Hopefully someday there will be a return to the AA/AAA battery standard. Not just for portable consoles, but most devices in general.
With the rechargeable ones, they had effectively no downsides. And as the tech for them improved, devices built for smaller capacity batteries started having insanely good battery life if you upgraded them to higher capacity ones.
Nothing worse than needing to throw away an otherwise perfectly good appliance or gadget just because the battery inside it has become non-functioning or in danger of leaking/exploding from age, and it's difficult to remove or incredibly proprietary so a replacement cannot be easily obtained.
Very happy about the addition of the black borders! Better late than never, I say.
I'd also caught wind of the rewards issue in BN6 on some forums, so glad to know that got addressed before I reached that entry. Working through them in order, have played through 1-4 so far (not aiming for 100% collections or anything, just casual play-throughs).
@Eggolor The big Yoshi is in the original game, although fairly obscure. On Yo'ster's Isle, there's a baby Yoshi near a pile of eggs. Feed them an excessive number of Yoshi Cookies, and they eventually end up like that. If you feed them even more at that point, you can even get a few extra items as rewards.
I put in a little over 90 hours before calling it quits. I collected all the memories, did some of the more prominent side-quests (restoring Lurelin, doing the Kakariko election, etc.), all of the main quest events, a chunk of optional bosses, and a smattering of shrines/caves/koroks, as well as activating all the towers (I was originally considering doing the same with the lightroots, but decided I just wanted to move onto other games). I started cheesing things hard in the latter half of my play-time (minimalist aerial vehicles, ignoring most random mob fights and collectibles, etc.), as I was ready to wrap things up, but still wanted to at least see what the game offered.
My feelings towards TOTK are similar to my feelings towards Fallout 4. There was a trailer shortly before release that got me hyped up. I went in with an open mind for the "new direction". I was fairly optimistic due to my previous positive experiences with the franchise. I spent a good chunk of time experimenting with the new mechanics the game offered, and at some point realized I wasn't having fun. But still put in a fair few additional hours to see the game's main content to completion out of stubbornness (or sunk cost fallacy, whatever you want to call it).
And just like Fallout 4 vs. its predecessors, while I don't outright regret experiencing it, I feel I'm far more likely to revisit its predecessors than to play the game again.
I probably would've enjoyed TOTK more if I hadn't already put so many hours into playing BOTW. I think I'm just burned out on the open world formula.
@Yosher One of the tricks to managing stamina in Harvest Moon games is to seek out the Power Berries. They boost your maximum stamina. Also, eating and drinking generally restore a percentage of your current stamina, as well as going into a hot spring.
The SNES Harvest Moon is a bit of an odd one in the series. The actual day passes very quickly, so it can be difficult to get things done during daylight hours, especially early-game. But once it's night, the day never ends until you go to sleep. They balance this a bit, game-play wise, by making it impossible to deposit crops after a certain in-game time has passed (in most other entries, items put into the bins after the collection time just carry over to the next day). However, everything else involving the farm work can still be done during the night (harvesting wood, breaking rocks, watering, planting seeds, etc.). So in the SNES game, you can hop over to the hot springs for a while to recover stamina when it gets low, and do as much as you please in a single day.
There was an extremely brief time near the Switch's launch where the Switch eShop had the ability to rate games similar to the 3DS, where you could rate them after purchasing and playing them.
1-2-Switch is one of the games that correctly got drowned in negative ratings shortly after the rating feature went live. Nintendo's response was to sweep the incident under the rug, by removing the rating feature from the eShop entirely, and then never re-add it. At the time, they gave some nonsensical PR statement along the lines of "we're going to look for other ways of collecting feedback". Guess they decided it was a bad look that one of the most heavily marketed titles at launch was so poorly received, and that people could find that out within Nintendo's own eShop.
It seems that strategy worked out for them, since it proceeded to end up selling millions of copies despite the poor reception of people who played it.
In other words, the existence of 1-2-Switch directly resulted in having it be more difficult to sift through all the shovelware in the eShop, and find the good games, since its existence contributed to removing the ratings feature from the eShop.
I've got my eyes on Pikmin 4 and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life!
Might also check out Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island, although I'll likely want to see some gameplay videos before deciding one way or the other.
@Madao I think it mostly comes down to the materials being used by the great fairies, and for side quests. And going in blind to TOTK, while also having played BOTW previously, many people are hesitant to part with their inventories, until upgrades are being made, and side quests are being completed.
My first time playing BOTW, I sold a bunch of gems in the early game for rupees, and then I was sorely lacking in the many hundreds of gems that the fairies want once it's time for upgrades. Handing over valuable monster parts to Kilton for Mon also contributed to these problems. So, in any subsequent play-throughs on normal mode, I did not repeat this mistake, and hoarded aggressively all potentially valuable materials.
This was actually less of an issue in the "Master Mode" of the game provided by the BOTW DLC, as in that mode, they handed out gems like candy on the floating platforms, and higher level enemies that drop gems and more valuable/frequent monster parts started spawning sooner. So on the subject of rewards, the reward for playing a mode with harder combat difficulty instead of normal mode, was completely trivializing the economy, ensuring your wallet was always full, and being able to buy anything and everything at your leisure. In short, they removed the "grind", and let people focus on the gameplay.
@carlos82 The reason to buy all the house parts, is just wanting the option of being able mess around with the house layout on a whim. Interior designing and all that. It's pretty much in the same spirit as building contraptions and vehicles. Or how someone might want all the armors upgraded to be able to switch up their fashion from time to time without repercussions, even though only one set of nice armor is really necessary for performing well in the game.
If the thing someone is most interested in from the dream house is to just have a few spots to store extra weapons/bows/shields, or to have a cooking pot and bed handy, then yeah, there's very little reason to buy all of them. Just like how building the hover bike alone will satisfy basically all vehicle related obstacles in the game (2 fans and a controller, which are very cheap to acquire, with low battery cell requirements), and over-engineering beyond that with all the other parts is pretty much just for the sake of doing so.
Yeah, I'm not updating beyond 1.1.1 any time soon.
From my experience so far, there were far more lucrative ways to farm both materials and rupees in BOTW. I've yet to encounter anything like repeatable mini games that reward rupees or sizable numbers of materials in TOTK. The deer hunting mini game was my favorite way for collecting the rupees for buying armor or house upgrades in BOTW in an afternoon or two, and doing things like the distance gliding or golf mini games was also a nice way to switch it up once in a while if I didn't feel like doing that.
Also, selling meat or fruit dishes was reasonably profitable in BOTW, but for reasons I cannot comprehend they slashed selling prices by about 50% pretty much all across the board in TOTK. So, doubling the grind without lowering the prices in the stores, and with fewer ways to get materials for cooking to boot.
Before duping came along, I reluctantly sold some gemstones to get the Rito armors early-on while playing TOTK, knowing full well that upgrading all the armors would consume boatloads of gems later, and wasting them here would be setting myself back in resources, and increase the grind later. I wasn't feeling "rewarded", I was feeling annoyed.
And even then I was already doing the daily, boring, time-consuming process of scanning NFC tags to harvest amiibo materials to sell for rupees and to get decent shields and weapons (which is more or less functionally identical to duping in terms of application, only worse because it's "pay to win").
I was also doing things like wasting the already finite weapon slots to drag fused weapons back to Tarry Town to get them split to collect the materials, which worsens the impact of the breaking weapons, as I'd have fewer "usable" weapons at any given time in my inventory. The more constrained resources was actively ruining the pacing of TOTK for me, as the long term grind is always something I'm taking into consideration.
