Ralizah

Nintendo will say anything it think it needs to to maximize sales until the hour before it announces a successor.

Zelda outselling historically high-selling Pokemon games is absolutely wild. The open world approach has turned the series into a monstrous powerhouse.

@Yoshif3 Series tend to do better on Switch, but not THAT much better.

The jump from what previous entries were selling to 30+ million units for something like BotW isn't explainable through the popularity of the system alone, or even primarily. Especially since we have remakes and remasters of older Zelda games on the platform, and they've sold a small fraction of what BotW and TotK are doing in record time.

Not to mention the games are two of the most critically acclaimed releases in history.

It's okay to have an unpopular opinion and not like the new style of Zelda, but it's PAINFULLY clear that this is what most people want from the series.

It's been a really good year for Nintendo. Mario movie was massive, and the year was packed with high quality releases. Four of their first-party exclusives this year have scored 90+ on Metacritic, even.

In general, I'm incredibly impressed with how consistently good support has been on the Switch.

@Princess_Lilly The first Star Ocean never even made it overseas until it was remade on PSP, and it didn't make a huge splash when it did. The second and third games were reasonably well-received and sold a few hundred thousand copies, but they're certainly not considered timeless masterpieces by most people.

Subsequent games have tended to be much more poorly received.

I'm not saying it's a bad series, but the low sales of this entry should come as no real surprise.

@Princess_Lilly Consistently praised series like Xenoblade don't manage more than a couple million units at most, and Star Ocean has a reputation for a... mixed level of quality. It's really not a shock that it's not doing well.

It's a pity there's not a better adapted control scheme for Switch, but I'm still excited to play this. Glad it finally saw a proper 1.0 release.

@ReaperMelia Thanks for the heads up. They're still a little pricier than I like, but definitely way down from where they were. Might have to snag them from Play Asia or something.

I want some Fire Emblem Engage amiibo.

I'd also like to see reprints for some harder to find amiibo like Alm and Celica.

And where's my Lyn amiibo?

Also, gimme the entire XC3 cast.

This is probably the best implementation of an HD-2D artstyle I've seen to date.

Yeah, as expected, the controls are the issue. Pity, since otherwise it looks like a much funner WarioWare game than Get It Together!

For god's sake, rescue MGS4 from PS3 obscurity. I've wanted to play it for years, but went with the 360 that gen.

So yeah, Master Collection 2.

@StephenYap3 Good boy.

It's no Super C or anything, but I've always been impressed with it considering how GB spinoffs often turn out.

@StephenYap3 Blasphemer. Operation C was a perfectly decent Contra game. Very good for the hardware.

@Justaguest Nah. Things are intolerable in English. It's like the voices were scientifically formulated to be as obnoxious as possible.

Didn't bother me. Had to turn the flowers to another language, though; the English voices were driving me nuts.

This will only become more drastic over time, aside from when Sony is flogging bundle deals. Super Mario Wonder will sell like brand new for full years while Spider-Man 2 will need to keep rapidly dropping in price to maintain a fraction of its initial attention. Nintendo games occupy a curious space in the market compared to the competition.

Smash Ultimate.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Expansion Pass.
Zelda TotK.

So many Nintendo series feel like they're pushing themselves as far as they could reasonably go in terms of scope atm. It'll be interesting to see how they tackle this.

@Fizza If nothing else, the second trilogy collection releasing soon probably means we're closer to AA7 than ever now.

I can dream.

I'll just grab it digitally if it's a good port, then.

Really, really curious to see how this turns out.

Give me back the good activity log from Wii U/3DS!

But yeah, if there's no OLED option from the start, I might just wait for the inevitable OLED revision.

LMAO They just casually put Animal Crossing: New Horizons into the new Yakuza as a side mode.

Love it. I really need to catch up with this series.

It's better. Actually, Kung-Fu Peach looks way better on the newer cover.

Actual personality for the girl. Never thought I'd see the day.

This is even more embarrassing than when Michael Myers got his butt kicked by Busta Rhymes.

Robust BC support is probably not necessary, but I do think not supporting it would be a pretty big mistake if they don't want the popularity of the console to become a millstone around their necks when the next device is released and they want to move people over.

I'll say this: the difference between bc and no bc is probably the difference between an early upgrade and a late gen upgrade.

This looks amazing. Wish I'd gotten to it before the base game left GP.

Literally just Pushmo lol.

@Joeynator3000 I'll watch any video that catches my eye. It helps that I don't really follow online drama.

@weisske Weird. I don't remember Pokemon games in 2010 being 96 MC GOTY front-runners that massively outsold previous entries and revitalized the series.

