buxner

Yeah, I agree with @Lizuka. "Not compatible" and "not officially compatible" mean two different things.

It's perfectly fine to raise the prices on the Switch 2 as long as they also reduce the price of the Switch 1 and keep making games for both. Sure, tariffs, RAM, economy, etc. etc., but you cannot convince me they wouldn't make a profit on cheap 2017 tech at $280. Raising the price was simple greed, and not lowering it to restore the budget option as the premium option gets farther and farther out of the average gamer's budget is moronic.

@boxyguy A lot of the games rely on the player's depth perception to be playable at all. On the 3DS the 3D was often a gimmick because every game had to be designed to be playable with the 3D slider off. The games couldn't actually be designed around 3D. Virtual Boy games are designed for 3D.

@Ooyah Except that "garish" is the correct vibe for WarioWare.

This is a fantastic game. I'm really happy more people will get to play it now.

I just want them to finally patch in the ability to change whether a character is computer-controlled or player-controlled in the middle of a game, as was possible in all the old ones. I don't understand why that wasn't there in the first place, and its absence is sorely felt in our household.

But like @StarryCiel, I really don't see why we're acting like someone said there won't be 200cc here. That is not what he said.

I'm surprised by all the 200cc hate here, when that's my preferred way to play. It's basically a consolation prize from Nintendo in lieu of an actual new F-Zero game (which I would prefer to Mario Kart).

Interesting to see that Nintendo is pushing such specific Ocarina of Time theming in the Zelda merchandising. Maybe the rumors about the movie being largely based on OoT are true. With that said, the choice of pieces here is questionable. Eight Navis? Twinrova?

@Yoshi3 Metroid Dread was released together with the Switch OLED model, and was heavily pushed as THE game to get to see what that screen could do. There wasn't anything else they were pushing at the same time. And even with all that, it still didn't do the same numbers as Pikmin 4, the latest entry in another series that has historically not been a huge seller. Metroid Prime 4 doesn't have the same advantages Dread had. It's not going to be the biggest thing selling the Switch 2, and there are going to be a lot of Nintendo games in the coming months vying for people's attention. I think to see how seriously they are taking it you only need to look at the unceremonious spot it got in the middle of the Switch 1 Direct, with minimal new info shown. This is not what they want people to be focused on right now.

I'm convinced by their arguments. The Super Nintendo World DK expansion connection makes sense if there's a DK launch title.

It should be in a museum.

One mouse for each hand in a climbing game.

I'm so happy to see I'm not the only one who considers this the best game in the series. I love the first Prime to bits, but no part of it knocked my socks off like Dark Aether, the underwater part of Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress. All three are utterly iconic and to me exemplify exactly what I want from the series: incredible new places to explore. I like a good fire, snow or forest level as much as the next guy, but Echoes is operating on the next level.

Special shoutout to the very beginning of Torvus Bog. After a few hours of expansive but life-drained environments, suddenly it's a little swamp with water everywhere and beautiful greenery. The small spaces give it a sense of intimacy, and on more than one occasion I've felt that I want to just sit in that little area outside the first save room and dangle my legs in the water for hours.

@nilcam That's a really good point. If you could place with whatever precise positioning and orientation you like, a la Tears of the Kingdom, the controls would make sense, but you're snapping echoes to a grid. The fiddliness of it is not justified.

This problem was solved in 1998, I'm not sure why Nintendo seems to have forgotten. You have a menu with everything, and you can assign any of them to any of the four direction buttons.

Given that there are so many to get through, I'd go one step beyond that. (Ocarina of Time was able to fit all of its C-items on one screen.) In the Echoes menu, have ten slots for favorited echoes before the full list.

This absolutely does not look like Carmen Sandiego. Where are the geography puzzles?

@Diogmites Mind Chess isn't excruciating because it's pretty quick and easy. Waste of time yes, horrific no.

@Pho I'd consider GAA1 to be THE best of the series, but to each their own. My ranking would be:

Great Ace Attorney 1
Spirit of Justice
Trials and Tribulations (the best story, but patronizingly easy)
Great Ace Attorney 2 (not quite as good as the first because of its silly amnesia plot)
Phoenix Wright 1
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (ridiculously convoluted, an ending that doesn't entirely satisfy, but on the whole riveting, and with the best first chapter in the series)
Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton (a terrible ending, but for my money the best crossover game ever made)
Justice For All
Apollo Justice
Dual Destinies (again a really bad, implausible ending)
Ace Attorney Investigations 1

That first song (embedded on the Kickstarter page) is terrific. Love it.

@Olliemar28 Count me as someone who absolutely didn't love it. A clunky mess of a game, with amateurish writing, middling combat, a tedious plot, irritating characters, frustrating UI and a complete lack of understanding of how difficulty progression is meant to work, all drenched from top to bottom in ridiculous bugs. It has its charms, and we had a reasonable amount of fun with it, but yeah, I think the people praising it mostly just haven't played better games like Dragon Age.

