Comments 440

Re: Review: Pragmata (Switch 2) - A Dazzling Puzzle-Shooter Driven By A Heartfelt Friendship

brakeman90

@outsider83 Funny enough, one of the oddities about that whole period is that RE5 and RE6 were major commercial hits (until recently, RE5 remained the bestselling series entry)! Mercifully, the studio paid attention to critical reception as much as sales, so they redirected the ship before accidentally steering it into the ground.

With regard to spinoffs, that period brought us Revelations 1 and 2. Both were a little experimental, offering a (half-hearted) return to "classic" survival horror while being presented as episodes rather than traditional full games. Rev1 was complete on cart as a 3DS title at launch - yet was presented in-game with little "last time on Revelations" recaps between chapters! - while Rev2 was actually distributed episodically over the course of a month. Very weird! I love those games, but you could tell Capcom was a bit rudderless and uncertain. Then they hit a home run with RE7 and the rest is history.

Re: Review: Pragmata (Switch 2) - A Dazzling Puzzle-Shooter Driven By A Heartfelt Friendship

brakeman90

@outsider83 What you may be thinking of is that Capcom pivoted towards a very different approach to design in the late 2000s and early 2010s under the leadership of Keiji Inafune; the HD era brought a lot of challenges to studios who were used to developing for hardware with much lower resolutions, so Inafune believed that Japanese studios should try to imitate Western studios that seemed to be managing the change better. Unfortunately, this resulted in a lot of critically panned Capcom releases during that period (especially the PS3 and early PS4 era). Once Inafune departed Capcom, they shifted gears again and began a hot streak in the late 2010s that still hasn't cooled down.

Re: Opinion: As Resident Evil Turns 30, It's Time Capcom Revisits The Classics

brakeman90

I'd love to see a Resident Evil Legacy Collection, maybe covering RE1-3 and Code Veronica, with a hard copy on Switch 2. They're great on PS5 in the versions Capcom re-released a year or so ago, with welcome rewind and save state features. Packaging in Survivor and Gaiden would be nice, even though neither are great and I remember hating Survivor when I rented it around launch; they're still fascinating curiosities from the era. I'd be even more impressed if Capcom included the baffling but cool cell phone adaptations of RE2 and RE3 (the former as an isometric game and the latter as a series of cool time-limited missions), but that's very unlikely! The most important thing is just making the original four titles available on modern hardware, I think.

(also, while I'm grateful they have a dedicated group of fans, this old fogey found the Outbreak games utterly dreadful at launch and upon revisiting a few years back - cool stories and settings, but the gameplay is sooo bad)

Re: Review: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup In Bellabel Park - Inessential Bells & Whistles

brakeman90

@DennyCrane Here in the US, it's typically pronounced as "bro's", so to speak, and it's been that way as long as I remember. Funny enough, I've never heard it pronounced in a way that would rhyme with floss! The Internet is definitely changing the way that things are pronounced, given the comparative ease of access that young folks have to foreign pronunciations - it'll be interesting to see how English evolves in the decades ahead.

Re: Review: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup In Bellabel Park - Inessential Bells & Whistles

brakeman90

@JohnnyMind I think you may be expecting a level of consensus that's not realistic - the New Horizons Switch 2 Edition was reviewed by a different NintendoLife team member, and commenters are going to express a wide range of opinions. We shouldn't expect consistency with regard to how Switch 2 editions are received, because they're being appraised by different players with different interests.

Re: Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Publisher Responds To AI Outfit Allegations

brakeman90

@-wc- I was going to say this! Much like "freedom of speech," "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal concept rather than a broader social concept. I think we all say stupid stuff that (appropriately) gets us chastised by others, and indeed it's a pretty basic part of human social framework that - when we hear enough bad things about someone or something - we assume they're bad until shown otherwise. These concepts thankfully aren't part of our legal framework, because punishment by the State requires a higher bar to clear, but they are a pretty standard part of being human.

...all of that being said, I do feel a little bad for these artists. Until GenAI either comes with usage disclaimers or becomes such a typical part of design that we it's everywhere (which I hope doesn't happen!), we're going to be working through these situations case by case.

Re: Round Up: The Previews Are In For Elden Ring's Updated Switch 2 Build

brakeman90

@Hwatt Yeah, FromSoft has always hit technical issues; the original King's Field Trilogy on PSX - but not The Ancient City on PS2 - performs so badly that it gave me motion sickness almost instantly, lol. Having played through Dark Souls 1-3 & Bloodborne at 30fps in their original releases as well as Elden Ring at the unstable 60fps it is on PS5, I'd say that higher performance is (of course) preferred, but the genre is very playable at 30fps.

Re: Feature: "I've Always Loved Doing Guttural Screams" - Angela Sant'Albano On Joining The World Of Resident Evil

brakeman90

Thanks for the interview! Sant'Albano does such an amazing job in this game, and is a major part of why (at least to this longtime fan) Grace is the best new protagonist since RE2 wayyy back in 1998. I don't often come to Resident Evil for the emotional beats, but she and Apostolides knocked it out of the park (no spoilers, but the sequence in the water treatment area is such a rollercoaster of seeing the character at her lowest and strongest). I hope we get to see more of Grace in the future!

