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@Dang69 If it makes you feel any better, I had the same reaction to Astral Chain. The concept seemed so cool and I loved the art but the whole thing bored me.

@Dang69 Different tastes. I've put in 60 hours so far and I love it.

As regards the article, DxM sold through its opening shipment in Japan. It was near impossible to find in stores. Was never going to challenge for #1 - Nintendo didn't print enough copies.

@8bitSquid I think 'doomed to fail' is an exaggeration based on a Western market bias. I'm in Tokyo at the moment and it's sold out physically everywhere.

@Zoda_Fett None of those series have ever been successful on the same scale as Splatoon. Splatoon sold close to 5 million copies and Splatoon 2 is approaching 9 million. For a comparison, all the Mother, F Zero and Star Fox titles combined fail to outsell Splatoon's two games.

Splatoon will almost definitely continue.

@Varkster To be fair, A Hat in Time was only successful -because- it was made on a small budget. The issue with continuing Banjo is less that 'it wouldn't be profitable' and more that any profit it could make would not be an efficient allocation of resources. I.e: Rare could make money off a new Banjo game, but could simply make more money by setting any team that might work on Banjo to a different task.

@impurekind What you're saying is correct, and is exactly the problem. AAA games in 2019 take more resources to create than they did in 1998 by a significant margin. Profitability is not a fixed line, but is always assessed relative to other potential projects. The pertinent question isn't 'could Banjo Kazooie make money' but 'could BK make more money than anything else we could produce for the same budget?'

@IHateTombs I'd actually be quite happy to see the game change. I enjoy it, but I've become increasingly distant from any kind of competitive play whatsoever as I've gotten older, and the TCG-esque elements I mentioned aren't the draw for me they used to be. Realistically, though, I don't think Pokemon can without losing what makes it itself, and further, I don't think there's any real incentive for it to change when it continues with the success it has always enjoyed.

On your other point, what constitutes the 'biggest' addition to gameplay depends on your perspective. If you're a casual fan, yes, nothing much has changed. If you're an ironed-on fan, dynamaxing potentially represents a very radical departure from the way the game has been previously played because it makes any Pokemon on your opponent's team a potential breakout threat with no means of anticipating in advance which Pokemon that might be. Go on Smogon, for example, take a look at the discussion forums flipping their shit (both positively and negatively), and try and tell me that nothing big is happening. There are people on there who are legitimately convinced that this single mechanic will be the death of competitive Pokemon.

That's the problem with TCG-style games. If you don't get them, and aren't into the basic gameplay, you won't see how radical various additions and modifications of the basic rulebook can be. If you are into them, on the other hand, you don't always want radical changes because they mess with the balance of strategy inherent in the game.

@IHateTombs Your argument seems to largely be 'but I don't like turn-based battle systems.' This is fair enough, but doesn't change the fact that Pokemon's turn-based system is integral to its identity as a competitive game and also as a collectathon.

I've explained in a previous post that the core Pokemon franchise more closely resembles a TCG (trading card game) than any other video game franchise. Every new Pokemon game uses the same core battle system as the game before it, but by adding new Pokemon, moves, and other such gimmicks, ensures that the game is played completely differently whilst still retaining its emphasis on the same core skills.

To win against any Pokemon player who actually knows what he or she is doing, you need to:

• Select six Pokemon that roughly cover one another's weaknesses, built around a considered core strategy.
• Tailor those 6 Pokemon to optimally contribute to that considered core strategy.
• Determine from team preview what your opponent's team's weaknesses are, in addition to its likely core strategy and develop a plan to overcome it.
• Make on-the-fly adjustments as the battle actually plays out, guessing your opponent's likely next move in order to maximise the efficacy of your own.

Basically a TCG match. Design your deck, identify your win conditions, then try to safely get them into play while minimising your opponent's ability to implement his own win conditions. Like other TCGs, it is a children's game with enough strategic complexity to appeal to adults.

The TCG comparisons don't end there, though, because the first step, the team composition, ties effectively into the game's collectathon mentality. You HAVE to catch them all because it's only by catching them all that you have access to every potential strategy and win condition available. Don't have a hidden nature Politoed? You can't run an effective Rain team. Don't have one of the Tapus? You can't run an effective midgame Hawlucha sweep. It's in this respect that Pokemon's core philosophy and its gameplay come together - the competitive game emphasises team building from as wide a range of resources as possible and the game's plot, motto, and core philosophy emphasise widening your available resources as much as possible.

