As per a report published by Circana (formerly known as the NPG Group) on GamesIndustry, the Nintendo Switch has now surpassed the lifetime sales of the Wii in the United States. The console has enjoyed a boost to its sales in the aftermath of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s launch and its own impressive subsequent sales, and surpassed the Wii’s US lifetime sales total during the month of July.

The Switch’s lifetime sales in the United States are now just less the one million lower than those of the Xbox 360, while the gap separating it from the PS2’s lifetime US sales currently stands at less than 5 million units. One would assume that it will likely surpass them both, especially with the Holiday season coming up, and especially with the rumoured Switch successor reported to still be about a year away from release.

As of June 30, the Nintendo Switch’s lifetime global sales stand at 129.53 million units sold, making it the third-highest selling game system of all time, behind the PS2 (which has sold 155 million units) and the Nintendo DS (which has sold 154.02 million units).

Spotted by IGN, Sakurai’s latest video has him talking about Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which was released on the Nintendo Wii, and its online multiplayer implementation. In the video, Sakurai states that he does not feel that online multiplayer is a good fit for the Smash Bros. franchise.

“I don’t think online play and Smash Bros. are a very good fit for each other,” says Sakurai. “One of the best parts of Smash Bros. is how players can become champions among their friends. But being subjected to online competition can cause people to lose confidence, which isn’t great.”

Sakurai also goes on to talk about the implementation of multiplayer in the game, and how it uses full synchronous communication compared to the asynchronous communication used in Mario Kart games with online multiplayer. Full synchronous communication means that the timing for all player input is synchronised in every single frame.

Because of the network demands of Smash Bros. Sakurai states that online play in the games can often be patchy unless you’re playing with others not only in the same country, but in the same region as well.

Sakurai also speaks about other aspects of Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the video, including single-player content like the Subspace Emissary game mode. You can check out the video below.

However, it is not the only great Kirby adventure on Switch, not anymore. After the triumphant transition of the franchise to 3D, Nintendo and HAL Laboratories have decided to take a victory lap by revisiting one of the best and most beloved classic 2D entries in the series. Return to Dream Land originally launched on the Wii, after an extremely protracted development cycle (the project had originally been intended to be the game that took the franchise 3D, and was supposed to be for the GameCube). Upon release, it instantly won plaudits for being arguably the best, most effective, and most accomplished take, on the classic template.

Multiple 2D Kirby games would follow in the ensuing decade, but arguably, none of them managed to reach the highs of Return to Dream Land. Which makes it fitting, in a way, that after delivering one of the best games in the series with their grand transition to the third dimension, Nintendo and HAL are now returning to one of the other best games in the series, the peak of 2D Kirby so to say.

"After delivering one of the best games in the series with their grand transition to the third dimension, Nintendo and HAL are now returning to one of the other best games in the series, the peak of 2D Kirby so to say."

Return to Dream Land is almost exactly the game you remember from the Wii. It’s a classic, traditional Kirby game through and through – you’re talking about a 2D platform with bright, colourful, cheerful stages, and extremely, extremely forgiving platforming, traversal, and combat. Kirby himself retains his signature abilities, including the one that lets him stay airborne practically forever, his ability to suck pretty much anything in his way until it’s… not, and, of course, the signature Kirby ability to copy the abilities of enemies and objects he swallows. The elements all blend to create an extremely charming, inviting, and easygoing world, where you can take your time to slowly come to grips with the increasingly layered and stacked demands the game makes of you – first it’s just movement, then it can be combat, then it’s combat while movement, then it’s combat and movement with some puzzle solving thrown in, and so on. All of this is second nature to seasoned veterans of the medium, and certainly to everyone who has found this review, but as I mentioned, the true triumph of Kirby games is how effective they are at onboarding totally new players who might not have any experience with the medium. Return to Dream Land is a masterclass in this, and honestly seeing how it slowly and steadily amps up the complexity gives me an appreciation for how well it is designed.

Which isn’t to say that that’s the only appreciation more experienced players can get from Kirby. Typically the franchise tends to retain depth and challenge for returning or experienced players by making the critical path extremely easy, but hiding some collectibles and secrets out of the way – these are the ones that require you to actually pay attention, be quick with your movement and platforming, and mostly, actually play the game well. Return to Dream Land retains this aspect in spades too, with even the earlier levels hiding some great secrets that I kept going back to them to play to uncover, because my ego refused to accept the notion that I might have missed anything.

This deeper content for more experienced players is still not going to turn Kirby into Donkey Kong or Mario – it’s a more satisfying platformer for veterans with it taken into account, but it’s still ultimately a beginner friendly game, meaning you’re simply not going to get platforming at that level here. What is here is still great, but you must keep what it is in mind – which is to say, it’s an extremely high quality game made for less experienced players, by definition, a lot of what it does well will be lost on more experienced ones.

"It’s an extremely high quality game made for less experienced players, which means by definition, a lot of what it does well will be lost on more experienced ones."

It’s still a delight to watch newer players (such as younger kids, or even adults who don’t typically play games) play, but Return to Dream Land obviously goes a step further by letting you join them. The game includes full co-op support for up to four players at a time, with players being able to play as Kirby, King DeeDeeDee, Waddle Dee, and Meta Knight, adding an element of cooperative chaos to proceedings. It can also further emphasize the game’s newcomer friendly nature, with a more experienced player helping bail out a less experienced one if they hit a roadblock. It’s local only, so its utility for more experienced players is, again, limited, but within the confines of what this game is trying to do, it’s great.

