Messages

[Live. Die. Repeat.]

151

TalkBack / Last Day of June (Switch) Review

« on: March 22, 2018, 01:00:00 AM »

Live. Die. Repeat.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/46790/last-day-of-june-switch-review

Last Day of June is a sad, depressing game that speaks to many of life’s great anxieties. What do you do when you lose your partner and have your life destroyed beyond recognition? How do you keep going? And, perhaps most importantly, what if you were given an opportunity to change the past?

The game, developed by Ovosonico (Murasaki Baby) and originally released on PlayStation 4 and Windows last August, attempts to explore these questions, and does so (mostly) successfully.

Last Day of June focuses on Carl and June, a couple with a level of comfort that suggests they’ve been in the honeymoon phase for many, many years. One day, when Carl is asleep, an old man comes over to deliver a present to Carl. June has the idea, then, to surprise him with it during a trip to the lake where they fell in love.

The trip goes well, but as Carl intends to open the present, it starts raining. They get in the car and drive home, and as they do, the neighborhood kid goes into the middle of the road to retrieve his ball. They swerve out of the way, the car crashes, and the story begins.

June is dead. Carl is now wheelchair-bound and very, very grief-stricken. As Carl, you discover that various paintings around the house (that June painted) have activated with a magical aura. The rest of the game follows four different characters present in the paintings you touched—all members of Carl and June’s quiet neighborhood. As those characters, you relive that fateful day and have them make “better” decisions that will, hopefully, result in a better outcome for both you and June.

Over its three-hour journey, Last Day of June depicts Carl’s grief (and his fight to save June) with a deft touch and a series of emotional gut-punch moments. I didn’t cry or anything, but I did finish the game thinking a lot about my own mortality. Without a doubt, it’s one of the best stories I’ve experienced in a modern indie adventure game. But if you’re the kind of person who easily gets depressed about this subject matter, I would probably recommend you stay away. This is a game that has no happy beginning, middle, or end.

As for the gameplay, call it a third-person walking simulator with some light puzzles used to depict the story. As you embody the various characters and walk around Carl and June’s town, you solve typical modern-indie-adventure-game puzzles. A lot of go here, do that. Even though it’s standard stuff, it’s fairly easy and helps to move the story along.

What does get in the way of the story is its core mechanic, in which you have to relive days over and over again. If you repeat a character’s day, you have to watch the same short intro cutscene over and over again (even though it’s shortened on subsequent visits). And when a day ends, you still have to watch the same cutscene of June dying over and over again.

This isn’t helped by the long load times, which come frequent and often in excess of 10 seconds. I understand what Ovosonico is doing by making you relive a day over and over again (a phrase I am re-using intentionally), but even as the game makes some adjustments to help you get through days faster, the repetition feels less like an emotional depiction of grief and more like repetitive adventure gameplay. I was still attached to Carl’s story—and still eager to see it to the end—but the game part felt a good bit more frustrating than engaging.

Thankfully, looking at Last Day of June is a treat. It has this 3D art-style that is both cartoonish and dreamlike, and the animation depicting all of these characters is second-to-none. Most of the story is told through the animation, as well as a muffled voice acting where you can usually only make out the tone in a character’s voice. Although this delivery results in a few storytelling scenes that are a bit too vague, the overall storytelling is extremely effective.

Last Day of June is mostly quite good. It’s a story-driven game with one of the best-told stories I’ve seen in some time, and it offers an emotional edge that’s likely going to leave you with a lot of feelings by the time you reach the credits. The gameplay, however, is passable at best and annoyingly repetitive at worst, and while it didn’t fully keep me from wanting to reach the end, it added a somewhat frustrating slog to get there.

[Schouls ‘n ghosts.]

152

TalkBack / Detention (Switch) Review

« on: March 09, 2018, 04:18:00 AM »

Schouls ‘n ghosts.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/46670/detention-switch-review

I’ve never played a video game quite like Detention before. Developed by Red Candle Games and originally released on Steam last year, it tells the story of high school senior Fang Ray Shin as she discovers why her school suddenly became nightmarish. But under this simple frame—and under its simple, 2D adventure-style gameplay—Detention carries an unexpected depth that sticks with you well after the credits roll.

Detention is set in 1960s Taiwan, right in the thick of its nearly 40-year period of martial law. The game begins with you playing as Wei Chung Ting, a student who falls asleep during class and wakes up to his school being completely empty and dark. As you begin to explore the school, you quickly discover Fang (the game’s aforementioned protagonist) and the school transitions to a much scarier version of itself, complete with rivers of blood, horrific imagery, and various malevolent spirits referred to as the “lingered.”

To say any more would be saying too much, but Detention is also the sort of game that is difficult to describe on paper. It’s survival horror, but the story that unravels is far more political in nature. Yes, you find out why the school is so nightmarish over the three-hour runtime, but as it plays out, it becomes clear that every aspect is meant to support an engrossing period piece about an oppressive time in Taiwanese history. Think suppression of political dissidents, illegal book reading, and extreme, unjust punishments.

The story is still stuck to my brain a day after beating it, and the reason, I’m sad to say, has nothing to do with the 2D adventure-puzzle gameplay. You collect items, figure out where they go, and bring them there. Sometimes more complex puzzles are rolled out, but not often. I find the character movement to be far too slow, and the gameplay as a whole felt more tedious than fun or engaging.

Detention’s true stars are its visual and sound design, both of which set a haunting atmosphere unlike any game I’ve played before. The visuals vary wildly without ever breaking style or feeling out of place. At some moments, it feels like stop motion animation; in others, its disturbing imagery gains hyper-realistic qualities. The visuals in Detention always feel tailor-made to the mood of a given moment, and a number of scenes feel like they could be paintings. The sound design is equally creepy and impeccable, and constantly builds tension until the game’s conclusion.  

Detention is a complicated package. Everything outside of its gameplay is top-notch. Its story, visuals, and sound flawlessly accomplish what (I think) the game is trying to convey. At the same time, these things are experienced through slow, somewhat dull adventure gameplay. It does hinder the game somewhat, but despite this caveat, I still think Detention is absolutely a game—if not story—worth experiencing.

153

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo News Report: The Gang Makes A GOTY List

« on: January 26, 2018, 01:55:33 PM »

Conglaturations, guys! An episode for the ages! I thought the conversation was going to end in the middle of it with someone ripping their shirt off and dropping the mic. Surely, someone was going to be worked into a shoot, brother!

Seriously, I enjoyed it. Lots of good conversation. Zach's defense of Zelda, Justin talking about Odyssey and its handling of Mario history (Neal: But Zelda has costumes in the DLC!), learning about Donald's disenchantment with 3D Zeldas, really good. I felt sorry for Alex, though, since the conversation wasn't as positive as he hoped. While it got contenious at times, I felt it was almost always spirited, rather than just being negative nancys. I think Alex's suggestion for next year to mention only positives until someone brings up a negative aspect of a game is a good one. Positive conversation and also lead to a feeding frenzy once the dam of a negative aspect is burst. The best of both worlds!

When will the fabled Top 25 WiiU games be revealed, Neal?

And yes, Justin needs to do an hour on Breath of the Wild and the future of Zelda. Make sure to surround himself with the various Zelda merchandise he has collected. For bonus points, illustrate his points about BOTW through thoughtful positioning of said merchandise/characters. I would be very interested in hearing his thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback! And yeah, that talk got heated. If people would rather we do a list like this again next year, I'm open to it. It's just that I've always been of the mind that GOTY should celebrate a year of video games rather than put games down that aren't '#1 Material.' But maybe that's what's most fun to listen to? I'll have to think on it some.

Congratulations to Zelda, in spite of Justin.

Ha!

Ha!

154

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo News Report: More Switch Milestones

« on: January 08, 2018, 06:25:27 PM »

When I saw that the episode was an hour and a half long, it was like Festivus had come around again!

Congratulations, Neal. You're the man! Literally! 

Justin's Rants should be a regular feature. He's so knowledgeable and passionate. It's all from a place of love, not  hate!

Donald didn't seem like he was under the weather this time. Yay! I'm sure the deep freeze that Canada is currently under doesn't help.

Good to hear from Zach on NNR again. Repping Power Girl is always a good thing.

Alex is the consummate host as always. Keeps the show moving, but doesn't give short shrift to letting people get their thoughts out.

May the new year be as exciting for NNR as 2017 was!

Thanks so much! Comments like these make it all worth it.

[Advance Wars Advance Wars Advance Wars Advance Wars.]

155

TalkBack / Tiny Metal (Switch eShop) Review

« on: December 30, 2017, 06:15:00 AM »

Advance Wars Advance Wars Advance Wars Advance Wars.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/46125/tiny-metal-switch-eshop-review

Do you like Advance Wars? Do you lament the fact that there hasn’t been an Advance Wars game for nearly 10 years? Well do I have the game for you. Tiny Metal is to Advance Wars what Golf Story is to the Mario Golf story mode on Game Boy Color: a charming romp that wears its inspiration on its sleeve – even if it never reaches the heights of the source it emulates.

The gameplay of Area 35’s Tiny Metal is, more or less, what we’ve come to expect from the Wars series. You spend each turn on a standard strategy RPG grid, moving various units and then attacking with them. Your field of vision is limited, however, and you can only see as much of the map as your forces allow.

Units range from ground troops to vehicles that fight over the land and air. The former are weak, but allow you to capture buildings like cities – which heal your units – and factories, which manufacture new units to help you on the battlefield.

Vehicles like Metals (tanks) and attack helicopters deal greater damage, at the cost of various weaknesses. Metals have limited movement range, while most vehicles can be promptly destroyed by rocket launcher-wielding infantry. Unit diversity is encouraged, so as expected, maps are littered with trees and environmental spaces that affect visibility, movement, and defense.

When you attack an enemy, you go to a battle phase – much like you-know-what. Each unit on the battlefield represents a group of said unit, so when you attack one soldier on the map, it actually represents 10 soldiers during the battle phase. You’re encouraged to attack first, as this not only lowers an enemy’s HP, but it also lowers a unit’s numbers and, by extension, their attack power.

Thankfully, Tiny Metal has a trick or two up its sleeve to create some distance from Wars gameplay. In addition to traditional “attack” and “wait” strategy options, you can also focus on an enemy from attacking distance. Then, later in the turn, you can send another unit to an attacking distance and select “Focus Fire,” which lets multiple units team up on an enemy at once to deal massive damage. In a game about attacking first to weaken an enemy’s power, this mechanic is huge, and a lot of fun to play with.

The title also distances itself from Advance Wars in its Wonderful 101-esque 3D visuals, which gives Tiny Metal a pleasant, slightly flashier look. I wish I could say the same about the handheld mode experience, which features an unfortunate amount of slowdown and substantially downgraded visuals. This is extra sad to report because I think this kind of game is flawlessly suited to Switch handheld play.

Most of the game takes place within Tiny Metal’s 20ish hour campaign, wherein you play as Artemisian Lieutenant Nathan Gries in a war against Zipang, a neighboring island country. You blame them for shooting down a plane holding the Artemisian king, and the plot, conveyed through text boxes, character portraits, and Japanese voice acting, tells a relatively basic (if not slightly convoluted) tale about the complexities of war and those who fight in it. I mostly enjoyed the story, though I’d argue the cutscenes are a bit too long – to the point that it sometimes gets in the way of the gameplay.

The worst thing I can say about Tiny Metal is its slow pacing. Complex campaign missions can often take up to and longer than 45 minutes. If you’ve played Advance Wars, this is nothing new, but the gameplay is perhaps even slower than Wars. This hindered my otherwise-positive experience some, but others may enjoy the pacing more than I did.

Alongside this campaign, the game comes with dozens of story-free skirmish maps, and the main menu promises a multiplayer mode that should add a good bit of playtime to an already-beefy game.

I hate to say “fans of the genre” here, but Area 35 made a straight-up Advance Wars game in Tiny Metal. Because I like Advance Wars, I enjoyed my time. That said, Tiny Metal is not as good as Advance Wars. The former moves a good bit slower than the latter, and I would much prefer a brisk Advance Wars-style story over the slightly-long-winded one present in Tiny Metal.

