Bolt_Strike

Never finished this one. It was fun, but the touch controls wore on me and I could never get them to work right on the giant Luigi battles. I love the game's creativity and wackiness, but those giant Luigi battles were so unplayable that I simply couldn't move on.

@HeadPirate The issue is that centralized ownership allows the owners to get away with policies and practices that are consumer unfriendly for their own personal gain. If an industry has too little competition, then the consumer may not have a choice but to suck it up or stop buying from that industry altogether. If you let Microsoft buy whatever company they want, eventually they'll own so much of the industry that they'll be able to manipulate prices or control when, where, or how you play your games, or just amass a library so big that Nintendo and Sony won't be able to keep up and Microsoft will end up the only console developer left. The industry WILL suffer if they don't keep Microsoft from growing too large, give one entity that much power and they'll inevitably abuse it. This FTC case WAS supposed to be "the regulators figuring it out" and they failed because antitrust regulation has become so pitifully weak in the U.S. That says more about the scary amount of control large corporations have over politics than Microsoft having a legitimate case.

And really, because of the issues with owners controlling so much of politics and economics, you could also argue that perhaps the concept of some corporate executive owning these developers is probably something that needs to go away and instead the people who are actually making the damn games should be the ones to own the business. But that's a much larger and more politically controversial discussion (the latter scenario with the actual developers owning the company is the literal definition of socialism), and I don't think this is the place to get into that.

@nhSnork So maybe DON'T try and compile it into one app and come up with another way? Or better yet, go the Game Pass route and let us OWN the games for an extra fee? They'll figure something out, but the larger issue here is that you've got an entire console of games that has been largely inaccessible since said console stopped being supported.

@burgerkingsauce Same. I'm sick of starting over with NES games every single time we get a new system, it keeps them from working on some of the old-but-not-that-old systems like GC, DS, and Wii. Hopefully NSO transfers over so they can move on to some of those system and make those libraries accessible again.

Another nail in the coffin for E3. F.

No boosted shiny odds like SwSh? Just basic bitch 1/4000? Yeah, no thanks. SwSh's 2% odds were fine (possibly even a tad low, some of those I played the entire duration of the event and never encountered a shiny), this is such a garbage event.

So the developers themselves are describing this as a spiritual successor to Goemon? Okay now I DEFINITELY want an NA release. Goemon holds a special place in my heart, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on the N64 was the first video game I ever owned. I would absolutely love to play a spiritual successor.

I mean you can still see the roots of NSMB in this game, but it does seem to be something very new and different, so I would say so.

This game NEEDS to release in the West.

This game looks so insane. Reminds me of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (gameplay wise) but weirder. Definitely looks like the 2D Mario shakeup we so desperately needed.

@Anti-Matter That is the one positive about this, and I was actually thinking about the same thing on the next gen improvements thread.

@NintendoByNature It's okay. I don't think it's meant to be that funny, I think it's just dad-joke quality humor.

@Anti-Matter ...

It's a joke, of course there really are 100 people, I was just making fun of how few Nintendo fans are interested in this.

@raygboyd333 Are there even 100 people interested in this game?

@NintendoByNature According to one of the leaks, it's supposed to be a pun. "Horse" sounds close to "host" in some languages, the joke is that the game has a horse as a host.

Great. Now tell me what that gameplay actually is and then maybe I'll get excited.

Yikes, major red flag here. The game looks good so far, but I'm wary. The Mania devs backing out and Arzest taking over is pretty much the exact opposite of what you'd want to happen.

I really wish Captain Toad Treasure Tracker would get a sequel, it's so fun and charming and unique.

Yawn. Main series Pokemon games when?

Oh this is getting C&D'd HARD, but appreciate the skills.

I wonder if Nintendo is interested in partnering with some family friendly VTubers though? Would be good marketing for them.

Shadow dropping a title like this? Yeeahhh, there's no Direct this month. This would be a Direct announcement otherwise.

@JoeyTS Ehh, it's really just quantity over quality. It's simplistic track designs with low-quality unfitting graphics. Feels like you're setting your standards a bit low here TBH, Nintendo could be giving us so much more if we actually asked for more.

