Strawblaze

@Atomic77 Because it was probably created for Switch 1. The game even runs on Switch 1 through Game Share. The resolution and level of detail are also pretty bad, so it's hard to believe it was tailored for the Switch 2 from the get go.

So far the game looks like ugly Dragon Quest Builders from TEMU with Pokémon on it.

Shh! We can't talk modding and CFW here. Some people unfortunately think it's the same as piracy.
Jokes aside, that's a cool project. I love the ergonomy of the Wii U Gamepad.

I'm rating it 6 — the console and its release lineup, specifically. I prefer not to talk about Nintendo. I've only bought it for the exclusives. Didn't like Bananza, but Kirby Air Riders is outstanding fun, and I've managed to get something out of Mario Kart World despite of the game design issues. I don't use portable mode so it doesn't really stand as a pro to me in this regard, although I wish the screen didn't have such a bad latency either way.

The hardware obviously doesn't compare to PC or PS5. But the fact that the access to modern scaling technologies is delivering us from ever having to experience performance as bad as 480P~720P 30 FPS ever again is enough to make me see it as an upgrade. What I can't understand is the launch year lineup being comprised mostly by games developed for Switch 1 instead of games that can fully showcase its successor's hardware.

With an OS overhaul and Switch 2 titles with fair pricing, it could go as far as hitting an 8 for me. Nine or ten is out of reach, though. It's not going to be my main system for third-party games anyway.

Friendly reminder that this rerelease has loads of issues, including but not limited to a completely butchered soundtrack. Many of the tracks had to be cut because they were licensed (one of the game's biggest pros), but even original tracks such as the loading screen theme end up removed and were not even replaced. If you're interested in Lollipop Chainsaw, I highly recommend playing the original Xbox 360 version instead.

@jfp A post-launch/day one coverage sure would help prevent the changes from becoming an issue or deprecating the pre-release coverage. Unfortunately, it's not a common practice.

Unfortunately not surprised. Japan aside, a lot of people are not into fast-paced games with high skill ceilings, which is a shame and the reason many series are getting watered down into brain dead experiences. Air Riders delivers an insane amount of content and fun unlockables. Wish it'd get more attention.

@Lizuka Right? It comes down to whether the game is going to feel great to play or not. And judging by the demo, it doesn't feel great to play. Cyber Shadow felt the same when I tried it out. Shovel Knight, however, has always felt very good to play and features a plethora of charming characters with quirky writing.

I don't think nostalgia alone could carry Mina into success. There are hundreds of games trying to do this, and most of the time it doesn't stick.

I gave up on Octopath once it turned into an asset recycling series. The more entries they release, the fewer assets they need to create, and the more the games look alike. It really, really needs more creative dungeons and memorable settings. The way it is right now, it's almost looking like a Kemco game.

"In "Hard Mode," the difficulty of some enemies has been adjusted."
See, that's a big issue with day one patches. Sometimes the changes made may greatly change the experience in comparison to what reviewers experienced on their pre-release playthroughs. I've been there before. I once covered a time trial game that got a day one difficulty buff and end up feeling completely different (arguably worse) from the pre-release version.

@OmnitronVariant Agreed. In my opinion they're marketing the game the wrong way. It feels built from the ground up to appeal to Souls-like enjoyers. Nothing to do with Zelda Oracles.

@8bit-Man In a world where they're charging $80 for Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders is definitely worth $70. There's a lot of content for completionists and even the amount of Air Ride courses and City Trial Stadium courses is very impressive. But I get what you mean — that may not be completely enticing for "one and done" players or those not into fully exploring the skill ceiling.

@TheSaneInsanity There's indeed a LOT of City Trial content that only becomes available once you complete Road Trip and progress through the Checklist. It's no wonder the matchmaking sometimes has a hard time finding enough players. It tries to meet loads of conditions in order to keep players away from spoilers or just make sure they are rewarded for playing the game.

