I hear you. I did enjoy Hades quite a bit, because it does progression very well. You feel like it's a single, ongoing adventure, even after your 50th run. Great storytelling. But the rinse-repeat loop the genre's known for doesn't go away no matter how you present it.
I think A Link to the Past is the most "perfect" all-around Zelda experience. I can find nothing wrong with it and it has everything that makes Zelda, well, Zelda: cool dungeons and puzzles, fun items and upgrades, great over-world exploration, excellent progression, etc. And I too played it as an adult, in 2019. I was a SNES kid, but in Argentina I guess no one was actually playing Zelda, so I had no idea A Link to the Past existed until Ocarina of Time came out (and I moved to the United States) and I discovered Zelda. And even then, it took me 20 years to get around to playing A Link to the Past.
I do slightly prefer other Zeldas, but they all have "buts" to them. I think the original 1986 Legend of Zelda is an absolute masterpiece, wild and dangerous and adventurous like none of the others, but it takes some getting used to. Link's Awakening is more tightly crafted, but necessarily (due to its original hardware) lacks the scope of its SNES predecessor. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are Zelda at its moodiest and most transporting, but you have to look past the muddy textures and occasional jank. Breath of the Wild is expansive and boasts the franchise's deepest mechanics, but the whole experience is an emotional plateau, a one-note loop (although, what a note!) of small-scale discoveries in every corner, playing out with the same intensity in hour 1 as it does in hour 300. A Link to the Past doesn't always reach the heights of these, but it's by far the most consistent. And for that, it may always remain the most emblematic Zelda.
Only thing I'm not sure about is... well, playing Zelda 1 on the Switch was great, but the final dungeons had me sweaty-palmed, gripping the Pro Controller, frantically swinging away at Darknuts and Wizzrobes. Not sure how I'd fare with these tiny buttons.
Well, it's Mitch. This is how most of his retro reviews go.
Frankly, though, in general, it's hard to read good takes on retro games anywhere. Either they're drunk on nostalgia; or they're allergic to "dated graphics and game design," as if 2030 gamers won't be making fun of today's upgrade trees, rogue-like repetition, loot-grinding, feature-excess, and cluttered UIs, among other immediately "dated" aspects of 2021 gaming.
I'm really interested in this one, mostly because the original 1986 Zelda is one my absolute favorite games (and I played it for the first time in 2019) and Link's Awakening is probably the most "perfect" Zelda game ever made (at least, based on my play through of the Switch remake) and I'm keen on trying out the original version.
KOTOR 2 has the exact same moment-to-moment gameplay issues, but the story and writing's really compelling, so I'd actually rate it among my favorite games. I'm not so allergic to "datedness," though, largely because I find modern games no less dated.
I get the accessibility argument: as someone who works in UX, I understand the intention. But one thing I enjoyed about 64, playing it for the first time last year, is that, once you get past the camera and master the controls, the game really opens up in terms of experimentation and toying with the environment. Odyssey kind of returns to that, but the levels are too horizontal, too devoid of platforming challenge. Which makes them more accessible, but also takes away from the joy of mastering previously-insurmountable levels in 64. I could write a novel about my developing relationship with the desert level, and how my traversal of it has changed along with my skill. I know experienced players are doing amazing things in Odyssey, but it's a different, more relaxed experience. Maybe for Mario's future, I would hope for a better mix of horizontal exploration, like Odyssey, and 64's trickier, jazzier, speed-run-friendly platforming, maybe even as optional areas with a high skill ceiling for experienced players. And I mean, have this mix really integrated in the level design. I hate Odyssey's penchant for tucking away platforming-heavy sections in hidden areas you access through pipes and which seem to be located in an abstract, astral plane away from the actual level you're in. It breaks immersion.
Ocarina of Time's Switch emulation has pros and cons, and balances out into "adequate." On the one hand, it's sharp and crisp, more than I ever remember it being, and generally looks rather good, even docked on my 4K television. On the other hand, though, certain fog and reflection effects do not display properly in some areas. I'd say the already-viral Dark Link encounter is the most affected, because that's supposed to happen on a shallow reflecting pool and, on Switch, there's no reflection, only opaque water textures. And that's kind of an issue when the entire theme of the fight is, quite literally, encountering a mirrored version of yourself.
Nah, it controls fine. Just play the tutorial mission to come to grips with them.
Use the d-pad to move (mostly strafe and roll) and the right stick to aim, and ignore the left stick altogether. I'd recommend TV mode with Pro controller, though. Not really a handheld affair.
I mean, I'm enjoying my time with it: Ocarina of Time is as great as always, Sin & Punishment is really fun, etc.
But that's because the games themselves are good. The service is just alright. Ocarina of Time looks sharp, but the ambience fog is reduced and, well, the one thing the N64 original has over the 3DS remaster is the fog and dark atmosphere, so it's important to preserve that. (Also, only the N64 Zeldas have that particular vibe and mood. It's what makes them unique.)
Built-in button mapping is OK. It's logical enough. Sin & Punishment works well, for example. (Some of the "unplayable!" complaints were hugely misleading and frankly in bad faith.) However, you should have an in-app option for button remapping (and I mean besides the system-wide remapping you can do outside the app, which doesn't count).
Finally, there aren't any filter effects or much in the way of configuration options, as you would expect in nearly any retro release. Not sure why, say, a niche shmup like Greylancer recently got a more respectful treatment than friggin' Ocarina of Time. I had a lot of fun with Greylancer a few weeks ago, don't get me wrong. It's a cool game. But Ocarina of Time changed the medium. It needs a more reverential Sega Ages-style emulation. Get M2 on the case.
I finally received my copy of Dread, but I'm already knee-deep in my latest playthrough of Ocarina of Time, so I'll finish that first. Spotty emulation issues aside, it's great to now actually do all the side-quests and exploration I wasn't patient enough to engage with as a kid. Also, discovering bits of lore and character details I never picked up on back then. (I've played Ocarina of Time since then, as late as 2012-ish, but always just trying to "run" it, going through the dungeons. This is the first time I actually sit down to find secrets, complete the mask side-quest, etc.)
I guess I'm in the minority here, but Mario 64 deserves its 10 out of 10. I think it's one of the all-time greats. I played it for the first time last year.
