@BenAV Price aside, I think that is a totally reasonable approach every since the PS3 era basically. Each generation has become more prone for games being significantly improved and expanded upon after launch to the point where for most releases buying Day 1 is a shorthand for voluntary beta testing basically.
Not every game is as dramatic as Cyberpunk of course. For example, I played Three houses for a dozen chapters on Hard/Classic when it launched before I stopped because without any challenge whatsoever it simply did not feel like Fire Emblem. Only by chance did it realize that they later patched in Maddening (plus some other stuff + DLC of course), that did alleviate at least this major issue of mine. I started from scratch then, including all the tedious running around in the monastry.
I would have been better served of waiting a year or so before picking the game up: wasted time and money.
Thing is though, I wanted to play and love the game Day 1. I was okay paying a premium for that. I was not okay with coming up short with the actual experience though.
As a consumer, it feels bad to basically being punished for supporting a product there Day 1. I don't want to argue against developers taking care of their products after launch and it is great that we can fix stuff that slipped past QA, as it always does, and it is also great that user feedback can make a game better even long after launch, but still ... I wish everything essential were just there Day 1, that includes stuff like balanced difficulty modes and such.
All I know is that the track record so far strongly indicates that there are in fact not given to planning ahead to the next generation: both Xbox and Sony managed to carry their online ecosystems forward more or less seamlessly (though I do have some gripes there as well, but that is neither here nor there), while Nintendo basically does a hard reset every other generation.
This is remarkable because conventional wisedom is that you lock users into your ecosystem and then keep them there no matter what. Kinda hard to imagine Apple going like ... remember all the stuff you bought on iTunes folks? Too bad, that shiny new $4.000 XYZ device ... well, you cannot access that content anymore. But you we will drip-feed it back to you over the next 8 years, well some of it that is, not at your digression and only for a subscription fee!
Other than that, with the Switch 2 generation my interest is only that of a fascinated spectator. I have most of my OG discs and the hardware, plus a decent PC. I'm kinda done really caring what Nintendo does with 20 or 30 year old ROMs.
All of this was somewhat interesting and quirky in the Wii era, but all of this seems a really cynical way to milk a legacy. I would be okay with subscription, if the emulation was state of the art and catalogue comprehensive or - like I said - if it was at a really fair cost (I bought most of these games at least once before after all) and À-la-carte like on the WiiU.
This current approach ... I appreciate the way they are trying to revive multiplayer, that is pretty cool, but it feels too little too late.
Like ... I might want the convenice of replaying Path of Radiance on my Switch 2. I'm not gonna until I know that they I can also play Radiant Dawn and my saves will carry over. To me, given that we are talking about first party content and Nintendo's own platform, seems a totally reasonable, even obvious thing to consider.
This is not a 3rd party ******** on Android, that might run the former, but not the latter game or has simply has no option to import a save or whatever. This is Nintendo who should have every incentive to make sure they put their very best foot forward with bringing these games, that build their very brand over the decades, to a new generation as well as an old one.
I say all this knowing that the past decades should have taught me to expect nothing from Nintendo when I comes to this and that which we got thus already feels like a major win. Past failure is not a justification for current shortcomings though, hence ... I just accepted that they simply do not care - well, not all that much anyways.
Short answer: do not expect them to have a plan for a world after NSO. They might, but they are more likely to just break what was and then see what can be done.
Glad they made it available and I'll be even happier for the release of Path of Radiance, as that is truly a brilliant game far too few people got their hands on back in the day.
That said personally I am not interested in supporting a mediocre emulation service with an artificially restricted library, savegames that'll eventually get deleted and all of that at premium prices - straight from the source no less, who you would expect to provide the best emulation on the market and the most comprehensive catalogue of titles.
If they'd allow for an À-la-carte approach, I'd buy select releases as I've done on the WiiU, but alas ... another subscription with a weak value proposition is a complete no-go.
I've went straight to 1TB, so I think I'll be fine for a while.
