Looks fun. It's weird how the new hero skin as a knight makes me want to try it more. I think it lets the imagination go more where you want than what happens when confronted with a chicken as the main. I don't usually worry about things like that, but here I am, not able to deny it.
@Poodlestargenerica The original Polygon article does suggest that the question of a Zelda Maker was directly asked and this was Aonuma's response. The answer does tie in with how players play ToTK so it is a little unclear how much he is talking about the prospect of a Zelda Maker and how much he is simply explaining the problem with forcing players to create things from scratch.
It's possible the Polygon article is slightly inaccurate with how this exchange went to begin with because you can definitely read that answer out of context completely like you suggested.
@ALinkttPresent @Solomon_Rambling I think this is unintended shade thrown at Mario Maker, but it might even be an internal lesson learned.
Mario Maker on the Wii U made sense to me, but creating stages on Switch was terrible by comparison (despite all the other great feature additions). It really soured me on it after making a few stages. I'm always impressed with what people did with it, and a few of the thousands of stages were even fun to play.
So, while I'd enjoy a LoZ Maker, I get why Nintendo might be hesitant.
One more reason is that Mario works a bit better from the start because it has more gameplay stemming from the faster action and physics which lends itself well to trial and error — it's fun to bounce around while building a stage.
Top-down Zelda games are more about selecting the right item to use, walking to the right place, facing the right direction, and getting the timing of a button press right. A little less fun and much less bouncing around.
If I was forced to make a LoZ Maker (please force me, Nintendo?), I'd focus on making the action aspects of the top-down gameplay more varied and prominent to help make the necessary trial and error while building levels more fun.
Wonder if they could have done this with people supplying their own rom/assets. Isn't that what the Ocarina of Time port is doing?
I mean, they released a version of the game featuring all the code and assets for download while Nintendo is actually actively selling both the original (as part of a subscription service) and the remake as a retail game. It's just plain against copyright law with no gray area.
I do wish Nintendo would make this much easier on everyone and actively preserve their own history and give a safe haven for fan projects that they can host and control the information and story around. Really it's getting irresponsible as time goes on and Nintendo should do WAY better at it.
Metroid Prime Remastered was such a great experience and a great size for a video game now that there is so much variety out there. Almost voted it as my fave.
TotK really took me and I got more obsessive than I usually do. Here at Nintendo Life I don’t have to decide if I liked TotK or Jedi: Survivor more (skipped all the glitch headaches because it worked fine on PS). I think I’d go with TotK, anyway, though.
Looking forward to catching up with some well-reviewed games of 2023 I haven’t gotten to play yet!
Love how the 8 as infinity sign has lived up to its symbol, so far.
Can't wait to see what Nintendo has been cooking up for the successor, knowing how successful this one has been. I think it will definitely take a leap or two to differentiate, hopefully for the best.
I'm personally hoping the next one has an "adventure mode", like Diddy Kong racing, over just making it a crossover game with more franchises included. So far, that crossover characters have not been as impactful for a kart game as they are in other genres, in my opinion.
The new game announcements did make it feel like popular gaming was beginning to leave the Switch behind. I guess that would happen at the end of the year before new hardware from Nintendo is arriving and no one can talk about games they are working on to target that hardware.
The variety and artistry in gaming is really impressive and what was awarded and showcased represented that pretty well.
The show is in constant flux. Maybe it won't need to have big announcements to draw people in, but despite people complaining about the time actually given to awarding awards compared to the promotion, I'm guessing the viewership would not even be close to sustaining the expense if it was just awards.
In time, if enough people respect the work, it could shed some of the hours of promotion during the show itself.
Thursday, Dec 7 (or 8 for some times)
4:30 PT / 7:30 ET
8:30P BRT / 12:30A GMT
6A IST / 8:30A CST
9:30A JST
Stream at thegameawards.com
I also get annoyed at news about events that leaves out the basic information. To me, it always bears repeating because this might be the first time I was drawn in to read an article about it, right?
Most of this looks really good. Resistor is a standout for me, too. I love that Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story is a real thing and that there could be other collections like this in the future. Game history and preservation is something that needs support. Most gamers don't realize how some of their favorite games will lose support and the way to play them will fade in their lifetime. (Some do!)
Ultros (sp?) still looks amazing even if it's not a Switch game, but I have to believe some of these will find their way to Switch 2 or whatever, when they are able to target it for their games that might need a bit more performance.
Overall, the indie games shown represent an incredibly rich variety.
I remember the first mention of it in Nintendo Fun Club News. Just looked up the exact little section in the third issue (Fall 1987) page 15: "What happens when Link grows up?" Very much looked forward to its release.
My first play through was affected by some friend competition, back then.
See, my friends and I always got together to try out the big games (at least I had gotten used to that) and my best friend walks up to me, shows me the game box and says, "I finished it" (and he had). What!? So, I started playing it, thinking it couldn't be that hard if he had finished it so quickly, but ... yeah, it was difficult! Though, it didn't take very long, so it didn't register as a super difficult game to me at the time.
I look back on those days, though, and it was like I was a different person. Reflexes were much better and I just played these games so much... another vivid memory: I had an involved conversation with that same friend while playing Contra one day. Suddenly, I noticed I had completed it — for the second time during our conversation. I had barely consciously acknowledged I was playing until that moment. Now, I wonder how many times I must have played through Contra before that.
So, yeah, playing Zelda 2 the most recent time was kinda infuriating for my older self. The game is full of great ideas and the direction for it was great. However, it was terribly designed, overall, and it was needlessly punishing, especially with unfair feeling random placement and timing of enemies.
The Japan and Europe covers are using the Arcade cabinet art, so that wins for me — this is a port, after all.
The NA one is nostalgic for me, though, and I like how the early box art was more honest in its portrayal of the games and how it embraced pixel art, all in stark contrast to the awesome, but deceptive and aspirational, Atari 2600 box art — the market it was overtaking in NA.
The initial NA NES box art was making a statement, shows that Nintendo was proud of the NES could do, and captures that moment in time. That said, this particular one was problematic with the embiggened Super Mario pictured with all the wrong colors for Donkey Kong or Super Mario Bros. Hard to ignore that, for me.
Bonus points to the bonus inclusion where Mario is shown as a cruel and awful villain.
