Messages

1151

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X. Monolith Soft's Next Game.

« on: November 06, 2015, 04:32:07 PM »

Doesn't the Shin Megami Tensei series actually have stuff where the Judeo-Christian God is portrayed as a villain. THAT I can see offending people and I can see why Nintendo would want to clear of something like that.  But name dropping some religious reference is pretty minor.  Think about things like the Lazurus Pits from Batman or Archangel from X-Men.  Those are bible references.  Sega called their console the Sega GENESIS for crying out loud!  Any controversy from those, if they exist, were so minor that I've never heard of any.

But then I'm a pretty reasonable person and I have noticed that there are a lot of people that aren't.  I'm a Christian but if you call something Lucifer or testament I will at worst roll my eyes.  In some cases you could be doing something that makes perfect sense.  Call the main bad guy Lucifer?  That's such an obvious parallel that it's almost too easy to the point of being corny.  But there are people that throw a fit over the tiniest reference to their religion and I can see why a company doesn't want any bad publicity that could come from that.

Now the only people that will ever play Xenoblade Chronicles X or frankly will even know it exists are not the types that would throw a fit over religious terms.  But then I think they probably wouldn't care about jailbait in bikinis either.  I think Nintendo is over-reacting but they do care a lot about being seen as a family-friendly company and it just takes one nutbar to make a big thing about this stuff.  A company like Atlus wouldn't give a **** because their image is of this Japanese hardcore games company and their target audience would actually be more turned off if they changed the content.  But Nintendo is trying to sell Pokémon and doesn't want to be associated with "blasphemy" or "pedophilia" which would be the worst-case scenario here.

I don't want to get the point where Nintendo is back to root beer in bars and people threatening to "destroy" someone rather than "kill" them.  But I get why they have some concerns.  There is a point where the game's themes are being seriously compromised but I can live with some sanitizing if it doesn't have much impact on the experience.

1152

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Xenoblade Chronicles X. Monolith Soft's Next Game.

« on: November 05, 2015, 08:01:45 PM »

I didn't know religious references were being changed.  That's a little annoying.

I look at it like this - has anything been changed to the point where you would prefer the alternative of the game not being localized at all?  Odds are the main feel of the game is not going to be all that different because a 13-year old girl can't wear skimpy clothes.  It isn't like sweat in Mortal Kombat or people getting intoxicated on root beer.  Also we do now live in the internet age.  If you really want to see this girl uncensored I'm sure you can find screenshots and movies easily.  This isn't like when I was a kid and I wouldn't even know if a game was altered and couldn't see what I was missing even if I did.

1153

Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: November 04, 2015, 05:14:56 PM »

I find the only thing missing on a PlayStation console is Nintendo games.  That's a pretty major gap for someone with tastes like myself but it is miniscule compared to having everything missing except Nintendo games.  For anyone that doesn't care for Nintendo's own games there is no reason to own a Nintendo console, but there is still reason to own a Nintendo handheld and there was for owning the NES and SNES.  And the only person that couldn't find something to play on a PlayStation would be someone that ONLY likes Nintendo games.  Nintendo has created this segregation of the console audience.  They're their own entity with a very devoted group of fans and little customers outside that group.  And that fanbase is so Nintendo-focused that third parties complain that their games don't sell on Nintendo consoles.

Of course I never knew an NES or SNES owner that didn't also like Mega Man or Castlevania or numerous other non-Nintendo games.  In the SNES era it was normal for someone to own one entirely for Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.  You owned the console because it had the most games and prior to 1996 Nintendo was just one of those many companies whose games were included.  Nintendo-only fans weren't a thing then.  I want both Nintendo games and third party games and I assume I'm not some tiny little minority.  Nintendo's fanbase has become more Nintendo-only simply because those are the only people that would not be disappointed by a console with no third party support.  But is that the true audience or is there a good-sized potential audience of people like me that want a Nintendo console with good third party support and for which something like the PS4 is a compromise - the closer to what they want than what Nintendo is offering but not the modern NES/SNES equivalent that they would really like?

1154

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Directs: What Works, And What Might Change

« on: November 03, 2015, 12:20:31 PM »

I remember a time where it seemed like Nintendo had E3 and Spaceworld and then there wasn't a peep out of them for months at a time.  That sucked and the Directs are a great way to keep Nintendo in the news.  But I feel they preach to the choir so Nintendo should make sure to have a full presence at industry-wide shows like E3.  The goal should be to get the word out there and that means to everyone, not just Nintendo die-hards.

