OorWullie

@AussieMcBucket I am also curious about why you're curious about my curiosity 😅

I may have no interest in playing it, but it's a mega IP and its return to Nintendo can only be a good thing, provided it's a solid port. But if it's coming in near 100 GB, then I'll be curious to see how well it sells. But if it's much smaller, say ~60 GB, then I'll be curious to see how it compares to the other platforms.

@StorminNorman Yep, I'm of the same opinion. I would even add bleach into the mix, to clean the wounds.

But you're right, the Switch 2 is better for having it. Hopefully it's a solid port.

Still annoyed Dr Mario/ Luigi online never came to Switch. It was my 2nd most played game on Wii and top 5 on Wii U. I was able to play it at a pretty high level and won a lot more than I lost online.

If it was up to me, Dr Mario Online Vs would be a permanent fixture on NSO.

I have no interest in CoD but I am curious to know what the file size will be, and if it will be on a cart, at least partially, or require a full download.

The 'physical' version of Black Ops 6 on PS5 says it requires 166 GB of storage while MW3 takes up 130 GB. I can't imagine the Switch 2 version being below 80 GB, never mind fitting all on a cart.

@Simu001 It's beyond confusing and I've never even played any of them. It's recommended to play 358/2 before II, to understand certain stories in II. But 358/2 released 3 years after II!

And I've read that if you do play in this order, you will spoil major plot twists and mysteries that are meant to slowly unravel in II. So both orders spoil aspects of the other, but the drawbacks of playing II first outweigh the drawbacks of playing 358/2 first.

And allegedly, these are the 2 KH games that make the most sense;

I was never a big fan of Sunshine and after playing the 3D All Stars version for a few hours, I'm still not.

I would surely love a modern remake though..Splatoon like controls for F.L.U.D.D would be amazing.

@Pillowpants I came to leave a similar comment. I don't think Square Enix get the credit they deserve. Along with Capcom, I think they're the 2 best major 3rd parties.

Prior to Switch, I wasn't really familiar with them.. Their games were usually on the consoles I didn't own.. I think the first SE game I ever played was FF Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King on WiiWare.

Like you, there's a few upcoming games I'm looking forward to. And a good half dozen I haven't bought yet but still intend to.

@Ryo_Hazuki In my view, they should have asked The Incredible Hulk to play Ganondorf. I'm sure he would have jumped at the chance.

Playing this in between long sessions of Alien Isolation 2 could be a fun way to get some revenge on the damn thing.

I'm not really into co-op shooters, but if it's fun to play in solo, I might give it a go. Isolation 2 though is probably one of my most anticipated games ever.

For me, the original will always be best. It arrived during a pretty difficult time in my life, and almost instantly become an all time favourite. I played that game more than I'd ever played any other, racking up well over 1000 hours. And the Nintendolife community we had, where we'd often join up and play with or against each other, just added to the experience. I loved it so much I even had a Splatoon faceplate on my Gamepad.

Splatoon 2 was also amazing but I found the maps weren't as inventive as the original's. I missed Saltspray Rig, Urchin Underpass and Flounder Heights. Especially Flounder Heights, as that was the map I felt I was strongest on.
Regardless, I still played it for a good 350 hours.

I skipped 3. Not really sure why. And I am not entirely sold on Raiders, as I've never been the biggest fan of Salmon Run. But I think I'll still give it a chance.

Somehow I scored 11/12, after getting the first one wrong. I guessed more than half of them and got lucky.

I quite like the look of Parkasaurus: Dinoluxe Edition. I had never heard of it until now, but it released on Switch in 2022. Just been reading some reviews, and it seems to be pretty good. One of the main criticisms is it's a little easy, but that's fine by me. I'm not too experienced with these kinds of games. I struggled with Two Point Hospital.

Thimbleweed Park has spent more time in my Switch backlog , than any ofher game. Pretty sure I bought it on launch day.

I did give it a go once, but it wasn't (point and) clicking with me. It was a very brief go though, short enough for it to remain a backlog game.
I will make a point (and click) to give it a proper go one day, if only so it can leave the backlog folder. And if it does (point and) click with me this time, I've got a sequel to look forward to.

