FullMetalWesker

@RoboCube @Chlocean - “ This ranked list of every Tomb Raider game on Nintendo consoles is governed by each game's User Rating in our database and is subject to real-time change depending on its score, even as you read this! Simply click the star rating and assign a score from 1-10 to exert your personal influence on the ranking. (You'll have to refresh the page to see the changes, if any, take effect.)”
Or to put it another way, ignore the text associated with each game, as it has nothing to do with the actual ranking.

@topher6490 - They sometimes do, but this way they can easily circumvent the inevitable “this list sucks” comments by pointing out that they (the commenters) are the ones responsible for it being that way.
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So, the main takeaway I’m getting here is:
1. Most Tomb Raider games aren’t that good, with even the best ones getting between a 7 and 8 out of 10. And
2. The recent trilogy is better than the older games, as even a basic port of 2013 managed to score higher than the rest of the series up to that point.
Good to know (and honestly, I’d probably agree, though I haven’t yet played enough of the older games for a proper comparison).

I like how most comments are just people using this article to air their grievances against Nintendo, most of which are overblown, and have very little to do with the actual article (though to be fair, this is a bit of a nothingburger as far as articles go) but I guess that’s internet commenters for you.

As far as my thoughts on Miyamoto’s comment go, ehh, he’s probably right, but the same could be said for the DS/Wii era as well. In fact, that era being followed up by the Wii U/3DS era would probably justify the second part of Miyamoto’s comment about keeping level-headed, because as we saw there, fortunes can go up or down pretty quickly. But either way, not much to talk about, really.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m struggling to see the value in any of this stuff. I’m certainly baffled at how an adult can get emotional at what is essentially random fan-drawings some kids made. Where’s the “passion” that these works supposedly have? What exactly makes any of these particular drawings different from a random doodle some kid makes in their school textbook?
Sorry if I’m being a scrooge here, but the article just seems like it could be summarised as “I saved these kids fan-drawings from when I worked for Nintendo in the 90’s, check them out” which might generate a mild “that’s cool, I guess” response, but is instead treated with such reverence by both the article writer and commenters, that I feel compelled to ask: why?

@GravyThief - Really? I’m in Australia and I was able to use the link provided no problem. Is there anything stopping you from using it?

@the_beaver - Considering the main threat in the first three games (phazon) got wiped out in 3, along with the fact that the main threat (from what we’ve seen) in 4 (Sylax) doesn’t feature in any of the three prior Prime games, I highly doubt there’s much lost if you go straight from 1 to 4, or just start at 4 (heck, if there’s any game you might need to play prior to 4, it’s actually Metroid Prime Hunters, as Sylax actually showed up in that one).
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Thanks for the update/reminder that this thing exists, just pre-ordered a copy.

Also kinda nice they released a decently big sample for free like that; even if it doesn’t end up making much of a difference, it’s still nice to have that option.

Didn’t even place within the top 1000, but did at least get 19/21, so that’s something (and the two I did miss, Tecmo Bowl and TMNT, were among the trickier ones). Surprised how easy the quiz was though, guess I recognise more NES covers than I thought.

I like the animations and general movement well enough (one of the most important parts of a fighting game imo), but yeah, the actual visuals could use some work. That alongside the fact that I have no attachment or even much knowledge of Avatar means I’ll probably skip it, but I am curious to see if it turns out to be any good, so I might check some videos once it comes out.

Around 6 hours atm, most of which was spent going through all the GP cups to unlock as many characters as I could (including my regular pick, DK); I also tried out the new Free Roam mode, and dabbled in both Knockout Tour (offline, might have to try online) and Time Trial. Overall, so far it seems like a solid 8, with my biggest gripe being the lack of lap times in time trial mode (unless I’m missing something), but it’s early days still, so that may change.

A bit of a frustrating one, as while the EU and JP ones (yeah, whoever did this probably should’ve given them more than a passing glance) are more creative and better designed, the NA one actually fits the title. Unfortunately that one is fairly generic and uninspired looking, leaving them all roughly equal imo. In the end, I voted for NA, but it would’ve been nice if at least one of them had the best of both worlds.

