Bolt_Strike

Must. Resist. Urge. To mention. New 3D Mario!

Any word on when the acoustic ocarina is going to be available? I normally don't buy non-gaming merch but the acoustic ocarina would feel very immersive to play in the actual game.

@PlatinumTour It's not games and merch that is particularly desirable or recent enough to be affected by the tariffs. There's literally nothing here I want and don't already have because I bought it years ago. So their stated reason for even holding this sale, which is because of price increases due to tariffs, is total BS and what this really is is a glorified clearance sale like @rjejr alluded to. If they gave us discounts on actual Switch 2 hardware and software that would ACTUALLY alleviate price increase issues but God forbid they do that when those games are actually popular and relevant and lose money. This is so half-hearted and insincere.

Continuing to play Star Fox Adventures for the first time. I'm not usually a Star Fox fan but this is the type of game I do like and I've been enjoying it so far.

This really did look 1:1 on first glance, but the more you look at it the more subtle changes you find. It's like if you took the furniture out of a room and put it back together but moved some of the larger pieces of furniture an inch to the right or swapped the smaller pieces, when you first step back inside it looks the same but there's some things that are a little different. This version is growing on me, it's not as significant as I would've liked, but you can tell they put a lot of care into the details for this game.

Well we got an open world 3D platformer for 2027... but it's not Mario. Kinda surprised me, but I'll take it. It satisfies what I wanted out of 3D Mario, so I can wait a bit longer for 3D Mario now.

Well happy birthday to me, that comes out the week after my birthday. And it's fulfilling a longtime dream of mine, ever since Fusion I've wanted to see a 2D Metroid where Samus gets Metroid absorption powers and that seems to be what this is. Hyped for this.

I was put off to it originally as well but it's growing on me too. I rewatched the trailer on my Switch 2 docked in my 4K TV, in the environment I'm actually going to be playing it, and it looks significantly better than when I viewed it on my ~5 year old laptop.

Additionally, there's been some analysis of the gameplay that's found that although most of the major design elements and story beats are the same, there's a LOT of smaller details that are changed. It's to the point where calling this game 1:1 is doing it a disservice, they did not just recreate every inch of this game to be exactly the same, they put a lot of care into improving the details.

@Crimson_Ridley And you think your opinion has impact on what I choose to enjoy? I don't like the artstyle. It has a plasticy, uncanny valley feel to it. And I don't like doing anything 100 times. Enjoyment decreases with each repetition, you already know what's coming a mile away and you're doing roughly the same thing each time, why should I have to enjoy that?

If you don't want to take my opinion personally don't, I never said you should. But you should treat opposing opinions the same way you presumably want to be treated.

@Mykcir You're going to be exploring the same areas you already explored and doing the same things you already did. It looks dramatically different, but other than that you know exactly how this game is going to go. Not an exciting prospect to me.

I'm underwhelmed. It's a 1:1 remake with an Unreal Engine fan remake-looking artstyle. I would've liked more of an update than this and this was the bulk of what they had to show. It might be good if you've never played OoT, but if you've seen and done everything there is in older versions of the game, it doesn't look like there's much here that's worth a double/triple dip.

I voted for both 3D Mario and Luigi's Mansion (and Metroid Ravenous), but honestly I don't think we'll get both, I think we get one of those two at most. Next year already has a big game in the form of Pokemon Winds/Waves, so I think there may only be room in the schedule for one more big game. Between the two I think 3D Mario is more likely. 3D Mario is more heavily rumored and has been away longer, that game is more likely to be ready right now (quite frankly it should've been ready sooner, but what's done is done).

Holy hell, and here I was just talking in the Direct thread about there being a pattern of skipping every other Direct and not even 24 hours and I'm instantly proven wrong. Not that I'm unhappy about that, I am unhappy with the current lineup and would like to see some bigger announcements.

