N00BiSH

See now THIS is a Direct worth watching.

Also, it's worth mentioning that Tomodachi on 3DS sold 6.72 million units. It's commercially successful enough for the sequel to warrant its own dedicated Direct imo.

I'll just stick with Rayman Redemption, thanks.

@Narrator1 They dumped Konno because the Booster Course Pass which he produced made Mario Kart World look bad

Joking aside, it does seem like the old guard is starting to phase out at Nintendo. It's definitely a bit jarring, but I'm not too worried about it personally. They've been pretty good about retaining employees and passing down institutional knowledge to future devs so that they can keep making solid quality titles. Whatever happens next, we'll hopefully be in good hands for future games(assuming we don't all make a big stink about them not exactly what we think we wanted, of course).

Also, looking into it, both Konno and Tanabe both started their careers with Doki Doki Panic as directors on that title. Funny that.

I promised myself I wouldn't be too much of a crank about this film(last time I'll talk about this, I swear)anymore but I do have to ask: do really need a direct for this?? I'd rather they just shadowdrop a trailer like a normal movie.

Let's just say fans of Missle Megs are in for a real treat

_{folks are totally gonna be normal and not vilify him because his name is on a bunch of Paper Mario games people don't like}

Anyways, while Tanabe may have had some misses here and there, he still had a hand in enough stellar titles throughout his career; enough for me to look past his missteps(unlike some others here). Wish Tanabe all the best, and congrats to Tabata.

Doug Megatron

@squiddu-real First of all, please don't conflate my frustration as just dumb "nostalgic bias." This is something I only really started thinking about a few years ago. It's less "ruined childhood" and more "you never knew what you had til it was gone."

Second of all, I bring up Kermit because if even you can tell the difference between the Henson/Whitmire/Vogel takes, the latter two were still ultimately picked for how well they could match with Jim's specific Kermit performances as closely as possible, same with Mickey and Bugs. They don't have be direct clones, but any successor in those contexts still have to match their predecessors. It's literally their job, which is ultimately my point here. Just like it is Kevin's job to match Charles' specific Mario performances, which is exactly what Nintendo has been having him do, and you'd have to be painfully oblivious to not realize that.

And let me clear: I understand that Kevin's casting was ultimately a Nintendo decision, but that doesn't mean he's infallible and there's nothing inherently wrong with voicing criticism with his performances. I'm sure he's a skilled actor elsewhere, but I don't think this particular role is reflective of that.

@squiddu-real people use the "different take" argument, but there's nothing different about it. They're literally directing him to sound exactly like Charles, down to the pitch and inflection.

Also y'know this argument is really annoying. "wHy Do YoU eXpEcT hIm tO SoUnD JuSt lIkE ChArLeS???" Gee I don't know, maybe because that's literally the point of casting a successor to the ESTABLISHED voice of a legacy character like this? No different than how they recast say, Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny or Kermit the Frog.

Kevin didn't kill Charles, but he is killing Mario - through a bad performance, as melodramatic as that sounds.

Also, they're ZEROES. Not O's.

@The_Nintendo_Expat ah but you see, Kevin is doing an impression...the kind you'd hear in an edgy 2000's Newgrounds parody.

It's nice to know that Afghani recognizes Charles' importance in shaping Mario's character through his iconic performance.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that Kevin can't really match up to that with his terrible takes.

@waluigilives They pretty much squandered the electricity theming hard. Concordia don't really push the concept of a world inhabited by living electronics beyond "the NPCs are based on electric plugs."

By contrast Dream Team's main location, Pi'llo Island, does a great job of fleshing out its combined concept of "dream/sleep-themed vacation spot," with areas like Pi'llo Castle, Wakeport, Dozing Sands all having a great deal of worldbuilding; these ancient environments once inhabited by a mysterious race of dream-travelling Pi'llos now turned into resorts and attractions to entice a large variety of tourists(be they Toads, Yoshis, Beanishes, Hooski's, and Block people), while still preserving the history and mystery of the original denizens of the island. It's just way more interesting.

@waluigilives I have a list.

• Be genuinely funny
• Lean more into the wackier tone of the other games(with some good natured Luigi gags)
• Feature actual compelling character moments(see: Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team)
• Have strong art direction and music(preferably with Masanori Sato and Yoko Shimomura's involvement)
• Keep it shorter than 40 hours
• Doesn't downplay the fact that the series is Mario AND Luigi. Not with. AND.

