PikaPhantom

The burger guy statue from Adventure has been on the sidelines for far too long. So glad they're finally letting him have his time in the spotlight

They might well be using AI to try and protect their intellectual property rights, though, considering all the brazen and weird takedowns as of late. The Pokemon Company already is, via Tracer AI, anyways, and while they're basically their own entity despite Nintendo co-owning them, I get the feeling Nintendo's ruthless legal department is all for having DMCA notices sent out automatically

@YunoboCo
...It is in Nintendo World Championships, though

That cloud looks stupid. It'll be my icon for the next week

@anoyonmus I don't clearly remember and searching around didn't help me uncover any details. I'd say the difficulty was decently challenging, though, with some harder platforming

I checked out the Steam Next Fest demos for Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, SCHiM, and Arranger. Bo was an absolute blast and is easily the game I'm most excited for this month. The movement was outstanding and the level and boss design was excellent as well. SCHiM has a lot of potential, and I clicked with the music and visuals a fair bit, but I'm a bit concerned the full game won't do quite enough to make its levels stand apart. Hopefully there are some more new mechanics sprinkled throughout, because by the end of the demo, I was already itching for the game to mix things up a little more. Arranger is likely a Day 1 buy from me as well - it took me a bit to get in sync with the game's design, and I still had a hard time figuring some things out, but it was really novel and enjoyable.

I'd say Shadows Over Loathing, but it's been out on Switch digitally since April 2023. Waited nearly a year for the physical and it managed to be worth the wait.

I've never been good about keeping up with new games in a given year, though. I voted for Animal Well because I had a blast with it, but it's also kind of the only truly new release this year I've sunk a lot of time into. I've started Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, Penny's Big Breakaway (on Steam), and Berserk Boy, but I have yet to fire up The Pedestrian, qomp2, Runner2, Pocket Card Jockey Ride On!, Pepper Grinder, Pentiment, Corn Kidz 64 (this is more because of the input lag they still haven't addressed), and Braid.

Would've picked up Beyond Good and Evil if it was running at 60fps, as any sixth-generation game should on Switch. I expected better from the developers behind the Nier Automata Switch port and the ones who just built Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown around Switch hardware to ensure a smooth 60fps experience.

@Samalik There was one rumor that they're remastering or remaking F-Zero GX, yes

@BTB20 It's not impossible that they could be co-developing the project to some extent (Retro Studios codeveloped Mario Kart 7, so it's not impossible for Nintendo's first-party Western studios to work with Japanese studios)...just not the most likely thing. ILCA's a large studio, but they also just released Sand Land and One Piece Odyssey not too long ago, while they've also been working on Pokemon projects (they contributed to Scarlet/Violet) and a new Ace Combat. Definitely seems like they've been pretty busy, whereas Next Level's only released a new Mario Strikers this decade, and supposedly around half of the team credited on Luigi's Mansion 3 didn't even contribute to it. We'll just have to wait and see, but it's hard to imagine a better studio for AlphaDream alumni to collaborate with between their animation prowess (which Brothership certainly rivals even if they're not involved) and background developing Luigi's Mansion, which lends itself well to designing RPG areas and puzzles (especially with LM3 having many puzzles built around using two characters together).

@PikminMarioKirby The developer is not Next Level Games. VGC reported that it's Tantalus Media.

This wasn't developed by Next Level Games. Tantalus Media, who previously worked on Twilight Princess HD and Skyward Sword HD, was confirmed as the developer. Next Level may have supervised, but they shouldn't be touted as the developer when they weren't.

I imagine the fact this was co-developed with another studio means it wasn't a significant drain on Game Freak's resources

I think it's always worth looking at more than just one review, especially for releases like these where they're more niche and tied to series with mixed track records, and they're definitely a bit all over the place despite the 75 aggregate. Some actually liked the multiplayer; NintendoEverything went so far as to declare it superior to the modes from the GameCube games. A few said the campaign felt "by-the-numbers," though. Overall, though, the package seems solid, especially with all the feedback that the developers took into account from Banana Mania, and it's probably the game that'll suit my tastes the best because nothing is locked behind an arcade mode. Granted, there isn't a way to play the levels in similar gauntlets at all, but being able to save and back out apparently whenever is very appealing to me.

