As someone who rolls their eyes whenever the whole ‘CAN GAMES BE ART!?!?’ debate rears its head, I… err, greatly enjoyed reading Ed’s take on the whole ‘CAN GAMES BE ART!?!?’ debate. A refreshingly level-headed take.
@nintendozach You seem to be assuming that the pre-orders were placed directly with Nintendo and that Nintendo is refusing to honour them, when in fact the pre-orders were placed with a third-party (Walmart) which seeming can’t honour them due to its hands being tied by Nintendo for unspecified reasons, even though many other third-party retailers are apparently having no issues shipping their pre-ordered copies to customers.
Some people have suggested stock issues. Some have suggested anti-scalping measures. Some have suggested that Walmart (and Amazon) have transgressed in the past and now Nintendo of America are doing this as a sort of… slap on the wrist?
No one seems to have a particularly solid grasp on the situation, least of all… you.
…Or perhaps it is all very simple: Nintendo are deliberately cancelling all pre-orders they’ve received because, as a company, they value spiting their customers and taking them for granted more than selling the primary product that makes them money.
This could well be the simple truth that only you can see, and everyone else is, as you put it, slow.
@nintendozach I’m don’t think your comment is (necessarily) wrong. I just think it’s funny.
To be honest, I’m hard pressed to say what is right/wrong regarding the situation at this moment. It seems rather self-defeating and is (as far as I’m aware) completely unprecedented.
Obviously people aren’t dictionaries, languages are fundamentally fluid, and the internet blurs regions together anyway making clear delineations difficult to define. But that’s what appears to currently be considered ‘standard’ usage (if such a thing exists) by the people who compile dictionaries.
Not that it really matters. The word itself appears to derive from the 17th century dialectic word ‘tyd/tid’ (meaning ‘tender’) so there’s an argument to be made that ‘tidbit’ is actually more historically accurate.
But had an excuse to write TITBITS in all-caps and I jolly well seized it.
TIDbits, Jim!? TIDbits!? Come now man, you’re British — not Briddish! No need to ape such prudish Americanisms! Say it loud and proud: TITBITS!
Anyway, hard to know what to make of the game at this stage. The screenshots scream “pleasant but potentially unremarkable indie game”, but given the creator’s credentials I’m sure it’ll be more than that.
…I’m just not sure how at the moment.
And sorry for the earlier outburst. This sort of thing just… gets on my tids, y’know?
@Thief It’s definitely an unfair characterisation and you’re obviously at liberty to put your money where you wish, but it does seem a shame to deny yourself an excellent gaming experience because the guy who founded the company that published the game posted a spoiler for an unrelated game on Twitter once.
Dunkey doesn’t like XC3 and Dunkey also doesn’t like cheesecake muffins so now I refuse to eat anything other than cheesecake muffins in order to spite a YouTuber I have never met. #winning
@Lizuka To be fair, that’s largely due to the current exchange rate. The dollar is strong and the yen incredibly weak. You can go out and get a slap up dinner in Kyoto for the price of… I don’t know, a pizza in New York.
In more concrete ‘gamer’ terms, the OLED Switch is about $100 (~30%) cheaper in Japan than the US at current exchange rates. For Americans, it’s a great time to visit the country and spend like crazy — which partly explains the current tourism boom.
But this product is aimed at the Japanese market, which consists of people paid in yen. From a domestic perspective, it’s not super cheap: around 25% more expensive than Tears of the Kingdom for a retro throwback collection.
In terms of savings, the Fami Controllers and physical Switch game would cost ¥6,578 + ¥3,828 = ¥10,406 if bought separately, which is ¥528 ($3.39) less than the ¥9,878 being charged for this Deluxe edition. Obviously there’s other stuff in the box aside from the game and the controllers, but it goes to show that the savings aren’t astronomical.
TL;DR: Dollar strong, yen weak, everything in Japan is (relatively) cheap for Americans right now.
It takes a little research to see that Japan has just experienced the highest number of inbound tourists on record. I’m not sure what the ‘obvious reasons’ are, but they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping people away.
(…Unlike the preceding COVID travel restrictions which pretty much turned off the tourism tap entirely.)
Anyway, I was in Uji last week but had no idea they were building the museum there! I always assumed it would be in Kyoto City proper. I wish I’d known as it would have been fun to have a peek at the building, even if it’ll be a while until we can get inside!
@nintendozach They’re not all infallible, but they all make excellent use of the colour xinquilothonetxez, which lends the games an undeniably* unique and vibrant aesthetic.
*Those who have xinquilothonetxez-specific colour-blindness may deny this.
As a fellow expat/immigrant/resident in a foreign land/foreigner in resident land, a lot of sentiments in this article resonate (especially the bit about the man-eating sharks).
