Japanese isn't the damn "native language" if a game is developed from the start for multilingual, simultaneous release.
Without nativism or basic accessibility to fall back on, asking for a game to be playable in another language with subs is as petulant in concept as asking for any other arbitrary aspect of the game to be changed. It's like...
"I find horses in Hyrule who aren't Epona to be immersion-breaking. Please let us replace them with the goats from Twilight Princess. You already ported the model to the Wii U, so I don't think this is too much to ask."
or "My first Zelda game was Link's Awakening, so in my heart, the world of Hyrule will always be green 'n grey. Please let me turn on a monochrome screen filter, so that I can relive my childhood."
or "You guys did a good job on the Zelda model, but I like brunettes. Could we get customizable hair colors plz?"
When a game is what it is, you have to accept it for what it is, for better or worse.
If I was a game dev, and I sat waiting at the phone each day for a platform-holder to call me up so I could start working, I wouldn't expect to be in business for very long.
@Deadstanley Couldn't tell you; I don't even know what MSRP for amiibos usually is. The prices you're describing are the prices I was seeing when I commented last night, that's all I know.
I try to stay away from amiibos myself, but for anyone who wants to jump on these, they do appear to be up for preorder at Best Buy's site right now:
[er... link no worky. Go to bestbuy.com and search for "Breath of the Wild".]
Guardian one appears to be commanding a premium $20 price point.
Nintendo has to emphasize, and emphasize hard, that using cartridges means that the Switch will be able to bypass the mandatory installs of the PS4 and XBO, for a savings of 10-50GB of storage space per game (at least for physical copies). That adds up fast, and wins in the long run.
A serious gamer will still want additional space, so that does come at a cost, but it's still a key tech advantage.
Don't suppose anyone's been able to place an order for the Master Edition anywhere, have they? Master and Special are showing as "unavailable" on Amazon (even odds as to if they haven't opened preorders yet, or sold out in first five minutes), and Gamestop is being... weird.
Gamestop shows both the Master and Special editions available to order with a placeholder price ($999) that changes to the correct price in the cart, but whenever I try to checkout with a Master edition, my cart mysteriously empties. That said, I was able to successfully order the Special edition a few minutes ago, so folks might want to get on that: http://www.gamestop.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-wild-special-edition/141923
@ChessboardMan Indeed, the potential of that HD rumble sounds really exciting; if they can nail it, it could be a compelling feature without being a gimmick.
Going to be a tricky selling point, though, since you'd really have to get it in a player's hands to have them appreciate it, and it'll live or die on if it's drop-dead simple enough to program for that third parties aren't discouraged from using it.
@Cypronia I'm making a mental note right now to never buy a game from your company, as you clearly can't distinguish quality on a professional level. Calling this "parody" is just the common self-delusion of trolls who can't face the fact that bad actions are... bad.
Pushing crap product as "parody" is still pushing crap product.
@ap0001 With respect, you've got it completely backwards. I'm not sure what your seven-year timeframe references, but the appropriate argument about graphics on Nintendo platforms has been that chasing horsepower and photorealism drives up budget with poor returns, while it's art style and direction that make a difference.
This game's graphics are heavy on style, and its cel-shading is the opposite of photorealism. It's a perfect fit for the Nintendo graphics paradigm.
Also, Wind Waker was a fantastic Gamecube game, and I'm sorry you were too harried by the pressure of whatever you've got going on in life to relax and enjoy the ride when you played it.
Forget the tech assessment in this statement; we should all just be glad that such a hardened analyst as Pachter is still referring to Nintendo as being part of the "Big Three."
For far too big a segment of the gaming ecosystem this gen, if you asked them who the Big Three in games are, they'd look at you a bit strangely, and after thinking a bit, say "Playstation, Xbox, and, uh... oh, right, Steam."
Guys, I heard from my uncle's coworker's friend that the "localization" problem here is that the team only recently learned that Link is topless during certain segments of gameplay.
Reportedly, discussions are currently underway on whether to commission a Luigi, Samus Aran, or Princess Zelda costume for Link as a "bonus" with which to replace the shirtless model for Western markets.
Quick primer on touchscreen technology, since as a few others mentioned, this article gets it wrong:
The two big touchscreen technologies are resistive (older) and capacitive (newer). DS, 3DS, and Wii U all use resistive screens. Every smartphone and tablet made since 2007 have used capacitive screens.
