Lyricana

@Andee I don't think there's cause for concern yet. It's not exactly like we're drowning in Mother clones.

This is so many comments for an article that has no real information!

I wish this article hadn't so inaccurately explained this game and I hope people read some of these comments closer to the end. Also, if you actually watched the Indie World Showcase, the narrator specifically mentions you don't have to play that long to see the end.

@ThomasBW84 They just saw the word "Seas" and their minds made up the rest based on what they wanted it to be. Nothing you can do about that!

I bought a Switch on launch day and haven't had a single issue beyond Joycon drift with the left stick, which Nintendo fixed within the warranty. I've put countless hours into it. I thought that the rumors relating to the Switch cracking from heat were entirely disproved, also. A few photos online in 2017-2018 made people speculate that, but the Switch is made of industrial plastic that's safe up to 700° F. Meanwhile, the Switch stays in the 45-95° F range most of the time and certainly never gets close to 700°. It would have to be damaged some other way first or just be a defective model to begin with for that to happen.

@rockodoodle The situation here isn't even about real online games, though. It's a once every 7 days online check-in to verify your subscription. You can be offline while playing the entire time except that 10 second check-in once a week that happens automatically and updates every time your Switch pings the internet at all. And it's for a subscription based service that provides online multiplayer for the system, so.. in the event you don't have access to the internet at all, you're not likely going to sign up for the online service.

As far as online games in general, yeah. Some people don't like them or get frustrated when communities around them die, but I don't really see what the point is to be annoyed at the idea of online stuff (not saying that's you, but the person I was talking about to before). Hundreds of millions of people still like to play online games, especially with friends.. and even when popularity for one is gone, you can often still play with friends so these games will thrive. And for the people that don't want to play online games, that's perfectly fine, but so is wanting to play them.

@nhSnork Yeah, I have no idea why he said that and forgot to make the same point. I guess he's upset that it ever has to do a check-in because he "never needed" internet before so apparently there's no reason or right to "need" it now? As if the entire world didn't run on some level of internet access to verify subscription based services. Even libraries requires online check-in for the services they offer.

@nhSnork Basically this. It's a pretty simple reason to reupload the video. It's not even just a matter of reuploading because of the new footage of Pac-man 99, it's also because hundreds of people complained in the old video that it had footage of Mario 35, griping that it was ridiculous that they had a new video of NSO with footage from a game that was no longer available. They took it down, reworked it, reposted it, then people are angry that they did so.

@Zeldafan79 "Maybe I'm a dinosaur from a bygone era but i don't play games online. Didn't need to then and don't now. Forcing me to be online to play Nes and snes games is beyond stupid. Let alone expecting me to pay for a subscription to do so"

There isn't a group of gamers in the world that come from an era the today that are willing to play modern consoles yet don't play anything online, yet still comment on internet gaming sites. It's certainly your prerogative, but it isn't because of any 'era'. The very concept of "didn't need to then and don't now" is adorably curmudgeonly of you, but it doesn't mean much. You didn't need to "then" presumably because you couldn't to begin with and you don't need to now because nobody NEEDS to ever, they just want to or choose to.

No one is forcing you to do anything and no one is expecting you to do anything. It's just a service that's there if you want to use it. What is the point in trying to be righteously indignant over not using a service that's simply available to you, like this or Netflix or anything else? No one is strongarming you or anything.

@Gauchorino I agree that companies try to influence the Metacritic user score, but I don't believe there's sufficient cause to think that they generally have much viable sway over professional critical reviews. I also think that the community in general doesn't respect or care at all about a Metacritic user rating so it's a mostly fruitless endeavor. However, despite some negativity surrounding the process, there are still quite a few people who follow professional gaming news sites for reviews

I don't disagree with this article, I just don't think it applies at all in any way, even loosely, to an example that would include Pokemon Sword and Shield or really any other professionally reviewed title that people don't think deserved their respective scores. I think that can be attributed to a myriad of other things, but not tampering on behalf of their publishers.

@Gauchorino I think you're missing the point. One is not remotely evidence of the other. A company being willing to instruct or even just encourage their employees to go online and make a few hundred fake profiles on Metacritic to boost the user rating (or hiring a third party data firm to do it for them) is NOT the same as a news outlet taking financial bribes to alter their review scores.

Also, as a final point of fact.. if it's so easy to buy off professional reviewers and they're already paying people to up the Metacritic score.. why didn't they buy positive professional reviews? Why did they allow everyone in the professional world to review it so negatively?