The internet is a great tool for keeping connections alive, but there’s nothing like being in the same room swearing at each other as Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing for the hundredth time to make you think,
I think you guys should retire the word ‘Soapbox’ and replace it with a snappier title like:
Hey!!! Let’s Confuse The American Readership With Lighthearted Tongue-In-Cheek Opinion Pieces About Largely Inconsequential Bugbears We Want To Get Of Our Chests!!! Showcase Your Inability To Grasp Nuance With A Disgruntled Comment In The Comments Section Below!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!
Agree that the Korok and, err… ‘sign-guy’ shirts are pretty cute — probably because of their subtlety rather than in spite of it.
Sticking a giant franchise logo on the front of something is invariably the easiest way to make identifiable ‘brand merch’ of any variety, and those kinds of designs will always be on the market.
It’s nice to see these crossovers used to do something a bit more playful (not to mention understated).
If you want a shirt with a big ol’ Hylian Crest plastered on the front, then you can have that too. Here are at least a dozen variations on that theme:
@Devann I almost believed someone could legitimately get this worked up over a harmless, good-natured joke on a video games website… but then I remembered what day it was.
Tears offers the player significantly more freedom. That much is as clear as day.
…But I would argue that Breath better captures the spirit of adventure — and adventure has always been what makes Zelda tick.
The feeling of embarking on an epic adventure is only contingent on the world feeling big, but the player feeling small within it. Without that contrast, there is no sense of awe or wonder, without which there is no wanderlust: no motivation to explore. Without which there can be no adventure.
Tolkien’s epics feel epic precisely because they are mainly carried out on foot or horseback, filled with detours, stopovers, and memorable encounters en route. If Frodo and co. had simply flown on broomsticks from the Shire to Mount Doom, the scale would technically be unchanged, but the sense of scale would be vastly different.
Even beyond the world of fantasy and fiction, we find ourselves drawn to accounts of gruelling, hard fought adventures: continent-spanning bike rides, epic hikes, and voyages over oceans by boat, navigating fatigue, hunger and stormy seas. If the same trips were to be completed by helicopter or private jet, there would be almost nothing to write home about. It’s the graft we’re after, not the distance.
To me Breath feels epic because it makes you work at the act of traversal. You have to fight for height; no sailing gaily up into the heavens on a stone elevator that convenient crashed down to earth moments earlier.
Elevation functions as the fundamental currency of exploration, broadening your perspective on the landscape and letting you glide down to whatever catches your eye. But this currently is not freely given: it is the fruit of hard graft, which makes reaching the top of a mountain feel like a genuine achievement — even if the only tangible reward is a single Korok seed, or simply a pretty vista!
The main piece of concept art for Breath depicts Link staring out over an expansive Hyrule, which paints a pretty good picture of what the game is about. The other piece of key art shows Link scaling a nondescript rock face against the backdrop of a setting sun. This picture is perhaps easily forgotten, but I feel describes the game just as well. Link is going nowhere fast, and a long day of travel has already passed. It stands in contrast to the iconic Tears picture of Link perched on the edge of a sky island, staring downwards. One is about ascent: arduous and slow-going. The other is about descent: the liberty to soar as free as a bird to the world below.
Tears is definitely bigger and freer, but I greatly prefer Breath’s more measured adventure. The sun may have set on Link’s initial open-world outing, but to me it remains the closest we’ve ever come to a perfect adventure game.
@sanderev Okay, so, a robot that can serve at, err… 169mph? 157mph? 134mph? Whatever your definition is of a tennis robot that can feasibly be beaten (…but has never actually been demonstrably beaten by anyone ever).
According to your argument, whatever can be beaten by TAS can be beaten by a human because all TAS does is string a series of inputs together and a human could do the same. This is like saying a monkey could write the full works of Shakespeare given a typewriter and enough time: technically correct, but realistically outlandish. You’d end up with a whole lot of dead monkeys before you even got the first paragraph of Romeo and Juliet.
The whole point of the course clear condition in Mario Maker is to ensure that a human actually has completed the level before being uploaded. This is the assumption that the 0% team are also working on. Introducing a pixel-perfect programmable machine makes a mockery of this condition, and of the entire challenge. It could string a billion frame perfect inputs together that no human could hope to replicate in their entire life (though such a level would be flagged a up lot sooner than this seemingly feasible one was).
The condition that a human has actually managed to complete a level is clear, fair, and as far from arbitrary as you can get. It’s in the very spirit of the game.
Your assertion that TAS and humans can be considered equivalent as they are both just inputting devices (ergo no illegitimate level can possibly be uploaded) is absurd: you are literally arguing that the difference between a robot programmed to manipulate a game on a frame-by-frame basis and a human playing the game in real time is arbitrary. It is absolutely not!
@sanderev “Never having been beaten by a human and only getting uploaded because someone had a specifically designed robot complete their level“ does not sound arbitrary in the slightest.
