CELESTE

That Celeste, a small-budget indie game made by a tiny team, is unequivocally one of the best platformers we’ve played in years absolutely cannot be taken for granted. That, of course, is down to the fact that it works within its limitations to deliver something so unique and well-made. Particularly on the platforming front, it’s a game that can be gruelingly difficult. Even if you’re sticking to the critical path, grappling with Celeste’s demanding platforming trials can be quite the task, though it’s the optional content that really provides the truly difficult challenges. Thankfully, thanks to the game’s pixel perfect platforming and incredible level design, that rarely ever feels overbearing.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain – Repeat Missions

Metal Gear Solid 5 is a great game where you can spend dozens upon dozens of hours just tinkering around with the sandbox and its many systems, but there’s little argument to the fact that the game is excessively padded out when it comes to the missions in Chapter 2. Many missions in the last chapter are rehashed missions from before, but players now have to complete those missions with brutal challenges tacked on which can quickly turn into frustration as you try to satisfy the new clear conditions. Granted these can be satisfying for some players but given that the story ends randomly, these repeat missions stick out as a sore thumb. Those familiar with the game’s turbulent development cycle might know why this otherwise great game has been padded out, but it doesn’t really soften the blow of it regardless.

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2

Of the many titles that convinced fans of the GameCube’s power, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2 sits near the top. Improved texture work, more detailed ships and increased draw distance all provided substantial upgrades over its predecessor. But it was the addition of bump-mapping that provided that extra bit of oomph, pushing photo-realism that much closer to the films. Even if you weren’t a Star Wars fan, Rogue Squadron 2 had to be seen to be believed.

Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D All-Stars has received a new update which adds some much-needed options for players. Each title now supports inverted camera controls and have received “general fixes” to improve the gameplay. But perhaps the biggest new addition is Nintendo GameCube controller for Super Mario Sunshine.

This will support the original release’s controls though it’s only playable in TV/docked mode. Furthermore, you’ll need a GameCube Controller Adapter to connect the controller to the Switch. Buttons displayed within the title won’t reflect the GameCube controller either so hopefully your muscle memory kicks in. And it goes without saying but the Switch Lite doesn’t support this option.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is currently available for the Nintendo Switch and packs Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy into one package. Check out our official review for it here. It’s currently available to purchase physically and digitally via the Nintendo eShop until March 31st 2021.

PATCH NOTES:

General

• Players can now invert the camera controls within all three individual titles.
• Super Mario Sunshine now supports the Nintendo GameCube controller (sold separately). Players can now play this title using the same controls as found in the original GameCube release.
• The Nintendo GameCube controller for Super Mario Sunshine is supported only in TV mode.
• You’ll need the GameCube Controller Adapter (sold separately) to use this controller with your Nintendo Switch system. Information on connecting this adapter and controller can be found here.
• The Nintendo Switch Lite system does not support this controller option.
• All button displays within Super Mario Sunshine will not reflect the Nintendo GameCube controller.
• Other general fixes have been applied to improve overall gameplay across all three titles.

Even if you’re only interested in one of the three included games, I’d argue it’s worth it to have a version of said game on a modern console; however, things get a bit tricky once you stop taking this package as a whole, and start to break it down into its individual constituents.

First off, let’s talk about the quality of the games themselves, before anything else. It’s astonishing how well they hold up. Super Mario 64 is obviously the most aged here, and has a lot of jank you will need to come to terms with at first. However, once you’re past the initial hump, it’s honestly astonishing how incredibly well it holds up today. Super Mario 64 is the direct forebear of just about every single 3D game on the market today – so the jank and roughness was expected, given that literally every game since has had a chance to build on it. What wasn’t expected was just how delightfully well the core design of the game holds up. Nintendo has arguably the best game designers on the planet – and it should come as no surprise that they were as inventive or creative while literally pioneering an entire dimension as they were in Super Mario 64.

