I... uh... no. No thank you. I was more than happy to back Yooka-Laylee itself, but being a love letter/spiritual successor to a beloved classic game and/or gaming genre kind of loses the plot when it ceases to be, y'know, a game anymore.
It bugs me far more than it should that Eevee's paws are the wrong way around for the iconic Scream pose. It looks more like it's cupping its hands to shout at the Pikachu in front of it than wailing in terror.
Oh man, you mean I can spend cash-value point in order to qualify for sub-50% discounts on modest hit from last generation? Wow! Let me get my zzzzzzZZZZZzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
“[…] by using the in-game currency Diamantium or Wyrmite, players can summon new characters, dragons or special accessories […]”
Oh, so this thing’s a gacha. What a shame.
Don’t do it, kids. Don’t. Even. Start. “Best” case, you’ll get completely addicted to its endless content drip-feed, full-on Skinner box style, and you’ll be consistently milked for your cash to scratch that always-just-out-of-reach gambling itch that you’ll grow to love so much.
“Worst” case, you’ll get bored, or start feeling sickeningly overwhelmed and/or exploited, and chuck it into the trash with prejudice.
Notice that in neither case will you actually be “beating” the game. You can’t, because gachas aren’t really a game as you’d like to believe. They’re just a consistent engagement ecosystem designed to keep you coming back, again and again, in order to repeatedly farm your wallet. A Skinner box, like I said.
“We want to give people a variety of options and price points when shopping for themselves or the Nintendo fans in their lives," Reggie then went on to say, "unless what they want is a normal-sized New 3DS. Seriously, who do these people think they are? Go big or go home. 'MURICA!"
Anyone who would still make the blanket argument that public words and imagery don’t matter in today’s America must be completely detached from reality.
Maybe it was egregiously lazy to just pull it instead of finding a way to present it in the right context. But come on, it’s blackface. The idea of political correctness isn’t to be the no-fun police, it’s the recognition that words and imagery can cause real harm, and to exercise appropriate care in using them. You don’t wave a loaded gun around in someone’s face, even if you’re sure you put the safety on.
I guess what I’m saying here is that the execution of this might deserve criticism, but please respect the intent.
@Ludovsky DQ VIII did a fantastic job with its audio overhaul (not only dubbing, but fully orchestrating the soundtrack too) for the west, to be sure, but if we’re looking at factors that helped push it to breakout-hit status, it’s also worth remembering that it piggybacked on Final Fantasy’s western dominance by including a demo disc for the not-yet-released FF XII in its first print run.
@shani Ocarina of Time only spawned multiple canon timelines because it did really broken things with time travel. Even setting aside that Link never really "time traveled" forward when he pulled the Master Sword out of the stone in the first place (he went into a magical interdimensional sleep for some years until his body matured - that's not time travel, that's just the normal forward flow of time) and thus shouldn't have had any powers or reason to be able to travel back again, that world had a single mostly coherent timeline through pretty much the whole game: the world goes to hell after Ganondorf sneaks into the Golden Land and steals the Triforce, then Link returns and kicks his butt.
OoT's second timeline was only actually established when the game throws out its own rulebook to pull a happy ending out of nowhere by sending Link crashing back through his own established timeline instead of just back to the moment of his timeskip, explicitly undoing the game's plot (sure would've been a handy thing to do from the start, wouldn't it have?).
Star Fox Command's got nothing on how messed up Ocarina of Time was.
SE’s handling of this game’s platforms and localizations has been a flaming mess from beginning to end: still with not even a screenshot to show for the Switch version it announced development for years ago, now over half a year after the game’s initial launch; taking over a year to localize any version of the game; and now just throwing away an entire completed, heavily unique code branch and sales opportunities in their 3DS version.
This would be barely forgiveable for a cash-strapped indie fumbling through rookie mistakes and growing pains. It’s beyond the pale for one of the largest titans in the industry. Square Enix, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
@Octane Close, but not quite correct. This is a continuation of Nintendo’s 2015 amiibo card patent. I don’t have time to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, but extending the idea of amiibo cards into the TCG space does seem to be the general new thrust here.
@FTL Bad devs make bad games. You can have the coolest idea in the world, but if you don’t have the technical and organizational chops to make it a reality, you end up with a mess like Rime’s Switch release, or worse. Why is that controvesrsial?
I don’t much care about any arbitrary origin rule, but the Dragonball Z universe is just so... meatheaded. It’s the very worst example of the intellectual bankruptcy of power creep, and its characters are, by and large, ridiculously Flanderized in their fetish for fighting just to stay relevant in a world where firing a continent-destroying energy blast from your bare hand has become all but weaksauce. Even outight flying, with full control, from the force of your will alone - miracle of miracles that that should be - is as commonplace as walking to them. They’re so powerful that the law of gravity itself just gives up.
