Dcubed

I bet that Zelda will be at launch in the US and Mario in June there. While in Europe, it'll be the opposite, just to piss you guys off

Rather than talk about specific games, I want to talk more about the system as a whole and the hype cycle surrounding it (because everyone else is just gonna talk about specific games and I wanna be different dammit!). @Glen\-i has already covered Smash Bros, which was exceptional from beginning and beyond, so I wont go into that. Outside of a few highlights, the Wii U era was a pretty miserable time as a Nintendo fan really. A sorrowful epoch that saw Nintendo struggle to keep their heads above water and survive. But the console certainly did have its moments... Launch Nintendo Land was a pretty great title that really showed the kinds of games that we could eventually see on Nintendo's new console. All kinds of experiences that we've never seen before! Miiverse was new and exciting and the console was filled with untapped possibilities! The Emergency Direct - Nintendo plays their entire hand While we all knew that Nintendo were bricking it and that this was an act of desperation, you have to all admit that it was a hell of a showing! Especially this... Absolutely nobody saw this coming! After a cackhanded launch and a terrible hype-release cycle, many of us were left scratching their heads thinking, why the hell didn't Nintendo announce these before when they had the chance!? E3 2014 - Nintendo finally gets the new format right A great show! Nintendo fired on all cylinders! After the miserable failure that was E3 2013, where they first attempted the new format (a show so bad it actually nearly killed SM3DW completely), they got it so very right this year! A great show, well presented, with absolutely tons of fantastic announcements! Just to name a few for Wii U... It's a real shame it came so late, because this is exactly the kind of show they really needed earlier on in the console's life. Early 2015-Early 2016: The Wii U concept finally bares fruit, however too late At last! After literally 3 years of waiting, we FINALLY start seeing the kinds of games released that were promised at launch (some literally promised at launch!). Super Mario Maker, Splatoon, Star Fox Zero & Guard, Kirby & The Rainbow Curse, Captain Toad etc, all finally make their debut. The Wii U finally gets its next wave of titles... and finally we see what the console could've been, had these games come out that much sooner... Yeah, you had other good releases along the way, like SM3DW, DKCTF and Wind Waker HD/Twilight Princess HD, but I can't help but feel that the circumstances surrounding them and their releases were surrounded by negativity. Truth be told, games like SM3DW and DKCTF, however great they were, were exactly the wrong games to release at that time. The Wii U needed that 2015-2016 wave at the start, not the likes of SM3DW and NSMBU. Its fortunes could've been VERY different if they got it right back then (and didn't screw up with the name/marketing etc). I can only hope that the lessons learned from this get applied to Switch. As for other things surrounding the Wii U? The launch of Mario Kart 8 was pretty amazing, as was Smash Bros. Had some great times playing in the MK League (and making the highlight videos too of course!) Crust off all the negativity and you have to admit that the Wii U did get some pretty fantastic games. It also brought Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings to Europe for the first time and for that, I'm eternally grateful (Ok, I can also kinda count Mother 3 as well, since it's kinda obvious that its western release was quietly moved over from Wii U to Switch).

Finally got round to watching it. Really enjoyed it! It didn't really feel like Star Wars (cinematography and writing style is clearly very different), save for a few specific moments (the rebel attack run being a particular standout alongside Tarkin), but it was a pretty damn good action movie in its own right. Yeah, Guy Henry did a great job recreating Tarkin (and yes, the CG on him was just incredible!), he really stole the show for me! K was really great as well, but I didn't care all that much for most of the new characters; they weren't terrible, but don't receive much in the way of development really and are kinda forgettable overall. The first 30 mins or so are pretty messy, with things not really making much sense but they do slot into place eventually as the pace slows down a bit. I like the twist about the Death Star construction as well; nice way of building a story out of it! Music was disappointing though. Not a single memorable new tune sadly (I know why we can't have John Williams here, but still...) While I do think it has some pacing issues and especially could do with some more downtime and comic relief (it's a pretty grim feeling movie all in all), it's pretty darn good overall! And best of all, it's a unique take on the Star Wars universe that doesn't feel hackeneyed and isn't just a glorified remake of a past movie!

