Mario Kart Tour Ends

Nintendo has announced today that Mario Kart Tour will cease to exist at the end of September. And this time there won't be a way of playing the game offline, like there is with the Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp - Complete Edition. It doesn't really affect me, because I have only tried the game once and didn't like it, but it's an interesting view into the nature of such service games.

First of all, this sucks for everyone who has invested in the game somehow. But let that be a lesson learned to not invest into this form of gaming, where your ability to play the game depends on some online service that is likely to shut down once the game stops being profitable. You want to stay as far away from it as possible.

(And I perfectly know it's not easy to resist. If Nintendo were to release a Zelda mobile game with micro transactions, I would still play it. And as a fan of classic Arena Shooters, I'm also still playing Quake Champions, where I had recently praised Bethesda for keeping it alive, as the franchises has reached its 30th anniversary. But with this week's lay-offs from Microsoft, things are looking very bad for the game. More on that later.)

Free-to-play became a new standard for multiplayer games, because everyone is doing it and a price tag is therefore creating a barrier. But I can still play those Arena Shooters from the old days, because the community is keeping them alive. And I can still play Mario Kart Wii whenever I want, with community mods even online.

Anyway, the silver lining is that a lot of the contents from Mario Kart Tour found their way into either Mario Kart 8 Deluxe via the Booster Course Pass, or into Mario Kart World. The latter mainly got the characters and costumes, where hopefully they will add more of them in the future. It would be nice to finally have Dixie Kong playable in a console Mario Kart game. And all-but-one of the exclusive courses made it into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where they are preserved. Only the Piranha Plant Pipeline (also known as Pipe Canyon) will be fully lost.

Well, three years ago I was an advocate of a second Booster Course Pass to truly preserve as much as possible, but what we got was already quite good. And the lost course will eventually return in the future, maybe already as DLC for Mario Kart World. It is even in the current rotation of Mario Kart Tour, where it may be the last chance to play the Piranha Plant Pipeline in the game. But best not to start now...

Metroid Ravenous Leaked

One of my overblown expectations for the June Nintendo Direct included the announcement of a new Metroid project by MercurySteam, which didn't happen. But it looks like we might be still getting one in the near future.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Safety in Brazil temporarily listed a rating for an upcoming Nintendo title, called Metroid Ravenous. This was obviously by mistake and has been removed already, but the internet sees everything and never forgets, so you can find some screenshots of the matter, originating from UniversoNintendo.com.

Well, this is certainly exciting. MercurySteam could have been working on a Super Metroid remake and that would have been awesome as well, but amidst the current wave of remakes of beloved classics from the 90s, it's probably best to follow up directly on Metroid Dread, which came out in 2021 and was absolutely fantastic. After having waited 19 years between Metroid 4 and 5, shortening that wait to five years would certainly be a refreshing change of pace for the franchise, right in time for its 40th Anniversary.

The title "Ravenous" indicates that Samus is not yet done facing her dark Chozo connections, as revealed by the antagonist Raven Beak. Sorry, English is not my first language and I interpreted the word as "raven-like", but it actually means "voracious". My bad. But in that case...

It probably refers to how far Samus's Metroid DNA has evolved. The game may even focus on her Metroid siphoning abilities, where this could go into a similar direction as the Hypermode in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and let you temporarily turn into your Metroid form / change into the Metroid Suit.

Anyway, the cat is out of the bag and the bag is out of the river, so Nintendo might as well release a trailer for the game as soon as they have one ready. Show us what this is about. I'd also love to see a Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade for Metroid Dread, while they are at it.

Mario Kart World: Drill and Boomerang Rally Added

After the addition of Bob-omb Blast back in March, the latest update for Mario Kart World adds some new features as well, and promises a series of similar free content updates for the future. With version 1.7.0 they have added two new rallies for the Knockout Tour: the Drill and the Boomerang Rally.

