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Messages - Luigi Dude

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1
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« on: Yesterday at 02:24:03 PM »
LOL! This thread...

As a passionate fan of Nintendo, I wish they'd announce and release some really cool sequels for series I love like Mario, Metroid and Fire Emblem ... which I'll then be justified to pirate because they are a greedy **** company that doesn't deserve my respect!

Seriously, and some of you wonder why I get so angry at times.  If you go on some of the larger video games boards on Reddit, 4chan, Reset Era, this type of attitude is extremely common.  In terms of big publishers, Nintendo by far is the best at delivering a constant supply of games as well as updating new installments in beloved series, and yet many act like they're the worst publisher in the industry who deserves to be pirated.

I mean, the fact that we keep mentioning Metroid Prime 4 is already proof enough.  When they decided to make a new installment they originally gave it to Namco Bandai who was going to make it at their new Singapore studio.  Well when development was going terrible, they then took it back and gave it to one of their own internal studio's Retro to make, which delayed the game several years and probably untold millions to do.  Let's not forget the fact that Retro's previous 2 Donkey Kong games outsold the entire Metroid Prime series COMBINED.  They took ones of their own studio's that could have worked on a more successful IP, but had them work on one of their lower tier ones instead. 

Any other publisher would have either outright canceled Prime 4, or just had Namco Bandai finish working on the mess they were making and see if they could pull a fast one on consumers like Microsoft tried to do with Redfall around this time last year.

2
General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four
« on: April 11, 2024, 11:06:36 AM »
Well I've got one done so far.

Yooka-Laylee

I first started this game about 2.5 years ago but only played for an hour because I was falling asleep.  Well last fall I played A Hat in Time and loved that game, and then I beat New Super Lucky Tale last month and liked that as well, so I thought, maybe I should give Yooka-Laylee another chance since I've been liking these other 3D platformers recently.

Well it started out OK.  Once I unlocked all 3 moves in the first world and expanded it, I actually started having fun.  I still don't get why they thought it was a good idea to make you have to expand each world, since it just makes your first time in each world feel like a waste since exploring some parts will just lead to a dead end until the world is expanded, which kind of defeats the whole point of exploring.

Overall I enjoyed the game because of the huge variety of gameplay in it, but this was also the biggest problem.  For every section of the game I enjoyed, there was another section that was janky bullshit.  The developers really should have scaled down the size of the game, and focused more on polishing up what was in it, instead of trying to throw in as much stuff as possible, whether it was a good idea or not.

So now I'll move to the next Yooka-Laylee game, Impossible Lair which I also played 2.5 years ago but stopped because the first hour was so boring I was falling asleep.  Hopefully it picks up like this one did, but without all the unpolished garbage that this one ended up having.

3
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« on: April 11, 2024, 10:44:11 AM »
Totk has already sold over 20 million copies. The switch is heavily pirated and is about to become the best selling console of all time. But sure, piracy is definitely significant  ;D

I mean for super popular stuff like Zelda, Mario and Pokemon they can survive, but pirates don't just stop at these games.  How would you feel if Metroid Prime 4 gets pirated over 1 million times?  Even if not every single one of those pirating the game would buy it, for smaller franchises, just getting a few hundred thousand more sales can be what makes the difference between companies greenliting sequels or deciding it's not worth continuing this franchise.

Companies like Nintendo kind of have to do all they can to fight piracy to protect all kind of games on their systems.  If it was something that became easy to do that wasn't being fought against I can guarantee you Switch software sales would be taking a much bigger hit.

That's why I always laugh when some gamers act like Nintendo is the worst company in the world for going after companies like Yuzu.  I mean, Yuzu was literally encouraging people to pirate Switch games and was even making money off of said piracy.  It's like seriously, if Nintendo didn't do anything it would just be encouraging others to do the same thing and before you know it, piracy is a much bigger issue that's easier for the average person to do as well.

4
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« on: March 30, 2024, 09:23:50 AM »
I think that extra power for the GameCube might be another reason why it gets more fondly remembered for that era. 

It's the entire reason.  Most people get hung up on the fact that the Gamecube was comparable to the competitors while Nintendo has been a generation behind since.  But completely ignored Nintendo's decision to use mini Disc instead of the standard DVD's like Sony/Microsoft combined with the systems lackluster sales made many third parties completely ignore the system because it wasn't worth the hassle.

The Switch on the other hand despite being a generation behind, was designed to handle the various game engines that most developers were using, so they could scale their games to run on the Switch much easier.  So even before the Switch gained the massive sales it did, many third parties where able to have games ready for the system even if they didn't have much faith in it because it was easier to port games for it then they could back in the Gamecube era.  And then when the Switch gained the massive sales it did, we started seeing ports of some of the more popular titles from the PS4 era because the hardware once again allowed for such a thing.

