EvilLucario

One of the best games of 2020 indeed. Absolutely amazing gameplay and story. Just buy the game, you won't regret it.

@Friendly SR388 and ZDR are literally Chozo settlements. None of your hang ups make any sense. Besides, areas in both Samus Returns and Dread line up between elevators/trams to seamlessly connect each other. Look at the elevator rooms connecting Artaria and Cataris for example.

CrossCode is SO good. Easily one of the best games I've ever played and worthy of your time.

Definitely a future but I don't want it to be THE future, and I don't think it will ever become that for enthusiasts. I mean, physical music and movies and books are still a thing, even if they shrunk in relevance.

Makes sense. Hope she doesn't get harassed after this. Oh well.

Btw, she's not just an artist. She also helped write for Xenosaga. Don't know about Xenoblade but she did more than just art.

Daemon X Machina is holding up this week at least. It'll probably have weak legs though. Shame because it's so fun.

@SwitchVogel Thanks! I guess there's only one way to find out for myself.

@CTmatic It's not like Destiny, it's a roguelite but with some handcrafted elements. I'd compare it to something like Binding of Issac or Enter the Gungeon, just controlled like a third-person shooter (though there is a melee character, which is my favorite character).

Give the game a shot, though I'd say consoles are the worst way to play. Get it on PC.

@Leostacks Won't work like that unfortunately. For one, you'll be incredibly weak and will die quickly without leveling up/getting upgrades. And another, it's also dependent on you hitting things. You can cause a ton of explosions and particle effects, and stacking a bajillion items like that is gonna help cause that.

My recommendation would be to pick Mul-T or Mercenary though. Those two are my favorite characters. Give them a shot if you haven't.

@Leostacks For how long though? If it's only capped at 1 hour, that's not good for me since I tend to go longer on runs. After 1-2 hours, especially on Monsoon difficulty, expect your performance to tank eventually. Even the strongest of PCs bend to endgame.

How does the framerate hold up after 1-2 hours of gameplay? I get the feeling most reviewers don't really touch on that. On my PC with an i7 8700k and 1080ti, I can drop from 144fps all the way to 30fps after 1-2 hours of gameplay in a run because the effects and amount of enemies gets so out of control.

Considering Itsuno had the choice between Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon's Dogma 2, I have a feeling we will see Dragon's Dogma 2 at some point.

Ah yes, the obligatory Doom 1 port.

If I ever did scores (I hate them), 7/10 is what I'd give the Switch version too. Personally it's a 10/10 on PC that rivals Order of Ecclesia as my favorite Igavania. Get this game on PC until patches are rolled out for other versions.

@Kalmaro I run Mercenary and Mul-T right now. I hear how broken Engineers + Fungus is though.

Ah yes, I cannot wait to 3D print 50 soldier's syringes on the toilet.

Risk of Rain 2 is a phenomenal game, and it's still in Early Access! I think PC will still be the superior way to play the game, but Switch would be the second best way due to gyro controls (hopefully). This game will be worth the $20+ bucks (the devs said they will increase the price when 1.0 launches), and hell it's already worth 20-30 bucks due to how good the gameplay loop is!

I wonder how framerate would hold-up by endgame though. Even on a beast of a PC with a GTX 1080ti and a i7 8770k, I can go from a rock solid ~120fps to sometimes dipping below 30fps when things get SUPER insane. Granted I am also playing on max settings, but still.

Every year, people are surprised it's releasing on the Wii lol.

Tried it on PC and I really didn't like it. 60fps and all that doesn't mean anything when Geralt controlled like doo-doo and combat sucked. Story and presentation are not enough for me to overlook the stiff gameplay.

Not a big deal to me. Some select exclusivity makes no sense to me. Octopath Traveler and SMT5 don't exactly make that much sense to me being exclusives. Same with Persona 5. And same with Travis Strikes Again.

Something like Etrian Odyssey has a much bigger case considering that actually depends on the 3DS hardware.

Regardless Travis Strikes Again is a good return to form for Suda 51 that hints for good things to come with a NMH3. If selling more copies means a better NMH3, I'll take it.

Besides, indies naturally sell best on Switch, so it's not like most of the money isn't being made on Nintendo.

@SmaggTheSmug wot

I LOVE games with sexy characters. It's just that if you want a game where you just ogle at people, just go to an art site like Danbooru and Pixiv where it has what you want but with more quality and quantity. Have you even seen their R18+ content?

But at the end of the day I don't care if these games are made.

Man I just completely forgot to rate the games with my own user rating. Damn.

Just to go Danbooru and Pixiv for great art instead.

@BulbasaurusRex Far from the truth actually. As stated above, Zero 1 was extremely easy. The instadeath terrain is only in one place at the end of the game and there's actually a countermeasure for that.

@Scoopz That depends if there's an NDA that will prevent you from leaking the numbers without repercussions. Why else do we not get leaked software numbers from the NPD?

@Rhaoulos Let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. Sony's been investing in streaming and VR which are no doubt going to have huge ramifications on the gaming industry. While it's easy to point and laugh at all of Sony's copy-cat stuff like the Move (trust me I laugh at that too), they still have stuff of their own that people shouldn't ignore.

@JMR_Alden On the contrary, more media should be at 48/60fps. Especially games, being at 60fps or higher is always better.

Man, last gen most Japanese games sucked and Western games were pretty much the only good ones. Now the tables have turned this gen. Guys like Nintendo and Capcom did HUGE turnarounds and even Square Enix helped make some really good games (though they're not perfect like how utterly boring FFXV was). Meanwhile we're seeing so many people get burned by a lot of Western developers these days.

It's just such a funny turnaround.

@KingdomHeartsFan You sound like the embodiment of NL comments sections. Sit down and hold this L.

