NintendoWife

Awesome! And not even that expensive*

(* haven’t checked € pricing yet)

Oh yes please! I'd love at least one big reveal, even if the game is a year away... something to look forward to.

ERMAHGERD PERKEMERN!

Well they know what they’re doing, it’s surely a smart move.

@Axecon Hm I’m not sure that’s realistic. I wish they’d all think ‘Mario’ but more likely they think ‘Minecraft’ or [insert phone game] or ‘hyper violent shooter’.

But my point was really something else: This is not the average age of gamers, but the average age of Nintendo gamers. And if Nintendo’s fan base ages with them that’s potentially not good news for Nintendo, because they need to connect with the young generation, over and over again.

Maybe it’s fine. I’m one of those who started in the 80s and is still playing. So we’ve come a long way from a stigma, just by the passing of time. For me it’s still ‘Mario’ though Always has been.

Wow the average age is a bit concerning (or maybe it always was that way). I mean, I'm older still, but a company like Nintendo needs to constantly reconnect with the next generation of kids... hope they're not all lost to phone games 🤐

@Axecon Is it?

Thoughts:

• Yeah, DK is going to sell less than Mario would have. Still I applaud when they put their best teams to work on secondary franchises, that’s the only way to eventually elevate them to A-list.
• has anybody seen recent sales numbers for Switch 2? It has been quiet since the record-breaking first days.
• as for Bananza, the early top spot means it has a chance to amass sales for many years. And it seems to be actually great, so the word of mouth should be that it’s a must-have.

Mine is still en route from France… but hey I got it for 49€ instead of MSRP 80€ 🤷‍♂️

It's probably me, but man these sidescrolling games look so alike and generic these days. Like they've been made with the same engine. That's it, they look like "engine". I was hoping for something original, but 3 seconds into the trailer I knew it was just another modern sidescroller.

Yeah they aren't going to invest into a resolution upgrade when they've already taken the game off the market :/

@gerebris Same here, mine is going to arrive late (if at all) cause I preordered it from a questionable French vendor. But the MSRP of 80€ is insane.

I hate latency, really annoyed by this. I could tell right away from the file selection screen of Wind Waker. But Nintendo is not going to be anything about it.

I wonder: What’s the state with Switch 1 games? Since BC is emulation too, this time around?

That seems to be Nintendo's favourite way of doing it - successful director doesn't get to direct the next game, but is instead promoted to producer.

"Times change" - more like, "deadlines pass"

I think this quote is not supposed to be taken literally, it's rather a display of humbleness and professionalism. The audience was shareholders, which is an important detail too.

I’d like to echo that it would be great if Nintendolife didn’t support Amazon. Not a cool company.

I must say, as someone who doesn’t play online: I partially understand. Games that rely on servers (online multiplayer stuff) are not traditional games, they are services that continually cost money to operate.

The part that I can get behind is that developers should be required to perpetually make functional downloads (updates, fixes) available, so that when in several years you pick up the game it still works, offline at least.

I haven’t yet had the time to play it much, but for me the console is still missing the one defining single player game to lose yourself in. Mario Kart World is great but not that. I see myself playing a few rounds here and there, but that’s not the feeling you get from a new Zelda or mainline Mario.

Fantastic, just one possible complaint: I wasn’t so happy to hear that they’ve reduced the depth-of-field / tilt-shift effect on the two Zelda games. Could spoil the games a bit like the bloom spoiled Wind Waker HD.

If the Wii U game is the second best I haven’t missed much. That’s already a dull game and I skipped the Switch entry as a result. The Artoon / Arzest games were bad, that I remember.

You know what has to happen for Yoshi to become great again? Nintendo needs to take him back in-house. All these other games were outsourced and it shows. Hand it to one of their A teams and voila, great game.

Franchises or characters aren’t exceptional, developers are. It’s like a Beatles record written and performed by someone else. What’s the point?

Thanks for the list. Yeah not a lot of interest so far. Direct soon?

