Comments 352

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

Nintendolife comments section in a nutshell:

"Oh yeah?"
"YEAH!"
"Oh yeah?"
"YEAH!"


"Answer this point!"
"I'd rather say something only slightly relevant but more-so a deviation from a small point taken out of context of the rest of your post!"


"Nintendo sucks! Here are a bunch of baseless reasons I am providing as evidence but they're really only here-say and my own personal bias!"


"Scoffing and calling you names will surely have me declared as the winner of this argument!"

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

@G_M

I'll give you a break this time, but the fact that you didn't even bother to read through the rest of the comments before choosing one of mine completely out of context reflects very poorly on that text wall you're trying to introduce.

It was made specifically in response to people who claim that they are fans of the series in spite of the fact that they openly admit they only really enjoyed one or two of the games and hate the rest. I will copy and paste the relevant subsequent post of mine for you:

"You don't have to like every game in the series to be a fan of the series.

But if you only like Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 out of all 6300 Mega Man games, I would not consider you a "fan" of the Mega Man series. You just happen to like a game or two.

I liked the first four Tony Hawk games, but that certainly doesn't mean I consider myself a fan of the series beyond that point."

If you like Star Fox 1 and hate all the rest, then you cannot claim to be a "fan of the series". You may like the idea and concept of Star Fox or the character itself, but that's a whole different thing. You simply like one or two games FROM the series.

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

@Bolt_Strike

And I also agree with that. You don't have to like every game in the series to be a fan of the series.

But if you only like Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 out of all 6300 Mega Man games, I would not consider you a "fan" of the Mega Man series. You just happen to like a game or two.

I liked the first four Tony Hawk games, but that certainly doesn't mean I consider myself a fan of the series beyond that point.

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

@Bolt_Strike

If fans are really thrown off by one or two deviations from the norm, then perhaps they're not really fans in the first place and no one is going to miss them anyway.

Maybe you just happened to like one or two games in the franchise and that's it. But that's you. You're not speaking for fans like me who happen to own and enjoy every single StarFox game ever released (and even not released in the case of StarFox 2). So perhaps you aren't the voice of "the fans". I'm completely comfortable with experimental games.

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

@Yorumi

What are you talking about?

"People are not looking for literal CoD style retreads and yearly releases. OOT for example still played a lot like a zelda game. Mario 64 is arguably the biggest change but it still had powerups, platforming, and all the familiar characters. It didn't feel like some random IP with mario shoehorned in."

Using your logic then, outside of StarFox Adventures, no other game was that much of a "departure from the series".
StarFox Command
StarFox Assault
StarFox Zero

They had the same characters, same ships, same focus on air-based gameplay. They just happen to have tried different things with the controls.

Then there's
Metroid: Other M
Metroid Prime

Same idea behind the gameplay, different perspective. Same characters, you still get power-ups, you still fight the same kinds of enemies.

Your arguments are largely baseless. They're grounded in the fact you don't happen to like the new control style.

Re: Editorial: From Metroid: Other M to Star Fox Zero, the Awkward Experimentation With Beloved Franchises

Vandy

If Nintendo didn't experiment with their "tried and true" formulas, we would never have gotten Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64 which paved the way for these franchises to become what they are today.

So I'll happily give a try to any "experimental" direction Nintendo wants to take with their games because I realize that sometimes when you're on the road to greatness, you're going to hit a couple of bumps along the way.

There are plenty of other franchises that release vanilla carbon-copy games every year. I think Call of Duty 26: Ouroboros is set to release this year.

Re: GameStop COO Claims New Console Launches Are "Imminent"

Vandy

Lol - Gamestop! What a source!

"As usual, we know more than we can share."

Except anything at all regarding anything ever.

"Gamestop, when can I expect my pre-order to come in - it's six days past launch"
"Why didn't I get my Amiibo order fulfilled when you went ahead and sold me a preorder?"
"When does ___ game launch? You are selling preorders, do you actually know the release date?"
"When should we expect you to get new stock of ____"
"My preorder supposedly came in and someone from this location called me to tell me it's waiting to be picked up, but no one seems to know anything about it. Where is my item?"

