MatthewTaranto

A little sad knowing he got rid of all those cases, but understandable considering just how many games he owns and the limited space he has. Still, it's quite a collection and I like how clean his cable organization is with his consoles.

This team does great work, based off great games. I'll have to add this one to my collection sometime.

Some really fantastic games here. Zelda and Tetris are no-brainers, Donkey Kong is in the running for best game in the series, and Mole Mania is a super-polished sleeper hit that should've become a series. I'm also partial to the Mario/Wario platformers.

Hail to the king, baby! Or the three kings, in this case.

I think the opera scene is worth the hype partly for the reasons covered in this article. For me it really plays to all of the game's strengths: amazing music, excellent characters, memorable screwball comedy that you could only pull off in an older sprite-based game, and deeper themes that get rich payoffs later.

The comedy and depth are two I want to divulge on further. The former is often forgotten but it's a really goofy and funny part of the game. Besides Celes's song, the rest of it is bonkers and memorable (getting dumped on stage and hopping on the orchestra's collective heads to get back, Ultros's Looney Tunes plan, the barking switch, Locke's overacting, etc). It's the kind of slapstick that really wouldn't work in a more realistic FF7 Remake style.

But the sequence also sets up a later, much bleaker scene involving Celes (which invokes the same music and a similar viewpoint and a sort of dark parallel to the bouquet toss), a second act payoff that lands like an emotional punch to the gut.

I haven't gotten to the opera in FF6 PR but I replayed FF3 on the SNES Classic recently and loved it as much as I always have. Very very amazing game.

Does Donkey Kong ('94) count? You could really make the argument either way. It does indeed have a full remake of the game, but the original is so short that it's just the tutorial world of the "remake"/sequel and constitutes maybe 1/25th of the whole game's content.

Whatever you call it, I think DK on the GB is better than any other Nintendo remake. A terrific game!

@gcunit I agree about not needing to remake every great game, but to be fair, in my eyes Squenix already made two modern-day classics this gen in Dragon Quest XI and Octopath 2.

Granted, I wouldn't say they're better RPGs than FFVI, but what is?

It looks really nice and I love the team's prior releases. Plus this got me to finally check the original game out on NSO and it's great. So I may have to get this remake.

You gotta have the detective trope where they crouch and look through the magnifying glass and creep around looking through the magnifying glass. That's what detectives do, there's just muddy footprints, muddy footprints all over the place so you put on the goofy hat and put your eyeball up to the magnifying glass and just crouch all over, gotta do it. Eyeballs and footprints and brown trench coats and magnifying glasses.

You really just gotta sneak around and look really closely through the magnifying glass at all the muddy footprints, you gotta do it. Big eyeball close-up through the glass. It's gotta be done, just do it, look through the glass at all the clues, gather them up. Big eyeball looking at footprints, looking at you.

IMO Spirit of Justice > Dual Destinies > Apollo Justice. Although Nahyuta is awful, the rest of AA6 is pretty awesome.

My favorite standalone case in this whole trilogy might be the DLC one from Dual Destinies, with the orca. Don't pass it by!

The only AAA Squenix game I really liked this gen was DQXI. But I loved several of their slightly-smaller games like DQ Builders 2 and both Octopaths. I'm hoping this announcement doesn't mean we're only getting the hyper-realistic Final Fantasy games (which pretty much are no longer RPGs) and not the more creative smaller titles.

I agree with some of the criticisms of this review--GS has too much fluff in its dialogue, weird Yes/No responses to rhetorical questions and I just...don't really like Motoi Sakuraba's compositions across the board, to be frank.

The game's art is nice and the interactive puzzles are pretty cool.

I'm really out of step with the community on Ganondorf. Here's how I'd rank them:

5) Tears of the Kingdom: he looks pretty cool but I found him extremely forgettable, except when he was all dried up at the beginning.
4) Twilight Princess: kind of cool and fitting design but a pretty dull character.
3) Ocarina: I actually don't like his design much. He looks like a sniveling side villain that plays second fiddle to the Big Bad. But I do like his role in the story.
2) Hyrule Warriors: this guy is just plain fun. He's over the top and looks and feels great. I like this larger than life take on the character.
1) Wind Waker: takes the top place in both design and characterization if you ask me. I like the deeper side to Ganondorf and his warlock look really stands out.

All that said, I prefer pig/beast Ganon honestly.

Octopath II is my Game of the Year. It's a great, classic-style JRPG that does everything well if you're okay with the more episodic structure of its storytelling. I voted for the well-rounded Partitio as my favorite character, but the stand-out story moment for me was Castti's Chapter 3, which contains an emotional gut-punch that's delivered perfectly.

The only thing I disagree with in this nifty article is the idea that Octopath II is a big step up from the original. I thought the original was also fantastic, and while the second game makes some nice little improvements, I'm also not seeing these night-and-day comparisons. Both games have solid writing, storytelling, visuals, and gameplay.

