RedShell

Yeah, I think this is a common belief due to both Brawl and Smash 4’s online performance being pretty flaky at launch, but as anyone who stuck with the games will know, they improved and stabilised over time. Especially Smash 4, which considering the insane amount of stuff going on in that game runs incredibly well online.

Yeah, although it would also be funny if they instead punished bad timing by having it do no damage at all.

Not enough people in crazy fantasy land for my liking let's fix that... 1. Waluigi Should've been in Smash from Melee, it's definitely time for him to be playable now. Another appearance as an assist trophy just ain't gonna cut it, I want to experience true Mario bros. vs Wario bros. Smash battles! 2. Tingle The perfect character to join the playable Smash roster. Why? Because pretty much everyone hates him! The cool people (like myself ) who can appreciate the awesomeness of Tingle will get to play as a character they love, and the haters will get to enjoy beating him up! It's win-win. 3. Birdo See above. 4. Drake Redcrest This was going to be Captain Rainbow, but seeing as his game never made it out of Japan I decided to go with another Skip Ltd. creation. Obviously Chibi-Robo himself should be the most likely candidate but he would look seriously weird scaled up to match the other characters. Probably not as weird as Bayonetta looked after they messed with her proportions, but not far off. 5. Judd The inklings are obviously in, so might as well add some more Splatoon goodness in the form of Judd the cat. His flag move is just crying out to be a side smash attack, and if Duck Hunt Duo are still in the game it's only right that we get a feline rival for them. 6. Jimmy T. Definitely time for some more substantial WarioWare representation in Smash, and I think Jimmy would be a great choice. He could keep stuff inside his afro (a la Villager's pocket) and the opportunity for amusing taunts is right there too. "Aww, yeah!!" 7. 9-Volt Another WarioWare character you say? Hey, if Fire Emblem can get a million characters in Smash, it's only fair we see some more from other Nintendo franchises as well. 9-Volt has so much potential as a Smash fighter, they'd basically be able to make use of the entire retro library for his move set! 8. Karate Joe After more from WarioWare we're going to need something from its spiritual successor too, right? Karate Joe was actually my vote on the Smash ballot, and I still reckon he would make for a great newcomer. Not only does his role in Rhythm Tengoku lend itself perfectly to Smash, for the Final Smash they could use the Karate Man mini-game, just replace the key beat targets with opponents. 9. Ulala Moving on from Nintendo stuff but sticking with the rhythm genre, another much wanted addition for me would be Space Channel 5's Ulala. Again there's just loads of potential for cool moves, not to mention the sheer excellence it would bring to the soundtrack! 10. Hatsune Miku (chibi-version) OK, this one is especially out there seeing as it's not really a video game character, but anything is possible in crazy fantasy land! Would have to be the cute version of Miku from the Project Mirai games though, much better fit for Smash. 11. Goemon Were it not for the fact Konami completely abandoned the amazing Mystical Ninja franchise and relegated Goemon and Co. to bloody Pachinko machines in Japan this could and should've happened already. As it stands Goemon is no doubt the least likely character on my entire list, if you can believe that. He would've been fantastic in Smash though, and imagine using Impact for a Final Smash! 12. Kazuma Kiryu And last but not least, another super impossible "prediction" (lol) in the form of Kiryu from the Yakuza series. With those games finally starting to get more popular in the west, and with Nintendo fans having been introduced to the character via Project X Zone 2, Kiryu could've been a great addition to Smash as one of the more "realistic" fighters. An insane amount of moves to bring over from Yakuza as well, including the Heat system... would've been sweet. So they be my choices, I look forward to achieving last place in this prediction competition. But not as much as I look forward to finally playing Super Smash Bros. on Switch!!

The Shifty Station stage for this Splatfest is genius! They should totally add it to the standard stage rotation. Could even make an entirely new mode based around it actually. For those that haven’t seen it, it basically consists of 3 clear containers placed above the stage, which over the course of a match drop into place (you get an onscreen warning just before each drop) sealing off the area that they fall on. Any players/ink in those locations get locked out of the rest of the stage! Great fun.

If you go to the game page for standalone Splatoon 2 and scroll down, it should appear there.

Some of my earlier D.I.Y. stuff is preserved on YouTube:

Check this out: https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/09/google-maps-marks-mario-day-by-adding-a-super-mario-kart-to-your-navigation/ Loving that super clean SMK Pipe Frame render. Gorgeous.

Looks great. Loving the 80's vibe on that logo. Anyone pre-purchase the DLC? I'm wondering what abilities the bonus gear have.

Same here. I reckon there will be more DLC at some point, it’s probably just too close to the Balloon World stuff to mention it right now though. Got a feeling they might go the same route as Zelda and Splatoon 2 and do a big DLC expansion for purchase.

