Aside from Metroid Prime 4 there's pretty much nothing announced for Switch 2 that's a major first-party title, so I definitely share the disappointment that this will be limited to a third-party Direct. Not that there couldn't be some amazing games coming from third parties, but most folks buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo's own exclusive and typically high-quality first-party IPs. It seems Switch 2 is starting its first year MUCH slower than the original Switch did in terms of must-play games of either type, at least so far. Hopefully a proper, full Direct will arrive around or before September that will bring us some news about the holiday season and beyond, because right now it feels like Nintendo's dragging things out as far as offering us a road map of coming attractions.
Never in my 40-plus years as a videogame enthusiast have I been reminded more of the saying, "p----ng on your head and calling it rain" than I am by how the industry is treating its consumers this console generation. And it all began with a little Trojan Horse called "online functionality"; while the possibilities it offered seemed endless for many gamers early on, it was always about total control on the part of publishers and zero consumer rights for consumers from the get-go. I suspect that at some point things will come to a head, either at least in part via litigation to at least attempt to restore some of those consumer rights and/or more and more people simply leaving the hobby out of frustration. In any case the disconnect between the industry and gamers has never been greater.
It opened and closed big with Mario Kart and everything in between seemed focused on OG Switch game upgrades. Nowhere near the revelation the original Switch reveal was in terms of launch window titles. Mario Kart World looks incredible, but it could be a long wait for other Switch 2 exclusive first-party games to begin building up the catalog.
What about all those supposed revivals of nin-Sonic legacy IPs you claimed were coming, Sega? How long has it been now, a year, two maybe?
(Crickets)
Oh, but the steady stream of Sonic games, announcements, and rumors of yet more regurgita--er, remakes never stops for anything, does it? Then again, this is the same company that priced Phantasy Star IV at $99 in a direct attempt to sabotage its own sales in the West, along with a laundry list of other examples, so we shouldn't be surprised, I gurss.
That said, I don't think it would make much sense for Nintendo to cannibalize their potential Switch sales this Christmas by announcing its successor this close to the holidays. If they have until the end of the fiscal year to make the announcement (March 2025), then it could happen anytime between January and March. As for the actual launch, I'm guessing 2nd or 3rd Quarter of next year..
I'd love to see Digital Eclipse secure the licenses to add third-party games from the likes of Activision and Imagic to the lineup, maybe even multiple ports of Namco classics like Ms. Pac-Man. There are a lot of solid titles in the Atari catalog, but it can't be overstated how important those companies and their games were to Atari's success during the early 1980s. And having Arcade, 2600, 5200, and 7800 versions of various games would demonstrate the progress home consoles made toward "Arcade-perfect" ports during those years (amazing how far away that goal seemed for a full decade).
I don't know how much further Digital Eclipse plans to explore this history, but there's still a ton of potential left.
Too early to rate yet for me, although as expected it's a solid game. I do agree with previous posters that combat can be a bit of a slog, and exploration (getting to places high up or across gaps) seems to involve the same 3 or 4 items from my inventory.
While I've only completed the second full dungeon I've revealed almost the entire map, with only a single stamp from completing my fourth book. It's an easy game in terms of difficulty; I've died maybe two or three times so far. Lots of enemy types to memorize including some old classics from the original Legend of Zelda, but again, it seems I find myself using the same ones quite a bit especially in clearing out nests of Moblins and such.
I will say it's still early since only two dungeons are cleared, but at least for now it appears there is a lot of empty space in terms of hidden items or secrets on the overworld map. Also, beating puzzles or challenges or finding a hidden chest too often gives you only a recipe item or Rupees instead of more useful stuff like Heart pieces; in that regard it shares BotW's anticlimactic feeling of finding only breakable and disposable items.
A solid, if unspectacular, game so far. I admit that given my typical expectations from the Zelda series I find myself hoping for things to pick up a notch or two. But I will reserve my final rating for after I've finished it in its entirety.
Remember all those non-Sonic legacy games Sega teased gamers with about a year ago now? Or the surveys about which franchises fans would like to see return before that?
It's okay if you don't; Sega doesn't remember, either, apparently.
I understand Sakurai's comments, but rather than a cost I personally see my time playing a given game as a return on an investment. We pay a lot of money for videogames (especially if you're a serious hobbyist), and over the years I've been forced to become more selective, and I've gravitated toward games that A) have high production standards (not talking "AAA" necessarily, but titles you can tell have genuine passion and effort put into them) and B) offer a good amount of play time. I've spent countless thousands of hours playing RPGs, SRPGs, and Strategy games like Civilization along with platforms like the Mario franchise, adventure games like Zelda, and a wide variety of other genres. That's not even counting the countless hours spent playing multiplayer titles like Mario Kart and Daisenryaku around the TV with friends and family.
$30 to $70 is a lot of money, yet I have many games in my personal library which still ended up costing me literally pennies per hour spent playing. To me that time isn't a cost; it means I got great value for my money.
One thing about each recent generation of Nintendo hardware is that it tends to have a specific "hook" or novelty; there was the Wiimote, then that (mostly failed) idea of a controller screen with the Wii U, and most recently the full hybrid console/portable nature of Switch that struck gold. So what could the "hook" for Switch 2 be beyond the oft-requested "more processing power to play current-gen games"?
Nintendo recently filed a patent for a virtual reality device. On the surface this wouldn't seem to make sense. VR wouldn't seem to work either as a set-top experience with multiplayer capability out of the box (one of VR's single biggest challenges to adoption to begin with) or as an accessory (PSVR2...'nuff said) because it's bulky and expensive.
But this is Nintendo, and they have a tendency to find innovations and solutions that are outside the box. Take for example the recent phenomenon of major first-party IPs crossing platform lines, such as Microsoft titles on PS5 and PlayStation games on the PC. If the lines can be blurred with regard to software to make strange bedfellows out of longtime competitors, then what might be possible if Nintendo already has the hardware infrastructure in place for Switch 2 VR compatibility?
Make no mistake, I fully expect Switch 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) to be a fully dedicated, traditional console with the same portable capabilities of its predecessor; Nintendo is too smart to change up such a profitable formula. The same goes for its games, including its first-party titles, which are rumored to include Mario Kart X, "the most expensive game Nintendo has ever produced". So yes, standard splitscreen and online multiplayer are going to remain the core experience.
But here comes the "hook": if you happen to own a VR headset (or a few), you might now be able to play Mario Kart X, a new Zelda, Metroid, or Mario in full, glorious VR as an option. Now tell me with a straight face that prospect wouldn't cause gamers to salivate.
Here's where that existing infrastructure comes in. And say, for example, Nintendo's partnership happened to be with Meta, which just happens to be releasing a cheaper version of their Quest 3 headset late this year. The gamer in you may be intrigued, but the skeptic asks how would this make business sense for either company? Glad you asked.
1) Switch 2 gets its "hook".
2) Meta, which has been hemorrhaging money for years in their VR division, suddenly has an influx of "killer apps" that rival even the likes of Half-Life: Alyx (which incidentally is accessed through Steam Link to PC) in generating user excitement.
3) Nintendo avoids having to manufacture and market their own expensive accessory, which is exactly what killed PSVR and PSVR2.
4) Millions of Meta (and other) VR headsets are already in homes, providing an existing infrastructure.
Could such a partnership actually be in the works? Given recent industry trends and the risk-averse nature of these corporations combined with their obvious desire to remain profitable, I certainly wouldn't count it out. VR is an incredible experience for anyone who's not yet tried it, and many gamers (myself included) have found ourselves increasingly drawn to it over our traditional consoles as of late, but financially speaking it's still very much on shaky ground and needs an influx of fresh IPs and approaches that just maybe are a perfect match for a certain Japanese publisher (and lest we forget, toy company).