The other 6/10 are spread across different genres (you have 1 racing game, 1 life sim game, 1 fighting game, 1 party game, 1 2D platformer, and 1 exercise game). Now granted genres are a bit hard to define and cross over with each other (after all the 4 open world/sandbox games could be considered different genres themselves as 1 is an action/adventure, 1 is a 3D platformer, and 2 are RPGs), but the 6 non-open world/sandbox games all play radically different from each other (at best, you could connect a few of them for being multiplayer games, but even that feels like a bit of a stretch and even then, there aren't more than 4 of those) whereas the open world games have a bit more in common with each other. And again, you're missing the context without digging deeper into the data. BotW is the best selling Zelda game. Mario Odyssey is the best selling 3D Mario. SwSh and SV are some of the best selling Pokemon games. So Mario Kart going open world could make it the best selling Mario Kart game.

Yes, spinoffs of spinoffs have happened before if the spinoff itself is popular enough. Can't think of any video game examples off the top of my head, but in TV, NCIS is a spinoff of JAG and has itself received multiple spinoffs (NCIS:LA and NCIS:NO). Mario Kart is in a similar situation that despite being a spinoff, it's still so immensely popular that it itself would be deserving of a spinoff or subseries.

The problem with one Mario Kart per console is that console generations typically last 5-8 years, but players are going to get bored long before that point. Usually for more popular IPs you'd want something about every 3-5 years. When Nintendo had separate handhelds and consoles, that wasn't an issue because they could stagger handheld and console Mario Karts to fill in the gaps but now that they have one hybrid device, the one Mario Kart per console rule is a drag on the series (doubly so when the most recent entry is a PORT and we've been playing the same entry for 10 years, which is by far the longest drought in series history). They need something to fill in the gaps, and a new style of gameplay is a great way to do that without cannibalizing the main entries. No one's going to question whether having both a 2D Mario and a 3D Mario or a 2D Metroid and a Metroid Prime would cannibalize each other because they're both very different flavors of Mario and Metroid respectively. Mario Kart needs something similar to fill in the gaps.

Big picture you don't really "need" anything, and Nintendo has already done several games they didn't "need" to do (it made sequels to BotW and Splatoon 2, for example). They pay attention to whether or not it's beneficial, and there's definitely an argument to be made that it's beneficial financially and creatively. With as much as Mario Kart sells, having more frequent releases could definitely benefit them financially, having a new flavor of Mario Kart could benefit them creatively, and making said flavor a more open world variety seems primed to benefit them in both ways.

@JoeyTS I'm not saying Tour is better than 8D, I'm saying a 9 with 8D's sales model and Tour's mechanic additions (key word: "additions", they should not replace what 8D has done) would be better than 8D. You're scamming yourself out of an even better experience than MK8 by not looking towards other games, even ones that might be bad overall, and thinking "is there something of value in these ideas that could be done better and improve the experience?". Good example of that is the Melee Counter in 2D Metroid, they tried pushing for more melee combat mechanics in Other M and everyone hates that game, but in Samus Returns they scaled things back, focused more on the traditional Metroid gameplay people loved, and kept the Melee Counter as an Other M-like element better adapted to traditional Metroid gameplay and that was far better received.

You can't really conclude that open world would lower MK8D's sales, you need more data to prove that (most notably, which demographics are buying the games and what games have they bought previously). If anything, it actually appears to be the opposite because many games that have gone more of a sandbox/open world direction have broken sales records for their IPs or at least come close (see: BotW, Mario Odyssey, Pokemon SV). This is why people keep jumping on the open world bandwagon. And while they haven't gone Top 3, 4 out of the Top 10 are open world or at least sandbox experiences, so it's clearly one of the top selling genres.

Mario has never been an adventure game, but racing through and exploring large open areas does not conflict with racing casually and competitively. They can make it a side series if they want like the sandbox Marios or Metroid Prime (and that might be for the best because I'm not sure it really mixes well with traditional Mario Kart gameplay, but it would do well as a different feeling Mario Kart that could run alongside the main series). That's what Forza Horizons is, it's a subseries of Forza. Why shouldn't Nintendo want their own Forza Horizons for Mario Kart, especially when they insist on only having one main entry per console? They'll need something to fill in the gaps when console generations tend to be 5+ years, and DLC is such a tremendous waste of creativity (and possibly sales too, it feels like they're leaving money on the table by not having a big Mario Kart game of some kind midway through the Switch's lifespan).