And yeah, the music is phenomenal. As a lifelong video game OST fan (and game composer myself), Octopath II's soundtrack has gotta be in my top five of all time. It's a complete joke that it wasn't nominated in The Game Awards. I imported the 6-CD (!!) soundtrack earlier this year and it's practically on constant repeat in my car. It's an exemplary set of music.

@Lizuka Gonna have to agree with pretty much all of this. HM64 is one of my favorite N64 games and still my favorite farm sim. It was a big step up from the SNES game (which was already groundbreaking) and the additions to the series/genre at that point were pretty mind-blowing. Having a rucksack that let you carry 8 (technically 9) items and 8 tools was a huge step forward from the original game's 2 tools and 1 item. Between the gameplay improvements, new festivals, mini games, easter eggs and other features, it was a supersized sequel made with a lot of love.

It was also buggy and had translation issues, but I find those easy to overlook when considering the high points of HM64: a balanced economy with upgrades always around the corner, a variety of townspeople with their own ongoing stories and relationships, tools that get stronger as you use them, and the game skillfully doing a lot with a very small environment.

I also just can't seem to get into Stardew Valley. It feels like a game made for a mouse and keyboard and the interface didn't carry over to the Switch at all.

Isn't the girl twin's name Vela, not Luna?

I replayed this last year on the N64 and it was good fun, warts and all. The soundtrack is fantastic and what I was hoping StarFox 64 would sound like, to be frank! I do appreciate the challenge level; while the Tribal collection can be brutal, it's mitigated somewhat by the ability to change "zones" and reset the numbers. Some zones are pretty huge though, admittedly.

@AstroTheGamosian That's me! Thanks for the nice comment. I have been making (bimonthly) comics for NF Magazine in the meantime, so there've been a few Smash-themed ones there featuring Rosalina, Bayonetta and a few others.

My favorite character is Hero and the Dragon Quest themed trailer was long overdue, but in terms of the reveal itself I may have to give it to Banjo-Kazooie. The B-K trailer built upon the already-excellent K. Rool trailer and made it even crazier and more fun.

I'm sure I'd enjoy WarioWare, but for me this series is kind of a one-a-generation thing. Since I already have Get it Together, that's plenty microgame craziness for me for a while.

I would've rushed out to buy a new Rhythm Heaven day 1 though.

This is one of the more fascinating videos Sakurai put up. I definitely think Athena's main melody is on the "melody B" line, but when I heard the NES version, it sounded like the "melody A" part was much more pronounced and louder in that one, so I can see where the confusion stems from. But from a compositional standpoint, "melody B" has more characteristics of the main melody of a song, while "melody A" sounds more like a counter-melody.

Fi-yah
Fi-yah
Psy-cho sol-dierrrrrr!

(It sort of bothers me how hard the singer hits the R in that line but it is accurate to the original which supports Sakurai's whole point, so...)

Rayman Legends is spectacular and my all-time favorite Ubisoft game. I'd put the new DKCs above it, but otherwise, no modern platformer comes close.

Heck, while I'm excited about SMB Wonder, I can't help but ~wonder~ what it'd be like with a more hand-drawn, less tile-based look like Rayman and Tropical Freeze...

It's kind of strange this is on the eShop instead of NSO.

It looks good and I like the premise a lot (although "Game Boy Color platformer" is a rather niche category; I'm not sure which games it's meant to bring to mind). I'm hoping that the action isn't too zoomed-in for how fast it looks (that always bugged me with Sonic) but I'll keep my eye on it.

This article made me realize I did this part entirely "wrong," by flying via device straight to the "mouth" of the isles, skipping out on a lot of content. Whoops! So it goes in TotK.

@FishyS Gawrsh.

I was skeptical about Oatchi as well but I think (from the demo at least) he functions surprisingly well with the Pikmin gameplay in kind of consolidating your group.

Nice review, although as someone who found the Pik4 demo fun but way too easy, I'm a little put off by the apparent lack of challenge. Hopefully there's a hard mode built-in. I'm very excited about Dandori Battles though--I loved Bingo Battles and Mission Modes of the prior games (maybe even as much as the story mode). And thank GOODNESS you can go at them solo; AI Bots are totally underrated in this day and age. Can you adjust the difficulty of solo Dandori?

@Uncle_Franklin
Whenever Poochie's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Poochie?"

This looks pretty cool and I think some of the roguelike elements--while not exactly true to the retro era it hails from--will help set it apart from some of the other (excellent) bmups on the Switch. The visual style isn't my favorite but I can live with it, and I like the approach of making Marian a weapons expert.

Also playable Abobo.

It's a creative and interesting game. Compared to the best Ace Attorney games though, the story of Ghost Trick gets a little too crazy, particularly in the last third. It'd be more of an 8/10 for me.

The animations and colors are nice and good to see. And I appreciate the concept of the game is all about surprising the player, which is great.

On the flip side, it feels like it's only halfway there visually. I think the general lighting and style are still too plastic-generic. And the tile-based environments still look pretty flat and non-dynamic compared to things like DKC:Tropical Freeze and Rayman Legends, which had much more organic-looking areas.

