KevynOnVideo

I’m hardly the mayor, but I did manage the trick once, definitely in adulthood. I was better at the small fire Mario glitch; I could pull that one off even on the upright VS. cabinet.

I forgave a lot of the nonsense in SMB Movie because Illumination surprised me by showing ‘some’ restraint and mostly doing right by the characters.
But pop songs and “well that happened” jokes are NOT going to fly in a LoZ movie. As long as they understand that going in, they have my tentative support.

I guess I came in hot earlier so I’ll clarify my comment.

@Simon97 I’m not necessarily blaming the programmers who I’m sure worked hard with inadequate support and unrealistic deadlines. I’m blaming the people who imposed those conditions on the programmers without a thought given toward the quality of the final product.

@Nintendo4Sonic of course there are examples of good licensed games in the NES/SNES eras, but outside of big hitters Konami, Capcom, and Sunsoft (of which licensed games made up relatively small percentage of their output) it really is a shallow pool. Besides LJN, you also had Acclaim, Ocean, and T*HQ constantly churning out name brand crap.

Anyway, the main issue I have is the reissuing of famously bad games. They announced a Bill & Ted collection not that long ago, and now this. They’re just ports that require little to no additional programming (I highly doubt they’ll go to the trouble of fixing their issues to make them fun) and they’ll sell decently enough to turn a profit solely because of nostalgia for the IP. I’m just picturing future bundled rereleases of say, the Robocop series, or a Schwarzenegger action movie collection, and it bums me out.

That said, why on earth do we still not have Disney Afternoon Collection on Switch?!?

Back in the day, movie tie-in games were blatant cash-grabs, with studios cynically betting they could sell their unplayable shovelware off of name alone.
The bet paid off, of course, and the sad thing is they're seemingly able to do it again 30+ years later with the exact same crappy games.

@SupDan Unfortunately it’s all too easy for me to imagine Illuminations take on an Animal Crossing game.

After a quick primer of one or two human characters moving in to “Animal Crossing” & meeting Nook, Isabelle, and a wacky assortment of neighbors, worldwide superstar KK Slider announces a contest where he’s going to perform a concert in the small town that best makes its case in the form of a video postcard. The residents collectively lose their minds in kid-friendly gag-driven ways trying to make an impressive video, before they realize it’s better to be yourself.

I cant overstate how much I hate how easily I see this being green lit.

I complained about just about every Splatfest theme so far, so i want to say that this one is very fun and good. I suspect courage will win the popular vote, but it won’t be an absolute blow out like some of these have been

@Vortexeo I absolutely expect a Splatfest showdown between Squid Sisters/Off the Hook/Deep Cut down the road, if not for the finale

First, I watch your videos & know you don’t necessarily grow out of your “bedroom full of toys” phase by your mid-twenties.

Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is another uniquely American phenomenon, but with the rise of the cost of living far outpacing wage growth, younger generations are indeed living under their parents roofs longer. And in Brooklyn? Fuhgetaboudit. Trade jobs pay comparatively pretty well, and maybe the Bros could afford their own apartment on what foreman Spike paid them, but as they just started their own business, I could very easily see them choosing to move back home to save some money in the short term.

Third, Mario has an NES. No one under the age of 35 would have the patience to play Kid Icarus today.

I can accept that Mario, like Homer Simpson, is now canonically younger than me, but I’m not able to accept him being a Zoomer. He’s between 30-40

(On Captain Lou and Hoskins’ ages, you have to understand that in the 80s only old people had mustaches as bushy as the Mario Bros. Youthful and dynamic people had trim staches like Tom Selleck or Billy Dee Williams. Nintendo probably aimed for the broadest Italian pizza box stereotype in their design, but it also suggested middle aged to a lot of us.)

My prediction is that Mario Sr will have a voice closer to Martinet’s natural speaking voice, while Giuseppe will be classic Mario.
The plumbers will have one interaction with him peppered with enough “it’s-a me!”s and “mama-mia!”s to demonstrate why you shouldn’t have the lead character in a major movie try to emote and deliver exposition this way.

