Donkey Kong Bananza vs. Harmony

Today Nintendo has aired a Direct for Donkey Kong Bananza and the game looks quite phenomenal, they are truly doing something fresh and grand with this classic IP. The Direct revealed a young Pauline as DK's singing sidekick and since this is likely coming from the creators of Super Mario Odyssey, it feels like a potential prequel to that game, where Pauline became the mayor of New Donk City. Some more connections between Donkey Kong and Super Mario, besides the usual Mario Karting, certainly wouldn't hurt. After all, it all began with Donkey Kong on Arcade.

Anyway, something about the footage felt quite familiar to me and it wasn't the Super Mario Odyssey style and outfits. It was about a singing girl riding on some big animal, who can even transform into bigger animals with the power of "Bananza", like a running Zebra and a flying Ostrich. It reminds me of the cancelled game by Retro Studios, called "Harmony", where a demo of it was leaked alongside a Nintendo Switch devkit dump earlier this year.

You can read some technical stuff about it on TCRF. There also used to be some footage of it, but it was taken down, where you will have to settle for a video from Arlo. Anyway, in the game you were going to play a redheaded girl, who sings to summon different creatures, like some grassy plant giant, who even has a similar statue to Donkey Kong. And then she is riding on their tops as you control these creatures, just like young Pauline on Donkey Kong. It wasn't anything amazing, so I'm not disappointed that this project didn't go anywhere, but to me it seems like some essence of this is going to live on with Donkey Kong Bananza.

Since the Harmony demo is from 2017, the prototyping Switch days, I doubt that Bananza had any influence on its cancellation. Like, the similarities could have been considered a problem, but I feel like it's more likely that there was a healthy influence. Maybe there was and we could hear about this in the developer interviews. Maybe Retro Studios was even involved in the development somewhat, but they were busy with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, so it's doubtful.

In any case, the duo of Donkey Kong and Pauline has a lot more charm, so I certainly prefer that direction. And this truly has to manifest in the next Super Smash Bros. game somehow – I don't want the old Donkey Kong anymore, I want DK & Pauline. The Kong Bananza could even become his Final Smash.

Another game that I was reminded of by the footage is Tears of the Kingdom. The Lagoon Layer looks a lot like the Sky Islands. And the giant holes that lead down to the next layer feel a lot like the chasms into the Depths. If only the digging would have been as smooth in that game...

Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo Switch 2

Super Smash Bros. finds itself in a similar position to Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch 2. Both franchises usually only produce one game per system, if at all, and both have gotten their most extensive and ambitious entry in the series so far on the Nintendo Switch, with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Animal Crossing: New Horizons respectively. These games can still be played on the Nintendo Switch 2 and with Kirby Air Riders and Splatoon Raiders in the making, we shouldn't expect successors anytime soon, since these projects block their usual developers.

Of course, Masahiro Sakurai may retire after Air Riders and never make another Smash Bros. game again in his life, where someone else might take over, but we all know that this is not how famous producers roll. He will likely return to Smash Bros. after development of this side project has finished later this year, but this still means that we shouldn't expect a successor to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the next two or three years.

As for Ultimate, it's possible that they may update the game for Nintendo Switch 2 somehow, but we shouldn't expect any meaningful additions here, like new stages or fighters, though it would certainly be lovely. And it won't fix the game's biggest issue, which is the latency based netcode, where a change to rollback netcode wouldn't be possible due the required backwards compatibility, where you will still be playing against Nintendo Switch users. And even for a new Smash game on the Nintendo Switch 2 rollback might still be too tricky to implement, since the game isn't just about itemless 1v1s. We'll see.

The next game will have to face a number of challenges anyway, the biggest one being Super Smash Bros. Ultimate itself. With 89 fighters and 115 stages to offer, it creates a similar situation to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and its 96 courses, where it will be difficult to top this. Mario Kart World doesn't even try and instead went into a completely different direction, much to its success.

And this might also be an option for the next Super Smash Bros. title – don't just make it the next game in the series, make it a completely new game. So far every entry has always built upon its predecessors, step by step. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate even used most of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U as a foundation to make "Everyone is here!" possible, arguably the greatest moment in the franchise's history.

But it's easy to tell how historically grown the series is at this point and how much dead wood it's been carrying. By focusing on bringing back most of the classic stages in the series, there was ultimately little room for new ones. And a bunch of the characters only exist on the roster, because they used to be in one of the past titles, not because they have any real relevance today.

Just look at Sheik, who has been in every entry ever since his/her introduction in Melee, where Ocarina of Time was such a massive milestone that it led to four character additions at the time. But the character of Sheik is long in the past, never to be featured in any of the Zelda games again, where today the spotlight in Smash Bros. may feel a bit odd. And Ganondorf, even though his moveset has evolved a little bit, is still a heavyweight Captain Falcon clone at his core... Which probably won't ever change, unless Super Smash Bros. itself changes.

