Category: Nintendo News

Sega has released the first in a series of ‘spotlight’ videos for Team Sonic Racing, starting off with a showcase of the game’s team mechanics.

As you can see in the video, Sonic and friends can work together to gain an advantage over opponent racers. We get to see the Skimboost, Slingshot, Rival Takedown, Item Box Transfer, and the mighty Team Ultimate in action, all of which can help you to turn the tide when things are rough on the race track.

For your reference – because we’re kind like that – here’s all of the revealed mechanics and what they do in written form:

– Skimboost: Boost struggling teammates back into action as you drive by!
– Slingshot: Slipstream a teammate for a slingshot boost!
– Rival Takedown: Knock out highlighted opponents ahead and speed past them!
– Item Box Transfer: Send and receive Wisps with teammates anywhere on the track!
– Team Ultimate: Use Team Mechanics to fill your Team Ultimate meter and unleash a massive team boost!

The video also presents the very first footage of Team Rose, a “loveable” new trio, and Ice Mountain, a frozen terrain that is said to offer a challenge to players across all skill levels.

Team Sonic Racing is still scheduled to release on Nintendo Switch this winter, although we’re still waiting on that all-important specific release date.

Are you liking what you’ve seen so far for the game? Let us know below.

Coatsink and Sigtrap have announced that they will be bringing Sublevel Zero Redux to Switch, spicing things up with a gyro control scheme exclusive to the console.

Sublevel Zero Redux is a roguelite ‘six-degree-of-freedom’ shooter set in a universe where reality is falling apart. Players must use their gunship to loot and craft ancient technology and fight in zero-g through a vast, procedurally generated underground facility to recover the technology they desperately need to escape.

The game has received “very positive” reviews on Steam and this new Nintendo Switch edition will feature gyro controls for the first time. Players can get the edge over their enemies with increased precision thanks to the ‘toggleable Aim’ or ‘Aim & Look gyro’.

KEY FEATURES:
6-DOF Action – Your gunship is free to fly and rotate in all directions. You can attack from any angle, and so can your enemies. Inspired by classics such as Descent and Forsaken, Sublevel Zero’s retro gravity-defying combat is driven by modern looting and crafting.
Procedural, Permadeath – No lives. No saves. Fight your way through a different procedurally generated environment every time. Make every shot, every decision count. A wide range of environments stand in your way, from industrial zones to mining caverns. Think on your feet and adapt to each one’s hazards before it’s too late.
Crafting – Collect a wide range of randomly-generated weapons, upgrades and game-changing items. Craft them together to equip your gunship for your play style. Unlock more items and blueprints as you play and keep those unlocks across playthroughs.

Luke Thompson, co-founder of Sigtrap Games, has said the following about the new announcement:

“The creation of SubLevel Zero Redux was inspired by gaming classics from my childhood such as Descent on PC and Forsaken on Nintendo N64. We’re thrilled to be bringing our homage to these games to the Nintendo Switch in collaboration with Coatsink.”

No specific release date has been announced for the title just yet, but we do know that it is set to release on the Nintendo eShop later this year across all regions priced at $19.99 / €19.99 / £17.99 with a 10% launch discount.

Will you be keeping an eye out for this one?

If there’s one thing 8Bitdo knows, it’s retro controllers. Yes, as a company they’ve dabbled in a few other areas, but on the whole for our money their best stuff is definitely controller-related. They’ve released countless iterations for countless systems over the years, and now there new DIY range allows you to mod your own controllers for the NES, SNES, and Mega Drive/Genesis to have all the mod-cons you could want, as long as those mod-cons are bluetooth-based wireless communication and Switch compatibility.

We were really impressed with what these kits can do, and even the most inexperienced tinkerer shouldn’t have any problems installing the new circuit boards. What’s even better is that the entire process is completely reversible, so if you want to go back to playing on your original system with a wire, you can do just that. Check out the video above to see the installation happen in mostly real-time and by an idiot who keeps getting basic things embarrassingly wrong.

If you want to learn more about 8Bitdo DIY, you can do so by ferrying your input device pointer to this link.

The recent news that Nintendo is taking legal action against two sites which illegally distributed ROMs has been met with an overwhelmingly positive response, and rightly so. The individuals sharing these files online care little for the intellectual property rights of the developers who slave away to make the games we get hours of enjoyment out of, and instead leverage the growing interest in retro gaming purely to plaster their sites with garish advertisements for mail-order girlfriends and other dubious businesses. Nintendo – a company traditionally very protective of its IP – has struck a blow which will hopefully have long-term ramifications for the entire industry.