It’s like trying to beat a someone at tennis but that someone is not a someone but a machine that can launch serves at 1000mph.
That is not a legitimate tennis game against another human, and this level was not legitimately completed by another human in order to be uploaded.
It’s perhaps an underwhelming way to end the challenge, but the criteria themselves are rock solid.
Splatoon 1 was the reason I got a Wii U. I was sucked into the concept from the first trailer and almost a decade later it still hasn’t let me go.
There’s very little in the first game that hasn’t been comprehensively improved on in subsequent titles, but the specific vibe of the first game — more playful and innocent than the edgier sequels — means it it will forever hold a unique place in the series.
Given that we already had ‘does what it says in the tin’ editions of Mario Tennis and Golf in the form of the console versions, I found it quite refreshing that the portable versions forged their own unique, less Mario-centric path!
It was a daring and possibly divisive decision, but one that ensured that the GB games were much more than watered down versions of the console releases.
I can see there is room for confusion, as the way the article talks about the events doesn’t quite line up with the official branding.
In short: There was a big in-person event with tournaments and concerts scheduled to happen back in December. The in-person event was cancelled and the concerts were postponed to now (and performed without a present audience).
The article refers to the in-person event as ‘Nintendo Live’ and the concerts as just ‘concerts’. The official branding calls them both ‘Nintendo Live’.
Either way, all that happened was that the big event got cancelled and the concerts got postponed.
@norwichred It’s explained at the beginning of the article. The original article on the cancellation/postponement of this event is also linked. Here is is again.
The bowing seems a strange thing to find fault with. At the very least there was an online audience, and given that this is meant to be a ‘live’ performance, it doesn’t seem unusual for it to contain all the usual formalities — bowing included.
@supermario4ever @chucksneed If we’re playing competitive Well Actually… then you could fairly argue that Rica Matsumoto was the original VA for the character known as Satoshi.
The original VA for the character ‘Ash Ketchum’ was, as the article states, Veronica Taylor.
I don’t imagine Rica ever thought she was voicing a character called ‘Ash’.
@Porky I think anko’s popularity might take a bit of a nose-dive if the theme were extended worldwide, resulting in a lot more mirror matches and complaints.
The cooking process is pretty much the same as making jam (sans added pectin) but it’s made from beans and not berries which gives is a slightly earthy (though by no means unpleasant) flavour.
I really, really enjoyed how this was written — and illustrated! A wonderfully vivid article!
I was going to comment saying just that, but I also spotted a typo: “even if that is just a little 3DS nub added on to stop us from showing 'Switch 2' games in our old consoles”
@duffmmann This is journalism. Probably the hardest hitting investigative journalism I’ve read all year. Dude literally infiltrated Nintendo’s HQ, snuck under Reggie’s nose and got the sneaky deets on the coming year. Not sure what more you could ask for.
Glad to see fellow commentators haven’t forgotten about Condition 13.A.iii of Article 71X, Section 42 stipulated in Rules and Relations of Writing on the Internet:
“No jokes, however well intentioned or clearly signposted, may be uploaded to the Internet outside the hours of 00:00 to 12:00 on the 1st of April in any given year. At all other times writers must remain po-faced and humourless so as not to cause consternation or confusion amongst readers of a similar disposition.”
I swear this is a real rule. My uncle is Tom Bernard-Sleaze and he wrote the rule when he invented the Internet.
@Pete41608 The logical backflips keep getting more dizzyingly acrobatic.
Apparently less transparency is morally and ethically preferable in this case. It would have made a “huge difference” (…what kind of difference… to what?) if the company had decided to actively conceal the amount donated. This is opposed to being fully transparent so that people can, if they want, compare it to annual revenue and see that yes, it is indeed a relatively modest amount (though no doubt still appreciated).
It’s like giving an orange to a homeless person and then boasting on Instagram about how you’ve “helped erase poverty and would encourage anyone who has the means to do the same”. Surely it’s better to just say, “I gave an orange to a homeless person” than to imply you’ve done anything more?
Let’s recap the following options from worst to best:
3) Donating 50 million yen to disaster relief and fully disclosing the amount. — “Sickening”
2) Donating something but concealing the amount — Would make a “huge difference”, apparently.
1) Donating precisely ¥0 — Seemingly the best choice as this is the option that almost every other company in the world has chosen and been spared any criticism.
Might have the order of 1 and 2 the wrong way around, but it seems fair to say that neither of them would be considered “sickening”.
Seriously… the lengths that people go to drive home the bleedingly obviously point that: yes, Nintendo is not your friend, it is a multinational mega-corporation — one that just happens to make things that you like.
