I feel that concern, yeah. As much as I am defending this game, I do worry heavily it'll have the same issue as FEH does, where new characters lead to dread more than excitement. Since both games are very pvp-centric (though FEH mosty isn't head to head), each new character can make you go "ugh, so this is the BS abilities I'll have to put up with in the future".
I kinda wish they'd make something more single-player focused for mobile. A short, roguelike-inspired randomized experience maybe.
I do also feel like, seeing as how this was dropped on a random Wednesday evening, with 0 warning, less than 2 weeks after announcing the next "real" game (altho by numbering, the devs consider this a mainline title), that Nintendo isn't very confident in it, themselves, and may just leave it to die off quietly.
As for the monetization, I wouldn't really have too much problem with a critique of it, had you not compared it to Heroes earlier on. Which I think is ridiculous. Yeah, drop rates on the 12 soul pieces you need to get a new hero can be slow, but right now that only applies to 2 out of the 14 heroes. You get 11 just for going through the story right now, and Lyn's in the pass (and will later be available at random for free like anyone else). But unlike Heroes, it's not a gacha system you roll for with limited daily currency. You can get these characters by just... playing the game. There's no daily limit or whatever, you get rewards after every game.
But let's say I wanted to pay for Tamamo instead of just collecting her 12 souls. How would I do that? Well, you can't directly. What you CAN do, is buy 12 soul pieces of hers from the Bazaar with gold, an in-game currency. So you just pay real money for gold, right? No, actually, you can't. Instead, you can use coupons to lower the gold cost of buying any item. Some really effective "golden" coupons can be unlocked thru the battle pass, and cost additional gems (the paid currency) to use. But a coupon won't cover more than half the cost of any item.
So the point is, you need a lot of gold (which you only get by playing the game) in order to even get to a point where you can pay any real-world money to use a limited number of coupons that will marginally help cover the cost of the souls you're buying. In this way, the amount of money you can practically spend on this game is gated by mechanics like this.
Oh and by the way, about that in-game bazaar - once you've got that character, you can sell any soul pieces for them to other players there, and then you can use that money to buy other souls. Plus, the price for the souls (and other items) fluctuates automatically depending on supply. So if you miss, say, Tamamo's 3X appearance rate on week 1, she'll be a lot cheaper to obtain in the Bazaar in the coming weeks, as more and more players gradually unlock her and start selling off excess souls.
I don't have time to get into what FE Heroes is doing right now, but if anyone's played that game in the past 5 years, I think they'll appreciate what a night and day difference it is between how aggressively FEH tries to take your money, and how much of an advantage that is.
I don't wanna come off too strongly here, since I've been around to see what FEH has become and i'm not naive to the fact that this game'll probably go the same route, if it survives at all. And I don't like "Defending" monetary systems like this. But let's be honest, this site has awarded higher scores to games with far more egregious gouging systems. This is , unfortunately, just where the gaming market is today, and in the context of all of that, singling out Shadows is baffling to me.
But more importantly, I just think the gameplay itself is worth a second look. I didn't get it at first, a lot of people didn't, but if so many of us have turned around and said "wait we were wrong actually " - I think that says something about the game's depth, if you're willing to get into it more.
I disagree pretty heavily with this review. As a FE fan and a long-lapsed FEH player (I'm shocked you're using that as an example of a better game while dissing Shadows as "Pay to win" but more on that later), Shadows has been a lot of fun.
First, the gameplay - your critiques echo the sentiments of a lot of players and FE content creators on Day 1. And I can't blame anyone for that reaction because the game DOES do a piss-poor job of introducing its own mechanics, despite the overlong tutorial section. It also takes a bit of time to start unlocking all the free characters through the story, and since in this game that also means unlocking their spells for everyone to use, you don't really have access to the full toolset until you've seen Book 1's ending.
But once you do, the game of social deduction really does find its footing. Characters all have a single unique spell, and how you use them (or don't use them) can give away you're the imposter. So maybe you have to use your big AOE fire attack as imposter to help the other 2, but you use it just 1 tile off so it doesn't hit every enemy it could've. Maybe you use your special healing skill just a second too late after an ally dies, and they can see you TRIED to save them. Probably didn't have your cooldown ready yet, right? You can also still use spells when dead, but at double cooldown - this applies to imposters too, so if someone dies early to try and lose suspicion, but their death coincides with the sabotage spells slowing down a lot... hmm...
You complain that the game gives you hints, but those very hints are often used as mis-directs, and really just serve to highlight basics that a new player might not have caught, like shadow attacks being used on a player, or a player who didn't kill many enemies, or a player who healed a lot. The hints don't at all tell you who the imposter is.
It's very fast-paced, so it's more a game where one tiny mistake will damn you to being voted for - but that works to its advantage as a mobile game. I'll also note that the extra health bar you get for being right (not "one extra HP" as the review wrongly puts it) becomes a lot more relevant a reward as you're climbing the ranks and coming up against decent players around your skill level. As long as one of the 2 Light players gets it right, you're probably evenly-matched, but games where both players guess right or wrong are usually pre-determined at that point.
