KayFiOS

If I wasn't burnt out on the Era of the Wilds from playing the Switch 2 Editions of both botw and totk, I would have played this at launch. Kind of glad I didn't now, because this game's going to get a good amount of content before I finally decide to pull it out of the backlog.

I was hoping for a direct to remind us what's coming down the pipeline now that we have Metroid Prime 4 and Kirby Air Riders, but this isn't what I had in mind. I would like to see actual gameplay of Splatoon Raiders, and I believe there's also a Yoshi game that was announced that I somehow forgot about.

@8bit-Man You can talk about maturity all you want, but you're the one who's complaining about a character in a game ruining the immersion for you. That's the most immature prattle I've read all week, especially since it's just the same regurgitated slop trolls have been repeating ad nauseam since that first trailer with Mackenzie dropped. Everyone who's actually played the game that I've seen on here seems to unanimously agree that the criticisms of Myles McKenzie are blown way out of proportion, and you haven't even denied that you haven't played the game yet, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you're just a troll who likes saying the same jokes that you hear on the internet all the time, you haven't played this game, you cannot form your own thoughts, and you are a sad, immature child who hates seeing people enjoy things, so I am ignoring you now. Farewell, 8bit-Boy.

Hope this turns out to be true. Locking physical releases to two options, being pricey 64GB cards or a fake physical release, was such an asinine decision, and it led me to purchase a few cross-gen games on the older system out of spite, just because the Switch 2 Edition was only given a Game Key Card release, with no upgrade path for physical Switch 1 versions of the same game, such as Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D Remake or Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac. I don't doubt that both of those games could fit on a 32GB card, but I still don't understand why they couldn't offer an upgrade path when games like Sonic Racing Crossworlds, Shadow Labyrinth, or Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles do.

@Nanoline52 MANGO MUSSOLINI?! xD
I've never heard that one before, but I'm gonna start using that now xD

I wish I could say I remember a time when video games were affordable, but affordability is a democratic hoax, so I must be imagining things, clearly.

"All of this is supported by a stacked voice cast, featuring the likes of Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, The Batman's Jeffrey Wright, Cyberpunk 2077's Alanah Pearce, Critical Role's Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham and many, many more."
How do you not even mention The Hunger Games' Charles White?

@Sonicka That Skyward Sword comparison is amazingly appropriate, and I got a good chuckle out of that! I don't hate the bike itself, I just feel like it is barely warranted. But I absolutely LOVE how it controls. It feels better than the Master Cycle Zero, that's for sure!

@8bit-Man Who's ignoring the game's flaws? If you look at my above comments, you'll see that I criticize the game for having:

• An uninteresting hub area that only serves to justify the existence of the motorcycle, which it doesn't even do that.
• Intrusive pop-ups telling you where to go that actually DO break the immersion (which isn't Mackenzie's fault, they could have assigned that role to anyone, and it would have been just as annoying)
• A silent protagonist in a game with a bunch of people that talk to her, only for her to silently stare back at them and let her body language do the heavy lifting for the lack of spoken language.

I didn't even go into the amibo crap, because in my entire playthrough, I didn't think about the amiibo functions even once, I could not care less, but Nintendo is scummy for charging as much as they do for amiibo when all you get is an in-game radio and some gallery images. On top of that, I could go on and on about how this game really should have the ability to turn off hints like previous Metroid Prime games had. There are plenty of flaws in this game, but the characters are not among them.

And if you have a problem with me criticizing you for not playing the game and still going out of your way to complain about the thing that became a meme to complain about (which is a lot more immature than me calling you out on it), that's a you problem buddy. Play the game, then your criticisms may hold some actual weight.

Oh crap! I forgot about this!! I'm trying to avoid buying any more games in 2026, and focusing on my backlog, but this is going to be one of the exceptions, alongside Splatoon Raiders.

@cdubbed This is where I do think that the game has a problem with immersion, because I do like Mackenzie, but what I don't like is the game mechanic of having a navigator tell you where to go. Every time the navigator mechanic pops up, I am reminded that I have no way of turning off hints in this game. At that point, you reminded me that I am playing a game, and I am not being immersed in the world. And this isn't MacKenzie's fault, it could have been any trooper that you partner with, and it would have been just as annoying. Heck, it could have been a pop-up on the screen that doesn't make a noise, and that would have been more tolerable, but not being told what to do while I'm doing something else would have been much more preferable.

