Latest Features
Talking Point Can It Really Be 10 Years Since Fire Emblem: Awakening Saved The Series?
From niche series to Nintendo staple
10 years ago today, Fire Emblem: Awakening was released on the 3DS in Japan. At the time the series had a core and devoted audience, but it had struggled to make a meaningful sales breakthrough outside of Japan. There was no doubting the development and storytelling talent of developer Intelligent Systems,...
Feature How Limited Run's New Engine Respects The Legacy Of Classic Games
"If we’re going to make a change that sweeping, the original needs to be there as well"
The world of physical media in brick-and-mortar stores has dwindled in recent years due to the proliferation of digital storefronts readily and conveniently available on modern platforms. While some would never think to pay the same (or more) on a digital game...
Memory Pak My First Killing Game - 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
What a wicked game to play
There was a time before I knew about killing games. Before Hunger Games, before Danganronpa, before Squid Game. And then, I played 999. On the face of it, killing games seem sociopathic: We tend to follow a single "player" who is unwittingly enrolled in a game where only the strongest, cleverest, or most underhanded...
Feature Backlog Club: Slay The Spire Part One - Be More Tortoise
Time to hit the deck
This article is part of our new experimental series, Backlog Club, where we (Nintendo Life!) pick a game that's likely to be on our list of "games we should get around to playing", and then we (NL + you!) spend the next month playing that game. This is the halfway point, the Part One of two, where we stop for a minute to check...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 16th)
A long weekend? More time for video games
If you celebrate it, Happy Easter! If not, we hope you at least have a nice, long weekend, or perhaps you're just going to relax more than normal. Whatever you're doing, we hope video games factor into your plans. This week, we got a new Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes trailer, which introduces us to...
Don't ovoid 'em!
It's Easter, and we here at Nintendo Life think that "Easter Egg" features are more overdone than an egg boiled for 20 minutes. Besides, we know about all the Easter Eggs in games already, from Chris Houlihan's room to the secret Tingle dungeon that you can find in Skyward Sword by entering the Konami code. (That last one's not...
Guide Best Twin Stick Shooters On Nintendo Switch
Opposable thumbs required
Twin-stick shooters are ruddy good fun, right? It's a genre that allows you to just switch off your brain for a few minutes at a time while you blast enemies into the abyss. All you need is a couple of analogue sticks and a thirst for destruction and you're ready to go! We've already got a list for the best shmup games on...
Talking Point If Breath Of The Wild 2 Launched Alongside New Switch Hardware, Would You Upgrade?
Gotta have those fluffy clouds
Just a couple of weeks ago, the famed honcho of the Legend of Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma, announced that the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be delayed into Spring 2023. It was an announcement that many of us were undoubtedly expecting, particularly given that 2022 is already playing host to the...
Feature Backlog Club: Week Zero - Hello (Again), And Welcome (Again) To Backlog Club
Let's dig into that pile of shame
Rule number one of Backlog Club: Work through your pile of unplayed video games one at a time, and discuss them with other people. Rule number two of Backlog Club: Don't talk about Backlog Club. Just kidding! Tell everyone. Please. [Update: Wed 13th Apr, 2022 13:00 BST] Ahem. Hello again. Weren't expecting us...
Feature Ukrainian Developer Frogwares Talks Sherlock On Switch And Community Solidarity
"In these difficult times, I'd like to wish everyone peace"
The Switch library has most genres and game types covered, including titles that encourage us to slow down, assess clues and solve mysteries. Frogwares is a developer well known in this area for its Sherlock games, though it made its Switch debut with the very solid port of original IP The...
Back Page Which Is The Best Controller Button, And What Does Your Pick Say About You?
It's a hot-button topic!
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have (paper) pages on the internet, but we still love terrible...
Every Nintendo Switch LEGO game, as ranked by you
It's perhaps surprising to see just how many games based on a Danish plastic brick system (habitually melded to another juicy licence) have graced Nintendo's hybrid system since launch. Looking back, we've had Switch ports of older Lego games, all-new releases, and even a couple that weren't a port...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 9th)
In a backlog far, far away...
Easter is already just around the corner! Or Egg Day. Whatever you want to call it. Really, it's just an excuse to eat chocolate and play video games, right? Did you check out our Indie Spotlight earlier in the week? Well, we'll give you another chance below. After last week's Zelda bombshell, it's been a bit quieter...