"Consul M’s Armor for Mio"

Yeeeeeeeees!

Was so bummed when I found out you couldn't unlock that outfit for her.

@xshinox I want the whole crew, honestly. But Eunie is the biggest miss for me, too.

Still not entirely convinced this wasn't a joke announcement.

PURE chaos.

Definitely downloading this.

Game of the Direct. It's like they turned Peach into a G-rated Cutie Honey. All over this.

I always play as Peach, when given the opportunity.

This won't be a popular opinion, but I'd love to see the next Splatoon game on the successor go F2P with battle passes (or the Ninty equivalent). It just seems silly to cut off support every couple of years and force players to start over and upgrade to a new entry that only makes changes around the edges of the experience.

Either way, I hope the online is more stable with the next entry. The first few weeks of online play for Splatoon 3 were kind of miserable.

Interesting visual design. Lovecraft by way of Andy Warhol.

No thanks. I'd prefer new ideas and development hours go into a new generation of Zelda games. TotK is already overwhelmingly massive as is.

Sounds like a pretty gigantic upgrade if true. The technical limitations of the Switch are its one real problem area. I'd love to see it run demanding Switch games more effectively.

Hopefully battery life is at least comparable to the launch Switch model.

Rayman Origins/Legends are two of the best non-Nintendo platformers I've played to date. Simply sensational games.

I'd take more in a heartbeat, but I'm satisfied with what we got.

I feel similarly about Mario + Rabbids, which will probably also be dead after this last entry underperformed.

I'll play SoS on Game Pass at some point.

RDR will be a sale purchase down the road.

So just Vampire Survivors for me (again, lol). Still a great game.

@Clyde_Radcliffe What I was thinking lol. 2D Marios since World have almost all felt more forgiving than their peers. I enjoy the games, but after the intense satisfaction of mastering titles like DKC: Tropical Freeze and Rayman Legends, 2D Marios just lack a little something.

It'll be fine if the base difficulty is higher without the badges, though, or if it goes the Super Mario Odyssey route and features a challenging, extensive post-game for people who want a challenge. Nintendo is usually pretty good about catering to both their casual and more hardcore fans in that regard.

Fully worth the $5, even having played it on GP. It's just perfect for Switch.

All the complaining about Denuvo, but it has demonstrably slowed PC game piracy to a crawl (in terms of several big releases) now that there's only one cracker working on it.

As long as this is intelligently implemented and doesn't hinder the proper operation of the hardware, I'm all for it. Switch games are literally hitting PC piracy sites before paying customers can access them. It's out of control.

tbh though, given how late in the generation we are, I imagine the focus will be more on Nintendo's next console. They'll have hopefully learned some lessons from the Switch in terms of preventing piracy, or at least making it more difficult to pull off right away.

MK8D and GTA V in the top two, haha.

The eternal sales bros are hanging out.

I feel like 'traditional' mainline Xenoblade game design peaked with XC3 and FR. While I wouldn't say no to more games in that vein, I also feel like there's not a tremendous amount of room for improvement.

So changing things up a bit probably isn't a bad idea.

In game development, as with life, clinging to the past or remaining stationary will eventually lead only to disappointment and regret. You have to accept change, move on, evolve, and embrace what tomorrow brings.

720p/30 is fine for me undocked, which is all I care about. There's gonna be a lot of screaming about the PS5 version, though, haha.

@koekiemonster In fairness, the version of Mario Galaxy in that collection at least saw reworked gyro/touch controls and goes higher than 720p when docked.

I know everyone says "[x] game is perfect for Switch," but this one really is. Just the perfect fit with its short playtimes and 'one more run' addictiveness. Definitely repurchasing later.

@rushiosan I thought the same thing before playing it, to the point where I thought the game's popularity must be a Youtube meme and avoided it for months, but, really, it doesn't matter. The gameplay is so chaotic and full of explosions and particles that the screen would look like a jumbled mess of pixels anyway.

Good to hear there aren't any ridiculous porting issues.

I'll grab this once it's $25 or less. I have plenty of play while waiting.

As someone who rarely replays games, I think I'm largely done clinging onto my childhood relics. I'll still keep stuff that would be difficult to access otherwise, but if I can rip and emulate it or access it via NSO/VC, it's going on Ebay.

Might just buy this again. It's pretty much the perfect portable game. One you can play for twenty minutes or two hours.

The gameplay loop is pure addiction. If video games are elaborate skinner boxes, then it's the purest sort of video game ever made, in that respect.

@Ooccoo_Jr You can unlock all of the stages/characters/weapons/etc., but there's not really anything comparable to a proper story campaign.