BoilerBroJoe

So “The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales” is a wild, unwieldy name for a game but “Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok” is just another day at the office? Sounds like some New-IP bullying to me.

Terrible hacker(s) who need to see legal consequences for this. Also, yet another reason why any HR "employee engagement and feedback solution" (read: employee surveillance) is terrible and should probably be legally restricted.

I know it's a cliche now to bash Nintendo Directs and I'm fully aware that the commercial and media landscape mean audiences consistently have outsized expectations. But the fact of the matter is, for me, there was very little I got excited about. I was most interested in the Xenoblade games, a finally-non-Cloud version of Kingdom Hearts, the HD-2D Final Fantasy and of course Zelda. But, with the exception of Zelda, those are all multi-dozen hour RPGs that I love to admire and never actually make the time to play. At the end of the day, I'm a simple platformer/basic action game man, and I was frankly more excited by the pre-Direct announcements this season (Star Fox, Rayman and Spyro) than by anything in this presentation. But I do hope people overall come away satisfied. A whole lot of negative energy is certainly not going to make me feel any better.

For some reason, when it can be absolutely any IP, it’s a lot less exciting for me. I guess it makes the game feel less coherent, or just cynical. I even felt that way about a couple of the more “mature” Smash characters, but for the most part they pulled it off. But I’m happy for the people who love it. It is called “CrossWorlds” after all; I can’t say they didn’t warn me.

@dskatter They Metroid Prime'd it. I'm not upset personally, as I was never really behind the whole "Dragon Quest but it's dooooaaark..." [gutteral sounds]

I'm not sure what they mean by "the art of Akira Toriyama and the music of Koichi Sugiyama" though, unless development REALLY went back a ways (and that still wouldn't make sense with a full reimagining). I'm worried that it might mean... AI...

What's with everybody and this name? Is "Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales" really that much worse than "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?"

It's NOT the first game! Oh my poor Star Fox on SNES, have you truly been forgotten? 😭

I don’t actually watch much anime but I’m a big Japanese film fan. Love that logo!

Oh man, I really want this, but Picross S needs to do better with their music options. Even if that music player works while you’re playing (I assume it must) I only see ten tracks there. Better than the typical four, but these are tracks we’ll be listening to endlessly while we play. We really need a lot more music options and Konami has some of the best game music in history. And give us some remixes too; it would be criminal not to utilize Konami’s musical catalogue more fully.

@JackieCMarlow Why not? Didn’t Arcade Archives release several of the Nintendo Vs. games? Maybe it’s less likely because it’s a console game and not an arcade game but it still seems plausible as a
Switch exclusive, maybe a year or two down the line.

Please enjoy my new series of vintage eBaum’s World videos, presented in 70mm!

I could see people buying these physically if they just like the visuals and feel of a vinyl collection. But yeah, purely as audio, you might as well just slap a hiss and crack filter on the track and call it a day. Art and hobby are a strange thing though; to each their own!

On a side note, I have to admit I had no idea these game awards existed. It’s very cool to see my city not only has a low-key game awards ceremony that’s focused on outreach and assistance to underserved communities in the gaming world, but also that it actually PREDATES the glitz and commercialism of the Game Awards. Good for them; I will likely be following this show going forward.

I propose a simple formula to focus our attention on. If a company is hiring as many or more people than the previous year and paying them each as much or more than the previous year (adjusted for inflation), then generative AI = fine. If a company is hiring or employing fewer people or paying them less than the previous year, then generative AI = bad.

Sounds like it will run as smooth as butter on Switch 3!

I loved the N64 version which I owned and beat back in the day, but the Dreamcast version, which is what's available on Steam, is beautiful and with a fully realized soundtrack. I would love Ubisoft to port that to the Switch 2 properly.

Weird, it's almost as if all the people graduating from college and finding that AI has taken their entry level jobs are unable to afford $500+ consoles. But I'm sure the transition is over and we'll all have more money to spend this time next year.

I'm about as cynical as they come, but this looks quite good to me. Not like cosplay, in my opinion. Obviously it looks like a modern movie, but it's got that '80s fantasy vibe to it, which is about as much as I could have hoped for. Let's see how well it actually comes together!

I was also born in 1984, and I have to say... I don't see it. Maybe it resembles British TV more than American TV? Or a community access channel, perhaps? But not plain old channel surfing, in my opinion. '90s TV was weird but... in a different way. This feels more like an AV club or something.

Alas, you can't go home again, as they say. But it's a cool concept regardless!

For the record, I'm almost certain the musical arrangements in all three games have existed since 1986, 1987, and 1988 respectively: Koichi Sugiyama was among the first to arrange his game soundtracks and record them with a full orchestra, and I've been listening to them since at least 2001 or so, so they're quite recognizable to me. I do think some of the shorter bits of music got arranged more recently, and some may indeed be new for this release. But most of what you're hearing are some of the oldest video game music arrangements in existence, which is pretty cool in and of itself!

