We've got a whopper of an episode of Connectivity for you this week. Four (4) (IV) segments of content are coming at you.
First up, the gang discusses their heartbreak and boiling anger at the delay of Rayman Legends less than three weeks from its release. After that, Neal, Daan, and Scott explain their deep love for Fire Emblem Awakening, which they believe is the best entry in the series. In our third segment, Neal and 'Trick have themselves a little eShop roundup and discuss a bunch of recent releases on the platform. Finally, Zach, Scott, and Andy answer a heap of listener mail.
Don't forget to submit your listener mail questions by clicking here. Please also rate and review the show on iTunes.
Random battles are red. Green spots are bonus side missions that usually unlock hidden characters. Be sure to do those!
And it's up to you whether you want to level everyone. I stuck with the same party the whe game, but you can definitely spend a lot of time maxing everyone out if you want to!
No, your characters are always at risk. But there are random battles on the map that you can play endlessly outside of the main story quests. Some are easier than others, so you'll have to find the one that puts your characters in the least amount of danger.
What a tease! But really, anyone who plays on casual, I want to know what that's like. Did you still find the game challenging? Did you ever fail a mission?
I'll be interested to see what all you non-permadeathers thinks about it after you play the game. To me, it's like playing an entire Mario game with the golden invincibility leaf; you get through the levels but without any challenge.
Hey kids, it's Connectivity time! We know you're feeling the pain with the lack of frequent game releases this time of year, and hopefully this episode of the show will help fill the hole in your heart.
In our first segment, Neal and Patrick take a look back in time at Quarter 1 releases from years gone by. How does this year line up against its brethren? Well, I think you have an idea but you'll have to listen to find out.
In our other segment this week, Scott, Patrick, and Mike go over what they've been playing lately this week. Maybe you can live vicariously through our staff and your current lack of games to play will fade away. Maybe not. I'm not a magician, so I don't really know.
Please send your listener mail questions in to us, by clicking right here. If you've got a moment, we'd also love for you to rate and review the show on iTunes.
Ricken was always looking for a way to prove himself to the others. The youngest member of the Shepherds, he was often overlooked when preparing for battle. “Stay here, it’s too dangerous for you,” he would hear time and time again. Still, he was a mage of remarkable skill, and, disobeying direct orders, he made his ability known by sneaking on to the battlefield during a particularly harrowing encounter. His mastery of wind magic turned the tides in the favor of the Shepherds that afternoon, and he was from then on welcomed into battle alongside his countrymen. Though he struggled with the idea of snuffing out the lives of other people, he willed himself forward in order to protect his friends. Ricken was a fiercely loyal, compassionate boy far beyond his years.
And I watched him die.
In my playthrough of Fire Emblem Awakening, I read the last words of a number of characters I had come to know, and each time I would do the same exact thing: close my eyes, tilt my head up toward the ceiling, let out an elongated four-letter word, and turn the 3DS off. Then, I would immediately turn the system back on and attempt to change the fate of the character I had charged into death’s grasp. For the first time in North America, players can choose to bypass creating their own similar ritual by turning permadeath off completely. Objectively, I applaud the decision to make Fire Emblem more accessible to those who might be scared off by the thought of losing characters forever. Personally, though, I think Casual Mode fundamentally strips Fire Emblem of its most unique feature: the tragedy and exuberance of choice.
I sat and stared at the stats of an attack and counter attack for minutes, literally minutes, with my thumb hovering over the A Button, completely frozen, countless times during the game. With less than a 100% chance to hit, there was a possibility I would fail to deliver the final blow to a weakened enemy. More worrisome was the chance he had to strike me back and kill me, causing me to perform the same order of actions I detailed earlier. I watched the percentiles display across the screen, immune to my will. I looked over the map, trying to see if other characters might possibly be able to reach the enemy and more assuredly kill him. With no luck, I settled back on those imperfect percentiles. Finally, I closed my eyes, pressed the A Button, and listened. Would I hear the sound of metal slicing through armor on impact, or the fleeting tune of an enemy sidestepping my advance?
Sure, I was angry if a strategy failed and I had to restart the level, but those lows never matched the absolute joy I felt when a gamble paid off. Each and every time one of my characters executed a low-chance attack or dodged a fatal strike, dread was instantly replaced by elation. I had survived. Eventually, I watched Awakening’s credits roll, and was given brief synopses of what each character went on to do after saving the world. Though the quality of each varied, I was able to give every character I met a future.
As great as Casual Mode is for being more welcoming to new players, it removes the weight of the characters’ lives from your shoulders, which Fire Emblem so expertly creates. Unlike StarCraft or Command & Conquer, which are built around losing countless identical soldiers, and even XCOM, whose losable troops are merely blank slates that level up, Fire Emblem features a variety of characters with distinct backgrounds and motivations. Moreover, the new relationship system allows you to learn even more about characters as they begin to trust, confide in, and even love each other. The death of a character is felt, not merely on the battlefield, but throughout the game. What conversations are lost entirely when one character fails to return home?
If you aren’t trying to protect your heroes while you play Fire Emblem, then why play at all? Sure, the main story is interesting, but Casual Mode eliminates the stories you create for yourself on the battlefield; the moments of uncertainty that miraculously unfold in your favor. And what of the tactical and strategic elements Fire Emblem is known for? Without the penalty of death, what’s to stop players from blindly marching their mass of resurrecting units down the map toward the enemy without any pause for concern? Casual Mode is a guided tour through the world of Awakening; you’ll see everything, but experience nothing.
