Noelemahc

@Octane_st1m Switch ports - no idea, but in the past they were Activison's go-to people for porting stuff to lower-gen consoles. And judging by Diablo 2, they are again.

@Octane_st1m VV working on Call of Duty will probably mean Switch ports because they are, among other things, gods of porting. I have fond memories of Call of Duty on the Wii, TBH, and wouldn't mind some of that.

VV has been Activision's go-to porting superstar for years, not in the least due to their in-house Alchemy Engine (most famous for X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance) and magic at working RenderWare to the fullest extent of its durability.

Kind of weird they'd sacrifice them in such a dumb move.

So this basically does what Crimson Shroud already did, but with a higher price point and less fancy graphics?

I find the price point unjustifiable so I will be staying away for now.

Think DoomRL meets XCOM. Very clear influences from both, very reminiscent of "Halfway" which has a similar premise (bunch of space specialists fight a bunch of monsters after a crash).

A dice-based roguelite about surviving a trip to Mars on a spaceship that is constantly falling apart.

One third cosmic horror, one third mundane horror, all parts stressful breakdown.

Very good for short bursts of gameplay.

Dear NintendoLife.
Ah'm confused.

You list Dead Cells both here and in the metroidvania lists, but don't list the vastly-superior-as-an-actual-metroidvania Sundered in either. Is your grnre tagging system broken or did you never play that gem of a game?

How can you write about Shinobi 3 and NOT MENTION THE AMAZEBALLS SOUNDTRACK.
Preposterous.

(Same for Contra Hard Corps, the first Contra that Akira Yamaoka worked on - if you ever wondered why the soundtrack for Contra Shattered Soldier sounds so much like Hard Corps', you now know)

Friendly reminder that EX Troopers, the Lost Planet spinoff built out of castoff Mega Man Legends 3 pieces WAS released for the 3DS and remains THE best shooter for it.

I appreciate what they were trying to do with the story, especially after Fusion gave Samus much mote of an inner voice compared to Super, but it must also be underscored how badly they have failed.

There are better ways to humanize your silent protagonist than to make them an emotional wreck (hell, the new Doom games do a fine job of it from inside the character's skull!) and Other M (and Smash) is the main reason Samus went from 2m-tall muscular Amazon shown in Super and Fusion to Generic Hollywood Action Supermodel in the character's promo portrayals everywhere.

It took everything that made Samus a standout female protagonist and made her a generic one instead. And that is just sad.

Nintendo should offer a cheaper, AC less package. Right now it looks like the price is jacked up by an un-optional premium DLC nobody interested in the VC options would be interested in and vice versa, like a "worse than the sum of its parts".

If you play AC, the price is justifiable.
But if you don't - it's an absurd rip-off that boggles the mind a wee bit.

My biggest issue is that I don't play Animal Crossing, I just want the N64 games =/

Is there a particular reason you are not listing Ace Attorney Investigations 2, which is the better of the two and (by my reckoning) in the top three of the franchise overall?

Does it retain the mortal sin from the 3DS remake of 2 where you can only move using the analog stick and not the D-pad?

THANK YOU.

I am still hopeful Dread makes narrative use of the fact that as of Fusion's end, Samus is the last Metroid in the galaxy, the biggest fun bit about the way that game worked its surprisingly detailed narrative compared to the hands-off-ness of its predecessors.

@ss213 I was gonna suggest it but didn't he get turned into a Mii skin like with the 3DS Streetpass thing?

It's Segata Sanshiro isn't it?

Death's Gambit Afterlife. Released Sep 30th, the original has been on my Steam wishlist for ages but I finally splurged.

And it's basically what you get if you take Blasphemous and make it more of a Souls-like. A parry-and-dodge oriented combat system? Lore delivered through item descriptions? A flexible class-but-not-class oriented leveling system?

All married to a clever plot with a ton of layers which (again Souls-like) depend on you doing obtuse things with semi-random inventory items at specific times. And great pixel art and orchestral soundtrack and decent voice acting on top.

@VoidofLight technically, this is a sequel to a game from back when there were a LOT less Mario Kart games 🤷🏻‍♂️

I have the CE preordered (for the physical car, of course) because my kid is into Hot Wheels and I am into good racing games. Good to know we might also have fun with the actual.game (hella rash of me in these trying times, I know).

I have it on Steam and despite the occasional "ooh, that is a barely distinctive edit of a sprite from Castlevania SotN!" it is a very competent Metroidvania with neat deviations from the basic templates.

Really surprised yet excited for WinBack to be part of this. I loved it back in the day even though very few people have heard of it, let alone played it.

@RCGamer I've always hoped the Switch v2 wpuld just somehow put DLSS into the dock and that would be that.

Old Switch? Buy a Dock v2 separately, problem solved.

I've been using one for over a year now. Originally bought for my Wii, where it made A TON of an impact in smoothing out jaggies and making the picture prettier in virtually any game I tried it on that wasn't Guilty Gear (you can't improve on perfection), its effect on tge Switch is way more subtle but it still gives me AA in games that don't got it which is neat.

