DashKappei

btw Futari is probably my favorite Cave game of all time, I still fork out my X360 to play it, I’m sure it will come in the future! But I’m glad they’ve prioritized Mushi HD because I had never played that one since on X360 it was region-locked to JPN. I’m thankful for Livewire but it’s bittersweet when I think how they’ve cut all of the tutorials from their Akai Katana release, and that in the end they never did enable online leaderboards on Mushi, etc. etc.

@The_Trooper49 are you me? I’m also 100% digital for STGs on Switch but Cave games are the exception! However, I’ve double dipped on all of them (bar Blissful Death) because digital is just too convenient for me to give up, haha. Having a score-based/arcade/shmup game there at all times makes it so I’ll play it much more than if I had it (only) on cart. Also most of them were dirt cheap on sale! Well, not SDOJ tho, 35 bucks is a bit too steep to double dip later for anything that doesn’t get the ShotTriggers treatment…

@Ralizah good then, because Balatro has nothing to do with poker. It only uses poker hands (high card, pair, double-pair, three of a kind…), that’s it. It’s a deck builder.

This game just won EDGE’s Nintendo (Switch) GOTY! Beating Zelda EOTW (not that anybody cares but mine was Balatro)! Also came 9/10 in their GOTY/runner ups list, above Helldivers II. High praise, I’m going to look for a physical copy tomorrow! I didn’t before because I still didn’t “complete” Shiren 4. Also wasn’t convinced by the switch to 3D gfx but they’ve since grown on me.

Awesome! Still wish it got optional touchscreen controls patched in tho

This was a great read! Thanks!

Has performance/framerate also been improved with this new patch on Switch?

I’m 95% all digital on Switch, but for “special releases” I like to have the odd physical release in my collection (I do collect retro CiB for Nintendo’s handhelds) it’s really too bad that DE’s Gold Master series hasn’t had a single physical release so far, and I’m not holding my breath that when they will do them they won’t simply hand them out to boutique publishers like Limited Run, and similar, meaning I won’t get them. Sigh.

“Moss made THREE excellent entries”.
Lies, lies, lies! 😅 Raiden V is the worst game in the series (well besides this spin-off, lol) and quite frankly all in all a mediocre shmup with awful direction with intrusive story and systems, diluted gameplay, and bog-standard art direction. I don’t know if they can ever salvage it with an Overkill-like revision cutting all that nonsense (and giving it a proper TATE/vertical view mode!).

Just please give us (or Hamster as Arcade
Archives releases) Raiden DX (Raiden 2) and Raiden Fighters 1&2, those masterpieces are still stuck on Xbox 360 or even PSX…

Weird that there’s no Lollipop Chainsaw review

Love the game, glad that they prioritized framerate, but I’m a bit disappointed the resolution in handheld mode is so low that pixel and jaggies transform the game’s artstyle, and it’s too bad because the clean look helped with visibility, so for me it directly impacts gameplay. I hope the game gets a Switch “2” patch in the future… again, the game is great but if like me you play 99% portable it’s better to know what to expect. But unless you watch 4k videos in action you might think it’s almost an artstyle choice, giving it a pixel-y look. Hey, I know it’s frowned upon in here to make any kind of comment on performance or technical merits because you get the horde of “back in the old days” snark (not knowing that back in the days the vast majority of games were locked to 60fps until the approach of 3D on home consoles… yeah, I’m 46yo.)

@Not_Soos your heart is in the right place, but you’re just really uninformed, more than naive. If you’d like to correct that, you can.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/06/executions-saudi-arabia-record-high-crown-prince-mohammed/

Also, this has barely anything to do with making money, it’s about having more and more control on culture and their public image. It’s even more dangerous.

With how many great games don’t get a review these days at NL, it’s a bummer one was wasted for this. Ugh.

@Tom-Massey truly fantastic review! One question, since even tho I was around since SF1, I never gelled with the Vs. series besides Tatsunoko on Wii, is there an how-to-play tutorial section for the games in the collection? Anything at all to learn besides going online to look for guides ourselves?

He was given a loss, not disqualified. He got off easy since they ruled “unsporting conduct” but it could easily fall under “severe Unsporting conduct”.

Pokemon Tournament Rules:
https://www.pokemon.com/static-asse...mon-tournament-rules-handbook-03092020-en.pdf

Unsporting conduct infractions are caused when poor personal conduct on behalf of a tournament attendee results in a detraction from the experience of others.

a. Minor Unsporting Conduct is characterized by mild lapses in judgement that result in a contained incident, or the annoyance of a small group of attendees.
Examples may include:

• A player swears mildly in annoyance, or in conversation with a friend.
• A player disturbs a match in progress.
• A player leaves food wrappers or other detritus in the play area after their match is over.

b. Major Unsporting Conduct is characterized by behavior that displays a lack of respect or consideration for fair play, or for the enjoyment of others in attendance.
Examples may include:

