Topic: Episode 205: Asymmetry

[Yoshidious]

The RFN crew becomes tame!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/23835

This episode is a bit unusual due to the split format and revolving door of podcast crew. It kicks off with a relatively brief New Business, which nonetheless covers Dragon Quest IX (and the recent GameStop community event), Rabbids Go Home, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and the cheap but surprisingly useful Rock Band Portable Drum Kit. We also revisit the popular topic of how to get your significant other into gaming.

After the break, Greg splits but we add on both James and Neal to blow out RetroActive #13: Mother 3. With varying levels of completion, we dodge late game spoilers but do try to address the overall themes and spend quite a lot of time on the heart-breaking (but oddly presented) events at the end of Chapter 1. We also discuss gameplay changes over the course of this RPG and, thanks to Neal's knowledge of the final chapters, become motivated to keep playing. Hopefully, you will be too!

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[AV]

Did you guys talk about the 'gentleman  sport' that is cricket? If not I won't listen

[AV]

I really enjoyed the discussion on Mother 3 . I never played the game but I really want to now.


I think Nintendo should put up Earthbound Trilogy on Nintendo DS for $40. It would be a good value and they could just use the fan translations for the game and with higher price tag it would help make it profitable. 3 full games for $40 on the go, its a damn good deal.

[Mop it up]

they could just use the fan translations for the game

They wouldn't do that because they don't want to encourage that sort of thing, plus there are several changes they would have to make to the game in order for it to be acceptable in North America.

[KDR_11k]

On the Player One Podcast they talked about how badly Earthbound must have bombed.

I introduced my mother to Excite Truck instead of Mario Kart, I think it's more straightforward and with the star rating stuff it makes races more forgiving too because you can win the level even without coming in first.

[TJ Spyke]

It didn't really bomb, it sold around 140K in North America. That isn't too bad when you remember that RPG's were not that popular at the time and the game cost $90 at launch.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

I'm with you, Jon -- some of the quote unquote 'bridge titles' are not such accessible introductions to playing games. My mum could not control the kart properly with the Wii Wheel on Mario Kart Wii (which I thought she would manage fine), and when I convinced a friend who hardly plays games to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii in co-op, she was unable to cope with World 1. It has to be less active but still thoughtful for them to keep up and stay interested, from what I've observed. For example, my sister, who I'd categorise as a lapsed gamer, got really involved with A Boy And His Blob as well as both Professor Laytons, slower-paced games with intelligent puzzles, but she struggles with most Mario games.

[TJ Spyke]

I have been playing the Mario Kart games since the N64 one and consider myself a hardcore gamer, but even I had trouble getting used to the Wii Wheel. I preferred using a GameCube controller for it.

[MegaByte]

they could just use the fan translations for the game

They wouldn't do that because they don't want to encourage that sort of thing, plus there are several changes they would have to make to the game in order for it to be acceptable in North America.

Not to mention the licensing.

[Mop it up]

Regarding enjoying Mother 3 despite having issues with the story? I disagree with that, I'd say it would add up to about half of it was enjoyable. Many parts of the first three chapters were pretty slow, and chapter 8 was simply terrible. I also disagree that the connections with Earthbound will please fans of the game; I'm a fan of it and I thought that stuff was totally lame. I do agree about the battle system though, it's decidedly simple but the few twists it offers can still make it interesting. Like pretty much every RPG, there are still too many battles for it to remain interesting the whole way through.

Do the lot of you no longer pull comments from the RetroActive thread? You mention them in a general sense but you didn't read off any. I believe the previous RetroActive was also like this, and the one before might have been as well.

I have been playing the Mario Kart games since the N64 one and consider myself a hardcore gamer, but even I had trouble getting used to the Wii Wheel. I preferred using a GameCube controller for it.

That was one of the points of the Wii Wheel. Nintendo wanted gamers of any experience to all start from the same place, so no one would have any distinct advantages. The Wii Wheel would also be a more appealing choice for someone who doesn't play games, and the reason for this is that the wheel is something with which pretty much everyone is familiar. There needn't be any explanations on how to use it as pretty much everyone already knows how a steering wheel functions, so it is an easier concept to grasp than steering with an analogue stick.

Not to mention the licensing.

Go ahead and mention it, because I'm not sure what you mean.

[MegaByte]

Go ahead and mention it, because I'm not sure what you mean.

Nintendo wouldn't have rights to use the translation, and even if the translators wanted to donate the translation, it would probably take an army of lawyers to deal with the process securing those rights.

[TJ Spyke]

I am not a legal expert, but I don't think it would be that though. Have one lawyer draw up a simple contract saying the the translation team gives all rights to Nintendo. I don't see Nintendo ever doing that though, they would rather use the Treehouse to translate it.

