EarthboundBenjy

let me guess. regular Jungle Hijinxs music for the majority of the match, and the Rocket Barrel theme for when there are few players remaining.

As much as I am in eternal everlasting love with the GBA and DS games, I actually voted for a new 3D game in this poll.

Definitely not a fan of Lords of Shadow style (seriously the majority of that game is repetitive clambering around scripted sets of climbing ledges with no room for freedom or creativity in the way you approach it, with bouts of hack n slash in between),
however the Lament of Innocence style has some potential - if they tuned up the exploration and level design, and refined the combat, made movement fun, added more variability akin to the DS games such as soul abilities or something else to give it more customisability and flexibility, it could seriously be something great.

Imagine a game with the amazing interconnected 3D world design of a Metroid Prime, mixed in with the ridiculous attention to detail and assortment of weapons, spells, weird food items, rare enemy drops, grinding spots, rooms with a single unique enemy in them for no reason other than it being cool, breakable walls, etc from SotN / the DS games.... with a simple yet satisfying combat system on top of it all.
If they can keep the "feel" and tone and atmosphere of Castlevania intact (unlike Lords of Shadow which discarded the feel of Castlevania entirely), then I think they could have something seriously interesting.

Of course I wouldn't say no to more retro style 2D pixel goodness either. If Konami has decided that the only thing Castlevania fans want these days is 2D pixel stuff, then I wouldn't say no at all. as long as they can continue the quality from the DS games, I'll be all for it too.

Limited Run?? for a fully Sega-developed and published game?
They are exploiting their fandom. They know that Puyo is too niche outside of Japan for a full release, but they also know that the Puyo fans outside of Japan are fanatical enough to buy from LRG.

I'm definitely a little bit on the fanatical side when it comes to Puyo, yet I have absolutely no desire to get this version.

Puyo Champions itself is not very impressive of a game. It's mostly a functional game. Like if you want no-frills standardised Puyo matches online, then Puyo Champions is perfect. it's more like a "multiplayer client" than it is a "game". So that's why the idea of a LRG release feels so weird and unappealing to me. Because... it's not really a "game preservation" issue. Standard Puyo Puyo 2 matchmaking will always be available in some way or another. So this feels purely exploitative.

Oh right, forgot about Virtual Boy Wario Land. I played it on emulator, and it was actually pretty good. The final boss is a huge difficulty spike though!
The emulator I used had settings for 3D support with the classic blue/red 3D glasses, so I was able to play with the Virtual Boy's 3D effect intact, though it did actually give me a headache.
I was always hoping that the 3DS would get a Virtual Boy collection one of these days, as it was the perfect platform for such a thing. but instead we got 3D Urban Champion. ...

This game has a real unique vibe. You could tell the sound designers were allowed to go crazy in this game.

The "Hurry up!" theme is so effective at setting the frantic mood for the escapes.

And I find it so funny how the unlockable sound CDs are just... weird experimental sound performance art things, rather than a more "normal" unlockable like the game's ost or something. It's so peculiar, you can't help but appreciate it.

...would be nice to get Wario Land 1 and 2 on here too, it's weird that just Wario Land 3 was on the service right away, and we waited THIS long to get 4. The dripfeed is painful sometimes.

It's going to be so annoying when devs don't support the mouse functionality for no reason other than unwillingness to put in the extra dev time to use switch features.

Already so many different games can't be bothered to use the Switch's touchscreen, it drives me insane. Even literal mobile ports like Fantasian don't have touchscreen support, like what the heck? Or when shooting games can't be bothered to implement gyro aiming. Or, most frustrating of all, when ports of old computer games like the EGG Console PC-88 releases, or the port of Epyx Rogue don't support USB keyboards and force you to bring up on-screen keyboards.

It's all well and good when Nintendo makes all these cool new features, but it's so frustrating that it's always up to the individual devs to put in the work to make them functional in their games, because the vast majority of them don't.

The drip-feed for these things feels so unnecessary.

doesn't really matter when every game ost ever made is on youtube anyway, so i'm not all that fussed, but Nintendo's way of going about these subscription services is just frustrating to see.

@DwaynesGames
I think that Woolly World is one of the last few Wii U exclusives that could feasibly be ported with no issues to Switch.

