nhSnork

As a JRPG nerd, I'd be inclined to root for Expedition 33, but after these folks' track record with the friggen Xenoblade series itself, recognition of a JRPG with even less franchise/publisher clout to its name will never not be a pure dice roll. Which, of course, says nothing about E33's quality but a fair few words about "award shows". Just sit back and hope for Pedro "Flute Guy" Eustache to make another appearance instead.

This weekend has brought a few more hybrid ports backlog boosters to consider in terms of storage juggling and session inclusions, from No Place Like Home, Necrosmith and Spells & Secrets to Loop8, Dragon: Marked for Death and Trinity Trigger... wait, scratch that, it was supposed to bring all these before eShop seemingly went south with payment processing last night, registering free grabs like the new Azuma/SoS DLC as usual but yielding error messages upon any attempt to add funds or even try changing the long saved payment card - which, incidentally, has led to bloat- er, boosting my Deck backlog with Ys 1/2 and Planet Centauri instead as a test of the same card's general functionality and potential bank hijinks. Seeing as two spare accounts on both sides of the pond (hailing way back to when I still used that approach for region-exclusive games instead of adjusting the main acc's country) are also failing to add the card info, I can narrow this nuisance down to the Ninty side but all the dedicated help pages and social media posts offer nothing more tangible than "keep trying your luck later".🙄😆

What's a nerd to do during the allocatable gaming time, then? Sink into the already amassed stuff that was always in the cards besides anything new, of course. Xillia and Graces, Yumia and Marie, Persona 4 and 5, Xenoblades and Castlevanias galore, aforementioned Azuma and other sim RPGs like Portia/Deadcraft/Harvestella, recently initiated playthroughs like Ball x Pit, Tinkertown or Railgrade and the long ongoing ones like Puyo Puyo Tetris, Saints Row 4 or Borderlands 2... all of that with possible intermissions on other platforms, be it Cyberpunk and Chibi-Robo on NS2, Payback and Fallout 3 on Deck (I'll have to see of I can cram Planet Centauri in, but Adol will certainly have to wait until I'm done with Ys Origin), Gravity Rush and Valentia on the handheld consoles, Phantom X and Resonance Solstice on the phone... so, not counting the aforelamented but hopefully fleeting FWPs, business as usual.

@Switching always has been.

At the risk of looking another free upgrade in the mouth, this 60DLDRfpSS stuff doesn't compel me to deliberately bloat the Gen 9 version's filesize for the platform I have a quarter of Gen 9 storage space on, and mouse controls remain too mode-specific to be a general headturner. But if there's some motion aiming somewhere next to those mouse controls and whatnot... then they'll have my attention. Come on, even GTA Trilogy boasts the feature (which, coupled with more mission checkpoints, was what pushed me to revisit those games on Switch despite my share of flashbacks from the previous playthroughs).

The first movie was fun albeit not dethroning the Sing series among my Illumination faves (and, a disclaimer where a disclaimer's due, among all four Illumination movies I've watched to date😅), but I'm partial towards Rosalina - and voiced by Brie Larson here, no less? Consider me looking forward to seeing the movie sometime next year... if probably the same time next year, all things considered.🙄

A rumour can't "look" like anything in the first place. Who on this newsblog's team is so desperate to retread the embarrassment of last year's abundant "Switch Twoos"?

I suppose "mostly satisfied" is fairest to answer until everything is supported, but in reality, only using backward compatibility to cram in more stuff I was previously driven to shelve on Switch, I'm predictably almost out of storage with a handful of mammoths that already run fine (primarily Pillars of Eternity, Immortals, Kingdoms of Amalur and Outer Worlds). After wrapping up The House of the Dead (which I was sufficiently eager for to put on the nextgen out the gate), I have a good 10 Gb free and have considered revisiting multiple options within that space, but... it gets annoying to have to uninstall/reinstall this stuff later merely due to Cyberpunk and upgraded NMS's proportionally bloated update patches (plus each Gamecube update chipping away at the remaining storage). Thanks for coming to my FWP talk.

