DizziParadise

@Samuel-Flutter, when I was a kid we didn't have Game Genie, just platformers that are still famous today for being ridiculously hard - which is possibly why I never did develop the motor skills needed to play them. Or maybe I just never had the right motor skills to develop (I can do a lot of fine, delicate work in other fields, but don't ask me to get the jumps right in Rayman). You're right though, and I really hope that this mode in Star Fox will allow a new generation (or even the disaffected part of the old generation) to develop those skills and learn to play on and enjoy harder modes.

@Yorumi - why does it have to be only one or the other? The way Nintendo is implementing this seems to be giving players more options than "God awful hard" or "movie watching easy". I don't want to play the same level over and over again for a week just to move the story forward by 5 minutes and then hit another wall. I also want a game to actually play. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie.

Game breaking modes like the RPG stats you mention would be bad, but nobody's hurt by an option that allows for an easier ride. It's optional, after all. The easy mode player won't get the same experience (or the same rewards, most likely) but how does having the option of an easy mode hurt the hard mode player?

I've been gaming since the 80s, and this article sums up fairly well why I prefer Nintendo to Microsoft and Sony. I like my games to be fun. I don't have excellent reflexes and I don't have good spatial awareness, so button-mashers and shooters are not fun for me. I don't want (and now I'm a mum with a job and all the adulting that entails, don't have time) to replay a battle or a level a gazillion times until I don't die. I don't want my games to be so easy they are no challenge, but my favoured challenges tend to come in the form of puzzles rather than hack 'n' slash a gazillion enemies in 0.6 seconds, or pixel-perfect jumping (anyone else remember how evil Jet Set Willy was for that?)

I have no problem with difficulty modes, especially if it brings more people into the gaming world. I wonder how many people out there are not reading this because they had a go at a game once and got nowhere, found no fun only frustration and decided gaming wasn't for them.

Nintendo doesn't share the same gaming space as XBox and PS, and thank Arceus for that. Because without Nintendo I for one would have very little to play. I don't want Angry Birds and Candy Crush, and I don't want Witcher and CoD. I want stories and adventures and good old-fashioned fun - Yo-kai Watch, Pokemon, AC:NL, Zelda, Layton, AA, Return to Popolocrois, Zero Escape, Dragon Quest, Bravely Default. A couple of those have difficulty settings of various kinds, and no I don't need to have them all on easy, but it is great to have the option to tone it down a bit when you just can't get past a boss and want to throw your console out of the window, or want to just get to the next area without getting ambushed every 30 seconds.

My daughter's playing Pokemon right now. She is 6. She loves it. She has no clue or care about IVs and EVs, but is great at type match-ups. If all games were "hard" and could only be beaten by people with super reflexes and endless amounts of time to play the same 5 minutes over and over again, would she even be playing? No. And she'd probably never play any game. And neither would I. And neither, I suspect, would be enough people to make the gaming industry profitable. So give us options, with extra rewards for solving/beating on "hard mode" for the incentive to progress and get better, and keep the fun.

Everything I wanted to say has already been said by people much more erudite than I. And I'm not gonna get into the old Nintendo vs new Nintendo argument. But you guys really do need a proof reader. It's elicit, not illicit. "...game would illicit this response". Spell checkers can't catch this stuff.

I think (hope) that Nintendo's move into mobile is less about selling mobile games, and more about advertising its IP and console games. Miitomo and Pokemon GO seem to me to be a good step in that direction actually - for all the hate Miitomo got on here, we are not its intended audience. Its intended audience is young smartphone (smartphone=disposable income) owners yet to discover the delights of console gaming. Get 'em hooked into Nintendo IP and you have a new generation of Nintendo console owners. Maybe.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Zelda U will come out in 2018 as an iOS exclusive. In which case I will regretfully wash my hands of Nintendo, because if they do that they will not be the company I know and love (and am often bemused by) anymore.

No, I don't want MK on my mobile. I don't want Fantasy Life on my mobile. I want immersive, beautiful games that are lovingly made and have a story to tell. You can't get that on mobile. And even if you could, the battery life would put paid to the "immersive" part of that description in about 20 minutes.

