swoose

I’ve seen a number of comments online running with the game-key cards and claiming that ALL physical S2 games will come on them. Nintendo gave a graphic explaining them and even required a giant white bar at the bottom of the few relevant game cases, none of which are Nintendo games.

Which says to me it doesn’t matter how clearly you communicate, people will spread misinformation if it takes Nintendo down a peg. And fair play - there should be pressure on them to keep prices low. I think they also should have revealed pricing during the direct.

But just wait until Switch 2s are in the wild and people can claim their docks scratched their screens again - that will really “take the shine off” what will probably be a really lucrative launch.

The main surprise to me here is some people were actually planning to double-dip on these games if the enhancements were all on the cart, when they could just use their Switch 1 copies. Talk about having money to spare…

Lots of unifying elements along the spine still: the red bar and logo, the publisher logo, the rating, probably the title font also. A bit more color and graphical variety when they're shelved doesn't hurt.

Here's hoping we'll get reversible covers that do away with all the screenshots and technical elements on the back.

I see pros and cons with the mouse. It is not only optical sensing but also tracking gyro, which means you can rotate the “cursor” unlike computer mice. I’ve only seen that functionality on something like a drawing tablet. That has a lot of potential for placing things in something like Mario Maker, menuing, maybe some other creative uses. The bullet hell in Welcome Tour looked fun. Funny enough the start of the Drag x Drive trailer made me think it was a DJing game.

What I’m not sold on is the use in shooting games, over gyro aim. Gyro is already good for this and gives you natural access to the R stick, which mouse mode doesn’t. In Splatoon this means strafing is in the L stick, quickly pivoting is on the R stick, and the gyro is on aim. You don’t want to be dragging your mouse to the edge of the screen to pivot - that is tank controls. Maybe a twisting motion can be used to replace that, but I’m skeptical.

One of the strengths of videogames is moving your character around with the simplest motions - tilting a stick, holding a button. Pressing one button to jump. Their movement becomes second nature, like it’s mapped to your brain.

Games like this overcomplicate the simplest motions for no real reason other than novelty. Watching the treehouse gameplay was brutal.

Having watched some of it, it’s full of charm and polish and I’m looking forward to playing it, there’s more to it than a “manual.” Of course I wish it was bundled in.

I do think Nintendo’s history of pack-in titles is overstated. I’ve seen professional commentators incorrectly call games from 1-2 Switch to Snipperclips “pack-in” games. The Switch didn’t have a pack-in game.

Even examples such as Wii Sports were only pack-ins in certain markets, after lots of internal arguing with regional arms like NoA. In Japan the Wii had no pack-in. One of Nintendo’s most consistent stances is to not devalue their software.

@Gryffin Normally the gym leaders (and wild pokemon and trainers) get higher level as you go along, since most Pokemon games have been linear. Scarlet/Violet let you challenge the areas in any order, which lets you take on harder bosses first… but all that really does is leave lower level gym battles for later, which makes them a joke.

In lore and for gameplay, it would make way more sense for gym leaders to have tougher teams based on how many badges you’ve earned.

Unfortunately the performance was just one small issue with these games for me. I bounced right off its world design, ghost town cities, and lack of gym leader scaling.

@Dazman Not saying you're wrong, but it's crazy to care less about game prices than the console price. The console is a one-time purchase. An $80 game sets that bar for all big first party offerings, you could pay it over and over.

If their goal was to sell a bunch of Switch 2s and have people own only 1 game on it, congrats Nintendo. That was already the case for a lot of Switch 1 owners and BotW/Animal Crossing.

Extra ridiculous when I get the bundled Mario Kart version for only $50 Canadian more.

This is the worst news of the day, especially the price discrepancy of physical and digital. Nintendo has supported the physical games market until now, this feels like a giant FU.

Reminds me of NintendoLand. I'll happily support it, the ambient soundtrack alone will be fire. It's the kind of weird, smaller scale Nintendo software that was missing on Switch.

The market for life sims is a sleeping giant. I know people (mostly women) who still have The Sims expansions installed and play them regularly. And it’ll be 5 years since New Horizons, the people will be ravenous.

