Balladeer

@SmaggTheSmug Looking at some of the comments it looks like the cloud data vanishes as well on the default settings. Be careful.

Also I’ve seen somewhere that it only affects download copies of the game, but only in one place. Very much unconfirmed.

Certain types of snakes can dislocate their jaws to eat animals larger than they are.

Kirby’s more snake-like than Snake.

@Liam_Doolan And good on you for doing so. 👍🏻

The real Sonic film was the memes we made along the way.

@Reignmaker Words Backed with Nuclear Weapons for his Final Smash, I presume!

This is the most entertaining article I’ve read for a while. Terrifying, yes; but entertaining.

I therefore eagerly await the first commenter to say, ‘Slow news day.’ That original and amusing line.

This is cool, good to see. But...

‘Please be respectful in the comments’

Oh my sweet summer child. Let’s hope so.

Aw, look at her getting all embarrassed about her skirt when she's falling! So adorable...

...what are you doing Internet, PUT THOSE PENS DOWN

I’m just here for the comments managing to be more offended by the review than the reviewer was by the game.

@HobbitGamer True, and the Wario DLC costume was a lovely touch.

Albeit, y'know, one I'd never actually want to touch.

Wow. I quite like scores, perhaps because I’m a numberish fellow myself; but frankly a lot of the comments have made me see the value of scoreless reviews. I understand those who’d only read a summary to give themselves minimal spoilers, but those who proudly say they don’t read the review at all? That means that not only do they not appreciate at all what games journalists actually put the effort into (the writing), it also means they don’t understand why that score’s been given. The score is only an opinion, and without knowing why that opinion exists, how can you tell if the points the reviewer likes are the same as those you will? I find that ludicrous.

I also see reviewers getting a lot of flack for the scores they award from people who haven’t read, or don’t care about, why they awarded that score. Not to mention the pressure to compare your score against EVERY SINGLE GAME that’s got a higher or lower score before some muppet chirps up, ‘OMG U gave dis less than ur colleague gave Zelda the Flute of Flatulence ur carp @ riting!!!’ In summary, if I were a reviewer, I’d want my reviews to be scoreless.

I do quite like scores though, so long as by reading the review I can see where they came from. But they’re not necessary.

Having watched that trailer, I can confidently say that I don’t have a clue what’s going on.

Looks colourful though!

Purrfect concept, utterly pawful music.

Other commenters:
‘There’s no weight’
‘It looks like a mess’
‘Generic music’
‘It won’t sell’

Me: ‘HOLY HECK this looks like a cel-shaded version of the best bits from Xenoblade X only fully real-time GAME OF 2019 CONFIRMED’

I need to work on my cynicism, clearly.

Bravely Third is surely too obvious? Surely? (overthinks it)

Borti is one of the least appealing designs for a hero I’ve seen in some time. Making a cute T-Rex isn’t hard: it’s astonishing how much they’ve botched it. I think it’s the baseball cap and/or the frankly bizarre eyebrows.

‘UK Tabloid...’

There’s your warning that it’s going to be reactionary moronic nonsense.

Hollow Knight and Celeste is a cracking top two. If they don’t mop up a good few GotY awards between them I’ll be surprised... and disappointed.

@rjejr ‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that...’
‘They did. They should.’
‘Fair enough, carry on.’

@Silly_G I live in London, I’m not sure most affordable houses would be large enough...

@rjejr All about that life-sized Wailord. Might need its own room(s).

Could balance a life-sized Skitty on its head.

I have nothing to say on the game, but that’s an excellent Squadron Commander Flasheart reference in the subtitle! ‘Any woman willing to chain herself to my railings and suffragette movement gets my vote.’

Ironically I didn’t see the main character ducking throughout the trailer.

I’ve scrolled past the entire article and comments, purely so that I can thank you Ryan for not mentioning their names in the title, nor putting one of them in the thumbnail. I complain a lot about Nintendo Life leaking stuff on the homepage: only right I say thanks when they don’t!

@NewAdvent I thought the same... Sadly that’s counting Pokémon Trainer as one and the Echo Fighters separately. 😔

Really hope we get some more new announcements (non-Echo), new fighters are what make the series for me.

@SmaggTheSmug Defintely agree with you about pre-order culture, and I get that it’s an ad-fest. I think a lot of people (self included) still consider those adverts to be the best and most exciting way to discover a game for the first time though.

I still rather like E3 hype myself. Getting excited is fun!

STOP PUBLISHING LEAKS IN HEADLINES ON E3 DAY

The best way to discover this, if it happens at E3, is at E3. If this is a surprise for later, it’s killed. If it’s not, you lose nothing by publishing tomorrow instead, or keeping the game title in the body of the article and out of the front page.

Leak culture in gaming is a problem. Please, chaps, please be part of the solution.

@NoxAeturnus Like I said, I don’t particularly care about this one for just that reason. Other people might, though. What’s more, Nintendo Life have just gone and done exactly the same with a game!

I’m thinking that, news site or no, leaks (if that’s what this is) shouldn’t be being published as article headlines this close to E3.

