As much as I hate this game from a Metroid perspective, I didn't actually expect it to be that unmotivating from a gameplay standpoint. However, if this is a tutorial to get the hang of for Federation Force, how much is there to expect in terms of similarities? All in all, I don't get how such obvious issues with Blast Ball went unnoticed by Nintendo... didn't they test this at all? Or did they really think button-mash competition is a good mechanic?
Eh, sounds like sneaky Nintendo PR shenanigans to me.
@Einherjar Well, it does come off as unusual to see Reggie suck that bad when the Live Event 2014 had him act like a rather experienced rival for Iwata. It was very obviously fake, but the gap between fake and reality proved to be very large. Not to speak of his trash talk against SoapBox after the Smash Invitational Tournament. I admit, I'm a bit shocked as well to see him play that badly, but at the same time, I don't see any obligation for him to know his stuff. It's just that Nintendo had all of this tension built up only to kick it off the next cliff.
Nice! I heard before that Zero Escape was planned as a trilogy, so I was pretty bummed when the lackluster sales figures of VLR caused a stop. Man, this is exciting!
@ZenTurtle I can't say I see that coming. Unless you play on Lunatic right away (if that's even possible), most FE games are very easy, and removing weapon durability would only give me more confidence in bum-rushing through everything with the strongest available weapons. It also alienates the war setting to have literally unbreakable weapons sold for petty change.
It's really difficult to properly judge these old games when they're seeing a 1:1 re-release. Judging it for it's time, it was a major groundbreaker that introduced many little ideas that are almost basics for many adventure games that followed it. Not to speak of the unique atmosphere and sheer size, which was hella impressive for an N64 game. But this version came out now, almost 20 years after the original release, so it's only fair to judge it by this periods standards, and by todays advances, it's just not good. Not quite terrible, but after having basically every Zelda game after Ocarina of Time improve mechanics and aspects that were part of this, it's almost impossible to give it a passing grade anymore. And that's what irks me so much about this 64-bit nostalgia. 3D graphics age horribly, and many N64/PSX games show that with blocky, muddy, and pixelated models, not to speak of the low polygon count. By comparison, 2D graphics are, if done well, very sharp and tend to persist much better, because the clear design outlines keep their shape very cartoonish.
That said, if people still like it, people still like it. No fan is obligated to be rational, and that's okay.
@KillScottKill Inafune was part of the dev team for Gunvolt, and he already founded Comcept at that point, so that's more nitpicking than anything. Also, we have Mighty No.9 (MegaMan/MegaMan X), Azure Stricker Gunvolt (MegaMan Zero/ZX), Mighty Gunvolt (classic MegaMan/Megaman 9 & 10), and now Red Ash (MegaMan Legends). I'm counting four spiritual successors all related to MegaMan alone. And Azure Striker: Gunvolt 2 is already well underway, though that's a sequel, so Gunvolt seems to be a case of serial successor. But yes, I did forget about ReCore. So that goes on my bill.
I'm actually waiting impatiently for the arcade release - but mainly because I want balancing feedback. I need balancing info before I bother with this game any further, mostly because I'm not even slightly interested in a Pokémon fighter at all when the only Pokémon part about it is the combatants and literally nothing else. From what I've seen so far, it's flat-out obnoxiously spam-heavy, with a sickening similarity to the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games, which were broken to the point of making multiplayer unbearable. I took good advice so far to never trust NamcoBandai with fighters, and this game is giving me the impression that they're worse at it than I gave them credit for...
@chardir Then the matchmaking is terrible, since I've been up against Lv.15+ opponents ever since I myself reached Lv.10. And by now, almost every room I'm in is filled with Lv.20, which is really annoying, as most of them don't need many points, so they Rambo across the map with barely any coverage.
At this point, I'm really starting to wonder if Comcept can do anything other than callback titles and spiritual successors to MegaMan. This is the fourth spiritual successor, and they only released one full game so far, which is Azure Striker: Gunvolt (two if you count Mighty Gunvolt). Next thing we know, Comcept announces a game centered around internet battles with virtual avatars...
@Darknyht Of course that's true, and that piece of technology was an instance of brillance (and saved Samus), but despite that, we never see PED marines in the game ever again, and PED's in general are rendered useless by the finale of Corruption, meaning they were back to square one by then. As for the Federation evolving: they probably did, but barely at all. Super Metroid, which happens after the Prime Trilogy, shows a lot of dead federal marines. But despite the open attack, the federation sent Samus again. I don't know yet when exactly FF happens, but it must be before Super. All the time spans where Samus wasn't on a different mission leave basically no room for an arsenal upgrade without heavily contradicting the events of subsequent Metroid titles, since NLG confirmed that Samus will show up in the game.
Well, at least Guilty Gear XRD has more participants than Tekken. Hopefully it has more screentime, too. As for Smash, I'm not sure if I'll even watch that. I don't find watching Smash matches too appealing... though CEO had some rather intense matches.
@ted-k Yep. The same case was for Dalamadur weapons (Shah Dala was available since last month), and still applies to Fatalis stuff for us westerners (only japan has White Fatalis as of yet, so you'll need to join a quest from their end to get it).
Not entirely sure about the design. My fingers tend to hurt pretty quickly when the buttons are so... blocky. Nonetheless, it's funny that Hyperkin are the first ones to even realize this option at all. Definitely worth a look, and cheaper than the official Pro Controller to boot.
