Ralizah

LOL Xbox can't even come closer to 1000 units between two models per week now.

PS5 sales also collapsed, unsurprisingly, after the price hikes. I guess Sony figures they'll do better in Japan by milking their small established market than trying to expand it.

Good. Glad Layton's Mystery Journey seems to be a thing of the past now.

I've really missed this series. Azran Legacy was such a long time ago now.

@Anti-Matter Don't worry, Nintendo can't remove the muscular Mario pictures from your hard drive.

Day one. Happy to see this getting a sequel!

@the_beaver It's fantastic as a Gal*Gun spinoff and above average for a Castlevania-like (especially in coop). Go for it.

I love these games. I still have my complete PS1 copies. I still even wear Lucia's pendant sometimes.

These have been so neglected over the years.

FINALLY

Good.

There absolutely should be a happy medium in Zelda between freeform puzzle solving and some structure. I was fine with the Divine Beasts in BotW, since that whole game was meant to shake up the series and the 'dungeons' themselves were thematically and conceptually unique, but the Temples in TotK were just... disappointing. Why make them like Divine Beasts? The whole point of the Divine Beasts is that they were enormous machines. If you're gonna have dungeons, make them puzzle-filled gauntlets like previous Zelda dungeons.

@Yoshi3 TotK was an interesting experience, but yeah, I'm ready for future open world Zeldas to actually have meaty dungeons and setpieces to structure them a bit. Something like Elden Ring is honestly closer to where I wish that game had gone, but with actual puzzles.

@johnedwin Really hope so. It'll make Sony a lot looser in terms of console exclusivity for their smaller games, since they don't really seem to regard Nintendo as a threat to their market position.

One of my favorite NDS game covers. VERY striking composition. The Japanese cover just looks really weird in comparison.

Still a top three Contra game, by the way. Simply fantastic.

@TotalHenshin "The only thing I don’t like about the NA cover is the strange streams of light forming an X over Bill Rizer’s crotch. If someone could explain that, I’d be grateful."

Bill Rizer is clearly too much man to escape censorship on the cover.

@Ryan_Again

"The NA cover is over-the-top in a good way. Those look like tough dudes that bang chicks. The JP cover looks like sensitive Emo-boys."

I dunno, man. The North American box has them showing off their chests, and Lance is gripping that rather phallic rocket launcher pretty confidently. Definitely screams masculine, but I'm not so sure about how heterosexual it all is.

You play third-party games on Switch because you like the hybrid freedom and/or have no other options. If 60fps is important to you, you're probably not playing multiplats on a current gen platform that's significantly weaker than the competition's last gen platforms.

Sony has largely written the region off, I think. They probably had their analysts calculate how much they could jack up prices to maximize revenue. Otherwise, their sights are firmly set on wooing and cozying up to China.

@Anti-Matter No worries. PS5 may or may not outsell the PS4, but it has already outsold the Wii U many times over.

I've almost pulled the trigger on the Steam version of this a few times.

Absolutely criminal how many utterly wonderful looking Western indies I've been leaving neglected in my wishlist.

@Ulysses I can only imagine how stressful it is trying to consider every factor when launching a new console. Especially when your old one is as successful as Switch is. And, frankly, especially when you no longer have an alternative device to fall back on.

The good thing about the inevitable transition period is that the new software should hopefully all run on the new device, unlike that last batch of 3DS games that launched after the Switch dropped.

@Ulysses Well, I believe the Lite launched in 2019. That wasn't "later in the console's life" to any meaningful degree. I do think they'll probably launch one device at release, though. Nintendo traditionally releases revisions 2 - 3 after that to maintain momentum with its portable consoles.

Anyway, I don't disagree that they'll obviously want to transition people to new hardware. I just question whether they'll have a budget SKU that'll be cheap enough to hit the demographic they're aiming for, in that regard. Even with inflation, $400 isn't really 'cheap handheld range' for most people.

A lot of it really depends on how they approach the new hardware generation in terms of marketing and software compatibility. This is solidly Furukawa's Nintendo now, so I'm curious to see how it differs from their 'concept era' launches.

Nintendo's long-term play will likely be, as with Switch, to have multiple systems per family.

So $399.99 seems like the reasonable price for a next-gen hybrid Nintendo console. Possibly with a somewhat more expensive premium model as well.

I could see them opting against a Switch 2 Lite and selling the original Switch as their budget/small child SKU instead.

@johnedwin Base PS5 hasn't really come down in price. If anything, prices went up for the digital model and Dualsense controllers. Considering the Pro is likely to be a high-margin, low-volume sorta product, I wouldn't expect any deals on it.

