Ludovsky

@LEGEND_MARIOID Honestly tbh with the mess that was COVID and all I can see that as them taking a careful approach.

I.e.: keeping stuff in reserve if something is delayed from it's intended release, and thus have something to release.

Plus even if it's held back in case BOTW2 doesn't make it's release date, the other way around could happen: they could be 2022 titles, by which time Skyward would have made all the sales it needed, released as a side-thing during the year to build up anticipation for BOTW2 or such. Especially if it release in the later portions of the year or so.

@KimBread Technically the anniversary only just began this year and thus doesn't technically end until February(?) next year iirc.

So... who knows.

@Coxula I dunno about the comment for Mario+Rabbid. Except that movement was more gridless, the pace and moves of battle seemed VERY similar to the original.

The original might have been grid based, but you could literally have your character move within that grid almost however you want to a degree. Moving into one enemies at the edge of the grid for a dash attack before moving to an ally at the very other edge of the grid for a team jump landing you behind cover outside of your movement grid before unleashing a ranged attack at ANOTHER enemies.

And that's not getting into characters that could be upgraded to perform multiple dash attacks per turns.

So with that kind of optic, moving to a gridless "circle" of movement in what still remains a turn-based experience feel like it's not that much of a stretch and even a bit of a natural evolution for the game.

@Clyde_Radcliffe Mario+Rabbids has strategy but it's also a bit more... RPG like?

It's basically XCOM but with Mario+Rabbids and using Mario's platformer tropes to allow for a lot of movement maneuvers never really seen in other games in a very smooth streamlined fashion.

Honestly, it guenuinely surprised me so the news of a sequel was pretty good. Especially since the original seemed railroaded with world design being more or less literal roads with scripted fight encounters paced along it's lenght... but the next game seem to open up to world into more open areas and to replaced scripted battle encounters with RPG-like roving encounters(a bob-bomb is seen wandering a field and colliding with it is what loads a separate battle map in the sequel, as was teased anyway).

Advanced Wars is a more traditional pure strategy game however, more about fielding/producing units and maneuvering them on a battlefield and battle influenced by types matchup(infantry VS armored vehicles for example) with no RPG elements to speak of iirc and only the "commanders" being unique characters albeit ones that are not displayed on the battlefield itself iirc.

@Moshugan Honestly if Zelda is playable at all I expect it to be through more linear sequences myself as well. Nintendo never really did a multiple protagonists game before in Zelda game so it's likely that "playable Zelda" might be more akin to "playable Peach" segments in Paper Mario games(64 and Thousand Years Door) of controlling Peach to perform some objectives to help Mario before switching back to the later.

This said I'd rather not have an expectation of such and risk being disapointed. The fact we know the main map is "the same, but likely experienced changes", that we know the world might have underground caves(from the 2019 teaser) and that now there's ruins/islands floating in the "skies"... like, that's just world design alone and not covering NPCs, story, dialogues, quests and sidequests designs to not mentions enemies old and news and bosses likely new(and possibly true dungeons hidden around the world or those sky islands to face them in).... I could see why not only crafting this but the amount of design and planning work that went into decisions to make this(and the amount of ideas juggled around that might not have made it) could have taken four years... and that's assuming four years instead of three or so since after all... they only revealed the original teaser in 2019, yet in 2018 they were still releasing the last of the expansion pass' content for BOTW1(and one which included new major shrines, items but also an entirely new dungeon and fullblown boss) so 2019 is likely only when they were finally able to get their full team to bear on the project.

@CairiB I dunno but I recall hearing from the guy who'd accurately reported months in advances the release of Mario 3D All-Stars and Paper Mario that Wind Waker and Twillight Princess might be coming this year but just aren't announced yet so they don't overshadow Skyward Sword. Especially since Skyward isn't even out.

If anything else Zelda do come in the near future, it likely won't be revealed until Skyward Sword is finally gone and released proper again to not hinder it's performance.

With the fact that BOTW2 gets a skies segment, I heavily suspect there's reasons they want Skyward to do at least decently okay.