@Antraxx777 If being okay with paying $80 for a missing roadmap three-hour long game with updates removing features rather than improving the game based on player base feedback isn't to be considered low standard, nothing else should ever be. I could spend day and night giving examples on how Nintendo fans have low standards nowadays. Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario Strikers Battle League, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, poorly put together $60 rereleases, game-key cards, bent v1 docks, stick drift, incorrectly associating CFWs to piracy, chasing fan projects...

Again, it's simply depressing seeing people vouch for so-so games while they could be eating much better if only they knew not to incentivize bad practices.

@Willo567 Because I've grown with Nintendo and liked Nintendo. I supported them for a very long time. I like their IPs and believe they've got insane potential to be much more than they've ever been if only they would think of people as customers rather than consumers and stop wasting their time chasing their own tail/going out of their way to ruin stuff for customers instead of working to improve experiences.

Consoles like Wii, Wii U, DS and 3DS were no powerhouses but charming and gimmicky enough for me to go after nonetheless. They were the only consoles a PC gamer still had reasons to own despite already having an unbeatable hardware.

It's only natural I want to keep up with news related to Nintendo. You think people only come here to either blindlessly defend Nintendo or mock it and boast their Xboxes and PlayStations? That's not it.

@Willo567 When you've gotta turn to comparing Nintendo with the worst generation PlayStation and Xbox ever had to make it look somewhat acceptable, the situation is quite dire. Isn't it Nintendo itself that said they've never wanted to be compared to the rest of the industry?

For all I care, Xbox and PlayStation can fail as well. Any lazy company doing what they've been doing should. People shouldn't be pouring oil on troubled waters. Nintendo has a wide collection of other bad takes and anti-consumer decisions to be considered on the same level of Xbox and PlayStation.

@Fiergala Sure! You can find the full art by searching for "Franziska von Karma Onimusha Souls".

@Willo567 No. To be honest, the problem lies on Nintendo fans being so low standard and accepting less quality for higher prices the more time passes. It's a simple issue and I can't understand why people won't realize this is not supporting Nintendo, but rather encouraging poor quality, which is going to come back at them sooner or later.

@Grumblevolcano Precisely. If they're trying to sell the console promoting its hardware, that's what they should be delivering, especially as there isn't much of a selling point otherwise this early on. They shouldn't be trying to walk away from it now.

@Fiergala That's only because Nintendo consoles have never been able to deliver 60 (or now 120 FPS) consistently, so people would rather turn a blind eye and pretend it doesn't matter than admit it's something they're missing on. As soon as Nintendo fix this (if ever), people are gonna act like 60 FPS is revolutionary and Nintendo deserves a platinum trophy for it. "So much better! Thanks, Nintendo! Now I'd be willing to play 3x the price with half the quality!"

So what is the Nintendo Switch 2 for, after all? It's not bringing up any new interesting features to gameplay, and its hardware — which costs about the same as a PlayStation 5 — is already struggling to keep up and deliver a decent experience on first-party titles. What's even being sold?

It is honestly unbelievable to hear a developer from a big company such as Nintendo treating performance as something visual, especially in a platformer of all things! I honestly can barely withstand the input lag in 30 FPS games anymore. The least I would expect from such an egregiously expensive console is for its first-party titles to run well at least in the couple first years. They aren't even trying.

@PessitheMystic Sometimes I think people acting like installing CFWs is the same as piracy are trolling. But then I remember at least 70% Nintendo fans are tech illiterate, like it or not.

It has absolutely nothing to do with emulators nor piracy. Installing custom firmware allows you to install mods (such as randomizers, which are the prime reason Nintendo games are still so popular amongst some content creators nowadays), overclock your console (if they aren't giving you an option to exchange battery life for extra performance, then it's only fair it's done externally), play fan translations (believe it or not, many games still don't make it to the west), install accessibility homebrew (it's 2025 and consoles are still devoid of blue light filter/night mode), re-enable online features once servers are gone (were it not for Pretendo, loads of people would never have experienced Miiverse) and much more.

