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Messages - Traveller

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101
TalkBack / New Range of Nintendo Selects Wii Games Coming to Australia and New Zealand 
« on: October 20, 2013, 11:34:17 PM »

Some heavy hitters from the Wii's hey-day will now be cheaper to purchase.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35724

A selection of older Wii titles will be re-branded and reduced in price in Australia and New Zealand from November 7.

The games that will be included are, Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort (2 games on 1 disc).

The range of games will be branded with the Nintendo Selects branding that has appeared elsewhere in the world already. The games will all be priced at AU $49.95 and NZD $59.95.


102
TalkBack / Re: Sonic Lost World Review
« on: October 20, 2013, 07:18:01 AM »
Quote from: Kytim89 on October 19, 2013, 03:10:59 AM
Quote from: Traveller on October 19, 2013, 02:20:44 AM
I got this today and have played until the first level of the second world. It is good, I like how Sonic controls and he no longer feels too slippery. The levels seem like they will be fun to master, or at least become more competent in.

So far its good.

On a scale from one to ten how would you rate your experience so far?


So far I'd say my enjoyment would be around an 8. Thats a very rough guide though as I have not played too far into it yet, although I am a little further now than I was.

103
TalkBack / Re: Sonic Lost World Review
« on: October 19, 2013, 02:20:44 AM »
I got this today and have played until the first level of the second world. It is good, I like how Sonic controls and he no longer feels too slippery. The levels seem like they will be fun to master, or at least become more competent in.


So far its good.

104
TalkBack / Re: Nintendo World Report: Powered Off - Issue 10
« on: October 18, 2013, 04:14:00 PM »
I'm glad you all seemed to have liked the exclusives for this month.

On the font size, it is currently at 11, I don't think I will be raising it again. I raised it from 10 early on and I think 11 seems to be a good size overall. Im sorry if its still a little hard for some people, but you can zoom slightly on tablets.

Most magazines are around 10 I think.

105
TalkBack / Special Edition Zelda 3DS XL Coming to Australia and New Zealand 
« on: October 17, 2013, 06:01:50 PM »

The stylish design will be appearing late November.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35726

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds special edition Nintendo 3DS XL will be launching in Australia and New Zealand on November 23.

The system will be an EB Games exclusive and will come packaged with a download code for The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. The new hardware design sports a gold finish on the top half of the outside shell, and black on the bottom. Each half features a Triforce emblem so that when the system is open, it will feature the double Triforce from the game's logo; the inside is entirely gold. The system will cost AU$269.95.


106
TalkBack / Re: Nintendo World Report: Powered Off - Issue 10
« on: October 14, 2013, 09:41:22 PM »
Well its a standard pdf, I don't see why it shouldn't be viewable.

107
TalkBack / Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy Coming to Australia & New Zealand in November
« on: October 13, 2013, 11:52:26 PM »

More puzzle solving fun is coming down under in early November. 

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35684

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy is launching in Australia and New Zealand on November 9, both at retail and as a digital download on the Nintendo eShop.

This latest adventure features Professor Layton and his assistants Luke and Emmy as they travel by airship to the frozen land of Froenborg, a first step in their investigation into the mystery of the Azran civilization. The game features over 150 puzzles for players to enjoy, along with over 365 extra puzzles for download as daily puzzles.


108
TalkBack / New Details About A Link Between Worlds Revealed
« on: October 13, 2013, 11:50:00 PM »

Eiji Aonuma himself spoke at this weekend's New York Comic Con about the latest game.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35692/new-details-about-a-link-between-worlds-revealed

At this year's New York Comic Con, Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma hosted a panel about The Legend of Zelda series, specifically he spoke about the recently released Wii U title, The Wind Waker HD, and the upcoming 3DS game, A Link Between Worlds.

During the presentation, Aonuma revealed some new details about the upcoming game. Much like in the original game, A Link to the Past, Link will travel to another world, this time, a realm called Lorule. This land also features its own princess, but instead of Zelda, she is known as Hilda. To teleport between the worlds, Link will have to transform into 'painting Link' to slip into cracks in walls.

Some other smaller details were also touched on, such as the bottom screen having a map that you can scroll and zoom with. Additionally, weapons and items can be upgraded by finding creatures called Maimai's and then returning them to their Mother, after which, the player will be rewarded with an upgrade. It was also shown that the bow is able to do a triple shot. It also has unlimited ammo from the start.

Check out the trailer below!