If this "analyst" had ever played MK, or any immersive game, on any console, he would know you couldn't get an Angry Birds type audience response to it on mobile. It just wouldn't play well enough. (Plus the fact that AB was free - the money Rovio made and still makes from those games is almost entirely from the advertising). So he obviously knows sweet FA about gaming, gamers or Nintendo's "core audience" and is making stuff up to suit his preconceptions. Analysis of this kind has obviously gone the way of investigative journalism.

@zool
Totally agree with what you're saying. I fit half of the "young female" demographic, in that I'm female. But I'm old enough to get your name, so you can probably guess my age. Currently playing: Return to PopoloCrois, PSMD, AAI: Miles Edgeworth, Pokemon AS, still keeping my town together in AC:NL (970 hours in). Looking forward to: Yokai Watch, Zero Time Dilemma, Bravely Second (once I've got through Bravely Default). Love: Zelda, Professor Layton, Ghost Trick, Zero Escape, AA, Fantasy Life, even Spirit Camera, which was an interesting use of the hardware. I don't want or need more Cooking Mama or Style Boutique, tyvm - although my 6 year old daughter (who just caught her first shiny Pokemon yesterday) loves CM and would probably equally love SB.

I'm no good at racing or FPS games, so I don't play those - but I know plenty of women my age-ish who love to go hunting bad guys after a hard day in the office.

Really there are enough "young female" (ugh) franchises around on Nintendo systems already to get that demographic hooked - if indeed that's what they really want. Since I grew up with Attic Attack and, later on, stuff like Simon the Sorcerer and Beneath a Steel Sky, I can't really speak for today's 12 year olds. But I honestly doubt it's all they want.

Did that Nintendo Girls' Club that was so derided ever do anything? Does it even still exist?

Incidentally - you need to watch that Direct again. There are plenty of people shown playing Pokemon who wouldn't qualify as "kids", although none of them are as old as me.

@Donjoe yeah, you're right, and I'm sorry I seemed to imply you were ranting when you weren't - was trying to say that ranting at NL is pointless, not that you personally were ranting.
I honestly don't get why you guys were excluded in the first place, it does seem odd. Would be interesting to know if that was a sin of omission (in other words, Nintendo just forgot - which would be bad enough) or a sin of commission (they specifically and deliberately chose to exclude Ireland for some reason). Since the point of the competition is to increase consumer awareness of the product and generate a buzz, it doesn't make sense for Nintendo UK to exclude part of their customer base this way. But then again, how often does what Nintendo do make sense?

I agree that people in Ireland are being left out here, and I agree that something needs to be done about that. I'll also point out that the UK and Europe often (not always, but often) get left out of stuff the Americans get all the time (still no release date here for Yokai Watch, rubbish eshop sales in comparison, etc etc - compared with US having to wait a couple of extra weeks/months for some games, Bravely Default included iirc). I sincerely doubt though that NL are leaving Ireland out by their choice. This is something that needs to be taken up with NoE or Nintendo UK if anything's gonna be done about it - ranting about it here, while understandable, is not going to solve the problem. It's down to Nintendo. NL are just running a localised comp for something that's gonna be available to all, freely, in a few days anyway. No point ranting at them.

Since the demo is going to be freely available from the eshop next week, this competition is just meant to be a way of getting it a bit early, if you're lucky enough to get your name pulled out of the hat. Getting all worked up about what is just meant to be an extra bit of fun is daft. Just wait til next Thursday if you're not lucky enough to win, or are not in the area the competition covers.

@Moon If it's like the first one, it's a complete (short) game by itself. So yes, unlimited tries, unlimited time. More games should have demos like this one imho, works really well for story-based games. And (unlike Ace Attorney 5) it's a completely separate episode (AA5's demo was basically the first chapter of the full game).

OK then, I got a spare code at Game this afternoon, have at it:
A05RFRY837YMWAUD
If the person using this code gets another in the NLife giveaway, please pass it on to someone still waiting.

@danstollenwerk have you got a code yet?

@Gizzardthagod you're welcome, enjoy!

@Gizzardthagod check the inbox for the email addy you posted up thread. If it hasn't come thru in 5 mins, check your junk folder. Post here if you get or not.

@Gizzardthagod have you got a code yet?