swoose

"Freest bread of our lives" is the issue to me. I grew up in a similar area with cookie-cutter cities and big box stores, and there's nothing enticing to get you out of the house. Exclusively service industry jobs that don't pay well and drive you mad from the boredom.

It's a culture that has completely failed to incentivize being part of a community. The market for cardboard from Japan is giving these guys a stronger sense of reward than anything else in their lives, think about that.

On top of that, there's few to no employees at the store to stop them, mostly self-checkout. Everything depersonalized.

This was also the choice they made for Mario Kart World and just forgot to announce it. 30 tracks, 2 costumes for DK and Pauline, complete experience!

Commenters here know Nintendolife does a separate article for review roundups and aggregation right? The amount of discussion I see here about other review scores boggles the mind. Are people reading them or just looking at numbers?

The only perspective in this review I disagree with is “a combat system that only has so much room for development.” I only loosely follow the Fire Emblem romhacking and indie tactics scenes but they seem endlessly innovative with grid-based combat. But that’s even more to the larger point that Clash battles look un-Fire Emblem and not very interesting.

Excited for this game but pacing and feature creep are definitely concerns I have. I plan to start with 1 or 2 routes and a lighter touch on the map gameplay.

@uncleMike Based on how they’ve been positioned in all materials, their full character arts, and roles as clan leaders, we already know the other 4. It’s those 2 you mentioned, Bertrand (white haired axe fighter Leda has sworn revenge on), and Talimun (green haired merchant with the toothpick).

They all have statues in the future period to start the game, so they probably still have bigger roles in the story than other characters, even if they’re not main lords.

@MJF Weapons don’t lose durability from regular attacks in this game, only from Combat Arts, so they can break but you can avoid it much easier.

Modern Fire Emblem always lets you turn permadeath off if you don’t want it.

@Galaxy2IsTheGOAT Yes! I usually recommend FE7 or Sacred Stones to newcomers, those were the first western releases and created a lot of Fire Emblem fans. Awakening did the same. Your 3DS is a great platform for the series, probably the best.

One thing about the recent games is they've added more social sim and role playing elements, to the point where a Fortune's Weave preview said the playtime is only about 33% tactical combat so far. On GBA the games were ALL combat, with story bits within and between chapters. People like the immersion of newer games, but I found the old ones had better pacing, they were very breezy to play.

Knew this article would be a banger within its first paragraphs, it's the exact kind of thing we don't get when consoles are brand new.

It makes sense people are opting for stick replacements purely for peace of mind, they don't want their gaming and schedule disrupted by finding a replacement later on. Though stick drift happened gradually is my recollection, my Switch 1 joycon didn't go from perfect to unplayable overnight. You notice a character running a bit too long in one direction or walking just slightly when the stick is neutral, and that gets more frequent over time. No sign of that with my launch S2 controllers so far, thankfully.

I'm surprised to see the praise for the Pro controller, all we heard was how inaccessible to repair it was early on. Thinking of that infamous iFixit review.

I feel like the Joker about this. This isn’t even a content update. The SNES tracks were already in the game. The Knockout Tours are racing through the tracks in the game in a different order.

Mario Kart 8 just got a more substantial update than this. Why was this in the direct?

Lots more action focus in this trailer, lots of wire-fu, and some emotional beats with Ken and Ryu. I still worry some characters like Guile and Dhalsim will be a little TOO stupid but otherwise it looks like a good balance. I’m more optimistic than for the last Super Mario movie.

@AussieMcBucket There will be a “Pokemon: The Last Movie”, and then 2 years later “Pokemon the Movie 2040”

Doing their own storefront and merchandising seems odd to me, as you’d think Nintendo would have the hookups with print & manufacturing, payment processing etc. But I guess they own the Fire Emblem IP outright so it’s like a Pokemon Company situation.

@Agent_P Just not a fan of seeing Tornadus or Landorus on every team, sometimes both, with Prankster tailwind and their new spread moves

Unless I'm mistaken Champions hasn't had legendaries in it yet, so I wonder if Heatran will come with others. Like the Kanto birds, Johto beasts, maybe Ogerpon (please no genies)

One, I'm just pleased they're doing a feature-length animation while trying something new. Here in the West we seem to favour churning out live action remakes, reboots and sequels and I prefer animation to Detective Pikachu 2.

Also I was just thinking about what made the Game Boy trading card RPGs so much more soulful than every digital TCG they've done since, including Pocket. Part of it was they had original characters and their own take on a Pokemon universe, where the cards themselves are powerful, there's a league and gym leaders, villain teams etc. This movie could have a fantasy setting like that.

She has a skinny Hollywood actress build. I’m open to being won over by her performance, but here’s a radical idea: they could have just casted a woman with big thighs.

Hi The Pokémon Company, I know how to use 2FA. I’d be willing to manage your account log-ins for a modest $80k a year.