@FX29 I wouldn't go so far as to call her emotionless, because I think her body language does do a lot of heavy lifting for the lack of spoken language. I do hope that the Metroid series continues to sell decently well so Nintendo is incentivized to make more, and hopefully by doing so, they have more opportunities to experiment with Samus as a character, and see what fans want from her, because I guarantee they don't want a silent protagonist. We have Link for that, and even then, there are too many moments in the Era of the Wild where people want him to be able to say anything instead of just blankly staring at people.

@GoldenSunRM I agree. The desert was my least favorite part of the game, especially since I was hunting for all the green crystals. I spent more time on that motorcycle than I ever would have wanted, and it only paid off for two boss fights, but when they're over, you're back to driving through the desert on a Harley. I would have rather had a teleporter that travels between the areas, they would have felt just as connected as they do now.

@OldManHermit I'm just imagining you walking up to Higgins and saying "Remember me?" xD

@8bit-Man Based on this comment, I already know two things: that you haven't played the game, and you don't know what immersion even is.
Immersion is the feeling of being connected to the fictional world you are engaging with. Part of that is learning to care about the people in that world. This game accomplishes that pretty well I think. By the end of the game, I cared for each of the GF troopers that you partner up with, more than any other character (aside from Samus) in the entire Metroid series, even Mackenzie, because despite being socially awkward, he means well and does his best to help you, since your ultimate goal is to help him and the others get back home... But you wouldn't know any of that if all you've seen of him is that brief cutscene of him talking to himself in the jungle.

...Where is Link's Awakening? They should do a dual release of the GB version and the switch version of the soundtrack, like they did with Paper. Mario TTYD.
Either way, glad to have this here. Hopefully its sequel isn't too far behind either.

Looks like they finally learned to not put the sticks too far from the buttons, and to keep the right stick below the face buttons. I will definitely consider getting one of these if my Joy-Con 2 start drifting.

Okay, so this is clearly using the same engine from 11, yeah? Why the heck did it take them this long to make another Mega Man game? I figured that since they had a 2.5D engine, they could use it to make similar games on a regular basis, and we wouldn't have to worry about an 8-year hiatus ever again, but 8 years will have passed since 11 released by the time this comes out.
Whatever man, I'm just glad to have a new Mega Man game to look forward to. I get the feeling they're trying to break away from number titles, especially when a retrospective from a somewhat famous YouTuber called them out on it saying and I quote "Mega Man 12? What is this The Land Before Time?"

Mario had a whole movie to show how cool he was.
But now... It's Luigi Time!

I'm enjoying the game, but I really don't understand why they needed a massive hub area, since so far, my curiosity to investigate what I see on the horizon as Myles told me to do was rewarded with a wall telling me that I couldn't progress because I didn't have the thing I needed to get past the wall. Then Myles starts telling me to investigate the volcano specifically. I don't mind when a game is linear, but I do mind when it tries to pretend that it's non-linear. Why are you putting me in a big open area to explore, only to tell me that I'm only allowed to check out the southeast corner of the map?

Yeah we already know who's winning. I'll try to catch the show, but I doubt they're going to show much to keep things interesting amidst all the advertisements for Metaverse because Geoff Keighley and Mark Zuckerberg are giving each other under the table handj—shakes. Handshakes, yeah...

North America better get the Pikmin terrariums and the New Horizons Hawaiian shirts in the future. Alas, they do not have them now, and are missing a lot of the cool things on the European site.

My brothers played this back in the day, but I was never interested. Since then I became very much interested, and I'm finally ready to take the plunge.

I still haven't played a single Rayman game all the way to the end, so I think I might be playing this in the near future. I think Nintendo has consistently added games to Nintendo Classics every month, but with how many systems there are, whether or not it's a good update really depends on what gets added, and a bad update can make the wait for the next one all the more frustrating, especially if you're waiting for a certain game on a particular system to be added.
Side note, this is tagged under N46.

The only reason I'm considering getting this at all is because a lot of Labo VR compatibility is lost on Switch 2, and I think this VR headset should work for those games that support Labo VR, including of all things Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition. It's weird that the Switch 2 upgrade doesn't remove this feature that supposedly shouldn't work on Switch 2...

