One of my fondest memories was the first time Nintendo invited us to a proper event - Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was so cool finally feeling we had made it into a legitimate site; I used to try and cite us on Wikipedia only for people to erase our entries.
Then when I saw the first game box to have a NL score on — that was cool.
And while I think they are conflated now, I remember when me and (I think) @ReInstall both wrote reviews for Starfox Adventures when there were only like 20 reviews on the entire site (whoever would have thought such an operation needed coordination).
@antdickens thanks so much for creating these sites - since stumbling across GCUK in 2001/2 I’ve not only had a great place for news, but also had the opportunity to create content, go to events, and most importantly have a group of mates I still am in touch with over two decades later! Thanks and congrats, bossman!
I did my two weeks’ work experience back at Game head office in the 90s, and then worked for both Game and Gamestation for several years — most of the titles I reviewed for Nintendo Life when we started came from Game and staff discount.
The mixed side is that Game really grew an unfortunate culture of not looking after its workers — as they diminished in the high street standings, so did their approach to their employees degrade. So many fond memories but also so much frustration.
@Visor you should play your copy of Beyond Good and Evil as homage to the passing of Game!
I still remember the hilarity of when, with only 20 or so reviews on the entire site, me and Paul managed to both review Starfox Adventures without realising it.
I hope this runs well enough for me to play on the commute. Not much of a TV gamer nowadays, so I rely on the Switch for 95% of what I play — especially the long games like this. Hoping we have another Witcher on our hands here, but not confident enough to preorder!
Your article really does highlight that absurd logic Nintendo has here. They’ve made a sandbox game where you can break the rules in so many creative ways, but they view the control scheme as something that must be protected.
It feels like it would be absurdly simple to implement such things, and it’s also woefully behind the times to not do it.
Digital accessibility seems a slow-growing topic, especially if you consider how we’d lambast a large chain for not having adequate provisions in their physical stores, but then don’t take a company to task that has the digital footfall of millions playing their games.
You wonder at what point a stronger stance gets taken: wouldn’t it be great if gaming media reached a consensus of a base level of essential features in games, and actively notched down review scores when they weren’t present. A spate of 9/10s instead of 10/10s would (sadly) galvanise Nintendo into action.
Gosh, only after reading this and the comments have I realised that I am in that small population of people who really disliked Torna. I also feel bad now, as I told @Visor the game was a waste of time, which might not be the case if the majority love it!
To me, I would have preferred just watching a collection of the cutscenes. I found the level of grind with the fetch quests to be infuriating and cutting against the overall imperative nature of the narrative. I know all games have this tendency to have a critical task that you can ignore to collect seven blue flowers so someone random NPC can dye their hair, but in Torna these distractions felt so commonplace.
I truly struggled to make my way through this game. I adored XB2 and the combat, so it was a genuine disappointment to me when I played Torna. It has so many bright points, but they are slogs to get to.
@Ralizah for me I hit the cliche of people who loved the Witcher 3 expansions — they were such an amazing extension of the story that can be played individually. They enriched the experience for me; whereas Torna detracted from it.
Playing the remaster of Chronicles has gotten me to a similar point of boredom / apathy towards the game. I think there’s something about this series that wavers between me loving the story but being infuriated by the sheer level of filler tasks and backtracking. I’d honestly struggle to work out what I’d score games like this — I think they are great and rubbish.
This article has now ticked a morbid curiosity to replay Torna and see if it just caught me in a bad mood
@MarioBrickLayer when I see a 6/10 I know to only buy the game if it is a genre I have an interest in. It’s the score that for me says ‘a decent time if you are invested in the series; otherwise it’s not going to interest you’
I’d expect that I’ll find this fun, much in the same way I enjoyed Bright when it got tepid reviews.
I always used to find it tricky to balance the perspective for how you review something. In the end, I think you end up realising that people apply their own modifiers. For me it probably is a +3 for being a fanboy; for my wife it will be a -4 for video-game related.
I suppose the plot is thicker than Mario 64 - the original the cake is a lie; still looking forward to watching this (funnily enough with two of the folks I met from when this site was GameCube-UK)
@PJOreilly this just dropped to 3.99. I am hovering over the buy button - I feel you are the person who will either pull me from the brink or tell me it might have been patched up.
@LastFootnote, the first patch seemed to stop the majority of jittering frame rate issues that I got when trying to hit a ball.