Gamestop:
¯\(ツ)

Re: Nintendo's Updates Its Guidance on Super Mario Maker Level Deletions

Vandy

@Boxmonkey

LOL he contributes like $10 to charity. The rest of his patreon goes to supporting the fact that he doesn't have a real job.

And it's simple - He can change the name of his course and reupload it. Wah wah. Put "GPB" in the title. Or "Grand P Bear". It doesn't even matter what he names his levels, because he makes money off of people watching his streams, not off of plays on his levels. All of his levels could be called "Generic Level" and it would not at all affect how much money he makes.

Nintendo has guidelines. Follow them or face the consequences.

Re: Video: Have a Gawk at Keiji Inafune's Super Mario Maker Stage

Vandy

Why is it that whenever a Dev makes a game, it's either a boring, vanilla level that is 50% tutorial section (gives them the chance to be really pretentious and talk at length about how you need to "teach players to duck" and "make sure they know how to press the jump button") or it's just completely un-inventive? Or both!

Re: Review: Donkey Kong Country (New 3DS / SNES)

Vandy

@VanillaLake

Exactly. The secrets aren't impossible to find as long as you pay attention. I got the SNES game on launch and managed to get 101% completion without youtube or strategy guides. You just look for stray bananas that point out where a hidden bonus barrel is. Or if you find a generic barrel somewhere, chances are there is a wall that looks "just not quite right" that you will be able to smash open.

Re: The Falco amiibo Unlocks a Special Black Arwing in Star Fox Zero

Vandy

@J_watch

I guess I was misled by a recent article I read then that talked about providing a campaign mode at a later time as well as other new modes. All of which would be paid DLC. The article you cited IS from 8 months ago, so a lot can change in that time.

But again, we're getting off the topic of the Falco Amiibo DLC. I'm not going to talk about SFV anymore because that is the most minute of all the points I have made.

Re: The Falco amiibo Unlocks a Special Black Arwing in Star Fox Zero

Vandy

@Cherkov

Almost every other game in existence charges you for every minor thing, including new skins. Sports games charge you $2.99 for alternate jerseys, racing games charge you $2.99 for custom paint jobs, fighting games charge you $2.99 - $5.99 per skin, etc.

Furthermore, a "new difficulty mode" is not part of the core game. If you have to buy an Amiibo to unlock it, then you have to buy the Amiibo. That's the way it is. It is absolutely no different than the games that charge you for "second campaign". Or the games that charge you to download new levels, new maps. Games that charge you to download "brutal" difficulty modes, or "one hit kill" modes. I would have gladly purchased a Luigi Amiibo if it meant unlocking his mode in Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 because they felt like brand new games.

You are coming across as someone who is so completely out of touch with the direction modern gaming is going. If you don't like it, then stick to playing the classics that give you everything you feel you're entitled to for free. But you're going to be left behind in the past. Meanwhile, I'm happy to buy an Amiibo in place of DLC because not only are they cool little statues, but they're also used in multiple games to unlock multiple things. I'd rather have that than have to take part in the "$79.99 season pass" subscription model that most other games are doing now. Where you have to pay upwards of $80 for DLC that comes out every two months for a year in order to fully experience everything the game has to offer. And that's just for one game!

Falco Amiibo will work in Starfox Zero, Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros and Super Mario Maker. Just off the top of my head, that's already four games. And whenever a new Amiibo-enabled game is released, you can use the same old Amiibo you already own. I think that's pretty fair of them to do, rather than releasing a "new version" of Yoshi every time that unlocks different things.

Re: The Falco amiibo Unlocks a Special Black Arwing in Star Fox Zero

Vandy

@OorWullie @Luffymcduck

You do realize you can just walk into any store and purchase Falco, right? Especially since they will be reprinting all of the Starfox Amiibo for Zero's release.

Better still, you can simply order the items online with whatever else you wanted to buy already and have them shipped to you for free.

Re: The Falco amiibo Unlocks a Special Black Arwing in Star Fox Zero

Vandy

@OorWullie

No different than extra modes and maps being $9.99 each for every game on the PS Network or XBOX store. That's not fair to those of us who don't want to pay extra, just like you would with the Amiibo.

