Pokémon GO has been insanely successful for Niantic and The Pokémon Company, so it makes perfect sense for Game Freak to make the popular mobile game compatible with its upcoming Switch release, Pokémon Sword and Shield.
It now appears we could be finding out about potential compatibility between the two games sooner than planned, with Pokémon GO dataminer Chrales discovering the latest update for the mobile app – Version 0.143.0 – features a string referred to as “koala_settings”, for a separate app.
According to the source, the codename “koala” might be Sword and Shield’s internal codename, which is said to match the naming convention Game Freak uses to link each game with nature or an animal. The previous release, Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Let’s Go, Eevee! is codenamed “beluga” (a whale) and has its own dedicated settings screen inside GO to connect the two games.
A Pokémon fan page on Twitter went into a bit more detail about previous codenames in the series:
Given the continued success of Niantic’s augmented reality mobile game, a connection with the upcoming Switch release seems quite feasible.
Are you expecting Sword and Shield to be made compatible with GO? What are your thoughts about this datamine? Tell us down below.
We know how passionate Image & Form are when it comes to the SteamWorld series, with the developer releasing its latest entry at the end of last month. So, what’s next? Nobody is really sure, but what we do know is the Swedish-based company has been preparing “something special” for next week. The developer made this comment over on its Twitter account while promoting the current game sale taking place on the Switch eShop:
The Image & Form social media page wasn’t willing to reveal anything when asked by fans what it could be. Some are thinking it might be a new game announcement, while others thought it is perhaps a plan to port the card battler SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech to more platforms.
Are you expecting anything in particular? Have you tried out the latest SteamWorld game yet? Tell us down in the comments.
Ever since the release of the Nintendo Switch in 2017, SNK has worked hard to make its retro library of Neo Geo games readily available on the eShop. In between all of these classic and slightly enhanced releases, the Japanese company found time to release two different miniature systems.
Now, in an attempt to build hype for the upcoming release Samurai Shodown on the Switch and multiple other platforms, SNK is releasing a series of limited edition Samurai Shodown-themed Neo Geo Mini. The three transparent systems, which bring back memories of older transparent Nintendo systems and controllers, are based on the fighters Haohmaru (white), Nakoruru (red) and Ukyo Tachibana (blue). Each colour is limited to 20,000 units.
As you’ll see in the images above, the system comes packed with the console, two controllers, a HDMI and USB cable, character stickers and special character cards. The system itself includes 40 Neo Geo titles, with six of them based on the Samurai Spirits series. Here’s the full list, along with a visual (thanks, Gematsu):
Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Alpha Mission II, Art of Fighting, Blazing Star, Blue’s Journey, Burning Fight, Cyber-Lip, Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, Fatal Fury 2, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters ’97, The King of Fighters ’98,The King of Fighters ’99, King of the Monsters 2, Kizuna Encounter, The Last Blade 2, League Bowling, Magician Lord, Metal Slug, Metal Slug 2, Metal Slug 3, Ninja Commando, Ninja Master’s: Haou Ninpou Chou, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers, Robo Army, Samurai Shodown (1993), Samurai Shodown II, Samurai Shodown III: Blades of Blood, Samurai Shodown IV: Amakusa’s Revenge, Samurai Shodown V, Samurai Shodown V Special, Sengoku 3, Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad, Soccer Brawl, Super Sidekicks, Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy, Top Player’s Golf, Twinkle Star Sprites, World Heroes Perfect
These Limited Edition consoles arrive in Japan on 27th June and will be priced at 15,000 yen. Pre-orders open next week on 16th May. The Japanese SNK website is also selling the system with a copy of the new entry in the series for PS4, but unfortunately, there’s no sign of a Switch bundle.
If you would like to read more about this hardware, check out our existing reviews of the Japanese and International version.
Alongside the Tetris 99 competition next weekend (giving you a chance to unlock an exclusive Tetris Game Boy theme), Splatoon 2 will be holding another Splatfest in both North America and Europe.
The big question this time around is would you prefer to be able to time travel or teleport? As usual, you’ll have to pick a side and then fight for what you believe in on the battlefield. Here are some additional details for both regions from the official Nintendo Twitter accounts:
It’s time for the new #Splatoon2 #Splatfest! Which superpower would you rather have? Will you break the clock with #TeamTimeTravel or take a trip with #TeamTeleportation? This event runs from 5/17 9:00pm PT – 5/18 9:00pm PT.