This is also where the other TCG element comes into play. Pokemon is virtually unique amongst game franchises insofar as it is always backwards compatible. When you begin a new game, your old collection is always at your fingertips. Occasionally, it is ONLY available in your new game if you have bought previous installments. Pokemon are released all the time with 'version exclusive moves' that they lose in subsequent iterations. If you want to rely on those moves, you simply have to collect them from earlier generations to add to your collection.

New games introduce new Pokemon and new mechanics, and as much as this might seem underwhelming to an outsider, for a Pokemon player the underwhelming-ness is the point. Very minor changes completely change the way the basic game is played. A single new introduced Pokemon can create a dozen new win conditions and trivialise a dozen more older ones.

You don't have to like it, but it's the series' formula, so you basically have to accept it, because it isn't going to change. The fact is that you can't make fundamental changes to the Pokemon formula without de-emphasising the core skills the game currently exercises.

It isn't, of course, perfect, and I think a large part of the reason why we see these criticisms is because none of this is expressed in the single-player campaign, which is designed to be beatable without a shred of any of the skills I mentioned above. This wasn't always the case (approach the Crystal battle tower without knowing anything about competitive play and you'll get curbstomped), but has been for long enough that it gives newcomers a fairly shallow idea of what the game is about. That needs to change, not the core gameplay.

@IHateTombs Then don't play, or play one of the spinoffs such as Mystery Dungeon or Pokken. Or Go for that matter. It's possible that Pokemon is simply not for you. There's nothing wrong with that.

The basic fact is that the kind of large scale gameplay changes you're looking for would destroy the way the game works competitively. Another competitive type game could take its place, but it wouldn't be Pokemon as it exists, with its emphasis on outbuilding and then outguessing the opponent. It also wouldn't be able to express the same kind of synergy with the series' catch them all concept as the current system does simply because it wouldn't and couldn't be backwards compatible in the same way.

@IHateTombs The turn based battling is the basis for a lively and active competitive community. Changing it to a ff15 style MMO-esque battling system would be like the next Street Fighter becoming a 3D arena fighter akin to Jump Force. You simply couldn't preserve the essence of current competitive Pokemon play with a new system.

As a game series Pokemon has more in common with TCGs than many other game franchises. The core experience is about collection and competition. Competitively, the game works because you can build around multiple win conditions and invent novel ways to reach them. New games introduce new mechanics and new tools, which broaden the list of possible strategies and freshen the game.

@westman98 IMO it seems likely to have a larger impact on regular play relative to mega evolution. Any Pokemon can go giant, so it's impossible to know which of your opponent's team is going to use it on advance. This means preventing your opponent's team from punching through hitherto reliable defensive cores is going to be a lot harder. Because megas were limited, you only need to take one look at the team preview to know which Pokemon was going to mega evolve. This is completely different and requires more strategy and deduction.

@pbb76 I've had it for about 2 weeks and found the opposite, but I've been playing it on commutes to and from work and have largely ignored the game's suggested quests. For me, the variety in the game comes from the loot itself - what you get dictates how you play. I find the gameplay loop to be very satisfying - kinda Diablo-like in terms of gradual progression and in the feeling the game gives you that there is no real 'end' in sight, where you've just done everything there is to do and there is no point playing any further.

I'm surprised at the reviewer's comment that the game is roughly 20 hours long, because I have about 30 hours so far and am nowhere close to being done.

@Agramonte A review shouldn't be for gamers like you OR for gamers like me. We individually only comprise a small percentage of the audience for both this game and this website. The reality is that the average gamer does not 'carve out' time to play and do not own multiple consoles. They also tend to look at scores more than they read the content of reviews. It is patently ridiculous to score a game down because it can be found more cheaply elsewhere when a large chunk of the site's intended audience cannot or will not get it elsewhere.

@carlos82 That was essentially the point I was trying to make - pricing should be mentioned, especially when there is a large disparity in pricing between competing systems, but I don't see how it's really relevant to a review that attempts to assess the merits of the actual game. My personal example was meant to illustrate the point that, for a variety of reasons, the existence of competing ports is not relevant to many consumers.