Got into Sea of Stars for awhile; the pedigree of the development team was promising as was the trailer. After establishing my island base, though, I guess I just lost interest. Many of the walls and backgrounds of the environments and dungeons are actually made up of the same sprites copy/pasted ad nauseum, and the quest itself isn't anything special. Battles also quickly became repetitive and tedious. I may come back around and try to finish it at some point, but I have to say Sea of Stars fell short of the lofty hopes I had for it going in.
People have been complaining about Nintendo hardware being less powerful for many years now; if they're finally going to produce a system that can run current-gen "AAA" titles without compromises, of course there's going to be a price increase involved, so there shouldn't be too many complaints.
Younger gamers will never know the joy (and in some ways, innocence) of things like those hilariously awful cutscenes and dialogue from before videogames went "mainstream". Developers typically consisted of comparatively tiny teams (even a single person at times, like David Crane, who did so many premier Activision titles on the Atari 2600), and they had to be creative to work within the confines of both the hardware and smaller budgets. Translations were also a mess at times ("All your base are belong to us"), and localizations often didn't even happen, but companies like Working Designs did what they could and provided some of the most beloved memories for many of us. Back then gamers like myself had a boundless optimism for each upcoming release and the future of the hobby in general; each new generation of hardware blew us away with their leaps in visuals and audio quality. I still remember the awe of experiencing Mode 7 in Super Mario World and F-Zero for the first time, hearing that Yamaha sound chip in the Genesis with Revenge of Shinobi's incredible soundtrack, exploring my first fully 3D environments in Super Mario 64, venturing out of the crashed dropship onto Halo for the first time, and building and playing my first awkward maps in TimeSplitters with friends and family. Those were some introductions that I haven't been able to replicate on modern hardware, not even close.
Would all of those games hold up now? Of course not, but at the time we couldn't care less. We had the hobby all to ourselves and saw the passion poured into them that all too often only gets directed into gating, controlling, and gouging us for additional $$$ after the initial point of sale nowadays by mega-corporations who only ever saw videogames as a new revenue stream. I'm not saying there haven't been some (vast) improvements in some areas, but when we have the biggest and highest-definition displays in the history of the hobby and can't even enjoy many franchises we used to be able to around the couch with family and friends because Big Corporate wants to emphasize (coerce) online, the heart and soul of what got us here in the first place has been lost.
Honestly, Three Houses and especially Engage drastically cooled my passion for Fire Emblem to the point I may never bother with the franchise again. It mostly came down to an absurd amount of social simulator fluff that was necessary if you're a completist (like me) but detracted hugely from the core strategic and story focus that made, for example, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn tighter and superior experiences IMHO. Hours and hours of padding with fishing and cooking minigames, one-note characters I couldn't care less about, and "bonding" conversations that, especially in Engage, became so phoned in and cringe-inducing that I finally just walked away mid-game and never looked back.
More recently it was suggested that Nintendo might remove the SRPG elements (you know, the very thing that was the heart and soul of the franchise from the beginning) completely in order to focus on the social sim aspects. If that happens they can rest absolutely assured I will NEVER buy another Fire Emblem game.
In short, Nintendo lost its way with Fire Emblem trying to "mainstream" it for a wider audience. Way too many SRPGs have either been bastardized (examples: Shining Force and Valkyria Chronicles Azure being relegated to mediocre action hack-n-slashers, Front Mission: Evolved being turned into a third-person shooter) or simply abandoned altogether by their developers. The genre has fortunately seen some rays of hope lately in titles like Unicorn Overlord, but the bottom line is it doesn't need "help" to sell to those of us who appreciate it. It just needs publishers who have a genuine passion for the genre, the skill to tell a great story, and the faith that turn-based tactical RPGs can work on their own...even if more on a critical than an overall sales level.
You want to figure out why so many IPs have been ruined or straight-up disappeared, look no further than the myriad ways online functionality has been used by developers to create secondary revenue streams and/or gate and control user experiences. And leave it to Sega to figure out a way to destroy a great non-Sonic franchise when they finally get around to releasing it. There are some games where common sense says online functionality has absolutely no business being present and WILL ruin what could have been...and this is one of them.
Played the original remake on Switch and enjoyed it, but doing so with a controller as opposed to a dedicated light gun accessory makes for a technically awkward and overall lesser experience. It's a real shame that the entire light gun genre was essentially killed off by the advent of flat-screen displays, because they could be a lot of fun.
That's where VR is just beginning to enter the picture. Operation Wolf Returns is a blast on Quest and PSVR2, and with titles like Under Cover, Operation Serpens, and Dead Second already doing an impressive job of "paying homage" to rail shooters like Time Crisis, hopefully it's only a matter of time before developers like Namco, Sega, and Konami see the potential and bring their coin-op classics to VR for a second chance at life.
You have to remember that this is Nintendo; they charged (and re-charged whenever a new console was released or even when someone had to replace a broken one since purchases weren't linked to accounts) a premium price...$4.99 NES, $7.99 and up for SNES, $9.99 and up for N64 titles...back on the Virtual Console before it occurred to them that they could bank even more $$$ by using a subscription model where users no longer could actually own the games to begin with. For decades they've been the ONLY publisher to rigidly fix not only the prices of new games at brick-and-mortar stores but ensured the used prices stayed very close to the new. Whether Nintendo actually believes their retro games (and now remakes/remasters) are genuinely worth the prices they ask or not, they are intent on maintaining that "aura" with consumers.
Nintendo may have a family-friendly image, but underneath they are one of the most cutthroat and control-obsessive corporations in the entire industry when it comes to their IPs and profit margins.
Speaking of "wish lists", why were all of Nintendo's first-party games from the Direct not put up on the eShop for preorder as has typically been the case in the past? I found that very unusual.
The Direct was a mixed bag for me personally. Obviously Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was the standout for me, and the new Mario & Luigi title shows promise. And I admit it's nice to see Donkey Kong Country Returns HD to complete that duology on the Switch. Ditto the Marvel vs. Capcom compilation.
As for Metroid Prime 4, I have to say it felt anticlimactic. I'm sure it will be a stellar game once players get our hands on it, but there was just no "Wow" factor there for me in the trailer. It's also worth noting that its broad release window (2025) means it could easily end up being a hybrid release that most folks buy for the Switch successor instead of the Switch itself.
As usual, most of the "leaks" and speculation leading up to the Direct were proven false, including the Xenoblade Chronicles X remaster and the remasters of Twilight Princess and/or Wind Waker. I think that Echoes of Wisdom softened the blow of the latter games' absence, but I admit that seeing the entire Xenoblade franchise to date on a single console would have been very nice.
Beyond that it was, to me at least, a bunch of filler announcements. A decent Direct, but not a great one.
Now all eyes will be watching out for the true "main event", Nintendo's next major Direct that will likely cover the Switch successor and its opening slate of games. Will it happen by this holiday or sometime early in 2025 is the question.
So many potential Sega Ages games that could have been (and still could be) made by M2...Arcade, Saturn, Dreamcast...but sadly so little interest from Sega themselves.
The first game was truly inspired and the passion was evident throughout. The second one quickly felt phoned-in with its one turn-win filler battles and comparatively inferior battlefields. It also hugely hurt it that Mario and company took a back seat to so many Rabbids characters; the latter simply aren't everyone's cup of tea, including mine, and their "universe" is nowhere nearly as interesting. It's a real shame because Ubisoft missed a grand opportunity to expand on the theme of Nintendo characters and worlds (imagine what could have been had Sparks of Hope visited worlds like The Legend of Zelda or Metroid with all their tactical possibilities).
If the primary purpose of a sequel is merely to cash in on the success of an original game and you don't carry over the passion and inspiration that made that first one a success in the first place, please don't bother. Too many promising IPs have already been killed off that way.
