OptometristLime

I think the problem is more with the fanbase sorry to say... the Internet echo chamber makes people start believing that the opinions of a given collective are what hold sway over a company. When in fact they can create whatever they like and are not beholden to anyone in particular (outside of the business structure) and can/should create with impunity. The older generation of Pokemon fans start to feel like they own the franchise and all the games should be catered to a specific legacy. I think the Pokemon Company recognizes (perhaps rightly) that the primary audience for their games will always be the youth. Retaining a hold on adults is inevitable especially when parents buy what they remember enjoying and give it to their kids. But I think it's too much to expect this company to cater to an audience it hasn't served for a long time.

I appreciate this nod to loyalty (not that I think the exclusivity is a necessity per se) it does seem like most Pokemon enjoyers would already possess one or both of these entries.

It's rather quite satisfying to see that DS boot-up even for only a second or two. That clamshell design became an icon for a reason!

Really couldn't scrape any enjoyment out of Flame in the Flood myself, despite what seemed like an easy premise to succeed with. All they needed to do was ride the coattails of Oregon Trail and mix in some Don't Starve along the way. I chaffed at the graphics, camera, controls, crafting... menus in general.

Not sure if this is the way to proceed CDPR.

Triple A production values buckle in the face of this mega collaboration: the combined intelligence of plankton upon a substrate of discarded origami goats?

@Deviant-Dork you'd be surprised haha

Some folks make it a point to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I don't foresee any such controversies here though!

This one had to be a Kate contribution, I could tell before the click.

Was not disappointed as these tend to be whimsical, topical, and timely... I think it's just fun to read slice of life stuff more than it is to get all caught up in rankings and wordy fluff.

Dios bless this person "Malo"

It's a special thing about multiplayer experiences that almost barring any adverse circumstance, the profit of chancing upon that one encounter with a decent and courteous human can make one's digital day.

Sweaty melee audience, as in knowledgeable fighting game fans. Who likely also play myriad other games and franchises... seems a stretch but you're entitled to the opinion.

I thought there was already an announcement about the early GTA game(s) being ported to the Switch in official capacity.
These passion projects are a lot of fun and a service to their communities in theory, but it never seems like a sensible thing to announce broadly. However it would be interesting to see if these lawsuits ever could go the other way, not that they should.

This game honestly looks like trash, and I say that as someone who was empathetic to their project from the tag line. However the article's praise seems overly effusive as this looks like any junior project tapping into the Metroid aesthetic. Which taps into eons of rote imitation in this unending cycle of exploration platformers that are so in vogue.

Edit- looking on further into the video it seems like there is some depth of scope to the project. Initially the color palette and environmental stylings are simply too drab for a proper intro sequence. Nice to see that afterwards is some meatier chunk of gameplay. Still hard to tell properly where the project was at but it seems like it was something with the power to capture the Metroid feel.

@PessitheMystic has got to be more options than that surely, as software is a valuable commodity. I don't ascribe to emulation personally (yet) but it would be shameful and short-sighted to burn their ties to those products like a digital graveyard.

@ProfessorSoCool I slipped up on the wording, they have control but it looks like for the purposes of this demonstration they simply have the first 2 inputs toggled on continuously since there isn't a need to alternate the pressure.

It's perhaps some what less exciting once you realize the only control being asserted is over the rightmost finger, as the other buttons are receiving constant pressure. As a proof of concept it's limited but would be cool to see other applications of this principle.

Always bizarre to me when people try to flex on the news scribe/ messenger - I didn't find it difficult - it's like, who gives two shoves of a fresh fruit. If it was hard for one person it likely gave some sweats to others as well. The competitive mindset should be able to yield to the public domain of experience without kvetching over who cuts bamboos more easily.

phew

Very uncomfortable to watch, particularly that suit movement.

I would have liked to see them design scenes for Metroid lore and then involve the suit, rather than the other way around.

Just like @CactusMan I too like this article, a well appreciated expression of familiar game sentiments. Cooperative experiences are often the very best and most memorable times that we can enjoy in this hobby. And Nintendo is surely one of the most quixotic developers when it comes to maligning their own most popular genres / playstyles it seems, haha.

I have some hopes that the new Miitopia will strike the right chord and bring people together in a zany way.

@KateGray really interesting point you have there regarding the numbers, as indeed (you alluded to) he could be coding the game as a "passion" project for X number of months or years. Following that period we have the game in some unknown status, in need of the proverbial "polish" that actually marks the difference of whether your game is premium or interpreted as rubbish.

In that case if 10% of the bogusly misleading "Total Workload" is contributed towards bug fixes and patching the code into a workable state... this is a major and worthy contribution. Looks to me as if this was someone who wanted a legacy and discredited the other playwrights. Ehh these kind of egoist developers get under my skin so I'll simply make that observation and move onwards lol.

