Qwiff

Trying to complete the Expert circuit in Wave Race Blue Storm. It's the game I keep coming back to in the Summer time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I have the DL physical (since it's not available in the EU shop), and I have to say that, after the initial "impossible port" wow factor, the deeper you get into the game, the more glaring the cutbacks become. Namely, the animation frame rate is halved during busy scenes. So while the game is rendering at an otherwise steady 30 fps, virals come running at you at 15 fps. Looks very odd.

It would be great if DL would be updated for S2, but the fact that it's not available in a large market (EU) might not make it worth the effort.

The text size is a point of concern for handheld. If you're old enough to have played the original back in '99, like me, then most likely your eyesight is not what it used to be. The SS1 remake had a tiny, non-adjustable font, making it impossible, at least for me, to play on the Deck. (Steam shows a warning about the small text when starting up the game.) Hopefully they will include a font size option this time around.

Wave Race Blue Storm, my go-to Summer game. Too lazy to set up the CRT, so this playthrough is on Dolphin. Just placed 1st on the Hard circuit, taking 1st place on every race, except the last one, La Razza Canal, where I managed to place 2nd. Now on to the Expert circuit.

I can understand why most people still prefer Wave Race 64. Blue Storm can be an unforgiving game. Even if you master the controls and learn the track layouts, the game leaves almost no room for error. That said, the high difficulty makes winning all the more satisfying and that's why I keep coming back to it.

I gave it an 8. Love the overall vibe of it. I'll definitely buy it once I get an S2, but this game alone is not a system seller for me.

For me, TOTK is the game of a lifetime. I stopped playing right after completing the main quest, saving the rest of the experience for a future playthrough. WIth a completion rate of 44% , there were plenty of shrines and light roots left to discover. That said, even I had an S2, I feel it's too soon for a replay. It's only been 2 years.

Having replayed the HD version just a few weeks ago, I found that the swift sail doesn't make that much of a difference. Actually I had forgotten about it and acquired it only near the end. The streamlining of the Triforce fetch quest does make for a huge improvement, however. I agree with this review calling it out as a dud in the original.

If they decide to re-remaster the game - say, for a 25th anniversary edition (you heard it here first!) - they should consider making a mobile app to replicate the secondary screen functionality of the Wii U Gamepad. Dual screen is the best way to play the game.

Yoshi's Woolly World. A good reason to keep the Wii U around. While the levels are easy to complete, collecting all bundles of yarn is where the game gets even more interesting. I'm spending half an hour on each level, so getting a lot of mileage out of this.

Shame this hasn't been ported to Switch. I tried the Crafted World demo back in the day, but the music drove me insane. The soundtrack on WW is excellent, however. Love the slap bass.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Yeah, the battery life was my main concern. 2 hours is not much. At least they have been transparent about it and added a top USB-C port to alleviate the issue.

I'll buy an S2 once there are enough exclusive, must-have games. Hopefully there will be a hardware revision by then that improves battery life, but I'm not expecting miracles here. The S2 is simply more power-hungry.

No, did not order one. I will be getting one eventually, sure, but not until there are enough S2 exclusive games that interest me.

With next gen in sight, I'm actually going backwards. Right now, I'm getting reacquainted with the Wii U and the New 3DS. Some games that I hadn't played or didn't finish back then. Right now, Yoshi's Woolly World is keeping me occupied. What a great game! And I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't actually finished A Link Between Worlds, so looking forward to playing that again soon.

But this topic is about S2. I'm not getting one at launch because of my concern about the limited battery life advertised. I''ll wait and see how that plays out. Maybe it's not that big of an issue in practice. Plus there are not enough S2 games yet that interest me enough to buy a new console. MP4 is the only new game I'm looking forward to this year, so need to upgrade just yet.

Yoshi's Woolly World. Completed Wind Waker HD last weekend and, now that I still have the Wii U hooked up, was looking for a game from that generation that I hadn't played yet. Heard good things about it. Found a copy at the local CeX.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Nice to see this reviewed. I couldn't wait for the (delayed) Switch release and bought it on Steam last month.

The review is accurate. Yes, the game is a slow burn, but worth it in the end. I would recommend taking a break after each chapter to let the events sink in. If you try to rush through it, the slow pacing will be more evident.

@JimNorman Noticed a typo: "diffuse the situation" should be "defuse the situation", right?

