Gauchorino

Makes nights saving up good boy points seem a lot more tolerable!

Hold on a second, comment section! You should be outraged by this fellow, as the single article you cited "debunking" the saves deletion glitch stated that it happened on hacked consoles only.

The abandoned ring attack also in this build is somehow even more of an amazing discovery than this.

Sure is surprising to hear about yet another "coincidental" colossal mistake from this high quality masterpiece. So much blood, sweat, and tears, though!

@Damo "Review-bombing" is a contrived dysphemism, intended to slander opposition. Disagreeing strongly with another's conclusions isn't a proof of intent. If I were to baselessly claim several Zelda games got a 10/10 from a large amount of fans simply because those people want to heighten the perception of those games, my clearly biased claim would hardly be believable, and I would rightly be scorched for it, unless I provided strong reason for my hearers to believe otherwise (ie, more than just "they're mean and wrong, therefore they are malicious").

Again, why the double standard? Do you consider only the 0/10s to be bombings? Would you the same about 1s or 2s? What about the 3s? But overwhelming numbers of 8s, 9s, and 10/10s aren't unusually generous. That's normal, since I agree with those!

Please consider your journalistic integrity, sir. It is only fair to your readers, after all. We appreciate good and interesting writing (which skill I have lauded you for having, previously, and I think I'm keen to do so again), and we also appreciate consistency.

It looks like they're putting an unusual amount of effort into this one, based on the first trailer, so this sounds fine. Unfortunate for those who were expecting it sooner, of course, but at least it wasn't planned to be released before the end of this year, anyway.

• Making an educated guess that major games review sites might possibly be receiving special payment for a positive review of a divisive game (based on the inconsistent content of the review vs. the final score given to it) - Insane and hurtful to even suggest such a thing!
• REVIEW BOMBING! - Definitely and objectively happened (based on no clear evidence, but merely on confirmation bias)

@Damo, why the double standard? Your team has done this several times previously, as well: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/people_are_review-bombing_pokemon_lets_go_across_major_sites_amazon_japan_blocks_user_scores
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/metacritic_takes_action_against_disgruntled_gamers_who_review-bombed_astral_chain
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/metacritic_review-bombers_strike_again_with_fifa_20_on_switch

It's wrong to even suggest there might be some special monetary gain given to major sites writing flattering reviews for an extremely divisive game, but if a few nutters make a petition to A LITERAL (literal) ORANGE, we can safely conclude that SwSh are the greatest games of all time, not worthy of any sort of criticism that they have ever received, and a government-mandated purchase of every human being on Earth.

Checks out.

@johnvboy No, have fun with the games you like to play, including this one. Just pointing something out.

It's true: criticism of a legacy company is not allowed. Funny that celebrating GF's past successes and exceptionalism proves the very point of their current critics, despite the clearly opposite intention.

I'd rather have local multiplayer, like other versions of this same game have.

Why does the screen on the lower-left screenshot have Chinese characters on it? Surely very few North Koreans can read Hanja, since those were put to rest decades ago from the general NK education. The real question is, then: what Sino-sphere game is that?

@Savino Interesting. Thanks for the info.

The impact and criticism would probably be different if Sword and Shield were classified as "spin-offs," like the Let's Go series was. The fact that these two games are the completely new and unrelenting standard for the future of the main series is what concerns fans.

@Skulks You're disproving your own claim by saying that about your own country without receiving any sort of punitive repercussion from them for doing so. Good luck living in China (or in Hong Kong) and doing that.

@Santoria There's something called the "Yakuza" (ie, they have done a lot of subversive things against the Japanese government). Also, the relationship between Japan and China is more complicated than that, thanks to business dealings (including countless products being made from Chinese slave labour, including Japanese products).

@Savino Do a sizable amount of Chinese citizens buy dedicated consoles, though? Perhaps they do. I was under the impression that they didn't, but I might be misinformed about this. I thought the iQue systems were all basically failures (even the GBA and 3DS iQue), as well as the Xbox One despite being sold from Shanghai, but I haven't looked into that in a long time. Additionally, from anecdotal experience, most of the PRC nationals I have known either didn't like games when I asked them about them or seemed to be PC gamers.

Regardless, though you would normally be making an obviously good point, if the Switch doesn't end up selling in the PRC, that's definitely not where the money is, even with a huge population.

Oh please, Nintendo. Don't sell your souls to demagogues, just to fail (again) in a market that apparently doesn't buy dedicated game systems.

A declaration of the United Nations (World Health Organisation) proven to be partisan, politically-motivated fantasy? How strange.

Anyone know what "Ichidant-R" or "Tant-R" means?

@HappyMaskedGuy That study was in reference to a particular mobile game. This series was not taken into account by this study, making that study irrelevant regarding this series.

Hopefully their employees will get hired to work directly at Nintendo. It would be a great shame to see such talent disappear.

@kepsux This site proudly gave it a 9/10 at release, if that helps. That was long before it became popular to hate on it, when NintendoLife was a lot more independent of a website than it is now.

How tone deaf can he be? Then again, he's supposedly been guiding the series into its "buy just to get a high" state for well over a decade, so his brazen attitude on display here is nothing new.

Wow, random fan art! And for a game that's only very tangentially related to Nintendo! Another smashing and invigorating piece of journalism from KotakuLife!

Why is it considered "review-bombing" when most people who played a game (ie, not just critics but chiefly the people for by which the game is designed to be played and bought) are very unhappy with it? I get that you wrote this before your colleague's review was published, but it's unfortunate that you jumped to conclusions and sided with the people behind this game instead of with the consumers and (in this case) the critics, also.

@Wavey84 I looked the name up, and still can't figure out the context. Looks like his comments might have been deleted. Did I make an oopsie?