I mean, it's not like Nintendo's own games haven't drawn from other sources as well.

Sony looked to Mario for inspiration and created one of the best platformers of the generation. I don't see the issue.

This is something a lot of young professionals raised on social media need to internalize, especially. Your words are out there forever, and you never know what bridges that your burned in the past will suddenly turn up in your path. Dunking on that annoying coworker or boss isn't going to be worth it when you encounter them down the road and you life is more complicated as a result.

More generally, the better you treat people in life, the more you maximize your odds of beneficial outcomes in all areas. Whether it's someone vouching for you on something unrelated, or someone whose life you improved doing things to help others, which might also go around to benefit you indirectly.

Even from a purely selfish, egoistic perspective, there's every reason to be a nice person most of the time. Sometimes you have to let people have it, of course, but you want to pick those battles carefully.

@Lizuka I liked Book of Shadows. It's not a classic like BC:RF's many versions, but it maintained much of the atmosphere of that game.

Shame how Blood Drive turned out.

@Summer235 It's really all about the use of sound. Excellent voice acting. Fantastic implementation of 3D audio. And the disparity between the gruesome stuff you're reading about and hearing vs what's actually on screen forces your brain to conjure up vastly more horrifying images than even the worst CGs.

It doesn't hurt that it's a super solid example of a traditional ghost story, either.

@anoyonmus I'm very skeptical about this upcoming Corpse Party game (I guess Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient was abandoned?), but always open to being surprised.

Corpse Party should be on this list. Still an incredible game, even if the series as a whole is... less so.

@SalvorHardin I found it weird too that TotK is a direct sequel where the entire world apparently suffers from a severe case of amnesia. Why even make a direct sequel if you're going to do that? Just make a reboot like Super Mario Galaxy 2, in that case.

Although I'd argue TotK is a much stronger (narrative) experience when you treat it like a soft reboot as opposed to a proper story sequel.

Nintendo should never have perpetuated the timeline nonsense to begin with in any official capacity. Throw some references in there for the really obsessed fans to speculate about, sure, but most normal people are going to recognize the majority of entries are unique experiences that are utilizing similar themes and characters in different ways.

I actually just started playing Aria of Sorrow for the first time today, so I'm curious to see what makes people love it so much. It's... alright so far. Definitely better than Circle of the Moon.

Nice to see Order of Ecclesia getting love, but Rondo is too low.

@anoyonmus Looks pretty darn solid!

Every new trailer makes the game look that much better. This could really just blow away almost every other 2D Zelda to date if they do the dungeons right.

Swordfighter form is nice, too. As cool as the echo system is, it's nice to know there's a little bit of traditional Zelda combat in there.

@Tasuki By that logic, people who own a PS5 wouldn't have any reason to complain if the recent collections of Castlevania games on Nintendo portables had skipped that system, right?

@Ulysses LOL

Glad to be of service.

It's so nice finally having these games on modern devices! Definitely some of the shiniest gems in the DS library. Particularly Order of Ecclesia, which is only under Rondo of Blood for me.

@Haruki_NLI Dual Strike and Days of Ruin. There were two DS-era games.

People keep calling this a visual novel, but it sounds more like an old-school adventure game. Which would make sense, because that's what the original FDC games were as well.

@Uncle_Franklin You realize this wasn't released instead of new games in those series, right? It's not like there's a "Star Fox development fund" piggy bank that Nintendo smashed open because they wanted to make this instead.

WHY WASN'T THIS A SEGMENT IN THE ENGLISH DIRECT?!

Not a huge fan of the original, but it is very cool that they'll finally be on consoles internationally in a form. This remake looks so much more dynamic and fun than the rather ancient, clunky original game.

@IceClimbers Oh wow! I guess I was wrong.

Already played this on PS4, but might just grab the Switch port to 'send a message,' so to speak.

Actually looks really good, from the footage. But yeah, like others 5 has made me hesitant to get too enthusiastic. We'll see how this turns out.

@Buizel SEGA loves Nintendo, but RGG Studio... not so much, considering how biased against Nintendo the director is.

@Elbow Maybe not $60, but enough that it'll price out most people who know you can get the game everywhere else for practically nothing on sale.

Calling it: Sega execs have been looking at Switch sales numbers and bugging the developer to port Yakuza for ages now, so they're gonna sent out some full-priced port to die on the market in order to justify continuing to ignore Nintendo next generation when they release hardware that'll likely be able to run all the Yakuza games.

