Our picks for the best Switch eShop games in August.
Pinch yourselves — it’s eShop Selects time again! Autumn (or fall, depending on where you are in the world) is just around the corner. The leaves will start going brown, and the temperature will start cooling off — or maybe it’s getting warmer if you’re on the other side of the hemisphere. This seasonal intro is not working out, is it? Let’s just get on with it and look back at August…
So… last month was ridiculously good for video games, right? Sure, there weren’t any big AAA Nintendo games for Switch, but the eShop exploded with hidden delights and highly-anticipated games that actually lived up to the hype.
Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XVI is getting two paid DLC expansions and confirmed its PC port is officially in development. More details about both aspects will be revealed later this year.
“As I mentioned earlier, we’ve seen many opinions and reactions from our community of Final Fantasy XVI players,” said producer Naoki Yoshida. “But one thing that came through particularly strongly was how people wanted to see more of Valisthea’s story and spend more time with her inhabitants.”
Yoshida then officially announced that the development team has started work on two paid DLC installments. He then went on to share some good news for those hoping to play the latest Final Fantasy on their PC.
“Finally, while Final Fantasy XVI was released as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, we are aware that many of you have been asking for a PC version,” Yoshida said. “So, allow me to take this opportunity to officially announce that development on a PC version is currently underway.
“I hope to be able to give you more information on both the upcoming DLC and the PC version before the end of the year, so please stay tuned.”
Additionally, a free update for the game is coming today that includes alternate costumes for several characters, a new Onion Sword weapon, and the ability to change the appearance of Clive’s weapons while keeping the stats of the equipped one.
Yoshida previously stated that there wasn’t any initial DLC planned for Final Fantasy XVI, but fan feedback made Square Enix reconsider the possibility.
The game is currently a PS5 timed console exclusive for at least 6 months. Now with the PC version officially announced, it’s currently unknown whether it’ll also come to Xbox Series X|S in the future too.
In IGN’s Final Fantasy XVI review, we said, “Final Fantasy 16 will very likely be looked back upon as a turning point for mainline Final Fantasy games, taking its combat fully in the direction of an action game, but I hope that conversation doesn’t overshadow its dark and captivating tale, memorable characters, and the innovative ways in which it helps you keep track of it all.”
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
Super Mario Bros. Wonder has already been praised in early hands-on previews for being one of the most refreshing takes on the 2D series in a very long time and it seems part of the reason behind this is tied to the fact there was no deadline in the early phases of its design.
Speaking to Wired, the game’s producer Takashi Tezuka mentioned how during the prototyping stage, there was no due date, which seemingly encouraged more creativity and ideas. Here’s exactly what he had to say:
If you were hoping to see a hard copy release of the retro-style FPS Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, today is your lucky day.
Boxed versions are now appearing online. According to a listing on Amazon, the game will be priced at $39.99 USD and is expected to be released on 5th September 2023. Here’s a look at the boxart:
Nintendo’s amiibo line might not be quite as busy as it once was, but there are still new figurines arriving on a regular basis.
With this in mind, there are reports of updated packaging for Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate amiibo series. This information comes from a Famiboards forum member, who shared some photos of the new look.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s mechanics are based on Dungeons & Dragons 5e (5th edition), but if you haven’t played the tabletop before, getting a good grasp of how things work in the game could be difficult. Not to worry: If you’re just getting started, or simply want to better understand how things work, here’s a beginner’s guide to Baldur’s Gate 3 explaining everything from how to make a good character to how combat works.
We gave Baldur’s Gate 3 a 10 in our review. Writer Leana Hafer said “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.” Considering the high praise, it’s worth learning the ropes!
How to Build a (Good) Character
The first order of business is making a character. You can always choose an Origin Character and go with the recommended specs to make this part easy, but you can also make a custom character (which you’ll also need to do if you choose The Dark Urge Origin Character). Here are quick summaries of what each choice actually does, but click on each for more complete, thorough explanations. These pages also explain basics like how dice rolls work. You can also check out our comprehensive How to Build a Character in BG3 guide – or watch the video above!
Class: Your class is arguably the most important choice when building a character. It determines the Abilities you’ll want to invest in and generally how you’ll fight in combat, as each comes with a variety of weapon proficiencies, armor proficiencies, Spells, and other features. There are 12 Classes and 46 Subclasses in BG3 to choose from. You can always check out our Best Classes in BG3 guide for more advice, but they’re all viable!
Race: Unlike traditional D&D 5e, your Race in BG3 does not affect your general stats. Instead, it provides special racial attributes, like Darkvision or special resistances; and of course, your appearance. Dialogue options may change depending on your Race as well, but don’t worry, your Race won’t disqualify you from any Romance in BG3! There are 11 Races in BG3 to choose from – and our Races and Subraces guide has a complete comparison chart.