I'm not getting Deponia because, to me, the game isn't worth its price tag, but that has nothing to do with the existence of the PS4 version. I wouldn't have played this game on the PS4 if it were free - time in which I could play it is simply better spent elsewhere.

@Agramonte I own a PS4 and a PC and will not purchase games for either system that are available on the Switch due to the simple fact that, as a 35 year old man, portability makes the difference between being able to play 1 hour a week or 15. Many other people have made similar comments in the past in regards to that essential feature. The simple fact is that you could not pay me to play Deponia on the PS4 but I'd be happy to pay for it on the Switch. Reviewing with the assumption of equivalence (which price comparing does) misses that essential point. I don't care if it's cheaper elsewhere - if it's available on the Switch that's the only place I'd consider buying it.

@Draxa When he's an animator and his industry is insular, based on industry contracts, and 'Another job' requires relocation, finding another job whilst still employed with the intention of breaking your contract isn't really a possibility. This is simply how the industry works.

@2legit2quit No offense, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Salaries for 3D animators come nowhere close to the figure you're suggesting - in most of North America it's closer to 40k-50k for 12+ hour days, on short to medium term contracts requiring frequent relocation. Most of these people don't and can't have lives because their vocation requires them to pack up and move every time a contract is done, with permanent positions being unattainable except through excellent community contacts.

@Casco I work with a lot of individuals in game dev and animation. Jobs are hard to come by, and if you want to advance you simply do not have the option of saying 'I don't like X IP' - you have to take what's available when it's available, especially if you're not a fan of constant relocation. I've worked with individuals who have had to move cities, countries, and even continents on a yearly basis in order to remain employed in the industry. They take whatever is on offer because if you don't, and you fall out of the industry, you simply won't ever get back in. Pay is also nowhere near as good as people in this comments section are assuming - you're looking at sub-40k-50k USD with no overtime for 12+ hour days for the average animator with 2-5+ years experience.

@Wanjia Japanese culture has become increasingly hostile to traditional at-home console gaming, so it's honestly not a surprise. The Switch is the only portable system on the market that's really being supported with new releases. It'd be surprising if it didn't own Japan.

Anyone manage to beat it yet? Enjoyed the previous game but it was really too short.

@BulbasaurusRex We'll have to agree to disagree. To me, it's how such games make themselves accessible while still being complex. Anyone can pick them up and beat them but doing everything they have to offer requires you to dig much deeper.

You say Sabroni's son sucks at Pokemon but the games are specifically designed to allow kids like his to fully enjoy the games without needing to get stuck into their systems. The need to master the games' prediction based battle system only comes up much later. In the original Green Red and Blue, things like STAB, Evs, and Ivs were all hidden mechanics. Nothing explained them anywhere. In later games, breeding only became practical in the post game unless you wanted to take a massive detour. For my part, I've played Pokemon since the Japanese Green a year before it ever released in English (And again without understanding the text) and brute every game story because my interest is in breeding and raising perfect Pokemon for competitive play. The fact that the games allow this is, IMO, one of their underappreciated strengths. Don't like the story? It doesn't necessarily matter.

Even Mario Odyssey works similarly. The main story is easy. The difficulty only comes after it's done, and requires you to pull off combination jumps that are never necessary in the main game, and which the tutorial doesn't tell you about.

@BulbasaurusRex I would actually suggest that what you're describing is the NIS formula. Their games are made to be brute forced through until you hit the post game, when knowledge of the systems becomes critical. 'There is more to it than beating the game' is the point. The main game serves as a tutorial and the meat is in the post game.

In this case I didn't find it hard to work out the nuances of the system even without knowledge of the language. There are lots of visual cues that just make the whole thing very intuitive. I literally trial and errored the whole thing and it took a matter of minutes, and I went on and finished everything the game had to offer. This makes it really hard for me to believe the reviewer has put any significant time into the game -especially- since he grossly misrepresents how long it is.

@Sabroni Which is definitely an issue but hardly a significant concern in a 40 hour game where you realise the translational issue in the first 20 minutes.