@RareFan I enjoyed it when my kids watched because it was funny, smartly written, had fun characters with heartfelt relationships and some clever humor. Also, the voice actor for Discord was Q in ST:TNG, haha.
Probably more importantly, if you were 10 when it started in 2012, you are 21 now and "adult".
Loved this game. I got this and Pokemon Snap used and on sale at Blockbuster back in the day. Wasn't interested in either when they first released (I mean look at that horribly ugly promotional art), but the game is quite clever and original in its gameplay... which will probably throw people off. Music was amazing for its day, too. It's a little too long, if I remember right, but I did finish it. Looking forward to seeing how it holds up.
Boots annoying. The tricky part for me was thinking in 3D at that one point, which was probably harder for gamers at the time and it did get me stuck a bit. But, yeah, then I kept going... haha.
For me, a total overhaul remake of Ocarina of Time is just the sequels up to BotW which is more a total remake of the original NES. That’s the way it feels to me, despite all the details that could be debated.
@aznable Metroid (NES) had the same. No hand holding, multiple endings with no warning, and no pity. To be fair, almost every NES game had no hand holding unless you had the issue of Nintendo Power with that game or it came with a thick instruction manual (or like Zelda a map and starter hints).
Depending on what you played first, your experience might be different, but Metroid was 1986 and Castlevania 2 was 1987 (88 in the North America).
It is strange that the top-down exploring seems to make Zelda very separate from the Metroidvanias as the all enjoyed the action, exploration and gating by discovered abilities (not just keys). Zelda felt a bit more open world with puzzle-levels than the continuous connected areas of Metroid and Castlevania, but I think how they are side view and both feature solitude and a creepy aloneness set them apart. (Also part of why Hollow Knight feels so right as a Metroidvania to me, at least.)
The more distinct RPG elements came with later Castelvanias like Symphony of the Night and the GBA and DS games, as I remember.
Zelda 2 barely escapes the weird Metroidvania distinction maybe because of an overworld that separates the areas? This is mostly exploring my own built-up definition not anything that is generally accepted.
Symphony of the Night was one of the early examples, probably early enough to be a pioneer, but there’s good reason to have “vania” as the second part of the genre name. The way I experienced it was Metroid (NES) taking the Zelda formula somewhere new and Castlevania 2 (NES) taking some influence from Metroid and Zelda, while Super Metroid (SNES) set the major conventions and Symphony of the Night (PS1) kept Castlevania in the mix.
Really not enough information to go on. I’ll take it whenever they want to release it! Can’t wait to find out what their process has been and what they focused on.
@SalvorHardin That's some old news you dug up, there. Apple has shifted quite a bit focusing on adding a steady stream of old classics from the early mobile gaming days (Cut the Rope, Jetpack Joyride, etc.) and peppered with some larger, ambitious games and exclusives.
The service will continue to shift to be successful. As far as games not existing anymore, it has done more to resurrect some old games than extinguish games. The developers may have exclusivity deals but they retain the rights to their games afterwards from what I've seen and many are just temporary.
I do think there is a preservation issue that persists in the video game industry, in general, and I'd like to see individual companies take more responsibility for it (rather than cherry pick remasters from time to time).
@HammerKirby I get it. On the flip side, a brand new iPad is $330 and way more versatile than a Switch. Apple Arcade is a decent game subscription service. For many, a fun little Sonic game will just appear as an option to play on their iPhones and they'll be reminded of the blue blur. It's an overall value proposition, not an attempt to get people to buy hardware for one game. Not saying anyone has to like it, but plenty of people will.
Plus, exclusives suck in the moment you can't play them, but they do push competition... would Nintendo bother making stand out hardware if they were releasing their games for all platforms? I can't be sure, but probably not. Could they survive when their hardware gambles don't pay off if they didn't have their exclusives? I can't be sure, but probably not.
I do feel it could be better all around for us game enthusiasts... just not sure how I'd change things.
Betting it's going to actually be in the Hyrule introduced in Breath of the Wild or have most of the callbacks to that Hyrule and those characters. More than twice as many people played that game than OoT. (Pretty sure he's not gonna have that long hat and be clad in bright green and white pants.) Not just those who bought and played, but streaming of crazy moments and breaking of BotW over the years means the net is much wider than the sales.
Don't think Nintendo is going to throw that all away to appease the small number of people who appreciate the other incarnations.
That said, all the games are remakes of each other and someone could sort of remake the general Zelda framework as a movie with a new take without pinning it to one game.
I'm more curious about the violence. Are Moblins gonna poof away in the movie?
On top of this popularity, it has been a long time since it was initially released, now, so it will have a nostalgic feel. These are both very helpful for getting butts in seats. The chief goal.
I don't want to see a direct take on the story in BotW, really, but having a character with amnesia to help introduce Hyrule helps make audience members dragged to the theater by their loved ones relate to the Link.
Plus, they can shorten the length by having link do some physics shenanigans and go right to Ganon.
Growing up with Sega vs Nintendo and their battle of exclusives, it’s funny to see a tiny uproar here. I mean I don’t know if you all like Nintendo exclusives or not, but it’s been a part of gaming platforms since the beginning. It’s like Bayonetta 3 on Switch. It’s just you don’t have the platform so it hurts.
Not saying I don’t empathize, getting off the Windows PC ride leaves me buying expensive consoles and hoping for gaming to grow some on macOS. But, yeah, exclusivity cuts all ways, but one.
@Liam_Doolan Nice story, I had never heard of this event, either.
REQUEST: match Markdown format for comment text entry
I'm sure it has been requested before, but because of Discord, surely the gaming community has mostly learned standard markdown and it would be beneficial for everyone if the comments could conform more closely to it. (It hurts to use single asterisks for bold when that should be italic and double should be bold, etc.)
Loved my Colecovision back in the day. Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was the killer game shown at retail stores. Looked amazing. Gameplay was pretty terrible, though.
I enjoyed playing Venture and Cosmic Avenger the most often, but the control was pretty bad in everything thanks, in part, to the short joystick with the disc on top (trying to look like Intellivision's but have an actual stick?)
Mouse Trap, Donkey Kong, and Zaxxon were other highlights. Mr. Do was a good port, too, I think, but I didn't realize how fun it was until later in life.
Mouse Trap and Ladybug were pac-man clones and added enough that they were good in their own right.
