How do you follow up a game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? It came out day and date with the Nintendo Switch, completely reinvented the series, and may have pushed the medium of video games forward. Do you reinvent everything again, or do you refine what you have into something more polished? It’s been six years since Breath of the Wild, and in that time Nintendo really could have done either.
A few weeks ago, Nintendo announced and released Metroid Prime Remastered digitally as part of their Nintendo Direct. They also announced that a physical version would be coming two weeks later, and since I’m a weirdo who likes putting games on my shelf, I decided to wait. The wait was difficult, as Metroid Prime is one of my all time favorite games, but I have the game now. A lot has changed in the slightly over twenty years since Prime’s original release on the GameCube. Is the game still one of the best, or is that nostalgia-fueled rose-tinted glasses?
If you go on the Nintendo Switch eShop and look at the best sellers list right now, you’ll find a game basically no one had heard of sitting in second place, just under Untitled Goose Game and above a pre-order for Luigi’s Mansion 3. That game is Revenge of the Bird King, and despite the fact that no one has heard of it, it’s pretty clear how it rose up the ranks. If you go to the great deals section of the eShop, you’ll see that the game is currently only nine cents. Surely, a lot of people bought the game for that reason alone right? Hell, I know I did, and I used Gold Coins instead of spending real money. So now a lot of people have this thing, but is it any good? Continue reading
Despite the fact that Labo hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, Nintendo keeps pushing what their weird cardboard toys are capable of further and further. I didn’t end up writing about it, but I was really impressed by the third one, the Vehicle Kit. While it was pretty simple, it had a fully realized open world game with three vehicles that you could quickly swap to. I thought this was probably as far as the concept could go. But, then the VR Kit came out. Continue reading
It was pretty easy to be skeptical about Pokemon Let’s Go when it was first revealed. Not only was it a remake of the first generation of Pokemon games, which already had a remake, but everything looked like it had been dumbed down to appeal to the crowd who had only played Pokemon Go, rather than fans of the core franchise. Both these things are true, but does that necessarily make it a bad game? Continue reading
After eight long years, a new entry in the original Mega Man series finally released today. With it comes a new art style, brand new mechanics, and multi-form boss fights, but it also brought with it a lot of questions. Could a game like this work in 2018? After Keiji Inafune’s Mighty Number 9, it sure doesn’t seem like it. After such a long break, would Capcom be able to recapture the spirit of those old games? Continue reading
Have you ever played a Kirby game? While the occasional spinoff game will make some unexpected changes to the tried and true formula, most Kirby games play pretty much the same, but with an added gimmick. One might introduce new animal friends, or maybe a giant robot suit for Kirby to ride around in. In his newest adventure, Star Allies, Kirby gains the ability to turn enemies into friends. An interesting idea, but does it do enough to make Kirby’s first Switch outing stand out? Continue reading
The Nintendo Labo Variety Kit is a cardboard box filled with several pieces of cardboard. It’s very easy to dismiss the whole thing as some weird children’s toy that Nintendo slapped out, rather then the next big thing for the Switch, but that’s not giving it enough credit. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find an incredibly satisfying building experience that creates some genuinely amazing toys. Continue reading
After a few years of showing up at E3 and other similar events with very little to show, Sea of Thieves finally released about three weeks ago. Not only was the pirate themed co-op game in development for a long time, but it had been even longer since Rare put out a proper AAA title. Regardless of how little was shown of the game, I knew I’d be picking it up at release just to finally see what one of my favorite developers had been up to. But, is there more to the game than what was shown, or was the lack of information an indication of a lack of content? Continue reading
There’s been a lot of games based on the Dragon Ball series of manga and anime. A lot of them aren’t very good, and even the ones that are tend to be more fun fan service, rather than an actual good video game. That all changed this year when the creators of Guilty Gear and Blazblue, Arc System Works, released Dragon Ball FighterZ. Continue reading
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