masterLEON

The cars don’t have collision boxes, I thought they said they’d add that in. Immersion broken, but a minor gripe in the overall package.

@Diablo Ah, I never owned a PSP. Was it part of a collection or standalone?

@PKDuckman @NeonPizza @MontyCircus I found out from industry accounts on Japanese Twitter that there’s also a special Japan AM (Amusement Machine) Show Prototype version of Gradius III included. The game had a bunch of enhancements that didn’t make it to the arcade release such as being able to have more shots on screen at once like 3 Doubles and 6 Ripples. You can also have Force Field and Reduce active at the same time, though Reduce only lasted for 3 hits instead of 5 or 6. There were also additional background details such as animated flowing sand and a galaxy background in the 1st stage. And overall the speed of the game was slightly faster, though slowdowns were still present just not as frequent and in the same places. This build was only shown off on the first day of the show and never seen again. You can see it as the 4th Gradius III option in the trailer, and you can even see they used that prototype version to show off in the trailer.

There’s also the JP version of Life Force which changes some of the graphics and bosses to be more “organic” and the BGM is a bit different. The big change is that it has the standard Gradius powerup system instead of the dedicated powerup pickups. Otherwise, basically the same as the world release.

It was a highlight for me since I don’t recall Salamander II getting a port at all. And the new one looks so slick and fast for a Gradius-style game. I can’t wait!

Predictions? I dunno, Balloon Fight World, Ice Climbers Revolution, Gyromite Infinite?

@anoyonmus They’re on the West Coast so I guess they’re morning people

I trust that all the meaningful 3rd party devs already have their kits, more because they have proprietary game engines that need extra time to tweak a version for Switch2. And for those that weren’t on board already they will likely need to wait. Aside from that, current devs have been primed for a while to expect certain capabilities from the Switch2 (4K, DLSS, back compat, etc.) and would probably just need to have a Switch2 build ready to debug when their time comes. I don’t remember when, but it’s been reported here before how relatively simple it was to get Switch ports of some PC indie titles going. And the new hardware is not going to be radically different to develop for, just more capable, as far as we know. The base Switch dev environment should already be available. The dev kits are more for getting builds ready for Switch2 specific stuff, runtime tools, testing and debug, et al. I wouldn’t surprised if devs can get games running and submitted within a few weeks after receiving a kit, provided they weren’t starting from scratch and already had a game targeting and more or less ready to go on Switch1.

@Truegamer79 They sort of normalized the weakness weapon damage starting in 3 so damage wouldn’t be all over the place like in 2, but also made it less obvious what the weakness is. (4’s damage is even worse, IMO) The only one that can potentially 1-hit is Top Spin vs Shadow Man if you hit him just right. So I start with Top Man.

I bought the 3 of these that were available on VC before it shut down. Only Lord of Darkness wasn’t available but was the one I never played but the one I wanted to try most. I rented these several times over back in the day. Ended up getting RotKIV as a b-day present from my best friend as I liked it so much and we both loved the military SRPGs. Solid strategy game drop this time.

@dustinprewitt We’ve got raised to level 99, FWIW. But I think augments are still the main way to buff your characters.

@mlt Honestly, just reload your manual game save. If you’re fighting tricky end game tyrants like Gradivus the Headless Emperor, Buchwald the Guardian, Pharsis the Everqueen, the giant Sandworm(s) in Sylvalum, Telethia, etc. and they start doing their annoying gimmicks, does anyone expect to beat them on their first try? I sure didn’t. You can come in with what you feel is a decent loadout but didn’t account for later phase Reflect, Sleep attacks, or add-on enemies then you wipe. (I sure as heck didn’t expect a second sandworm!) Well, time to reload, get the right augments in place, save, and go back to try again.

@RadioHedgeFund Reload a manual game save and/or bring enough healing items next time.

@Yalloo It’s not an action RPG in the same sense. You do kinda keep track of what the thing you’re fighting is doing in terms of position and status effects, but it’s largely about managing your special attack cooldowns and answering “support calls” from your party members (by responding with special attacks that match the same color as their word balloon), and later targeting parts of enemies for farming parts, like Monster Hunter, for upgrades or rare weapon drops.

This! 100% this!

I’m currently also playing Like a Dragon Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and I got this preordered. My free time is in danger, Lol. I’ll try to get to the new end parts in 100-120 hours.