Other than this excellent design philosophy, pretty much the entire game made it over to the Switch as-is. It just looks a lot better – the gorgeous Kirby art style translates incredibly well to HD (which, remember, the Wii was not), and and every single part of the game has been touched up and polished to a sheen. Kirby, the character, and the world he inhabits, has never looked so delightfully expressive and colourful, bright, and cheery before. 

New to the Deluxe version on the Switch is a brand new epilogue mode, a meaty and substantial adventure clocking in at a further 2-3 hours on top of the main campaign. This epilogue stars Magolor, the interplanetary adventure whom you set out to help in the main game and who forms the narrative crux of that adventure. You can’t access this epilogue until you beat the main game (which makes sense for a lot of reasons that anyone who has finished the original will be able to attest to), and is a fun little romp that also pushes back on the player a bit more (so, again, this is content for the slightly more experienced player – again, this makes sense because by this point the developers can assume you have at least finished the base game, if nothing else, and so are not a total newcomer).

While the new mode is the headlining new addition, there is other stuff too; there are a handful of all new copy abilities added for Kirby available during the course of the main adventure (which accommodates said new abilities surprisingly well), as well as an even easier, helpful assist mode for new players. 

Do I recommend Return to Dream Land Deluxe? I do, especially if you have kids or less experienced players around. Simply watching them play this game can be a joy, but Return to Dream Land of course, does let you join in as well. It’s a well designed game that represents the series at the peak of its powers, and I think longtime series fans are going to find a lot to love here, especially if they haven’t played this title before. If you don’t fall in those categories, you might play through this and wonder what all the fuss was about, since on the critical path, for an experienced player, the whole thing can be done in just a few hours – but then again, that’s really not how it’s meant to be played, is it?

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

That’s as per journalist Jeff Grubb, who recently took to Twitter to double down on past claims regarding the same. In June last year, Grubb leaked that Nintendo has Metroid Prime Remastered primed for release for the Nintendo Switch, and that though it would be launching as a standalone game, the company intended to bring Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption to the platform down the line as well.

Interestingly, at the time, Grubb mentioned that unlike the original game, Metroid Prime 2 and 3’s Switch re-releases would not be major overhauled remasters but would instead be launched as much more conservative upgrades featuring updated controls. Based on his latest tweet, it would seem like that’s still very much the plan.

Of course, Nintendo’s plans for unannounced games are always hard to nail down, and leaks related to the company have frequently been proven false time and again, so for now, it’d be best to tread with caution here. Fans of Metroid, however, will certainly be hoping that the full Prime trilogy does indeed become available on the Switch before the launch of Metroid Prime 4 (whenever that happens).

In our review of Metroid Prime Remastered, we awarded it a score of 9/10, saying, “Metroid Prime Remastered is the best way to play one of the best games ever made.” Read the full review through here.

Correct. https://t.co/ojMzuRohp5

— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) February 13, 2023

"The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age."

Metroid Prime was a total, thorough, comprehensive, unmitigated truimph in pretty much every possible way. It looked so stunning, so gorgeous, that it was among the best looking games ever (and it the tech and art underlying it all was so far ahead of its time that even today, the original Metroid Prime holds up. No longer the best looking game ever, but a good looking game regardless). The sound design was incredible, and thoroughly grounded you on the lost, alien, lonely planet you found yourself isolated on. The world design was a true 3D translation of the dizzying labyrinths of Super Metroid, but now in full 3D, seen through Samus Aran’s visor.

The storytelling went above and beyond most other games in the medium, presaging the rise of passive, interactive, and environmental storytelling techniques that future games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Prey, the Dark Souls games, as well as Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, would take cues from. And the overall structure, design, and gameplay of the title was legendary, and ended up influencing countless games to come in the years and decades since. I brought up From Soft and Dark Souls earlier – playing Metroid Prime Remastered shows us just how much of its DNA was present pretty much wholesale in that, and so many other games.

The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age. In terms of gameplay, world design, music, storytelling, and even the graphics as already mentioned, it still holds up on par with, or beyond, most other modern games. You can turn it on right now for the first time and within a few minutes, you may completely forget that you are playing a 21 year old game. In other words, Nintendo and Retro Studios could have quite simply taken the original Metroid Prime as is, maybe upscaled the resolution, made it widescreen, and make it run in 60fps, and it would still hold up. But they chose to go above and beyond, to deliver a truly definitive version of one of the most definitive games ever.

"Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up."

Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up. Environmental geometry, lighting, particle effects, alpha and transparencies, textures, resolution, frame rate, meshes, everything is rebuilt to make Metroid Prime Remastered look like you remember the original game looking, but brought up to modern standards. So overzealous is the update, in fact, that in the process, Metroid Prime Remastered ends up becoming one of the best looking games on the Switch, while being an update to a 21 year old GameCube game. It is a very thorough, very comprehensive, very extensive visual remake. We’ll come back to this in a second.

The remarkable thing about it all is that while the visuals are updated to an absurd degree – this game is closer to Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls, or the just released (and excellent) Dead Space remake in terms of the visual facelift it got – all of that happened without the original art style or atmosphere or aesthetic being compromised at all.

