SlowPokemon

Thank you for this article. It brightened my day and was a wonderful start to Monday morning.

@SillyG I agree $70 is steep, but the answer to “what the hell are we even being charged for” is obviously “the game,” lol. And I guess if you buy the game key card, you’re also being charged for a box and a key card.

Personally, I’ll be getting it digitally, not because I’m necessarily against the concept of key cards, but because games like this and Animal Crossing tend to be games I like to play for short periods of time without swapping out a cartridge.

I’m actually glad of this news. It means they’re taking their time and doing it properly, like they did with Fantasy Life.

There’s no option for “this game is great as-is,” and that’s what I would have picked. It’s kind of bad journalism to force your readers to vote in a poll that only has options implying the game is bad.

I can tell he genuinely doesn’t care about the sales. He wants as many people as possible to play it of course—this is how artists feel—but I really think he doesn’t care about the money involved. That’s beautiful and refreshing. Not too many game developers, composers, writers, etc. are brave enough to think that way.

Animal Well has entered the chat.

Played through this with my girlfriend last night and we both cried a lot. It’s a great game, very meditative. And nostalgic for me to see the art style of Kanasaki, Hotel Dusk is a longtime favorite of mine.

Keep in mind the game’s runtime is exactly 45 minutes, not an hour as the reviews all seem to say.

If you’re reading this and you liked “Dear Me, I Was…” I recommend watching Studio Ghibli’s movie “Only Yesterday.” It’s my favorite movie and this game is very similar in tone, it kept reminding me of that. (Just watch in Japanese, that dub is not good lol)

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. @KateGray — before getting into this one, please know I’ve played 140 hours and have seen just over HALF of the endings this game contains. It is an incredible thing, almost defiantly unwieldy but nearly impossible to criticize because of the ambition and scope at work. The time commitment is absolutely insane. And yet two months later, here I am.

Also been dabbling in Mario Kart World, obviously. The surprise there is that Free Roam is my favorite mode. Tracking down the ? Panels and P switches is so fun, and the secondary effect is that you actually kind of get a handle on the wall riding mechanic with how tricky the challenges are.

I figured it would be full price based on the way they revealed and demoed the game. I was thinking I’d only give it a shot if it was $30 or less. Pleasantly surprised that it’s only $20. To me, that’s worth an hour or two experiencing a quirky Nintendo control gimmick.

It seems like they are taking the variable pricing in both directions this generation, at least so far, which I appreciate. Even on Switch 1, something like the NES World Championships from last year was $30, and that was a NOTHINGBURGER of a game, lol.

My main in Mario Kart 8 was the villager boy from Animal Crossing, so I’ve had to find a new one.

I think my new main is Nabbit in the Ribbit Revster.

I also love King Boo, Piranha Plant, and Gondolier Luigi. Sidestepper is also great, it’s a shame that the lobster car is a terrible choice for that character though.

I really appreciate this measured take on the game. I’m finding it to be very fun, and the hate surrounding it to be kind of absurd. It’s $10. If the console cost $10 more and Welcome Tour was included, no one would blink and we would be talking about how charming and weird this game is. With the separate charge, only the real nerds who want to play it have to pay. I do think it should have been free, or included in the console cost, but the amount of whining over this game is kind of ridiculous.

Anyway, this is actually the game I’ve spent the most time with on Switch 2 so far. As I said above, I find it very charming in spite of a few strange design decisions. It’s certainly much more engaging for me than 1-2-Switch, which was $50 at launch and basically a collection of glorified tech demos.

If anyone reading is on the fence about this, I recommend picking it up. If you’re raging and refusing to pay “on principle,” at least figure out whatever principle it is you’re so worked up about. This game isn’t an instruction manual, it’s a really interesting deep dive into the engineering of the system. Nintendo is greedy and gouges their customers sometimes, but I just don’t think this game is an instance of that.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy! I’ve seen 8 endings and unfortunately I need to hold off on starting another route because I’ll be out of town all next week performing in a music festival. But it’s driving me crazy to not be able to jump right back into it.

1. That isn’t Shy Guy, it’s a Snifit.
2. That isn’t Bowser Jr., who debuted in Super Mario Sunshine, it’s Koopa Kid, who I believe appears exclusively in the Mario Party series.

I have to be honest, I’m at the end of fifth world, and I think playing with two players would be awful and possibly frustrating enough to put me off the game. These levels are clearly designed first and foremost as single player gauntlets that are quite challenging. The idea of another thing running around the screen to distract my eye makes me sweat.