I know Smash is all about colliding worlds, and a developer could just hand-wave away the power differential for the sake of gameplay, but ew. Just ew.
“Free to start” means “Our business model still depends on you paying us; we’re just going to be using deceptive psychological tactics to compel you to do it.”
Say it with me: Crowdfunding is not preordering. Crowdfunding is not preordering. Crowdfunding is not preordering.
Crowdfunding is a donation to the dream of seeing a product exist in the world. Nothing more, nothing less. Getting a copy of that product in return is just a bonus.
That said, it’s certainly a shame that this dream appears to have deteriorated into a nightmare of a failed product.
@marandahir Capcom played around with mixing western and Japanese names like that last year with Resident Evil, aka the “Biohazard” series in Japan. For the latest game, Capcom titled it “Biohazard 7: Resident Evil” in Japan, and “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” in the west. Symmetry!
@Danrenfroe2016 Ah, trust me, if I could afford a Switch right now, I'd be all over it. Didn't mean to imply that I had a negative opinion of the game - my finances at the moment are unspeakably dire, that's all.
@Danrenfroe2016 I’d agree in this case; maybe it’s just a childhood spent with earlier generations talking, but it just feels right for stylized platformers like this to have a softer, fuzzier feel to them. At least on video, ultra-high-res assets like the sharp shadows and PS4 water effects in this game have a weird uncanny valley effect to them.
Seeing screenshots of the T-Rex in particular in Odyssey (again, haven’t played it myself yet admittedly) has the same effect on me.
@therealgamer > Bashes the Switch for not having AAA games besides ports > Uses the Devil May Cry HD Collection, a port of PS2 games, as a third-party game the Switch is suffering for missing
@SeriousSam Sure, a launch sale would be a reasonable gesture to fans. "Yooka-Laylee pricing emerges, no launch sale offered" would be a far different (and more accurate) message to convey in this article than "Yooka-Laylee pricing emerges, Switch is more expensive than PS4," though.
Duplicitous byline.
Digital price on Switch - the only way to get it for now and the foreseeable future - will be the same as digital price on every other platform, from the sound of it. Comparing the price to a sale that just happens to be going on on one platform is ridiculous.
What would you all have them do otherwise? Launch on Switch at a price lower than their current price on any other platform for no particular reason? If you want to gripe about how slow digital games are to adjust to physical price drops, then gripe about the industry as a whole instead of pillorying just this one game because it's trendy to bash on it.
Seeing EA prepping, in 2017, to hype a product as “one of the most anticipated games of 2019!” is all kinds of hilariously sad.
You guys sure you don’t wanna push that back another year? You could probably still get away with calling it The Single Most Critically Acclaimed Game of 2020 if you wanted for, like, at least another six months or so.
@Agramonte This is loot boxes without the exploitation. The entire business model behind loot boxes is to prey on people’s weakness to gambling - that dopamine hit at taking just one more pull of the slots, over and over - and to use it to drain their wallets.
Loot boxes are an unbounded cost that scales with a player’s vulnerability to psychological manipulation. Amiibo chests are a fixed cost item - they don’t exploit people’s vulnerabilities for financial gain.
They are still bad from a game design perspective, like a lot of dlc, because the game has to be either balanced around having them or be broken by them, and amiibo themselves exploit different psychological weaknesses (gotta-collect-em-all-ness and artificial scarcity) in their business model. But loot boxes they’re not, in the ways that really matter.
edit: I missed reading in your post that you were using buying multiple amiibo as a vehicle for amiibo chests to become unbounded. That could be a fair argument, if a bit of a reach, except that Nintendo’s anachronism of only offering them through physical sales serendipitously shuts it down. Gambling relies on the immediate urge to continue pulling because the next one might be a win. Unless you’re hunkered down with your Switch in the local electronics department, chain-tearing amiibo boxes open, the barrier of going to the store and buying another figure shuts the immediate feedback loop right down.
Inexcusable as this game’s performance is, I can only imagine the absurd filesize is a desperate attempt to squeeze some performance boost from the mess of an engine by using uncompressed or less-compressed assets compared to other versions. Less cycles spent unpacking stuff could theoretically free up some amount of resources (for all the good it did them), as long as data bandwidth isn’t the bottleneck.
@ShadJV Yoshi will happily eat any berries he passes without being told to. If berries are a Yoshi's natural/favorite food, then, Mario isn't even just punching him in the head to make him eat stuff, he's punching him in the head to make him eat stuff he doesn't even like.
Hmm. I've given this game a pass until now, but the idea of Epona handing out beatdowns to Rathalos et al amuses me far more than it reasonably should. Intriguing.