Honestly, if I was Sidebar games I would have made the dev room MORE prominent - make it a whole zone in the game & lean into it. It’s a tongue-in-cheek series, and cutting something off like this just makes you think bad things about the culture. Should have had a laugh at themselves; I can’t see how this will reflect anything but badly on Sidebar.
Sports Story is such a shame. Golf Story is one of my all time top Switch games, and at best Sports Story is only ever going to be mediocre.
No spoilers, but the end-of-game main challenge was an absolute damp squib. I just can’t see any number of patches redeeming it.
Diddy Kong racing for me, and Bad Fur Day. They don’t really have much to erode their enjoyment over time. I loved how DKR did the single player.
Tooie was an amazing game in some ways but over engineered in many others. I think I’d probably notch my review for it down a score. Did another 100% run last year and it just started to become a drag near the end.
Blast Corps, like Pilotwings is strictly for the nostalgia and rose tinted glasses. I expect the same for PD - groundbreaking at the time but dates how.
This is left field… a Rare game I think deserves a resurgence is Banjo Nuts and Bolts - it never got the appreciation it deserved, and could seriously be tweaked to provide some epic fun.
My second ever Splatfest after spending years not playing Splatoon, followed by falling in love with the game.
On the last Splatfest I had no idea what was going on. This time I enjoyed it so much.
I even worked out how to defend on the tricolours. First few matches felt so one-sided, with the attacking team winning unanimously. Then I twigged how easy it was to sneak into the attackers bases and ink them. The middle ground gets so contested and the attackers end up inking over each other’s turf.
Splatfests elevate the enjoyment factor of the game so much.
70 hours in and I still feel there is so much more to do!
Beast Breaker had been in my backlog for ages until I started playing earlier this week. Decent game for the price. One of those games that you play when you’re not really sure what ‘main’ game you want to play next.
I haven’t been this hooked on a Pokémon game since I got my copy of Blue at launch!
I can see such potential for this format going forward. Sure the Pokédex is a mite too grindy (but that is optional), but I can imagine an immense game arising from this new format. Imagine them patching in Monster Hunter-like multiplayer and supporting Raid battles. I think they made a good choice in setting this game in an era where people didn’t go out much from fear of Pokémon - it at least contextualises the emptiness of the land (and equally adds on that feeling of exploration).
I’m also a big buyer of the rebalancing that seems to have happened. My big gripe with Pokémon has been that each hame generally has a handful of Pokémon that you actually want to have in your party, with the rest acting as filler for the Pokédex. PLA feels (but haven’t fact checked) much more balanced across tje Pokémon. Battles feel more matched and it’s a case that you really need to bring items with you.
I wouldn’t be upset if this became the new series format going forward — let them just remaster all the old games for the next few years and give the ‘Legends’ format a run.
@Travisemo007 only this form has the hole on head. And that’s because little fireworks (of sorts) launch from successful catches in Arceus. Voltorbs needing to be similar in appearance to Pokéballs and all.
I might be boring, but I really love this design. Was surprised that it had no evolution in Go. I wonder if that’s because it doesn’t have one (i kinda assumed there would be an electrode equivalent).
Since December I have massively gotten back into Go. Played it for the first year and a bit pretty solidly, then just stopped walking for my commute and dropped off it. Returning after a few years is cool, as they have done a lot to keep it engaging (plus I have loooads to catch now)
@tstorm the Xbox version was tinkered with too much. Well, okay, it was tinkered with a little bit, but in a pretty egregious way!
The whole challenge of Banjo was how collecting all of the notes was a tense process. You could see the last notes just within grasp, but suddenly your palms would sweat, you’d slip and then you’re submerged in oily water with a shark chasing you, knowing you are going to run out of honeycombs and have to start the process all over again.
In the Xbox version you didn’t have that. The notes were permanently collected and it seriously nuked the accomplishment that comes from completing this game as a collectionist.
@frabit if it helps my updated opinion is I love the game so much that two years ago I had my fingers tattooed with a feather, jiggy, note and honeycomb. I’ve played the original and Xbox arcade port so many times and there is simply no other game out there that gives me such joy, and none I have replayed as much.
A lot of the updates are because when we made these initial reviews it was the early days of the site, where it was a bunch of Nintendo fans establishing a voice. Keeping the original article as it was would be a disservice to the quality of writing that developed over the decade plus since.
The other point I’d make is that this game is advertised by Nintendo as a N64 game that you can play on your Switch. You’re not being lured into the game under false pretences: people playing this will get the N64 icon in the game select screen — I won’t assess a vintage car because it lacks modern features like automatic windows, but I would totally judge a modern car that claims to be inspired by vintages but doesn’t bring needed QoL features like automatic windows (really don’t know why I used a car analogy here — I’m no petrol head!)
