MSaturn

@Joeynator3000 I also quit watching at that time, but it wasn’t really because of the controversy. I just didn’t click with the new personalities. I tried Good Vibes Gaming since that’s the people I liked more, but I didn’t really click with their videos either. They definitely have a different flavor from the old gamexplain stuff I think. So I just moved on.

Unity is the most popular game engine for students and hobbyists. That’s the majority of their customer base. Like everyone, Unity is feeling the squeeze of inflation. They need to raise prices… but they have a lot of competitors and they are scared that if they raise prices all those students and hobbyists will go to a different product. These people are looking for something cheap to learn on, they aren’t ready to invest a lot of money into an engine yet. So Unity tries to come up with a scheme to charge only professional developers that are actually profiting by using Unity. So far that all sounds understandable to me. But then, instead of doing something simple, like simply raising the price of a commercial license they try to get all clever, attaching this small fee to every installation. Probably they convinced themselves that this also was friendly to small developers - really small developers, who, like students, will not be seeing their prices go up. But it has the effect of making Unity more expensive than competing engines for successful developers. Suddenly developing your game in Unity has turned out to be a significant financial mistake. Hence the freak out. Unity was too clever by half here, they need to go to a more straightforward price increase.

@Zulzar personally I think that punishes the developers as much as Unity. Insofar as we are not the actual customers of Unity, there’s not too much we can do. Developers are the ones who have to boycott.

It was pretty good. A lot of interesting lesser games. But nothing really surprising or major and I think that further shows that this system really is winding down now. I think Switch 2 in Fall ‘24 is looking very certain.

Well I was one of the minority that predicted there would NOT be a direct this month, so obviously I have no idea what Nintendo is planning! But since it’s fun to speculate I don’t think it’s time for hardware news. At the very most I could see an announcement about when to expect the announcement, something like “we’re not quite ready to share but there will be a special direct in December so look forward to that”. But even that I doubt. I agree with someone above who said they would not want to step on the Switch’s last big holiday.

What I want for Splatoon 4 is for it to not exist yet, lol. I have trouble accepting that we’re talking about Splatoon 4 when the next 3D Mario has not even been announced yet. I mean, I’m sort of joking, I’m happy for people who are really into these games. I’ve played them a bit but I’m definitely not as into it as a lot of people. It’s funny how certain franchises at Nintendo get constant new entries (Kirby), while others just languish for years without a word.

Wow! End of an era! I remember hearing Mario’s voice for the first time in Mario 64 and finding it ridiculous. It was way more high pitched than his cartoon voice for instance. Now I can’t imagine it any other way. Thank you Martinet for your great work over the years!

For people like this who are savvy about PR, anything put on social media is there for a reason. The illusion of “authenticity” or that you have any real access to the lives of public figures is artificially constructed and always serves some purpose. This guy knows what he’s doing, so what is the purpose behind it? It’s possible he’s just impishly teasing people for his own amusement, knowing they’ll read a bunch of stuff into it. But I think it’s at least equally reasonable to assume that this is part of a transition which they are preparing people for.

@Pupuplatter really? Lol, I guess I see what they’re going for with that but yeah, it could definitely be a shoot your self in the foot kind of move.

I voted “haven’t decided yet” because I’m waiting for reviews. The game looks promising, but so far no reviews, which is a little concerning. If the game was as good as it looks, wouldn’t they have sent out early review codes?

@Ooyah okay, yeah that’s tough. Like when you’re looking for something that’s similar to something else, and when you search for it all you can find is that other thing. I had that problem with Rastan for years. I had played it in the arcade long ago but couldn’t remember the name for the longest time. Googling “guy with sword kills monsters” or whatever was not effective! Eventually I told a friend of mine about my memories of the game and he figured it out right away.

@Ooyah this may not be right but kind of sounds like Hammering Harry. Not a single screen game but you wield a hammer and there’s a construction worker power up that gives you that yellow hard hat.

I’ve had this with several games. I believe at this moment that I eventually figured all of them out (there may be one or two that I haven’t figured out which I’m forgetting right now, lol). Googling mostly doesn’t work. I figured all of mine out by talking about them with other knowledgeable gamers. It’s so gratifying to finally solve these old mystery!

Here’s the only game I can currently think of that I can’t remember. A super Nintendo game, some kind of action game or like a run and gun, where you play a robot/mech, and the first level or anyway an early level) is like a forest or swamp where you jump around on tree limbs. If anyone knows what that could be I’d be interested!

