@JohnnyMind In other words an average game on metacritc is scored at something like 80+. Most people don't think "average" when they see 80+ scores though .... Interestingly though, the higher the score, the tighter the spread becomes, and conversely, the lower the score the bigger the spread becomes. So these scores are not arbitrary opinions either.
Then you have the fact, that these ratings are being subjected to transformation by aggregation sites, which normalize to 0-100. Game reviewers tend to really only use 60-100 though. This creates false precision in the top end end as well as obvious high tier clustering in that 85-95 range, where scores become all but useless for comparison.
"braindead", "rubbish" ... pretty self explanatory though! Personally, I am okay with a game not demanding me being intellectually present, so to speak, but generally, I prefer the opposite - that is not braindead games. Many Nintendo games feel pretty braindead, which is a bit of a bummer, because while kids have a high tolerance for this, they are not normally ... "braindead" either.
@JohnnyMind Some of us are just bored statistician who look at scores from that particular perspective. I remember many moons ago, when I was still using Dtoid and got into an argument with Chris Carter about this. He flat out told me, that their scores were never meant to be used to compare games to one another. At the same time, Dtoid itself let you view reviews and sort them by ... you guessed it! ... scores. You can only sort stuff by comparing it to one another. He was arguing a nominal scale while in fact using at least an interval scale. It bugged me then, it still buggs me now.
Can't speak for other people, but when I refer to something as "overrated", I generally mean, that it is not comparable in terms of quality to game XYZ, which is similar enough to allow for such an "apple to apple comparison" (as far as these things go in games), while the score simply does not reflect this - aka both games are rated equal or similar.
Pokemon Z-A is a good example, as you can clearly tell from the way many a review is written, that the reviewer is well aware that the game (as a package, but also the sum of it's parts) is certainly not above average in the gaming landscape of 2025. That while so many phrase themselves as "... for a Pokemon game ..." in some way.
It also does not compare favourably in many specific aspects to ... whatever really, Digimon Time Strangers, Palworld, Monster Hunter Stories and so on and so forth. If you just look at certainl elements of the game, like the city itself, and compare it to games from 15 years ago running on the same hardware - like Arkham City - it becomes mindbogglingly obvious, that the game is just way inferior. The ratings ought to reflect that, but across the board they do not. It makes them rather useless to me as they pretty much only reflect the level of Pokemon-Fan-Bias of the reviewer and not much else anymore.
Or as a statistician would say: these score lack validity and the aggregation sites obscure this successfully.
Overall, it's a bit of a Goodheart's law situation we have developing in the gaming industry and gaming journalism, me thinks. Not as bad as in economics of course, which still takes the cake for sure, but still a nuisance. Also and obviously, looking at all these aggregated sites, you can see that it is s heavily skewed F-distribution. That would be fine, IF people took that into account when looking at these scores. Some of these scoring sites go up to a median score of like 77-80.
@liljmoore "But gameplay wise like Arceus this is some of the most fun I've had with the series since HG/SS remakes.
The characters are some of the best in the series."
Therein lies the rub: "... with/in the series ..." Not sure why Pokemon gets a free pass compared to most/all other franchises out there, as most of them most stand up to other videogames, not just to their predecessors.
By industry standards, in about every way conceiveable Z-A looks to be at least 20 years behind the times. The visual and the lack of VA just being the most kind of in-your-face shortcomings. Personally, I feel like comparing something like Arkham City from 15 years ago with Lumiose City would lead one to the conclusiob that Batman is the bigger franchise by quite a colossal margin (given the obvious investment). The facts are the opposite though.
Hundreds of comparisons like this could and should be drawn, but most don't, well, because "it is Pokemon and for Pokemon standarts this is quite good".
I agree on Arceus though, that was a decent game, held back by it's technical limitations (even comparetd to other Switch 1 games) and it's lacklustre combat as well as it utter and complete lack of challenge as far as combat went, certainly with any "fight" involved with the story. In fact, theat part stood out to me because I felt the game expected to actually die at some point, given the whole online system and charms and such. But unless this was your first videogame, the chances of actually running into a failure state were beyond slim. Anyways, I liked the exploration, the way catching worked, it was a decent gameplay loop with a high level of internal consistency (like wild Pokemon ganging up on you in the turn-based combat, being able to run away from a fight by ... running actually away in the gameworld, even within that fight, the balls have a ballistic curve and different attributes like weight and so on and so forth.)
Arceus was not so much a great Pokemon game, as it was an allaround good videogame on the Switch 1 with it severly limited hardware.
From what I can tell, they took steps back in about every conceiveable category from Arceus to Z-A. I find that truly astonishing to be honest. Maybe the combat is an improvement? From what I've seen though it was a half-measure at best.
In other words: Arceus as a videogame in the 2020s set low but existing bars for the franchise and afaik Z-A didn't cross any of them. That is just inaccepatble to me for a $70 sequel years later.
@RupeeClock "AI" as a tool is a fair assessment, but only for this moment in time as it is but a snapshot. I think a couple of years down the line, it'll be a different story altogether. That or a burst bubble of course
As far as the tool itself goes, it's the same story as always, it depends on what people do with it. I also see little reason to believe EA is going to approach this in anything but the most inane manner. Looking forward to a huge bunch of AI generated assesst slop showing up soon and a bunch of law suits from voice actors on the horizon ... low hanging fruits will be the obvious implemention point first.
There is obviously a lot that could be gleamed from analyzing the various data a humungous organisation like EA generates everyday and has done so over the years.
My take away from being inside even a comparatively small organisation: there is only very limited appetite on a leadership level for taking a really "exposed" look at how things are actually running under the hood. To the point where terms like "processes" become rather ... unpopular being thrown around.
If only a fraction of the reports and recommendations over the years had actually been implemented ... boggles the mind.
However, particularly for gaming, I think there is a lot of potential for AI to help with rapid prototyping. But we all know that this is a highly risk averse industry in the AAA space and we've seen what this potential has lead to in other industries, like temp musinc in Hollywood for example. A prototype quickly becomes a product, which ... is a bad as it sounds.
Buddy convinced me to check out at least parts of it: still don't really get it, but it seems jam packed and super polished + Sakurai seems absolutely in his element. Good on him, he sure brings the positive vibes!
The first Direct didn't really help me "getting it" as someone who hasn't played the original. I'll wait for reviews, maybe someone can condense the appeal and gameloop(s) down to a 10 minute pitch.
I dunno about creepy, but even in Arceus, which I quite like, I felt it would have added a lot to the game if the characters hat a simple, well animated routine. It wouldn't have taken that much effort either, since it's only a few dozens characters anyways. That to make makes it worse though: the scale is miniscule compared to even GTA IV from more than 15 years ago and yet everything is just like a theme park with broken animatronics.
For 20 years we've experienced more immersive worlds and towns ... at this point and give their financials, this is just indefensible. I could deal with in Arceus because I felt that game does a great deal of stuff right actually and not just "as a Pokemon game", but as an honest to god videogame.
The last bit excuse I can see, is that this was and is ultimately a Switch 1 game. That is a stretch given the games we've seen on Switch, but I wanna be gracious. If next year their Switch 2 exclusive entry is not moved by leaps and bounds into at least the year of our lord 2008, then I'm not gonna bother even keeping up with their output.