Can't stress enough how much the standard controllers ruined everything. The Super Action controllers improved the stick, but other parts were pretty terrible, so Colecovision never had a "good" controller. Atari 2600 games had smoother control with better frame rates (in most games) and it felt weird to go backwards.
The NES, of course, generally maintained smooth gameplay (and innovated in the space of making digital controls feel analog in Super Mario Bros.) and had enough resolution and sprite/tiling tricks to feel amazingly better than its contemporaries, to me.
On a side note: The Sega Master System, which I also owned and loved, had similar problems to the Colecovision. Bad controllers, lower frame rate. It was more colorful and seemingly capable than the NES but most action games did not prioritize frame rate and game feel, so many felt almost as clunky as the Colecovision. SMS games were very ambitious, though, and certain genres shined — on consoles, Phantasy Star was easily the most impressive RPG of its time, for me. (Hah, just remembered that the SMS joystick had a strange giant knob on top that was similarly awkward to the Colecovision's)
If, like the Switch before it, the new Nintendo game machine has no backwards compatibly at all... I'll buy it and keep the Switch. This is what I've done since the NES, and I'm still on board.
That said, I'd be happier if I could move my Nintendo games forward to newer hardware.
I'd be happier, still, if I could easily use my games library on multiple consoles at once.
But yeah, I have to admit, I'm there, day one, no matter how those issues shake out.
Nice. Definitely has the feeling of finding gold for me seeing those bits of art. Those NES games were so influential on me as a kid and back then it was much harder to learn about the context around their creation, even if you wanted to.
Loving the game. Doesn’t feel like a “drip feed”. The nature of these types of games is to provide live events to keep people excited and engaged with it. That’s fine with me when there are no ads or microtransactions.
Besides I suck enough at the current tracks that I’m not even ready (started just this week).
Constantly sucked into Tears of the Kingdom and loving it. For me, it has been much more engaging, interesting and fun than BotW, overall and I loved that game.
(I did get a later start because I finished Jedi: Survivor a couple times, first).
Glad to see this brilliant game get the attention and play it deserves.
Boycotting Unity games is actually harmful to studios that are trapped by a huge investment of time and money in their development, unfortunately. The studios and indie developers have to do the fighting and buying their games can actually help them with the fight (they’ll need income to make new investments in switching engines and/or litigation against Unity)
Incredibly tone deaf move by executives (or maybe just one executive as seems to be the trend this year).
Expecting further concessions by Unity, hoping the board ousts the CEO, or that Unity is heavily pressured (or even acquired) by Meta or Apple, two companies that are silent on this so far but are strongly tied to Unity because of their VR/AR projects. (And Apple and Epic are not talking)
Greetings @rjejr , I’m with you on this one. Did you ever try Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time? Finally played that after years, (bought it on sale and still waited maybe a year more). It’s a good local co-op game. Plays best with 3 or 4 players.
@SwagaliciousJohnson If the rumors are to be believed, the Prime sequels were going to be basic emulated ports. I wonder if the success of Prime Remastered made them rethink this. I know I would be happy to wait for a more complete remaster, like Prime was. It would be disappointing to see the sequels treated in a lesser way.
Of course, that means a significantly longer wait.
The whole game knowingly fights conventional play, which is awesome. The abilities almost feel like cheats — the ascend ability actually was originally a game tester's cheat!
Maybe that mentality it puts you in makes players feel like the duplication bug is just another way to play?
For me, though, it's just not a fun "mechanic" and leads to a monotonous exercise to build up endless resources taking away a long-term sense of accomplishment, and worse, reducing the value of in-game rewards to nothing.
Some people watch spoilers and ruin things by cheating so much maybe they don't realize the more satisfying experiences they are destroying for themselves. shrug
I say fix the bugs, because I want it to play the game as intended and designed and to for it to be solid in the future.
If you want to cheat, make the game a hollow shell of itself for your own experience and move on to something else, that's up to you, just don't patch.
I usually play one big game a year, but I finished Jedi: Survivor a couple times and I couldn't resist Tears of the Kingdom, so I'm deep into that now. It's just an astonishingly great game in its flexibility that you can make it what you want it to be. Makes it hard to stop playing.
Wife continues to play Wildfrost which is even better with some nice small updates and Slay the Spire. My son is on his PC playing through the Halo collection with his friend (we skipped Xbox) and Cosmoteer, Hearts of Iron IV, and a bit of co-op Rainworld. He is also playing TotK and my daughter is close to the end. We are sharing one copy.
@Nintendencies I cut my own hair. Use a Wahl hair clipper and it looks pretty good. Just start with highest length attachment for the top and transition on the way down.
Hardest part is wrapping one hand around the back of my head to push the clipper against, to keep the line on my neck. Takes about 15 minutes to a half hour, but no trip anywhere and it's free (after the initial purchase, and those things last a long time).
I still usually put it off until I can't stand it anymore. lol.
@MontyCircus Thanks for that much more recognizable list of Sunsoft games! I have a feeling the author, @Tim-Massey was trying to give some lesser known titles some print. Then again, I'm probably just ignorant of SNES titles as I lost track of Sunsoft after NES — but leaving off Blaster Master, one of my favorites, and Journey to Silius, a well-loved title, stuck out to me!
@RubyCarbuncle Why is this better? It's also a game almost no one saw all the content from (in this case because of the difficulty).
DLC and deluxe editions are for super fans who want extra content. It is actually more valuable to those people after all. Seems okay to pay more.
The standard version is for the masses, most of whom will never see all the main game content. They pay less and get less.
Seems a better balance and more fair than "pay upfront for the full game you probably won't get to play".
Not saying there are not silly and broken aspects of DLC and deluxe editions. I don't like all the approaches to the problem, I just find that it is meeting the markets much better than the old ways.
I gotta say I don’t get why people even feel the need to duplicate. This game has more flexible options for play from minute to minute than any other game I’ve played. Maybe just go a different way for awhile and you’ll likely collect things naturally along the way? Maybe I just haven’t hit a problem.
One reason to patch it is to stop people from leaning on it to the detriment of the gameplay. Seems like it makes it boring for some people after a short initial rush from “cheating”.
Tears of the Kingdom, just starting my own game. I watched my daughter play for awhile (took over my game after a very short time). Now I'm playing on her account... save slots, Nintendo...