I'll believe it when I see it

Overpriced cardboard, or even more ridiculously overpriced plastic? Pick your poison!

Yoooo, I'm glad they kept missables to an absolute minimum this time! After scanning Carvex, its Vine, and Pollen Spore, and then returning to a room that seemingly did nothing to discover that it now offered the main body's scan data, I was giggling with delight at the thought that maybe they got rid of missables entirely, but no, still needed to scan the extra parts of it, but I still had to see what was missable in that case, so seeing that it's just restricted to a few sections of the game is very welcome news! I haven't done as many playthroughs of Metroid Prime 2 as I have the first one, but the same scan tripped me up on both GameCube and the Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii, and if the stars align and we finally get Metroid Prime 2: Echoes brought over to the switch at some point, it'll probably trip me up there too: that stupid Spider Guardian.

I'm glad that this game is still active enough for Nintendo to want to keep updating it, I just wish I enjoyed Mode7 F-ZERO as much as I enjoy F-ZERO X/GX/AX...

I was hyped when I saw the notification on my phone, and then I reread the notification and realized it didn't say Woolly World. I just want Nintendo to acknowledge that game, because they sure as heck aren't re-releasing it on Switch...

Maybe just sell individual licenses WB owns separately, because not one company should suddenly own DC, Looney Toons, and EVERYTHING ELSE under Warner Bros.!

I'm expecting Nintendo to take the best family game, since that's usually a gimme for them, but I would be surprised if they win any more awards beyond that. I don't feel like they brought their a-game this year, with Mario Kart World being a game that needs to be updated over time into hopefully something better than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Booster Course Pass, and Donkey Kong Bananza having its post game area locked behind a paywall. If it were up to me, Nintendo would win nothing this year at TGA, because they deserve nothing.

You know what, there were too many Wii U to Switch ports anyway; it's about time we got a Switch to Wii U-port!

Finally trying to rank up in Air Riders. I want to have a little chat with Sakurai about lobbies though. Top ride is supposed to be the fast mode, but I'm waiting for 10 minutes for one person to join, and yes, I have the game set to look anywhere, not just locally.

Switch 2? Oh, you must be talking about the Switch Pro that I've been using to play Switch games that struggled to keep a consistent frame rate on the OLED model. For real though, I got a lot of mileage out of this thing just by playing Switch 1 games, either because of Switch 2 Editions, or just from games that got a natural performance boost by being played on a system that can actually run it, like Another Code Recollection.

I wanted to point this out because I don't think you made an article on it, but there's another event underway now, and this one actually does away with the 2-hour time slots, so you can join at any time during the event. Thank goodness too, because that was annoying in Splatoon 3's challenges, and I thought they learned when they extended those time slots to 4 hours, but even then, the time slots were probably so that more people would be online at the same time, which is important in a game like Splatoon, where everyone has to be connected to each other, but this game replaces disconnected players with bots anyway, so it's not as important to have time slots for events.

I feel like the character select screen is already bloated enough. You think I want to PAY to add MORE?! Clean up the UI, then we'll talk.

Dyna Blade was the last field event that I was missing for the achievement that requires you to see them all, which would unlock the final Hydra part for the checklist to use that machine in free run, and then I also needed to bonk Dyna Blade on the head. I went 150 rounds in City Trial offline, whether I was playing with my brothers, or just doing quick solo rounds to try to get the event to appear, but it never did. But when I started playing the "Everyone, to the Stadium!" event online, she finally appeared in the second match.

I'm glad to know that this is a bug, but I feel like this happens way too frequently where I will fully complete a game, and then one of the parts that gave me the most trouble turns out to be a bug and gets patched after the fact. It just seems weird that a game that doesn't count any of the online achievements towards 100% wouldn't be tested to make sure 100% could be achieved offline, least of all when it took me 2 weeks on a 40-hour work schedule to get most of it done.

Anyway, still had a blast with this game, and I'm glad that I did play online eventually, because even if I'm not a big fan of playing with random people, it was more challenging than going up against a bunch of computer players

@LightSpirit ooh! What kind do you use? I've been thinking about saving for a TV with specs like that!

Holding off for the physical edition, so I really hope I'll be able to get the Werehog DLC.

