Topic: What does this community mean to you?

I feel at home here. I visit the site daily. Back in the day it was more for the news but nowadays I just like to check what's going on in the comments and forums. In a way, Nintendo Directs have reduced the need to check for news since the biggest news are always concentrated on specific dates. You just need to know when the Direct is happening and you're good to go.

I do agree that the site in general has gone a bit downhill. It's had its ups and downs over the years. I didn't particularly enjoy the comment section back in the Wii U days either. The launch of Switch had a positive impact on the site as a whole but it has since winded down.

People come and go but I still see plenty of regulars who've frequented the site for as long as I have. I joined at the tail end of 2010, after lurking for a year or two. I know I found my way here thanks to the site's focus on WiiWare reviews. The specific review may have been for BIT.TRIP BEAT.

I'm not as active as I once was. Nowadays I'm mostly lurking. I tend to overthink whatever I'm about to write and sometimes end up choosing not to say anything after already spending way too long on my message.

There are some people here I'm always happy to see, ones that I can identify with and/or who share similar taste in games, so much so that I trust their opinion more than professional reviews. They are like friends to me, even though they don't even know I think so highly of them.

@Sisilly_G I would say it has become cliqueish nowadays. You have certain groups hijack threads to talkabout everything else but the topic at hand. Then you have groups discussing Wii and GameCube games as they are retro not like it use to be. Where you can freely join a conversion. Then when you do try you just get ignored and it feels like a waste of time posting here.

@Neonpizza Yeah I remember Wario Woods and Ryno. Last I heard @Ryno was about to have a kid if I remember correctly. That was a few years ago so hopefully he's teaching the young one the way of the NES lol, or he's at least enjoying some retro goodness.

I get it that people move on and new ones come but at the rate that happened to this place it makes me wonder if the different staff had something to do with it. It seems that when people like James and Corbes left that's when alot of the old timers left too.

@Tasuki I believe Kate semi-retiring also led some to leave.

I doubt that alot of the people that I am thinking about left even before Kate was a staff member.

I like this site as it gives me something to do as sit on the toilet having a long plop. Speaking of which, I’m having an extra hot phall curry tonight so I imagine I will be on here a lot tomorrow!

This is a pretty wholesome thread. I lurked here for years mainly for gaming news but made an account during the covid era when I was feeling a little disconnected and gaming a lot. I don't really know people in real life who play Switch so it's nice to have this community around to get opinions on games and hear interesting ideas and chat about random game related topics..

@Tasuki Out of curiosity, what did you consider retro back in the Wii days? Was SNES retro by then? If so, why couldn't people call GameCube retro by now when there have been as many console generations between them and the amount of years between GC-Switch even exceeds that of SNES-Wii.

I personally would count GC as retro by now. Wii honestly isn't far off either. Though I don't really use the term retro in general so what do I know.

Well, I can to talk to a lot of peoples around the world, I can enhance my English skills by typing a lot of English sentences, I can share my unique interest to other peoples.

@Late I'm not sure the term 'Retro Gaming' was a thing back then - it's not something I remember really hearing at least. It's only since gaming became more mainstream that and the current trend for everything to need a 'label' that its really been called that. They were just old games back then 😂

FWIW I don't really thing there's an accepted cut-off for something to be considered Retro, it's just personal preference. I've seen opinions that it's pre-3D graphics, pre-HD graphics, anything more than 2-3 gens old, anything you can't currently buy.

@Late Of course SNES is retro. Anything from PS One back is retro IMO. Anything else just doesn't feel retro. Once you get into full 3D graphics, reliable online services, mass marketing of games that is not retro.

It's like the movie industry, would I consider the first Iron Man movie retro? Hell no, about Disney's Cars? Nope. Or even speaking of cars do people consider a 2005 Honda Accord retro? Same goes with video games. Just because a person likes something doesn't mean it's retro, and that's the problem. Because someone likes something it's gotta be retro. That's not what that word is used for.

@Tasuki There is a very easy solution to avoid these types of situations, you could just say 16bit era gaming so there are no misunderstandings in what you mean. It also has the advantage of eliminating the even more retro games before that era like Pong, Spacewar and Bertie The Brain.

@Tasuki Holy cow, people think Wii is retro? I mean, the Wii is older than me, but I wouldn't consider it retro...

