Messages

176

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Not a hater but... (future prediction)

« on: January 26, 2017, 10:42:23 PM »

Focusing on the action is about the last thing I want a Metroid game to concentrate on. This is one reason among many that Other M sucked.

I like the suggestion about scope. They could greatly expand on the ship element of Prime 3, make part of the game mediated through the cockpit to deal with different/larger-scale spins on the traditional Metroid formula. I'm thinking maybe something distantly related to The Minish Cap.

And hey, that could incorporate a more actiony-spin on the combat as well, imported from Metroid Blast from Nintendoland!

177

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch/Wii U Indie Game Review Thread

« on: January 24, 2017, 04:16:47 PM »

Curious: why say it would appeal if you "hate yourself"?  Did you find the difficulty too high?  I mean, you've already said it's for people who like Mega Man games so this seems like an unnecessary qualifier.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said "if you like Mega Man" because you already hate yourself if you do.

The only thing that I found to be good about Shovel Knight was the music. The gameplay is boring and the bosses are terrible. It gets a pass for being "retro" but as I've mentioned many times in the past, I think it is overrated and not fun at all. I haven't played co-op, but seeing as it's not the main draw of the game and the levels weren't designed around it, I can't imagine it's all that great. I did play Plague of Shadows and it was a poorly implemented "and Knuckles," but the fact that they are planning on doing Spectre of Torment and whatever the hell King Knight's campaign will be are the only reasons to get it- it does have a large amount of quality for one game at it's price point, but it gets away with aesthetic  "charm" more than anything. It's fairly bland and rehashes a lot of ideas from better games.

I completely agree. It would have been totally forgettable like many of its retro-indie brethren (Owlboy seems to have come and gone with little impact, for instance) but for some reason it caught the enthusiast zeitgeist and is held up as some kind of important title. For that reason I have developed a severe dislike of the game beyond its mediocre-to-bad quality, kind of like when Gladiator won the best picture Oscar. 

178

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Let's talk about the Wii library, a very underrated library imo!

« on: January 22, 2017, 09:15:09 PM »

Wii was a goldmine.

For third-party stuff I'll second Silent Hill: Shattered Memories as one of the most interesting concept games ever produced.

And add: Pandora's Tower is an engaging look at how the Castlevania series might have transitioned to 3D in a better world.

Dead Space: Extraction is the most articulated rail-shooter ever made and tied for best game in the series with the first mainline game in my book. Its approach to narrative also allows for genuine surprise in the medium, a true rarity. I think this has a PSMove port, but whatever.

Little King's Story is I believe still the only Pikmin-a-like ever made, and one of my all-time favorite games. I believe it has been ported to PC now, but looks to be butchered.

Zack and Wiki is a novel level-based spin on the adventure game genre and another one of my favorites.

World of Goo is the rare actually good physics-based puzzle. It's been ported around at this point, but from what I've read the Wiimote is still the best way to play the game.

MotoHeroz is a Wiiware game that looks super-shitty, but is actually the best take on the Trials formula.

179

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Not a hater but... (future prediction)

« on: January 21, 2017, 10:14:26 PM »

To be fair, Microsoft and Sony invited me to their birthday parties last year but Nintendo snubbed me.

180

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Not a hater but... (future prediction)

« on: January 21, 2017, 02:35:50 PM »

Knowing what an evidently greedy company they are

Other pessimism-preening aside, this sentiment never fails to inspire awe at how some people manage to view to world. Calling a company greedy is like calling a priest religious.

181

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Snap Poll: How Sold Are You on the Switch?

« on: January 17, 2017, 03:02:33 AM »

People complained about the Wii's price when it was first announced as well.  It was just a modified Gamecube and IGN famously posted an article months earlier saying the hardware Nintendo was making the Wii with was so cheap that they could launch the system for $100.  So when low and behold, they announced the Wii was going to be $250, there was quite a few people saying the Wii was going to be DOA because it's price was way too high.  I still remember, some of the same suspects who are saying Nintendo can't demand such a price because the Wii U was a failure said the same thing about the Wii since the Gamecube was considered a failure back then as well.

Hmm, this is a pretty good point. According to the inflation calculator, the $250 Wii would be ~$290 today, not far off the Switch. $300 WiiU basic would be about ~$320 today. But of course the $250 3DS would be ~$270 today, and we know how that went . . .

182

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Travis Strikes Again.

« on: January 15, 2017, 03:24:06 AM »

Definitely good news, but did anyone catch what the hell Suda51 was actually talking about in terms of gameplay/type? Was he saying the aim is to base it off the experience of professional wrestling or somesuch? The translator was out to sea on this segment.