I think an email would be fine. Preferable, even

@sketchturner I think you might be in luck, since Tanabe discussed what he wanted to do with Prime 4 with Eurogamer in a 2015 interview and mentioned wanting to go back to the concept of Echoes, but with a different spin put on it: instead of a light and dark world, he mentioned wanting to have you traverse the same location in different time periods

@Zacattack99 This is incorrect information that's been doing the rounds for some time now. While a good chunk of AlphaDream alumni have gone unaccounted for since the closure of the studio, 11-13 have since wound up at ILCA, with some others also going to Mistwalker (at least for a time).
https://youtu.be/_Qmv0BWVEe4?si=a-66sTDDmrI8nYbB
https://x.com/Lizard_yyy/status/1804057463294931197?t=gUC7-igwwFTbdSWm5uVJpg&s=19
Nintendo and Monolith Soft only got one known employee each. A few Nintendo affiliates - namely Good-Feel and indieszero - also got one employee each.

@Zeebor15 @JoeSooper The Mysterious Murasame Castle was like the Kid Icarus to the original Zelda, reusing its engine while making something more fast-paced. It seems like the perfect project to hand PlatinumGames...at least depending on how many Clover Studio alumni are still there, seeing as Okami is still considered among the best Zelda-style games - if not the best. A 3D reboot with their approach to combat integrated with the design of traditional Zelda sounds very appealing indeed.

Still kind of waiting to see if Banana Rumble really is as good as it looks, but odds are I'll be picking that one up. They really seem to have listened to feedback from Banana Mania

@Otoemetry I think it's a bit too early for one, and it was in the Japanese version of the April Indie World as well. SCHiM was in the US version of that Indie World, so for whatever reason the Bo developers just got dropped from both Western showcases

@PinderSchloss That's definitely fair. While I believe Aonuma or one of the other Zelda team leads has stated that the current direction of the series is what they've always wanted to try and do with it, but couldn't accomplish due to past hardware constraints, I wish they would at least recognize the merit of the more linear design of the past instead of going "well, why would you want the old style now that we can do something more grand?" I've never gotten as into Zelda as I would've liked - the Four Swords Anniversary Edition is the only game in the series I've finished - but there is a lot that is appealing about the older games to me, whereas I've found the open-world ones to be a bit less intriguing just because of their massive scope (personally hoping that the next one tries to focus around really enjoyable movement or traversal, but generally just running places and doing everything based around a stamina meter isn't terribly satisfying for me). Still willing to give them a shot again, but I do find Echoes of Wisdom exciting because it's translating some of the more expressive elements of open-world Zelda into the 2D style, which has always clicked with me more. I'm not surprised that's the direction they're taking after A Link Between Worlds let you tackle a lot of the dungeons in any order. I was hoping to see Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD finally materialize as well so I could try and sink my teeth into 3D Zelda more fully, but I'm also very happy to get something new for 2D. Hopefully in the future, someone at Nintendo will champion the old style of Zelda enough for us to get new entries that expand on the classic formula, 2D and 3D (though there are at least a fair few indies that have been riffing on 2D Zelda in recent years, with more on the horizon like Mina the Hollower, The Plucky Squire, and Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo). Glad you're at least willing to have more of an open mind, even if Echoes of Wisdom is not exactly what you would've hoped for. I've definitely had moments before where my initial response to a game reveal was clouded by negativity, only for me to warm up to them over time. In retrospect, I kind of can't believe how disappointed I was in Smash Ultimate at first just because I was hoping for more new content, haha.

@Otoemetry Bo's out July 18th worldwide.

@PinderSchloss I think that, based on Nintendo's track record of prototyping ideas and then building games and their concepts around them, this game originated with attempts to bring emergent gameplay from BOTW and TOTK into a 2D Zelda. Once the rough idea of the echo concept came about, the developers figured that it didn't quite suit Link, but that getting crafty with elements of the game world and enemies was befitting of the Triforce of Wisdom, and decided from there that they should build the game with Zelda as the protagonist. Nintendo was likely aware of the longrunning requests to make her playable, of course, but they wouldn't just do it for the sake of saying "Zelda's playable in a mainline game." That's not really how they roll.

