Category: Nintendo

A different kind of ‘game card’.

If you have ever read up on the history of Nintendo, you know that before it went into the video game business, the company began life by making cards and other novelties. The hanafuda and playing cards which Nintendo produced from its formation in 1889 took a back seat following the popularity of toys like the Ultra Hand in the 1960s, and the company would soon move into electronic games and, ultimately, arcade and video games.

But this is not to say that the company left cards behind completely. Nintendo-branded Japanese Menko cards were released in Japan in the early 1980s and collector Ben Gilmore has a sizeable colletion of these lesser-known Nintendo-branded cards. This milk cap/Pog-like tabletop game is older than Nintendo itself, and there are Nintendo Menkos with Mario designs that date from the plumber’s pre-NES arcade days.

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Zion investigates.

The start of this week saw the closure of the 3DS and Wii U eShops, a sad time for all of us, many of whom spent last weekend feeling a little sentimental about all of the brilliant games that we would be losing as we attempted to download as many titles as possible (not speaking from personal experience, of course). But what does this closure mean for the 3DS’ other features? Just three months into what we declared “the year of 3DS StreetPass,” could the feature really be dying just as we were getting started?

This is the precise question that our lovely video producer, Zion, attempted to answer this week. As many of you may be aware, Zion has been making a public push for the return of StreetPass ever since the start of 2023 — we even held a StreetPass event at this year’s PAX West. Aside from providing an update on how this journey has been going so far, the latest video explains the reality of Streetpass in 2023, how the eShop closure has affected the feature, and what its future might look like.

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No copying here.

Hello folks! We made it through April Fools’ Day, so it’s time to say: welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl!

First off, let’s have a quick look back at last week’s tussle. Super Mario Bros. 2 (or Super Mario USA) took to the stage, and while it was fairly close, Japan won this fight with 59% of the vote. We’re fans off both, so we’re not disappointed with the result at all.

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“This is no joke”.

April Fools’ Day has been one heck of a minefield this year, with some video game companies going an extra step by actually releasing a real product.

With this in mind, Xeno Crisis developers Bitmap Bureau have announced they’ll be bringing the retro-inspired shooter to the Nintendo 64 and GameCube. And yes, it’s not a joke! We’ve seen this Kickstarter release on all sorts of platforms already – including Switch and now pre-orders are live on these classic Nintendo systems.

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A joke too far.

It’s that day of the year again. On the video game front, things are sometimes taken to another level when a joke turns out to be the real deal, and it seems to have happened once again this year, this time with Sega murdering Sonic the Hedgehog (seriously) and a few other amusing announcements.

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Or is it a secret?

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key launched recently just over a week ago, and fans of the series have had a good chunk of time to get familiar with Ryza’s latest adventure in alchemy.

In our review of the game, we called it “a heady mix of exploration, crafting and combat that benefits greatly from a narrative arc that’s had time to develop and grow”. Small disappointments such as tiny text and no English dub weren’t enough to take the shine off the game in our eyes, and it serves as a great culmination of Ryza’s trilogy on Switch. Check out the review below for the full rundown:

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“Hello there lovely people”.

If you’ve been a long-time fan of Nintendo Life, there’s probably one thing you associate with us as much as you do Nintendo news: the words “Hhhhhello there lovely peeeeeople”.

Coined by the very lovely Alex Olney over on YouTube for us, he, Zion, and Felix have decided to finally crack open the egg and reveal the truth behind what is our most-famous catchphrase. That’s right, folks, it’s time to strap in and get ready for a Nintendo Life history lesson.

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Flame on.

One week ago today we were looking at the calendar and commenting on how things seemed pretty quiet for Nintendo to round out March and then out of nowhere — boom! — we’re hit with our first proper look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and everything changed.

Yes, this was the week that we fell thoroughly back into the Zelda spirit (as if we ever left) as we broke down every new detail in the latest trailer, had a close look at that special edition OLED and discussed Nintendo’s previous successes with the ‘more of the same’ format.

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And many other bargains.

There’s a new Bethesda sale on the Switch eShop and series like Elder Scrolls and Doom have seen some massive price cuts.

Both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and DOOM Eternal are going for their “lowest prices ever” on this particular digital storefront, so if you’ve been holding out for a sale – now might finally be the time to splash some cash. This sale ties in with the 29th anniversary of the Elder Scrolls series.

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But is it legit?

You might remember that last year, PlatinumGames released a video from a clearly fake press conference at which Hideki Kamiya and co. announced nine new “upcoming” games as a part of a series called the Neo-Classic Arcade. This year, the studio is back at it again as it revealed a “Spectacular Side-Scrolling Action” game starring its V-Tuber and mascot, Pt Shirogane.

The game was announced on the fictional “Happy-Go-Lucky Underground Radio” show, hosted by Pt. You can watch the full reveal in the video above (be sure to turn subtitles on), with the small amount of game footage (assuming that it’s a real game) appearing around the 3:17 mark.

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