109
Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 105: European's Very Own
« on: October 09, 2013, 09:58:34 PM »
Quote from: Webmalfunction on October 09, 2013, 09:46:58 PM
Quote from: Traveller on October 09, 2013, 06:42:32 PM
Good discussion on Pokémon. It's baffling to me how not even all of the battles are shown in 3D. The in-consistency of the 3D in the game is quite annoying. They should have pulled 3D from every environment if they didn't want to use it everywhere.


Stupid, the game should be full 3D. You have the slider for a reason.
One review made the guess that the frame rate would be destroyed if they tried making the game full-3D, and I can almost see it based on the fact that battles can chug a tiny bit in 3D. Not even remotely bad enough to mention in the review, but it does make me wonder if triple battles would be technical messes if they were made 3D.


Well their engine must really suck. There are heaps of 3D games on 3DS, and many run perfectly well.

110
TalkBack / Re: Top 5 Pokémon Games: I Choose You!
« on: October 09, 2013, 07:27:42 PM »
The way the background data worked for the Pokémon in Red/Blue/Gold/Silver was different to how they implemented it in Ruby/Sapphire, which is why they could not be traded. I guess they could have just flagged what Pokémon it was and then just give you a quite rough estimation on what the new values would be though.

111
Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 105: European's Very Own
« on: October 09, 2013, 06:42:32 PM »
Good discussion on Pokémon. It's baffling to me how not even all of the battles are shown in 3D. The in-consistency of the 3D in the game is quite annoying. They should have pulled 3D from every environment if they didn't want to use it everywhere.


Stupid, the game should be full 3D. You have the slider for a reason.

112
TalkBack / Missed Opportunities: Touch the West Generations
« on: September 24, 2013, 07:37:20 AM »

EAD West and Touch! Generations are discussed this week.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/35511

This week I take a look at the possibilities of Nintendo creating a brand new Western development studio, alongside some thoughts on the Touch! Generations branding.

EAD West

Nintendo is a very Japan-centric company. For better or for worse, the way that Nintendo handles developing games over in Western countries has been more or less through partnerships than outright owning companies. Of course, Retro Studios is a first party developer, and Nintendo also has the likes of NST. What I feel Nintendo should have considered doing some time ago, would have been to create a brand new, large development team for the West. An EAD West, so to speak.

A team like this would hopefully have their own vision and creative drive. Letting them prototype their own ideas that are more loosely curated by the home office. Sure, the higher ups such as Iwata and Miyamoto would keep an eye on the team and offer guidance, but the main point of having a studio like this would be to let them form their own style and identity from within Nintendo.

It’s hard to say how much freedom teams like Retro really have. It does seem that most of the higher up producers are handed down from Japan. While I feel this creates a certain level of cohesiveness with Nintendo’s other products it can also can start to limit any uniqueness or varying taste that the studios games might have had without such a Japanese influence.

I think that a team like this should have been setup sometime over the Wii’s lifespan, or at the very least a year or two before the Wii U launched. Nintendo needs a different flavor of games, and a stronger Western lineup of studios would be a good place to start.

Touch! Generations

Throughout the Nintendo DS and Wii’s life, Nintendo started to create a branding that helped people who were not as familiar with game software. The Touch! Generations branding was a good idea and helped to create a lineup of titles that people began to associate with being largely more accessible. Nintendo ended up dropping the brand sometime ago, but was that a mistake?

It seems as though when the Nintendo 3DS was coming out Nintendo was trying to do things differently, seemingly just to try and separate the new system from the old. This is also why we got the form factor of the original 3DS, they wanted to make it different, even though the strange three layered look wasn’t very appealing. What I don’t understand is why must they throw out everything? A re-focusing of the brand and a larger advertising presence may have helped more than just dropping it completely.

Nintendo has sort of dropped right out of the so-called “casual games” market as well, but why? Have they run out of ideas? They are gearing up for some more “Wii” games later this year, but most of their strategy so far with the Wii U has been to try and court the gamer fans.

Maybe waiting for a big push in their second holiday season will prove to help in grabbing the more casual buyers attention, but I think they may have missed out on not trying harder from the start with a bigger push and a stronger casual focus.


113
TalkBack / Re: Wii Sports Club Coming to Wii U, Features Online Multiplayer
« on: September 18, 2013, 08:22:42 PM »
I like the idea, I will be buying Tennis and Bowling when they come out. I agree though that Nintendo should probably have got them all done and also released a disk version. Although, if they are also planning another sequel to Wii Sports, it could dilute the impact of that new game.

114
Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 350: Theme from the Bottom
« on: September 17, 2013, 03:27:45 AM »
Great episode! It was good to hear from Greg and Evan again.
 
