Metroid Prime 4 – Start of the Sylux Saga

There is a new interview with Metroid Prime series producer, Kensuke Tanabe, and in this interview he confirms a number of things. First of all, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was indeed meant to be the first game in a whole saga around Sylux, which explains why he is still taking a backseat for the most part. When talking about Metroid Prime 5, I speculated as much.

However, while Tanabe has worked towards this setup for a very long time, he is now also retiring from his job and Metroid Prime 4 is the last game he will have worked on for Nintendo. A whole era is coming to an end here, but maybe that's for the best. The Metroid Prime Trilogy will always be remembered as one of the best video game trilogies of all time, where Tanabe played a major role in shaping it. But with Metroid Prime: Federation Force and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond he pursued rather questionable ideas, obsessed with the Galactic Federation and a mystery villain.

Well, he started this whole "Sylux Saga" and now it's someone else's turn to finish it, where Risa Tabata will take over his role. She has worked as an assistant producer on all Metroid Prime games (except for Hunters) and will finally step up into the producer role, which is very exciting. Let's see what she will bring on the table in cooperation with Retro Studios.

 

Source: Nintendo Dream via NintendoEverything / ResetEra 

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD – Free Update Released

This came out of nowhere. Today, one year after its release, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD has received a significant update, which enhances its resolution on the Nintendo Switch 2 and even adds Game Share for the cooperative multiplayer mode. But that's not all, it comes with new features and improvements that can also be enjoyed on the Nintendo Switch still.

First of all, it fixes a number of issues that came with either the Nintendo 3DS version, which then carried over into the HD remaster, or with the remaster itself. These are missing details, like the sunset in the background of certain levels, or that the bounce boxes of enemies were immediately disappearing, which made the coop mode borderline unplayable in some areas. The final boss still hasn't gotten its blob shadow back, however, which used to be an important mark... So, it's technically still not the ultimate edition of the game, but it's getting very close.

Anyway, the most important addition is that of Dixie Kong. Well, she was basically ripped out of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and works pretty much the same way, including the rotating barrels, but this is a very cool addition nevertheless.

You can even use her in Classic Mode, even though it was meant to strictly recreate the harder Wii experience. And Dixie Kong can make the game easier with her helicopter hair, which increases the height of your jumps. In Tropical Freeze she even made Diddy Kong pretty much obsolete... However, this game was not made with her in mind, so in some levels it might be still better to go with Diddy, because otherwise you will be jumping into some spikes on the ceiling.

Nevertheless, this makes me a bit sad that I already had 200% completed the remaster last year when it came out, because Dixie Kong would have added some much needed novelty to the game. Now, there is also the new Turbo Attack mode to play, which doubles the game's speed and brings its own percentage rating on your save file. But I don't think that I'm going to bother with it, much like I have never bothered with the Time Trial mode.

Playing the levels at increased speed feels very clunky because of Donkey Kong's heavy weight, but it is an interesting challenge nevertheless. And if this was all that Turbo Attack was about, then I would be playing this game from start to finish yet again this weekend... But they also based it on the horrible Time Trial mode and ask you to beat certain times again.

It is the exact same mode, simply sped up and with the clock now ticking down. And I'm not sure who was asking for this. The Time Trials have always been flawed, because the clock keeps running when you die. In order to get the best time, you will have to manually restart after each single death, but then it actually loads the whole level again.

At least the loading times have been decreased down to a quarter on the Nintendo Switch 2, so the Time Trial mode is now somewhat bearable. But the concept is still broken by design, where the checkpoints are also completely useless. The Lonely Mountains series shows how this should be done: before the first checkpoint it resets the timer, just so the players don't feel the need to restart, and dying after a checkpoint only adds a small penalty.

Well, you can still play the new Turbo Attack mode for the Silver Medals, ignoring the time goal, but imagine how it would feel if Mirror Mode also asked you to do it fast and only gave you an ugly mirror whenever you don't meet the allotted time... I hate this obsession with speed running in the gaming culture, where beating a tough game isn't enough anymore – you also have to do it fast and perfectly in order to truly complete things. So, one mode for this paradigm was already more than enough.

It's also getting annoying when developers feel the need to add an even harder mode to their games just to artificially lengthen it. You've fully completed everything and it felt great, you've cleared the game from your backlog and are ready to play something else, but suddenly the game has moved its goalpost even further. Metroid Dread and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment would be examples of this. 

One good thing to say about both timed modes is that they will let you choose a barrel type. So, if you want to play the levels with Dixie Kong, because she lets you potentially skip whole sections, then you don't have to wait for the right barrel. That's a smart decision.

All in all, it still makes you hope that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze will follow up shortly and also get a free upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2. Maybe a Turbo Attack mode there could be handled a bit more nicely.

