SillyG

@yohn777 : The worst thing about all of that text is that it doesn't actually communicate that the cartridge is compatible across both platforms, only that it contains both the Switch base game and Switch 2 upgrade pack.

It's one of the stupidest and most obtuse ways that Nintendo could have communicated the fact that the cartridges are compatible across both generations of hardware without explicitly stating that fact. I think it would have been better to have a third cover template for such cross-generation releases (as opposed to cartridges that only work on Switch 2), and perhaps incorporate both the Switch and Switch 2 logos on the cover (or include a message like "Also Compatible with Nintendo Switch" akin to the covers of Game Boy Color games back in the day).

@shock_trooper : I was talking about the new mega form(s) coming to Pokémon Go, not transferring to Pokémon Home.

Now let's have that review of the Switch 1 version running on Switch 2!

@The_Nintendo_Expat : I don't quite understand why Nintendo even bothers with this stupidly communicated "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" nonsense, when they could have made a second banner or cover standard that would clearly communicate when a release is compatible across both consoles, and perhaps stick to just that one SKU for the purposes of any physical releases.

I suppose some may appreciate the slightly cheaper Switch 1 physical release, but if one intends to eventually upgrade, why bother with that when the Switch 2 cartridge offers the best of both worlds?

@Friendly : I don't understand why, if they have no plans to issue a proper Switch 2 release, to just make a Switch 1 version that performs better when played on the Switch 2 instead of a dedicated Switch 2 version.

Just a reminder that the Switch 2 cartridge is compatible on both consoles (to be fair, so is the Switch 1 version, but you won't get the Switch 2 enhancements when playing on the newer hardware).

Something to bear in mind if you eventually intend to upgrade to a Switch 2.

My shundo Lucario in Pokémon Go is so ready for this!

@rvcolem1 : Especially considering that an online subscription was required to play the damn thing!

Ooo, love the choices of Joy-Con 2 wheels! We haven't had this many options since the glorious Wii days. I look forward to grabbing them eventually (though I hope they come to Australia).

Gimme 4K and GameShare for classic DOOM!!!

Dynamax Lugia débuted in Pokémon Go this weekend. It's quite tanky and a pain to catch. Four ran from me... 😡 which cemented my decision to not bother spending a cent on this terrible event.

Will give it another try tomorrow, and there's also Pikipek Community Day taking place, which I intend to spend on the light rail, away from the heat, and hopefully some of the other local players will join me too.

I got Underground 2 and the OG Most Wanted via a Pizza Hut deal in Australia back in 2005 and 2006 respectively. From memory, the deal was AU$34.95, came with two pizzas, garlic bread, drink, and a game. The food alone would normally have set you back about $25, so the bonus game deal (which included options of Battlefield and Sims 2 games as well) was an absolute bargain, especially as the games were all recent releases, and would normally cost you at least $50 had you picked them up at the shops! (RRP was $89.95 for the games!)

Loved the games too, even though NFS wasn't the sort of series that typically piqued my interest. I later bought ProStreet on DS, the Most Wanted sequel/reboot thing on Wii U (at full price for a late port, and much of the DLC was never ported either), The Run on 3DS (which I had completely forgotten about and edited in), plus the dreaded "download required" Hot Pursuit remake on Switch. Fortunately most of the game actually was on the cart (if not the entire of the offline portion), but there was a 1GB download for some such reason (likely pertaining to online play), so the download warning seemed a little overblown, to be fair.

I wouldn't mind dipping my toes into a NFS game on Switch 2, but only if they bother to put the game on the cart.

@AussieMcBucket : That would be even more expensive than including the game on a proper cartridge in the first place. Switch cards should be cheaper to manufacture by virtue of them being ROM cartridges.

@CairiB : There's a GKC release, but sadly, no proper physical option. It's a Ubisoft game though, and they tend to plummet in price fairly quickly, so, one would be a fool to pay anything close to full price for this.

Hmm... it's almost like this crisis could have been averted if only publishers would put their bloody games on bloody cartridges.

