Age of Imprisonment ~ Final Expectations

In less than five days Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment will launch and we know very little so far. It's a very different situation from Age of Calamity, where we knew the full roster weeks in advance, due to data-mines from the playable demo. It's probably the reason why we didn't get a demo this time, at least not one in advance...

I also haven't seen any leaks yet from early copies, so the only thing that might give us more information are reviews, which probably are under an embargo until Tuesday. At that point you might as well just wait and see for yourself. And I personally prefer to go into games with as little knowledge as possible to not ruin potential surprises, like what characters might be playable in addition to the ones we know of.

Anyway, I wanted to use this situation of knowing little to sort my thoughts about what I'd like to see from the game, one last time before we find everything out. Major spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom ahead!

The Legend of Zelda x Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It is finally happening! After more than five years, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be hosting a collaboration with The Legend of Zelda. You can learn all about it in today's announcement, but let's get through everything shown. There are new furniture and clothing items, as well as Tulin and Mineru as new villagers.

Like in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, you will need amiibo from the Zelda series to unlock these things. We don't know any specifics, but in the very least you will need Tulin's and Mineru's. Speaking of, we don't have a release date yet for the latter, but it should be available on January 15th at the latest, which is when the 3.0.0 update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons launches.

On Nookipedia you can find a complete list of all the Zelda contents in past Animal Crossing games, where most of it was in New Leaf. Some of these contents will return, but not all of it. From what we could see in the footage, it's at least the following:

• Heart Container (now in the Breath of the Wild style)
• Rupee (with different colored variants)
• Fairy Bottle 
• Master Sword (with pedestal)
• Triforce 
• Majora's Mask
• Hero's Cap, Clothes & Pants
• Champion's Wig & Outfit (+ new pants)

In addition to the returning items, you can spot a variety of new things:

• Ancient Princess outfit set
• Tulin's garbs
• Mineru's garbs and goggles
• Master Sword & Hylian Shield backpack
• Ocarina of Time
• Decayed Guardian
• Silent Princess
• Zonai Authentication Crest
• Tri
• Tri Rod
• Korok Forest Wall
• Korok Forest Floor 

Most of it is from three most recent Zelda titles on Nintendo Switch, which makes sense, but there could have been a bit more variety. At least one item from The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword would have been nice. But maybe there is more that they haven't shown...

The most important additions are the two new villagers, though. We have Tulin as a jock bird, who has "gust" as his catchphrase. And Mineru is a snooty deer saying "construct". They look both very detailed, which is also thanks to the new outfit items that come with them.

Sadly, there is no news on the four Zelda villagers from New Leaf:

• Ganon (cranky pig)
• Wolf Link (smug wolf)
  
• Epona (peppy horse)
  
• Medli (normal bird)

Curiously, there is no overlap between the personalities of the old and new Zelda villagers, where you could cover 75% of all personality types with them, leaving only lazy and big sister. I originally had planned my island with these four characters in mind, but now I have to rethink who I'm going to keep.

And it's understandable that they wanted to replace Medli with a more recent Rito, but it's still a shame about the other three. In the very least they could have brought back Pig Ganon, since he was featured in Echoes of Wisdom. Maybe this will still happen or maybe they haven't announced all of the collaboration items yet, but I very much doubt it. I'm just happy that this collaboration is happening at all, after all hope seemed lost years ago.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and 3.0 Update Announced

Wow! Out of the blue Nintendo has announced some big news for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It will be getting a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, but also a major free update  for both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, on January 15th. You can watch the whole announcement on Youtube.

Earlier this year, I've been speculating about Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch 2 and a major update for New Horizons, similar to Splatoon 3, was the likeliest candidate for the near future. After all, both games got made by the same development staff. And it looks like this was on the money!

I didn't think that they would go for a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, however, but there isn't much to it. You get the 4k upgrade and there is support for the Joy-Con mouse controls, so it's quite similar to Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.