@mikegamer - There’s a point though, where it goes beyond standard criticism and becomes nothing more than mud slinging and self-entitled whining, which is what seems to be going on here. The fact that some are being called out for it, and are still refusing to even accept it only makes them look worse.
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Might see the footage later, but if it really is running at 60fps now, that sounds like a fairly decent upgrade, from what I remember of the original version. Might give it a try when I eventually get my Switch 2, though given I’ve already finished the game + DLC, I probably won’t have much reason to invest that much time in it, especially with a new entry coming out in a few months.

A rare case where the U.S box art of a Kirby game is as cutesy as the JP one: as a result, the choice is a close one, but I prefer the Western one a bit more (the border on the JP one brings it down a little) so it got my vote.

If I were going purely by which picture looks best, obviously I’d go with JP, because it’s allowed to use the full artwork, but since this is asking for the best box-art, I feel like the US wins by default, since JP’s looks more like a poster than the cover of a video game box while EU (as with all N64 covers) overdoes it with the black border.

@GlowingOrb - Maybe add a few more on top of that, as the first Ace Attorney is a fair bit smaller than either of the GAA games (likely why they used those games specifically).
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So, are extremely long scripts just going to be a common thing now? First I hear Baldurs’ Gate III has one (and thought okay, that’ll probably be an outlier), then a few months ago heard the same for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, now this game’s apparently doing it as well. Granted, it seems to be working for now, but I have to wonder how beneficial it is to go that ham on script length (for example, does this game really benefit from having 100 endings?)

At the moment, the two Gamecube games I’d like to play the most would be Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes. Now that Paper Mario’s been re-released, they’re the only gamecube games I missed out on first time that I would like to experience at some point (they’re also insanely expensive second hand, so buying them that way isn’t a great option imo).

@-wc- - Sorry, but you’re clutching at straws here. The gameplay in all three Prime games is built around shooting, and how often you use the game’s lock-on feature doesn’t really factor into it.The fact is, at the end of the day, the only thing you need to be a FPS is to be in first person, and be built around shooting. All three games in the Metroid Prime series fit this criteria, therefore, that’s what they are. If you think otherwise, then you’re simply mistaken, that’s all.

@-wc- No, he got your analogy, the problem is that you don’t seem to. Racing and Driving are two different things, and are very easy to differentiate. There is no equivalent difference between Shooting in the Metroid Prime series vs other FPS games. Thus, the analogy doesn’t hold up. (Admittedly, if there were no enemies in the MP games, you might have something to argue, but that isn’t the case, especially in 2 and 3)
Furthermore, while you can’t call GTA a racing game because it isn’t built around racing, you can call the Metroid Prime games (especially 3) FPS games, because they are built around Shooting in First Person. They might be part of a subgenre (or sub-subgenre, since FPS is itself a Shooter subgenre)but that’s about it.
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*sigh * and here I was thinking this might be something interesting, but based off the article and comments, it sounds like another case of “here’s a cool novel feature that no-one can be bothered to use”, further highlighting why Videogaming is becoming increasingly safe, and digital.

@Buizel - To be fair, all of those games are 15+ years old, so I’m not sure that’s that relevant; it’s
Iike saying Gen 1 has the most remakes: technically you’re correctly, but the first one was over 20 years ago (and the second was a watered down version).
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Personally, as much as I like Gen 2, I think I would’ve preferred it if Chikorita (since if I had to choose between the two Johto starters, I’d probably keep Totodile) was swapped out for a different grass starter. Admittedly there aren’t many alternatives, but if it were possible, Grookey would’ve been a great choice imo.
Oh, and I’ll be picking Totodile this time around, since he looks the best out of the three options.

23/24
Almost managed a perfect run (like a lot of others seem to have done) but got caught up on the troupe leaders mask and unfortunately fell one short.

@DiamondJim @Anti-Matter - To clarify, it’s specifically the phrase “Super Mario” that was in contention here, as that’s the official name of the Mario videogame series. If the restaurant business had called it “Wonderful Mario”, or “Spectacular Mario” I don’t think Nintendo would’ve cared.