Overall, it’s a game that feels explicitly made for fans of a very specific series in a very specific genre. If you don’t like Advance Wars, you almost certainly won’t like this. If you like Advance Wars and come into Tiny Metal with slightly measured expectations, you will find a good strategy RPG that borrows unashamedly yet reverently.

[Special Pyukumuku Edition.]

156

TalkBack / Pokemon Ultra Sun (3DS) Review

« on: November 22, 2017, 04:24:00 AM »

Special Pyukumuku Edition.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/45833/pokemon-ultra-sun-3ds-review

Let me make one thing clear: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are not Black 2 and White 2. They are not sequels. They’re marketed as a kind of alternate storyline from last year’s Sun and Moon, but as far as I can tell, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are “third-version” games.

Like GBA’s Pokémon Emerald and Game Boy Color’s Pokémon Crystal, most of the game is generally unchanged, but story and overall content are expanded. Think “definitive” more than “brand-new.” The main difference here is that there are two third-version games this time around, with all of the typical version differences to boot.

Being an expanded rerelease is not inherently a bad thing. After over 35 hours spent beating the game and engaging with the post-game, I'm still having fun. I’m evolving Pokémon, exploring Alola, and seeing quite a few new things. But the story, barring a couple new characters and beats, feels mostly unchanged until late game. I don’t mind this too much, as these are new versions of an old game, but this makes unchanged problems feel exacerbated.

For instance, in the original game, the introductory hours are very hand-holdy, and offer very little freedom to the player. However, I didn’t mind this too much, as it was a whole new world in a very different kind of Pokémon game. In Ultra Sun (the version I’m playing), the barely-changed (but oh-so-slightly improved) tutorial feels like a slog to get through. Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, tutorial, dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, tutorial, tutorial – all with very little user input beyond walking 10 steps and hitting A to continue a conversation.

It felt grating to me, especially because it takes around 5 hours for the linearity to get any better, but I recognize that I don’t represent a majority of Pokémon players. I just wish that Game Freak could have included a “quicker story” or “fewer tutorials” mode that will get returning players like me back to exploring Alola as quickly as possible. The late game is awesome, however, as it changes the story significantly – mostly for the better (I still think Pokémon Sun's ending is the best ending since Silver and Gold).

All of this said, I like pretty much everything else so far. I thought Sun and Moon were the best Pokémon games since the original Black and White, and Ultra Sun is reminding me why.

As I said in my review last year, the gameplay is fresh, the riding mechanic is brilliant, and the overall experience feels like a true step forward for the franchise. The replacement and removal of gyms and HMs stand tall as two of the best decisions the series has ever made, and more than that, Sun and Moon felt like true console JRPGs – or at least really close.

With this reminder comes a good bit of freshness along the way. This includes new Pokémon, newly capturable old Pokémon, new forms, new Z-Moves, some slightly different island challenges (in some cases), new plot points that flesh out the original story, new locations (I’ve only seen small ones so far), new activities, and a heavily-expanded post-game.

As for the post-game, it adds a number of significant features. There are a few new Ultra Beasts to collect, which, while very minor, still makes for the first time that a third-version game added Pokémon to the Pokédex. There's also a new story episode that focuses on Team Rainbow Rocket – a rebirth of the classic, villainous Team Rocket from the first game – in ways that hit all the right nostalgia notes.

My favorite new feature is the ability to travel through Ultra Wormholes. In this new minigame, you ride on the back of Solgaleo or Lunala to travel to worlds in Ultra Space. You can find Ultra Beasts, legendary Pokémon, and even shiny Pokémon. The minigame is a case of "travel through the good rings to speed up and avoid the bad rings that slow you down," but the one downside to this is that its control method defaults to poorly-implemented motion controls. They are kind of a pain to use, and while they can be turned off, doing so is considered a hard-to-find "secret" in-game.

There are two other major activities of note:

Alola Photo Club is a feature that allows you to take fun pictures with your team. You can select environments and poses (including Z-Poses), while also raising your Pokémon’s affection – Pokémon Refresh-style. It’s a neat little thing.

Mantine Surf is another new activity – one that lets you ride a Mantine between the islands of Alola. You earn points by doing tricks (all via the Circle Pad, as far as I’ve experienced), and these points earn you a currency you can use to get valuable items. Like other action-y Pokémon minigames in the past, it’s quite basic and inoffensive.

And as far as I know, all of the other minigames from Sun and Moon, like Battle Royal (AKA PikachuUnknown’s Battlegrounds), are fully intact.

Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon are very good third-version games. They expand the story alongside the post-game, and barring some not-ideal motion controls and a slow intro, there's very little to complain about. It may be the same game as last year with a bunch of new stuff on top, but considering this is one of Pokémon's finest generations yet, I have zero problem with more of a good thing.

[At least the protagonist has an excellent name.]

157

TalkBack / River City: Knights of Justice (3DS) Review

« on: June 28, 2017, 05:38:00 AM »

At least the protagonist has an excellent name.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/44920/river-city-knights-of-justice-3ds-review

River City: Knights of Justice is totally another River City beat-em-up. I know – you looked at the trailer and a couple screenshots and saw things like an MP bar and various JRPG environments, but trust me. It’s not a JRPG, there’s pretty much no leveling to speak of, and you’re still beating up on delinquent fools River City Ransom-style.

The most notable difference between this game and other River City titles is that you’re not fighting in a modern city. Instead, you’re a knight (named Alexander!) in a medieval time at a medieval place tasked with going on a JRPG-style medieval quest to banish evil and save the land. You’re given a world map and town structure that evokes Zelda II ever so slightly.

There’s about 100 quests to complete that you get over the course of the game, all of which involve fetching items, beating enemies, or progressing the main plot through doing one of those two things. That’s one of my biggest problems with the game: the side quests are so full of item fetching that they lack any satisfying element to speak of.

The new setting means that you aren’t just fighting thugs anymore. Knights of Justice has the most enemy diversity in the whole series, with foes ranging from bandits to monsters and even dragons. You fight them with your own rotating party that you recruit over the course of the game – an aspect I really enjoyed.

But wait, there’s more! The new fantasy setting grants new magical abilities, like a staff that shoot electricity and another that allows you to clone yourself. The twists on Kunio gameplay are by far the best parts of Knights of Justice. Don’t worry though; you can still make bad guys barf via baseball bat.

For the most part, the JRPG styling is a fresh and welcome shift for the series. I love fighting monsters as a River City hero, and I like being in the world. The dialogue can be pretty funny too, as it mixes JRPG tropes and Japanese delinquency tropes to a positive effect. Unfortunately, there’s way too much story for the generic, trope-y quality of the writing, and I became bored with the narrative within an hour of playing.

Knights of Justice is extremely easy; 90% of your time in combat is going to involve going up to an enemy, pressing A until it dies, and then repeating until the credits roll. I like easy, cathartic games, but ease turns to boredom when a significant chunk of time is also spent clicking through weak dialogue and traversing through town at a snail’s pace. This is all compounded by the fact that there’s very little RPG-style progression to speak of. You do quests to get money to buy weapons to defeat enemies. That’s mostly it.

River City: Knights of Justice is a game that tries a lot of new things and succeeds at few of them. Despite some clever ideas and a bolder approach to combat, the lack of progression, difficulty, and an engaging plot prevents this River City game from reaching its potential.

[Thoughts on the Switch from a guy who played it.]

158

TalkBack / The Nintendo Switch: A Mixed Bag

« on: January 14, 2017, 02:40:00 PM »

Thoughts on the Switch from a guy who played it.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/43995/the-nintendo-switch-a-mixed-bag

Let me apologize for that title immediately. The phrase “a mixed bag” has long been considered the laziest phrase a reviewer can use when talking about a video game, but man, is it accurate here. The Nintendo Switch is the most mixed bag that ever did mix.

I say this as someone who played the Nintendo Switch in New York City on January 13. I say this as someone who was ecstatic at seeing Odin from Shin Megami Tensei in Unreal 4, and as someone who started screaming in his hotel room when Suda 51 said, I think, those four magical words: Travis Touchdown is back. I pre-ordered a Switch the night pre-orders went up, I was overall extremely happy with the software side of Nintendo’s presentation, and I managed to be enthusiastic about Nintendo at levels I hadn’t been in years.

As I write this, I’m still so excited.

I played Splatoon 2. It’s great. It’s Splatoon but with mechanical and competitive improvements (no more spawn camping!), and even more stylistic flair.

The Switch screen is sharp, bright, and beautiful. The bezels aren’t nearly as intrusive as the initial videos made them seem.

At its best, some of the Joy-Con implementation feels like a full realization of the Wii’s promises. Moreover, the HD rumble is a fun gimmick that actually works.

That Mario game looks like the freshest take on Mario since Galaxy 1, and this comes from someone whose favorite Mario game is 3D Land.

The Pro Controller is the best controller Nintendo has ever had.

We have a weird, open-world, future Zelda game coming at launch that aims to shake up the formula in massive ways.

And it’s (generally) region-free! Don’t forget that!

But the critics aren’t wrong. Almost every criticism of the system is spot-on, and I have a few more to add:

The L and R buttons are so small that I went out of my way to tell a Treehouse employee collecting feedback that they don’t feel great, while another Splatoon player immediately agreed with me.

The Joy-Con, and especially the Joy-Con Grip, are not terribly intuitive to hold in the way they should be. Though my play time was limited, I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable holding them the entire time. They’re small, the button placement is weird, the shoulder buttons aren’t great, and the sideways mode is not my favorite way to play video games, to put it softly.

ARMS is Wii Boxing with the movement of Pokken Tournament. Splatoon 2, while great fun, plays and looks exactly like Splatoon with new stuff in it. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is just Mario Kart 8 with more stuff. I’m still not convinced that Zelda is anything more than an also-ran open-world action game with a Zelda skin, and I say that as someone who played it. 1-2 Switch feels like Spin the Bottle on Wii U. No software on the system feels wholly fresh outside of Holiday 2017’s Mario game.

Switch graphics don’t look all that much better than Wii U graphics. If you told me it was the same difference between a game being played on a PS4 vs. a PS4 Pro, I would believe you.

The accessories are expensive, the console is expensive (borderline too expensive in my opinion), and Nintendo announced that they are finally charging for online without immediately convincing arguments that paid online is worthwhile for the consumer.

Are you kidding me? Monthly usage of NES games that gets taken away at the end of the month?

There is so much to be positive about on the system, and yet, there is just as much to be critical about. I enjoyed my time playing many of the games, and yet, fears for the future of this thing slowly creep in.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope everything negative I wrote here is 100% wrong, and Nintendo Switch is everything we all dream it to be. I hope it’s the system that brings it out of the funk that is the Wii U’s legacy as a commercial failure, and more than that, deserves to be.

From what I played, I just don’t see it yet. The price isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s not exactly where it needs to be. The launch lineup is a game or two short of where it probably should be. The graphics aren’t much more impressive than the last Nintendo system. Overall, the console just isn’t inspiring to me in the way the Wii was (yet).

If you email me in a year and tell me how unfounded all my concerns and pre-release criticisms are, there would be nothing more pleasing. That everyone bought the Switch and everyone loved it. Because man, nothing would make me happier than to see that the phrase “Travis Touchdown is Back” is a lucrative one.

[Zelda has never looked better on a handheld.]

159

TalkBack / The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) Hands-on Preview

« on: January 14, 2017, 09:02:00 AM »

Zelda has never looked better on a handheld.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/43992/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-switch-hands-on-preview

I played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the first time ever at the New York City Switch Event. Because it was the exact same demo as one of the E3 2016 ones – only on a new system – I don’t have much of anything constructive to say on the game that others on this website haven’t already, so be sure to read our E3 coverage for a lot of good content on the game.

All I will say on it is that Breath of the Wild feels less like a Zelda game and more like The Witcher, Metal Gear Solid V, Final Fantasy XV, and a lot of other current gen open world action games – only with the added essence of Zelda.

That is not a criticism; I think Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid V are two of the finest games of the generation. It’s just surprising to play a Zelda game that captures the spirit of a Zelda game without being a traditional Zelda game. I hope it’s the best game ever, and avoids feeling like an eighth gen also-ran. No expectations, only hopes.

