Comments 111

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (18th October)

BrewsterTea

Pokemon Legends ZA and Final Fantasy Tactics! I've waited all year for these two RPG's, so I'm very excited to play both at last. I'm brewing a cup of super chai for the play session! (a strong cup of royal English breakfast, extra turmeric powder with Ceylon, maple syrup and milk)

Currently booting up Legends ZA and debating which starter to pick. I really like Tepig's cute eyes, but I'm usually happiest choosing the water starter... decisions!

Also just starting out in Tactics, so I'm getting my bearings and just now pushing through the tutorial battles. I'm loving the familiar Tactics feeling and presentation after growing up with Tactics Advance. So much polish and production value lovingly devoted to this humble strategy RPG.

Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Pokémon Legends: Z-A

BrewsterTea

@ShadLink Exactly. Legends is seesawing between zero cities in Arceus to all city in ZA. I actually found it a negative that Legends Arceus had almost no proper villages or cities outside of the one hub town. Everything outside of the hub town was more like a humble encampment than a proper "village."

Granted, I still enjoyed exploring the open, wild areas in Legends Arceus. But I definitely felt like a crucial ingredient in the Pokemon recipe that was missing in Legends Arceus was that sense of discovery as you made your way from one city or town to the next.

Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Switch 2 Rating Spotted Online

BrewsterTea

Am I alone in wanting just a ninja version of Assassin's Creed Shadows without the samurai? It could be like choosing between Pokemon versions: Assassin's Creed Ninja and Assassin's Creed Samurai 😂 Both the character and the play style don't really interest me as much based on footage. I would much rather just slip about as a ninja 24/7. Ah well. Still very interested in this! Even more so than Star Wars Outlaws.

I would also love an Assassin's Creed 1 remake! I was one of those people who loved the sci-fi aspects of playing both the future storyline and plugging into the Matrix-- er, the past. And I checked out of the franchise when ACRevelations was pretty much the last one with a playable future storyline for a while. I never found out if the later installments added it back in.

Re: Nintendo Goes Full Pixar In Strange New Animated Short Film, 'Close To You'

BrewsterTea

People are disagreeing over Pikmin Vs Mario. Well, to Miyamoto's credit of saying Pikmin are everywhere on earth, why not both? Why not sprinkle Pikmin into the Mario movies as a cameo appearance? It could be a teaser for Pikmin 5, or it could be a teaser for the Mario Galaxy movie with a cute nod at Pikmin existing on earth within the Mario Cinematic Universe.

@OstianOwl Somebody higher up in the comments already answered your question 😋

Re: Mario's Super Picross Has Got Some Rather Lovely NSO Icons

BrewsterTea

@SillyG I'm also pretty frustrated at Nintendo for simply dumping Japanese-language games onto NSO without a simple translation. With all the features to tweak lighting, rewinding and etc., the games already lose that "authentic" concept regardless. It would be a huge benefit for everyone who can't read Japanese, especially for the dialogue-heavy adventure games like Starfy.

Re: "OpenAI Is Trying To Get Sued" - Nintendo IP Floods Sora 2 Video Generation App

BrewsterTea

The novelty of the memes generated by these kind of clips will desensitize average folk to the scale of theft and destruction laid out by corporate greed. The so-called opt-out policy is nothing but a steal first and get away with it later kind of bravado. As others have said, the theft has already taken place. They will pretend to comply, but most likely they will not destroy the valuable algorithm training that has already happened.

Re: Are You "Unsure" About Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade For Switch 2? Don't Worry, There'll Be A Demo

BrewsterTea

@Whirlwound Look, I get it. But we know Nintendo; the unnecessarily small and arbitrarily designed proprietary cartridges are not going to change until we move on to a brand new console. I'm not thrilled about game key cards, but I don't want to wait until the Switch 3 or 4 to go back to collecting physical mementos for my favorite games.

Even if Nintendo tried to backpedal from game key cards in some way within the Switch 2's life cycle, there's one thing we know for certain: the size of the cartridges are not going to change, and there's not much they can do to shrink the technology down to such a tiny form factor. Not within the next few years. Maybe in 5-10 years there will be more engineering advancements to shrink the kind of things like MB/s, storage, etc into the size of a Switch cartridge. But that's a ways off, and Nintendo should have foreseen these issues when they bottlenecked the form factor.

Re: Game-Key Cards A "Sales Strategy Decision", Says Resident Evil Requiem Director

BrewsterTea

There is a third option. Nintendo needs to go back to longer, wider cartridges that can accommodate better technology. Both Switch 1 and Switch 2 cartridges were made far too small, which severely limits its ability to cram adequate technology inside. It will take many years to shrink today's MB/s standards down to such a tiny form factor.

