Comments 87

Re: Inti Creates' New Project Is A Pixel Art Adventure Inspired By Zelda And '90s Anime

BenoitRen

That dialogue window used in the cutscene looks straight out of RPG Maker. Look at the background gradient and the font. Not a good sign.

I want to be excited for this, but Inti Creates has a habit of releasing unfinished and incomplete games. They then spend months to a year finishing it with a lot of patches and, more recently, releasing DLC with the content that they held back at release.

Re: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Update Now Live (Version 1.0.1), Here Are The Full Patch Notes

BenoitRen

@Not_Soos

"Sakurai even just put out a video recently about how games are so large and complex nowadays that post-launch patches are pretty much a necessity."

As a blanket statement, that's wrong. It assumes that every game released nowadays is a giant open-world game with complex gameplay systems, and that development tools don't continually improve. When a game like Monopoly, which is an old game that has been developed many times, gets a patch, you know something's wrong.

"I think we tend to romanticize the era before updates, when in reality, broken games released all the time"

That's a bold statement. Care to back it up?

Games always had bugs. But in general games were better tested back in the day before being sent to manufacturing. A high-profile game like Assassin's Creed: Unity being released in a broken state used to be unthinkable. But the trend now is to release now and fix later (maybe).

When it comes to this release of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, it seems to me like they've done a decent job, but elected to postpone rigorous testing and proof-reading until after the game was sent to manufacturing, as a lot of these bugs and text errors are things that should have been caught during QA.

Re: Video: Sakurai Explains The Need For Online Updates And Patches

BenoitRen

@HeadPirate

I question one point and suddenly I'm "generally just choosing to not accept any of the information"? Get over yourself. You're a random person on the internet. Anyone can claim anything.

"Patching cost money right now."

According to an inside source patches to fix bugs are free. Developers are only charged when they need to release gigantic patches due to their own mistakes.

What's not free are patches with new content, as those require certification.

"I still am waiting to hear your solution."

I already gave the solution. Just not in numbers and percentages, because I can't give those.

"If the goal is to "just make money", how is spending 2 years developing a game, releasing it, and then spending a year updating it any different then spending 3 years developing the game?"

If you spend 3 years developing the game instead of 2, you'll obviously have a more complete and finished product, which results in better review scores and more sales.

"If I have a million dollars to make a game, and after spending a million dollars and giving an honest effort the game has bugs due to situations outside my control, like perhaps engine updates or assist changes"

Rollback the engine updates, obviously. This is software, after all. I don't know what you mean by assist changes.

"Are you suggesting the better solution in that case is to fire my whole team and not release the finished, playable, enjoyable, but slightly less then prefect product?"

Don't be ridiculous. Obviously you'd fix the game.

"But sometimes the bad situation we currently have is the best possible one"

Sometimes, yes. But using it as an excuse for what is obviously a trend is dishonest.

Re: Video: Sakurai Explains The Need For Online Updates And Patches

BenoitRen

@HeadPirate

I find it hard to believe that most of the NES library got a revision. How do you get such a high number? Are you counting NTSC-U and PAL releases of Japanese releases as revisions?

It's also worth pointing out that the NES is just one console. I don't think it's fair to base the entire history of cartridge-based consoles just on that.

It's interesting to note that there was one (disc-based) console where patching was not the norm, and that was the Wii. Nintendo had an explicit "no patches" policy.

You keep bringing up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but as I've already pointed out, not every game is a huge open-world affair. Yet even the simplest games get patches (like freaking Monopoly). How do you explain that?

The point is not that they should invest millions into testing to fix every bug imaginable. That's a fool's errand. The point is that the trend is to rush games to market with insufficient QA testing before declaring the product ready for distribution, because they can just patch it later (if at all).

The goal should be to make a honest effort in providing a reasonably stable and as bug-free possible product to store shelves as possible, but right now too many corners are being cut by too many developers.