If you absolutely can’t imagine playing Fire Emblem Awakening with permadeath on, then I’ll concede that you should go ahead and use Casual Mode. But, if you are flirting with the possibility of leaving it on, I wholly urge you to do so. The real challenge of Awakening isn’t simply beating the game, it’s protecting your characters through constant peril; literally shepherding the Shepherds. Awakening is an entirely unique experience when your every choice carries consequence. You are doing yourself a disservice by missing it.
Oh yeah, for sure. Keep an eye out for Anna. She's a recruitable character who is high in luck and seriously dodges everything. And yeah, there are always random battles available on the map you can grind in. So plenty of opportunity to level everyone up.
As announced a few weeks ago, Nintendo plans to release new DLC for Fire Emblem Awakening on a weekly schedule. Though the game hasn’t launched yet, the first batch of DLC became available today. I checked it out, and am pleased with what I saw.
After the fifth chapter in the main quest, the Outrealm Gate becomes available on the overworld map. Here, players can browse, purchase, and play downloadable levels. Much like New Super Mario Bros. 2, DLC is handled entirely in-game—you can’t browse the selection from the eShop proper. The only available DLC at this point is Champions of Yore 1, which is free of charge. So that’s nice.
The level sees your created character and Prince Chrom approached by Old Hubba, an aged prophet as perverted as he is challenged with verb conjugation. He warns the protagonists of a group of summoned Einherjar (ghosts) who are chasing him. It turns out the Einherjar are the spirits of some of Fire Emblem’s most well-known characters, including Eirika, Caeda, and Celica. To help vanquish the specters, Old Hubba summons the spirit of Marth to fight alongside you.
The enemy characters are around level 7, which is probably right where you will be when you first unlock the ability to download DLC. Since I’m at the very end of the game, my party killed each unit in no more than one attack, which made the whole experience kind of boring. It’s definitely a good idea to start tackling the DLC right away as you naturally play through the game rather than wait until after you’ve beaten the main story. Still, there were some good items to collect and some funny conversations between the characters of Awakening and the forgotten heroes of Fire Emblem games past. The level even featured amazing chip tune music from one of the earliest Fire Emblem games (I don’t know the exact one, but I’m sure someone will figure it out next week). Best of all, once you complete the level, you unlock Marth for use throughout the rest of the game.
After the battle ends, Old Hubba asks you to continue helping him defeat the Einherjar, which sets up what you will be doing in the next few batches of DLC. Chrom is weary about the request, but accepts with the promise of more recruitable soldiers. All in all, it’s a pretty inventive way to inject new levels and characters into the game without it feeling inconsequential to the main events of the story.
Oh, and after I finished the level, I noticed I had received some items through SpotPass, including two new challenges for the co-op mode and an unlockable character for the main quest, Nino from Fire Emblem (Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken in Japan). So, on top of what will eventually be paid-for DLC, Nintendo will also sporadically provide players with free content through SpotPass.
Nintendo’s DLC and SpotPass plans are an interesting way to continue supporting Fire Emblem Awakening over the weeks after release, and based on the unlockable characters, it should be a real treat for longtime fans of the series. As long as the price is right, this seems like a no-brainer for players who can’t get enough of grid-based combat.
That’s something I’ve read a lot in the past couple weeks. Despite the series’ buoyed renown thanks to Super Smash Bros., people remain wary. Whether it’s the infamous “permadeath” feature or its nature as a tactical game in general, something about Fire Emblem is uninviting at best, and repulsive at worst. Intelligent Systems tries to address this issue in Fire Emblem Awakening, and it is no coincidence that Nintendo has shone the spotlight so squarely on the game this winter; there has never been a more accessible entry in the series. But don’t let that fool you—underneath its friendly veneer awaits the same challenging experience Fire Emblem is known for.
Still, that challenge is yours to mold. Thanks to its Casual Mode, players in North America can play with “permadeath” turned off for the first time, fundamentally changing the experience. While Classic Mode has your beloved characters teetering on the precipice between life and death with every decision, Casual Mode instead brings every fallen character back to life after a battle is won. Players can even save their games during battles and, if a gutsy gambit should fail, can simply load that save to make a different move. It’s a calculated, radical change to the DNA of Fire Emblem meant to extend a hand to fence-sitting players, as if to say, “See? I’m not so bad!”
The character creation feature is another way Awakening ingratiates players. Your avatar is crucial to the story and is entirely customizable, including his or her name, face, hair, voice, height, and other attributes. The variety of choices makes running across a duplicate via SpotPass pretty unlikely. The most interesting aspects of the process, though, were the asset and flaw categories. Here, players choose which stat their character should excel in (strength, magic, speed, luck, etc.) and which they should have a deficit in. I thought these choices might affect how your character plays; a character excelling in strength might be more of a “tank,” and a character flawed in defense might be an archer or thief, for example. But, much to my surprise, the created character always uses swords and magic, and plays irrespective of your choices. This was especially disappointing to me, as I picked magic as my weakness, and had to use rare items to boost my magic prowess to make the most of my character’s abilities. After a few hours, you gain the ability to change any character’s class, including your created character, but by then, I had adjusted and simply stuck with what I was given. My advice: don’t be flawed in strength or magic.
