Nintendolife

It’s not unfair to say that the gaming landscape was somewhat different when Donkey Kong Country Returns first fell into our laps in 2010; 2D platformers were a rare breed, and ol’ DK himself hadn’t arguably had a mainline entry in his series since 2004’s Jungle Beat. Back then, the title said it all: not only was Donkey Kong back, but Donkey Kong Country had indeed returned. That’s not quite the world we’re living in 15 years later.

Having said that, just like the original, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD explains everything you need to know about it in the title: it’s Donkey Kong Country Returns in HD, and unfortunately, it’s not much more than that. This is that same great game from the Wii era tarted up a bit here and there.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
The Tiki Tak Tribe – a set of manipulative, sentient instruments, naturally – have stolen DK’s beloved banana horde for their own purposes, and have hypnotised the local fauna into turning on our simian superhero. Either th..

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2024 series. Enjoy!

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 reliving a childhood trauma to mark Pikmin 2’s 20th anniversary…

To the casual observer, Pikmin must seem like a pretty relaxed experience. Everything is colourful. The characters are cute. There’s even a little dog guy in the latest one. All told, it must just be delightful.
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It’s no secret that I love Pikmin and, with bloodshot eyes and unbrushed hair, I am here to grab you by the shoulders and tell you that you are wrong.

Pikmin is not a relaxing experience. Sure, your little buddies are cute, but good luck getting to sleep at night after you’ve heard their cute little screams. PNF-404 (which is the planet tha..

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2024 series. Enjoy!

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 is talking about a Vanillaware oldie — Muramasa: The Demon Blade, a Wii title that is celebrating its 15th anniversary. And, in the wake of 13 Sentinels and Unicorn Overlord’s success, it’s time to give Vanillaware’s older title some love.

Vanillaware has been pretty much everywhere. It’s visited magical, mystical storybook worlds in Odin Sphere. It’s returned to a medieval, warfaring world many times with Grand Knights History and Unicorn Overlord. It’s been to 1980s Japan in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. We’ve even been able to go to witch school thanks to GrimGrimoire. But despite the wide variety of softly painted and gorgeous worlds, I always find myself looking back to Edo..

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2024 series. Enjoy!

Four decades after it became an international sales phenomenon and dominated a crowded games market, the Nintendo Entertainment System – the 8-bit box that gave birth to some of the medium’s biggest enduring franchises – today finds itself playing host to something else entirely: new aftermarket IPs that are strikingly polished and joyously fun.
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The homebrew scene for the NES has flourished over the two decades, especially so with the rise of tools like NESmaker in 2018, which makes developing for the console far more approachable. Inspired by pioneer developers, the minds behind Morphcat Games earned their stripes coding games from scratch using 6502 assembly language.

Enter Micro Mages. An homage to NES-era platformers, the 2019 game was the subject of a viral YouTube m..

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Here’s the thing about The Thing: Remastered; it’s still very much 2002’s The Thing. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how much you like your The Thing.

2002’s The Thing, you see, which was developed by Computer Artworks and based on the intensely sexy Kurt Russell movie, The Thing — itself based on a novella that isn’t called The Thing — is a real mixed bag of a game, truth be told. It sets its stall out impressively, digging into the creeping fear and slowly rising paranoia of the classic movie, giving you some light squad control and an intriguing fear/trust system, whilst presenting its tale in environs that, whilst certainly now aged, still absolutely nail the vibe of the thing (didn’t even mean that one). But! It also falls apart quite badly for the second stretch of its slight running time.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
Let’s stick with the positives for now, though. This is a game that’s always had ..

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)A few years ago, Gust Studios—the popular Atelier RPG factory—decided to do something a little different by putting out a licensed RPG adaptation of the Fairy Tail anime and manga. It wasn’t a particularly great game, but it wasn’t too bad either, and it obviously did well enough with its audience that a sequel was greenlit. With Fairy Tail 2, we’re pleased to say that Gust has crafted an overall stronger RPG, although it also makes many of the same mistakes its predecessor did.

Fairy Tail 2 picks up shortly after the events of the first game, and centres mostly on an adaptation of the climactic Alvarez arc. We say ‘adaptation’ here because the developers took a lot of liberties in changing the story from its original telling—fans may be divided over the tweaks and omissions here, but it overall still feels like a consistent and interesting story, albeit one that will appeal most to longtime fans.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Ess..

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is a roguelite fix-’em-up that combines the frantic buttons-and-levers work of Space Team and the chaotic manual-flipping of Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes with the repetitive, greasy work of car mechanics. You are the sole useful employee of the titular Rocket Shop, a podunk space garage that looks like it would serve roaches in the instant coffee and use spit to polish headlights, and it is your job to fix the spaceships that come into the shop each day.

Every ship has a bunch of broken modules. Some are easy to understand, like Fuel, Oil, Headlights, and Star Maps, and some take a turn into absurdity, like Tomfoolery, VR, and the Rebreather, which sounds like it might be straightforward but is actually full of snails and pancakes.

Each module has its own specific things to fix, and to find out how to do that, you’ll need to turn to the manual – a lovingly-designed grease-stained binder, full of guides to each module de..

The blood-soaked jewels in the crown of a storied cult franchise, Soul Reaver and its sequel were praised on release for original gameplay and stellar visuals. Gorgeous gothic fantasies, co-written and directed by industry luminary Amy Hennig, they followed the exploits of vampire lord Kain’s fallen lieutenant, Raziel. These games are easily the strongest entries in a series that would span two decades, before sadly ending with 2018’s ill-fated online PVP title, Nosgoth.

Now, the corpse is pulled from the Lake Of The Dead and granted new life, thanks to a faithful clutch of remasters from Aspyr (developers of the great Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, also originally from Crystal Dynamics).

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
The centrepiece of the Legacy of Kain story cycle, Soul Reaver follows Raziel’s journey of revenge. A tragic figure, Raz was once a pious nobleman, turned into an undead warrior by Kain. Making the mistake of surpassing his lord’s abilities, Raziel is betrayed and..