Kestrel

When I first saw the video pop up, I thought it was Age of Imprisonment DLC, and when I found out it was just an Amiibo, I was relieved.

I don’t think I fully realized until that moment just how little I cared for the third Zelda musou.

7 years is not, by any stretch of imagination, a “long lifespan” for a console. If anything, it’s the standard, most typical length.

A long lifespan would be more like the PS2’s decade (though that generation didn’t technically end until 2014, so you could say the PS2 lifespan was more like 14 years).

I guess this means they didn’t have any other games to use a typical Direct instead? Yeesh.

Anyway, I can’t say I’m too excited to play Starfox 64 again, but maybe if it’s priced well it’ll be worth picking up. But I can definitely see Nintendo charging $70 for this.

And I mirror the frustration so many of y’all feel for a “new” Starfox game that’s anything but new. I’ve always thought making Starfox more of an arcade-style flight game Ala Ace Combat would be the series’ best destiny, yet for whatever reason Nintendo only ever seems interested in making the most minor of iterations on Starfox 64. Oh well.

Galaxy 2 has storybook sequences? I thought that was only the first game?

And I picked up the Switch version just last week and have been playing through it… haven’t seen any storybook stuff so far.

Everyone plays Zelda games for the story, the problem here is that too many people think “story” just means plot or worldbuilding/lore.

The big narrative appeal of the Zelda games is and has always been the setting. When you lose yourself exploring Hyrule, or get excited discovering a new, really weird NPC to talk to, or are are mesmerized by the intricate layout of a dungeon… you’re engaging with the narrative.

No one — or at least very few people — are playing these games because they find the combat or puzzles, in isolation so compelling. Remove the narrative aspects from the series, and none of these games would be remembered today.

WiiU is probably my favorite Nintendo hardware after the 3DS. Everything about it was lovely. Shame the UI was so janky and the software support so poor. But even with those issues, I think back on it fondly.

I can’t say I care too much for an OoT remake, but if it leads to a remake of Majora’s Mask, I’m all for it.

I’m not super far into Requiem, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Though the opening is rather weak — I get that they wanted Grace to be a more fearful character, but they basically made that her default state. When she’s at the verge of having a panic attack before she’s ever even seen a zombie, it lessens the impact of her fear of those zombies when they arrive, because there’s no real change in her behavior.

I misread the headline and for a single, fleetingly beautiful moment was very excited to read about Pokemon developers discussing Dragon Quest 5.

You know, when people insist this mobile RPG is “one of the good ones,” I usually don’t have any choice but to accept that, as I don’t play all that many mobile games. But if, in the same conversation, folks are gonna cite something I have played, like Dragalia Lost, as another “one of the good ones,” I begin to suspect these “good ones” do not exist.

Release date just leaked. Unfortunately it looks like it’ll be coming out on the same day as the Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD Collection: 01. April 2026.

Very exciting news for those players who — like the people who made this game — have no real interest in, or familiarity with, science fiction.

Honestly, I thought the Switch 2 “honeymoon period” would last at least a full year before we started seeing big games with garbage optimization.

But don’t worry, I’m sure the next next generation console will magically convince everyone to do a proper optimization pass on their game(s) before trying to sell them.

Berseria is a fantastic game if you like chuuni stuff. Just completely bonkers. Great fun.

But all the same… isn’t Berseria already playable on everything but the Switch? Whereas Xillia 2 hasn’t been playable since the PS3 days, and fan-favorite Tales of the Abyss since the PS2 days (or via the 3DS port, if you were smart enough to buy it when it released).

Nevermind Tales of Destiny, which has been MIA since the PS1 days, or the Destiny remake for the PS2, which was never officially licensed in English.

I don’t really need a second racing game for my Switch 2 that’ll just make me wish I was playing MK8 instead. Already got that covered.

It’s a solid 7 for me. Not really a big fan of the world map, or those too-tiny “challenge” missions, and the lack of familiar characters in the roster doesn’t help things. But at least Zelda has a decent movesets this time.

It does look nice, but given how minimal the additions to DQ3 were, I’m gonna assume all of this new content added to DQ1 and DQ2 will only add an extra 1-2 hours to the total playtime, at most.

