valcoholic

@johnvboy i mean with every system there are people claiming its dead on arrival but with the Switch announcement I totally felt like many who would usually be on the fence were totally on board, way faster than ever before on any Nintendo system.

The WiiU was said to be dead on arrival, which I wouldn't even say was true as it still stuck around for 4 years. The Wii's announcement left people just completely confused which would then shape up as amazing PR boost. With the Gamecube I believe it would have been nice if people would give it enough attention to predict it being dead on arrival and the N64... I remember that being quite hyped at least around Nintendopeople. At least I was.

But with the Switch, I really felt like I should've bought stocks ahead of its release as it was so clear that this was gonna be huge.
Its also my 1st Nintendo console ever to be preordered hehe

i remember as a sorta young guy when The N64 era had ended and the Gamecube was just starting off, people were always ike ONE DAY, FOLKS, ONE DAY NINTENDO WILL DOMINATE EVERYTHING and at that specific time, it felt like completely illusive. With the Wii something suddenly happened, although in hindsight I wasn't feeling it as there was a lot of low res shovelware and casual stuff. Then the WiiU seemed another step back and now ... guys this is just it.

I'm playing smart niche indie-hipster games like Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds or PC-ports like XCom 2 along with Marios Odyssey and the greatest Zelda game ever on a freaking portable. Its still unreal to me. In some religions, believers wait since thousands of years for some paradise, and us Ninetdnosheeps, here we are in the garden of eden.
Thank you Nintendo, well deserved! (and btw: Joycons still suck!)

I might be in the minority here but I think NFTs are a quite interesting development. Ages ago I thought about the possibity to actually have unique things in the digital world. I mean I don't necessarily know for what this could actually be good, but if we would just put all the capitalistic consume genozide aside, its still a sorta interesting thing to have and I'm supercurious what people are gonna do with this in the future.

I really don't think its an EVIL thing, I do agree though that the ones to jump onto that train as quickest as possible obviously have nothing but quick bucks in mind. But I can imagine that this tech will sooner or later go beyond that, once all the cashcrabbing idiots diminished each other into irrelevance.

"Jumping into a concrete block with your fist raised might be a direct ticket to hospital"

• professional pedestrian

I tried to play the game on VC a while ago and jesus this didn't age so well. I really wanted to play the 3DS version then but heard some quite convincing things about why the original is still a bit better. Today I couldn't exactly tell if i wouldn't still prefer the visual upgrade. Usually I'm really not a huge graphics guy, but when blocky graphics, framerate and textureresolution really interfere with how you perceive the game, it becomes a problem for me and N64 games really didn't age very well on that front.

But then again, its fine to see it just coming to that service as I planned to get it at some point at least for a year and with the AC DLC, BK and now MM theres quite some nice incentive.

For everyone who didn't play MM:
Maybe play OoT before to get into it (also to get used to the graphics and controls) then its still one of the most original games of all time. 20 yrs ago I wouldn't have thought so, but today I really like MM more than OoT. The OoT formula got refined over and over again so today it barely makes sense to play OoT again. MM still is a unique piece of videogame and the funniest thing about it is that Aonuma patched MM together in like .. a year or so and really didn't expect it to have the impact it then had.

I wish Nintendo would hire/form another talented studio like Retro Studios which would do nothing but revamp games like MM for the next Switch generation.
MM has so much potential still today with loop games popping up quite a lot these days (Outer Wilds, Deathloop ...) but I don't see mainstream folks really getting into that old port. They should really make more use of the potential of some old IPs like this one.
Generally I think they should continue making "closed worlds" Zelda games like OoT and MM along with BotW-style open worlds just like they do 2D and 3D metroids as different branches. Or 2D and 3D Mariogames. Love BotW but don't wanna give up on Skyward Swords linear gamedesign.

Amen.

cool, looking forward to it once I'm through Disco Elysium

@Laserbeak1982
How do they run better?
I haven't digged into the Expansion Pack yet, but planned to once BK is out. Are the framerates better? because at least with Banjo Tooie that would really help.

still one of the best overworld theme of all time. grant kirkhope was completely on fire with this game.

This looks absolutely great. I mean inside Nintendo's R&D caves, they might have done this before so its nice for the public to get a glimpse of what could be thanks to the modding community.
I would totally play this and having this in a game like BotW2, which a quarter of all Switch owners might buy, it could really enable so amazing online sessions and opportunities.

Its a bit sad how Nintendo would argue that the game isn't designer for that so they cannot have it to not break the game. But at the same time hey throw a motorcycle into Hyrule. sigh.

