PikaPhantom

Just a heads up, but the Switch logo is nowhere to be seen in the MIO trailer. Seems like it was scrapped in favor of a Switch 2 port

Snagged Metroid Prime 4 physically on Switch 2 and put in a preorder for LOK Digital (also picked up Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter and KUUKIYOMI 4). I'll get Skate Story if the Switch 2 port is good. I'm interested in some other games as well, like Ultimate Sheep Raccoon, but I'm not sure about picking any of them up yet. Still wondering when Suika Game Planet is supposed to drop

@UpsideDownRowlet Well, in that case it is the biggest thing they have this month. Absolutely not this year, though

"Nintendo's biggest release of the month..." It's the only one

"...(the year?)"
If you laugh you go to hell

@RupeeClock I'm aware

Are these puzzles also asset flipped from another mobile game?

Very commendable how stable performance is when doing an all-Kamek race and dozens of enemies and hazards get summoned all at once. At least in solo play...

...That's not SpongeBob

I don't understand why we can't see the ID for a given design on the purchase screen. Means that if you can't afford it, good luck even being able to find it again. Saw a slick Eggman Vampire Star yesterday that I couldn't even buy because I didn't have the machine yet and I don't think I'll be able to find it again. Maybe it's on the Details screen?

@Gohanjin You have full control over how many laps you do on a given track in the full game (not sure what the upper limit is, though). The cap is 2 laps for most tracks, but many of them are roughly twice as long as most Mario Kart tracks. There's also a slower speed setting you can use

@Aswannsong Awesome ragebait man, tell that to the sales numbers and reception of Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Also have to consider the fact that a dedicated studio works on Kirby and that it's been their bread and butter since 1992. Smash outgrew them and their only other non-Kirby major releases since then have been Mother 3, which intentionally ended the series, and some Pokemon spinoffs, which have been deemphasized on console. HAL is not taking away from any dormant IP

Feeling the bias toward Western games (and generally the bigger ones) more than ever this year. Just really feels like anything developed in Japan has to hit it really big or fit into one of the niche categories to get anywhere, and it still has to be more prominent, considering how games like Fantasy Life i and Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter were ignored.

Mario Kart World is a criminal snub for the soundtrack category, but the jury has consistently proved they only really care about orchestral fare for cinematic games. We're lucky Silksong and Hades II both got nominations there

Does Digital Foundry at least acknowledge how genuinely nice interior areas in Z-A look? I almost wish they'd try to play to their visual strengths more, but indoors areas are few and far between in every new game post-Sword and Shield. Maybe they could even find a way to make a game take place entirely inside (imagine a Legends game set in the future on a large spaceship)?

This makes the decision to release Pokemon Pokopia as a Game-Key Card even more laughable, especially because it likely has a higher sales ceiling than just about any other Pokemon spinoff. These games are in high demand as physicals! There's absolutely no reason to not give Pokopia a proper one.

@Bats1234 No matter what, you're still getting a degree of proper ownership, saving on storage, and if patches are really a turn-off for you, you can at least wait because many Switch games receive reprints where everything is on the cartridge. Game-Key Cards provide none of that.

Shame. I was starting to get interested. I don't even want the game digitally anymore

Curious if Game-Key Cards get their own icon or if they just use the default Switch 2 one, since the actual cartridges are marked with a key emblem. Definitely a much-needed change with how virtual game cards were implemented, though

Does anyone else think it might be a good idea to make it a requirement that you need a Nintendo Life account to submit user scores? I discovered recently that you don't need one to vote in these polls, and that does seem to be opening the door to some reviewbombing, even if it would also rein in the sample size. Things do seem pretty reasonable here, though (Musou games certainly aren't for everyone) - just didn't know where else it made sense to mention it.

@RumandCohibas The full game will have a slower speed setting available!

@EarthboundBenjy It's not actually a completely dead practice. Pokemon Friends was recently found to be a reskin of another mobile game from the same developer released in 2016, called Think! Think!