"Even if you’re only interested in one of the three included games, I’d argue it’s worth it to have a version of said game on a modern console; however, things get a bit tricky once you stop taking this package as a whole, and start to break it down into its individual constituents."

That roughness can make it tough for a newcomer to jump in, however. Super Mario 64’s camera, in particular, is pretty bad, and the camera controls for the original game were mapped to the Nintendo 64’s four C buttons – meaning it was controlled digitally. In this Switch version, those C button controls have been mapped to the right analog stick as is, meaning you’re using an analog stick for digital camera control, which can cause a lot of frustration when things don’t work the way you are naturally inclined to expect them to.

These camera issues only get in the way of what, as I have already explained, is a game that holds up marvelously well in just about every regard. From its level design to the actual movement controls for Mario, Super Mario 64 has aged far better than most games of its era – and honestly, far better than a lot of games of subsequent eras too.

Super Mario Sunshine is a controversial game; it has been that since its initial launch, and is now widely regarded as the lowest point of the 3D Mario series. There are very valid reasons to have issues with Mario Sunshine, from its frustratingly obtuse objectives (which stand in stark contrast to how effortlessly and intuitively the other games in the series communicate what they expect from the player) to some extremely fiddly platforming – platforming that, to be honest, is made a bit worse because of Nintendo having to map Sunshine’s analog trigger controls to a console which lacks them entirely. So here we have those controls mapped to the right analog stick (again), with some complicated and contrived control schemes to achieve the varying levels of pressure you could achieve with Mario’s water backpack FLUDD.

Gameplay aside, there are other problems with Sunshine that very clearly mark it as a product of a time when Nintendo was in an existential transition, and not yet sure what direction the company would take in the future. For instance, Super Mario Sunshine remains to date the only Mario game with full voice acting (and yes, it is every bit as unsettling as you would expect), which is no better today than it was in 2002.

"From its level design to the actual movement controls for Mario, Super Mario 64 has aged far better than most games of its era – and honestly, far better than a lot of games of subsequent eras too."

But for all its considerable shortcomings, Super Mario Sunshine has a lot of merits that shine brighter now with the benefit of hindsight – it has some of the sharpest platforming in the series (once you get used to the controls, at any rate), with FLUDD being an extremely versatile addition to Mario’s repertoire of movies; it is the only Mario game to date to take place entirely in one location, and having a cohesive theme like that really adds to the game’s sense of atmosphere and charm. Delfino Island’s various locations make for some delightful sandboxes, and if and once you have made your peace with the controls, allow for some of the most expressive platforming in the series.

Sunshine, one way or the other, is definitely the weakest link of this package, however, at least in terms of the core game’s quality. There are obviously fans, and I am sure they will be delighted by the ability to finally play it on a modern system (Sunshine had been stranded on the GameCube until this release), and I am glad this update exists for them, however, if nothing else.

Which brings us to Super Mario Galaxy.

Super Mario Galaxy is arguably the greatest game ever made. It was widely acclaimed as that when it first launched, it was reinforced as that when its sequel (mysteriously missing from this collection) launched, and it stands tall even today, 13 years after its initial release. Super Mario Galaxy can almost justify the $60 for this collection by itself. It’s a remarkably special game, with impeccable controls and some of the best level design in the medium’s history. Super Mario Galaxy has some of the most stirring vistas in any game ever, brought to life by an ageless art style that holds up incredibly well, and one of the all time great soundtracks . It’s even the most story focused Mario game ever – and while obviously it’s no The Last of Us, it has some genuinely moving story developments centered around the new character Rosalina, as well as some surprisingly dark developments later in the story.

In every way possible, Super Mario Galaxy holds up. It could be released as is today, and it would still be better than most games currently on the market, including most of Nintendo’s own. It is a work of creative genius, put out by a development team at the peak of its powers, and it is absolutely unbelievable how incredibly well this game has held up, especially given how poorly most other games of that era aged. With Super Mario Galaxy, there are very few to no shortcomings I can nitpick at – it is an absolutely marvelous game.

