Kochambra

Took them long enough to add such a no-brainer as touch controls! Bring on the HD rumble support!

Nice article, Thomas.
I don't really see this technology being in implemented in a way that benefits consumers in any meaningful way. Quite the contrary.

@Poodlestargenerica No, you're not talking about people being negatively affected by others' actions and words. You're talking about people being negatively affected by their own inaction (i.e. not bothering to actually read the full text they're supposedly basing their buying decision on).
You can't complain about a review misleading you if you didn't read it.

@Poodlestargenerica Nintendo Life reviews are written for Nintendo Life readers, not for Metacritic dwellers. If you (or this hypothetical person you mentioned in your first message) have based your purchase solely on a Metacritic score, you definitely deserve to have your day ruined if the product didn't turn out the way you expected.

This is the only cloud game I may be ever tempted to purchase, if only for the excellent work they did porting the first Dying Light to run natively on Switch. This company has proved to me that they are willing to make the effort to put a huge game like that on Switch, so I'm more willing to accept that in this case, such a thing was not possible.
Still, I probably won't get the game because cloud gaming usually is a terrible deal for the consumer, but I appreciate the effort.

@Tchunga "I understand the reviewer didn't enjoy the game but what I don't really understand is WHY the reviewer didn't enjoy the game"
You seriously don't understand why? Give the paragraph you're quoting another read:
"Many of the most notorious puzzles in adventure gaming are timing-based. Think of Broken Sword’s goat encounter. It’s memorable for the wrong reason; the puzzle exhibits the fundamental disconnect between a control scheme and pace designed for thought and an obstacle made for dexterity. 12 Minutes effectively trades on this design mistake. It’s like trying to play Punch-Out while wearing real boxing gloves."
He first explains a design mistake found in some memorable puzzles in adventure games (puzzles that become memorable for their bad design) and why it is indeed a mistake. And then he says that fundamentally flawed design is all over this game. I'd say that's explaining WHY he didn't like this game in a pretty eloquent fashion.

@Balta666 When you start your message by calling this "a very poorly written review" (quite a strong opinion) and then proceed to devote most of the rest of it to explaining how you disagree with the reviewer's opinion of the game, it definitely gives the impression that your own opinion of the game is coloring your opinion of the reviewer's writing.
Specially when the two points you mention against the review ("some of the points on the pros and cons not being properly developed in the review" and the reviewer not mentioning a secondary aspect of the gameplay ) has little to do with the quality of the writing, and everything to do with what aspects of the experience the reviewer considered more relevant, and so, worthy of devoting words to them in the limited length of a "mini review". Again, a matter of opinion, not of the quality of the writing.

@Balta666 I have to say this is a finely written review. It gets across exactly what the reviewer thought about the game in a well-structured fashion.
You don't agree with the author's opinion? That's fine, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the review.

I finished Chicory a few days ago (though I still plan to try to get 100% in the post-game). Easily, one of my favorite games of the last few years. One of those rare instances of a perfect match between story and gameplay.
And the Switch version offers optional touch and motion controls, both of which fit this particular game like a glove.

Chicory is an utter delight. Probably, my personal GOTY.

This game is like a hug! So welcoming and full of charm!
It's like Link's Awakening and deBlob had a son, and it somehow inherited all the cuteness of Kirby's Epic Yarn.
And the painting mechanic works brilliantly with the Switch's touch screen (i still have to give the motion control option a try). This feels like the best version of an already outstanding game.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Is it too soon to call it "underrated"? I feel that it's getting kind of lost in the barrage of Christmas releases and eShop sales and way too many people are overlooking this gem. I'm still half way through it, but it's already looking likely to become one of my all time favorite games.

Neat! The wait is nearly over

Chicory: A Colorful Tale! Lovely game so far.

@Lostdragon I haven't noticed any technical hiccups (or any update, for that matter). Maybe my original download was already patched? I'm on version 1.0.1 and according to my Switch, that's the latest version of the game.

I bought Chicory: A Colorful Tale, weirdly absent from this list but looking pretty great so far. I also might give Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon a go some time in the future.

Bought Chicory yesterday and played about an hour. So far, it's looking pretty good

@BTB20 @Friendly @Shiiva @faint
Don't feed it, guys. Waste of energy.

I liked what I saw of this game in the Showcase and I love games about bringing color to a BW world (fond memories of playing deBlob and a few others back in the day). Reading a few reviews and also learning that it's from the makers of Wandersong makes it an instabuy for me.

