MSaturn

@snichelsticks I'm with you! Shinobi 3 is one of the top 10 action side scrollers of all time.

@N00BiSH I see. I played that game too; I remember it was pretty good. Thanks for the clarification.

Animation looks great. However, the life bars over the enemies concerns me. Maybe I’m just misremembering but Shinobi was not a combo focused brawler, was it? Most enemies should die in one or two hits I think…

Well, anyway it could still turn out great. I won’t judge it too early.

Honestly looks pretty good.

I don’t see how this accomplished anything I care about. That either means it’s useless (to me at least) or… we could be poised for another delightful surprise!

@Kazman2007 it’s a little hard to make perfect comparisons, but maybe Grandia? Like Grandia, Lunar is light hearted and humorous in tone. The games are basically totally linear. Party members come and go as the story requires. Skilled and spells are learned at set levels. There is nothing like classes or jobs. These games do not give the player very many choices. Nevertheless many of us love them, because their tone and vibe is so delightful. They feel like playing through a late 80s/early 90s anime or something.

I love these games. I hope this collection does them justice.

I mean it had better! If it doesn’t, I expect there will shortly be a statement from Capcom talking about how the game failed to meet expectations.

I imagine this game would get neglected on the other platforms. Switch fans and Okami fans probably overlap like 85%. Of course, I don’t have any real data, so…

I figure Daisy’s Cruise Ship is the most likely but New Donk City would be cool. The one thing I feel certain of is it will not be a prison, lol. I can’t imagine Nintendo doing that.

A new game in style of lament of innocence (instead of lords of shadows) would be the most exciting. If not that, something 2d. But I’m assuming that’s off the table if they are considering it AAA.

Maybe inticreates can make the inevitable retro spinoff game though…

Phoenotopia is totally underrated. It was a bit harder than I expected but really quite good. This is the second metroidvania to be put on my radar just this morning.

Well, it does look pretty good. Guy walks like a Belmont, for sure lol. I don’t know, I’m reaching saturation overload on metroidvainias but I’ll keep an eye on this one.

I have trouble understanding this philosophically. If the game anticipates what I intend to do and does it for me why not just anticipate that I intend to win and do that for me too? At the level of a “game” the idea that I’m in control is the entire point and purpose of the activity right? It’s different for business software, software that runs infrastructure, etc.

Edit: I’m thinking this may be intended as a way to reduce latency when doing 4k upscaling… maybe?

I think doing a direct that doesn’t have Switch 2 info after we already know Switch 2 is coming up would just be too deflating. I think we don’t get any directs until April 2.

A while back I made a comment suggesting that XBox would be the first of the big 3 to exit the console race and I got a fair amount of pushback, with basically saying that the brand was very successful and valuable for Microsoft. But rumors like this and others are what give me this feeling. I think Microsoft is positioning XBox to be something like a software brand - sort of like Netflix, or for that matter Windows. The “Xbox” framework or whatever it is will still have exclusive games and will still have game pass (a valuable subscription service) but it will run on whatever hardware is strong enough to support it. Very much including Nintendo and a PlayStation hardware. Maybe I’m wrong but this is how it looks when I kind of squint and try to see the future trajectory they’re on. Interesting to see how this develops.

Yeah I can’t get my hopes up. But it would certainly be something I would buy if it did come out. Switch 2 launch game? Dare I dream???

Bad news… and this is money spent so I assume the units sold figured must be even bleaker for physical games. With numbers like this it’s only a matter of time before one of the big three tries a proper all digital console. That will be a big test. If it’s successful the all digital future will be here before we know it.

Personally I don’t see how the hobby really survives going all digital. Music is all digital (basically) and the music industry is in steep decline. Film is all digital (almost) and without reliable physical media sales entire genres of film have had to be abandoned by major studios. It’s not clear yet how bad things will get for film but they haven’t reached the bottom yet.

Of course there are confounding factors that mean many will deny going digital had anything to do with the decline of these industries. But my opinion is that physical media is very psychologically important for the way the art form is perceived by consumers. Without it seems disposable and therefore not worth investing in.