Tower Mode is pretty one-sided: pick a high fire rate weapon that barely slows you down, rush past the tower and splatter the Bad Guys as they all try to secure the tower blindly. I played 10 Tower matches in a row, and every time, the team I was with won in a single streak, with me using that very method without exception. And that was the first time I actually went Ranked at all.
@PanurgeJr Say what you will, but nothing revealed about Federation Force/Blast Ball so far showed even a tiny bit of respect for the Metroid franchise, or that Next Level Games have an idea of Metroid. It's not emotional, it's obvious. But there's always going to be some blind defenders, just like Other M had them. And that "different" Metroid game already resulted in a 5-year hiatus - this "different" Metroid games is a pretty bad way to make up for a bad game and 5 years of nothing.
@Darknyht Actually, it's an instance of bad writing/screenplanning. Of course stormtroopers can't be good at their job when there are so many of them, since their "precise aim" would resolve many conflicts and battles before they even begin, which would make parts of the film incredibly boring. But at the same time, the writers behind it most likely had that comparison written already and didn't exactly think it through. It's a contradiction that makes no sense: bad practice, but good reputation. In the end, what was seen persisted for the fans: Storm Troopers can't aim. But federation marines have no definite reputation. Nobody in the Metroid universe ever talked about big accomplishments from federal units (except Adam, maybe, but that also has a case of unproven reputation), the most we know about them is that they evidently lost to wild bugs, and that it needed a McGuffin superpower for them to defeat very basic enemies that require one, maybe two, charged shots from Samus. In fact, even their equipment descriptions in Corruption outline their strong limitations and reliance on stationary and mobile artillery, as well as gunships. It's not that they have bad aim - they're flat-out weak/underequipped in almost every situation.
I'm sorry, but an "intriguing story" is so much the opposite of the Metroid franchise, it's beyond painful.
What exactly is left to tell about federation marines and their jobs that wasn't already elaborated on? They lead scouting missions on undiscovered planets, establish bases of operation in secure areas, and scour the environment for new lifeforms and substances to further scientific advances across all fields of operation for the good of the Federation and its citizen. Or they serve as security reinforcements for conflict zones, including military bases, battleships, research facilities, and planetary settlements. They literally do nothing else, that's their full range of assignments.
Also, they die to Splinters (not even alpha ones, just the regular critters!) and regular Space Pirates by the dozen! 9 of them couldn't survive for more than a few days on planet Aether. A large number of federation marines couldn't even defend one of their main military bases from pirates, instead requiring Samus and 3 additional hunters to get ahold of the mess! All of this is easily shown through Metroid Prime Echoes and Corruption.
Fighting Space Pirates? Hire Samus, she's better at that. Unknown creatures of high lethality threaten a planet's ecosystem? Send Samus, she finds a way to blow up the whole planet. Lost contact with Federation marines? Ask Samus, we don't wanna lose more men (and women - rest in peace, Angseth).
Metroid never had much of a story to shout about, keeping the lore as discoveries on the side path. Super Metroid did most of it through imagery and environments, Prime did it through scannable inscriptions of lost civilizations (all of which were purely optional), and even Zero Mission kept it very passive. The last Metroid games with a "story" were Fusion (which is often criticized for it's plot-enforced railroading), and Other M (Which is Other M, nuff said).
Next Level Games doesn't understand a single damn thing about the strengths of Metroid, and every petty justification makes it even more obvious.
Hopefully Nintendo allows users to have more control over their interface. How and what the Activity Log displays, what options are displayed at the sidebar, what notifications should be shown within Miiverse (as in, control over obnoxious popups and the like, as well) - the more a user can control the interface, the less ground is left to complain. That said, the current limitations (posting timeout, 30 post-per-day limit) are absolutely fine. Anyone who claims to need more than 30 posts a day is begging for attention, or pissed because an easy spam method is off-limits.
Yeah, about that, Reggie... how about no? I mean, hell no!
Also, you talk about not sugarcoating stuff, yet you do just that not even a minute later. Positive reception about the game itself is one thing, but the negative response from fans all over the world relates to how badly Federation Force represents the Metroid franchise, not necessarily about the gameplay.
How is the thought of paying for incomplete (pre)alpha-stage games exciting? Are we really at this point in unreasonable acceptance that people get excited about Early Access?! Also, the Nindies were all free demos, nothing else. Early Access means paying for games that aren't done, and where you have nothing but the developers word on what will see improvement, and what won't. Even worse, no developer is obligated to listen to feedback at all. Sure, it might hurt their reputation to ignore Early Access members, but they already paid, so who cares?
@DarthNocturnal I gotta check it again, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo explicitly stated that they wanted to keep console and mobile development separate.
@BLPs Maybe so, but that doesn't make it any better.
Really? Early Access? Or, to put it much better, Early Ripoff - the very idea of Nintendo actually supporting this act of undeniable laziness is just sickening! Never pay a developer until the game is done, simple as that. If they don't outright cancel the project during Early Access, they just add new stuff as DLC or pre-order exclusive just to wring some more cash out of the gullible crowd that is giving a developer money for doing their work (a laughable concept by itself already)!
People seem to be missing something: none of the environments were actually created by the guy behind the video. Those are example maps and assets that come with Unreal Engine 4 - all he did was putting Mario in these maps, and recreated the animation (though they're a bit too spot-on, so I'll assume he imported the animations). Nothing outstanding, and nothing interesting. Basically, it's another dude who tries to promote himself with Nintendo-related stuff.