What I can constructively talk about is what it feels like to play a Zelda game on Switch.

Visually, the game looks like a Wii U title, though the art direction in that game remains tremendous. It’s the first of several games I played that made me realize that games on Switch look about ~15% better than games on Wii U. If you’re in it for the graphic fidelity, you may be left disappointed.

However, the Switch screen is tremendous. Games look sharp and bright, and the handheld doesn’t feel too bulky or heavy. The back of the unit I played on did feel a little warm, but that’s it. It had also been played on for hour before I got there, so I can’t say how quick that happens. I’m excited to play that game on a handheld screen wherever I want.

The Joy-Con controllers are fine, though your mileage may vary. The guy in front of me said that Joy-Cons without the grip (AKA Wii Remote style) was his favorite way to play, while for me, I couldn’t deal with not having a more traditional controller. The grip feels okay, but the L and R buttons are too small and have too shallow a click. The rumble also failed to be very impressive on that game (though 1-2-Switch used the HD Rumble to great effect, so it’s not a console thing).

Controller issues aside (which may be lessened as I get more time with the controller), the Switch port of Zelda seems solid. And hey, it comes out really soon!

[Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.]

160

TalkBack / Pokemon Sun (3DS) Review

« on: November 15, 2016, 01:01:00 AM »

Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/43669/pokemon-sun-3ds-review

Pokémon Sun is surprising, weird, novel, different, and, most importantly, really, really good. I never thought I would say any of these things about the new Pokémon game, but here I am; Game Freak made a new way to play Pokémon.

That last one surprises me most of all. I was one of those Pokémon fans who really wasn’t all that fond of X and Y nor Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire in the grander scope of the Pokémon series. X and Y especially brought with them tremendously low difficulty, a poor story, a deadly combination of fewer creature designs and worse ones, and a region barren of secrets to uncover.

Sun and Moon does not fix all of these problems, unfortunately, but for what problems the game has, it makes up for with seemingly innumerable quality of life improvements and structural shakeups.

In fact, “life” is a word that describes this game pretty well. The liveliness of Alola, the region the game takes place in, was clearly a primary focus of this game’s development. Rather than being just one consistent landmass like previous games, Alola is made up of four main islands that each feel like miniature regions of their own. They each have their own unique personalities, cities, Pokémon habitats, cultures, and feels.

And compared to other regions, Alola feels less rigid and concrete. Routes are commonly sprinkled with things like Pokémon Centers and motels. You will find more instances of one Pokémon showing up across multiple connected routes - in the same way animals don’t exist in one rigid location. At the same time, there are almost no instances of Pokémon being stuffed into specific areas “just because.” Every Pokémon feels like it is where it should be.

This is made abundantly clear through the introduction of Alolan Pokémon, variants of old creatures made explicitly for the Alola region. Instead of regular Raichu, we have Alolan Raichu – a Psychic/Electric version of the famous Generation 1 Pokémon that rides on its tail like a surfboard because of changes in Pikachu’s diet (according to the Pokédex). Rattata became nocturnal as a means of protecting itself against new predators. It’s an awesome way to breathe new life into classic monsters, and makes Pokémon feel more like real wildlife this time around.

One more way Sun makes the world feel alive is through the ability to ride Pokémon, a returning feature from X and Y, except now you can ride select Pokémon whenever you want (rather than doing it in extremely specific circumstances). It is both your new way to travel faster (who needs a bike?), and, more importantly, it is a complete replacement for HMs in previous games. No longer do you need to keep a move slot on a flying Pokémon reserved for Fly so you can travel around. No longer do you need to teach something Rock Smash just for three caves in the first 20% of the game. Need to smash a small rock? Summon Tauros and ram through it!

They’re a blast to use, and eliminating the need for HMs allows for a new world in which you can have zero Flying-or Water-type Pokémon on your team and still be totally fine. It’s an improvement 20 years in the making.

Humans characters feel more alive in this game too. Sun and Moon have full, 360-degree rotational movement, and the dynamic camera shows off the humans’ full, proportional 3D models. If it weren’t for 3DS’s handheld visuals, this game would be indistinguishable from a modern console JRPG.

This is further enhanced by the story, which plays more like an involved JRPG story than at any time in the series’ past. There are cut scenes, expressive characters, and some surprisingly dark dialogue that would just feel out of place in any other series game. This all makes me lament the absence of voice acting, as characters look so good now that it feels jarring to have dialogue without even Zelda grunts to go along with it.

Gym battles have been fully replaced by Trials on each island, which are, for all intents and purposes, smaller gyms where there are no trainer battles to really speak of. You go to an area, fight various wild Pokémon, and go through a challenge which often has nothing to do with fighting monsters (like answering questions or going on a hunt for items).

At the end, you fight a Totem Pokémon, a super-powered Pokémon with beefed up stats. Think of it like a boss fight. Only after beating all of the Trials on an island do you fight the Kahuna, or big boss of an island, which is more like a gym leader battle from previous games. After that, you get a Z Crystal for whichever Type of Trial you beat. I love these to death. Playing Pokémon now feels more like one long adventure rather and an adventure segmented into so many different parts.

Z Crystals allow you to use Z-Moves, which are super moves you can use once per battle. Remember Mega Evolutions? Those are gone from the main story and replaced with this. There are Z-Moves for the various types, and beyond that, some Pokémon get their own Z-Moves unique to them. I love Mega Evolutions, so I’m disappointed to see them go, but Z-Moves are a solid mechanical replacement if that is indeed the direction Game Freak chooses to go with this.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems. For one, there is almost no 3D in the game outside of the small Pokémon Snap spin-off mode where you can take pictures of Pokémon in specific environments. It’s sorely missed because, in 2D, jaggies are everywhere, and outside of great art design, it’s not an amazing looking game. The game is also extremely easy, though I will say it is notably more challenging than both X/Y and OR/AS.

There are two much bigger problems. First, there are very few secrets off the beaten path I can find. It feels like Kalos in X and Y in its linearity. My second issue is that Game Freak made the (admirable) decision to treat old Pokémon the same way they treat new Pokémon, and go out of their way not to highlight new monsters in trainer battles and in the wild.

In other words, I see far more old Pokémon than new Pokémon during the game. For as new as this game feels, I see maybe five Pokémon per island that weren’t revealed through official trailers. I don’t know how many new Pokémon there are in this game, but my early hours tell me that there probably aren’t an absolute buttload. It’s a shame, because Alola has some of my favorite designs ever to grace this franchise.

If I listed every change in Pokémon Sun and Moon, this review would be twice the length. Long story short: these are the most ambitious sequels this franchise has ever seen. Are there problems? Of course. Am I pleased with the end result? Absolutely. Pokémon Sun and Moon are a refreshing rethought on what it means to play a Pokémon game.

[War and Jibanyan.]

161

TalkBack / Yo-Kai Watch 2: Bony Spirits (3DS) Review

« on: October 06, 2016, 01:56:18 AM »

War and Jibanyan.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/43527/yo-kai-watch-2-bony-spirits-3ds-review

Yo-kai Watch is not Pokémon. Yo-kai Watch never was or will be Pokémon. Level-5 is going for the exact same target audience as Pokémon, there are collectible creatures, and that’s it. Establishing this immediately feels necessary, as any expectations of this being just like Pokémon will be met with disappointment. It’s a different kind of game. However, if you can keep an open mind and look at this cross-mediafranchise- clearly-going-after-the-same-audience as its own video game, you can appreciate Yo-kai Watch 2: Bony Spirits for what it is: a fun, playable Saturday morning cartoon.

Yo-kai Watch is an adventure game with JRPG elements, rather than being a JRPG proper. You befriend creatures (I like to call them ‘not-ghosts’), referred to as Yo-kai, with your watch. Then, you fight other not-ghosts, befriend some of those not-ghosts, make your not-ghosts stronger, and repeat. But rather than taking you on a journey from town to town, most of the game is centered around three main hub areas: Springdale, Harrisville, and San Fantastico. In true Level-5 nature, Yo-kai Watch does a good job of packing a lot of content and a lot of nooks into what would otherwise be relatively small maps. It’s not big, but it’s dense.

It’s good the maps are small too, because a significant chunk of your time playing the game is spent on fetch quests. Bring this here, bring that there. In fact, for the most part, it’s fair to call this game a series of fetch quests packaged alongside a light RPG battle system, monster collecting, and a story about stopping an evil threat. It’s all super addictive in that grindy way all Level-5 RPGs are, and training video game monsters to fight other video game monsters is still a blast. In other words, it’s another Yo-kai Watch game.

But unlike the original Yo-kai Watch, which I played for all of one hour before giving up, the second game does all of this much better. The world you’re exploring is far bigger than the first game, and a time travel plot makes it so you can also see versions of some of these areas from 60 years in the past. The new Yo-kai designs are much better, and the battle system has more options now, feeling more active in the process.

Battling is done via teams of six on a rotating wheel, with three members fighting at the same time. You can trigger Soultimate moves, your ultimates, you can focus attacks on one enemy (or one part of an enemy in the case of large-scale boss battles), you can “purify” team members who have been inspirited and can no longer use certain abilities, and you can use items. The rest of the fighting is done automatically, giving you more of a passive role.

In 2, you now get access to M Skills that are powered-up moves that take soul meter from the monster using the attack and both monsters next to it. There’s another mechanic that acts as a more advanced targeting move. It’s surprisingly more active than it sounds; after a few hours with the game, you’ll start juggling more complex battles and you’ll be given some pretty tough adversaries. I liked the Yo-kai Watch battle system far more than I thought I would.  

The reason why I think it’s so much better here, despite so few changes, is the excellent tutorial phase the game introduces to you. In a clever move to ease in players starting their Yo-kai adventure on the second game, the protagonist gets amnesia and quickly goes through a lot of the early story beats of the first game, but in the context of the second game’s story. Things like the watch, Jibanyan, Whisper the ghost butler, and so on are explained quickly.

From then on, the game gently feeds the game mechanics to you, explains how the story and side quests work, and keeps the difficulty relatively low for the first few hours while you figure stuff out. The first game didn’t allow you to take your time getting to know it, dropping you into a tough minor boss fight an hour in, and I think that’s why I beat Bony Spirits and not the first game. It still gets pretty tough, but it does so gradually. And without giving spoilers, I’m happy to say that following the 20-hour story campaign, there is a very substantial post-game to look forward to as well.

I very much enjoyed the story in Bony Sprits, which surprises me because of how cheeseball the voice acting was in the first game and how cookie-cutter the plot appeared. The voice acting is still really cheesy, but because the story is more fun and engaging, it comes across as cheesy in that Kids’ WB Saturday morning cartoon kind of way. The characters and good vs. evil plot are generic, but a well-written comfy kind of generic that reminds you of the shows you might have been watching ten or fifteen years ago. The time travel plot, as well as the warring factions side plot, were both very well done, and more importantly, fun.

The presentation is tremendous. Tons of voice acting and music, smooth cel-shaded visuals that put the best models in Pokémon X and Y to shame, and a (mostly) stable frame rate. In some ways, these games feel like the technical peak of 3DS.

I had a lot of fun with Yo-kai Watch 2. If you can deal with fetch quests and a passive battle system that requires a bit of patience, Bony Spirits is a great sequel with a fun story that feels refreshingly nostalgic to experience. This is the game you wanted the first Yo-kai Watch to be.

[Oh, I get it. Because Jibanyan is a cat and Pikachu is a mouse.]

162

TalkBack / Yo-Kai Watch 2: Bony Spirits Is the Yo-kai Watch Sequel We All Needed

« on: September 28, 2016, 04:13:45 AM »

Oh, I get it. Because Jibanyan is a cat and Pikachu is a mouse.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/43489/yo-kai-watch-2-bony-spirits-is-the-yo-kai-watch-sequel-we-all-needed

Yo-kai Watch 2: Bony Spirits follows the original Yo-kai Watch, billed by those around us as Level-5’s attempt at making a Pokémon game. I bought the first game last year, and it sure wasn’t that. It was a little like Pokémon, but only if Pokémon had a shoddy tutorial, a confusing battle system, and awful creature designs. Five hours into a review copy of its sequel, I can already say that Yo-kai Watch 2 is a much better game.

