I’m always gonna bring this up because it’s such a funny fact: some of the artists that worked on Halo 4 were actually old Reto Studio devs (which explains why that game looks so good on a 360), only to leave 343 and go back to Retro to work on Prime 4. It’s also a massive coincidence that they’re both the forth entry in their franchise AND that they’re both the swan song for their respective consoles.
@@matthewhaddad9086 the concept of a fordy frames per second option would be quite intriguing to say the least. I'll be curious to see how the rest of the kissss unfolds...
Always nice when Oliver gets some time to shine, even if he’s seemingly abandoned the sixth generation entirely with his move away from the GameCube room.
It’s amusing that they said there’s some Halo 4 aesthetic in Prime 4 because when Halo 4 first released people were saying it had some Metroid Prime aesthetic.
@@BravelyBasic Retro"s team has changed a lot after Prime 3. Some dev went to 343i to work on H4, others to what is now Blue Point. If those devs are returning to retro or they"re entirely different people is unkown, but we know that some 343i devs moved to retro.
You brought Oliver, one of the best at Digital Foundry, who appreciates all of gaming as a whole like John.. always great when he's on these DF Directs... thanks
@@James-nj8gx I only ever seem to hear the others talk about gaming tech or historic gaming tech, almost never any discussion of the games themselves or design elements…Alex very occasionally will, but it’s rare. I know Richard was a game reviewer some decades ago, but he only seems to discuss gaming tech news these days.
I was 7 dude! I'm going to be 25 when Prime 4 finally comes out. I didn't think it would be this long. I remember thinking Prime 4 would be a Wii U game.
Kids..try being 40, I know I know, may as well just kick the bucket. I actually played Metroid Prime 3 for the first time at 35, bought at Gamestop, ripping the ISO file with my wife's Wii, and playing it on Dolphin emulator at 1440p 60hz, and even getting it to work on my VR headset. Dolphin VR was better with the VR depth, but since the dev didn't continue, it still works 2.5D with standard Dolphin that is regularly updated.
Just gotta say, thank you two for not being overly negative with switch games! It's really refreshing to get actual analysis of what devs do to get around the switch limitations and not just a dogpile.
5:38 it's Sylux from Hunters and they show him to tell us that they indeed continue where Metroid Prime 3 left off because at the last scene of the true MP3 ending we see Sylux's ship tracking Samus.
@@inamorta47-playertwist In Prime 3’s secret ending, he is tracking Samus’ ship. In Federation Forces, he gets the two baby Metroids in the secret ending.
Just confirming that yes, the backgrounds in Fantasian were actual physical dioramas, but rather than using still photos of them, they were fully 3D scanned.
I would even say that part of why Prime 4 took so long for Retro Studios was probably because they were doing the Prime Remaster and while I think they were working on both I also think the remaster work was something they wanted to do to get the team in the right headspace for Prime 4. I think Retro Studios knows what's at stake here so they're working really hard to live up to the expectations.
Do you think the new team is going to treat the player like an adult, trust them to be able to platform on their own, or do you think they're going to heavy hit nostalgia and replicate the old system? Man this could be good, but the lack of trust in the player, for the original, versus what you could have with what they were trying to do with more interesting peripherals later on... Like somewhere in that stew is something better and or new.. I just feel like that's probably not what they're going to keep doing anymore or again.. especially with legacy titles.
Metroid Prime Remastered was made by Retro Studios and Iron Galaxy Studios. Also it was just a visual upgrade with everything else staying the same so the development time wouldn't have been crazy long. The closest game to it, Wind Waker HD took 6 months to develop so Prime Remastered was probably similar.
@@wausjackbauer128 WW HD didn't touch the 3D mesh. Prime Remastered did. They even changed some hallways slightly to make signposting clearer. It's how you remember the original, but actually they took care to make it better. It might have taken 6-12 months, but that's still a lot of time for staff to familiarize themselves with the game.
One thing that really struck me with the Mario & Luigi reveal were the animations. The animations look amazing. That was the highlight for me for that game.
For Brothership, I'm surprised there was no mention of AlphaDream. AlphaDream was the developer of all the Mario & Luigi series games, but they filed for bankruptcy and closed down in 2020. The fact there is a new entry in the series is a bit of a surprise. As far as I know, we don't know who is developing this new entry yet.
Nintendo close AD and took majority of its core staff because financially its a better step than paying off a studio debt. The studio is just a name. Its the staff that makes the studio.
For Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, Drybones2015 / Johnathon2015 has compiled some issues with missing effects and broken shaders. Hopefully those will get ironed out before release, but there's a fair amount of issues.
im sure they had enough time to fix this before release date.. its not like it will out next month and it just game port, unless they in development for remakes, yeah. it concerning..
For that end part, I think Yoshi's Wooly World should get a Switch release. Incorporate the 3DS's version of the custom Yoshi Creator and you got a winner. That game looked stellar on WiiU.
Very much agreed. Wooly World is a masterpiece, and a version that consolidates the enhancement features in the 3DS version with the visuals and panache of the Wii U original would be a barnburner release.
Link’s Awakening did not use Unity. It used one of Nintendo’s in-house engines. The job listing mentioned was likely referring to Jet Dragon, Grezzo’s Apple Arcade game.