Gallery Masahiro Sakurai's Best Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tweets
Our favourite dev shots from the Smash Bros. creator
For a long time, Kirby creator and master of the Smash Bros. series Masahiro Sakurai posted near-daily Super Smash Bros. Ultimate screenshots on Twitter using his special debug build of the game. This developer-only mode let him line up angles and create special in-game shots that regular Smash...
Feature Nintendo Reigns Supreme At The Science Museum's 'Power UP' Exhibition
Play some of gaming's most iconic consoles and games
Walking into the Basement Gallery of the London Science Museum, you're greeted by an uncomfortable warmth that often comes with gaming events, but this is soon forgotten when you cast your eyes over the sea of consoles lying in wait. We're all so used to seeing old gaming systems locked away...
Feature 10 3DS Retail Games That Might Be Cheaper To Buy Digitally While You Can
Comparing digital to skyrocketing physical prices
Some 3DS games are super cheap to buy physically, which makes sense considering the success of the system. There are others, however, which have seen their secondhand prices shoot up in recent years. It's easy enough to find copies of big-selling first-party titles at acceptable prices (even if that...
Back Page Ranking The Kirby And The Forgotten Land Enemies By How Much I Don't Want To Kill Them
They're ALL friend-shaped
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have (paper) pages on the internet, but we still love terrible...
Soapbox The Video Game Camaraderie On r/place Is A Lesson About Community
We are all amogus
Soapbox articles give our team a chance to share some personal perspectives. Kate's been keeping an eye on a Reddit art project for the last few days, and has some warm fuzzy feelings to share... Disclaimer: The very nature of r/place means there may be some unpleasant imagery, pixel-nudity, and various other NSFW things included...
Feature 6 Things We Pokémon Vets Want To See In Pokémon Scarlet And Violet
Old Pokémon players yell at Game Freak to get off their lawn
The year was 1998. The Spice Girls were blowing up radio stations, and Nintendo had every kid under the age of 15 glued to their Game Boys playing Pokémon Red and Blue. Many of those kids, including some of us here at Nintendo Life, are now in their thirties – and therefore not long...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects - March 2022
The best of the last month's eShop games!
This year is certainly moving along, and as we head into Spring (for you Northern Hemisphere readers) we can reflect on more excellent recent eShop titles. This month's voting in the team was intriguing, and we've been left with three excellent games. These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 2nd)
It's April already?!
It's the weekend - hooray! We hope you've all managed to get through April Fools' Day in one piece. It's been another week of bombshells, with possibly the biggest news being something we all *kinda* expected but didn't want to admit, and that's the news of Breath of the Wild 2 being delayed into 2023. We also got three new...
Round Up It's April Fools' Day, Here Are The Best Gaming Gags We've Seen (2022)
Don't worry, it'll be 2nd April soon
April Fools' Day seems to be loved and disliked in almost equal measure nowadays, but when done well it can at least make us think "huh, it would be cool if that was real" or even raise a smile. We've been looking around at some Nintendo and gaming-themed pranks from this year and there's a decent range of both...
Talking Point Now That Zelda: BOTW 2 Is Off The Table, Should Holiday 2022 Belong To Mario?
Or even... Donkey Kong?
Nintendo's Holiday 2022 season is looking real quiet. Too quiet, if you ask us. Even though we're about nine months out, it seems a little odd that we don't know what Nintendo's big holiday release might be — Splatoon 3 is scheduled for the Summer, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is due in September, and of course, the previous Big...
Talking Point Nintendo Switch Online, Game Pass, And 'New' PS Plus - How Do They Compare?
Begun, the Sub Wars have
There had been rumblings over the past weeks and months that Sony was going to unveil a revamp to its subscription service to compete with Microsoft's Game Pass; it had a codename of 'Spartacus' for added effect. It did just that in the end, unveiling three new tiers of PS Plus — the lowest tier broadly represen
Poll C'mon Then, Did You Predict The Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delay?
How disappointed are you?
We all knew what the video was about when we saw the thumbnail and ominous title - "Launch Timing Update". If Nintendo was announcing a release date for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, it would be either headlining a Nintendo Direct or drop in a trailer with an exciting action shot for a thumbnail. We'd get some...
