@MatthewTaranto Yep, it can be compared to Retro Game Challenge, but consider all of these to be fully-fleshed out games in their own right, that would have been accepted as full games during the era they're supposed to have come out. (I've tended to average about 4-5 hours on each, but some are longer, like a full-blown JRPG). Yes, there is a sense of progression about the collection as the years go on. There's a whole meta layer to the game and company lore, etc. And recurring motifs, sprites, sequels, etc.
There's multiple ways to keep track of what you've beaten. Time spent on each game is tracked, completing a game is tracked, and there are "cherries" for completing extra-difficult challenges, and some hidden mechanics for each game as well that are tracked.
This isn't just a good or even great game - this is one of the single best games I've ever played in my life. It's that amazing. It makes my top 10, along with the likes of Breath of the Wild and Dark Souls. (Yes, it's a collection of 50 games, but I personally like to consider it one big open-world game.)
Wait, wait, I think we need a bit more discussion in another article about the frame rate problems mentioned here. What does it mean that a near-launch, first-party Switch 2 title has noticeably chugging framerate in the more complex areas of the game? We can't already be seeing some of the limitations of this brand-new hardware, can we? I guess we can, but... oof.
with all the various prices coming out, i'm really starting to consider skipping the Switch 2 generation entirely and just saving up for the eventual Steam Deck 2. I want to be on the Nintendo train but not if it literally bankrupts me. I got a Steam Deck at launch, 3 years ago, and have spent very little money on games since then; it's been such a relief to my wallet and I want that to continue.
After learning it's multiplayer PvPvE, my hype is souring. Sad. I want single-player experiences with some light / asynchronous multiplayer elements, not full-on multiplayer experiences.
How mad is Sony about this? They had Bloodborne exclusive, Demon's Souls Remake exclusive, and now From Soft is defecting to Nintendo. on Sony's IP in all but name, no less.
My theory is that it isn't a button, it's a tiny trackpad/touchpad. If the joycons have new mouse functionality, there needs to be a handheld equivalent, right?
As someone who owned and absolutely loved the original game on PC as a kid - man, it's such a bummer that they removed the mood system. That's honestly such a big part of the fun. I even like the tank controls, believe it or not. I think they should have resisted the urge to modernize everything, and stuck as close as possible to the original vision and gameplay, with better visuals. And I say that as someone who is usually cool with drastic changes, but it sounds like they sapped out all the distinctive things that made this such an interesting game.
The first one was super good, so underrated and slept on. Big Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder vibes, but top-down and very puzzle-focused. A more advanced Sokoban, maybe. I got zero Zelda influence from it, but this is a Nintendo site I suppose so that's a ready point of reference here. Anyway, excited for the sequel!
I'll be using it for work music, sure. But what would have really been excellent is if they made perfect looping tracks so that you can listen to any given track infinitely, like you would if you were in-game. Too bad!
It looks pretty great, but I'm surprised by comments saying it looks "authentic". I grew up in the 8-bit era and NO game from back then looked this good! Same can be said for those battle animations. I'd say this style is somewhere in between 8-bit and 16-bit. (Which is perfectly fine; I suspect a game that really was authentic and could be released as an NES ROM wouldn't garner quite the same attention)
The only way to impress me would be successful ports of games that are NOT playable (or playable with bad performance) on the Steam Deck. I'm not entirely sure which games those would be, as I'm not up-to-date and that stuff changes. But last I checked, Returnal, Alan Wake 2, and Last Of Us Remastered were in "playable but struggling a lot" territory. So those would be my picks. There needs to be that "I didn't think this was even POSSIBLE" factor, and that probably means we need to see some optimization wizardry to get PS5-tier games playable on the PS4-level Switch 2, I think.
Breath of the Wild provided a zen atmosphere and less overwhelm and allowed you to simply BE in the world. It was ambient gaming at its finest. TOTK tries to do too much and give you too much to do. Both are fantastic games but BOTW is the masterpiece people will still be raving about 30 years from now.
@BriskSunrise Not interested in winning any arguments! But I'm at least somewhat interested in setting the record straight for a lot of misinformed people who think this is a binding court judgment that emulators are now illegal. We can all disagree about stuff, but let's get the facts right...
@HeadPirate What are you on about? This is a settlement that has ZERO binding precedent. There was no judgment in the case or "jurisprudence" whatsoever. There was zero statement here about illegality. It was a civil case anyway, not criminal. Jeez, people really should get themselves a bit more informed about legal process.
It's a shame. I really think Yuzu had a decent case.
Nintendo did not, and COULD not, claim that Yuzu actually committed any acts of piracy with their software. Nor can they claim that Yuzu included prod.keys or dumped games or anything else with their software. There is nothing in Yuzu, in itself, that is inherently illegal or copyright infringing. At best the legal status of the emulator is "grey area", but not illegal. The best argument Nintendo have is that Yuzu encouraged or indirectly facilitated piracy. But "encouraging" or "indirectly facilitating" piracy is not a viable lawsuit with a cause of action. There is no copyright infringing action there. The best connections they have is that 1) Yuzu linked to some software to dump your own prod.keys from hardware, which they claim amounts to facilitating piracy. THAT software itself is not illegal either, and merely linking to such a grey area software is not equivalent to piracy. 2) Patreon donations doubled while TotK was leaked pre-release. Again, this is not enough to meet the standards of piracy that a lawsuit requires. It is not illegal to run a Patreon and accept donations for your not-illegal emulator. It does not meet the requirements of proving copyright infringement, either.
All in all - Nintendo had nothing here. Their intent was to bully, threaten, extort, and ultimately, settle in their favor. And that's exactly what happened. But don't get it twisted that this proves Yuzu is de facto illegal or that Yuzu's creators were criminally or civilly in the wrong. They weren't, and there was no viable case. Regardless of any moral aspect or anyone's strong personal feelings about piracy, this is a settlement based on an outsized money and power dynamic, nothing more.
