Suketoudara

@Uncle_Franklin

So you're saying there's a vacancy...

I nominate Anti-Matter. His reviews of games he hates and videos of him destroying Game Key Cards would be epic.

Nooo 😭 We already lost Jon to a less entertaining YouTube channel. Will really miss his banter with Alex and Felix (who better not be going anywhere!) Best of luck Zion 🍻

@SillyG That's a Switch 1 game (that ran horribly BTW) that had different cartridge formats so not really a relevant comparison but you're right, that was also a bargain.

@SillyG And I've also just seen Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 (Game Key Cards) are only £24.95 each at The Game Collection. Bargain!

@SillyG Why do you have to have everything on there at all time? That's a choice, you can just download the games you're playing at the moment and smaller titles. That's what I do.

@SillyG

enabling third parties to release crap products for virtually nothing while passing on substantial costs to the consumer

Not true. Game Key Cards are cheaper. I brought Tony Hawks 3 + 4 and Street Fighter 6 for £29 not long after launch. Plus they can be sold on unlike regular digital games.

@Fighting_Game_Loser Some people act like it's a human rights abuse. I saw a comment on here saying people who release Game Key Cards should be jailed 🤣

@GrailUK They're not spending their money on "nothing" They're spending their money on a game which will play EXACTLY THE SAME whether it's a Game Key Card or not. Some of you are really weird with how you talk about Game Key Cards.

@Sambuc I'm starting to think wealthy physical game collectors just don't understand the benefit of cheaper games AND being able to sell them on after for many of us or that most gamers have no intention of keeping their games forever rather than playing newer games. But their whinging and boycotting will likely just lead to more digital only games in the future, not "proper physicals"

We're seeing it already with Pac Man World 2 Re-Pac being digital only in Europe which really sucks as we can't sell it on for another game like US gamers getting a Game Key Card. Well thanks Game Key Card haters 👎🏻

@AmplifyMJ It's hard to tell sometimes with some of the ridiculous bile I've seen on social media and YouTube today:

So long Doug Bowser!

Hope you're gonna be reviewing this too!

@BaldB3lper78 Are you sure? I saw the Switch 2 version on there last night (on eShop from my Switch 2) and I'm in UK... If it doesn't come up in search then the Browse or Search section of eShop (search I think) has a banner to see all Switch 2 games

I have the first two game in the series on Switch and they're hilarious! They have some really interesting insights into Japanese culture/society too and the ending to the first game was surprisingly moving.

This series is a bit like a chilled out low pressure WarioWare and you get a personality profile based on how considerate of a person you are!

Very glad it's getting more attention as a lot of Japanese indie games/franchises get missed by Western audiences. Will be buying the Switch 2 one having read this and it's on sale at the moment. 😃

I also don't think American members realise the significance of Satoru Shibata becoming CEO of NOA. He was very much an Iwata style leader at NOE and extremely passionate about gamers, even indulged in Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright cosplays in some of the European Directs! He loved those kind of games. Shibata is great.

@AussieMcBucket Just speculating but I wonder if NCL might have been unhappy about the amount of negativity, hate and drama surrounding Switch 2 in the US. Granted a lot of it has been due to decisions probably made by NCL but Nintendo of America's god awful, confusing or non existent communication recently doesn't help. Interesting Pritchard's background is in PR and Shibata being someone who was very in touch with the fans back in the day, hosting tne NOE directs with Iwata style humour and fun.

Apparently Pritchard is also on the board of Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue which "provides a fun and safe environment, with caring adults, for community youth when they are not in school" Nice.

Pritchard is a Pikmin fan and got a special thanks in the Metroid Prime Remastered and Wii Punch Out credits. Shibata is a gamer too and used to host the European directs! I'm quite hopeful about both these hires.

(I know Doug Bowser claims to be a gamer but he twice said Zelda comes from Hyland and didn't seem to know a thing about Nintendo's games so I'm sceptical)

Incidentally Shibata gave a speech at DICE last week about "the direction Switch 2 is heading in" which might be interesting to hear/read in light of this news but I can't find it anywhere 😔 https://gonintendo.com/contents/52912-nintendo-s-satoru-shibata-speaking-about-switch-2-at-dice-europe

Other changes are coming, too: Satoru Shibata will be taking over as Chief Executive Officer, in addition to maintaining his position as Managing Executive Officer and Corporate Director of the NCL. Shibata has been the president of Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of Australia previously

Wait, Doug was both president and CEO so having a separate CEO is a new position at NOA they made for Shibata! Doug's role has been split. Sending over Shibata does a bit sound like NCL was unhappy with things and want to keep a closer eye on them/help them out.