The premise here is that you’re a kid with a watch who can communicate with ghosts (or Yo-kai), and only you and certain other people can see them. The Yo-kai cause mischief, and also battle you. If you beat them in battle, they may befriend you, and then you can enter battle against other Yo-kai with your team. The battle system, while allowing you to carry six Yo-kai into battle, is not Pokémon.

I’d compare it more to a vastly simplified Final Fantasy XIII, in which you do not control your creatures directly, but instead take more of a coaching role. You can decide what enemy your Yo-kai focuses on, whether to use items, or whether to use super powerful moves in battle. I recommend playing the demo here if you’re interested in learning more.

Also unlike Pokémon, you’re not going on a linear adventure across numerous towns and cities. In Bony Spirits, you’re exploring one very large town, completing both story and side quests. Yes, there are plenty of fetch quests, and yes, it follows Level-5 tradition of having small locations absolutely packed with stuff to do.  

In the last game, this battle system was poorly explained, and it sent you into a few challenging battles far too early. The worst part was an early boss fight that you weren’t prepared for. This time, despite being a sequel, the game eases you in with numerous gentle tutorials. I didn’t fight anything resembling a boss until around four hours in, and up until that point, the game has taken its time explaining the characters, world, gameplay, and Yo-kai itself to me. I can’t tell yet if the battle system is necessarily all that much better, but the game’s flow is already vastly superior to the first Yo-kai Watch.

If you were worried about the game being inaccessible to newcomers who heard this sequel was better, fear not. The protagonist gets amnesia at the beginning and several story points happen beat-for-beat from the first game. Don’t know who Jibanyan is? You will. Don’t know who that ghost butler is? You will. Don’t know how Yo-kai work? You will.

Other than that, I’ve just had way more fun with Bony Spirits than its predecessor. The world is much bigger, the story and characters are comfy in that Level-5 sort of way, the Yo-kai designs are way better (and there are way more this time – 450 compared to 250 last time), and I’m actually feeling more engaged with the battle system.  We’ll see how I feel when the review rolls around, but as of today, I like Yo-kai Watch 2. I like it a lot.

163

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo News Report: Super Mario Runs Onto iOS

« on: September 08, 2016, 03:35:43 PM »

Waiting for a couple stars to align. I can promise you: we are aware that it's basically becoming a necessity and how many people want it.

[Spirit of Dual Destinies.]

164

TalkBack / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS eShop) Review

« on: September 07, 2016, 08:00:00 PM »

Spirit of Dual Destinies.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/43394/phoenix-wright-ace-attorney-spirit-of-justice-3ds-eshop-review

The Ace Attorney series has some years in it now. Since the release of the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on GBA 15 years ago, the series has now seen 10 different entries in both its main and spin-off series. There’s been a live-action movie, a manga, an anime, and even drama CDs. For a series about a simple lawyer solving criminal cases, it would be fair to ask whether this adventure franchise still has legs in it.

In this latest game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, the sixth Ace Attorney entry has moments when it proudly answers “yes, Phoenix Wright still has places to go,” but not necessarily throughout.

Make no mistake – this game is the follow-up to 2013’s Dual Destinies. Everything you liked, and everything you hated, is still here. There are multiple protagonists – two this time, focusing on Phoenix and Apollo while leaving Athena to the helper role. And like Dual Destinies, the investigations and trials are still extraordinarily easy to get through, with the help of a checklist on investigations, and the option to try again immediately after getting a game over during trial sections (lives are still meaningless). Further, one of the best things in Dual Destinies, the story pacing, also gets carried over.

Unlike the GBA and DS games, where various trials are their own little mini-stories, Spirit of Justice continues the storytelling pace set by Dual Destinies, wherein every single case works towards a much larger, overarching story about justice. The story, which shifts between Phoenix Wright in the Khura'in Kingdom, and Apollo Justice back at home in the Wright Anything Agency, is overall even better than its predecessor.

This is especially true of the Phoenix Wright sections, finding him in a foreign country (where defense lawyers are despised) in the middle of a political revolution. Said political revolution makes for one of the strongest plot threads the series has ever had, and makes Spirit of Justice feel bigger than a series of murder cases. There are some exceptional revelations and twists the game takes, and some late game story beats go to awesome, if bizarre places. In other words, Spirit of Justice does what Dual Destinies does, only better. Also, the game triples down on Ace Attorney’s beloved/hated spiritual hocus pocus (and the fan service that comes out of said hocus pocus), so you have that to look forward to.

The issues Spirit of Justice carries are ones that this series is no stranger to. The game could use quite a bit of tightening up in the investigation department. Especially in this game, these adventure-game sections have a tendency to drag on about 20% longer than you want them to, and can occasionally get downright boring at times. It doesn’t sour the overall game much, but they still feel like the one element of the game standing between you and the best part – the trials – which are still as high-octane and engrossing as ever. A little tightening would go a long way here.

The mechanics are the other major problem in the game – there are just too many. In most other games, this would be a ridiculous criticism, but since the remake of the first game on DS, Ace Attorney has been adding a new gimmick mechanic or two in at least every main series game. There’s one where you use the 3DS microphone to conduct fingerprint analysis. There’s one where you use Apollo’s bracelet to identify physical tells to spot lies. Spirit of Justice brings a new mechanic of its own during trials, where new adversary Royal Priestess Rayfa can channel the final moments of a victim’s life by showing these moments from their perspective, and it’s up to you to show contradictions between what happened to the victim in these sequences and what the prosecution asserts was happening. It’s more of the same stuff this game has been doing forever.

Just about every gimmick mechanic from the series is brought into this new game, and while this should feel like it adds gameplay diversity, the shallowness of these mechanics, combined with the fact that these mechanics sometimes overcrowd the rest of it, just stand to make this otherwise deep game feel shallower as a result. Again, this doesn’t kill this otherwise solid Phoenix Wright entry. It just makes the whole package feel slightly cheaper.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice is the follow-up to Dual Destinies in every single sense. It’s ostensibly that game but with a new, better story, a new gimmicky mechanic, and some fan service to boot. The game is finally starting to show its age fifteen years and ten games later, but the fact that it has taken this long is nothing short of a miracle. And make no mistake: a solid Phoenix Wright game with a strong story is still a game that demands one’s attention.

[Generation M.]

165

TalkBack / Monster Hunter Generations (3DS) Review

« on: July 12, 2016, 09:53:21 AM »

Generation M.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/42998/monster-hunter-generations-3ds-review

Last year, Capcom put out Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, the best Monster Hunter game to be released thus far. In addition to the usual gameplay cycle of gathering resources, tracking, hunting, and crafting, the game overhauled the prolific series in multiple fundamental ways – namely the addition of vertical surfaces, mounting, a masterful tutorial, and a more substantial story component. Monster Hunter Generations, treated as a celebration of the entire series, observes these mechanical shifts and forgets some while pushing forward with others.

While the game features a whole lot of monsters and locations both new and old, Generations is, at its core, Monster Hunter 4. It looks like Monster Hunter 4, it sounds like Monster Hunter 4, and it plays like Monster Hunter 4. Monster Hunter 4 players can look at this as a new set of quests that will last them another 100-200 hours between both offline and the series’ staple online with friends. Capcom must have known this was a game for the Monster Hunter 4 player, as most of the Monster Hunter 4 maps and monsters are placed into the later parts of the game – a wise move.

What feels less wise, though, is the lack of any story mode similar to the one present in Monster Hunter 4. The story in Generations is paper thin, asking you to “research” monsters before sending you into the same quest loop from previous games with extremely minor differences (and this is being generous). Eventually, big special monsters show up and you’re going to be asked to hunt big special monsters.

Although the story wasn’t necessary Oscar-level in 4, it provided an excellent vehicle to dole out quests and ease players into the world as a supplement to the intuitive, respectful tutorial. This game still has such a tutorial, but the story has all but disappeared. Without such a story, Generations feels like a content pack for its predecessor, and this title becomes much easier to recommend to Monster Hunter 4 players than Monster Hunter newbies, who still have a perfectly viable option released just last year.

It doesn’t feel good to add such a qualifier to this recommendation because, fundamentally, Monster Hunter Generations is yet another enormous package. Hunting monsters still feels as exhilarating and challenging as ever, and new monsters – alongside a solid number of new variations on old monsters – give the game a bit more life than it would have if it was just a collection of old monsters and maps. But the celebration this touts itself as doesn’t go very far; you get to go to villages from previous games and fight some old monsters in slightly-updated old locations. Make no mistake – this is a good Monster Hunter game with a lot of great content, but it feels like a good Monster Hunter game way more than a beautiful trip down memory lane.

Generations allows you to play as Felynes in the game’s Prowler quests, which are the cats that act as the series’ mascot. This is a big step up from last year’s game where you send your cats off on quests, off-screen, in order to gather extra resources. Now, you can go on real quests playing as the cats who support you in battle, and thankfully, they play exactly like the support Felynes you bring with you. They aren’t an enormous part of the game, but it’s a new way to play a game that needs new ways to play.

Hunting Styles and Arts are the most significant addition to the title. Hunter Arts are super moves that change based on your Hunting Style and weapon of choice. Some of these moves allow players to escape conflict or heal their party, while others are ultra-powerful signature moves that can bring a Ludroth’s skull face-to-face with a glowing, spinning hammer. These damaging attacks are enormously satisfying, and encourage more close-combat ground play than Monster Hunter 4 did. In 4, the ease of mounting monsters made it often preferable to find a ledge and jump off onto a monster’s back until it stops getting up. Having intricate super moves that require specific timing and targeting on the ground forces players who want to maximize damage to keep their attacks more varied.

Another stellar addition comes in the form of the aforementioned Hunting Styles. While playing, you can pick one of four Styles at any time (and can switch out both Styles and Arts any time not on a mission). These are: Guild Style, which allows you to play this Monster Hunter like every Monster Hunter game you’ve played before; Aerial Style, which is for those who enjoy mounting and toppling monsters; Striker Style, for attackers and those who love to utilize Hunter Arts; and Adept Style, requiring split-second evade timing in order to gain enormous counterattack opportunity. They all work exactly as intended, and allow a greater form of combat personalization than this series has ever offered.

While not an enormous step forward nor the celebration of the past we were promised, Monster Hunter Generations pushes its franchise forward with a number of combat enhancements that change the way Monster Hunter is played. Moreover, it grants access to an enormous number of locations and monsters, making for the most content-diverse entry this series has ever seen. And if there’s anything a 12-year gaming legacy needs, it’s more content diversity.

[Monster Hunter FireRed.]

166

TalkBack / Monster Hunter Generations is Old Monster Hunter for a New Generation

« on: May 11, 2016, 07:18:57 AM »

Monster Hunter FireRed.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/42684/monster-hunter-generations-is-old-monster-hunter-for-a-new-generation

Monster Hunter Generations is the latest Monster Hunter game, and at the same time, it is a celebration of everything that came before. Coming to 3DS this summer, it’s a game that comes across as the Monster Hunter take on a Pokémon remake; it has representation from and pays homage to everything that came before while also maintaining awareness of how the series has evolved and how it can look into the future just a little more.

If you look at the new monsters and locations, you would think they could call this game Monster Hunter 5. It has just as many new monsters as 4 offered – just under 20 – and there are more monsters in this game than there have ever been in the past – 105 total. There are new mechanics and features, some being very significant (read about that below), and it feels like a whole new game. It is, but the focus of Generations is to pay tribute to fan favorite locations and monsters of the past while updating them for the present. For instance, the game adds new vertical sections to old hunting areas that were created before Monster Hunter 4 came out. But again, there is plenty new here.

There are three main additions to the Monster Hunter formula this time around –

Hunting Arts: For the first time, special moves, called Hunting Arts, have been introduced to Monster Hunter. By waiting for a meter to charge up over time on the 3DS bottom screen, you can now use flashy moves to add a bit of flair to hunting. Depending on Hunting Style (more on that in a second), you can get between one and three of these moves when you go out for the hunt. The effects generally consist of massive attacks or buffs to stats or health.