Usually, at least some of the original aesthetic ends up being diluted or compromised once more detail is added to an image (in part because very often, the original aesthetic exists the way it does because of the technical limitations of its time). In this case, somehow, that did not happen. It just serves to reinforce just how incredibly ahead of its time and future proof the core art style of Metroid Prime really was all that time ago to begin with. 

I’ve called the game a visual remake a few times already, and I want to explain that terminology, at least the way I see it, a little. In terms of the graphics and visuals, this game goes far beyond a simple remaster. Every asset is either touched up and updated beyond recognition, or outright redone from the ground up. But the actual core game here is identical to what you played in 2002. With one critical exception which we’ll get to in a second, this is very literally the exact same game that it was all that time ago.

The maps, level design, enemy design, AI, even the HUD and UI, nothing has changed at all. You would think that this would be hearing, particularly given the game’s age, and the efforts made to bring it up to modern standards in the presentation related areas, but it isn’t. As I mentioned, Metroid Prime was so far ahead of its time, and so bonkers in terms of being great at what it set out to do, that it manages to not only hold up as a modern game today, but ends up being better than most other modern games in the process too. 

"The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls."

The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls. Well, changes might be the wrong term to use, because what it does is add things. Options, really. The game allows you to not only play with the original GameCube controls (in case you never played the original release, the GameCube release was not dual analog, and instead had a very unique and specific control scheme that people love to this day – so it’s good that they brought it back), but also the excellent Wii controls (the pointer based aiming from the Wii release has to be emulated using gyro on the Switch.

It’s more accurate, but also more sensitive to drift, and requires you to reset the cursor fairly frequently), and a fully fledged, modern dual analog control scheme. The game includes gyro assist for aiming, it includes a toggle for the lock on, allowing you to have a full lock-on, a “soft” lock-on that air you in the right direction, but lets you make specific adjustments, and no lock on at all. You can customize individual axes for the camera, sensitivity, and you can even mix and match these options on the fly. What’s most impressive is that each of them feels well balanced, and the game somehow lets you switch between these completely different control styles (that all lead to very distinct and unique flows and gameplay loops from one another) on the fly.

Other than the control options, Metroid Prime Remasted also includes some new accessibility options (there is a color blindness assist filter that I am reasonably sure is new, and that I was happy to see, given how much the world gating and UI and HUD in Prime rely on colors to convey information), all the extra content that the game ever got (including everything in the original concept art gallery, from models, artwork, and music, to other unlockables), and even the narration that was added in the European and Japanese versions of the game. 

"In literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime."

Really, in literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime. It includes all the content from all the different versions. It includes all the control schemes from all the different versions (including some of its own). It includes this game looking the best it ever has, veering on being a full on remake, without diluting or compromising on the look and atmosphere of the original.

And at its core it is the same game from 20 years ago untouched, except that 20 year old game is so ridiculously ahead of pretty much everything else on almost every single front that matters (and certainly every single area that it puts up a fight in), that even with the core being untouched, 20 years later, this game ends up being better than most other games released today regardless. Like, literally, on every possible level, big and small, this represents the best possible version of one of the best possible games you can buy today, in any genre, on any platform. 

And all of this for only $40 is absurd. It’s a steal. Metroid Prime Remastered, just by existing in the form it does, becomes one of the best looking, playing, and just best in general, games of this year, of the Switch, and of the generation in general. You must try it, whether it will be your first time (win which case you are in for a treat) or your umpteenth replay.

And you can join me, and the other long suffering Metroid fans, in hoping that Prime 4, whenever it does end up coming out, actually lives up to the absurdly, unreasonably high bar set by this 21 year old game.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

At the time, I was among the more positive proponents for the Switch’s success, but even I didn’t foresee the insane runaway hit the platform (and the games on it) would go on to be. The Nintendo Switch is now Nintendo’s highest selling console of all time, en route to being the highest selling system of all time in general (yes, there is a reasonable chance it dethrones the PS2 from the spot it has held for so long); it has ushered in the most profitable period for Nintendo ever (yes, more profitable than even the Wii/DS era); it has seen Nintendo’s creative teams enter a new golden age, with Nintendo’s lineup on the Switch being top tier and industry and generation defining again, whether it be with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey, whether it be the resurgence of Metroid with Metroid Dread, or the long awaited transition to 3D of a beloved franchise with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, whether it be Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or the ambitious Pokemon Legends Arceus – Nintendo games sell tens of millions of units at full price, and most of these games are considered to be, if not the best games in their respective IPs, then at least at the top.

But perhaps even more important than the hardware and software success are the intangibles Nintendo regained with the Switch. For instance, the Nintendo Switch represents Nintendo’s most supported platform by third parties ever, and a lot of the third party relationships that had been severed to almost catastrophic degrees pre-Switch were repaired; third parties supported the Switch, hesitatingly at first, and then increasingly more and more, and the Switch’s third party library is accountable for more than half of all game sales on the platform. This also dispelled a long held myth (only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo hardware), because everything sells on the Switch – and this is a great lead-in to what is probably the single most important point to the Switch’s success, which is just how engaged its user base really is. Almost 120 million people own the Switch, and unlike the Wii, which sold in similar quantities, but saw little use by its buyers after the novelty wore off, and low software sales, people buy things on the Switch. They buy pretty much anything on the Switch, making the Switch one of the most engaged install bases in video game history – which is extremely in terms of securing a long term future for a platform.

Which brings us to our main point of discussion – what will the Switch 2 be?

