John_Koshiro

Geez, what's with the snarky title? There's been plenty of Smash inspired games over the years that it has become its own genre at this point. Labeling Multiversus a copycat for being a platform-fighter is needlessly dismissive.

Steel Diver and Sub Wars were fantastic games and it saddens me a bit that the series never really took off after the 3DS. Hope that the Switch 2 can be their chance to shine again.

@MSaturn Shinobi 3D also featured a combo system. Although enemies could usually be killed in about 1-3 hits, you can optionally land extra hits to increase your score.

I agree with your sentiment about the life bars though. Shinobi III, in particular, had such a smooth gameplay flow by being able to effortlessly kill a string of opponents in seconds. As much as I liked 3D, it lacked the same kind of fast-paced action that made Shinobi III so great.

While I bet LizardCube's entry will still be fun, I am a little worried that it's going to stray too much from the formula of the classic 2D games.

I was hoping this collection would have Welltris, the first official Tetris sequel (it's even designed by Alexey Pajitnov).

Regardless, this is still a pretty impressive line-up of Tetris games and spin-offs. Having Hatris is a deep-cut inclusion, let alone 3 versions of it.

Glad to see that they're finally following up on the Sylux tease from Prime 3. This game will make an excellent swan song for the Switch.

What "standards"? If Konami had any, they wouldn't have released the game in such a sorry state.

@Ogbert It's sad that NL would rather bend over backwards for Atooi because of what the company used to be. Plenty of articles on this site have called out big developers like Ubisoft or the scam and rip-off games on the eShop.

However, there's hardly anything from them when it comes to Jools' actions other than some vague allusion to the backers' dissatisfaction. NL is so concerned with not burning any bridges that they just pretend nothing is wrong.

@PKDuckman He was even worse; the dude was a racist alcoholic and a convicted predator.

@Zeebor15 You're correct. Katzenberg was the one who oversaw the Felix acquisition and announced the merchandising plan.

@Zeebor15 Felix The Cat has a funny history in regards to his ownership. An animator by the name of Otto Messmer created him in the late 1910's but his boss took the credit and fortune during the original run.

After his boss died, Messmer worked on Felix comics with his protege Joe Oriolo, who went on to create Casper The Friendly Ghost and eventually develop the 50's iteration of Felix.

Oriolo managed to obtain the rights from the estate of Messmer's old boss and he eventually passed them down to his son Don, who spent many years producing various Felix projects, including the aforementioned 1991 movie.

In 2014, Don sold Felix to DreamWorks whose main intent was to essentially just him use for merchandising and fashion brands, so it seems there won't be any Felix cartoons or films in the near future.

I'm so happy to see that Shinobi is coming back after all these years. The art style and platforming looks absolutely fantastic.

@JohnnyMind I totally understand; I've been dealing with a lot of things lately and couldn't donate much myself. However, ultimately any amount helps and the thought itself will be greatly appreciated by the organizers. Thanks for the donation!

Considering Pac-Man World Re-Pac has sold pretty well, the constant pleas to Bandai Namco's social media accounts, and now this survey, I think it's safe to say there's a good chance for a Re-Pac 2.

Forgive me if this is going off-topic but, Scott Rogers, one of the original Pac-Man World devs, is battling cancer. If anyone here liked PMW or his other work and want to help out, he has set up a GoFundMe page to pay for medical costs and treatments.

"Publisher GameMill has announced..."

And just like that, I lost interest.

What a surprise. All those "really mad" Sonic fans that Ollie wrote about were totally justified with their disappointment.

Really good Direct; one of the best in recent memory. Tons of variety, long overdue ports, and reveals of games that people have been asking for years like the Mario titles.

With that said, some of my absolute favorite franchises are the somewhat niche ones like Chibi-Robo, so I was kinda bummed not to see any announcements for them.

Still, I recognize that we have a solid lineup for this year and I can hardly wait to try them out.

I guess they didn't want a Chocolate Team shooting brown ink all over the map.

The title kinda reminds me of of "Wario Land: Shake It!". Speaking of which, I hope Nintendo will make a new Wario Land at some point.

"Kept you waiting, huh?"

Funny how the powerup that makes you trip out isn't a mushroom. Nintendo probably had a few discussions regarding that.

Where's Arkham Origins? I know that game was handled by a different studio but it's still a part of the storyline.

@burgerkingsauce This whole piece feels like an excuse to dunk on Sonic fans by running with the tired saying of them being nitpicky and entitled.

Sure, some of these problems are minor, but relegating the Plus content to a download code is honestly ridiculous. It's especially frustrating when compared to Sonic Mania Plus, which had everything on the disk/cartridge.

Besides, there are several issues beyond the complaints listed here such as glitches, lack of customization and options, and the subpar Sonic 3 music which still haven't been addressed from last year.