@Rob3008 Same here, 10 hours of Mario Kart according to the stats. I was busy, too, but had I had a fantastic single player game the number would surely be higher. Here’s hoping that Bananza is as good as you’d expect from the 3D Mario team.

@Dman10 Yeah, and I think we need a Direct, period. Not enough on the horizon as of now.

DS2 Looks much more intriguing than the first part, I’d probably play that (but it’s way less likely to work on Switch 2).

The input latency is unacceptable. I opened up Wind Waker, tried the file selection screen, next thing was I cancelled NSO. I have zero confidence that Nintendo will fix this. Tried F-Zero X (N64) recently and that was bad as well, and has been out for years.

Not much of an issue for me personally, as a 99% docked player. But I’m glad they’re doing their job, it’s journalism. And DF know their stuff.

Gotta be honest, while the Japanese is very typical (and fine), the American design is the tightest. And Europe's is nothing really.

@sethfranum
"Then doing homework must be really hard for someone calling using Nintendo name to mask their true identify as DF camp believers and nothing else."
Haha sorry man, I'm not sure we inhabit the same planet There's no camp and no believers and no true identity. Lighten up.

Pleeeeeease stop quoting these two like they've ever been influential at Nintendo. No, I don't dislike them, but let's be real:

They were young presenters / faces hired by Nintendo of America. You can't be much further removed from Nintendo EPD, Kyoto.

@sethfranum Can you name examples? I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been following DF for years, there was no ‘slamming’ I can recall.

DF are a high end tech focused channel, so of course Nintendo doesn’t always play a huge role in their discussions. But they’ve always appreciated the way Nintendo is going, Richard Leadbetter in particular is always praising Nintendo for their second-to-none content and art.

@Dee123 That’s complete nonsense. I watch the show every week, they have huge respect for Nintendo, save for one host (Alex) who doesn’t care for Nintendo, but even he is being professional.

You clearly didn’t listen to the episode, they are full of praise for the system, but criticise the display. Fair enough I say.

Does anybody know if the emulation causes additional input latency?

Great, not 🫤 But you know what? I’m part of the “problem”. What can I do, both Cyberpunk and Hitman are surely good games but too violent for my liking. I can’t go and buy games that do nothing for me just to help their parties.

The large number of “day one” versus “already preordered” illustrates that many people are still waiting for a better deal. In France it’s been lowered to 60€ across the board, in Germany vendors still ask 75€.

Choo choo all aboard the Excite Bike!

@DaGoldenBoo That’s true, but if MK8 showed anything it’s that a game doesn’t need to accumulate the majority of its sales from its primary release. Translated to this situation, Nintendo might want to keep BOTW and TOTK selling on Switch 2 like MK8 sold on Switch 1 even though they originated on the respective previous playform.

(Not a straight comparison, I know. Cause MK8 hadn’t met its sales potential on Wii U whereas the Zelda’s have largely saturated the audience already).

@Grumblevolcano I don’t know if anybody was referring to that (ever confusing) fiscal nomenclature in this case. But I just checked the official trailer, you’re right, Nintendo said “winter”. Only secondary outlets gave it a “2025” date.

@DaGoldenBoo Yeah I agree that’s been true historically (Skyward Sword sold really badly late on Wii). Although you can tell Nintendo are trying to uncouple game sales from console cycles recently, with the various types of re-releases. Probably something they observed with the competition (GTA, The Last of Us, …)

@Grumblevolcano Hmm you think? Everywhere it is listed as Q4 2025.

I'm in the camp of those who don't immediately repeat one course (or level or world in other games) until 100%. If you want to get the most enjoyment out of a game that's wiser I think.

Take 2D Mario levels - they're so well made, but if you go for all there is to do right away you'll be done with them forever after 10 minutes. I finish them once, then on to the next. And days or weeks later I get to experience them fresh once more.

@Dhaladog I’m afraid the next 3D Zelda is quite a long way off. They will probably tease something next year, aiming to release 2 years later, and then miss that deadline by another year. That they’re currently seeking to extend the life cycle of BOTW and TOTK is an indicator of a long wait.

