Comments 223

Re: Nintendo Reconfirms Terry's November Arrival In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Abighoul

Spirits and even assist trophies don't mean anything anymore. The first Fighters Pass was planned out while the base game was still in development, so it's reasonable to assume that stuff like Geno and Shantae getting spirits and Waluigi still being an assist were consolation prizes for the characters they knew weren't in (like how Pit and Wario got trophies in Melee and then got upgraded to playable in Brawl) and therefore deconfirmed them from the original plan for the roster, but the post-Fighters Pass characters seem to be something that they weren't originally planning on and that they haven't actually started development on, or at least didn't until recently. If they're adding more DLC beyond their original plans based on fan demand, then all bets are off.

A character getting a spirit in the base game confirms that they weren't originally planning on that character being playable; it does not mean they are now bound by that and are not allowed to go back later and add that character. They can do whatever they want.

(And as for Geno specifically — he's been on Sakurai's radar at least since Brawl; now that K.Rool and Ridley are in, he and Isaac are pretty much the last of the historically most-wanted characters left; and the splash screen for his Mii costume in 4 — something that even Sans didn't get! — shows that they know the demand is there. I can understand him not making the cut for the base game + FP1, which is why he got a spirit instead, but if we end up getting 5 or even 10 more characters after FP1, I would actually be pretty surprised if he wasn't one of them.)

Re: Random: Nintendo's Latest Firmware Update For Switch Removed A Neat Effect

Abighoul

@ALinkttPresent They don't have to program any new colors; anything that represents the color of a joycon (controllers menu, the slide-in effect, the 3D joycons in the Labo instructions, etc) just reads the color code in the joycon and uses that. If you have Bluetooth on your computer, you can connect your joycons and use a program to change their internal color to any RGB value you want and games will use it. I changed mine to purple before purple was released and they showed up purple everywhere.

Re: A Rewind Feature And Two NES Games Are Coming To Nintendo Switch Online This Month

Abighoul

By my count there's only about a dozen first-party NES games left that have a realistic chance of coming to NSO outside of Japan (and it's looking like most big-name third-party games are going to end up in their own paid collections): Anticipation, Devil World, Kung Fu, Mach Rider, Pinball, Urban Champion, Zoda's Revenge, Nintendo World Cup, Super Spike V-Ball, and NES Play Action Football. Maybe Golf and Donkey Kong Jr Math to complete the black boxes, and Earthbound Beginnings, Mysterious Murasame Castle, Clu Clu Land D, and F-1 Race as possible imports. Every other Nintendo-published NES game either requires peripherals, has potential rights issues, or would require major amounts of new translation. Allowing for some more Japan-only and smaller third-party games, they'll have exhausted the catalog by the end of this year or early next year.

Re: Tweet Analysis Reveals Controversial Pokémon Cull Has Fans Evenly Split

Abighoul

@King-X i mean unless you buy literally every game that's released ever, you do make pre-play judgments. Even if every game had playable demos, you don't have enough time to play all of them, so you'd still have to make judgment calls on what interests you. And sometimes you can tell without playing a game that it's not going to be what you're looking for. A Pokemon game where I can't have a complete collection of Pokemon is almost as uninteresting to me as a Paper Mario game with no story or characters.

Re: Tweet Analysis Reveals Controversial Pokémon Cull Has Fans Evenly Split

Abighoul

50% "positive" comments and the positive ones are like "i really hope they reconsider this decision" because "hope" is a positive emotion, and people just saying "bring back the national dex" don't count as anything because they put a # in front of it? This actually shows that a strong majority of the reaction to the decision is at least wary/uncomfortable if not outright negative, and support will drop further when we see the full regional dex and which of our favorites were cut and there's no room for hope anymore.

Re: Nintendo Throws In A Surprise NES Game With This Week's Switch Online Update

Abighoul

@Damo Come on. They've done SP versions every time; it's not surprising. The headline said they added a game. They didn't add a game; Twinbee was already on there. They added a savestate for a game, which is what they've been doing the whole time.

And the "i didn't want to spoil it" argument doesn't hold any water either considering the header picture for the article shows the game.

Re: All Those amiibo On Your Shelf? You Can't Use Them In Super Mario Maker 2

Abighoul

I don't buy the idea that it was taken out to make multiplayer less confusing. It's not like that would be the first time Mario Maker has let you make bad game design decisions. You can make a level that's just a bunch of doors and all but one of them drop you in lava; that's not an argument for taking out doors.

Aside from the characters, Mystery Mushrooms also did something that can't mechanically be done with any other elements in SMM: being Super but only one block tall. You can get close to that functionality with a shelmet, though you have to take some extra steps to make sure it actually gets worn and not used as a shell.