1155

TalkBack / Re: Ranking Nintendo's Past 10 Holiday Lineups

« on: November 02, 2015, 07:05:36 PM »

I don't care for Activision or EA (except Mass Effect which is awesome) but they have some pretty elaborate games.  Meanwhile Nintendo has a slim release schedule for two years before the Wii U launches and their big Wii U game is a 2D sidescroller that might as well be NSMB Wii with a higher resolution.  Seriously?  It took years for them to release THAT?  It's not even 3D.  Fuckin' N64 games are more complex than that.  Nintendo puts years and years into games and then they come out kind of small and quaint.  What the hell?  There are clearly issues with their development process because they take forever to make games and the ones they make don't come across as particularly elaborate or complicated compared to other contemporary titles.

1156

TalkBack / Re: Ranking Nintendo's Past 10 Holiday Lineups

« on: November 02, 2015, 05:23:20 PM »

Your argument basically comes down to Nintendo should be filled with Wizards who can magically make games appear out of their ass because that's the only way they can do actually what you say they should do.

If you can't offer a half-decent lineup of games around Christmas for two consecutive years maybe you shouldn't design your console in a way that completely sabotages all third party support so that you and you alone are responsible for there being games available.  I have expectations of how many games should be being released on a regular basis and that is a realistic expectation based on all consoles on the market.  If Nintendo has to be magic wizards that fart out games to meet the expectations that the other console makers have set then that is their own stupid **** up and they get no free pass on that.  I wouldn't give a free pass to the other guys either.  This is the industry standard so you fucking meet it.  Don't have the resources, then expand.  Don't have the relationships with other companies, then build them.  Don't have the hardware, then make it.  If you fucked up several years ago and are still feeling the effects of it then I am going to give you a failing grade for each of those years because it is your **** up and your responsibility and if you don't like it then maybe that will inspire you to not be so damn short-sighted in the future.

This is how the damn market works.  Nintendo gives us all this "please understand" stuff in the first few years of the Wii U and no one put with it and the console didn't sell.  These are companies trying to make money in a competitive industry.  You don't get to make excuses if the other guys are up to snuff and you're not.  I'm not being any less fair than the average consumer.  You offer this, competition offers that.  You match or exceed or you're left in the dust.

1157

TalkBack / Re: Ranking Nintendo's Past 10 Holiday Lineups

« on: November 02, 2015, 02:30:57 PM »

The second I saw this headline I thought "that Wii Music year HAS to be the worst" and sure enough it is.  To me that holiday was Nintendo sending the message loud and clear of "we don't give a **** about anyone but casuals".  By the next holiday season I had a PS3.  And if you want proof that the Wii was a fluke look at how two of the key years of Wii-mania are at the bottom of the list.  Nintendo never put in a poorer effort into a console than they did with the Wii and the thing coasted on mainstream fad appeal thanks to Wii Sports and Wii Fit.  Nintendo clearly knew it too and developed lazy habits that bit then in the ass big time when they launched the Wii U.

Also you have to question how in-touch Nintendo was when they were releasing garbage like Wii Music and assuming it would have the same appeal of Wii Sports.  Either Nintendo had no idea what they were doing or "release half-baked junk and the rubes will eat it up" was their intentional strategy.  The Wii U's failure is karma for all the **** Nintendo got away with during the Wii years.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: November 02, 2015, 01:22:00 PM »

Super Mario 64 was awesome and so were most of the first party N64 games.  But going with cartridges completely screwed up third party support.  So is each first party N64 game better than 20 good PlayStation games that presumably the N64 would have gotten if Nintendo had gone with CDs?  That's probably about the ratio for each game.  On the Wii U today is each first party game worth that?  It becomes Nintendo's handful of games vs. pretty much every other game being made.  No company can hold up to such a comparison and that's why those that are cool with that are the minority.  Most gamers want access to the broadest selection of games and they don't get that from Nintendo.

So If Nintendo sticks with that formula their consoles are going to continue to underperform sales-wise.  That tradeoff is way too much to ask of most consumers.