@@vernontk of course it does, I agree. The legendary thing on GameCube was mostly done by third parties with exclusives or initial exclusives, like RE4, Killer 7, Star Wars Rogue leader etc. People tend to focus on the famous brands, and admittedly Mario sunshine is not the best 3D Mario by far, but the gamecube had the first Luigi's Mansion at launch, the first Pikmin, the first legendary Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness etc. I could go on. But yeah, my point was: the switch is probably the best Nintendo system.
Hopefully Switch 2 is 100% backwards compatible. Imagine upscaling current games, but also the library of a combined Switch and Switch 2 over the next 7/8 years.
@@vernontk Only because of the cumulative effect, including remasters and remakes. At their time, the Game Cube and its best games, were more impressive and legendary.
The Zelda game - where you actually play as Zelda, and looks like it sort of carries on the wierd building philosophy in Tears of the Kingdom - sounds really fun!
I hope John gives DKCR another chance when HD comes out, I found his takes on the game's design to be rather strange. I've played through it several times and while it has plenty of set pieces I don't feel like it has more scripted moments than DKTF.
Agreed. I understand the love TF gets but Returns is sort of the blueprint for what they achieved in the latter title. I actually quite like the more compact levels in Returns, even at the expense of the more grandiose narrative designs in the follow-up. Also think it’s a bit ungenerous to call the music in Returns “very poor.” It’s not great and lacks the David Wise whimsy of TF, but it has a certain charm to it-like Donkey Kong music parsed through a Metroid Prime soundfont.
Not only this, but after how packed this Direct was, there’s 0% chance in my mind that their next console ISN’T backwards compatible. No way they’re gonna leave all of these soon-to-be-released games on old hardware.
@@AlkoPRO11It's too soon to call PS4 immortal the PS2 got games till 2014 that's 14 years of support but I think they mean in terms of when the system is replaced not how long it gets games overall
From my most shelved console, the Switch went to be in recent years after buying the OLED model few years ago to the most used one. It really is all about exclusives in the end, and Switch got plenty of good ones.
@@shawnregina9110 Well, if they were part of Halo 4 (I can't remember when MP3 and Halo 4 released), then it really shows. Just like how it shows that former Retro folks made Jedi Fallen Order.
Yeah, at first glance it's easy to think the MP4 footage is potentially from Switch 2, especially with people's headspace being in that general area. However, if you go back to Prime Remastered, MP4 doesn't look too far off from that visually.
We are still missing remasters of all the GameCube era games on Switch which could hopefully come to Switch 2. Outside of Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker, we are missing many of the great games from that era: Waverace, 1080 Avalanche, Rogue Leader, F-Zero GX and so many more
They mostly mean with dlss I’m sure which is a really solid upscaler. It’s not too hard to imagine older switch games can easily be pushed a little more in resolution then upscaled
True. Even PS5/XSX need to rely on upscaling and dynamic res in any remotely demanding game to target 4K. You're lucky to get a stable 30fps on those machines with native rendering unless it's an enhanced last gen title.
If it can do a solid 1080p at 60Hz with motion vectors then a 4k output via DLSS at the cost of 4ms per frame seems achievable. Metroid Prime 4 at 4K 60 feels like it would be doable. 4K displays have wide adoption now. The fallback should be 1080p bilinearly scaled to 2160p. DLSS from 1080p to 2160p is generally pretty okay, it holds up a lot better than FSR or even XeSS
I love how developer ability is now recognized by their quality of Switch ports... Ya you can make a great looking game that runs well but let's see how you do when you port it to switch
Metroid Prime 4 ...8 years in development hell, they'd better come out swinging with this one! DK Swinging! :) I just hope Amazon does cancel my pre-order from 2017. It was back when they were giving 20% off discounts on all pre-orders.
What I’m imagining is that one of the reasons the original build of Prime 4 got cancelled was that somehow it didn’t feel or look quite like a prime game, which is a problem when you announce it as prime 4. This is something that you can’t tweak, if that feel isn’t there then the project is done for. At which point retro took over and used a prime 1 remaster to think, okay, how would a current gen prime game look, and move forward there. That way the feel and look of the game would be in place almost immediately.
start Ace Attorney with either the OG trilogy or the Great Ace Attorney, Oliver was right on the money with that recommendation. also just to chime in, the Ace Attorney Investigations 2 fan translation was TOP NOTCH. really tremendous work.
Oliver busting out obscure references and stuff is so inspiring. I know he’s not new to the team but I’m new to my team and him coming on here more and more just inspires me
These two dudes are really in their element with Nintendo stuff. The rest of the team really struggle to give a sh*t during regular podcasts. I wish they could do a revisit of some of Nintendo's older e3 press conferences (the good and the bad )
Nice to see the passionate individuals cover this compared to others who let's be honest, aren't keen on Nintendo to begin with and never understand their way of creating content - despite the fact it clearly works!
The Switch, deservingly should go down as the greatest video game console of all time … not just due to its longevity and what developers are able to squeeze out of it, but simply because of its games library … I can’t think of any other console that has SO MANY amazing titles.
@@tbunreallI’m curious why you think the switch sucks? Personally, I am not a Nintendo guy at all. I don’t like Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc any of that. And despite that, the switch has been an incredibly rewarding system for me. It has a deluge of JRPGs, arcade ports of shooters and fighting games, tons of indie games on the cheap and many of those games I enjoy are exclusive. Like PC, it has support for many third party controllers, so I get to play all these games with my favorite controller (Sega Saturn controller). For a long time I thought the switch was not for me, but no matter how much I distanced myself from it, it wormed itself back into my life- just couldn’t keep away from it! It has so much value to me even as someone who doesn’t care about most Nintendo games. I understand if you’re a PC gamer, but plenty of PC gamers enjoy a switch on the side, or at least still see the value it has to someone who isn’t a PC gamer.
