Nicktendo

I can see it now. 6-7 years of Direct segments dedicated to upgraded Switch games. June 2025: Legend of Zelda™: Breath of the Wild™ - Nintendo Switch 2™ Edition!! Dropping in the e-shop right after this trailer!!! December 2025: Super Mario Odyssey™ - Nintendo Switch 2™ Edition!! Dropping in the e-shop right after this trailer!!! Repeat Ad Nauseum until... December 2030: Donkey Kong Country Returns™: HD Remake - Nintendo Switch 2™ Edition!! Dropping in the e-shop right after this trailer!!!

...which we are quite clearly, based on that wording, going to need to pay for...

I think it can all easily be explained by who owns SNK and who owns Ronaldo's current contract. As cringe as it may be, it's going to be the biggest Fatal Fury game of all time.

My Switch Wishlist is now empty! The first time since 2017, or ever, basically. I got my final voucher a couple of weeks ago, which I used on Xenoblade X and Famicom Detective Club. Found a nice deal on Amazon Germany for Emio physical, so that's coming later this week, and I used my final gold points on Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, which was on sale at 40% off if memory serves me correctly. With my gold coins it was around £30, which I thought was a solid deal for 6 games. Of course, this all means I actually have dropped RDR2 for now, and I'm currently going through FF1 and Xenoblade during most of my free time - I'll have updates on both soon. Feels kinda strange that the Switch is coming to an end though. And I'm also kinda sad that my final physical game is going to have a huge irremovable rating / warning badge on the cover and, even worse, be in German . Sad times, but there's always a financial or aesthetic cost to remaining somewhat physical in this part of the world. What pledge, sorry?

You know what, that's not a bad shout actually. Maybe not a "pro" edition per se, but spruce it up a little bit internally, have a nice fancy limited edition design. Make the OLED screen the standard and discontinue the OG. 64gb storage. Same on the Lite, few new colours. $100 / £100 price drop for both models. Pack in a big hit or two. Finally kick of a player's choice range. Congratulation, PS2 is dunzo. 10 million+ EZ sales.

I always thought the 2 Rare N64 shooters were very front loaded. The first few levels in each are endlessly replayable and a lot of fun, but they both dip heavily in the mid-game. Unlike Goldeneye, Perfect Dark doesn't pick up again towards the end, and the back half of the game is pretty average. Level design is not very interesting and I was never really a fan of the alien stuff. I've played through both to the end on NSO (and Goldeneye once again on Series S) and had a great time with both, but those games were really all about the multiplayer and the fun times with friends looking back.

