Skylanders, disc burns, and lethal charity boxes.
Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2024 series. Enjoy!
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today, Ollie reflects on just some of the eventful episodes from his days working in video game retail…
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And it can only get better.
For the younger readers amongst you, I suspect that many 3D games from the ‘90s and ‘00s seem rather quaint at best and downright unplayable at worst. It was a period in which the medium was geting to grips with a completely new third dimension; couple this with the limited graphical capabilities of the PlayStation and N64, and you could argue that many titles haven’t aged well.
Me, though? I absolutely love this era. I was six when the PS1 launched in the UK; the perfect age to start enjoying classics like WipEout, Spyro the Dragon, and yes, games that perhaps weren’t suitable for me yet like Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil. So when I go back and play titles from this era today, I find them reasonably approachable thanks to an intimate familiarity with the period. Even remasters of games that I’ve not experienced before feel oddly comforting in a way that I can’t quite describe.
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Our personal picks for the best Switch games of 2024.
As we head into the final week of 2024, it’s time to slay the GOTY monster that devours the Decembers of many a gamer.
While Nintendo itself has been in wind-down mode, with most internal resources focused on the next console and a software lineup to kickstart it, Switch itself has had a pretty great year. Nintendo enlisted its various partner studios to shoulder the first-party load as Switch went into its eighth year, and third parties and indies have continued to keep things interesting.
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Edelgard arrives 2026.
The Good Smile Company has already released all sorts of stunning Fire Emblem figures and the latest reveal is Edelgard from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
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Merry Christmas!
Following Sega’s removal of certain digital titles earlier this month, multiple Cartoon Network Games under the Warner Bros. Discovery label have now been removed from digital stores including Nintendo’s Switch eShop.
There’s no word if they’ll ever return but according to reports, “at least five games” under the Warner Bros. label have been delisted.
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Elemental rage.
Holding the Guinness World Record for “Most prolific developer of danmaku shooters” — a tenuous plaudit seemingly concocted entirely for their receipt — Cave’s five DonPachi entries form bullet points in the company’s evolution, from Toaplan-esque beginnings to a full-blown, bullet hell renaissance.
SaiDaiOuJou, the series’ final entry and Cave’s last arcade shooting game, makes the clean stylings of its predecessor, DaiFukkatsu, even cleaner; a shiny blue aesthetic wrought from 3D renders and a billion pixels. It also carries over adjustable difficulty options and an auto bomb on/off feature. Its core, however, is similar to DoDonPachi DaiOuJou, the greatest and most beautiful of Cave’s work.
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How Nintendo World Championships helped me ‘git gud’.
I’ll admit, I’ve never been fond of speedrunning. The thought of shaving milliseconds off a time in a video game while playing the same sequence over and over sounds, in theory, more frustrating than fun. Sure, as a spectator, there is definitely joy in appreciating the wizardry of players pulling off pixel-perfect feats and shattering a runtime record. But I have neither the time nor the mettle to contemplate doing so myself.
Fortunately, this year gave us a game that weaved together 8-bit era charm, bite-sized accessibility, and addictive skill refinement. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition was my gateway to finally “getting” speedrunning, and it’s some of the most fun I’ve had gaming in 2024.
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The ‘Dreamcast Mini’ dream is dead.
If you’re a fan of miniature consoles and the novel convenience they bring, then unfortunately you might want to just keep ahold of your current collection, because it doesn’t sound like Sega is particularly keen on making any more.
In an interview with The Guardian (thanks, Time Extension), Shuji Utsumi, the CEO of Sega America and Europe, dashed any hopes that we might see a ‘Saturn Mini’ or ‘Dreamcast Mini’ in the future. He stated that while the company appreciates its legacy, it wants to focus on the future and “embrace modern gamers”:
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A genuine blast.
A few months ago, the Switch finally received Pizza Tower, an indie action platformer that’s gotten a lot of praise for how well it channels Nintendo’s long-dormant Wario Land series. Yet developer Tour de Pizza wasn’t the only team inspired by Wario. Summitsphere’s Antonblast is a wild and wonderful action platformer that feels like it could actually be the next Wario Land game if it came with a different coat of paint; its combination of speed, precision, and smart level design makes for a truly thrilling experience that’s only let down by its issues with stable performance.
Antonblast stars the titular Dynamite Anton, whose angry, red-skinned appearance leaves Satan feeling envious and insecure about his status as “the reddest being of them all.” So, in a petty act of retaliation, he sends his minions to Anton’s apartment to steal what he cherishes most: the Spirits that he kept around his living space. Enraged, Anton grabs his hammer and sets out on a quest to reclaim what was stolen and to give Satan a piece of his mind.
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Set your Alarmos.
We’ve been waiting for that sweet Nintendo Switch 2 announcement for what feels like years now — hold on, it has been years — but, as of today, we are finally on the home straight. That is if your ‘home straight’ consists of 100 days to go.
We know that an announcement is coming “this fiscal year“, and if you take today (22nd December) as Day 1, then there are only 100 possible days left for Nintendo to announce “the successor to Nintendo Switch” before we hit 1st April and enter the next fiscal year. Things get slippery when you start to take pesky hours into account, but if today = Day 1, 31st March = Day 100. Got it? Good.
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