Category: Nintendo News

Team Cherry made a big name for itself with its atmospheric yet adorable Metroidvania platformer Hollow Knight when it realised on Steam in February last year. The game has since generated a huge amount of publicity, not only since its initial Switch reveal, but also since its delay and unfortunate absence at the March Nindies Showcase.

While making a guest appearance at this year’s Bitsummit indie games event in Kyoto, Japan, we took the chance to sit down and chat to William Pellen and Ari Gibson from Team Cherry about Hollow Knight on Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo Life: How’s Hollow Knight coming along? 

Team Cherry: Really well, it’s taken a lot of effort, but it is running nicely and it looks really nice on the screen. There’s just a few final things to clean up. We’ve taken our time to make sure it’s as good as it can be which is really important to us, and it’s our first game so there was a lot of stuff do and stuff that to be remade in certain ways, but the last thing we would ever want is for the Switch version is to be ‘less’ in any way, especially given demand there has been on that platform. It’s the game’s console debut, and it’s the perfect fit.

Did you feel much pressure with the transition from PC to console? 

Actually, we almost felt the opposite of pressure. It has been really exciting. People are really loving the Switch and we are really lucky about the timing of the Switch coming out when it did. We love it as well as players but as also as a platform as a developer.

What’s been happening in the time leading up to release? 

Nintendo has been really helpful. We feel that we share their internal development process philosophy and the quality of the games they put out so hopefully we are just learning from them.

The refining has been ongoing and the extra content for the release we did in the meantime. All the content packs that have been released so far will be in the Switch version at launch. Also a lot of it was refactoring technical stuff, breaking it down and redoing it a bit more cleverly, but while we were doing that we had the chance to make some creative tweaks and refine a bunch of other little things. We haven’t got to the point of rebranding it as a new addition, but it’s certainly a fuller experience.

Some of that creative stuff (during the porting process) is so we don’t go crazy with all the technical stuff and fixes. It honestly keeps us alive that we can improve more creative elements of the game. It’s kinda nice to go back over things a few more times, and go back to all those niggling little things and clean up as well as we can do, so that something could just be better.

But we recognise that we could do that clean up forever, and we aren’t dragging our heels, but it terms of getting it ready on console, you get that chance of taking the time and doing that final sweep with the last few bugs and issues.

As your first game, it must be difficult to definitively say when it’s finished.

I think we are pretty good at saying that this is the point where we are happy to release it. Maybe games are a bit different now with things like streaming culture, so now for us as developers, we can see from the outside a lot more and we can obviously see things breaking. You can watch someone on YouTube or on Twitch literally breaking the game because in the past you could sell the game to people and they would tell you about bugs but it’s only when you see the gameplay and see things go wrong, you think ‘we really should fix that! Even people just playing it in different ways or people trying to break it, and find lots of stuff for us to work on.

So how does it look in handheld mode? 

We think it looks great and it suits the game, because we were wondering how everything would look when it was scaled down, but it works really nicely. We hit a really good balance of character scale and the scale of everything generally that works really well on both the large and small screen. There might even be a thematic thing there that works – it’s a kingdom of bugs! So when you put it on the handheld screen, this is its true scale!  You look at something like Breath of the Wild which looks great on the small screen, but the vastness of the game sometimes belongs on a big screen and it’s really impressive.

How has the momentum been from the community since release and the anticipation for the Switch version? 

It really has kept up and we are constantly seeing a wide array of art, but not solely visual art. Some people do arrangements of the music and even original songs, taking poetry about the game and making lyrics which is really cool or videos of people playing the game and talking about it.

Obviously, the community is doing all of this themselves and really running with it but the fact that we are also actively working on the game at the same time and it is still evolving in small ways keeps it a bit more alive and keeps players constantly engaged.

The accessibility of updating games has changed the way people release games quite significantly. Our philosophy ideally is to still take the Nintendo approach of taking time and releasing something that is of that high quality straight out of the gate and people can play that through and have a complete experience.

Is there any plans for a physical release? 

Absolutely, and it’s something that a lot of fans have requested. I think it’s something that we’d love to see ourselves and we are certainly having those discussions right now, but once we have something to announce officially we will. We are doing everything in our power to make that happen. We are looking at things besides just solely a physical copy of the game, and we are super mindful. We want to look at it as something to be preserved, as an object that has value. 

What are your thoughts about documenting the creative process? 

We have a bit of a funny process in that we tend to use everything that we make in the game so there is at a lot of concept stuff, but we try and keep the distance between concept and execution as short as we can so as we have the idea and sketched roughly and then within a pretty short space of time it’s on its way to being made.

