bilboa

@Yorumi You said:

'What I find most often, and what seems to be the case in this review is saying "a game is poorly designed" actually means "I don't like the design of this game."'

I would say the flip side of that is "a design feature I like" = "good game design", which isn't really any stronger of an argument. Ultimately it does come down to preferences. If there is any reasonable definition of objectively bad design in games, I'd say it's design features that the large majority of gamers would dislike.

To take one example, many people prefer games to have checkpoints closer together than was typical in older games, and feel like making checkpoints very far apart is cheap way to make a game feel difficult. I'm one of those people, and am very happy that modern game designers have come up with other ways to add difficulty. For example I loved Celeste, and I don't think it would be reasonable to call it an easy game, but it had much more closely spaced checkpoints than many older games. So I reject the idea that not liking far apart checkpoints means someone only likes easy games; it just means they don't like that particular way of making a game difficult.

The two key points in your article I think were:

"While these [Xbox Live and PSN] subscriptions cost significantly more"

"You can argue that these NES games are a freebie and Nintendo didn't have to make them available at all."

Together, these explain away pretty much everything you're complaining about. Nintendo online costs 1/3rd of what an Xbox Live subscription costs, so of course they're not going to give away the same calibre of games. The main point of the service is online play and cloud saves.

@JayJ By the way, I share your overall feeling about the Labo personally. I have no desire to buy one, especially for what they cost. I just thought the author of this review was somewhat missing the point of the Labos.

@JayJ I agree, it's more like building models. This doesn't change my point though, which is that just as with model cars, the need to assemble it is intended as a feature. Just as with model car/plane kits, they're not intended for people who don't enjoy assembling things. Another analogy would be jigsaw puzzles vs. pictures. Complaining about the assembly time of the Labo seems a little like complaining that it takes time to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. It's fine for someone to not like doing puzzles, but in that case maybe they should just buy a picture.

@Zequio "Its like complaining about how long it takes to build a Lego set in order to play with it."

Yup! Exactly what I thought when the reviewer said long build time was a big problem. It seems to me that building these is meant to be a main part of the fun. I totally get that building them is not everyone's idea of fun, but that just means the product isn't for them.

I loved Bastion on iPad, especially when played with a bluetooth controller. I liked it enough that I'd consider getting it for Switch.

As for the question of video games being art, I'd say they're just as much art as movies. Just as with movies, I'd say some games are more deserving of the "art" label than others. IMO Bastion definitely is a piece of art.

Given that throttle control is such major part of the skill of drifting, especially for something like gymkhana, I wonder how the Switch version of the game will compare to other platform versions given the Switch's lack of analog triggers. Lack of analog throttle control is a drawback for any racing game which leans toward realism, but that's especially true for this kind of game. I wonder if that has anything to do with why the Switch port is delayed compared to other platforms.

@Cobalt I do agree that the main campaign of Odyssey is quite easy to get through compared to other Mario games, so if difficulty is your main rating criteria, then it rates lower than other 3D Mario games. Some of the optional content, especially stuff that becomes available if you revisit areas, is every bit as hard as old Mario games, but if you already gave up on the game before getting that far you might not have encountered that. I think a lot of the praise for the game comes from people who valued other aspects of the game than the difficulty level of the main campaign.

@DockEllisD I know you never said reviewers should test the mobile versions of games. I also agree that in some cases, the mobile version of a game is similar enough to the console version that it would be a good way to try a game. However it's also often the case that when a game is converted from paid console game to mobile free-to-play, it is changed quite a bit. Often the game is dumbed down a bit to be playable with touch controls, and other aspects of progression are changed to be amenable to free-to-play monetization. And depending on how well the port was done, performance may suffer on the mobile version. For these reasons, I don't think it's safe to assume a mobile port of a console game would be a good way to assess the console game, hence my comment about a reviewer needing to try the mobile version before they could recommend it as a way to demo the console version.

@DockEllisD I don't agree, because in general there's no telling how different the free-to-play mobile version might be from the console version, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a reviewer of the console version to also play through the mobile version just to find out. So I don't know how useful the mobile version would be as a demo for the console version. The only time I might expect a reviewer to mention this is if the game was originally designed as a free-to-play game, since then that fact might affect the game's design.