@octokid As I mentioned to others.... while they leave a "tentatively aiming" part hanging in the air, I don't think they would have mentioned the number of 2022 if they weren't fairly confident they could pull it off this time.

Ever since Metroid Prime 4, I've noticed Nintendo is VERY shy about revealing stuff without gameplay or indication it's going to feasibly come in any fashion. To the point I've gotten the feeling that generally they'd rather not show anything if there was hints it could not be ready in time or get derailed.

That they've shown something with as massive implications like the skies islands we've now seen(are they the new replacement for Shrines? Or something like a second layer to the world, especially seeing Link paraglider around them and being able to see the Surface from up there... though I've noticed the islands themselves can't be seen from the Surface)... I don't think they would give the 2022 if they thought it wouldn't happen and only went "we're ideally aiming for" just to leave some leeways in case something DOES catastrophically happen.

@ERIC_MACK Plus if you zoom on those shots, the weird almost prosthetic arm would fit with... whatever happens to Link's arm in the trailer.

Heck, even the patterns on it almost match the jewelry of the ghost arm that catch him and seemed to merge with his hand/arm in the 2019 trailer.

@BlackenedHalo I dunno but Hyrule Castle at the end has a LOT of implication of the darker type. Plus whatever that chasm Zelda fell upon might be.

Also there's stuff about the skies islands and how Link get there(plus that garb he's wearing in all of the skies shots and how it contrast with the champion tunic he's wearing whenever it's clear he's on the surface) has me thinking there's more going there than "just" islands in the skies(especially as the surface is visible from those islands but none of the islands seems visible from the surface in any shots).

@EliteXeos Honestly, they've been so hesitant about giving release date for projects like this since Metroid Prime 4's stumbling,...the fact they're giving a 2022 potential date make me feel they wouldn't have given such a date, let alone showcased actual gameplay, if they weren't 90% sure they could pull it off.

Like, there's reasons they didn't show gameplay last February for the other Direct and IMO that's because they've grown REALLY careful about giving out release dates for anything that's not coming out the given year.

@UmbreonsPapa Yeah!

Honestly the contrast between Blue Champion Tunic Link on what are the obvious "segments on the Surface World" and that almost... toga/sacred garb look in the skies sequence have me really curious what's going on.

Heck the skies islands themselves have a really heavy "sacred lands" vibe which also remind me that when the Sacred Realm(aka: purified version of A Link to the Past's dark world, the hiding place of the Triforce and all) was shown in the ending of A Link Between World.... it was as islands floating in a sky iirc.

Honestly... while I'm not making any bet... I have this weird feeling that, after it's absence in BOTW, we might start hearing about the triforce again in this game.

Also other thing I noticed: the near total absence of Sheikah tech. Arm aside(and I'm not sure it's neccessarily "tech" due to personal theories).... not a guardian in sight, nor sheikah shrine or anything.

Which reminds me of a theory about Ganondorf that Calamity Ganon was just the result of an imperfect seal on the corpse teased, seal placed by a people NOT the Sheikah, and that when the Sheikah later faced the Calamity the first time the power source they might have unknowingly tapped upon for their tech.... might have been energy drained from Ganondorf himself all along.

Which'd explains his easy hijacking of Guardians in BOTW if he'd been the thing powering them all along, with no one knowing because they weren't aware he was sealed down there, only that there was a powerful source of power to tap into.

@Ralek85 the character still has a male figure. So he could be Link with his hair... just not held in their usual ponytail.

The outfit change remains very curious however. Especially with the almost... ceremonial/sacred look of his garb in the skies sections, doublemoreso when surrounded with all these temple-like ruins there.

which reminded me that in A Link Between World, the Sacred Realm(aka the land of the Triforce aka the purified Dark Realm from A Link to the Past) was glimpsed at the end and looked like.... floating islands in the skies.

I don't know why, but I get the weird vibes we might finally hear of the Triforce again in this game after it's absence in BOTW and Twillight Princess.

@Moshugan I'm actually musing about that myself.

Especially with the whole "Zelda falling down the bottomless chasm pit" bit of the trailer. I expected her to be stuck in the castle but it looks like she could have fallen in whatver pit is under the Castle.