Ability Scores: Essentially, Ability Scores are your stats! Every action you perform in Baldur’s Gate 3–from attacking with a weapon to persuading an NPC–is modified by your Abilities. The higher your Ability score, the more likely you’ll succeed with whatever you’re trying to do. See our full BG3 Abilities Guide for explanations of how ability checks work, and what each ability affects. The Abilities guide also thoroughly explains how dice rolls work in general.
Background: This is a bit of flavor that can change some dialogue and dictate what grants you “Inspiration” – a currency that essentially lets you try again if you fail. These 12 Backgrounds also provide two proficiencies in Skills.
Skills: Skills include things like Perception, which allows you to notice things around you; and Persuasion, which allows you to persuade an NPC. Any character can use any Skill, but having a Skill proficiency will add a bonus to your dice roll along with the usual Ability Score modifier, making you more likely to succeed with that Skill. There are 18 Skills in BG3 – and your choices of Class, Background, and sometimes Race or Feats will affect which skill proficiencies you can choose.
During these selections you’ll also make a “Guardian” – see Who is the Guardian? for more information.
Can You Respec in BG3?
If you end up not vibing with your character, don’t worry, you can always respec everything except for Race and Background, even very early on. You can miss this though, so see How to Find Withers and Respec to learn how.
To get you started, you’ll want to find all of your potential Companions in BG3 so you can create the best party compositions. Before equipping weapons or armor, make sure that character is proficient in them so you’ll actually use them efficiently. Same goes for Spells, like Shadowheart’s Intelligence-based Firebolt. She has a bad INT score. This is why she misses with it so much!
For the Baldur’s Gate 3 players who are new to D&D or CRPGs in general, the combat system and action economy can be difficult to adjust to. In the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition ruleset that Baldur’s Gate 3 emulates, each full round of combat encompasses six real-time seconds. A round being one full rotation through the Initiative Order (in which every character has one turn). Keep that thought in mind when in combat scenarios, as it can help you understand why some of your actions and abilities are limited in the way they are.
Initiative is determined by a 20-sided dice roll plus your Dexterity Ability Modifier added as a bonus. The higher your roll, the sooner your turn will be.
Actions are generally limited by one per turn unless your character has special features. These actions include weapon attacks and spells, as well as general abilities Dash, Disengage, Throw, and Hide. Rogues can perform some of these actions as a Bonus Action! Actions are noted by a green circle.
Bonus Actions are smaller abilities that can be done in the same turn as an Action. These include the general Jump, Shove, and Dip (dipping a weapon into an affected surface like poison); but can also include certain spells like Healing Word or class abilities like Barbarians Rage.
Reactions like Opportunity Attacks or certain spells occur when triggered by another event. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but each one is unique, so read what their trigger is. You only get one Reaction per round though, so use them carefully. Opportunity Attacks may be toggled to happen automatically, so check your settings if you want to be prompted before performing a Reaction.
Movement is just the distance your character moves in a turn. You can move, do something, and move again, but the total distance you can cover in a turn is determined by your Race and any bonuses you may have activated. The most common movement speed is 30 feet.
Keep in mind you can “set up” for combat before initiating it by strategically placing your characters!
Advanced Baldur’s Gate 3 Tips
Okay, you understand the basics, but you want more. We’ve got you – watch the video above for a quick-hit list of44 advanced tips you probably don’t know!
It begins. Starfield is out and while its official modding tools aren’t yet available, that hasn’t stopped its community from getting to work. For example: if you’re getting distracted by Bethesda’s latest throwing up XP and location-discovery messages in big fonts at the centre of the screen during combat, the BetterHUD mod should help.
Earlier this week, Dota 2‘s summer update was released and included new tools for filtering toxic and unwanted players fromy our matches. Now Valve have taken an extra step of their own by declaring that “smurfing is not welcome in Dota,” and permanently banning 90,000 accounts involved in the practice
It’s no secret that Disney is a multimedia powerhouse, the king of every form of entertainment from movies, TV shows, theme parks, and even video games. Over the last 30 years, The House of Mouse had a hand in creating video game adaptations of some classic Disney movies and original games, like Kingdom Hearts and Epic Mickey.
Today, there are plenty of Disney games for the Nintendo Switch for you to enjoy playing alone or with family and friends. Whether you’re relaxing at home and want to take a break from scrolling through Disney+ or taking a trip to a Disney Park, here are seven best Disney games you can play right now on the Switch.
You can also check out our larger roundup of the best Switch games overall for more options.
