Robot99

Alex's description of Porygon Z is perfection lol

Gallade for me! The cross-gen evos really save this generation for me - there are a select few really cool 'Mons that I love like Staraptor, Garchomp, or Torterra (my beloved), but the design style this Gen is really lacking.

(Pearl was the first Pokémon game that I played, so I'm allowed to say this lol)

I went with Swampert, but there's so many good choices that it feels wrong to pick just one. Blaziken, Metagross, Aggron, Claydol, the 3 cover legendaries, Walrein... Can you tell that I started with Gen 3? 😅

EDIT: How could I forget Flygon!?

@Hal9001
The long neck does bring to mind a giraffe though, it's not very obvious that it's supposed to be a shorn sheep.

Great to see all of the love for Amphy! Evo of a great early-game 'Mon that finds its way onto my team almost every playthrough. I also use it often in Pokémon XD for the same reason.

I don't know guys, what do I vote for?

That's a really strange headline lol

Anyway, this is easily the best addition in ages!

I always loved the Ultra Beasts for how they leaned into deliberately Digimon-looking beasts, it's like they were sick of everyone saying that modern Pokémon looked "fake" and decided to take it as a dare.

Don't get too excited about the track count, there's a lot of bloat here (like the 36 tracks relating to the Compatibility Tester lol). Still a nice release though!

I'd like to get rid of my sets but I have no idea how. Tossing it away feels like a waste, but it doesn't feel very sellable once assembled either.

Hopefully word of mouth will help. I myself did not buy this game, but have developed a significant interest based on what I've heard.

"Help, I accidentally uploaded a photo of a 22-year-old GameCube game that is not relevant at the moment at all and that I have absolutely no intention of doing anything with"

Whatever you say, Big N lol

This seems like a huge mistake from a marketing perspective, if I'm understanding this correctly. I've said before that this game has the potential to be a megahit; making it more difficult for the average person to share their experience will stunt that potential considerably.

Not a Nintendo game, but the game Total Distortion has the best game over screen ever. Look up "You are dead" if you aren't familiar.

"Your heart's stopped beating and your brain's gone cold - you are so so deaaaaaaad!"

@Dr_Awkward
I'm not saying that they shouldn't make a profit, I'm saying that this won't make a profit. Anyone at Ubisoft with a working brain would clearly see that the public doesn't want what they're putting out, and that raising prices will only worsen the problem. Ubisoft seems to still think that they're infinitely popular and that everyone will lap up anything they put out, when that's clearly not the case at the moment.

"This will increase profits! Right?"

~Some Ubisoft exec, probably

Not sure how to feel about Prime 2, as I was really, really hoping for a proper remake of that one; it's my favorite of the Prime games. With that said, it's great that there will finally be a (somewhat) accessible way for Metroid newcomers to play it!

I've been waiting for this to release - not because I actually want it (although I definitely enjoyed the 3DS game), but because I want to see how well it does. This has the potential to blow up like Animal Crossing New Horizons did imo, even on the dated Switch 1.

I think Nintendo's been overcorrecting their mistake from the Wii U era, where there was a significant lack of clarity about what a product was; now they instead insist on inserting word salads and chaotic visuals into their titles and boxarts that tell a prospective buyer absolutely everything about a given game, ironically making it just as difficult to parse.

No way, they used the same kart that Luigi uses in the original death stare meme 🙈

Ah dang, after the last update I got my hopes up thinking that they did something cool this time too. I'm sure that we'll get a big content update eventually either way!

I feel like he may have once been a great developer, but it feels like everything he has touched in the last 15 years has turned out for the worse - Paper Mario, Chibi-Robo, Federation Force and now Prime 4... I can't say for certain if any of this is necessarily his fault, I think it's more likely a combination of issues, but the pattern is too apparent to ignore.

Despite that though, I appreciate his contributions to the industry. Enjoy retirement, Tanabe-san.

Ubisoft will primarily focus on open-world games and 'Games as a Service' titles, which it says will be supported by "targeted investments, deeper specialization, and cutting-edge technology, including accelerated investments behind player-facing Generative AI."

This is like when your toilet is horribly clogged, and you keep trying to flush it thinking it'll fix the problem, instead of using a plunger.

@SuperBro64
I played Spirit Tracks for the first time myself recently too, the OST is definitely leagues better than PH!

Go extend the North Mercay Island and Temple Interior tracks to an hour each and listen to them through, that should give you a much more accurate representation of how this game's soundtrack is actually experienced. I still can't believe they made such an awful dungeon theme and decided to have it play in every single dungeon (including the one that has to be revisited six times).

The music for last phase of the final boss slaps at least, that's a welcome addition to my playlist, if not much else.

I've been seeing complaints about BD/SP for a while, so that's good to hear.

PSA, this also features individual reviews for every year that you've owned the Switch!

Anyway, my top 3 for this year:

Tears of the Kingdom (121 hrs)
Super Mario Maker 2 (94 hrs)
Pokémon Scarlet (73 hrs)

I had 573 hours last year. Definitely quite active! I believe items #4 and #5 would be Mario Kart World (60 hrs) and DK Bananaza (50 hrs).