This update also answered a lingering question I had about all those remasters with "HD" in the title. The Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess HD, Skyward Sword HD, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD... If you bring them onto the Nintendo Switch 2, those should technically have to be renamed into "4K". But apparently not. I suppose the title still indicates that this was originally made for HD resolutions and now they have simply upscaled it.

Nintendo Music: Phantom Hourglass Added

It's been a while since the latest Zelda addition to the Nintendo Music app. And they are not exactly ending the silence with a banger, because The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has probably the weakest soundtrack in the series, right next to Four Swords.

There are a few standouts within those 80 tracks, like Linebeck's theme, but the rest of it either borrows from The Wind Waker or is quite minimalist. The worst offender is that cavern interior music, which plays the same five notes in a loop.

Still, I've always had a soft spot for the game and actually liked it more than its successor, Spirit Tracks. But the second Nintendo DS Zelda game certainly had the better soundtrack, there is no denying that. Maybe we will be getting this next month? Overall, I'm hoping that they will get back to a monthly streak and bring a lot more Zelda goodness over the course of the 40th Anniversary, like Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom.

LEGO: Ocarina of Time – The Final Battle Revealed

We knew that this was going to happen for a while, but this Friday Nintendo and LEGO have revealed their latest collaboration around The Legend of Zelda. This new set will focus exclusively on Ocarina of Time, depicting the game's final battle exactly as you would remember it – with Link leaping high through the air and Zelda shooting her laser pistol.

To be fair, I think the set is actually quite neat. Ganon looks impressive and you can change its pose like with an action figure. There are three custom mini-figures, where there is also one for Ganondorf, who you can hide under the rubble:

The price points looks to be even more expensive than the Deku Tree set, however. That one had 2500 pieces for 300€, while the new one offers 1003 pieces for 130€. There is probably some special stuff in there, like Ganon's blades, but I'm no expert on the matter and LEGO is generally known to be overpriced. In any case, I have yet to buy any of the LEGO stuff around Zelda and I'm not sure I ever will, mainly because I wouldn't know where to display it.

The animated trailer for this set had me thinking that they might also make a LEGO game based on the Zelda license in the future. There would even be lots of potential here if they were to explore the entire Zelda series, like they did with the newest LEGO Batman game, Legacy of the Dark Knight. It's not necessarily something I want, but I also wouldn't be opposed to it.

My Nintendo Switch Year 2025

Yesterday Nintendo has made your play statistics for 2025 available, which is about a month later than in the last years. But that's actually a very good thing because now these statistics include the month of December, which they hadn't before, potentially creating a significant gap. In this case Metroid Prime 4: Beyond wouldn't have appeared at all...

Anyway, out of those 21 games that I've played, nine come from the Nintendo Switch Online offerings, which I often just play for the Platinum Points, so that really leaves twelve. And two games I had only launched because I wanted to quickly check something out. These were Echoes of Wisdom for the updates with the favorites back in June and Age of Calamity, where I wanted to get a sense for how it feels to return to it after Age of Imprisonment. So, that leaves ten games that saw some proper dedication. And these are the top three:

Unsurprisingly, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is my most-played Nintendo game of the year. It could have been Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Editions, which I was playing in preparation, but then came Hollow Knight: Silksong (which I didn't play on Switch). I've only done about a third of the Adventure Mode, so there is still a lot of time that I can and eventually will sink into this game again.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons also saw some more commitment later in the year, because I was preparing for the 3.0 update. (By the way, Nintendo has already released it today, one day early again.) I was adding all the villagers I wanted to have in the end, before Tulin and Mineru arrive, and trying to get their photos. So, I was back to playing it on a daily basis, as opposed to only once per week. And this will continue in early 2025.

The overview now offers your play time data for your most-played game each month, which makes it a bit easier to compile a list for the rest, though the hours aren't fully accurate:

1. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (110 hours)
2. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (72 hours)
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (53 hours)
4. Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (53 hours)
5. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (31 hours) 
6. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (30 hours)
7. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (20 hours) 

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker were my main games in the first half of the year. Due to some other hobby project, I wasn't playing much on my Nintendo Switch at the time – for less than an hour per day on average.

In the above graph you can also clearly tell when I was playing the three most important games for me in the year: Silksong, Age of Imprisonment and Metroid Prime 4. Silksong left a gap in September and October, where I was only doing my weekly Animal Crossing rounds. And at the end of October I got my Nintendo Switch 2, where I was also playing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom in early November to check out their Nintendo Switch 2 Editions and collect all the voice memories.