10s are the genre-defining games, and for me this undoubtably is one. 3D collectathon platformers are a rarer breed nowadays, and the late nineties was where this genre got defined. Mario 64 was cool, but I didn’t find it flowed and the backtracking grated me; I also find it has aged badly (I’ve played N64, DS and Switch); Spyro was a solid shout but lacked the fairytale charm and immersive soundtrack Banjo had (but I do adore Spyro). Then we had games like Gex Gecko, which I still can’t decide if it was good or bad — I have a love hate of that game, but it didn’t stand out at all. To me, the closest game that came to dethroning Banjo Kazooie was a PS2 game: Jak and Daxter. I’ll really stir the pot here… but I honestly would choose this over Mario Odyssey if I had to only ever play one platformer. @Buizel spooky:as I typed that, your comment loaded!
(No offence taken btw - although I an a modern (albeit older) gamer!)
@Fizza it feels a lot better knowing that some wonderful person has tidied it up and improved the review. I will really start to worry when reviews from 2005 get dredged up!
@Buizel I would def. rank Yooka Laylee lower down than BK. It just stretches too far and tries to be too big. I wanted to love it — I backed it in the first week, and even with my immense love of Rare and this genre, I struggled to feel it would get anything above a 7 (but more like a 6). I’ve never done a 100% run on Yooka, but have finished BK north of twenty times - often in one sitting.
I think my score for Tooie, though, definitely erodes over time. I did a 100% run on that last year and it started to drag — probably an 8.
Nuts and Bolts coming over to Switch would make my day. That is chronically under-appreciated and Rare never managed to tap into the potential it had.
A Hat in Time, I hear, is apparently a modern era example of this genre being done well (might be pulling that out of my backlog soon).
I will be amazed if anything can ever dethrone BK in my eyes as the pinnacle of 3D platforming collectathons. I do completely admit to having the perspective of someone who was barely a teenager when this came out, so maybe the new generation of kids will not be as captivated as I was, but I feel the Switch, more than any console out there, demonstrates that the graphics race isn’t going to make better games (looking at you Golf Story and Undertale).
It always amazed me back in the day when people rated Mario 64 above this. Mario 64 was an amazing game but it has really dated badly; Banjo on the other hand has withheld the passing of time and I can see myself playing this over and over, despite my growing list on the backlog.
If Ant let me give an 11, I would have!
(Also kudos and thanks to the editor for making this review a much tidier version than it was before!)
I’ve been looking forward to playing this game for a while but the text box looked horrendous so I decided to wait until they patched it. My backlog is choc full of AAA titles and I don’t see the purpose in playing games where there are easy and obvious improvements to make - and that one really seemed to be an immersion killer.
@OorWullie I’ve never played the game before so this advice could be rubbish, but I have hit similar issues in games before where I’ve glitches into areas where I was not the right level and kept being killed. I find that sometimes scaling the difficulty level down in those moments is an approach that can get you out of a jam
So much I love about this. The blend of battles and go style mechanics, but without menus that are a faff. The big open environments. The way the Pokémon seem to acquire levels without throwing menus in your face.
I think it could face some challenges from the lack of NPC trainer battles and the ability to trade Pokémon (although since online features the concept of trading Pokémon is a weak currency as you can acquire them all damn easily). I also really dislike the way you have to throw those balm bags about - it looks gimmicky and irritating rather than innovative than challenging.
But my net sentiment here is definitely positive and I really hope they pull some decent ideas from this into the next mainline. Sword and Shield were mediocre games for me, so I fully expect this will be better.
Pokémon Blue captivated me Yellow was great fun Silver I loved Stadium I played to death Snap I also played to death
And then the series just became monotonous to me. No real evolution in a series about evolution.
I am very excited for this game as I feel it’s going to take the series in a direction it needs to go in. I doubt it will be flawless, but I certainly feel it will be a stronger game than Sword and Shield — and for the first time since the nineties I am genuinely excited about a Pokémon game.
Looking forward to starting the House in Fata Morgana this evening once all the festive duties are done (and providing I don’t ruin the barbecue turkey and end up being banished)
Using assets from another brand without permission to launch a product is always going to end badly. Shows a shortsightedness and naivety that prevents you from taking the end product seriously — or at least gives you serious pause were you to invest.
