FaroreAbhorsen

@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.

I'm at 140 hours. I'm in between jobs though. That's good cause if I had a job and wasn't on vacation I definitely would've been fired by now, lol.

I've done two dungeons so far. I might do a third today. Really need to get back to looking for work.

I've given up my Korok seed quest at 861 found (813 without the mask). I think that I shall never pursue the remaining 39. The search just isn't fun anymore over such a vast map. If they had included a Korok count per region in the map then maybe but I can't keep combing the Gerudo desert wondering if I missed a rock somewhere. Plus, do I really want to get a poo trophy for my efforts?

Did everything else, the quests, the shrines, the compendium, the DLC, every Hinox, Talus, and Molduga. I have a Master mode file (my second time playing Master mode) where I mess around but I haven't done anything in it but get my favorite clothes and the Hylian shield. Don't need more equipment slots when you really know the game so no Korok seeds. No Impa either. I'm considering getting enough shrines to take the Master Sword and do a Ganon boss rush at the castle but is it really fun to fight blights with the Master Sword? One thing that could be bragging rights worthy is completing the Trial of the Sword with 13 hearts but I've only ever done the first set of the trials like that and it was insane with the health Regen.

Maybe 675 hours of playtime over 6 years is enough?

Anyone not convinced already or by tomorrow's trailer will be convinced by the reviews or the coverage at release or the word of mouth advertising after. If none of that does it Nintendo was never going to get that person's money anyway. There's no need for Nintendo to do anything at all and no risk to them if they do nothing so long as the game they spent 5 years making is actually good, which I expect it will be. Like BotW, Tears of the Kingdom will be an evergreen title that continues to sell throughout the rest of the Switch life cycle and likely into the next system via back compat or re-release.

Nintendo isn't one of those publishers betting everything on selling almost all copies of a game in the first few weeks, they can literally ride this game's sales out for 5 years then push out a Switch 4 re-release to double lifetime sales in 10 years. They do this constantly. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's trailer but it legit doesn't matter at all for total sales of the game. The only thing that matters for that is whether they made a great game, not whether they "convince" us they did in 3 minutes tomorrow liked it's the only 3 minutes of info anyone will ever have for the rest of their lives. Nintendo will gladly take your $70 this Christmas if you want to wait (though I suggest using the voucher to get it for $50).

I know it's not a perfect solution, but I do wish more developers, including Nintendo, would consider games that make use of multiple switches. I have a Switch and a Switch Lite that I'd be happy to break out for some dual screen gaming, especially with titles like this, Xenoblade X, 3DS titles like A Link Between Worlds or Ocarina of Time 3D, or even Nintendo world. All of my friends have their own Switches and it would be great for parties. In fact, that's how we play Mario Kart, we just all bring our own systems.

I know it's not perfect and is prohibitively expensive if your friends aren't already inclined to have their own systems. But if you do have a second console it would be an exciting additional way to play.

I didn't fall in love with Midna like most people I know. She just seemed abusive, honestly.

Navi has a special place in my heart--I was constantly Z-targeting and hitting C-Up to get info on every enemy I could. She was like my Wikipedia companion on my first 3D foray into Hyrule. Tatl was just a tweaked Navi.

I wish Fi were written better. I hated her dialog because it was always so obvious like "I calculate an 85% chance there's a boss on the other side of this boss door". Maybe if I weren't a Zelda veteran at that point I'd have found her more endearing. That said she's my favorite character to play as in Hyrule Warriors. I love her graceful movements.

The King of Red Lions was cool but he wasn't my companion in combat like Navi, Tatl, Midna, and Fi--he's more like Epona in that he's an overworld travel companion not an in dungeon companion that's not experiencing the towns and the world with me.

I haven't played the other games yet so my list is:

1 - Navi
2 - Tatl
3 - King of Red Lions
4 - Fi
5 - Midna

Got the demo. Performance was better than I'd heard. Definitely worth a try. Will probably purchase for Switch in the coming months.

Hearthstone!

@Bunkerneath I think they want you round-robin through each character's first chapter or two before taking on chapters 3 and 4. It means swapping out one or more characters but since you can't swap out your first character until you complete their chapter 4 they'll be over leveled and can carry a little, especially if they can tank or heal. Also chapter 2 is around when you can go get secondary jobs so you can always have a healer, aoe, tank in your party no matter the characters.

It's probably better to do it this way than try to focus on just 4 characters because, spoiler: there's a late game fight where you need all 8 characters and you're screwed if you haven't been building everybody up in some way.

I didn't realize at first that other things could drop. I found the spring of courage first but Naydra was the first dragon I saw and that made it obvious 1) how to open the spring of courage, and 2) that there was a spring of power.

On my master mode playthrough I was sad to find that you can pick up scales for 2 of the dragons in Hyrule Castle but not the third (or anywhere) and the dragons only appear after you talk to Impa the first time so it's impossible to get all three springs without talking to her (I wanted to do a no Impa run).