@RubyCarbuncle You are very much allowed to criticise multi-billion dollar corporations on here and it’s probably better if you do, but there’s wisdom in picking one’s battles:
“We have donated 50 million yen to disaster relief”
“That is bad and you are bad for saying so”
…just comes across as a bit silly, really.
If you really want to bring down a corporation, a good place to start would be not buying its products and thereby lining its pockets. Lampooning it on a forum for giving away its own money (or… announcing this?) is an exercise in futility and an act of virtue signalling in its own right.
(To be fair, the same could be said of pretty much any public facing statement made via the internet. We’re all looking for some form of validation regarding something we deem virtuous, praiseworthy or just, otherwise we probably wouldn’t post at all.)
Comments 2,900
Re: Best Nintendo Switch Puzzle Platformers
Animal Well seems like a strong candidate for this list.
Yes, it’s a ‘Metroidvania/brainia/whatever’, but the Metroidvania genre as a whole could just as easily be described as ‘open-world platformer’.
Whatever you call it, it’s got puzzles and platforms galore!
Re: Mailbox: 'Switch 2' Launch Ports, Soulslikes For Beginners, Poké Parks - Nintendo Life Letters
As someone who rolls their eyes whenever the whole ‘CAN GAMES BE ART!?!?’ debate rears its head, I… err, greatly enjoyed reading Ed’s take on the whole ‘CAN GAMES BE ART!?!?’ debate. A refreshingly level-headed take.
Re: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Online Pre-Orders Are Apparently Being Cancelled (US)
@nintendozach You seem to be assuming that the pre-orders were placed directly with Nintendo and that Nintendo is refusing to honour them, when in fact the pre-orders were placed with a third-party (Walmart) which seeming can’t honour them due to its hands being tied by Nintendo for unspecified reasons, even though many other third-party retailers are apparently having no issues shipping their pre-ordered copies to customers.
Some people have suggested stock issues. Some have suggested anti-scalping measures. Some have suggested that Walmart (and Amazon) have transgressed in the past and now Nintendo of America are doing this as a sort of… slap on the wrist?
No one seems to have a particularly solid grasp on the situation, least of all… you.
…Or perhaps it is all very simple: Nintendo are deliberately cancelling all pre-orders they’ve received because, as a company, they value spiting their customers and taking them for granted more than selling the primary product that makes them money.
This could well be the simple truth that only you can see, and everyone else is, as you put it, slow.
Re: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Online Pre-Orders Are Apparently Being Cancelled (US)
@nintendozach I’m don’t think your comment is (necessarily) wrong. I just think it’s funny.
To be honest, I’m hard pressed to say what is right/wrong regarding the situation at this moment. It seems rather self-defeating and is (as far as I’m aware) completely unprecedented.
I’d definitely welcome a bit more context!
Re: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Online Pre-Orders Are Apparently Being Cancelled (US)
@nintendozach
nintendozach wrote:
Let’s hope for your sake there are other usernames out there as well. Thankfully, @microsoftzach and @sonyzach don’t seem to be taken.
Re: Monkey Island Creator's "Zelda Meets Diablo Meets Thimbleweed Park" RPG Looks Delightful
@Ogbert Most dictionaries list ‘titbids’ as the standard British spelling and ‘tidbits’ as the US variant.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/titbit
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/titbit
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/titbit_n?tl=true
Obviously people aren’t dictionaries, languages are fundamentally fluid, and the internet blurs regions together anyway making clear delineations difficult to define. But that’s what appears to currently be considered ‘standard’ usage (if such a thing exists) by the people who compile dictionaries.
Not that it really matters. The word itself appears to derive from the 17th century dialectic word ‘tyd/tid’ (meaning ‘tender’) so there’s an argument to be made that ‘tidbit’ is actually more historically accurate.
But had an excuse to write TITBITS in all-caps and I jolly well seized it.
Re: Monkey Island Creator's "Zelda Meets Diablo Meets Thimbleweed Park" RPG Looks Delightful
“…with screenshots and tidbits…”
TIDbits, Jim!? TIDbits!? Come now man, you’re British — not Briddish! No need to ape such prudish Americanisms! Say it loud and proud: TITBITS!
Anyway, hard to know what to make of the game at this stage. The screenshots scream “pleasant but potentially unremarkable indie game”, but given the creator’s credentials I’m sure it’ll be more than that.
…I’m just not sure how at the moment.
And sorry for the earlier outburst. This sort of thing just… gets on my tids, y’know?
Re: Review: Animal Well (Switch) - An Exceptional Metroidvania That Stands Out From The Pack
@Thief It’s definitely an unfair characterisation and you’re obviously at liberty to put your money where you wish, but it does seem a shame to deny yourself an excellent gaming experience because the guy who founded the company that published the game posted a spoiler for an unrelated game on Twitter once.
