nhSnork

So it's not just Minsk weather going back to February these days.😆 Well, more MP4 news feels like a borderline given, but this is also my routine excuse to gear up for announcements like FFXIII collection, Dishonored and westbound Nosurge, first party stuff like Project X Zone 3, Jugdral remakes and Galaxy 2, release dates like Genshin Impact, TDU Solar Crown and Resistor (unless the latter is kept for the next Indie World)... while feeding my wishlist with whatever does show up like Wreck-It Ralph fed the bunny. @Pipulitoch just summarized it well, but of course we also have a fair share of folks ready to bid Switch itself adieu after having long beaten all the five games they ever bought it for. To each their own.😆

At some point, it makes sense to stop mocking new games about "copying the homework" of a massively influential predecessor, and almost 33 years since SMK release sounds like a fairly good time, does it not? Same goes for Smash.

These would definitely be tasty offers if Amazon shipped electronics here. Best I've found locally to date is ~320 BYN (circa $100-120, I don't remember the exact rate back then) for 1 Tb which went on to replace my 512 Gb (the latter eventually ending up in my Deck); by now even these go for tangibly more, so only time will tell what I may have to settle for on NS2. Which may factor into the time of console investment itself since I would ideally prefer to get one together with some external storage - I have a lot of benched Switch backlog to finally house therein.😆

I hoped for as much since Abyss was announced to be an expanding crossover title. The more such folks from other Ateliers and Gust properties in general, the higher the game may well float up the chain of my Switch investment priorities.

As for Yumia itself "really struggling on the Switch hardware", it has predictably proven to be the umpteenth Switch myth on mine, in docked and handheld sessions alike. The game won't even slow down or stutter amidst the hullabaloo of its vaguely Xenoblade-ish party combat to date - hallelujah or what?😮😏

@JohnnyMind Warriors All-Stars (which had a Japan-locked Vita port but somehow has yet to land on Switch) already featured Sophie, so this feels almost overdue. I'm actually surprised there haven't been a full-blown Atelier Warriors yet (after all, the generally slice-of-life series hasn't been above tapping into more traditional JRPG epic tropes even in flagship arcs like Iris and Mana Khemia), but perhaps Yumia might tip the scale in this regard.

crickets chirping

Pretty lazy even by the "leaker" standards since the first months of a year almost always see a Direct and February being limited to the Pokemon gig only increases the odds. Close proximity to next week's Gen 10 event makes this week a less likely candidate, but it may all boil down to the ratio of cross-gen announcements in the latter - and then again, even unveiling Fire Emblem Warriors at the Switch presentation didn't stop Nintendo from running a dedicated franchise showcase five days later, so go figure. As with all these things, time will tell. Rumours and "leaks" won't.

With most JRPGs topping western charts based on a glorious handful of familiar title keywords, XCX's silver debut here looks immense as it is. The multiplat Yumia being nowhere in the top 40 at launch is a sadder sight here but something tells me Gust and Koeimo weren't exactly holding their breath about UK market.

Indeed, chances are I'll be spending most of this weekend's allocated time on Mira and in Aladiss, idly wondering if it's just the concurrent releases and playthroughs or these two wondrous games really feel like they have a few things in common besides the genre. If something else elbows in, it might well be more of their respective series alongside a chance of RE0 (with RE2R wrapped up last weekend, that franchise binge is fully back on Switch for the visible future, at least in regards to flagships and Revelations 2), Wreckfest, Carto, PowerWash, RF3/RF5, BotW/Echoes or Mudrunner. And perhaps other playthroughs from Wolfenstein New Order, Gravity Rush and Death Stranding to Eternia, Fantasy Life and Unwound Future? Alas, the latter recently bumped up its crash/freeze ratio with added oddities like failing to display most of the trunk menu; Google doesn't yield any mentions of related anti-piracy tricks, so it may boil down to needing the whole card formatted before I can resume my progress reliably. But then again, this is still a whole bunch of ifs surrounding one guaranteed pair of Switch-facilitated journeys. Come Monday, my sleep-denied brain might only remember something about Yumia needing a bigger gun.

