The Switch time setting only lets you choose years between 2000 and 2060. Leap years are simple enough, but there's holidays which move around from year to year, like Bunny Day (Easter), and they probably only set so many years of holidays.
@Not_Soos For the 3DS, seems like they put in extra effort to have every numbered DQ playable on one console for the 30th anniversary in 2017.
4-6,9 through DS compatibility
7-8 through 3DS ports
10 through cloud streaming (Japan-only)
1-3 released on the eShop alongside 11 (Japan-only)
The west got 1-3 alongside 11 on the Switch, but given that having everything playable on the 3DS took two generations (DS+3DS), I doubt they'll be doing it again soon...
@EVIL-C Even if it's possible, it's probably not plausible. 32GB carts are rare enough that there's only been about 9 games using them in 5 years.
Atelier Dusk Trilogy, Atelier Mysterious Trilogy, Final Fantasy X/X-2 (Japan/Asia), Life is Strange (Japan), Dragon Quest Heroes 1&2, Tsukihime, Gundam Crossrays, Attack on Titan 2 Final Battle, Witcher 3
All were £50/$60 or even higher. Whatever Nintendo is charging for 32GB carts seems to be high enough that they're being avoided if at all possible.
@solarwolf07 @Silly_G Sword/Shield did require an update to add in HOME support. Save files from before v1.1.0 refused to load in HOME until they'd been opened in updated Sw/Sh and resaved. So it's not unheard of.
Though that could be out of something like only wanting to support the current version at time of release, rather than also past ones with slightly different save formats.
@HeadPirate I have no experience with Xbox's 'smart delivery', but a lot of this isn't correct for the Switch.
Nintendo's been commonly having one worldwide version for its games for 5 years now, since the Switch launched. Splatoon 2 was one of the exceptions, the only one still split into three regions like the games of past systems.
For Nintendo's delivery system, one version = one set of updates. Though yes, games can lock out features depending on account country, and Splatoon 3 could do that.
For the eShop, the different behaviours are well-known.
Splatoon 3 having one single version means it'll work like Smash Ultimate, or Animal Crossing, or... most Nintendo games. If you have access to other eShops, you can buy DLCs from them, and they'll work.
Compare that to Splatoon 2, where having a US cart means it only works with US/AU DLCs. If you buy the EU Octo Expansion, then it won't work. Whoops, you've wasted your money and have to bother Nintendo for a refund. If you import a JP gear code, then it won't work either.
For 3, you would be able to get any region's DLCs working. You'd need a JP eShop account to redeem JP codes, but once you download them, they'd work on your non-JP game, unlike in 2.
It's something common to many games, so there's plenty of examples to look at. Super Bomberman R has a DLC only listed in the JP eShop, but once you download it, it'll work on any copy from anywhere in the world.
Everything relating to needing two consoles and guests is completely incorrect for the Switch. Maybe that's how it works on Xbox. If so, that does sound like a pain.
But on the Switch, all the 8 accounts can have the same home console (primary console). You don't need multiple consoles to have multiple accounts. Primary or not, all 8 can purchase stuff fine, the only things they can't purchase are things they already have access to because another account has already bought it.
@HammerGalladeBro "with the Avatar SEGA costumes in Sonic Forces Switch, in America (not sure about Europe) they were bonuses for first-run copies as download codes without giving a chance of late adopters to get them"
In Europe, the digital version is labeled 'Digital Bonus Edition' and apparently includes the Sega/Atlus costumes. Instead, we had the Shadow Costume become completely unbuyable after the free period ended. (In America you can still buy it for $0.99, even if you missed it.)
What a mess...
Just put it all on a cart, and I'll be happy.
Also interestingly, looked at the JP site, and it's promoting that the 'letterbox' background in the Start Dash Pack is an exclusive one, a Mega Drive blueprint design.
The Premium Fan Pack will instead come with ten 'letterbox' backgrounds.
So it's possible one design might be locked behind the Start Dash pack...
Japanese prices for the two DLC packs were announced, and they're 400 yen each... So western prices would likely be $€3.99 / £3.59 each.
@AlanaHagues The shoes do seem to have been made. There's even a sales listing for a sold pair from 2020, which seems to have sparked up the conversation at the time.
There's a version number in the screenshot, '0.7.200819.0'. I wonder if that means this is a version from 19th August 2020.
Might not mean it's coming particularly soon, even if it might happen eventually. Nintendo's still promoting N64, and we haven't even had all the pre-announced N64 games yet.
They could've (and maybe even should've) not sold the game by itself, so that buying it from the western eShops would be clearer and less error-prone.
I think Starlink does that, and Dragon Quest X used to in Japan too.
The price difference between buying the add-on vs the bundle is the oddest part, having a difference seems like trying to getting more money out of anyone who doesn't spot the bundle initially.
Though there's been Japanese-only games in the eShop even since it was the Wii Shop, with the 'Hanabi' games.
It's very unusual, and I'm sure it hurts sales, but it's not particularly new.
The Wii U had an RPG fully in Japanese, 'Necromancer'. To quote the UK eShop: "Please note that this title only comes with Japanese text and is recommended for players with knowledge of the language."
The Switch even has a game in the UK eShop without even an English name, '世界の中心で、AIは戦う' (meaning 'The AI that fights at the heart of the world'). Which is naturally completely in Japanese.
"Good evening. Thank you all for the 20th anniversary celebratory messages. Currently, preparations for the 20th anniversary event are pretty crazy, so I'm sorry, but I don't have anything ready for today. I only just started drawing the art for the 20th anniversary yesterday, so I'm worried if it'll be ready for the event. I hope you'll continue to support us. @Nomura"
@invictus4000 A better translation would seem to be the 'Marufuku Building', or the 'encircled-fortune building'.