And that's the idea behind a reboot: ignore everything that came before. Treat it like a completely new thing, as if Super Smash Bros. was first made today. Mainly use the latest iterations of Nintendo's characters as an inspiration to make it a true product of its era. And don't limit yourself by any conventions of how Super Smash Bros. was played before.

Let's take Samus, for example. We're long past any range limitations with attacks, so there is no good reason why she has to fight with such a limited Power Beam. Firing long-range beams should be her normal attacks, where potentially she should even have access to the Wide and Wave Beam upgrades. She should also be able to crouch slide, like in Metroid Dread, and the Grapple Beam could be so much snappier.

Donkey Kong may come with his redesign from Donkey Kong Bananza, even when people haven't warmed up to it yet. And gameplay-wise he could become the Anti-Steve, a character who is able to completely demolish the stage (at least temporarily). Someone wants to recover? Just rip off the stage's corner and throw it at them!

They could also go crazy with Link and give him abilities from Tears of the Kingdom, like Fuse, Recall and Ascend. The latter could be his recovery move, where he could dive right through the stage from below. Recall could become a fancy reflector and Fuse could let him do all sorts of things with the game's items, like merging a baseball bat into the Master Sword.

If this all sounds ridiculously overpowered to you, then keep in mind that this article was written by a Min Min main, who obviously doesn't care for restraint. But the way of how they had translated ARMS into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was truly something else – a character that feels like no other in the entire game. And maybe this shouldn't be an anomaly, maybe that's how every character should get treated going forward. Playing Samus in Super Smash Bros. should feel like playing a Metroid game, not like playing a completely crippled version of her, which conforms to certain basics. (If we ever see the Knight from Hollow Knight as a guest character, then I expect the same here.)

With every fighter redesigned completely from scratch, the roster will get much smaller, of course. But the roster will likely end up smaller in the next game in any case and the huge number of 3rd party deals won't be sustainable forever. However, if everyone is new, then it will be much easier to accept any cuts, because ultimately no one is truly returning in such a scenario. You will get a new Mario, a new Donkey Kong, a new Link, and a new Samus, instead of the same old characters from the past six titles.

This philosophy should also go into all the other aspects of the game, like stages and items. Don't take anything for granted. Don't even take for granted for how things are supposed to work. Items and stages could be completely connected in this game, where instead of having all these random drops, the items become an integral part of each stage.

Let's say that there is a "Great Sky Island" stage, based on Tears of the Kingdom, then it could feature Bomb Flowers, Puffshrooms and different Zonai Emitters as its items. They would work similar to your classic Bombs, Smoke Balls and so on, but they appear as a natural part of the stage. There could even be a Device Dispenser present in the background, which spits out different Zonai capsules.

Or, in a Super Mario stage you would find ?-blocks for your typical power-ups, like the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, Super Leaf and alike. Pokéballs would only be present in Pokémon stages. Maybe some stages (and franchises) won't have items at all, which is also okay. There doesn't necessarily need to be a default set that always appears, but this is where Assist Trophies come in place, which could function similar to the Flying Man on Magicant. Instead of an actual item that you pick up, they should work like stage bosses, where you can get them on your side by attacking them. For example, there could be a Hyrule Castle stage from Breath of the Wild, which features a Guardian as the "main item".

By making items an integral part of the stages, it would already add a unique experience to every stage by default, making the stage selection a lot more interesting. But it would also limit things, where you won't be able to summon Metroids at Hyrule Castle any longer. This is just one possible idea for a different approach, however, and you would be able to turn off items in any case, together with stage hazards.

If the stages were to get more crazier by design, then having competitive variants of each stage would become even more important. We already had the Battlefield- and Omega-versions in the past, but maybe a new game could offer both a normal and a competitive variant for all its stages, where the latter features a simpler layout, no stage hazards and no items. If you play "For glory" online (which really should return), then it will choose those, where such an approach will offer much more variety than just playing Final Destination all day long.

Anyway, this article has turned from the question of Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo Switch 2 into a discussion of how to reboot the series... But it's by far the most interesting approach, where after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate it's time for something fresh.

Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch 2

Today Nintendo has announced that Splatoon 3 will be getting a major update with new weapons and a returning map (Urchin Underpass), as well as enhancements for the Nintendo Switch 2. On top of that, they are making a Switch 2-exclusive spin-off to the series, Splatoon Raiders.

That's exciting news for Splatoon fans, but for fans of Animal Crossing this means that it might take years for a new game to arrive, since both series are (sadly) developed by the same team, Nintendo EPD5. This has been an issue for a while, where Animal Crossing: New Horizons could have done well with regular updates, which simply wasn't in the cards due to the development setup.

