kal_el_07241

@beartown You had to be there. We really didn't have anything better to play until Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country came along.

The best thing to note is, regardless of my opinion on the arbitrary rankings, Nintendo has a lot of really good games.

This list, as I noted on IGN, is all over the place.

Mother 3, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong Country 2 should all be so much lower on this list.

Placing Mario Kart World well ahead of Diddy Kong Racing is absolutely absurd.

Also, placing Odyssey in the top 10 but having Bananza not break the top 20 is a choice.

Only a matter of time before Lego partners with Pokemon to release sets...

@OmnitronVariant If Nintendo has to keep updating the game after release, they shouldn't release it until the game is fully complete!! When will they stop with releasing unfinished games like Bananza and ZA? Way too much cut content.

@ShadLink You can't counter my point and then throw up exceptions. Keep you system offline for a couple days and tell me how many games you can play that you own. ZA doesn't even work and that game just came out.

@ShadLink All of my games on PC are physical releases as they should be.

@WheresWaveRace There are no "perks" with digital games. Ever.

@WheresWaveRace Don't tell me what to buy please. Pokemon is swill water at best and this game looks worse than ACNH and Palworld. And those games cost so much less than whatever this game is. And it has locked content to digital distributions and Amazon purchases.

@MamaSymphonia Because of Greedy Nintendo's virtual cards, you do have to "swap cards" just to play digital now too. If your system is offline for more than a day, you cannot play any games you "own".

@Alcea Right?! Boycott them all. Review bombing any and all Switch 2 games right now. Going back to Xbox for my physical games.

Omg and it's $90?!?!

Boycott Nintendo - do not spend a dime on their products this Holiday season.

And just like that this game is dead in the water. I will review bomb all Pokemon and Nintendo products going forward for this. Back to Xbox for me.

@Kingy The details around the development of this game are in the Tera leak last year. This DLC was not planned/developed at that time and was not "cut" out of the final base game.

@Rayquaza2510 Still vastly more content than what we got with the Bananza DLC. More megas, characters, Pokemon, story and a rogue like element. There also seems to be new areas not revealed yet too that were teased. TPC cooked with the SV DLC and this looks better already than at least part one of that package.

@shoeses It is a quest for free in the base game. We get the stone only as a gift. Seems like TPC will be adding free quests to the base game every so often.

@Sonicka Oof... that would be cooking. I still want them to add Real Time evolutions and trading too.

@HyruleWanderer Just like Arceus before it, if Gen10 is more like SV and not ZA, I will be a big sad panda once again. Hopefully at this point TPC has learned their lessons on which teams/outsourcing to use for their mainline Pokemon games going forward. They have cooked with their Legends games thus far. Stay on that path.

@Sonicka Yeah still seems that it's tied to its planned release schedule is all. ZA was clearly delayed and they finished up on the DLC fairly recently.

@Kingy If you like Arceus, I highly recommend it.

@Kingy Referring to SV I assume? While I agree, I wish the game was more like the DLC in that game. Had a great story that was washed out by terrible graphics and gameplay.

@Kingy Cheaper still than Scarlet & Violet. Over $100 for base game not including DLC. This at least is one version.

@Sonicka Yes when posted online and in the eShop, the description was for Hyperspace Lumiose.

@Grumblevolcano Agreed, Grumble. It's been a great ride though. Very appreciative of what we've gotten thus far. Onwards to Switch 2 development.

@Sonicka Literally in the DLC description when it was first announced months ago.

@Bats1234 Agreed - seems a little unfair especially when discussing this game.

Fans: Do something new!
TPC: Here's Arceus
Fans: it's meh, why is there speed in battles now? I don't want to throw pokeballs
TPC: Here's SV - it's a watered down version of Arceus.
Fans: Do something new!
TPC: Here's ZA. RT battles now and a fleshed out map with plenty of POI's
Fans: the windows look stupid! Give us Arceus instead we loved that game!
TPC: Here's DLC expanding upon ZA unlike the 0 support we gave Arceus. This includes a Rogue Like mode similar to DK Bananza but also has a lot of story tied to it unlike Banaza.
Fans: Stop charging us for cut content! You will never evolve Pokemon!