@Scollurio Everything up to the GameCube and GBA were fairly iterative. But to say that what came afterward was iterative as well is a misrepresentation. The Wii is a complete ground up rethinking of how games should be played - moving around, aiming a pointer; and how they should be presented - selling to non-gamers, with a controller that intuitively looks like a TV remote. Was it because of a business necessity? You bet. Their audience had dried up and they needed a new one. But iterative? Not on your life.

The DS wasn't iterative either. The iterative approach would have followed the GBA SP up with a Game Boy that could just do 3D. Two screens? A stylus? A microphone? None of this is an obvious "next step". Again, they were trying to widen the audience, and here it wasn't a need as much as a potential opportunity, but still, you're right that it's all business. They also hedged their bets and positioned it in such a way that they could make more Game Boys if it didn't work. They weren't all in on blowing everything up.

But the business needs of the moment demand radical innovation again. If they make a system that's just the Switch with better graphics, I for one won't buy it because it won't give me anything that I don't already feel like I have. There are still so many Switch games I'd like to buy that I could easily put off getting any new hardware for another five years. They need to convince people like me who don't care that much about the graphics that we're going to get entirely new experiences on this system that we should be excited for. And it can't be as minor as the Wii U's second screen and HD, because that decisively did not work.

The idea that the next system will just be an iteration is not likely. Nintendo hasn't done that since the failure of the GameCube. 3DS doesn't differentiate itself just with StreetPass, it differentiates itself with its 3D screen, its innovative circle pad, its two cameras, motion controls on the go and also StreetPass. Say what you will about it, it is a very innovative little device. To make a "Switch 2" would be un-Nintendo.

Not coincidentally, it also wouldn't make sense. Better graphics is not the selling point hardcore gamers think it is, not when Switch games are being sold in the millions to people who still find the games to look good enough. Having people buy a new system just so they can play games they would have been just as happy with on the old one is not a sustainable business.

No, it's going to be something off the wall. It will definitely still be a hybrid because making it a hybrid was an absolute necessity for Nintendo's business. Up until mobile games really took off they could have their big teams making games for the TV and very small teams making games for handheld, but they saw with the 3DS that people just weren't willing to buy the small games anymore when they could get that sort of experience on their phones for free. To save the 3DS, Nintendo had to divert many of their big teams away from Wii U. They can't keep a steady cadence of games on two concurrent systems that both require those kinds of resources.

But beyond the idea that you can plug it into a TV or play on the go, we really don't know what it's going to be. They've had seven years with an unlimited R&D budget to come up with crazy concepts for new kinds of gameplay experiences.

My guess: a system with VR glasses that flip up and down to switch between 3D and a shared screen (TV or handheld).

Looking forward to playing Detective Pikachu Returns with my daughter. We had a blast with the first one.

Interesting to hear so many different opinions on which games were good and bad. I'm with @BLD - Spirit of Justice was the best of the whole series. Trials and Tribulations had a terrific story, but the gameplay was way too easy, to a degree that I found frustrating. Spirit of Justice is the whole package: great gameplay and I was on the edge of my seat through the whole story. And it has an excellent ending, unlike Dual Destinies and Professor Layton vs., whose endings I hated so much that they soured me on the whole (otherwise excellent) games.

In my mind Breath of the Wild is Zelda-likeness distilled to its core, for how it immerses you in the world and story, puts such an emphasis on exploration, and keeps the gameplay varied but carefully crafted. There are elements of the old traditions I'd like to see them very carefully fold back in, like having actual characters with an active role in the story, a slightly more complex plot and good dungeons. Also better music, because I think not having different music for different areas, and de-emphasizing melodies almost everywhere, does not live up to the standard of the series. But overall, Breath of the Wild was more a righting of the ship than anything, after the series' gradual descent into linearity, overuse of cutscenes and overfamiliarity.

Some Zelda games are more Zelda-like than others, of course. Four Swords Adventures has been cited here, which is one of my favorite multiplayer games ever but doesn't feel that much like a Zelda game in many ways. A Link Between Worlds is familiar to the point of being almost a fan game rather than a legitimate entry in the series. I didn't particularly have the sense of being truly immersed in the game world and excited to explore. With the Capcom games there's something that feels very off, like the surface elements are all there but the principles underneath them are not. Skyward Sword is too small, too linear, too talky, and while I really enjoy the combat, it sometimes overpowers other gameplay elements rather than blending with them. These are all good or even great games, but they lack a bit of the spirit of Zelda in one way or another. Breath of the Wild is right up there with the first five games and The Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks (Yes I said it, bring it on!) in terms of feeling like a proper Zelda game, and in many ways surpasses all of them in how much it feels like it captures the essence of the series.

1. You are Link. Everything about the game, from controls to sound to characters' reactions to you to UI, should immerse you in the experience to such an extent that you forget you are playing a character and feel you yourself are traveling through a fantasy world on an epic quest. The story is not something you are told or shown. The gameplay is sneakily crafted to make your personal experiences and feelings while playing tell the story of the character.

2. Seamless transitions between slow, meditative gameplay and fast, intense gameplay. The world of the game is complex. You are not doing one thing endlessly, you are doing radically different things depending on the circumstance, which keeps you engaged. But it is one cohesive experience with no abrupt shifts. The music changes are subtle. The controls are the same controls. One kind of gameplay can be layered over the other, for instance trying to solve a puzzle while monsters are chasing you.