The Switch represents a unique moment for Nintendo, because they have a platform with a) a lot of hardware units sold b) a lot of games sold c) a lot of third party support d) the largest library for any non-PC platform in sheer numerical terms (the amount of games on the Switch is approaching 10,000) e) tens of millions of paying subscribers to online services f) and extremely high digital adoption rates, all of which imply f) an extremely engaged user base. The most obvious – indeed, the only – smart business move in a scenario like this is to not rock the boat, and to build on the success. Do more of the same, make it better, more powerful, and keep it compatible with the existing platform to the degree possible, to reduce friction and graduate as much of the existing user base to your new platform as you can. This leads to an extremely stable ecosystem with a guaranteed amount of users and third party support – the exact kind of thing Sony has done, for example, with PlayStation consoles, or even Microsoft with Xbox consoles (albeit to a lesser degree). Basically, do a Switch 2.

Nintendo themselves have never really had a platform that had this much going for it in terms of success before, and so it makes sense that they are nervous (by their own admission, as they revealed in a recent investor meeting) about how this upcoming transition will go. Past Nintendo home console transitions have been generally catastrophic for Nintendo – the most memorable instance of this is the Wii to Wii U transition, where Nintendo went from their then single most profitable and highest selling console, to their single worst selling and most loss making console, in the span of six years, but this has always been true (consider the SNES to N64 transition, or the N64 to GameCube transitions, all of which shed tens of millions of users each; hell, even the NES to SNES transition did so, and Nintendo mishandling it allowed Sega the window of opportunity to break Nintendo’s monopoly over the industry, which they would then never regain again. There is historical precedence for Nintendo sucking at this, is what I am trying to say).

A large part of this is that Nintendo seems to treat each console as its own thing, rather than necessarily building on what worked about the previous one. Each new console is a new paradigm, a brand new swerve, which has to appeal to customers from scratch all over again and get them to buy in. Not only is that not necessarily guaranteed (customers might see the value in motion controls, but not in a tablet controller, as one obvious example), but it also has the danger of selling hardware on the basis of novelty, and novelty alone, meaning when that novelty wears off, people get disengaged from the platform – once more, the Wii is our go-to example for this phenomenon.

This strategy also places a burden of uncertainty on third parties. Not only do they have to develop games around entirely new hardware paradigms each generation, throwing out a lot of what may or may not have worked the last time around, but they also don’t know if they can count on an install base to sell their games to between generations, and sometimes even within one; after all, there is a very narrow window available to them between when Nintendo makes the appeal of the system clear to people, who buy the platform, and before the novelty wears off. A lot of the time, it’s better for third parties to simply… wait for the chips to fall before committing to any real or meaningful support. And sometimes, they never do, as happened during the Wii U era.

So Nintendo’s past playbook for generation transitions is clearly ill-suited to the Switch paradigm. But in this case, the playbook is written for them, and success is guaranteed – again, we have almost 30 years of PlayStation history to look at. Simply doing a better version of what people love and want to invest in will get people to buy in, particularly when you back it up with your industry leading first party support on top. Backward compatibility will reduce friction, and further induce upgrades, particularly if existing games see system level enhancements to their performance and visuals, but even if not, and third parties are likelier to stick around when they not only don’t have to throw out everything and start from scratch.

Hell, Nintendo doesn’t even have to look at anyone else here, they themselves have a 40 year hardware line running that they can look to for inspiration. You see, while Nintendo sucks with console transitions, they are actually really good at handling handheld ones. For almost 40 years, they have had a nearly 100 million strong user base for their handheld systems, and with some fluctuations, they’ve been able to maintain that between different generations of their handheld hardware.

That’s because Nintendo handhelds typically build on themselves in meaningful ways with each new platform, which then ensures guaranteed buy-in from third parties and customers, which them perpetuates further support of the platform by those parties, and accelerates success further; each handheld maintains some level of backward compatibility with at least its immediate predecessor (if not more), reducing friction; and even when the handheld systems have gimmicks, they are at least not disruptive for third parties (like with the DS) or easily ignored (like with the 3DS). The formula is right there! Just use that! Hell, the Switch is even a half-handheld, you can just capitalize on that DNA.

So we’ve talked a lot about what the Switch successor should be, but do we have any indication as to what it will be? Well… we don’t. Nothing concrete. We have statements from Nintendo from back when the Switch was going to come out, talking about how they view Switch as a long term platform, that they intend to build on with future hardware, and maintain continuity and compatibility between different generations of; we have Nvidia (the SoC provider for the Switch) talking about how they view the Nintendo partnership as a 20 year thing, indicating that the Switch is going to be the first of many of its kind; we have leaks from Nvidia and Nintendo and third parties, indicating the Switch successor is a simple iteration on the existing Switch, more powerful, better performing, but otherwise more of the same. So far so good, right? That’s exactly what we want!

But every now and then we hear news about how the Switch successor might be deviating from this. For instance, there was a very publicized quote a few months ago about Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto talking about the Switch successor, and not necessarily committing to backward compatibility. Now, while in context, that quote isn’t quite saying what people think it is (Miyamoto was essentially saying that the Switch successor will not be designed around backward compatibility as its central tenet, unlike the Wii U, which was, and which ran into lots of trouble on a hardware, software, and support front as a result), given Nintendo’s wild variability with console transitions, it makes sense that even a quote vaguely alluding to something suboptimal gets a lot of people nervous – especially since this one quote isn’t the only time that has happened (remember Nintendo’s public musings about how they want the Switch successor to be its own thing, and not just a straightforward continuation of the Switch format?). But there is too much concrete information out there (not to mention the basic sense of consolidating development resources across your separate handheld and console systems into one, and not going back on that by splitting them again with something that deviates from that hybrid format) to suspect anything BUT a straightforward Switch 2 right now.

