FaroreAbhorsen

@tabris95 my mom got me Tides of Time for Christmas one year because... I guess all the popular games were sold out by the time she got to the toy store that year. And I was pissed. I wanted cool young boy games not some goofy kiddy title about dolphins.

And then I read the manual. And it was full of sci-fi fantasy elements I did not expect.

And then I put the game in and first heard that ominous title music. It is to this day one of my favorite games of all time. I play the songs in the car. I have the sky chase with the giant Medusa extended on my YouTube playlist for long coding sessions. I'm very happy more people get to experience this telepathic time traveling space faring shape shifting xenomorph fighting dolphin epic!

That online license setting bullet point just saved my whole evening!

It's just like the early TotK trailers all over again. Do you think maybe his amiibo died?

@Kidfunkadelic83 I felt the same way for about as long. I feel like it was hour 13 or 15. I was this close to giving it to a friend who like RPGs more than I do. I'm not saying that'll work for you just that I remember it didn't click for me at all and then suddenly it was great.

The first 3 chapters are kinda slow and technically they won't let you leave the first continent until you finish Chapter 3. Once I got to focusing more on treasure hunting and dropping data probes (and not so much fighting indigens) I fell in love with the world. I can't decide whether Mira or BotW Hyrule is my favorite open world map and I've played both for hundreds and hundreds of hours. This game single-handedly demonstrated to me that the Wii U was not a hardware slouch.

The game is very rewarding if you like finding your own way of doing things. The systems overlap such that there really are multiple paths to character growth and in Definitive Edition this is even MORE true. A person who likes to fight can get very powerful but a person who just likes to explore (like me) can also get very powerful.

But again, I respect if your miles vary.

@Skunkfish Yes, exactly. I was hoping for something like this because logically if would make no sense for a game that's available in some form on both Switch 1 and Switch 2, to buy an edition of it that can only be played on Switch 2 and not my Switch OLED or Lite or those of my friends or family. I would always choose to get the Switch 1 edition and get the Switch 2 upgrades digitally so that my $ could go on as many systems as possible.

I hope this same flexibility applies to digital: if a person buys digital BotW or Metroid Prime 4 on the Switch 2 eShop, that purchase must allow me to play the un-enhanced version on my Lite. I would be livid if I accidentally purchased a Switch 2 only version of the game somehow and locked myself out on the Switch 1. I guess someone at Nintendo realized this too.

Probably also massively simplifies manufacturing and eliminates any issue with the Switch 2 enhancements overflowing the storage capacity of the game cart and requiring a larger, more expensive one.

I get the desire for "everything" to be on a single physical cartridge, I just don't think it's that simple anymore in a world where additional DLC and updates may trickle out for years after a product release.

@MrCarlos46 I doubt Nintendo would ever confirm that this early but I wouldn't rule out some kind of midgen revision a few years down the line. As a rule (of business), when you make a product you don't want to talk about a better version coming later because then people don't buy the current version. It's known as the Osborne effect after one company famously went bankrupt making that mistake when sales of their v1 plummeted and they didn't have the cash then to make the v2 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect).

@Ryu_Niiyama I always felt it should be cheaper because of the reasons you mentioned and Nintendo doesn't have to consider markup for a retailer to trying to get their cut. But I figured they had agreements with retailers to not undercut them with digital prices like a non-compete. This suggests that that was always voluntary and that Nintendo could have squeezed them out years ago.

I've been 100% digital from day 1, because I don't like getting up to change cartridges just like I don't like needing play discs and cinematic discs for Diablo II on PC.

I totally respect the argument for physical, for sharing, resale, archival, etc. I just personally am not giving up convenience for those reasons. Ideally, I would buy a physical copy of the game and be able to install it to my console somehow so I didn't need to keep the physical media but with the amount of post launch updates and DLC it's not actually as effective as keeping an NES or N64 cartridge. There are several titles where I just wouldn't want to play the 1.0 version of the game even if all the servers shut down. Games these days just aren't as immutable as Mega Man 2.

