Recent Posts

1

TalkBack / Re: Super Nintendo Lineup For Switch Online Adds Three More Rarities

« Last post by Morningshark on Yesterday at 05:47:25 PM »

I've never heard of these, they look interesting, and I'll check them out. I'm also hoping they add some more obscure first party games too, like all of those spin-off Mario games, or maybe even some of the Satellaview content.

2

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 731: The Amiibo Shuffle ft. Zachary Ty Bryan

« Last post by Enner on Yesterday at 04:59:03 PM »

Good show, especially with that tough question of the predatory monetary practices common to free-to-play games, gacha systems, loot boxes, and EA's FIFA Ultimate Team schemes.

Let me tell you of the demons of gacha so you may never have to feel it for yourselves!

Dragalia Lost, the original mobile game from Nintendo and Cygames, does have a system where you are guaranteed to get the 5-star (the maximum) character from a given gacha banner. This system is present in Cygame's web-based gacha JRPG, Granblue Fantasy, and is colloquially referred to as a "sparking" system. Basically, you gain a special token for each gacha pull in Dragalia Lost. 300 of those tokens can be exchanged for any featured character in the current gacha banner.

The "best practice" in the gacha space is that each 10-pull is equivalent to 25-30 USD. In Dragalia Lost, they sell a premium currency pack of 1230 Diamantium at US$24.99. You need 1200 Diamantium for a 10-pull on a gacha banner. So, discounting the free gacha currency, free summoning tickets, the pity rate system, the maximum amount a player can spend in getting a desired 5-star character in Dragalia Lost is (napkin math) about 750 USD.

If you wanted to know about the hot gacha-anime-ARPG-BOTW of Genshin Impact, that has the "best practices" of limited time banners, bonuses for pulling 10 times at once, and a cost rate of $20-27 per a 10-pull (depending on if you buy the worse value or the "best value" pack of premium currency. Genshin has a "guarantee system" where at 90 pulls you get the coin flip (50/50 chance) of getting a banner's featured 5-star character or weapon and at 180 pulls you are guaranteed to get the banner's featured 5-star. So, the napkin math to that is a player could be spending a maximum of US$360-480 to get their waifu. Now the fucked thing is that there's a character perk system where getting extra copies of a character (up to six extra copies, meaning pulling the same character seven times to unlock all the perks) will grant them bonuses that are sometimes very powerful, depending on the character.

Finally, you have Fate/Grand Order which has a 0.6% of summoning the featured 5-star Servant per pull and no pity, sparking, or guarantee system whatsoever. As you can guess, there are salt/horror stories of people spending a grand or more and not getting the limited-time 5-star Servant.

3

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« Last post by Enner on Yesterday at 03:43:50 PM »

JAPAN NUMBERS!

https://www.resetera.com/threads/media-create-sales-week-28-2021-jul-12-jul-18.460722/

TOP GAME: 01./00. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD <ADV> (Nintendo) {2021.07.16} (¥5.980) - 159.089 / NEW

Famitsu Sales: Week 29, 2021 (Jul 12 - Jul 18)

01./00. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD <ADV> (Nintendo) {2021.07.16} (¥5.980) - 159.089 / NEW
02./00. [NSW] Crayon Shin-Chan: Ora to Hakase no Natsuyasumi - Owaranai Nanokakan no Tabi # <ADV> (Neos) {2021.07.15} (¥5.982) - 107.319 / NEW
03./01. [NSW] Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin <RPG> (Capcom) {2021.07.09} (¥6.990) - 32.111 / 169.787 (-77%)
04./02. [NSW] eBaseball Professional Baseball Spirits 2021: Grand Slam <SPT> (Konami) {2021.07.08} (¥6.980) - 20.711 / 127.308 (-81%)
05./05. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure # <HOB> (Nintendo) {2019.10.18} (¥7.980) - 12.164 / 2.694.102 (-5%)
06./06. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600) - 11.565 / 2.056.556 (-6%)
07./04. [NSW] Game Builder Garage <EDU> (Nintendo) {2021.06.11} (¥3.164) - 10.634 / 168.387 (-25%)
08./03. [NSW] Mario Golf: Super Rush <SPT> (Nintendo) {2021.06.25} (¥5.980) - 10.339 / 139.787 (-40%)
09./07. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) - 9.945 / 3.919.253 (-6%)
10./00. [NSW] Earth Defense Force 2 for Nintendo Switch <ACT> (D3Publisher) {2021.07.15} (¥3.618) - 9.379 / NEW

Top 10

NSW - 10

HARDWARE

Code: [Select]