Fortunately I don’t care about this one, but it might have been a great moment for some to see come up in the Direct. It’s much less enjoyable to experience it first in headline form. Sorry Dom, but I think ‘Retail Leak Suggests New Services Coming to Switch’ would have been less spoileriffic. Poor show.

You mention fan-favourite characters, yet I couldn’t see a single one all trailer...

😉

£45!? For less I could hire a backstreet surgeon to shove a rusty needle into my bladder and extract its contents, and it still wouldn’t be taking the p*!$ quite as much!

As if Jynx wasn’t problematic enough... I can definitely see why Bellossom got a revamp!

@roadrunner343 It’s a fair point. Looking back, that 9/10 seemed to acknowledge the simplistic puzzles but not be as harsh on them, and consider the narration (which the reviewer back then quickly silenced) as genuinely good rather than trying too hard. Then, of course, it was on a console with a more slender line-up, especially its eShop, and there wasn’t the smart device value point.

I see the validity of both: however, I would have appreciated Mitch at least mentioning why the gulf existed. Does he understand why the previous review gave the score it did? Does he think the points are valid? It’s the same site, I think that merits at least a little consistency mention.

@Switch_will_fail Depends. Does the text back up the critic's point of view? Can they spin a good argument as to why they think The Witcher 3 is worth a 1/10 (reductio ad absurdum aside)? Because that's what the vast majority of the comments seem to overlook. They focus on the numbers, or on one criticism the reviewer made out of many. I think the text backs up the score well enough.

The number on its own absolutely shouldn't scare people away from Little Nightmares. If people think some of the points that made the critic award that number will reduce the fun they have? That's a different story.

'Taste' is subjective as all hell.

Goodness me, the comments on this thing! 'The reviewer's subjective opinion disagrees with other people's subjective opinions, ergo he must be wrong!'

I'm presuming that most of the complainers haven't read the whole review. It's specifically stated near the beginning that the lack of sympathy for the protagonist made the stakes feel lower than they should have done for such a thing. A subjective comment, sure, but evidence that it's not 'just the loading times' that resulted in the 6/10. (That's not to mention 'spongey controls, unclear environments and ropey collision detection' - fairly damning for a puzzle-platformer, no?) The text matches up with the number in tone, which is what really matters.

More and more reviewers now are reverting to simpler scoring mechanisms, because they think people focus too much on the numbers and not enough on the words that they actually put the effort into. I hope this doesn't happen on Ninty Life, because I actually like the numbers; but from the comments here, I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

My friends and I have had lots of fun with Jackbox Party Pack 3. Mostly Quiplash, which is like Cards Against Humanity, only with more creativity involved. It’s a party game I would recommend to anyone.

Meanwhile, in the interests of not saying anything if one has nothing nice to say, this is a game that exists.

I’m disgusted at the amount of airbrushing that goes on nowadays. Presenting Kongs like this new, extra-ripped Funky is going to have negative effects on young gorillas’ self esteem. The campaign for natural ape biceps starts here!

> successfully takes Dark Souls out of article
> keeps it as banner picture

Baby steps, gents, baby steps.

‘Recently announced Super Smash Bros. game.’

You teases. Still nothing on whether it’s 5 or 4.5. This is Sakurai-level trolling, appropriately enough.

@Kirby-in-Kirkby Ah, but if it doesn’t have guns or bloody violence in, is it even a REAL game at all? 🤔

A CEO needs to be a businessman, of course; but it warms my blackened withered heart to see that he’s a gamer as well. Brings back memories of that Iwata speech. You know the one.

Doomed. I’ve been saying so for ages. They’re past it, a dinosaur in the industry, a terrible anachronistic throwback. Their machines are babies’ toys for babies. The sooner they go third-party and let REAL gamers play their software, the better.

Wait, what?

Given Zelda and Mario in the machine’s first year, they’re going to need to bring some big guns at E3 to achieve such figures, such as the aforementioned SSB5 or Pokémon. I hope that’s the case and this isn’t just getting cocky. Nintendo do that occasionally. It doesn’t usually work out well for them.

Will Furukawa make funny Nintendo Direct appearances? This is obviously the most important question. Sure, Kimishima may have presided over a period of much-needed stability, but did he ever wear amusing hats or look at bananas in an odd way? No. No he did not.

@ThanosReXXX Sadly I then kept reading the comments after yours... Ah well, we live and learn.

@ThanosReXXX

'Don't read the comments,' they always say. 'Don't read the comments.'

Today, I am glad I read the comments. 😊

I’m not ripping my hair out, these things happen, but it would be nice to know why.

@roadrunner343 I appreciate the respect! Fair enough to those who like them, it’s just not my cup of tea. Which makes the apparent surge of them in downloadable games a bit irritating. Thank goodness for Image & Form going the other way, I suppose!

This sounded right up my street and I got all excited... then I saw the word ‘roguelike’.

It is my considered opinion that algorithms will not match a developer’s own touches where level design is concerned, not until the machines rise up anyway. So by the time I actually want to play a roguelike, I’ll be enslaved by the Master AI and a bit too busy for videogames.