Messages

76

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 20: JOURNEY TO JAPAN 

« on: January 30, 2013, 10:46:12 AM »

It seems like the issue is that, unlike prior episodes, this one is not being cross-posted in the RFN feed and is only in the Famicast feed. I've previously only listened through the RFN MP3 feed but see there is also a separate Famicast dedicated feed.

77

TalkBack / Re: Yoshi's Epic Garbage

« on: January 26, 2013, 12:05:48 AM »

I've gone back and forth on how much I like Epic Yarn. For a while I was trolling message boards trying to argue in favor or Return to Dreamland. Ultimately, I do think that the creativity of Epic Yarn is great enough to carry some rather bland levels. And in truth, I did NOT have that easy of a time completing all three treasures and gold medals per level, plus the apartment challenges. So now I'm back in the Epic Yarn camp, a fan of how Nintendo was able to inject some fun in the levels and a fan of the incredible music and extremely strong visual design (Looksley's Lineup hinted at this, too). (Also, call me crazy, but the mechanic of Epic Yarn where you go under a layer to move to a hidden / not-so-hidden area seemed fresh to me. Maybe it's been done before but I couldn't remember.)


With that said, I was HUGELY disappointed to see that the new Yoshi game is... Yoshi's Epic Yarn. The ONLY way this could be saved is if each of the worlds feature a completely unique set of textiles so that you move from foam world to felt world, etc (maybe branch out and include construction paper world, fur world, who knows). But if Yoshi remains a yarn ball throughout, that seems less likely. And what was with them showing almost identical gameplay and animation of Yoshi's tongue vs KEY's whip? And what was with the gemstone beads in the opening sequence directly ripped from KEY? That looked so incredibly cheap. If we're lucky this was Nintendo being uncharacteristically desperate and showing pre-alpha concept footage far too rough to be seen by even the entire dev team let alone all the world.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 18: BRAVELY DIRECT

« on: December 15, 2012, 10:39:58 AM »

The chemistry in these shows keeps getting better. I give each Famicast a couple listens, sometimes three. Your podcast is a great compliment to 8-4. I'd love a return on location episode in Super Potato or elsewhere (that episode was epic).


And Minoru, your English has been great on the latest episodes.

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TalkBack / Re: You Make Me Feel Like Pants: A Love Letter to Kirby's Epic Yarn

« on: December 14, 2012, 04:45:12 PM »

The most happy I am with videogames is after overcoming a challenge. There is also something to be said for being surprised by games. Because Epic Yarn was not especially challenging - I agree that running some of the levels without being hit once is tricky, but that seems like a cheap way to generate challenge - it can't deliver that supreme happiness. It also only consistently surprised in art design, and I agree it did hit a home run in that aspect. Swap the graphics for grayscale boxes and just analyze the gameplay and level design and  you'll see a pretty dull game, IMHO. The levels picked up in the Space-themed world but that was it. I hope Goodfeel has received a lot of mentoring between this and Wario and that it pays off in the presumed Yoshi game.

80

TalkBack / Re: Wii Mini exclusive to Canada, Lacks Internet, GameCube Functionality

« on: November 27, 2012, 03:13:36 PM »

Of course it doesn't have HDMI, the Wii can only go up to 480p. I wish they would at least put component cables in it (they don't). I don't think they intend for this to be used to transfer stuff from it to the Wii U, though maybe they might have the Wii U Transfer Channel already installed.

Umm..


480p works dandy over HDMI. And it only uses one connection instead of five. And many little TVs being sold today don't have component inputs.


And how would you use a Wii U Transfer Channel without a USB dongle (speculation) or Wifi (confirmed omission)? That was my very point.

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TalkBack / Re: Wii Mini exclusive to Canada, Lacks Internet, GameCube Functionality

« on: November 27, 2012, 03:03:41 PM »

Looks great and is a fair value. The problem is seemingly lack of HDMI (and USB?) and no WiFi. And, building off the later, what is the migration for my game saves to a new Wii U in a few years? If there was WiFi, at least we'd have some hope of a cloud-style save system in parallel with enhanced Wii-on-Wii U functionality. As it stands, this system is going to be an island for kids to play "light saber game" and "Mario baseball". While I suppose there is a market for that, it could have been more with WiFi and a promise of firmware enhancements down the line.

82

TalkBack / Re: Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion Review

« on: November 17, 2012, 08:20:49 PM »

Was there no one free to do the review that wasn't wined and dined at Disney World (or Disney Land and Club 33 just to cover the bases)?

83

TalkBack / Re: Wii U Virtual Console Coming in the Future

« on: November 14, 2012, 04:06:09 PM »

Please, if we're going to make analogies to other industries or mediums, let's not make broken ones. The obvious point of comparison is to Apple and Apple Store purchases.

