Curbie

That would have been terrible. The OG game boy ran for 15 hours on 4 double A batteries. The Game Gear took six and ran for 3 hours. It was enough anxiety as a kid keeping 4 batteries around to put a hundred plus hours into Gen 1. I can imagine how bad it would have been to up that to six and not even making it through a day on one set. The Game Gear was not made for RPGs.

It'd just be a coincidence if either game gets a rerelease or something in the near future. They've always been chasing Chrono roms and fan projects. Rumors currently suggest something with Chrono Cross but there were also rumors of that when Mitsuda did the anniversary concert a couple years ago and nothing came of it.

Whatever interest I had in this completely fell away after modding my GBA with an lcd and getting an Everdrive. I much prefer the wide form factor anyway. Not interested in playing TurboGrafx games on a small screen, and I have a Mister if I want to play portable on the big screen.

Nintendo sells on brand power, not computing power. This has never been more true than with the Switch. Unless someone just sidles up with a brand on par with Mario or Pokemon, they aren't a Switch killer. Seems likely a bunch of imitators who think power is everything are going to compete with themselves and lose ultimately to the Steam deck while Nintendo continues on their merry way.

Anyone can mimic the mechanics of the Mother games. What made them stand out is how they challenged the normal jrpg conventions of their times. What made them special was how Itoi maximized the medium. There's countless games who don't have the audacity adopt the Mother moniker and tried to be a spiritual successor, and they don't even come close. Everyone seems to think a bunch of quirk, pop culture references, and some gimmick battle system is what it takes. Maybe this will be great, but it's not looking all that promising.

@Maxz I wish I could give this multiple likes.

Much love to the refreshing amount of level headed comments here, and those that brought the humor too. Looking forward to the movie, and hope he does a good job.

I was disappointed after opening the article to see this was not a partnership between Nintendo and Panda Cheese.

@DumbElder I wouldn't expect people to take it so personal for you stating what happens with any "free" site, but here we are. If a site or service is free to use, you are the product - plain and simple.

Everyone saying what is there to spoil seems to operate under the assumption that everyone who has a Switch today has not only played the originals, but is also old enough to have been around when they launched. For all the people who started with Sword and Shield, these are effectively new games. Might do you good to think outside your own bubble now and then.

People likely risking their employment & getting in the crosshairs of a Legal team with endless resources for a few minutes of Internet fame on a game with tepid hype is particularly pathetic. Most people have probably made up their mind already about buying it at this point anyway.

I'm sure they'll still have launch week server issues, and continue to sell just fine in spite of them or any ongoing lawsuits. There's a huge sector of gamers who don't know/don't care how the sausage is made and have the memory of a goldfish.

And funny thing about boycotts is you don't get a survey card to tell the company you didn't buy their game because of X. Which means their analysts get to explain away any sales decline caused by those who have the fortitude to not buy the sequels.

It's a pretty easy scheme to get a massive signal boost and sympathy from people who hate Nintendo's litigious legal team. Just put Nintendo stuff in your game and hide behind being a fan or it being placeholders. These guys bungled it pretty bad if people are actually siding with the big N's legal force.

Just adding another confirmation there's nothing wrong with the NSO version outside of the controls taking some getting used to. And after getting used to it, I'd actually prefer playing with the Pro Controller. The same holds true for all the N64 games so far. Despite people looking for every excuse to torpedo them and dogpile with their downvotes, the games play fine and are still an absolute joy.

New Horizons is a new game. People act like they should carry their progress from an old game to a new game and it's silly. Also- It takes place on an island. The whole story is starting anew on an empty island to live a simple vacation life. It would have made zero sense to include everything from New Leaf. I can't imagine the volume of whining that will happen when the next Smash doesn't launch with every fighter and stage from Ultimate.

Sounds like normal business. Lots of companies are closing small satellite offices all across the country. It's probably rent related and not specific to CA - office space is a big expense anywhere and working from home has become much more accepted. And most marketing people jump ship frequently to chase new opportunities. Marketing had the highest turnover of any department in every corporate company I've worked with.

But yeah, politics and Nintendo is doomed I guess.

@Rocky2418 glad to see someone else agreeing about the Photos and Color Dungeon. I love the colouring in DX, but not those additions. The color dungeon felt especially hacky since it's just applying the guardian acorn or piece of power effects permanently. At least it had a great theme.

