Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Eel Thanks for sharing those pics! Looks like a really cool, scenic area. I like historical buildings and objects too, so the mission images were a nice bonus!

@TheJGG Forgot to mention this, but all three games in Collection of Mana have excellent soundtracks as well. FFA is my favorite of the three in that department as well, but that's likely because I have some nostalgia for such tunes. Though I never played the original back in the day.

Super Mario 64 was certainly ahead of its time. I'll admit I'm not a fan of the camera, but that can be excused when it's mentioned that the game was one of the first to implement that feature. I played the DS port, disliked it due to the controls, then picked up and subsequently loved the N64 version on the Wii U VC a couple years ago. Camera aside, some of the surfaces Mario lands on must be coated in butter; they felt a bit slippery at times lol. Not sure if that's fixed in Super Mario 3D All-Stars. I'd consider that complaint minor, however. From what I've heard - haven't played it yet - Sunshine is considered the odd duck of the three.

When buying games, I often go the physical route most of the time. The exceptions are if a game is significantly cheaper digitally, or, more recently, if it's a game I'm sure I'd never sell. I love the conveniences of physical media, though I've...well, not warmed up to digital, but I do understand some of the necessities of it and don't begrudge those who go that route; in your case, the savings alone makes absolute sense. I also consider it more secure than streaming platforms, where the plug can be pulled at any moment. Funny you mention 3D World, that's one I do plan on getting digital when the time comes. I'm unlikely to sell it and, as you mentioned, the download space is relatively small. I don't want to fill up my 256 GB micro SD TOO soon.

I could have wrote most of this paragraph! I completely agree. Please allow me to be blunt: the pandemic has affected pretty much every industry out there, and I think it's both unreasonable and childish for people to expect said industries to all be running at full tilt. During the "drought" last year, sure I wanted more content. But I also understood that we were (and still are) in crazy times and, while I'm not privy to Nintendo's internal workings, think that they and other companies deserve some slack. Everyday life and various procedures had to be adjusted very quickly, which isn't easy to do even in slower situations.

I'm actually not as much of a night owl as I used to be - I used to stay up until roughly 2:00 on weekends - but I've also never been much of a morning person. There were the rare times when kid me would get up early, but typically that was because I was really excited about something (Ex. vacation, cartoons, Christmas, etc.). Some of my drowsiness is due to waking up to an alarm; I wake up MUCH better on my own power. The problem is, I can wake up anywhere from about half an hour before my normal get-up time to about the time I'd have to be in for work. I can't cut it that close. XD

I don't begrudge anyone who picks their conversations when they're able. In my opinion, it shows some restraint and foresight.

@MarioLover92 I'm...mixed on NSO. I don't dislike it, but there are definitely a few things that can be done better. But I've expanded on that enough in this thread, so I won't text wall everyone again. XD

I do wish that Nintendo had allowed a purchased game to be shared between systems that supported it, but that would be too consumer-friendly. At least the Wii U migration price made sense in my eyes since the system architecture is similar to its predecessor. They should have at least provided discounts for certain games under the same Nintendo account, but I digress. Kinda hard to complain much about something if it's in the past.

@bimmy-lee I'm hesitant to add more games to my backlog in general for awhile lol. I'd like to see it shrink a bit until at least July the bumper month (three retail games I want) rolls around. Most of those can wait, but I'd like to pick up at least one of them. I honestly think I'm good for a little while, barring a short game (Inmost) that I'd like to pick up this coming weekend before it's no longer on sale. Part of the problem is I'm trying to finish out my 3DS collection before the games jump higher in price.

I've noticed you working on Pure Pool. I'm not the best at the game IRL, but it's a fun one!

@Tyranexx All the games in 3D All-Stars play identically to the originals, they're pretty much straight ports that are upscaled to 1080p (or 720p in SM64's case). I should add that SMS looks quite good in widescreen! Especially since the original GameCube version didn't have widescreen to begin with.

And yeah, there's definitely room for improvement. An expanded retro game offering would be great - I would like to see N64 and GameCube games as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't mind seeing Game Boy and GBA games on here as well. I mean, the Switch is both a home console and a handheld, so it's kind of a missed opportunity if you asked me. I'd have cloud saves and local save backups for all games too, as well as improved netcode for games like Smash Bros. and more expanded communication between your Switch friends. I've said this before, the Switch would really benefit from a messaging system. It's why I use Nintendo Life for keeping in touch with the pals I've made here.

