Comments 719

Re: Video: Square Enix Releases New Official Trailer For Dragon Quest X Offline

Varkster

@NinjaNicky Localisation costs more than you'd expect. Good voice actors, especially. If you get bad voice actors you get something like Trials of Mana.

I got a kick out of that game's voice acting though, it definitely fit the so bad it's good category.

Also: whats with the artstyle? Couldn't they just copy assets from the original online version?

Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Executive Director Teases Series' Future

Varkster

@Otoemetry He's just a troll, I've seen him long enough on this website with the same tactic. This isn't just towards Xenoblade, he types a negative comment on nearly every article because (I guess) he has nothing better to do with life?

I'm almost certain that he does it on purpose just to see how many people he can get banned or how many comments he reports will get shut down, it's almost like a game to him in a way. There's no way a person can have such terrible opinions on everything. There are a couple other people on this website like that but at the very least they do not consistently pollute every single article with their nonsense.

I can't see his comment any longer so I'm going to guess he blocked me, and good, I'm tired of seeing the same old trash on every article. His comments aren't only negative but they're also mindless, like he put a total of 2 seconds into actually using his brainpower and typed in whatever garbage came out of it.

Oh well, people like that just exist.

Re: Bayonetta 3 Trailer Confirms Launch For This October

Varkster

@RushDawg Maybe this is all just opinions but I'll be honest on a percentage level of how long I played the game versus how much I enjoyed it I believe I liked Kirby more than Elden Ring this year.

It may not have a budget nearing anything what they spent on Elden Ring but that game was so fundamentally flawed in so many ways I think it's unbelievable it got the amounts of enormous praise it got. Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro are still miles above that game, but as I said that's just my opinion.

I've already posted enough criticisms about Elden Ring on the Soulsbourne thread on the NL forums, but I will say it's unfair to say nothing Nintendo put out is near the quality of Elden Ring. The only real way you can quantify that is by looking at the Metascores...I guess?

Kirby was a game which took me approximately 90 hours less to complete, but I didn't feel like it was a chore by the end of those hours, I enjoyed it the whole way through. Unfortunately for me, a chore is precisely what Elden Ring was.

Then again, different strokes for different folks.

Re: Video: 3D Graphic Artist Spends 1200 Hours Reimagining Zelda 64 - Zora's Domain In Unreal Engine 5

Varkster

@Dezzy70 You're mistaking budget for quality.

Nintendo don't actually put their game development budgets up online for grabs so you can't be entirely sure that a game like Breath of the Wild didn't take the same amount of money as Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Yes, you can look at the graphics in Horizon and say "the polygon count is higher" or "the faces needed actors to capture" but you won't be able to quantify the budget just looking at that, because game development takes a lot more than pretty visuals to be expensive to make.

The amount of time they actually spent on the original Breath of the Wild (and now its sequel) is astonishing and it likely required a lot of staff investing heavy amounts of time into these games. It's also highly likely that these same staff members worked countless of hours of overtime which (in most scenarios) is paid at a double rate.

You're also commenting this on a thread where the visuals you're seeing were literally made by one man, it's a little silly to say "Nintendo doesn't want to make bigger games like Sony" when you're looking at a product which belong to one person.

I honestly think there are enough companies in the industry who constantly feel like bigger = better. I have plenty of soulless games in my collection which I am dreading playing.

I invested so many hours into Elden Ring to ultimately be very disappointed because the game turned out like exactly that. Big, open, graphically impressive and empty.

A smaller team of developers who have a consistent vision of what their game should be is, from experience, much better translated into a better game than a studio consisting of thousands of developers. Not to mention, if that game doesn't succeed, those developers are pretty much doomed, how many layoffs and terminations have we seen over the years? How many "ex-Naughty Dog developers) have we seen articles about?

Sony has so many games that are made by these massive amazing studios that are, in my opinion, flops. The Last of Us 2 was an embarrassment of a sequel, Days Gone was a dissapointment, Death Stranding I have no comment about. I can probably go on and pull up the list of the games released recently by Sony which were met with disappointment which were hyped up to be these "amazing next-gen games" for both the PS4 and PS5. People on the internet wouldn't shut up about how good Killzone looked when it was announced as a launch game for the PS4 but now barely anybody remembers it even existed. I, for one, don't remember it's subtitle.

But hey, agree to disagree I suppose.

Re: Video: We're Confused About Sonic Frontiers

Varkster

I don't know guys, Sonic has confused me for many years now.

It's as polarizing as a franchise as the X-Men movies are. You have some greats, you have some decent games and then you have the absolute lowest of the low.

Besides this, if you look at most of the games side to side you wouldn't even be able to tell they're made by the same developer.