@PersonaTexas Silly PersonaTexas, there's no such thing as lowering prices anymore. They needed to get rid of the comment section so Sony executives can buy a second yacht!

@AGuyWhoLikesNintendo I'm not sure the painting contraption idea is thematically fitting (that seems a bit too high tech for Pokopia), but anything like customizing them in the mirror, creating a new salon building, painting them with Smearguru, giving them a special type of item, anything like that would be a sensible way to implement them. Regardless, I think some kind of mechanic to submit paints to something that can change Pokemon to their shiny colors would be a huge benefit to the game.

@AGuyWhoLikesNintendo I am kinda skeptical if they'd just let you paint the Pokemon directly because that feels a bit weird/unsafe, maybe they might create a new item to change the Pokemon's colors. But even if they do, yes, that item would probably require paint.

And yeah, having the opportunity to change whichever you want would also be great since some people think certain shiny colorations are underwhelming, samey, or even worse than the normal colorations.

@Jeronan Yeah. I have seen some people try and claim there's secretly shiny Pokemon in the game but they've been lying. But I think there are a lot of people that might want shiny Pokemon. Beyond just the flex of them being rare variants, some people do like the shiny colorations more than the normal variants, so I think people will appreciate the option.

@AGuyWhoLikesNintendo This might be pie in the sky but I was thinking, with Part 2 being accessories focused there could be one big surprise they could reveal that might make Part 2 more exciting than we think and that's shiny Pokemon. They could probably implement them in a way where the Pokemon use some type of paint/dye to turn themselves into their shiny colorations. That would be a huge crowd-pleaser if they actually did that. Will they? I'm not so sure if they'd consider it worthwhile. But if they did already think of this, I think there'd be a lot more interest in what otherwise looks like an underwhelming filler DLC patch (since it's not getting a new area) and that could be a pretty jaw dropping reveal.

Just give us the 40th Direct already.

@StrangerSun Part 2 isn't getting a new area, they're just doing accessories. Part 3 is getting a new area though.

@MegaVel91 I'm hoping for a snow/ice area. We don't really have proper representation for that biome (just a few crystals here and there) and there are few Ice types in the game.

@Bobb Yeah, Bubbly Basin itself isn't worth it, but the whole Expansion Pass should be. There's 5 areas in the base game, the DLC adds 2 more plus the customization in Part 2. That's about 50% more game for 50% more price. If you thought the base game was good value and wanted more, it's worth the price.

@PokemonDMG We already have Sparking Skylands though?

What we really need is an ice/snow area. We don't have much in terms of that biome or Ice type Pokemon in the game, that's where the variety is really lacking.

@PROPS Again though, this has defined every Metroid since Super. I'm not sure that's a formula they're going to diverge from (never say never, BotW shook up the Zelda formula from something similar into the open world style, but it'd be trickier to shake up Metroid and have it still feel like Metroid). I can't say I'm familiar with what Castlevania or Hollow Knight did in those games so not sure how well that formula would adapt to Metroid, but I will say that the original Metroid and II are not particularly well-received and the fanbase mostly seems to prefer the Super formula, so it may be an uphill battle to convince Metroid fans on the style of game you're looking for. It would certainly be a risk, that's for sure.

@PROPS Metroid hasn't been more nonlinear than this since the original Metroid, and the original Metroid would have issues such as many of the upgrades feeling arbitrary, so IDK what you want here. At best maybe they could do a Mega Man type of dynamic where you can collect them in any order and it would be harder to reach them without other upgrades, but that might be difficult to get right.

I definitely would enjoy seeing Ravenous lean in to Samus' Metroid abilities. That's something I've wanted to see ever since Fusion. Imagining being able to drain enemies and levitate like a Metroid. That would be crazy. They probably need to come up with a few more abilities to make it more interesting and I'm not sure what else a Metroid could do that makes for an interesting upgrade, but that would be pretty intense and shake things up.

Okay the Shared Item Slot is a quality QoL upgrade, can't wait for that.