I mostly agree to this. Change is great, but too much change is unnecessary. This year's E3 showed how to alienate, not to appreciate. Nintendo wanting to reel in new players is okay, but bending and twisting clearly defined concepts beyond recognition just to tailor it towards a completely separate audience is an act of disrespect. Nintendo has almost everything covered by now, and surely enough, every IP can cover a certain range of genres without contradicting its own identity. However, Nintendo doesn't seem to see it like that anymore, since we're seeing some rather drastical changes to strong IP's that make absolutely no sense, with results that easily could've been achieved by other IP's without having to break the base. But Nintendo ignores that, and instead decides to abandon a loyal fanbase to cash in on a different, much less stable one. That's disrespect to a very high degree, and I see absolutely no reason that could justify it.
The thing is, whenever I hear "Nintendo fans are too demanding", I get instinctively annoyed. It's one serious load of bull used against pretty much every complaint against an upcoming game, and is a very cheap way of undermining legitimate complaints, especially now that the E3 was such a major letdown.
@rjejr It does? Huh, a good friend bought it and said the game only scanned them... gotta give him the fish slap tomorrow. Do you know what kind of data Mario Party writes onto the chip?
As for the data issue: they could simply release something similar to amiibo Tap: load the program, scan an amiibo, create a data backup. It could even offer some sort of presentational function with pedestals, stages, or cupboards - maybe even the option to place virtual amiibos (which represent your backups) in Nintendo-related environments. Better than releasing new amiibos for every single game they make...
Why always such miniscule cosmetic awards? You really cannot come up with anything better than that?
Why not allow you to copy High Scores (assuming those will exist in SFZ, and I really hope so) onto your amiibo, which you can then carry to a friend who also has the game, and then transfer your scores to his list?
I'm really baffled that outside of Smash, not a single damn game makes any use of the possibility to write data onto the NFC chip (making amiibos of characters not in Smash halfway useless), so at least such big titles should strive to find a way. And the same goes for the fact that Nintendo tries its best to promote the portability of amiibos - we don't buy these overpriced bags for bragging rights (well, most of us)!
@Chaoz For the most part, they didn't. The costumes are 100% cosmetical, and when taking competitive setups into account, they're potentially the most difficult equipment to specialize, the minigames are entirely inconsequential to the main game, and the Hero Weapon Replica are reskinned beginner weapon loadouts. Nothing could give you an advantage at any point. The only unfair point is the actual challenges, since the singlepalyer does play fairly different with the other weapon types.
@Gridatttack Street Fighter 4 got a tutorial and challenge mode for each character in one of the revisions, I think. No idea about MK, but Skullgirls, BlazBlue/Guilty Gear, and Under-Night: IN-BIRTH have these modes, as well. But it's not really as simple as comparing Smash to these fighters: with Smash heavily emphasizing mobility and position-sensitive hit detection, it's very difficult to find advanced mechanics or strategies on your own, since the game doesn't railroad the positions of the characters - or in other words, Smash moves in every possible direction, so attacks often rely on forcing the opponent into certain situations (which the AI rarely ever does due to its strong limitations), whereas most traditional fighters have priority to gauge the effectiveness of attacks only in relation to your distance to the opponent. It's a bit difficult for me to explain, so sorry if this doesn't make much sense...
Wait, the side effects noted on the abilities are already in effect! Are they increasing the drawback, or is it just to make clear that these skills have a negative side to them? The Kraken nerf is a bit beyond me, as well: it's strong, sure, but the Kraken is slower than squid form, and actually using it effectively isn't that easy, since you either rush into enemy territory and become a free target when the effect wears off, or you just randomly dork around the battlefield for a few seconds going haywire.
@cartooncreator59 Truthfully, you're defintely right. Smash has established itself in part for having a large roster, so a new Smash game with fewer characters would be met with a lot of outrage. It's kinda difficult to improve a series that has so much stuff when most of it is borderline mandatory for a continuous success, so I can only hope Nintendo finds a way.
@Gridatttack But that's exactly what throws me off: Sakurai actually WANTS Smash to be as competitive as possible (why else would anyone bother with slight balancing tweaks in most of the updates), but at the same time, he doesn't really give anyone tools within the game to do so. Of course he wants people to have as much fun as possible, but he's aware that it's only one half of the game. But constantly adding more characters just oversaturates the game - which is why none of the characters receive any in-game dedication anymore. It's too much to handle by now. And that's all I mean: they just throw characters in at random, without anything to accompany them, not even a tutorial. It's like telling an electrician to repair a swiss watch - he knows what the result should be, but it's too complex for him to understand the grips and intricacies.
I'd like to play as Octolings, but not if it looks like this hack. I wonder if the actual octolings could be used to replace the entire inkling character, up to and including the voice samples.
However, I feel like it would be slightly unfair to give us a female-only character if the male inklings have no counterpart, so I hope that, if we do get playable octolings, it's either a different story mode, or we get some sort of male octoling (the tentacles could form a long ponytail for them).
@CapeSmash Fans wanting something doesn't automatically mean it's a good thing. Smash already has too many characters, what's the point in adding even more when the game itself doesn't care about any of them?
