Bomberman64

What is going on with this guy and Square Enix lately??

@anibalherrerab yeah my heart stopped for a moment there.

Anyways.

Happy birthday!

@Ryu_Niiyama Not sure if you're joking or not... 😅 Although I have no data to backup my claim, I would say that that big bite taken off of the years 10-20 demographic is due to Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, not to mention an online experience that leaves a lot to be desired.

Saturn and Panzer Dragoon Saga.

The Master System comes in at a firm second place. Dreamcast third.

At fourth I'd also dive into more Sega CD (Snatcher) and 32x (Knuckles Chaotix).

I wonder what decision went behind deciding to make the game boy player. It looks very much like it was planned along with the original design of the gamecube.

Was it Nintendo's attenpt at safeguarding themselves from having a lack of software coming from the days of the N64 by allowing gba games to be played?

@Beaucine These are very good points! I'm very curious about where the line could be drawn, as in would it be possible to release a game on the PS5 and say "this game was intentionally made to look like a PS4 game"? Does two/three console generations have to have gone by (GC->NSW)? I know there is no definite answer but it's very interesting.

PS1 era graphics are easy to see as a stylistic decision but I find it harder to call it a stylistic decision the closer we get to the current gen. Some examples you have could be Deadly Premonition which seems to have gone for a sort of downgrade although in a slightly different sense.

"Would look great on the GameCube". This raises the question of when is something stylishly retro and when does it look like it just doesn't utilize the power of the system it's on? This is not a criticism of this game, just a question in general.

Unironically Yoshi's New Island - The Special Levels

@upisdown Yep, couldn't agree more. What I meant is that I prefer curated rereleases, whether emulated or made otherwise, where it's not just "We have 100 games and they all have the same features of fast forward, rewind and save states but no game-specific enhancements." but instead something like what I described for Phantasy Star with its Etrian Odyssey-like auto-mapping among many things.

@upisdown I agree, but there are ways to modernize old games and keeping much of the experience intact.

Some mentioned the usual emualtor stuff like save states and rewind. Not too fan of them myself. But something like Phantasy Star 1 Ages on Switch is a great example of doing it right (2x gold and xp, dungeon map etc.).

Old games need careful thought put into them to make them approachable for a modern new audience. OOT3D did many things right.

I've introduced many players to older games and been both successful and not successful in doing it. Generally if the gameplay catches on, then the older-looking graphics don't matter too much.

I was sure this was referencing Die by the Sword game but it doesn't seem like it.

Nice to see how you can start off making Earthbound romhacks and end up making such great achievements!

@Outerdragon I thought only the US escaped the price increase. Didn't they bump it up by 100 £ (EDIT: It's 30) in the UK?
Of course in reality the actual price for a PS5 is way higher since you can't find it in stores anyways

Was this before the PS5 price increase?

The way this was worded almost sounds like we'll be getting ports of the Gamecube versions of these games. That would be a hard slap in the face.

I can only suspect Sakurai plays his games on a CRT or a monitor that has a very clear picture in motion.

30 fps on N64/PS1/PS2/GC was fine because most of us were on CRTs which inherently have better motion resolution. In other words, 30 fps looked less blurry in motion than on your 4K TV.

Which is probably why we see so many people comment that they can't notice the difference between 60 fps and 120 fps, it depends on your TV how obvious it will be.

I guess if your TV is close to a PSP 1000 model's LCD, then 30 fps vs 60 fps would be harder to notice too.

This is going to be like the cinemas showing Anti-Piracy commercials before the movie - it's only gonna affect the honest consumer, in this case with slow downs or similar things.

@Pigeon After recently finishing Kirby Super Star 100% and also being a Smash fan, it's a bit more obvious what formula he has for making games.

I'd forgotten about the outliers Kid Icarus and Kirby Air Ride.

I'd love to see him get the chance to go more out of the Smash Bros bubble. Seems like he's got a curse om him that forces him to only spend his life on that.

@Ferdinand_Von_Aegir Thanks for the heads up then. I didn't know. I wonder how many have bricked their switches like this

I'd be curious to see if they're gonna pull a New 3DS and remove the charger and market it as a "cheaper" Switch.

Does any usb C charger work with the Switch?

The timing would be perfect for when the new EU law gets in force according to which Apple products will have to use USB C meaning that more households will have one lying around.

I wouldn't be against this personally.

It's remarkable how Mario Kart 8 manged to sell only slightly less copies than Gran Turismo 7.

I have to remind myself that the game first came out for the Wii U years ago.