However, too many commenters have leapt on this episode in order to loudly proclaim that all ROM sharing is the work of Beelzebub himself, an outlook which not only misses the point of digital preservation but also assumes that anyone who wishes to obtain ROM files online is a filthy pirate who has never contributed anything to the world of gaming. While we don’t wish to play devil’s advocate in this particular case, there are two sides to this story.

Two Sides To Every Story

First up though, let’s discuss why Nintendo bringing the hammer down on ROM-sharing sites is a good thing. The sites tackled by the company in its recent legal actions were typical of this kind of operation; they hosted thousands of ROMs (most of which were taken from other sources online) and offered them for free download, with the money-making part of the setup coming from the floods of dodgy adverts. In short, these sites were profiting from handing out copyrighted material which they had absolutely no ownership of; from a purely legal perspective, it’s an open and shut case.

Nintendo is a company which does more than most to make its vintage titles available to those who wish to play them; if you want to play a copy of EarthBound or Super Mario World, then there are perfectly legal options available that not only allow official and legal access to these games (and hundreds of other titles), but also permit Nintendo – as the copyright owner – to profit from their use, and therefore put those funds back into development of both hardware and software.

Things become a little more complex when you take into account those games which are not currently available in digital form. Any title which contains licencing is almost certain to be subject to a time-limited agreement, and once that period expires a new deal must be written up to allow its continued distribution. In a great many cases this simply isn’t financially viable, and therefore these games are unlikely to ever get an official digital release. Examples include the likes of GoldenEye 007, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time and pretty much any video game based on a Hollywood movie; in these examples, the licence has often changed hands since the game’s creation (the James Bond licence passed to EA and is now in the hands of Activision) which makes bartering a deal problematic.

The impact of licencing means that a great many games may never see a digital resurrection – and it’s something that isn’t exclusive to the world of retro. For example, the home ports of Sega’s OutRun 2 and After Burner Climax – neither of which could be considered ‘old’ games – are now out of digital circulation because they both include licenced content; in the case of the former it’s Ferrari cars, and with the latter, it’s real-life military aircraft. Once the associated deals expire, the games cannot be sold.

You can also include in this scenario games for which the ownership is unclear; if a company from the ’90s goes bust and its assets don’t have a clear owner, those games are effectively in limbo and may never be preserved digitally in an official, legal capacity. You could argue that the morally correct way of accessing these titles would be to source copies of the physical versions, but this isn’t always a failsafe method. The most obvious roadblock is cost – the game itself may have risen in value dramatically over the years, making a purchase unfeasible. Then there’s longevity; like any physical media, video game software has a finite lifespan. Cartridges, as sturdy as they seem, will eventually become unplayable, while volatile media like cassettes and floppy discs become de-magnetised over time, and therefore useless. Even CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays aren’t immune to this – ‘Bit Rot’ is a very real danger that is already claiming optical media that many ‘experts’ told us would last forever not so long ago.

Cracking The Code

It’s here where the line between what’s legal and what’s right when it comes to game preservation becomes a little muddy; ‘dead’ companies cannot preserve the work they’ve done, and even developers which still exist today don’t do a brilliant job of looking after their past work. A shining example of this is Sega, which – according to Panzer Dragoon creator Yukio Futatsugi – no longer has the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga, one of its cult hits and a title which many a Sega fan would love to see digitally remastered. Without these files, a re-release would be problematic. This might seem like an absurd situation, but it’s actually a more common situation than you might expect – especially in Japan where, until very recently, developers struggled to see the benefit in painstakingly preserving source code for older games, especially those produced on home computer formats like the PC-8800 and MSX during the ’80s. As a result, the original media is dying out and we’re losing these games forever.

Therefore, the preservation of these titles becomes incredibly important; when someone dumps the ROM of one of these games, they are essentially saving it from the digital abyss. We already know that even Nintendo itself isn’t above raiding online ROM-sharing sites for past games; it famously sourced a copy of Super Mario Bros. – a game that it surely has multiple cartridges of lying around its offices – for upload on the Wii Virtual Console. This may well have been a case of someone at Nintendo being too lazy to simply dump the ROM manually (a process which isn’t all that hard, providing you have the correct equipment), but it’s far from a rare occurrence; during the creation of this feature we spoke to more than one developer involved in collections of vintage classics on modern formats, and they told us that in some cases, no source files were forthcoming from the original IP owner at all – forcing them to resort to other means of obtaining the ROM files.

