@Johnny44 There’s an extremely useful button for shutting people up at the bottom of every user post, right next to ‘Reply’ and ‘Report’.
It’s much easier to hit the ‘Ignore’ button than to campaign for the mods to get someone banned.
If someone’s breaking the community rules then the problem lies with them and you have the Report button for that. But if the worst you can say is “I find their content very repetitive and annoying”, then there’s onus is really on the reader to just… turn them off. It’s really quite straightforward and the benefits are instantaneous!
…If you don’t like being given advice by strangers on the internet, feel free to use me as a test case!
Well thankfully you don’t have to buy his “I’m so great video series” because it’s all available on YouTube for free with absolutely no adverts or monetisation of any kind.
Huzzah!
I can’t remember which episode was about him being so great — I mainly remember the series delving into various aspects of video game design — but if there is a video entirely dedicated to how great he is, then I’m sure it’s also free!
@AllBLK Outside of that Metro review there’s actually quite a smooth spread of scores centred about 80, so it doesn’t seem quite as polarising/marmitey/black-and-white as some are suggesting.
Possibly a bit of a wider spread than the other major Nintendo titles this year, but I haven’t crunched the numbers on those so can’t say for sure.
Anyway, here are where the current scores in Metacritic fall, assuming I’ve input them correctly.
@BaldB3lper78 I was curious to see how spread out the reviews actually were for this game so bunged all the review scores from Metacritic into a spreadsheet and it spat out a standard deviation of 9.89.
…Which is pretty useless without any other games to compare it to, and I can’t currently be bothered to do the same with another game because doing it on my phone almost killed me. (I’d like to try the same with Bananza, MKW, Pokemon Z-A and Sonic Frontiers when I can sit in front of a computer.)
What it does tell you though is that the Metro score is about 4 standard deviations away from the mean, which makes it a massive outlier.
…Which everyone already knew anyway.
It’s okay to have outliers. A review is just an opinion and you wouldn’t really want people to adjust their views to try and second guess what all the other reviewers are thinking.
@charliecarrot Checking Wiktionary is great advice. I always seem to forget about it, but it’s a great resource.
@Logicfire I can more or less stomach ask as a noun (even if I’d say, “that’s a lot to ask” instead) but hearing “on accident” leaves me shuddering so violently that the resulting vibrations can be picked up as gravitational waves in galaxies far, far away.
This in turn leads me to question my identity because in my head I’m a super chilled out “hey man what’s the big deal language is like fluid man it’s like constantly evolving like woaaah” kind of descriptivist.
thanks yew four you’re kind responds re-guarding my in-query with re-specs too the state off modern grammer use age
(Writing like this takes a surprisingly amount of effort so I’ll stop.)
I’m honoured to have my letter at the top of the page. Forgive me if I’m overlooking something, but how do I claim the month’s subscription to Nintendo Life’s ad-free Supporter scheme?
It was a pleasure reading everyone else’s letters. In my relatively brief time with Mario Kart World I had an absolute blast, so it seems a bit of a shame that the internet’s response has been lukewarm (even if the sales figures tell a different story).
I definitely agree the overworld could offer a bit more incentive to explore it, and the collectibles should really amount to more than just… stickers, only one of which can be displayed at a time. Splatoon-style name cards would have offered a bit more scope for customisation. If Kirby can have customisable driving licences, why can’t Mario?
The grass looks very green and choppable. They did a great job of casting with the grass.👍
Really though, I think the aesthetic looks really quite good! Not overblown, which is a relief. There’s a tendency for live-action adaptions of Japanese media to go down the ‘tacky cosplay’ route with ridiculous wigs and plasticky clothing. This… doesn’t look like that. The people look like… people. We’ll see how things turn out in the final edit, but this has certainly allayed some fears.
@Kraven The thing is, we don’t know if it’s one instance at this point, or a running theme. The 7 minute overview trailer has quite a large section showcasing various NPCs… talking about their families. This suggests ‘allies’ might not be a small part of the game.
Too early to call for sure, but not too early to be concerned!
Slightly concerned about the degree to which the human allies will play a part…
Isolation has always been a core theme in the series, and having that replaced with reams of dialogue from earnest, wooden Americans telling you about how important their families are is… not that appealing.
Honestly, part of me loves that this exists — that ‘Bad British Kirby Rap’ is officially a thing. It’s cheery. It’s awkward. It’s upbeat. It’s cringe. It’s very, very British. It’s human.
‘Good’ it isn’t, but it also isn’t ‘slop’. And I’ll take that gladly. Long live Bad British Kirby Rap.
@BaldB3lper78 That was a pleasant surprise for me, too! Puts it in ‘perhaps I can forgive it for being a key-card (but I’d still rather it wasn’t)’ territory.
@Axecon I’m by no means an expert on this so take everything I say with an ocean of salt, but I think it’s less about manufacturing costs, and more about trying to tailor prices to specific regions without causing too much imbalance in the global market. The reason being that if one region is significantly cheaper than another, that will create an incentive for people to buy consoles in the cheapest region rather than in their own.
You could make the prices flat across all regions so there’s little difference after converting currency, but this can result in some regions getting shafted if there’s been a big upset in exchange rates.
Nintendo priced the cheapest version of the Switch 2 at roughly 50% more than Switch 1 in both Japan and the US. The unsurprisingly unpopular multi-language system sold in Japan is significantly more expensive: roughly 110% more expensive than the Switch 1 (which is to say, 210% of the price — over twice as much). That’s a difficult pill to swallow, which perhaps explains why only 2.9% of Switch 2 buyers in Japan have swallowed it.
If Nintendo were to only release a single, non-region-locked console in Japan, then selling it at the more expensive price would alienate a lot of the Japanese market, while selling at the cheaper price would make it seriously cheap for Americans (to give one example): $322 vs $450 back home. This wasn’t as much of an issue at the beginning of the Switch 1’s life cycle, but since then the the dollar has gone from around ¥110 to around ¥150.
There could be more to it than this, but I think the above plays a big part.
@dmcc0 I’ll have to double check this, but I don’t believe the game carts themselves are region locked. My understanding is that consoles purchased outside of Japan, and the multi-language model sold in Japan, should be able to read Japanese carts just fine. I think non-Japanese consoles and the more expensive Japanese language console are broadly the same functionally.
