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Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

System: Switch
Release date: May 29, 2020
Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo


It’s about time Xenoblade Chronicles got its definitive edition. Its original release at the tail end of the Wii’s life, exacerbated by the game’s staggered international releases, was far from ideal. Even if you got the chance to play the original, one couldn’t help but feel that Monolith Soft was pushing the Wii beyond what it should reasonably be doing. It was an open world JRPG that was a generation ahead of its time on hardware that was a generation behind the times. If you’re anything like me, you revel in watching developers push the technical boundaries of outdated hardware – but I could hardly blame anyone who struggled to embrace Xenoblade’s obvious visual compromises. Years later, the game was ported to New 3DS. Needless to say, while that version is its own kind of low-tech marvel, an even lower resolution screen with even further cut back visuals was far from the ideal way to experience the grand scope of Xenoblade’s world, where life flourishes on the standing corpses of two gods, with people and animal life existing on an almost unimaginably small bacterial scale. Finally, on a system at the height of its life, with revamped graphics – albeit visuals that are still a little soupy as has been characteristic of Monolith Soft’s Switch engine – Xenoblade is poised for success beyond its niche and scattered Wii evangelists.

This week on Nintendo Everything Podcast, we start off with a melodramatic anime opening about Galen traveling during the pandemic. Galen has survived (for now…) and has horrible puns and impressions on Min Min in Smash Bros., while Oni Dino can’t get enough Xenoblade. We then cover recent news, including new details on the soon-to-be-released Paper Mario: The Origami King. Will Origami King avoid gameplay flaws of the past two entries, Sticker Star and Color Splash? We also discuss what frustrations long-time fans feel with modern Paper Mario games. Is the player expectation VS developer intent unfair? And lastly, we share some embarrassing things we did as kids, inspired by video games.

Check out links and timestamps below, and come hang out.

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Good Job!

Nintendo has made it a habit of teaming up with smaller studios on different Switch games over the past few years. Snipperclips got the ball rolling for the system’s launch, followed by The Stretchers in late 2019. Good Job!, the latest instance of these partnerships, just released a few months ago.

Nintendo partnered with Paladin Studios on Good Job!, which features a slew of objectives and puzzles to complete across a slew of office-themed levels. Many players have been enamored with the game and we’ve been quite curious about how the project happened, so we caught up with both companies to learn more. Producer Takao Nakano from Nintendo of America, director Masataka Takemoto from Nintendo Co., Ltd., as well as lead producer Robert Abercrombie and game director Coen Neessen from Paladin Studios all shared more about the title’s origins, its art style, how the two sides ended up working together, ideas that were ultimately scrapped, and more.

Here’s our full discussion:

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition

When you think about developers that have worked on notable Switch ports, the likes of Panic Button, Virtuos, and Saber Interactive come to mind. We should probably throw another name into the mix as well: Turn Me Up Games.

Although Turn Me Up hasn’t worked on a ton of Switch projects, the studio is starting to become more well-known. The company’s first project on Nintendo’s console was Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Then at the end of May, Turn Me Up’s ports of Borderlands 1 and 2 landed on Switch.

A new month rolled right on in earlier this week. Now that we’re in July, we want to know what you’ve been playing.

Have you been giving the new free-to-play game Ninjala a shot? How about some of the other recent releases like Burnout Paradise Remastered? No matter the case, let us know in the comments below.

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The Nintendo Direct Mini back in March treated fans to a surprise announcement and release. The office-themed puzzler Good Job! was revealed for Switch during the presentation, and then launched on the eShop immediately after.

Good Job! wasn’t actually a project made entirely by Nintendo as Paladin Studios was just as much involved. As part of an interview with Nintendo Everything, the two companies spoke about how they ended up coming together.

Paladin Studios lead producer Robert Abercrombie and Nintendo of America producer Takao Nakano told us:

Catherine: Full Body

System: Switch
Release date: July 7, 2020
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus


Atlus is one of the most consistent developers and publishers when it comes to providing unique and quality content thanks to its RPGs that have some of the best storytelling in gaming. Interestingly, even though the company is well-known within the industry and avid RPG fans, it still has a fair share of niche titles that always felt like they deserved more attention such as Trauma Center, Growlanser, and Etrian Odyssey – just to name a few. Even though it’s been re-released before, there’s a surprising amount of people I’ve spoken to that have never heard of or played the game, but now Catherine: Full Body on Switch gives the game another spot in the limelight. Fortunately, Catherine looks and feels better than ever before on Nintendo’s console in a way that feels like a perfect fit.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons received its new 1.3.0 update this week, and as is tradition, some fans have taken a closer look at the code to see what else can be gleamed aside from what Nintendo officially announced. Reliable dataminer Ninji has passed along quite a bit of interesting information from the patch.

One of the more interesting points concerns a change in how NPCs spawn. Ninji highlights that Leif, Saharah and Kicks are no longer guaranteed every week, so players should now see a far more even spread of visitors. Gullivarrr (pirate Gulliver) can also appear if you’ve bought a wetsuit. With version 1.2.0, if players met all requirements met, they had three guaranteed NPCs and two free weekday slots, with five NPCs vying for those slots. Now with version 1.3.0, there are five weekday slots, with nine NPCs vying for them, which should prevent the situation where unlucky players miss out on one NPC for weeks on end.

The World Ends with You: The Animation

Last week, it was announced that Square Enix’s Switch and DS RPG The World Ends with You will be getting an anime. Official details were revealed today during Anime Expo Lite.

Members of the game’s development team are involved, including Tetsuya Nomura. The original Japanese voice actors have returned as well. Some parts will be 3D CG.

Below are the first official details:

Nintendo logo

As we began to hear about this week and report on yesterday, a number of prominent members within the fighting game community have had serious allegations raised against them. This extends to the Smash Bros., as several top players have been linked to misconduct, sexual abuse, and more.

Nintendo has now passed along a statement about the situation to IGN. You can read that in full below.

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