I cannot stress this enough, and I fully back what PJ says in the review, DO NOT RUSH THE GAME. Whether it’s to get to the Skells and your flight module or to try to blaze through your backlog. You will miss a ton of what makes the game special! Take your time to learn all the combat tactics including positioning and Overdrive, take time to understand the augment upgrade system, take the time to collect all the shiny crystals in the field as they may be precious materials for upgrades, INSTALL AND OPTIMIZE YOUR PROBES THROUGHOUT THE GAME BECAUSE THAT’S CONSTANT MONEY AND MIRANIUM, take the time to keep your ground gear and skills upgraded as you will still need to fight on the ground all the way through Post Game. And whatever you do, absolutely DO NOT approach the outside corner of the Skell weapons research hangar until late game to check out that tiny innocent-looking red/pink object on the ground! (previously Post Game)

So we're allowed to jump now? I mean, that’s cool. But I think we lose a bit of urgency in the process. In the original game when the eye is open and red, you weren’t allowed to jump, you had to wait until it was closed. Also, the red tiles you run over in the level converted to an energy beam that fired at the shield that protects the eye. When you run over all the red tiles, the shield disappears and you have to jump to the platform in front of the eye to run over the last red tile to destroy the eye. After that you fly off the level into space for a short shooter section until you reach the next level. The flow was somehow similar to Major Havoc, a vector screen platformer by Atari, but instead you try to land at a space station to self-destruct the reactor and escape to do a shooter section until you land at the next station.

Anyway, I’ll be getting it at some point.

Well I might have to agree with that date range. I might even suggest checking your local retail locations starting the end of April/beginning of May for no reason 🤐 (not for sales)

@Serpenterror @joey302 @JJtheTexan @FatWormBlowsASparky Just updating here. TAITO clarified what’s included in the physical vs. digital versions of the collection.
https://twitter.com/taito_apps/status/1900352036388167965?s=46&t=TkMZWMTRf6uEYjXd6mF4NA

In short, the physical Switch version (in Japan, no word on global release) is complete with all the arcade and console ROMs. The Switch and Steam core versions are the Arcade ROMs, with the console ROMs being offered as DLC.

@OorWullie Space Gun is a surprisingly good rail shooter despite it’s generic name and aliens that are legally distinct enough from Aliens but still kinda close in atmosphere. You move sideways and forwards through the corridors of space stations/ships much like The Super Spy on the NEO GEO, but with auto-scroll. There are even junctions where you can choose different ways to proceed. Not only that, the game has a backpedal (a small pedal on the arcade cabinet for each player, 3 years before Time Crisis) that lets you reverse direction so you can give yourself more time to take care of enemies or choose a different path at a junction. The main weapon is a machine gun that works like Operation Wolf/Thunderbolt, and there are special grenades that you can pick up like incendiary or freeze grenades. And the aliens are usually better dealt with by shooting off their arms like in Dead Space. I like the game better than Operation Thunderbolt.

Approximately 2 weeks after the hands-on events. I see them shortening the gap between reveal and launch this time around.

It’s bad enough Nintendo of America themselves tweeted a huge spoiler the other day when they did their version of Nintendo Europe’s post from last week. Heck, even the end of the official trailers are major spoilers, though it’s necessary as the new content is the major draw for this rerelease. Still, it’s gonna be tough avoiding the new content.

@MontyCircus I saw one at Barcade in the city, in English. It was next to SEGA’s Time Traveler last time I went.

@OorWullie If mouse controls have a simulate thumbstick mode that would be great, for a lot of games. But if not, since they made SEGA AGES, they could implement the joy-con flight stick mode they made for Space Harrier. Now that I think about it, maybe they’re utilizing their super scaler porting expertise from SEGA AGES as a base for Night Strikers (arcade and Gear) and Operation Thunderbolt?

Not surprising in the slightest if it’s $400. The day 1 buy value prop needs to be a compelling launch lineup and, for me, a lineup of day 1 enhancement patches for existing games.

Compared to the original arcade, this is much nicer to look at. So smooth. Could use more ground textures though.

Also, we’re still months away from Operation Night Strikers collection in the meantime. Getting ever so closer to the real Operation Wolf as well as Space Gun. Now, the question is to go for physical which includes the console versions ,that I don’t care much for, just to play Night Strikers Gear early or save some yen and just get the arcade versions download?

EO version included on CvS2, great news for those who are used to playing that version. Extra characters unlocked as well.

I own too many to list. My first Switch games were actually ACA NEOGEO KoF ‘98 and Waku Waku 7 from my JP account! Here’s to hitting that 800 that they announced at some point.