That's a lot of Direct coverage for one Kirby Spin-Off game. Well, I guess Sakurai is really getting to enjoy his time out from the SSB jail. Good on him!
That said, I feel if there's one thing the Switch 2 launch window did and does not lack it is quality racing-game-adjacent content. Really surprised we are getting yet another big game of this ilk this year.
I'm sorry, but how is this game an average (or above) $ 70 product compared to other 2025 games in that range on the same system?
The answer is absurdely simple: it is not an average experience, it is pretty far from it.
As long as there is some kind of internal logic to that whole idea of rating scales, it should therefore be rated below average, which in this ordinal scale equals to a rating of 4 or below.
Whether this then "is" a 3 or 4 might be subjective ... whether it is average or above is not though - at least 90% of that consideration is not subjective.
Stop rating it "as a Pokemon" game and start rating it as a videogame in 2025 on Switch 2. That is not a huge ask.
The current approach is completely broken and has no value to the consumer other than judging how much of a "Pokemon Fan" any given reviewer really is. That is not helpful insight to me though ... if any reasoning for a review contains any allusion to "... for a Pokemon game ..." it is by definition not trying to render an objective or even intersubjective rating.
That IS fine, don't get me wrong, but the least anyone could do then, is to clearly mark this as what is: an utter and complete opinion piece on a videogame -> don't called review or test or anything like that and don't let it feed into aggregated scores. Again, that is not a huge ask, but common logic.
I dunno how reliable the leaks are, but if it is even remotely true that Z-A was mostly finished at around 2023 at a cost of about $13 Million, then I guess it won't take much in terms of sales to make it a big commercial success. On the one hand, I want to new combat formula to succeed so it can one day be surrounded by a competent game, but on the other hand ... this entire product was inexcusable before taking that leaked information into account, with it in mind, I find as offensive as a damned video game release @ $70 could be ... that is saying something, since I was okay with them asking $70 if the quality and content was there. It is insane to see these numbers and remember the outrage of DK Bananza's pricing, despite that having proven to be a well produced and kinda innovative piece of entertainment, thus the polar opposite of Pokemon Z-A.
@Dr_Lugae I keep reading the same kind of sentiments on this and I don't want to fight the apparent rule of relativity here, but overcoming the lowest of lowest bars is only an achievement, if one entertained serious doubts Gamefreak could even do that aka deliver an actually playable entry in the biggest entertainment franchise on earth. It's really not a success story then. It's just not a story of utter and abject failure.
Pokemon continues to be pretty peak product as far as abandoned early-access single-dev indie games go. The problem is that they continue to ask AAA prices - or more to the point, that people are paying AAA prices for whatever reason.
At $6 or even $7 this would be totally fine ... decent value even.
Would be nice to know some basic technical facts about this after going through the entire review, like whether HDR is supported for instance. Is that really too much to ask?
I really felt they did a terrible job of selling the games in this Direct - just look at all the confusion regarding Galaxy.
My suspicion ever since the reboot of its development was, that they were trying to pull something like this, since Nintendo is now pretty much in its BotW'ified state: open-world or die. We will probably see the same with Splatoon Raiders, which argueably might lend itself better to the approach though.
However, since the first showings of the rebooted titled looked so traditional, I figured - happily - that I was wrong ... now I feel that this will be an issue for me personally, since even with TotK I was already burned out on the whole empty-space-you-do-you formula. I think it can likely only make Metroid worse to be honest.
I hope I am - once again - wrong though and they nail this or at least in the sense, that it will only be a small part of the game and thus more of a desert than a main course.
@Unit_DTH For sure going to give it a try and it probably won't in any way "ruin" what otherwise looks like a great game, but still, I am very much unclear on why the felt the need to put what looks like tons of empty spaces into a game that always had a flair for the claustrophobic. Wish they had taken at least enough time out of the Direct to sell me on the idea as such at least.
Am I the only disappointed and confused by the lack of first party upgrade/patch information? I was really hoping they would continue at least a drip-feed of forthcoming Switch 2 patches for stuff like the Xenoblade games for instance ... kinda shocked to be honest, given how much they focused on technical aspects with the presentation of the Switch 2 and how promising those first patches were ... Oo
Overall, I did not love what I was seeing to be honest: open-world segments for MP4? Why? A kinda of roguelite mode for DK? Why?
Another re-release of SM Galaxy? I don't what to ask why given the movie, but still ... what is the point?
They only thing that really stands out for me is Fire Emblem, even though I am not thrilled to see the whole gambit idea returning. I hoped they rebalanced the whole thing entirely ...
If they had announced a couple of cool Switch 2 patches for "classic" games like Xenoblade (X), Astral Chain, Bayonetta ... then my perception would be that Nintendo cared about the future of the Switch as platform. Looking at what they announced they seem hellbent of milking this platform for all it is worth.
Wasn't the biggest fan of Three Houses as far as the mechanics and the map design goes. Really wish they could bring the mechanical design of Engage together with the aesthetical designs of Three Houses, cos that is really where engaged fell apart entirely.
Anyways, any FE is better than no FE and this really saved the Direct for me.
Going in I wanted a) way more patches (Xeno games!!) and b) finally that long rumored FE game. I got none of that, but I got an entirely new FE game ... so it was not a total loss.
Otherwise the Direct felt like a weird mix of a something we had a long time coming and then was almost entirely filled with stuff we already new about and then pointless filler, straight out of a partner Direct Oo
The only really potentially interesting thing in the entire Direct. And no, that is not a ringing endorsement, but at least it's a new game, it's an original and it's for Switch 2.
I might be somewhat interested in MH Stories 3 as well, as the trailer looked neat, if I had played one of the prior games ... and I would have played them, if they hadn't been presented as vanilla turn-based combat games ... which makes me think part 3 is going to follow suit. Nothing wrong with that, but I have about 30'ish more mechanically more interesting tactics games lined up in my Steam backlog right now, so it has to be a pass. But maybe I am wrong and they'll do something interesting with it?
It is surprising that we are headed for August and outside of Pokemon we basically know nothing specific in respect to major upcoming releases starting ... well, right now. It's not just 1st party games either, with 3rd parties barely acknowledging the system's existence publicly so far in any specific manner.
Makes me think, there is a kind of intentional information embargo going on. If so, and that seems highly likely given the leak-prone gaming industry, that is certainly an unusual strategy.
It's a bit off a shame that a 1st gen, 1st party Switch 2 game is already hitting the System's CPU bottleneck like this. But yeah, it looks like a really good time, the drops seems be neither super frequent or super jarring. I think the issue will really probably be docked play, where VRR can't smooth anything (currently). Even there though, I doubt it will deter many prospective buyers.
I agree with the sentiment, that is better to push the boundaries for gameplay reasons than to be design in an overly conservative manner to guarantee a 60-fps-target.
I have nothing but respect for Iwata-san, but I do feel that he might have been very much uncomfortable with all the hyperbole heaped upon here. He was not the sole brains behind steering Nintendo from the GC era towards the Switch era. This is not to diminish his crucial role, but a great many talented individuals contributed to both, the hardware and software, that made for instance the NDS era such a beloved success.
He was a strong believer in the power of software first and foremost and by that token a strong believer in the power of talented and passionate developers to capture an audience. With probably like a billion units of software sold on the NDS family of systems, I'd say that believe was validated.