Re: TT Games Listens and Gives LEGO Worlds on Switch a Nice New App Icon

Abighoul

Games should have multiple icon options, like reversible cover art. One that's just the regular physical boxart (or what would be the physical boxart if it were physical) and one that's more abstract or artsy or whatever. I'd love to have that original icon on my home screen, and have Zelda use the reverse boxart, etc.

Re: Review: Miitopia (3DS)

Abighoul

Complaining about having to press A while holding B seems like a bit of a stretch since that's how you play Super Mario Bros on the 3DS. But anyway, I actually really want this.

Re: Gallery: Check Out Five Control Schemes for ARMS

Abighoul

The Change Target buttons in thumbs-up mode and single-joycon mode seem... ill-advised. Why not use ZL and SL instead of having to use your middle finger stretched around the joycon (with the wrist strap on, it's a little too big for that) or using the pad of your hand to press in the side of the controller (which you're probably going to press in on accident anyway)?

I'm actually really intrigued, though.

Re: Review: NBA Playgrounds (Switch eShop)

Abighoul

"You can play in many of the Switch’s available configurations with the only exception being single Joy-Con play,"

Wait, what? Wasn't single-joycon explicitly confirmed like two days ago? Or am I reading this sentence wrong?

Re: Preview: Going Hands On With the New Nintendo 2DS XL

Abighoul

On top of all the times I've had 3DS cards pop out in my pocket and the way it makes for a smoother nicer looking exterior, I recently realized card slot covers also make a lot of sense now that more people are buying digital games — a lot of people might not ever even own any 3DS or Switch cartridges, so it makes sense to have a way to keep dust out of there.

Re: Random: Nintendo Officially States Ganondorf's Last Name

Abighoul

@AlexOlney Most Links probably aren't of a social status where they'd have a formal last name; if there's any need to distinguish them, it'd be "Link of the Kokiri" or "Link of Skyloft" or whatever.

Actually, is "Dragmire" even a last name, or is it maybe a title given to the male Gerudo?

Re: Nintendo Has Discontinued The NES Classic Edition in North America

Abighoul

It does suck not getting something I want, but it makes sense. This was never supposed to be a new product line; this was something they threw together really quickly just so they could have something to sell in a Christmas season where their old console was completely dead and their new console wasn't ready yet. They started manufacturing it at one of the lowest points the company's been at in a while; if they made too many and lightning hadn't struck the way it did, they'd have two dead consoles collecting dust on shelves. The general public's reaction could have easily been "meh, that's neat, but I'm not paying $60 for the same 30-year-old games Nintendo's always pushing; why can't they make something new?" Sega's had plug-n-play Genesises (Geneses?) for years now, with more games and expandable memory, and most people don't care about those. In hindsight it seems obvious that they should have made 100 million of them, but this wasn't a sure thing. And with people complaining that they can't meet manufacturing demand on the actual new console they released a month ago, should they really be devoting manufacturing resources right now to what's ultimately a gimmicky toy? If the Switch fails, making more plug-n-play classic systems is definitely something they can fall back on, but right now the priority should be on maintaining the momentum of their actual product.

Re: Nintendo Switch Battery Test Reveals Some Surprising Results

Abighoul

Yeah, no. The DS and DS Lite lasted 20-30 hours when they were new. If the point of the test was to compare it to an old used system that you don't do anything to fix up, then I guess, but even then that's unfair because the Game Boys in the test got to use brand-new AAs manufactured this year. If you're gonna replace those corroded AAs you got from Circuit City 20 years ago, you should also replace the decade-old, easily consumer-replaceable batteries in the other systems.

Re: Gallery: Let's Compare The Nintendo Switch To Other Handhelds

Abighoul

The artsy pictures are cool, but it would be nice to just have a straight-on picture of the 3DSXL resting on top of the tablet so we can actually directly compare the size. An angled picture of an open 3DS with a Switch somewhere back and to the side of it doesn't really tell me anything.

Re: Talking Point: The Nintendo Switch Could Revive Local Multiplayer

Abighoul

On the one hand, this is literally exactly what we said about the Wii U.

On the other hand, I can pull this out at any time and snap the controllers off and play Mario Kart, Snipperclips, Tetris, and presumably SNES games with anyone anywhere, so there's that. It's the only console other than the Famicom to always come with two controllers, and it's a handheld that's as portable as the 3DSXL. It could work this time.

Re: Feature: Nintendo Switch Countdown - The Origins and Simple Magic of Snipperclips

Abighoul

I haven't touched a Switch yet, but I made a cardboard one a while ago that I think I got the dimensions pretty much right on, and if anything, the right joycon's offset stick feels like it's going to be slightly more comfortable than the left one (though the joycons are so small that it doesn't make much of a difference — if you have a Game Boy Micro, hold it with your left thumb on the d-pad and your right thumb touching the screen above the Start button, then try it with your right thumb on the buttons and your left thumb on the screen above Select.).