Hunting Styles: In addition to weapon class, you can now select one of four styles to hunt with when you go out to slay beasts. They affect how you play the game as well as how you use whatever weapon you’ve got equipped. Guild Style is more or less Monster Hunter exactly as you know it; Striker Style allows you to have three Hunting Arts equipped at one time; Aerial Style lets you focus more on combat in the air, using monsters as a platform to propel off of; lastly, Adept Style is for more advanced players to dodge enemy attacks and conduct counters.

Play as Felynes: For the first time, you can now play as the Monster Hunter cat companions/mascots, who were normally only AI partners.

Because it was in the Monster Hunter 4 engine, there isn’t much else to say about the gameplay as it’s probably 80% the same. The Hunting Arts were flashy as hell and very fun to use, but I’ll admit I got distracted when I kept waiting for the moves to recharge and I started getting my ass beat due to getting distracted. But that was my fault 100%, and it made me realize that there’s now just a bit more to keep track of on my hunts when the game releases in a few months time. That will assuredly prove to be a good thing.

[Hashtag Fire Emblem.]

167

TalkBack / Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is Nintendo’s Persona Game

« on: April 28, 2016, 09:30:00 AM »

Hashtag Fire Emblem.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/42615/tokyo-mirage-sessions-fe-is-nintendos-persona-game

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, the game originally known as Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, did not turn into the game we all probably thought it was going to be. Did you think it was going to be a Fire Emblem game with SMT characters? Or an Atlus RPG that features heavy collaboration between your favorite characters from each universe? Guess again. TMS #FE is an original title with an original story about Japanese idol music and some Fire Emblem characters thrown in for good (?) measure. In reality, it’s about 60% Persona 3/4, 30% Shin Megami Tensei, and 10% Fire Emblem.

The Persona

If you have played Persona 3 or Persona 4 (though you understandably might not have because they’re exclusively on non-Nintendo systems), the combat is Persona combat. You and your party of young adults fight monsters in simplistic, mostly procedurally generated dungeons (the same exact type you would see in Persona) and level up by fighting in battles against “Mirages” (think shadows from Persona) and exploiting their weaknesses. In order to fight them, you use your own Mirages (which are directly inspired by Fire Emblem characters like Chrom) to fight them.

Many of the moves are SMT moves (Zio makes a prominent return in the demo, if that tells you anything), and exploiting a weakness allows you to conduct follow-up attacks. There are small tweaks here and there (weaknesses are much easier to identify as is the turn order in combat), but this is straight-up Persona gameplay – no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The style, while original, reminds me most of the bright and colorful style of Persona 4. At least from what I could tell, the apocalyptic nature of Shin Megami Tensei is not fully represented here, but that's probably going to come at a later time.

The Shin Megami Tensei

Anything Persona is automatically SMT since the former is based on the latter, and in addition to that, the way you explore and move around the world is extremely reminiscent of SMT – specifically Shin Megami Tensei IV. Like IV, the world you traverse is a series of connected-yet-separate areas in a futuristic approximation of Tokyo. You move in and out of areas in the exact same way and you can access dungeons just as easily from this world as you could in IV. If the RPG part is Persona, the world design and real world elements are SMT.

The Fire Emblem

For a Fire Emblem crossover, it’s amazing how little Fire Emblem is represented. As far as I can tell, there are two key aspects of gameplay taken from Fire Emblem. The first is that your Mirages who fight with you Persona-style are based on Fire Emblem characters from Awakening and the very first Fire Emblem game from 1990. I say “based on” because the character writing and personalities don’t seem 100% intact. Chrom is represented as a much darker redesign of his Awakening form, for instance. The other key thing is the weapon triangle from every Fire Emblem games, where some weapon types would be stronger than others; that is represented in gameplay alongside SMT’s elemental weaknesses. There are other small things here and there, but that seems like the bulk of it.

I only got to play the PAX East demo for 10 minutes, so I didn’t get a total grasp of its quality. I had fun, and I see a lot of potential, but I certainly didn’t play enough to get a complete grasp of that fun or potential. That said, I’m looking forward to June 24. As a Persona fan, an SMT IV fan, and a Fire Emblem fan, this seems like a game for me.

[In which we write 1000 words of analysis about 20 seconds of video.]

168

TalkBack / 7 Questions and Observations About That Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon Trailer

« on: February 26, 2016, 05:24:00 AM »

In which we write 1000 words of analysis about 20 seconds of video.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/42018/7-questions-and-observations-about-that-pokemon-sun-and-pokemon-moon-trailer

Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon got announced officially today. Holiday 2016. 3DS family of systems (confirmed). Will it go to the NX handheld if that comes out this year? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. The whole thing was revealed during a Pokémon Direct this morning, that revealed the title of the games, a few images I hesitate to call screenshots, and a couple tidbits of information. It’s almost nothing, but it’s still something, and something is plenty for me to work with. Here’s what I’ve gathered:

1. It’s Generation VII

Before the games were officially announced, there was some argument over whether these would be all-new games (as in, the leap from Red/Blue to Gold/Silver and so on) – New region, new Pokémon, new art style – OR if these would fill the role of the so-called “third version” games, like Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, and Black 2/White 2. The names are new, but maybe this could have been a half-step. 30-50 new Pokémon, an expanded Kalos, and the ability to see Zygarde’s mythology to its conclusion. It would be different, and it would be cool. Well, on the official website, we more or less have our answer:

“As we celebrate 20 years since the launch of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green in Japan, the next era of Pokémon games is being announced! Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon are coming out for systems in the Nintendo 3DS family in holiday 2016, with a new world, new Pokémon, and new adventures to discover!”

Yeah, these are new games. If you want to ask why I still have doubts, that brings me right to my next point…

2. What does “it all comes together” mean?

During the Direct, leading up to the announcement, the line is said, “in 2016, it all comes together in an all-new adventure.” When they dropped this line, I was sure they were teasing this as the game where they try to put every single region together into one enormous game. Realistically, that’s not happening right now. The 3DS can barely handle one region, let alone six. What it more likely refers to is the fact that Pokémon Bank can bring your Pokémon from Red/Blue/Yellow on 3DS Virtual Console to Sun and Moon – the other big announcement from the Direct. However, saying “it all comes together” in reference to the idea of being able to move every single Pokémon across all games forward also doesn’t make sense, because Gold/Silver/Crystal are still incompatible.

So basically, either:

• It means nothing, and was just weird phrasing.
• It refers to the Pokémon Virtual Console re-releases coming out tomorrow and that’s literally it.
• It suggests Silver, Gold, and Crystal are coming to Virtual Console between now and the release of Sun and Moon.
• It refers to something else that we don’t realize yet.

It might mean nothing, but it was worth calling out.

3. Is that a new flying-type Pokémon?

During the Direct, a bunch of things popped up in quick succession. Not quite a trailer, but there’s some stuff we can pick up from it. In this moment, someone is working on the 3D model for a bird-like Pokémon. It looks a little bit like Fletchling at first glance, but the coloration, talons, and tail are completely different. So this is likely a brand-new Pokémon from the new game, and maybe even the Pidgey/Fletchling equivalent in the new games. The regional bird, as it were.

4. Vehicles, huh?

In another screenshot from the trailer, concept art for vehicles is shown – pickup trucks, ambulances, and what looks like some other utility or emergency vehicle.

The yellow truck looks like it has a Blastoise riding in a back car, and the top-left pickup truck shows a driver, a trainer in the passenger seat, and a bunch of Pokémon I can’t quite make out. You could say it’s nothing, but something tells me this shot wouldn’t be included if it meant absolutely nothing. The Pokémon brand knows how rabid its fans are, and they know knuckleheads like me would pick apart everything they gave us in the hopes of gaining little slivers of information. Now, it doesn’t necessarily confirm we can ride in or drive trucks, but chances are it suggests greater vehicle support than we’ve seen in the past.

5. The new Pokémon Centers look cool.

That’s all. The deluxe Centers from Black and White onward that feature the Pokémon Mart inside are clearly returning. The new Pokéball-centric design looks nice. That’s really all there is to say about it right now.

6. Is that a motel/apartment complex?

Another one of the screenshots. Between that and the palm trees, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were choosing some region of the world more sunny and tropical to base these games in. Very much a Miami vibe (okay, I’m stretching here, but let a guy use his imagination!). Maybe Central/South America? Also, notice the parked truck. Other screenshots/artwork (can’t tell which) look like X and Y-style interiors. The big building on the right could also be based on the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

7. Characters look taller and…are those sideburns?

Look at this whole screenshot right here. Look at it closely.

More tropical stuff, more references to automotive transportation, and a bunch of old Pokémon. I hesitate looking too deeply into it because this looks more like artwork and less like an actual screenshot, but two things popped out.

The first is that characters are a little leaner and taller than they were in X and Y, and I wonder if that’s a suggestion of how the new games are going to look. Maybe not. But maybe.

The second thing is that the male looks like a player character in the new games. He has that Pokémon male protagonist look (basically adorned in Red’s gear) going on, and he looks like he has full, proper sideburns. If both of those things are true, we could be dealing with our oldest protagonist yet. If not, this is going to come across as really silly in about six months (though honestly, it feels pretty silly talking about this now. Some of these observations are really reaching, aren’t they? Blame post-Direct excitement on my part).

That’s about it. Still wonder when we’re going to figure out what “flowers” meant. Oh well. See you this holiday.

[Gotta quest 'em all!]

169

TalkBack / Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS) Review

« on: December 02, 2015, 03:32:09 AM »

Gotta quest 'em all!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/41587/pokemon-super-mystery-dungeon-3ds-review

After 2013 brought a game featuring too few Pokémon, simplified mechanics, and an overall package widely seen as the weakest in the series, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is back with a vengeance. It’s called Super Mystery Dungeon, features over 700 Pokémon (all of those existing up through Hoopa), has a huge story, tons of dungeons, and tries to address every concern with the aforementioned Gates to Infinity. But, despite all that, and despite some really impressive gameplay enhancements, it somehow comes out as the inferior game.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is a Spike Chunsoft roguelike spin-off in which you play as a human transformed into a Pokémon, and, with a party of up to three Pokémon, have to find out why you became a Pokémon and progress through the narrative. You go in dungeons in that Shiren the Wanderer style, go through procedurally generated floors, and battle Pokémon using the Pokémon moves, stats, experience, and abilities you’re used to. If you’ve played one of these before, there’s not much you need to know other than the core gameplay beats.

The largest difference to that core gameplay comes in the Pokémon recruiting. In past games, should you defeat a Pokémon in battle, it may choose to join you as a team member in future battles that you can select from an ever-growing roster. In that way, it felt like you were “catching” them, and felt like a strong analog for one of the best parts of Pokémon. In this new game, you can no longer do that. Instead, you recruit Pokémon by doing quests for them.

If Mankey gives you a quest to get to a certain floor and rescue a Pokémon, and you do the quest, you get to use Mankey from now on. What’s more, you aren’t just getting level-appropriate Pokémon anymore. In the first five hours, I did a few easy quests and got a Salamence, Dragonite, Alakazam, and Tyranitar over level 50. 10 hours in, my Snivy and Riolu that I was given at the beginning of the game were still under level 20.

In that way, the pacing in the game is just bizarre. The game gives some harder dungeons in its four-hour tutorial section, allows you to start recruiting and using Pokémon significantly above your current level right after, becomes extremely easy as a result, and then throws some disproportionally hard story missions in your way sprinkled throughout the 20+ hour story. It’s not front-loaded or back-loaded difficulty. Unless you restrict yourself to playing with level-appropriate Pokémon recruits, there is absolutely zero sense of difficulty progression.

Beyond that, the story, which is usually one of the strongest characteristics in a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game, just doesn’t deliver. There are some of those staple, emotionally resonant moments later on in the plot, but the first 60% of the game, which involves you going to school and trying to join the Pokémon Expedition Society, has nothing to say and feels all too similar to what came before. You’re a human, you need to find out how and why you became a Pokémon, and there’s some antagonistic force. It’s just not as good as Gates to Infinity, which, despite its weaknesses, has much more personality to its characters and story.