As you can appreciate, this is far from a black and white situation; ROM-sharing is a legally dubious area and copyright laws are definitely being broken, but if all of these sites vanished tomorrow, part of video game history – such as titles which are no longer in circulation or are on formats that are slowly becoming unreadable, such as cassettes and floppy discs – run the risk of being lost. Like so many things, ROM dumping is an activity which can be abused. Video game preservationists dump this data so future generations can enjoy it, not for monetary gain – take the work of the community which surrounds the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) program; unlike commercially-released home console software, arcade boards are fragile, limited in numbers and much more likely to vanish altogether. The work carried out by volunteers and enthusiasts in the MAME community has ensured that thousands of coin-op titles – including oddball updates, bizarre bootlegs and myriad region variants – will remain playable for years to come, but had these individuals slavishly followed the letter of the law, these games would be lost to time, wear and tear and (in extreme cases) destruction when the cabinet and its internals are scrapped. In this case, is the law right?

Ultimately, organisations such as the Game Preservation Society and The Video Game History Foundation aren’t interested in ‘pirating’ games; what they want is to ensure that games don’t become lost in time, and many feel from an academic perspective, video games should be available for study and critique, just like classic works of literature, music and film. The unfortunate side-effect of this process is that games which are still in circulation digitally get uploaded to shady sites who then capitalise on the public’s desire for retro to generate ill-begotten revenue; it is this procedure which has spurred Nintendo into action and could well mean the end of freely-available ROMs online. At present, Nintendo is only concerned about safeguarding its own IP, but the shutdown of these two sites naturally takes a bunch of games for other non-Nintendo systems offline, too. And should Nintendo obtain its proposed payout, then it could trigger a gold rush as other IP owners move to secure damages against other sites which distribute ROMs. 

This is a situation that is both positive and negative; Nintendo is striking a blow for copyright, but at the same time could be removing access to thousands of obscure games from the past few decades of history; games that, without ROM-sharing, could eventually be forgotten entirely.

Drastic Games, a studio formed by alumni of Epic Games, has announced Soundfall for Nintendo Switch, a music-driven action adventure arriving in 2019.

Mixing twin-stick shooting and rhythm-based gameplay, Soundfall follows the journey of Melody, a young audiophile who finds herself transported to the world of Symphonia. In search of a way home from this mysterious land where music comes to life, she becomes entangled in a conflict to save the realm from Discord, an unfathomable darkness that threatens everything – definitely not the voice chat app.

The game’s levels, enemies, loot, and more are procedurally-generated and dynamically react to a range of musical elements (as you can see in the trailer above). In-game battles synchronise to the constant beat, rewarding players who dash and slash in time to the music with impressive dance-like combos. If you enjoy the satisfaction of performing manoeuvres to a rhythm, this one could definitely be for you.

Players will be able to search for gear and upgrades, one-of-a-kind weapons, and legendary artefacts with audio-driven powers. A diverse roster of playable characters is also featured, each with their own distinct playstyle and musical palettes, with couch co-op for up to four friends and online play available to those who want to work together. Nick Cooper, technical director at Drastic Games, has said the following:

“Syncing literally everything in the game to music has been an awesome technical challenge, but it’s been a tremendously rewarding process, and we’re excited to finally share Soundfall with players.”

 Feel free to leave a comment below to let us know your early thoughts on Soundfall. Does this look like something you’d enjoy?

You can’t catch a Pokémon in Pokémon GO without losing a Poké Ball, and there are a bunch of different types of those that each have a different capture rate.

Throwing a Poké Ball with skill can also increase your capture rate – that’s what those coloured rings that appear when you’re about to catch a Pokémon suggest.

Then there are a multitude of different items, Poké Balls, and techniques you can use to increase this further.

In this guide, we’re going to explain exactly how the system works, and what you can do to drastically increase your chances of catching a Pokémon.

Pokémon GO – How Throwing A Poké Ball Works

When you’ve found and tapped a Pokémon on the map, you’ll come across a new screen in which they stand there with a coloured circle that continuously shrinks, resets, then shrinks again.

The colour of the circle denotes the capture rate of that particular Pokémon, green being the highest and red the lowest. We’ll go into more detail about what these colours mean later.

