Got Metroid Prime Remastered

The physical version of Metroid Prime Remastered was released today in Europe, right for the sixth anniversary of the Nintendo Switch. And I got my copy in the mail this morning from the My Nintendo store, so here we go. Like in in the other regions, it comes with a reversible cover, where you can go for a cleaner look with the original Japanese box art:

In Japan this actually the other way around, so they can opt for the North American and PAL region cover of Metroid Prime. I personally would liked that more, I guess, but reversing the cover like this makes the inside look a mess, because you have all the descriptions and warning levels now there. And I also do like it when the inside of the card case looks nice, it's part of the experience to open the box and see some nice artwork. So, I will just leave it as it is...

Luckily, I have this weekend all to myself, so I will try to beat the game on my Nintendo Switch and then try to wrap things up with a review. Stay tuned!

Nintendo Switch: Successor?

After talking about the potential lifecycle of the Nintendo Switch, let's dive more into the topic of how a successor to the Nintendo Switch would even look like, whenever that may be. What could it be and what should it be?

Needless to say that this shouldn't just be about better hardware. That's something that Nintendo could technically already achieve with a new model of the Nintendo Switch, where this would also be less complicated, because they could just stick to the brand name. Nintendo is more creative than that and it's likely that they want something innovative for their next system, which clearly differentiates it from the Nintendo Switch.

At the same time the concept of the Nintendo Switch is simply so good and beloved that it would be very risky to move away from it. Who would even want to buy a mere handheld system these days? Or who would want to buy a dedicated Nintendo console, which is stuck to your TV, who is not a hardcore Nintendo fan? So, it's likely that the next system is also going to be a hybrid of home console and handheld, the best of both worlds merged into one.

But this puts the successor already in a difficult spot, because this means it's still going to be a "Nintendo Switch", technically. And the last thing they want is creating another Wii U, where people outside of the gaming bubble apparently didn't even understand that this was meant to be a new system and not just some gamepad accessory for the Wii.

Whatever the next Nintendo console may be, the name should make it already very clear that this is a new system entirely and not just a new model. It could be simply "Nintendo Switch 2", but it's likely going to be named after whatever innovative feature will let it differentiate itself from the Switch.

In any case, there is one thing the next Nintendo system must offer and that is...

 

Backwards Compatibility

The Nintendo Switch was the first Nintendo system in many years to not be backwards compatible. Nintendo handhelds always have supported the last generation and the same was true for the Wii and the Wii U. The Nintendo Switch was a clean cut, however, creating a blank slate for the company and consumers alike.

And this was okay, because the system streamlined a good number of things to become a hybrid console. There was no way it was going to still run Wii U games without a disc drive or Nintendo 3DS games without a second screen. So, it was fairly acceptable and to many it even has been their first Nintendo system in a long time, so it didn't really matter.

But now people have big libraries of Nintendo Switch games sitting on their shelves and Nintendo has used the last six years to port over many of their games from Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS, where fans are still asking for more, because either they didn't own these systems or they simply want the games on their new system.

Now imagine Nintendo would create another cut here. All those Nintendo Switch games at people's homes would become something for retro collectors and they would have to buy it all over again on the next system. They would not be as accepting as they were the first time, quite the opposite – it would be a total disaster, on the same lines as abandoning the hybrid concept.

But the Nintendo Switch has the most basic input by today's standards, a more common hardware architecture, and the whole Nintendo Switch Online service, where it's most likely here to stay. So, there is essentially no good reason to not carry all of this over to the next system. Some games could even profit out of the box from better hardware, where they run with a stabler frame rate.

Backwards compatibility should also exist for hardware alike. While there certainly will be a new generation of Joy-Con controllers, where ideally they won't have drifting issues as much, the next system should still support all your old controllers from the Nintendo Switch, like those drifting Joy-Cons or your trusty Pro Controller(s).

New Switch Modes

The Nintendo Switch can be played docked, in handheld mode, or tabletop mode. And if the next system still is a Nintendo Switch of sorts, it's likely going to add to this, to come with new ways of playing.

One idea here would be that it lets you stream to your dock without being actually docked, so you could use it in the same style as the Wii U GamePad. But considering how hard the Wii U flopped, this isn't the best idea and certainly wouldn't become a selling point.