@LikelySatan I hate card games, I almost never tried Balatro because of that. but I'm glad I did, because this game is BRILLIANT. GOTY contender is not a joke.
Beating Zelda II as a 6, then 7 year old - with no outside help, aside from tips from Nintendo Power - counts as possibly THE most impressive achievement I've had in all of video gaming. It took me a solid year, but I did it. I freaking did it.
Completely rewritten script that's more accurate to the Japanese text; better heart meter; you can manually save; reduced magic consumption; more common enemy drops; all enemies give XP; rebalanced enemies; persistent life upgrades across runs; and dozens of little QoL upgrades. All while still keeping the original spirit of the game intact. It's a wonderful way to play.
Everything I've been playing this year has this air of "I'm just playing this for a little while, as a break, before I return to my main course, Tears of the Kingdom." Sea of Stars, Super Mario Wonder, and soon Super Mario RPG Remake. I have a feeling I'll still be saying this to myself for a good chunk of 2024.
I know they're not considered 'mainline' per se, but Mario Maker 1 and 2 had both Nintendo-made and community-made levels that completely broke my brain, in the best way. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here... oh... wait a second... I think I.... you want me to carry THAT all the way HERE and then do THAT with it?! Seriously?!"
Maybe I'm a fool for this, but I'm holding out for Metroid Prime 4. My prediction is that it will be $70, and will launch simultaneously for Switch and the next console. I have until May 2024 to use this voucher, and a lot could be up for preorder in that time.
This game simply LOOKS absolutely fantastic. The aesthetics and character overhauls and everything, just pure eye candy. I'm also super intrigued at how they brought the press turn system and all-out attacks into the tactical genre. It looks like this is doing plenty of new things so that it isn't just a simple genre rehash with a Persona skin.
@ozwally anytime I hear about people having compatibility issues, 90% of the time EA is involved somehow. this should properly be thought of as an EA problem, not a Steam Deck problem, imo.
As a Steam Deck owner, this is the first Steam Deck competitor that actually looks interesting, since it has a touchpad included and Lenovo can afford to keep the price competitive.
I think people underestimate the benefits of SteamOS on Steam Deck over a full Windows machine like this, though. SteamOS has:
-instant, rock-solid sleep/suspend mode (enabled by Linux + a custom-built GPU). Windows is really unreliable on this front. ROG Ally users complain about it not working most of the time. Switch and Steam Deck are the only ones that get this perfect.
-pre-cached shaders for games, since everyone using a Steam Deck can make use of the exact same shader caches
-custom fixes for especially popular games (Elden Ring was running better on my Steam Deck than on high-end gaming PCs for a while, because Valve worked with FromSoft on a custom fix)
-very quick bootup, since Linux has far less bloat
-a fast, smooth UI/UX in game mode
-controller "just works", Steam's included controller customization is best in class, and there are Steam Deck templates for every game you could want
-extensive per-game customization settings, that for example allow you to run games at 40hz/40fps, which is my personal sweet spot (feels smooth like 60fps, but less resource-intensive and battery-draining)
-a program like EmuDeck which installs and sets up over a dozen emulators for you in a very easy process
all of these reasons and more make my Steam Deck such a joy to use, and I can't be guaranteed that a Windows handheld will be able to offer them to me. much of this depends greatly on Lenovo's software that will be bundled with the system, which is a huge unknown.
>design an epic narrative full of placeable NPCs and customizable signs with a plethora of dialogue options
>entire quests with multiple biomes, bosses, and side missions
This. Right here. This is the stuff. If I'm reading right, then is worlds away from Super Dungeon Maker, which allows you to only create one dungeon at a time. This will allow you to make an entire proper experience with an overworld, towns, and multiple dungeons.
I've played through some of the first strata in the first game. Having played and absolutely loved each of these when they originally came out, I think this HD collection is amazing. There's not much in the way of QOL improvements, but what's there is a legit gamechanger if you use it wisely. In particular, the ability to switch difficulty levels on the fly, the ability to fast-walk through dungeons, and the ability to autobattle on "very fast" speed are a big improvement on the original EO1. I think the best way to play or replay this game is to play on Expert mode (which was the original difficulty), but anytime you feel the need to grind to progress past some brutally difficult boss or section, move the difficulty down to Picnic and keep autobattling easy-enough enemies on very fast speed until you're in better shape. Then switch back to Expert. Just the ability to avoid these huge walls of difficulty when you want to is a godsend. You're still going to need to exploit every single resource and strategy you have to succeed, I imagine, but this will at least get you out of tedious grinding, of which I remember there being a lot of in EO1.
In future entries, Atlus may want to consider having a straight-up Mod section of the game where you can earn 2x or 4x XP from enemies by toggling a switch. This is an option in the FF Pixel Remasters for Switch and it's great. I would respect the decision to not include a "remove random encounters" mod, because it probably runs the risk of breaking the intended tension and dread of making it back to an inn in one piece.
Advance Wars is the single best strategy/tactics game of all time, in my opinion. This doesn't mess any of the gameplay up, the graphics and music are vibrant and charming (though not quite as charming as the original) and it adds some needed QOL features, so it gets a 9/10 for that alone. It could've gotten a 10/10 if it had true online lobby / matchmaking, but this is still a slam dunk of a game. I hope it gets a lot of sales even though it was released at a rough time - right before TOTK comes out.
I started playing in February (I played about 35 hours when it first came out, but stopped when my first Switch got stolen and I lost my save). I tamed all the Divine Beasts and ended up defeating Ganon more or less by accident, but there's still much to do. I keep a checklist, believe it or not:
-Find all memories (9 of 12)
-Finish exploring Hyrule Castle
-Complete all shrines (74 of 120)
-Get remaining Ancient Lab armor
-Build Tarrey Town
-Get Thunder Helm in Gerudo Town
-Complete Champions Ballad DLC
-Check Hero's Path and visit major unexplored places
-Complete side quests
-Upgrade armor sets you like
-Find 200 koroks total (108 of 200)
-Complete Trial of the Sword gauntlets
For sure I won't complete all of this in a month, but I at least want to get all memories, see the full ending, and complete all shrines at a minimum to consider myself "done".
