Personally found this to be one of the worst games of its ilk when you take presentation out of the equation, and a lot of these games have great presentation. Vapid and clunky gameplay elements when they are used, overtly sluggish pacing when they aren't. Bit on the nose metaphorically. Doesn't seem to work as a walking sim and doesn't seem to work as a conventional game.
That all being said, I'm all for artistic indie titles getting recognition; this news will only encourage more independent developers to get cracking and feel confident they can succeed in the industry.
Limbo and Inside weren't exactly the greatest of puzzlers going purely by the puzzle content so it's a shame this seems to be more of the same. Certainly looks pretty.
@Luigivaldo an ultimate edition would save me a fortune, my wallet weeps every time I have to fish out money for all the DLC when buying new setups for locals!
@Zacattack99 Melee and Ultimate are about as similar as Street Fighter is to Guilty Gear. It's half the reason Melee and Smash 4 were able to share an EVO stage at all. No other franchise has had that luxury in recent history. Even though the jump from Street Fighter 4 to Street Fighter 5 completely polarised the fanbase, it still wasn't enough of a jump to give the Street Fighter community two spots at EVO. Melee and Ultimate have hardly any player crossover, quite small wider community crossover, and are only united sentimentally through Nintendo and logistically through shared tournaments, with both titles having their own independent circuits.
Not really sure what development cycles and fine tuning have to do with Snivy's points. A game can be an enticing and unique competitive experience and be rough around the edges at the same time lol.
@Snivy102 While I just spent a para sending fire at Zac, none of your points make Ultimate out to be a worse game. You just note differences. A lot of people (see: a LOT of people) love Ultimate's pace and neutral. Even with L cancelling, a lot of Melee aerials are still unsafe on shield. While the buffer system indeed has its downsides for certain aspects of play, it also allows Ultimate to have some very unique and creative combo routes not seen in other Brawl-based titles. Wavedashing absolutely increases movement options, but that doesn't necessarily mean it makes the game better, otherwise we wouldn't see companies like ArcSys move towards a slower, more footsies-based style of play in Granblue Vs and Guilty Gear Strive than what they've done in the past with mainline GG and BB titles or the recent DBFZ.
melee scene is doing fine, felt like there was a larger antagonistic reaction from the greater FGC and ultimate community than there was backlash from the melee scene when they were dropped. not sure why people are bringing melee into this.
surprised at mk getting dropped, though i can't say i'm at all disappointed. very excited to see granblue and mvc2 on the big stage. also wouldn't mind if namco announced something huge like t7 season 4, t8, or t7 on switch.
A better title imo would be "the 3ds has somehow managed to sell over half a million units in 9 months almost a decade into its life span with no sales push on behalf of nintendo and hardly any new games thrown onto the system when are people gonna stop buying it a wii u hasn't been sold in two years now"
A shame. I remember being flabbergasted watching just under a dozen karts being driven by people in various Nintendo franchise costumes rocketing past me and a friend the first time I visited Osaka a couple of years ago. Not sure if this is the same group or not but it was one of the most humorous things I'd ever seen. Gotta protect your IPs I guess.
@Xansies Chrom and Roy aren't straight rushdown characters though. They are still steeply within the spacing swordie archetype, they just have better rushdown than Marth or Lucina. They still get messed up up close by traditional rushdowners like Fox, Mario, Pichu, etc, because they just don't have the frames to compete. The range at which they control space is still significantly larger than that of most non-swordies thanks to their disjointed hitboxes.
Robin is a zoner and ledge trapper. Byleth is a swordie who has maybe two useful ledge trapping tools (forward smash and back air), and what else? Byleth doesn't use her specials to compensate for her generic tools but Robin absolutely has to. Robin can't juggle like any of the FE characters due to relatively small hitboxes and slow aerial drift but the sheer size of Byleth's up air and up tilt almost make up for her movement speed entirely. Due to how slow and unnecessary her specials barring up special are, I'd argue she's more like a slightly faster Ike than Robin, if anything. Idk your barometer for weird, but weird to me is characters like Olimar, Bayonetta, or Peach/Daisy.
Speaking of, Peach/Daisy and Samus/Dark Samus,
Peach is the only Mario character who plays like she does, so a reskin feels less egregious. I'd prefer Daisy was a skin in the same way Olimar/Alf are, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Metroid only has two unique representatives, and the franchise on the whole doesn't have many familiar faces just by proxy of the games being quite the isolated experience. I similarly would prefer if Dark Samus were just a skin and not an actual character slot but that feels like nice fan service for a series that couldn't really be padded up with characters without it. FE already has too many Marth-based sword characters. It didn't need Chrom. it didn't need Lucina given the existence of Roy. Quite different circumstantially, I'd argue.