The only questionable thing is the Microphone item, because calling out for your residents has been a much requested quality of life feature. Sometimes you are just looking for a specific villager and can't find them. So, to hide it behind the system's microphone is literally not a good call... Oh, and you can now play with up to 12 players at once online, for those who like online parties. The most I've ever played with was two.

But the upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition only costs five bucks, so that's fair. And all the good stuff is waiting for you in free 3.0.0 update, so you can still enjoy all that on the Nintendo Switch. The 2.0.0 update was said to be the last major one, but I'm very happy that they've changed their minds about this, because this game really needs these content additions to stay interesting.

The resort hotel seems a bit silly for multiple reasons. I always thought that it was sad how Kapp'n sings about this family and even keeps a photo of them in his boat, but always stays at your pier. The easy solution would have been to make him leave after your daily boat ride. But I suppose you can also just bring his whole family to your island...

It's funny and makes good use of the free space on the water, but the feature itself just seems like a lite version of the Happy Home Paradise DLC. It is the exact same mechanics, just without the exteriors and the resort island. It also makes the campsite feel completely redundant now.

The storage upgrade is a godsend. I've hit the limit of 5000 items a while ago, because I've been using it mainly for collections. I've got all Gyroids in there, all fossils, all critters and their models, all the special event items, lots of photos, and so on. And if you want an extensive wardrobe on top, then 5000 isn't enough. 9000 should do, however.

Maybe I could use the new Slumber Islands to display a part of the collection, e.g. all the models. That's also an excellent feature, which effectively lets you create a second, third and fourth island within the game, but as a blank canvas for decorations. So, you won't have the Resident Services in your way and it will be free from the game's usual mechanics. You can even freely set the time of the day and the weather. This alone is a massive feature that can be enjoyed for many hours.

This wasn't mentioned in the trailer, but shown briefly: you can now finally craft multiple copies of an item at once! This is fantastic, especially for something like fish bait.

But you already know what the most important part of the announcement was, right? Not the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, not the hotel, not the Slumber Islands, not the quality of life features... No... The LEGO! Just kidding...

But when they started talking about "collaborations", I was freaking out. Ever since I had started my own island about four years ago, I've been waiting for them to bring back the Zelda items and villagers, because I was building things with them in mind. But for some reason they never bothered... until now.

Well, at first they had talked about classic Nintendo systems. In past Animal Crossing games, you had the option to play a variety of emulated games. But here it looks like it's only one select game per system and you will need a Nintendo Switch Online membership for it, which is oddly restrictive. The LEGO stuff also seemed weird at first, but then I remembered that there are actual Animal Crossing LEGO sets, so it's nice to have this both ways.

During that part I was getting a little anxious that they might be doing all sorts of weird crossovers again, like the Hello Kitty stuff, and not the one that truly matters. But there it was: contents from The Legend of Zelda and Splatoon will finally return! They do require you to scan amiibo, however, and only these two franchises are back.

A collaboration with Metroid would have been amazing as well, but maybe this will still happen and I'm just happy we're getting Zelda stuff again. I'll talk about that in a separate post, because there is a lot to cover here.

Now, I'm actually still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons regularly, but this has changed from once per day to once per week. I had reached all my goals and finished my island to what I wanted it to be, so all that is left to do is plugging weeds, hoping for some missing crafting recipes and checking shops for items that I have yet to catalog. But these new contents will give me enough reason to start the game more often and I'm really looking forward to January 15th.

Got a Nintendo Switch 2

History repeats itself. Five years ago I got a plain gray Nintendo Switch, because I wanted to play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. And now I got a plain gray Nintendo Switch 2, because I want to play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Neither was a happy purchase, and the only difference is that I haven't waited years to buy one this time.

