Geonjaha

A useful checklist/tracker I put together for anyone playing the game: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1131AwW2OSxtbc6faitNFzdwxUWo_1zn8wUvI0pxQwb8/edit?usp=sharing

@YoshiF2 - It's amazing how defensive some people get like this about the idea that someone other than Nintendo is offering a better alternative; the mental gymnastics is always interesting to observe.

Luckily it doesn't really matter. Nintendo have failed on their Virtual Console front for over a decade now, and fans really looking for these libraries have largely realised there are much better alternative ways to play these old classics than what Nintendo provides.

Unironically looks like it would've been a better game than Super Circuit.

@Anti-Matter - I'm not saying this game is a rip-off, but you really must not understand the term if those are your counter arguments. Something is still a rip off when superfluous numerical details are changed. The core of what the game is; the gameplay, structure, art-style etc. is what's in question. Seriously; if someone took a Pokémon game and doubled the clock speed and added a few more mons, by your own standard it'd no longer be a rip-off, lol.

The new changes are great. They've really set a fantastic groundwork here, and I'm looking forward to what's to come. Save states are now also supported even on Everdrives, which is nice.

@KirbysAdventure - I remember that video. It highlights every possible flaw of the Pocket, exaggerating quite a few of them, and focuses entirely on perceived flaws, with very cherry picked comparisons. Some of the points there are important to know, but it's an extremely biased review of the console. Seriously, it's kind of funny hearing him try and tally up every little nitpick they could find about the console in quick succession.

It's a video that very clearly exists as a reflexive response against the massive praise the console has been getting; the guy makes that clear in the comments. As such, it serves one purpose well; to validate the opinions of those who have already decided they don't want one.

Don't get me wrong, the Pocket is not for everyone. It's for playing GB/GBC/GBA/GG games with a premium handheld device. If you're not interested in that, it's not worth buying the console as it is now. With that said, as someone that owns several modded Game Boys, it is by far my favourite way to play games from any of those consoles. For anyone reading that is interested, look at almost any other video on the Pocket and you'll find some nuance.

@abdias - I have no trouble pressing the L/R buttons when there's a game in the slot, but if so the L/R buttons can be remapped to some of those 4 front face buttons you mentioned.

Many Game Boy enthusiasts (especially those interested in a high end product like the Pocket) already own flash carts, which basically achieves the same function as being able to load roms, having all your games in one place.

@BrazillianCara - Because it'd be embarrassing for Nintendo to mess up NES/SNES emulation. Nintendo's emulation offerings have always been lazy though, even going back to the Virtual Console. You'll never get nearly as many features or options as on any free community emulator either. Why does it irk you that Nintendo is held to a higher standard, especially when they're charging for it?

WATA are a scam company set up to profit off the massive inflation of the used game market by nefarious means. Their founders latched onto the scene due to their familiarity with other (non-gaming related) collecting bubbles that they could create and exploit. They don't care about video game preservation; they care about marketing themselves and concealing their dishonesty.

Thank god. Pandering to those clamoring for shared universes and timelines in any given instance is just unnecessary. Looking at you, Zelda.

The Farming Sim genre (by which I mean Harvest Moon & Rune Factory) had decades to perfect themselves, and instead always took a step forward and one back. Now that Stardew Valley has released, none of these comparatively seem worth it.

I'd love to see another game step up to the plate, but so far nothing has gotten close to reaching that bar.

Been watching this one for a while, and the demo was very promising. The sprite work is gorgeous.

A couple of design points they carried over from Pokémon will unfortunately bring it down a bit imo, but they also fixed a lot of design problems that have followed its inspiration for too long, and overall it looks great; more tempting than any recent Pokémon release. Will definitely be picking this one up on PC.

Open world means very little when the primary objective becomes a ubiquitous filler accomplishment like in Mario Odyssey, so that alone isn't a deal breaker.

As part of the overpriced online you now get the chance to work to unlock coins to unlock parts of preset profile pictures. Most services just let you choose anything for your profile picture.

The 3DS had folders, and customisable themes for your home screen with custom music and artwork. This is just more of a reminder how far backwards Nintendo has gone with how much effort they're willing to put in.

