ARPK

I love that there's still so much robust debate around whether Super Mario 3 or Mario World is the best, because they were both such an incredibly high point of innovation for the series and they excel in slightly different ways.

None of the side-scrollers since 1990 have gotten even remotely close to how innovative, imaginative and precise those two games are. NSMB Wii could at least boast a main co-op mode for the first time, but the modern entries feel too constrained by trying to follow a formula or remind people what was good about the old ones; they should be attempting to surpass them instead.

Ironically, even though it's not a 2D Mario, I thought 3D Land (and its sequel) got much closer to what made the old-school Mario games great than any of the "New" Super Mario Bros.

Dunno if I'd invoke the name of Monkey Island unless you're guaranteed to have a writing team as good as the trio of Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman. Likewise, cyberpunk as a genre is extremely overplayed these days as something you can tack on to your project in lieu of having anything interesting to say. It's not postmodern anymore, and I wish more storytellers would eschew the label in favor of bolder, more interesting visions of the future.

Little rough around the edges in some places, and a little too close to rip-off territory in others. It nails the 16bit visual aesthetic a lot better than shovelware indies but it's got a long way to go toward being a compelling game.

With all due respect to Milla Jovovich, who is a fine actress, the fact that her husband keeps making her the focal Mary Sue in his unwatchable multi-million dollar fanfics, especially at the expense of the source material, is some of the least opaque nepotism in mainstream entertainment. I know gamers have historically had low standards for consumption, but even the least discerning ones have to be tired of his schtick by now. He's an extremely limited director, and his style worked well for edgy western entertainment like Mortal Kombat, but the bar has risen significantly since the early 2000's and he hasn't adapted or improved at all.

Took him out on Very Hard by spamming Dedede's projectiles. He deserved it.

@ZebZed I appreciate your input. I'm kind of a sentimental Johnny when it comes to these games so I often fall quickly into the trap of "wanting to win on my own terms" even when my own terms suck and I'm just building worse versions of good decks. And that's something players like me often have to get over, which is that a lot of playing the game successfully is embracing the way the game works instead of wishing it worked differently. I definitely like that the modern version of the game focuses a LOT less on coin flips and chance, and it is — as a few people have said here — one of the more balanced and affordable card games on the market.

@Bl4ckb100d The B/W era streamlined and unified a lot of rules, which IMO made the game the best it had been since Neo Genesis. It's still fun to play a theme deck or two against a friend casually but the power creep in the last decade has been pretty significant. I think once you're playing at an intermediate it's easy to get frustrated by how quickly your cards can become obsolete or how often new gimmicks are introduced and phased out.

Yeah, it's like @ZebZed says. Seems more like another new subclass gimmick to shake up Standard for a couple years before it's inevitably rotated out.

@sanguinekhajiit The pattern here is that these types of topics always blow up, and not just on NintendoLife. Reporting on a social media controversy is a powder keg waiting to go off. I didn't read the comments a couple weeks back on the PokePrincxss article but I'm sure that was a dumpster fire too. This section has two to four times more engagement than nearly anything else published today, which likely translates to ad revenue, which in turn probably influences the types of articles that are likely to be published. Every click and comment adds up, even the ones that deride others for wasting their time.

I had a feeling the comments would catch fire for this. Twitter is essentially a (barely) curated and overgrown comments section in itself, so it's really no surprise to see the same kinds of arguments blow up here. Forgive the irony, but there's a point in which you realize it's absolutely futile to express any sort of nuanced view because people are going to dogpile onto whomever they disagree with and regurgitate with extreme futility from whatever echo chamber they crawled out of.

Everyone gets driven to the fringes desperately trying to get "the other side" to see the things they're blind to. Personally I cringe at feeling like I should have to explain why I think right wing militants are dangerous, but if I don't give someone at least an honest perspective without assuming all of their beliefs it's going to quickly devolve into tried-and-true whataboutism. I know I'm wasting my time here, but we've all seriously got to do better than this.

I'd love to be able to show some respect for Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium, although I'll understand if it's not available since it's technically SFC. Still, couldn't find Super Bomberman 2 or 3, and those are some fantastic SNES games.

Oh, nice. More monopolization. This is cool and normal.

I'm sure I'm echoing a common sentiment, but streaming games on Switch just isn't for me. America just doesn't have the public wi-fi infrastructure to make the process natural, and I'm a stickler for owning the games I pay for. Different strokes, I suppose!

What I really miss at this point is SEGA's Virtua Tennis. I played those to death on Vita and PSP.

I think it's perfectly fair to wait on a remaster that, let's be honest, no one ever thought would see the light of day because of the very same roadblocks the team is hitting now. I'm rooting for them.

Green Mario! My man.

I think it's fair for some publishers to be apprehensive because there's a long history of third-party games, especially M-rated ones, underperforming on Nintendo systems. Regardless of why this happened, it still happened. It was an issue with the Gamecube, the Wii, (to a lesser extent) the DS, and the 3DS. I think lightning has finally struck for Nintendo with the Switch, and they've shown they have the platform and the numbers to make the investment from third parties worthwhile. And we've seen that with ports of new games like Doom and MK11, as well as evergreens like Saints Row 3.

Honestly, it's a refreshing change.

This is great news. I managed to play the game all the way through on Switch and was pleased despite the roughness of the visuals. Looking forward to future DLC!

@Calamity244 Agreed wholeheartedly. Hope I didn't give the wrong impression.

I've used the park creation tool in THPS1+2 and can't even imagine the amount of work it would take to do this. What an accomplishment.

