Messages

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 725: E3 and the Ten Minutes in Prime Time

« on: June 07, 2021, 04:37:55 PM »

Gradius 3 Arcade seemed less like "amping up the difficulty" and more like rushed, badly tested design. It's full of bugs, insanely hard and the Japanese version doesn't even have continues! It's full of slowdown too, the reason the SNES version is easier is that they redesigned a lot of the garbage parts. Like the infamous cube rush, which just throws 100 homing cubes at you that may home in so quickly that you cannot possibly dodge them so you have to guide them into forming a wall that will catch further cubes but if you're unlucky a cube may just decide to clip through the wall and kill you anyway. Even pro players will give up entirely if they lose a life in certain areas because recovery from the checkpoint is impossible. Yet the longer you stay alive the harder it gets so strategic deaths are a part of playing the game too.

Gradius 4 continues the trend by being made in an even shorter time frame and being even glitchier.

Interesting stuff; it sounds like the console port of Gradius III deserves a little bit more credit than its prevailing "better by accident" reputation would suggest. Back in around 2012-13, I spent some time with Gradius III in its arcade form via the Gradius Collection for PSP. Predictably, I did not make it far enough to observe the game being as severely broken as you describe, nor did I get to see how most of the stages differ design-wise from the SNES version (which I did play to completion as a small child many years earlier still - E Laser and Reduce Shield for the win!)

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 173: 201X -- The Munster Years

« on: April 02, 2021, 01:50:05 PM »

As always, it was an absolute pleasure to be on Radio Trivia; thanks again to TYP for planning the episode and putting up with my blathering.

Regarding Game 4: I initially thought "Haltmann Works" was a case of HAL being forced into the company name as a cheeky reference to the developers' corporate supervisors, but even leaving that aside, the name works as wordplay in the sense that the company's drive for mechanisation will stop people from working, so extra points are due from me in recognition of the compound punning on display.

[The capitalist machine's insatiable appetite for labor claims two of our regulars this week, but thankfully Syrenne provides reinforcement.]

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Podcast Discussion / Episode 648: Les Absents Ont Toujours Tort

« on: November 17, 2019, 11:43:12 AM »

The capitalist machine's insatiable appetite for labor claims two of our regulars this week, but thankfully Syrenne provides reinforcement.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/52206/episode-648-les-absents-ont-toujours-tort

With James and Jon away this week, Greg has to hold the fort while dealing with Guillaume's "hosting". Syrenne lends a hand, having played plenty of games lately to cover two persons' worth of New Business.

She starts off the first segment with her impressions of New Super Lucky's Tale, an unfortunately named platformer aimed at kids, which surprises her with its quality given how previous games in this series were just adequate. She has also played The Jackbox Party Pack 6 and tells us which of these packs is the one to get. Then, Greg and Syrenne share some New Business in Luigi's Mansion 3, as well as Persona Q2, which Greg has finally finished. Then, Syrenne asks the question: "What is Taito right now?". No one knows. One thing is for sure: don't pay full price for Groove Coaster Wai Wai Party. New Business ends the way New Business should always end, if we're honest: with sincere apologies. Guillaume does a Wii U to Wii U transfer in 2019, and has some regrets.

We then answer emails from our listeners in a little segment we like to call "Listener Mail." How important is it to choose a reviewer with a certain expertise to review a game in a longrunning series such as Pokémon? Are there genres or series we were introduced to in an unconventional way? And can going back to old games feel refreshing?

Send us more emails and questions like these by sending an email.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 633: The Courage to Talk Fire Emblem with My Boss

« on: July 31, 2019, 12:19:32 PM »

Even Greg has fallen to Lindemann Syndrome. We're all doooooooooooooomed!

We all float down here...

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 630: Desperately Seeking Psychopaths

« on: July 13, 2019, 12:34:14 PM »

Greg, there actually is a "followed makers" tab in Super Mario Maker 2. It's stupidly indicated with a ⭐ in the "courses" section of Course World.
P.S. my maker ID is QF1-TRP-KFF. I typically make traditional-ish courses with a normal difficulty rating. Pls follow <(￣︶￣)↗

I'm fully aware of the followed makers tab in Course World; you've been in my followed feed since you emailed RFN with your ID last week. The point I was trying to make was that I would've liked to have everyone in my friends list incorporated into the followed makers feed right from the get-go, either by default or by some sort of simple opt-in.