And alongside all the Skyward vibes, that bit and all the Malice pouring out reminds me that Skyward Sword's plot mentioned Demise specifically came from a great chasm in the ground, implied to having come out of the demon realms from that chasm.

@xerneas I dunno but I'm pretty sure I got a weird ceilling-hangy funky arm enemy lunge at link in the trailer?

Plus that weird animated colorful statue itself had a huge "this is about to attack Link" vibe.

@BAN Honestly none of it lined up with my expectations.... but weirdly enough I'm actually MORE glad for it because what I'm seeing seem actually wilder than what I was expecting, honestly.

Especially that skies layer to the world, and a lot of the other stuff(why is Link wearing the blue tunic on the surface but this completely different outfit in the skies? Why does he even keep his hair differently in the sky, unbound from his usual ponytail, and why is it we can't even see his face when he's in the skies"

Also I'm noticing the shield in the skies segment has both the Sheikah Eye motif, or a variant of it, but also prominent triangles patterns on it. And the whole outfit feels kind of like.... sacred/ceremonial garb which with a lot of the skies ruins reminds me of the floating islands of the "Sacred Realm" we glimpse at the end of A Link Between World. Like the whole islands give a hidden sacred realm kind of vibe which have me REALLY curious.

@John_Koshiro I'm not expecting the Guardians to return on my end. There's been a.... notable absence of Sheikah tech I'm noticing except, maybe, for the arm.

I don't know if the theory is true, but I've seen a fan theory that seemed to be pretty solid that the sealed Ganondorf might have been the unwitting(and unknown even to the Sheikah) source of the "Ancient Energy" that powered all the ancient sheikah tech.

Notable by the structure that stand above him keeping him sealed being very similar in shape to the Shrine of Resurection but seemingly of an entirely different make from the Sheikah stuff... meaning that whoever might have sealed him might not have been the Sheikah and that when his malice likely leaked from an imperfect seal to form into Calamity Ganon.... it might have been his power all along that the Sheikah would have likely unknowingly tapped into when they discovered Ancient Energy to power their weapons.

This could easily explains why he overtook the Guardians so easily the second time around and similarly why we hear about Vah Ruta ceasing to function in the ending for BOTW if he was in the process of freeing himself at the start of BOTW2. Because the power source(him) might have finally unplugged himself.

@Ensemen Seriously, I don't know where people are coming with that negativity. Like... ***** they've shown that ontop of the whole Hyrule world map likely remaining as large as it is, they built up an entire sky world of new content for Link to visit and travel around in paraglider and gods know what.

Plus that skyworld outfit looked very unusual, like some kind of "sacred realm" kind of outfit which makes me wonder if those islands are more than "just" islands in the sky" because they also reminds me of the bit of floating sky islands teased in A Link Between World when we glimpse at the Sacred Realm in the ending.

@stinky_t I dunno for you but "some Sky Islands" actually looked a lot like "an entire world map's worth of Sky Islands" looking at the distance of stuff.

@grougrou .... I dunno but "building an entire new world in the skies ABOVE of the existing world which will also have Changes of it's own to take into account" would sound a good reason for Well That's Why It's Taking So Long?

@Tyranexx It's not very much huge of a deal. Like, those are more easter eggs than the full fiat thing, meant to be very small sidequest fodder. You basically go there to get the quest.... and then do the actual quest in completely different locations to get the item or "boss" the quest require before it's considered fulfilled... and then you basically never return(unless ANOTHER quest from another of the "retro" locations require you to) since even the places that are village will see their INN/stores/etc nonfunctional with the NPC finding some excuse or another to explains why they can't sell you items actually(which tbh become kind of a running joke to be fair).

@Tyranexx Honestly it looks almost like a traditional Dragon Quest which is something I'd be utterly okay with from them(in fact I almost weirdly like it better?).

Plus this might make the "visit the locations of older DQ games" in DQ11S less of an hassle to explain considering some locations from DQ10 were included in there, and that's something they could easily do in a single player remake.