What could become a selling point is VR, however. There is more and more interest in this, but it's very expensive at the moment. If you're going for the full PlayStation VR experience that is currently available, you will have to pay 600€/$ for the console and then the same amount again for the headset. It's ridiculous.

The Nintendo Switch could lend itself to a much cheaper alternative here, where they would disrupt the whole VR market, because the console itself can be used for the screen in the VR headset. You would simply insert it into the headset, as another Nintendo Switch mode. Of course, Nintendo has already experiment with this via Nintendo LABO:

We're talking cheap here, but not cardboard cheap. A proper Nintendo Switch VR headset would certainly come with headphones and more comfort, but the idea is the same, so you insert the Nintendo Switch screen into the thing, where LABO was certainly meant to be a prototype to test the interest in something like this.

A successor to the Switch will most likely also come with a better screen, maybe even with 4K resolution, where it would offer an experience that wouldn't be terrible when compared to the competition. But the price point would be much lower for sure, making it more attractive, especially since it still can be used as a home console and a handheld.

There is also some potential for Nintendo's games here. This could even be something that makes traditional top-down Zelda games exciting again, where VR would offer a whole new experience here. Well, there are already games where you can look around in an environment and control a character via VR, where Nintendo even has done something like that for the VR levels in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Super Mario Odyssey. But I'm sure that they would come up with something truly special for Zelda, which will make you want to play it like that.

This isn't meant to say that VR will be the defining feature of the next system. But it could potentially be one of the things that sets it apart from the Nintendo Switch... And only Nintendo knows what else there might be.

Nintendo Switch: Six Years and Beyond

 

As of today, the Nintendo Switch is officially six years old and is entering its seventh year, where this may be a more special date than you think, because so far no Nintendo home console has lived that long without getting a successor. Only the original Game Boy was able to hold itself on the market longer than your usual five to six years, especially if you also count in the Game Boy Color.

Speaking of, by now the Nintendo Switch even has surpassed the success of the beloved 90s handheld(s). With over 122 million units sold it is only behind the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2, where the goal might even to surpass those as well and make the Switch the most successful video game system of all time.

Nintendo has said again and again that the Nintendo Switch won't follow a conventional console lifecycle, where in late 2021 president Furukawa put it around the mid-point (source). This would mean that we shouldn't expect the next Nintendo system before 2025.

Normally, statements like this get dismissed easily, because the company naturally wants people to still buy their current system and not hold their money for a successor. But these were statements for investors and Nintendo seems more reluctant than usual to even talk about future hardware, where there may as well some truth to it that they want the Switch to live as long as possible. It is still selling like hot cakes after all.

There also have been some convincing rumors about a new Nintendo Switch model coming later this year, from an accurate Pokémon leak last month (via tech4gamers.com). It states that they are working on graphic enhancement patches, which means that this model will have more power to it.

And that is really the only major deficit of the Nintendo Switch at the moment: its power. It has been showing its age for a while now, where the dithering present in games like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Bayonetta 3, or Fire Emblem Engage gives it away, or the poor frame rate in many 3rd party titles, even some 1st/2nd party ones, like the remake of Link's Awakening. And they all would profit from some more horse power.

A "New Nintendo Switch" is even what people have already expected when the OLED model came out one and a half years ago. But Nintendo has been iterating the Switch every two years now – first with the Nintendo Switch Lite in 2019 and then the OLED model in 2021. So, that we're getting yet another model in 2023, this time with some better hardware, seems entirely possible.

This would also mean that the Nintendo Switch is going to live for at least two more years. At the beginning of this year this may have seen unrealistic, where it may have felt to some like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is going to be the Switch's swan song, the final masterpiece before Nintendo is moving on. Other major titles, like a new Mario game or Metroid Prime 4, might as well be saved for the next system.

But then came the recent Nintendo Direct and they've released Metroid Prime Remastered, where the game's physical copy has arrived in Europe today as an anniversary gift, and Retro Studios shows everyone how amazing games can still look on the Switch. Imagine what they could achieve with just some more processing power. And just like that it suddenly doesn't feel any longer like Metroid Prime 4 needs to be on the next system...