@NeonPizza A lot of that extra stuff may not exist because they didn’t survive the era they came from. Bigger companies like Nintendo and Capcom may have that stuff on hand, but then there’s exceptions like SEGA that can seemingly lose things as soon as they turn around (like The House of the Dead 1 Remake happened because SEGA lost the source code) And companies long gone, like NMK and UPL, the only thing left of a game’s existence may be just the PCB. I’m just grateful HAMSTER goes through the trouble of creating new ROM dumps and making their own wrappers from sourced PCBs rather than rely on questionable dumps and “good enough” emulation and cores that’s otherwise available today.

This looks amazing enough to me to wipe my memories of the bad NES/SNES games. Aside directly referencing scenes from the movie, it looks like they borrowed a couple things from Metal Slug 2, Terminator 2 The Arcade Game, and possibly the Terminator Mega Drive game. I also like how the overall color palette is aiming for that classic look of the early to mid-1990’s computer game era. Very nice throwback, indeed. I’ll be watching this one closely.

@Daggot I don’t see why not, a bunch of other 2D titles on Switch can maintain the framerate. Like XenoCrisis, Blazing Chrome, Carrion, many of the bullet hell shmups (certain ones like the CAVE shmups have intentionally programmed slowdowns in certain sections). If it counts, Marvel vs. Capcom 1 has a ton of huge sprites and effects though it’s not HD.

If regular price drops to the Castlevania/Contra collections to $4-$5 are anything to go by, we can probably expect the same at some point. Still, it’s good seeing Konami continuing dipping into their back catalog more these days.

@Fiskern There is no “new” censorship, here. This isn’t Skullgirls.

@Vyacheslav333 That’s a question for the Treehouse crew from 10 years ago. But I see others here already mentioned the answer…in nearly every Xenoblade X article that has come up, both recently and back then.

I don’t think anyone has even mentioned the hundreds of hours involved in grinding the online missions in order to unlock pieces of the “risky” costume sets, even if your aim was not to put Lin in said outfits, it is hardly worth it! Hundreds of hours of grinding the World Bosses for enough tickets to exchange for all the pieces, I am NOT kidding! You can literally do nothing else but looping the same mission over and over hoping you break enough pieces of the World Boss to get those materials to drop for only a handful of tickets, and that’s on top the game time involved until you’re powerful enough to farm the World Bosses effectively. I cannot stress it enough, save yourself the trouble and just enjoy this great game! Just google search if you feel the need to see. And if it’s the slider you’re concerned with, 99% of your game time will be staring at your character’s back, and they will be tiny on the screen when fighting large enemies. And once you’re in a Skell, forget it, you only get to see yourself in Overdrive activations, usually from behind (though the camera does swing around depending what’s going on). Not to take away too much from those who generally disapprove of true censorship, do keep fighting the good fight. But this, this is just too much of a nothing burger for me. Don’t forget, there’s lore reasons that can be said why everyone in New LA looks so…similar.

@Lone_Beagle @Mgalens @Oxy I’m anticipating Switch 2 resolution and/or frame rate update patches for most 1st party games and a handful of major 3rd party games that came out within the past few years. Devs have been encouraged to target 4K for a while now.

@LunacyJosh Good news! I saw screenshots on Twitter that you can now recruit from a menu! No more running around! Also, I read that changing time of day can also be done anywhere, presumably from the menu. Monolith Soft really went in on the QoL features!

@Gorlock Probably not the answer you want to hear but you can definitely have a more mature protag, or you can have a younger one, or anyone you want, really. The protag is you, thanks to the character creator!

@RainbowGazelle Where have you been? They showed a snippet of a brand new area in the first trailer, and they’ve deeply suggested they’re continuing (hopefully finishing) the story with the introduction of a mysterious character. Or, re-introduction, rather.

@RadioHedgeFund Why not reload from a save? It’s an RPG after all. And especially since there’s a higher chance here of being ganked from an unseen roaming, named tyrant or what you’re fighting is hitting you with an element that you are simply not equipped to handle (Gravity and Sleep come to mind). I think it’s a justifiable strategy, IMO. IIRC, I believe I still had 1 insurance voucher left on my save. Then again, it was probably me being in places I shouldn’t have been more often than not for the sake of exploring that I manually save compulsively.

-faster loading times
-collisions with NLA vehicles
-pop-in addressed
-new Quick cast mechanic (bonus!)

