Dogorilla

Between Aardman working on Pokemon and the Crumble Lady making songs for a sandwich musical game, this is a good day for completely unexpected collaborations with British icons.

I don't speak Japanese, but I have a feeling 'Everyone is participating!' isn't quite the intended translation of that Famitsu tweet.

Anyway, yes, Smash Ultimate. Good game.

I've made a start on the Echoes of the Eye DLC for Outer Wilds, it's a nice change of pace from the main game and I'll definitely continue it this weekend - with a slight air of apprehension, I might add, because the game's settings warn that the DLC contains some frights (which can be turned off, but I've left them on for now, perhaps unwisely). The anglerfish in the main game were scary enough!

I've also downloaded Infinity Nikki on PC (not sure how long it will hold my attention as a free gacha game, but it's cute so far) and I'm playing a level of Mission to Snowdriftland each day as an advent calendar.

@TryToBeHopeful I haven't played the NES version myself; I'm not expecting to enjoy it as much as the modern ones, as you say, but it should be fun to try it out at least. I've also just seen the comments saying this will be the first time this particular version releases in Japan, so that makes a bit more sense as to why Nintendo is making a big deal of it.

Kind of weird that this particular addition was announced so long ago (and they're telling us the release date over a week in advance as well) when most NSO releases are just shadow dropped. I know licensing is probably fairly complicated for Tetris and there are definitely people excited to play this (I'll certainly give it a (T-)spin myself), but to a lot of people this isn't going to be the most interesting release given that there are already two versions of Tetris playable through NSO.

No, it's a great game but, well, I already have it. Surely it's time for a brand new DK?

Thanks for this guide (I already found every accessory but this is handy for checking I've got them all) - just thought I should point out a couple of typos that kind of change the meaning of the sentences they're in:

The section on the Curious Charm says it increases the damage you take (should be decreases), and the description of the Spin Brace says it knocks back foes that 'hit you with a spin' (should be 'you hit with a spin'.

Ho-Oh even says its classic catchphrase, 'Pose me'!

I got 18/19, just forgot the Mario & Sonics for the Mario games question. Pretty happy with that, especially as it puts me 3rd on the leaderboard! (Although I can't see myself on there any more after refreshing the page... does it take a while to verify the score or something?)

Professor Layton and the Lost Future
Pokemon Black and White
Bowser's Inside Story
New Super Mario Bros
Dragon Quest IX

I'm not counting Ghost Trick or Ace Attorney because I've only played later re-releases, but those are phenomenal games too. The DS has such a great library there are countless other amazing games I could have included and countless more I've yet to play.

@Asaki That's probably a good plan, some of the old Dragon Quests are really expensive now. I'd also like to have played this one by the time the I and II remake launches ideally.

@Asaki Same here, this game looks great but I've still got Zelda on the go. But maybe once I'm done with that I'll pick it up if I can ignore the siren's call of the backlog for long enough.

@Overzeal Tell me you don't know what censorship means without telling me you don't know what censorship means

This was the first Zelda game I 100%d, which, given how tedious this quest is, says a lot about how much I loved the rest of the game. It helped that I was a child with nothing better to do, but still.

I had no idea about the history of this, great to see it's no longer lost to time!

I really enjoy the new WarioWares as well, it's a bit unfair to write them off so quickly! But they do feel a bit too clean compared to the oddball roughness of the original.

I just got a new laptop, which is not specifically for gaming but I thought I'd test its performance by installing the most recent AAA game in my Steam library, Gotham Knights. It's from a Humble bundle (like most of my Steam games) and I don't know if I'll like it given its mixed reception, but hopefully I'll get round to giving it a spin soon to see how well it runs, and if I actually enjoy playing it that will be a nice bonus.

Apart from that, I'm still ambling through Echoes of Wisdom, currently in the Falon Wetlands.

This is Game & Wario erasure

CUOL is real 2401

@TopazLink Mine's done that a couple of times too, though I think it was before this month. I have just recently been having another battery issue though - it will drain very quickly when not in use if I don't leave it charging/docked - which I hadn't connected with the system update but maybe that's the cause. It's something of a relief if it is a widespread problem caused by the update, as hopefully that means the next update can fix it.

I remember seeing this in an ONM article about upcoming Wii U indie games over a decade ago. Not my thing, but it's cool to see it finally come to a Nintendo console after all these years.

This is gorgeous, and looks like a fun platformer too. Reminds me of DuckTales Remastered what with the cane and the visual style.

This is the funniest thing Nintendo could have done at this precise moment. I'm absolutely not buying a $100 alarm clock but I love that it exists. Never change, Nintendo

I'm not super far in but the only thing I noticed was that Castle Town was a bit choppy, it's been fine otherwise and even that wasn't bad enough for me to really care.

Achievements sound like a good addition, those always add more single-player replay value to party games (like Wii Sports Resort's stamps).

If Bowser's Kaboom Squad requires a Switch per player, does everyone need to have the game or is there a free app to download for multiplayer like with Clubhouse Games?