If I’m wrong about this, it’d come as quite a shock.
EDIT: I could be misreading what you meant. If you’re saying the Japanese-language console can only read Japanese carts, then I believe you’re entirely correct! But I don’t think the carts themselves have any sort of region lock built in. (Which is to say, they should be fine on non-Japanese consoles, but not-Japanese games won’t be fine on ~97% of Japanese consoles.)
…Mario looks weird. I thought I’d got used to the movie design. In fact, I know I’d got used to the movie. But in the intervening period since the last movie, I’ve somehow got un-used to it.
A huge milestone for a wonderful website. Congratulations to everyone involved in keeping the site going for two decades.
As someone who grew up reading monthly Nintendo mags, I feel the site has done a great job of keeping the spirit of those publications alive, albeit in a completely different format.
Articles always seem to strike an excellent balance between personality and professionalism: not too dry, not too fluffy and self-absorbed, and rarely resorting to spin or sensationalism.
The variety of content is great, too. I’m not sure how many views Back Page, Talking Point, Interviews and other features actually bring in, but I really appreciate their existence. They keep the site from just being variations of the same news that everyone else is reporting and give it a meaningful identity.
@T317 You’re absolutely right, and I suppose the optimistic response would be to say that while the bigger companies have moved out of that space due to spiralling development costs, the rise of indie studios working with smaller teams and budgets means that it isn’t entirely vacant.
Generally these smaller studios aren’t putting out AAA style games to challenge the industry titans (with some exceptions like Clair Obscura) but they’re able to hold their own by working with gameplay styles that have either fallen out of fashion, or more interestingly, are genuinely novel enough to have never been in fashion.
The proof will be in the pudding (or rather, the eating of said pudding) but it really seems like SEGA has avoided practically every disappointing compromise we’ve seen with third-party cross-generation releases.
Game on the cart, affordable upgrade path, solid performance boost, a visual upgrade, and cross-generation matchmaking to boot.
@Jack_Goetz Reading of how happy you are on behalf of those who enjoy collecting wooden block sets brings me a great, pure, unbridled joy — on behalf of your fine self, and on behalf of those who enjoy collecting wooden block sets.
I’m so happy for those who are happy for those who are happy to hear news of these wooden blocks!
Really though, I think the concept of functioning wooden amiibo is pretty neat and I’d probably prefer them over the plastic alternatives. Not just for toddlers!
@Joekun Exactly. People say BotW “doesn’t have a proper story” but that game speaks the language of adventure more eloquently than any other game I can think of.
Adventure, exploration and discovery are the stuff of pure narrative. ‘Video-game storytelling’ is more than characters and cutscenes; it doesn’t have to be passive, and is often more engrossing when it’s not.
In BotW, the story less what the game tells the player, and the more what the player writes themselves. It’s something only possible in the medium of video games, and I think that’s what Houser is getting at here.
@Dm9982 There’s nothing better than a good strapline. I feel the artform deserves more appreciation. Maybe there should be an annual vote for the ‘subheader of the year’ in December where we reminisce over some of the crackers. I’m still enjoying the warm glow of the exquisitely situational ‘Clear Bowser History’ above an article about how it look over a decade to beat the boss of original Mario Bros.’s
Losing Kate as a full-time punster was a blow, but Jim and the team are still carrying the torch proudly.
“Nintendo is a toy company” is a take I’ve seen in numerous opinion pieces, used with various degrees of condescension. I’d argue all video games are toys insofar as they are ‘playthings’ — things we literally play — but if any company truly understands the importance of “toyfulness” in video game design, it’s Nintendo.
No matter how simple or complex, a toy has to feel good to interact with on a fundamental level otherwise the player loses interest; it stops being ‘play’ and starts being a chore. Even something as basic as a set of building blocks can be entertaining if the blocks satisfyingly combine to form new and interesting structures.
Nintendo knows this. The company has been making games since they were literally a bunch of blocks (aka pixels) on a screen. We’ve moved onto ‘voxel technology’ and other tech that would have been inconceivable in gaming’s early days, but the philosophy is unchanged: does it feel good to handle, and do the basic elements combine in a satisfying way?
Unless you check those two boxes, you’re not going to have a compelling plaything, whether you call it a game, a toy, or 〜a revelatory journey of self-discovery through the medium of digital art〜.
How about… if Nintendo drop their current business model… and instead of players buying games… Nintendo buys a bunch of gorillas… and puts them all in a big house… and dresses them up as Donkey Kong… and livestreams it… and people can purchase bananas for the gorillas… but Nintendo makes a profit from each banana sold… and that’s how Nintendo makes money from now on.
Like, no more games. Just lots of gorillas in a house.
It’s pretty wild that the country of Japan is level pegging with the continent of Europe. And also explains why it’s so hard to pick one up over here. You still have enter a lottery to get one from the Nintendo website (the only place to offer the non-regional locked version of the console).
I think the article is spot on in its assessment, although I’m a little less concerned about what this approach entails.
Part of me is glad that Nintendo isn’t slavishly sticking to a ‘new console = new game in each major franchise’ philosophy. That approach gave us New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. U (and the Luigi version): new games on new systems with ‘New’ in the title, but ultimately just iterations on the same old formula.
It was only after Nintendo eased off this approach that we got the genuinely fresh-feeling Super Mario Wonder, which came several years into the Switch’s lifecycle — rather than being rushed out because ‘Switch needs a new 2D Mario platformer ASAP’.
While Animal Crossing skipped the Wii U (no one mention the word ‘festival’), it received consecutive entries on DS, Wii and 3DS, not all of which really moved the series forward. New Leaf is undoubtedly a sizeable jump from Wild World, but Let’s Go to the City feels like it owes its existence more to the idea that ‘the Wii needs an Animal Crossing game’ than any particular gameplay innovation. Yes, there was the titular city, but you’re probably not missing much if you never went there.
It’s natural to want a shiny new version of something you already like, but we wouldn’t have got Bananza if we demanded Odyssey 2 came first. Similarly, we wouldn’t be getting Kirby Air Riders if we prioritised Smash Bros. Extra Ultimate, nor Splatoon Raiders if we insisted on Splatoon 4.