You’re misquoting Oliver Twist in the caption. It’s “Please, sir, I want some more.” Not a question.

If you like Return of the Obra Dinn, absolutely play Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. It’s spectacular and in the same vein.

I bounced off this game the first time I played it, because I was so confused by the part with the disc he mentions. Again, it was just crazy to me that I might have to leave a new item behind, because it’s so against the tradition of this kind of game.

Then over the summer I tried again and when I got to that part I just ignored it, and yes, it really does live up to the hype. When I found the fake disc and realized what I was supposed to do to get the disc, my jaw hit the floor. There aren’t many games that can give you the feeling I got from that.

Some of the puzzles are a bit too hard (the part with the ostrich in the wheel was a little maddening) but you can get to the credits if you pay attention. The post game stuff, that’s just for the insane and ultra-nerdy. I thought it was amazingly cool, but as he said, I personally did get bored and stop playing. It didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the game, it was just an extra layer for a specific group of the audience to enjoy.

It’s a wonderful puzzle box of a game and I hope a lot of people play it and I hope he made a lot of money from it because we need more of these talented hobbyists who are financially stable enough to spend all their time making games.

If the creator is reading these comments, just know the work you did brought me so much delight and joy. I hope to see more from you.

I’m about 8 hours in. These are some things I was disappointed in:

• The soundtrack sounds like stock music. Apparently Yoko Shimomura wasn’t hired for this despite being the series composer for every game so far. Hideki Sakamoto is a fine game composer, but this is not his best work. It makes the game feel like a generic video game, where Shimomura always elevated the drama and humor and setting with her sound design.
• Agree with the weird clunky feeling of the bros in the overworld, especially the weird Luigi AI and the hammers having a delay and being difficult to aim properly.
• The combat timing windows are now far too easy to get an Excellent rating. If you go back to Dream Team, it’s night and day.

The writing is cute. The gameplay is more or less enjoyable. But this is not the same atmosphere of the Mario & Luigi games I’ve grown to love over the years.

My bigger annoyance is how you can’t enjoy the platforming by syncing up the bros’ jumps anymore, because Luigi is an AI partner rather than a character you actually play as in the overworld. I miss the synchronized and alternating manual jumping. I wonder, based on how they insisted on tutorials for that jumping mechanic in every single game since the beginning, if players actually had trouble understanding it or something.

I noticed this right away. After nearly 20 years of playing and replaying these games, my muscle memory means that I’m *****. Haha I’ve played about 2.5 hours so far. Hopefully I get used to it soon or they patch in a setting (right now the only option under “settings” is to turn the rumble off, so even the plural “settings” menu label is not accurate)

That’s my letter! (The “banger year.”) Glad I could be the rep for Endless Ocean and Another Code—there are dozens of us! All joking aside, it’s cool to see my letter published. 🙂

@fenlix My impression of the ending was that it could be polarizing, but only in the sense that some will love it, some will find it disappointing and really dislike it. That’s probably what Sakamoto meant. I don’t think there’s anything that I would call controversial in the sense you mean.

People who expect big dramatic reveal scenes like you’d find in similar detective-style games like Ace Attorney or Professor Layton will not fall in love with Emio. This game is primarily about a few themes and ideas that are expressed through its characters. The “mystery” aspect of the story is not the heart of the experience and is not directly relevant to its highest highs. The tagline in the marketing was the hashtag #WhoIsEmio? And you find out the literal answer to that question during the game, but I think what it actually means doesn’t become clear until you’ve cleared the entire game and thought about it a little. It’s that kind of ending.

I finished it last night, definitely a 10 from me. I tend to love these “riskier” projects Nintendo commits to that don’t necessarily have a big audience, and march strictly to the beat of their own drum. (Another Code and Endless Ocean are two other recent examples.) And those who have seen all the way through the ending of Emio will know that this one obviously had a huge amount of money poured into it. It’s got one of the most amazing final hours I’ve ever seen in a visual novel, both in terms of writing and presentation. It’s a quiet little masterpiece that feels totally uncompromised artistically and unconcerned with player expectation in the best way.

@Lizuka I actually preferred The Missing Heir because of its throwback Agatha Christie stylings. But I think The Girl Who Stands Behind, though enjoyable, was ultimately held back by trying to play with horror ideas but keeping the Nintendo family-friendly image. (Also, since it was SO influential on later VN games that I played first, it felt a bit familiar. Suppose that’s unavoidable given the long journey it had to the west.) The fact that this one seems to be more intense (and M-rated?!) means it has a lot of potential to be interesting.