@Yoshi3 - Does them being a “small family business” really matter when it comes to these things? Surely the only thing that does is whether there’s a legitimate breach of the trademark or not?
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Fair enough, Nintendo probably should’ve done their homework beforehand and realised they didn’t have a case (would’ve saved everyone involved time and money), but at least it seems to have been sorted out in the end.

N/A lives up to its acronym here, leaving it a toss-up between the other two: Personally I prefer the EU one, as the image of the main character is more ‘complete’ than the simpler JP one (e.g. shadows, a gleam on the gem) and it looks more like box art imo.

Considering this is a basic port of an 8 year old remake of a 19 year old game that’s being released for 1/3 of the usual game price, I can’t say I’m surprised this is digital-only. What is surprising is the amount of comments who do seem surprised, or who flat out won’t get the game now, which strikes me as a bit odd considering the aforementioned description.
Either way, this doesn’t change anything for me, so I’m not fussed about it.

Would’ve loved if they’d bundled in 0 with this (always felt like they were two halves to a whole) but even Kiwami on its own is a pretty big win for the Switch. The only concern I have is how it’ll run, as there seemed to be at least one bit in the trailer that seemed to run a bit…..subpar, which has me a bit worried that it won’t run as well as it really should given the game shares the same engine as 0, which was released on the PS3.

@FatWormBlowsASparky @Tyranexx - Just a reminder, these games were released and are set before the Apollo games (well, technically the first apollo game was released first, but that’s it) so if you want, you can leave those games till after these ones (in fact, if you’re going through the series chronologically I’d recommend doing so, especially since these two games draw a fair bit from the first trilogy).
@MatthewTaranto - Agree with you on that; we’re essentially being allowed to start the game a week or two before it comes out, which is great both for those who eagerly anticipating it, and, because it’s free, for new players as well.
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Tried (and finished) the first game part of the demo: So far I’m loving the new visuals and (I’m assuming) new animations for the investigation sections; they do a lot to improve the presentation of those sections, to the point where I feel you could almost stick with them alone for conversations (at least for the investigation phases).
Speaking of, playing through this game’s investigation section had me wondering why the later main games (even the other spin-offs) didn’t adopt this approach going forward? It feels like a legitimate step up from the point and click approach they used up to (and after) this point and yet it never crossed over beyond these two games; makes me curious as to why that was (unless it was to save on time/money).

@martynstuff - That would make sense…..if they didn’t reveal that he “had no idea” there even was a pre-order bonus, and once he did, immediately switched to “we gotta buy it right now!”. Then it reads like “for those of you who were thinking of waiting to buy the game after it came out, here’s a ‘cool bonus’ you can get if you pre-order” (in other words, your usual pre-order pitch)
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This coming out two weeks after the pre-order bonus announcement trailer makes me wonder if they’re worried about slow/low uptake, or if it’s something they’re doing anyway? Not sure why they’d be worried personally (afterall, the bonus is only a small handful of tracks) but either way, as long as it doesn’t affect the chances of a new entry coming out, another trailer’s not something I’m too fussed about.

Once again, the JP art looks more like a poster than actual box art, which instantly disqualifies it for me. As for the other two, the Link in the EU one doesn’t really seem to mesh well with the rest of the image, which just leaves NA’s admittedly simple, but effective (and faithful) image.

@Yousef - …..You know that’s not the official cover…..right? (Also, the japanese cover of the remaster is effectively the same as the overseas version, with the only noticeable difference being the logo change)
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The European art would look decent…..if the art itself was professionally made. As it is, it looks more like a fan’s decent attempt at a copy than a piece of official artwork. The NA art isn’t that great either, which leaves Japan, and while I still don’t like the landscape style they use for their box art, it’s got some pretty good art, so it gets my vote this week.

Both are good, but the US cover doesn’t really seem to fit a series that uses Akira Toriyama artwork, whereas the JP cover straight up uses it. Therefore, the latter seems the more appropriate, and is what I’d pick if I were deciding on which to use.

