Category: Nintendo

Wish upon a Star(field).

In an attempt to ensure that Microsoft’s Xbox is easily differentiated from the Switch, the company once attempted to make a shift in terminology when it comes to what constitutes a “console” — because that couldn’t possibly lead to confusion, right?

In a 2019 email from Xbox’s head of marketing, Aaron Greenberg (and shared to Twitter by Kotaku‘s @ethangach), we can see that there was a time in which Microsoft was keen to present the Nintendo Switch not as a “console”, but rather as a “portable gaming device”. This all spawned from Ori and the Blind Forest leaving its Xbox exclusivity and making its way over to the Nintendo console, with Microsoft, obviously, looking for a way to spin it so that its system could still appear favourable.

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Surreal Madrid.

Games have, over their history, often sought to become interactive movies or cartoons. There is the general decades-long race towards realism in Triple-A games running on higher and higher-specced hardware, the labour-intensive, hand-drawn aesthetic of many indie games like Cuphead or Hoa and, of course, that art form traditionally maligned but subject of a recent renaissance: full-motion video.

The challenge has always been that the more a game resembles a movie or cartoon, the less it resembles a game. The more cutscenes, the less interaction; the more bespoke animation, the less resource available to expand the game. Madrid-based indie developer Gammera Nest’s The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo has decided which way that particular cookie is going to crumble: it takes a hit to its point-and-click-adventure gameplay, but makes almost no compromise on presenting a superbly animated and fantastically surreal cartoon.

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“The whole mission is to share the work”.

Have you ever seen an original Contra up close? What about an original Mario Kart?

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Crying’s not for me.

In the most positive sense, it’s amazing what gets approved for release on the Switch. Raindrop Sprinters is an indie title that could well be a mobile phone game in everything except its aesthetic, which accurately resembles an early ’80s arcade title.

You play a cat represented by a bobbing paw, tasked only with crossing a screen from one side to the other, on repeat, 40 times to finish the Standard game. During each brief transit, raindrops fall from a corrugated overhead roof, dripping randomly, with enough gaps to allow you to make your crossing unscathed. With one life only, it’s simplistic, but there’s a core scoring game here that’s both utterly compelling and unapologetically brutal.

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Box Art Vs. Box Art.

Hello one and all, and welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl.

Before we check out this week’s competitors, let’s take a look at how we fared last time. We took a look at New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, the first entry in the polarising platforming sub-series. It was actually a fairly close battle, but in the end, the North American variant featuring a giant Mario won out with 58% of the vote.

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The RPG classic returns this November.

Nintendo gave Super Mario RPG fans another look at the Switch version during the latest Nintendo Direct presentation.

GameXplain has now uploaded another side-by-side comparison – comparing the new version to the old one. As previously revealed, the Switch release includes updated graphics and cinematics to add even more charm to what’s an already amazing role-playing adventure.

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Here’s how it holds up.

Mortal Kombat 1 went into early access this week and players have finally been able to get their hands on all versions of the game. The question many have been wondering for some time now is how the game holds up on the Switch compared to other versions and now we’ve finally got some details.

The tech, visual and performance comparison YouTube channel ElAnalistaDeBits has released a graphics comparison of the Switch version alongside the Xbox Series, PlayStation and Steam Deck versions of the game. According to the source, here’s the rundown on the Switch release:

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More than the sum of its parts.

Summum Aeterna, a prequel to 2022’s Aeterna Noctis, riffs on a Dead Cells-style genre fusion, mixing roguelite elements into the tough Metroidvania structure of its predecessor for a game that doesn’t pull its punches. The result feels rough around the edges but it’s hard to deny that the gameplay feels pretty great.

Enemies hit hard, frequently gang up on you, and will almost assuredly send you back to the hub dozens of times before you manage to successfully complete a run. And while Summum Aeterna primarily demands dexterous skills to overcome its toughest challenges, you do have something to show for each failed run. You, of course, lose most of the upgrades you snagged while out and about, but every run will see you gaining currency and crafting materials that you can then reinvest into things like better stats and starting weapons. This meta-progression system thus ensures that you’ll always be making progress, even when you lose time after time.

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To Urbz is human.

When I was working on my MFA in Game Design, I referenced Urbz: Sims in the City in a meeting with my thesis advisor, and he asked if I had played the console or the handheld version. I was confident that I’d played the console version growing up. I could recall the memory quite clearly—sitting against a study pillow on my childhood bed with the controller’s too-short cord pulled taut against the GameCube across the room, furiously speeding through the game in an attempt to finish every goal before Hollywood Video’s three-day rental period elapsed.

It’s hard to explain the cognitive dissonance I felt when my advisor started talking about in-game material that was completely unknown to me, that was certainly not what I remembered playing but had an eerie sameness to it, like the game I knew but in an alternate reality.

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Another Another World.

Full Void, a narrative platforming puzzle game from London indie studio OutOfTheBit Ltd, wears its love of cinematic platformer classics on its sleeve. Bringing along core gameplay ideas from early entries in the genre, it mixes in some modern influences and introduces a few new ideas of its own.

You play as a hoody-up teen on the run, lugging a backpack with a computer in it as you trek through desolate cityscapes in knee-patched jeans. You are hunted by evil robot monsters, tracking you down with their menacing stop-light eyes and scuttling about on spidery legs. As atmospheric as it is, quite why this is happening takes a while to become clear. Nonetheless, the threat of your pursuers feels real and lends significance to the companionship of a small robot helper you encounter later in the game. Flashback cutscenes suggest this robot was developed by your mother before things went bad, bringing a satisfying element of vengeance to the story.

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