Dcubed

Had a chance to try out the VGC family sharing feature. It's pretty slick. You just select the game you want to lend, the other person accepts and you're done. Nice and painless. You can only give out one game per person at a time though. So I lent @Ugh first aid my copy of AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative, while I borrowed her copy of Unicorn Overlord; but I can't give her any other games while I'm lending out Nirvana Initiative. Also, once you're playing a game you've borrowed off of someone else, any account on that system can freely load it up and use their own save files; just as if it were any other physical or digital game. You are NOT limited to just using your own account to play the borrowed game. It all works exactly like lending out a physical game, with the same limitations and all. I'm not gonna try linking any other systems until I get my Switch 2, so I won't be able to try that out yet. The obvious use-case is to link your Switch 2 and Switch 1, so that you can freely share games between them without limitations; so that's what I'm gonna do.

It's an arcade port, where the actual main arcade mode was removed for the home version. Bizzare.

So looking at how VGCs work in practice... I guess this is what I'm gonna do to manage my storage over the first few months before I get a 2TB SD Express card... Do the Switch 2 Transfer, keep most of my games stored on my Switch 1, put the main 1st party Switch 1 games I want on the Switch 2 and then just use Virtual Game Cards to load and unload other games as needed; until I can just put everything onto the one system.

Here's a good video showcasing how Virtual Game Cards work in practice.

That's because TOTA is actually a good game, with worthwhile out-of-battle gameplay. Decent dungeons & puzzles to solve, actual proper RPG towns, a proper world map etc. And the story & characters aren't hot bum either.

Woah! The eShop is red now! They've changed the branding from orange to red, that's weird! Still runs like absolute butt though.

That's not cool. GIving you a new icon is one thing, but going out of their way to scrub Kevin Bayliss' DKC design altogether is really shitty. Smacks of rewriting history.

Oh wow! Wasn’t expecting such glowing praise! Wouldn’t mind giving it a go myself

Both. It’s a shit game in every respect. A complete insult to the original TOS. If you want a decent follow up game? Play Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Vesperia or Tales of Eternia next.

Absolutely under no circumstances should you ever touch the Wii sequel, especially if you enjoyed the original game!! It’s a complete travesty!

Yes it does actually! The GCN startup sound just so happens to be the perfect length for the loading screen… almost as if Nintendo originally intended to make this an official Wii U feature before the system’s life was cut short…

Nice! Are you using a modded Wii U to play them by any chance? One of my Wii Us is modded to have all of my ripped GCN and Wii games running off the Wii U Menu, and it's so sick! Not my photo, but you get the idea of what it looks like Obviously, the Wii U includes real Wii/GCN hardware; so the games all just run perfectly. You even get full Wii U Gamepad support for the GCN games too (buttons and all!). They all load up as if they were official Wii digital titles from the eShop, so it all looks and feels 100% OEM official. It's quite a bit of work to get it all up and running, but totally worth the effort! Absolutely the best way to play Wii games currently

As far as I know, the largest Switch 1 game is NBA 2K24 Kobe Bryant Edition (Which is 59.2 GB). The largest game I personally own is Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix (Which is 39.2GB with all the DLC... That's actually pretty funny. If you know, you know). But this is a common problem I have to deal with on PC/Steam Deck; as games often go above 100GB there, and games of that level of file size will be common on Switch 2; as games start to incorporate PS5/PC level 4K resolution assets. I do primarily buy digital, but I'm also one of those weirdos who likes also buying additional physical copies as well for collection/archival purposes. I have a complete digital and physical collection for all of my 3DS and Wii U games, and I'm glad I went that route (I actually switched from physical to digital halfway through the generation). Quite frankly, I just find myself actually playing and enjoying games much more in digital form; because it really does take that friction away that you mentioned earlier. It's just so much more convininent and it encourages you to just enjoy playing more games. It's also a godsend for a handheld device in particular; since you can carry your entire game collection with you so easily. But I said to myself early on in the Switch's life that I would go all digital this time and just wait until the end of the generation to scoop up the physical games I want on the cheap, and when you have reprints that include all the post-release updates and DLC on the cart already. That proved to be 100% the right decision for me. In fact, I actually do the same with my retro consoles, as I have my full personal libraries of games for all of my older consoles also ripped and available to play digitally on modded devices; like my ODE modded GCN... Welcome to the future! ... but at the same time, I still have all my original GCN discs that I can just pull down from the shelf and use with my unmodded console as I please... Those shelves go deep... At a certain point, it just starts to become a PITA to actually rummage through the shelves to actually get to the games you want to play; especially when you're in the mood to just play a quick game of something like Super Monkey Ball. It's why I also own Everdrives for the GB, GBA and N64; and I also have a MiSTer and Analogue Pocket for all of the platforms supported on there too (plus the ability to play ROM hacks on real hardware is nice too of course!). I get to have the best of both worlds. The convinience of digital, but also the permenace, collectability and furniture vibes of owning physical games. I feel it's a bit sad to have a huge library of games, but not have anything tangible on your shelves to admire/lend/pass down/enjoy; but at the same time? I acknowledge that when I actually want to play one of my games, I'm much more likely to play the digital copy instead because it's just so much more convinient. Yup, it's something Nintendo have always been good at, and it will continue paying dividends on Switch 2 going forward. I love a good games room showcase, but I'm hopefully due to move out this year into somewhere a lot bigger where I can really make a proper setup, so my showcase will probably have to wait a bit longer.

No. I hate having to delete games, it makes it feel like a wasted purchase for me. I love having access to everything on the one console at once, and when I have to start emptying the fridge; it feels like I'm just throwing food away. It's also a complete PITA to have to keep swapping games in and out, especially when you're having to wait hours to download those massive 100GB+ titles; makes it so that you can't just jump in and out of them as you please without any friction (which is half the point of having digital games in the first place!). On other consoles, I don't have all that much of an emotional attachment to most games on those systems, but I value my Nintendo titles far more; especially since they're typically my primary consoles.

My tracking thingy has just updated... estimated arrival date is 2nd of May! It's all rather weridly unceremoneous isn't it? Still, I'm not complaining! I'll gladly take it!