Other games like Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush might be tricky to make work without the gamepad, Game & Wario and Nintendoland would be near impossible, and Paper Mario Color Splash and Starfox Zero don't have enough popularity.

I think it would be even better if they did a double pack of Yoshi's Woolly World and Kirby's Epic Yarn, if HAL were willing to collaborate. Both got 3DS versions, Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World, and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn - just like DKC Returns, the 3DS versions of these games got extra content, so it would be nice to see the definitive complete versions on Switch.

I'm glad that DKC Returns is doing so well because that means that it'll be one of those games you'll find at CeX for real cheap later on.

I just beat this game, and I have to say, the analogue stick issues when the camera shifted position were really annoying the entire time. Glad to see it's been fixed, though I'm probably not going to play again any time soon so it's a bit moot for me!

When Donkey Kong Land GB got added to the Switch NSO at the end of last year, I decided to give it a go, because I had never seen this game before. After beating it with 100%, I had the funny realisation that I never actually finished the original Donkey Kong Country with 101% before - I had never gotten all the bonus rounds in this game when I played it in the past. And it was kind of funny that I had managed to fully complete the GB spinoff, but never the original. So I decided to also play the original Donkey Kong Country on NSO and finally got myself the 101%. Some of those levels are tricky, you know!

After this, I realised that I never managed to reach the end of Diddy's Kong Quest before when I played it many years ago, and I had also never even played Dixie Kong's Double Trouble before, ever. So I've been spending the past few weeks playing through all the Donkey Kong games on NSO to try and rectify this. I mean, how can I be a Nintendo fan who hasn't even played the DKC games all the way through, huh?

So currently I have now finished DK Land With 100%, DK Country with 101%, DK Country 2 with 102%, DK Land 2 with 100%, and now just yesterday I finally started DKC 3 for the first time.
I plan to finish with with 105% (i think that's supposed to be the max in this one, right?), and then move on to DK Land 3 and get 100% there too.
I was quite surprised at just how great DKC2 is. I always knew it was the most-loved of the trilogy, but now that I've played it all the way through - yeah, I can see why!

So for the moment, I am catching up on my Donkey Kong arrears...... lol. DKC3 so far is rather similar to DKC2 in terms of having to find collectables and bonus barrels in the levels and all that, but seems to differentiate itself with having a slightly more open-ended world map, which is fun.

I also have a 3DS copy of DKC Returns that I never actually finished too. I may go for that one afterwards just for the sake of it. ...and no way am I getting the new Switch version unless I can find it for cheapo, since I already got it on 3DS innit.

@Zuljaras
Love to see it, people paying attention to Castlevania 64 despite its reputation. Be prepared to get used to the janky controls and camera, it can catch players used to modern games off guard.

I enjoy this game a lot - personally I like it better than Lament and Curse due to its level design... Lament and Curse felt very flat and repetitive to me, whereas CV64 has some actual verticality and landmarks and the levels feel like more properly fleshed-out locations.

I love Gardevoir, one of my favourite Pokémon, designwise, lorewise, gameplaywise.

People who are weird about Gardevoir online are funny, but I'm not about to let them get in the way of my fandom for Pokémon.

...That being said, this plushie is too pricey and takes up too much space for me to consider getting.

I played this one on Steam. I remember i didn't like it as much as Reverie.

One of my favourite aspects of Reverie was how, if you managed to kill a boss without taking damage, you'd get a unique item as a reward. This aspect was not carried over to Moonlit Farewell, which was a bit disappointing for me.

But aside from that, Moonlit Farewell tried to nerf the bow and arrow, which was pretty OP in Reverie, but it went a bit overboard and I find the bow really annoying to use now. It uses up stamina to fire the bow.

I dunno. The game is good. It's really pretty, and the action feels nice, but as a followup to Reverie it falls short in my eyes.

Maybe this is a bit harsh. The game is good. Give it a try if it looks nice for you.

I was only ever able to use eShop point cards I bought from Play-Asia when I wanted to add funds to my JP account, so I guess this doesn't really change anything about how I go about buying from the JP eShop. But it is a bit upsetting to see that they are tightening their stance on accessing regional eShops, because one of my favourite things about the Switch compared to Wii U and 3DS was the fact that we are able to visit other region eShops in the first place. Hopefully this isn't a sign that the Switch 2 situation will be more restricted.