And I already have too many plans for this year... Currently I'm still playing Mario Kart World and afterwards I finally want to experience Super Mario Odyssey for the first time. But I'd also love to replay a number of recent Nintendo games in their harder/hardest difficulties: Echoes of Wisdom, Age of Imprisonment and Metroid Prime 4. And I also want to play through Silksong again and prepare for its upcoming DLC, while Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition wants to be continued as well. It's a lot of time with games that I have already beaten, but they are all worth the extra round.

Fortunately, I have a feeling that 2026 won't bring as many must-play titles for me as 2025 did. Maybe there will be a Zelda remake, where I'm hoping for the Oracle games, and maybe some DLC for Mario Kart World, but I don't expect to be busy with new games for hundreds of hours. And that would be completely fine...

Mario Kart World DLC Ideas

If there's one game in Nintendo's current lineup that is practically begging to receive DLC, whether it's free or paid, then it's Mario Kart World. However, since everything is now part of an open world, this won't be as trivial as adding waves of new courses, which is probably why it's taking so long for Nintendo to announce something.

But it's easy to get ideas nevertheless, where mine will be split into two parts. First, there will be a set of free updates, which are aiming to enhance the current world of Mario Kart World in different ways. Second, there will be an Expansion Pass, which is going to add new islands with courses all around the existing world.

 

Free Updates

These should accompany the paid DLC and make more out of what's already in the existing game. And you don't have to be a creative genius to come up with something here, because the gaps are more or less obvious.

• 200cc mode
• Reverse courses
• Custom Knockout Tours
• New Battle Mode types
• More drivers and outfits 
• More music 

The biggest omission right now is easily 200cc, where it feels like most of the game was made with it in mind. Well, that's likely due to how the total number of racers has doubled to 24, making it necessary to widen all the courses, and due to all the long intermissions, where you never really have to take sharp turns. But it will feel like a natural addition nevertheless.

What's already possible is driving certain courses backwards, since they had to be built this way for the open world. And you can actively play races on some of them by picking the right intermissions in VS mode. Now, Nintendo could make more out of this by adding course variants (like Dino Dino Jungle R), so you can also play a three-lap race on them.

And the Knockout Tour really could use an equivalent to the VS mode, where you will vote for six connected courses one after another, which then will lead to a custom rally through the world. This seems simple enough, but will add infinitely more value to this mode than just having the same eight routes.

Battle Mode on the other hand is so bare bones that it needs some solid additions. Bob-omb Blast and Shine Thief should return from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and 8 Deluxe as additional types. And they should really add some more courses dedicated to this mode, where they could fill some open spaces in the world with them, e.g. adding the traditional Block Fort on some field near Mario Circuit. Others could be added via new lands in the paid DLC, but we'll get to that...

When it comes to new drivers, there is also a lot already in the game which could be repurposed for the Kamek transformations. And there is a particular group of characters which hasn't returned from Mario Kart 8 for some reason, so here is a first list:

• Lemmy, Larry, Wendy, Ludwig, Iggy, Roy & Morton
• Dry Bowser
• Fire, Ice and Boomerang Bro
• Fire, Frost and Bone Piranha Plant
• Snow Pokey 
• Bully, Spiny & Skeeter
• Kamek 

The Koopalings and Dry Bowser could be rewards for scoring 1st place in each of the 200cc Knockout Tour rallies. Most of the other additions are just regional variants of the existing monster drivers, e.g. the Hammer Bro, but there could also be some new ones, like the Spiny. Finally, once you have unlocked all transformations, Kamek himself should become playable.

As for new outfits, there is so much stuff still left from Mario Kart Tour (see the Mario Wiki), it's offending. Even if they said that they wanted to match certain themes, there still would be a lot of open stuff, e.g. Daisy's Farmer and Yukata outfits. They could make a whole "Booster Outfit Pass" out of this, just to port this all over, but it would be a scam if you had to pay for outfits that other characters already have as part of the base game.

It would also be a chance of bringing some other characters back from Mario Kart 8 if we were to include all the power-up transformations, like Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach, or Penguin Luigi. There is a lot that they could do with those alone.

Some characters didn't really get much to begin with, where Pauline and Donkey Kong only have one alternate outfit each. But this could tie in to the paid DLC, where we might get a wave focused on Donkey Kong and with it new outfits for the existing characters as an appetizer. And this already leads us to the next part...

 

Expansion Pack

Of course, if we are talking about DLC for a Mario Kart game, then new cups and courses will have to be the main topic. But with the game's open world nature this isn't exactly trivial, because every addition with have to fit into that. And there are theoretically only two ways of making this happen: either they offer a second world, or they gradually try to expand the current world.