I'm not saying that it's impossible it could happen, but it's a wildly different practice. Companies in the past have been caught with internal memos or documents showing they asked employees to go rate up products on sites like metacritic and Amazon. It's an easy thing to do and also fairly easy to get away with.

Paying a news outlet like Kotaku or Polygon or Nintendo Life to give a good review just isn't directly comparable. To be honest, I don't know if they do it. I hope they don't. They also have much less incentive to do it. Square wants their product to succeed because their games selling and having a good reputation is their lifeblood. But shilling a positive review isn't what makes a review site successful. If anything, the rumors alone of such a thing often hurts them. It's possible the risk is worth the reward, but your evidence literally is.. "People are willing to do shady things in the world. This is shady, so it's definitely happening."

For the record, I don't see any evidence that Balan Wonderworld bought critical reviews either. It does seem probable or at least plausible that they helped boost their own metacritic score, though. Which, again, is a very different and easier thing to do. I also imagine many developers do that. Give themselves positive reviews. But at this point, everyone essentially knows the Metacritic userscore is meaningless. It's too often boosted or bombed based on reasons having nothing to do with whether or not the actual game is good or bad.

Also, as a final point of fact. If professional reviewers are so easily bought, why didn't Square pay them off for good critical reviews for Balan Wonderworld? It was universally panned.

@Gauchorino Your comment just references this article and this situation as evidence. It's definitely true that these companies seem like they're hiring people to make positive user reviews, but that doesn't explain the hundreds of professional critical reviews and YouTubers, etc that really enjoyed the game and a lot of the best game of the year nominations it received.

Now, I don't think it was an amazing game and I'd probably never go for a second pass, but I'd have given it a solid 7-8. Most of the issues and flaws you mentioned are things long time adult fans of the series seemed concerned with, from what I read. Seems like newcomers were much happier because they didn't have expectations for it to be something else.

@Gauchorino I can't sit here and tell you Sword and Shield is an objectively better game, because it all comes down to opinion, but as a non-Pokemon fan who was checking out the series, I found it fun and it kept me entertained for about 45 hours. I liked it. Balan Wonderworld, on the other hand, is one of the worst games I've ever played. I had high expectations because I like NiGHTS and I'm a huge 3D platformer fan, but nothing could save that miserable game for me.

Also, I know people like to say that reviews are paid for but legitimately, I've never seen any evidence that that's the case. How do you know these reviews were purchased and it wasn't just shoddy, incomplete reviewing? I mean to say.. I've seen numerous cases of reviewers clearly not actually playing all the way through a game or even lying and using preview materials to formulate reviews on games they've never played. I've even seen sites encouraged to review popular games higher because it's better for their traffic. But is there any real evidence beyond rumor, assumption and innuendo that they're just paid flat fees from devs for a positive review?

"try this game and become abundant in fun!"

Words to live by.

@Gauchorino Millions of people and reviewers actually really liked Sword & Shield, though. No one likes Balan Wonderworld.

This isn't a rumor. The data is there, that's a fact. The interpretation of the data is up for debate and is this speculative, but this information is not a rumor.

A rumor would be: "My uncle works at Nintendo. He said there is a new Switch being developed and it's coming out in 2021", if said account had no verification.

This is not a rumor and is instead facts with extrapolation: "Here is a verified document indicating that Nvidia will halt production of the SoC the Nintendo Switch uses. This could point to a whole new Switch being in development if they have no need for the old SoC".

@ElfRings It's a port of a $6.99 mobile game. And it's $6.99 on Switch. It's not a terrible game. I played a beta of it some years back and for the asking price it's not bad.

@Blizzia Skyrim was never a good game. The Elder Scroll series in general has always had bad combat, clunky controls, uninspired gameplay systems.. it just also has ambitious world design, deep lore and a hell of a lot to do. This is also probably an unpopular opinion, but Elder Scrolls Online was the first time gameplay was really any fun in the series. Unless you like archery. The bow mechanics aren't too bad before then.

@KonoRobinMaskDa676 It's $6.99 on mobile. It's not free. Calm down.

@Nakego I would say considering how often games media gets really obvious, common knowledge stuff wrong that it's a fair bet many of them reporting it have no idea that Story of Seasons is the real series and not just another knockoff. I've read an article on this very site a few years back that talked about the "confusing", "inexplicable" and "troubling" dip in quality of the Harvest Moon series, which of course bad dozens of people in the comments trying to set them straight.