As Sakurai likes to point out, modern game development is a huge undertaking. I can understand why developers choose to keep building on an existing product rather than come out with a brand new version every few years. And while a ‘Switch 2 Edition’ might feel underwhelming compared to a genuine sequel, if it means that the new games we get actually feel new and genuinely innovative (e.g. Mario Wonder, DK Bananza) as opposed to cookie-cutter iterations of previous title (e.g. the New Super Mario Bros. games) then I’m all for it.
People saying ZA is worse than games like Gold and Silver have never played Gold and Silver. Terrible regional dex, absolutely no memorable characters other than maybe Silver, no story outside of the 30 minutes of grinding level 13 Team Rocket grunts, and the most grindy Pokemon games to date (the remakes are not excused for this either).
To be fair, these are criticisms I often hear levelled at Breath of the Wild as well. And the lack of enemy variety could, at a stretch, be compared to ‘terrible regional dex’ (admittedly quite a stretch).
And yet, it remains one of your (and one of my) favourite games of all time.
I didn’t (and still don’t) feel BoTW really needed more memorable characters, or a more thickly applied story. I liked the experience of exploring ‘the wild’, largely alone, uncovering its nooks and crannies, even if doing so had no bearing on story progression. It’s a game that delights in the space between things as much as in the things themselves. It’s sequel filled that space with a great deal more things, but I didn’t find myself having a great deal more fun as a result.
If I’m immersed in a game’s world and engaged by its core mechanics, that’s generally enough for me to be having a good time. Personally I got that with GSC (being a lot younger probably helped). Maybe if I were the same age I’d get that with Z-A too.
For me, the GBA is the perfect incarnation of Pokémon. Super polished and refined, sharp and attractive pixel visuals, very brisk and snappy gameplay performance, mechanically sound, and modernization of the classic formula. Those games feel great to play and look at it.
I agree with all of this! Really well put. Although I’d argue they managed to keep this going into the first half of the DS era as well. DPPt and HGSS both hold up really well in my eyes.
I know BW/B2W2 are now among the most well regarded games in the series* but for me it’s where things started to feel a little ‘mooshy’. I think it’s partly the introduction of 3D-lite into the environments, which always felt like a compromise on the original DS, but it just seemed to lack the crispness the previous games.
*There seems to be a point where the fanbase pivoted from venerating HGSS to deciding it was trash and that BW was what a really good Pokemon game looked like.
I fear that accidentally stealing the Crown Jewels to fund your 3DS addiction puts you in something of a a legal Gray area. You’ve let the Kat out of the bag with this admition.
Nintendo should put more money and resources into developing lesser known series like Super Mario rather than continuing to milk the teats off established cash cows like Drag x Drive, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball.
Nintendo should give up on hardware and just focus on software as that’s what Nintendo does best. It’ll never be able to compete against technical powerhouses like Sony and Microsoft with their virtually unlimited budgets for R&D and wealth of experience developing a range of technological products. Nintendo will quit the hardware business and we’ll be playing Mario games on Xbox within 5 years.
…I believe that was a popular take during the Wii U era.
@BTB20 Given that he couldn’t be bothered to read @SakuraHaruka‘a comment because it was “too long”, perhaps attention is not the user’s strong point.
One might argue that a world in which we just shout our own version of the ‘truth’ into the void with no regard for other people’s views — or for the basic facts of the matter — is a bit… ‘Orwellian’. But that would be a bit too ironic.
A merci-ful development indeed, especially regarding the game pricing.
I can take a one-off hit to the wallet for the console, as I only expect to splash out once (maybe twice) per generation, but for every single game purchase to feel like major financial outlay… well, it stings. I know modern games aren’t exactly cheap to develop, but…
Let’s hope this is the start of a broader trend and not just limited to the land of liberté, égalité and fraternité.
@larryisaman Did they need to? No. Did they generate more engagement through this approach than they would have otherwise? Absolutely. This was a publicity stunt; a promotion for Nintendo Pictures. The fact that “they got the publicity” means it was a successful publicity stunt.
@canaryfarmer The original video has racked up well over a million across Nintendo’s YouTube channels. There have been plenty on “what the what” videos from content-hungry Nintendo-centred YouTube channels. The three ‘Close to You’ articles on this very website have generated several hundred comments between them.
The ideal length on time to tease people is ‘long enough to generate speculation, but short enough to satisfy people while they’re still curious’. 5 minutes would indeed have been too short, but 36 hours seems have been right on the money. The fact we’re here discussing it is proof enough of our ‘engagement’.
@Switching Join me in pouring one out for the Big N. ‘Tis a true travesty that a game with a ~95% attach rate doesn’t have… a higher attach rate.
Every true Nintendo fan should head to Japan immediately and spend the whatever savings they have on purchasing multiple copies on Mario Kart World. There is no greater injustice that we as a species must collectively rectify.
@The_Nintendo_Pedant It says both! ‘Pane’ in the in-game dialogue at 0:22 and ‘pain’ in the text at 0:40.
I can only assume the ‘pane’ spelling is deliberate (either a play on words based on ‘pane of glass’ or a sign that the in-game character doesn’t full understand what he’s talking about) but both spellings are there!
Yeah… sorry guys. Even with the update, I’m still not sold. Call me a sceptic, but you’ll have to do more than fill a video with Pikmin to convince me this has anything to do with Pikmin.
In fact, I’m starting to question whether any of the Pikmin games are actually Pikmin-related. The only one I feel sure of is Hey! Pikmin because that has the word ’Hey!’ in it and ‘Hey!’ is a very convincing word.
…Really though, I still feel that ‘it being Pikmin-related’ (which was obvious from the start) doesn’t rule out the possibility of it also being Mario-related. There’s been some cross-pollination between the franchises before, most notably at Super Nintendo World theme parks — which incidentally, Miyamoto had a big hand in developing.
See if you can spot the six Pikmin hiding above
‘Close to You’ seems like the exactly the sort of thing that Miyamoto would be involved in. He’s already played a major role in developing the original Pikmin shorts, as well as the Super Mario Movie, and this sort of ‘developing the Nintendo brand outside of games’ is basically his main job at the moment. If he can sprinkle a little Pikmin into the Mario theme parks, then he can sprinkle a little Mario into a cute Pikmin video. Note the nods to the Galaxy games in this video:
Mario-esque stars and Lakitu clouds on the mobile hanging toy.