By the way, for those who want a more manageable Korok goal, 441 seeds is the number it takes to max out all inventory slots. I went with 200 because it's a nice, satisfying, achievable number that puts this more in line with finding Skulltulas in Ocarina.
I would've bought it for $50 at Walmart like I've done in the past for similar titles. If it's going to be $60 or $70, I'll have to look carefully at how well the emulation runs on Steam Deck. (if BOTW is any indication, the answer is that it'll run better than on Switch)
I ended up buying this for my Steam Deck (runs great, and handheld is ideal!) It's great fun and I could easily spend many hours playing dungeons from the community and making my own. It is somewhat barebones - all the Zelda dungeon essentials are there (Link to the Past seems to be the most heavily borrowed from-title, understandably), but it doesn't have the "embarrassment of riches with endless things to try out and be delighted by" feeling of the Mario Makers. I'm particularly disappointed by a lack of variety and amount of enemies. The controls are also not quite as tight and polished as a Zelda game, but that's to be expected given Nintendo has always been the reigning king at that stuff.
It's still "Early Access" though, for what it's worth. My understanding is that the developers are committed to making this title as great as can be, are listening to feedback from the community, and are committing to a roadmap for plentiful updates with added elements, themes, enemies, etc. I'm guessing they would be rewarded for this effort by many more people buying the title over time as cool new things get added.
This is probably pie-in-the-sky considering the current state of things to be improved on, but I would also greatly wish for the ability to have several dungeons strung together into a "world", or even make a huge fully-interconnected world. I understand that adding an overworld editor to the game would probably be too big of an effort for this release, but even if there's just a dungeon selection screen, how cool would it be if you could have your player move freely between 7 different dungeons you've created, all with different themes and challenges, as they gain skills and open up new places to explore gradually? Then you could really make your own interesting 4-5 hour Zelda-like experience.
There's also a certain kind of "dynamic" feeling to creating levels in Mario Maker that means you can make a level, and then be gob-smacked by the results when you play it yourself as different level elements play off each other in surprising ways. But there's not much like that here. They need to have spontaneously dynamic stuff happen in levels. For example, lighting a bat on fire with an arrow that's passed through a torch, and then the bat flapping around fast and lighting other things on fire as chaos breaks out would be cool as hell and give more than just a basic Zelda clone feeling. Or skeleton enemies hurling bones at you, but their bones can trigger switches, extinguish torches, or damage other enemies upon contact. You could set up a cool puzzle-boss fight where the player has to damage the boss by positioning it in the way of bones being thrown. There could be hundreds of little interactions like that. Different level elements need to be combinable and interact with one another for fluid and unexpected gameplay.
This ended up longer than I thought. Gonna paste it into a Steam review so maybe the devs read it, lol.
I'm on World 4 at the moment. Overall I'd give it a 6/10 or a 7/10 if I'm being generous. It's definitely above average (though that's not saying much given the general quality of levels out there), but so far in ~15- levels there's been nothing that gave me a "wow" moment or made me wonder how on earth he managed to pull that off. Which is something I've experienced fairly regularly from my favorite SMM2 designers. These are not courses that could fool you into thinking they were official Nintendo quality. There are plenty of amateurish choices throughout, an overabundance of randomly placed coins and 1ups (I have something like 70 lives already), no real novel or inventive aspects to make individual levels stand out and be memorable, and most importantly, there's no following of the classic Mario/Nintendo design philosophy of Kishōtenketsu (introduce a topic, develop it, give it an unexpected twist, then bring it to a conclusion). I also appreciate that he's not trying to make levels that punish and torture the player, but so far nothing has challenged me even a little bit. The most compelling designs I've seen from others pull off that elusive balance of "challenging but fair" really well, IMO, and I don't see that attempted here. I guess I shouldn't be so harsh, but the "seven years" claim he throws out is pretty overblown and irks me a bit. That's an average of 2 months spent on each level, or nearly a YEAR per world. You could get a PhD in game design in the time it took him to make these 40 levels. There's no way he was working on it consistently for that long, it's just something he's using (undeservedly, imo) to lend some extra credibility and attention to the project. Phew, all that said - these courses are fun enough, I suppose, and it got me to break out SMM2 for the first time in a couple years. This game REALLY pops on the OLED Switch, it turns out
I was really intrigued and excited by this game... until I played the demo. It fails at being a farming sim or fantasy life game, because the ultra-short days make you stressed instead of relaxed and there aren't enough rewards/bonuses/incentives for farming to keep you in a classically addictive gameplay loop; it fails at being a JRPG, because the combat plays out more like a casual mobile RPG with microtransactions; and it fails at being a compelling narrative, because the world and NPCs feel oddly hollow, lifeless, and stiff, and the dialogue and writing is simply not up to the task of engaging you.
It sort of feels like Square-Enix gave a bunch of interns their first full-time jobs and told them to cut their teeth on this project, and gave them very little budget to work with. They seem to be incubating a bunch of these "faux-indie" small scale projects these days. I have no problem with that - Dungeon Encounters is a fantastic little gem. But in this case, it seems like the result was that the 3D engine and art teams knocked it out of the park, but everyone else couldn't get up to the standards of even a mid-tier Steam indie game made by half a dozen people.
Autechre's Confield album came out 1.5 years before Metroid Prime came out, and that album sort of took their whole thing and shot it into the stratosphere of inscrutability and artistic weirdness. The whole album sounds like termites in mulch. I love it. But I could see how Nintendo might have taken a few listens to their most recent work and thought "you know what? This is too crazy, people won't get it, it's not right for a major mainstream game". I don't blame them. Cool to imagine what it would've been like though!