This is why when I've seen comments from some Gamecube fans saying the Gamecube was the last Nintendo system to have good third party support I have to roll my eyes so hard they literally fall out of my head.  The Gamecube was still Nintendo designing hardware for their own developers without a thought to third parties.  The Switch on the other hand was the first Nintendo system actually designed with third party support in mind and as a result, has by far the best third party support in Nintendo history.

I don't mind people saying the Gamecube is their favorite Nintendo system, but I do mind when they make stuff up.  Saying the Gamecube had better third party support then the Switch is just factually incorrect, when the actual data shows the complete opposite.


Oh and Gamecube fans are complete fucking hypocrite when you praise games like Luigi's Mansion 1, Wind Waker, Paper Mario TTYD, but then turn your nose at the recently released Princess Peach Showtime.  Quite a few of these highly praised Gamecube titles were incredible easy game, and yet the same people we now praise these games, say they have no interest in the recent Princess Peach Showtime because it looks too easy.  Give me a fucking break.

Seriously, this is why I have no respect for opinions like this.  This are the very definition of peak nostalgia blinding people.  Seriously, if Princess Peach Showtime was released on the Gamecube 20 years ago, the same people who refuse to play it now because it's an easy looking game, would be praising it as a masterpiece like they do to many of these extremely easy Gamecube era games.

5
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« on: March 26, 2024, 03:14:05 PM »
You really have to look beyond Nintendo published games or you'll never be happy since it's impossible for Nintendo to constantly release certain types of games every single year. 

You mention 2018, 2020 and 2021 as dry years when in reality they were anything but.

2018 had 177 games that received positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2018/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

2020 had 149 games that received positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2020/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

2021 had 136 games with positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2021/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1


We're almost to the end of March and the Switch has had 22 games with positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/current-year/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

Plus two of the highest reviewed games are Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Unicorn Overlord.  The new Prince of Persia is a Metroid style game and Unicorn Overlord is a Strategy RPG, the same genre Fire Emblem is in.  That's 2 highly reviewed games that should be appealing directly to you, but you seem to be ignoring them because they're not from Nintendo.


Seriously, this is one of the reason why I've grown distant from many of the hardcore Nintendo fans online.  The Switch has been home to an insane amount of high quality games that just get completely ignored by the kind of people said games are literally being made for.  Especially in recent years where there's suddenly been all this Gamecube nostalgia and Nintendo fans declaring the Gamecube the greatest system ever made and how the Gamecube era was the best time, when it's like, are you fucking kidding me.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/gamecube/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2001&releaseYearMax=2024&platform=gamecube&page=1

The Gamecube had 187 games that received positives reviews its entire lifespan.  In comparison, the Switch in just 2018 alone had 177 positive reviewed games and 2018 was supposed to be such a terrible year with nothing to play.  :rolleyes:

Never before has a Nintendo system offered the variety and gameplay experiences that the Switch has and yet some people are acting like we're in the final days of the Wii all over again.  The Wii in 2011 and 2012 COMBINED had only 19 games with positive reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/wii/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2011&releaseYearMax=2012&platform=wii&page=1

The Switch has literally had more good games released for it in less then 3 months of this year alone, then the Wii had it's entire last 2 years combined.

Still, a lot of Indie stuff can be rather short and fleeting and third party stuff can lack that Nintendo polish and magic that keeps you wanting more. Nothing hits quite like the hype for a new entry in a Nintendo series you love that looks like it could be blast to play.

Only that's not true, there's a lot of indie and third party stuff on Switch that's just as good as the types of games Nintendo releases.  This is N64 Yamauchi era propaganda that too many still have in their heads.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2017&releaseYearMax=2024&platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

Just go down the list.  Yes, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey and Tear of the Kingdom are at the very top but after them you have lots of third party titles right around what Nintendo's releasing.  Yes every gen the very top Nintendo games like Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime, Mario Galaxy, Breath of the Wild get the best reviews, but those titles are very rare even by Nintendo standards.  Outside of the very top 1-3 Nintendo games each gen, the best third party games are easily competing with everything else.

6
Nintendo Gaming / Re: What will Nintendo release in 2024?
« on: March 15, 2024, 10:11:27 AM »
Regarding third party support I figure there is a big difference in attitude depending on if a person has only a Switch or also has another current console.  For multiplatform third party games the Switch version is usually the worst and often costs a bit extra.  So if you own a PS4 or 5 and don't specifically desire portability you'll probably get the game on one of those systems instead.  If that's your situation then the Switch's usefulness is entirely based on its exclusives, which is usually going to be first party games.

That's makes complaints even worse if you ask me.  If somebody has the money to own all the different systems, then who gives a **** if one system is lacking in exclusives you want to play at the moment.  It's like when millionaires complain about having to pay taxes when they're still worth millions of dollars after taxes and can still afford to buy anything they want.

