Switch Buying Guide

General feedback on the first wave of N64 games has been very poor. People have been complaining about emulation errors, stutter, input lag and bizarre control mappings you can't change. Basically whatever emulator they've used - on their own hardware, to emulate their own games - is worse than fan-made projects that have been available for ten years or more. And worse even than the emulation of the same games on Wii and Wii U.

I think I'll hold off on getting this for now. If it was anyone else you'd think "yep, launch issues, they'll be fixed soon" but this is Nintendo, I'm not sure we can be that confident.

Animal Crossing update is live, so off I go. Flattening my island is taking sooooooo long. But at least there's stuff to do now…

All right, I cracked and bought the N64 "expansion". Partly because I have a couple of people in my family subscription who are waiting on the Animal Crossing expansion, and partly out of morbid curiosity.

It's… actually fine? OK, I've only played Mario 64 so far but it's smooth and responsive and all the internet trolls banging on about it being "unplayable" and having masssive input lag are frankly insane, I can't see any issues with it at all. It does need an option to remap the controls (A and B buttons are simply the wrong way round) and I understand there are emulation issues affecting Zelda and Yoshi's Story specifically, which will hopefully get fixed, but in general this isn't the disaster you might have heard.

Just a shame the N64 controllers are already out of stock…

Anyone using the word 'unplayable' about any game outside of something that literally doesn't work (meaning you can't start it up or there's no control input) needs to be fired into the sun.

Look, man, I was in a beta for The Matrix Online; it started up and accepted control input, but that shit was unplayable.

I liked The Matrix Online!

I liked The Matrix Online!

I think we found who actually needs firing into the sun…

Currently redesigning my entire ACNH island. The grand task of covering every square in dirt has begun.

I'm thinking about moving a couple of things around on mine, but it involves moving a bridge like four squares to the left so I'm not sure I'll bother.

Couple of questions - is the Animal Crossing DLC worth it? And who has tomatoes and carrots? Will swap for potatoes.

I have tomato starts. If you build Leif's shop on Harv's island, he'll have two different starts in stock every week.

I've got the DLC, but not had time to start it. It's a whole new part of the game, but it depends how much you like decorating… if you don't, well.

I have tomato starts.

You can get a cream for that.

Yep, salad.

And who has tomatoes and carrots?

Pretty sure I have all of them, at this point. Can I send crops in the post, or do you need to come pick them up?

13 Sentinels is coming to Switch, where it really always should have been, next year.

So I'm gonna have to buy that again.

Yep, saw that. Getting it fo' sho'.

£90 for all the Kingdom Hearts games!

Where do I send the money?

I'll send you my… I mean, the official Nintendo PayPal. Yes, that.

And look, I'm not saying the new Kirby is lovely and fun… but it is. Trust me.

And look, I'm not saying the new Kirby is lovely and fun… but it is. Trust me.

This is a day-one purchase for us. The kid adored the last Kirby game, and he's been very excited for the new one since I foolishly showed him the trailer several months before its release.

The best parts haven't been shown yet.

Has anyone played In Other Waters? It has been brought to my attention by an adventure for the Mothership RPG set is the same planet after the events of the game.

It's a puzzle/adventure thing with a nice style but it's hard to tell if it would hold my attention or if it is just a bunch of simple puzzles held together with a visual novel about as AI with trust issues.

Nintendo 2016: nah, we can’t be arsed doing a new Mario Kart, just have the same one you played last gen at full price

Nintendo 2017-2021: hope you’re enjoying your old Mario Kart game

Nintendo 2022: 48 NEW TRACKS

That Kirby car was equal parts horrifying and adorable. Can't wait to show that trailer to the kid in the morning.

Again not watched the direct but spotted that in my chat group, very excited, particularly as we love MK8 and still play it loads so it's great that the old favourites will be there along with new tracks.

Shame there aren't any etc characters though? Or are they and I have missed it?

Captain Olimar
Pikmin car where they take turns driving
Sonic

All would have been great choices for a start.

I’m genuinely disappointed that they won’t be releasing the Mario Kart DLC for the Wii U version.

I can't believe we're really getting a Chrono Cross Remaster

It's about time frankly.

Kirby looks like a sequel to Mario Odyssey.

Not sure I want more Mario Kart.

…

…

Fuck me, I'm tired today.

Kirby looks like a sequel to Mario Odyssey.

Think more like Super Mario 3D World and you're there.

Xenoblade 3! I'm quite excited about this.

Kirby looks much better than expected, may well be up for that. Never played A Kirby game before.

Mario kart will I'm sure be great, but not for me anymore. Not till the kids are a few years older anyway…

Splatoon 3 remains the most wanted Switch game in this house even though it looks absolutely identical to the last one.

Switch Sports looks underwhelming, oh look it's bowling AGAIN. Maybe in a couple of years when they've added some extra sports to it. It's no Wii Sports Resort, that's for sure.

Kirby does look decent though and I really am quite excited about more Mario Kart.

That Splatoon 3 music might be in the running for worst soundtrack of all time. I thought I had another app open, playing clashing music.

Kirby looks amazing, can't wait to eat ALL THE THINGS. And yes the Mario Kart announcement was a surprise, but considering it's sold like 50 million copies that's a lot of potential moolah for remastering some old tracks.

That was a strong Direct. They've had E3s worse than that.

Everyone overlooking Klonoa ☹️

Splatoon looked and sounded dreadful, drab and offputting in that trailer, but that big Godzilla-looking motherf—ker at the end is definitely up my alley.