Or when they include several maps as part of a pack. What if I just want one of the maps? Why do I have to pay extra for the others I don't want?

Re: The Falco amiibo Unlocks a Special Black Arwing in Star Fox Zero

Vandy

@rushiosan

I'll gladly take this over the BS that every single other game company on earth is doing. Locking entire parts of the game behind paid DLC. Look at Street Fighter V. It's an incomplete game sold at full price, with premium content to be released later at full DLC prices. Look at sports games, all of the FPS games. Maps, weapons, campaigns. All locked behind full-priced DLC.

At least you get a cool little plastic statue to keep.

It's not like this is an essential part of the game anyway. It's basically a bonus challenge mode.

Re: Soapbox: Bayonetta Deserves to be in Super Smash Bros.

Vandy

@AlexOlney

It wasn't datamined from the ballot. It was exhaustive research done by an individual named PushDustin. You read more about it here if you`re interested:

http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/09/13/japantopdlcpt2/

He scoured message boards, social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) to collect as much data as he could to make a representation of the ballot results.

I highly HIGHLY doubt that enough people who aren`t participating on message boards even know who Bayonetta is and are passionate enough to go out of their way to vote for her on a Smash ballot.

I certainly agree that the vocal minority is not representative of the entire voting audience. But it`s still very telling that the "vocal minority" has been asking for Shantae, Shovel Knight, King K Rool, Wolf, Snake and the Inklings. That's not even counting the votes for Shrek, Goku and Mrs. Doubtfire. Never once mentioning Bayonetta. So she was such a dark horse that just happened to have an amazing amount of support from the rest of the voting audience who just weren't speaking up? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

We're talking about hundreds of different choices. Bayonetta being mentioned maybe 2 out of those 100 times.

Re: Soapbox: Bayonetta Deserves to be in Super Smash Bros.

Vandy

@AlexOlney

It would have only been fair if they published the results.

It gives validity to these polls and makes the fans feel like their vote mattered.

And if you're going to cite "predominantly English-speaking" samples, then I think it's very important to point out the fact that Bayonetta received 2.5% of the votes in Japan, according to data mined from many fan polls scoured by sourcegaming.info
King K Rool placed first, Snake placed second.

I'm not trying to be a troll here, I'm just asking for a little transparency when it comes to this poll. And I'm also asking for a little more integrity than "Everyone who didn't speak up wanted Bayonetta in the game because I said so". That's some Sakurai-level nonsense there.

I'm not so quick to trust the guy who's justification for adding Corrin was "I wanted to add Corrin but was worried maybe there were too many Fire Emblem characters so I asked my team of Yes Men who said there weren't too many and I should probably add a few more".

I'm not even arguing against the inclusion of Bayonetta. Her moveset is fine enough for Smash Bros. I would have just liked to have seen someone who the fans actually voted for win the poll. Because most of the fighters who seem to have ranked higher than her would be just as suitable for Smash (some are even Smash veterans). I am a huge Smash fan and am very involved in the Smash community. Before Bayonetta was announced as the "winner", her name scarcely came up in any discussions.

Re: Soapbox: Bayonetta Deserves to be in Super Smash Bros.

Vandy

@SanderEvers

Fair enough, but that is entirely your opinion. I've played all of the Shantae games and wasn't all too impressed with them. But that doesn't make me blind enough to say she wouldn't have an interesting moveset. Which is what you're doing with Shovel Knight who, among his attacks and his spells, would easily have more than enough unique moves to make an interesting smash character.

However, if you want to complain about a character's "backstory" being the reason they should be excluded from a game, why don't you give me the interesting back story on Greninja. Or R.O.B. Or Sheik, or Zero Suit Samus. Heck, maybe Dr. Mario. They have such robust and fleshed-out backstories, those guys.

Re: Soapbox: Bayonetta Deserves to be in Super Smash Bros.

Vandy

@AlexOlney

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that Bayonetta even placed on the poll? Beyond Sakurai's word of course.

Why haven't they released the results of the poll to show the rankings? Seems a bit fishy. They give us two new characters that no one asked for and their pick of the character from the poll and no one seems to find that strange?

