I don't think one has to be excessively negative to say this isn't that great of a lineup. I'd say the minimum for an ideal lineup will at least have a holiday heavy hitter, a couple big name games throughout the year to back it up, one or two good multiplayer games, a couple smaller scale projects, and an experiment.
The holiday heavy hitter in this lineup is a Pokemon remake which, based on their promotional materials, might play and look a little bit worse than the originals. When the holiday heavy hitter is a remake, that's not ideal. The main big name release backing it up is a remake of a controversial Zelda game with very few changes or updates compared to previous Zelda remakes. Miitopia is a remake of a game which was originally a smaller scale project, and the Famicom Detective Club games are remakes of smaller scale projects too. The multiplayer game slot is filled by a new Mario Golf game, which could be good, and Game Builder Garage is an interesting experiment.
After 2020, I don't blame a game publisher for having a smaller release schedule. And personally, I have games on Switch and Steam I want to play, so I don't care. But I also can't say this is the ideal for a video game company going into a summer and a holiday season. It's all remakes and not all of them look as good as previous Nintendo remakes. That's not anti-Nintendo or particularly negative: it's just having an idea of what a good situation is for a business and what a less-than-ideal situation for a business is.
1. Goals after completing the house. New Leaf had so much more to work towards: more shops to unlock, more house expansions, more in general to put one's bells towards. Long term goals are a major part of the Animal Crossing gameplay loop and New Horizons has 2: finish your house, and the museum. (Nook Miles goals could be considered one, if it wasn't for...)
2. Something to sink Nook Miles into. They're presented as this long term goal, but there's nothing to do with them.
3. Mini games and activities. New Leaf was full of these. Often it was a challenge to unlock them, then they provided another daily activity. By giving a slow drip feed of new unlockable mini games and activities, it meant there was always some reason to check the game for 15-20 minutes.
In short, the game needs things to do and goals to work towards.
New Horizons does so much well, but after that first month of gameplay, there's so much less to do in the mid to late game than in any other Animal Crossing game.
Okay, to be clear, the new graphics don't look bad, and they're head and shoulders above Sword and Shield's art style...but wouldn't it be rather easy to bump the brightness of the colors up? As is, the original art style looks better for basically just that reason, and that's not a difficult thing to fix.
I've been following Nintendo for long enough to know that Famitsu will be the first review for any given major Nintendo game and that their review and score will almost always be relentlessly positive in a way which is not necessarily helpful to the consumer.
Not, of course, that there are many review outlets out there which are informed about gaming, willing to mention positives, and also willing to mention negatives. Nintendo Life has consistently been one of the better ones: their writers are usually informed, they're always willing to mention positives, and they're usually willing to mention negatives.
I expected drift deniers and I wasn't disappointed.
There's more than enough evidence by this point that these things break with less than regular use, defining regular use as being used in front of a television without excessive force, liquid, food, etc. and stored in a safe location. They're not good controllers. Other Nintendo controllers, other Switch controllers, can at withstand normal usage for years. These can't. Whatever other features they have, they fail at the most basic feature.
To be fair, I'd critique the N64 controller for having a bad control stick too, as well as most third party GameCube controllers.
I'm close enough to finishing everything in A Short Hike that there's not much left to do, but I did enjoy it. I played some Animal Crossing and Mario Maker yesterday. I'll probably play Animal Crossing this weekend and maybe a bit of Civilization VI, but honestly this weekend I want to read and clean and get outside.
It looks fun. Like if Mario Party decided to make a good, fun, high quality online experience instead of wondering what this newfangled internet thing is...
Ironically, all the press about how bad Ziplash was on YouTube might mean there's the most publicity for the series, especially the original, that there's ever been. A 3D platformer with a unique setting and aesthetic like the original would probably get a lot of attention right now.
@VexingInsanity I don't want to sound aggressive or disrespectful because you're right: there was an agreement there. But in the real world, rules get bent in exceptional circumstances. Independent Hong Kong being annexed is not a normal political event like "oh do you think congress should raise taxes to fund a new transportation program" or whatever. This is a people and political entity whom China agreed to the world to leave as independent being for all intents and purposes conquered with threats of draconian treatment. In the real world, there's events which rise above being merely political, where it's reasonable to accept rules to be bent or ignored, where it's honorable to use one's platform to show support and to talk about it. What the streamer did was courageous and Activision had the option not to enforce the rule or to let him off with a finger wag and a warning. But they didn't: they made a strong statement by publicly enforcing the rule.
I have a certain fondness for the city, having briefly been there and known a number of people there: it was a corporate and travel hub for organizations working in the South Pacific, where I used to live. But maybe that's neither here nor there. The point I'd make is that rules go both ways: the streamer had a choice to keep the rule or to break it. He decided it was worth it to break it and face the consequence. That can in some situations be the right thing to do. But the human beings working jobs at Activision were moral actors too: they had a choice whether and how to enforce the rule. It isn't fair to them to treat them like they're mechanistic. They had a right to enforce that rule, but enforcing a rule isn't always right.
It's a really good multiplayer game owned by one of the most sleazy companies out there. If wealth and success makes people stop caring about freedom and rights and humanity than it's better and happier to die starving in a hole than to be a CEO for Activision.
But the devs shouldn't take all the blame for a corporation which cares more about making another buck than about human rights or freedom. It's a really good game sold to the worst people.
@BulbasaurusRex Yeah, in hindsight a relative pronoun would have been more clear: I'd rather see an HD rerelease of Star Fox 64, which has no weird gimmicks.
I agree there's no need for another Star Fox 64 remake. But if I had a choice hypothetically between a remake of Star Fox 64 or a rerelease of Star Fox Zero, I'd still rather play Star Fox 64 again. It's fun.
@BulbasaurusRex Agreed. It's a fun arcade shooter. I like the original and the 3DS remake.
I meant that I'd rather have a plain HD remake of Star Fox 64 than a Star Fox Zero remake, which heavily draws from 64 but had gimmicky controls. But what would be best is a new arcade shooter Star Fox that takes advantage of decades of technical and game design ideas: it would be cool to see a new game.
Of course? That's what play testing is for. Innovation for the sake of innovation is dumb. Nobody likes an idea or mechanic just because it's innovative. The mechanics being fun and well implemented is just as important. It's the developer's job both to come up with ideas and to find whether people consider those ideas fun.
It's perfectly consistent to want original and innovative ideas and to think that a particular idea is gimmicky and broken? Just because someone states a priority (originality) doesn't mean they have no other priorities (like fun).