@Rascal0302 I played the game back in the day and this review totally checks with my recollection of it: the novelty of the bloodsucking lady held your attention for a few minutes before you realized what a dull, inane bore it was. All flash (not much of it either) and no substance.
There were tons of better games to play back in 2002.

@Gamer_Zeus "Considering releasing a game on the Switch physically actually costs a developer money to do and the bad reception this game has thus far gotten, I'd imagine Rockstar probably have cut their loses on this one."
I think it's quite the opposite: Now they have a bigger incentive for a physical release of the trilogy. I agree that a physical release is costly, but it also gives your game much more visibility that it could ever have by being released just on the eShop.
These remasters have had a terrible reception in the gaming press and internet fandom, but the GTA brand reaches much further than that. There are plenty of people out there that don't read reviews or follow the internet discourse on gaming, but do know what GTA is. And if while shopping in their local retailer's or some online shop, they see the trilogy, they'll go "Wow! GTA on Switch!" and they'll buy it for themselves, or for their teenage nephew or whatever.
This kind of people probably wouldn't be aware of the Trilogy if it just got released on the eShop. That's why I think a physical release is still well worth the investment for Rockstar.
And it's not wishful thinking of my part; I have no intention of buying this trilogy unless they improve it quite a bit. And even if they did and I considered buying it, it's very unlikely that I would go for a half-physical release, with all the inconveniences of both a physical and a non-physical release and none of their advantages.

To name just one, Appeal's classic Outcast is older (1999) and looks much better IMHO.

@thiz "Its always the people who want acceptance that dont accept any other opinion."
That's a nice fallacy right there. Your attempt at a paradox would make sense if people who want to play the game on easy mode were criticizing your choice of playing it on hard mode while at the same time complaining about your criticism of their own choice. But that's plainly not the case here.
No one is telling you how you should play these games, but you are telling everyone how they should be playing them.

KOTOR getting a 7 from Mitch when he gave FF7 in all its outdated design and godawful blocky graphics glory an 8, doesn't make much sense to me.
But hey, review scores are kind of pointless, anyway.

@Pokester99 "A live service game has continuous game updates with NEW content"
You know the other thing live service games have, right? Additional monetization schemes to keep the production of new content profitable.
With AC, we payed once for a full game and we got the full game, even if some of the content was added gradually. I'd rather have that than a "live service game" chock full of money-grubbing mechanics, thank you very much.

This DLC is just perfection. A treat for those of us who enjoyed Happy Home Designer and perfectly easy to ignore for those who didn't. I wish all DLC was as well thought out as this.

Hitchcock's movie has what is probably one of the very best soundtracks in the history of cinema. That's an extremely tough act to follow.

@westman98 "Now, where did I leave the damn car keys?"
@anoyonmus To be honest, the setting reminds me of Nier: Automata.

Bring on these sweet point-and-clickers! Fingers crossed for a port of the Blackwell games.

This actually sounds pretty good. I'll probably give it a try sooner or later. I love me some murder mystery shenanigans

"Integrum Masterpiece"? Oh man, that's exactly the kind of ridiculous self-important name I would expect from a series filled to the brim with ridiculous self-important storytelling. Yeah, that's Kingdom Hearts in a nutshell. Kudos to whoever came up with that silly name.

I may have considered getting the first one (you know, the one were the saga still hadn't turned into an absolute narrative disaster) if I actually were GETTING it. I have zero interest in paying for the right to stream games.

This was one of the highlights of the Direct, as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully, we'll get a physical release too.

@anoyonmus It's very enjoyable on Switch.
When I played it, they only technical issues I remember are a noticeable FPS drop in a very specific area, and a few instances when the game freezed for few seconds. If I remember correctly, they released at least one additional patch after my playthrough, so the second issue may have been fixed.
If you play it on Switch after playing it on more powerful consoles or PC, it may look too downgraded, but taken on its on terms, the Switch port is a perfectly fine way to experience this excellent game, IMHO.

That's neat. In the meantime, how about putting the original back in the EU eShop?

@Gassi_the_cat This is just guesswork on my part, but an error with the European rating seems like the most likely reason. It has happened with quite a few games: They get released and then pulled from the EU eShop after a week or two because of some problem with the rating. To get the game back in, the publisher needs to go through the rating process again.
My guess is that the publisher of Night Slashers just didn't bother to resubmit the game, maybe because their sales projections after the first week weren't that good.

