Linkuini

Sure guys, you can have 'em! In the meantime, though, why not finish up with Arc Rise Fantasia, Tales of Symphonia, Little King's Story, 999, Opoona, Radiant Historia, or any other such promising Japanese titles that have made it over here already? You have bought them, haven't you? They've been out for some time, now, haven't they?

Here we go again...

Normally I would think most of the people chewing out NoE so hard are overreacting a bit. But is failing to release a single, two-minute 3D trailer in Europe truly their idea of "content targeted at the region"? Because I can think of at least two problems with that. Almost all of them are for high-profile, first-party titles that are guaranteed as much interest in Europe as in North America. The excuse they made is just plain fishy.

And yes, it honestly makes a difference seeing these games in genuine 3D. The light from Luigi's flashlight scattering 3D rays right at the screen, the heightened sense of speed that comes from watching the scenery rush past you in Mario Kart... stuff like that is part of the show, and it stings me to think everyone in Europe is still missing out.

The Pac-Land stage in the video threw me for a loop.

PSN should watch out for hackers and Xbox Live should watch out for gamers cutting their subscription fees in a tight economy. Honestly, Nintendo can take its time if I can continue to play their games without having to pay for service or getting my credit card info stolen. Just so I can take headshots from the kinds of griefers you tend to play with in online fps games. Nintendo has its priorities straight, as far as I'm concerned.

He's right about this one. I'm already reasonably certain that I'll buy a Wii U at some time, but the price will play a big part in deciding how soon. People who aren't gamers may just consider it as good as any of the other options available for motion-controlled games, so if it's too pricey, they won't spare it a thought when they can find a good bundle.

SolarKnight, you can make text bold by putting asterisks around it. Like so.

Maybe I can get the hang of Thursdays after all.

A few years? Your optimism is refreshing.

The screenshots of this game that were on this site two or three months back looked terrible. They didn't look like they fit the style of the original at all. Recently, though, I saw a clip of it on the Nintendo Channel (I think it was in a video with other third-party 3DS titles at E3) and it looks much more appealing in motion. Once I see it in 3D I think I'll be comfortable with it.

I haven't bought the DSiWare release, so this will be a good way to play Cave Story on the go. Plus, the soundtrack might actually get the makeover it deserves if it's being arranged with somebody who had a hand in the one for Meat Boy. The one in the WiiWare release mostly sounded like the original tracks were improved versions of the new tracks. And it was my first time with the game, so that isn't just nostalgia talking.

Every time they make a new Mario Kart I wonder how it could ever outdo the one before it... and then it does. If I could just get one with a track editor I'd have nothing else to wish for.

Oh brother. I've always felt the Dead or Alive series relied a little too heavily on sex appeal to garner attention, but even I think this is overreacting. It didn't even seem to be emphasized all that much in the marketing for this installment, from what I could see.

I'm still a little worried about what the price of this fancy new hardware will be. At any rate, that controller looks infinitely more attractive and usable than the mock-ups we were seeing on websites before E3.

Has everyone downloaded the 3D trailer of this game from the eShop? No surprise that Luigi's Mansion was one of the games that Nintendo used to experiment with 3D before even the Gamecube came out: it looks amazing. My favorite part is at the end where the flashlight is pointing right at you. This is gonna be great.

Are you sure that all of those were from PS3 and Xbox 360 versions? Because those "Aliens" clips where at least two different enemies grab hold of the gun in your hands seemed like they were conceived just for that Wii U controller. Either that or it's a really funny coincidence.

I'm just glad it's finally coming, whatever system they put it on.

Thanks for all the stickers! Is there an easy way to print these things?

Ugh. Really guys, another black one? Well, if it turns out to be some other color, just hide it behind any one of your other black devices.

You know what I'm hoping for? A color-changing console. And it could flash rainbow colors when something good happens in your game. Or blood red when you lose a life. Or you could tell it to stay whatever color you want it the whole time. What gleeful overkill it would be!

Looks like they're gonna have Spyro swerve toward a completely different audience with this one. With that acknowledged, the multi-platform compatibility is an interesting concept. Even with that, though, it's not gonna take off unless these 30 figurines they're talking about are inexpensive, and obviously if the actual game is any good. Without both of those, even the kids won't touch it. The fact that they named their villain Kaos (which has already been used) isn't a good sign.

So did everyone hear that Captain Planet is going to be playable? They are going all out with this one. Can't wait to hear more.

Of course the AR Cards are going to be printable online! That's probably half the point! Does everyone realize that the AR Cards that come in the 3DS box are already available to print out on Nintendo's own website (support.nintendo.com/ARcards) in case you lose them?