I've played through Jedi: Survivor twice (post-story and New Game+ are the best I've ever experienced) and part of Jedi: Fallen Order, just to share the story a bit with family who would watch. Going to Zelda after that — the PlayStation to Nintendo layout change is horrible, identical actions are mapped to all different places. For left-to-right readers, Nintendo has the layout of cancel/negative (B left/wast) and accept/positive (A right/east) correct, but I retrained for Jedi on PlayStation, and it hurts to go back. Only same action is west button (Y/square)
Anyway, it's immensely varied and fun and lets you make of it what you want to such a huge degree, but the story and puzzles are great, too.
I caught myself imaging earlier Zelda games as a model, but a Zelda movie would definitely be leaning on the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom stories and characters, no matter who makes it.
I mean, BotW's 30 million in sales against the 2nd place Twilight Princess at... 9? Tears of the Kingdom is the fastest selling Nintendo game of all time, too. (Ocarina combined with 3DS version sales might be in the 13 million range, but still)
Was a little worried about the (odd?) public reaction to this one and I'm glad to read that it may be as good as the gameplay looked. I do think marketing people fail when they show all the cinematics and put a small amount of actual gameplay in (or none!). It just leaves you wondering if the game is any good, or worse, not caring about it ever again.
For me, at least, I want to see the gameplay up front. Maybe they should do like movie trailers, where they show a brief montage of the exciting highlights at the start, but for video games that should be a montage of the gameplay, in my opinion.
For PR and less litigation, Nintendo should do this but so much more. Make a safe haven for fan projects (art, videos of all kinds, and even fan-made games using their IP) where their PR and marketing people can control the messaging and point people to the games they sell.
So you could go to an official Nintendo website to play AM2R, the fan-made remake of Metroid 2 for PC.
It would have a write-up that celebrates the hard work of the community and developer and the game's success.
It would pull quotes from the developer and community and clearly point out how their interpretation is different and not "canon".
It would also have perfectly targeted links to buy and/or play the gameboy Metroid 2 and 3DS Return of Samus.
They wouldn't even have to pay the creator of the game anything. Those types of developers are doing it for the experience, learning, and/or recognition. Meanwhile, Nintendo generates goodwill, extra interest in franchises between new games, and additional sales, as a result.
Or, imagine in a corner of the Zelda area, a section promoting and celebrating YouTube videos exploring all the amazing corners and edge cases dedicated players have unearthed. Meanwhile, links to games to sell with similar exploits, or that are mentioned in the video, or current DLC, etc.
It's a win-win, but it would take a 180 degree culture change at Nintendo, so it remains a dream or a "best timeline" fantasy, but I enjoy the dream.
Once the gameplay kicked in, I started to really like it. The style of graphics was a little confusing until then. It would have been better to focus more on the gameplay earlier, in my opinion. Music was fine. They went the pop-music route which will get some people to pay attention and give it a look that might not otherwise. I guess it makes some people angry or something.
As far as the anachronisms, it's meant to be hip for a modern audience, and the main is one of many "immortals". Uncombed "locks" have been around since humans had hair and hairstyles of royalty in ancient Persia had waves and tight curls and braids according to what I just looked up briefly (even curling irons have been found in excavations). Looking at sculptures, and carvings on coins, some really spent a lot of time on extravagant hair styling.
This can be a really addictive and fun game. I was sad to see that they stopped development after the Switch release. I do think there are some rough edges that some players will bounce off of (like this reviewer).
I think maybe they shouldn't make the enemies more difficult when you are playing multiplayer. It makes for an imbalance in that one or two of the players will just die so easily quickly that it gets a bit tiresome. I'd honestly rather it be easier with multiplayer (because co-op / competition brings its own challenges for most groups ). Could have made special victory for those that want to take on the challenge alone.
Anyway, looks like Nuke Nine (the developers) never did anything else? Which is a shame.
Comments 6,335
Re: Super Dungeon Maker Launches Huge Update With New Skins, Enemies, More
Looks fun. It's weird how the new hero skin as a knight makes me want to try it more. I think it lets the imagination go more where you want than what happens when confronted with a chicken as the main. I don't usually worry about things like that, but here I am, not able to deny it.
Re: Zelda Producer Explains Why A Mario Maker Style Game Probably Won't Work
@Poodlestargenerica The original Polygon article does suggest that the question of a Zelda Maker was directly asked and this was Aonuma's response. The answer does tie in with how players play ToTK so it is a little unclear how much he is talking about the prospect of a Zelda Maker and how much he is simply explaining the problem with forcing players to create things from scratch.
It's possible the Polygon article is slightly inaccurate with how this exchange went to begin with because you can definitely read that answer out of context completely like you suggested.
Re: Zelda Producer Explains Why A Mario Maker Style Game Probably Won't Work
@ALinkttPresent @Solomon_Rambling I think this is unintended shade thrown at Mario Maker, but it might even be an internal lesson learned.
Mario Maker on the Wii U made sense to me, but creating stages on Switch was terrible by comparison (despite all the other great feature additions). It really soured me on it after making a few stages. I'm always impressed with what people did with it, and a few of the thousands of stages were even fun to play.
So, while I'd enjoy a LoZ Maker, I get why Nintendo might be hesitant.
One more reason is that Mario works a bit better from the start because it has more gameplay stemming from the faster action and physics which lends itself well to trial and error — it's fun to bounce around while building a stage.
Top-down Zelda games are more about selecting the right item to use, walking to the right place, facing the right direction, and getting the timing of a button press right. A little less fun and much less bouncing around.
If I was forced to make a LoZ Maker (please force me, Nintendo?), I'd focus on making the action aspects of the top-down gameplay more varied and prominent to help make the necessary trial and error while building levels more fun.
Re: Fan-Made 'Link's Awakening DX HD' Port Taken Down By Nintendo
Wonder if they could have done this with people supplying their own rom/assets. Isn't that what the Ocarina of Time port is doing?
I mean, they released a version of the game featuring all the code and assets for download while Nintendo is actually actively selling both the original (as part of a subscription service) and the remake as a retail game. It's just plain against copyright law with no gray area.
I do wish Nintendo would make this much easier on everyone and actively preserve their own history and give a safe haven for fan projects that they can host and control the information and story around. Really it's getting irresponsible as time goes on and Nintendo should do WAY better at it.