It seems that encircled-fortune glyphs (福) were used all over the design of the building, even on signs obviously dating back to the Nintendo days. So it sounds like it really is a building covered in 'marufuku' / 'encircled-fortune' glyphs.
The previous name of Nintendo Co., Ltd. was even Marufuku Co., Ltd., with 'Marufuku' being used for being the yagou of the Yamauchi family.
@retrokong
There does seem to be a point at which the logo changed from red to white for newer copies, looking at eBay.
If there was a misprinted batch at one point, that might even narrow down the potential time it happened.
There seem to have been quite a few minor changes over the years:
"RVL-RZDP-UKV", no EDTV, red Nintendo logo, black PEGI, diamond USK (launch?)
Can't check my own case at the moment, but didn't the cover have a foil effect to it?
This one looks like a foil layer might've been accidentally skipped when printing, which might explain why random things like the 'Seal of Quality', 'The Legend of', and 'The biggest Zelda adventure of all time' are missing too.
First time seeing expiring premium currency in a game that isn't Japanese exclusive. While it's not common, it's not unheard of in Japan - even Nintendo's done it before, with Band Brothers P (Jam with the Band).
That said, I guess they didn't anticipate (or alternatively, didn't care) how it would be taken elsewhere.
The card in the photo didn't look like any Pokemon card I've seen before, so I went looking and found thesepics of the same fakes. Looks like someone's faking golden 'metal plate' cards.
The Battle Cats Pop is surprisingly good. The Switch has an expanded version too, The Battle Cats Unite, which recently had an English release (but is still exclusive to Japan/Asia). Seems like they take years to make English versions, then release them too late and don't know why they don't take off...
Small, cheap download games really thrived on the 3DS eShop, at least in Japan. Cheap games, sometimes even cheaper in sales, and a lot of them were great. There were tons of Escape Trick (THE Misshitsu kara no dasshutsu) games, pity they never continued onto the Switch.
A lot of these cheap, small 3DS games seem to have disappeared in the move to the Switch, or increased in price (like Picross, or the Kemco RPGs...)
@Troll_Decimator New Mario Bros 2 was one of the first retail games sold on the eShop, so it might've done better than 3D Land due to people buying it digital just for the novelty of that.
The grass glitching about was the one thing that broke immersion for me. It's sudden, obvious, and needs fixing. So hopefully it will actually get fixed, rather than ignored.
Other than that, I didn't mind the graphics. I thought they were a lot better than SwSh, and wouldn't mind if the series moved to a style like this permanently. It undoubtedly could look better... but it looks a lot better than some other Switch games, like something like Little Dragon's Cafe.
Even if they come across as boring in English, names like "Triangle Strategy" are foreign in Japanese, and they're effectively naming things in a foreign (to Japan) language, obviously without knowing how they sound to native speakers.
If it had been called 'Sankaku no Senryaku' (even as the English name, for argument's sake), then it probably wouldn't be called boring by English speakers, but might be by Japanese ones. Naming something in a foreign language is inherently trickier, but they're Square Enix, who keep making popular games with two-word English titles, so surely they must know what they're doing, right? /s
As for the meaning of the "Triangle", I don't know if it was explicitly stated, but I think it was at least implied to be the three-choice system - Utility, Morality, and Liberty. In Japanese, the choice is "Benefit, Moral, Freedom" - which are again English words, but rejected for the English localisation and replaced with more impressive ones.
Since October last year, even the JP eShop has started showing IARC ratings for some games. Unlike other regions, the IARC ratings are completely separate from the local CERO ones, so the JP eShop now has a mix of two different rating systems.
As for weird ratings, there's apparently a French version of Higurashi (When the cicadas cry / 'Higurashi when they cry') rated PEGI 7, supposedly as the text wasn't considered a game, so only minigames were counted for the rating.
For a Japanese speaker, 4649 is obviously 'yoroshiku', but I was puzzled over the meaning of 6350... Eventually gave up and tried searching, and apparently it's not a word at all, but the implied rules - take 6, pick 3, lv 50 or below.
@LexKitteh The Gen1 starters are pretty simple to kanjify, at least. Fushigidane - fushigi(mystery) + tane(seed), 不思議種 Hitokage - hi(fire) + tokage(lizard) 火蜥蜴 Zenigame - zeni(money) + kame(turtle) 銭亀
Hitokage and Zenigame were already words in Japanese prior to Pokémon - hitokage (fire-lizard) is a term for salamander, likely coming from Chinese, and zenigame (money-turtle) a nickname for baby turtles, when their shells are small enough that they resemble (ancient) coins.
Just by solidifying meanings in kanji, you do lose ambiguity possible by using meaningless kana, though.
@Thrallherd Nintendo's official JP store directly states (in Japanese) that the DLC's on the cart. Every report I've seen from someone buying it has been confirming that to be true, i.e., this. Even the cart sticker is different, adding '+ Expansion Pass'.
If you were already going to spend £75 on the few digital games they have reduced, then the free SD card could be interesting.
The MyNintendo Store also sends the downloads as emailed codes, so you'd get more Gold Points than buying on the eShop directly at the same price.
...but that's about all I can see that's interesting.
And nearly all of those games have carts anyway, so... I'd rather get those instead.
@HeadPirate The price API (customer-side) marks it as a normal price rather than a temporary sale price at least. Will just have to wait and see if it does go back down, I guess.
There's probably plenty of examples of permanent price increases on the eShops though, having heard of quite a few they don't seem too rare.
Another specific example I remember: Shovel Knight, which is a case where the price even increased in America.
Even Nintendo themselves have raised the MSRP of their own games in South Africa for example, multiple times over. You can see the last two price hikes on dekudeals by setting the country to South Africa. No tax reason there, just Nintendo deciding the exchange rates had fallen too low.
But yeah, not a lawyer either, and maybe all this is just ignored for being digital prices though.