They’ll certainly release something in the meantime though. For this year the Zelda focus is on Hyrule Warriors.
Next up could be:

• straight re-releases of the Wii U versions of TP and WW (not sure)
• remakes of the remaining 2D Zelda games in the Link’s Awakening HD engine (Oracles, Minish Cap)
• something new altogether
• or they could finally attempt a modern remake of OoT and MM. But with the success of open world Zelda I’m not sure that’s a priority anymore

@GoldenBot I am, yes. I only remember some very bad third party controllers for the GameCube.

Yeah that was a downer, finding out that it’s a) not made by Nintendo and b) worse than the (not-fun) Nintendo alternative.

Oh well I’d probably have bought it if it was both good and funny. Even though I don’t need it. So thanks Nintendo and Hori I guess?

@JR150 "Fatal Fury COW" ?!?

It's good, but not amazing if you're coming from a modern-day iPhone. Luckily I'll hardly play handheld anyway, which is why I didn't bother buying a Switch OLED either.

They are definitely trying to steal some of the Switch 2 thunder, at least that's why they were unveiled at the exact same time.

The game: Fantastic, one of the best.

But some thoughts on the Switch 2 release:

• input latency seems bad, I noticed right in the file selection screen. It takes like 1/3 of a second before the cursor follows your input :/
• anybody else notice glitches? In the opening scene two seagulls are supposed to land on the patio next to your little sister Aryll. Here they dropped to the grass once they reached the patio. I checked with videos, GC wasn’t like that.
• is it true that you cannot switch off those grey dotted borders in Nintendo’s emulators?

Maybe he hates it! Or he tried to sabotage the game and now they hate him!

Or he just had no hand in it.

My early verdict (after maybe 5 hours?) -

It is a great Mario Kart game no question. If you’re still enjoying Mario Kart 8 you’ll love this one too.

The issue is that it really feels very similar to MK8. I don’t think Nintendo factored in that many many people inevitably grew tired of MK8, because you can only enjoy so much of the same gameplay. And MKW I hate to say is not too different from another round of DLC.

What should they have done differently? Well imo the “character” of a MK game lies in its feel. It was a mistake having this one control that similarly. And it seems their main goal was “24 drivers”, I wonder if anybody else had that on their wish list.

Positives:

• there are great courses, not all of them are as wide as a football field
• the sense of elevation and scope works great sometimes
• knockout Tour is an exciting format
• water is so much more fun than in MK8. I hated the floaty underwater driving, the Wave Race style is way cooler. Oh and good riddance antigrav btw.
• generally a great polished Mario Kart

Negatives:

• you could often mistake it for MK8
• open world is completely forgettable
• little nitpick: why can’t you see stats on the character screen, only after you’ve advanced to the vehicles?
• the music: Someone criticized it for being jazzy again, I’d argue that they lean even further to the tasteless side of Fusion. So much wailing guitar. I adore over the top electronic fusion stuff, but those trade fair guitar sounds have always been a bit yuck.
• oh and regarding the visuals: I think it does show that this was once a Switch 1 project. The floor is still completely flat for example.

Ok in itself that seems pointless, but I really appreciate to what degree they kept things compatible to Switch 1. Not having to buy multiple new controllers for the occasional multiplayer MKW is just great.

Yeah it would have been a step up from “code in a box”, but primarily turns out to be step down from “physical release”.

No doubt incentivized / promoted by Nintendo only offering the largest cartridges to third parties. Seems to be by design.

It's funny how with all these controllers (starting from the Wii Classic Controller) people discuss them as if they were somehow the same as the primary controllers, only better.

They are completely different! The fundamental question is: Do you wanna go back to the traditional position of holding one controller between your aligned arms? Or do you enjoy the freedom of holding separate halves for both your arms in whatever position you like?

Me I've never looked back. It's so much more ergonomic to not hold your arms in a fixed position.