ROMhaiku

@SirLink Ha if somebody sent me a £650 item to review I'd probably feign interest in it too.

Giving me Primark collab vibes. The mugs are cool though

This is probably not going to be noticeable to most people but as somebody who struggles with motion sickness I can immediately see the Switch 1 footage hurts my eyes whereas the Switch 2 one doesn't. Both seem to run at 60fps but the extra blur and lack of visual crispness on the Switch 1 version is not pleasant to me at all.

@The_Nintendo_Expat Keep up with your hot takes. They give the comments flavour!

@The_Nintendo_Expat In fairness to Alana, I ended up on YT the other week after the excellent 'Banjo-Tooie is nightmare fuel' article and wound up finding a fair few people who didn't like the game compared to the original. I was mostly intrigued to see gameplay having never played myself but came away with the impression it has a reputation as a bit of a marmite title - like some loving it and others finding it a little bit too big and difficult to navigate. Doesn't seem like that's anybody here's opinion but it may be a wider one?

Imo the central question for any Ass Creed game should be whether the combat is good enough to last 30/40 hours with no other driving motive except checkboxes. Describing the quests as tedious and saying very little about the story makes me think it's probably not.

I am very much looking forward to cranking that dial down to 0 on the voice SFX slider.

Terrible news for people who are okay with others enjoying games at whatever level they prefer most.

@foursider Your comments are fair and a lot of people feel that way. Silksong is hard work in a lot of ways and life is short.

Pretty cool. I'll definitely watch these and then beg mum to buy it for Christmas.

@The_Nintendo_Pedant you'd never know it but some of are posting on here blindfolded too, i recommend giinh it s try sometime

Super gaming experience. One of the very best of last gen!

@Metazoxan You make it sound so simple, which it is.

Still don't understand the problem. Just install what you're playing and uninstall what you aren't. It's a much bigger issue on the Series S given a lot of games routinely clock towards 80/100gb and there's only 512gb of storage on that thing. Switch 2 file sizes seem like paradise by comparison.

Did anybody else have a slight existential panic at the mention of the DS being 20 years old?

I like the NA one. Games shouldn't be fun and that one perfectly captures the blandness I like in my videogames.

No honestly it has to be Japan.

I think it'd look a lot nicer if all the liveries except the 55 was removed. The metallic effect and the red d-pad is enough.

@Gabe250 I was joking mate

Well this is interesting. Frankly I think if you ever get a single Nintendo game where people are even slightly on the fence then it's rarely a good sign. You usually have to tone down the enthusiasm to reach a more realistic perspective, not it shift up.

Had no idea this was a thing but StarSong was a nice experience so I'll keep an eye out when it does eventually release. Sounds like a good decision from the devs.

Should have put it on two cartridges like in the old days

Great series and very welcomed news because this is definitely how I'll be playing it. My first introduction to the series was the GBA port and yes I did go to Spain before Syria leading to that infamous game-breaking bug :/

Good news but this might be why the price hasn't gone down much for the other versions. I've been waiting on it to drop to £25/30 like 2k23 did 6 months after release for our game night rotation (more to convince my cheap friends tbh) and it's been stubborn.

I don't really care what they look like. I care if the story has any depth and is told well.

I hated the IGN other list you did the other day but I have to say this one is absolutely solid. I could nitpick because I don't like Wind Waker personally but it's beside the point as you guys totally know your stuff.

Surprised by top spot as in my opinion Tears of the Kingdom kinda sucks. It felt like a game that didn't know what it wanted to do except take what it's predecessor did and add more. But in doing so it lost the cohesive design that made BotW the marvel it was.

999 is also too low as that game is the pinnacle of its genre.

Great to see Tetris so high; it's superb.

/opinions.

Be interesting to see if it's respectful to the intricacies of mario lore. I know a lot of us play those games mostly for the story and it'd be a shame if they get it wrong.

This thing will sell out in minutes and given how expensive it'll be I'll count myself out but you guys have fun with it~

I imagine MS are testing the waters with Indiana Jones and Fallout 4 to see if Switch 2's userbase is hungry enough for their games. If they sell well I expect the floodgates to open (as long as Nintendo don't insist they need to bring them to Switch 1 too).

@LightSpirit Same thoughts here. I put the game down at Act 3 for a break and in the process realised I haven't got the will to continue.

