Topic: Episode 565: High Stakes Wiiware Gamble

[NWR_Lindy]

Target Toss Pro: Bags vs Physio Fun: Pelvic Floor Training in the battle of region exclusives with terrible titles.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/46873/episode-565-high-stakes-wiiware-gamble

The Latest 3DS JRPG Hurricane continues into New Business this week, with Guillaume's impressions of The Alliance of Alive. If you didn't pick up on his hints last week, he's tepid on the game. He then takes a look at The End is Nigh, the latest game from the creator of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Issac. Jon and James have taken to a life of Piracy, with Rare's Sea of Thieves. With Syrenne rounding out the motley crew, their failures are predictable. James has another review game, Atelier Lydie & Suellel - a game he isn't even sure how to pronounce. It's a soaring tower of anime tropes, but the core hook of harvest materials and craft items is addictive. Greg concludes New Business with a quick look at what's in the package for Axiom Verge: Multiverse Edition.

After the break, we take on two emails. First, we look at what it would take to retire our Wii U consoles. Then, we give thoughts on what we want the Switch Pokemon game to be. You can ask us to make our wishes reality via our inbox.

[lolmonade]

Maybe not a complete culling to the original 150, but I DO wish they'd maybe pare-down the total count of find-able Pokemon.  The 7 or 800 they have now is just impenetrable to someone like me, and frankly, a lot of Pokemon look like hot garbage or extremely iterative.

[KDR_11k]

If Atelier is relaxed I guess they dropped that time limit stuff? The ones I played (PS3 era) had strict time limits that meant you couldn't goof around or just try things, you had to focus on getting specific objectives done.

[Lemonade]

I was the one who tweeted the  Guillaume Le Terrible screenshot. It was very amusing when I found that in the game.
https://twitter.com/adeeelnv/status/979363788594995202

[ClexYoshi]

supplementary material to the podcast inasmuch that it's pretty much how our illustrious host chose to spend his evening shortly before the podcast. Well, him and GX.

I will continue to say I HATE games that have the "here's random stats for random actions with more random garbage!" sort of RPGs birthed by Final Fantasy 2 and the works of Akitoshi Kawazu. there's a certain JRPG for the 3DO that I played this week that I would rather do a full playthrough of than even give Alliance Alive a try given the way that it has been described here.

Kickstarter backer rewards have been a large part of me not putting my Wii U away, as I am still getitng Half-Genie Hero stuff and the like. it's also just very convenient for me to capture off of in comparison to having to bust out my Wii's component cables and the Component cable adapter for my mostly HDMI-operating Capture device, given that the new TV I just got has no Component or S-Video input (but strangely enough still has composite. O_o; ;)




Please, do not talk to me about Pokegenics. I am someone who IV Breeds, casting thousands of baby Ralts into the spartan pit that is Wonder Trade in vein hopes that one day I might breed the perfect waifu pokemon. (In all seriousness, I don't really like Gardevior, but it makes this joke funnier)

I agree that a purge of sorts does need to happen, but on the level of a mechanical purge. some very unhealthy mechanics have come to the game in the form of Mega Evolution, and to a lesser extent, Z-moves. The beauty of Pokemon on the competitive level is that it boils down a lot of the moment to moment decision making of let's say... a fighting game, and makes it a turn based and analytical affair. I've always been of the opinion that the finest additions to pokemon have been the ones that stimulate this mechanical complexity (Abilities from Generation 3, The Physical/Special categorization that came as of Generation 4.), and I feel like you could draw out a whole new dimension of complexity with an integeral formula change that some of the pokemon spin-off games have had in some janky form or another...

POSITIONING! I don't care if it's via a 3x6 grid that each trainer controls 9 squares (Megaman battle network), proper battlefields with terrain bonuses and such, or simply introducing Quest 64/Phantom Brave style movement radius. Giving pokemon movement stats and attacks ranges/Area of effect would add that little extra bit of oomph. maybe positioning your pokemon closer to the trainer gives buffs or being farther makes switching and item use lose it's normal properties of turn priority?

This would also allow them to remove some of the RNG that plagues these games, instead making hit and whiffed attacks a matter of if your opponent successfully commanded their pokemon to evade the attack radius rather than the matter of rolling digital dice for riskier moves like Focus Blast or such.

[Crimm]

Atelier games have dropped the time limits. In a way this feels a loss. Makes it more aimless.

Some minor randomly generated quests are limited time, but they're literally just to grind out money. Missing them is workout punishment.

[TheBigK]

The Pokémon discussion was interesting. See, I AM a Pokémaniac, but I don't play the games for the story or the environment. I play for competitive and ever since XY, Game Freak has been making it super easy to breed competitive teams, something for which I am eternally grateful. I'm even breeding shinies with perfect IVs, **** is dope. What I would like in the next games is to be able to purchase special competitive hold items with normal currency rather than forcing me to go through that Battle Frontier stuff. As soon as I beat the E4, I want to jump right into online battling immediately. And bring back easy leveling tactics, I miss the Blissey bases from ORAS so much. Grinding for evolution and moves is a total pain.