Especially when last year, 2023 was one of the best years in gaming, that just had an insane amount of high quality games come out across the board on every system.  If somebody owns all the different systems, then I doubt they even had any time to remotely play all the great games that came out in 2023 alone, let alone all the great games that have already come out this year alone in less then 3 months.

7
Nintendo Gaming / Re: What will Nintendo release in 2024?
« on: March 14, 2024, 10:16:21 AM »
Oh every fucking year it's the same ****.  Most of the games that come out in the second half of the year don't get announced until around June.  I remember last year so many people were so sure that nothing was coming out after Tear of the Kingdom.  So this guaranteed that the Switch successor was coming out in the second half of 2023 has well.

Hell, there was still people around this time last year who still thought Nintendo was going to pull a Sega Saturn and suddenly release it's successor at the same time as Tears of the Kingdom, since there was nothing coming out after Zelda, and since Breath of the Wild was a cross gen release, it just made perfect sense.  Despite the fact that the reason Breath of the Wild was cross gen didn't apply to Tears of the Kingdom at all, and there was no credible rumors of third parties even having any games even remotely for a Switch successor release at that time either.  But nope, apparently nothing else is coming out after Zelda the Switch is dead and a new system just has to be coming out in a few months.

Seroiusly, they just announced a sequel to Endless Ocean and Pokemon Legends this last month, with Endless Ocean coming out in May.  Now people can argue that Endless Ocean is a niche title, but the first Pokemon Legends sold 15 million copies.  If a sequel to a game that big is coming out in 2025, is is really that hard for people to believe that Nintendo has other major titles ready to come out in the second half of 2024 as well.

That said the year has started with several great third party releases on Switch, like Balatro, Unicorn Overlord, and Prince of Persia. And it's gonna be another banner year for RPGs too, with Ys X, Suikoden remakes, Eiyuden Chronicles, SaGa Emerald Beyond, SMTV Vengeance, etc.
Coupled with the stacked past few years of releases to catch up on, I think the system is weathering its twilight years quite well.

Oh and this right here.  It's funny how in every previous gen people bitched non-stop about the lack of third party support on Nintendo systems, but now when the Switch has had great third party support, many Nintendo fans seem to completely ignore it.  The third party support the Switch had in the first half of this year alone, is already better than the support we'd have in entire years in the past.  Just look at the Nintendo Direct reaction on some of the more Nintendo centric forums last September when a lot of these great third party titles were first announced.  Some people were literally saying it was the worst Direct ever, worse then even the ones from the 3DS and Wii U era that literally had only a handful of games shown and Nintendo having to talk about other **** just to fill up time.

This gen has really shown that a lot of the Nintendo hardcore really don't care about anything that isn't the big Nintendo guns like Mario Platformer, Zelda, Pokemon, Smash Bros, because so many great games get completely ignored by them.  Hell, some still ignore Splatoon despite the fact Splatoon 2 and 3 are both 10 million plus sellers.

It's like anything that's not directly related to the N64 and Gamecube era of Nintendo doesn't count, since that's when so many of them first came online to talk about Nintendo games and are permanently stuck in the early 2000's.

8
But then I don't think SMTIV Apocalypse ever became cheap and it's now very pricey

It actually went on sale for a pretty low price on the 3DS eShop literally a few months before the 3DS Eshop shut down.  That's when I finally bought it.  :D

So if you're willing to go digital, Atlas games usually get pretty big discounts.

9
Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*
« on: February 19, 2024, 11:04:00 AM »
The internet went into meltdown because Switch 2 got "delayed" to 2025. Can it really be a delay when Switch 2 wasn't even officially announced? I'm being pedantic.

I'm not even disappointed. I only opened Tears of the Kingdom to claim the My Nintendo Gold Points, and I haven't bought Super Mario Bros. Wonder or Super Mario RPG. My backlog is LOL even without those games. I'm old; it'll be 2025 before I know it.

Not only do I have a huge backlog of games I own and need to play, I still have over 160 games on my eShop wishlist.  So my backlog, literally has a backlog of games that needed to be added to it.

I also find it funny how a lot of the comments about people being angry are acting like nothing else is coming to the Switch this year.  Which is the same thing they were doing last year when many of these same people thought Tears of the Kingdom would be the last game released in 2023 and then a new system was guaranteed to come out in the 2nd half of 2023.

I mean Prime 4 is probably still a regular Switch title and can still come out this year.  Grezzo hasn't done anything since the Links Awakening remake so a new 2D Zelda could come out.  The rumored Fire Emblem 4 remake that has been around for years now could finally come out.  There's also the rumored Donkey Kong platformer that EAD has been rumored to be working on for years now.  And who knows what other 3rd party collaborations Nintendo mights have for Switch titles as well.