Actually CEO is higher than president so Shibata is her boss probably.

@Yoshi3 tbh their marketing and PR has been terrible lately so that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. At least she's been with Nintendo 20 years and didn't come from EA like her predecessor.

https://youtu.be/uEFfc70f6rE?si=v7Njr1D7BlbHdexm

Here's a video of her giving a speech. She sounds more human and less of a corporate robot than Doug which is nice

@Serpenterror The great news is the game plays exactly the same whether it's "fake" or "real"!

The KUUKIYOMI: Consider It games are hilarious! And weirdly moving in places. They're like a chilled out zero pressure WarioWare in a way. Tempted by the Switch 2 version to put the mouse to good use.

@BaldB3lper78 Hopefully the Switch 2 version will come sooner rather than later and include a demo too 🤞🏻

@Solid_Python Yeah the Switch 1 demo runs pretty poorly and looks rough IMO :-/ Feels janky and unpolished.

Though I'm not sure if even the Switch 2 version will do it for me. The game has so much visual and audio clutter, I actually found it kind of overwhelming and the handling feels so stiff compared to Mario Kart World and even Sega and Sonic All-Star Racing. Also am very disappointed there's no offline campaign/story mode like the other Sonic racing games had.

@electrolite77 Same here, I would've got it launch and exchanged it for another game or credit after completing it it was getting a Game Key Card like it was in the US. Thanks Game Key Card haters... :-/

@Grandiajet It's sad we live in a time where M&M's World can exist but the Trocadero arcade no longer does

@CupidStunt What? Pac-Man World 2 DOES run at 60fps 1080p:

Resolution & Frame Rate (Frame rate priority):

TV Mode: 1920 x 1080p
Handheld Mode: 1920 x 1080p
60fps

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2025/09/pac-man-world-2-re-pac-switch-and-switch-2-performance-and-resolution-detailed

@Divide_and_Wander What mode were you playing it on? No shame on playing on Easy if you don't like tough boss battles, I usually find them the most tedious part of games too!

@Ogbert A lot of so called cosy games are so sweetly and low energy that they just become kind of bland. The best ones have that funny, weird and quirky side to it, like Animal Crossing does, even if New Horizons didn't have the slight edge of the earlier games where the animals could be much meaner!

I LOVE the Free Roam changes! I was already 300 P Switches in (without a guide) but looking at my map I noticed part of it had an unusual lack of P Switches and it took me to a whole area of the desert I'd somehow missed and if was so fun exploring somewhere new after all this time and yeah I found multiple switches there!

Being able to jump to my favourites is really fun too, especially as you can try to beat your times.

Something I noticed not mentioned in the patch notes is that if you've found a P Switch mission but not completed it it also shows up on the map, but transparently. Nice, saves having to find them again and we can just jump straight to them when we want to give them another go!

@JohnnyMind Some people claim playing Zero first would ruin the rest of the series as its so much better!

@Yoshi3 It could be a mixture, but I heard before that menus and options are usually the last thing developers tend to work on when making games, so it's possible having to meet the Switch 2 deadline made them rush that stuff out. Even the character select screen feels sloppy and cumbersome tbh with all the scrolling and there's still some weird things missing from MK8 like ability for second online player to use their own Switch profile (they just use your name so you appear twice) being able to see online players country flags, always found that interesting!

I hope for them to change these things in a future update as well as adding a volume slider and proper 2 player Free Roam with P Switches, but they're rightly prioritising more important things right now. Very happy they're listening 😃

@mariomaster96 I'm unsure whether I should start with Yakuza Zero or Kiwami 1 🤔

@Pickettfury If the online lobby your friend was in was full and you tried to join it before this update it would just kick you back to the title screen instead of letting you wait in Free Roam!

