Haywired

The Switch has a good concept. The Wii U Gamepad was a solution desperately looking for a problem.

Yeah the Switch doesn't need a revision so early in its lifetime in the same way that the DS and 3DS did (though I'm sure they'll be a smaller, more portable version of the Switch at some point).

The driving sales with accessories part doesn't sound so promising, but oh well.

I'm surprised there are some people who think that because this game is "only" 30 hours (...?) it doesn't justify the price. Firstly, as if length is what determines a game's value... and secondly, it's a throwback to the classic RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, Dragon Quest V, etc.) all of which were like 25-30 hours long. A good length for an RPG. Not every RPG has to be some ridiculously long Xenoblade/Persona-esque slog (thank God...)

Now we just need Nintendo to patch motion controls out of Mario Odyssey.

Played the game absolutely fine without motion controls (and I'm not particularly good at shooters), but aiming is the one area where motion controls can actually be good, so fine as an option I guess. I would probably still stick with sticks though as I find it more convenient/comfortable in handheld mode.

See, third-party developers can be successful on Nintendo consoles. They just have to err... put Nintendo characters into their games...

The original DS game never came to Europe. I'm pumped for this now after the review and all the other good things I've heard.

@spizzamarozzi
Yeah and also there's more games than on the Wii at this stage because WiiWare didn't even arrive until later on in its lifespan.

How much more content do games really need? Things like Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles already take ages to complete (to their detriment some might say). It all becomes a bit overwhelming/messy with DLC on top. I have bought DLC, but only because of FOMO... I guess that's how they get you...

My top WiiWare game would be: ArtStyle Cubello

@keihtg
Dayum!

@Menchi187
I agree with you that the series was really made on the PSP (still the biggest selling ones I believe, though World may top them), but considering how popular the Switch is in Japan (and is basically now THE handheld), I think a big new Monster Hunter game (MH5?) will definitely be coming to the Switch sooner or later.

Haven't used it in ages, but still sad because I always thought Miitomi was actually quite neat and had a lot of potential. It's just a shame I didn't really know anyone else who had it, which made it kind of redundant.

These videos seem to be: anyone who doesn't fall in line, who doesn't think that everything Nintendo does is "the bestest thing in the whole wide world" will be made an example of. The response to Labo seems to be general positive, so this just comes across as a bit smug.

I remember when Michael Pachter predicted that the Wii U would only sell between 30 and 50 million units:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/03/pachter_wii_u_will_sell_between_30_to_50_million_units_during_its_lifetime

Some of the comments are brilliant...

But seriously though, 30-50 million units for the Wii U? And people say Pachter isn't favorable towards Nintendo...

Are you joking?

It's funny because when amiibo was first announced, some of us were a little confused as to why NintendoLife was using words like "Nintendo's innovation/leftfield-ness, etc" when they were obviously a blatant rip-off of Skylanders (I guess there's only an uproar when it's the other way round...)

I joked that this was probably phase 1 of the operation, with phase 2 being the eventual wiping from history of the original product, so it can go down as Nintendo's innovation and anything that comes after will now be copying them instead (which is what happens with most of the innovations that people wrongly think Nintendo did first). I guess now it has happened after all, ha!

@thesilverbrick
I agree. I reckon it will sell well at the start, with the hype, but I think it has 'short-lived fad' written all over it (literally, if you've got a pen!) Not that that's a criticism. I just think that's the likely outcome for something like this.

Well, I think it runs the risk of muddying the Switch's clean and clear concept/message so early on in its lifespan (going from "it's a handheld/home console hybrid" to "it's a handheld/home console hybrid and all that weird cardboard sh*t"). Runs the risk of reinforcing the "Nintendo = kiddy console" stereotype (which the Switch has so far done a decent job of shedding). Plus I got distinct Wii Music vibes from the whole thing, but still, I guess it's pretty intriguing.

@Harmonie
Indeed, this might be a nice way to channel all their gimmickyness into this and leave the core system relatively unscathed.

Labo's big game will be Cardboard Mario, a harder version of Paper Mario.

"Hey Mom, what did you do with that pile of cardboard on the floor?"
"Oh I threw it in the trash. Why?"
"It had four Joy-Cons in there!!!!!!"

Did they have a lot of leftover cardboard from all the unsold Wii U boxes or something...?

"A new way to play." If the last 10 years of Nintendo has taught me anything, I'm now extremely worried...

Not strictly a home console game though.

I guess the new narrative will have to be "well Japan does love shooters".

Nice. Already have it, but Tropical Freeze was a great platformer, it deserves a bigger audience.

"Wii U's lack of... any kind of head-turning innovation" Well, at least NintendoLife writers can be honest about that now, rather than at the time, when they were pretending that having a map on a second screen was somehow the greatest innovation of all time...

And while yes, Nintendo "goes its own way", "marches to the beat of its own drum" and all the other clichés, to be fair, it's usually because they've screwed up so bad that they've given themselves no choice but to do that.

0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 terabytes of which was actually worth saving. Seriously though, I'm not really sure what the point of archiving this "content" is. Will historians of the future need it to figure out whether "Nintendo rocks" or that "Mario is fun"? Some things are deleted for a reason.

