Nanaki

Super excited about this.

I hope the difficulty is a little less killer (or I become more competent at playing the game!) but without losing the sense of accomplishment Necrodancer has.

FFVII landed too late for me: got it on the iPad and can’t really justify the triple-dip purchase that would be Switch.

Been making my way through FFX instead.

Was on the fence about Cuphead and have decided not to get it. Dragon’s Dogma, however, has me continually hovering over that purchase button!

@Daftbomb count me as even slower — you just pointed it out to me!

This is next on the queue after Hellblade and FFX

Well that’s an instant buy, then!

Just finished it and totally loved it. Went down the pacifist route, which was a worthwhile challenge

9/10 for me too

Uh-oh @Damo, you started the Indie War Opinion War!

This game has been on my radar for ages — please please for Switch!!

Quite possibly the ported game I want on the Switch the most. Love the series.

They did miss a marketing trick / sales-boosting tactic here: should have been called “Turok: Minecraft Edition”

I voted F-Zero X because of the emotional damage @antdickens would suffer from a landslide loss. I’m there for you buddy — bad life choices and all

Cannot wait for FFX. X2 I am less fussed by as the whole perfect ending requirements spoils the game for me (far too many obscure things that basically mean you need to read a guide to 100% it)

XII I am excited for as I didn’t complete it, but got a decent way through

VII I would have got but only completed it again a few months ago.

Wasn’t on my radar till I saw this — will be buying tonight.

(Potentially a bit like Spectrum Retreat?)

Great for Nintendo; I hope they are able to still maintain the home system focus too, as I’ve not really got into their mobile phone offerings — I have a Switch and 3DS, so playing a game on my mobile feels like a step backwards. Still, it’s so nice to see Nintendo doing well again

@Gridattack pretty much! This was the early days when there wasn’t nearly half as much talent. Hopefully my writing has improved a lot since then, but thankfully there are many more talented writers on this site now

I just hope with the interest in Vesperia people don’t start to stumble across this awfully-written review of mine from 13 years ago! (Still stand by the score, though.)

I was hoping for Hyrule Warriors in Europe!

Despite the bugs and slowness issues, I found the story to be so compelling that it sits as a 9/10 for me.

Really, really impressed with the experience

IMO this is a 5/10

Just played through it and the obvious comparison I have to it is Katamari (which for me is 9/10)

5/10 is what you score something when it is okay— if it’s not your sort of game then don’t bother; if it is then you will have decent fun but won’t be blown away.

Shortness asides I felt that there wasn’t really much openess to the game — some of the puzzle elements were cool but there were only a couple. If you then put it side-by-side with Katamari then you have something that pales in comparison. Granted this is from a one-man-band, and I hope that more games are churned out — just with more meat on the bone/replayability/some challenge-driven scoring (time, objects, avoiding certain things - anything to make you want to revisit a level)

It’s a neat concept and I am happy I played it — even that I paid full price, as I love indie games on the Switch and want to ensure they are backed — but I doubt I will revisit it any time soon when I have Katamari on my Switch, which I can replay levels without it feeling tiresome.

Final Fantasy VII Switch means I can finally justify my username after 13 years on this site

Persona 5 is on my list — excited about most of the others. Animal Crossing I am on the fence with, as Stardew Valley scratches that itch for me.

Metroid please please please come with the trilogy ported over too!

Forgotten Anne not appearing in the Art category surprised me — I loved the art style of that game so much.

Smash was my GOTY, but on a good year from Nintendo I doubt it would have been. Nowhere near BOTW’s quality

@antdickens I’m afraid I swapped it for Morphies Law based on @Visor ‘s recommendation

@antdickens providing you get your coding for dummies book ordered

Starlink is still my surprise for how badly it did in the stores. I enjoyed it, and it’s thoroughly worth the £20 you can get it for now — even for the Arwing model alone.

Good call with SSX @AntDickens — I played that game to death and would love to revisit.

Starfox I’d like to see reimagined a bit too — the end was a let down

Freezeezy Peak always has me thinking of Christmas. Such an amazing level

Absolute steal for the price. Such an accessible game and one of the few ones I can get the non-gaming other half to play.

Might take a while to get round to playing my copy what with Smash and all

After the success of Crash, they’ve got to see the benefit of launching this on the Switch. I reckon they will go for a Q2 release. I swear half my game library consists of ports now, and I don’t think that will stop soon with SquareEnix shipping out several more in 2019.

(A small part of me is still hopeful for Spyro and Crash to be DLC fighters of Smash.)

I loved Forgotten Anne. Will def give Grim a go as I never played the original!

@Damo I’d be chuffed with Skies of Arcadia 20 times tbh!

