Amazon Prime Day 2023 Nintendo sales include a broad range of the best Switch games, and we’ve rounded them up in our Switch sale list
Amazon Prime Day 2023 Nintendo sales include a broad range of the best Switch games from Nintendo themselves, indie publishers, and well-known third-party games. Whether you’re after Fire Emblem, Super Mario, Pokemon, or some of the Switch’s meatier RPGs, there’s almost certainly something for you in the sale – unless you’re after hardware. Nintendo isn’t offering any discounts on the Switch itself.
These deals last until Amazon Prime Day 2023 ends – July 12, 2023 – or until supply runs out.
Super Mario RPG’s original director, Chihiro Fujioka, isn’t working on the Switch remake, though he’s happy it exists
Super Mario RPG’s original director, Chihiro Fujioka, isn’t working on the Switch remake, though he’s happy it exists. Fujioka retweeted the announcement after the June Nintendo Direct and expressed surprised and excitement over the project, despite not being involved in it (thanks, Eurogamer).
“Oh my God, finally!” Fujioka said on Twitter (via Google translate). “Both the art and music are wonderfully upgraded! I’m really looking forward to seeing how the feel of various mini-games and fields evolves!”
He said in a reply to someone else that he was surprised to learn the remake exists, so it seems safe to say he wasn’t in the loop at all on the remake and its direction.
Yoko Shimomura, the game’s original composer, was in charge of rearranging the soundtrack, however.
“In my career, I’ve been involved in a lot of games and I would really like my final one to be another Mario RPG game, if possible,” he said. “I would like to go back and create a Mario RPG (different from Mario & Luigi) where you’re only controlling Mario.”
It looks like that probably won’t happen now, though Fujioka certainly left his mark on Mario games and the RPG genre. He worked on every game in the Mario & Luigi series after Super Mario RPG launched and was credited as a game designer for Fantasian, the Apple-exclusive mobile game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.
The Super Mario RPG remake launches for Nintendo Switch on Nov. 17, 2023.
One Zelda fan build a small orchestra and rearranged the classic Chrono Trigger track “Corridors of Time” in Tears of the Kingdom
Zelda fans have built everything from computers to industrial-strength Korok barbecue machines using Tears of the Kingdom’s Zonai devices, and the latest innovation is a music machine arranged to play “Corridors of Time” from the SNES classic Chrono Trigger. Twitter user bran8bit posted a set of videos on Twitter showing the devices in action, and while it took four different setups and some creative arranging, the end result sounds almost identical to Yasunori Mitsuda’s classic SNES song.
Central to these and other musical efforts in Tears of the Kingdom is the stake device, a long piece of Zonaite that you can embed in the ground up to the top. Some dedicated builders discovered that if you aim a Zonai beam emitter at these stakes, they emit sounds at differing pitches depending on how deeply embedded the stakes are in the ground.
sorry zelda I was too busy making an arrangement of Corridors of Time from Chrono Trigger pic.twitter.com/TJVNMRp8oq
Bran8bit built several devices to make this work. The one playing the melody is a single beam emitter attached to a wheel device, which itself is on a stake attached to a wagon wheel that’s on one looks like maybe a stabilizer or a small wheel. A similar setup is on the other side for balance, and in front of the emitter is a row of 16 stakes arranged in a repeating pattern.
The second device is similar, but the stake setup is more complicated. Bran alternates between different heights and even verticality depending on which part of the track he’s at. The third setup uses a few stakes and what looks like light devices, and the fourth is even more clever. Bran put a large wheel on a spoke and attached some stakes, cooking pots, and poles in positions where they’d bump against bundles of wood placed at different heights to create a muffled thwump sound.
For the percussion, they used the sound of Link running and jumping on stone pavement.
The whole thing is incredibly clever and creative and must have taken hours of building and testing to get it just right, and the end result is impressively accurate compared to the original piece from nearly 30 years ago.
A Nintendo fan bought enough stocks so he could attend the company’s shareholder meeting and complain about Splatoon 3 customization
A Nintendo fan bought enough stocks so he could attend the company’s shareholder meeting and complain about Splatoon 3’s customization options. The man interrupted the shareholder’s meeting and went into a lengthy ramble about how all the multiplayer game’s best poses are for the girl squids, while boy inklings get much less attention.
