MatthewTaranto

I love Octopath and this one scored higher than I was expecting. Looking forward to trying it out eventually, although the Game-Key Card thing is a pretty big deterrent in my eyes.

@Exerion76
Why not just play it until you're tired of it? Either way you'd play for 30 hours. As any Tetris player can attest to, you don't have to "beat" a game for it to be worth your time.

@TimelessJubilee
Thank heavens for that, MK8 almost killed my interest in the series.

MKWorld rules, suckerrrrrrs!!(runs away frantically, pants around ankles)

What the heck does "Marmite" (adjective) mean?

I appreciate the transparency of the team in this interview.

Looks decent enough to me. Link looks less like a cosplayer than I feared, so that's something. Otherwise I don't really have much of an opinion.

Honestly, I'd take "the baby" over quippy Marvel jokes at this point. At least Other M was earnest. I'm so tired of movies and games being afraid to commit to sincerity to the point where they undermine their own worlds.

All the mainline games are worth playing. But my favorites are 11, 8, 3 and 5, some of the best RPGs ever.

Well-deserved, Horii is one of the great visionaries of this industry. Congrats to him and the whole DQ team!

I kind of like the newspaper vibe but man that Switch 2 logo just totally ruins it. Makes it feel very cheap and slapped-together to me.

Like those custom-item websites where you can print a personal photo on a mug or something but it clashes really weirdly with the handle so you end up getting like 2/3rds of your wife's face and the top half of your dog's head.

Dragon Quest has been consistently great for nearly 40 years and this remake is no exception. Looks and sounds great, the new additions are (mostly) very welcome, and I really love the fact that they bundled both games together--a bit of generosity you don't see that often nowadays.

I do think the difficulty balance is weirdly wonky at points in DQ1, where survival can come down to luck due to RNG in the boss fights. And I'd argue a few of the new scenes take away from the serene, simple quest of the original.

@Zimon This...can't be happening--!!

@AstroTheGamosian Thanks for the nice words! I'm glad you enjoyed the comic so much. The original website is indeed on the way out, but I'm in the process of moving everything to a (hopefully) more permanent solution: https://bitf.matthewtaranto.com. So all the comics should be available there from now on. Plus we have books!

What a cool article! Glad you were able to make a deal with the Art of NP guy too. I remember submitting a piece based on Super Smash Bros Melee way back in 2001 or so. Kind of sad learning that NOA disposed of all the art but I'm glad you were able to rescue some of them.

@foursider
There are two spells you can learn that help mitigate these (one for weak enemies and one for pretty much all enemies).

@foursider
Pretty funny that they credit Yuji Horii's series as an "American-born" game! Maybe they were trying to say that the medieval setting is more of a western thing? Someone get Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden on the horn!

I HATE Game-Key Cards...but $90 for a new game + two pretty-new games that are new on Switch...I dunno, I'm a little tempted.

Glad to hear the good reviews, as Dragon Quest is still sadly kind of overlooked here. Looking forward to the new remakes! Would love to see DQX at some point.

Strangely, I almost think they went too far in trying to "modernize" DQ1, from what I've played. I always appreciated its go-anywhere simplicity but the new version railroads you a little more and some moments of quiet simplicity (like seeing Dragonlord's castle upon leaving Tantegel) have modern cutscenes spelling things out for you.

Otherwise, this has been tons of classic comforting DQ fun and I'm really looking forward to revisiting 2.

This is the first physical Zelda game I won't be getting. I really liked the original Hyrule Warriors but AoC was a slog to me. Rough performance, tedious combat, far less battlefield management than HW.

The larger problem is that I don't care about this ancient story and we already pretty much saw it unfold in TotK. The characters don't have the strong writing to make the plot anything more than navel-gazing fluff. And the playable cast is remarkably sad--Zelda, Ganondorf, a couple Zonai and a bunch of completely unknown, generic-looking characters we've seen many times already. The original HW had an all-star cast full of fan service spanning the series!

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about getting it, but as a Zelda fan since the '80s (who thought BotW and TotK were awesome) I'm completely uninterested in this one.

I quite like this philosophy and Sakurai always puts his all into his games. Although I wish it didn't require a day 1 update.

@HugoGED How dare you enjoy all three of those games without tearing down one or two of the others!

A much better Direct than the first one. It also kind of showcases how forward-thinking and overlooked the original game was (which basically invented Achievements, no less!) since many of these things were already in place.

But it's great to have confirmation of Top Ride and classic tracks, and the new racers and modes look like good fun too.

It's what you'd expect a Sakurai-led sequel to feature. Like a Smash Brawl or Ultimate of Air Ride!

I'm excited for this game but let's not get carried away--the first Direct had maybe 20 solid minutes of info plus a whole lot of kind of dull minutiae. There'll be some cool stuff shown amidst Sakurai shooting the breeze on Thursday but I'm not expecting anything mind-blowing.

The problem isn't the lack of voice-acting. SNES RPGs don't suffer from lack of voice-acting. The problem is that everything else in the story sequences are trying to be cinematic/movie-like, so the lack of voices sticks out like a sore thumb. This started to be a problem in Zelda around the time of Twilight Princess too.

If they're worried about translating it into a bunch of languages, just do what plenty of other games do and keep the voice acting Japanese (or make up a language).

I was hoping for Mr. X, which would've been a neat tie-in to the team's previous game Streets of Rage 4. Oh well, still should be a fun time. Shinobi's combat is superb.

Hi NintendoLife, thanks for the shout-out for our book and its Kickstarter! It's been a lot of fun to work out the recipes and try my hand at paper-style illustrations, so I hope everyone is excited to see how it turns out.