@huyi Yeah. It looks like they're only trying to cash in on the Lite's aesthetic, just because it's currently new. No one's going to buy this (and not return it, at least) if they have a Lite.

@TheDanslator Alright, guy. You're entitled to your opinion that Kotaku, Buzzfeed, and Polygon didn't get huge through clickbait (and huge corporate advertising partnerships) regardless of them warning you or not before you click, even though that's exactly how clickbait works.

Don't know why you're going on about the philosophy of art, though. I said that they write about politics despite marketing themselves as a gaming website. Do you refer to anything that you think is above criticism as "art?"

Looks nice, but seems highly impractical, especially since they don't seem to be marketing this with a console stand.

@TheDanslator Constantly writing about politics on a website that claims it is dedicated to videogames isn't what most "internet gaming rags" do, much less what every one of them does. That's called a "bait-and-switch" (hence, "clickbait"). Falsely equivocating the content of Polygon with the content of most other game websites (including this one, presumably, or, at least, formerly) is absurd and hints of defensiveness, not to even mention your rhetorical "laughter."

@Damo No problem.

Stop beginning explanatory sentences with "so," as if it were an exclamation. Also, stop citing tabloid websites such as Polygon. AtGames being complete rubbish and worthy of ridicule and negative exposure doesn't justify such poor writing habits.

Why is "Turok 1" missing its original title, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter?

Good. Slave labour is subhuman.

@Galenmereth The baiting articles have been prevalent here for about a year. Damien used to be the worst offender regarding this, but now he writes some of the best articles here, comparatively-speaking. The clickbait is mostly coming from two particular authors.

Not like they've had twenty years to brainstorm or anything.

lol ok. Not like a large percentage of your diehards are currently upset at you and bought a Switch or anything.

It sounds like you're blowing his comment out of proportion. He did not say "the Rare logo is actually a toilet roll." He said "I drew the toilet roll," which could mean that he thinks the old logo looks like one or because it has been referenced to look like one in certain games. Note that he said the new logo is "simply an R," despite the fact that it is the exact same design as the old one except without a blue background and a golden outline.

Anyway, hope you're enjoying my click. Seems like you're in desperate need of them.

This team has had so many problems, but it's great to hear that the game (in general) turned out great, and even better to hear that they're helping to fix problems for already-sold games. I praise them for this as a former backer, too.

For those questioning why Nintendo hasn't opened a store in every marketable location possible: it might be a quality issue. Some businesses don't try to open new franchise locations without being sure that they are managed and maintained according to a very high and desired standard. Opening stores in very select locations is how they can expand (slowly) without sacrificing quality for their consumers. NYC, Seoul, and Tel Aviv also have huge international appeal and tourism, so the high quality combined with a large and diverse audience (that will help to spread their experience among their own communities via word-of-mouth) is what Nintendo might be attempting to do with this. We could see more stores in rich, high-traffic cities eventually by this method (and still sell their products in other stores and online, like they still do now), or they could change direction and start putting stores in every major location, if they sense it is profitable (and respectable) to do so.

Another famous example of this "quality over quanity" franchising strategy is how McDonald's locations did not expand much at all outside of select cities in California and Midwest US until after the McDonald brothers stopped being involved with the restaurants.

As has been mentioned previously here, if you can't make a game that is still advertised as a successor to the previous games in the series, stop making them. The "balancing" argument might work if there was no precedent for this (mainline) series to have every single creature in each entry, which there is. That might be the only unifying element in the mainline series (as gimmicks are annoyingly added and taken away all the time ever since Gen 3's removal of the amazing PokéGear, and types and ways of battling are constantly radically changed or removed or later retconned to be considered "gimmicks": eg, Triple Battles and Z-Moves, and the definition of Physical vs. Special types/moves) and now it is taken away for the sake of exploitation and avarice of The Pokémon Company to sell another "instant success."

I say this with very great disappointment: it is long past time for the mainline Pokémon series to end (there are far better and less stale monster-training games, now, anyway, such as Yo-kai Watch and Dragon Quest Monster), and it is very nice that there is now a mass realisation of this. It didn't have to be this way. They could have innovated the series even while keeping the same feeling and elements of gameplay of the old titles (like the mainline Dragon Quest has long and exceptionally managed to do), but this is the path that The Pokémon Company wanted to take. Hopefully this possible failure will lead to them learning from their mistakes and making great things once again.

Actually brilliant. Software update when?

@geo-shifter I wasn't aware of these things. Thanks for this info.

@Xelha I think Microsoft is helping Sega do this since they are too incompetent (after all, Sega kept announcing an international release on and off for the past decade, and nothing, until now). Clearly they have to start small and then work their way up to more systems and business partnerships. If (effectively third-party company) Microsoft wasn't guiding them and keeping this structured, Sega would likely ruin this for all of us, unfortunately.

Only took SEGA a decade, even after all the continuously high international demand (countless people were restricted and banned off the Asian and Japanese servers) and loss of millions of (f-t-p) sales, but very cool. Hopefully there will be spinoff titles (perhaps similar to offline-heavy DS game Phantasy Star Zero, for example) after they discover how much their other markets pay and love this franchise.

"Don't expect a port"

Nothing that was said here denied the possibility of a port.

It will probably be a huge loss that will be subsidized by US taxpayers.

Pathetic that this website has finally stopped being dedicated to games and Nintendo culture, and has now decidedly turned into a manipulative, clickbait-quota, corporate billboard, a la Buzzfeed and Kotaku. It was one of the last ones to sell out to such a virus, too.

Is this really relevant enough to justify writing an article about it rather than a tweeting it out from your personal account?