@ThanosReXXX - Oh man, circling back to the original name, like the case of the Treets/M&Ms, makes it all even funnier, like they just threw in the towel on the whole experiment and decided it actually IS better if the whole world knows you by one name. I love a Twix every once in a while, and also enjoy them frozen. Twix is a great name, but a Raider Bar is also very solid.

The whole renaming of characters in media from country to country is really interesting and makes me wonder if it still occurs, translation excluded. It seems like a tactic of a bygone era when we didn’t have that kind of information at our fingertips. I guess it makes sense to try and fine tune characters like that to try and have the most impact possible region to region, but it’s sort of baffling now in a world economy where recognition is a main commodity.

@Tyranexx - Love those sales, that’s how I finally broke for Pure Pool. Let me know what you think of Inmost when you get a chance to play it. I’ve looked at it a couple times, and I’m pretty sure I read a good review here on NL.

@MarioLover92 I see you’ve been busy with Breath of the Wild this morning! How’s it been for you so far?

@TheJGG Speaking of playing you reminded me I need to go back to 3d all stars and finish 100% galaxy I got Luigi but then I stoped.

@Snatcher I played some Mario Galaxy this morning and I will probably never find the motivation to get 100 let alone 242 stars. I only just got 66 stars today.

@bimmy-lee

i was very nervous...id come home pulling up in the driveway hoping i wasnt broke into on a regular basis. that certain room was called "the most expensive room in the house"
my grandma even said it lol.
@Tyranexx
happiness comes in small doses but when it arrives embrace it
@ThanosReXXX

more like butt+adder

@TheJGG Yeah I just came back to it a couple days ago! It's going pretty good, did some more exploring and I even finished a side quest. Haven't found another shrine yet, though I got to a ton of them.

@Tyranexx I'm always a sucker for quality music. I felt like the Trials of Mana remake soundtrack was a solid 6/10 for me. When comparing songs against their original counterparts there's no doubt that it sounds better now, but man some of them have had such poor facelifts compared to others. Sometimes there's live instruments used and sometimes everything's MIDI. The worst part of the songs though are the drums; they were way too faithful to the original and they sound four decades out of touch. Shame really, because some songs, "Powell" for example, are played a lot.

One of my first games I ever played was indeed Super Mario 64 DS. The controls were very awkward because of the digital input, but the camera... swapped one set of problems out for another, it wasn't that much better. Odyssey's camera was the best, because it allowed for free movement regardless of collision. If you ran into an object it just faded out...

I did forget you didn't get 3D All-Stars until a month ago, no doubt a panic-buy because of the impending deadline! But 64 looks a bit better than it ever did, despite the obvious cutbacks like lack of widescreen. Man that was such a missed opportunity. 64 could have been fully remade from the ground up, with Odyssey's engine. Remade music, graphics, and all that; but instead we get the only version of the game that supports Rumble Pak (ie the one speedrunners don't even use).

With Switch games I find myself caring a lot more about whether the game is physical or digital. On PlayStation the disc isn't even used; the console copies the entire game onto your hard drive and plays it from there, with the disc acting as a key. It defeats the purpose of even owning a disc drive PS5, because... you download the whole game anyway., Having said that copying the game is faster than downloading it, so in terms of offline play there's more versatility.

Today Horizon Zero Dawn's Complete Edition was made free as part of Sony's Play at Home campaign, and it feels like a sucker punch to the stomach for me, because I bought that game full price when it came out. I of course added the complete edition to my library but man, paying $70 for a game plus DLC, to see it be made free... it's not nice. I told my friend about the sale and within five minutes he began downloading the game onto his console. I don't think you have a PlayStation... but if you did I would strongly recommend giving the game a go; because it feels right up your street.

I can count on one hand how many times in the last two years or so I've woken up at ungodly hours to do something. My Mount Kenya trip made me wake up at 2am, I watched The Game Awards in 2019 and 2020, I saw the Nintendo Direct in February that took place at 1:00am, and... that's about it really. And really, I'm happy with that. Of course there'll be times when I do need to stretch my waking hours, like some motor races, or a gaming presentation or otherwise, but in terms of doing so voluntarily... I don't do it at all.