(deeply frustrated sigh)

Brothership's OST isn't awful, but it certainly isn't anything special. A mix of samey instrumentation and uninteresting compositional choices that don't really try to pull above their weight result in what is a fairly forgettable soundtrack that just blends together into audial mush. Hideki Sakamoto's not an untalented composer, I'm not saying that, but this isn't the best reflection of his skills.

The blandness of the OST can mainly be attributed to Acquire deciding to ditch series composer Yoko Shimomura, going by the very flawed logic of "We're a new studio so we need a new composer." A baffling choice, in my opinion. Not just because nobody should be too good to pass on Shimomura, but also because her musical stylings helped give Mario & Luigi its unique voice as a series to begin with. The incredibly varied moods and motifs she created through her music elevated those games from simple gateway RPGs into truly unforgettable experiences.

From the battle themes...

...to the environment themes...

...to the various event and character themes...

...and of course, the banger final boss themes.

Take all of that away and(along with other things) it stops being Mario & Luigi and just becomes a generic Mario game, something Acquire failed to recognize during their bumbling struggle to try and capture the sound of Mario on a superficial level, without recognizing that there was more to it than that.

But hey, that's what happens when you get a team that makes something "Mario & Luigi-like" instead of just making a Mario & Luigi game.

@Dee123 how DARE those money grubbing wretches lock a game behind a $50 paywall when I could easily get a perfectly good physical copy for a much more reasonable $800+ price on eBay

Nintendo more like Nin-GREEDO Iwata would be rolling in his grave at this disgusting sideshow

@ImpromptuR you are aware that NoA is only a small division of NCL, and as such aren't wholly responsible for what gets released where, right

I see "being a decent company" wasn't one of Ubisoft's New Year's resolutions.

Hope those affected don't have too much trouble finding new work.

Wonder if we'll see King K. Rool in the roster. Would be a nice way to reaffirm that he's here to stay after Bananza.

A true gentleman would never rely on LLMs and GenAI for art direction and puzzle design

@Strawblaze Not entirely true, you can change the music if you have 100% completion. At least, that's what I heard.

Tragic way to go, and way too soon. My condolences to his loved ones, and God rest his soul.

So many folks here bending over backwards to try and defend what is by all accounts a pretty terrible use of technology. Much as I would love to engage this further, I'd rather be doing literally anything else. I will however say this:

If you constantly rely on GenAI/ML/LLMs for any part of the artistic process, you are imo, lazy, and uninspired. Any attempts to justify it just come off as a way of saying "I have very little thought for the eons of effort every creative has ever put into their work and find the process of making art inherently meaningless." A perception that is so shallow and uninformed it practically tells me how you see the world. Our irrepressible imaginations are one of the few strengths we have as a species and if you can't be bothered to act on that and have to rely on an algorithm to imagine things for you then you're the biggest waste of carbon and water ever put on the Earth. To reiterate, I don't inherently despise new forms of technology. I do appreciate when new tech creates new tools to help better with creative endeavors. But it's been like 3-4 years. This GenAI craze has been going on for that long and it hasn't made better art than what came before. If anything, art's only gotten way worse.

I very much hope that all this GenAI junk and it's many intrusive uses unceremoniously crashes hard into a 540ft ravine as it should, with the decency to never try and crawl out.

Not that it will, unless it somehow can generate climbing tools, which I sincerely doubt.

@PharoneTheGnome I'm not a luddite, make no mistake. I do appreciate and am open to when new technology can help with the creative process. But none of this new tech has done any of that. If anything it's done the opposite. It doesn't make things easier or convenient in any meaningful way, and frankly, calling ML/GenAI/LLMs a "tool" is just plain false. It's an undesired service that doesn't really help anyone. It's anti-art, pure and simple. It's telling that you say there are "good games that are made by HUMANS that use some AI tools" but haven't named a single one.

What a stupid hill to die on.

@PharoneTheGnome Tools are actually reliable and don't usually come at the cost of devaluing the work of artists or dismissing the general creative process.

@PharoneTheGnome I'm getting the impression that you don't really like artists very much

@PharoneTheGnome at least low quality shovelware from the olden days was still ultimately made by actual people. Actual artists. They still had to put in some level of effort rather than relying on LLMs to generate everything for them.