That said, having played THPS1+2 on PS4, visually it's not so far off that it couldn't work well on the Switch. Gotta hope those rumors are true. I'd definitely double dip.

I don't think this will be a popular take, so apologies in advance. It's just that I feel extremely weird about the idea of paying money for a game after the whole studio that worked on it got sacked. Not to mention they failed to deliver on promises made to their backers. Investments always have a risk factor, sure, but it's cases like this that ruin the business model for everyone else.

Sad, really. It's a solid game with great art direction.

You know, the N64 has such a small library that some of the brilliant obscurities like Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 might have a chance to crack the top 50. Awesome.

Not what I had in mind, but once the reaction wore off I thought it was a neat little throwback. As long as it’s alongside more traditional LEGO sets I think it’s all good.

Holy crap. I thought this one would be eternally buried in obsolescence. What a welcome surprise.

They absolutely 100% deserved to be held accountable by this lawsuit and the problem is still persistent. If NoA wants it dropped, maybe they should focus on manufacturing non-defective joycons.

There are many issues with eSports, which Nintendo definitely has no responsibility to sink money into. The big one with Smash, in my opinion, is enforcing this idea that there's one way above all else to play the game. I know a very large number of people who don't really care for most fighting games and have no interest in learning them, but they love Smash Bros. A big part of that is in its design philosophy: The game is crafted with advanced players in mind, yes, but it also has a ton of equalizers for casual or less skilled players. If Nintendo starts adding fuel to the idea that there's a professional way to play Smash Bros, it's going to change the feel of the game for a lot of people.

Sorry, early morning rant and I haven't totally woken up yet.

@Cyberbotv2 We're alike in that respect.

Skimmed the comments so I'm probably missing a few thoughts, but I agree with the opinion that Nintendo has no obligation to financially support the competitive Smash Bros community. They have no obligation to support any any eSport, for that matter.

@Lalivero I hear you. Even at $20 the game is pathetic, let alone their usual asking price of $60 digital. I kept hoping that we'd get Fire Pro from Spike Chunsoft instead, but it's been a long wait so far on what seems like a common sense port. It's all a shame too, because aside from the WWE license, 2K's support for Switch has been great.

I mean, for a system that’s almost a decade old and getting no new first-party games, it’s not half bad to sell over half a million new systems before the fiscal year is up. Aside from that I guess I’m not really seeing the point here? Is it suddenly unexpected for sales of a last-gen unsupported system to drastically fall?

Fascinating to see Reggie open up on a lot of things that (rightly) stayed hush-hush while he had to hold the company line. There are so relatively few people in the history of video games who possessed both good business sense and an understanding of the games industry.

Good feature on some good dudes. Happy to see them still finding success on their own terms.

Fantastic article. Really glad to see this kind of stuff on here.

I know these articles are just here to generate clicks, but Metacritic has done this to themselves. Even among hobbyists, the only people who should be reviewing this game are those who have actually played it to a respectable degree. Even then it's a 4/10 at the absolute worst.

@NIN10DOXD Sorry to get back to you late, but I hear you.

@bimmy-lee This comment section may be a dumpster fire but you're fun and I like you.

@bimmy-lee And yet you felt so deeply compelled to reply, it looks like I get a pretty good return on my ignorance too.

Came for the clickbait, stayed for the boomers in the comments.

@Tharsman "I bet you this: the game will be the best selling Pokémon game up to date. Nowhere near as many people are actually angry at the game."

Yeah. As much as I'm not alone in disliking the current direction of the series, this game is going to do BIG numbers. It's tough. On one hand, I'm bummed that this game just isn't doing it for me. On the other, I'm plenty happy for the people who are going to wholeaheartedly enjoy the experience.

Regardless of what sides people want to take, I'd hope we can all agree that these companies have no business forcing consumers to waive their right to sue through their Terms of Service.

Not a defense of Electronic Arts, mind you, I just think this would all mean a lot more if Metacritic had learned how to curtail the practice of review-bombing a long time ago.

I'm a big fan of Microsoft's long-term strategy of building goodwill in the industry, because people DO remember when a studio puts in the effort to optimize the game they're porting. That's a big part of how Panic Button has built such a reputation among Switch owners even though the system's specs are not in line with what other current-gen platforms are capable of.

Shakedown Hawaii 3DS. Don’t judge me.

This is actually quite the shock! I thought it wasn’t coming Switch-side because the guy who developed it didn’t want to pass it off to anyone else to port it. Guess something changed! Real excited to give this a go.

@Paraka It’s a nod to Final Fight, which had a guy named... uh... Guy.

I won't comment too much on the situation itself. There's not much I can add that hasn't already been said. The point of interest to me is that when you build your brand around your name, be it as an artist, entertainer, or celebrity, public perception means everything. Rightly or wrongly, legal challenges are a powerful means of intimidating people who are a threat to your image.

It's worrisome to see whistleblowing of abusive employment practices and bad business has become conflated with some kind of social justice movement. If a company has an internal culture of being irresponsible and unresponsive to the needs of its employees, sometimes the best course of action really is to alert the public to things we wouldn't otherwise see.

Props to the developer for following through on this version. It may not generate a lot of sales, but it's an excellent act of goodwill. That in itself can be worth a lot more at times than a company's bottom line.

@Reigestugatensho Dang kid, pop a chill pill. They weren't trolling, they just didn't grasp the difference between the games. Intention counts for a lot. There's no need for hostility.

There are times when I'm frustrated by Nintendo's hesitance to embrace modern trends, but this definitely isn't one of them. Good on them for putting in the effort to hold on to what has built them a loyal fanbase over the years.