"What's the big deal?" you might ask. The problem are shiny Zelda-themed special editions of Nintendo hardware, which have been a cause of regret ever since I got that black Game Boy Advance SP in 2003. They are what I want to buy, not the default system, so the default systems just end up being temporary solutions. The worst was the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, where a 25th Anniversary Zelda Edition got announced shortly after I had purchased a red one to play both Ocarina of Time 3D and the Four Swords Anniversary Edition. The latter was even only available for a short time, urging you to get a system that can download it...

My temper tantrum from that day is still entertaining to read, but that situation has left its mark on me. There is this voice in my head, whispering to me that there might a 40th Anniversary Zelda Edition of the Switch 2 coming next year, together with that Ocarina of Time remake that everyone is hoping for... And maybe this will happen. But I kept thinking the same with the original Switch, where it took Nintendo six whole years before we finally got the Tears of the Kingdom Edition. And that was already the OLED model, giving you a considerable upgrade.

Speaking of, this pretty baby isn't even three years old now. It feels very wrong to leave it behind already. And it's ironic that I have to do so in order to play the Tears of the Kingdom spin-off. Think about that...! But once you have a Nintendo Switch 2, there is no real reason to go back to the Switch 1, so from now on this will be a personal museum piece.

If they had treated Age of Imprisonment like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, where the game still launches on the Switch, then I would have probably stayed with my OLED Switch for now, even if the game were to run terribly on it. But that's not happening and I'm too excited about Age of Imprisonment to skip over it for now.

I was also worried that they might announce a special edition for Metroid Prime 4, maybe a cool "Vi-o-La Edition" or so. But this would be very weird after how neither Pokémon Legends Z-A, nor Kirby Air Riders were getting something like it. And it looks the first piece of themed hardware will be a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller for Resident Evil: Requiem, which was announced today and is coming in February (see here). So, I'm hoping that Nintendo won't blindside us again.

Well, once a special edition gets released that I want to have, I won't have trouble finding someone to take my new Nintendo Switch 2 off me. The only hurdle is that there has yet to be a system transfer between Nintendo Switch 2 systems (or I couldn't find anything like it). But the Nintendo Switch also didn't have this in the beginning and there should be no reason to do one at the moment. So, this may change once Nintendo starts releasing the first special edition consoles.

At least the migration from a Nintendo Switch was effortless and worked really well, essentially like it was before with the Nintendo 3DS. You can just establish a local connection between the two consoles and it will copy everything over, including your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. When moving from one Nintendo Switch to another, this was much more complicated, where you had to use a special software tool for it. That's not required any longer, which was a relief, because I have over 1200 hours in the game and if something were to go wrong here, this would be a huge loss, especially with the new update coming in January.

It also won't factory-reset your old Nintendo Switch, so you can still use it like before. Only your island is tied to the new system after the move. But as I said, there is no real reason to keep using a Nintendo Switch, unless you prefer the smaller size.

The bigger screen size also doesn't make the process of applying a screen protector any easier. Sadly, Nintendo is holding on to the idea of selling theirs only in a bundle with a carrying case. Both are really nice and I do recommend them, but that they don't sell the screen protectors on their own is still stupid beyond any reasoning. There is so much that can go wrong and you may want to replace them after they caught some scratches.

And the measurements of the screen protector are a bit too tight. I had to reapply mine a total of three times, because each time it slightly stood over at one of the corners. Naturally, I got two pieces of dust under it while doing so, since I don't have access to some hermetically sealed room, but luckily it's only close to the edges... I might be even to fix this by slightly peeling it off. So, it could be worse, but I still hate doing this stuff every two and a half years.

But whatever... I'm ready for Age of Imprisonment and that's all that counts. This will also be my first Nintendo Switch 2 game, so I haven't purchased anything else yet. I do have access to the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, though, so that's what I will be playing this weekend in preparation, listening to the all the voice memories. More on that later. Also, I will certainly buy Mario Kart World, but I might wait for the Black Friday sales. There is no need right now, because starting next Thursday I will be mainly playing Age of Imprisonment, followed by Metroid Prime 4.

