Nintendo Switch Thread - Page 210

Mario Movie Actor Says Second Film Is "Very Exciting So Far"
Toad's voice actor provides an update

Earlier this year on Mario Day, Nintendo announced it was working on a new movie based on the world of Super Mario.

While not much else has been shared about this upcoming film scheduled to arrive in 2026, Toad's movie voice actor Keegan-Michael Key has now made some comments about it during a recent chant with Men's Journal.

He's found it to be "very exciting so far" and says Mario fans can look forward to a movie that's "a little broader in scope" with "very intriguing lore" and one that has some "really fantastic Easter eggs". He continues by noting how the Mario universe is creatively "widened out" in this next movie, with some new folks that are "old favourites" making an appearance including some "really deep cuts" featuring.

When Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed the second movie earlier this year, he mentioned how Nintendo and Illumination were already "thinking about broadening Mario's world further", and promised it would have a "bright and fun story".

On October 06 2024 23:42 Creager wrote:


Interesting as I'm somewhat sceptical of Echoes of Wisdom, as the game design just represents a mixed bag for me, personally.

I've grown up and always have had a deep love for Zelda games, the lore around it and the classic game formula vibed with me and to this day I have a very strong sense of nostalgia thinking about my first endeavors in Hyrule with Zelda 1 on the NES and just how magical the exploration aspect of it all felt.

Then came the 3D era and OoT just propelled everything to a whole new level immersion-wise and from a story-telling perspective, but as time went on the games felt more linear to me and then I just stopped following as closely, I didn't bother with Skyward sword or Spirit Tracks as I didn't like the Twilight Princess Wii port - they mirrored the whole game to make Link right-handed, so people swinging their Wiimotes would feel better connected to the action happening on screen, and I think he has been ever since. As for Spirit Tracks, the concept of trains doesn't appeal to me, but I'm sure it's a quality game, just not up my alley.

Interestingly enough when BotW was released and I got my Switch to play it, this game invoked this very feeling I had with Zelda 1 as a child in the sense that I feel they shared a lot of that open world/exploration approach despite the technical limitations that came with earlier console generations. BotW was just mesmerising and to me felt like some kind of return to the roots of the very first installment of the franchise, but while overall the game was a blast to play through, in hindsight I really did not like the shrines as much, as the overall difficulty to solve them was too low IMO which made it feel more like a nuisance to solve one instead of an enjoyable puzzle roadbump experience.

When TotK was released I couldn't wait to dive in and play it, but after a couple of days I stopped and couldn't really bring myself to continue as I was so saturated with the same gameplay loops from BotW and all taking place in the "same" overworld.

To be as objective as possible I couldn't really find things that the game did worse than BotW - it improved basically on every aspect of it's predecessor, but it just didn't have the same magic for me, overall it felt like a massive DLC instead of a new game.
At that point in time I just noticed that I didn't like the "creativity" game design approach of just putting people in some sort of sandbox and letting them figure out how to solve problems on their own, because what this approach leads to is very dull puzzle design IMHO, because you need to consider several solutions to be viable - think reaching some higher location, you can try to find a cave to use your ceiling dive arm ability or build some device to elevate yourself (some fan construction or the torch hot air balloon). Where I initially saw freedom of choice I then realised the limitation complexity in puzzle design, because everybody needs to feel smart using either of options A, B or C.

A Link between Worlds on DS was another really stellar gaming experience for me as I just loved them taking on the A Link to the Past timeline and procuding a entirely new top-down classic Zelda. They should've made hard-mode available right from the start in this game, not an unlockable after the first playthrough, but other than that the game was just fantastic.

So having this in mind when Echoes of Wisdom was announced, it got me so hyped that I even finally got me the Link's Awakening remake and, as expected, I enjoyed it thoroughly with all the QoL improvements over the GB version - minus the dungeon maker, but that's no biggie, at all. It was just such an enjoyable classic Zelda experience.

So, I'm really in an awkward spot here - while I have absolute 0 doubts that the Echoes is a banger of a game still, I truly dislike the crafting and "creative sandbox" approach with the conjuring of everything, because to me that's just no longer appealing game design - I don't want to be able to summon tables to create a staircase out of them, I want a properly designed puzzle-solving experience that sometimes makes me scratch my head instead of having my 3 go-to "creative" solutions that work 9 out of 10 times and I just find it unfortunate that this kind-of gameplay is oozing into every title now, but apparently that's what the kids want these days.

On October 11 2024 18:58 Creager wrote:


I've bought it and have cleared the first 'dungeon' and while I agree that they tried to hit a lot of nostalgia notes it still has a lot of the 'modern' games' DNA baked into it, which overall isn't bad, but it just doesn't give me that classic Zelda vibe I've been yearning for.
The puzzle design so far more or less as I expected (not blowing my socks off, most of it so far was 'combine shit out of your crafting inventory and sometimes think about the order you spawn it in', but I'm still at the beginning) while the combat reminds me a lot of Pokemon as a kinda rock/paper/scissor-ish selection of monsters to fight other monsters plus the collecting aspect of it.
At least they also added the 'screw this shit, just gimme a sword!' mechanic with the power bar, I guess I'll make heavier use of that one in the future.

It's a good game, but for now it feels more like a spin-off than a 'real' Zelda game to me, which I find a bit sad.

On October 15 2024 06:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
The demo for Ys X: Nordics just came out. I thought Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana was phenomenal (S tier on my ranking), and I thought Ys IX: Monstrum Nox was very good (A tier on my ranking), and I'm really excited to play Ys X next!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-tcV0_yx8