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Nintendo World Report's 2019 Game Awards

Best Third Party Developer / Publisher

by Neal Ronaghan and Donald Theriault - January 5, 2020, 7:58 am EST

A few years ago we never could have dreamed of the third party support Nintendo would be getting.

Winner: Koei Tecmo

Koei Tecmo had a typical year for their own releases to start - some Atelier re-releases here, a musou there. Then came July 2019, and a funny thing happened: Nintendo had three first party published games, and Koei Tecmo was involved in all three of them. Omega Force aided with Dragon Quest Builders 2, Team Ninja got in on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and the whole company lifted Fire Emblem: Three Houses to massive sales and critical acclaim. And once the dust subsided, Atelier Ryza came out in October and turned the long-running franchise on its head with a brand new experience.

~ Donald Theriault


Runner Up: Devolver Digital

Devolver continues to be a tried-and-true pal to the Switch indie scene, debuting Pikuniku, Ape Out, Katana Zero, Gato Roboto, My Friend Pedro, and Heave Ho first on Switch, in addition to the likes of The Swords of Ditto, Hotline Miami Collection, and The Talos Principle being ported to Switch. Year after year, Devolver brings forth interesting and mostly awesome games to market and finally, after a while of Nintendo fans being on the outside looking in, we're a part of the action.

~ Neal Ronaghan

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Talkback

OedoJanuary 05, 2020

I started playing through Genealogy of the Holy War last year (after finally catching up with most of the Fire Emblem games released in North America; the only ones I haven't finished now are Shadow Dragon and two routes of Three Houses, the latter of which I'm planning to start soon). The game really is super intriguing from a story and character standpoint, but yeah, it needs a full on remake from a gameplay perspective. There are a lot of interesting ideas with the large maps and mission structure, and how the romance and timeskip is implemented, but the game is hard to play in a lot of respects. I would love to see it remade, and with Koei Tecmo apparently taking a larger role on Three Houses than we initially thought, it makes a certain amount of sense that a remake is something other people at Intelligent Systems would have been working in the meanwhile.

I wouldn't hold my breathe for Thracia 776 as DLC though. I know people have speculated on that, or even both games being remade into a single package, but I don't think either scenario is feasible when you consider Intelligent Systems turned Gaiden into such a fleshed out, robust game with Shadows of Valentia due to the care and attention they approached the remake with. I think Thracia 776 would have to be its own remake.

Overall, it was interesting to read through this feature as always!

NemoJanuary 07, 2020

Dragon Quest XI is #1 in my heart.

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