Even if that Pokémon has a red coloured circle, there are ways you can increase the capture rate. Your first order of business should be to use a Razz Berry and to select a better Poké Ball, like an Ultra Ball.

You can also increase your chances of catching the Pokémon with a well timed and delivered throw. If your Poké Ball lands within that coloured circle, your chances of capturing the Pokémon will increase. This increased chance is at its highest when the circle is at its smallest.

Then there are curve balls! These are performed by first spinning the Poké Ball and then throwing it to make it curve before it hits the Pokémon.

To pull these off, you’ll first want to spin the Poké Ball and then swipe to throw it. Make sure you throw against the curve (in the opposite direction to the one you were spinning), or the Poké Ball won’t even hit the Pokémon.

You’ll also want to alter your throw direction depending on how far the Pokémon is away from you. If they’re close, you’ll want to throw it wide so it curves in quicker. If they’re far away, you’ll want a shorter curve so don’t throw it to wide – focus on getting distance instead.

If you’re struggling to follow all of this, basically, the highest chance you have of catching the Pokémon is to throw a Curve Ball into the smallest circle possible.

Pokémon GO – Increased Capture Rates In Numbers

Now, let’s take a look at all of the ways you can increase your capture rate in numbers.

Poké Ball Capture Rates

There are four different types of Poké Ball currently available in Pokémon GO, detailed below:

Poké Ball	Availability	Catch Multiplier
Regular	PokéStops / Gifts / Shop	1.00
Great	PokéStops / Gifts	1.50
Ultra	PokéStops / Gifts	2.00
Premier Ball	Raids	1.00

Coloured Ring Capture Rates

You know the coloured ring that appears around a Pokémon when you’re trying to capture it? Here’s how this translates to the capture rate:

Ring Colour	Capture Rate
Green	100%
Yellow	65%
Orange	35%
Red	25%

Curve Ball & Item Capture Rates

Here’s how curve balls and Razz Berries affect that capture rate.

Modifier	Catch Multiplier
Curve Ball	1.70
Razz Berry	1.50
Golden Razz Berry	2.50

Where Are The Capture Rates For Nice, Great, And Excellent Throws?

It’s really difficult to provide an accurate increased capture rate for nice, great, and excellent throws, as they aren’t a fixed increase like the curve ball is. The capture rate increases depending on the radius of the coloured circle you land your Poké Ball in.

Though we’re not sure how accurate it is exactly, the guys over at Game Press Pokémon GO settled on these capture rates:

Throw:	Nice	Great	Excellent
Target Ring Size	70% – 100%	30% – 70%	~5% – 30%
Bonus (varies with radius)	1 – 1.3	3 – 1.7	7 – ~1.95

To bring more clarity to this chart, the target ring size is the size the coloured ring has to be compared to the outer grey ring to trigger the throw bonus. 

As you can see though, the size of the coloured ring can vary to trigger the bonus, and the bonus can increase depending on the size.

For example, a nice throw at 80% will have a higher throw bonus than a nice throw at 90%.

What Else Can I Do To Increase The Capture Rate?

Nothing that serves to increase your chance from a statistical perspective, but there are a few things you can do to make your life generally easier:

Turn Off AR Mode

AR mode is a fun little gimmick that lets you see the Pokémon wandering around in the real world, but if you’re serious about catching Pokémon we’d recommend avoiding it.

Not only does it drain your phone’s battery, but it also makes it difficult to judge the distance between you and the Pokémon. When it’s turned off, the Pokémon is in a fixed position on the screen, making your throws a little easier to predict.

However, there are certain Pokémon that are a pain to catch in standard mode, and being able to move closer to them in AR mode might actually be helpful. So don’t treat it as a one rule fixes all.

Learn The L Throw Curve Technique

A certain member of the Pokémon community developed the reliable ‘L Throw’ technique that reportedly makes it easier to catch Pokémon using a curve throw. 

This involves spinning the Poké Ball clockwise, then sliding your finger up the screen to the left of the Pokémon and releasing it when it’s level with the Pokémon.

Savvy players will want to time their finger slide when the circle is nearing its smallest to grab that increased capture rate too!

Get A Grip On The Throwing Physics

This seems a bit vague, but understanding the ball physics and getting a feel for them will really improve your accuracy, which, in turn, increases your chance of getting a capture rate increase. 

Your throw changes depending on the speed and length of the swipe, which in turn affects the trajectory of the ball. A good rule of thumb is that you want to swipe longer to hit Pokémon further away, and short swipes to hit Pokémon closer to you.