Superb stuff. Both the game and the review.

It'll be a couple of months before I play it,.but when I do play it, I will bloody well play it.

Really curious to see how this turns out. I love the look of it and the character design is amazing, but I'm still disappointed it's not a single player action rpg.

But maybe, it will turn out to be a brilliant game that I love, and play for dozens of hours.

Perhaps if it's successful, a Duskbloods single player action RPG spin off will follow.

I'll be playing this for sure. I've read quite a lot of good things about it. And the amount of content they give you for free is very generous. It lets you level all available classes and jobs up to level 80. Even once you reach that, you can continue playing, there's no time limit. I've also read the subscription is worth paying for.

I'll see how I get on with it. If I'm having fun with the free content, and want more, and I suspect I will, I'll give the subscription a go... I am happy to support free to play games that get things right.

"The consensus is that FFXIV has the most generous, non-intrusive free trial in gaming history.

Zero Paywalls for Power: You cannot buy better gear, stats, or combat advantages with real money.

No Content Blocking: You get the complete narrative, all dungeons, and raids across four full expansions without paying a dime.

No Premium Currencies: The game does not trick you with "gems" or "crystals" to purchase necessary gameplay item."

Sounds great to me.

I could have sworn SYVALION was already an Arcade Archives release years ago, and that I've looked at its listing and considered buying it.

I'm experiencing a bit of the Nelson Mandela Effect here seeing it is a recent release. Really weird.

@Samalik Why? Everything in the game will be original, created by humans. It was only used as a reference tool to assist developers in early development.

It's exciting to know Alien Isolation 2 is far enough along, that they're ready to let the public try it out.

The original is one of the greatest games I've ever played. Just thinking about it makes me want to play it again.

I hope Stranger than Heaven comes to Switch 2. Really love the look of it.

@Alcea The 'What's going on' clip made me laugh. It's perfect. That will be me with my controller, if I ever play it.

Cheers for the tip. But then even that's confusing - start with 358/2 , then II.

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game but it is a series that confuses me. Between the weird naming, the spin offs, the fact sequels are not just sequels to the previous game but also the spin offs, the mixture of anime, humans and Disney characters. What on Earth is going on? And from what I've read, even if I do play one of the sequels, I will most likely end up even more confused.

But it's a really popular series, that has a lot of high scoring games. And I'm a big fan of other Square RPG's.. So I will most likely enjoy it. But I can't decide if I want to take a chance.

@Ooyah That guy was definitely at one with the tomatoes haha. And yep, everything he touched turned green. Including his bed. Especially his bed.

The green dye is called tomato tar. It's like a sticky resin that comes from the little hairs on the leaves. And it's a nightmare to wash off.

But that man never even tried.

When I first moved to Netherlands, back in 2002, I worked in various greenhouses. For the first few months, I lived in this huge house with around 20 people from all over the world . It was a proper rough living madhouse. Half the residents worked in this tomato greenhouse, and they would come hone every day covered from head to toe in this green dye. Never seen anything like it.

Anyway, there was this one English guy who I had to share a room with for a couple of weeks. He would come home covered in this dye, but unbelievably,, he never showered till the weekend. Even more incredibly , he never even changed his clothes. He would literally sit drinking all evening with them on then go to bed wearing them. Shoes included.

Every morning , he'd get up just 5 minutes before we got picked up, already dressed to go. He did at the least brush his teeth though.

I used to get on at him every day, calling him disgusting and telling him how bad he smelled. But he did not care.

Eventually, after kicking up a stink with the landlord, he was evicted.

They should add life-sim elements, like having to change your outfit every few days because it starts to smell. NPCs will make snide remarks, or even avoid you altogether, until you start taking your hygiene seriously. There could even be a handwashing minigame to keep it engaging. With your fresh clean tunic on, you become the hottest thing in Hyrule for a day or two, with complimentary remarks wherever you go.

Also, older Link needs facial hair that grows every day, with no limit to how long it can grow. A Beard Barber in Hyrule Field can trim it, but there should be at least one mandatory puzzle that can only be solved if you've neglected it long enough.