@HeadPirate This Membrane change seems to have been an MSRP change rather than a sale, $250 is now the 'normal' price.
Nintendo eShop prices have risen across the board several times before in Japan due to rising taxes, so maybe Nintendo doesn't have anything blocking the MSRP being increased.
Satellaview stuff is an endless rabbit hole that may never all be fully preserved. I think even the involved companies have been contacted at this point, and iirc everyone claims to not have the data anymore.
The 8M memory packs were expensive enough alone, and a memory pack would constantly get overwritten as you played new games, so wasn't exactly simple to preserve things. Even outside of soundlink stuff, some games were distributed as demos with play limits, after which they'd 'disappear' from the menu.
"with the Million Arthur NFT set (launched on October 14th) already having sold out"
Not even half of them have sold out, 18 of the 30 stickers are still available. For what it's worth, the stickers in question were (mostly) single panels of specially made manga strips about blockchains, and you can read the manga strips without purchasing anyway.
Apropos of nothing, the Dream Land from Kirby games is named Pupupu Land in Japan.
Something likely obvious but since it wasn't called out specifically, he->pe would be a case of rendaku(sequential voicing) changing the consonant of the latter part to lend itself to easier pronunciation. So finding compounds with っへ(-hhe-) would be pretty rare.
As for boys or girls, if it helps be inclusive, then imo the current compromise is fine. For what it's worth, there was a tutorial choice cut completely outside of Japanese (how do you pronounce 島), making it impossible to set if you don't start playing in Japanese. And that gets a lot less attention.
According to dataminers, there supposedly is still a gameplay difference between 'boy' and 'girl', being that animals won't gift you clothes intended for the other gender. (Haven't tried confirming/checking it myself though, mind)
@WhiteUmbrella Usually it's nothing to worry about, but some games have been replaced with new versions, and you can't find the old version searching normally anymore, only through the redownload list.
So in some rare cases you would be asked to purchase again if you tried to find them normally. (For example, Nicalis games which managed to free themselves from Nicalis.)
To actually be charged, you'd have to ignore the button saying 'Purchase', currency amounts being shown, paying for the game again... etc, though.
@ChromaticDracula The font is Shin Go, a common Japanese font which is used in all sorts of things.
Compared to English, there's a lot less Japanese fonts, with companies charging a lot more in exchange - so you can end up seeing the same fonts time and time again.
Shin Go in particular... It's a clone of an even older font, Gona, after its creators refused to release a digital version. As Gona or as Shin Go, it's been used all over for nearly 50 years now.
The other font that stands out in those screenshots is also a Japanese one, "Rowdy", which according to its page, was even in Pikmin 3.
@SwitchVogel Personally, would have appreciated a Monster Train review much more than some of the articles today like "Random: The Nintendo DS Browser Is On Sale, So Now You Can Use The Internet Wherever You Are".
Looks like there was a review for Slay the Spire, and Monster Train (from what I've seen of the PC version) looks even better.
Noticed this late last year. Did NL really not hear about this until now?
PEGI say the change was "In 2020" but I couldn't find any date for when the change would be applied. It's been announced since at least February 2020, but there were still new 'PEGI 12 including gambling' ratings even in December 2020.
There does seem to still be leniency for games being rereleased for different platforms under the same rating still - checking PEGI's site now, I see: Dragon Quest 11 S: PEGI 12 including gambling on Stadia, 2021/03/16 Trails of Cold Steel 4: PEGI 12 including gambling on Switch/Stadia, 2021/04/01
I wonder what Nintendo would've done with 51 Worldwide Games in Europe if that had been forced to be PEGI 18.
The article being used as a source here points out another, more recently spotted issue - apparently other descriptors are getting lost when gambling is upgraded to PEGI 18.
So potentially a game could hit every rating warning at the PEGI 16 level, but because of having gambling it's forced to PEGI 18, and doesn't display any other tags.
Personally that's not a behaviour I would have expected. It means Pokémon/Stardew/Mario 64 DS and a hypothetical 'PEGI 16 for violence and swearing and sex and drugs and horror' game would be given the exact same rating: PEGI 18 for gambling.
Nice, considered just buying the JP versions a few times, but glad I waited.
The JP versions have big warnings on the eShop stating that summoning monsters requires an internet connection (to connect to the online database), and are digital-only, so I'd be surprised if there's a physical release.
As an additional note, they also have additional save slots locked behind paid DLC (120 yen a slot if you want more than 2 slots).
@Arteus Previously they had DDP shipping with VAT prepaid included in the shipping cost (apparently, averaged out...?). Now they charge VAT separately - so the shipping cost went down to compensate, but the 20% added may mean you pay even more than before.
Buying a single game every now and again, you'll likely save, but previously you could combine multiple games and the shipping cost would stay around the same - which isn't the case anymore.
The Nintendo page actually provides the patent numbers, so I tried to look them up.
3637031: Displaying icons to show positions of player/enemies/items hidden behind terrain
3734820: A virtual joystick which isn't limited to a specific area, but if an input starts within the joystick area, then will still accept input that continues outside the joystick area
4010533: A sleep mode which requires multi-button input to awaken from, to prevent waking on unintentional single button presses
4262217: A touch screen control system where you can gather characters into a group by drawing a ring around them, and then command the group as a single unit
5595991: A game which locally transfers friend code data so that later, you can connect to the same person over the internet
6271692: 5595991 but with "game" replaced with "game and control method"
IGN Japan have an interesting page about it, including a video showing just how they changed the 'virtual joystick' thing: https://jp.ign.com/nintendo/53718/news/33
It seems that the potentially-infringing virtual joystick thing let you use charged attacks by swiping (extending your touch) on the virtual joystick outside of the joystick area. The replaced version... looks like it does exactly the same thing, but now the charged attacks are technically separate buttons which you just happen to touch by swiping from the joystick area. And to prove it, you can move the buttons.
