BenAV

Tough choice for me as I always really love Vanillaware's art style but I gave my vote to Animal Well.

@YunoboCo I only gave the game an 8/10 but if they just had have added a couple of options in the menu to lock the framerate at 30fps and turn off the blur effect then I would have rated it higher.

Definitely agree with Unicorn Overlord as #1. It was the best new game I played this year on any platform.

@Xenoblade-Fan I'm pretty keen to see the lineup for the new console. They set the bar high with the Switch's launch year.

@Xenoblade-Fan Been a pretty good year for new and interesting indie games in particular I'd say. I think the first party lineup was pretty lackluster but that's what I was expecting from the start with a new console around the corner.

Pretty much everything Vanillaware makes is really good so I prefer that they continue to bring us that creativity and innovation rather than do what most studios do and pump out sequel after sequel for anything successful.

I love Unicorn Overlord and definitely wouldn't complain if we got more of it but it's fine as a one-off standalone title. It's something that I can definitely see myself going back to and playing through again in the future.

1. The Binding of Isaac - 244 hours
2. Balatro - 109 hours
3. Touhou Mystia's Izakaya - 77 hours

Unicorn Overlord would have been a close 4th.

I played my Switch for 1,068 hours (36 games) overall but that's almost exclusively in the first half of the year before I built my PC. Second half of the year I only really played Emio and Zelda.

The main thing I'm eager to find out is the game lineup for the first year or so of the console's life. They really nailed the first party support in the Switch's first year and I'm very interested to see what they have up their sleeve this time around.

@B_Lindz My favourite this year. Been some other good games release throughout the year but Unicorn Overlord set the bar high early and nothing could quite top it.

@Knightrider1 If the game lineup is good then there will still be plenty of excitement.

@sanderev He's more of a scammer than a cheater. He should have known he was crossing a pretty big line by selling it.

@Bolt_Strike The way I see it is Pocket Pair must have done enough to avoid the IP infringement lawsuit on legal technicalities so Nintendo/The Pokemon Company are using legal technicalities of their own to get them on patent infringements instead.

I've been mostly gaming on PC lately but I will always continue to buy Nintendo systems day one as long as they continue to make some of my favourite video games. The two together feels like the perfect combination that allows me to play anything I want. I haven't owned a Sony or Microsoft console in many years now and don't see that ever changing.

Nothing that really captures my interest honestly. At this point I'm mainly just playing PC while I wait to find out what Nintendo has in the works for the next console's launch year.

Played through the game last year and had a really fun time with it. Not really interested in going back to it for extra content though.

Please no. Sony owning Spike Chunsoft would be horrible.

Absolutely no idea what the game even is based on that trailer but I really loved Sakuna so I'm really interested to see where this goes.

Speaking of Sakuna, I recently picked it up again on Steam recently so I've been looking forward to playing the game over again from scratch. I'll definitely get around to that sometime between now and whether this game comes out.

The new art style is pretty but ultimately I'm just not huge on most JRPGs from that era in general so it's probably not going to be for me even as a remake.

@Maxz I'd actually be much more inclined to give Xenoblade Chronicles X another chance (didn't like it on Wii U) if it were cross-platform with Switch 2. I suspect that it's probably just part of them filling the release schedule with whatever they can till the new system is ready though. It's just about the only Wii U game left at this point. They better hurry up and release the Switch 2 before we're stuck with an Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival port.

There's a chance that I've bought my last first party Switch game at this point unless there are more surprises on the way. Definitely getting Metroid Prime 4 but there's a chance that could release on the Switch 2 as well. Thinking about giving Xenoblade Chronicles X another chance (didn't like it the first time despite mainline Xenoblade being my favourite series) but it comes out a day before Atelier Yumia so not sure if I'll get around to buying it.

@Maxz I think if it was going to launch early next year then we probably would have gotten an announcement by now regardless of the upcoming holidays. If it's a bit further off, which I think the Xenoblade announcement is a hint towards, then there's really no reason to announce it yet.

Had the game preordered since it was announced but ended up cancelling this week just because I don't think I'd get around to playing it for at least a while and I'm trying to get out of the habit of buying games that I think I want to play but then never end up getting around to. Glad that it turned out well though, hopefully I'll find the time to pick it up and play it eventually.