Not to mention the lack of Chicago and Carnival from 4 entirely.
Speaking of missing sections, 4 had dynamic events like the Parade in the first level that appeared based on certain missions. Pretty sure the "remake" doesn't have those either.
I've always wondered about this, like if it's not art, then why is Nintendo so overly precious when it comes to options in games? I could understand a certain level of "No no it's the artistic vision it HAS to be this way", but if it's only a product, then why can I not customize the product to my desires?
It's cool-looking but I think telling the pieces apart would be confusing. The hero side queen (Zelda) looks a lot like the bisbop (Impa) at a glance. And the fat goron rook seems to most parallel the chunky enemy darknut, who's the bishop.
Anyone saying the encounter rate isn't a big deal - have you played the game?
If so, how long ago?
And again if so - do you remember the game for its random encounters? Or for all the cool boss fights that challenged you to change up your build?
BD was such a great game, IMO, because it let you cut out most of the JRPG fluff. Yeah, random battles still existed, but between fast forward and encounter rates, they were really more of their own optimization problem - how to make a party to grind through them quickly enough so that you could master the classes and then turn them off.
You can cheese dungeons with 0% encounters? So what? I can't recall a single dungeon in BD that was particularly clever or interesting. And that's OK! That's not the focus of the game, the combat was. And the combat shines during the boss battles!
The biggest hurdle in the OG game was the endgame where, without spoilers, you sort of have to repeat some content. And I've defended this moment for years against tons of people saying they dropped the game here, because the core set of fights you absolutely NEED to finish, can be rushed through in about an hour total, if you just turn encounters off and rush the bosses. But even at 50%, random encounters are going to at least double, maybe triple, that time - and it's going to add even MORE friction to people like me who actually wanted to go fight all the optional (but IMO interesting) boss fights each loop.
This is just an inferior version of the 3DS game, I'm convinced. What does this version add, some minigames? So what?
Weird that NintendoLife is fine reporting on all sorts of Rom and emulation stuff, but THIS PLAYTEST is where they draw the line. Can't dare break this "veil of secrecy"!
And if you expected rain, and so brought an umbrella, would you expect that, because you brought that Umbrella, you shifted timelines and now you're even more wet because you're on the hurricane timeline instead of the mild rainstorm timeline?
It's a solid game. Idk, gorgeous art, but I just don't feel myself gushing over it like so many others. The story is bland and trips over itself in trying to accommodate the open structure of the game world, and the actual combat is usually pretty simple, on account of the combat maps being the actual overworld - which is cute, but means a lot of them are super simple. Just send a strong squad of your best guys forward and I rarely ever had a problem, on Hard.
The mechanics are somewhere between overly simplistic and frustratingly obtuse. A prime example is how sometimes adding an assist attack (from allied archers, say) can actually REDUCE your overall damage in the combat forecast. Not because of any obscure skills the opponent might have, but just because the entire fight seems to be re-rolled when you toggle the assist on and off. So basically you're seeing not just additional bow attack damage, but an entire alternate possible timeline. In one, your bow ally provides additional chip damage, but also, your paladin's attack misses twice, so you do less damage overall and maybe even a few characters die that wouldn't have otherwise.
The way individual units in a squad are so frail is also kinda annoying. Again, just throw your strongest dudes into one squad and turn your brain off and it's fine, but if you try to engage with the game, you'll constantly find your weaker squads losing a character or 2, crippling their combat potential unless you slow down to revive the dying characters constantly. And again, the combat forecast makes it difficult to tell when someone will die. It can look like you GAIN health from a battle, but that can still mean someone dies (EX, combat forecast shows you gain +5 HP after a fight, but that's because 4 characters gained 5 HP, but one went from 15 to 0 and died, but that's still a net +5 HP).
Tldr, I found the game simple on the surface, and easy enough to engage with on that level, but mostly frustrating to try and engage with on any deeper level due to obtuse mechanics and bad UI/incomplete information tools given to the player.
I did enjoy the Arena and a particular overworld fight, which eschewed the battle maps in favor of quick rounds of combat - trying different team comps to cheese the Arena's level 40 fights at about half-level was nice.
Most of the kids in the comments are getting confused about what sort of suit this is, so to reiterate- - this is NOT a copyright suit about the designs of any creatures. This is a patent suit. Nintendo is essentially saying "this game is too close to Pokemon mechanically in some way (apparently not even PocketPair knows what yet) and we don't like it".
So if you support Nintendo in this, look forward to them suing any of your other favorite games from other companies because they have an "Open world with monsters" or whatever other common patents Nintendo is sitting on.
What Kickstarter money lmao. The money for Undertale? Friend, you might need to sit down before I tell you this, but he released that game 9 years ago.
The only thing 3H has over Engage is the vestiges of a good story - a few good plot points that are set up and look promising, but ultimately get undermined.
After beating one route, I thought "That was pretty good, but I can't wait for the game to actually answer all these points. I'm sure everything will make sense!"