The story of Awakening centers around Prince Chrom and your created character, who is found unconscious in a field by the good prince. Your character suffers from amnesia (as all good, mysterious protagonists should) and is soon enlisted into the Shepherds, a group of soldiers who protect the borders of Ylisse from invading countries. Despite its familiar beginnings, the story moves in some interesting directions as more and more science fiction is injected into the typical fantasy setting. Things are appropriately grandiose by the endgame, and the complexities should keep you interested as you move from battle to battle, something that definitely isn’t the case with every Fire Emblem game.
Awakening’s noticeable production quality helps in this regard. It portrays key moments with gorgeous animated cut scenes, which feature full voice acting and look brilliant in both 2D and 3D. Even the scenes played out in-engine look great, thanks to stylized and detailed 3D models, but be prepared to read a lot of text boxes. Fortunately, the writing is sharp, and, thanks to its excellent localization, often humorous, so it isn't a chore. What is a chore, though, is listening to characters make a noise each time their text box appears, from grunts to simple exclamations like “yes” or “no.” It sounds miniscule, but when you are reading text for over a minute, you quickly grow weary of the continuous barrage of “No!” “What?!” and “You!”
Gameplay is broken up into two phases: battling, and traversing the overworld map. The overworld portions are the more uninteresting of the two, naturally, and offer the player a chance to sell loot, visit shops, promote units, level up relationships, and then move on to the next battle. These functions are all simple enough to navigate, and you’ll easily develop a succinct post-battle routine that quickly gets you back into the action.
The bulk of the game takes place on the battlefield, where the strategic elements of Fire Emblem are all accounted for. Characters move across grid maps as they attack, heal, open chests, visit villages, and more. The maps start out pedestrian, sporting fields, castles, and small towns, but with progression, you see some incredible terrain. I was shocked at the inventiveness of some levels; I found myself climbing up a tree, with branches forcing me in different directions, and navigating an active volcano as the traversable land burned away with each turn.
The battle system is mostly unchanged. Choosing to attack an enemy displays the percentage chance you have to hit him, the potential damage, and the chance for a critical hit, while also displaying the stats for the enemy’s counterattack. Here, Awakening, as in all Fire Emblem games before it, becomes a strict numbers game. Do you risk attacking an enemy with a 78 percent chance to hit, knowing that if you miss, his counterattack will kill you? Every turn is filled with deliberation, particularly for those playing the Classic Mode. Adding to the strategy is the fact that each weapon type has something it is effective and ineffective against. Bows are useless against heavily armored foes, but can knock out a Pegasus Knight in one hit; swords are better against axes, which are better against lances, which are better against swords. Think of it as Pokémon meets Advance Wars.
The one wildcard is the new relationship system. Where particular units would develop relationships in past Fire Emblem games that might translate to a small advantage on the battlefield, Awakening allows every character the opportunity to build relationships with other members of the cast, simply by battling next to each other. The lowest level of relationship, which is automatically shared between all characters, results in a +10 aim bonus. So, casting a spell alone might give a mage a 75 percent chance to hit. But, position him next to another character, and he suddenly has an 85 percent chance to hit. As units fight alongside each other more and their relationship levels up (from C to B to A and, in some cases, to S), extra modifiers are applied on top of the hit bonus, including chances to critical, dodge, and more. You can even gain a small chance for the second unit to attack alongside the main, which doesn’t even use up his turn!
This forced me to play Fire Emblem in a new way. Instead of running characters in each direction to the nearest foe, I would stop and think about how best to position units to build and utilize the perks of their relationships. Moreover, it was sometimes a better idea to move two units together into a defensive position and draw the enemy out then to try and move and attack separately. More difficult battles featured this ebb and flow, as I charged for the attack and then withdrew to regroup my units and play defensively.
Building relationships becomes a worthwhile investment on the battlefield, but It also leads to unlockable characters. When a male and female character both reach an S rank, they marry. After that, you can recruit their child, who possesses characteristics (both in look and in job class) of his parents. Since each character can only marry once, you won’t even see a number of child variants in a single playthrough. I know I’m already itching to run through again and start marrying different characters, just to see what I get. Expect to spend lots of time working on relationships.
Outside the main quest, Awakening has a few things to keep you coming back. StreetPass brings in armies of other players for you to battle, recruit, or purchase items from, and there is a local-only co-op mode (which requires two copies of the game) that lets you and a friend battle against AI opponents. Additionally, Nintendo plans to continue supporting Awakening with additional maps and characters, available both for free over SpotPass and as paid DLC.
Fire Emblem Awakening confidently toes the line between servicing its roots and courting potential players. The battle system is as mathematically complex as ever, the added relationship system can suck up countless hours, and the final handful of missions is absolute hell for anyone playing on Classic Mode. Still, an olive branch is extended to newcomers, who can turn off the more imposing features while being met with helpful tutorials and impeccable production value. Despite its minor flaws, I was never once unhappy while dumping 30 hours (officially, though you can add at least another 10 for all the times I had to restart battles) into the main quest over the past two weeks. Is Fire Emblem Awakening for everyone? Absolutely not. But it is certainly for more people than any other game in the series. If you’ve been curious, now is the time to dive in.
Still can't wait to read your review, also did you play the other games in the series to highlight the differences in the battle system?