For someone who isn't in the know about this series, are these two games part of the original "good" era of Harvest Moon, or are these two part of the "post breakup" era?

I've now finished Fantasian - I really really liked it overall. The best aspect of the game was the boss design for sure. They can get really challenging, especially during the second half of the game.

This was such a comfy little RPG world to play around in, and I really like the characters too. I'll keep an eye out for any follow-up games because Fantasian was a delight.

Sadly no for me.

I was at the Switch 1's hands on event in London, where I got to try Breath of the Wild, Arms, and some other miscellaneous games. I think they had Puyo Tetris and Sonic Mania too?
...And a long long time ago I was even at a 3DS pre-release event... I remember seeing Ocarina of Time in no-glasses stereoscopic 3D and it was really cool. Bit of a shame I wasn't selected for the Switch 2 event, but oh well! I'll be busy in April anyway.

I remember liking this one on PlayStation 3 back in the day, but I never revisited it after finishing it, and I'm not sure I feel like doing so now. Glad to hear it's a good port though, you can never trust Namco after the way they handled Symphonia, and for inexplicably removing the dub in Baten Kaitos

Lots of DK and Diddy merch, but no Dixie or Cranky or Funky. I guess their focus is on DKC Returns and its subpar port at the moment

would be nice if all mobile ports had touch controls by default. I just played Fantasian Neo Dimension, and the analogue stick movement is awkward because it doesn't reset itself properly whenever the camera changes perspectives as you walk. It's annoying to constantly have to readjust.
If it still had its mobile touchscreen movement from the 2021 release of Fantasian this would be less of a problem, but for whatever reason the touchscreen is disabled entirely in this game.

If the game already had touchscreen support, what is the purpose of removing it from later releases? I really don't understand why this is such a common problem?

Hmm... the most memorable part of OFF to me was the Pepper Steak theme. The game isn't going to feel the same without its soundtrack.

I always thought indie games were less susceptible to these kinds of music rights issues but apparently not. :/ unfortunate.

Pretty much, this situation means that the original freeware RPGMaker version isn't really going to be replaced by the enhanced remake, and in the minds of many fans, the remake will have lost a lot of appeal.

I'm not a huge huge OFF fan to begin with - the game's vibes are a bit too weird and offputting for my tastes, but I did enjoy the soundtrack, especially the battle theme, so this has definitely put me off on having anything to do with the remake personally.

"you die hard fans would instantly hate it and slag it off no matter how good it was "

Are they still bitter about how Nuts & Bolts was received?

It might be a perfectly fine game, but it's not what the Banjo fanbase was looking for for the next entry.
Nuts & Bolts is the kind of game that works as a spinoff to accompany a mainline entry, but not so much as a mainline entry itself.
It's the whole Metroid Prime Federation Force problem - it may have been a good game, but you can't break a drought of games with a spinoff release, because fans have no idea whether the weirdo spinoff version is all we're gonna get. Or if the new style is now the new normal for the series or not.

And the whole reason they're fans in the first place is because they liked the original style of game. So if it comes across that you're trying to scrap the original style in favour of this weird new style, of course the fans aren't going to be too pleased about that.

How good representation is Vivian in the new version? I haven't had time to play the remake yet.
I remember in the original GameCube version the English version wrote it out of the script entirely. I know that some other language versions such as French retained it but English was not so lucky.

I like finding the 28 Unown in Pokémon Legends Arceus. Deciphering clues that refer to specific locations you gotta look in is fun.

in Ys VIII, the entirety of Dana's solo dungeon counts as a sidequest right? I think Dana's dungeon might be my favourite part of the game overall, so I'm gonna say that! I also liked the Master Kong fights in Ys VIII too.

in Fantasian Neo Dimension, rescuing enough of the robots eventually unlocks the story of Blik-0, which is a really cute story about a robot boy, told in a children's storybook style. And it's a proper full-length fairytale story too, it's not just a small cutscene. Comes out of nowhere, but is really pleasant to watch.

It's okay to anticipate a sequel to a favourite game, but I don't think it's really necessary to get quite as obsessive over it as I've seen from fans online...
If you're anything like a majority of gamers, you do have a massive backlog to be getting through, right? So I would recommend people to stop thinking about Hollow Knight so much until Silksong actually comes out, and instead focus on working through your other games. It'll come when it comes.

