BrewsterTea

@Friendly Not to worry! Miyamoto-san would never get near this place. He seems to prefer hotshot outlets like Polygon.

Not sure I appreciate that. I suppose we all know what his hobby will be once he retires?

I think the real question will be whether the money talks. What then, if sales do not meet expectations? I would like to see Nintendo reconsider their partnership with Illumination. As others have said, the studio is not known for quality storytelling. However, there aren't a lot of big animation houses, so Nintendo's options will be limited.

Perhaps Nintendo's own animation branch is working diligently to replace the need for an outside studio in the first place. They might be taking a page from Apple, and aspire to develop their own closed loop.

@kraventhehunter1 This is sound reasoning, although invariably I am reminded of the flawed creative interpretation of M. Night Shyamalan's Avatar The Last Airbender. I wonder how long it will take for us to finally appreciate that 😅

@HandheldHero If anything, blame Donkey Kong Bananza for taking the studio 9 years for the next 3D Mario. DKB took more time and resources away from it than anything else.

Yes, I'll go see it once while it's in theaters for the novelty and the holiday timing. Not the kind of Mario fan to be eager for repeat viewings however! If I had any younglings, even relatives, I could see myself tagging along to see it multiple times, but alas.

Nice to see new content patched in for free! But it does help reinforce the modern mindset that packaged (ie physical) games are expected to be incomplete without online connectivity.

Yes to a music player in a new update, though I fear such a coveted feature will be gated behind an Expansion/DLC launch.

@Robot99 Honestly I want to give the team the benefit of the doubt and assume they really did run out of steam and require a small breather. Nintendo was spotted trying to hire more devs for the NSO team, but it must be a pretty small team still. Remastering each song for Nintendo Music is not easy work!

I love the Slumber Island tracks! I've been playing them all afternoon while I go about the house. Now I just need to remember to jump back into ACNH 3.0!

If it turns out to be true, I find it interesting that Nintendo seems to be pairing the Mario movie with a big Zelda game and the Zelda movie with a big Mario game. Personally I would have thought about doing the opposite: timing the big Mario game to roll out around the same time as the Mario movie and vice versa, in order to cash in on the franchise hype surrounding the movie. Almost like Nintendo regards the movies counting as a major presence for the franchise for that year. As the kind of gamer who would rather play the 3D Mario game than watch the Mario movie, I can't agree with this mindset.

@MasterGraveheart Would love a Super Mario Maker 3 with 3D levels, pretty please!

Yup, this is super cute, and I love seeing Pokemon get some cross promotions with home decor. Thanks for reminding me to boot up Pokopia again!

Preordered the Hero's Edition! Very excited for this!! Amazon is sold out already, so try the other retailers quickly if you want it!

Too bad that initial reviews are even lower than the first movie. I wonder how the general audience will respond. Will kids and families still want to go for repeat viewings? If the movie caps out around $750 million worldwide, then I think Nintendo will be concerned.

From watching the gameplay demo I'm a little disappointed that the presentation and flow of battle is kind of identical to how it's been since Gen 6. Yes, don't fix what isn't broken, supposedly. However, as a longtime fan, I'm ready for small evolutions to the flow of battle.

• I want attack animations to play out even if attacks miss, or if the opponent activates Protect/Detect/etc.
• I want Pokemon movement to feel more dynamic. Flying Pokemon still hover in place, gosh darn it!
• I appreciate the new coat of paint on some of the attacks, but I also want other attacks to be reworked and behave a bit differently.
• The flow of battle is still a little stagnant with how slowly the battle script explains every step. I want battles to feel faster and more fluid once both players pick their attacks.

Okay first of all, a proper OoT remake would be incredible, and it would be a proper 40th anniversary product! Very excited about that, even though I'm kind of miffed about these rumors spoiling the big reveals for the next Direct if they all prove true.

I'm excited to hear rumors of a new Star Fox game, but I get a bit of mixed feelings about imagining classic gameplay where it's mostly an on-rails shooter with Switch 2 visuals. Would like some ground segments, or at least some genuine control over your vehicle to fly through an environment properly. Just my two cents, as someone who prefers Ace Combat over the classic Star Fox experience.

I was planning on skipping straight to the PS6, but if the PS5 Pro costs $899, then where does that leave the PS6? $1000? No thanks. Ghost of Yotei was the one game I was considering taking the plunge for, but now it's definitely not worth it.