@Zenszulu It leaned a bit too much on racing challenges for my taste, but yeah, it was a brilliant rendition of Springfield and its denizens, back when the show could still considered among the very best of TV, even it had already began losing its luster.

Looks like an nice little extra for us Blink fans

@RupeeClock Which in this case makes total sense, because it's a game about digging into the information stored in a mobile phone

Seems like photography games are experiencing a surge lately, with the likes of New Pokemon Snap, Umurangi Generation, Nuts, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and now this.
I love the look of this game. If the gameplay clicks, it could turn out to be a true gem.

@Fulgor_Astral This quote is from the Kickstarter page:
"Who are you exactly? You choose! You can customize your character, and choose from him, her, or them as pronouns. This doesn’t affect who you can date or what options you have."

@PSoneboi As I said, have your completely unrelated and off-topic fun.

@PSoneboi Oh, I see. You were just using both this article and HammerGalladeBro's comment as a jumping point for a completely unrelated rant about how "the Switch is underpowered". Have your fun, then.

@PSoneboi If by "issue" you mean bugs/glitches, I don't agree with your statement. I've played plenty of 3rd party games on Switch and the frequency of bugs is on par with most platforms.
Talking about Lego games in particular, they've always had occasional bugs on all platforms, such as scripted events not triggering, making it necessary for the player to restart the mission. Sadly, at some point they got noticeably sloppier and in their later games, the bugs became quite more frequent. A quick internet search of Lego game glitches should give you plenty of cases across all platforms.
In any case, while I could be mistaken, I don't think HammerGalladeBro's comment was about bugs, because they only mention the Lego City Undercover games. I haven't played the 3DS game, but the Wii U game is definitely among the most polished Lego games.

No. Nope. Sorry but Lego City Undercover is way better than this.
After Lego City, the New York setting in this game wasn't anywhere near as diverse and fun to explore, in spite of including such iconic landmarks as the X-Mansion or the Helicarrier. It felt like a lifeless set, like they didn't bother to add all the care and little touches that made Lego City feel alive.
Also, having superpowers from the get-go robbed the game of the careful sense of progression that Lego City Undercover had.
After that brilliant game, this is were Lego games begun their decline into soulless, progressively clumsier franchise peddling.

I bought Unavowed the moment I saw it available on the eShop and I just received my physical copy of Ys IX. Those two alone, make this one of the best weeks of the whole year regarding Switch game releases

@Mangaphile Good news! I just checked and it's already available in the EU eshop.

Hooray! I love Wadget Eye's adventure games. As soon as this gets released in Europe, it's an insta-buy for me

Umurangi Generation!

@gaga64 I don't think it undermines anything. If a review has a byline, it should reflect that author's opinion; nothing more and nothing less.
There are publications that hide the author's byline (Edge comes to mind) in an attempt to add a fake veneer of objectivity. Which makes no sense because all reviews are and should be subjective. That's their value.
The "collective opinion" (whatever that means) that put Lego Builder at the top spot here isn't any more true or accurate than the opinion of the reviewer who gave it a 7. They are just two different views on the same subject.

@Chowdaire It's a shame that they apparently lost that understanding for the DLC, because the battle against "rare" monsters (or whatever they're called) are exactly that: Extremely tedious, way overlong battles against battle sponges that take forever to kill but for their part, they can kill you with just four or five strikes, which makes relatively slow characters completely useless against them. Very disappointing.

@NEStalgia Sure, there are games that just introduce game mechanics but don't do nearly enough with them (Limbo comes to mind), feeling kind of half-baked, in the end. But there are also plenty of short and sweet games that take just the time they need. A game like To The Moon took me like three hours to complete and it didn't need to be a single minute longer. It was just the perfect length for what it was trying to do.
Long games, on the other hand, are much likely to have some padding thrown in, because of that false equivalency "more hours=more worth", among other things.

The question is: Are those 100+ hours fun?
Some people seem to judge games based in how long they take to beat, as in the longer, the better. But I'd rather take a memorable 4 hour game over a 100+ hour grindfest.
So, until we have better indication of whether these particular 100+ hours are well spent, I'll reserve judgement.

That's pretty impressive, even if it doesn't quite manage to do justice to the original VVVVVV's excellent chiptune soundtrack.