I think for the most part, the terms are pretty clear and straightforward, the only caveat I have is the idea that, if the game still uses the same code, no matter what is done with the visuals, it’s still a remaster. Personally, I think if the visuals change too much, then the game becomes a soft-remake (as opposed to a full remake, which completely overhauls everything) because at that point, you’re not just upscaling the game to fit in somewhat with newer systems, you’re going beyond that to create something altogether different from the original. So, games like Metroid Prime Remastered, and GTA Trilogy Remastered, to me are more soft-remakes, as they change the visuals too much for them to be just remasters.
Also, if a game upscales the resolution and nothing else, that’s still a remaster, not a port.

@DestructoDisk - You can keep trying to argue your point, but it won’t change how inaccurate it is. Smash is a fighting game, because that is the core of the game. That’s it. Bomberman, on the other hand, is apparently a maze game, not a party game, because the core of the experience is navigating a maze using explosives (had to look it up mind, since I have very little first-hand experience with the series, but a quick wikipedia search tells me that’s at least how it started).

@DestructoDisk - No offense, but I think you wasted your time writing all that text: you could just said “ I think Smash is a platformer, not a fighting game” and it would have had the same effect. Because all that stuff you said? Ultimately it’s based off of flawed logic and thus reaches the wrong conclusion. If nothing else, you forget that in platformers, your goal is to reach the end of an obstacle course using your skills in the genre. That’s how Super Mario works, that’s how Mega Man works, that’s not how Smash works. Beat em’up doesn’t work either, as you also make your way through a level, beating up low and mid level goons on the way. Final Fight and Yakuza do this, Smash does not (outside of specific modes like SSE).
What you do do in Smash is simple: beat the other player in a fight. That fight may be 1-on-1, it might be a FFA, or a team match, it might have items, or stage hazards, or it might not. Either way, the fight is the core of the game, albeit with platforming elements as well, thus why most call it a platform-fighting game.
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As for the topic, not much to say as there aren’t too many surprises, outside of a couple of games missing the cut (like DB FighterZ). Didn’t expect 3rd Strike at first, till I was reminded that Evo includes a single retro game these days.
Still, I’m looking forward to seeing how the SF6 and T8 tourneys go; if they’re anything like SF6’s last year, they should be worth the wait.

I’m not sure I can pick a single definitive answer for best remake; that said, some of the remakes I played that I thought were pretty good were: Pokemon FireRed, HeartGold, and AlphaSapphire, Zelda Link’s Awakening and Ocarina of Time, Super Mario RPG, and Fire Emblem Echoes. All did a pretty good job bringing the original up to spec for the time they were released in, and in most cases also added new content as well.

As far as which one my favourite is though, the answer would probably be Pokemon HeartGold, as the original was one of my favourite games and the remake completely revitalized it, while also adding in a lot of cool content like the battle frontier that added even more longevity (to the point where I spent more time with the remake than the original).

@RupeeClock - Thanks for pointing that out, that changes the situation by quite a bit. In that case, yeah, it’s better to showcase the gameplay, since your customer is likely only looking for a quick 30 second ad to see if they’re interested.
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That said, since most comments here seem to be referring to presentational trailers, I’ll throw out my thoughts on those; to be honest, I don’t see the problem with them, for a few reasons:

• A lot of games, particularly those that are likely to opt/afford a pre-rendered trailer, are not solely gameplay focused. They have a story, which can be showcased just as well, if not better with a pre-rendered trailer.
• In most cases, they’re only used as an initial trailer, with a gameplay trailer following some time later.
• In a decent amount of cases, the trailer will still show gameplay mechanics or ideas, just not directly (i.e. raw game footage). For example, the Dragon Age Origins pre-rendered trailer featured a rather cool looking sequence of a squad of four characters from the game battling the game’s main enemies using their trademark styles of combat. It showcased what you’ll be doing in a way that also made for a cool video.
  Admittedly, most likely not every pre-rendered trailer fits these criteria, but the concept in general doesn’t seem that bad/useless to me, certainly not as much as some here have been saying.

I tend to only buy physical switch games if I’m genuinely interested in keeping them, which tends to make it difficult to justify trading them in at any point. That said, there are exceptions, such as if I’m trading it in for an iterative sequel (e.g. Splatoon 2 for Splatoon 3) or if there’s a particularly good trade deal for a game I’m really interested in getting day 1.