It has issues, of course. Positioning the camera is a challenge onto itself, which doesn't align with our modern mental models. That is, we're used to controlling the camera with the right stick and without really thinking about it. In Mario 64, you have tons of camera options and you have to choose the right option for each obstacle. That's not how modern third-person games work.
Also, repeated music tracks are kind of a drag — but they're also really memorable, so I guess it balances out.
That's where my complaints end, though.
So much that Mario 64 does incredibly well is a product of its time: the toylike geometry and simplicity of the level design, the freedom to break the game, the experimental platforming possibilities (enabled by the geometric simplicity), the openness of your progression through the castle and the levels, etc.
Later Mario games would become more polished and, also, less flexible: Galaxy doesn't let you experiment as much with its obstacles; Sunshine changes the level layout based on the Shine you're going for, which means you can't just run in and do whatever you feel like doing; Odyssey looks back to 64 in many ways, but makes Moons trivial in their sheer number, removes challenging platforming from most levels, and adds the cap mechanic, which both expands and limits your moveset, because each transformation gives you new moves while removing all your other skills.
Having played all 3D Marios for the first time in the past three or four years, starting with Odyssey, I have to say 64 is the only one I keep going back to and the only one I 100% (and twice, at that). The easygoing structure, the way you can tackle levels and stars in almost any order, the way you can get stars in tons of different ways, the way you can exploit the level geometry and master Mario's controls and inertia... I don't think any of that has really been recaptured and maybe it never will. (That's OK, though. Games and gamers are different now. That's why I play games from all eras. Every time period has its flavor.)
Odyssey does control better, and of course the camera's more modern, but the sense of inertia isn't quite there. And the level design, while more sophisticated, is also more horizontal and spread out, more Zelda-ish in its exploration. Which is fine, but 64 has a unique mix of open layout and linear stage-clear design that is both a product of its time, as the first 3D Mario, and also something Nintendo never really went back to, preferring the extremes of both poles, with Galaxy and Odyssey.
Playing Ocarina of Time the other day was a spiritual experience for me. It's such a great game. But the lack of fog is definitely an issue. It's part of the original game's atmosphere, vibe, and meaning. And while it being missing doesn't destroy the ambience entirely, it does hurt it. I don't think it's nitpicking to complain: videogames are an audiovisual art, after all, and Ocarina of Time (and Majora's Mask, by extension) has a uniquely gloomy, often dark tone that Zelda hasn't really gone back to. (Partly because this distinctive look is a result of the N64's technical limitations. But that's where the art lies.) Asking for that to be preserved seems more than reasonable to me. We wouldn't even be having this debate if we were talking about a more mature artform.
It's a toss between replaying Ocarina of Time after a while (last playthrough was around 2012, I think) or playing Sin & Punishment for the first time.
For Genesis, I want to get back to Phantasy Star IV. I really dug it back when I had the Genesis Collection on my PS2, but I only got about 10 hours into it.
Then, maybe I'll replay Star Fox 64 and Winback. I imagine Star Fox 64 will be as fun as always, but I'm really not sure about Winback. I have fond memories of it, but I also clearly recall thinking the graphics were dull and the gameplay repetitive. We didn't have Metal Gear Solid on the N64, so we only had Winback as an alternative. When I finally played Metal Gear Solid on my PC, a couple of years later, it was miles and miles beyond Winback. Still, it's worth revisiting.
There is also another question: how valuable is the experience, when all is said and done? For instance: I've replayed the original Portal a few times and completed many of the extra challenge rooms. But in terms of pure metrics, I haven't really spent that much time with it. Still, it's easily in my top 20 all-time. It's important to me and I think about it often. More than I can say for many 50+ hour games I've played over the years.
It depends on the experience. I haven't played Dread yet, but Super's my favorite game. And though it's not particularly long, it's clearly made for replays. I've accumulated dozens upon dozens of hours over the years.
Ultimately, it kind of depends on what you think "finishing" a game entails. I still want to replay Mario 64 even though I've 100% it twice since last year. And that's because I don't think I've "finished" it in the sense that I'm still finding new exploits and ways to get stars. Super's sequence-breaking obviously lends itself to the same logic. There's a lot I still haven't done with Super — but I've obviously reached the "ending" a handful of times already.
I think shmups are the purest, simplest example of this. I've "beaten" (or more like cheesed) Ikaruga a few times, but I'm nowhere near done with it. (I'd have to, at the very least, beat it legit.) It will take me a long while before I can really master (or at least not suck at) that game. Reaching the ending of Ikaruga (with infinite continues, obvs) is basically the tutorial. You need to see what you're up against so you can start practicing and not blow up a billion times with every boss.
Videogames are, at the end of the day, a hybrid medium. They tell stories and narratives, but they're also, at a fundamental level, games. And you don't declare chess "finished" because you won a single match.
Genesis is a weird inclusion into the service, but here we are. I had the Collection on the Playstation 2 and left a couple of these games unfinished. Most notably Ristar and Phantasy Star IV, which I was having a lot of fun with. So I'm interested in continuing those.
Shinobi III is great. Played the heck out of that when I had the Collection. Will probably replay it now, too. Interested in Musha, since I didn't even know it existed.
That said, the N64 games are my priority, specifically replaying Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64, playing Sin & Punishment for the first time, and then trying out Paper Mario and Banjo when they're uploaded (in November, I hope).
If it actually becomes available in Argentina — a pretty big if --, then I might nab it.
I played the first Zelda and Link's Awakening Switch last year and absolutely loved them. Wouldn't mind buying this for the vibes and to (legally) play the original Link's Awakening. (Liked the new graphics in the Switch version, but the GB aesthetic has its own charm.)
They published an enthusiastic article about Metroid Dread emulation on PC. Lots of people got angry online, hills were erected, and many died on them.
It's a bad and widespread industry practice, just like crunch culture. Deathloop and Red Dead Redemption 2 had uncredited employees in the 1000s. (Especially the latter.)
I guess the difference is that I played and fell in love with Super as an adult, so I don't have memories of it feeling any different than what it's always felt like: methodical and technical. I haven't started Dread yet, but from the looks of it, the level design is tailored for more fluid, parkour-style movement, whereas Super, to me, is more about patiently timing my wall jumps or bomb jumps to sequence-break.