I'm alternating long and short chapters, based on this post I came across:
"The ninja, caveman, and psychic/near future stories were the longest for me and can be somewhat lengthy. The Wild West, Ancient China, and Distant Future are a few hours long. The present day story is literally 6 fights, but it's still pretty good. I found a Reddit post that recommended alternating between a longer chapter and a shorter chapter to keep the pacing even."
@moodycat that's the boat I'm in. I thought XC1 was fantastic, but XC2 held no interest for me on multiple levels. Is there any review that's like "if you loved XC1 but didn't care for XC2, you'll be right at home"?
Also every single big RPG should have a 2-3 hour demo. I will die on this hill
@Sveakungen "Steam Deck is nice but as a handheld it is very flawed in terms of battery duration. Play more modern games at nice settings, volume and brightness and the Steam Deck last an hour or so. Where a Switch Oled would carry on for 5-6 hrs."
It would be impossible to make such a chart for Steam Deck because the configurability is much more vast. But if you run the same game at roughly the same settings, Steam Deck will usually come out ahead of Switch on the battery front. When playing Link's Awakening on the Switch v2 you would get 4 hours 16 minutes. When emulating it on the Deck you would get 5.5-6 hours. In fact, most not-too-demanding, non-AAA games will get you 5.5-6 hours as a general rule of thumb. I get that much for Rogue Legacy 2.
So I'm pretty sure the battery life of the Steam Deck wins out compared to the Switch every time, when doing a head-to-head comparison (same game, same brightness, same wi-fi/airplane mode selection). Steam Deck simply has the option of running games that are way more demanding than Switch games can run, or running games at settings Switch games won't support. And then you'll see a hit to battery, but if Switch ~could~ run at those settings, it would have a similar hit to the battery. So I don't think Switch has any advantage on this front.
I got the Steam Deck in mid-March, and have played it enthusiastically every single day since getting it. I've not had a single play session with my Switch OLED since getting the Steam Deck, because it's just not as compelling. I think that about says it all.
I'm playing Elden Ring and Rogue Legacy 2, then balancing out the hardcore nature of those games with emulations of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. All on the same handheld device. Oh, and it's actually pretty decent as a secondary work computer, and as a music production computer I could use in bed or on the couch. Frankly it's the greatest device I've ever owned in either the PC or console departments.
To be fair, I will give the upper hand to Switch OLED in two departments: 1) way better form factor - Steam Deck is the biggest portable ever made, I think; and 2) the OLED screen is much nicer, with blacker blacks and more vivid colors all around. I'm also going to keep the Switch OLED around instead of selling it, because I've amassed a decent library of eShop games and physical cartridges that I still want to devote some time to. Eventually. Plus my 4 year old is going to need a gaming device soon, and I've already cringed watching him drop the Steam Deck a couple times. That one should probably be for dad only.
It's so abstracted away from the realities of war that this series barely even counts in the genre of war games. It's like delaying a chess game because of real-life war.
Comments 92
Re: UFO 50 Gets A Surprise Shadow Drop On Switch Today
@MatthewTaranto Yep, it can be compared to Retro Game Challenge, but consider all of these to be fully-fleshed out games in their own right, that would have been accepted as full games during the era they're supposed to have come out. (I've tended to average about 4-5 hours on each, but some are longer, like a full-blown JRPG). Yes, there is a sense of progression about the collection as the years go on. There's a whole meta layer to the game and company lore, etc. And recurring motifs, sprites, sequels, etc.
There's multiple ways to keep track of what you've beaten. Time spent on each game is tracked, completing a game is tracked, and there are "cherries" for completing extra-difficult challenges, and some hidden mechanics for each game as well that are tracked.
Re: UFO 50 Gets A Surprise Shadow Drop On Switch Today
This isn't just a good or even great game - this is one of the single best games I've ever played in my life. It's that amazing. It makes my top 10, along with the likes of Breath of the Wild and Dark Souls. (Yes, it's a collection of 50 games, but I personally like to consider it one big open-world game.)
Re: Review: Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2) - Absolutely Smashing, But Can It Beat Mario Odyssey?
Wait, wait, I think we need a bit more discussion in another article about the frame rate problems mentioned here. What does it mean that a near-launch, first-party Switch 2 title has noticeably chugging framerate in the more complex areas of the game? We can't already be seeing some of the limitations of this brand-new hardware, can we? I guess we can, but... oof.
Re: Switch 2 Games Cost A Bit More Than You're Probably Expecting
with all the various prices coming out, i'm really starting to consider skipping the Switch 2 generation entirely and just saving up for the eventual Steam Deck 2. I want to be on the Nintendo train but not if it literally bankrupts me. I got a Steam Deck at launch, 3 years ago, and have spent very little money on games since then; it's been such a relief to my wallet and I want that to continue.
Re: FromSoftware's 'The Duskbloods' Looks Like Bloodborne 2, Coming To Nintendo Switch 2 In 2026
After learning it's multiplayer PvPvE, my hype is souring. Sad. I want single-player experiences with some light / asynchronous multiplayer elements, not full-on multiplayer experiences.
Re: Fromsoftware's The Duskbloods Looks Like Bloodborne 2, Coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026
How mad is Sony about this? They had Bloodborne exclusive, Demon's Souls Remake exclusive, and now From Soft is defecting to Nintendo. on Sony's IP in all but name, no less.
Re: Switch 2's Rumoured 'C' Button Isn't Actually A 'C' Button
The upcoming Legion Go S has a similar tiny touchpad, just saying: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/coming-soon/coming_soon_laptops/legion-go-s/len106g0002
Re: Switch 2's Rumoured 'C' Button Isn't Actually A 'C' Button
My theory is that it isn't a button, it's a tiny trackpad/touchpad. If the joycons have new mouse functionality, there needs to be a handheld equivalent, right?