It doesn’t feel good to say any of this either, because as a game, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is probably the most ambitious one in the series. Having representation of over 700 Pokémon is no small feat. The game brings back hunger entirely (a meter that decreases over time that has to be filled by eating food), one of the most noted omissions in the previous game. Super Mystery Dungeon also introduces both Mega Evolution and Awakening in a limited capacity (the latter of which being a power boost for Pokémon who can’t Mega Evolve), and brings Looplets into the fold, equipment that allow you to get various temporary power boosts by picking up and equipping certain items in dungeons.

The quests have also been streamlined in a positive way, allowing you to go into a menu, pick your quests on a large globe (fitting considering the massive number of dungeons in the game), and unlock other quests based on what quests you choose to beat. It’s the easiest game in the series to get into, and it’s the freshest this series has ever felt. And beating those super-hard dungeons later on does, in fact, feel just as good as it always has. It is Pokémon Mystery Dungeon after all, and the core is still good.

But still, the game’s flaws feel just as critical as the ones in Gates to Infinity – if not worse. Tying Pokémon recruitment to something that isn’t as satisfying as the original capture analog, and giving so many high-level ones early, breaks progression, devalues the Pokémon you do manage to get, and kills some of the urge to explore that earlier games offer in spades. The story is perhaps the weakest yet, and more than that, it takes too long to get into. And oh yeah, I need to say this again: the tutorial section is multiple hours long.

All of the pieces are in place for this to be the best Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game ever, and for plenty, it just might be. It’s ambitious, has a number of new mechanics, and tries to address the major criticisms of its predecessor while being as fun as ever. But when all of its parts come together, it feels weird and clumsy. It takes out one of the best parts of the series, doesn’t quite deliver on others, and compromises its difficulty progression. The best things about it are, for better or worse, the things it has been doing well since the Game Boy Advance.

[In which we discuss what it takes to win, what it means to win, and how your life changes after you win.]

170

TalkBack / Interview With a Pokemon World Champion: Toler Webb

« on: September 11, 2015, 06:30:12 AM »

In which we discuss what it takes to win, what it means to win, and how your life changes after you win.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/41120/interview-with-a-pokemon-world-champion-toler-webb

Toler Webb is a competitive Pokémon World Champion, winning the Seniors Division in 2012. Though he did not finish as a world finalist in 2015, Toler beat Raphael Bagara of Canada to take the US Nationals earlier this year. We spoke to Webb about what it means to be a Pokémon champion at the this year's Pokémon World Championships in Boston, Massachusetts.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): How would you explain competitive Pokémon to a more casual fan of Pokémon? Someone who understands typing, but has never been to that elite level.

Toler Webb (TW): If I was talking to someone who didn’t understand anything, I would describe this game like chess. I think I’ve gotten a lot of opportunities to do this kind of explanation but at the same time, it’s difficult to synthesize something that’s really accurate as to what competitive Pokémon actually is because it’s really unique as a competitive game. That's because you see a large amount of major decision-making turn by turn. So, essentially, I’d say compared to the regular game, you have to do more in terms of understanding your opponent’s play, and understanding the progression of the game and understanding what will happen after you make certain moves.

And it’s really just like a more complex version of the battling you do in the regular game. I think one of the big things that many people that haven’t played would notice would be the Double Battle format compared to singles [NOTE: Double Battles are the standard battling style for the 2015 Pokémon World Championships]. I always prefer doubles, but it is more complex and there are more possibilities.

So really, in terms of overall difference between playing against a computer and playing against a person, I think the big thing is in that sentence – that you’re playing against a human being, and that you have to learn how to play against a human being, and you have to be increasingly more critical of what you’re doing to improve the overall consistency of your strategy.

NWR: So you’re familiar with the Pokémon anime…

TW: I know what it is, yes.

NWR: You ever watch it when you were younger?

TW: Ah, a little bit. I actually prefer Digimon.

NWR:  I guess what I’m wondering is…the human-on-human interaction that competitive Pokémon actually is. Does it make it feel like you’re playing Pokémon in real life?

TW: It’s actually the furthest thing from that you can imagine, because there are certain things that are just completely different when you’re playing on a game cartridge on a DS. And if you’re standing across from someone with your Pokémon [in a real-life anime battle], one of the things you kind of think of is, well, there’s no way you could switch out a Pokémon and switch something in to take a hit if you were in a real life battle – there’s no way that would happen. But in the game, that’s streamlined so much that you can do that and you can take the hit and it takes the same hit the other Pokémon would have taken [referring to moves like Baton Pass]. It’s a lot less linear-looking than anime battling I guess, but it feels more like a mental competition and less [like the anime]. Here it feels like you and some kind of like, extension of your own thought.

NWR: So competitive Pokémon is casual Pokémon with the added level of…

TW: …mental complexity.

NWR: Like, regular Pokémon with the added gymnastics of chess.

TW: Yes.

NWR: Okay. I mean, just to make it clear, you are a video game player primarily?

TW: Right, yeah. The TCG has a whole different set of things that are more typical to trading card games because you have to function with card draws and things like that. I don’t know a lot about the competitive trading card game.

NWR: Is there a lot of overlap between the two or are there pretty much two camps?

TW: Almost completely different. There are very few players that play both. Because certain people prefer trading card games, certain people prefer this video game kind of thing. There have been a few players like Angel Miranda who have played both but I don’t think anyone in the Masters division, maybe one or two people, has qualified for the Worlds or something like that.

NWR: How do you get good at Pokémon?

TW: I’m gonna say, like with everything else: practice, practice, practice. Try to talk to other people to get an understanding of their understanding of the game so that you can start forming your own. Especially if you’re just starting, it’s like learning about the right moves you should make. It’s hard to do when you’re starting out. So it’s good to get ahold of people that are more experienced or people that can practice with you to analyze what you’re doing as well as you're analyzing what you’re doing so that you can determine more effectively what the best move would have been and in an actual competitive match, make that move.

NWR: How about you? Because you had to start down this route somewhere where you get to the point of practice, practice, practice. I mean, I’m not much older than you, but you’re 17; you’re relatively young. When did it start for you? When did it get to the point where you started that, “practice, practice, practice,” mentality and then how did that road continue to the point where you became a champion of the world in one of the largest video game franchises of all time?

TW: [Laughs] Short story here. I started out when I was 11 years old in 2009, so six years ago, and I lost to Fly Salamence and Explosion Metagross in a Junior Regional Championship in Philadelphia. So, I was very bad. I was disappointed in myself. And I came back to the Nationals Last Chance Qualifier and needed an invitation to participate in Nationals and lost, but played better that time, and played with the older players. I was in the Senior division which was the only older division at that time, there were two divisions. And after that, I found myself really wanting to do better because I felt like I could’ve done better.

I think knowing you can do better is one of the most important traits you, as a player, can keep improving. So in 2012, when someone said Regionals are three months away, I was like, “Three months? That’s not a long time away.” So I started practicing, and practicing, and practicing because I realized I really wanted to do well that year, and once I did, I actually got Top 4 at that regional championship, which gave me a stipend to go to Nationals – a little bit of money, and my mom said, “Okay, you can go.” So I was 14, I went to Nationals, and somehow I Top 4’d with pretty much the same team I ran at Virginia. So I practiced my heart out going into 2012 Worlds and somehow…I got it.

NWR: So what kind of work did that take for you? Specifically what kind of work behind the scenes to ensure you’re ready for that?

TW: Going into 2012 Worlds, I was trying to practice and think about the game, because this is a hard game to practice. That's because this is a hard game to practice when you don’t have a strategy in place to practice on. You have to pick out what you’re doing before you do anything so I was either working with people and building a strategy or practicing for…I think at the time I said 6-8 hours a day – just because I had nothing to do, it was summer.

I was doing that – that’s typically my routine going to a World Championship or a National Championship now. I think I kinda shirked that this year because I had other obligations for school that were in the summer months, but at least in 2013 and in the Nationals this year, I tried to return to that work ethic when I need it, especially for the serious competitions that are more meaningful.

Regional Championships are harder to prepare for as well as Premier Challenges because they’re more sparsed out and oftentimes you have several close to each other or you just have a regular schedule that gets in the way. Typically I do that 6-8 hours of work a day or thinking a day at least because you have to do some kind of theory, build some kind of understanding of the game to get a feel for how you should progress forward in it.

NWR: 6-8 hours is the type of time you think of more traditional, physical athletes doing for their competition. And this is very much e-sports in its own way. Do you consider yourself an athlete?

TW: I actually do run, so I kind of hope to consider myself an athlete! I don’t necessarily like to cross athlete with e-sports players, and I guess that’s to the chagrin of many e-sports players that want to be called e-sports athletes. And I think it is very much an accurate term when you think about the work ethic being put in because it’s crazy how hard people work to get good at mental games that are all in your head. But I don’t necessarily like referring to myself as an athlete because it doesn’t necessarily correspond with the physical exercise and the capability that athletes typically have.

While I do believe that many people that play games competitively should be keeping themselves in shape because that’s absolutely necessary to have a strong mind, at least in my mind, and have consistency in these tournaments where any emotional problem can lead to much larger problems, exercising and being in good shape can help you to be a lot stronger and more resilient. But I wouldn’t necessarily call myself, at least, an athlete.

I think maybe League of Legends players or something along those lines could be called athletes because they’re doing more consistent work more of the year, and they’re on these teams and it feels more legitimate, you know? I guess with Pokémon I’ve never taken myself that seriously I hope. Maybe I have. I don’t know.

NWR: When did you cross into that next realm? And go from you being a casual, to a kind-of competitor, to a very strong competitor, to someone competing for and eventually obtaining the World Championship? When did things change for you and you realize, “Oh wait, maybe it’s gotten to a level beyond what I could have anticipated?” Did you anticipate it early on?

TW: I didn’t think I would ever get to where I was once I was there, and once I was, I was in deep water before I knew how to swim.

NWR: So you just sort-of fell in!

TW: Yeah, I sort-of fell in! I figured out how to swim when I got there. But yeah, the level of competition is insane. These players all come out here because they really want to play the game. As I’ve discussed, the prize pool is not tremendous. What you’re really building is a bunch of friendships and your own capabilities as someone committed to their mentality and their ability to play the game, and I think once I got to that point, I understood what it was like to be that competitive. I learned a lot about myself, and I discovered what I was going to do in that situation. I guess it’s hard to quantify.

NWR: What did you learn about yourself?

TW: I’d say I learned that I was more…flustered at heart than I ever realized that I was. I learned new ways to deal with what would become this kind of frustration but I discovered it because of Pokemon, and I learned to deal with it in a way. Because I think this game can become more frustrating than any game you play. You sit down, you get [hit with] Thunder Wave, Critical Hit, Ice Beam, Frozen 3 times, and just, you don’t know what to do but you build a kind of resiliency and relaxation response to stress and I think I learned how to do that from this kind of thing. And I think I also learned a lot about logic but I don’t think I could ever explain that.

NWR: Eventually, in 2012, you did become champion of the world. How did your life change after becoming the world champion?

TW: Not significantly. I think a lot more people knew that I was a world champion. But it’s kind of a fallacy to assume that, you know, once you did win a world championship that your life suddenly becomes different in any way. I was still Toler Webb. I still had the regular progression of who I was and who I might become in the future. It was my famous line: “I’m still Toler!” in a 2013 interview. But I guess slightly, because people knew and some people from my school knew that I had done so well and they were really impressed, and I’m really grateful that anyone’s impressed by it. But, for the most part, it’s the same. I still just kept playing Pokémon because I wanted to.

NWR: What does it mean to be a champion?

TW: I think it means you achieved a goal you set out for yourself. I think a lot of people in video games, they talk about this idea of reaching goals just because you want to reach the goal. I think if you play a lot of role-playing games or something like that – if you beat the hardest mode, doesn’t really mean anything outside of the game. But it means something to you, and in a way, this was my ‘Lunatic Mode’ for Pokémon. I achieved something I never thought I could achieve, and when I finished, it was tremendously meaningful to me. That’s what it meant; at least as a champion, I could look back and say, “I did this,” I worked this hard, and it meant this much to me.

NWR: Then, interpret this however you want: What was the best day of your life?

