Haywired

@Kainbrightside
Link's Awakening is 15 hours. I don't know how that's "incredibly short by today's standards" in terms of it being full-price, when it's longer than the vast majority of full-priced retail games Nintendo has published on the Switch so far. I mean, Yoshi's Crafted World just released at full-price and Link's Awakening is twice as long as that. It's longer than Mario Odyssey, Tropical Freeze, Bayonetta, Fire Emblem Warriors, NSMBUDX, etc, etc. In fact, speaking of A Link to the Past, it's the same length as that, and that retailed for more than full-price back in the day, if you take inflation into account. Obviously it's not some Xenoblade Chronicles 70 hour monster or something, but most games aren't (thankfully).

@Lowhangers
While my opinion isn't anywhere near as extreme as yours (I still think BOTW is a great game and gave it 9/10), I was a little bit miffed by all the ridiculously over-the-top "Best game of all time!" hype when I played it. When I think of all the things that make a great Zelda game: dungeons, bosses, items, story, music, characters, etc. I think BOTW falls short in many respects, so I find it odd how so many Zelda fans think it's now the undisputed best one (other than because it's the most recent one). As much as I hate to say it, I generally thought it was quite a bland, empty, soulless experience a lot of the time. When I look back on playing it, all that really comes to mind is just walking from one large empty field into another large empty field. I guess it gets across the idea of being alone in a vast (probably too vast) wilderness, but I'm not sure how fun or exciting that actually is. For me, it just didn't quite have the same magic as other Zelda games, though I do applaud them for trying something different.

@MoonKnight7
And if they're successful enough (NES, SNES, Wii) they've brought out revised versions of their home consoles too.

The Switch family of systems is obviously an inevitability (and a much more convenient and elegant solution than having separate home and handheld consoles/libraries/eshops/online systems, etc. at this point imo). However the "releasing both new versions (Mini/Pro) in the same year" rumour seems baffling to me. Most people aren't going to put down the money for two consoles in the same year, so why not spread them out to maximize the impact of both. Though to be fair, compared to the ridiculous amount of iterations the 3DS had, I suppose Nintendo have shown remarkable restraint (by their recent standards) by having the Switch on the market for two whole years without a new version.

@antdickens
I think it was a cool idea. User polls can often be absolutely awful, but doing it by User Score (ie. results that have accumulated over time, rather than just being an on-the-spot answer swayed by current trends and opinion) is pretty interesting. Plus, as a keen user of the site's User Score feature, it's nice to feel that one has contributed to it even just a little.

If nothing else, I suppose it's a more interesting list than if the staff had done it, where it probably would have just been the biggest, most obvious Nintendo releases in descending order (and probably with a Switch game at #1 somehow haha). I can't imagine it would have had the highest Super Mario, Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Pokemon games entering at #24, #38, #19 and #29 respectively.

A few games that I would have liked to have seen in there are: Super Street Fighter IV, Mighty Switch Force, Attack of the Friday Monsters, Inazuma Eleven 3.

"People have had an absolute field day on social media with this announcement." I feel deeply sorry for these people and how their lives have turned out if this is a field day for them. Just when you think console fanboy wars couldn't get any sadder, we're now trying to take credit for who came up with the idea of presenting things... Nintendo invented communication and everyone copied them! etc. I think people need to get a grip.

I love how this review tries to suggest that all the blowing into the microphone stuff wasn't also an absolute abomination on the DS... It bloody was!

"any game using the Zelda franchise and its characters will have had to go through Nintendo's highest tier quality checks, and should therefore turn out to be a cracking final product"

Sorry, I couldn't resist. In all seriousness, I have no interest in seeing any crossovers. I see crossovers as usually a sign of desperation/running out of ideas. A process in which I'm sure the word "leveraging" was used a lot. Plus, to me, it's all a bit messy and inelegant (are Raving Rabbids now part of the Mario universe? God, I hope not). However, an indie developer purely having a crack at a Nintendo franchise would be fine. I don't know who/what though. Maybe Star Fox, as that tends to get bandied about anyway.

This is the first time the Zelda IP has appeared in a non-Zelda game for at least a couple of weeks.

I normally hate it when people try and boast online about how they found a hard game really easy or whatever, but I'm surprised that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is labelled as "brutally tough". The same thing was said in NL's review of it. I really did not think this was a particularly hard game when I played it on Wii U. I'd say it has a pretty normal/well-balanced difficulty. If you want to say "tough" then OK, but "brutally tough" is a bit of an exaggeration that makes it sound like it's Dark Souls or something. I hope it doesn't put anyone off from buying it. If you're on the fence; it's a great game and is not "brutally tough".

Also, if Mega Man 11 is here, then I think Azure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Pack should be (ie. if they're counted as platformers rather than shooters). I'd definately put it ahead of VVVVVV.

They also forget (well they don't seem to have ever included it into the digital manual before) that the original NES Zelda came with a map that showed the location of the dungeons and the order of the first four, thus isn't actually as obscure and ambiguous as a lot of newcomers to the game now think.

