Author: sick skills

Nintendo today lifted the lid on Rhythm Heaven Groove’s release date (2nd July, if you missed it), and followed it up by opening pre-orders and revealing the all-important price.

The upcoming rhythm title will set you back £33.99 / $39.99, with pre-orders now live on both the European and North American eShop. For reference, this is a good bit cheaper than many had dreaded it might be, coming in a good chunk lower than the latest Switch 1 release, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, at £49.99 / $59.99.

The other good news is that Groove will receive a physical release to boot. You can pre-order your boxed copy from the North American My Nintendo Store for the same price as its digital counterpart, and just feast your eyes on this box art:

The design is every bit as bright and colourful as we would expect from a Rhythm Heaven, packed with weird little guys that we’re sure we’ll become overly attached to when July rolls around.

Will you be pre-ordering the physical or digital edition of Rhythm Heaven Groove? Let us know in the comments.

This week’s physical games chart from Famitsu are here, and they paint a very familiar picture, though the Switch 2 is busy smashing sales numbers as the console reaches 5 million units sold in Japan.

But first, Pokémon Pokopia is once again the number-one selling physical release of the week. While last week saw a big dip in sales across the board, the drop this week is much smaller, with Game Freak and Omega Force’s collaboration shifting 45,484 copies in the week of 30th March to 5th April 2026.

Other than Crimson Desert, this is Switch and Switch 2 heavy week, even with the lower numbers. Pokopia is comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack, closing in on 1 million physical sales fast, while only two other games managed to sell over 5,000 physical copies.

That honour goes to Mario Kart World, which is back in second place at 8,131, and Minecraft‘s Switch release, with 5,186 copies sold. There are no new releases this week, with Mega Man Star Force: Legacy Collection and Animal Crossing: New Horizons making up the top five.

Here’s the top ten in for the bigger picture:

Position	Game	Platform	Unit Sales (30th Mar – 5th Apr)	Total Unit Sales
1	Pokémon Pokopia	Switch 2	45,484	867,171
2	Mario Kart World	Switch 2	8,131	2,888,474
3	Minecraft	Switch	5,186	4,182,507
4	Mega Man Star Force: Legacy Collection	Switch	4,956	23,194
5	Animal Crossing: New Horizons	Switch	4,710	8,415,833
6	Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection	Switch 2	4,588	58,077
7	Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup at Bellabel Park	Switch 2	4,324	14,482
8	Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen (Download Card)	Switch	4,146	15,292
9	Crimson Desert	PS5	3,812	40,185
10	Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition	Switch 2	3,706	98,786

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If you’re expecting a different story with the hardware charts, well, you won’t find it here. The Switch 2 is once again sitting pretty in the number one spot, selling 59,543 units this week, well ahead of the PlayStation 5 SKUs combined 13,539 units.

But the big news is that the console has now sold over 5 million units in Japan alone, which is an impressive feat. It’s now sitting at 5,011,059 units from its release on 5th June 2025.

The older Switch SKUs are still doing pretty well for themselves, with the OLED, Lite, and OG model selling a combined 16,342 units. Plus, the Xbox Series X almost sold as many units as the base PS5. Not bad, little (well, big) Xbox!

Here’s the charts in full:

Position	Console	Unit Sales (30th Mar – 5th Apr)	Lifetime Unit Sales
1	Switch 2	59,543	5,011,059
2	PlayStation 5 Digital Edition	12,141	1,248,515
3	Switch OLED	7,468	9,526,329
4	Switch Lite	4,807	6,903,964
5	Switch	4,067	20,271,045
6	PlayStation 5 Pro	840	341,548
7	PlayStation 5	558	5,910,474
8	Xbox Series X	525	325,952
9	Xbox Series X Digital Edition	278	29,362
10	Xbox Series S	129	341,622

< Previous charts

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Impressed to see the Switch 2 hit 5 million this week? Let us know your thoughts on the Japanese Charts below.

This one has felt like a long time coming, huh? Nintendo has today revealed that Rhythm Heaven Groove will arrive on Switch on 2nd July.

