Banjo-

Can't wait to check the air and water physics and controls, that were a lot of fun in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, compared to the dull equivalents in Mario Kart 8. I'm also curious about what non-Sonic content will be added. Sonic is my favourite Sega franchise, but I like what they did in the past, except the addition of a Non-Sega human driver... :S

@h3s Same here. I have the Wii U version but I haven't touched it since I have the Xbox version, that is 60fps on Series X, unfortunately still same resolution. I had much more fun with this than with Mario Kart 8 on Wii U and Switch.

A good thing about Team Sonic Racing on Series X is that it's 4K and 60fps with a few frame drops on Xbox One X, but perfectly smooth on Series X. The PS version was never 4K.

After my experience with Switch ports of racing games (Crash Team Racing, Team Sonic Racing...), I'm sure about getting this for Series X and not Switch.

@SpinEnDash They changed many things. You save with statues and the time mechanics and songs almost stopped making sense in terms of urgency and consequences. They broke the game balance which was intense and epic. The dangerous and catastrophic events were made less relevant and menacing. The colours were much brighter. Some bosses were nerfed considerably. Mikau's powers were turned off without magic... They added two fishing ponds with boss battles, which is cool. All this off the top of my head...

On the other hand, Ocarina of Time 3D is like a definitive version of Ocarina of Time and I love the 3D in that game. That doesn't mean that I don't want a remake with Wii U demo graphics.

I got the limited edition, still have it. As much as I wanted to love the 3DS remake because of the quality of life improvements, my favourite being the overhauled Bombers' notebook, at the end of the day it's a toned down version, so the original one still is the best. Mikau was nerfed and that's a sin.

Well, this is one of my favourite genres ever. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is more fun than Mario Kart 8. Team Sonic Racing is great in spite of a few weird decisions and shortcomings. I hope that this new entry has the best of both. I love that we'll be racing in vehicles across land, sea, and air, the best part of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, better done than in Mario Kart and more similar to Diddy Kong Racing.

Non-Nintendo games also deserve success, right? These charts are interesting, but only count physical copies, Switch being the only platform that still sells tons of them. Xbox around 10%, PS5 20% and Switch 52%.

The only reason for third parties to skip Switch 2 would be its power, that we still don't know much about.

I think that the first one is the best. I like 2, but was disappointed with 3. Since it's Luigi's Mansion, I would choose a creepy mansion or a small village.

I got and beat the Wii version. I loved the game, but the controls were way too unreliable. I do think that some Wii games got them perfectly right, though. I also have the Xbox version, but haven't played it yet.

By the way, Okamiden (DS) didn't have this problem because the stylus was a perfect fit.

@Oracles_fanboi I think it was a double critique. I played Breath of the Wild on Wii U (almost 300h) and I think s/he was generous, the villages are 15fps at best, but it's disconcerting that a first-party (even if it was outsourced) and exclusive Switch game has a worse performance than the game it gets the code from, Link's Awakening remake. I agree, we all should hold Nintendo, the richest company in Japan that only has a console on the market, to a higher standard. Honestly, I find alarming that so many people considered Echoes of Wisdom the Game of the Year.

@mlt Right. I played Trials of Mana recently on Series X. It's very nice, I think they got the 3D right. Secret of Mana (SNES) has a really beautiful art style. It's a wonderful game. The Octopath Traveller titles and the Dragon Quest remakes are also beautiful, much more than I expected. Secret of Mana deserves that kind of remake.

Were the awful frame rate and awful UI mentioned in the review?

@Oracles_fanboi They have stellar studios, Sonic is back in form and they are preparing IP revivals. ✌🏻

In spite of growing up with Nintendo, I love Sega, especially Sonic. I don't like those exclusive deals with Apple, Sonic can't be an Apple mobile game. 😅

@EarthboundBenjy The funny thing is that (New) 3DS is perfectly capable of running them in stereoscopic 3D thanks to Red Viper. I chose the black and white colour setting.

@mlt Secret of Mana is an excellent choice to forget about the very tacky PS4 remake.

@ktej75 I don't think so, but the offline remake of Dragon Quest X might be ported and released worldwide. The online games in this series seem to be a Japan thing.

I was given Wario Land 4 when it was released for GBA. I never loved it and I never knew why. All I know is that Wario Land 1 is still my favourite and has a terrific 8-bit soundtrack. Wario Land Virtual Boy is very nice, too. I played that rare one on New 3DS. The Shake Dimension is great.

I'm very happy with the greater success in this new multiplatform era of Square Enix, with Xbox finally getting the games that Sony paid for keeping away from it. Nintendo, as long as Switch 2 is technically capable, will get all Square Enix games.

Needless to say, this is bad news. I think it's something that we have been seeing since the pandemic, probably because most teams were oversized before it. I wouldn't say this if it wasn't because of almost all developers doing the same, except Nintendo that outsources most of the development. Some pessimistic people were foretelling a video games crisis. I guess this is the better outcome, the solution or the "last resort" like the developer said.

