Putting it out there: expose journalism isn't anything new. The internet just gave it a different name recently. Pay attention to the quality of the evidence given and whether the evidence supports the claims. That's all you can do.
If everybody knew not to care about the average user score, then this wouldn't be a problem. You pay attention to individual user reviews that sound reasonable and ignore the others giving 0/10 scores for the heck of it. Average user scores include all the people who aren't reasonable.
Okay, I knew who he was because I'm a gaming nerd and have read articles about Fatal Fury, but to people asking how people don't know about one of the most famous '90s arcade games and characters, here's a little perspective. Remember that I was born in '96 and am in my mid 20s with a job that makes me wear a shirt and tie. Anyone born in the '90s is at least turning 20 soon and someone born in 1990 would be almost 30. There's a lot of people who are adults now who weren't old enough to be going to a lot of arcades when Fatal Fury was most popular.
To put it another way, I'm an adult and if you were a '90s kid, as in "was in the formative years of one's youth in the '90s," I actually took history classes in college that covered your childhood. Of course lots of people don't know characters from games on a dead system that was popular when they were toddlers.
Undertale is like, really good. Avoiding spoilers: It has Earthbound levels of comedic writing, an interesting plot that pulls off meta narrative themes without seeming pretentious, and an out of this world soundtrack. If you have any love for games like Earthbound, Mother 3, or even games like the Mario and Luigi series, Super Mario RPG, or Paper Mario, I'd suggest you forget the memey butchering of what is honestly a masterpiece by the internet as best as you can and give it a try. And don't let anyone on the internet try to tell you the "right way" to play it either.
I really don't think he's OP. Any projectile based character is thought to be OP by anyone who hasn't found a strategy to deal with projectiles, but the game gives any character ways to deal with projectiles, like shielding, jumping, and attacking the projectile, plus characters with counters, reflectors, and super armor. His neutral B is good, but most of his specials are high reward, really high risk. And besides critical hits, most of his tilts aren't great. He's good, but if anything he does is blocked or dodged, he's wide open.
@Indielink the gist of the argument is not that Hero is too good, but that Hero isn't a well-designed character for matches about player skill. I agree with a couple of the complaints and don't think Hero is the best designed character in the game but don't think the character is banworthy.
The biggest is the critical hits on Smash attacks. From a design standpoint, I think Marth has that mechanic worked in much better than Hero's 1/8 chance of a crit. Critical hits are kind of cheap, but getting hit by stray F smashes isn't a sign of good play either. As a PK Trainer player, a lot of my play is based around punishing slow moves - I shouldn't be walking into F smashes. Thwack and Magic Burst are the other two I see where RNG can just claim a stock, but I think those two are more balanced, as are Hocus Pocus and Kamakazee.
The other concern I've heard is the language barrier for traveling players. Again, fair, learning the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words for Hero's moves is work. But that affects a small percentage of competitors and can be solved by making flash cards. A lot of it has started to die down, but twitter is not where calm discussion of anything happens. And I don't honestly think anything we saw in the Banjo trailer is likely to raise concern like random moves that kill at 60 or at 1 or that make you invincible.
I propose that we should ban Banjo and Kazooie from competitive play preemptively just in case they have any uncompetitive mechanics. It would be unfair to ban them after uncompetitive mechanics are discovered because people already will have practiced them.
I kid, of course. And honestly, most voices except Leffen and a small league in Australia are saying not to ban Hero from competitive play. But dang if my twitter feed wasn't full of debates about the topic for a week...
There might be an argument for editing this review to at least give more of a warning about spoilers. I don't get bothered much by spoilers, but it's a reasonable thing to be bothered by, and a review is aimed at an audience who hasn't played the game. I don't want to sound upset because I'm pretty neutral on Final Fantasy and on spoilers, but I think the author could have said something like "the plot takes some insane twists and shouldn't be taken too seriously. There's way too many villains and most aren't written well. But if you let it be goofy nonsense, it can be a good time." Something like that would communicate the point without any real spoilers.
I'd be interested in seeing a Nintendo Life review of Umihara Kawase Fresh! I've been intrigued by the series' gameplay mechanic of swinging with the fishing pole before, but never have taken the bait. It doesn't look like there's many reviews of it yet on Metacritic.
Some internet people don't get that little kids will cry about anything and everything. They are emotionally impulsive. Just because a kid is crying doesn't mean something is wrong. And if you spend time around a kid, you get to know the difference between their "I wanted my sandwich in triangles" cry and their "I am hurt and something is wrong" cry. Being attentive and keeping an eye out for if something is wrong is great, but be careful about publicly accusing a parent of mistreating their kid without good reason, especially if all that's wrong is "my kid was upset about cake." Sincerely, a teacher who has a younger sister, who has babysat kids, and who volunteered at preschools and events for children.
On a happier note, that's a pretty well decorated cake.
I know next to nothing about Overwatch, except what I've seen from the occasional out of context tweet. It was most popular when I lived overseas and was busy with college. I know that people hate the turret character that sounds like Engineer from TF2, I know the healer character is called Mercy, and I know there's this character, I forget her name but she looks like Nana from Ice Climbers, and it seems like the internet has very emotion-laden opinions about her thighs. I've heard a few complaints about people getting banned when people reported them for winning, but I don't know if that really was just for using winning strategies or if they were also being jerks.
But like, if I judged Splatoon based on its social media, I'd think it's this game where everyone is unhealthily obsessed with a teenage squid girl's forehead, and I know because I've played that game that you only spend about 2 percent of your gameplay time with the Squid Sisters. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd be willing to give Overwatch a chance if the Switch port was reviewed well since Switch is a great system for quick online multiplayer matches (in theory when it works and has basic features).
@Anti-Matter I'm not sure what you mean. Why would hacking save files matter in a single player game? And why would not having cloud saves prevent a hacker from adding a different save file or a mod to their game?
If Nintendo isn't supporting their cloud save feature with their own single player first party games and is releasing half-baked 1st party online multiplayer games like Mario Maker then I'm skeptical of their commitment to online. Their ability to make bad online development decisions is amazing.
