Dodger

Not buying this game will send a message, but probably not the one Metroid fans want. It'll probably send them the message that Metroid games don't sell. Just like when Other M sold poorly. The fans can say "this isn't what we want from the franchise! Other M has a dumb story and terrible controls! Federation Force is a goofy spinoff when we want a main entry!" Nintendo is a business. They're much more likely to hear "We don't want to buy Metroid games! Make more Mario instead! We buy that!" I wouldn't be surprised if this is a Metroid spinoff because they're testing the waters to see if people are still interested in the franchise. Boy, did they get an answer.

Of course nobody has to buy a game they don't want to play. It's a handheld 1st person shooter with 4 player online multiplayer and a 6 player soccer mode that resembles Rocket League. Not bad for a spinoff title, but I might pass myself. Only have so much time and money. But if you aren't buying Federation Force to send a message that you want new Metroid games, you might want to be prepared for the possibility of replaying the previous Metroid games.

I'd love to go back to Miitomo. It's fun. I can't. The app is just so dang huge. I would delete something to make room for Miitomo and it would eat up that space too. I can't have an 600-800mb app on my smartphone, especially when Android's use of the SD card is so limited. It was much larger than the second largest app on my phone.

Two small changes could really make the games feel different without changing much.

One is to provide starters other than grass/fire/water. The electric type in Pokémon Yellow makes the player play the early game differently. Now, they were kind of jerks about it, making you fight a rock type gym with a Pikachu. Thank goodness for Mankey. Let's be honest. Only a small percentage of the 700 or so pokemon are available in the early game, and ignoring the handful of really unique ones like Shedinja, most of them play exactly the same as all other pokemon in their type. An easy way to make one game's early game feel different than the others would be to give different starter types.

An easy way to adjust the difficulty to be harder would simply be to not tell the player what pokemon their AI opponent is going to send out next. The game makes the AI pick their pokemon first and then tells the player what they have picked. This makes AI battles a lot easier, because with a good party, you can always send out something that is super effective. Somebody who switches to multiplayer quickly realizes how much the game changes when you don't have this advantage over your opponent. All around pokemon become a lot more useful as openers. More time is spent switching pokemon or fighting without type advantages. That small change would make the game more difficult in a strategic way, as opposed to just upping the AI's stats.

I'm guessing there will be two more DLC characters announced, plus Cloud. I don't have any attempts at accurate predictions, but here are a few guesses. Inkling seems like a safe bet. Splatoon seems to have proven itself. With Star Fox coming out, Wolf may be a safe bet as a returning character. Dixie Kong isn't impossible either - her moveset wouldn't be very difficult to create, and it adds another female character to the roster. I'll throw out Steve from Minecraft as a crazier guess. It would draw attention to Minecraft, and more importantly, it would draw big headlines. It would be a smart move.

Never thought I'd see the day when Nintendo wins a Best Shooter award. Splatoon is a pretty cool game. I'm glad it's been relatively successful.

Seems like they liked Her Story a lot. I was impressed by the concept, but I've never gotten around to picking it up. I'm a bit surprised Undertale didn't pick up Best Indie Game. But I haven't played Rocket League, so I'll trust their judgement on that one for now.

Assuming the topics get more and more serious, eventually, all matches will turn into 3 minute philosophical discussions using the "boo yah!" and "come on!" messages as morse code.

"Team Subjective Morality Vs. Team Objective Morality!" Boo-yah!

Seriously though, this is already complicated enough for Splatfest. One can love money, and one can show love of others through money. Not to mention the difference between a view of love as simply pleasant emotions and a view of love as say, sacrificial actions, or simply doing good to others.

It would be pretty dang cool if the NX is backwards-compatible with 3DS/DS carts and Wii U/Wii disks. I never bought the Wii U, so I would likely buy the NX on day 1 if it can play Wii U games too. Otherwise, I'll probably wait.