Oof, engine version updates. I get that it's a necessay evil when you're using a 3rd-party engine and hit an intractable issue, but pushing a significant version update of the core framework on any mostly-complete project is just asking for trouble.
Good luck, Playtonic, and may Banjo have mercy on your souls if this pushes you into a head-to-head launch with Odyssey.
@Proust The livestream description and highlights (first two videos) aren't a spoiler for the game at all. The easter egg is an unremarkable background element encountered during normal play that's immediately recognizable if you've just watched the livestream highlights, but wouldn't register to a player otherwise. The gameplay segment (last video) is of an entire act in the game being played, but is set to start at the last twenty seconds of the video, which covers the final hit being delivered to the act's boss (who is exactly who you'd think a standard boss would be), and doesn't reveal what the boss' capabilities or patterns are as it cuts in more or less mid-explosion. The level-end sequence is by-the-books for any of the classic Sonic games, with no surprises.
The only thing about the gameplay shown that could be considered a spoiler would be showing the general theme of the zone through the video thumbnail and single background screen covered. The easter egg itself, imho, is fairly tame as a spoiler, as it's an entirely passive element, impossible to miss, but that a player would almost certainly never notice the significance of if it wasn't being specifically put into context (ie spoiled).
If the board is a Chinese knockoff of the Samsung Dex Station, then wouldn't the fair comparison to make be between the Switch Dock and the Dex Station, not the Chinese knockoff undercutting them both?
The Switch Dock retails for $90. The Dex Station retails for $150.
Switch dock pricing doesn't seem so unreasonable now, does it?
I don't have a Switch yet, but I will someday, and when that time comes, this changes my view of the game from "something I'd like to get" to "something I'd like to get, but..."
Not sure why the devs feel compelled to use guerrilla warfare to try to get you to click their icon, when they've already got your money. Is this game riddled with microtransactions, or are the game icons maybe tied to their store icons on the Switch?
@jsty3105 It's nice to know they don't turn a completely blind eye to it, then. I'd guess their system probably relies heavily on user reporting, and it's just a leaky sieve effect that some get through when they're flooded with listings. Still annoying to see as an end result though =/
@unrealread Ebay don't care; they can't even keep their own preorder policies enforced. http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html Any eBay listing for a preordered item more than 30 days before its release date is in violation of their policies. That's from here 'till the end of August for the SNES.
@Nintendoforlife Key word: "arguably" I mean, I couuuuld argue that playing a make-believe game with a friend could actually be a much richer and more fulfilling activity than seeing a movie.
But I'll respect your position on that, just as I'll respect a pro-Nintendo position on A2MR as long as they recognize that their position is a judgment call rather than the one right answer.
@GameOtaku By all means, I'm happy if my two cents can give more than one person food for thought. I think I'm satisfied from your comment before mine that you see this as a tension between two reasonable perspectives.
@Luna_110 Looking at "potential buyers" can only go so far, and exactly how far can only ever be a judgment call. Your position isn't necessarily wrong, but you'd be wrong to think it's the only correct one. There's a continuum.
For example, I'll give five scenarios. In each scenario, kids Alex and Bob spend the afternoon playing cowboys and indians instead of going to see a new Lone Ranger movie. You tell me if there's a definitive, irrefutable point at which they should be held responsible for costing Disney a potential sale.
1) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today? We can play cowboys 'n injuns!"
Bob: "Sure!"
2) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today? We can play cowboys 'n injuns!"
Bob: "Sure! I was gonna ask if you wanted to go see Lone Ranger with me, but your idea sounds just as fun for free!"
3) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today and play cowboys 'n injuns? You can wear the Lone Ranger hat I made last week."
Bob: "Oh man, I love the Lone Ranger! I'm in!"
(Alex: "Haha, you love a dude!!" Bob:"...")
4) Bob: "Hey Alex, my mom said she'd take us to see Lone Ranger, you in?
Alex: "Dude, screw that, come over here and play cowboys 'n injuns with me. I'll even let you wear the Lone Ranger hat I made."
5) Bob: "Hey Alex, my mom said she'd take us to see Lone Ranger, you in?"
Alex: "Dude, screw that, come over here and play cowboys 'n injuns with me. I'll even let you wear the Lone Ranger hat I made, and I'll only charge you half what movie tickets would've cost!"
From my limited understanding, the A2MR devs weren't monetizing the game, right? Then Reggie isn't just wrong here, he's slandering the devs to paint them as people "trying to monetize, [...] trying to sell, [...] trying to profit off of" their IP, even while paradoxically admitting they weren't charging for the game.