Accessibility is a really contentious issue and it shouldn't be. It's about including options where they can be included. No one's asking for games and artistic expression to be neutered.
I'm hearing imparied. I'm not going to ask musicians to not experiment with complex soundscapes because I personally won't catch all those sonic layers. It wouldn't be ethical to impose that limitation on everyone else. (And anyway, maybe I'll like your music regardless: Loveless is one of my favorite albums and that wall of sound is so thick that even hearing-abled people can't understand the lyrics.) But if you're going to have an NPC tell me where I need to go, yes, I'll need subtitles for that very functional piece of information that hearing-abled people won't have a problem with. (Especially if I'm shooting eldritch interdimensional horrors while the NPC is doling out said information. Looking at you, Half-Life.) That's all it is.
I play videogames for interesting experiences. Replays allow me to dive deeper, grow more acquainted with the mechanics, become a better player, discover aspects of the game I had missed the first time, and so on. Simply blowing through my backlog is meaningless if I've forgotten about the first game (or never truly got to know it) by the time I cleared my tenth. I don't have a responsibility to my backlog. Also, with a game like Super Metroid, where every run can be different, replays are never exactly the same.
Oh, it's really easy, yeah. I mean you get health drops just for running into things. But it works out because that means you're not totally screwed when you sequence-break and go underpowered into late-game areas. It's mostly an exploration game, so the low enemy difficulty made sense for it. Interested in how Dread combines that with — from the sounds of it — more involved and harsher fighting.
Mm, not sure it's that's short for me. Keep in mind the in-game timer is totally inaccurate. Without rushing it, it still takes me close to 8 to 10 hours to clear it and I know where most of the major stuff is by now. (I can probably finish it in much less, but I waste time for the vibes and to practice bomb jumping or whatever.) Pretty sure my first playthrough in 2009 was longer because I got majorly stuck a few times.
On the 12-hour running time: it's worth noting that Metroid games are big on replayability. Super is about as long, but obviously I've quadrupled that amount just in replays. Opportunities for sequence-breaking and improving runs are everywhere and the game is built around this loop.
By all accounts, Dread follows suit. From Nintendo's Metroid Dread site: "The Super Metroid game can be said to offer the greatest flexibility for exploration in the series. You can enjoy similar flexibility in the Metroid Dread game, depending on how you take advantage of your abilities. You might be able to find ways to obtain weapons, items, and abilities earlier than the intended timing. We encourage you to try to discover alternate routes of exploration."
Of course, we'll have to see if that's true, but it's encouraging that they're straight-out promoting the game as having Super-levels of potential openness.
Also, regarding Hollow Knight: yeah, the big 30-hour main quest is great. And if you're up to the DLC challenges, your playtime will go into the 100s. (I'm at about 70 or 80 myself.) But that's a different game. It's sprawling and lengthy. Metroid is all about tight pacing and design. I played Super right after Hollow Knight and was almost shocked by how fast Super moves in comparison. 1 hour in and you've already gotten a whole bunch of upgrades. It's more propulsive. I love both, but they're different takes on the genre.
I played the first one last year for the first time and loved it, but it definitely benefits from a Dark Souls mindset where you learn patterns and how to manipulate enemy positions and spawns, and execute to perfection. It's definitely learn-able, if you're up for that. Castlevania IV for the SNES is kind of a cakewalk by comparison, despite the Classicvania structure. Going through that one right now.
Always preferred Perfect Dark over Goldeneye back in the day, but admittedly I missed the Goldeneye multiplayer experience. I played far more Perfect Dark with friends. And of course, Perfect Dark had a far richer single-player offer than Goldeneye.
Still, I would definitely like to replay both. They were my first FPS titles and back then I didn't really have the context I have now (having played Marathon, Doom, Quake, Dark Forces, Half-Life, and Unreal) about what the genre was like on PC and Mac during the late 90s.
I kind of agree. I feel like the Direct could be: Ocarina of Time remade from the ground-up for the Switch Pro Deluxe that you'll get for free just for watching this Direct; and Mario Odyssey 2 shadow-dropped this afternoon by Charles Martinet himself showing up at your door. And people would still be like: Meh, where's Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and new DLC levels for Pokemon Snap!?
With all this coverage, I can't help but wonder how much they're revealing — and how much they're holding back. Especially with a game that's all about surprises and discoveries. Anyway, looking good!
Sure, I'm aware of the logistical and economic realities of it all. Not everything is going to survive. But it's important to have this conversation, because publishers and developers aren't always going to care unless we do. Part of the issue, really, is that games — and especially console games — aren't always made to last. There's no unified format for storage and preservation. Frank Cifaldi has an interesting talk about this from GDC 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWY7fCXUwE. With film, what you often have is infrastructure in place so that, once a film is digitalized, it can be distributed in different formats. (It's not always as easy as all that, of course. Especially with very old movies.) With videogames, that's not usually the case, because so many games are tethered to specific hardware. That drives up preservation costs in the future, because no plan was made in the present. The emulation scene, of course, partly gets around that, but it's not ideal.
The 1939 movie in question is The Rules of the Game. It's admittedly canonical, one of the most respected French films of all time, but not exactly The Wizard of Oz in terms of commercial prospects.
From the perspective of "corporate products," you're both right. From the perspective of culture and understanding the medium, not being able to access the classics is an immense loss. That is what Kamiya is referring to. It goes beyond "entitlement." My favorite film is from 1939; my favorite book is from the 19th century. I sure am glad both were preserved for posterity.
Oh, we've been playing here in Argentina. We just have to pretend to be Canadian. Or buy physical copies. Or both, which is what I've done.
We had a web store, where you'd visit, purchase a digital code, and then input the code onto the eShop. But it's got relatively few titles: mostly Nintendo stuff, a few major third parties, and the occasional indie like Hollow Knight. So mostly I stuck to the Canadian store.
Hopefully this Argentine eShop is worth my time and has regional pricing like Steam. I'll check it out.
Well, uh, depends on what you're looking for. I haven't played Warface, but from what I've seen it's a realistic, modern military shooter with slow movement and sight aiming. Quake's a 90s FPS from back when the entire genre was just iterations of Doom (including, well, Quake). That means abstract level design, extremely fast movement, and insane weaponry and monsters. There's more exploration and (almost Zelda-style) spatial reasoning and puzzle-solving, and combat's less focused on duck-and-cover strategy and flanking, and more on balletic strafing and enemy patterns.