I think the western art may be the first non-pixelated look I ever had of Mario as we all know him. That makes it the emotional favorite for me. I do also like how the font and orientation of the title provides continuity with SMB1 by subtly evoking the black box titles. I like the Japan box art as well, but it’s a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re coming to it fresh from its predecessor.

You were THIS close, Nintendo. Ever heard of the Chupacabra? It’s another mythical regional creature like Nessie and Bigfoot, not extraterrestrials that the scientific community largely agrees is possible or probable to exist somewhere in the infinite universe.
Like the deserted island splatfest, you’ve taken what could be a fun thought exercise and added one logical boring option that’s going to run away with it precisely because it’s logical and boring.

ACNH was a (lockdown aided) system seller and made the Switch a phenomenon outside of the usual gamer community in a way Nintendo hadn't really enjoyed since the original Wii. That's primarily why I chose 2020.
Looking back, I guess there wasn't a ton of big releases compared to other years, but I got my Switch toward the end of 2019, so 2020 was my first full year with the system, so I'm also sentimental for that reason. Aside from the hundreds of hours I put into AC (now thousands) the Super Mario 35th anniversary releases (RIP), the Splatfest encores in Splatoon 2 were special events for me in a year I rarely left my home.

@JohnnyMind yes, I’ve come to the same conclusion. I think if they’d bolded that Inkopolis was more of an appetizer than something of comparable substance to the campaign, the reaction wouldn’t be so underwhelming. I have to imagine they called it Wave One to nudge potential buyers who’d otherwise wait for the campaign.

I can imagine the chain of events and decisions that led to this lukewarm release:

1. Idea for dlc campaign tying back to Octo-expansion, Off the Hook, and ultimately the setting of Splatoon 2.
2. Recreating Splatoon 2’s Inkopolis Square for the dlc campaign, it would be neat to also make it available as an alternative hub for the main game.
3. It would also be neat to be able to visit Splatoon 1’s hub, even if it’s not involved in the dlc campaign.
4. The dlc campaign won’t be ready for a while, so let’s release the Inkopolis hub first to whet fans’ appetites.
5. Call it “Wave One” to make it sound more substantial, move more potential buyers who might otherwise wait for the full campaign release to purchase.

That (hypothetical) last one was a misfire. I get it, and trust that the campaign will make the total cost worth it. It’s also neat to walk around the Splatoon 1 setting (esp since I missed out the first time), but “Wave One” carries expectations that this release was never going to satisfy.

“Changed the terrain in some stages”

Please, could this mean these stages have been opened up a little so that matches don’t so frequently devolve into choke point splatbaths?

@xDeckardx it’s the (admittedly pretty slim) first of two waves of content included in the DLC. The second wave (release date TBD) will be an additional campaign akin to Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion.
Odd choice to release the weaker part first, but that’s not ALL we’re getting for the money.

For me it was down to Super and Fusion, and went with Super as it’s more the one most people think of. But the Fusion suit is great with its sleek wet suit contours and design accents referencing the titular Metroid life form.
Part of me thinks the Dread suit is the perfect balance of the two (am I crazy, because my memory of the GBA game is that Samus is permanently “fused” to her suit and it can’t be removed, so are the more armor-y parts of the Dread suit just augmenting it?). It’s also very close to the skin I use when playing her in Smash.

My only problem with it design-wise is how emphasized the neck is compared to previous iterations. It’s makes more sense realistically but i can’t help seeing the now segmented helmet something akin to a thumb stick nub.

Best flavor, best idol, best ink color... picking Dark is the least conflicted I've felt over a Splatfest yet.