@ROMhaiku : Some of us like to have all of our purchases downloaded on a single microSD card so we will not need to keep track of what has or hasn't been downloaded at any given time. Isn't immediate accessibility one of the few benefits of digital downloads? If I've paid for it, it's staying on the card.

Things are different on PC as I can store game files on an external hard drive when I am not playing them, and I have access to offline installers so I won't have to redownload them either; conveniences that aren't afforded to us due to the use of DRM on modern game consoles.

Basically seconding @AlleyCat's stance (played an awful lot of Alley Cat back in the day too).

The Japanese box is absolutely gorgeous, but the European box is more likely to attract impulse purchases (and those coloured buttons!).

I still haven't used mine though...

I'd rather have all of the games thrown onto a Switch cartridge. I'd even pay the same amount as the mini console for it.

What justification could they possibly have for charging AU$130 for a GKC, which is by far the most expensive standard edition of a game I have yet seen (that is, one that doesn't come with a physical peripheral/accessory like the Wii Fit Balance Board).

I could accept AU$130 for a brand new AAA game on a cartridge (made better by the fact that it would be fully playable without installation), but what excuse does Capcom have for this kind of shameless price-gouging? Cyberpunk 2077 and its DLC on a cartridge doesn't even cost this much!

Looks like I'll only be buying the amiibo and controller, and I'll wait for the more recent Resident Evil games to hit GOG one of these years (I haven't played most of the more recent ones, but they have added the Origins games to the store recently, and hopefully we'll see other recent-ish RE games releasing on GOG as well).

I intend to get them all, but money's tight at the moment, so amiibo purchases are on an indefinite moratorium. I have all figurines to date up to Bananza Donkey Kong and Pauline, but the Metroid Prime 4 and Kirby Air Riders figures will have to wait, though the Kirby ones are perhaps the most exciting figurines to be releasing in a very long time, and I'm almost surprised that this concept wasn't exploited via Mario Kart World (and Nintendo would have sold a hell of a lot more figurines).

I have also yet to buy the Street Fighter 6 series 2 set of cards, which is really expensive at AU$99.95 for a full booster box via My Nintendo Store (and it isn't even guaranteed to include a complete set, while the previous series, at AU$44.95, included all of the cards).

I have no intention of buying SF6 though until a complete physical edition is available, or maybe if the digital edition is heavily discounted (I might consider a future "complete edition" GKC release, but only if all of the DLC flags are also included on the cartridge, and that too is heavily discounted; but the fact that the Years 1 & 2 content was included as a download code for the current release is just unforgivable).

Dynamax Eevee débuts in Pokémon Go this weekend (in an extended weekend event, running from Friday morning to Monday evening), and we've had an ambassador-hosted meetup today (Saturday) and I'll be attending the second one tomorrow. Caught one shiny. Also finally found a shiny Morpeko through Field Research, which is a relief, as Morpeko's availability ended tonight (as part of an electric-themed event throughout the week, which débuted Morpeko's shiny).

The highly-anticipated Sydney Safari event is now less than three weeks away.

I believe this is Nintendo's mere second 32GB Switch 1 cartridge release, and there isn't a price hike as a result either.

It almost makes me want to buy both versions, but since the Switch 2 cart is cross-compatible, fortunately there's no reason to double-dip.

@SpaceboyScreams : Facetiousness aside, that actually does sound like a plausible problem given that children are virtually born with unmonitored and unfiltered pornography portals at their fingertips (though I strongly doubt that a Kirby game will be the source of any dysfunctions associated with exposure to such material).

But the irony is that a shirtless Chef Kawasaki would likely have been fine, but a micro-brassiered one is considered too damn raunchy!

This is basically consuming almost AU$40 worth of microSD Express storage, which is insane.

Surely a 128GB read-only cartridge wouldn't cost anywhere close to that, and that those keen on owning an actual physical copy would pay a little extra for it (though the digital version should not cost the same as the physical versions in situations where the price of the physical media may significantly drive up the cost; besides, they'd have to fork over their own storage anyway, which isn't free either).