[ClexYoshi]

The Pokémon discussion was interesting. See, I AM a Pokémaniac, but I don't play the games for the story or the environment. I play for competitive and ever since XY, Game Freak has been making it super easy to breed competitive teams, something for which I am eternally grateful. I'm even breeding shinies with perfect IVs, **** is dope. What I would like in the next games is to be able to purchase special competitive hold items with normal currency rather than forcing me to go through that Battle Frontier stuff. As soon as I beat the E4, I want to jump right into online battling immediately. And bring back easy leveling tactics, I miss the Blissey bases from ORAS so much. Grinding for evolution and moves is a total pain.

They have to give you SOME motivator to want to get battle Points.


If I want any other major change, it'd probably be to the Effort and Individual value systems to march them further towards complete transparency, with proper in-game explanations of how these systems work and what pokemon output which EVs something the pokedex explains properly. cut out the bulbapedia or Serebii middle-men, as it were.

at the same time, I feel like further IV 'specializations' would be interesting. hold items that rather than insure the parent passes on their stats, increases the potential of a stat while limiting others. make the drawback more severe than say... something like Natures to where it overall creates a pokemon so narrowly specialized that it makes it better at a particular role, but makes it far more vulnerable in it's less needed stats. Thiccer Chansey that lose what little special attacking prowess and speed they might have had, Beedrill-M that are super extra glassy that a Smeargle could sneeze on them and they'd keel over but hit like a monster truck...! This way, pokemon that excel at being toolbox pokemon   can keep with just having the standard 31 across the board spread because they can still survive the 2KO on primary threats, but then you have pokemon that take on this extreme weakness to bump up their one niche to even higher heights and allowing for some flexibility in the way you breed pokemon even further!

[Order.RSS]

With regards to first-party Wii U games that seem less likely to be ported over, I think the following may also be out of the question:

- Nintendo Land
Relies substantially on Wii hardware, the Gamepad, MiiVerse, and asymmetric multiplayer.
- Game & Wario
Might be easier, but its most memorable modes hinge on dual screens.
- Mario Party 10
Again, its most memorable mode (Bowser mode) leveraged asymmetry heavily. Would rather expect a sequel.
- Yoshi's Woolly World
Has been ported to 3DS already (though they could pull a Captain Toad here) and a sequel is due soon.
- Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash
Should be easy so maybe one day on a future edition of virtual console. But as a boxed product? It's a rather barebones product and its sequel looks like a vast improvement.
- Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
There's already a new Kirby out, and while this could work well, I think HAL would rather just make a new game or a sequel using the same touch interface.
- Mario vs. DK: Tipping Stars
Yes this was a boxed release. If they make one for Switch it'll likely be a sequel.
- Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival
Would be 100% doable and maybe a good way to clear out Amiibo overstock. That said, it was poorly received.
- Paper Mario: Color Splash
Would need considerable retooling, more so than Tokyo Mirage Sessions for example. Though it could be done.
- Super Mario 3D World
Could see this being ported at some point, it's excellent, but maybe it'll be left on Wii U given the success of Odyssey. Maybe just a sequel on the same engine? With just 2 pairs of joycons you'd have 4-player local co-op. Would expect them to go for something like that.
- Pikmin 3
Because Pikmin 4 is almost done! Right! Guys!
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
If the new title isn't an enhanced port, Smash 4 will be marooned on Wii U.

There's a few more like the Wii Fit U/Wii Party U/Wii Sports franchises, maybe Pokémon Rumble U, and I could see things like NES Remix, Dr. Luigi, Fatal Frame 5, Mario & Sonic Olympics and Pushmo all being left and instead iterated upon.

Devil's Third will be remastered though, for Labo.

[MASB]

Ah, the pitfalls of reusing a template. I know it well from experience. But I didn't have the good taste to request a track from Punch-Out!!

I also noticed that this RFN episode was included in the Top Site Images this week. I'm not sure if that's ever happened before, at least for a regular episode. *cues "The Jeffersons" theme music*

Devil's Third will be remastered for Switch. The big new feature will be the use of the infrared sensor to scan your face. Now people like Jon can map their face onto the Hero's ala the ditched feature from Perfect Dark. To celebrate the feature, Itagaki will redo his terrorist video into a contest where you can map your face onto his in the video. It'll take the world by storm and sell  at least triple what the WiiU version did!

If Nintendo ported Amiibo Festival to the Switch, we would have an entire  Nintendo News Report dedicated to why that is a bad decision with Justin Berube taking point. Re-releasing that would somehow add to the glut of Animal Crossing amiibo, not decrease it. We'd have a E.T. Atari 2600-like  stock disaster on our hands.

Fatal Frame 5, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Paper Mario: Color Splash and Yoshi's Woolly World would be high on my list to get Switch ports.

[Oedo]

I wasn't super into The Alliance Alive in the beginning either, but the game really picks up when you finally get a full party, which was around the 10 hour mark for me. Unlike The Legend of Legacy, this game doesn't seem conducive to having just two or three party members (there's a section much later in the game where it actually is really fun, but that part of the game was designed differently with smaller party sizes in mind), and there's barely any resistance from most normal encounters early in the game. Once the party starts coming together, the game really opens up in terms of being able to play around with different formations, putting characters in the roles you want them to be in (as opposed to having to put them in other roles out of necessity due to the limited party size), and getting more of a challenge out of some of the encounters. Where I'm at now, I'm fully on board with this game being a step up from The Legend of Legacy and a really great game overall.