Resistive screens rely on pressure on a specific pixel (more or less) on the screen, which gives them naturally high resolution/precision and makes them work well with styluses (stylii?), but not so much with big fat fingers. Since they need localized pressure, they can't be used with a glass screen, and for technical reasons, they don't support multitouch.
Capacitive screens rely on changes in the electrical properties above a screen as your big watery sausage fingers pass over it. Since it's something of an ambient sensing mechanism, it's not as high-res as resistive screens, but modern devices are usually decent at figuring out where the center of your finger should be given its big, uh, footprint on the screen. Since it's tuned to the sort of electrical changes a finger causes, it won't respond to a hard plastic stylus, but there are big nobbly rubber ones that work with them. Capacitive screens work fine under glass, and support multitouch pretty easily (and mostly universally in modern screens).
The first touchscreens, found in things like PalmPilots, were resistive, and found reasonable, but limited, success, confined to the niche of "business gadget" by their banal plastic screens and necessary stylus use.
Resistive screens were still the law of the land when the DS launched to widespread acclaim in 2004, which worked out pretty well in spite of the conflicting control schemes of holding a stylus and holding the console for button presses. Nintendo's stuck with the tried and true resistive technology in all its touchscreen systems since.
The first widespread use of capacitive screens was by Apple in 2007 (I think), who in a stroke of genius realized that by sacrificing the precision offered by resistive technology (and dumbing down the user interface to accomodate it), they could make a viscerally sexy glass-screened slab, sturdy enough to earn a permanent spot in the pants pocket, that could be pulled out and touched directly without fussing around with an awkward stylus. That device would be known as the iPhone.
Oh, and there's also Wacom, a company with a proprietary ultra-high-definition electromagnetic resonance technology that's been quietly producing professional screens that use a specialized (but still unpowered) resonant stylus to do artist-quality work. Their tech is represented in the mainstream right now mostly under license to Samsung, who's combined it with a capacitive screen to produce their seriously cool Note line, which can swap seamlessly between the convenience of a finger-jabby capacitive screen and a stylus-driven screen more precise than any resistive screen. But no way would Nintendo ever pony up the cash for that tech.
So yeah, quick wall of text that I'm sure everyone will read 130 comments down on a day-old article =/
@Bunkerneath You could say the same about any gaming console; a box that plugs into your TV and plays games is a design that's been around for ages.
The box/tablet itself shouldn't be what gets people excited, but rather the prospect of the games it can play - which is why Nintendo went to the effort to postprocess shiny game footage onto the blank screens of the dummy units in their trailer, and why the fans are justified in getting just a bit worked up over it.
Whoa, whoa, slow down, guys, if this is being floated for the Switch, then we "shouldn't assume what [we] saw on [Ancel's Twitter] represents actual game footage."
For as venerable a series as it is, Pokemon has absolutely decimated popular scientific literacy of the theory of evolution.
Pokemon don't evolve. People don't evolve. Animals don't evolve. They mature. Grow up, if you will. Species evolve, but individual creatures by definition do not.
The irony in my rant, though, is that by looking at the Pokemon series as a whole, highlighting how antiquated entries have been replaced by modern, more fit ones, this trailer actually gets evolution right... and then immediately wrecks it again by conflating it with the maturation of the players.
It's so weird that the free/microtransaction mobile environment has gotten as dominant as it is on the back of $700 flagship phones upgraded every 1-2 years, and I wonder if the gaming landscape would be the same if phone prices weren't hidden behind subsidized plans, as they are here in the US. On the portable side of the equation, surely a $300 Switch would fare better if it was competing with $700 iPhones instead of "free" iPhones.
I guess it seems here that suckers for one exploitatively obfuscated pricing model (subsidized phones) tend to be suckers for other exploitatively obfuscated pricing models (free-to-start games) as well.
@PanurgeJr You mean people will grasp how localization is a fundamentally additive endeavor that seeks to rebuild the context and nuance lost in a literal translation, while censorship is a fundamentally destructive endeavor that seeks to remove or tone down elements perceived as dangerous to either publisher or audience?
