N64-ROX

I whine about joy cons all the time but the fact is that joy cons make the Switch. Hell I even like its version of the d-pad (separate buttons for the win, ever since PS1, thanks very much). It took me years to get a pro controller; those tiny things have seen me through BOTW, Mario Odyssey, Celeste, and much more besides. For controls on a portable they are spectacular, and really hit home the fact that this thing in your hands is 100% a full-fat console.

When they were creating a pixel remaster, it boggles the mind that they just slapped on that lazy, standard-Unity, non-pixel font.
That was laziness and lack of care.
But then for them to say "my bad" and put in the effort to develop a brand new pixel font, in the wrong resolution and wrong style, that demonstrates utter cluelessness.
This is supposed to be a celebration of FF, a labour of love. FF's font is as much an iconic part of it as anything else. Not to mention, it's a cardinal sin (and an amateur one) to make a game whose hook is nostalgic pixel art and then play fast and loose with what a "pixel" is. They really should have kept/added the classic font.

Any retro release that is locked to an awful stretched 16:9 should be given a zero, end of story.

When I look at the store pages it looks like all of the games now have mode 7 overworlds... Weird disconnects in resolution between the sprites and the backgrounds... HD-3D in some bits... And that pixel font is still weird. Call me an old fogie but I wish they had just kept the graphics exactly as they were originally.

For some reason when I clicked on this article I was hoping it would be news about FIFA's new game. That's the interesting wildcard in this story. We all know that EA Sports FC is essentially going to be more of what we're used to from them, but the new FIFA? It could be a hilariously amateur trainwreck. It could be a high quality partnership with a AAA dev which brings real competition into the market. It could be something that shoots for a different angle, like NFL Blitz or Mario Strikers. Or (more likely) the opposite direction: something so completely unimaginative while blandly competent that we all get the joy of seeing our suspicions realised.

So cool I always wanted to explore these games, even if it doesn't come to the west I'll check it out with my Japanese account. By the way, if anyone wants to try a super cool modern homage to PC-88 I can strongly recommend Vengeful Heart on Switch.

Now do it on the Switch, you'll be out a million dollars.

I wonder if this horse breeding tweak is going to remove that bedrock glitch/feature where you can breed them while they're enchanted with speed 2, and it will stick, over and over again until you have a superhorse. Would be a shame...

What a dream! A real track would need to lock you in to a set path of course, as opposed to being essentially a test of whether or not you know exactly what the developer intended you to do, but that's the wonderful thing about mods! Get a couple of likeminded people to race with and this would be spectacular.

No Minecraft, not even an honourable mention?

As someone who never played the original, the Switch version seems A-OK to me. Just switch to the original graphics and it's a pretty pretty game. Wouldn't want it to look non-PS1-y anyway.

There are so many terrible, zero effort, rip-off and/or mobile-style games on the e-shop, seeing some legitimate (licensed!) retro console games made available without needing to pay a subscription always makes me happy, regardless of the worthiness of the titles themselves.

Never had a GBA SP myself. Got a 2nd hand OG unit for cheap, mainly to see what it did when I plugged it into Wind Waker on the Gamecube.
One year, three wacky lightbulb attachments, and one flash cart later, I finally reached the conclusion that dinky handheld gaming was just not for me. The N64 had changed the game: by the 2000s, if you weren't pushing polygons then you were living in the past, and it wasn't powerful enough to emulate the SNES so it couldn't scratch the retro itch either.

Later I got some mileage out of a DS, mostly thanks to Ace Attorney and Ghost Trick, but really it was only the Switch that could ever gave me a portable gaming experience where it didn't feel like I was slumming it with crummy pretend-games.

Utterly ridiculous. I hope that 2mm extra bag space saved your life, my fanciful friend.

Screen Resolution: TV Mode at 1920x1080 (*works at up to 2K resolution)

What is this nonsense? The Switch only outputs 1K (i.e. 1920x1080) and TVs with higher resolutions can do anything they want with that signal.

Or are they saying that if you plug it into a 4K TV it will explode?

Picked this up for PC back when Tony Hawk's 1+2 was (initially) cancelled for Switch and still locked behind Epic exclusivity on PC. You'd best believe, Tony Hawk's this ain't.
THPS was a game that convinced non-skaters that they should become skaters. Session is a game to give those non-skaters a reality check: skating is hard, you will never do a real kickflip in your life.

I too have been purposefully un-zeldaing my mind in preparation for BOTW2. And that includes all the BOTW-a-likes that have popped up over the last few years. The way things are going, we could almost start calling the release of a new Zelda game a once-in-a-decade event; the last thing I want is for it to feel like just more of the same.
Enjoyed this little quiz though!

I highly recommend EmperorLemon's YouTube videos for an explanation to an outsider how Nascar can actually be fun.