@wert303b the compatibility itself is covered for the safely estimated majority of titles, and "upgrade" patches rarely upgrade anything meaningful.

@Ralek85 you mean, like this?😆 (and the numbers have pretty much doubled since😅)

What would people pursuing such "leaks" even expect him to look like?🤔

An isometric love child of Factorio and Portia/Sandrock? Count me the heck in.

A true spiritual predecessor to RDRs indeed. I randomly discovered it on a Steam sale some seven years ago, a curious PC gaming returnee with a GPD Win in hand; with RDR itself still absent on Switch (or anywhere else beyond Gen 7, for that matter), it looked like an obvious itch-scratcher and proved fun from what I've played but sadly less than cooperative with controllers. I considered the PSP version for a while (yeah, it landed even there!), but then again, perhaps we may be facing higher odds of a newer port ot at least an NSO item instead? It's not like wild west free roamers ever populated the market to the extent of urban hijack ones, and the prospect of RDR3 itself remains rather vague. A worthwhile yet somehow hardly competitive niche.

The Switch menu is traditionally led by a bunch of JRPGs - from XC3/XCX, Xillia, Azuma, Yumia, P5R, Aria of Sorrow and the potential rest of their respective franchises close at hand to other gradually ongoing journeys in the genre like Afterimage, TWEWY, Phantasy Star and Minstrel Song. There's also a mood for titles like Railgrade, Kingsgrave, Gnosia, Skyrim and the recently procured Jump King alongside various action roguelites from the long played Little Noah, Tallowmere 2 and Undermine to the variably newer Dead Cells, Ball x Pit and Death Or Treat. NSO playthroughs from Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island and Zelda II to Sin & Punishment, Metroid Zero Mission and Chibi-Robo aren't ruled out either, and two of these would involve the same new hardware that also traditionally beckons with more Cyberpunk and NMS.

Beyond the hybrid lands, the odds might look best for more Tales across the board plus some Fallout 3, FFXIII/XV, The Chase Begins, the two installed Gran Turismos and Virtue's Last Reward. I've also been eyeing Resonance Solstice on the mobile front on top of advancing the story in the likes of Phantom X and Fire Emblem Shadows.

@sd7232 as someone who ultimately chickened out towards Zero Mission and its tangible automaps, I toast your bravery.🍻

@Dalamar damn, your profile pic makes my brain read and hear the first line quite differently.😄

I'd be a hypocrite if I complained about companies following popular trends since it's often what turns games into genres. As for the variety to seek, that's definitely true, although the big biz wariness towards experiments isn't exactly mystifying either, given the audiences' habit of more readily unzipping their wallets towards established IPs and trends while lamenting aforesaid variety. How many people bought ARMS or Sushi Striker, again? Even I have yet to, padre... which also makes me a hypocrite in context.

I rarely mince the words about my issues with this site and its nature, but what it does do right, it does DAMN RIGHT. Here's to an even higher share of that in the future. Happy anniversary!🍻

FWIW Yamauchi reportedly championed the Nintendo DS as we know it, the console whose sales numbers only two other machines have managed to pass since, and it's too early to estimate if NS2 will ever have a shot at becoming the third one.

Wishful thinker mode: Arkane

Unapologetic troll mode: PocketPair

On the one hand, a shopping cart.

On the other hand, my painful, agonizing confusion about how to actually use it.😅

3DS activity support is woefully useless due to the current region discrepancy, but the log is generally impressive indeed, overriding even console transfer playtime resets with otherwise unapparent counters like BotW's (which reads "over 100 hours", so it seems like my previous nigh-200 estimations were wrong - I don't even have 150 hours there yet). Sorting by system also seems to list each console lineup chronologically (similar to "date first played" but reversed) which takes me back to the good old first days of owning a Switch and sticking to demos thereon.😄 That said, I can't seem to find Dragon Quest Heroes which was among my first bits experienced (it was even the first title I tried the dock with) - did the demo eventually get removed or did I just absentmindedly launch it on the same Japanese profile/account I used to grab it?🤔

