Author: sick skills

Nintendo is getting in its last updates for 2025, and today it has updated the Switch title Pikmin 4. This is the third patch for this title since it launched in 2023.

Version 1.1.1 comes with fixes related to Oatchi commands, creature activity levels, decor Pikmin and auto target lock. There are also various other bug patches and there’s also been an additional button guide added.

Nintendo also notes how the “same changes” have been released for the Pikmin 4 demo. Below is the full rundown, courtesy of the official support page.

Pikmin 4 – Version 1.1.1 (16th December 2025)

Fix Related to Giving Oatchi Commands

• You can now give the “Go to Work” command to Oatchi in your squad right away when you keep pressing the A Button after throwing all of the Pikmin in your squad.
  • For tasks where there aren’t enough Pikmin, or things Oatchi is unable to do, the command will still be stopped temporarily.

Fixes Related to Roll Overs

• When you start a new game with Roll Over, you can now carry over all of Oatchi’s previously learned skills.
  • Speak to the captain and go into the training screen after Oatchi grows and you are able to do training.
  • Note: You cannot perform Roll Over starts in the Pikmin 4 demo.
• Fixed a bug where some treasures are not reflected in the completion of the Treasure Catalog.

Fixes Related to Creature Activity Levels

• While the activity level is set to “Relaxed,” the following creatures will no longer attack unless you attack them first.
  • Moss
  • Waterwraith
  • Dweevils Carrying Bomb Rocks
• While the activity level is set to “Relaxed,” creatures are less likely to inhale Pikmin or catch them with their tongues.
• Fixed a bug where the Grubchucker is unable to prey on Pikmin while the activity level is set to “Fierce.”
• Fixed a bug where some creatures would freeze in place when fed multiple Bomb Rocks while the activity level is set to “Fierce.”

Fixes Related to Decor Pikmin

• Made it easier to “Say Cheese” when taking pictures of some Decor Pikmin.
• Decor Pikmin are now unaffected when a creature performs an attack where they suck in Pikmin.
• Fixed a bug where there was sometimes a delay in reflecting what Decor Pikmin you have found when sending that data to the Pikmin Bloom smart device application.
  • Note: Decor Pikmin data cannot be sent to Pikmin Bloom from the Pikmin 4 demo.

Fixes Related to Auto Target Lock

• Added a setting that makes it so the cursor is not locked in place from repeatedly pressing the A Button while Auto Target Lock is set to “Off.”
  • Note: You can switch between “On” and “Off” by opening the Pause menu (- Button), selecting “Settings,” and going to “Tap A Repeatedly to Lock.” (This is set to “Off” by default.)

Additional Button Guide

• An explanation will now appear in screen while in “Photo Mode” when using the Field Camera indicating that you can move the camera up or down using the up and down direction buttons on the Joy-Con (L) (or the up and down buttons on the +Control Pad of the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller).

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed other issues to improve the gameplay experience.

Note: A patch with the same changes has also been distributed for the Pikmin 4 demo. The demo version cannot send Decor Pikmin information to the Pikmin Bloom smart device application.

This follows recent calls from fans for a Switch 2 upgrade for Pikmin 4, after an odd listing was spotted on the eShop earlier this month.

In some other update news, Mario Tennis Aces on the Switch has been updated to Version 3.1.1 today. It addresses “several issues to improve the gameplay experience”. Nintendo also rolled out a new patch for Mario Kart World yesterday.

Have you downloaded this update for Pikmin 4? How are you finding it so far? Let us know in the comments.

Update [Wed 17th Dec 2025, 12:45am]: Here’s your reminder that the Nintendo 64 titles Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble are now available to Switch Online + Expansion Pack members.

Original Story: [Wed 10th Dec, 2025 15:30 GMT]

Nintendo has today announced that it will soon be expanding the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack N64 library with a pair of classic 3D platformers.

Both Rayman 2: The Great Escape and Tonic Trouble will be added to the service on 17th December 2025 (that’s next week!), so expect to see a lot of floating hands/feet with no arms/legs attached to ’em.

Originally released in 1999 by Ubi Soft, Rayman 2 sees you tasked with saving the Fairy Glade from Admiral Razorbeard and his army of robots. There’s all of the usual collecting and platforming peril that you would expect from a Rayman title, but we remember having a jolly good time with this one back in the day, and it’s always nice to have an excuse to pick it up again.

Ubi launched Tonic Trouble the very same year, and while not quite as beloved as its platforming pal, it brings the weirdness with its story. This one will have you playing as an alien named Ed, who’s sent down to Earth to clean up a little supernatural conqueror problem after he inadvertently pollutes the planet’s water supply with a strange liquid.

Those with an NSO + Expansion Pack membership will be able to play both of these titles on the service next Wednesday.

Which title are you looking forward to playing the most? Let us know in the comments.