I also found an Easter egg relating it to The Missing Heir. I’m sure you know the first phone number I typed into the cell phone, and I was not disappointed! Haha

Pretty crazy how one of the directors and series producers of Metroid is the guy who also handles this series. That just makes me appreciate both games more.

I am really excited about this. The Famicom Detective Club games are some of my favorite visual novel games on Switch. Yes, the game design is somewhat dated, but I was shocked by how engaging it is. It actually made me feel the way I did the first time I played Professor Layton, back around 2007 or 2008, which was my first introduction to the mystery game genre and which was obviously inspired by FDC through the lens of Ace Attorney. I was already excited about the Emio teaser, but I feel like one of the only people who got MORE excited when they revealed it was a Famicom Detective Club game.

I’m also interested in what a company as creative as Nintendo does in the context of the horror genre, particularly M-rated horror. This is really rare throughout their history. Among the games they’ve published on Switch, the only M-rated titles are this and the three Bayonetta games, and this is the only one developed in-house. There is a first-party presence of Fatal Frame on Wii U, but again this is the first M-rated game in quite a while that is fully developed by Nintendo.

I also think they timed it quite nicely—kids who were 12-15 in 2021 and may have played the T-rated Famicom Detective Club entries are now the right age for a more intense horror VN.

Considering this, the excellent Another Code: Recollection, new Zelda, new Mario & Luigi, and Endless Ocean: Luminous (a surprising sleeper hit for me), 2024 is set to become one of my personal favorite Nintendo years in quite some time. They’re really taking risks and doing a lot of creative interesting things while more advanced development is undoubtedly taking place on the next big flagship titles.

@Clyde_Radcliffe no, they did not have English voice acting, and nor should they have. It’s not the kind of game that would benefit from a dub.

@KayFiOS not that badge. There’s one in the far right box full of badges that mentions sound effects specifically. I don’t know if it changes them to the original or not, but there is one.

@KayFiOS if you visit the badge shop in Rogueport, I think there’s a badge in the extra collection section that references changing Mario’s sound effects. Does that revert the sound effects to the original? (I’ve never played the original)

@Not_Soos yeah, it’s fine if the article is spoilery, but the headline itself is…I want to go into this game totally blind even though it’s a remake. The whole point of the remake is that most of us don’t have access to the original.

@jake1421 NintendoLife is not known for their proofreading skills.

It’s really sad that articles like this will hurt the sales of this game based on a selectively curated narrative that exists mostly to back up this site’s astoundingly low review. There are several higher scores, including a 9/10 from Digitally Downloaded, who I find to be reliable. Endless Ocean is innovative and different and not trying to do the same thing as other video games. This is a rare misstep from NintendoLife in evaluating the game based on what they wish it was, rather than at what it actually sets out to do. They fell smack into a classic pitfall for critics of art, classical music, and other forms of entertainment throughout history. I hope this game succeeds in whatever capacity it can, given the negative spinning surrounding it.

@Porky Have you actually played the game? Capcom’s disclaimer says “SOME” content appears as initially released. Not all. And tbh, the changes in your linked thread are actually for the better.

@Bass_X0 yeah, tbh, I don’t understand why people have to groan about puns or act like they’re a problem. Can’t we just smile and enjoy wordplay without getting all ironic and eye-rolly about it?

I must say I don’t like 5 and 6 nearly as much as Apollo Justice’s game, but I also didn’t like Turnabout Serenade and loved the silly noodle stand case, so I guess tastes are a question here.

This is a great collection of games at the end of the day. It is distinctly less emotionally affecting than the original trilogy, largely because the creative spark shifted from deep character relationships that are felt and subtextual to overly-explained ones. (In other words, show, don’t tell.) This is the reason Phoenix, Maya, and Edgeworth are fan-favorites and no one really cares too much for Athena—I genuinely believe it’s not just that the former are the original characters.

I will say though, Apollo Justice is my favorite protagonist. He’s very well-defined in AA4 and he has very fun and welcome differences from Phoenix Wright. It’s frustrating to see him pushed to the side in Dual Destinies (that’s where the “explained relationships” I referenced above seem to begin in earnest) but he does have a good through line to AA6. And the sting of those two games’ shift in direction is lessened a little bit now that we have Takumi’s take on the continuation of the series with Great Ace Attorney. It makes it easier to enjoy how fun Dual Destinies is in the moment to moment — the models are expressive as hell, and if silly anime shenanigans are your thing, it’s actually one of the best kind of games for that.

