NintendoJunkie

I thought I read somewhere, one time, that Nintendo consoles that don't launch with a mainline Mario or Zelda are cursed....

Not sure this would trigger any anti-trust laws. It is kind of hairy, if you lived somewhere where the only option you had was Netflix, then you might have a case. The truth is even two options, still leaves an option and it is hard to battle in court. Im not saying this is good or bad, just saying that because people are upset by it doesn't make it illegal.

In other related news..... wait Paramount is still around and has money?

The great and crazy thing about this game is how completely different all the characters play. It's almost like 15 beat em ups in one.

Nintendo should be able to protect their IP, but Palworld is the game at least trying to give fans something they would want. Not a wash, rinse, repeat of the same property for the last 3 decades.

Market demand opened the door for Palworld. Nintendo is just mad that someone ate their lunch while Game Freak was drooling in the corner.

As an artist do some of the pals get dangerously close, absolutely, so Nintendo might have a case there.

Genie is out of the bottle. Even if law abiding countries tamp it down playing whack a mole, not sure it will stop countries that dont care about IP from using it. It's a tough pickle for sure. In the end, all tech comes at the expense of labor. Im not convinced there will be a clean solution. The West seems to think the global stage plays by the same rules.

A true Shinobi game would be fighting against Spider Man, the Hulk, and Godzilla.

It is all starting to click. As folks have mentioned, the developer for this also has a history of making WWE games. That is precisely what this looks like. No wonder it is turning people off. Lighting with black and white lights, add an over-glossy fresnel, white rim light and make sure all your ambient light goes to black. Top that off with airbrushed muscular characters with most of their detail deriving from baked ambient occlusion. For an extra level of magic pixie dust, make all your particle effects additive, and repetitive size and shape language. Voila! You now have a recipe for a game that visually feels cheap, old and slightly ghetto.

@Darth_Spriggan Comically so. I beat all the old ones. This one handed it to me. Definitely not for the faint.

@Vyacheslav333 im holding onto hope that they are opening a door to CVS 3, but you could be right. Maybe their current approach with DLC is proving too effective financially to have them take the time for a legitimate sequel.

@Potimarron @Potimarron thanks for the clarity!

@TheSaneInsanity Im not casting stones. I'm genuinely curious , not looking for offense or a fight.

@Potimarron I haven't played it. Would you care to elaborate. Since this is written form I can't tell if your being sarcastic or honest.

I noticed some pretty shifty hitches in Alpha 3 with the newcomers. I assume it has something to do with additive sprites since it shows up when they kick off special moves, but still surprised even that would cause slowdown.

Team Cherry are already millionaires several times over. They can charge whatever they want and it really doesn't effect them. Indie companies fail all the time, it's the nature of a free market, and I hope it stays that way. However dont moan and preach about Corporate Greed or whatever imagined demon is convenient when companies shudder or do layoffs.

As for somebodies hot take on Team Cherry taking a hobbiest's pace on shipping this, that is wild. Three people delivering this amount of polish and content in 8 years is impressively fast. Please correct me if im wrong but didn't they also release DLC for HK in that time too?

@Ellie-Moo I am pretty big into Beat Em Ups. This is easily in my top ten or five beat em ups, definitely my favorite DD. When I first got the game, I swore it off because of the controls, but decided a few months later to dig in, and it was a huge pay off. Be warned the controls take some getting used to. Once you get over how it feels, this has one of the more modern and expressive fighting/combo systems out there. As others have mentioned, the levels can get pretty repetitive.

Im shocked they are still supporting this with free DLC. I would have hoped they would put more work into a sequel.

It is important to understand that Sony's investment division is generally pretty divorced from their Playstation division. It is impossible to understand the ramifications of this so early on. Could be a diversification in their portfolio, could also be testing waters. I was part of Epic when they invested and it only really served as a fast track for mutual interests, for example playstation store real estate, or getting Kratos in the game faster.

With this particular PR release, it sounds like it's completely tied to linear content strategy.

@user0 Holy crap! That is impressive. Curious choice to make half their team sound design.

Wow!...Superb presentation! How big is this team???

@StuTwo That is hilarious, I totally scrolled past it, thinking it was some drummed up old advertisement. It wasn't until I saw your comment that I went back up for a second look.

You are spot on, this is some of the best mimicry I have seen in years. Superb artistry.

@Misima You speak as if you know the inner workings of game making, or the industry. Games were waaaaay more expensive last century, you got less out of them and it was a huge risk because all you had was the box art. I would often buy duds, as did all my friends.

Society wants it all: cheaper games, better pay for employees, no indie devs going out of business, no Free to Play games, no layoffs, self interest wiped from all human existence. It's complicated and there will always be opposing opinions. There will still be cheap indie darlings that make runaway successes in the future, and just like today it will be rare. It's rough out there and there is no denying that. But Nintendo raising prices on optional entertainment that will probably get your money's worth out of, stacks low on historical injustices.