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
Disney and Square Enix’s spin on the latter’s Final Fantasy Theatrhythm lets you take control of Sora, Donald, Goofy, and other characters from across the Kingdom Hearts universe to slash the Heartless and their ilk to the beat of the series’ iconic soundtrack. You run along the staff and hit the monsters in time to the beat lest they hurt you if you miss it. You can enjoy the musical stylings of Yoko Shimomura by yourself, or share the music with your friends in local co-op or online multiplayer battles.
In the grand scheme of things, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory gives a recap of the series up to Kingdom Hearts 3 with narration from Kairi, who falls into a deep sleep under Ansem the Wise’s observation after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3’s Re: Mind DLC. Whether you’re a veteran fan of Kingdom Hearts games or a newcomer, this title does an excellent job of getting you up to speed in preparation for Kingdom Hearts 4, which is currently in development, than the Switch cloud versions of the games will. (Author’s note: Seriously, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT get the Switch cloud versions of the Kingdom Hearts games. They suck.)
Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life sim from Gameloft that is basically Disney meets Animal Crossing, where you get to live, work, and play alongside your favorite Disney characters. You play as a human character who arrives at the titular Dreamlight Valley, which has been gripped by the Night Thorns, leading to The Forgetting. This supernatural event caused the Disney characters who stayed in the valley to lose their memories while others returned to their home worlds for safety.
You work to rebuild Dreamlight Valley using magic called Dreamlight to weed out the Night Thorns, provide housing for the character via Scrooge McDuck’s construction company, cook food at Remy’s restaurant, and build friendships with everyone, both heroes and villains. The best part is, you never have to worry about your clothes, food, and tools taking up space in your inventory. And you can customize your character with the coolest Disney outfits complete with Mickey Mouse ears just like you were going to Disney World — or Disneyland, depending on where you live.
Mickey Mouse’s latest gaming adventure from Disney Interactive and Dlala Studios sees him, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy travel to the mysterious Monoth Island for a picnic that turns into a high-stakes mission to recover the three stolen Tomes of Knowledge that helps protect the island. Whether you’re playing in single-player or co-op mode with three additional players, you can play as either character and navigate the island Metroidvania style.
Disney Illusion Island carries the same comedic charm as the recent Mickey Mouse cartoons despite the change in art style. Both kids and adults will be engrossed in the game’s story, the lore of Monoth Island, and the unlockable Mickey Mouse memorabilia scattered around the island.
Disney Classic Games Collection is an updated edition of 2019’s Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King (a mouthful of a title) that includes the Final Cut of Aladdin and the console and handheld versions of The Jungle Book. It has an interactive museum, a rewind function to correct gameplay mistakes, an expanded soundtrack, and a retro-style manual for one of the three games if you buy a physical copy.
This compilation lets you relive the game adaptations of your favorite Disney movies the way you played them in the ‘90s no matter which platform you owned at the time, hence the inclusion of the Sega Genesis and Game Boy versions of Aladdin and The Lion King, as well as the Super Nintendo version of the latter. Adding The Jungle Book makes the compilation even more valuable as no one had seen the game since 1994.
Disney Tsum Tsum Festival
Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is a cute party game inspired by the Disney Tsum Tsum line of collectible toys and the mobile game from Japan, featuring all the Disney and Pixar characters in Tsum Tsum form. The game has 10 different mini-games you can partake in alone or with family and friends, including bubble hockey, curling, and ice cream stacker, among others. You can even play the classic mobile puzzle game with the Switch in a vertical position.
Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is great for Disney adults interested in kawaii culture and kids who are already engrossed in cute stuff anyway. It serves as a relaxing game for both parties, so to speak.
LEGO The Incredibles
LEGO The Incredibles takes the plotlines of both Incredibles films — released 14 years apart — and merges them into one giant LEGO game. There is a twist to the gameplay, however: You have to play through the events of The Incredibles 2 to unlock those of the first movie.
Much like the LEGO Star Wars games, LEGO The Incredibles contains some deviations from the original source material, like changes to the lore we don’t want to spoil for those who haven’t seen the films (even though you had nearly 20 years to do so); and adds original villains to fight along with Bomb Voyage, Syndrome, and the Underminer. But it’s fun to play through, especially seeing that the LEGO version of Elastigirl can stretch herself as far as her movie version can.
Tron: Identity
Tron: Identity is a visual novel that differentiates itself from other games adapted from the Tron franchise. It reveals another facet of life on the Grid without involving characters from the films, as it is set thousands of years after the events of Tron: Legacy. The game centers on a program named Query, a detective assigned to investigate an explosion in the vault of the Repository, a secure building in the center of the Grid. As the mystery unfolds, the other programs you interact with pose more questions than answers.
Each character you meet gives you the choice to either ally with them, antagonize them, or derezz them, depending on the dialogue. Plus, you have to complete puzzles in order to ask them more questions about the vault explosion. That’s a lot of detective work to do in three to six hours.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal.