@@mmarshfairc3 The games just run and look like crap. That's why I said the emulators are great. Playing switch games at 60fps 1440p+ really drives home how badly the switch runs
I just realized this is the first game console in history to have both a completely original "2D" Metroid and a completely original 3D Metroid. Hold up, the same can be said about Zelda too, right? Yes, Switch is the best console in history.
I had to rewatch the Direct because I went into a state of shock after Marvel vs. Capcom collection got announced lol Overall really strong showing from Nintendo. 2D Zelda puzzler with Zelda herself actually looks like a lot of fun and I'm hyped as hell over new Mario & Luigi and Retro finally following up on nearly 2 decades of teasing Sylux for Prime 4. I'm still in disbelief over Children of the Atom MvC2 on modern systems, though
I wonder if we'd get Metroid Prime 2 and 3 before 4 comes out. Given that it's a sequel it would be great, even if they're just ports and not full blown remakes like the first one.
Sylux is the enemy in the MP4 trailer, and yes had a role in Hunters but was teased to be the antagonist if you 100% Prime 3 Corruption and watch the cutscene at the end, so they stuck with the plan and this is a continuation of the story they set up it seems.
The physically made (and photographed/filmed) backgrounds is a technique used in a British made game called Lumino City by State of Play. They've done a lot of documentary work on how they filmed the transitions and recommend people check it out!
Regarding the comment about fan translations and questionable quality, the fan translation for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is actually superb and could easily pass for an official localization. It's still great that they're bringing it officially, but the quality of the script was never really a concern.
Having Original Perfect Dark online is super rad. I realllyy hope the new xbox PD embraces the same depth of multiplayer as the original. Split Screen needs to return as AN OPTION
As a long time Nintendo fan, an important thing to remember is the most successful Nintendo consoles are those with tons of 3rd party support. The internet likes to say "people only buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games," but historically that hasn't been enough. If the majority of the biggest multiplat games skip your console, even Nintendo fans will refuse to buy the console. You can have Nintendo exclusives, but if everything else is exclusively NOT on Nintendo, it makes for a hard sell. Also remember that Nintendo fans are very different from one another & care about different IPs. Nintendo has done a good job overall appealing to all their various fanbases. Some people may only care about Pokemon & Kirby, while others might only like Mario & Mario Kart. Some may be Metroid & Zelda fans, while others like Pikmin & Animal Crossing. Nintendo also did a great job diversifying their lineup & touching on many genres. For the first time in ages, we had a Nintendo console that was huge on RPGs (including 1st party ones), while also giving us a range of 3D, 2D, AAA, indie, AA, casual, serious, etc. games. Along with the hardware concept itself, this is why I feel the Switch has been so successful for such a long time.
The Switch is still almost exclusively a console for Nintendo games: According to the Wikipedia list, all the top 25 (!) best-selling Switch games were published by Nintendo (or Nintendo+Pokémon Company). For PS5, only the top 2 (!) were published by Sony. Place 3 was already a third party (From Software). These Wikipedia numbers are likely too pessimistic as many third parties don't publish sales figures and therefore aren't included in these lists. Still, the difference between Nintendo and Sony consoles is massive here. Things on PS4 do look similar to PS5. This means it is probably pretty much impossible for third party games to sell large amounts of games on a Nintendo console. And this is likely why most big third party AAA games are not developed for or ported to Switch. Nintendo consoles are primarily bought for Nintendo games, while PlayStations and Xboxes are not primarily bought for Sony or Microsoft games alone.
I disagree about nintendo fans, at least hardcore refusing without third party support however it certainly helps keep people engage. Third parties may not be the reason people buy a nintendo console but it is supplementary to the core games. Third party support is how u get non nintendo or casual fans to buy in and maintain retention. That was a problem with the Wii U since there was dry periods inbetween and nobody cared including nintendo fans
@@cube2fox The best selling titles sure, but I'd be willing to bet the devs of Freedom Planet 2 and Hollow Knight and Celeste would tell you that their titles did very well on the Switch. They fit in really well with Nintendo's library. For my part, I've bought literally all of Capcom's Mega Man compilations on Switch and Megaman X or Megaman Zero titles just feel right on Switch handheld.
for me the most obvious reason metroid prime4 is running on nintendo switch1 is: " We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the NINTENDO SWITCH SOFTWARE lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be NO mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation." (FURUKAWA WORDS) . if the title was running on switch2, we could sue nintendo.
Woo, was very pleasantly surprised to see this Nintendo Direct get a full DF Direct! I thought it might get relegated to next week's news. Next time you just need to have Tom on to make it the full Nintendo coverage trifecta lol
To John's point on Zelda: during gameplay Zelda doesn't have real time shadows like the rest of the assets, but rather a bottom circle. It maybe have to do with jumps and platforming reasons, or it may be corrected in the final release, but in the initial pan of the overworld she has real time shadows. Might be a precalc cutscene.
Shougakukan is a famous book publisher there. The last time I heard of them in connection to games is Live Alive (the artists were signed with them or something?) but there’s a good chance they’ve had connections with other stuff as well
I think the transitiion from Bandai Namco to Retro during the Prime 4 restart included Retro alternating the original MP engine to make ground fast in development because Banda Namco surely had issues to capture the original MP looks and feel so Retro went back to the original engine and startet to alternate it instead starting from scratc. MP1 Remaster is a bycatch as a result. It clearly is a result from the MP4 development and they used it to buy some time with the MP fans.