Anyhow, I like what I'm hearing about all the things that you can do when you're out and about with your 3DS. Over time, this could change the way we think about multiplayer on handhelds! In that light, I can see why Nintendo's starting with Pokémon.

The StreetPass feature and more dedicated online features excite me a bit more than the 3D graphics do so far, so to call it an ordinary DS with 3D tacked on ignores a lot of things. Still, I don't see what everyone's grabbing their torches and pitchforks for. He seems to be pointing more criticism at the mobile market than at Nintendo in the first place. The air in this room is thick with fanboyism right about now.

The special stages in Generations should have green doves in the background too, just for laughs.

Saaaaaay, any possibility that we might get the ability to upload 3D pictures to forum posts on NLife? I'm not sure how much is possible with what they're talking about, but that would be pretty fun.

Sounds like the sort of thing I tend to get addicted to. Can't be too bad for 5 bucks.

Don't get your hopes up, people. Remember Hell's Kitchen on DSiWare? That had more in common with water-color painting than cooking. If it takes more than one diagnosis to find out what's wrong with this one, I'll eat my insulin pump.

They don't sound too steamed based on those tweets alone. It sounds more like they're just getting a cheap laugh at Disney. I don't think it's worth it to chew out TT Games unless they really start to harp on this. On the surface though, I would have to say that Disney Universe looks considerably more ambitious than pretty much every Lego game I've seen.

Eh. It's not without its charm. Most of this website's demographic is probably outside the intended audience, that's all.

I won't need any of those hint stones, but I know a lot of people who will! Before beating the game, I definitely would have appreciated a more specific tip than "That cloud around Death Mountain... there's something strange about it!" Sheesh, I was stuck there way longer than I was stuck inside the water temple. Oh, and they mapped the iron boots to a button! Now Eiji Aonuma has no regrets about this game.

I'm not so sure about this. I own both versions of Sonic Colors and prefer the Wii version hands down. A lot of the things that happened on the handheld version would have worked better with the increased draw distance of the console version – it gives you more time to react. Same deal with the 16-bit games. Ah, what the heck, I still want it.

YEAH!
[saxophone solo]
Ding!

Tsk. Not for me. RPGs within and outside the DQ series have come a loooooooooong way since these games were made. It would be a neat historical curiosity for some, but I'll pass. No sense spending my gold coins on lower-level equipment when it comes to the Dragon Quest formula.

You found a girl, MasterGraveheart? Yeah, right! It was probably a dude using a girl Mii!

A lot of SNES games would probably be worth some kind of touch up for 3DS. It would make Mode 7 look new again (maybe )!

Even so, it's refreshing to see so many people here calling Nintendo out for proposing to release a Zelda game for the fourth time. Hooray for not being a fanboy!

I think this feature's working. There's three people I pass every day at school with StreetPass, I met seven others on a visit to WPI, and one other at Becker College. That seems pretty huge considering how young the system is. With "Tag Mode" on some regular DS games, I never got any hits at all except at PAX East. The increased ease-of-use makes a clear difference.

As a side note, I think the two included games are equally good. As I read in an Iwata Asks interview, the idea is that Puzzle Swap rewards you for meeting new people in new places and Find Mii rewards you for meeting the same people multiple times. So the people I meet regularly at school are leveled up from meeting them repeatedly in Find Mii, but they never have any new puzzle pieces. The people I met at WPI were too weak to do much in Find Mii, but gave me Pikmin and Zelda-themed panels that I didn't have before.

I just personally prefer Find Mii for its cute RPG trappings and surprisingly cool soundtrack.

I get the impression that Rabbids Go Home was a bit more inventive than this is. The shopping cart movement fit the Rabbids' personalities way more than careful running and jumping ever would.

Who, Tekken? Oh, yeah. He's that fighting game with that shirtless muscular guy, right? What's his name... Maxi? Sure, man, that totally beats putting Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the 3DS! And don't you worry 'bout that one, neither, 'cause Tatsunoko holds way more appeal, anyway. You know, it's cool that Deadpool can beat a guy with their own life bar, but he's got nothing on Guy-In-A-Bodysuit-And-A-Visor, a character so compelling that he must comprise at least half of the Tatsunoko cast under different names. It's okay, man. Don't bother.

Look, I kid, alright? Tatsunoko vs. Capcom ruled. But help me out here! I'm achin' to play as Sir Arthur and show Iron Man what's what!

The "Balanced" setting still has enough blue shells to render the "Aggressive" setting almost superfluous, the size of any course in Mario Kart Wii guarantees that it'll take a miracle to hit any racer you aren't neck-and-neck with using the "Strategic" item set (mainly green shells and banana peels), and a race without items is exactly as vapid and one-sided as Konno says.