@River3636 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us

Where is the demo everyone keeps mentioning? When I go to the game in the app store there is no demo option. Was the demo removed once the game was released?

@Spoony_Tech I'm not at all sure that the poll respondents are a representative sample of Switch owners. It seems to me that the fact that someone has to actively opt in by clicking the article that contains the poll and scroll to the bottom to find it, means that people who actually have a crack in their Switch are much more likely to take the poll. If this is true, then it would mean owners of cracked Switchers are (way) over-represented in the survey. I think there would be a much bigger ongoing scandal if 1/5th of all Switch owners had cracked cases, so the poll results are obviously skewed. The only question is how much.

@dystome I think the lack of analog triggers for throttle is partly responsible for the lack of more sim-oriented driving games. Of course, you can take a driving sim, and adapt it to lack of analog throttle control by nerfing various aspects of the physics related to traction, but still leave other parts realistic. However, accurate throttle control is such a huge part of the skillset of real-life racing, especially for motorcycles, that without it a driving game is never going to feel all that realistic. As such, I'd guess most devs won't bother developing or porting sim-oriented racing games to Switch, and will stick to arcade racing games.

@OorWullie @kepsux Thanks. From the gameplay video I saw DU3 looked similar to DU2. I agree these kind of games aren't for everyone. If you want any sort of story, permanent upgrades and progression, or complex mechanics, games like this will disappoint. For me the main draw of playing bullet hell games like this is the trancelike state you need to get into to recognize the different bullet patterns. It's just so satisfying to guide the clearly marked hit box in the middle of the ship through a complex pattern of bullets.

@SmaggTheSmug Thanks. I played Danmaku 2 and liked it, so was wondering how Danmaku 3 compared.

@SmaggTheSmug Did you not like Danmaku 3?

I'm in. I already own several Switch games which would benefit from this, and have actually held off on buying more just because I didn't have an option like this.

Count me in the list of people who don't care at all about having Netflix on my Switch. I can see why it would be useful to some people, but I have enough other ways to watch Netflix that I would get no value out of having a Netflix app on the Switch. I mention this because I suspect mine is a common situation.

@AcesHigh I finally got around to buying this game, and love it. Now that I've tried it, I think I'm inclined to think the developer made the right choice by using manual fire by default.

I do agree with you in finding it slightly awkward to hold the fire button down while aiming, but the reason I'd still choose manual fire is that there are number of situations in the game where it's better not to fire constantly. One example is when using guns with a very slow fire rate: in some situations with these guns it works better to only fire when the shot will actually count. Another situation is when using the explosive barrels. The most effective way to use them is to drop one, back off until the barrel is surrounded by enemies and then shoot it to make it explode. It would probably be possible to play this way with auto-fire, by letting the right stick go to the middle to stop firing, but I think it would be harder to aim accurately in that case. With the current setup I can get the stick pointed in the correct direction before hitting the fire button, which is more reliable.

All that said, it would be nice if they added auto-fire as an option, for those that find the current setup uncomfortable.

@NinChocolate The thing that the "clickbait" accusers seem to be missing is the obvious humor in the title. To me, the "according to actual science" part of the title was an obvious giveaway that the title was meant to be humorous over-statement, so the actual content of the article was about what I expected. What's more I liked finding out about this info, so the article was actually useful to me, which is a further strike against labeling it click-bait.

@kobashi100 In games like Forza, or the Codemaster racing games such as the Dirt or F1 games, if you enable driving aids such as traction control, you can get away with crude on/off throttle control. So I imagine you could take a sim-oriented driving game, and just make it behave as if it always has traction control on, and it could still be fairly realistic in other ways. But I agree lack of analog throttle is a disadvantage for driving games.

@Grogan Without analog triggers I don't think we'll ever see a sim-oriented Switch racing game like Forza. I know people have mentioned you could use the right analog stick for throttle, but I think that would be so awkward that I doubt any developer would do that. That said, I'm pretty hopeful given the video.

@JayJ I think that varies by site, and even between reviewers on a given site. I also think reviewers and readers often have different interpretations of scores. On NL, I have found a score of 7 usually really does mean the reviewer thought the game was pretty good, but flawed enough not to be considered great. 5 or 6 usually means either technically sound but boring, or good idea but technical problems, basically "ok" but nothing to make it stand out. Below 5 is reserved for definitely not recommended. 8-10 are reserved for various levels of highly recommended.