But, yeah, this one is pretty cut and dry, right?
Re: Feature: Nintendo Switch Year In Review 2023 - Our Most Played Games
Metroid Prime Remastered was such a great experience and a great size for a video game now that there is so much variety out there. Almost voted it as my fave.
TotK really took me and I got more obsessive than I usually do. Here at Nintendo Life I don’t have to decide if I liked TotK or Jedi: Survivor more (skipped all the glitch headaches because it worked fine on PS). I think I’d go with TotK, anyway, though.
Looking forward to catching up with some well-reviewed games of 2023 I haven’t gotten to play yet!
Re: New Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Trailer Showcases All 96 Circuits
AKA: Mario Kart Evergreen
Love how the 8 as infinity sign has lived up to its symbol, so far.
Can't wait to see what Nintendo has been cooking up for the successor, knowing how successful this one has been. I think it will definitely take a leap or two to differentiate, hopefully for the best.
I'm personally hoping the next one has an "adventure mode", like Diddy Kong racing, over just making it a crossover game with more franchises included. So far, that crossover characters have not been as impactful for a kart game as they are in other genres, in my opinion.
Re: Nintendo Expands Its Switch Online N64 Library With Three More Titles
Oh, I missed this during the awards. This is great. Will play some Jetforce Gemini tonight. (and what a nice surprise to get 1080 and Harvest Moon 64)
Re: Round Up: Everything Announced At The Game Awards 2023 - All Switch Game Reveals & Trailers
The new game announcements did make it feel like popular gaming was beginning to leave the Switch behind. I guess that would happen at the end of the year before new hardware from Nintendo is arriving and no one can talk about games they are working on to target that hardware.
The variety and artistry in gaming is really impressive and what was awarded and showcased represented that pretty well.
The show is in constant flux. Maybe it won't need to have big announcements to draw people in, but despite people complaining about the time actually given to awarding awards compared to the promotion, I'm guessing the viewership would not even be close to sustaining the expense if it was just awards.
In time, if enough people respect the work, it could shed some of the hours of promotion during the show itself.
Re: Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story Is The Next Entry In Digital Eclipse's Gold Master Series
Love this. Hope it does well and other individual game developers or small studios get the same treatment.
Re: Geoff Keighley Reminds Everyone To Get Their Votes In For The Game Awards
@abbyhitter
From the end of the hype video:
Thursday, Dec 7 (or 8 for some times)
4:30 PT / 7:30 ET
8:30P BRT / 12:30A GMT
6A IST / 8:30A CST
9:30A JST
Stream at thegameawards.com
I also get annoyed at news about events that leaves out the basic information. To me, it always bears repeating because this might be the first time I was drawn in to read an article about it, right?
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Announcement At Day Of The Devs - The Game Awards 2023 Edition
Most of this looks really good. Resistor is a standout for me, too. I love that Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story is a real thing and that there could be other collections like this in the future. Game history and preservation is something that needs support. Most gamers don't realize how some of their favorite games will lose support and the way to play them will fade in their lifetime. (Some do!)
Ultros (sp?) still looks amazing even if it's not a Switch game, but I have to believe some of these will find their way to Switch 2 or whatever, when they are able to target it for their games that might need a bit more performance.
Overall, the indie games shown represent an incredibly rich variety.
Re: Soapbox: Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link Taught Me The Value Of Perseverance
Remains a divisive game to this day, I see.
I remember the first mention of it in Nintendo Fun Club News. Just looked up the exact little section in the third issue (Fall 1987) page 15: "What happens when Link grows up?" Very much looked forward to its release.
My first play through was affected by some friend competition, back then.
See, my friends and I always got together to try out the big games (at least I had gotten used to that) and my best friend walks up to me, shows me the game box and says, "I finished it" (and he had). What!? So, I started playing it, thinking it couldn't be that hard if he had finished it so quickly, but ... yeah, it was difficult! Though, it didn't take very long, so it didn't register as a super difficult game to me at the time.
I look back on those days, though, and it was like I was a different person. Reflexes were much better and I just played these games so much... another vivid memory: I had an involved conversation with that same friend while playing Contra one day. Suddenly, I noticed I had completed it — for the second time during our conversation. I had barely consciously acknowledged I was playing until that moment. Now, I wonder how many times I must have played through Contra before that.
So, yeah, playing Zelda 2 the most recent time was kinda infuriating for my older self. The game is full of great ideas and the direction for it was great. However, it was terribly designed, overall, and it was needlessly punishing, especially with unfair feeling random placement and timing of enemies.
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Donkey Kong
The Japan and Europe covers are using the Arcade cabinet art, so that wins for me — this is a port, after all.
The NA one is nostalgic for me, though, and I like how the early box art was more honest in its portrayal of the games and how it embraced pixel art, all in stark contrast to the awesome, but deceptive and aspirational, Atari 2600 box art — the market it was overtaking in NA.
The initial NA NES box art was making a statement, shows that Nintendo was proud of the NES could do, and captures that moment in time. That said, this particular one was problematic with the embiggened Super Mario pictured with all the wrong colors for Donkey Kong or Super Mario Bros. Hard to ignore that, for me.
Bonus points to the bonus inclusion where Mario is shown as a cruel and awful villain.
Re: My Little Pony-Inspired Release Them's Fightin' Herds Ending Active Development
@RareFan I enjoyed it when my kids watched because it was funny, smartly written, had fun characters with heartfelt relationships and some clever humor. Also, the voice actor for Discord was Q in ST:TNG, haha.
Probably more importantly, if you were 10 when it started in 2012, you are 21 now and "adult".
Re: Switch Online Is Expanding The N64 Library With Rare's Jet Force Gemini
Loved this game. I got this and Pokemon Snap used and on sale at Blockbuster back in the day. Wasn't interested in either when they first released (I mean look at that horribly ugly promotional art), but the game is quite clever and original in its gameplay... which will probably throw people off. Music was amazing for its day, too. It's a little too long, if I remember right, but I did finish it. Looking forward to seeing how it holds up.
Re: Soapbox: Ocarina Of Time's Water Temple Was Tough, But It Doesn't Deserve Its Reputation
Boots annoying. The tricky part for me was thinking in 3D at that one point, which was probably harder for gamers at the time and it did get me stuck a bit. But, yeah, then I kept going... haha.
Re: Talking Point: Does Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Need A Full Remake?
