B3RTAY

This is the point for me where the ‘switch 2 edition’ tag changed from being attached to a scant few titles at launch, to something we’ll likely see for the console’s entire lifespan.

Are multiplayer, almost Mario Party style mini games worth a double dip if you’ve traded in your Switch copy?

Absolutely no thanks.

Genuinely, genuinely a top 5 for me. A maturity in art direction and world building light years ahead of its time.

The remake of the original, however, messed its trousers on the first level. Taking the originals perfect matching of music, vast ocean and mysterious, sparse ruins and filling it with unwanted current gen levels of detail and scenery. Completely blew it.

I’m an optimist and hope they can stick the landing here…

There’s too much happening already. It’s wild - and the amount of people saying otherwise or that it’s poor are making me lose my already vague understanding of humans.

Bananza alone…are people seeing this *****? It was honestly spellbinding for me - at points I thought it might be the best game I’d ever played - and I’ve been waggling joysticks for nigh on 40 years.

I can barely manage to trickle through the new Kirby game in the scant solo time I have and there’s still Metroid blinkin Prime 4 coming out…oh and Elden Ring.

What a year it’s becoming… genuinely don’t get how people are not seeing it.

@JakobU Woke?…Not one little bit.

Anyway, it’s a dud, pure and simple. You can glance at 5 seconds of footage and see it’s missing speed, dynamic movement, personality and rocket powered cars.

I think adding Miis is a bit out of the equation when considering the subject too.

Honestly, there’s just too much great stuff to play this year. I’d forgotten this already…

Even if you limit your diet to a few select Nintendo releases, boomer shooters, shoot-em-ups and a indie darling or two like me…what a year.

I’d need a drastic upturn in my career just to afford all the shmups on the horizon this year, never mind finding the time to play them.

I’ll just go ahead and echo sentiments that it’s entirely ridiculous to set your expectations based on over the shoulder cam footage, and add that From Software have released games with entire biomes that bring consoles to a standstill, and that they are also some of the best games of all time.

Sweet Fancy Moses what a game Burnout 2 was…Sega and Namco foundations honed to perfection. 3 stripped out the nostalgia but still gave us one last classic course oriented banger before mainstream racing went open world forever.

Something tells me that this isn’t just going to be a Kart style racer. No gameplay footage yet, 45 minute Direct, we already had Mario Kart this year.

Color me mildly jazzed. They’ll absolutely shadow drop the original too. I’d bet my last remaining gonad.

@Milk_

Not wanting to be the guy who says I live in Japan so I know better…but scalping, rudeness, shamelessness and littering ALL exist and occur here daily.

Some of Mac’s other recent Happy Sets have had similar consequences and I think it’s fair to say native people will more readily call out foreigners on social media than fellow Japanese. Of course I agree with them, it’s all of the above to do such things, but posting about it has the knock on effect of damaging relations with foreigners and some of us here are working very hard to be model foreign citizens.

All over Pokémon cards too. Sweet Jesus.

This scores less favorably than some really bare bones comps…Taito Milestones 3 springs to mind.

Harsh to knock a game with ‘origins’ in the title for not including the back end of the series. How many games do M2 have to meticulously restore to get a 9? An entire new game goes a bit beyond their usual workload, too.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not sat fuming in my chair or anything but maybe give them a bit of slack? They’re a real treasure.

An M2 Shot Triggers and Nightdive release on the same weekend. Fans of immaculate game preservation are eating good.

This looked brilliant. Brought Panzer Dragoon to mind but also seems really unique and counter to all the current trends in art style and gameplay.

Pinned every last one of my hopes on this being good.

@TerribleTerabytes it’s Doctors Without Borders, dude…

Nintendo raining on the parade of an earnest, wholesome charity event isn’t a good look however people try and swing it. The issue is not just that permission wasn’t asked, it’s that further permission has been denied.

Full blown corporate coldness.

@Uncle_Franklin Is anybody here thinking that?

I’ve got a copy of Hitman just kind of sitting there, the pull of Bananza forever outweighing the urge to stop and download it. Not only is it doing massive damage to consumer trust, it’s a bit of a faff too.

One thing that pisses me off about it, is that Nintendo have given the option of key cards to publishers and then not used it themselves. Which speaks volumes to how damaging they really think it is.