This is not just because of the cumbersome nature of inputting IDs for people I'm already connected to; moreover there's no particularly direct mechanism for me to become aware of these IDs in the absence of Miiverse (which would guarantee that anytime a friend made a level, you'd see the course ID posted on their feed, and you could then use that to add them into your followed makers in the original Mario Maker's Course World).

I've been relying on rather indirect mechanisms to build my followed makers feed in Mario Maker 2, such as RFN emails and piggybacking off other people's activities (levels played/completed/liked, etc.). As such, I think I have a pretty comprehensive feed in my followed makers tab by now; it's just a shame that it's been such a convoluted process to get to that point, and there is still the possibility for some friends' levels to slip through the cracks because this rigmarole is not automatic in the slightest.

Anyway, please accept my apologies for not being very clear in articulating these points during the episode, and I hope this text has helped to make up that deficit in clarity. Also, thanks for listening and for sharing your levels - good stuff!

[A shorter episode for the long week-end.]

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Podcast Discussion / Episode 619: A Tale for Two

« on: April 19, 2019, 04:55:56 PM »

A shorter episode for the long week-end.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/50315/episode-619-a-tale-for-two

As a long weekend approaches,  half the RFN team has already shut up shop, leaving Guillaume and Greg to channel the podcast's shorter, two-person show roots as they provide some New Business topics in the wake of last week's Listener Mail blowout.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate version 3.0 kicks off the show, as Greg takes his first journey into the world of Persona (besides watching P5A) with eleven songs drawn from four different entries in the series to go with the (accordingly colour-coded) Mementos stage, and of course the newcomer himself, Joker. There's also the game's new modes and updated functionality to discuss, though Greg was too wary of an impromptu reunion with his ancient nemesis BJ to have sampled user-created Smash levels at this early juncture.

Next, Gui has both single player and co-op impressions of the demo for the upcoming BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL!, and the early signs are good for Quby's HD debut. Before the show wraps up, the New Business carousel also takes us through initial impressions of Konami's Gradius-heavy Arcade Classics Collection, reactions to the final line-up of next month's Castlevania Collection (Kid Dracula!), and a belated look at the first Dragon Quest Builders on Switch ahead of its sequel's release in July.

Don't forget: our next RetroActive is underway with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for DS/Wii U Virtual Console. Play along and share your thoughts in our dedicated NWR forum thread here or by sending us an email.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 566: I'm. From. France.

« on: April 10, 2018, 01:39:14 PM »

Regarding Spiritual successors:

Shovel Knight
Freedom Planet
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Gunvolt in general?

The spiritual successors I had in mind when posing that question were those involving a prominent developer of the original series working on the new IP, mainly because developers are more likely to become "free agents" in reality than the properties they've worked on. The Gunvolt series fits into this category due to the number of Mega Man games Inti Creates have developed in the past, while Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight (which I like very much) would not. Apologies for not being more clear about this during the show. 

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 552: I See You've Been a Bit Better

« on: December 28, 2017, 03:07:37 PM »

Hey Greg i always wondered.

How did you get so into american football being from the UK?

Just curious. Also is the sport picking up steam over there or is it really difficult to find other fans of the sport?

The NFL was first broadcast on British TV shortly before I was born in the early 1980s; my older brother was a kid at the time and he became a huge fan of the Chicago Bears. Once I was old enough to have some sort of vague appreciation for the sport, he encouraged me to pick my own team to support; the Bills at that time were running a no-huddle offense very successfully, I thought they looked cool, and the rest is history.

NFL fandom seems a fair bit more commonplace here today than it was back in the 1990s, presumably because of the transformation of the media landscape over that time helping to provide much more exposure for the sport, especially online.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RetroActive 40: La-Mulana

« on: December 12, 2017, 05:14:32 PM »

That warms my heart to hear. Honestly, if I could have gotten to you about that properly, I would have HIGHLY suggested you perform a double-dip on your Wii U for use of the gamepad, or the Vita version if you had that laying around.

