What we want to see from the next big Zelda game on Nintendo Switch 2
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Features, Switch 2 | 0 comments
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were huge landmarks for the franchise on Nintendo Switch, and they were also the beginning of a new philosophy. In previous Zelda titles, the intended routes through the games were fairly linear (speedrun tricks and glitches aside). Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword all clearly intended you to do their dungeons in a planned order, and by the time Skyward Sword released, some fans began to want less linearity in their Zelda games and more freedom. Indeed, when Breath of the Wild released in 2017 for Wii U and Nintendo Switch, that request was answered – from that point on, the entire Zelda series has shifted to a new idea: let the player do whatever they want, in any order they want. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both have five main “dungeons” (if you count Divine Beasts as dungeons), and for the most part you can tackle them in any order. In fact, you don’t even have to do them – you can skip right ahead to the final boss if you think you’re up for the challenge.
The point here is, now the pendulum has shifted the other way. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were universally acclaimed and sold excellently, but some fans now think that the emphasis on freedom and lack of direction makes the games feel too empty and pointless. This begs an interesting question: with that in mind, what could we see out of the next big Zelda title on Nintendo Switch 2 in a few years? Will the developers listen to the admittedly vocal minority of complaints, or will they double down on their current philosophy and make the next big title free and open-roaming, too? It’s impossible to know for sure, but today we’re talking about freedom versus linearity and some things we’d like to see out of the next big Zelda game.
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A helpful tip for Donkey Kong Bananza completionists
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Guides, Switch 2 | 0 comments
Much like Super Mario Odyssey that came before it, Donkey Kong Bananza includes a metric ton of collectibles to find on each layer. Writing in-depth location guides for the bananas and fossils would take several weeks at a minimum, so in the meantime, we’ve got a particularly helpful tip that will bring you closer to the 100percent completion mark. You can actually put these recommendations into play within the Lagoon Layer, which is Donkey Kong Bananza’s first real level.
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Donkey Kong Bananza has ways to help reduce motion sickness
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in News, Switch 2 | 0 comments
From what we’ve seen a very small percentage of players have encountered about motion sickness in Donkey Kong Bananza. We wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that the developers actually have included options within the settings that can help reduce this – don’t forget to change them if you’re one of the people affected.
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List of missable pictographs and figurines in Zelda: The Wind Waker
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in GameCube, Guides, Switch, Switch 2 | 0 comments
Today, we’re going over a list of missable pictographs and missable figurines in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
Recently, we’ve been playing the game on GameCube. More specifically, the version that’s available on Nintendo Switch Online. While the game is fun to play casually, it’s not fun to 100 percent complete. The Wind Waker’s side content includes plenty of tedious Heart Pieces and trading sequences, but its biggest task is completing the dreaded Nintendo Gallery. For this task, you have to take pictures of almost every single entity in the game. The picture needs to include its face and most of its body in order to count. You can then hand this picture off to Carlov, who makes a figurine based on it. There are well over 100 different figures to make, and some of them are actually permanently missable. If you decide to play through The Wind Waker with a walkthrough (Zelda Dungeon’s is particularly good), it most likely won’t tell you which pictures are about to become unobtainable.
Nintendo Switch 2’s GameChat feature isn’t so bad
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Features, Switch 2 | 0 comments
For the longest time, fans wondered what that unknown “C” button would do on Nintendo Switch 2. After months of speculation, it turned out to be for GameChat, which is the system’s 2’s headlining social feature. GameChat lets you connect with up to twelve users at the same time, and up to four players can share their screens together all at once. At first, players were unimpressed with GameChat’s poor frame rate – indeed, in the final version of the service, screen share feeds run rather poorly. Many have since written off GameChat, and that’s understandable to an extent. You can always just use something like Discord for voice chat instead. But that doesn’t mean GameChat is useless, in our opinion – we’ve spent several hours with it and actually feel like it’s a solid addition to the Nintendo Switch 2’s lineup of features.
Skull & Co NeoGrip review for Nintendo Switch 2
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Reviews, Switch 2 | 0 comments
We’ve got another Nintendo Switch 2 accessory review for you — this time, it’s for the Skull & Co NeoGrip.
A little while back, we published a review for the StandGrip, which is another Switch 2 grip from Skull & Co. That one is definitely the most comfortable in our opinion, but the NeoGrip offers a different range of features for those who prefer other options. For one, the NeoGrip is much lighter, and it’s easier to slide off and on. It keeps the kickstand accessible, unlike the StandGrip, which brings a bit more functionality in case you’re looking for that. Most importantly, however, the NeoGrip is dock-friendly, which means you can keep it attached to the console even in docked mode. That’s an important feature for some players, so if that counts for you too, we definitely recommend considering this grip.
Mario Kart World items tier list – every single item ranked
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Features, Switch 2 | 0 comments
Mario Kart World introduced plenty of new items to the series, and now it’s got more unique items than any other game in the franchise. Not all of them are winners, though, and after almost 100 hours playing the game we’ve decided to rank every single one in a tier list. We’ve also added explanations on why each item is in its respective tier.
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Skull & Co StandGrip review for Nintendo Switch 2
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Reviews, Switch 2 | 0 comments
We’ve got another Nintendo Switch 2 accessory review for you – this time for the Skull & Co StandGrip.
By now, the Savage Raven line of grips for Nintendo Switch 2 is one of the only ones that hasn’t been surrounded by some sort of production controversy. Quite the opposite, actually – generally speaking, it seems both the Neo Grip and the StandGrip have been received positively so far. Today, we’re focusing specifically on the StandGrip, which is available from the Skull & Co website for around $20 right now. Despite appearing like a budget option, the StandGrip is currently my favorite out of the Nintendo Switch 2 grips I’ve tried. I’m someone who almost exclusively plays in handheld mode, and for that purpose the StandGrip works excellently. It might not suit everybody’s play style for reasons we’ll delve into in a moment, but this grip should absolutely be on your radar if you’re looking for a good one.
Here’s how Nintendo could handle Mario Kart World updates
Posted on 4 months ago by Ethan in Features, Switch 2 | 0 comments
Today, we’re discussing Mario Kart World and how Nintendo could add new content to the game, plus the kind of characters and courses we could wind up seeing.
To start, we need to make something clear right away: Mario Kart World is a fantastic game as-is. Is it worth $80 when purchased outside the bundle? That’s up for you to decide, but ultimately Nintendo could further bolster the game with free updates. Think of it this way: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe cost $60 on launch even though it was a port and not an all-new title, and then it received a $25 DLC pack on top of that – which adds up to an $85 price tag (although you can technically borrow the DLC for free with a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack plan). This is a big assumption, but Nintendo could potentially earn back some good will by releasing free updates. It’s also entirely possible that Nintendo decides to charge for DLC packs – it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they did, but we feel like Mario Kart World has already received some substantial backlash for its $80 price tag. Adding DLC on top of that wouldn’t make the situation much better.
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How to win in online play in Mario Kart World
Posted on 5 months ago by Ethan in Guides, Switch 2 | 0 comments
To an extent, online play at a high level has always been difficult in the Mario Kart series. That said, Mario Kart World has upped the difficulty in pretty much every category. Items are more chaotic, the game’s skill ceiling is much higher, and items are much more chaotic (again). These factors make racking up wins online much more difficult, with Knockout Tour in particular being specifically brutal in big groups. Given all the factors out of your control, it’s probably impossible to guarantee wins online – but today, we’re going over some tips and tricks that might help you improve your placement in big races.