Symphonia isn't arguably the best game in the series any more than any entry in any series is "arguably" the best. The sales don't really indicate anything about the quality. The main reasons for it selling well aren't mentioned here at all and they're virtually all that matters. Tales of Symphonia was released on FOUR separate occasions, more than any other game in the series with the exception of Phantasia, but Phantasia only had one real, complete release outside of Japan and it was the worst version of it (on the GBA).

Symphonia isn't just the most widely circulated through its remasters and re-releasing, it also was translated and released across a wider range of territories. Furthermore, it came at the perfect time to make big sales. It was one of the first and only RPGs on the RPG-starved GameCube, as well as later being the second ever Tales game on PC (Zestiria being the only other at the time and still now there are only four total on PC), plus it retailed for $15 on Steam and regularly went on sale for $3.74.

I'm not saying it wasn't a good game. Tales is my favorite franchise and I do very much enjoy Symphonia, but it has the worst battle system of any game in the entire series because it came at an awkward time where the series was trying to transition into 3D. In fact, because they struggled with the clunkiness of the battle system in 3D, the next two entries in the franchise went back to 2D until the series took the next step in 3D with the concept of "Free Run" in Tales of the Abyss. Many of the characters beyond Lloyd also aren't nearly as fully fleshed out as playable characters (which is true of many of the supporting characters in Tales games in the first 6 entries of the franchise).

Personally, I think it also has the third worst cast and one of the weaker storylines, though I still like both. And I'd still love to see it hit modern consoles with a remaster. Preferably in a collection with another Team Symphonia game, Tales of the Abyss or in a broader classic Tales collection.

@gb_nes_gamer Symphonia has easily the worst battle system in the entire Tales series. It's the roughest and clunkiest as it attempted to half ass its way to 3D. For the time when it came out, it was definitely a new take and something to be enjoyed, but subsequent games made by the same team (like Abyss) were very similar but better in every way, combat-wise.

@SigourneyBeaver Interest doesn't equal reading news sites and social media, though. Many gamers and people in general avoid this kind of coverage for a variety of reasons that don't include disinterest. I, for one, spent many years never reading gaming news (beyond the occasional announcement headline) because games are so much more fun to me when I know virtually nothing about them.

I missed the days of gaming in the 80s and 90s where most everything you learned was from personal experience or in-person word of mouth, rather than just a non-stop assault of news and opinions. Because of that, I spent a couple of years not knowing about the Story of Seasons situation right after it happened.

@JadePhoenix It feels like you missed my point. There haven't been virtually any in the genre from non-indie developers other than some mostly ho-hum Story of Seasons games. There literally aren't any AAA farming simulator/slice of life sort of games. That's the point.

@Styrophoamicus Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town isn't a bad game, but it's mostly for people who played Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, Harvest Moon 64 or Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. It's not fully featured enough to feel worthwhile to people who aren't getting a kick out of the nostalgia of being back in Mineral Town.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town... I haven't played it, but honestly I think you're going to run into a similar experience except without the nostalgia. Not a bad game, but it feels like the real developement time and money went to Rune Factory 5 instead.

Even though I've been a huge fan of the franchise since the original SNES game, I don't think most of the modern entries are really worth the money or push the genre forward. Especially with a game like Stardew Valley doing it all and more with visuals I enjoy more and at a fraction of the price.

@TheFarmboy Are there any farming/daily life sims similar to Stardew Valley that you've ever liked?

I don't think there will ever be a valid argument for too many games in any genre. There could be, potentially, a -conversation- about it being unfortunate when there are an overabundance of low quality games in any particular genre, but that's about where it should end. Realistically speaking, there are infinitely fewer farming simulator slice of life games on the market than virtually every other real genre out there. This is especially true if we consider ones that are actually worth even ten minutes of your time, as the vast majority are $5 indie knockoffs that are barely above the level of Steam asset flips.

And while I have nothing against indie games (some of them, like Stardew Valley, are better than their brethren created by much larger non-indie developers), it would be nice to see more than Story of Seasons coming from these large developers. I know some consider Animal Crossing in that same category, though I wouldn't.. and it's still only one franchise.

My point.. I'd absolutely adore seeing some AAA farming/life simulator games in the vein of Bokujou Monogatari/Farm Story/Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, not just a great indie game every once in a blue (harvest) moon and a sea of garbage from tiny developers looking to turn a quick buck.