10
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Not a hater but... (future prediction)
« on: February 15, 2024, 10:11:02 AM »
It's funny looking back at posts like these predicting the switch would fail. Back then the wii u was such a disappointment and flop that a lot of us probably got caught up in that.

The switch's first party games are infinitely better than the wii u's though.

Even back then using the Wii U's failure as a reason to think the Switch would also fail was laughable when the 3DS had a decent run.  When the Switch was first announced the 3DS sales were over 60 million, and had several 10 million plus sellers on the system.  The 3DS showed the many of Nintendo's franchises were still pretty popular, it's just people weren't willing to buy both a 3DS and Wii U to play them.  So with the Switch making Nintendo's games appear on only one system, the worst case scenario for the Switch was always going to put it closer to the 3DS in sales then the Wii U.

11
Nintendo Gaming / Re: What will Nintendo release in 2024?
« on: February 15, 2024, 09:58:43 AM »
If the switch successor has no backcompat there will be riots.

Well it's a good thing there's nothing to worry about then.  Every Nintendo handheld had backwards compatibility with its predecessor, and their last two Home consoles did as well.  The only reason the Switch didn't have it is because the Switch literally merged their home console and handheld divisions together.  It was meant to be the successor to both the 3DS and Wii U, and providing backwards compatibility to both systems would have been impossible.

The Switch Successor just has to worry about one system now, so it'll be a clean transition like GB to GBA, GBA to DS, DS to 3DS, Gamecube to Wii, Wii to Wii U all were.  The fact that so many people on the internet think there's even a chance the system won't have it, just shows these online bubbles can really warp peoples sense of reality.  All it takes is a few loud assholes on Youtube or message boards to say **** like "Nintendo has a horrible record on backwards compatibility" and suddenly all these mindless idiots start parroting the same message even though the actual reality is the majority of Nintendo systems have had backwards compatibility, and the only reason the Switch didn't have it is because it was a massive reboot to their entire business.

12
Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*
« on: February 14, 2024, 11:36:19 AM »
I wouldn't be surprised if the option to upgrade Switch games will be there on the Switch successor, but as Stratos said, it'll be developer dependent.  So some of the more recent titles might get patches if the developers are still working on them, but how many older titles will have devs willing to create a new patch for them?

So it'll be a nice feature to have, but I wouldn't hold my breath and act like all the Switch games that had frame rate and graphical issues will magically be getting fixes.  Like I've seen a lot of people online talking about how Xenoblade 2 will suddenly be improved, when it's like, really guys, Monolith Soft is busy on whatever new Xenoblade game for the Switch Successor, I doubt anyone at Monolith Soft or Nintendo really cares about patching an almost 7 year old game by the time the Switch Successor comes out.

13
Nintendo Gaming / Re: What will Nintendo release in 2024?
« on: February 14, 2024, 11:26:40 AM »
1. Switch Successor will release in the 2nd half of the year.
2. Switch Successor will be 100% backward compatible with Switch games.
3. A new 3D Mario games will come out in the 2nd half of this year for Switch Successor as well.  It will be a fully open world game.  Basically Bowsers Fury was a playable beta for what Nintendo had in store for the next 3D Mario.
4. Actual gameplay footage for Metroid Prime 4 will be revealed.  The game will be moved to the Switch Successor to take full advantage of that systems power.  There will be no cross gen version with Switch, since Metroid is no where near as popular as Zelda to justify such a thing.
5. A new Donkey Kong platformer will be revealed.  I'm not sure if it'll be 2D or 3D, but it will be a new platformer where you control Donkey Kong.
6. A new 2D Zelda will finally be revealed as well.
7. Nintendo will keep the regular Switch alive with more remakes and remasters.  I predict at least 3 new remakes or remasters of Nintendo games for the regular Switch.
8. A new IP will be revealed for the Switch Successor.
9. Mario Kart 9 will be revealed, but a 2025 release date.
10. The next Smash Bros will also be revealed but will also have a 2025 release date.

14
General Gaming / Re: Games Beaten, Completed, or Played in 2023
« on: January 04, 2024, 01:57:26 PM »
Everything I beat was on the Switch this year.

Games Beaten

Xenoblade 3
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Maxim Mode)
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Julius Hard Mode)
Bayonetta 3
Astalon: Tears of the Earth
No More Heroes 3
Another World
Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Teslagrad
Kaze and the Wild Masks
Gradius (Arcade Japanese version)
Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Will of the Wisp
Salt and Sanctuary
Lost Ruins
Super Mario Wonder
Cathedral
A Hat in Time
Streets of Rage 4
Aggelos
Wonder Boy Returns Remix
Roar of Revenge
Super Mario RPG Remake
Disney's Aladdin (Virgin Genesis version)
Disney's Aladdin (Capcom SNES version)
Minoria

Games played but not beaten

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Miriam Hard Mode)
Gradius (Arcade Western Nemesis version)
Salamander (Arcade)
TYPHOON (A-JAX) (Arcade)
Thunder Cross (Arcade)
Iron Crypticle
Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour
Shantae
Disney's The Lion King (Played both the SNES and Genesis version on the Collection)


So I did pretty good this year considering Xenoblade 3 and Tears of the Kingdom took up close to half of my overall game time for the year.