@iLikeUrAttitude Thank you for clarification in an article about a grip for people who like to play their portable console in handheld mode.

its funny how until now I never made the connection between chicory and okami although both are zelda-esque action adventures with a dog and a paintbrush.
I do understand its still sorta different and wouldn't ever call chicory a rip off or anything. Its just funny to see these sorta obvious parallels.
Currently I'm pretty deep into various games, but I'm sorta excited to dive into chicory sooner or later as it even made it into GOTY discussions and when announces on PS4 I didn't wanna buy it there as it just looked like it had to come out on the Switch.

I gotta say I sorta appreciated them. Or like that guy from the minnmax show said, it was more entertaining than some random Netflix episode.
I didn't expect a lot and I was sorta surprised again at how much money they put into this whole thing. As I worked on events as well, I totally get why they had to make their ad-partner present so I could live with that. And just have it running next to my work was quite fine. Would I have been disappointed if I would've gotten invested in the whole thing? Oh boy sure I would've. But I appreciated as some very mainstream way to celebrate gaming and it sorta worked quite fine from that point.
Still I got some critique:
1. it threw around with superlatives from the get go and i became sorta numb after a while. Its like watching a 4 hour michael bay movie.
2. it happened in the Microsoft theatre and it was sorta obvious, looking at the whole show. It was like 60% Microsoft and the rest sorta shared by MS and Nintendo. Thats a bit weird at a multiplatform awardshow.
3. many of the the games shown would have been cool when presented isolated, but in that whole show they sorta felt underwhelming. like a lot of just cinematic immersive experience stuff, not so much nerdculture.

the most important characteristics of F-Zero to me:
1. fast
2. fluid/60fps
3. a lot of vehicles (8-12 aren't enough. F-Zero X/GX rock because its like 30)
4. no weapons
5. and of course amazing designed tracks

Fast did some of these things, but the polarity-mechanic always interrupted the whole racing flow to me and made it feel like some forced mechanic to make it stand out of the competition with no real value for the gameplay. But maybe I ned to give it another shot.
RO2 looks nice visually, but that won't resemble the Switch graphics. So the game might not run as fluid, won't have 29 opponents ... so quite some big things missing.

by the way I would like someone to remake Extreme G 2 with modern tech. This game felt pretty interesting and very punishing, but it also didn't have the best framerate which shouldn't e a problem today.

animation studios like Fortiche proved that french design doesn't have to rip off anything and is capable of creating a very unique look and feel that totally works within the realm of mainstream animation and character design. So why they try to imitate something that it clearly isn't is beyond me.

I have a soft spot for molyneux games. He got compared to Miyamoto in the 00s for just being capale of bringing even the most abstract ideas to life. It rarely worked out as polished and well as Miyamotos creations did though, but I do agree theres a common creative spirit and his focus on simplicity and usability that other games often lack.

@teeenytiny why shouldn't he be? its quite a huge franchise, its surely one of the better vdeogame adaptations, its a movie for teens and young folks and if the team behind it isn't a pack of psychopaths, it might also be just fun to work on it. I mean look at Nic Cage and the movies he's doing. Sometimes actors just wanna have some fun. And yeah, maybe, just maybe, money plays another role in this.

Looking at how many people love cuphead more than most other classics somehow show, what a huge achievement cuphead really is. Because in terms of gameplay, its "just" another very good shooter. But due to the presentation it wins over audiences who might never have played those pixelated retro-classics while basically delivering a good compilation of arcade classics.

There might be some old arcade otakus acting like those cuphead kids will never know REAL games, but I think its a perfect milestone to start off a new generation and if cuphead represents a fundament to build on, thats just absolutely great news for this genre.

If I just wouldn't suck so hard at this game, hehe.

@somebread @xPH03N1Xx86
thanks guys; I mean I could have figured that its fine, as it started a quite long running Nintendo franchise, but for instance after having played Pikmin 2 or 3, theres never really a point in playing P1 as these are basically the same games over and over again with more stuff.

To this day, the only Paper Mario game I ever played is Thousand Year Door and ever since I'm happy to see people referring to this game as the peak of the franchise.
Still, I'm curious what fans of TTYD say about this original. Is it still worth checking it out?

AC-DLC + BK (plus the handful of N64 games to come) might be enough to justify that upgrade for a year for me, so I'm actually looking forward to this.

Ever since the 90ies there are some of grant kirkhopes tunes deeply stuck in my head and they alone are a reason to get back to it.

