Latest Features
Hands On Silent Hill Meets Teen High School Horror In Blumhouse's 'Fear The Spotlight'
Spotlighting old-school horror
Blumhouse Productions exploded onto the scene in 2009 as a big deal in the horror film world. The studio had been around since 2002, but Paranormal Activity put it on the map. The use of home cameras to create something that felt much older than it actually was recaptured interest in the 'found footage' genre a decade...
Hands On Luigi's Mansion 2 HD Delivers More Than Just A Hi-Def Upgrade
Dark Moon rising
As well as PJ's opinion below, check out Alex's take on the game in his hands-on preview video There's always been something very tactile, very tangible about the Luigi's Mansion experience. It comes mostly, we guess, from how this most terrified of heroes chooses to tip-toe and panic-run around levels. He moves differently, is...
Feature 20 Great Gaming Accounts You Should Follow On Bluesky
Never saw the sun...
With Nintendo ending Twitter integration for posting Switch screenshots today, we thought it might be worth taking a closer look at one of the alternative micro-blogging apps which have popped up over the last few years and highlight a few great game-related accounts that are worth following. After an extended period when new...
Talking Point amiibo Were First Revealed 10 Years Ago Today, And We Still Want More
Will they continue with 'Switch 2'?
10th June 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the reveal of Nintendo's toys-to-life line of figures at E3 2014. A stop-gap project for Nintendo to fill a void between the foundering Wii U and the company's next 'NX' hardware, it's hard to argue that the interactive potential of these little Near-Field...
Hands On Sonic X Shadow Generations Is A Love Letter To Sonic Adventure 2
Shadow Superstars
Back in 2011, Sonic Generations felt like an attempt to win back long-time Sonic fans. Whether they grew up with 2D Sonic or the 3D adventures, both sides of the fanbase were becoming frustrated with the attempts at experimentation, and the supposed abandonment of what made Sonic great – fast, frantic, flowing action. Sonic X...
Poll Box Art Brawl - Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (Game Boy)
Let's rock-man
It's that time again, folks - yes, Box Art Brawl is back! In last week's battle, we looked at Dragon Quest III for the NES, pitting North America against Japan. As we'd expected, the Japanese variant, featuring gorgeous artwork from the late Akira Toriyama, won hands down, pulling in 73% of the vote. Gosh, the North American design...
Talking Point HD-2D Or 3D - How Should Square Enix Remake Chrono Trigger?
2D or not 2D
Chrono Trigger is still missing in action on Nintendo Switch. Suspiciously so, really. But people said the same thing about Super Mario RPG, and then bam: Nintendo dropped a remake on us. Fans have been asking for a Chrono Trigger remake for decades at this point, so now more than ever, with so many other revivals from Square like...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (8th June)
Wake up, Link
The weekend is finally upon us and it's time to play some games! There has been plenty to talk about this week in the world of Nintendo. Yet more 'Switch 2' rumours trickled in with a fresh batch of supposed codenames, Playtonic announced Yooka-Replaylee (maybe our favourite title of the year, so far) and
Round Up Day Of The Devs SGF Edition 2024 - Every Announcement, All Confirmed Switch Games
Arranger! Fear the Spotlight! And More!
Day of the Devs is here once again! This bi-annual celebration, from Double Fine Productions and iam8bit, of the weird and wonderful world of indies is always a delight, and at Summer Game Fest 2024, the showcase didn't disappoint. We got a look at 20 games, including seven World Premieres. These range from...
Feature We Look To The Past To Predict Every First-Party 'Switch 2' Release Until 2029
Super Mario Spreadsheet
By any measure, the Switch has been a rousing success. It has outsold and outlasted almost every gaming console ever made, but according to Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa, its days are now numbered. Rumors aside, we don’t know exactly what form the “Switch successor” will take, nor even what it will be called...
Talking Point Would You Want Quality And Performance Options For Nintendo's 'Switch 2' Games?
Smooth operator
Since the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launched in 2013, gamers have increasingly been given the option to tweak their experiences based on whether they prefer higher image quality or smoother performance. Not all developers offer this, but now that we're more than three-and-a-half years into the lifespan of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox...
Feature "Only Pokémon Can Make Pokémon" - Dicefolk Devs On Finding A Voice In A Crowded Genre
"You never know when the Pokémon inspiration will strike!"