Mediocrity of the genre Nintendo's boldly riding into aside, kudos to them for sticking to an actual flat purchase model instead of some leech-choked microtransaction scheme.
@locky-mavo Your attitude is repulsive. Fangames like this should be celebrated, not condemned, as they're in turn a celebration of the source material.
@RadioDog He's got a lot to be proud of - he's gotten to see this stupid video game tie-in anime he he was hired to do a cover of the open for as a punk-ass kid, grow into an absolute juggernaut over the last 20 years, fixing his voice at the center of a cultural phenomenon.
@SavageGM Nintendo isn't responsible for third-party software, that's why it's called third-party.
There's an indirect relationship of course, but you're not offering a critique of any of the systemic problems that've led Nintendo to this point, likely because they're old news and not especially highlighted by the matter at hand.
@Syrek24 It must be very comfortable to know that your opinions are right because they're the same as society's, and that society's opinions are the same as yours because yours are right.
Forget discovering what's essentially a cheat code on-the-spot on the world's most crowded demo pod, or magically recoding a hack in one night to adapt to a system that you, by definition, can't get the code off of yet...
When I was 17, I would've called it the victory of a lifetime just to GO to E3.
Ok, so I counted, as best I could offhand, and out of 162 comments in this article, about thirteen people were seriously upset about this announcement, with one of them posting an excessive number of replies, so we'll double it to about 26/162, or 16%, opposed to a male-only Link, and 84% either in favor of or at least ok with keeping Link single-gendered.
With a commanding majority, and the "word of God," in agreement, can we now, finally, put the idea that this story was ever anthing more than the fantasy of the Nintendo Life editorial team to rest?
@ottospooky I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that while Link's clearly not female there (to be crass, there's just nothing going on in the breast region), he's androgynous as all get-out, which suggests a single protagonist that's trying to be relatable to both males and females.
@deKay If you're not put off by the 3DS graphics, then fair enough - like I said, to each his own. I trust that you can see how some people might feel otherwise, though, and for those people, not being able to play the new content - excessive or not - on their platform of choice is a legit grievance.
It should be obvious why it can be frustrating that the additional content for the 3DS version can't be played on the big screen on hardware that can actually run it properly. Frustration = feeling screwed over.
"Otherwise why would anyone bother with the 3DS" isn't an argument for exclusive DLC as much as it is an argument against the existence of the 3DS version, and a poor one at that. Different strokes for different folks - people who prefer the 3DS version should be free to enjoy that one, and people who enjoy the U version should likewise be able to enjoy content there. Forcing both groups into the same version to get to the latest maps and storyline just causes negativity all around.
I thought the battle system looked intriguing in this game, and I was accepting or better of its various design influences, but I'm damned tired of having to set my morals and feelings over supporting censorship aside to buy practically anything from Nintendo these days.
I won't be buying this game, due to the changes made.
@DiscoGentleman It's not that the remianing Wii U fans aren't hardcore - they have to be hard by now, because they're the ones that've stuck with Nintendo despite the lack of support.
The point is that for that same fanbase on, well, this gen, the PS4 , there's no "despite." The support is there, both from third-party and first-party, to draw whatever-you-care-to-call-them gamers in, instead of pushing them away. So while there are still extremely hardcore fans left on the Wii U, most of them have gone where the tides pull.
Personally, I take more of an issue with calling the Wii fanbase the "mainstream" gamers.
@Uzuki It's not the ESRB's fault if Nintendo's tanked their own market by Flanderizing themselves so hard that an M-rated game is a nonstarter. But @PlywoodStick makes the more relevant point, in that the changes really probably weren't ESRB-driven to begin with.
Chastising the ESRB for changes that they weren't responsible for making, in response to a rating they probably wouldn't have given in the first place, may not be likely to have an effect.
But you are right to question whether the DLC part is even a thing. Unless new info has surfaced since I read about it yesterday, the entire bit about the DLC is still just one bullet point in an anonymous forum leak that's gotten other things right so far. It'd be exactly what people expect from Nintendo at this point, but it's not a fact yet.
@Uzuki The ESRB didn't force, nor even recommend, localizers to make a single change, though, if they even had any interaction with them on the changes at all. An M rating is hardly a death sentence - just look at practically ANY of 2015's top games.