@Ravenmaster I was surprised by the ending as I came in expecting a prequel and realised the game isn’t quite that. I finished it and then had to google and work out just what had happened in the timeline.
I would have preferred it as a straight up prequel.
I did enjoy the game but not enough for the DLC to appeal to me. And seeing as the story is more fan fiction than anything else it doesn’t pull me in wanting to know more. Playing BOTW on my OLED instead and am quite content.
As for the game not being able to cope with the hardware: def a developer issue. It’s in my view a little bit of laziness from not working with the hardware to scale it back. There are so many enemies to chop down in the game - surely they could have just reduced the number but increased their health and skill. Feels like they are sticking to a format of thousands of enemies per map but not appreciating the hardware will not cope. If I sit on a chair made for a child and I break it, it’s not the chair manufacturer’s fault!
Mumbo’s Mountain in Banjo Kazooie I have played so many times. Can probably draw the whole thing out now. Such a perfect game. This is making me want to replay it
Comments 579
Re: Site News: Nintendo Life Turns 20 Today!
@UltimateOtaku91 he’s about still!
One of my fondest memories was the first time Nintendo invited us to a proper event - Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was so cool finally feeling we had made it into a legitimate site; I used to try and cite us on Wikipedia only for people to erase our entries.
Then when I saw the first game box to have a NL score on — that was cool.
And while I think they are conflated now, I remember when me and (I think) @ReInstall both wrote reviews for Starfox Adventures when there were only like 20 reviews on the entire site (whoever would have thought such an operation needed coordination).
@antdickens thanks so much for creating these sites - since stumbling across GCUK in 2001/2 I’ve not only had a great place for news, but also had the opportunity to create content, go to events, and most importantly have a group of mates I still am in touch with over two decades later! Thanks and congrats, bossman!
Re: Our Nintendo Life Begins...
@antdickens happy 20 years mate! What a lot has changed since then! Amazing accomplishment!!
Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Scores Switch 2 Release Window
Surprising no one, I like FFVII and am very excited for this! Hopefully the Switch will be home to the full trilogy.
Re: Review: Banjo-Tooie (Nintendo 64) - An Enormous Adventure With Charm Up The Kazoo
Grunty, grunty, why don’t you rhyme? But, still, I think it’s replay time!
Re: Staff At UK Retailer GAME Reportedly Facing Redundancies
Mixed feelings on this one.
I did my two weeks’ work experience back at Game head office in the 90s, and then worked for both Game and Gamestation for several years — most of the titles I reviewed for Nintendo Life when we started came from Game and staff discount.
The mixed side is that Game really grew an unfortunate culture of not looking after its workers — as they diminished in the high street standings, so did their approach to their employees degrade. So many fond memories but also so much frustration.
@Visor you should play your copy of Beyond Good and Evil as homage to the passing of Game!
Re: Poll: What's The Best Final Fantasy Game? Rate Your Favourite Mainline & Spin-Offs
No surprises where my vote goes!
Re: Site News: Nintendo Life Turns 18 Today
@antdickens congrats on the huge milestone!
I still remember the hilarity of when, with only 20 or so reviews on the entire site, me and Paul managed to both review Starfox Adventures without realising it.
I’d love to know the site collective word count!
Re: Nintendo Website Shares First Look At Hogwarts Legacy On Switch
I hope this runs well enough for me to play on the commute. Not much of a TV gamer nowadays, so I rely on the Switch for 95% of what I play — especially the long games like this. Hoping we have another Witcher on our hands here, but not confident enough to preorder!
Re: Pokémon TCG Card Dex Is Being Removed From App Stores Later This Month
Ah that’s annoying. Especially as I just logged my collection in the app!
Re: Mini Review: Crime O'Clock - 'Where's Wally' With A Temporal Twist, Clever But Repetitive
I’ll stick to the board game Micro Macro — more engaging with people playing as a group
Re: Soapbox: It's The Port I've Dreamed Of, But Can Switch Deliver The Batman We Need?
I adore this series and would likely replay the whole thing again. Despite finishing it three times already.
This and Mass Effect are big games I feel I could revisit for years and years.
If they pull off the port I will be really happy.
Re: A New Dragon Quest Monsters Game Is Now In Development For Switch
Dragon Warrior Monsters was such an amazing game. I loved it more than Pokémon and I am quite excited to revisit the series
Re: Soapbox: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Straight Up Fails In Just One Respect: Accessibility
Your article really does highlight that absurd logic Nintendo has here. They’ve made a sandbox game where you can break the rules in so many creative ways, but they view the control scheme as something that must be protected.
