DemonKow

I still want to see CS 1&2 on the Switch in the West. I hear that means a ridiculous localization effort or a licensing agreement with XSEED, so I'm worried there will never be a strong enough business case for either.

Maybe GeoFront to the rescue again???

@SigmaNoire buttonmashy JRPG? I was eyeing it warily on deep discount but may give it another look

Idk, I'll readily concede that people can like multiple genres and may have overlap in interests between Zelda and COD. But FPS are typically better as multi-player, and Nintendo online stuff can have mixed performance, to be generous.

There is a VIP lounge in Hell for the dev team of Ghouls n' Ghosts. My buddy and I spent over a decade trying to beat it and when we finally did it went "lol do it again with a bracelet."

Man, gaming used to be wild.

We can discuss teraflops all we want, there are not enough games I can't get on Switch to draw more than a passing interest in XBOX, and Call of Duty does absolutely nothing to change that. I'm not super in favor of the merger but I don't think equating frame rates desirability on the market is that valid of a point.

Finished up Persona 4 Golden, it was okay but didn't fully resonate with me since I cared more about the mystery than the characters. Playing a few runs of Hades and Mario Kart while I'm figuring out the next 40+ hour game forever stuck in my backlog since an eShop sale. Maybe Ys VIII or Valkyria Chronicles?

My kids are stoked about Petey Piranha and Kamek.

Maybe overly reductive, but doesn't this look like a really stylish first person Gauntlet?

Not a bad thing if the gameplay works.

I did not expect this at all, but it's just piling on for the direct. It's such a wonderful, odd game that captured a bizarre time in gaming. I'd love to get that feeling again.

It's always my backlog that suffers.

I know there isn't much to go on but I hope they nail the mechanics. Like, y'know, floaty without FEELING floaty?

Otherwise, pretty excited. I'd love to see a Rosalina game, but that may be too much to ask.

I missed the original so I was piqued by the rumours of this coming. Definitely looking forward to this.

Wut.

They had me at the caterpillar pipe. I have no idea what I was looking at and I want to be a part are this.

Not sure if it's my cup of tea but I think my daughter would be all over this if it's fun to play. Looking forward to the reviews.

Octopath is the best game I can't bring myself to recommend to anyone who isn't already a JPRG fan. It really doesn't hit its stride until chapter 2 (or even 3 for some characters), which is like 30+ hours into the game. And you won't even know the actual story if you just happened to miss some random jerk asking for a healing grape.

I'm definitely interested if it comes to the Switch. A competent remaster is all I'd ask, although a remake is good too.

I get a unfairly negative tone around the first game here. It had a great tension and a fun story, even though its obvious it had modest beginnings. It's not like it's the first ghost story with a bunch of kids, right?

That said, more resources and actual adults within 20 miles of the happenings might be a good direction too 😀

@Zuljaras you're in for a treat, Castlevania III is by far the best of the NES games, and I think you could argue it's the best until the franchise morphed into its more modern form (styled like 2 but not terribly limited).

The mainstream appears to have lapped me while I've been playing P4G (just got into November)! Does that mean I'm ahead of the curve if at least one other person is now claiming it for the weekend?

Sadly, it looks like it will be that way next weekend, as I have to be at work for the next two consecutive weeks.

I'm kind of curious if Nintendo couldn't just let it go with the provision that the major emulators report statistics and gauge relative engagement based on usage to figure out which remasters would likely be profitable. If people are gonna do it, at least get the marketing data.

They absolutely never would go for it, but I think it's an interesting alternative approach.

If you're physical only I can see preorders for niche games, but I have a hard time justifying preorder for digital. This kind of reinforces that.

If I put down money I expect it to be downloading within 30 seconds. I'm not receptive to "floating" credit for publishers. Kickstarter is one thing and at least you know there's a risk of project failure before you commit.

Taking a break from Persona 4 and poking around at other games to see what suits my mood. I have a tonne of consensus "great" games in the backlog but I have a hard time getting through any of them if I'm not in the right frame of mind. Maybe one of the Ori games finally?

Also Mario Kart and Smash with the kidlets.

