settings without massive frame rate drops is also nice. I was hoping Doom Eternal would look dramatically better, but while it is improved, I think the assets themselves took a bigger hit than those in Doom 2016.

@chanimpa Physical media doesn't have to die. Restricting options and taking more control away from players is blatantly anti-consumer, and Nintendo is at least still fully supporting physical media with their own games. There's a lot of talk that the main reason third parties are trending towards key cards is because there's only one storage size currently available for regular Switch 2 carts that's actually bigger (and thus more expensive) than what a lot of these games need. Resolution boosts are reaching a dead end and although the tech's not quite there yet, things like fully replacing baked lighting with ray tracing can actually decrease file sizes. There's no reason progress can't mean increased efficiency and options rather than increased bloat.

I'd have a hard time picking a favorite location just by its narrative significance. Xenoblade has way too many hard-hitting story beats to pick between. Taking everything else into account doesn't make it much easier, though any area where you can look back after an hour or so and see the place you started as a tiny speck in the distance gets massive bonus points. That said, I might just have to give it to Colony 9. It perfectly sets up the game's tone of beauty, adventure, tragedy, and defiance right off the bat, and aside from very intentionally doing the thing I was just talking about, it's also my favorite area to return to; always offering an interesting sidequest or some previously insurmountable monster to fight. Combine that with a decent number of likeable npcs and a few of my favorite backround tracks, and you've got a place that really does start to feel like home.

@chanimpa The old 1 TB microsds only fell to a price I was comfortable with a couple years ago. Even assuming the new version does follow the same pricing trend, which is far from guaranteed, I'd rather not keep deleting chunks of my library until 2030. Even then, the lack of true physical releases and increased file sizes mean that I'm not even sure 2 TB will be enough if my Switch 2 library grows to match its predecessor's. As for this being the norm, I only owned a couple physical Switch games that required a download to play, and that was only tolerable because the rest didn't. That was my normal right up until all these key card games were announced. And for the rest, I only want games to cost the same and be the same size, and I don't really care about them looking better. I value creative novelty way more than technical novelty, so I'd be fine with everything running at 720p 30 fps forever if it meant I could keep having new experiences with the pricing and convenience I'm used to.

@AmplifyMJ Although I'm not the biggest fighting game fan, I did end up with I think 5-10 of them on Switch, and in my opinion this is honestly one of the Switch 2's best-looking launch games. The single biggest reason I don't want to buy it is that I can't stand to immediately sacrifice a fifth of my storage space to it. If that's not a con, I don't know what is.

@AmplifyMJ @Solid_Python @Polvasti Being digital-only and over 10 GB is a big enough con that it's stopped me from buying multiple Switch games. Considering the general concerns about costs related to Switch 2 on top of extra storage costing about twice as much as on Switch and being largely sold out besides, along with a lot of the internal storage likely being immediately taken up by original Switch games, there are plenty of reasons to be cautious about large digital-only games even without getting into the preservation issues associated with key cards.

Plus, as a more general rule, if you're writing a review with the goal of helping your audience make an informed decision about buying something, and a significant portion of your audience has made it clear that a particular trait has a heavy impact on that decision, then that trait is probably worth mentioning.

That's a load off my mind. I've accumulated a good number of Switch games with unstable frame rates, muddy dynamic resolution, or just annoying loading times that I held off on playing for exactly this reason. Seeing those in proper HD with a locked 30/60 fps will be worth the wait.

I'm really starting to appreciate the value of playing games a while after launch. I was already waiting to play Echoes of Wisdom on Switch 2 for the performance boost, but this might end up being an even bigger improvement.

I've been waiting to try a full-featured version of No Man's Sky for a long time, so I'll be sure to stick this close-ish to the top of my infinetely expanding list of games I should really get around to at some point.

Some of that pop-in is really noticeable. It would be nice to get another update for that, but this at least looks like enough to finally get me in on the DLC. Hopefully they put more effort into environmental detail for their future games, though ZA's not making me too optimistic there.

I do think this would be a perfect pack-in, but I'm fine with missing it. I'll have no shortage of other things to play. Maybe I'll give it a go some day if they decide to throw it in with NSO or something like that.

The first few times I played 200cc, I basically thought of it as a joke mode that played way too differently to even be worth trying to get good at. Years later, after buying the booster course pass and completing it on 150cc, I still wanted an excuse to play more, so I decided to give 200 another go. After many attempts, plenty of frustration, and even being forced to learn how to use the brake for a couple tracks, I finally perfected every grand prix. The only problem is that now all the lower modes feel like moving in slow motion.

I have two Switch pro controllers, both with stick drift. I think I'd rather spend the money on fixing them than buying a new one. Not being able to turn the console on with them seems like it should have been an easy fix, but I guess I can deal with the indignity of having to stand up and press the power button, or maybe just keep a joy-con sitting next to the tv remote.

Pretty sure I'm in the clear. Walmart already charged me, so I'll be a bit annoyed if they cancel at this point.

After looking up some gameplay, I've got to agree with the other comments that I'd much rather try the original game than this new one, though I really don't think most of us here are the target audience anyway with those gen alpha character designs. Still, it would have been cool to see a new game with visuals inspired by those old cutscenes.

I'll just be sticking with Mario Kart World and clearing out my Switch backlog for now, but I'm already looking at Fast Fusion and/or Ridge Racer to scratch that itch once I've perfected all the grands prix and hit all those p-switches. Cyberpunk and Fantasy Life are next up once I've finally cleared out all the Switch 1 games I've been hoping to play with a smooth frame rate on Switch 2. For any others, I'll probably be waiting for a digital sale or if I'm lucky, a proper physical release.

Wonder how long it would take to train an AI to beat the game in the minimum number of steps, and how long it would take that version to beat other games in the series. Assuming the technology doesn't plateau, the answer for both will probably be a lot shorter in a few years.

@Zuljaras I don't really get this complaint. You can't walk into most buildings in the real world either, and games that do let you do it generally reuse the same materials, architectural features, furniture, and generic npcs over and over again, which honestly makes them feel more soulless than if you just couldn't look inside. I also think the winding paths of Paldea's landscape are more interesting to explore than all the empty fields and rolling hills you get in a lot of open worlds. The map design's not quite on the level of something like Xenoblade X, but it's still better than average in my book.

The main city looks a lot less shimmery than I remember, which is also nice. The rocky surfaces look a bit better too, though I'm not sure whether they're actually different or just cherry-picked shots. Still, the most obvious graphical flaw for me was certain things running at a lower frame rate than the rest of the game, so I'll be interested to see if those are all fixed.