I think you're also fixating too much on the sequence where Zelda is using the Moblins to attack for her, and ignoring her attacking directly with a rock, or using enemy Echoes for traversal, or even chaining Echoes together by baiting some birds with meat, only to unleash an enemy on them. I imagine the design philosophy was trying to infuse the combat with stronger puzzle elements while still allowing for open-ended design. The UI does look unchanged from Tears of the Kingdom, which is unfortunate, but we'll just have to see how that fares in the context of a 2D Zelda. I think that time and time again, Nintendo has proven they know how to design games. I doubt that they won't leverage the Echo mechanic to explore a bunch of different ideas. And with only a brief overview to go off of, who's to say Zelda won't get a few magical abilities to tie into offense (probably through Echoes) over the course of the game just yet?

I also don't understand why you see this as like Princess Peach: Showtime, which indeed deliberately targeted a younger audience. It looks like it's been littered with callbacks to games across the series, first of all - those would all be lost on the target audience if it skewed towards a young female demographic, and Showtime had only a few references across essentially the entire game. But it also doesn't look like the design is necessarily dumbed down. Echoes react to different situations in different ways, as we see in the segment where Zelda needs to block blowing wind - it's a matter of piecing together what works best for the obstacle you're facing. Overall challenge is certainly a concern, but Zelda has pretty consistently delivered on difficulty, and there very well might be a harder difficulty anyways. Is the artstyle influencing your conclusion? Because every 2D Zelda has adopted a clear cartoon style post-Game Boy Color. The current look is just different from the Toon style that was used across the GBA and DS.

I think you might be able to find at least some semblance of what you're looking for in Cadence of Hyrule, if you haven't played that. The playable Zelda there is decked out with magical attacks, and the game's certainly not easy. There is an option to turn off the rhythm mechanics as well, making it so that the movement of things coincides with your own. It's a spinoff, but it sounds like that doesn't matter much to you if you've decided Echoes of Wisdom must be a spinoff.

@120frames-please That's the one that was voiceover only. He didn't seem to react when mentioning Lego

I wasn't expecting this to get a physical release to begin with, and I'm perfectly content sticking with the digital copy. Not sure why people are acting like Limited Run's the one bringing the game back.

@120frames-please
What video? The one he recently uploaded on ROMs appears to be voiceover-only.

@dcon_dot_exe References to basketball were datamined from the Online Play Test in early 2022. Dodgeball was also referenced, but it's unclear if that'll materialize

"One rumour" Is a job listing explicitly referring to working on a 3D action game remaster for Nintendo really a rumor

Considering Forever's spotty track record with full remakes, giving them very basic remasters seems like a safe way for Nintendo to leverage their resources while ensuring the end results are solid and giving their other partners more leeway to work on other projects.

This is slightly disappointing, given it means Minish Cap is still the last traditional 2D game with a wholly new overworld, but...I mean, it's not 1:1, and there seem to be a lot of new areas. If it's a bit more akin to how Zelda II had a section of the map dedicated to remaking the original's overworld in miniature, I definitely won't have any gripes with it.

People were expecting Fire Emblem Echoes, so of course Nintendo gave us The Legend of Zelda Echoes (of Wisdom)

I'm kind of flabbergasted by how good this looks. 7 boards? 110+ minigames? Ninji? Coinathlon's back?
It's funny that it's billed as a followup to Super when it's the DNA of Superstars that is really apparent here. Glad it's not just a smaller throwaway entry.

You can't tell me at this point they're not using AI to automate this stuff. Feels like every takedown gets more and more ridiculous, especially when supposedly Sheet Music Boss had taken the proper steps to license things and Xenoblade songs were taken down when Nintendo doesn't own them.

@Sakogha I see.

Somehow I don't think Nintendo's likely to come calling...

Of course this had to be the one Nintendo remaster that could've used a better save system where they didn't improve it. Of course. Was a baffling decision for a portable game back then, and remains even more baffling in an era of quality of life updates out the wazoo. I may still get this remaster, but this makes it a harder sell. Especially because I seem to remember that there aren't any checkpoints during the missions.