It’s really just Bananza.

@PKDuckman They made a game with a trans NPC like 10 years ago, and the usual suspects are still upset about it.

Well, so much for seeing any new Nintendo games this month.

Still, lots of things we can get our hopes up for. BG3 would be one helluva bombshell, though I certainly wouldn’t be able to stop myself from cheering at an Ace Combat or Armored Core reveal… speaking of which, the time is certainly ripe (or overripe) for a Dragon Quest XI teaser. And who’s to say we can’t dream of seeing a new Suikoden announced, even if only a remaster? Or a new Gihren’s Greed finally bringing that series out of Japan, only a few decades too late? Or, I dunno, a Steambot Chronicles remake.

And before anyone says anything contrarian: it’s a Nintendo Direct. He whole point is to get our hopes massively overinflated so we can be dreadfully disappointed with the reality.

So much false equivalence and apologia in these comments. Good grief, people.

Of course they're "just friends." Peach dumped his ass in Odyssey.

You know, one of the easiest ways to make a really good game is to build it on top of a not-so-very-good game. All that work they already put into Outlaws could've served as the foundation of a really good AAA Star Wars game. Oh well.

It's not like we're hurting for good Star Wars games. It's only been, what, 20 years since the last good one?

"No precedent" is a hell of a thing to be able to say.

I knew that eventually the fantasies of all those people who assumed more powerful hardware would somehow convince Nintendo (or any other developer) to prioritize optimization would be crushed, but I never thought it'd happen so soon.

Given what happened last time, I guess that means we're only a few days or weeks at most away from people loudly pining for a Switch 2 Pro.

@Key19 It was as inevitable as the tides. Optimization is not and has never been a result of inadequate hardware, but is rather a result of developer priorities and standards. And the simple truth is that most developers just... do not care that much.

@Dr_Corndog No, I was responding to your post. Maybe I misread your intent with it? Accusing someone of mistaking subjective and objective statements is, itself, predicated on the same fundamental misunderstanding of subjectivity/objectivity I went off about. The dude you're talking to may be unreasonably abrasive, or strike you as unpleasant... but they're not saying anything that could be construed as misunderstanding their own opinions as facts.

Like I said, that's not really something you can do.

@Fiergala Uh... I'm not talking about that guy, or their opinions, at all.

@Dr_Corndog Hey man, sorry to butt in, but you're in public here and just set off one of my pet peeves.

It is actually, literally impossible to present a subjective statement as objective fact (unless the fact is the existence of the subjective statement). You'll notice that the user you're responding to used the word, "good." Goodness is an entirely subjective quality, it is impossible for anything to ever be "objectively good." Even if you say, "X is objectively good," it's going to be a subjective statement (with "objectively" being a hyperbolic adjective in that case).

So every time someone accuses someone else of trying to present a subjective opinion as "fact," what they're really doing is saying that they're incapable of distinguishing subjective and objective statements without explicit qualifiers. And, frankly, no one should have to qualify all of their subjective statements with "in my opinion" just to accommodate the potential literacy problems of others. The onus is on the reader to understand these things, not the writer.

They need to make the glider parts systemic rather than scripted. It's really stupid when you fly off a tall ledge or hidden ramp or whatever and just fall straight down because the glider wings only ever pop out in specific, predefined areas.

@VoidofLight I dunno, man. Looks like you have to go pretty far out of your way here. I can't imagine anyone doing this by accident.

@JohnnyMind If you actually look at DekuDeals, you'll see that the sales below that mark are extremely infrequent (sometimes only being active once, for less than a day). And some games simply never get discounted that much. Bayonetta 2 comes to mind, which has never seen lower than 10% off — and even then, only via third-party sellers. Nintendo themselves have never discounted it.

As for your last point there, I don't really know what you're trying to say, and don't really want to assume because it seems like you're saying something really stupid (that somehow selling old games at cheaper prices would result in fewer games being made). Surely that's not what you meant, so would you mind clarifying?

@JohnnyMind It wasn't that long ago when Nintendo had special production runs for games that sold over a set number, that were priced at $20: Nintendo deserves all the criticism they get.

After VII-Remake, I just don't understand why anyone would want a IX Remake — the rumors of which never really came across as anything more than wishful thinking.

