larryisaman

Doesn’t bother me personally but I wouldn’t mind having the choice in future games. Only played Persona 5 but Joker barely speaks in that so it’s not like they’d need to record a bunch of lines for both genders or anything if they stay with a “silent” protagonist.

250 hours total, top 3 are Tetris 99 (72 hours), Paper Mario TTYD (42 hours) and Echoes of Wisdom (30 hours)

Yeah, I’ve never taken his twitter persona seriously. I’m sure he does feel genuine annoyance when people ask him certain things but I always saw the over the top responses/blocking as him just having fun (especially when getting blocked by him was a Kickstarter reward or whatever).

I remember someone who met him for an interview saying he was very down to earth and nice to them…pretty sure his whole attitude online is just an act

@RetroGames It’s not “an XL version” of the Switch though is it. It’s a new console. And comparing it to DSi is ridiculous- that was an iteration of the DS, not a successor.

I don’t think it can be overstated how major it’ll be to have a proper generational leap in technology for Nintendo’s developers. They’ve been working with hardware that was already years old when it launched, which in itself wasn’t light years ahead of the Wii U, and even that wasn’t light years ahead of the PS3/360. If the Switch 2 is “only” as powerful as a base PS4, that’s a huge jump and enough of a defining feature in itself. And for Nintendo’s studios who already pull off incredible looking and technically ambitious games on an almost decade old mobile chipset…it’s going to be insane what they’ll be able to do. Not just in terms of visuals but the kinds of things they’ll be way less constrained with, for example who knows what ideas they had for TotK for but couldn’t feasibly implement? The Switch was clearly buckling with what they did on that game, so to have a huge jump in power will open up so many possibilities across the board.

@Dev1024 @RetroGames Good thing IMO! No point in reinventing the wheel for the sake of it. They had a killer concept with the Switch and it resonated with everybody- a better version of it is all they need to do. If that doesn’t work out for them then it’s time to upend things again, but coming off of the huge success of the Switch it’d be foolish to to do something radically different especially if it’s not a concept that has clear value (eg the Wii U controller).

This is all I want, very happy that it seems to be a straight up successor without any major gimmicks on the hardware side. I hope there’ll be some cool things on the software end of it (bring back StreetPass 😔) but otherwise a PS4 level Switch is perfect.

@Bolt_Strike Handheld PCs are not “hybrid consoles” at all, believe me. I love my Steam Deck but problems inherent to PC gaming are still there (needing to go into file directories and mess with stuff just to get certain games to work is as far from a console experience as you can get). You can never be sure a new game is going to work often times until it’s actually released, no physical media, games that work fine one day but suddenly don’t when a publisher decides to add anti-cheat software…I can go on. I wouldn’t recommend a handheld PC to “casual” gamers but I’d also be hesitant to recommend them to people who play games a lot but don’t want any friction with the device they play on.

To top it all off, no company making handheld PCs has yet to put even a fraction of the amount of marketing into these devices that Nintendo can (and will) with Switch 2. They’ll be fine.

Finished this on Wii way back but stopped at pretty much the same point on both my Switch and Steam playthroughs. With all this Okami talk I think I’ll try and pick up from where I left off and finish it again; it’s a beautiful game and very fun but could have done with being a fair bit shorter. Hopefully the sequel nails the pacing, it’s really the only thing that brought the original down in the end.

@syrupdash I hoped so too…still, the import the version has English as an option and is around £30 or less. Think I might just go for it at this point even if it’ll stick out in my collection.

@AllBLK I don’t get it either. Rumours are fun and it’s really not difficult to not take them seriously.

@AstroTheGamosian I’m hoping the difference here with games like Witcher IV is that they’re planning for Switch 2 from the outset, so even if it doesn’t come close to looking as good as other versions they consciously won’t make something that can’t scale down to it. I’m pretty sure Witcher 3 did well for them on Switch so I imagine they’d want to be on Switch 2 ASAP, along with other third parties who saw success with their ports.

Handheld PCs might actually end up being beneficial to Nintendo too, since as they get more popular developers might make more efforts to make sure they run on that lower end hardware which will hopefully help with Switch 2 ports. That’s what I’m optimistic for anyway.

I think there’ll be the odd one that makes it over but I’m expecting a repeat of the Switch where current gen AAA games getting a port (especially on day one) will be the exception not the rule- certainly for Western developed games anyway. Not that that’s a bad thing, the Switch got by just fine on Nintendo exclusives, indies and tons of older third party games that got a new lease on life by being made portable.