Plus, Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3 are going to be remastered as well eventually, whether that's done by Retro themselves or some other studios. You would think that this is all happening on the same engine and level of detail, where these games should come out for the Nintendo Switch as well, and not for the next system. Maybe with a new Nintendo Switch model they could look even better, but they still would run on the original. In any case, they won't be throwing out these titles in the next months...

The same would also apply to remakes of Oracle of Ages & Seasons in the same style as Link's Awakening. Of course it would be nice to have them with stable 60FPS on the overworld this time, but it would also feel wrong to have a generational rift between this and Link's Awakening. You would think that they come up with something new for top-down Zelda games on the next system.

And with the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it also seems more and more likely that they are going to do a second one (more on that next week when wave 4 arrives), where this would put two more years of content to a Nintendo Switch title. But this would add up perfectly if the next Nintendo system weren't to come out before 2025.

So, maybe the Nintendo Switch is here to stay... for now. Happy Birthday in any case!

Tears of the Kingdom – DLC?

Several gaming media sites have picked up on a remark from the official website for Tears of the Kingdom, where it states at the bottom of the page:

**Full version of game required to use DLC. Sold separately.

This currently gets treated like a semi-confirmation that the game will have DLC. However, if you look at what the double asterisk is pointing at, it's just a statement that buying the digital version of the game will score you My Nintendo Gold Points, which can be used to buy other games and DLC. It only says DLC in general, not that this game will get DLC. There is simply a misunderstanding here and nothing is confirmed yet.

But this still raises the question whether Tears of the Kingdom could or even should potentially get DLC or not. After all, the whole development of the game began with more DLC ideas for Breath of the Wild, which became so substantial that Aonuma decided to make a new game out of it. And after five years of development you would think that they put every possible idea that they could have had for Breath of the Wild into this game already...

On the other hand Nintendo certainly will want to milk this cow and judging from Fire Emblem Engage they are no stranger anymore to selling already finished contents as DLC. So, they could just cut out certain features from Tears of the Kingdom and sell them separately to make more money out of this behemoth of a game.

I personally hope that this won't be the case, of course, especially since I thought that the Expansion Pass for Breath of the Wild was absolutely mediocre and they should not repeat DLC in the same format. If they were to sell another Master Mode as DLC, to drop armor pieces randomly all over the world, or to withhold quality of life features again, I would just hate it. The Expansion Pass for Breath of the Wild was DLC done wrong, at least for the most part.

If they are going to sell DLC again, it needs to be something more substantial. Let's say that the map of Breath of the Wild was only expanded vertically, then finally breaking out of its horizontal borders would make for an excellent expansion. For example, they could let you put together a boat, which lets you explore an ocean realm in the same style as The Wind Waker. Needless to say that this also should be something that the Zelda team has only started working on.

And here lies another problem: they have spent over ten years working on Breath of the Wild and its sequel now. It's very likely that they want to move on to something new entirely. They even need to if they don't want the next Nintendo console to go without a major Zelda games for many years, like the Wii U did.

Tears of the Kingdom – Warning, Artbook Leaked!

Disclaimer: this blog won't share any details about the leak!

Ooph, this is bad... Someone shared the entire artbook, which comes with the Collector's Edition of the game. What is Nintendo doing lately? Don't they have their production teams under control? This isn't like the Tears of the Kingdom Edition of the Switch, where it's nice to know about it, this is serious spoiler territory. And the game is still three months away...

I've caught glimpses of the leak and got spoiled about one particular thing, which luckily wasn't a big thing, but it still belongs in the "I wish I had discovered this while playing" category. So, I decided not look to at the whole leak. Some of those who have seen it all also stated dire warnings about spoilers, where it's probably best to listen to them. Others say that it's not so bad and doesn't give away anything about the story, but there is definitely stuff in there that we haven't see yet in terms of environments, equipment, enemies, and such.

In any case, this completely ruins any fun to be had about speculating. There is now a gigantic rift between those who have seen the artbook and those who decided to stay spoiler-free, where there is no real point in discussing things for the latter anymore, because they don't have the full picture and risk potentially hearing more than what they want to know.