Very disappointed with this sequel. Mighty Switch Force was my favourite eShop game, but while this was good for the most part, the later levels are too frustrating due to them adding a third colour to the lock block puzzles, thus taking them from tricky but fun, to absolutely infuriating... I got completely stuck on a lock block puzzle on level 18. Tried seemingly every combination of the three colours (plus the regular blocks on top of that...) but to no avail. So annoying.

@samuelvictor
It bugged me as a kid and still bugs me today... At least afterwards, in the Gamecube generation, our "Only For" symbol was slightly nicer looking than the 3d bevelled American one. Not really much consolation though...

@samuelvictor
What's even more annoying was it was only first-party games that had the ugly black border. Third-party games just had a single black bar down the side, which was much nicer looking, but completely inconsistent (I never got why they were different). Plus by the end of the gen they'd go for full-bleed covers as well. What a mess...

I think this guy spends his days at the Ubisoft offices wistfully staring out of the window, wishing he was at Nintendo instead...

I think it looks good. The retro 8-bit look has kind of been done to death now. It's not really very appealing imo.

Relieved to see a positive score. I've been excited about this one for years. I want a physical boxed version though.

Yeah that's the problem with NES games; not hard enough already...!

At least with the motorbike we now know for sure where Breath of the Wild fits in to the Zelda timeline. It's set in 1968.

Legend of Zelda: Born to Be Wild

@Agramonte
I find it slightly odd that Nintendo still cares so much about them. I mean, unlike the Wii era, they no longer have any vested interest in pushing them, so I guess perhaps they think they invented motion controls with the Wii? Which obviously isn't the case as there have been tons of motion control devices before the Wii...

etc.

I guess they just want to show that the Switch can do everything early on.

@ThanosReXXX
Well, my Wii collection is about 35 games, mostly the cream of the console's library, no shovelware, and (shooter aiming aside) I didn't really enjoy any of the games' motion controls. I almost always found them clunky and irritating. Plus, I never really got the whole immersion thing, because I would say immersion comes from creating a believable game world that you can get sucked into. I'd say the most immersive game I've ever played was Metroid Prime on Gamecube, because it created such a believable world that I look back on as if I was actually there, like it was an adventure I actually went on. I didn't find Metroid Prime 3 any more immersive because it had motion controls. In fact, if anything it was less immersive because of bits like having to open doors by holding your arm out in front of you and doing a turning motion, which completely takes you out of the game world and makes you very much aware that you're just flailing a controller around in your living room, thus immersion-breaking. For me, good controls are ones you should never even notice. I mean, I haven't heard many complaints that Breath of the Wild is totally unimmersive because it doesn't have the full-on miming motion controls of Skyward Sword.

So yeah, while IR aiming is most definitely fine, I generally don't like motion controls. For me, they just can't beat the simple, elegant tactility of buttons. I just like to kick back, relax and play video games. I don't need to shake the controller or mime out the on-screen actions like it's charades. As Itagaki once said (when criticizing motion controls); "The reason video games are fun is because you get a big output from a small input."

"I'll say right now that I've ignored the motion reloading that supposedly uses the IR sensor in the right Joy-Con - it's fiddly, and frankly it's easier to hit Y." And that's kind of in a nutshell why so many people shun motion controls and prefer buttons.

Aiming was the Wii Remote's one saving grace, I will give it that. Everything else to do with motion control though; Urghh... Clunky, annoying, jarring, tiresome, unresponsive, unreliable, inelegant. I mean, that first screenshot in the article is enough to bring back nightmares (and not in the way the game intended).

It sounds like some of you want to go back to 2012/13 Mario overload. One of the reasons Odyssey had so much more hype around it was that they showed a bit of restraint and waited a few years. It seems a bit soon to be talking about sequels already.

"and fixes motion controls" As if that's even possible...

As a UK Nintendo fan, the days of cheesy aspirational lifestyle Wii commercials/Jedward, etc. are still very raw, so to be honest, anything now is tolerable in comparison...

@Yorumi
It hasn't really sold that well though. 1.5 million is decent obviously, but considering it was one of their flagship launch titles (alongside BOTW which has kind of trounced it with 5 million) that they put a huge marketing push behind (and opened their Switch conference with), they must be pretty disappointed that it didn't have a much bigger impact (as they clearly wanted it to be a viral Wii Sports-style phenomenon), but then again, turns out the Switch didn't really need one anyway, so maybe they're not that upset.

I saw this come up on my subscription feed earlier. Tellingly they've disabled comments.

@invictus4000
Let's not lose our heads though!

Solid review. I'll pick this up eventually, but not for a little while, as I only got round to playing the original game (N3DS version) earlier this year and it took too much out of me (both from its sometimes baffling complexity and extreme length) to dive straight back in so soon.

If nothing else, this game now has my favorite boxart of all time, so that's something.

I wish they would make it so you can choose your weapon in Salmon Run (even if it's from the limited selection). It's hard taking on a thousand insane bosses at once with weapons I'm useless with!

It would also be nice to not lose rank when someone dropped out. It's difficult enough to win with all four people...

I thought this was going to be about a sequel to worst Gamecube game ever Universal Studios...