Dcubed

So I guess we finally found some vampires then? The running gag is finally over Still, can't complain with getting almost an entire game's worth of new content in one go. We've finally come full circle! (of the moon).

That's so cool! It's almost like having new DLC for a 20 year old game! What a great idea! Nintendo should do this with their older titles that have custom stage/character makers!

I really can’t recommend it over the original DS versions… It’s such a downgrade in terms of gameplay, as it suffers heavily without the dual screens & resistive touch screen. Get any of the DS/3DS versions over the Switch ports.

Thank you for pointing out the publisher cost cutting here, because it is pretty egregious. Namco were in 100% “Nintendo is the enemy” mode during this era, but Mass Media were doing ports for multiple platforms at the time (culminating in the surprisingly excellent Pac-Man Collection on GBA) and they were starting to throw Nintendo a couple of bones by licensing out Ridge Racer to NST for Ridge Racer 64. Namco Museum 64 is a bare minimum viable product, that just barely fulfils a contractual agreement.

Even when BT comes out, it's gonna take quite some time to unlock all the multiplayer modes; as it's a pretty meaty game (you unlock each multiplayer mode by beating each minigame in the main single player mode... as well as finding some pretty well hidden secrets and cheats... you know the ones...). So we'll probably have to wait until November 1st before we can really play BT's mutiplayer mode proper. That's fine though, it gives you guys a chance to play through it (and you'll need to if you want to stand a chance in Tower of Tragedy ).

Hey look! Two games that really need a Switch NSO release! DK64 is a very uneven game with some highs and a lot of terrifying lows. It also doesn't really feel much like a platformer (at least not past the first couple of worlds), but rather more like a Zelda-esc Action Adventure game. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's a lot of "dead space" where you're kind of just walking from one set piece to the next without much engaging gameplay going on; and really, I don't need to say anything about the ridiculous amount of collectables. This game is utter torture to get 100% on. But I don't think it's a bad game at all. There's certainly a lot to like, but I think that its biggest issue is that it doesn't really feel much like a DKC game at all. No, its biggest sin is that it's essentially discount Banjo Kazooie; and both BK and BT pull off the concept far more convincingly. It's also a surprisingly good multiplayer game! While I wouldn't say that the multiplayer suite is quite as extensive as Banjo Tooie's? It was clearly the inspiration for that game's multiplayer. DK64 is well worth playing, as what is essentially the red-headed stepchild in the unofficial BK-DK64-BT trilogy. Just... don't bother trying to 100% complete it, for the sake of your own sanity. As for Turok Rage Wars? I've never played it, but I did always enjoy Turok 2's multiplayer (however simple it may have been) and this is, from what I understand), essentially a fleshed-out version of that very same multiplayer mode from Turok 2 using the same engine, done very quickly as a way of making use of Turok 2's existing assets. While I doubt that Nightdive Studios would ever bother to remaster this one, I'd be very glad to see it come to the Switch NSO service. The more multiplayer fun, the better! And an NSO release would also skirt around the one major flaw that always held this game back... the fact that it is essentially a multiplayer-only game (a tough sell, even in 2024). Also worth noting that this was the first game produced by Acclaim Studios Austin, the studio that Iguana had turned into after most of the Turok 2 staff had already left to found Retro Studios in early 1999. A few remaining holdouts stayed at ASA until this game was finished, including one of Retro's most important staff members... Mark Pachini (the director of Metroid Prime 1-3; who later attempted a coup before departing Retro in 2008 alongside Todd Keller (Lead artist) and Jack Mathews (Lead engineer) to found Armature Studio); who joined their colleagues in moving to Retro Studios as soon as Rage Wars was done. So this is the last game in the series to retain any of the DNA that defined the original Turok 1 & 2, as well as the Metroid Prime series.

Now confirmed for Switch. The visuals are certainly giving Cuphead a run for their money! Looks like it could be pretty fun

Finally! This game needs an NSO release SO bad! Massively looking forward to playing the original N64 version at more than 5 FPS!

Yeah, we’re part-way through our first board (which we’ll finish off later tonight), but this is tits so far The Buddy characters are so stupid broken that it’s hilarious. Fancy stealing two stars with Boo in one turn? I do!

There's no reason why the Everdrive wouldn't work with it. All of the previous Everdrives have worked on the Analogue consoles, people are just scaremongering online for kicks. But yeah, this is a great price for the hardware this is packing. If I didn't already have a bunch of hardware that can play N64 games? I'd be all over this.

