Krull

I’m in maybe the second last chapter of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (I checked - I’m pretty near the end). There’s definitely some min-maxing I could still do, and there are optional areas where I still get wrecked, but not sure how much longer I want to drag it out. Already been 120hrs, and it tops my playtime records on the New 3DS. Really good game but it has both whetted and dulled my appetite for XC3. Definitely want to get it - but don’t think I have the energy right now to spend another three months with another sprawling Xenoblade epic.

I fear all of us who have been waiting years for those Persona ports are going to get trolled. However, instead we will get Persona Q1+2 remastered, they will sell terribly, and Atlus will take it as sign that Switch owners don’t want Persona games.

As an aside, don’t understand why people are complaining about this. There are plenty of companies other than Nintendo that make good games!

Royal Persona 5 Portable Golden, please. I’d take that over anything else, I reckon. Although I’d love to see anything on Metroid Dread Prime 4: Samus Goes Away Again

For Mario Strikers to see a 147% drop in sales, that would mean zero sales this week and nearly half the people who bought it last week returning their copies to the store. That’s a bad week!

(Or dodgy maths, possibly.)

Brilliant game. Almost a puzzle game as much as a strategy title, and one of the best of either genre. Not sure I’d get it for the stickers, though, when I already have it digitally!

@Mattock1987 Totally agree. I’d prefer if Nintendo said “we’re doing an XC3 direct but have nothing else planned this summer” than to just keep stringing us along. Although I’d obviously prefer a Direct than not - if only to give us Persona 5. Or P4G. Or both. Metroid Prime 4 still feels like a stretch. A new FE would be great, but I’ve still got a backlog of the old ones!

Still got my UMD lying around somewhere, but glad other people get to play what is genuinely one of my favourite FF titles. Hope the redone music compares to the original, as that was always one of the best aspects of the game.

@SteamEngenius Football is also very popular in Africa and Asia. The J-League gets decent attendances in Japan, the sport is extremely big in South Korea - but the Middle East is a hotbed.

Really, you just meant “not North America”. And maybe Australasia, where it still has a big following.

Despite all that, yeah - those are some pretty weak sales for a Nintendo first-party title. Ouch.

This one almost passed me by. There’s so much out at the moment, and my backlog is getting far too big - but this looks like exactly the kind of amuse bouche I need!

From what I gather, a remake of the first game would be better than anything new anyway. The DS games are apparently a real trip, and far quirkier and more interesting than the modern reboots. I’d be happy to get some ports of those with a translation.

Is Goldeneye a better shooter than, say, Halo Infinite today? Nope. But I’ll only give the former a score of 10. Sometimes you can’t judge something dispassionately, ignoring the memories, the cursing, the banter, the scrabbling to avoid the dodgy controller, the (ahem) letter from university because we were playing too loudly…

Nothing else really comes close. Not even Licence to Kill on the Amstrad, which was one of the best licensed games on the system.

Only reason I came to this article was to read the shade against EA in the comments.

I think you’re giving them a hard time. They have promised us surprises!

(EA never said they would be good surprises…)

@Agamembar I had the same thought as you, but then checked the page title again. The Fate games are musou titles (the genre), but this is specifically about the Warriors games. In which case, I’m not sure Persona 5 Strikers should be there! It’s musou, but is it Warriors?

It’s the success of the 3DS that surprised me most here. Its sales rate is better than the Switch’s for years. I suspect the hybrid will have a longer tail though, given the support it’s still getting.

Good game. Beat it with multiple classes on mobile, which is also a good version. The snarky narrator is worth the entry price alone, but the rest of the gameplay really holds up - and I say that as someone who doesn’t really go for deck builders.

I’m also not sure about Unpacking. It seems to be more about relationships than mental health - you may as well swap it for Boyfriend Dungeon, which tackles both a bit more directly. They’re both worth a look, though.

Considering the prices paid for Activision and, more to the point, Bungie (with its one game), does this seem cheap? Destiny for $3.6bn or all of those Eidos games for $300m? Square must have really wanted to drop these studios.

Good to see so much Xenoblade Chronicles happening on staff! I’m still working my way through the 3DS port, having just reached Makna Forest, which is surprisingly pretty on that low-res 3DS screen.

Also fiddling with Super Metroid on NSO. Is it as good as Zero Mission? So far I’m not sure, but it is good.