Re: Capcom's New Game Pragmata Is Now Releasing A Little Earlier Than Expected

brakeman90

@Hwatt Yeah, Capcom returned to its 1990s glory days in the late 2010s for sure. I tend to date the start of its renaissance to Resident Evil 7 (2017), after which we've gotten big hits Monster Hunter World (2018), Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019), Devil May Cry 5 (2019), Resident Evil 8 (2021), Monster Hunter Rise (2021), Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023), Street Fighter 6 (2023), and Resident Evil 9 (2026). Plus, you've got a lot of smaller gems sprinkled throughout (e.g. Mega Man 11, Kunitsu-Gami, Monster Hunter Stories 2, Pragmata) and a ton of thoughtful legacy re-releases (Mega Man, Ace Attorney, Onimusha). There are a few duds here and there, but I'd say Capcom is as great as its ever been.

Re: Feature: "I Literally Got Goosebumps" - Nick Apostolides On Returning As Leon In Resident Evil Requiem

brakeman90

No shade on anyone who came before, but - as a fan since RE1 in 1996 - Apostolides embodies Leon better than anyone else can. His line reading of "I couldn't make a difference. So I am here. Now." is one of the most effective emotional beats in the entire franchise; I got goosebumps. Not to mention the hilarious one-liners.

He's so right about Sant'Albano too. For a series that began with the earnest silliness of RE1's goofy VA (bless them, they were doing the best with what they had), Apostolides and Sant'Albano turn in two of the best voice performances in the medium during RE9. You just believe every word!

Re: Review: Resident Evil Requiem (Switch 2) - Action And Horror Combine In A Series Highlight

brakeman90

@lyle_catcliffe As a fan of the series since the very first entry, I think I'd score most of them an 8/10, haha. All fun in their own ways, but the blemishes and problems are part of what make them so interesting (for my money, I'd probably only score RE4, the RE2Make, and the RE4Make a 10/10)! In any case, it seems that my fears that this could be a repeat of RE6's misguided kitchen sink approach were unfounded. Can't wait to dig in on Friday night!!

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Team Consistently Aiming For 30fps On Switch 2 "Wherever Possible"

brakeman90

@Pillowpants That's fair - I meant "stripped down hardware" in the same way that the Steam Deck is stripped down compared to a PC, or the Xbox Series S is stripped down compared to a Series X, not a value judgment, but of course the fact that the Switch 2 is portable does kind of put it in its own category aside from the other home consoles I'm comparing it to. I get what you mean.

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Team Consistently Aiming For 30fps On Switch 2 "Wherever Possible"

brakeman90

@Vyacheslav333 Shoot, I couldn't disagree more - respectfully of course, I'm not trying to be a jerk! Developers at studios are working super hard under the gun all the time (the same as ever, sadly). If there are corners cut, I suspect it's from the management area rushing things out without giving the programmers and artists the time to polish their work. As an old-timer, this has always been the case; development has always been hard on the people who make our games.

(this comment brought to you by my recollection of the rushed, poor localization on OG Final Fantasy 7, and maybe a little bit by my recollection of the N64's Space Station Silicon Valley being impossible to finish because it got rushed to market before the game's final collectible had collision detection implemented, haha)

Re: Mini Review: Resident Evil Village Gold Edition (Switch 2) - A Solid First-Person Follow Up

brakeman90

For those who haven't played, I strongly recommend this game if you're into the more popcorn/classic-horror elements of the series. RE7 is great, but its constrained environment and more human-scale Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style approach to spooks didn't work for me as well as this game's campier tone. The final quarter of the game is quite polarizing, but I'd go to bat for it as one of the better end sequences of the series (outside of the ill-advised and brief switch to a different character for one late-game portion). All this is to say: if you have any affection for campy horror, don't miss it!

Re: Review: Virtual Boy For Switch 1 & 2 - Is It Really Worth Revisting Nintendo's Greatest Folly?

brakeman90

My only complaint is that I wish Nintendo offered an option to play on the TV - clearly the games can be displayed just fine in that way, as you can watch clips of them in the NSO App advertising the Virtual Boy. That said, my headset is on its way and I'm eager to dig into this much-maligned library; my last interaction with a Virtual Boy was trying one out at a Beat Buy kiosk in 1995 and thinking "no thanks," haha.

Re: Bethesda Releases Skyrim Update 1.2 For Switch 2, Includes "60Hz Mode" And Much More

brakeman90

@ShadLink This is a very odd comment. Are you suggesting that the only people who want 60fps are PlayStation fans? As a person who grew up with 60fps as a pretty standard framerate on the SNES and Gamecube, I'm confused. I play plenty of games at 30fps and enjoy them, but there are lots of folks (myself included) who have a hard time with motion sickness in certain genres when the framerate is low or unstable; first person games are the toughest for me because of this. Upgrading to 60fps makes a game more accessible to more folks - it's universally good. I don't get the frustration folks feel towards players wanting performance on par with what we often got in earlier generations, though I also don't get the idea that games are only worth playing at a certain level of performance. Different strokes for different folks, you know?

Re: PSA: Subnautica And Subnautica: Below Zero Switch 2 Upgrades Now Available

brakeman90

Just a heads up for folks who might buy the game based on this update (as I did): it's not remotely achieving 60fps. As early as the opening pod sequence, there are frequent drops into what seems to be the 30-40fps range, and things don't get better once you start exploring the open ocean. The visuals may be enhanced, but it's such a choppy mess performance-wise that I can't even play due to motion sickness. Bear in mind that this may be an error, since representatives from the studio indicated on Reddit that their testing reflected much more stable performance; time will tell whether a patch fixes the problem.