Rosalina-esque rattle toy.
Similar Rosalina aesthetic on the clock.
Rosalina for reference. She has quite a distinctive colour-way. Also, her hairstyle has shares some features with the baby’s: a prominent central tuft with swept-back sides. I’m not on team ‘the baby is Rosalina’ just yet but the similarities are there.
Whether these are just little Easter eggs, or whether this is part of a greater tie in with the Galaxy movies, I don’t feel confident saying just yet. The video does give off ‘high budget Western animation studio’ vibes, and we know a high budget Illumination-produced Mario Galaxy movie is just around the corner, but… Illumination’s name appears nowhere in the video.
Nintendo has been super explicit about the studio’s involvement before, featuring interviews with Chris Meledrandi in its Directs, so it would be surprising for them to not credit the studio here — especially now that the ‘true’ version has been revealed. This video could well have been produced by Nintendo’s ‘in-house’ animation studio Nintendo Pictures who worked on Pikmin 4.
So yeah, it was obviously Pikmin-related from the moment the leitmotif started playing, but the degree of Galaxy influence is still open for debate.
Musically it’s got Pikmin written all over it. Nintendo wouldn’t “accidentally” include Pikmin’s central leitmotif multiple times (0:29, 0:56, 2:02, 2:20, 3:26) in its video about invisible Pikmin-sized creatures carrying objects around a real world environment in a very Pikmin-like way.
The question isn’t “is it Pikmin related?” but “is it just Pikmin related?”. That is, does it tie the franchise in to something larger?
The Pikmin references are undeniable, but there are seemingly some nods to the Mario series, too:
Note the Mario-esque stars and Lakitu clouds on the mobile hanging toy.
Rosalina/Galaxy-esque rattle toy.
Similar Galaxy aesthetic on the clock.
Rosalina for reference. She has quite a distinctive colour-way. Also, her hairstyle has shares some features with the baby’s: a prominent central tuft with swept-back sides. That said, I don’t feel confident asserting ‘the baby is Rosalina’ at this point, despite the similarities.
One could easily speculate that this is a teaser for Pikmin 5 or some other Pikmin project featuring invisible Pikmin as the new mechanic.
Alternatively, this could be Nintendo’s animation studio creating standalone videos that aim to show that ‘Magic of Nintendo’ is all around us — hiding just out of sight. Perhaps this is the first in a series of videos which show that Nintendo’s fantastical worlds are really a part of our own, but we need a certain innocence, imagination and playfulness to see them. Hence the Pikmin only revealing themselves to the baby once mummy is out of the room.
I dunno. All I know is that there’s a whiff of Galaxy and a great big Pikmin pong.
Comments 2,986
Re: Japanese Charts: Konami Rolls Another Smash Hit With Its Momotaro Dentetsu Board Game Sequel
@Johnny44 There’s an extremely useful button for shutting people up at the bottom of every user post, right next to ‘Reply’ and ‘Report’.
It’s much easier to hit the ‘Ignore’ button than to campaign for the mods to get someone banned.
If someone’s breaking the community rules then the problem lies with them and you have the Report button for that. But if the worst you can say is “I find their content very repetitive and annoying”, then there’s onus is really on the reader to just… turn them off. It’s really quite straightforward and the benefits are instantaneous!
…If you don’t like being given advice by strangers on the internet, feel free to use me as a test case!
Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade's File Size On Switch 2 Is Making Us Sweat
I shudder to think how uncomfortable it would be to birth something that large once, let alone rebirthing it all over again.
Ooph.
Re: Sakurai Is Keen To Live An "Unassuming Life", Despite His Fame And Prestige
@Lizuka
Well thankfully you don’t have to buy his “I’m so great video series” because it’s all available on YouTube for free with absolutely no adverts or monetisation of any kind.
Huzzah!
I can’t remember which episode was about him being so great — I mainly remember the series delving into various aspects of video game design — but if there is a video entirely dedicated to how great he is, then I’m sure it’s also free!
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Kirby Air Riders
@AllBLK Outside of that Metro review there’s actually quite a smooth spread of scores centred about 80, so it doesn’t seem quite as polarising/marmitey/black-and-white as some are suggesting.
Possibly a bit of a wider spread than the other major Nintendo titles this year, but I haven’t crunched the numbers on those so can’t say for sure.
Anyway, here are where the current scores in Metacritic fall, assuming I’ve input them correctly.
1-10: 0
21-20: 0
21-30: 0
31-40: 1
41-50: 0
51-60: 2
61-70: 16
71-80: 24
81-90: 21
91-100: 4
Or in I tried to make a graph using dots form:
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Kirby Air Riders
@BaldB3lper78 I was curious to see how spread out the reviews actually were for this game so bunged all the review scores from Metacritic into a spreadsheet and it spat out a standard deviation of 9.89.
…Which is pretty useless without any other games to compare it to, and I can’t currently be bothered to do the same with another game because doing it on my phone almost killed me. (I’d like to try the same with Bananza, MKW, Pokemon Z-A and Sonic Frontiers when I can sit in front of a computer.)
What it does tell you though is that the Metro score is about 4 standard deviations away from the mean, which makes it a massive outlier.
…Which everyone already knew anyway.
It’s okay to have outliers. A review is just an opinion and you wouldn’t really want people to adjust their views to try and second guess what all the other reviewers are thinking.
But it is an outlier nonetheless.
Re: "Consumers Generally Do Not Care" About AI In Games, Says Former Square Enix Exec
@Ogbert You’ve hit enough nails on the head with this post to fashion a very sturdy longboat.
Re: Mailbox: 3D Mario Predictions, Gaming Redemptions, Grammar Talk - Nintendo Life Letters
@charliecarrot Checking Wiktionary is great advice. I always seem to forget about it, but it’s a great resource.
@Logicfire I can more or less stomach ask as a noun (even if I’d say, “that’s a lot to ask” instead) but hearing “on accident” leaves me shuddering so violently that the resulting vibrations can be picked up as gravitational waves in galaxies far, far away.