Most people, I think, would be satisfied with a few good games a year. The difficulty is that we define that differently. I am still playing Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games and catching up with some indie games I never got around to in college and some childhood classics like Skyrim. But obviously if one doesn't like Animal Crossing, they're going to be a lot less satisfied this year. Similarly, I'm not particularly interested in playing Xenoblade Chronicles again, so that game isn't one which satisfies me as a Switch purchaser, but others love it.
I think as long as Nintendo is releasing every 1-2 years:
An adventure game
An action game
A casual game
A multiplayer game
A 2D platformer
A 3D platformer
And a roleplaying game,
then most customers will be satisfied. About 4 quality titles a year with alternating genres would get most folks something.
It would help a lot if people knew about advances further ahead so that if an action adventure game fan isn't getting a game this year, they at least know there's one in the pipeline. Services like the virtual console and the eshop help pad that out too.
I will say that this has been one of the more fun debate topics I've seen on the site. Lots of people have interesting reasons why they say a year is good or bad for Nintendo and why one year is worse than others. And it's been a lot less dumb and mean than "Pokemon/Paper Mario/Controversial Game Which Should Be Better But Isn't Awful" topics.
@GrizzledVeteran Yeah, I picked '99, but '97 is as good a pick. People look back at the N64 library and see so many classics and masterpieces and forget that there were often one or two of them a year... And so many of the good games weren't great single player games. (Mario Kart 64, Smash 64, the Mario Parties, etc)
@bobzbuilder I get your point, but 1. You don't know that - Nintendo not having more big releases is also possible. Bad outcomes aren't impossible. and 2. This at least shows a major flaw with their current marketing strategy of only announcing games a few months before release. People see that few games are on the horizon and believe that Nintendo has nothing planned. This is like the plan in Last Jedi: Holdo could have at least told everyone that there was a plan and avoided most of the conflict in the story. Nintendo is using a bad marketing strategy if they won't say that games are planned or what they are. Can't blame anyone for actually assuming they don't have games or a plan if they won't even say that they have games. They used to announce games more than a few months beforehand: they created this marketing problem for themselves and I can't do too much more than roll my eyes when they already have the solution.
(I do suspect they have some holiday releases lined up. It's just their own fault that nobody cares without knowing what they are)
Regarding the multiple citations of ChibiRobo Ziplash, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, and Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival: I watch Scott the Woz too. Those three games were particularly boring and poorly designed. But Scott himself points out several good Wii U and 3DS games from 2015. That has to beat multiple years where Nintendo had 1 or 2 okay games in the NES and N64 eras.
1999 looks pretty bad, looking back through Nintendo release lists: if you didn't have people to play Smash Bros. 64 or Mario Party 1 with, there wasn't much else. DK64. Command and Conquer. Some rereleases.
2008 is another where without multiplayer, there's nothing: Mario Kart Wii, Wii Music, Mario and Sonic, Brawl, Animal Crossing City Folk...
1997 looks pretty bad too: if you don't have multiplayer people for Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing, the only other Nintendo published N64 game for you is Star Fox 64. Thankfully, if you have a Gameboy, you have Donkey Kong Land 3...
I can't honestly say 2016 was worse for 3DS owners than some of these other years. In fact, there were some pretty good 3DS games. Nothing stellar, but some solidly good games (Sun/Moon, Fates, Planet Robobot, plus a couple multiplayer games including Star Rush). The Wii U was basically relying on Pokken Tournament, Star Fox Zero, and Color Splash. Not a great look. Wii U by itself would be the worst year, but I think 3DS pushes it past some others.
A lot of the NES era had one or two solid games a year and a few more kind of boring games.
2015 isn't in the running imo: Wooly World, Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Mario Maker, there were too many actually solid games for it to be the worst.
Ruling out remakes and rereleases, 2020 might be in the running for Nintendo's worst year: New Horizons and Origami King are both good, but so far, that's it.
Showing some mercy to NES years, I think 1999 looks the weakest. I wouldn't want to go back and play Mario Party 1, Pokemon Snap, Donkey Kong 64, and Smash 64 for a whole year. I know Snap has a fanbase, but none of those are games which I want to spend much time with.
Depends on the game. A handful of games are worth $70-$100 to me. All time favorites, games which I know I'll get a lot out of for years and years, masterpieces. But if $70 becomes the norm, the obvious consequence is that I won't take risks. At $60, I already rarely buy a AAA game unless I'm absolutely confident in its quality and longevity.
The reality is that in the 2D market, many indie games are already destroying their AAA competition. The 3D market gives an advantage to studios with money: few 3D indie games are close in quality to the best games in their genre. (My Time at Portia comes to mine as one, but only because most 3D Harvest Moon games run worse than Portia...) But by this point, there are indie games for $15 better than most AAA games in the same genre. The further they bump the price of AAA games up, the more likely I am to try one of countless quality indie games instead. Or a classic game on Steam. Or a book. Or literally anything except a $70 video game with microtransactions.
@AlienX I wouldn't use the terms "hard" or "difficult." There's an interview with Miyamoto and Bill Trinen back in 2016 where they talk about a Japanese concept called "tegotae," hand feeling, or the idea basically of the response of manipulating an object with ones hand matching the expectation from the hand movement. In other words, Miyamoto highly values the sensation when what happens on screen matches what the player instinctively expects from pressing the button. Two qualities which Miyamoto and Trinen say are crucial to this are weight and the response of the player character to the environment.
When I as someone who didn't grow up with Sonic games go to the Sonic Adventure games in particular, they do not have tegotai for me. Sonic feels to me like a frictionless pinball made of feathers. While this is my experience and not a universal, it's clear from watching others who haven't grown up with the games play them that I'm not the only one to have this experience. It's also clear that people who grew up with the games often do not feel the same lack of tegotai or hand feel or whatever and I would assume it's from extended familiarity with the games. I don't think it's nostalgia blinding them to an objective fact that the controls are bad; I think they're used to the controls from having played the game a lot, but that for many players the controls are not immediately intuitive.
Sonic Heroes has, in my experience, more immediately intuitive controls largely because it gives such a powerful midair movement option in flight mode. That doesn't mean it's a better game: it's pretty good, but I think Sonic Adventure 2 has more love put into its level design and world.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a flawed game which is miserable to go into today as a new player without any nostalgia for it. The controls really take some nostalgia in both Adventure games to enjoy in my experience. But that doesn't mean it's a bad game - clearly people have a lot of fun with it when they get the hang of the controls. But it definitely shows that 3D Sonic can work as a linear mission/arcade style game. If they put the time into it. And care about level design. And don't get distracted by too much side content (Some is fine, but only if it doesn't stretch development too thin). And don't rush development to get a game on the shelves. And there's reasons to suspect they'll do the opposite of all of that...