Considering that it's actually the second-best selling Nintendo Switch title, with a gigantic margin even, it's a questionable decision not to have a dedicated team for the franchise. Other franchises, like The Legend of Zelda, even get multiple development teams working on different projects in parallel, like Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom. Of course, Animal Crossing is a franchise where one game per generation is more than enough, where it is reasonable to let its developers work on other projects in the meantime. But Splatoon has also become quite popular and both series profit tremendously from regular content updates...

Now, the best we can hope for in the near future is that they will also consider making a similar update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Well, they said that version 2.0.0 was going to be the last major update for the game, but this was many years ago and I don't think anyone would mind if they are going to change their minds on this. Similar to Splatoon 3, this game isn't really a candidate for a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, because you need it to stay compatible with the Nintendo Switch for the multiplayer stuff, so it would also have to be some free update, where all the new contents are accessible to everyone with the game.

As for what they could add to the game at this point, they could follow the example of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and its Booster Course Pass. Here they took contents from the mobile game, Mario Kart Tour, brushed them up and brought them onto the Nintendo Switch. Why not do the same with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? They have stopped development on that title as well and it's filled neat things that people would certainly like to have in New Horizons. Whether that's furniture, clothing, or even new fruits, there is a lot they could re-use here to add more value.

And let's not forget about all the things that never made the cut from New Leaf, like the Splatoon and Legend of Zelda guest characters, or being able to create your own galleries in the museum. Sprinkle some of the most wanted quality of life improvements on top and you will make a lot of fans happy. Let players create a second island on Nintendo Switch 2 systems and you will find people upgrade to the new hardware for this alone... With that in mind, it doesn't necessarily need a new Animal Crossing game on Switch 2, at least not anytime soon. They could just iterate New Horizons and make it the best it can be.

As for the next game, they will have to come up with something innovative here to set it apart from New Horizons and to also create an experience that wouldn't have been possible on the Nintendo Switch already, like how they made Mario Kart World an open world driving game. People will still be able to play New Horizons on their Switch 2s, whether it will receive a shiny update or not, and there needs to be more than prettier graphics to warrant a new game.

One idea would be to offer much bigger towns than in any game before, and also being able to join online communities, so you can live together with friends all over the world, not just the people in your household who you share a Nintendo Switch with. Being able to interact with others online was a massive seller during the covid pandemic and such a game would deepen this aspect. This would also be a huge incentive to invest into Nintendo Switch Online, which is what Nintendo wants us to do in any case.

However, if you've been on a community Minecraft server or anything similar, you'll know that there is the risk of such servers dying down quickly. And once you're the only one taking care of the town, it's easy to give up entirely on the game, because being alone in a multiplayer environment feels much lonelier than just playing in singleplayer. So, Nintendo would have to come up with a more dynamic approach here, where people can move to other communities (with all their belongings). In the end, living together with other players online should enrich the experience, without taking away from the classic charm. But it's just one idea.

Whatever the next game will look like, the most important thing is that they bring back the Zelda crossover contents. I'll never forgive them for leaving them out in New Horizons!

Tears of the Kingdom – Sage Fabrics

It's been a while since I have played Tears of the Kingdom. In fact, I haven't really touched the game since completing it about a year ago. And given that you own a Nintendo Switch 2 already, there are now several good reasons to revisit the title, such as improved visuals or the new voice memories in the Zelda Notes app. But if you stay with the Nintendo Switch for now, like I do, then the new amiibo will have to do.

Sadly, they still haven't fixed the amiibo system (and probably never will). So, if you want the new paraglider fabrics in a timely manner, you will have to save scum, where at least this still works fine. I got lucky with Sidon, who gave me his fabric on first try, and with Yunobo after a couple of tries. But in case of Tulin and Riju I had to reload over a dozen times.

The designs of the new fabrics are nothing outstanding, but still quite good nevertheless. They were at the risk of treading the grounds of redundancy, since you already have the fabrics for the different tribes in the game and also the four Champion fabrics, where now they had come up with something new. But Riju's is the only one where this might be an issue, but I personally like its design much better than Urbosa's or the Gerudo fabric.

And the others are a bit more original. With Tulin it even looks like you have mounted him right above you, which is funny. And Yunobo's fabric is bearing the YunobCo symbol, which is really cool, but it would have been disappointing if this weren't the case, and this feels like an omission in the main game, even. The only letdown might be Sidon, where I personally like the other Zora designs better, but at least they were trying to do something different.

Anyway, below you can find a gallery of all the new stuff. For each of the fabrics you can see the message when obtaining them, their full design in the paraglider rework, and how they look in action.

 

Sage of Wind Fabric

 

 

Sage of Fire Fabric

 

Sage of Water Fabric

 

Sage of Lightning Fabric

Got the Tears of the Kingdom Sages amiibo

While the entire Nintendo community is busy with showing off their shiny, new Nintendo Switch 2s, my inner Nintendo simp will have to settle with what's probably the least interesting thing that came out today: the four amiibo of the Sages. Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon and Riju, all featured in their awakened form, now also get some well-deserved attention in the form of plastic figurines, equipped with NFC chips.