@larryisaman a huge library here but I personally lack interest in such updates, whether paid or free. Might still absentmindedly download them in the latter case, but if they prove to noticeably bloat the original filesize, how about no.

IIRC task assignment has been part of the series since RF1 but limited to the tamed bipedal monsters in the latter. The local townsfolk here will most likely not work for grass.😄

Thanks for the interview! GoA really can't come soon enough. To think this generation would boast TWO years bundling a new Xenoblade release with a new Rune Factory one. Or even three since RF4S only hit the west in 2020. What a time to be alive.

"so I hope everyone tries it out to see if they can get through it"

I had to read the list twice.😳 And none of these even hitting Japan exclusively? One of the most appreciably insane updates in the whole CGC history to date.

We already have the third entry - with more content that's included out the box. I've seen none of the Reload footage that wouldn't be expected to run on Switch either, but so far I frankly feel no more motivation to indulge it anywhere than, say, in regards to the recent polygonal reimagining of Sword of the Necromancer. And I'm not sure where to root any pining for a hypothetical P4 remake either, especially since Golden is already reported to have overhauled some parts of the original game and story. I'd rather have Metaphor Re:Fantasio or a Persona 2 bundle including the rebuilt Eternal Punishment that ironically skipped west on PSP. Or heck, maybe even remake both games into one grand package if remakes are so hot right now.

"Heck, the Biden presidential campaign even opened an island of its own in 2020!"

Huh, that's neat to kno-

...

...waaaaaaait a minute. Did the Harris campaign ever open an ACNH island of their own last year?😳🤔

@solarwolf07 the basic release order for the flagship trilogy is recommended but not obligatory as the bulk of each game can be enjoyed even without the context of the others. Xenoblade X is a side game taking place in a whole different setting, so it can likewise be played anytime, although in terms of release order and series evolution it falls between XC1 and XC2.

Don't shoot the messenger, but everyone wishing for this game's designs and artstyle sticking around for subsequent entries seems to forget that those already didn't - Saito-helmed XC2 and XC3 have happened AFTER. Granted, Takahashi did mention wanting to shake the music and visuals up yet again for XC4, so that and the hypothetical odds of a separate X followup are your best bet.

@Joeynator3000 the game has new story content overall, and the trailer bits showcasing it prior have been claimed to feature some scenery not seen in the original game indeed. But again, unlike with FC, FR and Torna, it's all built into the base game and will likely take a good while to reach.

Continuous hair somatosensory functions sure sound like a worthy challenger against next gen's legendary joy-mice. There's life in the old dog yet!

The Direct will be fine. TotK itself had the misfortune of coming out simultaneously with Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 and still did okay in the long run.

That goes without saying, but of course, a dev's own legit interest in a subject of western tastes is a different matter. Otherwise entire genres like JRPGs might have never happened.

After years of the announcement being around the corner, it's the release date's turn.

"Prime 4 won't benefit from that and I fear it will be perceived as a lesser product if its relegated to eight-year-old hardware"

If Metroid is relatively niche in comparison to something like Pokemon, shouldn't its target audience already be above looking down on things like hardware age? The latter kind of mentality is understandable among somebody not significantly older than Switch itself. There will always seem to be a contingent that never quite grew out of it, but whether their wallets are worth chasing in any fiction medium is a topic for another debate entirely.

I'd only expect it to get significant coverage in something NS2-themed if it were cross-gen like BotW in a similar situation years ago. Except the new system's backward compatibility makes the long-in-development cross-gens that much more redundant in the first place.