I have zero issues with the Gen 10 first party lineup so far - I've fancied an open world Mario Kart for years (personally lacking the formula saturation that PC/PlayBox Gen 7 has supposedly "inflicted" upon younger gamers and my better equipped peers way back when), and Bananza doesn't need to be "Mario" to be a similarly captivating game with a borderline Ingramlicious song set. And while I applaud the existing and announced third party lineup as well (as could be reasonably guessed about someone whose first NS2 purchase was Cyberpunk), that "dream" has long come true on Switch itself for me - starting with the revelation trailer's lucky b- bro we watched take his Skyrim playthrough across cities if not whole countries. The hybrid queen has always defied the naysay about its capability and factual performance (with a dollar for every port whose "issues" I'm still waiting to experience, I could have probably depleted the entire eShop by now), embracing contemporaries and portability-craving oldies alike. Sure, I've had my share of wistful looks at absent titles - there's a reason I also have a Deck these days, - but the absolute majority of those titles have never been beyond the hybrid reach, be it more recent titles like RE7 that hardly seems beyond optimization with its fairly compact setting or TV-chained classics like Eternal Sonata (and I'd rather not stir my fanship ulcer into getting started on Kingdom Hearts again). But then I look back at my continuously growing four-digit hybrid backlog full of Personas and Rune Factories, Tales and Final Fantasies, GTAs and Civilizations, Dooms and Borderlands, curveball comebacks like Baldur's Gate and Gen 9 journeys like Hogwarts Legacy... and it already tells me that the future is now.

NS2 only helps to pave this road farther and wider - indeed, with fewer and fewer hurdles and misgivings in its way because its upcoming living room peers are running out of spec inflation appeal. The glory of "4k60fps" has never managed to graduate from the sensory longevity of bubble-gum and there's little else pastgens like PS5 have seen born from their already bloated tech. PS6 and Xbox Whatchamacallit will really have their work cut out for them trying to sell even more advanced and more expensive innards if the latter don't translate to anything you wouldn't need a DF guide to expertly enjoy. It's really a ceiling that portables are inevitably catching up to with every year, and NS2 is set to lead the charge like its big sis did for over eight years prior.

@Vyacheslav333 a laptop is a portable multipurpose device coming with a truckload of RAM-loving bloatware, broad strokes optimization and a games-allergic sleep mode for its typically eye-watering price (if we ARE talking models that can outperform a dedicated contemporary console). And using one handheld... would provide some immediate perspective for the "hand cramps" narrative about Switches and Decks.😅

@Darthroseman one already confirmed for Switch... albeit five years in the making since.😅 But I suppose that happens when the company simultaneously goes and throws several more live service multiplats into their pipeline.

Xillia certainly deserved to be higher, but going up against Dragon Quest in Japanese release charts is a choice.

@JJtheTexan PXZ3 has been high on my Direct wishlists through the whole last gen (FWIW alongside Xenoblade X and Tales of Xillia among other things, so...😁), and I would definitely double-dip on the previous stuff. Hard to tell the odds of Bamco revisiting the Endless Frontier duo with its different gameplay and more ties to Super Robot Wars (although IIRC the latter has some presence on Switch in itself), but a finally localized Namco x Capcom would unzip my wallet as well - that OG still boasts some folks and franchises that, from the looks of it, even PXZ has yet to revisit. It had Dino Crisis and Klonoa, for one! And of course, there's so much more to introduce to a sequel roster besides, maybe even some indie icons like Shantae (WayForward has already worked with Nintendo before).

@LightSpirit Nintendo "seeing threats" is the very plot hole here, flying in the face of the enduring popularity and legacy of multiple other franchises and still not seeing any counterarguments that wouldn't awkwardly try to diminish said franchises in their attempt to keep the narrative afloat. For all of its hype-driven sales, Palworld is still parsecs away from the multimedia household presence of something like Digimon, not to mention an even more branchy genre progenitor like SMT - Atlus can literally just tweet "Persona 6" tomorrow and half the fanbloid sphere will at least temporarily forget how "Palworld" is even spelt. And before another go-to conspiracy theory comes up - plenty of these series and one-shots have already offered richer and more diverse experiences than Pokemon as well. Unironically assuming Nintendo to become militantly jealous of one game's success all of a sudden really borders on disingenuous in this context, all the moreso these days when Z-A's success has reaffirmed that Game Freak's own works continue to print money with or without pals in the picture.