1159

TalkBack / Re: A Journey Through Modern Zelda

« on: November 02, 2015, 12:26:17 PM »

It's funny.  Both Wind Waker and Skyward Sword have some distinguishing feature that I was not really on board for.  I did not like the graphics switch on Wind Waker and I don't like motion controls period.  Yet both of those Zeldas also have some other design decision that I don't care for.  I find Wind Waker's ocean world dull and empty and I felt that Skyward Sword felt too small because it separated its areas like they were individual levels.  If the cel-shaded graphics and motion controls were in games that didn't already have some other major flaw would I be less sour on those features?  I was skeptical going in to begin with and then neither game blew me away (both are actually good games all things considered; Zelda just has very high expectations).  What if they had?

The Wind Waker graphics really have a rough time because they tend to constantly be associated with Zelda titles I'm not too fond of.  Aside from WW that style also appears in the forced-touchscreen DS games and now this Triforce Heroes thing that sounds like FSA-but-suckier.  I was never thrilled with the graphic design to begin with but it seems that many of the lesser Zeldas go back to that style (though Minish Cap was awesome so it's not a complete wash).

1160

Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: October 30, 2015, 12:31:07 PM »

The question is can Nintendo compete in this market.

Before Nintendo was top dog and they were able to manage to make a good system that could still be sold for a profit...now you can't do that.  You are hoping that the profits come from software and that a couple of years losses will benefit the company in the end. 

Well if you look at the Xbox division they have been struggling to make profits and money hatting exclusives has only made it worse.  Nintendo can't bleed money like that...because right now they are pretty much only one division video games.  Sony and Microsoft are much more and they have diversified business models.

Well the Wii U model isn't working out so hot.  If the NX is like the Wii U where it compromises a bunch of stuff to be different then it is going to sell worse.  A console experience like the Wii U where almost every game being made is available for every console except it and the only worthwhile games are made by Nintendo themselves and months go by with nothing being released doesn't increase the customer-base, it shrinks it.  Aside from the spike of the Wii, which only spiked because it found a new audience, each Nintendo console sells less than the one before and that makes sense.  People buy the console, are disappointed by all of it's problems, and lose faith in Nintendo and switch brands.

More than anything else my disappointment with the Wii is the reason I didn't buy a Wii U.  Nintendo needed to show me that things would be different this time and they didn't.  Once I found out the specs were compromised for a weird controller yet again I knew all the third party issues I had with the Wii would continue and I was right, and I was already pretty fed up with that issue on the N64 and Cube.  So if the NX is some another Nintendo weird console then everyone who owns a Wii U and is pissed off that there are so few games for it and that Nintendo has done very little with the Gamepad is going to think "oh that's another Wii U.  I'm not buying that" and the console sells even worse.  And of course all those you wrote off Nintendo in prior generations are going to continue to not buy the console because the Wii U retained the problems of the Wii which retained the problems of the Gamecube which retained the problems of the N64.  Nothing ever is fixed and new problems get introduced and become part of the "formula".

So how long does this approach with the ever shrinking userbase and increased customer dissatisfaction and bad reputation and poor word-of-mouth keep working?  A couple years ago were they not shitting bricks about the poor Wii U sales?

1161

Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: October 29, 2015, 12:41:47 PM »

I think people tend to forget how cutting edge the NES was.  Their goal was to make something that could run Donkey Kong nearly arcade perfect.  The Famicom came out in 1983 and compare that to the Colecovision which came out only a year earlier.  The Famicom also came out the same day as the Sega SG-1000 and ran circles around it.  It was very impressive stuff for the time.

I think motion control is a fool's errand because I think what people want, and Sony appears to have known this more than anyone, is a good flexible videogame system that is actually kind of generic in its features and abilities.  Nintendo offered something like this with the NES and SNES and those are the two consoles where they were the most commercially and culturally relevant videogame company in the world.  Those consoles did what people expected and were broad enough in their functionality that a wide variety of games and genres were present.  Since then Nintendo always has some trade-off.  Some piece of core functionality that the market expects that is cast aside in favour of Nintendo's own weird way of doing things.