EDIT: Didn't realise you'd replied to another commenter, comparing her to Ganon is absolutely more fitting than Robin, though I realise you were keeping your comparisons to FE, as I've done in my response here.
Feel like half the problem with this is just the fact Nintendo have had so many FE character iterations in the past and had to add everyone into Ultimate. If Ultimate's FE representation at launch was just Ike, Marth, Robin and Corrin, there'd probably be less uproar. Half the reason Mario and Pokemon haven't been problematic roster size wise is all their movesets are quite different to each other.
Meanwhile FE has Chrom, Roy and Lucina who all rip off the Marth formula, and every single FE character bar Robin plays the same style of keep-out, just at varying paces. For as flashy as Byleth looks, it's a near identical base game strategy to prior FE characters. You can't play Bowser, Peach, Luigi, or Bowser Jr. in the same way at all. Same goes for PT, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, etc.
@dew12333 There are like less than a dozen fully developed platform fighters total right now. Compare that with the hundreds of traditional fighters, shooters, RPGs, etc. You can be original without inventing a new genre. Compare whats on offer here to whats on offer in Icons: Combat Arena or Brawlout and this game feels pretty dang original if you ask me.
Finally. Superb game. Tightest balanced platform fighter on the market. Really hoping the incessant Smash comparisons work in the game's favour sales-wise because it's so much more than that.
Ah yes, the whole "Nintendo big success so third party is rip off" spiel. After some time, surely we have to be fine with similar devices joining the market? The PS4 ripped off the Xbox One. Or was it the other way round? Or did they both rip off each other's previous generation? Both are home consoles with similar looking controllers. The sky is falling.
In other news, this looks cool. It's clearly going to have a very small niche. I'm sure those users will love it. Hopefully Tekken gets a switch port so I don't have to worry about casting my wallet into oblivion.
@XenoEmblem You know, using personal anecdote as an excuse to call an entire group of people "pathetic" is a little bit silly. It just so happens every Fire Emblem and Xenoblade fan I've ever been in contact with is adverse to using hygiene products. I've only met two in the wild, but that's a large enough sample size!
People really be out here creating an account just to call people who are upset their expensive peripheral is suffering from a very specific issue that's got widespread internet coverage "pathetic". Oh, what, your AC doesn't work? Stop whinging about it and use it properly maybe, you absolute stoner. My AC keeps my house cool all through the summer months, as do the ACs of everyone I know! It's a very specific issue among a select brand of ACs that is well documented, to the point its even won awards for its fragility? Must have been your fanboyism.
How do these "the joycons are fine it's a you problem" conspiracies make a lick of sense? Do other console scenes have this problem? Hoards of PS4 players with qualms about controllers not functioning properly constantly and consistently? Or do other scenes have very fubctional, working peripherals that seemingly never warrant any mass discussion? I haven't seen a single article on pro controllers. Do all the same people who you presume ditch their joycons into the sun every time they lose a round of Garou play with the calmness of a Nepalese monk as soon as the larger controller sinks into their grip? Every time I see someone accuse this inordinately large customer base experiencing this one specific and well documented problem that no other triple A console manufacturer is having anything close to comparable issues of being to blame, my grasp on reality weakens and I fear I'm one pseudo-broken joycon away from passing on into a parallel universe.
One of the greatest puzzlers ever made as far as I'm concerned. Played it at least once every year since it came out. Find new things to love about it every time. Absolutely going to triple dip with this one.
Very interesting to note that a lot of the concepts in this game and names referenced in the dialogue are eerily similar to those of Soma, to the point that I consider Soma a spiritual prequel to this game. Would highly recommend anyone interested in either game try playing them back to back, Soma first. Likely pure coincidence but the levels of overlap are uncanny.
@SBandy King of Fighters XIII? I'd argue titles like the recent BlazBlue games also look phenomenal. It's worth considering UNIST was developed by a tiny dev team for a very small niche of players, and its reputation as a brilliantly balanced and intricate game has caused its reputation to exceed it's visual fidelity. All this considered, I think it's a fantastic looking game UI aside.