I will of course be playing Zelda, but I'll be juggling it with Outer Wilds, which I bought a few weeks ago and was hoping to finish before Echoes of Wisdom launched but I was too busy. I have a bit more time on my hands now though, so hopefully I'll manage to make some progress in both. I'm 5-10 hours into Outer Wilds and I still don't really know what the actual objective of the game is, but it's very intriguing and like nothing I've ever played before.

No touchscreen controls at all? That's surprising, though the joystick pointer sounds perfectly workable. Anyway, I've missed the good professor and can't wait to play this.

I wasn't expecting a Pen Pineapple Apple Pen reference of all things.

Don't have much time for games this weekend, so the time I do have will be spent on Splatoon 3's Grand Festival, representing Team Present. The new festival hub area is pretty impressive considering it was created just for this weekend.

Happy birthday @JimNorman, by the way!

These pug brothers feel like they could be recurring characters in the Nintendo Advert Universe from now on. They look like they've been invited to a few roof parties in their time.

I'm on what I think is the final boss of The Denpa Men 3, so hopefully I'll finish that. Also hoping to pop into Game and see if they have the new physical release of Outer Wilds on Switch.

@-wc- It's an odd one because I do like the vibe in theory. Colourful, surreal Americana populated by assorted weird freaks is precisely my jam. But the music doesn't do that much for me apart from a few standout tracks (Snowman, Smiles and Tears) and neither does the story.

I'll be honest, I never quite 'got' EarthBound. I enjoyed it well enough but the emotional impact didn't land with me at all. But this is a nice article and helps me understand what people love so much about the game.

I think they look ok but I'm surprised there's no track. I suppose it would have to be limited in scope without making the sets really expensive so it's probably better if they just leave it to the imagination and let kids (or anyone) race the karts on any surface, but on the other hand, imagine having Royal Raceway or Rainbow Road in brick form!

@Kiz3000 Honestly that's still not bad considering a physical booster pack costs £4 and this is the digital equivalent of that for free every day.

@Blue_Dread It's been a while since I played the TCG but IIRC most cards can be used multiple times in one deck, so it's not necessarily a waste to have duplicates.

That trailer for trainer Pokemon in the TCG was way cooler than it needed to be.

Two free booster packs every day is surprisingly generous if they're full 10-card packs.

@Zealv2 I found this article which talks about the use of AI: https://www.polygon.com/23842925/broken-sword-6-bs1-remaster-charles-cecil
I'm certainly not in favour of generative AI in creative fields, but this is just frame interpolation, which seems fairly reasonable, I think? It says the model was trained on their own sprites, so it's not plagiarising other people's artwork, and there are still real animators working on it, it just speeds up the process because they don't have the budget to redraw every frame by hand.

I played a little bit of Glover as a kid and I'd love to play it again, but $35 is a lot, especially as Limited Run has quite expensive overseas shipping last time I checked. While I do prefer physical, this is the kind of game I'd be perfectly happy to buy on the eShop for a lower price, so I'll wait for that.

GBA. It's small enough to be practical but with just enough chunkiness.

@Sun_wukong Ah that makes sense, thanks!

I remember when Pokemon Sun and Moon were first announced, pretty much the only thing that was revealed about them to begin with was that they were the first games in the series to be playable in Chinese. Was that done purely for the benefit of Chinese speakers living outside of China, then?

I'll almost certainly buy the next Nintendo console shortly after launch as I can't imagine missing out on the new Marios and Zeldas, but I'm in no rush at all to move on from the Switch. My actual backlog (in terms of already owned games) isn't that big but there's an almost endless number of games I still want for the Switch so I'll likely keep playing it for as long as I possibly can, just as I still use my DS and Wii.

I'm playing Denpa Men 3 at the moment (never played the first two but bought this one before the eShop closed) so I won't get the new game right away, but it's cool that the series is continuing. The fact it's a free download that apparently requires an internet connection to play is a bit off-putting though.

I went into Game recently and saw that Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader was reduced to £3 brand new, so that's probably why it's in the charts! (I didn't buy it but I was tempted.)

@link3710 You sure? It says $39.99 on the Nintendo Life page.

'this won't be the addition that makes you run out and spend £50 on the game'

The game is £30.99 (or a bit more with the leg strap) to be fair. That's still more than I've been willing to pay for it so far but it is less than Nintendo's standard price point (which makes it all the more baffling when they charge a full 50 for 3DS remasters)

If Nintendo keeps doing this, it would probably be more cost-effective to buy a 3DS and the older versions of these games than to buy the Switch releases. It means missing out on HD, but you do get 3D, and for about a third of the price per game...

I wasn't sure about this at first as the speedrunning focus seems less interesting to me than NES Remix, but I like the sound of it after reading this. I'll wait for a sale as £25 seems a little steep (especially, again, comparing it to NES Remix - though as it's a Nintendo game, who knows if it will ever even go on sale) , but I'd like to pick it up eventually. The option to choose your favourite NES game is a nice little detail, and it's interesting that Nintendo's actually acknowledging all those third-party NES games by name.

I'd rather they just rerelease the original. I've never played it but the visuals still look great and by all accounts the gameplay still holds up, so a remake seems unnecessary.