With a fast food burger meal costing $20 or so for something that lasts about 15 minutes and I feel like crap afterwards; A $15 dollar movie that lasts 2hours and usually disappoints; $80 for something I get hundreds of hours of play out of doesn't seem like a horrible deal.

Reading all the comments on art style for Ben's art makes me wonder if he's an Artist's artist. I've been an artist my whole life and a professional artist for the last 25 years, me and all my artist friends love his work. This is not a diss on people who don't like his work. Art is aesthetic and aesthetics are subjective. It is just a curious phenomenon. When you are familiar with what it takes to do what Ben is doing, it is pretty impeccable.

I saw a similar thing on a YouTube video where people were comparing SNK sprites to Capcom sprites and, everyone commenting loved the SNK sprites more.... I felt like I was taking crazy pills.

Now we just need Ultra SF4 and Capcom can rest.....

Can I just have Ultra 4 please.

I really don't care about any of these titles. I would love an update on Golden Axe and Streets of Rage.

@Timppis Right on the nose.

I've worked in the games industry for a quarter of a century. Prices of games have only gone down, while the cost to make a game has only gone up.

A lot of folks have been upset that indie studios have shuddered whilst complaining that prices are going up.

I think in the end the market will correct itself. If developers can't pay bills making games, they will go elsewhere and supply will go down.

This was my highlight in the announcements.

Day one for me.

There are a lot of really sound and deep thinking philosophers here. Curious how everyone sees the employees as somehow being chained to their desks. It's not like Ubisoft fate hasn't been stewing for a while now. I'm not saying losing your job is good but if the employees are so incredible they will find other jobs or make other companies themselves. If their ideas are good enough and their business sense is good they will then be successful themselves.

The armchair quarterbacking here is curious. I wonder how many here have actually run a business. Multiple things can be simultaneously true: Ubisoft has made crappy games for the last while now. The employees have been free to leave at any point. Upper management made bad decisions.

Making games is really really hard and takes a lot of things to work out right. With everything being so expensive, taking risks with new IP can lay out a company fast if it doesn't work out. The latest Prince of Persia game was phenomenal from what I understand, but how many people actually bought it. That was a huge bet that Ubi made and it didn't pay out.

Without swooping birds, it is not a true Ninja Gaiden...

I'm playing it through PSplus, and it looks amazing. The game is okay... a little disappointed. The frame pause on enemy hit is a little too long and the constant interruption of dialogue boxes grows tiresome after almost every page turn. It almost feels like a storybook first and a game second.

It is a beauty though, and the concept makes you want to love it.

I thought this far exceeded any expectations.

I don't get how folks dog on Prime's graphics so much. It is a marvel to me how much Nintendo can squeeze out of a phone that was outdated 7 years ago.

Echoes of Wisdom is some next level game design. That is a very elegant mechanic.

These have nothing to do with Konami but if they are looking for ideas:

Little Samson
Asura Buster
Street Fighter 4

CVS 3. And SF4 on the next Switch

@likelysatan I got pretty into this in November. At first I was turned off by the controls. It feels clunky compared to SOR4 or Fight N' Rage. But once you wrap your head around the paradigm they are going for, it gets pretty fun. I would put it in a mid tier category of beat em ups. I wish more beat em ups adopted some smart systems they use here. It is cool they are doing a free update.

@Spider-Kev @friendly is correct. Japan's labor laws make it very difficult to lay people off. It is ranked the hardest nation in the world to get fired from. That doesn't mean that Nintendo isn't doing great. It just means you will hear fewer stories like this from Japan.

@locky-mavo Sadly that is not the case. This is industry wide. A lot of indies are shuddering. You just don't hear about it because they aren't big enough to make a news article. This state of affairs has been building for a while. I used to work at Epic, before their layoffs and you could see the writing on the wall there. I joined an indie studio, and sister companies are dropping like flies. This is a multifaceted problem that simple distillations won't suffice. Not sure how long this will go for.

Game should be awesome, but those graphics look pretty phoned in. You can do way more than this on a Switch, especially an isometric game. I'll still buy it, but just saying....

Can't blame the devs for not working on a game that has already been put a year and isn't pulling in most money to support their work. Yacht Club did the same thing with Shovel Knight. They made good on their promises but said they would never do it again. It is really dangerous for a gaming company.

Epic is just paving the way to have E and M in the same platform. Much like Netflix or Amazon can have PG and R next to each other..... nothing to see here, move along....

Pretty booooring for me. The Team Ladybug game was the only standout. I am glad some folks got enjoyment out of it though.

@NinChocolate Agreed. SOR4 and Shredders Revenge raised the bar so high that I'm not sure a remake like this will any discernable splash.

Didn't like the 3D aspect of the 3DS and the inevitably flimsy clamshell drove me crazy. The 2DS was my weapon of choice.

