MSaturn

Aww, bummer. It seemed so promising.

@UltimateOtaku91 This is the most salient takeaway for me! $500 confirmed!

checks calendar
Nope, it’s not April.

I always liked his games and was sad that Devil’s third didn’t turn out better. A lot of these “auteur” guys seem to struggle with going independent. What’s the success rate there? It’s less than 50% right? Anyway I hope he can release another game someday and we can get that proper Itagaki experience again!

I think the switch 2 reveal is sometime after Christmas, which I have been saying for a long time. With all the rumors I lost confidence in this prediction and started thinking we were going to hear something soon. But with September over and the rumors apparently false, I’m back to thinking it’s next year. All along there was this phrase “this fiscal year”. Why say that? How many consumers even know precisely what that means? If it’s this year just say “this year”.

Count me among the people who actually found this kind of confusing. It almost reads to me like they misunderstood the controversy? I don’t think people are offended because they insulted American education or something (or are they?). I guess I don’t see how changing the words to “puritan” changes anything about the ultimate meaning.

Anyway oh well. This whole “controversy” is silly.

It is an impressive model! It does make me realize how small the game world was though. Nintendo was clever making it feel bigger than it really was, by for example forcing you to take the long way around at times. But seeing it as a model makes you realize… if those houses in Kakariko are approximately the same size as my house… then this entire game world is about as wide as the distance from my house to the end of the street… lol, it would take like five minutes to walk across.

@N00BiSH interesting. See for me I’d say it’s almost the other way around. The fact that there are many ways to approach the TotK puzzles means that pretty much any plausible idea will likely work. I wouldn’t call them “brainless” but they rarely feel clever and they usually get solved pretty quickly (maybe a few seconds of looking around).

Honestly I skipped the article because I haven’t gotten to play this game yet and I didn’t want to know anything about them. But I am a fan of the traditional dungeons and without them the the BotW games feel too flat and monotonous. BotW largely got away with it because the overworld itself was so well designed. The journey was the reward. I didn’t feel that way about TotK. I hope these dungeons are well received and Nintendo reconsiders excluding dungeons like this from the series.

The only atelier game I’ve ever played is Atelier Iris way back on the PS2. I’ve been curious about trying one of the modern ones. I’m thinking about the Ryza series. The fact that there’s three of them is both a pro and con to me.

I was looking at this last night. The pixel art looks great. Thanks for the review; I may get this eventually.

It is the difference between being a leader and a follower. Nintendo leads and Sony and MS follow. And I’m not usually a console warrior type of guy, but I mean it’s pretty hard to dispute this in my opinion. Nintendo invents the d-pad when everyone else is doing Atari style joysticks or dials. Nintendo puts analog sticks on the controller. Nintendo does the rumble pak. Motion controls. There are many other examples.

On the other side of the ledger Nintendo shied away from CD technology, probably their biggest blunder, so others innovated in that area. Other companies do often iterate and improve on Nintendo’s ideas. I’d say the dual shock improved on the N64 controller. But Nintendo is still the “leader”. They are like the laboratory where new forms of play are experimented with. Then everyone else cashes in on the successful ideas.

I never played this game, but I did play Worms 3D on the original Xbox. It was one of the best and funniest multiplayer games I’ve ever played. Sounds like this has that same spirit. How is Worms 3D viewed by the series fans? Is it well liked? I take it Armageddon is considered to be better?

Serious gamers who are paying attention may reward them for this but the consumer masses will likely not know or distinguish between games made with and without AI. AI will therefore be money saver with little downside for many developers and Nintendo refusing to participate in this “innovation” may lead to fresh wave of negative comments from investor types. Beyond that we’ll have to see what happens…

Amazing, I honestly thought this was impossible. I’m curious to learn some details like are they doing a new localization or reusing the working designs one? I’m not the biggest fan of the blurry top and bottom of the screen. I’m wondering if when you switch the graphics to the old style it’s the sega cd graphics or the player ion graphics? The screenshots are clearly based on the PlayStation graphics. Anyway these are great games, highly recommended to anyone who wants a straightforward traditional JRPG. They are pretty lighthearted, fun adventures.

Whelp, I will definitely be getting this. I had some doubts at first but they are gradually being replaced by optimism. Ultimately I have to play it and decide for myself. I’m looking forward to it!

