Comments 3,610

Re: Review: Bonk's Adventure (Wii U eShop / TG-16)

StarDust4Ever

I just noticed on the Wii-U eShop page, Bonk is a Konami title? Er no. Konami did not release this game. It was listed as Hudson on the original Wii Shop and on my original TG-16 Hucard. Typo? What gives?

Don't care that Konami bought Hudson. Kanomi did not release this!!!

Re: NES Visual Compendium Kickstarter Hit With Intellectual Property Dispute

StarDust4Ever

@kincl4 I think it may well be an issue some years from now. The current trend with homebrews is to make them distinctive, but hacks and repros generally try to emulate the styling of the original carts. So someone has a hack or reproduction like Return to Dinosaur Land or Zelda BS, and suppose twenty years from now a deceased collector's loot gets unloaded at a thrift store. It's not unlikely that newbie collectors might see the seal and mistaken a repro for a period release, and question why Mario is walking around with his #### hanging out or other weirdness.

The general consensus is to make stuff look as close to original as possible, and assuming the game never existed at retail then this will be common knowledge to any collector looking to buy the item. This lies under a false pretense assuming that all collectors are as knowledgeable as the person creating the hack, repro, or bootleg. I think the homebrews or repro makers should feel free to place their own branding logo on the carts, but not use the official Nintendo seal or brand if it's not an official period release.

Re: NES Visual Compendium Kickstarter Hit With Intellectual Property Dispute

StarDust4Ever

@kincl4 Parodying the official seal probably did not go over well either. Too many homebrew authors and repro makers misuse the seal as it is, either copying it in whole or simply changing the text inside the seal. I am generally against this practice, but I collect homebrew and other unofficial items, so I accept this if the author chooses to include it in the packaging.

This being a commercial production and not something made in someone's garage, the campaign starter should have known better. Does anyone have a mirror to the campaign video? I would like to see it. Archive.org shows the kickstarter page but only images and text.

Re: Miyamoto And The Super Mario Kart Team On Drifting, Battle Mode And Creating Tension On The Track

StarDust4Ever

@SpeedRunRocks Smoking wasn't stigmatized as much in the past as it is now. It's really bad for you, but everyone did it. Only recently have their been efforts to ban smoking inside public spaces, and shield children from exposure to media. Also Japan has always been looser with censorship, so it's not surprising a reference to smoking was not removed from the interview for Japanese audiences. It certainly would have been for US though.

Re: ​Super Mario RPG Hits the North American Wii U VC for This Week's Update

StarDust4Ever

I still remember downloading this to my Wii on Labour Day of 2008. Or was it 2009? Can't remember honestly. Good times either way, and I did secure a physical copy too for SNES. I upgraded the battery to a holder before I started playing, and made it to the last area in the game and put it away for a year or two, before realizing the pad for my replacement battery holder was broke. A dab of solder will fix it, but not bring back my save file.

Re: Nintendo Share Price Falls to Lowest Point in Over a Year as Global Markets React to 'Brexit'

StarDust4Ever

Stock market will rebound in coming months to pre Brexit levels. Anyone dumping stocks or cashing in their 401Ks right now is an idiot. If anything now is a good time to buy while shares are low.

@WinterWarm You bring an excellent point. Hillary is definitely the lesser of two evils, but the fact remains both candidates are heavily despised. Sanders or Cruz would have either made fine presidents had either secured nomination. I am fearful for our country if Trump gets elected. Mouth off at the wrong time to the wrong leader and start WWIII. What if there were another incident like Cuban Missile Crissis? Kennedy's carismatic negotiations and delicate handling of the situation prevented WWIII. Trump would seem hell bent on bombing the warship to oblivion and ask questions later. Building a wall? Um, it's been done before. Berlin, anyone? That didn't go over too well. Mexicans and Central / South Americans should be allowed to obtain Visas and green cards so they don't have to enter illegally. The only jobs these immigrants are "stealing" are the ones the middle class don't want to do anyway.

Re: Eiji Aonuma Talks Voice Acting and Sci-Fi in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

StarDust4Ever

@Gluff I've played Simpsons' Hit & Run as well as The Simpsons' Game, and each character had a dozen or so one-liners that got long in the tooth. Both games were fairly good from a gameplay perspective, but I wanted to mute the voice acting after a while.

Mario's grunts and moans in the 3D games are different though. They add character without getting old. Even in Sunshine's cutscenes, Mario hardly ever said a word.

But yeah, devs should keep dialog restrained to cutscenes.