@Total_Weirdo "... but the hardware is coming to it's end soon."

I really don't think so. I mean I totally get what you say, but BotW had slowdowns in 2017 already so people were arguing exacty this and look what happened.
Of course the Switch is, like all systems, constantly moving towards its end-of-cycle but I don't really think theres such a hurry. 90% of indies and exclusives still do run pretty fine. The only problem are 3rd party ports. And while one could argue thats not such a big deal, I totally get how it would be so nice to enble more 3rd parties again to port their stuff over from the PS5 by offering a newer hardware. Looking at Nintendo's core audience, 3rd parties just have never been such a focus and if Nintendo can just have another year selling the Switch at a pricetag that earns them more and more profit the less they pay for the hardware, they will propbaly go for that. Its like with Mario Kart. As long as MK8 stays in the charts, theres no reason to even begin developing MK9. And about Nvidia ... there was already better hardware available when the Switch launched. Its about the prices of the chips and if it would generate a profit. So if Nintendo would now have a new Switch, they still would go for the last gen of Nvidia chips, not necessarily the newest one.

Its not (just) Nintendo's exclusives but their userbase and their productdesign.

None of those competitors offer a device that's simple enough to use for a child. The biggest amount of users who really want more power will go for an actual homeconsole or a gaming PC. The amount of people who need a portable device thats also powerful but in the end a portable PC by its usability and concept, will always be smaller.

The Switch already got crazy popular among adults and it will remain popular among kids and families. To break this popularity, Nintendo would have to really f*ck it up like they did with the WiiU after the Wii.

@NeonPizza that depends if they go for an Infinite or BS 1/2 approach.
Because many might argue that that series isn't necessary a shooter-game, but yeah, Infinite was definitely leaning heavily into that direction.

@moodycat just like Metroid Prime 4, it all comes down to the studios being able to utilize new technologies for new gameplay mechanics. Like I really don't hope that a new MP game would still have that whole door-to-load-next-room-mechanic, as the Swich probably doesn't need that. I also hope they find different ways to make the game interesting than always let the same enemies spawn in every room over and over again. These little updates can already affect gameplay quite a lot on the long run. And with Bioshock I do hope the same thing although after 1,2 and 3 I couldn't tell whats the common ground there and how better tech can actually impact gameplay. But after Infinite was still a PS3-gen game, I would really expect them to push the whole thing forward by going for new gen optimization.
I'd hope for a lot of physics based stuff and dynamic elements as it would fit the whole setting and the previous games might feel a bit stiff and undynamic seen with today's eyes

I expect a native PS5generation thing that will be a cloud game for switch at best.
But that would also mean that its not some crossgen-game that doesn't make as much use of newer gens as possible. With a game like Bioshock I really hope it just looks the best it can. As a PS4 player, I can live with not being able to play it right away and wait for a new console.

While I get why people are sorta angry about their pace of updating that service, I'm wondering why its such a big deal. When I feel like its now a good time to invest in that upgrade, I will do it maybe for one time, have a year of playing through stuff like Banjo Kazooie and Paper Mario again and then just not renew the whole thing. Noone forces anyone to stick to these things forever.
I felt like the original NSO was way worse as that is not just about the NES and SNES library but generally the online functions, which just were embarrassing and in some cases even felt besser implemented on the WiiU at no additional costs. And games like AC would force my kids to also buy extra NSO accounts to make use of the most primitive little online gimmicks. Its pretty stupid.

This premium thing is what it is, an extra service for those who are willing to pay more. But its way more optional than regular NSO.

Inside for 2 bucks is like an insult to the studio. SO please go insulting them, its just an absolutely awesome gem.

Game Awards have a tradition of really barely touching on the Nintendo fanbase. I hardly doubt Nintendo would be so interested in a western event to show off Zelda there, after already revealing it at E3 anyways.
They will most likely just use their own Direct format at some point.

i don't even dislike it that much; reminds me a bit of Links Awakening though that was of course more designed toward its style.

It's called Eastworld.

This is among the coolest articles I've seen in a long time. Thanks for the wok you guys put into this, its been a, maybe senseless, but yet very entertaining and somehow fascinating joy. Some things like the headline of FZero coming out on XBox and PS really makes one wonder what drove that bot writing this.

@Harmonie Maybe I'm sorta old now and not that deeply entangled into those communities, but for my perception, the fanbases really became way calmer than they were, say in the 00 years. Not just videogames, I remember feeling like it could only be a matter of time, until android and apple fanboys start to actually murder each other. And With games it feels like its way more OK to just play the stuff you're into without following some company religion or whatever.
Of course there still are flamewars going on, but i guess the average overall audience is older today.