To be fair, a lot of companies can struggle making good sequels: a good sequel needs to understand why the original formula worked while also branching off in new and interesting directions. In games and movies, you often either get sequels which cling to the formula and aren't different or sequels which don't understand why people liked the old games. Force Awakens is the former for Star Wars; Last Jedi is the latter. Even Nintendo has that problem: they really struggle with say, making a good Star Fox sequel because they either remake 64 or don't get that their audience thinks arcade style flying games are fun. A good starting point for making a 3D Sonic sequel would be to play Sonic Adventure 1, 2, Heroes, and 06 and have their level design people take notes on what the core formula was and what they did and didn't find fun and what ideas they immediately have.
My thoughts, for what they're worth (next to nothing, but I'm not on either extreme in this fight): Personally, I don't even want TTYD 2: after this much time, they should be able to find ways to build on the formula.
The Paper Mario formula seems something like this: a charming story with a little bit of depth and weirdness, battle system which rewards timing, player decisions in whether to prioritize offense or defense while managing limited resources, and simple puzzles using collected abilities. Even Super Paper Mario ticks all those boxes and it deliberately changes as much as it can. It still sticks to a solid foundation and winds up as a pretty good game.
Sticker Star is an example of what not to do: Nonsensical puzzles involving an eternity of backtracking, no story, a simple battle system which rewarded fleeing and avoiding battles, and an overwhelming amount of resources so that managing them isn't a question. It messes up about everything besides the visuals. It deserves the critique it gets.
And fleeing from battles being rewarded is actually a problem: it shows the developers are wasting their time on a huge chunk of content which the player is motivated to never see. Shows a dev isn't thinking about how the player will play their game.
So Color Splash. It adds a story and puzzles, which is half the formula, but still largely rewards fleeing and drowns the player in resources. Overall a much much better game, but they needed to figure out a way to encourage or force engagement with battles or to remove that part of the game entirely. Still, good game with weird decisions.
Origami King might solve some of that though. It clearly has a story (looks charming) and clearly has puzzles. Again, half the battle so far. And it does look like they got closer to making the battle system an important part of the game using the coins system they've been trying for 3 games: 1. it does sound like there's a lot to do with coins this time and 2. They made it significantly more difficult to flee. There's 2 good action steps which look like they go a long ways towards fixing the problems they've had with the battle system: make the thing you get from battles consistently useful and make fleeing a risk not worth taking. Especially making fleeing more dangerous is a great idea. Good job.
Took 3 games, but it does look like they made a good Paper Mario game which follows the basic foundations of a Paper Mario game. To borrow an image from Dante, we made it through the Sticker Inferno, we climbed the Mt. Purgatory which was Color Splash as Sticker Star's imperfections were slowly purged, and maybe, just maybe we're in an origami paradise. But I'll be watching some gameplay footage before purchasing this one.
Vanilla no updates AC:NH feels incomplete largely because it has so few long term goals and projects. The reason previous Animal Crossing games were games where you could "live it," loading the game up for 20 minutes every day to check what's new, was because there were a lot of little projects to work on: paying off the house, unlocking all the shops, finishing the museum, collecting furniture sets, getting the highest HHA scores, etc etc. You made a little progress every day towards long term goals and saw the rewards.
New Horizons has a great core and great early game, but I do think it really needs some mid-late game content and projects and unlocks added over time so that there's a reason to get on for a bit throughout the year. And wanting that from an Animal Crossing game is reasonable, considering New Leaf did such a good job with having longevity.
Honestly, the way the media tended (minus GameXplain) to review Sticker Star without properly addressing its numerous glaring design flaws was...I won't say dishonest, but disappointing. I'm waiting to see some people who aren't reviewers get their hands on this one.
(I don't care if it's TTYD 2 - I care if it has a fun story, good puzzles, good battle mechanics, and a reason to do those puzzles and battles. Not just a lot of coins and toads and paper gags. Story, puzzles, and battles. I want to know they got that right before purchasing.)
If Behold the Kickmen's gameplay is any good, the idea of a satirical soccer game with a story mode sounds fun. Looking at screenshots, it looks like graphically at least, they put more work into dialogue character models than the soccer game though.
Nintendo: "Alright, we've got the cafe ready to add to Animal Crossing where it belongs and I'll get around to putting it in the game right after my lunch break.
Wait, where did I set that cafe? Could have sworn I put it right there. Oh well, I'm sure it will turn up somewhere."
If one is looking for a Gameboy-inspired platformer on Switch which is more inspired by Kirby's Dream Land and less by Nintendo Hard platformers, I recently enjoyed Squidlit. It attempts to look and play just like a Gameboy platformer, including being playable in one sitting. But the price also matches the length of the game. Charming dialogue, decent levels. For a couple bucks, was well worth it.
I like more difficult platformers too, so this looks fun. Maybe I'll look at it after I beat Celeste.
On the topic of the Pros/Cons, I think those are supposed to be a summary of the review more than the reason why the game got that score? It's pretty common to have a summary at the bottom on gaming sites for people who didn't read the whole review. I don't think the reviewer actually took points away for not having a story? I've seen a lot of reaction comments along the lines of "Why is that in the cons section? That's not worth taking points off for!" Maybe it would be clearer to call the section "summary" or "notes" or something like that so people don't see something in the pros or cons section and think that the reviewer added or took away points. Especially since IGN has the same problem with people making fun of nitpicky things in the cons section like "too much water."
Some of the old Nintendo Life reviews of Wii and DS shovelware from back in the day when the site tried its best to review all wiiware and DSiware are still fun to go back and read, especially Philip Reed's work. Philip Reed's old review of Dragon Master Spell Caster is a personal favorite, although that masterpiece at least was deserving of 2 whole stars.
@Heavyarms55 Yeah, it gets really complicated at top level play in games like Melee where movement techniques like dashbacks can only be done with technically-malfunctioning joysticks and where many more inputs have to be close to frame perfect, since there's not the input buffering system employed in most modern fighting games. I suspect in a modern fighting game, a technique only possible with a malfunctioning controller would be banned or patched out for the same reason controllers with multiple-input buttons like in the article are: only people with that controller would be able to do the technique. But Melee has the weight of tradition behind it.
Only if the cost of losing a feature and the ability to play some games is balanced out by a significantly lower price. Otherwise it's a negative, a net decrease in convenience. So, considering Nintendo uses space efficient carts and not disk drives, probably not.
