Zippo's Nonsensical Ramblings and Other Stuff

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is less than a month away now, and while Nintendo is ramping promotion up for that, you may be wondering (HA!) what's next for mainline Mario. Well, you've come to the right place.  Let's get into a few details: -Firstly, it's going to be our very first open world 3D Mario game. It's been six long years since Odyssey hit the scene so we knew they were cooking something big. Given Zelda and Pokemon have taken the plunge, it was only a matter of time before the portly plumber did as well.  -This game will NOT be a sequel to Odyssey, so if you were expecting that, don't. This is going in an entirely different direction.  -I've been told the game looks "Absolutely jaw dropping." If you thought Mario Vs. Donkey Kong looked good, then you haven't seen anything yet. EPD Tokyo are about to blow people's fuckin' minds yet again.  -Lastly, this will be THE GAME for Nintendo next year. Mario will be a day one Switch 2 gam

This game  seems  like a surprise, but it actually shouldn't be. Nintendo EPD Tokyo And 3D Mario head Yoshiaki Koizumi has apparently long pushed for Peach to star in her own game once again, and he's finally gotten his wish. Not only that, but Peach finally has her very own arch-nemesis. Oh, if you're still skeptical about this being EPD Tokyo developed, here's some more evidence. Here's Peach's castle from the opening cutscene:  Here's the castle from Odyssey: They're exactly the same.  Notice the grass on the castle structure. That's something only Odyssey's rendition does.  If this game is a big success, expect to see more elements of it show up in the greater Mario franchise. Exciting stuff.  This is an excerpt from my most recent article, I've cut it into parts for people who only want to digest certain segments of it. You can read the rest of it here:  https://zippospeaks.blogspot.com/2023/09/report-2024-is-year-of-nintendo-epd.html?m=

  Hello again! I've been working on this report for a good while now, getting things sourced, making sure everything lined up and all. Given the last two directs have finally given us clear answers, I think I can finally do this now.  Without further ado, let's get into my mini report on Nintendo EPD 8, better known as "EPD Tokyo". A small primer for those that don't know. Nintendo EPD is a mix of 10 smaller studios fused into one much larger one internally at Nintendo. 9 of them are based at Nintendo's HQ in Kyoto, while one is based in Japan's moden capital, Tokyo.  ( Fun history fact: Kyoto was Japan's capital city for well over a thousand years until the end of the Edo period. )  Starting in 2004, EPD Tokyo started to release their own games, the first being the beloved GameCube classic, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.  They then went on to the develop 2007's critically acclaimed Super Mario Galaxy, and it's even more critically acclaimed sequel i

  Now, let's get on to the main event.  The Nintendo Direct finally aired last week, to say it was divisive is putting it lightly. The reactions were all over the place, and that's frankly, understandable, considering how there wasn't a lot of new things there. It was also, as I warned, a very Mario heavy direct. Now for me, that was a big, big positive, but for people who aren't into Mario as much as people like me are, I can totally understand why that would be a problem.  If it wasn't already obvious that the Switch is nearing it's end, it certainly is now.  That said, I quite liked this direct. Let's get to some of the noteworthy announcements: Splatoon 3 Side Order:  Gotta say, I haven't played a single second of Splatoon 3 as of now, but this got me a lot more interested. They're taking the single player in a new direction, and I'm all for it. Nintendo has no experience with Rogue-lites as of now and this is gonna be their first dive into i

Hey all, I'm back, life's been crazy for the past week, but I can finally sit back and talk.  Last week was obviously very big, we had a Nintendo Direct on the same day as a State of Play, and they both brought the goods.  Firstly, we'll get the State of Play out of the way.  Very bad start, to be honest, I wasn't really feeling it until we got to the last 10 minutes of the show, and then it started to fuckin' pick up. I was sad that we didn't get to see more of Stellar Blade or Rise Of The Ronin, but what we got here was pretty damn good, especially last two games:  Resident Evil 4 Remake:  I'm not much of a Resident Evil guy, but RE4 Remake may change my mind on it. Separate Ways looked really cool, and I've always thought Ada Wong herself was very cool. I think it's time to finally see what I've been missing. Foamstars :  Well well, what do we have here? A brand new IP from Square that actually looks new and inventive? It's a miracle! All

  Denizens of the Galaxy, your wait will soon be over.  For years, there were four mysterious titles for Switch that we had to wait ages to get updates on. The first was Bayonetta 3, the second was Tears of The Kingdom, the third was Pikmin 4, and fourth, lastly, was Metroid Prime 4. We all know the story of what happened there, but now it appears as the light is at the end of the tunnel.  The game has had a long development cycle of about five years now, and things are finally starting to wrap up.  Which is why I've finally gotten word that the game will release in the summer of next year, which will make it the last "major" title for The Switch ahead of the release of Nintendo's next console in the second half of next year. Additionally, I've heard that internally, Nintendo has been very cautious about showing the game off until it was in a near complete state. They employed this same strategy with Pikmin 4 last year, and I think it worked out pretty well there

Well, we finally got a much better look at Mario's latest 2D adventure, and yeah, guys,.. I'm beginning to think Mario is back. By that, I mean that the plumber is returning to his throne as the rightful king of the platformers at the top of the hill. It's been so so, very long since we've had a 2D Mario game that has blown our socks off. Hell, Super Mario Bros. 3 was nearly four decades ago. World isn't far behind on that either.  But we're finally here and it damn, it feels good. Everything about this game, from the art style, to the level design, to the new power ups, to how many freaking characters we're gonna be able to play as. They went all out and I'm extremely excited that they did. The Mario franchise as a whole has needed a new breath of fresh air in it for awhile, an coupled with the movie, this exactly what we needed.  The game is freaking gorgeous . Every single level we've seen so far has been stellar in the visual department. They&#