Feature How Mortal Kombat Led To The Birth Of E3 And The ESRB
"All hell is breaking loose. We need to sit down and talk"
'Long Live Mortal Kombat - The Definitive History of MK' goes behind closed doors to reveal untold stories from the making of Mortal Kombat 1 through 4 and explore how the franchise shaped popular culture. Written by David L. Craddock (@davidlcraddock), the book is funding now on...
Feature Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Is The Best Mario Kart, Right? Let's Find Out
Double the dash, double the fun
We don't claim to always be correct here at Nintendo Life, but we certainly will fight just as hard to defend our terrible opinions as we do the good ones. Today, thanks to the recent re-release of old Mario Kart tracks in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, we're thinking back to Mario Karts of old... and...
Soapbox Kirby Returns To Remind Us That Escapism Isn't A Dirty Word
A source of simple joy
Soapbox articles give our team a chance to share some personal perspectives; today it's the turn of Tom Whitehead to talk about why gaming matters more to him than ever before. I've always been someone eager to lose myself in my imagination and intriguing worlds; from childhood to the present day my biggest passions remain...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 26th)
All aboard the Karby!
Happy Kirby Week! It's another busy one here at Nintendo Life, with the launch of not only Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but also Rune Factory 5. We loved Kirby, giving it a solid 9/10 in our review, but were a tad more critical of Run Factory, slapping a score of 7/10 on our review. On the news side of things,
Talking Point Nintendo And Mobile Is An Uneasy Alliance, But It's Still Vital
Nintendo's approach to mobile is certainly shifting
Earlier this week Nintendo confirmed that Dragalia Lost will be shut down after some final story updates, to which the response of many may have been a shrug of the shoulders. The mobile exclusive was an interesting title, though, as it was the only new IP that Nintendo had invested solely into its...
Talking Point Should We Still Be Pre-Ordering Games?
Pre-order this feature and get a free plush of me
A year ago, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town came out on the Nintendo Switch. As the latest instalment in the beloved Story of Seasons (the series formerly known as Harvest Moon) series, it was pretty hyped up in the fiercely-devoted farming game fanbase... only to be more of a fart than a...
Feature I'll Never Be A Hacker, But Games About Programming Make Me Feel Like I'm Satoru Iwata
Baba != You
Up until about six years ago, my experience with the world of programming and code amounted to understanding what <b>formatting</b> meant in html, and vaguely remembering that one game about steering a turtle using basic commands like "FORWARD 10". I enjoy games, but I do not usually care to see the chaotic tangle of code...
Feature Kid Icarus: Uprising, Nintendo's Most Daring Release Of The Last Decade
Remembering one of 3DS' most intriguing releases 10 years on
Yes, it's now an entire decade since Masahiro Sakurai was permitted to do something other than Smash Bros., so to mark the occasion, Mitch Vogel looks back on one of Nintendo's most ambitious and misunderstood titles... Let’s all take a step back and rewind the clock to June 2010, a...
Talking Point Nintendo Finally Gave Us Switch Folders, In A Very Nintendo Way
Thanks anyway, Nintendo
No-one can accuse Nintendo of taking its focus away from the Switch now that it's over five years old, in fact it's quite the opposite. The release line-up of major first-party content is looking packed, the eShop is still attracting excellent download games, and Nintendo continues to look at ways to boost the Switch User...
Memory Pak The Scariest Resident Evil Scene No One Talks About
REmake turns 20
It’s been 20 years to the day since Resident Evil launched on GameCube in Japan — can you believe it? The once-exclusive remake of the 1996 original has since achieved legendary status, with many fans declaring it as the strongest entry to the franchise. I happen to agree; yes, Resident Evil 4 is arguably more influential and...
Back Page Why The Heck Does Kirby Hate This Tree So Much?
Kirby vs a literal tree - 30 years of animosity
In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag". We don't have (paper) pages on the internet, but we...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 19th)
Fancy a trip to Coconut Mall?
We've needed a calm week here at Nintendo Life, and it sure seemed that way until the release of Wave 1 of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass. If you're not a Mario Kart Tour fan, then this DLC is for you! Plus you can check out what
Feature The 20 Best Kirby Copy Abilities
ctrl+c, ctrl+k
In 30 years of Kirby, it’s fair to say he’s seen a broad swathe of powerful abilities come his way. And here at Nintendo Life, with the release of Kirby and the Forgotten Land fast approaching, we’ve decided that it’s time someone picked the 20 best and made a list of them, darn it. After all, it’s the least we could do...