[MegaByte]

I don't know how the translation process went, but everybody who was involved would have to sign off on it, and if they had inadvertent outside contributors who suddenly decide to assert rights, things could get messy.  Nintendo would have to go through the process of checking all of that.  And even though a simple contract is probably all that would be necessary, this is Nintendo we're talking about.  Their US business was practically founded on lawyering.

[Sundoulos]

Lindy, my wife doesn't really game much, either.  When I first bought a Wii, we started playing co-op the Lego Star Wars and Lego Indy trilogy together; she loves that series.  We also logged in a number of hours playing Pikmin 2.   I'd recommend that if you're still hunting for something to play. 

I HATE those people who keep picking Rainbow Road or the SNES Ghost House every single time.  When that starts to happen, Karin and I usually try to troll them by picking one of the easiest tracks.   That way, there's usually a chance that some of the lower ranked players can place ahead of them and lower their gamer score.  I'm evil that way.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Good episode. I hope the next RetroActive kicks off sooner. It seems like this feature has slowed down as of late....

[Plugabugz]

Lindy, my wife doesn't really game much, either.  When I first bought a Wii, we started playing co-op the Lego Star Wars and Lego Indy trilogy together; she loves that series.  We also logged in a number of hours playing Pikmin 2.   I'd recommend that if you're still hunting for something to play. 

I HATE those people who keep picking Rainbow Road or the SNES Ghost House every single time.  When that starts to happen, Karin and I usually try to troll them by picking one of the easiest tracks.   That way, there's usually a chance that some of the lower ranked players can place ahead of them and lower their gamer score.  I'm evil that way.

I disagree. When it starts repeating tracks il eave, or if i see several people above an 8000 rank i'd just bail out and go somewhere else.

[Yoshidious]

Do the lot of you no longer pull comments from the RetroActive thread? You mention them in a general sense but you didn't read off any. I believe the previous RetroActive was also like this, and the one before might have been as well.

Both the Metroid II (RetroActive #12) and Super Mario RPG (#11) discussions included forum comments being pulled from the relevant threads and read aloud on the show, as was the case with every previous RetroActive (even for the apathy-inducing Ninja Spirit). Jonny explained his reasons for handling Mother 3 forum comments in a different way during this episode.

[Mop it up]

Ah I see. I must not have caught what Jonny said, I listened to it late one night when I was doing something else. I must've really zoned out for the Metroid II one because I honestly don't remember there being comments in it. Or maybe I'm thinking of another one, such as the Mega Man 10 one, or some other I listened to recently. They get kind of mixed together in my memory.

[Crimm]

Just to add detail to Greg's comments, the reason we didn't use a lot of the comments from the thread is we wanted to be very conscious of spoilers, and much of the conversation in the thread was on the finer points of the game's plot.

[Jonnyboy117]

In case you aren't following us on Facebook (why not?), here's a link I posted courtesy of Zoltan. It's the video from my local DQIX event that was discussed on Episode 205. I appear near the end, and the whole thing is hosted/produced by JewWario, the guy I mentioned during my story.


http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fyoucanplaythis.com%2F2010%2F08%2Fdragon-quest-ix-new-map-get%2F&h=d14df

[KDR_11k]

In case you aren't following us on Facebook (why not?)

Don't have a facebook account and don't want one.

[broodwars]

In case you aren't following us on Facebook (why not?)

Don't have a facebook account and don't want one.

Same here.  Ditto for Twitter.

I am amused, Jonny, that of all the GameStop events you could have gone to, you ended up at the same one as a ThatGuyWithTheGlasses contributor.

[TJ Spyke]

Facebook and Twitter are good, for some reason I keep getting errors when I try to use Twitter on my laptop recently though.

Jonny, I had no idea there was a NWR Facebook account.

[NWR_Lindy]

There are two, actually.  There's an NWR Facebook group as well as an RFN-specific Facebook group.

For the social networking haters:
http://youcanplaythis.com/2010/08/dragon-quest-ix-new-map-get/

[ClexYoshi]

You know, recently getting my Wii U and playing Earthbound got me thinking about Mother 3 and how I think it is by and far a better game than Earthbound. I wondered what the RFN crew thought of the game because you guys did do that RetroActive on that...

I came for that, and Dr. Metts starts to talk about how he went to that Dragon Quest IX event and he mentions that he met a fellow by the name of Justin "Jew Wario" Carmical. That's actually a name I knew. he was associated with both Famicom Dojo for a bit as well as Channel Awesome and appeared in some of Doug Walker [the Nostalgia Critic]'s movies and such, as well as done plenty of crossover videos with other prominent figures in the internet reviewer scene. Naturally I went to go and look for some of his videos, and... well...

http://67.227.255.239/forum/showthread.php?t=758021

...