Framerate dips were present in switch gaming since the very early release days with Breath of the Wild (partly patched). I really hope „Switch 2“ will be able to play switch games with enhanced fps rates. Nintendo games are nice, but they often make me dream of what could be if the hardware was better… and for third parties it is often too expensive to exclusively optimize and this will probably also not change 2-3 years down the road with a „Switch 2“.
I still can't comprehend how good Metroid Prime Remastered looks on the Switch! I guess not much happening at one time on the screen really helps but if Metroid Prime 4 looks just like MPR, I am happy tbh!
I’m always gonna bring this up because it’s such a funny fact: some of the artists that worked on Halo 4 were actually old Reto Studio devs (which explains why that game looks so good on a 360), only to leave 343 and go back to Retro to work on Prime 4. It’s also a massive coincidence that they’re both the forth entry in their franchise AND that they’re both the swan song for their respective consoles.
I didn't expect that kind of connection. So its doubly cool.
Very awesome I always thought 4 was very underrated so it's nice to see
Time is a flat circle lol
wow how cool is that
Woah!
These two make for a pretty compelling duo, I would say.
They have really good chemistry
I hope they kissss
Funny that for all the DF staff it was another American guy. PC gaming really is the big WW thing everywhere else
@@Thelegendoftriplett I'll be curious to see how the rest of the big WW thing unfolds...
@@matthewhaddad9086 the concept of a fordy frames per second option would be quite intriguing to say the least. I'll be curious to see how the rest of the kissss unfolds...
Always nice when Oliver gets some time to shine, even if he’s seemingly abandoned the sixth generation entirely with his move away from the GameCube room.
Oliver always impresses
I miss Oliver's GameCube... :c
are you implying they don't normally allow him to shine? everyone is always great!
He is now inside the switch dock
@@v1kt0u5 He's only allowed on Direct when one of Rich/Alex/John is missing. Which is unfair!
It’s amusing that they said there’s some Halo 4 aesthetic in Prime 4 because when Halo 4 first released people were saying it had some Metroid Prime aesthetic.
where there ex retro developers in 343 industries? or did 343 devs get inspired by metroid and then ended up in Retro?
Retro guys went work on hslo infinite then came backfor metroid. I guess they actuelly wanted to finish a game
@@BravelyBasic Retro"s team has changed a lot after Prime 3.
Some dev went to 343i to work on H4, others to what is now Blue Point. If those devs are returning to retro or they"re entirely different people is unkown, but we know that some 343i devs moved to retro.
Sylux was a character in MP: Hunters, but he also shows up in the secret endings of both Metroid Prime 3 and Federation Force.
Man, they really been teasing that boyo for 17 years!
@@Deliveredmean42hahaha
Crazy how they're finally following up on it after many years.
@@DrilbitSurprised they didn't abandon that idea for a brand new direction
@alexsilva28 I imagine that was the plan for a 4th game it just took almost 20 years to happen.
You brought Oliver, one of the best at Digital Foundry, who appreciates all of gaming as a whole like John.. always great when he's on these DF Directs... thanks
This - they seem like the only people at DF who enjoy games and not just pedantic analysis of gaming tech.
@@yellowblanka6058 this is so true
You guys watching the same channel? They all love gaming.
@@James-nj8gx I only ever seem to hear the others talk about gaming tech or historic gaming tech, almost never any discussion of the games themselves or design elements…Alex very occasionally will, but it’s rare. I know Richard was a game reviewer some decades ago, but he only seems to discuss gaming tech news these days.
Rich is fine too, he is more of a neutral party that is mostly into the tech-side of things and thats fine
Man I was 15 years old when MP3 released and the 100% ending launched a thousand Sylux MP4 theories. Wild I’m 31 now and MP4 is FINALLY coming!
I was 7 dude! I'm going to be 25 when Prime 4 finally comes out. I didn't think it would be this long. I remember thinking Prime 4 would be a Wii U game.
I love how out of context this just sounds like you're talking about the music and video filetypes.
Kids..try being 40, I know I know, may as well just kick the bucket.
I actually played Metroid Prime 3 for the first time at 35, bought at Gamestop, ripping the ISO file with my wife's Wii, and playing it on Dolphin emulator at 1440p 60hz, and even getting it to work on my VR headset. Dolphin VR was better with the VR depth, but since the dev didn't continue, it still works 2.5D with standard Dolphin that is regularly updated.
@@AbbyRawksI totally read it as a codec statement 😭
I'm 36 and I remember playing MP3 a lot in my early 20's.
Just gotta say, thank you two for not being overly negative with switch games! It's really refreshing to get actual analysis of what devs do to get around the switch limitations and not just a dogpile.
Agreed. This is why the folks at DF are pretty much the only ones I go to these days for gaming news and analysis.
@@NintenJon2023 Yeah… unless Alex is part of the discussion 😬
Always great to see former GameCube resident, Oliver
He's working on moving into a Wii
For 1 secound I thought it is Monday again and start to panic about a week of work ahead.
hahaha same ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5:38 it's Sylux from Hunters and they show him to tell us that they indeed continue where Metroid Prime 3 left off because at the last scene of the true MP3 ending we see Sylux's ship tracking Samus.
it's picking up from Prime Federation Force's secret ending. :D
He also got the Metroids from Fed Force
Actually its with Federation force with the secret ending.