It's probably the easiest way to expand the game, without actually adding anything. Out of the 202 routes, which are connecting the different courses, only 62 were used in the Grand Prix mode and the Knockout Tour. The rest has been exclusive to the VS Races and Free Roam mode. So, it makes a lot of sense to utilize them for additional Knockout Tours.

Ideally, there would be custom or random rallies for the Knockout Tour, but having more dedicated rallies certainly is more convenient when playing online. Custom rallies would require the players to vote for six courses one after another, instead of just a single rally. And nobody has the patience for that.

You can access these new rallies in a similar way to the Booster Course Pass cups in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where you now flip between two rows via the L and R buttons. Next to the two new rallies, there are open slots for six more, which they are going to add in future updates.

In addition, you can now use your sticker collection in the Photo Mode. It's almost strange that this wasn't in the game already, especially since Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury had a similar feature to reuse the Miiverse stamps. And this is finally adding a little more value to collecting all these stickers.

The update even got its own trailer. And you can find the full patch notes on Nintendo's website, where there have been a number of tweaks. For example, they have raised the acceleration of characters and vehicles with low acceleration.

If they add two more rallies per update, then this means that we will be getting three more of these updates, hopefully each of them also coming with their own additions. These could include 200cc, more outfits, and potentially even new drivers. (See here for more ideas.)

And it doesn't look like they are interested in adding more Knockout Tour rallies via paid DLC, if there's going to be any. However, this fits the general idea that paid DLC would probably expand the world with new islands around it, e.g. DK Island. And these islands wouldn't connect as nicely to the rest of the world, so they may not contribute to the Knockout Tour in any case. Each island could serve as an individual Grand Prix cup, however, with four new courses per island.

Hopefully, they will release new magnets on the Nintendo Store once all rallies and eventual DLC cup have been released. I need my fridge trophies.

Ocarina of Time Remake Suggestions

Back in May I talked about how a full re-imagining of Ocarina of Time could look like. Well, from the little footage we've got, it's too early to tell whether the upcoming Ocarina of Time for Nintendo Switch 2 will be like that, or more of a faithful remake, where they reuse the game's code and simply wrap a modern graphics engine and some shiny new cutscenes around it (like they did with the new Star Fox).

Whatever might be the case, I took some notes while replaying the Nintendo 64 classic for things that they should improve either way, going beyond what they already have done with the Nintendo 3DS version. This will be a long list, so you have to hit the "read more" button.

Replaying Ocarina of Time via NSO

After the announcement of the Ocarina of Time remake for this year, I felt like I needed to refresh my memories of the original game. Well, it's not like I have forgotten everything, because I have played the N64 original so many times over the years that most of it is ingrained into my brain. But it has been over nine years since I had last played the game and some details got blurry...

The best example are probably the Gold Skulltulas. There was a time where I could have listed you all 100 of them of the top of my head. And while I still was able to do this for the most part, I was confused about what Skulltulas on the overworld only appear for young Link and for adult Link. If that's not a dire reason to replay the game immediately, then I don't know...

Last time I played the game on the Wii U. It was during the 30th Anniversary of Zelda, where I had made it my goal to play through absolutely all Zelda games on the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, before Breath of the Wild came out. Unsurprisingly, my experience with the game on the Nintendo Switch (2) has been very similar, where a lot of my sentiments from the time still stand. And Nintendo has done some improvements to Nintendo 64 service since its lackluster launch back in 2021, so that it's not any worse than the Wii U version used to be.

Overall, the Nintendo 3DS remake is still the preferred way to play the game (next to the unofficial Ship of Harkanian PC port of the Nintendo 64 version), but for this blog I like to go with Nintendo's latest offerings to see what they can do for you. (That and playing on my Switch 2 is simply the most convenient for me right now.)

In late 2024, I even got the Nintendo 64 controller for the Nintendo Switch, but I probably should have saved that money, because the classic Nintendo 64 analogue stick is absolutely awful. Not sure how we ever managed to play games with that thing... Nintendo really should have modernized this into something that looks mostly like the N64 stick, but feels better.