The discussion about how you guys probably won't still be recording in 2020 was a little sad, but, thats how life goes. And who knows, maybe the current crew will still be going strong that far in the future! Either way, I am confident the show will still be on-going, even if the cast changes drastically again.
 
I've been listening to the podcast since it started, and have enjoyed it all (including 103). The show was also a driving factor in making me submit an application to join the staff.
 
Can't wait for more.
 

115
TalkBack / Missed Opportunities: The iTunes of Party Games
« on: September 15, 2013, 06:25:58 AM »

Download your party here please.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/35422

So after the last few entries of Missed Opportunities, what else can I come up with to talk about? Well, while these aren’t super original, here are a couple more ideas that I think Nintendo should capitalized on.

Virtual Console

Virtual Console was and is a great idea. It’s just too bad that Nintendo has almost failed to push this massive selling point in the right way.

When the VC launched with the Wii, I thought that this service was going to be pushed as the iTunes of classic games, creating a huge library, and a way to turn the Wii into a gaming jukebox so to speak. Nintendo and the other companies that supported the service did end up releasing a lot of games, but after the first couple of years the releases slowed down and there was still hardly any advertising for it.

I feel that Nintendo should have been pushing for more releases all the time. Having the biggest store for all these old games would be a great selling point. I wanted to see commercials focus solely on the service, using some snappy music alongside examples of how great the service was.

Sadly, Nintendo seems to not be making any changes to their approach for the VC with the Wii U. Starting from scratch to build the library for the system has been slow, and they have yet to push it in any meaningful way.

Mario Party: Unlimited

Since the Wii was able to use the internet for both online gameplay and to download DLC, one of my first thoughts was that Mario Party would receive a version of the game that would last the generation. I wanted Nintendo to make a Mario Party that would be able to download updates or expansions.

Being able to download new boards and mini games would have been great. It would have stopped Nintendo from having to produce more than one full game, and at the same time, it would still have provided a way for them to extract more money from us fans. It could have been the biggest party Mario ever had.


116
TalkBack / Missed Opportunities: The Wonderful 101 Pokémon
« on: September 07, 2013, 07:35:23 PM »

This week's thoughts include a TV series and a large 3D world to explore.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/35376

This week I have another couple of missed opportunities to share. The first is about a console Pokémon game and the second is an idea on how The Wonderful 101 could have been a larger success.

Pokémon Console Game

This is a fairly obvious opportunity that many feel should have been exploited at least once by now, a full 3D, console Pokémon adventure.

While many talk about how Nintendo should create a Pokémon MMO, I don’t believe that it is necessary to go that far. Many people would love to be able to explore a fully 3D Pokémon world in a third person style, even if it was mostly a single player experience.

The new Pokémon X and Y games are definitely moving much closer to what people have been wanting, but they’re still not there, and we may never really get a game that goes as far as people are imagining.

People want a console quality version of the mainline Pokémon games. A massive world on the order of something like Skyrim or Xenoblade would be what is needed to really wow people. Now, I don’t mean exactly like those games, just something along those lines. Make it feel like you can go almost anywhere, bring in lush environments with rivers, dense forests, etc., and let players move and interact more freely within the world. Just being able to experience the Pokémon world in a bigger way would be very exciting.

Nintendo and Game Freak have their reasons why they keep the main games strictly on the portable systems, but to me, it is just leaving money on the table, not to mention a potential killer app for the Wii U.

The Wonderful 101 TV Series

It’s no real surprise that the release of The Wonderful 101 has failed to light up the Wii U in any meaningful way. For starters, its a brand new IP with almost zero mainstream exposure. Sure, the game seems to be aimed mainly at an older core type crowd, but that’s not to say the game and characters would not appeal to children, quite the opposite.

The main thing Nintendo wants is to have games that will inspire people to go out and purchase a system. The Wonderful 101 could have been something like that for the younger generation, but the marketing has been decidedly low key. It’s understandable, although, if Nintendo took a larger risk on really pushing the title they could possibly have had a larger hit.

One of the oldest tricks in the book to get kids on board with new characters and gaming software, is to create a TV series. The Wonderful 101 has some great designs that are full of personality; I don’t think it would be a huge stretch of the imagination to see how these characters could fit into a fun, CG cartoon. If successful, the kids watching would want to play the game. Match the cartoon with a higher dose of general advertising, and it could have been a more compelling reason for them to go out and buy the system, or at the very least, bug their parents to buy one.


117
TalkBack / Re: EarthBound Book from English Translator to Launch on Kickstarter
« on: September 06, 2013, 05:39:57 PM »
They haven't launched it yet, it's happening fairly soon though apparently.

