NintendoForce

Issue #45: A Walk with the Animals – March/April 2020

"If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals, and they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us . . . what a neat achievement that would be!"

Ah, friends! It's finally here. At long, looooong last, the Animal Crossing series -- the mainline, proper Animal Crossing series, not a spin-off -- is finally coming back to our television screens. It's been 3,000 years!

. . . Well, more like 11 and a half. I'll let our Hist...

Issue #44: Tokyo Takeover – January/February 2020

All eyes are turning to Tokyo.

With 2019 giving way to 2020, it's time once again for international attention to be paid to that biggest spectacle of sports: the Olympic Games. And this time around, the Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo, Japan -- a city video game fans are already familiar with, since it also happens to serve as an international nexus of video game culture!

The connections have been directly made ever since the last Summer Games came to an end in 2016. As part...

Issue #43: Division in the Ranks – November/December 2019

We try our best to keep things positive in the pages of good old NF, but to claim that everything's all hunky-dory heading into the release of the new Pokémon Sword & Shield would be disingenuous. Controversy has overrun the hype cycle for this particular pair of series sequels. Fans are angry! And their anger is valid, too – were it a misplaced rage, we might breeze right past it. But no, the division in the ranks that has appeared in the Pokémon fandom is worthy of attention and dis...

Issue #42: Family-Friendly Frights – October 2019

Happy Countdown to Halloween, Nintendo Force fans! With the arrival of the first day of Fall today, we're getting into the spirit of celebration already with our first-ever October issue!

Thanks to your support here on Patreon, we're bringing you this second NF issue in the same two-month time frame as the Dragon Quest-led September edition that preceded it. (Normally we have a combined September/October edition, but this year each month got its own!) We'll be transitioning straight bac...

Issue #41: The Quest for Success in the West – September 2019

If it's ever going to happen, the time is now.

The Dragon Quest series truly taking off outside Japan, that is. It's been the most consistent, most beloved franchise across the entire video game industry there in that nation where so many of the games we love are born, but it's been hit or miss in the rest of the world for decades. (A handful of hits, really, surrounded by a whole lot of misses . . . and missed opportunities.)

But the stars all seem to be aligning this time.

Should We Do an Extra Issue This Year?

Hey there, Force fans! Question for you.

Currently we're working on NF Issue #41, which is set to be labeled as "September/October 2019" in keeping with the bi-monthly publishing schedule we've held to ever since the magazine started six and a half years ago. But we're considering breaking from tradition and doing two separate issues to cover that same span of time instead, which would make Issue #41 simply be the "September 2019" issue and then Issue #42 would be "October 2019."

...

Issue #40: Getting Schooled – July/August 2019

The 40th issue of Nintendo Force is complete! It's the latest major milestone for our magazine as we roll on through our seventh calendar year of keeping the legacy of Nintendo game coverage alive in print form. And it's all thanks to you, our readers! Without your support and your patronage, we never could have come so far. Thank you!

The timing of hitting this mark lines up so well with the territory we were in when we first began that we just had to make this edition a callback, of s...

Issue #39: Brick by Brick – May/June 2019

Dust off your favorite hard hat, pull on your overalls and make sure your tool belt is hitched up around your waist: the return of Super Mario Maker is imminent.

The Wii U might have come and gone without making much of an impact on the video game industry overall, but the first Super Mario Maker was a shining star in the midst of a disappointing era for Nintendo. And it was such a simple idea! Take the classic 2D sidescrolling gameplay of the Super Mario Bros. series and grant control ...

A Snazzy New Bundle, Player's Poll & Don't Anger the Ox! #39

Happy Bowser Day, Nintendo Force fans! Beginning today, it's an all-new era for NOA: Reggie has official retired and the new President is Doug Bowser. (Truly, we are all doomed. I expect a fighting force of Troopas at my door within the hour.) But let's hope this Bowser will be a benevolent ruler!

The next NF issue is just about a week away, but before we get to it, some tidbits for you.

A SNAZZY NEW BACK ISSUE BUNDLE APPEARS!

2019-04-15 16:41:49 +0000 UTC View Post

Issue #38: Rivals Unraveled – March/April 2019

Have you ever just stopped to consider the similarities of Yoshi and Kirby? 

These are two of Nintendo's biggest stars. Two of the eight original Smash Bros. fighters. Both headliners of their own separate, ongoing franchises that have been regularly getting new games since the '90s. Both of them have eating enemies as their main gameplay gimmick in the core installments of their series, but then both also regularly entertain their audiences with spin-off titles that set their insa...

Issue #37: Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years? – January/February 2019

Yacht Club Games really dug themselves into a hole.