@NorthwestEagle I’m with you. I’ve cleared two of the regional phenomena. There’s definitely been some cool stuff… but in between every cool, fresh thing, is like 20hours of repetitive boring slog. Hunting out shrines, finding memories, clearing yet more bokoblin camps, etc. every once in a while is a cool side quest or something. I’m finding the main story quests to be pretty great. But everything in the game that isn’t a quest is so similar to BotW that I find it boring. BotW I couldn’t put down. TotK I’m playing about an hour a night and I’m ready to take a break.

I would not pay $50 for this. I already have it on PS3, didn’t finish it, but enjoyed what I played. I could definitely see myself playing it again but I’ll be waiting for a sale and also waiting to see if it’s a good port at all. If it’s all good, and it goes on sale at some point, I’ll double dip.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the PS2 reached that number partly because it continued to sell after the PS3 came out. There’s always some degree of continued sales. I think the Switch could definitely reach the PS2 number eventually, it really depends on how aggressive Nintendo is about pushing people to the new platform. If they continue manufacturing Switches for several more years, I don’t see why it would be impossible to get another 25 million units. Remember these systems are popular with kids and families, so every year a new batch of kids age into the game playing demographics and their parents seem very likely to opt for the older more established (and cheaper) platform rather than the costly latest thing. Say it was Christmas 2024 - what would you buy a five year old that wants their own system like their friend has? I would get a Switch light or something, not whatever the brand new thing is.

@TenEighty Yeah this is kind of my feeling. There’s a couple ways in which the switch definitely shows its age, but for the most part no game I have any interest in exceeds what the switch is already capable of. So for me, next year, 2025, 2026, whatever it’s all the same. I think it’s time we move to a ten year cycle on these machines.

I hope this turns out as good as it looks! I agree with others it’s got a very cool Treasure vibe. I’m really on board with what I’m seeing so far.

One of my most anticipated upcoming games. But I'm looking forward to playing the Suikoden remasters too, so having a little space around those games sounds good to me. A lot of indie RPGs kind of disappoint in the story department, because they fail to rise to the complexity of the classic games. So hopefully this delay will mean this game can have a really good story; it already looks like they're nailing the art style.

Yeah, I watched the first season of the original Castlevania run. I thought it was okay. I started season two and gave up. The show did not seem very good to me, but whatever. Not everything is a winner for every person and other people liked it. This show, from the trailer, seems like it has some potential, but I'm skeptical. I think the fundamental problem is the story telling, which I found slow paced and just bad in the first series and I doubt it will be any better here. Poor storytelling is the root problem with almost every video game adaptation. Video games, with only some exceptions (The Last of Us being the most obvious) HAVE stories but they are not ABOUT their stories and their stories are not the reason we value them. They fundamentally do not adapt well, and I think, to stick with Castlevania for a moment, only a very, very clever story teller could salvage a good movie or TV show out of that IP.

My daughter loves Minnie Mouse, so I had my eye on this one. She’s very young and is only just getting to be old enough to play games. She will find this game quite difficult I’m certain! So happy that it’s a good game, and that I can help her when playing co-op. And she can play as Minnie Mouse, so this just sounds perfect for us.

This and Gex?! What a day for underrated PS1 platformers!

Very thrilled about this. These are B-tier platformers but I have a lot of nostalgia for them, especially the first one. I literally was just thinking yesterday about how great it would be for these games to be rereleased.

I'm totally into this.

@Faucet yeah I’m in the same boat. I was interested in the Batman collection and the MGS collection they just announced but now that it turns out they are mostly downloads, I may pass on at least one of them just because of space…

This looks fantastic. The (apparent) care and faithfulness with which this game is modernizing the original… this is basically what I wanted an FFVII remake to be like. Looking forward to buying this.

Like many I did not expect a direct until September. I don’t know what to expect in terms of games, but I do find the fact that this direct exists at all to be interesting and possibly suggestive. This direct will focus on the titles for the rest of the year, which begs the question: what about the traditional September direct? Of course they could skip it… but what if they are clearing the deck to reveal new hardware in September? Then in February the “get ready for launch” direct, and the hardware launches in March, seven years after Switch. That timeline kind of works does t it??? Pretty interesting, but Nintendo is hard to predict so who knows…

I was interested in this but I hate microtransanctions so I passed on it. What’s the verdict now? Is this game actually good and is it worth buying now? Or did the presence of microtransactions, even if they’re removed, fundamentally mess up the game balance? I could imagine there might be absurd amounts of grinding for example.

Between work and two kids I don’t have as much time to game, compared to when BotW came out. I haven’t checked lately but if I had to guess I would say I may have played about 30-40 hours. Feels like I’ve barely gotten started, lol.