@Northwind Yeah, I didn't suspect it was about the amount. It's just evidence that some debit card transactions are going through.
I wonder if they block screenshots on the payment screens to keep people from purposefully or accidentally screenshotting their credit cart information.
@Northwind In case the information is useful, I was able to purchase Squidlit from the US Switch Eshop yesterday for about 50¢ after using my gold coins yesterday using a debit card. Not saying you're wrong or that it isn't broken.
@zool True, I could download a lot of these games for free on my phone. I would counter though that the mobile game experience is so unbelievably miserable that I would pay $5 to play one of these games without the ads and viruses and microtransactions.
But it is fair to say that a lot of these games can be found for free online.
@Moroboshi876 I haven't played any Shantae games, but it isn't that weird for fan and critic response to be different, especially over time. Skyward Sword is a great example: consistent high reviews, considered a black sheep and a controversial entry by fans. Or Paper Mario: Sticker Star: consistent 8/10 reviews, very much a black sheep of the franchise. And both of those games have their fans too.
I picked up Fighterz on a whim: as a fighting game, it seems like it has a good amount of style, balance, and depth. I haven't played any online yet though - still getting the hang of mechanics in training mode in the limited time I play.
I'll pick. Let's be honest: Mario Odyssey has about 200-300 moons that involve doing something that could be called interesting in any way and many of those repeat the same idea without variation. They almost never build on or combine ideas. The platforming levels are largely incredibly simplistic, usually focused on a transformation. Only a few come to mind as exceptions and they largely borrow from Mario Galaxy. Mario Odyssey has the best Mario controls and does the least with them. It's fun in the way a mobile game is fun: you're always doing something, but it's usually nothing. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are superior games in every way except controls because of their level design.
Speaking as someone who has played the series for about a decade, I usually play a lot for the first few weeks and then settle into a routine where I play Animal Crossing for 15-20 minutes to relax, then play something else. Then sometimes I'll play for a longer session or with friends or to play holiday events.
On a related note, that's why the initial lack of long term goals concerns me a bit. Previous games have been something I play for 15-20 minutes to keep working towards long term goals. New Leaf had a lot of long term goals and late game unlocks, while in New Horizons, I feel like I've stumbled by accident into a 5 star town, an almost finished house, an S+ rank HHA score, etc.
I can understand why someone would be annoyed by data miners who spoil future content updates, but this is just the kind of stuff I'd want to see in a player's guide... "This is how this mechanic works." Since player's guides are increasingly useless, I have no problem with others picking up their slack.
Raymond gives off Byakuya Togami from Danganronpa vibes with the hair and the glasses and the suit and the smugness. Fitting then that he'd be the most popular villager in a game where a talking animal who gives morning announcements takes people to live on a deserted island.
Kirby's Adventure and Mario Bros. 3 are the only games that don't feel held back by the hardware limitations and level design idiocy of the NES era. They're completely playable with well designed levels.
Open Tournament Golf is fun too. SMB1 and Lost Levels are good, but not to the same extent as SMB3. They're held back by the hardware.
@OptometristLime I think the garden festival thingy from Wild World is a good example of what I'm talking about. It was a simple event, having flowers around your house gave you points. It was broken, in that flowers would spawn around villager houses and taking them and replanting them at your house counted towards your points. So it was a simple event that probably didn't work as intended. But something about the "we're trying to fill the game with little festivals to make the town feel alive and fun" attitude outweighs that and almost makes the broken activity charming. I've worked in student activities and education: I know what it's like to plan activities that are kind of silly and don't work out as planned for the sake of having a little fun. And walking around a museum for stamps sounds like one. I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say except that Animal Crossing sometimes makes these little bits of bad design work because it has so much charm?
I love New Horizons and all, but there's something both very old school Animal Crossing and kind of lame about a holiday where you walk through the museum and find stamps, but it lasts half a month. Having kind of pointless events is totally Animal Crossing tradition: the one where all the animals play sports in the Gamecube one, Yay Day in Wild World, etc etc. The pointlessness of it adds some charm, so I'm not even really complaining. But it does sound like this boils down to walking through the museum at some point during the second half of May.
Comments 1,107
Re: Nintendo's Upcoming Release Schedule For 2021 Looks Positive, With Room For More
I don't think one has to be excessively negative to say this isn't that great of a lineup. I'd say the minimum for an ideal lineup will at least have a holiday heavy hitter, a couple big name games throughout the year to back it up, one or two good multiplayer games, a couple smaller scale projects, and an experiment.
The holiday heavy hitter in this lineup is a Pokemon remake which, based on their promotional materials, might play and look a little bit worse than the originals. When the holiday heavy hitter is a remake, that's not ideal. The main big name release backing it up is a remake of a controversial Zelda game with very few changes or updates compared to previous Zelda remakes. Miitopia is a remake of a game which was originally a smaller scale project, and the Famicom Detective Club games are remakes of smaller scale projects too. The multiplayer game slot is filled by a new Mario Golf game, which could be good, and Game Builder Garage is an interesting experiment.
After 2020, I don't blame a game publisher for having a smaller release schedule. And personally, I have games on Switch and Steam I want to play, so I don't care. But I also can't say this is the ideal for a video game company going into a summer and a holiday season. It's all remakes and not all of them look as good as previous Nintendo remakes. That's not anti-Nintendo or particularly negative: it's just having an idea of what a good situation is for a business and what a less-than-ideal situation for a business is.
Re: Talking Point: One Year On, What's Still Missing From Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
1. Goals after completing the house. New Leaf had so much more to work towards: more shops to unlock, more house expansions, more in general to put one's bells towards. Long term goals are a major part of the Animal Crossing gameplay loop and New Horizons has 2: finish your house, and the museum. (Nook Miles goals could be considered one, if it wasn't for...)
2. Something to sink Nook Miles into. They're presented as this long term goal, but there's nothing to do with them.
3. Mini games and activities. New Leaf was full of these. Often it was a challenge to unlock them, then they provided another daily activity. By giving a slow drip feed of new unlockable mini games and activities, it meant there was always some reason to check the game for 15-20 minutes.
In short, the game needs things to do and goals to work towards.
New Horizons does so much well, but after that first month of gameplay, there's so much less to do in the mid to late game than in any other Animal Crossing game.
Re: Video: Check Out This Side-By-Side Comparison Of Pokémon Diamond And Pearl On Switch And DS
Okay, to be clear, the new graphics don't look bad, and they're head and shoulders above Sword and Shield's art style...but wouldn't it be rather easy to bump the brightness of the colors up? As is, the original art style looks better for basically just that reason, and that's not a difficult thing to fix.