After beating all 4 routes (AKA the same route 3 times and then the half-route that is Crimson Flower) I realized the deepest thing about the plot was its holes.
As far as story, for both FE games you could say the emperor has no clothes. But 3 houses is ashamed of its nudity and hides itself in the bushes, assuring you its actually got some really neat clothes on once you do the chore of clearing away the leaves.
Engage is confident in its nakedly flimsy story, flagrantly not giving a flip about its paint by numbers plot, and instead using the series gameplay story integration to its favor. In Chapter 11 of Engage, where you're at a low point, I realized the game wasn't afraid to take away my toys, up to and including the rewind ability that had become an expected crutch for 6 years now. That moment hit harder than anything in 3 houses story, because it actually had gameplay consequences. Whereas whatever happens to Byleth in 3H, it'll all be resolved in a cutscene and everything put back in place by the very next turn of combat.
Having close win rates is good, but doesn't indicate everything necessarily. For example, characters that are genuinely very strong might be weighed down by people who pick them out of their reputation for being strong, only to lose when they're revealed to have no clue how to play them.
It's a real thing that happens in competitive games - a character can get an unambiguous buff that results in their win rate actually lowering for a period of time before eventually stabilizing, because the buff sends tons of new players to the character.
Yeah, Super Guarding is the main issue. It's a 3 frame window on a 60 fps game, so at 30 fps its 1.5 frames. Which uh, obviously isn't a thing, unless the game is maybe polling for input at 60fps but only updating visuals at 30, but even then, that makes it a bit harder to time things exactly right.
It's not a ruinous problem or anything, it's just like, c'mon guys, it's been 20 years. Prime Remaster runs at a steady 60 fps, there's no world where I believe TTYD couldn't as well.
Wasn't it just last week that a former Pokemon Lawyer said that they didn't like suing fans, and didn't go after things that didn't involve money being made by the fanwork in question?
I have to agree with the commenters who say it's tough to enjoy games on short breaks. I find some RPGs are the exception to this, sometimes- just grinded some Unicorn Overlord an hour ago during lunch, but otherwise I haven't really played a game on break in months.
Nah some of y'all are wild lmao. Engage had a banger soundtrack. They even included a dozen remixes of past songs that each play in a single map each. If this soundtrack actually includes everything (And it sounds like this one does, for once), then that's great.
The game slaps too, but I'm not even going to get into the number of outright falsehoods in these comments, lol.
It's a deliberate choice for the sake or recognizability. Overwatch's hero designs are pretty damn meticulously made for the sake of quick silhouette recognizability. For Cassidy, the hat and duster are 2 of the most prominent parts of his silhouette that let you distinguish him from, say, Soldier 76 at a glance.
It's one of the things I really appreciate about the game compared to like, Paladins, which has some neat skins but ones that completely change a character's design up to where a lot of the time I didn't even recognize who I was fighting against. But in Overwatch it's even more crucial, since players can swap heroes mid-game.
Never said you were lying, said you'd been lied to.
Given the fact you can't even properly remember what I just said, I can only imagine how badly you've misunderstood whatever it is you heard about the models.
"Dinossom has exactly the same face, colour scheme, and body type as Meganium"
Dinossom is literally bipedal??? Yeah the face and color scheme are similar, no doubt, but there are dozens of Pokemon that share those with each other.
I want to be excited for this but after 4 months of basically no info, these 5 second clips don't really impress me at all. It seems like it's gonna be a mess of different platforming challenges and minigames.
Tbf it might just be an awful trailer. Most trailers cut between scenes fast, but not this one. Here we open the curtains, see Peach dress as a detective, she walks around slowly for like 5 seconds with no context, and then the curtains close again. Like that's it, that's the scene.
"Unlike other games in the monster collecting genre like Digimon, Monster Rancher, Medabots, Beyblade, Yokai Watch and so on this one is much similar to Pokemon than it is different."
Weird, I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you build a base.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where your Pokemon help you build that base and gather resources.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you shoot the Pokemon.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where there are guns at all, actually.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you can capture people in pokeballs.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you can butcher your Pokemon for meat.
IMO these reviews are pretty generous, given that there's not really like, any repeatable endgame in this DLC at all. In place of a Battle Tower or Dynamax adventures, you get to do ... actual chores. Grindy tasks, repeated, to earn BP. The story is a huge step down from the last DLC, and is beatable in a few hours.
It seems like they expect the online modes to replace a real endgame. One problem with that - I play VGC, and their online rules are completely different than VGC, which has open team sheets. So if I want to play multiplayer battles, I'm just gonna do that on Pokemon Showdown, which has those options.
Let me repeat that:
The free, fanmade, unofficial online battle simulator, Pokemon Showdown, is more faithful to the official Pokemon competitive experience, than the official Pokemon games are.
I've got over 200 hours in Engage, 140 in TOTK, and Advance Wars with 135. I'm still playing AW even this month, so no doubt it'll creep past TOTK eventually.
Engage, I still want to play more of, I've had plans for future runs since February.
Yeah I agree about the Fire Temple, I just sorta flew around, built a few things, and easily ignored the puzzles.