I genuinely hope that this means we well get some high resolution texture* work for once. I mean, AoC was and still is a blurry mess visually speaking. It's a shame because I presume there is a decent looking game somewhere in there, but unfortunately it was denied the chance to come out and play with us
@bransby The games industry is like Hollywood: once they found something that even remotely works, they redo it until it is undeniably run into ground, then they still keep at it for 2-3 years until the next thing that remotely works has finally come around. Given we are talking FF here, there is a decent chance yet they'll make it happen before the current cycle has run out for 2D-HD.
Looks cozy and I for one still like the 2D-HD style. Is it getting increasingly overused? Yeah, but I think on it's own merit, it still holds up well, and it makes sense for these projects.
Unfortunately, there is just no way I can cope with vanilla turn-based combat of this fashion anymore. It's fine of course, it's the way these games were/are. I'm not hating on that.
It's just not something I can get into anymore, as we've seen such great strides in progrssing these at core turn-based system ... that I can't stomach a vanilla version of it anymore.
In a way it is a shame, but it is what it is. I'm not gonna waste time and money on barebones system I fundamentally feel are mind-numbingly tedious.
I kinda wish they had went the extra mile and made a classic combat system as well as something else and let you pick which one you want ... but, yeah, it is what it is and that is fine. I hope people who likes these system still, get to have a lot of fun with these games!
I hope there is a lot more and hopefully, they have left themselves open a backdoor for some legacy characters - maybe in an adventure mode or something? A big part of the charm of these games is the beloved characters and their varied playstyles after all.
HW but also FEW did a really amazing job, with more fan favourites than anyone could ever reaonsably find time to level. The bar is pretty damn high in that regard and neither AoC nor Three Hopes were slouches either.
That said, I love that Zelda is the focus here.
On a related note: I hope we can move on from the BotW-Zelda-Universe after this.
I started playing AoC a couple of days ago for a bit and I can't help but be torn: it is easily the most glamorous Musou game I've played with the cutscnes, the menus, the polish around most stuff and the first battle around Hyrule castle shows a pretty densely packed and detailed world, where you can even break some stuff with bombs and such. It is also rather mechanically dense in it's combat compared to some other Musou games.
At the same, I also played DW:Origins on PC and the fact is, that AoC very obviously runs at 30fps which feels sluggish, the resolution is super low turning much of the detailed world into a pixelated mess, the draw distance is terrible, so much of the battle has to play out in your imagination then, and the enemy density (the visible part) is alright, but it is nothing compared to sense of seeing entire armies crash in DW:Origins.
At the same time, Origins setting just does not interest me at all and the color palette and designs are suffocatingly drab for the most past compared to Zelda.
If AoI can deliver a solid 60fps with high enemy density and draw distance to really give you that in-the-midst-of-a-giant battle feel, then I think I'll pick it up and only play only through the Story for AoC.
It would have been really great if they could have done an AoC Switch 2 patch since the whole game seems wasted in it's current state, just dialing up the performance to a 1080p60 like Hyrule Warriors and adjusting the draw distance to be best the Switch 2 can handle, would totally have turned that game into a banger. But obviously they want to sell AoI and so they won't do that. Makes sense, but it's still a shame.
@BTB20 Yeah, I was just saying it just came out and it is already turning a huge profit (and yeah, I am aware that revenue does not equal profit for the developer, but at this kind of sales it does not matter). I was just trying to illustrate that the kind of budget Legends Z-A received has zero to do with risk mitigation and all to do with running up their margins.
Pokemon - for some reason - seems to be a very inelastic product, more like a captive product really. There is a huge built-in audience, that is not motivated by cost or quality. Or maybe it is more like Cigarettes in feeding a legal addiction?
I don't know, but there is no point in looking at it like any other games franchise. It very obviously does not operate on the same terms. As I said before, that would be like Activision doing FEWER CoD games, because they are worried about quality or even losses. It would be insane and shareholders would riot: more games is better for profits, not better games is better for profit. If you can do both, great, if you cannot, do the former not the latter.
@h3s That's fair, the last time Nintendo was the top-ranked publishers on metacritic for example (not that this is necessarily a be all and end all metric) was 2015 afaik. Something definitely shifted in the years after. To be fair though, the WiiU must have been a big system shock to them.