3. Exploration, exploration, exploration. All else can change up from game to game and place to place, but the joy of exploration is underneath all of it. The overworld is large and persistent, with distinctive landmarks everywhere to help you get to know the place over time. And you're never dealing with challenges just because the game is throwing them at you, you're dealing with challenges because you want to see what might be in the next room, or because something's just out of reach that looks interesting and the things you're doing are how you'll be able to get there. Every part of the game world needs to be distinct and hand-crafted to instill this motivation in the player.

4. As noted by others, music. Catchy melodies, interesting leitmotifs. Most of all, a cheeky playfulness in how music is composed, arranged, incorporated into the gameplay, and carried through from one game to the next. When you're very focused it stays out of the way, but then you will go somewhere you've been before, and memorable, almost singable melodies will proudly ring out.

5. Give us something new. New kinds of environments, new things to do, new characters, new twists on the story, new styles of music. New experiences. A Zelda game that is exactly like other Zelda games is not a Zelda game.

6. Zelda, Ganon and you. A princess to save, a monster to fight, a Hero with a capital H. Divine trials of worthiness. Forgotten ancient legends which will be repeated in the present. Guardians to awaken and press into service. Was it all cliché already in the '80s? Sure. Is it sexist and regressive? You bet. But that's an essential part of Zelda. Even if the game is subverting some of this story material, it still needs to engage with it.

In my household we still regularly play multiplayer GameCube games. Getting a new system doesn't have to mean getting rid of the old one.

6 (clock)
8:30 (reflection)
3:33 (one hour between)
2 (straight lines)

That's so funny, I was literally just playing Elite Beat Agents a few days ago. "Canned Hest" on Divas.

I had zero interest in this game, but the demo was available so I figured "what the heck" and played it in co-op with my 4-year-old daughter. In that context it became clear very quickly that this was a must-buy, as a sort of My First Platformer that I can play with her.

I'm predicting we get a dirt-cheap VR headset this year along with the follow-up to Wii Sports, with Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem coming in the middle of next year and Metroid Prime 4 (VR) coming at the end of 2019. We'll find out tomorrow.

If, as I suspect, tomorrow's presentation involves a "Switch VR Sports" aimed at the casual market, 20 million is suddenly going to seem very conservative indeed.

@Sakisa Fair enough, and sorry for bringing your name into it when the only part I was agreeing with you on was those games being underappreciated. I've only played DKC through and a little bit of DKC3 and DKCR (neither of which held my attention enough to finish them). Shame I missed DKC2, if that was the better one. With that said, when I have the money to buy a Switch Tropical Freeze is definitely on my list of games to buy.

I need to echo samuelvictor and Sakisa here: Donkey Kong Country is nice and all, but its main innovations and strengths were in graphics rather than gameplay (in which department it was very comparable to other platformers of the time). The Game Boy and GameCube entries, by contrast, were more original, fun, influential and clever, and hold up better as experiences worth seeking out in 2018.

Donkey Kong '94 tricks you into thinking it's a remake of the arcade game, before turning into a full-fledged puzzle-platformer and providing some real mental challenges. The fact that it's starting from a setup that everyone knows eases you into the challenge, and then it layers in new elements slowly, like picking things up a la Super Mario Bros. 2, conveyor belts, and what I believe is the first appearances of Mario's backflips, until it becomes very challenging indeed both as a platformer and as a puzzle game. This game inspired not only the very good Mario vs. Donkey Kong sequel, but also other puzzle-platformers like the excellent GBA Klonoa games.

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, meanwhile, was the first creation of Nintendo's EAD Tokyo team, and was so utterly fantastic and fresh that Nintendo promptly handed the team the keys to the Super Mario series (with the exception of the inferior "New" line), where these experts at platforming have continued to excel. What makes Jungle Beat a breath of fresh air is that unlike Donkey Kong Country and just about any other platformer you could name, you've never played anything like it before. It's a brand new kind of control - hitting two drums, where the speed of drumming controls the speed of your movement - executed so skillfully and inventively you'd think it was a long and storied tradition. The combo system rewards risky play, and the game shines most in particular levels where (if you're good enough) you can chain together moves so much that you can get through the whole thing without ever touching the ground.

Ironically, it's the very quality of the game that has contributed to its obscurity. At the time, Nintendo was aiming to establish Donkey Kong as a more experimental platformer franchise than Mario, with Jungle Beat and the lackluster King of Swing (from a different team). If the Nintendo heads hadn't been so blown away by Jungle Beat, EAD Tokyo would doubtlessly have put out a longer sequel, then a succession of creative Donkey Kong games for the following systems that would have cemented Donkey Kong as one of Nintendo's top franchises. But because the team moved to Super Mario and made that the series that kept reinventing itself, Donkey Kong became a vehicle for nostalgia. (I haven't had the opportunity to play Tropical Freeze yet, and I believe the hype, but wouldn't we rather have seen Retro build something more new and vital, like Metroid Prime was?)