Like quality issues aside, splitting a remake of one game into into three (or 3+?) releases spread out across a decade (or more) really isn't the best precedent.

Fantasy Life is really the only contender here.

The one I always see folks talking about is Mega Man X.

@B3RTAY Same. Though I've also put more time into MK8 on my Switch 2 than MKW.

@OorWullie Or it's not going in a new direction, and reusing the engine and core mechanics of Odyssey makes it easier to bring in a pinch-hitter for.

In any case, I'm not gonna get my hopes up for anything. I remember the WiiU era, and I remember how much y'all got excited about "all the games" we were so sure Nintendo was holding back for the Switch 2 reveal, only for that number to be 2.

@sethfranum No, man, arguing that NS1 games and ports of old PC/PS/XB games are the same as actually new NS2 games would be disingenuous. As would acting like some "local" retailers having extra stock is the same thing as the console being "readily available." And why, exactly, do you assume I have a big backlog of NS1 games? I don't, and even if I did, that wouldn't exactly have any relevance here.

You realize that just because I'm okay with waiting a while to pick up the console... that doesn't make me your enemy, right? That just because I'm not salivating over every little aspect of this launch, that doesn't invalidate your own enthusiasm, right? Just... chill out.

I believe it when I see it. It took nearly two years for the PS5 to become readily available, so I won't exactly be holding my breath for it.

Though I guess it means I'll benefit from having more than two games to look forward to whenever I'm able to get one.

The first remake was pretty solid, I thought, minor performance issues aside. It was FM2 where they really dropped the ball — including on the English localization, which was all-but incomprehensible (like the result of MTL). And since they've never bothered to really fox that, despite it being a relatively easy and cheap thing to do, I can't say I have any hope in the FM3 remake being passable.

People absolutely will pay for the best. But no one in history has ever accused a Borderlands game of being the best anything.

This would be very exciting news... if Elden Ring wasn't a classless game.

All this really means is that they're adding two new preselected build for players to start the game with. And as someone who has made custom class mods for various other classless games in the past, this almost certainly involved less than an hour of work.

In other-words: a pretty meaningless addition whose only real function is to oil the the ever-churning hype machine so everything keeps spinning along properly.

Such a shame, then, that the story is (by far) the weakest element of the game. Though I guess that means there's more than enough room for improvement.

@Gorlock Uh... you're describing missions that don't exist. The missions that send you to areas with higher-level enemies are not missions where you're supposed to bludgeon your way through, fighting everyone. They're missions for you to be stealthy and avoid combat, or search out safe routes to your objective.

@FishyS probably years, possibly decades — but certainly not forever. Which is the problem.

Eventually those servers are gonna go down — and when that happens, these games will cease to exist. Along with all other games that require online verification to play, like Tears of the Kingdom.

@garfreek I have to assume it's referring to the Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster Version, just because that's the only game that's listed just as "Final Fantasy" (though I think the listing may be in all-caps).

But even then, it'd make more sense if the entire franchise had issues, because it's really hard to imagine a world where FF2-6 PRs all work flawlessly, but not FF1PR; and even harder to imagine a world where FF2PR and FF3PR were tested, but not FF1PR.

Mario Kart has always been genre-defining, to the point that the rest of the genre may as well not exist. Donkey Kong? Eh, not really. Maybe if we were talking about that Mario game literally everyone expected to see last week, sure, but Donkey Kong? Look, I love DK, but that ape has never been anywhere remotely close to casting that long of a shadow.

EDIT: That said, it's probably worth noting that "a racing game, but open world" has already been done, multiple times, and is MKW really wants to keep defining the genre, it's gonna need to do something new with that premise (which we haven't seen any evidence of yet).

So, if I want to be able to wake up my console with a controller, I have to buy a new one? Laaaaaaame.

Playing XCX again has really made me reevaluate which game has the "best combat."

It's XC3.

Granted. I think XCX does a lot of good thins I'd wish were incorporated into XC3, but on the whole, the pacing is just way too slow — especially if you, like me, are diving into XCX immediately after XC3. I'd gladly accept standing still to attack enemies in X if it meant I could do better than whittling off enemy HP one small sliver at a time.