It feels like it would be absurdly simple to implement such things, and it’s also woefully behind the times to not do it.
Digital accessibility seems a slow-growing topic, especially if you consider how we’d lambast a large chain for not having adequate provisions in their physical stores, but then don’t take a company to task that has the digital footfall of millions playing their games.
You wonder at what point a stronger stance gets taken: wouldn’t it be great if gaming media reached a consensus of a base level of essential features in games, and actively notched down review scores when they weren’t present. A spate of 9/10s instead of 10/10s would (sadly) galvanise Nintendo into action.
Re: Soapbox: Torna - The Golden Country Is One Of The Best DLCs Of All Time
Gosh, only after reading this and the comments have I realised that I am in that small population of people who really disliked Torna. I also feel bad now, as I told @Visor the game was a waste of time, which might not be the case if the majority love it!
To me, I would have preferred just watching a collection of the cutscenes. I found the level of grind with the fetch quests to be infuriating and cutting against the overall imperative nature of the narrative. I know all games have this tendency to have a critical task that you can ignore to collect seven blue flowers so someone random NPC can dye their hair, but in Torna these distractions felt so commonplace.
I truly struggled to make my way through this game. I adored XB2 and the combat, so it was a genuine disappointment to me when I played Torna. It has so many bright points, but they are slogs to get to.
@Ralizah for me I hit the cliche of people who loved the Witcher 3 expansions — they were such an amazing extension of the story that can be played individually. They enriched the experience for me; whereas Torna detracted from it.
Playing the remaster of Chronicles has gotten me to a similar point of boredom / apathy towards the game. I think there’s something about this series that wavers between me loving the story but being infuriated by the sheer level of filler tasks and backtracking. I’d honestly struggle to work out what I’d score games like this — I think they are great and rubbish.
This article has now ticked a morbid curiosity to replay Torna and see if it just caught me in a bad mood
Re: Poll: Which Was Your First 'Final Fantasy'?
No surprises I was FFVII
Re: Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - A Fun Ride That Substitutes Story For Spectacle
@MarioBrickLayer when I see a 6/10 I know to only buy the game if it is a genre I have an interest in. It’s the score that for me says ‘a decent time if you are invested in the series; otherwise it’s not going to interest you’
I’d expect that I’ll find this fun, much in the same way I enjoyed Bright when it got tepid reviews.
I always used to find it tricky to balance the perspective for how you review something. In the end, I think you end up realising that people apply their own modifiers. For me it probably is a +3 for being a fanboy; for my wife it will be a -4 for video-game related.
Re: Movie Review: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - A Fun Ride That Substitutes Story For Spectacle
I suppose the plot is thicker than Mario 64 - the original the cake is a lie; still looking forward to watching this (funnily enough with two of the folks I met from when this site was GameCube-UK)
Re: Review: Vambrace: Cold Soul - A Gorgeous RPG That's Tragically Undone By Dull And Difficult Gameplay
@PJOreilly this just dropped to 3.99. I am hovering over the buy button - I feel you are the person who will either pull me from the brink or tell me it might have been patched up.
Help me out mate!
Re: Sports Story Blocks Access To "Secret Dev Room" In Latest Update (Version 1.0.4)
@LastFootnote, the first patch seemed to stop the majority of jittering frame rate issues that I got when trying to hit a ball.
Honestly, if I was Sidebar games I would have made the dev room MORE prominent - make it a whole zone in the game & lean into it. It’s a tongue-in-cheek series, and cutting something off like this just makes you think bad things about the culture. Should have had a laugh at themselves; I can’t see how this will reflect anything but badly on Sidebar.
Sports Story is such a shame. Golf Story is one of my all time top Switch games, and at best Sports Story is only ever going to be mediocre.
No spoilers, but the end-of-game main challenge was an absolute damp squib. I just can’t see any number of patches redeeming it.
Re: Poll: Which Of Rare's Classic N64 Games Would You Like To See On Switch Online?
Diddy Kong racing for me, and Bad Fur Day. They don’t really have much to erode their enjoyment over time. I loved how DKR did the single player.
Tooie was an amazing game in some ways but over engineered in many others. I think I’d probably notch my review for it down a score. Did another 100% run last year and it just started to become a drag near the end.
Blast Corps, like Pilotwings is strictly for the nostalgia and rose tinted glasses. I expect the same for PD - groundbreaking at the time but dates how.