IMO the Desert temple was the best, because the goal wasn't so much "Get to an area" but "Get light reflected to an area". This, for me, opened up lots of fun ways to use outside materials if you want, but it never entirely breaks the puzzle.
The "depot" temple later in the game is another good example, since you have to transfer parts out of each area.
For something in between, the Water temple. You can absolutely skip a few puzzles by flying or launching yourself from the floating areas in the sky, but there were still puzzles once you got there.
Maybe if the Fire Temple had some sections where you needed the mine carts specifically to hit a switch on the tracks that would open something? But as it is, the puzzles are only about getting Link to a location and then shooting Yunobo at a target, which isn't really a puzzle in a game like this.
OK I was ready to throw hands over your opinion on SoJ's start, but you get my respect for this. Apollo case 3 isn't that bad. Like IIRC people have an issue with how obviously the suspect couldn't have done it, as if prosecutors in AA have ever really had a high standard in that regard? The music was fun, the case was fun to solve, it's easily one of the better Case 3s in the series, though admittedly that's not huge praise.
"Spirit of Justice, the final game in this trilogy, starts a little rough."
"It gets better, but oof does that first case feel especially uncomfortable"
Please tell me you ain't dissin' Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin right now. Tell me that is not what you just did, Kate Gray. SoJ is peak first case - no, peak Ace Attorney - No!
I have no problem with this sort of game existing, and in fact in the right hands (probably not these) it could be an effective anti-drinking and driving game. Imagine a racing game where you had to complete all sorts of debilitating microgames like downing a shot or sending a text, while driving, for instance.
The fact that it's PEGI 3 speaks more to issues with PEGI than the game concept.
Glad everyone else likes them but I do not enjoy them at all. Mick Wingert does fine with the voice, but the dialogue is so bland- about half of it is just some variation of "Well that just happened." And the same voice clips even get reused between stages.
The only funny thing they ever said was when turning their voice off.
Comments 549
Re: What Are The 100 Best Nintendo Games? Here's The Chance To Make Your Voice Heard
There was no option to vote for Code Name S.T.E.A.M. , and of course, the Fire Emblems they had were 2 of my least favorites...
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
@nhSnork
I feel that concern, yeah. As much as I am defending this game, I do worry heavily it'll have the same issue as FEH does, where new characters lead to dread more than excitement. Since both games are very pvp-centric (though FEH mosty isn't head to head), each new character can make you go "ugh, so this is the BS abilities I'll have to put up with in the future".
I kinda wish they'd make something more single-player focused for mobile. A short, roguelike-inspired randomized experience maybe.
I do also feel like, seeing as how this was dropped on a random Wednesday evening, with 0 warning, less than 2 weeks after announcing the next "real" game (altho by numbering, the devs consider this a mainline title), that Nintendo isn't very confident in it, themselves, and may just leave it to die off quietly.
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
Removed
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
@Yosher
Lol
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
@PessitheMystic
And maybe one day you'll discover that games can be fun on any platform.
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
As for the monetization, I wouldn't really have too much problem with a critique of it, had you not compared it to Heroes earlier on. Which I think is ridiculous. Yeah, drop rates on the 12 soul pieces you need to get a new hero can be slow, but right now that only applies to 2 out of the 14 heroes. You get 11 just for going through the story right now, and Lyn's in the pass (and will later be available at random for free like anyone else). But unlike Heroes, it's not a gacha system you roll for with limited daily currency. You can get these characters by just... playing the game. There's no daily limit or whatever, you get rewards after every game.
But let's say I wanted to pay for Tamamo instead of just collecting her 12 souls. How would I do that? Well, you can't directly. What you CAN do, is buy 12 soul pieces of hers from the Bazaar with gold, an in-game currency. So you just pay real money for gold, right? No, actually, you can't. Instead, you can use coupons to lower the gold cost of buying any item. Some really effective "golden" coupons can be unlocked thru the battle pass, and cost additional gems (the paid currency) to use. But a coupon won't cover more than half the cost of any item.
So the point is, you need a lot of gold (which you only get by playing the game) in order to even get to a point where you can pay any real-world money to use a limited number of coupons that will marginally help cover the cost of the souls you're buying. In this way, the amount of money you can practically spend on this game is gated by mechanics like this.
Oh and by the way, about that in-game bazaar - once you've got that character, you can sell any soul pieces for them to other players there, and then you can use that money to buy other souls. Plus, the price for the souls (and other items) fluctuates automatically depending on supply. So if you miss, say, Tamamo's 3X appearance rate on week 1, she'll be a lot cheaper to obtain in the Bazaar in the coming weeks, as more and more players gradually unlock her and start selling off excess souls.
I don't have time to get into what FE Heroes is doing right now, but if anyone's played that game in the past 5 years, I think they'll appreciate what a night and day difference it is between how aggressively FEH tries to take your money, and how much of an advantage that is.