What is completely inexcusable is that game prices have increased significantly and yet publishers (including Nintendo!) aren't even giving us the actual game on the supplied media.

The Switch 2's cheapest full physical release so far?

@justin233 : For consistency?

While the earlier generation Pokémon sound dated, despite giving the older cries a slight revision from Generation VI (?), we've seen a substantial improvement in the quality of cries from Generation IV on (Kricketot, Regigigas, and Shaymin's immediately spring to mind).

Idiocracy was intended to be satire, not an instruction manual.

I'm a little fatigued with Mario Kart considering that it's been hogging the limelight for over a decade now (I have yet to play MKW), but this looks a lot more exciting and offers something a little different (and I love the amiibo concept as well, though the prices are bordering on ridiculous). Seems a bit odd to have two major Nintendo-published racing games release in such close proximity to one another given how lacklustre the Switch 2 library is at present, but I hope that this will also shine as an evergreen title and propel Kirby to superstar status (no pun intended).

@Handy_Man : I had been wondering that too.

@BenAV : I really wanted to grab Legends ZA (I'm still on Switch 1), but the announcement of paid DLC so early on put me off, especially for the already increased asking price across both platforms (which is less of a consequence for American players, as the prices have remained consistent over there, but the Switch 1 version's price is AU$10 higher than previous entries, and AU$30 more for the Switch 2 version, making it a harder pill to swallow, and I would like to avoid double-dipping as I would like to grab a complete physical edition if such materialises later).

Yes... whenever I grab a Switch 2.

I also intend to grab all of the amiibo... eventually...

It's hard to tell without seeing them in motion, but they both look beautiful in close-up.

I waited for the 4K disc before catching the Super Mario movie, but I might actually go to the cinema to catch this one.

As nice as this all is, I hope we get some box sets or CDs that we can buy via the My Nintendo Store (if not import them from Japan). The CD soundtracks were by far my most treasured freebies during the Club Nintendo days, but I would most happily pay for them... if given the option.

@FishyS : It's far too early in the week for you to ruin it all on a Tuesday. Off to bed with you! And no supper for a week!

@Sambuc : In the meantime, I still want a Switch Micro.

If it was approved for an M rating by the ESRB, then what the hell's the problem?

We're giving pros to maybe-but-not-yet-fulfilled promises now? 🤨

In any case, I'll pick up the eventual LRG release. Blood Money was my first experience with Hitman and I loved it to bits.

I know Dichen Lachman from Neighbours. I remember her first appearance and she was quite possibly the most strikingly beautiful woman to grace the soap. Not the best actress in the cast though, but the writing and direction was pretty atrocious at the time (mid 2000s), but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt considering that she's built a career for herself overseas.

I still want a Switch port. The Switch lends itself better to these kinds of experiences, especially in tabletop mode, but they'll need to tweak the original version's weaknesses to make the concept shine. Less unnecessary amiibo tapping and stick to commands that can be executed with Joy-Con.

As a budget game bundled with an exclusive new amiibo figurine, there could be life in this old girl yet.

I hope those new Pokémon variants are canon and added to the Dex in the main games. Gimme Corpsechu and Mosslax!

But man, what an absolute s*** show the Switch 2 is turning out to be after such a (mostly) great physical library on Switch 1, almost rivalling the variety of the DS/Wii days (minus the abundance of non-game software, which I also miss).

The fact that they still have the nerve to charge US$70 for this though is such a sick joke. Happy to pay more for a faster and/or higher capacity cartridge, but what the hell are we even being charged for here?

Give me a full cart and I'll happily double dip.

Better yet if it's a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" and I can retire my Switch 1 cart altogether.

But considering that Rockstar previously cheaped out on L.A. Noire and GTA Trilogy's cartridges, I'm not terribly optimistic.

@LikelySatan : I was thinking the same. Give me organic artisan games curated by chirpy free range developers any day.

@Dogorilla : When it comes to experiences focused mostly on user-generated content, TTS makes the most sense, especially when no amount of human-voiced dialogue will be sufficient to cover the breadth of what users may wish to create.