Just finished it; pretty solid overall, though I found three things that brought down the experience slightly:
1. Ubisoft login prompt - the prompt itself isn’t that big a deal, but the fact they made the opt out obscure to access or even see was a bit dodgy. Hopefully this gets fixed at some point.
2. Lack of save transfer - Admittedly, this is a short demo, and progression may be somewhat different in the full game, but not being able to pick up where you left off is a bit disappointing.
3. Lack of a boss fight - I’m not entirely sure how par for the course this is for demos, but the fact the demo ends just as a boss fight is about to start seems a bit lame.

That aside, the actual game seemed pretty good from what I played. Movement and combat feel like the highlights here, and I liked that we at least got to experience a decent range of platforming challenges. Animations were also nice, both for the player character, and the enemies, which helped make the combat feel all the more engaging. All in all, I’m looking forward to picking it up at some point, though with Tekken 8, Infinite Wealth and FFVII Rebirth also coming out by the end of next, month, that probably won’t be for a while.

Not sure why some are calling the NA/EU one terrible; mediocre/bland, sure, I can get that, but that’s a step or two above being actively bad, let alone terrible.
In any case, the Japan cover not showing Mario, in a Mario Golf game, disqualifies it for me, leaving the admittedly basic, but decent looking NA/EU cover to win by default.

@EarthboundBenjy - Personally, I reckon they could’ve kept the pokemon thing going and done pretty well; I might admittedly be a bit biased there, as I loved both Puzzle League and Challenge, but compared to what we have now, surely it’d be an improvement, no?
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Oh, and Japan easily wins this one, no contest.

I’m probably biased with this, but to me, Prime’s still looks the best, followed by Super, then Dread.

@Sinton - The idea, from what I can tell, is to free the idea from the hardware constraints it had to deal with originally. For example take Link’s Awakening. One simple, but significant change the remake did, was to remove the screen transitions(outside of dungeons anyway), so instead of moving from screen to screen, you simply moved around the area. It also made item management much easier by not having to deal with the Gameboy’s two face buttons.
Another example is that it, being a remake, renders the characters and environments much better than the original. Again using Link’s Awakening, the Gameboy original obviously had to make some compromises to get it to work on the system, and as a result, doesn’t look all that good when removed from its time. The remake, on the other hand, looks absolutely beautiful, and is not only more likely to stand the test of time, but hews closer to the original artwork.

Oh, and I just wanted to point out, in response to your comment about remakes preventing the original being relased, that there’s also precedence for the opposite being true: for example, I can access Super Mario 64, Zelda OoT, and Majora’s Mask on the Switch right now, but I can’t access their remakes. So it cuts both ways, from what I can tell.
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Personally, I’d say the only real option, outside of the one already available, is to remaster the 3DS remake. That game already does enough for the original, and with an up-res, would probably look pretty good on the Switch.

13/15 for me. Only ones I got wrong were the number of ocarina songs (since I was going off my memory of the song list in the game) and the enemy debut (since I have no idea on those things).

So far, I’ve only played: Paper Mario, Superstar Saga, M+R:KB, and Origami King, so I can’t really say with confidence which one I think is the best or my all-time favourite. Once I’ve played and finished RPG and TTYD, I might be able to, but for now, I can’t really differentiate between Paper Mario, Superstar Saga, or Origami King for either (Kingdom Battle probably goes in at the bottom for both tbh).

@AJWolfTill - …except for the fact that Wind Waker has an animated art style, and this is a Live-Action film.
Also, what stops Ocarina working as a single film? It’s not like it’s dependent on other games for context, nor does it have a lot of story or meaningful plot to adapt.
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Asking which should be adapted is obviously different from which one we think will be adapted: for the latter, most likely they’ll do what they did with the Mario movie, and make an original story that tries to hew towards “classic Zelda”. As for the former, I actually agree that classic Zelda is the best direct for the first movie (as your biggest audience is probably going to be people who haven’t played the games) and as a result, I’d go with the obvious candidate, Ocarina of Time.

