Comments 333

Re: Talking Point: 'Remake' Vs. 'Remaster' - What's Your Definition?

Matl

To me, remakes tend to necessitate some major aspects of the game being remade to be classed as such. This could be remade character models and an all new artstyle such as with Xenoblade Definitive Edition, or a much more blatant one to one recreation like with the Dead Space remake a while back. Remasters meanwhile typically mean updated graphics, in most cases a simple upres to HD - so games such as Skyward Sword HD, Baten Kaitos 1+2, etc, come under that umbrella to me. Additional quality of life features or such would also make the game fall under this term for me. Games that are ported more or less with little to no significant changes are just ports. Of course, lots of games skirt the lines heavily for all three of these terms.

Then for games that completely re-envision an older title (Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, the Resident Evil remakes), those are simply brand new games. They are so significantly different from the source game mechanically that I can't really see them as a "remake" - they utilise the same story and themes etc., but its a brand new title otherwise.

Re: Reminder: LEGO Animal Crossing Sets Are Out Today, Will You Be Picking One Up?

Matl

@GravyThief the newer series of lego sets they do nowadays are a lot more underwhelming than those of the 2000s and prior, since the new sets condense so many parts into a smaller model that makes you look at the piece count and go "huh?" as you wonder where the parts went.

Add to that there was way less focus on licensed sets and the variety of themes is just so low now. Seriously, there's barely any of the cool original lego themes any more like aqua raiders, exo force, bionicle, etc - nowadays we have Ninjago and that's basically it. A theme that's been going for over a decade. It genuinely sucks.

Re: Talking Point: What Would Make You Happy To Give Up Physical Games And Go 100% Digital?

Matl

Only if physical was not a thing whatsoever would I ever be put in a situation where I would even consider going purely digital - and at that point, I may as well just pirate the big games from nintendo since they never go on sale for decent prices. Paying for digital indie games is different since there's rarely much opportunity for them to get physical releases that are easy to come by, so there wouldn't be much change there. Might be playing on a steam deck or such instead of a nintendo console at that point, but I doubt the looming digital future is bound for nintendo any time soon.

Re: Round Table: Let's Talk About Palworld - Comparisons, Controversy, 'Copying'

Matl

Only seen a little of the gameplay of Palworld, and it doesn't look like anything special whatsoever mechanically. In terms of the designs of the creatures, though... it may not be AI or directly copying models from actual Pokémon, but its skirting the creature designs SOOO closely that I cannot but look at this game as nothing but a shameless low effort attempt to cash in on the monster catching genre as well as generic third person survival crafting gameplay.

The endless waves of controversy have definitely changed my stance from "oh its that Pokémon game with guns" to "oh this is very obviously doing very very little to innovate or be its own thing in practically any way at all" - and the fact all the development studio seems to make are more knockoff games such as the Hollow Knight one mentioned in the article just puts the nail in the coffin that they simply are not passionate about creating something valuable with their products - they are a copycat developer and I cannot think of anything they produce as anything meaningful.

The worst part of this whole debacle though is that people are eating up this slop with zero regard for quality, uniqueness or originality. It sets an awful precedent that as long as the general core of the game is as base level appealing enough for a large amount of players, the devs do not have to put any effort into making a genuinely great product.

I just hope I stop hearing about this game soon lol

Re: Soapbox: "Go Outside, Get Some Fresh Air" - Why Won't Outmoded Gamer Stereotypes Die?

Matl

Not heard it as much as years and years ago, but this stupid mindset exists everywhere and its extremely sad to see. The years and years of media endlessly portraying gaming as a truly awful thing a child should ever participate in will be lingering for a long time to come, unfortunately - despite it being literally no different to a person watching TV as their hobby.

Re: Soapbox: This Year, The Game Awards Failed The Industry

Matl

@PinderSchloss TOTK not winning game of the year has literally zero correlation with viewers, developers and everything in between being upset that the AWARDS SHOW that is supposed to be celebrating the industry is giving said industry people little to no opportunity to have their rightful spotlight.

Its very shallow on your part for thinking the two are correlated at all - let alone the snarky first comment you made.