At this point five years ago, we put Shovel Knight on the cover of NF Magazine's Issue #7. At that time, it was entering the home stretch of development – just a few months away from its launch, scheduled for March 31, 2014. It ended up slipping a bit past that date, but the delay wasn't too severe – Shovel Knight debuted on 3DS, Wii U and PC on June 26 that year.

That year, 2014, was also supposed to see the arrival of all of the g...

Limited-Time Offer, Player's Poll, Magzter Update & More

Happy December, Nintendo Force fans! Got a grab-bag update for you today, so let's tackle one topic at a time.

LIMITED-TIME OFFER: $18 FOR ALL 2018 ISSUES IN PRINT

http://www.nintendoforcemagazine.com/product/the-18-2018-bundle/ 

We printed too many extra copies of our issues this year! I've got too many boxes of extras sitting a...

Issue #36: Everyone is Here! – November/December 2018

Maybe it's because I'm getting older. Maybe because it takes a lot of my time and attention to keep up with our new baby boy around the house. Or maybe I've always been this way, and I'm just coming to realize it more fully as time goes on: I love playing Nintendo's video games, but I love the anticipation of playing them even more. The months – sometimes years – leading up to their release. The speculation. The hopes. The dreams. The hype cycle!

And no series has hype cycles quite like Sm...

Issue #35: Waluigi Time! – September/October 2018

WAAAAAAHHH!! 

Is it an exclamation of victory? A shout of shock and surprise? A prolonged, extended, far-too-lengthy  lamentation decrying the cruelty of his existence? Perhaps, for Waluigi, the "WAAAAAAAHHH" is all of these things at once.

Behold the man in purple. Look upon his sharp mustache. See his angled nose, his knowing sneer and his eyes – his terrible, sad eyes who have watched character after character be invited to become a playable fighter in the Super Smash Bros...

Call for Responses! Waluigi's Player's Poll

Greetings, Nintendo Force fans! 

As many of you have already seen, we decided to change directions for the upcoming Issue #35. While we originally planned on having a Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu & Eevee theme, we shifted gears to focus the issue's content on Waluigi instead.

The problem? Our Player's Poll questions printed in Issue #34 were all about Pokémon! It wouldn't make much sense to print a bunch of Pokémon-related Inbox letters in a Waluigi-centered issue, so now I'm g...

Issue #34: Rebuilding the Blue Bomber – July/August 2018

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

There was a time, years ago, when Mega Man fans were feeling mega-fatigued. Capcom was publishing so many sequels in so many spin-off series so close together to each other that it was impossible to keep up! Looking back on it now, we should have foreseen the brand's crash long before it finally happened. Perhaps some did.

But now that Mega Man has been almost entirely inactive for the past several years, I can't wait to play his latest seq...

Issue #33: Some Assembly Required – May/June 2018

Greetings once again, Nintendo Force fans! Our 33rd issue release is upon us.

In this edition of NF Magazine, we're celebrating the launch of Nintendo's latest, wildest product line. Nintendo Labo is the most off-the-wall idea the Big N has brought to market since the Switch itself! (Yes, I know it's only been a little over a year since then, but still!) The same pure creativity and fun that led them to fuse home console and portable gaming together into a single device has now driven them eve...

Submit Questions for The Ox!

Greetings, Nintendo Force fans! Lucas here with a quick check-in as we're getting down to the wire of our next NF Magazine release. Before we can finish up Issue #33, though, we need a bit more material from you!

Please jump into the Comments on this post and submit your questions for Don't Anger The Ox! He'll then browse through and pick one or two to respond to in print in our next issue.

And did you know that any time your submissions make the cut for inclusion in our Inbox section, t...

Issue #32: The Port Report – March/April 2018

One of the factors fueling the incredible success of Nintendo's Switch is that the system has become a magnet for ports from past platforms. There's just something about the combo console & handheld hardware that makes everyone want to play every game ever made on it, and developers are only too happy to keep pulling great games out of the shadows of yesteryear and re-releasing them in Switch form! We've seen tons of these releases already, and even more are heading our way through the rest ...

Happy Five-Year Anniversary . . . to Us!

Happy Five-Year Anniversary, Nintendo Force fans!

Yes indeed, it was exactly five years ago today when the very first issue of NF Magazine was published on January 11, 2013. Our goal in making this all-new magazine was to keep the legacy of Nintendo coverage alive in physical magazine form following the cancellation of Nintendo Power, and thanks to your support we've kept that mission rolling for half a decade now! The NP lineage remains unbroken to this day, as we've put out a new issue every...