Look, the games industry is unpredictable at the best of times, which these are not, and Nintendo is on a whole different level of unpredictability. It is honestly impossible to say with any level of certainty that the Switch successor will or won’t be something. For all we know, Nintendo decides to make a Virtual Boy 2 for the Switch successor to cash in on the VR craze, who knows? Anything could happen. But right now, based on the concrete facts we have, based on pure common sense, based on historical precedence? There is one very clear direction for Nintendo to go with the Switch successor. And that direction, is Switch 2.

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.

But as true as that is, it’s not absolutely true. Sure, this is almost a rule in and of itself, but there are exceptions to every rule, and sure enough, there have been a few movie tie-in games over the years that have turned out to be far better than they had any right to be. 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one such game- a solid action title that actually did some interesting things with its license, respected its source material, and delivered brutal and engaging hack and slash combat that any fan of the Wolverine property would enjoy. And in a medium where a decent movie tie-in – let alone a good one – is such a rarity, one can’t help but look at X-Men Origins and wonder- how exactly did it do what it did?

Before we get into that, it’s important to clarify a few things. This was no masterpiece- as good as X-Men Origins: Wolverine was, the consensus (very rightly) was that it was a diamond in the rough, a game with plenty of issues of its own, but one that ultimately overcame those hurdles on the back of its core strengths to deliver a solid and entertaining gaming experience that could stand on its own two legs. It wasn’t an amazing game, no, but it was a solid one- and not just “for a movie tie-in”. It also helps that the movie the game is tied to is kind of atrocious (to say the least).

The game’s biggest strength lies in the one area that a Wolverine game pretty much has to nail- the combat. Like a great many games releasing in that era, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was inspired heavily by the older God of War games, with a hack and slash combat system relying on brutal attacks, combos, and more. But where many pretenders of the time chose to imitate those mechanics without bothering to have much depth or variety present, Wolverine ensured to make its combat feel like it had more than just button mashing going through it.

Ripping through enemies with barbaric attacks was the bread and butter of the experience, obviously – that was sort of unavoidable given the sort of game it was – but it tried to mix things up with a decent bit of enemy variety, combos, mechanics like grabbing enemies and air juggling, and, every so often, allowing players to make use of the environment and objects and elements in their surroundings to their advantage, all of which could be chained together in consistently fun ways- such as juggling an enemy with a combo in the air before then thrashing it down into the ground and impaling it on a spike sticking out of the spot. There were moves like the vicious claw spin, a lunge attack that never got boring, and a rage mode that fit within the framework of the game and, more importantly, the source material perfectly. Add to that a simplistic yet effective progression system, and what you had was a combat system that was perfectly capable of holding itself up throughout the entirety of the experience.

Another huge win for the game was the fact that it was absolutely brutal- or at least one version of it was. The Uncaged Version for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and that was very much the flagship version of the game, with full-on violence, language that didn’t hold back, and all around, a complete license to be as true to the Wolverine license and its dark, mature tone as it needed to be. On PS2, Wii, PSP, and DS, the game was incredibly compromised on those fronts (especially on the DS, as you may have expected), but on PC and what were, at the time, current-gen consoles, it felt and played the way a Wolverine game should.

Limbs would be dismembered, blood and gore and viscera would spatter everywhere during particularly bloody fights, and during the course of combat, you’d see the damage sustained by Logan getting visibly worse on his body, at times even with cuts right down to visible bones (the healing animations were just as gleefully grotesque). On top of all that, what made the game’s adherence and faithfulness to its source material stand out even more was the fact that the actual movie that had spawned the game released with a PG-13 rating- which was just one of many things that proved to be its downfall… but that’s another discussion.

Again, the game wasn’t perfect. It was a little too short, and even within that short runtime, it could get a little repetitive, not least because the things that broke up the combat – namely the boss fights and a few puzzles here and there – were bland and forgettable at best and downright boring at worst. Meanwhile, the story, while fun and engaging enough to hold attention, was flawed in some very blatant ways, while the visuals weren’t anything to write home about either. But the parts that the game was good at, it was so good at that it became much easier to tolerate its flaws, even though those flaws were not easy to ignore quite often. Oh, and Hugh Jackman voicing Logan and doing a damn fine job at that was yet another highlight.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call X-Men Origins: Wolverine one of the best movie tie-ins ever made, even though that’s not a high bar. In fact, it wouldn’t even be all that outrageous to say that it might even be one of the better superhero games, at least of its time- though the bar for that, at least, was raised to unprecedented levels merely within months of the game’s launch when Batman: Arkham Asylum came out later that same year. It’s a real shame that getting your hands on a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not too easy these days – Activision’s Marvel license expired in 2014, following which Wolverine, along with a bunch of other games, was taken off-sale both digitally and physically – but it’s a game that’s well worth your time.