What with all the AAA studios shuttering over here, maybe western devs should also stop trying to appeal to the west. They seem to think we want bloated interactive movies or the umpteenth live service shooter.

I’ve already held off on Kirby Star Allies and Forgotten Land this gen, purely out of hope there would be some kind of Switch 2 or emulation solution for their framerate. Putting visuals before performance was such a disservice to that character and series.

Cartridge button. Instead of fiddling with a plastic flap it ejects your game cart out the top like a toaster.

As someone with 1 switch who mostly buys physical, I’m reading things in this comment section I’ve had zero idea about for 8 years. You could use one digital copy to play the same game on 2 switches, online together at the same time? What the hell?

If we want physical games to still exist, digital games should be equivalent to them and not outright superior. That loophole sounds insane. That said, they should do more local wireless play off one copy like they dabbled with on the 3ds.

This sticks so closely to Capcom’s classic MvC animations, I was half expecting to see a Capcom logo at the end. Talk about copying homework.

Looks like an evil lair.

I’m seeing disdain for remakes here and I often agree, but the long-rumored Fire Emblem 4 remake would be great news. Intelligent Systems’ last remake, Shadows of Valentia, was like a brand new game, just building on the plot of the NES original. Even as a series fan I find the pre-GBA titles hard to go back to, as they play much slower with stiffer and less colorful animations. I have a lot of faith an FE4 remake would bring a lot of new creativity with it.

@psyraven76 Yes, there was also a rumor Metroid Prime 4 wouldn’t feature at all in the Switch 2 direct. So it must be in this one if they filled 30mins

Good news, but how on earth did they find a funder with even less of a future than GameStop

When you think about it, maybe the TCG blind pack/box format just had a good run. It was always a suspect business model, a gacha. The scarcity is part of the value. They could just sell you the cards you want, but that would kill the surprise and trading element. Maybe this model was never meant to sustain demand as high as pokemon’s.

You know the Pokémon Company won’t sue this because they have no interest in making games that look good like this anymore.

Really impressive that this many colors and animation frames, and such complex backgrounds are possible on the NES. I wonder how many of the limitations we associate with retro consoles actually had to do with tiny media sizes.

Marketing to Nintendo haters 101: imply your game is too "beefy" for Nintendo platforms

@Dizzard In the real life TCG you can't farm a ton of free packs using multiple email addresses, and then trade the good stuff to yourself to build optimal decks.

Trading wasn't planned as the focus of this app, and I don't think it should be.

Well, that trailer assured me these devs are reputable and classy fellows.

"Unmistakably Xbox", "Xbox design sensibilities"

It's like they're trying to drive people away!

Beef between NoA and Pokemon Company US, two marketing arms and nothing more.

My question is if Pokemon devs look at a game like Metroid Prime 4 and think "are we in the same profession? Why does this look 2 generations ahead of us?"

I’ve never used anything like those hole buttons and I’d love to give this a spin. Not by paying for it though.

A single grand city has potential for a setting, but this looks like an incremental improvement over SV at most, with cookie cutter mountain geometry replaced by building geometry. And with trademark clunky GameFreak animation & traversal. A generic teleporter to warp you to the rooftops is an unbelievably lazy solution. They couldn’t find a better way to move vertically in the entire Pokemon universe?

The one thing that got a pop from me, fully real time battles, was immediately followed up by showing the 30ft long rock snake Onix, standing only about twice the height of the player. Just incredible how stubbornly they refuse to scale gameplay space to allow for the size extremes of their IP, Pokemon. This entire generation and they still haven’t been scaled right.

I’m guessing this will lack the charm, minigames, and single playability of Stadium 1 and 2. And I’m wary of concessions to make it feature compatible with the mobile market - will it be F2P?

But if it’s like a streamlined TCG Pocket take on VGC doubles, that could be something. We’ll see when they show us more.

The main point here is it shouldn't take a stray youtube comment to the original dev to discover these copycats - they shouldn't be approved in the first place.

I really don't understand how these games can be offered for sale seemingly without anyone at Nintendo even looking at them. How do they know the games even run?