For all my love the NDS and 3DS era, I have to say that I hold little fondness for the both, the Wii and the WiiU. There were good times to be had there for sure, but never before or after have I got bored of a system like the Wii. I remember playing Red Steel 2, thinking that finally, we would start seeing all this waggle-stuff justifying it's existence ... well, that never happened. Just as the WiiU's second screen never managed to in any way, shape or form justify it's existence while potentially also killing Star Fox ... for ever!?
Ultimately, arriving at this point where handheld and home console could finally be unified, was certainly worth it and maybe no one else could have been able to shepherd Nintendo through this transition, but it was not a solitary streak of unbroken genius that got Nintendo there. It was a collaborative effort within the company that was still market by staggering lows and stunning highs.
During this day and age of mindless layoffs for short-term goals, it does speak to a most remarkable strength of vision for him to rather take pay cuts and even the occasional stock slump, while sticking to his believe in his own vision and the people around him working to achieve that, rather to give in - what must have been a great temptation - and follow suit on ... all the other industry suits.
Unicorn Overlord is more than worth that price, 100%! I got it on release for PS5 (where all my Vanilla Soft games rest) and really enjoyed my time with it. I finished it, which is increasingly rare these days, and really the highest of endorsements! Should also be a really good fit for Switch.
While I recognize that not all instances relating to games should and could rightfully be classified as planned obsolescence on the publishers and/or developers part, many clearly are. I think that part needs to be addressed for sure.
Other than that, I would guess (no hard data to go on from what I can tell) that 9 out of 10 games could be designed in accordance with what the petition seeks without making them in any way, shape or form commercially non-viable.
The crucial point is that this would need to be considered from the very inception of the game, just like other choices in game design. It strikes me as utterly doable. Not to mention that plenty of laws have hardship-case-rules, meaning some content could be exempt, for instance to help start-up-developers or such.
Companies with balance sheets the size of Microsoft who run an untold number of ever expanding data centers being part of a group making such claims is just ... clearly Microsoft's survival as an economic entity is at stake, EVEN if it were required by law to keep some servers running and maintained forever ... the endless audacity of lobbyists never ceases to amaze me ...
For society at large payroll is future consumption.
For individual companies payroll is present expenditure.
Basically, what benefits the few, hurts the many - and vice versa. This is an blatant contradiction that causes obvious strife.
Instead of rallying against Microsoft, it would make more sense to me to rally against the cause.
That said, Microsoft's gross incompetence in managing their studios for at least the last 12'ish years is staggering. If Xbox hadn't been part of a balance sheet that makes one question the very notion of the abstract thing often referred to as "marketplace" it would have gone out of business years ago ... which would have left all these folks without a job btw.
Microsoft showed their priorities clear as day in the way they treated Tango. They shut them down right after Tango managed to delivered Hifi Rush for them. At a time when Xbox Leadership failed to manage to even ship one game from other newly found studios like The Initiative to shelves. In fact, Xbox leadership failed at this time and time again since the inception of the Xbox One era. They announce stuff way, way too early during what was clearly often still conceptual phases and then they have to walk it back ... again and again.
By now I feel confident in saying that any game shipped during current Xbox leadership tenure was and is shipped despite their leadership and due to the teams behind them being self-sufficient and in no need of being actually ... lead (Double Fine, ID Soft ...).
All they managed to achieve is to actually burn the Xbox platform for any one who looks to sell a videogame instead of putting it on Gamepass as a kind of timed fremium release. They caused irreparable damage to any value proposition and they are not going to let anyone else use the IP they paid boatloads of money for to take advantage of this.
Any idea that they would still care about "good will" from the consumer is preposterous and they certainly do not care about any Xbox "fan". What is Xbox even at this point? Nothing but a shorthand for another greedy and tone-deaf (Oh, Phil what were you tripping ... ) mega-publisher. There is no brand idea left. Halo is dying, so is Gears. Forza is reduced to Horizon.
Does anyone in their right mind actually believe Xbox leadership is even capable of shepherding something like a new Viva Piñata from conception to release? They have proven a dozen times they are in fact incapable. It does not even matter if they want to or if Microsoft leadership allows for it.
Unless Microsoft changes course and seeks to divest gaming in favor of cash to burn on AI, these franchises are dead and gone. Breaks my heart a little, definitely for storied IP like Banjo Kazooie. That was part of my formative years. It still is what it is.
Sidebar: Antitrust agencies failed so miserably on the ABK merger ... it boggles the mind. Now there is bunch of people in the managerial class of those agencies who might be well deserving of being a permanent cost-cutting measures.
@Coversnail To be fair, it doesn't really matter how good they are doing right now. It only matters how much better they are going to do next fiscal year. It's easy to blame M$ for that, but really ... this is just a system working exactly as intended.
The only instances of "freezing" I encountered so far where browsing the e-shop when the summer sale started. System froze 5 times in a row before I decided that the e-shop was just overloaded and had to try again later.
That aside, with millions of units of a new product shipped and sold there are bound to be issues with a small percentage, no matter how good the QC is.
I could try and express how much I love PoR, but it would not do it justice. I still have my og copy for both PoR and RD. PoR introduced me to FE, from where I circled back. I will forever keep and treasure it. It sits right next to stuff like my copy of Incubation, which introduced me to the genre (if you never played that one and like FE, do yourself a favor and head over to gog.com and grab yourself a copy!). Both games are Goats in their own way.
Glad to see it becoming readily accessible this way. Although it slightly brakes my heart that we now will most likely never see a HD remaster collection. We'll at least we got Baten Kaitos, right?
I said it back in the day when Scalebound was cancelled (not to mention Phantom Dust and the misguided Fable Legends) and I say it again: Phil seems like a really likeable guy all the time, but the strategic decisions in terms of software they make were horrible long before anyone at Sony even started salivating over Live-Service-games. It's mismanagement of talent on a scale that defies reason, pure and simple.
I can't even feel bad about The Initiative, since I'm still stunned by Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin ... but it's rarely the people who make the wrong strategic calls who get to pay the price
@PinderSchloss It's a bit frustrating seeing so many major 1st party releases not getting any support at first, but I am pretty confident that Nintendo is well aware of the opportunity (they updated ARMS, right?) and will want to spread these "releases" out over the coming months to basically bolster their schedule and feed the news cycle.
From their point of view, it does make sense: they can't sell more console for now than they're currently selling. It would just be a goodwill and PR waste for them to update everything right away.
I will say this though: not having played XBCX on Switch yet, it WOULD be nice to at least have confirmation that updates are forthcoming. I have plenty of other stuff to occupy me with, but not knowing for sure if there is any point in having patience seems pointless. Then again, it's Ninty so ... yeah.
@ThisisJosh Yeah, you right of course! I just meant, it is a bit of an odd priority. Like Strikers feels like a game already superseded. Sunshine is literally already available on the Switch in a superior version most would argue. I don't mind there being two options/versions to play any such game, but it's an ... interesting place to start the drip-feed.
If they were dropping like 10 games a month it would be one thing, but we all know that is not going to happen.
Looking at that graph ... that's exactly what logarithmic scaling is for Using median for incomes distribution is generally the way to go.
