Kilroy

@YoshiF2 Back in the late 90's/early 00's, Red Alert 1, 2 (plus its DLC, Yuri's Revenge) and at least one other Command & Conquer game featured stereotypical Russians as the antagonist. We weren't too far removed from the Soviet Union and the general "what if" scenario was still China and Russia being the enemies of the world. I don't remember anyone caring back then, least not to the point where anyone in control actually cared, lol.

Really wish this helicopter generation would move on and realize there are more important things in life than possibly offending someone. Everyone has to walk on egg shells today and it's a pain in the ass.

@somnambulance I haven't played Bloodstained since the randomizer update (which was honestly an insult as it didn't randomize rooms like promised) and only beat the base game once, but it was an easy 7.5, but not much higher. I think my issue was I didn't want something so close to Dawn of Sorrow. DoS is one of the best DS games I've played, but that's beside the point.

@somnambulance @EarthboundBenjy Read the actual thread on Twitter. While Ollie (NL author) was terrible with conveying the message well here, the Twitter user actually does link to the Game Boy ROM (.gb file) and also includes a .pocket file for Analog Pocket or whatever that system is.

Return of Samus back in the year or so it came out (early 90's). If I did play NEStroid before that, I don't recall it or was too young to care about the deeper involvement it required. RoS gave the perfect feeling of freedom and relaxation through silence and isolation (being an introvert, you can see how this would be a positive).

Super expanded upon those vibes and so much more. Hearing "The last Metroid is in captivity, the galaxy is at peace," in an era when voice clips were both extremely rare and not normally whole sentences, I knew Super would be a gem. Been a massive fan of the series (and highly critical of Other M, Fed Force) from the start, Dread supplanted Super and Prime 1 for me as the best Metroid.

Not interested in the multiplayer at all, but the new content could be good. If anyone is interested in playing a real Star Fox homage right now, look up Ex-Zodiac on Steam. It's also coming to Switch down the line, but it plays very similarly to OG Star Fox and Space Harrier (separately). It's in Early Access right now, but I still recommend it.

Looks fun, but I hope the in-game framerate isn't at 15 like the trailer.

Prime 1's soundtrack is one of the best in gaming and I don't know who these people are. What else have they done and why do some people believe their writing may have been better?

@sketchturner I actually like the Dread's suit's arm cannon. A bit of a tangent, but I wish Nintendo wasn't lazy with Samus in Smash Ultimate because what they did was reuse her Other M design from Smash 4 instead of the (then) most recent model which was Samus Returns. I would've loved to see that suit in HD, never liked the Other M model to begin with.

Love the detail, but curious why the EMMI is all grey. Guessing it'll be painted if/when it's approved?

@VexingInsanity Oh, we definitely are now. It was turned around with SR. My point about it being on a dead system was Nintendo have developed games that launch on dying systems at the same time as brand new systems or made ports a short time after. The game did well, but all I kept seeing on social media was "bring the game to Switch, I'm not playing my 3DS anymore and won't buy it". But if that happened, that also might have delayed Dread past Metroid's 35th anniversary year.

Yes, Prime 4 restarting is a good thing, I'm sure. I really don't mind waiting, it was the OM and FF years that made their perception of the series seem very rocky, so that's always in the back of my mind. And spinoff or not, fans didn't want a spinoff, many of us just wanted more traditional Metroid.

Still waiting on the Prime 1 remaster though. Truly don't see any reason to not release it right now unless Prime 4 is right around the corner.

JONATHAN!!
CHARLOTTE!!

Ahem, this take on Portrait of Ruin 2 has my interest.

@VexingInsanity 2010: Other M, fans hate Samus because Samus is not who she's been the past 24 years before that, nor who she's been the following 12 years until now.
2016: Federation Force, not a Metroid game in the gameplay sense.
2017: Samus Returns, released on a dead platform.
2021: Dread, allegedly Nintendo made MercurySteam cut content to get the game out on time and honestly, the post-release updates feel rushed.

Meanwhile, with Fire Emblem, that fanbase has seen eight games since 2010 (using this date because that marks Metroid's huge decline starting with Other M). I don't follow that series nearly as closely as Metroid, so I don't know what fans think of them all, but I don't recall anything exploding in a hugely negative light the way Metroid did.

Also, Prime 4 restarted development over three and a half years ago with nothing to show yet. And Prime 1 has supposedly been finished for a long time now, but Nintendo is allegedly holding onto it until they think the time is right. Not sure when that is because doing it too close to Prime 4 will burn people out and it shouldn't affect the Dread crowd because one is 2D one is 3D.