Okay, does anyone actually believe that because opinions are subjective, there is no point in discussing them? I'm starting to see so many people respond to any discussion of literature or narrative on the internet with "that's just subjective!" and nothing else and I brushed it off, but I'm seeing it a lot in general and on this comment section and I don't think it's a helpful idea.
You can have worthwhile discussions that look like "I think Shrek is a good movie." "Why?" "Because I think its irreverent take on fairy tales is a striking commentary on how western society distances itself from anything beautiful through relentless irony, and I appreciate how Shrek and Fiona learn true self acceptance by not trying to be who society demands you to be." "Perhaps, but I didn't like Shrek because too much of its humor was lazy fart jokes which were written for focus group audiences. Donkey was so obnoxious of a character that he became unsympathetic. The art style never looked good and it hasn't aged well. And it could have found ways to point out irony in modern American society without being what it criticizes." Even if both of those opinions are subjective and even if neither persuades the other, a meaningful discussion about a work of fiction just happened. Compare that to what some internet folks seem to want: "I like Shrek." "That's a subjective opinion!"
1: Everyone knows that if you're talking about your thoughts about a fictional narrative that you're sharing subjective thoughts, what a subject thinks about an experience. You shouldn't have to say "but that's just my opinion" after every single sentence because it's assumed because of the topic matter because obviously saying "I like Shrek!" doesn't say anything about anyone else's experiences of Shrek, and 2: You can have meaningful discussions about shared experiences even if experience is subjective. Shutting down discussion of art because it's subjective discourages people from thinking or discussing art. And 3: there can be good and bad defenses of subjective opinions. And 4: Because there can be meaningful discussion about subjective opinions and because there can be good and bad defenses of subjective opinions, there can be discussion of video game reviews and whether the reasons that a reviewer provides for arguing that a game is or is not worth purchasing back up their conclusion or are persuasive. Which is exactly what seems to have happened here: someone questioned the reviewer's review and the reasons they provided for doing so weren't persuasive to other people and some of those people explained why they weren't persuaded. Communication happened about subjective experience.
If someone simply states that an opinion is subjective, they are simply stating the obvious, and if they're saying that to imply that because an opinion is subjective, it can't be talked about, then they're trying to kill the possibility of meaningful discussion by limiting it to objective and pointless statements like "Shrek is a movie about Shrek. He meets a donkey. There are jokes." The former doesn't mean anything and the latter is actually harmful.
Anyway, this game looks fun, but a lot is going to depend on the plot for me. NieR Automata had a pretty decent plot. I want to see a bit more for myself to see whether this one is good too or whether it's pretentious arthouse stuff. The combat system sounds pretty good and might make it worth it even if the plot is bad, and I'm surprised to hear 20 hours from an action game. I hope the side content isn't awful: I've played so many RPG games where the side content is tangential filler designed to pad 5-10 hours on with fetch quests instead of exploring themes or telling stories.
@Browny I don't know, I think the fact that it's so relaxing makes it easy to get attached to your town. Most of what you do in the game is collect and sell things to afford new additions to your town, creating a gameplay loop where you put work into the game, achieve things and make choices about your town that make it different than other people's towns. Especially as a kid, it becomes easy to be attached to your particular town. Losing my town as a kid would have been a minor tragedy, so I see why a backup would be good.
Working on a Mario Maker 2 level where you use the propeller to jump over wigglers with stacks of chompers as tall hats. Probably won't have time tomorrow to do much more than finish my level.
DSi had an R button break.
Original 3DS had a top screen scratched by its lower screen and got dead pixels, then had an R button break. Later, it had the charging port stop working, which I fixed by just buying a charging dock.
New 3DS XL has paint flake off from hands.
My dad's 3DS XL had an R button break.
Wii almost bricked after trying a third party controller my sister got, but I don't think that's Nintendo's fault. It got better.
We had a drifting nunchuck too.
One of my Switch pro controllers has battery issues where it doesn't hold a charge. The other doesn't scan amiibo.
My family's switch had a joycon that drifted.
My sister's original 3DS had an L button break, I think.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did prove a great game to pull out with a group of friends on a classroom projector when I was in college. Except for the fact that everyone hated the joycons for being tiny and having weird button placement. And the fact that the default setting always was motion controls and auto accelerate on and nobody ever wanted those controls, so that involved explaining how to turn those off every time to everyone...Once you got past that, the game was great fun, and almost nobody is "too cool" for Mario Kart.
From what I've played of Zelda II, it has a combat system that is well designed and ahead of its time, a great soundtrack, but the overworld and level design could be better. Moments are fun, like fighting enemies with shields, but a lot of the game is a slog.
To be fair, a lot of 80s Nintendo games are a slog. Spending 40 minutes killing bats to refill energy tanks in Metroid 1 every time I die is a great argument for save states.
As someone who was only born in '96, I haven't played any Sega games from the 90s that compare in level design quality with Mario World. I think that with the benefit of hindsight, adding together Mario World, Link to the Past, Earthbound, Kirby Superstar, and Super Metroid means that Nintendo has a line up of incredibly well designed games on the SNES that compares with the best of any console favorably. That doesn't mean that Sega didn't have great games in the 90s too, but fewer thar I'd say anyone who loves level design needs to play.
But like, Nintendo and Sega are both publishers. At some point, the credit for either great lineup needs to go more to amazing development teams than to Nintendo or Sega.
I mostly use Nintendo Life forums and StephenPlay's Morning Mario website to find levels, so I tend to find enough levels I enjoy. I also didn't own a Wii U, so everything is new to me. I've been enjoying it. I can see how if you played MM1, some of the MM2 new content is underwhelming. So much of it doesn't go on tracks, for instance. Online multiplayer is awful. They took a step backwards in sharing levels. The lack of an option to do local co-op from the online menu without downloading a level is baffling. If you can share screenshots to social media, why not Mario Maker levels? There are some truly strange decisions in a game that should have gotten everything about the online right because it's a game about sharing and browsing user content.