There's no doubt in my mind that my experience would have benefited greatly from portable or off-TV play, and not just for the simple practicality of getting in more playtime before the telethon. With this kind of game, I find it helpful to play in a very concentrated time period, as this significantly enhances my retention and proper contextualisation of in-game information. This is especially true for La-Mulana due to the cryptic or oblique nature of many of its puzzles and clues.

With this in mind, I did consider purchasing the game through my PAL Wii U in order to essentially buy myself more play time through the proto-tabletop mode offered by the Wii U Gamepad. Ultimately though, I was put off by the fact that PAL Wii U systems get stuck in 50hz when running in Wii mode through a non-HDMI connection, which my Wii U now does due to other systems claiming the HDMI slot. Here's a Eurogamer article from the early days of Wii U detailing the issue, which I confirmed does still apply to this day:

www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-wii-u-backwards-compatibility-analysis

What's not clear from this article is how the TV output being 50hz by default would have affected the display streamed to the Wii U Gamepad, which after all is what I was primarily interested in. Even so, this complication was enough for me to bypass the double dip and just try to make the best of the situation I already had in place. Playing on Vita probably would have been the ideal option, but I never have pulled the trigger on that system despite being interested for a number of years.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: RetroActive 40: La-Mulana

« on: December 06, 2017, 02:12:36 PM »

From what I gather, Ejamer, they all played the game within the final week before the retroactive. a big reason I put out that video as soon as I did was to show them that I was willing to help.

I started playing pretty soon after the poll ended, and I avoided repeating the mistakes I made when I first played the game in 2012, so I got off to a (mostly) smooth start. The biggest impediment to me getting further in the game was simply getting enough time in front of the TV with the PAL Wii. I very much doubt I'll be able to finish the game before I feel compelled to disconnect the PAL Wii, but I do want to see plenty more of La-Mulana before that time comes. 

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 547: Touchin' on Tub Time

« on: November 14, 2017, 03:04:33 PM »

Listening to this episode was an absolute delight

Can we quote you on that?

I don't know how I should feel about Greg's 'defense' of me being the evil unto which one does not open the door for, though.

It should really be interpreted as a function of my reflexive urge to crowbar Lord of the Rings quotes into conversation (in this case a reference to Elrond's account of Isildur's failure to destroy the One Ring).

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 546: The Influence of Classical Waggle on the Modern Metropolis

« on: November 07, 2017, 01:33:20 PM »

A much more interesting Blaster Master game already had a (Somewhat) recent retroactive a couple of years back

the only game I kinda feel bad about rallying the base for the democratic process over is Contra Rebirth, because that game is kinda doomed, especiallyb ecause... yes, it was sandwiched between the much better Contra 4 and the XBLA Hard Corps remake/reboot/sequel thing. I still think of the rebirth games, Gradius and especially Castlevania the Adventure are the two more deserving games.

Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth is my personal favourite of the ReBirth bunch, but had it been included in the poll and won, it would have been the second classic-style Castlevania game out of the past five RetroActive titles (following Rondo of Blood last year). I considered using the same logic to exclude Blaster Master Overdrive, but the Blaster Master NES RetroActive was a whole year earlier than the Rondo one, so I didn't think that was necessary. I also like Gradius ReBirth, but it's probably not as well suited to generating conversation as Contra is, and thus we ended up with the list as you see it here.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 540: Reset the Metroid Clock

« on: September 29, 2017, 11:13:24 AM »

I seem to recall that you were on 103 as well. I don't think you've ever apologized for that.

To whom do you think the apologies are owed? James had the responsibility of hosting 103; Jon and I were innocent victims/audio hostages, powerless to influence a show of which we constituted a mere 40% of the cast. If you thought that episode sounded like a train wreck, try being one of the guys in the train as it triple-somersaulted into a ravine. It's more than nine years later, and I still haven't recovered...

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 540: Reset the Metroid Clock

« on: September 27, 2017, 07:01:12 PM »

ok i might get blasted here but a while back the gang clearly answered someones email about playing games you don't like.