Re: The First Review For Bravely Default II Is Now In
I've been following Nintendo for long enough to know that Famitsu will be the first review for any given major Nintendo game and that their review and score will almost always be relentlessly positive in a way which is not necessarily helpful to the consumer.
Not, of course, that there are many review outlets out there which are informed about gaming, willing to mention positives, and also willing to mention negatives. Nintendo Life has consistently been one of the better ones: their writers are usually informed, they're always willing to mention positives, and they're usually willing to mention negatives.
Re: Random: Modder Pokes Fun At Nintendo By Creating Custom Joy-Con Fighter That Always Drifts Left
I expected drift deniers and I wasn't disappointed.
There's more than enough evidence by this point that these things break with less than regular use, defining regular use as being used in front of a television without excessive force, liquid, food, etc. and stored in a safe location. They're not good controllers. Other Nintendo controllers, other Switch controllers, can at withstand normal usage for years. These can't. Whatever other features they have, they fail at the most basic feature.
To be fair, I'd critique the N64 controller for having a bad control stick too, as well as most third party GameCube controllers.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (September 5th)
I'm close enough to finishing everything in A Short Hike that there's not much left to do, but I did enjoy it. I played some Animal Crossing and Mario Maker yesterday. I'll probably play Animal Crossing this weekend and maybe a bit of Civilization VI, but honestly this weekend I want to read and clean and get outside.
Re: Mediatonic Would Love To Bring Fall Guys To Other Platforms Further Down The Line
It looks fun. Like if Mario Party decided to make a good, fun, high quality online experience instead of wondering what this newfangled internet thing is...
Re: Has The Chibi-Robo Studio Skip Pulled The Plug On Development?
Ironically, all the press about how bad Ziplash was on YouTube might mean there's the most publicity for the series, especially the original, that there's ever been. A 3D platformer with a unique setting and aesthetic like the original would probably get a lot of attention right now.
Re: Overwatch Director Reminds Us Which Hero He Would Like To See In Smash Bros.
@VexingInsanity I don't want to sound aggressive or disrespectful because you're right: there was an agreement there. But in the real world, rules get bent in exceptional circumstances. Independent Hong Kong being annexed is not a normal political event like "oh do you think congress should raise taxes to fund a new transportation program" or whatever. This is a people and political entity whom China agreed to the world to leave as independent being for all intents and purposes conquered with threats of draconian treatment. In the real world, there's events which rise above being merely political, where it's reasonable to accept rules to be bent or ignored, where it's honorable to use one's platform to show support and to talk about it. What the streamer did was courageous and Activision had the option not to enforce the rule or to let him off with a finger wag and a warning. But they didn't: they made a strong statement by publicly enforcing the rule.
I have a certain fondness for the city, having briefly been there and known a number of people there: it was a corporate and travel hub for organizations working in the South Pacific, where I used to live. But maybe that's neither here nor there. The point I'd make is that rules go both ways: the streamer had a choice to keep the rule or to break it. He decided it was worth it to break it and face the consequence. That can in some situations be the right thing to do. But the human beings working jobs at Activision were moral actors too: they had a choice whether and how to enforce the rule. It isn't fair to them to treat them like they're mechanistic. They had a right to enforce that rule, but enforcing a rule isn't always right.
Re: Overwatch Director Reminds Us Which Hero He Would Like To See In Smash Bros.
It's a really good multiplayer game owned by one of the most sleazy companies out there. If wealth and success makes people stop caring about freedom and rights and humanity than it's better and happier to die starving in a hole than to be a CEO for Activision.
But the devs shouldn't take all the blame for a corporation which cares more about making another buck than about human rights or freedom. It's a really good game sold to the worst people.
Re: PlatinumGames Has No Idea If Star Fox Zero Will Be Ported To Switch
@BulbasaurusRex Yeah, in hindsight a relative pronoun would have been more clear: I'd rather see an HD rerelease of Star Fox 64, which has no weird gimmicks.
I agree there's no need for another Star Fox 64 remake. But if I had a choice hypothetically between a remake of Star Fox 64 or a rerelease of Star Fox Zero, I'd still rather play Star Fox 64 again. It's fun.
Re: PlatinumGames Has No Idea If Star Fox Zero Will Be Ported To Switch
@BulbasaurusRex Agreed. It's a fun arcade shooter. I like the original and the 3DS remake.
I meant that I'd rather have a plain HD remake of Star Fox 64 than a Star Fox Zero remake, which heavily draws from 64 but had gimmicky controls. But what would be best is a new arcade shooter Star Fox that takes advantage of decades of technical and game design ideas: it would be cool to see a new game.
Re: PlatinumGames Has No Idea If Star Fox Zero Will Be Ported To Switch
@Rockodoodle
Of course? That's what play testing is for. Innovation for the sake of innovation is dumb. Nobody likes an idea or mechanic just because it's innovative. The mechanics being fun and well implemented is just as important. It's the developer's job both to come up with ideas and to find whether people consider those ideas fun.
It's perfectly consistent to want original and innovative ideas and to think that a particular idea is gimmicky and broken? Just because someone states a priority (originality) doesn't mean they have no other priorities (like fun).
Re: PlatinumGames Has No Idea If Star Fox Zero Will Be Ported To Switch
I'd rather they rerelease Starfox 64 with no broken gimmicks
Re: Talking Point: Is Nintendo Making As Many Games As It Used To?
Most people, I think, would be satisfied with a few good games a year. The difficulty is that we define that differently. I am still playing Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games and catching up with some indie games I never got around to in college and some childhood classics like Skyrim. But obviously if one doesn't like Animal Crossing, they're going to be a lot less satisfied this year. Similarly, I'm not particularly interested in playing Xenoblade Chronicles again, so that game isn't one which satisfies me as a Switch purchaser, but others love it.
I think as long as Nintendo is releasing every 1-2 years:
An adventure game
An action game
A casual game
A multiplayer game
A 2D platformer
A 3D platformer
And a roleplaying game,
then most customers will be satisfied. About 4 quality titles a year with alternating genres would get most folks something.
It would help a lot if people knew about advances further ahead so that if an action adventure game fan isn't getting a game this year, they at least know there's one in the pipeline. Services like the virtual console and the eshop help pad that out too.
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
I will say that this has been one of the more fun debate topics I've seen on the site. Lots of people have interesting reasons why they say a year is good or bad for Nintendo and why one year is worse than others. And it's been a lot less dumb and mean than "Pokemon/Paper Mario/Controversial Game Which Should Be Better But Isn't Awful" topics.
