Tag: Best of 2022
Back Page EVERYONE STAY CALM. Here's How To Game Safely On Friday 13th
It's that dreaded day again!
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...
Feature How Do Game Developers And Artists Feel About The Rise Of AI Art?
Should we all be worried, or is it just a fad?
If you've had your ear to the ground for the past couple of years, you'll have heard at least some of the rumbles of debate over the ethics and impact of AI art. You may have even heard the names of some tools used to create AI art, like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E. But you may also be...
Soapbox After 10 Years I Finally Got A Wii U, Here’s What I Thought
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, following up on his piece from a few weeks back, Jim delivers his verdict on the ten-year-old console and how it holds up in 2022 ... Picture the scene. The year...
Feature Mecha And Memories - How 16-Bit Nostalgia Influenced SNES-Style JRPG 'Chained Echoes'
"Xenoblade Chronicles 3 nearly caused a delay"
A world where dragons exist and people pilot mechs? Not the most common of combinations — despite both elements often appearing in RPGs frequently over the years — but for SNES and PS1-inspired JRPG Chained Echoes, this is completely the norm. Revealed back in 2019, the game blasted through its...
Talking Point Which Zelda Game Should You Play First?
Where should you start if you're new to The Legend?
The announcement of a solid release date for BOTW2 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom marked the beginning of a new, more intense phase of enthusiasm for one of the most anticipated sequels of the decade. Sure, a new Zelda game is always big news, but when it's a follow-up to one of the most...
Talking Point Professor Layton And The Lost Franchise: Where Did The Beloved Puzzle Series Go?
This reminds me of a puzzle...
From the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, my gaming experience was all about learning to become a gentleman. This was a central topic which ran throughout the Professor Layton series. If Professor Hershel Layton wore a trench coat, I wore a trench coat; if he drank fruity tea, I drank fruity tea; if he was reminded of a...
Feature How Stardew Valley Grew The Farm Sim While Harvest Moon Went To Seed
The Concerned Ape and the Golden Egg
In August of 1996, the same year that Spice Girls released their debut single and The English Patient swept awards season, a little game called Bokujō Monogatari came out in Japan on the Super Famicom. All signs pointed to it being a flop: its development had been plagued by bankruptcy and downsizing; it came...
Feature "No Man's Sky Will Never Run On That" - Sean Murray Talks Defying The Odds On Switch
"I have a good history of being right sometimes and totally wrong other times"
Anyone who has played or has even been remotely interested in No Man's Sky over the past six years will most likely have heard of Sean Murray. The founder of development studio Hello Games and creator of No Man's Sky's ever-expanding universe, Murray's name sits above the...
Feature Why Is Splatoon So Popular In Japan?
Nintendo is squids in
It happened almost overnight. One day in May 2015, Splatoon merch appeared everywhere in Japan. Baby inklings dangled from kids’ backpacks. Squid-girl stickers adorned pencil cases. Convenience stores advertised raffles for figurines, coffee cups, and Splatoon-branded bags. This explosion of Splat-swag was perhaps more of a...
Noir goes lucid
One of the biggest surprises and standouts during the 13th September Nintendo Direct was the reveal of Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE, a brand new mystery game from Kazutaka Kodaka, the creator of the Danganronpa series. Set in a rainy city full of bright lights, and embracing a more dark fantasy style compared to the pink...
Feature Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Trailer Breakdown - Theories And Speculation
A thorough Sheikdown
We've finally found out the title of Breath of the Wild 2 (which means we can stop calling it Breath of the Wild 2) alongside a brand-new trailer in the latest Nintendo Direct — and it's called Tears of the Kingdom, which has already set off a ton of theories. You know what that means, Zelda fans — it's time to put our...
Feature The History Of Monolith Soft - From Baten Kaitos To Xenoblade And Zelda
A monolithic tale
Monolith Soft has become one of the most recognisable of Nintendo's first-party developers in recent times. Led by legendary RPG writer and director Tetsuya Takahashi, the studio is renowned for the monolithic (pun intended) Xenoblade series. Combining MMORPG-style, memorable worlds, stunning music, and philosophical writing, the...