Re: Review: Little Big Adventure - Twinsen's Quest (Switch) - Charisma & Quirkiness Can't Quite Carry A Cult Classic
As someone who owned and absolutely loved the original game on PC as a kid - man, it's such a bummer that they removed the mood system. That's honestly such a big part of the fun. I even like the tank controls, believe it or not. I think they should have resisted the urge to modernize everything, and stuck as close as possible to the original vision and gameplay, with better visuals. And I say that as someone who is usually cool with drastic changes, but it sounds like they sapped out all the distinctive things that made this such an interesting game.
Re: More Zelda-Like Puzzle Crawling Arrives On Switch This Month In 'Dungeons Of Dreadrock 2'
The first one was super good, so underrated and slept on. Big Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder vibes, but top-down and very puzzle-focused. A more advanced Sokoban, maybe. I got zero Zelda influence from it, but this is a Nintendo site I suppose so that's a ready point of reference here. Anyway, excited for the sequel!
Re: So, Will You Be Listening To The New Mobile App Nintendo Music?
I'll be using it for work music, sure. But what would have really been excellent is if they made perfect looping tracks so that you can listen to any given track infinitely, like you would if you were in-game. Too bad!
Re: The First Review For The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Is In
UFO 50 is a shoe-in for my GOTY. I don't see how anything can top that. Hopefully it comes to Switch / Switch 2 soon enough...
Re: The First Review For The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Is In
You might want to check that Ryokutya2089 link again. It appears to show a 10/9/9/8 critic split and a 36/40 score, not a 35/40 score.
Re: '8-Bit Adventures 2' Looks Like A Solid Throwback To Old-School Final Fantasy
It looks pretty great, but I'm surprised by comments saying it looks "authentic". I grew up in the 8-bit era and NO game from back then looked this good! Same can be said for those battle animations. I'd say this style is somewhere in between 8-bit and 16-bit. (Which is perfectly fine; I suspect a game that really was authentic and could be released as an NES ROM wouldn't garner quite the same attention)
Re: Talking Point: What Game Should Be 'Switch 2's 'Skyrim Moment'?
The only way to impress me would be successful ports of games that are NOT playable (or playable with bad performance) on the Steam Deck. I'm not entirely sure which games those would be, as I'm not up-to-date and that stuff changes. But last I checked, Returnal, Alan Wake 2, and Last Of Us Remastered were in "playable but struggling a lot" territory. So those would be my picks. There needs to be that "I didn't think this was even POSSIBLE" factor, and that probably means we need to see some optimization wizardry to get PS5-tier games playable on the PS4-level Switch 2, I think.
Re: Review: Animal Well (Switch) - An Exceptional Metroidvania That Stands Out From The Pack
All this, and somehow the game manages to be under 40mb in size. Bravo.
Re: Soapbox: Are We Ready For A 3D Super Mario Maker?
I'm pretty meh on this idea, but I'll tell you what my dream maker would be - a Soulslike Construction Kit.
Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?
Breath of the Wild provided a zen atmosphere and less overwhelm and allowed you to simply BE in the world. It was ambient gaming at its finest. TOTK tries to do too much and give you too much to do. Both are fantastic games but BOTW is the masterpiece people will still be raving about 30 years from now.
Re: The First Review For Princess Peach: Showtime! Is In
Ouch. This is pretty low for Famitsu.
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's Game Boy & GBC Library With Three More Mario Titles
Both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the GBC are sports RPGs from Camelot, the studio that made Golden Sun. Don't sleep on them!
Re: Switch Emulator Yuzu To Pay $2.4 Million To Nintendo & Cease Development
@BriskSunrise Not interested in winning any arguments! But I'm at least somewhat interested in setting the record straight for a lot of misinformed people who think this is a binding court judgment that emulators are now illegal. We can all disagree about stuff, but let's get the facts right...
Re: Switch Emulator Yuzu To Pay $2.4 Million To Nintendo & Cease Development
@HeadPirate I'm not an armchair lawyer, I'm literally a lawyer. But go off I guess...
Re: Switch Emulator Yuzu To Pay $2.4 Million To Nintendo & Cease Development
@HeadPirate What are you on about? This is a settlement that has ZERO binding precedent. There was no judgment in the case or "jurisprudence" whatsoever. There was zero statement here about illegality. It was a civil case anyway, not criminal. Jeez, people really should get themselves a bit more informed about legal process.
Re: Switch Emulator Yuzu To Pay $2.4 Million To Nintendo & Cease Development
It's a shame. I really think Yuzu had a decent case.
Nintendo did not, and COULD not, claim that Yuzu actually committed any acts of piracy with their software. Nor can they claim that Yuzu included prod.keys or dumped games or anything else with their software. There is nothing in Yuzu, in itself, that is inherently illegal or copyright infringing. At best the legal status of the emulator is "grey area", but not illegal. The best argument Nintendo have is that Yuzu encouraged or indirectly facilitated piracy. But "encouraging" or "indirectly facilitating" piracy is not a viable lawsuit with a cause of action. There is no copyright infringing action there. The best connections they have is that 1) Yuzu linked to some software to dump your own prod.keys from hardware, which they claim amounts to facilitating piracy. THAT software itself is not illegal either, and merely linking to such a grey area software is not equivalent to piracy. 2) Patreon donations doubled while TotK was leaked pre-release. Again, this is not enough to meet the standards of piracy that a lawsuit requires. It is not illegal to run a Patreon and accept donations for your not-illegal emulator. It does not meet the requirements of proving copyright infringement, either.
All in all - Nintendo had nothing here. Their intent was to bully, threaten, extort, and ultimately, settle in their favor. And that's exactly what happened. But don't get it twisted that this proves Yuzu is de facto illegal or that Yuzu's creators were criminally or civilly in the wrong. They weren't, and there was no viable case. Regardless of any moral aspect or anyone's strong personal feelings about piracy, this is a settlement based on an outsized money and power dynamic, nothing more.