“The company has blatantly given the boys in Splatoon the cold shoulder, and I would like to see some improvement,” the man said (translated by GLHF’s Georgina Young). “It makes me extremely sad when people say ‘If you enjoy playing as a boy, then you won’t enjoy playing Splatoon.’”
He also expressed concern over Splatoon 3’s marketing, which he said raised concerns that there would be no male characters in the game. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Splatoon 3 doesn’t ask your character’s gender when you begin and lets you pick any clothing, hair, and customization options.
The man’s “question” continued on until company president Shuntaro Furukawa interrupted him and said it was too long. He continued undeterred and, when he finally finished, Furukawa just thanked him for his time and moved to the next question.
It’s an odd situation, made even more peculiar by the means the man used to attend the meeting. He reportedly bought several Switch OLED models with a credit card, sold them, and used the cash to purchase enough stocks to make him eligible for attending the meeting. All this happened after the man sent multiple letters to Nintendo demanding changes in Splatoon 3, letters that, unsurprisingly, went unanswered.
The future of Splatoon 3’s customization probably won’t change, but Nintendo has plenty of new plans in store for the ink splatter, including some big changes to the formula in the upcoming single-player DLC campaign.
The June 2023 Nintendo Direct shed plenty of light on the Big N’s plans for the rest of 2023, including a new Mario game and more
The June 2023 Nintendo Direct shed plenty of light on the Big N’s plans for the Switch in the rest of 2023. Headline acts include a brand-new 2D Mario game and a Super Mario RPG remake launching just months apart. Square Enix is remaking Star Ocean, WarioWare is back in town, and there’s even a new Dragon Quest Monsters in the works.
Nintendo also teased a few new Mario projects for 2024, including a Princess Peach game and a Switch remake of a 3DS classic.
There’s a lot to see, and our June Nintendo Direct recap lists it all out for you.
Nintendo announced a Super Mario RPG remake during the June Nintendo Direct, an updated version of the SNES classic that Square Enix made
Nintendo announced a Super Mario RPG remake during the June Nintendo Direct, an updated version of the SNES classic that Square Enix first made. The Super Mario RPG remake launches on Nov. 17, 2023, for Nintendo Switch.
Super Mario RPG is often regarded as the precursor to Alpha Dream’s Mario & Luigi series, with its quirky sense of humor, colorful characters, and interactive turn-based battles. An evil blacksmith invades the Mushroom Kingdom and sets his sights on Star Road, and Mario teams up with Peach, Bowser, and new characters Mallow the cloud prince and Geno the living doll to take back their home.
And no, that doesn’t mean we’ll finally see Geno in Super Smash Bros.
It’s an offbeat adventure that takes the crew to a vibrant and unfamiliar version of the Mushroom Kingdom and its surrounding locales. You’ll visit an unorthodox version of Yoshi’s Island, see Birdo make a strong cameo, and even spot some familiar Nintendo icons scattered around, including Samus Aran from Metroid. Battles are turn-based, though like with Mario & Luigi, you can deal extra damage or activate bonus effects by pressing the right button at the right time.
While the official product page only says the game’s graphics are updated, the soundtrack is apparently getting an overhaul as well. Iconic composer Yoko Shimomura, known for her work on Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XV, and Live A Live, is handling the remake’s soundtrack.
Elsewhere in Mario news, Nintendo announced a brand-new 2D Mario game: Super Mario Wonder, set to launch later in 2023.
Nintendo announced a new 2D Mario game during the June Nintendo Direct, a surreal adventure aptly named Super Mario Bros Wonder
Nintendo announced a new 2D Mario game during the June Nintendo Direct, a surreal adventure aptly named Super Mario Bros Wonder. Super Mario Bros Wonder launches for the Nintendo Switch on Oct. 20, 2023, and is the first brand-new 2D Mario game in over 10 years.
The last 2D Mario game on the Switch was New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, a repackaging of the Wii U launch game with a few extra features.
Mario Wonder introduces Wonder Flowers and Wonder Seeds, which Mario can interact with and drastically change the environment around him.
“When you touch a Wonder Flower in the game, the wonders of the world unlock – pipes could come alive, hordes of enemies may appear, characters might change their looks, for example – transforming the gameplay in unpredictable ways. Excitement and different surprises await in each course,” Nintendo said in a press release.
