parkerdeal

@SodaPop6548 I'm with you! I'm chipping away at Age of Imprisonment and Legends ZA and will be biding my time til the 25th (whether it's under the tree or I just log onto the eshop after the kid goes to bed lol)

I hope the story in this game does a good job of making up for the story shortcomings in TOTK (that they seem to have deliberately left bare-bones to develop here). Weird to me that the champions are still in their helmets? I wonder if that's for the entire game, or if they can take them off at some point? If it is for the whole game, I'd at least like a good reason for it.

All in all though, I've still been playing my Switch 2 most days since launch and this is one that I've been quite excited about since announcement! Looking forward to it.

Do we know, does it run the same whether switch 1 version on switch vs on switch 2? Or does the switch 2 make the switch 1 version run any better by default (even if only slightly)?

Also, I forgot how jarring the lack of voice acting in Arceus was until watching some of these cutscenes. We don't need it for all scenes - at least could do the typical JRPG "use one spoken word to support the whole written text" trope - but at least for the cutscenes where it's zooming into their face and has mouth flaps and anime lines and everything lol

@xzacutor That's a great question! I'm curious too

It's surprising how similar they look in still shots besides some tile texture-work. Obviously the performance is better on switch 2, and fairly significantly so
I wonder - what would happen playing the switch 1 version on your switch 2? Performance would be locked at switch 1 specs, or it would get a little bit of passive boost?

Gotta say - loving the more tempered, fanboy-less response in these comments lol
The games industry has become an oft-bleak environment with predatory corporations more often than not... So it's nice when we're at least all civil with each other!

Similar sentiment to everyone from me - awesome that it runs so well! Not going to be for me - but even if it ran better than the Switch 2 at a lower price, I still wouldn't be the target demographic (Mostly play 1st Party Nintendo & Indies).

Neat, all the same!

I love Islanders and have played it a ton, and didn't know a sequel came out! Thank you for this! Will definitely be checking it out post-Silksong!

"Appa Cut" is brilliant lol
It's crazy how good you folks are at article sub-headings (or whatever the technical term is)

I'm in total agreement on this one. Whilst Hornet herself feels like the quintessential 'little guy hero' archetype, I personally feel like a bit of a bumbling buffoon even when I'm being quite adept. And every time the game throws 'one more thing' at me, I've had way more fun when taking it as funny rather than awful lol
I got way further in the High Halls Gauntlet last night than I had before, and it just... kept going... And I assume I died on the final phase, but right as that kicked off I was thinking to myself exactly what it was going to be, and it was hilarious to be right! I died within 15 seconds haha

Having gotten to know you over the years, Zion, you're one of the best people I know. So excited for your next chapter and everything it entails!

Finally played Battle Chef in like 2022 after having an eye on it since launch and it was great! This one is looking like another win! I don't know if I'll have the budget or time for it at launch with everything else going - but certainly will keep an eye out

@Kyloctopus Absolutely agreed on the Palace Theme! It's crazy that it's not a Zelda staple like other themes. It is one that feels so iconic though after it featured so heavily in various Smash games.

Wish I liked beat-em-up combat more than I do, because this looks great! Art style, depth and gameplay loop all look awesome!

I'll have to get over the ditto-person borderline body-horror vibe... But it does look like a great time. And with a four year old daughter, I can imagine it'll be fun for the whole family

I'll be interested to see the reviews and how much additional content it is before I make a firm decision. I 100% completed Forgotten Lands and obviously really enjoyed it! But can't tell if the new content feels worth the return or if I'd rather wait til the next big Kirby release instead

I put countless hours into the GCN Return of the King game in high school. Glad to see it at #1!

Would love Baldur's Gate 3, Clair Obscur, Elden Ring and Silksong!

I think there's this notion that "If people really want to play these third party ports, they would have played them on other platforms" sometimes, and while I think that's absolutely true for some demographics, I think there's certainly an audience for these fantastic games on a Nintendo platform (even if late).

Hopes are high! Let's hope I can keep expectations realistic too lol

@Ziondood Was thinking the same thing lol
One can dream!

I remember when hearing that Nintendo was demoing Switch 2 behind closed doors with a nicer looking BOTW and I was worried we were getting a re-release "BOTW Deluxe" situation or something. I was so relieved to find it was the upgrade pack route! I've put in an additional 50 or so hours in TOTK in the last month or so. Love it!

@alanahagues Tiny typo under Mat's Bluesky post where it says "Thanks to the extra 5 million" rather than "0.5 million"

Great article! Thanks for your incredible work!

@garfreek Yup, @Nacil got it! That's the one I've been using. There's a few tiny caveats with it, like was mentioned, but generally, it's been great for farming diamonds to make enough money, because I'd like to upgrade all of my armor pieces and any of the current methods of making lots of money are fun for a bit but would take forever to really rack up the funds lol So this is a nice little subsidy

Seeing as I just learned my first successful item duplication glitch, I'm sure this is the patch where they get rid of it haha

Are there even micro sd express cards that are bigger than 256? There are a lot of other sizes that are 'ultra' or 'extreme' or whatever, but I'm not seeing larger 'express' sizes, and I believe any other SD card is simply not supported

@Gremio53 That's funny - I'm in a similar boat! I'll be in Italy the week it launches. Instead I just got a US pre-order and it'll go to a friend's house and I'll just wait to play it the week after launch. But definitely considered trying to snag one in Europe instead! lol

I had to argue with the target website for about 15 minutes but then got it, so I'm glad I've got one secured.
However - I'm super surprised to not have gotten an invite for the MyNintendo preorder yet! I've had a Switch since April 2017 and been a paid NSO customer for as long as it's been a thing, and have lots of hours logged on it, so if I'm not getting an invite, it must be either because other people play way more than I thought or, more realistically, Nintendo is just sending them out way slower than I expected!

Hopeful that they'll be able to keep up with demand though - moderately well, at least.

Honestly, the lore in this game is way more crazy than it aught to be. I played it for a while almost 10 years ago and thankfully got out of the loop (it was on my work computer and several nights I'd leave my computer on with the screen part-way open to earn more cookies).
There's a cool video by 'Thought Slime' from a few years back about idle games/cookie clicker that was super enlightening.

Not going to buy it because I'd probably get sucked in again lol But pretty cool that it's on consoles now!

"Monster Sanctuary" kind of does this and it rules! Golden Sun is one of my favorite RPGs because of how it also includes puzzles, and I'd love to see Pokemon include this better again - even if only for optional content or something. (If they're worried about it being exclusionary to kids)

It's been said to death at this point, but remaking Zelda 2 feels like the move to me. But remaking it a la Samus Returns, or Metroid Zero Mission - i.e. taking a game that was the runt of the franchise and remaking it to be a great entry instead. I don't think a faithful remake would bode so well (as compared to Link's Awakening which mostly got QoL upgrades, besides visuals) but if it was expanded instead, that would be awesome.

Thank you for this article Alana! And thank you for watching, anyone who did! This video took a ton of work, but it was totally worth every minute of it for all of the people who have said they learned something new from it.

Have a great day, folks!