I had a game called Opening Night as a kid (released in 1995), where you could create your own theatre plays. The actors were portrayed by real people via photographs, but players could include dialogue (in the form of very primitive sounding, Microsoft Sam-esque TTS voices).

Though we should also be given the option to provide our own recordings, where practicable.

On the other hand, it was bleedingly obvious that Endless Ocean Luminous had utilised AI-generated voiceovers, which is inexcusable as there was absolutely no user-specific dialogue, and most of the dialogue pertained to information about the sea life depicted throughout the game. Examples like these just stink of shameless miserliness from the developers, and I have no doubt that we'll see more developers cutting corners in this way as the shift toward AI use advances.

@Kingy : The monotonous voices in Tomodachi Life was a big part of its charm. I'm not sure I'd even want them to sound more "human", even though there are so many AI-generated voice options nowadays.

With respect to voiceovers in games generally, I do not have any objections to machine-trained AI-generated voices for customisable character names, custom phrases and such (which I think would be fabulous), but all other pre-set dialogue should be human-voiced.

Will eventually spring for the (DRM-free) versions on PC in the absence of proper physical releases on Switch 2.

Unless of course LRG pulls through with the goods, but who knows when that will be.

Please, please don't break my heart with a GKC...

The last two were exclusive to Japan/Asia, and that's fine (I don't understand people's aversion to importing, unless it's prohibitively expensive), but I hope they don't rob us of the option of a proper physical release altogether.

@SpaceboyScreams : All your ear are belong to us.

I really hope that this turns out to be a storm in a teacup with the video merely showing us a hypothetical Nintendo-published GKC, but surely Nintendo couldn't be so naive about how this would have been perceived.

Because if that is the case, then they should have just made up a dummy game. It would have been particularly hilarious if it had been Wario themed and that Nintendo had not-so-subtly thrown some shade at third parties for taking the cheap way out.

To further insult their consumers' intelligence, Nintendo thought that adding whimsical music to the GKC video would somehow make their crappy new practice palatable.

By all means charge less for the digital release if they're tying to avoid arousing the ire of digital buyers with an unfairly high asking price for smaller scale games, but stop screwing over the physical releases in the process.

I'm really annoyed that the game isn't titled Dittopia, but I can at least accept the fact that Ditto isn't in fact called Ditto everywhere, hence the more uniform title choice.

Still...

sniff

EDIT: HOLD UP! A GKC for this too?! (Unless this is indeed just a "sample" image, in which case, did Nintendo not realise what a catastrophically awful look this would be?!)

But if so... un-freaking-believable...

@Yosher : I'll need to take an empty suitcase (or four) just to bring back all of my Pokémon merch in.

I don't like what Illumination have done with any of the character designs. The first film wasn't terrible, which is about as glowing a critique I can give to anything coming out of Hollywood these days, but I wish that the designs had stayed closer to the pre-rendered art of the modern games. By all means, throw in a little more detail so that they shine on the big screen, but the weird proportions and always grotesquely oversized and over-animated mouths... yuck.

@sportymariosonicmixx : The way that backwards compatibility operated on the Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U was that the "guts" of the previous generation hardware was also included within the newer hardware, so it was essentially like playing those games on their original hardware, warts and all (e.g. no performance improvements, no resolution increase etc.).

The way that "backwards compatibility" is running on the Switch 2, however, is that the Switch 2 itself is natively running the software, which introduces some unintended issues (as the games were not tested to run on more advanced hardware during development). For the most part, this is a good thing for games with performance issues that now run even better than they did on the previous hardware, but this also means that some games may not run correctly (if at all).

@Erigen : It would be appreciated if they were obligated to have "safe for work" cover art at the very least, similar to how covers of pornographic magazines are required to be concealed in Australia (leaving only the title of the publication visible).

Unfortunately, games that are no longer listed in the eShop (or were only released in other regions) are not included as part of the database.

The first movie wasn't terrible, but I still don't like these character designs. How freaking hard was it to just stick to how they look in the pre-rendered art for the games? Maybe chuck a little more detail in places for good measure, but as for those facial proportions... yuck.