It's frustrating, because I want to applaud Reggie for drawing the ethical and legal distinction between making a fangame and profiting off of it. If he makes that distinction but then says that all fangames are automatically in the second category even if they aren't being monetized, though, he's not really drawing any distinction at all, now, is he?
DQXI has now gone gold (in Japan) for 3DS and PS4. That means it's done, and being put onto carts/discs. That we still know absolutely nothing - no release date, no screenshots, not even whether it'll be pixels or models - about the Switch version, that's been talked about since it was the NX, is a total farce at this point.
There's some utterly ridiculous corporate tomfoolery going on here. Barring Hell itself having opened up and swallowed one of SE's subteams, there's just no other explanation by now.
@JaxonH I respect your opinion, so allow me to try not to convince you, but to get you to a point where you can at least understand me.
First off, "illegal" is far from a settled term. Fair use is a thing that exists, and not making a commercial venture out of it is a big point in the fangame's favor. You can't "capitalize" where capitalism isn't involved.
Setting that aside, I'd argue the morality of the fan remake is in-line with the morality of early Disney movies or (not to provoke a comparison of quality) many of Shakespeare's plays, in that it took an established framework and built something grand and new on top of it. Disney didn't come up with the idea of Cinderella, and Shakespeare didn't come up with the idea of Romeo and Juliet. Using an established historic work as a skeleton to build something new on is a time-honored and important artistic tradition.
And all THAT aside, there's little pragmatic reason why A2MR and Samus Returns couldn't have both coexisted in the world. I could link you to plenty of Super Mario World romhacks of full-fledged game quality and size, still prominently featuring the original characters, but that never hurt the New Super Mario Bros. games. Even though they started from the same source, I have no doubt that A2MR and Samus Returns will both be uniquely competent games on their own merits.
So while you don't have to agree, I hope you can at least see how somebody could be irked that where the world could have had two polished and unique reimaginings of the venerable Metroid 2 side-by-side, Nintendo decided to kill the one that wasn't making money for them in order to milk every last drop out of the one that was.
Comments 562
Re: The Next Yooka-Laylee Adventure Will Be A Crowd-Funded Graphic Novel
I... uh... no. No thank you. I was more than happy to back Yooka-Laylee itself, but being a love letter/spiritual successor to a beloved classic game and/or gaming genre kind of loses the plot when it ceases to be, y'know, a game anymore.
Re: Random: Pokémon Cards Inspired By Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' Are Headed To Japan
It bugs me far more than it should that Eevee's paws are the wrong way around for the iconic Scream pose. It looks more like it's cupping its hands to shout at the Pikachu in front of it than wailing in terror.
Re: Get Up To 50% Off Top Nintendo Select Titles In North America Right Now
Oh man, you mean I can spend cash-value point in order to qualify for sub-50% discounts on modest hit from last generation? Wow! Let me get my zzzzzzZZZZZzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I love ya, Ninty, but... ugh.
Re: Pre-Register For Nintendo's Mobile Game Dragalia Lost And Receive A Special Gift
“[…] by using the in-game currency Diamantium or Wyrmite, players can summon new characters, dragons or special accessories […]”
Oh, so this thing’s a gacha. What a shame.
Don’t do it, kids. Don’t. Even. Start. “Best” case, you’ll get completely addicted to its endless content drip-feed, full-on Skinner box style, and you’ll be consistently milked for your cash to scratch that always-just-out-of-reach gambling itch that you’ll grow to love so much.
“Worst” case, you’ll get bored, or start feeling sickeningly overwhelmed and/or exploited, and chuck it into the trash with prejudice.
Notice that in neither case will you actually be “beating” the game. You can’t, because gachas aren’t really a game as you’d like to believe. They’re just a consistent engagement ecosystem designed to keep you coming back, again and again, in order to repeatedly farm your wallet. A Skinner box, like I said.
Re: A Brand New Purple And Silver New Nintendo 2DS XL Is Coming To North America
“We want to give people a variety of options and price points when shopping for themselves or the Nintendo fans in their lives," Reggie then went on to say, "unless what they want is a normal-sized New 3DS. Seriously, who do these people think they are? Go big or go home. 'MURICA!"
Re: Random: One Episode Of The Pokémon Anime Has Been 'Banned' From Airing In The West
Anyone who would still make the blanket argument that public words and imagery don’t matter in today’s America must be completely detached from reality.
Maybe it was egregiously lazy to just pull it instead of finding a way to present it in the right context. But come on, it’s blackface. The idea of political correctness isn’t to be the no-fun police, it’s the recognition that words and imagery can cause real harm, and to exercise appropriate care in using them. You don’t wave a loaded gun around in someone’s face, even if you’re sure you put the safety on.
I guess what I’m saying here is that the execution of this might deserve criticism, but please respect the intent.
