RupeeClock

Hmm, so I C, Nintendo, so I C.

I love that they gave Samus' helmet a "third eye" to expressly communicate the new psychic powers thing she's got going on.
It's a neat twist and a nice way to incorporate new ways to interact with a 3D environment using a first-person view, going beyond simply shooting and scanning things with a lock-on.

It was a pretty poor presentation. Whilst there's some good info on Metroid Prime 4 and Pokémon Legends Z-A, and some nice new reveals like Rhythm Heaven Groove and Tomodachi Life Living the Dream, it was accompanied by the usual low-energy announcements of excessive comfy games, niche-interest Japanese games, and then the questionable Virtual Game Cards and Nintendo Today announcements.

There wasn't much to get truly excited about, and some things to actually get sour about.

My initial impression was that yet-another Shredder's Revenge inspired game was coming, but no this is actually the same devs! Good on them.
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Rita's Rewind, and even Toxic Crusaders are a direct result of the success of Shedder's Revenge after all.

My initial impression was that Nintendo wants to cut out news sites and get directly involved with customer's day to day lives and phone usage.
I'll end up using the app, but it's concerning.

I was shocked that something as important as trainer battles was actually left out of the initial presentation.
Like, Z-A Royal completely flips the game on its head.

@YaGirlSkyByte
It's actually worse, this is more restrictive DRM.
Some digital games can no longer be installed onto multiple systems at once.
They're preventing you from launching the same software title on multiple devices by adding "virtual game card swapping".

When you have a secondary Switch system, if you launch a digital game, or a physical game with digital DLC, it performs an online check that you're allowed to launch it. This is to make sure that the game isn't running on a second or primary Switch system at the same time, but could be easily circumvented by disabling online connectivity on your primary Switch.
"Virtual Game Cards" is a deliberate restriction on that.

News on Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 perhaps?
Deltarune and Undertale have been featured in Nintendo Directs before, after all.

£87.99 for the 1.5TB microSD is a great deal, though not a historic low.
Back on Black Friday 2024, it went for £79.99.

I should warn that when some Nintendo Life users grabbed this 1.5TB SanDisk Ultra microSD for their Nintendo Switch, they noticed some issues like slower loading times compared to 1TB or lower capacity cards.
If you want the upgrade from 512GB or lower, consider sticking to 1TB.

Also, for Switch 2, it's rumoured it will support microSD "express" cards, which are far faster than any standard microSD cards.
The Switch 1's microSD card slot has slower read/write times than many devices, and these UHS-1 microSD cards are the best fit. The Switch 1 cannot take advantage of the better performance of faster microSD cards like SanDisk Extreme or Extreme Pro.

This gives me the impression of Shadow Boxes, where the sprite and background layers are treated to give the impression of depth, maybe with nice shaders being used.

This isn't far removed from what the SEGA 3D Classics on 3DS did, where additional depth information was assigned to graphics data in specially modified ROMs for a customised emulator, for a working stereoscopic 3D effect.

Broadly, there could be some really cool visual effects done with this kind of emulation, but you still have to tailor it on a game-by-game basis.
Things like 3DSEN also do this, which is a NES emulator that interprets tile and sprite data in clever ways to make NES games look 2.5D.

The headline is a subtle reference to Doom Eternal also being 5 years old today.

Looks like your typical drop-shipped nonsense of varying reliability, and whoever's setting up the product listing having to fabricate product images by any means necessary.
It does a disservice to whether or not the product is genuine, but taking renders of a product or making digital alterations to the product, and then slap it on top of stock photos or now AI generated imagery is the kind of low effort you expect to see.
They want images that at a glance look vibrant, since taking amateur photos of a real object makes it look like a used-product listing which they want to avoid.

This reminds me of a particularly absurd mock-up image I saw when shopping for Cat8 ethernet cables a couple years ago for a new home router set-up.

Behold, an ethernet cable plugged into an unbranded Nintendo Switch system's left Joy-Con rail!

Calling an update a "director's cut" sends the wrong message, it makes it sound like they're selling a new release.
I'm interested if it gets a physical release anyway, and this sort of update looks like it's building up to that.

@spottedleaf
Framerate cannot be demonstrated in screenshot comparisons, graphical fidelity refers to the level of detail in an individual rendered frame and therefore improved framerate is not improved fidelity.

@SillyG
Counterfeit DS games have been a real problem for trade-ins with how prolific they were.
If staff didn't check, they could end up accepting bootlegs of games that did work on a DS Lite, but would fail to play on a DSi or 3DS system depending on what firmware they had installed.