So yeah, Sonic has been confusing a long time.

Re: Review: Mario Strikers: Battle League - Simply The Best Sports Game On Switch

Varkster

I mean the direct competitor would be..uh..FIFA? 🤢

Next Level proved themselves to be quite skilled at making quality at this point so this is hardly a surprise. Their games are also usually some of the better looking games on Nintendo hardware. I really wanna see them tackle their own IP at some point.

Curious to see if they would go completely off the rails and create something experimental or if they'd rather stick to their action/arcade strengths from Luigi's Mansion and Strikers.

Re: Sonic Frontiers Gameplay Showcases A Pretty, But Sparse Open World

Varkster

@lyle_catcliffe @TheMelodiusRose It's funny for me Sonic Adventure 1 actually always controlled better, it wasn't perfect or anything and I still don't think Sonic is very good at 3D but it was fun learning how to use Sonic's inertia to jump past 1/3 of the level to hit those time challenge achievements.

It's unfortunate that the game only had around 6 Sonic levels and the rest was all just different characters with varying degrees of quality, all below Sonic's.

Sonic Adventure 2 was much more "slippery" than SA1 to me. I platinumed SA1 but never got around doing that for SA2, something felt a little off. It's the same feeling I got in Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, almost as if you're 'locked' into moving a certain direction for a brief moment when you start to move. The same would be the case for Unleashed, but in that game you're meant to be locked in because the stages are much more straight-line and you're meant to dash through them in high speed, it's part of the design. In SA1, SH and StH it always felt awkward to me.

I actually had the most fun controlling Sonic recently in Sonic: Lost World. For all its flaws I genuinely thought the parkour system was clever and responsive, dashing and jumping felt natural, I never felt like the controls were dragging me down in a gameplay segment. I haven't played it in a couple of years so perhaps I am misremembering things, but I think that game was fun to control.

Re: Sonic Frontiers Gameplay Showcases A Pretty, But Sparse Open World

Varkster

@UltimateOtaku91 I've said this before when I was criticizing Elden Ring after my playthrough on the Soulsbourne forum thread but I'll repeat a small part of it here.

People are lately under a misconception that Breath of the Wild is 'not so great' and isn't actually worth the praise it got when that's completely asinine. The reason BotW worked so well when it came out is that despite being the first real modern game of its kind which didn't rely on map markers to keep the player invested in a massive open area, it also had many, MANY mechanics which are all quite different from each other which will keep you exploring the world and immersing yourself in it. It was so extensive in fact, that some compared it to immersive sims where you can essentially 'live a second life' akin to the Elder Scrolls games.

You could spend hours just taming different horses, going on treasure hunts, clearing out areas for a various collection of different loot, simply exploring, looking for every small korok seed you can find, completing your compendium, doing minigames, running through the puzzle dungeons, progressing through the story, challenging yourself with the Ganon boss fight and the castle at any time, cooking, doing weird side-quests with quirky characters, playing with the game's different physics, I could probably go on. Hell, we get articles every couple of weeks on this website showing something new people found to do in Breath of the Wild. Just a few weeks back I recall someone playing with the electricity physics on metallic objects to create really awesome looking conductive electricity art.

There was an abhorrent amount of things which made Breath of the Wild feel full of content despite, yes, being barren. If the open world was not barren in Zelda it would feel quite unnatural and fail to immerse the player. The world itself in that game was its own character and a major part of the appeal. If you weren't interested in exploring it or immersing yourself in it then Breath of the Wild probably wasn't for you.

Here what I see is a much more amateur copy of that formula with plains and fields with random obstacles sticking out, I can't possibly imagine that a Sonic game (platformer) would have the same activity variety as a Zelda game (action adventure). I've said this in the Elden Ring discussion bigger doesn't always mean better. Open doesn't always mean better. Developers should play to their strengths and instead of making a marketable open world just to call a game "first open world Sonic" they should have either made the experience linear but more focused or at the very least smaller but more filled with varied content.

Maybe I'm wrong about this game and it will come out great, I mean time will tell, I can't predict the future. I just really wanted to make something clear that I feel a lot of people forget when just openly criticizing Breath of the Wild nowadays.

There are things that game got very right which many of the games following it that were trying to copy the same formula and style of open world failed at. What makes this even more depressing is that Breath of the Wild, and I will point this out again is a first of it's kind and it came out in 2017. That's over FIVE years ago. Sonic is a mega-franchise which earns a lot more money than anything Zelda-related and the fact that a game released 5 years ago which pretty much inspired their new direction and formula is still miles ahead of them in game design is just not looking so great for Sonic. Sonic hasn't been the fastest in a long time and this demo doesn't change my opinion at all.