N64 - no you don't get FMW or CD quality audio or lower game prices but you do get fast load times
GC - no you don't get online gaming but you do get GBA connectivity
Wii - no you don't get industry standard specifications but you do get motion control
Wii U - no you don't get industry standard specifications again but you do get a tablet controller

It is funny that Nintendo has stuck with this "compromise this to get this" routine for four console generations when it has only worked ONCE while the two consoles they had that didn't do that were hugely successful.  Meanwhile Sony has had four consoles and three of them were the industry leader simply by being incredibly conventional.  The PS3 was their one misstep and that was because they went away from their proven strategy, going with a high end luxury price product instead of something that fit the conventions of the industry.  I don't even know where Nintendo got the idea that being unnecessarily weird was somehow the key to success.  The N64 was largely seen as a misstep and you figure that when it came time to decide if the Cube goes online or doesn't that they would think "failing to follow the conventions of the market really bit us in the ass on the N64 so let's avoid making that mistake again" and instead it was "yeah, being weird for no reason and denying consumers options is the way to go even though the only previous time we did that we surrendered our market share to a non-videogame company that was a newcomer to the market."  A smart company would learn from their mistakes but Nintendo has operated like an insane person since the Virtual Boy.

So focusing on motion controls or other weird gimmicks is going to do jack **** for Nintendo because the only time it ever worked for ANYBODY was the Wii and that appears to be a one time fluke that really only lasted for the first 2/3 of the Wii's life (Wii mania was clearly over the last two years before the Wii U came out).  The market leading console of every other generation has been a very conventional product that has the flexibility to provide lots of games of different styles from different developers.  Because ultimately that's what people want - games.

If Nintendo can include such gimmicks in a console that is also conventional and it somehow doesn't make the price too high then why not do it?  But I don't think that's feasible.  Why doesn't Nintendo just try something conventional?  They haven't put in a real effort to do so in 20 years and yet it makes no sense why when the opposite approach has blown up in their face most of the time.  The only justification I can think of is that their handheld line has been very successful by not being conventional and they've made the mistaken assumption that that same formula applies to consoles, which is still weird because it completely ignores the NES and SNES.

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TalkBack / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) Local Review and Conclusion

« on: October 29, 2015, 11:58:50 AM »

Back in 2004 when FSA was released, Nintendo had an awesome game but the infrastructure was such that most gamers wouldn't put in the investment to fully enjoy it.  The ideas were bigger than the hardware Nintendo had at the time.

Now over ten years later we have the infrastructure for people to play online at any time and communicate with voice chat and FSA would work like a dream today and yet this game seems scaled back and inferior.  They could easily have built on FSA's foundation but they went with less players, rejected industry standard features like voice chat, and put virtually no effort into the single player mode.  What the hell?  Games aren't supposed to get worse, Nintendo.  But on paper a multiplayer Zelda on the 3DS sounds awesome because it sounds like FSA with more accessible hardware requirements.  The concept is really solid but this game just sounds botched.

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TalkBack / Re: Can Nintendo Save Their Holiday Lineup?

« on: October 29, 2015, 11:48:40 AM »

I've said it a thousand times but CUT THE DAMN PRICE!!  That doesn't help for existing Wii U owners but it gets all the fence-sitters to finally take the plunge and for those new customers games like Splatoon and Super Mario Maker might as well be brand new.  If Nintendo can get a spike in new Wii U owners this Christmas then the evergreen games like Mario Kart and SSB will see sales spikes as well.  I know that means nothing to an existing owner but you can't just fart out new games out of thin air.  But Nintendo can at least take financial advantage of the holiday shopping season by making the Wii U more of an impulse buy and then those same shoppers will buy the games already on the shelf.

This is the last Christmas for the Wii U.  Even if the NX doesn't replace it next year, the Wii U is finished.  This is the last chance to really make that push for some more sales that a price cut provides.  Cutting after the NX won't do ****.  Cutting it in the spring or the summer won't matter.  You want that price cut for black friday.

What is the alternative?  You got little new games for Wii U owners and nothing that will sell systems to newcomers if they weren't swayed by the titles already released.  So how much Wii U product do you sell over the biggest shopping season of the year when you've got nothing to entice buyers but an RPG with only niche appeal?  The big game for the season was delayed and the console itself is overpriced.  There is no other play here.  Cut the price or piss away Christmas 2015.

1164

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Mobile Game Miitomo Launching March 2016 Alongside New Account Service

« on: October 29, 2015, 11:35:49 AM »

If Nintendo is going to make mobile junk like everyone else I'm fine with the Miis being the franchise that gets sucked into it.  To me the Miis are like some weird in-law that doesn't fit in with the rest of the family and their mere presence taints every family event.  So, yeah, banish the Miis to the purgatory of mobile games while the "real" Nintendo franchises star in the real games.