Unless Nintendo does what they should have done with the Wii U and release the brand new Zelda game that I've been wanting for years as a launch title instead of as a poor-selling swansong for the last system...I loved Skyward Sword, but I would have bought a Wii U on day one if SS was a Wii U game, and the same probably holds true with the NX.

Come on, guys. We all know that the winner is going to be Tingle.

Seriously though, I'll take DLC characters.

I would swap Galaxy and SMB3, but other then that, I can agree with this list. Perhaps even swap Galaxy and World. But I can say that World and Galaxy are both objectively good games with textbook definitions of good level design and a metric ton of polish.

@guavamnia Hey, thanks! I owe you one.

@WaxxyOne That is one possibility. nowinstock.com says that they were in stock at 4:12 EST and are now out of stock. Before 4:12, it was saying that they hadn't been released on Amazon yet. So it is also possible that they were released and sold out quickly. Amazon doesn't release exactly at the beginning of their launch windows - they release at an unannounced time during the announced launch window. So either something went wrong, or they sold out quickly. If it is the latter then I missed out.

Picked up Olimar through Gamestop. Pikmin is among my favorite games, so it was an impulse buy. Other then that, I'm really just looking at Ganondorf to finish off the Triforce. Maybe I'll look at that Classic Mario one, but probably not. It is pretty dang cool though
@WaxxyOne I'm pretty sure that until the window opens, Amazon shows more expensive third party options. I would wait and see.

I'm still waiting for Nintendo to announce him as the winner of the Smash Bros. Ballot.

I don't think that gradual item unlocks are really a "feature," but it's cool. This looks like a really fun game.

@Kirk Is this your experience with the motion controls, the analog controls or both? Without playing the game, I don't know exactly how bad it is or isn't, but I've lost enough races due to blue shells to be willing to believe that Nintendo could make a dang good multiplayer game and get something really simple wrong that really sacrifices some of the enjoyment.

If I was in Scotland then I would check that out. The world needs more cafes that are comfortable places to spend an afternoon with a cup of tea and a good book - or video game, in this case. America gets too many noisy, messy Starbucks with nowhere to sit.

@Aromaiden Thanks. I only saw the very end of that presentation, but I'm kind of glad to know that they won't be charging $40 on top of the (probably) $48 for 4 Animal Crossing amiibo.

@Bolt_Strike Games and game mechanics aren't just "ideas" though. They are ideas turned into a written computer code by people using their ability to change reality. That's like saying that a book doesn't need to be read to be understood because it just is an "idea." Somebody took their own ideas and turned them into words on a page - something that can be shared with others through reading. Words, code, computer files - none of them are just theoretical. They actually physically exist in one form or another. You can interact with the hard drive, disk, flash drive or memory card that they are stored on. It isn't like digital files are stored in some kind of spirit realm. That doesn't necessarily mean that one can't make a judgement (otherwise known as an opinion) without having all the facts. People have to do so all the time to make decisions. Decisions like "I don't think I'm going to spend my finite money on Yoshi's Wooly World because it doesn't look fun to me based on the limited advertising and footage I've seen."

Well, I do want Ganondorf. That's about it though.

...If there is something fun in Amiibo Festival then Nintendo is doing the worst job of advertising. Happy Home Designer looks like a game that little kids would enjoy, but Amiibo Festival looks like a below-average board game that requires a lot of expensive amiibo that don't work in other games. If there was a board game that could work with any amiibo then I guess I could understand that, but this looks dull and expensive so far.

Where is this information that the game will be a free download coming from? I'm not being snarky - I'm legitimately curious. I've seen preorders offered for Amiibo Festival as a retail game from Best Buy and I've seen online posts from people who say they have preordered it from Gamestop.