@@inamorta47-playertwist In Prime 3’s secret ending, he is tracking Samus’ ship. In Federation Forces, he gets the two baby Metroids in the secret ending.
@@NintenJon2023sweet! Thanks for the info
Just confirming that yes, the backgrounds in Fantasian were actual physical dioramas, but rather than using still photos of them, they were fully 3D scanned.
I would even say that part of why Prime 4 took so long for Retro Studios was probably because they were doing the Prime Remaster and while I think they were working on both I also think the remaster work was something they wanted to do to get the team in the right headspace for Prime 4. I think Retro Studios knows what's at stake here so they're working really hard to live up to the expectations.
Do you think the new team is going to treat the player like an adult, trust them to be able to platform on their own, or do you think they're going to heavy hit nostalgia and replicate the old system?
Man this could be good, but the lack of trust in the player, for the original, versus what you could have with what they were trying to do with more interesting peripherals later on... Like somewhere in that stew is something better and or new.. I just feel like that's probably not what they're going to keep doing anymore or again.. especially with legacy titles.
@@JackWse Who knows. I would be happy if they stayed close to the original, but if they give us options that's even better.
Metroid Prime Remastered was made by Retro Studios and Iron Galaxy Studios.
Also it was just a visual upgrade with everything else staying the same so the development time wouldn't have been crazy long.
The closest game to it, Wind Waker HD took 6 months to develop so Prime Remastered was probably similar.
@@wausjackbauer128 WW HD didn't touch the 3D mesh. Prime Remastered did. They even changed some hallways slightly to make signposting clearer. It's how you remember the original, but actually they took care to make it better. It might have taken 6-12 months, but that's still a lot of time for staff to familiarize themselves with the game.
@@wausjackbauer128Skyward Sword HD took over a year
One thing that really struck me with the Mario & Luigi reveal were the animations. The animations look amazing. That was the highlight for me for that game.
For Brothership, I'm surprised there was no mention of AlphaDream. AlphaDream was the developer of all the Mario & Luigi series games, but they filed for bankruptcy and closed down in 2020. The fact there is a new entry in the series is a bit of a surprise.
As far as I know, we don't know who is developing this new entry yet.
We do know that many of the core staff at AD went on to work directly at Nintendo.
We also know that some of them went on to work at SquareEnix.
Y’all really need to let that go
Majority of AD staff went to work for Nintendo with a minority going to other 3rd parties
Nintendo close AD and took majority of its core staff because financially its a better step than paying off a studio debt.
The studio is just a name. Its the staff that makes the studio.
there's a good chance that it's monolith soft since that's where several members of AD went.
Why would they bring up a closed studio
For Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, Drybones2015 / Johnathon2015 has compiled some issues with missing effects and broken shaders. Hopefully those will get ironed out before release, but there's a fair amount of issues.
im sure they had enough time to fix this before release date.. its not like it will out next month and it just game port, unless they in development for remakes, yeah. it concerning..
Looking forward to the metroid prime 4 technical analysis
yeah man
Man would love for you to talk about metroid for a hour. This is a good time to be a metroid fan.
I hopped onto RUclips hoping y’all had a breakdown on that MP4 footage and whaddaya know, it was posted not even 10 minutes ago 😂
For that end part, I think Yoshi's Wooly World should get a Switch release. Incorporate the 3DS's version of the custom Yoshi Creator and you got a winner. That game looked stellar on WiiU.
Very much agreed. Wooly World is a masterpiece, and a version that consolidates the enhancement features in the 3DS version with the visuals and panache of the Wii U original would be a barnburner release.
@fredjd11 the custom Yoshi editor made the 3DS game imo.
Link’s Awakening did not use Unity. It used one of Nintendo’s in-house engines. The job listing mentioned was likely referring to Jet Dragon, Grezzo’s Apple Arcade game.
funny thing is its DF got it all wrong when this is more of a technical channel than just a typical reviewer.
Switch has managed to get a library as legendary as the GameCube, but become their best selling system. Well done Nintendo, well done.
ummm no
I love GameCube, but Switch has a much better library.
@@vernontk of course it does, I agree. The legendary thing on GameCube was mostly done by third parties with exclusives or initial exclusives, like RE4, Killer 7, Star Wars Rogue leader etc. People tend to focus on the famous brands, and admittedly Mario sunshine is not the best 3D Mario by far, but the gamecube had the first Luigi's Mansion at launch, the first Pikmin, the first legendary Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness etc. I could go on. But yeah, my point was: the switch is probably the best Nintendo system.
Hopefully Switch 2 is 100% backwards compatible. Imagine upscaling current games, but also the library of a combined Switch and Switch 2 over the next 7/8 years.
@@vernontk Only because of the cumulative effect, including remasters and remakes. At their time, the Game Cube and its best games, were more impressive and legendary.
The Zelda game - where you actually play as Zelda, and looks like it sort of carries on the wierd building philosophy in Tears of the Kingdom - sounds really fun!
Bringing back Wii Donkey Kong Country is just getting us ready for Donkey Kong Country 2 Bannana in the Wild for Switch 2.
You mean DKC6.
A Direct with John and Oli! What a treat!
Never thought I'd hear someone of DF say "This is exciting" when talking about framerate drops 😂
I hope John gives DKCR another chance when HD comes out, I found his takes on the game's design to be rather strange. I've played through it several times and while it has plenty of set pieces I don't feel like it has more scripted moments than DKTF.