Unless there is more official media, I guess I will try to avoid anything about Tears of the Kingdom from now on, until I have the game. This sucks, but it can't be helped. It's out there, damage is done, all you can do now is try to dodge any falling debris.

Tears of the Kingdom – The Beginning?

One of the biggest mysteries about Tears of the Kingdom is still how the game will begin. We have a rough idea, but we can't really be sure about any of it, because we haven't seen any actual gameplay. It's in stark contrast to Breath of the Wild, where Nintendo has showcased the entire beginning of the game in great detail prior to its release...

Our understanding so far was that the story begins with Link and Zelda spelunking, as seen in the original teaser. There they discover the mummified Ganondorf, who is sealed by some magic hand with a giant, green vortex above it. Things go downhill from there: Ganondorf awakens, Link's arm and the Master Sword get corrupted by the Malice, and Zelda falls into a dark abyss. Link gets a/the bracelet from the magic hand, however, which grants him new powers for his next adventure of saving Hyrule.

The question is now how these scenes will unfold in the game. One possibility would be that you start playing as Link (and maybe even Zelda) in this scenario, where you go to some underground exploration together. Zelda would have the new Sheikah Slate from the artworks, while Link would use the Master Sword and maybe other basic weaponry. This game's tutorial could be some underground dungeon with coop elements, which lets you run into Ganondorf at the end.

However, the problem with this idea is that you won't get your new abilities until you reach Ganondorf. There is no point in having an underground tutorial area if it doesn't introduce you to the game's basics the same way the Great Plateau did.

And the Great Plateau is simply fantastic. It teaches you everything you need to know without ever holding your hand too much. In fact, other than some short prompts, which are showing you the controls, and some hints from the old man, it's all learning by doing. It's essentially a small Zelda game for itself, where your goal is to obtain the four Spirit Orbs for the Paraglider. But how you approach things is completely up to yourself...

You also obtain all the game's main abilities there and learn how to utilize them effectively. It was a really strong beginning, so strong that it's often stated to be the best video game tutorial ever made, where Tears of the Kingdom will have big shoes to fill.

One way to do this is with a new area that teaches the new mechanics of the game in a similar, but slightly more epic fashion. And what if we've already seen this area multiple times by now? One of the new screenshots, where Link has nothing on him except for some pants, a pair of sandals, the bracelet, and the destroyed Master Sword, might give it away:

Here we can see Link sky diving down towards the group of golden sky islands, with the huge shrine and the flying dragon. And I really liked a thought from Zeltik's video about the spiral stones that this could be this game's tutorial area. After the second teaser trailer from E3 2021, I first assumed that Link with his long hair and the ancient garb is a state that you will transition into. But what if it's the other way around? What if you start the game like that and you will slowly turn back into Champion Link?

In the new trailer we can see how the Champion's Tunic gets destroyed by the Malice as well, so Link will have to get a new one after the Ganondorf incident. Maybe the force behind the magic hand, which is speculated to be Hylia, brings Link into the skies to recover, where he is safe, and provides him with the ancient garbs. And you begin the game with waking up there, unaware of what has happened.

This is story-wise very similar to Breath of the Wild, of course, but it's likely that he didn't sleep for 100 years this time and the setting will be very fresh. It will also work great as a confined tutorial area, as long as he hasn't all the necessary tools yet. There is no need for some mysterious fog, which lets you disappear, because you will die for sure should you decide to jump down to Hyrule without a Paraglider this time.

Reaching all of the sky islands in this cluster would also act as a very effective tutorial. You will learn how to sky dive properly to land on islands below you. The bracelet's abilities, like the time reversal of objects or morphing through ceilings, then could act as keys to reach areas that are above you. And I wouldn't be surprised if the goal of this tutorial area were to reach the top of the temple structure... This would overall make for an excellent starting area, one that is worthy to be a successor to the Great Plateau.

Now, the story of what has happened before, down in the underground with Zelda and Ganondorf, can be told in memories again, just more condensed. Maybe there will be simply one big memory that unfolds once you reach the top of that tower... You will learn what has happened and what your mission will be, just like at the end of Great Plateau. From there you will descend into Hyrule to explore its undergrounds and to let more sky islands appear. It may even be that the tutorial area has the only existing sky islands at the beginning.