Also, the main reason breakable weapons weren't a deal-breaker for me in BOTW, was because there were bomb runes to fall back on. So taking away the solution to the issue, and then doubling down on making the issue worse, isn't great in my eyes. Bomb runes also solved the issue of needing to waste weapons for things like collecting ores and wood, so you could focus on using them in battles. I will say at least Yunobu's ability is a close enough TOTK "equivalent" for some things such breaking apart ore, once you have that.
At one point I thought the monster horns were free game for selling and fusing (as in, not consumed by side quests), so alright those are the moneymakers and primary weapon fusions, but it turns out those are used for equipment upgrades too (so unless you look up a guide or something to know exactly which are the "important" ones, it's most efficient to hoard literally everything other than common items like apples and meat until later).
Also, the money pits in TOTK are kind of ridiculous, compared to BOTW. Buying the full stock of dream home parts alone costs nearly 100,000 rupees, and upgrading a single set of armor all the way costs over 2,000 rupees each in addition to materials. I was fairly conservative in duping diamonds initially, building up 50,000 rupees, only to find out that wasn't nearly enough to get all the permanent items, even if I wasn't going to be purchasing the photos for the compendium.
This article sent me down a rabbit hole of looking up the many item duping methods people have been exploring.
There's an even easier, faster method of duping materials involving a piece of equipment that you'll get from an area up in the sky during the main story (or going up there when you have a minimum of 10 hearts to retrieve it, as it's heart-gated).
All you have to do is stand in place while on said equipment, and hold/drop the desired items using the Y+B menu method, grabbing them with A. Even works hassle-free on bugs, explosives, etc.
Also, the Y+B menu method can dupe Zonai capsules, if you attempt to hold/drop them standing in a corner of a room where they can't be dropped. No equipment needed.
For things other than materials, there's a more complicated method of duping shields/weapons involving reloading save files, opening and closing menus, and also dropping things. Sounds like more trouble than it's worth, unless someone REALLY wants to have a specific piece of gear always in their inventory, and be able to use it without wasting it.
With the selling price of most food and items being significantly nerfed compared to BOTW, and the drain on disposable resources being higher than ever due to more frequent enemy encounters, among other things, I started duping materials without a second thought. Much better than scraping up resources with awkward daily RNG scans of a complete set of unofficial Zelda amiibo cards, or having to constantly fast-travel to places I've already been to restock.
Next stop, duping zonaite to make the big battery so I can build fun contraptions that can operate for more than several seconds, and also be able to afford to create them on demand (would prefer if at least one contraption wouldn't disappear in the first place, similar to a horse, but I'll take what I can get).
@Greatluigi Hadn't heard of that one before. But when you mentioned sprite-based, then I thought you were talking about something else called Marenian Tavern Story. I've got that one on the Switch, actually.
Apparently that one is a spiritual successor of sorts to the Adventure Bar Story you mentioned, and it's made by the same developer. So if you enjoyed or were interested in Adventure Bar Story, might be worth checking out.
@Greatluigi For the other game, you're probably thinking of "Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God". It's a dungeon crawler available on PS Vita, and on PC via Steam.
Cooking curry from ingredients while in the dungeons was a primary game mechanic, and the storyline of the game was to collect the ingredients to make the ultimate curry.
I still haven't watched the movie, despite being interested, because I can't be bothered to go to theaters.
Would be nice if Nintendo made the movie available for streaming officially, on any of the MANY services available for doing so. I know there's plans to do it "eventually", but that's just begging for people that don't want to go to theaters to seek out the unofficial means, no? Same applies to any movie.
Movies that officially launch in theaters and on streaming services simultaneously are the real MVP's.
I'd been pretty pumped about its upcoming release several years ago, but after several additional years of basically radio silence my hype had...dropped, to say the least.
Glad the most recent trailer re-ignited the hype engines, so to speak. And that those with early access are enjoying it. Next month should be a fun one!
While I very much think it's a strange hill for the UK to choose as saying it "goes too far", I do feel the need to point out that Sony does, in fact, have a competing cloud service in the form of Playstation Plus (formerly called Playstation Now). So there is something resembling logic in their reasoning.
A Playstation console isn't required to use it, either. It's available via PC, and by extension it can be accessed across a wide array of devices.
Count me among the "they probably should have had a trailer like this sooner" crowd. It was a good trailer, and helped better showcase what the game is actually offering.
Would have gone a long way in culling skepticism, and stopping the arguments and generally negative atmosphere surrounding the game.
I'll pick the game up at release if I can find somewhere to get the collector's edition, myself. Not sure if it'll be possible to pre-order that any more, at this point, so I might just need to check the stores. If I can't find one, I'll consider the voucher program for a digital copy instead (just not sure which other game I'd get with the second voucher, that I don't already own physically/digitally).
I was hoping to see more story details, more interesting enemies, and more interesting landscapes to traverse, and the trailer delivered on all those fronts.
Recently, to hype myself up further, I've been watching the anime, picked up an imported Rockman DX Progress P.E.T., 3D printed and hand painted a Roll figurine, and also have the upcoming official Rockman Exe figure set pre-ordered (which includes Rockman/Megaman, Roll, Gutsman, and Fireman figures, as well as the 6x3 battle grid from the game to display them on).
I've got Battle Network fever! Friday can't come soon enough.
I don't know which one specifically is bothering them, but at one point in the game there's a mandatory pinball table with wonky, inconsistent ball physics, that is made worse by the fact it has no tilting to adjust the ball's direction, and insta-lose side pits. The required score to pass the table and continue to the rest of the game is quite high. Without tilting to prevent the instant losses that have zero user input, it pretty much comes down to pure luck on whether or not the score is met. For some players, that section might be over in a few minutes, and will be a fun little throwback. For the less fortunate, it can take an hour or longer. I really like pinball, in general, but that table was just painful to play.
If they're adding new mechanics to the games in patches, fixing the pinball table by adding a tilt feature should be at the top of the list. From my perspective, that pinball table is the game's most glaring flaw, and it can actively prevent people from finishing the game.
The other noteworthy "puzzle" that seems to trip up quite a few people is a late-game encounter with a mandatory, unavoidable enemy that causes instant death by drowning in the span of several seconds (encountered in the next zone shortly after the pinball table, so people might not be thinking clearly at the time, either). The first time you encounter it, it's also pretty far away from the previous checkpoint (so dying means a lot of back-tracking). Only one move will defeat it (down-stomping 3 times while inside it by pressing A while off the 'floor' and floating in the water), but the visual feedback the game provides really doesn't make it clear that's the correct/only way to defeat it, in comparison to other moves. Similarly to the infamous mandatory Sonic 3 carnival up/down pillar that doesn't behave like all the others, where moves other than the only correct one still give a visible reaction so people might experiment and keep trying things that simply won't work, it's trivial once you know how to pass it, but the visual feedback it provides is very misleading.
Also, the way countering works in the game is kind of weird. Optimal countering/parrying in this game is holding down the counter button well before an attack occurs. No timing is needed. Timing things anyway works "okay" for most of the battles and puzzles...right up until fighting a certain Titan that has terrible visual feedback on when it will attack, and needs to be consecutively countered many times. There were some breaks in my playing through the game and I'd long forgotten timing was irrelevant in this game for counters from the early instructions where they briefly mention that tidbit, which is highly irregular when compared to other games, so it took me some time to get through that specific fight. From what I've seen online in discussions for the game, that isn't a unique experience.
Playing racing games without a wheel (or motion controls simulating a wheel) feels so lifeless to me after enjoying Mario Kart Wii with the wheel/motion controls.