The 3.3 billion yen figure is also from Colopl's press release, linked on IGN's page. The press release states they're reporting a 3.3 billion yen loss in the 3rd quarter of 2021 concerning the lawsuit.
"But the Tokyo Toy Show ROM had 7-layer scrolling, and was constantly scrolling sideways, so it might not be a screenshot from that ROM, but something prepared separately. Though I can't remember much about releasing a screen of this enemy, so it might be a fabricated screen, but I don't think that would be possible back then, so it's a mystery."
"It's an enemy from this concept art, my memories are pretty fuzzy, but I don't think we'd have sent Famitsu a screenshot with an unfinished thing like that on-screen, so it's very weird. But I'm glad I got to see screenshots that bring back memories. Hopefully the ROM turns up somewhere."
(when shown more screens)
"There were all these these screenshots of this enemy... It's hard to believe there are so many. It was 30 years ago, so maybe my memory's fuzzy and I just can't recall it, but I don't think this enemy was ever put into the program and made to work, yet these almost look like sequential screenshots. It's a mystery. But a fun one, which is nice."
Wonder how much he remembers of this mysterious seven-layer scrolling demo. "Seven-layer scrolling" finds previous tweets by Yuji Naka, which seem like it had been something revolutionary at the time. Though apparently it was a 'trick' as it could only scroll sideways rather than up and down. Maybe he remembers more about the unique spec than the contents...
@Maxz Apparently something in the Capcom leaks revealed that the western version was going to have JP text removed due to the Sherlock Holmes issues. The game's website backed up the difference when the game was officially announced - the JP website promotied the inclusion of EN text+audio, but the EN website only mentioned dual-audio...
For some reason Capcom seem to like limiting the full multilingual version of Switch games to Japan, and then the west gets one that's slightly stripped down somehow. Megaman games lost the JP vocal songs, Dragon's Dogma lost the JP voice option, MHS2 lost the Chinese/Korean text option, and now Great AA lost the JP text.
Somehow I hadn't heard about these being released. Not sure what's going on with the extras - that question page says "some" of the extras of previous ports have been removed, guess we'll find out next week.
If they work on Steam and phones, I assume they're Unity and should be easy enough to port everywhere soon enough. And now for the reason I posted, here's a human translation for the quoted paragraph:
"Why did you choose Steam and Smartphones, kupo? Steam Smartphones [sic] currently have I-VI available right now, but some of them were released over 10 years ago, and they're hard to do maintenance on... Smartphones have also seen amazing evolution over the years. So, to make sure that people around the world will be able to play them for a long time to come, they wanted to begin by remastering them for the same platforms, Smartphones and Steam. If there is a lot of demand, they say they'll work hard at making them available on other platforms! Cheer them on!"
Comments 317
Re: Mario Strikers: Battle League's File Size Seemingly Revealed
@Silly_G Mario Party 8 (UK) and Super Paper Mario (EU) also had recalls on the Wii, in case you're interested.
Re: Random: You Won't Be Able To Access Your Animal Crossing Island By 2061
The Switch time setting only lets you choose years between 2000 and 2060.
Leap years are simple enough, but there's holidays which move around from year to year, like Bunny Day (Easter), and they probably only set so many years of holidays.
Re: Dragon Quest Creator Yuji Horii Shares Brief Update On Next Mainline Entry
@Not_Soos For the 3DS, seems like they put in extra effort to have every numbered DQ playable on one console for the 30th anniversary in 2017.
The west got 1-3 alongside 11 on the Switch, but given that having everything playable on the 3DS took two generations (DS+3DS), I doubt they'll be doing it again soon...
Re: Aspyr Is Bringing Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II To Switch This June
@EVIL-C Even if it's possible, it's probably not plausible.
32GB carts are rare enough that there's only been about 9 games using them in 5 years.
Atelier Dusk Trilogy, Atelier Mysterious Trilogy, Final Fantasy X/X-2 (Japan/Asia), Life is Strange (Japan), Dragon Quest Heroes 1&2, Tsukihime, Gundam Crossrays, Attack on Titan 2 Final Battle, Witcher 3
All were £50/$60 or even higher. Whatever Nintendo is charging for 32GB carts seems to be high enough that they're being avoided if at all possible.
Re: Pokémon HOME's Diamond & Pearl And Legends: Arceus Compatibility Update Now Live
@solarwolf07 @Silly_G
Sword/Shield did require an update to add in HOME support. Save files from before v1.1.0 refused to load in HOME until they'd been opened in updated Sw/Sh and resaved. So it's not unheard of.
Though that could be out of something like only wanting to support the current version at time of release, rather than also past ones with slightly different save formats.
Re: Soapbox: Crossing The Line: How I Helped Corrupt The Animal Crossing Economy
@Acein210 In summary:
'People trade stuff, so I did too. Values can change over time.
People cheated, so I did too. Turns out I regretted it.'
Re: Capcom Reiterates That 13GB Monster Hunter Rise Update Will Be Mandatory For Online Play
@Astral-Grain The game size on its own prior to updates is apparently 6.6GB, so an update of 13GB would mean at least 19.6GB.
Re: Splatoon 3 Will Supposedly Be "One Version", Could Regional Issues Be A Thing Of The Past?
@HeadPirate I have no experience with Xbox's 'smart delivery', but a lot of this isn't correct for the Switch.
Nintendo's been commonly having one worldwide version for its games for 5 years now, since the Switch launched.
Splatoon 2 was one of the exceptions, the only one still split into three regions like the games of past systems.
For Nintendo's delivery system, one version = one set of updates.
Though yes, games can lock out features depending on account country, and Splatoon 3 could do that.
For the eShop, the different behaviours are well-known.
If you have access to other eShops, you can buy DLCs from them, and they'll work.