Just completed my play through of this. Absolutely loved it and found the characters to have such depth to them — doubly impressive considering the short length of the title. I’ll revist this one again for sure.

It just about tipped itself into 9/10 for me — some frustrating gameplay puzzles and a slightly weak moment just before the end were my main bug-bears.

Otherwise it plays just like I expected: something akin to an interactive Ghibli-esque story.

Watched this video instead of the direct; don’t think I’ll bother sitting through the direct. Super-excited about the game but direct sounds like it went into a lot of detail (and probably didn’t have the useful philosophy section right at the end)

Twelve years and nine months after Ant cajoled us into writing articles for his latest pet project. Near enough 20 years since the IRC chatroom that started it all.

Safe to say the quality of writing has vastly improved since our time! I remember when we had like 10 reviews and two of them were for Starfox Adventures XD

@ReInstall @Visor - feeling old?

@Ed_Rush still alive and kicking?

I’ll make a re-entry into commenting on Nintendo Life

I feel I’m one of the few people who are so stoked about Crash and felt really tepid RE Octopath — I gave the demo a go and I found it to be dull. Looking at the performance and reviews I will probably give the demo another shot. But for the next few months I will be trying to 100% the Crash games (again) — it’s the Dark Souls of platformers.

I hope this does hit the Switch.

I'm basically replaying my teenage years in HD. If Banjo makes it (oh how I wish that would be possible) then I don't think I'd buy any original content.

I definitely feel there is a vacuum in the market for late 90s/ early 2000s-style playformers...

I've paid here and there for Pokemon Go (impatient guy; want to hatch eggs), but the pricing of the orbs in Heroes to me is too steep.

You're effectively paying £12 to get five characters — at least three of which you won't do much with. And, to me, there's not that same level of drive to get all of the characters in my roster.

Still, it's an ace game, just not one priced right for me to do any microtransactions.

Quite addictive, although not sure on longevity. No permadeath feels so odd: I'm used to painfully planning every move in Fire Emblem games. I reckon the orbs will annoy me soon, as I'm already a decent chunk through the game, and can't see where I'll be able to get more orbs from.

Oh and the Soecial maps: they rotate characters every 24 hours. I found it on one of the FAQ menus in the game.

I'm betting this will hit the UK in Thursday. Backup power supply in order in anticipation.

Got to say, I love the achievements on the '360. There's nothing better than the bragging rights between mates when you have the higher gamerscore on certain games. Microsoft has done well with the whole social side of Live — Achievements are just one aspect of their multi-faceted approach to social gaming. I don't think Nintendo will ever have the correct mindset to implement something as successful, as they always seem to approach the subject from their own unique angle. I see a lot of the big N's 'social' gaming ideas (Friend Codes, Street Pass) and, well, they aren't the best executed. If I want social gaming on my Nintendo machines, I have to have the people I am playing with in the same room in order to get any decent experience from it; Microsoft and Sony are probably more geared to the opposite — online gaming.

Bottom line is, in my opinion, Nintendo need to get their online gaming to a standard where these social aspects will be able to flourish. Introducing achievements/trophies would be like writing a car manual for a car that hasn't been manufactured. I doubt they ever will quite get there, but it would be nice if they did.

Good job, lads!

Played it a while ago and I really wanted to get it. A bit surreal in the motion and stuff -- reminded me of Salad Fingers, a bit.

Deathmatches... played using only our feet!

Great review mate. Enjoyed going over it. Shame this wasn't as good as the arcade version

This was keeping me entertained over the weekend whilst writing away. Muchos grand, Jon!

I prefer my Mario voice. Should've done it all in that!

Lovely hearding your voice, as always, Jim

@Ezekiel, I was wondering when someone would pick up on that. Truth be told, I'd rather play Copter Crisis! Making it barebones and eliminating the save features is an unforgiveable mistake in my books.

They don't call me Tagline Tom for no reason!

Would have been a 3 bar the fact that the Balance Board makes for some interesting challenges -- ones which I'll actually go back to the game for, one day.

Well, I get my pilot's license with this one today; will let y'all know what I think in due course...

Please check out our Scoring Policy

5 - Average
A five is where you really need to start wondering if this game is for you. We are saying this game is average in our own subjective opinion. You have to judge for yourself if you are so attracted to this game's concept that you are going to take a chance on it anyway. We'll always give our reasons to show why the game failed to impress.

Personally, I don't see how these silo-based 'plankton games can be better than the full release DS game (which was rather good). The original worked well because it had the perfect orchestration of many elements, but these releases contain a lot less - the whole experience is no longer fused together. Just my two cents there....

United we stand, divided we fall. Great work on the review, Des!

I'm going to pass on this one, but that tagline made my day!