It's Nintendo's (I still don't believe this is Atlus' doing) boneheaded decision to try to force the game into being something it's not.
@Wexter There's definitely fuzziness in ratings, but if the argument is "Persona 4 got an M, and this is pretty much Persona 4...," then trying to make the game into something it's not is a disservice both to the original audience, and to concerned parents putting their trust in a T rating. It's a lose-lose.
@Wexter Senran Kagura Burst got a T rating. Bikinis aren't an automatic M. And any supposition about the ESRB's involvement is just that, supposition, unless Nintendo actually gave enough of a damn to outline for consumers what the board required they cut (if it was indeed so mandated). That much, at least, is a standard companies deserve to be held to.
Count me in on the crowd that's fine with Nintendo committing to either gender, but sees an "option" as a bland cop-out. I'd rather play a unique character with rich interactions with the world than some distant dummy that's supposed to represent me. I already have to put up with myself plenty, thank you very much.
And if Link's interactions with the world in past games have been tenuous... that's just all the more reason to jealously cling to what precious little characterization we can get.
Knowing how Nintendo loves to throw characterization under the bus these days to chase down every last PC brownie point, though, yeah, a gender choice seems like a foregone conclusion =/.
Comments 562
Re: Eiji Aonuma Confirms that Breath of the Wild Will Not Support a Japanese Dub Over English Subtitles
Japanese isn't the damn "native language" if a game is developed from the start for multilingual, simultaneous release.
Without nativism or basic accessibility to fall back on, asking for a game to be playable in another language with subs is as petulant in concept as asking for any other arbitrary aspect of the game to be changed. It's like...
"I find horses in Hyrule who aren't Epona to be immersion-breaking. Please let us replace them with the goats from Twilight Princess. You already ported the model to the Wii U, so I don't think this is too much to ask."
or "My first Zelda game was Link's Awakening, so in my heart, the world of Hyrule will always be green 'n grey. Please let me turn on a monochrome screen filter, so that I can relive my childhood."
or "You guys did a good job on the Zelda model, but I like brunettes. Could we get customizable hair colors plz?"
When a game is what it is, you have to accept it for what it is, for better or worse.
Re: Gearbox CEO Doesn't See Borderlands 3 Coming To Nintendo Switch
If I was a game dev, and I sat waiting at the phone each day for a platform-holder to call me up so I could start working, I wouldn't expect to be in business for very long.
Re: Zelda and Bokoblin Added to Breath of the Wild amiibo Range
@Deadstanley Couldn't tell you; I don't even know what MSRP for amiibos usually is. The prices you're describing are the prices I was seeing when I commented last night, that's all I know.
Re: Zelda and Bokoblin Added to Breath of the Wild amiibo Range
I try to stay away from amiibos myself, but for anyone who wants to jump on these, they do appear to be up for preorder at Best Buy's site right now:
[er... link no worky. Go to bestbuy.com and search for "Breath of the Wild".]
Guardian one appears to be commanding a premium $20 price point.
Re: Nintendo Switch Has 32GB Internal Memory, Expandable With Micro SD Cards
Nintendo has to emphasize, and emphasize hard, that using cartridges means that the Switch will be able to bypass the mandatory installs of the PS4 and XBO, for a savings of 10-50GB of storage space per game (at least for physical copies). That adds up fast, and wins in the long run.
A serious gamer will still want additional space, so that does come at a cost, but it's still a key tech advantage.
Re: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Confirmed For Nintendo Switch Launch Day
Master Edition NOW TAKING PREORDERS on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MT8SWKC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484295119&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Legend+of+Zelda+Breath+of+the+Wild+Master
[edit] Aaaand, now showing out of stock again, no more than 11 minutes after I made this post. But Gamestop seems to be taking orders now!
http://www.gamestop.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-wild-masters-edition/141917
Re: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Confirmed For Nintendo Switch Launch Day
Don't suppose anyone's been able to place an order for the Master Edition anywhere, have they? Master and Special are showing as "unavailable" on Amazon (even odds as to if they haven't opened preorders yet, or sold out in first five minutes), and Gamestop is being... weird.
Gamestop shows both the Master and Special editions available to order with a placeholder price ($999) that changes to the correct price in the cart, but whenever I try to checkout with a Master edition, my cart mysteriously empties.