Nintendo wrote themselves into a corner, unnecessarily so. A solution is possible, but not with Nintendo's stubborn adherence to overly small cartridges.

Re: Review: Klonoa: Empire Of Dreams (GBA) - One Of The System's Best Still Plays Like A Dream

BrewsterTea

Seeing all those old comments from 2014 makes me nostalgic for the old 3DS/Wii U era. It's fun to see a game like Klonoa feel timeless comparing people's excitement back then to now.

Playing through it now, and I'm really enjoying it. Simple gameplay so far while I clear through Adventures in Ghazzaland, but I find it a great example of tightly designed mechanics revolving around quick, breezy portable play sessions. Lots of old GBA and DS games contained this satisfying type of "portable gaming" game design that I feel like is missing in a lot of modern games.

Re: Feature: Who Is Devon Pritchard? - Meet The Next NOA President Stepping Into Bowser's Boots

BrewsterTea

@charliecarrot Fully agree. But I will add, for all we know, it might have been Doug Bowser's personal prerogative not to be involved in the same manner. Perhaps it was the context of directly following up Reggie, who was such an influential and personal force within the Nintendo community, that made him shy away from competing with his legacy.

I for one would enjoy seeing more personal involvement from our next NOA president. Iwata was right; in the end, Nintendo sells a form of joy and lighthearted fun more than anything else. And seeing even the executives commit to that went a long way, back in the day.

Re: Review: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - An Excellent Port Of A Timeless Classic

BrewsterTea

@charliecarrot Tactics Advance has incredible music! Extremely catchy tunes, with iconic melodies for the nostalgic. The sound design also was superb, with bubbly and distinct SFX. I'm still salty that I missed the boat on Tactics A2 on NDS back in the day.

@CJD87 That's great to hear! Let us know what you think in the forums after you get a chance to play it. And if this game ends up floating your boat, I would recommend following up with Unicorn Overlord for the epic food or Triangle Strategy for the warring houses.

Re: Animal Crossing-Inspired Life Sim For Switch 2 Looks Pretty Amazing

BrewsterTea

Other than the graphics of course looking impressive, I'm not enthusiastic about the Toy Story-esque setting. Like @Ogbert said, the art design is leaning too far into bubble-gum cutesy compared to the balanced and earthy design that Animal Crossing achieves. Another personal quibble are the human characters depicted as kids instead of chibi, again leaning too hard into the cutesy aesthetic without any unique identity to its art design.

Kind of seems like a bad omen of the direction many developers are heading into. When a company cuts too many corners with art design, it can leave many newer games appearing superficial and soulless.

Re: Review: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - An Excellent Port Of A Timeless Classic

BrewsterTea

@CJD87 With multiple difficulty options that you can switch between on the fly, the latest QoL enhancements, plus a brand new State of the Realm encyclopedia mechanic brought over from FFXVI, this is easily the best game to dip your toes into the SRPG genre! Not to mention the game itself stands as one of the finest RPG stories of all time. Highly recommended!

I also love deck-building games, and they added FFTactics Advance's addicting ability management into this game's pre-battle phase as one of the QoL enhancements.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (20th September)

BrewsterTea

I'm digging up my old Game Boy Advance SP and copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to get ready for The Ivalice Chronicles releasing later this month. I'm so excited to play FFTactics on the Switch 2!

Just spent almost an hour roaming through Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom. Speaking to a traveler tipped me off to another cherry blossom tree at the top of the mountain; I climbed my way up and offered a golden apple to the blessed Satori (or should I say Satoru), who then directed me to about 4 more caves. However, I think I need to pull out the guidebook again to help direct me, since I could spend hundreds of hours in such a massive world without accomplishing very much!

I'm trying to complete TOTK before moving on fully to other games on Switch 2, but it's very tempting to dip my toes into Hogwarts Legacy every now and then. I just made it to Hogsmeade, and I'm utterly enchanted. For years I listened to all of the Hogwarts Legacy ambience playlists on Youtube since I'm such a fan of HP music. Finally experiencing the game on my platform of choice is a treat.

Re: New Limited-Time Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Distribution Now Available

BrewsterTea

@Narrator1 Chi-Yu is the last one, and all four Treasure Raid shiny's will only be available until September 30th. So make sure to boot up your game and download them before you forget!

@SpaceboyScreams Hard disagree. Legends ZA has not seemed "blatantly incomplete"; the latest footage appears remarkably polished, both with the graphics and performance. Seems irrational to continue hating on Pokemon when the vitriol is unwarranted.