In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of roguelikes on Switch. In even more recent years, we have seen the same happen for 'Pokémon-likes'. Naturally, each genre has its respective highs and lows, but rarely have we seen both of them joined by the same game. Tha
Soapbox Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Viva la Vivian!
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, it's time to celebrate Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Vivian, and Alana does it with Pride. Nintendo’s track record with LGBTQIA+ characters has been… mixed, to say the...
From Revenge to Rising
WayForward Technologies has worked on several well-known franchises over the years, including the likes of Contra, Silent Hill, The Mummy, Transformers, and even Aliens. Despite this, the reveal that the developer would collaborate with Atari on a brand new Yars entry came as a genuine shock to many, this writer included. Not...
Feature Nintendo Life eShop Selects & Readers' Choice (May 2024)
Our picks for the best eShop games in May
Pinch yourselves — May is over, the big Summer of Gaming is here, and it's eShop Selects time again. Time flies! To say May has been crazy is a bit of an understatement. Nintendo may have had two big(ish) releases with Endless Ocean Luminous and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but have you seen the...
Poll Box Art Brawl - Duel: Dragon Quest III (NES)
Before the remake(s)
We are back, back, back for another edition of Box Art Brawl! Before we dive into this week's topical match-up, let's recap what went down last time. Two 3DS covers for Bravely Default went head-to-head in our last duel and great Scott, was it a close one! The European 'For the Sequel' version put up a good fight but was...
Talking Point How Do You Define 'Retro'?
10 years? 20? Anything older than two console generations?
If you're reading this, you're getting older. Right now, at this moment, you're older than you were when you started reading this sentence. And this one. No, you can't go back and read it again to get younger. Time marches on, so thank you for spending your precious seconds on this silly...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (1st June)
What are YoRHa doing?
Crikey, it's the weekend already..? Ah well, we'll take it! Looking back on this week, it's kinda felt like a bit of a quieter one, but we've still had some pretty sizeable news items drop. The top story this week was undoubtedly the reveal of the new Lego set based on the Legend of Zelda franchise's Deku Tree; it's an...
"Collaboration contents from outside Capcom will not be carried over"
The Nintendo 3DS had plenty of incredible exclusives and in its heyday, a lot of those were in the Monster Hunter series. One gem that truly stands out from its no-glasses-3D siblings is Monster Hunter Stories. Developed as a collaboration between Capcom and Marvelous, this...
Video For 365 Days, We Took Our 2DS Everywhere Just For StreetPass
Please Nintendo, put StreetPass in 'Switch 2'
StreetPass was fantastic — StreetPass is fantastic — and last year our intrepid video producer Zion Grassl went on a personal quest to see how many tags he could get for the glorious little inter-console app... At the start of 2023, I had a real longing for the days of the 3DS. Partially due to the...
Poll Is $60 Too Much For Nintendo's Switch Re-Releases?
Remaking money
As Nintendo's internal software focus has switched to games for its as-yet-unannounced hardware, we've been enjoying a wave of lower-key ports, remakes, and remasters over the last year or so, in addition to the tentpole TOTKs and Mario Wonders of the world. The sun may be slowly setting on Switch, but quality revisits such as Metroid...
Talking Point What Other LEGO Zelda Sets Would You Like To See After The Deku Tree?
The seal is broken
The long-rumoured LEGO Zelda set has finally, officially been unveiled and, despite the cost of the adult-focused set causing many a Zelda fan to spit-take their Lon Lon Milk across the room, the 2-in-1 Great Deku Tree looks like a beauty. Of course, it absolutely should do for 300 bucks, but looking at the myriad details crammed...
Feature Is 'Trails Through Daybreak' The Fresh Beginning The Trails Series Needs?
I'm a Daybreaker
We're always a little bit wary whenever someone says that the latest game in Falcom's Trails series is "a great place to start". We know we've said in the past — as we did with Trails from Zero — but it's a statement we always put a lot of consideration into. This statement holds a lot of weight in this franchise, both among...
The sweat, the tears, the evil babies
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mario Kart 8, George recently enlisted a troupe of willing racers (at least that's what he told us) to tackle every single track in the upgraded, DLC-laden Deluxe version in a local four-player blowout to end them all. What follows is a twisting tale of glory and grief,...
Soapbox The Erdrick Trilogy Is The Right 'Dragon Quest' For The HD-2D Treatment
Rumblings of an Elusive Age
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. And with Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake — or whatever it's meant to be now — finally re-emerging after three years, Alana's here to make a case as to why this is the RPG...