183

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Forum Snap Poll: How Sold Are You on the Switch?

« on: January 15, 2017, 03:20:54 AM »

Man, I'm about as constitutionally inclined to be a Nintendo apologist as possible, and have purchased every console since the 64 in the first six months, but the more this sinks in and more details are added, the more I think ole Switchy is shaping up to be a final flameout.

I won't say I was naive about Nintendo's ability to pull this off, I was moreso confident that they would pull it off because they absolutely had to to stay in the game. The huge reorganization on top of the leadership change also seemed to bode well for a refresh.

But the picture ain't looking good, and I find myself in the queasy position of hoping the obvious missteps bite Nintendo in the ass so they'll have to slash the Switch's price this year and make the purchase rationalizable. But if things are in such a state, I'm not sure I'd want to buy in to a console with an uncertain outlook at that point anyway. And the cycle continues until I'm possibly in the camp picking one up in a stock clearance three years down the line to play the four or five games I felt like I actually missed.

This is a much more pessimistic outlook than I'd like to have, but unfortunately the dedicated game hardware world is one in which animal spirits actually hold sway.

184

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Discussion (March 3, 2017 Release) -Updated OP-

« on: January 14, 2017, 08:14:30 PM »

There were a lot of game rumors flying around, but not well-supported like many of the (accurate) hardware rumors and few have panned out thus far.

Notable ones that I saw:

-Mario vs Rabbids crossover strategy RPG by Ubisoft (originally rumored to be a launch title but delayed, probably real)

-Beyond Good and Evil 2 (or Zero, rumored to be a timed exclusive by Ubisoft, probably real because the game officially exists, at least)

-Resident Evil 7 from Capcom (they're rumored to be having trouble getting it up to speed on Switch, so this could be a no-go; I would have expected an announcement as it's launching soon)

-Dark Souls Trilogy by From Software (this one seems to be closer to fan speculation than not, wouldn't hold my breath)

-Overwatch from Blizzard (this kicked up recently, but again I suspect this to be more wishful thinking than anything)

-Final Fantasy 6 remake from Square (an odd concept, and I honestly thought that was what Project Octopath was going to be at first, so I'm guessing that's where the rumor came from)

-Supposedly definitely not coming: Mass Effect Andromeda, Red Dead 2

I definitely expected more third-party support announced, even if it was clearly one-off stuff like Rise of the Tomb Raider with a Samus costume.

185

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Discussion (March 3, 2017 Release)

« on: January 13, 2017, 04:10:56 PM »

I dunno, the thin launch line-up is giving me a bit of a sinking feeling. Sure, March is off launch cycle for most third-parties, but we're not even seeing the obligatory three-month-late ports of stuff, outside of Steep (which I thought I saw a rumor has already been canceled because it bombed on the other consoles). I get that Bethesda probably didn't want to launch Skyrim right along Zelda, but it's not coming out until the fall. That's way late. And aside from Fifa, were there other western third-party games even mentioned?

I guess to be optimistic you could speculate that Nintendo is holding back for a big E3 blow-out, but that seems, uh, unwise when the actual launch happens three months before that, and their last console was basically dead in the water six months after launch, with the only spark of hope being the debut of new Smash and Kart games. And now we're getting . . . ports of those same games with new entries far out in the future.

186

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U/Switch) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2017

« on: January 13, 2017, 01:16:43 AM »

Yeah, that looked absolutely incredible, and more like an interactive Princess Mononoke than ever. If there was any single game that would get me to buy a console, it'd be this one, but I don't think I can override my adult circuits on this one.

187

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Discussion (Jan. 12 Live Stream! March 2017 Release)

« on: January 13, 2017, 01:09:37 AM »

So poking around for details, trying to convince myself that I should take a bus out through snow-ruined Portland tomorrow to a Gamestop, I'm not coming up with much.

Launch window line-up is bad. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is apparently not going to have any new tracks outside of battle mode. So that's a pass. I really feel like that 1-2 Switch game and/or Springy Sproingers should've come with the console.

I don't really care that much about the online, but the fact that they're charging for it isn't going to help anything.

Looks like I'm waiting for Mario, and I'm getting a bad feeling about this, so there might be a price drop, too!

Also unnerving, why no mention of the virtual console at all? And why bury like five game announcements in a rapid-edit montage trailer at the end? 

188

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Discussion (Jan. 12 Live Stream! March 2017 Release)

« on: January 13, 2017, 12:17:18 AM »

Well, that wasn't so hot, unfortunately. Zelda and Mario look fucking amazing, but Mario ain't out til the end of the year, and none of the other launch window games did anything for me, or anything announced at all really, aside from No Mo Heroes 3, but that isn't even started yet and is maybe some kind of arena fighter?