Well, I guess I got what I wanted. Sold, day 1!

@Ralizah There’s purchasable TP items in NLA. Other than that, I forgot if it was augments, skills, or activating Overdrive in combat (or all 3) that boosts TP and heals). You’ll also definitely want to answer your party’s Soul Calls with the same color arts/attacks and do the B button QTE’s.

@LunacyJosh @RadioHedgeFund The answer to your money problem is exploring the world to plant probes, then upgrading said probes as the game goes on. A necessary game mechanic they introduce very early on. It’s free money and Miranium over time. And for the time of day stuff, go back to the barracks to rest so you can set the time of day. That can also be done at any BLADE camp in the world for hunting Tyrants, etc.

@Zeebor15 @Rykdrew VF5 and the other extended lineup games are still getting some stream time and and medals, they’re just not getting grand finals stage time.

There’s gotta be something coming to replace this, unless Nintendo positioned the vouchers to be the discount model. If nothing replaces this then that’ll really hurt some smaller devs or any 3rd party digital purchases since most folks probably wouldn’t consider pulling the trigger on a game unless there was an additional discount on top of a sale price. The feel of getting a game for pennies or even free is too great. I know I got a lot of use out of the gold coins for Arcade Archives games. Fun fact, my WiiU/3DS eShop FOMO shopping spree netted me a ton of gold coins in the process. I literally banked $100 in gold coins! Had to spend it all or else they’d expire, of course.

It was one of the rarest cabinets out there back in the day, though I never knew that since I played it in a random supermarket near my cousin’s neighborhood one summer.

Can’t wait to play it again, since the original will likely be included, as well as this trippy new version.

If Max says CvS2 is good (and Justin Wong as well) I’ll believe it. And CvS2 still has the best versions of Yuri Sakazaki and Mai outside of KoF XIII, IMO.

@Vyacheslav333 CvS1 has the hugely unpopular character tier ratio system where CvS2 had a retooled ratio system (any character can be assigned a high tier instead of fixed tiers per character) as well as the Grooves. They play different enough to include both, characters as well. Rival Schools could justify a standalone rerelease if they could bundle in all the PS1 2nd disc content, which was extremely packed with extras.

@DrewBA77 It runs on the same Sony arcade hardware as Plasma Sword (Sony ZN-2 board), though, so they could have included it. Maybe it was left out due to redundancy with Project Justice, storage concerns for the Switch cart they wanted to use and one game had to go, who knows?

Keyword and publisher exclusions in the Recent Releases list would be a godsend, honestly. Taking it a step further, something Nintendo could be adjusting their submissions policy to restrict how many “update submissions” a publisher can have and how soon after the previous version they can push out the next version. Like the should only be at most 2 versions of any game, the vanilla version and the upgrade. Anything more and the previous or redundant versions should be taken down. Major publishers seem to do that themselves when removing Launch Editions. But since it’s a practice not an enforced rule, it seems like a loophole these low-effort publishers are abusing just for visibility. As for frequency, maybe after 4 months until the next version could come out, with the delisting of the previous one effective immediately on release. Even if honest efforts are out there, no one’s going to know which is the most current and content complete when your game brings back a million different “Editions” when searched.

Really couldn’t join in until the end, unfortunately, but wow Big Man really got the repeat. Congrats, I guess. And looking at the votes vs last time, there were less people on White Chocolate so at least some folks were looking for a change. Anyway, I stayed in Pro (Milk Chocolate) due to time constraints and x10/x100 potential and managed a 10-6-2 record. Next up should be Spring Fest ‘25 unless they rerun another theme before that or go with a Big Run.

@Ironcore My bad, poor choice of word. Instead of cosmetic (which the combat is) I meant that 60FPS is a personal preference. I prefer 60 on fast action with solid frame times because player input is tied to FPS. But I’m fine with 30 with less demanding games like RPGs like XCX because I’m paying attention to the overall HUD and other things rather than the fight animations. Winning a fight usually does not hinge on frame perfect inputs when activating your Arts since all enemy attacks have startup time that is usually enough to react to. When it comes to traveling, XCX is pretty smooth on foot and flying since the scale of the world’s features are huge, so everything scales slowly. Even on the WiiU the slow, gradual traversal through the world allowed Monolith Soft to blend the geometry and texture loading almost seamlessly, even at 30FPS. The downsides that can destroy the immersion are what I mentioned before with creature and Skell textures and geometry popping-in. Driving around in the Skell’s vehicle mode is a good way to expose these flaws. Again, I hope this is all fixed by running the game on the Switch.

