Comments 372

Re: Pokémon's Super Bowl Commercial Was Probably Expensive, Unsurprisingly

BrewsterTea

@Aquinas Your subjective condemnations are drowned out by the proven fact that reinvention is at the heart of staying relevant over time. Pokemon introducing new regions, new characters, and yes, new Pokemon to catch, allows the franchise to continually stay fresh over the years.

And TPC did exactly as you suggested. From Gen 8 onward, they made the pivot to permanently reduce the number of Pokemon compatible in any one game, which gives both new and old Pokemon a fresh chance to shine.

Re: PSA: Monster Hunter Stories 3 Switch 2 Trial Demo Now Available, Save Data Carries Over

BrewsterTea

@Gohanjin Let's also remember that this is just a demo, which often can be a rushed and slightly outdated build of the game. Perhaps the actual game will perform better, or perhaps it takes 6-12 months after launch to be optimized properly. We'll just have to wait until launch to see what the actual game turns out to be.

With that said, yes I do realize that the Pragmata demo performs much better as a demo build. You could chalk that up to Pragmata's engine naturally performing better with smaller environments compared to Stories 3's large explorable worlds. But who knows really. It seems that between Dragon's Dogma 2, MHWilds, and now Stories 3, Capcom's engines are struggling with big game worlds.

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Gets A Release Date For Switch 2

BrewsterTea

@Sambuc Agreed about FF15, and I would add that now feels like a great time to remaster FF13. I never owned a PS3 and I have a lot of nostalgia for the Fabula Nova Crystallis era of Square Enix. Including FF 13 Agito, renamed into Type 0? Would love to see that get the same Crisis Core remaster treatment.

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Gets A Release Date For Switch 2

BrewsterTea

Lived all these years only hearing about FF7 from afar and I have to say, I'm still playing through Remake, but with the re-orchestration of the soundtrack, I can see why it's an amazing entry. The music is superb. Somehow the music gives me that nostalgic, old-school, Squaresoft, Kingdom Hearts-esque feeling.

Re: Talking Point: Nintendo Direct February Partner Predictions - What Do You Want To See?

BrewsterTea

Kingdom Hearts!! AND I want the collection to include playable ports of the Nintendo spinoffs: 358/2 Days, DDD, and Coded, as well as the GBA version of Chain of Memories. 358/2 Days especially needs to be replayable WITH online multiplayer! The co op mode was screaming for online matchmaking. I don't care if Square Enix acts like that's too much and splits up the spinoffs into their own collection. I'll buy it day one!

@Friendly Great comprehensive list. I agree that I want FFXIII before FFXVI. In fact, I want SE to focus on ports of 13, 14 and even 15 before they announce a Switch 2 port of 16. Let that game rest for a while, just long enough to make everyone miss it.

Re: Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase Announced For Tomorrow, 5th February 2026

BrewsterTea

My body is ready! Lots of third party announcements on my wishlist.

  • Square Enix!! LOTS of games I'm hoping for : Kingdom Hearts of course, and the new Mana, but also ports of FFXIII, FFXIV, and FFXV! I want those ports before they port FFXVI. I would love to see a new FF spinoff announced, made from the ground up for Switch 2! Would love a new Crystal Chronicles that adds lots of elements from FF Explorers.
  • Capcom! I'm already looking forward to Stories 3, and of course I would love to see a Wilds port, but I'm also hoping for a new Monster Hunter made from the ground up for Switch 2 from the Rise developer! Also I want to see a Mega Man Battle Network reboot, or Legends reboot. At least it would be fun to see more footage of the new Mega Man already announced (even though the OG Mega Man was never my cup of tea).
  • Sakuna of Rice and Ruin sequel would be fun to see! It's already been announced, so I want to see what it looks like.
  • Where art thou, Microsoft?! I'd love a big blowout of Microsoft game announcements, like the Halo Collection, Oblivion, Fable, etc.

The time feels right for a nice Mass Effect port as well. Would also love an Assassin's Creed 1 remake, because that's still my favorite AC, and I want the franchise to go back to its roots.

Re: Preview: Pragmata Might Wind Up Being The Biggest Surprise Of 2026

BrewsterTea

I wouldn't mind if games like this toned down the polygons and made the art style a bit more stylized in order to up the frame rate to at least 40fps, thanks to Switch 2's VRR.

That's the benefit of having a game fully developed for a specific system; developers can make fundamentally different choices in order to maximize the performance of that specific system. Nintendo gamers are accustomed to gameplay > graphics, as well as performance > graphics.

Re: Rumour: Switch Online GameCube Releases Might Have Been Leaked

BrewsterTea

And the painful drip feed continues.

"at this time. . . . meaning 3 years from now when the next Metroid game gets close to releasing"

What feels the worst about NSO's drip feed at this point is the awareness that games are held back until they can be leveraged as marketing fodder for their latest products, parks or movies.

Re: Rumour: A Nintendo Direct May Be Coming As Soon As Next Week

BrewsterTea

@UltimateOtaku91 And for me, not just third-party exclusives, but also handheld exclusive games. So many fun handheld games were created over the years due to working around extreme limitations. Now that they're porting everything normally, devs will just create the safest, mainstream action adventure games without much deviation. Even Harvestella taught Square Enix that lesson, when all it needed was to be a Final Fantasy spinoff instead of trying to be a brand new IP.