In the new footage we can spot that the Lomei Labyrinths are still on the ground at one point, but will float later on (see the huge flying cube above), which suggests that you might make them go up for some reason. Maybe this is also a mechanic that will be taught during the tutorial, where the green vortexes could be related to this and might let you create new sky islands by activating them. Maybe it all starts with one of those vortexes, where the big one above the sealed Ganondorf is what creates the initial large set of sky islands.

We will see, but one thing is for sure: a game's beginning is very important and Breath of the Wild has taught us how impactful a strong beginning can be. Let's hope that Tears of the Kingdom will start its adventure on an equally high note, which will leave a lasting impression.

(PS: I started writing this before the artbook leak and decided to post it chronologically before it, just to have a clean cut there, since this may be the last post speculating about Tears of the Kingdom, unless I decide to study the leak after all.)

Tears of the Kingdom's Coverage – Cause for Concern or Confidence?

In less than three months we will be playing Tears of the Kingdom and we still haven't seen a single second of live gameplay. We haven't even gotten a screenshot with the game's HUD visible. It's all just been snippets from the trailer montages so far, where the one from the last Nintendo Direct probably created more questions than it answered. We don't really know much about the story, other than that Ganondorf is back, where we are left to speculate by Nintendo.

This certainly has raised some concern among the Zelda community, where for now this just looks like a glorified expansion for Breath of the Wild and Nintendo hasn't given us anything substantial. But is it really because they don't have anything substantial to show or because they don't want to?

Let's be fair, all Nintendo needs to give in order to market this game are the following three lines of information:

• This is the sequel to Breath of the Wild.
• It is called "Tears of the Kingdom".
• It will launch on May 12th, 2023.
  

That's all it needs. Breath of the Wild was so massively successful that its sequel will sell plenty on reputation alone. The players will give it the benefit of the doubt and the big fans are going to buy and play it anyway. But Breath of the Wild is still selling as we speak, where it recently has broken the 30 million mark, numbers that past Zelda titles couldn't even dream of. It's an evergreen and if the sequel is any good, it will also do extraordinarily well. It may not sell as much as Breath of the Wild has, given the nature of a sequel coming out at the end of a console's life span, but it will also likely leave the rest of the series behind.

Nintendo can use this to their advantage to limit their marketing for this game to a need-to-know basis, so that the players will discover most of it themselves when they finally play the game, where all the puzzle pieces from the trailers are then coming together. Instead of Nintendo explaining it to us in a Nintendo Direct, we will experience it first hand for ourselves. And the rest will be achieved by word of mouth. "Did you see that?"

It is one thing when Nintendo just simply shows us something in advance, it is another to discover it for yourself. Imagine the impact of finding your first big dungeon, something that you may not even expect this game to have at this point.

A great sense of discovery is what made Breath of the Wild so special and if you think about it, Nintendo has mostly stuck to the Great Plateau when showcasing the game prior to its launch and left everything else for the players to discover. We didn't really know anything about the Champions or what the Divine Beasts were, before we played the game, for example, we only got glimpses of them in the final trailer. We hadn't even seen Zelda's face before that trailer!

Speaking of, I'm sure Nintendo will release one last trailer for Tears of the Kingdom to generate hype, something that will be as epic as that infamous Nintendo Switch Presentation Trailer, which certainly took part in the console's early success. This may even be where they show us some of the things that the fans desperately want to see, like larger dungeons or weapon crafting.

But hype is a double edged sword and you have to use it responsibly to not create false expectations. I still remember how the last trailer for Breath of the Wild created all these possibilities in my head, where I assumed that the Champions or their descendants could become playable, like the partners in The Wind Waker, which didn't happen until three years later with Age of Calamity. And I already have to be careful with this again...

It could be that Tears of the Kingdom has fantastic dungeons this time. It could be that you will be able to play as Zelda in some form. It could be that the patented "morph through ceiling" ability is an absolute game changer, which will alter your perception of every three dimensional space... But as long as Nintendo hasn't shown us any of these things in action, we shouldn't expect them to happen.

Still, one might hope that Nintendo is going into this game with the utmost confidence that they have something truly special once more, which will have been worth the wait and all the secrecy.