Soapbox Splatoon 3's Midnight Launch Felt A Bit Different
Veteran video game journalist James Mielke camps out
Ah, the venerable midnight launch. The once-expected tradition of camping out for midnight game launches — so timed as to technically adhere to official game street dates while still capitalising on gamer obsessions and enthusiasm — is, at least in New York City, on the verge of extinction...
Feature "Unfinished Business" - Why Gilbert & Grossman Returned To Monkey Island
Working with Disney, Devolver, and fans
Does Guybrush Threepwood still want to be a pirate? This, after all, was the Monkey Island protagonist’s very first proclamation 32 years ago: “My name is Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!” But given the fact that he’s only set sail in five previous Monkey Island adventures sprinkled...
Feature 25 Years Of GoldenEye 007 - 25 Facts You Didn't Know (Or Forgot You Knew)
I watched you from the shadows as a child
As you've probably noticed, GoldenEye 007 is now 25 years old and can legally hire a car in a foreign country. The influence of Rare's seminal shooter on the FPS genre and console video gaming in general is enormous, and gamers have now been poring over it and picking apart its secrets for the last...
Soapbox Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie Is Still One Of The Greatest Adaptations Ever
Shoooryuken!
If you're into anime, then chances are you can remember the first movie or TV show that got you hooked on the medium; your "gateway drug", if you will. For some, it might be TV shows like DragonBall Z or One Piece, others perhaps a specific movie like Ghost in the Shell or Akira (indeed, I had to really go back through the memory...
Soapbox Crossing The Line: How I Helped Corrupt The Animal Crossing Economy
New Horizons for NMT fungibility
It's midnight by the pier. I check I’m alone, feel nervously into my pocket and count the money with my fingers. It's all there: 40 massive sacks of coins. Big pocket. I flip up the lid of the wheelie bin and dump the lot. 4 million bells erased from the universe and no one need ever know. How did it come to this?...
Poll Budget Line Box Art - Is It 'Fine' Or A Sin Against All That Is Good And Pure?
Player's choice? Surely not!
The world's greatest secret agent really blending in there When it comes to box art, we're sticklers here at Nintendo Life Towers. Our Box Art Brawl series — which compares and contrasts regional box art variations and asks you to vote for your favourite — made a welcome return recently following a hiatus, and it...
Video Join Us As We Celebrate 'The MOTHER We Share: Our EarthBound Story'
Now screening at PAX West
It's the second Sunday in May, which means it's Mother's Day in a great many countries around the world (although not in the UK, where Mothering Sunday falls in March). We're celebrating Mother's Day this year in a very special way and looking back fondly on one particular Mother that Nintendo fans around the world are...
Soapbox Yes, You Really Should Do All Of Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Sidequests
Live to sidequest
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Alana says you should do all of the sidequests in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 because they're that good. Or at least most of them… The Xenoblade series is known for many things...
Feature How Video Games Can Be Brilliant For Your Mental Health
Escapism, education, and being "alone together"
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as part of our mental health coverage, I spoke to two psychologists from Take This — a non-profit dedicated to reducing the stigma of mental health in the gaming community, as well as raising awareness of the areas in which games and mental health intersect...
Feature An Interview With ZANE_ROCKS_36, The Cool Dude Behind DOOM-Style Shooter 'Slayers X'
The real Hypnospace Outlaw
Erm, so... Have you played Hypnospace Outlaw? If so, great; if not, here's a quick primer: Hypnospace Outlaw is a simulation game made by Jay Tholen, Corey Cochran, and Xalavier Nelson Jr. in which you play an enforcer of rules on "Hypnospace", a '90s-style version of the internet that happens while you sleep. In your...
Feature Which Is The Absolute Best Nintendo Console Generation?
Nintendo: The Best Generation
Looking back over nearly four decades of video game output from Nintendo in both hardware and software form, it's easy to pick out highlights, both historical and personal. Super Mario Bros. was a seminal release in the history of the medium; A Link To The Past codified the design template that the Zelda series would...