I mean, Half-Life 2 is not a better Quake, it's something completely different. I'd give both a 10, but they're not that comparable. One's a linear, story-based action game and the other's a labyrinthine dungeon-crawler in the "boomer shooter" mold. Modern FPS games tend to follow Half-Life and Halo more than Quake and Doom (with exceptions, especially within the indie scene). So they're not actually in direct competition with each other. Meaning that giving Quake a 10 definitely leaves plenty of room for everything that came later, from Half-Life and Halo to immersive sims like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Bioshock, Prey, and Dishonored. Maybe you prefer those experiences, but they're decidedly different experiences and scratch very different itches. Sure, Quake "paved the way," but only up to a point. The games it inspired marked their own paths. Meaning I have to play Quake to enjoy what Quake does. It's not like if I plow through Titanfall 2 enough eventually it'll feel like a modern take on Quake. I can see the borrowed building blocks, but by now it's a totally different building.
I'm going through it on PC. It's quite good, though it's definitely for Doom and Quake veterans. There's no map, the levels are big and interconnected, and the gunfights are balletic. (The AI is, perhaps, a precursor to what we'd later see in Halo.) It's easy to get lost, so it helps having some experience with pre-Half-Life (i.e. non-linear) shooters. You wouldn't have been able to run it at 60 fps back in the day. This was the Crysis of 1998. But now it runs like a charm!
I'm loving this so much. Now up to the fourth "world" in the campaign, first playthrough. One little disagreement I have with the review, though, is the suggestion that the original Doom is all about battling endless hordes of enemies, as opposed to the exploration and labyrinthine level design of Quake. I mean, that's not really the case, is it. All the exploration and twisty, complex level design (nearly Zelda-esque, at times) is right there in Doom. In fact, I'd say Quake is, in terms of sheer, mad complexity, scaled back a bit from Doom 2. This isn't necessarily a negative: Doom 2 is impressively experimental, but it can get cloyingly gimmicky at times. Quake is more focused and most of the levels are smaller and tighter. In fact, the way they're designed, you can see how the conceptual path is being paved for Unreal and especially Half-Life in 1998 and, therefore, the rise of the linear action shooter. Basically, Doom levels require more back-tracking and map-perusing. Which I definitely love: it makes me feel like an intrepid explorer, albeit with a double-barreled shotgun. And movement in Doom is so fast, anyway, that "backtracking" usually means ten to fifteen seconds, at most, of speeding across the level, so it's not really much of a nuisance. That said, Quake somewhat steps away from that, with level design that makes you feel like you're backtracking and exploring, but usually pushes you along in a fairly linear path, organically bringing you back to the rooms where you need to use your newfound keys, with corridors that loop back onto themselves. It's wonderfully put together, really, but also feels like a different, more streamlined experience in comparison to Doom. Which isn't a bad thing, but I'd definitely say the Doom and Quake campaigns give you distinct flavors. And I love both of them.
Comments 753
Re: Review: Unsighted - A Fantastic Top-Down Metroidvania With A Warm, Vintage Feel
@sketchturner
I hear you. I did enjoy Hades quite a bit, because it does progression very well. You feel like it's a single, ongoing adventure, even after your 50th run. Great storytelling. But the rinse-repeat loop the genre's known for doesn't go away no matter how you present it.
Re: Taito's Coin-Op Classic Arkanoid Is Getting A Reboot Next Year
That was a weirdly epic trailer for a reboot of... Arkanoid. I grew up with the original, though, so I'm curious to see what this is about.
Re: Review: Unsighted - A Fantastic Top-Down Metroidvania With A Warm, Vintage Feel
I have entirely too many games to play through, but I'll put this in the wish list. It reminds me of Hyper Light Drifter, which is a good thing.
Re: Feature: A Link To The Past's Dark World Changed Zelda Forever
Great article!
I think A Link to the Past is the most "perfect" all-around Zelda experience. I can find nothing wrong with it and it has everything that makes Zelda, well, Zelda: cool dungeons and puzzles, fun items and upgrades, great over-world exploration, excellent progression, etc. And I too played it as an adult, in 2019. I was a SNES kid, but in Argentina I guess no one was actually playing Zelda, so I had no idea A Link to the Past existed until Ocarina of Time came out (and I moved to the United States) and I discovered Zelda. And even then, it took me 20 years to get around to playing A Link to the Past.
I do slightly prefer other Zeldas, but they all have "buts" to them. I think the original 1986 Legend of Zelda is an absolute masterpiece, wild and dangerous and adventurous like none of the others, but it takes some getting used to. Link's Awakening is more tightly crafted, but necessarily (due to its original hardware) lacks the scope of its SNES predecessor. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are Zelda at its moodiest and most transporting, but you have to look past the muddy textures and occasional jank. Breath of the Wild is expansive and boasts the franchise's deepest mechanics, but the whole experience is an emotional plateau, a one-note loop (although, what a note!) of small-scale discoveries in every corner, playing out with the same intensity in hour 1 as it does in hour 300. A Link to the Past doesn't always reach the heights of these, but it's by far the most consistent. And for that, it may always remain the most emblematic Zelda.
Re: Hardware Review: Game & Watch: The Legend Of Zelda - A Link To Link's Past
Only thing I'm not sure about is... well, playing Zelda 1 on the Switch was great, but the final dungeons had me sweaty-palmed, gripping the Pro Controller, frantically swinging away at Darknuts and Wizzrobes. Not sure how I'd fare with these tiny buttons.
Re: Review: STAR WARS: Knights Of The Old Republic - Still Strong With The Force Despite Dated Design
@Krysus
Well, it's Mitch. This is how most of his retro reviews go.
Frankly, though, in general, it's hard to read good takes on retro games anywhere. Either they're drunk on nostalgia; or they're allergic to "dated graphics and game design," as if 2030 gamers won't be making fun of today's upgrade trees, rogue-like repetition, loot-grinding, feature-excess, and cluttered UIs, among other immediately "dated" aspects of 2021 gaming.
Re: Hardware Review: Game & Watch: The Legend Of Zelda - A Link To Link's Past
I'm really interested in this one, mostly because the original 1986 Zelda is one my absolute favorite games (and I played it for the first time in 2019) and Link's Awakening is probably the most "perfect" Zelda game ever made (at least, based on my play through of the Switch remake) and I'm keen on trying out the original version.