One flower turns Mario into an elephant, another makes Princess Daisy playable, and a different Wonder Flower makes the stage come alive, complete with moving pipes and other surreal effects.
There’s a sizeable playable cast as well, including Mario, Luigi, Toad, Yoshi, Daisy, and Peach. Nintendo didn’t outright say whether that means it’ll include multiplayer functions like most modern 2D Mario games, but it looks probable, given the footage.
Nintendo didn’t give too much additional information aside from that, but did promise more details to come before the game’s October 2023 launch.
A June Nintendo Direct is happening after all, with Pikmin 4 and other upcoming Switch game info, and here’s where you can watch it
It turns out the June Nintendo Direct rumors were true, as Nintendo announced a presentation for June 21, 2023. The June Nintendo Direct is set to last for roughly 40 minutes and includes information about the upcoming Pikmin 4 and other Switch games set to launch later in 2023. Pikmin 4’s inclusion is expected, considering we’ve seen very little of the strategy game aside from a few brief blurbs. What else Nintendo might have in store is anyone’s guess, though some so-called leakers think there might be a Mario game in the works.
Here’s when the June Nintendo Direct starts and where you can watch it.
Upcoming Splatoon 3 DLC is probably going to add a single-player campaign to the multiplayer game, if Nintendo’s teases are true
Upcoming Splatoon 3 DLC is probably going to add an innovative new twist on single-player campaign to the multiplayer game, if Nintendo’s teases are anything to go by. Splatoon creator Hisashi Nogami briefly mentioned something “completely new and different” for the ink-splatter’s second wave of DLC in a recent interview with Famitsu, which Nintendo Everything translated, and said it’ll star fan-favorite characters from previous Splatoon games as well.
“As everyone has guessed, [Off the Hook and the Octolings] are definitely making an appearance,” Nogami said in the interview. “We can’t give away any details yet, but it’s going to be a new story that Off the Hook will be part of. We also plan on making the gameplay completely new and different, so please look forward to it.”
Nintendo already mentioned at the end of the Splatoon 3 expansion pass description that Side Order, the pass’ second part, would introduce a single-player experience, but it sounds like Nogami and his team have something more ambitious in mind than Splatoon 2’s single-player mode. That game’s DLC, Octo-Expansion, adds a series of challenging platforming levels, but doesn’t really change how you play the game.
Splatoon 3‘s single-player story mode already follows a similar pattern, so hearing that the Side Order DLC won’t just be more of the same is welcome indeed.
Co-director Seita Inoue said that while Splatoon 3 is based on a world where Team Chaos won the Splatoon 2 Splatfest between order and anarchy, the Side Order expansion is meant to unfold in a dimension where Team Order won. What that actually looks like remains to be seen, though it explains why the hub cities look so drastically different in the expansion’s announcement trailer.
Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC has no release date, though the expansion pass’ first half is available now.
Nintendo released a new Pikmin 4 trailer out of the blue, and it introduces a first for the series: character customization
Nintendo released a new Pikmin 4 trailer out of the blue, and while it doesn’t show any gameplay from the upcoming Switch game, it does introduce a first for the series: character customization. Where previous Pikmin games had you playing either as Captain Olimar and friend or the intrepid trio sent to rescue them, you create your own hero this time.
The customization tools let you choose hairstyles, body types with no gender tags, and skin color, and it looks like there’s an option to customize your spacesuit as well.
That sounds like a small thing, and it is for pretty much any other game series. Pikmin isn’t any other game series, though. Of Nintendo’s first-party franchises, it’s changed the least in the two decades since the original Pikmin launched on the Gamecube.
Your task is the same as it was in Pikmin 3 – save Captain Olimar from yet another terrible fate – but with a player-created character, perhaps Nintendo plans to emphasize exploration and discovery over strictly guided story missions in separate locations.
The original announcement trailer seems to suggest that might be the case as well. There’s a notable lack of the high walls that usually separate stages in Pikmin, and every part of the backyard garden – save for maybe the underground – looks connected. Granted, Nintendo has barely shown anything about the game, so this Grounded-like zone could just be one area you visit.
Either way, hopefully the relaxed approach to who gets to be the hero in Pikmin 4 means we’ll see some other small-but-much-needed changes to the strategy series when Pikmin 4 launches on July 21, 2023.