There was a Kickstarter, with a manual and a comic that really expands the world of the game, which is really nice and the comic is a cool idea to pursue in the future, but collating some of that process and making a tangible product is something we think a lot of fans would enjoy.

It seems like both an advantageous and daunting position due to the sheer volume of fan art and support out there.

Yeah, it would just have to be a very large book! It’s a wonderful thing as well because we are about to approach this new Switch audience and hopefully some of them would join that existing community. The Switch release is super exciting for us because of the new influx, and the players make their art work because they’ve felt a connection to the characters from playing and spending a lot of time with the game.

Various Switch releases have introduced a new wave or ‘generation’ of fans to a title over a range of time periods…

Yeah, keeping it alive has been good by releasing those content packs but now with the Switch launch it gives even people who have already played it a chance to look forward to a new bunch of people to talk to about it with and it keeps the community going strong.

We intend to keep it alive in the future as well to an extent, we also don’t want to be the company that makes Hollow Knight forever. We need to be Team Cherry that makes several video games but for now, we are really enjoying the act of supporting this one and seeing it grow and getting it out to an audience.

Do you have any ideas for future projects right now? 

That is something that sort of just happens. We have at least ten years worth of games we could make (!) but that might only turn out to be two games because by the time we’ve spent years developing and supporting the game (which is something we really want to continue to do – follow the Hollow Knight template), it could just turn into two or three. There is some overlap but not a lot, as there’s only a couple of us, but we’ve started looking at a couple of projects.

So, the ultimate question is when…?!

Soon… All we can say it that it’s very soon… And we know that we have made people wait but we do think the quality of the product is worth it. The time that we’ve put into it has made the Switch version the perfect version of Hollow Knight and it really was worth the time we have taken. Nintendo has a philosophy and we’ve spoken to them a lot. The one thing is that there’s never been any pressure regarding dates, there’s been nothing but support.

We are really happy with the fact that the excitement hasn’t died down in that gap between PC and Switch. We are at the finish line but can’t say anything conclusive regarding timing, so until things are rock solid, we have to wait but we know exactly what’s going to happen.

We would like to thank William and Ari for their time. Hollow Knight will be heading to Switch at a later date. Share your thoughts on this upcoming port with the rest of the Nintendo Life community…

It’s that time of year again, and E3 hype is still climbing, so let’s add fuel to that particular fire by speculating about what Nintendo might be showing off in this year’s Spolight presentation, or whatever they plan to call it this time.

Some games are absolutely guaranteed to appear, such as Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch, as it’ll be very difficult to show us the Super Smash Bros. Invitational event without also showing the game. Others are more speculative, but nevertheless who doesn’t want to see Animal Crossing make its way to Nintendo Switch? Foolish people, that’s who.

So make sure you check out the video above. It’s likely that some of the predictions will come true, but like every similarly speculative piece of media, take all that’s said with a pinch of salt.

It’s been 20 years since the original Guilty Gear debuted on PlayStation way back in 1998, so to celebrate, Arc System Works will be porting it to Nintendo Switch. Yup, a game that’s been resigned to Sony platforms (and naughty emulators) is finally coming to Nintendo, and we couldn’t be more excited.

The original game was a landmark in 2D fighting games, with a combat model that took notes from the success of Street Fighter while offering a fast and frantic action that set itself apart from both Capcom and SNK’s offerings back in the late ’90s. The announcement was made during a livestream celebrating the series’ 20th anniversary, which you can check out below.

No word on when the game will be arriving, but considering the year, we imagine we’ll be bringing heaven, hell and plenty of rock to Switch before 2018 is out. Be sure to share your thoughts on the news with us below…

Little Dragons Café, the new project from renowned game designer Yasuhiro Wada, is due later this summer and a slew of new details have emerged about this charming little curio. You’ll be able to embrace your parental instincts and raise your very own dragon, a creature that will grow and react to your decisions and nurturing.

As the name suggests, you’ll also be running your little bistro so there are plenty of new recipes to learn while you master the art of cooking. Explore the world, discover new ingredients, and expand your menu (and your restaurant) while catering to the whims of your customers. From searching for ingredients to keeping your customers happy, Wada-san and co have jam-packed the game will all sorts of tasks.

The game is also getting a plush Limited Edition, complete with collectible cards, music from the game and your very own plushie dragon. S’cute! It’ll come with a suggested retail price of $79.99 (£59).

Will you be picking up Little Dragons Café when it arrives in the summer? Let us know in the comments below…
 

We’ve all seen how amazing Labo’s piano is, but the sheer brilliance of this setup is going to get a wider audience thanks to NBC’s The Tonight Show.

Pop superstar Ariana Grande has recorded a segment along with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots where the entire group performs Grande’s single “No Tears Left To Cry” entirely using Labo.