@Slobbert I mean if you’re talking about us here, then that’s a clear case of survivor bias. Who knows how many people were deterred from the hobby back in the day? But on the other hand I agree that it’s not that big a deal, and there are lots of easy games, family games, etc.

Yeah my kids can’t make any progress in this game unless they play as Yoshi. But then they can’t do the power ups and turn into an elephant, which is SO cool, so they alternate between being Yoshi and being one of the other characters.

I will say if your three year old can beat a level at all they are doing better than my three year old, lol. My three year old doesn’t really get how to move and jump at the same time, lol. Even my six year old can’t really understand the run button, and the idea of using momentum to make bigger jumps.

I think they always wait longer than the fans seem to expect. I reckon we’re headed for a traditional September launch. I’ll be happy if it’s earlier though.

$300 = Day one purchase
$400 = Day one purchase but I’ll have argue with my wife some, lol.
$500 = Probably not a day one purchase. Have to prepare my finances for a purchase like that.

I’m actually going to start setting some money aside for it right now, so that hopefully I can get it day one regardless. But you know, it’s not just about willingness to pay the price. Budgeting and cash flow are real limiting factors…

“It really can’t be a coincidence”
…I’m sorry but it can.

@gabrigoes yeah I think those days are gone. It used to happen for a brief time back in the GameCube era but no more.

I’m personally happy with the Switch 2. I think with the Switch Nintendo has found a niche that they can fill really well. The would be crazy to abandon it. I think the evolution of Nintendo consoles from now on will look like the evolution of the dual shock controller, lol. Just little tweaks and improvements. Even the name “Switch 2” suggests this is the case. Power will just be limited by the price point they want to hit.

This is the burden of success I suppose. A flop gives permission to do something really different. A success requires continuity which creates some specific challenges of its own. My biggest worry with the Switch 2 is that it won’t be powerful enough to reestablish third party support. Other than that I think they’re doing good this time.

@Pachrisu this is what it looks like to me too. But then why is it slightly different? Nevertheless this is my go to theory until proven otherwise.

@PikminMarioKirby At least performance/frame rate issues. That would be really nice.

I mean it was good. Naturally the games are the most exciting thing. I think if the rumor had not prepared me for the idea of a console only reveal I might have been disappointed. As it stands I thought it was as good as I could reasonably expect without really being surprising or having any particular “wow” moment. I scored it an 8.

They shadow dropped it! If it weren’t for the leak we would all be totally stunned.

How the mighty have fallen… I always thought Ubisoft was the best of the major publishers (better than EA and Activision). I think they the more interesting games and IP. But a few years back they became a company that just churned out generic open world action games. I was hoping that taking the company private could maybe allow them to refocus and rebuild a bit of their original spirit. Hopefully that can still happen, since we don’t know exactly what this means.

I didn’t play Shadows of Mordor, so maybe that’s good. But other than that no LotR game has been good. Indeed nothing set in middle earth at all. I think the recent spectacle of The Rings is Power shows why - it’s very difficult to adapt or add anything to Middle Earth, because the literary quality of Tolkien’s work is so exceptional. It makes everything else seem like bad fan fiction. I guess in theory you could still have something that was at least mechanically sound though…

Nintendo! Stop! The suspense is killing me! Just reveal this thing already!

@Clyde_Radcliffe that would also be very cool.

Yeah I think Nintendo is flirting with anti-climax here. But the software will save them! New Mario covers all sins!

I just learned about this game yesterday in a “Best Games of 2024” video I was watching. They compared it to A Short Hike. Sounds promising.

I bought this game on steam years ago and enjoyed it a lot. I’ll definitely be picking this up eventually (spending moratorium for January though). I want to say that the boss fights stood out to me. They are quite a bit harder than the regular combat. They have a nice variety of attacks, and you will have to pay attention, learn their patterns and tells and get good at dodging the different attacks. If you up the difficulty the bosses don’t just get more health but new moves making their behaviors more complex and difficult to learn. This greatly increases the replay value I think. The game has a very old school flavor which I appreciate.

