scully1888

@SpiderSquid I have no idea what you're referring to 🐱‍👤

@HamatoYoshi The last paragraph and the conclusion literally say what you're saying, though, right down to the phrase "on its own merits".

@Scrubicius It takes more than a day to write a review, to be fair!

@SeantheDon29 Played it. This is worse. At least that had unlockables and charmingly bad dialogue.

Great work, Noah. Really well written and an interesting news story! Keep it up! Chris

@LegendOfPeach Most reviews are honest reviews.

@LegendOfPeach It's not "effectively a tech demo tossed in as an afterthought". That's wide off the mark.

Even if it wasn't, tech demos aren't inherently bad: look at Astro's Playroom.

At the end of the day, it takes 6-7 hours to clear 100%. There are full games that nearly last that long: The Medium (which I like, incidentally) was just released on Xbox One and takes around eight hours to beat. Bowser's Fury is close to that, and it's 'just' a bonus side-game, not the actual main event. That's not "tossed in as an afterthought", that's an extra mode that's had care and attention put into it.

@gojiguy Such as? I've rarely (if ever) personally dropped a game's score "for no other reason than it being a port", and if I had done it with this it would have been to a 9 if it had been a straight carbon copy with no changes made whatsoever. A completely new side-game shows that it's more than just a mere port, so I'm not really sure what the point is. Bowser's Fury adds to the package, it doesn't subtract from it.

@Ralizah If Bowser's Fury didn't even exist this would still have been a 9 or 10. The criticisms I have of what's essentially bonus content aren't enough to bring down the value of the entire package. 30fps in handheld is disappointing but it isn't a flaw as such, otherwise everyone would hate Breath of the Wild or any of the countless other open-world games that run at 30.

Just to reiterate what others have pointed out, a 10 doesn't mean perfect, otherwise no game would ever get a 10 and we might as well score games out of 9 instead (sort of like Spinal Tap in reverse). A 10 simply means it's one of the most essential games in the console's library and we reckon everyone should get it. As I say in the actual review, we'd be thoroughly recommending it anyway had it just been 3D World because it's one of the best linear Mario games made. Bowser's Fury may not be up there with Odyssey etc but I certainly had fun with it regardless and it's added value to an already fantastic game. A game can have negative elements but still be considered essential: some people don't like finding all 900 Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild but I'm sure they'd still have no hesitation in recommending the game anyway.

There's no bumping of the score because it's Nintendo or any nonsense like that: it's a fantastic game and I've thoroughly enjoyed the three weeks I've spent rinsing both modes to completion. Hope that helps explain it a bit so we don't get a million comments from people focusing on the two digits at the end instead of the 2500 words before it

With love

Chris

@Radbot42 They're part of the same package, so it's pointless giving Bowser's Fury a separate score. That would be like giving the battle mode in Mario Kart its own review.

@napabar You can't use the D-Pad in either, it's stick only.

@MERG Correct.

@link3710 From what I've played so far, that estimate is way off

Just to clarify my score: I am one of those long-term wrestling fans this game was clearly made for. I actually really like it and have no doubt I'll continue to play it for a long time (especially with my brother once lockdown ends, because he and I love both No Mercy and broken games). Despite that I still think a 6 is a fair score because it's absolutely riddled with glitches and not everyone who's looking for a new wrestling game will see the funny side in that. The 2K games get pilloried for its numerous weird glitches so it would be a bit hypocritical to give this one a pass just because it isn't a big corporate product. Basically, if you love wrestling games and get a kick out of playing 'messy' games (for want of a better term), you may want to add a point or two to the score.

@FredBiletnikoff For what it's worth, there are no EBTs in it either, haha

@FredBiletnikoff Curious to know who that's a reference to

@the8thark Thanks for finally explaining to me how reviews should work: I wish I'd had you around for the past 14 years I've been doing this.

Seriously, though, my review does actually address a number of the points you seem to be implying that it doesn't. I do address the dynamic resolution and make it clear that it's not necessarily a bad thing (I even point out that Mario Odyssey uses it too, as a way of driving the point home).

You suggest that one of the cons I wrote is "the graphics look bad": that's not what I said. I said the visuals have taken a huge hit. That's different, and it's irrefutable. The Joys / Cons section is simply a "these are the good bits, but it's a shame that..." situation. And it IS a shame that it doesn't look so great, no matter how you want to spin it.

The review itself explains that the game looks significantly worse than the other console versions, but that it's still thoroughly entertaining despite this. That's why there's an 8 at the end of it, that's why the strap says its "a Hell of a conversion", that's why I refer to it as "nothing short of a miracle".