Bought it, games look lovely and the price is worth having them portable with save states and not having to drag out old consoles or fiddle with emulators. Weirdest thing about this whole kerfuffle is people thinking there's some universal scale for the value of games. These games are worth the price to me, and I have such little free time that I want the convenience. My situation and taste isn't the same as everyone else, and that's fine. I'm not going to fault someone for saying this isn't worth it to them, but man people sure want to fault me for saying it is.

By and large their best console, best portable. Also it has been five years of people complaining about the specs from a company that has been selling underpowered cheap tech through brand recognition for decades. It shouldn't be this difficult to grasp that if you want current tech & features, Nintendo will never be the place - particularly after they have another runaway success on the lateral thinking with withered technology approach.

Oh wow, that backstory is spectacularly awful.

Cool concept, but I showed the trailer to my kid and she immediately recognized the voices are different and said there's something wrong with their eyes. That money would be better spent taking her to the Peppa World of Play or buying a month (4.99) of the mobile app which looks like it has more content.

I only played with the Mario G&W games for a bit, but the clock has made it a perfect addition to my work desk. Looking forward to adding the Zelda too. If they really pushed the clock feature and sold these with a little stand they would probably move much faster.

Yep, sounds like a job. If work was always pleasant we wouldn't work to live. Or at least that should be the sentiment. Too many people think working in video games is some kind of a dream. It's a job.

40K people pounding sand. This might be the most outrage per dollar ever generated in the history of gaming. Maybe someday we'll get to the idea that not every purchase option is viable for everyone, and that's alright.

The thought that went into the design is impressive. And I'm sure it's a joy to build. But that's a lot pricey for abstract Mario character blobs on the shelf and a one-time experience.

I love Nintendo games, obviously being on this site. But let's not have any misconceptions about this company. They exist to make money. They make tons of money by selling their brand power through outdated cheap tech to the masses. It's nice when Nintendo puts some options for accessibility but they're only ever going to do the bare minimum because they don't cater to small demographics who would make no major impact on Nintendo's bottom line if they were to boycott. This will always be something the small companies do better, like any appeal to smaller or minority demographics.

Let it go. 4K Switch isn't happening.

Not surprised Nintendo's legal arm won't hassle the creators over this. It's not a product that comes anywhere near big N's bread and butter and doesn't look official in the slightest. Same reason I'd guess they never go after The Minibosses or Metroid Metal. That said, this looks pretty cheeky and fun.

I love the original to death and have played it countless times. But as you noted in the review, it was far from perfect. Reading some of the early comments on other sites, people must have forgotten how stiff the game controlled, the basic moveset, some bland level designs, and how tedious it was to be constantly shooting down the strong monsters in the later regions. The remake isn't perfect either, but it makes great improvements on what was a hugely ambitious yet clunky undercooked game.

@Kidfunkadelic83 Between the Castlevania collection, Shantae, Final Fantasy Legend collection, and Mana collection there's plenty of examples of GB titles looking and playing just fine on a big modern TV.

Just a reminder, emulation <> "coming to other platforms". And no one is impressed you downloaded some stuff and ran it on your PC, and Nintendo doesn't care either since they go after big distributors not random nobodies.

Exciting stuff all around. ActRaiser was the surprise highlight for me. Mario movie cast is the kind of random I like. Kirby / Fragile Dreams mashup looks awesome. And I was knee deep in Diablo II on the Switch during the Direct so it was gaming goodness the whole time.

Buying Diablo II for sure. diablo II is a great game and this looks like a great remaster of Diablo II. I love me some Diablo II, which is out today on Switch.

Easy to prattle on about fools and their poor impulses. Garden variety idiots with cash burning in their pockets don't have this kind of money. And even the most extra Sonic fan wouldn't drop that cash for the game. I don't really care what rich people do to make more money but this is messing up the games market and it's annoying as can be for people who buy old games to actually play them. But this is the symptom of a problem that existed before WATA. Video games becoming collectable was the worst thing to happen, people buying up carts just to sit in their house because they for some god forsaken reason needed to try and get every NES or Genesis game. That was where prices first started soaring. And naturally it caught the attention of people who like to make money, and the games market was just ripe for their picking.

@RGH27 Nintendo soundtracks were the primary motivator for me to set up a Plex streaming music server. Whatever the reason is, probably not wanting to be subject to anything but Japanese copyright law, it's highly unlikely they'll ever bend on this. Or if they do it'll only be tightly contained selections from full soundtracks of their biggest and current titles.