I'm a proud bearer of the "gold wheel" icon when playing 8 Deluxe online (which signifies playing dominantly/exclusively with motion, and attaining high positions the majority of the time).
I'll likely pick it up at release, as I have a lot of fond memories of playing the first Advance Wars, and haven't played through the original version for quite some time. So the remake is much appreciated. But, don't know when I'll be playing it.
The final timing of its release is unfortunate for me personally. Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection comes out literally one week before this drops, and my focus will 100% be on playing that when this releases. Wish Advance Wars would've shadow-dropped during the last Direct, like some had speculated.
The new mechanics aren't selling me on the game. I'd like to see more context for the game, just in general. The extended trailer felt like "Yes, people correctly interpreted the previous teasers". I don't feel like I know any more than before, really.
I was hoping to see some new areas, or new characters, or more story details, or something. Something to hype me up.
And most of the adjustments to weapons and exploration shown so far seem like they make the game easier and more streamlined. A big part of the appeal of Breath of the Wild was discovering novel solutions to overcome challenges. If there are more interesting enemies to fight that justify the increased flexibility, or more interesting landscapes to traverse, that would make it more interesting. But, they didn't really show that.
It's an awkward situation where I WANT to be hyped, I WANT to be excited. I WANT to feel the need to go pre-order the game right now. But, I'm not.
It was already being meme-d before from teasers of the building options in the previous TOTK trailers, but Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts unironically has more interesting vehicle building mechanics than what was shown (although admittedly more clunky to design, what with all its menus).
Also, the weapon fusing and new abilities seems like they were designed to make the experience easier, rather than more interesting (less climbing, less aiming, longer weapon range, etc.). Based on what they've shown, I feel like I'd actually enjoy exploring this version of Hyrule less than Breath of the Wild.
If the crafting and building mechanics are the primary draw of this game and it has little else new and fresh to offer compared to Breath of the Wild, it's gonna be a hard pass for me, I guess.
I bought the original 3DS during the transition period in the price changes, to slip into the ambassador program at the lowered price.
Later, I got the 3DS XL for the bigger screens (I think it was the red one), trading in the original one.
Once the Animal Crossing one arrived, I sold the previous XL to a relative for cheap and switched to the Animal Crossing one, as I liked the appearance. It had a short lived life in my possession, however, as it had a dead pixel on the top screen that developed almost immediately after purchasing I found VERY distracting, so I traded that in and got a pink one soon after. Stayed with that one for many years, using vinyl skins to fancy it up.
I picked up two used New 3DS XL consoles a couple years ago for the 3D tracking hardware upgrades and playing imported games (one NA region in galaxy, and one JP region in black; put vinyl skins on both), and sold my pink 3DS XL for a good sum on eBay, that actually covered the two replacements almost in their entirety (apparently the pink one was a rare color, in high demand if you still had original packaging like I did).
So...six in total. The two New 3DS XL's are the ones I still have.
I'm honestly not sold on this game at the moment, so seeing some actual gameplay rather than vague teasers is a must for me at this point to convince me otherwise. Will definitely be taking a look.
Genuinely hoping I will find whatever they show exciting.
What makes it funny, is the tribute is so weirdly timed, that if you don't know it's there before seeing the scene, or don't have the full context, it pretty much comes across as dark humor.
"One day, the queen met Peppa Pig and decided to jump in the water puddles with her. Oh, what a wonderful time!
No DLC and no locked amiibo content, and the increased price would be fine. But I somehow doubt that's happening.
Between DLC and amiibo content, a "complete" copy of Breath of the Wild was already offensively expensive, good game or not. Assuming a player didn't bypass some of the amiibo BS with an Amiiqo or something similar (which is stealing, depending on who you ask), which brought its base price down to "just" $80. Or took it a step further and skipped the DLC, locking them out of an arguably essential at-release completed feature whose code was actually in the base game (the Hero's Path), but was disabled and only available via DLC unlock.
If I had to make an educated guess, Nintendo decided to not bother with the official one after several other manufacturers already beat them to the punch in getting something to market, since it was considered a niche product.
Actually, Sword and Shield received physical releases that included the DLC and patches on the cart, years ago. And surprisingly, in all regions at that.
For basically any major, commercially successful retail game, there WILL be a physical version with DLC and patches released, somewhere in the world. Breath of the Wild being another example that received such treatment.
Any time using/accessing a game mechanic or feature in a specific way is clearly explained in a randomly displayed tutorial splash screen near the beginning of the game (you know the kind I'm talking about: suddenly interrupts the story/action for a quick info-dump), and I gloss over or forget part of the explanation and proceed to never use it in my play style.
And then, several/dozens of hours later, that specific mechanic is suddenly mandatory for a puzzle/boss in the late game. And then, once I come to the conclusion I'm clearly doing something wrong and search for some form of explanation, I find out about it in a random Youtube comment from people that had the same problem in the comment section for a video of that part of the game.
On a related note: huge props to developers that make any in-game tutorials able to be read later in the game, in the main menu. Huger props to developers that give enough visual feedback that key features/mechanics can't be missed/forgotten in the first place.
On the other hand, for those that see value in double-dipping, in the case of a game like TotK, without somehow pulling multiple forms of price-reduction and deal-hunting antics, and after also taking into consideration DLC for just one account, the "double-dip" price of TotK is $170 (before tax). And that's assuming they aren't getting the collector's edition instead of the standard edition, which will easily drive the price in excess of $200.
In the past, there was ready availability of 10%-20% off pre-orders, buy 2 get 1 free deals, some stores like Wal-Mart just out-pricing the competition by charging $10 below standard retail as an across-the-board policy for their in stock games, as well as DLC just not being as prominent. So, double-dipping used to be able to be done for less than $100 without much effort, even on release week for full-priced, big budget titles (or alternatively, buying one "$60" copy for less that $50). Pretty much all of that has disappeared in the past several years, which has been substantially driving up average prices that customers of all backgrounds pay, even before having the base cost increase on top of that.
Also, if double dippers stop being able to justify the cost of double dipping, individual sales originating from them will effectively be cut in half (and by extension, they will actually spend less money on any single game, just in general). If these people make up any sizable amount of the fanbase, the company will actually make less money overall, pricing out their customers.
In this specific case: For anyone that would have been willing to double-dip on Metroid Prime Remastered from $60 (and by extension pay $100-$120 for a double dip), $80 is a great deal, by comparison.
My pre-order at Best Buy arrived yesterday, exactly as planned. I played a good chunk last night.
But yeah, a lot of other places didn't release on the 22nd, as scheduled, especially for on-the-shelf stock. One of my friends that is WAY more into Metroid as a series but is also budgeting this month (so they didn't double-dip for physical and digital) still hasn't gotten their copy from a local game store where they pre-ordered. I've been looking forward to playing through Prime again, but might lend it to them this weekend.
I remember hearing about this game's development quite a while ago and was interested, but kind of forgot about it.
Thanks for the reminder that it's coming out, and soon! The gameplay preview looks like it plays great, even more polish than when I saw it last. Will probably pick this one up on release day!
Just to shed some light on the conflicting information, there's a limit to which ranks the game lets somebody demote themselves to. There's no limit to how many times you can do it.
Profreshional Part-Timer is the lowest rank that can be achieved via the demoting feature (there are four ranks above that one). So, if that's the one you're talking about that is giving you trouble, yeah, you can't use the demote feature to go any lower than that.
As someone with a full-time job that draws and writes as a hobby, and did a LOT more of it when I was younger in comparison to today, AI-assisted writing and AI-assisted art have been re-kindling my passions for the craft.