@Strictlystyles they did the mobile ports and I guess noone cared about bugs when playing gta on a phone so they thought "hey, easy money, we just port the phone-games over to home consoles and call it definitive"

politics should take note. If theres one way for companies to bridge the gaps between fanwars, this is definitely a way to go. just pay respect for your competition.

@UglyCasanova its a good idea if it works out. The way they are milking the LOL franchise now is ... suprisingly successful. I couldn't recall any other franchise that worked out that great at least with so little attempts.
I don't care about LoL in general, but Arcane is among the most interesting series on Netflix in years. An absolute milestone in animation and art design, never seen anything like this. And these little projects also look like that LoL brandmanager did one amazing job in just controlling whats possible and who should do it. So its quite interesting to obserev what they're doing with that brand and how it keeps up over the next years.

the decision to use purple was definitely interesting and I remember feeling a bit mixed about it, but also felt like it was the right thing to do. It was way more recognizable and caught attention while the black one didn't necessarily look great in terms of its design and the black sorta made it also boring to look at.
I also prefer the Switch with colored Joycons, as its just a different approach to things, emphasizing that they're jumping out of the box, instead of following sorta tedious routines.

Couldn't get into its aiming controls somehow. Back in original N64 times I wouldn't have minded as there were way more weird controls all over the place but nowadays it somehow crashed with my muscle memory of how aiming should feel according to what I'm used to.
But the 2nd one used the Wiimotes right? would love to try that one day.

Happy so many voted for Disco Elysium. Those devs need every praise there is. Just such a shining gem in the library. And hopefully their motivation to fix some bugs might be bigger now, but I'm all good;

just port this baby over to Switch already. Snake Eater is the only MGS game I'm curious about. Loved 1, liked 2, hated 4, like 5 right now. But missed 3 goddammit.

this holiday season is quite underwhelming ... again. Good thing the Switch is such a well supported system that I wouldn't care that much

hehe well sure, but I believe this is slightly diferent. achievements really is something you can implement or not while the online service is a whole own thing that earns them actual money. I mean its not like I would hate achievements so much, I sometimes do hunt them on PS4. but I do prefer Nintendo's way to handle them by just making them part of individual games. Like AC has a very big Achievement system on its own. Wonderful 101 had its own take and so on.
Sure on PSN and XB its different as you see everytihing on the account and so on but I guess I'm glad to just not having to think about this on my Switch.

@Neoicelord sure but from a company's standpoint I understand that this sorta fragments the audience and makes this system a bit pointless. I mean a bit. Not like its completely unnecessary, but I can understand why they wouldn't include them it in first place

@Neoicelord I love that they don't have this. I hate it when stupid wannabe funny achievements pop up inside a game that aims for immersion. And its also arguable if buying a game just to milk achievements is also a great idea. I mean the dev wouldn't complain for sure, but the sheer inbalance between getting a platinum trophy in a game like Dark Souls and in some random indie-minigame also emphasizes the weakness of this concept.
Anyways, I'm grateful that Nintendo chose to say NO to over achievements a decade ago and sticks with it.

He literally just announced Ice Climbers Returns.

"short" doesn't necessarily have to do with hours. a walking simlulator thats 30 hours long might be pretty long. A Fallout game of the same length might be pretty short. When I played Inside, I thought its gonna be pretty short from what I read and in the end I was surprised how much longer than expected it kept me going. There are many differing perceptions out there.

And games like Mario's Odyssey might disrupt these perceptions even more as I coudn't tell if Odyssey is a long or a short game. The main story can be played through failry quick. Then there are certain things to unlock that will take more time. Then theres advanced stuff. Then theres the really difficult stuff. Then theres completionist stuff. So is it a long game?

I DON'T LET YOU TELL ME WHAT I DO WITH MY CARTRIDGES ! ! ! !

25%?? what the hell. I'm working in magazineproduction and every single fart that contributes just a phonepic is credited. This isn't just about respect, its also about what customers think. Leaving contributors out never makes a good image. and 25% is just bonkers.

They should just swallow their ***** and patch the credits. I mean its not like anyone really reads them, but its bad if they're artificially cut.

@Kid_Sickarus aaah right, sub zero; totally agree

back when MK was new, this move was maybe the one thing that really made the game stand out of the crowd of beat em ups.
I mean MK really had quite a few things that make it special, but Scorpion and his COME HERE was just dynamite