Let's be fair here. It's a 2D, hand drawn HD game, made on a budget of less than $1 million (looking at just the Kickstarter funds at least - and no, that's not a lot of money in game development). Of course there were going to be compromises. It's smaller in scope than previous games out of sheer necessity. That's the price you pay for HD. It's just a shame because you can clearly see where they had to make those cuts they had to make.

Hopefully something completely new. Hideki Konno hasn't been able to work on a non-Mario Kart project (other than Nintendogs 1 & 2 and Super Mario Run) since Luigi's Mansion because he's had to constantly work on MK since Double Dash!(!)

Time has been tight for me this year and there's a lot I haven't had time to play that I've wanted to (I'm looking at you, Paper Mario Colour Splash, Tokyo Mirage Illusions, Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Mario & Luigi Paper Jam and more...), but here's my list anyway! Overall, it was a quiet year with some quality releases, but I've not really had time to play a lot of them sadly. Hopefully I'll rectify that this year! You have to add up each month manually. There's no yearly list on Wii U sadly.

Supposedly, it's 16 new tracks (making a grand total of 64, including the original 32 and the 16 DLC ones) and a proper, fully fledged Battle Mode (with, presumably, it's own set of arenas; so if this is right, then that's 8 Battle Mode tracks). Sounds about right and exactly what I was hoping for

I get the feeling that they'll probably revive it after finishing off their next big project and they'll probably combine both Pullblox and Fallblox together into one game. Makes sense, given that the Switch isn't BC with Wii U or 3DS and the assets are already there from the Wii U version to reuse.

From what I know, people shouldn't be disappointed either (well, unless it's about F-Zero. Because I have no idea about that at least).

Quite frankly that's what Nintendo need to deliver. They've set themselves up with this by putting all their eggs into this one basket by waiting so long to reveal it proper and leaving so little time before the actual release. If they fail to excite the world with this event, then they've set themselves up for failure as they won't have another chance to drum up excitement and retailer/dev/pub partner support before release. Sure, the teaser reveal was great and was received very well, but that's just the tease. Now they need to follow through. They only get one shot at it, so yes. They do need to deliver the world! And while the rumours are promising, the leaks do take away from a lot of the excitement; so for their sake, they had better still have some cards up their sleeve...

And it is complete! What an amazing experience! Nearly a decade in the making and it did NOT disappoint! Brilliant puzzle design and an incredible organic approach to level design that really feels like no other game I've ever played. Simply incredible!

Just finished it completely, good and bad endings done. I have to say that I did really enjoy the ride, but was a tad disappointed. Quite frankly, it feels like Wayforward had bigger ambitions with this game that went unrealised (which, if you look at the missed kickstarted stretch goals, makes perfect sense). It feels like they originally planned the game out under the assumption that they would reach all of their stretch goals and after falling short, they had to improvise by introducing a ton of forced backtracking through the levels they were actually able to make, in order to pad out the length of the game. The actually levels themselves are pretty good as far as they go as linear romps, but the level design simply doesn't accommodate all the backtracking all that well. It quickly becomes frustrating having to go through the same few linear stages over and over again for that one item you couldn't get the first time through. Going back once or twice with things switched up is fine, doing it 4-5 times where it's all the same is annoying. And then there's other little signs of the game not quite being finished...

They'll probably have Bill Trinen up on stage translating, like they usually do whenever Miyamoto appears on stage. I wonder whether or not Reggie will make an appearance though... Nintendo do know that they're broadcasting it worldwide simultaneously, so maybe?

Wahey! We can finally say that Switch is coming out this year!

Human Resource Machine? I actually started playing it a few days ago. It's really good! It's basically a programming puzzle game. You are given tasks to solve (like the good little cog within the corporate machine that you are) and you have to solve them with basic programming tools. And of course, it's got that same, creepy and Orwellian vibe that Tomorrow Corp's other games do, that we oh so love. Recommended for any fans of dystopian programatic puzzle games! Apply today!