Oh well. Hopefully it’s just to get publishers releasing early in the lifespan, and one of those three withdrawn direct games was Elden Ring changing to an on the card release.

I loved Odyssey, but i didn’t really care for all the matrimonial vibes and salary workers in the streets of New Donk. It sounds so trivial but art direction misfires are a big thing when you’re dealing with worlds steeped in nostalgia.

The confidence and boldness of the level design lead us to Bananza, though, and I was sat playing it this morning adamant I have a new favourite game of all time. I’m just bowled over by the little touches and inspired design from moment to moment - that a game with such a singular, violent mechanic feels so broad and radiates love and kindness. I’m on a second loop through of all the levels and I’m only just noticing how incredible the music is. Genuinely in awe.

I barely thought of Odyssey at all to be honest, it made me think more of N64 Rare titles. And how collectibles and NPCs were always pulling you in new directions. So nostalgic but also Nintendo at their boldest. Can’t fathom how they’re going to top it…

EDIT: Nice article!

Title prediction for the next HD2D release:

Chronicles of Ian: A eunuch’s plight.

Underrated announcement.

Katamari games at their best are like unalloyed sunshine poured directly into your soul. A perfect blend of unforgettable sights and sounds and janitorial gameplay. The levels set in different time periods is a nice move… second Where’s Wally book vibes.

I’d quite like a wee announcement for some switch 2 updates. Nier Automata and its slightly compromised port pals all deserve a Switch 2 glow up.

Game wise I’ll take all the obvious rumors, I’m honestly too enamored with Bananza to give a real hoot.

They’re not so bananas for DK over here. Most people would still plump for Mario Kart, gibbon the choice.

@SillyG

My personal take on long story short for this article is…

Tony Hawk: Nice Lad.

Returning to the same location with a new soundtrack in hand is pretty emblematic of skateboarding as a whole actually. Good on him.

Having paid 20,000円 more for my Switch 2 to have English, it sure would be nice to see some Japanese publishers become mindful of Japan’s 2 available console types and include English language options as standard.

Otherwise I’ll wind up taking this bitterness to the grave.

ION FURY

Capitalized because we’re 220 comments below surface and it’s not likely to be covered here or on YouTube.

If my memory serves (and it often doesn’t) the Switch’s 60fps mode was locked behind a cheat code, and it very rarely hit 60.

I returned to it with this knowledge in hand and it runs like an absolute peach. The gyro aiming is snappy and silky smooth too and it just perfectly serves what an absolute love letter to early FPS this game is.

Belter.

This reminded me of when Bioshock came out.

We had the CRT in the front room and the tiniest flatscreen known to man in my room. I felt Bioshock merited big screen heft so I took the Xbox downstairs. The game’s art direction popped even more, with the soft edges of the CRT image bringing out the retro tech flavors and giving world and character textures a painterly vibe.

It was totally transformative and I couldn’t go back to playing it on my A4 size flatty. Then we got the red ring of death right after meeting Andrew Ryan.

Cannae fathom that I’ve pumped more time into this than I have the new Mario Kart, but here I am. I honestly love how this game keeps pulling you in different directions. It’s like an ever expanding pizza base with all these exotic toppings navigating you through the unending, doughy tundra.

What an absolute job they’ve done refining things since launch too. About the only thing I don’t care for are the trope-tastic anime princess type character and her royal cohorts that jibe against the more appealing children’s book art style. Plastic oven pizza style cheese amongst the buffalo mozzarella sourced from Italy.

Getting caught up in a frothed-up funk over AI background foliage is taking away from the thousands of hours of actual human craft that goes into a game like this. Physics, UI, course and character design, music and sound design, animation, coding, textures, lighting.

This is not a big bucks mega team at work, it’s a comparatively small dev working on a golf game in an art-style that doesn’t cater to the core sport audience. They’ve made excellent golf games for close to 30 years, and at this point, a little AI leg-up to render peripheral shrubs is absolutely fair game.

“If you're someone that only looks at 'specs on the box' and doesn't understand anything about displays then you might be impressed”

Wow what a neat guy.

Mind playing the OG game boy? Finding that one sweet spot in the house where you could make out the screen without a handful of excited button presses changing the screen angle so you couldn’t see again?

Look at us now.

I’m curious to try We Love Katamari when mine arrives. Perfectly playable as is but some art styles just deserve perfect clarity.

