Balladeer

Can we not say that companies "suffer" layoffs please, Alana et al? It's not something that just happened to MercurySteam. They caused layoffs. They inflicted layoffs. They maybe made layoffs all but necessary due to bad management decisions. They did not "suffer" layoffs. Not a good term.

Good.

Not good because of the price hikes obviously, they're rubbish and I blame gen AI. But good that sales are slowing, maybe reflecting a paucity of really big hitting games, a reliance on re-heating old ones, and perhaps a sense that Nintendo has grown a bit complacent off the back of the Switch 1's success? A bit safe maybe? An impact to the bean counters might encourage them to take a few more risks.

@AussieMcBucket Honestly can't remember the arrow! Just remember a very perfunctory tilt-to-roll mechanic with only three positions that could and should have been mapped to the shoulder buttons. Otherwise it was my first experience with Yoshi being farmed out to non-Nintendo devs and didn't it just feel that way. Un-Nintendo character designs and un-Nintendo level designs led to an un-Nintendo game designed to score below 5/10.

I'll go to bat for the PAL title though. Is it much more technical than Yoshi has ever merited? Yes. Does that lend it a sort of pseudo-academic yet also goofy character that makes it the best thing about the game? Also yes.

I voted for Europe, but the right answer is North America. It has worse box art and a worse title, reflecting the actual "quality" of the game.

I love Lampent. It's a great mix of creepy and cute without being too simple or over-elaborate. In a vacuum I would have voted for it over Chandelure. I didn't think anyone else would do the same. Poor lad's a victim of tactical voting, perhaps.

But then how would they make money from cranking out a million pieces of Pikachu merch aimed at millennials trying to recreate the lack of responsibility they/we had when the anime was first on!?

Take a wild guess.

@OmnitronVariant I dunno, sexual assault seems pretty bad regardless of culture.

I'm a huge fan of Overcooked 2, but it's never been the most visually stunning game and that won't change with an upscale. Essentially we're being asked to pay £8 for one bonus chef. Not for me pals. Give me an upgrade path to All You Can Eat instead ta.

I know you folks don't often change reviews but @Olliemar28 it looks like Until Then now works on Switch 2 following the latest 2.0.0 update! As in, I fired it up at the point it was previously breaking and got past it. Also paging @McMongoose among others.

Iwata the innovator. No way we get the Switch without him. No way we get the incremental Switch 2 with him, I reckon. And while I have no problem with that approach at this point, I can't help but worry that we might see similarly incremental Switch 3, Switch 4 etc. down the road. Dull uninspiring hardware. Iwata would never have done that, and while his Nintendo may not always have been successful it was never dull.

He remains deeply missed.

The cast o' Concordia you say? Hope the game doesn't run aground!

(Niche jokes about a 2012 maritime disaster anybody? No?)

Decent price, until you remember that's still $20 going to UbiSoft. The absolute nadir of gaming companies, following Activision's absorption. We never did get an actual apology from Yves about the whole sex assault culture thing because of course we didn't.

Oh and this is the most positive assessment of BG&E's stealth mechanics I've seen, in that Ollie doesn't mention them at all.

Can't believe the radical left are asking for PC features in their Switch, what's the world coming to!?

(This is a joke. Disclaimer necessary because the Internet took Poe's Law and ran with it.)

I don't like the way these questions have been arranged I'm afraid. I'd vote for 'depends but sounds too high' and 'a cult favourite last released on GameCube and with significant overhauls to visuals and soundtrack should be treated differently to a mainstream 3DS rerelease' if I could.

Florian is a terrible pick. There wasn't a moment when he was talking that I didn't wish he wasn't. Truly the worst Mario companion since that sticker crown thing. Should've had the Talking Flower Hive Mind down instead.

Cat Quest 2 is low-key one of the best co-op games on the system. I'm more hyped for this than I have any right being.

I am shocked!
SHOCKED!

...well, not that shocked.

Genuinely the best puzzle game I've ever played, Sakurai's influence shines through and Meteos is all the better for it. It's like a puzzling Smash Bros., only the fighters encompass a galaxy!

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Only if they each cost a dollar. Mathematics!

Ironically, these folks' approach to being stuck in a bunker seems to be hitting the ball deeper into the bunker.

I'm a basic Brit. I just want to see my home country's Poké-analogue rendered in 3D, complete with enormous wyrms and lots of castles and constant wars with Kalos.

"I heard your feedback and I’m sorry this was perceived that way."

That's not an apology. Just like the non-apology for a culture of sexual abuse, which is also the fault of the higher-ups rather than the lower-level staff, which is apparently still a problem within the company, and which was a big reason I didn't buy the game.