When used properly, AI makes for a decent co-author, so to speak, that doesn't care how critical you are of what they produce, how much you edit their output, or how many times you tell them to try again and start from the beginning. It also helps stir the imagination, and think of new ideas.
Part of the reason I lost interest in creating art is I was always more of a "traditional" artist (pencils, colored pencils, painting, etc.), and the internet crowds don't seem to have much interest in that, as it never really looks good resized in a news feed or digital gallery compared to digital art. It felt like there was no demand for what I was producing.
AI art seems to work best when you can give it not just some words to describe what you want, but a clear starting point. I can certainly see myself whipping up more sketches again, and let the AI take care of the "busy work" to make it into a shiny digital format suitable for internet crowds.
@Froid12
I mean, in every one of those cases, if you have a physical copy of the game and lend it to a friend, sibling, etc., they absolutely do not have the complete version of the game without purchasing DLC for their account. So yes, without the DLC being included, the games are incomplete. It's not much different from the many Switch collections where only half the collection is on the physical cart, and the other half of the collection is downloadable content with a single use redemption code (a not so subtle way certain companies discourage used game sales, that simultaneously makes the physical carts effectively worthless).
Of those examples you provided, the Splatoon series in particular presents itself as a "games as a service" model, and makes no effort to hide the fact that the games launch in an incomplete state, just in general. They openly advertise it as such.
There's a reason games like Sword and Shield, as well as Breath of the Wild, launch physical copies that have the DLC on the cart in some regions, why there's a demand for them, and why people outside those regions are willing to import them.
Out of your provided examples, Xenoblade 2 is the cleanest one, as they actually had enough confidence in their DLC to release it as its own game, that could be bought separately from the main game entirely if someone chooses to do so. It hardly even qualifies as DLC at that point, it's literally a separate game.
You can enjoy games, but still call things out for what they are.
I wish the game didn't have a $30 "season pass" with speculative content attached to it. That tells me two things: -The actual cost of the game at release is $90 -The game is releasing in an unfinished state, so physical copies are by default incomplete, and also if you want to play all it has to offer, you're better off buying/playing the game 6-12 months from now (when it will almost certainly be cheaper, too).
I bought the first one, but still haven't finished it and lost interest on account of its season pass making me feel like I bought an incomplete game souring my experience. And I'd paid full retail price for the game at release; I'd at least be less bitter about the existence of the first game's DLC if I'd picked it up the base game for the $10-$20 it regularly goes on sale for these days. So if I pick up the sequel, I'll play the waiting game.
@Silly_G In the U.S., at least, the shipping is included in the base price for getting things from the Pokemon Center store for most items, including the larger ones.
Didn't need to pay any extra for shipping when I got one of the big Lucario plushes earlier this year.
Happy to know the date of the first SplatFest is right around the corner. I've been enjoying Splatoon 3 thoroughly!
Nice to see the N64 line-up on NSO being bolstered with plenty of key titles from the console. Still hoping more consoles will be added in the not so distant future, even if they weren't announced today.
Might pick up Rune Factory 3 Special. I really enjoyed playing through the main story for Rune Factory 5. I also have Rune Factory 4 Special, but I've yet to play it.
Nice to see some signs of life for Pikmin 4, although there wasn't much information there.
It's nice to have a concrete release date for Breath of the Wild's sequel, finally, but it's still much further away from release than anticipated.
Rumors aside, there was a good handful of things I had been hoping to see, and none of them were there. So it was pretty disappointing to me.
Also, most of the things they were talking about that I'm mildly interested in aren't coming out this year, they're coming out in mid-2023. I was hoping for more "coming out in 2022" announcements, like what the initial direct announcement implied. Announcements like "coming out May 2023" is really pushing the limits of what qualifies as "winter 2022" in my mind. When I think of winter releases, I tend to think of gift ideas and holiday stocking stuffers.
@Debo626 Wind Waker only ever released twice. Once on Gamecube, and then the HD version on Wii U. (2002/2003 and 2013, respectively).
While your statement is technically correct for Twilight Princess having three versions, that had a Breath of the Wild situation where it was developed and subsequently released on two consoles initially. It has only released twice. Once in 2006, and the HD version in 2017. (Although if one is to be very technical, it's not correct to say three versions, either, as there was a China-exclusive release on the Nvidia shield in 2017, the same year everyone else got the HD version on Wii U).
Given the Wii U was a commercial flop so the HD versions do not exist for most people, the last time the average consumer has had an opportunity to play Wind Waker was nearly 20 years ago. It will soon predate all existing children and teenagers. Twilight Princess is quickly approaching the same age range.
In other words, both of them would be completely new games for the primary target demographic.
I understand the desire for the development of truly completely new games, however. Lacking that, it would still be nice to have access to the games that are already established to be good.
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Re: Nintendo Download: 31st August (North America)
Picking up a physical copy of Rune Factory 3 Special on release. I never played its DS counterpart, so it'll be a fresh experience!
Re: Handheld Consoles Will Need Easily-Switchable Batteries By 2027, Says New EU Regulation
Hopefully someday there will be a return to the AA/AAA battery standard. Not just for portable consoles, but most devices in general.
With the rechargeable ones, they had effectively no downsides. And as the tech for them improved, devices built for smaller capacity batteries started having insanely good battery life if you upgraded them to higher capacity ones.
Nothing worse than needing to throw away an otherwise perfectly good appliance or gadget just because the battery inside it has become non-functioning or in danger of leaking/exploding from age, and it's difficult to remove or incredibly proprietary so a replacement cannot be easily obtained.
Re: New Harvest Moon: The Winds Of Anthos Trailer Gives First Look At Gameplay Footage
Looks intriguing!
I passed on the last several games they've released, but gonna keep an eye on this one.
Re: Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection Receives New Quality Of Life Update
Some good fixes, here!
Very happy about the addition of the black borders! Better late than never, I say.
I'd also caught wind of the rewards issue in BN6 on some forums, so glad to know that got addressed before I reached that entry. Working through them in order, have played through 1-4 so far (not aiming for 100% collections or anything, just casual play-throughs).
Re: Feature: 17 Reasons To Be Excited About The Super Mario RPG Remake
@Eggolor
The big Yoshi is in the original game, although fairly obscure. On Yo'ster's Isle, there's a baby Yoshi near a pile of eggs. Feed them an excessive number of Yoshi Cookies, and they eventually end up like that. If you feed them even more at that point, you can even get a few extra items as rewards.
Re: Poll: What Did You Think Of Today's Nintendo Direct?
The highlight new game announcement for me is the Dragon Quest Monsters game.
The announcement of Pikmin 1 and Pikmin 2 coming to the Switch was a nice surprise! As well as Pikmin 4 getting a demo before its release.
Re: Pikmin 4 Gets Free Demo Next Week, Brand New Pikmin Unveiled
I'm already planning to pick the game up day one at release, but I'll probably give the demo a spin in the meantime, because why not?
Re: Pikmin 1 & 2 Drop On Switch eShop Today, With A Physical Bundle On The Way
Pikmin 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, and Pikmin 1 is good for the occasional quick play-through, so grabbing the physical copy, for sure!
Re: Nintendo Direct Showcase Confirmed For Tomorrow, 21st June
I wonder if there'll be any word on the release date for the Dragon Quest III HD remake? Been a while since they last talked about it.
Re: Poll: Are You Still Playing Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?