It's only fair after how they had to take the backseat to the Champions in Breath of the Wild (well, technically it was Teba in that game and not Tulin), but sadly they didn't get the same four-in-one pack. Or maybe this is a good thing, because some people might only want one of them, e.g. Sidon. And the prices are 33% higher this time around.

The figurines themselves are nice. They can't really compete with the Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf from late 2023, but I do personally like them more than the Link and Zelda that we got in this series. Wielding the Champion weapons makes them look a lot more interesting already.

Riju and Tulin are quite filigreed, especially Riju, and they come with bent see-through stands to keep them in the air. Yunobo is very sturdy, not as heavy as Daruk used to be, but it still feels quite nice. And Sidon shines with his impressively detailed crown and collar.

They truly don't have to hide from their Champion counterparts, where they show more details here and there. For example, Sidon's Lightscale Trident actually shows those little, cyan pendulums beneath the top part. But they still go nicely next to each other, as you can see in the photos above.

What's not so nice are the new backsides for the amiibo boxes. They are now completely generic, only telling you that you can use amiibo with compatible software. And what software that might be is now up to you to find out... To be fair, with an amiibo from Tears of the Kingdom, you can make an educated guess, but it was still nice to read what it actually does within the game.

Well, it's curious that they were still featuring the Nintendo 3DS on the package back in 2023, where it's understandable that they don't want to show that any longer, or even things like saving your Mii on the amiibo. But they could have swapped all that for the Nintendo Switch 2 and generally put some more effort into this.

Of course, this isn't a deal breaker and most people may even throw the package away anyway. However, I always cut off the cardboard part to collect them for later reference and because the artworks look nice. And now there is a stylistic split between the first three Tears of the Kingdom amiibo and this group.

Still, I'm looking forward to the Mineru amiibo and to complete the collection. I have yet to scan them for their fabrics, where I haven't even seen them all, but I will do this later today or tomorrow and then make another post.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Echo Favorites Added

Today Nintendo has launched updates for all Nintendo Switch games that will receive Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade, whether that's for free or as a paid Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, for tomorrow's launch of the new console. Some titles, like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, also got a compatibility fix. Most of these updates only relate to the Nintendo Switch 2, but some games also got some general improvements on top, where you will profit from them on the Nintendo Switch as well – the updates are downloaded in any case.

Tears of the Kingdom, for example, has received the paraglider fabrics for the four new Sage amiibo of Sidon, Riju, Tulin and Yunobo, which will also be released tomorrow. And both it and Breath of the Wild now support Portuguese as a system language option (voices will be in English, however).

But the big winner in all of this is The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, because its version 1.1.0 contains what's by far the most requested feature for the game: the ability to favorite echoes and then display only your favorites. This is the message in the game for the new feature:

This functionality gets unlocked once you've obtained 30 echoes. There is no limit to how many favorites there can be, so you can mark all of them, even though this would defeat the purpose. You can also manage your favorites from within the Notebook, which is a bit more comfortable. And you can sort your favorites in the same ways as all the echoes. There are even new background visuals for the favorites in quick menu, so you can tell its state on first glance:

Overall, this is a fantastic addition, which can make managing your echoes much simpler, instead of only relying on the "most used" sorting. Ideally, there also would have been filters for certain echo types (e.g. fire enemies), but this alone will help quite a lot.

The exact same thing was even part of my update suggestions for the game from last year, where this is would have been nice to have since the beginning. But better late than never... And I'm still planning on replaying the game in Hero Mode, once I have a Nintendo Switch 2, where I will certainly make good use of the favorites going forward.

And it's a shame that they didn't bother with adding this feature to the looooong material list in Tears of the Kingdom, where you had the exact same issue. Or that they didn't bother with improving anything in Breath of the Wild, where it could make good use of all the quality of life changes from Tears of the Kingdom. These are the Zelda games where they are selling these new Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, after all. But maybe this will still happen later on... Tears of the Kingdom will need one more update for the Mineru amiibo anyway.

If the favorite feature in Echoes of Wisdom gets received well, which it should, then Nintendo may even consider doing similar improvements to the other Nintendo Switch Zelda games. And they really should. No game is ever perfect, but they can strive to be.

Nintendo Music: Tears of the Kingdom Added

There it is! Just in time for the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition release of Tears of the Kingdom, we get the entire soundtrack on Nintendo Music. It contains a total of 344 tracks, fully based on the official soundtrack from last year, track by track, which means that it also has all the trailer music. This new playlist is a beast to listen to and a gigantic addition with almost twelve hours, arguably the most important one for the franchise.