This site is my primary source of gaming news. I'm not a Nintendo fanboy but the Switch is my only gaming console and this is the best site I've found for Nintendo news.

In terms of the community, the atmosphere is fairly positive and savvy. It's nice to be around like-minded folks.

To be fair, I say that with 53 users on my blocked list. I've pretty much curated this community to filter out the angry, mean-spirited and unnecessarily hateful people. I highly recommend it.

To me its mostly just a final holdout from before social media killed internet forums and ruined the internet.

I really do like this community a lot.
I created an account joined the forums back in around May earlier this year, which beforehand I was just browsing news signed-out or watching NL videos in relevance to this site.
The community is a bit small, but it’s fun to be apart of, I recognize 75% of the people in this community whenever I see them on the site, and it feels like a giant hub for a small community of gaming enthusiasts to hang around and that’s something I find cool.
It also feels reminiscent of Miiverse, a fun place to share gaming related discourse, or heck even internet discourse in general sometimes

The news on this site is also pretty well covered, the topics covered are ones that actually are meaningful in some regard and not just “OMG, GUY ON FAMIBOARDS SAID SWITCH 2 IS REAL, ThGAT MEANS ITS REAL!!1!1!!1” articles, and I appreciate that.
It also feels a lot more open in the way it’s designed, when I go to IGN, it feels condensed with its design and lacks a sense of community, it feels like a generic robotic place to get news and move on with your day, but when I got to NL, the design instantly makes the site feel a lot more open and with the forums having a big button on top, a sidebar in the main section for recent topics, and more, it feels much better to be in.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

@NeonPizza Love the Dreamcast. I never got to experience it in its heyday I opted for the PS instead. To be quite honest I was tired of getting burnt by Sega at that time, having previously bought the Saturn and how long they supported that thing. However I manged to pick up a Dreamcast along with a few games a fee years ago and OMG I made a big mistake back in the 90s, lol. I still have it to this day but I need to get some cords or something so I can hook it up to my modern TV. Definitely an awesome console.

@kkslider5552000 Yep. I did enjoy it so much more before social media. :/

Back in the day I had very fun memories of the Forum for the magazine CUBE. That shut down eventually and a lot of the people on it went and formed their own one. I think it was called Total Gamers Network or something, but that was such a lovely place. I enjoyed talking to all the people there. My name was Duran on there (From Trials of Mana). So, I guess this one is the closest thing I have ever found to it community wise. Never been so inclinced to sign up or comment on any other gaming site since.

It's so-so.

@NeonPizza Some of my favorites on the Dreamcast was Soul Calibur, Virutal Tennis, The NFL 2K games, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia and Metropolis Street Racer.

As for the N64 era, I was a PS fan then. I agree with you the N64 had some great multiplayer games like GoldenEye, and Mario Kart 64 but other the Ocarina of Time there wasn't much single player games that I enjoyed, but back then I was on an RPG kick which is why I was more interested in PS. WIth games like Suikoden, Legend of Dragoon, and a few others that I can't recall now its easy to see why I chose PS over N64.

@NeonPizza I have a few SNESes laying around and most of my SNES library still. I dont use the SNES console as I dont own a CRT TV anymore and really dont have the room for one. I dont like the way SNES games look when played on a SNES hooked into a modern TV so I have the Analogue Super NT to play my SNES games on. I also have my Sega Genesis along with with the CD add on but like with the Super Nintendo games I have a Mega SG to play my Genny games on. I have of course 2 Dreamcasts one original one and then one of the black sports edition one. Then I have a few PS2's as well one slim one and one of the original fat ones, and two original Xboxes one modded and one normal one.

Then I also have a couple Xbox 360s, a black one and one of the Star Wars R2D2 ones. I keep those mainly cause the R2D2 one has The Simpson's Arcade on it that was offered for a short time on Xbox Live. It also has the TMNT Arcade game on it which before the Cowabunga Collection was the only way of playing that game legally on a home console. The black one has a few games that have been delisted as one like Super Street Fighter II HD and a few others.

Then I have a PS3, PS4, Wii, and Wii U which are packed away with all my other systems. Sadly my entire NES library, games, and consoles, I lost in a fire a few years ago. Luckily most of the games I owned on the NES have since been released on various collections on modern consoles so I can play them that way.

With work, and family I just dont get alot of time gaming like I use to so all I really play nowadays is the Switch, Xbox Series X and the Super NT.