I'm sure it'll be a lovely piece of hardware, but I already have a MiSTer, an RGB modded N64 + Retrotink 2x + Everdrive (+ most of the physical carts I want; I don't play anything via the Everdrive I don't already own) and the Switch N64 NSO service... My N64 needs are well covered. Without Open FPGA support? I can't justify a purchase; especially when I already have a MiSTer and an Analogue Pocket + Dock already. Keep in mind that the games are still running in their original 240p/480i resolutions, just upscaled to 4k via the built-in video scaler. If you have a Retrotink 4K? That'll do the same thing.

Wow! That price is excellent! Way better than I would’ve expected, considering the size of the FPGA on board here! (Almost double what’s in the MiSTer! And bigger than what’s due to be put into MARS ). Feels like such a shame that it doesn’t support Open FPGA… Just imagine the potential…

This one is particularily callous; especially considering how LoL makes money hand over fist...

Looks like the Alarmo has 4GB of onboard emmc storage... Thats a decent amount for what this is. Nintendo should be able to release a decent amount of new themes for this thing

Err... non-existent? Then again, Ubisoft have very few pre-PS1/Saturn/N64 console games in their back catalogue anyway (I believe the original Rayman was actually their first ever internally developed console game, as they were primarily a PC publisher until the early 2000s); so it's hard to tell if they'd be happy to license out anything for NSO... but I don't imagine that they'd say no to having RROW on the N64 NSO service if Nintendo wanted it. To be honest though... I think Sony would be a bigger problem in this case... given that Sucker Punch Productions made this game (this was well before they were acquired as a first-party Playstation studio). I don't know if they would have any control over the rights to this game, but if they did manage to wrangle them somehow? I can't imagine that they'd be happy to share what is essentially a first-party Playstation Studios game with Nintendo...

Pretty neat. Nice to see Sony doing something like this

Sick.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-15/bandai-namco-begins-to-cut-headcount-after-culling-game-titles?srnd=undefined Uh-oh... Is the Nintendo-Namco relationship turning sour again? This can't be Metroid Prime 4, since the cancellation was only during this Summer. Is Next-Gen Smash in jeopardy?

Very common practice amongst Japanese companies. Konami in particular were notorious for this...

Oh wow! They were making a DS version of a SNES version of Mario & Yoshi? That's cool! Nice to see that they were working on other non-Pokemon related titles in the mid-late 2000s. Wonder what other stuff they were working on before the whole Garage Project thing started?

A few details about the Quinty/Mendal Palace SNES remake have emerged, including a title screen screenshot and gameplay footage! Looks like it was originally intended for Nintendo's Japanese-only Nintendo Power service, before being cancelled. A proposal was made to finish up this unfinished ROM and put it out on the Wii VC (makes sense, considering that it was the direct successor to Nintendo Power), but it never got done unfortunately. Footage! Looks like the SNES ROM is out in the wild somewhere.

Oohhhh... these are comparison videos with previous versions of DQ3? That's much less interesting than I was expecting... Was hoping it'd be something more along the lines of how the HD2D remake itself has changed over the course of its protracted development cycle.

There are a few edutainment games that are at least revered by the public at large, such as Granny's Garden, The Oregon Trail (in the US at least) and Where in The World is Carmen Sandiago? (hell, she's even getting a brand new game early next year!). Good edutainment games can be done. Unfortunately, most developers only make the games that they are personally interested in making (or, sadly rather commonly, make games that resemble the movies that they'd rather be making instead). Nobody in the western gaming industry actually wants to make games for children, or for anyone outside the typical 15-35 year old male demographic (which is a big reason why, outside Nintendo, the console industry has failed to expand over the past 20-ish years and is actually continuously contracting).

I would've thought that the last thing Nintendo would want to do is tie their prototype's identity to one of the biggest failures in console history, but hey! What do I know

While I can believe that some of these mythological stories that have been coming out may be true (The games themselves have previously hinted at interspecies relationships between humans and Pokemon before); unfortunately, a good bunch of these text files have also been confirmed fake too (such as the supposed internal conversation that was had about why Gen 6 began pandering hard to genwunners)... so there's no way to know what's real or not real anymore. I wouldn't trust anything textual that's coming out to be real anymore. Speaking of which, even sprites and art assets from this point could easily be faked now.