That's my impression of how reviewers on NL generally use numeric scores. Readers on the other hand often have very different interpretations, and often do tend to insist that any score below 8 means bad, so if a game they consider to be fun gets a 7, they'll say it was scored too low. I suspect this is partly because of the inconsistency between how different sites use numeric scores, and these users are basing their definitions of numeric scores on how some other sites use them.

@JayJ

I don't see how that applies to this review. The review has a lot of positive things to say about the game.

@Hikingguy Everything you said makes sense to me. Thanks for explaining your views.

Regarding MK8 vs DKC:TF's perceived value to people who've already played them: I don't know if my reasons are the same as others', but I would feel the same way about being more willing to pay for another copy of MK8 than DKC. This is not because I necessarily think MK8 is better in any objective sense, but just because good racing games are more infinitely replayable to me than any platformer can ever be, regardless of how good the platformer is. This is especially true when you take into account the multiplayer capabilities of MK. I'm pretty sure this is not unique to me, and that there are a lot fewer people who will keep replaying a platformer after finishing it, whereas racing games don't even really have a concept of "finishing" them. I think this says more about multi-player games than these games in particular. For a similar reason I'd be more willing to buy a Switch port of Super Smash Bros even though I already have it on my 3DS XL; it's another infinitely replayable game to me.

@Hikingguy I think you're talking about a few different things, and I have different levels of agreement with the different things you're talking about.

Regarding people who own(ed) a WiiU and already played these re-releases on the WiiU, it makes complete sense to me that they wouldn't want to buy the games again at full price just to have them on the Switch. If all or most Switch owners were in this category, then it would make a lot of sense to me to be critical of Nintendo for selling these re-releases at full price.

Regarding Switch owners who never owned a WiiU, they could be divided into two more groups:

1. Uninformed about the WiiU's existence, or at least the fact that MK8 or DKCTF were already released on WiiU, and
2. Informed about the WiiU's game library.

You seem to believe that the Uninformed group form the majority of Switch owners, and that only that group would think it's justified to charge full price for a game that was previously out on the WiiU, and that Nintendo is taking advantage of this ignorance, which makes them look bad.

I'm skeptical of this claim. I suspect that many Switch owners are in the Informed group, and that in any case, to many people, even if they did know that a game had previously been released on WiiU, it wouldn't be relevant to their estimation of its monetary value. So I don't think Nintendo is doing anything underhanded. They're just charging what they think the public is willing to pay for the games. The market will say whether they were right.

That's all my point was. I don't think it's necessary to assume ignorance on the part of buyers when trying to explain why they would pay $60 for MK8 or DKCTF.

@Hikingguy It's not even a matter of being uninformed. For Switch owners who never owned a WiiU, the fact that a game previously existed on the WiiU may seem irrelevant. That's certainly the case for me. For example I had no problem paying full price for Mario Kart 8 on Switch, because for me it was a new game, in spite of me being aware that the game previously released on WiiU.

Regarding Tropical Freeze, I'm not sure it's worth $60 to me, but that has nothing to do with it previously being on WiiU. It just has to do with how much replay value I think I'll get out of it. A game like MK8 is one I can see playing indefinitely, whereas I don't usually find myself wanting to repeat platformers, so I tend to place a lower value on them.

@mctrials23 I'm sure you're correct that most Switch owners would answer in the affirmative if asked if they would like game save backups. I also think that has almost nothing to do with what is motivating hackers to root the Switch, nor would it be the main motivation for people wanting to use the exploit. My guess is that the first, and most popular by far, use of the exploit will be running additional games on the Switch, either via emulators to run non-Switch games, or running pirated Switch games.

I do get your larger argument. I used to jailbreak my iOS devices for years, to get access to features Apple didn't provide. I never pirated games, but instead used jailbreak to get features like app folders, Do Not Disturb, gestures for app switching, multi-tasking, customizable home screens, etc, years before Apple rolled those features out. Just as you said, once Apple added enough of those features into iOS I no longer felt motivated to jailbreak my iOS devices. I point this out to show you that I do get your point.

However I don't think the situations are completely analogous, for a few reasons.