Re: Random: The Game Awards Urged Eiji Aonuma To 'Wrap Up' Zelda Acceptance Speech

Matl

Game devs who put their entire being into making a great game: 60 seconds then this rude "wrap it up" bs

Yet we have time for Anthony Mackie to piss about with the audience for 5 minutes with nobody to stop him, and 10 minutes to chat to kojima about a game trailer that is barely even a trailer, and further extends the section to welcome some actor - all whilst showing ZERO GAMEPLAY, by the way

There is so much wrong with this event, and it never changes year to year

Re: Talking Point: What's Next For The Super Smash Bros. Series?

Matl

New game, vastly cut back roster but it revamps the movesets of a ton of veterans. More focus on modes this time round as well, and hopefully the distribution of playable characters is weighted a bit more evenly as well. Sakurai will likely return in some form, could be anything really - he has very obviously spoken with nintendo about what the future of the series is, so its safe to say he will be involved to some capacity.

Re: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 6 Speeds Onto Switch Next Week

Matl

Finally, we can start to look forward to a brand new game after all this time. 8 is good and all, but having a decade of the same game when we would typically get a proper new mario kart every 3ish years has been tiring to say the least.

As for the last wave, wii rainbow road is awesome, rest is alright. Will enjoy for a week then forget they even exist, much like every other wave in this dlc.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Super Mario Bros. Wonder?

Matl

100% the game, and its great! For me though, there are just a good handful of small downsides that drags down the overall experience a little (e.g. the boss fights, or not being incentivised to use any badges beyond the parachute cap outside of self-inflicted challenges), but it was a brilliant time through and through. I only wish that at its core you had more actions available to you - as it stands you just have a jump, crouch and ground pound. Having at least a dive move would make the game feel a bit more interactive at a base level, plus would provide more interactions between various level elements and the power ups. Just imagine blowing a bubble, jumping onto it, blowing another, then diving onto that one for large gap skips. The game just feels very railroaded in a sense, but thats not entirely a bad thing at all. Just glad to finally see 2D mario being not dull for the first time in over a decade.

Re: Poll: Which LEGO Animal Crossing Sets Will You Be Splashing Your Bells On?

Matl

For what they are, the sets are pretty neat. Obviously aimed at a lower age market, so they are pretty simple and have a playhouse type feel to them so they're easily played with.

The prices though are egregious, waaaay too pricey for what is presented. The typical price to part ratio lego fans use as a metric for decent price (10 pence/cents a piece) isn't really there at all, and a ton of the parts seem to be very small parts that are cheaper for lego to produce. No specialised parts outside of minifigure heads, either.

But the sets are cool. Hope people invested in the series appreciate them more than I ever could. Looking forward to what nintendo lego collabs lie in the future.

Re: Talking Point: Would You Buy A Digital-Only 'Switch 2'?

Matl

@Nico85 The primary benefit is actually having a tangible item to own, and the benefits that brings with it - you can resell the game down the line if you want, they make for great display pieces, its just fun to have a collection of physical games and feel genuine attachment to your collection whatever size it may be. Then there's the obvious safeguarding against digital store closure, and the potential of nintendo just going "no you can't play that now" and them revoking your license for a game.

A lot of the issues people bring up with having digital games tend to be very pointless in my eyes - like "I have to go and get another game from a case and put all that effort into swapping cartridges" is just a stupid argument imo; if that is a genuine issue for a person that suggests to me that they do not have their physical games stored in a decent way, or are extremely lazy. The complaints of not having enough room only really stems from if a person has a lot of physical games, which I simply do not feel like most people have very many nor is it much of an issue to actually store them 9 times out of 10. You just need a shelf. Simple as. Maybe two shelves if the average person has a good handful of games.

There just doesn't seem to be any decent reason why digital is any better than physical outside of convenience, but I really do not think that carrying a few game carts around with your switch in a case is much of a hassle - and be honest, would there even be any reason why someone would absolutely NEED to carry more than a few carts with them on any trip? Digital costs more, requires more investment into storage, the titles can be revoked at the publisher's whim at any time if they want to, there is no genuine attachment to a digital collection - the list of drawbacks goes on.

Re: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Tops Another 'Greatest Games' List

Matl

@Reztobi Just because xenoblade isn't the most popular series shouldn't exclude any of the titles from being a contender for a top 100 game.