Re: Review: Animal Well (Switch) - An Exceptional Metroidvania That Stands Out From The Pack
Dunkey doesn’t like XC3 and Dunkey also doesn’t like cheesecake muffins so now I refuse to eat anything other than cheesecake muffins in order to spite a YouTuber I have never met. #winning
Re: Localiser '8-4' Offers To Help Translate 'Retro Game Challenge 1 + 2 Replay'
8-4 have done a stellar job on the English side of Sakurai’s channel. I’m sure they’d knock this out of the park.
Re: Nintendo World Championships: Famicom 'Special Edition' Includes NSO Controllers
@Lizuka To be fair, that’s largely due to the current exchange rate. The dollar is strong and the yen incredibly weak. You can go out and get a slap up dinner in Kyoto for the price of… I don’t know, a pizza in New York.
In more concrete ‘gamer’ terms, the OLED Switch is about $100 (~30%) cheaper in Japan than the US at current exchange rates. For Americans, it’s a great time to visit the country and spend like crazy — which partly explains the current tourism boom.
But this product is aimed at the Japanese market, which consists of people paid in yen. From a domestic perspective, it’s not super cheap: around 25% more expensive than Tears of the Kingdom for a retro throwback collection.
In terms of savings, the Fami Controllers and physical Switch game would cost ¥6,578 + ¥3,828 = ¥10,406 if bought separately, which is ¥528 ($3.39) less than the ¥9,878 being charged for this Deluxe edition. Obviously there’s other stuff in the box aside from the game and the controllers, but it goes to show that the savings aren’t astronomical.
TL;DR: Dollar strong, yen weak, everything in Japan is (relatively) cheap for Americans right now.
(As someone paid in yen, this pains me greatly)
Re: The Nintendo Museum Is Now Complete, Scheduled To Open In The Fall
@Sakogha https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/04/17/japan/society/record-high-inbound-travelers/
It takes a little research to see that Japan has just experienced the highest number of inbound tourists on record. I’m not sure what the ‘obvious reasons’ are, but they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping people away.
(…Unlike the preceding COVID travel restrictions which pretty much turned off the tourism tap entirely.)
Anyway, I was in Uji last week but had no idea they were building the museum there! I always assumed it would be in Kyoto City proper. I wish I’d known as it would have been fun to have a peek at the building, even if it’ll be a while until we can get inside!
Re: Nintendo Event Cancellation Suspect Charged For Sending Threats Via Contact Forms
@Diogmites Kyoto Shimbun is the name of the newspaper that ran the report!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Shimbun
Re: Nintendo Apparently Wanted Samus Aran's Fortnite Skin To Be A Switch Exclusive
This is the most Cluedo-ass name I have ever heard. Has anyone checked to confirm that he is real (and also not the murderer)?
Re: Feature: 10 Game Boy Deep Cuts That Aren’t On Nintendo Switch Online
@SuperRetroArt
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20cut
Re: Hatsune Miku's Fitness Boxing Game Is Getting A DLC Update
Hastune Mike is up there with the great Mikes of boxing: Tyson, Quarry, Gomez, Jackson, etc.
An absolute shoe in for a game like this — or should that be ‘glove’ in!? Hahaaaaaaah!
Re: WayForward Director Says Nintendo Changed The Way He Looks At Making Video Games
@nintendozach They’re not all infallible, but they all make excellent use of the colour xinquilothonetxez, which lends the games an undeniably* unique and vibrant aesthetic.
*Those who have xinquilothonetxez-specific colour-blindness may deny this.
Re: Soapbox: I Flew 3,000 Miles To Get My Arse Handed To Me In Mario Party
As a fellow expat/immigrant/resident in a foreign land/foreigner in resident land, a lot of sentiments in this article resonate (especially the bit about the man-eating sharks).
The internet is a great tool for keeping connections alive, but there’s nothing like being in the same room swearing at each other as Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing for the hundredth time to make you think,
“Moments like these arse so, so precious”.
Re: VTuber Horror Game 'Evil God Korone' Gets A Surprise Release On Switch eShop
Oh goodie gumdrops! I’ve been waiting for a chance to chop off my… “finger”.
My body is so ready to repeatedly "walk to the left" on my usual way home.
Let’s goooooo!
Re: Soapbox: The Games Industry Needs To Give Up On Exclamation Marks!
I think you guys should retire the word ‘Soapbox’ and replace it with a snappier title like:
Hey!!! Let’s Confuse The American Readership With Lighthearted Tongue-In-Cheek Opinion Pieces About Largely Inconsequential Bugbears We Want To Get Of Our Chests!!! Showcase Your Inability To Grasp Nuance With A Disgruntled Comment In The Comments Section Below!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Uniqlo Range Officially Announced
Agree that the Korok and, err… ‘sign-guy’ shirts are pretty cute — probably because of their subtlety rather than in spite of it.