This is the price of bastardizing a given game franchise in order to "broaden its appeal". Give me the Path of Radiance/ Radiant Dawn duology any day over all the social sim fluff of Three Houses and the mind-numbing "bonding" dialogue of Engage. Now we have an article advocating the removal of what made the core fans who were there in the beginning fall in love with it in the first place.
It begs the question, did incorporating social and marriage elements in FE: Awakening really save the franchise or seal its doom as the SRPG series fans loved anyway? Another question to ponder: what if Awakening's popularity actually had LESS to do with the introduced elements and more to do with word of mouth regarding previous iterations and the fact that a lot of newer gamers suddenly discovered they liked SRPGs?
The social sim padding was barely tolerable for me by the time I had hit 100 hours in Three Houses; it was less than half that number in Engage before I simply quit playing and never went back. If Nintendo does indeed go with this article's idea, you can take it to the bank that I will never bother buying another installment of Fire Emblem ever again...and I suspect I'm not the only one.
You want a social sim, go make one for yourself and keep it in your own lane. Stop bastardizing genres like SRPGs that longtime hobbyists like myself have advocated so long and hard to save or bring back.
Still a great SRPG and a great game, PERIOD. Sales figures don't influence my buying habits one bit; it's understood that some genres sell better than others and that certain IPs hold a vice grip on sales leader boards, but hobbyists like myself will continue to vote with our wallets and support deserving games that slip "below the fold".
Ouch. I pre-ordered both this and the new Virtua Racing-like F1 title for the Switch instead of either the PS5 or XBox Series X, specifically because both were "retro"-inspired games of which A) the Switch already has a ton of, and B) thus far it's been tailor-made for such software compared to ports of high-end "AAA" titles. It's hugely disappointing to read that two such games released a week apart perform noticeably worse on Switch. It's a vital niche that suddenly doesn't feel at home on Switch as it used to.
Here's hoping both games get patched with improvements...but it's inexcusable that ANY game is released for (non-refundable) sale that's in need of patching to begin with.
I already went all-in on digital, although I understand and respect the reasons others may have for sticking with physical copies. As a hobbyist since the Atari 2600, my collection had grown to the point where it was frankly unwieldy; I didn't want my old consoles sitting and collecting dust around the TV (not to mention the limited inputs and space), and after multiple moves that happened pretty close together I realized it was time to downscale somehow.
The oldest retro console I still own is a modded Sega Saturn (though I guess you could also count my AtGames Atari 2600 and Mini TurboTax 16). I sold my entire physical collection of Switch games and repurchased them digitally after getting a 1 TB SD card. I have purchased a TON of retro games and collections across the current consoles and PC and have filled in the gaps via emulators. It's enabled me to play pretty much anything I want at any time, all on the same TV and in some cases my PC, all without worrying about storage for the countless discs and cartridges I used to have or the inevitable decay of time on aging circuit boards. It's also hugely convenient to never have to swap out discs or cartridges; just a few button presses and you're playing.
That's not to say digital is perfect; I'm acutely aware of stores being permanently shut down along with access to your purchases, as with the Playstation 3, Wii U, 3DS, and so on. This generation has seen a glut of "throwaway" online-centric and live-service games that have already gotten their plugs pulled, gone forever with zero care about videogame preservation. And subscription models will only make that worse; I will NEVER bother with subscription-only games like Switch Online forces users to do for retro titles; I want to OWN AND CONTROL the games I legally pay for, not have some mega-corporations "training" me to think that throwing endless $$$ into hardware and subscriptions for content I never own or can keep if I choose is somehow a "great deal". I've repurchased MORE than enough Nintendo titles alone over the years via Virtual Console and remasters/remakes to justify them at least offering their legacy games for permanent purchase as an option.
I think it comes down to each individual gamer's own needs and priorities as far as physical or digital (or a mix of both). The bottom line is what makes it a hobby you can both enjoy and manage in a practical way, on your own terms.
Put it this way: for less than $20 (the cost of the BOTTOM TIER of Switch Online subscriptions) you can buy and permanently OWN the COMPLETE Rare Replay collection (including GoldenEye 007) on XBox. There's simply no value in Switch Online and a drip-feed of content players can never own.
Maybe they'd see better results if they didn't run Sonic into the ground. Even Mario or Zelda would probably see "sluggish" sales if they released 2 or 3 games/compilations per year and Nintendo focused on them at a rate of 90/10 compared to the rest of their franchises. I'm hoping for good things with Sega's recent announcement of more legacy franchise games (although they're still sadly ignoring their amazing RPGs like Shining Force and Skies of Arcadia), but their success will depend on them returning to the standards of quality and "wow factor" the company was once known for; in recent years those standards have lapsed.
Hope this guy is prepared to "get comfortable" watching Ubisoft's shares plummet after gamers get wind of his little remark and avoid anything to do with their content.
I have been an avid gaming enthusiast since the Atari 2600, owning most major platforms and thousands of games over that span, and the day I have to pay a subscription to be able to access my games is the day I will walk away from the hobby forever.
THIS RIGHT HERE is what all the EULAs, "Always Online", "live service games", and more recently XBox Game Pass, Playstation NOW, and Nintendo Switch Online have always been truly about: training gamers to surrender our most basic consumer rights in being able to claim ownership of content we legally paid for, to create a throwaway culture that constantly casts aside whatever isn't bringing in the most profit with no attempt at game preservation whatsoever, and to gate, monitor, and control everything you can do and access in your games (one can certainly argue that was the entire point of online functionality to begin with from an industry standpoint). If you really love this hobby I believe you'll say "NO" to any subscription model; speaking for myself I will NEVER support them. These higher-ups at Ubisoft, Square Enix, and others who claim to know "what's best for us" can go take a flying leap where I'm concerned.
As much as I would love to see them all happen, the only way we would likely ever get most of the games or IPs mentioned on this thread would be if Sega decided to take another crack at a console, sadly. They've "turtled" around "safe" franchises like Sonic since they went third-party two decades ago, and even before then they were always a Japan market-first corporation that tended to ignore Western gamers. Most of their legacy IPs that have seen a release over the past several years have been outsourced to third-parties and/or been of middling quality; the outstanding quality, variety, and risk-taking of the Sega of old seems long, LONG gone.
I would sure love for them to prove me wrong and truly start listening to their fans who've been clamoring for these franchises, though. I honestly believe they don't realize the potential goldmine they're sitting on, waiting to be embraced by entirely new generations of players.
While I doubt it will ever happen, a remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga would give gamers the opportunity to experience one of the most ambitious RPGs of the CD era. Spread across four CDs, its world conveyed a sense of bleakness and dying hope that overcame the Saturn's first-gen polygon visual limitations. One example I'll never forget is an NPC who is rebuilding an ancient aircraft when you meet him and dreaming of flying it. Toward the end of the game when you visit the town, another villager tells you he was killed after taking it up for a test flight and crashing.
Sadly, Sega only released 3000 copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the entire North American market (and only bothered to use generic paper sleeves to house the discs inside the case). They really have always been a Japan market first company, but boy did they ever treat Western gamers like trash sometimes, especially when it came to their RPGs.
@Emmerichcoal Unfortunately not from Sega, but I've always gone to bat for it. It's a travesty that most gamers' experience with the franchise is limited to just the Genesis installments, because Shining Force III for the Saturn was one of the grandest and most ambitious SRPGs I've ever played, with an epic 190-plus-hour storyline spread across three interlocking Scenarios (each on its own disc; however, Sega only brought the first to the West and left us with a permanent cliffhanger). I got to play through all three thanks to an English mod that was literally decades in development and can tell you it was way ahead of its time, just an incredible ride.
The situation with the eShop is atrocious and inexcusable, and it's 100 percent on Nintendo for flinging the floodgates open to seemingly anyone and any "game". It's a nigh-unnavigable mess of garbage constantly pushing better games "below the fold" often within a single week. Its glut of trash "games" makes the Wii's infamous "mountain of shovelware" look like a tiny anthill by comparison.