Sonic Origins is a good classic collection and the fact SEGA bothered to do a Plus edition is appreciated, but there's no denying that they could have handled it better. However, I guess any criticisms Sonic fans have are equivalent to outrage and this justifies writing patronizing articles about them.

@wideawakey The sad thing is, this isn't the only case where NL refused to call out grifters like Jools.

They were shilling pretty hard for the Intellivision Amico a few years back. Even when users here repeatedly pointed out what a joke the Amico was, NL kept giving it the spotlight (and arguing in the comments) until it became common knowledge that Tommy was an utter fraud.

@brownbricks I sure hope players can get a free iPad after beating the game.

@Anti-Matter From what I've seen, most developers are flattered and amazed by mods of their games.

John Carmack released the source code to Doom after being impressed by a Star Wars mod. Speaking of which, John Romero has played with plenty of custom content and source ports created by the Doom community. Valve has approved and even collaborated with modders on projects for Half-Life and Left 4 Dead.

I don't think I can recall a case where the developers themselves spoke out against a mod unless it was cheating, NSFW, or being monetized. This is partly because a lot of them start out by modding games themselves and are just as passionate about experimenting as fans are.

The majority of these copyright strikes come from a management or legal branch within the company who likely never wrote a single line of code in their life.

Yes, without a doubt. The story, scale, and character interactions in Subspace Emissary is unmatched by the other games' attempts at a single player campaign. Sure, the levels being generic and drawn out are valid criticisms, but I personally think the overall gameplay has been the best in terms of making players feel like they're on an actual adventure.

If anything, World Of Light suffered from repetitiveness more so than SE. Fighting with the same characters and stages multiple times made it a far less of a memorable experience. Not to mention, the lack of cutscenes and interactions between characters was such a missed opportunity. Especially, considering Ultimate arguably has been one of the most expansive video game crossovers ever made.

In addition, the Spirit system was just absolutely broken. The Legendary spirits pretty much made weaker ones redundant and every fight became trivial. I like the idea of Spirits but they would need to overhaul its mechanics if they were to return. Yes, they were optional but there could have been more of an effort to balance them; perhaps by setting limits on how many times they can be used or needing their power continually restored.

With all that said, I recognize that each of Adventure modes have their own benefits and flaws but they should had try to build upon a formula rather than just keep starting from scratch. I understand the scope of both Brawl and Ultimate made it a somewhat of a necessity to resort to padding by reusing elements. However, I believe a middle ground between the Adventure exclusive assets and the multiplayer ones would be better than the extremes that Brawl and Ultimate took.

At this point, as others have stated, the best option for the next game would probably be just combining the best aspects of the past modes into one. A single player mode with a mix of sidescrolling and stadiums levels themed after the represented franchises with an in-depth story that capitalizes on the characters crossing over.

I feel that amiibo are severely underutilized by Nintendo. Many people seem to think the only way to give the figures meaningful functionality is to have them access locked content. However, there's been several games that demonstrated amiibo can be more than just glorified keys.

Smash Bros. is the best example by making them into their own fighters that can be leveled up and customized while remaining completely optional to play the game.

Similarly, Shovel Knight offers the Custom Knight mode that allows players to create new movesets for Shovel Knight along with cosmetics.

There's also plenty of potential to explore a social aspect of amiibo where players can share and trade attributes of their figures with others, somewhat reminiscent of Streetpass.

Of course, since the TTL trend has died down, it seems doubtful Nintendo that is going to do anything interesting with the brand. On the other hand, I'd say they have a good opportunity to capitalize on the TTL market now that the competition is virtually non-existent.

If Nintendo were to make restocks more consistent and develop games with engaging but non-exploitative use of amiibo, there's a chance that the brand could be revitalized into something more prominent without alienating fans.

@RareFan She's just some random background character that's been around since the first season. This is her probably her most memorable moment in the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrq2ILbrSMM

Hopefully, we can finally get some proper scenes of Charlie Day playing Luigi.

Seems like karma has really been catching up with Naka lately. After years of being an entitled, temperamental jerk who selfishly ruined the development of several SEGA games (Sonic X-treme, Geist Force, and Sonic '06), he has fallen so far that his career is beyond the point of no return.

@GamingFan4Lyf You likely know this but I just wanted to add that this game was designed by id Software co-founder Tom Hall.

After leaving midway through Doom's development due to creative differences, he borrowed the characters' names in Rise Of The Triad from his scrapped design document for Doom.

Personally, this is the most underwhelming Nintendo Direct I've seen in a long time. I always have low expectations to keep my disappointment in check and it still failed to live up to that.

Nothing against RPGs or Farming Simulators but there was honestly so many of them, they could have been their own presentation. While it's too early for me to definitively say, the new Fire Emblem doesn't interest me as much as Three Houses. The character designs look silly and the summoning ability feels like a gimmick.

