BulbasaurusRex

We were correct about Skyward's Swords controls being ported badly, though. While it was a good idea to use the right analog stick for the motion-controlled sword swings, all of the other motion controlled actions were significantly downgraded on both control schemes compared to the original Wii version as we predicted all along.

Those games were already in development with those specific Pokémon already revealed to be in the upcoming games. As such, unlike the other three, they were already canon to the video games when they were brought into the anime. Though, it's still remarkable that we even had three Pokémon that were created for the anime first and then became ascended fanon for Gold/Silver. Crystal Onix may even be considered canon now if you consider it to be a Terrastalized Onix.

That's why I said "technically." The original game wasn't a Mario game, so Shy Guy and Birdo technically debuted as Mario characters in the Western version of SMB2.

@FirstEmperor The only Pokémon that debuted in the anime were Ho-oh, Togepi, and Lugia (in the second movie). Some others had early-bird cameos, but their respective video games had already been released or were near release by the time they appeared.

Technically, we did have canon Mario characters debut in an initially Western exclusive video game, though.

So it wasn't just the animation and voice acting that had terribly limited budgets, huh?

This is brilliant!

Well, there's no gaymance between Phoenix and Miles, but otherwise that Ace Attorney movie already exists, and it's really good!

Wow, those are some of the worst retro-inspired graphics I've ever seen! Aside from the fact that 8-bit inspired retro graphics are too retro to where they just look ugly, these idiots actually used a red tint and freakin' scan lines on purpose (and not just as an optional filter on a retro re-release) to make it look even worse!

We put up with such archaic graphical features in the past only because we had to, not because they actually looked good!

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Yeah, unlike with the 3D Mario and Zelda games, Monolith has actually figured out that 3rd person 3D games (aside from the rare ones designed around fixed angles) work best with an automatic behind-the-back camera that only rarely needs manual adjustments. That's the main reason why "Super Mario Odyssey" and "Breath of the Wild" suck compared to XC2 and XC3.

@GamingFan4Lyf No, it's not required, but the convenience is such that the game would just not be as enjoyable to play on any other system. It's just that much of a convenience, and any port or remaster would suffer a very annoying downgrade in its gameplay that is just not worth any of the benefits it would provide.

Basically, a Switch port would unnecessarily drag down the game's reputation, as so many players and reviewers would be complaining about how awkward it is to keep switching the map on and off so often and how often they'd need to mark it with awkward gyro or cursor controls when playing in docked mode, most of them never realizing that it was actually a brilliant system and a notable selling point for the game on the Wii U.

The other XC games do not rely on their maps to anywhere near the same degree that XCX does. In fact, I don't think any video game does! The only reason they even bothered to use such an extensive mapping feature in the first place was due to how it could actually work well with the Wii U's asynchronic dual screens.

@HeadPirate Sure, that's the definition of pure capitalism, but most capitalist countries don't go that far anymore. Most modern first world countries like the U.S. and the U.K. run on a mostly capitalist economy but with proper regulations and safeguards as well as a decent but not completely excessive amount of socialist programs. They're still best described as capitalist economies but without many of the downsides that you pointed out.

Meanwhile, you're confusing "socialist" with "Communist." Communist countries attempt to run a mostly socialist economy through ownership by the State, not the people, and such an economy always fails badly. China does as well as it does only because they loosened up into a hybrid economy. Most Communist countries also wind up run by tyrannical dictators, as well.

@TechaNinja Even so, you can still be tricked into making extra purchases beyond the purchase that you did intend to make in the Item Shop.

@Hero-of-WiiU Well, it's not your own decision if you get tricked into buying something you never intended to purchase like in this case.

@Expa0 I think it depends on how the mechanics of the game work as to whether or not automatic health and mana restoration is good or bad. I agree that it may not work with the more traditional turn-based mechanics described here, although I'll reserve judgment as it may synergize well with that Overdrive mechanic, but it works great in the "Xenoblade" series, for example.

I wonder what happens when you try to gift someone horse manure...

@valharian Some kind of between battle system is needed, if for nothing else than for buying, selling, equipment/skill maintenance, and support conversations.

However, I agree that they've been taking the sim elements too far since My Castle in "Fates," and "Three Heroes" is worst of all in that regard. Although, be glad that unlike "Three Houses" it's back to being a secondary gameplay system.

Pokémon has been having the same problem ever since Pokémon Amié and Super Training in Gen 6 up to those stupid sandwiches now in Gen 9.

(Some would argue it's even been a problem since Contests in Gen 3, but at least those were actually a pretty deep side game and completely skippable with no bearing on the actual game mechanics if you didn't like them. You just had to use the Pokéblock machine just enough to evolve Feebas once you acquired enough of the best berries for doing so.)

@Greatluigi Yeah, I was unaware of the sub-series until I watched the anime adaptation "Mega Man: NT Warrior" and later learned it was based on a GameCube game which I then bought, which I then found out was a spinoff of a series of GBA games.