People who make the "It isn’t going away, live with it" retort seem to be oblivious to the fact that no one has to live with anything if they don't like it or find something more detrimental than it is beneficial. Quite frankly I find machine learning of any kind to be a punishment rather than a boon and I think the folks gassing it up are frankly pathetic and lazy.

this comment section is about as abysmal and doomeristic as i expected.

More folks need to be content with games just being content complete. We don't always need more more more.

@Scapetti BLASPHEMER

@AussieMcBucket This ain't about him. 'Sides, he's a Mario character, not a Wario character.

The definitive Wario experience. It has it all:

• A cartoonishly surreal aesthetic
• Combat that makes you feel like a pro wrestler
• The greatest pause music you'll ever hear in your life
• Charles Martinet's best Wario performance
• Bosses that look like sleep paralysis demons
• Greed, greed, greed for DAYS
• An inspirational story of tenacity and profit

If you're in love with God's Gift to man(aka Wario) as much as I am, then you owe it yourself to play this.

@PinderSchloss Agreed, they gotta put more effort into selling F-Zero's characters. They're just as important to the games as much as the core racing(or at least they should be).

@NolandC

...okay. whatever lets you sleep at night.

@NolandC ...it's been 8 months.

Why would you drag this back out now???

2's a lovely time but I'm more interested as to whether or not 3 will get a rerelease. That's where it's at for me.

@rio_j you mean like how they've been doing for the last couple of months

I refuse

@Yoshi3 Grinding is still collecting.

@Yoshi3 Well by technicality, yes it is. Grinding is just a more tedious collecting process. And again, you don't even need to buy 200. You just need to buy only one for it to qualify as completion. Unless you really want to see a number go up, you don't have to waste time "grinding" if you want to beat the game.

@Yoshi3 "dude you’re complaining about having to find things in a collectathon."

Said the pot to the kettle.

@8bitKirby they don't even squeak! What's the point of buying a rubber ducky if it doesn't squeak?

@Yoshi3 it's 880 moons, and you only need to buy the one moon from the shop for it to count towards completion. Anything else is just an extra.

I don't care how easily you can beat them, 100-coin challenges are still tedious on replays and the weakest part of Mario 64. And if you don't want to act like they're not pixel hunting, fine. Whatever. You know what DOES qualify as pixel hunting? Sunshine's blue coins. Those are tedious as hell. Having to find and spray the exact right spot 8 times on every map to get all 240 is an objective slog.

@Yoshi3 "Which actually stands as a challenge and requires actual gameplay?"

Neither, really. Both are time wastes in their own right(the former is glorified pixel hunting, the other is grinding), but the difference is that at least the latter isn't actually required to 100% the game.

@Yoshi3 "buying 200 stars or moons, without real, fun gameplay involved, is “engaging” and a “mechanic” … then ooohhh boy, that just tells me you know nothing about gaming design."

I didn't say that. I said you chose to buy more "COLLECTIBLES"(and yes that is the OBJECTIVELY CORRECT MONIKER no matter what's you say) instead of choosing to play the game to find them.

Maybe you just don't like collectathons.

@Yoshi3

"100 coins vs 1000 thingies? Really?"

Yes, really. 100 coins in 64 are a pain to collect. You pretty much need a guide to know which mission is going next you the coinage needed and it takes forever to scour the level beat every enemy just make sure you have 100 of the things IN ADDITION to making sure you're not in a spot where it's impossible to get the star since it spawns the moment you get the 100th coin. A painful slog. Compared to Odyssey, which goes like this:

• I see the moon
• I go over to the moon
• I grab the moon
• bing bang bop, donezo

Simple and efficient by contrast and the game does a good job of guiding you to most of the moons without it feeling like a hassle 95% of the time(with some exceptions).

"Also, green stars are far better than “buying” 200 moons or bananas from a store just to reach 100%."

If you like having to replay missions over and over just to make sure you're in the exact right area to find the star since the levels are so linear.

Do you really expect me to believe that just simply buying extra collectibles(which aren't technically even required) is somehow more of a slog than that? I'll save you the trouble of answering that: NO. IT ISN'T. If you're just wasting time buying collectibles then that just tells me you don't actually want to engage with the games and their mechanics(which wouldn't surprise me given how much you seem to dislike Nintendo's current design philosophy).

@Ryanm519 people will look past every critical point so long as they have shallow references to point at and clap for