Agreed. I understand the love TF gets but Returns is sort of the blueprint for what they achieved in the latter title. I actually quite like the more compact levels in Returns, even at the expense of the more grandiose narrative designs in the follow-up.
Also think it’s a bit ungenerous to call the music in Returns “very poor.” It’s not great and lacks the David Wise whimsy of TF, but it has a certain charm to it-like Donkey Kong music parsed through a Metroid Prime soundfont.
I think prime looks incredible for the switch. I honestly don’t know what some people were expecting
Donkey Kong Country Returns Again
Donkey Kong Country Returns Returns Returns
Somehow, Donkey Kong returned
In HD
DKC Returns Again would be such a brilliant self-aware title :D
With a bunch of missing effects and other issues as seen in newly revealed videos.
I’m just relieved Switch 1 isn’t dead!!!
Like PS4.. IMMORTAL!
Far from it... even in 2025 there is DKC Returns HD, Metroid Prime 4: BEYOND, and Pokemon Legends Z-A so far...
Not only this, but after how packed this Direct was, there’s 0% chance in my mind that their next console ISN’T backwards compatible. No way they’re gonna leave all of these soon-to-be-released games on old hardware.
@@AlkoPRO11It's too soon to call PS4 immortal the PS2 got games till 2014 that's 14 years of support but I think they mean in terms of when the system is replaced not how long it gets games overall
@@The_MEMEphis dont worry, og switch gonna get annual editions of JUST DANCE for another 20 years :p
From my most shelved console, the Switch went to be in recent years after buying the OLED model few years ago to the most used one. It really is all about exclusives in the end, and Switch got plenty of good ones.
So interesting to hear MP4 be compared to Halo 4 when I (and I'm sure many others) always thought Halo 4 looked like a Metroid Prime game.
A few of Retros employees ended up working on Halo games after they finished trilogy due to the switch to DKC games.
@@shawnregina9110 Well, if they were part of Halo 4 (I can't remember when MP3 and Halo 4 released), then it really shows. Just like how it shows that former Retro folks made Jedi Fallen Order.
Absolutely this was a common comparison back then so it’s pretty funny that John is seemingly unaware of this
@@gnoLeDwerdnA I mean, I don't know how aware or unaware he might be, but it is interesting to see it come full circle like this.
@@spustatu interesting. Didn’t know about the Retro/fallen order connection. But yes Metroid Prime veterans definitely left their mark on Halo.
Yeah, at first glance it's easy to think the MP4 footage is potentially from Switch 2, especially with people's headspace being in that general area. However, if you go back to Prime Remastered, MP4 doesn't look too far off from that visually.
You guys should make a dedicated DF nintendo focus podcast. You guys are great for it.
My first thought for MP4 was definitely "Oh it's Halo 4 but massively cleaned up."
Can you explain the Halo 4 thing to me? I have seen it referenced everywhere for MP4 but feel like I'm missing something here.
When they designed halo 4 the developers are on record saying prime influnced graphic style
Halo 4 but the artstyle isnt awful
@fordy198244 oh really!? That's pretty cool
@@LKNear so halo 4
Dam the new Mertroid look very good
The backgrounds in Fantasian were in fact hand-made dioramas scanned into the game.
Whoa
I love the energy you guys exude on screen for this direct. Much appreciated
We are still missing remasters of all the GameCube era games on Switch which could hopefully come to Switch 2. Outside of Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker, we are missing many of the great games from that era: Waverace, 1080 Avalanche, Rogue Leader, F-Zero GX and so many more
Prime remastered is GORGEOUS so I'm 100% with the visuals of Prime 4. I still think it might be cross gen title like Zelda BotW was.
I think that's why they just said "2025."
I think Pokemon Z-A or whatever will also be that way, though perhaps not a launch title.
You're expecting a lot regarding 4k on Switch 2. That's expecting a lot even on modern PC.
They mostly mean with dlss I’m sure which is a really solid upscaler. It’s not too hard to imagine older switch games can easily be pushed a little more in resolution then upscaled
@@deliriousdenis2774don’t forget upscalars add some ms to frametime.
True. Even PS5/XSX need to rely on upscaling and dynamic res in any remotely demanding game to target 4K. You're lucky to get a stable 30fps on those machines with native rendering unless it's an enhanced last gen title.
if the dlss feature set on the switch 2 is solid then i think it will be able to punch above its weight in terms of image quality.
If it can do a solid 1080p at 60Hz with motion vectors then a 4k output via DLSS at the cost of 4ms per frame seems achievable. Metroid Prime 4 at 4K 60 feels like it would be doable. 4K displays have wide adoption now. The fallback should be 1080p bilinearly scaled to 2160p. DLSS from 1080p to 2160p is generally pretty okay, it holds up a lot better than FSR or even XeSS
I love how developer ability is now recognized by their quality of Switch ports... Ya you can make a great looking game that runs well but let's see how you do when you port it to switch
Metroid Prime 4 ...8 years in development hell, they'd better come out swinging with this one! DK Swinging! :)
I just hope Amazon does cancel my pre-order from 2017. It was back when they were giving 20% off discounts on all pre-orders.
Mario & Luigi made the presentation for me. Love that series.