I don't think the SNES controller had buttons that would work for ZL/ZR, right? Otherwise I'd imagine it would work with a lot of Switch platformer games. Might still work with Mario Maker. If I can use an SNES controller with Mario Maker and Shovel Knight, I'd buy this in a a heartbeat.
@60frames-please But rendering Bowsette's character model with her most iconic polygons would be such a strain on the physics systems of those games; is it even possible that they could run at 60 frames a second?
If Morpeko has a smile, white fur, and black eyes when full and red eyes, dark fur, and a frown when hangry, then when it is halfway between meals, Morpeko is basically Monokuma.
"Everyone give it your all! It's punishment time! Monopeko used guillotine! It's super effective!"
Okay, I know this is beating a dead horse, but they do have to put a certain amount of time and testing into these ROMs to make sure they work, right? So there's a certain time investment, and the reward is having an attractive perk to purchasing Nintendo Switch Online that drives people who might otherwise not have bought it to do so and that drives people who might not resubscribe to do so. Some time for some money. Which means that the more attractive they can make the NES Online service without significantly increasing the amount of time put into the service, the better for them.
As a thought experiment, let's say that an NES game takes 5 energy points to add, setting up an SNES emulator takes 10 energy points, and an SNES game takes 5 energy points to add, and we'll assume Nintendo is allotting 10 energy points to the project and any extra energy points have to come from some other project. Let's also say that a very popular game like Super Mario Bros. brings in 10 popularity points, a somewhat popular game like Kirby's Adventure brings in 5 popularity points, a game that hasn't aged well but that some people played back in the day like Dodgeball brings in 2 popularity points, and a game that nobody has ever heard of, regardless of quality, brings in 0 popularity points. Currently, Nintendo could keep putting in 10 energy points for 2 NES games, but they've already released most of the games in the 10 and 5 point categories. That means they're scraping the bottom of the barrel of their back catalog, so 2 and 0 point games. Currently, they're putting in 10 energy points and getting 4 popularity points back at max instead of the 20 points max they could get near the beginning of the service's lifespan. The SNES library's collection of 10 popularity point games is completely untapped and could easily be drawn from for another year before even getting to 5 popularity point games. By continuing with their current plan for the next year with their current schedule, they would get at max 48 popularity points. If they dropped down to one NES game for the next two months and put the rest of their allotted energy into testing an SNES emulator, they would make 4 popularity points through August and September instead of 8 (at max), but would make 200 popularity points through the rest of the year from releasing beloved games like Super Mario World, leading to a total of 204 instead of 48. Of course this is a flawed thought experiment since I don't have Nintendo's budget in front of me and I can't actually quantify people's desire for games into numbers in a clear cut way, but I still do think that the general idea it conveys, that Nintendo gets more from putting some effort into the SNES emulator once and reaping the benefits for the next two years by releasing games that people are familiar with than from releasing games nobody has ever heard of from their NES library for the next 12 months, specifically because the point of the NES Online app is to make the online service appear more attractive and games that nobody has heard of don't make the service appear more attractive. By investing just a little bit more in the short term, they can gain a lot more for the same energy cost for the next 1-2 years.
I understand the theory, that you can build logic gates in Mario Maker and use them to build simple computers, but I need to teach myself to code before I teach myself to make simple computers in Mario Maker.
I mean, a perfectly balanced fighting game would require identical movesets. By making characters different, you make them uneven. Balancing is relative, you want to balance strengths and weaknesses and not have a character who is good at everything and bad at nothing.
@Abes3 I can't count how many times back in the Wiiware and DS days how many times NintendoLife was the only site that had reviewed a game I was interested in. Helped me find a lot better of gems and avoid a lot of stinkers. And some of their old 1-2 out of 10 reviews of Wiiware games are comedic gems. I get that they can't review all downloadable games because there are too many, but I appreciate that they try to do some average budget games because it helps to have some info when you google a title.
So excited isn't exactly the right word, there have been regional exclusive forms before, there are rivals in every game, and an evil team in every game...but an evil team based around rioting UK football fans is pretty funny...
They've got a bit to prove to me still for me to be excited, tbh. I was willing to give them a bit of a pass for the 3DS having kind of bad world design and style (minus Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire) because other good dev teams had difficulty doing 3D animation on the 3DS. But I can't shake the feeling from what I've seen so far that despite getting $20 more a copy and despite having a console to develop, this doesn't look like a serious step up in style, mechanics, or world building. Pokemon is such a profitable franchise that I don't think it's unreasonable to say that they should be able to improve and innovate and push their style and mechanics even if a new entry is released every 2-3 years. What they've shown off looks functional, but significantly more disappointing on a system where other dev teams have reveled in the opportunity to reinvent game series and try new ideas with major franchises than it did on the 3DS.
I want to see more about the scale and content of the open field area, because I can't shake the suspicion that they'll think early 2000s overworld design is a huge selling point. Like, if they have a Twilight Princess level overworld in terms of scale and content, that isn't impressive on the Switch in 2019.
This isn't a complaint exactly, but the title "challenge pack" does make it sound like it adds challenges, like bonus spirits or harder rematches. This is more of an item pack. It didn't take enough of my time to download to be annoyed though.
Game demos and free content are good. The NES games don't appeal to me. None of that matters when Nintendo struggles so much with online multiplayer. If they got online multiplayer right and had a standard multiplayer feature set and tolerable amounts of lag on their first party games, I wouldn't care if Nintendo Switch Online had no bonus features.
@ricklongo I'm in a similar position myself, so I agree, but modern Civ games online have rulesets designed to speed things up (turns at same time, short games, etc.). I've played some online with a friend, not with randoms.
@tisteg80 There really is a lot going on in Civ VI - they added a metric ton of little mechanics since Civ V. In addition, there's fewer civs with passive buffs that are easy to use for beginners, they often have more complicated special powers than Civ V. It's hard to pay attention to all of the mechanics at once and to know what mechanics you don't have to pay attention to. My suggestion if you're starting the series with Civ VI is to play on 1-3 difficulty while you get used to how the game works. There's no shame in playing a game or two on settler as a tutorial when there are so many decisions to make.
