The Blog

That’s right, we’re recording the latest episode of the GoNintendo Podcast today instead of on our usual Saturday schedule. That’s because we’ve got a jam-packed weekend ahead of us, so we had to bump the show up a day!

We’ll be going live at 6 PM ET and we’d love to have you join us. You can watch right here, but joining in on the GoNintendo Discord will let you chat with us and others during the show!

Friday the 13th may not be the best NES game…or even close to it, but it definitely has a place in the hearts and minds of NES gamers from back in the day. There was just something special about playing an NES game based on Friday the 13th, and while the gameplay wasn’t all that fantastic, there’s something undeniably spooky about the experience.

While Friday the 13th on NES may leave a lot to be desired in the gameplay department, the iconic look of the game has lived on for decades. It’s the only time you’ll ever get to see Jason decked out in purple and aqua colors, which is all thanks to the limited color palette of the NES. A bold and odd choice at the time, it’s clear the decision paid off in keeping the game alive decades after it launched.

The latest example of Friday the 13th NES love comes from Bull Airs, which has cooked up an entire merch line themed after the game. The sneakers above are just the start, as there are shirts, hats, lace guards, stickers and more. To get a complete look at the lineup, check out the Bull Airs shop here.

The 4th edition to the popular lewd puzzle series Pretty Girls, gets physical on Nintendo Switch. This package includes 4 Lewd games on 1 cartridge with exclusive nude content not available in the digital versions, plus a FREE Nintendo Switch stylus!

Pretty Girls Game Collection IV includes Pretty Girls Breakers! PLUS, Pretty Girls Tile Match, Pretty Girls 2048 Strike and Pretty Girls Escape games. You can see details on all four games below.

The “Staying Afloat” update for Don’t Starve Together is now live. You can see the patch notes for this update below.

The Mystical Mayhem update has been released for Grindstone. You can find the patch notes for this update below.

There are all sorts of way to gauge just how popular a game is. You could look at cold, hard sales stats for the game itself, but with the way games continue to bring in costumers and keep them spending for months, if not years after launch, it’s important to take a look at the bigger picture. Now we have a glimpse at what gamers are engaging with most and opening their wallets for this June.

Newzoo has collected data from gamers in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy to figure out where the gamers are. First up, we have a breakdown of the top 20 games by monthly active users:

Next up comes the the top 20 games by revenue in US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy for June:

While Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD didn’t make the Top 20 in the overall revenue charts, it climbed to No.2 on the Switch revenue charts in three days following its release on June 27th, 2024.

10:10 Games, in collaboration with Funko, Inc. and Universal Products & Experiences, revealed a ton of exciting Funko Fusion videos, images, casting announcements, and more during their San Diego Comic-Con panel this weekend, headlined by the debut of the action-adventure game’s story trailer.

Menacingly voiced by the incomparable Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption, Highlander, Invincible, Detroit: Become Human), fans were finally introduced to Funko Fusion’s devious villain Eddy, the deeply twisted and immensely powerful shapeshifting counterpart to Freddy Funko.

With dreams of total domination, Eddy wields the dark ability to possess the inhabitants of Funko Fusion’s pop culture-inspired worlds, building an army of corrupted characters inspired by franchises including Jurassic World, Back to the Future, The Thing, Chucky, and many more. As players strive to fight back, they’ll build their own team of playable heroes, each with unique tools for use in both combat and puzzles.

Speaking of heroes, comics legend Robert Kirkman joined the panel as a surprise guest to share more about the inclusion of Skybound Entertainment’s Invincible and The Walking Dead. Kirkman then treated the audience to first looks at Funko Fusion’s Invincible level as well as playable characters Invincible and Omni-Man in action, along with a sneak peek at The Walking Dead’s Rick Grimes and Michonne.