Back in the day I would rent a game every Friday for $5 and play it over the weekend. That is about $10 in todays money. I keep that in mind when looking at these sales. If I buy a game for $10 and play it for just a couple of days, arguably I got my money’s worth. If I like it, great. If not, or if I like it kind of but not enough to stick with it, it’s no bigger waste of money than taking a shot on a game rental. This mentality shift has kept my “backlog” in check.

I don’t understand the comments, honestly. What rules did the Mario movie break? Maybe he means that there’s very little romance plot? (Because he criticizes the “teenage rom-com” quality of other animated films). Mario movie is pretty good… for a video game movie. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it a lot, but without that modifier I wouldn’t say it’s even in the top fifty animated films I’ve seen. Since we’re on the topic, if anyone here is interested in seeing great animated films I will of course mention Hayao Miyazaki. Now if you’re looking for something much more mature then a strong recommendation goes to the films of Satoshi Kon.

Yesss! Now we just need this and and First Departure R in a physical double pack like the Grandia HD collection. Make it so!

Oh yeah, I will definitely buy this. I’ve been waiting for this for years!

On the whole “games as art” question, I think it’s clear that games have the capacity to be art, when you look at certain strong examples. But there are many other factors that militate against regarding games as art. The industry itself treats games as disposable (ultimately worthless) entertainment. Indeed, they often actively resist efforts to preserve their work. The fan community overwhelmingly emphasizes graphics and presentation over any other aspect of games. Games are so collaborative that they usually lack any clear authorial voice. And games are so difficult to make that it is hard for young game makers to effectively “practice”. Even filmmakers (film being the other ultra collaborative medium of our time) have more capacity to practice their craft, especially now with iPhones and such… and finally, and this is speculative but if I’m right this could be the most intractable problem of all, it seems that the ultimate medium of the video game is computer code… and the personality of the coder may just be fundamentally unlike the personality of the artist. Not that there won’t be a few exceptions, of course, but if this is the case then most games will never succeed as art, because they are fundamentally made by engineers and technicians, not artists. I could be wrong about that last point but that’s how it seems to me.

@farrgazer fair enough, it’s been a while since we had a Prince of Persia game. But it feels like they keep rebooting that franchise I mean this will be the fourth iteration right? If I’ve not forgotten one. It just feels uncreative to me.

But also, I think I feel this way partly because this series does not seem to be well loved. The sands of time is well liked, but the sequels have mixed reviews I think? The ‘08 reboot was panned. (I got that game eventually for really cheap and I thought it was okay) the various remakes and so forth didn’t seem to make a big splash or bring the series much attention… maybe I’m wrong there, I don’t know.

But for now at least I hear this news as Ubi once again trying to breathe life into this floundering series, presumably because it has name recognition, rather than making something new or even making a sequel to one of their more recent properties.

I didn’t watch the event but that game list is not exactly inspiring. Prince of Persia, again? Could be okay I guess but I essentially have no faith left in Ubisoft so I assume it will be, at best, blandly competent. Sonic, they already made this game. It was called Sonic 4, and came out in two episodes I think. Predictably, something was lost in translation in the move to polygons. Just like Mega Man 11, just like like almost every attempt to redo 2D sprite games as 2D polygonal games. The game feel will inevitably change. Could still wind up good, but we’ll see. It is a bit surprising though because Sonic Mania was so good. Why not just do another game in that style? Everything else is even less interesting to me. I’m definitely not the target audience of the game industry anymore.

I mean, it is certainly disappointing. I’m not sure, I may pass on this altogether or may still pick it up since most of what I care about is still on the cartridge. But since these comments have turned into a general discussion about the pros and cons of buying physical at all, I have this to say: the biggest problem for me with all digital is storage. Your choices are to add a pretty expensive surcharge to the already expensive console price, or constantly delete and redownload games or else restrict yourself to a small subset of the games you own. I’m curious how the folks who are all digital and like it deal with this.

People say it’s convenient to not have to get up and change discs but not if you have to wait an hour for a 50gb file to download, which has happened to me repeatedly on the PS4. Do you just bite the bullet and get a massive external hard drive (or memory card in the case of the switch)? Do you not really go back to games you’ve played? Like maybe you get a game and play it for a week and then move on, so it’s no big deal to just delete/archive it? Or maybe you just don’t buy that many games? I don’t mean that as a criticism, I just mean I know that I’m an outlier in terms of how many games I buy. I recall when I worked at GameStop in the PS2 era that there was this statistic the company circulated that said that the average PS2 owner had only purchased 6 games. So literally it was like the new version of Madden every year and that’s it. People like me who had 80 PS2 games were freakish! I just a couple weeks ago broke 200 switch games. About 80 are physical, and they are by design the AAA games with larger file sizes. Digitally I mostly have indie games that don’t take up too much space.