Re: Review: Balatro (Switch) - Devilishly Compelling Cardplay, And A Clear GOTY Contender
@LikelySatan I hate card games, I almost never tried Balatro because of that. but I'm glad I did, because this game is BRILLIANT. GOTY contender is not a joke.
Re: Anniversary: Zelda II And Castlevania II Both Turn 35 This Month
Beating Zelda II as a 6, then 7 year old - with no outside help, aside from tips from Nintendo Power - counts as possibly THE most impressive achievement I've had in all of video gaming. It took me a solid year, but I did it. I freaking did it.
If you're thinking about tackling this beast of a game today, I would recommend looking into Zelda 2 Redux: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5440/
Completely rewritten script that's more accurate to the Japanese text; better heart meter; you can manually save; reduced magic consumption; more common enemy drops; all enemies give XP; rebalanced enemies; persistent life upgrades across runs; and dozens of little QoL upgrades. All while still keeping the original spirit of the game intact. It's a wonderful way to play.
Re: Soapbox: Six Months Later, Tears Of The Kingdom's Sense Of Wonder Is Still Unmatched
Everything I've been playing this year has this air of "I'm just playing this for a little while, as a break, before I return to my main course, Tears of the Kingdom." Sea of Stars, Super Mario Wonder, and soon Super Mario RPG Remake. I have a feeling I'll still be saying this to myself for a good chunk of 2024.
Re: Talking Point: What's The Most Difficult Mainline Mario Game?
I know they're not considered 'mainline' per se, but Mario Maker 1 and 2 had both Nintendo-made and community-made levels that completely broke my brain, in the best way. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here... oh... wait a second... I think I.... you want me to carry THAT all the way HERE and then do THAT with it?! Seriously?!"
Re: Nintendo Adds Multiple New Games To Its Switch Voucher Program (North America)
Maybe I'm a fool for this, but I'm holding out for Metroid Prime 4. My prediction is that it will be $70, and will launch simultaneously for Switch and the next console. I have until May 2024 to use this voucher, and a lot could be up for preorder in that time.
Re: Video: We've Played Persona 5 Tactica - Is It Any Good?
This game simply LOOKS absolutely fantastic. The aesthetics and character overhauls and everything, just pure eye candy. I'm also super intrigued at how they brought the press turn system and all-out attacks into the tactical genre. It looks like this is doing plenty of new things so that it isn't just a simple genre rehash with a Persona skin.
Re: Hands On: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 Could Be So Much More, But Isn't
What a shame. 30 fps is fine, but if I can get better, then I will, so I'll be playing this on Steam Deck instead.
Re: Surprise Surprise, Lenovo's Leaked Handheld Looks Like A Switch
@ozwally anytime I hear about people having compatibility issues, 90% of the time EA is involved somehow. this should properly be thought of as an EA problem, not a Steam Deck problem, imo.
Re: Surprise Surprise, Lenovo's Leaked Handheld Looks Like A Switch
As a Steam Deck owner, this is the first Steam Deck competitor that actually looks interesting, since it has a touchpad included and Lenovo can afford to keep the price competitive.
I think people underestimate the benefits of SteamOS on Steam Deck over a full Windows machine like this, though. SteamOS has:
-instant, rock-solid sleep/suspend mode (enabled by Linux + a custom-built GPU). Windows is really unreliable on this front. ROG Ally users complain about it not working most of the time. Switch and Steam Deck are the only ones that get this perfect.
-pre-cached shaders for games, since everyone using a Steam Deck can make use of the exact same shader caches
-custom fixes for especially popular games (Elden Ring was running better on my Steam Deck than on high-end gaming PCs for a while, because Valve worked with FromSoft on a custom fix)
-very quick bootup, since Linux has far less bloat
-a fast, smooth UI/UX in game mode
-controller "just works", Steam's included controller customization is best in class, and there are Steam Deck templates for every game you could want
-extensive per-game customization settings, that for example allow you to run games at 40hz/40fps, which is my personal sweet spot (feels smooth like 60fps, but less resource-intensive and battery-draining)
-a program like EmuDeck which installs and sets up over a dozen emulators for you in a very easy process
all of these reasons and more make my Steam Deck such a joy to use, and I can't be guaranteed that a Windows handheld will be able to offer them to me. much of this depends greatly on Lenovo's software that will be bundled with the system, which is a huge unknown.
Re: Talking Point: After Three Months, What's Your Zelda: TOTK Completion Percentage?
I'm fascinated that 10% of people have beaten the game but are only at 0-9% completion. I didn't think that's even possible...
Re: Quest Master Is The Pixel Art 'Zelda Maker' We've Been Dreaming Of
>overworld-connected quests
>design an epic narrative full of placeable NPCs and customizable signs with a plethora of dialogue options
>entire quests with multiple biomes, bosses, and side missions
This. Right here. This is the stuff. If I'm reading right, then is worlds away from Super Dungeon Maker, which allows you to only create one dungeon at a time. This will allow you to make an entire proper experience with an overworld, towns, and multiple dungeons.
Re: Atlus Listening To Etrian Odyssey Fan Feedback For Future Entries
I've played through some of the first strata in the first game. Having played and absolutely loved each of these when they originally came out, I think this HD collection is amazing. There's not much in the way of QOL improvements, but what's there is a legit gamechanger if you use it wisely. In particular, the ability to switch difficulty levels on the fly, the ability to fast-walk through dungeons, and the ability to autobattle on "very fast" speed are a big improvement on the original EO1. I think the best way to play or replay this game is to play on Expert mode (which was the original difficulty), but anytime you feel the need to grind to progress past some brutally difficult boss or section, move the difficulty down to Picnic and keep autobattling easy-enough enemies on very fast speed until you're in better shape. Then switch back to Expert. Just the ability to avoid these huge walls of difficulty when you want to is a godsend. You're still going to need to exploit every single resource and strategy you have to succeed, I imagine, but this will at least get you out of tedious grinding, of which I remember there being a lot of in EO1.