As for the consequences of this extensively covered standoff... so far there's a hilariously predictable one as consequences of spotlight hogs in the IP world go - I think I've already made the related meme before:

(For added irony, "palmon" is also the name of an existing Digimon species)

@Claytronical yeah, I find the prospect of Switch reaching 160 mln quite realistic in itself, but the figure is hard to humour in regards to PS2 in the first place. On top of the often addressed and never countered elephant in the room (Gen 8/9 seeing people purchase new units of a Gen 6 console whose second hand units could already be procured with black flag chips and hardware maintenance/upgrades for similar or even lower prices), Sony has had multiple opportunities and anniversaries to "catch up" before it sounded embarrassingly revisionist - and then, after their grand brand-celebrating "revelation" about the increasingly rivalled sales record, they STILL won't share the lifetime sales for Vita which, according to Wikipedia, saw its last official report all the way back in 2012 as well.

@LightSpirit no one is "defending" them - most people are simply not taking this whole hullabaloo at face value from the company who hasn't bothered to patent anything mon-themed for decades and is so "out to suppress creativity" that they have literally published select third party mon games westside on their hardware. "Patent trolling" sounds like an increasingly apt description of this situation, but who can still pretend they don't know the real target and the real incentive behind this trolling? The Bollywood drama of Poor Unfortunate Indies and Huge Blows is best left to tabloiders like Mr Mueller informatively referenced in this newspost.

@Coalescence their nibble is already quite decent, especially by indie standards, but it comes with the paradoxical flipside where plenty of people on either "side" of the case have a very vague idea of the gameplay itself. I've already said it before, but Palworld deserves to be known for its own merits, not thespian stick-it-to-the-man publicity that nobody but yellow press benefits from.

@N00BiSH 64DD, similarly to FDS or Sega CD, is a peripheral. The questionable record among Ninty's consoles is still held by Virtual Boy. Which hasn't stopped the company from effectively relaunching it decades later.

@Claytronical PS2 has all the odds of getting surpassed within this holiday quarter as well, especially as the period may well kick the comparative sales up to actual 2 million or more which would be almost twice the remaining "gap". The pastgen lineup, including the comparatively budget-friendly Lite, remains a topical Christmas gift option, and it can still accommodate a lot more of the amassed backlog until the successor's obligatory MSDE cards become more widespread and affordable.

I'll wait for the earlier announced Switch port, then. No copium, just too lazy to do the respective SMMs' jobs for them.😅

@Dazman well, it was apparently managed with Vita (if in a select few games), so who knows.

@Nintoz until Nintendo sighs, shrugs and pulls ~15 million more NDS sales from behind their own furniture.

@Pillowpants I don't expect NS2 to fully replicate Switch's sales (such numbers rarely happen overall, let alone back to back), but I'm pretty confident in its potential to cross the 100 million mark at the very least.

@AmplifyMJ yeah, most of my consoles have been bought late in their respective life cycles, so I've been appreciative of their amassed libraries myself (even the ill-fated Vita has plenty of awesome stuff to play), but Switch is ridiculous even by these standards. Such a variety of games, series and genres to catch up with and discover, with such flexibility of access... no wonder it sports the biggest game collection among all my platforms (even well above the giveaway-bloated PC stash😆).

@Dazman controller? Last time I checked, Switch joycons were compatible with Switch 2 as it is, except for waking up the console, starting up GameChat and using rodent-themed controls.

I'm aware "hefty drop" percentages sound more clickbaitingly dramatic, but selling almost 2 million units at 8.5 years old AND in the same next gen launch quarter that sees the latter amass 10 million sounds like continued "tanking" in a whole different sense. As does the Gen 9 hybrid queen reportedly reaching 154.01 mln sales overall, literally one Japan charts week away from becoming Nintendo's new all-time bestseller and half this "meager" quarter's earnings away from dethroning PS2.