Sorry I gotta comment here that a lack of multiplayer is a horrible design choice. This was a very entertaining mode to play back in the burgeoning days of PC games and should absolutely be included here along with the rest of the port. Sad!

@Brummieendo90 your grasp of escapism is a bit shy of what might be needed to enjoy these subversive tales.

Lonk the Duracell bunny has a pivotal role in the course of world events.

@KateGrey I should have read the prompt more thoroughly, indeed my own inertia led me to an unfair conclusion. With a soapbox I sometimes expect either a (gaming) culture piece or in shallower channels, much haranguing over Twitter news. There is merit to learning about how the community experiences a game (and whether they see it 100%). So there was a trail of bread crumbs leading to further conversation but I've so trained myself to clickbait that I overlooked the intentions. All aside, I ended up being melodramatic in a way that was not very constructive. So I do apologize for that and in general probably should limit my consumption in less cordial areas of the interwebs.

How is this a soapbox, barely anything is divulged, there is no larger narrative, and nothing particular for the community to sink its teeth into. Unless our mutual feeling of despair is the red meat.

It might have been cool to hear about this in a larger context or if the save file would be erased upon completion. Staying in Hyrule is indeed highly desirable, but the real strange thing is you saw the emperor without his clothes and just walked away.

I don't think any machine learning was truly necessary whatsoever to make this compilation but it's still enjoyable to watch.

The emotional angst after that revelation

Well I think the quiz maker had the most positive take on that character, the clown mythos is something random that we sort of foist onto the character. It is a lot of fun to think he might be a secret psycho though lol.

Pumpernickel of Ages

The Thin Baker

Link's A Bakening

yea...

They want to use the titties to sell their game; this would endanger their marketing ploy and that's all, there never was anything more to their "stoic" decision not to capitulate.

Looking at this trailer in which the protagonist walks to the right side of the screen and absolutely nothing else occurs, I don't really care how their game performs to be honest lol. Sounds like they have bigger concerns then pointing fingers towards the potential audience.

Do you guys read these comments? There is still a game being left out of this list inexplicably, which will no doubt lead to confusion when it's announced else where and not corroborated with this Direct edition of theirs.

@KateGray

The overall vibe to me is one of imitation in this busy genre. Presumably this feeling emerges from the rather bare Unity style assets, this cribbing can diminish the impact of artistic stylings. Still early to establish which are being inventive, but Cozy Grove looks like it has the potential to deliver on story and character.

@KateGray I think you are missing Cozy Grove as there are no references to its presence in the montage.

@nerdface it only feels gross if you allow curiosity about the situation to shrink into judgement of others' decision making. Obviously one should put themselves first, if the alternative is total economic disenfranchisement / or the needs of the family are not being tended to. This person is no more advantageous than any other business owner, he isn't seeking to profit from any different class of fan base than existed prior to Covid.

As someone who also works in restaurant I can share your disdain of the system, and why eating food is not essential one could hardly say.

@iNintendo this gets back to pretty fundamental stuff around the Internet and being an adult in general. You don't get to choose the kinds of information that circulate about but you can certainly use your mind and predispositions to acquire the truth. Hiding the bad doesn't always leave the good behind.

@nessisonett

You're still trying to distract people from a mutual problem (the pandemic) by attempting to make xenophobic assertions about who categorizes into what group. It's totally irrelevant. I'm not sure if you are aware but the news of the virus has spread across the whole earth, and you hardly have the tones of a saviour just for bringing attention to the obvious. The issue is not whether common citizens are tone deaf, but rather the obnoxious and destructive response of many governments. Harping upon one disaster inevitably leads to a one-sided and extreme response, to the detriment of all other conditions. Not least among those the increasing depths of poverty and class level disparity, due to shops closing and employment being destroyed in entire sectors. These issues are not trivial whatsoever and seeking to isolate the pain in one continent or the other should be beneath us all.

@Zebetite eyy sorry we aren't so neatly cosmopolitan as you are guy, as regards the 'slurring' of everyone who disagrees with you into an inhospitable category. That does seem to be a pathological symptom of being shuttered away though - a vague sense of irateness against society and an air of disagreeable pretentiousness about the exotic situation.

Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing to live together as one species under the open air? I personally would avoid the delusion of thinking the problem is that of the "us" versus an evil and hypothetical "them." You might be in the spotless "us" category for a long time before realizing that everyone wants the same thing, and no one is going to change their views without a mutual olive branch towards the larger human community.

Hilarious.

Roll tide.

