swoose

They found a way to make cats ugly.

Instead of tasting bitter, the new cartridges will taste like honey.

I was coming here to insult this shoddy de-make of a port and say nobody should support full-priced shovelware from Nintendo, but I see there's still enthusiasm for it in the comments. It's certainly a way to play it on Switch. So to each their own!

The pinhole video of the joycon being pulled off the unit is far more convincing than this. With how isolated and shadowed they kept it this could easily be a render.

That said, safe bet the Switch successor will look pretty much like that.

I also think the “Wii hardware was creatively stifling” quote is slept on here for how stupid it is. Imagine environmental artists at Monolith Soft thinking that way.

It’s one thing to think that in the moment in 2006, but with hindsight that’s admitting your own incompetence at the time.

What’s annnoying about this is Sakurai’s joke was at the expense of CERO, along the lines of “CERO has decided that Smash Bros is for good boys and girls” which makes it way funnier. But the localization left that out because they think we’re stupid and don’t know what a rating board is.

And so now english social media is full of “take THAT Sakurai!!” when he never passed that judgment on Mai in the first place.

Transparently they wanted to withhold these tracks forever so the app doesn’t obsolete the physical release.

They should’ve just left it as-is for this one OST. Drawing attention to their removal like this makes it look 100x worse.

Remember they shut down WiiU and 3DS service, but have the server traffic for all this junk.

There HAS to be a happy medium between blocking Binding of Isaac, and having no curation at all. All these copycat unity asset flips are not hard to identify.

I don’t think even Nintendo can outdo the Switch’s success. I think we’re facing an economic downturn, and some market saturation for handhelds (people satisfied with their Switches). The Switch was a runaway freight train in gaming and I think the Switch 2 can be a modest success, but lightning won’t strike twice. So I don’t expect a competitor handheld to take off either.

I hope that leads to more innovation in handhelds 2 gens from now, and especially to smaller form factors. People are buying pillow attachments to hold up their “handheld” pcs and consoles this gen, so their hands don’t fall asleep since the tech is so stupidly heavy. You can barely call them portable.

It may have been tricky to make an article out of the blurry joycon & console footage from yesterday, since Nintendo was getting videos of it taken down. It's very obviously real. And not surprising, given how deep into production we are.

Nintendo waiting until 2025 to reveal this may as well have been saying "We're OK with you seeing our console from leakers first."

Well, four free Switch games is pretty generous. That’s sure better than we got for the WiiU/3DS shutdown

If only there was a Nintendo-made peripheral that weighed only 8 ounces, supported all DS games natively, had a nice resistive touchscreen, and was so popular that Nintendo shipped like 130 million of them, so they’re easy to find everywhere. Oh yeah, that’s the Nintendo DS.

Play your DS games on DS, people. It’s a comfier and more portable handheld than the Switch anyway. A new “Nintendo Classics” DS mini product would be preferable to all the compromises listed here, but even that I think is wasteful and too soon.

I remember liking the grid-based battle system in this. Can't for the life of me remember why I fell off playing it, other than it being a full-length RPG.

I think I was playing the 3DS version, which has voice acting and some extra dungeons in exchange for new anime portrait art that got mixed reviews. The DS original had a more distinctive look for sure.

Funny enough, I don't think text even needs to be scalable - it should always be huge by default. Back in MY day text had to be legible on CRTs so it was like 10 characters per line, and we LIKED it that way!

The downside is devs will actually have to think about UI design and how much text they're putting in their games. The horror

Just avoid the problem and it might go away! I see myself in this fellow.

That Aonuma quote had nothing to do with the menu, he's just talking about using echoes in gameplay. I don't know if control schemes and menus are really his wheelhouse, seems like more of a Miyamoto thing who had no involvement with this title.

I will say the menu wasn't a huge downside for me, I only wish new echoes were automatically at the front of your "last used", instead of the end.

A bit concerning as Select Button only makes bangers... but they've also ONLY made Magikarp Jump and Pokemon Sleep in the past 10 years. I'm guessing they're a smaller studio that mostly does support work, art and UIs and such.

I'll keep an eye out for any negative changes but if this keeps Sleep supported for longer, it's a good thing. The structure of the game is there.

It's been a while since I've licked a cartridge, since the bittering agent was more of a story in the console's first year. I wonder if those early cartridges have maintained their taste over time. I'd better go check.

It's incredible we're still having these issues with tiny fonts. Are designers working for years and years on giant 4k monitors and never checking their work at a smaller size?

It's especially bad for a game using a pixel aesthetic. That's missing one of the main points of pixel art and UIs, their clarity and legibility.