Re: Random: Toys R Us Employee Finds A Mario Kart 64 Box Hidden Under A Shelf
@tobibra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting)
Re: Square Enix Aims To Shorten The Slow Localization Process For Dragon Quest Games
@Ludovsky DQ VIII did a fantastic job with its audio overhaul (not only dubbing, but fully orchestrating the soundtrack too) for the west, to be sure, but if we’re looking at factors that helped push it to breakout-hit status, it’s also worth remembering that it piggybacked on Final Fantasy’s western dominance by including a demo disc for the not-yet-released FF XII in its first print run.
Just sayin’
Re: Random: Star Fox: Grand Prix Rumour Could Make One Of Star Fox Command's Endings Canon
@shani Ocarina of Time only spawned multiple canon timelines because it did really broken things with time travel. Even setting aside that Link never really "time traveled" forward when he pulled the Master Sword out of the stone in the first place (he went into a magical interdimensional sleep for some years until his body matured - that's not time travel, that's just the normal forward flow of time) and thus shouldn't have had any powers or reason to be able to travel back again, that world had a single mostly coherent timeline through pretty much the whole game: the world goes to hell after Ganondorf sneaks into the Golden Land and steals the Triforce, then Link returns and kicks his butt.
OoT's second timeline was only actually established when the game throws out its own rulebook to pull a happy ending out of nowhere by sending Link crashing back through his own established timeline instead of just back to the moment of his timeskip, explicitly undoing the game's plot (sure would've been a handy thing to do from the start, wouldn't it have?).
Star Fox Command's got nothing on how messed up Ocarina of Time was.
Re: Nintendo's Next Mobile Game Is A JRPG Called Dragalia Lost
I see nothing of Nintendo in this game.
Re: Could Switch's Non-Compliant USB-C Spec Be To Blame For Third-Party Docks Bricking Consoles?
Ugh. This isn't Nintendo being "sneaky," it's Nintendo practicing egregiously bad electronic engineering. Specs exist for a reason.
Re: Dragon Quest XI On Switch Will Arrive "Much Later" Than Other Versions
SE’s handling of this game’s platforms and localizations has been a flaming mess from beginning to end: still with not even a screenshot to show for the Switch version it announced development for years ago, now over half a year after the game’s initial launch; taking over a year to localize any version of the game; and now just throwing away an entire completed, heavily unique code branch and sales opportunities in their 3DS version.
This would be barely forgiveable for a cash-strapped indie fumbling through rookie mistakes and growing pains. It’s beyond the pale for one of the largest titans in the industry. Square Enix, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Re: Nintendo Has Filed A Mysterious Patent For Amiibo-Style NFC Cards
@Octane Close, but not quite correct. This is a continuation of Nintendo’s 2015 amiibo card patent. I don’t have time to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, but extending the idea of amiibo cards into the TCG space does seem to be the general new thrust here.
Re: Nintendo's Damon Baker Explains Why Some Indie Devs Are Refused Access To The eShop
@FTL Bad devs make bad games. You can have the coolest idea in the world, but if you don’t have the technical and organizational chops to make it a reality, you end up with a mess like Rime’s Switch release, or worse. Why is that controvesrsial?
Re: Pokémon GO's Easter Egg Event Starts Tomorrow
> Details have emerged...
> It hasn’t been detailed...
Well all right then.
Re: Review: Kona (Switch eShop)
@Agent721 Don’t take this as an insult, but the word is “piqued.”
www.dictionary.com/e/pique-peak-peek/
Re: Funimation Really Wants Goku To Join The Roster In Super Smash Bros
I don’t much care about any arbitrary origin rule, but the Dragonball Z universe is just so... meatheaded. It’s the very worst example of the intellectual bankruptcy of power creep, and its characters are, by and large, ridiculously Flanderized in their fetish for fighting just to stay relevant in a world where firing a continent-destroying energy blast from your bare hand has become all but weaksauce. Even outight flying, with full control, from the force of your will alone - miracle of miracles that that should be - is as commonplace as walking to them. They’re so powerful that the law of gravity itself just gives up.
I know Smash is all about colliding worlds, and a developer could just hand-wave away the power differential for the sake of gameplay, but ew. Just ew.
Re: Put Your Wallet Away, Mario Kart Tour Will Be "Free To Start"
“Free to start” means “Our business model still depends on you paying us; we’re just going to be using deceptive psychological tactics to compel you to do it.”
Re: The Dream Of Crowdfunded Switch Dock SFANS Has Turned Into A Nightmare
Say it with me:
Crowdfunding is not preordering.
Crowdfunding is not preordering.
Crowdfunding is not preordering.