I absolutely want full backwards-compatibility on the Switch 2, but if it doesn't happen, you can bet this will be one of the key excuses Nintendo offers as to why...for a situation of their own making.
@dkxcalibur The "life sim" aspect (I had to retype that in the interest of being kind) absolutely HAS killed Fire Emblem for me. I got sick to death of it after one playthrough in Three Houses and Engage was such an absurd, phoned-in waste of (hours of) time that I simply quit mid-game and will probably never bother to go back.
And all because Nintendo didn't feel they could trust an SRPG franchise to stand on its own without "mainstreaming" it and padding it with fluff. And FE is far from the only casualty in the genre over the years; there's the travesty of Sega turning the Shining Force series (and later an attempt with Valkyria Chronicles Azure) into a bland action RPG, Front Mission being turned into a third-person shooter by SquareEnix, and Nintendo trying (and failing) to appeal to "the mainstream" by changing Advance Wars into Battalion Wars, among others.
Stop bastardizing the SRPG genre, game publishers!!!
@ScalenePowers I absolutely loved FE Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn; the primary focus was kept on the outstanding and varied battles as well as the superb storyline. Support conversations actually revealed meaningful insights into the characters and their motivations and even gave hints regarding upcoming battles, all while keeping things appropriately brief so as not to detract from the pacing.
Which brings me to FE Three Houses and especially Engage. At first Three Houses' Sanctuary had some appeal, but after dozens of hours of repeatedly wandering its sprawl to get in every last conversation and task over the course of the game (I tend to be a completist), it had gotten so tedious that I never started a second playthrough. Engage was even worse; it's support conversations were typically meaningless at best and painfully absurd at worst. This wasn't the "quirky Japanese characters and humor" that most other RPGs have managed to make appealing; it was two-dimensional freakshows that lacked any genuine humanity, and by Chapter 12 or so I realized that I was actually spending way more time at the hub doing busy work I hated; the SRPG aspects had become secondary to making some sort of vapid life/relationship sim. I simply quit and haven't looked back since.
So NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT regarding Sega trying to incorporate other non-related mechanics into Shining Force in some misguided attempt to "mainstream" it. Fire Emblem may be more popular overall now than ever, but as long as Nintendo continues its current direction I am done with the franchise. Shining Force III gave me 190 hours of one of the best storyline, most deliciously manipulative villains, and some of the most epic battles I've ever enjoyed in an SRPG; give me that ANY day over a game with a few dozen hours of battles and a hundred hours of empty fluff and padding like FE has become.
1) Shining Force (Even a remaster of SFIII, which Sega criminally never localized Scenarios 2 and 3 for, would be an excellent and truly epic 190-plus hours introduction for a new generation of SRPG enthusiasts).
2) Skies of Arcadia
3) Dragon Force
4) Old school, offline Phantasy Star set in the Algol star system
5) Out Run 2006: Coast2Coast
6) Afterburner Climax
7) A comprehensive collection of Sega's Arcade coin-ops, especially:
A) Congo Bongo
B) Zaxxon
C) Pengo
D) Super Monaco GP
E) Daytona USA
F) Daytona USA 2/Sega Racing Classic
G) The Virtua Fighter series
H) Sega Rally Championship
I) Virtua Racing
J) Out Run
K) Space Harrier
L) Afterburner
M) Golden Ave
N) Altered Beast
O) Super Star Wars Arcade
P) Super Hang-On
Q) SCUD Racer
8) Bug!
9) Three Dirty Dwarves
10) Magic Knight RayEarth
11) Albert Odyssey
12) LandStalker
13) Panzer Dragoon Saga (Can't believe I forgot to include this one; it's one of the most atmospheric (in a bleak, hopeless way) RPGs I've ever played, and it was one of the most ambitious ever attempted (4 CDs) when it originally released (all 3000 copies Sega manufactured for the entire North American market).
@NatiaAdamo Unfortunately, no; following the meddling of Sega of Japan's higher-ups with Shining Force III, they left and founded their own company (the Camelot that made, among other games, Mario Golf 64). I don't know all the details, but the Saturn was a dark time in Sega's history where the top brass in Japan ran afoul of pretty much everybody: internal development teams, Western localization companies (like Working Designs, who jumped ship for PlayStation and took LUNAR: Silver Star Story and ThunderForce V with them after their CES booth got relegated to an out-of-the-way corner at the show), Sega of America, and Western gamers in general (they didn't deem us worth bothering to manufacture more than the first of three interlocking Scenarios of Shining Force III, leaving North America and Europe with an eternally unresolved cliffhanger; they also only made 3,000 copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the entire North American Market).
What I have read gave me the impression that Team Camelot didn't leave under the best of terms with said upper management, so who knows whether the two parties could ever reconcile to bring back arguably the best SRPG series in videogame history (and yes, I know there are many contenders for that title, but having played through the entirety of SF III's 190-hour, three-part EPIC storyline, it's STILL very hard to top for its sheer scale and ambition).
It would be awesome to see members of the original development teams for OverWorks and Team Camelot be brought in to do a new (or even remastered) Skies of Arcadia or Shining Force project, respectively. Then again, hearing anything at all from Sega on these or their other RPG franchises after 2-plus decades would be a miracle in itself.
Comments 1,281
Re: Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase Announced For Tomorrow, 31st July 2025
Aside from Metroid Prime 4 there's pretty much nothing announced for Switch 2 that's a major first-party title, so I definitely share the disappointment that this will be limited to a third-party Direct. Not that there couldn't be some amazing games coming from third parties, but most folks buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo's own exclusive and typically high-quality first-party IPs. It seems Switch 2 is starting its first year MUCH slower than the original Switch did in terms of must-play games of either type, at least so far. Hopefully a proper, full Direct will arrive around or before September that will bring us some news about the holiday season and beyond, because right now it feels like Nintendo's dragging things out as far as offering us a road map of coming attractions.
Re: NIS America: Trails Beyond The Horizon Switch 2 Game-Key Card Release Is "Most Beneficial Option" For Fans
"...most beneficial option for fans."
Never in my 40-plus years as a videogame enthusiast have I been reminded more of the saying, "p----ng on your head and calling it rain" than I am by how the industry is treating its consumers this console generation. And it all began with a little Trojan Horse called "online functionality"; while the possibilities it offered seemed endless for many gamers early on, it was always about total control on the part of publishers and zero consumer rights for consumers from the get-go. I suspect that at some point things will come to a head, either at least in part via litigation to at least attempt to restore some of those consumer rights and/or more and more people simply leaving the hobby out of frustration. In any case the disconnect between the industry and gamers has never been greater.
Re: Poll: So, How Would You Rate The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct?
It opened and closed big with Mario Kart and everything in between seemed focused on OG Switch game upgrades. Nowhere near the revelation the original Switch reveal was in terms of launch window titles. Mario Kart World looks incredible, but it could be a long wait for other Switch 2 exclusive first-party games to begin building up the catalog.
Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Officially Launches On 5th June 2025
Waiting for preorder news. Mum on that so far.
Re: Sonic Team Producer Says Revivals Of Older Entries Remain Appealing
What about all those supposed revivals of nin-Sonic legacy IPs you claimed were coming, Sega? How long has it been now, a year, two maybe?
(Crickets)
Oh, but the steady stream of Sonic games, announcements, and rumors of yet more regurgita--er, remakes never stops for anything, does it? Then again, this is the same company that priced Phantasy Star IV at $99 in a direct attempt to sabotage its own sales in the West, along with a laundry list of other examples, so we shouldn't be surprised, I gurss.
Re: Poll: Is Next Week’s Investor Q&A Really Reason Enough For A 'Switch 2' Reveal?