Feature Artist Larry Achiampong's Life Of Nintendo, Creativity And Inspiration
"That’s the beauty of video games, it’s our way of life"
While there are often discussions around the merits of gaming as an artform, we perhaps talk less about examples of games helping to inspire other contemporary art. Yet as years pass it's an inevitability, as the role of games in the lives of millions has transformed since the mid- to...
Feature Hot Zelda: Link To The Past Takes From '90s Game Mags, 30 Years Later
A link to the Link to the Past past
Let us set the scene: The year is 1992. You are sitting in your living room, wearing something with massive shoulder pads, probably. Guns N' Roses is playing on the radio. Social media does not yet exist. Raise your sword if you miss the '90s It is into this peaceful scene that we can add a sprinkling of video...
The perils of dipping a toe in a franchise
It started with a simple question: Which Dragon Quest should I play first? It's one of my gaming shames that I've never touched Square Enix's hallowed RPG series, and I've been wanting to dig into something really meaty for many months now. Sure, I've got about 30 unplayed RPGs ready and waiting on Switch...
Feature The Story Of Affordable Space Adventures, The Wii U eShop's Best Exclusive
"I don’t know why, but Nicklas was hanging around in the office!"
When Nintendo confirmed the upcoming closure of the Wii U eShop (and the 3DS store, too), thoughts immediately turned to exclusives that'll be lost. The most prominent of these on the system, we'd suggest, is Affordable Space Adventures, a unique game only on Wii U and destined to...
Talking Point How's Your Switch Holding Up After 5 Years?
Memories and mistreatment
Switch is officially five years old now, and it's got us thinking back half a decade to our very first interactions with the little console that could. Whether we were lucky enough to get our hands on an early review unit, or marched down to our local video game emporium to pick up a pre-order, or winged it on the...
Feature From Chrono Trigger To Super Mario RPG, The Varied Influences Of Sea Of Stars
"Just like with The Messenger, with the genre we want to present our 'definitive edition'"
The Messenger made a notable impact when it arrived back in 2018, with its sharp design and Ninja Gaiden-inspired gameplay also giving way to a major twist and very modern design. In that case developer Sabotage captured the imagination of retro gamers and...
Feature "Shovel Knight Feels Like Our 'Mario', But We Kept Wondering What Our 'Zelda' Might Be"
Yacht Club Games discusses the creative process for Mina the Hollower
Yacht Club Games is a company that needs little introduction, particularly thanks to the huge success and acclaim for Shovel Knight, a title that had multiple major expansions and campaigns over a number of years. The company has been busy beyond that too; last year it published...
Soapbox Why Can't Nintendo Offer Both Virtual Console And Switch Online?
Says the writer that will need to redownload a lot of VC purchases on Wii U and 3DS
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Thomas discusses the unnecessary 'choice' by Nintendo between Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online...
Full server shutdowns could be coming sooner than you think, too
Over the holidays we're republishing some choice features from the last 12 months. A mix of talking points, interviews, opinion pieces and more from NL staff and contributors, you'll find our usual blend of thoughtfulness, expertise, frivolity, retro nostalgia, and — of course —...
Feature 16 Theories About Link's Weird Arm In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2
Zelda: Arms
We know surprisingly little about the game currently titled The Sequel To The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. [Oof, it's Tears of the Kingdom, past-Kate! We'll forgive you for not knowing the name of the new Zelda game before it was announced, though. Carry on! - Ed] But that won't stop me from furiously speculating about it all the...
Feature Remembering The Newest Nintendo IP You'd Forgotten All About
We've been expecting you, Buddy Mission BOND
Did you know that every year Nintendo publishes at least one new IP? It’s true, they haven’t missed a year since 1983, the year the Famicom launched in Japan. [Editor's note. Except for 2022, it seems. You were on a roll, Nintendo!] In 2020 we had Good Job!, Astral Chain in 2019, Sushi Striker in...
Back Page "My Uncle Works At Nintendo" - The Man, The Myth, And The Mendacity
It’s all lies… until it’s all true
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...