I put in a little over 90 hours before calling it quits. I collected all the memories, did some of the more prominent side-quests (restoring Lurelin, doing the Kakariko election, etc.), all of the main quest events, a chunk of optional bosses, and a smattering of shrines/caves/koroks, as well as activating all the towers (I was originally considering doing the same with the lightroots, but decided I just wanted to move onto other games). I started cheesing things hard in the latter half of my play-time (minimalist aerial vehicles, ignoring most random mob fights and collectibles, etc.), as I was ready to wrap things up, but still wanted to at least see what the game offered.
My feelings towards TOTK are similar to my feelings towards Fallout 4. There was a trailer shortly before release that got me hyped up. I went in with an open mind for the "new direction". I was fairly optimistic due to my previous positive experiences with the franchise. I spent a good chunk of time experimenting with the new mechanics the game offered, and at some point realized I wasn't having fun. But still put in a fair few additional hours to see the game's main content to completion out of stubbornness (or sunk cost fallacy, whatever you want to call it).
And just like Fallout 4 vs. its predecessors, while I don't outright regret experiencing it, I feel I'm far more likely to revisit its predecessors than to play the game again.
I probably would've enjoyed TOTK more if I hadn't already put so many hours into playing BOTW. I think I'm just burned out on the open world formula.
Re: Best Harvest Moon / Story Of Seasons Games Of All Time
@Yosher
One of the tricks to managing stamina in Harvest Moon games is to seek out the Power Berries. They boost your maximum stamina. Also, eating and drinking generally restore a percentage of your current stamina, as well as going into a hot spring.
The SNES Harvest Moon is a bit of an odd one in the series. The actual day passes very quickly, so it can be difficult to get things done during daylight hours, especially early-game. But once it's night, the day never ends until you go to sleep. They balance this a bit, game-play wise, by making it impossible to deposit crops after a certain in-game time has passed (in most other entries, items put into the bins after the collection time just carry over to the next day). However, everything else involving the farm work can still be done during the night (harvesting wood, breaking rocks, watering, planting seeds, etc.). So in the SNES game, you can hop over to the hot springs for a while to recover stamina when it gets low, and do as much as you please in a single day.
Re: Talking Point: From The Sublime To The Ridiculous - Is Anybody Excited For Everybody 1-2-Switch!?
There was an extremely brief time near the Switch's launch where the Switch eShop had the ability to rate games similar to the 3DS, where you could rate them after purchasing and playing them.
1-2-Switch is one of the games that correctly got drowned in negative ratings shortly after the rating feature went live. Nintendo's response was to sweep the incident under the rug, by removing the rating feature from the eShop entirely, and then never re-add it. At the time, they gave some nonsensical PR statement along the lines of "we're going to look for other ways of collecting feedback". Guess they decided it was a bad look that one of the most heavily marketed titles at launch was so poorly received, and that people could find that out within Nintendo's own eShop.
It seems that strategy worked out for them, since it proceeded to end up selling millions of copies despite the poor reception of people who played it.
In other words, the existence of 1-2-Switch directly resulted in having it be more difficult to sift through all the shovelware in the eShop, and find the good games, since its existence contributed to removing the ratings feature from the eShop.
Re: Upcoming Nintendo Switch Games And Accessories For June And July 2023
I've got my eyes on Pikmin 4 and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life!
Might also check out Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island, although I'll likely want to see some gameplay videos before deciding one way or the other.
Re: Mario Movie Surpasses Disney's Animated Hit Frozen At The Box Office
Impressive! Surpassing Frozen is no small feat.
I still haven't watched it, but now that it's available in some digital formats, I'll likely watch it with the family next time we get together.
Re: Soapbox: How Zelda's Bad Economy Made Weapon Degradation Great Again
@Madao
I think it mostly comes down to the materials being used by the great fairies, and for side quests. And going in blind to TOTK, while also having played BOTW previously, many people are hesitant to part with their inventories, until upgrades are being made, and side quests are being completed.
My first time playing BOTW, I sold a bunch of gems in the early game for rupees, and then I was sorely lacking in the many hundreds of gems that the fairies want once it's time for upgrades. Handing over valuable monster parts to Kilton for Mon also contributed to these problems. So, in any subsequent play-throughs on normal mode, I did not repeat this mistake, and hoarded aggressively all potentially valuable materials.
This was actually less of an issue in the "Master Mode" of the game provided by the BOTW DLC, as in that mode, they handed out gems like candy on the floating platforms, and higher level enemies that drop gems and more valuable/frequent monster parts started spawning sooner. So on the subject of rewards, the reward for playing a mode with harder combat difficulty instead of normal mode, was completely trivializing the economy, ensuring your wallet was always full, and being able to buy anything and everything at your leisure. In short, they removed the "grind", and let people focus on the gameplay.
Re: Poll: Will You Be Updating Your Copy Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?
@carlos82
The reason to buy all the house parts, is just wanting the option of being able mess around with the house layout on a whim. Interior designing and all that. It's pretty much in the same spirit as building contraptions and vehicles. Or how someone might want all the armors upgraded to be able to switch up their fashion from time to time without repercussions, even though only one set of nice armor is really necessary for performing well in the game.
If the thing someone is most interested in from the dream house is to just have a few spots to store extra weapons/bows/shields, or to have a cooking pot and bed handy, then yeah, there's very little reason to buy all of them. Just like how building the hover bike alone will satisfy basically all vehicle related obstacles in the game (2 fans and a controller, which are very cheap to acquire, with low battery cell requirements), and over-engineering beyond that with all the other parts is pretty much just for the sake of doing so.
Re: Poll: Will You Be Updating Your Copy Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?
Yeah, I'm not updating beyond 1.1.1 any time soon.
From my experience so far, there were far more lucrative ways to farm both materials and rupees in BOTW. I've yet to encounter anything like repeatable mini games that reward rupees or sizable numbers of materials in TOTK. The deer hunting mini game was my favorite way for collecting the rupees for buying armor or house upgrades in BOTW in an afternoon or two, and doing things like the distance gliding or golf mini games was also a nice way to switch it up once in a while if I didn't feel like doing that.
Also, selling meat or fruit dishes was reasonably profitable in BOTW, but for reasons I cannot comprehend they slashed selling prices by about 50% pretty much all across the board in TOTK. So, doubling the grind without lowering the prices in the stores, and with fewer ways to get materials for cooking to boot.
Before duping came along, I reluctantly sold some gemstones to get the Rito armors early-on while playing TOTK, knowing full well that upgrading all the armors would consume boatloads of gems later, and wasting them here would be setting myself back in resources, and increase the grind later. I wasn't feeling "rewarded", I was feeling annoyed.
And even then I was already doing the daily, boring, time-consuming process of scanning NFC tags to harvest amiibo materials to sell for rupees and to get decent shields and weapons (which is more or less functionally identical to duping in terms of application, only worse because it's "pay to win").
I was also doing things like wasting the already finite weapon slots to drag fused weapons back to Tarry Town to get them split to collect the materials, which worsens the impact of the breaking weapons, as I'd have fewer "usable" weapons at any given time in my inventory. The more constrained resources was actively ruining the pacing of TOTK for me, as the long term grind is always something I'm taking into consideration.
Also, the main reason breakable weapons weren't a deal-breaker for me in BOTW, was because there were bomb runes to fall back on. So taking away the solution to the issue, and then doubling down on making the issue worse, isn't great in my eyes. Bomb runes also solved the issue of needing to waste weapons for things like collecting ores and wood, so you could focus on using them in battles. I will say at least Yunobu's ability is a close enough TOTK "equivalent" for some things such breaking apart ore, once you have that.