@antisumo if you already have Minecraft on Switch, you already own this. It is literally a bundle of Minecraft (the same SKU you already have installed) and the Mario Mash Up Pack (which already came with it). The e-shop won't let you buy it because it is literally already the thing that you have. There isn't even any kind of patch update to add "deluxe edition" to the title screen. It is a strange, mind-bogglingly useless release, my only guess is that there was some contractual reason why they had to re-release the game again.

With the N64 pad, it does take quite a bit of adjusting if you (like me) haven't played this in years. Thinking especially about the way the camera auto tilts when you're on an angle like in Statue Park.
With the standard switch joy cons or pro controller it's pretty much unplayable since you need those discrete C buttons to do anything other than spin around in a drunken mess.
But with an N64 pad it's great fun, especially playing on agent and mopping up every goon with one or two auto-aimed shots, truly feels like being a super spy as opposed to the intimidation that I felt back then as a teenager.

Co op is just not for me. I live overseas to my oldest friend, and last year we started playing Minecraft together. I say "together", by which I mean we are technically on the same server. We spawned together, he and his wife started building a base... And then as soon as I had the core inventory I needed, I set sail for 10,000 blocks away to build my own base.
Sometimes we visit each other, it's fun!

Where is the Nintendo Life review of the original game?!?

Man, I need to get one of these for sure.

It drove me crazy. Whenever I found something really cool I essentially just never used it since I wanted to keep it. I spent half the game trying to fight with bombs only, and it was super painful. This also meant that my inventory was always full. Every treasure chest and mob drop was a fraught Sophie's Choice decision what to throw away. I can understand its gameplay purpose but it really was like they put the worst thing about western RPGs into my beloved Zelda.

Here's a real teeth-grinder from my recent memory.

I was sick for a week and threw myself into Bowser's Fury as I heard that it was a hidden gem open world Mario. But every 5 minutes all the pretty colours go black and you have to abandon the platforming challenge you're trying to do because Bowser is having a hissy fit and ruining everything. What's even worse is when you get to the end of the game and you're just trying to 100% all the moons, and you've already seen the credits, and Bowser keeps coming back even more frequently than before, and there is nothing you can do anymore: you can't ring the bell because that just triggers the final end boss fight again, you can't hide because he no longer gives up after a while, the only possible thing to do is to purposefully die. That Nintendo put such outrageously bad game design in a Mario game is mind-boggling.

Good point about that grinding trophy in Rayman. It reminds me that there are dozens of unattainable online achievements in Tony Hawks 1+2 remake.

• Create a skate park that gets 100 likes! Sure, I'll just go become a famous youtuber and tell my followers to check it out then will I.
• Like a skate park that a million other people have liked! Yeah too bad the Switch online community for this game is a barren wasteland, and there's no cross play.

While I'm at it I'll also call out content that's locked behind amibo. I wouldn't fill my house with that plastic junk even if it was free. But sure, give lonely Link a wolf companion only if I run out and buy a dolly.

@Jiggies my friend always insists that Waluigi is clever because Warui means "strange" in Japanese. I maintain that he's in denial about something that's simply a lazy (but so-bad-it's-good) naming exercise.

@CornflakeCookie that's the point, in my opinion. Wario is pure genius in concept and execution; Waluigi is "so bad it's good" cult favourite material.

Probably for the best. There's no way that Nintendo's PG reputation would survive Walupeach.

They're both gorgeous, but the Japanese one is better if you want to focus on the big scary Dracula himself.

Never been a Pokemon guy at all myself, but I'll always love Magikarp. First for his hilarious jumping minigame in Pokemon Stadium, and then for his even-more-tongue-in-cheek smartphone game Magikarp Jump, which was essentially a spin-off of the Pokemon Stadium minigame.
Someone at the Pokemon Company has their humour bolts screwed on just right, I'll tell you that. In the future, we won't be capturing a menagerie of animals to watch them fight using magical powers. Oh no, we will be capturing just one specific type of fish so that we can plonk them onto dry land and watch them flop about impotently.

@DJDM true! If Overwatch is a "no" then Super Mario 3D All-Stars also has to be a "no"...

Curse you and your trick questions. Abe's Oddysee is not the same thing as New n Tasty! But the Overwatch one, well... That was smart, I have to give you that.

Never played this on PS4/5 but this is a spectacular-looking game on the Switch. If I didn't know better I'd swear that it was built natively for the Switch from the very beginning. I've been a happy camper after gifting it to myself for xmas.

I agree that these android devices are pointless when everybody already has a phone. What we need is a solid suite of Steam Deck rivals to really get competition going.

I think this article is a little misguided: in Perfect Dark there is a secret alien war - even Joanna (who is Carrington's star agent) is surprised to discover the existence of the aliens. For all we plebs know, 2023 is going exactly as predicted.

