Darknyht

Crystal Chronicles and Ys are on my watchlist, but both are more Action RPGs than true RPGs

The ports are strong on the Switch, but since I missed a lot of games thanks to the Wii U or not owning a PS3/4 it isn't that big of a deal to me. As I stated elsewhere, if a game costs to much I will just wait until it doesn't on the system of my choice.

I have enjoyed some good ports though. Dragon Quest XI, Dragon's Dogma, the Original 90's Doom, and Link's Awakening is just some of the one's I have enjoyed.

What a way to completely misunderstand the series. The thing that made the series fun and interesting was the self-parody of the Super Mario game world.

I think I am good. I've fallen back into Paladins as my go to stress-relief game, and I still putter around Animal Crossing daily. Not to mention that I still need to put some more time into Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 and some other smaller games out there.

All I want to know is who has the time to spend their day looking for random Twitter accounts for Super Mario? Perhaps that is an indie game that needs to be made. You know "From the Creators of Toilet Tycoon..."

Having skipped New Leaf, everything being added is a welcome addition. I do miss the additional/expanded buildings from City Folk, but it really doesn't fit the island life look.

The rollouts are just a nice way to bring you back every once and a while. I would be excited if they made the NES games return, even if it just pointed to the App.

@MischiefMaker I always find the inflation arguments interesting because there is so much in play with inflation. An example is the median American house cost roughly $82.5k in 1985 (~200k if you adjusted to todays dollars). In certain areas now that isn't a parking spot and the median price is now $330k. Certain electronics were eventually simplified (which in a lot of cases reduced price and quality) or made cheaper by economy of scale, same with food. But those savings are offset by health care costs, housing costs, entertainment costs (Concerts were an average of $37 in inflation adjusted dollars vs. $92 average cost in reality). Vinyl Records is an example of scale working in reverse, it cost ~$15 then and $27 now.

All that to say, it is hard to peg a lot of moving parts to a single inflation number. I do know that I have access to more but own less than my parents did while I make more (even in inflated dollars) than my dad ever imagined making. I either "purchase" digital games, movies, music and books that are licensed to me, or I rent them through a service. In both cases, I actually own very little while my parents have a library of all of those things. They purchased goods that were expected to last a decade or more, while I am feeling lucky if I manage to get 3-5 years out of my applications/electronics.

So yeah, games are cheaper because more games are sold. Not sure if the quality/value is the same. I can still go to my parents house and play their Intellivision/Odyssey II collection (if I can find them in the attic/basement where they are stored), while I have a giant library of purchases locked on a system that no longer has servers running to provide them to me (Wii).

@MischiefMaker I wait for sales not because I don't value games, but because too many $60 games are not worth the asking price in my humble opinion.

Reviews are not reliable from my perspective as there are a lot of intangible factors in a game, and too often something becomes a "Media Darling" that resonates with their closed community for one reason or another. Is the reviewer of Xenoblade Chronicles a hard-core jRPG fan, someone that just really likes Final Fantasy games, or a guy that typically only plays shooters/sports games? There is no way to quantify personal bias on reviews, just like we cannot know if financial incentives play into them. Too often I have hated games praised and loved games loathed by media. Throw in that a lot of games ship unfinished (day one patched if you prefer) and/or buggy, and you have a strong incentive to not make a day one purchase.

Days long ago, I would have rented a game like that. Later, I would have purchased a demo disc. Now... There might be a demo, but most likely it is just a game on a shelf with a $60 price tag. So I choose to wait and risk fewer dollars on a game because it isn't like I can return a bad product in this industry.

Nintendo isn't immune from this problem, and there are a lot of Nintendo games I have skipped in the Wii U/Switch era because I cannot stomach $60 for a game that I know I won't love. Had those games eventually dropped to $30-40, it might have been a purchase. Instead, I wait until Gamestop has a fire sale and take my risks then. An example would be Bayonetta 2 which is a good game, but not worth $60 from my perspective. So I picked up for $20 at a Gamestop with Bayonetta 1 on the Wii U used and still have yet to even finish it (in fact, I am not sure I even played past the level that was in the demo for Bayonetta 2). There was a time when I would have purchased that new the day it had a Player's Choice price reduction regardless of my feelings about it.