All of this is doubly relevant, of course, because there is another Wolverine game that’s now in development that no few people are keenly anticipating. Insomniac Games is currently at work on Marvel’s Wolverine, and as an original story and a AAA game (and coming from the makers of the excellent Spider-Man games, no less), expectations from it are obviously going to be high- significantly higher than they were for the 2009 Activision title. But while we’re certainly hoping that Marvel’s Wolverine will be a far bigger, better, and more polished game than the property’s previous outings in the video gaming medium, we’re also hoping that it will take a look at the things that X-Men Origins: Wolverine did well and try to take some valuable lessons from that.

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.

That has never happened with a 3D Sonic game, but some have come closer to achieving greatness than others. None have come closer than Sonic Colors did, when this unassuming title launched exclusively on the Wii over a decade ago. So it makes sense that, in celebration of Sega’s mascot’s 30th anniversary, this one Sonic game comes the closest to distilling the essence of Sonic at the peak of his powers, and realizing them in a 3D game would be the one that they turn to. And so, we get Sonic Colors Ultimate. 

Ten years later, it still mostly holds up – that’s what happens when the core game design was actually good, rather than relying on gee whiz gimmickry that won’t stand the test of time. While Sonic Colors always had issues, and those issues are exacerbated with the passage of time so they stick out in Ultimate more, it’s still a fundamentally good time and an engaging game.

"While Sonic Colors always had issues, and those issues are exacerbated with the passage of time so they stick out in Ultimate more, it’s still a fundamentally good time and an engaging game."

You know how it goes this time – another convoluted and contrived scheme by Dr. Eggman, and another attempt by Sonic to take Eggman down. In this specific instance, Eggman has set up an amusement park in low earth orbit, which appears to be a front for a sinister scheme in which he is leveraging the power of alien creatures known as wisps to further his plans for world domination. It’s a silly premise, but unlike so many other Sonic games, Colors knows to largely keep it out of the way, rather than providing overwrought context to the player and making the game buckle under the weight of its own unnecessary story. Sonic Colors is pretty lightweight as far as storytelling goes, which works to its benefit. The few cutscenes we do get are pretty snappy and quick, with some cute humor that will endear the game and the character to younger players especially.

Unlike so many modern Sonic games, this adventure is a solo outing – in that you only play as Sonic. None of the menagerie of creatures that form up his ever expanding group of friends is along for the ride (though Tails is in the game too), and you’re never controlling anyone other than Sonic – though of course, Sonic does end up imbibing the character of a lot of the wisps he is saving. All of this works greatly to the game’s benefit. The controls, move set, and levels are all designed around one baseline set of abilities. Rather than having to balance everything for a smattering of half-developed characters with their barely fleshed out distinct play styles, everything is designed around Sonic, how he is controlled, and the abilities he has, with or without wisps. This leads to an unusually strong showing in terms of level design, boss fights, and the like for a 3D Sonic game – remember, even the fan favorite Sonic Adventure games suffered from having to design around multiple characters. Colors is a look at how this series can benefit from having a leaner focus, and we get some of the strongest level design and mechanics we have seen in a 3D Sonic game as a result.

Of course, Sonic Colors did stand out at the time because it was among the first showings of what would go on to be referred to as the “boost formula”, and as mentioned, it was a pretty strong showing at that. The novelty of getting an actual good Sonic game in 3D after so long, plus one that was distinctly differently structured from the “Adventure” template the 3D games had followed through to then, did help raise the profile of the discourse and reputation the game enjoyed.  More than ten years later, we’ve had several 3D Sonic games following this same formula – with the last one, Sonic Forces, being among the lowlights in a series with some incredible lowlights – so that shine has worn off, and people also find themselves itching for a return to the Adventure style. While this does remove one of the factors that made Colors so well received at the time, it nonetheless does not change that the game itself is fundamentally well designed – in fact, arguably at its core, it’s better designed than any 3D Sonic game that followed, including Generations, because it is not juggling multiple play styles between Modern and Classic Sonic.

"We are looking at two fundamentally contradictory game design principles at play in Sonic – building speed and momentum, and precision platforming. Precision platforming obviously requires the player to slow down and consider things first, before then traversing the hazards they are presented with; building momentum and speed require you to run, run, run, without stopping."

This has helped Sonic Colors hold up pretty well. I would argue that the fundamental problems that lie at the core of every Sonic game – this includes the 2D games too, mind you, though I do feel said problems are significantly worse in the 3D games than the 2D ones, which can work around them better – do manifest in Colors too. Occasionally, these problems do hold it back at times. Most notably, we are looking at two fundamentally contradictory game design principles at play in Sonic – building speed and momentum, and precision platforming. Precision platforming obviously requires the player to slow down and consider things first, before then traversing the hazards they are presented with; building momentum and speed require you to run, run, run, without stopping. Sonic does expect you to memorize levels and run them again and again, the better to be able to imbibe and reconcile both these principles, but during your first run through any course, it can often be a tug of war between the two.

Of course, like I said, Sonic Colors does manage to turn even this into a strength. Finishing a course and getting slapped with a C or a D grade often acts as all the incentive you need to go back and run that course again, and again, and again, until you’ve memorized it so well you’re effortlessly getting the highest possible marks each time. Some expertly hidden collectibles add further replayability to each course. 

A lot of the attention of the “Ultimate” upgrade for Sonic Colors has focused on the visual side of it, which makes sense – the original was a Wii title, which means it’s a standard definition game remastered for HD for the very first time. On the whole, I would argue the visual update is clean and reasonable (if not astounding or worth the whole re-release in and of itself), though there are certain complaints I can foresee coming in from some quarters. As an example, the updates have very definitely changed the look and aesthetic of a lot of areas due to the differences in lighting and color (heh) saturation, and I can easily see many preferring how the original game looked as a result; but on the whole, I think the new aesthetic in those areas isn’t worse, just different.