118
TalkBack / EarthBound Book from English Translator to Launch on Kickstarter
« on: September 06, 2013, 01:12:28 PM »

Earthbound Confidential chronicles the game's translation to English.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35371

A proposal to crowdfund a book about the translation of Earthbound is going to show up on Kickstarter soon.

The book will be called EarthBound Confidential and will be written by Marcus Lindblom, who was the Translation Director/English writer on the game.

The book will be offered as an e-book, softcover, or hardcover edition and will also be a very limited run, most likely only available to order throughout the duration of the Kickstarter campaign. The company is currently deciding on how to handle orders for people who can not or do not wish to use Kickstarter.

More details about the campaign will be posted to Carried Away Games Twitter and Facebook pages as it becomes available.


119
TalkBack / Re: Missed Opportunities: Super Rareware Galaxy
« on: September 01, 2013, 07:39:13 PM »
The biggest thing to remember in regards to Rare's decline is that the company culture and creative process was changed slowly after they were sold. From what I gather the teams didn't have the freedom to explore as much as they had in the past. Just look up articles and comments from the staff, they went through a lot of prototypes for new games that were either shut down or changed drastically.


Even though there were obviously internal struggles at the company, I still think they were able to create some good titles over the last decade. Perfect Dark was still actually a pretty fun multiplayer game with tons of options, Viva Pinata was a high quality title, Banjo was good despite not being what people wanted, I'd even go as far to say Kinect Sports was good.


The culture at Rare was what allowed the people to create good titles, if Nintendo had kept them I think they would have continued on much like they had been. I also disagree in saying that they were on some sort of massive decline in quality. Sure, Starfox Adventures was merely average, but over the course of 2000-2001 they released Perfect Dark, Banjo-Tooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day.


It's impossible to see what would have happened, but at the very least Nintendo would have controlled their IP's.

120
TalkBack / Missed Opportunities: Super Rareware Galaxy
« on: August 31, 2013, 08:26:53 PM »

Gravity defying fun and a Rare opportunity.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/35309

Here are some more missed opportunities to get the mind thinking. This time around I want to talk a little about Mario Galaxy and Rareware. So, what could I possibly have to say about Galaxy having some missed opportunity? Read on.

Mario Galaxy

I was disappointed with Mario Galaxy. “What?” I hear you say, “How can that be?” you ask. Well, let me explain. I, of course, was not disappointed with either Galaxy game; they are and will always be fantastic. However, after I had played through the original game, I was a little perplexed at the absence of levels featuring more varying degrees of gravitational intensity.

I initially expected to see some levels in which the player would have to deal with Mario being constrained by heavier or lighter forces. I think this would have been interesting: forcing the player to adapt to different timing and jump height. Granted, depending on how the levels were constructed, making Mario heavier may not have been that fun or satisfying. But, I think the opposite could have been true with having hardly any force holding Mario down. Having a level where you must make enormous leaps through space would be fun, and especially tense if the player was prevented from correcting their trajectory.

Rareware

During the Nintendo 64 era, Rareware was one of the most productive development studios on the system. Their games, for better or worse, defined the system just as much as Nintendo’s own. I feel Nintendo letting the studio fall out of their hands was a bad long-term decision.

Nintendo did gain a lot of money in the sale of Rare, but at what cost? Lets imagine for a moment that Rare’s output would have mostly stayed on par in terms of quality if they had stayed with Nintendo. The GameCube would have had a broader scope of exclusive titles and it would have most certainly helped a great deal in fending off Microsoft’s new console. I knew a lot of people at the time that went out and bought the Xbox within the first year or so of Rare becoming exclusive to Microsoft, just because of the promise of Rare’s titles.

With the Wii, Rare could have had a similar effect to what they likely would have had on the GameCube, although their presence probably would not have been as needed, and their effect would be slightly smaller. I think Nintendo was able to put out more quality first party titles for the Wii than the GameCube, and they also had some good partnerships with studios such as Next Level Games and Monster Games. But, imagine the Wii with everything we got and then some Rareware on top! Just the N64 Virtual Console would have been light years better.

That brings us to the Wii U. It’s much harder to project Rare’s presence this far removed from their heyday, but lets assume once again that they would have continued to make quality games under the guidance of Nintendo. Maybe they would have been able to put out a couple of titles within the first year. Would they have made the system more appealing? Possibly. Would they have filled out Nintendo’s portfolio a little more? Yes, almost definitely.