I'm sure Virtual Console will return just before the Switch 3 turns out to not be backwards compatible, making them instantly obsolete. The time for VC was when the Switch launched and we could have gotten 10+ years of value.

But yes, Virtual Console should come back. If Steam can recognize your purchases over twenty years and across platforms, so can Nintendo. I know the "complain if you want, Nintendo will do what makes money" argument will rear it's ugly head every time this comes up, but it doesn't change the fact that a shift to rent-only markets is anti-consumer and something we can and will complain about at every opportunity. And I do think that more and more people are slowly starting to acknowledge it, especially as AI makes it increasingly clear that the endgame for the largest businesses is the ownership of everything. So there may be hope yet.

Let's goooooo!

Isn’t there a little cursor in the middle that never goes away? I know it’s silly as hell, but I never bought the Switch version for that reason. If I’m correct in remembering that, I’d love an update that lets you toggle it on/off.

Did they get Ron Jones to do the music?

It’s also lizard-brain to expect consumers to gladly pay the same amount for a game that they paid twenty years ago, when the number of games released each year was a tiny fraction of the number being released today. I spend astronomically more on games today than I ever did BECAUSE games are routinely on sale for $10/$15/$20, not in spite of it. And considering 90% of what I buy goes unplayed forever (no joke, and a phenomenon common enough that we all make collective jokes about backlogs), I’d say developers have gotten a pretty good deal out of me and everyone else.

If they’re annoyed that people won’t pay even more than they already do, perhaps they should tell some of thousands of their competitors to get out of the business. Otherwise, they should probably just appreciate that they’re literally the largest entertainment industry in history, that their customers are buying more than ever before despite arguably more income insecurity than ever before, and that any problems in profitability and job markets are the result of their own over-speculation and corporate greed rather than any big, mean customer.

I remember this. I think I rented it several times and eventually bought a used copy, though I never got very far. But it’s a cool game and I’ve actually been hoping that Nightdive would bring over their remastered version, which is based on the PC release but includes the N64 levels. Hopefully that’s still in the cards.

I assume this was never meant to be comprehensive, hence the name. But I do really wish more of these collections tried to be as definitive as possible, especially with a series like Gradius, which is almost impossible to explore in any official capacity without owning half a dozen systems. I would love them to have the various PC and console ports, specifically the MSX spin-offs, and the later console releases. Hell, put Gradius The Slot on there too (though I’m sure that would require more work). I’d be fine with these collections adding games as DLC over time, as long as there was an expectation of something reasonably comprehensive at the end of it.

I want them to sell the soundtracks just like I want them to sell the legacy games. Enough of this rentier capitalism.

@Asaki Yeah, Dragon Quest III looks pretty, but it’s not the HD-2D that I love. I was worried that they may be abandoning it for something simpler and am glad that these new games look like a return to form.

Hah. My 1TB Lexar was got a surprise delivery just two days ago and is already half full as I continue to redownload. It's gonna be a wait for those 2TB cards.

I think it’s only a matter of time, honestly.

I had ordered a nice fancy screen protector months ago, that still didn’t arrive for several days after I got the Switch 2, so needless to say I was walking on pins and needles handling it before then. Also, without a carrying case (which also arrived late), I only took it out of the house once to show a coworker, wrapped in multiple shirts and in a plastic bag (which, knowing what I know now about the easily scratchable screen, was probably not a good idea). On top of all that, the screen protector instructions insist on installing it in a pristine environment and not the dust-ridden basement hell that is my apartment. But despite all odds, I got the screen protector on and as far as I can see, not a scratch or bit of dust in there, so I’m quite relieved.

As for the commenters scratch-shaming with their boasts about knowing how to treat tech, relax. We can’t all be gods among men like you, apparently.

My only gripe, as mentioned above, is the map. I know @IceClimbersMain mentioned that it’s not supposed to be a giant open world collectathon, and I agree, but hunting for things is clearly the major point of Free Roam, and having a map with next to no detail at all is way too far in the other direction. At least let you zoom in to see some topography and give some indication of where you’ve found things, so that you don’t have to just rely on memory. The game is great and the music is amazing, but that one aspect of Free Roam is frustrating enough to make it an 8 for me. Hopefully if enough people are bringing that up, Nintendo will patch in some more mapping options down the line.

Okay, an update for @Coxula and anyone else who’s interested. After spending about thirty minutes slowly canceling the downloads that were queued, the system finally seemed to figure out what I was doing and canceled all the others from that point down (as well as not canceling the few that I had allowed to continue). So I don’t know if it’s because I canceled about half of the queue or what, but it finally got the message and at least saved me the time of going through the rest. Everything else I tried - disconnecting from the internet, ejecting virtual game cards, powering off and on, didn’t work. In each case the games that were still on my home menu remained in the download queue. Only canceling (or deleting) them individually works.

I don’t know how to avoid this for future digital-only Switch 2 buyers, unless you’re willing to archive most of your games BEFORE doing a system transfer. But of course if you want to keep those games downloaded on your Switch 1, then you’re out of luck avoiding an auto-download on the Switch 2.