As for the income gap itself, obviously it is ridiculous by any measure of common sense and economic reasoning one might dare to apply. At the same time, it is by no means an issue related to EA specifically or the gaming industry in general. It's a tiny wheel in a giant machine that particular the U.S. has been happily fueling for about half a century.
Interestingly enough, Nintendo itself is actually a "weird" outlier in that respect. Having pay gaps by a ratio of 1000x is increasingly common for instance. And no, I am not kidding.
Would be nice if they added Luigi's Mansion 1. I picked up LM 2 HD in the sale and noticed there is no way to replay the first game on Switch so far, which is kinda weird.
Same goes for Metroid Prime. I'm sure there is a number of folks who picked up the series with the Series with Remastered and ... would like to see the series through before Beyond arrives.
Not sure Strikers was a priority release really given Nintendo's drip-feed approach to anything virtual console.
Played the game on Steam since release. Experimental Capcom it's best! Highly recommended and the free little DLC is much appreciated, esp. given the price point of the game.
Seems like another misuse of technology to me. Not a problem with the technology as such. More generally, this reminds me of something I once read about DA:Origins: high-end 2D artistic renditions will always beat middle-of-the-road 3D renderings.
@Ultimapunch To be fair, partially replacing human workers with automation is largely how we have increased productivity for at least the last four decades. AI is just the latest in hyper capital-intensive labor-replacement technology. Back in the 1860s two bearded guys had some rather in-depth thoughts about the inevitable nature of this process
That does not look half bad and I do really like vehicular combat games. Really wish we could get a new Vigilante 8, but that is probably not going to happen. Friggin loved that game growing up!
Maybe Mario Kart Would could take a clue here and add some ... y'know varied gameplay content. That could be something with boss fights and all. If this game I've never heard of before can do it, maybe that $80 game could as well?
If the reviews for this are decent, I'll check it out.
Castlevania Dominus Collection is one of the three physical SW games I own. I left it sealed though and been playing the digital release since I got my SW2 All three games are certified bangers in my book, but Dawn of Sorrow is just a game I also have the fondest of memories for from the NDS days. I don't mind having multiple copies (incl. Steam) for these. I'll replay them until I no longer can.
The Advance Collection titles are also neat Metroidvanias of course, but I feel they fall short of the DS ones, plus I never owned them back in the GBA days, so I have no nostalgia for them.
The pre-SotN games do nothing for me personally, so I skipped the anniversary collection. I would love to see a SotN re-release for SW though, as convenient portable version outside of my Playsi would be neat.
Anyways, very worthwhile games - no matter what release you pick!
I dunno, I mean, personally I expected at least $ 30, hence this is not bad news at all. Then again, that particular expectation was based on the absolute nickel'n'dimming of zero pack-in games and instead giving us a $10 interactive manual, so ... yeah ...
The thing I find kind of fascinating is that so far, there is no 1st party game really showing off mouse mode. That is rather unusual for Nintendo. Is this supposed to be it then? Or still MP4? I'm not in any way critical about mouse mode, I think it makes 100% sense and was the next logical step to bridge gap to THE main benefit of PC as far as certain genres go (I for one cannot enjoy playing FPS with a controller for instance, it never feels even remotely right). Still, would have been nice to have something at hand to really make use of it. I know, there is Cyberpunk but as impressive as that port is, that is a PC game if I ever saw one
Anyways, curious to see what the reviews will say about Drag x Drive. I have no idea what to make of it.
I don't love how these reveals happen in the most anticlimactic way imaginable: in yet another pointless app.
Either they still have a ton of other stuff to reveal during their next Direct or they are going to just repeat this process for like MP4 release date as well, which would be about as appropriate and exciting as burying Silk Song for like 6,4 seconds in a sizzle-reel ... what else is the alternative? A Direct Lite? That would definitely be the worst option, so I can't see that.
Not sure this is really the best way to market stuff like this in general and build the most hype possible. But Nintendo has all the data to make these decisions, so they must obviously know best. Maybe it is just them experimenting ... or maybe they just feel it is worth the trade-off to get people to install the app?
As for the game itself, I have yet to see anything about it, I find enticing. It looks incredibly dull and more like a tech demo wiped up on the go to test a concept. Looking at Welcome Tour I also expect highly questionable pricing to be honest. 99% a pass for me to be honest.
Really an odd way to drive the conversation about 3 weeks into the generation.
Not a big fighting game guy, and I still expect a proper Nintendo Direct before the Pokemon one next month, which will be more interesting to me (as well as the Capcom Spotlight actually, since they're really cooking lately), but even I have been pretty darn flashed by Marvel Tokon during the last Sony state of play. That game looked like an absolute blast.
I just hope to learn about whether it is going to be something worthwhile for a filthy fighting game casual like myself or even have meaningful single player content. Other than that, I am personally not interested in their offerings, just not my thing even if visually, all their efforts are very much appealing.
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Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Has Been Updated To Version 2.0.2, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
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Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Has Been Updated To Version 2.0.2, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
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Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Has Been Updated To Version 2.0.2, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
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Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Has Been Updated To Version 2.0.2, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@JohnnyMind In other words an average game on metacritc is scored at something like 80+. Most people don't think "average" when they see 80+ scores though .... Interestingly though, the higher the score, the tighter the spread becomes, and conversely, the lower the score the bigger the spread becomes. So these scores are not arbitrary opinions either.
Then you have the fact, that these ratings are being subjected to transformation by aggregation sites, which normalize to 0-100. Game reviewers tend to really only use 60-100 though. This creates false precision in the top end end as well as obvious high tier clustering in that 85-95 range, where scores become all but useless for comparison.
"braindead", "rubbish" ... pretty self explanatory though! Personally, I am okay with a game not demanding me being intellectually present, so to speak, but generally, I prefer the opposite - that is not braindead games. Many Nintendo games feel pretty braindead, which is a bit of a bummer, because while kids have a high tolerance for this, they are not normally ... "braindead" either.
Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Has Been Updated To Version 2.0.2, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@JohnnyMind Some of us are just bored statistician who look at scores from that particular perspective. I remember many moons ago, when I was still using Dtoid and got into an argument with Chris Carter about this. He flat out told me, that their scores were never meant to be used to compare games to one another. At the same time, Dtoid itself let you view reviews and sort them by ... you guessed it! ... scores. You can only sort stuff by comparing it to one another. He was arguing a nominal scale while in fact using at least an interval scale. It bugged me then, it still buggs me now.
Can't speak for other people, but when I refer to something as "overrated", I generally mean, that it is not comparable in terms of quality to game XYZ, which is similar enough to allow for such an "apple to apple comparison" (as far as these things go in games), while the score simply does not reflect this - aka both games are rated equal or similar.
Pokemon Z-A is a good example, as you can clearly tell from the way many a review is written, that the reviewer is well aware that the game (as a package, but also the sum of it's parts) is certainly not above average in the gaming landscape of 2025. That while so many phrase themselves as "... for a Pokemon game ..." in some way.
It also does not compare favourably in many specific aspects to ... whatever really, Digimon Time Strangers, Palworld, Monster Hunter Stories and so on and so forth. If you just look at certainl elements of the game, like the city itself, and compare it to games from 15 years ago running on the same hardware - like Arkham City - it becomes mindbogglingly obvious, that the game is just way inferior. The ratings ought to reflect that, but across the board they do not. It makes them rather useless to me as they pretty much only reflect the level of Pokemon-Fan-Bias of the reviewer and not much else anymore.