Re: Horror Game 'MADiSON' Shines In First Switch Gameplay Trailer

Varkster

Looks surprisingly great for the Switch and I believe this is their first game which is even more impressive. I've never heard of Bloodious Games (what a silly name) so good on them, but here's a small tangent:

Is anybody else feeling a bit worn out by this specific type of horror game yet? After the success of P.T. we had many, many games which took that concept and played around with it. We've had good games like Visage and Layers of Fear but we also had a lot of flops and mediocre ones. I think this type of game is interesting in P.T.'s case because the concept was fresh when that came out but it was also a freeware demo and essentially an intro teaser for the game it was supposed to tease. It also had the benefit of having the Silent Hill name attached to it which gave it a lot more fuss than I believe it otherwise would have. I thought that these were the reasons why everybody loved P.T. As a full game, though, I've played through a few of these games and honestly even though this here looks interesting and the visuals are all neat, I just can't get invested. I actually believe I have 5-6 games of this exact type sitting in my Steam library that I haven't even touched yet. I would be surprised if on the Switch alone there aren't already a large amount of horror games which are like this as well.

I wish more horror games took interesting gameplay into consideration rather than having a haunted house simulator-type deal. Even the visuals all look very similar in all the games I mentioned above including this one, and there's a certain screen filter (can't perfectly describe it, but it's this lighting distortion which makes everything in the scene look "fuzzy", The Evil Within 2 was probably the heaviest use I've seen of this type of effect) which is applied to all of these games to the point where it becomes hard to tell which game is which. P.T., Layers of Fear, Outlast 2 and Visage all have scenes that look like something in this game and the filter doesn't help. Non-Euclidian geometry happens to be in all of these games and a lot of the same lighting tricks. It becomes almost difficult to be scared because there aren't that many creative ways left to spook you out there.

It may be much more difficult to create a game with resource management and a little more player involvement like Amnesia or Resident Evil, etc., but I wish more developers took the risks and attempted it. On the other spectrum SOMA is a horror video game I love and hold dearly and it pretty much plays like any of these games I mentioned but SOMA was on a new level at expert storytelling and worldbuilding.

Re: Oops, An Italian Voice Actor May Have Spoiled Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2

Varkster

@MichaelP I'm with you on this, it's quite obvious that the game has something to do with ancient times since the first trailer revealed a literal mummy and the second trailer revealed objects moving in reverse as if following their path back to the start using time manipulation.

It doesn't really take a genius to assume that this game has something to do with time and that there may be another Goron character.

Sure, all of this was a bunch of 'maybes' and wasn't solidified properly before, but so is this interview. It's full of "maybe this, maybe that". Nobody would be upset to be spoiled by this. It's especially cute that NL decided to put a spoiler warning as well.

Re: Man Dies Following An Incident Involving Stolen Pokémon Cards

Varkster

I spent a whole year of my life stealing food in the past because yeah, sometimes things get rough. Sure, I would probably not have grabbed something as useless as Pokemon cards back then but stealing was still stealing, it was almost like daily routine. See, for some reason a lot of people on this website see things like this in very black and white tones. If I steal that means I'm a criminal and I should go to prison, right? But I think a lot of things in life just aren't as simple as two tones. There can be many reasons for someone's actions no matter if they don't align with your socio-political stance. Killing a person on the other hand, is a lot more black and white than stealing. That is definitely something I think you simply cannot justify. Taking a life, even with good reason, is an awful thing.

Thank god I don't live in a country where a simple call to the police would have had me gunned down on the spot walking out of the store. That is insanity.

I really hope nobody is capable of defending this, however I know that's wishful thinking. I already spotted a couple in this comment section and it saddens me.

Re: Heart Machine Reveals Open-World Hyper Light Drifter Sequel, 'Hyper Light Breaker'

Varkster

I thought Hyper Light Drifter's aesthetic was awesome, this trailer just completely blew me away in terms of its style.

I hope they don't sacrifice quality of the moment to moment by making their new game open world. I feel like too many games go from closed spaces to open world with no real benefit recently. I can even think of a very recent example where quality took a hit because there's too little content to stretch out on a big area.

Re: Random: Metal Gear 35th Anniversary Site Appears, And We Don't Know What To Think

Varkster

I wouldn't mind the games to just be ported in collections (like Castlevania) just so that they are accessible to play. I'm not digging up a PS3/PSP just to play Peace Walker or the Acid games. Some games are even on GameBoy..

Personally I don't think Kojima is as much of a "writing genius" as people say and to me Metal Gear isn't such a masterpiece series but even I will admit I would like to replay them anytime in the future.