Brings back the old StarCraft: Broodwar multiplayer-only spawn discs. This feels super pro consumer. Playing Clubhouse and other games with a friend (without buying another copy) is a huge scenario for me. I have another Switch as my primary console right now just so another person can play board games and card games with me without spending hundreds of dollars on duplicate purchases. I remember Clubhouse had something like this and It Takes Two didn't require 2 copies even for online play but very few games were that open minded.

And the game chat is great too! It's like they really paid attention to how folks wanted to play together during the pandemic and made playing together front and center.

The real challenge will be encouraging 3rd party publishers to not be greedy. I would want this for Catan: Console Edition. But even 1st party won't be immune. I wouldn't expect Mario Kart or Mario Party Jamboree to be so generous so I'm curious how the line will be drawn.

@Kiz3000 I do this with my 'loaner Switch'. It's my primary which means a second account can play any of my games on that system, with or without an Internet connection, and maintain their own save data.

The (many) Switches I use (and OG, an OLED, and a Lite) can all play my games but only with a network check, which is fine except for flights and stuff. I sometimes tether to my phone to Switch games.

There's no requirement to "turn off your Internet connection" unless you're trying to play the same game with the same user/account, which is not something I'd ever want to do anyway. I use this setup almost exclusively for playing 2-player games--Uno, Monopoly, Clubhouse 51, Mario Party, etc. with a second person without having to buy two copies. Since we're always playing online, having to turn off the Internet would defeat the purpose.

The virtual cartridge thing is more useful for loaning single player games to my cousin on niece and nephew without having to give them my loaner Switch or set up their Switch as my primary.

I'm interested to hear more though. I do think with Nintendo Switch 2 coming out, having only the old system was not going to be tenable since presumably a lot more people will have 2 or more Switch 1 & 2 devices or need to share with a child or relative or a Switch 2 and a Lite now. And what would it mean for your Switch 2 titles if your Switch 1 is your "Home" console? You'd likely want to be more granular about which licenses primarily live where and this could help this but the devil is in the details. I'm going to wait until it launches to give my final opinion on whether it's mostly great or a mixed bag.

It's all about whether they have regional variants and/or megas that I like. Lots of starters start cute but it matters just as much what they'll look like all grown up. I'm unfamiliar with all of these starters but I hear Chikorita gets a lot of hate and it's so cute so it would be great if there's a regional Meganium that's interesting. Shiny Emboar also looks cooler to me than non-shiny so I'd prefer to catch Tepig elsewhere.

I'm interested in what they do because I'm interested in any innovation or experimentation in the combat. It doesn't need to go real-time per se. For PvE I'd love to see playing with ideas from other successful turn-based RPGs like Octopath Traveler or Final Fantasy X.

The 1-vs-many battles in Arceus were great! Now if I could have more doubles or triples battles in single player to go with that, I'd be happy. I'd love to have Vaporeon use Surf to hit 5 enemy Pokemon while my Charizard uses Fly to lift off the battlefield for a turn.

What about more than 4 moves? Idk. Power scaling and dynamic difficulty of trainer and gym battles. Anything other than a gym advertising the type and therefore weakness of all its Pokemon in advance. But real-time is also a full idea!

@Erigen I left my team to die a lot in this game lol I understand. I always revived them though so no harsh feelings right?

Paying $50 for TotK digitally felt excellent. I'm about to get Xenoblade X and Mario Party Jamboree for $50 a pop soon. And then I guess Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3. I love these vouchers. But I can see how Nintendo wouldn't want to sell Switch 2 titles for $50.

I'd always use my points on cheaper DLC or the occasional title I didn't want to pay for with cash. Made picking up cosmetic extras a much easier choice. I think I let a lot of them expire though 😔

@tblal
1) Don't wait. Spam or bind.
2) She gets a bow.

@MrCarlos46 this hurts. That's precisely what I wanted, so 3DS games could come to the system. Now I have no interesting ideas.

Edit: I actually googled it (haven't been following any leaks, believe it or not) and a dedicated button for chat/comms makes an insane amount of sense. Given the absence of good chat support on Switch 1, this would be a great improvement.

I think if they did want to branch into groceries they'd go with Mario Mart, or Malo Mart for the Twilight Princess fans.

