But for all the tunnel vision, everyone looks ready to rumble. The Switch 2\u2019s specs inch Nintendo closer to offering the current-gen experience of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in handheld form. PlayStation has responded with murmurs of its own handheld plans<\/a>, while Xbox hopes to turn every device into an Xbox<\/a>. But the counter to Nintendo isn\u2019t all a hardware game. At this year\u2019s Summer Game Fest, a slew of games played like legit competition to the first-party games that have remained under Nintendo\u2019s lock and key. <\/p>\n No, you won\u2019t play the next 3D Mario game on a PlayStation without hacking your console\u2026 but you may come close?<\/p>\n There has been no shortage of Nintendo clones over the last 40 years, but rarely does, say, a DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing hit like the real Nintendo first-party equivalent. Case in point: Astro Bot, such a revelation in terms of letting a platformer team cook with the time and standards of a Nintendo game that it easily swept up Game of the Year awards throughout 2024<\/a>. At this year\u2019s Game Developers Conference<\/a>, Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet attributed the success to a small team (60 people), compact gameplay (around 12 hours) and constant review process that meant Asobi was never \u201ccompromising the players\u2019 happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n Nintendo\u2019s Shinya Takahashi has agonized in public<\/a> over a dream to condense the development cycle of the company\u2019s games, but doesn\u2019t waver on a need for quality. It is the same Takahashi who, after all, scrapped all of Metroid Prime 4 in 2019<\/a> in favor of rebooting it (with shipping planned for fall 2025). Maybe a little competition in the software department between the home of Zelda and the other titan video game publishers would be a good thing.<\/p>\n Sonic Racing: Crossworlds GIF: Sega via Polygon<\/p>\n Takashi Iizuka, the head of Sega\u2019s Sonic Team, is reaching for that level of precision with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds<\/a>. After just an hour of racing \u2014 and during the launch week of Mario Kart World nonetheless! \u2014 CrossWorlds played like a true high-speed alternative to the Nintendo franchise. The races moved at a clip, the PS5-level graphics were crisp and kinetic, and while the course designers throw racers a curveball with the addition of ring portals that transport you to a new track mid-race, the cups I was able to play were traditional lap-style experiences (which may speak to a select perturbed Mario Kart racer right now<\/a>). <\/p>\n CrossWorlds, which is out Sept. 25 across all consoles, can\u2019t match the sheer number of available racers packed into Mario Kart World \u2014 and announced additions like Hatsune Miku, Minecraft, and SpongeBob feel more like cheap Fortnite season skins than an expansion of the Sega pantheon \u2014 but as a racing game, it\u2019s as good as what Nintendo can do with a modern racer, minus the need to own a Switch 2. And as Iizuka has boasted, it actually has cross-play.<\/p>\n A single game summoning the non-Nintendo Nintendo spirit of Astro Bot wouldn\u2019t be a trend, but then I played Lego Party<\/a>. Developer SMG Studios is really not hiding anything with the title: The multiplayer game, due out later this year across all consoles, is just Mario Party with Legos. Maybe that\u2019s creatively bankrupt, but it\u2019s also a hoot.<\/p>\n Staged on a Lego-constructed game board\u2014 which the team at SMG Studios says was fully \u201cconstructed\u201d using scanned bricks \u2014 players take turns spinning for spaces, navigating multiple paths, springing booby traps, matching reflexes in an array of minigames, and trading smack-talk (this is not built into the game, but inevitable as competitors swing in and out of first place). SMG puts the full Lego twist on every aspect of the game, including decisions on which parts of the board to even construct mid-play. Some minigames rely heavily on builds, while others rely solely on Lego Movie energy to create humorous frenzy. I laughed out loud several times in my 30-minute, six-turn run, running in both directions around a pirate-themed board \u2014 opposed to screaming in agony like I do during any Mario Party bonus star round.<\/p>\n This month\u2019s Donkey Kong Bananza<\/a> is likely to remind players why Nintendo, Astro Bot be damned, is in its own AAA platformer\/adventure lane \u2014 the Super Mario Odyssey team goes big. But for all the promised scope, I couldn\u2019t help but think the sicko energy of Super Meat Boy 3D<\/a>, which premiered first-look footage on June\u2019s Xbox Showcase stream, might be what retro-platformer heads (who complained about Astro Boy\u2019s easy challenges) are actually craving. <\/p>\n Team Meat\u2019s 2026 release promises to bring the velocity and difficulty of the original 2010 Super Meat Boy to an isometric 3D world. The stages gush with color \u2014 and an excessive number of razor-edged traps should add an extra coat of Meat Boy-red to the backgrounds. Simple, and if the physics have been meticulously perfected, effective platforming entertainment.<\/p>\n New first-party releases have always been half of the pleasure of owning a Switch, with the deep well of NES, SNES, Game Boy Advance, and N64 releases turning the console into the ultimate easy-emulation machine. With the addition of GameCube games to Switch 2, I have already found myself drifting from Mario Kart World to the pleasures of Nintendo history. I didn\u2019t need upgraded hardware to play The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Soulcalibur 2, and Donkey Kong Country, but Switch 2 does make classics look and play better than ever. <\/p>\n But even Nintendo\u2019s exclusive archives face competition from indie studios that are pushing retro history with modern sensibilities. This July\u2019s Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound<\/a> is an immaculate recreation of the franchise\u2019s side-scroller NES trilogy with variable difficulties and loads of action. Like Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder\u2019s Revenge before it, Tribute Games\u2019 upcoming beat-\u2019em-up Marvel Cosmic Invasion<\/a> feels recovered from the mid-1990s, but takes full advantage of movesets that make each playable hero unique and tag-team combo systems that feel more like Marvel vs. Capcom than a brawler. <\/p>\n Mina the Hollower Image: Yacht Club Games<\/p>\n Moonlighter 2<\/a>, which pivots from the first game\u2019s 2D look to 3D, served Zelda-but-make-it-roguelike on the SGF floor, with some unique shopkeeper mechanics that made it more than a Hades riff. Meanwhile, Mina the Hollower<\/a>, from Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games, played like an actual 2D Zelda game I somehow never got around to (and with one phenomenal twist: You can burrow underground to assist in combat and puzzles). <\/p>\n I know we\u2019re not supposed to compare Digimon and Pok\u00e9mon, but when the upcoming Time Stranger has RPG fans who never gave the virtual pets the time of day shaking with excitement<\/a>, while Pok\u00e9mon devotees are simply praying this fall\u2019s Pok\u00e9monLegends: Z-A runs smoother than Scarlet and Violet<\/a>, I can only wonder if Nintendo is feeling the heat. Or if Sony, Microsoft, and the major publishers think they can finally take on the monolithic family-friendly brand. They should. With all due respect to Miyamoto, the \u201cgame war\u201d raises the bar for everyone. Imagine what a Nintendo that faced true competition would come up with next.<\/p>\n![\"Sonic](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sonicmoves.gif\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Mina](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mina_the_hallower.jpg\"\/)
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