I don't wanna come off too strongly here, since I've been around to see what FEH has become and i'm not naive to the fact that this game'll probably go the same route, if it survives at all. And I don't like "Defending" monetary systems like this. But let's be honest, this site has awarded higher scores to games with far more egregious gouging systems. This is , unfortunately, just where the gaming market is today, and in the context of all of that, singling out Shadows is baffling to me.
But more importantly, I just think the gameplay itself is worth a second look. I didn't get it at first, a lot of people didn't, but if so many of us have turned around and said "wait we were wrong actually " - I think that says something about the game's depth, if you're willing to get into it more.
Re: Review: Fire Emblem Shadows (Mobile) - Flat F2P Folly With Simplistic Strategy & Social Deduction
I disagree pretty heavily with this review. As a FE fan and a long-lapsed FEH player (I'm shocked you're using that as an example of a better game while dissing Shadows as "Pay to win" but more on that later), Shadows has been a lot of fun.
First, the gameplay - your critiques echo the sentiments of a lot of players and FE content creators on Day 1. And I can't blame anyone for that reaction because the game DOES do a piss-poor job of introducing its own mechanics, despite the overlong tutorial section. It also takes a bit of time to start unlocking all the free characters through the story, and since in this game that also means unlocking their spells for everyone to use, you don't really have access to the full toolset until you've seen Book 1's ending.
But once you do, the game of social deduction really does find its footing. Characters all have a single unique spell, and how you use them (or don't use them) can give away you're the imposter. So maybe you have to use your big AOE fire attack as imposter to help the other 2, but you use it just 1 tile off so it doesn't hit every enemy it could've. Maybe you use your special healing skill just a second too late after an ally dies, and they can see you TRIED to save them. Probably didn't have your cooldown ready yet, right? You can also still use spells when dead, but at double cooldown - this applies to imposters too, so if someone dies early to try and lose suspicion, but their death coincides with the sabotage spells slowing down a lot... hmm...
You complain that the game gives you hints, but those very hints are often used as mis-directs, and really just serve to highlight basics that a new player might not have caught, like shadow attacks being used on a player, or a player who didn't kill many enemies, or a player who healed a lot. The hints don't at all tell you who the imposter is.
It's very fast-paced, so it's more a game where one tiny mistake will damn you to being voted for - but that works to its advantage as a mobile game. I'll also note that the extra health bar you get for being right (not "one extra HP" as the review wrongly puts it) becomes a lot more relevant a reward as you're climbing the ranks and coming up against decent players around your skill level. As long as one of the 2 Light players gets it right, you're probably evenly-matched, but games where both players guess right or wrong are usually pre-determined at that point.
Re: Dark Deity 2 Is Bringing Another Healthy Dose Of Fire Emblem Inspo To Switch
@Expa0
Idk where you've heard that, the second game's a lot of fun and has vastly improved on the first.
Re: Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 (Switch 2) - A Welcome Reminder Of The Series' Glory Days
@nessisonett
Not to mention the lack of Chicago and Carnival from 4 entirely.
Speaking of missing sections, 4 had dynamic events like the Parade in the first level that appeared based on certain missions. Pretty sure the "remake" doesn't have those either.
Re: Miyamoto Views Games As 'Products', Not 'Works Of Art', Says Ex-Nintendo Dev
I've always wondered about this, like if it's not art, then why is Nintendo so overly precious when it comes to options in games? I could understand a certain level of "No no it's the artistic vision it HAS to be this way", but if it's only a product, then why can I not customize the product to my desires?
Re: This New Switch 2 Dock Could Be Perfect For GameCube Enthusiasts
"To be clear, this isn't a replacement for your official dock, but rather an extension"
Hey guys, just a thought, but maybe if you wanted to be clear you shouldn't call it a dock in the dang title of the article?
Re: Officially Licensed 'The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition' Chess Set Now Available For Pre-Order
It's cool-looking but I think telling the pieces apart would be confusing. The hero side queen (Zelda) looks a lot like the bisbop (Impa) at a glance. And the fat goron rook seems to most parallel the chunky enemy darknut, who's the bishop.
Re: Bravely Default On Switch 2 May Have Removed One Of The Game's Best Features
Anyone saying the encounter rate isn't a big deal - have you played the game?
If so, how long ago?
And again if so - do you remember the game for its random encounters? Or for all the cool boss fights that challenged you to change up your build?
BD was such a great game, IMO, because it let you cut out most of the JRPG fluff. Yeah, random battles still existed, but between fast forward and encounter rates, they were really more of their own optimization problem - how to make a party to grind through them quickly enough so that you could master the classes and then turn them off.
You can cheese dungeons with 0% encounters? So what? I can't recall a single dungeon in BD that was particularly clever or interesting. And that's OK! That's not the focus of the game, the combat was. And the combat shines during the boss battles!
The biggest hurdle in the OG game was the endgame where, without spoilers, you sort of have to repeat some content. And I've defended this moment for years against tons of people saying they dropped the game here, because the core set of fights you absolutely NEED to finish, can be rushed through in about an hour total, if you just turn encounters off and rush the bosses. But even at 50%, random encounters are going to at least double, maybe triple, that time - and it's going to add even MORE friction to people like me who actually wanted to go fight all the optional (but IMO interesting) boss fights each loop.