15
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch is so popular people don't even post
« on: January 03, 2024, 11:03:07 AM »
The Switch does have tons of ports and re-releases.  But I don't find it to be a problem because the Switch has strong enough third party support that there are enough new games on the system available that you could avoid the re-releases and still have a healthy backlog of stuff to play.  Prior to the Switch Nintendo would remake an old game and that was it, for like a three month window.  Play this port or play nothing.

I also wouldn't discount PS4 ports even if they come a few years late.  Again, back in the Gamecube days a port of a well regarded PS2 game was a valuable entry in the library.  That sort of thing isn't great if you own all the current systems but if you only own the Nintendo one then that's essentially a new game.  It's the sort of thing that between the SNES and Switch was rare for Nintendo consoles.  Over the last year I'm starting to see the types of games I'm interested in get announced for the PS5 and not the Switch but prior to that I could kind of assume that the Switch would get the games I'm interested in.  And if that's happening for like 80% of the games on your radar then you don't get hung up on the missing 20%.

It's also funny how some people discount ports that are on the Switch when the hybrid nature of the Switch makes those ports handheld games as well.  I mean half of the GBA's success 20 years ago was getting handheld ports and remakes of SNES games.  So when the Switch gets a late port, it's no real different than the ports and remakes the GBA was getting.

So to 99% of the general public (since less than 1% even know the Steam Deck exist), the Switch is the only way to play many of these games on a handheld.  So the Switch getting ports that are considered late, it's not a big deal compared to previous home console only systems when the handheld benefit is a pretty big deal to make some people want to buy it, even if they might already own it on a different system.

16
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch is so popular people don't even post
« on: December 26, 2023, 11:03:53 AM »
That's because the Switch actually has games people want to play so there's less time to post.  The original tag line was "where Nintendo fans go to bitch", so since there's not much to bitch about anymore, no more post.

17
TalkBack / Re: Atari Acquires Developer Digital Eclipse
« on: November 05, 2023, 04:22:28 PM »
Since several of Digital Eclipse game Collections they've made for Capcom and Konami have managed to be million sellers, you'd have to imagine Atari would still allow them to work with other third party publishers on other retro game collections.

I mean that would be rather weird for Atari to buy a company like Digital Eclipse and not let them keep working on the kind of things that made them famous in the first place.  But then again Atari has a very long history of making bad decisions so yeah, this could go either way.  :-\

18
General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 4: The Final Chapter
« on: November 05, 2023, 04:12:56 PM »
I managed to finish Mario Wonder before the end of October so might as well get my thoughts on that one.

Super Mario Wonder

Well here it is, the first 2D Mario in over a decade that everyone has been going crazy over because they moved away from the New series into something different again.  So how does it hold up from a 2D Mario hardcore like myself?  Well for the most part pretty good but it's does have some glaring issues.

What I love the best about the game is how it's the first 2D Mario since Bros 3 to actually try and match that games creativity.  The thing that made Bros 3 my favorite game in the 2D series is just the complete variety of gameplay in each level.  So many one off idea's, and one off enemies to make things fresh with every level that no 2D Mario since then was able to match, until now.  Mario Wonder actually does a great job of making every level feel fresh with lots of new enemies and gameplay that will be used once, and then moved on.  I also like how the levels are shorter like Bros 3 and Luigi U, which means nothing every overstays it's welcome and going back into a level to find any thing you missed doesn't take very long.

The game also has an amazing first few hours since they give you access to harder optional levels early on along with the normal levels so combined with the shorter level length, the beginning of the game was non stop fun since it didn't suffer from intro that World and New Super Mario Bros Wii and U have were the first few world area's can feel a little boring because of how easy they are.

But then I reach the 3rd main area of the game and suddenly start to realize, the overall difficulty isn't getting any harder.  I mean there's still optional harder levels every once and a while, but the average 3rd World level feels about the same in difficulty as the average 2nd world level.  I'm thinking, OK, I'm not quite halfway through yet so I'd imagine things will pick up once I hit the 4th world since New Super Mario Bros Wii and U both get noticable difficulty increases in their second half.  Nope I was wrong, it doesn't get any harder until the second half of the second to last world.

So yeah, this is the biggest problem with Mario Wonder, the difficulty on the average level for most of game is just a straight line.  There's a star rating system for each level to tell you how difficult is is, but to me the 1-3 star range all feel about the same.  Only 4 and 5 stars actually feel noticeable more difficult from the rest but that don't make up the majority.  To me the 1st world overall is the easiest, but then world 2-5 all feel the same in terms of difficulty until then finally the 6th and 7th world finally increase the difficulty but even their average level is easier then what the later levels of Mario World, NSMB Wii and NSMB U where. 