So it’s still pretty bad, but maybe if you cancel enough, it will finish the job for you? I guess I can’t say for sure. Best of luck!

So all my games are digital, and after doing the system transfer it is queuing every single game up to download until I turn off the system or disconnect from the internet. I definitely do not want to fill up every bit of system storage right now. Is there any way to cancel all the downloads at once or do they all need to be canceled individually? This is kind of annoying to be honest.

EDIT: I just noticed someone else discussing this problem. Selecting virtual cards doesn’t work: even when the virtual card isn’t loaded it will try to download. And there’s no option for mass archiving either. As far as I can tell this is a pretty ridiculous oversight. I can either spend an hour canceling every download I don’t want or let it go and waste bandwidth until the system capacity is full. Not fun.

@dartmonkey any suggestions?

@Res462 Yes. Losing customers. And it would be totally justified. We’re allowed to criticize corporations sometimes.

From what I can tell in the screenshots, this will look like what I had imagined a Pokémon game could be on a PC in the early 2000s. And… I kinda like it actually? Sure it’s very simple geometry and of course I’d like to see a nice, pretty BOTW style aesthetic down the line, but honestly I’m fine with these visuals. I may finally play these games at some point.

As for for what I take issue with, it may be this line: "Square Enix has never been one to shy away from a Nintendo release".

@Zeebor15 Is it though? I bet there are a few pre-WWII headlines that might be worse than the "here's what the average person not following Japanese media might recognize".

Capitalism sucks; people get fired. Sounds like we could all really use some Medicare for All, guaranteed minimum income and labor unions in every workplace.

@Banjo64_Switch Yes, I'm definitely one of those lefties you're talking about. But, for the record, I agree that too much youth and culture oriented media like gaming sites take liberalism for granted and mock or disregard conservatism. The important thing to me is that people express themselves in good faith, respectfully and with compassion. I happen to think that's been lacking more in conservative spaces, but I totally acknowledge it's on the decline among liberals as well. To the degree that political discontent among readers contributed to the decline of the websites in question, it's certainly a possibility. But as for what I think is actually a solution, see my first point above.

I've said this before, but they really need to add an "hours played" section, or something equivalent, that shows you which games have been played the most hours by Switch owners collectively. Within that, you could then divide it up by last week, last month, or all time, etc. It would go a long way to showing you which games are the most actively popular, as opposed to just which ones tricked enough people into a purchase and were never played again. And while the "all time" numbers would probably privilege puzzle games and free-to-play stuff, weekly or monthly numbers could give you an idea of what's currently in the gaming zeitgeist. It wouldn't be perfect, I'm sure, but it would likely have a nice balance of AAA and popular indie games, and let people find the well-loved games that they may be missing.

Understandable or not, a very wealthy corporation getting bad press because of their prices is A-OK with me.

Well, in a way this makes me happy that I bought as much as I did on the Switch, and that the Switch 2 is mostly backwards compatible. I have such a mountain of a backlog that I may very well only want to buy a handful of games for the Switch 2. Of course, I would buy more with lower prices or sales, but I suspect that I and many others will be demonstrating to Nintendo that you’re simply not going to be able to sell as much when your prices pass a certain point.

Ugh, can't Nintendo just stick to the leaked dates and not move them by 24 hours out of spite? I was working from home today and could have watched it live!

@Not_Soos Yep. I had to look it up myself, but it was called the Super Duper Graphics Pack and was announced in… 2017. It was canceled in 2019. I remember being very excited about it and checking in every once in a while, only to find radio silence. Eventually I forgot about it.

The Super Duper Graphics Pack actually looked quite a bit more impressive than this, but it was probably something that just wasn’t feasible for most devices. I think this looks pretty nice though, so I’m hoping it works well on Switch and/or Switch 2.

For those who may not be aware and are into game/anime soundtracks, Yoko Kanno did the music to three of these four games (I believe Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV was someone else). The arrangement albums that came out for these games in the early 90s are still to this day some of my favorite music of all time. If you have any interest at all, or would like to check out Kanno’s early work, do yourself a favor and track down these albums as well as the other game soundtracks she did in that period. They’re simply beautiful.

I never played it but I’ve DEFINITELY heard of the game. It’s not a title you easily forget.

Any of those happen to fall off the back of a truck?

Live action movie with people in anthropomorphic animal costumes, or bust.

@Bigmanfan Guilty as chaaaarged!

@CaptainCluck I agree that increasing the value of NSO would be great. The problem is that Nintendo has demonstrated an either/or policy of either putting a game on NSO or letting you buy it, hence my resistance to seeing any more systems added to NSO. This would all be solved of course if they just gave consumers both options, like other companies do. And what I can't understand is why people wouldn't support simply having more options. Then we could put this whole debate behind us. For the record, no, I don't want NSO to go away for the people who enjoy it, and if every game on there had the option to buy, (or simply keep one per month - remember how subscriptions USED to work?) then I'd say, go to town Nintendo!

"But Is NSO The Way To Go?"

Nooooooo! No, no no! Don't even SPEAK it!