@rjejr I'm feeling like Nintendo will adjust the prices to $499 for the V1 Switch 2, and $399 for the Switch 2 Lite, maybe $349 if we're lucky. It will still undercut the competition, and the Lite model will cost $100~ less than the main model similar to the Switch 1 family of systems. The Lite model will hit the price target Nintendo wanted originally.

In this day and age a lot of older gamers like myself are pining for retro experiences. I would not mind for this game to resemble the OG shadow of the colossus on PS2, with purposeful, planned frame rate slow-downs and motion blur. If they can use software to fold frames together on higher frame rates then why not utilize software to make a slower frame rate appear smoother, like a cinematic movie? I still think there are many unexplored software innovations waiting to be utilized. Working with limitations is typically how boundaries are pushed, after all. Just my two cents.

Very interesting. Great interview! Will definitely download day one to see how everything pans out. Hopefully I can meet all the characters or go through as much of the story as possible without paying.

A lot of games are really being positioned to maximize Game Chat for the first calendar year of Switch 2. If only I had more people to use it with 🥺

Art style is very nice, everything considered; had to pick some sort of animated/cartoony/Pixar art style I'm sure, due to the pressure of Fortnite/Overwatch/etc.

Only problem I have with MOBA games like this is that the combat feels very floaty, without any weight to the attacks or character movement. Doesn't feel kinetic or palpable, which makes any character you use feel detached from the world, and it ends up feeling like an artificial flavor of digital skin placed over the same universal programming.

As someone who grew up obsessed with Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2 back in the day, I would LOVE Nintendo to finally make a Star Fox Battlefront, and utilize some of that TOTK engineering for seamless field to sky or even space battles! If a wild appearance like this somehow helps build just a small amount of momentum for the franchise, then I'm all for it!

Great to see Pokopia still going strong! So fun to see a cozy little Pokemon spinoff help build momentum for Switch 2 sales. Goes to show just how hungry fans are for a relaxing lifestyle Pokemon experience, in addition to the classic formula.

Yup, would be amazing to see full sky exploration along with the sea. I'm REALLY hoping you can teach almost any Pokemon navigational abilities tied to moves instead of a chaperone Pokemon like Miraidon. Or, make it like FFTactics and master a move like Fly/Waterfall/Dive so that they can still use the ability outside of battle without having it in their moveset!

I love the Eevee mold! I have a feeling it will showcase the starter trio's first evolutions ie Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Charmander. But I don't want the Poké Ball to be too big, or else I might not buy it. I'll just have to wait for Rebrickable to come up with smaller designs for both Pikachu and Poké Balls.

I would like to see Nintendo treat NSO like other streaming services with periodic licensing. I would like to see more third party games show up for a limited time. Doesn't have to be a massive 5 year contract. It could be just a 1-year license to help promote a new game made by the studio, etc. But I would definitely like to see more third party games for GBA, GameCube, Game Boy, etc.

@Nintoz Looks like a Ditto Kirby to me 😉

Really great news, and once shelves get a proper restock I can see sales surpassing 5 million pretty quickly! The success is deserved, and the love and care that old Pokemon veterans put into this spinoff is palpable.

@EarthboundBenjy I hate to say this, but game key cards are not going anywhere due to performance necessities first and foremost. Nintendo wrote themselves into a very small corner when they insisted Switch 2 cartridges would maintain the exact same form factor as Switch 1 cards. Because even more challenging than storage capacity is increasing the card's read/write performance on such a tiny chip. For keeping up with next gen standards, Switch 2's game card needed to be much wider and longer so that the chip could have more space to achieve better performance.

Generation upon generation Nintendo's handhelds have found ways to cram in multiple game card slots for backwards compatibility; Nintendo absolutely could have found space elsewhere for an extra Switch 1 card slot on the Switch 2. With how demanding next-gen games have become, it was honestly ridiculous for Nintendo to restrict Switch 2 cards to the same form factor as the Switch 1.

It simply is not realistic to expect every single third party game (including second party projects like Pokopia) to completely redesign the game's logic around the cartridge's slower performance. And even for Switch 2's largest first party AAA games like Animal Crossing, 3D Mario and 3D Zelda, I would rather compromise with GKC's to achieve better performance and a larger scope than settle for AAA games that are held back by the game card's inferior performance.