If I didn't still have a GameCube, I would seriously consider buying an S2 and subscribing to NSO just for this game. (And I'm not a fan of subscriptions.) Played hundreds of hours back in the day.

This review is spot on. Indeed one of the best fighters ever and fully deserving of this score.

Gathering the Triforce shards in Wind Waker HD. I would say this is the part of the game where the Wii U version improves the most on the GC original. Aside from that, the Wii U gamepad support is fantastic, it's the best way to play the game.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The pricing reminds me of Parking Garage Rally Circuit. That game only has 8 courses, but also a very low price. The problem with developing racing games is that levels take a lot of time to build, but little time to play through. So it's understandable that they limit the scope and price accordingly.

Continuing the Wind Waker HD playthrough. Playing WW for the third time, a decade after the second playthrough, I'm reminded why it was my favourite in the series for a long time. (Until TOTK.)

Glad to have kept the Wii U around. Will probably replay Twilight Princess HD later this Summer.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The DF video also mentions that the dock does not support VRR output. This seems to be a hardware limitation of the dock itself, so not something that can be fixed with a firmware update after launch. Disappointing, tbh. But who knows? Maybe they will offer a revised dock later down the line.

Backwards-compatibility was not part of the original S2 design. Developing that for a new architecture takes significant development and testing.

Reconnected the Wii U to play Wind Waker HD again.

I'll always associate the month of May with WW, since the original's EU release was in May 2003. Played it on a small, portable TV back then. To replicate the feeling, I'm playing on a 16-inch monitor. OLED actually, so the colours really pop. The sunny weather over here matches the mood perfectly.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Finished Old Skies yesterday evening. It's a slow burn, but the writing and characters keep it interesting throughout. This game was delayed on Switch, so played on the laptop and Deck instead.

This was one of two games that I was looking forward to this year. The other one is Metroid Prime 4. Likely, that will be the only remaining game I'll play this year.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Old Skies. The Switch release was delayed, so playing on a laptop instead.

I'm busy developing my own game and can't muster the energy to play games as a hobby anymore. So on the rare occasion I do play a game, it's a title I've really been looking forward to. So far, Old Skies exceeds my expectations.

Bought it on Steam instead. Playing on a laptop with a controller, the experience is similar to Switch tabletop mode. So far, it's even better than I expected. This might very well turn out to be Wadjet Eye's magnum opus.

Argh! I had today marked in the calendar and was checking the e-shop over lunch. Was really looking forward to this.

@Yalloo Are you having a bad day or something? For an indie dev, having a title available on the planned launch day is extremely important, since games only get a small window of attention. Switch is their only console platform, so it's good that they explain this last-minute delay. They're not blaming anyone here.

Played it on PC for a few hours yesterday evening, but, for me, it lacks the sense of exploration that make later Bethesda games so memorable. Fallout 3/4 and Skyrim have specially designed dungeon/locations that make exploration so rewarding. In Oblivion, the dungeons feel very generic. I'm sure the overall quests are great, but I don't care about that, tbh.

Cancelled the GP subscription and got a full refund for the month. Say what you will about Microsoft, their refund policy is customer-friendly.

Time Splitters 3. I think it's superior to TS2 in every way.

Also, SSX3 would be welcome. I'd choose it over 1080 Avalanche, tbh. NSO already has N64 1080 anyway.

Regardless of how I feel about subscription services, this is a fantastic addition. Played the heck out of it back in the day. And I'm not even a huge fan of fighting games.

I tried playing later entries on other hardware, but I'll always associate this game with the GC controller, so SC2 remains my go-to fighting game. Seung Mina is my favourite character, because of her long reach. IIRC she's an unlockable character.

Most likely, the removal of the mention of docked VRR output has to do with lack of support on most TVs. They don't want to advertise the feature too prominently. Apparently, the PS5 has problems with VRR output in some games, so it may be smart to keep this feature low profile anyway.

Personally, I don't care about docked VRR since my TV does not support it and I'm not upgrading it anytime soon. Having VRR as a core feature will pay dividends over time, however. It really is a game changer.

@electrolite77 Correct. The low memory bandwidth of the Wii U was its biggest problem. Only ~13Gb/sec, compared to ~22Gb/sec for X360.

If they port it, I hope that they address the biggest issue I had with Skyrim and that is the inability to change the brightness. Even cranking up the OLED to max brightness, the game is just too dark in places.

As for the immediate future, I'll be playing this on a gaming laptop. I haven't gamed since early February, so I'm ready to dig into something substantial.