"In every way possible, Super Mario Galaxy holds up. It could be released as is today, and it would still be better than most games currently on the market, including most of Nintendo’s own."

Thankfully, it’s the game that has gotten the most care in this package as well. Nintendo has updated the game’s resolution, and it is now running at widescreen (while maintaining its original 60fps framerate). The game’s pointer controls have been mapped to the Switch’s gyro (in console mode) and touch screen (in handheld mode). Neither are, to be honest, optimal, but the pointer controls were deemphasized enough in the original game to never feel too obtrusive to begin with – so their implementation in this new package doesn’t really detract from Galaxy’s underlying brilliance in any way.

Super Mario Sunshine has also seen some work. It, too, has been updated to run in widescreen, with some upgraded textures, and as mentioned previously, the controls have been rethought (to mixed results). Unfortunately, the rest of the upgrades are minimal – Nintendo has not, for example, taken this chance to update the game’s framerate to 60fps (the original infamously ran at 30fps, in spite of being marketed at 60fps all the way through to its release); however, even Sunshine’s barebones updates feel far beyond what Super Mario 64 got, which feels like an almost a direct dump. It’s not even running in widescreen, the updates to the textures and graphics are minimal to none, and like I mentioned earlier, even the camera controls haven’t been reworked from their original digital implementation. Super Mario 64 is also the original, N64 version of the game, missing all the improvements and additions that Super Mario 64 DS brought to the table.

This shocking lack of effort is actually endemic to this whole collection – I’ve so far stuck to discussing the games themselves, and the games are amazing, but if we are to view this as a collection of remasters, released to celebrate a milestone anniversary for the single biggest and most important gaming franchise there is, it comes up horrifically short. You don’t even need to view it as a celebratory collection, in fact – even compared to the recent Crash or Spyro releases, which remade the original games, gave them loving facelifts, and sold at $40, Super Mario 3D All Stars feels almost insultingly lacking in so many ways.

"I’ve so far stuck to discussing the games themselves, and the games are amazing, but if we are to view this as a collection of remasters, released to celebrate a milestone anniversary for the single biggest and most important gaming franchise there is, it comes up horrifically short."

Unlike many other legacy collections, there are very few to no extras here – you don’t get any bonus features such as save states, you don’t get any cool concept art, you don’t get any special features or insights into development, there’s really nothing other than the games themselves – and their respective soundtracks, which can be accessed directly from the main menu (and can even be played with your Switch in sleep mode, turning it into a makeshift portable music player. Nifty). And the soundtracks are amazing – you won’t find me complaining about the ability to listen to Gusty Garden Galaxy on an infinite loop. But it’s still disappointing that this is all we get – again, this is a full priced celebratory collection to commemorate a landmark milestone for the most important franchise in gaming. And this is what we get? Three games, two of which are barely touched up or updated, and no other content?

So this review is really a tale of two entirely opposing assessments – inasmuch as you just care about the core quality of the games, this is unbeatable value, because even without much in the way of updates, the games hold up, and are great to play through. If you look at it as a collection of re-releases, even without the whole anniversary celebration context, it comes up short, and looks positively offensive next to how great (and cheap) other similar releases have been.

Obviously, it’s still worth buying – as I said, Galaxy alone justifies the price of admission, and throwing in 64 and Sunshine on top of that is just overkill. But if it is worth buying, it is no thanks to any merits of this collection in and of itself – Nintendo is, ultimately, coasting off of the back of some amazing work it did more than a decade ago to sell what is ultimately a disappointingly barebones, facile celebration of gaming’s most important icon who truly deserves better.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Right now is one of those times. People are angry at Nintendo, and rightly so, because of a series of decisions made around the long awaited Super Mario 3D All Stars Collection, a compilation of three 3D Mario games in one package for the Switch. This is something that’s been rumored for a while, so people have been able to reconcile themselves with some of the more questionable decisions (such as not including Super Mario Galaxy 2, arguably the best Mario game ever, in it). But, as I said, every so often, Nintendo’s ridiculous decisions stop being just stupid, and veer into the territory of being outright hostile towards their customers – and that’s what’s happened with this collection.