Re: Review: STAR WARS: Knights Of The Old Republic - Still Strong With The Force Despite Dated Design
KOTOR 2 has the exact same moment-to-moment gameplay issues, but the story and writing's really compelling, so I'd actually rate it among my favorite games. I'm not so allergic to "datedness," though, largely because I find modern games no less dated.
Re: Review: STAR WARS: Knights Of The Old Republic - Still Strong With The Force Despite Dated Design
Played this back in the 2000s and I found the exact same issues. In that sense, it hasn't aged a day, apparently.
Re: Nintendo Wants To Expand 3D Mario Games "In New Ways"
I get the accessibility argument: as someone who works in UX, I understand the intention. But one thing I enjoyed about 64, playing it for the first time last year, is that, once you get past the camera and master the controls, the game really opens up in terms of experimentation and toying with the environment. Odyssey kind of returns to that, but the levels are too horizontal, too devoid of platforming challenge. Which makes them more accessible, but also takes away from the joy of mastering previously-insurmountable levels in 64. I could write a novel about my developing relationship with the desert level, and how my traversal of it has changed along with my skill. I know experienced players are doing amazing things in Odyssey, but it's a different, more relaxed experience. Maybe for Mario's future, I would hope for a better mix of horizontal exploration, like Odyssey, and 64's trickier, jazzier, speed-run-friendly platforming, maybe even as optional areas with a high skill ceiling for experienced players. And I mean, have this mix really integrated in the level design. I hate Odyssey's penchant for tucking away platforming-heavy sections in hidden areas you access through pipes and which seem to be located in an abstract, astral plane away from the actual level you're in. It breaks immersion.
Re: Video: Everyone Should Play Sin & Punishment
My replay of Ocarina of Time is taking a while, because I'm finally doing all the sidequests I never bothered with as a kid.
But Sin & Punishment is next on the playlist. Tried it out for a couple of hours and it felt awesome.
Re: Video: MVG Takes A Closer Look At Nintendo's N64 Emulation And "What Went Wrong" Over The Years
Ocarina of Time's Switch emulation has pros and cons, and balances out into "adequate." On the one hand, it's sharp and crisp, more than I ever remember it being, and generally looks rather good, even docked on my 4K television. On the other hand, though, certain fog and reflection effects do not display properly in some areas. I'd say the already-viral Dark Link encounter is the most affected, because that's supposed to happen on a shallow reflecting pool and, on Switch, there's no reflection, only opaque water textures. And that's kind of an issue when the entire theme of the fight is, quite literally, encountering a mirrored version of yourself.
Re: Review: Sin and Punishment - A Genuine Treasure And No Mistake
@TheBigK
Nah, it controls fine. Just play the tutorial mission to come to grips with them.
Use the d-pad to move (mostly strafe and roll) and the right stick to aim, and ignore the left stick altogether. I'd recommend TV mode with Pro controller, though. Not really a handheld affair.
Re: Review: Sin and Punishment - A Genuine Treasure And No Mistake
Playing it now for the first time! Been hearing about it since forever, so I'm glad to finally sit down with it.
It's really good thus far. Fast and responsive, and I'm surprised the N64 was able to handle the bombastic audiovisual spectacle.
Controls take some getting used to, but earlier reports of the button-mapping being broken on Switch were, well, exaggerated if not just plain wrong.
Re: Random: Nintendo's Switch Online 'Expansion Pack' Trailer Is Now Its Most Disliked YouTube Video Ever
I mean, I'm enjoying my time with it: Ocarina of Time is as great as always, Sin & Punishment is really fun, etc.
But that's because the games themselves are good. The service is just alright. Ocarina of Time looks sharp, but the ambience fog is reduced and, well, the one thing the N64 original has over the 3DS remaster is the fog and dark atmosphere, so it's important to preserve that. (Also, only the N64 Zeldas have that particular vibe and mood. It's what makes them unique.)
Built-in button mapping is OK. It's logical enough. Sin & Punishment works well, for example. (Some of the "unplayable!" complaints were hugely misleading and frankly in bad faith.) However, you should have an in-app option for button remapping (and I mean besides the system-wide remapping you can do outside the app, which doesn't count).
Finally, there aren't any filter effects or much in the way of configuration options, as you would expect in nearly any retro release. Not sure why, say, a niche shmup like Greylancer recently got a more respectful treatment than friggin' Ocarina of Time. I had a lot of fun with Greylancer a few weeks ago, don't get me wrong. It's a cool game. But Ocarina of Time changed the medium. It needs a more reverential Sega Ages-style emulation. Get M2 on the case.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 30th)
I finally received my copy of Dread, but I'm already knee-deep in my latest playthrough of Ocarina of Time, so I'll finish that first. Spotty emulation issues aside, it's great to now actually do all the side-quests and exploration I wasn't patient enough to engage with as a kid. Also, discovering bits of lore and character details I never picked up on back then. (I've played Ocarina of Time since then, as late as 2012-ish, but always just trying to "run" it, going through the dungeons. This is the first time I actually sit down to find secrets, complete the mask side-quest, etc.)
Re: Review: Super Mario 64 - The Best Launch Game Ever Made
I guess I'm in the minority here, but Mario 64 deserves its 10 out of 10. I think it's one of the all-time greats. I played it for the first time last year.
It has issues, of course. Positioning the camera is a challenge onto itself, which doesn't align with our modern mental models. That is, we're used to controlling the camera with the right stick and without really thinking about it. In Mario 64, you have tons of camera options and you have to choose the right option for each obstacle. That's not how modern third-person games work.
Also, repeated music tracks are kind of a drag — but they're also really memorable, so I guess it balances out.
That's where my complaints end, though.
So much that Mario 64 does incredibly well is a product of its time: the toylike geometry and simplicity of the level design, the freedom to break the game, the experimental platforming possibilities (enabled by the geometric simplicity), the openness of your progression through the castle and the levels, etc.