Which superpower would you rather have: Time Travel or Teleportation? Choose a side and battle it out in next #Splatoon2 Splatfest, starting 18/05 14:00 CEST.
As usual, this event is limited to the weekend – so be sure to set aside some time to play if you want your side to win.
Which team will you be joining? Tell us down below.
And just like that, yet another week has gone and passed us by. We’ve had a pretty huge sale on the eShop and finalised Nintendo E3 plans to get all excited about over the last few days, but now it’s time to sit back and talk about how we’ll be enjoying our weekends. We’ve shared our gaming plans below, but we’d love to hear what you’re up to in the comments and poll sections below. Enjoy!
Alex Olney, video producer
My partner and I have been experiencing all the fun of the fair recently, with the fair being attempting to get on the sodding property ladder. It’s been consuming all of our spare time so I’ve decided that this weekend I’m going to say knackers to all that, and spend as much time as possible playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Dragon’s Dogma, and potentially even fire up my shiny new PS4 Pro for some non-Nintendo Spider-Man based action. Traitorous, I know.
Austin Voigt, contributing writer
This weekend, I plan to really get into the Pokémon spirit with the release of Detective Pikachu and dig out all of my old games for some nostalgia-induced entertainment. I’ll also try to get a little further into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – which I’m very glad I finally picked up – as well as continuing to attempt to play My Time at Portia (even though the in-game load times have made it tough to enjoy).
Regardless of load speeds, Portia is an entertaining game when it does work, and it’s keeping me occupied until Animal Crossing arrives – so I keep coming back!
Dom Reseigh-Lincoln, reviewer
Despite having completed it back in 2011 and having played it for over 13 hours for its review, I still can’t stop playing Saints Row: The Third – The Full Package. Sometimes you just need to throw yourself into oncoming traffic to rack up some insurance fraud or blow up entire streets with an exploding quad bike. Glorious.
This weekend I’ll also be taking another ageing shooter for a spin in the form of Sniper Elite V2 Remastered. Now I can burst Nazi brains in X-ray slow-mo whenever, wherever. What’s not to love? I’ll also be trying out the colourful roguelike adventures of For The King, with its tabletop RPG sensibilities. I’m nothing if not eclectic.
Gavin Lane, staff writer
Considering the huge sale that went live on Thursday, I shall be spending most of this weekend trying to resist buying games I already own elsewhere. I bought and completed the original SteamWorld Dig on 3DS and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’ve got SteamWorld Heist sitting on my laptop after bagging it in a Humble Bundle, if memory serves. When Switch began accruing masses of third-party games, I promised myself I wouldn’t buy duplicates… but it’s increasingly tempting at these prices and having them on Switch increases the likelihood I’ll play them by about 500%.
So yes, I definitely won’t be playing SteamWorld Heist this weekend. Nope.
Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer
After an insufferable two weeks of refreshing package delivery status, my addiction to physical media has been at last soothed with the excellent Japan exclusive Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen special edition along with Mortal Kombat 11, the latter of which comes just in time for the in-game currency bribe patch landing on Switch.
Add some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Saints Row: The Third and Dragon Ball FighterZ back in the rotation and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a most fun/violent weekend. Still on the subject of fun and violence, my game of the week obviously goes to the long-awaited Shakedown: Hawaii, the most 16-bit game never made in the 1990s.
Ryan Craddock, staff writer
This weekend I’ll be getting back to my Banjo-Kazooie playthrough and hopefully nearing the end of Yoshi’s Crafted World. With Banjo, I’ve now made it to areas that I can’t really remember from my childhood and things are suddenly getting that little bit harder. I’m determined to make it to the end, though, so I’ll keep at it.
Yoshi is another story, though. I loved Yoshi’s Woolly World on Wii U and was hoping for similar things here despite not being quite as convinced by the early trailers. Sadly, Crafted World just isn’t cutting it like its predecessor did. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but getting to the end is starting to feel like a chore rather than a joy; hopefully whatever comes next for Yoshi is a step back in the right direction.
Which games are you playing this weekend? (284 votes)
Nintendo and Ubisoft might have grown increasingly friendly during the Switch generation, but unfortunately, it’s still not enough for Masahiro Sakurai and his team working on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to include the French publisher’s iconic mascot Rayman in the base version on the game.
Still, with four DLC character slots remaining – anything is possible. That’s why the internet is currently going crazy about a particular tweet that popped up a few days ago on Twitter, suggesting Rayman is frozen within the ice of Ultimate’s Battlefield stage. Take a close look at the screenshots above and below and see if you can spot him.