For me, a total overhaul remake of Ocarina of Time is just the sequels up to BotW which is more a total remake of the original NES. That’s the way it feels to me, despite all the details that could be debated.
Re: Review: 9 Years Of Shadows - Unique Ideas Elevate This Scrappy Metroidvania
@aznable Metroid (NES) had the same. No hand holding, multiple endings with no warning, and no pity. To be fair, almost every NES game had no hand holding unless you had the issue of Nintendo Power with that game or it came with a thick instruction manual (or like Zelda a map and starter hints).
Depending on what you played first, your experience might be different, but Metroid was 1986 and Castlevania 2 was 1987 (88 in the North America).
It is strange that the top-down exploring seems to make Zelda very separate from the Metroidvanias as the all enjoyed the action, exploration and gating by discovered abilities (not just keys). Zelda felt a bit more open world with puzzle-levels than the continuous connected areas of Metroid and Castlevania, but I think how they are side view and both feature solitude and a creepy aloneness set them apart. (Also part of why Hollow Knight feels so right as a Metroidvania to me, at least.)
The more distinct RPG elements came with later Castelvanias like Symphony of the Night and the GBA and DS games, as I remember.
Zelda 2 barely escapes the weird Metroidvania distinction maybe because of an overworld that separates the areas? This is mostly exploring my own built-up definition not anything that is generally accepted.
Re: Review: 9 Years Of Shadows - Unique Ideas Elevate This Scrappy Metroidvania
Symphony of the Night was one of the early examples, probably early enough to be a pioneer, but there’s good reason to have “vania” as the second part of the genre name. The way I experienced it was Metroid (NES) taking the Zelda formula somewhere new and Castlevania 2 (NES) taking some influence from Metroid and Zelda, while Super Metroid (SNES) set the major conventions and Symphony of the Night (PS1) kept Castlevania in the mix.
Re: Poll: Do You Think We'll See Hollow Knight: Silksong This Year?
Really not enough information to go on. I’ll take it whenever they want to release it! Can’t wait to find out what their process has been and what they focused on.
Re: Sonic's New 3D Action-Platformer Is Exclusive To Apple Arcade
@SalvorHardin That's some old news you dug up, there. Apple has shifted quite a bit focusing on adding a steady stream of old classics from the early mobile gaming days (Cut the Rope, Jetpack Joyride, etc.) and peppered with some larger, ambitious games and exclusives.
The service will continue to shift to be successful. As far as games not existing anymore, it has done more to resurrect some old games than extinguish games. The developers may have exclusivity deals but they retain the rights to their games afterwards from what I've seen and many are just temporary.
I do think there is a preservation issue that persists in the video game industry, in general, and I'd like to see individual companies take more responsibility for it (rather than cherry pick remasters from time to time).
Re: Sonic's New 3D Action-Platformer Is Exclusive To Apple Arcade
@HammerKirby I get it. On the flip side, a brand new iPad is $330 and way more versatile than a Switch. Apple Arcade is a decent game subscription service. For many, a fun little Sonic game will just appear as an option to play on their iPhones and they'll be reminded of the blue blur. It's an overall value proposition, not an attempt to get people to buy hardware for one game. Not saying anyone has to like it, but plenty of people will.
Plus, exclusives suck in the moment you can't play them, but they do push competition... would Nintendo bother making stand out hardware if they were releasing their games for all platforms? I can't be sure, but probably not. Could they survive when their hardware gambles don't pay off if they didn't have their exclusives? I can't be sure, but probably not.
I do feel it could be better all around for us game enthusiasts... just not sure how I'd change things.
Re: Miyamoto And Avi Arad Have Been Discussing The Zelda Movie For A Decade
Betting it's going to actually be in the Hyrule introduced in Breath of the Wild or have most of the callbacks to that Hyrule and those characters. More than twice as many people played that game than OoT. (Pretty sure he's not gonna have that long hat and be clad in bright green and white pants.) Not just those who bought and played, but streaming of crazy moments and breaking of BotW over the years means the net is much wider than the sales.
Don't think Nintendo is going to throw that all away to appease the small number of people who appreciate the other incarnations.
That said, all the games are remakes of each other and someone could sort of remake the general Zelda framework as a movie with a new take without pinning it to one game.
I'm more curious about the violence. Are Moblins gonna poof away in the movie?
Re: Reaction: What's Your Gut Feeling On The Zelda Movie News?
It will be based on the Hyrule introduced in Breath of the Wild. 90% sure. Why? More than twice as many people bought and played Breath of the Wild than the closest contender: Ocarina of Time. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1389789/zelda-video-game-unit-sales/
On top of this popularity, it has been a long time since it was initially released, now, so it will have a nostalgic feel. These are both very helpful for getting butts in seats. The chief goal.
I don't want to see a direct take on the story in BotW, really, but having a character with amnesia to help introduce Hyrule helps make audience members dragged to the theater by their loved ones relate to the Link.
Plus, they can shorten the length by having link do some physics shenanigans and go right to Ganon.
Re: Sonic's New 3D Game Will Reportedly Remain "Exclusive To Apple Arcade"
Growing up with Sega vs Nintendo and their battle of exclusives, it’s funny to see a tiny uproar here. I mean I don’t know if you all like Nintendo exclusives or not, but it’s been a part of gaming platforms since the beginning. It’s like Bayonetta 3 on Switch. It’s just you don’t have the platform so it hurts.
Not saying I don’t empathize, getting off the Windows PC ride leaves me buying expensive consoles and hoping for gaming to grow some on macOS. But, yeah, exclusivity cuts all ways, but one.
Re: Coleco's Failed Negotiations With Nintendo Apparently Resulted In The Birth Of The Famicom
@Liam_Doolan Nice story, I had never heard of this event, either.
REQUEST: match Markdown format for comment text entry
I'm sure it has been requested before, but because of Discord, surely the gaming community has mostly learned standard markdown and it would be beneficial for everyone if the comments could conform more closely to it. (It hurts to use single asterisks for bold when that should be italic and double should be bold, etc.)
Re: Coleco's Failed Negotiations With Nintendo Apparently Resulted In The Birth Of The Famicom
Loved my Colecovision back in the day. Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was the killer game shown at retail stores. Looked amazing. Gameplay was pretty terrible, though.