At one point I thought the monster horns were free game for selling and fusing (as in, not consumed by side quests), so alright those are the moneymakers and primary weapon fusions, but it turns out those are used for equipment upgrades too (so unless you look up a guide or something to know exactly which are the "important" ones, it's most efficient to hoard literally everything other than common items like apples and meat until later).
Also, the money pits in TOTK are kind of ridiculous, compared to BOTW. Buying the full stock of dream home parts alone costs nearly 100,000 rupees, and upgrading a single set of armor all the way costs over 2,000 rupees each in addition to materials. I was fairly conservative in duping diamonds initially, building up 50,000 rupees, only to find out that wasn't nearly enough to get all the permanent items, even if I wasn't going to be purchasing the photos for the compendium.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom New Item Duplication Glitch Discovered
This article sent me down a rabbit hole of looking up the many item duping methods people have been exploring.
There's an even easier, faster method of duping materials involving a piece of equipment that you'll get from an area up in the sky during the main story (or going up there when you have a minimum of 10 hearts to retrieve it, as it's heart-gated).
All you have to do is stand in place while on said equipment, and hold/drop the desired items using the Y+B menu method, grabbing them with A. Even works hassle-free on bugs, explosives, etc.
Also, the Y+B menu method can dupe Zonai capsules, if you attempt to hold/drop them standing in a corner of a room where they can't be dropped. No equipment needed.
For things other than materials, there's a more complicated method of duping shields/weapons involving reloading save files, opening and closing menus, and also dropping things. Sounds like more trouble than it's worth, unless someone REALLY wants to have a specific piece of gear always in their inventory, and be able to use it without wasting it.
With the selling price of most food and items being significantly nerfed compared to BOTW, and the drain on disposable resources being higher than ever due to more frequent enemy encounters, among other things, I started duping materials without a second thought. Much better than scraping up resources with awkward daily RNG scans of a complete set of unofficial Zelda amiibo cards, or having to constantly fast-travel to places I've already been to restock.
Next stop, duping zonaite to make the big battery so I can build fun contraptions that can operate for more than several seconds, and also be able to afford to create them on demand (would prefer if at least one contraption wouldn't disappear in the first place, similar to a horse, but I'll take what I can get).
Re: Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook Plates Up Some Dungeon Action On Switch This Month
@Greatluigi
Hadn't heard of that one before. But when you mentioned sprite-based, then I thought you were talking about something else called Marenian Tavern Story. I've got that one on the Switch, actually.
Apparently that one is a spiritual successor of sorts to the Adventure Bar Story you mentioned, and it's made by the same developer. So if you enjoyed or were interested in Adventure Bar Story, might be worth checking out.
Re: Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook Plates Up Some Dungeon Action On Switch This Month
@Greatluigi
For the other game, you're probably thinking of "Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God". It's a dungeon crawler available on PS Vita, and on PC via Steam.
Cooking curry from ingredients while in the dungeons was a primary game mechanic, and the storyline of the game was to collect the ingredients to make the ultimate curry.
Re: Random: Mario Movie Illegal Upload Watched By Millions On Social Media
I still haven't watched the movie, despite being interested, because I can't be bothered to go to theaters.
Would be nice if Nintendo made the movie available for streaming officially, on any of the MANY services available for doing so. I know there's plans to do it "eventually", but that's just begging for people that don't want to go to theaters to seek out the unofficial means, no? Same applies to any movie.
Movies that officially launch in theaters and on streaming services simultaneously are the real MVP's.
Re: Round Up: The Previews Are In For The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
Really looking forward to playing!
I'd been pretty pumped about its upcoming release several years ago, but after several additional years of basically radio silence my hype had...dropped, to say the least.
Glad the most recent trailer re-ignited the hype engines, so to speak. And that those with early access are enjoying it. Next month should be a fun one!
Re: Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition Has Been Officially Blocked In The UK
@Ryu_Niiyama
While I very much think it's a strange hill for the UK to choose as saying it "goes too far", I do feel the need to point out that Sony does, in fact, have a competing cloud service in the form of Playstation Plus (formerly called Playstation Now). So there is something resembling logic in their reasoning.
A Playstation console isn't required to use it, either. It's available via PC, and by extension it can be accessed across a wide array of devices.
Re: Poll: What Did You Make Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's Final Trailer?
Count me among the "they probably should have had a trailer like this sooner" crowd. It was a good trailer, and helped better showcase what the game is actually offering.
Would have gone a long way in culling skepticism, and stopping the arguments and generally negative atmosphere surrounding the game.
I'll pick the game up at release if I can find somewhere to get the collector's edition, myself. Not sure if it'll be possible to pre-order that any more, at this point, so I might just need to check the stores. If I can't find one, I'll consider the voucher program for a digital copy instead (just not sure which other game I'd get with the second voucher, that I don't already own physically/digitally).
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's Final Pre-Launch Trailer Is Absolutely Stunning
I was hoping to see more story details, more interesting enemies, and more interesting landscapes to traverse, and the trailer delivered on all those fronts.
Good trailer!
Re: Review: Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection - A Rock-Solid Compilation
I am SO hyped for this release!
Recently, to hype myself up further, I've been watching the anime, picked up an imported Rockman DX Progress P.E.T., 3D printed and hand painted a Roll figurine, and also have the upcoming official Rockman Exe figure set pre-ordered (which includes Rockman/Megaman, Roll, Gutsman, and Fireman figures, as well as the 6x3 battle grid from the game to display them on).
I've got Battle Network fever! Friday can't come soon enough.
Re: Sonic Frontiers' Next Major Update Is Supposedly Adding The Spin Dash
@RainbowGazelle
I don't know which one specifically is bothering them, but at one point in the game there's a mandatory pinball table with wonky, inconsistent ball physics, that is made worse by the fact it has no tilting to adjust the ball's direction, and insta-lose side pits. The required score to pass the table and continue to the rest of the game is quite high. Without tilting to prevent the instant losses that have zero user input, it pretty much comes down to pure luck on whether or not the score is met. For some players, that section might be over in a few minutes, and will be a fun little throwback. For the less fortunate, it can take an hour or longer. I really like pinball, in general, but that table was just painful to play.
If they're adding new mechanics to the games in patches, fixing the pinball table by adding a tilt feature should be at the top of the list. From my perspective, that pinball table is the game's most glaring flaw, and it can actively prevent people from finishing the game.
The other noteworthy "puzzle" that seems to trip up quite a few people is a late-game encounter with a mandatory, unavoidable enemy that causes instant death by drowning in the span of several seconds (encountered in the next zone shortly after the pinball table, so people might not be thinking clearly at the time, either). The first time you encounter it, it's also pretty far away from the previous checkpoint (so dying means a lot of back-tracking). Only one move will defeat it (down-stomping 3 times while inside it by pressing A while off the 'floor' and floating in the water), but the visual feedback the game provides really doesn't make it clear that's the correct/only way to defeat it, in comparison to other moves. Similarly to the infamous mandatory Sonic 3 carnival up/down pillar that doesn't behave like all the others, where moves other than the only correct one still give a visible reaction so people might experiment and keep trying things that simply won't work, it's trivial once you know how to pass it, but the visual feedback it provides is very misleading.
Also, the way countering works in the game is kind of weird. Optimal countering/parrying in this game is holding down the counter button well before an attack occurs. No timing is needed. Timing things anyway works "okay" for most of the battles and puzzles...right up until fighting a certain Titan that has terrible visual feedback on when it will attack, and needs to be consecutively countered many times. There were some breaks in my playing through the game and I'd long forgotten timing was irrelevant in this game for counters from the early instructions where they briefly mention that tidbit, which is highly irregular when compared to other games, so it took me some time to get through that specific fight. From what I've seen online in discussions for the game, that isn't a unique experience.