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TalkBack / Re: Wii U Virtual Console Coming in the Future

« on: November 14, 2012, 01:03:02 PM »

I appreciate Nintendo directly answering this question, for the time being.


I've spent hundreds of dollars on the Wii Virtual Console. That I won't be able to play them on the Gamepad for an indefinite amount of time, that I won't be able to use a  modern interface to sort, group, and list them (the narrow-minded "channel" metaphor completely breaks when you have 17 pages of unsortable purchases), and especially that I don't have any assurance of not having to repurchase the games to gain these features, is deeply worrying! If profit, licenses or technology prevent a clean transfer of at least 90 percent of my Wii VC purchases, Nintendo won't make another dollar from me on digital distribution.




unless they bring out Saturn games. [yeouch!]

85

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Looking both ways before animal crossing

« on: November 06, 2012, 02:12:45 PM »

I'm a hardcore AC fan, and trust me when I say that playing another AC directly before New Leaf will have either no effect on New Leaf or a negative effect on New Leaf, as the core of the game (repetition) is going to be hardly changed. Cramming in time on AC[GC], WW or CF will probably burn you out for New Leaf.


(OK, if you HAVE to pick one AC to play before hand, I'd try the GameCube version, especially if the unlockable NES games are of interest to you and you have a GBA plus link cable)

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wreck It Ralph

« on: October 30, 2012, 04:10:51 PM »

Bummer. I was hoping this could be the ultimate movie tie-in game. But it's out today (and still $10 off the Wii version from Amazon) and there is NO coverage, anywhere. The latest update from IGN is still the old 'game debut' trailer that doesn't even contain gameplay. There is a 98% probability that this game is a dog. 


Edit: confirmed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NARk8J9OyAs


We should forget this game ever exists and just think of Sonic Racing Transformed as the official game of the movie.

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TalkBack / Re: Manhunt 2

« on: October 29, 2012, 04:56:50 PM »

The game was totally devoid of "fun". Search a house for medicine is tedious and dark. Wait behind a corner for the guards is boring. Find an axe to decapitate a dude to open a door is, believe it or not, rather tedious. The game has too many long stretches of grime and straight hallways. Most of the objects are laughably blocky, as in worse than most PS2 games by a good margin. You have no connection to your player character so there's very little feeling of tension. The "creepy" bad guy faction was generic. The censored kill cams, which I've read bothered many, where a none-issue to me in comparison to the pointless QTEs for the execution (why just grade the kill based on the total time I was in light and "stalk mode" (holding A) before reaching the target). The game's biggest strength is overall atmosphere, with brownie points to the "hold Wiimote still in shadows" mechanic- one of the better uses of motion control on the Wii (however completely negated by having to hold the nunchuck perpendicular to avoid putting your character in to a pointless 'lean' position). Bully and Table Tennis are better efforts than this by Rockstar on Wii, but even those make you wish we could have seen something original from them (or even "just" a new, exclusive, Smuggler's).

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Mistwalker's "The Last Story" out in NA via XSEED!

« on: October 16, 2012, 06:25:03 PM »

Multiple reviews I read insisted that the auto-attack be turned off, and so I was ready for that before starting. But after 20 or so chapters I decided to try playing with auto-attack on and found it wasn't so completely horrible. I do agree that the lack of IR in the menus is funky. It really wouldn't be hard to believe that this was designed for the PS3 and when the ran out of cash to pay artists (and play testers), it was shifted to Wii. With that said, there are several things I like about it more than Xenoblade including more charismatic characters (could be the scenario, writing, voice acting, or all the above) and less filler. I would personally say it's a must-own Wii game. Part of me thinks it will be overlooked in various platform retrospectives because authors feel they have to pick between it and Xenoblade.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Kickstarter for new Pure Nintendo Magazine UPDATE: Exclusive content

« on: October 16, 2012, 06:13:16 PM »

Some of us need to put our thinking caps on. Project Creators donating to their own projects is against Kickstarter's rules:


http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/kickstander-follow-up-questions-answers/


It's also clearly against the spirit of Kickstarter. Check out their faq and read the section "Why is funding all or nothing?"


http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics?ref=nav


Project creators donating to their own projects via Kickstarter allows them to adjust the effective project goal whenever however necessary to collect what's been donated. It disintegrates the 'all or nothing' concept. Essentially their pledge drive cannot fail, less the 3 to 5 percent transaction fee of their own donation (to themselves).