I've played Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but I'm a little hazy on the minutia of each. I'm hoping to finish Awakening this weekend and then play a little bit of the older games so I can make more direct comparisons like this in my review, which will go up on the 31st.
I assume I'm not the only one who was surprised to see Nintendo billing the upcoming Fire Emblem Awakening as its premier Q1 title for the 3DS. A series released sparingly outside Japan and known chiefly for its punishing difficulty, Fire Emblem doesn't exactly have the cachet of Nintendo's most beloved franchises. After 10 hours with the game, though, I can see why Nintendo was willing to put its faith in Awakening; it's a game that defies tradition if, and this is the genius of it all, you choose for it do so.
You can look forward to a more thorough evaluation of Awakening when my review goes live next week, but for now I’d like to highlight some of the basic elements that make the game appealing to both newcomers and veterans alike.
Unparalleled Customization
The first thing that struck me as I began to play Awakening is how customizable the experience is. Upon starting the game for the first time, players get to choose the difficulty, as well as whether or not they want to have the infamous “permadeath” feature turned on or off. If turned off, characters that die regenerate after the battle is over. While this eliminates the most recognized feature of the Fire Emblem series, it also makes for a far more welcoming experience for newcomers. Besides, purists can simply leave the feature on.
Once you have your difficulty and play style selected, it’s off to the character creation screen. For the first time in North America, players are allowed to create their own character. Gender, appearance, and voice are the more superfluous customizations, but the real fun comes in choosing a base strength and weakness for the character. Will you prioritize strength and sacrifice speed? Maybe gamble with a luck boost while decreasing the ability to use magic? I’ve only played as one character so far, but I’m interested to see how these choices impact the overall play style of the main character.
After that, there is a whole bevy of in-game options you can tinker around with. You can play with Japanese voices instead of English, turn off battle animations to speed up enemy encounters, enable auto-play to handle less difficult battles, and a whole lot more. For a series known for its difficulty, Awakening really offers a lot of control to the player.
Fire Emblem Welcoming
Apart from its staggering amount of customizable options, Awakening also does an excellent job of inviting new players in with great production value and clear, informative tutorial screens. The game features beautiful cut scenes that highlight the more noteworthy moments in the story, while the majority of the between-battle banter moving things along is delivered by the in-game models (which look great, except for the feet. What is up with the feet?). There is some voiceover work, but for the most part, you’ll be doing a lot reading. Still, everything looks great, and I’ve yet to find myself bored while moving from one battle to the next, which is a common experience I’ve had with past Fire Emblem games.
While there is no denying that Awakening can be a deep and challenging game, it does a great job of preparing you for what lies ahead. During battles, when you come across something new, like a recruitable character or a village you can visit, the bottom screen displays a tutorial slideshow, which explains what is going on and how to interact with it. The brilliant thing is, these slideshows don’t halt the action in anyway; if you want to read the slideshow, simply look at the touch screen and do so. If you already know what you are doing, just keep playing and ignore it. It’s smart decisions like these that serve to encourage new players while staying out of the way of experts.
Building Relationships
My favorite aspect of Awakening is how characters begin to build relationships as you play. If two of your characters stand next to each other on the battlefield, they assist each other in attacking and defending. Initially, this results in a simple accuracy bonus, but as particular units work together more, they improve their relationship. The higher the relationship grade (C, B, A, and S), the more perks bestowed upon them, such as an increase in evasion, damage, etc.
You will begin to find that it is much more fruitful to pair up and build the relationships of particular units who work well together. For instance, one of my favorite duos is that of an archer and cavalier. By positioning the archer directly behind the cavalier, they each receive attack and defense bonuses, while the archer can use his extended range to hit further away enemies. However, he is protected from oncoming melee opponents, as they must first get through the hearty cavalier to approach him. You’ll find no shortage of complimentary relationships such as this one.
The relationship system creates a little bit of a mini-game to coincide with the main quest. It pushes you to use different characters in different situations in order to max out relationships. While optional, given the steep benefits in battle, I think this is something that will draw a lot of players in.
***
So that’s a little bit of what I think makes Fire Emblem Awakening such a unique and inviting entry in the series. The game launches on February 4 in North America, but in the meantime, you can check out the demo for yourself, available now on the eShop. You can also look forward to my full review next week.
Welcome to episode 69 of Connectivity! You might recall that Connectivity's predecessor, Newscast, ended at episode 69. Does that mean you can expect a brand new, totally original podcast next week? Is this the end of Connectivity? We'll see...
But before all that, we have some good stuff for you this week. Kicking things off, Neal and Mike break down the recent Disney Infinity announcement. If you've been thinking to yourself "you know, I sure do love video games, but I wish they could be more expensive and tooke up more room," then this is something you will want to pay attention to! Also, if you purchase our character pack from the NWR store, you can add one of your favorite staffers to the segment! (MSRP $9.99)
After that, Neal, Scott, and Zach break down Q1 for both the Wii U and 3DS. What's on the horizon and, maybe more importantly, what has been pushed even further back? Oh, and Neal spends a lot of time talking about a downloadable horse game. Seriously.
Closing out the show is a bonus segment about the upcoming shortened NHL season, featuring J.P. and Scott. Because there has to be SOMEONE out there who likes Nintendo games and hockey, right? Anyone?
As always, you can click here to send us listener mail. What do you think about the Q1 line-up? Are you still playing your Wii U? Are you glad you held off buying one? Tell us all about it! Tune in next week for episode 70. Or episode 1 of a new show. Who knows?