Hell, if we want to play the sales game then why the hell is advance wars on the list? It didn't even reach a million sales, which all the xenoblades on switch have passed by a large margin.

Re: LEGO Announces New Super Mario Set Featuring A Piranha Plant

Matl

Lego desperately needs to do more "premium" sets like these at this price range. SOOO much more justifiable for the average person than every adult oriented set that is at least triple digits in price. Hopefully we see more like this set, which I'll very likely pick up!

Re: Soapbox: Can You Really 'Spoil' A Mario Game?

Matl

Depends on the specific game - odysseys endgame setpiece is definitely something I would say should not be spoiled for new players, but if the general plot of a mario game is going to be "beat bowser" without anything super amazing and unbelievable happening to get to that point, it doesn't really matter in my eyes.

It needs to be a really cool and unique setpiece for me to warrant caring about having it spoiled - and even then, I can live with it. I watched the insane finale of Kirby and the forgotten land before even touching the game, yet I felt exactly the same as I would have done if I hadn't been spoiled on the ending. Going through something myself is what matters most, so spoilers be damned for the most part.

Re: Unity To Charge Developers A Fee Each Time A Game Is Installed Next Year

Matl

This is awful. This screws over so many devs of all sorts - those already deep into making games with unity are screwed over completely out of their control, larger devs are not going to be happy to be forking over a tax for literally no reason, and this is going to affect every game made with Unity already out on the market as well. For no reason but corporate greed.

This should be illegal, hopefully unity gets the crap they deserve and they cease to exist. Scum company.

Re: Talking Point: Would A Third Wave Of Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC Have Been Too Much?

Matl

Just make a new game. No need to artificially extend ultimate's lifespan with a port and more characters, the game has run its course.

Plus I don't want to have any more stupid bickering about theorising who can or cannot get in and supposed leaks and patterns to hint at the next character, we had YEARS of that and it was insufferable, and the mario kart DLC has been going through the exact same thing! It's annoying, just move on from hoping there's a port with more stuff. Next game will be fully new. End of.

Re: Sakurai Can't Imagine Future Super Smash Bros. Games Without His Involvement

Matl

The various comments on how "they can't possibly go back to a smaller roster, they HAVE to top ultimate in some way" confuse me. The next game could safely have a roster of around 40 with mostly brand new movesets for veterans that absolutely need the reworks after 20 plus years, and people would be happy. A lot of the smash roster could easily be cut without much complaints from most fans - there is inherently a good chunk of "filler" and less popular characters that could get the axe easily.

As long as this next game gets a healthy amount of modes and a substantially sized roster, people won't care too much. They'll cry that they removed sora or cloud or banjo etc and then move on and proceed to buy and play the game regardless. Smash sells on the name alone, it doesn't NEED to one up ultimate when a reboot of sorts would be very much welcome and appreciated by a massive amount of the fanbase.

Keep your staples, redo the old-timers' movesets, balance out the representation - thats all the next roster needs.

Re: Talking Point: Which Is Your Favourite Nintendo Controller? Every Nintendo Pad Ranked

Matl

I went for SNES controller. It just feels great in every way and has literally nothing wrong with it, whilst other brilliant controllers like the gamecube or switch pro have rubbish dpads or other such things that take away from the overall "score" I would give them - or the controllers flat out don't have certain features they should, which also takes away from them.

Re: Nintendo Debuts New Battle Theme From Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

Matl

@DrGonzo Ah, so its a crutch to make fair and valid comparisons between two things in an article? Got it.

The articles these guys write are always enjoyable to read regardless of if they include comparisons to things not directly about the article topic. That's just a normal thing to do. If you don't like it, just ignore it. Don't have to comment negatively about the writers' work for absolutely no reason at all.

Re: Nintendo Debuts New Battle Theme From Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

Matl

@DrGonzo "Sounds a little like persona" is also the first thing I thought upon first listening to this, I think its the choice to use certain instruments that does it. Not a bad thing at all, its just a slight coincidence that people can hear general persona-ish music cues in this track. Its not an outright bad thing to say "X is a little like Y". Its fine to mention a fair comparison in an article.

Ignoring the persona arguments this is undoubtedly going to bring, song sounds amazing as per usual from the xenoblade music team. The next week can't fly by soon enough!