Crowdfunding is a donation to the dream of seeing a product exist in the world. Nothing more, nothing less. Getting a copy of that product in return is just a bonus.
That said, it’s certainly a shame that this dream appears to have deteriorated into a nightmare of a failed product.
Re: Video: Watch Link Beat Up Some Crowds In A New Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition Trailer
@marandahir Capcom played around with mixing western and Japanese names like that last year with Resident Evil, aka the “Biohazard” series in Japan. For the latest game, Capcom titled it “Biohazard 7: Resident Evil” in Japan, and “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” in the west. Symmetry!
Re: Digital Foundry Heaps Praise On Yooka-Laylee Switch Port
@Danrenfroe2016 Ah, trust me, if I could afford a Switch right now, I'd be all over it. Didn't mean to imply that I had a negative opinion of the game - my finances at the moment are unspeakably dire, that's all.
Re: Digital Foundry Heaps Praise On Yooka-Laylee Switch Port
@Danrenfroe2016 I’d agree in this case; maybe it’s just a childhood spent with earlier generations talking, but it just feels right for stylized platformers like this to have a softer, fuzzier feel to them. At least on video, ultra-high-res assets like the sharp shadows and PS4 water effects in this game have a weird uncanny valley effect to them.
Seeing screenshots of the T-Rex in particular in Odyssey (again, haven’t played it myself yet admittedly) has the same effect on me.
Re: Review: Plague Road (Switch eShop)
@therealgamer
> Bashes the Switch for not having AAA games besides ports
> Uses the Devil May Cry HD Collection, a port of PS2 games, as a third-party game the Switch is suffering for missing
Lol, whatever, man.
Re: Yooka-Laylee's Nintendo Switch eShop Price Is Revealed
@SeriousSam Sure, a launch sale would be a reasonable gesture to fans. "Yooka-Laylee pricing emerges, no launch sale offered" would be a far different (and more accurate) message to convey in this article than "Yooka-Laylee pricing emerges, Switch is more expensive than PS4," though.
Re: Yooka-Laylee's Nintendo Switch eShop Price Is Revealed
Duplicitous byline.
Digital price on Switch - the only way to get it for now and the foreseeable future - will be the same as digital price on every other platform, from the sound of it. Comparing the price to a sale that just happens to be going on on one platform is ridiculous.
What would you all have them do otherwise? Launch on Switch at a price lower than their current price on any other platform for no particular reason? If you want to gripe about how slow digital games are to adjust to physical price drops, then gripe about the industry as a whole instead of pillorying just this one game because it's trendy to bash on it.
Re: Rumour: Leaked EA Email Apparently Confirms January Nintendo Direct
Seeing EA prepping, in 2017, to hype a product as “one of the most anticipated games of 2019!” is all kinds of hilariously sad.
You guys sure you don’t wanna push that back another year? You could probably still get away with calling it The Single Most Critically Acclaimed Game of 2020 if you wanted for, like, at least another six months or so.
Re: Video: This Could Be The Most Awesome Gaming Room Ever
Having hundreds of games (or more) is easy.
Having time, energy, and stability enough in life to get to play them is what’s truly valuable.
I’d be more impressed with a collection of 1700 games all played through to completion than one of 17,000 left unfinished (theoretically).
Re: Guide: How to Unlock Zelda Gear in Skyrim on Nintendo Switch
@Agramonte This is loot boxes without the exploitation. The entire business model behind loot boxes is to prey on people’s weakness to gambling - that dopamine hit at taking just one more pull of the slots, over and over - and to use it to drain their wallets.
Loot boxes are an unbounded cost that scales with a player’s vulnerability to psychological manipulation. Amiibo chests are a fixed cost item - they don’t exploit people’s vulnerabilities for financial gain.
They are still bad from a game design perspective, like a lot of dlc, because the game has to be either balanced around having them or be broken by them, and amiibo themselves exploit different psychological weaknesses (gotta-collect-em-all-ness and artificial scarcity) in their business model. But loot boxes they’re not, in the ways that really matter.
edit: I missed reading in your post that you were using buying multiple amiibo as a vehicle for amiibo chests to become unbounded. That could be a fair argument, if a bit of a reach, except that Nintendo’s anachronism of only offering them through physical sales serendipitously shuts it down. Gambling relies on the immediate urge to continue pulling because the next one might be a win. Unless you’re hunkered down with your Switch in the local electronics department, chain-tearing amiibo boxes open, the barrier of going to the store and buying another figure shuts the immediate feedback loop right down.
Re: Video: RiME Is An Example Of How Not To Port A Game To Switch
Inexcusable as this game’s performance is, I can only imagine the absurd filesize is a desperate attempt to squeeze some performance boost from the mess of an engine by using uncompressed or less-compressed assets compared to other versions. Less cycles spent unpacking stuff could theoretically free up some amount of resources (for all the good it did them), as long as data bandwidth isn’t the bottleneck.