I was just pointing out, that the record shows that this is not true for Pokemon games. It's about as true for Pokemon games in fact as it is for Call of Duty games for example (where the pertinent questio is, whether the game will be the best seller of it's respective release year, but not if it will turn a significant profit), even though these operate at a completely different budget level. Just goes to show that talking about any business risk involved for Gamefreak by e.g. tenfolding the budget of something like Legends Z-A is simply not borne out by any available facts.
Again, it's just funny to me, because I definitely feel something like FE would carry a relevant risk, given the series was on it's last leg with Awakenking. Yet, Fire Emblem does get a fully modelled Garreg Mach with fully voiced no-name Monks. Not sure what else one could say on this, as all of this strikes me as super obvious: Legends was not a safety play to mitigate risk, it was margins play 🤑
How is that not a substaniated and fair assessment? Oo
@Dr_Lugae That doesn't really sound right for a game that was apparently developed (not marketed) in the sub $ 20 Million range and is part of a $ 100+ Billion franchise with already about 5,6 Million units sold. Just ballparking this means: with a median $ 60 a pop that gives us about $ 360 Million revenue in about a week? On what? Like maybe a $ 40 Million budget including marketing? If that is poor performance (other Pokemon games selling faster that is), then we are talking a supremely low-risk environment in my humble opinion, that allows for any kind of risk and thus experimentation really, that they feel like.
Also, by that logic neither Palworld nor Hogwarts Legacy should not really exist at all?
Yeah, the industry is generally risk averse, true, the bigger the project, the more risk averse it generally gets, also true, but then again we need to understand what the risk really looks like.
I don't think they are running any risk of not turning a profit. Does not matter whether the game costs $ 13 Million or $ 130 Million to make. In other words, the risk is not profitability, certainly not viability as a commercial entity, but simply margins.
I lack the imagination to think of anything they could do with Pokemon that would qualify as a risk under these circumstances. Maybe ... turning it into a one billion dollar production for an arena-based Pokemon shooter, that is R-rated, would qualify?
No, the point is, that it would be creatively sound to unshakle their developers with proper budgets and development time, but it would be terrible business. They can and will produce even cheaper in the future and run up their margins. Anything else would be silly, as their business does not rely on quality, but quantity.
The more they can pump up, the faster their line will go up. Qualtiy is not a consideration that can and should enter into their development strategy at this point. They are just doing what the data tells them. They can sell whatever they make, even if it is downright broken and needs a next-gen machine to make it resemble a working product. People will still pay $ 60 and play a thousand hours of it.
I don't even fault the creatvies for that as it is certainly not the creatives calling the shots here, though that is not something unique to Gamefreak. I imagine it must be highly frustrating to work on these projects. Nobody goes into visual design to create a city of ugly 2D blocks all day long.
The only weird thing is that Nintendo used to be a publisher that really believed in quality first, because they were protective of their brand, mores o than anyone else in the industry. But even that consideration is out the window for Pokemon since the jump to the Switch.
Any business on the planet would kill for a product that just sells, no matter what you do with it.
Folks can only hope they'll get higher effort products down the line, if they don't continue to make low effort products so commercially viable.
Shame since I think many of us, certainly myself, had such high hopes for the "Legends" games as the more experimental and progressive part of the franchise. I appreciate their efforts with experimenting with real time combat, but as for the whole package, I will not support that at full price. Maybe that next Legends game wil deliver.
PS: Kinda funny seeing Hogwards Legacy on that list though. That games not perfect, but oh boy did it deliver on the "Life in Hogwarts"-fantasy. Without a proven sales record, they went all out with it. Makes me respect it even more by comparison.
@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
Comments 2,316
Re: Monster Hunter Stories 3 Is Getting Bonus 'Side Story' DLC Next Year
@BenAV Price aside, I think that is a totally reasonable approach every since the PS3 era basically. Each generation has become more prone for games being significantly improved and expanded upon after launch to the point where for most releases buying Day 1 is a shorthand for voluntary beta testing basically.
Not every game is as dramatic as Cyberpunk of course. For example, I played Three houses for a dozen chapters on Hard/Classic when it launched before I stopped because without any challenge whatsoever it simply did not feel like Fire Emblem.