In all honesty, these games just can't win. If it's only the games, they're severely streamlined and limited compared to what we actually know as Animal Crossing. And if we take the amiibo features into account, it's a very weak argument to fork over money for card packs and figures that only work for these specific games so far. Unless they also announce an actual Animal Crossing game soon, these games will mark a critical lowpoint for the franchise.
@Yorumi I can definitely agree to this idea - the very thought of opening your own shop to compete with Tom Nook is pretty exciting, and it would be lovely to be able to do such a thing! There are many workers in Animal Crossing, so asking them to teach you their profession would open up a lot of individuality for the game.
Good, enough time to hone my (mediocre) gunplay. I still need to make it through to Lv.20, and my slow-fire weapon isn't really helpful in speeding up the process. Also: Rock it!
This sounds really dumb. I liked the attack methods in Mario Strikers, but they were largely item-based (except for tackles), and while very exaggerated, kinda still fit into the whole football theme. But a volleyball game with wrestling moves is just... dumb. A teamplay-oriented sport that normally separates both teams to opposite sides of a field really wouldn't work. Wait, is that a pattern starting to shine through? Hmmmmm....
And Scykoh couldn't even make it through 1-1 of SMB blindfolded...
However, I'm not that impressed, seeing how most of SMW is running on fixed patterns, so muscle memory can get you through most stuff - that's not to say it's easy, though.
I never played Twisted Metal, so I have no idea what to think of this game. More specifically, the last game I played that had tanks was TANK! TANK! TANK!, and that was so boring, I just kept tapping A while reading stuff on TV Tropes, and I still won!
Gunstar Heroes is ridiculously fun, and I know a good number of friends who liked it, too. Hopefully, I can convince them to get it so we can play it co-op!
I think Miiverse would do better in hiring more mods to have a better view on what actually happens. The automated post removal system is easily abused by butthurt whiners and whiteknights, all the while people get increasingly creative in circumventing the violations. Not only that, but it entirely relies on users reporting violations, which doesn't happen on a reliable base at all.
It's a weird thing with Miiverse. I find the established rules perfectly fine for a gaming-focused forum, but most other people are too used to the freedom available on most other sites without understanding how many kids are online on Miiverse by now. That said, I only got in trouble for encouraging others to report repeated sahoutouts to LP'ers as "Advertisement/Spam", and that trouble came from rabid fanboys, not mods.
Comments 2,846
Re: Hands On: Blast Ball Brings Crude Button Mashing and is a Poor Advert for Metroid Prime: Federation Force
As much as I hate this game from a Metroid perspective, I didn't actually expect it to be that unmotivating from a gameplay standpoint.
However, if this is a tutorial to get the hang of for Federation Force, how much is there to expect in terms of similarities? All in all, I don't get how such obvious issues with Blast Ball went unnoticed by Nintendo... didn't they test this at all? Or did they really think button-mash competition is a good mechanic?
Re: Bill Trinen Will Compete at Evo 2015 as a Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Competitor
Eh, sounds like sneaky Nintendo PR shenanigans to me.
@Einherjar Well, it does come off as unusual to see Reggie suck that bad when the Live Event 2014 had him act like a rather experienced rival for Iwata. It was very obviously fake, but the gap between fake and reality proved to be very large. Not to speak of his trash talk against SoapBox after the Smash Invitational Tournament.
I admit, I'm a bit shocked as well to see him play that badly, but at the same time, I don't see any obligation for him to know his stuff. It's just that Nintendo had all of this tension built up only to kick it off the next cliff.
Re: Zero Escape Volume 3 Will Tell a New Tale on 3DS in 2016
Nice! I heard before that Zero Escape was planned as a trilogy, so I was pretty bummed when the lackluster sales figures of VLR caused a stop. Man, this is exciting!
Re: Fire Emblem Fates Birthright Edition Is The Popular Choice In Japan
@ZenTurtle I can't say I see that coming. Unless you play on Lunatic right away (if that's even possible), most FE games are very easy, and removing weapon durability would only give me more confidence in bum-rushing through everything with the strongest available weapons. It also alienates the war setting to have literally unbreakable weapons sold for petty change.
Re: Review: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Wii U eShop / N64)
It's really difficult to properly judge these old games when they're seeing a 1:1 re-release. Judging it for it's time, it was a major groundbreaker that introduced many little ideas that are almost basics for many adventure games that followed it. Not to speak of the unique atmosphere and sheer size, which was hella impressive for an N64 game.
But this version came out now, almost 20 years after the original release, so it's only fair to judge it by this periods standards, and by todays advances, it's just not good. Not quite terrible, but after having basically every Zelda game after Ocarina of Time improve mechanics and aspects that were part of this, it's almost impossible to give it a passing grade anymore.
And that's what irks me so much about this 64-bit nostalgia. 3D graphics age horribly, and many N64/PSX games show that with blocky, muddy, and pixelated models, not to speak of the low polygon count. By comparison, 2D graphics are, if done well, very sharp and tend to persist much better, because the clear design outlines keep their shape very cartoonish.
That said, if people still like it, people still like it. No fan is obligated to be rational, and that's okay.