For the price, it's competitive. It feels good that they're swinging for the fences, with the bigger screen, higher res, 120Hz and VRR.

However, the reduction is battery life is a concern. Hopefully the stated 2-hour battery life is the absolute minimum and is tested against the most demanding games running at maximum speed and brightness.

On the OG 2017, I frequently ran into low battery while being engrossed in BOTW. The Switch being a new concept back then, I could understand it, but it was definitely a nuisance.

The new DK looks very interesting (I love destruction mechanics!) and might even make me want to "switch", but the limited battery life is the one glaring flaw that is giving me pause. Just 2 hours for playing, presumably, AAA games is too much of a step back. It's worse than the 2017 OG, let alone the 2019 and OLED revisions.

My thoughts about the game prices is that we can expect fewer first-party titles this generation. The increase in price is there to offset the loss in revenue.

For one, games take longer to make, typically 5-6 years turnaround (TOTK). The new DK has been in development for probably longer than that. It's by the same team that created Odyssey, a game that came out almost 8 years ago.

Second, they cannot rely on porting the Wii U back catalogue anymore. The Switch has been such a success partly due to the failure of the Wii U.

So if my prediction is correct, the average customer might very well, in total, spend about the same amount of money on first-party games during the S2 lifecycle.

The silver lining is that this version can be used on an S1 as well. The games are still fantastic, regardless of the differences in performance.

This also indicates that no dedicated S2 cart is needed to achieve the faster loading times, which is one of the touted benefits. My guess is the faster loading is due to the S2's increased memory bandwidth and faster decompression. On S1, BOTW and TOTK already temporarily boost the clock speed during the loading screens to improve decompression rate.

@JoaoCGS My guess is that the S1 cartridge will act as a Game Key, meaning that you're playing the S2 digital version after the upgrade.

@shoeses Fact check: the entire world has experienced post-Covid inflation. It's not a problem unique to the US. Why do you think it's caused by the government? It's not. It's just market forces.

@Jeronan Technically speaking, if a GPU is capable of 4K output, then it's also capable of native 4K output. Games with simple shading models might be able to reach native 4K/60 when docked. But, yes, the vast majority of games will need upscaling to get to 4K, that's true.

For handheld mode, upscaling might be even more necessary to reach 1080p.

yeah, OLED the does look nice, and in games like Inside and Metroid Dread it really makes a huge difference.

But in the long run, for me, the biggest benefits of the S1 OLED turned out to be 1) the improved kickstand and 2) the larger screen. S2 has both.

As much as I love BOTW and TOTK, you do spend a significant amount in menus, so any speed-up helps.

I hope they also bring over the other menu/UX improvements from TOTK to BOTW.

I hope the upgrade brings the menu QoL improvements from TOTK to BOTW.

@G4n0nD0rf Rumours indicate the S2 dock supports HDMI 2.1. Google "Realtek RTD2175N-CG" for more info.

@vio Emulation. The official sites have interviews with the engineers. Worth a read for everyone interested.

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-16-nintendo-switch-2-part-4/

@Toastmaster Not holding my breath for a price drop, but I'll wait until there are more S2 games available. The new MK doesn't interest me, tbh.

120Hz displays can also provide a clean 40 FPS experience. So definitely a good upgrade!

My dream DLC for TOTK would have been you playing as Zelda during the Imprisoning War. This is the closest we're going to get, so I'm interested.

@Mario500 Variable Refresh Rate

VRR would be icing on the cake, but the specs are already very impressive.

EDIT: the official sites now mention support for VRR, although they don't state explicitly if it applies to the built-in display or the docked output. But, yes, the display is almost certainly VRR-capable. That might be one of the reasons for the high price.

I'm seeing a price of EUR 499 listed. That would be a significant price hike if true.

EDIT: So EUR 469 it is. Slightly disappointing, tbh, because they said affordability was something they had taken into consideration. Yet understandable, with inflation, uncertainty and a weak Yen.

For me, it's too expensive to consider for a day one purchase, but I'll definitely get it further down the line. MP4 will be on S1 anyway, so not missing out on the one game I'm really looking forward to.

Top Secret! is my favourite film with him in the starring role. Great comedy, when you're in need of a laugh.

Willow is one of the few 80s fantasy films that I haven't seen yet, will add it to the watch list.

Like most MS-related hardware, the confusing marketing will be its undoing.