$9.99 - 14.99 is a sweet spot for what would have released on Xbox Live Arcade in the past. Lower than that and I start asking questions about quality, but over that I want to know what justifies the extra expense (online features don't appeal to me). The problem with the Switch is everything gets buried and just even finding something appealing is hard.

Yacht is my go to boredom game, so I am happy to see it on there. Not surprised about most of the other results globally, but it's interesting that dots and boxes is so popular. Once you learn to manipulate the game it is just a question of who blinks first.

I would guess if it was a single PS1 game, it would be the second. The third was difficult and the fourth was an a break from the classic formula. But to be honest the originals are so small just put them all on there.

That original article just didn't pass the sniff test, and just seemed to be a new take on Nintedoom writing. Nintendo's entire messaging during the Wii U Era was (and it continues to be) that it was a bad idea to depend on a single industry for revenue in today's world. This was why they invested in mobile, partnered to build a theme park, were investigating movies, and probably other ventures we don't know about. So after all that talk, why would they dump a significant investment?

Second the profit on a successful mobile game is not anything to ignore. While the risks are a little different (discoverability and competing with F2P pricing), the development costs are low and the potential earning is high. Why would they invest heavily in a mobile company only to not tap into the market?

@ArtiomNLS true, but they are right at their house so their storage is available. They also probably have a crafting table either in or by their house.

I get the complaint but it isn’t preventing him from doing anything but crossing that bridge.

The tweet is a little funny but just get the pole out and cross the river the old fashioned way.

Good for both of them. I tend to lean on the point that Billy Mitchell should eternally have an asterisk on any records legitimately earned moving forward, much like certain baseball teams deserve it due to steroids, signal stealing, and other black marks on their accomplishments.

I likewise think the officials that accepted the MAME video should likewise be treated as incompetent. Twin Galaxies probably shouldn't be the defacto judge of records. I would rather see a standard established for camera setups to record these things, post to Youtube requirement, and require archive raw footage to be stored someplace like archive.org for open-sourced review.

But I am not going to lose sleep over this. If Billy wants to continue to live on past glories, how is he any different than the millions of former high school QB's that relive their glory days of high school for the rest of their lives?

@Saro well since it hasn’t been released it is probably a bit premature to say what will happen. I tend to dismiss the over vocal minority that can only measure life in absolutes that bother to like/dislike videos. This game is neither the best nor worst thing ever, and it is unfair to judge it without having played it in such simple binary terms. I am not fond of Tencent, but it is a long way from the distaste I feel to the hatred this seems to be getting.

This is a smart move for the Pokemon Company, but the west is not going to understand it. Tencent has the most popular mobile game out there, Arena of Valor. Whether the west likes it or not is irrelevant because the Chinese market loves it. So a MOBA designed by the company that has the most popular game in China makes sense.

The Switch version is probably targeting the Western audience, but the primary target for this game is China.

Part of the problem is that people expect something that was never really intended to run AAA titles designed for vastly superior consoles to run those games well on it. The Switch was never intended to be at parity with the current consoles, and having the unrealistic expectation it can is a silly fantasy.

This "Can it run on Switch?" mentality reminds me of the stupidity of the 90's when they tried to put Doom on everything under the sun (which is apparently still a thing). The question shouldn't have been can it run, but should it run on SNES and 32X (and while a technical marvel, the answer is resoundingly, "No, it shouldn't").

It is just unfortunate in the current games market, the remaining mega-publishers are so hyper-focused on blockbuster games to the point that smaller projects have almost no chance of being developed or published. Like it or not, they still consider Nintendo consoles to be a small market.

I tried it, then deleted it. Like others said the combat just seemed broken, the explanation on how to play was lackluster, and the match I played was uninspiring.