@Xbox_Dashboard There were not low-res and high-res packs, but high-speed data loading packs for the physical version, designed to speed up load times by installing parts of the game onto the Wii U or USB storage device.

@Gelantious @the_beaver And the worst thing is that the reason is that one of the developers went to USA and heard something or got some cool vibes and translated them to... that. But yeah, some songs are great, especially those that are toned down. I remember turning the volume up and down.

@Austrian In my opinion, it's the best original Wii U game, Breath of the Wild included, and the most impressive visually. It was possible because they baked the lighting.

One thing that I don't like about the Switch ports, full price aside, is that some of them have compressed audio and music compared to the Wii U version.

@Kingchin Right, but the comparison was with the SNES and N64 cartridges, that were a kind of console expansion, with an additional motherboard and new chips added to the circuitry.

They have made excellent racing games.

I read the statement again and what worries me is that they are considering both the inflation and the affordable pricing that people expect from Nintendo -could be translated to "less for the same"- the third ingredient being not selling at a loss and the result the specifications.

@Inaroomalone The prices dropped when the version 2 "Mariko" was released in 2020 (or was it the OLED in 2021?). The price became £260 instead of £280 in UK (like you said) and €270 instead of €330 in EU, the biggest drop was in EU.

@SillyG Of course, I might be wrong, but the Switch 2 is LCD and the OLED model will come later and be more expensive. I would recommend you to wait for the OLED model.

@Duncanballs Most of the money we gamers spend on this is on video games/subscriptions rather than hardware, so it's worth getting better hardware, e.g., Series X over Series S, which means I hope you're right. What you are saying would actually be "good" for gamers, because it grants better hardware, but "bad" for Nintendo, because it means selling fewer units and potentially fewer games. As a Series X (not S) owner, I would prefer that you were right, but I doubt it. When Switch was revealed, Digital Foundry expected it to have Tegra X2 instead of 1, and it's been years, years, since we've been reading Switch players complaining about its lack of power, here on NL and everywhere else. However, financially, the cheap and weak console has been a success.

@robotreptile @NorrinRadd The inflation is never applied equally to all goods, otherwise few people would be able to afford video games in 2025. Not just they are a "luxury" good for the masses, that you can consider art or entertainment, but they are also intangible, they are digital copies, except for the piece of plastic and optical disc/SD-like card in the case of physical copies, that are much cheaper to manufacture than a SNES or N64 cartridge.

@Duncanballs I don't get it. What do you mean by "whether people like it or not" in this context?

@Duncanballs Well, the price for Switch was £280, $300, €330; the cheapest Steam Deck is significantly more expensive at £350, $400, €420 and lacks the Switch gimmicks -mainly the joy-cons-, so all the budget is spent on specs. What I am saying is that Nintendo is prioritising pricing and not specs and repeating the Switch pattern. I could be wrong and Switch 2 be expensive and powerful, we'll see.

@Keman

The biggest reason of the success of Switch is the price, no doubt! Why should Nintendo name their next console to Switch 2 and suddenly making it to a high-end console?

Too many still believes in that SW2 will be as powerful as PS4 Pro or even PS5 despite being a hybrid console. Not a chance that SW2 will be more powerful than Steam Deck while having a bigger screen and at same time costing several $100 less.

Don't forget the Project Reality and NX hype or rumors, since they in the end ended up being less than 1/10 as powerful as the hype/rumors/speculations.

This is exactly what I think. The success of Switch was based on being relatively cheap and portable and Switch 2 is going to follow the pattern, so it's going to be less powerful than any of the handheld PCs on the market. Switch 2 is literally conceived as a follow-up to the financial success of Switch.

For the first time ever, everything about their new console mirrors the previous one, so I said when it was revealed that they will match the price of Switch at launch and I bet they will release a Lite and/or OLED model afterwards. The power will be equivalent to what that price means today in mobile technology. Of course, it's just my intuition, but do you remember those rumours/leaks about the prototype running Tears of the Kingdom in 1080p 60fps? Oh, and I really doubt that they will sell Switch 2 at a loss.

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 was one of my Gamecube fighting games and I liked it.

@FishyS "Although I like Donkey Kong I don't feel the need for this port. If it was $20 I might grab it, but definitely not $60."

That makes total sense!

On the other topic (...)

@Not_Soos Throwing many ideas at the wall but nothing sticked is a perfect definition of Super Mario Odyssey. Sometimes I think some games are loved just because there is Mario or Link in them. Luigi's Mansion 3 also disappointed me. I got 100%, but I sold it because I will never replay it, while I loved the first one and liked the second one and I have replayed both

This might sound hilarious, but the most fun I had with Super Mario Odyssey (I got everything except some moons that felt a waste of time) was Luigi's multiplayer mini game. I also think that Super Mario 3D World is boring and fails to impress veteran players. Super Mario 3D Land is a neat 3DS game. Oh, and let me say that what I hate the most about Super Mario Wonder are the sound effects, especially the jump sound effects and, of course, Nintendo would not let you turn them off, although for some people they partly ruin the experience.