Yeah, it would be cool if it worked like Journey. You are just going along, and then you stumble upon another survivor. Do you work together? Do you kill him for his supplies? Do you abandon him at the first sign of trouble? I think that would be awesome.
We recently had the opportunity to chat with Florent Sacré, creative and artistic director of ZombiU, and Guillaume Brunier, producer of ZombiU, about the Wii U launch game that has captured the adoration of most of the staff here at Nintendo World Report. Enjoy!
Nintendo World Report (NWR): The first handful of reviews for ZombiU scored the game lower than the now average on Metacritic and seemed to pan the game for being less action-packed than most first-person shooters. During those first few days after launch, your team left a message on the floor alerting players that the game is survival horror. Was that in any way a response to early critics of the game who might have missed the point? Was that frustrating?
Guillaume Brunier (GB): Everyone can have their opinion, we respect that, but we would be lying if we said we were happy after the early reviews. I think it was only natural to feel somehow disappointed at that moment.
NWR: With other survival horror franchises becoming full-on action titles, what difficulty was there in proving the validity of the survival horror genre?
Florent Sacré (FS): We didn’t come across any specific difficulties. Both the team and its leads agreed on the game’s genre and its hardcore dimension. Nintendo was thrilled with the concept straight away.
NWR: Was there any worry that the punishing death mechanic would be too challenging for a majority of players? What did you do to make the game "more friendly" to players who aren't accustomed to that kind of challenge/style of play?
FS: We wanted to offer a great experience for gamers of all skill level so we added a “chicken” mode for those who wanted to ease their way into the game.
NWR: Your studio is well versed in platformers, but has only developed one previous FPS. What kind of work and study goes into creating an FPS that remains current in the industry, and yet still a Montpellier game? What lessons were learned from the studio's King Kong title?
FS: Some of us worked on Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and that experience was precious when it came to tweaking the 3Cs – character, controls, camera. We spent a day at the firing range to find out what it was really like shooting a weapon. Some paintball guys gave us some replica weapons and we looked at a whole load of other games to understand and refine our own work. As soon as we start work on a project we soak up everything going on and then offer something new. Regarding King Kong, the project taught us a lot and showed we were capable of creating games that were very different from each other.
NWR: Coming from the team that made Rabbids Go Home, this game couldn't be any more in the other direction tonally. What are the pros and cons of working with those two different tones?
FS: We had great creative freedom for Rabbids, (Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Rabbids Go Home), but for ZombiU we had to stick to the survival-horror genre and the zombie world. I am not for or against any particular game genre and Jean Philippe Caro (the other creative director) is the same way. We like switching from one world to the next but we also like developing existing worlds. Our aim, along with the team we work with, is to focus on a specific world/franchise.
NWR: Was there any thought given to adding multiplayer to the main campaign mode, either in a competitive or cooperative fashion?
GB: We did, but we ruled it out quickly as we thought we could not deliver it on time. How to bring a cooperative experience and still keep fear and tension is a question we would love to address though.
NWR: Which element came along first, the idea of controlling a string of different survivors, or the plot? How were you able to weave a cohesive story without a static central character? How did this decision affect the narrative of the game?
FS: Playing several characters - normal guys, guys like us - was one of the first ideas we had in the project. To maximize the survival experience, we didn’t want a hero that was too cumbersome. The story came later. By organizing everything around the Prepper we could justify the series of safe house guys. We left room so that players could let their imaginations run wild, so that they could interpret the game world and characters and tell themselves stories. This space for freedom was essential to us.
NWR: Throughout the game, the player character never really takes a starring role in the events going on, and instead assists the NPCs who are trying to find a way to escape, cure, or survive the zombie outbreak. What were the challenges of creating a world where the player never really feels like a hero? Was that a rewarding experience?
FS: In our game, the general hero concept was pointless for the fear and survival element. Survival lays down the law and the player always has his back against the wall. To become the hero, he has to be smart and iron-willed. The challenge a player has to overcome in ZombiU can be daunting. In the meantime he has lived through a fun and enriching experience, and got a real kick out of being scared witless, sitting comfortably at home on the sofa.
NWR: How exactly did that meta-communication left by the team in the game come into being? The daily "leaderboards," the running list of players who have beaten Survival Mode, the challenges like finding the special survivor—is this something the team created and implemented on its own, or did Nintendo encourage this kind of involvement? How long do you plan to continue doing this?
GB: The team came up with this. Nintendo was very supportive as it’s close to the Miiverse spirit. We wanted to be able to surprise players by being very close to them. We’re having a lot of fun doing this. And we have many ideas to get this ball rolling. One in particular is about our 300k+ zombified friends stored on our servers. Who knows what we could do with them.
NWR: What are your impressions of Miiverse in relation to ZombiU?
GB: That’s one of the great things about the WiiU. We’re on the Miiverse all day long, chatting with players, checking their status, admiring the crazy art they’re creating.
NWR: ZombiU has been considered a "remake" of your original Zombi game, which I suppose makes this a franchise. Will we be seeing a return to this franchise in the future, and if so would it be in London or another zombie-infested town?
GB: We have a hard time squashing this theory. ZombiU is not a remake of Zombi. True it’s a tempting thing to believe as there are similarities but we only realized this afterwards. Now if that helps ZombiU being a franchise, we should stop fighting for the truth!