1. Prices of iOS apps and games are much cheaper than typical Switch games, so I think piracy will be much more of a motivation for Switch than for iOS.

2. iPhones/iPads are much more general purpose devices than game consoles, so there is much more demand for additional OS features beyond running games compared to consoles. Early iOS versions had dozens of obviously desirable features missing, whereas with my Switch, I can only think of a couple of features I personally wish for: game save backups, and folders to organize my games. Of those two, only save backups would remotely tempt me to try an exploit. In short, I just don't think there are nearly as many reasons aside from running unauthorized software to jailbreak a Switch compared to an iOS device.

I'm late to the party but just got around to trying this game. I'd say it's pretty good in some ways, especially the variety of enemy behaviors. One thing I dislike though that's not mentioned in the review is that it's often hard to see enemies. The game often intentionally makes enemies hard to make out against the background as a way of increasing the difficulty. I really dislike this. I much prefer enemies to be clearly visible. The way it is now it often feels a bit unfair when I get killed because I couldn't clearly see an enemy.

Another dislike is that while you do unlock different weapons and special abilities, they don't seem evenly balanced. There are just a few that seem effective, and the rest are so ineffective that they may as well not be in the game.

I love twin stick shooters, but this was overall a disappointing example of the genre.

@Mr_Pepperami I get you. In fact I agree that this game was almost certainly inspired by RedLynx's games and the devs are probably consciously hoping to benefit from RedLynx having popularized this type of game. I just don't see the fact that they used "trial" in the game title to be problematic or intentionally misleading.

@Mr_Pepperami Ah ok, sorry for assuming you didn't know.

I think it's somewhat unavoidable that other games about motorcycle trials riding will benefit from RedLynx's Trials games having popularized the genre. I don't see any evidence that the devs of this game are intentionally trying to mislead gamers into thinking this is related to RedLynx's games though. The real-life sport that's the inspiration for these games is called "trials riding", so it makes sense that games modeled after it would use the word "trials" in their name.

I would say that if a developer is the first to make a game modeled after a real-life sport, and they want to have ownership of the name, it would be up to them to invent a made up name for the game instead of using the real name. For example if the developer of the first tennis computer game called their game "Tennis", it wouldn't seem reasonable to me to assume other developers who use the word "tennis" in their game titles are trying to be misleading. It just makes sense to use "tennis" in the title of a game that's inspired by tennis. Now if the original dev used their own made up word, like I don't know, "Pong", as the title of their game, then if other developers used a similar name for a similar game, it would seem like they might be trying to be misleading.

@Mr_Pepperami The word "Trials" in relation to motorcycle stunt riding was not invented by RedLynx, the developer of the Trials series. Trials riding was a popular real life sport for many decades before RedLynx made their first Trials game. I'm not saying this game isn't inspired by the RedLynx Trials games, but even if it wasn't, it would make sense for it to use the word "Trials" in its title since that's the real-life sport it's modeled after.

In case you didn't know, this is the real-life sport these games are inspired by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_trials

@EasyDaRon I agree neither design is inherently wrong. Personally though, I find needing to use the right stick and a fire button simultaneously to be physically uncomfortable, so that's why I don't like it. In the iOS version of Crimsonland, if you were playing with a Bluetooth controller you had both options; you could either use right stick + fire button, or you could change an option to auto-fire, but still be able to aim without firing by just not pushing the right stick all the way to the edge of its travel. I preferred the latter method just for ergonomic reasons.

Has anyone checked whether this game has the same option?

@AcesHigh I agree, I like twin stick shooters to just fire when you move the stick. That said, there is a justification for requiring hitting a fire button. I haven't tried this game yet, but in Crimsonland, an older game by the same dev, some weapons are only able to fire in bursts, so it's advantageous to make sure you're aiming correctly before hitting fire rather than just holding down the fire button. I'm going to guess there is a similar reason in this game for not using auto-fire; either limited ammo or weapon cool downs.

That said, it would be possible to have independent aiming and firing without requiring a separate fire button. They could make it so if you only move the right stick partway through its travel, it aims but doesn't fire, and then you push the stick all the way to fire.