I enjoyed playing Venture and Cosmic Avenger the most often, but the control was pretty bad in everything thanks, in part, to the short joystick with the disc on top (trying to look like Intellivision's but have an actual stick?)
Mouse Trap, Donkey Kong, and Zaxxon were other highlights. Mr. Do was a good port, too, I think, but I didn't realize how fun it was until later in life.
Mouse Trap and Ladybug were pac-man clones and added enough that they were good in their own right.
Can't stress enough how much the standard controllers ruined everything. The Super Action controllers improved the stick, but other parts were pretty terrible, so Colecovision never had a "good" controller. Atari 2600 games had smoother control with better frame rates (in most games) and it felt weird to go backwards.
The NES, of course, generally maintained smooth gameplay (and innovated in the space of making digital controls feel analog in Super Mario Bros.) and had enough resolution and sprite/tiling tricks to feel amazingly better than its contemporaries, to me.
On a side note: The Sega Master System, which I also owned and loved, had similar problems to the Colecovision. Bad controllers, lower frame rate. It was more colorful and seemingly capable than the NES but most action games did not prioritize frame rate and game feel, so many felt almost as clunky as the Colecovision. SMS games were very ambitious, though, and certain genres shined — on consoles, Phantasy Star was easily the most impressive RPG of its time, for me. (Hah, just remembered that the SMS joystick had a strange giant knob on top that was similarly awkward to the Colecovision's)
Re: Nintendo Accounts To "Help Ease" Next-Gen Transition, According To Doug Bowser
If, like the Switch before it, the new Nintendo game machine has no backwards compatibly at all... I'll buy it and keep the Switch. This is what I've done since the NES, and I'm still on board.
That said, I'd be happier if I could move my Nintendo games forward to newer hardware.
I'd be happier, still, if I could easily use my games library on multiple consoles at once.
But yeah, I have to admit, I'm there, day one, no matter how those issues shake out.
Re: Random: Unused Mario Sprites Spotted In Classic Behind-The-Scenes Footage Of Nintendo
Nice. Definitely has the feeling of finding gold for me seeing those bits of art. Those NES games were so influential on me as a kid and back then it was much harder to learn about the context around their creation, even if you wanted to.
Re: Switch Online Exclusive F-Zero 99 Adding Five More Tracks This Week
Loving the game. Doesn’t feel like a “drip feed”. The nature of these types of games is to provide live events to keep people excited and engaged with it. That’s fine with me when there are no ads or microtransactions.
Besides I suck enough at the current tracks that I’m not even ready (started just this week).
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's Strong Sales Continue Months After Launch (US)
Constantly sucked into Tears of the Kingdom and loving it. For me, it has been much more engaging, interesting and fun than BotW, overall and I loved that game.
(I did get a later start because I finished Jedi: Survivor a couple times, first).
Glad to see this brilliant game get the attention and play it deserves.
Re: Round Up: Developers React To Unity's New 'Runtime Fee' Policy
Boycotting Unity games is actually harmful to studios that are trapped by a huge investment of time and money in their development, unfortunately. The studios and indie developers have to do the fighting and buying their games can actually help them with the fight (they’ll need income to make new investments in switching engines and/or litigation against Unity)
Re: Round Up: Developers React To Unity's New 'Runtime Fee' Policy
Incredibly tone deaf move by executives (or maybe just one executive as seems to be the trend this year).
Expecting further concessions by Unity, hoping the board ousts the CEO, or that Unity is heavily pressured (or even acquired) by Meta or Apple, two companies that are silent on this so far but are strongly tied to Unity because of their VR/AR projects. (And Apple and Epic are not talking)
Re: Super Mario Bros. Wonder Had No Deadline During Its Prototype Phase
Greetings @rjejr , I’m with you on this one. Did you ever try Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time? Finally played that after years, (bought it on sale and still waited maybe a year more). It’s a good local co-op game. Plays best with 3 or 4 players.
Hoping all is well with you.
Re: Nintendo Download: 24th August (North America)
I think Sea of Stars might be the first RPG I play since maybe decades? Looks so good to me.
Also The Messenger is much better than it looks.
Re: UK Charts: Metroid Prime Remastered Gets A Welcome Boost As Zelda Retains Its Crown
@SwagaliciousJohnson If the rumors are to be believed, the Prime sequels were going to be basic emulated ports. I wonder if the success of Prime Remastered made them rethink this. I know I would be happy to wait for a more complete remaster, like Prime was. It would be disappointing to see the sequels treated in a lesser way.
Of course, that means a significantly longer wait.
Re: UK Charts: Metroid Prime Remastered Gets A Welcome Boost As Zelda Retains Its Crown
@smithyo Nintendo is trying to build an audience for Metroid for future big releases. Something they don't need to do for Zelda or Mario games.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's New Update Targets Item Duplication Glitches, Unsurprisingly
The whole game knowingly fights conventional play, which is awesome. The abilities almost feel like cheats — the ascend ability actually was originally a game tester's cheat!
Maybe that mentality it puts you in makes players feel like the duplication bug is just another way to play?
For me, though, it's just not a fun "mechanic" and leads to a monotonous exercise to build up endless resources taking away a long-term sense of accomplishment, and worse, reducing the value of in-game rewards to nothing.
Some people watch spoilers and ruin things by cheating so much maybe they don't realize the more satisfying experiences they are destroying for themselves. shrug
I say fix the bugs, because I want it to play the game as intended and designed and to for it to be solid in the future.
If you want to cheat, make the game a hollow shell of itself for your own experience and move on to something else, that's up to you, just don't patch.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (July 8th)
I usually play one big game a year, but I finished Jedi: Survivor a couple times and I couldn't resist Tears of the Kingdom, so I'm deep into that now. It's just an astonishingly great game in its flexibility that you can make it what you want it to be. Makes it hard to stop playing.
Wife continues to play Wildfrost which is even better with some nice small updates and Slay the Spire. My son is on his PC playing through the Halo collection with his friend (we skipped Xbox) and Cosmoteer, Hearts of Iron IV, and a bit of co-op Rainworld. He is also playing TotK and my daughter is close to the end. We are sharing one copy.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (July 8th)
@Nintendencies I cut my own hair. Use a Wahl hair clipper and it looks pretty good. Just start with highest length attachment for the top and transition on the way down.