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
@GrizzledVeteran Yeah, I picked '99, but '97 is as good a pick. People look back at the N64 library and see so many classics and masterpieces and forget that there were often one or two of them a year... And so many of the good games weren't great single player games. (Mario Kart 64, Smash 64, the Mario Parties, etc)
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
@bobzbuilder I get your point, but 1. You don't know that - Nintendo not having more big releases is also possible. Bad outcomes aren't impossible. and 2. This at least shows a major flaw with their current marketing strategy of only announcing games a few months before release. People see that few games are on the horizon and believe that Nintendo has nothing planned. This is like the plan in Last Jedi: Holdo could have at least told everyone that there was a plan and avoided most of the conflict in the story. Nintendo is using a bad marketing strategy if they won't say that games are planned or what they are. Can't blame anyone for actually assuming they don't have games or a plan if they won't even say that they have games. They used to announce games more than a few months beforehand: they created this marketing problem for themselves and I can't do too much more than roll my eyes when they already have the solution.
(I do suspect they have some holiday releases lined up. It's just their own fault that nobody cares without knowing what they are)
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
Regarding the multiple citations of ChibiRobo Ziplash, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, and Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival: I watch Scott the Woz too. Those three games were particularly boring and poorly designed. But Scott himself points out several good Wii U and 3DS games from 2015. That has to beat multiple years where Nintendo had 1 or 2 okay games in the NES and N64 eras.
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
1999 looks pretty bad, looking back through Nintendo release lists: if you didn't have people to play Smash Bros. 64 or Mario Party 1 with, there wasn't much else. DK64. Command and Conquer. Some rereleases.
2008 is another where without multiplayer, there's nothing: Mario Kart Wii, Wii Music, Mario and Sonic, Brawl, Animal Crossing City Folk...
1997 looks pretty bad too: if you don't have multiplayer people for Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing, the only other Nintendo published N64 game for you is Star Fox 64. Thankfully, if you have a Gameboy, you have Donkey Kong Land 3...
I can't honestly say 2016 was worse for 3DS owners than some of these other years. In fact, there were some pretty good 3DS games. Nothing stellar, but some solidly good games (Sun/Moon, Fates, Planet Robobot, plus a couple multiplayer games including Star Rush). The Wii U was basically relying on Pokken Tournament, Star Fox Zero, and Color Splash. Not a great look. Wii U by itself would be the worst year, but I think 3DS pushes it past some others.
A lot of the NES era had one or two solid games a year and a few more kind of boring games.
2015 isn't in the running imo: Wooly World, Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Mario Maker, there were too many actually solid games for it to be the worst.
Ruling out remakes and rereleases, 2020 might be in the running for Nintendo's worst year: New Horizons and Origami King are both good, but so far, that's it.
Showing some mercy to NES years, I think 1999 looks the weakest. I wouldn't want to go back and play Mario Party 1, Pokemon Snap, Donkey Kong 64, and Smash 64 for a whole year. I know Snap has a fanbase, but none of those are games which I want to spend much time with.
Re: Poll: No, Really, What Was Nintendo's Worst Year?
I'm curious whether Scott the Woz's recent videos will influence the results towards 2015. Of course, it was a pretty bad year for Nintendo.
Re: Classic Nintendo Source Code And Prototypes Allegedly Leaked
Probably dubiously legal, but historically awesome and morally harmless after this much time
Re: Talking Point: Are You Prepared To Spend $70 On The Latest Games?
Depends on the game. A handful of games are worth $70-$100 to me. All time favorites, games which I know I'll get a lot out of for years and years, masterpieces. But if $70 becomes the norm, the obvious consequence is that I won't take risks. At $60, I already rarely buy a AAA game unless I'm absolutely confident in its quality and longevity.
The reality is that in the 2D market, many indie games are already destroying their AAA competition. The 3D market gives an advantage to studios with money: few 3D indie games are close in quality to the best games in their genre. (My Time at Portia comes to mine as one, but only because most 3D Harvest Moon games run worse than Portia...) But by this point, there are indie games for $15 better than most AAA games in the same genre. The further they bump the price of AAA games up, the more likely I am to try one of countless quality indie games instead. Or a classic game on Steam. Or a book. Or literally anything except a $70 video game with microtransactions.
Re: 2D Cyberpunk Action-RPG DEX Is Receiving A Physical Release On Switch
Aw yeah, Dex! I love how the James Bond lizard says all the funny movie quotes!
Re: Sega Wants To Take "Good Care" Of 2D And 3D Sonic In The Future
@AlienX I wouldn't use the terms "hard" or "difficult." There's an interview with Miyamoto and Bill Trinen back in 2016 where they talk about a Japanese concept called "tegotae," hand feeling, or the idea basically of the response of manipulating an object with ones hand matching the expectation from the hand movement. In other words, Miyamoto highly values the sensation when what happens on screen matches what the player instinctively expects from pressing the button. Two qualities which Miyamoto and Trinen say are crucial to this are weight and the response of the player character to the environment.
When I as someone who didn't grow up with Sonic games go to the Sonic Adventure games in particular, they do not have tegotai for me. Sonic feels to me like a frictionless pinball made of feathers. While this is my experience and not a universal, it's clear from watching others who haven't grown up with the games play them that I'm not the only one to have this experience. It's also clear that people who grew up with the games often do not feel the same lack of tegotai or hand feel or whatever and I would assume it's from extended familiarity with the games. I don't think it's nostalgia blinding them to an objective fact that the controls are bad; I think they're used to the controls from having played the game a lot, but that for many players the controls are not immediately intuitive.
Sonic Heroes has, in my experience, more immediately intuitive controls largely because it gives such a powerful midair movement option in flight mode. That doesn't mean it's a better game: it's pretty good, but I think Sonic Adventure 2 has more love put into its level design and world.
Re: Sega Wants To Take "Good Care" Of 2D And 3D Sonic In The Future
Nobody is reassured.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a flawed game which is miserable to go into today as a new player without any nostalgia for it. The controls really take some nostalgia in both Adventure games to enjoy in my experience. But that doesn't mean it's a bad game - clearly people have a lot of fun with it when they get the hang of the controls. But it definitely shows that 3D Sonic can work as a linear mission/arcade style game. If they put the time into it. And care about level design. And don't get distracted by too much side content (Some is fine, but only if it doesn't stretch development too thin). And don't rush development to get a game on the shelves. And there's reasons to suspect they'll do the opposite of all of that...