Still I am a little surprised at how dull this game sounds.  There was a sliver of hope that Nintendo would try to shake the mobile market up with something different and interesting but this doesn't look to be any of that.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 28, 2015, 06:30:11 PM »

The NX is coming out in 2016 or it might as well come out in 3045 for all the fucking good that any further delay will do Nintendo.

I'm with Ian on this one. If they wait til 2017 they're toast as hardware makers.

Granted, Nintendo's advertising has been weak for years. Also, I'm going at this as a person that can wait a while.

But this is a problem that can be solved with a good marketing story. Okay, and maybe enough games for the Wii U and 3DS.

My thinking is that whatever perception there is on Nintendo from the enthusiast audience and press won't be any significantly different between 2016 or 2017. Put another way, whatever gamers think of Nintendo has solidified a while ago and any conversions will be few. Meanwhile the wider audience, who is most likely largely ignorant of the daily tumbles of the enthusiast audience, is just as susceptible to a shiny new Nintendo game in 2017 as it would in 2016. And hey, everyone likes the underdog and a comeback story, right?

Personally, I'm hoping for NX in 2017 in order to have a higher quality games at launch. If NX SDKs are only now being sent out to third-parties, a 2016 NX launch would mean third party games that have spent a year in development with Nintendo games that only had a little more time being made. Maybe that works out somehow, but I have my doubts.

Alas, perhaps I am overestimating the patience available for Nintendo these days. I can't discount that I'm a weirdo for saying, "I can wait for you in 2017!" Also, the 3DS is in dire need of a successor.

I think you are overestimating the patience available for Nintendo.  You're the converted.  My general feeling is that in general Nintendo is ignored at best and outright mistrusted at worst.  I see the Wii U as an embarrassing failure and with each year it damages Nintendo's reputation more and more.  Just waiting one year for 2016 seems like a major challenge, let alone two.  Pretty much no one makes games for the Wii U except Nintendo and they're notoriously slow at releasing games.  People like to go with a console that seems like a safe purchase.  A steady flow of games markets a console as a safe bet.  It is good PR for people to see new games on the shelves every week.  It's good to have the gaming press constantly talking about product on your console.  In the past it was the magazines and now it's the web sites.  If you go to a site that covers all systems the Wii U is a footnote and it isn't even because of any perceived bias.  You can't write reviews and previews for games that don't exist.  You can't report news if there is nothing going on.  A gamer that visits these sites will see Nintendo console related news like 10 times a year while he'll see PS4 related stuff every single day.  Because the Wii U is such a non-entity Nintendo gets little exposure so that makes it look like they don't matter.  And any exposure they do get will just emphasize the Wii U's problems and create the impression that the NX will have the same issues.  The last thing Nintendo should want is for people to associate their brand with a lack of games and yet the Wii U has been blowing that trumpet since day one.  Why would any company want to do that for two more years?

1166

TalkBack / Re: Guessing at Nintendo's First Mobile Game

« on: October 28, 2015, 03:11:59 PM »

Mobile games tend to follow this pattern:

Company: Here's our new game in the [insert franchise that has been dormant for years] series!
Gamers: Yay!!!
Company: ...and it's a mobile game!
Gamers: ****!!!

So following that trend we'll see StarTropics or Advance Wars or Metroid.  We haven't seen them for a while and we want a new one so what better way to **** everyone over than to relegate the franchise to some shitty microtransaction scam?  This isn't a personal dig at Nintendo but just the industry in general.

I don't really have any faith that Nintendo is going to somehow make the mobile model good.  I guess if anyone can it would be Nintendo so I'm not crapping on their ability - I just feel the concept of phone games is just so limiting that no one can really do much with it.  My hope is that Nintendo's mobile efforts are a complete financial disaster and they quickly abandon the whole concept.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 28, 2015, 01:17:57 PM »

I don't think it's out of the question that Nintendo would just do a whole lot of nothing for 12-18 months.

They have done it before but, ****, that would so stupid to do it again.  The Wii practically disappearing off the face of the earth for two years did the Wii U no favours.  If Nintendo thinks that sort of thing is perfectly acceptable yet again then they haven't learned a damn thing and if they haven't learned from their mistakes the NX is already dead.  If they can't get obvious stuff like that right then they won't get the big important stuff right either.