I hope Metroid Dread gets a specific update too before Prime 4 arrives.

@The_Nintend_Pedant
I wasn’t telling anyone anything it was a question.

Oh and you’re complaining about my complaining about people complaining.

If you call yourself a pedant be prepared to pedanted upon.

Miyamoto himself probably doesn’t even give a solitary fart about this.

Are we really calling people who comb through credits for something to be woke about ‘fans’?

It’s a growing trend in journalism - unnecessary credit rage on someone’s behalf. Sweet baby Jesus…just enjoy your new console.

As excluding as it feels to have to pay 20,000円 more than most of my fellow Japan residents, I applaud Nintendo JPs scalper clampdown game.

*sound of middle-aged clapping *

Unconstructive feedback, hey?

How about this: May I suggest pressing a company on their sketchy practices and business model, rather than just including a bit of text separate from the interview entirely. This company deserves to have to answer for itself on a high visibility Nintendo site, but instead they receive positive press in light of controversial game key cards.

Let’s all chill out in a safe space where no one will insult us for defending this low quality franchise with shocking production values.

Peace.

Nice to see so many people singing Fukuoka’s praise! Keep it up, Fuk Nuts!

@HammerGalladeBro Level 5? Their football stadium is named after them if I remember

Ahhh…I used to live a five minute walk from there. The me from 8 years ago would be a happy lad.

I’d say LR has maybe one more punt at a tongue-in-cheek collection of moderate to absolute turkeys before the idea totally fizzles due to lack of interest.

Imagine thinking of getting this when you’ve got two 80 dollar potential all-timers on the way.

@RupeeClock I personally wouldn’t label these people internet archivists or historians in a thousand lifetimes.

To me they systematically take any form of joy or excitement out of a console release in the name of a bit of social media clout.

When I think back to how people used to react to a new console, even as recent as the Wii and compare it to the sheer, inescapable negativity of the past weeks?…Sweet Christ.

To think there are people out there just routinely refreshing the product page - just to see if anything changes - with a screenshot of the original page prepared lest anything happens.

Cool ass dudes. Stone cold.

A timely announcement with all eyes on Nintendo and their pricing.

Let’s not forget the poster child for disrespecting core gamers and their wallets.

Everyone’s got a point when defending or complaining about an $80 game. But $666 dollars…Are these guys kidding or what?

@StewdaMegaManNerd so 60fps at $80 dollars is a no sale? Are we really attaching a price tag to frame rates the human eye is too slow to recognize?

This game is going to rip, and it’ll rip years from now. As long as $80 isn’t just the new going rate and a fair reflection of the time and resources spent as well as a representation of the hours of entertainment it’ll bring, I don’t mind.

Nintendo are making questionable decisions at the minute but for me personally, I don’t mind dropping more money on something I know I’ll never trade in.

@SillyG I imagine if you’ve already bought the dlc then you could simply download it for the switch 2 edition and it’d work? Could be wrong.

I’m not defending it. Nintendo are making some pretty rotten decisions here - ones that impact it’s loyalist supporters the most.

His Ma and Pep Pep must be so proud.

As a resident of Japan for almost ten years, I’m both happy that little Ryosuke and his school pals get to play Switch 2 at a price that suits the economy, AND…dismayed that Nintendo doesn’t include me in that same economy.

Uncluttered, simple, an absolute blessing.

Thanks Nintendo for ignoring 8 years of theme mock-ups on Reddit.

I honestly couldn’t give a fiddler’s fart at this point. Feel like I’ve been seeing that lead character art since I was at my Ma’s teat….

I don’t really know what games he’s looking at in particular but maybe, just maybe, they are taking influence from Western games because they’re also great? And not just to pander to the west?

It’s a really dated view. Games are big and broad enough to both be able to borrow from other cultures, or to be totally of their own culture. Zelda basically exists because of Western fantasy. BOTW and TOTK are peak examples of the open world games popularized in the west, and then brought further to life by very Nintendo innovations.

He’s a top lad and that, but boy, not so open minded.

@Daniel36 It took me 40 years, but I’ve finally learnt you’re not missing out on anything by not being a part of the initial buzz or conversation around a new release.

Aye, fake scarcity at launch is one to watch out for too. It happened in Japan with DQ3. Sold out everywhere at Christmas and now the shelves are teeming with used copies at half the price.