Gallery 13 Awesome Details We Spotted In The Legend Of Zelda's Great Deku Tree LEGO Set
Hey, Look!
It's official, Lego has revealed that The Legend of Zelda will be the next Nintendo franchise joining its gaming series, kicking things off with the Great Deku Tree 2-in-1 set on 1st September 2024. Listed at £259.99 / $299.99 and consisting of 2,500 bricks, the 2-in-1 set lets you build Hyrule's iconic Deku Tree in either its Ocarina...
Exclusive Meet The Three Brothers Making Their Dream 'Secret Of Mana'-Inspired RPG
"We want to make one of the most accessible and playable RPGs of all time"
Couch co-op and JRPG are two genres you don't often see together. Secret of Mana is one of the earliest examples of the genre, with most of the Tales of series also allowing fans to play together while sitting side-by-side. But outside of those examples, playing JRPGs with...
Poll What Review Score Would You Give Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door?
The door's open
Last week saw the return of the king of Paper Marios as The Thousand-Year Door launched on Switch in remake form. Following last year's excellent Super Mario RPG remake, our deputy editor Alana Hagues once again tackled a turn-based Mario and found this latest Switch remake from Intelligent Systems to be "a fantastic RPG adventure,...
Soapbox After Restarting My Save File, I Finally 'Get' Hollow Knight
*sigh* Bapanada
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim is finally seeing the Hollow light... Last year, I decided to take a break from Tears of the Kingdom and pick up a fun-looking, rarely discussed indie which was subject to a...
Poll Box Art Brawl - Duel: Bravely Default
Fly high, fairy
Hello folks, and welcome back to another edition of Box Art Brawl. Before we get cracking, let's see how things panned out last week, hm? We looked at Super Monkey Ball Adventure, one of several entries for the GameCube. As we'd expected, the busier, more vibrant box art from North America sealed the deal, winning a healthy 79% of...
Soapbox Fire Emblem’s Future May Not Be In Turn-Based Combat
Fire Emblem’s fates
How would you feel if the next mainline Fire Emblem game was exclusively a social sim? While a change this drastic is almost certainly not in the cards, the identity crisis currently faced by Fire Emblem means that change must come. While Engage’s 1.61 million sales as of March 2023 is respectable for the franchise, it marks...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (25th May)
Are you well?
Wait, it's Saturday already? Where does the time go? This week has been an exciting one for fans of the Big N. Not only did Nintendo announce the acquisition of Shiver Entertainment, but we finally got our hands on Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch (and we think it's a beauty)! Elsewhere on the site this week, we
Talking Point 'Remake' Vs. 'Remaster' - What's Your Definition?
Super 'master 'maker
With official word that a Nintendo Switch "successor" will be announced before April 2025, there's really no debating that Switch is in the twilight of its years. We're well into Year 8 now, and we're being served up a series of remakes and remasters of old favourites while Nintendo's premier teams focus on brand-new games for...
Feature Spitfire Interactive Talks X-Men, XCOM, And "What Age Has To Say To Youth" In 'Capes'
A new (Midnight) Sun rises
We first caught wind of Capes in the hazy days of early 2023. The turn-based superhero tactics set-up sounded like a novel idea, albeit one that we were worried might tread on the toes of one Marvel's Midnight Suns which, remember, we were still expecting to see on Switch. That Switch port was eventually cancelled, and we...
Poll A New Donkey Kong Game Must Be Coming, But What Should It Be?
The wait is driving us bananas
It feels like Donkey Kong is everywhere at the moment. With the lovable ape’s significant appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the upcoming DK-themed expansion at Japan’s
Feature Nintendo's Latest Studio - Who Is Shiver Entertainment?
A brief look at Nintendo's newest acquisition
You could be forgiven for thinking, 'Another day, another video game company acquisition,' but Nintendo's announcement that it is buying Shiver Entertainment and making the port specialists a wholly-owned subsidiary isn't business as usual for the Japanese firm. Nintendo is, historically, extremely...
Hands On Revisiting The Tale In 'Monster Hunter Stories' On Switch
A light bite
Capcom is one of the titans of the gaming industry, and among its most successful and powerful franchises is Monster Hunter. Yet it’s easy to forget that, for many years, the series was exclusive to one platform holder – first Sony systems and then a spell with Nintendo starting with Monster Hunter Tri on Wii. On top of repeated...