@Sindayl It is 60fps as long as you're not playing with 3 or 4 people.
https://www.sega.com/news/sonic-racing-crossworlds-nintendo-switch-2-faq

@Orpheus79V I'm just glad there's even a 60fps option to begin with, since I specifically waited for a potential Switch 2 version

@CupidStunt It's all but confirmed that they sat on Z-A for some time to prepare the Switch 2 Edition. Some people, including a good friend of mine, were able to claim Gold Points on their Switch 1 physical copies, which means they would've had to have been manufactured before the cutoff for them at the end of March

I'll be picking up the physical day one. It's too bad that Nintendo Switch 2 Edition cartridges force a download of the entire upgrade pack to internal memory if the game receives any other updates, but I'll gladly support getting any physical release at all, especially when this seems to be an excellent port (the trailer was uploaded in 1440p, and it sounds like it defaults to 60fps, so it might have parity with most of Nintendo's Switch 2 output)

@the_beaver Shin'en's like 3 guys lol, there's no reason to acquire them

Well, if Go is any indication, we'll finally get another one of the dedicated trading card RPGs on Switch 2 sometime this generation to capitalize on the success of TCG Pocket

@Medic_alert Such a cash grab that all the substantial new content is free and the next-gen paid upgrade is the cheapest one they've put out so far, focusing just on the enhancements and new additions only viable on Switch 2

Where's the Switch 2 Edition of Ball x Pit?

I can't even be excited for this because they still won't let you change the Resident Representative, and I don't want to essentially start my save over to play the game on Switch 2. Sticking to 30fps is also ridiculous. At least it's only a $5 upgrade and most of the new stuff is free

Everyone's pissed about the Game-Key Cards in the Generation Pack, and I'm over here ticked off that the first variant controller for this console is a "graphic design is my passion" Pro Controller that's not even for a first-party game. Happy for "Reside Vil" fans, but it's ridiculous that we don't have any other Joy-Con 2 colors yet, much less any other special edition controllers. Not even the current Joy-Con 2 boxed set comes with the alternate colors for the ones bundled with the system, so you can't even rock an all-blue or all-orange setup. Really doesn't help that basically every big Switch 2 release this year except Age of Imprisonment would've been ripe with potential for themed controllers...

Hoping this gets some Switch 2-specific optimization down the line, because I'd have otherwise already picked it up.

I'm really tired of this trend where developers will blab about how much smoother and nicer it is porting games to Switch 2, and then they come out and aren't anywhere near as optimized as they frankly could be. Especially when considering Steam Deck can apparently run this game fine at 40fps (apparently it defaults to 60fps and does still have issues later on) and Two Point was talking about how this port would have parity with the other versions, the fact that it's a 30fps that gets strained later on and also has a lower cap on museum guests is fairly disappointing. At least this port is more likely to be improved because the game is still being actively supported, unlike certain other ports [cough] Persona 3 Reload [cough]

Results like this are why I think Nintendo Life needs to start waiting longer to push out their "what would you rate this game?" articles for new Nintendo releases. There's definitely some review-bombing dragging Z-A down compared to the other Switch era games, and that always tends to be very reactionary. Spacing them out from launch would also give people more time to actually finish the game in question - not many people are actually finishing the game in a few days (it was only 4 before the Z-A article went up). While it's not reflected here, the fact that a whopping 15% of the reviews on the Switch 1 version of Z-A are 1/10s clearly indicates that there is some reviewbombing at play, and ever since Nintendo Life's started running those articles it has felt like user scores have declined a lot of the time for anything that's even remotely controversial. There's not a ton that can really be done about that, but I don't see why it wouldn't hurt to wait 2 weeks or more to try and gather user reviews.

I'll respect this decision until the game releases and it doesn't have my scrimblo in it. This game simply won't be complete if I can't play as Crap from Mass Attack

Well, the most eventful thing that happened during the presentation for me was that a lightning strike hit the shed in my backyard, frying my house's modem, some of the Halloween lights we had up as well as the lights on the shed, and leaving burn marks along the roof in the upper left corner and the bottom right corner. Naturally, I wore one of 2 Kracko-themed shirts I own following that.
https://x.com/PikaPhantom/status/1981434905725981094?t=upQkCWM7NlPeQhJQyoYL3w&s=19