But of course they shouldn't stop here. Hopefully, the soundtrack of the Link's Awakening remake will be coming soon, to cover as much from the Nintendo Switch as possible. There has yet to be an official soundtrack for Echoes of Wisdom, where they will probably release that first, before they add it to Nintendo Music... Which means that it could still take years before it appears in the app, given that they bother with releasing a CD version of it to begin with, but I personally liked the game's music quite a lot.

The soundtracks for A Link Between Worlds and Majora's Mask are also good candidates to be dropped at any point. With Twilight Princess I'm guessing that they might wait for the game to be included into the Nintendo Switch Online library, where they could even do like a double release, where you get the GameCube game and the soundtrack in the same week. This could also be true for stuff like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, but those have low priority and first there needs to be Nintendo DS games.

Anyway, there was no new Zelda music last month, but instead they have added a "Best of: The Legend of Zelda series" playlist, which is so shallow that it wasn't even worth mentioning until now. At least they are updating it when adding new games, where in case of Tears of the Kingdom they've added the main theme, the opening and Lookout Landing...

Age of Imprisonment – Creator's Voice

Nintendo has released the newest episode of Creator's Voice, where 3rd or 2nd party developers talk about their upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 projects. And today it was the turn of Koei Tecmo and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment.

They do confirm a number of things that we have already been speculating about... You will get to know the masked sages. You will be able to combine items (like with Fuse or Ultrahand) and you can also team up with allies. Nothing surprising here.

But there is also a brief amount of new footage, mainly of Rauru fighting, expanding what we had seen in the announcement trailer. And it looks much smoother now, almost as if the original trailer footage ran still on an old Nintendo Switch. It probably didn't, but it was an immediate concern that they will prioritize having as many monsters and effects on the screen as possible over performance. The difference may also come from resolutions, where the trailer was in 4k. They do explicitly mention having higher frame rates than on Nintendo Switch, which is to be expected... And having a higher frame rate than Age of Calamity would be great...

It also would be great if they were to release a Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade of the predecessor, so it can profit from higher and smoother frame rates as well. That was by far one of the biggest points of criticism about it.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Special Episode

The Nintendo Switch edition of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker can be expanded via DLC, the so called "Special Episode". It's actually quite cheap, costing only 5.99€ in Europe, where it recently even had a discount, making this the ideal thing to grab from Gold Points before they expire.

And it does add an entire episode to the game, featuring 18 courses in total. The catch is that only six of these courses are actually new, where the other two thirds are remixed versions of some of the original levels. There are also no Pixel Toads, making this feel very similar to the game's Bonus Episode overall.

What makes this stand out is that the entire episode was developed with the new "Adventure for Two" cooperative mode in mind. Unlike the main game, it even allows Captain Toad and Captain Toadette to travel together, which really rights a wrong.

It's also themed after crowns, where the two search for the legendary Super Crown from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which came out about two months before this DLC. And you will collect Shiny Crowns at the end of each level, instead of the usual Power Stars. It's actually quite fitting for when you've obtained the crown from the Mummy-Me Maze Forever and now are looking for an adventure to show it off.

The focus on coop gets reflected by the tasks of the remixed stages, Crown Capture and Boo Spotting. In the former you have to collect five smaller crowns, where a timer runs between each of them. If you don't collect one fast enough, then the crowns will reset and you have to start over with the first. While this is doable on your own, it has been kept quite strict, meaning that a second player will make this much easier.

In case of the Boo Spottings, however, you will certainly need the power of two, because in these courses there is the focus on defeating lots and lots of Boos, which happens almost instantly when they are hit by two spotlights at once. For this reason it keeps spawning Double Cherries when you play alone and don't have a clone. Controlling two Toads at once is probably easier than coordinating with another player, but the problem with this "mode" is that the Boos often appear right in your face, so that you will lose your clone and then get cornered by an overwhelming amount of ghosts.

There are five of both these types, but there is also a mine cart variant of the Scalding Scaffold Sinkhole for some variety. And near the end Wingo's Double Trouble awaits, where you have to fight the final boss of the game once more, but this time he essentially ate a Double Cherry himself, so there's two of them...

Again, this is in the spirit of the cooperative mode, where then it's a 2v2. Fortunately, they don't make you go through a whole stage before the boss this time, so you can focus on the fight itself. It's also very easy to tell who the true Wingo is, but the timed challenge is quite unfair. If they both use the storm attack at the same time, meaning that no turnips appear for one turn, you can't make the time trial goal... You have to be very lucky.

In any case, the highlight of the DLC are the new courses. It starts with the Shifty Shrine, where the whole level repeatedly opens up and closes. The Spinning Starmaze has three interconnected, rotating rings and will be remembered as the biggest brain teaser in the game.

The absolute standout is the Goomba Galleon, however, which has this miniature pirate ship stranded on a beach. It's absolutely beautiful and you wish that the game had more sceneries like this to offer. Cocoa Meltdown is also quite memorable, essentially offering you some sort of Choco Lake level, where rising hot chocolate acts as lava.

