Comments 1,213

Re: Sonic's Run On "Non-Sega Hardware" Made Yuji Naka Both Sad And Happy

AlienX

I think highly of all the GameCube Sonic games, such fun times.

I remember pulling an all-nighter with this game, I don't know why, but I remember it fondly. I imagine it's because with previous games I was too young and would give up easily after 1 or 2 levels, but with SA2B I already had the experience from every other Sonic game on the system even Shadow, so I ended up blasting through the story.

I recently got SADX and SA2B on Steam due to an excellent deal, I still have the Wii hooked up so I haven't bothered setting up the game on PC. These are best played with the gba link cable!

Re: Poll: Do You Have An Issue With Xenoblade Chronicles' Accents?

AlienX

I absolutely love it, if the voices match the characters then that's all I need.

Which is why I can't stand the voice change in the Sonic series >2009, everyone except Eggman sounds like a bland/generic or try-hard voice, simply bad casting.

Arc Rise Fantasia is another case where the English dub is hated, but I think the casting is perfect, the direction and/or writing is what failed.

Re: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Is Coming To Switch This April, Pre-Orders Now Live

AlienX

From what I've heard over the years the Wii version is the superior version. Which is odd to say the least but I wonder if it shares a similar reasoning as Sonic Unleashed, the PS2/Wii port being so cutdown on content it actually removes all the nonsense long werehog levels from the 'HD' versions. IMO I've never seen this as a win, less content means less game for the same price.

Re: Video: Remember When You Needed A Cable To Trade Pokémon?

AlienX

I had Four Swords, Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, SA1, SA2, SA3, Sonic Battle, Pokemon Ruby, Fire Emblem 8 and the only game I managed to link with someone was SA3, in a desperate attempt to find out if Eggman was playable in the extra zone!

Note that this was in late 2004 before I had easy internet access.

Re: Review: Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel - A F2P Card-Battler With Potential, But Noobs Beware

AlienX

I don't play yugioh online after I dueled someone who had a "stalling" deck that plays Final Countdown, so the entire duel was just me trying to do just one thing and failing over and over, that's no fun.

I prefer the games with a story, I've been playing Nightmare Troubadour, it's quite fun and the cards are easy to understand since it's the same ones you see from the anime.
Duel Transer is also quite good, dueling is a bit slow, but you get used to it and has a great amount of cards from (arguably) the best eras of yugioh. You can still play online, with a friend at least, using the wiimmfi server.

Re: Review: Banjo-Kazooie - Peerless Platforming Perfection, And Now Available On Switch

AlienX

I've never been able to get into it, I guess I'm a grumpy-guts like Gruntilda. Played for like an hour and didn't feel like I was doing anything, but if I were a kid I think I would've loved the visuals.

I had Spyro and Croc growing up, those were my 3D platformers, obviously jumping to GC was platforming paradise with Mario Sunshine and Sonic Adventure games, I think the genre peaked on GC.

However I eventually grew to enjoy Majora's Mask so maybe I can do the same with DK64 and Banjo.

Re: Netflix's Sonic Prime Series Is Getting Official Action Figures, Costumes And More

AlienX

@AstroTheGamosian Same, I'd wake up super early to make sure I didn't miss Sonic X, I would stick around for yugioh and sometimes pokemon. I always regret not watching Kirby. Since a little after the show stopped airing I got hooked on The Amazing Mirror.

What I like so much about X is that because it's anime, it can go from being a comedy to an action show, to a serious drama. Unlike how 1 dimensional Boom is.

Re: Reminder: Lego’s Sonic The Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone Set Is Now Available

AlienX

@tseliot is OK I fill you in, bro!

In 2003 the Sonic X anime got picked up by 4Kids, they replaced the Japanese intro with a new song that goes something like: "Go-go-go gotta go fast!" In Europe this theme wasn't used for some reason.

The following year, 4Kids picked up One Piece and created a ridiculous rap for the theme song that explains what the show is about.

Years after Sonic X nobody gave a f about the theme song, except sometime in 2010 "Gotta go fast" started to become a meme, and eventually got used officially on the sonic twitter, even more recent it was in the movie. Suddenly, people think this is Sonic's slogan, that it's been around forever and Nintendolife tries to use it practically in every sonic article, it's annoying.