Only by chance did it realize that they later patched in Maddening (plus some other stuff + DLC of course), that did alleviate at least this major issue of mine. I started from scratch then, including all the tedious running around in the monastry.
I would have been better served of waiting a year or so before picking the game up: wasted time and money.
Thing is though, I wanted to play and love the game Day 1. I was okay paying a premium for that. I was not okay with coming up short with the actual experience though.
As a consumer, it feels bad to basically being punished for supporting a product there Day 1. I don't want to argue against developers taking care of their products after launch and it is great that we can fix stuff that slipped past QA, as it always does, and it is also great that user feedback can make a game better even long after launch, but still ... I wish everything essential were just there Day 1, that includes stuff like balanced difficulty modes and such.
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch 2's GameCube Library Today With A Spooky Classic
@Don I don't know, if or what plans they have.
All I know is that the track record so far strongly indicates that there are in fact not given to planning ahead to the next generation: both Xbox and Sony managed to carry their online ecosystems forward more or less seamlessly (though I do have some gripes there as well, but that is neither here nor there), while Nintendo basically does a hard reset every other generation.
This is remarkable because conventional wisedom is that you lock users into your ecosystem and then keep them there no matter what. Kinda hard to imagine Apple going like ... remember all the stuff you bought on iTunes folks? Too bad, that shiny new $4.000 XYZ device ... well, you cannot access that content anymore. But you we will drip-feed it back to you over the next 8 years, well some of it that is, not at your digression and only for a subscription fee!
Other than that, with the Switch 2 generation my interest is only that of a fascinated spectator. I have most of my OG discs and the hardware, plus a decent PC. I'm kinda done really caring what Nintendo does with 20 or 30 year old ROMs.
All of this was somewhat interesting and quirky in the Wii era, but all of this seems a really cynical way to milk a legacy. I would be okay with subscription, if the emulation was state of the art and catalogue comprehensive or - like I said - if it was at a really fair cost (I bought most of these games at least once before after all) and À-la-carte like on the WiiU.
This current approach ... I appreciate the way they are trying to revive multiplayer, that is pretty cool, but it feels too little too late.
Like ... I might want the convenice of replaying Path of Radiance on my Switch 2. I'm not gonna until I know that they I can also play Radiant Dawn and my saves will carry over. To me, given that we are talking about first party content and Nintendo's own platform, seems a totally reasonable, even obvious thing to consider.
This is not a 3rd party ******** on Android, that might run the former, but not the latter game or has simply has no option to import a save or whatever. This is Nintendo who should have every incentive to make sure they put their very best foot forward with bringing these games, that build their very brand over the decades, to a new generation as well as an old one.
I say all this knowing that the past decades should have taught me to expect nothing from Nintendo when I comes to this and that which we got thus already feels like a major win. Past failure is not a justification for current shortcomings though, hence ... I just accepted that they simply do not care - well, not all that much anyways.
Short answer: do not expect them to have a plan for a world after NSO. They might, but they are more likely to just break what was and then see what can be done.
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch 2's GameCube Library Today With A Spooky Classic
Glad they made it available and I'll be even happier for the release of Path of Radiance, as that is truly a brilliant game far too few people got their hands on back in the day.
That said personally I am not interested in supporting a mediocre emulation service with an artificially restricted library, savegames that'll eventually get deleted and all of that at premium prices - straight from the source no less, who you would expect to provide the best emulation on the market and the most comprehensive catalogue of titles.
If they'd allow for an À-la-carte approach, I'd buy select releases as I've done on the WiiU, but alas ... another subscription with a weak value proposition is a complete no-go.
Re: PSA: You Might Need To Free Up Some Space For Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment
I've went straight to 1TB, so I think I'll be fine for a while.
I genuinely hope that this means we well get some high resolution texture* work for once. I mean, AoC was and still is a blurry mess visually speaking. It's a shame because I presume there is a decent looking game somewhere in there, but unfortunately it was denied the chance to come out and play with us
Re: Review: Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (Switch 2) - Rounds Out The Erdrick Trilogy In Style
@bransby The games industry is like Hollywood: once they found something that even remotely works, they redo it until it is undeniably run into ground, then they still keep at it for 2-3 years until the next thing that remotely works has finally come around. Given we are talking FF here, there is a decent chance yet they'll make it happen before the current cycle has run out for 2D-HD.