That said, I was able to successfully order the Special edition a few minutes ago, so folks might want to get on that:
http://www.gamestop.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-wild-special-edition/141923
Re: Nintendo Unveils Tricks and Features of the Joy-Con Controllers
@ChessboardMan Indeed, the potential of that HD rumble sounds really exciting; if they can nail it, it could be a compelling feature without being a gimmick.
Going to be a tricky selling point, though, since you'd really have to get it in a player's hands to have them appreciate it, and it'll live or die on if it's drop-dead simple enough to program for that third parties aren't discouraged from using it.
Re: Video: Ladies And Gentlemen, We Might Have Found The Worst Game On Wii U
@Cypronia I'm making a mental note right now to never buy a game from your company, as you clearly can't distinguish quality on a professional level. Calling this "parody" is just the common self-delusion of trolls who can't face the fact that bad actions are... bad.
Pushing crap product as "parody" is still pushing crap product.
Re: Rime Officially Confirmed for Nintendo Switch in Gorgeous New Trailer
@ap0001 With respect, you've got it completely backwards. I'm not sure what your seven-year timeframe references, but the appropriate argument about graphics on Nintendo platforms has been that chasing horsepower and photorealism drives up budget with poor returns, while it's art style and direction that make a difference.
This game's graphics are heavy on style, and its cel-shading is the opposite of photorealism. It's a perfect fit for the Nintendo graphics paradigm.
Also, Wind Waker was a fantastic Gamecube game, and I'm sorry you were too harried by the pressure of whatever you've got going on in life to relax and enjoy the ride when you played it.
Re: Deals: There Are a Lot of Festive eShop Discounts in North America
RIP, hands of whoever had to type all those out.
Re: ​Pachter Says Switch is the Easiest of the Big Three to Develop For
Forget the tech assessment in this statement; we should all just be glad that such a hardened analyst as Pachter is still referring to Nintendo as being part of the "Big Three."
For far too big a segment of the gaming ecosystem this gen, if you asked them who the Big Three in games are, they'd look at you a bit strangely, and after thinking a bit, say "Playstation, Xbox, and, uh... oh, right, Steam."
Re: Rumour: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Won't Be Ready by March
Guys, I heard from my uncle's coworker's friend that the "localization" problem here is that the team only recently learned that Link is topless during certain segments of gameplay.
Reportedly, discussions are currently underway on whether to commission a Luigi, Samus Aran, or Princess Zelda costume for Link as a "bonus" with which to replace the shirtless model for Western markets.
Re: Budget New Nintendo 3DS Models Announced for North America
Finally the black model I've been waiting for, and without any junk bundled in, and at a great price to boot.
Launching this SKU for the first time in this market as a limited Black Friday offer, though? Blood's gonna run in the streets this November...
Re: Report Focuses on Nintendo Switch Touchscreen and IR Pointer on Joy-Con Controller
Quick primer on touchscreen technology, since as a few others mentioned, this article gets it wrong:
The two big touchscreen technologies are resistive (older) and capacitive (newer). DS, 3DS, and Wii U all use resistive screens. Every smartphone and tablet made since 2007 have used capacitive screens.
Resistive screens rely on pressure on a specific pixel (more or less) on the screen, which gives them naturally high resolution/precision and makes them work well with styluses (stylii?), but not so much with big fat fingers. Since they need localized pressure, they can't be used with a glass screen, and for technical reasons, they don't support multitouch.
Capacitive screens rely on changes in the electrical properties above a screen as your big watery sausage fingers pass over it. Since it's something of an ambient sensing mechanism, it's not as high-res as resistive screens, but modern devices are usually decent at figuring out where the center of your finger should be given its big, uh, footprint on the screen. Since it's tuned to the sort of electrical changes a finger causes, it won't respond to a hard plastic stylus, but there are big nobbly rubber ones that work with them. Capacitive screens work fine under glass, and support multitouch pretty easily (and mostly universally in modern screens).
The first touchscreens, found in things like PalmPilots, were resistive, and found reasonable, but limited, success, confined to the niche of "business gadget" by their banal plastic screens and necessary stylus use.
Resistive screens were still the law of the land when the DS launched to widespread acclaim in 2004, which worked out pretty well in spite of the conflicting control schemes of holding a stylus and holding the console for button presses. Nintendo's stuck with the tried and true resistive technology in all its touchscreen systems since.