@spottedleaf
I mentioned Kirby Planet Robobot as a specific example of a 3DS game that has improved performance on New 3DS.
On original 3DS, I'm fairly sure it had a limited framerate compared to New 3DS, and this was typically the case for later 3DS games that offered New 3DS enhancements.

@spottedleaf
Fidelity isn't strictly limited by resolution, things like texture resolution could've changed between the Old and New 3DS modes for a game, they could've had enhanced lighting and particle effects, etc, but that typically was not the case.

Being able to explore larger worlds is not a graphical uplift, nor is having more actors on screen, that's all performance and compuation.
I'm also directly comparing two versions of a software to itself. Xenoblade 3D cannot be compared to an Old 3DS version that doesn't exist. Whilst Xenoblade 3D is more advanced compared to Old 3DS software, they're not necessarily graphically more capable and were in fact demonstratably worse looking than the Wii original even when ignoring resolution.

@spottedleaf
What I meant was that the N3DS's added performance was only for making certain games possible, or perform better.
To my knowledge, they never marketed games as looking better on the New 3DS, strictly only that some supported games will run better. No graphical uplifts.

@Magician
That's a point I hadn't considered.
Nintendo never really marketed N3DS or DSi games are running better than on old 3DS or DS Lite, and they couldn't market graphical improvements because there were none.
Kirby Planet Robobot for example looked identical between old and new 3DS, the difference was just frame rate.

WIth the Nvidia GPU features of the Switch 2 likely including DLSS and raytracing, they very much could advertise things like enhanced lighting systems for the Switch 2 version of Metroid Prime 4 Beyond.

I'm thinking it's more likely that we'll see a New 3DS situation, where you have a Switch 1 SKU with Switch 2 improvements.
That way they can sell software products that work for two systems, instead of having to produce two incompatible products like was necessary for Breath of the Wild on Wii U and Switch.

All of these suffer from logos and text obscuring the key artwork in awkward spots.
In the NA/EU#1 art, it covers just enough of Mario's moustache that you could mistake him for Luigi.

@RootsGenoa
It's giving notice that spoiler season is upon us, and is a nice courtesy.
Pirates are going to pirate and aren't relying on wider media to do that anyway.

@BTB20
There's also a lot of people that skipped Xenoblade Chronicles X on Wii U, because it was a big departure from the original title.
Things have changed since then, with the release of two whole new sequels and a remastering of the original, all of which have major extra chapters as standalone games, and all of which have some degree of cross-over content that feed into one another.

It's a perfect melting pot of getting people interested in playing the chapter they missed before, and seeing how X even fits into the core trilogy.

@RootsGenoa
There's spoilers for the new story content, for a game that famously had a cliffhanger ending.
This isn't insignificant at all.

At a glance, it seems like it's very similar to the first game?
I enjoyed playing the first one on Switch, but there were times when getting it to detect you've cleaned something thoroughly enough was finnicky because of some imperceptible polygon in a very tight spot still had an invisible speck on it.

I look forward to checking this out on Switch 2, anyway!

Here's something I don't get, Argonaut Games recently relaunched and have Croc remaster on the way, but they apparently have no involvement with Giles Goddard and this Star Fox spiritual successor?

Also I'm glad I'm not the only one here who has issues with the non-trailer.

From what I've heard, this doesn't bode well.
It's a curious case because this means the licenses for Pokémon Company, Nintendo, and Capcom games are transferring to a new mobile development company, and the three of them would've likely needed to have agreed to this change, and will continue to enforce whatever policies they have under those licensing agreements.

Even if new amiibo lines might be over, there's still a huge selection of them in both figurine and card form (and even a few plushies), so it'd be sad to see support end.

We'll probably see some mention of amiibo during April's Switch 2 presentation.

@KociolekDoSyta
Fair point, it depends of the entirety of the Yuzu source code is toxic, or only the parts that violate the DMCA for bypassing software encryption.
The main ethos of NxEmu is that being modular, it can remove or correct any offending components, and also that it won't be working with encrypted Nintendo Switch files.

Nintendo has taken exception to tools that exist specifically for circumventing protections however, the ones for extracting keys from Switch hardware for example. These are usually part of instructions for Switch emulators too as part of using your own Switch to dump the firmware, keys, and games.

@MysticX
The fact that a tool can be misused does not mean that the tool should be illegal.
The Nintendo Switch itself can be used for piracy through software or hardware modifications, but those same modifications can be used for entirely legal purposes where no pirated software is involved (such as the user's own backups).