This is left field… a Rare game I think deserves a resurgence is Banjo Nuts and Bolts - it never got the appreciation it deserved, and could seriously be tweaked to provide some epic fun.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Sports Story On Switch
The stuttering lag and the issues it causes has left me waiting to play it after a patch.
A shame but I know it will be a better game after a bit more TLC.
Sounds like they just need to straight up do a Golf Story 2.
Re: Atlus Remembers N64 Classic Snowboard Kids On Its 25th Anniversary
Blast from the past. Amazing game; I loved it a lot more than 1080 - both snowboarding but Snowboard kids was more like Mario Kart.
Odd that the soundtrack is being released: can’t recall it blowing me away.
Re: Team Water Wins The Splatoon X Pokémon Splatfest Event
My second ever Splatfest after spending years not playing Splatoon, followed by falling in love with the game.
On the last Splatfest I had no idea what was going on. This time I enjoyed it so much.
I even worked out how to defend on the tricolours. First few matches felt so one-sided, with the attacking team winning unanimously. Then I twigged how easy it was to sneak into the attackers bases and ink them. The middle ground gets so contested and the attackers end up inking over each other’s turf.
Splatfests elevate the enjoyment factor of the game so much.
70 hours in and I still feel there is so much more to do!
Re: Beast Breaker Studio 'Vodeo Games' Runs Out Of Funds And Shuts Down
Beast Breaker had been in my backlog for ages until I started playing earlier this week. Decent game for the price. One of those games that you play when you’re not really sure what ‘main’ game you want to play next.
Re: Best Switch Games... That Don't Fit In Other Lists Of Best Switch Games
Thank you for a delightful collection of games for the wish list!
Re: In Memory Of Philip J Reed, Writer And Nintendo Life Contributor
Rest in piece mate
Re: Talking Point: A Poképro And A Pokénoob Discuss Pokémon Legends: Arceus
I haven’t been this hooked on a Pokémon game since I got my copy of Blue at launch!
I can see such potential for this format going forward. Sure the Pokédex is a mite too grindy (but that is optional), but I can imagine an immense game arising from this new format. Imagine them patching in Monster Hunter-like multiplayer and supporting Raid battles. I think they made a good choice in setting this game in an era where people didn’t go out much from fear of Pokémon - it at least contextualises the emptiness of the land (and equally adds on that feeling of exploration).
I’m also a big buyer of the rebalancing that seems to have happened. My big gripe with Pokémon has been that each hame generally has a handful of Pokémon that you actually want to have in your party, with the rest acting as filler for the Pokédex. PLA feels (but haven’t fact checked) much more balanced across tje Pokémon. Battles feel more matched and it’s a case that you really need to bring items with you.
I wouldn’t be upset if this became the new series format going forward — let them just remaster all the old games for the next few years and give the ‘Legends’ format a run.
Re: You Can Now Catch Hisuian Voltorb In Pokémon GO
@Travisemo007 only this form has the hole on head. And that’s because little fireworks (of sorts) launch from successful catches in Arceus. Voltorbs needing to be similar in appearance to Pokéballs and all.
I might be boring, but I really love this design. Was surprised that it had no evolution in Go. I wonder if that’s because it doesn’t have one (i kinda assumed there would be an electrode equivalent).
Since December I have massively gotten back into Go. Played it for the first year and a bit pretty solidly, then just stopped walking for my commute and dropped off it. Returning after a few years is cool, as they have done a lot to keep it engaging (plus I have loooads to catch now)
Re: Feature: Nintendo Life's Biggest Gaming Regrets
Not giving Banjo 11/10
But really: throwing away all my boxes for my vintage Nintendo games!
Re: Review: Banjo-Kazooie - Peerless Platforming Perfection, And Now Available On Switch
@tstorm the Xbox version was tinkered with too much. Well, okay, it was tinkered with a little bit, but in a pretty egregious way!
The whole challenge of Banjo was how collecting all of the notes was a tense process. You could see the last notes just within grasp, but suddenly your palms would sweat, you’d slip and then you’re submerged in oily water with a shark chasing you, knowing you are going to run out of honeycombs and have to start the process all over again.
In the Xbox version you didn’t have that. The notes were permanently collected and it seriously nuked the accomplishment that comes from completing this game as a collectionist.
Re: Review: Banjo-Kazooie - Peerless Platforming Perfection, And Now Available On Switch
@frabit if it helps my updated opinion is I love the game so much that two years ago I had my fingers tattooed with a feather, jiggy, note and honeycomb. I’ve played the original and Xbox arcade port so many times and there is simply no other game out there that gives me such joy, and none I have replayed as much.