The sentiment was very strong about why play games you don't like and why force yourself and that's stupid and a waste of time.

mmmmm. This person deserves an apology! lol.

James owes many apologies; for instance, I believe he has yet to express the requisite remorse for Episode 103 (note: this statement is very different from saying that no remorse has been expressed).

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 537: The Worst Idea in a Strategy Game since Conception II

« on: September 05, 2017, 07:47:54 PM »

I know James often jokes about our less-than-perfect ability to actually answer the questions listeners ask, but we do try. This was Jonathan's question to us:

So, now that the voice chat app has launched to widespread using-something-besides-the-voice-chat-app and Splatoon 2 has launched to widespread “I don’t understand why they insist on doing it this way…” how long does Nintendo have after people start paying for this abuse before it becomes utterly inexcusable?  Assuming of course that they don’t make massive improvements in the next few months, but to be honest, I don’t imagine they’ll suddenly fix things in time for the paid launch when they blatantly ignored universal 5-10 year old solutions the first time around.
 
I always hoped that once they announced a paid service they’d start taking online seriously, but to be honest it doesn’t seem like reality is currently tracking in that direction.
 
Follow-up question: what’s “the sign” for each of you that Nintendo is finally taking online play seriously?  For me, it would be online play in all future “mainline” Mario games exactly as if the players were in the same living room.

The subsequent discussion was not some indiscriminate "bitch-fest" about the state of Nintendo online services for the past twelve years; rather, we tried to address Jonathan's question by evaluating Nintendo's track record in this area, and then project what is likely/unlikely to happen once the service becomes paid next year.

For my personal purposes, Nintendo's approach to online play has been suitable in most respects, and so I wouldn't have minded if they'd decided to simply stay the course and keep everything free of charge. However, that's not what's happening and it's not what Jonathan asked about.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 536: Yoshi Facts Matter to Me

« on: August 31, 2017, 08:58:15 PM »

Cmon guys, we have to be able to hold more than one thought that can both be true at the same time.  You can say that this issue existed WHILE believing Sunshine deserved the praise it got at the time.  They're not mutually exclusive thoughts.

This sums up my thoughts on this topic very well.

My response to Guillaume's comment referred to the general culture of game reviews that existed around the turn of the century, not specifically to Sunshine's reviews (the only one I've read recently was Jonny's, and I didn't even read very many of them back then because I imported the game before most were even written). If I did go back and sample a bunch of contemporaneous Sunshine reviews, it wouldn't surprise me to see quite a bit of the hyperbole and company cheerleading that Guillaume identified, but that's not the same thing as saying the game didn't merit positive reviews upon its release (at least from my perspective).

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Friend Code Thread

« on: May 10, 2017, 06:23:46 PM »

SW-8482-9786-9974

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 511: Wordplay Ahead

« on: February 27, 2017, 06:42:41 PM »

It's been a long time since I played through Disaster now; I remember enjoying the shooting sections of the game to a fair extent, but I found the third-person sections to be mostly tedious, and some parts really did nothing good for me at all (the fire tornado sequence in the park, motion driving).

If you'd like better-preserved thoughts from me in text form, here's a link to a hands-on preview I did of the game before its European release (also a window into why my writing career at NWR was less than a roaring success).

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/16994/disaster-day-of-crisis-wii

Definitely worth 50p though.

[The Themesters return to soothe the cries of the young.]

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Podcast Discussion / Episode 212: Baby Don't Cry

« on: November 05, 2016, 09:57:00 PM »

The Themesters return to soothe the cries of the young.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/connectivity/43630/episode-212-baby-dont-cry

Welcome to Connectivity 212.

This week Nicholas Bray, Perry Burkum and special guest Greg Leahy unite for a brand new instalment of our musical segment, Themesters. The chosen game this time around is none other than Yoshi's Island for the Super Nintendo.

Once again the talents of Mr Burkum have provided us with some great new covers of familiar tunes, along with some fun discussion about the game in general. For those that have been wanting to hear Greg speak even more about Yoshi, your in for a treat.

If you enjoy the tunes you can also listen to the separate tracks over on the Themesters SoundCloud.