Despite this, this is a port whose graphics have been the biggest talking point ever since it was confirmed to be coming to the Switch, and so it would ridiculous to 1) not address them in the summary, and 2) pretend they're anything other than a massive downgrade. The overall point remains, though, that despite this it's still a great game.

Hope that explains how my review process differs from yours, and I hope you can agree to disagree.

@Dethmunk I'm sorry if the reviewers you trust think the handheld version looks better but I make a point of never reading other reviews when I'm writing my own, and I can only go with what my own eyes are telling me. The reality is that playing it docked (even blown up to my 65" telly) looked sharper to me than playing it handheld, and I think the screenshots further illustrate this.

Also, to the numerous people asking why the visuals are a negative when it should be praised: the game is praised in the actual review text itself. The pluses and minuses at the end have no impact on the final score, they're just a summary of the main text, and it would be just wrong to pretend that the fact it looks worse than on other consoles is anything other than a negative. That isn't the fault of the hardware or the developer, but it's a reality and should still be addressed. The game hasn't been marked down for it: I gave the PS4 version a 4/5 (i.e. an 8) for another publication when it launched.

@iulis84 If you're referring to me, I have no moderation power: I write for Nintendo Life on a freelance basis, and my level of 'power' in the comments is the same as every other reader's. I only choose to take part in the comments section because I have a genuine interest in what the people reading my reviews have to say, and since in the comments I don't feel I'm different to anyone else, I also don't think it's wrong for me to disagree with someone if I feel their opinion is too over-the-top.

@Sun-Wu_Goku I'm sorry, but "Gutless devs pandering to cowards" is a ridiculous exaggeration. Like it or not, some jokes that were acceptable nearly a decade and a half ago don't really hold up today. They've updated the graphics and updated the sound quality, why is updating the script out of bounds? It's a remaster, after all: if you want the unchanged version, go and buy the Wii disc. It's not like the original version has been wiped from existence.

@Vyse08 I appreciate that your opinion differs from mine because you're clearly a fan of the game but a 4.5/5 would mean giving the thing a 9 and I personally don't think it's anywhere near close to that, especially if you're recommending that people need to buy extra equipment to get it to work to its fullest potential. I'm happy you were about to get 115 hours out of the first game, but I can't personally see myself coming anywhere close to that with this one: I had it for 2-3 weeks during the review period and was already getting bored with the repetition of songs and moves.

@Kasma88 You can indeed stack the workouts

@yusuf2002 30fps can still be a plus when it's a solid 30. I'd rather have that than a game that aims for 60 but can't manage it and ends up stuttering around in the mid-40s.

The original was 30 and it was perfectly fine. This isn't a downgrade, it just isn't an upgrade (at least in terms of framerate).

Happy birthday to my newly adopted home. Very proud to be writing for you lot.

@SkullDragr As I explain in the review, there's a lot more in this version than there was in the mobile version. It isn't the "Switch tax", it's a bigger game costing more money.

@dugan Yup! Qbby from BoxBoy makes some cameo appearances in this one.

@Collette You've sort of answered the question for me: since nearly every Wii U port so far has had a resolution or framerate boost, there must be a good reason that Pikmin 3 didn't, otherwise (going by past releases) they'd have obviously done it.

@Franklin It is comprehensive. It's the SNES Encyclopedia, not the Super Famicom Encyclopedia. You have to draw a line somewhere. If I'd added the extra 1000 or so Japan-exclusive games in there it would have taken another two years to write, would have been about 600 pages long and would have cost about $65-70, which very few people would spend on a book. It would have been far more work and probably resulted in far fewer sales.

Thanks for the lovely words, everyone.

@Franklin There were 22 Virtual Boy games, and nearly 1000 Japan-exclusive Super Famicom games. One of them was just a little bonus at the end of the book, the other would have required at least another year and a half of work, much of which would have been taken up trying to explain Japanese RPGs that very few people would want to play anyway. The book is enormous as it is without making it more than double the size: hope that explains it

@TeslaChippie The guy was talking about lighting and environmental detail: in other words, performance-related things. I completely agree that BOTW's art design may be better than Halo Infinite's but technically it isn't even close: it can't be.

@RasandeRose Come on. That Halo Infinite demo may have been underwhelming but saying it didn't look as good as Breath of the Wild is just nonsense.

@Onkel_Laser Respectfully, I play it every year a lot too, and every year there's at least one major new feature that keeps it feeling fresh.