Re: Random: Super Mario World Artist Confirms Mario Really Was A Jerk To Yoshi
@ShadJV Yoshi will happily eat any berries he passes without being told to. If berries are a Yoshi's natural/favorite food, then, Mario isn't even just punching him in the head to make him eat stuff, he's punching him in the head to make him eat stuff he doesn't even like.
Re: Monster Hunter Stories x The Legend of Zelda Free DLC is Live This Week
Hmm. I've given this game a pass until now, but the idea of Epona handing out beatdowns to Rathalos et al amuses me far more than it reasonably should. Intriguing.
Re: Nintendo Highlights The Visual Changes in Xenoblade Chronicles 2
SO MANY EYEBROWS.
Re: Playtonic Games Working on Unity Issues for Yooka-Laylee on Switch
Oof, engine version updates.
I get that it's a necessay evil when you're using a 3rd-party engine and hit an intractable issue, but pushing a significant version update of the core framework on any mostly-complete project is just asking for trouble.
Good luck, Playtonic, and may Banjo have mercy on your souls if this pushes you into a head-to-head launch with Odyssey.
Re: Soapbox: Playing Super Mario Sunshine Today Painfully Illustrates Nintendo's 3D Evolution
I'll make a mental note now to disregard any future judgement calls I see on this site from Mike Diver, since his is clearly terrible.
Re: Nintendo Shows Off Awesome SNES Classic 'Nintendo Power' Covers
This is starting to remind me of an episode of South Park. Anyone remember Cartmanland?
southpark.cc.com/clips/152804/cartmanland-commercial
Re: Random: This Sonic Mania Easter Egg Brings Back Memories of the 25th Anniversary 'Party'
@Proust The livestream description and highlights (first two videos) aren't a spoiler for the game at all. The easter egg is an unremarkable background element encountered during normal play that's immediately recognizable if you've just watched the livestream highlights, but wouldn't register to a player otherwise. The gameplay segment (last video) is of an entire act in the game being played, but is set to start at the last twenty seconds of the video, which covers the final hit being delivered to the act's boss (who is exactly who you'd think a standard boss would be), and doesn't reveal what the boss' capabilities or patterns are as it cuts in more or less mid-explosion. The level-end sequence is by-the-books for any of the classic Sonic games, with no surprises.
The only thing about the gameplay shown that could be considered a spoiler would be showing the general theme of the zone through the video thumbnail and single background screen covered. The easter egg itself, imho, is fairly tame as a spoiler, as it's an entirely passive element, impossible to miss, but that a player would almost certainly never notice the significance of if it wasn't being specifically put into context (ie spoiled).
Re: Fresh Wave Of Super-Portable Switch Docks Are Actually Designed For Samsung Smartphones
If the board is a Chinese knockoff of the Samsung Dex Station, then wouldn't the fair comparison to make be between the Switch Dock and the Dex Station, not the Chinese knockoff undercutting them both?
The Switch Dock retails for $90.
The Dex Station retails for $150.
Switch dock pricing doesn't seem so unreasonable now, does it?
Re: Random: Internet Reacts Badly To The New Snake Pass Menu Icon
I don't have a Switch yet, but I will someday, and when that time comes, this changes my view of the game from "something I'd like to get" to "something I'd like to get, but..."
Not sure why the devs feel compelled to use guerrilla warfare to try to get you to click their icon, when they've already got your money. Is this game riddled with microtransactions, or are the game icons maybe tied to their store icons on the Switch?
Re: Here's What The SNES Classic Edition Looks Like With Its Flap Wide Open
@Tasuki It's as complete as sticking the cart into an original SNES would be, as that only had two controller ports as well.
Clearly, the solution is for Nintendo or some enterprising third party to release a miniature Super Multitap Classic to plug into controller port 2.
Re: Tingle Shocked Zelda: Breath of the Wild Designer Right Down To Her Bones
Never understood the love for Tingle. Liking something specifically because it's repulsive is the actual definition of perversity.
Re: Guide: Where to Pre-Order Your Super NES Classic Edition
@jsty3105 It's nice to know they don't turn a completely blind eye to it, then. I'd guess their system probably relies heavily on user reporting, and it's just a leaky sieve effect that some get through when they're flooded with listings. Still annoying to see as an end result though =/
Re: Guide: Where to Pre-Order Your Super NES Classic Edition
@unrealread Ebay don't care; they can't even keep their own preorder policies enforced.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
Any eBay listing for a preordered item more than 30 days before its release date is in violation of their policies. That's from here 'till the end of August for the SNES.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
@Nintendoforlife Typo - my mistake. I meant "re2pect," clearly!