For better or for worse, my New Horizons island is a time capsule (or maybe a monument) of the first year and a half of the pandemic. I turn it on only sparingly these days, and the music alone makes my eyes well up thinking about the 2,000+ hours I spent here, building it up from nothing, populating it with villagers and becoming attached to them, having friends over for what were essentially old-school phone calls with emoji or zooms I didn't have to clean up for.
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I have a handful of unfinished or unstarted projects (upgrading my small park to a full-size amusement park; a tiny city of doll houses and server towers for the kaiju and hero statues to fight over; earn that last achievement stamp for helping out villagers), let alone Happy Home Paradise, which I only made about a 1/3 of the way through before fading interest.

It's hard to fathom these projects will ever be completed (HHP possibly, since it's more of its own thing), because any changes I make to my island now will feel unconnected to the time this place meant the most to me. But nuking the island to start over with an arbitrary and honor-system-based hard mode is obviously a non-starter.

@Dev9417 That’s pretty much my point, though. If Sweet was slacking at conch collecting during the week, it ultimately didn’t hurt them because they outnumbered the competition so substantially. Spicy and Sour could have grinded the maximum possible amount given the time frame (I certainly put in an unhealthy amount of time) and still lost if Sweet worked at just half of that productivity.

Sweet handily won the popular vote and the 10 points that go with it and that’s perfectly fine, but if that popularity also gave them an advantage in the conch collecting for an additional prize of 8 points, then that I would have a problem with. 18 points is is a big head start before win percentages are even accounted for. I suspect it will only lead to more bandwagoning and more lopsided team divisions in future splatfests.

Nintendo needs to do a better job of making themes without obvious favorites, but I also hope players are picking their teams based on genuine preference and in the spirit of fun, and not just thinking like a Vegas oddsmaker.

Mostly happy with the changes, but it is pretty wild to me the most popular team with 57% of the vote also wins most conch shells but with only 34%. Unless I’m missing something, players on the other two teams must’ve earned about twice as many shells on a per-person basis only to still lose by 1-2% percent thanks to the overwhelming majority of players on Team Sweet. Seems like a second de facto popularity prize.

I'm glad Mario Kart 9 isn't coming out anytime soon, as it will no doubt cost $60 or more, while I'm still quite enjoying the Mario Kart 8 (plus booster pack) I already have for no additional money.

I understand wanting new entries in narrative-driven, or level/world-design focused titles like Zelda and Super Mario. I think it's dumb, but I also sorta see the logic in pro-sport games getting new entries annually with updated rosters. I admit Splatoon 3 is mostly a redundant, iterative release with some QoL improvements, but even it it has a new (albeit short) campaign mode. But the Mario Kart franchise has no storyline, no campaign mode, and its rosters are fairly consistent. The Switch doesn't need another entry.

A MK9 might add or substitute some new racers, and add precisely one new gameplay gimmick. They're not going to completely reinvent the basic gas/brake/turn/items that have been withe series from the start. Other than that it would just be a new track pack, which is what we're already getting now with the MK8 booster pack.

I know MK8 debuted on WiiU like a decade ago, but far and away it more known and played as a Switch entry. Sorry if you're bored with it, but I'm not sorry I'm not.

I like it.
While I think it’s unfortunate they felt the need to redesign many of these characters that have been refined and perfected over 40+ years of gaming, DK’s design has been more or less stuck in 1994 with an early-days CGI look. The fur’s gotten more realistic over the years but the physiology remains optimized for fewer polygons.
The convoluted DK-to-DKC lore has been gradually downplayed for years so it’s only right for the character to reclaim his original role and early Miyamoto design. Retaining the tie and cowlick is the perfect compromise.

The rare time I’m picking the European box. The artwork is cleaner and represents both protagonists and antagonist well. I’m also a sentimental fan of the Sega graph paper aesthetic. And while not the most exciting title, The Next Generation leaves the least room for confusion for me. This isn’t the usual Castlevania iteration, these are unrelated people carrying on the Belmonts’ vampire hunting mantle into the modern era.

Had to fight my personal nostalgia a bit on this one (I refuse to acknowledge the west’s Mr. Dream version), but the Japan box is better. Gives you a better idea that this isn’t supposed to be a realistic sport sim. Bald Bull is also the best choice for series mascot if you ask me.