The NX is coming out in 2016 or it might as well come out in 3045 for all the fucking good that any further delay will do Nintendo.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

« on: October 26, 2015, 11:52:27 AM »

I think the Dreamcast's failure was a result of two major issues:

1. Sega was coming off the Saturn and the 32X and had generally destroyed consumer trust in them.  The Dreamcast was a great console with great games and Sega were pretty much doing everything right but gamers didn't trust them enough to just immediately buy the console without first waiting to see what the PS2 offered.

2. Sega financially was not in a good enough position to survive anything but a major overnight hit, which they didn't get.  The Dreamcast would probably have done fine if it had a chance to build an audience over a generation.

The Wii U isn't Nintendo's Dreamcast though, it's their Saturn - following a successful console with a misguided product that was not at all what consumers were looking for and quickly looked completely out of its league with its two competitors.  The NX is more likely to be Nintendo's Dreamcast - the comeback console where the manufacturer learned from their prior mistakes (at least I HOPE that part happens).  Only Nintendo has stronger finances and could survive a slow steady comeback without the NX needing to be an overnight sensation.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: October 21, 2015, 05:03:02 PM »

"7th Dragon III"

I know those words but that title doesn't make any sense.

This must be what it's like for my father to see titles like Final Fantasy XIV or Final Fight 3.

1170

TalkBack / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS) Single-Player Review

« on: October 21, 2015, 02:40:55 PM »

In Four Swords Adventures in single player (or any mode where you have less than the full four players) you can simultaneously control the other Links in formations that you can toggle between.  It wasn't as great as playing with four human players but it worked pretty damn well.  It was clear that a lot of thought was put into making that multiplayer focused game still fun and playable in single player.

But this?  This sounds like single player was a complete afterthought.  Switching constantly between inanimate characters is the sort of half-assed crap I expect from lesser developers, not Nintendo.  There is no excuse for this single player to be inferior to that of a game more than ten years older that was made by many of the same people.

1171

TalkBack / Re: Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water Review

« on: October 21, 2015, 01:35:47 PM »

I think the censorship is minor content that shouldn't affect one's enjoyment of the game but the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense.  The game is already M rated so it makes zero sense to try to protect the kiddies.  Large companies usually do this sort of thing to avoid controversy.  But the sort of people that would make a big stink about the original costumes and potentially create negative attention towards Nintendo have no clue this game even exists and, due to it's online-only release, never will.  If this was some heavily marketed title with copies lining the shelves of Wal-Mart, I could see it, but this is as under-the-radar of a release as you can get.

If anything the nature of its release is such that this is going to have the opposite effect.  The sort of people that buy digital-only releases of Japanese horror games are the sort that would be upset by the experience being compromised in the localization.  This isn't going to attract a large audience anyway but the audience it will attract are those that will know the game was censored and won't like it.  Nintendo has created controversy by censoring it.  This is such a classic example of how Nintendo are a bunch of fuddy-duddies.  They don't know their audience.  They're compromising the game for the target audience to appease who?  Where is this audience that will play an M rated game but will be offended by skimpy outfits?  Where are the moral watchdogs, that don't really play videogames in the first place, that pay attention to unlockable bonus content in niche digital-only releases?

Though it could be laziness.  If NOE is doing it as well NOA may very well have just copied the European code.

1172

Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: October 19, 2015, 05:16:05 PM »

You have to realize that NX is going to be next gen compared to ps4 and xbox one. Wii U is weird in that in most ways it is next gen compared to ps3 and xbox360 except the processor speed. IT has more ram and a superior GPU, which would mean it should be way better than those tow, but according to developers its CPU is weird and not as fast in clockrate. Developers could take advantage of the CPU in different ways, but they would have to reprogram the games.

As a programmer I understand some of this. When I write my code I test it constantly. There are some types of code you could write that's inefficient and may not be noticed on a faster cpu. On a slower CPU you might be like WTF? IT costs too much money to have someone rewrite the code just to get it running on Wii U. There is a lot of slowdown on Watchdogs, this is because what code works on ps3 and xbox 360 does not work on Wii U's cpu. I can imagine that they might have to change some gameplay to get the game running smoothly on wii U, but they didn't.