Hardest part is wrapping one hand around the back of my head to push the clipper against, to keep the line on my neck. Takes about 15 minutes to a half hour, but no trip anywhere and it's free (after the initial purchase, and those things last a long time).
I still usually put it off until I can't stand it anymore. lol.
Re: Mini Review: Gimmick! Special Edition - A Rare And Wonderful 8-Bit Gem
@MontyCircus Thanks for that much more recognizable list of Sunsoft games! I have a feeling the author, @Tim-Massey was trying to give some lesser known titles some print. Then again, I'm probably just ignorant of SNES titles as I lost track of Sunsoft after NES — but leaving off Blaster Master, one of my favorites, and Journey to Silius, a well-loved title, stuck out to me!
Re: Mini Review: Gimmick! Special Edition - A Rare And Wonderful 8-Bit Gem
@RubyCarbuncle Why is this better? It's also a game almost no one saw all the content from (in this case because of the difficulty).
DLC and deluxe editions are for super fans who want extra content. It is actually more valuable to those people after all. Seems okay to pay more.
The standard version is for the masses, most of whom will never see all the main game content. They pay less and get less.
Seems a better balance and more fair than "pay upfront for the full game you probably won't get to play".
Not saying there are not silly and broken aspects of DLC and deluxe editions. I don't like all the approaches to the problem, I just find that it is meeting the markets much better than the old ways.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's New Update Targets Item Duplication Glitches, Unsurprisingly
I gotta say I don’t get why people even feel the need to duplicate. This game has more flexible options for play from minute to minute than any other game I’ve played. Maybe just go a different way for awhile and you’ll likely collect things naturally along the way? Maybe I just haven’t hit a problem.
One reason to patch it is to stop people from leaning on it to the detriment of the gameplay. Seems like it makes it boring for some people after a short initial rush from “cheating”.
Re: Yu Suzuki's 'Air Twister' Is Space Harrier With Swans, Coming To Switch November
Yeah, this one is a super-weird one, but worth the trip.
The gameplay mechanics and progression are not the greatest but I still had fun with it (I played it in my Mac)
The music matched with the art styles ripped from classic rock album covers is the highlight.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (June 24th)
Tears of the Kingdom, just starting my own game. I watched my daughter play for awhile (took over my game after a very short time). Now I'm playing on her account... save slots, Nintendo...
I've played through Jedi: Survivor twice (post-story and New Game+ are the best I've ever experienced) and part of Jedi: Fallen Order, just to share the story a bit with family who would watch. Going to Zelda after that — the PlayStation to Nintendo layout change is horrible, identical actions are mapped to all different places. For left-to-right readers, Nintendo has the layout of cancel/negative (B left/wast) and accept/positive (A right/east) correct, but I retrained for Jedi on PlayStation, and it hurts to go back. Only same action is west button (Y/square)
Anyway, it's immensely varied and fun and lets you make of it what you want to such a huge degree, but the story and puzzles are great, too.
Re: Back Page: What Would An Illumination Zelda Movie Be Like, Anyway?
I caught myself imaging earlier Zelda games as a model, but a Zelda movie would definitely be leaning on the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom stories and characters, no matter who makes it.
I mean, BotW's 30 million in sales against the 2nd place Twilight Princess at... 9? Tears of the Kingdom is the fastest selling Nintendo game of all time, too. (Ocarina combined with 3DS version sales might be in the 13 million range, but still)
Re: Hands On: Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Is Dread-ful, In The Best Possible Way
Was a little worried about the (odd?) public reaction to this one and I'm glad to read that it may be as good as the gameplay looked. I do think marketing people fail when they show all the cinematics and put a small amount of actual gameplay in (or none!). It just leaves you wondering if the game is any good, or worse, not caring about it ever again.
For me, at least, I want to see the gameplay up front. Maybe they should do like movie trailers, where they show a brief montage of the exciting highlights at the start, but for video games that should be a montage of the gameplay, in my opinion.
Re: Capcom's 40th Anniversary Site Is An Incredible Digital Museum With Playable Retro Games
For PR and less litigation, Nintendo should do this but so much more. Make a safe haven for fan projects (art, videos of all kinds, and even fan-made games using their IP) where their PR and marketing people can control the messaging and point people to the games they sell.
So you could go to an official Nintendo website to play AM2R, the fan-made remake of Metroid 2 for PC.
They wouldn't even have to pay the creator of the game anything. Those types of developers are doing it for the experience, learning, and/or recognition. Meanwhile, Nintendo generates goodwill, extra interest in franchises between new games, and additional sales, as a result.
Or, imagine in a corner of the Zelda area, a section promoting and celebrating YouTube videos exploring all the amazing corners and edge cases dedicated players have unearthed. Meanwhile, links to games to sell with similar exploits, or that are mentioned in the video, or current DLC, etc.
It's a win-win, but it would take a 180 degree culture change at Nintendo, so it remains a dream or a "best timeline" fantasy, but I enjoy the dream.
Re: Poll: Are You Excited About Ubisoft's Metroidvania "Inspired" Prince Of Persia Platformer?
Once the gameplay kicked in, I started to really like it. The style of graphics was a little confusing until then. It would have been better to focus more on the gameplay earlier, in my opinion. Music was fine. They went the pop-music route which will get some people to pay attention and give it a look that might not otherwise. I guess it makes some people angry or something.
As far as the anachronisms, it's meant to be hip for a modern audience, and the main is one of many "immortals". Uncombed "locks" have been around since humans had hair and hairstyles of royalty in ancient Persia had waves and tight curls and braids according to what I just looked up briefly (even curling irons have been found in excavations). Looking at sculptures, and carvings on coins, some really spent a lot of time on extravagant hair styling.
Re: Review: Vagante - A Roguelike Too Empty To Make An Impact
This can be a really addictive and fun game. I was sad to see that they stopped development after the Switch release. I do think there are some rough edges that some players will bounce off of (like this reviewer).
I think maybe they shouldn't make the enemies more difficult when you are playing multiplayer. It makes for an imbalance in that one or two of the players will just die so easily quickly that it gets a bit tiresome. I'd honestly rather it be easier with multiplayer (because co-op / competition brings its own challenges for most groups ). Could have made special victory for those that want to take on the challenge alone.
Anyway, looks like Nuke Nine (the developers) never did anything else? Which is a shame.