@StewdaMegaManNerd unless it's another Peach or even Daisy/Rosalina entry of Odyssey proportions... shrug

Well, with XCX and Yumia finally on my Swi- oh snap, these are still just preload icons until next weekend? Back to the usual, then - other Xenoblades and other Ateliers, other franchise binges/replays from Rune Factory and Persona to Tales and Final Fantasy, other standalone plans like RE0 (following the finished RE3R and likely accompanied by drawing closer to the end of the second route in RE2R), Little Noah, Carto, Baten Kaitos, Kitaria Fables, Ocean's Heart and Touhou Genso Wanderer, stuff on other platforms from Death Stranding, Payback and Wolfenstein New Order to Endless Frontier, Valentia and Monster Monpiece... yeah, with luck, all of these may tide me over.👀😄

Unless I've overheard wrong, doesn't the new content require a standard playthrough unlike the flagship expansions accessed from title screens? Spoilers would suggest someone either speedrunning their copy in a couple days or dumping and vivisecting it at once for the holy grail of momentary internet clout. No matter what spoilers I may run into (and the proverbial XC1 one back in Smash Bros only sparked my interest tenfold), folks like these will deserve most pity in context.

Considering the fandom's definition of "unplayable", "ideal" and "just about acceptable" Switch performance, I can look forward to a quality experience next week. Bloodstained, Xenoblade 2, Rune Factory 5, The Outer Worlds, Hogwarts Legacy - so many games have been supposed to melt my eyes out over the years... and yet the only noticeable framedrops I've ever encountered on the platform were confined to some of the wackier loadout runs in Isaac, a top-down indie roguelite. Even the screenshots above do little to corroborate the allegations that accompany them - but by all means, let's continue pretending that games like this require the "stronger hardware" (whose strength, with the exception of SSD-tackled loading times, has been widely but not unpredictably wasted on frixel bloat for five years).😏

As for distancing oneself from cozy vibe hallmarks... the Iris trilogy would like a word. There's long proven room for more than one recipe (no pun intended) within this franchise.

@Solid_Python people with no backlogs need Switch 2 ASAP. I need it sometime down the road and primarily for the stuff the respective devs themselves [will] have ruled out for Switch itself, be it stuff like Starbound and OG FFXV or this gen's "cloud versions" like Kingdom Hearts or Dying Light 2. Nothing I've seen about Yumia so far suggests a dire need for spec bloat for spec bloat's sake. And I have a suspicion that NS2's actual "character sheet", while naturally above its predecessor's, will have many a fan nintendoom all over the place again on April 2.😆

@Owozifa SMD Lost World came out in September 1997 and is easily one of the best and most spectacular games on the platform.

XC3 may be the current peak, but at the end of the day, the only fitting answer here is "yes". It's that kind and tier of franchise. As the @Mirastrix comment can attest, by now it's even prominent enough to have its own "genwunners"!😄

@Whirlwound so basically 3, as at least some Consuls would grimly argue.😼

@fodohollow wildly low, yes - Xenosaga 2 could raise itself to a 9 on cutscene music alone.😎

Given all the recent collabs, you'd think this would be a better time to try and negotiate a Lego game by Nintendo instead.

Oh man, Uncontrollable only sounding in top 10? I'm very lucky to hit top 30 these days. But seriously, great news. Wonder if they will ever complete the set with a Xenoblade 2 theme, though (unless the latter went right over my head in the past).

@sanderev on a handheld console, indeed. On a hybrid console famous for offering plentiful (if not omnipresent) couch multiplayer out the box for the first time in many years? Well...😏