@VIIIAxel Yeah. I find interesting they still confirmed a Monsters game was in the work so I wonder if it turned out into one of these "One game project that was actually split into two completely different titles" kind of like the original Secret of Mana project got technically spit into both the original Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger of all things.

I'm curious about Treasures now. It gives me some kind of "Dragon Quest Wind Waker" vibe in a weird but not bad way. Also there's a few details in there that can't help but give me a slight Builders vibe from it despite it not being(afaik) a Builders game. But the overhead perspective, cute characters and some other such detail remind me of the work of the team behind Builders(which managed to be one of the few blockbuilds franchise, DQB2 in particular, I somehow keep replaying for the story).

((long story: Secret of Mana was originally meant to be a title for the Nintendo/Sony original Playstation collaboration before Sony buggered off to make the Playstation it's own console. This led SoM to become a SNES game with the much smaller storage found on cartridge forcing a lot of content to be reworked and cuts, as a result a lot of those cut assets instead became... Chrono Trigger. The Ocean Palace is apparently one of the major ones whose assets stems from these original Secret of Mana plans)).

@crashcontrol Interestingly, while I had a Zelda vibe from this as well.... it was rather "Dragon Quest Wind Waker?" that I got from it in term of vibes.

I dunno if it's the boat, cute character designs or perspective/etc but BOTW isn't the Zelda I got reminded by.

@Slowdive Same.

Also it's clearly a different game but there's aspects of this that keep giving me "Dragon Quest Builders" vibe and that's a good thing for me because even the story/etc of these games were very good in my opinion(it's what keeps drawing me to replaying DQB2's story for one).

I wonder if that's the "not a Builders game this time" game the Builders team was involved in.

Also I worried about platform at first bit looking again properly at the environment with clear polygons and up close at character's cel-shaded textures, I feel the probability of this releasing/being Switch-supported can remain pretty decent.

This said DQ12 supposedly being "darker" has me worried because that has often meant "We'll make it more realistic and gritty" in the past which usually translate into "... therefore it's sadly an AAA console exclusive" X_X

@LordGeovanni Thing is I'm not putting it against them to later announce a western port of X's offline remake.

They've strongly hinted in the past that "something like an offline mode or version" would be the way they'd consider bringing this game west.

While it doesn't change that re: there's no western release announced for this yet, it might have been part of the japan-only segment primarily just because of the fact of it's ties to the MMO version which WILL likely always remain Japan-only.

Plus.... even in Japan this will be confirmed to be a 2022 release, and with III's remake, Treasure and XII confirmed for tentative worldwide releases... their localization team likely have their hands full enough they likely can't confirm a "when" on a potential western release of "X Offline" so it's best to announce/confirm that only when they have more defined info.

@Mountain_Man Probably the "arena" for the final story boss added in the update.

That could explains the size of the update compared to 2.0 despite featuring less new monsters(unless some stuff was sneaked as well in "inactive" fashion meant to be "turned on" at later date such as event quests coming this summer as mentionned by the roadmap that we should expect notable event/collab-event quests throughout the summer and into Fall).

I'd be curious about a datamine of the update tbh.

@JonComms I could recall wrong, but I feel like they've hinted a lot that if Dragon Quest 10 ever came west "it'd be through some kind of offline mode or remake" so.... that could well be it.

I also like that it seems like the kind of thing that could really run decently on Switch too. Ditto the Dragon Quest 3 remake. Of that later, I'm almost more curious about the mention of remakes of 1 & 2 "with some new surprises" as those titles could very much do with a bit of a refresh for story/etc. Particularly the first one.

@Clyde_Radcliffe Yeah.

Like.... western covers of later Dragon "Warrior" games aren't too bad but that of the first one was.... yeaaaaah. It's not "horrible" but it's also really not the greatest thing?

@Mr-Fuggles777 Okay the Discord stuff I can understand but.... honestly Rise ALREADY do support a "invite/join friend" system that doesn't require "messing about with creating lobbies"? You still go through the communication felyne character but it's pretty quick by my experience.

Like, it's what I keep doing with friends I actually play with.

@Joeynator3000 That's what I was saying to others: if we get a new "map", it'll be more "arena" style for the story boss proper(and maybe some elder dragon fights/event quests) and not much else.