@tovare @Heavyarms55 Yeah, I've been playing Civ since Civ 3 when I was a kid and my dad has been playing since Civ 1 and both of us tend to play on 3 to 5 difficulty even though we know the mechanics well. One of the few problems with the series is that rather than make the AI significantly better at difficulties above 5, they usually make the AI have advantages you don't, like building things faster. That isn't fun difficulty in my opinion when Genghis Kahn can just build more units than you and curb stomp you in the classical era every time, so I usually just pick an AI level where they aren't handicapped but aren't getting super good advantages either when I'm playing for fun.
I've been playing on my laptop rather than on the Switch, so I didn't know that the Switch didn't have hotseat. Honestly, I thought before they ever announced Civ for Switch that Switch would be great for hotseat since you can pass it around. To be honest, I'm glad I haven't gotten the Switch version because I would have been disappointed that it doesn't have hotseat. Although to be honest I didn't get it on Switch because I don't want to go back to vanilla Civ VI when PC has expansion packs...
@Zool I'm not saying that the Fire Emblem series does anything meaningful with its relationship mechanics in its narratives (besides say, recognizing added complexity to Lucina's situation in a certain marriage) or that waifu culture in fandoms doesn't get kind of weird sometimes, but the argument that not real things shouldn't handle romantic topics, a video game is not real, therefore a video game should not handle romantic topics doesn't work. By that logic, Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" is also a not real thing and therefore should not be about a romance between a hedonistic officer in WWI and an army nurse and how it teaches them both about a more beautiful kind of love only to tear it away from them. It should just be a story about a cool officer having adventures and eating cheese and drinking alcohol. I'd argue the opposite, that stories' being not real makes them ideal mediums to explore meaningful topics, that video games are stories, and that video games are therefore ideal mediums to explore meaningful topics.
It is a bit annoying that you can't try something cool with glitches as long as you don't upload it, tbh, but it won't really effect me.
I'm pretty sure uploading a level that requires glitches to beat makes you a jerk, considering it circumvents the normal list of mechanics people are familiar with. As long as it doesn't effect anyone else though, I don't see any reason for moral outrage against people who find glitches or even use cheats. Seems like a morally neutral thing in my book.
I don't mind these "my joycons work so you're lying if you say yours drift" or "my joycons work so it must be your fault if they break" comments because it's really funny to me to imagine the response if someone used that line of argumentation in other areas of life. "I've been feeling depressed lately..." "What? I feel fine, so you must be fine too!" "Today's been rough, my dog died..." "What? My dog is fine! What's with this vocal minority of people who don't take care of their dogs and then complain?" "Seems like a lot of people are coming down with this cold..." "What? I'm in perfect health, so anybody saying they have a cold must be lying through their teeth for attention! People these days..." Imagining the look of bewilderment that would get and the likelihood of a slap to the face happening in those situations is enough of a distraction to make me laugh instead of getting angry, I admit.
Comments 1,107
Re: Nicalis Investigation Reveals Tales Of Ghosting, Slurs And Mistreatment Of Staff
Putting it out there: expose journalism isn't anything new. The internet just gave it a different name recently. Pay attention to the quality of the evidence given and whether the evidence supports the claims. That's all you can do.
Re: Poll: So, Which SNES Games Have You Been Playing On Nintendo Switch?
I haven't had time to play a bunch, but I did start Yoshi's Island and dang that game is good so far.
Re: Switch's NES And SNES Games Will No Longer Be Added Monthly
This probably isn't good, but tbh there are actually games that I want to play on the SNES app, so the pace slowing down doesn't bother me too much.
Re: Everyone Gets A Mushroom When Peachette Makes Her Race Debut In Mario Kart Tour
...It makes more sense than Pink Gold Peach. Okay.
Re: Metacritic Takes Action Against Disgruntled Gamers Who Review-Bombed Astral Chain
If everybody knew not to care about the average user score, then this wouldn't be a problem. You pay attention to individual user reviews that sound reasonable and ignore the others giving 0/10 scores for the heck of it. Average user scores include all the people who aren't reasonable.
Re: Feature: Just Who The Heck Is Terry Bogard, Smash Bros. Ultimate's Latest DLC Fighter?
Okay, I knew who he was because I'm a gaming nerd and have read articles about Fatal Fury, but to people asking how people don't know about one of the most famous '90s arcade games and characters, here's a little perspective. Remember that I was born in '96 and am in my mid 20s with a job that makes me wear a shirt and tie. Anyone born in the '90s is at least turning 20 soon and someone born in 1990 would be almost 30. There's a lot of people who are adults now who weren't old enough to be going to a lot of arcades when Fatal Fury was most popular.
To put it another way, I'm an adult and if you were a '90s kid, as in "was in the formative years of one's youth in the '90s," I actually took history classes in college that covered your childhood. Of course lots of people don't know characters from games on a dead system that was popular when they were toddlers.
Re: Sans From Undertale Is Coming To Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Undertale is like, really good. Avoiding spoilers: It has Earthbound levels of comedic writing, an interesting plot that pulls off meta narrative themes without seeming pretentious, and an out of this world soundtrack. If you have any love for games like Earthbound, Mother 3, or even games like the Mario and Luigi series, Super Mario RPG, or Paper Mario, I'd suggest you forget the memey butchering of what is honestly a masterpiece by the internet as best as you can and give it a try. And don't let anyone on the internet try to tell you the "right way" to play it either.
Re: Sans From Undertale Is Coming To Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Now that Megalovania is in Smash, I just need Vriska and Tavros Mii Fighters...
Re: Dragon Quest XI S Developers Weigh In On 'Overpowered' Hero In Smash Bros.
I really don't think he's OP. Any projectile based character is thought to be OP by anyone who hasn't found a strategy to deal with projectiles, but the game gives any character ways to deal with projectiles, like shielding, jumping, and attacking the projectile, plus characters with counters, reflectors, and super armor. His neutral B is good, but most of his specials are high reward, really high risk. And besides critical hits, most of his tilts aren't great. He's good, but if anything he does is blocked or dodged, he's wide open.