The point is the menus are for the most part intuitive even if you can't read the text. Final Fantasy Tactics' translation was objectively awful but nobody could seriously contend that it made the game hard to play. The same is true here - the game is very straightforward and simplistic.

The review also suggests the game amounts to a 'few hours' which I would suggest is patently dishonest. The main campaign is easily 25 hours long and that doesn't factor in the postgame challenges, which are significant.

@Lionyone With no offense to you, the gaming industry even in the West still only represents a small fraction of the number of potential consumers. North America has 579 million people, for example, and among them they have purchase 33 million ps4s. Less than 1 in 20 people have the console. Google is targeting the remaining 19 - people who might want to play but who don't want to badly enough to shelve out thousands of dollars for a dedicated piece of hardware.

If the service is even 70% functional this will be a success. Even as a hardcore gamer, I cannot justify paying $500 plus the price of the game for a game I could have played with poorer graphics for $10 a month.

@KryptoniteKrunch It will be attractive because the fact that you need to go out and buy a console or a PC to play said games is a significant barrier to entry. Most people do not own a ps4 360 OR Switch, and an increasing number do not own a PC with the popularity of phones.

They do own phones and TVs. They're the target audience - people with a nominal interest in gaming but insufficient desire to spend thousands on games.

I played and beat the game in Japanese, a language I cannot read, and never experienced any of the difficulties mentioned in the review. Without playing the English release I cannot quite understand how something that was simple when I had zero understanding of the language could have become complicated by the ability to understand the text.

@Lionyone Got no problem with the game having liberal themes. My problem is with the writing - it creates a world where the issues it wants to address are not present (e.g. where women are equally paid, hold all the major political and power positions, etc) and then tries to argue for how problematic these said issues are. That isn't problematic thematic content, it's terrible writing. The game in general feels like its creators had themes they wanted to communicate and a concept they wanted to base a story on but did not realise or care that the latter was a poor medium for the communication of the former.

Played this on Steam. Serious disappointment. The whole game lasted 3 hours at best and offered no replay and the narrative choices were often nonsensical within the context of the story's own world building. E.g. the story depicts a largely egalitarian society where all the visible positions of power in-story are held by women, but has characters lecture each other on the oppression of women. This is certainly a real issue in our world but why create a universe where the issue has apparently been resolved if your purpose is to highlight it? It's just bad writing.

@-Juice- I played and beat Pokemon Green as a 9 year old in without understanding a word of Japanese without realizing I could catch pokemon other than my Charmander until 4 gyms in. Pokemon is only challenging if you want to impose an artificial challenge in yourself. Every game has been beatable by letting your starter hog all the EXP.

@Zuljaras Zelda was also a smaller franchise with no backwards compatability or any expectation of it. Pokemon is a very different beast. Given the franchises past sales, what kind of massive gain could the devs possibly hope to accomplish with an overhaul?

@Kwehst The problem is the depth of the Pokemon battle system comes entirely from the fact that Pokemon are limited to 4 moves. It's the most crucial aspect of the engine, since it's the cornerstone on which the 'what is safe to switch in' mind game turns.

A complete overhaul of the system is possible, but not without alienating long term fans who have paid a subscription fee specifically to store old pokemon with the expectation of bringing them into the new generation.

Given the franchises sales, I can't see the core system ever really getting messed with.

@Mr_Mythtery I actually lived in the city where Heartland was filmed for 10 years - nearly everyone I met had been an extra on the show.

@Mr_Mythtery I bought it digitally but wish I'd waited - ended up having to have a trip to Canada two weeks later and kept seeing it physically in stores for less than what I paid!

@Mr_Mythtery I paid $60 since I'm in Australia and got a similar 30 hours, but as I largely game to kill time, anything $2 for an hour of play isn't really a worthwhile trade off.

@Agramonte IMO that's about what it's worth. It's a lot of fun but doesn't have enough content to be worth the current price.

@Anti-Matter Of course. Rf isn't a farming simulator. It's an action RPG with farming and crafting. If the actual farming were better than Harvest Moon it'd be surprising. It's honestly more like Fantasy Life, if you've ever played that, than a traditional farming sim like HM. If you're looking for a farm game there are multiple better titles, but there aren't any that hybridize complex action RPG class/ weapon/ spell systems, dungeon crawling and RPG gear reward gameplay loops with farming sim aspects. That isn't for everyone, and you're entitled to hate the art, but claiming it's an inferior farming sim is disingenuous. It isn't trying to be a farming sim and what it tries to be it tries to be alone. Nothing else on the market is anything like it.