Re: Rumour: A Nintendo Direct May Be Coming As Soon As Next Week

BrewsterTea

Hmm, just as I suspected. Oh well. Hopefully we get:

  • Kingdom Hearts 4 reveal + Switch 2 port + Kingdom Hearts collection
  • The latest Mana
  • Metaphor
  • Oblivion, Fable, Halo, and other Microsoft games
  • PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOODNESS a Granblue Fantasy Relink Switch 2 port. I've been waiting for that game for how long? 5+ years??
  • Monster Hunter Wilds ideally, but I think their marketing will focus on Generations 3 for the time being. Which is fine, but I never attached to the RPG spinoff franchise, oddly enough since I love JRPG's otherwise. I think I just prefer Monster Hunter to stick with real-time combat. I'd rather take Monster Hunter + Fantasy Life with a stylistic, old-assets life sim spinoff over a turn-based RPG. All the intro cutscenes from MH1-4 made the franchise look perfect for a life sim spinoff.

Re: Random: This Fan Is Ripping Nintendo's Finest Tunes From Vinyl, Including The 3DS Menu Theme

BrewsterTea

@ShadLink Listen, this whole time it sounds like you've been arguing in favor of why others should have to experience the OS the way you want to: barebones. If all you're saying is that you just want to continue having the option to keep it simple, then all the power to you. I just want the option to make my menus noisy and cluttered, the way I like it. I'm not advocating Nintendo take away simple menu's from you. But the way your messages are received, it sounds like you want others to have to continue not getting the thing they want because you want to keep the thing you want. And the Switch 2 is powerful enough where we can both get what we want. There's no reason to be so adamant about keeping others from getting what they want.

Re: Random: This Fan Is Ripping Nintendo's Finest Tunes Onto Vinyl, Including The 3DS Menu Theme

BrewsterTea

@ShadLink Like I said, you miss the point entirely. A menu on a games console is not just a place you spend one second; it's a visual space that you return to, over and over. For a core gamer, it can be a visual space that you return to almost every day, for years! Every time you boot up your Switch, the home menu greets you not too dissimilarly to the visual space that greets you every time you enter your home. That's fine for you if you prefer to interact with a computer's operating system as little as possible. I'm not judging you. But your dismissal of the value other people find in tailoring that visual space to feel cozy or cool, or to reflect their fandom for a certain Nintendo franchise or game, is pretty close-minded.

Re: Random: This Fan Is Ripping Nintendo's Finest Tunes Onto Vinyl, Including The 3DS Menu Theme

BrewsterTea

@ShadLink Actually, your point can be taken even further. A phone can be just a phone. And a house can be just where you sleep and spend the night. Why would you need to personalize a tool to call people? Indeed, a telephone used to be solely a tool; a means to an end. Just like Nintendo's past consoles.

Layers of innovation were added over time; for houses, economies grew so that home owners could expect to afford to buy things to decorate their homes. Phones innovated beyond simply functioning as a tool into becoming a universal space for software operation. And as every industry knows, once you create a space, it enhances revenue to give people the ability to personalize it.

As you described, you are the type of person who does not see the point in expressing yourself through the platforms you use. But your perspective does not reflect everyone else's, and there are many people who appreciate the ability to personalize the things they own and use. And as they say, once Pandora's box is opened, you cannot go back. Now that we have experienced the fun of adding wallpapers to the home menu, we want to continue experiencing it moving forward. It's not a big ask to be honest. And your vehemence against it is perplexing.

Re: Random: This Fan Is Ripping Nintendo's Finest Tunes Onto Vinyl, Including The 3DS Menu Theme

BrewsterTea

@ShadLink I don't stare at the Home Menu; I enjoy personalizing it the same way I personalize my phone, and the same way I personalize my home. I don't leave my phone with a plain black or white background. I enjoy switching the wallpaper to match the seasons or my mood.

To act like it's pointless to design an engaging user experience or allow us to personalize it is reductionist, because you can draw the line anywhere you like. Why waste time choosing between Nintendo account icons? Just jump right into the game and don't even bother giving your account a name! Or why waste dev time creating a cool menu layout within the game? It's just distracting you from playing the game itself! Just create a simplistic, barebones menu so that you can do what you need to do and get right back into the game! Persona 5, Smash Bros., and etc all, are good examples why creating an engaging UI enhances the user experience and adds value to the product, without inhibiting functionality. You just completely miss the point if the only logic you can stand on is reductionism.

Re: Random: This Fan Is Ripping Nintendo's Finest Tunes Onto Vinyl, Including The 3DS Menu Theme

BrewsterTea

@OmnitronVariant Thankfully at least for the Switch 2, the beeps and boops are a lot closer to the 3DS... IF the 3DS never got wallpaper themes.

Can you imagine how fun it would be to collect wallpaper themes of each game on NSO in the same way that you collect NSO icons? A gamer can dream.

@ShadLink Switch 2 has 3 whole GB of RAM dedicated to the OS. Switch 2 has PLENTY of juice capable of handling a richer user experience on the Home Menu. With that much RAM, Nintendo could add Nintendo Music directly onto the Quick Menu and overlay music over anything else happening, like playing music while you play games or browse the eShop.

Re: Rumour: A Nintendo Direct May Be Coming As Soon As Next Week

BrewsterTea

Would love an exciting general Direct revealing the big AAA first-party title for this winter, as well as a tease for games in early 2027.

However, if they continue rolling out individual Directs for other games like Splatoon Raiders, Yoshi's Storybook, and Fire Emblem, then I worry it will just be a third-party partner Direct.