@JoeyTS Spoken like someone that's never played Tour. Tour actually does a lot of things better than 8 mechanically if you look past the gacha. It has an actual shop instead of random unlocks every X coins (who's bright idea was this?), it has R (reverse, where you play the course backwards), T (trick, where a bunch of trick ramps are added), and R/T (which is a reverse track with trick ramps added) variant courses. It has a scoring system which, while it probably shouldn't be a major focus, would probably make for a good Score Attack side mode. It brings back multiple fan favorite features such as missions and special items. MKT is a good game in spite of the gacha mechanics and mobile controls, and carrying these mechanics (not just the courses and characters) to a full console Mario Kart would result in a game that blows 8D out of the water. But nope, let's just bring the worst non-mobile aspects of MKT over to 8 because we're too cheap/lazy.

Open world/sandbox games are highly popular too. BotW, TotK, Mario Odyssey, Pokemon LA and SV have all sold 10+, several of those even 20+. Heck, TotK has only been on the market for 2 weeks and it's already passed 10 million. Additionally, there's been multiple fans expressing demand for another Diddy Kong Racing game, and that's kind of an early predecessor. An open world Mario Kart game would be a spiritual successor to DKR, and would probably at least partially satisfy that demand. So no, no one you know personally may not want open world Mario Kart, but it's pretty clear there's a huge market for it. The demand is certainly there.

Additionally, this would be a very different type of open world. You don't really see a lot of open world racing games, usually it's action/adventures, platformers, and RPGs that go open world. You would interact with the world different on a kart, so it wouldn't quite feel and play the same as your average open world game.

@johnvboy This is why extending a 5 year old port with mobile content felt like the wrong move, it's such a waste of potential to do nothing more than milk MK8 dry instead of you know... making an actual new game with something unique and original, even if said new game isn't quite a direct successor. Open world Mario Kart would've been the perfect way to tide people over to a legit MK9 and I'm very confused as to why (besides greed and laziness) they wouldn't have SOME kind of open world karting experiment on the Switch instead of simply "LOL mobile ports as DLC". Chaotic_Neutral's claim that Nintendo is "predatory" is an exaggeration but he's not far off with MK8D basically trying to make a killing reselling us the same content. And the fanbase is sadly eating it up far too easily.

@Not_Soos God no, we need Mario Kart 9 yesterday with actual new mechanics. Port Tour stuff to that if they must, not a 10 year old game that's long overstayed its welcome. You want to talk beating a dead horse, that's what Nintendo's been doing to MK8.

FINALLY WEDDING PEACH RETURNS! Been waiting ages for a rerun.

Sony is copying Nintendo's homework again!

Why was this article updated? It doesn't look like there's any new information on the Switch port.

I'm also interested in hearing what they're doing with shrines/dungeons, that's the main thing I want to know before buying the game. I need to know what we're actually going to be doing in the overworld besides fighting enemies and messing around with fusions.

@Bret Obviously not based on the description, but the question remains why isn't it? What purpose does it serve as is?

Yeah no, playing it without the GB games on NSO is nearly pointless, those rental Pokemon are garbage. Wake me up when it's time for RBY.

First of all, never heard of this event until now, so that's not good.

Second of all, why do they only focus on old multiplayer games at this event? This would be a perfect E3 replacement, particularly for the Treehouse segments which they can't really replicate very well during Directs, we're largely missing the sort of hands-on coverage that Treehouse provided with E3 dying off.

It does feel like we're overdue for a new Mario game now, we typically don't wait 6 years for one. Wonder what's the holdup?

@serouj2000 I was fine with it back then. I wished they had done a big show, but the format itself wasn't really bad. In fact 2014 was one of the best E3s I've seen from Nintendo. As for 2013, I was more disappointed in the content than the format, especially with how Iwata teased what they were revealing which got my hopes up sky high. He teased they would reveal 3D Mario, Mario Kart, Smash, and "a beloved IP by Retro", and I thought "awesome, we're getting a new sandbox Mario and Metroid Prime 4". I was utterly crushed when it was just 3D World, a samey looking sequel to 3D Land, and Tropical Freeze, a samey looking sequel to DKCR. Now I probably still wouldn't have liked that E3 because it didn't quite have the games I was waiting for (in fact I would have to wait until the Switch in 2017 for the games I was waiting for, which was even more crushing and disappointing), but Iwata's tease made it sound like 2013 was going to be what 2017 was and then the actual presentation pulled the rug underneath me and made me feel worse. Not very smart PR there.