Anime fighters also necessarily have less frames between keyfranes on many attacks than fighters with less of a mobility meta, to the point that even 2.5D titles built on 3D rendering systems like DBFZ or GGXRD intentionally limit frames on many attacks for the sake of reliable visibility during the heat of battle. They compromise that ridiculously smooth aesthetic found on Street Fighter and King of Fighters titles in order to make for a cleaner gameplay experience.
Theorising about the extended Smash universe is old hat now. The future is theorising about which game devs would win in an alternate Smash reality. I'm putting money down on Kojima and the glorious degenerates behind Melty Blood.
Nintendo should really be included as a synonym for "fun" in standard thesauruses at this point.
Hoping Japanese Twitter continues railing against the machine long enough that Captain Falcon gets his turn around speed and rock crocking sorted within the next few patches!
Probably my favourite of the DLC characters so far. There's a bit of jank regarding direction when recovering and some of his weaknesses are glaring but he's got a killer keep-out and punish game. Bamco and Nintendo have done a wonderful job incorporating his iconic moves into what feels like a very tightly balanced kit that slots into the roster wonderfully. The plethora of music added and the inclusion of a very fun and unique stage is more than welcome too!
@Dragonstar Musicians should get a real job. They spend all their time getting good with their keyboard so they can entertain people. Music is just a hobby. There's no reason it should be paid work. Anyone can play the piano. Anyone can have a goofy stage presence. Piano recital competitions are pointless. Musicians are cancelled. Etc.
I've never met someone who's fun at parties who says stuff like "video gaming can't be a career, it's just lazy and boring" and while that's certainly anecdotal, your attitude towards this topic seems rather telling. Obviously, every single person who's ever donated money to a streamer is just a huge idiot or a young child and there's no nuance or further reasoning as to why someone might want to send money to an individual who they find entertaining, educational, talented in a certain field, etc. I deeply regret any time I spent money on something for no reason other than I found it enjoyable. I've posted my Switch to Craigslist. Food and water are the only things worth spending money on now.
@sanderev Can you please watch the "apology" again and come back and tell me when the dude said anything of consequence? The apology was so vapid and watered down that it ceased becoming an apology a third in and became instead a segue into advertising their new games. NO mention of specifics. Just vague corporate terms and diversity this (50+ countries here at blizzcon woweee!!!!), unison that (lets make something AWESOME gamers, throw your money at us!). If Blizzard were to make a sincere apology, they would have to lose something in the process; they are simply too far into the mud not to get some investor friction if they made a genuine effort to rectify the situation for the actual players. Instead, they made a non-apology that will lose them ZERO investors and segued it into a massive one-two "please forget about the China thing with these two games you keep asking for" punch that solidified the company has no desire to prioritise players and principles over investment.
Weird review. Games got a plethora of single player modes in an era largely lacking in this area (Tekken 7, BBCTB, SoulCalibur, SFV, etc), one of the best fighting game tutorials available, one of the best training modes of any fighter with a plethora of options and data, and one of the most varied rosters in the genre. Why is it then an issue this doesn't have more characters? There's more character variety here than on DBFZ. As much as I love Ultimate, it's character "population" also consists of half a dozen variations of Marth (and the general "swordie" trope that's existed since Melee), three Links, at least a dozen generic reflect/counter specials, several dozen three hit neutral pokes, a plethora of generic kick neutral airs, and so on. It's certainly more varied than SG or DBFZ but I see no reason for you bringing it up in this review. I really wish the equivocation of size and quality would die out pretty soon because it really deters new players from picking up fighters like this.
@Ludovsky if the gameplay implications of the character designs even remotely interest you, I implore you to give Rivals a try! The roster variety is insane when you consider how few characters have any move overlap (Ultimate has move overlap with: swordie aerials, shoryuken up specials, 3-hit jab combos, tilts all largely being subtle variations of the same handful of ideas, down special counters, etc), with some straight-up bending common notions of platform fighter mechanics (Wrastor, for example, can only perform a smash attack while airborne, Orcane can create teleport locations to allow for impossible recoveries, etc).
I feel the characters have a stronger sense of identity than large swabs of the Smash roster, and I can't really think of a single Rivals character who plays remotely similarly to any given Smash character, barring surface level visual design similarities (Fox/Zetterburn, Wrastor/Falco, etc). None of this is to say Ultimate is lacking, rather just some reasoning as to why I feel more people should really give Rivals a go! Kinda feels complimentary to Smash in the same way an ArcSys title like Guilty Gear feels to Street Fighter.