Poll Box Art Brawl - Duel: Super Monkey Ball Adventure
Ballin'
Let's get the ball rolling on another edition of Box Art Brawl, shall we? Last week, we matched up two covers for Capcom's Demon's Crest on the SNES. The regional designs shared few similarities and the same can be said for the spread of votes, with 84% of picks falling in Japan's favour. Talk about a washout! This time, we are throwing...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (18th May)
Well, well well
Oh, weekend! How we have missed thee! The past seven days might not have been the Switch successor-confirming news fest that we saw last week, but there has still been plenty of good stuff happening in Nintendo land. The NSO Game Boy library got a tasty boost with the addition of three new games, we got a first peek at Splatoon 3's
Feature Who Is Playtonic's Voice Of The People?
The driving force of change
Frances Williams, Head of People @ Playtonic Here at Nintendo Life we've followed Playtonic's journey since its inception back in 2015. We caught up with the team behind Yooka-Laylee and its follow-up Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair last year to see how the studio had grown and what they are working on next. During...
Talking Point Which Games Were Just The Perfect Length?
And which outstayed their welcome?
We've all watched films that could have stood to lose 30 minutes from their runtime. That whole last act of Bad Boys II? Should've been left on the cutting room floor, mate. It's the same with many a game. Alien: Isolation is fantastic, but how much better might it have been with a little tightening, to remove some...
Soapbox Paper Mario's Ms. Mowz Taught Me How To Appreciate (And Steal) The Little Things
THIEF
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Kate discusses one of Mario's criminal — and criminally underrated — pals... Sometimes I suspect that, in another life before this one, I was a thief. In this life, I'm a relatively...
Talking Point One Year On, Has Everyone Beaten Ganondorf In Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?
Dawn of The Second Year
Back in August last year, when Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had been in the wild for just three months, we asked how your completion percentage was coming along. Given the size of the game, it was understandable that 37% of respondees still hadn't beaten the final boss and therefore still didn't know their completion...
Poll Box Art Brawl - Duel: Demon's Crest (SNES)
It's Blaz-on
Hi folks, and welcome back to another edition of Box Art Brawl! Before we get cracking with this week's battle, let's see what happened last time. We looked at Mario Paint for the SNES, with North America and Europe taking on Japan. Rather predictably, the Western design won the vote comfortably at 89%, proving that colour and whimsy...
Hands On Hades 2 Is A Hell Of A Time, Even In Early Access
Switch successor release, then?
Hades II marks a first for Supergiant Games. This is the first time the studio has revisited a world, its characters, and their stories, and as a result, is its very first direct sequel. In a way, that might seem disappointing, but this is Supergiant Games we're talking about. Hades is a masterclass in narrative...
Feature An Incredibly Moving Night At The Stardew Valley: Festival Of Seasons Concert
Dancing with the Moonlit Jellies
It’s a pleasant spring evening in the Scottish capital, but walking down Edinburgh’s Clerk Street, it doesn’t take long for things to appear more like Pelican Town. Tonight is the country’s only date of the Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons concert world tour, which sees the myriad earworms of the beloved...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? (11th May)
Down in the well
Ah, the weekend. We've missed you, friend. Before we look at what we've got planned over the next couple of days, let's take a look back at this week, shall we? It's been a pretty big one, admittedly. For the first time, Nintendo itself has finally acknowledged the existence of the 'Switch 2' after the release of its latest...
Feature How Nintendo Switch Is Being Used By A New Generation Of Therapists
Cooperative healing in handheld hybrid form
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we'll be running several features focused on how video games of all types have helped us through periods when we were struggling with our mental health. Today, Tim speaks to therapists to discover how they are using Switch and video game therapy to help patients...
Soapbox Square Enix's "Extraordinary Losses" And This Whole Xbox Mess Have Me Scared For The Future
Who wants to be a gillionaire?
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 fears for Square Enix's smaller-budget titles and is worried about the rest of the industry as a result. What on earth is going on with Square Enix? I asked...
Soapbox Are We Ready For A 3D Super Mario Maker?
Super Mario Maker 3(D)
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Kevin wonders if Nintendo is ready to bring another dimension to its Maker series... If you can believe it, Super Mario Maker was released for the Wii U nearly nine years...