Only Flip Panel Panic is a bit underwhelming, nothing that you haven't already seen a couple of times from the Wii, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS era of 3D Mario. And you have to be mentally prepared that the DLC ends on another variant of the Mummy-Me Maze Forever, called Chaos in the Grand Labyrinth.

But don't worry... it's actually much easier – I even did it on my first try after a couple of minutes. There are only 30 floors, instead of 50, and the floors are only one quarter of the size. Plus, they look much more friendly, because this takes place on the outside, and you only get chased by a single Mummy-Me through the entirety of the thing. Also, statues placed on the safe floors show you what enemies you will be dealing with next. It's almost like they wanted to make up for the original and make it more fun.

However, to offer a different sort of challenge, you now have to catch a mole to reveal the exit. Since they actively avoid you, this labyrinth isn't just about dodging enemies on your way to the exit any longer. Instead, you have to be a bit more strategic. On some floors there are even multiple moles and you have to find the right one. Again, luck can be a deciding factor here, where sometime you might be able to grab the mole right from the start, so that the floor only lasts for a second.

Another challenge comes from the hidden objective and this might actually take you a couple of attempts. This time you will form a Toad Brigade throughout the course, where up to three other Toads can follow you, and your goal is to get all of them to the end. It's probably the most difficult in the floors with the Flaptors – birds that dive down once they spot you – and the Bullet Bills. However, even without fulfilling this bonus objective, the episode will be displayed as completed in the main menu...

Sadly, Toadette doesn't actually wear the Super Crown in coop, once you've obtained it. I guess that Nintendo didn't want to explain why it doesn't turn her into Captain Peachette.

Anyway, if you don't mind the many remixed levels, the Special Episode is very charming addition to the game that even fills some holes. It's a second, more fun attempt at what the Bonus Episode always could and should have been. And since it doesn't cost much, this is a good DLC purchase.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Mummy-Me Maze Forever

As mentioned in the review for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the game does end on a challenge level that probably no one asked for – the "Mummy-Me Maze Forever". In there you are getting chased by one or multiple Cosmic Clones of Toad wrapped in bandages. There are similar bonus games that appear from time to time, meant for you to collect some coins and lives, but those only last for one minute. This here lasts until you die or reach the end... on floor 50.

It's a very Mario thing to do. Often the Super Mario games, whether it's 2D or 3D, invite you to complete them with per-level collectibles, such as Big Coins or Green Stars, on a mostly moderate difficulty level. This can be very fun and addicting, but your efforts are usually rewarded with some special course or world at the end, where the difficulty suddenly spikes and you're playing something straight out of Super Mario Maker (well, it's arguably not that bad). To be fair, the Mummy-Me Maze Forever is completely different in gameplay, but it does deliver that typical endgame challenge.

And while I was replaying Captain Toad on my Nintendo Switch, I've dreaded to return to this special stage, knowing that I will have to go through it again for true completion... It's like facing a tall mountain after a relaxing journey through flat terrain. However, it didn't turn out so bad. While it took me still more attempts than I'm willing to admit, I stayed motivated to try this maze again and again until I finally beat it... once more.

There are a number of tips on the internet about this challenge (for example on Reddit), but the most important realization is to not get distracted by coins too much. The bonus objective asks you to collect 5000, but the final floor alone will give you around 2000, so there is no need to go out of your way to collect more coins. This saves you from wasting time and making mistakes. Maybe you want to get a bit of a buffer during the earlier, easier floors, but that's it.

Later on you want to be heading straight for the exit, which is always placed at the opposite corner from where you start. It takes a while for the Mummy-Mes to spawn on each floor, where I usually just stand still for a second or two and turn the camera around to potentially scout the quickest (or only) route.

Luck can be a deciding factor in this challenge. Each floor has a preset of what and how many enemies will appear, which is helpful to know in advance to not get flanked, but the layout of the maze and any items in it (like the occasional Super Mushroom or Pickaxe) are entirely randomly generated each time. And sometimes you just need to get lucky, so that the way to the next floor is very straight-forward.

Hugging the walls can be a life savior, especially when you're chased by multiple mummies and you end up in a dead end. But for the most part you want to make sure that it never gets to that. Also, staying too close to the walls may also get you stuck accidentally on a corner, which can result in a hit. The last 15 floors are especially evil, because the fourth Mummy-Me falls so far behind that he can easily blindside you whenever you have to take a turn, so heading straight for the exit is usually your best strategy. This means that the quicker you get an overview of the current maze, the better.

I'm also not sure about turning the headlight off. To me it never made a big difference, because you will have to get so close to enemies in your path that they will notice you anyway. And you certainly want to keep the headlines on in the floors with Boos on them, because this is the only way to stun them.