The top of my general hype list is pretty much a tie between Zelda and Puyo Tetris, but Snipperclips is definitely the one I'm most looking forward to playing in the stockroom at work with my manager. And I'm still not over how great it is that the Switch is the only console ever other than the Famicom that will always come with at least two controllers.

Re: Review: Picross e7 (3DS eShop)

Abighoul

The pink square thing is kinda useless since there's only one. If there were two different colors of them, you could try out different marking scenarios and solve by contradiction. But it's still picross, so I still bought it.

(Why are the bonus puzzles still only tied to the first three games, though?)

Re: Nintendo Hopes the Switch Can Be A Bridge Between Home Console and Portable

Abighoul

"We're hoping that Nintendo Switch will be a system that will be the constant in your gaming life. Whereas previously, you would play certain things on your home system and certain things on your handheld. Our hope is that Nintendo Switch can be the system that bridges both of those and becomes the constant system that you're always using."

but it's totally not a 3ds successor you guys; the 3ds is gonna be around forever just like the gba

Re: Tatsumi Kimishima Expects Nintendo Switch To Sell "About As Well" As The Wii

Abighoul

Not at $300, and not if there's a separate handheld. But if they make an affordable model that's more handheld-focused, and they get Pokémon on it, and it also sells well as a home console with a cool gimmick... maybe.

PS2 sold 150 million because it was a cheap DVD player (PS3 was an expensive Blu-ray player and Blu-ray ended up being much less revolutionary than streaming anyway, so it didn't happen again). DS sold 150 million because it expanded the handheld market in a way that was only possible because we didn't have iPhones yet (notice how every attempt on 3DS to replicate the success of Touch Generations — Nintendogs, Brain Age, CrossworDS (and then the ones they didn't even try to make on 3DS: America's Test Kitchen, Personal Trainer Walking, 100 Classic Books) — ended up bombing because while it made sense in 2005 to spend $120 on a DS and $20 on a sudoku collection because the alternative at the time was to carry around a big book of sudokus, it didn't make sense in 2011 to spend $250 plus $40 on the same thing when the smartphone you already have in your pocket anyway does a good enough job of it for free). Wii sold 100 million because it was a cool new fad that we'd never seen before and then it got Mario Kart and Netflix and price cuts and bundles to carry it beyond that.

(Note here that I'm talking just about sales, which are pretty removed from what we "hardcore" ""gamer"" types would consider actual quality of the games. The Wii, DS, and PS2 all had some of the best games of all time, but so did the Gamecube and the Wii U, and the Switch will have its share too; it's anyone's guess whether a masterpiece game ends up being a Super Mario World or a Yoshi's Woolly World in terms of system-selling)

Does the Switch have a cool enough gimmick to make it a necessary purchase to 100 million people? Maybe. But it's definitely not guaranteed. Personally if I were the president of Nintendo, I'd be sticking to vaguer language than that. But I'm not the president of Nintendo.

Re: Tatsumi Kimishima Talks About a Potential 3DS Successor

Abighoul

You could still have detachable joycons on a Switch Mini — scale the tablet down to the size of a smartphone / non-XL 3DS and other than Home and Capture, which could be moved onto the tablet, the buttons and sticks (which should probably be circle pads here) could be the same sizes and positions. And HDMI out shouldn't be a problem; just keep it at 720p. A Switch Mini should still keep the features that give it the name Switch; otherwise we've either got a Switch SKU that doesn't have the one very well-known and easily-understood feature it's supposed to have, or we've got two consoles with completely different names that are actually mostly the same thing (and then what name do you put on the cartridges?).

Re: Kimishima on the Role of the 3DS After the Switch Launch

Abighoul

To the people saying the Switch can't be a 3DS replacement because it's too big: detach the joycons and it is literally the size of a 3DSXL and two Game Boy Micros. You can find room for that. And in a year, if there's still a market for pocket-sized dedicated game consoles, they can make a Switch that's the size of a smartphone that only plays in 720p. Their goal for the past five years or so has been a single development platform. They're not going to kill off a successful console right away, or give any signals that they're doing it soon, but they don't actually intend on keeping two consoles with completely different architectures in the long term.

Re: Talking Point: Is the Nintendo Switch a Handheld or Console? Does it Matter?

Abighoul

Right now, it needs to outdo the Wii U, so it's a home console that's also portable. If it works, in a year or two they'll make one with the bottoms shaved off of the joycons and the tablet part scaled down to the size of a phone and that'll be a handheld console that also has an HDMI out port. If there's still a market for dedicated handheld consoles by then.