Category: Nintendo News

There are certain games you can count on making an appearance on every Nintendo console: Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and more recently, Super Smash Bros. Since the N64 days, Smash has been one of Nintendo’s major tentpole franchises drawing millions of new fans into Nintendo’s orbit, so the company’s announcement of a new Smash for the Switch came as no surprise.

During E3 in Los Angeles, Nintendo finally lifted the veil on the latest entry in the series, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, to the delight of fighter fans worldwide. We had the opportunity to spend some time fighting among ourselves in the E3 version of the brawler, and we came away quite impressed. Ultimate feels both familiar and new, and this is due in no small part to its impressive roster. If you’ve played any of the previous Smash titles, you’ll find a character you like. Nintendo has included every character from previous entries, landing an impressive 65 character count, assuming there are no other reveals between now and its 7th December release date.

Ultimate’s E3 demo didn’t feature the full roster, but the selection was varied nonetheless. We had a chance to try out two of the latest newcomers: Splatoon‘s Inkling and Metroid‘s Ridley. Twenty-eight returning fighters rounded out the demo roster to an even 30. Mechanically, Smash feels somewhat more forgiving than previous iterations. We were able to pull off dodges and play on the edge of the arena much easier than we had been in the past, likely thanks to some of the mechanical tweaks that have been made. 

Nintendo were quick to note that thousands of changes have been made under the hood to balance Ultimate, and some of them were readily apparent, and in our opinion, quite welcome. In particular, the mid-air dodge’s increased movement is useful in returning from the edge of the stage, especially when combined with each character’s Up + B move.

The addition of penalties for repeatedly dashing felt welcome to us, as it eventually forces your opponent to stand and fight, or risk getting knocked out. Beyond that, the only other major change we could identify, and that was shown during the direct, was the perfect shield. The perfect shield mechanic is similar to Street Fighter III‘s parry system. If you release the shield button with the perfect timing, your character will deflect the attack, setting up an opportunity for a counter. We have a feeling that Smash pros will employ this to great effect. 

During our demo, we had a chance to try out a handful of new and returning stages. The favourite among the Nintendo Life team at E3 was easily Breath of the Wild‘s Great Plateau. The stage takes place atop the sole tower on the plateau, crowding all four combatants onto a small-ish platform. The roof of the tower can be shattered by repeatedly smashing your foes into it, thus opening up the stage to reveal a beautiful view of Hyrule in the distance. Splatoon‘s Moray Towers also made the jump to Smash and it’s as beautiful as it is fun to play. 

The stage plays with verticality in a way that most Smash stages don’t, with zig-zagging staircases taking you up and through. When we played on the stage, we found ourselves dropping and jumping to chase rather than dashing and running. It was also a treat to find stages like Saffron City, which hasn’t been seen since the original N64 title. Nintendo has put a great deal of care into updating these stages, and the work they put in shows.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate isn’t a simple port or update, it’s an entirely new game. The visuals are new and fresh and the art style is different, albeit subtly. Each character has been reworked, making them feel familiar, but new and the new characters feel like perfect additions to an already packed roster. We can’t wait to see more, and we’ll have much more on Smash throughout the rest of E3. Stay tuned!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is out on the Nintendo Switch on 7th December.
 

Yesterday’s Nintendo Treehouse: Live presentation featured a healthy segment on the upcoming turn-based RPG Octopath Traveler, and details surrounding the game’s length and new demo were revealed.

The demo, which is officially called the Octopath Traveler Prologue Demo, should be available to download from the Nintendo eShop today in North America, with other regions coming shortly after. You’ll be able to play as all eight characters from the game, and there will be a three-hour time limit. Your efforts won’t be wasted, however, as this data will carry over to the final version of the game when it launches next month.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, the main game’s full length was revealed to be very impressively high for those who want to lose themselves in the game’s beautiful, pixelated world. The main story will provide players with around 50 – 60 hours of playtime, but plenty of sub-stories and side quests will also be available, pushing that time up to 80 – 100 hours. It seems that you’ll certainly be getting your money’s worth if the quality is as good as the quantity.