16 - FUT Draft
17 - Squad Building Challenges, FUT Champions
18 - Squad Battles, Daily & Weekly Objectives
19 - Division Rivals
20 - Season Objectives, FUT Friendlies
21 - Stadium Customisation, Online Co-Op, Team Events

@Onkel_Laser FUT does change every year, though. Just not on Switch.

I see a lot of people keep mentioning Pikmin 3 Deluxe, as if releasing a seven-year-old game at 720p and 30fps is somehow comparable to releasing exactly the same game three years in a row. The two are completely different situations. Coverage of one doesn't automatically influence coverage of the other.

@datamonkey That's exactly what the review says, yes

@sanderev I'm all for criticising EA here but I think we need to be accurate too. FIFA Mobile doesn't use Frostbite, and the Switch version still looks and runs better.

@Silly_G Which 'Legacy Edition' of a Pokemon game are you referring to?

@sanderev As I understand it, Frostbite 3.0 has only ever run on Xbox One, PS4 and PC, so I'm not sure where the suggestion it could run on the 3DS comes from.

@Emperor-Palpsy I don't even necessarily want them to update to Frostbite, though: like I say in the review, I completely understand that the Switch isn't as powerful as the Xbox One and PS4 and that Frostbite may be too much for the system. The other missing features, though – like all the Ultimate Team stuff, or the updated career mode etc – those don't rely on Frostbite and their absence is purely down to a lack of effort. Those are the omissions I feel are more frustrating, because there's no technical explanation for it.

@PretendWorking Yeah, you're right, I should have given it a 10 because they said they weren't going to make an effort and they didn't make an effort, so their honesty should be rewarded. In other news, I'm going to make pasta tonight, so when I do in fact make pasta tonight I expect my TIME Person of the Year nomination as soon as possible.

Just to pre-empt the inevitable "EA makes the same game every year anyway, this is no big surprise" comments: it really doesn't. Anyone who buys FIFA every year on other systems (like I do) knows that EA does introduce at least one major feature or mode each year, be that Volta street football, The Journey, Squad Battles, women's football, timed seasons in Ultimate Team, FUT Champions etc. The myth that EA just knocks out the same thing every year is false: that's why this review is so harsh, because this is one of those situations where it literally HAS done that, for the second time in a row, and that's unacceptable.

@gcunit Ha! I actually completely forgot CTR. Personally, I prefer the likes of the TMNT and Rocko to Crash characters so on a purely subjective basis I still prefer this

@WoomyNNYes Yup, like you say, I didn't have many issues with it: it's your typical drift and boost system. You hop to drift, and sometimes the drifting angle is a bit tight but that's where customising the kart and finding the drift stat that works for you comes into it

@darkswabber If the age demographic is younger players then there's absolutely nothing wrong with JoJo Siwa being in it, if they like her. That said, the fact it's got the likes of CatDog, Ren & Stimpy and Rocco in there means it's also trying to appeal to older gamers who grew up with Nick in the '90s and early 2000s, so I would imagine the majority of those people will find her deeply irritating

@GilbertXI I love my Switch too, but for what it's worth the Wii absolutely did have its fair share of great third-party exclusives (ones that launched as exclusives, at least). The thing got a bad reputation among the 'hardcore' as only being a Wii Fit and Wii Sports machine, but there were plenty of brilliant third-party games that launched exclusively on Wii.

@MrBlacky Nintendo does.

@mr_benn Fire Flower is king at first when it comes to simply surviving, but when you get to the last few players and the timer is going down quicker it isn't good enough. You only get 1 second for every enemy killed with fire flowers, whereas jumping on them, using the star or doing Koopa Troopa shell-kicking combos tops up your timer a lot better. It's deceiving, but when it comes to winning the thing outright, the Fire Flower is only good for keeping you alive long enough to see your time run out

@BenAV The site has a number of different reviewers and we all score games according to what we think of them personally. There's no underlying 'score Nintendo games higher' agenda: there are already other people in the comments saying they're really enjoying it too.

@Aneira This review was written by a wrestling fan for wrestling fans. With the very greatest of respect: if it doesn't interest you, is there really any point coming into a review about a wrestling game and saying you don't care about it?

@Richnj I'm sorry, but in my eyes the main criteria will always be how much fun the game is. You say that if I don't take other things into account the review is pointless but I absolutely do take them into account.

If it had been a fuller package with more bonus content it would have been a 10. My personal opinion is that not having the bonus content isn't enough to drop it down to a 6 or 7 or anything like that: the fun factor will always 'weigh' more when stacking all the features up.

@nintendope64 I meant a literal N64 game, not a remake of one. I was referring to the fact that stuff like Wii U Virtual Console N64 games didn't get anywhere near the level of attention or optimisation Mario 64 gets here.