Still have yet to try an "All for divine beasts before Impa" run. Or to get all shrines on my master mode file. So many fun ways to play.

@Bunkerneath I once couldn't find my last shrine. I looked all over for it with radar and fast travel. But as was often the case with BotW I only found it when I stopped looking. I stopped climbing over mountains and just started trotting around on horseback and kept to the roads and pretty quickly I stumbled upon it.

I hope you find yours too!

Still wishing for a Switch port.

@MarioBrickLayer Good catch! I was excited about Factorio on Switch. Played it on PC and been itching for it to come to Switch.

This direct was long and had a bunch of stuff I didn't care about... But also a bunch of stuff I cared about. Like, I want to call it meh but I got like 6+ things that I'm excited about and a few more that I respect even if they aren't for me. 6+ good gifts is a good Christmas so idk how I can say this direct was anything but good for me.

If they'd only dropped that Wind Waker HD I'd probably be over the moon right now. Guess that makes me spoiled and entitled?

That thing looks like it eats horses (or Ponyta) now 🤠
Nope.

I love it! Definitely want one on my team!

I usually play with the Link costume on anyway cause it just looks cool and it doesn't show any skin during Bayonetta's attacks anyway.

I hope it makes a return in Bayonetta 3.

I'm just here for The Guardian Legend.

@BoilerBroJoe Story checks out.

Palpatine was probably going to train up all those kids to be force welding sith assassins. Anakin may have single handedly saved the rebellion!

I'm still waiting to see more gameplay but I could see myself buying if they nail the wizard fantasy and performance.

@CharlieGirl your disappointment is completely natural. This really sucks. Hopefully they take the feedback and put out some DLC or patches.

The better Arceus does, the better its sequel will be. I do think both BDSP and Arceus were hurt by the parallel development. Disproportionately strong Arceus sales could give them the confidence to not rely on the old formula so much to maintain profits and go even further in this bold new direction. The graphics don't bother me at all but hopefully the next game will leverage the graphical skills in display in the new Pokémon Snap game. They just need time and focus and Arceus sales may buy them both.

@Ryu_Niiyama yeah, GF takes smaller steps than most would like but you can see the progression.

Let's Go brought the games to home console, gave us Pokémon in the overworld (scaled to size, no random encounters), and rideable Pokémon, as well as being an experiment with throwing balls to catch without battling, or at least bringing that from Pokémon GO into the games proper.

I had a blast with it. I always wanted to play Red & Blue as a kid and this finally let me without the annoyances of forced battling a million zubats and geodudes in row. I really Hate (with a capital H) random encounters so the way it was done in Let's Go really let me enjoy the game and the Pokémon in the world. I was genuinely excited everytime I saw a wild Pokémon I remembered from 25 years ago and shiny hunting is something I'd never have been into outside of Let's Go.

Sword & Shield took the step into the Wild Area and doubled down on it in the DLCs. I have it but haven't played it yet due to other games.

Legends Arceus really puts everything right from those other two games together and in better proportions. Keeping the Pokémon in the overworld but allowing a mix of battling wild Pokémon with just throwing to capture, all "wild areas", etc.

I think GF has been going in the right direction and folks just trash them because they do things methodically with a lot of safe half steps but the breadcrumbs leading to this stretch back years.

Something about it is just too busy. It's hard to recognize the setting because of all that detail. Something about the simplicity of the original design makes it very easy to remember. What I'd like to see someone do is:

1) Start with exactly and only what was there in OoT. No extra tall grass or rocks or flowers or boats. Same dimensions/proportions.
2) Ramp up the realism on those elements to 100.
3) Fix the lighting so you can see all the elements as well as you could in the original.
4) Then play with extras.

What the creator here has done is still a great exercise for learning his craft.

@Pineapple_Mohawk @Crockin

I settled into a team pretty early on and rocked the same 3 demons through the end game, the first pixie I met in the starting area and "evolved" into a High Pixie, an Azumi that was kicking too much ass that I then "evolved" into Rakshasa, and an Angel which I "evolved" into a Principality. I meticulously pumped up their stats and maxed out their potentials and curated their skills from the essence of other demons. It was truly a Pokémon fantasy!

Navi never bothered me. I really bought into the fantasy of her being a companion on my adventure so I didn't mind talking to her occasionally and I was pretty aggressive using C-up to get info on every new enemy I encountered. Sure, I knew how to kill a fire keese already but I wanted to see what she had to say about the little critter. When Link goes looking for her in MM, I feel that.

Tatl was a good callback to Navi and I enjoyed her character arch over the game. She starts out annoying but I love how she comes to respect you as a veteran hero.

I felt nothing for the boat, Midna was too abusive for me adult tastes, and I felt less than nothing for Fi. Actually, I hated almost all of her dialog because her "calculations" are so obvious. "There's a 83% chance there's a boss on the other side of this boss door" like, no lady, there's a 100% chance of it cause it's a boss door. They tried to write her like C-3PO but completely missed. I do like her design and her grace and she's my favorite character to fight with in Hyrule Warriors.