I should give you all a bit of update seeing as how we're almost 1/4 of the way through the year already and I have said nothing since I made my (stupid) 12-game pledge. I've beaten two of them so far. Well, actually 1 and 1/3. First up, the one game I said I would probably wait for, Yooka-Laylee. I found a cheap GamePass Ultimate deal for a month so jumped into this as I wanted a slightly superior version to the Switch one. Beat it in about 3 weeks. 115 pagies from 145. I had a great time, still missing about 10 quills, unfortunately. Honestly, this game is much, much better than reviews had led me to believe. Apart from the Casino world, I thought this was a very solid platformer and very worth sequel to the Banjo games. Very nostalgic feelings throughout. Originally, I had wanted to 100% each world as it came, but quickly understood that that was not really a viable path. Heavily borrows from Tooie in that regard. but it was fun coming back to the first couple of worlds to mop up with the full banquet of abilities. My GP has expired now, so I'm not going to get that coveted 100%, but I will absolutely pick up the remaster. A very close 2nd to the 2D game. I also beat the first Metal Gear Solid on PC in the Master Collection. This one is spectacular. I think we're all already aware of that fact. Had an absolute blast, ran through it in about 3 days. Saved Meryl. Had zero issues with what is basically PS1 emulation. The game still holds up wonderfully. Started the second but haven't made too much progress as of yet. In addition, and being a bit of a naughty boy because I'm not pledge gaming, I powered my way thought Zelda: Ocarina of Time on NSO. I've beaten this game countless times on N64, GC (Master Quest), and Wii, but I was genuinely shocked at just how well it still holds up. Teary-eyed on many occasions, but that's just the nostalgia. Just magical playing with the N64 controller, which I finally picked up when I was back home in January. Took me around 18 hours to beat, almost to 100% (all items except the last bottle, 18 hearts, and ~70 gold skulltulas). I was surprised at how much I remembered and how quickly I got through it. It has probably been around 10 years since I have played this (think I beat it on 3DS, but old age is making that a blur) but it just underlined how good of an entry this is in the series. Completely reshaped my view on Wind Waker, TP and SS, which I have beaten much more recently. This is the OG and best. Nothing comes close. I have also started a playthrough of Majora's Mask, which I have not played since launch. Currently half-way through the Snowfall temple, and having just as much of a good time. I also played GTAV to completion for the first time. On March 4th the enhanced PC version dropped for free for GTAV owners, so I decided to jump in and finish off the story mode. I have played through the first 10-15 hours of this game maybe three times on Xbox, PS3, and again PC, but never really bothered to go further because it never captured me in the same way IV did. While the story is not a patch on the fourth instalment, it did win me round in the end. I finished it and found myself getting more engrossed as it progressed. I'm a big fan of the heist missions and do enjoy the general set-up / humour in this edition. The ending was abrupt to some extent, but still satisfactory. R* has created a wonderful living, breathing world here, and I had a lot of fun just doing side missions and exploring during my playthrough. Speaking of side missions and R*, what's taking up most of my time as we speak is Red Dead Redemption 2. Having finished GTAV and being decidedly whelmed - not underwhelmed, but not overly impressed - I decided to give their latest release another try. This is another one I have on PC. Have started twice, and picked up from where I left of on my 2nd playthrough (which according to Steam was mid-2020). I left it on 34 hours in the middle of chapter 2, picking up again about 5 days ago. Now I'm at 70 hours in the middle of chapter 3. Well, this game is leaps and bounds ahead of GTAV. I am continuously surprised and impressed at just how utterly incredible this game is. The random events, the feeling of the world, and how the various systems integrate are utterly astounding, and massively ahead of more recent games I have dipped into from 2024 and 2025 (mainly Avowed and Starfield). I honestly don't know why I dropped this, I have been completely hooked over the past few days, mostly wandering around doing side-missions and completing challenges. I think this might be the best game I have ever played. I'm keen to press on, but I really don't want it to end. Just a truly engrossing experience. I pledge to move on to more pledge games eventually, but I was totting up my spending so far in 2025 and it's currently over 200 euros and more than 20 games on Switch and PC, sales have been grabbing me good. The backlog continues to grow.

I remember paying 70 bones for an imported AUS version from GameStation back in the day. Did the game even officially release in Yurop?

I think the PGR games are wishful thinking seeing as they're not even on Xbox BC. As much as I'd like to see them too, it seems like they've given up with that now and what's currently available is all we're potentially going to get. Fable and Grabbed by the Ghoulies seem much more reasonable, especially the latter.

Nice breakdown of the potential performance of Switch 2 based on the short MK9 trailer

I feel like 900p would be a decent compromise, but 1080p really is insanity. The fact the OLED can go 9 hours on a single charge, depending on the game of course, is a huge thing that attracts more handheld pay. I'm sure the tech wizards will have it all figured out and the battery life will still be solid, but I do think going that high is a bit needless, especially with the LCD screen as you mentioned. It's all a delicate balance of tech, performance, & price, and I have no doubt they will get that mix as right as possible that will make their own in-house games really shine.