@jrt87 Fair enough! I think we just have different viewpoints. Maybe I’m too naive, maybe you’re too cynical. I saw plenty of coverage about the dangers of lockdowns - masses - as much as I saw coverage of what would happen if we didn’t lock down.

As another perspective, I have family in Sweden who were angry about the lack of lockdowns there and wondering why they weren’t following other European countries such as the UK, Germany and even Denmark just when, as I’m sure you remember, plenty of media coverage in the UK was praising the Swedes for keeping society open.

@jrt87 I don’t remember anyone demanding the destruction of the economy. Or of jobs. Not even the media. I do remember people being a bit worried about the deadly and highly contagious virus that was sweeping the globe, though, and maybe felt the government was being a little blase.

None of the outcomes were good. People mostly did the best they could. (Emphasis on mostly, sadly.)

I think what this article teaches us is that we are lucky to still get new entries in Fire Emblem and Metroid, given how little they sell compared with other franchises. Kudos to Nintendo for not simply chasing the biggest possible sales.

I started Xenoblade Chronicles 3D a couple of weeks ago. I’m genuinely worried I may not now finish in time for XC3…

You’ve ruined it! Now this has been leaked, Nintendo will just cancel its plans out of spite. Just like that Switch Pro that was all ready to be launched last summer.

🤣🤣🤣

Glad to see another third-party title hit seven figures on Switch, and well-deserved too. I had a good time with SMT V - the exploration was first class, and the battle system is as good as ever. I prefer SMT IV Apocalypse overall, as the story had more charm, but I hope the new HD assets mean Atlus can start churning out the spin-offs now.

@Xellen I’ve been told… I’ll get back in my corner…

@Fizza Crystal, Emerald and Platinum are remixes of two-title entries, and Arceus most certainly isn’t - but I had missed that Arceus is considered a main series game. I’d still argue it’s a spin-off, because it is so different to the usual titles and they’re going back to the turn-based well with the next one. Also, Arceus doesn’t introduce a new generation and it comes out in the same year as Scarlet and Violet (which suggests it was made by a totally different development team). But this is semantics. Main series game or not, Arceus is different from the usual, and hasn’t slowed down the release of a more typical Pokemon title. To me, it’s a spin-off or gaiden game.

@Fizza Thanks for your prayers!

I take it you don’t think Arceus is a spin-off? It totally is! It didn’t come in two variations (Sword/Shield, Diamond/Pearl) for starters.

@shoeses Arceus? Snap? Unite? Quest?

That’s four new spin-offs in recent years, plus a remake of Mystery Dungeon. We’re getting about one a year which, considering how long game development seems to take now, is a fair lick. It’s not like they could ever keep pace with the DS era. I think those days are over.

Whether or not you rate ALL of those spin-offs is another matter!

Played 999 for the first time last year. Still holds up really well. (And all three Zero Escape games are on Game Pass atm, if anyone’s interested.)

But my favourite is The World Ends With You. That game is sublime on every level: visuals, audio, gameplay and story. Well, maybe the story is merely good, but as a package it’s one of my all-time favourite games.

@JustMonika 🤣🤣🤣 Yes, it’s amazing how Atlus listens to its fans and always gives them exactly what they want!

(This does look quite fun, but even if it was translated, which I suspect it won’t be, I doubt it will rock anyone’s world)

Same thing as last weekend, and likely to be the same for a good few weekends hence: Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. About 14hrs in, still only on the third area, but chewing up sidequests like handfuls of popcorn. Love it.

@mcdreamer @Rayquaza2510 Don’t give up. I have bought all of SMTIV:A, Etrian Odyssey 1, 2 and Nexus, Radiant Historia, Stella Glow and Devil Survivor 2 on sale in the EU over the past couple of years or so. They will come again - but they’re never seemingly on sale at the same time as the US. Wouldn’t surprise me if they go on sale here the moment the sale ends for America.

The only Atlus title that never seems to go on sale is Overclocked. It has literally never had a price drop on the EU eShop, according to PSprices. Not once. So I wouldn’t bother holding out for that one.

Love that they’ve got FFXVI in there too!

FF1 and FFVI are my favourite designs here - but they’re all good.

I don’t like the American one that much. I may actually like the Japanese one more. But I still voted for NA, because it actually looks like video game box art. Kudos to Japan for doing something different - but I’m not sure it touches entertainment for me, despite the incredible slogan.