Or as a statistician would say: these score lack validity and the aggregation sites obscure this successfully.
Overall, it's a bit of a Goodheart's law situation we have developing in the gaming industry and gaming journalism, me thinks. Not as bad as in economics of course, which still takes the cake for sure, but still a nuisance. Also and obviously, looking at all these aggregated sites, you can see that it is s heavily skewed F-distribution. That would be fine, IF people took that into account when looking at these scores. Some of these scoring sites go up to a median score of like 77-80.
Re: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Sold 5.8 Million Copies Globally In Its First Week
@liljmoore "But gameplay wise like Arceus this is some of the most fun I've had with the series since HG/SS remakes.
The characters are some of the best in the series."
Therein lies the rub: "... with/in the series ..." Not sure why Pokemon gets a free pass compared to most/all other franchises out there, as most of them most stand up to other videogames, not just to their predecessors.
By industry standards, in about every way conceiveable Z-A looks to be at least 20 years behind the times. The visual and the lack of VA just being the most kind of in-your-face shortcomings. Personally, I feel like comparing something like Arkham City from 15 years ago with Lumiose City would lead one to the conclusiob that Batman is the bigger franchise by quite a colossal margin (given the obvious investment). The facts are the opposite though.
Hundreds of comparisons like this could and should be drawn, but most don't, well, because "it is Pokemon and for Pokemon standarts this is quite good".
I agree on Arceus though, that was a decent game, held back by it's technical limitations (even comparetd to other Switch 1 games) and it's lacklustre combat as well as it utter and complete lack of challenge as far as combat went, certainly with any "fight" involved with the story. In fact, theat part stood out to me because I felt the game expected to actually die at some point, given the whole online system and charms and such. But unless this was your first videogame, the chances of actually running into a failure state were beyond slim. Anyways, I liked the exploration, the way catching worked, it was a decent gameplay loop with a high level of internal consistency (like wild Pokemon ganging up on you in the turn-based combat, being able to run away from a fight by ... running actually away in the gameworld, even within that fight, the balls have a ballistic curve and different attributes like weight and so on and so forth.)
Arceus was not so much a great Pokemon game, as it was an allaround good videogame on the Switch 1 with it severly limited hardware.
From what I can tell, they took steps back in about every conceiveable category from Arceus to Z-A. I find that truly astonishing to be honest. Maybe the combat is an improvement? From what I've seen though it was a half-measure at best.
In other words: Arceus as a videogame in the 2020s set low but existing bars for the franchise and afaik Z-A didn't cross any of them. That is just inaccepatble to me for a $70 sequel years later.
Re: EA Is Diving Headfirst Into Generative AI With New Partnership
@RupeeClock "AI" as a tool is a fair assessment, but only for this moment in time as it is but a snapshot. I think a couple of years down the line, it'll be a different story altogether. That or a burst bubble of course
As far as the tool itself goes, it's the same story as always, it depends on what people do with it. I also see little reason to believe EA is going to approach this in anything but the most inane manner. Looking forward to a huge bunch of AI generated assesst slop showing up soon and a bunch of law suits from voice actors on the horizon ... low hanging fruits will be the obvious implemention point first.
There is obviously a lot that could be gleamed from analyzing the various data a humungous organisation like EA generates everyday and has done so over the years.
My take away from being inside even a comparatively small organisation: there is only very limited appetite on a leadership level for taking a really "exposed" look at how things are actually running under the hood. To the point where terms like "processes" become rather ... unpopular being thrown around.
If only a fraction of the reports and recommendations over the years had actually been implemented ... boggles the mind.
However, particularly for gaming, I think there is a lot of potential for AI to help with rapid prototyping. But we all know that this is a highly risk averse industry in the AAA space and we've seen what this potential has lead to in other industries, like temp musinc in Hollywood for example. A prototype quickly becomes a product, which ... is a bad as it sounds.
Re: Kirby Air Riders Direct #2: Every Announcement - How Would You Rate it?
Buddy convinced me to check out at least parts of it: still don't really get it, but it seems jam packed and super polished + Sakurai seems absolutely in his element. Good on him, he sure brings the positive vibes!
Re: Kirby Air Riders Direct #2: Every Announcement - How Would You Rate it?
The first Direct didn't really help me "getting it" as someone who hasn't played the original. I'll wait for reviews, maybe someone can condense the appeal and gameloop(s) down to a 10 minute pitch.
Re: Opinion: Pokémon Legends Z-A Is The Creepiest Entry Yet, Not In A Good Way
I dunno about creepy, but even in Arceus, which I quite like, I felt it would have added a lot to the game if the characters hat a simple, well animated routine. It wouldn't have taken that much effort either, since it's only a few dozens characters anyways. That to make makes it worse though: the scale is miniscule compared to even GTA IV from more than 15 years ago and yet everything is just like a theme park with broken animatronics.
For 20 years we've experienced more immersive worlds and towns ... at this point and give their financials, this is just indefensible. I could deal with in Arceus because I felt that game does a great deal of stuff right actually and not just "as a Pokemon game", but as an honest to god videogame.
The last bit excuse I can see, is that this was and is ultimately a Switch 1 game. That is a stretch given the games we've seen on Switch, but I wanna be gracious. If next year their Switch 2 exclusive entry is not moved by leaps and bounds into at least the year of our lord 2008, then I'm not gonna bother even keeping up with their output.
Re: Nintendo Direct For Kirby Air Riders Announced For Thursday, 23rd October
That's a lot of Direct coverage for one Kirby Spin-Off game. Well, I guess Sakurai is really getting to enjoy his time out from the SSB jail. Good on him!
That said, I feel if there's one thing the Switch 2 launch window did and does not lack it is quality racing-game-adjacent content. Really surprised we are getting yet another big game of this ilk this year.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Pokémon Legends: Z-A?
I'm sorry, but how is this game an average (or above) $ 70 product compared to other 2025 games in that range on the same system?
The answer is absurdely simple: it is not an average experience, it is pretty far from it.
As long as there is some kind of internal logic to that whole idea of rating scales, it should therefore be rated below average, which in this ordinal scale equals to a rating of 4 or below.
Whether this then "is" a 3 or 4 might be subjective ... whether it is average or above is not though - at least 90% of that consideration is not subjective.
Stop rating it "as a Pokemon" game and start rating it as a videogame in 2025 on Switch 2. That is not a huge ask.
The current approach is completely broken and has no value to the consumer other than judging how much of a "Pokemon Fan" any given reviewer really is. That is not helpful insight to me though ... if any reasoning for a review contains any allusion to "... for a Pokemon game ..." it is by definition not trying to render an objective or even intersubjective rating.
That IS fine, don't get me wrong, but the least anyone could do then, is to clearly mark this as what is: an utter and complete opinion piece on a videogame -> don't called review or test or anything like that and don't let it feed into aggregated scores. Again, that is not a huge ask, but common logic.