Re: Review: Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge (3DS eShop)

StarDust4Ever

I could care less about Amiibo figure articulation. Ten cent toy soldiers don't articulate and neigther do $100 Super Hero statues.

I've played partway through the Wii-U version, however anyone with an older 3DS and no portal will be bummed out pretty quick. Pretty good game overall and I have all the Amiibos including elusive Rosalina, so I will be playing them at my leisure. Neat that they all have slightly different abilities so that adds replay value. Now I simply wish there were a Pauline Amiibo made specially for this game!

Re: Eiji Aonuma Talks Voice Acting and Sci-Fi in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

StarDust4Ever

@Gluff On the contrary, I think voice acting is wonderful when used appropriately. Many games however, have characters repeating the same lines over and over. Text boxes you can skip if you don't want to read them. However each videogame has a limited number of lines or soundbytes, and unlike movies, you repeat certain tasks while playing a game. Hearing a cheesy one liner uttered by a character for the umpteenth time can get grating.

That's why I personally believe voiceacting should be reserved for cutscenes and not all in game dialog. Zeldda botw uses voice acting in this manner and I feel adding emphasis in such a way is very appropriate.

Ditto for Mario Sunshine, which used voice acting in the majority of cutscenes, and the only Mario platform game to do so extensively. Strung together, it formed a nice little narrative which added charm to the game. Not much else was added during gameplay besides the usual grunts and occasional yahoo.

Re: Eiji Aonuma Talks Voice Acting and Sci-Fi in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

StarDust4Ever

NPCs talking is dumb. Save it for the pre-rendered cutscenes. Imagine the mountain of text in an old school RPG, if every single bit of dialogue by every NPC was voiced. Not only would it get old fast, but that much scripted voice acting would cost the developer a fortune. And you got to do it at least twice, once in Japanese and once in English. Then five more times for Europe.

Re: Eiji Aonuma Talks Voice Acting and Sci-Fi in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

StarDust4Ever

Voice acting is overrated in games honestly. For movies/anime it's different. One issue in games that voice act everything, you start to hear the same boring phrases over and over again, but well scripted voice acting during cutscenes can add impact. Super Mario Sunshine cutscenes are among my favorite in the series largely because of the narration. Sparingly is the key, like how Super Mario Galaxy, Rosalina says nothing, until the final fight, "Go Mario!" Such impact to hear her voice.

Nintendo always march to the beat of a different drummer anyway and never cared what the others were doing. As for technology aspect, it's a ruined world living in the shadows of an advanced civilization. Whether said technology is of alien or human origin is besides the point.

Also, if girl Link is available in this game, I will want to play as her, despite being male. But does female Link rescue a male Zelda???

Re: E3 2016: Paper Mario: Color Splash Dated for 7th October

StarDust4Ever

No evidence of partners or FP. Cards appear to be reuse of sticker mechanic from Sticker Star. I hope they can somehow return to the glory days but this is looking more and more like an HD version of Sticker Star.

PM64 and espeially TTYD was ledgendary. Super was a nice remix and solid playing title with great story and gameplay even if a departure from tradition.

Sticker Star was a disappointment. I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic but will definitely be waiting for a review before I purchase this title.

Re: Review: Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)

StarDust4Ever

Question about the Kirby Amiibo usage in game: I scanned the new Kirby Series Amiibo (where he's riding the star) and I got the UFO. But everybody is saying the old Kirby gives Smash ability. If true, then the new Kirby is different in function in game compared to the old one. I didn't pick up the new Kirby series Dedede and Meta Knight as I already owned the Smash ones. Are these different too? What about Kirby Series exclusive Waddle Dee?

Other games have different functions, for instance pixel Mario or Yarn Yoshi have similar function in Smash as the standard characters, but different if you scan them into say Mario Maker or Yoshi Wholly World.

Re: Talking Point: 3DS Homebrew Development Causes Another Game Takedown as Nintendo Maintains Its Tight Grip

StarDust4Ever

@Jin15 Problem is not that I have issue with people hacking their systems. I don't. People can hack their systems if they want, but as a rule, I don't hack or pirate on current gen systems.

What I have an issue with is Nintendo''s reckless takedowns of 3rd party games as a direct result of homebrew exploits. This is bad for gamers and bad for developers, and Nintendo's reckless treatment of 3rd party IP needs to be addressed. As well as the hackers needs to consider the complications of their reckless behavior as it directly effects the welfare of 3rd party devs as well as enjoyment of said games by gamers who are denied access of games.