In future entries, Atlus may want to consider having a straight-up Mod section of the game where you can earn 2x or 4x XP from enemies by toggling a switch. This is an option in the FF Pixel Remasters for Switch and it's great. I would respect the decision to not include a "remove random encounters" mod, because it probably runs the risk of breaking the intended tension and dread of making it back to an inn in one piece.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp?
Advance Wars is the single best strategy/tactics game of all time, in my opinion. This doesn't mess any of the gameplay up, the graphics and music are vibrant and charming (though not quite as charming as the original) and it adds some needed QOL features, so it gets a 9/10 for that alone. It could've gotten a 10/10 if it had true online lobby / matchmaking, but this is still a slam dunk of a game. I hope it gets a lot of sales even though it was released at a rough time - right before TOTK comes out.
Re: Talking Point: With One Month 'Til TOTK, What's Left For You To Do In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild?
I started playing in February (I played about 35 hours when it first came out, but stopped when my first Switch got stolen and I lost my save). I tamed all the Divine Beasts and ended up defeating Ganon more or less by accident, but there's still much to do. I keep a checklist, believe it or not:
-Find all memories (9 of 12)
-Finish exploring Hyrule Castle
-Complete all shrines (74 of 120)
-Get remaining Ancient Lab armor
-Build Tarrey Town
-Get Thunder Helm in Gerudo Town
-Complete Champions Ballad DLC
-Check Hero's Path and visit major unexplored places
-Complete side quests
-Upgrade armor sets you like
-Find 200 koroks total (108 of 200)
-Complete Trial of the Sword gauntlets
For sure I won't complete all of this in a month, but I at least want to get all memories, see the full ending, and complete all shrines at a minimum to consider myself "done".
By the way, for those who want a more manageable Korok goal, 441 seeds is the number it takes to max out all inventory slots. I went with 200 because it's a nice, satisfying, achievable number that puts this more in line with finding Skulltulas in Ocarina.
Re: Poll: Would You Pay $70 For The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?
I would've bought it for $50 at Walmart like I've done in the past for similar titles. If it's going to be $60 or $70, I'll have to look carefully at how well the emulation runs on Steam Deck. (if BOTW is any indication, the answer is that it'll run better than on Switch)
Re: We're Not Getting A Zelda Maker, So Super Dungeon Maker Will Have To Do
I ended up buying this for my Steam Deck (runs great, and handheld is ideal!) It's great fun and I could easily spend many hours playing dungeons from the community and making my own. It is somewhat barebones - all the Zelda dungeon essentials are there (Link to the Past seems to be the most heavily borrowed from-title, understandably), but it doesn't have the "embarrassment of riches with endless things to try out and be delighted by" feeling of the Mario Makers. I'm particularly disappointed by a lack of variety and amount of enemies. The controls are also not quite as tight and polished as a Zelda game, but that's to be expected given Nintendo has always been the reigning king at that stuff.
It's still "Early Access" though, for what it's worth. My understanding is that the developers are committed to making this title as great as can be, are listening to feedback from the community, and are committing to a roadmap for plentiful updates with added elements, themes, enemies, etc. I'm guessing they would be rewarded for this effort by many more people buying the title over time as cool new things get added.
This is probably pie-in-the-sky considering the current state of things to be improved on, but I would also greatly wish for the ability to have several dungeons strung together into a "world", or even make a huge fully-interconnected world. I understand that adding an overworld editor to the game would probably be too big of an effort for this release, but even if there's just a dungeon selection screen, how cool would it be if you could have your player move freely between 7 different dungeons you've created, all with different themes and challenges, as they gain skills and open up new places to explore gradually? Then you could really make your own interesting 4-5 hour Zelda-like experience.
There's also a certain kind of "dynamic" feeling to creating levels in Mario Maker that means you can make a level, and then be gob-smacked by the results when you play it yourself as different level elements play off each other in surprising ways. But there's not much like that here. They need to have spontaneously dynamic stuff happen in levels. For example, lighting a bat on fire with an arrow that's passed through a torch, and then the bat flapping around fast and lighting other things on fire as chaos breaks out would be cool as hell and give more than just a basic Zelda clone feeling. Or skeleton enemies hurling bones at you, but their bones can trigger switches, extinguish torches, or damage other enemies upon contact. You could set up a cool puzzle-boss fight where the player has to damage the boss by positioning it in the way of bones being thrown. There could be hundreds of little interactions like that. Different level elements need to be combinable and interact with one another for fluid and unexpected gameplay.
This ended up longer than I thought. Gonna paste it into a Steam review so maybe the devs read it, lol.
Re: We're Not Getting A Zelda Maker, So Super Dungeon Maker Will Have To Do
(whispering to any indie devs who might be reading this) metroidvania maker
Re: Here Are The Top Five Persona 5 Royal Music Tracks According To Atlus
"Ideal and the Real" is 100% my *****. City pop you can luxuriate in.
Re: Random: This Super Mario Maker 2 Fan Spent Seven Years Crafting 'Super Mario Bros. 5'
I'm on World 4 at the moment. Overall I'd give it a 6/10 or a 7/10 if I'm being generous. It's definitely above average (though that's not saying much given the general quality of levels out there), but so far in ~15- levels there's been nothing that gave me a "wow" moment or made me wonder how on earth he managed to pull that off. Which is something I've experienced fairly regularly from my favorite SMM2 designers. These are not courses that could fool you into thinking they were official Nintendo quality. There are plenty of amateurish choices throughout, an overabundance of randomly placed coins and 1ups (I have something like 70 lives already), no real novel or inventive aspects to make individual levels stand out and be memorable, and most importantly, there's no following of the classic Mario/Nintendo design philosophy of Kishōtenketsu (introduce a topic, develop it, give it an unexpected twist, then bring it to a conclusion). I also appreciate that he's not trying to make levels that punish and torture the player, but so far nothing has challenged me even a little bit. The most compelling designs I've seen from others pull off that elusive balance of "challenging but fair" really well, IMO, and I don't see that attempted here. I guess I shouldn't be so harsh, but the "seven years" claim he throws out is pretty overblown and irks me a bit. That's an average of 2 months spent on each level, or nearly a YEAR per world. You could get a PhD in game design in the time it took him to make these 40 levels. There's no way he was working on it consistently for that long, it's just something he's using (undeservedly, imo) to lend some extra credibility and attention to the project. Phew, all that said - these courses are fun enough, I suppose, and it got me to break out SMM2 for the first time in a couple years. This game REALLY pops on the OLED Switch, it turns out
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Think Of The Harvestella Demo?