@VirtualVisage87 We don't yet know how different this version will be from the original, remakes have varying degrees of changes. It could be anything from an HD upres to a FFVII-esque reimagining, we need to know where on the spectrum this game falls.

Oohhkay, when are we going to actually learn something of substance about this game?

Metroid Prime Remastered #2 ahead of the likes of ORAS, Zero Mission, and Samus Returns? I want whatever you're on.

LMAO good luck with that. We've seen what happens to IPs that try to be yearly and it isn't pretty. Just ask Pokemon and Sonic.

@Olliemar28 Referring to them as "altered remakes" is certainly a stretch and this is kind of a tangent from the issue of the balance between new vs. re-released games, but I do think they have a point here where some of the "new" games don't truly have new ideas. There's certainly games where they do and I wouldn't say it's really bad right now (you want to see bad, look at the Wii U's lineup and especially its glut of 2D platformers which did next to nothing different from their predecessors on the DS/3DS/Wii), but there are some which do have issues. Splatoon Raiders doesn't seem to be doing anything different from past Splatoon entries, they largely just recycled Salmon Run and Side Order and called it a game. And the sports games tend not to do anything really different or unique (but that may be a genre problem because they don't want to stray too far from how the game is played IRL), and I don't really see too much new from the likes of Tomodachi or Rhythm Heaven. But there's also a fair amount of games that do feel like they're trying something new(MKW, Bananza, Pokopia, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book), so it's still not all that bad. But again, this is getting away from the main topic of remakes.

@MagnaRoader Star Fox and OoT are re-remakes, I wouldn't take a 64 remake off the table right now (I don't think and certainly hope it isn't coming soon and we get an actual new game, but the chances of a 64 remake are certainly nonzero).

@nomither6 Well what I'm trying to get at is that it depends on the improvement. It's got to be something that's highly noticeable and dramatic. I've seen one suggestion saying that they should overhaul fighter movesets, that's a BAD example of how to distinguish itself from Ultimate. That's not to say that overhauled movesets can't be a good thing, but that's something that's more on the technical side that casuals probably won't be able to even pick up on. It should be something that significantly changes the game (while still feeling like Smash, which is the tricky part in all of this). A good example of this would be when they added Final Smashes in Brawl, that's a major mechanic that affects the dynamic of the game. So if you have any ideas of that caliber, yeah, I'm curious. If it's just technical stuff along the lines of moveset changes, jump/movement physics, etc., that's probably not going to sell a Smash 6 by itself and be largely invisible to casuals.

@JohnnyMind "To a certain extent" is an understatement, they basically just recycled mechanics from some of their side modes and called it a spinoff. We still don't have something ACTUALLY different in the sense of something new and never seen before from this IP. We kind of haven't since Splatoon 2.

@SoIDecidedTo Honestly I'd rather play this than Raiders, I'm not interested in COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT either.

@nomither6 Like?

I'm not sure if 3D Smash is the direction they're going to go, but I feel like Smash 6 needs an innovation on that scale to not feel like Ultimate but worse. Ultimate is going to be a tough act to follow, 6 is going to need to feel dramatically improved in some other area to compensate for it having an inevitably worse fighter roster.

@N00BiSH This is a case where reproducing the previous work IS the homework, Nintendo seems to feel that you can only truly research by doing. The assignment is to recreate it to understand how the previous work was done BEFORE you take off the training wheels, create your own entry, and add the bells and whistles to make it even better.

@N00BiSH While I don't agree with the frequency and proportion of remakes nowadays this notion of "we can never go backwards" is silly, there are most definitely reasons to go back.

If you don't have ideas for a new game, looking at an old game in a new context and/or fresh set of eyes can give you ideas. As was mentioned by @Zeebor15 Nintendo often likes to use remakes as a training tool for new dev teams to learn and understand the essence of the IP before letting them go crazy with new ideas in the next game. In other words, they teach these devs to walk with a remake before they learn to run with a new game, and bringing in those new devs and training them up is what gets you these innovative ideas in new entries in the long run.