I think the positive shareholder response is actually about game key cards rather than the game itself. A loud minority has been declaring for months that they will disown every game using it. And shareholders must have been nervous about how a "first party" game would fare as a GKC. So clearly Pokopia's sales reception is a major relief to shareholders. This positive response might even influence other first party titles to be GKC's as well.

In fact, they probably undersupplied physical copies more due to the game key card factor rather than thinking the game itself was too niche.

Oh, so it actually might be $60? That would be a much better price! I'll buy it day one now.

If I see the Mario Movie and I get super hyped for Yoshi then I might buy this day one! But otherwise, I'm looking forward to picking this up for $50-60 on sale within the next year. Not really feeling like a $70 purchase, and I hope lower sales confirm that my sentiment isn't alone. Smaller AA games like this aren't worth the $70 price tag, not just yet.

The 2027 timing seems like Mario sets will be at the forefront of LEGO's new Smart Play initiative, with Mario and other minifigures interacting with Smart bricks to make the classic sound effects.

We got Sword Kirby before we got Star Man, really?

Really fun to see! I can use it for some nice inspiration for roads and build setups. Would love if they added promotional Cloud Islands with themes to each one, like focusing on one region, or Pokemon types, or specific towns from past games, etc.

What I love so much is how Pokemon interact seamlessly with each other, as well as have little reactions for player actions like water gun. This game really endears me to Pokemon I've overlooked, and I appreciate how first evolution 'Mons are getting so much gameplay love in Pokopia. It's so nice to appreciate different Pokemon as just cute and lovable creatures rather than battle fodder. The level grind in mainline games has discouraged me from discovering and experimenting with nearly as much Pokemon as I would've liked, so a spinoff that lets a Pokemon shine simply for their core abilities and traits is a breath of fresh air.

I've just started, but the early impressions are excellent.

@Wakkawipeout I did actually just buy DQIIIHD2D! I'm loving the setting and aesthetics as you said I would, but the sluggish battle script is trying my patience. The battle script hesitates for so long for every little thing to be explained, so I had to switch the setting to fast forward. I guess that's where Pokemon got it! Scarlet/Violet had a terribly slow battle script as well, its most underrated performance shortcoming IMO. Such a relief returning to FRLG and remembering just how fast and snappy the battles are.

@MonsterMike Well, like I said in my original comment, if everyone tries too hard to avoid the norm, then all that practiced uniqueness actually becomes quite mundane. Everything old becomes new again, as they say. It's just an observation on trends within an industry rather than some sort of restriction on creatives as you imply.

@LastFootnote Oh I did play the first Patapon! I can't quite remember how I got my hands on it back then, but I do remember I only got a few levels into it. So I'm interested to see that it's a spiritual successor, but only curious because the first game didn't grab me like other musical games for some reason.

Would love to see more Monster Hunter, new Mega Man(s) and Okami 2 all announced for the Switch 2! But I'll keep my expectation slow.

Oh boy, I'm super grateful Nintendo has added yet another platform to extend the drip feed, spending time adding Virtual Boy games instead of the 3~ platforms I care most about.

Honestly I'm pretty hyped for what appears to be a fairly straightforward fantasy RPG experience. I think too many RPG's have tried too hard to reinvent the wheel in recent years, both mechanically and aesthetically. For all of E33's praises, I really hate the aesthetic of traveling around the overworld with what appears to be a large sack of a Nightmare Before Christmas reject. I just want that standard, pretty airship to fly around in, thank you very much.

The same way with combat systems. I don't need an overly complex QTE dodging system, or an overly unique party system. I just want a straightforward, simplistic combat system that feels really palpable and kinetic, and focus on a beautiful game world to explore, compelling character design and a fun story that doesn't try too hard with any particular plot point.

The arc of trendy game design has bent so far away from the norm that now I yearn once again for the norm itself.

Interested in Woodo, and curious about Ratatan. Mixtape looks like it will rate well, but it feels more like a movie/tv show rather than a game.

I think every 10 years is a good opportunity to offer a game with all-new Pokemon, at least until the post game. But at this point, they probably won't have a game without Pikachu since he's become so important (and Charizard perhaps?).

But in a more general sense, new Pokemon feel special to whoever is playing their very first Pokemon game. You just can't recreate the strong nostalgic impressions that you experience as a kid, and the beauty of Pokemon's cycle of ever-growing creatures is that the experience of being a Pokemon fan comes full circle as you age. Gen 4 now feels nostalgic and special to the people who grew up with them as their very first game, and even Gen 5 for younger people who will eventually catch up to our Genwunner ages. So it's only natural for older gamers to experience Paldea, Galar, and Unova Pokemon differently than how they remember their very first region(s) (for me it was Gen1-3 that I experienced at that impressionable age range).