Basically, I'm saying Nintendo has an extremely difficult time identifying with fans of Metroid.

@Yosher They added Link and his own track, where is Samus?

Oh wait, Nintendo hates Metroid. How could I forget?

@jowe_gw Are you talking about Chocobo GP? Because that is f2p. It has limitations with predatory MTX, but it is f2p and the lite version offers more than I thought it would.

Unless they changed things to limit you even more recently, I don't know, haven't played in a while.

@Axecon You're not wrong about people wanting Mario Kart 9, but being able to play the Tour tracks on a big screen with a controller (conveniently) and without any gacha elements is a big plus. So is the price of the whole thing, which makes it easy to tolerate.

Some people don't have their Wii or DS or whichever console these old tracks are on anymore and haven't played them in many years. GTA V, on the other hand, has had a constant stream of releases, so not a great comparison there. Plus, I'm sure tons of kids are just getting into Kart now.

@Jcdbengals Did you buy any of the DLC for 8? Switch version has all of Wii U's DLC bundled in the base game. Switch also has a much larger online presence. If you're still interested in playing, I'd just buy it now, as you can enjoy all the current tracks and have things to look forward to later.

@JimNorman "The seven courses all appear next to their original appearance — except for Kalamari Desert, which GameXplain use Mario Kart 7's interpretation."

You missed two more:

• Mario Circuit 3's original appearance was Super Mario Kart (not Wii).
• Waluigi Pinball was DS (not Tour).

Love this idea

I picked the Japanese cover. It reminds me of Echoes and implies a sense of cautiousness and hints at scanning. US is iconic, but but plain and kind of tacky. When she's on Frigate Orpheon, despite it being a tutorial for the player, feelings of... ahem dread are high.

Looks like if Nano Assault was stripped of all its polish and turned into a typical mobile port cash grab. It's honestly impressive how much it looks like it started on mobile, yet it never released for a phone.

Also, I'll parrot the rest; doesn't look like Mario Galaxy or Rocket League, author has clearly never played Nano Assault or just wanted that previous clickbait.

It becomes interesting for five seconds until you realize how empty it all is. Also, 1:50 in the video breaks the normal game trope of "attack a wooden box to break it", ha ha. Nope, not in Frontiers!

@LXP8 Sure, but I felt it necessary to also note that you can still add funds and buy from the DSiWare library on 3DS because by not making any mention of that, this article would make it seem it's impossible to buy anything anymore, which isn't true.

@AlanaHagues You can still buy DSiWare on the 3DS eShop, but I believe Wii Shop products are still locked behind the Wii's shut-down store.

The gameplay looks interesting, but man, that baby chibi cutesy aesthetic is really throwing me off.

Scummy practice. That said, my Switch Pro controller has yet to get drift and even if it does, YT has shown it's extremely simple and safe to fix.

My Wii U pro controller that I've had for almost ten years also has no drift. But all of my joycons have drift.

@robr Taito was probably watching and waiting for someone to do just that before announcing this.

Sold on M2 and it sounds like their ShotTriggers division might be working on this, based on A) it's a shmup and B) no word on western release yet. Assuming the price will be reasonable, it's an easy purchase.

@NlifeRSnowflakes ???

@BloodNinja AM2R is fine, yes, but with community support, not DocM64. Having the support and control of the original dev vs an entire community are two totally different things, for better or worse.

AM2R might not even be a thing at all if Nintendo shut it down before it got released, there's a reason the community took over that specific C&D, because it was very good, not just because it was C&D'd.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but maybe Warriors could scale back the amount of enemies by half to improve FPS, resolution or both. I've beaten AoC, so I can safely say I think cutting numbers by half at least wouldn't do a damn thing to the idea of assaulting an entire army by yourself.

@jsty3105 Don't think I'll ever say "thank god for pirates or hackers", but the other two are fine.

From what I understand, Dread running well on emulators right off the bat was nothing short of a miracle. I'm sure there's an easy explanation for it, but that was the reception I saw. But it's not like Dread runs poorly (95% of the time) on Switch, though.

@-wc- 100% agree. I don't like what Nintendo did, don't morally agree with it, but can't blame them for following the laws that exist to protect their assets. Issue is they could profit from these things instead of becoming public enemies, like what they did to Milton Guasti (AM2R dev). Instead of sending a C&D only to watch the community take hold and continue development, they could've hired the guy like SEGA did with some devs. But the Ori devs did that instead, so it worked out for him anyway.

@-wc- You might want to check out the videos he has that are still up, including the ones that have samples from Metroid games in them. Those videos play ads. Don't tell me they're not monetized.