$299.99 with no extras is also a bummer, and I think that might put me just over the edge of not putting in a pre-order. I want to play Zelda something fierce, but I can wait til Mario's out too, I think, unless they're holding back some big non-multiplayer or port titles for a later reveal.

189

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Which Nintendo Franchise Needs A Reboot?

« on: January 11, 2017, 08:54:02 PM »

My rubric is basically that story can be a pleasing additive to a fundamentally sound game, like good music, good UI, etc. And it can also be a detriment to a fundamentally sound game if it is bad and intrusive. Video game stories are bad and intrusive 90% of the time. An effective, diagetically sound story can add maybe a 5% shift in the overall value of the package and a bad, intrusive one can have a much more negative shift in the other direction.

So, in my book, focusing on it is an odds-on a recipe for a worse outcome. And how many fundamentally mediocre or bad games are actually redeemed by their narratives? It's hard to think of examples. Deadly Premonition? Eternal Darkness? Maaaybe Mass Effect 2?

Whatever criticisms one could have about any of the (thin) Zelda narratives, it's truly silly to give a **** about the overarching lore. There's no way to coherently include NES games and the like. Nor would it make sense to arbitrarily declare a point at which the games start "counting". So, enjoy the allusions as they come, ignore that art book Nintendo put out that one time with the ridiculous timeline. 

190

Nintendo Gaming / Re: What Small/Niche Game/Genre Would Excite (Only) You at Switch Launch?

« on: January 07, 2017, 12:12:15 AM »

Bayonetta 3 -- unfortunately action games have become a niche now.

Excite Bots 2: Excite Harder

I'll raise you the equally unlikely Toki Tori 3 as an indie launch window game on a Nintendo system. TT2 is probably one of my all-time top five games.

191

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Rumors and Speculation Thread (Mighty Switch Force Edition)

« on: December 22, 2016, 03:27:19 PM »

I've pitched this idea before, but I think it would be a smart move at this point for Nintendo to set up a big port shop for western third parties. Offer to do the work themselves (or at a subsidized rate) in exchange for a percentage of money from the sales. Even if it would be profitable to port stuff to the Switch for any given 3rd party, it still might be less profitable to use those resources on that versus something else. A Nintendo-run midwife outfit could remove this calculus, and also develop American talent they could feed into bigger projects, their own ports or remasters, or an expanded Retro/new 2nd party (or functionally equivalent) studios.

192

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Rumors and Speculation Thread (Mighty Switch Force Edition)

« on: December 21, 2016, 12:19:20 AM »

This is the sort of thing we would really hope Nintendo doesn't have to learn a hard lesson on. I feel like they've taken their home console experience and are totally gambling with it. The smell of vodka is heavy on their breath. I've never seen so many options packed into a game device. At the end of the day, I'm left to wonder: is this the new console, is it the new handheld, or is it something else entirely? Will there be something else to replace it within 2-years?

This is a Handheld with a Super Gameboy Accessory packed in. I now am imagining it launching at $249, but Nintendo totally capable of dropping that to $199 whenever they need to, even if that might be it's first Holiday season.

Also, if we think of its a Nintendo Handheld, then it's almost assuredly getting a hardware refresh at some point. Just look at the long history of Gameboy Pocket, GameBoy Color, GBA SP, DS Lite, DSi, 3DS XL and New 3DS. It's strange for me to see people worried about this since it's been Nintendo handheld reality for FOREVER. Personally, I LOVED both my Launch DS Phat AND my Launch 3DS, so anticipate that if Nintendo goes Switch Pro and Switch Micro within two years I'll be tickled, but won't be letting go of my Launch Switch launch either.

Right, I'm sure there will be a hardware refresh, but I'm coming in to this with a heavy console preference. I guess we're living in the world of mid-generation console upgrades now, but I'm not wild about the idea. I picked up the DS and 3DS later in their lives after the hardware "settled", because I was expecting that and am not much of a handheld enthusiast in the first place, and had no intention of dinking around with multiple units.

I'm going to treat the Switch as a console and I'd like to feel relatively secure in the knowledge that it won't end up like the OG GBA, technically functional but kind of a piece of **** compared to the refresh.

193

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Rumors and Speculation Thread (Mighty Switch Force Edition)

« on: December 20, 2016, 12:51:48 PM »

3. I do still think this gives Nintendo room to go the incremental improvement route, with both a Switch Micro in the future, as well as a Switch Pro that probably jumps to Pascal and uses the newer manufacturing processes to squeeze more power while staying in the same range of heat and battery life.

