My Switch hasn’t seen any playtime in the past couple weeks 'cause I’ve been watching the Olympics, but I have one more chapter to go in Paper Mario: TTYD remake that I’ll probably go back to once the Olympics are over.

I did dust off my 3DS one afternoon and finally continue some progress in Fire Emblem Echoes. I’m almost through that game as well, and then to complete my playthroughs of the 3DS Fire Emblem games I have both versions of Fire Emblem Fates waiting on the docket. I’ve generally heard Conquest is better (for gameplay at least) between the two but both are something of “black sheep” in the series. Since the eShop shut down I won’t be able to play Revelations, but from what I understand that’s a good thing, lol.

The original had a release to quite a limited geographic area (IIRC just Japan and Scandinavia) so it’s a bit of a “holy grail” for retro collectors. Interesting that they’re making a sequel.

Working my way through the Paper Mario TTYD remake, just got through chapter 4 (Twilight Town) in about 2 hours after taking 5-6 to get through the Glitz Pit. Granted, despite getting the Yoshi the Glitz Pit is my least favorite part of the game (it really tends to put the game to a grindy halt for a while), so now it’s more fun from here! 😁

I feel like the Wii U is gonna have a resurgence in popularity one day much like the GameCube, as an underappreciated console in its time. The Gamepad is a pretty weird controller, but the console had some pretty solid games for it. Then again, Nintendo did port most of those solid titles to the Switch, so it may not happen.

Five young recruits find the five golden Switch cartridges.

Recruit 1 is walloped by a big tie-wearing gorilla after eating its entire banana hoard.

Recruit 2 grows too big after eating a prototype actual Super Mushroom and turns into a Toad.

Recruit 3 is rejected after touching the Triforce and being sucked into the Evil Realm.

Recruit 4 loses an IRL series of WarioWare games played in a giant replica TV.

Recruit 5 is hired after returning the free Switch 2 prototype they were given despite initially being rejected for painting graffiti on the wall with Splatoon paint.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s waiting to find that younger person he feels he could pass his position to so that he can finally step down and retire, but he’s looking for JUST the right person.

Nintendo has been more about innovation in gameplay more than graphics pretty much since the turn of the century, and aside from the Wii U it’s paid off for them pretty well, so why should they change that model? Further, this isn’t like the Wii days in which they got only shovelware or severely butchered versions of 360/PS3 games from third parties: the main difference in many third party Switch games compared to their MS/Sony counterparts is mostly just running at 30 vs 60 FPS with no other major graphical or gameplay changes.

That said, Nintendo has been blessed to have mostly weak competition in the handheld console market up to now, so also hasn’t felt much pressure from outside in the handheld world until recently. Their handhelds have had quite the long lifespans: the Game Boy lasted from the late 80s to the 2000s before the upgrade to the GBA, and even after the Switch released the 3DS was still seeing relatively strong support until the turn of this decade, putting that at around a nine-year life cycle. I mention this because the Switch for many is as much a handheld as a home console. Now the Steam Deck and similar handheld PCs are giving Nintendo their first strong handheld competition since the PSP (among dedicated gaming machines, I don’t include smartphones). That handheld challenge may also be behind fans’ push for a Switch 2 soon and/or featuring more graphical power than Nintendo may have originally been wanting. But even then, they are mostly best off moving at their own pace and not trying too hard to keep up with the competition. It’s when they have tried to keep up that they hit their lowest numbers compared to MS/Sony, such as the GameCube and the Wii U. When they do their own thing and take the time to get it right is when they are at their best.

Yo, an official Western release of AAI2! I’ve played the fan translation, but definitely gotta pick this up to see and support the official localization, tell Capcom there’s enough of a market. Though IIRC, they were planning on localizing it at its original release but they needed either the localization team or the original devs for other stuff so they ended up not being able to. Nice to see they finally got back to it.

I really should go back and try picking up where I left off in Unicorn Overlord weeks ago, but for some reason I’ve found shiny hunting in Pokemon Violet more entertaining. I’m rather surprised at how Unicorn Overlord felt so bland and disappointing. I think I was expecting one type of game and got something quite different in a way that just couldn’t hold my interest. Maybe I just got burned out on high fantasy JRPG games and need to play something different yet still fun for me for a while.

I think they might wait for an FE4 remake until the next console. Engage had a middling reception and just released last year. FE games generally come out around 3-4 years apart unless they are companion games in the same setting (such as FE4 - 5 (Jugdral), FE6 - 7 (Elibe), and the Wii games (Tellius)), and a 3-year gap from last year will align with FE4’s 30th anniversary, which will likely help it sell in Japan (the novelty of another classic title finally releasing in the West will probably be enough to sell well here). If the Switch 2 releases early next year, 2026 will also be great timing to get enough of a handle on its capabilities to optimize for it well and really give it some good presentational polish.