Re: Banjo-Kazooie Store Ads Suggest Smash Bros. Ultimate Release Could Be Imminent
@Indielink the gist of the argument is not that Hero is too good, but that Hero isn't a well-designed character for matches about player skill. I agree with a couple of the complaints and don't think Hero is the best designed character in the game but don't think the character is banworthy.
The biggest is the critical hits on Smash attacks. From a design standpoint, I think Marth has that mechanic worked in much better than Hero's 1/8 chance of a crit. Critical hits are kind of cheap, but getting hit by stray F smashes isn't a sign of good play either. As a PK Trainer player, a lot of my play is based around punishing slow moves - I shouldn't be walking into F smashes. Thwack and Magic Burst are the other two I see where RNG can just claim a stock, but I think those two are more balanced, as are Hocus Pocus and Kamakazee.
The other concern I've heard is the language barrier for traveling players. Again, fair, learning the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words for Hero's moves is work. But that affects a small percentage of competitors and can be solved by making flash cards. A lot of it has started to die down, but twitter is not where calm discussion of anything happens. And I don't honestly think anything we saw in the Banjo trailer is likely to raise concern like random moves that kill at 60 or at 1 or that make you invincible.
Re: Banjo-Kazooie Store Ads Suggest Smash Bros. Ultimate Release Could Be Imminent
I propose that we should ban Banjo and Kazooie from competitive play preemptively just in case they have any uncompetitive mechanics. It would be unfair to ban them after uncompetitive mechanics are discovered because people already will have practiced them.
I kid, of course. And honestly, most voices except Leffen and a small league in Australia are saying not to ban Hero from competitive play. But dang if my twitter feed wasn't full of debates about the topic for a week...
Re: Review: Final Fantasy VIII Remastered - The Weirdest Entry In The Series Is Still Worth A Look On Switch
There might be an argument for editing this review to at least give more of a warning about spoilers. I don't get bothered much by spoilers, but it's a reasonable thing to be bothered by, and a review is aimed at an audience who hasn't played the game. I don't want to sound upset because I'm pretty neutral on Final Fantasy and on spoilers, but I think the author could have said something like "the plot takes some insane twists and shouldn't be taken too seriously. There's way too many villains and most aren't written well. But if you let it be goofy nonsense, it can be a good time." Something like that would communicate the point without any real spoilers.
Re: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix Secures Western Switch Release
They must be releasing this for a reason...This must be a hint...Hatsune Miku as DLC for Smash Ultimate!
Re: Nicalis Hosts Switch eShop Sale, 12 Games Discounted For A Limited Time
I'd be interested in seeing a Nintendo Life review of Umihara Kawase Fresh! I've been intrigued by the series' gameplay mechanic of swinging with the fishing pole before, but never have taken the bait. It doesn't look like there's many reviews of it yet on Metacritic.
Re: Random: Child Left Horrified As Parents Mercilessly Cut Into His Eevee Cake
Some internet people don't get that little kids will cry about anything and everything. They are emotionally impulsive. Just because a kid is crying doesn't mean something is wrong. And if you spend time around a kid, you get to know the difference between their "I wanted my sandwich in triangles" cry and their "I am hurt and something is wrong" cry. Being attentive and keeping an eye out for if something is wrong is great, but be careful about publicly accusing a parent of mistreating their kid without good reason, especially if all that's wrong is "my kid was upset about cake." Sincerely, a teacher who has a younger sister, who has babysat kids, and who volunteered at preschools and events for children.
On a happier note, that's a pretty well decorated cake.
Re: An Overwatch Switch Carry Case Exists, No Prizes For Guessing What Comes Next
I know next to nothing about Overwatch, except what I've seen from the occasional out of context tweet. It was most popular when I lived overseas and was busy with college. I know that people hate the turret character that sounds like Engineer from TF2, I know the healer character is called Mercy, and I know there's this character, I forget her name but she looks like Nana from Ice Climbers, and it seems like the internet has very emotion-laden opinions about her thighs. I've heard a few complaints about people getting banned when people reported them for winning, but I don't know if that really was just for using winning strategies or if they were also being jerks.
But like, if I judged Splatoon based on its social media, I'd think it's this game where everyone is unhealthily obsessed with a teenage squid girl's forehead, and I know because I've played that game that you only spend about 2 percent of your gameplay time with the Squid Sisters. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd be willing to give Overwatch a chance if the Switch port was reviewed well since Switch is a great system for quick online multiplayer matches (in theory when it works and has basic features).
Re: So, Zelda: Link's Awakening Won't Support Cloud Saves On Switch
@Anti-Matter I'm not sure what you mean. Why would hacking save files matter in a single player game? And why would not having cloud saves prevent a hacker from adding a different save file or a mod to their game?
If Nintendo isn't supporting their cloud save feature with their own single player first party games and is releasing half-baked 1st party online multiplayer games like Mario Maker then I'm skeptical of their commitment to online. Their ability to make bad online development decisions is amazing.
Re: Review: Astral Chain - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
Okay, does anyone actually believe that because opinions are subjective, there is no point in discussing them? I'm starting to see so many people respond to any discussion of literature or narrative on the internet with "that's just subjective!" and nothing else and I brushed it off, but I'm seeing it a lot in general and on this comment section and I don't think it's a helpful idea.
You can have worthwhile discussions that look like "I think Shrek is a good movie." "Why?" "Because I think its irreverent take on fairy tales is a striking commentary on how western society distances itself from anything beautiful through relentless irony, and I appreciate how Shrek and Fiona learn true self acceptance by not trying to be who society demands you to be." "Perhaps, but I didn't like Shrek because too much of its humor was lazy fart jokes which were written for focus group audiences. Donkey was so obnoxious of a character that he became unsympathetic. The art style never looked good and it hasn't aged well. And it could have found ways to point out irony in modern American society without being what it criticizes." Even if both of those opinions are subjective and even if neither persuades the other, a meaningful discussion about a work of fiction just happened. Compare that to what some internet folks seem to want: "I like Shrek." "That's a subjective opinion!"