@Gryffin
No, classic Rogue and Mystery Dungeon games are turn-based.

Ys is realtime. Imagine Zelda 1-style enemies just walking around. They're all 1 tile big, but movement is not strictly tile-based like in a ASCII rogue or Mystery Dungeon

The bump combat in Ys I, II, and IV is all about positioning. If you walk into an enemy head-on, you will trade blows with them and most likely die. But if you come into them from off-centre, then you can hit them safely. You can also attack them safely from the side or from behind. And if you're playing the Saturn versions or the "Chronicles" remake version of I and II, then diagonal movement is implemented, and allows for even more angles of approach.

Bump combat is about approaching safely, and reacting to the enemy movement. It's skill based, rather than strategy based.
Adol has absolutely no damage invulnerability, so if an enemy hits you wrong, if you don't react fast enough, all your HP can be drained in a single moment. (And that's why they let you save anywhere)

@Truegamer79
Ark of Napishtim was originally a singleplayer game released on PC in Japan, later ported to PS2 and PSP by Konami, later released on Steam.

There was indeed also an MMO based on the game which closed in 2023. I don't know much about it though other than it was a microtransaction kinda game, so I don't have much interest in it.

The other day I beat the final boss of Fantasian Neo Dimension!
I was playing in Hard mode because I heard that this was the original difficulty level of the 2021 release before the updated version added an easier mode and called it "Normal".

And I'll just say..... the Hard mode in this game is really hard! That final boss was ridiculous. He frequently spews out party-wide instakill attacks that can only be survived if you apply an attack debuff to the boss, have your highest-defense guys equipped with defense-boosting gems, apply defense+ buffs to them, AND also have them use the "guard" skill on the turn before the attack. And then when you've just finished spending turns healing up from that nightmare, it's already time for the boss's next partywide instakill. And it just goes on and on until you manage to find enough hits in between healing to whittle him down. it's roughhhhhh.

But just before the final boss room, there's a treasure chest with a medal in it, and if you offer the medal up to a shrine in a previous area, you get to "go back in time", which is essentially doing a New Game Plus. ... It's interesting how you don't actually need to beat the final boss in order to start New Game Plus.
So even though I beat the game, I'm playing a New Game Plus playthrough because it seems to be the only way to get high level enough to challenge the "Void Realm" bonus boss challenge, which I am interested in completing just to see what happens at the end.

So for the moment I'm doing a quick runback of Fantasian's main story so I can get back to the New Game Plus added goodies.

It's a good game I recommend highly to classic JRPG fans! It's a really really good one!

What's up with that "not all software may be compatible" disclaimer at the end?

@Serpenterror
Nope. Not a bootleg.

Here's a GameFAQs guide from 2003 for Lunar Legend that goes into detail about the item bug https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/560993-lunar-legend/faqs/22067
make sure to do a CTRL-F for the text "item bug" to be taken to the relevant section.

When I got the Japanese version of the Mega Drive Mini II, I was disappointed that the Lunar games there did not include the English versions, despite the fact that most other games on both MD Minis have multiple region versions.

So I am pretty pleased to see this Switch collection! I'm looking forward to playing Lunar for the first time. I've heard great things.

My only previous experience with Lunar was a small amount of Lunar Legend for GBA, which was pretty buggy, and I stopped playing because an inventory bug caused me to lose items, and I didn't want to have to worry about that for the whole game. ..

Oath in Felghana is a good game. It's easy to compare Ys to Zelda, but I also want to compare it to Castlevania. If you enjoy Castlevania Advance Collection or Dominus Collection, then I would highly recommend Ys Memoire and Ys Origin! To me, it gives a similar energy, with the platforming, monster-bashing, and light RPG elements. And Ys Memoire even has a clock tower area too.

Never bought the wii version. Found the 3DS version at CeX one day, got it for "later" and then never played it. Not gonna buy the Switch version unless I see it cheap in the future, this game is not exactly a high priority for me.