Gee it's like no one is making games for Nintendo's console because it's an expensive and complicated pain in the ass to do so.  But isn't all just a personal vendetta against Nintendo?  It couldn't be a BUSINESS reason, could it?

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: NX Rumors and Speculation Thread (Only the best industry-leading [potato] chips!)

« on: October 19, 2015, 02:42:12 PM »

i read some rumors over at wiiudaily that the NX could be more powerful than PS4 and Xbone, very unlikely giving Nintendo past three consoles but maybe who knows, at least the rumor is not the other way around and it was with the wii and wii u

Any console coming out a few years after the PS4 and XB1 should be more powerful than them.  That's how this stuff has worked for literally every single console ever made except the Wii and Wii U (and I guess the Atari 7800 but it was actually cancelled and resurrected two years after its intended release).  For something like the Gamecube I don't even think there was any intentional effort to be more powerful than the PS2.  It's just simply that it came out a year later and the tech was a little better and a little cheaper so they went with it.

Now I would not expect anything future proof nor do I think Nintendo should do so.  It just needs to be enough to last until the competition goes to their next consoles and last time the generation lasted seven years for Sony and eight for MS.  So release the NX in 2016 and aim to replace it in 2020 (and if the other guys don't upgrade by then, wait longer).  Nintendo ends up splitting the generation between two consoles and then is all caught up.

1174

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Legend of Zelda: TriForce Heroes

« on: October 16, 2015, 07:24:45 PM »

I loved Four Swords Adventures but it was a game that made you jump through a lot of hoops to get the proper experience.  Thankfully at that time in my life I had the interest and the flexibility to make that work.  Well sort of work as most of the time I just played two players with my brother.

Today I couldn't make FSA work within my routine and this seems MORE restrictive.  Even the fucking demo involves jumping through hoops where I have to get this code sent to me or one of my friends and we can only play online during this specific window.  **** that.  I already don't give a **** and now you expect me to put up with all this nonsense?  Isn't the idea of the demo to sell me on the game?  I would think Nintendo would be bending over backwards for me but instead they expect me to work around them.  Hey, wait am I describing TriForce Heroes or just everyone's relationship with Nintendo?

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TalkBack / Re: Making Zelda on Wii U the Best Ever

« on: October 16, 2015, 06:19:51 PM »

Zelda is supposed to be grand and ambitious.  The original Zelda was mind blowing stuff on the NES.  There were some PC RPGs that had that kind of scope but very little, if anything, on console (can't remember if Dragon Quest came first).  And that trend continued as the generations went.  If you listed the most ambitious masterpieces of each generation, Zelda was always in there.

I felt that way with Nintendo's franchises in general where with each game and each console they would push things further and further until the Wii where it seemed like they had found their comfort zone.  It might just be their decision to not upgrade the hardware much but it was like the Gamecube level was where they liked to be and they focused on different controller stuff instead.

Twilight Princess is essentially a Cube game so I feel it's only fair to compare it to the games of the GC/PS2/XB generation and it compares favourably.  But Skyward Sword was clearly released in the Wii/PS3/360 generation but I felt it seemed scaled back.  It feels like a game from the prior generation with motion controls.  It does not feel grand and ambitious compared to other games of its generation particularly when it came out the same year as Skyrim.  Maybe it's the hardware but then Xenoblade felt more grand as well and that's the same hardware and it's first party.  Zelda should not be getting shown up by another Nintendo game.

Nintendo going with an "open world" design makes sense because the open world games that are so common on the other consoles, but are practically absent on Nintendo's, provide that level of scope and size that made games like Ocarina of Time stand out in a big way back in 1998.  But Zelda has not really extended beyond the OoT template which in modern times would come across as small and simple.  Today's open world game is more the modern equivalent of what Zelda was seen as back in 1987 than current Zelda.  Videogames concepts have gotten bigger and more ambitious as time goes on.  There is a reason why Pac-Man was the biggest deal in 1980 but is now a nostalgia act - it didn't grow with the industry and eventual it seemed small and simple.  Zelda is basically cutting edge circa 10 years ago.

Back in it's peak I expected to be blown away by console Zelda games and until recently that was the case.  That's what Nintendo has to do again.  Not blow everyone away by Nintendo standards or by the standards of their console but just period.  That someone that plays the major releases on the other consoles takes note of the new Zelda and is immediately interested in it (and jealous that it isn't on his console of choice).