EA's model for years has been to purchase exclusive licenses to extremely popular things (NFL, FIFA, NHL, Lord of the Rings, etc.) and purchase smaller developers of popular franchises. For example, everyone forgets that Mass Effect 1 didn't belong to EA originally, but was created by BioWare and published by Microsoft.

So why would it surprise you that they are unable to produce original content for a unique console? They couldn't figure out that games like Sim City would work wonderfully with a gamepad or that people would be insulted by a $60 Mass Effect 3 on Wii U that competed with a $60 Mass Effect Trilogy on other consoles. Likewise they (and others) still don't understand that announcing that one version of the game will be missing features/content but still be sold at the same price (or higher) will rub a majority of the customer base the wrong way.

I've been waiting for this announcement since I played the first one. Now they just need to continue the Blaster Master Zero series.

Well they did slightly better than the straight mobile ports I expect yet still underwhelmed.

@rjejr Thanks, now my brain is trying to figure out how they would get the AR working for that particular setup. I mean toilets in Japan are advanced and all but...

Knowing them, it will be
SimCity: Nintendo Switch Online only edition
Bejeweled
Zuma
Peggle
MySims
Populous SNES edition HD
Spore

Edit: Forgot Spore was a thing, but Nintendo people will buy anything.

I managed to get out yesterday and found one at GameStop just sitting on the shelf. I was almost as shocked at finding it as I was at the fact I was standing in an operating GameStop.

As for the silly discussion regarding hardcore and causal gaming, apparently some have forgotten the NES era. You know, where the Zapper, Power Pad, Power Glove, R.O.B., and a thousand other add-ons were developed and sold. The same era that brought Console titles like Donkey Kong Jr., Math and Anticipation.

Gimmicks and quirky software always have been part of Nintendo's history and products. To change that is to change the company itself.

My six year old approves. Did 200+ jumps in 90 seconds without breaking a sweat.

Oh to have his energy....

@TheWingedAvenger Sometimes news is just information people can share and reminisce about. It was only a few more years until I would never be satisfied with what I had again thanks to ultra cheap PS1 titles that fell from $19.99 heaven and would spend way too much on gaming for years.

This was one of my favorite SNES things. Back then SNES games were so expensive, but I could manage GameBoy games. The ability to play on a TV without motion blur was priceless.

Made me very happy when mgba got the ability to show Super Game Boy settings in the emulation.

Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games are great for my continuing medical recovery. Doesn’t matter if I doze off on either of those, and my reflexes don’t need to be great either.

I am going to get more serious than everyone else, no Pac-Man Plus, no buy. Namco needs to bring every ROM hack back into their official release celebration.

This list feels a little empty thanks to third party publishers dropping their games into collections that appeal only to niche markets. The absence of Squaresoft, Konami, Hudson, Capcom and other titles hurts the NSO offerings more than anything else. This should be the best, yet Jelico dominates third party offerings with their bargain bin fodder. It also doesn’t help that Nintendo has also has held back on beloved titles like Earthbound, DKC, and Super Mario RPG.

The results however is not surprising but the lack of a real d-pad make playing most Of these almost as frustrating as playing NES games with a GameCube d-pad.

Been waiting for the unlock since it was announced. So many good memories of the original on DS.

Download Play was great for the DS as it was a solo handheld for the most part. The switch however can support multiple players when docked or in tabletop mode. So the comparisons aren’t perfect, and I think the separate app is as good as it gets now.

I received a Game Gear for Christmas one year because my dad thought the color screen was better than the GameBoys green monochrome screen (thankfully I got the GameBoy prior to this). Thankfully for both, they bought an external battery pack. I had never grown up with Sega so the Game Gear only saw a little use (because even with the battery pack, it was brutal on charges). Sonic, Columns, Ninja Gaiden, Spider-Man and Dragon Crystal were the games I owned; and I borrowed Shinobi enough from a friend that it might have been my copy.

Had I not started with Zelda and Super Mario, I probably would have gone down the Sega path due the system. But at least to me the games seemed not as well done.