Re: Keiji Inafune Teases Possible Mega Man Legends Successor Red Ash
@KillScottKill Inafune was part of the dev team for Gunvolt, and he already founded Comcept at that point, so that's more nitpicking than anything. Also, we have Mighty No.9 (MegaMan/MegaMan X), Azure Stricker Gunvolt (MegaMan Zero/ZX), Mighty Gunvolt (classic MegaMan/Megaman 9 & 10), and now Red Ash (MegaMan Legends). I'm counting four spiritual successors all related to MegaMan alone. And Azure Striker: Gunvolt 2 is already well underway, though that's a sequel, so Gunvolt seems to be a case of serial successor.
But yes, I did forget about ReCore. So that goes on my bill.
Re: Pokkén Tournament Dated For 16th July in Japanese Arcades, as Charizard and Weavile Are Revealed
I'm actually waiting impatiently for the arcade release - but mainly because I want balancing feedback. I need balancing info before I bother with this game any further, mostly because I'm not even slightly interested in a Pokémon fighter at all when the only Pokémon part about it is the combatants and literally nothing else.
From what I've seen so far, it's flat-out obnoxiously spam-heavy, with a sickening similarity to the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games, which were broken to the point of making multiplayer unbearable.
I took good advice so far to never trust NamcoBandai with fighters, and this game is giving me the impression that they're worse at it than I gave them credit for...
Re: Guide: Master Splatoon's New Tower Control Mode with these Easy-to-Use Tricks & Tips
@chardir Then the matchmaking is terrible, since I've been up against Lv.15+ opponents ever since I myself reached Lv.10. And by now, almost every room I'm in is filled with Lv.20, which is really annoying, as most of them don't need many points, so they Rambo across the map with barely any coverage.
Re: Fire Emblem Fates Birthright Edition Is The Popular Choice In Japan
Not gonna get it. No weapon durability, awful character designs, superficial split-up - there's so much wrong with this, it's not even funny anymore.
Re: Guide: Master Splatoon's New Tower Control Mode with these Easy-to-Use Tricks & Tips
@rishisquid @Skywalker So Ranked Battles actually have matchmaking? Makes me wonder why Turf War doesn't...
Re: Keiji Inafune Teases Possible Mega Man Legends Successor Red Ash
At this point, I'm really starting to wonder if Comcept can do anything other than callback titles and spiritual successors to MegaMan. This is the fourth spiritual successor, and they only released one full game so far, which is Azure Striker: Gunvolt (two if you count Mighty Gunvolt).
Next thing we know, Comcept announces a game centered around internet battles with virtual avatars...
Re: Blast Ball is Actually the Tutorial in Metroid Prime: Federation Force, With an Intriguing Story Promised
@Darknyht Of course that's true, and that piece of technology was an instance of brillance (and saved Samus), but despite that, we never see PED marines in the game ever again, and PED's in general are rendered useless by the finale of Corruption, meaning they were back to square one by then.
As for the Federation evolving: they probably did, but barely at all. Super Metroid, which happens after the Prime Trilogy, shows a lot of dead federal marines. But despite the open attack, the federation sent Samus again. I don't know yet when exactly FF happens, but it must be before Super. All the time spans where Samus wasn't on a different mission leave basically no room for an arsenal upgrade without heavily contradicting the events of subsequent Metroid titles, since NLG confirmed that Samus will show up in the game.
Re: Smash Fighters Settling it at Evo in Big Numbers
Street Fighter in the top spot?! Aw, hell naw!
Well, at least Guilty Gear XRD has more participants than Tekken. Hopefully it has more screentime, too.
As for Smash, I'm not sure if I'll even watch that. I don't find watching Smash matches too appealing... though CEO had some rather intense matches.
Re: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate's July DLC Brings Great Gear and Fan Favourites
@ted-k Yep. The same case was for Dalamadur weapons (Shah Dala was available since last month), and still applies to Fatalis stuff for us westerners (only japan has White Fatalis as of yet, so you'll need to join a quest from their end to get it).
Re: Super Mario Maker Won't Filter Your Naughty Levels, But Offensive Content Can Be Reported
Depending on the penis-per-level ratio, this might mean an awful lot of work for Nintendo. Gotta plan your phallus carefully....
Re: Hyperkin Is Working On The Ultimate Wii U Pro Controller
Not entirely sure about the design. My fingers tend to hurt pretty quickly when the buttons are so... blocky. Nonetheless, it's funny that Hyperkin are the first ones to even realize this option at all. Definitely worth a look, and cheaper than the official Pro Controller to boot.
Re: Guide: Master Splatoon's New Tower Control Mode with these Easy-to-Use Tricks & Tips
Tower Mode is pretty one-sided: pick a high fire rate weapon that barely slows you down, rush past the tower and splatter the Bad Guys as they all try to secure the tower blindly.
I played 10 Tower matches in a row, and every time, the team I was with won in a single streak, with me using that very method without exception. And that was the first time I actually went Ranked at all.
Re: Blast Ball is Actually the Tutorial in Metroid Prime: Federation Force, With an Intriguing Story Promised
@PanurgeJr Say what you will, but nothing revealed about Federation Force/Blast Ball so far showed even a tiny bit of respect for the Metroid franchise, or that Next Level Games have an idea of Metroid. It's not emotional, it's obvious. But there's always going to be some blind defenders, just like Other M had them. And that "different" Metroid game already resulted in a 5-year hiatus - this "different" Metroid games is a pretty bad way to make up for a bad game and 5 years of nothing.