Sticking a giant franchise logo on the front of something is invariably the easiest way to make identifiable ‘brand merch’ of any variety, and those kinds of designs will always be on the market.
It’s nice to see these crossovers used to do something a bit more playful (not to mention understated).
If you want a shirt with a big ol’ Hylian Crest plastered on the front, then you can have that too. Here are at least a dozen variations on that theme:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=hylian+crest+t+shirt&crid=21IH2ZLW7QLMJ&sprefix=hylian+crest+t+shirt%2Caps%2C263&ref=nb_sb_noss
Re: Rumour: '1-2-Switch: Flashmob Frenzy' Is Apparently Coming Holiday Season 2024
@Devann I almost believed someone could legitimately get this worked up over a harmless, good-natured joke on a video games website… but then I remembered what day it was.
You got me good!
Re: Talking Point: Why Isn't Nintendo Revealing Its Partner Devs Before Launch?
@KBuckley27
Nintendo Barley is too busy working on a new range of craft beers for the discerning drinker. They don’t have time for games.
Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?
Tears offers the player significantly more freedom. That much is as clear as day.
…But I would argue that Breath better captures the spirit of adventure — and adventure has always been what makes Zelda tick.
The feeling of embarking on an epic adventure is only contingent on the world feeling big, but the player feeling small within it. Without that contrast, there is no sense of awe or wonder, without which there is no wanderlust: no motivation to explore. Without which there can be no adventure.
Tolkien’s epics feel epic precisely because they are mainly carried out on foot or horseback, filled with detours, stopovers, and memorable encounters en route. If Frodo and co. had simply flown on broomsticks from the Shire to Mount Doom, the scale would technically be unchanged, but the sense of scale would be vastly different.
Even beyond the world of fantasy and fiction, we find ourselves drawn to accounts of gruelling, hard fought adventures: continent-spanning bike rides, epic hikes, and voyages over oceans by boat, navigating fatigue, hunger and stormy seas. If the same trips were to be completed by helicopter or private jet, there would be almost nothing to write home about. It’s the graft we’re after, not the distance.
To me Breath feels epic because it makes you work at the act of traversal. You have to fight for height; no sailing gaily up into the heavens on a stone elevator that convenient crashed down to earth moments earlier.
Elevation functions as the fundamental currency of exploration, broadening your perspective on the landscape and letting you glide down to whatever catches your eye. But this currently is not freely given: it is the fruit of hard graft, which makes reaching the top of a mountain feel like a genuine achievement — even if the only tangible reward is a single Korok seed, or simply a pretty vista!
The main piece of concept art for Breath depicts Link staring out over an expansive Hyrule, which paints a pretty good picture of what the game is about. The other piece of key art shows Link scaling a nondescript rock face against the backdrop of a setting sun. This picture is perhaps easily forgotten, but I feel describes the game just as well. Link is going nowhere fast, and a long day of travel has already passed. It stands in contrast to the iconic Tears picture of Link perched on the edge of a sky island, staring downwards. One is about ascent: arduous and slow-going. The other is about descent: the liberty to soar as free as a bird to the world below.
Tears is definitely bigger and freer, but I greatly prefer Breath’s more measured adventure. The sun may have set on Link’s initial open-world outing, but to me it remains the closest we’ve ever come to a perfect adventure game.
Re: Random: It's Done! Every Super Mario Maker Level Has Been Cleared Before Wii U's Online Shutdown
@sanderev Okay, so, a robot that can serve at, err… 169mph? 157mph? 134mph? Whatever your definition is of a tennis robot that can feasibly be beaten (…but has never actually been demonstrably beaten by anyone ever).
According to your argument, whatever can be beaten by TAS can be beaten by a human because all TAS does is string a series of inputs together and a human could do the same. This is like saying a monkey could write the full works of Shakespeare given a typewriter and enough time: technically correct, but realistically outlandish. You’d end up with a whole lot of dead monkeys before you even got the first paragraph of Romeo and Juliet.
The whole point of the course clear condition in Mario Maker is to ensure that a human actually has completed the level before being uploaded. This is the assumption that the 0% team are also working on. Introducing a pixel-perfect programmable machine makes a mockery of this condition, and of the entire challenge. It could string a billion frame perfect inputs together that no human could hope to replicate in their entire life (though such a level would be flagged a up lot sooner than this seemingly feasible one was).
The condition that a human has actually managed to complete a level is clear, fair, and as far from arbitrary as you can get. It’s in the very spirit of the game.
Your assertion that TAS and humans can be considered equivalent as they are both just inputting devices (ergo no illegitimate level can possibly be uploaded) is absurd: you are literally arguing that the difference between a robot programmed to manipulate a game on a frame-by-frame basis and a human playing the game in real time is arbitrary. It is absolutely not!