But you know, the original Ace Attorney trilogy has a subtext to it that’s more than just “Saturday morning cartoon” or “action anime tropes.” It has those things, but it also has a huge heart and the sense that the creators needed to make the games for personal fulfillment. 5 and 6 in particular, while fun and charming, feel like they were developed largely to keep the popular franchise alive.

I talked way too long here, but I hope that makes sense. I’ll enjoy going back through these games—it’ll be my first time with Dual Destinies in about eight years, and I haven’t replayed Spirit of Justice since my original experience in 2016 (you can’t blame me, it took me about 60-70 hours for that run lol).

Thanks for the review, hope a lot of people pick this up and enjoy Apollo Justice.

Had to vote Japan. It’s so amazingly weird.

Again, it’s so clumsy when the author of the article weighs in on some art being “boring,” losing objectivity and potentially influencing the results. Just not fun to read.

GBA is 32-bit, not 16-bit. Lol

That kind of day you’re describing, those friends you had and the excitement you experienced—that’s true love right there. I hope you still have some contact with those friends.

@SonOfDracula get the story out without spoiling in the headline. I have no problem with the story itself.

@dartmonkey yes, but I’ve been staying away from spoilers about the movie so I hadn’t seen that. It’s very flimsy justification for putting it in a headline. I understand reporting on it, but why would you spoil someone who has been choosing not to click on the articles? Is it to bait us here to complain so you get more clicks? This is blatantly ignoring your user base’s requests.

@dartmonkey most of us consider this a spoiler, and it was published before there was a reasonable window of time to see the movie. (It’s not even showing until tonight where I’m at.) Be responsible to your readers please. This is problematic. Looks like I’ll have to stop coming here leading up to Zelda.

The Bolero of Fire from Ocarina of Time was inspired by Ravel’s Boléro, and even uses the same snare drum rhythm as an homage. This was also the temp track for the title screen of NES Zelda I before Kondo wrote a new piece to avoid copyright infringement (the piece was not in the public domain).

In almost three years, I’ve never time traveled. I have every achievement and have 100%ed the catalogue including color variations, besides a few more of the Flick/CJ models and about 8 more item variants from Gulliver. I think I’ve been successfully playing hard mode from the beginning.

When will this website learn that it’s “pore over” and not “pour over?”

@C-Olimar I love that one too! It’s actually “ScoVILLAIN” though, not “Scovillian” — the animosity in the name is even more hilarious to me

Grafaiai is probably the top spot. There are some great Grass types this gen, like Smoliv’s entire line and Scovillain. Also very fond of Tadbulb/Bellibolt, Clodsire, Farigiraf, and Tarountula. But I will say on the whole, the designs weren’t nearly as creative as the last few gens. Way too many of the Pokémon are just normal animals that don’t really feel like Pokémon. And there are too many that are just cute or cool with nothing really quirky about their appearance, such as Charcadet’s line or almost any of the dog/rodent ones this gen. Even the starters fell victim to this, except Fuecoco, which I almost wish I had started with because of how amazing its evolutions are.

Around gen 6(?) I started giving them nicknames that are mostly actual human names, which never stopped being funny for me. The powerhouses on my Shield team were an Appletun named Susan and a Sandaconda named Sylvain. (My starter, Inteleon, was Kyle.)

Of course, that had a majorly detrimental effect in that gen, because I didn’t remember the actual names of the Pokémon I was raising. A bit split about whether I’ll do so for Violet.

One time I played Crystal and gave all the characters names based on Animal Crossing villagers (Politoed = Raddle, Xatu = Jitters, Donphan = Cyd, etc.) and that was fun.

“The original Nintendo Switch game”…which was actually originally a Wii U game LMAO they seriously are trying to retcon the Wii U from existence

@Wilforce the “main theme” you’re referring to is actually called the Ground Theme, which is what I said. Also, that’s not a second half, that’s another section of the orchestra. The winds are top, followed by brass, as seen for example here: https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/d/dd/IMSLP767386-PMLP3203-Prokofiev_-_Andante_from_Piano_Sonata_No.4_in_C_minor,_Op.29bis.pdf

So those staves are all in sync.