Who are these people in the comments, it seems like half of you want to equate the Smash following with Satan worship. You have to love the zeal at purging a segment of the game's community just to serve some more narcissistic "Internet" justice. Maybe just maybe this is a problem of the human condition and attempting to cauterize one limb of the community to save the whole is a self-defeating cause. Individuals are to blame, individuals can be prosecuted maybe salvaged for a future bettering of themselves. There is no amorphous mob to scourge or hold accountable.

This looks like a gigantic sell-out, the only compelling thing here is the character IP's themselves.

Are we (the author) really trying to say that a same-sex option was needed for this to work? It would require essentially double the workload and/or it would be incredibly trite to simply imagine that all these personalities swing both ways. I suggest that such naivete is ill-suited to someone seeking to assess the craft, or even have such expectations of indie studio games...

I don't think most of us are trying to be as "cultured" as to backstab grunge music that isn't trying to come across as anything but itself. Driving down a mountain to this is acceptable. Gives me some 1080 Snowboarding title screen vibes as well, lol.

The graphics look fine; clearly the expectations were impossible if people wanted to still see chunky voxel nothingness. I don't see how that would have held up whatsoever without people proclaiming that as "low effort" and "super lame."

Unfortunately no defense can be made of the actual gameplay which looks farcical and incomplete.

I feel like ***** on the license gave this whole shebang zero credibility. Now I'm relatively certain that this was mostly intended as a gag that lasted throughout, but it nonetheless comes across as particularly catty. Especially when you must certainly know that a faction of your audience will be adherent to that particular franchise. The rest of the review has then to stand on the one shaky leg that wasn't blasted away by this errant hand grenade of mistrust.

This looks really good.

If you're a Fire Emblem "purist" that upholds that status to the point of a snide attitude towards its competitors - this is a damn indie game btw - then you're not a fan of the genre at all, just a fool.

EDIT - dropped a few quid on the early backers slot (only 19 Euro) now we wait, and see what happens.

@BenAV

I was surprised to find such an abridged review here, and couldn't develop much of an opinion myself based on that. However I do see that length was the primary demerit and that is painful since the art looked top notch. You've got a point there 'cuz price to length is one of the closest correlations for gamers in this entertainment deluge, even if we might like to buy everything in an ideal world.

@BenAV

To be fair people who expect games to be hugely diminished in value before eliciting a sale would also lead to the death of the business lol. It's fair to say that you won't touch a game because it doesn't appeal to you, but putting that expectation on the developers comes across a little selfish. Price just isn't good enough of a qualifier to be the deciding factor - like I'll take a whole batch of nasty donuts because they are only a dollar.

This looks sick... definitely in my wheel house as a Jet Force Gemini uber fan, even if the game world/mythos was a lot cooler than the actual sequences lol.

@nessisonett - agree, we need some kind of channel for people who are more platform agnostic and enjoy game news of all kinds.

@Not_Soos I've about run dry on synonyms, lol.

It's definitely a tough ride being a Nintendo fan... it feels like any franchise that I invest in beyond a casual playthrough, usually leads to heartbreak. Eventually it becomes clear that Nintendo often takes a precarious, almost haphazard approach to "innovation" in a given series. Just like that skateboard kid who always looks for edge in some quiet situation... yeah guy sure change it up with your big world ideas. Dunno. Hopefully we'll see a return to form, a guy can dream.

This is all complete stoogery from the top... hogwash and horseradish to them I say. You are talking about a game series which was built DELIBERATELY on a TEMPLATE of traditional RPG elements. What a load of hot gas to claim that this franchise was ever intended to be a festering slew of ingenuity. Yes Mario RPG was a fantastic take on the genre - and NOT because it completely abandoned the archetypes entirely - but because it creatively evolved what had been set into motion by the genre. The very appeal and cleverness came from the knods at the original framework. It's like a painter who crafts a likeness of a person and then marvels at the tapestry - avowing all knowledge that its essence came from its mimicry of reality... with no intention to supplant the initial creative seed.

Whatever drunken spout of mental koolaid this man drinks from, it's time to shut off the tap and look at what people are saying outside of your office.

Game looks awesome, chalk one up for MS.

Also the game pass they have is pretty inexpensive, so I wouldn't fret overly.

How come the GBA version isn't mentioned here; I see that as being one of the best ways to play the series honestly.

TL3 is being updated constantly so it's a bit trite to refer to it as though in a static form of development. Remains to be seen how it will come through for us, but fingers crossed it will have some polish.

Full musical score has caught my attention.

I will pay full for this ungodly thing ... cuz who would expect to see a '90s era platformer awaken from the dead like this. Who knows maybe it should have stayed asleep, but I'm too curious.

The quality of some of the levels was pretty bonkers/bad so it wouldn't necessarily be a high bar to eclipse some of the designs; too soon to tell on that front however.