Later Mario games would become more polished and, also, less flexible: Galaxy doesn't let you experiment as much with its obstacles; Sunshine changes the level layout based on the Shine you're going for, which means you can't just run in and do whatever you feel like doing; Odyssey looks back to 64 in many ways, but makes Moons trivial in their sheer number, removes challenging platforming from most levels, and adds the cap mechanic, which both expands and limits your moveset, because each transformation gives you new moves while removing all your other skills.
Having played all 3D Marios for the first time in the past three or four years, starting with Odyssey, I have to say 64 is the only one I keep going back to and the only one I 100% (and twice, at that). The easygoing structure, the way you can tackle levels and stars in almost any order, the way you can get stars in tons of different ways, the way you can exploit the level geometry and master Mario's controls and inertia... I don't think any of that has really been recaptured and maybe it never will. (That's OK, though. Games and gamers are different now. That's why I play games from all eras. Every time period has its flavor.)
Odyssey does control better, and of course the camera's more modern, but the sense of inertia isn't quite there. And the level design, while more sophisticated, is also more horizontal and spread out, more Zelda-ish in its exploration. Which is fine, but 64 has a unique mix of open layout and linear stage-clear design that is both a product of its time, as the first 3D Mario, and also something Nintendo never really went back to, preferring the extremes of both poles, with Galaxy and Odyssey.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo's N64 Emulation Is Serviceable, But Treasured Memories Deserve Better
Playing Ocarina of Time the other day was a spiritual experience for me. It's such a great game. But the lack of fog is definitely an issue. It's part of the original game's atmosphere, vibe, and meaning. And while it being missing doesn't destroy the ambience entirely, it does hurt it. I don't think it's nitpicking to complain: videogames are an audiovisual art, after all, and Ocarina of Time (and Majora's Mask, by extension) has a uniquely gloomy, often dark tone that Zelda hasn't really gone back to. (Partly because this distinctive look is a result of the N64's technical limitations. But that's where the art lies.) Asking for that to be preserved seems more than reasonable to me. We wouldn't even be having this debate if we were talking about a more mature artform.
Re: Poll: N64 And Sega Genesis Nintendo Switch Online Games Launch Today - Which Will You Play First?
It's a toss between replaying Ocarina of Time after a while (last playthrough was around 2012, I think) or playing Sin & Punishment for the first time.
For Genesis, I want to get back to Phantasy Star IV. I really dug it back when I had the Genesis Collection on my PS2, but I only got about 10 hours into it.
Then, maybe I'll replay Star Fox 64 and Winback. I imagine Star Fox 64 will be as fun as always, but I'm really not sure about Winback. I have fond memories of it, but I also clearly recall thinking the graphics were dull and the gameplay repetitive. We didn't have Metal Gear Solid on the N64, so we only had Winback as an alternative. When I finally played Metal Gear Solid on my PC, a couple of years later, it was miles and miles beyond Winback. Still, it's worth revisiting.
Re: Talking Point: How Many Hours Is A 'Short' Game For You?
There is also another question: how valuable is the experience, when all is said and done? For instance: I've replayed the original Portal a few times and completed many of the extra challenge rooms. But in terms of pure metrics, I haven't really spent that much time with it. Still, it's easily in my top 20 all-time. It's important to me and I think about it often. More than I can say for many 50+ hour games I've played over the years.
Re: Talking Point: How Many Hours Is A 'Short' Game For You?
It depends on the experience. I haven't played Dread yet, but Super's my favorite game. And though it's not particularly long, it's clearly made for replays. I've accumulated dozens upon dozens of hours over the years.
Ultimately, it kind of depends on what you think "finishing" a game entails. I still want to replay Mario 64 even though I've 100% it twice since last year. And that's because I don't think I've "finished" it in the sense that I'm still finding new exploits and ways to get stars. Super's sequence-breaking obviously lends itself to the same logic. There's a lot I still haven't done with Super — but I've obviously reached the "ending" a handful of times already.
I think shmups are the purest, simplest example of this. I've "beaten" (or more like cheesed) Ikaruga a few times, but I'm nowhere near done with it. (I'd have to, at the very least, beat it legit.) It will take me a long while before I can really master (or at least not suck at) that game. Reaching the ending of Ikaruga (with infinite continues, obvs) is basically the tutorial. You need to see what you're up against so you can start practicing and not blow up a billion times with every boss.
Videogames are, at the end of the day, a hybrid medium. They tell stories and narratives, but they're also, at a fundamental level, games. And you don't declare chess "finished" because you won a single match.
Re: Poll: Which Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Games Should You Play First Via Nintendo Switch Online?
Genesis is a weird inclusion into the service, but here we are. I had the Collection on the Playstation 2 and left a couple of these games unfinished. Most notably Ristar and Phantasy Star IV, which I was having a lot of fun with. So I'm interested in continuing those.
Shinobi III is great. Played the heck out of that when I had the Collection. Will probably replay it now, too. Interested in Musha, since I didn't even know it existed.
That said, the N64 games are my priority, specifically replaying Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64, playing Sin & Punishment for the first time, and then trying out Paper Mario and Banjo when they're uploaded (in November, I hope).
Re: Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda Gets A Snazzy New Trailer
If it actually becomes available in Argentina — a pretty big if --, then I might nab it.
I played the first Zelda and Link's Awakening Switch last year and absolutely loved them. Wouldn't mind buying this for the vibes and to (legally) play the original Link's Awakening. (Liked the new graphics in the Switch version, but the GB aesthetic has its own charm.)
Re: Metroid Dread Staff Say They've Been Left Out Of The Game's Credits, MercurySteam Responds
@kducky11
It was enough to set Videogame Twitter on fire, yeah. For a few days, at least.
Re: Metroid Dread Staff Say They've Been Left Out Of The Game's Credits, MercurySteam Responds
@kducky11
They published an enthusiastic article about Metroid Dread emulation on PC. Lots of people got angry online, hills were erected, and many died on them.
Re: Metroid Dread Staff Say They've Been Left Out Of The Game's Credits, MercurySteam Responds
It's a bad and widespread industry practice, just like crunch culture. Deathloop and Red Dead Redemption 2 had uncredited employees in the 1000s. (Especially the latter.)
I know Kotaku got cancelled the other week, because that's the way internet discourse works, but this article might be instructive: https://kotaku.com/how-game-companies-use-credits-to-reward-or-punish-de-1840905129
Re: Random: Players Are Already Scarily Good At Controlling Samus In Metroid Dread
@Xansies
That's (brooding, atmospheric) music to my ears!