As even that could be enough to inflate the file size of the update a bit. This said I'm only more curious to see WHAT gets revealed this Wednesday(and what might be held up as a surprise discovered only through playing, like Bazel was in the last update).

@johnvboy I definitely expect new monsters though if new area happens it'll probably be something like a "Confluence of Fate" style arena for the new "story end" boss. Which tbh could still add to a cool boss fight if done well but we'll see I suspect.

@Joeynator3000 I could expect a new map, but if there's any it'll likely be less a new "environment" map and more something like a new "arena" map for the likes of endgame elder dragons/etc.

Honestly, when I learned the next update is 1.4gb part of me is very tempted to assume that might means more monsters than the last update(which was around 900mg) but it's also possible they could create a Confluence of Fate-style map for the new "end boss" which could inflate the size of the update without adding more monsters than the last update did(which, tbh, if we get equal monsters count it could still be pretty neat because 4 unique monsters + 2 apex variant wasn't bad to be honest).

@Aneira Honestly this is one of the things that surprised me just today in Rise was realizing the sheer absence of subspecies in Rise.

And though that does make me miss my Pink Rathian sets, it's impressive that they crammed in so many unique monsters altogether.

@RiasGremory Don't expect G-Rank quests until a paid expansion DLC sadly.
They were always exclusive to "Ultimate" editions of past games, and those were stand-alone versions that were often sold as a whole new game in the past until World's Iceborne expansion finally turned them into DLC expansions.

Otoh Rise seem to have sold so well so far that an expansion is borderline a given, potentially next year. Especially with the quest system not as dependent on "cinematic progression" than World was, so it's possible such an expansion could be quicker to develop and be ready in late 2021/earliest 2022.

@johnvboy Perhaps the only ways I can see this update having less monsters than Rise is twofold:

1. The monsters added are going to be so much detailed/involved in term of fight they might as well be multiple monsters' worth by themselves so there's less of them.
2. The monsters are fewer than the previous update but there is a new map altogether be it a "elder dragon arena" style or full environment(at 1.4gb I'd be tempted to say the former as I'd expect the later would mean an even larger update though I admit I'm no expert on file sizes for the like of Rise's maps)

@KoopaTheGamer Tbh I suspect most of this content was already ready or close to being ready to ship even when the game first released. After World's success as a multiplatform title, releasing again a platform exclusive(even if only for a single year or so) was quite a gamble so I could see content being released over two months after release as a good way to keep people talking about the game past the first week or two after release as a way to ensure it remains visible to gamers in general.

This is really notable as these days, gaming DOES move so fast(perhaps moreso with all the people housebound because of the pandemic leaving little beyond gaming/etc in term of activities in their free time) that even successful game can be forgotten about weeks after their release. Especially moreso with re: pandemic context leaving so many people with no other activities beyond gaming that even some of the meatier games out there can be quickly finished(and then forgotten) by their playerbase merely weeks after their release... which often lead to people just looking toward the "next new game" immediately rather than continuing to talk/hype about the game they'd just enjoyed enough to blitz through in such intense gaming sessions.

@johnvboy Honestly, the fact it's even larger than the LAST update in size(which was about 900mgs iirc) is really really promising.
I mean, the last update had the whopping addition of Chameleos/Teostra/Kushala Daora/Bazelgeuse plus two new Apex monsters so I can only try to imagine what the new update will add.

@the_beaver @Ralizah iirc the last digital event had plenty of hints of the gameplay such as giving glimpse of how not only you continue to fight alongside your monster as partner like in Stories 1

I've finished the first MH Stories a while back and it's a really unique take on the monster collecting RPGs. For one you raise monsters from eggs you find in dens instead of beat-up-and-capture.

But more unique are the battles themselves where not only does your avathar take an active part using weapons/etc to fight alongside their own monster, but the monsters themselves fight with AI-decided action.
The crux of the game is you can give monsters orders, but to do that you need to use the game's equivalent to MP known as "Kinship" which is only earned through cooperating with your monster's AI and knowing about it's tendency in terms of moves it'll use in battles so you can coordonate stuff like double attacks/etc against the same targets for bonus kinship gains amongst other actions you can get. It's very unique because extremely few monster collecting games in the past would introduce such concept as giving your monsters their own agency and making "earning their trust"/"synching with them" literally a battle mechanic.