What I’m imagining is that one of the reasons the original build of Prime 4 got cancelled was that somehow it didn’t feel or look quite like a prime game, which is a problem when you announce it as prime 4. This is something that you can’t tweak, if that feel isn’t there then the project is done for. At which point retro took over and used a prime 1 remaster to think, okay, how would a current gen prime game look, and move forward there. That way the feel and look of the game would be in place almost immediately.
I just love this special directs to talk about shows and special events. Pls keep them up 🙂
start Ace Attorney with either the OG trilogy or the Great Ace Attorney, Oliver was right on the money with that recommendation.
also just to chime in, the Ace Attorney Investigations 2 fan translation was TOP NOTCH. really tremendous work.
It's a shame Alex wasn't on this. Think of all the shrugs and promotion of "emulating" we could've had.
Oliver busting out obscure references and stuff is so inspiring. I know he’s not new to the team but I’m new to my team and him coming on here more and more just inspires me
These two dudes are really in their element with Nintendo stuff. The rest of the team really struggle to give a sh*t during regular podcasts. I wish they could do a revisit of some of Nintendo's older e3 press conferences (the good and the bad )
I can't get enough of like 4 directs in one week. More more!!
I couldn’t believe how good of a direct that was for a console that’s practically on its way out!
John's first hot take not liking Donkey Kong Returns. That was a phenomenal entry in the series.
9:15, interesting stuff, but Oliver seemed to speed up and slow down... Thought I was experiencing a time dilation, woah 🙃
Nintendo kicked ace this generation. I am happy.
I’m still annoyed they screwed up the doors in Prime Remastered with the missing alpha layer 😅
Nice to see the passionate individuals cover this compared to others who let's be honest, aren't keen on Nintendo to begin with and never understand their way of creating content - despite the fact it clearly works!
I'm so glad DF added Oliver to their team. Oliver has quickly become one of my favorites to listen to right up there with John.
Tom Morgan should've been in this DF Direct too honestly but I guess maybe he's just too much a busy fella.
The Switch, deservingly should go down as the greatest video game console of all time … not just due to its longevity and what developers are able to squeeze out of it, but simply because of its games library … I can’t think of any other console that has SO MANY amazing titles.
It’s one of the best for sure. PS2 and some of the other handhelds spring to mind.
Quite frankly, I think the switch sucks, but saying that, I think switch emulators are one of the greatest "consoles" of all time
@@tbunreallI’m curious why you think the switch sucks?
Personally, I am not a Nintendo guy at all. I don’t like Mario, Zelda, Pokémon etc any of that. And despite that, the switch has been an incredibly rewarding system for me. It has a deluge of JRPGs, arcade ports of shooters and fighting games, tons of indie games on the cheap and many of those games I enjoy are exclusive. Like PC, it has support for many third party controllers, so I get to play all these games with my favorite controller (Sega Saturn controller). For a long time I thought the switch was not for me, but no matter how much I distanced myself from it, it wormed itself back into my life- just couldn’t keep away from it! It has so much value to me even as someone who doesn’t care about most Nintendo games.
I understand if you’re a PC gamer, but plenty of PC gamers enjoy a switch on the side, or at least still see the value it has to someone who isn’t a PC gamer.
@@mmarshfairc3 The games just run and look like crap. That's why I said the emulators are great. Playing switch games at 60fps 1440p+ really drives home how badly the switch runs
I just realized this is the first game console in history to have both a completely original "2D" Metroid and a completely original 3D Metroid. Hold up, the same can be said about Zelda too, right?
Yes, Switch is the best console in history.
I had to rewatch the Direct because I went into a state of shock after Marvel vs. Capcom collection got announced lol
Overall really strong showing from Nintendo. 2D Zelda puzzler with Zelda herself actually looks like a lot of fun and I'm hyped as hell over new Mario & Luigi and Retro finally following up on nearly 2 decades of teasing Sylux for Prime 4. I'm still in disbelief over Children of the Atom MvC2 on modern systems, though
Great video, you two work really well together, good chemistry!
Is Richard gone because he’s taking a look at the Xbox Handheld?
He is actually building a pc to match the GPU in the XBOX power brick.
love that veeery subtle low key passive aggression/roasting of Alex at the beginning lol
In an alternate universe where we got a Dreamcast 2
3:30 “People” that was you guys lol
getting right to the point from the jump with addressing MP4 is why DF is the GOAT
We need another DF Direct Special for the just announced Bubsy collection.
I wonder if we'd get Metroid Prime 2 and 3 before 4 comes out. Given that it's a sequel it would be great, even if they're just ports and not full blown remakes like the first one.
Sylux is the enemy in the MP4 trailer, and yes had a role in Hunters but was teased to be the antagonist if you 100% Prime 3 Corruption and watch the cutscene at the end, so they stuck with the plan and this is a continuation of the story they set up it seems.
The physically made (and photographed/filmed) backgrounds is a technique used in a British made game called Lumino City by State of Play.
They've done a lot of documentary work on how they filmed the transitions and recommend people check it out!
Regarding the comment about fan translations and questionable quality, the fan translation for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is actually superb and could easily pass for an official localization. It's still great that they're bringing it officially, but the quality of the script was never really a concern.
Having Original Perfect Dark online is super rad. I realllyy hope the new xbox PD embraces the same depth of multiplayer as the original. Split Screen needs to return as AN OPTION
Baked lighting: 'Extremely Adequate'
Link's Awakening remaster: 'Moderately OK'
As a long time Nintendo fan, an important thing to remember is the most successful Nintendo consoles are those with tons of 3rd party support.
The internet likes to say "people only buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games," but historically that hasn't been enough.