I'm glad we got Steamgust Forge gameplay earlier this week, because seeing how ambitious its track design is makes me feel more at ease with there being just 18 tracks in the game (with half being remakes). I wish the alternate tracks were remixes from some of Smash's staple guest composers instead of direct ports from Kirby games, and it's especially baffling to me that it seems like a fair few themes from Air Ride weren't remixed considering the new songs have richer instrumentation, but I think it was a good call to bring on both Air Ride's main composer and one of Sakurai's more prominent collaborators. I also didn't love how Sakurai tried to sell us on things like Time Attack having no leaderboards or some elements of the game apparently only coming in the day one patch, and ending the character reveals on Waddle Dee felt really underwhelming even though there are apparently some unannounced characters and the other inclusions were pretty solid. I do think it's odd we don't have any of the mainstay mini bosses yet, especially Mr. Frosty and Bonkers, and we are also missing a few of the prominent side characters (especially Adeleine and Elfilin), but I am happy with the roster overall. 8/10 Direct for me - I'm mostly just worried about the game's longevity for me, though I'm sure things like some Air Ride Machines controlling dramatically different than others will help out. I think the main missed opportunity is only having one City Trial Map - even just remaking the original would've been nice. I didn't really expect DLC, though it would've been a bit more feasible for Sakurai to move on to the inevitable next Smash game while other team members did work on more Air Riders content compared to him not being involved with Smash DLC.

"We have also been positively considering increasing the frame rate; however, for this release, we prioritized delivering the Switch 2 version to everyone as quickly as possible" is a funny way of saying "We thought about trying to get it running above 30fps but decided to rush the port"

@larryisaman Details on a third Legends game were part of a massive wave of leaks yesterday, and while it's entirely likely things change (the original planned followup to Legends Arceus was a Johto game set in the past), it does seem like they intend for it to adhere more closely to Legends Arceus, but set even further back in the past and not in one of the Japan-inspired regions.

I personally do hope they push Legends as a subseries where basically anything can be on the table in terms of setting/time period and gameplay, but I can't fault anyone for wanting them to more directly build on what Legends Arceus established

@anoyonmus Not really sure, but if nothing else, the Switch 2 should iron them out by default if you have one

"Newly established" company? "Recently acquired" is the correct term...

Cannot believe how many people think this is about Baby Rosalina. Why would they remove the most defining element of her design - the hair covering her left eye?

@Filthy There is no Game-Key Card version. The Switch 2 Edition is digital-only, and if that does ever change, it'll either be released on-cart or as a code in a box. Switch 2 Edition games seemingly cannot be released on Game-Key Cards, as none of them have been so far, and this is likely a hard rule because their cartridges work inside a Switch 1

@GoldenSunRM That wasn't ever officially announced, though. Reported by The Wall Street Journal, but we don't know if their source was any good or not, and if it was it was clearly canned

...From what I've been hearing they handled this with even less marketing than Everybody 1-2-Switch for a reason

@Bigmanfan This is how they reported on the initial change to random in online play and the first increase to 3-lap tracks appearing. Early impressions are suggesting the odds of getting a 3-lap course is up to 50% and you'll get one as an option every 2 races

At this point it's hard to say what third-party games haven't been disappointing with performance, outside of games that play to Switch 2's strengths over the Steam Deck (e.g. Star Wars Outlaws) and exceptions like WWE 2K25 (probably not a coincidence considering Nintendo owns the porting studio). Even some Switch 2 Editions have been messy - haven't heard great things about Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Another NIS America release where it'll be funny seeing the stock tracker sit at 100% for the Switch 2 version

@MyMemory It's still overpriced, but most of the layers can be played in Emerald Rush once you roll the DLC credits (with 5 unlocks as you play)

@LastFootnote If Prime Remastered's credits are any indication, they've retained many employees from the DK era, and there are still some Prime alumni as well, though not as many

I don't know why people are acting like the whole game is set in an open world. You can make out areas like the forest in the background. This looks way more like a Hyrule Field.

@Moroboshi876 It's only speculation. The digital version is likely also only delayed because they needed more time for the port

Congratulations to Fire Emblem for graduating from underwhelming Direct opener to underwhelming closer!

I jest - I am interested - but I was hoping for a bit more from the ending of the first post-Switch 2 launch direct, haha