@MirrorFate2 Makes me think some of the game was rushed for launch as they ran out of time. The UFO stuff especially sounds like something that was meant to always happen.

The "Free Roam" map now displays the locations of P Switches you've run over and Peach Medallions you've obtained.
You can now select a P Switch from the map and move to a location near the P Switch.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Game changer! And just as I reached 300 P Switches so need something like this more than ever.

BTW trying to beat each others times on P Switches could be fun in couch play with others (single players taking it in turns) as it does say when replaying p switches whether you've set a new time record.

@Kaiffe123 That is weird. Maybe we're getting two updates this week.

It sucks that the Switch 2 version has no Game Key Card in Europe as I would've brought it at launch if it had and sold it on when completed for some CEX credit. Now I'll wait for it to go on a big sale and buy digitally.

And Switch 1 games aren't allowed free upgrades when the Switch 2 game is a Game Key Card. Presumably us in Europe who are getting the digital only Switch 2 release are stuck with this rule just because US is getting Game Key Card. MESS. Namco should've released it in the same formats in both regions.

@Tom-Massey Sorry for the late reply but thanks for clearing that up and I see it's been changed now! I don't necessarily agree about the retro games magazines. Although quality between them differed they weren't afraid to slate games they thought were terrible, as they did with Bubsy 3D a few years later and even back in the day I remember games like Shaq Fu being torn apart!

I still concede that the first Bubsy was a good game. You just have to play by its rules: Glide everywhere, don’t go too fast, and explore the levels to get as many lives as possible. That was one of the best parts, the huge levels were so fun to discover! Personally it holds up a lot better than many of the SNES platformers on NSO... I loved Joe and Mac and Clay Mates as a kid but they bored me to pieces today.

Anyway, I'm glad we have a space where we can respectfully disagree on things here unlike many of the social media platforms. Thanks again for your reply.

My question: Since Nintendo doesn't seem to be in a rush to fix this issue, what steps should I take when I want to vet a new, fun-sounding game to see if it's legit? What are the tells that you're going to get a piece of shovelware garbage?

Watch gameplay videos on YouTube. These games are almost always out already on Steam, mobile or other platforms. I've never not found something.

As an aside, this was the last Yoshi game developed by Nintendo. I wonder if Mysterious Book might be back in house though... It looks more innovative and unique than the typical Good Feel title IMO and has shades of Pikmin about it, so could be.

@GoldenSunRM Why is it a "tech demo"? Just because it has Stylus controls? It might seem basic to us now but back in the day it was really original, basically a smart phone game before smart phones existed.

Although I agree with your point about the pricing, as someone who remembers Super Nintendo games selling for £80! People keep bringing up Wii U games but conveniently forget that the reason they were flogging a lot of the games so cheaply was because it was a massive flop and they were desperate.

Nice. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a really impressive game although it definitely had me questioning where the line lies between a game "paying homage" or "being inspired" by another franchise and well... being an absolutely shameless copy of it. 🤔 Good thing Jet Set Radio is a SEGA IP and not a Nintendo one or they may have got Palworlded!

@larryisaman That's exactly what Epic's CEO has been saying recently regarding complaints about Unreal Engine performance on lower end systems. That developers should develop for lower end systems first then scale up.

it's unclear how it's going to keep players' attention long-term

That's what I'm worried about too as someone who's not a big online player. REALLY disappointed they got rid of the campaign/story modes from All-Star Racing/Team Sonic Racing. They added so much longevity to those games.

@boxyguy I find the Crossworlds thing far more jarring than racing between the tracks. At least you can turn it off though, although I'm guessing you can't in public lobbies and only with friends.

@ArcadeSixties They weren't employees, they were contractors and the corporate side of Nintendo has never been nice. Did you know they successfully lobbied to make video game rentals essentially illegal in Japan in the 90s (still the case today) and tried to do the same in the US?

@N00BiSH Mario Kart World's 200+ non track songs are context sensitive. The poor Nintendo Music screenshots person has probably been driving around Free Roam mode for three months trying to hear them all.

@Lizuka They expanded it on Switch 2 adding Pokemon and loads of extra icons (I think it's about double) so they haven't forgotten about that page. They have it because people without Nintendo Switch Online need icons too.