Do want! Hopefully it'll see a release over here as well as I don't fancy paying Japanese CD import prices...

Thanks for rubbing it in... Meanwhile, in Dcubed land...

That's David Wise you're thinking of. He composed the music for DKC 1, 2, Diddy Kong Racing, Battletoads and Star Fox Adventures as well as others (he had a hand in DKC 3 as well, but that was mainly Eveline Fischer). Grant Kirkhope was the composer for Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, DK64 and Viva Pinata amongst others. Both are currently working on Yooka Laylee

@Glen\-i's inevitable comment about how they dragged poor Grant Kirkhope into this.[/size]

Don't get excited, all Nintendo consoles since the Wii have had Bluetooth support (that's what they use for their wireless controllers). Doesn't mean that it'll be compatible with standard equipment.

If they do cloud saves, it wouldn't be free... I can see them integrating Pokemon Bank into a hypothetical Nintendo Cloud though... And we know that PokeBank is definitely coming to Switch... (Otherwise, they could do the same wireless network drive thingy that they do with New3DS that I can never get working properly )

Awesome then and still awesome now. Who doesn't like Ike? :awesome:

It's probably shorthand for saying that it has official SDXC support, I wouldn't get hung up on that number. There's no technical reason why it would be limited to 128GB in particular (unlike with 3DS, which uses FAT32 and only officially supports SD and SDHC - which goes up to a maximum of 32GB), since SDXC cards currently go as high as 1TB and there are no compatibility issues in regards to devices that support the SDXC standard. Hell you can even use 128GB+ cards with a 3DS if you format them as FAT32. It's unofficial, off brand support (hence why Nintendo officially state that 32GB is the maximum for 3DS), but it works just fine. I suspect that they'll use their own custom file format with the Switch's Micro SD cards though (like they do with USB storage on Wii U), in order to get around FAT32's limitations (which supports files no larger than 4GB - convenient that 3DS games are no bigger than 4GB then eh?) and avoid licensing exFAT from Microsoft (which does away with the old limit, but naturally is a Microsoft owned format...), so don't expect to be able to take out the micro SD card and be able to use it on your PC like you can with 3DS.

I usually use a different account that I haven't bothered to put on my PS4 yet. Probably will look to do so at some point later.

Just got it, beat stage 2 and I'm enjoying it so far. Pretty much agree with all that's been said so far. The game is fun but ridiculously easy and not much needed in the way of precise platforming. Both bosses so far were also a bit of a joke, even compared to the previous games. The level designs are linear, but also a bit meandering. It's kinda weird, it's like they're trying to mix DKCR style level design with the series trademark metroidvania level design as the pacing is really quite strange (one moment it's fast paced and straightforward, then you're in an open area and have to plod about, then you're in a fast autoscrolling slide down a giant converyer belt with barrels being thrown at you!). Not sure how I feel about that overall yet, but I am enjoying it nonetheless. It's certainly unique feeling at least! I'm not convinced about the game structure so far though. I don't think that the linear World Clear structure meshes well with backtracking at all; quite frankly, it's kind of annoying having to go back through the stages to look for stuff and feels like padding (which, from what I hear about the game's length and total amount of content, makes a lot of sense). That being said, Shantae is as fun to control as ever and I actually really like the crab power. It's a novel way of handling under water swimming (though I can already tell that there's gonna be another one with more manoeuvrability...). Visuals look great and the music is pretty great (even though they're mostly remixes of past music so far); the music looping and transitions aren't very good though and lack polish (at least on Wii U), some annoying music clipping when moving between areas is a real shame and gives the impression that it wasn't quite ready for release yet. No other issues thus far thankfully though (though the "coming soon" icon for one of the unlockable characters gives the impression that they should've left the game in the oven a bit longer... not a good look when starting out).