I had been thinking for a while now that the rise up to the Switch 2's release was a big hype bubble, not surprised to see it pop.

Must... not buy... at full price at launch... just for the badge set...

I understand the panic around a potential price increase, but I think Nintendo understands that they can't do that right now - it would be financial suicide. You can see pretty clearly that they've been desperately raising the prices of literally everything else; they'd rather bite the bullet on the Switch 2 costs and make it up elsewhere, they have plenty of avenues for that.

With that said, why is the note about Nintendo looking into anime adaptions buried under the rest of this article? That's a lot more headline-worthy than the non-statement that actually headlines lol

He's horribly insufferable for the first fifteen minutes that he's onscreen, but he's more tolerable after that, even if I still dearly wished he wasn't there.

The actual worst NPCs were Duke and Armstrong. Captain Obvious and his annoying fangirl made navigating the Flare Pool an insufferable affair imo.

15/17 here, I forgot that Sakurai's Directs were closer to an hour (not 45 min), and I thought Nintendo Today was last year. Did pretty good though!

"Search results turn up AI overviews by default."

If anyone knows a way to block this on Chrome, please let me know, I absolutely hate it lol

Man I hope so. I've been able to stick to my guns about not buying any GKC yet, but that's only because nothing I care about has released that way yet. It's a ticking clock until that happens.

@HammerGalladeBro
You'd be forgiven for not realizing this, but both Dragon Driftway and Dragon Palace have the Chai Kingdom motif mixed into their songs. Lol

Actually pumped my fist and said "yes!" when I saw this appear in the app. Easily one of the best OSTs they could've added relative to how small it is.

@HammerGalladeBro
There's 16 tracks in this release that are just varying levels of "hurry up" versions, so your estimate of about 20 is actually almost spot-on.

@Neckcrane
I already know this all from checking my playtime in the past few months, so this is probably cheating, but I believe my top 5 games at the moment for 2025 are:
1) Tears of the Kingdom (120 hrs)
2) Super Mario Maker 2 (95 hrs)
3) Pokémon Scarlet (70 hrs I think)
4) Mario Kart World (60 hrs)
5) Donkey Kong Bananza (50 hrs)

I could see shifts upward for MKW or SMM2 after I finish Metroid Prime 4 though, we'll see.

This is a huge win imo, I was always disappointed that December didn't count.

As someone who just dumps everything he cares about onto his favorites playlist and then shuffles that endlessly, most of these stats are too limited to be interesting - my "favorite songs" are just whatever lengthy songs have been on my playlist the longest. (e.g. Castle Bowser Battle, Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit, BotW Hyrule Castle, etc.)

The main stat of note is my 818 hours of listening. I don't have a problem, you have a problem 🤣

@LazyDaisy
I always joke that Nintendo requires the Yoshi games to have bad music; Woolly World's composer* missed the memo and accidentally made an S-tier OST full of bangers, so they laid him off and replaced him for Crafted World lol.

(*I believe this guy is known for having done certain Castlevania soundtracks!)

This is perfect, I've been teetering on the edge of the fence with this game. A demo is just what I needed!

I was pleasantly surprised recently when Pokémon Legends Z-A included a bunch of extra printed material inside the case! I don't think I have any other first party Switch title like that. Admittedly made me smile, reminded me of the good ole' DS days. The type chart in particular was really nice.

@Dark-Luigi
The Switch 2 version of Pokémon Legends Z-A + the DLC for it is $95, so unfortunately it is believable that they would charge for MKW DLC, even if it would certainly be unreasonable.

@FlyingDunsparce
Hard agree on this, the CSS is beyond awful and easily the worst I've ever seen. Possibly the biggest UI blunder I've ever seen Nintendo make. I can post a huge rant on it but I'll spare y'all that lol

I strongly believe that we'll be getting Bananza DLC featuring K. Rool, but this seems like a huge reach. It's still important information though, because it tells us that Nintendo's lifting the lid on Bananza spoilers, so that brings us a step closer to this DLC getting announced.

(My personal belief is that one wave of DLC will be a Bananza tie-in and will have K. Rool and the missing Kongs plus costumes for DK and Pauline, while another wave will be Wonder-themed and will include the Koopalings, maybe with some costumes for Bowser and Jr.)

@1Kismet
I knew that they added more laps, but I didn't realize that they actually changed the layout, that's huge! Thanks for pointing it out!

The music option is great, but for some reason instead of including a slider, they just give you a "loud" option. Better than nothing I suppose lol.

The item selector means that NPC characters are now super easy to unlock!

This update is u_ns^t_ab_l^e

For the US, this seems more like a clearance sale lol (outside of Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars). A slew of games that either no one cares about or are some of the worst GKC offenders.

Yay, all of the apps are now rebranded and have the control updates! The inconsistencies for the last half a year has been driving me crazy lol