I'd say Emio goes into full-on horror in the game's finale, which is highly violent and disturbing.

To nitpick, shouldn't the subtitle be "Absolumtly fabulous?" Maybe that's too ancient of a reference these days...

I feel pretty burnt out on the BotW/TotK era, as much as I enjoyed the two big adventures on Switch. There're only so many times I can handle the same four races with different names. I'm sure once again the Goron is the slow, powerful one, the Rito is quick and cunning, etc...

I guess Zelda's maid is something different but her exaggerated burrito shape is downright out-of-place in this world IMO. And just from an artistic standpoint she feels pretty formless and off-putting, unlike past cartoony designs from stuff like Wind Waker. Sorry for the negativity but this game's premise and inherent limitations that go with it just aren't very appealing to me.

DQ7 isn't my favorite in the series but it's still fun and I really like the diorama-esque visual style. And orchestrated music, woo! I love the OSTs for DQ and the live musicians just give it that extra punch.

But man does that Game-Key Card hurt...

I wasn't the biggest fan of his tenure but good luck in the future, Doug Bowser.

Anyone know if Devon Pritchard is a fan of Mother 3?

The new additions look notably beefy, especially that undersea bit! I'll have to get this but I have no idea in what format...

@w1p3out Are you referring to the new diorama style or the way some of the female characters are more modestly-dressed?

Assuming it's the latter, apparently that's a CERO thing. CERO has gotten stricter about character outfits and yesterday's all-ages rating A (like the PS2 version of DQVIII) is today's teen/B. Dragon Quest aims for all ages so instead of raising the rating they cover the girls more. Something similar happened with Super Smash Bros' outfits to avoid the CERO B rating as well.

@FX29
It always warms my heart to hear of people enjoying Dragon Quest for the first time. It's really a wonderful series that never really got its due in the west.

Great soundtrack. My favorite is probably the final battle theme. My favorite track from the first game is Buoy Base.

@Croctopus I do not hear that.

@sketchturner It's not quite 50 amazing games but nearly all of them in my experience have had more depth to them than it initially seems. I think the real strength is the ability to just jump between so many varied, quality games. No matter what you're in the mood for there's something to play.

1st-party stuff is stronger than it's been in a while. I see Nintendo doing ambitious things and taking chances with MKW and DKB. Kirby Forgo DLC is a little light on content though.

I love the upgrades a lot of original Switch games are getting, many of them free! On the flip side, the weaker newer ports with performance issues put a damper on the fun.

GameCube is a nice bonus.

Overall it's quite good. 8/10

What's with this trend of entitled social media users and "journalists" expecting Team Cherry to carry the game industry on their back? Absolutely bizarre.

I hate the term "lizard brain."

I like Easy Come Easy Golf. This doesn't seem like it'd replace it.

I dunno, it just looks kind of bland, like something from 2 or 3 generations ago. They could've really punched up the visuals as lovely scenery and atmosphere can go a long way towards making golf games more enjoyable.

UFO 50 is one of the best Indies I've ever played...and I'm only halfway through its list of games! A very late must-own swan song for the Switch.

@Anti-Matter You can play as a Bratz who is in turn playing DDR??

The performance bump should be really nice, but a dozen levels sounds a little light (especially when they're technically remixes which is kind of inherently limiting). I was initially hoping that EVERY level would get a remix. But the original Forgotten Land was so well-done that I'll probably still pick this up.

Are there any new copy abilities that we've seen?

Congrats to both games, they're both excellent.

That said, it's bizarre how MP4 was up for nomination when it isn't even out yet.

@nin10doom If you played Smash 3DS's Smash Run, the appeal is kind of similar. It's fun to run around making your character stronger and stronger mixed with mild exploration elements and surprises. It's a little bit of a battle royale, but one where you're all kind of independently searching for upgrades. It's not everyone's thing but it's a cult classic for a reason.

If KAR didn't do it for you, I'm not sure if this one will be different enough to change your tune.

I love KAR but I felt a little underwhelmed by the Direct. Despite running for the better part of an hour, I struggle to really think of that much stuff that's particularly novel and a major selling point (outside of being more KAR, of course).

Especially since it seems Top Ride is probably gone, I'd have guessed we'd get a smorgasbord of City Trial content like more islands, a 1P progressive/story mode, and/or even some crazy new Battle Royale extra mode sort of like Knockout Tour. Just spitballing here but it'd be insane to see a 50-player City Trial mode where every 3 minutes, periodic Stadium Events would eliminate the lowest several players and everyone would continue beefing up their machines after that until there's one winner. Etc.

Even so I'm likely going to get the game because Sakurai puts a lot of love into his craft and I'm sure I'll have a good time. Voted 6/10 on the poll.

@AussieMcBucket
It's pretty dumb that Nintendo can't release two arcade racers without insecure people having to pick their fave and dump all over the other. I don't see this kind of behavior with most of their other series that share genres (Fire Emblem/Advance Wars, Wario/Yoshi, Paper Mario/Xenoblade). It's like the '90s console wars again but on the same system.

A console civil war, if you will.

@8bit-Man
Is this confirmed? We saw split-screen in Air Ride mode, so why wouldn't it exist for City Trial like in the original? Sakurai's games tend to have plenty of options and pretty much always have local multiplayer when possible.

@Vil
I really don't think that was a dig, and people are just assuming it was. The games are very different and I'm sure a developer like Sakurai knows that 6-player Air Riders is a lot more chaotic than 6-player MK.

@I-U
I only started it around a week ago and it's already retroactively my GOTY 2024. It's crazy how much value there is and I've still got plenty left to see.

@CaleBoi25
Duly noted!

I want all the Resident Evil.

All of it!