I've been a fan of the series before the slogan was a thing, it doesn't need one. Much less a Pokemon sounding one (also done by 4Kids) but it's really the fact that it comes from a meme aimed at mocking the series that makes it feel obnoxious.

Re: Sonic Frontiers Was Originally Planned For A 2021 Release, But Sega Wanted To "Brush Up The Quality"

AlienX

This sounds troubling, because you can't count on them putting all this effort into the theoretical game you want. They're making something different, Forces supposedly had a long development cycle, yet it's riddled with problems all over, simple gameplay, simple cutscenes, sloppy/inconsistent story, cut content (why show Chaos in the trailer? He's barely in the game...)

I want to get excited for a Sonic game again, but they make it really difficult. The least they could do is bring back games from the console-only era (Shadow/06/Unleashed) I miss playing challenging Sonic games that take more than a few hours to beat.

Re: Best Of 2021: Retro Nintendo Games Cost Too Much, But Nostalgia Is Expensive

AlienX

I let GameStop totally disrespect me by letting them sell me a new copy of Ghost Trick without the box/manual, just a crappy CD sleeve and the cart.

It eats me up every now and then but I've learned from this mistake.

On the bright side I'm usually into games that don't fetch a high price, usually. Just last year I got the original print of GC Sonic Riders for just ~10 somethings, and Sonic & the BK for less.

Gems Collection though? Too expensive for what it is. If I got that one I'd have the complete set of GC Sonic games. I'd be missing about 6 spinoffs on Wii (and Colors which I have no intention of getting.)

Re: Nintendo Minute's Kit And Krysta Say Goodbye In Their "Final Episode"

AlienX

They lacked the charm Gary & Alison had, and the show itself felt often bland and boring. NW had the advantage of better actors and an actual set that looked cool.

And the best thing of all is that secretly they were aliens all along!

I miss Nintendo Week, wish these weren't constrained to the Nintendo Channel's 384x288 resolution or the fact that they're not really hosted anywhere without blurry 2005 youtube quality.

They're glorified commercials of games that don't exist in Nintendo's eyes so it's not like they'll pop up magically on their YT channel one day in better quality.

Re: Idris Elba Took Great Care Voicing Knuckles, Wanted Him To Be The "Best Version" Of The Character

AlienX

The best Knuckles is probably from Sonic X, character is introduced as a friend of Sonic, they fight in the early episodes due to a misunderstanding but the situation is much more believable here vs. in SA1/Advance2 as Knuckles has no way to return to Angel Island. He's locked out, with no other choice but to find a reason to vent his frustrations.

After the fight Knuckles travels to China and saves Sammo Hung, who rewards him with a chaos emerald. The rest is just him acting like a protector with a high sense of justice.

Also, he's voiced by Dan Green here, you can't go wrong with that.

Re: Best Spider-Man Games On Nintendo Consoles

AlienX

Spiderman 3 on Wii always felt like such a ripoff, it's just the PS2 port with motion controls slapped in — it's lazy and it underperforms. While SP2 for GameCube ran great, looked great and overall felt more fun.

The N64 version of TASM is surprisingly an accurate port, but I feel this game is largely well regarded because of nostalgia.
Just hearing Scorpion go "Your time is running out, hahaha" and "Where ya hiding?" is iconic, but the gameplay is stiff and punishing at times.

So yeah, SP2 and Ultimate Spiderman are without a doubt the best games, GameCube is king.

Re: Video: The GameCube Is Over 20 Years Old, And Blimey Do We Have Memories Of It

AlienX

The ultimate console, quick overview:

  • The best 3D Sonic games.
  • Access to all 2D Sonic games.
  • FOUR Mario Party games.
  • Game Boy Player
  • Play gen III on TV with Pokemon Box.
  • Chao Garden frenzy with GBA connectivity.
  • Access to the best SNES games via GBP (ALTTP & SMW)
  • PSO I&II
  • The best LEGO games, SWI/SWII
  • Has the best iteration of F-Zero.
  • It plays every Zelda.
  • Boot jingle/animation is godly.