This is all assuming developers don’t start to target Switch 2 as lead platform and port up to more powerful machines, though. Could help to mitigate ballooning development costs and make it easy to get games running well on all systems but I can’t see it happening, at least not for most games.

My only concern would be how impactful ports of Elden Ring etc. would be when devices like Steam Deck have been around for years now. Then again, handheld PCs are going for a totally different audience so Nintendo should be fine.

Bought it, tried it a number of times but could never get into it. Just not my thing unfortunately.

1000xRESIST is phenomenal though so hopefully this drives more attention to it!

Always watch them…or at least most of the them before I fall asleep as they start at like 12AM over here. There’s usually a handful of cool announcements worth watching it for.

I think with E3 gone, TGA’s and Summer Game Fest are a decent way of keeping that spirit going. Yes, it’s just pure marketing but that’s all E3 press events were and nobody complained about those. Just don’t treat it as an awards show and it’s much more enjoyable (big award shows mean next to nothing anyway).

@RupeeClock Again, I think it just depends on what they think is going to resonate with the crowd that watches these things. They announced Bayonetta 3 at the 2017 show which is very much in line with what this audience wants to see. Same thing with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3…”Marvel game developed by Team Ninja” is exactly the kind of headline that grabs attention during these shows. It’s a question of timing and whether they have something that makes sense to show, like they’re not going to announce a new Kirby game or something during TGA’s because it’s not the audience for it. Ultimately I wouldn’t go in expecting them to show anything but I wouldn’t count them out given their track record.

@ScalenePowers Honestly I wish they’d just jettison the whole awards side of it and stop pretending that they care about that stuff. Just call it Winter Games Fest and show the trailers. Maybe just do Game of the Year and let the winners have an actual respectable amount of time to talk, but otherwise just indulge in the fact that it’s one big marketing showcase and stop using awards as an excuse to do it.

@RupeeClock They announce things at the Game Awards when they deem appropriate and there’s nothing to suggest they won’t continue to do so. Sure they didn’t show anything last year but they announced Bayonetta Origins the year before…it’s not like they’ve had a string of consecutive years where they’ve ignored them. They just seem to look at what they have to announce each year and whether it makes sense to show anything during TGA’s or not.

I’m not expecting it but I don’t think it’s impossible that a Prime 4 trailer could be shown given that it fits with the kinds of games that get a lot of the spotlight during these shows (big budget, dark and serious). It’d be a good way of appealing to the crowds who don’t pay attention to what Nintendo do and who don’t watch Directs etc. IMO.

Playtonic deserve to make a new DKC game honestly. Impossible Lair is seriously fantastic and I consider it to be the truest continuation of the original games considering the people behind it. Not to put down Retro’s games- Tropical Freeze is my favourite of them all and clearly influenced Impossible Lair but the real heart of DKC is with the original guys who are mostly at Playtonic now.

Plus IL was probably made on a shoestring budget compared to what Nintendo could afford to put into a DKC game which just makes it even more impressive. Imagine what they could do with Nintendo’s backing 🤤

I’d appreciate this if they were making something completely original. In that case just leave them to it and let them make their vision. When it comes to existing IP though I can understand why they’d be controlling even if it is frustrating for the artists.

@kkslider5552000 8 years separating DKC and SFA is absolutely insane to think about

What’s there to be confused about…Switch 2 is around the corner, they probably don’t have a ton of Switch stuff to show in a Direct so they skipped the usual September slot (and did a partner showcase in August instead). They’re fully aware of how much people expect from Directs nowadays and so if the only worthwhile thing they were ready to show was Xenoblade X then the discourse around Nintendo after the show would be mostly negative.

The few announcements they do have are just being peppered here and there because what else can they do.

I don’t have a problem with anything and everything being approved for the eShop (of course with exceptions to particularly inappropriate content but that goes without saying). One man’s idea of shovelware is another man’s GOTY so whatever, if a crap developer wants to sell crap games then so be it.

Said games should absolutely not get full visibility on the storefront though. There needs to be curation. Nintendo knows exactly which games are worth highlighting and which ones aren’t so they need to stop propping rubbish up against games that actually deserve attention. Bury the trash where it belongs and make people seek it out if they really want it.

Microsoft could make a handheld PC that runs Windows with a SteamOS style overlay that makes it more “console” like. I think that would honestly be a great device to have, especially with full Game Pass integration and cross-buy with Xbox. Plus with Steam Deck having introduced a lot of people (myself included) into PC gaming they have a chance to sway Deck owners who are looking to upgrade as that machine is starting to struggle more and more with newer games.