@Ironcore It’s not a hack and slash game, though. 60 would be nice but it’s ultimately cosmetic because combat is more about targeting, activating arts while managing TP, and the QTE’s. Besides, it’s got more technical issues that I’m concerned with yet hopeful they have already been ironed out. Top of the list for me is quicker texture and geometry loading followed by pop-in because even with the optional download packs, the WiiU struggled keeping up the data streaming when fast traveling. That made for a lot of blobby looking Skells and creatures for several seconds, even right next to you, when you loaded back in or traveling quickly along the ground. Both issues should have been fixed by the Switch itself and it’s faster access. Speaking of load times, hopefully the game will be snappier overall with the initial load from start or resuming a save.

It looks like white and milk chocolate’s ink will be slightly nerfed. The white ink is being made slightly darker and the milk choc brown (or orange?) will be slightly lighter compared to original running of this theme, making both easier to see. That’s to say, if the color of the background of the team text in the announcement graphic is anything to go by (which it is).

I voted GC but the WiiU and Wii were a close 2nd and 3rd. The WiiU was because I liked seeing all the Miis running into the plaza after the zoom-out. The GC was short enough, catchy, and the hit at the end made a…point, for lack of better words. Perfect, IMO.

I’m pretty sure Paypal helped get my Paypal account suspended when I used it for JP eShop transactions, so I’ve been on Play-Asia digital codes ever since. So this change has zero effect on me. I also remember my Visa cards not working either, so I thought most foreign cards wouldn’t work. Maybe Amex works, who knows? As for fraudulent charges, as someone who’s worked in retail, ‘scammer’ cards exist that provide a CC number and all the necessary info in order to complete a transaction. One could even use them in fake wallet apps and tap to pay at Point of Sale devices. The catch is it’s not a free ride to go crazy with charges or it’ll flag, so there is usually a daily limit. I don’t know all the details, but I imagine it’s entirely feasible to use them for foreign transactions as well. I wouldn’t put it past the scammers to figure out how.

@Fallingshadow Thunder Fox is this week’s Arcade Archives game. Hopefully, Dead Connection is soon, or maybe next week.

Didn’t get one this time, though I’ll try for the waitlist. Hope everyone that got in enjoys it! I definitely did the first time around.

@tjhiphop @TbobB Gotta take into account there’s an exponentially larger pool of Nintendo accounts that opened up between now and back in late 2016 when the Switch’s first preview lottery happened so don’t feel too bad about not making it.

This is a really good selection. Dead Connection is the game I’m most excited to play, it’s a sprite-based destructible environment extravaganza! I’m a little torn, however, since Arcade Archives Rainbow Islands has the EX version included and Cadash has an on-screen EXP counter, a very useful thing to have when grinding as opposed to waiting for the status screen to pop up. If Dead Connection comes up on Arcade Archives soon, then I may abandon the collection on digital and wait for a sale on physical because I still think this volume deserves a physical pickup from me.

Most classic FPS ports would hugely benefit because that was the control scheme they were made for. Those games that got ported with gyro support have not successfully duplicated Splatoon’s smoothness, in my experience. And for those of us with near 10 years of gyro experience, I’m sure we would not get dominated so easily by Joy-Con 2 Mouse controls. Games like DOOM, classic DOOM, Quake, etc. would work better with mouse, as well as point and click games like Civ. Who knows, with mouse control the Switch2 could open up to more RTSs, RPGs and sims. Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity, Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, etc.

Xain’d Sleena! Is it truly the first instance of mid-air jumping in a game, or is there another game that did it first?

The news probably would have hit better without the leaks. This felt more like an obligation than a true teaser.

Now, I want to see existing games revealed to be “Enhanced for Switch 2” to take advantage of the specs. Games from at least 2 years ago or whenever the internal push started to aim for higher targets happened. Maybe TotK, Splatoon 3, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Princess Peach, Pikmin 4, TTYD, and more along those lines.

I wonder if they’ll do another lottery access event like the original Switch. Getting to see everything up close and every launch or near-launch game had its own station was really cool. They even showed off Splatoon 2’s LAN mode on a station even though the reps couldn’t comment about it. I knew what I was looking at, it was plainly obvious.

@KimBread Sounds like the new area will demand a higher level for entry. Another thought, they may also let us use the Ares 90 skell in the new area instead of being a post-game research build.