I'm enjoying the crap out of this game because it's genuinely the most fun I have had playing a Pokemon game ever, even clearing my favorite game, Arceus. At the end of the day, we should be playing games because they are fun to us. That's literally all that matters.

@Jeronan If it didn't have the Rogue Like element, more story and DLC for a game well deserving of more content unlike what happened with Arceus, I would agree with you.

I, on the other hand, am so incredibly excited for this and the fact it even exists in the first place.

@PerfectFrost No one spreading misinformation will ever take responsibility. It's what they only exist to do.

@OmnitronVariant Online ranked will continue to evolve. Level of entry to get the stones is very nice for casuals who want to collect everything.

@Jeronan According to data leaks ZA was delayed by an entire year. This DLC was finished sometime this year and planned to release within Q4 '25/Q1 '26

@CupidStunt You should really play this game as that can't be further from the truth.

Ranked is now extremely easy for anyone wanting Greninja and Delphox Mega Evolution stones. They eliminated being able to lose points after a match. Only need to rank up a few times which can take as little as two matches.

@GgGames More than likely timelines. As time as passed, it became so much more obvious that ZA was delayed until the Switch 2 released. Most estimates put this around a year delay. The DLC was more than likely planned for development once the game wrapped up. With the game coming out a year later, TPC did not want to delay the DLC by that amount as they didn't want to cause issues with their Gen10 release schedule for next year.

@AussieMcBucket Yes and Yes.

@AussieMcBucket They probably need to considering how poorly it's selling.

@abbyhitter It's just going to be Lumiose City again. Just in an alternate dimension. The description for the DLC is on the eShop.

Edit: I'm hoping it's a very different Lumiose City. One set way back in time (Arceus style) or way in the future.

@EarthboundBenjy Light on content? I'm at 70 hours and haven't even beat the game yet. By the time I finish all the side missions I will have put more time into this than Arceus (still combing through the solitude battles) and SV.

@Ironcore Yes Nintendo is pushing out the DLC sooner than expected due to lackluster sales. We should expect Gen10 and Gen11 news to hit no later than Christmas this year.

With everything surrounding the tariff debacle in the US, this launch has been nothing short of an amazing result. People in general are spending less and yet the Switch 2 is selling like hot cakes.

Also - the fact that this console continues to sell so well and I can find stock of the Switch 2 at pretty much every store is something I have never seen before.

Kudos where credit is due - keep it going Nintendo!

@Crockin What's your reasoning behind this? DK has always been 10th fiddle sales wise for Nintendo (sadly). These numbers are actually higher than I expected. I'm excited for the future of the DK franchise. Hopefully more people pick this game up as it's easily a game of the year contender.

That said, in my very subjective opinion, I'm having somehow even more fun with ZA.

Can we get Pokemon ZA music please?! New games should always have their music launch day and date on the Music app at time of game release.

This is fantastic news as a fan of gaming in general. Patenting game mechanics should never be allowed.

What in the absolute ****?!??! It's like we're getting an entirely new game for free!! Hahaha I can't stop laughing... this is incredible!!

From Ruby and Sapphire on the series has been incredibly stale... collect more pokemon, defeat bad guys, yada yada yada

Sword and Shield started to mix things up with wild areas.

Arceus gave us completely new mechanics for the game and changed up the turn based combat a bit while giving us bigger wild areas to explore freely.

SV gave us our first true open world experience but lacked the charm, progress and polish that Arceus gave us earlier that year which felt like a very lackluster entry.

ZA doubled down on everything in Arceus and has given us the most whimsical entry to date trumping all other Pokemon mainline games but still a little behind presentation wise to New Pokemon Snap and voice acting/charm wise to Detective Pikachu Returns.

ZA is undoubtedly my favorite entry in the series since Gold and Silver. I haven't had this much fun in a Pokemon game in a long long time. As long as the next mainline game takes everything the Legends games have now established and continue to double down on them while implementing other mechanics getting us closer to living the Anime (voice acting, presentation/graphics polish, real time evolutions and trading), we should be eating very well going forward.