Re: Review: Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (Switch 2) - Rounds Out The Erdrick Trilogy In Style
Looks cozy and I for one still like the 2D-HD style. Is it getting increasingly overused? Yeah, but I think on it's own merit, it still holds up well, and it makes sense for these projects.
Unfortunately, there is just no way I can cope with vanilla turn-based combat of this fashion anymore. It's fine of course, it's the way these games were/are. I'm not hating on that.
It's just not something I can get into anymore, as we've seen such great strides in progrssing these at core turn-based system ... that I can't stomach a vanilla version of it anymore.
In a way it is a shame, but it is what it is. I'm not gonna waste time and money on barebones system I fundamentally feel are mind-numbingly tedious.
I kinda wish they had went the extra mile and made a classic combat system as well as something else and let you pick which one you want ... but, yeah, it is what it is and that is fine. I hope people who likes these system still, get to have a lot of fun with these games!
Re: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment Playable Characters - Every Fighter Revealed So Far
I hope there is a lot more and hopefully, they have left themselves open a backdoor for some legacy characters - maybe in an adventure mode or something? A big part of the charm of these games is the beloved characters and their varied playstyles after all.
HW but also FEW did a really amazing job, with more fan favourites than anyone could ever reaonsably find time to level. The bar is pretty damn high in that regard and neither AoC nor Three Hopes were slouches either.
That said, I love that Zelda is the focus here.
On a related note: I hope we can move on from the BotW-Zelda-Universe after this.
Re: Poll: So, Will You Be Getting Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment?
I started playing AoC a couple of days ago for a bit and I can't help but be torn: it is easily the most glamorous Musou game I've played with the cutscnes, the menus, the polish around most stuff and the first battle around Hyrule castle shows a pretty densely packed and detailed world, where you can even break some stuff with bombs and such. It is also rather mechanically dense in it's combat compared to some other Musou games.
At the same, I also played DW:Origins on PC and the fact is, that AoC very obviously runs at 30fps which feels sluggish, the resolution is super low turning much of the detailed world into a pixelated mess, the draw distance is terrible, so much of the battle has to play out in your imagination then, and the enemy density (the visible part) is alright, but it is nothing compared to sense of seeing entire armies crash in DW:Origins.
At the same time, Origins setting just does not interest me at all and the color palette and designs are suffocatingly drab for the most past compared to Zelda.
If AoI can deliver a solid 60fps with high enemy density and draw distance to really give you that in-the-midst-of-a-giant battle feel, then I think I'll pick it up and only play only through the Story for AoC.
It would have been really great if they could have done an AoC Switch 2 patch since the whole game seems wasted in it's current state, just dialing up the performance to a 1080p60 like Hyrule Warriors and adjusting the draw distance to be best the Switch 2 can handle, would totally have turned that game into a banger. But obviously they want to sell AoI and so they won't do that. Makes sense, but it's still a shame.
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is The Smallest Retail Launch Since 'Let's Go!' In Europe
@BTB20 Yeah, I was just saying it just came out and it is already turning a huge profit (and yeah, I am aware that revenue does not equal profit for the developer, but at this kind of sales it does not matter). I was just trying to illustrate that the kind of budget Legends Z-A received has zero to do with risk mitigation and all to do with running up their margins.
Pokemon - for some reason - seems to be a very inelastic product, more like a captive product really. There is a huge built-in audience, that is not motivated by cost or quality. Or maybe it is more like Cigarettes in feeding a legal addiction?
I don't know, but there is no point in looking at it like any other games franchise. It very obviously does not operate on the same terms. As I said before, that would be like Activision doing FEWER CoD games, because they are worried about quality or even losses. It would be insane and shareholders would riot: more games is better for profits, not better games is better for profit. If you can do both, great, if you cannot, do the former not the latter.