Nearly all of the other highlights had a catch:
-Goldeneye on Switch Online was leaked.
-Pikmin 4 only showed a brief cinematic and a screenshot of gameplay.
-Return To Dreamland is another port.
-All the new Resident Evil games are cloud versions.
-Tears Of The Kingdom had just as much gameplay footage shown as the previous Directs.

I'm also baffled why they spent so much time to elaborate on Pikmin Bloom when it's already been out for a year now. Then there's the delay of the Golf update for Switch Sports which is still suffering from a huge lack of content.

Again, this is just my personal thoughts. I understand that plenty of people still liked this Direct and that's totally fine. Sorry if I'm being a downer.

BOTW + Skyward Sword = Absolute Masterpiece

These guys have actually been around for a while.

Anyone going to celebrate Sonic Forces' anniversary this November?

@Bizzyb It's still available at Best Buy and Gamestop. It's also listed on Bandai Namco's online store.

In other words, Nintendo added a survival horror mode.

@JoeyTS @Silly_G Well, there was that version of Pac-Land by Arcade Archives with "Pac-Mom" edited in which released about a month before Pac-Man Museum+.

Swordquest: Airworld? Wow, that's honestly pretty cool. It's a little cathartic for me to finally see this game getting realized after rewatching AVGN's Swordquest video several times over the years. I even entertained the idea of making it myself when I was younger.

I'm also impressed to see that they are dropping AtGames in exchange for emulation specialists with an actual repuatation and including Jaguar/Lynx games. It seems like someone has finally realized how to adequately utilize the Atari brand.

I'm so glad that Bandai Namco is remastering this. It felt like Namco had totally abandoned this series despite all its fans requests over the years.

On a side note, I really hope that Namco can resolve the Ms. Pac-Man situation. I would have really liked to see her in this. It reminds me of what Sonic fans are going through now that Origins has replaced the MJ tracks in Sonic 3. Two games suffering from legal issues are causing the modern generation to miss out on a beloved aspect that the originals had.

Overall, however, I'm still very much looking forward to this and all the changes it'll bring. If it sells well, I bet remakes for the other games will be coming too.

@gojiguy Iizuka's interviews are always like this. Anytime he's asked about criticism over the Sonic franchise, he either deploys lawyer tactics or makes up some completely baffling justification for their creative decisions.

When people were complaining about Sonic 4's physics, his answer in one interview went on about how the physics were taking advantage of modern hardware to do things that weren't possible with the Genesis by adding things like the homing attack (rather than working on making them feel like a classic Sonic game).

He concluded it with some pretty hollow lip service by saying something to the effect of, "We appreciate the enthusiasm from long time fans and it makes us happy to hear feedback like this".

Regardless of what you think about Iizuka's direction of Sonic Team, one thing is for sure: his interviews are consistently terrible.

These guys put an official trailer not too long ago and they have honestly stepped their game up. They even got the vocalist from Crush 40 to sing the theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzJBq-fPrF4

Why would they have the names of the characters take up the space in the center of that shirt? Isn't having Axel, Blaze, and Adam beneath the Streets Of Rage logo enough?

I firmly believe that Shinobi is one of SEGA's best I.P. and it pains me to see the franchise's potential being left untapped.

I hope all this talk of revivals is more than lip service. SEGA said this last year and there still hasn't been anything beyond bringing back Streets Of Rage 4. I have to keep reminding myself of all the times they rushed out a Sonic game just to remain patient.

YouTube has become such a buzzkill. Nowadays, coming across untouched Spongebob clips with the comment section intact is like finding an oasis in a desert.

The fact that South Park videos sometimes get flagged as for kids prove how meaningless this system is.

Zippo has shared tons of "leaks" that all turned out to be false. Every site reporting on this is validating his lies with attention.

I'm pretty sure his last leak was that Sonic Mania 2 was being worked on before getting cancelled because SEGA and the devs had a bitter falling out. Yet, look who's working on Sonic Origins.

I found this streamlined chart for Sonic Origins in case anybody needs it.

Credit: https://twitter.com/LephemStar91/status/1516809135232360451

The new animated content is a fantastic addition. With the additional announcement of Headcannon's involvement, it's clear that SEGA didn't spare any expense remastering these games.

If the customization and options are on the same level as Sonic 3 A.I.R., then Origins will automatically become the definitive versions of these games.

I would be completely sold if they enlist Yuzo Koshiro as the composer.

"Namco didn't authorise the release of Ms. Pac-Man, and this is reportedly what caused them to terminate their licensing deal with Midway in 1884."

The image of outlaws in the Wild West playing Ms. Pac-Man in a grimy saloon is pretty amusing. Jokes aside, Bandai Namco's handling of this whole situation is understandable but frustrating regardless.

The Pac-Family is being torn apart over this royalty dispute and gamers on the losing end by having Ms. Pac-Man erased from Bandai Namco games while having subpar emulated re-releases from AtGames as the only official option.

At this point, I kinda wish B.N. would just buy out AtGames to settle this matter although I do understand that it simply isn't worth the hassle for them.