Additionally, sometimes when moving forward with an innovation you can sometimes forget or discard elements that might have merit. Mario has had a rocky relationship between the linear and sandbox styles of gameplay and has discarded one for the other several times (and with Bowser's Fury, they may have finally found a way to finally integrate them both together, we'll see if they stick with this/build on it when they reveal the next 3D Mario). Many feel we've lost elements of 3D Zelda discarding the OoT style for BotW style, and that may be one reason the OoT remake even exists. Returning to this style may give them ideas on how to integrate what OoT did into the next 3D Zelda.

The kind of innovation you're describing isn't always linear and sometimes going backwards can ultimately help you go forwards in the long run.

@N00BiSH Well certainly, but that's not the situation where I would say a remake could shine anyway. What's a more interesting question is if you can't think of an innovation (which yes, there may be situations like that if you've done an IP to death and have trouble thinking about what else to do with it and the technology just isn't there to help you do something that wasn't previously possible) and it's a choice between an iterative sequel and an ambitious remake, then which is preferable? There's an argument to make here that it might be better to simply remake the game and implement your ideas on how to reimagine/recontextualize them there instead of recycling them in a new game just for the sake of having a new game.

@-wc- IDK, there are definitely areas where the current technology is capable of far more than what was available at the time and the technology may have limited the vision in ways that go beyond the usual upres jobs that we tend to see, elements such as the size and scale of the game world and limited amount of content. It's pretty insulting to chalk that up to being a "dullard" and think those kinds of improvements can only occur in new games, if anything the opposite viewpoint seems to be very un-nuanced. New games are often new and different experiences from older games, the developers often come up with completely different ideas that might not always mesh well with whatever they can do to improve on those past games, so the new games can end up not satisfying what some might want from "next gen version of an older game". And even when they do, that kind of approach often feels uncreative and boring, so it's often frowned upon by gamers. Having more reimaginings, like FF7 style, is a bit more honest and allows gamers to better appreciate this kind of approach if that's what they really want to do. So no, I do think there's legitimate reasons for a remake in the style of "here's what this game would've been like if we first created it today" in a way that an emulation of the original or a new game in the series can't entirely satisfy.

@LoroTalby I don't think it really matters that it doesn't match actual Hide and Seek, it matters more that it's tedious and time wasting and poses little challenge (it's basically disguise yourself, wait for the seekers to turn around, and make a beeline for the PC and done).

Hide and Sneak is the most annoying minigame there is (rivaled only by Look This Way which is basically three coin flips in a row) in this game and there's no real reward. Pass.

Just beat this game and yeah, it's disappointing that this doesn't amount to something more. It would've been cool if beating the game would reward you with the ability to use the Bewilder Bird in any level and they had an entirely new set of discoveries for you to find with it. Sadly they didn't go this route. Oh well, guess I'll have to settle for just 4HKOing Jr. with the Behedger transformation.

@SpaceboyScreams I think the Legends games can be considered a subseries. They'd be considered another branch of main series games, similarly to how 2D/3D games of various IPs (Mario, Zelda, Metroid) are both considered main series.

Oh it most likely will, it's already close. Sales would have to completely fall off a cliff for it not to, and considering there's DLC and a holiday season coming, it should see a sales bump. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it passes the 10 million mark. It's got a lot of factors going for it.

@Chocobo_Shepherd Again I doubt it would fit. It's an 8.5 inch plushie, it's probably not meant for a human adult neck. In fact depending on how it's designed, it might actually be a choking hazard. Hopefully no one is dumb enough to try.

@Chocobo_Shepherd A bit sus that you think of putting it on your gf. God knows someone will do it though (or try at least. Would that even fit a human neck?).

@Agent_P Yeah, but that would only work in docked mode. How are you going to use dual screens in handheld or tabletop mode?