I might buy this just for the Power Stone games. Had a lot of fun with those on Dreamcast.

I'm not buying in until the remakes go on sale and I play those.

As others have said, $400 is probably the sweet spot. Even with killer exclusives at launch, $500 is risky, especially given how comparatively cheap that would make the original Switch, which has a gigantic library to draw from at this point.

@LikelySatan It was such a breath of fresh air for the series. Multiple characters that play differently, a rad futuristic/cyberpunk settings, multiple story routes, deeply challenging bosses. So, so good.

Genesis missed out on RPGs compared to SNES, but it usually faired better in other regards, especially with directly comparable games. Hard Corps > Alien Wars, Bloodlines > SCIV, Rocket Knight Adventures > Sparkster, Shadowrun and Aladdin had preferable Genesis versions, and so on. And the Genesis was home to so many cool, weird games. Toejam & Earl is still an all-time favorite in this family.

But yeah, the lack of support from Square-Enix definitely hurt a bit. I didn't play the SNES Final Fantasies until I owned a GBA, since I didn't own an SNES when I was a kid.

@LikelySatan I'm here for the Hard Corps love. Absolutely my favorite 16 bit Contra!

@Mrkittyhead Awesome! I've watched the original film many times over the years, but I showed it to my boyfriend for the first time last night as well.

Lots of Alien love going around recently with the new movie coming out.

What'd you think of it?

@OldManHermit Yeah, that lines up with what I've learned from clips/reviews/etc. Not sure how Michael Myers went from the elegance of The Shape (practically death personified and who seemingly melts into the shadows of the world the moment your eyes aren't on him) to some generic white trash serial killer with issues at home.

I think there's a place for Zombie's type of slasher film, but it does a disservice to the original concept.

I need to watch Halloween 3 again. Haven't seen it since I was a kid. I think they could have gotten away with it if SotW had been Halloween 2, but once you make two movies with the same world and concept, that's what people are going to be expecting going forward.

IMO A Nightmare on Elm Street faired way better. The first three movies are all excellent, at least (as is New Nightmare).

@LikelySatan The original is still one of the scariest movies ever made. Pity it wasn't simply left alone.

If I had to introduce someone to the sequels as well, I'd probably just show them Halloween II and H20. As a trilogy of films, those work pretty well (way better than the embarrassing David Gordon Green trilogy, and whatever the heck the Thorn trilogy was going for).

I've still yet to see the Rob Zombie remake duology, lol.

lol

The Evil Dead one looks fine, but is it too much to ask that a side-scrolling Halloween game has at least a little bit of atmosphere to it, like the Splatterhouse games?

Then again, Halloween is the same franchise that saw its famously immortal lead get defeated by Busta Rhymes, so what do I know?

Really talented voice actress. Genuinely a bit gutted to hear this.

@-wc- Thanks, hon. 👍

If it means anything, you're not forced to listen to the new arrangements. You can switch to the classic music in the settings menu. At least, that's the case for FFV, which I just recently got on Steam, but it'd be weird if the same wasn't true for the other games.

There's no such toggle for the pixel art, but it's not unusual for ports and remasters from previous gens to re-do classic pixel art anyway (FF1&2 remakes on GBA and FFIV on PSP come to mind immediately).

I'm assuming you'd prefer to have ports of the original console releases?

@-wc- STRONGLY disagree. The orchestral soundtracks are gorgeous and, for me, are the biggest reason to buy these games again.

It's a middle-ground between simple ROM dumps and expensive HD-2D remakes that would take forever to come out. They may not have the additional content from previous handheld ports, but otherwise I consider them the best way to experience these classics.

Pass at that price. Really should've been cheaper prior to delisting.

Good, balanced review, although I'm left wondering how touch controls are somehow less precise than motion controls. You're LITERALLY touching the screen where you need to manipulate things, right?

I LOVE World of Goo, but they're sending it out to die at that price. $20 would have been much more reasonable.

@Yalloo "Ah well, different points of view I guess"

Yup!

Don't get me wrong. TotK IS a good game, and it does certain things much better than in BotW. I just found I preferred BotW's more focused game design and the way it integrates storytelling, game progression, and mechanics.

I'm glad TotK was such a magical experience for you!

@SpaceboyScreams "I doubt many people are buying a Switch this late in its lifespan just for the 7 year old classics."

LITERALLY three of the top five best-selling games on Switch are from 2017, friend. One is from 2018. Animal Crossing is the only one that was even released in the 2020s.