This in turn leads me to question my identity because in my head I’m a super chilled out “hey man what’s the big deal language is like fluid man it’s like constantly evolving like woaaah” kind of descriptivist.
Re: Mailbox: 3D Mario Predictions, Gaming Redemptions, Grammar Talk - Nintendo Life Letters
deer ed (@dartmonkey)
thanks yew four you’re kind responds re-guarding my in-query with re-specs too the state off modern grammer use age
(Writing like this takes a surprisingly amount of effort so I’ll stop.)
I’m honoured to have my letter at the top of the page. Forgive me if I’m overlooking something, but how do I claim the month’s subscription to Nintendo Life’s ad-free Supporter scheme?
It was a pleasure reading everyone else’s letters. In my relatively brief time with Mario Kart World I had an absolute blast, so it seems a bit of a shame that the internet’s response has been lukewarm (even if the sales figures tell a different story).
I definitely agree the overworld could offer a bit more incentive to explore it, and the collectibles should really amount to more than just… stickers, only one of which can be displayed at a time. Splatoon-style name cards would have offered a bit more scope for customisation. If Kirby can have customisable driving licences, why can’t Mario?
Best wishes,
Gramax
Re: Rumour: Zelda Movie Production Set Footage Has Supposedly Leaked Online
@CaleBoi25 Eep! Thank you!
Re: Rumour: Zelda Movie Production Set Footage Has Supposedly Leaked Online
The grass looks very green and choppable. They did a great job of casting with the grass.👍
Really though, I think the aesthetic looks really quite good! Not overblown, which is a relief. There’s a tendency for live-action adaptions of Japanese media to go down the ‘tacky cosplay’ route with ridiculous wigs and plasticky clothing. This… doesn’t look like that. The people look like… people. We’ll see how things turn out in the final edit, but this has certainly allayed some fears.
Re: Top 100 Nintendo Games, As Chosen By Nintendo Life & IGN
999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Ninety-sixth Best Nintendo Game As Chosen By Nintendo Life & IGN
Titles don’t come snappier than that.
Re: Round Up: The Final Previews Are In For Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
@Kraven The thing is, we don’t know if it’s one instance at this point, or a running theme. The 7 minute overview trailer has quite a large section showcasing various NPCs… talking about their families. This suggests ‘allies’ might not be a small part of the game.
Too early to call for sure, but not too early to be concerned!
Re: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Finally Gets The Trailer We've Been Waiting For
Slightly concerned about the degree to which the human allies will play a part…
Isolation has always been a core theme in the series, and having that replaced with reams of dialogue from earnest, wooden Americans telling you about how important their families are is… not that appealing.
Re: Video: Nintendo Just Dropped Its Best (Worst?) Song Since DK Rap
Here is the original Japanese CM that the UK team were presumably tasked with translating. It certainly explains a few things!
https://youtu.be/2oaeHVAET3o?si=unsb_8z93FqzQimv
Honestly, part of me loves that this exists — that ‘Bad British Kirby Rap’ is officially a thing. It’s cheery. It’s awkward. It’s upbeat. It’s cringe. It’s very, very British. It’s human.
‘Good’ it isn’t, but it also isn’t ‘slop’. And I’ll take that gladly. Long live Bad British Kirby Rap.
Re: Video: Nintendo Just Dropped Its Best (Worst?) Song Since DK Rap
I love how the ‘yeeeeaaah’ just trails off awkwardly at the end.
Bah!
Re: Review: Yakuza Kiwami 2 (Switch 2) - One Of The Series' Very Best
@BaldB3lper78 That was a pleasant surprise for me, too! Puts it in ‘perhaps I can forgive it for being a key-card (but I’d still rather it wasn’t)’ territory.
Re: Sony Once Again Takes A Leaf From Nintendo's Playbook In Japan
@Axecon I’m by no means an expert on this so take everything I say with an ocean of salt, but I think it’s less about manufacturing costs, and more about trying to tailor prices to specific regions without causing too much imbalance in the global market. The reason being that if one region is significantly cheaper than another, that will create an incentive for people to buy consoles in the cheapest region rather than in their own.
You could make the prices flat across all regions so there’s little difference after converting currency, but this can result in some regions getting shafted if there’s been a big upset in exchange rates.
Nintendo priced the cheapest version of the Switch 2 at roughly 50% more than Switch 1 in both Japan and the US. The unsurprisingly unpopular multi-language system sold in Japan is significantly more expensive: roughly 110% more expensive than the Switch 1 (which is to say, 210% of the price — over twice as much). That’s a difficult pill to swallow, which perhaps explains why only 2.9% of Switch 2 buyers in Japan have swallowed it.
If Nintendo were to only release a single, non-region-locked console in Japan, then selling it at the more expensive price would alienate a lot of the Japanese market, while selling at the cheaper price would make it seriously cheap for Americans (to give one example): $322 vs $450 back home. This wasn’t as much of an issue at the beginning of the Switch 1’s life cycle, but since then the the dollar has gone from around ¥110 to around ¥150.
There could be more to it than this, but I think the above plays a big part.
Re: Sony Once Again Takes A Leaf From Nintendo's Playbook In Japan
@dmcc0 I’ll have to double check this, but I don’t believe the game carts themselves are region locked. My understanding is that consoles purchased outside of Japan, and the multi-language model sold in Japan, should be able to read Japanese carts just fine. I think non-Japanese consoles and the more expensive Japanese language console are broadly the same functionally.
If I’m wrong about this, it’d come as quite a shock.
EDIT: I could be misreading what you meant. If you’re saying the Japanese-language console can only read Japanese carts, then I believe you’re entirely correct! But I don’t think the carts themselves have any sort of region lock built in. (Which is to say, they should be fine on non-Japanese consoles, but not-Japanese games won’t be fine on ~97% of Japanese consoles.)
Re: Poll: What Do You Make Of The Mario Galaxy Movie's Leaked Yoshi Design?
I think Yoshi looks quite good.
…Mario looks weird. I thought I’d got used to the movie design. In fact, I know I’d got used to the movie. But in the intervening period since the last movie, I’ve somehow got un-used to it.