This is just an inferior version of the 3DS game, I'm convinced. What does this version add, some minigames? So what?
Re: Nintendo's Mysterious Switch Online Playtest Program Is Now Accessible
Weird that NintendoLife is fine reporting on all sorts of Rom and emulation stuff, but THIS PLAYTEST is where they draw the line. Can't dare break this "veil of secrecy"!
Re: Tactical RPG Gem 'Unicorn Overlord' Smashes Past 1 Million Sales
@Antraxx777
And if you expected rain, and so brought an umbrella, would you expect that, because you brought that Umbrella, you shifted timelines and now you're even more wet because you're on the hurricane timeline instead of the mild rainstorm timeline?
Re: Tactical RPG Gem 'Unicorn Overlord' Smashes Past 1 Million Sales
It's a solid game. Idk, gorgeous art, but I just don't feel myself gushing over it like so many others. The story is bland and trips over itself in trying to accommodate the open structure of the game world, and the actual combat is usually pretty simple, on account of the combat maps being the actual overworld - which is cute, but means a lot of them are super simple. Just send a strong squad of your best guys forward and I rarely ever had a problem, on Hard.
The mechanics are somewhere between overly simplistic and frustratingly obtuse. A prime example is how sometimes adding an assist attack (from allied archers, say) can actually REDUCE your overall damage in the combat forecast. Not because of any obscure skills the opponent might have, but just because the entire fight seems to be re-rolled when you toggle the assist on and off. So basically you're seeing not just additional bow attack damage, but an entire alternate possible timeline. In one, your bow ally provides additional chip damage, but also, your paladin's attack misses twice, so you do less damage overall and maybe even a few characters die that wouldn't have otherwise.
The way individual units in a squad are so frail is also kinda annoying. Again, just throw your strongest dudes into one squad and turn your brain off and it's fine, but if you try to engage with the game, you'll constantly find your weaker squads losing a character or 2, crippling their combat potential unless you slow down to revive the dying characters constantly. And again, the combat forecast makes it difficult to tell when someone will die. It can look like you GAIN health from a battle, but that can still mean someone dies (EX, combat forecast shows you gain +5 HP after a fight, but that's because 4 characters gained 5 HP, but one went from 15 to 0 and died, but that's still a net +5 HP).
Tldr, I found the game simple on the surface, and easy enough to engage with on that level, but mostly frustrating to try and engage with on any deeper level due to obtuse mechanics and bad UI/incomplete information tools given to the player.
I did enjoy the Arena and a particular overworld fight, which eschewed the battle maps in favor of quick rounds of combat - trying different team comps to cheese the Arena's level 40 fights at about half-level was nice.
Re: Palworld Developer Responds To Nintendo Lawsuit
@VoidofLight
So in your mind, what, having similar box UI is suit-worthy then? And Nintendo should own exclusive rights to ... throwing balls?
Re: Palworld Developer Responds To Nintendo Lawsuit
Most of the kids in the comments are getting confused about what sort of suit this is, so to reiterate- - this is NOT a copyright suit about the designs of any creatures. This is a patent suit. Nintendo is essentially saying "this game is too close to Pokemon mechanically in some way (apparently not even PocketPair knows what yet) and we don't like it".
So if you support Nintendo in this, look forward to them suing any of your other favorite games from other companies because they have an "Open world with monsters" or whatever other common patents Nintendo is sitting on.
Re: "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" Sees Pokémon TCG Player Disqualified At World Championships
Seems a bit harsh, but I see the reasoning in this one, unlike the last time I recall someone getting kicked...
Re: Toby Fox Shares Another Development Update On Deltarune Chapter 4
@SpeedRunRocks
What Kickstarter money lmao. The money for Undertale? Friend, you might need to sit down before I tell you this, but he released that game 9 years ago.
Re: Toby Fox Shares Another Development Update On Deltarune Chapter 4
@SpeedRunRocks
Damn yeah he's really milking this thing he released 2 chapters of for free. What a parody...
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Ganondorf Figma Scores 2025 Release, Pre-Orders Now Live
Looks like we caught him mid-Suavamente!
Re: Poll: Do You Prefer Fire Emblem: Three Houses Or Engage?
The only thing 3H has over Engage is the vestiges of a good story - a few good plot points that are set up and look promising, but ultimately get undermined.
After beating one route, I thought "That was pretty good, but I can't wait for the game to actually answer all these points. I'm sure everything will make sense!"
After beating all 4 routes (AKA the same route 3 times and then the half-route that is Crimson Flower) I realized the deepest thing about the plot was its holes.
As far as story, for both FE games you could say the emperor has no clothes. But 3 houses is ashamed of its nudity and hides itself in the bushes, assuring you its actually got some really neat clothes on once you do the chore of clearing away the leaves.