Japan’s isn’t particularly kinetic but it is at least a striking image. The western art looks like an okay-to-decent cover of an issue of Nintendo Power.

@Magrane Thank you! Putting it together ended up being more extensive and ultimately cathartic than I anticipated. I was inspired to look over the album again today and it's remarkable how emotional I still get thinking about this fictional place and community.
I like your bulletin board idea too. Amazing how despite their comparatively limited 8 types and repetitive dialogue how unique each villager feels and how instictive it is to fill in their personalities and personal histories.

I finally found myself back in the workforce earlier this year after 2 years and 2,000 hours put into my ACNH life. The final update and DLC added some juice to the game just as my interest in the repeating holidays was beginning to wane, but it rather quickly began to become a grind again. I had multiple large scale ideas for my island and home, but between work and newer games just never could find the motivation or time to put into it. I gradually went from daily to weekly to even more sporadically, I think the last time I checked in was in July.

Back in “Hot Vax Summer” ‘21, I was so sure that life was about to return to normal, that when my only remaining original day one villager, Hazel, wanted to move, I let her and used it as an excuse to stage a big wedding between my player character and my favorite villager, Gladys. I used the photo studio to mock up a service on the beach (recreated on my islands shores) as well as the reception held at the bayside bar/club I built (called “Nook @ Nite”). It was the last all-day project I put together in the game and resulted in some great pictures and videos. In my mind that was the true finale of my ACNH experience, a time that will always mean a lot to me, but has now passed.

I am stuck contemplating upgrading my subscription for 007 and getting as much fun out of the N64 library as I can for a year before going back to the basic plan. It’s really lame that Xbox players get to own this game, while we’re stuck renting it in perpetuity. Am I to reward that?

I don’t know how many titles/consoles would have to be added before I see the extra price as reasonable, but I couldn’t care less about the free access DLC. If I like the base game, it’s worth it to me too spend the $20 bucks to own the bonus material. I already have the Splatoon 2/Mario Kart/Animal Crossing DLC, so these perks add no value for me.

Neither are very attractive, but at least Japan’s follows the most basic rules of picture composition.

My Splatoon 3 locker looks much like the inside of my house in Animal Crossing does, with just the first couple tchotchkes I got displayed haphazardly, because there’s too many options and just enough placement restrictions to make it frustrating for me.

Western box art for Mega Man games got much less egregious over the years as Capcom USA stopped shying away from the series' anime roots, but this apple-cheeked android still bothers me.
And this may be nitpicky, but what is X leaping/firing at while the boss is clearly posed behind him?

Not sure if I’ll get, but the ability to act out the “Winner Takes it All” karaoke scene from Better Call Saul makes it tempting. Nice timing on this release.

My feeling is "Earthbound: _______" is the way to go here. No need to confuse or scare away the unfamiliar with numbers.

However, I think "Earthbound: Endings" might put a period on the series that Nintendo could come to regret should they ever choose to continue the series (one can hope!). I've seen a few stumping for "Earthbound: Forever" but that seems a bit disingenuous to me considering the series' spotty history in the west.

I'd say the title should be intentionally vague like "Earthbound: Legacy," that allows for personal interpretation but indicates that it is a release of some importance and also nods to the fact that this isn't a direct follow-up to the adventures of Ness and friends.

Alternatively, the subtitle could subtly or directly be related to story. Isn't that what Nintendo does with most of its IP these days? I was thinking Fire Emblem at first, but honestly Splatoon seems to be the only franchise getting numbered installments these days.

I've been there from the beginning and it's tempting to go with NES/GameBoy based on my nostalgia for the age of Nintendo's imperial age of undisputed dominance. (We weren't playing "video games" in the late 80's, we were playing "nintendo").

But honestly the Switch is such a wonderful thing. They finally married console and portable gaming into one device. It has more 3rd party support than the company's enjoyed in decades, maybe ever. It's a 5-yr-old console that was already underpowered compared to its peers that's still more than holding its own against a newer, even more powerful generation of competition.
Easy choice for me.