It also has the same problem Mario Galaxy 1 and Mario Odyssey have in the Wonder flower sections where these area's are really creative and visually striking, but much of the gameplay they introduce in them is too easy and end before they can take full advantage of the idea they created.  Now a few of these Wonder section do get expanded on in the Bonus World levels that are the hardest levels in the game and these levels are by far the best in the game as a result as well.  It really makes me wish they would have done more with a lot of these Wonder flower sections, especially since many of them are optional in the first place.  It's like since they're optional, the developers shouldn't have worried about them being too hard since less skilled players couldn't have just skipped them if the section was too much for them.  I guess they wanted to make sure everyone could see most of the Wonder flower sections since those were a major selling point of the marketing so that's why most are just extremely easy to do.

Now overall the game is still really fun, the shorter levels that are all unique made me never get bored even if many were easier then I would have liked.  It did have very hard final bonus level for doing everything like the 3D Mario's have that literally took me close to 2 hours to finish, so it ended on a very high note for me at least.

If I were to put Mario Wonder in my Top 5 Mario list, it'd go like this.

1. Super Mario Bros 3
2. New Super Luigi U
3. New Super Mario Bros U
4. Super Mario Wonder
5. New Super Mario Bros Wii

Super Mario Bros 3 is still at the top since it has a large variety of gameplay with a great challenge to back it up.  New Super Luigi U is right behind it since it has the shorter and challenging levels like Bros 3, but the gameplay isn't quite a varied.  New Super Mario Bros U starts slower then Wonder but the difficulty does get noticeably harder around the 3rd World and keeps bumping it up each World as well which makes the overall game more exciting.  New Super Mario Bros Wii might have originally been higher since the overall second half is more difficulty then Wonder, but not that much compared to the other top 3 games.  Plus I found NSMB Wii Bonus world stages not that great for the most part, while in Wonder the Bonus World levels are some of the best levels I've played in a 2D Mario, so that gives Mario Wonder the slight edge over NSMB Wii.



Oh and while I'm at it, might as well add Cathedral since I almost finished it this week and I had the majority of the game done by October 31'st

Cathedral


You know how I said my biggest problem with Mario Wonder was how they didn't use many of it's idea's to their fullest.  Well Cathedral shows that's it's possible to have the opposite problem, and run your idea's into the ground.  I compared it earlier to a Wonder Boy title, but it goes on way longer then any of those games.  It's trying to be all retro like them, but the older Wonder Boy games are all less then 10 hour experiences while this game took me over 20 hours to beat.  The only Wonder Boy game that's even close to this length was the recent Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom and that game took me less then 20 hours and had way more gameplay variety then Cathedral does. 

Now it's got some good gameplay sections that do a good job of representing the gameplay you'd find in a classic Wonder Boy, but then it decides to keep stretching it out until you just get exhausted.  The Final Area's in particular is the perfect example.  It's starts out with a pretty challenging platforming area filled with instant death spikes trying to crush you, then followed by a super bullshit boss fight.  You'd think ok, now the final boss must be right around the corner but then no, here's a new large dungeon that has 5 different things you have to collect to unlock a door that looks like the final boss will be behind it.  So after you get all these and unlock the door, it turns out here's a bunch of platforming and puzzles sections based on area's from the rest of the game that you have to do as well now.  Then you finally get to fight the final boss who's was pretty challenging, but I really enjoyed the fight itself, but the final area's didn't need to be anywhere near that length to get to this fight.

This game is like the perfect example of how these small indie games can be just as bloated as their AAA counterparts.  The developers are making something like the classic Wonder Boy titles, but don't seem to realize the classic Wonder Boy games were all sub 10 hours games for a reason.  I mean there's are some good idea's and boss fights in this game I really enjoyed, but there's a lot of frustrating things that make it hard for me to recommend this to anyone that isn't super hardcore into the classic Wonder Boy style titles and even then, I warn people to be prepared for a lot of BS.  Since it goes on way longer then any of those games and isn't anywhere near as polished, don't buy it unless it's on sale or else you might be really disappointed.

Now I don't want people to think I hate the game because there's was quite a few area's in the game that I really liked.  It's just it's so frustrating that the signs of something that could have been truly great are their if the devs didn't stretch themselves so thin by making something way bigger then it needed to be.

19
General Gaming / Re: Shocktober 4: The Final Chapter
« on: October 20, 2023, 03:55:54 PM »
Well with Mario Wonder out, no more spooky games this October.  Well, I guess levels with Boo's could be considered spooky, but I haven't gotten to any of them yet.  But I did manage to play a few games that would fit the Halloween theme pretty well before Mario Wonder came out.

