Category: Nintendo

Antiquities, the Greek God of Old Vases.

If you think more games should be about giving cursed skulls to weird strangers, then I’m here to tell you that you’re fine, you’re normal, you’re right, and you should play Strange Antiquities.

You may have already played Bad Viking’s first game in the ‘Strange’ series, Strange Horticulture, a gothically-tinged tale of running a plant shop, but with more than a touch of Lovecraftian business lurking in the shadows. As someone who’s a little bored of the more toothless cosy games on the market, I’m always delighted to find something with sinister undercurrents and supernatural goings-on. Also, ritual murder! Not enough cosy games feature ritual murder.

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Mario Kart cleans up (again) while Metroid drops.

The last full week of 2025 UK charts data is in, and for the most part, it’s a minor reshuffle of the usual suspects, with EA SPORTS FC 26 sitting pretty at #1 and Mario Kart cleaning up twice over and first-party Nintendo (published) games taking up more than a quarter of entries in the all-formats chart.

Ghost of Yotei and Just Dance 2026 slipped out of the top 10 (the latter out of the top 40 completely) to make room for Nintendo Switch Sports and GTA5, both of which were hovering just outside last week.

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Scoot over, Ness.

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors from 2025. This article was originally published in May. Enjoy!

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Could an upgrade be on the way?

Since the Switch 2 generation got underway, many Nintendo fans have been calling for the Pikmin titles to receive an upgrade from Nintendo. Now, in an interesting development, a Switch 2 rating has surfaced on the European age rating board ‘PEGI’ for Pikmin 3 Deluxe.

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I might just be tired.

I must have some kind of record for Ring Fit, if not internationally (see: here), then at least for the West Midlands. I played 10 hours over the weekend, which probably sounds like a lot. I can confirm it was.

You know those charity fundraisers of dancing for 24 hours or whatever? It wasn’t that. All I raised was my knees (a lot), the Ring (nearly as much), and my cat towards the ring to try and get it to jump through (once, he didn’t).

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But try not to get “too excited”.

Next year marks even more anniversaries, and one other big one coming up is for Dragon Quest. This classic role-playing series will hit its 40th birthday, and in the same end-of-year wrap with 4Gamer.net (via Gematsu), Square Enix producer Yosuke Saito mentions how the company is looking forward to everyone joining in on the grand celebration of the series.

“Next year marks the 40th anniversary of Dragon Quest! I’d be extremely happy if everyone could join in on a grand celebration.”

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The classic Space Invaders returns.

Last year in January, Hamster’s Arcade Archives series for the Switch and multiple other platforms reached 400 releases. Now, in an update at the end of 2025, it’s been officially confirmed that the retro-specialist has now hit 500 releases!

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“I hope creators and audiences alike can recognize AI as a tool”.

Back in June, Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino acknowledged that, like a great many companies working in the games industry, his firm was exploring the use of Generative AI as “a tool for communication and efficiency improvement.”

Fast forward to the end of the year, and Hino’s view of GenAI appears to have become a little more positive. As noted by Kotaku, he posted a lengthy response to the online “commotion surrounding AI,” pointing out that many companies in the gaming sector are now incorporating AI into their development process at some point.

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“In this age of diversity, the manufacturer itself has stubbornly refused”.

Nintendo may have originated the concept of the cross D-Pad, but the company has practically abandoned this control method on both the Switch and Switch 2 (although thankfully not on the Switch Lite and Pro Controller), leaving some old-school players feeling a little left out.

One of those people is legendary game designer Hideki Kamiya, who has been speaking to 4Gamer about his gaming impressions of 2025 (thanks, Stealth).

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Go on, tell ’em.

Fans of the long-running RPG Final Fantasy have a chance to tell Square Enix their thoughts about the series in a new online survey. It’s available until 9th January 2026 and features over 30 questions.

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