Am I missing something? The best Spider-Man game is for this console too.

Re: Poll: What's The Worst Legend Of Zelda Game?

AlienX

Ouch, Phantom Hourglass is at least a Zelda game, Zelda II and Triforce Heroes are just noise.

I suppose no one voted for FS because no one actually had access to two cartridges and GBAs and the link cable to play the blasted game.

Re: Talking Point: Great Game, Poor Performance - When Does A Bad Frame Rate Not Really Matter?

AlienX

Not the greatest example but before I got a DSi in '11 to replace my broken lite, I got hooked on Ace Attorney on Wii and after finishing them I wanted to play Apollo Justice, so I did it... on an emulator on a very old PC, the game never ran at full speed and the audio crackled, yet I don't remember all the bad stuff, just the game itself. Still there were several times I wanted to stop playing because of the issues.

I typically don't care about performance issues. There are certain games though where I simply don't stand it.

Sonic Generations on the 3DS had no excuse for being a 30fps game, if the hardware was too limiting they should've designed it differently, the level design is already very simplistic.

By comparison Sonic Rush on the DS is 60fps but certain levels, when boosting, bring the rate down a bit, this slight slowdown is enjoyable IMO, you can appreciate better what's up on the screen.

This one will sound weird, but in Sonic 06, which is usually 60fps, will slowdown when there's a lot of action on screen, this is great as I mentioned before, the enemies and items in this game are more detailed, when you destroy a robot or box it's cool to see the pieces fly around in an epic slowdown. As a kid in 2006 this always appealed to me, and it was just an unintended design.

An even weirder example is Sonic Classic Collection, if you play it on a DS the games are very laggy, the fps is halved most of the time, and there is added slowdown. Surprisingly, it's quite playable. Beside ruining some sprite flicker effects, I had no issues playing, as well as enjoying the games.

I don't mind playing OOT or MM at 20fps, but absolutely need 60fps in games like Mario, Sonic or Smash Bros.

Re: Gamers Vote Nintendo DS As The Console They'd Most Like To See Make A Modern Comeback

AlienX

If Nintendo released a DSi-style console with a GBA slot I would be all over that. With the option of downloadable games. Downloadable games can be "enhanced" by overclocking to the DSi speed. While GBA dl games come with a personalized border and manual scans.

It always felt "wrong" to play DS on 3DS because of the smoothing and lack of motion blur that my AGS-101 and DSi have.

Re: Former Metroid Prime Engineer Admits He Was "Disappointed" With The Wii's Specs

AlienX

It was probably for the best, better hardware/hd output would have meant bigger workload for making games, we probably wouldn't have as many games released.

Using the same knowledge from the GC meant easier obstacles to overcome.
A good example of this is Sonic 06, if it had been designed for Wii the tighter limitations would have allowed them to finish the game a lot sooner.

Re: Feature: 10 Overlooked GameCube Gems You Must Play

AlienX

Sonic Riders is the best racing game I've ever played, it's extremely satisfying once you understand most of the rules. And the character selection is quite generous.

Zatch Bell Mamodo Fury is an interesting hybrid action/fighting game where you exchange blows from far away. It's not incredibly deep but gets quite challenging to A rank all stages. And once again unlocking the characters is pretty fun (20 playable characters)

Despite my love for GC I don't really have a lot of games I could call overlooked. So might as well: Shadow the Hedgehog gameplay-wise a stepdown from the highly technical gameplay from the previous game, it still manages to be fun, as most levels are plenty filled with 3D action and platforming and performs great on GameCube. It's pretty brutal if you go for all A ranks and endings. But you're awarded with an Expert Mode that is basically a linear, perfected version of the game.

Re: Wii U's Getting A New Game, And This Will Probably Be The Last

AlienX

The developer's name reflects the quality of the game.

Not to offend, I'm sure this must've taken time to make, but damn, if I'm gonna pour hours into making a game I'll be sure not to make it look like a bad rip off of NES Mario games.

Time to shift into my alter ego; Nitro Twelve Citrus. (Original name do not steal.)