A bit annoying because I have a two dock setup. Gaming room downstairs has the dock my original 2017 Switch came with, and the tv in my upstairs bedroom has the dock my OLED came with.
If I were to upgrade to Switch 2, I'd have to buy a second dock just to keep my current situation going.
Also, depending on how system transfers are going to work, I might want to keep my OLED Switch 1 around anyway, so having two docks side by side per TV is gonna be a bit annoying too.

@ScalenePowers

Lol, it can be confusing. But if they want to set a new story in between two previously-released stories, what else can they do? I suppose they could drop the numbering from the titles? Or only include a number in the title if the game takes place at a later point in the story?
Personally I like each entry having a new number, it lets people know right away that this is a long-running series with a lot of games.

It's interesting that they don't number Felghana and Celceta - they are the current canonical versions of III and IV, but I suppose they didn't want to make it too confusing for these releases in particular?
(Despite the fact that Ys IV and Ys V previously got PlayStation 2 remakes with numbered titles)

One of the best Ys games. I recommend it to people who have played Ys Origin and want another game like that. I think Felghana is better than Origin personally.

I actually dropped Ys Nordics because it was starting to bog me down a bit too much. Lacrimosa is my favourite in the series, so I was hoping Nordics would give me more of that kind of feeling, but I dunno, something about Nordics isn't clicking with me. I still would like to see it through, but it's lower in my priorities now, which is unfortunate. (and the announcement of Proud Nordics didn't help either).

I do wish they would make more games like Origin and Felghana. The only other Ys game of that playstyle is The Ark of Napishtim, which is a fair bit jankier than Felghana and Origin, but still really fun imo.

I hope after Nordics they make Ys fast-paced and snappy again. I think it was Monstrum Nox that really pushed the series into cutscene-heavy territory, and I'm not sure that's a change for the better for a series like Ys. :/

Fantasian Neo Dimension needs to be added to the list - I'm having a wonderful time with this game!

It's a classic-style JRPG with invisible random encounters, similar in gameplay style to FF7, FF8, FF9 - prerendered environments and all. I enjoy how there is a modern 2020s release that sees no problem using invisible encounters. Just because a gameplay style is old, that doesn't make it invalid as a style of game.

It has some of the best and most varied JRPG boss fight design I have seen in quite some time. Almost every single boss has some kind of unique interaction or twist that makes it interesting. It's not just a damage sponge with strong attacks every turn - sometimes you gotta do things like break a boss's arms off to prevent it from doing a charged attack, or prevent its minions from applying buffs to it.....and sometimes during the second half of a fight, the boss introduces a new wrinkle such as turning the floor poisonous, or there's one boss who gets more and more floating rocks defending it the more it does its powerful meteor attack, making it harder to take down if you don't prevent it from doing that attack.... and stuff like this. There's a ton of strategic depth to this combat system. I haven't felt truly challenged like this in JRPG combat since I played Octopath.
The boss fight design of Fantasian is top notch stuff.

As for the game progression... I enjoy how the first 20 hours of the game are a linear sequence of story events, but after you defeat a major baddie midway through the story, the game suddenly becomes very nonlinear and full of sidequests you can tackle as you please. Kinda reminds me of FF6 in that way.

The plot isn't too special for JRPG standards, but the presentation of the story is done really nicely, especially during the storybook narration scenes. These scenes are slow-paced and relaxing, inviting you to take a moment and just listen to a story. They're really sweet, and it gives the game's storytelling a uniquely warm kind of feeling.

I enjoy the characters. Leo is a good protagonist, even though he has to deal with a clichéd amnesia plot, but I find his interactions with the rest of the cast enjoyable to watch. He doesn't annoy me like some other JRPG protagonists, because he's actually a smart and reasonable person lol. The other characters are nice too, and each one gets their own dedicated character quests too, which I always like to see.

Fantasian Neo Dimension is really good! If you like classic JRPGs, I highly recommend it!

Why are they showing off a scene from the hidden ninja village, I thought it was hidden pretty dang well and had to use a guide to find it when I played Suikoden II lol. But yeah, what a weird scene to highlight prerelease. It's just a regular dialogue scene.

I'm 20 hours into Fantasian now. I really like it.
It's a simple, classic-style JRPG, and it's not trying to be anything more than that. It's good.

This is so silly, but is completely in character for Nintendo lol. Of course they were experimenting with pointless little voice commands for Zelda 64, that's such a ...Nintendo thing to do.
Love that this little tidbit has been uncovered.