This more than anything gives me pause.  I'm inclined to wait the switch out until mid-life-cycle to see if a New Switch Pro+ Tournament Edition comes out, because I'd rather start the system with the best hardware possible.

Yeah, this is starting to concern me as well. I don't want to early adopt if there's going to be a significantly (i.e 3DS to New 3DS) upgraded unit 18 months down the line or some such.

I don't think Nintendo would do this, but now would be the time to lay all the cards on the table if they are actually going to use the supplemental computing patents. I would be fine getting a Switch on the earlier side if I knew I could upgrade it later without buying a whole new device.

194

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Rumors and Speculation Thread (Mighty Switch Force Edition)

« on: December 17, 2016, 06:27:07 PM »

Given how hard-line the VR enthusiasts seem to be about tech thresholds, I sincerely, sincerely doubt Nintendo will try to turn the Switch tablet into a half-assed VR device, patent doodle be damned. The screen is 720p and thus would be half that for each eye. It would be absurdly unwieldy in a head mount.

As for what demo is getting developers excited, probably just some regular old software being fed through an "off-the-record" PR sieve.

195

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 14, 2016, 11:38:53 PM »

"Cheat" isn't the right word in this case. I much prefer "collaborative puzzle solving".

Well I've definitely cheated now. I beat my 5th boss and got into the Tower of the Goddess, but couldn't figure out how to turn it on with the water system from the clues. In one sense I overthought it, because I thought the lake that was referenced wasn't the same thing as the sky spring area. But in another sense, I probably never would have figured it out. It involved climbing down into a breakable pot (which I didn't know was anywhere near possible in terms of interaction in this game), and walking through a false wall that even after the fact I don't see how the clues pointed to.

So I made it like 13 hours and have officially given up on solving **** myself. Azeke was 100% right about the scale room, which as far as I know I didn't find more than two clues about the weight system for a one-chance puzzle. After breaking on the Tower of the Goddess, I soon also broke on the fruit of Eden puzzle, which I actually am kind of angry at myself about, because I was close to "getting" it, but didn't realize you could scan certain kinds of background details.

On another spur, I finally found the mother statue, and went through the room with the multi-color sperm flying around, and tried to use the statue on it, but it didn't work. So I looked it up, and it turns out I was doing the right thing, but just didn't do it enough times, or something? I give up.

I'll see if I even have the dexterity to finish the game with guide support. As of now, I am in a way kind of in awe of the construction and complexity of the game, but it's so fucking obtuse that I kind of also hate it. And really a lot of my frustrations could be alleviated with a much better log system. It really wouldn't take anything away from the project to be able to actually review the data you collect without having to manually write every little thing down in case it turns out to be important hours down the line.

196

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 07, 2016, 03:06:56 AM »

On obtuse puzzles in La Mulana: the most absurd ones are nearly at the end and so you don't even know the full extent of it.



I highly recommend not to even bother with giant scales room and with yellow medicine and just look it up. Mantras -- another late-game BS puzzle are actually very to cheese so they're okay.

miniboss in the Twin Labyrinths that seems impossible with my current equipment (I think I've got about half the items/weapons)

If you talking a time-stopping bird, you can kill it without specific item (there is even achievement for it) -- it just requires a study of it's patterns and a bit of premonition on your part.

There are just too many of them, and even my expanded recorder filled up almost immediately. At this point, they mostly seem way too vague to be worth thinking about, and several I've only realized what they meant after I randomly or intuitively uncovered the secret.

Make notes, it's much easier than clunky in-game recorder.

Ha, thanks Azeke, that makes me feel a little better about this. I've saved (but spent more than) eight hours in the game now, and hit my breaking point a little bit back. I felt walled-in, but had access to a main boss (Bahamut) that I couldn't beat, and thought it was a bottleneck. So I looked up tips about beating it, and saw the axe mentioned as the best approach. But I didn't have the axe, and apparently I should! I tried to look up a hint, as I was pretty sure I hadn't found any clues about it, and of course just saw the answer immediately: it was behind a breakable wall in a random room that I thought I had already stress tested. And using it I could beat the fish boss. And felt weird and shitty about it.

From there, I pushed out a good bit further (and spent like a fucking half-hour getting the chain whip), but have now gotten deeper into the mirror worlds, and again don't know what the hell is going on, but know where I can keep pushing. As a corollary, a big chunk of this post-Bahamut progress was accidentally figuring out the giant statue behavior after screwing with the sky disk. Here I had thought it wasn't activated, because I was overthinking the clues!

