Kingy

@SillyG Yeah, I agree - if you have a script it ought to be voiced by real people. In that case I'd argue for no voice acting before AI voice acting any day.
As I understand it Arc Raiders does use genuine voice actors for some part of the game, I assume whatever scripted dialogue it has. But on top of that the AI generates unscripted dialogue too which would obviously be impossible to voice act authentically.

@Erigen This isn't a criticism of Tomodachi Life, I like the weird TTS voices. But it's still a dialogue heavy game that doesn't include human voice actors. So if that's YOUR criticism of Arc Raiders, you'd be a hypocrite.

I don't care about games like Arc Raiders but I'm guessing story and characters aren't its priority? So if the company and playerbase are okay with flat, mediocre AI voices and computer generated dialogue then there's not really an issue here. As long as I had the option to turn it off I wouldn't have a problem with it either.

@Erigen Because the criticism is that Embark forgone actual voice actors in place of a computer system. Which is what Tomodachi Life does as well. It doesn't need to be the same system to reach the same outcome.

Okay? I swear, everytime I think I hate AI white knights enough, I'm reminded that there's another, bigger contingent of people who virtue signal their lack of AI use like I'm supposed to care.

"Here at Necrosoft, we would neeeeever use the fill tool, yeeees." Alright? I don't give a *****. Who asked? Clearly this works on some people, but to use @Dogorilla's excellent point, you'll all buy Tomodachi Life next year and you won't make a peep about the TTS voices.

Whether they do it for Pikmin 4 or a spin-off game, they NEED to give us a custom cave editor and a hub for sharing them ala Mario Maker.
That's the big thing that would get me to return to 4, it's otherwise the weakest of the four games.

Not really crazy about any of the movie designs, but it's not bad for what it is

Continuing and hopefully finishing the Dragon Quest I Remake. Not a huge fan on how they handled this one all things considered, I'm hopeful the DQII Remake is the game that benefits from all the new additions because DQI certainly does not.

Look, I can appreciate Byleth being squeezed into a tiny little outfit as much as anyone else...

But that doesn't change that Felix won me that dancing competition... and he enjoyed it

This is only really an issue if you're exclusively buying from the same handful of industry giants. Indie games have effectively filled the role of the weird / experimental AA games of the past. It's not a perfect replacement, I miss the Sony and Squaresoft of yesteryear same as anyone else- but I guarantee you whatever wacky idea you have in your head, there has been or will be a game for it.

IGN: The arbiter of good takes.

Might make a list of my own for the fun of it, Nintendo might be the only company where it's hard to narrow it down to only 100, and that's before considering third party exclusives.

@kal_el_07241 Fair enough, but still early enough to be announced and almost certainly finisned pre-release given its December release date.
And $30 for looks like the equivalent of the spatial rifts from Legends Arceus. Unless, do you know if there's going to be more later? I've forgotten the details from the direct.

In any case, not convinced that you're getting your money's worth of content here as is. Same with DK Bananza's DLC and a lot of the Switch 2 editions, seems like minimal content at a premium price tag is Nintendo's new strategy to squeeze as much money out of their fans as humanly possible.

@Olmectron Refer to the first half of comment #76 please

And no, I don't think that excuses the third version of the gen 1-4 (and 7) games but they also aren't comparable to this.
Z-A DLC doesn't improve anything, the only thing that makes it definitive is that you now definitively have all the content they spliced out and sold back to you for nearly half the price of the base game.

I'd take a Platinum over that any day, though tbh if they were still pulling that bs now I probably wouldn't buy that either.

@kal_el_07241 Yeah SV. I haven't played Z-A yet

@kal_el_07241 I'd argue anyone who buys both versions of a Pokémon game are likely to pay ANY amount of money for whatever they put out, and that most people are reasonable and just buy one or the other.
But I looked it up and one copy of Scarlet or Violet plus its $35 DLC is only $5 cheaper than Legends Z-A here, which is deplorable.
Nintendo would have to pay ME $100 to ever play that piece of ***** game again

Your $100 Pokémon game everyone.

I do wonder what percentage from the Switch 1's massive install base are the type to buy everything Nintendo no matter what.

Seems a bit too early to celebrate with that in mind.

Don't much care for DQI remake at all really. I was excited to see how enemy mobs would add complexity to an otherwise extremely simple game, but all it really does is draw out the battles longer.

I don't think any of the new story and bosses particularly add much of value to the experience.
Just about everything that made the original game unique has been scrubbed out to make a clunkier, worse version of every other Dragon Quest.
Very disappointed, fingers crossed that DQII saves it.