Groove was first announced back in the March Direct last year with a mysterious ‘2026’ release date. Today’s announcement, made first on Nintendo Today!, was the first peep we’ve heard in the year since, and we even got a new bit of gameplay footage for good measure.

The new clip shows one of the rhythm games that Groove will be throwing our way, ‘Slice N Dice Kitchen’. Fittingly, this one is all about catching flying veggies in a kitchen and getting them chopped to the beat. It’s only a short clip, but you know our toes are a-tappin’ listening to the tunes.

We’re sure we’ll hear more information as we approach that July release date.

Will you be picking up Rhythm Heaven Groove this summer? Let us know in the comments.

We know Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition is supposedly riding onto Switch 2 sometime in 2026, but not exactly when; nonetheless, pre-orders have opened up on Amazon in the US, giving us an idea of just how much it’ll cost to visit The Lands Between on the newest Nintendo console.

Spotted by u/mason2393 on r/NintendoSwitch2, Amazon is listing FromSoftware’s critically-acclaimed open world action RPG at $79.99 for a Game-Key Card — that’s the top-end of Switch 2 game prices.

A lot of people online are a little shocked and unhappy with the price. $80 is a lot for a four-year-old game, after all but it’s worth noting that this includes the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC and the bonus Tarnished Edition content. Though, again, that DLC is almost two-years-old too.

The $80 price tag actually matches the price of the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Edition on other platforms, so Switch 2 players aren’t getting any kind of discount on the seminal release.

Now, the Game-Key Card part is perhaps less of a surprise to us — pretty much all of Bandai Namco’s physical releases on Switch 2 have been GCKs, such as Little Nightmares III, DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, an Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac.

But let’s focus on the positives for a second. Does that mean Elden Ring’s Switch 2 release is imminent? We know it’s supposed to be coming in 2026, as FromSoft’s owner Kadokawa stated that it (and The Duskbloods) is still aiming for this year in its latest earnings report, but when?

We’ll have to wait and see for now, won’t we?

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How do you feel about Elden Ring’s supposed Switch 2 price? Will you be playing it for the first time on the console, or double (or triple) dipping? Let us know down in the comments.

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When a video game’s biggest selling point is that it’s perfect for zoning out to, it could sound like faint praise. Yet the fact that I still wanted to deliver stuff and poke around for secrets in Sam C.’s Easy Delivery Co. — a low-poly delivery simulator that’s equal parts cosy and dreary — after the credits rolled speaks volumes about its absorbingly simple gameplay loop.

You play as a cat-like creature tasked with ferrying cargo of all sorts around an uncanny winter landscape while driving a Japanese-style kei pickup truck. While the NPC critters who hire you look straight out of GameCube-era Animal Crossing, the desolate world you inhabit evokes the technical limitations of the original PlayStation era and bleak visuals of Silent Hill.

Easy Delivery Co. is neither mechanically rich nor especially polished. This is a game that runs on vibes, and in its best moments, those vibes are immaculate. The simple routine of taking short delivery jobs and cruising down windswept highways, with lo-fi drum and bass tracks playing on the radio, lends the experience an oddly comforting sense of isolation.

While the game offers little challenge and baked-in repetition, it remains engaging throughout its five-hour runtime thanks to an understated sense of mystery involving the fate of your predecessor, Seb, whom various shopkeepers initially mistake you for. Without getting into spoiler territory, the climax hinges on a player choice that alters the world in an unsettling way.

But satisfying vehicle controls and inspired aesthetics — not story — are the game’s core strengths. As you progress, light crafting and survival mechanics are introduced, and money earned from deliveries is used to acquire key items needed to progress.

You’ll need to keep one eye on your character’s energy levels and another on your truck’s fuel gauge. Much like the real world, petrol is expensive, and you’ll need lots of caffeine to push through long shifts and freezing nights. You can also go ice fishing and cook your catch into a soup to ward off the relentless cold.

While it absolutely nails the feel of driving, movement on foot can be rather cumbersome by design. Your character trudges through the cold at a sluggish pace when their energy gauge is low, leaving you vulnerable to freezing to death, which adds a layer of resource management to even short walks.

