Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is getting a full-on remake for the Nintendo Switch — and it’s coming this year. The new remake of the game got announced during today’s Nintendo Direct, along with its November 17 release date, meaning yet another big title is joining the late 2023 launch party.
During the Nintendo Direct, we got a great view of the visual upgrades and gameplay of the upcoming RPG remake. Thankfully, Nintendo hasn’t messed with the core formula of the game like it did with the follow-ups to the Paper Mario series. The classic Mario RPG battle system and exploration seem to be intact. Super Mario RPG keeps the beautiful super-deformed character art style while completely upgrading the visuals into something new. The colors are bright and vibrant, and Mario still looks as goofy and cute as ever, somehow retaining that claymation-like charm the original Super Nintendo title had.
The announcement is one that caught many Nintendo fans by surprise during today’s Direct. For a long time, many thought we’d never see the return of the title due to the inclusion of Geno and Mallow, two characters owned by Square Enix (the company co-published and developed the original version back when it was just Square). Thankfully, that’s not the case.
Mario RPG Remake is coming very soon, with a release date of November 17. Preorders have already opened up on the Nintendo eShop, so you can head over there if you simply can’t wait until November to return to the SNES adventure.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.