Maybe I missed the part where the review goes over the controls and how it feels to bat, run, pitch, and field, but given the high word counts given to in-game transactions, management sims, and basically every aspect of the game except playing an actual game of baseball, I’ll guess this isn’t for me.

I see his point.
I enjoyed the SA-X encounters in Fusion and the Zero Suit stealth section of Zero Mission, but the EMMI's broke me.
Metroid's should be (IMO) equal parts intense challenge and more relaxed exploration, but the EMMI zones come so frequently and involve a virtually non-existent margin of error that I was in a constant state of anxiety. It culminated when I had two active EMMI zones at once with no option to backtrack and more thoroughly explore other areas of the map I had passed through earlier. I was essentially soft locked between these two one-hit death encounters. October 2021 was already a stressful time for me IRL, and Metroid Dread was no longer a pleasant escape from that so I quit.
My life has thankfully stabilized since then, maybe it's finally time to pick up where I left off.

I paid for the Animal Crossing DLC and I’ll pay for the Mario Kart DLC, because I want to own them and not face losing access when the service goes dark or I need to reduce my monthly costs.

So a far as I’m concerned the expansion pass is still a handful of janky running N64 games, and the Genesis Classics pack thats regularly on sale for $15 in the e-shop.

The expansion is DOUBLE the price of the regular yearly subscription, which includes more games and the entire online infrastructure included. I can’t imagine anything they could do to lure me in short of seriously slashing the price.

I just really hope that if Goldeneye comes to Switch, it will be available for standalone purchase

One thing about this fiasco of a release is I learned that even if it came out 100% as intended, it's just not the versions of these classics I'm looking for. This should have either been unadulterated ports of the most up to date versions of the games fans have played for the last twenty years, or from-the-ground-up remakes that meet today's standards for graphics, writing and gameplay. Even if the "definitive editions" weren't completely broken, they are neither accurate enough to satisfy my sense of nostalgia, nor improved enough to be enjoyable in their own right.

What's the point of giving character models individual fingers and more expressive eyes if they're still wildly gesticulating their freakish torsos and limbs with every word? How does it improve the immersion and sense of scale when you're able to see proxy-Las Vegas from proxy-Los Angeles? Contrariwise, if you have to futz with things, why not add swimming/bikes/planes to all the games, or include more enterable/interactive areas so the environments feel more alive? How about rework some of the more cringy parts of scripts to bring them up to 2021's more inclusive standards?

As is, this GTA trilogy just seems by design to be the worst of all worlds.

Look, they started it all and are among the most influential games of all time, but if you're talking about games that have held up and are still fun to play in the 2020's for veterans and newcomers alike, Zelda 1 and 2 have to be at the bottom. The secrets are impossible to find without a guide unless you're willing to spend 100's of hours bombing every identical wall tile, farming in an overworld that's frustratingly stingy with drops, and fruitlessly trying items in unintuitive ways in hopes that on this screen it might actually do something. The in-game hints are absolutely useless. People, including myself, lament the series becoming too structured and and story-driven over the years before the great BOTW, but those earliest games have almost no structure or story. And these are open worlds that just aren't that fun or interesting to explore for exploration's sake. Oh, in this area, the walls are brown and not green!
Add to that the classic 1980's punishing difficulty and yeah, just hard to recommend.

Still love them, though almost entirely from nostalgia.

@chipia Personally, I think a Metroidvania is narrowly defined as a Castlevania game that features the item-based exploration commonly associated with the Metroid series. If such a thing existed, a Metroid game with the uncomplicated stage-based action platforming of earlier Castlevanias could theoretically qualify as well.
And yes, if it's top down, it has more in common with Zelda than either franchise in the popular portmanteau.

If an ice cream parlor was selling two scoops on a waffle cone for $5 dollars and then started offering sprinkles for an extra $7.50, I can't imagine too many people rushing to pay for that let alone defend it. Do you really love sprinkles that much?