Que sera, sera.
That said, I don't think it would make much sense for Nintendo to cannibalize their potential Switch sales this Christmas by announcing its successor this close to the holidays. If they have until the end of the fiscal year to make the announcement (March 2025), then it could happen anytime between January and March. As for the actual launch, I'm guessing 2nd or 3rd Quarter of next year..
But again, who knows? Que sera, sera.
Re: Mini Review: Atari 50: The Wider World Of Atari (Switch) - More Of The Brilliant Same
I'd love to see Digital Eclipse secure the licenses to add third-party games from the likes of Activision and Imagic to the lineup, maybe even multiple ports of Namco classics like Ms. Pac-Man. There are a lot of solid titles in the Atari catalog, but it can't be overstated how important those companies and their games were to Atari's success during the early 1980s. And having Arcade, 2600, 5200, and 7800 versions of various games would demonstrate the progress home consoles made toward "Arcade-perfect" ports during those years (amazing how far away that goal seemed for a full decade).
I don't know how much further Digital Eclipse plans to explore this history, but there's still a ton of potential left.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom?
Too early to rate yet for me, although as expected it's a solid game. I do agree with previous posters that combat can be a bit of a slog, and exploration (getting to places high up or across gaps) seems to involve the same 3 or 4 items from my inventory.
While I've only completed the second full dungeon I've revealed almost the entire map, with only a single stamp from completing my fourth book. It's an easy game in terms of difficulty; I've died maybe two or three times so far. Lots of enemy types to memorize including some old classics from the original Legend of Zelda, but again, it seems I find myself using the same ones quite a bit especially in clearing out nests of Moblins and such.
I will say it's still early since only two dungeons are cleared, but at least for now it appears there is a lot of empty space in terms of hidden items or secrets on the overworld map. Also, beating puzzles or challenges or finding a hidden chest too often gives you only a recipe item or Rupees instead of more useful stuff like Heart pieces; in that regard it shares BotW's anticlimactic feeling of finding only breakable and disposable items.
A solid, if unspectacular, game so far. I admit that given my typical expectations from the Zelda series I find myself hoping for things to pick up a notch or two. But I will reserve my final rating for after I've finished it in its entirety.
Re: Sonic Central Presentation To Give "Sneak Peek" At Upcoming Projects On 24th September
That's the same trailer...and it was LAST YEAR. My point is, what have we heard from Sega on those or any non-Sonic projects since then? (Crickets).
Re: Sonic Central Presentation To Give "Sneak Peek" At Upcoming Projects On 24th September
Remember all those non-Sonic legacy games Sega teased gamers with about a year ago now? Or the surveys about which franchises fans would like to see return before that?
It's okay if you don't; Sega doesn't remember, either, apparently.
Re: ICYMI: Yes, Dungeons Return In The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom
Fully realized dungeons > shrines in Zelda.
Re: Random: "The Time Players Spend In A Game Is A Cost" - Sakurai Talks Long Runtimes
I understand Sakurai's comments, but rather than a cost I personally see my time playing a given game as a return on an investment. We pay a lot of money for videogames (especially if you're a serious hobbyist), and over the years I've been forced to become more selective, and I've gravitated toward games that A) have high production standards (not talking "AAA" necessarily, but titles you can tell have genuine passion and effort put into them) and B) offer a good amount of play time. I've spent countless thousands of hours playing RPGs, SRPGs, and Strategy games like Civilization along with platforms like the Mario franchise, adventure games like Zelda, and a wide variety of other genres. That's not even counting the countless hours spent playing multiplayer titles like Mario Kart and Daisenryaku around the TV with friends and family.
$30 to $70 is a lot of money, yet I have many games in my personal library which still ended up costing me literally pennies per hour spent playing. To me that time isn't a cost; it means I got great value for my money.
Re: Rumour: 'Industry Whispers' Fuel Speculation Of A Switch 2 Reveal This Month
One thing about each recent generation of Nintendo hardware is that it tends to have a specific "hook" or novelty; there was the Wiimote, then that (mostly failed) idea of a controller screen with the Wii U, and most recently the full hybrid console/portable nature of Switch that struck gold. So what could the "hook" for Switch 2 be beyond the oft-requested "more processing power to play current-gen games"?
Nintendo recently filed a patent for a virtual reality device. On the surface this wouldn't seem to make sense. VR wouldn't seem to work either as a set-top experience with multiplayer capability out of the box (one of VR's single biggest challenges to adoption to begin with) or as an accessory (PSVR2...'nuff said) because it's bulky and expensive.
But this is Nintendo, and they have a tendency to find innovations and solutions that are outside the box. Take for example the recent phenomenon of major first-party IPs crossing platform lines, such as Microsoft titles on PS5 and PlayStation games on the PC. If the lines can be blurred with regard to software to make strange bedfellows out of longtime competitors, then what might be possible if Nintendo already has the hardware infrastructure in place for Switch 2 VR compatibility?
Make no mistake, I fully expect Switch 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) to be a fully dedicated, traditional console with the same portable capabilities of its predecessor; Nintendo is too smart to change up such a profitable formula. The same goes for its games, including its first-party titles, which are rumored to include Mario Kart X, "the most expensive game Nintendo has ever produced". So yes, standard splitscreen and online multiplayer are going to remain the core experience.
But here comes the "hook": if you happen to own a VR headset (or a few), you might now be able to play Mario Kart X, a new Zelda, Metroid, or Mario in full, glorious VR as an option. Now tell me with a straight face that prospect wouldn't cause gamers to salivate.
Here's where that existing infrastructure comes in. And say, for example, Nintendo's partnership happened to be with Meta, which just happens to be releasing a cheaper version of their Quest 3 headset late this year. The gamer in you may be intrigued, but the skeptic asks how would this make business sense for either company? Glad you asked.
1) Switch 2 gets its "hook".
2) Meta, which has been hemorrhaging money for years in their VR division, suddenly has an influx of "killer apps" that rival even the likes of Half-Life: Alyx (which incidentally is accessed through Steam Link to PC) in generating user excitement.
3) Nintendo avoids having to manufacture and market their own expensive accessory, which is exactly what killed PSVR and PSVR2.
4) Millions of Meta (and other) VR headsets are already in homes, providing an existing infrastructure.
Could such a partnership actually be in the works? Given recent industry trends and the risk-averse nature of these corporations combined with their obvious desire to remain profitable, I certainly wouldn't count it out. VR is an incredible experience for anyone who's not yet tried it, and many gamers (myself included) have found ourselves increasingly drawn to it over our traditional consoles as of late, but financially speaking it's still very much on shaky ground and needs an influx of fresh IPs and approaches that just maybe are a perfect match for a certain Japanese publisher (and lest we forget, toy company).
Re: Here's Your First Look At Sea Of Stars' Upcoming Free DLC 'Throes Of The Watchmaker'
Got into Sea of Stars for awhile; the pedigree of the development team was promising as was the trailer. After establishing my island base, though, I guess I just lost interest. Many of the walls and backgrounds of the environments and dungeons are actually made up of the same sprites copy/pasted ad nauseum, and the quest itself isn't anything special. Battles also quickly became repetitive and tedious. I may come back around and try to finish it at some point, but I have to say Sea of Stars fell short of the lofty hopes I had for it going in.
Re: Talking Point: Would $499 Be Too Much For 'Switch 2'?
People have been complaining about Nintendo hardware being less powerful for many years now; if they're finally going to produce a system that can run current-gen "AAA" titles without compromises, of course there's going to be a price increase involved, so there shouldn't be too many complaints.