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Sales Almost 50/50 Across Switch And Switch 2
I dunno how reliable the leaks are, but if it is even remotely true that Z-A was mostly finished at around 2023 at a cost of about $13 Million, then I guess it won't take much in terms of sales to make it a big commercial success. On the one hand, I want to new combat formula to succeed so it can one day be surrounded by a competent game, but on the other hand ... this entire product was inexcusable before taking that leaked information into account, with it in mind, I find as offensive as a damned video game release @ $70 could be ... that is saying something, since I was okay with them asking $70 if the quality and content was there. It is insane to see these numbers and remember the outrage of DK Bananza's pricing, despite that having proven to be a well produced and kinda innovative piece of entertainment, thus the polar opposite of Pokemon Z-A.
@Dr_Lugae I keep reading the same kind of sentiments on this and I don't want to fight the apparent rule of relativity here, but overcoming the lowest of lowest bars is only an achievement, if one entertained serious doubts Gamefreak could even do that aka deliver an actually playable entry in the biggest entertainment franchise on earth. It's really not a success story then. It's just not a story of utter and abject failure.
Re: Poll: Is It About Time Game Freak Added Voice Acting To Pokémon?
Pokemon continues to be pretty peak product as far as abandoned early-access single-dev indie games go. The problem is that they continue to ask AAA prices - or more to the point, that people are paying AAA prices for whatever reason.
At $6 or even $7 this would be totally fine ... decent value even.
Re: Review: Pokémon Legends: Z-A - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Stellar Battles, But A Step Down From Arceus
Would be nice to know some basic technical facts about this after going through the entire review, like whether HDR is supported for instance. Is that really too much to ask?
Re: Video: Hades 2 Casts A Spell Over Us On Switch 1 & 2
Shame we didn't get (up to) 120 fps in handeld with VRR. Makes the screen choice more questionable by the day.
Re: Opinion: Metroid Prime 4 Reminds Me Of Gears 5, And It's Making Me Nervous
I really felt they did a terrible job of selling the games in this Direct - just look at all the confusion regarding Galaxy.
My suspicion ever since the reboot of its development was, that they were trying to pull something like this, since Nintendo is now pretty much in its BotW'ified state: open-world or die. We will probably see the same with Splatoon Raiders, which argueably might lend itself better to the approach though.
However, since the first showings of the rebooted titled looked so traditional, I figured - happily - that I was wrong ... now I feel that this will be an issue for me personally, since even with TotK I was already burned out on the whole empty-space-you-do-you formula. I think it can likely only make Metroid worse to be honest.
I hope I am - once again - wrong though and they nail this or at least in the sense, that it will only be a small part of the game and thus more of a desert than a main course.
Re: Review: Hollow Knight: Silksong - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Woven To Brutal Perfection
Please make a standard habit of reporting on HDR features and yes, this includes missing HDR support. It would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Re: Nintendo Direct September 2025: Every Announcement, Game Reveal, Trailer
@Unit_DTH For sure going to give it a try and it probably won't in any way "ruin" what otherwise looks like a great game, but still, I am very much unclear on why the felt the need to put what looks like tons of empty spaces into a game that always had a flair for the claustrophobic. Wish they had taken at least enough time out of the Direct to sell me on the idea as such at least.
Re: Nintendo Direct September 2025: Every Announcement, Game Reveal, Trailer
Am I the only disappointed and confused by the lack of first party upgrade/patch information? I was really hoping they would continue at least a drip-feed of forthcoming Switch 2 patches for stuff like the Xenoblade games for instance ... kinda shocked to be honest, given how much they focused on technical aspects with the presentation of the Switch 2 and how promising those first patches were ... Oo
Overall, I did not love what I was seeing to be honest: open-world segments for MP4? Why? A kinda of roguelite mode for DK? Why?
Another re-release of SM Galaxy? I don't what to ask why given the movie, but still ... what is the point?
They only thing that really stands out for me is Fire Emblem, even though I am not thrilled to see the whole gambit idea returning. I hoped they rebalanced the whole thing entirely ...
If they had announced a couple of cool Switch 2 patches for "classic" games like Xenoblade (X), Astral Chain, Bayonetta ... then my perception would be that Nintendo cared about the future of the Switch as platform. Looking at what they announced they seem hellbent of milking this platform for all it is worth.
Re: Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Charges Onto Switch 2 In 2026
Wasn't the biggest fan of Three Houses as far as the mechanics and the map design goes. Really wish they could bring the mechanical design of Engage together with the aesthetical designs of Three Houses, cos that is really where engaged fell apart entirely.
Anyways, any FE is better than no FE and this really saved the Direct for me.
Going in I wanted a) way more patches (Xeno games!!) and b) finally that long rumored FE game.
I got none of that, but I got an entirely new FE game ... so it was not a total loss.
Otherwise the Direct felt like a weird mix of a something we had a long time coming and then was almost entirely filled with stuff we already new about and then pointless filler, straight out of a partner Direct Oo
Re: Nintendo Reconfirms Release Windows For Major Upcoming Switch 2 Games
Welp, after the lack of a specific date yesterday, it starts to feel as if HW might actually be an early 2026 title (winter).
Re: Square Enix Is Bringing A Brand New HD-2D RPG To Switch 2 Next Year
@Hapless No, Triangle Strategy was "terrible". This is just one of those should-have-brainstormed-with-ChatGPT-instead titles
Re: Square Enix Is Bringing A Brand New HD-2D RPG To Switch 2 Next Year
The only really potentially interesting thing in the entire Direct. And no, that is not a ringing endorsement, but at least it's a new game, it's an original and it's for Switch 2.
I might be somewhat interested in MH Stories 3 as well, as the trailer looked neat, if I had played one of the prior games ... and I would have played them, if they hadn't been presented as vanilla turn-based combat games ... which makes me think part 3 is going to follow suit. Nothing wrong with that, but I have about 30'ish more mechanically more interesting tactics games lined up in my Steam backlog right now, so it has to be a pass. But maybe I am wrong and they'll do something interesting with it?
Re: Prominent YouTuber Doubles Down On Belief That A Nintendo Direct Is Due This Month
It is surprising that we are headed for August and outside of Pokemon we basically know nothing specific in respect to major upcoming releases starting ... well, right now. It's not just 1st party games either, with 3rd parties barely acknowledging the system's existence publicly so far in any specific manner.
Makes me think, there is a kind of intentional information embargo going on. If so, and that seems highly likely given the leak-prone gaming industry, that is certainly an unusual strategy.
Re: Donkey Kong Bananza Director Acknowledges Performance Drops: "We Prioritized Fun And Playability"
It's a bit off a shame that a 1st gen, 1st party Switch 2 game is already hitting the System's CPU bottleneck like this. But yeah, it looks like a really good time, the drops seems be neither super frequent or super jarring. I think the issue will really probably be docked play, where VRR can't smooth anything (currently). Even there though, I doubt it will deter many prospective buyers.
I agree with the sentiment, that is better to push the boundaries for gameplay reasons than to be design in an overly conservative manner to guarantee a 60-fps-target.
Re: Anniversary: 10 Years After His Passing, Satoru Iwata's Thoughts Are More Relevant Than Ever
I have nothing but respect for Iwata-san, but I do feel that he might have been very much uncomfortable with all the hyperbole heaped upon here. He was not the sole brains behind steering Nintendo from the GC era towards the Switch era. This is not to diminish his crucial role, but a great many talented individuals contributed to both, the hardware and software, that made for instance the NDS era such a beloved success.
