Dramlin

Octopath 1 was amazing, and 2 was even better. I'm really looking forward to playing this for the next several months. Only way I'd be happier is if it was 200 hours long instead of 'just' 100.

@Pak-Man Thank you! That was the issue.

Is this available for anyone else at this point? The pre-order page just says "Releases 02/17/2026" with a grayed out button. Not sure if the pre-orders are already done, or if it's bugging for me.

Good to hear that Octopath still has great music! I'm really looking forward to this one, no matter what the mechanics are.

I'm only playing Switch 1 games on it. Poor lineup so far, but it will get better.

But what about audio quality? I ended up going PS & Xbox versions for the last 2 Octopath's as the quality of the audio files was inferior on the Switch (more compression, fuzzier music quality, etc..). I wonder if the same is true for the Switch 2.

The city building feature of Octopath 0 doesn't interest me at all, but that doesn't lessen my excitement for the game. Octopath has quickly become a legendary series for me, right up there with Final Fantasy (and sometimes besting Final Fantasy).

Love the Alarmo. I do wish they would just link it to Nintendo Music though. Still, any additional themes is great news.

This needs to be added to Alarmo. It's quite obvious this should be a feature.

Ah, what a let down there's no single player adventure mode! That's a significant con to me. I was hoping/planning on finally finishing the recipe book for Power Stone 2, and finally unlocking Akuma in C vs SNK by earning VS points. If it's just straight up Arcade then my excitement has just gone way down as the replay value has been greatly reduced.

My favorite in the series. There's a charm to it that doesn't exist in Skyrim. Also the leveling system makes proper sense to me-- you gain levels by actually performing the activity (just like practicing to get better in real life).

4-5. Looking forward to the hardware, but the launch titles are all underwhelming for me. Feels like an upgraded switch which is both excellent and not exciting at the same time.

Never thought I would actually care about an alarm clock, but the Alarmo has increased my quality of life.

• You can get your room completely dark, but still see the time when you look at the clock (motion enabled screen)
• The sleepy sounds don't put me to sleep, but the randomness of them can shift my mood. Variety is always a good thing.
• Waking up to different music/sounds every day is refreshing as well.
• Having schedules for the clock makes it so I rarely have to set the alarm manually.
• The time is always correct since it's connected to the internet.

Lovely!

IMO Capcom Vs SNK 1 & 2 are the best fighting games of all time. If we are already at the 'first impressions' stage, what development is left to do for the next 3 months?

Please, please, please make #3!

Linking up to Nintendo Music would be ideal. They would only need to make new themes for each system. Imagine having the spinning "N" for a Nintendo 64 game like Starfox 64. I know some would think I'm crazy, but personally I'd be willing to pay a small subscription fee to make that happen.

I didn't expect much from the Alarmo, but after trying it for a few days I ended up rearranging my entire room to accommodate it. Prior to the Alarmo I used the same alarm clock for 30+ years. The best part about the Alarmo is that the display completely turns off in a dark room to allow complete darkness, but you can still see the time whenever by triggering the motion sensor. It's also nifty to wake up to random music/noises to keep things fresh, the alarm auto turns off when you get up, and you can set a schedule so you don't have to turn on the alarm each night. All I need is more themes. It would be game changing if they linked it up to the Nintendo Music app service.

@contractcooker It does have a battery, but only to save the time temporarily. Per the Nintendo FAQ "Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo must be connected to a power source, using the included USB Type-C cable and an AC adapter (not included). It retains the current time using a backup battery in case of a power outage. "

FF3/6 was life changing to me as a young teenager. It was all I thought about for years. To this day it is still my favorite game of all time. A masterpiece on all aspects.

It's stupid, I'm in!

Switch 2 should be announced this month. They need to announce prior to the holiday shopping season, otherwise the announcement will hurt Switch 1 sales.

The timing of this leak lines up well. The reveal should be slated for early to mid October. Backwards compatibility will be present as to not hamper Christmas sales for a discounted switch. Release in Q2 of next year. We SHOULD be seeing prototype leaks around now. Looks great!

Capcom vs SNK AND Power Stone?! Not only is this an immediate purchase, it may be the best fighting game purchase ever.

While my Pokemon GO days are long gone, I just wanted to comment on the choice of AAA battery. Nowadays almost everything is rechargeable Li-Ion which is convenient, but carries some fire risk. A device that uses Alkaline while getting a decent battery life is definitely a positive for me over rechargeable.

Powerstone 1/2 and Capcom Vs SNK 1/2 please

"...NES Remix actually reworked art assets and mechanics in NES games and made special minigames out of them, whereas here the games themselves are left untweaked. It’s all about speed."

Ugh, I'm out then. I was looking forward to this too. NES remix was amazing with its minigames. Time trials aren't nearly as fun.

Awesome game, my game of the year for last year. A year after beating it I'm still very fond of it.