• A player attempts to distract or intimidate their opponent into misplay.
• Refusal to cooperate with a tournament policy, such as signing a match slip.
• During a match, a player makes legal plays that have no effect on the game in progress, or plays unreasonably slowly, in order to manipulate the time remaining in that match (TCG).
• Attempting to view the opponent's screen to gain an advantage (screen peeking) (VG).

c. Severe Unsporting Conduct demonstrates a blatant disregard for the Play! Pokémon Standards of Conduct, and actively contributes toward the disruption of a safe and family-friendly environment.
Examples may include:

• The use of profanity, slurs, physical threats, or insults toward any other attendee.
• Assault, theft, or other criminal activity.
• Wilfully lying to tournament staff, such as during an investigation.
• Determining the outcome of a match by random means, through the use of bribery or coercion, or via other disallowed methods.

@RubyCarbuncle he wasn’t disqualified, the article is flat out wrong, he was given a loss for that turn.
It’s all in the tournament’s rules, and honestly they were pretty lax since he could’ve been outright disqualified, he’s own fault he knew well what a dumbaxx gesture he was doing and you don’t mess with those things at a freakin Pokemon World Tournament.

Expected. But still good to hear, game is middling, and Blow’s absolutely toxic and harmful behavior means even I was interested I’d choose to spend my hard-earned money for something else, it’s not like there’s a shortage of much better indie games.

Wait a second, it’s not 60fps period, or just when playing in local mp with 8 other players?
No 60fps for a game like this would be a deal breaker for me.

Also, the ghosts of other players mentioned in the review are pulled from where, online?

@Sakaixx PS4 also has physical, EU-exclusive. Although vg+ is selling it as an import. Beware that MHS2 is included as just a voucher dlc code like the Switch physical

That’s too bad they didn’t improve on the mediocre performance of the original, at all. :/ I’ll wait for Switch 2 to play it then (I only enjoy/have time for long jrpgs on portable systems), assuming it’ll get an automatic boost in performance if not a real patch to take advantage of the new hardware.

@gcunit I mean your “suspicion” didn’t make sense in the first place. It’s simply marketing, an opportunity to get more eyes, and hopefully more sales, on your product. Which something pretty important in any market. They’d be stupid not too match it with the Euros if they can, and that doesn’t have anything to do with the ability to “stand on its own”. It’s not like they put the ready-to-go PC version in the freezer either waiting till now, since that one came out half-a-year ago…

@locky-mavo Nah. Garry’s Mod situation and emulation/recompiling is apple and oranges, Nintendo can’t do anything here and there’s nothing illegal.

Team Ladybug does great work (and fantastic Switch ports), loved everything from them, especially RoLW Deelit and Stranius. This looks awesome!

Sucks to hear it’s in such bad state on Switch I usually use my GPU sub to “demo” games and If I like them enough I’ll grab them on Switch because 90% of my gaming time is with portable-mode and don’t have a Deck, but I’ll stick with the GPU version on my humble Series S then! Maybe down the line on a deep sale if it’ll be patched accordingly. Nice review Kate!

@scully1888 since it’s mentioned in the review and cons section, do you know if this was ever patched to fix the framerate issues?

@CammyUnofficial there’s a demo for Bahnsen Knights on the eShop!

3 great games, and all 3 walkthroughs make for a single medium-sized game since their length is less than 10 hours combined (between 6 and 9 hours). If they price it right (30€) I’ll double dip on the physical collection (have them digital already).

@BulbasaurusRex De gustibus, a lot of people including me think it looks great. You must be one of those people looking at modern art/paintings and saying “my 3y old son could’ve done that!”. Also your visual novels < books < tv series comparison is pure nonsense. Different mediums for different experiences, it sounds like VNs aren’t for you (and that you also have a very limited view on what they offer) and you should leave it a that. It’s ok to not like every genre. I don’t care for Farm games but don’t go around saying that those games are boring and also useless since real farming exists.

@Hanchen Grendizer’s collab was announced for X (trailer released etc.) but never released afaik, hopefully it’s coming down the line for Wired because it’s my most wanted robot together with Kotetsu Jeeg.

Anyway, enjoying the game A LOT and looks and runs great on Switch. No reason to pick up the Deluxe Edition honestly, you’re better off going with the much cheaper standard edition.

@Mando44646 digital only worldwide

@nuff64 because the Switch, like the PS4/X1 and contrary to Xbox Series and PS5, doesn’t support variable refresh rate output nor 120Hz (40x3), so it’d look like a stuttery mess.

Honestly don’t buy it in its current state if you plan to play in handheld mode. Wait for patches, you’ll likely pay less and get, hopefully, a fully functioning game. This ain’t it, or at least right now it isn’t.

Bought! Loved what little I’ve played on Game Pass, stopped playing it there hoping it would come to Switch and it seems that the port is looking great and mostly running (to the right, lol) at 60fps!

How’s performance (framerate/rez, especially in portable mode) now?

