bosh

@Nintoz Yep, maybe! I genuinely don't hear a whisper about the Switch 2 over here. There are ads on TV, and people are of course buying it, but there's just no buzz like it seemed there was with Switch 1. This is coming from someone who has their finger on the pulse with gaming (and Nintendo in particular)

Maybe it's the lack of novelty compared to the Switch 1 release - there's just not much to really talk about, and maybe people are quietly enjoying the console and that's that.

But who has one? Kids don't seem to be talking about them, and none of my Nintendo-obsessed friends have one yet... It can't just be me who literally doesn't know anyone who owns one yet.

I think the release of the update is pretty well-thought-out by Nintendo. They're realising that the player base has largely moved on, so the only way to sell the upgrade is with new content.

Since the new content is free, the Switch 2 player base is subsidising the update to some extent. I'd like to think that this update is being developed alongside a new game, and acts as a stop gap to keep the newer fans engaged with the franchise.

I can't be the only one who thinks that this, and Sakurai worship in general, is a bit OTT.

His work on Smash is (mostly) great, but otherwise he has a pretty mixed output. Creating Kirby is probably the most important thing he's done, but he arguably didn't even direct the best Kirby game(s)

@jojobar That's not a flaw, that's just the core mechanics! If you remove something that's holding the whole tower up, that's going to make the tower fall. That's where you need to learn to fuse the blocks together to make things stand. And regardless, if your tower falls, it's not too difficult to make a new one once you get the hang of it.

I think their only big issue with the game is that they need to speed up the learning curve with building and crafting. Once you figure out how to do those things, it's a lot of fun. Before I understood how things worked, it was kind of sad to be clearing an area completely by myself with my incredibly slow building process

People excited about Game Chat were probably never around for Wii Speak and Wii U Chat. Despite the fact that we can speak while in-game now, it's all still hindered by friend codes and Nintendo's barebones approach.

Screen sharing looks like it will be fun for 5 minutes, and voice chat with friends by Discord is way more fully featured.

I liked Nintendo's more novel apps like Wii Mail, Pictochat and Street Pass. Those things were fun extras, while Game Chat looks like an extremely basic chat app

The stress of item and inventory management ruined the chilled-out vibe IMO. Flowers didn't die and overwhelmed your island, new crafting materials clogged your inventory event-after-event.

I think that was compounded by the ability to place items outside to your hearts content, too, because that meant clutter could accumulate, and it would also create framerate drops. All of those elements led to a busy, stressful experience at times.

Next time, I think they should make event-based crafting materials disappear when the month is up, and limit us to one kind of wood, one kind of stone etc. I hated not being able to make a new shovel because e.g. I had to purge my stack of wood to make way for 4 different types of feather to make carnival items

To anyone who has never played through this: Canary Mary adapts to your speed, so take it slow, and speed up in the last moments. This will save you tears and frustration.

Baffled by people saying this is just a simple stress test or something that's going to be re-skinned and added to existing IP. It has really cool music, lots of polished animations and visuals, good sound design, and even polished menus. And it's apparently made by Nintendo EDP 4, which almost exclusively makes wacky games like this. I think it's highly unlikely that this kind of detail would be added to something that they don't want to properly release

Really enjoyed the demo, but I had a few problems.

I can see why people complained about the constant dialogue and pop-up boxes. If it was more clever, witty, or popped up while you were playing, then I'd be more on board. There's not much excuse for this kind of thing in 2023, even if it's during the tutorial section of the game.

Auto-lock is problematic for me personally. There were times where I would've been able to achieve more without it (e.g. killing multiple enemies and having auto-lock stuck on a dead body is not fun). The AI should be smart enough to heavily prioritise threats. At the very least, we should have the option to use shoulder buttons to switch the lock between items/enemies.

Also a little frustrated with how the new controls aren't snappy enough. The 'y' menu takes about a second of pressing to appear, and once you choose your option, you have to hit A. Why can't it appear instantly when you hold y, and then confirm what you've selected as soon as you let go of 'y'? Just like switching weapons in BOTW/TOTK. There are similar problems with charging with your Pikmin. If you want to dismount the dog and charge, there's a second or 2 while you're dismounting where your controls are disabled. Why not put us in immediate control of the Pikmin?

I might be the only one, but was anyone a little bit disappointed by some of the finesse in the 2D elements? The shadow puppet cutscenes felt a little low in quality IMO, as does the map with its crude and flat shapes. It feels like the style is a little more cartoony this time around, so I don't expect it to be like Pikmin 3, but I feel like these areas could do with a little more love.

I very much approve of not having my Pikmin go and stand like lemons by a depleted pile of rocks. That always felt like an unnecessary nuisance in the previous games.

Lack of (proper) co-op is baffling after the value it added to Pikmin 3 Deluxe. The series started to go all in on multi-tasking with multiple captains, culminating in co-op, so why take that step backwards? I think they're underestimating how many siblings, partners etc. 2-player introduced to the series.

@HeadPirate am I missing something? I saw loads of people skipping ahead to 31 October for the Halloween event. The news here is that people can no longer do that because the system checks whether the real-world date is correct...

@Linknallie It definitely is cheating. I totally agree that you should be able to play the game however you want without screwing with other peoples' islands, so time travel to your heart's content, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think it's cheating!