Mega Man is having a heck of a week — just a few days after Capcom revealed that the Blue Bomber will be getting a brand new game in 2027, we’ve also got a release date for Mega Man Star Force: Legacy Collection (thanks, Gematsu!).

Launching on Switch on 27th March 2026, Mega Man Star Force: Legacy Collection brings together seven DS Mega Man RPGs in one package that includes an art gallery, music, and other quality-of-life features.

PlayStation UK briefly shared a new trailer for the upcoming collection, though it’s currently unavailable at the time of writing — perhaps they jumped the gun a little soon? Still, we have these clips:

The game was rated for Switch just last month, so the release date reveal shouldn’t be too surprising. And, for a reminder, here are the seven games included in the collection:

• Mega Man Star Force Leo
• Mega Man Star Force Dragon
• Mega Man Star Force Pegasus
• Mega Man Star Force 2 Zerker x Ninja
• Mega Man Star Force 2 Zerker x Saurian
• Mega Man Star Force 3 Black Ace
• Mega Man Star Force 3 Red Joker

Are you looking forward to Mega Man Star Force: Legacy Collection? Let us know in the comments.

We lost track of the amount of times our friend Ibby tried to convey his love for the gorgeous Choral Chambers theme from Silksong, asking us to listen to this bit or the flutey bit, or another haunting, melancholic bit we couldn’t actually hear because of GameChat’s music-muting tech.

We did, however, hear a heated debate he had with his Mum (it really does catch them voices!), which wasn’t the kind of environmental storytelling we were going for, really. It turns out you can selectively lower the volume for different friends (and their Mums) in the chat – useful!

Stories abound. For a period this year, Silksong and GameChat was like a pub to me and some friends. Whereas previously of an evening there might be memes or Smash Bros. smacktalk in the WhatsApp chat, suddenly the group was quiet. But I could turn up to the Switch about 9pm and reliably get a notification toot (after that slightly exciting anticipation lag) that three friends were online and there was a GameChat invite. Click that ‘C’ button!

Four of us had bought Silksong (only two of whom had finished Hollow Knight) and embarked on its punishing, rewarding, sprawling journey together. Smash aside — I main as Corrin — I’m not really one for online multiplayer or co-op, and don’t know the pleasures of being a sun-praising Soulslover who summons others to duet a boss (and I’ve only played Dark Souls 2, sorry!).

But playing Silksong as a Silkchorus was a 2025 highlight, a single-player journey but shared through GameChat, with new (or new to Nintendo) possibilities suddenly enabled.

I never watch Twitch but now found myself flicking across GameChat screens of an evening like channels on the telly.

Now we had live fight analysis for some bosses, like the time Ibby was struggling trying to beat First Sinner, that frantic, fantastic, optional boss found in the Slab prison, fwoomp-ing in and out of the arena like Nightcrawler amidst a relentless barrage of lacerating silk and the music swells with violin violence.

But watching his screen, I noticed he wasn’t making use of the hookshot — I don’t think it’s called a ‘hookshot’ — to gain that crucial horizontal distance and safety between threads. And so I told him, and he did, and bit by bit he began to make progress.

Though still not enough – there was a phase two. Just one more go before calling it for today, we agreed, and I watched his last run, the clean control and last-hurrah focus, and now it was phase two but I was keeping silent so as not to jinx it. Then I erupted as the Sinner went down.

At other times it was more rally-style co-driving, like when Sunny fought Disgraced Chef Lugoli in Sinner’s Road, the screen busy with putrid globules and sideways bum barges, all of us chipping in to offload the overwhelm with shouts of “Cogflies Cogflies!” or “Heal heal heal!” at just the right moment.

(In theory. The chef went down later.)

An underrated effect of all this screen-sharing is that we’d get to repeatedly experience generational leaps in gaming, acclimatising to the fuzzy 10fps jerkiness of someone else’s Pharloom, then — cool platforming section over — going back to our own game in gloriously rich, high-fidelity, full-screen wonder. In handheld especially, you get that shocking, popping clarity that looks like print, like a storybook given life. Silksong remastered!

So I started to really enjoy this Silksong TV. I never watch Twitch but now found myself flicking across GameChat screens of an evening like channels on the telly. And because of the game’s commendable open-ness — and tough-as-nails-ness — everyone would be somewhere different. There were rumours of a new area above west Greymoor, or a magical dice in the Blasted Steps that is needed, bro. Party members scouting out and reporting back with what the different key doors unlocked, telling each other to open our maps and leave waymarkers for secrets at places of interest we hadn’t even got to yet. This was our new version of the fabled playground chatter of yore, a co-created web of Silksong strategy (instead of whispers of a naked Lara cheat).

And for the record, we played plenty ourselves, too. I am, after all, primarily a solo, in-conversation-with-myself-and-the-game kind of player. But even then, there was that nice background awareness of a wider conversation, of having people to whom we could later recount the things we’d seen and done.