@Darknyht Actually, it's an instance of bad writing/screenplanning. Of course stormtroopers can't be good at their job when there are so many of them, since their "precise aim" would resolve many conflicts and battles before they even begin, which would make parts of the film incredibly boring. But at the same time, the writers behind it most likely had that comparison written already and didn't exactly think it through.
It's a contradiction that makes no sense: bad practice, but good reputation. In the end, what was seen persisted for the fans: Storm Troopers can't aim. But federation marines have no definite reputation. Nobody in the Metroid universe ever talked about big accomplishments from federal units (except Adam, maybe, but that also has a case of unproven reputation), the most we know about them is that they evidently lost to wild bugs, and that it needed a McGuffin superpower for them to defeat very basic enemies that require one, maybe two, charged shots from Samus. In fact, even their equipment descriptions in Corruption outline their strong limitations and reliance on stationary and mobile artillery, as well as gunships. It's not that they have bad aim - they're flat-out weak/underequipped in almost every situation.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aime Asks for Fan Trust With Metroid Prime: Federation Force
@PanurgeJr Go with whatever excuse you want, doesn't change that it's an awful Metroid game.
Re: Blast Ball is Actually the Tutorial in Metroid Prime: Federation Force, With an Intriguing Story Promised
I'm sorry, but an "intriguing story" is so much the opposite of the Metroid franchise, it's beyond painful.
What exactly is left to tell about federation marines and their jobs that wasn't already elaborated on? They lead scouting missions on undiscovered planets, establish bases of operation in secure areas, and scour the environment for new lifeforms and substances to further scientific advances across all fields of operation for the good of the Federation and its citizen. Or they serve as security reinforcements for conflict zones, including military bases, battleships, research facilities, and planetary settlements. They literally do nothing else, that's their full range of assignments.
Also, they die to Splinters (not even alpha ones, just the regular critters!) and regular Space Pirates by the dozen! 9 of them couldn't survive for more than a few days on planet Aether. A large number of federation marines couldn't even defend one of their main military bases from pirates, instead requiring Samus and 3 additional hunters to get ahold of the mess! All of this is easily shown through Metroid Prime Echoes and Corruption.
Fighting Space Pirates? Hire Samus, she's better at that. Unknown creatures of high lethality threaten a planet's ecosystem? Send Samus, she finds a way to blow up the whole planet. Lost contact with Federation marines? Ask Samus, we don't wanna lose more men (and women - rest in peace, Angseth).
Metroid never had much of a story to shout about, keeping the lore as discoveries on the side path. Super Metroid did most of it through imagery and environments, Prime did it through scannable inscriptions of lost civilizations (all of which were purely optional), and even Zero Mission kept it very passive. The last Metroid games with a "story" were Fusion (which is often criticized for it's plot-enforced railroading), and Other M (Which is Other M, nuff said).
Next Level Games doesn't understand a single damn thing about the strengths of Metroid, and every petty justification makes it even more obvious.
Re: Miiverse is Getting a Massive Redesign this Summer
Hopefully Nintendo allows users to have more control over their interface. How and what the Activity Log displays, what options are displayed at the sidebar, what notifications should be shown within Miiverse (as in, control over obnoxious popups and the like, as well) - the more a user can control the interface, the less ground is left to complain.
That said, the current limitations (posting timeout, 30 post-per-day limit) are absolutely fine. Anyone who claims to need more than 30 posts a day is begging for attention, or pissed because an easy spam method is off-limits.
Re: We Could See Some Cult Lucasfilm Properties Coming To Disney Infinity In The Future
What a shame, more classics (of varying quality) to sacrifice to the Disney monster...
Re: Reggie Fils-Aime Asks for Fan Trust With Metroid Prime: Federation Force
Yeah, about that, Reggie... how about no? I mean, hell no!
Also, you talk about not sugarcoating stuff, yet you do just that not even a minute later. Positive reception about the game itself is one thing, but the negative response from fans all over the world relates to how badly Federation Force represents the Metroid franchise, not necessarily about the gameplay.
Re: Nintendo Confirms Splatoon Tower Mode Release and Live Nintendo Treehouse Broadcast
Ohhh, exciting! The more stuff we get, the more I'm motivated to keep improving with different weapons! Gotta dominate that Tower!
SPLATOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!
Re: Pokémon Shuffle is Heading to Android and iOS, to the Surprise of No-One
@justastone @Tsurii Ack, that's actually a different deal! Sorry about the outrage there, @BLPs and @DarthNocturnal ....
Re: Reaction: The Concept of eShop 'Early Access' is Both Exciting and Slightly Terrifying
How is the thought of paying for incomplete (pre)alpha-stage games exciting? Are we really at this point in unreasonable acceptance that people get excited about Early Access?!
Also, the Nindies were all free demos, nothing else. Early Access means paying for games that aren't done, and where you have nothing but the developers word on what will see improvement, and what won't. Even worse, no developer is obligated to listen to feedback at all. Sure, it might hurt their reputation to ignore Early Access members, but they already paid, so who cares?
Re: Pokémon Shuffle is Heading to Android and iOS, to the Surprise of No-One
@DarthNocturnal I gotta check it again, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo explicitly stated that they wanted to keep console and mobile development separate.
@BLPs Maybe so, but that doesn't make it any better.
Re: Pokémon Shuffle is Heading to Android and iOS, to the Surprise of No-One
So much about "we're going to create new IP's for smart devices". This is just pathetic.