You know, I will never understand how Nintendo can fund three games for Platinum (Bayonetta 2 + 3 and Astral Chain, Star Fox Zero seemed a bit more of Nintendo with Platinum helping than anything else) while Microsoft just couldn't get Scalebound going well at all. Why couldn't Microsoft just let Platinum be Platinum?

That said I am going to remain extremely cautious about these rumors. I've heard conflicting reports on how Microsoft only has the trademark, not the IP or whatever, and I'm too lazy to really dig through what exactly the situation is.

I've got too many games to play in my backlog to worry, anyway. Back to Final Fantasy XV and Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

DEVIL MAY CRY OUTDATED

SEKIRO OVERRATED

LONG HAVE WE WAITED

NOW WE ASTRAL CHAIN

I hope he makes some bangers. Wonder how Bayonetta 3 will turn out though.

Pretty sad that a company who's been dabbling in crossplay since the ****ing PS2 is refusing now. What even?

Certainly would be nice but I personally don't need another multiplayer game to play right now. And if I wanted to play it, I'd probably just get it on PC. Splatoon is my go-to shooter on Switch (or period tbh) still.

The only reason to get a PS4 is to play Bloodborne :^]

PC + Switch baybeeee

"PipeLINE"

Nintendo Life is cancelled, we've reached a new low

Something else Nintendo likes is hiring people that like stuff beyond just gaming so they're well-rounded for inspiration and the like. Yeah, it's sometimes good to look at other games and incorporate a lot of their gameplay mechanics, but at the same time getting a different perspective on things can give some really cool ideas. For example, Shigesato Itoi is not primarily a game designer, he's a writer first and foremost. But his unique skills gave Mother 1-3 a very unique charm that nothing else can replicate.

So having people from all walks of life, male or female or whatever leads to quite a lot of creative stuff, not just from Nintendo but from everything else.

I normally don't care THAT much for theme parks but I would love to see this park in action with all the Nintendo stuff in it.

Just wonder if Japan will have the best stuff.

People shift around all the time. Yuji Naka of Sega fame left to make his own company, then left again to join Square Enix.

@Antraxx777 Everything but the character sprites are fine. They are far too squished and animations are incredibly stilted. Especially the run/walk cycles. And it's not even just a SNES thing when Chrono Trigger blows FF sprites out of the water in every way.

I'm no big online gamer, but I would of course love for them to adopt some actual basic functionality and even go beyond just messaging and SNES/N64 games. Ideally they would have made online play free and just have the subscription give you the stuff like retro games, but that ship probably sailed years ago.

It doesn't hurt me since I'm primarily single-player, only dabbling in some online games here and there, but yeah.

I hope they move away from copying Final Fantasy character sprites and go for something like Chrono Trigger or Xenogears. Final Fantasy character sprites are butt-ugly, and Octopath Traveler's sprites being based off of Final Fantasy VI's sprites really turned me off.

Octopath's artstyle isn't anything new either. If anything it kinda just feels meh. They literally took Xenogears' foundation of 2D sprites in a 3D space (which was already kinda ugly), removed the controllable camera, and added unnecessary effects like insane depth of field.

Bowsette for Smash

Good stuff. Japanese gaming is finally fantastic again. Nintendo, Capcom (kinda, MTX in DMC5 doesn't sound good), and even Sega have been improving drastically lately.

Nice, Xenoblade 2 is #10. Good to know it's doing so well for a niche JRPG.

@Indielink He still means there's not much reason to get it on other platforms like PS4 and PC. I can attest to that because I do have a PS4 and a very powerful PC with an i7 8700k and 1080ti, but I'm still getting it on Switch because of the portability and it doing good in both handheld and docked.

Either way you're both saying the same thing.

Arriving this Friday. Hope this does well!

Cannot wait for this game.

This is literal clickbait. They're not going to leave the hardware scene any time soon, just that they're keeping their minds open for expanding.

Shame on you Nintendo Life.

VR is certainly taking a turn for the better nowadays. Games like Astro Bot, Tetris Effect, Beat Saber, and Resident Evil 7 apparently all take pretty damn good advantage of VR. I really hope Sony in particular keeps pushing it and makes it even better because I really do see far more utility and novelty for VR than 3D ever would have with Nintendo and the 3DS, as much as I did legitimately enjoy the 3D effect on my 3DS.

@ShadJV Now at that point you're arguing cost effectiveness with how much assets used versus actually seen, which is a totally separate issue but a valid problem inherent to 3D Sonic. But it has barely much to do with the speed compared to the 2D games, where using the Spin Dash (moreso Adventure 1 than 2, but still extremely powerful) and Rocket Accel (in Heroes) both propel you forward insanely quickly. That said, 3D games in general across the board are also going to be slower than 2D gameplay, and that's going to remain a constant. Mario is slower in 3D (even in 3D Land/World which is basically 2D Mario literally translated to 3D), Metroid is slower in 3D, Zelda is FAR slower in 3D, Donkey Kong is obnoxiously slower in 3D, etc. You can't avoid that. But Sonic closes that speed difference a lot closer than most, especially when you fully use the Spin Dash/Rocket Accel to its full potential. Stages like Ice Cap and Windy Valley from Adventure 1 and Metal Harbor and Green Forest from Adventure 2 fit a similar speed bill pretty well when you use Sonic's kit.

And even then broadening the level for exploration isn't a bad idea to make 3D Sonic better inherently instead of just as a way to get around limitations. Mania did the exact same thing and CD was also built to emphasize exploring the level.

Other things like LODs are literally what the Hedgehog Engine was built for to manage quick loading of areas, and not going quite as fast as Unleashed drastically helps with that already.

Camera does need work, but isn't quite relevant to Sonic's speed in 3D. Mario didn't quite perfect the camera before Galaxy, for example.