Also, "SynaMax goes on to say that he'd rather Nintendo had taken over the monetisation of his videos". Key phrase here, "taken over the monetization". Seems pretty cut and dry that he was earning money from these videos.

@Araquanid Yes, he is ignorant. Look at all the widely known remixes out there that have existed for decades without monetization, following the law that an OST has to be released first.

Dude even contradicted himself saying he did it for fun, yet monetized the videos. But alas, I'm done arguing in circles. Later.

@earthinheritor I'm not saying I agree with Nintendo. I was moreso pointing out how the YTer was ignorant and stupidly thought what he was doing was okay by law. Just because you don't agree with laws, despite how unpopular they are doesn't mean you should be able to break them.

@Araquanid Worst analogy I've ever read. You can be inspired by something and make it your own or you can take something and essentially edit it to make it sound a little different. The latter can be a copyright violation.

@Fizza Covers that the YTer had monetized. That's the difference.

@OnlyItsMeReid They were monetized.

I don't know if this lawyer is actually from Nintendo, not sure I believe that, but let's say they are.

The videos were taken down due to monetization, not due to using the copyrighted material for fan remix use. Otherwise, dozens of famous musicians who have made Metroid remixes for decades would have had their stuff taken down as well. It's also due to the laws regarding whether a soundtrack has been released/sold to the public separately. Dread's has not yet. This Youtuber is clearly ignorant of the laws and not how to skirt around them.

Also, if this guy really was just making the videos for fun and not money, why monetize them? He dug his own grave here.

Seeing these evergreen titles on the list so often implies just how much the install base consistently grows.

Minor typo in the title "continues to leads" should be "continues to lead".

Maybe the title was intentionally awful to draw attention. Probably a good quarter of the comments wouldn't be talking about "Dronus" or "Drahnius".

@twztid13 Getting full benefits is on the older side of 66 in the US, so if you can afford it, 64 is hardly any different. Japan is 70 now, from what I've read, though it was only 65 last year if I'm to believe Google. Who knows, maybe he has family obligations that are more important.

Anyway, thank you for the memories, Hashimoto-san.

@GrailUK Too bad there aren't many AAA devs that do that (so it would seem), what with launches and patches constantly releasing with game-breaking bugs or balancing that might've looked good on paper, but clearly wasn't actually tested.

Being able to play as Tails and Knuckles always felt like the devs giving you ways to break the balanced designs. I don't care how ill-suited CD is for Knuckles, I want to know how drastically the gameplay changes for him.

@Damo Good to know.

A buddy of mine gifted me this back in the day, but I never played it because I had a backlog then just like I do now. It does look fun.

@Olliemar28 Found a minor grammatical error - "Here at Nintendo Life, we love video games. Heck, we should do, right?" Guessing that should be "we should" or "we should too"?

@Luke937 I see where you're coming from, but like with any other medium, you need to know where to look. Since this is year 2022, it's damn near impossible for a game to be unique in the sense that it doesn't take inspiration from other games. So, you have to look at it by asking how it takes concepts that have been done before and turns them on their heads.

The SteamWorld Dig series (indie games) are digging metroidvanias that add in the mechanics of filling up your inventory and doing it until your light source runs out. All design ideas that have been done many times before, but rarely to a high degree of quality and execution. Cuphead is another indie example of this. Ever play Shovel Knight? I'm not sure that does anything unique and yet it's considered a masterpiece. On the other hand, the vast majority of mobile games are either blatant ripoffs and/or lack any kind of quality, so don't even bother looking there.

Moving on to AA and AAA games, since you believe they're superior, these devs are 100% not absolved from copying from other devs or even themselves. FIFA and most AAA sports games do yearly releases, but are essentially just copypastas with very minimal changes each year, yet charge $60 and often restrict content to paid DLC/services after you initially pay $60. Most AAA's, including Nintendo, tend to release games in a secretly unfinished state that the public would only learn once the game is released, despite the devs/pubs calling them 1.0 versions. Game-breaking code, unbalanced mechanics, missing features (sometimes marketed as Day One DLC), microtransactions, etc., all for the high price of full retail $60-$70 or more if there's DLC.

@Arawn93 That's really what happened? Hilarious.

So, people stop calling it a Smash killer, serious or in jest. Fine, what next? The internet will find a new sarcastic term to use against the game. Or the game will receive even less social media highlights because no one is using that comparison anymore. Regardless, I don't think this will help the game at all.

What I don't get is why creators can't take the flag off themselves. There are creators who do videos intentionally designed for kids, so it's not like having creators remove the flag if they don't want it wouldn't suddenly make Youtube Kids barren.