1: Everyone knows that if you're talking about your thoughts about a fictional narrative that you're sharing subjective thoughts, what a subject thinks about an experience. You shouldn't have to say "but that's just my opinion" after every single sentence because it's assumed because of the topic matter because obviously saying "I like Shrek!" doesn't say anything about anyone else's experiences of Shrek, and 2: You can have meaningful discussions about shared experiences even if experience is subjective. Shutting down discussion of art because it's subjective discourages people from thinking or discussing art. And 3: there can be good and bad defenses of subjective opinions. And 4: Because there can be meaningful discussion about subjective opinions and because there can be good and bad defenses of subjective opinions, there can be discussion of video game reviews and whether the reasons that a reviewer provides for arguing that a game is or is not worth purchasing back up their conclusion or are persuasive. Which is exactly what seems to have happened here: someone questioned the reviewer's review and the reasons they provided for doing so weren't persuasive to other people and some of those people explained why they weren't persuaded. Communication happened about subjective experience.
If someone simply states that an opinion is subjective, they are simply stating the obvious, and if they're saying that to imply that because an opinion is subjective, it can't be talked about, then they're trying to kill the possibility of meaningful discussion by limiting it to objective and pointless statements like "Shrek is a movie about Shrek. He meets a donkey. There are jokes." The former doesn't mean anything and the latter is actually harmful.
Anyway, this game looks fun, but a lot is going to depend on the plot for me. NieR Automata had a pretty decent plot. I want to see a bit more for myself to see whether this one is good too or whether it's pretentious arthouse stuff. The combat system sounds pretty good and might make it worth it even if the plot is bad, and I'm surprised to hear 20 hours from an action game. I hope the side content isn't awful: I've played so many RPG games where the side content is tangential filler designed to pad 5-10 hours on with fetch quests instead of exploring themes or telling stories.
Re: SEGA's Yu Suzuki Would Like To Revisit Out Run And Virtua Fighter
Outrun is still fun today. I like it
Re: Guide: Where To Pre-Order Nintendo Switch Lite
Can I pre-order a second one in a year and one month when the joysticks break out of warranty? Would save time.
Re: Feature: A Guide To Shopping In Japan's Retro Gaming Paradise, Akihabara
Woah, they built the level from Persona in real life? And you can buy games there? Awesome!
Next you'll tell me you can visit the city from Grand Theft Auto V in real life!
Re: Fan Petition Asks Nintendo To Allow Backup Game Saves In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
@Browny I don't know, I think the fact that it's so relaxing makes it easy to get attached to your town. Most of what you do in the game is collect and sell things to afford new additions to your town, creating a gameplay loop where you put work into the game, achieve things and make choices about your town that make it different than other people's towns. Especially as a kid, it becomes easy to be attached to your particular town. Losing my town as a kid would have been a minor tragedy, so I see why a backup would be good.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (August 17th)
Working on a Mario Maker 2 level where you use the propeller to jump over wigglers with stacks of chompers as tall hats. Probably won't have time tomorrow to do much more than finish my level.
Re: Poll: Have You Ever Had Problems With Nintendo Hardware?
DSi had an R button break.
Original 3DS had a top screen scratched by its lower screen and got dead pixels, then had an R button break. Later, it had the charging port stop working, which I fixed by just buying a charging dock.
New 3DS XL has paint flake off from hands.
My dad's 3DS XL had an R button break.
Wii almost bricked after trying a third party controller my sister got, but I don't think that's Nintendo's fault. It got better.
We had a drifting nunchuck too.
One of my Switch pro controllers has battery issues where it doesn't hold a charge. The other doesn't scan amiibo.
My family's switch had a joycon that drifted.
My sister's original 3DS had an L button break, I think.
Re: Feature: Best Nintendo Switch Party Games
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did prove a great game to pull out with a group of friends on a classroom projector when I was in college. Except for the fact that everyone hated the joycons for being tiny and having weird button placement. And the fact that the default setting always was motion controls and auto accelerate on and nobody ever wanted those controls, so that involved explaining how to turn those off every time to everyone...Once you got past that, the game was great fun, and almost nobody is "too cool" for Mario Kart.
Re: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Becomes The Largest Fire Emblem Launch In US History
The House always wins...unless you work with Yesman, the Legion, or the NCR. Then he loses...
Wait, wrong game, sorry.
I want to play Three Houses, but I don't have time to teach virtual school right now because I'm getting ready to teach real school.
Re: Prepare Your Wallet For This New Range Of Mario And Splatoon T-Shirts From Uniqlo
Alas, I've become a boring adult who has to wear a shirt and tie to work 5 days a week. I would have few opportunities to wear a video game t-shirt.
Re: Inti Creates President Elaborates On 'That' Zelda II Remake Comment
From what I've played of Zelda II, it has a combat system that is well designed and ahead of its time, a great soundtrack, but the overworld and level design could be better. Moments are fun, like fighting enemies with shields, but a lot of the game is a slog.
To be fair, a lot of 80s Nintendo games are a slog. Spending 40 minutes killing bats to refill energy tanks in Metroid 1 every time I die is a great argument for save states.
Re: Sega Recreates Classic "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" Ad To Promote Mega Drive Mini
As someone who was only born in '96, I haven't played any Sega games from the 90s that compare in level design quality with Mario World. I think that with the benefit of hindsight, adding together Mario World, Link to the Past, Earthbound, Kirby Superstar, and Super Metroid means that Nintendo has a line up of incredibly well designed games on the SNES that compares with the best of any console favorably. That doesn't mean that Sega didn't have great games in the 90s too, but fewer thar I'd say anyone who loves level design needs to play.
But like, Nintendo and Sega are both publishers. At some point, the credit for either great lineup needs to go more to amazing development teams than to Nintendo or Sega.