There used to be a middle ground back in the PS3/X360 era, where releasing patches cost money. It meant that patches were still possible if necessary, but discouraged. Unfortunately, those became free starting with the PS4, which opened the flood gates. Interestingly, at about the same time we saw the release Assassin's Creed: Unity, which was released in a broken state.

At the end of the day, it all comes back to a core problem of the game industry: their goal is to make a profit, not to make a good product.

Re: Video: Sakurai Explains The Need For Online Updates And Patches

BenoitRen

@HeadPirate Cartridge revisions existed, but were far from the norm.

Saying that you can just download a patch to fix a game-breaking bug lacks nuance.

  • If you bought the game at release, there's a good chance you're out of luck, because it's not patched yet. Early adopters are disadvantaged in this system. And don't tell me that it's their fault for buying on release. There's a reasonable expectation of a working product, and publishers encourage you to pre-order by offering exclusive perks.
  • Being able to download patches assumes an internet connection. Contary to popular belief, an internet connection, especially a fast and stable one, is not available everywhere in the world.
  • There's also the preservation argument. There's no downloading of patches years later when the servers are down.

Re: Video: Sakurai Explains The Need For Online Updates And Patches

BenoitRen

"games are exceedingly more complex now than ever before"

You can only use that excuse so many times. This has been parroted for almost two decades, now. Meanwhile, tooling improves, and developers get more skilled.

It's one thing when your game is a giant open-world game with tons of things to do where testing every possible scenario is not feasible. But even small-scale, linear games developed today still get patches.

It's a mentality thing. If you can release something now and worry about patching later, it's very tempting to do so. Especially if you really want to make the holiday season instead of delaying your game.

Of course, just because a game can be patched, doesn't mean it will be.

  • Released a rushed product that doesn't sell well? Ah well, let's cut our losses and move on to the next product instead of wasting money fixing something that doesn't rake in the money.
  • Released a rushed product that sold like hot-cakes? Eh, why bother fixing it? "I've already got your money, dude."

Then we've got cases like Bloodstained where the end product released in a terrible state. The developer promises to fix things. For a while, they do, and things start to improve. Then they add more content and performance deteriorates again, which then isn't fixed. Today, the game still isn't in the state it should have been released in.

@HeadPirate "So, in all honestly, if you do NOT have a day one patch for your game ... what the heck was your team doing for that 3 months?"

The same thing they would have been doing before patches were a thing: working on a different game.

Re: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Switch Update Adding Performance Mode

BenoitRen

@-wc- I objected to you saying that bad reviews lead to bad sales. It's the bad state of the product at launch that leads to bad sales.

Reviews being based on the version of the game available close to launch are nothing new. Everyone knows that's how it goes, including publishers. While it's nice for the early adopters that they promise they'll fix things through patches, the damage is already done, and those fixes come too late.

That's assuming that they will actually fix the game. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's Switch version was terrible at launch, and they've still not fully fixed it. One of the content patches actually deteriorated performance.

If anything should make you sad, it's this "release early, fix later (maybe)" mantra that publishers have adopted.

Re: Review: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (Switch) - A Near-Royal Return For The Addictive Monster-Catching Spin-Off

BenoitRen

@twowingedangel

> "You can only optimize games so much before you hit a brick wall. After that, you do need more performance."

Yes and no. If the performance is subpar because the CPU isn't strong enough, this is true. But when it comes to graphics, it's not. There's lots of leeway with graphic effects and polygon count.

> "I've got one better for you: Stop defending big corporations for not updating an elderly console for almost 8 years when it clearly needs it."

1) In what world do you live that advocating for a new console, which means investing a huge sum into new hardware, peripherals, and games is not anti-consumer?

2) Clearly needs it? According to who? People have been clamoring for a Switch Pro ever since 2017, when the console was released, so I'd take such a statement with a mountain of salt.

Re: Soapbox: Mega Man X's Tutorial Is The Perfect Intro To Capcom's Sublime Sub-Series

BenoitRen

@nimnio

The similarity is just too blatant. Like I demonstrated, the flow of the article (which you again conveniently ignore comprises more than just the intro stage) is the same, and the points it brings up are the same. It even brings up the same enemy whose car you can ride, which in this context, discussing the stage's design, is not relevant. But when you know that egoraptor's video also brought it up as an irrelevant point to make a joke at, you know where it came from.