What am I not playing, I've piled up too many games!
After playing through all the Clock Tower games I decided to extend it with Haunting Ground, Rule of Rose, and NightCry, so I'll be getting to those in the coming weeks, starting with Haunting Ground tonight.
Btw here's how I rank the series
1. Clock Tower 2 (aka Clock Tower PS1) - 6.0
2. Clock Tower (SFC) - 6.0
3. Clock Tower 3 - 4.0 // Not a good game but has a lot of heart and entertainment value with the crackhead cutscenes
4. Clock Tower: Ghost Head (aka Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within) - 2.0 // ***** this game, it's unironically one of the worst things I've ever played

For Halloween night I played a cool horror game called No, I'm not a Human, where you invite a bunch of ghoulish creeps into your home and deduce which ones are monsters and which ones are moderately more normal. Pretty chill despite the concept and plenty of replay value with multiple endings, I like it.

I've got the Dragon Quest I & II remake sitting next to the PS5 waiting to be played, and Hollow Knight has been neglected for weeks lol. I'm going to have to reacclimate myself to the game while fighting endgame bosses, that should be fun. Might start up Ninja Gaiden Black too if time allows.

LRG not getting another dime from me, but looking forward to DoubleShake whenever it comes out next year.

Also Little Goody Two Shoes is a remarkable visual novel / adventure game for anyone who hasn't played it.

That is exciting! Hopefully it's something more ambitious than Shantae Advance.

@HammerGalladeBro From the original Famicom game her in-game sprite was blonde but her manual art depicted her with purple hair.
She's mostly been a blondie since (which I prefer because she more resembles Gwaelin that way), but in recent years it seems they've committed to the purple hair. Probably because it looks more unique and compliments the colors of the dress/shawl

"Good enough" are what the older generations were. In the grand scheme of JRPGs, Pokémon's popularity vastly outpaced its actual quality. But at least you can reasonably call those older games quality, they're decent.
Scarlet and Violet were genuinely awful, and Z-A doesn't look much better. For whatever reason- be it some combination of FOMO, an access media bias, console warriors, and just a sharp increase of total people playing video games in general - standards for established franchises are on the floor.
You get what you keep paying for

That is... uh... very expensive. But it's a huge game and it's included on the actual cart, so I may pick this up just for the hell of it.

@GoldenSunRM Oh yeah the roster alone turned me off from FE Warriors, they played it way too safe. And everything I've seen of it doesn't strike as being as much a fully-realized game as Hyrule Warriors. For Christ's sake, they didn't even include Ike!

I completely forgot this game comes out TOMORROW! Guess I know what I'm playing this weekend... Too many games coming out!

@Samalik If I had to bet the Puff-Puff girl in Kol will still be in the game but the lewd joke from the GB version will remain exclusive to the Game Boy.
As for DQII idk what would even be a cause for removal... But considering they de-lipped the Boss Troll in III nothing would surprise me lol

@SalvorHardin imprisoning war?? Secret stones????

Probably should've just moved on to Xenoblade or something given the first Hyrule Warriors is so jam-packed and has nearly the entire franchise covered in terms of representation. I can think of a few omissions, but not so much to warrant a sequel, let alone two.

Despite having two already, Fire Emblem could still benefit from a proper all-star blowout since the first FE Warrirors only pulled from like 3 games. But I'm also pretty tired of FE's nostalgia pandering even though I love Engage.

I think they've about bled the Zelda Musou stone dry. Maybe it's just because TotK has such a terrible story that I have zero interest in this despite really enjoying the other two Hyrule Warriors?
I thought BotW had a pretty trash story and characters too, but then - there still WERE enough characters to fill out a whole roster in Age of Calamity and then some.

This game has Zelda and the three other characters you've spent a collective 5 minutes with in some gobbledegook cutscenes... and a gaggle of literal whos. Not exactly an all-star lineup here

Decapolice to be delayed until the 37th anniversary

Odyssey floored me when it came out, the game has so many surprises in store for a first time player, even if you saw the promotional material leading up to its release.
Nowadays I see the chinks in its armor a lot more clearly, but it's still remarkable and easily stands in the upper echelons of the Switch library. Nintendo was on their A game in 2017

Lol all the Switch games at the bottom except for Arceus. I 10,000% agree.
I need to replay Platinum, Emerald, & Moon. It's been a long time but if I have a favorite Pokémon game, it would be one of those three...

...is what I would say if Explorers of Sky wasn't clearly the best Pokémon game ever made and it's not even close

I hate how only some companies disclose their sales figures. TPC just gave the number right out meanwhile I have to resort to a third party to tell me Sony's big new game is selling "great".
I mean, I know why they do it, I just think it's annoying.