Re: Soapbox: To Me, Mario Maker 2 Is Nintendo's Best, And Most Disappointing, Sequel Ever
I mostly use Nintendo Life forums and StephenPlay's Morning Mario website to find levels, so I tend to find enough levels I enjoy. I also didn't own a Wii U, so everything is new to me. I've been enjoying it. I can see how if you played MM1, some of the MM2 new content is underwhelming. So much of it doesn't go on tracks, for instance. Online multiplayer is awful. They took a step backwards in sharing levels. The lack of an option to do local co-op from the online menu without downloading a level is baffling. If you can share screenshots to social media, why not Mario Maker levels? There are some truly strange decisions in a game that should have gotten everything about the online right because it's a game about sharing and browsing user content.
Re: Switch SNES Controller Confirmed, Nintendo Switch Online SNES Games Next?
I don't think the SNES controller had buttons that would work for ZL/ZR, right? Otherwise I'd imagine it would work with a lot of Switch platformer games. Might still work with Mario Maker. If I can use an SNES controller with Mario Maker and Shovel Knight, I'd buy this in a a heartbeat.
Re: Random: Mario Without His Mustache Just Doesn't Look Right
@60frames-please But rendering Bowsette's character model with her most iconic polygons would be such a strain on the physics systems of those games; is it even possible that they could run at 60 frames a second?
Re: Random: This Morpeko Reversible Pokémon Plush Is Adorable But Very Expensive
If Morpeko has a smile, white fur, and black eyes when full and red eyes, dark fur, and a frown when hangry, then when it is halfway between meals, Morpeko is basically Monokuma.
"Everyone give it your all! It's punishment time! Monopeko used guillotine! It's super effective!"
Re: Unofficial Legend Of Zelda Cookbook Smashes Its Kickstarter Goal
Cooking like Link is easy: just throw a piece of fox meat, a crane leg, and a turnip in a pot and watch them bounce around for a while.
Re: Two More NES Games Join The Nintendo Switch Online Service In August
Okay, I know this is beating a dead horse, but they do have to put a certain amount of time and testing into these ROMs to make sure they work, right? So there's a certain time investment, and the reward is having an attractive perk to purchasing Nintendo Switch Online that drives people who might otherwise not have bought it to do so and that drives people who might not resubscribe to do so. Some time for some money. Which means that the more attractive they can make the NES Online service without significantly increasing the amount of time put into the service, the better for them.
As a thought experiment, let's say that an NES game takes 5 energy points to add, setting up an SNES emulator takes 10 energy points, and an SNES game takes 5 energy points to add, and we'll assume Nintendo is allotting 10 energy points to the project and any extra energy points have to come from some other project. Let's also say that a very popular game like Super Mario Bros. brings in 10 popularity points, a somewhat popular game like Kirby's Adventure brings in 5 popularity points, a game that hasn't aged well but that some people played back in the day like Dodgeball brings in 2 popularity points, and a game that nobody has ever heard of, regardless of quality, brings in 0 popularity points. Currently, Nintendo could keep putting in 10 energy points for 2 NES games, but they've already released most of the games in the 10 and 5 point categories. That means they're scraping the bottom of the barrel of their back catalog, so 2 and 0 point games. Currently, they're putting in 10 energy points and getting 4 popularity points back at max instead of the 20 points max they could get near the beginning of the service's lifespan. The SNES library's collection of 10 popularity point games is completely untapped and could easily be drawn from for another year before even getting to 5 popularity point games. By continuing with their current plan for the next year with their current schedule, they would get at max 48 popularity points. If they dropped down to one NES game for the next two months and put the rest of their allotted energy into testing an SNES emulator, they would make 4 popularity points through August and September instead of 8 (at max), but would make 200 popularity points through the rest of the year from releasing beloved games like Super Mario World, leading to a total of 204 instead of 48. Of course this is a flawed thought experiment since I don't have Nintendo's budget in front of me and I can't actually quantify people's desire for games into numbers in a clear cut way, but I still do think that the general idea it conveys, that Nintendo gets more from putting some effort into the SNES emulator once and reaping the benefits for the next two years by releasing games that people are familiar with than from releasing games nobody has ever heard of from their NES library for the next 12 months, specifically because the point of the NES Online app is to make the online service appear more attractive and games that nobody has heard of don't make the service appear more attractive. By investing just a little bit more in the short term, they can gain a lot more for the same energy cost for the next 1-2 years.
Re: This Fully-Functioning Calculator Course In Super Mario Maker 2 Is Utter Genius
I understand the theory, that you can build logic gates in Mario Maker and use them to build simple computers, but I need to teach myself to code before I teach myself to make simple computers in Mario Maker.
Re: Samurai Shodown Director Says A Perfectly Balanced Fighting Game Would Be Boring
I mean, a perfectly balanced fighting game would require identical movesets. By making characters different, you make them uneven. Balancing is relative, you want to balance strengths and weaknesses and not have a character who is good at everything and bad at nothing.
Re: Review: Hamsterdam - Lengthy Loads And Mobile Tropes Hamper This Hamster
@Abes3 I can't count how many times back in the Wiiware and DS days how many times NintendoLife was the only site that had reviewed a game I was interested in. Helped me find a lot better of gems and avoid a lot of stinkers. And some of their old 1-2 out of 10 reviews of Wiiware games are comedic gems. I get that they can't review all downloadable games because there are too many, but I appreciate that they try to do some average budget games because it helps to have some info when you google a title.
Re: Pokémon Sword And Shield Will Feature Galarian Forms, New Rivals And Team Yell Revealed
So excited isn't exactly the right word, there have been regional exclusive forms before, there are rivals in every game, and an evil team in every game...but an evil team based around rioting UK football fans is pretty funny...
Re: More Pokémon Sword And Shield Info To Be Dropped On 7th August
They've got a bit to prove to me still for me to be excited, tbh. I was willing to give them a bit of a pass for the 3DS having kind of bad world design and style (minus Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire) because other good dev teams had difficulty doing 3D animation on the 3DS. But I can't shake the feeling from what I've seen so far that despite getting $20 more a copy and despite having a console to develop, this doesn't look like a serious step up in style, mechanics, or world building. Pokemon is such a profitable franchise that I don't think it's unreasonable to say that they should be able to improve and innovate and push their style and mechanics even if a new entry is released every 2-3 years. What they've shown off looks functional, but significantly more disappointing on a system where other dev teams have reveled in the opportunity to reinvent game series and try new ideas with major franchises than it did on the 3DS.