Re: Nintendo Is "Exploring" The Idea Of Early Access Games On Its Consoles
Really? Early Access? Or, to put it much better, Early Ripoff - the very idea of Nintendo actually supporting this act of undeniable laziness is just sickening! Never pay a developer until the game is done, simple as that. If they don't outright cancel the project during Early Access, they just add new stuff as DLC or pre-order exclusive just to wring some more cash out of the gullible crowd that is giving a developer money for doing their work (a laughable concept by itself already)!
Re: Video: Mario is Unreal in This New Take on The Plumber's Adventures
People seem to be missing something: none of the environments were actually created by the guy behind the video. Those are example maps and assets that come with Unreal Engine 4 - all he did was putting Mario in these maps, and recreated the animation (though they're a bit too spot-on, so I'll assume he imported the animations). Nothing outstanding, and nothing interesting.
Basically, it's another dude who tries to promote himself with Nintendo-related stuff.
Re: Talking Point: Nintendo's Approach to Transforming Franchises Clashes With Fan Expectations
I mostly agree to this. Change is great, but too much change is unnecessary. This year's E3 showed how to alienate, not to appreciate. Nintendo wanting to reel in new players is okay, but bending and twisting clearly defined concepts beyond recognition just to tailor it towards a completely separate audience is an act of disrespect.
Nintendo has almost everything covered by now, and surely enough, every IP can cover a certain range of genres without contradicting its own identity.
However, Nintendo doesn't seem to see it like that anymore, since we're seeing some rather drastical changes to strong IP's that make absolutely no sense, with results that easily could've been achieved by other IP's without having to break the base. But Nintendo ignores that, and instead decides to abandon a loyal fanbase to cash in on a different, much less stable one. That's disrespect to a very high degree, and I see absolutely no reason that could justify it.
The thing is, whenever I hear "Nintendo fans are too demanding", I get instinctively annoyed. It's one serious load of bull used against pretty much every complaint against an upcoming game, and is a very cheap way of undermining legitimate complaints, especially now that the E3 was such a major letdown.
Re: Shigeru Miyamoto Suggests Low Key and Accessible amiibo Support in Star Fox Zero
@rjejr It does? Huh, a good friend bought it and said the game only scanned them... gotta give him the fish slap tomorrow. Do you know what kind of data Mario Party writes onto the chip?
As for the data issue: they could simply release something similar to amiibo Tap: load the program, scan an amiibo, create a data backup. It could even offer some sort of presentational function with pedestals, stages, or cupboards - maybe even the option to place virtual amiibos (which represent your backups) in Nintendo-related environments. Better than releasing new amiibos for every single game they make...
Re: Shigeru Miyamoto Suggests Low Key and Accessible amiibo Support in Star Fox Zero
Why always such miniscule cosmetic awards? You really cannot come up with anything better than that?
Why not allow you to copy High Scores (assuming those will exist in SFZ, and I really hope so) onto your amiibo, which you can then carry to a friend who also has the game, and then transfer your scores to his list?
I'm really baffled that outside of Smash, not a single damn game makes any use of the possibility to write data onto the NFC chip (making amiibos of characters not in Smash halfway useless), so at least such big titles should strive to find a way. And the same goes for the fact that Nintendo tries its best to promote the portability of amiibos - we don't buy these overpriced bags for bragging rights (well, most of us)!
@Chaoz For the most part, they didn't. The costumes are 100% cosmetical, and when taking competitive setups into account, they're potentially the most difficult equipment to specialize, the minigames are entirely inconsequential to the main game, and the Hero Weapon Replica are reskinned beginner weapon loadouts. Nothing could give you an advantage at any point. The only unfair point is the actual challenges, since the singlepalyer does play fairly different with the other weapon types.
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is Hitting the Wii U Virtual Console Very Soon
With all this Ocarina milking, Lon-Lon Ranch is gonna go bankrupt!
Re: Splatoon Version 1.3.0 Update Due on 30th June, Gameplay Adjustments Detailed
@Aromaiden Well, that's kinda overkill... thanks for the heads up, though!
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Confirms That Recent Super Smash Bros. DLC Additions Weren't From the Fan Ballot
@Gridatttack Street Fighter 4 got a tutorial and challenge mode for each character in one of the revisions, I think. No idea about MK, but Skullgirls, BlazBlue/Guilty Gear, and Under-Night: IN-BIRTH have these modes, as well.
But it's not really as simple as comparing Smash to these fighters: with Smash heavily emphasizing mobility and position-sensitive hit detection, it's very difficult to find advanced mechanics or strategies on your own, since the game doesn't railroad the positions of the characters - or in other words, Smash moves in every possible direction, so attacks often rely on forcing the opponent into certain situations (which the AI rarely ever does due to its strong limitations), whereas most traditional fighters have priority to gauge the effectiveness of attacks only in relation to your distance to the opponent. It's a bit difficult for me to explain, so sorry if this doesn't make much sense...
Re: Splatoon Version 1.3.0 Update Due on 30th June, Gameplay Adjustments Detailed
Wait, the side effects noted on the abilities are already in effect! Are they increasing the drawback, or is it just to make clear that these skills have a negative side to them?
The Kraken nerf is a bit beyond me, as well: it's strong, sure, but the Kraken is slower than squid form, and actually using it effectively isn't that easy, since you either rush into enemy territory and become a free target when the effect wears off, or you just randomly dork around the battlefield for a few seconds going haywire.