@EarthboundBenjy It definitely doesn't pack as much punch aesthetically but it is considerably more acutely designed with competitive play in mind than any Smash title barring Project M. It might be the least party-friendly platform fighter out right now. Every character in the game frequently shows up at the highest tournament level due to insanely tight balancing. Of all the non-Smash platform fighters out there, this one's got the most replay value for people looking to REALLY get good at a platform fighter.
And, well, the combos are so long and intricate that the relative lack of visual and auditory overload is largely compensated for when you manage to carry your opponent from one side of the stage to the other and back before launching them into the fiery depths below without them touching the ground once. Would definitely recommend watching a RoA tournament set if you want to see how crazy this game gets!
(Slap City does slap tho, also eagerly awaiting a port of that one!)
Bahahahaha, hell yes Harada. It's a shame half the commenters here don't know much about Harada or the reps in the fighting game community in general; all of them are deeply ingrained in fan affairs and have all thusly developed very sarcastic personalities. Harada even competes in Tekken tournaments. Even when delivering a point, there's always a bit of banter.
@Moistnado I appreciate you assuming a black-or-white fallacy into the conversation. u sure got me
I hope I'm not unfairly overestimating your knowledge on the matter but I figured someone commenting on an Overwatch article on a gaming website would know that shooters other than arena shooters from the 90s and early 2000s do exist. I've noticed you've given Metroid Prime some love. Are the Metroid Prime games just single player Quake Arena, or is there potentially more to it than aim-at-the-bad-guy-in-a-small-room-and-click? If not, well, isn't that something. If it is all the same then you win.
@Minfinity I think Splatoon and ARMS would have had a better chance with better matchmaking and a Nintendo Online service model that includes basic things like easy party creation, voice chat, messaging, more fleshed out ELO, etc. A good deal of competitive Smash players won't even play For Glory, rather opting to use Discord to find players to create lobbies with. I imagine EVO's Smash presence would be even stronger if the online functionality of Switch titles for competitive play was anything close to competent.
And yea, ARMS would rule in tournament. I think some of it's depth shortcomings might be a shot in the foot but we already saw the hype potential with Mr Yabuki going ham during the launch invitational in 2017. I'd love to see solid FGC players throw together a legitimate tournament for it, even if it were just once.
@Moistnado I didn't state I enjoyed it? If your conception of a game similar to Quake Arena is a brief and incomplete description of it's genre, I'll be damned; Mario Kart and Gran Turismo are the same game.
@Moistnado In what world is Overwatch anything like Quake Arena outside the fact it's a multiplayer FPS? The core competitive Arena experience is 1v1s with weapon pick-ups. The core competitive OW experience is objective based 6v6s with characters who have character-specific weapons and abilities.
You couldn't have picked less of a similar example if you tried.
@Heavyarms55 Been in similar situations, having a Mario Kart tournament with a few mates in a long bus drive after a night in the city. A few guys at work own Switches and some Friday afternoons we scrap around in Smash or Mario Kart. The Switch is the great uniter. I reckon the world would be a better place if every political conflict legally required opposing sides to duke it out in Mario Kart for a few hours before anything happens.
gris makes the top 20 as a worse version of every other notable title of its ilk, and gorogoa, one of the best visual puzzlers yet made, doesn't even make the list
a bit sad to see. replayed gris twice over after finishing it the first time to make sure i'd seen all there was to see and it was incredibly tedious. i've replayed gorogoa around six or seven times now and it is just as enrapturing as it was the first time i booted it up.
@Toy_Link I don't think people have any problem with anime sword characters. People have a problem with characters who share 80% of their moveset identity with Marth. Marth, Lucina, Roy, Chrom, Robin, and Hero all share very similar aerial and tilt normals, so even with what quirks they do have individually, there's not much distinguishing their neutral interactions.
Meanwhile over in Mario land, the only characters with comparable play styles are the Peach/Daisy echos. Luigi somehow has less in common with Mario than Robin does Lucina. I reckon Genji's OW moveset would be conducive to a really cool and unique swordie playstyle in Smash!
As for my choice of OW rep in Smash, I think Zenyatta could make for a very interesting set-up based character. The idea of a second hammer heavy in Ultimate is also very appealing so Reinhardt is high up on the wish list!
Hmm, I was really opposed to this at first reading it has no gyro but I'm starting to come around with some thought. I personally only use gyro when my Switch is docked, and when it is undocked, I'm usually travelling which means sitting on trains, on planes, in cars, etc. Places where gyro becomes a bit difficult to utilise. Thus, I often find myself playing games that don't require gyro while out and about (ARPGs, platformers, fighters, etc). The JoyCon ergonomics are a little too uncomfortable for me for extended periods of time so this could be a nice workaround.