Super Mario World has the best physics, controls, soundtrack, sound effects and art design of any Mario game. It's just perfect and nothing has ever changed my mind about it. Super Mario Bros. 3 comes behind. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is good, but can't hold a candle to them.

@Not_Soos Once again, I enjoyed reading your comments about video game masterpieces. I consider Super Mario World the best Mario 2D game and Super Mario Sunshine the best Mario 3D game, basically because later 3D entries were not fully-fledged platformers, looking at you Super Mario Odyssey. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are fun but more action-oriented. Super Mario 3D Land/World are also fun, but more "arcade". Super Mario 64, well, it's part of my childhood and a brilliant 3D debut.

I would like to reiterate that one of the things that make Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine timeless and stand out in the 2D and 3D spaces are the controls and physics, that are sometimes underrated, just because they are more advanced and acrobatic.

@batmanbud2 Oh, we agree.

@8bit4Life Absolutely. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are open world games like many others, but yeah, sterile, boring... Xenoblade Chronicles X has a lot of interesting stuff going on that I enjoyed. It's been ten years, but I remember that the mechs are fun to keep, upgrade, repair and use; even routines like the probes are fun. The Gamepad is well used. The weapons and the Flight Module are amazing. The story and the characters are very interesting. The more time I spent playing the game, the more I enjoyed it. I basically got 100%. The gameplay, quests, exploring and the combat are a million times better than Xenoblade Chronicles. I consider it a Wii U must-play, so I'm happy that more people are going to play it now. I hope that it's not censored and toned down like other Nintendo re-releases, though.

PS: Horses or tech... I tend to enjoy old settings more, e.g., Assassin's Creed over Watch Dogs or Red Dead Redemption 2 over GTA, but I love all the tech in Xenoblade Chronicles X!

I liked this more than the first one, that I consider overrated. One of the many things I liked was the dialogues, that are daring and honest, something I expected Nintendo to have censored. In comparison, the recent The Legend of Zelda games are sterile. I also found the gameplay and missions addictive and fun, even exploring the world, which is the biggest difference compared to the first title. I also liked the story much more, because it is more original and somehow believable.

@PinderSchloss Yeah, I would love to turn the vocals off in this and many other games. When you don't like a song, you normally skip it. Playing a game, the song is repeated endlessly whether you like it or not.

I hope that Sega remakes the Sonic Adventure titles and Sonic Heroes.

@-wc-

Jimmy Jr. can share with his little sister.

I wasn't born then, but Nintendo did that better 42 years ago with their first proper console, NES. Now they favour gimmicks and marketing, and some ideas are not as great in real life as in the commercials. On the other hand, Wii Sports was just as fun and Wii U was better than it looked.

@chefgon I know that you will probably not agree, but as a counterargument, I wanted to say that Nintendo sacrificed the D-pad and a proper controller, that you need to buy separately, because Switch doesn't support any of the Wii U controllers (that also use Bluetooth). What you really get in the package is a big handheld that runs on an average battery, with very limited power and games that are designed to be played on a big screen (+). In many ways, Switch is the worst of both worlds and has the worst Nintendo controllers included (++), but cleverly marketed. When Switch was revealed, it was pretty obvious to me that it was a Nintendo handheld and Wii U formula, Jack of all trades, master of none.

(+) Example: When characters "speak" (without voice) in a low voice in Tears of the Kingdom (first-party game), I want to know who can read the lines on a Switch Lite.

(++) They can't compete with Wii Remotes nor proper controllers.

@-wc- OK, I'll answer. When I had only the Switch Lite and before I got the Switch v.2 and more games, I played once in tabletop mode with my friend's Switch, Super Mario Odyssey. I could barely see a thing, let alone play the game. He could because he knew the game by heart. It just doesn't work unless you know exactly what you are doing and sit five inches away from the Switch in an awkward position. I don't know how Nintendo managed to market that so well.

Based on the past, I doubt that Nintendo will release patches for Switch games to improve performance and resolution, let alone an additional control scheme. Maybe a (paid) new New Play Control, a rushed Splatoon 4 or re-marketed Switch titles like Super Mario Maker 2 Deluxe. 😂

Nintendo Switch rails are physical and still can't prevent the wobble. They could have improved and fixed that. What they are saying is that the magnets bring the parts together and the physical connector acts as anchor. Both ideas have their own weaknesses, but I suspect that magnetism was chosen because it's easier to use... and market. Like other users said, Nintendo was known for its build quality. Not anymore. I wouldn't be so sure about Nintendo knowing what they are doing, after all the flaws of the Switch and joy-cons.

@8bit-Man Because of the new president's background in accounting and global marketing and because of the geniuses that made what Nintendo is retiring or just supervising. The company has been maximising benefits and reducing costs for a while, at the cost of losing some of the Nintendo magic that most of us love.

@8bit-Man Nintendo becoming more corporate than ever, Switch 2 being the perfect reflection of that? Legendary Nintendo developers and geniuses not being involved in development anymore? Those are the two biggest reasons for me.

"We have nothing more to announce on this topic."

But the internet does. 🤣

@john_lennon999 You have every right to complain, just like anyone else! Each person has different priorities and habits.