I guess we're all just waiting for Cortana?

Honestly, I just want an upscaled release of the 3DS version on Switch. There's some nostalgia to the N64 version but I think the graphical improvements to the 3DS version make it nearer definitive.

I'm excited to play this! Got my pre-order in when they announced. I don't care about or can't notice the graphical flaws people complain about other than framerate. I'm very happy Game Freak is trying a different take. Gameplay first!

Not sure if this makes me more or less hopeful for Hearthstone on Nintendo Switch. I guess there's nothing to lose from hopeful.

I figured it out. The name of the Sequel to Breath of the Wild is... Second Wind. Or something like that. And that's why they're ramping up. This isn't a copyright thing, it's a trademark thing. They don't want the internet full of this guy's content confusing people. Yeah, that must be it. -.-

The question isn't whether this is correct/fair use from a legal standpoint. Even if it were perfectly legit and Nintendo would lose in a court of law we're not talking about a court of law. We're talking about YouTube. We shouldn't interpret YouTube doing a thing as "Nintendo [being] within their legal rights" to do anything without an actual lawyer weighing in. This is just YouTube acquiescing to a request, regardless of whether legally they have to.

Blasting Nintendo with tweets isn't going to do anything to change Nintendo's behavior. The only interesting question is 1) why is YouTube enabling Nintendo, 2) can YouTube be persuaded to change or enforce their policies differently?

I think I'll get these as basically expensive Amiibo. I don't really need them for gameplay but I want something around my house in memory of my beloved NES. I'll break them out here and there as novelties. I wonder if I can pair them with my PC though.

Maybe they're the highest earning media franchise in the world not in spite of their design decisions but because of them. I just finished Shin Megami Tensei V and I enjoyed its whole monster collecting/breeding shtick way more than any Pokémon game I've played (Blue & LGE) but it only moved 800k copies. Not saying that means Pokémon is better but a lot of comments make it seem like their success is some kind of accident unrelated to anything they actually do.

I have Arceus on pre order cause it looks interesting and because I support Game Freak stepping out of their comfort zone a little with the gameplay even if it is a smaller step.

But I'm open to the real possibility that I just don't like Pokémon games in general. Not because GF didn't spend enough budget on tree models, but because fundamentally the whole system just isn't very interesting to me compared to every other RPG I've played. I love the first 151 creatures in a general kid at the zoo kind of way but gameplay I just don't get what the best case scenario is for the battle system. Feels like it was always broken.

The framerate was fine for me except in multiplayer. I really wish they had online multiplayer for all of the Warriors games. As much as I love couch co-op, I love not having to share my screen and higher framerates more.

@BeefSanta I don't think the puzzles are super hard but they are tedious without need and a little visually confusing. I guess the patch isn't out in the US or something but I can't wait to go back to the castle to see how they changed it.

@luckiernut yeah I saw a video of using fusion to make OP demons. I was impressed but I maxed out potential with sutras and have been reluctant to lose those. I read that in New Game + you can get a miracle that let's you replace the initial skills on a fusion. With such a miracle I'd definitely be more willing to fuse but right now every skill I put on my demons is very intentional (-barion lvl and heavy or severe physical) I don't want to lose 3 of them for some basic ability.

Maybe I'll build a different team if I New Game+.

I've been pretty much rocking the same 3 demons the entire game. I've "evolved" them through fusion once or twice though. My team consist of a:

• High Pixie (was a normal Pixie and my first recruited demon and my first special fusion)
• Principality (was a normal Angel I fused with an elemental demon twice to upgrade)
• Rakshasa (was an Azumi I recruited in the first area and later upgraded)

I've dumped so many incense and sutras and essences into these three (they're all lvl 80 now) that it's hard to just swap them out. I have other 'mon in stock but I almost never need to summon them and they aren't very strong.

And now I've got a skill that lets me re-summon a demon that's been killed at full HP so it's usually just as well to re-summon them than to summon another demon. They have elemental weaknesses (except the Principality angel cause I fused his dark weakness out with a Null Dark) but it's rare that I need more than my 3 elemental block items to finish an enemy. It's most important to use them on the enemy Megatsuhi turns.

I know it's cliche at this point but I'm amazed at how much more intentional I am about grooming my demons than I am about my Pokémon. There's just so much more I can do with them.

Pre-ordered. I have a friend I like to get into gaming but she has such anxiety about combat so a no combat puzzler might be right up her alley.

I don't see a way for them to go from the roster they have now to a smaller roster without disappointing fans. And licensing would probably be harder since companies which licensed DLC fighters for profit share on DLC-purchases would probably be less inclined to build those characters into the base roster for a smaller profit. But hey, they got Sora in Smash so I can't put it past them. I'd be fine with the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe treatment. Ultimate means Ultimate. Just give it an update for Switch 2 + Waluigi and call it.