@alexybubble Hahaha! I had completely forgotten about that one so thanks for reminding me. You should ask an Italian what that crotch chop means there, and I'm quite sure it was censored for this very reason. I think we can agree it's on a whole other level than what Daisy's doing.

The crotch chop is much more in line with why the inkling's "Bras d'honneur" was censored in MK8D. It is literally like flipping the bird at someone - much worse than Daisy's "butter", I dare say.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/05/random_mario_kart_8_deluxe_patch_removes_offensive_bras_dhonneur_gesture

I believe some Super Mario Kart official artwork had a similar censoring done to it, but I can't seem to find this rn.

@theSiFX This, so much. Was gonna write how if any male character did this then it wouldn't get an article or have people making a fuss about it.

I guess my point was proven.

@Mr_Fox You'll be happy to know that fans have done the same for Jak and Daxter. It's called OpenGoal.

I was looking for more nuanced comments on this, like if this correlates to the recent announcement of stocking up on components on Nintendo's side (a new revision/hardware wouldn't be mutually exclusive with this), and if there have been legal changes that have forced them to implement such a service.

I can see families with small kids benefitting from it maybe.

Such a shame since I'd be curious to see how something unique as that would've been.

Even just using the wiimote to point or the joycon like in switch sports could be considered dangerous though - many TVs have suffered an ufortunate fate and I imagine people have been hit too.

@Tempestryke I'm curious as to which company I'm supposedly a hardcore fan of?

The way I see it is that Nintendo did it first in this current wave/gen of highly advertised and overall decent quality retro mini consoles. The older plug-and-play consoles were stuff you'd see in bargain bins and that would never get close to as much attention as the consoles of this wave. Anyways, if people had fun with them then more power to them.

That's not Chibi-Robo, that's Clank.

So they're basically saying that without them we might not have gotten the improved Switch with extended battery life, and since no Switch Pro seems to be releasing we'd be stuck with the original Switch, the OLED (with old switch hardware mind you) and the LITE?

@joey302 Yes, there never was a Super Fantasy Zone in US until it got put on the US Wiishop in 2008, going by Wikipedia.

Usually in Europe, even though the console was named Mega Drive, we only got the same releases as the US, heck most of the time some games wouldn't even arrive in Europe and only get localized to the US.

However, some very rarely Europe would get localizations that the US didn't get. One of them is Super Fantasy Zone and Zero Wing is another example.

@joey302 I actually got an answer and it is a completely new arcade port done by M2 themselves. They've done it again like they did with Gradius on the first Mega Drive mini. Also, didn't Super Fantasy Zone come out in Europe, which means it did come out in the west, just not the far west.

@Tempestryke My impression was that no other company dared to do a serious attempt until Nintendo came and did one. I'm prett much not counting the atGames consoles for sega systems. I mean by all means, Sega can beat the competition to it and I'd be happy. Nintendo have indeed done two generations but the hardware inside the mini consoles was the same so I'd feel Sega would be much more likely to make a Master System mini before a Saturn, let alone a DreamCast. Not sure what a SoC capable of running Saturn would cost right now either.

One point for thought is that sega have opened the gates to saturn emulation like we've recently seen released on Switch, even if the emu wasn't proprietary. Not sure what way they'd go. Maybe M2 is working on a Saturn emulator themselves.

@X68000 Yeah that's Super Fantasy Zone, no?

@Stocksy As I said you're free to do what you want with your money. My point was that I don't understand people who come to these threads just to say that they are just going to pirate it like they always do, you've already described yourself of not being in that "boat". It's anyone's right to be disappointed, just like how it's my right to be as hyped for this as I was with the first Mega Drive mini, and I almost never get hyped for anything game-related anymore. I guess I'm just happy to see we get the possibility to legally buy these games in this age of limited time digital sale (Nintendo) and the advent of game streaming.

@Hadooken84 You sound like we're stuck in the 90s, Sony just released the PS1 and you're arguing why the Mega Drive is a worse choice 😂 The PS5 is out too or the Xbox series X which both knock the Playstation Classic out of the competition (I'd argue any of the other mini consoles do too.)

@Coalescence I would justify it the same way I do by also owning a PC - legally owning copies of these games. It's anyone's choice what they want to do and I'm not telling you what you should do with your money, naturally.

@Stocksy Of course, there's nothing on the product that says that if you buy it they'll make another game in any of the included franchises. The discussion is whether to buy these second hand or get them in this physical release.

Yes there's always the other 'route', but if someone's already set on sailing that way then why would they waste their time here in this article.

@Ellie-Moo Your wish was just granted xD The Sega CD addon is a thing and the detail of it looks amazing. It even works with the first Mini system with an added extender piece, though I'm pretty sure it's all just plastic. There's even a Virtua Racing cartridge.