So my probably controversial theory about this problem actually comes when publishers do publish new IPs because I often feel like it's done to fulfil a quota outside the big hitters and never quite feels like they're given the budget, scope or creative autonomy to become properly good. They always stay secondary titles and you can tell playing them just how many ideas weren't allowed to exist.

It's different because in the 90s and early 00s we were still in a position where most publishers didn't quite know what would be a hit, hence there wasn't such a big imbalance for the most part. They couldn't sit there and say, sure, FF will make us ALL the money so let's not bother thinking up new and good IPs in the meantime. They actually had to be innovative and try new things from time to time.

Occasionally something drops that does really stick out but it is rare. Not a few times a year anymore, more like once every few years.

Disclaimer - This is more of a broad generalisation than totally accurate but I think you can see in the indie space that the talent is there, just not being honed by big publishers as much anymore.

It's not incorrect to say Pokémon has always been more miss than hit if we're looking at it through an objective lens. I remember the mid-2000s and most reviews of Pokémon games back then were never strong. Fans loved them but a lot of reviewers who didn't said they weren't good games, which is likely the reason why the likes of Gale of Darkness and Colosseum are sitting at 60/70 on Metacritic respectively. Even Gen 3 was showing problems despite being pure nostalgia for many. I'd say the same about Stadium as well.

Basically you're looking at G+S (including remakes), B+W/2, and maybe Arceus as the ones that people thought were exceptional outside of your core demographic of Pokemon fans. Go too in terms of pure popularity but that's a different kettle of fish.

Happy for those who've never played it. It's a cracking game

Now we just need them to release a limited edition version of the Jigglypuff song

Completely forgot Device 6 was a thing. That was a really fun experience! Very reminiscent of the old TV Show, The Prisoner.

Let's be honest, the original games ran so the newer games could sit somewhere in the great big pile of random merch that TPC only seem to care about. Their approach to everything now is like throwing darts at a ditto and seeing what makes the most money.

Amiibo must have been going for about a decade and I'm still not entirely sure what they do. I assume unlock extra content in game?

@MamaSymphonia I think the biggest difference here is Microsoft want a cut. Not good but slightly more understandable.

Raging Loop deserves a spot

I still remember buying the first game on GBA and getting stuck because there was a game breaking bug if you went to Spain before Syria! Later bought it on PC and it was far superior - loved the series ever since. Reforged was a lot of fun so this is nice news.

Quite like this. I want more developers - and especially Nintendo - to stop focusing on Switch 1 to get the most out of Switch 2.

Always thought these soundtracks were pretty underrated

@The_Nintendo_Pedant Nothing interesting to add but appreciate the reply and yep I agree that makes sense re: popularity. I also hope your Wii is made of pure Nintendium and does last forever.

@The_Nintendo_Pedant Is that without repairs? The Wii was notorious for the disc drive failing and ine went at the tail-end of that generation. It's a very easy thing to fix admittedly.

Price seems irrelevant considering it's a package. I don't remember the same outrage over Metroid Prime Remastered or TTYD remake costing £50 (if we're going by Nintendo's eshop prices).

Appreciate you've taken time to address the camera angles but the big question for me is what's the field of vision like? I've had to skip numerous 1st person games on the Switch because a low field of vision gives me horrible motion sickness.

Real shame but probably due. Like many of us, I often sit in on senior management meetings at Nintendo of America, and Doug has failed to inspire the team. Hoping and expecting Devon to get the room flowing again with energetic ideas that streamline growth through efficient decisions, which maximize revenue to allow for greater synergy between the Japanese and American sides of the business.

Some nice updates here. Knockout Tour with friends may get me jumping back in as we haven't enjoyed traditional races half as much.

@Dualmask Indeed. Yesterday I was thinking that I'm surprised there's no item to retrieve a coccoon you've lost from afar. Then about 20 minutes later, I stumbled on that guy and was like OHHH.

Still, the reason for it wasn't great. I got into an area where I lost my cocoon on a platforming section that I'm fairly sure can only be done with double jump. It put my cocoon away from the point I actually died, beyond a lava flow that I simply couldn't reach. I'll accept those 250 rosary beads by check if you don't mind Team Cherry.

I've been outspoken about the difficulty but I'm at a point where I just spent ages exploring and wound up with a few tools that made things a lot easier. The beginning parts are still the hardest parts of the game for me. There's a real curve to get over.