The first widespread use of capacitive screens was by Apple in 2007 (I think), who in a stroke of genius realized that by sacrificing the precision offered by resistive technology (and dumbing down the user interface to accomodate it), they could make a viscerally sexy glass-screened slab, sturdy enough to earn a permanent spot in the pants pocket, that could be pulled out and touched directly without fussing around with an awkward stylus. That device would be known as the iPhone.
Oh, and there's also Wacom, a company with a proprietary ultra-high-definition electromagnetic resonance technology that's been quietly producing professional screens that use a specialized (but still unpowered) resonant stylus to do artist-quality work. Their tech is represented in the mainstream right now mostly under license to Samsung, who's combined it with a capacitive screen to produce their seriously cool Note line, which can swap seamlessly between the convenience of a finger-jabby capacitive screen and a stylus-driven screen more precise than any resistive screen. But no way would Nintendo ever pony up the cash for that tech.
So yeah, quick wall of text that I'm sure everyone will read 130 comments down on a day-old article =/
Re: Fans "Shouldn't Assume" That The Nintendo Switch Reveal Trailer Features "Actual Game Footage"
@Bunkerneath You could say the same about any gaming console; a box that plugs into your TV and plays games is a design that's been around for ages.
The box/tablet itself shouldn't be what gets people excited, but rather the prospect of the games it can play - which is why Nintendo went to the effort to postprocess shiny game footage onto the blank screens of the dummy units in their trailer, and why the fans are justified in getting just a bit worked up over it.
Re: Michel Ancel Discovers and Showcases Rayman on SNES
Whoa, whoa, slow down, guys, if this is being floated for the Switch, then we "shouldn't assume what [we] saw on [Ancel's Twitter] represents actual game footage."
Re: Video: This Unofficial Pokémon Advert Has a Beautiful Message for Older Sun and Moon Trainers
For as venerable a series as it is, Pokemon has absolutely decimated popular scientific literacy of the theory of evolution.
Pokemon don't evolve. People don't evolve. Animals don't evolve. They mature. Grow up, if you will. Species evolve, but individual creatures by definition do not.
The irony in my rant, though, is that by looking at the Pokemon series as a whole, highlighting how antiquated entries have been replaced by modern, more fit ones, this trailer actually gets evolution right... and then immediately wrecks it again by conflating it with the maturation of the players.
Argh.
Re: You're Not Dreaming, Mario Pikachu Is Officially A Thing Now
Home console line + Portable console line = Nintendo Switch
Biggest mascot + Second biggest mascot = Mario Pikachu
??? + ??? = ??????
Re: Analysts Weigh In On The Nintendo Switch Debate
Does Japan subsidize their mobile phones?
It's so weird that the free/microtransaction mobile environment has gotten as dominant as it is on the back of $700 flagship phones upgraded every 1-2 years, and I wonder if the gaming landscape would be the same if phone prices weren't hidden behind subsidized plans, as they are here in the US. On the portable side of the equation, surely a $300 Switch would fare better if it was competing with $700 iPhones instead of "free" iPhones.
I guess it seems here that suckers for one exploitatively obfuscated pricing model (subsidized phones) tend to be suckers for other exploitatively obfuscated pricing models (free-to-start games) as well.
Re: Square Enix Teases Bravely Default News As Original Game Turns Four
@PanurgeJr You mean people will grasp how localization is a fundamentally additive endeavor that seeks to rebuild the context and nuance lost in a literal translation, while censorship is a fundamentally destructive endeavor that seeks to remove or tone down elements perceived as dangerous to either publisher or audience?
...Nah, not gonna happen.
Re: Video: Check Out Some Official Footage of Super Mario Run
Mediocrity of the genre Nintendo's boldly riding into aside, kudos to them for sticking to an actual flat purchase model instead of some leech-choked microtransaction scheme.
Re: Different Time Periods, New Pokémon and Snap-style Mode Confirmed for Pokémon Sun and Moon
<Player gets handed a tetradecahedron>
"You obtained the Zygarde Cube!"
...Damn it, Nintendo.
Re: Concept Art Surfaces from the Cancelled 'Epic Donald'
Nice art, but I'm not really seeing a game in it.