Again, you can't claim to understand when you ignore some important points and don't remember the video, which means you (conveniently) can't make the parallel.

@Maxz

There's writing an article about the same thing, and there's plagiarizing someone else's essay. This is clearly the latter.

Re: Soapbox: Mega Man X's Tutorial Is The Perfect Intro To Capcom's Sublime Sub-Series

BenoitRen

@nimnio

A brief but excellently designed initial stage.

The video was so good it inspired multiple viewers to get into game design, and it was even used as course material in several schools.

Sure, you're not going to be able to write a whole book on this level, but if you've watched the video, this article is a pretty blatant rip-off.

It starts off discussing the original Mega Man (just like the video), how it didn't really need a tutorial (just like the video), discusses how the section with the robot bee teaches you wall-jumping (just like the video), how there are enemies where you can shoot the driver so you can ride their car (just like the video), that you encounter Vile at the end who wrecks your ***** (just like the video),... You get the idea.

At least the author added one original point: the enemies can dig through the highway, which creates gaps that X has to jump over.

Re: Review: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (Switch) - A Near-Royal Return For The Addictive Monster-Catching Spin-Off

BenoitRen

@TechaNinja No, it's not. There's no technical reason why this can't run well. It's either rushed or badly programmed.

@twowingedangel No, you need a dose of reality. The Switch is more capable than it's made out to be. But it's more susceptible to bad programming as it's weaker than other consoles. Because, yes, it is bad programming. The graphics on display won't win any awards, even on the Switch. It's probably just a case of bad optimisation. Which, mind you, you always need to do, because a bad graphics implementation can easily bring any powerful machine to its knees.

tl;dr: Stop defending corporations for doing a poor job for maximum profits.

Re: The First Review For Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Is In

BenoitRen

@Not_Soos @GooseLoose1

Famitsu is vanity PR. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20141129124115/http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=476

Choice quote: "When Famitsu rates a game high, they do it out of respect for the readers — avid players of Kingdom Hearts as most of them are. Avid players of Kingdom Hearts don't want to be told what Famitsu really thinks of their ***** piece of ***** hobby. So Famitsu awards the "courtesy score" — which used to be all nines and a ten, and is now all tens and a nine. When Famitsu KNOWS a game is going to sell 2 million copies in a week regardless of what they say, this is what they do."

Re: Talking Point: Which Version Of Super Mario Bros. 3 Do You Prefer?

BenoitRen

"textures"

A 2D game does not use textures. They use what are commonly called tiles.

"The action has also been zoomed in considerably compared to the previous releases, which is no doubt to cater to the 2.9-inch screen on the GBA."

This wording is misleading. It has nothing to do with the smaller size of the screen, and everything to do with the lower screen resolution.

Re: Unity's CEO And President Retires After Policy Debacle

BenoitRen

@Moistnado You clearly don't understand the gravitas of the situation with Unity.

Yes, legally, they can do what they want. That doesn't make it morally right. Their decisions about their pricing have a big impact on everyone that uses their engine to make and sell games. In particular, lots of indies use their engine, and those changes were threatening their livelihood. Sounds like more of an impact than the weather, right?

When you've invested in an engine, you can't easily switch to another. It just doesn't work like that. An engine has its own asset formats, workflow, code, etc. If you were busy on a game for months and have to switch to another engine, you can throw a lot of that work away.

Go troll somewhere else.

Re: The First Review For Sonic Superstars Is Now In

BenoitRen

@Snatcher "If the game scores overall more than a 7.5 I will probably get it. If lower, I'll just wait until it's on a big sale"

Or you could... read the reviews? Don't stare blindly at numbers.

@Mauzuri Not Classic Amy. Modern Amy.

What's this about Famitsu being reliable before? They've always been a promotional magazine that decides scores based on how hyped up a game is with their customers.