I'm happy we've progressed to the point where my official Nintendo consoles have been surpassed by new third party consoles. With both the Analogue Pocket and Steam Deck, my Switch is obsolete. It's great that we now have so many more options.

If it makes anyone feel better, many of the pre-order listings have been reported to Analogue (as they forgot to hide all their order info), and they've responded on Twitter to say they've cancelled them.

Analogue stated on their site that they're on the looking for anyone selling their pre-order, or ordering with bots, and that if they confirm either of those things they'll cancel the order or move them to the end of the queue.

Good. Looks like it'd be perfect for PC.

It's almost depressing that Pokémon-like is ever used as a genre term, considering several Monster Tamers were around before Pokémon first released. It's a step up from people calling other games 'Pokemon clones' though, so at least there's that.

You made this post to rile up Nintendo fanboys, so props at least for that working. New unironic reasons people convince themselves the Switch is better now include "I'm more likely to pick up girls with it". You can't make this stuff up.

Enjoy what you want, buy which you prefer, but don't try and justify your unquestioning devotion to a certain company when a competitor releases something that might be better, it's just sad.

Yikes. So many people who seemingly know very little about PC gaming, and are making up the most laughable reasoning as to why this will be inferior to the Switch. Look, I get it, this is a Nintendo fan site, but some of you just look absolutely ridiculous with your justifications here. You don't need to want to buy this, and it shouldn't upset you that other people do.

@RadioHedgeFund - "Your steam library is not built for portable play." Speak for yourself. There are plenty of games on Steam that work great portable. Plenty of them got ported to the Switch for that very reason. Now people can play those games portably without having to buy them all again. I think you're just being very short sighted in what games you're considering.

I recently started replaying a lot of GBC games, and the Harry Potter games were among them. I have to ask if you've replayed it recently though, and if you've played the sequel, because the first is a severely flawed game; almost like an unfinished template for its sequel. It's full of ideas that sound great in theory, but in practice are implemented terribly.

• There's a potion making system, but collecting ingredients is a chore, and enemies always drop completed potions and never raw ingredients, making it never worth doing.
• Combat looks nice, but it's very slow, both the animation times and the spaces between attacks. Difficulty spikes are common and you have to guess which of your 4 attacks does damage, and if you guess incorrectly the attack does almost nothing.
• Card combos are another neat idea, except the game doesn't tell you what each one does, even when you cast them, you have limited cards so you'd only want to waste them on bosses, and even then, some of them cause the game to crash.
• There are 5 equipment slots, which is great, except you can only buy equipment at 2 specific points during the game, and the second time they're so overpriced that you'd never be able to afford >1 in a first playthrough.
• The final boss is so far ahead of you level-wise that it requires you to die and grind over and over several times at least.
• Also there's no penalty for death, so healing items are only worth using if you're far from your spawn point.

The second Harry Potter game for GBC actually fixed many of these issues with the first one, and is definitely worth a play if you haven't tried it before. Really nice music and art as well (which is true to some degree in the first too). I think it was actually the last GBC title ever released iirc, and it shows, because it pushes the system to its limits in many ways.

@Snatcher - All Animal Crossing games are mechanically shallow and get boring eventually, but this one kept me playing for longer than NL, and overall I think it's the best one so far, so I'd suggest picking it up if you invested that much time in the previous entry.

I gave up on Nintendo and their continual lackluster attempts at a Virtual Console a while ago, but now that I have a modded GBA (seriously, an original model GBA with an iPS v2 screen and maybe a rechargeable battery is all you'll ever need), I don't think I'll be looking back. It's a shame, but they've also had over a decade to get it right. I'd recommend this route instead for anyone still looking for a retro Gameboy fix.

Steamworld games are usually quite good, and the presentation/shared world aspect is really nice and quite unique. Looking forward to what they put out.

Well made pixel art against mediocre 3D models with a chibi style. Yikes, you'd have hoped 14 years would be enough to make the art undoubtedly better.

But hey, if you think the art looks good, more power to you. There's no need to be offended just because other people don't like what you like.