A couple misconceptions. The IGN review was written by a superfan of the Mario & Luigi RPGs, who was clearly let down by this entry vs. his expectations. It was not a case of being unfamiliar with the series or biased against Nintendo, Logan Plant is often on their Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. Sometimes the biggest fans are the biggest critics; if NintendoLife asked for my review of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, I might have given that a 5.

Which raises the point: look at the writer, not the website. I keep seeing “but IGN gave [bad game] a 9!” So what? The same reviewer doesn’t give every score, and sites can’t enforce a monolith opinion across their staff. You wouldn’t judge PJ O’Reilly’s review skills by this site’s review of Sonic x Shadow Generations. He didn’t write that one!

@Maxz Basically the weak yen hurts them when they're making purchases, which they're doing a lot of with the increased R&D expenses and ramp up to new console production. The weak yen helps them when they're SELLING stuff, but they're doing less of that than previous years since Switch sales are down.

I think this whole thing was a fumble and uncharacteristic of Nintendo. Why acknowledge a successor this year at all? The damage to their sales momentum has likely already been done by that.

It wasn't just hopium thinking the announcement would have to be this year, with a spring or early summer release. It's now looking like a fall 2025 release at the earliest. That's on a chipset that is already known to be a couple years old, into a market with another year of competition from other entertainment devices. Not to be nintendoomed about it, but the prototype was shown to devs ages ago and this ramp-up seems very slow.

Half of every comment section on aggregated Kit & Krysta bits is yelling at the clouds about them being relevant. I don’t follow them but clearly they saw a spot in the media market for views from former Nintendo employees, and people listen to them.

If you object to this so much just stop clicking on their headlines on NintendoLife.

Mobile devs design a game without 10 different in-game currencies challenge (impossible)

Good thing they had this to fall back on when the NFT bubble burst. I’m surprised they’re not trying to sell their accessories as AI devices somehow.

Comment section-ly reminder that emulation is legal, emulating currently sold consoles is legal, the people emulating them are also the ones spending the most money on Nintendo, and encryption keys are not intellectual property.

I was always taught to ask "why?" and consider logic.

There is absolutely zero logic to banning photography. It takes 1 second, is unobtrusive, and deals no damage to the value of the museum. And further it's unenforceable, unless you want to confiscate all smart phones or watch every patron like a hawk. Such an obvious losing battle.

It's an original Nintendo game, by that alone it surpasses my expectations. Not sure what people wanted from this, that some are disappointed. Paying rent for playing more old games?

The “Strong experience with the protection of musical works and sound recordings” bit is a concerning one. Get ready for DMCAs against videos and streams that had Mario music in them.

Weirdly defensive stances towards Nintendo here in my opinion. I love their games and products, that doesn't mean we have to love their legal activities and the hypocrisy here is obvious.

They've repeatedly gone after both open-source emulators AND non-profit rom archives, that's the main sore point with people even before they started charging for an emulation experience in their museum.

If they have to charge $100 for this... there's no way the Switch 2 will only be 4x as much, right?

Granted they're hopefully not producing that many of these and see it as more of a novelty, high end stocking stuffer.

So Monolith can afford a dedicated R&D team. I wish I knew what the Pokémon Company does with all its world-leading profits.

@Sarkos I know, but that's what I mean by extra inputs that shouldn't be there. They should just be sorted in sequence with my most recently used.

I've taken to stopping what I'm doing, and summoning every single echo as soon as I acquire it to move it to the front. Otherwise I get 10 new echoes and have to remember which ones I've summoned yet or not, and which ones will be in front or back of the line.

I have to think Nintendo has done some design study that shows people visually process items faster if they’re in a single row. The Switch menu has also stuck to this for 7 years. Because otherwise, 2 rows is such an obvious option I can’t believe they didn’t go with it. 1 for objects, 1 for monsters?

I’m getting by fine with the default “recently used” sorting, except whenever getting new echoes (which is constantly). They put those new echoes LAST in the list unless you switch to “recently learned”. The best function would obviously be recently used & learned combined, but that doesn’t exist so I’m doing extra inputs every time to shuffle my new echoes to the front.

It's funny if they're worried that they came off as hating the west, when so many gamers in the west also hate the west. We've all been arguing about which westerners they're complaining about, who we also hate.

It gives a feeling of "cheapness" to me moreso than affecting gameplay. And by principle it's a shame since this is a premiere Nintendo franchise and they passed it off to a dev team that can't optimize a top-down, fixed camera game. It's really not much to ask for.

But at least it's not a remake of a 60fps GameCube game that runs worse than its inspiration.

Looks like Miyamoto's dislike of story extends to museum placards.