Hollow Knight: Silksong (Review)

The sequel to the beloved Hollow Knight finally released on September 4th this year and took the gaming world by storm. Since its announcement in 2019, Hollow Knight: Silksong became the most anticipated game in the gerne, but can Team Cherry's second game live up to the many years of hype? Well, you already know it can... But let's discuss it anyway.

Breath of the Wild: Vinyl Soundtrack Announced

A vinyl record collection was announced today by Nintendo. Not by Nintendo Japan, mind you, but Nintendo of Europe and America, which is unusual. Well, according to Bill Trinen in an interview with Variety, this is an experiment, where they are gaging the interest in such physical soundtrack releases, while in Japan the CD has remained as a popular format.

They are probably underestimating the collector's value of these items, where I have imported some of the soundtracks from Japan, even though I rarely listen to CDs nowadays. And I know of other Zelda fans who have imported these as well. Records are much fancier, of course, where we actually have a record player at home, which we use every now and then, like for a fancy evening. So, I might be getting this.

Four different versions will be available... You can either go for a 2LP "best of" with 34 tracks, or an 8LP collection with 130 tracks. And each of these come in a standard edition with black records and a limited edition with colored records.

Update: the prices for this are quite heavy. It's 190€ or 195$ for the 8LP Limited Edition. And 60€ or 50$ for the 2LP Limited Edition. You can find full track listings in the My Nintendo Store:

Double LP
8LP Box Set

Age of Imprisonment – Unite Against the Demon King Trailer

Nintendo has dropped a new trailer for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. The game launches in less than two weeks, on November 6th, and it doesn't seem like Nintendo's marketing knows what to do with it...

It's like they want to throw out as many games before Christmas as possible, where there is something coming every two weeks now. But the focus is clearly on Kirby Air Riders, which has gotten two hours of Nintendo Direct content and a whole demo. Meanwhile, there is complete radio silence about Metroid Prime 4 and they are only doing some social media posts for Age of Imprisonment.

They haven't even unmasked any of the other three sages yet, only Ardi's face was revealed. What's the big deal? Who's supposed to get excited to play as those characters when we don't know anything about them? Even the cannon fodder looks more interesting so far (see down below).

Maybe Nintendo should have taken more time with this. Introduce us to the new characters one after another. Release a demo, like they did with Age of Calamity. And launch the game in January, where nothing else is coming out in that month, because it's January...

Today's trailer also seemed chaotic. There this is weird cut in the middle, where the dragon tear drops and then the tone completely shifts, almost as if those are two different trailers mashed together. I'm also sad that they are still going with the Tears of the Kingdom main theme. It's a beautiful theme, no doubt, but Age of Calamity had its own theme, which was absolutely fantastic. And that doesn't seem to be the case this time.

At least the game sets itself apart on other ends. We can see some new bosses, where one of them is a more humanoid form of the Gibdo Queen, which looks really cool. And there is an early form of Colgera, which has red hair like Ganon. We saw some similar foes in the previous trailer and maybe they are all meant to be early evolutions of the Scourges, but it still gives me hope that they will be playable eventually.

In any case, I'm really liking the new creature designs so far, that's something that goes absolutely beyond what they did with the previous games. The same goes for supporting units:

This comes from the official website, which Koei Tecmo has updated today and now features the Mysterious Construct and the Korok dude in the character sections, where the latter is called Calamo. But it doesn't stop there, we also get another entry with the above guys, labeled as "warriors of all kinds". You can also spot some of the in the trailer after the cut in the middle.

We've already seen that you can take over secondary units this time, but it looks like they are doing a great job of making them look very unique and not just something that came out of the random character generator for Breath of the Wild. I'd love to know how they get handled by the game and maybe they will drop some more info about this soon, but likely we will have to find out ourselves.

Some of their weaponry looks very similar to the save data bonus, the High Guard's Sword and Claymore. So, maybe those are for equipping these type of characters?