I'll concede that emulators do regrettably enable pirates, but the real problem is the circulation of the pirated software, which are just individual files in the same way whole movies get pirated.

@MysticX
Good thing they're doing something different by building it in a way that should legally protect them.

@Erigen
That would draw comparisons to military world war planes with shark mouth nose art.

It's up there with the laziest of brand merch that slaps stock key art onto whatever media it can.

I like that one of the music track titles is an outright spoiler.

Huh, I always thought it was "Aklaim", not Acclaim.

Absolutely deserved, he shared remarkable insights into well thought out game design, which are transferrable to many career prospects and aspirations, and he did it entirely of his own violation and finance. It was incredibly generous!

@N00BiSH
For Sonic 06 and Generations specifically, there is Project 06 which is a promising fan made remake of the game, whilst generations has both its original PC release and the recent re-release, both of which have ample modding support already.

There's definitely a lot of meaningful 360 games out there that never got re-released in any way, though I don't know the system well. Sonic is what I know.

@nhSnork
With the current tools, not possible.
They used newly developed tools called XenonRecomp and XenosRecomp to convert Xbox 360 executables into C++ code, which can then be recompiled to platforms which support x86 instruction sets.
That would be your modern PCs with x64 processors, which does include the Steam Deck.

They state that their tools currently only support x86 compatible platforms because of the use of x86 instrinsics, whatever that means.

@HammerGalladeBro
From a marketability standpoint, Colors and Generations are more fondly remembered, and SEGA's strategy has been to re-release what's successful, rather than remaster what needed it most.

To this day, the Werehog segments of Unleashed still turn players away since it's so antithetical to the daytime boost levels that the series would maintain.

It's much the same way that SEGA haven't bothered with re-releases of titles like Sonic 06 or the two Wii Storybook games.

It was just, good.
The usual mobile game updates, Pokémon Champions as a dedicated battle game akin to Stadium or Battle Revolution is fine, and Legends Z-A looks fun but underwhelmed.

Looks fun, but there's a need to know more.
The premise of "you arrive at a city to have adventures" isn't the same as "God sends you back in time to solve space-time distortions in an ancient region".
What's the catch here? Find out in the coming months of a marketing campaign of spoilers like new mega evolutions, new formes for Xerneas and Yveltal, and new Kalos regional formes for Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile I suppose.

I can't help but feel this is designed to add value to Pokémon Home subscriptions.
For a game as a service it's predicated on having Pokémon stored in Home, and the default 30 space in the free box wouldn't be adequate.

Easy skip for me I think, I want more than just battles, but adventures and campaigns.

@-wc-
It's not an unreasonable expectation, new launch titles tend to perform better by merit of limited choice.
Ubisoft probably based their expectations on the success of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, but a big part of what happened was probably the company's ongoing tanking reputation from poor design choices and consumer-hostile practices, and the persistent impression that Ubisoft games always going on heavy sales after a few months (massively undervaluing their own software).

This is a neat dev exercise, and cool that it's apparently a decent slice of the proper game, but it lacks the fantastic presentation of Balatro that is a big part of the experience and is what really comes to mind for a DS or 3DS version of the game.

@Daniel36
The Backrooms 1998 is an M-rated game, so perhaps reconsider.

Just absolutely appalling that this even got this far, but I also wonder how on earth a software theft of this scale was possible.
Was it the game engine used? Unity games are known to be easy to mod.

@Yosher
A first edition to say the least, but an interesting case for things like parental control mechanisms on games consoles.
Is a software update going to be able to drop the PEGI 18 to a PEGI 12 and have that work?

Diamond and Pearl's remakes were so poor and derided that I'd want to see them make a proper effort to do it justice, no involvement from ILCA.

Black and White though, I want to see them get their second chance. The Unova games are wonderful but so many people are divided on them for having no returning Pokémon (until post game), and many conceptually being "American" counterparts to the Kanto roster.
I feel like players would be a lot more receptive to Black and White now.

Lone Fungus may be worth a look, it's a reasonably good Metroidvania that's been on Steam for a while.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1674780/Lone_Fungus/

It just recently had a successful Kickstarter campaign for a sequel.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2463220/Lone_Fungus_Melody_of_Spores/

@Serpenterror
Gon is a manga series, the games and his appearances in others are licensed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gon_(manga)

That's definitely a big improvement over the Rextro mini-games in Yooka Laylee, they looked like a lot of fun.
Reminds me of the Captain Toad sections in Super Mario 3D World, you know?