Alas, my TV doesn't handle 2k@60 well, so I am locked to 1080p, but even so, the picture inprovement is noticeable and the lag is nonexistent.

It would still be better if it could handle 4k@60.

I can't count the number of times I stuck a Wii and a Guitar Hero guitar or three into a duffel bag and went to a LAN party or equivalent in over a decade of owning the console. Nowadays it comes partnered with a hard drive to fit an EmuNAND with all DLC songs, and is quietly dying, failing to read my Guitar Hero 6 disc (with its vynil grade grooves from years of use), but until a new platic guitar game comes out for the Switch, I will continue doing this until it falls apart completely.

I still host annual tourneys in Guitar Hero and yes Beatles Rock Band at get togethers of an online gaming forum dedicated to showing off our game collections and competing in some of them. My instruments are falling apart from age, however, which means having to risk braving AliExpress's assortment of replicas. Wish me luck.

But whyyyyyy if they could have done a straight up tactical game based on Marvel that would have been glorious. It being card based basically nixes my interest in the game beyond the visuals.

I collect to play, so I seldom look at the state of the games when picking them on eBay as long as they work. Don't care if the label is damaged or a cartridge is out of box (except the DS ones because they're too tiny) - if it works, I will play it.

@FrankoAmmo I've heard of some of these but not others. Wishlisting Aggelos and Shu, thanks a bunch for the recs!

Another update, and it's still not Sundered, which is what you get if you make Dead Cells into a januwine Metroidvania (which it ain't, because it doesn't encourage re-exploration in the true sense).

What is wrong with you, people.

@nessisonett oh yeah, I can 200% agree with these. Also "Divine Decree" from FEA is one of my go-to power writing tunes.

Off the top of my head?

The theme for opening level from Megaman X, "Central Highway".

Megalovania.

"I Sawed The Demons" (E2M1) from the original Doom.

"Ginza" from Shin Megami Tensei 1 (or its twin brother, "Fighting Machine" from Blazeon)

"Magical Sound Shower" from Outrun (in fact, I once HAD listened to it for an entire day, albeit it was a playlist of various versions from the bajillion ports of that game)

And its nemesis, "Las Vegas" from Top Gear.

Some of these games don't show up as discounted to me, such as Clumsy Rush or Nirvana Pilot Yume.

I am gonna get Cyber Protocol tho.

Getting a sequel/expansion to Ion Maiden instead of Bombshell is simultaneously grand and disheartening. I seem to be one of maybe five people on planet Urth who enjoyed the original more?

On the other hand, Exhumed coming back based on the Saturn version is best news of this bunch, for sure.

I've sunk gajillions of hours into it on Steam and am I overjoyed I can finally play this timekiller on the move.

Definitely Game of The Year for me, and I am very likely double dipping on it.

I'm confused. You do not consider Shadowrun Returns, which features the SNES Shadowrun's protagonist as a deuteragonist, a sequel to it?

I love how over half of this list is "damage increased" (only Cinderace got an actual nerf?). Oh no, they noticed only one build of Venusaur is viable!

The original "atoms + sokoban" game was called Atomix and came out alllll the way back in 1990. (It also had better graphics than this)

I still yearn for a proper remake of it one day.

@Anti-Matter i do not feel like buying a Japanese 3DS to play out of region games, and I cannot live without Super Robot Taisen. CFW is the least cumbersome way to do so.

@Caryslan if you install a CFW made after 2017, one of the first steps is always setting up a thing that prevents official system updates from removing it and/or it resulting in a bricking. If you're TOO paranoid, you can install the CFW next to your original firmware.

@nessisonett a MOBA in general is no different from a Diablo-like and both Diablo 1 and 3 became better games in their transition to gamepad-dependent platforms. I see no reason why this should feel any different.

@SmaggTheSmug links or it didn't happen. You can't just tell me a new Master of Magic is happening and not lead me to it by hand.

@Gerald it's not crap! It's fun and more difficult than the DOS version because of the difference in enemy movement, but it's still fundamentally the same genre-starting classic!

@BloodNinja oh no. The original King's Bounty was the precursor to a different famous series - Heroes of Might and Magic was its remake/sequel.
Then 1C bought the rights to the IP a decade or so ago and has been churning out new games in the series ever since. But this game is touted as a "true" sequel, so we'll see.

But then we remember Sonic Dark Brotherhood, sharing its engine and dev team with Mass Effect Galaxy, and breathe a collective sign of relief.

Loved the art style ever since I saw this on a Metroidvania listing video a few months back. Gonna pick it up next paycheck for sure.

If you're adding Die-Upgrade-Die-vanias (as embodied in Dead Cells) why do you omit Sundered? It is a Lovecraftean masterpiece with a neat art style and a lot of fun ideas about how to make one of these into MORE of a Metroidvania than Dead Cells is.

I just hope they do not suddenly retcon the fact that as of the ending of Fusion, SAMUS is the last Metroid in the galaxy, something that upended the status quo of Super Metroid something fierce.