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TalkBack / Re: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival To Be Free To Play

« on: June 17, 2015, 07:22:20 PM »

Does that explain why gameplay seems to be... missing?  Video I saw showed basically no meaningful interaction.

Just wanted to point out that during the Treehouse they mentioned that there is more to the game than the boardgame that they've showed off and they aren't talking about whatever that content is yet.

The game did look light on mechanics in the stream, but I did notice a lot of really cool touches that make the board come to life. For example, there's a day-night cycle and the game seems to follow a calendar progression with events on certain days of the week (in-game time). So you'll buy Turnips just like in the main series. Each of the spots on the board has a Turnip price and you have to try to sell your Turnips for a profit. Red showed up and sold cards that helped you in the game (advance 5 squares, roll the dice twice in a turn, etc). The Fortune Teller showed up and basically gave the players a boon or a curse (for the next five turns you'll lose money every time someone rolls a 2, etc). The calendar showed a fishing contest upcoming, but they didn't play that long.

In short, it looked incredibly simple and easy-going--like a REALLY attractive version of a kids board game. The presentation is really the reason to be at all interested in the game. It really does look beautiful, the music is the same fantastic music from the main series, and the writing of the events in the game is right in line with what you'd expect from Animal Crossing (I do worry there won't be enough of these though, it's going to get really old getting your hair cut over and over again...)

Unlike the main series I don't think the board game will appeal to as wide a swath of gamers. I'm really excited to play with my little girl, but I wouldn't be trying to play this with my 'gamer' buddies. Who am I kidding, I have no friends :-) Of course that assumes that I can even get hold of the Amiibos to play the game at all.... I am glad to hear that you don't have to pay for the software itself at least, but Nintendo's track record keeping these toys on the shelves has been really hit and miss.

I guess this is "free-to-play" in the same way that Amiibo-Tap is free-to-play. However, unlike Amiibo Tap's  always-on-a-timer experience, this actually seems like a full end-to-end game. And let's not forget that Amiibo Cards will work just as well as Amiibo Figures for the game!

Awesome! I missed that bit. This should help make sure I can actually play this. Although I think I will have to try and get my daughter one of the actual figures...they look fantastic! What...I swear, they're for her...they're FOR HER. I...uh... (runs away and hides with his collection of toys)

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Direct: Planting the Seeds of Concern

« on: December 18, 2013, 09:36:49 PM »

"Rosalina: I don't know why Nintendo is under the impression that Rosalina is such an impressive character. Her first appearance as a character this year (I think you know the one) felt like it was shimmied into the game, her Mario Kart reveal today isn't even her first appearance, and likely a third of the Smash Bros. cast is now going to consist of characters either from the Mario series or spun-off from it."

Well, for one thing Rosalina is from one of the highest rated and best regarded Mario games ever made. For another her character design is TONS better than either Peach or Daisy. For a third, in that one game she had more character development than Peach has ever gotten over the ENTIRE series, not to mention her little story was actually very well written and sweet.

Anyway, I'm glad to see her getting more attention from Nintendo.

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TalkBack / Re: Digesting the Nintendo 2DS, Wii U Price Cut, and Wind Waker Fun

« on: August 29, 2013, 06:34:29 PM »

I'll be curious to see how a seemingly underwhelming port of a GameCube game manages to move consoles with that price cut, though.

I'm surprised you see it as an underwhelming port. They've overhauled the graphics engine, improved the sailing, tightened up the end game, and added a new difficulty mode. And that's all BEFORE you even start talking about Wii U integrated features like the game-pad inventory screen and Miiverse.


And that's all improvements on-top of one of the flat-out best games ever made (and my personal pick for best Zelda game). How much more could you have expected? Short of going all out and finishing the infamous lost dungeon it seems like a perfect port to me.


Now, that said, yeah, it's still a port. I don't really think it will turn the tide on its own...but underwhelming it really isn't.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Land Impressions

« on: September 14, 2012, 07:01:34 PM »

I just watched a video of this over at IGN, looks seriously excellent.  I wish I had more people to play with, but I'm still really excited.  Between this and the Metroid stuff Nintendo Land is looking like a pretty good deal to me. I know a lot of gamers have been dismissive of it as a "mini-game collection", but I think some of the games in it have more depth than that suggests.