NWR: Did the push to launch the game alongside the Wii U require some things to be left on the drawing board for a future title or, better yet, DLC?
GB: Cooperative play would be one example. There are also things that we should have left on the drawing board like the tapping gameplays to nail barricades or open manholes.
NWR: Was there ever any thought given to a more expansive online multiplayer mode? If so, what would it have been like?
GB: We did not spend a lot of time contemplating online multiplayer as we had other issues to address. In our most exciting dreams, we would like to create an online experience where players never quite know where they stand between coop and player vs. player. Doubt is a great nest for tension and fear.
Welcome! We are back from our Kirby-centric episode and have three segments for you this week.
Kicking things off, Scott, Neal, Zach, and Patrick answer some listener mail about whether or not New Super Mario Bros. U is a system seller and how willing we are to jump into an all downloadable future. After that, the boys talk about the games they've been playing this week, including ZombiU, Wario Land II, Runner 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and more. Oh, and Zach has a great joke at the end.
After that, Patrick and Danny go in-depth with Assassin's Creed III and the series as a whole. How does the new entry compare to the games past? Is there any reason to play this on the Wii U over other systems? Why can't Danny ask a girl for her phone number? These questions and more will be answered!
Wrapping up the show is a bonus segment that sees the return of Dino Chat with Zach and Scott. Come along as Zach teaches us about the origins of different species of dinosaurs, how dinosaurs may have hunted, and exactly how many different types of dinosaurs there are; afterward, he pours a 40oz. on the curb for each of them!
As always, you can click here to send us listener mail. Next week, we are going to take a look back at 2012 and ponder what's ahead for 2012. If you have fond memories or predictions, send them our way. Happy holidays!
Tegan is asleep in her room above me, dreaming of what I assume babies must dream of: colors, familiar faces, places they can’t possibly connect. The baby monitor on my computer desk emits the static sounds of a beach, where fake waves crash along the shore and seagulls sound off in a perfect 1-2-3-caw rhythm that never falters. The sounds are supposed to help put her to sleep, but I find they are equally useful in helping me focus.
I’m writing about Christmas. What it has meant to me, as a child, and what it means to me now, as a father. When I struggle with synonyms for “amazing” “surprising” and “total bullshit” for too long, my monitor goes black, and in its reflection I can see our Christmas tree glowing behind me, surrounded by a number of gifts wrapped pristinely by Tegan’s mother, and a few wrapped by me, as if handled by a person whose hands have been asleep for hours. Without counting, I’d say there are roughly twenty gifts of varying size encircling the tree, and no less than fifteen of them are for Tegan.
Of course, she won’t remember any of what she unwraps, nor will she have any concept of our gesture. Mostly, she will peel off the bows stuck to each brightly colored package and collect them within arm’s reach (for optimal “getting into mouth” time), much like she might collect and ascribe value to seashells or fireflies a few years from now. Still, it doesn’t have the slightest effect on my absolute excitement for Christmas morning, when we will sit with her on the floor, encouraging her to rip the paper away and find what is underneath.
Thinking about this first Christmas with Tegan has me remembering a particular year when I was a boy.
***
It is 1996, and my grandma is watching me at her house on Bauer Street. The two-story house is old and full of history, including that of the childhood of my mom and her three brothers and one sister. The walls are painted white, and the floor is made of wood, dark brown and always dirty. In the backroom, behind a gate, is grandma’s Rottweiler, who is never allowed out when the grandkids are around. A precautionary measure, I think, as I don’t recall any cousin ever being sewn up with stitches after prodding the dog.
I’m eleven years old, and I’m fairly certain I’ve just convinced my grandma to take me to McDonalds for lunch. Before we can go, though, she must go down to the basement and get some money for the trip. I follow behind her, down into the dank and cool basement. The only other time I remember seeing the basement is during a particularly stormy night a few years ago. My mom came to help her three brothers send buckets of flooded water up the stairs and out the back door, while I sat at the top of the stairs watching wayward hats and Ziploc bags full of useless junk float and bob around as if it was completely normal.
In the corner of the basement is grandma’s safe. Standing six feet tall, it towers over me and is decorated with magnets that pin pictures of the grandkids to each side. There is one of me in a green jersey holding a soccer ball. The dial spins back and forth with ease as my grandma performs the opening incantation, and in a few seconds, the door of the rust-brown safe swings open. Her purse hangs from a coat hook soldered to the side, and while she begins to rummage through it, my eyes catch something lying along the floor of the safe. The front of the box is gray with a red stripe across the rightmost side; the top is purple and hosts Bowser, Mario, a Stormtrooper, and a figure I don’t recognize. “Nintendo 64” is proudly written across the front, and, just underneath it, “The Fun Machine.”
Almost immediately, I lift my hand, point at the treasure befitting a safe of this magnitude, and ask “who is that for?”
My grandma pulls her hand out of her purse, clutching wayward bills, and immediately shuts the safe. “That is for your cousin Jenny, and you better not ruin the surprise!” Despite my insistence, she will say no more on the topic.
I spend the next few days in agony, repeating the same imaginary conversation with my grandma over and over. “But grandma, Jenny doesn’t even like video games. She won’t even want it!” I plead to no one. Eventually, my anger subsides, and the final weeks of school before Christmas vacation drift by effortlessly and without consequence.