I try not to be petty about things in life and generally let things go that irk me. Basically, I'm not one to bear a grudge. However, something that really irks me and I won't forgive is, developer / publisher releasing a game in an unplayable state, like this one was. In my view, they're scamming people!
I do not care about whatever excuse they give,. There are no excuses! If your game is not ready to launch in an acceptable state, then it has to be delayed. Your problems are not our problem!

I have accepted long ago, that games will need patched and optimised after release. I don't like it but I can live with it. But the game MUST, at the very least, release in an acceptable state. Otherwise, you've ripped me off.

I don't even need to be the unfortunate one who was ripped off. A review from Nintendolife is enough for me to put Owlcat Games on my 'Do not buy' list. Bigben and THQ Nordic are among others on the list.

@Anachronism I'm not really a fan of the series, as much as I've tried to get into it. I'm also not a fan of having to start over. I have the Mega Man collection on Switch, and I'm pretty sure it has save states. It lets you choose to play without slowdown and flicker too.

@Yoshi3 Hopefully that makes a comeback too, be it a remaster or a brand new game. I was just saying on here the other day, there aren't enough games with dinosaurs.

In my view, Capcom is the best video game developer in the business here in 2026.

They make their retro content easily available in collections and at a fair price. They remaster classics and release them at a budget price. And even ports of their more recent games, like DMCV, cost under 40 quid, and come with a launch discount on top.

They consistently put out quality new entries in their biggest series and occasionally, bring back fan favourites like Dragons Dogma and Onimusha.

And every now and again , they might even. put out original IP like Pragmata, that also has that signature quality.

They know who they are, what they're good at and, most importantly, what their fans want.

That said, I'm still waiting on that new Final Fight game from the big 2020 leak.

I've said it for decades, gaming needs more dinosaurs.

An open world sandbox like BOTW, where you travel back in time to see what wiped out the dinosaurs. But you find a world inhabited not just by dinosaurs - who turn out to be much smarter than we give them credit for - but also various species of aliens. And they are at war with each other. And as it turns out, it is this war that caused the mass extinction. The asteroid, was just the final nail in the coffin.

But your meddling somehow prevents the extreme alien attack that would have set the world alight, from happening. And you help bring about a peace to Cretaceous period Earth. But then, the asteroid, which had been visible and growing ever larger in fbe night sky, ever since you arrived. You and your team know what's going to happen, but the aliens and dinosaurs, many of which are now friends, do not.

With the asteroid impact now imminent, the aliens realise what is about to happen and that you knew about it. Feeling betrayed, they destroy your time travelling machine, sending you off on a fetch quest for parts. With just seconds to spare, you repair your time machine and return to the present day.

But, your meddling has created a very different timeline, where dinosaurs and humans coexist. And those aliens you betrayed, they've also figured out time travelling, by secretly watching you repair it. And they're not happy. Threatening to launch the extreme alien attack that would have set the world alight, that you prevented 66 million years ago. And somehow, you've got to prevent it from happening once again.

Nice review. With additions like this, the future of Arcade Archives 2 is looking very promising.

I wish they could work something out with Sega. I'm sure they've tried. But there's still hope.

I enjoyed that. Please do more quizzes like this. A 'Mangled Megadrive Box Art' quiz would be great.

17/20 - I got Pokémon Puzzle League, Excitebike and Kirby and the Crystal Shard wrong. For some reason the Excitebike box isn't familiar to me. I don't recall ever seeing it in stores. The sponsors on the box made me think World Driver or Top Gear Rally. I went with the latter. As for Kirby, I should have got that one. The human characters threw me.

It does seem a bit much but then seeing how compact it is folded up, it's actually quite a cool, all in one device. It's not something I'll ever need - my days of taking my console, pads, chargers and games everywhere are behind me. But a younger me would make good use of this.

@Sepewrath I haven't played 11 but I did have 9 and 10 on Wii.

Mega Man is one of those series that I want to love but never have. I always wanted to play them back in the day, but being a Sega gamer I never got to. My first Mega Man experience was on WiiWare, I think I bought them all, but just couldn't get into any of them. I think I bought a few on Wii U too. And again on Switch, with the Mega Man collections.