Re: Site News: Nintendo Life Turns 20 Today!
A huge milestone for a wonderful website. Congratulations to everyone involved in keeping the site going for two decades.
As someone who grew up reading monthly Nintendo mags, I feel the site has done a great job of keeping the spirit of those publications alive, albeit in a completely different format.
Articles always seem to strike an excellent balance between personality and professionalism: not too dry, not too fluffy and self-absorbed, and rarely resorting to spin or sensationalism.
The variety of content is great, too. I’m not sure how many views Back Page, Talking Point, Interviews and other features actually bring in, but I really appreciate their existence. They keep the site from just being variations of the same news that everyone else is reporting and give it a meaningful identity.
So thank you. And please keep up the good work.
Re: "These Shouldn't Be The Only Games Being Made" - Keiji Inafune Critical Of Reliance On Big IPs
@T317 You’re absolutely right, and I suppose the optimistic response would be to say that while the bigger companies have moved out of that space due to spiralling development costs, the rise of indie studios working with smaller teams and budgets means that it isn’t entirely vacant.
Generally these smaller studios aren’t putting out AAA style games to challenge the industry titans (with some exceptions like Clair Obscura) but they’re able to hold their own by working with gameplay styles that have either fallen out of fashion, or more interestingly, are genuinely novel enough to have never been in fashion.
Re: Hiroshi Yamauchi Might Feel Envious Of Switch 2's Success, Says Miyamoto
Some people have suggested that Nintendo should go down the Microsoft GamePass route if they really want to see their fortunes skyrocket.
Personally, I think they should return to love hotels like they had under Yamauchi (…possibly a different Yamauchi). I mean, what’s not to love?
Re: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Performance And Resolution Revealed
The proof will be in the pudding (or rather, the eating of said pudding) but it really seems like SEGA has avoided practically every disappointing compromise we’ve seen with third-party cross-generation releases.
Game on the cart, affordable upgrade path, solid performance boost, a visual upgrade, and cross-generation matchmaking to boot.
Here we go, fast like WOAH!
Re: Nintendo Reveals Three More Super Mario Wood Block amiibo Sets
@Jack_Goetz Reading of how happy you are on behalf of those who enjoy collecting wooden block sets brings me a great, pure, unbridled joy — on behalf of your fine self, and on behalf of those who enjoy collecting wooden block sets.
I’m so happy for those who are happy for those who are happy to hear news of these wooden blocks!
Really though, I think the concept of functioning wooden amiibo is pretty neat and I’d probably prefer them over the plastic alternatives. Not just for toddlers!
Re: Former GTA Boss Dan Houser Says Zelda: BOTW And TOTK "Feel Like Hitchcock"
@Joekun Exactly. People say BotW “doesn’t have a proper story” but that game speaks the language of adventure more eloquently than any other game I can think of.
Adventure, exploration and discovery are the stuff of pure narrative. ‘Video-game storytelling’ is more than characters and cutscenes; it doesn’t have to be passive, and is often more engrossing when it’s not.
In BotW, the story less what the game tells the player, and the more what the player writes themselves. It’s something only possible in the medium of video games, and I think that’s what Houser is getting at here.
Re: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment's Ace Soundtrack Comes Courtesy Of NieR Composers
@Dm9982 There’s nothing better than a good strapline. I feel the artform deserves more appreciation. Maybe there should be an annual vote for the ‘subheader of the year’ in December where we reminisce over some of the crackers. I’m still enjoying the warm glow of the exquisitely situational ‘Clear Bowser History’ above an article about how it look over a decade to beat the boss of original Mario Bros.’s
Losing Kate as a full-time punster was a blow, but Jim and the team are still carrying the torch proudly.
Re: Former GTA Boss Dan Houser Says Zelda: BOTW And TOTK "Feel Like Hitchcock"
“Nintendo is a toy company” is a take I’ve seen in numerous opinion pieces, used with various degrees of condescension. I’d argue all video games are toys insofar as they are ‘playthings’ — things we literally play — but if any company truly understands the importance of “toyfulness” in video game design, it’s Nintendo.
No matter how simple or complex, a toy has to feel good to interact with on a fundamental level otherwise the player loses interest; it stops being ‘play’ and starts being a chore. Even something as basic as a set of building blocks can be entertaining if the blocks satisfyingly combine to form new and interesting structures.
Nintendo knows this. The company has been making games since they were literally a bunch of blocks (aka pixels) on a screen. We’ve moved onto ‘voxel technology’ and other tech that would have been inconceivable in gaming’s early days, but the philosophy is unchanged: does it feel good to handle, and do the basic elements combine in a satisfying way?
Unless you check those two boxes, you’re not going to have a compelling plaything, whether you call it a game, a toy, or 〜a revelatory journey of self-discovery through the medium of digital art〜.
Re: Nintendo Is Preparing For Even More Movies In The Future, Unsurprisingly
I predict a trilogy of ARMS movies.
…Maybe that’s bit of a stretch.
Re: Talking Point: Smashing Switch 2 Numbers Prove Nintendo's Strategy Is Super Effective
@Dee123
It would be nice to think so, but according to the comment section of this article, ”Nintendo took our taxpayer money to "study" from USAID.”
As a take, that’s surely skirting the edges of sanity.
Re: Switch 2 Sells Over 10 Million Units, Nintendo Increases Forecast Even Further
How about… if Nintendo drop their current business model… and instead of players buying games… Nintendo buys a bunch of gorillas… and puts them all in a big house… and dresses them up as Donkey Kong… and livestreams it… and people can purchase bananas for the gorillas… but Nintendo makes a profit from each banana sold… and that’s how Nintendo makes money from now on.
Like, no more games. Just lots of gorillas in a house.
…I feel I’m onto something here.
Re: Switch 2 Sells Over 10 Million Units, Nintendo Increases Forecast Even Further
@The_Top_Loader We’ve moved onto downfall and glownfall. Because the Switch selling 154 million units is now considered a form of “downfall”.
Re: Switch 2 Sells Over 10 Million Units, Nintendo Increases Forecast Even Further
It’s pretty wild that the country of Japan is level pegging with the continent of Europe. And also explains why it’s so hard to pick one up over here. You still have enter a lottery to get one from the Nintendo website (the only place to offer the non-regional locked version of the console).