+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System |  This Week |  Last Week |  Last Year |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| NSW # |     64.107 |     69.283 |    113.197 |  3.219.341 |  2.929.208 |  20.559.715 |
| PS5 # |     10.107 |     14.404 |            |    644.298 |            |     899.448 |
| XBS # |      1.874 |      1.066 |            |     31.610 |            |      63.034 |
| 3DS # |        584 |        628 |        903 |     17.807 |     35.977 |  24.576.715 |
| PS4 # |        295 |        678 |      4.523 |     82.315 |    448.318 |   9.373.205 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  ALL  |     76.967 |     86.059 |    118.654 |  3.995.371 |  3.416.298 |  56.640.680 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  PS5  |      8.640 |     12.271 |            |    546.395 |            |     753.017 |
| PS5DE |      1.467 |      2.133 |            |     97.903 |            |     146.431 |
| XBS X |      1.503 |        579 |            |     21.920 |            |      46.796 |
| XBS S |        371 |        487 |            |      9.690 |            |      16.238 |
| NSW L |     11.577 |     16.416 |     17.433 |    887.104 |  1.363.141 |   3.959.196 |
|  NSW  |     52.530 |     52.867 |     95.764 |  2.332.237 |  1.566.067 |  16.600.519 |
|  PS4  |        295 |        678 |      3.053 |     82.091 |    275.530 |   7.797.482 |
|n-2DSLL|        584 |        628 |        827 |     17.807 |     33.749 |   1.181.770 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
Skyward Sword followed by Shin-chan top last weeks sales.

4

General Gaming / Re: What Is Your White Whale of Gaming?

« Last post by Mr. Bungle on July 21, 2021, 09:46:24 PM »

Well I haven't read Moby Dick so I guess that is my "white whale" for literature. 
For video games I have been drawn to the Sega Saturn for a while now. It is a tough console to collect so I have been hoping for a mini-version like the Genesis and SNES had. I have played some of the games that have been ported to other consoles but quite a few are locked on that thing. I would also be happy with a collection or some Sega Ages releases of the games. If anyone has one or some experience with it I would love to hear about it.
The other thought I had is Punch-Out. I have all three main Punch-Out!! games but have never completed any of them. I think I probably could if I spent the time but I just keep putting it off. Does anyone know which games is easiest of the three?

5

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Mario Golf: Super Rush

« Last post by Mr. Bungle on July 21, 2021, 09:41:45 PM »

After playing through Golf Adventure I played a full round (18 holes) on each course with the Standard Golf mode. I played against 3 random AI opponents. This made me realize two things. First, the thing I would have like added is a set of tournaments, like those in Mario Tennis Aces. As far as I can tell there is no way to change the difficulty of the AI and they are pretty bad, averaging +10 per game. As you go through the courses they do get harder so while I started with a score around -10, by the last course I was breaking even. Since the AI do about the same on each course there is some felling of them getting more difficult but the game was never close. The other thing I realized is that you can unlock star clubs. These are leveled up sets of clubs assigned to each character. I played the 72 holes I mentioned above and was able to get about 1000 character points which unlocked the star clubs for Rosalina, the character I have been using. To get the double star clubs you need 3000 character points! This is quite a lot of playing and this is for one character. To unlock all the clubs for all the characters would require a lot of playing. I think it is too slow, much like the unlocks in Mario Kart 8.
I just tried out the Battle Golf mode tonight and it was okay. Probably better with real people. The games are very short and there are only two courses. Next up is Speed Golf with each course. I know GK mentioned not liking XC golf but I kind of liked it. The only problem is it appears to only occur in the Golf Adventure. I can see this being added as an additional mode later though.

6

TalkBack / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch) Review

« Last post by Mythtendo on July 21, 2021, 07:00:54 PM »

I never played the original game on Wii (when it came out, I didn't have a job and had to use the money I did have towards rent and bills) and by the time I had a chance to get it the game was no longer being printed and I couldn't find a copy. I'm still early in the game (I only just finished the Wing Ceremony) but am enjoying it, I do have major issues with controlling Loftwings though (and a search online shows that this was a issue with the Wii version too, as the in-game tutorials for Loftwings are not that helpful), it took me way too long to finish that part. I'm not sure why Groose was getting so much love from the Treehouse members, though i'm still early in the game and I suppose he could get better since at least in the beginning of the game he is a bully and kind of a perv towards Zelda.

7

TalkBack / Re: Super Nintendo Lineup For Switch Online Adds Three More Rarities

« Last post by nickmitch on July 21, 2021, 06:43:32 PM »

Labo already has a gun thing, right? Like a bazooka? So, as far as I'm concerned, the leg work is already done.

8

TalkBack / Re: Super Nintendo Lineup For Switch Online Adds Three More Rarities

« Last post by Khushrenada on July 21, 2021, 04:34:42 PM »

Labo Super Scope Kit! I like it!

9

General Chat / Re: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

« Last post by nickmitch on July 21, 2021, 04:09:59 PM »

Giannis was incredible coming off that injury.  Reports say he went to Chick-fil-A and ordered exactly 50 nuggets.

10

TalkBack / Re: Super Nintendo Lineup For Switch Online Adds Three More Rarities

« Last post by Stratos on July 21, 2021, 02:17:32 PM »

Not quite. I was thinking about this yesterday when the selections were announced and there are some deep cuts left that could be available if Nintendo felt like some extra effort was justified for them. Super Scope games. Super Scope 6, Battle Clash, Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, and Yoshi's Safari are available if they can get the joy-con's to function like a light gun. Maybe Tin Star would be available too. However, part of the design around Super Scope games was using the eye-piece to aim so that would be gone. Nintendo did get Duck Hunt to work with the Wiimotes so maybe they same could be done here. They may also generate a bit more buzz or excitement than Jelly Boy.

Why stop there?!?! They could start selling overpriced plastic shells for the joy cons to really bring out the nostalgia! Or maybe make it out of cardboard to be the next wave of labo! Only 59.99 for blueprints (cardboard not included).