If you buy the EU Octo Expansion, then it won't work. Whoops, you've wasted your money and have to bother Nintendo for a refund.
If you import a JP gear code, then it won't work either.
For 3, you would be able to get any region's DLCs working.
You'd need a JP eShop account to redeem JP codes, but once you download them, they'd work on your non-JP game, unlike in 2.
It's something common to many games, so there's plenty of examples to look at.
Super Bomberman R has a DLC only listed in the JP eShop, but once you download it, it'll work on any copy from anywhere in the world.
Everything relating to needing two consoles and guests is completely incorrect for the Switch.
Maybe that's how it works on Xbox. If so, that does sound like a pain.
But on the Switch, all the 8 accounts can have the same home console (primary console).
You don't need multiple consoles to have multiple accounts.
Primary or not, all 8 can purchase stuff fine, the only things they can't purchase are things they already have access to because another account has already bought it.
Re: Poll: Are You Finding Sonic Origins' Various Editions And DLC Packs Confusing?
@HammerGalladeBro
"with the Avatar SEGA costumes in Sonic Forces Switch, in America (not sure about Europe) they were bonuses for first-run copies as download codes without giving a chance of late adopters to get them"
In Europe, the digital version is labeled 'Digital Bonus Edition' and apparently includes the Sega/Atlus costumes.
Instead, we had the Shadow Costume become completely unbuyable after the free period ended. (In America you can still buy it for $0.99, even if you missed it.)
Re: Poll: Are You Finding Sonic Origins' Various Editions And DLC Packs Confusing?
@Banjo- Thanks, replaced the direct link with their image viewer page, hopefully that fixed it.
Re: Physical-Only Switch Title 'Demon Throttle' Opens A Second Chance Preorder
Didn't care the first time, definitely don't now that they've raised shipping costs to the UK.
Re: Poll: Are You Finding Sonic Origins' Various Editions And DLC Packs Confusing?
What a mess...
Just put it all on a cart, and I'll be happy.
Also interestingly, looked at the JP site, and it's promoting that the 'letterbox' background in the Start Dash Pack is an exclusive one, a Mega Drive blueprint design.
The Premium Fan Pack will instead come with ten 'letterbox' backgrounds.
So it's possible one design might be locked behind the Start Dash pack...
Japanese prices for the two DLC packs were announced, and they're 400 yen each... So western prices would likely be $€3.99 / £3.59 each.
Re: Random: Princess Peach Could've Looked Very Different According To Scrapped Merch
@AlanaHagues
The shoes do seem to have been made. There's even a sales listing for a sold pair from 2020, which seems to have sparked up the conversation at the time.
Apparently, there were two kinds of shoes.
Re: It Looks Like Nintendo's Game Boy Emulator For Switch Online Just Leaked
There's a version number in the screenshot, '0.7.200819.0'.
I wonder if that means this is a version from 19th August 2020.
Might not mean it's coming particularly soon, even if it might happen eventually.
Nintendo's still promoting N64, and we haven't even had all the pre-announced N64 games yet.
Re: Tetris 99 Has Been Updated To Version 2.3.0, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
Wonder if it could mean they're clearing out room in the event data for more events to come.
Though I have no idea how full the space for event data was before the update.
Re: You Need To Buy DLC To Play Otome 'Taisho x Alice All In One' In English On Switch
They could've (and maybe even should've) not sold the game by itself, so that buying it from the western eShops would be clearer and less error-prone.
I think Starlink does that, and Dragon Quest X used to in Japan too.
The price difference between buying the add-on vs the bundle is the oddest part, having a difference seems like trying to getting more money out of anyone who doesn't spot the bundle initially.
Though there's been Japanese-only games in the eShop even since it was the Wii Shop, with the 'Hanabi' games.
It's very unusual, and I'm sure it hurts sales, but it's not particularly new.
The Wii U had an RPG fully in Japanese, 'Necromancer'. To quote the UK eShop: "Please note that this title only comes with Japanese text and is recommended for players with knowledge of the language."
The Switch even has a game in the UK eShop without even an English name, '世界の中心で、AIは戦う' (meaning 'The AI that fights at the heart of the world'). Which is naturally completely in Japanese.
Re: Random: Kingdom Hearts 4 Was Hidden In This Artwork All Along
"Good evening. Thank you all for the 20th anniversary celebratory messages. Currently, preparations for the 20th anniversary event are pretty crazy, so I'm sorry, but I don't have anything ready for today. I only just started drawing the art for the 20th anniversary yesterday, so I'm worried if it'll be ready for the event. I hope you'll continue to support us. @Nomura"
Re: Former Nintendo HQ Hotel, 'Marufukuro', Is Now Open
@invictus4000
A better translation would seem to be the 'Marufuku Building', or the 'encircled-fortune building'.
It seems that encircled-fortune glyphs (福) were used all over the design of the building, even on signs obviously dating back to the Nintendo days.
So it sounds like it really is a building covered in 'marufuku' / 'encircled-fortune' glyphs.
The previous name of Nintendo Co., Ltd. was even Marufuku Co., Ltd., with 'Marufuku' being used for being the yagou of the Yamauchi family.
Re: Poll: Do You Own This Rare Twilight Princess Box?
@retrokong
There does seem to be a point at which the logo changed from red to white for newer copies, looking at eBay.
If there was a misprinted batch at one point, that might even narrow down the potential time it happened.
There seem to have been quite a few minor changes over the years:
(order assumed)
Re: Poll: Do You Own This Rare Twilight Princess Box?
Can't check my own case at the moment, but didn't the cover have a foil effect to it?
This one looks like a foil layer might've been accidentally skipped when printing, which might explain why random things like the 'Seal of Quality', 'The Legend of', and 'The biggest Zelda adventure of all time' are missing too.
Re: Uh-Oh, Chocobo GP's Season Pass Is Ruffling A Few Feathers With Fans
First time seeing expiring premium currency in a game that isn't Japanese exclusive.