Great review! I’ll consider it but only if it adds a way to write down notes in an update, because I’m used to take (long) hiatus when playing games and 100% I won’t remember a thing next time I pick it up again lol (and no, I don’t like writing down my own notes because I might do it but I know it’ll deter me from playing it as much as I’d want since I play NSW exclusively in portable mode). Does it support the touchscreen btw?

@Grackler oh wow, thanks for the updated, is gyro support included now, and also good hopefully? Not all GYROs are created equal hehe.

On my wishlist now, will grab it next time it hits 40%off!

Prince of Persia is mighty tempting.
Of course it’ll probably be 60 or even 70%off in a matter of months… mmm decisions

I love the game, and although they left it unfinished missing 2 whole worlds from the map, still I much prefer it to Runner3. However, knowing how busted Runner 3’s framerate was for months on end until they finally patched it, and that if I had waited instead of getting it day1 I would have saved 50% off what I had paid, I will 100% wait reliable impressions on performance

@Znake you’re kidding right? Dread is on MercurySteam’s internal engine (Mercury Engine) while POP is on Unity, apples to oranges. And in what made-up fantasy would a dev/pub lend their own engine they’ve been building on from the past 10 years to another dev/pub… this ain’t Kojima getting Decima from GG to build a Sony published exclusive.

@Spider-Kev thx but I purchased it already, that post 6 months old

My experience with Visco collection doesn't reflect at all that of this review, in my experience lag is quite awful especially for some games. Feels like ice-skating, most games you immediately feel something is way off. Luckily, Neo Drift Out it's mostly ok because it was never super responsive and it feels comparable to the arcade MVS' experience imo. But hopefully a patch is coming. Or maybe I'm wrong, let's see if someone does proper lag testing. As it is, I wouldn’t recommend it, in MY experience. Also I understand the licensing issues ($$$) but dang the new stripped-out sprites for the cars in Neo Drift (once a Celica, Impreza, and Lancer) are sooooo bad. Could’ve made it a bit better imo.

Does Neo Drift have online leaderboards tho?

@ShonenJump121 it’s not really similar to other collection, because here the only things on the cart are MG (not MGS!) and MG2, that’s it. I heard that other consoles also basically have download links in them for all MGS games, if true that’s absurd.

The fact that MGS2’s framerate on Switch doesn’t even match to the PS2 original, or the PSVita (mostly 60, some of it at 30) release, let alone the PS3/X360 collection, can’t be excused

What I did.

• make an account for Amazon JPN, to buy:
• NSO 3-months plan sub for 826¥ (6.30 eur)
• 10.000 ¥ in eShops cards (62 euros)

Go to the eShop and buy Nintendo Voucher.
Redeem 1 ticket on Mario Wonder.
Leave 1 ticket for another Nintendo release.
= PROFIT!

Comes off as less than 35€ (30£ / 37 USD) per game. It would’ve been even more of an incredibile deal if I hadn’t bought TOTK already.

Or straight up get 6500 ¥ of eShop credit off Amazon.jp and use it on Mario Wonder (40.50€ / 35.50£ / 43 USD). This way you won’t even need to use a different account on Switch, since the game costs exactly 6500¥ you’ll be able to top-up only that credit and use it all (you can’t switch eShop region when you have credit left in your wallet).

Amazon.es has it for 46EUR, here in Italy it’s 60€ everywhere ugh.

50$ less? No. I like options and 50$ won’t superseed that. $100? Maybe.
If there’s no back-compatibility? Totally, I’m 90% digital anyway.

Awful take. It’s a different world now, it is expected, it absolutely needs it to leverage its predecessor’s success, and it will have it, zero doubts on that.

@Tirza it’s mentioned in the article., translated via Google. And it’s not a machine translated “piece”, it’s a machine translated Twitter/X post, that’s it. So no, it’s not unprofessional in the least. @RetroGames oh, you’re one of those people, ugh. Stop using lazy to refer to something you don’t like and expand your vocabulary, it’s so freakin disrespectful, there is nothing lazy about game development and definitely not this project.

@Paraka not really, because this entry doesn’t exclude others being in dev, Nintendo was never going to come out with a big budget new game in the series at this point. F-Zero 99 is absolutely FANTASTIC, it just pains me to think this game might disappear in a year or so. We’re probably going to see a GX remaster DX soon, Nintendo is clearly not done with Gamecube’s remakes/remasters. Sure, I’d prefer an entirely new game with new tracks, and hopefully that’s on the horizon.

Online leaderboards? TATE? Well then, wishlisted!

Great review! Really well written. I’m buying.

Yes, I would have paid double to have Prince of Persia included even sans remake but with every version ever released (or close, since there’s actually dozens lol) and the same extras and care Karateka’s material has gotten).

Damn, now I want [i]this[i] version instead! Sigh, Ubisoft sitting on a mountain of legendary videogame content that they’re doing nothing with. At least most others put out retro collections, but Ubisoft? Nada basically.