Bought it day 1, still sealed as I was busy working on other games. Backlogs are a real problem.

Announcement in the fall which will be backwards compatible. Due to backwards compatibility the upcoming games won't be impacted. Small price cut on the Switch for the last holiday season to push sales. Hype train in January.

Some are warranted. "Oh No!" on the Playstation is an example. The exclamation give a sense of urgency or panic. Completely different tone without the exclamation.

The entire list is actually quite good. Spots 1-3 belonging to FF6 are spot on. I enjoyed 7 & 8 more than 9, but I can't argue with that too much as they are all close. Glad to see the original FF3 really low on the list. FF1 focused entirely on random battles but it was revolutionary for the time. FF2 went to a story heavy open world (similar to 4-9), then FF3 reverted back to just random battles with little to no story for some reason. 4-9 are the best of the series. FF10+ feels like a completely different series as too much changed in the formula.

Good game, but not fun enough to warrant GOTY talk. I couldn't get excited about the gameplay loop and stopped after about 10 hours. There's really nothing fun about trying to collect Jokers to do higher difficulties, for me at least. Congrats to those that were able to really like this one.

No story. Goal is to beat 8 levels, each having 3 stages (24 stages total). The point amounts that you need to beat each stage increase every time, but you also get to buy cards in-between stages to power yourself up. Typical 'you must scale up' to win rogue game. When you win with a deck you can then go up in difficulty and try other decks that have different perks.

Ah I wish I enjoyed this one as much as everyone else. It's good, I've beaten the first 3 decks, but it's not gripping me very much. It's a solid time waster when you want to pick something up for a few minutes, but nowhere near a GOTY for me.

There's a check on the date right at the beginning of the game. On special days you get additional bonus items (like the day FF8 launched, etc..). They didn't code for leap year, so it stalls as it always expects a date that passes or fails before continuing to the next instruction. This check is hard coded, so an internet connection doesn't matter.

This is all fine, but I thought the character was of Beyonce until I read the title. Someone goofed in the art department.

Not fair to use a picture of Octopath for this article. Octopath Traveler 3 needs to happen!

I loved the first game, and the second is even better. My game of the year.

I spent too much time with Rogue Corps too. I really liked it at first, but mid-way through the game it becomes an unfair chore where everything is recycled including the levels. I beat it-- not sure why, but I was committed. It could have been a good game with more development time.

Long overdue. I stopped buying cross platform games for the switch about 2 years ago as the quality drop is just too much. 4K docked, PS4/Xbox One quality, HDR, and 7.1 surround sound are the only updates needed really.

You can bet they will monetize this in bundles, then intentionally reduce catch rates on Legendaries to an annoying degree to push sales.

Music, gorgeous art, good battle system, and a nice world to explore. Even if the story isn't improved over the 1st one this is still going to be a treat to play through.

Tried the demo back when it was released. It was awful, deleted it after going through the tutorial and first race. My love of Final Fantasy finally kicked in a few days ago and I caved and bought it. A few races in I'm really liking it now. Not sure if my attitude just changed or if the game just improved over patches. It's fun now.

@Rob3008 I'm no longer part of that community, but my experience was quite the opposite. Met a lot of wonderful people and lifelong friends. The whining you see online is a direct result of Niantics anti-consumer stance. They go out of their way to aggressively monetize each aspect of the game at the direct expense of the user experience. They aren't shy about it either. Point is, they don't treat their fanbase well at all, and will go against them if they think they can make an extra dollar in the process (which is always).

I gave up on Pokemon Go years ago, but I always see the argument that these auto catchers are lazy or are somehow defeating the purpose of the game. These auto catchers aren't meant to replace the time you spend on the game, but rather let you continue to play the game in the background when you aren't actually able to play (driving, working, grocery shopping, etc..). It's fun to know that you are still making progress in the game when you aren't able to play, and then once you start playing again you can see what you caught.

Seems the point of this isn't entirely about playing the games, but rather learning the history behind them. Like visiting a museum. That's what I gather from all the reviews at least, and that actually makes this worth a try compared to other collections. I've got no love for the old Atari 2600 games, they are too simple to enjoy for more than a few minutes, but I'm looking forward to experiencing this collection.

Sad that this isn't coming out on the Xbox. The best part of Octopath for me was the music, and the xbox version had higher quality audio & video compared to the switch. The switch had the audio files compressed a bit. I'm hoping the audio quality for Octopath 2 is better on the Switch, preorder is in.

Wow! Thank you SE! This is now my most anticipated game along with Crisis Core & EDF 6

Dragon Force (...please???). I'll also settle for Space Channel 5

Fantastic game. For those that haven't played the original FF7, you can play crisis core or FF7 first. Either way works. If you play Crisis Core first then you'll understand the story of FF7 more as you play, and vice versa. Both games compliment each other.