While it's not common, it's not unheard of in Japan - even Nintendo's done it before, with Band Brothers P (Jam with the Band).
That said, I guess they didn't anticipate (or alternatively, didn't care) how it would be taken elsewhere.
Re: Random: Shop Owner Sells Fake $20 Pokémon Card, Gets Arrested For Copyright Violation
The card in the photo didn't look like any Pokemon card I've seen before, so I went looking and found these pics of the same fakes. Looks like someone's faking golden 'metal plate' cards.
Re: Nintendo Reveals Japan's Best-Selling 3DS eShop Games From 2011 - 2020
The Battle Cats Pop is surprisingly good. The Switch has an expanded version too, The Battle Cats Unite, which recently had an English release (but is still exclusive to Japan/Asia).
Seems like they take years to make English versions, then release them too late and don't know why they don't take off...
Small, cheap download games really thrived on the 3DS eShop, at least in Japan. Cheap games, sometimes even cheaper in sales, and a lot of them were great.
There were tons of Escape Trick (THE Misshitsu kara no dasshutsu) games, pity they never continued onto the Switch.
A lot of these cheap, small 3DS games seem to have disappeared in the move to the Switch, or increased in price (like Picross, or the Kemco RPGs...)
@Troll_Decimator
New Mario Bros 2 was one of the first retail games sold on the eShop, so it might've done better than 3D Land due to people buying it digital just for the novelty of that.
Re: Nintendo Is Ending 3DS & Wii U eShop Purchases In March 2023 (North America)
@Anti-Matter
Japan has announced the same 'late March 2023' date.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/support/information/2022/0216.html
Except for already having removed credit card support, the dates seem the same in Japan and US, so it's probably worldwide...
Re: Soapbox: Pokémon Legends: Arceus Raises The Question - How Much Do Janky Graphics Matter?
The grass glitching about was the one thing that broke immersion for me. It's sudden, obvious, and needs fixing.
So hopefully it will actually get fixed, rather than ignored.
Other than that, I didn't mind the graphics. I thought they were a lot better than SwSh, and wouldn't mind if the series moved to a style like this permanently.
It undoubtedly could look better... but it looks a lot better than some other Switch games, like something like Little Dragon's Cafe.
Re: Talking Point: Triangle Strategy Is A Bad Name, Which Hopefully Won't Matter
Even if they come across as boring in English, names like "Triangle Strategy" are foreign in Japanese, and they're effectively naming things in a foreign (to Japan) language, obviously without knowing how they sound to native speakers.
If it had been called 'Sankaku no Senryaku' (even as the English name, for argument's sake), then it probably wouldn't be called boring by English speakers, but might be by Japanese ones.
Naming something in a foreign language is inherently trickier, but they're Square Enix, who keep making popular games with two-word English titles, so surely they must know what they're doing, right? /s
As for the meaning of the "Triangle", I don't know if it was explicitly stated, but I think it was at least implied to be the three-choice system - Utility, Morality, and Liberty. In Japanese, the choice is "Benefit, Moral, Freedom" - which are again English words, but rejected for the English localisation and replaced with more impressive ones.
Re: Best Of 2021: Why Do Games Get Removed From Switch eShop? It's Surprisingly Easy
Since October last year, even the JP eShop has started showing IARC ratings for some games.
Unlike other regions, the IARC ratings are completely separate from the local CERO ones, so the JP eShop now has a mix of two different rating systems.
As for weird ratings, there's apparently a French version of Higurashi (When the cicadas cry / 'Higurashi when they cry') rated PEGI 7, supposedly as the text wasn't considered a game, so only minigames were counted for the rating.
Re: Pokémon Diamond And Pearl Remakes Lack Online Matchmaking, So Players Have Taken Things Into Their Own Hands
For a Japanese speaker, 4649 is obviously 'yoroshiku', but I was puzzled over the meaning of 6350... Eventually gave up and tried searching, and apparently it's not a word at all, but the implied rules - take 6, pick 3, lv 50 or below.
Re: No Gravity Games Is Giving Away 19 Switch Titles For Free (North America)
Oh, it's the publisher behind Nonograms Prophecy, a picross game so bad that some of the puzzles are completely impossible (they don't load properly).
Why do I feel like that'll be one of the 19...
Re: Zavvi's New 'Pokémon Kanji Clothing Collection' Features Monochrome Gen 1 Starter Designs
@LexKitteh
The Gen1 starters are pretty simple to kanjify, at least.
Fushigidane - fushigi(mystery) + tane(seed), 不思議種
Hitokage - hi(fire) + tokage(lizard) 火蜥蜴
Zenigame - zeni(money) + kame(turtle) 銭亀
Hitokage and Zenigame were already words in Japanese prior to Pokémon - hitokage (fire-lizard) is a term for salamander, likely coming from Chinese, and zenigame (money-turtle) a nickname for baby turtles, when their shells are small enough that they resemble (ancient) coins.
Just by solidifying meanings in kanji, you do lose ambiguity possible by using meaningless kana, though.
Re: Deals: Grab 60% Off Zelda, Mario, Splatoon, And More Switch Games With GameStop's Black Friday Deals (US)
@Thrallherd
Nintendo's official JP store directly states (in Japanese) that the DLC's on the cart.
Every report I've seen from someone buying it has been confirming that to be true, i.e., this.
Even the cart sticker is different, adding '+ Expansion Pass'.
Re: Deals: Grab 60% Off Zelda, Mario, Splatoon, And More Switch Games With GameStop's Black Friday Deals (US)
@Thrallherd
They do have the DLC on the cart.
Splatoon 2 is the Japanese version, which only supports Japanese though (no other languages).
@Skunkfish
It'd have to be the US eShop. But you can change your account country on the accounts site, or make a US account.