For all we know, she placed 63rd worldwide.

Re: Soapbox: Bayonetta Deserves to be in Super Smash Bros.

Vandy

I love how everyone is taking the "highest ranking viable character" nonsense as fact. It's basically the scapegoat way they could justify their decision to pick her just because they wanted to.

"The Silent Majority wanted her" is Alex's argument. Lol ok. I can claim that too. The silent majority actually voted for Naked Mario to be included. They need to include Naked Mario because obviously the silent majority is completely in favor of this. Did you go out and speak to the silent majority before you reported this as a fact, Alex?

From what I can tell, everyone wanted Shovel Knight. Including the creators of Shovel Knight who might have even let him be included for free.

Re: Mega Man's Creator Outlines The Rules Used To Shape One Of The Most Brutal Games Ever Made

Vandy

@argh4430

I'm not saying there are no instances of these enemies, but it's not in every pit in every game. Just certain levels.

However the spike corridors, there are two reasons these are completely acceptable -
1) They're only in the final levels where you would expect the difficulty to ramp up
2) There is no segment in NES Mega Man games that can't be cleared on the first attempt if you approach it logically and have decent reflexes. When it comes to a segment where you are falling down a spike-lined shaft, you stick to the middle. This gives you time to react to upcoming spikes.

And that's the beauty of Mega Man games, when you die it's more or less your own fault so you keep wanting to come back.

Re: Mega Man's Creator Outlines The Rules Used To Shape One Of The Most Brutal Games Ever Made

Vandy

@Krisi

I completely agree. I groan whenever people say "oh man, that's the way these games are meant to be - brutal! Just like Mega Man!"

What?

People will compare junky "Nintendo Hard" games that seem to be all the rage where every pit has a hidden enemy waiting to jump out of it and unfairly kill you. Or you're dropped into a room where you have .0002 seconds to react before you're killed by an insta-kill spike or something. You're basically forced to memorize every screen to pass the game.

But Mega Man games were never, ever like this. In fact, I can still speed-run them and breeze through them to this day. Which is, in fact, why they have such high replayability. Because they're challenging enough, but not frustrating.

The only genuinely hard Mega Man game is Mega Man 1 and that's largely because of the unrefined gameplay and clunky controls.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

@Caryslan

I get what you're saying about the amount of Street Fighter and Metal Gear games too.

I do think, though, that Ryu and Snake feel more "at home" on Nintendo consoles than Cloud does, however. Especially given that the best Street Fighter games for the home console during the 16-bit era were on Super Nintendo. And the fact that Snake debuted on the NES.

And I do feel that Ryu and Snake are more unique than Cloud in terms of how they fight. Cloud would feel a bit better if there weren't already so many sword fighters with samey movesets. And as much as the small minority will dispute it, not many people have any clue who the hell Marth, Luncina, Roy, Ike and Corrin are whereas at least Cloud is recognizable outside of the niche Fire Emblem market. In fact, a lot of people have cited their inclusion in Smash Bros games as being the first time they've heard of them so that makes a strong case for your Dragon Quest inclusion.

If they were going to go with largely unknown characters, they could have chosen the Dragon Quest/Warrior series which is very much a "Nintendo" series. Even moreso than Final Fantasy, you could argue. So I definitely support your opinions on that one.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

@Caryslan

I'm not saying Final Fantasy doesn't have a part in Nintendo's history and I don't think you're intentionally skewing what I said, so I'll just clarify.

Cloud is probably the best choice if you're going to add a Final Fantasy rep. No problem with him being the "Final Fantasy Guy".

But why are we adding a Final Fantasy rep anyway? The series has largely ignored Nintendo platforms for the past decade. Adding to that, Cloud has never appeared in a mainline Final Fantasy game on a Nintendo platform.

I still maintain that the Inklings should have gone in before any of the people included in this newest wave of DLC.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

@ASonic3582

I'm not even really arguing against Bayonetta because at least she's something different. Albeit I don't believe for a second that they did much more consideration for her beyond Sakurai saying "I like this one best - do that one. Just tell them she placed first in Europe and be really vague about it."