Salt and Sanctuary

So this game is basically a 2D Demon/Dark Souls.  The gameplay is a complete clone of what you would expect from the Souls games, except in 2D.  But hey, it does a pretty good job of being like the game it was clearly inspired by.  I had fun for the most part, exploring the world and killing most of the bosses.  My biggest problem though some area's of the game have enemies that blend in with the backgrounds too much, as well as traps that are hard to see as well since they also blend in with the background.  Like most of my death outside of boss fights are from **** I didn't even notice until it was too late.  This is my biggest issue with a lot of indie games in general is they get so obsessed with their ART, and don't seem to realize how hard it is for the rest of us to tell what the **** is even going on in their games at times.

Lost Ruins

Well this is a dark metroidvania staring anime girls.  When you first start the game the message even tells you this is going to be a survival experience where every decision matters.  So I'm thinking OK, this will also be a Soul-like experience as well, since we all know these indie's love to make everything either a Souls or Rouge-like these days.  Well for the 30 minutes, it was kind of like that with my character having limited items to heal, and slower combat that you had to be more careful with.

But then you find equipment you can equip that autofills your HP after taking any damage, which completely destroys whatever survival experience that developers where trying to do.  Seriously, it only takes about an hour until you realize just how broken some of the abilities you can equipment can make your character, and the rest of the game is just a joke difficulty wise.  Every non-boss enemy I was able to one-shot by the half way point of the game, and even the bosses go down pretty fast once you realize their patterns.

At least it was a short game, takes less then 5 hours to beat.  After you beat it it had a new mode that lets you play as different characters, that once again, they also become easy to cheese the game after about an hour as well.  At the end of the day it was an overall OK experience, especially since I bought it on sale, but the game completely fails at being this challenging survival experience it literally advertises itself as when they make it super easy to cheese the whole thing.

Iron Crypticle

So this game is pretty much Smash TV, but with a Ghost and Goblin setting.  The levels you play on the first floor was actually pretty fun and then the difficulty picks up quite a bit on the second floor but I was still enjoying it.  Then you reach the 3rd floor and the game becomes total fucking bullshit.  Seriously, if you don't have the right upgrades to your character by then, you're pretty much fucked.  Way too many enemies are now onscreen, with projectiles flying everywhere making it almost impossible to even tell what the **** is going on.

Now this wouldn't be a problem if you could upgrade your characters right but all character upgrades are done by RNG.  Sometime the shop that sells the upgrades won't even appear depending on the path you take, which means you might as well restart the game since you'll be screwed when you get to the 3rd floor.  Of course even if you do get to the shop, the upgrades you can buy are also decided by RNG, which means you might not even be allowed to buy the upgrades you need the most, which once again means you'll be screwed by the time you reach the 3rd floor.  Seriously, **** this game, it's nothing but RNG garbage.

Cathedral


So this is pretty much if you made Shovel Knight a metroidvania, but with a more Ghost and Goblins setting as well.  I wasn't able to finish this one before Mario Wonder came out, but I'll go back to it after I'm done with Wonder.  I played it for over 5 hours and for the most part I'm digging it, but it's got some glaring issues.  The biggest is in vertical area's of the game, the screen wont scroll until your right at the top of the screen, which means you will take unavoidable hits from enemies and stage hazards because you literally can't see the damn things.  Also has an annoying habit of randomly spawning some enemies right in your path during platforming sections.

Still interested in coming back to this one since overall it reminds me a lot of a Wonder Boy titles so I'd like to finish it.

20
Hopefully news like this will finally make people stop sucking Phil Spencer's dick and realize he's no different then the rest Microsoft management.  Every time Microsoft would buy another studio, so many comments online praise Phil for being so smart in his decisions, like no one else would have thought of that.  Seriously, if Phil was so smart he would have restructured Microsofts internal studio's run better, as well as put a greater emphasis on quality.

Instead as Broodwar already said, they just use their massive war chest to buy all competition.  The most telling example is how Halo used to be the premier online shooter until Call of Duty surpassed it.  Instead of making the right steps to compete, they just fumbled the ball over and over again.  No surprise that when the most recent Halo which they spent years hyping up ended up being a joke, they finally said "**** it" and just bought up Activision so they could have Call of Duty themselves.

This would have been like if Nintendo, after Skyrim surpassed Skyward Sword, decided to just buy Bethesda themselves instead of creating Breath of the Wild to compete.  This is why it's so annoying that many don't seem to have a problem with Microsoft buying up all these studio's.  Microsoft is by far the worst 1st party developer, with many of it's studio's being poorly run with no reguards for quality.  People really want these guys in charge of most of the industry?

Yes Nintendo and Sony do publish games of lesser quality as well, but they at least have studio's that they expect Game of the Year worthy titles from and fund those studio's well.  Microsoft is too incompetent to even do that.  When Microsoft does publish a higher quality game it's usually by accident instead of actual good leadership on their end.