Not the Project X Zone 3 we expected but the one we deserved.

@SalvorHardin "using the same assets as PS5" is the exact horror story here. Without that bloat, the amount of stuff they've added over the years takes up barely HALF the space on Switch itself.

But then again, people who can't live without frixel excesses also seem accustomed to throwing money at them, so for all I know, they may have multiple MSDE cards at the ready.😅

""It looks so good, it runs so well" ...it's back to barely fitting in the internal storage, isn't it?😅

The better half of this weekend will likely end up spent in Xillia (with possible session overflow into its other fellow binge items across Switch, Deck and Vita... and, if I'm driven nuts enough, even a dive into Abyss 3D for good measure), although the rest of the usual suspect series on Switch (Xenoblade, Rune Factory, Persona, Atelier, Castlevania...) retain at least some odds of elbowing in alongside a few more titles like Ys Origin, No Man's Sky or Fire Emblem Warriors. Halloween vicinity may also pave the way for more progress across RE0, House of the Dead, Dying Light, Dredge and/or Layers of Fear 2 plus other platform items like Luigi's Mansion, Undying and NightCry.

Well, that de-escalated quickly. One less topic for fanbloids, nintendoomers and "industry creativity" lamenters to milk, several more to go as the other patents either similarly go poof or get accepted only to never be heard from for the next few decades (like the apparent majority of already existing video game patents) while the subject of this whole teacup tempest announces a grand "full launch" update with "overhauled and enhanced pal visuals to match the game's evolution", yada yada. What will the poor folks write and rant about afterwa- oh, never mind, we'll soon be half a year into Gen 10. Impending Switch 3 buzz to the rescue!

Jokes aside, indeed, the outcome of whatever Nintendo is really aiming for with this evident flex of loophole fu will be the main intrigue to bring popcorn to. And THEN, perhaps, the game will finally be allowed to be known (and potentially even renowned) for its actual features and merits rather than weird allegations and creativity martyrdom pretences.

@dennabeht again with the "good games" narrative? There are tons of them in the genre regardless of one's attitude to Game Freak's series, and you lot still haven't provided a plausible explanation for why these good games all end up on Nintendo hardware instead of a courtroom. But then again, we're talking the same gamer crowd that is vocally faking their concerns for video game creativity while actively worshipping its actual inhibitors, so it's on me for expecting otherwise.🙄😅

@ClaytThaGreat reminder that "online digital licenses" (aka the way game sharing used to work prior) still exist. I actually toggled them back myself to keep sharing with my friend because the VGC pairup is better suited for juggling games between the two generations instead.

I would certainly hope so! It's an awesome series and a true metroidvania veteran hailing back to when few but the eponymous franchises even tackled seamless 2D free roam with blackjack and backtracking. Shantae herself arguably remains among the most badass and lovable protagonists in the genre as well. Speaking of which... twintails??? I needn't even comment on the cuteness, but I can't be the only one wondering how that would translate to the gal's trademark hair fu - something analogous to dual wielding, perchance?😄

@BenAV thanks! Sounds like nothing to turn my head to. Ironically, even online multiplayer sounds like a hassle because it may potentially exclude the game from the numbers of those you could play while downloading/updating another Switch game in the background; previously, only tackling the daily challenges would have that effect, and I appreciated the pastime option because its ilk can still be hard to figure out when even an otherwise completely offline game's obscure scoreboard menu you might have never even opened can whimsically pause any downloads.😆

Do these "new items, paths, modes and endings" refer to the existing Repentance content or promise something even newer on top of it? I've already completed everything in the former (yes, on one save file - repeating those 1000+ hours twice more from scratch isn't a very thrilling prospect to me).

And people wonder why I wasn't thrilled at the announcement of the console's 1080p screen.

Yes, but likely not before finishing BotW and getting through Calamity and TotK.