In a sense, Game Freak hasn't produced a classic remake since ORAS in 2014, and they've only made 3 sets of remakes in their entire history. BDSP was ILCA and Let's Go was basically a sequel, centering Pokemon GO's catching mechanics and happening to be in Kanto, with a new protag and rival.

Game Freak seems to favor new gameplay directions with their 2nd projects now, and more power to them. But as for the core series, I wouldn't say there's been an innovation that really makes me want to see a 2D game updated. At least Hoenn was being seen in 3D for the first time, plus Mega evolutions. That novelty is gone, and they've been churning through 1-off gameplay hooks since. It's not impressive to see a bunch of Unova Pokemon gigantamaxing or terastallizing.

As a 3DS fan I always see this topic and have such little interest in playing 3DS games on a worse handheld than the original. I’ll be getting Switch 2 to play Switch games. But it’ll be heavier, larger, not a clamshell, screen of a different aspect ratio, no resistive touchscreen and no stylus. I’ll stick to my 3DSes thanks, they’re perfect at playing their own games.

I thought it was notable that Furukawa, in addressing Nintendo shareholders, mentioned affordability being important but made no mention of margins or profitability wrt console pricing. Like he was prepping shareholders for a lower margin console, where Nintendo will try to make up the difference with more sales and more presence for their software, IP and services.

Can't quibble too much with the top 10, but I will go to bat for Mario Superstar Baseball. It's not only great for a Mario sports title, but some would say the most mechanically pleasing baseball game ever made. It still has a competitive community to this day, which prefers it over the less precise Wii title.

Meanwhile in Canada VIA rail will weigh your bags and charge you extra for bringing a lunchbox.

I have no nostalgia for the physical TCG, but I do love the Pokémon TCG games for GameBoy, which were proper RPGs. Pocket replicates some of the charm of those, in that you’re building up semi-consistent decks from nothing. I just wish the single player gave any character to your opponents - they could even incorporate characters from the games for you to face, instead of blank slates.

But the pvp is also surprisingly snappy and low stakes, and the changes made to battle are mostly smart ones. Trading may as well not exist, and I don’t think this game needs it particularly.

A core appeal of this game to me is making do with a limited set of cards. Like one long term draft format. Can't say I'm too fussed about being able to trade for exact cards at all.

AI opens up all kinds of empowering new avenues for artists. Like doing scams, and… well, mostly scams.

The good news is you get points for 2nd place in each category now, so White Chocolate can't completely shut out the other teams again.

@Dazman It is often literally a scam, a grading/auction company last year got caught selling to their owner's own shell company to set a high market price.

I don't envy anyone who feels compelled to collect vintage games or trading cards. All kinds of scammers and opportunists are hopping on that train.

I started this game last week and I'm pleasantly surprised how much there is to do on a new account. I'm up to 400 total cards and several fun decks without spending a cent, with hourglasses saved for this expansion.

Only complaint is it devours my phone's battery.

Metroid fans "slagged off" Other M and Federation Force to no end, and then had nothing but praise for Metroid Dread. Fans want to be pleased. The "no matter how good it was" is clearly off base, but I can understand cynicism at Microsoft producing a good dev team for Banjo.

It all depends on things like track design, items, and online performance. If it takes longer to fill 20-24 player rooms than MK8D took to fill its rooms, and if the tracks are even wider with the least relevant collisions yet, then it's a downgrade.

Nintendo entered mass production on the console before revealing it, for money (marketing considerations and Switch 1 sales). Thousands of supply chain employees became capable of leaking it, for money. And the most buzzworthy leaker this cycle was another manufacturer in Genki, who did it not for clout but for money.

Everyone's motivations in this are straightforward. Maybe you don't "blame" Nintendo for the leaks, but they have no right to be surprised by them.

Strongly doubt this is cross-gen, this is their golden goose to sell Switch 2s. It’s scaled down footage (not fullscreen) that’s in development still. The scale of the track and background details would not have been in MK8D.

That said I question the choice of using a desert track for our first look at the game, much like Splatoon 3 - like the western audience must all love deserts or something? And I agree they didn’t show any eye-catching new mechanic or scenery in this clip to really differentiate it.

Given all the copy & paste slop on the Switch eshop already, I assume there won’t be any issue with this!