I don't mind DLC but it does have the potential to muddy up an otherwise great game. Or alternatively, the initial game comes undercooked with a tentative promise that there's more to come.
Nintendo alone has examples for both.

All that is to say, it's refreshing when a new game comes out fully realized and complete from the start. I have a lot of respect for games like Unicorn Overlord (Vanillaware in general really) because of that.

Leave it to Sakurai to just put a big dumb smile on my face. I was sold on the game pretty early into the direct, and then he just kept going and going and going with more reasons to like it.

No worries here about there being a lack of substance like a certain other Switch 2 kart racer.

@Tm080201 Definitely no argument there lol, I was more than ready to quit by the time you get to that ***** labyrinthine shrine area and it truly feels like the game is trying to pad out as much time as it possibly can.
And yeah, you couldn't convince me there's any reason they put Miku in this game other than soying and pogging. She's barely involved, and what involvement she does have completely undermines her conclusion in FFIII. She should've just been a new character.
Despite me having less negative to say about V than IV, I doubt I'll ever go back to revisit either.

All doubts eliminated. This is gonna be a good ass game

Nintendo could make a Unity asset flip and Nintendo fans would still spend $100 on it and die on the hill in droves defending it lmao

Unfortunately I don't think any of the Nintendo-published Fatal Frames are very good. Maiden of Black Water is at least decent for what it is. Solid character/ghost designs and some neat concepts I don't think really get fully capitalized on, but the game is bogged down by its garbage map design and repetitive sequences.
It also doesn't help that at the time NoA felt the need to shield the children by removing content from the T & M-rated games they weren't playing (the version that's available on the Switch removes even more content with the Samus & Zelda costumes, due to it being multi-platform).

Fatal Frame IV is just straight trash. Ugly, incredibly sluggish, repetitive, gimmicky, controls like ass, and worst of all features the most uninspired gaggle of ghouls out of all five games.

Fatal Frame II is the best one, but I recommend playing all three of the original PS2 trilogy, as they all share a (albeit loose) continuity. And I think Fatal Frame III has the best narrative of the series, but you need to play the first Fatal Frame to fully appreciate what it's going for.

60 minutes of Sakurai yapping about the cool new thing he made? Thursday can't come soon enough!
Soon I shall acquire a third Switch 2 game and a second Switch 2 exclusive kart racer

The year... of Charmy Bee

Legendary dude who's the mind behind some of the best games ever made. Rest in peace Itagaki, we'll all cherish your work forever, and strive to be even half the ninja you were.

Something tells me that won't be much of a competition

I'll play it eventually but yeah not in a hurry to pick this up.

This one's been a long time coming. It's been sitting on my TBA list for years! If this can come out then surely there's still hope for Little Devil Inside lol

I'd round it to about 10 but it depends mostly on does a game look good enough to entice me to buy at launch over just adding it to my list. Which is going to vary year to year.

In 2020 for example I bought 4 new games (maybe 5 or 6 depending on what's sitting on my shelf unplayed)
2021 has around 6
2022 is back to 4
2023 had a whopping 16 new games
2024 had 11 (counting ZZZ because I've spent money on it)
And this year so far is sitting at 9 new games. Technically 10 since I dropped $20 on Umamusume.

I try to create a 'to-play' list in a way where I'm playing new games alongside my backlog (EG: DK Bananza was a convenient excuse to play every other DK game). But many games are bound to slip through the cracks and inevitably fall into the "I'll get to it one day" pile.

The maid is built like that bat demon guy you collect gratitude for in Skyward Sword lol that's the first thing that came to mind

Other than her, surprisingly weak designs for the other four. But it's not like ToTK gave them anything at all to work with.

@JohnnyMind GKC will inevitably be gone too brother, It's a download code on a cart. When the store goes, any Key Card you haven't already installed will be worthless.
They don't want you to own your games, this is Nintendo's strategy to transition to an all-digital console next generation. They have become one of if not THE most anti-consumer, anti-player, & anti-creator companies out there, and its frustrating when fans feel the need to defend their garbage just so they can justify their purchase of it.

@JohnnyMind That's because the contents of the game doesn't matter if it's released in a format that people don't want to buy. Would you be okay with all these third party games releasing on the Switch 2 via Cloud editions? Most people wouldn't.

Just like most people don't want a physical cart with no game on it.

I'd say give me a collection of the Team Silent classics... but we've been down that road before...

@JohnnyMind It was literally one guy dude. Maybe you have a fixation on shielding your favorite billion dollar corporation from any criticism.
You ever consider pointing the finger at the company making the bunk product rather than the people voicing their distaste for it?