I finally caved and downloaded this app because it was the only way to read their DRM-blocked Splatoon comics and Fire Emblem profiles. The thing I’m finding the worst about it is, like every garbage modern platform, it’s not chronological. It shows you the posts it arbitrarily wants you to see in between the new stuff. To simply get them chronologically you have to scroll fully to the bottom of the page each time and click “News”.

Here’s a thought… maybe for a news app based on a calendar, the NEWS page should be the default? It’s the only part of the app I’d ever use, so I wonder if they’ll ever let you make it the default.

I was expecting the exact same grey with an accent colour and tiny triforces on the joycon rails.

I’m so used to controlling Fire Emblem with the dpad, going back to the GBA games. So much so, that when they start you with grid-ignoring “free movement” designed around the analog stick on Switch, I immediately have to turn it off and go back to grid-based.

I’m open to mouse controls, but part of me thinks this will feel like controlling Tetris with a mouse, just wrong.

Nice to get more casting news, but what will really tell me about this movie is when the press tour starts. It’s a bad sign if we hear more “longtime fans will find sooo many Easter eggs on the screen!” Please just tell a good story.

Back when Nintendo wanted their new partners to actually make new games, instead of putting them in remake daycare.

For my money Game Freak's best non-Pokemon game was Pocket Card Jockey. No coincidence it had simple visuals and put gameplay first.

Splatoon 3 is the best and it's ho-hum reputation in the West always bamboozles me. In Japan it's an ongoing phenomenon, and they know their Splatoon over there. From English-speaking gamers I saw outright envy that Splatoon was even getting a 2nd game on Switch, instead of their preferred series like Mario. And then there was a lot of simplistic coverage like it was "more Splatoon 2."

Squid roll alone is transformational as a movement option. New weapon classes, subs and specials, also transformational. There were subtler improvements to the camera and aiming as well, such that it's genuinely jarring going back to Splatoon 2 after S3 and Raiders. The single player took its cues from Octo Expansion. Salmon Run was given a great rework and full availability. The Table Turf card game has its own little campaign. It's some of the best value I've gotten out of a game for $60.

PSA that the info on these characters is much richer on the Japanese FE twitter account, which you can machine translate or find elsewhere on fan sites. They also include scenes of their voice acting and longer battle clips.

Nintendo Today’s promotion is an afterthought in comparison. They don’t even mention Mikaela is a mother (a playable mother in an anime game!) fighting to support her daughter, or that Mu is disguising herself as a boy to search for her own mother (who is possibly Mikaela). It’s like anything that makes these characters interesting is getting scrubbed, and heaven forbid you hear them speak.

NoA either thinks extremely little of their audience, or is so afraid of anti-spoiler militancy that they’re sacrificing their own hype cycle.

S2 has GameCube NSO and a Kirby Air Ride sequel, so we all know what console really drove its success.

I haven't seen all the bosses or endgame yet so I'm withholding judgment, but I've got a sense of the gameplay loop and it has that addicting "one more raid" quality. And I like the hideout ship, it's comfy to putz around on.

I will say though it seems like a game I'll be finished with once I'm done the campaign + some hoard objectives. As opposed to Splatoon 3 which I play regularly. I've seen comments like "this is the Splatoon game we've been waiting for" and I'm like, huh?? I think S3 got slept on as being "more Splatoon 2", but it would be tough to unseat it as the best value in the series.

I poked around some review videos and the Gamespot reviewer was saying “Salmonoids” and the Game Informer one was aiming at smallfry with stick controls, and they both still rated it 8 or higher, so that bodes well for actual Splatoon fans.

I don’t agree the Guardian review should be converted to a 4/10. This is part of what’s stupid about Metacritic. They use a 5pt scale for a reason, and people giving ratings out of 5 (such as movies) tend to actually use all 5 potential scores. 10pt scales seem to never even touch the first 5 numbers, so you might as well say a 2/5 is more like a 7/10.

Good to hear they nailed the multiplayer and I really think they should have marketed the game’s co-op more heavily. Calling it single player focused may not do it favors in this era where “friend slop” is all the rage, and the mode it builds on (Salmon Run) was always co-op. I’ve heard so many more casual players worry about going it solo in this game.

@HammerGalladeBro Actually, the High-Five Fever minigame in Rhythm Heaven has some ultra-realistic graphics.

Struggling to think of a time I’ve skipped new dialogue in a video game. I’ve probably thought “wow this is getting wordy,” but I still read it all.

“You can skip dialogue sequences” does nothing for me and is almost an insult to the reader.

I'm astonished the nice blue Speed team with Shiver placed 3rd in votes. That 2nd place in popularity for Power made the difference, along with winning Tricolor and the Sneak Peak and their other 2nd place categories. In this latest scoring system those add up and it helped make such a close result.

I picked Power because for horde modes like salmons I prefer high DPS and AOE, though all the tanks in Raiders have some powerful looking gadgets. I also like Frye and picking the underdog team, which it looked like we were at halftime. This means Team Power is undefeated after Zelda splatfest when Shiver was captain. GGs to all!