@Zach777 - Or, and hear me out here, the standard of the games they're making are just lower. More discerning and critical consumers is not a downside, unless you're personally offended by people not liking things you like, there's nothing to be complaining about here.

@Zach777 - Consumers spend their money on products. If they don't feel like the product is worth their money or is worth criticizing, that's not entitlement, it's being discerning and having an opinion.

@broskiplays - Ungrateful? Lol, it's a product. They're the ones asking for the money, they're the ones that have to impress. Having standards is not toxic or the same as being ungrateful, no matter how much it disappoints you.

Most popular isn't the same as 'Best', guys.

The ill-advised hype for No Man's Sky pre-launch has now turned into ill-advised praise for being such an underdog comeback story. They've received some proper marketing to try and cover up all their blatant lies and issues as of late. Just be wary when people tout that the game is 'good now'. It's not, it's still fundamentally broken in the ways it was before, it's just got more polish.

@PosterBoy - There's no need for the whataboutism. Google or Facebook acquiring them would be equally as saddening.

@Snakesglowcaps - Strange to see such a shilling comment get so many likes, but I suppose it's par for the course on a Nintendo fan site.

Criticism of products should not be halted because of anything going on in the world. Nintendo are a company; they don't care about you, they care about profit. Were this collection free then you'd have a point, but they're charging full retail price for this release, and any smart consumer should realize that you can criticize something you paid good money for; especially when it's done as lazily as this.

If you still think this product is worth the price then good for you, but don't try and belittle others for daring to question the laziness of the big corporation.

Anyone who thinks £9 is reasonable for 20+ year old game ports with numerous features omitted really needs to explore a bit more.

You know what currently costs that much? Skyrim - and that's when it isn't on sale, a concept lost on the Virtual Console as well.

It should go without saying, but play this game on PC if you can. It's a great experience, especially with friends.

Wow. Blizzard will do anything to get the eSports scene for Heroes of the Storm going.

Still my favourite Metroid game out of the ones I've tried.

"And I think…we kind of annoyed some core gamers, let's just be clear about that"

I mean, maybe you annoyed some people who bought it expecting a good game? Don't see why it's anything to be proud of though. No offense meant, but it wasn't received particularly well because it just wasn't as good as previous games.

Minecraft and Terraria are both exceptional games, there's no reason for any petty rivalry.

@Megumi - They're very different games, you should buy both.

Dear god. Remember when Harvest Moon didn't used to look like a cheap Facebook game? To anyone who plays on PC and is looking for a decent Harvest Moon-style game, Stardew Valley is looking pretty great, and exactly what Harvest Moon should be today.

I really enjoyed this game when I first got it. Unfortunately my love for the series started and died with this one game, because I got bored with New Leaf so quickly - it's just exactly the same stuff over and over again. Not to mention the island of infinite bell generation...

@ricklongo - It's a prototype, not a finished product.

@TDA - How does it leaking affect you negatively? Just don't look at them.

I'm going to avoid going on a rant and just say that if you own a PC, I'd strongly recommend buying it there instead.

If not, then definitely pick this up for your Wii U. It's an amazing game and you'll probably have a blast with it.

Is NX actually confirmed as the name though? I assumed it was just a placeholder. Nintendo Cross, as in home console/handheld link or crossover. Just a guess though.

Geez what a scam. I'm really glad Nintendo decided to adopt the F2P model! /s

@vincentgoodwin - I agree, but with series like this that stay very consistent between the games, I think its more important to say how it compares, otherwise this site will just have several reviews all stating what Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is about, instead of the differences between what each is offering.

These kind of games really need to be compared with other games in the series. How does every aspect of it compare to Explorers of Sky, the best in the series? Is it more tedious than that one, or is this the first in the series that the reviewer has played?

@LztheQuack - No, they should try not to be outdone by freelance groups of fans. Lazy HD remasters make money, but fan projects can often show how little effort companies are willing to invest in them. No need to get testy.

@LztheQuack - Yes.
@MrRight - Here you can see prime example of this phenomenon, resorting to some very strange straw-manning.