@chardir It's only Nintendo's responsibility if they claimed it was USB-C compliant. I don't see anything in their advertising materials or manuals mentioning that the charging port is a USB-C port. They just refer to it as a charging port. The fact that it is partially USB-C compliant may have more to do with Nintendo being able to use existing hardware components than any deliberate effort on Nintendo's part to be compatible with 3rd party USB-C accessories.

As a counter-point, they do advertise that their dock has 2 USB 2.0 ports on it. If those ports didn't conform to the USB 2.0 standard, that would be something you could blame Nintendo for, since that's an advertised feature.

@Hikingguy Having my whole game library available on the go is certainly what I'd ideally like. It doesn't have to be all or nothing though. Having some of my game library available on the go is still better than none, so that leaves room to find an acceptable compromise between cost and convenience. If I was rich I'd be all over this, but as it is, I'll make do with a smaller card at a more reasonable price, and just keep the games I'm most likely to want to play on the go available.

Awesome. I love rally games. I wonder how it'll be without analog triggers though. I never played V-Rally, so don't know if it tries to be at all realistic. However the Dirt series are favorites of mine, and they would't be nearly as fun and engaging without analog throttle control.

@sword_9mm Regarding graphics concessions, I have the Xbox 360 version and I think it runs great. I'm pretty sure the Switch hardware is comparable to the Xbox 360, so it should be at least that good.

@JayJ Fast RMX is another good one, if you like racing games in the style of F-Zero.

Edit: Oops, just saw others already mentioned this to you.

@zool The "Game Info" box to the right of the review text shows the price.

@FX102A The PC version is always online, but the console versions work offline, so I assume if there was a Switch port it would also work offline.

I have it on Xbox 360, and would definitely get it again on Switch. However I agree with others in thinking that it's quite a reach to interpret this tweet as having anything to do with a Switch port.

@jwfurness I have Danmaku Unlimited 2, and found the easy difficulty levels to be reasonable. From the video, DU3 looks very similar to DU2, so I assume it will be similar in that regard too.

I too love bullet hell shmups, but don't have terribly fast reaction times, so I need them to have an easy mode to be enjoyable.

@subpopz Exactly! I don't understand this attitude of acting puzzled that other people would have different circumstances than oneself. It would be like if I said "I don't get why they sell eyeglasses" just because I don't need to wear glasses, or "I don't understand why they're still showing Black Panther in the theaters" just because I already watched it. It doesn't seem difficult to comprehend that there are lots of Switch owners who never owned a Wii U.

@Crono1973 I just looked at NL's interview with the actress who played Zelda, and she actually answers this question. She says she did not know she'd been hired for a LoZ game until after she'd been hired, but she did find out she was playing Zelda before the actual recording began.

@Crono1973 I agree, it's an interesting question, that would be important to know for the purpose of negotiating pay. That doesn't contradict what I'm saying though. I'm just questioning @victimOfNirvana's idea that the reason the spoken dialog doesn't use Link's name was to keep the voice actors in the dark about what game they were working on. The quotes from both actors only mention not knowing what the audition was for. I would think if they didn't know what they were voice acting for even after they were hired, that would have been an even more sensational story, and they would have mentioned that. So I'm assuming they were told what they'd be working on once the decision was made to hire them.

@Crono1973 "The question is, did the voice actors know it was for a Zelda game when they signed their contracts?"

I would say, in the context of the question I was addressing, the relevant question is whether they knew it was a Zelda game after they signed the contracts. @victimOfNirvana advanced the theory that the reason Link's name was never mentioned in the spoken dialog was because they were trying to keep it a secret from the actors that they were working on a LoZ game. That theory would only make sense if Nintendo tried to keep the game a secret from the actors even after they were hired. The article doesn't say that was the case, it only says that the actors didn't know it was a LoZ game when they auditioned.

@victimOfNirvana The actor didn't say it was still a secret after he got accepted for the part, just when he went for the audition. I would assume based on that that by the time the voice actors were actually recording their parts, they knew who their characters were, so secrecy isn't the explanation for why they don't say Link's name.

@masterLEON I wondered at that too. Where did he get the idea that Gimli is a giant?

@BigKing I agree. I played this on mobile. It was great by mobile standards, but I had the same feeling as you described. The great gameplay is tainted by never feeling certain about whether your wins or losses are due to skill or upgrades. I prefer shooters to be more pure skill-based affairs without persistent upgrades.