Having said that I fully expect that I'm going to do something absolutely stupid for E3. Like pull an all nighter or... something like that. But why in the heck wouldn't I do that, especially because Square Enix is revealing multiple games at the show now! We already know about NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139..., Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and otherwise, so seeing new stuff is making me very excited for what's to come for E3!

Our conversation on social media plus my reading @MarioLover92's comment on the Switch not having a messaging service, made me think about it as well. I don't even use the PlayStation one at all, but it would be very good to be able to message on Switch. Nintendo's always been terrible at moderating user content, so sharing things illegally will of course be a problem... so all things considered it's just a matter of will Nintendo be able to have decent online?

@bimmy-lee Indeed. Especially what with a world where ordering stuff from Asia via online web shops has become the most normal thing in the world...

But, having said that, I can to some extent go along with your point, except for the fact that if that's the reason, then what, to get back to the original example I gave, was so wrong about the name Convoy that they had to rename him to Optimus Prime? Like I said before, it's a really cool name, and Convoy sounds kinda meh in comparison, but had we never known any better... And Convoy as a name for a truck also makes sense in both the US and Europe, so there's that as well. Heck, there's even a movie with that name.

Oh, well. I guess we'll never know the brain farts of fancy people in their fancy offices making decisions for regional marketing campaigns...

As for if it's still happening: current Asian toy lines are STILL being renamed for Western regions, so the answer to that is a resounding YES. I guess we Westerners "can't handle the truth".

@ogo79 Good one. Made me smile.

Dang, just look at new guy @TheJGG breaking the text wall record along with @Tyranexx...
You guys...

@Eel So, is the river-road (road-river?) a walkway/path or an actual road to drive on? The perspective of the picture combined with my obvious unfamiliarity with the location is kinda making it hard for me to assess the scale of it all...

Hey, but has anyone ever had any issues in connecting their Switch up to a 4K TV set? I am having some sort of HDMI sync issue where there are random lines in the picture and the image and sound randomly go out. I have a rev A switch, and my TV set is a Samsung NU6950.

@ThanosReXXX it's for cars. It used to be a dirt/stone path about a decade or so ago.

@ThanosReXXX @Eel Damn how I missed yall I haven't been in any of the threads you guys are in LOL.

Holy cow, it's snowing here! While snow isn't unheard of in April, it's a rare event where I live. Especially this late in the month! I'd find this more acceptable a few hours north of where I live. XD

@MarioLover92 All the games in SM3DAS are straight ports, huh? While I didn't expect them to change much outside of the up-scaled graphics, I was hoping there'd at least be a few small QoL improvements lol.

I'd be completely on board for expanded retro offerings. I'd love to revisit some GB, GBC, and GBA games again or play ones that I haven't, though the Wii U has most of those covered...I still need to grab a couple games before the eShop inevitably closes! As I missed out on the N64 and GameCube completely, I've had to mostly rely on ports or the VC to experience some of the greats on those systems. I'd also like voice chat to an extent, though I do fully understand Nintendo's stance on the matter with how verbally abuse some people out there think they're entitled to be. The cloud saves are nice, but I have some contention with Ninty related to that point.

@bimmy-lee Will do! I'm attracted to Inmost as I really enjoy that type of pixel art; it reminds me of the Deep Sleep and Don't Escape point & click Flash game series that used to be available. The dev has churned out some amazing stuff IMO. I believe those two collections are still both available through Steam if anyone is interested. The play styles are different though.

@ogo79 Hah, that's all we can do! ^_^

@ThanosReXXX First of all, if by some odd chance you ever come to the States and run across my brother, do not mention the word "Convoy". He'll break out into singing the song. XD He loves the movie too.

I try to reign in the text walls a bit, but the fingers don't always know when to quit...

@TheJGG They didn't put in much effort with the Trials of Mana soundtrack facelift, huh? That's a shame. I do like both MIDI and live/orchestrated music, each has its place. Sounds like it was handled poorly compared to the musical facelifts in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. Even before playing, I'd listened to a lot of the soundtrack and wondered how they could improve on it. Some of the original songs are still my favorites, but I do prefer some of the new tracks now!

I wasn't a fan of Super Mario 64 DS. Aside from the controls and bleh camera, I just wasn't fond of playing as Yoshi and having no way to "attack" (if I recall correctly) outside of using the hats. Too, the mini-games did nothing for me. While SM64 DS technically came first, I played it late in the DS's life cycle and picked it up shortly after playing New Super Mario Bros. to death. The latter uses some of the same mini-games, so it felt like recycled content. Which technically isn't a fair comparison since it was the copycat to begin with lol.