RF Wii is also widely regarded as the black sheep of the series but that's neither here nor there.

@Anti-Matter So you have no idea what you're talking about, from a gameplay perspective. Honestly what makes you think you're capable of commenting on the gameplay of a game you've never played?

@Anti-Matter As a fan of all those games, none play anything like Rune Factory. They are to Rune Factory as Dead Cells is to Samus Returns in that they're part of the same broader genre but employ very different gaming conventions and sub genres to different ends. You don't have to like RF but suggesting that it scratches the same itch as Portia or other farming sims suggests you haven't played enough RF to get a hold on what the game is about.

@Discipledoctor Ditto here. It was the highlight of the Direct for me, and this is a day 1 purchase for sure.

Best direct of the Switch era for me. Rune Factory 4 was my favorite 3ds game and I'm overjoyed they're making a 5. Link's Awakening is to date the only video game that has ever made me cry. I played through it 20 to 30 times as a kid and will gladly do so again. Astral looks really interesting and I'm loving the direction of Daemon X though it feels quite incomplete.

There were only really 1 or 2 sections of the entire direct that failed to grab me.

@purpleibby If the 'love of the franchise is huge' why doesn't it sell? The reality is that it only appears to be hardcore Nintendo fans who are excited for new entries in the Metroid series. It doesn't draw in casuals or sell systems. The bottom line is Nintendo is reluctant to produce new Metroid titles because the investment rarely pays off.

Anyone who seriously maintains that it ought to have been a launch title for the Switch has no head for business. Launch titles need to be system sellers - install base is small, so the sales of those games will necessarily be compromised. As a result, launch titles (or first year titles) need to provoke people to buy consoles just to play them - this mitigates their loss in sales by promoting consoles sales instead. Once you have a reasonable install base, THEN you bring in the more niche franchises that enjoy reasonable success without making people go out to buy a console. This is the definition of Metroid. People will buy it but people who don't already have a Switch will not buy a Switch to play it. To make it worth your while developing a new Metroid game, you have to wait until enough people already own a Switch to ensure your investment pays off.

By way of comparison:

Mario series (2D) top 3 sellers: Mario Bros (40 mil), New Super Mario Bros (30.8 mil), New Super Mario Bros Wii (30 mil)
Mario series (3D) top 3 sellers: Mario Odyssey (13.8 mil), Mario Galaxy (12.7 mil), Mario 64 (11.9 mil)
Mario Kart top 3 sellers: Mario Kart Wii (37 mil), Mario Kart DS (23 mil), Mario Kart 7 (18 mil)
Mario Party top 3 sellers: Mario Part DS (9 mil), Mario Party 8 (8.8 mil), Mario Part Switch (5.5 mil)
Zelda top 3 sellers: Breath of the Wild (11.6 mil), Ocarina of Time (7.6 mil), Twilight Princess (7.2 mil)
Kirby top 3: Kirby's Dreamland (5 mil), Super Star Ultra (3 mil), Dream Allies (2.42 mil)
Smash Bros top 3 sellers: Brawl (13.29 mil), Ultimate (12 mil), Smash 4 3DS (9 mil)
Pokemon top 3 sellers: Red/Green/Blue (31 mil), Gold/ Silver (23 mil), Diamond/ Pearl (17.6 mil)
Splatoon top 3 sellers: Splatoon 2 (8.2 mil), Splatoon (4.9 mil)
Animal Crossing top 3 sellers: New Leaf (12 mil), Wild World (11.7 mil), City Folk (4.3 mil)
Metroid top 3: Prime (2.8 mil), Metroid (2.7 mil), Metroid 2 GB (1.7 mil)

Note - these are all the franchises already represented on the Switch. Metroid has failed to sell in the near vicinity of any of them, and more particularly, all its solid hits were well in the past (2002, 1987 and 1992).