I was really intrigued and excited by this game... until I played the demo. It fails at being a farming sim or fantasy life game, because the ultra-short days make you stressed instead of relaxed and there aren't enough rewards/bonuses/incentives for farming to keep you in a classically addictive gameplay loop; it fails at being a JRPG, because the combat plays out more like a casual mobile RPG with microtransactions; and it fails at being a compelling narrative, because the world and NPCs feel oddly hollow, lifeless, and stiff, and the dialogue and writing is simply not up to the task of engaging you.
It sort of feels like Square-Enix gave a bunch of interns their first full-time jobs and told them to cut their teeth on this project, and gave them very little budget to work with. They seem to be incubating a bunch of these "faux-indie" small scale projects these days. I have no problem with that - Dungeon Encounters is a fantastic little gem. But in this case, it seems like the result was that the 3D engine and art teams knocked it out of the park, but everyone else couldn't get up to the standards of even a mid-tier Steam indie game made by half a dozen people.
Re: Electronic Duo Autechre Say It Almost Got To Do Metroid Prime's Soundtrack
Autechre's Confield album came out 1.5 years before Metroid Prime came out, and that album sort of took their whole thing and shot it into the stratosphere of inscrutability and artistic weirdness. The whole album sounds like termites in mulch. I love it. But I could see how Nintendo might have taken a few listens to their most recent work and thought "you know what? This is too crazy, people won't get it, it's not right for a major mainstream game". I don't blame them. Cool to imagine what it would've been like though!
Re: Poll: What Order Should You Play Live A Live In? And Does It Even Matter?
I'm alternating long and short chapters, based on this post I came across:
"The ninja, caveman, and psychic/near future stories were the longest for me and can be somewhat lengthy. The Wild West, Ancient China, and Distant Future are a few hours long. The present day story is literally 6 fights, but it's still pretty good. I found a Reddit post that recommended alternating between a longer chapter and a shorter chapter to keep the pacing even."
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Xenoblade Chronicles 3
@moodycat that's the boat I'm in. I thought XC1 was fantastic, but XC2 held no interest for me on multiple levels. Is there any review that's like "if you loved XC1 but didn't care for XC2, you'll be right at home"?
Also every single big RPG should have a 2-3 hour demo. I will die on this hill
Re: Feature: Handheld Face-Off - Nintendo Switch OLED Model Vs Steam Deck
@Sveakungen "Steam Deck is nice but as a handheld it is very flawed in terms of battery duration. Play more modern games at nice settings, volume and brightness and the Steam Deck last an hour or so. Where a Switch Oled would carry on for 5-6 hrs."
It's so weird for me to read comments like these because I feel like the battery life thing is being misunderstood by most. You can see a chart of battery life based on game, brightness, and wi-fi for Switch v2 (no OLED, but should be about the same) here: https://reviews2go.com/2019/08/13/nintendo-switch-v2-battery-revision-battery-life-chart/
It would be impossible to make such a chart for Steam Deck because the configurability is much more vast. But if you run the same game at roughly the same settings, Steam Deck will usually come out ahead of Switch on the battery front. When playing Link's Awakening on the Switch v2 you would get 4 hours 16 minutes. When emulating it on the Deck you would get 5.5-6 hours. In fact, most not-too-demanding, non-AAA games will get you 5.5-6 hours as a general rule of thumb. I get that much for Rogue Legacy 2.
So I'm pretty sure the battery life of the Steam Deck wins out compared to the Switch every time, when doing a head-to-head comparison (same game, same brightness, same wi-fi/airplane mode selection). Steam Deck simply has the option of running games that are way more demanding than Switch games can run, or running games at settings Switch games won't support. And then you'll see a hit to battery, but if Switch ~could~ run at those settings, it would have a similar hit to the battery. So I don't think Switch has any advantage on this front.
Re: Feature: Handheld Face-Off - Nintendo Switch OLED Model Vs Steam Deck
I got the Steam Deck in mid-March, and have played it enthusiastically every single day since getting it. I've not had a single play session with my Switch OLED since getting the Steam Deck, because it's just not as compelling. I think that about says it all.
I'm playing Elden Ring and Rogue Legacy 2, then balancing out the hardcore nature of those games with emulations of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. All on the same handheld device. Oh, and it's actually pretty decent as a secondary work computer, and as a music production computer I could use in bed or on the couch. Frankly it's the greatest device I've ever owned in either the PC or console departments.
To be fair, I will give the upper hand to Switch OLED in two departments: 1) way better form factor - Steam Deck is the biggest portable ever made, I think; and 2) the OLED screen is much nicer, with blacker blacks and more vivid colors all around. I'm also going to keep the Switch OLED around instead of selling it, because I've amassed a decent library of eShop games and physical cartridges that I still want to devote some time to. Eventually. Plus my 4 year old is going to need a gaming device soon, and I've already cringed watching him drop the Steam Deck a couple times. That one should probably be for dad only.
Re: Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp Delayed "In Light Of Recent World Events"
It's so abstracted away from the realities of war that this series barely even counts in the genre of war games. It's like delaying a chess game because of real-life war.