Re: Random: OG Rebecca Chambers Actress Returns In Another Resident Evil Reunion
Younger gamers will never know the joy (and in some ways, innocence) of things like those hilariously awful cutscenes and dialogue from before videogames went "mainstream". Developers typically consisted of comparatively tiny teams (even a single person at times, like David Crane, who did so many premier Activision titles on the Atari 2600), and they had to be creative to work within the confines of both the hardware and smaller budgets. Translations were also a mess at times ("All your base are belong to us"), and localizations often didn't even happen, but companies like Working Designs did what they could and provided some of the most beloved memories for many of us. Back then gamers like myself had a boundless optimism for each upcoming release and the future of the hobby in general; each new generation of hardware blew us away with their leaps in visuals and audio quality. I still remember the awe of experiencing Mode 7 in Super Mario World and F-Zero for the first time, hearing that Yamaha sound chip in the Genesis with Revenge of Shinobi's incredible soundtrack, exploring my first fully 3D environments in Super Mario 64, venturing out of the crashed dropship onto Halo for the first time, and building and playing my first awkward maps in TimeSplitters with friends and family. Those were some introductions that I haven't been able to replicate on modern hardware, not even close.
Would all of those games hold up now? Of course not, but at the time we couldn't care less. We had the hobby all to ourselves and saw the passion poured into them that all too often only gets directed into gating, controlling, and gouging us for additional $$$ after the initial point of sale nowadays by mega-corporations who only ever saw videogames as a new revenue stream. I'm not saying there haven't been some (vast) improvements in some areas, but when we have the biggest and highest-definition displays in the history of the hobby and can't even enjoy many franchises we used to be able to around the couch with family and friends because Big Corporate wants to emphasize (coerce) online, the heart and soul of what got us here in the first place has been lost.
Re: Poll: Do You Prefer Fire Emblem: Three Houses Or Engage?
Honestly, Three Houses and especially Engage drastically cooled my passion for Fire Emblem to the point I may never bother with the franchise again. It mostly came down to an absurd amount of social simulator fluff that was necessary if you're a completist (like me) but detracted hugely from the core strategic and story focus that made, for example, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn tighter and superior experiences IMHO. Hours and hours of padding with fishing and cooking minigames, one-note characters I couldn't care less about, and "bonding" conversations that, especially in Engage, became so phoned in and cringe-inducing that I finally just walked away mid-game and never looked back.
More recently it was suggested that Nintendo might remove the SRPG elements (you know, the very thing that was the heart and soul of the franchise from the beginning) completely in order to focus on the social sim aspects. If that happens they can rest absolutely assured I will NEVER buy another Fire Emblem game.
In short, Nintendo lost its way with Fire Emblem trying to "mainstream" it for a wider audience. Way too many SRPGs have either been bastardized (examples: Shining Force and Valkyria Chronicles Azure being relegated to mediocre action hack-n-slashers, Front Mission: Evolved being turned into a third-person shooter) or simply abandoned altogether by their developers. The genre has fortunately seen some rays of hope lately in titles like Unicorn Overlord, but the bottom line is it doesn't need "help" to sell to those of us who appreciate it. It just needs publishers who have a genuine passion for the genre, the skill to tell a great story, and the faith that turn-based tactical RPGs can work on their own...even if more on a critical than an overall sales level.
Re: Sega's Crazy Taxi Reboot Is Described As A 'Massively Multiplayer Driving Game'
You want to figure out why so many IPs have been ruined or straight-up disappeared, look no further than the myriad ways online functionality has been used by developers to create secondary revenue streams and/or gate and control user experiences. And leave it to Sega to figure out a way to destroy a great non-Sonic franchise when they finally get around to releasing it. There are some games where common sense says online functionality has absolutely no business being present and WILL ruin what could have been...and this is one of them.
Re: House Of The Dead 2: Remake Gets Rated For Switch By The ESRB
Played the original remake on Switch and enjoyed it, but doing so with a controller as opposed to a dedicated light gun accessory makes for a technically awkward and overall lesser experience. It's a real shame that the entire light gun genre was essentially killed off by the advent of flat-screen displays, because they could be a lot of fun.
That's where VR is just beginning to enter the picture. Operation Wolf Returns is a blast on Quest and PSVR2, and with titles like Under Cover, Operation Serpens, and Dead Second already doing an impressive job of "paying homage" to rail shooters like Time Crisis, hopefully it's only a matter of time before developers like Namco, Sega, and Konami see the potential and bring their coin-op classics to VR for a second chance at life.
Re: Donkey Kong Country Returns HD Costs $60 On Switch
You have to remember that this is Nintendo; they charged (and re-charged whenever a new console was released or even when someone had to replace a broken one since purchases weren't linked to accounts) a premium price...$4.99 NES, $7.99 and up for SNES, $9.99 and up for N64 titles...back on the Virtual Console before it occurred to them that they could bank even more $$$ by using a subscription model where users no longer could actually own the games to begin with. For decades they've been the ONLY publisher to rigidly fix not only the prices of new games at brick-and-mortar stores but ensured the used prices stayed very close to the new. Whether Nintendo actually believes their retro games (and now remakes/remasters) are genuinely worth the prices they ask or not, they are intent on maintaining that "aura" with consumers.
Nintendo may have a family-friendly image, but underneath they are one of the most cutthroat and control-obsessive corporations in the entire industry when it comes to their IPs and profit margins.
Re: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Is The Most Wishlisted Game Of The Summer Showcase Season
Speaking of "wish lists", why were all of Nintendo's first-party games from the Direct not put up on the eShop for preorder as has typically been the case in the past? I found that very unusual.
Re: Reaction: A Direct That Delivered, And Shows That Switch Still Has Plenty Of Pep
The Direct was a mixed bag for me personally. Obviously Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was the standout for me, and the new Mario & Luigi title shows promise. And I admit it's nice to see Donkey Kong Country Returns HD to complete that duology on the Switch. Ditto the Marvel vs. Capcom compilation.
As for Metroid Prime 4, I have to say it felt anticlimactic. I'm sure it will be a stellar game once players get our hands on it, but there was just no "Wow" factor there for me in the trailer. It's also worth noting that its broad release window (2025) means it could easily end up being a hybrid release that most folks buy for the Switch successor instead of the Switch itself.
As usual, most of the "leaks" and speculation leading up to the Direct were proven false, including the Xenoblade Chronicles X remaster and the remasters of Twilight Princess and/or Wind Waker. I think that Echoes of Wisdom softened the blow of the latter games' absence, but I admit that seeing the entire Xenoblade franchise to date on a single console would have been very nice.
Beyond that it was, to me at least, a bunch of filler announcements. A decent Direct, but not a great one.
Now all eyes will be watching out for the true "main event", Nintendo's next major Direct that will likely cover the Switch successor and its opening slate of games. Will it happen by this holiday or sometime early in 2025 is the question.
Re: Developer M2 Wants To Bring More Games To The Switch
So many potential Sega Ages games that could have been (and still could be) made by M2...Arcade, Saturn, Dreamcast...but sadly so little interest from Sega themselves.
Re: Random: Nintendo Was Initially Hesitant About E3's Iconic Mario + Rabbids Reveal
The first game was truly inspired and the passion was evident throughout. The second one quickly felt phoned-in with its one turn-win filler battles and comparatively inferior battlefields. It also hugely hurt it that Mario and company took a back seat to so many Rabbids characters; the latter simply aren't everyone's cup of tea, including mine, and their "universe" is nowhere nearly as interesting. It's a real shame because Ubisoft missed a grand opportunity to expand on the theme of Nintendo characters and worlds (imagine what could have been had Sparks of Hope visited worlds like The Legend of Zelda or Metroid with all their tactical possibilities).
If the primary purpose of a sequel is merely to cash in on the success of an original game and you don't carry over the passion and inspiration that made that first one a success in the first place, please don't bother. Too many promising IPs have already been killed off that way.
Re: Sonic Team On Remasters: "If There's A Title People Like, We'll Think About It"
Just a quick couple of questions for Sega: whatever happened with all those supposed upcoming non-Sonic IPs you hinted at at the beginning of 2023?