Guns, Gore & Cannoli finished, Little Noah almost wrapped up as well (I plan to max out lilliputs/repairs and maybe look into a few remaining achievements but definitely don't see myself touching the 1HKO modes anytime soon - doing Tainted Lost's hard sheet in Isaac was more than enough), Xenoblade X and Yumia successfully preordered and beckoning... but both beckoning from almost a fortnight away. Oh well, there's always the rest of the bottomless hybrid backlog including their respective franchises and even still featuring a fresh dose of Monolith Soft in the form of Baten Kaitos pack. The latter and Kingdom Come Deliverance are the only latest library additions to board Switch storage for now, so the rest of the weekend menu on the console will be dominated by familiar titles like 8Doors, Fuga, Carto, Haven, NMS, Rune Factories, Tales, Bioshock 2, Theatrhythm and perhaps RE0 in a potential combo with RE3R on PS4 and RE2R on the laptop. Add a few more handheld prospects like Death Stranding, Neptunia and Strange Journey on top... "it's not much but it's honest fun", to paraphrase a meme. Okay, not much by my usual Saturday to-play list standards, but still.😅

@Ryu_Niiyama well, Switch has always had plentiful other "killer apps" from and besides Nintendo, and I expect that to continue next gen, so Monster Hunter may likely need NS2 more than vice versa. As for personal resonance, I remain much fonder of inspired followers like God Eater, Toukiden or Freedom Wars, but Rise's character mobility, gyro-aided firearms and spectacular spacious locations to explore for materials/collectibles have seen me put actual hours in it, too. And from what I've read, awaiting further down the playthrough are even Sunbreak's "follower quests" letting you team up with human (and wyverian!) NPCs which was one of the aspects that sold me on the aforementioned God Eater.

Nintendoomed, amirite?🚬😎

@UltimateOtaku91 Deck is a Linux PC dealing with games textured and most generally "optimized" for Windows desktops. How dedicated consoles and dedicated porting efforts differ in this regard has been illustrated by many a Switch port at this point.

@Ryu_Niiyama Switch got two massive MHs as it is, but I reckon there are good odds of Capcom cooking something special for NS2 as well, especially after they never bothered to revisit World for the hybrid.

The design sure might take getting used to, but a mobile giant like Samsung releasing a handheld machine with sticks and buttons in 2025 is noteworthy in itself.

"No great games" in the year Echoes of Wisdom came out. Every time I think Metacritic can't discredit itself further...😛

Well, there's only one NSO game scheduled to be delisted, and making it available for a separate purchase isn't exactly Nintendo's call.

I know I say it every year, but what bears parroting at all if not something only entrenched deeper in its topicality? Switch had me sold from the very first trailer and the subsequent fateful day of finally catching up in early April 2017 (the 6th IIRC) started the arguably most incredible journey I've ever experienced on one video game machine - which, among the NES/SMD nostalgia, emulation-powered SNES/GBA discoveries and the following decade's handheld wild ride, is no trivial chart to top. All the games and series I could belatedly experience, fondly revisit, excitedly discover or eagerly continue might take until NS2 release to list here, and this year only keeps adding headturners to the release calendar. My passion for this console is only matched by my wallet's estimated hatred for it.😆

The hybrid queen really represents the latest big revolution in video game experiences - not one of interactions like Wii and NDS before it but one of hobby quality. The joys of portability have been known for decades but it was Switch that, par for the course with many other things Nintendo didn't even invent but addictively mainstreamed, more or less codified the notion of a video game machine that aspires to match the user's current and future lifestyle rather than require accommodation into one. That's why the titular "switching" has remained magical from the very first moments we all saw a certain elf and his cel-shaded world quietly and elegantly leap from one screen to another, courtesy of nothing that dog owner hadn't found in the box - no separate peripherals, no cross-buys and cross-save clouds to ping-pong the playthrough between, just "anytime, anywhere, with anyone". It would have only felt any better if Satoru Iwata was still around to experience all these eight years with us... but for all we know, he might well be smiling at the view from above. Including all the smiles his legacy and vision, carried on by the others at the company, has brought to our own faces time and time again.

This is definitely not the last anniversary Switch will be celebrating on store shelves, but even long past its eventual commercial retirement, it will undoubtedly remain one of THE gaming machines people and fiction works will associate with the very pastime for years to come. The legends of the generations past can attest to that, and Switch has earned its place among them ten times over.🍻

@StewdaMegaManNerd

A Switch 2 port? Of a Gen 6/7 game?🤔

Speaking of anniversaries, there's another to highlight today, although I reckon that's already in the pipeline here. Unless everyone really has their minds occupied by next gen and its allegedly murine peripherals instead.