Sauntering thru Persona 4 Golden and possibly looking at Inscryption. Getting out to touch grass for a bit too. Important things 😀

@FX29 right?! Doesn't have to be fancy, maybe a stupid fun over the top Sailor Moon brawler. I don't know if the business case works out but I'd totally get it and play it with my kids.

I'm a little baffled by who this is intended for. If you wanted to play a Splatoon-like, odds are you already have a Switch and will just play Splatoon 3. It's not immediately apparent what this actually does better.

See also Chocobo GP or whatever, that took the idea of a broad IP Kart racer BUT ALSO featuring fewer tracks, more grind, and microstransactions. I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to wedge NFTs in for good measure.

Gris was a lovely experience that didn't overstay its welcome. The good faith from that alone and what I see here is enough to convince me to give it a try.

Finished up Trails to Azure. Can't get myself into TotK yet since I finally just completed BotW and it would be burnout (it was my first game on Switch, so it was overdue).

Launching into Death's Door and Persona 4!

I would like to see a successor to the Switch as much as anyone, and if Nintendo has one planned a full development cycle might be better targeted for the next platform to encourage adoption.

That said, I worked in software for years, specializing cross-platform applications and infrastructure. I've found that while having raw horsepower is good, 90% of issues I found other teams ran into were just failure to acknowledge even basic complexity theory and optimisation on the software side, or failure to utilize the resources correctly for specific target hardware. Without being in the developers room, I would suspect this is how we end up with some "miracle ports" while other mid grade games struggle.

I really think the bigger question is whether it's worth it for the publisher, even Nintendo, to pay for the good development time to make it work (which with some ports means a significant refactor).

Finally got thru BotW a few weeks ago, enjoying it immensely (largely driven by the TotK hype with a kick in the bum to get through). But I needed some time away to cool off, as is the case with the 60+ hour games I tend to favour. That is a curse of age now that I can afford the games I want but never have the time to just play them like 30 years ago. Responsibility is lame.

In chapter four of Trails to Azure this weekend as I get time. I'm enjoying the chaos and melodrama, the "Yes... AND" approach to plot is a lot of fun.

Honestly I think S/E took the absolute wrong lesson since in their eyes everything underperformed. A few (very good) AA type games and a sea of remasters and ports. What did they expect out of Various Daylife and a sloppy Chrono Cross remaster? When a company starts doing AAA games anything less is just a waste to the suits and then we start hearing grumbles about blockchain again.

I liked a good chunk of what came out of the last year (and voted with my wallet) but on a good day the ratio of good to bad decisions by S/E is 1:1.

I loved Hollow Knight, but I've got a backlog of quality games already that I don't have time to burn down, so a delay on this one isn't world shattering for me, but I'm an irritating lagging edge gamer that the business types hate. I hope the extra time makes it the game Team Cherry wanted.

Is it bad enough to be a campy B-movie (like Deadly Premonitions)? Or just bad?

Midway through Trails to Azure, it's so far delivered on the over-the-top plotline and melodrama that I came for. About to travel for work so I'm trying to get some time in when I can.

Eyeballing The Stanley Parable on sale in the eshop as a shorter change up from the usual bimonthly JRPG.

Huge disagreement on linearity - OG Zelda didn't at all have it, and even Link to the Past opened up fully once you got the hammer, you could exit L1 and go get the Titan Mitt and do just about anything in any order.

Exploration is really the key thing, and while I would have liked more formal dungeons than just the Divine Beasts, I think BotW definitely qualifies.

@GrowingWings it's never too late! TotK trailers were the kick in the rump I needed to actually go finish BotW, and I had a blast once I stopped trying to rush through

Continuing Trails to Azure and Mario Kart 8 with the kids!

OG FF with the obscene random encounter rate and an odd turn can wipe your party then back to the inn with you. 4 (2 in the US) was life changing and I've been hooked on RPGs since.

I really liked freeing Naydra at the spring of wisdom, I wasn't prepared for a fight that big and it was a new challenge (while also swapping in cold resistance elixirs)

Eventide was also a blast.

@Ade117 the SNES games are more tolerable to modern sensibilities, 5 and 6 aged better than 4. I would recommend any of those 3. 6 is still talked about in the breath of greatest of all time, for good reason.

