Coalescence

Already have amiibo of all these characters so I'm definitely good. Which is exactly why amiibo are great - affordable good looking miniatures of classic characters. Still don't know why a lot of people couldn't see that and instead either called them useless or whine about the NFC.

Can't wait to hear all the diatribes about how this doesn't provide thought provoking narratives and the intelligent deconstruction of the hero archetype which the Super Mario series is universally known for.

Lame company clinging to their silly ploy which was only ever about inducing fomo. Not that I can blame anyone for taking advantage of fools & their money, but their practices including selling crappy carts is, if anything, pushing more people towards digital when a prominent physical option is so very poor.

The one thing I was longshot hoping for the Switch 2 was bringing back dual screen play. Mouse control would be cool for Pikmin and Mario Maker but I can't get past how good those games played with the Wii U gamepad. Same as how I can't get into any other Splatoon games because they feel so hobbled without the extra screen. I really hope someday they'll make a gamepad peripheral again for docked play. It could also bring back the amazing experience of Hyrule Warriors co-op with one player on the pad and one on the tv. That setup could have led to some more great multiplayer innovations.

Reads like a bunch of awkward interactions all being spun out of context and hyped up to more than what it really is. Mahler isn't the most eloquent communicator and probably isn't helping anything but it's also a massive nothingburger of early access people being typical early access people by expecting a polished final product.

I typically like anything they make so I'll probably check this out. Not in early access though, as I am capable of understanding playing an unfinished game means playing an unfinished game. Couldn't care less that Mahler shoots his mouth off sometimes. I'm here to play games and have fun, not pretend I'm going to hang out with the creators and be best friends because they say and do the things I like.

Emulationbros getting all bunged up yet again by the big bad user agreement. Use a Switch for Switchy things, use I don't know one of the million other better powered devices on the market to do emulation things without the hassle. Pretty simple except when one has some weird perpetual high school need to fight the perceived authority figure.

Must have gotten their first legal bill and realized Nintendo can this all day.

Alternatively,

For them this was the biggest bill of their lives. For Nintendo, it was a Tuesday.

Great article, I always love reading how games have helped people with their struggles. It's funny because when Celeste released and the discussions of how it was a great metaphor came up, I realized that's how I've been using video games my entire life. Kirby's Adventure was me figuring out how to find an identity and not being afraid to go full bore into anything no matter how ridiculous it seemed. Mega Man 3 was facing down every new year at a spirit-crushing elementary school by adapting and trying new forms of offensive defense. Dragon Warrior was going it ahead alone even into total darkness when a broken household offered no support or guidance. TOTK for me was learning to find agency and freedom to explore again in a life which seemingly was nothing but confined routines.

I love games but I don't buy a ton of games. I grew up poor and had to make a game last, which has continued where I play a game until I've truly tired of it before moving on. The 12 months after TOTK dropped I bought only that and Dredge. I've only grown more conservative with my game buying in the last decade, because nowadays I can easily watch a playthrough of any game that I'm mildly interested in and often times I won't buy it because the taste was enough. I have no interest in mindlessly consuming games and having a backlog, so the incoming hikes are annoying but they won't break my bank by a longshot.

Didn't preorder, no regrets. The Switch 1 was the earliest I've ever bought into a console at a few months in. And while I enjoyed it, I didn't really start using the thing until towards the end of the year. But I'm looking forward to the launch all the same.

Even if they had leaks with info worth a damn and even if they hadn't resorted to lying when their clout wasn't building fast enough, they should have known that the most celebrated leakers with the best information are still summarily dropped from interest the moment the official announcement is out. Anyone even remember the person who leaked the Trials of Mana localization/remake? What about that Smash fighters leaker, what fame and fortune are they rolling in? This chancer could have just been first in line to drop accessories with the knowledge they may or may not have had, and let the product speak for itself. Now Genki has a nice lawsuit from a notoriously litigious company who will bleed Genki even if the case doesn't go their way, a bit of ire from fickle gamers (a bunch one should never try to court this way), and no noticeable boost in sales or reputation.

Lol. Lmao. Lmfao, even. Nothingburger leaks of highly predictable iterative Switch 2 designs which irritate the community more than anything as it comes across as desperate clout grabs. Caught in a lie about having exclusive access to the new hardware. Puts out predictable accessories and gets no visible boost in clout or sales for all the shenanigans. Still gets sued in the end, and clearly isn't getting the AM2R-styles sympathy from gamers they probably thought would be worth angering Nintendo over.

Well done, champ.

Shocked this even gained traction. Square's comment about more Chrono back like 15 years ago was buy more CT DS and we'll see. The games are beloved but not so much by Square. Chrono left a huge bad taste in their mouths when Cross wasn't the next FFVII. CT DS was all of the 22nd best selling DS game of 2008 in Japan. These games don't do big numbers. And Squeenix's expectations of sales have only grown since then. It's a small miracle the Radical Dreamers edition and PC port even happened.

Top-tier? Maybe a long time ago. Those sites have long gone the way of Destructoid, hollowed out shells of their former goodness. The larger beast of games journalism is collapsing and good riddance. It can't be saved just like social media can't be saved. Blog style sites like the NL family with self-contained comment sections are all that can and should survive. Everything else was a big mistake.