To be fair, a lot of companies can struggle making good sequels: a good sequel needs to understand why the original formula worked while also branching off in new and interesting directions. In games and movies, you often either get sequels which cling to the formula and aren't different or sequels which don't understand why people liked the old games. Force Awakens is the former for Star Wars; Last Jedi is the latter. Even Nintendo has that problem: they really struggle with say, making a good Star Fox sequel because they either remake 64 or don't get that their audience thinks arcade style flying games are fun. A good starting point for making a 3D Sonic sequel would be to play Sonic Adventure 1, 2, Heroes, and 06 and have their level design people take notes on what the core formula was and what they did and didn't find fun and what ideas they immediately have.
Re: Round Up: The Paper Mario: The Origami King Reviews Are In
My thoughts, for what they're worth (next to nothing, but I'm not on either extreme in this fight): Personally, I don't even want TTYD 2: after this much time, they should be able to find ways to build on the formula.
The Paper Mario formula seems something like this: a charming story with a little bit of depth and weirdness, battle system which rewards timing, player decisions in whether to prioritize offense or defense while managing limited resources, and simple puzzles using collected abilities. Even Super Paper Mario ticks all those boxes and it deliberately changes as much as it can. It still sticks to a solid foundation and winds up as a pretty good game.
Sticker Star is an example of what not to do: Nonsensical puzzles involving an eternity of backtracking, no story, a simple battle system which rewarded fleeing and avoiding battles, and an overwhelming amount of resources so that managing them isn't a question. It messes up about everything besides the visuals. It deserves the critique it gets.
And fleeing from battles being rewarded is actually a problem: it shows the developers are wasting their time on a huge chunk of content which the player is motivated to never see. Shows a dev isn't thinking about how the player will play their game.
So Color Splash. It adds a story and puzzles, which is half the formula, but still largely rewards fleeing and drowns the player in resources. Overall a much much better game, but they needed to figure out a way to encourage or force engagement with battles or to remove that part of the game entirely. Still, good game with weird decisions.
Origami King might solve some of that though. It clearly has a story (looks charming) and clearly has puzzles. Again, half the battle so far. And it does look like they got closer to making the battle system an important part of the game using the coins system they've been trying for 3 games: 1. it does sound like there's a lot to do with coins this time and 2. They made it significantly more difficult to flee. There's 2 good action steps which look like they go a long ways towards fixing the problems they've had with the battle system: make the thing you get from battles consistently useful and make fleeing a risk not worth taking. Especially making fleeing more dangerous is a great idea. Good job.
Took 3 games, but it does look like they made a good Paper Mario game which follows the basic foundations of a Paper Mario game. To borrow an image from Dante, we made it through the Sticker Inferno, we climbed the Mt. Purgatory which was Color Splash as Sticker Star's imperfections were slowly purged, and maybe, just maybe we're in an origami paradise. But I'll be watching some gameplay footage before purchasing this one.
Re: Talking Point: Does Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Rollout Of Event Updates Make It Feel 'Incomplete'?
Vanilla no updates AC:NH feels incomplete largely because it has so few long term goals and projects. The reason previous Animal Crossing games were games where you could "live it," loading the game up for 20 minutes every day to check what's new, was because there were a lot of little projects to work on: paying off the house, unlocking all the shops, finishing the museum, collecting furniture sets, getting the highest HHA scores, etc etc. You made a little progress every day towards long term goals and saw the rewards.
New Horizons has a great core and great early game, but I do think it really needs some mid-late game content and projects and unlocks added over time so that there's a reason to get on for a bit throughout the year. And wanting that from an Animal Crossing game is reasonable, considering New Leaf did such a good job with having longevity.
Re: Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update 1.3.1 Patch Notes - The Zen Bridge Glitch Has Been Resolved
I have seen the thought bubble glitch several times after talking with villagers. Not a big deal, but I'm glad it's fixed
Re: The First Review For Paper Mario: The Origami King Is Now In
Honestly, the way the media tended (minus GameXplain) to review Sticker Star without properly addressing its numerous glaring design flaws was...I won't say dishonest, but disappointing. I'm waiting to see some people who aren't reviewers get their hands on this one.
(I don't care if it's TTYD 2 - I care if it has a fun story, good puzzles, good battle mechanics, and a reason to do those puzzles and battles. Not just a lot of coins and toads and paper gags. Story, puzzles, and battles. I want to know they got that right before purchasing.)
Re: Nintendo Download: 25th June (North America)
If Behold the Kickmen's gameplay is any good, the idea of a satirical soccer game with a story mode sounds fun. Looking at screenshots, it looks like graphically at least, they put more work into dialogue character models than the soccer game though.
Re: Pokémon Café Mix Is A Free-To-Start Game Coming To Switch And Mobile Next Week
Nintendo: "Alright, we've got the cafe ready to add to Animal Crossing where it belongs and I'll get around to putting it in the game right after my lunch break.
Wait, where did I set that cafe? Could have sworn I put it right there. Oh well, I'm sure it will turn up somewhere."
Re: Mini Review: Awesome Pea 2 - Old-School Challenge With Vintage Visuals To Match
If one is looking for a Gameboy-inspired platformer on Switch which is more inspired by Kirby's Dream Land and less by Nintendo Hard platformers, I recently enjoyed Squidlit. It attempts to look and play just like a Gameboy platformer, including being playable in one sitting. But the price also matches the length of the game. Charming dialogue, decent levels. For a couple bucks, was well worth it.
I like more difficult platformers too, so this looks fun. Maybe I'll look at it after I beat Celeste.
On the topic of the Pros/Cons, I think those are supposed to be a summary of the review more than the reason why the game got that score? It's pretty common to have a summary at the bottom on gaming sites for people who didn't read the whole review. I don't think the reviewer actually took points away for not having a story? I've seen a lot of reaction comments along the lines of "Why is that in the cons section? That's not worth taking points off for!" Maybe it would be clearer to call the section "summary" or "notes" or something like that so people don't see something in the pros or cons section and think that the reviewer added or took away points. Especially since IGN has the same problem with people making fun of nitpicky things in the cons section like "too much water."
Re: Review: Adam's Venture: Origins - Uncharted For Switch? You've Got To Be Kidding
For people asking about 1/10 reviews, there were a number on wii and wiiware if you search for 1/10 reviews. Example: https://www.nintendolife.com/wiiware/reviews?score=1
Some of the old Nintendo Life reviews of Wii and DS shovelware
from back in the day when the site tried its best to review all wiiware and DSiware are still fun to go back and read, especially Philip Reed's work. Philip Reed's old review of Dragon Master Spell Caster is a personal favorite, although that masterpiece at least was deserving of 2 whole stars.