Panelists also included 10:10 Games’ CEO and founder Jon Burton and co-founder and Head of Publishing Arthur Parsons; Funko’s VP of Licensing & Business Development Jason Bischoff; Monkeypaw Productions’ Creative Director and Jordan Peele’s producing partner Ian Cooper, who shared exciting details about NOPE being brought to life in video game form for the first time; and fan-favorite voice actor Kellen Goff, who was announced to be reprising his role as Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights at Freddy’s in Funko Fusion.

A special line of Funko Fusion Funko Pop! figures based on select in-game characters will be available for fans later this summer at Funko.com and select global retailers. During the panel, Funko revealed exclusive in-game bonus characters and outfits that collectors can unlock by redeeming codes included with Funko Fusion Pop! figures, including Mecha Freddy and so-called “Variant” outfits for Funko fans, such as the Slime Pit variant for He-Man. This content is in addition to the over 60 characters and their range of Variant outfits already included in Funko Fusion.

Funko Fusion launches for Switch on November 15, 2024.

Regular people who know about AI want to see the tech used to help make lives easier for hard-working employees. AI can be used to handle menial tasks and automate processes, freeing up time for employees to tackle other projects. Unfortunately, companies have decided they’d rather use AI to take creative jobs away from artists.

One of those companies is Runway, who’s been using AI to make realistic-looking videos for whatever their clients see fit. As with any AI, the tech at Runway has to be trained on existing creations. To get the level of quality they want, AI has decided to turn their focus to Nintendo.

It’s been discovered that Runway has been filling up their AI with data from all sorts of YouTube channels, and that includes multiple branches of Nintendo. At least the Big N finds themselves in good company, as Runway also trained its AI on the YouTube channels for Disney, Rockstar Games, Netflix, and Sony.

An anonymous Runway says that the company downloaded these videos through a “massive web crawler” that used “proxies to avoid getting blocked by Google.” Using YouTube videos to train the AI would apparently violate the company’s policies, so it seems there’s some pretty shady business going on here.

Will Nintendo act on this situation? We’ll keep an eye on things and update you should any steps be taken.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes received a small update earlier this month, and last week we learned that there was some Story Expansion DLC information coming soon. Today we’ve gotten first details on what to expect, and there’s two DLC drops launching in rather rapid succession.

First up, Marisa Story Expansion DLC has been announced, and it’s set to arrive sometime in August. Experience Marisa’s backstory as a Guardian while exploring with an enchanted girl companion and uncover the secrets of the Child of the Rune.

That DLC will be followed by the Seign Story Expansion DLC, which is set to launch sometime in September. Explore Seign’s covert operations after his first mission with Nowa, and unveil how Seign & his allies influenced the saga from within the shadows of the Galdean Empire.

We’ll bring you pricing details, launch dates and more specifics on these DLC releases once information is made available.

UPDATE: We’ve now gotten information on the Markus Story Expansion DLC, which arrives in October 2024. Prepare for an extraordinary tale where you follow Markus, Carrie, and Nowa as they venture through the mysterious Menhir’s Distortion and uncover long-buried secrets beyond the gateway.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night may be content-complete at this point, but that doesn’t mean the work is done. The dev teams are still toiling away on the title in order to get things running in tip-top shape, and they’ve shared some insight into what’s next.

Taking to social media, the developers have shared some insight into the next patch for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Switch players can look forward to a fix for crashing issues that have been popping up, plus there will be fixes for various store issues across all platforms.

The team didn’t say when this patch would release, but they did mention that more details would be coming soon. As soon as we get the full patch notes and release info, we’ll make sure to bring it to you.

Believe it or not, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is now five years old. To celebrate the occasion, a number of companies are working on some exclusive goodies. We’ve already detailed new figurines from Good Smile Company, but it turns out even more than that is in the works.

As you can see in the image above, a bunch of fun products are in the works for Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ 5th anniversary. The lineup includes acrylic stands, backpacks, scale figures, and more. You can have a look at the complete rundown here.