Engage is confident in its nakedly flimsy story, flagrantly not giving a flip about its paint by numbers plot, and instead using the series gameplay story integration to its favor. In Chapter 11 of Engage, where you're at a low point, I realized the game wasn't afraid to take away my toys, up to and including the rewind ability that had become an expected crutch for 6 years now. That moment hit harder than anything in 3 houses story, because it actually had gameplay consequences. Whereas whatever happens to Byleth in 3H, it'll all be resolved in a cutscene and everything put back in place by the very next turn of combat.
Re: Review: Star Wars: Hunters (Switch) - A F2P Hero Shooter That's Fast, Fun, And Force-ful
@Zaruboggan
I need to know who your dealer is if you found Overwatch to be slow.
Re: Sakurai On Smash Ultimate Win Rates: "Any Fighter Has A Shot At Winning"
Having close win rates is good, but doesn't indicate everything necessarily. For example, characters that are genuinely very strong might be weighed down by people who pick them out of their reputation for being strong, only to lose when they're revealed to have no clue how to play them.
It's a real thing that happens in competitive games - a character can get an unambiguous buff that results in their win rate actually lowering for a period of time before eventually stabilizing, because the buff sends tons of new players to the character.
Re: Round Up: The Previews Are In For Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch)
@milonorth
Yeah, Super Guarding is the main issue. It's a 3 frame window on a 60 fps game, so at 30 fps its 1.5 frames. Which uh, obviously isn't a thing, unless the game is maybe polling for input at 60fps but only updating visuals at 30, but even then, that makes it a bit harder to time things exactly right.
It's not a ruinous problem or anything, it's just like, c'mon guys, it's been 20 years. Prime Remaster runs at a steady 60 fps, there's no world where I believe TTYD couldn't as well.
Re: Round Up: The Previews Are In For Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch)
I'd be fine with 30 FPS if it was just overworld stuff, but for an RPG so dependent on good timing in battles, 30 FPS is a legitimate downgrade.
Re: Pokémon Fan Game Site, Relic Castle, Shut Down Following DMCA Takedown Notice
Wasn't it just last week that a former Pokemon Lawyer said that they didn't like suing fans, and didn't go after things that didn't involve money being made by the fanwork in question?
Common Nintendo/TPC L
Re: Random: Japanese Police Officer Gets Slapped Wrist For Playing Switch On Duty
I have to agree with the commenters who say it's tough to enjoy games on short breaks. I find some RPGs are the exception to this, sometimes- just grinded some Unicorn Overlord an hour ago during lunch, but otherwise I haven't really played a game on break in months.
Re: Fire Emblem Engage "Limited Edition" Soundtrack Out Now In Japan
Nah some of y'all are wild lmao. Engage had a banger soundtrack. They even included a dozen remixes of past songs that each play in a single map each. If this soundtrack actually includes everything (And it sounds like this one does, for once), then that's great.
The game slaps too, but I'm not even going to get into the number of outright falsehoods in these comments, lol.
Re: Overwatch 2 Announces Collab With Legendary Anime 'Cowboy Bebop'
@Poodlestargenerica
It's a deliberate choice for the sake or recognizability. Overwatch's hero designs are pretty damn meticulously made for the sake of quick silhouette recognizability. For Cassidy, the hat and duster are 2 of the most prominent parts of his silhouette that let you distinguish him from, say, Soldier 76 at a glance.
It's one of the things I really appreciate about the game compared to like, Paladins, which has some neat skins but ones that completely change a character's design up to where a lot of the time I didn't even recognize who I was fighting against. But in Overwatch it's even more crucial, since players can swap heroes mid-game.
Re: Talking Point: What DS & 3DS Games Would You Still Like To See On Switch?
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. !!
Re: Hands On: Splatoon 3's Spicy 'Side Order' DLC Isn't For The Faint Of Heart
@davetobin
My man's buying Splatoon and then complaining about repetitive live service content.
K.
Re: Random: Japanese Celebs Reportedly Told "Not To Mention" Palworld To Avoid Damaging Pokémon Relations
@RavenDuroi
"they should just sell the game without finishing it next time."
So no change then.
Re: Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Version 3.0.1 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
Removed
Re: Round Table: Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'
@link3710
Never said you were lying, said you'd been lied to.
Given the fact you can't even properly remember what I just said, I can only imagine how badly you've misunderstood whatever it is you heard about the models.
Re: Round Table: Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'
@link3710
"there are models in the game that are poly for poly the same as Pokemon models on certain limbs"
Oh my god you should tell Nintendo then, crazy how one of the most litigious companies on the planet somehow hasn't noticed this obvious theft.
Or... you've been lied to on the internet. The designs have similarities, but aren't "poly for poly the same"
Re: Round Table: Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'
"Dinossom has exactly the same face, colour scheme, and body type as Meganium"
Dinossom is literally bipedal??? Yeah the face and color scheme are similar, no doubt, but there are dozens of Pokemon that share those with each other.
Re: Princess Peach: Showtime! Trailer Reveals Ninja Peach And Cowgirl Peach
I want to be excited for this but after 4 months of basically no info, these 5 second clips don't really impress me at all. It seems like it's gonna be a mess of different platforming challenges and minigames.