Want to show you're genuinely sorry? Resign.

"soccer (no, it’s not called football)"

That's just what I'd expect somebody from a country where "football" barely touches the feet to say!

Sad news. Beast Breaker was a very good game, a real hidden gem - too well hidden I guess. I hope that the people there find new jobs, and that this isn't used as a stick to beat the (very necessary) fight for games unionisation with.

Given that it's been in Development Hell for years and nobody's got a review code, surely caution is the only sensible option? I like me some Digimon, but I'll be waiting for reviews with trepidation.

Plus, y'know. 150+ hours of Xenoblade 3 to work through.

To be fair to the British government, they're currently too busy to legislate against gambling in games. Backstabbing each other, eating the country alive, and giving backhanders to their mates all takes a lot of time!

Activision continuing to cover themselves with glory, is it? Bunch of (insert your favourite cuss here: it still won't be vile enough for Kotick).

@moodycat Absolutely not! They're meant to be cursed tea - so presumably made by somebody putting cold tea into the microwave. The horror.

@Pupuplatter
"tired of hearing about this game"
"12 people want a remake"

Something about this doesn't add up, does it? It's not the same 12 people every time.

Just skip the articles if you don't care for the game, and let the rest of us enjoy them. There are games people go on about more and with less justification than this.

@Tandy255 It's like I can't even read the article. D'oh.

Ah, another American game that doesn't realise how a character named 'randy' comes across to British audiences. Bless 'em.

Ooh! I liked the aesthetic and combat of HLD, so a 3D version sounds right up my...

> roguelite

...never mind.

I'm shocked, flabbergasted even. It's not as if the British public has a history of making stupid decisions!

'What's Eggdog?'
'Not much, what's egg with you?'

Thanks for reporting on this fellas. It isn't pretty, and it isn't fun, but it's important for us to be aware and be kept aware of it. As aware as I imagine Kotick was that these incidents were happening under his watch.

Brave to leave the comments open though, best of luck with that...

@BloodyMurder I believe there is, you can find the toggle under the 'stop being a bleeding homophobe and don't date a bloke if you don't want to date a bloke' setting in your brain.

My partner loves Mass Effect, and has a statue of Garrus on her desk. I always knew he was up to something! He's pointing his sniper rifle* at her chair and everything. To eBay with him.

@nessisonett @anextphilosophy I'm guessing the bit in the press release where it says "battling against wild Pokémon in order to catch them" is designed to head that sort of thinking off at the pass, sadly.

HD2D >> NFTs. I'm just grateful the president still has a few sane brain cells left, even if they're hugely outnumbered.

Nia from XC2 would not have been half as good if she hadn't been threatening to 'bash you up proper next time I swear' in a Welsh accent. Anything else is irrelevant in comparison.

Okay it plays well, but does it run at a smooth 60fps at all times with 1080p resolution, all 1,000+ Pokémon, and the ability to count Bidoof's individual nostril hairs? No purchase from me if not! Harrumph harrumph.

Great piece @kategray, about a subject that needs more airtime precisely because it's so commonplace. As somebody once said, 'Crunch isn't a triumph of the workforce, it's a failure of the management.'

I can't help thinking that if people got as angry about crunch as they do about news articles about crunch, we'd have better working conditions already.

How appropriate that UbiSoft are best known for a series of games about a man who plunges something into his victims without their consent.

Yves Guillemot needs to resign and let somebody who's actually going to do something about sexual assault take charge.

Can't believe best girl and loving partner Dahlia Hawthorne didn't make an appearance!

'A Little to the Left'? Nintendo Life pushing the woke SJW Marxist agenda again! Disgusting.

😉

At least one comment on here has already touched on one problem with the game: NEO The World Ends With You is a completely different game to the DS original, not a port or a remaster. But there's also a port/remaster that wasn't very good. NEO TWEWY had completely different controls and was very good. Definitely a touch of the Wii Us with the messaging.

It's a shame: as someone who liked but didn't love the original TWEWY, NEO TWEWY is my game of the year by a distance. If you like the original or JRPGs in general, it's a must-buy. It deserved better.

@kupocake Blockchain, microtransactions, sexual assault - if you took a cross-section of all the things wrong with the game industry, you'd find UbiSoft's swirly logo staring back at you.

What is it with Game Freak and revealing everything about its new monsters before release? The best part of the original games was being surprised, discovering, meeting new monster friends. Now it feels like we have to know every detail several months before. I'd have loved to have been surprised by this little cutie in-game.

@Joeynator3000 Probably too busy concentrating on their sexual harassment lawsuit to fix games.