Looks like the Red one would be the best for me since it has the only two games I really played on my Game Gear (plugged in of course). Columns and Shinobi. The only other games I owned were Ninja Gaiden, Sonic and Spider-Man; but they didn’t get much use.

@DarkScythe13 Looking forward to it also. Yacht Dice is the public domain precursor to Yahtzee. Rules are similar, but lacks the Bonuses and Yahtzee rules. Most of the other board/card games are public domain.

My guess for the absence of Hearts is that the game different regions call Hearts are actually variations on the original. So trying to provide a single version everyone would be happy with would my best guess for absence (outside the developers didn't like it).

Your guess is as good as mine for Freecell not being included. Regardless, I plan on playing a lot of Ludo, Yacht Dice, Bowling, and whatever other games hit that right spot the next week while I am stuck resting.

@Euler I will second your recommendation of Super Mario. It was interesting to hear how Nintendo started in the industry, and I would second that I wish he would do a followup to it.

Animal Crossing is the first time I used the app, but I have used it a lot. Getty Museum artwork imports, pixel artwork, and saving my life in not having to use the tedious keyboard to talk to someone in game.

Yes, then Congress and Disney heard his comments and said, "Hold my beer." around 1998.

I started late to the game, but having played the original and Wild World a lot I approach New Horizons a little differently. First, I am playing with my daughter, and part of the enjoyment is seeing her play Animal Crossing for the first time. Second, the goal isn't the perfect village. Once I design something, I will tear it down and try something different.

But truth is, the fishing is relaxing for me to do while watching The Office.

Just the freebies as I now have to deal with competition to get Switch time with daughter and wife. Animal Crossing is quickly becoming the most played game in the house.

@shaneoh His point was between this game and Skyrim, anyone would be better off buying Skyrim on Switch than playing and wasting time/money on Blades.

To quote u/CaspianX2 from Reddit, whose tl;dr review sums the game up best and properly warned me about this title: "tl;dr – The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a First-Person Action-RPG originally released on mobile devices in 2019. It doesn't have the open world of Skyrim. Or the character customization. Or the variety. Or the graphics. Or the intricate, detailed world. Rather, this is an extremely simplified take on the franchise that does at least have some interesting town-building elements. Unfortunately, even what little joy this game has to offer is bogged down by extremely aggressive monetization that sours the whole experience. If you can manage to scrape together the money, just get Skyrim instead."

@FargusPelagius You can also google FreeDoom and find the someone even made replacement IWADs to go with the open source engine. This basically replaces the commercial IWADs of Doom and Doom 2 with new levels, graphics, and music so anyone can play all the WAD files people have created over the years. So you realistically can enjoy all these extras completely free on any PC (Windows, Mac or Linux).

@kingbk Licensing would be an issue since Nintendo doesn't actually own the copyright. Irem loaned it to Nintendo as a favor to make the NES version and Data East owns the US Arcade rights. So there would be a tangled web of rights to navigate and it probably isn't worth the money.

I think I will just ignore this and go play the originals.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms and Elder Scrolls: Blades (if it shows up). The first is just Progress Quest with better graphics and some interaction. The second might amuse me, until it doesn't.

This is a game I have been running in the background for years. The point is to plan your strategy, let the champions run for a while, check back in and level/adjust strategy to see how long you can progress. Get a feeling of accomplishment with near-zero effort, everyone wins!!!

It is interesting mainly because it confirms things that were already figured out and give us a better insight into decisions Nintendo made. But the truth is that the Wii has been gone officially since 2013 and honestly was replaced with a console that does everything it did and more. The only thing the Wii has is the advantage of is that there is millions more in the wild so the prices should be better long term.

I am more interested in when we get to the point that someone is able to use something like Dolphin to built a compatible system that includes all the benefits of Dolphin while having the compatibility and extras of a modded console.

Our Wii U console still gets regular use as my kids still play Nintendo Land, Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario 3D World on it along with one of them trying to play Breath of the Wild.

It's a shame that console died an early death because it really is fun to play on.