That reveal was absolutely fantastic! Would’ve been more of a surprise if they had shown it before all the Splatoon 2 stuff though, as I realised it was Smash way before the logo appeared, but it was still a great hype moment regardless. So what do we reckon for the release month? Looks like the online service is set to launch in September, and this is basically THE perfect game for that... Just knowing it’ll be out this year is good enough though, super excited to play it.

Wow, surprised by that! For some reason (my terrible memory obviously ) I seemed to think you played the Wii version, which was when I first played it. Anyway, wherever/whenever you end up playing the game I reckon you’ll really enjoy it.

Hard for me to be down on WarioWare (it’s one of my all-time favourites) but I really do wish this was also coming to Switch. But yeah, this will be extra amazing for those that haven’t played any of the WarioWare games before, and people that didn’t import Twisted. It actually looks like a lot of effort has gone into recreating the visuals of older microgames too, well... it probably doesn’t to some, but that’s just the usual style of the series. Anyway, at least with this done and dusted for 3DS I can get back to hoping for a Switch WarioWare title sometime in the future, preferably a sequel to the awesome WarioWare D.I.Y.

Did quite possibly my best ever item bounce attack tonight with a Bob-omb (sorry @Dcubed ) still not sure how the hell I got away with that. The MKTV replay shows that you were slightly ahead of me, yet somehow the blast only took you out.

IN!

Woo! Hyped for more on Mario Tennis (please be good, please be good...) and hopefully at least 1 reveal for something new (that I’d actually be interested in) on Switch.

The Switch rewards section that has been “coming soon” for the past few hundred years has been completely removed from the My Nintendo site, so I guess the new 1 gold coin = 1p malarkey is indeed the reward... Un..be..lievable.

So apparently some upcoming outfits have also been discovered in the latest build, including one based on Link. Not sure how feasible it would be, but I'd still really like an update that could enable the photo mode filters during gameplay. Playing in Game Boy mode would be so cool. But seeing as the game drops to 30fps in photo mode though I'm guessing it probably won't happen. How's everyone doing with Balloon World anyway? I'm at rank 45 now, but don't see myself reaching 50 any time soon. You need to find/pop 800 balloons in total! I have really enjoyed Balloon World though, it can make for some very funny moments indeed. And the "Look Around" bit whenever you miss a balloon is often hilarious. A couple of my faves:

Cheers for the games last night, @nekunando. Shame about the crazy lag though, there are times when this game is basically unplayable as a result, and yesterday was one of those times. Not sure if it was the same for you, but the lag was so bad for me that I literally couldn't touch the ball 99% of the time (and not for the usual reason of me just being bad at the game ). At one point it even got stuck after a goal replay and I was watching your car drive around in circles for about a minute. Gave me time to snap some screens and make a (badly) animated GIF out of it : Rocket Lag.

It’s made worse by having the title/menu screens running at 60, very strange choice. Yeah, the game is pretty slowpaced and basic, but I like the ability combinations you can do, and it looks absolutely stunning! Definitely the best visuals in a Kirby game so far (even though I prefer the art style of the Wii U game) there are some lovely effects going on in this, especially the lighting which is beautiful. They probably should’ve simplified the visuals slighty and targeted 60fps though.

Sorry I couldn’t make it last night... ...Lousy Smarch weather. @BowserBasher, nice boomerang skills!

Same here. Will hopefully be IN! though. Check out the highlights from last time:

Was the European version also taken down? Don’t imagine it was, seeing as it’s actually just the demo as intended. What I downloaded is at least.

Yeah, very strange. Have you played the demo? If so, what did you make of it?

The demo went live yesterday, all 36GB of it! It is in actual fact the entire game data just with restrictions in place to limit where/what you can do, although in America SEGA somehow managed to severely fuck up and released the full game with no restrictions at all! It has apparently been pulled now, but looks like there's quite a few people enjoying the complete game already. Which begs the question, if the game is indeed complete, what's with this extra delay until April? Anyway, I spent an hour or so with the demo last night and while I'm definitely enjoying it, the general performance of the game is disappointing. Not only does it run at a much slower frame rate than Zero and Kiwami, there's some nasty stutter going on at times, plus horrendous screen tearing too. Not sure if it's a much better situation on the Pro, but I believe the only difference is a resolution bump to 1080p. The combat is also going to take some getting used to as despite using more or less the same control setup/inputs it feels very different in Yakuza 6, it's like they've added a load of additional physics to everything which makes it really weird after having spent so much time playing the previous games. Really hope it clicks though, as some of the new aspects (like fighting inside convenience stores) are fantastic! BTW, anyone that has played Zero and Kiwami be sure to check out New Serena in order to receive a couple of additional items for having save data from the previous games.

I think once they get popped by someone the code becomes invalid. Noticed when I hid some new balloons yesterday that the code changes.