Re: This New Controller Designed For Smash Bros. Ultimate Is A Hit On Kickstarter
@Heavyarms55 Yeah, it gets really complicated at top level play in games like Melee where movement techniques like dashbacks can only be done with technically-malfunctioning joysticks and where many more inputs have to be close to frame perfect, since there's not the input buffering system employed in most modern fighting games. I suspect in a modern fighting game, a technique only possible with a malfunctioning controller would be banned or patched out for the same reason controllers with multiple-input buttons like in the article are: only people with that controller would be able to do the technique. But Melee has the weight of tradition behind it.
Re: Poll: Should Nintendo Release A Digital-Only Switch?
Only if the cost of losing a feature and the ability to play some games is balanced out by a significantly lower price. Otherwise it's a negative, a net decrease in convenience. So, considering Nintendo uses space efficient carts and not disk drives, probably not.
Re: Nintendo Download: 4th June (North America)
@Northwind Yeah, I didn't suspect it was about the amount. It's just evidence that some debit card transactions are going through.
I wonder if they block screenshots on the payment screens to keep people from purposefully or accidentally screenshotting their credit cart information.
Re: Nintendo Download: 4th June (North America)
@Northwind In case the information is useful, I was able to purchase Squidlit from the US Switch Eshop yesterday for about 50¢ after using my gold coins yesterday using a debit card. Not saying you're wrong or that it isn't broken.
Re: Random: Not All Animal Crossing Players Are Having Happy Wedding Seasons
I admit, I wanted to see how many points I'd get from mashing the A button to fill the room with the wedding furniture.
Max points, of course.
Re: Review: Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - You Won't Get 'Board' Of These Games Easily
@zool True, I could download a lot of these games for free on my phone. I would counter though that the mobile game experience is so unbelievably miserable that I would pay $5 to play one of these games without the ads and viruses and microtransactions.
But it is fair to say that a lot of these games can be found for free online.
Re: Review: Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - You Won't Get 'Board' Of These Games Easily
Nintendo: "Let's release a game where you can play board games online!"
Also Nintendo: "Mario Party online should only be minigames because who wants to play board games online?"
I'll be picking this one up. Reminds me of the glory days of online board/card games in the early 2000s, playing backgammon with strangers.
Re: Review: Shantae And The Seven Sirens - Back To Basics Brilliance Leads To A Must-Have Metroidvania
@Moroboshi876 I haven't played any Shantae games, but it isn't that weird for fan and critic response to be different, especially over time. Skyward Sword is a great example: consistent high reviews, considered a black sheep and a controversial entry by fans. Or Paper Mario: Sticker Star: consistent 8/10 reviews, very much a black sheep of the franchise. And both of those games have their fans too.
Re: Reminder: Bandai Namco's Huge Nintendo Switch Sale Ends Today, Up To 80% Off (North America)
I picked up Fighterz on a whim: as a fighting game, it seems like it has a good amount of style, balance, and depth. I haven't played any online yet though - still getting the hang of mechanics in training mode in the limited time I play.
Re: Feature: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 10 Years Of Nintendo's Straightest, Greatest Sequel
I'll pick. Let's be honest: Mario Odyssey has about 200-300 moons that involve doing something that could be called interesting in any way and many of those repeat the same idea without variation. They almost never build on or combine ideas. The platforming levels are largely incredibly simplistic, usually focused on a transformation. Only a few come to mind as exceptions and they largely borrow from Mario Galaxy. Mario Odyssey has the best Mario controls and does the least with them. It's fun in the way a mobile game is fun: you're always doing something, but it's usually nothing. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are superior games in every way except controls because of their level design.
Re: Talking Point: Are You Suffering From Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fatigue?
Speaking as someone who has played the series for about a decade, I usually play a lot for the first few weeks and then settle into a routine where I play Animal Crossing for 15-20 minutes to relax, then play something else. Then sometimes I'll play for a longer session or with friends or to play holiday events.
On a related note, that's why the initial lack of long term goals concerns me a bit. Previous games have been something I play for 15-20 minutes to keep working towards long term goals. New Leaf had a lot of long term goals and late game unlocks, while in New Horizons, I feel like I've stumbled by accident into a 5 star town, an almost finished house, an S+ rank HHA score, etc.
Re: Datamine Reveals Just How Sly Redd Actually Is In The New Animal Crossing
I can understand why someone would be annoyed by data miners who spoil future content updates, but this is just the kind of stuff I'd want to see in a player's guide... "This is how this mechanic works." Since player's guides are increasingly useless, I have no problem with others picking up their slack.
Re: Random: Someone Made An amiibo For The Animal Crossing Villager Raymond
Raymond gives off Byakuya Togami from Danganronpa vibes with the hair and the glasses and the suit and the smugness. Fitting then that he'd be the most popular villager in a game where a talking animal who gives morning announcements takes people to live on a deserted island.
Re: Feature: Every Nintendo Switch Online NES Game Ranked
Kirby's Adventure and Mario Bros. 3 are the only games that don't feel held back by the hardware limitations and level design idiocy of the NES era. They're completely playable with well designed levels.
Open Tournament Golf is fun too. SMB1 and Lost Levels are good, but not to the same extent as SMB3. They're held back by the hardware.
Re: Animal Crossing: New Horizons: International Museum Day - Date, Start Time, Stamp Rally And Stamp Rewards Explained
@OptometristLime I think the garden festival thingy from Wild World is a good example of what I'm talking about. It was a simple event, having flowers around your house gave you points. It was broken, in that flowers would spawn around villager houses and taking them and replanting them at your house counted towards your points. So it was a simple event that probably didn't work as intended. But something about the "we're trying to fill the game with little festivals to make the town feel alive and fun" attitude outweighs that and almost makes the broken activity charming. I've worked in student activities and education: I know what it's like to plan activities that are kind of silly and don't work out as planned for the sake of having a little fun. And walking around a museum for stamps sounds like one. I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say except that Animal Crossing sometimes makes these little bits of bad design work because it has so much charm?
Re: Animal Crossing: New Horizons: International Museum Day - Date, Start Time, Stamp Rally And Stamp Rewards Explained
I love New Horizons and all, but there's something both very old school Animal Crossing and kind of lame about a holiday where you walk through the museum and find stamps, but it lasts half a month. Having kind of pointless events is totally Animal Crossing tradition: the one where all the animals play sports in the Gamecube one, Yay Day in Wild World, etc etc. The pointlessness of it adds some charm, so I'm not even really complaining. But it does sound like this boils down to walking through the museum at some point during the second half of May.