@fafonio Fair question - but I picked Xenoblade Chronicles 3D before the Switch port was announced, and hadn’t gotten around to playing it. And I still like breaking out the 3DS as much as the Switch.

Finally in the mood for some Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. There’s a lot of information on that little New 3DS screen, but I’m ready. Even from the opening movie, I feel like the storytelling is better than in the sequel. Long way to go, though. I spent over 200hrs in XC2!

I’m playing Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, before Capcom retires it from my phone.

Really enjoying it so far - already much better than the second one, and I’m still on the first case.

@Enigk Do you prefer Tom Claney’s Goat Recon series or Tom Claney’s Banerow Six?

@Snatcher It’s good if you haven’t bought them yet and want to play them on your phone. If you already own them, then they’re basically going to become unplayable at some point when your OS updates.

I have played AA 1 & 2 on my phone - and thought it was a perfectly fine way to play them. I bought AA3 ages ago but not got around to playing it yet. This means I could at some point soon get locked out of playing it.

Admittedly, I’ve had about two or three years to do so. Guess I’m going to take it on now.

@Savino There are over 100 million Switches in the wild, about three or four times the combined sales of PS5 and Series X/S consoles. I don’t think that means we won’t see any more third party titles - quite the opposite.

What it does mean is that we are unlikely to see many more multi-platform releases also hitting Switch. Not that there have been that many anyway. But we should still get Switch first titles, like Triangle Strategy and MH Rise, that end up on PC later.

I’ve dipped into my backlog to take on Child of Light. The poetry is awful, but the game is excellent! Battle system makes it one of those RPGs where you actively seek out combat, rather than try to avoid encounters.

More Dragon Quest announcements?! We had so many last time! I like the look of everything they showed before, but we could use some release dates for DQIII HD and I’d like to see more of Dragon Quest Treasures, which looks like Erik and the Forgotten Land.

Like the T-shirt. I feel like, on the back, it should show a massive pile of spent AA batteries…

I’ll definitely be playing more Fire Emblem The Binding Blade - I’m over halfway through now, doing 1-2 chapters a day.

However, Guardians of the Galaxy popped up on Game Pass this week too, so I’m also giving that a go. Seems like a blast.

TBF, Microsoft had an excellent year, undoubtedly better than Sony’s, which can’t be that common.

They done Capcom wrong, though! My personal nominee for best publisher of 2021.

@themightyant Maybe we just need to stop expecting or caring about ports. Switch is big enough as a platform to get bespoke software - and the bespoke software it does get is, generally, excellent, be it it first party or third party. It took Capcom until 2021 to bring out genuine Switch-first titles, and both were very well received (MH Rise and MH Stories 2). I don’t pick up a 3DS and complain that it can’t run Dark Souls.

That said, as much as I’m being argumentative, I wouldn’t mind a Switch 2 by 2025. As long as it’s backwards compatible. I really don’t want a mid-generation upgrade, though. Should be like a DS to 3DS jump.

@themightyant OK, I was missing the word “console”, as in handheld console. Fair cop.

On the other hand, a brand new, top of the range smartphone is at least twice the price of a Switch. And also does not come with bespoke controllers and internal cooling and a dock. If Nintendo had made something which people seem to think they should have done - and in 2017 - it would easily end up costing consumers a thousand pounds/dollars/euros (deplete as applicable). And hardly anyone would have bought it.

@Kisame83 Totally fair. I meant to raise the issue of price too. I’m sure Nintendo could have brought out a beast of a handheld/hybrid in 2017 - but there’s no way it would be selling for under 300 smackers. And then it wouldn’t have sold enough for people to bother porting stuff to it.

@Medic_Alert Can’t help thinking that you’re comparing apples and oranges. Until the Steamdeck, no handheld was more powerful than the Switch. If Nintendo had released a pure TV console as powerful as the Switch, then I think you’d have a point. PS4 and Xbox One are more powerful, sure, let alone the Series X and PS5 - but I can’t pick them up and carry them on the train. It’s a totally unfair comparison. It’d be like me going on Push Square and complaining about how unportable the PS5 is.

I’m playing an utterly compelling turn-based strategy RPG. Yes, that’s right: Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. It’s really good!

As an aside, I have Triangle Strategy coming, but old-school GBA Fire Emblem is a great appetiser.