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Confirms That Recent Super Smash Bros. DLC Additions Weren't From the Fan Ballot
@cartooncreator59 Truthfully, you're defintely right. Smash has established itself in part for having a large roster, so a new Smash game with fewer characters would be met with a lot of outrage.
It's kinda difficult to improve a series that has so much stuff when most of it is borderline mandatory for a continuous success, so I can only hope Nintendo finds a way.
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Confirms That Recent Super Smash Bros. DLC Additions Weren't From the Fan Ballot
@Gridatttack But that's exactly what throws me off: Sakurai actually WANTS Smash to be as competitive as possible (why else would anyone bother with slight balancing tweaks in most of the updates), but at the same time, he doesn't really give anyone tools within the game to do so.
Of course he wants people to have as much fun as possible, but he's aware that it's only one half of the game. But constantly adding more characters just oversaturates the game - which is why none of the characters receive any in-game dedication anymore. It's too much to handle by now.
And that's all I mean: they just throw characters in at random, without anything to accompany them, not even a tutorial. It's like telling an electrician to repair a swiss watch - he knows what the result should be, but it's too complex for him to understand the grips and intricacies.
Re: Splatoon Hackers Make Octoling A Playable Character
I'd like to play as Octolings, but not if it looks like this hack. I wonder if the actual octolings could be used to replace the entire inkling character, up to and including the voice samples.
However, I feel like it would be slightly unfair to give us a female-only character if the male inklings have no counterpart, so I hope that, if we do get playable octolings, it's either a different story mode, or we get some sort of male octoling (the tentacles could form a long ponytail for them).
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Confirms That Recent Super Smash Bros. DLC Additions Weren't From the Fan Ballot
@CapeSmash Fans wanting something doesn't automatically mean it's a good thing. Smash already has too many characters, what's the point in adding even more when the game itself doesn't care about any of them?
Re: Animal Crossing Director Talks More About Happy Home Designer and amiibo
In all honesty, these games just can't win. If it's only the games, they're severely streamlined and limited compared to what we actually know as Animal Crossing. And if we take the amiibo features into account, it's a very weak argument to fork over money for card packs and figures that only work for these specific games so far. Unless they also announce an actual Animal Crossing game soon, these games will mark a critical lowpoint for the franchise.
@Yorumi I can definitely agree to this idea - the very thought of opening your own shop to compete with Tom Nook is pretty exciting, and it would be lovely to be able to do such a thing! There are many workers in Animal Crossing, so asking them to teach you their profession would open up a lot of individuality for the game.
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Confirms That Recent Super Smash Bros. DLC Additions Weren't From the Fan Ballot
This is getting pretty sad. Isn't there a principle of quality over quantity? Pretty sure Sakurai has no idea of that...
Re: The First Western Splatoon Splatfest Kicks Off on 4th July
Good, enough time to hone my (mediocre) gunplay. I still need to make it through to Lv.20, and my slow-fire weapon isn't really helpful in speeding up the process.
Also: Rock it!
SPLATOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!
Re: Weirdness: Man Finishes Super Mario World In 23 Minutes Whilst Blindfolded
@Megumi Well... yeah, but he admitted that doing it with the pipe was too easy to count, and failed hard trying to legit the stage.
Re: Next Level's Super Mario Spikers Was Canned Because Nintendo Had Issues With Its Level Of Violence
This sounds really dumb. I liked the attack methods in Mario Strikers, but they were largely item-based (except for tackles), and while very exaggerated, kinda still fit into the whole football theme.
But a volleyball game with wrestling moves is just... dumb. A teamplay-oriented sport that normally separates both teams to opposite sides of a field really wouldn't work. Wait, is that a pattern starting to shine through? Hmmmmm....
Re: Weirdness: Man Finishes Super Mario World In 23 Minutes Whilst Blindfolded
And Scykoh couldn't even make it through 1-1 of SMB blindfolded...
However, I'm not that impressed, seeing how most of SMW is running on fixed patterns, so muscle memory can get you through most stuff - that's not to say it's easy, though.
Re: Titan Tank Rumble Is "Twisted Metal Meets N64-Era Rare", Says Developer Hexagon Games
I never played Twisted Metal, so I have no idea what to think of this game. More specifically, the last game I played that had tanks was TANK! TANK! TANK!, and that was so boring, I just kept tapping A while reading stuff on TV Tropes, and I still won!
Re: 3D Gunstar Heroes Brings New Modes And Local Co-Op To 3DS
Gunstar Heroes is ridiculously fun, and I know a good number of friends who liked it, too. Hopefully, I can convince them to get it so we can play it co-op!
Re: Nintendo Gets Tough With Miiverse Bans, and Some Users Aren't Exactly Pleased
I think Miiverse would do better in hiring more mods to have a better view on what actually happens.
The automated post removal system is easily abused by butthurt whiners and whiteknights, all the while people get increasingly creative in circumventing the violations. Not only that, but it entirely relies on users reporting violations, which doesn't happen on a reliable base at all.
It's a weird thing with Miiverse. I find the established rules perfectly fine for a gaming-focused forum, but most other people are too used to the freedom available on most other sites without understanding how many kids are online on Miiverse by now.
That said, I only got in trouble for encouraging others to report repeated sahoutouts to LP'ers as "Advertisement/Spam", and that trouble came from rabid fanboys, not mods.