As for Sony…I don’t have a clue what they could do. A weaker PS5 (Series S style) in a handheld form factor is about the only feasible thing I could imagine and even that poses so many problems that I don’t know it’d be worth doing. On the other hand, a dedicated handheld separate to PS5 with its own games would just be silly when handheld PCs that play modern games are readily available and Sony can’t even put out a good volume of games for the machine they already have without worrying about splitting up resources for a handheld.

I think either way Nintendo will remain unchallenged. Handheld PCs are great but they aren’t for the mainstream customer who wants simplicity and that’s where the Switch excels. Sony can make a dedicated handheld but most of the games that come to it will likely come to Switch 2 as well and it’ll have Pokémon, Mario Kart etc. to boot. Nintendo have always dominated the handheld space, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Probably could have done with launching at £25-30 from the outset. A remaster of a Wii game that got a generally mixed reception was always going to be a tough sell at £50, even with the brand power behind it.

Definitely interested in playing this though considering the reception to this version- I was always interested in playing it on Wii but just never got around to it. With how fast this has dropped to around £20 on Steam though I think I’ll hold off until it’s sub £15 (which probably won’t be long at this rate).

Caved after hearing so many great things about it and bought 1000xRESIST. Only played an hour of it but wow…really haven’t played anything like this before. Story is confusing as all hell but looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

Surely gearing up for a new game. A new 3D DK game is seriously overdue!

Guitar Hero On Tour was genuinely great.

On a side note, DSi removing the GBA slot was a crime. One of the coolest parts of the DS, not just for backwards compatibility and the weird games that had peripherals that plugged into it but also the GBA game connectivity, be it importing Pokémon from old games or unlocking things for DS games. Getting a Sonic outfit in Feel the Magic because I had Sonic Advance cart blew me away at the time, I had no idea that would happen. Almost proto-amiibo in a way.

JRPGs just aren’t hugely popular over here…outside of Pokémon and Final Fantasy it’s a very niche thing in the UK.

Plus add on the fact that it launched close to Metaphor which by most accounts seems to be the best JRPG of the year so far so if you’re going to buy one or the other it’ll probably be that.

I could definitely see a trailer for Beyond happening at the VGAs and Prime 2/3 getting announced or dropped at the same time. Metroid fits well amongst the more “mature” (ugh) games that usually get top billing during that show and Nintendo are no strangers to announcing/showing off games during them.

Either way, if these remasters are happening it makes sense that they’d launch before the fourth game drops.

@Metazoxan Sure, but when the whole thing has become so disjointed and inconsistent it’s really not worth putting in the effort to make sense of it. It’d be cool if they actually planned for everything to connect but clearly they never cared, or at least they stopped caring a long time ago. In fact, they seem to care so little about how each game connects that even TotK references the events of BotW as minimally as possible and that’s as direct of a sequel as it gets.

It’s much more enjoyable to me to just treat each game as a fresh take on the same core story and world.

I could not care less about the timeline and I don’t think Nintendo could either. Really is best to just treat each game as its own thing.

Can’t really see a place for this at all. Back in the day it was worth having both a DS and PSP or a 3DS and a Vita (to a lesser extent) because they were so different to one another and provided things you couldn’t get on the opposing machine. What would be the key difference here? Power? There are already handheld PCs that are more flexible than dedicated handhelds and offer PlayStation games on them anyway.

A straight up portable PS5 would be amazing but how much would that cost, how bad would the battery life be etcetera…on the other hand, if they decide to make a bespoke new machine then that means splitting up their dev teams to work on games for a separate device (when they struggle to make tons of games for the console they already have) and would require third parties to consider another platform when making games. I just don’t know where a new PlayStation handheld fits in today, honestly.

Nier Replicant. Wish it had gotten a Switch port (guessing that’s not going to happen now) so I’ve bought it for Steam Deck. Slow start but good; has that same unsettling feeling that everything is “off” (for lack of a better term) that Automata had throughout it.

@Buizel Yeah that caught me out…I put 4 thinking of Dalmatian so I still would have gotten it wrong (forgot Best Friends was a thing) but awkwardly worded either way

I always liked the prototype more than the original launch model. The ones with the orange shoulder buttons/centre around the screens were also really cool.

But yeah, the DS lite remains a masterpiece in handheld design. Completely aped what Apple were doing at the time but it worked.

@the_beaver @OldGamer999 Agreed with the_beaver, 100%. For a system in its twilight year(s) this has been a very solid year from both Nintendo and third parties, not to mention the deluge of indie games that continue to hit the console.