Very disappointing. I always regretted not getting this back in the day. Maybe however the switch 2 will be able to improve performance for all the games that don’t run well on switch…

This looks very real. I hope Nintendo makes an announcement soon before there’s nothing left to announce!

I have mixed feelings about Inti-Creates. I will definitely at least take a look at whatever they announce but their games are very hit and miss for me…

@GrailUK if all of this came to pass I would be very happy.

I think a June release seems too early. I’m thinking September, in which case Metroid Prime 4 could definitely be a cross gen launch title. I also fully expect a new 3D Mario. It’s kind of crazy how long we’ve had to wait. I’m not sure however that Nintendo would want to launch Prime 4 and a new Mario on the same day, so I could see the Mario game being more like a launch window release, probably around November which seems pretty traditional. Lastly I think $399 is a more likely launch price. I don’t know… Nintendo has to worry about inflation at two different levels and I’m not sure which level is going to get priority consideration.

I don’t know what make of this as I’m too ignorant to have an informed opinion about motherboards… but I do think that now that we are in 2025 an official Nintendo announcement could be coming at any time. I think around the start of February is the most likely time but it could be sooner, especially if Nintendo is worried about the whole console leaking. I mean, it could even be next week for all we know.

Honestly looking at this list, I don’t even need Switch 2. I mean, I want Switch 2, I’ll be getting it day one, and I do think that more powerful hardware is needed to keep getting multi platform support, but looking at that list, I could get easily get through another year with just the current switch. This console has the greatest library of any console. It’s just amazing.

@jake1421 mushihimesama - is that the one where they’re all bugs? I played that on my iPhone and I did like it. It had a variety of difficulty settings if I recall.

The first bullet hell I ever played I think was Mars Matrix. It came out on the Dreamcast back in the day. I read this glowing review of the game and bought it. It was quite hard. I played a lot of it, but I never could beat it. Someone should rerelease that on Switch.

Never heard of it… sounds like it could be cool.

@canaryfarmer me too! Just looking at a video of this game stresses me out, lol. Still I’ve bought and played a handful of bullet hells over the years. I’m curious what the people on here who like these games consider to be the most accessible one?

I’m actually always surprised by how little I played. I used to play around 30 hours a week… now I’m older, have kids and stuff. I played 458hours in the year. An average of less than 9 hours a week. My most played games was TotK, at 77 hours. Second most played game was the Apollo Justice trilogy at 33 hours (I didn’t even finish the second game yet). These are very interesting stats, I always enjoy looking at these.

I think this is a fairly easy prediction to make, if you just project current trends. AAA games are not financially sustainable. Sony and Microsoft cannot survive on indie titles and retro rereleases. They trapped, and are clearly planning to double down on expensive machines that play AAA games, because that’s their only option. Nintendo meanwhile, due to their strong brand and first party IP has a bit of a floor. Yeah there could be a Wii-U situation, but I doubt it. The precondition to that was the last years of the Wii had already turned off a lot of gamers. The Switch on the other hand is ending on a strong note. I think that Nintendo will likely do well even if the product is underwhelming or the branding is confusing.

Edit: Meant to add that, of course, straight line projections are usually wrong, so…

I have spent my whole adult life studying and/or being around artists. A lot of them are jerks, lol. Maybe a more diplomatic way to put it would be to say that they do not suffer fools. I think we kind of just have to take the good with the bad with artists. Good artists seem to usually have strange or unique points of view (sometimes because of great intelligence but more often just due to weirdness). They go through their whole life feeling misunderstood and struggling to get their point across. Frustrated and annoyed turns into their default mood which they even project into totally unnecessary situations like ordering lunch. And yet, to wish that they would just “be normal” would be to wish away the very quality that makes their work surprising or exciting. So I think we’re stuck with a certain percentage of jerk artists and that’s okay I guess.

Personally I would really like rereleased of the early games, especially Tales of Destiny as I missed that one. I have Tales of Phantasia on GBA and Tales of Destiny 2 (real name Tales of Eternia I think?) but these would also be welcome rereleases.

I just bought Kraino Origins on the eshop last night. It’s on sale in NA right now.