Christmas day finally arrives and, despite constant reminders, I am crestfallen to discover that there is no Nintendo 64 among the gifts furnished by my mother that morning. Still, there isn’t much time to sulk, as my brother and I are hurriedly dressed in now too-small sweaters given by relatives last year and carted off to grandma’s house for dinner and more gifts. Jenny sits across the table from me, talking excitedly about the gifts she has received so far, and I loathe her as much as any child is capable of loathing. A thimble’s worth really, but still I loathed away.
We move to the living room, and my grandma and grandpa begin to distribute presents to the kids with concerted sluggishness. Each trip back from the kitchen produces a few more small presents—too small to be a Nintendo 64—that are placed around every cousin, including Jenny, while my brother and I watch, gift-less. Finally, my grandma comes out one last time with a large, rectangular box wrapped in bright red paper, and places it in front of me and my brother.
“Sorry for tricking you,” she offers with a wink.
I can’t believe it; grandma, herself a bastion of hope and truth, a woman who never met me without a cookie or candy bar in tow, had tricked me. My brother and I feverishly stripped the box of its paper before hugging. There, but of course, was the Nintendo 64. “The Fun Machine” was ours. When we return home, my mom presents us with two more gifts: a copy of Super Mario 64 and an extra controller.
***
It wasn’t until years later that I put together why my grandma had purchased us such an elaborate gift while my other cousins received clothes and checks for $25. She had bought it for us because my mom, a single mother working two jobs to support us, couldn’t. It was as simple as that. I haven’t worked up the courage to ask whose idea that was, but I have a feeling my grandma orchestrated it; my mother is certainly too proud to ask for someone’s help, especially in buying her kids Christmas gifts.
I think about that Christmas each year. About the absolute joy of receiving exactly what I wanted, as well as the love my grandma exhibited in helping my mom provide that for me. Tegan won’t remember this year’s Christmas the way I will, but I hope one day I can give her a memory like this; a brilliant memory of a day she can always look to and think “my dad loves me.”
Glad you guys like the riffs! Obviously, comedy isn't necessarily our strong suit, but I'm happy they are up to snuff. You can definitely look forward to some more!
The other day, I realized I've played a decent number of fitness games: both Wii Fit titles, Your Shape for Kinect, and now Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013. From this perspective, I can safely say that each game offers something unique, but, frankly, I wish I could take the best elements from each and mash them together. Still, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013 is a pretty good workout game that benefits from having total Wii U market share for the time being.
Your Shape's greatest strength is its variety. The game features strength exercises, cardio workouts, yoga sessions, krumping routines, dance cardio, and even Just Dance-inspired sections with the music of LMFAO, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and more. Your Shape also unlocks plenty of routines across each difficulty from the start, so you won't have to meander about in low-level routines trying to unlock the more difficult workouts. Plus, once you grow tired of what's available, you can spend the coins you earn while playing to unlock new routines.
Aside from simply picking your own routines at random, you can have Your Shape develop a workout program tailored to what you are looking for. You pick an area to work on, like losing weight or increasing balance, how often you'd like to work out each week, and how many weeks the program should run, and Your Shape generates a program for you to return to every other day. I thought this feature was pretty cool and actually did a good job of incorporating exercises you might skip (like krumping, for me) in order to build a varied routine that, indeed, seemed to work for its intended purpose.
Your Shape also has a number of auxiliary features to keep users engaged and promote wellness outside of exercising alone. A news feed, available from the game's main menu, displays your friends' progress and medals, an obvious tactic to keep you motivated and engaged in the game. Also included is an extensive recipe section, broken up into categories like weight loss, kid friendly, etc. You can filter these recipes so you only see vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free options, which I loved. This focus on more than exercise in achieving total wellness really impressed me.
Still, while Your Shape has some great features and a ton of variety in workouts, it stumbles in tracking your workout and overall progress. Where Your Shape for Kinect was able to actually watch your movements and (somewhat) accurately rate your execution, this version has you hold a Wii Remote the entire time and grades you based on its movement. As you can imagine, this is an entirely imprecise system. You can execute a move the same way twice, but it will register as "awesome" once and then simply "OK" the next. It's frustrating, because the game calculates your calories burned based off how well you do and presents you with an overall score at the end, often lower than it should be. This can be discouraging, especially for someone who is just starting to get into working out.
Also, with no Balance Board support, it is up to the player to track his own weight loss outside of the game, which seems like a missed opportunity. Basically, if you want to get an accurate idea of your progress, you'll need a heart rate monitor to calculate your calorie loss and a scale to measure your weight loss. That's a lot of added expense.
As with most of these fitness games, it is also important to make sure you perform the exercises correctly so you don't pull or strain something. Your Shape doesn't teach you how to do any of the routines beforehand, so you learn by watching your fitness trainer perform them on the screen. This is fine for the most part, but when it comes to the stretches and yoga positions, it's easy to put strain on your back or neck while trying to look at the screen to make sure you are performing correctly. It's not hard to imagine people waking up sore the next day because they were doing something incorrectly.
Oh, and it isn't a huge deal, but the game doesn't feature the ability to play off-screen, which is weird. You literally do everything on the GamePad up until the workout begins, then you have to pick up your Wii Remote and look at the TV. It would have been nice to be able to workout while watching something else.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013 is a solid game. The variety of things to do as well as the auxiliary features, such as the news feed and recipe section, set it apart from its competitors; whatever you are looking for in your workout routine, Your Shape has something for you. The personalized workout generator is a great tool, as well. However, the game does a poor job of tracking your performance. If knowing your exact execution and calorie loss isn't that big of a deal, then Your Shape is right up your alley. Otherwise, be prepared to purchase some other equipment to track your progress on your own.