Similarly one new thing that was showcased quick in the last Capcom digital even in April was showing that throughout the story you'll eventually get human companions who'll not only fight alongside you but sometime bring their own monster to the fight for total battle party sizes of 3-4 characters in the fight(note that you can have multiple monsters and switch in the midst of battle so you can bring a monster with a tech/speed/power tendency that is a better match to enemy monster/opponents' own battle tendency in the game's rock-paper-scissor system to attack types).

Honestly it's looking really promising and super unique in term of game design in ways I've only seen in the original Stories game still.

@Heavyarms55 Honestly I'd say that's indeed it's strenght but also kind of it's weakness. The more I've played Sword, the more to me that Sword and Shield were built primarily cater to the multiplayer crowd while most people were hoping for primarily a singleplayer Pokemon game.

The extremely brisk gym challenge, with no "filler" non-gym towns/events/etc, near lack of dungeon but also extreme ease for leveling pokemons thanks to XP candies and how quickly the player can get into Battle Tower stuff thanks to how short the main story is... it feels like the game is designed less as a singleplayer game but rather one where the singleplayer is a brisk campaign existing only as a tutorial before funneling players into multiplayer matches as fast as possible.

This is GREAT for the competitive crowd because of how much stuff exist to get pokemons "competitive ready"(fast leveling thanks to XP candies, pokejobs to increase EVs passively, very short story before unlocking almost all the essentials, etc) as fast as possible but similarly this come at the cost of the kind of length people expected of the single player experience.

It does make me wonder if that was the intent all along though; Sword and Shield as a decidedly smaller adventure that could be completed quickly by new players while not extending it's welcome too long for the competitive multiplayer-focused players.... and then now Diamond and Pearl remakes for the people who wanted a bigger singleplayer adventure all along and for the the newer players introduced to the series by Sword/Shield to migrate to.

@Kalmaro Honestly if you haven't gotten Sword and Shield, then getting the next games instead might indeed be for the best. Especially if you're more used to traditional game.

Sword and Shield definitely had a feeling of "Pokemon, but on Speed Forward" which ontop of development stuff/etc had me wondering if "Getting the player competitive ready the fastest possible" also was an incentive with how much was done to allow players to level up pokemons faster than in previous games(the new XP, rather than rare, candies were kind of ludicrous once you got in the L and XL types. A rare candy might be a guaranteed level that's useful for lvl70-80+ pokemons, but XP candies made taking recently bred lvl1 pokemons to lvl 40-50 in instants a joke).

So I'm kind of looking forward for a more traditional game with more battles against trainers/etc and larger world myself since I've always been mainly a singleplayer person.

@Kalmaro Considering how many copies it sold I wouldn't hold my breath for a price drop.

At least not until Shining Diamond/Brilliant Pearl are out, and even then that might only renew interest for Sword&Shield so that's even more chances of the price not dropping.

Personally I didn't mind the games(I got Sword, some people I know including a sibling got Shield). It's definitely much shorter than previous games and I'm not sure how to feel about the pokedex "cut" still but on the other hand even with the 200 or so added alongside(I was about to write "by" but you can still get them without thanks to trade/etc) the expansion pass I feel like it's actually possible for me to complete the full(in-game) pokedex for the first time in a long while so I'm low key pondering booting up my save again. But yeah, the main story is short. It's still a gym challenge story but one where they definitely cut down existing outside of the challenge. So where previous games had "filler" towns you could visit that didn't feature any gyms, Sword&Shield are bereft of those an anything you will visit in the game will more or less be all gym challenge towns.

All of this said, supposed development issues set aside, I wonder if they decided to keep a smaller world/stakes/etc on purpose to specifically make it an "introductory" pokemon game.
I.e.: "Cutting the filler" making it easier for brand new player(younger players always having been the focus of the Pokemon franchise means there's always a large intended target audience being made of kids for whom the latest pokemon game is only their first or second game) to complete it.