There are also a few rough technical edges. Transitioning between map areas can feel abrupt, with the screen cutting to black for a few seconds before popping you into the next zone. Reloading after a death feels similarly janky. These interruptions never seriously disrupt play, but they do reinforce the sense that this is a small, somewhat scrappy production from a solo dev.

Easy Delivery Co. won’t be for everyone, but if solitary drives and chill vibes are your idea of a good time, it might be for you. Though its rough edges are visible, its repetition is strangely grounding and can be hard to put down. Ironically, it manages to make the drudgery of gig-economy deliveries feel like a meditative respite.

Pokémon Champions launched yesterday in a… less-than-perfect state. Fortunately, it looks like The Pokémon Company is working on a fix.

Even if we put aside the limited available Pokémon and Items at launch, the game was quickly criticised for the sheer number of bugs on display (and no, we’re not talking about Beedrill and Pinsir). Fans were quick to point out Items being used incorrectly, move animation glitches, health quirks, and more. In short, the launch state was far from the go-to competitive battler we were promised.

Now, in a new blog post on Pokémon’s Japanese news site, the devs have flagged that they’re aware of a number of issues and are working on a fix.

While a specific release date for this patch hasn’t been given at the moment, the blog post states that the following issues will be targeted:

• Leech Seed’s incorrect description
• Issue with turn order when two Pokémon Mega Evolve at once
• The gender of select Pokémon in the tutorial
• ‘Lightning Rod’ not activating while in ‘Encore’ state
• Issues with selecting a move while the details menu is open and the cursor is hovering over ‘Mega Evolution’

It’s not all doom and gloom, mind you. The blog post confirms that the team has already fixed an error with Pokémon HOME transfers, so that’s… something.

We have to imagine that these fixes will be implemented by the time the competitive scene fully switches over to Champions in the coming weeks. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what the first regional competitions are like when everything seems so limited at launch.

We’ll have our full thoughts on Pokémon Champions with you soon enough, so keep an eye on the tall grass!

What do you make of Pokémon Champions in its launch state? Let us know in the comments.

Nintendo has been gradually rolling out its My Mario line to Western audiences since the start of the year, and today, the kid-friendly Hello, Yoshi! app joins the roster.

This one launched in Japan back in November 2025, and promises a similar gameplay experience (if we can even call it “gameplay”) to the original Hello, Mario! title. That means you have a cartoon Yoshi face on your Switch screen, and you can tab, stretch, spin, or play a handful of small games with it.

It might not have much on offer for the adult gamers out there, but let’s not forget that the free app is aimed dominantly at your little ones, and with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book coming our way in just a few months, it’s never too early to get the toddlers up to date on everyone’s favourite dino.

Here’s a brief rundown of what the app has in store, accompanied by a handful of screens from its eShop page:

■Make Silly Faces
Team up with your kiddo to see how silly Yoshi can get when you pull and stretch his face or take turns poking and spinning him around. Tap on the ? Block in the top-left corner of the screen and select an icon to make items—like a Super Mushroom, a Super Star, or pipes—and even enemies appear alongside Yoshi.

■Peekaboo!
Invite Yoshi to play peekaboo by tapping on the leftmost icon in the ? Block menu. Boo may even make a guest appearance!

■Built-In Breaks
Good night, Yoshi! Yoshi gets tuckered out after playing for a while and will fall fast asleep. At that point no amount of poking can wake him up! This is a great opportunity to take a break and help parents limit their child’s screen time. If you want to keep the fun going, you can turn off this feature by tapping the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen when the application starts.

■Play Offline
There’s no need to be connected to the internet to play this application. After you download it, you’re good to go!

We went hands-on with the Hello, Mario! early last year, and it’s… okay! We’re far from the target audience, of course, but even we so-called “grown-ups” find it hard to resist a little bit of Mario 64 squishy-face nostalgia.

Will you be checking out the Hello, Yoshi! app? Let us know in the comments.