The NES games are a relic that are good to see where gaming used to be but I would not call them good experiences, with the caveat that I originally played 2 and 3 via sketchy translated ROMs a long time back and a remaster might have smoothed some of the rougher edges. There's still immense grind.

I'm not terribly concerned, Nintendo has never chased trends and I don't think this is a hard commit to change core games based on the language presented. It would be generous to say Nintendo's online capability is lacking in some areas. Maybe this could help integrate platforms in a way that doesn't seem 15-20 years behind. That is non-trivial so maybe a partnership will help.

I remember the 1993 movie coming out when I was a kid and being utterly confounded as to what I just watched. "Passable" should be fine, which is about what I expect from Illumination.

While the winking may get tiresome, it helps to remember that you may be a huge Nintendo fan and have been for your whole life, the Easter eggs are for your benefit, so enjoy them because you're probably no longer the target audience. I'm sure my kids will enjoy it.

I think the new powers are interesting for the improvisation aspect, which I learned to love in BOTW after I realized I couldn't just bulldoze monsters anymore.

That said, I'm disappointed we didn't see more of the progression mechanics. I actually considered the divine beasts de facto dungeons, so what do we have now? 120 shrines were a fun treasure hunt, but it'd be exhausting to do that again.

Its... fine. That would be the word I'd use.

BOTW didn't click for me the first time because I charged in with objectives and just wasn't having fun (and getting my rump handed to me in the process). I had a lot more fun later when I appreciated the meandering experimentation and exploration as the core of the gameplay. This definitely checks the experimentation box.

I'm more curious about exploration, and there are a few sky islands but I'm not sure what else we got at this point. I see this as a general positive, but I don't know that I see a revolution in gaming as claimed.

Finally getting to BotW... it was the first Switch game I got but never got too far into it the first time. I was playing in a hurry and that is absolutely not the way to have a good time with it. Enjoying it much better this time around, hit about 25 shrines and I'm just now thinking about Vah Rutah 😀.

My wife also observed that the Koroks are just teaching the youth to walk into fae traps in the name of exploration.

@Rambler this was interesting - Martin Amis is a reasonably big deal in literature now, although I don't know if he was then.

Game novels are definitely still around as a niche genre at least that I think is good to get a certain segment of the youth motivated to read. My son has a bunch of Minecraft books that get him off the Switch.

I remember a Mega Man 2 book when I was a kid pretty fondly. If I were to go back it'd probably be revealed as be glorified licensed fanfic. I do still remember the deviation on Air Man's weakness being noteworthy. Shocking even.

Found it!
https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_Man_2_(Worlds_of_Power)

I got Final Fantasy III (VI) and a Super Scope for Christmas as a lad, and the characters always ran from battle with no input. I was inconsolable. After two days I convinced my parents this was not how the game worked and called the Nintendo phone line. The guy who answered said "unplug your Super Scope."

@Kirgo I've worked a few estimates like this, and it was frequently a management issue. If you don't understand the original well enough to make a mod (and even a simple remaster is a mod), you need to take the time to do so or you will almost invariably get in over your head. That activity is sadly frequently viewed as overhead.

Bonus points for being told "we have to do it for $X," to which I usually respond "tell the customer they don't get it then." That should be an acceptable outcome if you're actually looking to make money. Obviously sometimes that doesn't happen, but a bit easier to get the point across working in flight software 😀

Loved the first, it felt how I remembered JRPGs from the 16-bit days. But it's a tough sell to get someone else into a game that really doesn't hint the greater story until 50 hours in and you can easily miss the cohesive narrative if you didn't complete certain side quests.

The original was a big risk, new graphics, different story, with sophisticated battle, and they hit more often than they missed. Refinement is good, I just wish I wasn't crushed under my own backlog.

This finally answered the question "IS THERE FISHING IN THIS JRPG?"

Yes. Yes, there is fishing,

Cold Steel 1/2... can I dream of Trails in the Sky?

Illusion of Gaia! It was a delightfully odd game that gave me a few places I want to see before I die.

Terranigma too.

Since I am a neutral third party, I can definitely say that if your partner does inventory differently they are most certainly wrong. Whether you need to reevaluate your future together is a more personal call 😀