He was a strong believer in the power of software first and foremost and by that token a strong believer in the power of talented and passionate developers to capture an audience. With probably like a billion units of software sold on the NDS family of systems, I'd say that believe was validated.
For all my love the NDS and 3DS era, I have to say that I hold little fondness for the both, the Wii and the WiiU. There were good times to be had there for sure, but never before or after have I got bored of a system like the Wii. I remember playing Red Steel 2, thinking that finally, we would start seeing all this waggle-stuff justifying it's existence ... well, that never happened. Just as the WiiU's second screen never managed to in any way, shape or form justify it's existence while potentially also killing Star Fox ... for ever!?
Ultimately, arriving at this point where handheld and home console could finally be unified, was certainly worth it and maybe no one else could have been able to shepherd Nintendo through this transition, but it was not a solitary streak of unbroken genius that got Nintendo there. It was a collaborative effort within the company that was still market by staggering lows and stunning highs.
During this day and age of mindless layoffs for short-term goals, it does speak to a most remarkable strength of vision for him to rather take pay cuts and even the occasional stock slump, while sticking to his believe in his own vision and the people around him working to achieve that, rather to give in - what must have been a great temptation - and follow suit on ... all the other industry suits.
Re: 97 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's Switch eShop Summer Sale (North America)
Unicorn Overlord is more than worth that price, 100%! I got it on release for PS5 (where all my Vanilla Soft games rest) and really enjoyed my time with it. I finished it, which is increasingly rare these days, and really the highest of endorsements! Should also be a really good fit for Switch.
Re: "It Will Have A Chilling Effect On Game Design" - EU Group Responds To 'Stop Killing Games'
While I recognize that not all instances relating to games should and could rightfully be classified as planned obsolescence on the publishers and/or developers part, many clearly are. I think that part needs to be addressed for sure.
Other than that, I would guess (no hard data to go on from what I can tell) that 9 out of 10 games could be designed in accordance with what the petition seeks without making them in any way, shape or form commercially non-viable.
The crucial point is that this would need to be considered from the very inception of the game, just like other choices in game design. It strikes me as utterly doable. Not to mention that plenty of laws have hardship-case-rules, meaning some content could be exempt, for instance to help start-up-developers or such.
Companies with balance sheets the size of Microsoft who run an untold number of ever expanding data centers being part of a group making such claims is just ... clearly Microsoft's survival as an economic entity is at stake, EVEN if it were required by law to keep some servers running and maintained forever ... the endless audacity of lobbyists never ceases to amaze me ...
Re: Review: Arcade Archives 2 Air Combat 22 (Switch 2) - A Top Gun Origin Story
Wish we could get more actual legacy Ace Combat games on the Switch (2) ...
Re: "It's Heartbreaking" - The Pokémon Company Tech VP Joins Industry In Criticising Microsoft Layoffs
For society at large payroll is future consumption.
For individual companies payroll is present expenditure.
Basically, what benefits the few, hurts the many - and vice versa. This is an blatant contradiction that causes obvious strife.
Instead of rallying against Microsoft, it would make more sense to me to rally against the cause.
That said, Microsoft's gross incompetence in managing their studios for at least the last 12'ish years is staggering. If Xbox hadn't been part of a balance sheet that makes one question the very notion of the abstract thing often referred to as "marketplace" it would have gone out of business years ago ... which would have left all these folks without a job btw.
Re: Perfect Dark Voice Actor Calls On Fans To Help Series "Survive"
Microsoft showed their priorities clear as day in the way they treated Tango. They shut them down right after Tango managed to delivered Hifi Rush for them. At a time when Xbox Leadership failed to manage to even ship one game from other newly found studios like The Initiative to shelves. In fact, Xbox leadership failed at this time and time again since the inception of the Xbox One era. They announce stuff way, way too early during what was clearly often still conceptual phases and then they have to walk it back ... again and again.
By now I feel confident in saying that any game shipped during current Xbox leadership tenure was and is shipped despite their leadership and due to the teams behind them being self-sufficient and in no need of being actually ... lead (Double Fine, ID Soft ...).
All they managed to achieve is to actually burn the Xbox platform for any one who looks to sell a videogame instead of putting it on Gamepass as a kind of timed fremium release. They caused irreparable damage to any value proposition and they are not going to let anyone else use the IP they paid boatloads of money for to take advantage of this.
Any idea that they would still care about "good will" from the consumer is preposterous and they certainly do not care about any Xbox "fan". What is Xbox even at this point? Nothing but a shorthand for another greedy and tone-deaf (Oh, Phil what were you tripping ... ) mega-publisher. There is no brand idea left. Halo is dying, so is Gears. Forza is reduced to Horizon.
Does anyone in their right mind actually believe Xbox leadership is even capable of shepherding something like a new Viva Piñata from conception to release? They have proven a dozen times they are in fact incapable. It does not even matter if they want to or if Microsoft leadership allows for it.
Unless Microsoft changes course and seeks to divest gaming in favor of cash to burn on AI, these franchises are dead and gone. Breaks my heart a little, definitely for storied IP like Banjo Kazooie. That was part of my formative years. It still is what it is.
Sidebar: Antitrust agencies failed so miserably on the ABK merger ... it boggles the mind. Now there is bunch of people in the managerial class of those agencies who might be well deserving of being a permanent cost-cutting measures.
Re: Romero Games Reportedly Shut Down Following Xbox Layoffs
@Coversnail To be fair, it doesn't really matter how good they are doing right now. It only matters how much better they are going to do next fiscal year. It's easy to blame M$ for that, but really ... this is just a system working exactly as intended.
Re: Switch 2 Users Are Reporting Instances Of Their Consoles Overheating
The only instances of "freezing" I encountered so far where browsing the e-shop when the summer sale started. System froze 5 times in a row before I decided that the e-shop was just overloaded and had to try again later.
That aside, with millions of units of a new product shipped and sold there are bound to be issues with a small percentage, no matter how good the QC is.
Re: Every Nintendo Switch Online GameCube Game On Switch 2, Ranked
I could try and express how much I love PoR, but it would not do it justice. I still have my og copy for both PoR and RD. PoR introduced me to FE, from where I circled back. I will forever keep and treasure it. It sits right next to stuff like my copy of Incubation, which introduced me to the genre (if you never played that one and like FE, do yourself a favor and head over to gog.com and grab yourself a copy!). Both games are Goats in their own way.
Glad to see it becoming readily accessible this way. Although it slightly brakes my heart that we now will most likely never see a HD remaster collection. We'll at least we got Baten Kaitos, right?
Re: Nintendo Download: 3rd July (North America)
Great, more shovelware for the e-shop.
Re: Microsoft Announces Second Wave Of Layoffs, Over 9,000 Jobs Affected
I said it back in the day when Scalebound was cancelled (not to mention Phantom Dust and the misguided Fable Legends) and I say it again: Phil seems like a really likeable guy all the time, but the strategic decisions in terms of software they make were horrible long before anyone at Sony even started salivating over Live-Service-games. It's mismanagement of talent on a scale that defies reason, pure and simple.