The other enemies can be stunned with the touchscreen or motion-controlled pointer, where it's easier with the latter. With most enemies you don't have to bother, but it can be critical with the Fire Flowers, which are the enemies that hit me the most often. And I highly recommend to run via the ZL button (which has to be remapped in the system settings), so you never have to take your thumb off the right analogue stick. If you have someone to help you, you could also cheese things with Assist Mode.

Your efforts will be rewarded with a crown that Captain Toad or Toadette will be proudly wearing going forward. Well, since you most likely have already completed the rest of the game, this won't see much usage, unless you are saving it for the DLC courses in the Special Episode, like I did. And this will be the last topic about Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, coming tomorrow.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Review

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker originally came out on the Wii U in 2014 and was re-launched for both the Nintendo 3DS and Switch four years later. Out of the Mario franchise this is probably what comes closest to a Zelda game in spirit. Its idea even had been envisioned as a Zelda spin-off starring Link at first, before they made Captain Toad the main character and integrated it as a mini-game into Super Mario 3D World. But both this and the recent top-down Zelda installments embrace a cute diorama style, where you're looking onto a small toy world.

Now, I had played and completed the Wii U version about ten years ago and recently felt like replaying it on the Nintendo Switch, also because its DLC was discounted and seemed like the ideal thing to get from my last remaining Gold Points. And since I never had reviewed the original in any way or form, it is now time to make up for it, here on Hyrule Blog.

 

No Jumping!

The idea of the game is quite simple: it's a platformer where you can't jump. So, if you move off a ledge, you will just plummet down on the square right below (or to your death). You need to use things like slopes, staircases, elevators or ladders to get to higher grounds, where in many ways this is similar to your classic Zelda top-down gameplay. But Captain Toad can't hit enemies, unless he throws something at them (usually turnips) or picks up the Super Pickaxe power-up, which makes you invincible for a short period of time and lets you break through certain blocks.

What stands out the most are the levels themselves, however, where the majority of them was designed as these little dioramas, a chunk cut out of its environment, which you can freely rotate. A big part of the gameplay is exploring these miniature worlds in close detail, not just with your playable character, but also with the camera. Things may be hidden around a corner, where you don't see it initially. And this is really the core charm of the game.

 

Short & Sweet

With the nature of these dioramas comes a shorter level length overall, but they make up for it with replayability, or at least giving you an incentive to play them multiple times over. It's a very addicting game to complete, where it starts with collecting three crystals per stage. These stay collected even when you die, but you will have to finish the level. And they are used to unlock more stages, where going forward requires a certain number of them, but usually not all of them.

Then there's a hidden task, which gets revealed after finishing a level once, but often it's fun to figure it out beforehand. This can be things like collecting a number of coins, finding a hidden Gold Mushroom, defeating all enemies, activating switches only a certain amount of times, and so on. Collecting all three crystals and clearing the hidden task marks a level as completed.

Your record of collected coins is also stored per level, where it can be fun to top those, but the coins aren't required for anything outside of the hidden tasks. 100 of them will give you an extra 1-Up and that's it.

In addition, there is a "hide and seek" game with the Pixel Toad, where you have to go around the level to look for him. Often he is hidden quite cleverly, where you even need to progress in the stage a bit to reveal the spot. On the Wii U this feature required you to use the Toad amiibo, the later versions unlock it after the stage got finished once.

And if that's not enough to do for you, you can also challenge yourself by completing the stage in a given time. That can be surprisingly fun, because it's often like a puzzle in itself to figure out the fastest route. But you also need to be quite efficient in multi-tasking, which can lead to some frustrations (more on that later).

Both the Pixel Toad and the time trials are completely optional, so there is nothing to unlock from them, except for a mark on the cover of the corresponding book, which appears once you've done these tasks in all of its stages. The books are called "episodes" and there are three of them in total. The first two have 18 stages each, and the third one has 28 stages in total. This includes boss fights and some special levels, where you drive around in a mine cart and shoot turnips.

You will swap between Captain Toad and Captain Toadette between these episodes and within the third one. There is even a bit of a story, starring a big bird named Wingo, who steals Power Stars and riches from them two, usually leaving one of them alone and in search for the other. But it's very simple, the usual Mario stuff.

Throw, Turn & Touch

Now, for a game that is so strikingly simple, its controls are irritatingly overloaded, so much so that it often feels like you need three hands to play it. Controlling the camera is very important, where this gets primarily done with the right stick, like in many other games. And this poses the first problem, because in order to pick up things or sprint you have to press or hold either A, B or Y (the latter can also turn your headlight on and off for some reason), which means you have to change between those and the right stick all the time.