I honestly don't think that will happen for free. I think most "upgrades" will be paid, but hopefully well-priced. Rumour mill is pointing towards BOTW and Odyssey "remasters" which will run in 1440p at 60fps. Both games were 900p on the OG Switch, and BOTW was 30fps, of course. I would be ok with stuff like this if it was a £5-10 upgrade, but I can also see them fully remastering some games to take proper advantage of the new hardware and charging full-whack for them. How heavy the lean into that will be interesting. Hopefully not too much. I think the most we can expect for "free" is simply for all games which use dynamic resolution scaling to always run at their max resolution, so BOTW would be 900p without frame dips. Stuff like Doom Eternal and The Witcher 3 would be interesting from that POV, I suppose. We may also see some games treat Switch 2's handheld mode as the old docked mode, so if the rumours are to be believed, they will run at a higher res than 720p, given the talk that that new screen is supposedly 1080p, which is absolutely crazy IMO because it's a needless drain on battery for minimal visual gain at a size that small, but that's another discussion.

Yeah it was obvious from the reveal that this would be a quick and cheap port, so no surprise the final version isn't up to snuff. I don't really see the point of this approach tbh. There's no way I'd pay 60 hard-earned bones for this.

I feel like a prize clown for picking 12 games now. I obviously didn't do enough reading or pay close enough attention to the pictures because I somehow just assumed it would be like one game a month or something. Oh well. Uphill battles are made to be overcome.

Thought I would join in the fun this year. 2024 was a pretty decent year, I managed to beat 25 games last year according to my stats, but many of them were smaller games or classic games on NSO. This year, I'm aiming a bit higher. Cyberpunk 2077: I picked up the DLC on sale a month or so ago and have just discovered the wonderful world of modding. I have 3 different save files already ranging from 5-25 hours deep, but I'm thinking of starting again from scratch with a new character as a big update has changed a lot of the systems in the game. Managed to get the game running nicely on my PC after tweaking some settings, so I plan to go through the main game and DLC in one go. Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection vol.1: Picked this up just before I went away for a couple of weeks over the holidays. I'm about 4 hours into the first game and absolutely loving it. Beat it on both PS1 and GameCube and have very fond memories of it, but have never played 2 or 3, so once I'm done with the first, I'll be quickly moving on to them. Fallout 4: Big update last year from MS again perked my interest in this game, and ala Cyberpunk, there are a ton of good mods for this game which can streamline / improve the experience. Been sitting in my Steam account for years, but I never really gave it a fair shake. So this year I will. Okami HD: Hype for the sequel. Played a bit on Wii (around 20 hours) and started on Switch again just after the VGAs. Final Fantasy X: Always wanted to play this after dipping into 7, 8, and 9 over the years. Started a couple of months ago and got 10 hours deep. The plan is to actually finish it by the end of the year. Atomic Heart: Was always intrigued by the setting of this, so picked it up in a sale. First gameplay impressions were not great tbh, but I will soldier on regardless as the story is decent so far. Persona 4 Golden: Never played a Persona game. Dipped into a bit of SMT and reviewed Tokyo Mirage Sessions for the site waaay back in the Wii U days. I bought this on a whim when it was very cheap and I'm loving it. 15 hours in and 2 dungeons down. Loving the setting, the characters, and the story so far. This will almost certainly be one of the 12 I definitely finish. Will probably move on to 5 Royal afterwards, keen to see more from this series. Selaco: Got a few friends on Discord championing this game and I decided to jump in too. Absolutely fantastic so far. Technically, the game is still in early access and only 1 of the 3 planned levels are available right now, but it's amazing what these guys have done on the Doom engine and they are WIZARDS with sprite work. Resident Evil Village: I went on a huge Resident Evil binge last year, starting with 4 HD on the Switch. Finished that in February, then went through 2 and 3 Remakes a couple of times each before beating 4 remake in early December. Had a blast, and RE quickly became one of my favourite franchises. So I'm going to go through VIII to continue that trend. Sea of Stars: Huge fan of The Messenger, so naturally I should give Sabotage's second release a go. Unicorn Overlord: Played the demo for a good amount of time and it really sold me on the game. Love the art style and the setting of this one. Yooka-Laylee: I beat the 2D game on Xbox a couple of years ago, and played it again over Xmas on the Switch. To be honest, I'll probably wait until Yooka-Replaylee drops, but I really want to go through the 3D game after having a lot of fun with the sequel. I have the Switch version, but it runs a bit shoddily, so we'll see what happens with Switch 2 or the remaster being released if I have a better option later in the year.