Nintendo World Report is now on Patreon, and high rollers can name their topic for Connectivity, so head over to our Patreon page if you want to support us.

Connectivity has joined Twitter, so be sure to follow @ConnectivityNWR to be up to date on any announcements. We are wanting more listener participation, so feel free to ask questions, they may show up in the show!

Send us your listener mail by clicking here.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 144: The Grossest Episode Yet!

« on: August 15, 2016, 12:23:32 PM »

Game 1, Song 2: To to ro Totoro!

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 482: The Legend of Zelda: Olivia Wilde

« on: June 29, 2016, 09:47:27 AM »

I did not recommend a budget model in general; I advised that Nintendo should avoid building the NX platform around a hardware feature that would drive up the cost of the device(s) to the consumer without delivering the requisite added value to make it an attractive proposition overall.


Simply having a budget model does not in itself achieve this goal: the Basic Wii U came with a Gamepad just like the Premium set, and as such it could still be deemed to be overpriced by those who didn't see much value in the special controller. The same can be said for the 20GB PS3 launch units; yes, it was a cheaper ($499!) version of the hardware, but both models made consumers pay for a Blu-ray drive and a Cell processor architecture, which many felt did little to enhance their gaming experiences on the console at that time.


The very fact that Sony and Nintendo offered cheaper models for those platform launches demonstrates that they recognised there was a price/value problem to deal with, but removing a few GB of internal storage or some USB ports is nothing more than tinkering around the edges. The platforms remained inextricably linked to those aforementioned costly-but-superfluous hardware features, and thus the budget models had little impact.


That being said, a budget model could hypothetically be part of an approach that avoids repeating this kind of mistake, and I raised that possibility because there's been so much talk about the NX platform being spread over a family of systems. However, there are lots of other ways to avoid weighing down the NX's launch without making a separate entry-level device, and for me the most important thing is not exactly how Nintendo can do this, but simply that they can do it at all.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 454: Mobile Sidejob

« on: November 23, 2015, 01:38:44 PM »

I mentioned on a recent episode that I acquired a new condition copy of Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot on GameCube for a tenner (it's still sealed, and it'll probably stay that way indefinitely). According to Ty's review, it's a not-very-good 3D shooter as opposed to a shitty racing game, but I'm not in a rush to play it in any event.


http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/4123/dragon-drive-gamecube

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 453: Even the Podcast Leaked Early

« on: November 16, 2015, 11:19:00 AM »

To be fair Tantalus owns Straight Right, who handled the excellent Wii U ports of Deus Ex and Mass Effect 3 (and the ZombiU port to PS4XB1). So they'll probably pool resources from them. It won't be all Funky Barns and Ben 10s.

I thought this was what Shibata was referring to in the EU Direct when he said Tantalus "has a great track record with remakes", but sadly the cheap gag was too tempting for me to resist. My personal experience with the Deus Ex port was quite positive, and I really have no major concerns about the technical aspect of this remastering; it's more a question of whether or not Nintendo will prioritise tweaks to the game design that make the experience significantly smoother and more enjoyable than it would be to simply replay one of the existing versions.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 452: You Are a Jerk, Bollocks-Head

« on: November 10, 2015, 11:01:21 AM »

Despite James Jones' lack of Japanese cultural awareness, I did enjoy the bollocks talk!

As if there was ever any doubt regarding our ability to talk bollocks...

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 445: I Made a Stage with Boos in It

« on: September 23, 2015, 07:24:47 PM »

Just as I mentioned I found the look of the enemies' motion in the New SMB set slightly bothersome, I explicitly said the enemy frame rate was a "really trivial" issue. It was merely an observation from my experiences playing the game without a negative tone attached to it, properly contextualised and made in a lighthearted way largely at my own expense rather than the game's.

I’m amazed you can spot that.  I went back to the game and tried to noticed it and couldn’t.  Though one thing I do wish the game had was Mario 3/World style boss fights where you stomp their head 3 times and then you pass the level.
 
I made this level specifically for you.
 
Yoshi’s Ultimate Sacrifice…
 
7204-0000-005b-9340

You had to put lava in there to make Yoshi's (repeated) demise all the more heartbreaking - not even Neal did that!