As a side note, now I think about it, I can see why some were expecting an animated film, as quite a few games do sport an animated-esque art style. Regardless of whether this does well or not, I wouldn’t mind seeing an animated adaptation of one of those games (maybe WW?) in the future.

Given it’s an indie game (and yes, it is still that, being popular has nothing to do with whether you’re indie or not) there’s a good chance that this just never eventuates. I hope that’s not the case, but the fact that they went from a gameplay showcase to absolutely nothing for years is not a good sign.

Yeah, I can’t really see an upside to this. I can maybe understand one or two live-service games, but making it your entire business just seems tone-deaf, not to mention somewhat limiting.
Hopefully this is a line of thought that goes nowhere.

I think the biggest takeaway from this list is that the options for Metal Gear (especially Metal Gear Solid) games on Nintendo systems is somewhat lacking, though mainly due to Konami not putting enough resources into the recent re-releases. (Had they done so, you can bet all three games would be sitting at the top with user scores in the 9’s.) Take out those, and what’s left? A gameboy color game, a gamecube remake of mgs1, and a 3ds re-release of mgs3, plus the old Metal Gear games. With that in mind, is it a surprise that Twin Snakes is at the top of the list atm?

Got 19/25, probably could’ve been a bit higher, but I’m okay with what I got (especially since a couple were pretty tricky).

@BenoitRen - True, but the reason why the resolution is smaller is (more or less) because the screen is smaller, so it’s still technically accurate.
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For me, I’d probably go with the GBA version, though that may be due to me not having played any version enough to form a strong attachment to them. If I put some time into playing all three versions I could maybe form a better viewpoint, but for now, I’ll just assume the extra levels and addition of voice work make the GBA the definitive version.

@Ryu_Niiyama - Ah, sorry, my bad.

@Bratwurst35 - To be fair, sharing an opinion doesn’t mean they have to defend it, especially if we’re just talking about how someone felt about a video game ad. Sure, you can inquire further, but they absolutely have the right to not engage if they don’t want to. (Also, looking at the actual exchange, he did respond, but when it was clear the conversation wasn’t going anywhere he just shrugged his shoulders and moved on, which, again, is a perfectly fair thing to do)

@Ryu_Niiyama - To be fair, he is the villain, so it does track in that respect. Also, I imagine the people responsible see it more as Bowser being “unlucky in love” than a stalker (even though he pretty much is), so likely there’s a difference in interpretation there as well.

….Also, it’s a lot better than the Mario Movie.

US/EU one for me, though more because it isn’t absolutely cluttered like the JP one than for anything it does itself (though I guess it is unique).

I’m not sure if this point has been raised elsewhere in this sea of comments, but one thing I learned from my time with my 3DS, is that consoles, especially handheld consoles, die. They’ll get to the point where they can’t really function without constantly being plugged in (thus in effect turning them into weak consoles) and then eventually cease to function at all. So if you, like a lot of people have probably done this time around, have a large Switch library, and you aren’t able to carry it over via Backwards Compatibility, then that’s hundreds of dollars down the drain, and the loss of at least several titles that won’t be re-sold on the new system.
For this reason alone, backwards comptability should at least be seriously considered if not made a priority.

I’d back a push for an Investigations duology remake/remaster, and since they’ve done everything else, surely this is likely to happen sometime soon, no?
As for Yakuza/Like a Dragon, I’m pretty sure they can at least do 0 and Kiwami pretty easily if they wanted to, as well as 3/4/5. It’s only the Dragon engine(?) games that might be problematic.

As far as my wishlist goes, now that I’ve lost Paper Mario, other than a F-Zero GX remaster/GX successor, I don’t think there’s much. A Metroid Prime 2 pseudo-remake similar to the one we got this year would be nice. Maybe a collection of old Tekken games for Switch (Maybe 4/5/6?)
Going to pipe-dream territory, a remaster/remake of Eternal Darkness would also be good, as would a remaster of HeartGold/SoulSilver. Oh, and Metroid Prime 4 is probably around there somewhere. But given how unlikely any of that stuff is, I’m not how much they count.