I'm a big retro gamer, so I always expected them to click with me one day, but nope.

@cyrus_zuo Eighting used to be called Raizing, who were known for making some of the greatest shmups of all time in the 90's, like Battle Garegga. Not sure what happened to them but I do remember they co-developed Pilmin 3.

Enjoyable read. I was always a big fan of the N64 pad. It felt like it was made for Mario 64.

I find Mario 64 really difficult to play with a Pro controller. Same with Goldeneye and Starfox and a few others on the NSO app. I have no problems playing Ocarina of Time with a Pro though.

With the run of form Capcom are on, this next Mega Man could be one of his best yet.

I'm happy to see it's turned out well, performance issues aside. As much as I've grown to love turn based combat, I think I still prefer action combat. The lack of enemy variety is unfortunate though, that will annoy me. As will the lag in menus, but hopefully that can be improved

The negatives are not enough to put me off though. I'll play it at some point, hopefully with fewer performance issues.

@Duncanballs @tourjeff @Kiz3000 @canaryfarmer Thanks for the replies, appreciated.

The only Tomb Raider game I've ever owned, if memory serves, is The Last Revelation on Dreamcast. I should change that.

Why is it called the 'Survivor trilogy'?
I'm not too familiar with Tomb Raider, and haven't played any of the newer games.

@Haruki_NLI Well if you don't like football, that's kinda obvious.

"We're actually not convinced that many people really care about this year's tournament"

I don't agree with that at all. Just ask any Scot. Perhaps those who attach politics to it have no interest, or those who won't watch it because of the high ticket prices, despite having no intention of going anyway. There was definitely a lot of negativity around in the build up, but then Qatar was the same. That ended up being amazing.

Going by the fact every game has been near full capacity - 68,000 for Qatar v Switzerland - it seems the high ticket cost has had little effect, and all the pre-tournament media doom about there being half empty stadiums, called it spectacularly wrong.

It's the biggest show on Earth, nothing can top it. And this World Cup will be the most attended, most viewed in history.

@Dark-Luigi From a third party perspective, I can't think of any Direct that's had so many games I want to play. The fact some of the games will arrive at the same time as other consoles, makes it even better. It hasn't really been like this since the Gamecube era.

@NerdyPaul I never said otherwise. I'm aware that Rhythm Heaven has its fans. But for those who aren't fans of the game, it was a rather underwhelming start, that went on a minute or two too long. But as I said, Nintendo do things their way, and it's bringing them a lot of success.

As for the last part, I don't even know how to respond to that, so I won't bother.

The State of Play started with Wolverine, the Xbox Showcase with Gears of War.
Nintendo meanwhile starts with Rhythm Heaven for their 9 year old console, with a trailer that seemed to go on for ages - especially the part with the frogs jumping on the lily pads.

They do things their way, and while I like that about them, it can also be frustrating.

@Sonicka Yep you're right, I forgot it was only coming bundled with Legend. It makes it an even better deal.

Remember when Nintendo made Tropical Freeze - which was originally £40 game - a Nintendo Select for £20, but then delisted it after they added an easy mode to the Switch port, which they then sold for £50, occasionally offering 33% off.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tropical Freeze gets an NS2 Edition, which they'll sell for £60.

Ubisoft have many faults, but even they wouldn't be that greedy. The enchanced version of Origins for $20 proves this.

@LastFootnote I bought one in the early days of Switch and I thought it was absolutely terrible - Legendary Eleven.

But it is probably a lot better than all of the cheap slop that would arrive in the years after. There are likely dozens of "worst Switch football game" on there.

@JohnnyMind @the_beaver I just tallied the 4 together. I never realised the other 3 were just the individual games from the collection. For some reason, I thought it was a collection of the original games, and seperate ports of the HD remasters.

I'm not familiar with Kingdom Hearts and the naming is quite confusing.

Not too bad, just 256GB total.

It could be worse, it could be 257GB.

The music in OoT is top tier, some of the greatest video game music ever. If the remake is as stunning looking as it appears it's going to be, exploring the Lost Woods with the theme playing, or approaching Gerudo Valley for the first time, as beat kicks in, is going to be amazing.