Re: The First Review For Sonic Superstars Is Now In

BenoitRen

Famitsu review scores are worthless. Stop reporting them!

Even if they meant anything, it doesn't tell me anything other than they liked the game. It doesn't tell me anything of substance, like how it plays, how long it is, what the performance is like, etc.

Re: Shiren The Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon Of Serpentcoil Island Is Coming To The West

BenoitRen

"The last game in the series, the amusingly titled Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (breathe) was a 2010, Japan-only DS title before coming to PSP worldwide a few years later, and eventually to Switch in 2020."

Damn it, NintendoLife, do your research!

It was ported from the Nintendo DS to the PlayStation Vita, was released at retail in North America, and on PSN in Europe.

Re: Konami's Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Has Been Delayed

BenoitRen

@Glassneedles Apples and oranges.

First, the original Metal Gear Solid looks rough these days. Second, the two other ports were downgraded compared to the previous ports and even the originals, being 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS. People complained the Metal Gear Sold HD ports were down.

People complained about Red Dead Redemption being a bare-bones ports because of the relatively high price.

The two first Suikoden games have aged much better due to them being 2D.

Re: Review: Sonic Origins Plus - Not Bad, But Sonic Still Deserves Better

BenoitRen

@eakinthegame This review is about the DLC, which is light on content. Not the base game.

@samuelvictor "a year's worth of bugfixes"? Sorry to break it to you, but barely anything was fixed compared to the base game. Even low-hanging fruit like the blur present on all the games due to bad scaling and the crash bug when completed the sixth Special Stage with Sonic & Tails in Sonic the Hedgehog aren't fixed.

Re: Sonic Fans Are Already Really Mad About Sonic Origins Plus

BenoitRen

It has been clear from day one that this collection is nothing but a low-budget cash-grab with as many corners cut as possible. The removal of features present in the mobile remakes, the bad implementation of the drop dash, the unfinished Sonic 3 & Knuckles remake, the blurry graphics, the lack of care in general, the pre-order DLC shenanigans,...

And now we can add this DLC code, the sub-par addition of Amy and Game Gear emulation worse than previous compilations to the list. Because these Game Gear games have been emulated before back in Sonic Adventure DX. While that wasn't ideal, it was still better than this, and that was back in 2003/2004!

@YoshiAngemon Sonic Spinball is not related to any comics. It's related to the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.

Re: Review: Batsugun Saturn Tribute Boosted - The Best Home Release Of Toaplan's Final Shmup

BenoitRen

@Tom-Massey You didn't understand what I was saying. A few frames of lag is indeed not perceptible. To reiterate:

  • This publication did not notice 5-6 frames of lag on the Cowabunga Collection.
  • This review mentions "a few frames of lag" in this release, something we agree is not perceptible.

The conclusion that you missed is that, with this information in mind, the reality is that there's probably more than "a few" frames of lag.

Re: Review: Batsugun Saturn Tribute Boosted - The Best Home Release Of Toaplan's Final Shmup

BenoitRen

"a few frames of lag"? Considering that this is the same publication that gave a glowing review to the Cowabunga Collection, a collection where each game has 5-6 frames of input lag, "a few fames of lag" sounds like a big deal. I know shmup enthusiasts will consider this a dealbreaker.

But hey, it's about what I expected from City Connection's bad track record with this series.

Re: Sonic Origins Plus Officially Announced For June, Adds Amy And 12 Game Gear Games

BenoitRen

@Banjo- You must be fun at parties.

I did reply to your explanation, by elaborating on what's still wrong with it. I know Sonic Origins is a remake, but that doesn't excuse the sloppy execution and the outright removal of improvements that the mobile versions added.

I haven't played this on any platform, because I'm voting with my wallet. I'm well aware of how badly Sega has dropped the ball on this, but you're obviously badly informed. Do some research.

The falling debris wasn't mentioned in the patch notes, and either it wasn't pointed out or I forgot that they did. But that doesn't mean there aren't still a lot of issues present.

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