@nessisonett don't threaten me with a good time. As for "used to be good", my personal experience with Shadows only goes to reiterate the value of such claims. Heck, Engage cast and story have been bashed all over the fandom since release while their alleged "poor quality" can take as little as a handful of Forging Bonds events in FEH to uproot. As per usual, then, your loss will be my gain, especially if these continuous rants really contribute to driving me towards another broken binge queue.😏

With Xillia installed and less than a week remaining to dive into it, the current gaming mood is predictably Tales-themed in particular, potentially leading to a bit of time spent in many or even all the other installed entries across Switch, Deck and Vita (yes, somehow I'm still resisting Abyss 3D, but for how much longer?👀). This relative focus may narrow down the rest of my usual franchise-spanning plans (with this year's respective juggernauts like Yumia, XCX and Azuma taking priority), although the weekend could still see multiple Personas and/or Castlevanias engaged.

Last weekend's foray into social deductions didn't let me down - between the recognizably emblemlicious story/cast/lore and the expectedly online-bent but appreciably concise battles (with peculiar mechanics like different skills' application area to account for because friendly fire and accidental enemy healing regardless of alignment is very much a thing), I'm still waiting for all the abysmal stuff the fanbloid sphere would have me believe about Shadows... however, my ultimate single player bias is progressively inclined to crown Gnosia as THE representative of its genre, what with the motley cast, roguelite progression and the familiar "just one more turn- I mean, loop" feeling throughout the game. And if all of the above doesn't hook me for the entirety of the allocatable hobby time, there are plenty more itches to scratch - newer Switch gains from Outward, Inscryption and Claire to Tinkertown, Nexomon and Railgrade (depending on which I can cram on either of the hybrid storage spaces, of course), older Switch playthroughs from Dead Cells, Terraria and Bioshock 2 to Wall World, Truck Driver and PowerWash, NS2 playthroughs like Cyberpunk, NMS and Chibi-Robo, stuff on the other platforms like Luigi's Mansion, Virtue's Last Reward and Fallout 3... for all I know, I might even finally get down to starting Arknights which I think I've had installed for over a year. That's what decent surplus of storage space does to backlogs, padre.😭😆

I may well look into the release if it happens, although there's plenty of stuff I'd be even more eager to see go hybrid among Microsoft's games and IPs - from Hi-Fi Rush, Evil Within and Rage to Obilvion, ESO and everything Arkane. FWIW they already have my attention with Fallout 4.

Wait, I thought today's Direct was strictly about Kirby Air Riders.😵😄 How are we getting so many juicy ports announced at the same time? I could bellyache about Bethesda seemingly skipping F3/NV (unless the latter require Oblivion's levels of dedicated reworking to resurface on modern platforms at all) or about Dishonored series still being nowhere in sight... but what I've tried of F4 earlier has got me quite interested in this game as well, and now I won't have to rely on PS+ or cram the sideload on Deck. It might just become one of the higher priorities on my eShop wishlist next year.

Both System Shocks and Soma in one year. Nightdive is cooking with gas on Switch.

@Solid_Python yeah, time will tell, but III/Liberation and BF/Rogue also came out on Switch first, leaving me to wonder about the earlier stuff until at least the Ezio games arrived (jury's still out on whether Ubisoft still remembers Altair at all, but at least I already got through AC1 on the laptop, speeding up the campaign after the side collectathons proved to be fairly nonessential). Fingers crossed (and for the sidescrolling Chronicles pack as well - it was even on Vita in the past), but I won't be looking this gift horse in the mouth either.

I certainly hope this isn't meant to break the binge streak Ubisoft lined up on Switch from Ezio Collection to BF/Rogue; IIRC the "first era" flagships only have Unity and Syndicate left, making for a nice other bundle to come. That said, I've long hoped for the series to visit Japan, so Shadows sparks the bulk of my interest among the more modern entries, to the point where I could be tempted into a binge queue break here as well.

@Shigmin

Amen to that! I was worried that Xillia 2 might share Dawn's fate, but it sounds like even the latter may not be necessarily off the table as we speak.