@Zidentia Epic had, and from I hear from friends still has those issues. They tried their best to predict, but of course no one can really do that. They aren't holden to stock holders, so they at least didn't struggle with that as much. They definitely became more corporate as they grew, which is understandable and natural as a company grows in size. One of the reasons I left was it lost its family feel, I think I was like employee 113 or something.

What do you do in the industry? Programmer, art, design or something else?

@demacho No Argument taken. I can't divulge all of the initiatives since some of them are still en route. But an example would be the musical events, where the leads and the team both collectively wanted to do something amazing but burned themselves out and needed help the next time. I say this to clarify that a lot of internal Epic employees are highly motivated and driven to deliver the next big thing. Topping every experience wasn't something coming from above as much a within the teams pushing themselves and then realizing they couldn't do it without more help.

Additionally, there were several projects that they tried to spin up internally but didn't work out. Epic hired to make good on the vision and in the process got overstaffed when the projects fell through. This is no different than a lot of companies that staff up to make a product or game and the game ends up failing, resulting in studio closures. In this case, they had several of these that occured internally without announcement. Until this round of layoffs, Epic generally shifted people to other internal projects (mostly Fortnite) when the side initiatives fell through.

One final part would be Fortnite as a whole became so much bigger than the team could have the manpower to maintain. The content production couldn't keep up with demand. There were a lot of contract workers, but over time conversions would happen. A lot of times the bulk hires came in the form of support for teams like: QA, CS, more producers hired to manage the organization.

I should also clarify that I don't take greed enitrely off the table, I just don't think it was a factor in the layoffs necessarily. But it isn't a blanket application. There were a lot of employees that came on after Fortnite's success that wanted a bite of that pile of gold. Conversely there were a lot of people that wanted to be part of something big and different. I do take caution at leveling the criticism at Tim, specifically. Greed and Tim aren't really adjacent. He is far more concerned with technology and making technology that is accessible to the masses. It is difficult to explain but, he is not cut and dry. A lot of folks saw his attack on Apple as greed vs greed. It was more like Don Quixote. While at Epic, I couldn't talk about it, so it is weird to be able to now. Tim wasn't a teddy bear, but he tried to do right by his company, that are very much his family, and right by the future. I could go into more details but I hope this adds more nuance...???

@tanasten yeah it bums me out. I just found out a couple of friends got hit from it.

For context we were at about 700 employees when Fortnite launched and about 5 to six years later they grew to over 5000. It just couldn't sustain itself under the weight. It was a tough situation because all the departments were always wanting more help, while they took on more initiatives. Trying to make hay while the sun shined.

From Tim's email to the company, it sounds like they found some equilibrium. I hope so. It's really rough out there now.

@LadyCharlie I just want to clarify something. I understand that a lot of companies do what you are talking about. But that is not Epic. They got rid of past board members, because those board members wanted to take larger portions of bonus pools (50% and divvy them amongst the board). I will not name names but they were jerks.

Tim Sweeney on several occasions went to the mat with the board saying that all profits needed to be split evenly between the devs. He was only talked down because the rest of the board said that they needed to keep money in the bank for a rainy day. Tim consistently gave as much bonus money and stock options that he could without compromising the security of the company (and by extension everyone's jobs).

In the games industry there are a lot of jerks, misogynists, shady people, greedy shysters and everyone else you sense there are. That was not my experience at Epic. To my surprise any time a bad actor would show up in management, they had only a little amount of time before they were escorted out of the company.

Tim is a lot of things, like all humans, he is multifaceted and complicated. But he is not Mr. Burns, or any caricature of devious tycoons.

@Not_Soos @Not_Soos That is a great question. I left because:
1. My kids were getting older and I wanted to spend more time with them.
2. I lost my mom to cancer and went through a pretty dark time, Epic was very supportive in that time, but I reviewed a lot of what I valued in life then.
3. I wanted to do something besides Fortnite, and their vision of the metaverse. As an artist I wanted to explore new places.

Before more people spout off about what is happening. I was in senior Leadership for more than a decade Epic before I left this last January. This has nothing to do with corporate greed or shady business deals. Epic was very charitable to all of it's employees. Their benefits were bar none the best.

What really happened... they grew too fast and brought on lots of people. They started a lot of initiatives that pulled them too thin. Tim Sweeney's email to the company explains a lot. They are providing generous severence packages to all people leaving. I love Epic and they always treated me and my teams great. It is devastating to see realized, but a lot of us internally were feeling this coming a long time ago.

The games industry is in a really brutal time right now from big to little company's. Any speculation like the one above couldn't be further from the truth about Sweeney. You have no clue about what goes on inside. You just have conjured narratives.

It is sad. That said, their game didn't sell well or get great reviews. I'm surprised they are keeping them open considering how the bottom fell out of all game invested. It is down 85% since last March. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we will probably see more stories like this. The industry is really tough across the board. Especially for startups and investing firms. A lot of startups have shuttered already.