Re: Poll: Did You Use Motion Controls In Mario Kart Wii?
Playing racing games without a wheel (or motion controls simulating a wheel) feels so lifeless to me after enjoying Mario Kart Wii with the wheel/motion controls.
I'm a proud bearer of the "gold wheel" icon when playing 8 Deluxe online (which signifies playing dominantly/exclusively with motion, and attaining high positions the majority of the time).
Re: Hands On: Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp - Slicker, Shinier, Sassier Strategy
I'll likely pick it up at release, as I have a lot of fond memories of playing the first Advance Wars, and haven't played through the original version for quite some time. So the remake is much appreciated. But, don't know when I'll be playing it.
The final timing of its release is unfortunate for me personally. Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection comes out literally one week before this drops, and my focus will 100% be on playing that when this releases. Wish Advance Wars would've shadow-dropped during the last Direct, like some had speculated.
Re: Video: 10 Exciting Games Coming To Nintendo Switch In April 2023
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection is my most anticipated upcoming release, by FAR.
Once that's in my hands, doubt I'll be playing other games for a good, long while.
Re: Poll: What Did You Think Of The New Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Trailer?
The new mechanics aren't selling me on the game. I'd like to see more context for the game, just in general. The extended trailer felt like "Yes, people correctly interpreted the previous teasers". I don't feel like I know any more than before, really.
I was hoping to see some new areas, or new characters, or more story details, or something. Something to hype me up.
And most of the adjustments to weapons and exploration shown so far seem like they make the game easier and more streamlined. A big part of the appeal of Breath of the Wild was discovering novel solutions to overcome challenges. If there are more interesting enemies to fight that justify the increased flexibility, or more interesting landscapes to traverse, that would make it more interesting. But, they didn't really show that.
It's an awkward situation where I WANT to be hyped, I WANT to be excited. I WANT to feel the need to go pre-order the game right now. But, I'm not.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Trailer Gets Creative With Vehicle Building, Fused Weapons
I remain unsold on the game, I guess.
It was already being meme-d before from teasers of the building options in the previous TOTK trailers, but Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts unironically has more interesting vehicle building mechanics than what was shown (although admittedly more clunky to design, what with all its menus).
Also, the weapon fusing and new abilities seems like they were designed to make the experience easier, rather than more interesting (less climbing, less aiming, longer weapon range, etc.). Based on what they've shown, I feel like I'd actually enjoy exploring this version of Hyrule less than Breath of the Wild.
If the crafting and building mechanics are the primary draw of this game and it has little else new and fresh to offer compared to Breath of the Wild, it's gonna be a hard pass for me, I guess.
Re: Poll: How Many 3DS Consoles Have You Owned?
I bought the original 3DS during the transition period in the price changes, to slip into the ambassador program at the lowered price.
Later, I got the 3DS XL for the bigger screens (I think it was the red one), trading in the original one.
Once the Animal Crossing one arrived, I sold the previous XL to a relative for cheap and switched to the Animal Crossing one, as I liked the appearance. It had a short lived life in my possession, however, as it had a dead pixel on the top screen that developed almost immediately after purchasing I found VERY distracting, so I traded that in and got a pink one soon after. Stayed with that one for many years, using vinyl skins to fancy it up.
I picked up two used New 3DS XL consoles a couple years ago for the 3D tracking hardware upgrades and playing imported games (one NA region in galaxy, and one JP region in black; put vinyl skins on both), and sold my pink 3DS XL for a good sum on eBay, that actually covered the two replacements almost in their entirety (apparently the pink one was a rare color, in high demand if you still had original packaging like I did).
So...six in total. The two New 3DS XL's are the ones I still have.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Gameplay Trailer Drops Tomorrow, 28th March 2023
I'm honestly not sold on this game at the moment, so seeing some actual gameplay rather than vague teasers is a must for me at this point to convince me otherwise. Will definitely be taking a look.
Genuinely hoping I will find whatever they show exciting.
Re: Random: New Peppa Pig Game Pays Tribute To Queen Elizabeth II
What makes it funny, is the tribute is so weirdly timed, that if you don't know it's there before seeing the scene, or don't have the full context, it pretty much comes across as dark humor.
"One day, the queen met Peppa Pig and decided to jump in the water puddles with her. Oh, what a wonderful time!
As a direct result of this decision, she died."
Re: Bowser Defends $70 Zelda Pricing, Nintendo Still "Very Bullish" About Switch
No DLC and no locked amiibo content, and the increased price would be fine. But I somehow doubt that's happening.
Between DLC and amiibo content, a "complete" copy of Breath of the Wild was already offensively expensive, good game or not. Assuming a player didn't bypass some of the amiibo BS with an Amiiqo or something similar (which is stealing, depending on who you ask), which brought its base price down to "just" $80. Or took it a step further and skipped the DLC, locking them out of an arguably essential at-release completed feature whose code was actually in the base game (the Hero's Path), but was disabled and only available via DLC unlock.
Re: Never-Before-Seen Footage Of Scrapped Official GameCube LCD Screen Uncovered
There were several gamecube portable monitors to choose from in its heyday. I think this is the one I saw most often on store shelves:
https://www.amazon.com/GameCube-Monitor-Indigo-game-cube/dp/B00005UWMC
If I had to make an educated guess, Nintendo decided to not bother with the official one after several other manufacturers already beat them to the punch in getting something to market, since it was considered a niche product.
Re: Round Up: Everything Announced At The February 2023 Pokémon Presents Showcase
@Bret
Actually, Sword and Shield received physical releases that included the DLC and patches on the cart, years ago. And surprisingly, in all regions at that.
NintendoLife even did an article announcing it years ago:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/09/a_pokemon_sword_and_shield_dlc_bundle_hits_stores_this_november
For basically any major, commercially successful retail game, there WILL be a physical version with DLC and patches released, somewhere in the world. Breath of the Wild being another example that received such treatment.
Re: Talking Point: Which Gaming Moments Made You Question Your Intelligence?
Any time using/accessing a game mechanic or feature in a specific way is clearly explained in a randomly displayed tutorial splash screen near the beginning of the game (you know the kind I'm talking about: suddenly interrupts the story/action for a quick info-dump), and I gloss over or forget part of the explanation and proceed to never use it in my play style.
And then, several/dozens of hours later, that specific mechanic is suddenly mandatory for a puzzle/boss in the late game. And then, once I come to the conclusion I'm clearly doing something wrong and search for some form of explanation, I find out about it in a random Youtube comment from people that had the same problem in the comment section for a video of that part of the game.
On a related note: huge props to developers that make any in-game tutorials able to be read later in the game, in the main menu. Huger props to developers that give enough visual feedback that key features/mechanics can't be missed/forgotten in the first place.
Re: Metroid Prime Remastered Physical Version Out Now (US), Will You Be Getting It?
@Bizzyb
On some level I agree with you.
On the other hand, for those that see value in double-dipping, in the case of a game like TotK, without somehow pulling multiple forms of price-reduction and deal-hunting antics, and after also taking into consideration DLC for just one account, the "double-dip" price of TotK is $170 (before tax). And that's assuming they aren't getting the collector's edition instead of the standard edition, which will easily drive the price in excess of $200.