"The game’s Wii roots are especially clear and apparent in cutscenes. However, the art style is strong, and that, along with a bump up to 60fps for the frame rate, helps keep the game look pleasant to look at."

The remastering is very clearly nowhere close to the more thorough facelifts we have seen in other similar platform re-releases; for example, this is nowhere close to the overhaul that Crash or Spyro saw with the N.Sane or Reignited trilogy releases. The game’s Wii roots are especially clear and apparent in cutscenes. However, the art style is strong, and that, along with a bump up to 60fps for the frame rate, helps keep the game look pleasant to look at. While it’s undeniable it could have looked even better, it’s still a pretty good looking game, that passes muster and scrutiny, if not as triumphantly as it otherwise could have.

That’s really the case with Sonic Colors as a whole – while its reputation may lead you to expect an all time great platform, it’s really not that. It is very good, mind you, and it’s compelling and engaging and probably the most smartly designed 3D Sonic game we have ever received. All of that alone makes it worth playing, particularly since Colors is without question the best implementation of the so called “boost” formula as well. The stumbles and blemishes that come along the way, well, that’s just part and parcel of being a Sonic fan at this point. Embrace them, and enjoy Dr. Eggman’s Wild Ride.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

This is honestly shocking, because even though Nintendo has traditionally done very well in Japan, Sony has always held the lion’s share of software sales in the country. The PS1 and PS2 were absolute monsters, the PSP was where most Japanese games migrated to even as the industry struggled with the transition to HD; the PS3 eventually managed to rally most of the Japanese industry behind it, with the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita forming a combined ecosystem that saw a lot of Japanese publishers continue to prioritize and emphasize PlayStation systems for their projects. Once the PS4 came on to the scene, it took a while to get going, but even while it was finding its footing, the PS3 and PS Vita held up the fort, and eventually, the PS4 and Vita continued that ecosystem further.

The issue is, PlayStation wasn’t getting Japanese third party support because of any particular effort by Sony, or quality inherent to PlayStation platforms. It was getting that third party support because there were quite literally no other platforms for those games to go to. Xbox consoles are a non-factor in Japan – they’re out of reckoning for this one (though Xbox has been gaining some good ground with the Series consoles in the land of the rising sun the last few months, surprisingly enough). So it always came down to PlayStation or Nintendo.

There, the answer was always obvious – yes, the Wii had sold more, but the audience it had cultivated wasn’t particularly interested in buying RPGs, action adventure games, or visual novels – the types of games Japanese developers thrive at making. Yes, the DS was massively successful, and its audience did want to buy just about any game you could put on it – but it was extremely weak in terms of hardware, meaning a lot of games couldn’t come to it even if the developers wanted. The PS3 and PSP became the platforms to go to by default, essentially.

The 3DS was a clear attempt at courting the PSP audience, and it actually did make inroads there, but the Vita allowed for easy cross-porting between it, the PSP, the PS3, and the PS4, which as a combined ecosystem was still far more valuable (and easier to get into) than the bespoke and singular 3DS could manage. So in spite of the 3DS’ monstrous success in Japan, and the Vita’s relative failure, most third party support in the country still went to PlayStation. The Wii U was an abysmal misfire, meaning it was never in reckoning, in turn making the PS4 the default system to go to.

Essentially, then, what Nintendo needed to do was to come out with a device that was capable enough to host games Japanese developers like to make, cultivated an audience that liked buying the kinds of games Japanese developers like to make, was easy to develop and publish games for, and which had a big install base. Until the Switch, one or the other of these factors has always been missing, which had only reinforced Sony’s position as the de facto, default place to go to for Japanese developers. But that’s the thing, if your success is built not off of your own merits or anything you have done, but rather, the competition’s consistent misfires, then eventually you’re going to lose the top spot. Unless you make active efforts to solidify your position, and just rely on the competition bumbling, it will come back to bite you.

Sony has not only not made the appropriate efforts to cultivate the Japanese market, but has, in fact, done everything in its power to alienate and diminish it. From closing its local in-house Japanese development studio to imposing arbitrary content and administrative restrictions on Japanese games and game creators, to simply arrogantly throwing their weight around, with things as trivial as their reversal of the X and O button functions in the PlayStation UI and the lack of support extended to local developers, Sony has been burning bridges with a lot of Japanese developers and publishers for a while now.

So between Sony’s consistent sidelining of Japan, and Nintendo finally getting a system out that checks all the boxes, what has happened? We have ended up with a situation where a PlayStation system is no longer the default, where at the very least a lot of the Japanese support it commanded as de facto exclusive (because, again, where else would those games go?) has become at least multiplatform (such as with long running PlayStation exclusive franchises such as Atelier), or outright exclusive (such as with Disgaea). We’ve ended up at a point where Japanese games sell more on Switch – not just in Japan, but worldwide now.

None of this is really new information – but it does tie into a broader point about Nintendo and Sony’s contrasting strategies, and how they are indicative of the broader directions the two companies have chosen to take for their respective brands. Sony has decided to go all in on the high end, the prestige associated with the next blockbuster big budget release. Those are the games Sony chooses to highlight and associate with – which isn’t to say smaller fare isn’t allowed on PlayStation, of course, it is, but Sony really doesn’t care about any of that. This is why indie games have also suffered a similar fate as Japanese games on PlayStation – they are mostly sidelined, because Sony wants all eyes on the next big blockbuster, whether its own, or from its partners.