Haven't played any of them as of yet. I've had Slay the Princess on PC for a while and intend to give it a go at some point in the near future now that The Pristine Cut is out. Neva is definitely on my list of games to played as I quite enjoyed GRIS but I have a lot to play as is so will probably wait for a sale.

Ys VIII is my favourite that I've played so far. It's also the only one I've played so that doesn't mean anything. Good game though.

Dave the Diver was an absolute blast. If whatever comes next is anywhere near as fun then count me in.

PS with the top four in the software charts but the Switch hardware just keeps on selling.

@Samalik Not free but it's pretty cheap standalone.

Don't mind seeing info for Mario Party games all come out early considering how questionable a lot of the mechanics and other design choices have been in recent entries. Probably not getting this one regardless though, I know I'd end up playing it like once then never getting around to it again.

I had very little expectations from this one just based on the first trailer I saw for it TBH. Art style is pretty enough but I couldn't see what else it had going for it aside from that.

Some of the big publishers these days probably would have just released this as the full game.

I wasn't too bothered by it TBH. I think the game's button mapping in general could be more optimised (it would be very easy to completely free up the Dpad for setting echoes to) but it was simple enough to work with as is. Most of the time the echoes I wanted would be near the start of the most recent list and if they're not I'd just use the + menu instead.

I don't give much weight to Metacritic scores as I often find my personal taste in games can be very different to the general consensus but I do think that the Switch easily has the overall best library of games out any console yet.

I'm generally not too fussy about framerate but I've definitely found it to be noticeable in this game and it's somewhat impacted my experience of exploring the world. At least the dungeons have been fine. Overall the blur effect still bothers me more though.

I'm all for as many games as possible being ported to the Switch but the visual hit is a little rough when I think the visuals/atmosphere is one of the main things it has going for it. I felt the gameplay was alright but nothing special really, but I dunno if that's just me.

As far as the gameplay goes, it's my favourite top-down Zelda game. The inconsistent framerate and the blur effect have taken away from my enjoyment a like bit though, which is a bit annoying as both issues would be pretty simple to solve with a couple of options in the settings to lock the framerate to 30fps and turn the blur off. Overall I've got it as an 8/10, not finished yet though.

Not sure how well utilised they'd be for third party ports but they could be pretty handy if used correctly. It never hurts to have more control options at the very least.

@geo-shifter I did play the fan translation years ago but I'm mainly just meaning the continuation of the main series anyway. Been over eight years since Spirit of Justice now and over seven years since The Great Ace Attorney 2 originally released in Japan. That's a pretty long time without any new games beyond ports/translation so hopefully they've spent that time coming up with some good ideas for the next game and the wait will be worth it.

Feels like a billion years since the last game. Hopefully we're getting pretty close to a new entry now that the entire series is available on modern systems.

As long as it's a full, proper game and doesn't require me to touch the mobile game to get the most out of it then I'll buy it. It's a series that I always enjoy and I end up smashing through the games in like a week so two in a year is no problem.

@Bratwurst35 I'm one of the ones who has never really been able to tell. I've never known whether a game I'm playing is 30fps or 60fps without being told and I need a side-by-side comparison to really see the difference. Been playing some games on PC lately with 120fps or higher but I don't notice any difference from playing a game at 60fps.

Still my favourite game of this year so far.

@DarkTron Assuming that it also doesn't get delayed a billion times then yeah.

@UltimateOtaku91 Or they could just not announce them all way before they're close to being finished.

As neat as the remake of the first game is, it's really hard to get excited about Level-5 announcements when they always announce way too early in advance and then inevitably delay further. I don't want to know about planned 2026 releases in 2024.

Looking forward to playing this in 2028.

I don't think the game is very good to begin with TBH so I'm not particularly surprised that Nintendo wouldn't care about holding onto the trademark.

At the very least it always seemed like they were deliberately walking the tight line between what they can and can't get away with, if some of the design similarities were anything to go by. If you're going down that path then you've gotta be careful to make sure you're covered legally from all angles as you know the other party is going to be looking carefully for any slip ups.

@MiltonHolmes It is allowed to succeed. It just needs to do so without infringing on other companies' patents. If they did nothing wrong then no worries but if the allegations are proven true then they deserve to face the consequences.

EA can say whatever they like but I'm still not buying any of their games on any of my systems.

I loved Ender Lilies so I've been looking forward to this.