Strange that this one never got a review.

He seems to think that invoking laughter is something a new console should do... Maybe that does explain the Wii U after all, haha.

@yuwarite
I think he was more referring to the EyeToy being a motion control device (ie. that Sony didn't necessarily rip-off the idea of motion controls when they were already doing them before the Wii), rather than just being a camera.

@Axelay71
When I first saw a screenshot of the fire boss from Axelay in the early 90s, it completely blew me away. Now You're Playing With Super Power!

And to be honest, it still does. Some of the best sprite graphics ever.

@Octane
I always found it really odd why Sony went with the Move, and thus inevitably invited such ridicule for ripping off the Wii Remote, when they had a motion control device already (even though, to your point, these things always go back way further and there was even a wand-like motion controller on the Atari called Le Stick in the 80s. Not to mention the dozens of other motion control devices throughout the years, despite it apparently being a Nintendo invention with the Wii...)

I mean, the PS2 EyeToy had motion controlled party, sports and fitness games on the market when the Wii was announced. If they'd just announced an EyeToy 2 for PS3 at E3 2006 (at which point we all knew about the Wii), they could have potentially embarrassed Nintendo, instead of themselves. I mean, most Nintendo fans accused Kinect of being a rip-off of the Wii, when it has far more in common with the EyeToy, so using their logic, surely that would make the Wii a rip-off of the EyeToy, as it's the same difference.

Kind of sad to see Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze so low, considering the original SNES Donkey Kong Country games were huge hits in Japan. I know it's a Wii U port, but so are Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros and they're smashing it.

Obviously, being a Japanese list, a shooter is inevitably at the top and an RPG is at the bottom...

God, imagine if Nintendo had made the Wikipad and then Sony made the Switch. All the drama and outrage...

I always found it a bit odd that it's supposedly the "ultimate" one (leading people like NintendoLife and others to blindly and inevitably declare it as the "best one ever!!!") when it's missing Smash staples like Trophies, Target Smash, Home Run Contest and Stage Builder. I guess that's the power of branding.

Better crowbar an unlockable Link costume into Dragon's Dogma fast then...

At first I thought you meant that the game in the UK released at £70 to £80! But oh, I see, that was the import price. I just had a look at an old GAME Christmas catalogue from 1998 (because I have that sort of thing lying around) and F-Zero X was £40 when it released. If you'd waited like three months, you could have had enough money left over for another game! To be fair, the Japanese box art is dope as heck, so, fair enough.

Pretty hideous (like whenever they try and make a cartoon character look realistic).

What is Capcom's issue with releasing Switch Resident Evil games physically in Europe?

I like how, since they ran out of colors for the titles, they're now just going with "things that tend to come in pairs" like X & Y, Sun & Moon, Sword & Shield. Pokemon Salt & Pepper is surely not too far off.

"It smells funny in there..."
"No it doesn't."

The main game of Zelda: Link's Awakening is around 15 hours (around the same length as A Link to the Past, which actually retailed for more than $60, if you take inflation into account). How is that a short game?

I'm assuming Yoshi's Crafted World will be $60 and will likely be around a 10 hour game. While I can understand it in certain extremes (a 2 hour eShop game probably shouldn't be $60 for example), generally the idea that a game's value should be determined by its length is stupid to me. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a 70 hour game and is $60. Mario Odyssey is a 12 hour game. Does that mean these people think that Mario Odyssey should only be worth $10?

I don't know who Derek R Rose or AmitaDrive are, but I'm guessing they're indicative of how whiny, ungrateful, demanding and entitled people are nowadays.

@michellelynn0976
There are more Mario games in the Top 10 than soccer games, so maybe the UK is more obsessed with Mario than soccer!

@Heavyarms55
Swap out FIFA for Madden and I'm not sure how this chart looks that much different from an American chart. Do popular franchises like Mario, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Resident Evil, Mario Kart, Red Dead Redemption, Metro, Kingdom Hearts, etc. tend not to get into the American Top 10? I don't see what's so strange or unusual about this chart that would suggest that something's being put in the water in the UK. To me it looks like a fairly standard Western chart.

@thesilverbrick
Funnily enough, at the exact time @SwitchForce was accusing of you of being a "troll" just for the fairly innocuous, uncontroversial opinion of not being that happy with a price increase, he commented on the BoxBoy article, saying that its amiibo was "overpriced"...

Finally Link's getting an amiibo!

Surprised they're bringing this out so soon after NSMBU DX to be honest. I would've thought they'd have given a normally evergreen title as that one a bit more time in the spotlight, instead of (potentially) cutting its legs off after half a year.

@DK-Fan
10 years since waggle? If only... Have you not played Mario Odyssey hehe?