There's a lot that's kind of on the table, but not much that's truly a given. Dragon Quest HD-2D Remake, Fantasian, and the Among Us update shadowdropping appear to be locks based on leaks. There's been potential evidence for Hi-Fi Rush (a PEGI Switch rating), a new Mario and Sonic (job listings a while back), and Mameda no Bakeru (Good-Feel taking down a fan translation). The Beyond Good and Evil remaster still hasn't been formally revealed. The Plucky Squire was weirdly absent from Devolver's showcase when they're still adamant about a 2024 release date, and I believe they announced Sumerian Six at the PC Gaming Show a few days later too - not to mention the lead developer on that project is ex-Game Freak, and there's enough hype for a Direct showing. Silksong could maybe finally materialize. And then on the first-party end, there are all sorts of things that may materialize. A Splatoon 3 Final Fest announcement seems likely. There were potential teases for Pikmin 4 DLC a while back. NSO stuff could appear. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD may finally materialize. There's been talk of Metroid Prime 2 and 3 getting remastered in the leadup to Prime 4, which may also finally be shown. The Fire Emblem 4 remake may show up. We might finally see the long-rumored DK. There's been talk tied to F-Zero GX and Kid Icarus Uprising. A new Mario Party may be on the way. We could see Pokemon Legends Z-A gameplay. There have even been small signs that Star Fox, Wario Land, and Pushmo are returning. We definitely won't see all of that, but there's a lot of solid stuff to speculate over.

@nocdaes Weirdly harsh. DK's problem is that he's been shuffled between developers ever since Microsoft acquired Rare, and since Retro Studios apparently had the project they were working on after Tropical Freeze fall through before being handed Metroid Prime 4, they're now unable to pick up the mantle. Intelligent Systems already juggles Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and WarioWare now; they wouldn't be a likely candidate to pick up DK. If Grezzo's handling this remaster, they probably wouldn't be handed DK either, given they're usually working on Zelda. I could see Next Level Games maybe taking a stab at DK, especially after they brought him into Punch-Out!, which this remaster could be stealing resources from in theory...but it may not be necessary anyways. There's a fair bit of evidence that Nintendo has a new DK on the way:

• Mario vs. Donkey Kong debuted a redesigned Donkey Kong logo. The Switch era has seen other Nintendo IPs receive logo redesigns - Zelda, Kirby, and Pikmin are all in a similar boat, and Pikmin is especially notable because it was explicitly part of a push for the brand (to the point they updated Pikmin 3 Deluxe's icon). It's not likely it was made specifically for Mario vs. Donkey Kong because of its nature as a small remake developed by NST and not a larger developer.
• The rumor mill has suggested for a while that Nintendo EPD Tokyo was working on Donkey Kong. Notably, a few years ago they were hiring for a "2D action game." The last time this team worked on a 2D game was their very first one, as Nintendo EAD Tokyo: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. There were a few murmurs that the game was pushed to the successor, but they weren't from especially reliable sources, and if the game's 2D that seems pretty unlikely.
• DK has been front-and-center as part of Nintendo's multimedia efforts, between prominently starring in the Mario movie and getting the first expansion to Super Nintendo World. I think there is a very real possibility that Nintendo's been sitting on a finished DK game because they wanted the brand synergy of timing its launch to roughly coincide with the high-profile opening of Donkey Kong Country in Japan (since that was delayed for other reasons, it might end up launching pretty close to the opening now). Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't believe DK has ever been that massive in Japan? So tying its launch into the opening of Donkey Kong Country (and likely as a tentpole holiday game) could make the game a higher-profile release.

All I want to know is if you can save at any time, or if more checkpoints were added. Those things kept the original from clicking with me, and 3 helping to rectify them was why I was willing to give the series another chance (still need to get back to it, but I liked what I played quite a bit). Granted, it's been long enough to where I don't know if I'd have issues with the old system anymore, but I remember struggling with some of the puzzles and hating that I couldn't just put the game down and pick it back up with a fresh mind.

@Samalik Sonic Wiki says otherwise - could be wrong, of course, but either way, it's not new

Chaos Spear isn't new. It appeared in Adventure 2 as a move he used in the final boss encounter with him, and eventually became part of his base moveset in the multiplayer mode of Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic 06.

@link3710 I think it's extremely likely NST's next project is a Captain Toad sequel. They worked on the ports, I think they were wholly responsible for the DLC, Nintendo was pushing the game fairly hard and seems to have a soft spot for it, and EPD Tokyo is likely going to remain busy with 3D Mario and possibly DK for the foreseeable future.

This really caught my eye during the Partner Showcase in February. I'll have to check out the Next Fest demo.