@ArmenianJedi13

What exactly do you mean?

Did you want NintendoLife to not report on news about the game?
Did you want fans to no longer be interested in the new updates?
Did you want Toby to stop making the next game?

How can a new update be old news?

Why not make a new Punch Out with a brand new cast of opponents then? The Wii game was great for brining the classic NES opponents to life with such a beautiful modern presentation, but since we've already had that, there's no reason to keep using the classic characters, is there?

I've been playing Fantasian, and I'm enjoying it. An amnesia plot is rather clichéd but aside from that, the characters are fun and likable.

I especially enjoy the storybook scenes where it's just an illustration with soft narration. The one in the forest with Kina teaching Leo how to attune himself to nature was really sweet and relaxing.

And so far the plot is not too esoteric or complicated to follow - we've got an amnesiac boy who everyone seems to recognise, and he's journeying around just to try and jog his memory, pretty much. I'm sure it'll get a bit more complicated later on, but I'm glad it starts simple.

And the idea of "mechteria", an infestation of machines that spreads like a disease, is really bizarre, and I am interested in what's going on regarding that.

I enjoy the game so far. And as an RPG, its writing is doing its job really well, so no complaints here! I think people online can tend to be really harsh on RPG writing.

Is Japan a big fan of Nickelodeon? 🤔
I guess they must like SpongeBob.

I dropped Ys X: Nordics for now. I'm not a fan of the fact that Falcom announced "Ys X: Proud Nordics", an enhanced version that fans will have to buy all over again. I hate it when Atlus does this, and I'm disappointed that Falcom is doing it as well.

For Christmas I received Fantasian Neo Dimension from a relative, and I'm currently much more interested in trying this game out straight away. So Sorry Ys X, I'll get back to you later (or maybe never if I leave it for until Proud Nordics comes out), but for now my focus is on Fantasian. And I really like it so far! It's got that classic PS1-era Final Fantasy feel to it in the way the camera has fixed perspectives, and there are invisible random encounters, which is surprising to see in a 2020s release since that style of RPG design has definitely gone out of fashion by now. But I never thought invisible random encounters were bad, so I'm having a great time so far.

I have the physical of the first Steven Universe game Save the Light, but they never made a physical version of Unleash the Light. As of right this very moment, it seems that Unleash is still on the european eShop, so I bought it immediately.
This is an annoying reality we live in.

This game was fun for a while, but it was sorely lacking in content.

Also I am of the opinion that the game feels incomplete as a package without the ability to just play the NES games normally.
I don't care that they're on NSO subscription, that's neither here nor there. This game should have included the full games, with added timers and splits and leaderboards and all sorts of other speedrun-friendly additions.

The fact that it doesn't let you play the full games unrestricted shows that Nintendo is willing to let their products suffer in content and quality, in order to persuade users to join their subscription services, which I am not a fan of at all.

We're a long way aways from the days of Animal Crossing containing 21 NES games. ...Nowadays we can't even get NES games included in a game literally about NES games.

Oh and by the way.

I highly recommend a Steam game called UFO 50 for anyone who enjoys things like the mini consoles.

UFO 50 is basically just a modern indie version of the "mini console" experience. It's really good too.

It's a shame - the mini console was my favourite retro-gaming fad of recent years. A selection of amazing classic games on a very easy-to-plug-in HDMI box, with a cute interface and everything? And them being completely separate to the current leading platforms (you don't need an Xbox, PlayStation, or Switch to play 'em) makes it so much more standalone and fun. It's like its own little world of nothing but retro goodness. They were super duper cool.

They were really fun to collect too. I currently have the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Mega Drive II, PC-Engine, PlayStation, and Commodore 64 mini consoles. As well as the limited-edition Shonen Jump Famicom mini console, which is interesting to me because it has the original Dragon Quest on it, password saves and everything.

I would have literally bought as many of these mini consoles as Sega was willing to produce, especially if they made a Saturn Mini with rare games like Panzer Dragoon Saga on it.

But I suppose the fad has died down now hasn't it? It's a shame Nintendo never made an N64 or GBA mini and instead plonked the games on a higher subscription tier. Not ideal for me who prefers to own games more tangibly.