As usual, Nintendo doesn't care if their methods of fighting against piracy (an unwinnable fight when your services are so bad, as Gabe Newell has said before) ends up hurting its own customers. And guess what this leads to at the end of the day? Piracy!

@jake1421 Yeah, I guess that's what leads to some of them being silent even after leaving their companies. People don't know to separate things.

@Jaquan I'd agree with "Their spirit and way is best seen in the games they make" if their games still had acceptable performance, content and polishing. They don't anymore.

To begin with, more than half of the Switch 1 first-party library is comprised by Wii U rereleases. Then, Mario Strikers: Battle League lacks content, WarioWare Get It Together and WarioWare Move It are ridiculously short even for completionists, Animal Crossing New Horizons felt like a beta (missing lots and lots of features from previous entries), Switch Sports is super lackluster, Age of Calamity crashes and has unbearable performance, Kirby Forgotten Land is a waste of potential, Mario Party Jamboree is the only worthwhile one out of all three released for the console and the only Pokémon game released on Switch that is really worth checking out is Legends Arceus. I can't vouch for the console just because it has Mario Odyssey, Mario Wonder, Luigi's Mansion 3 and Metroid Dread.

That's not to mention how much of a step back the OS system feels like. They have to do better than that. They CAN do better than that. But I guess they're busy being arrogant.

But really, the most hilarious thing in many of the comments here is people calling Shuhei Yoshida "Sony". He's not even working in there anymore, guys. The title is a bit of a bait, but you would know so if you read the freaking article. He's said a lot of times now that he hates what PlayStation has become.

@Tron81 Exactly. I had reasons to own a console, for it wasn't just an ultra downgraded version of my computer with a couple of overpriced exclusive games lacking in content.

@Arawn93 Precisely. And know who tried to fight against this happening? Yoshida himself. It's only obvious he'll be unhappy seeing Nintendo take the same path as PlayStation.

Guys. Please. You need not play dumb. Look back at the 3DS, Wii and Wii U and tell me again Nintendo isn't missing something nowadays. The Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 are entirely based off downgraded versions of long existing technologies. The OS is soulless, missing loads of features and looks horrible.

Besides, it looks like a lot of people around here don't know Shuhei Yoshida and haven't even read the full article. He's a FORMER PlayStation employee. He fought for double A games and wanted to keep projects like the ones Japan Studios worked on - many of which became the heart and soul of PlayStation - going, but end up repositioned to an Indie management role so they could focus on triple-As and live service games as much as they wanted. He's not saying PlayStation is more creative and innovative than Nintendo - he's saying Nintendo is becoming as boring as modern PlayStation. There, understand now?

The reason he is saying Nintendo is losing its identity is because he cares. Anyone who really likes Nintendo and thinks having an identity is important should be vocal about their laziness. Right now, they're arrogant. It took one succesful console for them to think they can get off with doing whatever they want.

Saying Nintendo is doing a good job is giving credit to a CEO that never cared to fill in the gap that Iwata and Reggie left behind and disregarding all their efforts into turning Nintendo into a lasting experience.

@PoeTheLizard Of course it is. It's just the title was poorly chosen and doesn't make a lot of sense.

Oh yeah, let's all be thankful for underpowered and overpriced hardware with bad services and undercooked games!

The best part of the New Denpa Men hasn't really been covered by this review: the secret paths aren't just small secrets leading to extra treasure chests, they are actual alternate endings/extra storylines to dungeons with higher level opponents and great loot. This adds a lot of replayability value. Besides, the "not a lot of depth" is only true for the first couple missions of the game (the ones shown on the screenshots). There are puzzles, mechanically "rich" dungeons and even open world missions later on. Not to mention building up your Denpa team strategically and experimenting with the Fusion mechanic turns out to be quite fun in the long run.

Now, if I still had to point a downside, that'd be related to how the upcoming PvP Coliseum is likely to be affected by whales. But that's something we're yet to see. As it is, I really recommend checking it out and exploring it as much as you can. Not everything has to be similar to Octopath Traveler 2 or Dragon Quest XI, especially not a quirky creature collector JRPG.