Now I'm going to do something I shouldn't because I'm not a lawyer. I'm going to link to a us law office though that says what I'm going to say, though I also don't know how this applies to companies outside of the US such as in this case:

https://www.lodhs.com/blog/defend-your-trademark-or-you-could-lose-it/#:~:text=However%2C%20trademarks%20aren't%20automatically,with%20it%2C%20your%20brand's%20identity.

But to the question of "Why does Nintendo choose to be mean" the answer as I understand it is that they don't have a choice. It's not about setting out to be a villain. In order to maintain a trademark you have to fight to defend it in court. If you don't show that you care deeply about it then one day it can be invalidated. It's like "squatter's rights" type stuff. If you become aware that someone is or might be using your thing and you don't try to defend your thing the fact that you didn't try to stop it can be used against you in court. I don't think there's room here for selective enforcement either.

Another better example is trademark genericization, when a brand name becomes the common name for a thing. "Aspirin" was a trademarked name of a drug that almost no one could name today. We here in the States do not have the word in language to ask for a... whatever aspirin is without using the trademark, which is why the company that owned it lost it.

Here's a list of other such names we all use that most wouldn't believe used to belong to specific companies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks

And there was a time where "Google" started to mean "search online" regardless of engine and before that a time when "Nintendo" started to mean "video game" and in both cases both companies had to aggressively fight against that shift to protect their ownership. It's not about being a bully, it's about legal obligations. But folks rarely bring that up when they cover these situations because 1) most people aren't lawyers and shouldn't give legal advice (me included, I know), and 2) lawyers are reluctant to give blanket legal advice to non-clients, in part probably for liability reasons lol. (I worked in big tech and I literally could not get our legal department to say that a customer could print one of our online web pages out for offline reading without it violating any copyrights. I was very seriously told they would need to consult their own lawyers for advice about their rights and risks)

In this case the court found against them which is right. But I don't hold it against them that they took it to the courts to decide. I would prefer it the grocery didn't have to eat court costs though.

@Liam_Doolan if NintendoLife really wanted to do this game and the Zelda community a service beyond their positive review, you'd cover its mechanics more in depth. Maybe a ranking of echoes, dungeon order insights, and in particular I wish you would look at YouTube videos and shorts for the best examples of engaging combat of grunts and bosses, the time trials like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw9uNnvmr3g&lc=UgzaXWF4PI0qsqPIkUV4AaABAg&ab_channel=imLeJayRo

Do people use bind in combat? (They should)

I see sooo many people just spawning 1 echoes, maybe big, maybe small and just waiting like they don't know you can summon multiple. I'd even just like to see screenshots from your team or their "most used" and "order learned" echo lists. Everybody won't play this game the same and a lot of folks are playing it in a way that gives them a bad impression. A publication highlighting different play styles would be great!

I had a fantastic magical experience with it and it was almost everything I wanted from TotK and didn't get. I hope Nintendo keeps iterating on the blend of old and new and I get to see more balance like this in the next 3D title.

I also think this model of 'wisdom' puzzle based gameplay is a playable Princess Zelda's thing in future 3D titles, while Link goes back to more traditional gameplay. I think Tears would have been better if the Zonai building elements were a Princess Zelda thing (given her not having Link's fighting, climbing, or gliding abilities) and the gameplay for Link was centered again on combat and items.

Also, as an aside, I wouldn't mind if a Pokemon title was inspired a bit by this for a side title more focused on overworld interactivity through Pokemon rather than the old gym battle thing, which I honestly never cared about

Also use Bind a lot and even consider the automatons if you have that much time on your hands. Oh and don't rely on 1 big summon that hits hard all the time, 2-3 medium summons or 6 small ones can be fun too. Mix it up.

Here's a fun video of someone beating the time trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw9uNnvmr3g&lc=UgzaXWF4PI0qsqPIkUV4AaABAg&ab_channel=imLeJayRo

I wish @NintendoLife would solicit and publish player highlight videos from Echoes combat to open more people up to the game.

@Magician no worries. I'm all digital so I'm buying it even though I don't want to play it without Blood Omen to up their sales numbers to encourage them to release physical for you and port the other games. We gotta work the system together!

I would want a wing. That's the real celebrity piece. But a fan and a rocket would be nice. These will probably be $100 on eBay

@MK73DS smart phone attach would also be great. Like Xbox Smart glass but actually useful.