@sword_9mm Not to dogpile but the Wii's motion controls, while burdened with a lot of gimmick utilisation, were actually brilliant for carrying out accurate aiming. I remember jokingly picking up a Call of Duty title on the Wii and coming to find I was considerably better at the game on the Wii than on other consoles. Basically stopped playing console shooters that weren't on Nintendo systems after learning this. Gyro on the Switch isn't quite as precise as what the Wii was running but it's close enough that I'm comfortable using it for shooters.
Solid review, wouldn't have believed this was a one-man project. Never been huge on beat-em-ups but after River City Girls, this looks like a great tonal palette cleanser.
@GetShulked That's definitely a big help but it still doesn't scratch the surface of the workload required to get everything working properly for a new console, not to mention introducing one new universal animation will require 800 individual animations to be created. @Aeleron0X has provided a post that'll give a brief overview from the standpoint of a dev regarding the workload here: https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/186632316431/what-do-you-think-about-the-pokemon-sword-and/amp?__twitter_impression=true
@Kmno I wasn't saying it is a hard truth Pokemon games need to come in pairs, rather that's just an expectation from a large portion of the community. It is about as much an "essential" aspect of the series as keeping every single Pokemon in every single game. In fact (and unfortunately), I'd argue releasing multiple games at a time is even more important for Nintendo than keeping all the Pokemon, because technicalities about how many characters you keep in the game go over the heads of the casual audience. Pokemon is an empire at this point. It isn't run by Game Freak. It's run by investors. If you honestly think GF can just pce out with no issue, I think you are underestimating how much power the shareholders pulling the strings have.
@Xelha Why is there no excuse? It seems there are a lot of people under the assumption the "Catch Em All" catchphrase was the very soul of the series and not simply a catchphrase (enough people that Nintendo even saw it fit to drop it for a few years). You are also insinuating that the "best they can be" means "devoid of roster gaps", and that is nothing more than conjecture. What's your point of reference for this?
Thank you for implying I said SNS was pushing the console to its limits. How generous of you. Has Pokemon ever had a reputation for being a console benchmark? I don't think so. SNS undoubtedly isn't pushing the Switch to its limits. However, there's a big difference between creating something that can bring a console to its knees (and trust me when I say this isn't very difficult to do) and animating dozens of animation cycles for several hundred characters. I could boot up After Effects right now, throw a few dozen particle generators into a 4k project, and crash my PC in a couple of seconds. No matter how I went about it, I would not be able to draw a two second animation cycle for even just a dozen stickmen within 10 minutes because while the level of complexity is miniscule relative to particle generators and shading and fancy doodads, the workload is still necessarily tedious. You can throw as much money at the problem as you want. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is one of the best looking games of recent times and was developed on an indie budget by an indie team. Hours are hours.
Also, I know I wasn't the person you were responding to, but if you honestly think that the removal of characters stagnates competitive scenes, I have to only assume you don't play competitive games. Roster size and competitive health are completely unrelated ideas across every competitive scene I've encountered. I don't know who put that idea in your head but you should seriously think it through a little more.
@Xelha Nothing, really. Simultaneously, Pokemon is in a unique position where you have a franchise that needs to release two variations of a game every couple of years, each subsequent release needs new characters while retaining all the old ones, the graphical fidelity needs to constantly increase to match with new hardware meaning reworking animations for the hundreds of playable characters from the ground up, and more gameplay options need to be added to compensate for the core gameplay loop revolving around clicking through menus.
At some point something has to give. How large does the character count need to reach before Nintendo are allowed to say "damn, do we really have to rework 1,600 characters and add a few extras this next game haha"?
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Re: Stunning Platformer GRIS Surpasses One Million Copies Sold
Personally found this to be one of the worst games of its ilk when you take presentation out of the equation, and a lot of these games have great presentation. Vapid and clunky gameplay elements when they are used, overtly sluggish pacing when they aren't. Bit on the nose metaphorically. Doesn't seem to work as a walking sim and doesn't seem to work as a conventional game.
That all being said, I'm all for artistic indie titles getting recognition; this news will only encourage more independent developers to get cracking and feel confident they can succeed in the industry.