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is The Smallest Retail Launch Since 'Let's Go!' In Europe
@h3s That's fair, the last time Nintendo was the top-ranked publishers on metacritic for example (not that this is necessarily a be all and end all metric) was 2015 afaik. Something definitely shifted in the years after. To be fair though, the WiiU must have been a big system shock to them.
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is The Smallest Retail Launch Since 'Let's Go!' In Europe
@Dr_Lugae I was totally agreeing with you.
I was just pointing out, that the record shows that this is not true for Pokemon games. It's about as true for Pokemon games in fact as it is for Call of Duty games for example (where the pertinent questio is, whether the game will be the best seller of it's respective release year, but not if it will turn a significant profit), even though these operate at a completely different budget level. Just goes to show that talking about any business risk involved for Gamefreak by e.g. tenfolding the budget of something like Legends Z-A is simply not borne out by any available facts.
Again, it's just funny to me, because I definitely feel something like FE would carry a relevant risk, given the series was on it's last leg with Awakenking. Yet, Fire Emblem does get a fully modelled Garreg Mach with fully voiced no-name Monks. Not sure what else one could say on this, as all of this strikes me as super obvious: Legends was not a safety play to mitigate risk, it was margins play 🤑
How is that not a substaniated and fair assessment? Oo
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is The Smallest Retail Launch Since 'Let's Go!' In Europe
@Dr_Lugae That doesn't really sound right for a game that was apparently developed (not marketed) in the sub $ 20 Million range and is part of a $ 100+ Billion franchise with already about 5,6 Million units sold. Just ballparking this means: with a median $ 60 a pop that gives us about $ 360 Million revenue in about a week? On what? Like maybe a $ 40 Million budget including marketing? If that is poor performance (other Pokemon games selling faster that is), then we are talking a supremely low-risk environment in my humble opinion, that allows for any kind of risk and thus experimentation really, that they feel like.
Also, by that logic neither Palworld nor Hogwarts Legacy should not really exist at all?
Yeah, the industry is generally risk averse, true, the bigger the project, the more risk averse it generally gets, also true, but then again we need to understand what the risk really looks like.
I don't think they are running any risk of not turning a profit. Does not matter whether the game costs $ 13 Million or $ 130 Million to make. In other words, the risk is not profitability, certainly not viability as a commercial entity, but simply margins.
I lack the imagination to think of anything they could do with Pokemon that would qualify as a risk under these circumstances. Maybe ... turning it into a one billion dollar production for an arena-based Pokemon shooter, that is R-rated, would qualify?
No, the point is, that it would be creatively sound to unshakle their developers with proper budgets and development time, but it would be terrible business. They can and will produce even cheaper in the future and run up their margins. Anything else would be silly, as their business does not rely on quality, but quantity.
The more they can pump up, the faster their line will go up. Qualtiy is not a consideration that can and should enter into their development strategy at this point. They are just doing what the data tells them. They can sell whatever they make, even if it is downright broken and needs a next-gen machine to make it resemble a working product. People will still pay $ 60 and play a thousand hours of it.
I don't even fault the creatvies for that as it is certainly not the creatives calling the shots here, though that is not something unique to Gamefreak. I imagine it must be highly frustrating to work on these projects. Nobody goes into visual design to create a city of ugly 2D blocks all day long.
The only weird thing is that Nintendo used to be a publisher that really believed in quality first, because they were protective of their brand, mores o than anyone else in the industry. But even that consideration is out the window for Pokemon since the jump to the Switch.
Any business on the planet would kill for a product that just sells, no matter what you do with it.
Re: UK Charts: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is The Smallest Retail Launch Since 'Let's Go!' In Europe
Folks can only hope they'll get higher effort products down the line, if they don't continue to make low effort products so commercially viable.
Shame since I think many of us, certainly myself, had such high hopes for the "Legends" games as the more experimental and progressive part of the franchise. I appreciate their efforts with experimenting with real time combat, but as for the whole package, I will not support that at full price. Maybe that next Legends game wil deliver.
PS: Kinda funny seeing Hogwards Legacy on that list though. That games not perfect, but oh boy did it deliver on the "Life in Hogwarts"-fantasy. Without a proven sales record, they went all out with it. Makes me respect it even more by comparison.
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