But hey, Konami's name slapped on it doesn't make me hopeful. Even if it somehow is big collections for the games, nothing is stopping them from doing just as bad as the Silent Hill HD Collection.

Re: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delay Sees Nintendo Shares Slump 6%

Varkster

@mariomaster96 By the same logic the original release date could have been end of December, since we never knew the initial release date either, and I highly doubt the stock investors which are the topic at hand for this article knew the release date either.

I would say that 3 months is a good enough estimate with that in mind, if we're going all the way up until June then it's 4 months so still quite a small difference.

Obviously I didn't know the prior release date neither do I know the next release date but it's a simple logical guess especially judging by the release frames for big Nintendo games in the past. Anybody who expected this game any sooner than winter at the end of the year were lying to themselves. Look at the amount of footage we have seen so far. I'm sure we will get a big showing for it at this year's E3 but honestly they would have been promoting it all year up til release date. It's their biggest game in the pipeline right now bar none.

Re: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delay Sees Nintendo Shares Slump 6%

Varkster

Weird that it affected the shares at all, considering that it's only a 3 month delay which is negligible. 3 months fly past so quickly that it really won't affect much of anything. The only reason I imagine this could affect value is because it won't be out for the holiday season to gain the most traction, but I imagine Nintendo has plenty lined up for that anyways.

I honestly would like them to announce some weirder projects for the latter part of this year and maybe one more bigger game like Mario or another adventure-type game of some sort. I think after Elden Ring I'm a little worn out with the open world formula and would like them to focus on making the game a lot more interesting and unique.

Re: Next Witcher Game Confirmed To Be In Development, Using Unreal Engine 5

Varkster

Cyberpunk 2077 wasnt only broken, it was honestly just boring.

Please don't rush this game out. Don't try to release it alongside a new season of Witcher or in the holiday or anything like that. Just take your time and release it when it's ready.

I'm honestly not that hyped, I think Witcher 3 is also slightly overrated and the design of the game is kinda dated. I hope Witcher 4 is a breath of fresh air for the series and CD Projekt Red.

Re: Random: Is Miyamoto's Most Famous Quote Not His After All?

Varkster

@Crono1973 You're comparing an MMO to a normal game, dude. That point doesn't make any sense.

MMO's are services, the game part is secondary. WoW became bad after many years of being the top of the food chain. Literally your point makes no sense.

I'm not sure if you have some kind of love for the underdog games, like I said there were games that were patched after many long years to be improved but that doesn't change the stance that yeah, if you delay a game it will probably end up actually being great if you have good talent working at your side.

I am of the belief that if Balan's Wonderworld was delayed by 4 years it may have actually been a fantastic platformer.

MMO's do not fit into this equation because they are absolute outliers. You can NOT release an MMO without patching in more content later down the line. It's just how the MMO genre strives.

Re: Random: Is Miyamoto's Most Famous Quote Not His After All?

Varkster

@Crono1973 It still applies to the game at initial release. While yes, games do get patched and No Man's Sky may indeed be a great game, there are a lot of people including myself who will probably never pick the game up just because we don't care enough about it after that first release date.

A patch also can't really save a broken game. If the game's fundamental systems are flawed then the only thing that would have saved it is a rethinking of those systems which would have taken a lot of time during development which again, would have taken a delay.

The only game I can think of which changed fundamentally how it worked was Rust on PC but keep in mind that game was released as an "early access" copy.

Re: Random: Is Miyamoto's Most Famous Quote Not His After All?

Varkster

@Crono1973 It is relevant. If Cyberpunk 2077 came out in the year 2077 it probably would have been a 10/10 game.

The problem is development and contracts don't work that way. While delaying a game will eventually actually make it great, most publishers want a game out by a certain deadline. Even though 2077 was delayed many, many times it was clearly still not in a ready state but the management of the company wanted to dish it out by due date.

In Nintendo's case this quote is even more true, because Nintendo as a company seem to respect developers' time. They are going to delay a game if the developers aren't able to make it good by a certain point especially if the franchise means a lot to their track record. Look at Metroid Prime 4 for example. It's not the biggest selling Nintendo franchise but it's very clear that they're delaying it over and over and over so that they don't mess it up for the fans.

I wish Elden Ring which is a game I'm immensely enjoying at the current moment was delayed a little, because the PC port sucks absolute ass and honestly hinders my enjoyment of the game by quite a ton.

Anyways, that's just my ramblings.

Re: Random: Is Miyamoto's Most Famous Quote Not His After All?

Varkster

Oh no, everything that has ever been said has already been said in the past and now I don't believe anything I say or anything anybody around will say anything original. The world is truly ending and this is the first sign.

Miyamoto, you have betrayed me. I will never trust you again.

I am going to see your Mario movie, though.