With the new month's arguable main (and peculiarly synchronous) Switch events drawing ever closer, the first March weekend is predictably beckoning with more time to spend in their respective franchises which I'm just as predictably inclined to greedily put on on the same session menu with other series like Tales/Persona/RF/Castlevania and a typical handful of other options from Little Noah, Cannoli, Carto, Echoes of Wisdom and AC2 to Theatrhythm, Hogwarts Legacy, Mudrunner, Borderlands 2 and Saints Row 4. RE3R plans over on PS4 may also lead to more progress in RE0 on Switch and RE2R Claire B route on the laptop, too (and while I'm firing the latter up anyway, I might even turn to another disappointingly Deck-allergic playthrough in Grid 2). Of course, the same kind of rational free time planning is also rarely quenched without adding a few more handheld items to the queue - be it FFXIII, Horizon and Death Stranding on Deck, Fantasy Life, Endless Frontier and Valentia on 3DS or Gravity Rush, Neptunia and Gran Turismo on Vita.😅

An oddity by NSO standards indeed; finite availability is more characteristic of PS+ Catalogue and GamePass but those spell it out in advance. Makes you wonder if Spike Chunsoft has found themselves in the mood for a retail retro batch release of their own, like a fair few publishers before it.

@Markatron84 as with pretty much any other detrimental practice in fandoms and/or tabloids, yeah. I'm far from genuinely expecting to preach anyone back down to earth here, so the comments like the one above are mostly instances of deficient resistance to a caustic venting urge.

Sounds like more guitars which seems on par with many other remixes Sawano makes these days, and an overall "ethereal" feeling which, IMHO, only enhances the already awesome song and should be an even better fit for the context of a flight theme. And hey, at least nominally a "new" release with Aimee Blackschleger (who reportedly appeared in recent Sawano concerts but they don't seem to have had studio collabs since... Re:Creators almost eight years ago?); maybe she might even come back for the new chapter's music?

@echoplex YMMV, I didn't get anywhere Skells on Deck but Don't Worry is among my most looped tracks in the OST. The lyrics and melody, especially in the refrain, make for a deliciously bittersweet and elated blend that befits the notion of gaining several times the initial mobility and freedom in the new home humanity never got the luxury of choosing.

@Yoshi3 AoT and Seven Deadly Sins, Kill la Kill and Promare, Re:Creators and Aldnoah Zero, Solo Leveling and Rose of Versailes, separate songs for a ton more fiction series from Gundam and Legend of Galactic Heroes to One Piece and Bleach... this guy's portfolio is something else.

I'm still not convinced on Hollywood's fixation with adapting animated media in a naturally more limited one that ends up requiring copious amounts of CG animation anyway (unless the suits are trying to lure gamers to live actor faces as the original apex of photorealistic visuals😆), but as with the other results of this trend, this movie's existence is no skin off my back either.

@coolioam indeed, that may well technically contribute to encouraging the practice instead.😏

@Olliemar28 it's just that you guys are capable of much more fun without relying on any of this. I've seen that firsthand.

So they "predicted" something that doesn't exist in any capacity to any sane person's knowledge? Guys, NS2 Direct is barely over a month away.🙄 There's zero shame in just doing a couple more game lists or throwback articles until then.

Good for those more invested in the franchise but not many headturners for me. Z-A has been on my wishlist since the announcement anyway, and the rest is mostly multiplayer stuff. The Consierge show with its stop-motion visuals over the modern industry's go-to CGI is certainly a sight to see, though, and might even lead me to give the show a try in the relatively visible future.

Yet another freemium game lost to the unresolved overdependence on servers... although in this case, solving that with a skeleton crew might be pretty tough.