The biggest problems are Cloud and Corrin. They should have taken the second and third place ballots and rewarding the fans for their support. There is no suitable case to be made that we needed ANOTHER Fire Emblem character. Or another Sword Fighting character, or a character from Final Fantasy at all.

I understand what you are trying to present with Shovel Knight, but it's all entirely speculation on your part. And it's partially undone by the fact that you previously presented that Japan had "no noteworthy ranking" for Bayonetta. Meanwhile, Shovel Knight is immensely popular in Europe and the US, so by that alone he should have beaten out Bayonetta. I would have an extremely hard time believing that Nintendo would flat-out say "no" to him when they approved him to be the FIRST non-Nintendo Amiibo. Additionally, Bayonetta is a little mature for Nintendo and not exactly a "character" that you could sell merchandise and plushies and cutesy things for like they could with Shovel Knight.

Something about all of this just doesn't sit right, you have to admit that.

And the Inklings? I don't buy your position of "maybe they aren't as popular as the internet makes them out to be". Look at how many copies of Splatoon sold worldwide. If they can put Cloud and/or Corrin in the game for absolutely no reason, they sure as heck could have put the Inklings.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

@ASonic3582

Fan polls are absolutely a good representation of the ballot. So are the countless times I've read people say "I voted for ____"

Shantae, Wolf, the Inklings, Snake, Rayman, Shovel Knight, another character from the DK series, Bomberman

These are just some of the characters that were most popular among fan requests even before the Smash ballot. Before the ballot results were announced, there were scarce mentions of Bayonetta.

Any one of the aforementioned characters are either a series veteran or a more robust character. Two in particular:

Shovel Knight, the creators were practically begging to let Nintendo include him. And he already had an Amiibo on the way and a sequel in the works. In addition to that, he has enough moves and spells to "fully realize" a fun character

The Inklings, they are two characters from Nintendos newest big IP. Fire Emblem, outside of Japan, has a niche following. Splatoon quickly became wildly popular and beloved and has taken a place next to some of Nintendo's biggest IPs of all time.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

@ASonic3582

That's not true at all. Nowhere does he ever mention that Nintendo forced his hand to include Corrin. From everything I've read, Sakurai claims he "wanted to put in a character from a game that will be released soon". And surprise, surprise he chose a Fire Emblem game! And then he further goes on to say that even if HE thought they were putting in too many FE characters, he was conveniently "assured by the development team" that they were not and he should go ahead and do it. Because of course they would.

And the whole Bayonetta controversy has already been well documented. He liked Bayonetta most, so he chose her. Simple as that. You could easily "fully realize" about 10 different characters that have appeared in fan opinion polls. If you can "fully realize" a character like Lucina who is just a female Marth clone with generic sword moves, you sure as heck can fully realize any other character who actually has a unique personality and creative moves.

Re: Masahiro Sakurai on Keeping Super Smash Bros. Fresh

Vandy

It's completely foolish and ignorant to ignore the players who want a single player experience. I really miss the Subspace Emissary mode from Brawl. In fact, I played that more than I did the multiplayer mode because of the depth and replayability.

Sometimes you can only take so many random, but ultimately pointless multiplayer battles. Especially when you're consistently facing off against people who are either complete spammers, or just simply better than you to the point that it's not very fun to play. Single player is the perfect remedy for this.

I also think that in future iterations of the series, Sakurai should be limited to choosing only three characters for inclusion. One of the most shameful things that came out of Smash 4 is the revelation that Sakurai really doesn't care about what the fans are asking for and instead selfishly chooses characters to please himself.

Re: Soapbox: A Nintendo Fan's Hopes and Dreams for the NX

Vandy

Why do we consistently print articles about this when we still have no concrete facts or details regarding what the NXT will or won't be in the first place?? Before we actually get any kind of real regarding confirmation the system, this article might as well say

"I want it to shoot gumballs out of a slot on the front every time I kill an enemy"

"Amiibo should allow you to unlock the entire library of games related to this character"

"The NX should be able to be plugged in to your wall at night and act as a night light and then sound an alarm if intruders enter the bedroom"