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\n \t\t\tNintendo exec officially confirms company’s continued physical game support<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
At least for now, Nintendo won’t be following in Sony’s footsteps<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
As a family-oriented company which still has strong ties to toy retail, Nintendo enjoys a far higher proportion of physical retail sales than any of its competitors, so this position just makes a boring kind of sense. But it also has more to lose; as pressure on memory chip prices continues, Switch game cards are surely much more expensive to manufacture than Blu-ray discs. Hence the functionally empty game-key cards most third-party publishers have resorted to. But when it comes to its own titles, Nintendo still insists on shipping the full game on the card, and hang the expense.<\/p>\n
You can tell what matters to Nintendo by what it chooses to spend money on. It typically doesn’t go overboard on development budgets for its games, reasoning that expensive graphical fidelity won’t add a proportional amount of fun. (It would also take up more of those costly gigabytes). But Nintendo goes out of pocket to put all of, say, next month’s Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em> remake on a game card, because it is a proportionally better experience. Imagine being nine years old, unwrapping the game for Christmas, putting it in your Switch 2 and then having to wait for it to download. Unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n
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\n \t\t\tThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time feels timeless in new remake<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
Nintendo\u2019s new version of a Zelda classic is sharp, streamlined, and plays better than ever<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
First hands-on impressions of the Ocarina<\/em> remake were published this week, and Polygon’s Michael McWhertor found it “snappy, streamlined, and polished in ways that make it feel totally fresh.” Here again, Nintendo’s priorities are instructive.<\/p>\nNintendo has revisited this game several times before, but this time is different.<\/p>\n
The 3DS’ Ocarina of Time 3D<\/em> was handed to an external team, Grezzo, as was the pretty but laggy 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening<\/em>. But Ocarina <\/em>2026, unlike its sister N64-era remake Star Fox<\/em>, appears to have been allocated to one of Nintendo’s precious internal teams, and the difference is apparent. Beyond the lush visuals, previewers all noted how frictionless and responsive the remake is, a huge correction of the biggest historical flaw with one of Nintendo’s greatest games. (The original N64 game runs at a sluggish 20 frames per second, and you can really feel it.)<\/p>\n\n
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\n \t\t\tZelda: Ocarina of Time remake returns with a brand-new feature: Hall of Fallen Foes<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
The Switch 2 remake has another fun surprise<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
Nintendo has the same cynical reasons for leaning on remakes to pad out the release schedule as every other publisher. Games are risky endeavors, and new ideas are hard to come by. But in this case, it seems Nintendo also saw an opportunity to make a classic game meaningfully better, and \u2014 just as with its first-party game cards \u2014 refused to take half measures. This is about legacy, about brand reputation. And there’s little Nintendo cares about more.<\/p>\n
\n eShop game of the week: Ratatan The PlayStation Portable cult classic Patapon<\/em>, a rhythm-action game about a line of little marching warriors, has been reimagined by some of its original developers in a roguelike spiritual sequel. It doesn’t quite hang together, but it’s a powerful nostalgia trip all the same.<\/p>\n\n
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\n \t\t\tRatatan is a faithful PSP-era comeback<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
Patapon is revived as an endearing, but lacking roguelike<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
\n Nintendo Classics game of the week: Castlevania: Bloodlines As the excellent Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse<\/em> arrives on Switch, it’s a good moment to revisit <\/em>this half-forgotten Sega Genesis entry in the series. It’s not the Castlevania you know; instead, it’s a perfect, technologically impressive expression of a more straight-ahead action game like the NES originals.<\/p>\n\n
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\n \t\t\tCastlevania: Bloodlines, forsaken by Konami, is a masterpiece worth replaying<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
A Sega favorite deserves better than its shabby treatment<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
\n Nintendo Music track of the week: “Guru-Guru’s Song” from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask The strange, funhouse-mirror atmosphere of Ocarina of Time<\/em>‘s direct sequel is captured perfectly by this carnivalesque retread of the “Song of Storms” melody, as if performed by a circus organ-grinder and their monkey.<\/p>\n\n
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\n \t\t\t9 most haunted masks in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, ranked<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
Put one on at your own risk<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n
\n This week’s most interesting releases Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Oct. 15\n <\/li>\n \n Switch\n <\/li>\n \n The other half of Metroidvania returns in the hands of Dead Cells studio Evil Empire\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\nToy Story 3: Complete Edition <\/em>and Toy Story: Retro Roundup!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Oct. 15\n <\/li>\n \n Switch, Switch 2\n <\/li>\n \n Much-loved tie-in game and other Toy Story titles get the Digital Eclipse interactive museum treatment\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\nCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Oct. 16\n <\/li>\n \n Switch 2\n <\/li>\n \n CoD returns to Nintendo as a consequence of Microsoft’s Activision takeover\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\nResident Evil 2<\/em>, 3<\/em>, and 4<\/em><\/p>\n