If the majority of the biggest multiplat games skip your console, even Nintendo fans will refuse to buy the console. You can have Nintendo exclusives, but if everything else is exclusively NOT on Nintendo, it makes for a hard sell.
Also remember that Nintendo fans are very different from one another & care about different IPs. Nintendo has done a good job overall appealing to all their various fanbases.
Some people may only care about Pokemon & Kirby, while others might only like Mario & Mario Kart. Some may be Metroid & Zelda fans, while others like Pikmin & Animal Crossing. Nintendo also did a great job diversifying their lineup & touching on many genres.
For the first time in ages, we had a Nintendo console that was huge on RPGs (including 1st party ones), while also giving us a range of 3D, 2D, AAA, indie, AA, casual, serious, etc. games.
Along with the hardware concept itself, this is why I feel the Switch has been so successful for such a long time.
The Switch is still almost exclusively a console for Nintendo games: According to the Wikipedia list, all the top 25 (!) best-selling Switch games were published by Nintendo (or Nintendo+Pokémon Company). For PS5, only the top 2 (!) were published by Sony. Place 3 was already a third party (From Software).
These Wikipedia numbers are likely too pessimistic as many third parties don't publish sales figures and therefore aren't included in these lists. Still, the difference between Nintendo and Sony consoles is massive here. Things on PS4 do look similar to PS5.
This means it is probably pretty much impossible for third party games to sell large amounts of games on a Nintendo console. And this is likely why most big third party AAA games are not developed for or ported to Switch. Nintendo consoles are primarily bought for Nintendo games, while PlayStations and Xboxes are not primarily bought for Sony or Microsoft games alone.
I disagree about nintendo fans, at least hardcore refusing without third party support however it certainly helps keep people engage. Third parties may not be the reason people buy a nintendo console but it is supplementary to the core games. Third party support is how u get non nintendo or casual fans to buy in and maintain retention. That was a problem with the Wii U since there was dry periods inbetween and nobody cared including nintendo fans
@@cube2fox The best selling titles sure, but I'd be willing to bet the devs of Freedom Planet 2 and Hollow Knight and Celeste would tell you that their titles did very well on the Switch. They fit in really well with Nintendo's library.
For my part, I've bought literally all of Capcom's Mega Man compilations on Switch and Megaman X or Megaman Zero titles just feel right on Switch handheld.
for me the most obvious reason metroid prime4 is running on nintendo switch1 is: " We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the NINTENDO SWITCH SOFTWARE lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be NO mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation." (FURUKAWA WORDS) . if the title was running on switch2, we could sue nintendo.
Great DF direct as always!
I love every direct where Olie is in it. He always have interesting thoughts and opinions
Mvc collection was definitely my highlight! Wana take you for a ride 🎶🎵🎼
need more of these two together
Woo, was very pleasantly surprised to see this Nintendo Direct get a full DF Direct! I thought it might get relegated to next week's news. Next time you just need to have Tom on to make it the full Nintendo coverage trifecta lol
Letting some fps dips keep you from playing a Zelda game is peak Digital Foundry.
Alex look disgusted when mention 30fps on console.. 😂
Tom should’ve been there with you guys
You 2 are the heroes the gaming industry need
To John's point on Zelda: during gameplay Zelda doesn't have real time shadows like the rest of the assets, but rather a bottom circle. It maybe have to do with jumps and platforming reasons, or it may be corrected in the final release, but in the initial pan of the overworld she has real time shadows. Might be a precalc cutscene.
thanks for the great video! Can't wait to see a more detailed tech analysis of Metroid Prime 4, when it comes out next year.
This was clearly the only review of the Direct I was interested in 👍
Shougakukan is a famous book publisher there. The last time I heard of them in connection to games is Live Alive (the artists were signed with them or something?) but there’s a good chance they’ve had connections with other stuff as well
Last Night’s Direct with John (&) Oliver
Just want to do a small correction, GREZZO's hiring post for 2021 was also possibly for their Apple Arcade game last year, Jet Dragon
I think the transitiion from Bandai Namco to Retro during the Prime 4 restart included Retro alternating the original MP engine to make ground fast in development because Banda Namco surely had issues to capture the original MP looks and feel so Retro went back to the original engine and startet to alternate it instead starting from scratc. MP1 Remaster is a bycatch as a result. It clearly is a result from the MP4 development and they used it to buy some time with the MP fans.
i think John needs to make a video now explaining "Sega blue" vs "Nintendo blue"...
Framerate dips were present in switch gaming since the very early release days with Breath of the Wild (partly patched). I really hope „Switch 2“ will be able to play switch games with enhanced fps rates.
Nintendo games are nice, but they often make me dream of what could be if the hardware was better… and for third parties it is often too expensive to exclusively optimize and this will probably also not change 2-3 years down the road with a „Switch 2“.
Always the best, you guys
Thank God we have the Turok series on PC, running and looking great! ;D
I still can't comprehend how good Metroid Prime Remastered looks on the Switch! I guess not much happening at one time on the screen really helps but if Metroid Prime 4 looks just like MPR, I am happy tbh!
need more John and Oliver DF content
Now let’s hope the MP2 and 3 remakes are true too to amp up for MP4!
Oliver is the current gen remaster of John. Not to say one is greater than the other, but that they are the same product for different generations.
I'm going to have to disagree. I'm sorry
"I think Halo 4's aesthetic is the best in the series"
Thats it. We're throwing you into the sun.