Issue #31: Carnage vs. Cuteness – January/February 2018

Here's a situation I never thought I'd find myself in as lifelong Nintendo fan: Having the option to play, with regular frequency, M-rated games on a Nintendo home console. Oh, sure, there have been a few here and there before, on the Wii U and in the generations preceding it – but seeing a game intended for ages 17 and up was such a rare event that no "adult" audience could ever be established. And I never minded! I'm not much of a fan of blood and gore or any of the other kinds of content th...

SNES Classic Winner + Patreon Stuff

Hey there, Force fans! First up, sorry for taking so long to make this post. I'd intended to choose and announce the winner of our SNES Classic Giveaway in November, and then November ended up being a real whirlwind of un-fun things going on with my family, and it skipped my mind for a while. My apologies.

So now, officially, the winner of the SNES Classic that's been sitting here by my desk is . . . 

Nick Beierle!

Congratulations Nick, as the random number ge...

Issue #30: The Man of Many Hats – November/December 2017

Are you familiar with someone "who wears many hats"? Asking about the phrase itself here. If you're not, I should explain in order to make this issue's name and theme make sense – it's a title traditionally given to someone who has a lot of different jobs, but somehow manages to do them all well. Like a busy, overworked parent who's able to balance raising their kids with the demands of their work outside the home, or maybe someone in an office setting who runs around the building serving in s...

Issue #29: Revenge of the Hunter – September/October 2017

So, do you know Samus?

Almost immediately after E3 2017's back-to-back announcements of Metroid Prime 4 and Metroid: Samus Returns, the thought occurred to me that you may not. Specifically that since some of our readers are young gamers, there's a real possibility that those back-to-back announcements of two new Metroid titles were met with more of a "Huh?" than a "Hooray!" – after all, it's been seven years now since she was last cast as the lead character in a game (Other M), and 10 years...

Issue #28: The Element of Surprise! – July/August 2017

Greetings once again, Nintendo Force fans! How about that E3, huh? Were you as shocked and surprised as we were? It was incredible to see the power that simply putting the number "4" on the screen can have!

We didn't know exactly which surprises would be revealed in Los Angeles last week, but we knew that E3 could be counted on to bring at least a few out-of-nowhere unveilings. So we planned ahead and made the theme of this issue be "The Element of Surprise!" Within its pages we walk back over...

Winner Announced + Next Giveaway Revealed!

Hey there, Nintendo Force fans! We've got some business to attend to!

First up, we need to reveal the winner of our Second Switch Giveaway! This contest was open to everyone who was a patron here at Patreon.com/NintendoForce before the cut-off time for our most recent issue on April 16. The winner gets their choice of a new Nintendo Switch system or $300 worth of upcoming Switch games! And that winner is . . .

Caleb Barker of Willis, Texas!

Congrats, Caleb! I'll be...

Issue #27: When Two is Better Than One – May/June 2017

The Switch has arrived! And in looking for a common thread running through the releases coming just over the horizon for the new two-in-one hybrid machine, the number 2 just kept popping up. Splatoon 2! Xenoblade Chronicles 2! SteamWorld Dig 2! Even the 3DS jumped in to support the trend, as its next major release is Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, a full remake of the second-ever Fire Emblem game (and with two protagonists instead of just one). So this edition of NF Magazine is brought...

Switch #1 Winner Announced! + Video Update

March 1 has arrived! (And actually, March 1 is almost over as I write this. Sorry for waiting until nearly midnight to pull the name out of the hat, but I wanted to make sure as many people as possible were still patrons in good standing after today's card charges.)

But enough of that! The winner of our first Nintendo Switch Giveaway is . . .

Jon Scott Maready!

Congratulations, Jon! The random number generator selected you out of the list of our many patrons, and t...

The Nintendo Force Video Expansion Begins!

Greetings, Force fans! With Issue #26 complete, I've got a bit of time to breathe before diving into production of #27. So I kicked off our YouTube revival this morning! 

Have a look at the first-ever Let's Play video from the Nintendo Force! In this inaugural bit of recorded gameplay, I take on the first stage of the newest Shovel Knight expansion, Specter of Torment. Watch as I try (and occasionally fail) to get used to Specter Knight's unique scythe-slashing jumps and wall-climbing abi...

Issue #26: The Nintendo Switch Launch Guide – March/April 2017

An all-new era begins!

The 26th issue of NF Magazine is now complete, and with it we celebrate the opening of the next chapter of Nintendo's on-going story: the launch of the new Nintendo Switch! 

We've dedicated this issue to that upcoming event, now mere weeks away. With our Nintendo Switch Launch Guide, we're leaving no stone unturned as we highlight all of the biggest games confirmed to be heading to the system (and some that are still hanging around in rumor territory). From th...