I can't even feel bad about The Initiative, since I'm still stunned by Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin ... but it's rarely the people who make the wrong strategic calls who get to pay the price
Re: Bandai Namco's Summer Showcase Promises Plenty Of Switch News Later This Week
All I for one want to see is a new Scarlet Nexus! 😬
Re: Dave The Diver Is Getting A Free Switch 2 Upgrade "Soon", Says Mintrocket
@PinderSchloss It's a bit frustrating seeing so many major 1st party releases not getting any support at first, but I am pretty confident that Nintendo is well aware of the opportunity (they updated ARMS, right?) and will want to spread these "releases" out over the coming months to basically bolster their schedule and feed the news cycle.
From their point of view, it does make sense: they can't sell more console for now than they're currently selling. It would just be a goodwill and PR waste for them to update everything right away.
I will say this though: not having played XBCX on Switch yet, it WOULD be nice to at least have confirmation that updates are forthcoming. I have plenty of other stuff to occupy me with, but not knowing for sure if there is any point in having patience seems pointless. Then again, it's Ninty so ... yeah.
Re: Beat 'Em Up Classic Double Dragon Gets A Modern Revival On Switch This October
Looks fun, but not loving the visuals on this at all. Kinda the opposite the reaction to Tókon then: I dig the genre, but hate the look!
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch 2's GameCube Library Next Week
@ThisisJosh Yeah, you right of course! I just meant, it is a bit of an odd priority. Like Strikers feels like a game already superseded. Sunshine is literally already available on the Switch in a superior version most would argue. I don't mind there being two options/versions to play any such game, but it's an ... interesting place to start the drip-feed.
If they were dropping like 10 games a month it would be one thing, but we all know that is not going to happen.
Re: EA Worker Pay Continues To Dwindle As CEO Picks Up $5 Million Bonus, Thus Creating Amusingly Tall Financial Graph
Looking at that graph ... that's exactly what logarithmic scaling is for Using median for incomes distribution is generally the way to go.
As for the income gap itself, obviously it is ridiculous by any measure of common sense and economic reasoning one might dare to apply. At the same time, it is by no means an issue related to EA specifically or the gaming industry in general. It's a tiny wheel in a giant machine that particular the U.S. has been happily fueling for about half a century.
Interestingly enough, Nintendo itself is actually a "weird" outlier in that respect. Having pay gaps by a ratio of 1000x is increasingly common for instance. And no, I am not kidding.
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch 2's GameCube Library Next Week
Would be nice if they added Luigi's Mansion 1. I picked up LM 2 HD in the sale and noticed there is no way to replay the first game on Switch so far, which is kinda weird.
Same goes for Metroid Prime. I'm sure there is a number of folks who picked up the series with the Series with Remastered and ... would like to see the series through before Beyond arrives.
Not sure Strikers was a priority release really given Nintendo's drip-feed approach to anything virtual console.
Re: Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess Celebrates 1st Anniversary With Free DLC
Played the game on Steam since release. Experimental Capcom it's best! Highly recommended and the free little DLC is much appreciated, esp. given the price point of the game.
Re: Front Mission 3: Remake Appears To Replace 2D Art Assets With Generative AI
Seems like another misuse of technology to me. Not a problem with the technology as such. More generally, this reminds me of something I once read about DA:Origins: high-end 2D artistic renditions will always beat middle-of-the-road 3D renderings.
@Ultimapunch To be fair, partially replacing human workers with automation is largely how we have increased productivity for at least the last four decades. AI is just the latest in hyper capital-intensive labor-replacement technology. Back in the 1860s two bearded guys had some rather in-depth thoughts about the inevitable nature of this process
Re: Atari's Badass 'Fatal Run' Revival Nails A Fall 2025 Release Window
That does not look half bad and I do really like vehicular combat games. Really wish we could get a new Vigilante 8, but that is probably not going to happen. Friggin loved that game growing up!
Maybe Mario Kart Would could take a clue here and add some ... y'know varied gameplay content. That could be something with boss fights and all. If this game I've never heard of before can do it, maybe that $80 game could as well?
If the reviews for this are decent, I'll check it out.
Re: Missed Out On Castlevania Anniversary, Advance & Dominus Collection Physical Editions? Fear Not, As Pre-Orders Have Gone Live On Play-Asia
Castlevania Dominus Collection is one of the three physical SW games I own. I left it sealed though and been playing the digital release since I got my SW2 All three games are certified bangers in my book, but Dawn of Sorrow is just a game I also have the fondest of memories for from the NDS days. I don't mind having multiple copies (incl. Steam) for these. I'll replay them until I no longer can.
The Advance Collection titles are also neat Metroidvanias of course, but I feel they fall short of the DS ones, plus I never owned them back in the GBA days, so I have no nostalgia for them.
The pre-SotN games do nothing for me personally, so I skipped the anniversary collection. I would love to see a SotN re-release for SW though, as convenient portable version outside of my Playsi would be neat.
Anyways, very worthwhile games - no matter what release you pick!
Re: Drag X Drive Switch 2 eShop Price Revealed
I dunno, I mean, personally I expected at least $ 30, hence this is not bad news at all. Then again, that particular expectation was based on the absolute nickel'n'dimming of zero pack-in games and instead giving us a $10 interactive manual, so ... yeah ...
The thing I find kind of fascinating is that so far, there is no 1st party game really showing off mouse mode. That is rather unusual for Nintendo. Is this supposed to be it then? Or still MP4? I'm not in any way critical about mouse mode, I think it makes 100% sense and was the next logical step to bridge gap to THE main benefit of PC as far as certain genres go (I for one cannot enjoy playing FPS with a controller for instance, it never feels even remotely right). Still, would have been nice to have something at hand to really make use of it. I know, there is Cyberpunk but as impressive as that port is, that is a PC game if I ever saw one
Anyways, curious to see what the reviews will say about Drag x Drive. I have no idea what to make of it.
Re: Nintendo Confirms The Release Date For Drag X Drive On Switch 2
I don't love how these reveals happen in the most anticlimactic way imaginable: in yet another pointless app.
Either they still have a ton of other stuff to reveal during their next Direct or they are going to just repeat this process for like MP4 release date as well, which would be about as appropriate and exciting as burying Silk Song for like 6,4 seconds in a sizzle-reel ... what else is the alternative? A Direct Lite? That would definitely be the worst option, so I can't see that.
Not sure this is really the best way to market stuff like this in general and build the most hype possible. But Nintendo has all the data to make these decisions, so they must obviously know best. Maybe it is just them experimenting ... or maybe they just feel it is worth the trade-off to get people to install the app?
As for the game itself, I have yet to see anything about it, I find enticing. It looks incredibly dull and more like a tech demo wiped up on the go to test a concept. Looking at Welcome Tour I also expect highly questionable pricing to be honest. 99% a pass for me to be honest.
Really an odd way to drive the conversation about 3 weeks into the generation.
Re: Legendary Fighting Dev Is Hosting Its Own 'Direct' Later This Week
Not a big fighting game guy, and I still expect a proper Nintendo Direct before the Pokemon one next month, which will be more interesting to me (as well as the Capcom Spotlight actually, since they're really cooking lately), but even I have been pretty darn flashed by Marvel Tokon during the last Sony state of play. That game looked like an absolute blast.
I just hope to learn about whether it is going to be something worthwhile for a filthy fighting game casual like myself or even have meaningful single player content. Other than that, I am personally not interested in their offerings, just not my thing even if visually, all their efforts are very much appealing.