The rare fusion of the two active NSO 99s.

The next Tetris 99 theme event is going to be hanging out with its younger brother.

A Maximus Cup for Tetris 99 will run this weekend starting on Friday at 3 a.m. ET and running until Tuesday morning at 2:59 a.m. ET. The theme for this event will be F-Zero 99, marking the first F-Zero game to get the Tetris 99 treatment and a rare time when one of the free-for-NSO games promotes another.

With visual novels, "spooky" remakes, and Super (Game) Monkey Ball it's a busy end of quarter.

Things we missed last week: Wait, they held a Nintendo Direct and only shadowdropped one game (Metal Slug Attack Reloaded) plus the NSO Bethesda's Fault app? Pretty sure that's a record. Also, Rastan Saga II: Mythological Boogaloo in the Archives.

The last week of the quarter is always a busy one,... Read more...

Between attempting to revive the cremated corpse of E3 and the whole Plumbers Don't Wear Ties thing they're on the tip of the iceberg.

The annual capper to the Summer of Too Many Bloody Game Announcements is usually the Limited Run Games presentation, and after a very rough year since the publisher/distributor's last presentation they unveiled the following for Switch this year (alongside the previously announced Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary):

More like the 21st anniversary edition, am I right?

After some false starts it appears Ubisoft is ready to bring back one of its cult hits.

Information has emerged confirming that Beyond Good and Evil will receive a "20th anniversary edition" release next week - June 25. A physical version is rumored to be announced at a Limited Run Games presentation which will air at 2 p.m. ET today.

This might be familiar to some of you.

As preloads prepare to drop, Nintendo has released a new trailer for next week's Luigi's Mansion 2 HD release on Switch.

The four minute trailer covers both the single players and multiplayer "ScareScraper" modes, alongside demonstrations of the classic Luigi's Mansion gameplay.

The trailer is available below:

We got updates, we got shadowdrops, and we got... nothing from Aspyr? Nice.

Other news from the Nintendo Direct today:

Shadowdrops

Look at it this way, the Switch Sports update means you can't do worse than Luka and Kyrie in the finals.

New modes were announced for a pair of Nintendo games today, one to come and one out for a couple of years.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition revealed a pair of new competition methods today in the Nintendo Direct. A "Survival" mode will see you race ghosts of seven other players in a knockout... Read more...

That title's a mouthful.

After several rounds of killing game adventure, the Danganronpa team is moving into the strategy RPG realm.

Launching in early 2025, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy stars a student forced to move into the titular school and fend off "school invaders" (monsters) for 100 in-game days. The defense takes the form of a strategy RPG, with the prep work serving as school exploration.

At least we no longer have to hear "when's mahvel".

Capcom is continuing their trend of compilations on multiple platforms by filling in two major holes in today's Direct.

The sole collection with a confirmed date is the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, which will release on September 6. The collection contains the two Ace Attorney spinoffs... Read more...

And if you get enough coins, you can trade them for five extra minutes in the ball pit.

The horror genre was represented in today's Nintendo Direct by a new Mario Party.

Super Mario Party Jamboree was revealed for an October 17 launch. The game promises seven boards, including remakes of a board each from the original two Mario Party games, as well as 110 minigames.

The new online mode was the "Koopathalon", an elimination-style game with 20 player matches.

Japan already got that last one.

New titles for both of the libraries in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack were announced in today's Nintendo Direct.

The Game Boy Advance library will add The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past + Four Swords (2002) and Metroid: Zero Mission (2004) today. The Four Swords portion will have online play.

And still HD-2D as John proceeds to punt a slime.

It wasn't Metroid Prime 4 long, but we also got proof of life from a 2021 announcement today.

After being announced as part of the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Dragon Quest franchise, a remake of Dragon Quest III in the Square "HD-2D" engine was shown today and confirmed a November 14 launch. It had been teased as part of this year's celebrations by series lead (and last man standing) Yuji Horii.

We had Fantasian on the bingo card, but not who the publisher would be.

The careers of two legends of gaming are coming full circle on Switch this holiday.

Fantasian: Neo Beyond, a version one of the early titles for the Apple Arcade service, was announced for release on Switch this holiday season. The game is known for complex turn based battles and backgrounds designed originally as real-life dioramas to achieve unique effects.

Start the new year off with some expanded Kong.

Metroid Prime 4 wasn't the only Retro-developed game to make an appearance in the Nintendo Direct.

A remake of the 2010 Wii title Donkey Kong Country Returns was confirmed in today's Direct for launch on January 16, 2025. Single Joy-Con co-op will be included in the game, alongside remastering of levels added to the game for its 2014 re-release on the 3DS.

The best Mario RPG of the year. But who's making it?

There will be an original Mario RPG this holiday.

Kicking off the Nintendo Direct was the debut of Mario and Luigi: Brothership, the first original title in the series since 2015/16's Paper Jam. It will launch on November 7.

This is the first game in the Mario and Luigi series since the 2020 closure of previous series lead AlphaDream.

In fact, that seems to be all you play.

For the first time that Nintendo will acknowledge, Zelda is playable outside of a musou game.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a new 2D Zelda game announced today in the Nintendo Direct for a September 26 launch. A branded Switch Lite system in gold will be sold the same day, which will also come with a year of an individual plan for the Switch Online Expansion Pack.

Yes folks, we got proof of life.

Metroid Prime 4 is going to go even farther beyond.

The final announcement was the first gameplay reveal for Metroid Prime 4, now subtitled "Beyond" and announced for a 2025 release. This is the first appearance of the game since development was rebooted in January 2019 and handed over to Retro Studios, after only being previously shown as a "4" logo at E3 2017 ahead of the announcement of Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS at Treehouse Live.

Emergency meeting in the Happening Bunker!

The Direct sign has been engaged for the first regular Direct of the year.

As promised during Nintendo's last financials, a Nintendo Direct focused on Switch games for the 2nd half of 2024 will air tomorrow. The presentation will begin at 10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT / 1500 CET, and is scheduled for roughly 40 minutes.

The window is open, let's see if some independent titles can get through it before they get crushed by Festivus.

Things we missed last week: Namco's 1985 shooter Star Luster (as a Vs Series machine) in the Archives.

Well, after a video caused Nintendo to hit the emergency meeting button, it seems all the more likely that I properly timed a vacation to coincide with the promised/threatened unveiling of Nintendo's... Read more...

And as with any retro game coming out in this year of Arceus 2024, it's got rewind and save states.

Yacht Club Games released a video today celebrating the 10th anniversary of their first release Shovel Knight (later renamed "Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope") with several new announcements.

The most concrete is a "remastered" version of the original Shovel Knight known as "Shovel of Hope DX". The... Read more...