DanElectrode

I actually think it'd be pretty rad if they consolidated the DS/Switch into one thing, since the Switch is meant to be portable anyway, the distinction between the two (and which systems get which games) is mostly arbitrary at this point.

The "portable-only" one could just be the successor to the DS series, while the "pro" one could be the successor to the Switch for people who mostly game on their TV (I assume it'll still have the option of portability too, but probably less focused on that if it's heaver/has worse battery life due to more power).

@Jokerwolf Yeah, I wouldn't expect anything less from Nintendo than ignoring the latest resolution upgrade until a full generation after all the other console makers adopt it (which is find with me, I have no intention of buying a 4K TV any time soon).

@Nico07 But to the point that Alex makes in the video, there are parts of first-party games that rely on HD rumble, e.g. Power Moons in Mario Odyssey that you can only find by "feeling" the HD rumble. There are also several mini-games in 1-2-Switch that would be unplayable if they just took out HD rumble without replacing it in any way.

Some kind of audio indicator seems like it'd be the easiest way to implement that without any moving parts or having to modify a bunch of games to be playable on a system without HD Rumble, is what I was saying. Alternately they could add a series of LEDs that would light up in lieu of rumbling, kind of like a Richter scale HUD.

I could see them potentially replacing HD Rumble with just a "rumbling sound" that the console makes instead of actually rumbling. Could potentially be like a dedicated little speaker that only does the rumbling sound, would probably still be much cheaper to produce than the actual HD Rumble component.

Weird flex but ok

The silly stuff (which I love) is coupled with some of the more affecting, wistful moments of the series IMHO.

The scene with Link and Marin looking out over the ocean, and the ultimately fleeting nature of their relationship in the ending are some of the more emotionally effective things in the series (the ending of The Wind Waker has a similar quality).

I think the silly/cute stuff toward the beginning is what enables those moments to kind of sneak up on you, as opposed to if the whole game is pitched as high drama all the way through, in which case everything just kind of turns into mush.

Really looking forward to this. The original is essentially a perfect game and probably my favorite in the entire Zelda series.

The only niggling complaint with it is how often you have to bring up the inventory screen to swap out what items you have equipped (which was a function of the Game Boy only having 2 face buttons).

Hard to say for certain since the video doesn't show any HUD or inventory screen, but it looks like they may have addressed that by giving dedicated buttons to the sword and shield, since Link jumps over things and still seems to have both the sword and shield equipped, which would be impossible in the original. So that's exciting.

My other biggest question is whether this version will also include the special "Color Dungeon" and attendant armor upgrade from the DX version.

@TommyRabbit It's sort of halfway between, the dungeons have the same rooms every time, but they are rearranged (basically like if you slid the map tiles around like one of those... tile sliding puzzles).

He is right in that the Zelda "sheika slate," which is obviously intended to be the Wii U's GamePad, is a little weird in the finished game because they abandoned all the GamePad specific functionality and made it more of a traditional console game.

Which I was fine with, but if you went in thinking that the slate was going to have some unique mechanic integrated with the hardware I can see where you might be disappointed. Feels like a silly thing to focus on with such an excellent game otherwise though.

Granted, I thought essentially the same thing about Katamari Damacy. It's fun for like half an hour, but there's really only the one mechanic and it never finds a second gear or any interesting variations as it progresses, just continually bigger things to roll up.

Rocket: Robot on Wheels or I'm out 😄

I have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ which I've been using to play emulators via RetroPie, which works pretty good, but the graphics are a little laggy due to the lack of a GPU.

I bet a hypothetical N64 Mini would make a good all around emulation machine since it'll probably have to include a GPU, if folks can get homebrew running on it (though a GPU will make it more expensive, naturally).

@thesilverbrick Oh, I definitely agree. I've been taken advantage of a ton of times by Nintendo for being willing to re-buy every re-release, I was mostly just trying to make a joke.

@thesilverbrick I think you answered your own question, it's "because people will buy it anyway." Also probably something to do with inflation.

I'm tempted, because I gave up on the Wii U version for being too frustrating so the new modes look interesting. I think I'll wait for it to go on sale though.