Now hear me out – would it be a stretch to call all the actual chatting a game mechanic, too? Not just because of the shared intel and coaching, but because of that sort of side-play headspace you sometimes get into whilst chatting, like the long car drive catch-up where you barely notice the journey. We’d tap into the automaticity and free reps of working a section on repeat (that Bird’s Nest gauntlet owes me hours) whilst chatting life nonsense that kept the difficulty and seriousness just off the boil enough to get the details down. Then go off chat to lock-in and finish the job, sharing a video from the Nintendo app the next morning of you finally beating the Savage Beastfly.

(These posts were weirdly expressive of the different ways we’d all play. It was watching Mozo’s clean AF performance on Beastfly that taught me the usefulness of short-hop hits, even though he didn’t seem to do the badass last-minute ground dodge like Gothmog in Return of the King.)

Anyway, I got more engrossed than most and ploughed through straight to the end of Act 3 and its gloriously exacting final battle, feeling the patterns out on repeat, going off chat for the final few goes, then re-entering and trying to act nonchalant when I’d beaten it. I’ve played it again since and it’s almost just rhythm action pattern matching now. Power in progress.

But the other guys fell off a bit after Act 2. New Hades had come and provided some lighter respite, and another’s family member had begun some medical treatments. Just a small Silksong break, but it never picked up again. And so that specific pub made of joint momentum and shared moments had closed.

What a lovely place, though. What a cool Switch 2 time. Bring on the Sea of Sorrow.

Poncle has just released a brand new gameplay trailer for its upcoming Vampire Survivors spin-off, *deep breath* Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors, which is coming out some time in 2026.

And it probably should come with a health warning, because the chaotic blobber-inspired (that’s a term used to describe a number of first-person RPGs from the ’80, broadly) dungeon crawling rogue-lite is going to be a huge time sink, just like Vampire Survivors.

Anyway, Vampire Crawlers will introduce your vampire hunting friends to turn-based combat, brand new abilities, new ways to use existing abilities, and… digging?

We’ve also got a sneak peak at some familiar locations, a museum, and other buildings that you’ll likely need to use to progress. And yet somehow, it all seems to come together with that same moreish Vampire Survivors flair.

More details will be coming soon on the game, but for now, we just want to know when to take some time off work to sink our teeth into the game.

Are you looking forward to Vampire Crawlers? Survive in the comments and let us know.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has received mostly positive reception, but it’s safe to say that not everybody is keen on the dialogue from Samus’ Federation Trooper pals. Now, thanks to a video from Bearborg (cheers, VGC), even more unused dialogue has been showcased (from approx 7:38 in the above video).

Accessed by simply listening in to the conversations between the Galactic Federation Troopers at Base Camp in Fury Green, some of the additional dialogue includes musings from VUE-995 about how much it can bench, a new breach technique from Nora Armstrong, and a recollection from Ezra Duke about an unpaid debt back on the planet Tanamaar.

All told, there’s more than 30 minutes’ worth of voiceover work that seemingly didn’t make it into the final game, though why is anybody’s guess. It’s important to note that these conversations aren’t mandatory to the story, and are instead bonus interactions that you can choose to listen in to when chilling out at Base Camp.

One of our key criticisms of Beyond wasn’t due to the added dialogue, but rather the freqeuncy at which Myles Mackenzie would contact you over comms when you’re about exploring Sol Valley. Ultimately, we thought the game was a welcome return for Samus, awarding it a score of 9/10.

What do you make of this unused dialogue from Prime 4? Do you wish it was included in the final game? Let us know with a comment.

We’re halfway through December, and Fantasy Life i fans may have been wondering “hey, where is that DLC that Level-5 revealed would be coming out this month?”. Well, Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino has spoken up to put fan concern to bed.

Yes, The Sinister Broker Bazario’s Schemes is still coming this December on Switch 1 and 2, and it”ll be here “around Christmas”, the founder of the company shared on social media earlier today.

As a reminder, this new free DLC brings the Fantasy Life i’s blend of RPG elements, crafting, simulation, and exploration into a roguelike formula. Ginormosia is transforming and you’ll be going up against new monsters, discover a new artifact, and find new weapons and mounts, too.

So it’s pretty meaty! Something to play after you’ve over-indulged this holiday season, then. Hino said that the team will “be sharing the latest information from the official channels soon, so stay tuned!” So expect something in the next week or so. Because yes, Christmas is next week.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time’s upcoming DLC was announced in June this year, a little under a month after the game’s release, with a release window following in September.

There have been plenty of other free updates and tweaks since launch too, and with Level-5 riding high after Fantasy Life i and Inazuma Eleven, we can’t help but be extremely excited for the future.

Are you excited for The Sinister Broker Bazario’s Schemes? Get crafting in the comments.