Re: Opinion: Animal Crossing On Switch 2 Has Me Equal Parts Buzzing And Baffled
I think the article is spot on in its assessment, although I’m a little less concerned about what this approach entails.
Part of me is glad that Nintendo isn’t slavishly sticking to a ‘new console = new game in each major franchise’ philosophy. That approach gave us New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. U (and the Luigi version): new games on new systems with ‘New’ in the title, but ultimately just iterations on the same old formula.
It was only after Nintendo eased off this approach that we got the genuinely fresh-feeling Super Mario Wonder, which came several years into the Switch’s lifecycle — rather than being rushed out because ‘Switch needs a new 2D Mario platformer ASAP’.
While Animal Crossing skipped the Wii U (no one mention the word ‘festival’), it received consecutive entries on DS, Wii and 3DS, not all of which really moved the series forward. New Leaf is undoubtedly a sizeable jump from Wild World, but Let’s Go to the City feels like it owes its existence more to the idea that ‘the Wii needs an Animal Crossing game’ than any particular gameplay innovation. Yes, there was the titular city, but you’re probably not missing much if you never went there.
It’s natural to want a shiny new version of something you already like, but we wouldn’t have got Bananza if we demanded Odyssey 2 came first. Similarly, we wouldn’t be getting Kirby Air Riders if we prioritised Smash Bros. Extra Ultimate, nor Splatoon Raiders if we insisted on Splatoon 4.
As Sakurai likes to point out, modern game development is a huge undertaking. I can understand why developers choose to keep building on an existing product rather than come out with a brand new version every few years. And while a ‘Switch 2 Edition’ might feel underwhelming compared to a genuine sequel, if it means that the new games we get actually feel new and genuinely innovative (e.g. Mario Wonder, DK Bananza) as opposed to cookie-cutter iterations of previous title (e.g. the New Super Mario Bros. games) then I’m all for it.
Re: Talking Point: When Did 'Good Enough' Become Good Enough For Pokémon?
@Gatorclops
To be fair, these are criticisms I often hear levelled at Breath of the Wild as well. And the lack of enemy variety could, at a stretch, be compared to ‘terrible regional dex’ (admittedly quite a stretch).
And yet, it remains one of your (and one of my) favourite games of all time.
I didn’t (and still don’t) feel BoTW really needed more memorable characters, or a more thickly applied story. I liked the experience of exploring ‘the wild’, largely alone, uncovering its nooks and crannies, even if doing so had no bearing on story progression. It’s a game that delights in the space between things as much as in the things themselves. It’s sequel filled that space with a great deal more things, but I didn’t find myself having a great deal more fun as a result.
If I’m immersed in a game’s world and engaged by its core mechanics, that’s generally enough for me to be having a good time. Personally I got that with GSC (being a lot younger probably helped). Maybe if I were the same age I’d get that with Z-A too.
Re: Talking Point: When Did 'Good Enough' Become Good Enough For Pokémon?
@TheBigK
I agree with all of this! Really well put. Although I’d argue they managed to keep this going into the first half of the DS era as well. DPPt and HGSS both hold up really well in my eyes.
I know BW/B2W2 are now among the most well regarded games in the series* but for me it’s where things started to feel a little ‘mooshy’. I think it’s partly the introduction of 3D-lite into the environments, which always felt like a compromise on the original DS, but it just seemed to lack the crispness the previous games.
*There seems to be a point where the fanbase pivoted from venerating HGSS to deciding it was trash and that BW was what a really good Pokemon game looked like.
Re: Talking Point: When Did 'Good Enough' Become Good Enough For Pokémon?
Pokemon is like Marmite. One of those little taster pots of Marmite, spread over 1000 pieces of toast.
Some people simply don’t like it; never have, never will. Many more people do like it, but most of them agree it’s being spread too thin.
Re: Microsoft On Its Gaming Business Going Forward: "We Want To Be Everywhere"
After short-form video, the biggest threat to gaming is developers having their projects abruptly cancelled after years of development.
Thankfully Microsoft won’t let that happen because Microsoft is a fantastic publisher.
Re: Back Page: I Was The Louvre Heist Thief, But I Was Just Trying To Steal Their 3DSes
I fear that accidentally stealing the Crown Jewels to fund your 3DS addiction puts you in something of a a legal Gray area. You’ve let the Kat out of the bag with this admition.
Re: Takaya Imamura's Comment On Super Mario Odyssey's 8th Anniversary Makes Us Feel Very Old
Nintendo should put more money and resources into developing lesser known series like Super Mario rather than continuing to milk the teats off established cash cows like Drag x Drive, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball.
Re: Xbox Reiterates Its Support For Switch 2
Nintendo should give up on hardware and just focus on software as that’s what Nintendo does best. It’ll never be able to compete against technical powerhouses like Sony and Microsoft with their virtually unlimited budgets for R&D and wealth of experience developing a range of technological products. Nintendo will quit the hardware business and we’ll be playing Mario games on Xbox within 5 years.
…I believe that was a popular take during the Wii U era.
Re: Sakurai Has No Plans For Kirby Air Riders DLC: "Everything Is Here"
Is it even a racing game without a Wreck-it-Ralph season pass?
Re: Banjo-Kazooie Director Marks Departure From Rare With A Poem
There are only so so many cancelled projects one can take before one cancels oneself from the company. Good luck with the next step, Gregg.
Re: Review: Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Stellar Battles, But A Step Down From Arceus
@BTB20 Given that he couldn’t be bothered to read @SakuraHaruka‘a comment because it was “too long”, perhaps attention is not the user’s strong point.
One might argue that a world in which we just shout our own version of the ‘truth’ into the void with no regard for other people’s views — or for the basic facts of the matter — is a bit… ‘Orwellian’. But that would be a bit too ironic.
Re: Nintendo Is Opening Its Fourth Store In Japan This Year
I visited the city a few years ago.
It was FukuOK.
Re: Switch 2 Bundles Get A Surprise Price Drop At Select French Retailers
A merci-ful development indeed, especially regarding the game pricing.