TW: Not sure if it was Pokémon-related! [Laughs]

NWR: Really!

TW: If we’re just talking about Pokémon…

NWR: Interpret that however you want!

TW: If we’re just talking about Pokémon, I would say the day after I won the World Championships, in 2012.

NWR: The day after.

TW: The day after! I won, so I knew I was a winner, and then we went to – I don’t remember the name – waterfalls in Hawaii, and I looked at them and I just kind of got a chance to think while looking at waterfalls and it felt tremendously meaningful. I don’t know why, it’s really cheesy to say!

NWR: Like an epilogue to your victory!

TW: Like an epilogue! There was text scrolling across the screen: “You finally completed the mission!”

NWR: The credits!

Both: [Laughs]

TW: Yeah…I’d say then. That was a pretty good day.

NWR: What do you play to unwind from Pokémon?

TW: I play several games. I play Smash Bros., I play Smash 4. I play some Hearthstone. Sometimes I play League of Legends depending on the time of year. Really, just a lot of games. It is hard, actually, playing Pokémon for that long. I think sometimes I’m not very intelligent about it because I do wear my brain out more than I should by playing more difficult competitive games. I should probably play some easier games or watch some TV or something – let my brain relax a little bit. Because it’s like lifting too many weights – your muscles get tired.

NWR: How long does it take to get a Pokémon ready for the caliber of competition?

TW: Not much.

NWR: Really? You got it down to a science?

TW: Yeah. Pokémon players have got it down to a science. You get this stuff done in an hour, hour and a half.

NWR: Each Pokémon you can knock out in about in hour?

TW: No no no, a team. A whole team.

NWR: Do you have any of the stuff already in place?

TW: A lot of things, usually. But at the beginning of the season it’s the hardest because you have to start a lot of things from scratch. If you’re breeding the whole team and you don’t already have Pokémon for it, it can probably take four or five hours.

NWR: Four or five hours to build an entire team from scratch?

TW: With breeding, and with your friends to help you. Because, a lot of times, friends won’t be busy and they can do a lot of things for you. But, it’s possible to get done a lot more quickly depending on how many things you’ve already got done.

NWR: It’s done as a team?

TW: Mhm. That’s why it’s really important to have friends in this game. People to talk with, people to analyze your play, and then people to make your teams for you! [Laughs].

NWR: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be like you and wanted to make competitive Pokémon a serious part of their life?

TW: I think there are a few things I would say. First thing I would say is you have to want to play this game. You have to legitimately want to. You don’t have to like it, but you have to want to play the game. I remember someone say in 2011, “You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to love to do it,” and I think that’s been tremendously meaningful to me. Whatever you do, you’ve got to do it because you want to do it – not because you like it. Whether or not it feels good, you’ve got to do it because it you want to. And the other thing I would say, is not to expect any kind of result too quickly.

The crazy thing – even though this game looks really simple, there’s a lot of different variables that can go into it and there’s a lot of experience you need to build and a lot of practice you need to do before you can hope to participate in the World Championships. And like, in that story I told, it took me three years to participate in my first world championship. There are, of course, players who come their first year, and they typically have a lot of friends or they’re just naturally talented, I guess. But you have to be patient with yourself…all the time.

You have to be patient all the time to allow yourself to have the strength, the resiliency, and the peace with yourself to build a good team and play well the whole day.

NWR: Last question. This is more my curiosity as an individual: what are your hour counts in the 3DS Pokémon games?

TW: Okay, because of how long it takes to build a team, which isn’t very long because I have so many friends to help out thankfully because of my long time in the community, in ORAS I have like 150 hours. So not really that many. I know in one of the DS games I had 999 hours. Really, when you play so much competitive Pokémon, it’s hard to sit down and play the regular game and be happy with the fact that you’re doing that, so personally, I don’t play a lot on the cart. I do really like to finish the story mode and enjoy the games. And then I finish enjoying them [Laughs].

171

TalkBack / Re: My First Pokemon World Championships

« on: September 06, 2015, 04:23:46 PM »

If you like Pokémon but aren’t that insanely serious about it competitively, I probably wouldn’t recommend traveling more than an hour or two driving to get there.

I disagree. It's definitely more difficult, but I think you can still have a good time without being there for the competitive aspect. If you can strike out and just socialize with people about the franchise, you can occupy yourself. Of course, it helps if you're not only covering the event for a website, but also endlessly fascinated with people's stories like me.

1-2 hours of driving sounds like the appropriate amount of worthwhile travel for that, no?[/quote]

[Alex recounts what he did during this global, cultural, Boston event.]

172

TalkBack / My First Pokemon World Championships

« on: September 04, 2015, 06:52:03 AM »

Alex recounts what he did during this global, cultural, Boston event.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/41077/my-first-pokemon-world-championships

This year, I went to the 2015 Pokémon World Championships. That kind of sounds like a boring way to start this off, but that simple statement still leaves me in a bit of disbelief. It’s not every day that the World Championships for one of your favorite video games ever shows up 20 minutes by subway from your apartment, and to be frank, I didn’t realize that the event was in Boston until about a month ago.

More than that, by the time we straightened out press access and my final plans to be there, I had no idea what to expect nor any idea as to how we would cover it. The fact that I was there was so unexpected in itself, and all we had to go off of that there would be announcements was a fan hunch.  So, my game plan? Have a good time, talk to people, and pay attention.

[When cute anime girls just aren't enough.]

173

TalkBack / Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX (3DS) Review

« on: September 04, 2015, 05:00:09 AM »

When cute anime girls just aren't enough.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/41101/hatsune-miku-project-mirai-dx-3ds-review

For the uninitiated, Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is a mostly-straightforward rhythm game involving button presses and cute anime girls. For the initiated, it’s the third Western-released game in a series of very good, mostly-straightforward rhythm games involving button presses and cute anime girls. While Mirai DX is just like the two Project Diva games released before on Vita and PS3 in most ways, it manages to do this just a little different – and just a little worse.

Hatsune Miku games, in general, are rhythm games with simple controls. While controlling the game with buttons, you press the correct face button or direction on the D-Pad at the right time (in ways reminiscent of Dance Dance Revolution). Sometimes you hold a button, sometimes you press both the D-Pad and a face button simultaneously, and sometimes you don’t. On the 3DS game, there’s a secondary control method. You do the same thing using the touch screen. You press the right colored part of the touch screen at the right time using DDR-style prompts, and sometimes you hold, sometimes you swipe, and sometimes you spin. The two styles have slightly different timing naturally, but they both work perfectly fine.

In Mirai, the rhythm game is played across Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties. You are ranked using letter grades from failure up to S+, and you can use items to make songs harder and easier. In my recent preview of the game, I said the following regarding the difficulty:

“The game nails all of this basic stuff perfectly, but it doesn’t fully nail it for one simple reason: the difficulty ceiling is a little too low. It’s worth noting there is no Extreme difficulty like in the PS3/Vita games, and the Hard difficulty in this game is just as relatively-but-not-too-cripplingly hard as the Hard difficulty in the other Miku games I’ve played. It’s a minor issue for most – maybe even a non-issue – but its lack of presence is missed.”

After publishing the preview, we were told by the game’s producer that Mirai is different from the Project Diva games in that the Diva games encourage you to simply finish a song, while the Mirai games are about encouraging total mastery of a given song and completing it perfectly and flawlessly – and that’s why the base difficulty is slightly lower presumably. I don’t feel they did a great job of making it clear in the game itself that this is the main point; I don’t feel most players are going to play it this way who don’t already do so in the Diva games, and having this information did not impact the enjoyment I got out of the game.

The soundtrack of Mirai DX features 48 songs that span various different flavors of J-Pop. Some favorites like Melancholic and The World is Mine are featured, but the song list is rather weak. I played and loved the music in Project Diva f and f 2nd, and in this game, there are only 5-10 memorable songs in the whole lineup (and note that this game has far more songs in it than the Diva titles). None of the songs are bad, but an enormous chunk of them are forgettable and boring. Many of the song structures are so similar they bleed together, and the catchiness in most of the songs doesn’t make up for the fact that many of the tunes are just a slog to get through.

It’s weird to be critical of the gameplay in Mirai DX because a poor Miku game is still a pretty decent rhythm game. Having 5-10 great songs is not so bad, especially since the rhythm game is still as tight and fun as its ever been, and also especially since its difficulty balance is also pretty good if only not as good as previous games in the series. Unfortunately, the problems don’t stop here.

One characteristic all Hatsune Miku games share is that they feature anime teenagers being cute and having fun together via happy, odd music videos that play during songs. Whether you’re into that or not, I always enjoy the presentation of Miku games because they always give me a nice warm feeling. Project Mirai DX changes the art style of the game from realistically proportioned anime characters (in Diva) to a chibi style, and I would argue for the worse.

The chibi Miku characters lose a lot of their personality and replace it for a general robotic cuteness. While this may come down to taste, I just don’t think the chibi art style looks as good as its realistic counterparts. Even worse, the music videos in previous games are (mostly – there are still some left) replaced by Hatsune Miku characters doing basic dance moves over static backgrounds.

Perhaps the largest differentiator between Mirai and other Hatsune Miku games are the extra modes in the game. While other Miku titles push the side content to the side where it usually belongs, Mirai fully incorporates its extra content into the fore. The main menu is a Tamodachi Life-lite game where you pick a Miku character, pick out clothing, give him or her an apartment, decorate it (by buying things via earned in-game currency), and interact with them.

There are some Nintendogs style voice commands like “What time is it?” and “dance,” and you can feed them or do things like watch them interact with objects you placed in their room. You can also have a different room for each character, but they’re so functionally similar that it doesn’t make an enormous difference. Overall, though limited, it’s an interesting way to do a UI and it does successfully break up the song gameplay.

As for other modes, there is Puyo Puyo 39 (a basic version of Puyo Puyo), an extremely slow version of Reversi (called Mikuversi), a basic AR Mode reminiscent of the various AR modes seen around the 3DS and Vita launches (look, it’s Miku dancing in real life!), a custom dance creator where you can decide which dance moves a character uses at what time during a song (it didn’t do much for me), a stamp mode that tracks game achievements, profile cards to share with other players and friends, and the ability to post comments over the music videos in theater mode. There are two or three other small features like an alarm clock, but these are the most substantial ones. All of these features are relatively shallow on their own, but put together at least offer a number of nice, temporary alternatives to song gameplay.

Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is not remotely a bad game. It’s pretty decent, and acts as an overall solid choice for any rhythm game player. Unfortunately, while perfectly serviceable, it’s not nearly as good as the other Western-released series games in any way – other than minor non-rhythm game side content. This means that, should you be a Miku newcomer, you will likely enjoy the game more than I did. However, if you're like me, and you know how good a Hatsune Miku game can be, anything less is a substantial letdown.

[Where we talk about what it's like to market Pokemon, Pokken Tournament, and the future of the series.]

174

TalkBack / Interview With J.C. Smith, Director of Consumer Marketing for The Pokemon Company International

« on: August 31, 2015, 09:04:00 AM »

Where we talk about what it's like to market Pokemon, Pokken Tournament, and the future of the series.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/41072/interview-with-jc-smith-director-of-consumer-marketing-for-the-pokemon-company-international

J.C. Smith is the Director of Consumer Marketing for the Pokémon Company International. In addition to being a marketing head for the Pokémon brand, he helped organize the 2015 Pokémon World Championships, where we talked to him about his past, marketing the Pokémon brand, and the future of the series.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): How do you get into marketing Pokémon?

J.C. Smith (JS): Interesting story, I started about 15 years ago. I was working on a campaign for the attorney general of Washington and at one of the fundraisers my future boss said, “Hey do you wanna come work at Nintendo?” and I said “Are you serious?” and she was looking for someone with PR and government affairs background so fifteen years later, I’ve changed companies but still get to talk about fun stuff all day long. It’s awesome.

NWR: So you made a natural transition from Nintendo to the slightly-but-not-entirely disconnected Pokémon Company.

JS: It’s not totally disconnected. It is a very different – I mean we’re a very small company. Nintendo is not a huge company but much bigger than us, and our focus is one brand and one brand only. Basically, we take the creators vision; they want to bring people together. We want to make sure they’re having fun so we create events. This is one of them. Helps people communicate, but also helps people share their love of Pokémon, and we want to continue doing that for them.