I bought a version of the 5th game on GBA, and I eventually bought the rest of the series (one version each) on the Wii U VC.

@horobita Yeah, it's a real shame that "Network Transmission" wasn't included, as it's arguably the best game in the whole series.

Dated gameplay? Only in the sense that the whole series is dated, as its lovely hybrid gameplay is better than that of any of the main sub-series GBA games.

@AtlanteanMan I don't know about that. While some are still stuck in limbo (outside of appearances in the "Sega All-Stars Racing duology" and maybe a retro port or two), many of Sega's older franchises have seen revival games or at least remasters within the last decade, and even Nights had a sequel on the Wii.

He's the one-eyed, one-nosed, spin-dashing, blue, chili dog eater!

@Takoda I wonder why most beat 'em up games don't just adjust the number and health of enemies and bosses to account for the number of players. Even dynamically adjusting those things on the fly when players drop in/out shouldn't be difficult on modern hardware. Wouldn't that be the best solution?

XCX is indeed a great game, but I still much prefer the structure of the first game over such open-ended exploration. The first Xenoblade has an excellent mix of open exploration and linear structure for progression in the game.

XCX, however, has too much of an open world where you have too much freedom to explore at the cost of needed structure to advance the game's plot. It's too hard to keep track of where things are, and where or when you need to go to certain places, while the world of Mira itself becomes too awkward and bogged down with frustrating 3D platforming in many places before you can get a Skell. I get that certain areas are only accessible to Skells, but even among those areas open to on-foot travel there is too much awkward moving and jumping required that was never an issue on the Bionis or Mechonis.

Yes, the open world of XCX was influential, and the lack of loading screens was a definite improvement, but RPGs and adventure games really need to stop using completely open worlds and settle for seamless semi-open worlds with proper structure.

The same goes for Pokémon, where a return to the semi-open exploration in Gen 1 would've been better than the excessively open world of "Scarlet and Violet," and being able to complete the events of three simultaneous campaigns in any order whatsoever is absolutely lame and overly confusing compared to a much more linear story that still allows for adequate exploration in places. Even XCX has much better linear progression in its main story!

@Kestrel Sorry, but it's better that XCX remain exclusive to the Wii U than receive a heavily compromised port, as having consistent and continuous access to the map is essential to the enjoyment of the game.

It would be extremely awkward to need to pause the game every time you needed to use the map, not to mention how awkward marking the map would be in docked mode with no touch controls and inferior pointer motion controls compared to the Wii and Wii U.

If you really want to play it, you'll just have to shell out for a used Wii U or borrow someone else's.

Also, moving through Mira is only enjoyable once you get a Skell. It's actually very awkward and frustrating in many places when you're still on-foot! Even the first game didn't have these kinds of issues.

Hmm, I'm only about halfway through it, but I'm rather disappointed with the songs so far. The songs all sound like they're mere variations on a single, decent but not great, tune; while the singers are OK but not all that great either.

Even for an amateur production, it could do quite a bit better, as the music pales in comparison to "A Very Potter Musical."

@MatthewTaranto Personally, I would prefer if it ran longer if it didn't involve cutting out important parts like the time zone discrepancy in Case 1. Unlike a movie, people are willing to watch a play for over 2 1/2 hours as long as there's an intermission or two.

I tried renting the Wii version of "The Simpsons Game" once, but I gave up a few levels in after struggling with the absolutely horrible camera. Maybe I'd enjoy the DS version?

@NKR I used to have "Bart's Nightmare" on Genesis, and some of the games were pretty fun. The two big problems are:
1) The hub world is absolutely no fun to play and is very difficult. I could never manage to play more than 2 or 3 games before being forced to wake up into a game over.
2) Neither the manual nor the game itself provide proper instructions nor game mechanic details on how to play the various side games.

They didn't even provide a list of which color door leads to which game, so I always just picked a random door, and if I would up on the collapsing pillar game, I'd die almost immediately due to having no idea what I was supposed to do beyond the basic objective of jumping between pillars without collapsing them.

In the modern age of GameFAQs, I would probably enjoy it more if I hadn't sold the game many years ago, though.

@dluxxx Actually, the review for the Wii U version of "Sega All-Star Racing Transformed" mentions a certain female NASCAR driver among its character roster.

@theModestMouse Then again, you might just see more drivers taking the outside lane close enough to the wall to prevent anyone from passing them with that tactic.

It's certainly not the ideal racing lane, but if other drivers are hogging the inside half of the track beside you, you might as well make sure nobody passes you on the outside with a repeat of that stunt.

Oh, is that it? Tell me when someone actually drives on the wall like in "Herbie: Fully Loaded."

How exactly are these beat 'em ups? The trailer makes them look like action-platformers instead.

@Jokerwolf No, you're not automatically entitled to experience any kind of art form!

While this particular project is technically legal as long as it doesn't include the ROM itself (although it still encourages illegal ROM downloads), if an art form is no longer legally available or beyond your means to legally acquire that is not yet in the public domain, then you must go without being able to experience it until/if one of those factors changes.