Special edition stuff used to be non-existent here. At least we get some things like that now and while I know you're not made of money, the internet makes it POSSIBLE to get these awesome pieces of merchandise rather than in the 80s, 90s and even to a degree, the early 2000s, we often weren't even aware of the kind of stuff we were missing out on.

In some ways, ignorance was bliss.

@TheWingedAvenger Many Nintendo franchises don't currently have entries being made and it's not because a stand-in exists. There are countless reasons for lack of Golden Sun other than just you being right. As for the reasons you stated for it being a clone... The graphics are not even remotely a clone of Dragon Quest and neither is the setting. I'll admit the setting is somewhat similar, but that isn't what being a clone is. And exploration is a common element in a majority of JRPGs, as is the fantasy setting for that matter. Genre trends aren't the same as being a clone. In gaming terms, it's being virtually identical in every way. Not just being in the same genre. Even if Golden Sun was made to fulfill a void left by Dragon Quest, which isn't a fact, it doesn't make it a clone. Sega made Sonic to fill the market desires for games similar to Mario, but it isn't a Mario clone. Same with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, which still isn't a clone of Dragon Quest even though it shares more in common with it than Golden Sun.

@TheWingedAvenger I've never heard anyone claim Golden Sun was a Dragon Quest clone. How is it possibly a Dragon Quest clone? The puzzle elements, the djinn system, the art style, battle perspective, plot direction, even the battle system.. none of them are even remotely like Dragon Quest, at least not any more so than simply both being turn based JRPGs. And I'm not saying it would be an insult. I really like Golden Sun and I'm also a huge Dragon Quest fan. I'm always up for more games like Dragon Quest. But.. clone? I am also aware that two of the producers of Golden Sun worked on some of the earlier Dragon Quest games, but that doesn't make them clones.

It was the tail end of a time in gaming when people still thought graphical style was the determining factor in what age range a game was made for. Now it's generally accepted that games can look any way they want. Doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I will say this, though. Taking this article into account, people should stop using the insanely overused, nonsensical, tired comment regarding games they think are a bad idea: "Nobody asked for this". Any time a franchise proposes something new and people are mad, news outlets and "influencers" all over social media attack the game with the same meaningless complaint that "no one asked for" whatever it is.

If game developers only made games fans demanded, we wouldn't have games like Undertale, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Animal Crossing, Megaman Legends, Final Fantasy XIV, Super Mario RPG, Breath of the Wild, Mario + Rabbids, Nier, Crash Team Racing, Yakuza 7 and literally thousands of other unexpected games from companies trying something a little different.

Fans don't know what's best for franchises, generally. They just think they want same thing again right up until that something different ends up being amazing, then they backpedal.

Octopath already did what it was meant to do for the Switch when it came out years ago. It helped the system when it needed some extra third party support. The Switch is a success. It's not going to tank because Octopath went multiplatform. To those annoyed by this, just let people on other platforms enjoy a solid RPG.

@Kevember I hate when they just "update" a two year old article because apparently it's too hard to write a few extra sentences about a current issue. It just leads to confusion in the article and then nonsense in the comments when people are getting mad at stuff people said years ago. I got a bunch of comments (similar to what happened with you) on another article because I mentioned something wouldn't be out for another year at least and people were like "lol idiot it's out in a month" but the article was 18 months old and updated. Ah well.

@Dman10 It's cheaper already because it's on Game Pass.

@Shadowthrone I understand having a preference, but in terms of games that aren't available in one format or the other, I couldn't imagine not playing it for that reason. But then most especially when it's free and there's no downside.

As for your general question about the pay scheme, I think it's cosmetic only. The bomb blast change isn't a mechanical change, it just changes the color of the fire and appearance of the bomb cosmetically.

Edit: If you watch the trailer, the bombs can have rose petals or candy or glitter in the explosion, just for fun.

This isn't really a surprise. Anything Stadia exclusive was never to be.

@Bunkerneath You refuse to play free games if they aren't physical...?

@Zeropulse It's not even necessarily about having control issues. Some people just despise using the motion controls in general and hate using the Wii Remote. Not to mention the people who never actually gave it a shot just assuming it would be bad because they didn't like the waggle in most games or they were sick of the gimmick in general. And people not wanting to buy Wii Motion Plus because it felt like Nintendo was selling an add-on to make the controller what it was promised to be already at launch.

@BulbasaurusRex That's an absurd argument. To quote the preeminent C.S. Lewis:

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

Childishness as an insult to its quality is meaningless, particularly when it comes to an opinion by others. This isn't the definitive list as determined by the ruling council of Nintendo Elders, this is a list of what games employees of Nintendo Life personally think are the best. Being simplistic is also not an insult.