I thought it was clear from the trippy tour video that this wasn't intended to be informational, so much as an interactive game and art exhibit.

Good thing they made this highly original IP and charged money for it, instead of dastardly working on a Mario Bros romhack for free! Nintendo would have been all over that.

"Who is really complaining about this" is an apt question only because the answer is no one, no one is complaining. $1000 bounty for anyone who can find complaints from even the most strident activists, that a game lists Male and Female player options. New games come out all the time still bearing those labels, you hear nothing.

And so this change is made voluntarily, because people in development and marketing recognize it's NICE to acknowledge the social and scientific consensus, that sex and gender are separate and on a spectrum. It's appreciated and can be handled elegantly, I've praised this before about Animal Crossing and Splatoon.

Meanwhile you absolutely WILL hear complaints about scantily clad characters, both from those who say it's objectifying women and those who say it's corrupting the youth. My take is we should probably just leave legacy games made by old men like these unaltered, and avoid the tiring discussions. They get a longer leash anyway because of when they were made.

The way things have changed is Nintendo now makes a lot of revenue off remakes, branding, and subscription servicing their legacy content. With that in mind it probably does make sense to offer chances like this to connect to Nintendo the Brand.

I wonder what Yamauchi would have to say about remakes and Switch Online.

It’s a 9 for me with the main flaws being the single-file menu and 1 more I haven’t seen mentioned:

Most of the NPCs are cardboard cutouts. No personality, no problems of their own, they reiterate your objective over and over. That’s not surprising for a video game but it is for a Zelda game. I expect weirdos and tight dialogue.

Now more than ever, it feels like… Nintendo should develop their 1st party flagship titles internally or find competent development partners, instead of going back to Grezzo who already failed at this while remaking a fixed viewpoint GameBoy game.

Otherwise I’m sorry to say, this will keep happening on the Switch 2. B team devs will keep using middleware, keep pushing too many shaders and effects to justify the Switch 2 exclusivity, and their games will keep running like porridge. It’s always been a problem of dev priorities, not hardware.

Not to devalue the work they put in this game, I have it on pre-order, but this is a perfect example of missing the 2-tier Nintendo console/handheld pricing. $60 for 15-20 hours will seem rich to many.

When I played Link's Awakening on GameBoy back in the day, pretty sure my parents didn't have to shell out 60 inflation adjusted dollars for it.

"Who in the series would be a good fit for these powers and bring their insight to them? Well, that would have to be—“

Ganondor—! Er, Princess Zelda of course!

I hope they extend the "Classic" brand to handhelds next. Emulation handhelds are booming, marketed heavily with Nintendo form factors and playing Nintendo IPs. I'd be interested in an official one.

That’s a lot to scroll through in a single row menu…

I liked the bit in this interview about adjusting the echoes so they come out swinging and feel more like attacks. Hopefully the menuing is also as snappy as it can possibly be.

The latest is those renders might have been mocked up by an enthusiast, but the factory list and photos of hardware are likely real.

Pro: the face buttons looking larger, even extending to the outer edge. I hope this makes it feel less "cramped" as I've heard good things about the Steam Deck's funny-looking button placement.

Con: Why on earth do they refuse to make the joycon ergonomic. Do they have to be flat on the back?? Would a 2nd hump at the bottom of the joycon be so bad? It would also make it feel more symmetrical held sideways!

It’s funny, Nintendo could start selling the game digitally as soon as it goes gold, before cartridges are on shelves. Many people would hate that I’m sure. But it would sure eliminate the market for leaks!

I’ll be getting this game on cartridge, and I see zero reason to care that some people are playing it before me.

The scope of this is a 64p text to video diffusion model that by the researchers’ admission is “not practical and friendly for interactive video games”. That’s benign and mildly interesting even.

Then the for-profit tech company funding this research says it’s “for the creation of interactive video games” and that the “The era of infinite interactive worlds is here”.

All the “dumb money” flowing into AI research means it always has to justify itself with grand claims like this, so investors don’t worry that it’s another dot com bubble. When the disconnect between practicality and marketing is that huge, no wonder it has become so controversial.

It would be nice to have something to grab people's attention after Splatoon 3's Grand Festival, which will preoccupy a LOT of players in Japan and feel like the end of an era. Then there's a new 2D Zelda this month, which will have stable enough interest that a future (backwards compatible?) console won't hurt its sales.

The "this is Furukawa" tweet was 4 months ago now, it might make sense to reveal the console sooner rather than later so they're not saying "the Switch successor will not be mentioned" about presentations for the next 4 months. And if Nintendo is moving towards production, they want to get ahead of it so we're not getting news from manufacturer leaks and shipping lists.

Overall the smoke is looking plausible this time.