This is not the version of the game the 3DS got lol

@PikaPhantom There's definitely a lot more possibilities on the table. I imagine we'll see a few more Mario games at the very least (wishful thinking, but what if one of the new partners Nintendo recently entered discussions with is Digital Eclipse, with plans to put together The Making of Super Mario Bros. as a 40th anniversary special release? An interactive documentary is something I can see Nintendo finding very intriguing, and they seem to preserve a lot of behind-the-scenes development work), and definitely at least one other game positioned as a system seller/killer app, Mario or otherwise.
(Had to cut this out of my comment above.)

I find it funny that Nintendo fans consistently struggle with conceptualizing and naming future releases. I appreciate the effort, but I don't think it was all that necessary, haha.

I think it's especially difficult to predict the first year of the Switch successor just because it feels like most Nintendo teams and partners could have something to deliver, depending on what releases we get to close the Switch's life out. For instance, we have rumors of a new Mario Party, but it's not at all clear if it's targeting the Switch (which has precedent) or its successor (which is also entirely possible - the series does well enough to where it could push some casual sales).

I do have some predictions in mind, though:

• As with basically everyone, I anticipate the new 3D Mario being the launch title. I think that because it'll likely be the first full-fledged open-world Mario, they might dial back the theming a bit and instead focus on capturing a more general Mario aesthetic. Maybe it could've been planned as a 40th anniversary title, actually, and serves as a celebration of all things Mario? I'm fairly partial to the name Super Mario Extravaganza - it's distinct, conveys that idea, and is even derived from Italian. It could definitely be something else, though. I could see them leaning into more high fantasy theming.
• I think Nintendogs will finally get a new entry, especially with the reports that we're back to having a microphone built into the system.
• A brand-new 2D Zelda developed by Grezzo seems like the most likely outcome for an early Zelda release. We won't be getting a new 3D game for some time, and a new 2D entry seems more likely than a remake or spinoff to me as something that could move units.
• Metroid Dread had a 4 year development cycle, and that coincided with the pandemic, so I think MercurySteam's next 2D Metroid is very likely coming in the launch year. Again, it's hard to say what they would name it when we don't know what direction they'll be taking, but naturally, it'll have to acknowledge Dread's reveal that Samus has fully mutated into the last Metroid, and just based on that, Metroid Aberration seems like a solid name to me. Admittedly, this is also because I'm all aboard the "Prime 4 releases on Switch this holiday" train.
• I think Nintendo is going to want to be strategic with the less prominent IPs they release year 1, and that's why I think Astral Chain 2 is quite likely. It sold well enough for Nintendo to be happy with its performance, and I imagine they'll be hoping to deliver on a game for the more hardcore audience early on while giving the IP a chance to sell closer to 3-5 million (Nier: Automata numbers seem farfetched).
• Lastly, Monolith Soft seems to have been working on a new action RPG IP for a long time now, given their job listings and allusions to a project distinct from their typical output. I think it's likely this will be a launch year release. A lot of early Switch games got more traction because there wasn't a ton to play yet - I think 1-2-Switch, ARMS, Mario + Rabbids, Splatoon, and Xenoblade benefited quite a bit from this - so I imagine Nintendo will want to position a few releases in a similar manner.

I am confident that if Shiver does anything for other platforms, it's just going to be because they're honoring prior contracts. It's just so incongruent with Nintendo's overall strategy. They haven't allowed anything of theirs on other platforms - why would they let one of their subsidiaries contribute to development for other hardware going forward? They also have no need to go multiplatform to recoup costs brought on by skyrocketing budgets.

@Poodlestargenerica SteamWorld Build was developed by a different team from the other games, with zero indication that said team was also working on Headhunter (it's far more likely that's what the main Image and Form team's next project was meant to be and that it ran into development troubles).

@TheBigK I don't believe so, because Japanese laws help to prevent layoffs, yet the Western branches of Japanese companies are still susceptible to them if the current state of the industry is any consideration

@TheBigK Probably, considering how from what I've heard, Japanese laws actually enact CEOs taking pay cuts when their companies are struggling?

The Shiver acquisition just formally closed if their website update is any indication, so that's probably two dozen more employees under their belt (Shiver's not a big studio). Still a bit lean by the standards of many gaming companies, but I trust that as Nintendo continues to grow, given the investments they're making into their internal development, they'll do so wisely and efficiently.