Tetris is simplistic compared to thousands of other games and yet it's one of the most beloved video games of all time. Meanwhile, something like Kerbal Space Program is a complex game that many people don't like (often times because of the complexity). Video games are entertainment. They're meant to entertain. What an individual finds entertaining differs from other individuals. Some gamers want to be challenged, some want their brains melted with complexity, others want intriguing plot, some want blood pumping action, others want something calm and simple. There is no right or wrong.

Using Miitopia as an example only further buries your point because that's a game beloved by a diehard niche of gamers. It might not be my cup of tea, but it's one of my fiancée's favorite games. The value of the entertainment for her isn't about the complexity, but rather the fun it affords her with all the silly scenes with the ridiculous characters she made.

I wouldn't include either on my own list, but I certainly wouldn't tell someone else they're not allowed to have it on their list.

I've never played an RPG that required an awful lot of grinding. Grinding, generally, is a difficulty modifier tool for people who want to make the experience easier. Grinding can entirely be avoided by accepting additional challenge or by turning down the difficulty mode (when applicable). I've never understood people who claim things like either a game is too hard so they had to grind a lot yet refuse to turn the difficulty down, thus defeating the purpose of playing on a harder difficulty when they just grind until it's easy anyway OR people who claim a game, like Dragon Quest XI is too easy, yet they grind constantly and don't use the difficulty modifiers available.

More than most genres, RPGs allow the player to regulate their experience, especially something like the aforementioned Bravely Default games.

@BulbasaurusRex It doesn't matter which of those categories it falls in (though it's much more like a Pixar film than Sesame Street in terms of the broadness of the appeal) for the purposes of being on a list of games Nintendo Life employees like or think are among the best, though.

@Wexter Oh, absolutely. I was there in the 80s, playing those video games. My father was the only parent at the time who (among my friends) who played them and my mother used to always say that he played video games "today" because his parents denied him toys and games as a child (he grew up very poor in Cuba and was forced to work from a very young age until my family fled Castro's regime).

35 years later and he's 70 and still plays games, especially on his phone now but still PC and PlayStation too. And now my mother, who is 68, also plays video games. Not just stuff like Candy Crush, either. She enjoys adventure games like what Telltale makes, stuff like Myst, as well as any kind of puzzle game, card games and a variety of other stuff. Times have changed and anyone can be a gamer and the market is producing games for people from all walks of life.

Dragon Quest VII is my personal favorite. I'm playing through Bravely Second right now. Just started, really.

@ALinkttPresent Video games aren't for children. Video games in the US were heavily marketed toward children in the 80s and early 90s, but it has been literally close to 30 years since the marketing shifted to an all ages sort of thing.

Recent statistics as of January this year show that the largest percentage of gamers is age range 21-35, with the second largest percentage being 36-50 and those numbers are moving towards older all the time.

As for Yokai Watch.. being a game aimed at children is a ludicrous reason to exclude it from a list. Children use the internet and read sites like this and get to have opinions too. And many adults still enjoy games with an age rating of E, otherwise Pokemon wouldn't be here either, or Mario & Luigi or a few others.

@TheLightSpirit To be fair, they said it was better than trash.

@Beatrice How is Tales of the Abyss a "bad take"?

I can't believe not a single person in the comment has even brought up the possibility that this ISN'T an open world game. Nothing in the trailer or the press release said it was. And just looking at a big environment doesn't mean anything. Tons of RPGs these days have big, wide, sweeping vistas. But having larger maps doesn't make it an open world game. Many thought Sword and Shield would be open world for the same reasons, yet it was about as by the numbers as it could be with the game being just as linear and locked down by story progress and badge progress as ever, locking off most of the game's content behind said progress.

I can't helped it, but I'm so bothered that every instance of "A Link Between Worlds" uses the full English subtitle, but that none of the "A Link to the Past" entries do. It's "A Link to the Past", not "Link to the Past". If you're going to take out the A, why leave it there with "A Link Between Worlds"?!

@VoidofLight But by that same assertion, a game can look like it plays well and actually play well and it can also look bad and be good or any other variation. If anything, you disproved your own point because you've now firmly established that you can't judge a game properly just by looking at it.

@VoidofLight The gameplay looks solid. It's the visuals that are not great, but it's based on a TV show and to be fair, it looks like the show.