I’ll just be content with a fix to the drift issue and a bigger handle thing for whatever the new Joy Cons are called so my hands don’t feel cramped playing with them. Adults play your consoles too, Nintendo.

Aside from hyper-aggressive protection of their IP to try to stop piracy, I legit can’t think of any scummy behavior Nintendo does that other game companies don’t do at either an equal or worse level. That includes MS and Sony.

EDIT: Further, emulation of a current-gen console may technically be legal depending on how you do it, but it’s not harmless. Some can/will use it in an essentially harmless way, but you and I know that the vast majority of users will use it to enable piracy.

Started Unicorn Overlord. Heard it was a strategy RPG, my favorite genre, and seeing the art style felt I had to try it. The gameplay is alright, I prefer moving individual units on a grid like Fire Emblem or P5 Tactica, but it’s an Ogre Battle style, where you build and move groups freely around the map. The art is really good. My one big criticism so far is that the story feels extremely generic. Hero is an exiled prince who needs to reclaim his kingdom from darkness and save his kidnapped girlfriend. Gee, where have I seen that before? /s I’ll keep playing but my motivation is low so it may be slow going.

I have this game on PC and just couldn’t get into it as much as the first game, but I loved the first game so take that with a big grain of salt. I recommend playing the first game first to get a good feel for the gameplay and characters. People compare these games to Sonic since the series did start as a Sonic fan game and some level design is reminiscent of Sonic, but they really are quite different.

+1 for the N64. My first Nintendo console (my first overall game console was a Genesis) and the first console to show me how games could really tell a story in an interactive way. So many great experiences with Mario, Starfox, Zelda, I’ll even give a shout-out to DK 64 beyond the DK rap. And of course, the 4-player multiplayer just doesn’t get any better, with the introduction of Smash Bros and Mario Party and some of the best racing games Nintendo’s ever made in Mario Kart 64, Wave Race and Diddy Kong Racing. Didn’t play too much GoldenEye but I’ll mention it anyway for mastering FPS fun with a single stick.

Is that on Switch? I have the PC version. Thought I would enjoy it more than I did. Just ended up feeling tedious to me with all the stuff to keep track of. Farthest I ever got in my attempts to play was the beginning of Chapter 3.

As much as I liked the Adventure games, Sonic Team and the other devs who work on Sonic need to try not to focus on story so much and devote more resources to gameplay and design when making games. Most of the bad games in the series suffered from too much focus being put on the story in one way or another, including the most infamous among them (Sonic 06 and Boom: Rise of Lyric). Get more technical people in there to work out the bugs, and more designers to craft longer, more engaging stages. Gameplay-wise, they also don’t have to reinvent the wheel every three games. The “boost” style of the Unleashed day stages, Colors and Generations worked well even if naysayers were all like “boost to win”, and relatively minor gimmicks such as the wisps were all you needed to mix it up and keep things entertaining. Going back to this gameplay formula was not among the problems with Forces; heck, one of the problems was that Forces didn’t do it enough, the stages were too short and when you weren’t playing that style of stage you had to do the (apparently) super-wonky 2D sections (I honestly didn’t have a hard time with the 2D stages though if many did that’s an issue). Mario works well following these rules: the story stays simple (even if repetitive, but nobody really plays Mario for the story); gameplay has a solid and established foundation for 2D and 3D and innovation/change in gameplay builds on that foundation instead of scrapping it and starting over; and level design keeps players engaged in gameplay with right-sized stages to be substantial but not overly short or long. Most of the 2D games do usually get this right, but why they can’t translate that consistently to the 3D games (and there have been good 3D games like Adventure 2, Colors, Generations, and at least Adventure 1 and Heroes were decent enough) I have no idea.

Given the apparent amount of Gen V easter eggs in the S/V DLC, I would not be surprised if an announcement of Gen V remakes shows up soon, if not in this Presents. Then maybe I’ll actually be able to afford to play a Gen V game.

I still play FEH and Pokemon Masters but never tried Animal Crossing or any other Nintendo Mobile stuff.

If true, the Switch 2 might be coming out sooner than I expected, maybe this summer. I was expecting a spring announcement either way, but a release around the fall for a holiday season showcase. A summer release makes sense too, to leave room for a strong launch window lineup for the holidays.