Nintendo Switch 2 System Transfers Now Possible

Today the Nintendo Switch 2 received a system update to version 23.0.0, which – among other things – now also lets you do a system transfer between two Nintendo Switch 2 systems, which previously wasn't possible.

Well, Nintendo knows what they are doing. They know that some Zelda fans are going to double-dip for the 40th Anniversary Edition console, and then potentially sell their old Switch 2. So, this is an important step for next month. You can even do one of these server-based transfers, where you can sell your Switch 2 already and then complete the transfer on October 29th.

Anyway, I hope this will be as easy as it was with moving from a Nintendo Switch in regards to your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. You didn't need any additional transfer software or whatever, it was very convenient.

 

Source: @OatmealDome

Mario Kart World: SNES Courses

Yesterday Nintendo has released version 1.8.0 of Mario Kart World, right after the Nintendo Direct. And it comes with another neat feature: VS Mode and Time Trials will now treat the ten classic SNES courses that you can find in the open world, which sometimes were used as roads, as individual courses for you to play on.

• SNES Mario Circuit 1
• SNES Mario Circuit 2
• SNES Mario Circuit 3
• SNES Ghost Valley 1
• SNES Ghost Valley 2
• SNES Ghost Valley 3
• SNES Choco Island 1
• SNES Choco Island 2
• SNES Koopa Beach 1
• SNES Vanilla Lake 1 

You can select these via Mario Circuit, Boo Cinema, Choco Mountain, Koopa Troopa Beach, and Sky-High Sundae. Unlike the normal courses, they retain the SNES prefix. It will also play music from Super Mario Kart and the item boxes are replaced with question mark panels, which makes this a true celebration of the first game.

They are also played in five laps each, and some of them feel like playing Baby Park with how short they are. But if you enjoy short courses, where you can potentially lap the opponents in the back, then this update will be a blast.

Technically, none of this is new. The courses have been already part of the world and you could even race on them via the P-Switch missions in Free Roam mode, though it wasn't exactly the same. And whoever is still developing Mario Kart World has proven to be very resourceful. They are making the most of what the game already has to offer. This is true for the Bob-Omb Blast mode added in 1.6.0, using stickers for the photo mode in the previous update, and of course also the new Knockout Tour Rallies.

Speaking of, two more of these got added, the Propeller Rally going from Acorn Heights to Airship Fortress, and the Turnip Rally, going from DK Pass to Shy Guy Bazaar. 

So, two of these updates are going to follow and the last one will likely add 200cc. Would be awesome if they made this version 2.0.0 at the same time, as in version 200. It's the perfect conclusion for this line of updates that have mainly utilized what's in the game already. 200cc will make everything in the game fresh again.

However, they could go a step further and add more Kamek transformations, which become playable drivers. There are a variety of different enemies and animals they haven't use for this yet, e.g. the Buffalo, the Bully, the Camel, the Crocodile, the Hermity Cone, the Ostrich, the Skeeter, Spike, and more. All of these could become new drivers, where the game already has the models for them. People absolutely loved playing as a cow or whatever, so adding more of the same will certainly be received well.

But this would be more work than what has been done so far, because all these additional drivers would require new animations and such. And it looks like Mario Kart World is getting updated by a skeleton crew, where the main resources of the development team are going elsewhere... Maybe they are making ARMS 2?

Metroid Ravenous: Special Edition and amiibo

Oh, no, not again... It's already on the North American Nintendo Store, so this will likely follow tomorrow in Europe. And we're still dealing with waiting queues there!

Anywayyyyy... Metroid Ravenous will launch on Januar 28th with a Special Edition. And it's a special Special Edition, because it's really just the game (potentially with a clean cover), a steelbook, and an amiibo. Which is kind of odd. For the Wii U they had several of these bundles of games and an amiibo. Twilight Princess HD was one of them, remember? But I don't think we have seen anything like this for the Switch and Switch 2 generation yet.

amiibo can be hard enough to find enough as it is, so they don't really need to put them into a Special Edition to make things even rarer. There will be three amiibo for the game in total:

Samus, a Chozo Statue, and the Metroid Suit. The latter is totally rad, but that's the one you'll only get from the Special Edition. So, good luck with that. You'll need it.