NWR: And I guess that, since Pokémon, especially in the last few years, has become a very worldwide effort, you must be in a lot of contact with every region of Pokémon development at any given time.

JS: Basically, yeah. I don’t talk to them directly myself a lot, but there are a lot of people at our office that are. We want to make sure that the marketing we’re creating is getting across the key points that they think are important, and we want to make sure that we’re representing the characters or the game mechanic in a way that is true to the way they intended. So, that is a very important role. When you’re dealing with people that have poured their life into creating something great, we want to make sure we’re explaining it properly. That’s not tough, thankfully, because Pokémon, it’s a great group of people that are involved and they’re very communicative about it. So we have a lot of fun with it.

NWR: What’s it like organizing a worldwide marketing effort in collaboration with multiple territories, whether it be for X and Y or even something like yesterday morning – organizing Pokkén Tournament for worldwide?

JS: There’s not much to it if you have a great visual – a great product to show off. Something like Pokkén Tournament, it just looks great. They did a great job building a game that speaks for itself. I don’t have to say a whole lot. Our press release is what, two paragraphs long because everything is said by what you’re seeing on screen. So, in that sense, my job is very easy. We have to coordinate a few things here and there, but, in the end, they keep giving us good stuff to talk about – it makes our jobs very easy.

NWR: So you work under Japan to localize the message for a Western audience?

JS: Yeah. Well, it’s not completely the same. We have a very different philosophy to marketing in some ways. But they stream, we stream. They do media outreach, we do media outreach. We do ads, they do ads. But how we express it is different to each group. Sometimes our ads are the same in Japan as they are here. But, most of the time they’re not. We just choose what we think is best to represent the brand and go with that, so it’s fun. It allows for a lot of creativity and allows for a lot of unique stuff to get created.

NWR: And let me ask then, a brand like Pokémon, that is like Disney and like Nintendo in a lot of ways, and you have to market something to most age groups if not every single one, is that more challenging or less challenging than marketing to one specific one?

JS: I think the beauty of the fact that Pokémon is loved by so many age groups, we only have to talk about Pokémon. They’ll interpret it however they want. You can talk about how great a character is, and a kid will take something different than a competitive player, that will take something different than a player from someone in a different country. It’s all just, “Hey this is a great character, this is the moves it has,” and everyone does something with it so it’s not that challenging in that way. I would love to say we have this whole secret recipe but really we have this great product, and Pokémon has been around almost 20 years so a lot of people know about it. And we just have to keep introducing kids to the fact that there’s some cool stuff you can do. There’s apps, there’s video games, there’s a trading card game, and animation so go and have fun. And they do.

NWR: So you put out the Pokémon stuff, you let it speak for itself, and the audience does some of the work for you in that way.

JS: Yeah, a lot of the time. You work with a group of creators – you work with a group of people that are passionate about stuff that happens at Nintendo, right? So, we have people passionate about everything Pokémon. They have fans, we have fan sites, we have websites, we have reporters, we have all kinds of people that just love Pokémon and want to learn everything about it. And everyone does that work for us, really, because, if it’s done well, then it goes far and wide and everyone’s happy. Thankfully, there’s few instances of, knock wood, things that are, uh, you know, quality concerns or anything like that. We just get to say, “Hey, look how great this is! Have fun!” and people go and enjoy it.

NWR: And I guess Pokémon has grown to the scale that you can have a Pokémon World Championship in a different city every single year.

JS: Yeah. The size is challenging because there aren’t a lot of places that have space this big…no, that’s not true. It’s just that we want to make sure it’s a fun event for everyone and it’s a great vacation for all the families that are coming from around the world to play in this event. 38 countries is a lot of people getting exposed to how great Boston is this weekend.

NWR: And how many of these have you been to so far?

JS: This is my seventh.

NWR: What vibe do you get from this World Championship compared to others?

JS: You know, they’re all very similar in that sense. This one’s a little bigger. Meaning, there’s more players, there’s more streaming, so there’s a lot more strategy focus. There’s a lot more overt talking of strategy because we have the casters talking. But, you know, we had an event in Hawaii several years ago. It’s more intimate. Not as many people make the trip out there just to hang out and watch, let alone play. So, this feels big. It’s a metropolitan area with a ton of surrounding cities that have a ton of Pokémon fans that are coming down just to see what’s going on this weekend. So yeah, it’s been fun. Lot of energy in the room – it’s been very positive.

NWR: Let me ask you then: since you’ve been engrossed in Pokémon for so long, what is your favorite thing about Pokémon?

JS: The community, hands down. It’s a great group of people. Really fun group of people. They come to this event, it’s the World Championships, and people are still smiling and laughing. Stress doesn’t take over. It doesn’t make them into something they aren’t. They’re having fun, they’re just playing a game they love, and I think that’s awesome. And then they take this back and they’re doing this year round. I see it at Worlds and Nationals. I don’t see it in Iowa, I don’t see it in New York, because I don’t live there, but you know it’s happening there too because we wouldn’t have this same vibe everywhere we go if we didn’t. It’s very cool.

NWR: Moving a little towards the franchise, I’m thinking a lot about Pokkén Tournament and the hype behind its reveal yesterday. What kind of plans do you have for Pokkén Tournament?

JS: So Pokken Tournament…plans will be revealed later. But obviously it’s coming to the Wii U so there will be all kinds of opportunities for people around the world to play, compete, do whatever. We’re not announcing anything of note at this point though.

NWR: So no word on any content stuff, like will the game be bigger?

JS: Not yet!

NWR: I did see something during the demo yesterday that was about how more Pokémon will be revealed soon…

JS: Mhm. You got to see the reveal of Pikachu Libre yesterday, so that was a new one for the Japanese audience.

NWR: So it sounds like more are going to follow suit…

JS: Maybe!

NWR: Maybe.

JS: More to come. Always more news to come.

NWR: Is it a little different having to work with Namco Bandai to organize something worldwide like this too?

JS: Not really. They’re awesome. They created a great game. The game, obviously people need to learn to control it so we had to learn how to translate the control board that shows all the moves for each of the characters, but probably the toughest part was shipping. You know, at the end of it, because you got to get them [the arcade units] over here from Japan. So they got them over here, we got them set up and everything’s been smooth. I’m really excited that they allowed us to have as many as we did, because I think the fans are really enjoying it.

NWR: How long has that been in the making? Moving this to America. Has plans been for Wii U and North America from the beginning or is that something that developed recently?

JS: I don’t know…I’m not privy to that. I was told to announce it, I’ll tell you that much. We knew the game was coming down, we knew the arcade machines were going to be out in Japan so we said, “can we have some for worlds?” It’s been months to get the arcade machines down. The announcement and the details of that we’ve been working out more recently. But it’s fun to be able to use this venue to do that because it’s such a great group of people to learn about something as big as Pokkén Tournament and go back and tell their world about it really.

NWR: So the whole Dave & Busters thing…

JS: Mhm.

NWR: …How that’s moving towards arcades presumably next year, we’ll see how that goes. Was that organized by The Pokémon Company International also?

JS: It was not actually. In fact, I haven’t been involved in that, but I’ve been told that the arcade machine is not coming to the U.S., so I don’t know exactly what the plan is. But that was a long while ago, so who knows what may have changed. You know, you can’t stop someone from buying an arcade system so who knows what’s down the road.

NWR: So last you heard, there were no plans.

JS: Yeah, I haven’t been working closely on the arcade side at all because, really, I never worked on the arcade side but we’ll see. I think that would probably be handled by Bandai Namco. But I’d have to follow-up with you on that.

NWR: So, Pokemon has a very important birthday next year…

JS: Mhm. Yes we do…

NWR: 20 years. February 27th, 2016. What kind of plans you got, other than Pokken Tournament?

JS: [Laughs] Wish I could tell you but I can’t!

NWR: Are there big plans for it?

JS: There’s always big plans for it. And obviously, you’re seeing some big product stuff for it that’s been announced that’s exciting for the year and we always want to keep fans on their toes, but nothing I can reveal at this time.

NWR: Are we going to hear more soon? I know CoroCoro is talking about some stuff that’s going to get revealed soon. Maybe involving a green blob…

JS: [Laughs] CoroCoro – I love ‘em! Maybe…

NWR: Might hear something in three weeks?

JS: We’ll keep you on your toes!

NWR: Might see one of those minute-long trailers with the green blob and a new Zygarde form?

JS: [Laughs] You ask good questions. Nothing I can say.

NWR: So nothing on Pokémon XZ, YZ, X2, Y2?

JS: [Laughs] Nothing I can say at this time.

NWR: Because, it would be real nice if something came out next February!

JS: I appreciate your enthusiasm and you ask a lot of good questions but nothing I can reveal at this time.

NWR: All right. Just so I can throw these questions at you, I think a lot about Pokémon on Virtual Console, something that has not happened yet…

JS: Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Trading Card Game…

NWR: The RPGs!

JS: [Laughs]

NWR: I obviously know if there are plans you cannot tell me about them, but can you tell me what’s held them back so far?

JS: I cannot because I do not know if it has been held back. They may have just made a decision not to. But yeah, I haven’t discussed that at all.

NWR: Will Pokkén Tournament be…is that your main plan for the early part of the 2016 anniversary?

JS: No.

NWR: Okay, so it is not your main plan for the early part.

JS: I’m splitting hairs. No, there’s lots of stuff planned for the 2016 year but nothing I can talk about now.

NWR: Okay, okay! Then, what can you say about the future of Pokémon?

JS: I can say that the creators are continuing to come up with awesome ideas and will continue to come up with awesome ideas to put in video games, the trading card game – you see an arcade machine downstairs. So, there’s a lot of cool stuff in store.

NWR: And last but not least, can you just throw a cryptic word out there? Just anything. Something will get me to scratch my head. That, like, in eight months I’ll go, “That’s what he was talking about!”

JS: [Pause]

“Flowers”

[Sort-of.]

175

TalkBack / Pokemon Marketing Director Responds to Questions About Pokemon’s 20th Anniversary Plans and Pokemon Z

« on: August 27, 2015, 10:44:00 AM »

Sort-of.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/41052/pokemon-marketing-director-responds-to-questions-about-pokemons-20th-anniversary-plans-and-pokemon-z

The Pokémon Company International’s Director of Consumer Marketing, J.C. Smith, responded to questions regarding Pokémon’s 20th anniversary next year as well as recent Zygarde/Pokémon Z speculation in an interview with us at the 2015 Pokémon World Championships in Boston last weekend.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): So, Pokémon has a very important birthday next year…

J.C. Smith (JS): Mhm. Yes we do…

NWR: 20 years. February 27th, 2016. What kind of plans you got, other than Pokkén Tournament?

JS: [Laughs] Wish I could tell you but I can’t!

NWR: Are there big plans for it?

JS: There’s always big plans for it. And obviously, you’re seeing some big product stuff for it that’s been announced that’s exciting for the year and we always want to keep fans on their toes, but nothing I can reveal at this time.

NWR: Are we going to hear more soon? I know CoroCoro is talking about some stuff that’s going to get revealed soon. Maybe involving a green blob…

JS: [Laughs] CoroCoro – I love ‘em!

Maybe…

NWR: Might hear something in three weeks?

JS: We’ll keep you on your toes!

NWR: Might see one of those minute-long trailers with the green blob and a new Zygarde form?

JS: [Laughs] You ask good questions. Nothing I can say.

NWR: So nothing on Pokémon XZ, YZ, X2, Y2?

JS:[Laughs] Nothing I can say at this time.

NWR: Because, it would be real nice if something came out next February!

JS: I appreciate your enthusiasm and you ask a lot of good questions but nothing I can reveal at this time.

While we didn’t learn much from this line of questioning, it’s worth noting the “maybe” after bringing up the recent CoroCoro tease. Additionally, while there were a lot of “nothing I can say” responses, one of them, “we’ll keep you on your toes,” might not have been a a full non-answer.

Is something coming soon? Are we reading too much into this? Let us know what you think in the comments, and look out for the full interview on Monday.