As for the project itself, a few things bug me. The sample magazine cover, issue 6, exclusively lists 'news' and 'coming soon' type articles. Those, in print format, are completely obsolete. What's the point of repackaging the same bits of preview coverage and PR paraphrasing that you're already putting on your website in to a monthly compendium? Maybe it was just poor picks for the mock up, but for this to hold any interest to me, it would need a large percentage of completely original retrospective, philosophical (yes, I said it), and otherwise original content. I've bought a couple Gamespites and those are almost completely original content (granted, Jeremy Parish cross posts some articles to the website, but the point is it's not the same info that neogaf and gonintendo are all bubbling to the top of the fold). The other, more minor issue is in the thread here with the pandering 'by fans for fans- so we'll cover more third party stuff' blurb. Seriously, do you really think Nintendo Power TURNED DOWN any opportunities to interview Suda 51, Yuji Hori, or Yuji Naka? The implication that NP wouldn't cover third party stuff because of untoward influence by Nintendo is tacky.


Also, maybe I'm missing something (I didn't scour their website), but it seems weird to be funding a project that's already six issues in, and it seems weird that subscribers don't get instant, digital access to the prior 6 issues.

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TalkBack / Re: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Impressions

« on: October 16, 2012, 10:06:55 AM »

The landscape and player geometry looks like... an upscaled 3DS game. I mean that in a bad way. Some of the textures are cool and a sharper interface than Wii's Tri will be nice. But in the back of my mind I'm hoping Capcom is quietly anticipating a console port of MH 4 and the difference between 4 on 3DS and (hopefully) 4 on WiiU will be wider. That said, the cross platform co op rules and hey, I gotta hand it to Capcom for more or less guaranteeing the WiiU gets off to a great start in Japan.

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TalkBack / Re: Kokuga Impressions

« on: October 13, 2012, 09:02:35 PM »

I agree Japan usually has better box art. They seem to take a less literal approach than America's "this is what you'll be doing and this is who you'll meet" style.


A recent 8-4 podcast had somewhat lengthy impressions of this game as well, for anyone curious.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U in Review (News & Rumor Consolidation)

« on: October 08, 2012, 09:09:08 AM »

ML: Well, right now, the Wii U is the strongest console with a lot of potential for the future. You should not forget, that the Wii U GPU is from a different generation than the ones from the current competitors. Because of that, there are many new ways of approaching things. Which, on the one side, are easier to implement than special hybrid solutions that are currently used on the other consoles, and on the other hand, which brings with it a much better performance. In cooperation with the generous working storage you have unbelievable possibilities. You should not forget that you need developers who can actually max out the potential of a console. And with teams like Retro Studios and EAD, Nintendo has an unbeatable advantage

Yet another commentator who doesn't seem to get that the PS360 are on their last legs and won't be the Wii U's real competition. This is like if back in like 2006 someone pointed out how the Wii was more powerful than the PS2, which was certainly true, but...

Actually he seems to understand that precise point, and is couching his phrase in a way that is accurate and not going to upset any company in particular. Otherwise he would have left out the word current more than once.

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Nintendo Gaming / Wreck It Ralph

« on: October 08, 2012, 12:10:40 AM »

Is anyone else curious about this game? Amazon has a $10 discount on the Wii preorder at the moment. I have yet to read a single hands-on preview. That might be worrisome for a game that comes out in under a month.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Best of the Wii: House of the Dead: Overkill

« on: October 03, 2012, 04:45:46 PM »

Thank you for doing this series of podcasts. I've enjoyed listening to them, especially how you mixed in a variety of voices across the 10/20 picks.


IMHO, HotD:O is not even the best light gun game on Wii, let alone best third party game. The comment at the end of the pocast that literally ALL 9 other third party picks may be better made is true. I don't see "outrageousness" as a strong positive. Maybe it's a novelty to draw eyes, but it can't be the game's heart. Yes, the ending is far, far out there. And? Dead Space Extraction has a better story, Ghost Squad has _more_ camp IMHO but backs it up with faster paced action. RE:DC has more challange and generally georgous graphics. HotD:O has poor graphics (as mentioned in the podcast), too easy (WHY hide the better route for AFTER beating the game?), too samey, and weapon upgrades are pointless (in RE:DC and DSE there is the option to apply stragety to weapon choice that is meaningful in the game) as one only needs to upgrade the handgun. The framerate judders. And look, it has to be said, but the f-word in this game is the most puerile facet of all-- and that's this game's hook? I felt less embarassed playing The Muncables.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 302: The Pack-In Police

« on: August 22, 2012, 12:22:38 PM »

Thanks for the reply, Mr Metts. Subjectively, I find the NWR-sound sterile but yes, it _is_ highly intelligible. Maybe I'm comparing to podcasts with only two or three (versus four) members where the cross talk issue is smaller.