Yeah, I didn't get the reason behind the statement even if I understood the business sense. There really are some dang good games coming out this year and next, so I don't see why he would need to apologize anyway? Should he apologize for a couple of segments that weren't about games, like where he showed off level design sheets for a game that we all love that might as well be in a museum? That was fascinating. Should he apologize that a company that makes Mario Sports games is making a Mario Sports game, or that a company that mostly makes Mario spinoff games is making a Metroid spinoff game that has received good first impressions? Should he apologize because they didn't have a mainline Metroid game to match the current requests of their most devoted core of fans because they are making a Star Fox game that was started at a time when said fans were asking for a new Star Fox game? I haven't seen any reasons to be angry that I've agreed with.

This year, they covered games that should offer a decent release schedule until next summer. If they don't have a good library to announce at E3 2016 to replace them then I will be concerned and frustrated. Next E3 will probably have information about the future of Nintendo consoles and probably handhelds too, which is a pretty big deal. They may have every reason to keep some of their cards close to their chests for now, so I'm saving my frustration until I see what they have next summer.

Pick up Sacred Stones if you don't already have it from the Ambassador Program. It is a really great game with some incredible spritework.

Yeah, I had fun with this one at Best Buy yesterday. We tried the forest temple and died a couple times while in the first totem room, but we did beat the demo. I'll probably be getting this one at some point.

@Gridattack I do get where you are coming from. What this provides is infinite replay value for those who like Mario gameplay over Mario story. In theory, good levels will continue to be made for years and will be upvoted to the top so they can be found. If you like playing Mario levels even without the carrot-on-a-string of beating a game then this is for you. If you want the whole, polished, start-top-down product that Nintendo offers in other packages then this isn't. I myself expect more unique experiences from this than from say, the average New Super Mario Bros. game. This is something that can add on to NSMBU and Super Mario 3D World for fans of Mario gameplay and it does promise to add a lot. This has more depth than a lot of level editors and they are also attempting to add a bit more value with a collector's art book and nice packaging. Still, a budget price would be nice.

I enjoyed both levels I played at Best Buy today, even though I didn't tackle the really hard ones. The level editor looks to have a lot of depth to it.

Why is it so big of a deal that Samus be in a multiplayer? I don't understand. I get why somebody could be angry that a different company entirely isn't making a completely different game that they wanted. I at least understand how somebody could develop those emotions. But multiplayer modes in Call of Duty or Halo have you playing nameless soldiers and space marines. I'm no expert at the Halo series, but I think a lot of people liked the game where you play as the Spartans. There is precedent for this and most fans don't respond this way? I mean, no developer could ever predict that people would be upset that the player character in a first person, multiplayer spin-off game isn't 4 clones of the player character in other games in the series. I'm cutting Next Level Games some slack on that thing that they couldn't possibly predict and I couldn't possibly care about.

I'm willing to believe you on some things because you've played the game, but some of your complaints sound silly. You're complaining that the Wii U version doesn't have the same controls as the N64 game and that pressing the x button in the wrong place - a button which didn't even exist on the N64 - accidentally killed you. Lots of games have buttons that can kill you if pressed in the wrong place. As far as the gyro controls go, this has been the controversy since Nintendo announced a gamepad controller - should they use it, or not? Having to pay attention to two screens isn't easy and takes practice, even on the stationary DS. It is possible that Star Fox Zero doesn't use the gamepad well, but it also is possible that Nintendo is using the gamepad for something other than a map for the first time and it does take a few rounds of practice. I thought the gyro aiming sounded fun, but I admit that I haven't played the game yet. As far as graphics go, I didn't notice the graphics looking bad, but I'm willing to trust the judgement of somebody who has played the game. They look better than that GameCube game.

I'm going to put forward the unpopular opinion that the controls in Star Fox 64 are not fun to use and are something to wrestle with in order to beat the game and not something that increases my enjoyment of the game. Therefore, I am intrigued by a control scheme which lets me aim without flying around the screen in circles to move my cursor. It could be bad, but I'm not convinced by somebody saying that it is different from Star Fox 64.

I've been looking into this a bit more and I'm actually slightly interested. The main complaints I've seen are that it is a Metroid spinoff instead of a main series Metroid game and that it is keeping Nintendo from making a main series Metroid game.