Pretty good score. I’ll be getting this later this year I think. Can’t wait to read the full review though and see what’s really going on!

I thought this one looked good. Here’s hoping that the delay doesn’t signal something wrong with the development of the game. A delayed game is eventually blah blah blah etc.

Initially I was very skeptical, but if digital foundry is convinced that certainly adds some weight to this. Those guys usually know what they’re talking about.

@Bonggon5 I agree but I would add that there’s something in the Ice Palace in LttP that’s kind of tricky as well… I can’t remember the details, but I remember being stuck in there for quite a while. Granted I was like 7 at the time. But yeah for the most part the puzzles are always easy.

I will be getting this, because I have gotten every Zelda game since 1993… but I’m not sure that I’m expecting to like it. I can’t tell… it might be different and unique, cool, or it might be different and half-baked which is sadly what I kind of expect from this franchise now.

@XE77 agreed. I predict that sometime before Nintendo’s 150th birthday both Sony and Microsoft will give up on consoles, becoming purely subscription apps on smart devices. Nintendo will wind up the only major console maker left.

Frankly now that I see it I'm even more doubtful. It looks too much like the exact same system, just bigger. I feel like even if Nintendo went with an essentially very similar concept for the switch 2 (which I hope they do) they would make a few more changes and tweaks than this.

Ugh, I was afraid of this. Every time I saw the game I thought “how well can this possibly run on switch?”

They look pretty realistic/plausible… but at the same time there’s nothing shown here that couldn’t be easily faked. I don’t know. Regardless the suspense is killing me! I just wrote yesterday that I didn’t expect to hear anything until after Christmas but I’d really like to be wrong!

This question has been on my mind ever since the partner directs last month - does this mean there’s no September direct? And I’ve decided that the answer is probably “yes”. I don’t think the switch 2 reveal happens until after Christmas, and I don’t see much need for a direct for the Fall games. I also assume that there is little need to talk about 2025 games as I assume most of those are actually switch 2 titles. The switch is winding down. We’re going to get that classic Nintendo dry spell where like no games come out for six months and then the console launches in September 25 or something. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic but that’s what I’m preparing myself for.

I’m on the fence on this one. On the one hand I don’t really go in for this type of game usually. On the other hand, I do love Tolkien’s world. Plus, I just read the Hobbit to my two small daughters and they loved it, so they might get a kick out of this. Basically I guess this delay is good since the game will presumably get better and I’ll have more time to waffle lol

@CurryPowderKeg79 I hope not. I will say both the street fighter collection and capcom fighting collection were real cartridges…

Astro Bot in Smash confirmed.

I wonder what’s going on with Dragon Quest XII? When will we get an update on that game? That would be a very welcome surprise, so I’m sure it won’t happen lol.

I mean it’s earlier than I expected but they certainly could do it this month. I was thinking it would probably be after Christmas. But they usually do some kind of direct in September and I was wondering if the recent partner showcase was taking the place of that. These rumors could indicate that some kind of first party news is still coming. Maybe just an announcement of an announcement?

I’m planning to get this just for Powerstone. The changes don’t concern me, they seem pretty minor. They do seem weird and unnecessary though. What is the theory here? A game explicitly themed around beating the crap out of each other needs to be desexed just a tiny bit, or else impressionable players will have the wrong kinds of thoughts about women? If players are that impressionable how are they supposed to interpret all that fighting? Eh, whatever.

I have thought a lot about AI ever since ChatGPT came to wide public consciousness two years ago. I have concluded that it is unrealistic to try to stop AI or slow down its implementation or whatever. So I feel for the voice actors and agree with them in principle, but ultimately I think AI will replace many of them and it will do the same for many other workers from lawyers to coders to office workers, etc.

This is a must purchase for me… I have to wait for pay day though. But these guys always deliver. They’re batting a thousand so far.

Maybe someday.

I mean, what price is acceptable depends on how advanced the machine is. But I will say historically Nintendo has preferred lower price points to keep that barrier to entry down. I’m expecting $300-350. I would go higher personally but I’m not sure if parents will which is a big part of their market.