As we mentioned, Good Smile Company already showcased some Fire Emblem: Three Houses figurines, including male/female Byleth, and timeskip Dimitri. Turns out there’s even more on the way, with POP UP PARADE figures for Dorothea, Sylvain, and Hilda. You can see the artwork for these figures above, but no release dates or pricing has been shared.

Square Enix offering Kingdom Hearts merch is nothing new. At this point, it seems like the Kingdom Hearts merch line expands every single week, and that trend continues today with something for the Kingdom Hearts fans who are looking to enjoy a good meal.

Square Enix is re-releasing their line of Kingdom Hearts soba bowls in honor of the franchise’s 20th anniversary. These bowls are priced at roughly $33 for the set of 3, and each one has a different design. One features familiar Kingdom Hearts icons, another sports a criss-cross pattern, and the last has the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary logo.

These soba bowls originally launched in 2022 and quickly sold out. Now those in Japan have a chance to snag them once again. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like these bowls will be released worldwide.

Baskin Robbins has teamed with the Pokémon Co. in the past for some special sweet treats, and it looks like the two companies will be collaborating once again in the near future.

The official X account for Baskin Robbins in Japan shared the above artwork along with a message saying that Pikachu looked so happy and fully. That’s literally all the tease has to offer, leaving fans to figure out the specifics.

It does seem like this collaboration will be Summer-themed, as Pikachu is seen hanging out among lemons, oranges and strawberries. As soon as specifics on this campaign are shared, we’ll make sure to fill you in!

UPDATE: Baskin Robbins has revealed full details on this campaign, which runs Aug. 1st to Sept. 4th, 2024.

• Pikachu and Hogeta’s Fruit Ice limited-time flavor (combines golden kiwi, pineapple, passion fruit, strawberry, blood orange, pink grapefruit, and mango)
• three variations of Pokémon-themed cups, each featuring Pikachu hanging out with other Pokémon
• with a double scoop or cup, you’ll get a random Pokémon sticker
• fruity ice cream float with Pikachu designs and two types of ice cream cakes are also available
• there are multiple variety pack containers and take-out bags that have Pokémon on them

If you’d like to take a closer look at all the flavors and packages, you can find a complete breakdown here.

Just last night, Good Smile Company announced figures for both the male and female versions of Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Turns out they have even more in store for fans of that installment in the long-running franchise.

Good Smile Company has revealed a Fire Emblem: Three Houses figure of Dimitri based on his post-timeskip design. The figure is set to ship Q1 2026 and is priced at $203. You have until Oct. 30th, 2024 to place a pre-order, and you can do so through this link.

This Dimitri figure is inspired by the Battle at Gronder Field, and is 1/7 scale. Dimitri is seen holding his Hero Relic, the lance Areadbhar. Dimitri will come with a stand and measures roughly 13 inches tall.

World of Goo 2 was announced for Switch back in February, and at that time we heard it would be launching on May 23rd, 2024. Unfortunately the game got pushed back to Aug. 2nd, 2024, but thankfully that date has stuck. That means we’re just one week away from launch, and today brings us a new trailer to celebrate the upcoming arrival.

In World of Goo 2, a powerful company has re-branded as an environmentally friendly, sustainable, green, clean, Goo processing non-profit.Help them collect as much Goo as possible. But what do they really want? Explore a new story spanning hundreds of thousands of years and watch the world change.

Be careful! The world is beautiful, but it is dangerous. Guide as many Goo Balls into the exit pipe of each area as you can. …but what’s on the other end of the pipe? Discover new species of Goo: Jelly Goo, Liquid Launchers, Growing Goo, Shrinking Goo, Explosive Goo, and more. All with mysterious new properties.

World of Goo 2 has dozens of new musical tracks in a beautiful and haunting new soundtrack, plus a thrilling new story to explore over the course of 5 new chapters, bursting with over 60 new levels, each featuring additional challenges.