Re: Random: It's Done! Every Super Mario Maker Level Has Been Cleared Before Wii U's Online Shutdown
@sanderev “Never having been beaten by a human and only getting uploaded because someone had a specifically designed robot complete their level“ does not sound arbitrary in the slightest.
It’s like trying to beat a someone at tennis but that someone is not a someone but a machine that can launch serves at 1000mph.
That is not a legitimate tennis game against another human, and this level was not legitimately completed by another human in order to be uploaded.
It’s perhaps an underwhelming way to end the challenge, but the criteria themselves are rock solid.
Re: Talking Point: Should 'Third' Pokémon Games Make A Comeback?
Personally I would prefer paying $180 for three broken games over $60 for one relatively functional one.
Re: Mario Kart Live Developer Warns Of Layoffs After "Major Project" Axed
@Pillowpants I don’t think this is post-capitalism, or pre-capitalism. I think this is just… capitalism.
Re: Surprise! Princess Peach: Showtime! Is Getting A "Limited-Time" Kung Fu Tea Collaboration
I like peach tea. It’s quaffable and breezy like air.
Re: Soapbox: As Splatoon's Online Wraps Up Nearly 9 Years On, How Does It Compare To Splatoon 3?
Splatoon 1 was the reason I got a Wii U. I was sucked into the concept from the first trailer and almost a decade later it still hasn’t let me go.
There’s very little in the first game that hasn’t been comprehensively improved on in subsequent titles, but the specific vibe of the first game — more playful and innocent than the edgier sequels — means it it will forever hold a unique place in the series.
Farewell OG Splatoon servers.
Rest Ink Peace
Re: Review: Mario Tennis (GBC) - Camelot's Ace Little Tennis RPG Is Hard To Fault
Given that we already had ‘does what it says in the tin’ editions of Mario Tennis and Golf in the form of the console versions, I found it quite refreshing that the portable versions forged their own unique, less Mario-centric path!
It was a daring and possibly divisive decision, but one that ensured that the GB games were much more than watered down versions of the console releases.
Re: Back Page: The Best Cows On The Nintendo Switch
@imadeanaccount
imadeanaccount wrote:
Who needs news when one has moos?
News is nothing more than prattle;
Puffed-up pundits waging battle;
Hearsay, gossip, tittle-tattle;
Lend your ear instead to cattle.
Re: Nintendo's The Legend Of Zelda Orchestra Concert Is Now Available To Watch For Free
@norwichred Sorry for jumping to conclusions.
I can see there is room for confusion, as the way the article talks about the events doesn’t quite line up with the official branding.
In short: There was a big in-person event with tournaments and concerts scheduled to happen back in December. The in-person event was cancelled and the concerts were postponed to now (and performed without a present audience).
The article refers to the in-person event as ‘Nintendo Live’ and the concerts as just ‘concerts’. The official branding calls them both ‘Nintendo Live’.
Either way, all that happened was that the big event got cancelled and the concerts got postponed.
Re: Nintendo's The Legend Of Zelda Orchestra Concert Is Now Available To Watch For Free
@norwichred It’s explained at the beginning of the article. The original article on the cancellation/postponement of this event is also linked. Here is is again.
The bowing seems a strange thing to find fault with. At the very least there was an online audience, and given that this is meant to be a ‘live’ performance, it doesn’t seem unusual for it to contain all the usual formalities — bowing included.
Re: Talking Point: Switch Is Nintendo's "Main Business" Right Now, But All Eyes Are On The Horizon
@johnedwin Thank you as always for your penetrating insight, though it comes a bit late this time. We’re already a good 40 comments in.
Re: Video: We Chat To Eastward's Composer About How Game Music Is Actually Made
I made some video game music!
…Although it’s not technically in a video game so maybe it doesn’t count…
There’s a title screen tune about an astro cat and a weird final boss theme about a flamboyant laser-shooting spacedude.
If anyone wants to put them in their video game let me know!
Re: Random: Ash Ketchum's OG Voice Actor Reflects On "Devastating" Moment She Was Fired
@supermario4ever @chucksneed If we’re playing competitive Well Actually… then you could fairly argue that Rica Matsumoto was the original VA for the character known as Satoshi.
The original VA for the character ‘Ash Ketchum’ was, as the article states, Veronica Taylor.
I don’t imagine Rica ever thought she was voicing a character called ‘Ash’.
Re: Splatoon 3's Weekend-Themed Splatfest Kicks Off Later This Month
@Porky I think anko’s popularity might take a bit of a nose-dive if the theme were extended worldwide, resulting in a lot more mirror matches and complaints.
Re: Splatoon 3's Weekend-Themed Splatfest Kicks Off Later This Month
@JimNorman Pleased to have bean of service!