21
I think this is the better game to remake since DK 94 is already an amazing game.  As we saw with something like Links Awakening, games that are already regarded as masterpieces, Nintendo doesn't change that much with the remake.  So if they remade DK 94 it would have been pretty close to the same game but with better graphics. 

I'd hope with this game, since it wasn't as highly praised, it'll get the Zero Mission treatment where they make a lot of changes and add significant new content to improve on it.  Then we'll finally have a sequel to DK 94 that's closer in quality to that game, which the original GBA game while still good, wasn't quite there.  That's why I prefer games like this getting remakes since they can benefit more then games that are already amazing and don't really need any major changes.

22
TalkBack / Re: Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door Remake Announced For 2024
« on: September 16, 2023, 10:55:30 AM »
I have only played the newer Paper Mario games so this would be my first time playing the game. I do find it odd that they did not start with remastering the first game, but people really seem to like this one so I will give it a go.

Probably because the original Paper Mario has been available on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, and the Nintendo Switch Online service.  Meanwhile TTYD has been stuck on only the Gamecube for almost 20 years now.  So to a much larger audience this is basically a new game to them, compared to the original which was available on both the Wii and Switch.

23
TalkBack / Re: Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door Remake Announced For 2024
« on: September 15, 2023, 05:46:26 PM »
And then after telling everyone not to buy it, someone points it that it is selling less than Origami King so then they freak out because that means Nintendo won't make a new Mario RPG since people clearly aren't buying the "best" RPG one so now they need to get people to buy it while still hating it. Will laugh-o if that happens.

Looks like it's starting to happen. With the news that the Switch version is only 30FPS compared to the Gamecube which is 60FPS, I see some on the internet already refusing to buy this now.  Which is really funny since the original at 60FPS is still a really slow paced game with characters that already move choppy because of the paper theme.

I can understand fast paced games like racers, platformers and action games feeling like a downgrade going from 60FPS to 30FPS, but for this game it's just laughable to see people getting that offended.  After all these years of cursing Nintendo to make a new Paper Mario like TTYD, they're going to give up their best chance over a very petty reason.

24
TalkBack / Re: F-ZERO Returns Today as the Next 99-player Title
« on: September 15, 2023, 05:37:10 PM »
As for F-Zero GX, word on the street was that it crossed 1.5 million and this knowledge came about 5 years ago from Nagoshi himself. Here's Nintendo Life's article in which he states it at that amount and being proud of the sales for it. F-Zero GX also made the list of Player's Choice games on the GameCube and had some copies made with the yellow branding which meant it was at least a million seller. Considering GameCube console sales were much lower compared to SNES and most other Nintendo consoles, the fact that GX did about half the SNES sales is actually a positive thing showing why the demand is there for a follow-up entry.

Either that interview mistranslated how much it sold or Nagoshi confused the games numbers with a different game, because Nintendo's own internal sales numbers have the game below one million.

https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/nintendo-software-and-hardware-sales-data-from-1983-to-present.170/

This is a list of all Nintendo million sellers as of June 2023, straight from Nintendo's Public Relationship Department and GX never crossed the million mark worldwide.  The only F-Zero games to do that where as follows.

SNES - 2.85 million
X - 1.10 million
Maximum Velocity - 1.05 million

Now that same Nintendolife article says it's source is a thread on ResetEra.  If you go to the thread on Reset Era where the source is from, somebody on that thread says the last numbers we had from places like NPD in America and Media Create had GX at only 338k in America and 80k in Japan.  They also say it did 99k in Europe but no source on that.  The NPD and Media Create numbers are accurate since during the mid to late 2000's, NPD wasn't has harsh on leaks like they would become years later so people on Neo Gaf would report the North American number for games all the time and I remember F-Zero GX were somewhere over 300k, so only 338k in America sounds right.

So best case scenario, GX only did over 500k wordwide, which for a game as expensive to make as GX is not very good.  Yes it was on the Gamecube which underperformed, but look at other mid-tier Nintendo series back on it.

Metroid Prime - 2.84 million
Star Fox Adventure - 1.82 million
Pikmin - 1.6 million
Pikmin 2 - 1.12 million
Metroid Prime 2 - 1.10 million

For a game like GX, it was critically acclaimed and well loved by the people who played it.  So why did it fail to sell anywhere close to other similar Nintendo franchises?  Nintendo did all they could to make this series more popular and it didn't work.  This is why F-Zero died while Metroid, Star Fox and Pikmin all got new installments after the Gamecube era.

25
TalkBack / Re: Princess Peach: Showtime Launching March 22
« on: September 14, 2023, 07:08:50 PM »
I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this.  This game looks like it could be amazing based on what they showed.  Nice variety of gameplay with more yet to be shown.  Definitely something that has a lot of potential.

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