A lot of the updates are because when we made these initial reviews it was the early days of the site, where it was a bunch of Nintendo fans establishing a voice. Keeping the original article as it was would be a disservice to the quality of writing that developed over the decade plus since.
The other point I’d make is that this game is advertised by Nintendo as a N64 game that you can play on your Switch. You’re not being lured into the game under false pretences: people playing this will get the N64 icon in the game select screen — I won’t assess a vintage car because it lacks modern features like automatic windows, but I would totally judge a modern car that claims to be inspired by vintages but doesn’t bring needed QoL features like automatic windows (really don’t know why I used a car analogy here — I’m no petrol head!)
10s are the genre-defining games, and for me this undoubtably is one. 3D collectathon platformers are a rarer breed nowadays, and the late nineties was where this genre got defined. Mario 64 was cool, but I didn’t find it flowed and the backtracking grated me; I also find it has aged badly (I’ve played N64, DS and Switch); Spyro was a solid shout but lacked the fairytale charm and immersive soundtrack Banjo had (but I do adore Spyro). Then we had games like Gex Gecko, which I still can’t decide if it was good or bad — I have a love hate of that game, but it didn’t stand out at all. To me, the closest game that came to dethroning Banjo Kazooie was a PS2 game: Jak and Daxter. I’ll really stir the pot here… but I honestly would choose this over Mario Odyssey if I had to only ever play one platformer. @Buizel spooky:as I typed that, your comment loaded!
(No offence taken btw - although I an a modern (albeit older) gamer!)
Re: Review: Banjo-Kazooie - Peerless Platforming Perfection, And Now Available On Switch
@Fizza it feels a lot better knowing that some wonderful person has tidied it up and improved the review. I will really start to worry when reviews from 2005 get dredged up!
I look forward to trying it on the NSO tomorrow
Re: Review: Banjo-Kazooie - Peerless Platforming Perfection, And Now Available On Switch
@Buizel I would def. rank Yooka Laylee lower down than BK. It just stretches too far and tries to be too big. I wanted to love it — I backed it in the first week, and even with my immense love of Rare and this genre, I struggled to feel it would get anything above a 7 (but more like a 6). I’ve never done a 100% run on Yooka, but have finished BK north of twenty times - often in one sitting.
I think my score for Tooie, though, definitely erodes over time. I did a 100% run on that last year and it started to drag — probably an 8.
Nuts and Bolts coming over to Switch would make my day. That is chronically under-appreciated and Rare never managed to tap into the potential it had.
A Hat in Time, I hear, is apparently a modern era example of this genre being done well (might be pulling that out of my backlog soon).
I will be amazed if anything can ever dethrone BK in my eyes as the pinnacle of 3D platforming collectathons. I do completely admit to having the perspective of someone who was barely a teenager when this came out, so maybe the new generation of kids will not be as captivated as I was, but I feel the Switch, more than any console out there, demonstrates that the graphics race isn’t going to make better games (looking at you Golf Story and Undertale).
It always amazed me back in the day when people rated Mario 64 above this. Mario 64 was an amazing game but it has really dated badly; Banjo on the other hand has withheld the passing of time and I can see myself playing this over and over, despite my growing list on the backlog.
If Ant let me give an 11, I would have!
(Also kudos and thanks to the editor for making this review a much tidier version than it was before!)
Re: Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Getting Patch To Fix That Giant Bloody Text Box
I’ve been looking forward to playing this game for a while but the text box looked horrendous so I decided to wait until they patched it. My backlog is choc full of AAA titles and I don’t see the purpose in playing games where there are easy and obvious improvements to make - and that one really seemed to be an immersion killer.
@OorWullie I’ve never played the game before so this advice could be rubbish, but I have hit similar issues in games before where I’ve glitches into areas where I was not the right level and kept being killed. I find that sometimes scaling the difficulty level down in those moments is an approach that can get you out of a jam
Re: Video: Check Out 13 Minutes Of Pokémon Legends: Arceus Gameplay
So much I love about this. The blend of battles and go style mechanics, but without menus that are a faff. The big open environments. The way the Pokémon seem to acquire levels without throwing menus in your face.
I think it could face some challenges from the lack of NPC trainer battles and the ability to trade Pokémon (although since online features the concept of trading Pokémon is a weak currency as you can acquire them all damn easily). I also really dislike the way you have to throw those balm bags about - it looks gimmicky and irritating rather than innovative than challenging.