@victordamazio Mickey Mouse is a trademark. Disney never has to worry about losing control over him as long as they exist. It's specifically the "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that Disney has stalled from entering the public domain.

@rjejr "she's a real person and all the rest are cartoons"

This really is like "Sonic All-Stars Transformed" where it has Danica Patrick!

Interesting, but there's no real point to playing it without any real battles. These auto-attack substitutes suck compared to the traditional turn based formula.

@Mountain_Man That argument only works when they actually provide a minimum effort offering. They could make so much money by just releasing a single legacy edition of a Madden game on the Switch, so why don't they do even that much?!

@Dr_Luigi Well, there is that new Mutant League Football on the Switch, but otherwise you're absolutely correct. Unfortunately, it's very risky to try and release an American football game without the NFL license, while EA for some unfathomable reason doesn't even bother to give us a legacy Madden game on the Switch. At least soccer fans are actually getting their sim games on the Switch despite how lazy they are.

For a second there, I thought it was some kind of Commander Keen remake.

@Geostyle To be fair, violence and such in video games was a legitimate issue back before the rating systems.

I agree that Nintendo should've cooperated with Sega instead of throwing them under the bus, but that cooperation should've been towards joint support of the new ratings systems that would then allow them to immediately stop their overbearing censorship practices (although some like the removal of most religious references never made sense in the first place), rather than outright denouncement of all forms of censorship.

@BabyYoda71 Why did they censor Christian crosses or Stars of David, etc. in their old games? They never should've censored any of it, but many of the other religious symbols that got censored back are almost as well known, while a Christmas tree is just as much of a religious icon as any of those other things.

@Serpenterror It's this kind of attitude that has gradually weakened Christmas spirit over the years! Yes, many people celebrate it as a non-religious holiday (although I don't think they should), but it is and always has been first and foremost a religious holiday for Christianity! It's even right there in the name as Christ's mass!

While whether or not such religious symbolism should've ever been censored is another issue, anyone who claims Christmas doesn't count as religious anymore is flat out wrong and being sacrilegious towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

@Clyde_Radcliffe Then again, this method of consolidation and professionalism has also served to make the gaming info you find online much more accurate, while the remaining inaccurate info out there can be easily debunked with just a little more searching.

Wait, "TV Guide" still exists?! Who still reads such an archaic publication anymore?

@AstroTheGamosian Just to warn you, DeLoreans are an absolute pain to maintain, which is mainly why they went out of fashion so quickly. The original movie even pays reference to this with how it shut down on Marty on multiple occasions.

@larryisaman People have flipped too far on "Sonic Adventure," though. While Big's fishing levels suck, Amy's levels are meh, and there are some graphical and camera issues (although still a better camera than the stupid manual ones that Nintendo still insists on using in most of their 3D 3rd person games) in the transition to 3D, it's still deserving of a 7/10 or so.

@Donutman The issue with "Star Fox Zero" is the controls and levels are mandatorily designed in a way that the majority of players (including myself) can't mentally adjust to no matter how much we could ever try. While many players can figure it out and can therefore find it to be a good game, for the rest of us, our brains are simply not wired in the necessary way to simultaneously pay close attention to two different viewpoints at once.

@sketchturner One of the issues I have with critics about "Other M" is how badly it's criticized for its more linear mission-based activities in the first half of the game before it opens up to more exploration in the second half (although personally I prefer the relatively more linear structure), yet "Metroid Fusion" wasn't criticized anywhere near as badly for doing the exact same thing several years beforehand.

@martynstuff Since when was Gen 2 of Pokémon rated poorly? Sure, it has quite a few glitches (but not as many as Gen 1) and is very outclassed by its remakes, but otherwise it's considered one of the better generations.

Meanwhile, only D/P in Gen 4 are considered relatively poor, as most of their problems were fixed in Platinum.

I'm with you on Gen 6, though. I thought X/Y were excellent entries and at the very least better than Gen 1, D/P, and Gen 7 (haven't played Gen 8). While they don't have a very good story, there were minor issues with the transition to 3D graphics, we still had to deal with HMs for the last time, and there's not as much of a postgame as usual, but otherwise I thought they nailed it with those games.

@khululy Yeah, the first teaser for the game looked pretty good, but the character art in these screenshots is really bad. Every other game in the series (while counting the remasters for the first two games) looks much better than this.

@Rayquaza2510 Yes, they are lazy remakes, but you said they added nothing, which is just not true.

No, there is no overreacting with just how much better Ride Pokémon are compared to the archaic HM mechanic. That was a massive improvement, especially since Gen 4 is along with Gen 3 one of the two worst generations for HM abuse.

@Araquanid @Rayquaza2510 Not everything about them is that lazy or bad. They improved the graphics and the Underground. They do include generational updates like the Fairy type, additional attacks, items, Abilities, etc.

Best of all. they used the updated mechanic of Ride Pokémon to replace those nasty HMs, which I think all by itself makes them an overall improvement compared to at least the original Diamond and Pearl games.