Tbf it might just be an awful trailer. Most trailers cut between scenes fast, but not this one. Here we open the curtains, see Peach dress as a detective, she walks around slowly for like 5 seconds with no context, and then the curtains close again. Like that's it, that's the scene.
Re: Random: The 'Pokémon-With-Guns' Game On Steam Is Yet More Homework Copying
@CielloArc
"Unlike other games in the monster collecting genre like Digimon, Monster Rancher, Medabots, Beyblade, Yokai Watch and so on this one is much similar to Pokemon than it is different."
Weird, I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you build a base.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where your Pokemon help you build that base and gather resources.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you shoot the Pokemon.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where there are guns at all, actually.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you can capture people in pokeballs.
I don't remember the part in Pokemon where you can butcher your Pokemon for meat.
I must've forgotten a lot about Pokemon.
Re: Random: The 'Pokémon-With-Guns' Game On Steam Is Yet More Homework Copying
Reminds me of when Genshin was considered some cheap BOTW clone, lol
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: The Indigo Disk DLC
IMO these reviews are pretty generous, given that there's not really like, any repeatable endgame in this DLC at all. In place of a Battle Tower or Dynamax adventures, you get to do ... actual chores. Grindy tasks, repeated, to earn BP. The story is a huge step down from the last DLC, and is beatable in a few hours.
It seems like they expect the online modes to replace a real endgame. One problem with that - I play VGC, and their online rules are completely different than VGC, which has open team sheets. So if I want to play multiplayer battles, I'm just gonna do that on Pokemon Showdown, which has those options.
Let me repeat that:
The free, fanmade, unofficial online battle simulator, Pokemon Showdown, is more faithful to the official Pokemon competitive experience, than the official Pokemon games are.
Re: Feature: Nintendo Switch Year In Review 2023 - Our Most Played Games
I've got over 200 hours in Engage, 140 in TOTK, and Advance Wars with 135. I'm still playing AW even this month, so no doubt it'll creep past TOTK eventually.
Engage, I still want to play more of, I've had plans for future runs since February.
Re: Zelda Producer Responds To Fans Who Want A More "Traditional Linear" Adventure
@TrixieSparkle
Yeah I agree about the Fire Temple, I just sorta flew around, built a few things, and easily ignored the puzzles.
IMO the Desert temple was the best, because the goal wasn't so much "Get to an area" but "Get light reflected to an area". This, for me, opened up lots of fun ways to use outside materials if you want, but it never entirely breaks the puzzle.
The "depot" temple later in the game is another good example, since you have to transfer parts out of each area.
For something in between, the Water temple. You can absolutely skip a few puzzles by flying or launching yourself from the floating areas in the sky, but there were still puzzles once you got there.
Maybe if the Fire Temple had some sections where you needed the mine carts specifically to hit a switch on the tracks that would open something? But as it is, the puzzles are only about getting Link to a location and then shooting Yunobo at a target, which isn't really a puzzle in a game like this.
Re: Hands On: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Lays Out A Compelling Case On Switch
@KateGray
OK I was ready to throw hands over your opinion on SoJ's start, but you get my respect for this. Apollo case 3 isn't that bad. Like IIRC people have an issue with how obviously the suspect couldn't have done it, as if prosecutors in AA have ever really had a high standard in that regard? The music was fun, the case was fun to solve, it's easily one of the better Case 3s in the series, though admittedly that's not huge praise.
Re: Hands On: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Lays Out A Compelling Case On Switch
"Spirit of Justice, the final game in this trilogy, starts a little rough."
"It gets better, but oof does that first case feel especially uncomfortable"
Please tell me you ain't dissin' Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin right now. Tell me that is not what you just did, Kate Gray. SoJ is peak first case - no, peak Ace Attorney - No!
Peak fiction.
Re: F2P eShop Title 'Omega Strikers' Ends Development Just Months After Launch
@WhiteUmbrella
"You want to defend the exploitation of children, that's on you"
My god, wait until you figure out who Nintendo's primary audience is.
Re: F2P eShop Title 'Omega Strikers' Ends Development Just Months After Launch
@WhiteUmbrella
You know, you're right.
I enjoyed Omega Strikers, but what it was really missing was costing $60, like Mario Strikers.
That would've made it so much better when the game failed. Knowing that I'd lost MORE money to it.
Re: Random: This Drink Driving Game Is A Nasty Blemish On The Switch eShop
I have no problem with this sort of game existing, and in fact in the right hands (probably not these) it could be an effective anti-drinking and driving game. Imagine a racing game where you had to complete all sorts of debilitating microgames like downing a shot or sending a text, while driving, for instance.
The fact that it's PEGI 3 speaks more to issues with PEGI than the game concept.
Re: Random: People Actually Love The Talking Flowers In Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Glad everyone else likes them but I do not enjoy them at all. Mick Wingert does fine with the voice, but the dialogue is so bland- about half of it is just some variation of "Well that just happened." And the same voice clips even get reused between stages.
The only funny thing they ever said was when turning their voice off.