Therefore, it's only natural for you the article writer to feel like you fall into a mundane pattern with each game. Certain Pokemon have such a strong impression on you that you can't help but fall into a similar routine. As others have said, my advice to you is to go out of your way to shake up which Pokemon you use. Having your favorite Pokemon available makes it easy to use them as comfort food, but proactively using different Pokemon will help create newfound appreciation for underrated or neglected ones.

The beauty of the Pokemon franchise is that the strong nostalgic preference for different Pokemon is unique for so many people, who experienced different games at different ages under varying circumstances and sensibilities. And as time goes on, the cycle comes full circle and those young gamers grow up feeling nostalgic for their first regions and Pokemon. It's the perfect money-making media machine to be honest. It's like the generation who grew up in parallel to Harry Potter, but repeated perpetually with each generation and new region.

Gahh, I wish Capcom would make another pixel art game! A top-down Monster Hunter game styled like Crystal Chronicles would be amazing. Or a Monster Hunter Stories GBA de-make! Ah well, at least we have studios like Inti Creates for pixel art, for now. Hopefully they don't go the way of Moonlighter 2 anytime soon.

Anyway, Star Force is looking good, and I'm a huge fan of the Battle Network subgenre so I'll most likely pick this up!

@StewdaMegaManNerd Just IMO, lumping in Monster Hunter X 2 into your argument feels unfair. As a big fan of old-school Monster Hunter, I'm definitely still hungry for a new side game that features the nostalgic art style of Monster Hunter's old-school assets. I think older MH fans would greatly appreciate that, and I don't think it's entitled to keep asking Capcom to make another one someday!

Modern re-reviews feel jaded honestly. On one hand I understand this review is critiquing the port itself, but on the other hand, the score ultimately is associated with the quality of the game itself, which is far too low for such a classic like FRLG. Ah well. Good thing it doesn't affect my opinion at least.

Can the game music collection also receive restocks?? I'm so upset I missed out.

@Druidsbrook I have to agree. Still very excited to dive into the games, and I can't be happier that they look this good in 3D! However, it looks like it's still built off of the fundamental Scarlet/Violet system or engine, and I'm wondering if that means the game will once again be a little too outdoor-focused. Now that this new region is so lush and tropical, it might feel like one big safari zone. Scarlet and Violet didn't feel like an actual region with genuine cities. Towns felt like little rest stops you ran into while in the safari zone. It's hard to put my finger on it, but the towns in Paldea felt like they existed in a vacuum, compared to how towns felt in regions as recent as Galar.

Still, we've only seen the introductory area of this new region, so we really don't know what the towns will look like. I just hope they feel more lived in and less superficial.

@kalosn I really loved Legends Arceus' hybrid turn-based combat, so I agree! However, the moment in the trailer when the trainer throws the Pokeball at Pikachu gave very strong visual comparisons to how combat functioned in Scarlet/Violet. Perhaps it's just the game engine that looks similar, and I hope I'm wrong! I would love the hybrid turn-based combat to return.

@ottoecamn As the years go by, I continue to view Sword/Shield more and more favorably. It really did have one of the best 3D art styles (Let's Go being my favorite; with 1:1 character proportions it would be perfect), it had truly grand and spectacular cities to visit, and it was the last route-based region. Plus it was the last Masuda-composed soundtrack.

Oh I always worry about second breakfast. Second cups of tea, too!

The footage from the trailer does look quite a bit nicer than the Switch 1 footage, although the lighting isn't nearly as bloomy as I would have liked. Still, this might finally be the version that I splurge on since I did want a cozy Shire video game for a rather long time.

Such a relief hearing this confirmed! Nice to see they were willing to tweak the code at least a little bit in order to make small improvements for the port.

With only 15 minutes, I hope they're mostly heavy hitters. Would love to see Witchbrook's release date, Sakuna's sequel, etc.

Seems like we'll have to wait many more months before we get a proper first-party Nintendo Direct with AAA IP's on offer.

Very pleasantly surprised to see overwhelmingly positive reviews! The Japanese commercials on Pokemon Japan's YouTube channel are adorable, so everyone should take a look!