Games Inbox: Best Nintendo Direct Mini game, NieR: Automata 2 hopes, and multiformat Persona 6-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope – the best game of the Nintendo Direct? (pic: Ubisoft)

The Wednesday letters page looks forward to exploring Cyber Space in Sonic Frontiers, as one reader fears replaying Metroid Prime on Switch.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Oddly Direct
That Nintendo Direct was odd. I’ve never enjoyed one of those so much, despite it not really having any big surprises. That’s partially the fault of the leaks but even then the biggest leaks were just ports anyway. Not that I’m not interested to play NieR:Automata but I don’t think it’s something a lot of people are going to be getting excited about, not the sort of people that only bought a Switch for Mario Kart and Animal Crossing.

Maybe they could be convinced to give Harvestella a go though, which I thought looked pretty good and surprisingly high budget for a Switch exclusive. I don’t know how much Square Enix are going to push it but if it still looks good when we see more of it, I’d be interested in giving it a go.

I think that was the best surprise but I’m also really looking forward to Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope. I loved the first game, despite hating the Rabbids, and I think that says a lot. So that probably gets my vote for the best game overall, although to be honest most of them were interesting to some degree. I just wish Bayonetta 3 had been there…
Shogo

The best bit
OK, I’m going to make a prediction here. Not that I think Sonic Frontiers is going to turn out bad – I think everyone’s already guessed that one – but that the Cyber Space sections are going to be the only good bit. I’ve watched the trailer, slowed down, a couple of times now and they look vastly more interesting than the open world sections in terms of both visuals and design.

I wonder if they’re going to turn out to be the equivalent of the void levels from Super Mario Sunshine, not necessarily in terms of difficult but that they were the best bit because they were the most reminiscent of the classic games.

Maybe I’m wrong and they’ll be the worst bit but they looked a lot more like what I’d imagine a next gen Sonic game to look like, rather than some empty looking Zelda: Breath Of The Wild clone.
Jadreams

Not near enough
Happy to hear that NieR:Automata will be coming to the Switch, it seems surprising that it never made the jump before, considering it’s a fairly low tech game. I don’t think a couple of new costumes will convince me to buy it again but it does remind me that we still haven’t so much of a whisper about a sequel.

Square Enix have actually been pretty reserved about taking advantage of the game’s unexpected success, with just some mobile games and the perfectly welcome remaster of the first game (which also did surprisingly well).

I have no idea what Yoko Taro will do for a third game and that’s precisely why I’m looking forward to it. These games are so wild: silly and profound in equal measure, while still being fun to play and avoiding being too pretentious. I’ll be there day one, whatever comes next, but I hope it comes soon.
Renly

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Close the curtains
These things don’t usually get me but somehow knowing that Metroid Prime is soon to be 20 years old makes me feel very old. I remember being so excited to play that game and getting it in the post in the morning. But I didn’t want to play it right away because it was still bright out and I wanted the proper atmosphere of it being dark with no distractions, so I waited till after sunset to play it.

As crazy as that sounds I think it was well worth it because my memories of that game are that it was just the most amazingly immersive experience ever, on top of being a great game. I’ve played it a dozens times but not now for over five years, so I’m a little wary of going back and having all my fond memories spoiled.

There’s no way I won’t get the remaster though, unless they do something silly to it, so we’ll see how it stands up and how much work they’ve done to modernise it. As long as there aren’t any mandatory motion controls I’m all for it.
Knowra

Sale or rent
When I add a game, from PlayStation Plus Premium, to my library the option to purchase disappears. I added Returnal to my library and I now won’t be able to purchase the game should it go on offer. I’ve also noticed games which are free as part of the PlayStation Plus monthly games no longer have an option to buy, now they are part of my library. Is anybody else having this issue? Has Sony secretly changed the policy?

Previously, games added to your library, as part of PlayStation Plus, could be purchased but it seems this is no longer the case?
Doh_Lover

GC: Given how PS Plus has been so far it’s probably just a glitch, but we’ll see.

Amiibo monitoring
In response to JB in the Inbox and Underbox: with amiibo I just regularly check to see if they are in stock, I don’t have a checking system in place. I put all the web pages I visit on a daily basis (including GameCentral, Eurogamer, amiibo page, IMDB, etc.) in a folder and open the folder in all tabs on Firefox on Windows 10.

I can open all the pages with a couple of clicks! When you visit the amiibo page on Nintendo Store you can filter to see what is in stock, currently there are 38 in stock. When I check daily, if I see this number go up that’s when I know there are new amiibo, without looking through the list of them.

I have noticed when you wishlist stuff on the Nintendo website to get notifications for stuff it doesn’t always work. It seems to work with new stuff/pre-orders but it doesn’t work always with old amiibo.

This happened with the Bayonetta amiibo, which came into stock when I was regularly checking but I didn’t receive an email about it.

I am looking out for Mario ones for myself or any that I like the look of.
Andrew J.
PS: The PlayStation 5 disc console is in stock with Horizon Forbidden West on ShopTo for £499.85!

Perfect combination
Whilst browsing some games during the Steam sale, I came across a game with the description ‘tactical roguelike role-playing game’.

I could not think of a more likely combination of words that would put me off a game so fast, except if they had added ‘turn-based’. What are some of your least favourite genres of games?
Ali K

GC: What was the game? It sounds like it might actually have been turn-based.

Multiformat future
So the Persona news for Switch wasn’t surprising but I wonder what this means for Persona 6? With all the modern games soon to be available on all formats is this an indication that Persona 6 is going to be multiformat from the off? I think so.

The Xbox Series X/S is actually selling okay in Japan, for an Xbox, and we all know how big the Switch is there now so I’m sure Atlus has taken a good look at the small installed base for the PlayStation 5 and realised that it doesn’t make sense to have the game be a PlayStation exclusive anymore.

I think Persona has the potential to be bigger than Final Fantasy and any other Japanese role-player outside of Pokémon, so it doesn’t make sense to have it stuck as a PlayStation exclusive and only ported to other formats years after it first came out.

Of course, to test my theory you’d actually need Persona 6 to be announced and to be honest I don’t see that happening for a good few years yet.
ChmpionGoblin

Inbox also-rans
I’ve just realised that I have the most respect for Media Molecule, as I’ve just been watching The Go! Team on YouTube and their track Get It Together is in LittleBigPlanet.
Zombiekicker

Wow, I had no idea Capcom made so many Mega Man Battle Network games, they must’ve been coming out once a year or so at one point? I really liked the first few but it was obvious at the time they were just running it into the ground. I don’t know how they could revive it either, now that portable consoles are no longer a thing. Please not as a gacha game!
Tomlin

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Tosh, who asks what’s your favourite PlayStation exclusive?

Inspired by the recent launch of PS Plus Premium, we want to know what’s your favourite PlayStation exclusive. It doesn’t have to be one made by Sony, just one that, at the time at least, was only available on a PlayStation console (including portables).

How important was the game, and exclusives in general, to you getting the console or forming a positive impression of the PlayStation brand, and is the franchise still going now? If it became multiformat did that lessen your enthusiasm for it in any way?

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The small print
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