@aditiya_ss Nintendo and their P hole flowers.

I assumed this was a prequel of sorts to DQ4 since Psaro looks younger and more simplified than his NES self.

@Strumpan David Wise as well as the oft-forgotten Eveline Fischer.

I think Zelda has struggled with making rupees useful since its move to 3D, although The Wind Waker seemed to have more stuff to buy (and maps to translate). To nitpick a minor inconsistency, it's actually Twilight Princess that had the rupee-draining armor, not TWW.

I do agree that BotW and TotK (moreso) do a good job with rewards for the most part. Armor sets are particularly rewarding, and they demand lots of materials for the best defensive ratings which can mean the difference between victory and defeat. That said, I still wish there was a way to quickly convert weapons/shields/bows into rupees or Zonaite or something on the spot, since my limited inventory still makes finding treasure into a bit of a crap shoot.

I liked elements of it. Creepy mummy Ganon was cool, the sky island sequence has some great stuff too. But Zelda geeking out over glyphs was less charming here than her excitement over finding the frog in BotW, largely because it felt like a lot of lore dropping all at once. It's also very understated visually, with a bunch of brown and gray, at least until you reach the pit.

I really enjoyed the SECOND big dive: the one off the sky island into Hyrule below. As mentioned here, you can really see the scope of the land once the clouds clear. But most importantly, actively jumping off and maintaining control throughout the long fall drives home the concept that these two worlds are seamlessly linked together with no loading or zoning out, etc. It was a pretty breathtaking sequence.

"Hey, genius, you wanna know why I bought the car? To drive it! You know, like on the street, with the honk-honk, and the vroom-vroom, and no walking involved?"

Didn't it come out Feb 23rd? That's (over) two months ago.

I thought both Octopaths were very close in quality, but I'd also give the edge to II. The extra focus on chapter variety gave it a shot in the arm, even if the structure of the game still has its downsides. Both are excellent though and I'd pick up a third game day one.

8/10. Advance Wars itself is a near-perfect game (its only real blemish is Fog of War), and this is a decent version of a fantastic game.

I really like the character models, the fact that it's AW1 and 2 together, and the fact that the AI no longer cheats in Fog of War. But the field visuals are a little dull, the game can get weirdly choppy, some of the voices are really questionable, and you can't save and quit in local multiplayer matches (I had to abandon a great skirmish yesterday because we ran out of time). Also, online seems to be the bare minimum, when I would've at least loved to have seen level-sharing with randoms a la Mario Maker.

Still, it's Advance Wars. It's a wonderfully-designed series that I'm thrilled to have back, and I'm excited to play more.

Mystery solved! I was skeptical of this claim since there was no actual confirmation, but it would've been neat to see Princess Toadstool (and Toad)'s Super Show voices show up somewhere in the movie though.

I love this series and am excited to get hooked all over again!

I'm a little curious what the review meant by "dinky" Design Room though...?

So far, it's great. The music is outstanding.

But I gotta say, I wish it was harder! Once you start reclassing everyone, you have so many options at your disposal that you can really start to cleave through everything.

My gut says 9/10 right now.

@BrazillianCara It reminds me of how some people just don't jive with Dragon Quest's episodic storytelling. I think many gamers prefer a longer-form serialized story than a collection of smaller stories for whatever reason. But I'm a big fan of both approaches.

I loved the first game so I'm sure I'll love this one too. I get the complaints about disjointedness, but I don't mind having to suspend my disbelief when it comes to the disconnect between story and gameplay. And honestly, I thought OT1 had a pretty good story and cast altogether. I found its story at least as satisfying as several other popular RPGs, like Xenoblade.

The main star of the show, in my eyes, is Yasunori Nishiki's incredible compositions. OT1 had one of my all-time favorite soundtracks, and judging from the demo, OT2 does not disappoint at all. The music in these games is both expertly arranged and melodically rich. It's gorgeous, hummable, and elevates the rest of the game(s) significantly.

Skies is just plain awesome. It's got a ridiculously lovable cast and a world that begs to be explored. The encounter rate and pacing of the combat (and ship combat) lead to some pretty pokey moments, but that's really my only complaint with this adventure.

Feels like the third choice should've been "savory" rather than "sour." Sour seems pretty niche, while savoriness is in as many foods as sweetness.

Team Spicy for sure!

I've been wondering about Sonic's eyes for a decade! http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/comic/soniceyes/

@Thief It's also a spinoff and not a mainline game. I long for the day when a Pokemon game looks as good as DQXI.

New tank character looks pretty cool.

Still no Moira nerf, eh?

@KateGray Thank you! Always so nice hearing from a fan.

@BrazillianCara Yep! I was involved with the original production and composed several of its songs. It ran pretty long though, so this version is a tightened-up take that would be much more manageable to perform onstage. Most of my songs are still here in some form though. The new team has done a great job ironing out the original version's wrinkles.