So basically this game is driving me crazy and I'm developing the Helsinki Syndrome alluded to. I technically haven't cheated on a puzzle/progress yet (unless I did that unwittingly with the axe, but even still it seems to be optional), but good goddamn do I wish I had the clue-referenced upgrade to fast-travel to the mirror zones. Temptation to cheat rising.

197

Nintendo Gaming / Re: I boxed up my Wii U today...

« on: December 06, 2016, 12:44:13 PM »

I sold my WiiU and digital library over the summer, as I needed a cash injection and I figured I had mostly hit everything on the console I really wanted to. Possible exceptions: Lego City, which I had avoided due to the loading complaints (hate that!) which is now being ported, and Paper Mario Color Splash, which had some pretty mixed reviews and will probably show up somewhere else down the road.

Here's hoping the My Nintendo record of my purchases will count for something on the Switch without doing a cockamamie manual license transfer!

198

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Rumors and Speculation Thread (Mighty Switch Force Edition)

« on: December 05, 2016, 09:29:39 PM »

Yeah, I think additional joycons are the best bet for GC re-releases, and would also conveniently cater to Smash Bros. Cube controller die-hards (myself among them) without needing the somewhat clunky adapter.

And I do think the Gamecube controllers are a legitimate emulation problem. I might be stepping out of bounds here, but last year a friend was moving and gave me a box of his old GC stuff and a bunch of games. I was excited to play melee again as well as stuff I'd never tried, like Star Fox Assault, F-Zero GX, and Wave Race: Blue Storm. It turns out the lag was so bad I couldn't play them on my modern TV. But I really wanted to give Star Fox a shot and owned a disc, so I downloaded Dolphin and the rom. It turns out the game is functionally unplayable with a standard 360 pad due to those triggers. I'd imagine Mario Sunshine would be similarly problematic, as would other games. To release the games via VC they'd have to screw with the innards in a way they clearly don't want to.

Note how there was no problem with Wii games on the WiiU VC with bigger file sizes. They hacked the DS together for it, but they had the advantage of a large single-touch resistive screen on the Gamepad.

As for WiiU ports, it's again perhaps not as easy as you might think for games that use the second screen heavily. That Gamepad streaming is proprietary low-latency tech, and I doubt Nintendo could get a second-screen experience going with tablets or smart phones that they would deem satisfactory.

199

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: December 05, 2016, 12:57:57 AM »

La-Mulana (PC):
...

Although I've only played the WiiWare version, I hold the game in high regard (despite some real love/hate over the obtuse puzzles).   I liked the way you could explore and try to learn from the environment in many different areas, how the game layered puzzle on top of puzzle, and how delightful it was to uncover secrets one by one until you had mastered a whole section of the world.  I even kind of enjoyed the decidedly old-school controls that work pretty well once you master them.


But the obtuse design doesn't get better with time - in fact it sometimes gets worse. After uncovering the truth about Eden, I had absolutely no idea how to progress further in that world... and to this day still haven't figured that secret (or many others) out.


I did hear from a friend that there is no "solution" though, and that's it's essentially totally random if you want to progress. I'm not entirely sure that's true, because this game hides many solutions to puzzles in places you wouldn't think to look (background artwork, clues given in entirely other parts of the game world, etc).  Moral of the story?  Don't be afraid to use an online guide if you want to progress deep in to the game.

Thanks for the response, that's pretty much as I expected. I'm about six hours in, not as far along as you got, but I think I've seen nearly every area to some extent. I've got a boss waiting in the Sky Spring that seems intimidating, and a miniboss in the Twin Labyrinths that seems impossible with my current equipment (I think I've got about half the items/weapons), but other than that I'm just wandering around. I haven't quite gotten stuck, and there's some more stuff to go back over with my newer gear, but I pretty much gave up on trying to follow the clues. There are just too many of them, and even my expanded recorder filled up almost immediately. At this point, they mostly seem way too vague to be worth thinking about, and several I've only realized what they meant after I randomly or intuitively uncovered the secret.

I feel like in another two hours or so I'll hit the limit of what I can blunder through on my own, and therein lies the predicament you mentioned about guides. The game itself isn't all that "fun" on a mechanical level (and the fucking knockback is starting to drive me nuts), so looking up the solutions seems like it would render the experience pointless. I guess we'll see if I'm up to the challenge!

200

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U/Switch) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2017

« on: December 03, 2016, 09:08:45 PM »

If I recall correctly it didn't look like there were all that many "elemental' or whatever item slots, and the demo gave you access to quite a few. It wouldn't surprise me if the temples were technically doable with the base set you get on the plateau, with additional secrets and shortcuts available with optional abilities and items. A Link Between Worlds flirted with this.