Re: Deals: My Nintendo Store UK Launches Black Friday Offers, With Switch Bundles, Games, Accessories, And Pokémon Merch Discounts (UK)
If you were already going to spend £75 on the few digital games they have reduced, then the free SD card could be interesting.
The MyNintendo Store also sends the downloads as emailed codes, so you'd get more Gold Points than buying on the eShop directly at the same price.
...but that's about all I can see that's interesting.
And nearly all of those games have carts anyway, so... I'd rather get those instead.
Re: Random: This $10 Nintendo Switch eShop Game Has Suddenly Shot Up To A Whopping $250
@HeadPirate
The price API (customer-side) marks it as a normal price rather than a temporary sale price at least. Will just have to wait and see if it does go back down, I guess.
There's probably plenty of examples of permanent price increases on the eShops though, having heard of quite a few they don't seem too rare.
Another specific example I remember: Shovel Knight, which is a case where the price even increased in America.
Even Nintendo themselves have raised the MSRP of their own games in South Africa for example, multiple times over. You can see the last two price hikes on dekudeals by setting the country to South Africa. No tax reason there, just Nintendo deciding the exchange rates had fallen too low.
But yeah, not a lawyer either, and maybe all this is just ignored for being digital prices though.
Re: Random: This $10 Nintendo Switch eShop Game Has Suddenly Shot Up To A Whopping $250
@HeadPirate
This Membrane change seems to have been an MSRP change rather than a sale, $250 is now the 'normal' price.
Nintendo eShop prices have risen across the board several times before in Japan due to rising taxes, so maybe Nintendo doesn't have anything blocking the MSRP being increased.
Re: Random: This $10 Nintendo Switch eShop Game Has Suddenly Shot Up To A Whopping $250
@Fighting_Game_Loser @KingMike
Recently the limit got raised from $200 to $250 (or equivalently in the UK, £180 to £225).
Re: There's A $5,000 Reward For Anyone Who Can Find These 'Lost' F-Zero Tracks
Satellaview stuff is an endless rabbit hole that may never all be fully preserved.
I think even the involved companies have been contacted at this point, and iirc everyone claims to not have the data anymore.
The 8M memory packs were expensive enough alone, and a memory pack would constantly get overwritten as you played new games, so wasn't exactly simple to preserve things.
Even outside of soundlink stuff, some games were distributed as demos with play limits, after which they'd 'disappear' from the menu.
Re: PSA: If You Restarted Your Animal Crossing: New Horizons Island, You'll Have To Wait A Year To Access Some Things
Yep, these look like it's intended to work as 'each type only turns up after the season has completed once on your island'.
Re: Square Enix Is The Next Company To Embrace NFTs And Blockchain Gaming
"with the Million Arthur NFT set (launched on October 14th) already having sold out"
Not even half of them have sold out, 18 of the 30 stickers are still available.
For what it's worth, the stickers in question were (mostly) single panels of specially made manga strips about blockchains, and you can read the manga strips without purchasing anyway.
Re: Feature: Animal Crossing Fart Jokes Remain Lost In Translation As Kapp’n Returns In New Horizons
Apropos of nothing, the Dream Land from Kirby games is named Pupupu Land in Japan.
Something likely obvious but since it wasn't called out specifically, he->pe would be a case of rendaku(sequential voicing) changing the consonant of the latter part to lend itself to easier pronunciation. So finding compounds with っへ(-hhe-) would be pretty rare.
As for boys or girls, if it helps be inclusive, then imo the current compromise is fine.
For what it's worth, there was a tutorial choice cut completely outside of Japanese (how do you pronounce 島), making it impossible to set if you don't start playing in Japanese. And that gets a lot less attention.
According to dataminers, there supposedly is still a gameplay difference between 'boy' and 'girl', being that animals won't gift you clothes intended for the other gender. (Haven't tried confirming/checking it myself though, mind)
Re: Nintendo Switch Transfer - How To Transfer All Saves, Games, Profiles, And User Data To Another Switch (OLED, Lite, Regular)
@WhiteUmbrella Usually it's nothing to worry about, but some games have been replaced with new versions, and you can't find the old version searching normally anymore, only through the redownload list.
So in some rare cases you would be asked to purchase again if you tried to find them normally. (For example, Nicalis games which managed to free themselves from Nicalis.)
To actually be charged, you'd have to ignore the button saying 'Purchase', currency amounts being shown, paying for the game again... etc, though.
Re: Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp Will Have Gacha-Style Microtransactions
@ChromaticDracula The font is Shin Go, a common Japanese font which is used in all sorts of things.
Compared to English, there's a lot less Japanese fonts, with companies charging a lot more in exchange - so you can end up seeing the same fonts time and time again.
Shin Go in particular... It's a clone of an even older font, Gona, after its creators refused to release a digital version. As Gona or as Shin Go, it's been used all over for nearly 50 years now.
The other font that stands out in those screenshots is also a Japanese one, "Rowdy", which according to its page, was even in Pikmin 3.
Re: Site News: So, Where's Our Baldo Review?
@SwitchVogel
Personally, would have appreciated a Monster Train review much more than some of the articles today like "Random: The Nintendo DS Browser Is On Sale, So Now You Can Use The Internet Wherever You Are".
Looks like there was a review for Slay the Spire, and Monster Train (from what I've seen of the PC version) looks even better.
Re: New PEGI Gambling Criteria Means Old Pokémon Games Would Now Be Rated 18+
Noticed this late last year.
Did NL really not hear about this until now?
PEGI say the change was "In 2020" but I couldn't find any date for when the change would be applied. It's been announced since at least February 2020, but there were still new 'PEGI 12 including gambling' ratings even in December 2020.