Re: Pokémon Uranium is the Latest Ambitious Fan-Made Game to Run The Gauntlet
@locky-mavo Your attitude is repulsive. Fangames like this should be celebrated, not condemned, as they're in turn a celebration of the source material.
Re: Nintendo Issues Takedown Notices for Impressive Fan-Made Metroid II Remake, AM2R
Wow, I'm usually neutral or slanted towards Nintendo on takedowns, but this one hits me in the gonads. Lame move, big N.
Re: Video: Almost 20 Years On, The Guy Who Sang The Original Pokémon Theme Has Still Got It
@RadioDog He's got a lot to be proud of - he's gotten to see this stupid video game tie-in anime he he was hired to do a cover of the open for as a punk-ass kid, grow into an absolute juggernaut over the last 20 years, fixing his voice at the center of a cultural phenomenon.
Showing some passion should come easy!
Re: Nintendo Download: 21st July (North America)
@SavageGM Fair enough; that wasn't super clear from your initial post.
Re: Nintendo Download: 21st July (North America)
@SavageGM Nintendo isn't responsible for third-party software, that's why it's called third-party.
There's an indirect relationship of course, but you're not offering a critique of any of the systemic problems that've led Nintendo to this point, likely because they're old news and not especially highlighted by the matter at hand.
Re: Brooklyn Assemblyman Considering Pokémon GO Legislation
People are actually leaving their homes and venturing out into their neighborhoods? THIS. MUST. END.
Re: ​Niantic CEO Explains How Mapping Works in Pokémon GO
"[The map server] uses an entirely different set of data, which is evidently constantly evolving."
So we know Niantic is harnessing the power of at least Porygon2 to drive their servers. That seems about right.
Re: Review: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U)
@Syrek24 It must be very comfortable to know that your opinions are right because they're the same as society's, and that society's opinions are the same as yours because yours are right.
Re: Review: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U)
@Locke159 In a word, yes.
Re: Rumour: Someone Tried To Steal The Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Demo, And Failed
Forget discovering what's essentially a cheat code on-the-spot on the world's most crowded demo pod, or magically recoding a hack in one night to adapt to a system that you, by definition, can't get the code off of yet...
When I was 17, I would've called it the victory of a lifetime just to GO to E3.
Re: E3 2016: Rhythm Heaven Megamix is Available to Buy Right Now on the North American eShop
Heck yeah!
Re: Eiji Aonuma Rules Out The Option to Play as a Female Link in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Ok, so I counted, as best I could offhand, and out of 162 comments in this article, about thirteen people were seriously upset about this announcement, with one of them posting an excessive number of replies, so we'll double it to about 26/162, or 16%, opposed to a male-only Link, and 84% either in favor of or at least ok with keeping Link single-gendered.
With a commanding majority, and the "word of God," in agreement, can we now, finally, put the idea that this story was ever anthing more than the fantasy of the Nintendo Life editorial team to rest?
Re: Nintendo Announces E3 eShop Discount Plans and Miitomo x The Legend of Zelda Promotion
@ottospooky I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that while Link's clearly not female there (to be crass, there's just nothing going on in the breast region), he's androgynous as all get-out, which suggests a single protagonist that's trying to be relatable to both males and females.
Re: Playtonic Handling Wii U Version of Yooka-Laylee, Team17 Porting To PS4 And Xbox One
Seeing actual respect for the Wii U from a developer has my head absolutely spinning. I think I'm tasting sounds and smelling colors.
Re: Free Rupees And Fairy Food On Offer To Celebrate Hyrule Warriors Legends DLC Launch
@deKay If you're not put off by the 3DS graphics, then fair enough - like I said, to each his own. I trust that you can see how some people might feel otherwise, though, and for those people, not being able to play the new content - excessive or not - on their platform of choice is a legit grievance.
Re: Free Rupees And Fairy Food On Offer To Celebrate Hyrule Warriors Legends DLC Launch
@deKay You're making very facile arguments.
It should be obvious why it can be frustrating that the additional content for the 3DS version can't be played on the big screen on hardware that can actually run it properly. Frustration = feeling screwed over.