Huge respect to the podcast for being regular and having stellar (relatively-speaking, and not counting Zach M on other podcasts, though his content more than makes up for his fidelity) audio quality and levels.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Which dormant Nintendo franchise should be revived for Wii U?

« on: August 21, 2012, 07:32:15 PM »

Star Tropics has the most potential to really surprise and carve out a new game space for Nintendo, I think. As that's been mentioned... I'm going to cast my vote for a spiritual successor to Mother. I know Itoi is said to never want to return to the series and of course another game wouldn't be the same same without him, but there is room for another RPG from Nintendo that's not Xenoblade, Fire Emblem or Paper Mario. Before Nino Kuni I would have said pairing with with Studio Ghibli would be the perfect fit for Nintendo (I think I've read that Miyazaki and Miyamoto are friends and that the original lead artist / character designer for that great 80's Japanese Nintendo boxart was connected to Miyazaki, too).

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 302: The Pack-In Police

« on: August 21, 2012, 06:57:55 PM »

I've listened to all of the past 200 episodes and some of the first 100.

The 'whatcha playing' segments over the last year have been too long and with too little interaction between the crew. This is probably in part because of the Wii's release slowdown scattering playing time across other systems. With that said, I think a 2 game or 10 minute total per person 'watcha playing' limit would benefit the show.

Adding to the sterile feeling where each member nearly monologues his 'watcha playing' is the NWR trademark over-editing where nearly all cross talk is snipped out and the listener is left with something like a behind-the-scenes DVD extra of a cast's first table read.

And I meant to email in about Craig Harris's "some fansite" comment on the recent IGN Beyond episode. Seriously-- what's up with that? When he said he was 'sound bited' did he mean by NWR (aformentioned hyper-editing) or by someone like gonintnedo decontextualizing?

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: How Can Nintendo Revitalize the Virtual Console?

« on: May 11, 2012, 02:04:44 PM »

As mentioned already, a revamped (or really, institution thereof) online infrastructure would net wonders for Nintendo. Develop a unique ID that can log in on Wiis, Wii Us, 3Ds, and the web. Yes, MS and Sony beat you to it, Nintendo. Swallow your pride. From there, link all my old and new game purchases. Develop a great friends list and pimp the 'now playing' / 'recently playing' functionality to spread intrest in the VC through that social network.
I'm wary of digital sales. Part of me just doesn't want to see someone getting NES Pinball for free with I paid $5. But, more realistically, I wonder why on the earth I paid $5 in the first place. But I do agree with Iwata's GDC comments about digital shifting value perception too far downwards. On the flip side, they're gifting games based on Nintendo points (ala PSN ), so there is a middle ground.
Making any changes to the rom - especially on the scale of 3DS classics (e.g. Kid Icarus example above) - is unrealistic and unwanted by me.
Lastly, while I understand wanting that stream of new games to scratch your itch, have we all beat FF 3, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire 2, Super Mario World, Majora's Mask, Faxanadu, DoReMi Fantasy, either Ogre Battle, Super Metroid, Rondo of Blood, Megaman X, Sin and Punishment, MUSHA, Phantasy Star IV and Shinobi arcade already? Because....

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TalkBack / Re: Wii U to Have $300 Price Tag, Simultaneous Tablet Play?

« on: May 11, 2012, 01:50:21 PM »

Here's what I think.
How many times did I get together with friends and play local multiplayer DS games? To be honest, not many. I find that part of the fun in local multiplayer is sharing a screen. I've been to a couple LAN parties. The low lights, blank faces, pyramids of Mt Dew cans and mist of body oder were enough to convice me that a couch, a buddy, one TV and Rayman Origins is the kind of multiplayer I'm after. I don't think that will be quite as fun if both players are darting back and forth from tablet to TV. Won't I just want to keep my eyes on one or the other? And speculation aside, I _know_ that the power to stream to the tablet takes away from the ability to render on the TV. Ya wanna know what I really want in local multiplayer? A couple wireless Classic Controllers and a stunning new version of Mario Galaxy, Rayman Origins 2 (yeah, I saw the trailer... the tablet sections looked slow, lame, and utilitarian. Also perfunctory). And make it a Diet Coke, thank you.

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TalkBack / Re: What the GBA Ambassador Games Could Tell Us About Nintendo's Future

« on: May 11, 2012, 01:38:54 PM »

Seeing all these titles in one group (again) really reminds one of the superlative level that Nintendo achieved with their GBA titles. But I don't think the selection was any more deliberate than picking the highlights of their published library and placating fans. What I do expect is that Nintendo will milk their franchies dry with the Wii U generation in a combination Hail Mary and tribute to save or honor (they'll project the former but know - deep inside - it's about the later) a dying model of game development and distribution. This explosive transformation will also be the grand, and parting, salute to their icon, Miyamoto.