As for the first complaint, I really, really doubt that Nintendo's thought process was "Our vocal fans want a Metroid game...Let's make Federation Force!" More likely, it was "We should make a co-op game for 3DS. We don't have any shooters...How about Metroid?" It isn't like they have many franchises that involve shooting things.

As for the second, this is being developed by a second party developer, Next Level Games. They made Super Mario Strikers and Punch Out Wii. They also helped with Luigi's Mansion 2. They seem like a talented dev team that can be trusted with spin-off games like this, but not so great that they can be trusted with the keys to the most popular Nintendo franchises. They aren't stopping Nintendo's first party franchises from doing anything.

Myself, I can't ask Nintendo to use two of their overstretched dev teams on two blockbuster games that probably won't break 2 million sales at the same time and they already are making a Star Fox game. Something that was asked for by just as many people, if not more. Metroid sales historically aren't anything to write home about, sadly.

I would prefer this as an expansion pack for New Leaf than as a stand-alone game. As is, I'm not very interested.

I've only seen two matches. I'm willing to let them show me a bit more before I make a judgement. With customization and different modes, this could be fun. None of the players seemed to explore what happens if you shoot at each other. I could certainly see soccer being a different game if you could kill the other team.

Jeez, another anime looking, Marth-like, Fire Emblem swordsman? I might buy it because I like having more characters in the roster, but Ryu is the cooler of the two.

I think I can make it to San Diego on Wednesday afternoon. for the streetpasses, if nothing else. Maybe there will be some surprise other than Mario Maker too. Anyway, hoping for some good announcements come Tuesday.

@FilmerNgameR Myself, I think Link deserves his day in the sun. He's only been one of the worst characters in the 3 games before this, playing second fiddle to alternate selves in two of them.

I sympathize with the guy. I've never been able to beat my twelve year old self in a swordfight. So annoying.

There is a truly overpowered character every once in a blue moon, but on casual play, so much is up to personal preference. In Brawl, Kirby's air attacks and jumps made him a good choice for non-tournament players like you and me. Same with Pit- long recovery, great side b. Both characters could be punished and beaten once your opponent learned the mechanics a bit more. Pit's recovery could be hit by pretty much anything and Kirby's down b left a huge grab window. In 4, I can't see how either character could be called overpowered. Either is beatable in casual level play.

I've seen people who main characters I think are the worst and are actually good as them. My little sister has trained a lot as Lucina and regularly wins in online and against me. Previous comments say they love playing as Palutena - I don't know the first thing about winning as her. Myself, I find that her A attacks all last for so long that they are easily punishable. My main is Zelda and I rarely see anybody else playing as her. I find her to be a very technical character who can control a lot of the battlefield at once. I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of whether a character is good or not at a non-tournament level is personal taste. I'm better with Ganondorf than I am at Diddy Kong or Meta Knight.

While I normally find voice chat makes casual, online gaming quite unpleasant, it looks like the inkbrush fills a character archetype that is mostly useless without some way for a team to communicate - the scout. For example, the Team Fortress 2 scout is crazy fast, has low firepower and range and yet they can beat anybody in a 1 on 1 melee fight. A good scout character can have eyes in the crucial areas of the battlefield before anybody else and take victory objectives when nobody is looking. But, they are mostly useless when aimlessly running about. As there is no way in Splatoon to make an organized match with predecided teams and a way for them to communicate yet, the inkbrush is a way to make a really long pencil line. Not useless, but not exactly overpowered.

I got Zelda with my Wal-Mart New 3DS/Game/amiibo bundle and just picked up Link today to go with her. I might pick up Ganondorf in September. I like the Fire Emblem ones, but good luck with that. In the end, I like the way they look on my desk more than the way that any one game uses them. SSB uses them the best, but it doesn't do anything that makes the point of amiibo undeniably clear. Almost every single other use of amiibo either unlocks a power up or on-disk DLC of varying levels of pointlessness.