(Crickets)
What about all those other classic non-Sonic IPs you showed clips of earlier this year? The hints that more might even be on the way?
(Crickets)
Sounds like business as usual at Sega. Sonic, Sonic, and...oh yes, more Sonic, and very little else.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo Needs More Characters Like Paper Mario's Vivian
Removed
Re: Soapbox: Fire Emblem’s Future May Not Be In Turn-Based Combat
This is the price of bastardizing a given game franchise in order to "broaden its appeal". Give me the Path of Radiance/ Radiant Dawn duology any day over all the social sim fluff of Three Houses and the mind-numbing "bonding" dialogue of Engage. Now we have an article advocating the removal of what made the core fans who were there in the beginning fall in love with it in the first place.
It begs the question, did incorporating social and marriage elements in FE: Awakening really save the franchise or seal its doom as the SRPG series fans loved anyway? Another question to ponder: what if Awakening's popularity actually had LESS to do with the introduced elements and more to do with word of mouth regarding previous iterations and the fact that a lot of newer gamers suddenly discovered they liked SRPGs?
The social sim padding was barely tolerable for me by the time I had hit 100 hours in Three Houses; it was less than half that number in Engage before I simply quit playing and never went back. If Nintendo does indeed go with this article's idea, you can take it to the bank that I will never bother buying another installment of Fire Emblem ever again...and I suspect I'm not the only one.
You want a social sim, go make one for yourself and keep it in your own lane. Stop bastardizing genres like SRPGs that longtime hobbyists like myself have advocated so long and hard to save or bring back.
Re: UK Charts: Unicorn Overlord Plummets As Familiar Faces Return To The Top
Still a great SRPG and a great game, PERIOD. Sales figures don't influence my buying habits one bit; it's understood that some genres sell better than others and that certain IPs hold a vice grip on sales leader boards, but hobbyists like myself will continue to vote with our wallets and support deserving games that slip "below the fold".
Re: Review: Contra: Operation Galuga (Switch) - Does The Series Proud, But Best Played Elsewhere
Ouch. I pre-ordered both this and the new Virtua Racing-like F1 title for the Switch instead of either the PS5 or XBox Series X, specifically because both were "retro"-inspired games of which A) the Switch already has a ton of, and B) thus far it's been tailor-made for such software compared to ports of high-end "AAA" titles. It's hugely disappointing to read that two such games released a week apart perform noticeably worse on Switch. It's a vital niche that suddenly doesn't feel at home on Switch as it used to.
Here's hoping both games get patched with improvements...but it's inexcusable that ANY game is released for (non-refundable) sale that's in need of patching to begin with.
Re: Talking Point: What Would Make You Happy To Give Up Physical Games And Go 100% Digital?
I already went all-in on digital, although I understand and respect the reasons others may have for sticking with physical copies. As a hobbyist since the Atari 2600, my collection had grown to the point where it was frankly unwieldy; I didn't want my old consoles sitting and collecting dust around the TV (not to mention the limited inputs and space), and after multiple moves that happened pretty close together I realized it was time to downscale somehow.
The oldest retro console I still own is a modded Sega Saturn (though I guess you could also count my AtGames Atari 2600 and Mini TurboTax 16). I sold my entire physical collection of Switch games and repurchased them digitally after getting a 1 TB SD card. I have purchased a TON of retro games and collections across the current consoles and PC and have filled in the gaps via emulators. It's enabled me to play pretty much anything I want at any time, all on the same TV and in some cases my PC, all without worrying about storage for the countless discs and cartridges I used to have or the inevitable decay of time on aging circuit boards. It's also hugely convenient to never have to swap out discs or cartridges; just a few button presses and you're playing.
That's not to say digital is perfect; I'm acutely aware of stores being permanently shut down along with access to your purchases, as with the Playstation 3, Wii U, 3DS, and so on. This generation has seen a glut of "throwaway" online-centric and live-service games that have already gotten their plugs pulled, gone forever with zero care about videogame preservation. And subscription models will only make that worse; I will NEVER bother with subscription-only games like Switch Online forces users to do for retro titles; I want to OWN AND CONTROL the games I legally pay for, not have some mega-corporations "training" me to think that throwing endless $$$ into hardware and subscriptions for content I never own or can keep if I choose is somehow a "great deal". I've repurchased MORE than enough Nintendo titles alone over the years via Virtual Console and remasters/remakes to justify them at least offering their legacy games for permanent purchase as an option.
I think it comes down to each individual gamer's own needs and priorities as far as physical or digital (or a mix of both). The bottom line is what makes it a hobby you can both enjoy and manage in a practical way, on your own terms.
Re: Random: Some Rare Fans Are Upset About The Latest Switch Online Announcement
Put it this way: for less than $20 (the cost of the BOTTOM TIER of Switch Online subscriptions) you can buy and permanently OWN the COMPLETE Rare Replay collection (including GoldenEye 007) on XBox. There's simply no value in Switch Online and a drip-feed of content players can never own.
Re: Sega Reports 'Sluggish' Sales Of Sonic Superstars And Other Major Titles
Maybe they'd see better results if they didn't run Sonic into the ground. Even Mario or Zelda would probably see "sluggish" sales if they released 2 or 3 games/compilations per year and Nintendo focused on them at a rate of 90/10 compared to the rest of their franchises. I'm hoping for good things with Sega's recent announcement of more legacy franchise games (although they're still sadly ignoring their amazing RPGs like Shining Force and Skies of Arcadia), but their success will depend on them returning to the standards of quality and "wow factor" the company was once known for; in recent years those standards have lapsed.
Re: Players Need To Start "Feeling Comfortable" With Not Owning Games, Says Ubisoft Subs Boss
Hope this guy is prepared to "get comfortable" watching Ubisoft's shares plummet after gamers get wind of his little remark and avoid anything to do with their content.
Re: Players Need To Start "Feeling Comfortable" With Not Owning Games, Says Ubisoft Subs Boss
I have been an avid gaming enthusiast since the Atari 2600, owning most major platforms and thousands of games over that span, and the day I have to pay a subscription to be able to access my games is the day I will walk away from the hobby forever.
THIS RIGHT HERE is what all the EULAs, "Always Online", "live service games", and more recently XBox Game Pass, Playstation NOW, and Nintendo Switch Online have always been truly about: training gamers to surrender our most basic consumer rights in being able to claim ownership of content we legally paid for, to create a throwaway culture that constantly casts aside whatever isn't bringing in the most profit with no attempt at game preservation whatsoever, and to gate, monitor, and control everything you can do and access in your games (one can certainly argue that was the entire point of online functionality to begin with from an industry standpoint). If you really love this hobby I believe you'll say "NO" to any subscription model; speaking for myself I will NEVER support them. These higher-ups at Ubisoft, Square Enix, and others who claim to know "what's best for us" can go take a flying leap where I'm concerned.
Re: Three More Sega Classics Are Being Revived, It's Claimed
As much as I would love to see them all happen, the only way we would likely ever get most of the games or IPs mentioned on this thread would be if Sega decided to take another crack at a console, sadly. They've "turtled" around "safe" franchises like Sonic since they went third-party two decades ago, and even before then they were always a Japan market-first corporation that tended to ignore Western gamers. Most of their legacy IPs that have seen a release over the past several years have been outsourced to third-parties and/or been of middling quality; the outstanding quality, variety, and risk-taking of the Sega of old seems long, LONG gone.
I would sure love for them to prove me wrong and truly start listening to their fans who've been clamoring for these franchises, though. I honestly believe they don't realize the potential goldmine they're sitting on, waiting to be embraced by entirely new generations of players.