In the past, there was ready availability of 10%-20% off pre-orders, buy 2 get 1 free deals, some stores like Wal-Mart just out-pricing the competition by charging $10 below standard retail as an across-the-board policy for their in stock games, as well as DLC just not being as prominent. So, double-dipping used to be able to be done for less than $100 without much effort, even on release week for full-priced, big budget titles (or alternatively, buying one "$60" copy for less that $50). Pretty much all of that has disappeared in the past several years, which has been substantially driving up average prices that customers of all backgrounds pay, even before having the base cost increase on top of that.
Also, if double dippers stop being able to justify the cost of double dipping, individual sales originating from them will effectively be cut in half (and by extension, they will actually spend less money on any single game, just in general). If these people make up any sizable amount of the fanbase, the company will actually make less money overall, pricing out their customers.
In this specific case: For anyone that would have been willing to double-dip on Metroid Prime Remastered from $60 (and by extension pay $100-$120 for a double dip), $80 is a great deal, by comparison.
Re: Metroid Prime Remastered Physical Version Out Now (US), Will You Be Getting It?
My pre-order at Best Buy arrived yesterday, exactly as planned. I played a good chunk last night.
But yeah, a lot of other places didn't release on the 22nd, as scheduled, especially for on-the-shelf stock. One of my friends that is WAY more into Metroid as a series but is also budgeting this month (so they didn't double-dip for physical and digital) still hasn't gotten their copy from a local game store where they pre-ordered. I've been looking forward to playing through Prime again, but might lend it to them this weekend.
Re: Clive 'N' Wrench Gets 8-Minute Overview Trailer Ahead Of Launch This Month
I remember hearing about this game's development quite a while ago and was interested, but kind of forgot about it.
Thanks for the reminder that it's coming out, and soon! The gameplay preview looks like it plays great, even more polish than when I saw it last. Will probably pick this one up on release day!
Re: Splatoon 3 Version 1.2.0 Is Now Available, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@Joeynator3000
Just to shed some light on the conflicting information, there's a limit to which ranks the game lets somebody demote themselves to. There's no limit to how many times you can do it.
Profreshional Part-Timer is the lowest rank that can be achieved via the demoting feature (there are four ranks above that one). So, if that's the one you're talking about that is giving you trouble, yeah, you can't use the demote feature to go any lower than that.
Re: Feature: How Do Game Developers And Artists Feel About The Rise Of AI Art?
As someone with a full-time job that draws and writes as a hobby, and did a LOT more of it when I was younger in comparison to today, AI-assisted writing and AI-assisted art have been re-kindling my passions for the craft.
When used properly, AI makes for a decent co-author, so to speak, that doesn't care how critical you are of what they produce, how much you edit their output, or how many times you tell them to try again and start from the beginning. It also helps stir the imagination, and think of new ideas.
Part of the reason I lost interest in creating art is I was always more of a "traditional" artist (pencils, colored pencils, painting, etc.), and the internet crowds don't seem to have much interest in that, as it never really looks good resized in a news feed or digital gallery compared to digital art. It felt like there was no demand for what I was producing.
AI art seems to work best when you can give it not just some words to describe what you want, but a clear starting point. I can certainly see myself whipping up more sketches again, and let the AI take care of the "busy work" to make it into a shiny digital format suitable for internet crowds.
Re: Feature: Behind The Scenes With Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope, "A Tactical Game For All"
@Froid12
I mean, in every one of those cases, if you have a physical copy of the game and lend it to a friend, sibling, etc., they absolutely do not have the complete version of the game without purchasing DLC for their account. So yes, without the DLC being included, the games are incomplete. It's not much different from the many Switch collections where only half the collection is on the physical cart, and the other half of the collection is downloadable content with a single use redemption code (a not so subtle way certain companies discourage used game sales, that simultaneously makes the physical carts effectively worthless).
Of those examples you provided, the Splatoon series in particular presents itself as a "games as a service" model, and makes no effort to hide the fact that the games launch in an incomplete state, just in general. They openly advertise it as such.
There's a reason games like Sword and Shield, as well as Breath of the Wild, launch physical copies that have the DLC on the cart in some regions, why there's a demand for them, and why people outside those regions are willing to import them.
Out of your provided examples, Xenoblade 2 is the cleanest one, as they actually had enough confidence in their DLC to release it as its own game, that could be bought separately from the main game entirely if someone chooses to do so. It hardly even qualifies as DLC at that point, it's literally a separate game.
You can enjoy games, but still call things out for what they are.
Re: Feature: Behind The Scenes With Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope, "A Tactical Game For All"
I wish the game didn't have a $30 "season pass" with speculative content attached to it. That tells me two things:
-The actual cost of the game at release is $90
-The game is releasing in an unfinished state, so physical copies are by default incomplete, and also if you want to play all it has to offer, you're better off buying/playing the game 6-12 months from now (when it will almost certainly be cheaper, too).
I bought the first one, but still haven't finished it and lost interest on account of its season pass making me feel like I bought an incomplete game souring my experience. And I'd paid full retail price for the game at release; I'd at least be less bitter about the existence of the first game's DLC if I'd picked it up the base game for the $10-$20 it regularly goes on sale for these days. So if I pick up the sequel, I'll play the waiting game.
Re: Pokémon Center's Very Big, Very Round Spheal Plushie Is Now Available In America
@Silly_G
In the U.S., at least, the shipping is included in the base price for getting things from the Pokemon Center store for most items, including the larger ones.
Didn't need to pay any extra for shipping when I got one of the big Lucario plushes earlier this year.
Re: Round Up: Everything Announced In The September 2022 Nintendo Direct - Every Game Reveal And Trailer
Happy to know the date of the first SplatFest is right around the corner. I've been enjoying Splatoon 3 thoroughly!
Nice to see the N64 line-up on NSO being bolstered with plenty of key titles from the console. Still hoping more consoles will be added in the not so distant future, even if they weren't announced today.
Might pick up Rune Factory 3 Special. I really enjoyed playing through the main story for Rune Factory 5. I also have Rune Factory 4 Special, but I've yet to play it.
Nice to see some signs of life for Pikmin 4, although there wasn't much information there.
It's nice to have a concrete release date for Breath of the Wild's sequel, finally, but it's still much further away from release than anticipated.
Re: Talking Point: What Did You Think Of The September 2022 Nintendo Direct?
Rumors aside, there was a good handful of things I had been hoping to see, and none of them were there. So it was pretty disappointing to me.
Also, most of the things they were talking about that I'm mildly interested in aren't coming out this year, they're coming out in mid-2023. I was hoping for more "coming out in 2022" announcements, like what the initial direct announcement implied. Announcements like "coming out May 2023" is really pushing the limits of what qualifies as "winter 2022" in my mind. When I think of winter releases, I tend to think of gift ideas and holiday stocking stuffers.
Re: 'The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom' Launches In May 2023
@Debo626
Wind Waker only ever released twice. Once on Gamecube, and then the HD version on Wii U. (2002/2003 and 2013, respectively).
While your statement is technically correct for Twilight Princess having three versions, that had a Breath of the Wild situation where it was developed and subsequently released on two consoles initially. It has only released twice. Once in 2006, and the HD version in 2017. (Although if one is to be very technical, it's not correct to say three versions, either, as there was a China-exclusive release on the Nvidia shield in 2017, the same year everyone else got the HD version on Wii U).
Given the Wii U was a commercial flop so the HD versions do not exist for most people, the last time the average consumer has had an opportunity to play Wind Waker was nearly 20 years ago. It will soon predate all existing children and teenagers. Twilight Princess is quickly approaching the same age range.
In other words, both of them would be completely new games for the primary target demographic.
I understand the desire for the development of truly completely new games, however. Lacking that, it would still be nice to have access to the games that are already established to be good.