The rundown is simple – Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy have been thrown together in one package. It’s not a remaster, and the alterations are minimal, with Super Mario 64 not even converted to full screen (meaning you’ll have to play it in its original 4:3 aspect ratio). There are some nice extras (such as the soundtracks for all three games available in all their glory), but on the whole, you’re getting those three games pretty much as they were, and nothing more, for the price of $60.

You can make justifications for this, and most of them are valid, but it definitely is a bad look for Nintendo when a re-release of three of the most beloved games from their flagship IP with minimal effort put into it is full price, while other platforming series such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro got loving, full fledged remakes from the ground up in their entirety, and were sold at a budget price of $40 – a price disparity that becomes even more frustrating when you consider that Nintendo games literally never drop in price, while the Crash and Spyro trilogies have already been on sale a fair few times already.

This is pretty bad in and of itself, but the kicker comes with the announcement that the whole collection is available for a limited time only – through to March 31 2021, and that’s it. It won’t be on sale after that. To be clear, this isn’t just referring to physical copies at retail – the games will be taken down from sale after March next year, meaning if you haven’t gotten them by then, you won’t get them ever.

This is a very transparent attempt at creating FOMO and manipulating people into buying these now because of an overriding sense of urgency. Forget whatever hesitations or misgivings you might have had – it’s now or never, so go on and buy these now. Which means if you, for example, would ordinarily have decided that this collection doesn’t quite seem to be worth the asking price yet, but maybe you can have a look at it a few years down the line – nope, you don’t get that option. Essentially, Nintendo has corralled every single potential buyer who may have had any interest in buying this collection into this one six month window, all but bullying you into ignoring your apprehensions, and just getting the collection already.

It’s an unbelievably toxic maneuver. Nintendo has always been a bit shady about exploiting the hysteria created by scarcity of their products, but very rarely have they been as blatant in weaponizing it to the extent they have here. The icing on the cake is that the onset of the digital age was supposed to be a safeguard against this sort of thing from ever happening – a game may be out of print and impossible to find at retail, but you can always grab it from your platform’s digital storefront. Short of a rights dispute – which Nintendo does not have here, given that these are their games in their IP on their storefront for their console – a digital game is, in theory, on sale forever. There can be no “scarcity” of digital products, because there are no physical resources limiting their supply.

And yet, unbelievably enough, Nintendo has somehow managed to bring the economics of artificial scarcity to the digital arena too. And they haven’t even bothered masking their intention or action here – setting the deadline at the end of their fiscal year all but screams “this is us trying to hit our fiscal targets”. Except usually Nintendo doesn’t need to resort to such underhanded means to achieve those ends, because usually, they have amazing products that sell on the merit of being amazing. That Nintendo is pulling this stunt with this 3D All Stars collection shows us that Nintendo themselves don’t have much faith in its ability to hit the numbers they would want within the given time period.

The worst part here is, I think the collection would have sold well regardless. While it’s clear that not a lot of work has gone into updating 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy, the fact remains that these are amazing games, often regarded as among the best and most influential titles ever made. Simply having them available on sale on a modern system, portably, would probably be enough to spur sales in spite of there not being other bells and whistles. There was absolutely no need to do something like this.

The sad part is that, owing to the intrinsic quality of these games, the appeal of having them on the Switch, and, of course, Nintendo’s enforced artificial scarcity, every decision surrounding this collection will be validated. Because 3D All Stars will sell in ridiculous numbers, of course it will. And in the end, that ends up vindicating Nintendo’s decision.