For portable where the second screen is just a menu I guess pausing is the way but it it's used for shifting else they'll need an accessory. But all I actually care about is 3DS Zelda titles since I never played any of them and Wii U titles like Xenoblade X and Wind Waker HD. For that I'd be fine being able to pair my Switch Lite to my main Switch (2) so I could use it like a Wii U gamepad on my couch and I'm good. It turns the Switch Lite into an incredible accessory even for full Switch owners. Get that 160M, Nintendo!

@msvt @somnambulance I hear the DLC was better than the base game. That was definitely my experience with Sword and Shield (so good!) so I can believe it. I'm thinking of shelling out for the DLC, sounds like you think they're both definitely worth it?

@Isenlia @Friendly I hear a lot of open game worlds described as empty. I actually think there are too many of the little critters running around in Paldea that I'm always tripping over some bug Pokemon or rodent that I can't see while atop my ride. When you say empty, do you mean for like mini-games or side-quests or is there something else specific you wish they added?

@swoose re: new echoes, if you scroll left from the very beginning the menu will at least jump to the back so you can get to the new echoes. That's useful when you don't want to change your sort to last learned.

@Anti-Matter great reference! There is a thing which can give the feeling of dropping an large heavy object on someone's head. But it doesn't give that metallic ring. It's still fun though, particularly for dropping on enemies below you who are maybe trying to make their way up. Very satisfying!

@chardir me either, but I'm going to make it happen before Switch 2 drops!

@Yoshi3 I'm doing my part

@sketchturner I've only played Xenoblade X and I loved it. It has a story but it's definitely not what carries the game. The gameplay is everything and you can do the story if you want. There are 2 travel "upgrades" that are gated behind mid-gane story progression but you can't get almost everywhere on the map on foot from the point where you're cut loose on the world. It'll be dangerous depending on how you go. One mountain in order to climb it I had to evade some high level creatures and I had to craft multiple pieces of equipment to make my stealthier so I could sneak past them but I did it.

Love the world, the creatures, the weather, the music, the combat. And the story is just enough to motivate the gameplay. Recommend!

@Res462 I need all 5 games on Switch ASAP. From Blood Omen to Defiance. The world needs to see this story from beginning to end. Or middle to far future to past to future to end to beginning to end again.

The wheel of fate turns...

https://youtu.be/OCZXvblpNSM?si=Fs8pqD_vY10lccCv

@WaffleRaptor01 I only ever want to see Ganondorf again if he's deeper than Wind Waker. Both TP and TotK made him a brute and that's not interesting to me at all. In general I'm tired of villains in media who just want to rule everything for no reason and with no actual philosophy for governance or to just destroy everything. It's super boring. Does Ganondorf want to lead the Gerudo to conquest or is he just on some pro-Demon stuff. How does that transition happen? At least Bowser wants to marry Peach so his kid can have a mom.

@karlhendrikse when the name was revealed I joked that it was a phonetic mistranslation and that the title was actually TIERS of the Kingdom. You know, because of the sky islands and the depths and the different elevations and that people just misunderstood.

I pretty much knew that had been the working title after I actually played it because I remember them holding back on the title reveal for that reason. The current title doesn't actually make any sense. The kingdom isn't really crying about anything. The present Hyrule hasn't permanently lost anything in dramatic fashion and the game isn't framed well around the tragedy of the past. Maybe if the Secret Stones were called tears instead.

I still would have preferred Tears of the Dragon, honestly.

I'm so excited I can't watch any more breakdowns. I need to save it for when I play.

@PrinceFroggy now that's a title we need on NSO.

You know, I've never been a fan of Venusaur but it's growing on me, no pun intended.

Until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch 2!

I was really interested in it until I learned there was no multiplayer. I need couch co-op!

1080p/60fps... I can't not get this now. Especially if it's stable/locked. When someone puts in the work, I want to reward the effort.

@PJOReilly

The trilogy is 30% off on the eShop until the 3rd. It's $42 now, that's like $20 each for the two ports that are solid, plus a free 3rd game that may or may not be patched one day. I think it's the best deal we can hope for for a while. It's a gamble that it'll drop to 50% off or more. Spread the word!