The year of Waluigi is the only choice. Imagine Waluigi's Mansion (think the playboy mansion), Waluigi Bros (like... two or three Waluigis), Waluigi Party (where he's the DJ), Super Waluigi Sunshine (where Waluigi is the sun)... Look into your heart Nintendo, you know it must be done.

In my opinion the problem is that we've all just gotten used to the Switch's success. Remember when we were all going ga-ga over the classic Final Fantasies (7-12) coming to switch? Or Skyrim, Wolfenstein, and Doom? Or iconic indies such as Hyper Light Drifter, Fez, Thumper, Undertale, Stardew Valley, etc? This stuff is is just expected now. We get a Nintendo Direct chock full of JRPGs (with a side of farming games, I admit) and it becomes a joke in itself. We used to be port begging, now we're almost begging companies not to port their games to switch if they can't squeeze out sufficient performance or have to go the cloud route.
We got what we wanted; we're just a fickle bunch. To me the Switch has wildly exceeded all my expectations overall, and if I'm not interested in Kirby or Switch Sports or Pokemon then I have a backlog of hundreds of fantastic games to play, and a hundred more on my eShop wishlist.

What I want to know is: how did EA get Burnout Paradise running at 60fps 1080/720p on Switch? This stuff can be done, people. Sure BP is a 15 year old game but these WRCs are uninspiring graphically even on powerful hardware. Like another poster said, racing game graphics plateaued ages ago (unless you're talking about the shinyest of the shiny franchises) and have even gotten worse on the Switch as publishers care less and less about what they put out.
All I'm saying is that beautiful performant racing games can be done on the Switch. It's just a matter of actually making them. The whole 5-metre shadow distance and copy-paste lying e-shop description just makes the neglect totally clear.

A Codemasters rally game on the Switch... A man can dream...

@Itakiteacher it wasn't on the list at all - I was surprised because there's usually plenty of people in the comments section saying it's fantastic, don't listen to the haters.

As with Timesplitters, I'll give the US props for showing off the polygons. But in no universe does that look anywhere near as cool as the proper artwork on the JP/EU version.

Best "the sheer audacity of publishing this on the e-shop" game: Animals Transport Simulator.
Seriously, start it up, wait for it to load to the menu, push the buttons... Nothing happens! They literally took a dodgy no-effort asset flip tablet game, and ported it to Switch as-is with no support for controllers at all! And woe betide you if you pull your switch out of the dock and play it in tablet mode; even if you got the game for free you will feel ripped off for your time, it's so pathetic. But at the same time you have to admire the chutzpah... These guys have realised that Nintendo asserts no minimum quality restrictions, and are determined to see how low that bar can be pushed.

Also (dis)honourable mentions go to these exercises in SEO-cynicism which were overlooked for longest title:

• World War Battle Heroes Field Armies Call Of Prison Duty Simulator
• Car Parking Madness School Drive Mechanic Car Games Simulator 2023
• Drone race Simulator Pilot Flight School Airplane Games Jet 2023
• Infected run to Survive: Zombie Apocalypse Survival Story Shooter Dead Cry
• Farming Real Simulation Tractor, Combine Trucks Farmer Land Game
• Monster Impossible Truck No Limit Adventure Drive Simulator Sport 3D

Man I was waiting to see how high the diehard apologists had managed to push Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. I know that it's widely hated, but nowhere in the top 50? I smell shenanigans...

What a snub on Olli Olli World, how did that get overlooked! A funky, genius, transcendent sequel and a flawless port. Get out of here with your pokemans and your roguelikes!

I must have bought 100 games this year but in the end I just kept returning to Rocket League and Minecraft. I'm beyond help!
But also in my top 3 was The Talos Principle, which was an amazing ride from start to finish. I committed to 100%ing both the base game and the DLC without using walkthroughs... It was a long hard slog but so incredibly rewarding.

The Australian one only displays 3 for each category. Seems a bit arbitrary. But my 3 for "played right after release" includes both my GOTY (Olli Olli World) and the game which opened my eyes to the fact that there is literally zero quality control on the e-shop (Super Clown 2). Now that I think about it, I'm disappointed that it didn't include the absolute worst game of the year (Animals Transport Simulator, for which the controller doesn't even work).

I'm not usually one to advocate for strict parenting, but this is pathetic. Parents, take responsibility. If you don't want your kid to spend 80 hours a week playing Fortnite, don't let them. You are basically suing Epic for making a good desirable product. You don't let them eat KFC every night do you? This is exactly the same thing.

@AverageGamer I'd love it if you're right, mate. A truly powerful console from Nintendo would be fantastic.

Oh yeah and the text itself is wonderfully mysterious and inspiring, in my opinion.