We don't know yet what they will do in the game, but it will probably be something like an extra Energy Tank or more gallery images, while every Metroid amiibo before this will do nothing. 

Metroid Ravenous Announced

Easily the best announcement in today's Nintendo Direct was Metroid Ravenous, even if it wasn't a huge surprise. Well, the game got leaked back in July. And this was not from some leaker, who is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but from a public authority in Brazil, so this was simply a fumble. In any case, I'm very happy that the cat is out of the bag and that the cat looks really badass.

In fact, this is the most badass we've ever seen Samus, while this is also the most unhinged Metroid game so far. What in the world is this? You have Samus fighting "Space Ninjas" (official wording from Nintendo) and a cover art that looks like an 80s parody à la Blood Dragon. It's crazy and I love it.

I also love how they just continue to evolve the story after Metroid Dread right away. This is fantastic. Metroid really needs this after the 19 year break between Fusion and Dread. Expand the universe. Expand the lore. Samus is now the last living Metroid in the galaxy and she will have to use her new siphoning ability and the crazy power of the Metroid Suit in order to survive. "Eat or be eaten."

The military Chozo faction led by Raven Beak also still seems to play a role in this, where a lot could be coming together here again, just like it did in Metroid Dread. And Dread currently is my favorite Metroid game.

But just from judging from the game's trailer, it looks very much like Metroid Dread. Same engine, same graphics, just a straight sequel. And that's totally fine, but it raises the question why this is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive? Wouldn't it have been better if the game was also available for the Nintendo Switch? Metroid isn't exactly known to be a best seller... But it probably will still do better than Metroid Prime 4 did.

Anyway, great news! Game will be released at the end of January 2027, the 28th to be exact. And time will fly until then.

Age of Calamity – Definitive Edition Announced

After the launch of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, there was the question of what Koei Tecmo will work on next. And one of my suggestions was a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition for the predecessor, Age of Calamity. If there's one game that absolutely needs the upgrade, then it's this one, because it heavily suffered from bad performance on the Nintendo Switch. Getting it to run in smooth 60FPS will be a selling point alone.

Well, and here we are. It's going to happen, on February 25th 2027. But it's not a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition", where you can just upgrade your existing game. You'll have to buy the whole game again and transfer your save data.

At least the Definitive Edition will include the two DLC packs, Pulse of the Ancients and Guardian of Remembrance. All of this on one card is going to be a sweat deal. In fact, it's the one gripe I have with the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Breath of the Wild, because that one doesn't come with the DLC for whatever reason. It lacks the complete package and in times of "digital only" as the future it's nice to still get some complete packages on the card.

Sadly, it doesn't look like there are going to be any meaningful additions. Why are they adding a "Calamity Mode" when the "Apocalyptic Mode" was already part of the DLC and atrocious enough? Well, I suppose it behaves similarly to the Forbidden Mode in Age of Imprisonment, where you have additional checkmarks and rewards for it. And this will give the hardcore players an incentive to blast through the entire game again, even when they have completed everything already.

But why not change the enemy tiers in this mode and add the golden monsters from The Master Trials? This would have been much more interesting than just more bullet sponges. And this would be the chance to do some cool stuff, like offering Astor as a playable character, or give Zelda her blue dress.

Well, maybe they will announce some more things later on, but I doubt it. I do wonder, though, if we're finally getting that Lucky Ladle after all those years? It won't be the Definitive Edition without it.

Update: there are some reports that this is going to be a Game Key Card in Europe and Japan. That makes no sense to me, because Age of Imprisonment didn't need one and Age of Calamity is currently about a fourth of the size. The update can't be that big. But if this is true, then this will be a total bummer.

Nintendo Direct September 2026 Roundup

This was the Nintendo Direct of Editions. Deluxe Edition, Definitive Edition, Encore Edition, Gold Edition, Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Ultimate Edition, you name it... Lots of games coming back on or enhanced for Switch 2.

But one of these editions includes Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. This was on my list of predictions for the 40th Anniversary Direct yesterday and also something that I had discussed last year, after the launch of Age of Imprisonment (see Age of Calamity - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition). And here it is, very nice, even with all DLC included.