Incredibly made games but I fell in love with the series for the titles that came before with the storytelling, lore, and dungeons, I want to see them return to form in those areas.

I haven't remotely finished Baldur's Gate 3. I'm playing with friends and just haven't put in the hours but I can't imagine I'll put in as much time as in TotK. I haven't put as much time into TotK as BotW either. I think I played Pokemon Shield earlier this year and had a blast and put in 300ish hours, maybe that's my GotY? Haha

I'm not sure I understand what this category even means. Lot of amazing games this year. Surprised FFXVI wasn't nominated. They need a category for Remasters so Metroid Prime Remastered could win. Maybe I'm too confused to vote 😢

I wanted Tears of the Kingdom to be Breath of the Wild squared, but it turned out to just be 4 times BotW.

They had a guaranteed military sale with the Nintendo Switch version. DLC! Patches for 25 years! Who CARES if it worked or not?!

I'm always wishing for good things from Sonic. Despite these early reviews, I don't want to crap on the game before I've played it or watched more footage. I hope it's better than the reviews suggest and respect the folks who worked on it gave it their best.

Here's the thing: I get not including a Blu-ray drive in an Xbox or Playstation console. They definitely add to the cost of the unit, they decrease reliability because moving parts break, and there are licensing fees to the folks that own the Blu-ray format or whatever, and they do force the unit to be bigger in some way to accommodate the size of a disc.

But none of those reasons apply to these little Switch cartridges. So let me ask you this: would an all-digital Switch "2" include a MicroSD expansion slot to increase storage capacity? I think most people would say that it's both insane and unacceptable not to because the internal storage isn't going to be enough to an all-digital library. So at the point that they have one little slot for external cartridge storage that you can install games on... what's the argument for how a slot for the actual game cartridges is the straw that broke the camel's back? Heck, at that point I'd sooner take a system with a slot for cartridges and NO MicroSD than the other way around. An all-digital unit just doesn't make any sense, to me at least.

I just want to know why. Like, these are free to play games to the company is operating them at a loss. Nintendo must pay them a cut of NSO subscription dollars and that cut must be time-limited or otherwise insufficient to cover the cost of running the online services. But how expensive could those services be?

I know I answered my own question so let me rephrase. What's the plan? Why create joy for people just to take it away? Just a little short term profit. I'd rather they made it free to play for some initial period and charged me a couple bucks after that than make the game completely unplayable. No one ever gets to play Super Mario 35 or Pac-Man 99 again cause some execs couldn't come up with a plan?

Maybe Nintendo owns the distribution rights or something so they can't sell it on their own or Nintendo reserves the right to re-publish it free-to-play at their discretion so there's a potential conflict if they sell it for $1.99 or whatever or $0.99/year on their own because then Nintendo can decide to pull it out of the vault and undercut them.

So, to my original point, I'm a curious person and I wish I knew definitively how things happen so I'm not left the speculate reasonably but endlessly.

Without really agreeing or disagreeing with anything else said, I just want to chime in about the dungeons. I enjoyed to various degrees all but the fire temple, which was confusing to navigate without constantly referencing the map and even that didn't help. I feel bad because I ended up just building a hover bike and cheesing my way through it. And I feel bad about feeling bad because surely the game was made such that solving the dungeon in my own way is perfectly legitimate. The dungeon had probably the best "dungeon-like atmosphere" it just wasn't fun to navigate the "intended" way.

Wind Temple was a solid start, I think.
Water Temple was way too easy.
Lightning Temple was fine.

I felt it was a step in the right direction compared to Divine Beasts but not the masterpieces that Zelda dungeons were in virtually every other title since A Link to the Past. It might take another couple games before they get back to the quality we want but with the new open format. It's a creative puzzle. I really don't know how the Zelda team manages to keep making forest and fire and wind and water and ice and desert themed dungeons and have them all feel unique. It's kind of insane to expect that they could just churn them out indefinitely. It's only the fact that they've done it literally dozens of times before that makes me hope they can do it again. In the meantime I guess I'll just replay the classics.

Next up: Finishing Skyward Sword HD, then replaying Oracle of Ages, then replaying Majora's Mask.