It seems like such a weird, non-problem to me. The console is so much less comfortable to play in "handheld" mode that I can't imagine anyone is playing extremely twitchy hardcore games in that mode, so if it doesn't work detached there doesn't seem like much of a point.

I have yet to see any explanation of why this is needed and solves any problem that just using a Pro Controller doesn't solve.

The Adventure Time game looks interesting. Does anybody know if it's any good?

Is it just me or... does it not look that much better in the side-by-side video? There still seems to be quite a few noticeable dropped frames in most of the same places.

That said, I already played through it on the Switch in the 1.0 version and the graphical issues were nowhere near as bad as everyone played them up to be IMHO.

While it would be possible to make an interesting Mario movie, I think Nintendo is probably too precious about keeping him blandly likable since he's their corporate mascot for that to happen.

Sort of the same reason Mickey Mouse stopped being used in Disney stuff (aside from edu-tainment shows for very young children): they've sanded all the rough edges off of the character's personality to the extend that there's not really any possibility for a character arc for a feature film.

This looks like a nice companion piece to RiME.

@thesilverbrick For me, the giveaway is the stuff about creating chat "rooms" in the video, I think it's pretty obvious that Nintendo doesn't want to touch that kind of thing with a ten foot pole.

@Prof_Yoshtonics Seeing as Link never talks and is intentionally meant to be a cipher for the player to project themselves onto, that seems like an unfair criticism of Majora's Mask. You could say that about every Zelda game as Link basically has no personality in any of them.

I'd be extremely here for a Majora's Mask HD release. I know they just kinda did one on the 3DS but I'm talking a full HD makeover on a home console. I always liked it way more than Ocarina of Time.

Partly I think I've just been kind of jonesing to re-play Majora's Mask since the final "trial" of the Champion's Ballad DLC was so reminiscent of the Odolwa battle in MM.

@thesilverbrick I heartily agree with you on The Last Jedi being way better than The Force Awakens.

Every complaint I've seen about it so far boils down to "it wasn't exactly what I was expecting." For one, I'd much rather be surprised by a big franchise entry like this zagging when it could have zigged instead of just rotely filling in the numbers in predictable ways.

I'd be kind of interested in a head-mount, like the one that one guy 3D printed, because playing with the Joy Con detached is so much more comfortable than with them snapped onto the unit (I don't actually need/want it to do VR, just hold the Switch), but this thing is obviously goofy as all get out.

Basically he wants well-rounded people, not just super hardcore gamers. It's the same reason colleges have extra-curricular groups and team sports and stuff: if you don't have any outside hobbies apart from your work, you're probably not a very well-adjusted person.

@Johnvlachos I later realized that I had just accidentally re-launched it with a different user profile so it didn't actually lose my save, which is nice. I got past the part where it crashed on the next try too.

@Johnvlachos I got it for Christmas and I've played a fair amount, I agree that while the frame rate issues are definitely there, the puzzles and score and overall feel are engrossing enough that you can mostly look past it.

It did just crash on me all the sudden and apparently deleted my save file, which is way more of a problem, we'll see if it happens again at the same spot, I guess.

@bboy2970 Yeah, I really hope they release an update so that you can just use the Pro Controller and move the mouse with the control stick, but I'm not holding my breath.

@holygeez03 Yeah, in retrospect I kind of wish I had bought this for PC instead. I prefer playing games on the big TV, but the controls are pretty bad. It's definitely meant to be a touchscreen game. When docked, you control the on-screen mouse pointer via the Joy Con's motion controls.

This would've worked OK with a Wiimote since it had the sensor for pointing at the screen, but it's really awkward with just motion controls. It'd actually be way better if they must made it so you could move the mouse with the control stick. It also doesn't support the Pro Controller, just touch or a single detached Joy Con.

@bboy2970 The same thing happened to me. The double-tap function doesn't seem to work that well. I got past it by switching to the Joy-Con and double-clicking on it, which worked on the first try.

@Alcovitch I believe there's an option to turn them off (and you can speed up the dialogue too).

@essiw Finally got it! Alternating Bounding and rolling on straightaways seemed to work pretty well. That was my last moon, now I've got 'em all!