Two other of my boxes have been checked, technically even three, if you count that Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave didn't get some premature DLC announcement. Though, in general it looks like Nintendo isn't so keen on doing paid DLC for games with a predecessor on the Nintendo Switch that already had some Expansion Pass or whatever. Tears of the Kingdom, Age of Imprisonment, and Mario Kart World would be all examples to this. Though, with the latter it still feels like it might happen eventually.

Speaking of, there is a nice update coming to Mario Kart World, with the Super Nintendo courses now playable individually, which is another good use of what's already in the game, just like the additional Knockout Tours. 

Finally, we got to see Metroid Ravenous. And it looks absolutely fantastic, even though it doesn't have the same impact as Metroid Dread five years ago and is now just "more of the same." But it's great that it didn't take them another twenty years to continue the story. We will only have to wait until January 28th.

More on all that in separate posts. But overall I'm very happy with this Nintendo Direct. Star Fox Adventures coming to NSO was also a nice surprise. This is a game that I have still on my bucket list, where now I won't have an excuse any longer.

And the big reveal at the end was not a new 3D Mario game... but a new 3D Kirby game. Which would have been a much more reasonable expectation. I keep saying that it's too early for a new 3D Mario, because the 3D Mario team has made Donkey Kong Bananza. So, unless it's smaller side project, similar to Bowser's Fury, then we will probably have to be more patient. But some Kirby is nice, too.

In hindsight it makes sense how Kirby and the Forgotten World has received a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition early on. They wanted to prepare for Kirby and the World Beyond. And maybe some people saw this coming. Well, I didn't, but I'm also not a Kirby fan.

Now... there is quite the roadmap ahead for this blog. In November we will be playing the new Ocarina of Time (launches November 5th), then Metroid Ravenous comes at the end of January, and Age of Calamity - Definitive Edition at the end of February. A lot of good stuff to play in the next months.

Nintendo Store Catastrophe

In the past I have been an advocate of the Nintendo Store. But not anymore. Not after today. Everything went wrong for me from start to finish and I'm so very pissed, so get ready for some venting.

Usually, they will list their articles days after the other retailers, like Amazon. So, by the time you can preorder in the Nintendo Store, most people will have already preordered elsewhere, and there isn't much of a crowd, unless they have some weird exclusive, like the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Collector's Edition. But today the Nintendo Store actually had their products available right in the morning. Combine this with the store-exclusive stand for the Pro Controller, which people seem to want really bad, and you're in for trouble.

In the past they have done this thing where you could register your interest for an upcoming product and then they would send out e-mails in waves to prevent their store from crashing. Which had worked for the most part. But this isn't the case anymore, it's "first come, first serve, all at once."

You would think that I was lucky to already be on the store page when the articles got listed, but this wasn't the case. This had first put me inside some weird limbo, where their awful Vercel / Next.js would block my many login(?) requests. By being patient enough I could eventually get into the basket and even place the order, but then the application crashed as a whole. I had the Switch 2, the Pro Controller and the carrying case all there, it was processing the payment... and then boom. All I got was an error page and nothing to show for.

Eventually, I was put into the waiting line, with 45,000 people ahead of me. When I finally got back into the store after one whole hour, I made the crucial mistake of also adding the game. At first I wanted to preorder this separately, but with so much trouble I thought it best to buy it just all at once. Now, I picked the edition with the ocarina pin. Costs five Euro more, but who is counting at this point? Things went even downhillier from there, because when I then tried to place my order, it told me that it was unable to ship to my address.

I was stuck there. I was using my saved address from previous orders, which worked fine, but for some reason it was now unable to ship there. And before I could figure out what was going on, both the Pro Controller and the Switch 2 went out of stock. The culprit was the game + pin edition, which somehow couldn't be ordered. It was a bugged product, but the shop software didn't communicate that this error is caused by that product. The game without the pin then worked for me, but now I only have that and the carrying case.

Update: The Switch 2 was briefly available again, but I have yet to get my hands on the Pro Controller. And I really wanted that stand... So, my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined. They could stream the best Nintendo Direct ever in two hours... I'm really not in the mood for more Nintendo stuff right now.

Update 2: Luckily, I just stayed on the store page and kept refreshing it, because I also was able to get the Pro Controller now. Had to place three orders in total for everything, with what could have been achieved in one, but at least I got all the items (except for the silly pin). And now I can watch the Direct in peace... I swear if they announce some Collector's Edition for the new Metroid, I'm going to riot.