The thing is, banana peels will protect you from red shells (most of the time) but leave you defenseless to a blue shell. Keeping a mushroom in store will save you from a blue shell (maybe), but then you're at the mercy of the less-devastating but much more common red shell. Of course, these are both moot as soon as the next lightning bolt or POW block takes effect, depriving you of your items in all but the luckiest of circumstances (as if there's always a ramp you can take the moment a POW block appears).

Items are the source of much of Mario Kart's appeal, and I don't see them as any reason to swear off the series, either. Even so, the time it takes to get knocked over by a shell and recover your top speed is often long enough to fall from first to fifth place in any race with players of average skill (or flagrant rubber-band AI). To be hit with a POW Block, a blue shell, a lightning bolt, and (as if to add insult to injury) a blooper, in sequence, is out-and-out overkill and there is nothing unreasonable about criticizing it.

If they don't want to scale back the superweapons even a tiny bit, they ought to just play it up in-game by having the characters get visibly aggravated when hit three times in a short span of time. Just imagine Mario going "Enough already!" after taking a shell and then shaking his fist at everyone ahead of him while spouting angry gibberish for the next five seconds of driving! Heck, I'd even look forward to getting my kart wrecked during a race!

I swear, eventually, I'll get through every one of these games. So much work right now, though.

I honestly expected to hear everyone whine about how this game didn't live up to any of the previous ones. Talk about pleasant surprises!

Cool! As soon as I get a 3DS, I can forgive AT&T for dropping so many iPhone calls. Maybe.

Hate to spoil the mood in here, but... I've had my fill of Game Gear games since playing a few on Sonic Adventure DX on Gamecube. Thing is, most of them just su– wait, Ristar was on Game Gear, too? Well gee, now I don't really know what to think.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a tough act to follow, if you ask me. It is Mario, but I'll be truly astounded if this one could get me nearly as excited as SMG2.

That may well happen, though. I get a sense from those four screenshots that there will be a lot of levels built to take advantage of the new depth. Wouldn't be the first time Mario's set the standard for 3D gameplay.

I'm a little more interested in seeing the newer DQ installments than these ports, good as they look. Multiplayer really makes those sidequests more worthwhile to me. Too bad my brother doesn't seem to like it as much as I do. I think he finds the puns a little irritating. Or perhaps it's more to do with the often annoying avalanche of all-pervading and almost always unnecessary alliteration.

How is Faxanadu? Sounds like it's more playable than Zelda 2, but are the levels interesting?

The respect that Rare has and has had is by no means unmerited: they've kept high production values in most all of their games, developed across starkly contrasting genres, and lest we forget, turned a licensed game into a landmark console FPS. We can't just ignore stuff like that.

Still, especially in light of Donkey Kong Country Returns, I don't really miss them nowadays. DKCR pretty much wiped the floor with the old DKC games, which is something we almost never say about classic revivals. This is coming from somebody who actually liked Star Fox Adventures, too. I'm sure Rare could make something well-suited to Nintendo consoles, but given their mixed reputation and Microsoft's huge stake in them, the time is not now.

So refreshing when a game like this climbs out of the colorless, decaying rut that is the racing genre right now. I want it already!

Ouch. I honestly didn't care for many of Hudson's recent games, but I still wouldn't wish this on them. Wonder what Konami will do...

Am I the only one whimpering in fear after watching that trailer? Looks like the only reason it's similar to BEAT is to simulate Commander Video's life flashing before his eyes. Thinking of it in that context while reading a bunch of complaints about it being a rehash is kind of surreal. Don't you love metaphors?

Neat! I've got the game, and while the whole soundtrack rocks, I would have to recommend at least getting the first acts of Tropical Resort and Planet Wisp, and any act in Asteroid Coaster. I'm not a huge fan of "Reach for the Stars", personally. It's one of those songs that I like less just for the lyrics.

Mass Effect is a western RPG, and its plot is probably more intricate than many JRPGs I've played. The problem isn't so much the length or complexity of the plot that makes a JRPG less appealing to its audience, but more of a stylistic trend (one might call it a rut, depending on one's attitude) that players associate with it.

To me, JRPGs are often prone to using familiar narrative archetypes (amnesia, anyone?), formulaic character designs (get a haircut, pretty-boy!), and an excess and/or misapplication of either melodrama/morbidity (I'd be scared if I still cared) or over-the-top silliness (was this even funny in the country it came from?). Not all gamers get tired of these so easily, but the ones that do turn to western RPGs.

Even with all that said, a JRPG in the States is hardly doomed to failure. The Last Story itself could probably get a lot of attention just for its production values. If they localize the script well, hire good voice-actors, and show a commercial with some action scenes like the ones we saw in one of those trailers, plenty of gamers ought to get interested before they even know it's an RPG at all!