@essiw I understand this, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful to you or anyone here, I just read quite a few different guides trying to get a handle on it and they all basically said "try different combinations of Bounding and not Bounding" which is not particularly helpful.

@essiw Yeah, it seems like everyone's advice is basically to keep trying it until you randomly win.

I'm halfway decent at Mario Kart and whatnot, I know to take the inside corners and stuff, it just seems like there's got to be a better strategy to this than just "try not Bounding sometimes and Bounding other times" but nobody seems to have a clear handle on it (yet).

Iceburn Class S is a real pain. I've read a bunch of tips (which all basically come down to "don't Bound on inclines") but I haven't been able to get the knack of it yet, it seems like I either almost win or come way in last arbitrarily. It's one of like five moons I have yet to get. Anybody have any better advice?

@bimmy-lee Ah, that's right. I own a copy of it but it's been a few years since I read it. I couldn't remember if it was all one over-arcing story or not. I know there were some more episodic side-stories like one where he visits Wario that weren't really part of the main plot.

@stevenw45 I was wondering if it worked with other enemies, there doesn't seem to be anything particular to piranha plants in the video.

I haven't tried co-op mode yet, but it's surprising that Cappy can still fly around when Mario has captured an enemy. Who is throwing him? How is Mario still controlling the enemy without Cappy?

@thesilverbrick Yeah, my hopes are not especially high. Mario doesn't really translate to narrative mediums because the plot has always been completely tossed off and inconsequential.

The old Super Mario Adventures comics that ran in Nintendo Power are about the only good adaptation of Mario into a narrative medium that I can think of, and that's because they're just super goofy, episodic little stories that don't really bother with an over-arcing narrative.

@kobashi100 Yeah, it sounds like the game has performance issues everywhere and not something introduced by Tauntalus for the Switch version.

It seems weird that this game has so many performance issues, seeing as the graphics don't really look like anything the Gamecube couldn't have pulled off (though this is in higher resolution, natch).

@Anti-Matter When you first arrive everything is frozen, until after you beat the primary boss of the stage, then it turns into a more traditional desert.

He could probably plausibly claim that he was just referring to the Donkey Kong homage in Mario Odyssey's New Donk City.

Seems reasonable to expect that they are probably working on a Donkey Kong game too, though.

But is it stable?!

The endless clamoring of fans for another "dark, serious" Zelda in the vein of OoT has always been so weird, since that one is the least "Zelda"-like to me. I suppose it's simply the first one that a lot of people played.

Didn't Nintendo file a patent for something that looked pretty identical to this?

Ah yes, here it is: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/12/nintendo_switch_patent_provides_insights_into_vr_accessory_and_console_touchscreen

So that would suggest that an official accessory that does this is probably coming sooner or later, although without head tracking or room mapping it's never really going to be "VR," just a head-mount.

Does a pretty impressive job of showing off the game while also demonstrating the Switch's various features (motion controls, two player, portable mode, etc) without beating you over the head with it (i.e., there's not just a voice over saying "you can even take it on the go!" or whatever).

On the topic of no longer having a "lives" system, it's kind of ironic that Pauline says "I'll be your 1-UP girl" in the theme song for this game, since those presumably do not exist in the world of Super Mario Odyssey.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when you die if you have no coins, since that's when you'd normally get a game over. Other than that it's basically just one less collectible you have to worry about. Since you got lives by collecting 100 coins traditionally, it's not really very different.

Next you're gonna tell me that jockeys in the Kentucky Derby are hitting the horses with those black whip-like things and not just gesturing "Go"!

@TeslaChippie I always thought the original XBox (which came out a few days before the GameCube) had more powerful hardware. I remember Nintendo talking about it at E3 when they were talking about why they decided to do a more cartoony Zelda for Wind Waker versus trying to go HAM on high-def graphics.

@TeslaChippie The weird thing is how people keep acting like this is even a debate. When was the last time Nintendo had the most powerful console hardware? Maybe N64 vs PS1? Until DreamCast came out, that is.

Going back to the release of the Gamecube, Nintendo has been very up front that they are not interested in participating in the cpu/gfx benchmarks race and just trying to focus on making great games. Nobody is pretending otherwise.