Well, the main reason to buy the N64 controller was the default button mapping for the normal controllers, which wasn't exactly ideal either. You had to hold down ZR to turn the four face buttons into the C-buttons and it was utterly confusing. So, at the time it seemed like going with the dedicated Nintendo 64 controller was the best option, despite its stick. But shortly after I bought the peripheral, Nintendo introduced per-game button mapping for the service, which eliminates most problems.

It should have been like this from the beginning. And now it looks like Nintendo was making it shitty on purpose, just so that people would buy the additional hardware. It certainly had worked in my case...

Anyway, I went with a Pro Controller in the end and my button mapping for Ocarina of Time looks like the following:

• A: C down
• B: A
• X: C left
• Y: B
• R: C right
• ZR: R
• ZL: Z
• D-pad: C-buttons 

This felt like the most natural with how the buttons on the Nintendo 64 controller were arranged and how they are displayed on the HUD. The only problem was that I'm using the B-button to confirm things inside the game, while it's still the A-button within the menus, which kept confusing me. But this is a general problem, which you also have when coming from a PlayStation or Xbox controller back to Nintendo.

But before you set up your controls, you should pick the right version to play. I simply went with the PAL/European version at first, because that's the one I grew up with, but after Dodongo's Cavern I realized that I probably should have went with the NTSC/North American version instead, which is based on 60Hz instead of just 50. As a result, the PAL version doesn't actually run at 20FPS, but 16.66FPS, making it even more sluggish.

And the difference is quite noticeable. The North American version runs more smoothly and also slightly faster. In the early game you have to run around a lot, back and forth from Hyrule Castle Town to other places, and here the slight increase in speed made things already less dull. I also noticed the difference when killing Gold Skulltulas with the Fairy Slingshot. In the PAL version, I often miss the second shot, because the spider is still in its hurt animation from the first shot. In the NTSC version on the other hand, I can just fire at the spider twice in a row without missing.

The Shooting Gallery mini-game becomes even harder, though, especially since you still have the problem of the all-or-nothing stick sensitivity with these emulated versions. But luckily, there is now the rewind, so you can just quickly undo any mistake. It makes most mini-games easier, where it also helped with the fishing. I got a 20-pounder on my "first try", because I could just rewind whenever it broke from the line. I say "most" mini-games, however, because the Bombchu Bowling Alley is still a pain, even with rewind.

The rewind is generally nice to undo small mistakes with great effect, for example in lava rooms where you need to collect Silver Rupees. Or if you accidentally jump down somewhere where it would take some significant backtracking to return to where you were.

Whenever I replay Ocarina of Time, I try to mix up the dungeon order a bit and this run was no different. Though, for a moment I thought about just doing the vanilla order, but with the remake in mind it's interesting to think about how it could allow for a little more freedom, so I was testing my limits.

As adult Link I first tried to achieve as much as possible without going into the Forest Temple as I could. Free Epona, grab the Hookshot, clear the Ice Cavern, become a member of the Gerudo, and complete the Biggoron's Sword trading sequence, all without going into any of the temples.

Then I proceeded with the Water Temple to secure the Longshot and finished the Fire Temple, before finally doing the Forest Temple. The Fairy Bow is quite the gatekeeper in the game's second half: it unlocks two target shooting mini-games and the whole Big Poe hunt, while it's also required to finish the Water Temple. None of the other temple items in the game give you as much to do.

And of course, beating the Forest Temple is required to get Sheik out of the way, so I could proceed with the Bottom of the Well, the Spirit Temple, and the Gerudo Training Ground. And only then I went back to the Water Temple to clear it, which finally lets you learn the Nocturne of Shadow for the Shadow Temple.

It's a shame that Nintendo has never added the Master Quest version to their online service, because I'd like to give those goofy dungeons another run as well. But with the upcoming remake this will probably not happen anytime soon... Maybe I will also go and play the Nintendo 3DS remake one more time in the next months, but I didn't like how they mirrored everything for the Master Quest mode.