Band members used different Toy-Con from the Variety and Robot kits. Tariq used the Toy-Con Fishing Rod, Kamal and James used the famous Toy-Con Piano, Stro was rocking two Joy-Con to make different drum sounds and Questlove used the Robot Kit to perform the kick-drum and high-hat.

Fallon told IGN:

We made a full-on band using Labo. I love that Nintendo does stuff like this. I mean what is this? Why would you even think of this? Only they could do something like this.

We met with Nintendo and they showed us a bunch of cool cardboard things that you can make. We used the Variety Kit and we made a keyboard. We asked if we could make other cardboard things like guitars and they [Nintendo] said, ‘Of course! We’ll help you do it.

Leveraging nearly every aspect of Toy-Con Garage, the group was able to create custom Toy-Con-like Guitars, as well as reprogram existing ones to emit musical sounds. “We made guitars by putting rubber bands over the Switch tablet so that it actually feels like you’re strumming as your fingers touch the screen.

It was totally bizarre and such a gamble. I didn’t know if it was going to sound good, but Ariana is always down to try something fun and different. Anyone can do what we did really, it just takes time. Whatever you dream of, you can make it.

The full segment airs on the show tonight.

Some of the Nintendo Life team were lucky enough to pop down to sunny Brighton a few weeks back, base of Gamer Network – the group of gaming sites with which Nintendo Life and Push Square are affiliated. While we were down there dodging vegan food stalls and resisting the urge to paddle in the unnaturally warm English Channel, we got talking to Digital Foundry boss and UK games journalism legend Richard Leadbetter, and one of the topics was Sony potentially leaping back into the handheld market with its own Switch-style hybrid console.

It seems that this innocent conversation got Mr. Leadbetter thinking, as he’s just posted up a feature – along with a video – which discusses the potential of Sony (and indeed Microsoft, which has – up until now – kept its powder dry when it comes to handhelds) releasing a hybrid system which plays current generation games, just as the Switch replicates the performance of Nintendo’s last domestic system, the Wii U.

As Richard discusses in the video and the accompanying piece on Eurogamer, it’s much harder to scale down from current home tech than it is to scale up using mobile tech. Power consumption is the biggest issue; the launch model of the PS4 running at full pelt draws about 120-130 watts, while the newer PS4 Slim pulls around 70-80 watts. Compare that to the Switch, which – when docked – is only sipping around 12 watts from the wall socket, and you get an idea of just how hard it would be for Sony to take PS4-levels of power and reduce them down for a portable system. Amazingly, when undocked, the Switch is only drawing about 7-9 watts of power – a real testament to the efficiency of Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chipset.

Certainly in the short-term, it would seem that Sony and Microsoft – both of whom rely on AMD’s silicon – would struggle to take their existing consoles and down-size them for the hybrid console market which Nintendo has created almost overnight; as Richard himself puts it, Nintendo’s alliance with Nvidia is a “game-changer” and when looking at ports like DOOM and the upcoming Wolfenstein II – despite their obvious shortcomings when compared to the PS4, Xbox One and PC editions – “Switch moves on to being something of a miracle”, according to the esteemed Mr. Leadbetter.

He doesn’t rule out Sony and Microsoft perhaps attempting such a move a few years down the line – who knows, maybe the Switch will become the template of future games consoles – but for now, the verdict seems to be a simple one; while Switch is comfortably out-gunned by its rivals on a technical level, Nintendo’s ‘mobile first’ approach is proving to be more successful than many had anticipated, and it has carved out a niche market into which Sony and Microsoft won’t be able to encroach for a good while yet.

We don’t take it for granted that so many of you lovely people visit Nintendo Life every day, yet you probably know a lot more about us than we know about you. Therefore our partners at Gamer Network have put together a readership survey so we can get to know our audience a little better.

Nintendo Life is part of Gamer Network – a network of leading video game websites and YouTube channels such as Eurogamer, VG247 and Outside Xbox – who are also responsible for handling our advertising.

The responses given to the survey will directly influence the site – and the network’s – direction. We would really appreciate it if you have a few spare moments.

Any information you submit is anonymous and used to help us build a picture of who we’re talking to. This helps both the editorial team here at Nintendo Life make the site the best it can be, and it helps our friends in the ads team do their jobs, which helps us pay the bills (importantly). As well as telling us a bit about yourself, they’ve asked for some feedback on the games media in general, such as how you feel about reviews, video, and website subscriptions.

We would be honoured if you could spare a few minutes to help give us some vital feedback. Are you up for the challenge of completing our readership survey?