Still waiting for the wow moment that most Nintendo gimmicks eventually provide. The balance board had Wii Fit Plus. The Wii wheel was amazing when I first used it until I needed more control in 150cc. Even the 3D on the 3DS made perfect sense in Kid Icarus: Uprising. The gamepad probably does something in some game besides inventory busywork that I haven't heard of. Amiibo still has no wow moment for me. Nor do I get why on-disk DLC is cool and okay when Nintendo does it and when it requires an impossible-to-get plastic accessory that costs more than the average, equivalent piece of on-disk, day 1 DLC.

The three games added aren't much use to me personally since I don't have a Wii U and already own Gunman Clive. I've already gotten more then my money's worth from this deal though. These still are good games on top of an already great deal. I've heard good things about Runner 2, but I haven't even beaten Runner 1.

@KodyDawg Totally fine. It certainly isn't wrong to be sceptical of websites asking for your money. This is the first time I've purchased anything through them, mainly because I don't use Steam as much as I use Nintendo consoles.

From what I've found, they often sell e-book bundles on the side too, which is kind of neat. One ended yesterday with a lot of books of the theme of making things for only $15 for the highest tier and now they are offering a bunch of graphic novels with the highest tier being about $20. It would be cooler if they were physical books, but I bet the shipping costs would get insane.

@CodyDawg I can understand being concerned, but Nintendo isn't anywhere near the first major name in the games industry to work with Humble Bundle, if that helps. I think you can pay through Amazon as well. The codes are there because that's pretty much the only way to buy an eshop game through a browser and they've all worked for me.

To anybody wondering, as long as you pay more than the average donation at the time that you pay then you'll get the three extra games plus the games that will be announced next Tuesday. It said so on the website, but I had to open a box first, so there is an excuse for not finding it. $10 for all of the games is a steal, even if you only have a 3DS or a Wii U. You also are able to set how much of your donation goes to each party (code.org, the developers and Humble Bundle itself) without changing what you receive from the bundle. My limited understanding is that code.org is a charity that funds and supports computer science programs in high schools, which is hard to argue with. Pretty non-controversial.

Myself, I've been enjoying OlliOlli more than I expected to. It reminds me of a higher quality version of a flash game I used to play back in the day.

Hey, I want Nintendo to keep doing stuff like this and I get a couple games I've had my eye on, plus some stuff I wouldn't try otherwise, so that's worth $10, especially since it says I'll get some stuff next week too or whatever.

If you're going for 100% then make sure that you collect all of the star coins as you go. I tried to go back for some. after beating the game only to find that there are a limited amount of saves. Once you use all of the castles, you can't save again. New Super Mario Bros. Wii fixed this by letting you save anywhere after defeating the final boss, but it also was kind of frustrating and boring in single player. Myself, I don't see why platformers can't focus on making good levels and not worry about making me replay them because I beat them and then lost later, but I never lived through the arcade era, so I just see the practice as archaic and inconvenient without feeling nostalgia or whatever.

I don't use Miiverse much except for Animal Crossing, but this seems to be an issue of UI. Their update has downgraded the user interface by making the process of following users harder, not easier. It can be worked around, but it is more then an issue of sheer laziness as some are suggesting. Social media is a product. Facebook has to maintain a (sometimes barely) usable interface so that people use their site and see their advertisements, but as the site has a large base and the cost of entry is free, people are more likely to shrug when a new update introduces yet another sidebar that isn't useful and doesn't work with touchscreens or jams a "Send Money" button into the already limited space in the chat bar or whatever. Miiverse has a much smaller userbase (citation needed) and has an entry fee the cost of a Wii U or 3DS. On top of that, it doesn't have paid advertisements, so it justifies it's existence by being a feature to advertise the Wii U and by advertising games to system owners. They have less room to drive away users before the whole thing is a failure and all of their users have paid, so there is more room to complain if an "upgrade" makes things worse.