There does seem to still be leniency for games being rereleased for different platforms under the same rating still - checking PEGI's site now, I see:
Dragon Quest 11 S: PEGI 12 including gambling on Stadia, 2021/03/16
Trails of Cold Steel 4: PEGI 12 including gambling on Switch/Stadia, 2021/04/01
I wonder what Nintendo would've done with 51 Worldwide Games in Europe if that had been forced to be PEGI 18.
The article being used as a source here points out another, more recently spotted issue - apparently other descriptors are getting lost when gambling is upgraded to PEGI 18.
So potentially a game could hit every rating warning at the PEGI 16 level, but because of having gambling it's forced to PEGI 18, and doesn't display any other tags.
Personally that's not a behaviour I would have expected.
It means Pokémon/Stardew/Mario 64 DS and a hypothetical 'PEGI 16 for violence and swearing and sex and drugs and horror' game would be given the exact same rating: PEGI 18 for gambling.
Re: Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX Bundles Both Games On Switch, And It's Launching This Year
Nice, considered just buying the JP versions a few times, but glad I waited.
The JP versions have big warnings on the eShop stating that summoning monsters requires an internet connection (to connect to the online database), and are digital-only, so I'd be surprised if there's a physical release.
As an additional note, they also have additional save slots locked behind paid DLC (120 yen a slot if you want more than 2 slots).
Re: Huntdown To Get Wider Retail Release And Second Run Of Collector's Edition
@Arteus
Previously they had DDP shipping with VAT prepaid included in the shipping cost (apparently, averaged out...?).
Now they charge VAT separately - so the shipping cost went down to compensate, but the 20% added may mean you pay even more than before.
Buying a single game every now and again, you'll likely save, but previously you could combine multiple games and the shipping cost would stay around the same - which isn't the case anymore.
Re: Five Years Later, Nintendo's Lawsuit Against 'White Cat Project' Has Finally Been Settled
The Nintendo page actually provides the patent numbers, so I tried to look them up.
3637031: Displaying icons to show positions of player/enemies/items hidden behind terrain
3734820: A virtual joystick which isn't limited to a specific area, but if an input starts within the joystick area, then will still accept input that continues outside the joystick area
4010533: A sleep mode which requires multi-button input to awaken from, to prevent waking on unintentional single button presses
4262217: A touch screen control system where you can gather characters into a group by drawing a ring around them, and then command the group as a single unit
5595991: A game which locally transfers friend code data so that later, you can connect to the same person over the internet
6271692: 5595991 but with "game" replaced with "game and control method"
IGN Japan have an interesting page about it, including a video showing just how they changed the 'virtual joystick' thing: https://jp.ign.com/nintendo/53718/news/33
It seems that the potentially-infringing virtual joystick thing let you use charged attacks by swiping (extending your touch) on the virtual joystick outside of the joystick area.
The replaced version... looks like it does exactly the same thing, but now the charged attacks are technically separate buttons which you just happen to touch by swiping from the joystick area. And to prove it, you can move the buttons.
The 3.3 billion yen figure is also from Colopl's press release, linked on IGN's page. The press release states they're reporting a 3.3 billion yen loss in the 3rd quarter of 2021 concerning the lawsuit.
Re: Random: 1990 Preview Of Sonic The Hedgehog Featured A Quirky Unused Enemy
"But the Tokyo Toy Show ROM had 7-layer scrolling, and was constantly scrolling sideways, so it might not be a screenshot from that ROM, but something prepared separately. Though I can't remember much about releasing a screen of this enemy, so it might be a fabricated screen, but I don't think that would be possible back then, so it's a mystery."
"It's an enemy from this concept art, my memories are pretty fuzzy, but I don't think we'd have sent Famitsu a screenshot with an unfinished thing like that on-screen, so it's very weird. But I'm glad I got to see screenshots that bring back memories. Hopefully the ROM turns up somewhere."
(when shown more screens)
"There were all these these screenshots of this enemy... It's hard to believe there are so many. It was 30 years ago, so maybe my memory's fuzzy and I just can't recall it, but I don't think this enemy was ever put into the program and made to work, yet these almost look like sequential screenshots. It's a mystery. But a fun one, which is nice."
Wonder how much he remembers of this mysterious seven-layer scrolling demo. "Seven-layer scrolling" finds previous tweets by Yuji Naka, which seem like it had been something revolutionary at the time. Though apparently it was a 'trick' as it could only scroll sideways rather than up and down. Maybe he remembers more about the unique spec than the contents...
Re: Guide: How To Play The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles With The Original Japanese Audio
@Maxz
Apparently something in the Capcom leaks revealed that the western version was going to have JP text removed due to the Sherlock Holmes issues.
The game's website backed up the difference when the game was officially announced - the JP website promotied the inclusion of EN text+audio, but the EN website only mentioned dual-audio...
For some reason Capcom seem to like limiting the full multilingual version of Switch games to Japan, and then the west gets one that's slightly stripped down somehow.
Megaman games lost the JP vocal songs, Dragon's Dogma lost the JP voice option, MHS2 lost the Chinese/Korean text option, and now Great AA lost the JP text.
Re: Square Enix Says A Console Version Of Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Depends On Demand
Somehow I hadn't heard about these being released. Not sure what's going on with the extras - that question page says "some" of the extras of previous ports have been removed, guess we'll find out next week.
If they work on Steam and phones, I assume they're Unity and should be easy enough to port everywhere soon enough. And now for the reason I posted, here's a human translation for the quoted paragraph:
"Why did you choose Steam and Smartphones, kupo?
Steam Smartphones [sic] currently have I-VI available right now, but some of them were released over 10 years ago, and they're hard to do maintenance on... Smartphones have also seen amazing evolution over the years. So, to make sure that people around the world will be able to play them for a long time to come, they wanted to begin by remastering them for the same platforms, Smartphones and Steam. If there is a lot of demand, they say they'll work hard at making them available on other platforms! Cheer them on!"