I want to see more about the scale and content of the open field area, because I can't shake the suspicion that they'll think early 2000s overworld design is a huge selling point. Like, if they have a Twilight Princess level overworld in terms of scale and content, that isn't impressive on the Switch in 2019.
Re: Free Smash Bros. Ultimate Spirit Board Challenge Pack Available To Switch Online Subscribers
This isn't a complaint exactly, but the title "challenge pack" does make it sound like it adds challenges, like bonus spirits or harder rematches. This is more of an item pack. It didn't take enough of my time to download to be annoyed though.
Re: Talking Point: Nintendo Switch Online’s Appeal Is Growing, But There's A Long Way To Go
Game demos and free content are good. The NES games don't appeal to me. None of that matters when Nintendo struggles so much with online multiplayer. If they got online multiplayer right and had a standard multiplayer feature set and tolerable amounts of lag on their first party games, I wouldn't care if Nintendo Switch Online had no bonus features.
Re: Dragon Quest's The Hero Joins Smash Bros. Ultimate Today
@N1ntendodo Goku is in Smash Bros. in spirit...or at least in one half of a spirit.
Re: Dragon Quest's The Hero Joins Smash Bros. Ultimate Today
Hero from Dragon Quest? More like My Hero Academia... because the Hero is going to take everyone to school!
(I don't watch anime or play Dragon Quest really, but that won't stop me from sharing a dumb joke)
Re: Civilization VI Dev Explains Why Online Multiplayer Wasn't Included In The Switch Version
@ricklongo I'm in a similar position myself, so I agree, but modern Civ games online have rulesets designed to speed things up (turns at same time, short games, etc.). I've played some online with a friend, not with randoms.
@tisteg80 There really is a lot going on in Civ VI - they added a metric ton of little mechanics since Civ V. In addition, there's fewer civs with passive buffs that are easy to use for beginners, they often have more complicated special powers than Civ V. It's hard to pay attention to all of the mechanics at once and to know what mechanics you don't have to pay attention to. My suggestion if you're starting the series with Civ VI is to play on 1-3 difficulty while you get used to how the game works. There's no shame in playing a game or two on settler as a tutorial when there are so many decisions to make.
Re: Civilization VI Dev Explains Why Online Multiplayer Wasn't Included In The Switch Version
@Heavyarms55 Yeah, I might get it when hotseat and expansions come out. It has crossed my mind that it would be cool to have it on a portable console.
Re: Civilization VI Dev Explains Why Online Multiplayer Wasn't Included In The Switch Version
@tovare @Heavyarms55 Yeah, I've been playing Civ since Civ 3 when I was a kid and my dad has been playing since Civ 1 and both of us tend to play on 3 to 5 difficulty even though we know the mechanics well. One of the few problems with the series is that rather than make the AI significantly better at difficulties above 5, they usually make the AI have advantages you don't, like building things faster. That isn't fun difficulty in my opinion when Genghis Kahn can just build more units than you and curb stomp you in the classical era every time, so I usually just pick an AI level where they aren't handicapped but aren't getting super good advantages either when I'm playing for fun.
I've been playing on my laptop rather than on the Switch, so I didn't know that the Switch didn't have hotseat. Honestly, I thought before they ever announced Civ for Switch that Switch would be great for hotseat since you can pass it around. To be honest, I'm glad I haven't gotten the Switch version because I would have been disappointed that it doesn't have hotseat. Although to be honest I didn't get it on Switch because I don't want to go back to vanilla Civ VI when PC has expansion packs...
Re: Review: Fire Emblem: Three Houses - The Zenith Of A Legendary SRPG Series
@Zool I'm not saying that the Fire Emblem series does anything meaningful with its relationship mechanics in its narratives (besides say, recognizing added complexity to Lucina's situation in a certain marriage) or that waifu culture in fandoms doesn't get kind of weird sometimes, but the argument that not real things shouldn't handle romantic topics, a video game is not real, therefore a video game should not handle romantic topics doesn't work. By that logic, Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" is also a not real thing and therefore should not be about a romance between a hedonistic officer in WWI and an army nurse and how it teaches them both about a more beautiful kind of love only to tear it away from them. It should just be a story about a cool officer having adventures and eating cheese and drinking alcohol. I'd argue the opposite, that stories' being not real makes them ideal mediums to explore meaningful topics, that video games are stories, and that video games are therefore ideal mediums to explore meaningful topics.
Re: Super Mario Maker 2 Can Delete Your Glitched Courses, Even If You Don't Upload Them
It is a bit annoying that you can't try something cool with glitches as long as you don't upload it, tbh, but it won't really effect me.
I'm pretty sure uploading a level that requires glitches to beat makes you a jerk, considering it circumvents the normal list of mechanics people are familiar with. As long as it doesn't effect anyone else though, I don't see any reason for moral outrage against people who find glitches or even use cheats. Seems like a morally neutral thing in my book.
Re: Video: What Actually Causes Switch Joy-Con Drift?
I don't mind these "my joycons work so you're lying if you say yours drift" or "my joycons work so it must be your fault if they break" comments because it's really funny to me to imagine the response if someone used that line of argumentation in other areas of life. "I've been feeling depressed lately..." "What? I feel fine, so you must be fine too!" "Today's been rough, my dog died..." "What? My dog is fine! What's with this vocal minority of people who don't take care of their dogs and then complain?" "Seems like a lot of people are coming down with this cold..." "What? I'm in perfect health, so anybody saying they have a cold must be lying through their teeth for attention! People these days..." Imagining the look of bewilderment that would get and the likelihood of a slap to the face happening in those situations is enough of a distraction to make me laugh instead of getting angry, I admit.