Especially with the "next" games seemingly being set(at least, as seen thus far) to be as close to a 1:1 recreation of Diamond/Pearl(down to overworld grid layout) as possible and recalling hearing how "big" those games were, I could see something like "You've seen an introductory lighter experience in Sword&Shield, now are you ready for the real deal?" with the newer game.

One thing I am curious about the future games is what "being made by the Pokemon Home" team will mean in term of compatibility with Home and pokemons from there(i.e.: will they push the 1:1 recreation of Diamond/Pearl to "only support the national dex of the Diamond/Pearl era" or "actually also support Sword/Shield pokedex" and the like).

@RudyC3 Looking forward to my Nocturne preorder myself and I'm with you on visuals.

Plus, to a degree the world design was kind of done in such a way I can't help but feel it'd be too easy to "break" the visuals and art style(which was mean to really mimic that of the concept artist) if trying to go for too strong of an "upgrade" to them.

@Skalson I've yet to try out IV on 3DS though I've been considering it many times but the overarching plot(especially with the fact it's technically split between TWO games in the form of IV and then Apocalypse) feels like it's definitely more.... padded than previous games?

Especially in term of factions/arcs and so on.

@Kalmaro Nintendo themselves aren't directly responsible (beyond allowing the sale of a game with such content, which probably happened unwittingly) but they're the ones who have the authority to actually pull out the game until this is resolved.

@nocdaes Iirc the Retro Studio stuff(I could recall wrong mind you) didn't "just" involve getting Retro Studio but iirc also hunting some of the original team that wasn't at the studio anymore.

I could recall wrong however.

But getting Retro Studio nonetheless can be useful to access if not team members, then at least past work and specifically past work documentation about world/etc that could be useful for a Prime 4 to have that might not be neccessarily at Nintendo's headquarters/etc.

Randomly, this remind me that I was playing Dragon Quest Builders 2 recently and couldn't help but to muse how well the Builders formula could be adapted to other franchise in the same way Dynasty Warriors has been.

And by this I mean that I could literally picture not just "Zelda Builders" but literally something like a "Mario Builders" which this just reminded me of.

(and as a bonus, SquareEnix having made, you know, Mario RPG, would make such a venture a perfect occasion to bring the likes of Geno back but.... alas, it'll probably never happen)

@Azuris as @fR0z3nS0u1 stated... though it might not be cheap it might not produce as much "waste"" than you think because.... it might not be using cartridges in the first place???

" It's akin to Polaroid in that it doesn't use ink or toner cartridges but instead utilizes cards with prefilled ink pouches."

Like this means that since the cards all come with that stuff "built-in", it may very well be not cheap to use.... but on the flipside you're not actually using plastic ink cartridges that need to head to the trash afterward??

@RupeeClock It might not be cheap but it doesn't seem to use ink in the traditional sense but rather "film" in a style not unlike oldschool polaroid cameras?

This really amuse me and make me curious because if true, it's using such an old technology yet one ironically likely so much better fit for such compact format than the ink cartridges of modern printers.

Like, I was most likely going to pass this as novelty but as an artist who's often heavily distracted when trying to look at references pictures, saved up on my phone/tablet/PC, I'm starting to think that the ability to quickly print tiny photo pictures of art I've digitally colored/refs I found online to then use them as physical ref cards I could consult without having to go online or on my phone/tablet/PC and the like and thus avoid a lot of the distractions I'm often dealing with??

@Xenobound94 tbh, while this is just an hypothesis, I could see Mario 35(or a new iteration with tweaks, like a "Mario 99" however unwieldy THAT might be) coming back later in the year as a "surprise" and after enough time for stuff like re: this Pac Man 99 to get established with less risk of "The Mario" overshadowing it.

Either ways, the timing of this reveal is... interesting.

@dimi 50k is kind of a tiny margin though when we're reaching the million sales? Plus it looks like Rise sold 94% of it's initial shipment meaning it sounds like some retailers/etc could have under-orderer or publishers having under-shipped since there's likely places that ran out of copies.