Speed can also help. If a Pokémon is particularly far away, you might want to gather a bit of pace to help it reach the distance, while a close up Pokémon might just benefit from a smaller throw.

It’s not something we can give you a definitive answer on here. Instead, just get out there and experiment until you get a good feel for it.

Nintendo has announced that The World Ends With You: Final Remix is headed to Nintendo Switch on 12th October in both North America and Europe.

Initially announced in a Nintendo Direct Mini back in January this year, The World Ends With You: Final Remix is a – erm, remix – of the original which was released on Nintendo DS a decade ago. This RPG with an urban twist is set to make full use of the Switch’s capabilities, with options for both touchscreen control and Joy-Con usage, and this new version will boast HD visuals, enhanced gameplay, and exclusive new content. Here’s some additional information provided in the game’s latest press release:

Complete the mission…or face erasure. That’s all Neku knows after regaining consciousness in the middle of a busy intersection without his memories. Now he and his partner must fight to survive a life-or-death game in this twisted tale with more turns than the urban labyrinth of Tokyo they’re trapped in. This definitive version of SQUARE ENIX’s RPG classic brings the dark story to life on the Nintendo Switch system along with a new scenario and some new remixed music.

Vibrant themes of Japanese youth culture, food and fashion are seamlessly integrated into the gameplay and storyline. Players can join rhythmic battles using either Joy-Con controllers or the Nintendo Switch touch screen. In two-player co-op mode, players can battle Noise and challenge the Reapers’ Game together.

If you’re a fan of physical releases, you’ll no doubt be loving this box art, too:

Are you excited for this return of a classic? Feel free to burst with happiness in the comments below.

If you’re looking forward to the upcoming release of Valkyria Chronicles 4 on Switch, today is your lucky day, as digital pre-orders and a demo for the game are both going live on the Nintendo eShop.

Sega has confirmed that digital pre-orders will be available on all platforms today, and these will come with a special bonus – the ‘A Captainless Squad’ add-on mission. In this side mission, a group of Squad E soldiers find themselves on an impromptu reconnaissance operation after the squad’s beloved medic dog, Ragnarok, goes missing. This bonus add-on content will be available immediately on the game’s launch date for anyone who places a digital pre-order – although you will have to have reached Chapter 10 in the main story.

If you don’t want to place a pre-order, never fear, as the add-on will also be available as a standalone add-on item for $4.99 in late October. Of course, a pre-order would save you money here if you definitely want to have the extra content.

The demo, which should also be available on the eShop from today (keep trying if it hasn’t appeared in your region just yet), will have you joining Commander Claude Wallace and his comrades in Squad E as they begin the first steps of Operation Northern Cross. Players will be able to experience the series’ signature watercolour aesthetic and get a feel for the tactical BLiTZ system before the full game launches on in September.

You’ll be able to play through the prologue and first two chapters of the game, as well as an exclusive bonus mission created for the demo. Demo save data, including items obtained, class levels, earned experience, and currency total will transfer over to the full game, so this could definitely be worth your time if you’ll be getting the full release later down the line.

Remember, Valkyria Chronicles 4 releases on 25th September in both digital and physical formats. Are you looking forward to this one?

When you’re not casually shopping for new pieces of furniture, or worrying about the ever-growing potential of hefty mortgage debt, one of the features available to players in Animal Crossing allows you to send completely customised letters to your favourite animalistic chums. From there, you’ll then receive a reply which somehow seems to register certain elements of what you said and give you a gift in the process. But how on Earth does this actually work?

Well, James Chambers, a software security researcher, has been digging into the game’s files and coding to try and find out. The results make a lot of sense, but are surprising at the same time – essentially, the game reads the characters inputted by the player and gives that letter a score based on a number of factors. These factors include things such as correct use of punctuation, whether or not someone has spammed the same letter over and over again, and several more.

When all of these points are totalled up, the overall score determines the response you’ll receive from the NPC. If you score over 100 points, your reply will be positive and have a random chance of receiving a gift, but any scores below 50 will receive a negative reply.

The score also reportedly affects the number of friendship points you earn with the recipient; a bad letter has a base score of -1, while good letters have a base score of 3. Attaching a present boosts the score by 3, however, so you can actually get at least 1 point with a letter made up of complete nonsense.

It’s certainly an interesting find, although it does take away a little bit of the magic somewhat. Either way, at least now you know that those little critters in your games console aren’t coming to life to read your mail…