But my net sentiment here is definitely positive and I really hope they pull some decent ideas from this into the next mainline. Sword and Shield were mediocre games for me, so I fully expect this will be better.
Re: Random: Pokémon Whips Were Once Considered, But Game Freak Thought It Was "Too Cruel"
All that comes to mind is “sandshrew, drill into the ground until it splits!”
Proper nostalgia blast there
Re: Soapbox: After 25 Years, Pokémon Legends: Arceus Will Be My First Pokémon Game
@ThomasBW84 this Thomas makes two Thomases who are equally excited about properly getting back into the series!
(Let’s Go is simple, but not as simple as initial glances let on — I started it in December and am having a nostalgic hoot with it.)
Hope you’re well mate!
Re: Video: Pokémon Legends: Arceus Gets Three New Commercials
Pokémon Blue captivated me
Yellow was great fun
Silver I loved
Stadium I played to death
Snap I also played to death
And then the series just became monotonous to me. No real evolution in a series about evolution.
I am very excited for this game as I feel it’s going to take the series in a direction it needs to go in. I doubt it will be flawless, but I certainly feel it will be a stronger game than Sword and Shield — and for the first time since the nineties I am genuinely excited about a Pokémon game.
(Actually, Go has been a great one for me too!)
Re: There's Now Just One Month To Go Until Pokémon Legends Is Out On Switch
Haven’t been this excited about a Pokémon game in such a long time. Probably since Gold/Silver came out or when I first got my copy of Blue!
Re: Review: The House In Fata Morgana - Brutal, Beautiful Storytelling In This 'Breath Of The Wild' Metascore Rival
Literally starting up my copy tonight after this article series got me interested in it!
Re: Editorial: Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays From Nintendo Life
Merry Christmas all
Looking forward to starting the House in Fata Morgana this evening once all the festive duties are done (and providing I don’t ruin the barbecue turkey and end up being banished)
Re: Best Cheap Nintendo Switch Games - The Biggest Discounts On Switch eShop (Europe)
Golf Story is £5.99
Overcooked £1.79
Ni No Kuni £9.99 (not the cheapest it has been)
Re: Soapbox: Pokémon Journeys Is Like The Original Series, But 151 Times Better
Well, now I’m watching the new Pokémon series as well as downloading Fata Morgana (went on sale in EU today)
Re: Back Page: We Fed The Ace Attorney Scripts To A Bot, And It Wrote Its Own Court Case
@KateGray I’m loving these nerdy features like the articles of the future.
I think you should get the video team to act this out!!
Re: Nintendo Is Adding Paper Mario 64 To Switch Online's Expansion Pack, Out Next Week
Paper Mario: the very first image of the very first Nintendo Life article
… and I still need to play it!
Def on my list
Re: Review: Voice Of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars - Yoko Taro Deals An Impressive Card-Based RPG
If anything the ‘too short’ concept appeals to me. So many games are padded to the Nth degree and I quite enjoy short and sweet titles.
I really need to play the demo that I downloaded
Re: Nintendo's Lawyers Strike Again, This Time Against A Mario NFT Gambling Game
Using assets from another brand without permission to launch a product is always going to end badly. Shows a shortsightedness and naivety that prevents you from taking the end product seriously — or at least gives you serious pause were you to invest.
Re: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Version 1.3.0 Is Now Available - Wave 2 DLC, Adjustments, Fixes And More
@Ravenmaster I was surprised by the ending as I came in expecting a prequel and realised the game isn’t quite that. I finished it and then had to google and work out just what had happened in the timeline.
I would have preferred it as a straight up prequel.
I did enjoy the game but not enough for the DLC to appeal to me. And seeing as the story is more fan fiction than anything else it doesn’t pull me in wanting to know more. Playing BOTW on my OLED instead and am quite content.
As for the game not being able to cope with the hardware: def a developer issue. It’s in my view a little bit of laziness from not working with the hardware to scale it back. There are so many enemies to chop down in the game - surely they could have just reduced the number but increased their health and skill. Feels like they are sticking to a format of thousands of enemies per map but not appreciating the hardware will not cope. If I sit on a chair made for a child and I break it, it’s not the chair manufacturer’s fault!
Re: Move Over Fire Emblem, Scarlet Republics Is Coming To Switch Soon
Move back Fire Emblem - this just got cancelled!
Re: Talking Point: Which Game Stage Have You Replayed More Than Any Other?
Mumbo’s Mountain in Banjo Kazooie I have played so many times. Can probably draw the whole thing out now. Such a perfect game. This is making me want to replay it