Well that translator is getting fired lol. Granted, there's a lot of interpretation despite people think translating is a 1:1 machine operation, but if that's the dude's job he royally screwed up on something everyone will take and immediately run with.

Anyway, they'd Squeenix it up and probably turn the walk from Truce to Guardia Castle into a three-hour trek with pointless collectibles and sidequests, replace the concise battle system with overwrought parry mechanics, mess up the font text, change a bunch of lines, and add a crafting system. The lousy bolted on content in the DS and PSX versions already illustrated this game needed nothing else outside of maybe the map feature but even that is hugely superfluous given the game's straightforward area designs.

All they need to do is rerelease the original SNES version. Add the cutscenes as optional for weirdos who like to see the classic in-game cutscenes followed up with the exact same scene animated out before dumping back awkwardly to the game.

Lol Hollow Knight fans. Maybe more immediately bunged up than Undertale when someone doesn't understand the appeal. And like Undertale I found HK perfectly just alright, not crazy fantastic and not a bore but maybe a little bloated. But I love the Silksong drama. If this is limited to the museum before launch there certainly will be crazed fans spending outrageous sums just to be the first to experience it. I might pick up Silksong on a big sale someday but in the meantime it has made so much interesting free content.

I can't believe Nintendo would do this to Xbox.

Anyway. I kind of feel like I've been preparing for this my whole life. By this point I have enough video games and consoles to probably last me through old age especially considering the Pocket, Vita, Wii U, and various everdrives. I like to get new stuff of course but realistically I could play what I have right now until I die and be happy. It's like when the pandemic hit and my family suddenly didn't see me as so crazy for having held onto all the old video games they so readily left behind.

I say it as a big DK64 enjoyer who has the music streaming somewhat regularly from my server, I totally get why Nintendo and anyone else doesn't like that game and I'm not surprised at all it hasn't shown up. Though I do want it to show up on nso if only to enjoy a new wave of people agonizing over beaver bother and that one room in the ice cave cabin and having to do a one credit run of Donkey Kong & Jetpac.

On the credits, yeah that stinks but it's also business. My company doesn't credit anyone on products because they don't want someone credited giving the company a bad rep if they go on to say something silly on the Internet or whatever. I would guess Nintendo is being ultra protective of their extremely valuable IP by only giving credits like that to people whom they have absolutely zero doubt will always be in their court.

That's kinda cool but I really want that first person view, and not like the cart's first person view. It'd be rad to see the interior of the kart while driving. Maybe they'll add that with Labo 2 VR.

Next you're going to tell me LRG wasn't actually devoted to the Almighty mission of games preservation and is, in fact, a business. A business interested in parting fools from their money by peddling worthless trinkets, heavy doses of fomo, and the illusion of games as an investment. A business who would immediately cozy up to reduced manufacturing costs like this because they believe their customer base is a bunch of trained whales at this point who will still lap up said worthless trinkets to cure the fomo and keep that collection complete.

They definitely did this on the Switch 1 too. I remember a bunch of friends complaining they had to buy a bundle with Bomberman and a case and other stuff because that's all that was in stock. Nintendo isn't going to care. Complain to the BBB I guess, lol. File a class action lawsuit for those sweet pennies in two years. Gamestop gonna Gamestop.

Sakurai is awesome. And so is that movie. Your Boy Captain America here never gets old.

No flashy flashy thing needed, I am rock solid with my OLED and everything else I want to play on various other consoles. I'll enjoy that stress free pickup some months down the road. Day 1 console buys are for the birds.

Early adoption really is the worst of all worlds. Trade in your current known console for a paltry discount to still pay a premium for a newly launched system which may or may not have day 1 issues. Sign me up for hell naw. Especially on an OLED which is very likely to be a hotly desired console someday when Switch 1 nostalgia comes biting.

Nintendo Seal of Quality was marketing brilliance to spin what was just them controlling the means of game production. That it continues to be brought up for questions of actual quality speaks to nothing but the quality of said marketing campaign.

Also, user wouldn't have been ripped off if they took five seconds to look the game up on wikipedia to see which platforms it has released on. Nintendo could make an announcement and put the onus on consumers to be even slightly diligent with their purchasing, since there's no bulletproof way to stop shady companies from being shady. The Wii shop had draconian restrictions and still had garbage all over like Big Kahuna Party and Robox.

Already a hobbled version with no streetpass. It's like the Castlevania DS games and Splatoon. You can port them and freshen up the paint all you want, but there are some games that will never work as well as they did on their original hardware.

Nah. Never been a day 1 adopter, least of all with high demand Nintendo consoles. I used to do that out of being a poor kid which meant ultra cheap entry point when the gen was nearly over, but nowadays I'm absolutely good with waiting until the dust settles so I can pick up a console with no fuss and any launch issues ironed out with more games to choose from.

Funny we're almost up to what was considered a crazy price I paid on eBay for a Rosalina+Luma 10 years ago when they sold out instantly.