It's really not hard to get this stuff anymore. Importing has never been easier with Amazon JP, and they usually get first editions too.

Love these games to death, and I'll go to bat for Harmony any day too. They deserve to not be left behind on older hardware. But unless there's some extras I might pass on this since I have the original cartridges and the Wii U VC copies.

Hopefully the DS games get ported too because outside of the first one they can easily be functional on one screen. Maybe they could just ditch the drawing mechanic altogether for Dawn of Sorrow.

"out of nowhere there were rumors" I doubt this is out of nowhere. I love the fantasy of a perfectly preserved retro treasure trove too but this suspiciously surfacing when there's a craze over game collecting. It's not just money mongering richies circling the waters, there's no doubt scammers scheming how to use repros to trick unwary collectors and get in on this. The local resale shops here have had a huge influx of people trying to sell reproduction GBA Pokemon and Zelda games lately, and some are so convincing they succeed.

@Scarthcaroth Reviews incoming doesn't mean anything until there's actually any critical analysis of it. And like I said, primary concern is the controls of the unit itself, obviously docked external controllers aren't a concern unless there's input lag, which again we don't know because no reviews. Much as I like their consoles they aren't flawless pieces of hardware, and they've never made a portable console or a controller. They're totally unproven in this realm. I hope it's great and I'll buy one if so, it's just surprising how many people threw their money at it and go to bat for the pocket with these things in mind.

I'm still surprised people are so rabid for this thing, and I love my Analogue products. The Super NT and Mega SG are amazing pieces of hardware for those who want to play with original carts & controllers. But the most important aspect of a portable console is the form factor and control. When you buy a Super NT you know the controls will be great because you're using a Super NES (or similar) pad. No one has held an Analogue Pocket, no one can speak if the buttons are good, the unit is comfortable to hold, etc. I'll stick with an og GBA with an ips mod until the Pocket has been thoroughly played and reviewed in the wild.

@sanderev true but that's an exception not a rule and should never be expected.

Inevitable but still unfortunate. Much as amiibo scalpers are annoying, it's nothing compared to how Lego sets skyrocket in price and never get a reprint.

Alright fine, I'll buy Child of Light for the third time already.

@KoopaTheGamer I was going to say the same. Final Fantasy Adventure, Final Fantasy Legend, and Castlevania Belmont's Revenge all look awesome docked or undocked.

That looks like those 3DS themes that required the games to be in a single row to be fully visible, no thanks. The barebones UI would work with the large library if they just added a search function with browse by letter, genre, release year, etc.

Also, achievements? Keep dreaming.

I buy soundtracks in whatever format I can, and download/rip the ones that never get an official release. I have a plex server running on a raspberry pi for my music library, and I use plexamp on my phone & Echo devices at home to play video game music anywhere. It's a bit more work, but it keeps everything in one place and has all the soundtracks I want down to obscure stuff like Legendary Axe or Teleroboxer, with the same functionality as any streaming service.

The longshot is it'll be added to Switch online. There's no way they'll release Fusion or any other title as a standalone purchase & risk someone buying a $10 ROM instead of a $60 new game. But it's appropriate you mentioned Mother 3 because that's the evergreen example of how Nintendo operates. They hoard their back catalog for rainy days, they held a fully translated Earthbound Beginnings for decades. They won't waste a bump in sales and reputation when the Switch is printing money. Dread needs no help being sold at this point, and they need no help moving Switches either.

Also I love that Nintendo is vague and unpredictable enough to where just about any rumor can sound plausible.

@Stocksy I dunno, I'd rather hear some moral ranting than preemptive snark about people possibly having an opinion different than yours.

Anyway, it's fun they figured out a way but why even bother when the regular model is super easy to hack and readily available usually at a lower price than the mini?

Also going to throw in that Samus Returns is far better than AM2R. AM2R is an alright fan game, but it is a fan game through and through - it's Metroid II shoved into Zero Mission rather than a proper remake - and I suspect people champion it so hard because it's free and because they like the idea of petulantly playing a game Nintendo's legal team struck down.

Nothing. It's one of the most reproduced, readily available, and perfectly preserved games in existence. I already have a cartridge, a NES mini, switch online, Mario anniversary G&W, etc. Collecting video games is dumb, they're made to be played not sealed in boxes with ridiculously inflated price tags. The only valuable physical games should be the ones that are actually rare and aren't well preserved digitally.