I can take a one-off hit to the wallet for the console, as I only expect to splash out once (maybe twice) per generation, but for every single game purchase to feel like major financial outlay… well, it stings. I know modern games aren’t exactly cheap to develop, but…
Let’s hope this is the start of a broader trend and not just limited to the land of liberté, égalité and fraternité.
Re: Sorry, Nintendo's Recent Pikmin Videos Aren't Hinting At Something More
@larryisaman Did they need to? No. Did they generate more engagement through this approach than they would have otherwise? Absolutely. This was a publicity stunt; a promotion for Nintendo Pictures. The fact that “they got the publicity” means it was a successful publicity stunt.
@canaryfarmer The original video has racked up well over a million across Nintendo’s YouTube channels. There have been plenty on “what the what” videos from content-hungry Nintendo-centred YouTube channels. The three ‘Close to You’ articles on this very website have generated several hundred comments between them.
The ideal length on time to tease people is ‘long enough to generate speculation, but short enough to satisfy people while they’re still curious’. 5 minutes would indeed have been too short, but 36 hours seems have been right on the money. The fact we’re here discussing it is proof enough of our ‘engagement’.
@TheBigK You would think so… and you would be (partially) correct. Nintendo Pictures are credited for working on Pikmin 4, Tears of the Kingdom, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario RPG and (perhaps more interestingly) Death Stranding 2. Maybe they’re not FMVs, but it seems they helped out on the animation side.
Re: Japanese Charts: Sucker Punch Stops Mario Galaxy Soaring Too High
@Switching Join me in pouring one out for the Big N. ‘Tis a true travesty that a game with a ~95% attach rate doesn’t have… a higher attach rate.
Every true Nintendo fan should head to Japan immediately and spend the whatever savings they have on purchasing multiple copies on Mario Kart World. There is no greater injustice that we as a species must collectively rectify.
Re: Devolver's Awesome New Skating Game Lands On Switch 2 This December
@The_Nintendo_Pedant It says both! ‘Pane’ in the in-game dialogue at 0:22 and ‘pain’ in the text at 0:40.
I can only assume the ‘pane’ spelling is deliberate (either a play on words based on ‘pane of glass’ or a sign that the in-game character doesn’t full understand what he’s talking about) but both spellings are there!
Re: Nintendo Updates Animated Short Film 'Close To You' With Some Familiar Faces
Yeah… sorry guys. Even with the update, I’m still not sold. Call me a sceptic, but you’ll have to do more than fill a video with Pikmin to convince me this has anything to do with Pikmin.
In fact, I’m starting to question whether any of the Pikmin games are actually Pikmin-related. The only one I feel sure of is Hey! Pikmin because that has the word ’Hey!’ in it and ‘Hey!’ is a very convincing word.
…Really though, I still feel that ‘it being Pikmin-related’ (which was obvious from the start) doesn’t rule out the possibility of it also being Mario-related. There’s been some cross-pollination between the franchises before, most notably at Super Nintendo World theme parks — which incidentally, Miyamoto had a big hand in developing.
See if you can spot the six Pikmin hiding above
‘Close to You’ seems like the exactly the sort of thing that Miyamoto would be involved in. He’s already played a major role in developing the original Pikmin shorts, as well as the Super Mario Movie, and this sort of ‘developing the Nintendo brand outside of games’ is basically his main job at the moment. If he can sprinkle a little Pikmin into the Mario theme parks, then he can sprinkle a little Mario into a cute Pikmin video. Note the nods to the Galaxy games in this video:
Mario-esque stars and Lakitu clouds on the mobile hanging toy.
Rosalina-esque rattle toy.
Similar Rosalina aesthetic on the clock.
Rosalina for reference. She has quite a distinctive colour-way. Also, her hairstyle has shares some features with the baby’s: a prominent central tuft with swept-back sides. I’m not on team ‘the baby is Rosalina’ just yet but the similarities are there.
Whether these are just little Easter eggs, or whether this is part of a greater tie in with the Galaxy movies, I don’t feel confident saying just yet. The video does give off ‘high budget Western animation studio’ vibes, and we know a high budget Illumination-produced Mario Galaxy movie is just around the corner, but… Illumination’s name appears nowhere in the video.
Nintendo has been super explicit about the studio’s involvement before, featuring interviews with Chris Meledrandi in its Directs, so it would be surprising for them to not credit the studio here — especially now that the ‘true’ version has been revealed. This video could well have been produced by Nintendo’s ‘in-house’ animation studio Nintendo Pictures who worked on Pikmin 4.
So yeah, it was obviously Pikmin-related from the moment the leitmotif started playing, but the degree of Galaxy influence is still open for debate.
Re: Poll: Do You Think Nintendo's New Animated Short 'Close To You' Is Pikmin Related?
Musically it’s got Pikmin written all over it. Nintendo wouldn’t “accidentally” include Pikmin’s central leitmotif multiple times (0:29, 0:56, 2:02, 2:20, 3:26) in its video about invisible Pikmin-sized creatures carrying objects around a real world environment in a very Pikmin-like way.
The question isn’t “is it Pikmin related?” but “is it just Pikmin related?”. That is, does it tie the franchise in to something larger?
The Pikmin references are undeniable, but there are seemingly some nods to the Mario series, too:
Note the Mario-esque stars and Lakitu clouds on the mobile hanging toy.
Rosalina/Galaxy-esque rattle toy.
Similar Galaxy aesthetic on the clock.
Rosalina for reference. She has quite a distinctive colour-way. Also, her hairstyle has shares some features with the baby’s: a prominent central tuft with swept-back sides. That said, I don’t feel confident asserting ‘the baby is Rosalina’ at this point, despite the similarities.
One could easily speculate that this is a teaser for Pikmin 5 or some other Pikmin project featuring invisible Pikmin as the new mechanic.
Alternatively, this could be Nintendo’s animation studio creating standalone videos that aim to show that ‘Magic of Nintendo’ is all around us — hiding just out of sight. Perhaps this is the first in a series of videos which show that Nintendo’s fantastical worlds are really a part of our own, but we need a certain innocence, imagination and playfulness to see them. Hence the Pikmin only revealing themselves to the baby once mummy is out of the room.
I dunno. All I know is that there’s a whiff of Galaxy and a great big Pikmin pong.