Either he thinks he'll evade the most notoriously litigious gaming company forever or thinks the clout/streaming revenue will make up for the damages. Either way, that's a special kind of stupid.

Didn't even remember this was a thing. Hope that fleeting clout was worth the freight train they'll be tanking.

Glad I have pretty much every amiibo I wanted already. I loved the days of picking one or two up at the grocery store. I would impulse buy Sidon maybe but the new champions are kind of lame.

I hope they went this route just to spite all the people who can't shut up about hall effect.

This is their revenge for everyone exploiting the duplication glitch.

I mean there's no chance I'm not buying a Mario Kart game. I don't think 8 was the end all be all, outside of having the best balanced difficulty to date. I keep longing for the missions and bosses from DS. Open world might scratch an itch I've had since Beetle Adventure Racing. This might be better than 8 or other high points, might be a little worse. But there's no way this won't bring the usual joy the series always delivers.

Super small operation, he readily admitted to it, and it's on their home turf. Not a surprising outcome.

@Splash_Woman well said. I get the groans whenever I see Earthbound like. There's so much more to that game than some weirdness in cities and the Giygas fight. The thing I still appreciate most is the efficiency and brevity in the writing. The game says so much with relatively little text, and most supposed Earthbound-likes never shut up and trap the player in endless dialogue & exposition with grossly overcooked weirdness or humor.

Anyway, cautiously optimistic about this one.

But can I stick the Switch 2 or joy cons to my refrigerator?

I mean, yeah. And they were never in the gaming industry. Gaming was just a means to an end for what Niantic wanted to do. Just like the people they hired to do the games part. Just like Pokemon was a means to an end because Ingress alone wasn't going to get them there. And they're probably showing a lot of people how video games can be used in similar ways. High recognition brands, massive potential userbase with addictive tendencies, and motivated buyers for successful operations makes for quite a vessel.

This is funny, it's like they want to see durability whiners go through crazy hoops, when it's stupidly easy just to get a new weapon in the game. I hope they keep this mechanic. Fights in these games actually had a bit of randomness and risk, and on the very few times I found myself without any weapons, scrounging back was fun. Way more fun than going through the motions of the exact same fights over and over as in previous 3D Zeldas. Hurry up and wait for the stalfos/lizalfos/wolfos/armos to do the same exact thing so Link can do the same exact thing, so exciting!

Might get a Sidon because he'd look awesome next to Mipha on my shelves. Which are repurposed clear plastic spice racks from a grocery store because the outrageously priced collectible shelves can get stuffed. The others, eh. I love TOTK maybe more than BOTW but the designs of the new champions were pretty lame.

The only way they go away is when people find that modicum of restraint and stop putting money in the pockets of the opportunists. Otherwise, it's just setting up another slice of swiss cheese for them to find the easily visible holes.

But that's not ever happening, least of all with videogames which solely exist for pleasure and distractions from an ever increasingly mentally ill world.

Nintendo's 'a cut above the rest' product pricing strategy can be annoying when nothing ever really drops in price, but the GameCube being in that top 3 really highlights why they do it. Maybe the games really are evergreen or maybe that marketing strategy created multiple generations of customers who perpetuate it. Either way no other console maker could be launching a new line and have people hugely excited for emulated stuff from four generations prior.

Novelty junk with an outrageously inflated price trying to instigate fear of missing out while hiding behind the guise of physical games preservation for a title which is massively available. Sounds like LRG.

@tektite_captain is that a common feeling? I love Wind Waker but Majora's Mask is near the bottom for me when it comes to 3D Zeldas, only beat out by Skyward Sword for the last spot. I found MM's outdoor environments way too boxed in where WW gives a nice sense of exploration and discovery with the great sea.

Stop no come back

It's a marked improvement over code in a box but I guess people want to stay with the lousy situation they were used to. The world is never going back to the physical days of old, and it's kind of a miracle Nintendo was able to make carts happen again even if a lot of them will be incomplete without the ever present day 1 patches. This is at least a halfway point between one time use codes in a retail box and the self contained cart.

Lol. Lmao even. Had no problem with it until the lawyers came knocking. No one who sees Electabuzz with a damn minigun would call it anything else. Funny when the thing that makes you popular is exactly what prevents you from enjoying it. Tiger King effect.

Purely performative. Call me when they actually stay there in line with a continuous livestream rather than work a queue with a crew. Then I'll be impressed as I make money at work while watching their silliness.

Probably won't play this, chapter 1 didn't do anything for me good or bad outside of another great soundtrack (same as Undertale). But it's cool he's embracing the mouse. And anything completely negligible that gets people all bunged up is always fun to watch.

Make that Switch 2 tour game a platinum reward or make a Switch 2 shaped stress squishy and then there will be a scramble of cashing in points. This? Eh. Looks like something from a convention that would immediately go in a forgotten drawer.

I know we gotta rake that muck, but this is a huge stretch. Though probably successful given how itchy everyone is to jerk their knees. They've already committed to keeping the Switch primed with titles, and the system is going to be awash in other eShop ports for a long time. The Xbox comment was made when there was going to be a clear cut from one gen to the next, and in a console line where having the best tech is everything very unlike the Nintendo lines.