Re: Random: Players Are Already Scarily Good At Controlling Samus In Metroid Dread
@Spiders
I guess the difference is that I played and fell in love with Super as an adult, so I don't have memories of it feeling any different than what it's always felt like: methodical and technical. I haven't started Dread yet, but from the looks of it, the level design is tailored for more fluid, parkour-style movement, whereas Super, to me, is more about patiently timing my wall jumps or bomb jumps to sequence-break.
Re: Random: Players Are Already Scarily Good At Controlling Samus In Metroid Dread
@Spiders
It's not nostalgia, just a different game.
Re: Mini Review: Gleylancer - A Brilliant 16-Bit Shmup Sparkles With Mod Cons
Will be getting it for sure!
Re: Feature: Steven Spohn On Strides In Accessibility For Gaming, And Nintendo's Room For Improvement
Accessibility is a really contentious issue and it shouldn't be. It's about including options where they can be included. No one's asking for games and artistic expression to be neutered.
I'm hearing imparied. I'm not going to ask musicians to not experiment with complex soundscapes because I personally won't catch all those sonic layers. It wouldn't be ethical to impose that limitation on everyone else. (And anyway, maybe I'll like your music regardless: Loveless is one of my favorite albums and that wall of sound is so thick that even hearing-abled people can't understand the lyrics.) But if you're going to have an NPC tell me where I need to go, yes, I'll need subtitles for that very functional piece of information that hearing-abled people won't have a problem with. (Especially if I'm shooting eldritch interdimensional horrors while the NPC is doling out said information. Looking at you, Half-Life.) That's all it is.
Re: Review: Metroid Dread - Quite Possibly The Best Metroid Game Ever Made
@twztid13
I play videogames for interesting experiences. Replays allow me to dive deeper, grow more acquainted with the mechanics, become a better player, discover aspects of the game I had missed the first time, and so on. Simply blowing through my backlog is meaningless if I've forgotten about the first game (or never truly got to know it) by the time I cleared my tenth. I don't have a responsibility to my backlog. Also, with a game like Super Metroid, where every run can be different, replays are never exactly the same.
Re: Review: Metroid Dread - Quite Possibly The Best Metroid Game Ever Made
@Meteoroid
Oh, it's really easy, yeah. I mean you get health drops just for running into things. But it works out because that means you're not totally screwed when you sequence-break and go underpowered into late-game areas. It's mostly an exploration game, so the low enemy difficulty made sense for it. Interested in how Dread combines that with — from the sounds of it — more involved and harsher fighting.
Re: Review: Metroid Dread - Quite Possibly The Best Metroid Game Ever Made
@Meteoroid
Mm, not sure it's that's short for me. Keep in mind the in-game timer is totally inaccurate. Without rushing it, it still takes me close to 8 to 10 hours to clear it and I know where most of the major stuff is by now. (I can probably finish it in much less, but I waste time for the vibes and to practice bomb jumping or whatever.) Pretty sure my first playthrough in 2009 was longer because I got majorly stuck a few times.
Re: Review: Metroid Dread - Quite Possibly The Best Metroid Game Ever Made
On the 12-hour running time: it's worth noting that Metroid games are big on replayability. Super is about as long, but obviously I've quadrupled that amount just in replays. Opportunities for sequence-breaking and improving runs are everywhere and the game is built around this loop.
By all accounts, Dread follows suit. From Nintendo's Metroid Dread site: "The Super Metroid game can be said to offer the greatest flexibility for exploration in the series. You can enjoy similar flexibility in the Metroid Dread game, depending on how you take advantage of your abilities. You might be able to find ways to obtain weapons, items, and abilities earlier than the intended timing. We encourage you to try to discover alternate routes of exploration."
Of course, we'll have to see if that's true, but it's encouraging that they're straight-out promoting the game as having Super-levels of potential openness.
Also, regarding Hollow Knight: yeah, the big 30-hour main quest is great. And if you're up to the DLC challenges, your playtime will go into the 100s. (I'm at about 70 or 80 myself.) But that's a different game. It's sprawling and lengthy. Metroid is all about tight pacing and design. I played Super right after Hollow Knight and was almost shocked by how fast Super moves in comparison. 1 hour in and you've already gotten a whole bunch of upgrades. It's more propulsive. I love both, but they're different takes on the genre.
Re: Review: Castlevania Advance Collection - Utterly Essential Thanks To Aria Of Sorrow
@Zeldafan79
I played the first one last year for the first time and loved it, but it definitely benefits from a Dark Souls mindset where you learn patterns and how to manipulate enemy positions and spawns, and execute to perfection. It's definitely learn-able, if you're up for that. Castlevania IV for the SNES is kind of a cakewalk by comparison, despite the Classicvania structure. Going through that one right now.
Re: Best Nintendo 64 Games
Always preferred Perfect Dark over Goldeneye back in the day, but admittedly I missed the Goldeneye multiplayer experience. I played far more Perfect Dark with friends. And of course, Perfect Dark had a far richer single-player offer than Goldeneye.
Still, I would definitely like to replay both. They were my first FPS titles and back then I didn't really have the context I have now (having played Marathon, Doom, Quake, Dark Forces, Half-Life, and Unreal) about what the genre was like on PC and Mac during the late 90s.
Re: Poll: What Did You Think Of Yesterday's Nintendo Direct?
@Meteoroid
I kind of agree. I feel like the Direct could be: Ocarina of Time remade from the ground-up for the Switch Pro Deluxe that you'll get for free just for watching this Direct; and Mario Odyssey 2 shadow-dropped this afternoon by Charles Martinet himself showing up at your door. And people would still be like: Meh, where's Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and new DLC levels for Pokemon Snap!?
Re: Poll: What Did You Think Of Yesterday's Nintendo Direct?
Loved it. N64 games, an ambitious Kirby, Bayo 3's existence confirmed, Splatoon with an interesting-looking story mode, more Castlevania, etc. I'm in.
Re: Metroid Dread: Here's A Closer Look At The Deadly Areas You'll Explore On Planet ZDR
With all this coverage, I can't help but wonder how much they're revealing — and how much they're holding back. Especially with a game that's all about surprises and discoveries. Anyway, looking good!