Why did they make a Swapnote theme? I used to use that for talking with friends, so I'm still a bit upset that they chose to shut the whole thing down instead of just removing the photo functions or at the very least, replacing the whole thing with a text messaging application. It doesn't make any sense that they would release a Swapnote theme this long after they shut Swapnote down. What, do they actually think that people used the streetpass feature that let you send a short, handwritten message to somebody who is already on your friends list who is standing close enough to you to just speak with? Doesn't make any sense.

The game mechanics in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning are mostly well done. The game is worth your time and money if you are willing to play with the 3D off and know enough about the series to pick up 5 to 10 of every "useless" piece of junk in the game. I mean it, it is really fun after you finish the colossal, month long tutorial at the beginning. There is a lot to do once you slowly unlock it. The graphics aren't great, but they are functional. The forced cutscenes twice a day to show that the shops are closed aren't really that annoying, just mostly annoying. I'm not doing a good job of selling this, am I?

Yeah, I'm pretty much convinced that the wireless transfer has to be worth it for my new system after reading through this comment thread. I can wait.

Those miis are freaky, but the costumes are alright. I don't see the point of mii outfits when miis are offline only though. I would have been just fine with locked movesets for the 3 types or even just one type of mii, but the miis being offline only and not appearing as ai fighters when the ai is set to random makes them useless to me. Also, the pre-order thing.

What an uncreative use of amiibo. On-disk DLC with the high risk of stock issues that would at least be avoided through a digital shop. I hope this isn't the new normal.

The concept is fine. The Wii VC had a great library by the end of the Wii's lifespan, but it took a while. The 3DS VC has been hurt by their insistence on only using GB and NES games - I would love more console VC games on a handheld. At the very least, it would be good to have GBA games on the 3DS too. Pokemon would be nice. The Wii U is taking the entire lifespan of the Wii U just to get anywhere close to what was already on the Wii and that is silly. I love the Wii VC. I've been able to play a lot of classic games for a reasonable price.

Kirby's Epic Yarn is still a good co-op game that isn't much of you buy renowned. The level design is really good and the lack of lives means the worst that can happen is that the two of you get a low score on a level.

There is a 6 year gap between myself and my sister. Co-op video games have always been a way for the two of us to spend time together, so they are important to me.

I've heard that the two sequels had average level design, but saying that fans were clamoring for a sequel to Yoshi's Island because the two that were made had one of the key mechanics to Yoshi's Island seems a bit weird. Sort of unfair. Baby Mario never bugged me, though. Well, I am quite fond of Yoshi's Island and Kirby's Epic Yarn, so I've been keeping my eye on this one.

Board games on consoles can be fun, especially piece heavy games like Monopoly and Risk. These aren't very piece heavy though. My dad used to have a physical version of a Shut the Box like game. It was kind of fun, but I myself wouldn't go out of my way to play it on a smartphone, much less a console. Given that a physical version seems to be about $15 to $20, this isn't a terrible deal if you really want that game. Still comes across to me as the kind of game one would make to practice their coding skills.

Is PDSF the same as Yahtzee? Yahtzee is fun, but the "classic" version, whatever that means, is $8 on Amazon with the red box version available for $15. Yahtzee is a perfect mobile game though, in my opinion. I don't know if I would play it on a console though. I used to have a handheld version with a Game and Watch style screen and it was a good time waster. Toss N Go sounds like a fun smartphone app. I do miss the age of flash games where nobody expected people to pay money for these kinds of time wasters. I guess ad block helped to kill them off, as well as the obnoxious and disreputable advertisements that drove people to ad-block software in the first place. In the end, if you have kids and want board games for them, they, and therefore you will probably will get your money's worth out of the official Hasbro versions of these games.

I don't get why the majority of the Wii VC isn't on the Wii U by now. Are Nintendo really going to do this to themselves every time they have a new console, whatever "this" is? I would expect that they could hire college-level interns to put the roms into the emulator and test them. Is there a part of the process I'm not understanding? Why isn't this just a copy-and-paste job?