Shepdawg1

Shepdawg1

User

Comments 606

Re: Talking Point: Which Scary Video Game Moments Gave You Nightmares As A Kid?

Shepdawg1

A few things for me:

1. Zelda 2 - that Game Over screen. Naturally, I wasn’t very good at Zelda 2 as a kid, so I would die a lot, but I remember seeing that screen and being absolutely terrified. For the longest time, I had to look away whenever I died, hoping that I wasn’t going to get the game over, and being super hesitant to look at the screen after it had happened out of fear of seeing Ganon’s silhouetted body against that bright red background.
2. Star Fox 64 - I was at a friend’s house and we were playing through the campaign on the easy path. Since that isn’t the true ending of the game, after the Great Fox flies off into the sunset, Andross’ face fades in, smiling in the most unsettling way, and you hear his laugh. When I saw that, I remember having to run out of the room, asking my friend to get off the screen and move on with the game.
3. Air Fortress - In this game, as you explore the Fortresses, they’re brightly lit and the music is upbeat and catchy. So it was easy for me as a kid to watch at this point. However, after you blow up the core of any given fortress, a countdown starts for you to escape, with a Game Over awaiting you if you don’t. Yeah, Metroid did this, but I’d argue this game did it to the nth degree. In this game, everything from the background to the character sprites gets darker as the lights dim and the game begins the most anxiety-ridden music. Over time, the screen will start to shake, the screen will flicker, the shaking gets worse, and finally it ends with a whiteout, indicating you weren’t fast enough. Also unlike Metroid, you can’t see the countdown timer, so for the first few times, you never truly know how much time you have left. And worse yet: you often still have to fight your way out through enemies, so you have to juggle your own fear with being able to act rationally and quickly. This part always scared me as a kid, to the point that, according to my parents, I would run out of the room while they were playing and wait for them to tell me to come back in. Even nowadays, it still gives me anxiety. To this day, I haven’t found another NES game that instills pure dread like this game does. Watch the escape sequence and find out why. (Also play the game. It’s severely underrated. And it’s made by HAL).

Re: Nintendo's YouTube Channel Gets Renamed, Loses Verification Tick

Shepdawg1

@BabyYoda71 I’d argue that you’re overestimating their worth, especially on YouTube. From what I can tell, they don’t even appear on the mobile app. There are some places where they can be important, but on a channel for a large corporation dedicated to video games, it ultimately means very little. Besides, this is Nintendo. They’ll be re-verified within a week tops, so this news is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Also, I’m in North America, so this came towards the end of my day.

Re: Talking Point: How Were You Introduced To Metroid?

Shepdawg1

I vaguely knew about Metroid growing up, but my first experience with it was sometime in the early 2000’s. My cousin visited and brought his GameCube with him, and along with it, a copy of Metroid Prime. I was initially confused and not very interested as I didn’t have much interest in first-person shooters at the time. Then I tried it. I’m not sure what about it got me, but I was very intrigued. After that, I emulated the first Metroid game through a Palm Pilot (I still don’t know how I managed to play through it on a device absolutely not designed for video gaming, but I did). It was around that time that Metroid: Zero Mission was coming out, and I had some money saved up, so I decided to buy it. And I played it (and the unlockable Metroid NES onboard) to death; so much that I could 100% it without a guide. After that, the rest is history. I made my way through all the games I had missed, through the new games (except Other M…someday, though), and have been a big fan since!

Re: Feature: Dynamax Ain’t That Bad - Pokemon’s Recent Battle Mechanics Ranked

Shepdawg1

THIS! This article perfectly encapsulates how I feel about all three of these.

Mega Evolution: great for a design and lore perspective, absolutely horrible from a gameplay and balance perspective. Also, Mega Rayquaza is just so insanely busted. It and the Primals absolutely ran the meta for both ORAS and SuMo’s restricted format, which isn’t fun to watch.

Z-Moves: middle of the road of coolness between Dynamax and Megas. Much more balanced than Megas and not exclusive to only a few Pokémon, and the unpredictability factor made matches fun to watch, but playing with them made things too unpredictable, even for Pokémon

Dynamax: conceptually boring, but the fact that you couldn’t rely on them for most of the main game and the balancing employed has made it the best addition of the three from a battling standpoint.

Re: NFT Project With Artwork From Mega Man Artist & Mighty No. 9 Creator Keiji Inafune Confirmed

Shepdawg1

@Serpenterror I made that comment a while back before today’s announcement. It doesn’t bother me too much. Idolizing people only leads to disappointment, so I just never bother. I’m also very much a “Nothing is black and white” kind of guy. I disagree with his decision to launch an NFT line, but people are too multi-faceted to put solely in a good camp or bad camp, so I just let them lead their lives and I try to lead my best one.

Re: Video: Is Nintendo Switch Sports Really That Bad?

Shepdawg1

Just based on what I’ve played of the demo, it isn’t bad. Just very familiar, to the point of feeling uninspiring. A big part of the original Wii Sports was the novelty of using a brand new control method, but that novelty has since worn out. With that, the only real draw is nostalgia, which can’t quite carry it, in my mind.

I believe that there’s plenty of fun to be had with Switch Sports, but with it being so derivative of Wii Sports, I’m not rushing to purchase it.