Talking Point Not A Mario Kart Tour Fan? Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Gives You The Best Of Both Worlds
Awesome for us Mario Kart Tour holdouts
The internet's a funny place. For years there was wailing and gnashing of teeth as the mobile-only Mario Kart Tour got all-new tracks and much-loved classics — "bring that content to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe!", we demanded. Then the Booster Course Pack is announced and lots of (probably the sa
Feature How Audio Description Can Make Trailers And Video Gaming More Accessible
We chatted to AD experts, Descriptive Video Works
Accessibility in games is an important topic that has been receiving a lot more well-deserved attention over the past few years, in large part thanks to accessibility advocates and large companies taking up the mantle. But we still have a long way to go — as recent discussions over the difficulty...
Feature We Talked To The Godzilla-Obsessed Devs Of Kaiju Co-Op Beat-'Em-up, Dawn Of The Monsters
Like a Mothra to a flame
Do you hate kaiju? Yeah! So do we. Godzilla needs to be taken down a peg or two, if you ask us, which you didn't. Well, now you can live the kaiju-fighting punch-a-thon of your dreams in Dawn of the Monsters, the latest game from Runbow developers 13AM and publisher WayForward, who themselves made Contra 4 and River City...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 12th)
And why is it F-Zero X?
The dust has settled a bit this week at Nintendo Life, but we've still had plenty of bits and bobs to talk about! The big releases this week include the delightful Chocobo GP, which we rather enjoyed, and the N64 classic F-Zero X via Nintendo Switch Online, which is also ruddy good. In other news, we received a lovely...
Feature 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
These options should really be industry standard by now
When it comes to accessibility features in video games, things have improved somewhat in recent years, with many developers now consciously providing elementary options that tweak the gameplay experience to better suit players of different abilities and with specific impairments. There remains...
Feature So, One Horse-Sized Duck Or Ten Duck-Sized Horses? Yoko Taro Answers The Big Question
Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden devs answer some quick Qs
Game development these days regularly involves multiple dozens of people — sometimes hundreds or thousands — and typically games take many years of gestation before arriving. Even smaller releases from indie studios might be years in the making, which is just one of the things that...
Guide Best Nintendo Switch Detective Games
Grab your trilby and trench coat
Everyone loves a good mystery, and even more so if they're the one who gets to solve it. The detective genre has evolved a great deal since its point-and-click adventure game roots, and this list proves how much things have changed. In fact, the games that we're including in this list range from typical noir...
Feature 7 Reasons For Picking Starter Pokémon, But How Do You Pick Yours?
What's love got to do with it?
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have finally been shown to the world and in spite of all the important debates whirling around the internet right now about the development team's enormous workload, concerned speculation over exactly how we're going to catch all of the new Pokémon this time around after Arceus' welcome re
Memory Pak I Was Accidentally In The Perfect Place For The Nintendo Switch Launch Week
No, it wasn't "The Free Nintendo Switch Shop", that doesn't exist
Soapbox and 'Memory Pak' articles give our team a chance to share some personal perspectives; today it's the turn of Kate Gray to tell us her memories of the week the Switch came out, five years ago... Five-ish years ago, in February 2017, I had just decided to move country. I had...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects - February 2022
The best eShop games from February!
2022 is certainly picking up momentum in terms of game releases, with the Switch eShop serving up some excellent titles throughout February. It was a tough month of voting for our staff this time around! These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's digital store, giving some love and attention to the...
Talking Point How Long Does Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Take To Beat, Really?
And what does it even MEAN to beat a game, man?
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild turned five years old this week, and to celebrate the momentous occasion the Twitter account for How Long To Beat — a site that tells you how long on average a game will take you to complete — reminded everyone of BOTW's stats: Now, 50 hours sounds about...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 5th)
A strategic week
Well, it seems that last week was the calm before the storm, right? It's been a hectic few days in the land of Nintendo Life; chiefly, there was the big announcement of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet during the Pokemon Presents showcase. We also saw the release of Square Enix's Triangle Strategy and thought it was a darn good SRPG, and...