Re: Talking Point: 3DS Homebrew Development Causes Another Game Takedown as Nintendo Maintains Its Tight Grip

StarDust4Ever

@Jin15 Nice to see you here Jin. I changed my username on Nlife as a joke, originally stardust4ever.

I think it's a travesty that devs have to suffer from their games getting mercilessly pulled from eShop as a result of these exploits. I'm not saying that expo@loits are bad, but Nintendo is seriously hurting the small devs by taking down games.

Besides, can't Nintendo just patch the system to search for tampered save files and delete them like they did in the Wii days? This is seriously bad for developers and gamers alike to forcibly remove content.

Re: Nintendo NX Production Reportedly Pushed Back To 2017 To Incorporate Virtual Reality

StarDust4Ever

The NX will be a portable/Hybrid; I get that. If Nintendo goes the Occulus Rift route, they will fail harder than Virtual Boy did in the 90s. Occulus Rift is a really expensive tech gadget and very much niche product. Thst's not to say it can't be profotable if it fills this niche well. VR technology has been demoed to death since the 90s. Every attempt at adding VR to consumer tech for the past 20 years or so has failed.

If the NX goes down this VR road, time to say bye bye. I'll go to being a full time retro gamer. But I have full faith this article is bunk and the NX will be awesome.

Re: retroUSB's HDMI NES, the AVS, is Heading for a Summer Release

StarDust4Ever

@Kirk No offense but that controller mockup is poor design. RetroUSB's wireless controller is inspired by the NES Max, but with the classic NES layout. The only difference between it at the classic rectangular NES controller is the ergonomic handles. In fact, Brian even said that the wireless AVS circuit board will fit in a normal NES controller shell with slight modifications. You won't have access to the awesome turbo buttons and you'll need to Dremel the cable hole to fit the microUSB charging port.

Re: retroUSB's HDMI NES, the AVS, is Heading for a Summer Release

StarDust4Ever

@TheMudHutDweller "Talking of Miiverse, I've noticed how you're just so dang popular. You're like some social dynamo! "I have no followers because I have other things to do. I actually have a life". No, it's because you're a (pwned) TROLL."

I rarely use Miiverse, so I don't get whatever you are saying. You must have me confused with someone else. Besides the fact that you bothered to look me up on a service I rarely use, tells me that YOU ARE THE TROLL. Otherwise you wouldn't have bothered trying to look me up. Also maybe, just maybe, I don't have any followers because I don't care about followers or really use the service much.

You won't find me on Facebook or Twitter because I don't use social media. On AtariAge and NintendoAge, I'm Kosmic Stardust. Everywhere else, I'm Stardust4Ever. On NintendoLife, I'm known as HAMSTER OVERLORD. And you sir, are a hamster, so prepare to bow down...

Re: retroUSB's HDMI NES, the AVS, is Heading for a Summer Release

StarDust4Ever

@Freelance Thanks. I actually changed my avatar and username just to toy with @TheMudHutDweller a little bit. Now I've slept on it and starting to regret it somewhat, but cest la vie! I don't religiously read articles on NLife anymore since I don't have the time. Just a lot of misinformation going around regarding the AVS and I call them out for it and get labeled as a troll.

@Kirk Size really doesn't have much in relation to quality. I think the AVS is beautiful. It has a retro inspired feel with a touch of modern refinement and class that would look good in any modern or retro gaming setup. With few exceptions (ie PC Engine) the miniaturization trend is all about shrinking gadgets to reduce cost and trim as much fat as possible. Enclosures are made small and thin to reduce the bottom line, and similar compromises occur at the PCB design level. At some point the cost cutting goes too far and quality suffers.

It's always been a tradeoff between quality versus quantity. American versus Chinese design philosophy. You think you're getting a deal but you're not. Modern greedy corporations actually want your stuff to break in two years so you'll be forced to buy another one. RetroUSB AVS has a pretty good chance it will still work ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, like consoles of old.

And no, as RetroUSB stated, AVS doesn't use recycled CPU and PPU NES chips in the design the way their boutique competition does. Super 8, Analgue NT, and Kevtris HDMI mod all rely on original hardware. The problem here is that such a salvage model is unsustainable. There are only so many damaged consoles in existence from which to harvest parts; after that you are cannibalizing working hardware that is still in service.

@RetroUSB Just FYI, what you are doing with FPGA is amazing, not only cheaper than the competition but if issues arise it is easily fixable through firmware should an issue arise.

Also a shoutout for the scoreboard, although the article doesn't specifically mention it. I plan on hooking up my AVS and submitting scores to the NA database just for fun, even though I'm really more of a casual player than a hardcore competitor.

Take care...