On SM3DAS: We'll call that acquisition a planned panic-buy. Part of the reason I held out was to see if they'd release each game digitally on the eShop after the March 31st deadline. If that had been the case, I'd have just grabbed Sunshine digital and called it a day.

I'd heard that most physical discs on the PS and Xbox ecosystems these days are glorified license keys. I think that's a shame. It's just...weird. Why dump the entire game (Well, most of it, these days, when Day 1 patches are factored in; I think this is lazy in many cases) onto a disc and then have it copy the whole thing onto a console's hard drive to begin with? If I were someone who wanted to go all-digital and didn't care about console exclusives, I'd just build or buy my own PC at that point.

Horizon: Zero Dawn has certainly caught my eye from shortly before it's release onward. I'm certain it's a game I'd enjoy very much and was one of the games last gen that made me gravitate towards the PS4 as my system of choice should I have ever dived into the other two home console webs.

I'd say those are pretty good reasons to wake up at those hours, particularly the Mt. Kenya trip. As long as such wake-up or bedtimes aren't common, I don't think they're detrimental to one's health. I'm not an early riser unless there's a VERY good reason and preferably some caffeine involved lol. I can still pull late-nighters if I really need to, but that is harder for me to do these days. Due in part to the fact that I now try to exercise regularly, something that I didn't do up until a couple years ago.

I'd like Nintendo to have online chat, though I also understand many of the pitfalls that can come with that kind of service. There's the meh phone app I suppose, but I've never used it. It's very rare that I need to play games with voice chat and previously wasn't a huge deal for me. But now with Monster Hunter Rise in my library, it's become more of a need now that I wish to do some hub quests. I'm not quite ready for those yet as I'm still VERY green when beating up monsters lol. Even so, I think my first few co-op runs will be with a couple of online friends who I know own the game. I consider them to be trustworthy. We originally met through this site extinct chat that existed here and have kept in contact via a private Discord server.

@ThanosReXXX - The Optimus/Convoy conundrum is also funny because “Optimus Prime” sounds like a character that belongs in an anime or manga while “Convoy” totally seems like the toned down western import name.

The audacity of some of the classic change ups is stunning as well, like when Nintendo just pasted Mario sprites into Doki Doki Panic because Lost Levels was so difficult and ended up creating a whole weird Mario and friends fever dream for the rest of us, and we had no idea and just accepted a totally different Mario world than we had seen in the first game. In the states, The Super Mario Super Show was based on SMB2 characters and lore and airing on television while Super Mario Bros 3 was on store shelves. It’s funny to think SMB caught on so big here while Nintendo was kind of making it as confusing as possible.

@Tyranexx - Inches and inches of big, terrible, heavy flakes. This is just rude. All my soft wood and undergrowth trees are leafed out and now bent in half. I let the kids watch when I rescued a few of them earlier. I found the longest rake I had and started poking around on them, but I still got absolutely pummeled with snow. The kids enjoyed seeing it. It really is kind of cool to watch them stand back up. I have a 20’ tree top bent all the way to the ground right now. It’s crazy. I’m going to be worried about them all night.

I had the stupidest dream last night. That Nintendo announced a remake of Mother 3, localised in English, coming to Switch. I thought to myself, “this isn’t real, they’d never localise that game,” and sure enough I woke up and it didn’t exist.

@Tyranexx
@ThanosReXXX

@Tyranexx It's snowing here too! You'd think it would never snow in a spring month, of all things, lol. Call me a bit of a goofball, but I like wishing people a Merry Christmas every time it snows in my area. Yeah it's not December 25th just yet, but it's fun to pretend. So Merry Christmas to both of us! If only the snow would magically have presents for me to give to others...lol.

Yeah, there's some GBA games on the Wii U that I haven't gotten yet. I do wanna get MMBN3 Blue, Drill Dozer, and the Castlevania games one of these days (I just checked the Wii U eShop yesterday, looks like they came back). I'd love for Nintendo to have a GameCube compilation sometime - aside from a few examples like 3D All-Stars, they haven't really done a whole lot with their GC catalog. It has one of their more unique console game lineups - lots of great games on that console!