And for now I have achieved my goal of refreshing my memories, so I'm ready for the remake and prepared to talk more about Ocarina of Time in the upcoming weeks and months. It will be exciting to see how the game has evolved once more, and I do have collected a number of ideas for how to improve it. More on that later...

30 Years of Nintendo 64

It's probably not a coincidence that Nintendo is launching the new Star Fox remake this week, since this is marking the 30th anniversary of the Nintendo 64. We will also be getting a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time later this year, and if this is marking a new trend, then we might be getting a Super Mario 64 remake afterwards, to complete the trinity of Shigeru Miyamoto's first 3D hits before he retires.

The Nintendo 64 holds a special place in my heart, because it was my first own home console. I got it only three years later, for Christmas 1999, the fancy grape purple edition (see here). But games like Ocarina of Time were absolutely magical at the time, which might be difficult to grasp today, with the clunky controller and the blocky graphics. There was nothing like this before. It was a whole world in your TV, which felt alive and which you could freely explore in three dimensions.

And there was a big emphasis on those three dimensions. Just look at the first dungeon, Inside the Great Deku Tree, with its multiple floors, where you had to jump down from the very top to break through a giant spider net in the middle. While you had tower-like dungeons in A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, where you could drop down from one floor into the rooms below, such verticality in the level design wasn't possible before. It was awe-inspiring.

Another thing I always like to praise about the games from this early 3D era is their atmosphere. What they may have lacked in the number of polygons, they made up for it with incredible soundscapes and soundtracks. Play the rattling of the windmill in Kakariko Village, with birds humming in the distance, and I'm immediately taken back into the place, fully immersed.

Anyway, it looks like the remake of Star Fox is more of a remaster with a full engine swap, re-using the code base of the Nintendo 3DS version. Let's see whether they will take the same approach for Ocarina of Time or give us a complete re-imagining. In any case, it will be a nice way of celebrating 30 years of this beloved classic console.

30 Years of Quake

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30 years ago, on June 22nd 1996, Quake was released. One day before the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 in Japan, it was at the forefront of real-time 3D rendering, offering fully polygonal models and levels in three dimensions. It was the spawn of a new era in gaming in the late 90s, where such 3D graphics were the shiny new thing, but still so blocky that you had to make up for it somehow.

And games like Quake, or later Ocarina of Time, did with it their atmosphere, created by fantastic sound effects and a striking soundtrack, in this case provided by Nine Inch Nails. With many inspirations taken from Lovecraft, Quake created something unique, something that has left a legacy until today with a number of sequels.

Personally, I'm only half a fan of the series, where I've primarily played the multiplayer episodes: Quake III Arena, Quake Live and Quake Champions. But eSports is another category where Quake had excelled things – to this day it's one of the fastest first person shooters with one of the highest skill ceilings, where it's incredibly impressive to watch professional games of Quake, even though the Quake Pro League sadly ended in 2023.

But you have to give it to Bethesda for keeping things alive with Quake Champions nevertheless. It's currently running its 30th season, while the average player count on Steam is around 250... This is rivaling the numbers of Sony's mega-flop Concord from two years ago, but Quake Champions somehow manages to stay afloat, with one main developer behind the project – a level designer who also creates weapon and character skins, while constantly delivering new features and improvements for the game, working close with the game's tiny community. It's truly refreshing to see this in modern times.

And it seems like the plans are to slowly transition Quake Champions out of its live service model, like how it was done with Quake Live, to preserve it for the future, despite its small following. The latest Battle Passes have been offering players a second chance of obtaining certain cosmetics and weapon skins, some of which that weren't available for years. For example, the current pass (which is entirely free) finally brings back all of the time-limited QuakeCon weapon skins, just in time for QuakeCon 2026 from August 6th to 9th – an event that has been "Quake" in name only, for several years now.

Still, if you're a fan of classic Arena Shooters, then you should give this a try, and now is a great time to do so. But if you're sticking to a Nintendo Switch, you can also play the remasters of the first two games by Nightdive Studios, with lots of additional content. Though, I personally would recommend to use something with a mouse and keyboard...