When playing the time trials or some of the bonus challenges, you often need to hold down one of these buttons to run faster, but you will also need to adjust the camera constantly... Well, some camera work can be done with the shoulder buttons (mainly L and R to rotate), but it's not as precise and intuitive as using the stick. And they also don't let you change the camera's Z-axis. The solution is to alter the button mappings in the system settings, so you can perform the basic actions with ZL or so, where the game doesn't have any control options outside of inverting the camera. And that isn't ideal.

On top of all that, the game was originally intended to be played with a touchscreen, so there are a lot of interactions in the environment that can only be achieved by touching things, like special platforms (and even the Pixel Toad). Enemies can also be stunned by touching them, which can be critical later on. If you don't play in handheld mode, then there will be a motion-controlled cursor, where you trigger things via ZR. If you've played Super Mario 3D World on the Nintendo Switch, then you will be familiar with this, because they have used the exact same method there. And this works surprisingly well, given that you perform this on its own. The problem arises from when you have to multi-task in the game's various challenges. Then you have to run, turn the camera and activate things with the touchscreen / cursor all at the same time, and this can get a bit overwhelming...

Another problem came from ladders, where sometimes you stop climbing them, even though you keep pressing in the same direction, because of the camera. That's a bit annoying. What can also be annoying are the wheels, which are automatically grabbed even when you are just running... Often you just want to run past by them, but then get stuck on them. At least they are much quicker to use on the Nintendo Switch thanks to motion controls. The propeller platforms are also gone entirely in the Switch version, which required you to blow into the microphone...

 

Bonus Book

After completing all three episodes, it unlocks the "Bonus Episode", which contains a number of different stages. First and foremost, there are four levels based on another Super Mario title: Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U and Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo 3DS and Switch.

The former were just levels taken from that game. They were slightly modified, so you can play through them without jumping, and weren't all that exciting. Meanwhile, the Super Mario Odyssey stages were all completely new and offer two true highlights with Secret of the Inverted Pyramid and Updown, Downtown. So, it's a very good trade overall.

That being sad, it still leaves a sour aftertaste that this game's connection to Super Mario 3D World got cut off like that. After the credits of the third episode have rolled, you could see how Captain Toad enters the Sprixie Kingdom to continue his journey there. So, it was set up as a prequel, which made sense, considering that both games share a lot of assets. And while Captain Toad also appears in Super Mario Odyssey, it was really 3D World that first featured him in a playable role that then spawned this game.

Ideally, the ports would have retained connections to both titles somehow. And even if the Sprixie Kingdom stages weren't that great, they could have remade the six original Captain Toad levels from 3D World instead and modified those a bit.

Speaking of modified levels, that's the other main part of the Bonus Episode. Seven of the existing stages got remixed here with new objectives. In the four "Toad Brigades" you will have find three other Toads, who will then follow you and need to be protected. And in the "Mummy-Me" variants you are chased by this game's version of the Cosmic Clones from other 3D Mario titles, so they will follow your every move and you can't ever stop for longer than a second.

This includes a variant of the first Draggadon encounter, the dragon boss that you've probably seen before from Nintendo's promotional material around the game. And at this point this boss has really overstayed its welcome, because one of these fights can be found in every single episode. If you also replay the levels for the target times, then you will have to deal with him eight times at minimum...

The "Mummy-Me Maze Forever" then takes things to the utmost extreme, where this a 50 floor long trial dungeon, something all too familiar to Zelda fans. It's that slap in the completionist's face that Mario games often like to do at the end and I will talk a bit more about this in a separate post...

Otherwise, the Bonus Episode also lets you replay all three prologues, as well as all the Coins Galore bonus stages, which appear from time to time and let you collect lots of coins (which are only good for adding lives). There are no Pixel Toads to seek in the entire episode, but it still wants you to speed-run all of its levels, with the exception of the Mummy-Me Maze Forever (luckily). So, all in all there is quite a bit to do in the game, which can keep you busy for up to twenty hours.

 

Track Together

The Nintendo Switch version comes with two two different cooperative modes, which can be played together locally: Assist Mode and Adventure for Two. The latter was added in the 1.1.0 update, so you can't use this out of the box.

In Assist Mode the two players have to share a set of Joy-Cons. The main player will use the left one and the assisting player the right one. As the assist you are in charge of the motion-controlled pointer, but you can also throw red turnips to defeat enemies, which is basically cheating in certain levels. So, use this mode to make your life easier with any of the game's challenges. Both players can control the camera, but player 1 gets priority here.

Adventure for Two on the other hand really lets you play together, where for most of the game the second player is represented by a purple Captain Toad. The camera stays centered on the first player, who again has camera control priority, and therefore this mode can get a bit frustrating for the second player, because you might end up out of view.

A Treasure

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a fantastic, little game. Other than the fact that you sometimes have to control three different things at the same time, it's highly recommended for everyone who is looking for a charming, slow-paced, puzzle-focused adventure title. The game also sells on a lower price point and will get a free update for Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5th, so you can't go wrong here.