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
@Nintendoforlife Key word: "arguably" I mean, I couuuuld argue that playing a make-believe game with a friend could actually be a much richer and more fulfilling activity than seeing a movie.
But I'll respect your position on that, just as I'll respect a pro-Nintendo position on A2MR as long as they recognize that their position is a judgment call rather than the one right answer.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
@Luna_110 That's fair. Glad we could reach an understanding!
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
@GameOtaku By all means, I'm happy if my two cents can give more than one person food for thought. I think I'm satisfied from your comment before mine that you see this as a tension between two reasonable perspectives.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
@Luna_110 Looking at "potential buyers" can only go so far, and exactly how far can only ever be a judgment call. Your position isn't necessarily wrong, but you'd be wrong to think it's the only correct one. There's a continuum.
For example, I'll give five scenarios. In each scenario, kids Alex and Bob spend the afternoon playing cowboys and indians instead of going to see a new Lone Ranger movie. You tell me if there's a definitive, irrefutable point at which they should be held responsible for costing Disney a potential sale.
1) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today? We can play cowboys 'n injuns!"
Bob: "Sure!"
2) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today? We can play cowboys 'n injuns!"
Bob: "Sure! I was gonna ask if you wanted to go see Lone Ranger with me, but your idea sounds just as fun for free!"
3) Alex: "Hey Bob, wanna come over today and play cowboys 'n injuns? You can wear the Lone Ranger hat I made last week."
Bob: "Oh man, I love the Lone Ranger! I'm in!"
(Alex: "Haha, you love a dude!!" Bob:"...")
4) Bob: "Hey Alex, my mom said she'd take us to see Lone Ranger, you in?
Alex: "Dude, screw that, come over here and play cowboys 'n injuns with me. I'll even let you wear the Lone Ranger hat I made."
5) Bob: "Hey Alex, my mom said she'd take us to see Lone Ranger, you in?"
Alex: "Dude, screw that, come over here and play cowboys 'n injuns with me. I'll even let you wear the Lone Ranger hat I made, and I'll only charge you half what movie tickets would've cost!"
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Defends Nintendo's Indie Support and AM2R Policy
From my limited understanding, the A2MR devs weren't monetizing the game, right? Then Reggie isn't just wrong here, he's slandering the devs to paint them as people "trying to monetize, [...] trying to sell, [...] trying to profit off of" their IP, even while paradoxically admitting they weren't charging for the game.
It's frustrating, because I want to applaud Reggie for drawing the ethical and legal distinction between making a fangame and profiting off of it. If he makes that distinction but then says that all fangames are automatically in the second category even if they aren't being monetized, though, he's not really drawing any distinction at all, now, is he?
Re: Nintendo Direct for Dragon Quest XI Confirmed for Japan This Week
DQXI has now gone gold (in Japan) for 3DS and PS4. That means it's done, and being put onto carts/discs. That we still know absolutely nothing - no release date, no screenshots, not even whether it'll be pixels or models - about the Switch version, that's been talked about since it was the NX, is a total farce at this point.
There's some utterly ridiculous corporate tomfoolery going on here. Barring Hell itself having opened up and swallowed one of SE's subteams, there's just no other explanation by now.
Re: Remake of Metroid II, Metroid: Samus Returns, Announced for 3DS at E3
@JaxonH I respect your opinion, so allow me to try not to convince you, but to get you to a point where you can at least understand me.
First off, "illegal" is far from a settled term. Fair use is a thing that exists, and not making a commercial venture out of it is a big point in the fangame's favor. You can't "capitalize" where capitalism isn't involved.
Setting that aside, I'd argue the morality of the fan remake is in-line with the morality of early Disney movies or (not to provoke a comparison of quality) many of Shakespeare's plays, in that it took an established framework and built something grand and new on top of it. Disney didn't come up with the idea of Cinderella, and Shakespeare didn't come up with the idea of Romeo and Juliet. Using an established historic work as a skeleton to build something new on is a time-honored and important artistic tradition.
And all THAT aside, there's little pragmatic reason why A2MR and Samus Returns couldn't have both coexisted in the world. I could link you to plenty of Super Mario World romhacks of full-fledged game quality and size, still prominently featuring the original characters, but that never hurt the New Super Mario Bros. games. Even though they started from the same source, I have no doubt that A2MR and Samus Returns will both be uniquely competent games on their own merits.
So while you don't have to agree, I hope you can at least see how somebody could be irked that where the world could have had two polished and unique reimaginings of the venerable Metroid 2 side-by-side, Nintendo decided to kill the one that wasn't making money for them in order to milk every last drop out of the one that was.