Xenoblade is, somehow, still interesting to me; I bounced pretty hard off the last one, but if this one has fewer characters with embarrassing anime cleavage and a more predictable difficulty curve I might still give it a look.

I'm intrigued by Front Mission, too – as stupid a name as "Wanzer" is, "tactical RPG with big stompy robots" is a strong sales pitch.

No Man's Sky, Portal, AC:Ezio and Force Awakens were unexpected pulls. Surely everyone's played Kingdom Hearts by now that's going to, right?

Surely everyone's played Kingdom Hearts by now that's going to, right?

Yeah but this is a chance to pay 90 quid for the cloud version to be streamed to your console. Who wouldn't snap that up.

Front Mission is up there with FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre.

I missed the Klonoa announcement yesterday. I don’t have any urge to replay them but I suspect Little Miss Bloodaxe would love them.

Yeah I missed them originally but played a Front Mission on Vita and it was brilliant, like a cross between an older style Xcom and Into the Breach.

I agree with everything Alastor said about Pokémon Legends, it’s properly brilliant. It feels as though, after twenty odd years, they’ve finally decided to make Pokémon 2.

Catching Pokémon is a joy for the first time ever, battling is less annoying, and the whole thing just flies along. There’s NO downtime. You’re collecting materials and launching pokeballs for your next fight while your last pokeball is still wobbling on the ground. XP pops off left, right and centre… it’s all just so slick compared to every other mainline Pokémon game. I don’t even think it’s ugly; once or twice I’ve actually stopped to take screenshots.

More of this please, Gamefreak.

No way would you provide endorsement for the phrase "most kino moment I've ever seen in a Pokemon game holy shit" MPH.

This game is so kino tho.

The one thing missing from Legends, with its constant drip-drip-drip of XP, vaguely MMO feel, is a sense of connection with my pokémon. I remember having a fondness for my team in the GB(A) games that's just not here, for (I think) a few reasons.

Firstly, catching them is too easy. I've got easily half a dozen of each species chilling at my ranch; the number of times I've seen a new pokémon and just… caught it, with little to no fanfare or effort, makes each one feel more disposable than they did in older games.

But once they're on your team, they level up – and evolve – too fast. I barely had time to learn my starter Rowlett's moves before I got the evolution prompt. My Zubat evolved twice in one go.

This is probably a side effect of the easier catching mechanic, and the Pokédex checklist that asks you to evolve a certain number of each species; if that involved jumping through the classic games' hoops, that would be a mammoth task.

(And, once you've caught 22 Pikachus, it's a laborious process to release them all, so much that I've basically given up trying to curate the ranch. I don't know what happens if you run out of space.)

But the biggest missing feature, when it comes to building a bond with your pokémon, is probably that you can't name them.

This might be a deliberate choice rather than an oversight, tying in with the coldly scientific approach of Galaxy Team's Pokédex compilation, but when so many of Hisui's other residents are making a big deal out of how I've got a surprisingly strong connection with my pokémon (despite trapping them in balls), it's weird that the game doesn't let me, as a player, form that bond.

The thing that's amazing me is how many of you appear to have bought it without asking if I could get you a discount.

I got it bought for me for my birthday, but the card version means we can pass it around more easily when I'm done so I'm happy enough.

If it helps I never released any pokemon in my ranch and I filled the Pokedex so you're probably okay to leave them be.

The ease of capture I think is balanced out by the moments where I found myself actually having to sneak through grass on the more skittish Pokemon, so I could land a lead ball or whatever, particularly Alpha Pokemon who seem super sensitive to sound and movement.

As for EXP Share being forced, I actually hated it in Sword and Shield because it made an easy game even easier while making it possible to not really even use much of your team as you said. Here though, I don't really care if the game is easier because there are no Gym battles to work towards and I like the pacing.

I thought these were quite fun:

Get yours at https://my-nintendo-3ds-wiiu-memories.nintendo.com/en-US/index.html#top

My 3DS one shows over 2,000 hours, with 607 of those being Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Yikes.

We have let the little one play on the Switch in handheld before, but mainly its the TV so we can help her with the reading, today though she wasn't feeling well and the living room is always freezing, and so mid game of Animal Crossing I whipped the system out the Dock as I wanted her to come lie upstairs under a blanket, and she reacted in what I can only describe as utter amazement that her game just moved to the "pad" and she could carry on without even pausing.

It was honestly the type of reaction if you saw on an advert you wouldn't believe as genuine! She has asked me loads of questions now since like "why can't we take the screen off figure game when we go out?" (by which she means Disney Infinity on Xbox) - How does it know who was playing and what things you had in your characters pockets so they are still there in handheld, who tells it how to send the sound to the TV or to the screen, can she put the joy con's on the tablet etc.

It must be superb to be a kid, we weren't allowed to take our snes to our nan's in the 90s as they didn't want us messing with the TV.

That's really nice. Glad to see that wonder still exists in the world, it's too easy to get bogged down in all the cynicism.

I bought my goddaughter a pair of Amibo for Christmas - opening her gift with all the family about she let out such a large squeal of joy, at the Cat Mario figures, I automatically won best present buyer!

The next "proper" Pokémon games have been announced – Scarlet and Violet, out later this year.

According to the official Twitter account, it'll be proper open world rather than the separate areas of Arceus.

I am so torn about this, Arceus was GOTY worthy to me so a game like this but with full on city to city exploration and Gym battles sounds amazing, but I wish it was delayed a little bit, I'd be lying if I said the open world looking exactly like Arceus visually isn't a bit disappointing.