You can check out these details being confirmed in this video below:

Are you looking forward to Octopath Traveler? Will you be downloading this new demo and trying it out for yourself?

The Nintendo Treehouse: Live Day 2 is well underway, and while playing through a segment of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Nintendo accidentally showed off the icons for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! by going to the home screen.

You can see a screenshot of the slip below, which was quickly captured by @Magitroopa on Twitter.

The Smash icon in the picture looks like it could well be some kind of placeholder – we imagine the final thing will be much more bright and colourful. The Pokémon games certainly look like the real deal, though – and they look as bright and cuddly as you might expect.

Not too long to wait until our consoles have those icons all lined up nicely, too!

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Bearded malcontent Dom has been writing about games for so long he’s practically forgotten what reality looks like.  Over his career he’s written for just about every site and mag out there. You’ll almost always find him catching Pokémon or yelling at dragons in Skyrim.

Indie publisher Digerati and developer Zack Bell Games have announced that upcoming ‘splatformer’ INK will arrive on Nintendo Switch on 19th June.

INK is a fast-paced platformer with a bit of a twist – the levels are actually invisible and must be splattered with brightly coloured paint before they can be seen. Players can reveal levels in a variety of ways, such as double-jumping, wall sliding, or squishing an enemy, all of which can create splashes and splodges to brighten up the world around you. Even failing is useful in this game, as when your blocky character dies, it explodes in a shower of colour and paints more of the surrounding area to help you towards your goal.

The Nintendo Switch version of the game features all-new local 2-player mode, exclusive to the system. You can check out a full feature list below.

Key Features
– Test your platforming skills across 75 INKgeniously designed levels!
– Jump, squish, slide and die to splatter brightly colored paint and uncover your surroundings!
– Splat enemies, dodge missiles, and take down super-challenging bosses!
– Local 2-player mode: Take on INK with a friend, exclusive to Nintendo Switch (supports split Joy-Con play)
– 20 deviously hidden coins to find and collect!
– Ambient and atmospheric original soundtrack by Vincent Rubinetti
– Precision platforming makes INK a perfect challenge for speedrunners

As mentioned above, the game releases on 19th June, but players in Europe can pre-order the game now from the Nintendo Switch eShop. If you do, you’ll be able to get a tasty 20% discount on the launch price taking it from £8.09 to £6.47.

Do you like the look of this one? Will you be taking advantage of the pre-order discount? Let us know in the comments below.

Just last week, Nintendo’s latest creation Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido launched on both Switch and 3DS. The game is an action-puzzle mash-up with an incredibly high level of polish and a great story mode (we rated it rather highly in our review), but the initial sales figures for the game are shockingly low.

In Japan – the home nation of both Nintendo and sushi, no less – the game only managed to shift 5,235 copies on Switch and 2,392 copies on 3DS in its first week, combining for a total of 7,627 across the two systems. To put that into perspective, ARMS – another of Nintendo’s brand new franchises introduced for the system – managed to sell 100,652 copies in the same initial time period. That’s quite the difference.

Even though Sushi Striker was the fancy new release of the week, Nintendo’s other evergreen titles still sold more copies despite some of them being over a year old. Splatoon 2 sold 13,423 copies (which included hardware bundles), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 10,063, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze sold 9,528, and even launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild still shifted 6,516, which is more than Sushi Striker on Switch alone.

It seems quite likely that the game’s full-retail launch price may have put off some customers – we know a lot of you lovely readers have mentioned the game’s price in our comments sections – but it’s still a shame to see it underperform. Here’s hoping that this doesn’t knock Nintendo’s confidence to release entirely new experiences too much in the future.

Did you pick up a copy of Sushi Striker? Let us know how you feel about the game and why you have – or haven’t – grabbed a copy yourself in the comments.