Truth be told, I was very close to going with an 8, but I just found the scouring for "things" to be too much for me. However, the game still has charm to spare. If you can deal with some frustration and walkthrough reliance (or lots of exploration on your own), it's worth playing. I think it's much better than Super Paper Mario, that's for sure.
Despite Nintendo's unwillingness to deviate from the tried-and-true methods of Mario's traditional 2D adventures, they have had no issue experimenting with and reinventing the plumber's paper persona. After the duo of Paper Mario and PM: The Thousand-Year Door, the Wii's Super Paper Mario attempted to apply the paper motif to Mario's classic 2D roots, forsaking much of the RPG system that had defined those previous games. The result was an enjoyable if somewhat forgettable foray that didn't show much benefit from ditching the RPG tropes. Paper Mario: Sticker Star arrives some five years later, with the series still in flux, with a new spin on the formula that brings it closer to the achievements of the first two games while being completely unlike either. Let me explain.
Turn-based battles return to Paper Mario, but with your participation reimagined. Rather than equipping items and learning new skills along the journey, Mario uses a handy sticker collection to defend himself. Stickers, which you can pluck off scenery, purchase in shops, find in "?" boxes, and earn in battle, provide an attack or ability for Mario in battle, and then disappear after a single use. They also come in different styles, from worn-out to flashy, denoting their rareness and power. A worn-out Jump sticker causes a minute amount of damage, while a flashy sticker, which appears to shine and reflect light, causes large amounts of damage.
This reliance on stickers, themselves a finite resource, creates some interesting strategy for players. While traditional RPGs may support simply spamming the most powerful attacks to cut through weak foes, Sticker Star encourages careful management of Mario’s stickers. While using a shiny POW block to dispatch a group of Goombas in one move may prove tempting, that sticker is often better utilized during an encounter with a more powerful foe. Because of this consideration, it is common to use a stockpile of simple Jump and Hammer stickers, which are plentiful and available from the start of the adventure, to deal with common enemies. So, while rarer stickers may be lifesavers in tougher battles, they are no more important than the most common of stickers.
While turn-based battles return, Mario doesn't level up or gain any experience points as he progresses. In fact, his only improvements come from finding HP-Up Hearts throughout the world, which increase his total health by five points. Unfortunately, while these health boosts are an absolute necessity in order to survive later battles, you can only find them through exploration. Unlike Zelda games, which grant Link more health after defeating bosses as well as through discovering secrets or completing side quests, Mario becomes hardier only when he finds these power-ups.
However, finding those power-ups usually isn’t a problem, as the game has you scouring each and every level for "things" in order to progress. From the start, Sticker Star gives the impression of a straightforward affair, featuring a world map not unlike Super Mario Bros. 3. However, the game periodically comes to a screeching halt when it requires a specific item to progress further in a level. These "things" are the real-world items that show up in Sticker Star, like scissors, fans, vacuums, radiators, and more. Lots more, actually. These "things," essential in solving certain puzzles, aren't usually found in your current level, though, leaving you to search every nook and cranny of each available area until you stumble upon the key item. Or, you know, you could just use a walkthrough.
Maybe the excellent pacing of Xenoblade Chronicles, which never left the player confused or wondering where to go next, has spoiled me, but this reliance on "things" is a real pain. I groaned every time I realized I needed a special item to progress, and eventually started resorting to Google. I'm not opposed to puzzle solving, but the fact that these items aren't, at the very least, in the present level is incredibly discouraging. What's worse, the "things" are also necessary to beat bosses. An early boss encounter pits Mario against a giant Pokey (you know, the cactus-looking thing from Super Mario World). The super Pokey has 300 HP and is unstoppable with standard stickers alone. However, if you bring the baseball bat (found two or three levels before this encounter), you can use it to knock out segments of his body, dropping his HP to under 100.
I'd be fine with this if, like a Mega Man game, the "things" merely gave you an advantage, and you could still defeat bosses through conventional means, but that just isn't the case. On top of that, Mario's sticker scrap book can only hold so much at once, so you can't even have all of these "things" with you, just in case. So, unless you read a walkthrough ahead of time, the game expects you to start battling a boss, die, and then return with the required "thing." It's mindboggling, really.
It's a shame, too, because playing the game is so much fun. Easily the most thematically dedicated entry in the series, the game constructs its paper worlds and characters with believability, bending and folding them accordingly. Mario's progress also impacts the environments in interesting ways: a forest world is covered in poison, but once Mario beats the boss, he can return to each level in that world to freely explore and collect items, unencumbered by the poisonous goo. Levels are also surprisingly lengthy and feature some unique settings, such as the aforementioned poisoned forest.
I want to love Sticker Star. The game looks great, the localization is top-notch, and, when things are moving along, it all feels so right. The sticker economy is well realized and forces you to manage your sticker collection well. But the game's obsession with "things" brings it to a screeching halt all too often. This hurdle is easily sidestepped by bookmarking your preferred walkthrough, but it's a shame the game couldn't simply be less obtuse in its puzzle structure. So, instead of loving Sticker Star, I'm left to simply like it.
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