I'm glad that they are reworking the intermissions, because I feel like those need to be as interesting as the track you're going to, since in most cases they take up ⅔ of a race. Here's hoping the updates start coming in more frequently, because it took this long for them to adjust intermissions attached to one course. I suppose the more tracks they adjust the intermissions for, the fewer intermissions there will be for other tracks as well.
Love that the music is going to be displayed on the pause screen. I hope that means that we're one step closer to having a radio/jukebox feature in the game. I would love the ability to choose what song plays in Free Roam.
I'm extremely glad that they made Kamek Orbs more easily accessible, although I do think this might have been an overcorrection. It was too hard to unlock all of the NPC characters as drivers, but now I feel like it might be too easy, and mind you, this is after the update that made UFOs spawn more frequently, giving you more opportunities to unlock characters. I'm not sure how good the UFO method was, since I unlocked everyone before that update happened, but anything must have been an improvement over the original method.
Overall, I'm satisfied with this update. Mario Kart World could become the No Man's Sky of kart racers, starting out as a hot mess, but being slowly updated into a game that is worth its price tag. Keep these updates coming, Nintendo!
EDIT: On second thought, I'm not quite done yet. I want to fire off some things that I hope will be implemented in future patches. The BIG addition that I would love to see is Classic Grand Prix, which has all the same cups from the base game Grand Prix, but there are no intermissions, and you race around each track the default number of laps it would normally have if you are just playing that course normally. Each cup in CGP would have its own trophy and ranking to earn.
The second addition that I would love to see return is 200cc. That is how I am used to playing MK8DX, so when I played 150cc in MKW, it just felt incredibly slow, and I just wanna go insanely fast and break around corners again.
And the last thing I hope they'll add is more battle maps. I really don't like seeing battle mode being such a low priority. Those are my three wishes for future updates.

@Wexter Nah, I could be generous and say that this game looks like a Wii game, since Battle Revolution is visually comparable to recent Pokémon games (and runs at 60 FPS, something that ScarVi and Z-A can't do on a regular Switch because they are just poorly optimized for the system they were developed for), but there is no way that it looks like a late gen PS3 game. And this excuse that the Switch can't produce visuals beyond a PS3/PS4 game kind of flies out the window when we're talking about a game that looks nowhere near as good as many other switch games that have come out, including Pokémon games that weren't developed by Game Freak. But subpar visuals in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if this game wasn't produced by a multi-billion dollar company that owns the most lucrative IP in existence. They are swimming in money Scrooge McDuck style, but can't wait to make more money sooner, which is why they try to pump out these games as fast as Activision pumps out Call of Duty games, and they're accepting money for the DLC now when it's not even out yet. They are so excited to make money with a mediocre product because they know that it is a mediocre product that they can sell for full price and people will still buy it anyway. That is how popular Pokémon is.
I'm sorry if you think my opinion of the Pokémon series is invalid just because you don't agree with it, hence why you're so quick to write it off as me hating something because it's popular, but I assure you I do care about the Pokémon series; despite its flaws, I enjoyed my time with Pokémon Violet, and I feel like a lot of its flaws could have been addressed if the game was given more time to cook, but that doesn't fall in line with The Pokémon Company's focus on quantity over quality, and it frustrates me to no end to see that Pokémon fans are just complicit with the state of the series as is. I'm someone who wants this series to be better than it is, and I think that more Pokémon fans should as well.

I'm sure it wasn't easy for them to keep developing content for a game that released in 2013, even with the Kickstarter money. I'm glad they're keeping things simple this time, with the Kickstarter campaign only being for crowdfunding purposes, and not to make a bunch of promises that they have to make good on 10 years from now. I would rather they release this game, then work on a new game after that.

@Metazoxan You know what, you're right. I'm not being fair to PS2 games. I've seen games on that system look a LOT better than Legends Z-A, like Kingdom Hearts 2, .hack//G.U., Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, any Final Fantasy... I really could go on and on, but I've given enough examples, and most of them have voice acting too, something that I'm sure a small Indie company like The Pokémon Company would never be able to afford.
And yeah, it's totally better that they ask for your money in advance before the DLC they announced before the game's launch is even out.

I'm going to be playing this on a TV that does not support 120hz, but it's pretty cool to have the option for handheld mode.

Looking forward to playing this one! It's a good thing this is the last major game that Nintendo has announced (that I'm interested in), because 2026 is going to be dedicated to my backlog, and I'm forbidding myself from purchasing new games.