EDIT: That 32X addon is such a tease.

@YoshiAngemon I think the stream confirmed it's a new Mega Drive build since on the game menu they show its release date as '2022 10 27'.

I'm seeing Fantasy Zone but not sure if it's the Master System version or arcade? So we're getting games from even more systems/hardware than 'only' Mega Drive, SVP and Sega CD.

@Fizza You're forgetting the Saturn I think we should be happy that they're actually making steps into the future by adding Sega CD.

I honestly don't think we'll see anything from Saturn or Dreamcast until Nintendo makes mini consoles for those generations.

@Ellie-Moo If you buy the mini console you'll be supporting the IP holder directly and who knows if we might get something in the future in those franchises, compared to cashing out for a second hand copy. Just my 2 cents.

@YoshiAngemon Looking at their stream they have the SVP chip emulated by showing Virtua Racing, unless that is indeed the 32X version. Either way they're just continuing to show one banger after the other on that stream. Sonic CD! Magical Taruruto-Kun! Shining in the Darkness! and more! All classics whether you like those games or not. No shovelware so far.

Oh damn! That's a must buy for me with those games in the lineup. It's basically a Sega CD.

@Wexter There's nothing stopping Ubisoft from doing what Squeenix just did and sell off some of their IP.

@HeadPirate I didn't know this about Japanese culture, so thanks for explaing it very clearly. It would seem that Nintendo has started catering to more western mentality then, if we look at how they added auto-pilot for MK8DX, and how they marketed this as an accessibility feature.

You're right that microsoft has indeed more money and the possibilities to spend on this, and this is also the core aspect of accessibility features (and anything really): money. Having these features or not is decided through a calculated assessment, and I haven't seen any estimations of the market here.

Accessibility comes in both software and hardware, and Nintendo produces both. That's why I felt it natural for Nintendo to ask their new friend Microsoft (if media is anything to go by) for help, seeing that they've engineered the most accessible controller yet.

On the software front, you can compare Nintendo to anyone who makes games. If a small Indie company can spare the time/money to make a colorblind mode or a text-to-voice mode, then surely Nintendo can too. The question is will they profit from it.

Yes, for some players scalable difficulty can help a lot, but other times you need some control scheme that facilities getting enjoyment from the game. I know Wii Sports was accessible for many players, and I'm hoping Nintendo Switch Sports is as well, without having played the latter. Mario Galaxies have the 2 player mode which Odyssey has too. These modes can help with making the games accessible, and not just exist "for the annoying younger brother" to join in.

Personally, my wish it to see more players getting to have the same experience I had when playing great Nintendo titles, like when I was finally able to solve a hard puzzle in Ocarina of Time, or catching a legendary Pokémon etc.

Unless they have a cognitive disability, there is no difference in the ability to reason between people with or without an impairment, what that means is that we can both analyze and plan a set course of actions to beat a challenge, like how to solve a puzzle. The only differnce is that most of the time the controls or options available, or lack of, make accomplishing this exclusive to the people that don't have any impairments.

@Sonos Yes, I wanted to point out this out about the article too. The fact that 90% of the comments are about personal preferences in the Xenoblade series shows that the article wasn't well focused. I do, however, appreciate them making such an article.

They should have also mentioned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe since that is the prime example of Nintendo doing something right in this area.

Thanks for taking the time to read my lengthy post!

Reading all these comments I realize that most of the commenters think of "accessibility" as "quality of life" features or stuff that makes "playing it easy".

Personally, when I read accessibility features I think about stuff that makes the game at all possible to play for people with various impairments like visual, hearing or coordination.

Even though I'm a Nintendo fan, accessibility is always a point where I feel they have missed the mark. The only time I can remember them doing something right was the auto-pilot for MK8 Deluxe. They should take some notes or just ask for advice from Microsoft on this point IMO.

Another part of accessibility that people often forget is that first-party Nintendo games almost never get any localizations outside of the usual English, *Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian and German. This is the only point I know where Sony caters better to children, you can say all you want about intuitive gameplay, but even Mario Odyssey requires you to read in a foreign language. Sure, you will most likely still find enjoyment from playing them and not understanding any text, but that's like saying you should settle for the funny scenes in a movie without understanding any of the dialog. Tell that to anime fans who rely on fan translations, or anyone who grew up with Disney movies.

*Japanese is often the original language.

Those Etrian Odyssey prices are really tempting, though I want to buy those in physical form. I could buy them digital just to feel like I've paid the devs as directly as possible for them...