Feature Missing In Action - What Happened To These Switch Games?
Genshin Impact, Silksong, Metroid Prime 4, and Outer Wilds
Note: Having heard (finally!) about Pikmin 4, we've updated and added to this article (first published back in June). Enjoy! The media cycle that exists around video games these days can be quite punishing. After all, if you announce a game before it's ready, and then realise that it needs...
Talking Point Which Animation Studios Should Tackle Nintendo's Other Franchises?
A match made in heaven
Picture the scene. You go to watch the Mario Movie in 2023. You realise that it is a stroke of genius, surely garnering a Return of the King number of Oscar nominations and going down in history as one of the all-time greats. The credits roll. Just as you are on your way out with your friends, chortling about Chris Pratt's...
Talking Point What On Earth Is Going On With Square Enix?
We don't have enough gil!
If you take even a quick glance at a release schedule for the next six months, you'll see that there are a heck of a lot of games coming out. Look a little closer, though, and you'll spot that maybe 50 of them are from Square Enix. And that's just on the Switch! We're exaggerating, of course, but it's hard to ignore the...
Feature Backlog Club: Hollow Knight Does Things That Other Games Wouldn't. That's Why It's So Good
A game about bugs?! In this economy????
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. Read part one of our Hollow Knight playthrough here! This is the...
Feature Backlog Club: Hollow Knight Is A Perfect Game For Notebook Cartography
Leaving a paper trail
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. In the first part of our Hollow Knight playthrough, Kate has noticed that Hollow...
Back Page Making The Perfect Nintendo Frankenconsole
Sum of its parts
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 jokes —...
Feature Remembering Klonoa's Dreamy GBA Platformers - Empires, Champions, And Puzzles
It's not only a phantasy
The ‘90s and 2000s were a totally different era. I can’t tell you how many times I sat down playing the same demo discs over and over or replaying the same handful of games as a kid. Bandai Namco’s old mascot Klonoa — soon to return in the upcoming Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series — is the first-ever video game...
Memory Pak After 20 Years, Eternal Darkness Really Deserves A Second Life
Being stuck on one system is pure insanity
Picture the setting. You’re walking around a grand mansion, testing out keys on locked doors, investigating every nook and cranny, and simply trying your best to figure out where you need to go and what you need to do. The rooms are well-lit and the furniture neatly positioned together. By all accounts,...
Talking Point Video Game Music Is More Popular Than Ever, So Why Is Nintendo So Behind?
Make it music to our ears!
There’s been a lot of Nintendo-related music news over the past year that has had me more than a little disappointed. I like to boot up a video game soundtrack while I’m working; I’m a big fan of video game music concerts and I have a small collection of albums and vinyl that I want to keep growing. And with access...
Soapbox Dragon's Dogma Is A Janky, Weird, Ageing RPG, And Everyone Should Play It
Pawn stars
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen turned 10 years old this week, and to celebrate, Kate's been reminiscing about her first time playing it, and her love for Grocco... On the surface, Dragon's Dogma looks like any other 2010s RPG. It's got dragons, it's got swords, it's got side quests. You've played Skyrim. You've played Dark Souls. You know...
Feature What The Heck Is A 'MetroidBrainia'? Introducing The Newest Genre On The Block
Brain reaction
Recently, I was talking to my partner about my all-time favourite niche genre of games. He's a game developer, so we have these kinds of discussions a lot, usually trying to nail down what it is we like best about a particular game, or scene, or genre — but this time, we were trying to find out exactly what the genre even was. Now,...
Feature There's No Storytelling Like Minecraft's Exquisite Emergent Narrative
Story time!
It's the fifth anniversary of Minecraft's Switch release today, and we're celebrating the only way we know how: By writing lots of words about it. Hooray! I was away from home when my house caught on fire. I didn't even hear about it until the next day, when it was far too late: The beautiful Tudor-style cottage was naught but a...
Back Page Pokémon Moms Speak Out About Palindromic Regions And Raising Champions
A trio of Pokémom
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 jokes...
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...
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...