"Otherwise why would anyone bother with the 3DS" isn't an argument for exclusive DLC as much as it is an argument against the existence of the 3DS version, and a poor one at that. Different strokes for different folks - people who prefer the 3DS version should be free to enjoy that one, and people who enjoy the U version should likewise be able to enjoy content there. Forcing both groups into the same version to get to the latest maps and storyline just causes negativity all around.
Re: Nintendo Confirms its DLC Plans for Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
I thought the battle system looked intriguing in this game, and I was accepting or better of its various design influences, but I'm damned tired of having to set my morals and feelings over supporting censorship aside to buy practically anything from Nintendo these days.
I won't be buying this game, due to the changes made.
Re: Hyrule Warriors Legends 'Master Wind Waker Pack' DLC Arrives on 19th May
Who needs weapons, when you can send enemies flying with just a flick of your wrist? Medli's more terrifying than I ever knew.
Re: Retail Executives and Analysts Voice Support For Nintendo's NX Release Window and Lack of E3 Showing
@DiscoGentleman It's not that the remianing Wii U fans aren't hardcore - they have to be hard by now, because they're the ones that've stuck with Nintendo despite the lack of support.
The point is that for that same fanbase on, well, this gen, the PS4 , there's no "despite." The support is there, both from third-party and first-party, to draw whatever-you-care-to-call-them gamers in, instead of pushing them away. So while there are still extremely hardcore fans left on the Wii U, most of them have gone where the tides pull.
Personally, I take more of an issue with calling the Wii fanbase the "mainstream" gamers.
Re: Video: This Unpronounceable NES Title Was Pretty Tough For Kids Back In 1990
@AlexSora89 I'm sight-reading it as Ast-ya-nax, so there's room for interpretation!
Re: Western Localisation Of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Features Costume And Age Changes
@Uzuki It's not the ESRB's fault if Nintendo's tanked their own market by Flanderizing themselves so hard that an M-rated game is a nonstarter. But @PlywoodStick makes the more relevant point, in that the changes really probably weren't ESRB-driven to begin with.
Chastising the ESRB for changes that they weren't responsible for making, in response to a rating they probably wouldn't have given in the first place, may not be likely to have an effect.
But you are right to question whether the DLC part is even a thing. Unless new info has surfaced since I read about it yesterday, the entire bit about the DLC is still just one bullet point in an anonymous forum leak that's gotten other things right so far. It'd be exactly what people expect from Nintendo at this point, but it's not a fact yet.
Re: The Legend of Zelda Wii U Has Been Pushed Back to 2017, Will Release On NX As Well
And the world gave a collective shrug and said "Yep."
Re: Western Localisation Of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Features Costume And Age Changes
@Uzuki The ESRB didn't force, nor even recommend, localizers to make a single change, though, if they even had any interaction with them on the changes at all. An M rating is hardly a death sentence - just look at practically ANY of 2015's top games.
It's Nintendo's (I still don't believe this is Atlus' doing) boneheaded decision to try to force the game into being something it's not.
Re: Western Localisation Of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Features Costume And Age Changes
@Wexter There's definitely fuzziness in ratings, but if the argument is "Persona 4 got an M, and this is pretty much Persona 4...," then trying to make the game into something it's not is a disservice both to the original audience, and to concerned parents putting their trust in a T rating. It's a lose-lose.
Re: Western Localisation Of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Features Costume And Age Changes
@Wexter Senran Kagura Burst got a T rating. Bikinis aren't an automatic M. And any supposition about the ESRB's involvement is just that, supposition, unless Nintendo actually gave enough of a damn to outline for consumers what the board required they cut (if it was indeed so mandated). That much, at least, is a standard companies deserve to be held to.
Re: Rumour: More Claims Made For New Legend of Zelda on Wii U and NX, Gender Choice For Playable Character
Count me in on the crowd that's fine with Nintendo committing to either gender, but sees an "option" as a bland cop-out. I'd rather play a unique character with rich interactions with the world than some distant dummy that's supposed to represent me. I already have to put up with myself plenty, thank you very much.
And if Link's interactions with the world in past games have been tenuous... that's just all the more reason to jealously cling to what precious little characterization we can get.
Knowing how Nintendo loves to throw characterization under the bus these days to chase down every last PC brownie point, though, yeah, a gender choice seems like a foregone conclusion =/.