I do not think these are the golden days. This is obviously my own opinion, but I believe gaming peaked in 1999. The golden era is basically NES through Dreamcast. The launch of the PS2 began the decline of gaming (I know a lot of people love that era but like I said, it’s just my opinion). However I do the the Switch and the now fully mature indie scene have ushered in something that I might call a “silver age”. I don’t know, I mean there have been individual good games all along but that feeling that gaming was just getting better and better ended for me a long time ago.

I think we need more book length analyses of individual games. If games really are the art form of the future they should be able to support this kind of deep dive.

I’m not surprised. I took this to be the implication of promising only an announcement this fiscal year. If it was releasing this fiscal year, the announcement would likely have already happened. I do not expect an announcement too soon… possibly as late as January (otherwise they could have said an announcement was coming “this year” rather than “this fiscal year”). I don’t expect a release until maybe a year from now. However I would be excited to be wrong, since I do feel the switch is getting a little long in the tooth.

I predicted this would happen. But unfortunately, these versions tamper with the games uselessly… still, all in all it may be worth an purchase all things considered.

I’m ready for the next thing, for sure. I have a massive backlog but hopefully everything will be backwards compatible as rumored. I have a launch switch and it’s starting to show its age. The fan is quite noisy now and… I don’t know, it’s been dropped a few times… I’m just hoping it can get me there!

A few theories:
1. Emio sounds like Mario. Therefore this must be the third Mario brother, and his games will evidently have a Silent Hill vibe. Mushroom Kingdom survival horror confirmed.
2. Horror is scary and scary is bad. Bad things lead to frown faces, not smile faces but actually a smile IS a frown, upside down, which is the key insight that leads to solving the riddle. We can now translate the Smiling Man as the Frowning Woman. And Emio backwards is actually Oime. So that clears things up.
3. How would you get a bag off your head? With scissors! Therefore Nintendo has bought the rights to the back catalogue of Human Entertainment and this is a Clock Tower thing.

Pretty sure it’s one of these three. But don’t worry, no need to congratulate me until I’m proven right.

It’s a big mistake IMO to not port their older titles to modern platforms. They produced some of the best RPGs of the last couple decades. Truly the old spirit old Final Fantasy went to Mistwalker, showing that Sakaguchi was something of an auteur all along. This company could grow to be a major fan favorite, but not if they allow their titles to languish in obscurity on defunct hardware. Maybe he could partner with some other company to port them…

I have to say I don’t usually get this feeling. I go back and replay old games all the time, and I usually feel that they hold up fine (or better than fine!) I don’t really understand this feeling, although I accept that apparently a lot of people feel this way. Like, people are worried they’ll ruin their memories if they replay it and discover that it wasn’t as good as they remember it being? Does anybody feel this way about music or movies or is it only video games? I would like to understand this better.

I have this game on a steam, but I would double dip. It’s very good.

If you’re speaking to a journalist you should always assume you’re on the record, unless it’s specifically stated otherwise. Why did he think this Bloomberg reporter was messaging him anyway? Just to have a friendly private chit chat?

@GrailUK well I think you’re making a fair point, but I would just say that to me a game (and a series) is defined really by its mechanics and structure. How does the game play and how does progression work? Zelda has done everything imaginable it feels like and at this point it has almost no identity left. The last thing the franchise needs in my opinion is even more experimentation. They need to take one of the many promising ideas they’ve introduced and give them another shot so they can refine them.

I was excited when the new Zelda got revealed… until Aonuma said “does this mean Zelda will be swinging a sword? Well we decided to do something surprising…” (or something like that). I literally turned to my wife and said “Oh no.”

My hot take is that Aonuma has not done a very good job managing this franchise. I’ve thought so for years, way before BotW. I actually wrote a letter to [a Nintendo Life competitor which I will leave unnamed] making my case. They did not agree, lol. But I think my former favorite series has basically been killed. This game may be very good… but why is it a Zelda game? I feel like Aonuma just wants to make other kinds of games and I guess his position at Nintendo requires him to make everything Zelda?

I’m not too worried about this game in particular, but I think the trend towards very very long development cycles is not good. It’s bad for AAA studios and it’s equally bad for indie studios, for a number of reasons but principally because it makes every game very high risk.

@Jiggies I bought the same bundle! What a bargain! I started with replaying the Crash games (I had all of them back in the day) and these remakes do seem really faithful and good at least as far as my memory can tell. Enjoy these games a lot, I definitely recommend them to anyone into traditional platforming games.