No, won’t be a June Direct. I’ve pretty much given up on trying to understand Nintendo’s marketing strategy. If I was running the company, I would do a big direct (1-1.5 hours) once a year, around E3 time (what used to be E3 time) that took a long view. It would tease and build excitement for games coming out over the next couple of years. It’s purpose would be to build excitement and confidence that this platform has a lot of cool stuff coming down the road so you want to stay engaged, you don’t want to trade it in, you do want to go ahead and buy one if you for some reason you haven’t already. That’s what other companies did at E3 but Nintendo hasn’t done that kind of thing very much in years. Starting in 2020 they seemed quite happy to completely skip June and I’m certain they will do so again this year. I’m not a fan of their recent focus on short term marketing, leaving the middle and long term mostly blank. But it is what is and it seems to be working for them. So yeah, I don’t expect to hear anything until September.

I’m still interested in this. Difficulty spikes may or may not be a problem. The glitches I expect will get patched. I’m going to keep building my retro style game collection, but I’ll wait a little while to see if they patch this one.

Like if Golden Sun meets Illusion of Gaia? Well, I guess I am the exact target audience for this game, lol.

This game and its sequel were very good, in my opinion, and very much worth remembering. These games are like light gun games - I mean with the technology of the wiimote essentially obsolete you can’t quite play it properly. Hopefully it will get ported to something at some point that can allow the motion controls to be reintroduced.

So honestly after all this time I don’t really remember many specific quests… but the ones mentioned here are definitely good choices, once the article reminded me about them! I remember enjoying the stuff in Gerudo town, Eventide island and Tarry Town (to be fair, building a town is quest trope in many RPGs, but I always enjoy it). Probably the most interesting “quest” not mentioned here are the big labyrinths. When I found the first one I was like “WHAT IS THAT!?!?”

FF VII was my first. I recall reading a preview based on the Japanese version of the game in GameFan magazine. They made it sound like the best game ever made. Then I started seeing ads for the game on TV which was pretty unusual at the time. Only the very biggest games had TV spots. The hype just went off the charts! I didn’t even like RPGs but I HAD to play this game! I got the game for my birthday. I had turned 11. I still remember that first night playing it, just soaking in Midgar. No game had ever evoked a world so powerfully before, at least in my experience. A LOT of people had the same experience I did. It changed the gaming landscape. It’s hard to convey just how massive that game was to the gaming scene at the time.

Interesting. I've only played this game via emulation, it is quite good. I love the attention to detail. However, having said all of that, I'm not sure I actually like the color screen shots! I'm surprised, but I don't know what it is. The original GB pixel art looked better I think.

@Dinglehopper I completely agree. And it needs to be said too that the music in this trailer was amazing. With music that epic you HAVE to get excited! It's impossible to resist!

This is exactly what I've been waiting to see all this time. I'm much more excited now. I think it's still unfortunate that it took this game so long to release. I do wonder how much Covid affected that timeline. I feel like if this had come out in 2020 I would have been much, much more excited than I am now. But nevertheless, I saw enough very cool stuff in this trailer to want to dive back into this world and go on another adventure which is what it's all about. Yay!

@Dm9982 Yeah, I worked at Gamestop for one year, around the time of the Halo 2 launch. Everyone that works there understands not to leak things - no surprise that one could get in trouble for that. At the same time, I agree with @ATHFjman18, who said that he was probably a low-level employee making poor pay. Losing a job like that is not the worst thing that can happen, and he got some internet fame out of it... not necessarily a bad trade off. On the other hand, being known as someone untrustworthy with confidential information could blow back on him in a lot of ways in various careers, so I don't know. I also agree with people saying Nintendo overreacted. Stuff gets leaked - that's part of the game Nintendo!

Since this movie is basically an origin story, I think it’s reasonable to suppose that Mario may be slightly younger here than the game age. But I don’t see any contradiction with him being in his early/mid 20s. Especially an Italian family in New York, it’s completely reasonable that he would still be living at home. I would say, if he’s 24/25 in the games, he could be 22/23 in the movie. Remember too that he’s already had a job working for Spike, and he and Luigi have quit that job and started their own plumbing business, and presumably they have to get licensed as plumbers… it all takes some time. I don’t find it plausible that he would be 18 or something.

I don’t think that anyone has mentioned yet that the rap song from the Mario plumbing commercial is from the Super Mario Bros Super Show. I grew up watching that show; I was genuinely surprised and delighted to see a reference to it.

@Dev9417 As a Zelda obsessed person I have thought a lot about a possible adaptation. I’ve decided that it would be very very hard to do. Nevertheless I would love to see it. Yes, Zelda movie next please! Let’s go for it!