@sd7232 No reason to believe this will cause a crash. E3 is an obsolete format now that publishers can livestream news whenever they feel like. Be real, why do we care about Nintendo showing up at E3 when they can air a Nintendo Direct at any time of the year?

@NewAdvent I don't agree, BW2 had a ton of new areas which we could tell going in, we could see some changes to even older areas, and we knew that there were going to be a ton of older Pokemon and new mechanics which changed up the gameplay. I'm not getting the same vibe from TotK. The map looks closer to USUM than BW2.

@MS7000 And that's another great point. Exploration is a central mechanic to Zelda that phoning it in like this with a largely similar map greatly reduces the appeal. So yeah, the heavy reuse of the same map is a big deal and the comparisons brought up in the article aren't very applicable.

@StarPoint @blindsquarel Name another sequel where the map looked about 80% similar to the map from the first game. That's the biggest issue with TotK. We can talk about games like Majora's Mask or Banjo-Tooie being asset flips, but most if not all of the game worlds in those kinds of games were new areas that did not exist in their predecessors. This just looks like it's mostly the same areas we already explored in BotW with little added, I agree with @ButterCashier on their comparison on Pokemon Sun/Moon to Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, that looks to be more accurate to what this is.

@tabris95 Don't read too much into that statement, I think it's PR speak for "F-Zero doesn't sell enough and we're looking for something that can boost its sales". The fact that they don't seem to think the Switch is enough is a grim omen for that fanbase, it may just be dead at this point.

I think whether or not a game feels "similar" comes down to two things:

1. Does the world look or feel largely similar?
2. Are you performing the same actions as you did for its predecessor?

If you're reusing the same maps, creating new maps that just look or feel similar to old ones, or just performing the same actions that you did in the last game, that can feel repetitive and boring. It just feels like you're making a new game for the sake of having something to sell and it doesn't feel like you actually have new ideas that make the same concept more fun. That's where the "this game is too similar" complaints come from.

Now in TotK's case, it doesn't fail the second point, abilities such as Fusing and the Ultrahand do seem to shake up what you're actually going to be doing in the game and those parts are exciting. But it does fail the first point, the overworld looks largely the same. It doesn't feel like Hyrule is significantly changed from BotW to make exploring it still fun (you have the sky islands, but that looks like maybe 20% of the overworld at best). It's one thing to reuse assets by bringing back some characters or objects. It's another thing entirely to reuse 80% OF THE MAP. Was MM just 80% OoT's Hyrule? Was Galaxy 2 just 80% of Galaxy 1's levels? This is the biggest sticking point with TotK for me, if you're reusing 80% of the map, it's not worth paying $70 and from the consumer standpoint, it's better off as DLC.

It looks slightly better than I expected, but still fairly samey. It's not quite DLC, but it does look more like BotW 1.5 than BotW 2. Guess now we know what took them so long to make, the Fuse mechanic probably took up a ton of dev time.

Has to be 2017. And no, I'm not a Zoomer who started on the Switch, I've been around the block for a while (since late 5th gen/early 6th gen). Sorry, but having BotW, Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Metroid Samus Returns, and MK8D (which I experienced for the first time because I skipped the Wii U) is just too good a lineup to beat. That's like, a lot of my favorite IPs, many of which carry a similar but modernized spirit of the open 3D game worlds I enjoyed as a child, all in one year. It's going to be hard to top that.

Actually a Pokemon exercise app isn't a bad idea. We've seen how popular Ring Fit Adventure is.

2017 by far. Nothing beats having a new 3D Zelda game, a new 3D Mario game, a new Splatoon game, and an excellent Mario Kart port. That's some of Nintendo's biggest IPs all in one year. Insane that all of this released in the course of a year, I'm not sure Nintendo will ever have a lineup this good again.

Okay, this is actually a great lineup. If I cared about the Booster Course Pack, I'd be stoked with this lineup. Riverside Park and Bangkok Rush are the two courses I'd have most wanted to see make the jump from Tour and their both coming in Tour, Yoshi's Island looked really good in the Direct, and Waluigi's Stadium looks very well improved.

@FawfulDX We didn't get either really. The rumors about this being a light year seem to be spot on.

Pretty awful. Felt like time for NSO and/or some console spinoffs but nope, just mobile stuff and DLC (and even in those areas they didn't reveal all that much). Easily the worst one I can remember.

@BrazillianCara Really? Then maybe I just got extremely lucky because mine both had beneficial natures. I thought that was intentional.