I know Nintendo too well to hope they will change their mind or reverse course on this. While there is always the possibility that somewhere down the line, Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy are sold piecemeal on the eShop, they’re not going to budge on the decision to keep this collection time limited. But what I do hope is that the not insignificant backlash to this move will at least cause them, and any other publisher who may have had ideas upon pulling anything remotely similar, to take pause and reconsider in the future.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

After much anticipation and many rumors, Nintendo finally announced Super Mario 3D All-Stars in a new Nintendo Direct dedicated Mario’s 35th anniversary. The collection is out on September 18th for Nintendo Switch and includes three classic 3D Mario titles – Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy. Check them out below.

Though the graphics for each title haven’t undergone a huge revamp from the looks of it, each game runs at a higher resolution and includes Joy-Con support. Super Mario Sunshine also benefits from a 16:9 aspect ratio. If that weren’t enough, all of the official soundtracks for each game are also included.

Notably, however, Nintendo have announced that both the digital and physical releases of Super Mario 3D All-Stars will be available only up until March 2021, so if you want this collection in your library, you’re going to have to get it before that.

Having all three of these games in one place on Switch, even with the omission of Super Mario Galaxy 2, is a big deal. Not only does it open the door for other potential Nintendo classics (like, say, Metroid Prime) but also offers some of the best platforming in history, that too on the go. Stay tuned for more details on the collection in the coming weeks.

A collection of remasters of various mainline 3D Super Mario titles has been leaked consistently over the course of this year. But in spite of having popped up in quite a few leaks and rumours from credible sources, an announcement for it hasn’t come. It wasn’t that long ago that we last heard about it, with some suggesting that it would finally be announced toward the end of August– and here we are yet again, because it’s been claimed once more that an announcement is imminent.

As per journalist Omar Al-Amoudi on True-Gaming (via VGC), the 3D Super Mario collection will be announced this week. Meanwhile, prolific Nintendo insider Emily Rogers has also suggested the same on Twitter. Responding to a person who said they would give away a free copy of the game to anyone who retweeted them if the collection does indeed get announced this week, Rogers said, “Thanks for the free copy.” Finally, GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb has also seemingly teased the same, but in much more cryptic fashion- take a look below.

Recently, another report suggested that the collection – which allegedly includes Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy – had been delayed from its original September release (which would align with the 35th anniversary of Mario) and pushed back into December. Read more on that through here.

@NintendoAmerica you OK?

— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) September 3, 2020

https://twitter.com/ArcadeGirl64/status/1301365173614247939

2020 is the year of Super Mario’s 35th anniversary, and it seems Nintendo has some big things in store for the same. Reports have emerged recently that say multiple Mario games will be coming to the Switch this year, including a new Paper Mario title and multiple mainline Super Mario re-releases. Now, reports from more sources have provided a few more details on that.

Gematsu and Eurogamer are both corroborating the aforementioned report from VGC. Among the games coming to the Switch this year as per these reports, one will be a port of the series’ Wii U outing, with Super Mario 3D World Deluxe. Meanwhile, HD remasters for Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy.

Eurogamer also backs up the reports of a new Paper Mario title, and also adds that Super Mario 3D World will include new levels that were not seen in the original Wii U release. Additionally, it is also supposedly one of a couple of Wii U games that Nintendo is planning on bringing to the Switch this year, which falls in line with previous reports.

More information should hopefully be coming in on this soon, so stay tuned for those reports.

Dark Souls Remastered

Combat in FromSoftware games always has a straightforward explanation – hit this button to attack, this button to dodge etc. However, the greater nuances like stamina management, invincibility frames while rolling, the significance of certain stats and what to build towards take more time to understand. That’s not even considering the design of bosses in games like Dark Souls Remastered or the order to go to certain areas given the game’s world design. Suffice it to say but if this or the original was your first Dark Souls, it was a struggle.