And to be fair to Sony, those partners might well be indie or Japanese too. Sony does highlight Japanese games – such as Final Fantasy. Sony does highlight indie games – such as Kena: Bridge of Spirits. But all those games are carefully curated and selected high end “blockbusters”, even within their own niches, and so they get Sony’s approval. In contrast, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim can be an award winning, critically acclaimed game that is PS4 exclusive (not even on PC!), and Sony doesn’t even acknowledge it on its own store page.

This is the reverse of Nintendo’s strategy. Nintendo has embraced the mid-tier of the market, that segment of the market that the transition to HD all but killed until the Switch gave it a thriving ecosystem to subsist in. This is why Nintendo has no trouble holding 30 minute long streams dedicated to nothing but indie games every few months. This is why low- to mid-tier Japanese games such as No More Heroes III or Rune Factory 5 get showcased in their presentations so frequently. Nintendo has zero trouble highlighting the high end, of course – when it has high end games coming to its system, it pushes them for all they’re worth. But to Nintendo, there is no distinction or difference between a high end game or a mid tier one, and as long as it’s an appealing game, it will get marketed by the company.

What this has led to, in turn, is two very different software markets and ecosystems on PlayStation and Nintendo. Amusingly enough, they each seem to be imbibing what the other was like in the past. In the past, PlayStation was the platform that democratized game development, and highlighted and pushed everything. That’s why so many of these once small developers and franchises, such as Persona, grew on PlayStation platforms to begin with. Nintendo was known to highlight a “premium software” strategy, where carefully curated hits, its own as well as from select third party partners, were what were marketed. This led to two very different software markets and ecosystems across the platforms – PlayStation owners were more willing to buy out different kinds of software, rather than just the next big hit, and a lot of smaller games and developers saw massive success on there as a result. On the other hand, Nintendo owners were likely to just wait for the next big hit – almost always just a Nintendo game, but sometime a carefully selected third party title too, whether it be Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on the N64 or Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube.

Right now, we’re seeing the opposite of that. Sony has cultivated the blockbuster audience – the audience waiting for the next big hit from Sony, or the next major AAA blockbuster drop. This audience is focused on the latest and greatest, and as a result, a lot of it isn’t really too interested in picking up a random indie or Japanese game that looks like it was maybe cutting edge back on the PS2. And that’s obviously fine – there’s nothing wrong with preferring the cutting edge as a player, and there’s nothing wrong with Sony choosing to focus on that, given how successful they are right now.

Nintendo players, on the other hand, thanks to Nintendo taking the initiative to actively cultivate an audience that is willing to try out a whole bunch of things – from the newest indie game that looks even slightly interesting to the newest Japanese game in a long running niche series – are now taking more risks, a broader approach with what they choose to buy. Obviously, given the Switch’s freakishly high software attach rates, they’re pretty happy with what they get when they experiment with these games too, leading to this kind of software support for the platform being further perpetuated, and customers being exposed to an even broader array of games. There’s a reason that where once, smaller games would become huge on PlayStation before maybe migrating over to other systems, the opposite is happening now – there’s a reason that Hollow Knight and Hades were big on Switch before they were on any other console, and that reason is that Nintendo has created an ecosystem where developers and customers alike are likelier to have an affinity for broad, varied software across the spectrum, rather than just sticking to the next big blockbuster.

This kind of embrace of all games is why the Japanese industry has ultimately rallied around the Switch at this point, why the Switch is the Japanese games industry, in fact. Obviously, the PS5 will continue to get Japanese support – high end Japanese games such as Resident Evil can’t go anywhere else, and even with the smaller tier stuff, a lot of it will probably come to PlayStation because a multiplatform release strategy makes sense, with the ease of porting for modern systems. But more and more, we’re going to start to see the kind of ecosystem PlayStation cultivated over two decades to slowly migrate over to Nintendo going forward – assuming, obviously, that Nintendo doesn’t decide to pull a Nintendo and mess things up with the Switch successor.

Nintendo is probably going to mess things up with the Switch successor.

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.

Days Gone

Perhaps the most recent example on this list is Days Gone. First revealed at E3 2016, its main calling card was the sizable hordes of undead on-screen that players could battle. It was originally slated to release in 2018 but faced a number of delays before finally launching in April 2019. On Metacritic, it averaged a 71 out of 109 reviews from critics. Some gameplay and world building aspects were praised but critics were ultimately harsh on the game for its mission design, writing, performance and myriad of bugs. While not an outright terrible review average, it was a shock to PS4 players, especially with how revered Sony’s exclusive first-party offerings had become.

After its launch, however, Days Gone attained a relatively strong following with players becoming attached to the characters and the overall world design. Bend Studio would also update the game frequently, adding new challenges, difficulty modes and bug fixes. It eventually became clear that Days Gone wouldn’t be getting a sequel or even a major expansion. Earlier this year, Jason Schreier spoke to sources that revealed a sequel proposal being rejected due to the first game’s mixed critical response and long development period. Nevertheless, a PC version arrived in May and fans have started a petition for a sequel. Bend Studio is currently working on a new IP built on “the deep open-world systems that they have developed with Days Gone” as per PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst so at the very least, its DNA carries over in some ways.