Soapbox features enable our individual writers to voice their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that may not necessarily be the voice of the site. In today’s article, editor Dom discusses the hot topic that is Nintendo Switch Online and why every online service starts out with a few teething problems…

So lets talk about Nintendo Switch Online. With Nintendo offering a little more insight into the ins and outs of the service ahead of its September launch, the response has been, to put it mildly, mixed at best. Charging for cloud saves? A paltry selection of NES games? That flippin’ app! There’s been a fair share of negative comments made about the new online infrastructure – including from our very own community of readers here at Nintendo Life – so I felt it was time to address the issue in a little more detail.

Here’s the thing – every online service has to start somewhere, and none of them resemble the state they originally launched in. When Xbox Live appeared with the original Xbox back at the start of the ’00s, it was just a basic service designed to take advantage of an online community that hadn’t truly formed yet. By the time the service was rebranded as Xbox Live Gold, most of the features that has once been free – such as playing online and storing saves in the cloud – were now locked behind a paywall.

Was there a backlash? Of course. Sony didn’t charge for the privilege of access online multiplayer on PS3, even when it launched PS Plus in 2010. But by the height of Xbox 360’s dominance in the previous generation, Xbox Live offered a more robust and reliable online infrastructure than the one provided gratis by Sony. With the likes of Halo and Gears of War, Microsoft charging for the service made sense – and this was long before it started the Games with Gold initiative.

Yes, it’s frustrating to go from paying nothing to access online features to suddenly having to cough up a subscription, but we all knew that Switch was unlikely to spend its entire lifecycle without some form of revitalised infrastructure. New features and improved utilities don’t often come for free anymore, and with Nintendo also including a selection of NES games as standard, a fee is hardly a shocking request to make.

So what about cloud storage? That’s a topic that’s got some serious gears a-grinding. Having to pay actual money for the privilege of storing game saves in the cloud? It’s an issue that’s split gamers for a long time. Microsoft used to limit the feature to Gold members only back on Xbox 360, but eventually extended the service (and the amount of space) to all users. On PlayStation 4, cloud storage is still baked into PS Plus so you’ll have to pay for the power. Considering how we’ve all had to go out and by bigger and more expensive MicroSD cards to hold our digital games, the introduction of cloud storage is a welcome addition, even if it does come with a price tag.

Which brings us quite nicely onto the subject of cost. Honestly, Nintendo is charging well under the price points Microsoft and Sony are peddling right now. It costs £5.99 for an Xbox Live Gold membership and £6.99 for the same amount of time with PS Plus. NSO only costs £3.49. And yes, that price could go up, but Nintendo is still launching a service that offers more content and features that are close to – if not on par – with its ‘competitors’ for a price that’s half that of PS Plus. And we’re still moaning? Come on now.

The issue of games is perhaps the hottest issue at the heart of the Nintendo Online service discussion. Not just because of the choice of games, but for what it means for Virtual Console as a whole. And while the 10 games that the service will launch with are hardly revelatory, it’s hard to not look back on the early days of PS Plus and recall how it used to offer nothing but demos and PS Minis. It took a long while before the likes of Mad Max and Bloodborne got the ‘free game’ treatment.

It took Sony years to embed PS Plus, to prove its place in a changing market and use that exposure to negotiate deals with publishers and developers around the world. Nintendo has an impressive back catalogue to draw from when it comes to the launch months of NSO, but that doesn’t mean this selection will be the same in 12 months time. Just like how a PS Plus slot helped turn Rocket League from indie curio to global mega hit, there’s the exciting potential for the Games Collection to become a launchpad for Nintendo’s growing relationship with its Nindies.

Then there’s the issue of Virtual Console – or the noticeable lack thereof. As frustrating as it is – we’ve all sunk a lot of time and money into VC re-releases – Nintendo has clearly decided to move on. Switch represents a turning point for Nintendo, so a move away from the VC model that served 3DS and Wii U so well (okay, mostly 3DS) was bound to happen. VC became an authentic link to Nintendo’s past, and one that enabled us to play some of the best NES, SNES and Game Boy era titles on modern machines, but every service eventually evolves into something new.

Losing that long-serving brand name is a bitter pill to swallow, but Nintendo is unlikely to effectively ignore its own legacy. We just have to accept that the popularity of miniature consoles with built-in games has produced a real money maker for Ninty, so the potential for future retro hardware releases will likely affect how Nintendo treats ‘classics’ as part of this ongoing service.

Ultimately, NSO is a natural next step for Nintendo and Switch, and while paying for what was once free (and still currently is) might seem irksome, remember that Switch has operated without a paywall on online multiplayer for 18 months by the time NSO launches. We’d much rather pay a small subscription fee and enjoy a more robust service that will no doubt grow over the years to come, than stay with the limited free version we have now.

So what do you make of Nintendo Switch Online and new details that have emerged regarding its pricing and features? Share your thoughts with the community below…