Re: Unavailability Of Classic Titles Is "Holding Game Culture Back", Says Platinum's Hideki Kamiya
@PessitheMystic
Sure, I'm aware of the logistical and economic realities of it all. Not everything is going to survive. But it's important to have this conversation, because publishers and developers aren't always going to care unless we do. Part of the issue, really, is that games — and especially console games — aren't always made to last. There's no unified format for storage and preservation. Frank Cifaldi has an interesting talk about this from GDC 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLWY7fCXUwE. With film, what you often have is infrastructure in place so that, once a film is digitalized, it can be distributed in different formats. (It's not always as easy as all that, of course. Especially with very old movies.) With videogames, that's not usually the case, because so many games are tethered to specific hardware. That drives up preservation costs in the future, because no plan was made in the present. The emulation scene, of course, partly gets around that, but it's not ideal.
The 1939 movie in question is The Rules of the Game. It's admittedly canonical, one of the most respected French films of all time, but not exactly The Wizard of Oz in terms of commercial prospects.
Re: Unavailability Of Classic Titles Is "Holding Game Culture Back", Says Platinum's Hideki Kamiya
@Burning_Spear @PessitheMystic
From the perspective of "corporate products," you're both right. From the perspective of culture and understanding the medium, not being able to access the classics is an immense loss. That is what Kamiya is referring to. It goes beyond "entitlement." My favorite film is from 1939; my favorite book is from the 19th century. I sure am glad both were preserved for posterity.
Re: Nintendo eShop Is Now Available In Argentina, Colombia, Chile And Peru
@Pod
So you're saying we've been swaying Canadian market analyses all this time?
We're sorry, Canada.
Re: Nintendo eShop Is Now Available In Argentina, Colombia, Chile And Peru
@Pod
Oh, we've been playing here in Argentina. We just have to pretend to be Canadian. Or buy physical copies. Or both, which is what I've done.
We had a web store, where you'd visit, purchase a digital code, and then input the code onto the eShop. But it's got relatively few titles: mostly Nintendo stuff, a few major third parties, and the occasional indie like Hollow Knight. So mostly I stuck to the Canadian store.
Hopefully this Argentine eShop is worth my time and has regional pricing like Steam. I'll check it out.
Re: Random: The Nintendo DS Browser Is On Sale, So Now You Can Use The Internet Wherever You Are
"The Internet at Your Fingertips" next to a picture of a stylus.
Re: Review: Quake - The Definitive Version Of An Iconic, Flawless FPS
@Clyde_Radcliffe
Well, uh, depends on what you're looking for. I haven't played Warface, but from what I've seen it's a realistic, modern military shooter with slow movement and sight aiming. Quake's a 90s FPS from back when the entire genre was just iterations of Doom (including, well, Quake). That means abstract level design, extremely fast movement, and insane weaponry and monsters. There's more exploration and (almost Zelda-style) spatial reasoning and puzzle-solving, and combat's less focused on duck-and-cover strategy and flanking, and more on balletic strafing and enemy patterns.
Re: Review: Quake - The Definitive Version Of An Iconic, Flawless FPS
@Krull
I mean, Half-Life 2 is not a better Quake, it's something completely different. I'd give both a 10, but they're not that comparable. One's a linear, story-based action game and the other's a labyrinthine dungeon-crawler in the "boomer shooter" mold. Modern FPS games tend to follow Half-Life and Halo more than Quake and Doom (with exceptions, especially within the indie scene). So they're not actually in direct competition with each other. Meaning that giving Quake a 10 definitely leaves plenty of room for everything that came later, from Half-Life and Halo to immersive sims like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Bioshock, Prey, and Dishonored. Maybe you prefer those experiences, but they're decidedly different experiences and scratch very different itches. Sure, Quake "paved the way," but only up to a point. The games it inspired marked their own paths. Meaning I have to play Quake to enjoy what Quake does. It's not like if I plow through Titanfall 2 enough eventually it'll feel like a modern take on Quake. I can see the borrowed building blocks, but by now it's a totally different building.
Re: Review: Quake - The Definitive Version Of An Iconic, Flawless FPS
@60frames-please
I'm going through it on PC. It's quite good, though it's definitely for Doom and Quake veterans. There's no map, the levels are big and interconnected, and the gunfights are balletic. (The AI is, perhaps, a precursor to what we'd later see in Halo.) It's easy to get lost, so it helps having some experience with pre-Half-Life (i.e. non-linear) shooters. You wouldn't have been able to run it at 60 fps back in the day. This was the Crysis of 1998. But now it runs like a charm!
Re: Review: Quake - The Definitive Version Of An Iconic, Flawless FPS
I'm loving this so much. Now up to the fourth "world" in the campaign, first playthrough. One little disagreement I have with the review, though, is the suggestion that the original Doom is all about battling endless hordes of enemies, as opposed to the exploration and labyrinthine level design of Quake. I mean, that's not really the case, is it. All the exploration and twisty, complex level design (nearly Zelda-esque, at times) is right there in Doom. In fact, I'd say Quake is, in terms of sheer, mad complexity, scaled back a bit from Doom 2. This isn't necessarily a negative: Doom 2 is impressively experimental, but it can get cloyingly gimmicky at times. Quake is more focused and most of the levels are smaller and tighter. In fact, the way they're designed, you can see how the conceptual path is being paved for Unreal and especially Half-Life in 1998 and, therefore, the rise of the linear action shooter. Basically, Doom levels require more back-tracking and map-perusing. Which I definitely love: it makes me feel like an intrepid explorer, albeit with a double-barreled shotgun. And movement in Doom is so fast, anyway, that "backtracking" usually means ten to fifteen seconds, at most, of speeding across the level, so it's not really much of a nuisance. That said, Quake somewhat steps away from that, with level design that makes you feel like you're backtracking and exploring, but usually pushes you along in a fairly linear path, organically bringing you back to the rooms where you need to use your newfound keys, with corridors that loop back onto themselves. It's wonderfully put together, really, but also feels like a different, more streamlined experience in comparison to Doom. Which isn't a bad thing, but I'd definitely say the Doom and Quake campaigns give you distinct flavors. And I love both of them.
Re: Talking Point: Which Video Game Song Could You Listen To For Ten Hours?
@60frames-please
Nostalgia aside, Ocarina of Time is really an aural masterpiece.