Sweet Home was not available stateside so nothing was scarier for me on NES than LJN's Friday the 13th. Jason could pop up at any moment to slice you up, but it was even worse to be alerted when he was in a cabin murdering the (child) campers and you knew you'd have to go to him and battle him in 1st person Goonies II mode.

Add to that a life system that inevitably lead to you losing the counselors that controlled somewhat decently first, leaving you with the slower and weaker ones as the game was ramping up difficulty.

To be clear, this game was made by LJN and that does mean is plays horribly. But it was ahead of its time in some respects with some interesting gameplay ideas, and it did actually nail the dread and terror of living in a slasher movie.

I'm so naive.
I have an existing family plan with a renew date in April, so I figured my prorated price would be $15 to add the Expansion Pack to my subscription until then.

Well, I was half right. Nintendo is indeed offering me a $15 discount... by essentially buying out my existing subscription and applying it to a new one-year subscription that would start today.

I was ready to pay $15 for six months of the extra content because that's honestly all the enjoyment I expected to get out of the slim selection of games available. Then, if the libraries became significantly more robust or otherwise proved the Expansion Pack's value, I might have committed to a full year when it came time to renew. But Nintendo insists on that commitment immediately, so I gotta say "no thanks"

I've waited a long time to play these again, I can wait a little longer for some reviews to come in and to find out if the cartridge version actually has the game on it or if its just an annoying key to access the digital versions. I can probably also wait for the inevitable price drop.

Got all the DLC fighters and only a few of the Mii outfits (mainly the fully custom ones like Sans and Cuphead). Smash Ultimate, aside from a fighter, is also Nintendo's (and nearly all of console gaming's) greatest museum of its own history, an accomplishment that's severely unlikely to be matched let alone topped. In that spirit, I felt an emotional need to own the "complete package", even if I have little personal connection or history with most of the expanded roster.

I also feel like a complete outlier in that I primarily enjoy the single-player experiences of Smash games, since after 64, the series' competitive play quickly evolved into to a form incompatible with my very basic playstyle, and attempts to adapt have been unsuccessful and unfun. I just don't enjoy spending 90% of the match off the stage with no ground beneath and fretting over whether I or my opponent has more recovery moves left (it's always my opponent).

So I completed WoL/D, all Classic modes cleared, and have practically all spirits and achievements unlocked and fully powered. And now I only boot it up a few times a years when a new fighter or news spirits are added to the game. Sometimes I turn it on just to run the music player while I'm doing other work. It'll be interesting to see how often I'll check back in after finishing all the single-player content Sora brings with them.

@Tandy255 Yeah, I've got too much invested in my island and neighbors to just reboot it all, but I am tempted (and daunted) with the prospect of leveling it and building it back up.

I'll upgrade for the prorated amount and reassess come April when it's time to renew. They'll have until then to really impress me (with Game Boy and Game Cube games, Goldeneye, etc) or I'll downgrade and just buy the AC DLC.

My personal wish is for Ryu Hayubusa from Ninja Gaiden to join Mega Man and Simon Belmont in the trifecta of great 3rd party NES franchises. Phoenix Wright would be awesome too. Probably won’t happen though.

My actual picks in order of likeliness are: Crash, Waluigi, Paper Mario, Master Chief, Pauline, Ryu Hayubusa, Sakurai

Who/whatever it is, I predict that Nintendo would have made the choice with the mindset that it's a finale and should be big, or at least something worthy of Ultimate's final bow. To me that means it will be a choice honoring Nintendo's history, and not the broader video game history. That means it won't be Sora or Alan Wake.

They may finally give Waluigi his due after years of fans demanding him. They may get another third party character either with a history on the NES like Ryu Hayubusa/Billy Lee, or someone positioned as direct rival mascot character like Crash or Master Chief.

Or they could get really meta and/or out of left-field. That could be Sakurai himself, a Polygon fighter or 64 bit Mario from Smash 99', or even a deck of Hanafuda cards.

The only certainty is that a lot of people will be thrilled and a louder group of people will be outraged.