Someday, Pokemon Conquest 2 will have its day in the sun.

Top 4 are all Switch 1 games. I’m not so sure this should be Nintendo’s swan song on Switch.

Zero new stages in this season pass and zero new single player content to replace World Tour, for which they’ve ended support. Still the same price of course.

That is what prompts speculation that a big new version update should be coming, moreso than looking at past titles. Because otherwise, they appear to be slowing down development for a game that’s growing in popularity.

Delvil is localized as Houndour in English and the team name is Vissel Kobe.

I recognize the need for pro-consumer regulations like these. However, Nintendo was already extremely pro-consumer in its battery quality. I have never had a rechargeable Nintendo battery die in 20+ years of owning them, going back to my Game Boy Advance SP which is still kicking.

They could have designed this generation with removable batteries from the start of course. But more importantly, they don’t put cheap, planned obsolete batteries in their products to begin with, like most companies that are targeted by this regulation. Now we have these compromises and discontinuations, all over batteries that won’t need to be replaced in most people’s device lifespans. The sticks, fans and screens could all give out before the batteries do.

I think there could have been a carve out in the law for batteries that test above a certain lifespan, as Nintendo thoroughly tests theirs to do.

I don't think the Switch 2 will be Nintendo's last physical media platform. They have 100+ years of being a toy company, and an audience that will still have a fondness for physical games a generation from now. Parents will remember getting physical games and want to give their kids that experience. When most parents remember getting Roblox gift cards instead, maybe then the jig will be up.

Music went through a period of digital-only but the vinyl market is back now for collectors. Physical games don't have all the appeal of something like vinyl (different sound, big artful covers), but they're not as expensive to produce and ship. It's just a question of consoles including a little card reader or not.

I recommend the Switch 1 pro controller you already own and a monitor you found in the garbage. As for games, your whole Switch 1 library is good but now the games will actually run properly.

I was alive for the PS1/N64 era but I hadn't really thought about how games could market pre-rendered footage as a way to "cheat" or misrepresent game performance. Nintendo games from that time almost never had rendered cutscenes.

Granted, 3D rendering itself was so new that such cutscenes still didn't look all that impressive, lol. I vividly remember cinematics in games like Starcraft (1998) and Darkened Skye (2002) that looked laughably bad.

@Tibob The purpose of this Nintendolife embed is to let us read the Velour Studios post without an external account, which it fulfills. It seems you’re not concerned with accommodation, and are running PR for one media platform over another.

I’m curious to see how the maybe-Byleth character figures into this game. I don’t hate their design. We’ve seen the player run around as Cai, so I haven’t given up hope on a more grounded Fire Emblem where the protagonist isn’t a literal god.

@LastFootnote In my experience, the Switch FE games are harder to finish because they include more RPG style unit management. The games on 3DS and GBA were a bit more streamlined and faster to play. I also finished a playthrough of Path of Radiance on Switch online recently and had a grand old time, but that game had very slow battle animations so it’s better to play with battle scenes off.

Another trap people fall into is trying to train all or most of their characters. It’s kind of like Pokemon where it’s efficient to settle on a team of 6, except in FE it’s usually 12-14 for endgame.

@Tibob The Bluesky embed looks pretty accommodating to me, and I don’t have an account there. I can even follow the direct link and see all replies without being asked to sign in.

Not really Lies of P’s fault but it was the 3rd game in the direct to be 3rd person action with the exact same art style. Lords of the Fallen II led into it and you could have told me they were the same game.

@InfamousOrange Nintendo confirmed co-op after the last trailer.

https://x.com/SplatoonNA/status/2046583481434583309

You’d think the graded collectible market would have faced more skepticism after a prominent retro game grader was caught bidding on his own supply through a shell company to inflate the market. So much of this is just money going on round trips.

It’s fair to ask, “who is actually spending $1,400 for that Gengar card?” Someone who is selling them, probably.

Given how they’ve rushed out revisions to both the Switch 1 and 2 consoles - first for the nvidea security flaw and battery, next for the EU removable battery law - I wonder why they refused to revise the joycon.

I guess the calculation was development costs and bad press would be more harming, even worse than the bad press from drift when you account for the free repair offer. A lot of faulty joycon were already sold by 2018. They went on to sell mountains more Switches and joycon unchanged so I guess that calculation was fair.

Playing it regularly but mostly docked, and I’m reckoning with how much dust has gathered on its dock, cables and screen. I’d have to break out the microfiber cloths and screen cleaner to make it look brand new.

@LastFootnote There is another way to get your spark back, and that’s Boning Up. When you spend to upgrade it also restores Mina’s health and spark. So when I get in that situation I sometimes just play more pacifist and focus on finding bones, until I can afford my cheapest upgrade (usually sidearm power).

I've been hooked. It's a game I keep thinking about after I've turned it off, which is always a good sign.

I've become a big stickler about over-scaling and emptiness in games, so it's refreshing to play one that crams its points of interest so close together. Makes it difficult to put down, because there's always something to investigate.