That’s the biggest missed opportunity. Rare didn’t just bring different types of games, they brought more games, and more games is what Nintendo always seems to struggle with in light of small third-party support. It was a mistake to let go a studio that could keep up game output to almost the same level as Nintendo themselves.


121
TalkBack / Mighty Switch Force 2 Coming to Wii U in October
« on: August 30, 2013, 08:57:08 PM »

Wii U will become even mightier this October.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35306

WayForward have announced that the Nintendo 3DS eShop game, Mighty Switch Force 2, will be coming to the Wii U sometime in October.

The game was rated for the Wii U by the European ratings board PEGI back in July, just after WayForward teased the existence of the port.

The game was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS eShop back in June.


122
TalkBack / Developer WayForward Launching Kickstarter
« on: August 30, 2013, 08:56:09 PM »

The fan favorite developer is about to join the world of Kickstarter. 

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35305

WayForward Technologies have announced on their website that they will be launching a Kickstarter campaign on September 4.

Currently, not much is known about the proposed campaign other than the date it is set to go live. WayForward have also launched a countdown timer on their website for the project's launch date.


123
TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Unveils New Entry Level Handheld, the 2DS
« on: August 28, 2013, 07:29:22 PM »
My wait for a nice remodel of the regular 3DS continues... I'm starting to wonder if it will ever happen, I'd prefer to get a new one with the proper screen size.

124
TalkBack / Missed Opportunities: KK Slider and a Wii Wheel
« on: August 24, 2013, 07:51:37 PM »

Some thoughts on things Nintendo may not have exploited enough.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/35267

Recently I have been contemplating the missed opportunities that I feel Nintendo could have utilized to a larger extent. Some of these are related to gameplay, while some concern things outside the games entirely.

KK Slider

KK Slider is a fairly popular character among fans of Animal Crossing and Nintendo in general. Just before New Leaf came out in the Western markets, a guy named Alex Romero created a cover version of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, using KK’s vocal talents to create a fun remix.

This got me thinking, what if Nintendo used KK as a much larger marketing tool? They could have created a mainstream craze, similar to what things like The Chipmunks were able to pull off for many years. Nintendo could have teamed up with various musicians to create some fun KK duets. This would have gained the character a stronger foothold over pop culture, and in turn raise the awareness of Animal Crossing in general.

Since fans have already been doing this sort of thing to an extent, I believe that there is interest there, it’s just that it’s all been localized to a small subset of the gaming population. With a large enough push from Nintendo in the form of music videos with the artists, and downloadable versions from online music stores, KK could be a real hit.

Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii was not what I had imagined it to be prior to its unveiling. Granted, the game we got was good, but I couldn’t quite get over the fact that motion steering took the priority over using other aspects of the Wii Remote.

The main thing I was wanting and expecting was for the game to use the IR pointer heavily. I think it would have been great to be able to aim turtle shells and other items directly at other players, or having a tackle/ram move by flicking the Nunchuk. A really crazy idea would have been to let people use a DS as a rear-view mirror!

In terms of broader changes, I would have liked to see the game feature a Double Dash style option and customizable multiplayer options for the battle mode. That way it could be changed to be more like others in the series, instead of it only allowing a point-based system. Finally, a simple track editor could have been a lot of fun, especially if they had allowed online sharing.

Now, you could argue that Nintendo made the right call in terms of catering to people who feel it more natural to steer using the plastic wheel, as it does have a certain mainstream appeal. But, in terms of being more adventurous, and possibly appealing more to their fan-base, it could of been a better idea to try and do something more ‘out there’ to make it fresher. I don’t think they would have even had to drop the motion steering; they could have used that as an easy or casual mode of play.

So the biggest missed opportunity of Mario Kart Wii, I feel, is that Nintendo wasn’t as inclusive as it could have been. Everything was tailored around the main draw of the steering controls, and everything else was kept the same or changed only a little bit. More variety in modes and gameplay certainly would not have hurt.


125
TalkBack / New Pokémon Anime Announced at Pokémon Game Show
« on: August 17, 2013, 12:38:34 AM »

Its been a long time coming, but Pokémon fans will finally be able to see a proper adaptation of the original games.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/35214

A new Pokémon anime title called Pocket Monsters: The Origin has been announced at the Pokémon Game Show event currently happening in Japan.

This new anime will be based on the original Pokémon games Red and Green and will feature the story of Red along with his rival Green. The first gym leader, known as Brock in the English version of the games has also been shown so far.

This new anime will have a special broadcast on October 2 in Japan. It is currently unknown if this is a one off special or a new series. Check out the trailer below.


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