No Metroid game has sold over a million copies in over 10 years. By comparison, despite similar sub-3 million sales, in the last 10 years, Kirby has had:

Planet Robobot - 1.5 mil
Mass Attack - 1.2 mil
Star Allies - 2.4 mil
Triple Deluxe - 2.3 mil
Return to Dreamland - 1.7 mil

Just as concerning is the fact that Metroid sales have had a downwards trajectory. Nearly every Metroid title since Prime has sold less well than its predecessor. People blame Other M, but the reality is that Other M dicked with the formula in the manner that it did because the formula was not selling. Prime sold 2.8 million copies, but was followed by Fusion's 1.7 million, Prime 2's 1.1 million, Hunter's 1 million, etc. Prime 3, whilst selling better, still lost half of Prime's audience (1.4 million). The message to Nintendo seems fairly clear: people are not as attached to the series as the internet would think.

@atomicjuicer The series has never sold fantastically. Not at any point. It's sold well rarely and decently more commonly but there is nothing to suggest that Metroid ever has been, or will ever be, a system seller. Blaming specific consoles for the series' shortcomings would be a decent argument if it had ever had a massive success. It hasn't.

@kobashi100 The logic of Nintendo fans always perplexes me. One of Nintendo's biggest and consistently highest selling franchises won't sell consoles but Prime 4, the latest edition in a series that has never sold even 25% of Smash's sales, will?

@Abes3 What does 'best game ever' even mean? Games are a form of entertainment, their purpose being enjoyment, and enjoyment is -purely- subjective. Anyone's favourite game is a 10/10 for them - that is what 'favourite' means - and Smash Ultimate is a lot of peoples' (current) favourite game.

For me, as much as I liked Breath of the Wild, and was blown away by my initial experience of it, the game was not a 10/10, as I did not feel compelled to play the postgame or to replay it once finished. Breakability, I felt, was a mechanic I really appreciated when playing the game, but it lessened my enjoyment of the postgame because there was no point in -collecting- things, in my brain, that were going to break. By contrast, I felt my initial experience with Splatoon 2 to be fairly underwhelming, but have enthusiastically kept plugging away at it long after I completed it. Objectively, the latter has many more flaws than the former, but I still enjoyed it more.

@maruse Yes, 'qualified' apologies, followed by a denial of the events for which an apology was offered, followed by attempts to whitewash or gloss over the entire affair. I taught there - the average government approved textbook at -best- labels the events of WW2 as an 'unfortunate misunderstanding' and at worst paints the Japanese as being hard done by by post war negotiations. Not a one of the 8 approved texts we used mentioned any of the events for which Japan has 'apologised' and the general populace is unaware it ever happened. Not one of my students has ever been able to tell me how they actually got involved in the war. 75% didn't believe me when I told them that Pearl Harbor had been an act of aggression. They thought that America had attacked Japan first and Pearl Harbor was retaliation.

Compare Germany's position as regards the Nazis.

The Yasukuni shrine portrays the Japanese WW2 war criminals as heroes not because of an oversight but because that's how Japan views its role in WW2. They haven't been removed from the shrine because Japan would need to explain why to its citizens. It doesn't want to.

@maruse Japan is ashamed? Really? If so why have they never apologized? Germany has. Even Italy has.

@TAndvig To people in China and Korea, this is more like the equivalent of Germany having a shrine to Hitler and his Nazi supporters and a celebrity commemorating a visit. My Uncle was tortured to death by several men who are now memorialized at the Yasukuni shrine. His whole family was rounded up and shot. To me, and others still in Asia, the shrine's very existence is an affront.

The Japanese government has not and will not apologize for its atrocities in WW2. I can't do anything about that. I can eXpress my displeasure at others visiting it.

@krvstkvlt They're typically (or at least, if good) intense, place a lot of demand on reflexes and positioning, and feature non-stop action in a manner seen in few other genres.

@krvstkvlt They're typically (or at least, if good) intense, place a lot of demand on reflexes and positioning, and feature non-stop action in a manner seen in few other genres.

@krvstkvlt They're typically (or at least, if good) intense, place a lot of demand on reflexes and positioning, and feature non-stop action in a manner seen in few other genres.

@krvstkvlt They're typically (or at least, if good) intense, place a lot of demand on reflexes and positioning, and feature non-stop action in a manner seen in few other genres.