Re: Splatoon 3's Weekend-Themed Splatfest Kicks Off Later This Month
@JimNorman As @Otoemetry has said, ‘Red Bean Paste’ is paste made from red beans!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_paste
The cooking process is pretty much the same as making jam (sans added pectin) but it’s made from beans and not berries which gives is a slightly earthy (though by no means unpleasant) flavour.
It’s the filling of the confection (Oban-yaki/Imagawa-yaki/Kaiten-yaki) whose name became the theme of Japan’s November Splatfest and there was also a ‘smooth’ red bean paste vs ‘chunky’ red bean paste Splatfest back in the Splatoon 2 days!
Someone at Splatoon HQ really loves their beans!
Re: Talking Point: Do You Want To See Colourful Cartridges Return For 'Switch 2'?
@JimNorman
I really, really enjoyed how this was written — and illustrated! A wonderfully vivid article!
I was going to comment saying just that, but I also spotted a typo: “even if that is just a little 3DS nub added on to stop us from showing 'Switch 2' games in our old consoles”
Let colour be free!
Re: Nintendo Reveals New Pastel Pink Switch Joy-Con Set
@Ogre84 Fun fact: Pastel pink was scientifically formulated to be the laziest possible colour!
Re: Nintendo Reveals New Pastel Pink Switch Joy-Con Set
If these don’t smell like cherry blossoms and taste like strawberry sundae I will be sorely disappointed.
Re: Over 50 Years After The Original, Pong's Sequel Gets A Switch Release Date
cant wait to become king of qomp and stomp all the other qompers at the qomp qompetitions
Re: Back Page: 'DO NOT MENTION SWITCH 2' - We Infiltrate Nintendo And Sneak A Peek At Its 2024 Calendar
@duffmmann This is journalism. Probably the hardest hitting investigative journalism I’ve read all year. Dude literally infiltrated Nintendo’s HQ, snuck under Reggie’s nose and got the sneaky deets on the coming year. Not sure what more you could ask for.
Re: Back Page: 'DO NOT MENTION SWITCH 2' - We Infiltrate Nintendo And Sneak A Peek At Its 2024 Calendar
Glad to see fellow commentators haven’t forgotten about Condition 13.A.iii of Article 71X, Section 42 stipulated in Rules and Relations of Writing on the Internet:
I swear this is a real rule. My uncle is Tom Bernard-Sleaze and he wrote the rule when he invented the Internet.
Re: Random: Nintendo Japan's 'Pyon Zuba Basha' Song Is Back And It's Still Ridiculously Catchy
Ayo it’s PYON ZUBA BASHA IYAA let’s not forget IYAAAAA y’all IYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Re: The First Review For Another Code: Recollection Is In
@UltimateOtaku91 8/10 is not low by any other metric than the Famitsu metric.
Re: Nintendo Donating 50 Million Yen To Aid Japan's Earthquake Victims
@Pete41608 The logical backflips keep getting more dizzyingly acrobatic.
Apparently less transparency is morally and ethically preferable in this case. It would have made a “huge difference” (…what kind of difference… to what?) if the company had decided to actively conceal the amount donated. This is opposed to being fully transparent so that people can, if they want, compare it to annual revenue and see that yes, it is indeed a relatively modest amount (though no doubt still appreciated).
It’s like giving an orange to a homeless person and then boasting on Instagram about how you’ve “helped erase poverty and would encourage anyone who has the means to do the same”. Surely it’s better to just say, “I gave an orange to a homeless person” than to imply you’ve done anything more?
Let’s recap the following options from worst to best:
3) Donating 50 million yen to disaster relief and fully disclosing the amount. — “Sickening”
2) Donating something but concealing the amount — Would make a “huge difference”, apparently.
1) Donating precisely ¥0 — Seemingly the best choice as this is the option that almost every other company in the world has chosen and been spared any criticism.
Might have the order of 1 and 2 the wrong way around, but it seems fair to say that neither of them would be considered “sickening”.
Seriously… the lengths that people go to drive home the bleedingly obviously point that: yes, Nintendo is not your friend, it is a multinational mega-corporation — one that just happens to make things that you like.
Re: Nintendo Donating 50 Million Yen To Aid Japan's Earthquake Victims
@RubyCarbuncle You are very much allowed to criticise multi-billion dollar corporations on here and it’s probably better if you do, but there’s wisdom in picking one’s battles:
“We have donated 50 million yen to disaster relief”
“That is bad and you are bad for saying so”
…just comes across as a bit silly, really.
If you really want to bring down a corporation, a good place to start would be not buying its products and thereby lining its pockets. Lampooning it on a forum for giving away its own money (or… announcing this?) is an exercise in futility and an act of virtue signalling in its own right.
(To be fair, the same could be said of pretty much any public facing statement made via the internet. We’re all looking for some form of validation regarding something we deem virtuous, praiseworthy or just, otherwise we probably wouldn’t post at all.)