I think, as you say, there's a discrepancy between the importance Metroid fans think the franchise has to Nintendo and the importance it actually has to Nintendo. It's never been a huge seller (anywhere, not just in Japan), which is understandable, Metroidvania-style gameplay will always be fairly niche, because it's a confusing and inaccessible style of gameplay to most people. However, with the Switch (and the hiatus) I could see it again reaching the popularity of its GameCube/GBA heyday and doing decent numbers again.

Released during the system's dying days.

Remake of a game that you can already play on the system.

Franchise already been milked to death on the system (Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Mario & Luigi Paper Jam, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and now Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story...)

All in all, not a huge recipe for success.

I'd just like amiibo to carry on long enough to fill some of those last few gaps in the collection of missing Nintendo characters.

If, when amiibo is all said and done, we have one for Dark Pit or Incineroar, but yet not one for: Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong, Pig Ganon, Impa, Toadette, Samurai Goroh, Slippy Toad, Peppy Hare, Jimmy T, etc, I'd be pretty miffed.

@JamesJose7
There are a certain amount of slots for new characters in a Smash game (unless they're planning on just adding characters infinitely) and those are the only characters that will be getting Smash amiibos (obviously), so I just think there are iconic Nintendo characters still missing from the amiibo line-up (for whom a Smash amiibo is probably their only chance now) and it would be a shame if they were never made (as we don't know how long amiibo will continue) over a (not especially interesting) character that now has three, imo. That's all.

@JackEatsSparrows
"That's not really how manufacturing works." The manufacturing of Smash amiibos is based on characters that feature in Smash, so I don't really follow.

Considering there are still iconic Nintendo characters who don't yet have an amiibo, the fact that Isabelle now has 3 different ones kind of just makes me wish someone else had gone in that character slot instead, but I guess there are a still a few more to be revealed, so we'll see...

The Wii used to get bashed a lot for its "poor attach rate", its audience's seeming refusal to buy "core games" and that for most people it was just a "Wii Sports machine".

But looking at this, I kind of feel like they were right. I mean, a lot of these core Nintendo franchises on Switch are outselling their Wii counterparts' lifetime sales already, on a system with (at the time of writing) just under 1/3rd the install base and just under 2 years on the market. Smash Ultimate has almost already outsold Brawl's lifetime sales in a month, Mario Odyssey has already outsold Mario Galaxy's lifetime sales, Breath of the Wild has already outsold Skyward Sword's lifetime sales (by like x3!)

Jesus Christ Wii...

One of the things I used to really like about the Wii Shop Channel was the ability to gift a Virtual Console/WiiWare game to someone on your friend list. Saved me so many Christmases!

Ugly. I'm not interested in the game, but as a collector/boxart enthusiast, it always hurts to see. Makes it look like one of those library/Blockbusters 'not for resale' versions. Though I'm surprised you don't like the PEGI symbol. I've always thought it was OK, certainly compared to the unfeasibly huge and intrusive German and Australian age rating symbols.

Resident Evil does indeed have a pretty rich history on Nintendo consoles, though I'm surprised among all the ones you talked about, you didn't mention, err... Resident Evil 2 on the N64!

Well it was on Wii U, so a Switch release was inevitable.

All the people begging for DLC, you realize this game already has the DLC, that's what the DX means... It already has more tracks/characters, etc. than any other Mario Kart ever. Why are you never satisfied with anything? Maybe they should save their ideas to make Mario Kart 9 as good as it can be.

If you like, you could spend your money on a new game instead.

Thank you to my fellow Brits for once again being able to suppress our deep culturally-embedded hatred of Nintendo and putting another Nintendo game at the top of the UK charts... In fact, look, 30% of the top 10 are Nintendo-published games. The government are going to have to step in at this rate. It's ruining our reputation of being the world's premier Nintendo-haters.

"we’re working on formulating new methods that convey its allure" suggests to me that they're trying to see how they can find ways to shift the existing kits. I'd be very surprised if there were any new kits now.

Labo was by no means a disaster, but I'd imagine if you told Nintendo before they spent all the time and resources researching, developing and marketing this whole new brand, that all kits combined would end up selling what they have, I doubt they would have bothered. I think they misjudged the Switch's appeal and audience, perhaps blinded by their "we're the kooky ones" philosophy.

Having said that, they definitely still have one sale from me to come, as I will get one for my collection. I always said I'd wait until they were bargain bin prices and it seems they've already come down considerably.

@diablo2
Yeah, when I saw the comparison to F-Zero I was about to pass over the article as there's already plenty of games like that about, but it doesn't really remind me of F-Zero at all, as, while it may be futuristic, it still seems to be very much set in the real world, which to me, makes it a lot more interesting than I first thought it would be.

@rjejr
Yeah I've never liked the term "online influencer" either. It somewhat implies that these people are corrupt (which they're probably not for the most part, but that's what it suggests) and that their fans are mindless sheep who can be easily manipulated into doing/buying whatever they tell them. It just makes it sound very fishy.

I love how Nintendo are marketing it; "For the first time, play 2D Mario in HD on the go!" I wonder if they'd like to be any more specific...