Sure, we didn’t get the biggest games this year but a new 2D Zelda and a new Mario RPG (with a great remake of a fan favorite to boot) are nothing to sneeze at. Nintendo’s top teams are clearly working on Switch 2 games so with that in mind this has been a good outing IMO.

Justice for PoP: The Lost Crown 😔 I knew it’d get snubbed despite being one of the best games this year by far.

Acquire aren’t even the original team so why the fate of Mario+Luigi going forward would be in question is beyond me. It’s already shifted to a new developer once so there’s nothing stopping them finding a new studio should it come to it

Probably my least favourite of the trilogy. That isn’t to say I don’t like it though- I love it. I just feel like I really need to be in the mood if I’m going to go back to it because the atmosphere of the whole thing is just so oppressive. Prime and Corruption can be oppressive themselves but have plenty of moments of levity…Echoes just doesn’t let you breathe.

Most impressive thing about it is how fast they managed to make it. Such a great game only 2 years after the first one is just insane.

Best thing they could do is make a streamlined Windows interface specifically for games with the option to back out into a normal desktop environment, just like Steam Deck. That coupled with cross buy/progression with Xbox games would be a cool thing to have, especially if the price is decent.

Samus Hunter on twitter teased a Donkey Kong announcement 2 days ago and said “it’s not a tease for a game”…they’ve been on the money lately and they’re right again.

The other tease is potentially for Silksong. Don’t do this to me 😭

@JDCII It should inherently improve the frame rate of games that currently struggle to hit their target and improve resolution on games that have dynamic res. Anything else will need a specific patch to improve performance but unless Nintendo do something weird I can’t see why there won’t be automatic improvements for a lot of games

Every Nintendo handheld has been backwards compatible with at least the previous generation, makes no sense that they’d buck that trend now but nice to have it confirmed.

At least I can finally stop seeing people assume they won’t do BC because Wii U ports were so successful for them and they’d want to do the same with Switch 1 games. Asinine.

Hoping for a full January reveal with a release in March, mirroring the original Switch debut (yes it was shown first in October 2016 but the Wii U was basically dead at that point so it didn’t matter that they unveiled it before the holidays while the Switch is still thriving). Get it out early in the year so they can prepare to have plenty of stock available by Christmas.

All depends on what games they have ready to go though. If they can’t put out a string of great games throughout the year like they did in 2017 then I’d probably rather wait until they can maintain a consistent schedule.

Everybody and their mum knows there’s a successor coming next year so no surprise things are slowing down.

Price cut would help. Plus a TV only model would be a great option at this point…if they could bundle a box and Pro controller for less than £150 they’d have the best budget console on the market by far.

@Rozetta Wii Sports being a pack in title outside of Japan was an NoA decision that Reggie fought for (something Miyamoto didn’t want to happen at all) and was arguably the biggest reason the console was as successful as it was in the end. He also said that the launch/reveal marketing for Switch was driven by them and game development is influenced by NoA even though they’re primarily made in Japan, for a few examples of NoA’s impact on the company as a whole.

Yes, the final say comes down to NCL at the end of day but let’s not pretend their division that oversees the company’s biggest market doesn’t have any influence on their overall direction.

@eltomo IIRC the office they were at was closed. They still had their jobs but would have had to relocate, so they instead left and started a new show. Fair play to them, and to be honest I’m glad they did. It’s nice to get some regular insight into how Nintendo operates even if it’s mainly just the marketing side of things.

Shadows of the Damned remaster on Steam Deck. So underrated- it’s not the best game ever and it has its flaws but it’s refreshing to go back to something like this that really doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Basic “save the damsel” plot, ridiculous dialogue, fun arcadey action with enemies exploding in bursts of gems. Great character designs, juvenile jokes, a fantastic soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka and it still looks really nice IMO. For £20 it’s absolutely worth a go…just make sure to shut your brain off while playing 🥴

@NinChocolate But the hardware and games for it keep selling so…

I’m with you, I’ve been ready for an upgraded Switch for years now but from Nintendo’s perspective I can see why they haven’t rushed to release new hardware when it’s continued to sell as well as it has and third party support has stayed strong throughout.

What a huge disappointment this game was. They had the chance to let Platinum run wild and make an all new, visually spectacular Starfox game but instead had them make a pseudo Starfox 64 remake with shoehorned GamePad support. It’s like they just don’t want Starfox to be successful 🙄

I was immediately disappointed by the fact it doesn’t show who composed what in this app. Sure you can just look it up online but why not just include the credits here? Nothing stops Spotify from including not only the band members involved but also producers and session musicians etc. I’m sure Nintendo could easily credit the composers at the very least.