Neither is really ideal. With a second world Nintendo would have complete freedom, but they also would have to release it all at once, so you wouldn't have the typical DLC waves that keep the players engaged and excited over a longer period of time. It would also create a rift, which effectively splits the game in half.

As for expanding the current world, the best way to do that would be adding individual islands with the new contents all around it. This way they could be released in multiple waves, where each wave adds one or more larger pieces of land onto the map, which are home to the new courses. Since this feels more organic overall, let's run with this approach for the rest of this post.

With these new islands being their own thing, they could set themselves apart thematically from the rest and maybe even dive back into crossovers, like how they were established with the original DLC for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U. But they wouldn't have to go this far, since the franchises directly linked to Super Mario are already quite excellent choices with lots of potential:

• DK Island
• Yoshi's Island
• Kitchen Island (Wario Land)
• Haunted Island (Luigi's Mansion) 

They could bring back a good number of retro courses with this one, like DK Mountain, DK Jungle, Banshee Boardwalk, Luigi's Mansion, or even the new Yoshi's Island from the Booster Course Pass. And then mix them with new inclusions, like courses based on Wario Land, Luigi's Mansion 3, Donkey Kong Bananza or the upcoming Yoshi game, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book.

The same goes for the characters and vehicles. They could bring back Diddy, Dixie and Funky Kong, while introducing Young Pauline, Void Kong or King K. Rool. They could bring back Poochy, while introducing Captain Syrup or E. Gadd. And rest assured that we should finally be getting that Rambi Rider back.

If we were to go intro full crossover territories, there would be even more possibilities for all sorts of crazy things. Potentially, one island could focus on multiple franchises at once, where here are some examples for such an approach:

• Wuhu Island (Wii Sports, Pilotwings, Wave Race 64) 
• Dreaming Island (Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing)
• Future Island (F-Zero, Metroid, Splatoon) 

Again, they could bring back some of the established courses from Mario Kart 7 and 8, while combining it with some new stuff. And the same goes for drivers and vehicles. Since this website is supposed to be a Zelda blog, let's just go through that particular franchises as an example:

• Courses: Hyrule Circuit, Death Mountain Driftway
• Drivers: Link, Zelda, Octorok
• Vehicles: Master Cycle, Master Cycle Zero, Zonai Cart 

Link would have this Champion's Tunic as an outfit, potentially also the archaic tunic from Tears of the Kingdom. The same goes for Zelda, who could have appearances based on Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild and/or Tears of the Kingdom. And maybe there could also be new playable characters coming from additional Kamek transformations, e.g. your classic Octorok. Though, they also could just repurpose the Swoops and Piranha Plants to pose as Keese and Dekuranhas in this case.

There are two problems with this island approach overall, which can't be dismissed. One is that this could potentially create a bigger emphasis on water roads, especially if they also want to connect the new courses to the old ones on the edge of the map. And that's not exactly exciting, though I love the idea of getting lots of Wave Race 64 tributes with the new wave riding mechanic.

And the other problem is that there would be too many volcanoes in the end. I'm not kidding here: the main land already has one for Bowser's Castle, but DK Island, Yoshi's Island and Wuhu Island all have their own volcanoes as well. And if there's some island themed around Hyrule, it will likely feature Death Mountain... So, that may look a bit silly, but these were all just some basic ideas, where Nintendo could and certainly will get a lot more creative.

Now all that remains is to wait and see what they are cooking. Maybe the obligatory February Nintendo Direct will already give us an idea... 

Mario Kart World Magnets

This is something that you could get from the My Nintendo Store as a Platinum Points reward, where there was also a set for the Knockout Tour. They cost 500 points each and I got them back in November, because we have the perfect fridge for this type of item:

And they look quite nice. When playing Mario Kart World as of late, I made it a small ceremony to add a magnet whenever I got three stars on Mirror Mode, meaning that I had fully completed the corresponding cup or rally. (It also gives you three stars in 50cc to 150cc.) If they add 200cc eventually, then I will do it all over again.

But when you have kids who like to play Mario Kart, then this might be nice to have as well for similar reasons. So, I can recommend these items, should they become available again.

Anyway, this also made me realize how the icons between the Grand Prix cups and the Knockout Tour rallies mirror each other thematically:

• Mushroom  ↔ Golden Mushroom
• Fire Flower ↔ Ice Flower
• Star ↔ Moon
• Green Shell ↔ Spiny Shell
• Banana ↔ Cherries
• Leaf ↔ Acorn
• Lightning ↔ Cloud
• Crown ↔ Heart 

That's a cool detail. Makes you wonder whether they will replicate this in potential DLC or not care about this any longer. For example, they could do a Bell Cup and a Lucky Cat Rally. Or an Egg Cup and a Fruit Rally. And more importantly, will they also release magnets for those?