Of course, this has led to wild speculation the limbless mascot will be added to Ultimate as DLC, while others believe it’s a sign the character is literally frozen in the past.
As pointed out by GameXplain, this texture has been visible since Version 1.0. Not to forget, Rayman is already featured in Ultimate as a spirit and previously appeared as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. There’s also a history of Smash series hiding textures off the reflections of trophies in both Brawl and Melee, so this latest finding could be something similar.
What do you think – is this something or absolutely nothing? Take another look at the screenshots above and tell us whether you can see Rayman frozen in the ice.
Earlier this week, Arc System Works and Bandai Namco released the latest update for the superb brawler, Dragon Ball FighterZ. Alongside this, was the launch of the new paid DLC fighter Goku [GT], based on the much-younger looking version featured in the Dragon Ball GT anime series.
Now, in a completely unexpected reveal, the last fighter for Season 2 of Dragon Ball FighterZ has supposedly been confirmed during the latest episode of “This Week On Xbox” hosted by Larry Hryb, who also goes by the Xbox Live Gamertag, Major Nelson. In celebration of Goku Day and the new update for Dragon Ball FighterZ, there’s a brief segment in the video below (at the 3:10 mark), where the Major makes mention of the Dragon Ball Z antagonist Janemba.
The brief mention of Janemba resulted in viewers thinking this was a slip-up on Xbox’s end, but apparently, this is not the case.
When a number of fans reached out to Xbox on Twitter, the official account not only confirmed Janemba was on the way to FighterZ as a playable character but cheekily corrected an individual claiming it was a leak:
Bandai Namco has not yet officially revealed Janemba for FighterZ. If this character is on the way, a release shouldn’t be too far off – especially with E3 2019 on the horizon.
Have you tried out the latest version of Goku yet? Would you like Janemba to join the battle? Tell us below.
Although the west has had to wait much longer for each release in the Sega Ages line on the Nintendo Switch, the demand for this retro-inspired series has been better than anticipated – with games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Out Run and Alex Kidd in Miracle World selling particularly well in Europe. Sadly, the series hasn’t had quite the same reception within Japan.
During a recent interview with Famitsu, Sega Ages senior producer Kagasei Shimomura elaborated on the current situation locally, revealing how sales of the Sega Ages games on the Switch had been “frustrating” and are less than half of the Sega 3D Classics Collection on the 3DS.
“Honestly speaking the Japanese sales need to be better, and I take responsibility for that. This market is becoming more and more niche, and while each series being on different platforms means there is little point in directly comparing them, the reality is that sales are less than half of the 3D Classics Collection.”
Shimomura also said how he wanted to maintain good relations with players, but warned it could take some time to make the second phase of titles in this line a reality. Supervisor Yosuke Okunari added his own thoughts, stating how the team needed to do a better job at satisfying its Japanese fans.
“We definitely need to work harder to satisfy our Japanese fan base.”
Are you surprised to hear regions like Europe are showing more interest in the Sega Ages line than Japan? Have you been buying these games yourself? Leave your comments below.
All you need to do to enter and be in with a chance of winning a download code is answering the question below, remember the studio has also heavily discounted a number of its games on the eShop at up to 94% off.
Super Rare Games has shared more information on the physical edition for Earthlock, one of five new releases revealed last month.
4,000 standard copies of the game – which we awarded a healthy 8/10 in our review – will be going on sale, with pre-orders going live on 16th May. In addition to the standard physical release, an extra 1,000 Collector’s Edition units will be produced with some extra goodies included.
The standard edition will include a 20-page full-colour manual, interior artwork, exclusive sticker, and three trading cards randomly selected from a five-card set. The Collector’s Edition will contain a 200-page artbook, two comics based on the video game, an exclusive CD soundtrack, and a complete set of trading cards.
You’ll be able to get your hands on whichever deal takes your fancy from the 16th, directly from Super Rare Games’ website. If you need a quick reminder about what the game’s all about, hopefully this feature list will do the trick:
– Explore the magical world of Umbra – Fast-paced and highly strategic turn-based battles – Harvest magical materials to craft helpful items and perks on your home island – Utilise your Talent Table: combining a classic skilltree and equipment to customise your character’s progression – Alternate between six playable characters – Grow your friendships between different character pairs for a strategic advantage in combat – Help the people of Umbra along they way to unlock more useful items – 25-40 hours of gameplay
Are you a physical collector? Will you be grabbing this one next week? Let us know with a comment below.