Re: Three More Sega Classics Are Being Revived, It's Claimed
While I doubt it will ever happen, a remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga would give gamers the opportunity to experience one of the most ambitious RPGs of the CD era. Spread across four CDs, its world conveyed a sense of bleakness and dying hope that overcame the Saturn's first-gen polygon visual limitations. One example I'll never forget is an NPC who is rebuilding an ancient aircraft when you meet him and dreaming of flying it. Toward the end of the game when you visit the town, another villager tells you he was killed after taking it up for a test flight and crashing.
Sadly, Sega only released 3000 copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the entire North American market (and only bothered to use generic paper sleeves to house the discs inside the case). They really have always been a Japan market first company, but boy did they ever treat Western gamers like trash sometimes, especially when it came to their RPGs.
Re: Three More Sega Classics Are Being Revived, It's Claimed
@Emmerichcoal Unfortunately not from Sega, but I've always gone to bat for it. It's a travesty that most gamers' experience with the franchise is limited to just the Genesis installments, because Shining Force III for the Saturn was one of the grandest and most ambitious SRPGs I've ever played, with an epic 190-plus-hour storyline spread across three interlocking Scenarios (each on its own disc; however, Sega only brought the first to the West and left us with a permanent cliffhanger). I got to play through all three thanks to an English mod that was literally decades in development and can tell you it was way ahead of its time, just an incredible ride.
Re: Three More Of Sega's Classics Are Being Revived, It's Claimed
The list of "revivals" needs more Shining Force, Skies of Arcadia, old-school, offline Phantasy Star, Dragon Force, and LandStalker.
Re: Feature: The Rise Of 'Scam Games' And 'Keyword Bingo' Firms Flooding Switch eShop
The situation with the eShop is atrocious and inexcusable, and it's 100 percent on Nintendo for flinging the floodgates open to seemingly anyone and any "game". It's a nigh-unnavigable mess of garbage constantly pushing better games "below the fold" often within a single week. Its glut of trash "games" makes the Wii's infamous "mountain of shovelware" look like a tiny anthill by comparison.
I absolutely want full backwards-compatibility on the Switch 2, but if it doesn't happen, you can bet this will be one of the key excuses Nintendo offers as to why...for a situation of their own making.
Re: Talking Point: What Classic Sega Franchises Do You Want To See Rebooted?
@dkxcalibur The "life sim" aspect (I had to retype that in the interest of being kind) absolutely HAS killed Fire Emblem for me. I got sick to death of it after one playthrough in Three Houses and Engage was such an absurd, phoned-in waste of (hours of) time that I simply quit mid-game and will probably never bother to go back.
And all because Nintendo didn't feel they could trust an SRPG franchise to stand on its own without "mainstreaming" it and padding it with fluff. And FE is far from the only casualty in the genre over the years; there's the travesty of Sega turning the Shining Force series (and later an attempt with Valkyria Chronicles Azure) into a bland action RPG, Front Mission being turned into a third-person shooter by SquareEnix, and Nintendo trying (and failing) to appeal to "the mainstream" by changing Advance Wars into Battalion Wars, among others.
Stop bastardizing the SRPG genre, game publishers!!!
Re: Talking Point: What Classic Sega Franchises Do You Want To See Rebooted?
@ScalenePowers I absolutely loved FE Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn; the primary focus was kept on the outstanding and varied battles as well as the superb storyline. Support conversations actually revealed meaningful insights into the characters and their motivations and even gave hints regarding upcoming battles, all while keeping things appropriately brief so as not to detract from the pacing.
Which brings me to FE Three Houses and especially Engage. At first Three Houses' Sanctuary had some appeal, but after dozens of hours of repeatedly wandering its sprawl to get in every last conversation and task over the course of the game (I tend to be a completist), it had gotten so tedious that I never started a second playthrough. Engage was even worse; it's support conversations were typically meaningless at best and painfully absurd at worst. This wasn't the "quirky Japanese characters and humor" that most other RPGs have managed to make appealing; it was two-dimensional freakshows that lacked any genuine humanity, and by Chapter 12 or so I realized that I was actually spending way more time at the hub doing busy work I hated; the SRPG aspects had become secondary to making some sort of vapid life/relationship sim. I simply quit and haven't looked back since.
So NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT regarding Sega trying to incorporate other non-related mechanics into Shining Force in some misguided attempt to "mainstream" it. Fire Emblem may be more popular overall now than ever, but as long as Nintendo continues its current direction I am done with the franchise. Shining Force III gave me 190 hours of one of the best storyline, most deliciously manipulative villains, and some of the most epic battles I've ever enjoyed in an SRPG; give me that ANY day over a game with a few dozen hours of battles and a hundred hours of empty fluff and padding like FE has become.
Re: Talking Point: What Classic Sega Franchises Do You Want To See Rebooted?
1) Shining Force (Even a remaster of SFIII, which Sega criminally never localized Scenarios 2 and 3 for, would be an excellent and truly epic 190-plus hours introduction for a new generation of SRPG enthusiasts).
2) Skies of Arcadia
3) Dragon Force
4) Old school, offline Phantasy Star set in the Algol star system
5) Out Run 2006: Coast2Coast
6) Afterburner Climax
7) A comprehensive collection of Sega's Arcade coin-ops, especially:
A) Congo Bongo
B) Zaxxon
C) Pengo
D) Super Monaco GP
E) Daytona USA
F) Daytona USA 2/Sega Racing Classic
G) The Virtua Fighter series
H) Sega Rally Championship
I) Virtua Racing
J) Out Run
K) Space Harrier
L) Afterburner
M) Golden Ave
N) Altered Beast
O) Super Star Wars Arcade
P) Super Hang-On
Q) SCUD Racer
8) Bug!
9) Three Dirty Dwarves
10) Magic Knight RayEarth
11) Albert Odyssey
12) LandStalker
13) Panzer Dragoon Saga (Can't believe I forgot to include this one; it's one of the most atmospheric (in a bleak, hopeless way) RPGs I've ever played, and it was one of the most ambitious ever attempted (4 CDs) when it originally released (all 3000 copies Sega manufactured for the entire North American market).
Re: TimeSplitters Dev Free Radical Has Shut Down As Staff Share "Last Day" Messages
TimeSplitters deserves WAY better than the way it's been (mis) handled over the past two decades. A real shame.
Re: Jet Set Radio's Original Creators Are "Involved" In The Reboot, Says Sega Of America CEO
@NatiaAdamo Unfortunately, no; following the meddling of Sega of Japan's higher-ups with Shining Force III, they left and founded their own company (the Camelot that made, among other games, Mario Golf 64). I don't know all the details, but the Saturn was a dark time in Sega's history where the top brass in Japan ran afoul of pretty much everybody: internal development teams, Western localization companies (like Working Designs, who jumped ship for PlayStation and took LUNAR: Silver Star Story and ThunderForce V with them after their CES booth got relegated to an out-of-the-way corner at the show), Sega of America, and Western gamers in general (they didn't deem us worth bothering to manufacture more than the first of three interlocking Scenarios of Shining Force III, leaving North America and Europe with an eternally unresolved cliffhanger; they also only made 3,000 copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the entire North American Market).
What I have read gave me the impression that Team Camelot didn't leave under the best of terms with said upper management, so who knows whether the two parties could ever reconcile to bring back arguably the best SRPG series in videogame history (and yes, I know there are many contenders for that title, but having played through the entirety of SF III's 190-hour, three-part EPIC storyline, it's STILL very hard to top for its sheer scale and ambition).
Re: Jet Set Radio's Original Creators Are "Involved" In The Reboot, Says Sega Of America CEO
It would be awesome to see members of the original development teams for OverWorks and Team Camelot be brought in to do a new (or even remastered) Skies of Arcadia or Shining Force project, respectively. Then again, hearing anything at all from Sega on these or their other RPG franchises after 2-plus decades would be a miracle in itself.