Re: Flipnote Studio Isn't Coming To Nintendo Switch, Because It Was All For April Fool's Day
@TheAwesomeBowser warms my sordid little myocardiums any time someone references flushed away in the current year
Re: Mini Review: Stela - A Pretty Platform-Puzzler That Badly Wants To Be Inside
Limbo and Inside weren't exactly the greatest of puzzlers going purely by the puzzle content so it's a shame this seems to be more of the same. Certainly looks pretty.
Re: Full EVO 2020 Line-Up Revealed, Smash Bros. Ultimate Will Represent Nintendo
@Luigivaldo an ultimate edition would save me a fortune, my wallet weeps every time I have to fish out money for all the DLC when buying new setups for locals!
@Zacattack99 Melee and Ultimate are about as similar as Street Fighter is to Guilty Gear. It's half the reason Melee and Smash 4 were able to share an EVO stage at all. No other franchise has had that luxury in recent history. Even though the jump from Street Fighter 4 to Street Fighter 5 completely polarised the fanbase, it still wasn't enough of a jump to give the Street Fighter community two spots at EVO. Melee and Ultimate have hardly any player crossover, quite small wider community crossover, and are only united sentimentally through Nintendo and logistically through shared tournaments, with both titles having their own independent circuits.
Not really sure what development cycles and fine tuning have to do with Snivy's points. A game can be an enticing and unique competitive experience and be rough around the edges at the same time lol.
@Snivy102 While I just spent a para sending fire at Zac, none of your points make Ultimate out to be a worse game. You just note differences. A lot of people (see: a LOT of people) love Ultimate's pace and neutral. Even with L cancelling, a lot of Melee aerials are still unsafe on shield. While the buffer system indeed has its downsides for certain aspects of play, it also allows Ultimate to have some very unique and creative combo routes not seen in other Brawl-based titles. Wavedashing absolutely increases movement options, but that doesn't necessarily mean it makes the game better, otherwise we wouldn't see companies like ArcSys move towards a slower, more footsies-based style of play in Granblue Vs and Guilty Gear Strive than what they've done in the past with mainline GG and BB titles or the recent DBFZ.
Re: Full EVO 2020 Line-Up Revealed, Smash Bros. Ultimate Will Represent Nintendo
melee scene is doing fine, felt like there was a larger antagonistic reaction from the greater FGC and ultimate community than there was backlash from the melee scene when they were dropped. not sure why people are bringing melee into this.
surprised at mk getting dropped, though i can't say i'm at all disappointed. very excited to see granblue and mvc2 on the big stage. also wouldn't mind if namco announced something huge like t7 season 4, t8, or t7 on switch.
Re: Crikey! Ty The Tasmanian Tiger Arrives On The Nintendo Switch Next Month
What a throwback (pun not intended), spent many afternoons playing Bush Rescue as a kid! Cool to see the franchise getting another go.
Re: The Poor Old Nintendo 3DS Has Sold Just 620,000 Units In The Past Nine Months
A better title imo would be "the 3ds has somehow managed to sell over half a million units in 9 months almost a decade into its life span with no sales push on behalf of nintendo and hardly any new games thrown onto the system when are people gonna stop buying it a wii u hasn't been sold in two years now"
Re: Nintendo To Be Awarded Over $450,000 In Court Win Against Unofficial Mario Kart Service
A shame. I remember being flabbergasted watching just under a dozen karts being driven by people in various Nintendo franchise costumes rocketing past me and a friend the first time I visited Osaka a couple of years ago. Not sure if this is the same group or not but it was one of the most humorous things I'd ever seen. Gotta protect your IPs I guess.
Re: Reminder: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's 5th DLC Fighter, Byleth, Arrives Today
@Xansies Chrom and Roy aren't straight rushdown characters though. They are still steeply within the spacing swordie archetype, they just have better rushdown than Marth or Lucina. They still get messed up up close by traditional rushdowners like Fox, Mario, Pichu, etc, because they just don't have the frames to compete. The range at which they control space is still significantly larger than that of most non-swordies thanks to their disjointed hitboxes.
Robin is a zoner and ledge trapper. Byleth is a swordie who has maybe two useful ledge trapping tools (forward smash and back air), and what else? Byleth doesn't use her specials to compensate for her generic tools but Robin absolutely has to. Robin can't juggle like any of the FE characters due to relatively small hitboxes and slow aerial drift but the sheer size of Byleth's up air and up tilt almost make up for her movement speed entirely. Due to how slow and unnecessary her specials barring up special are, I'd argue she's more like a slightly faster Ike than Robin, if anything. Idk your barometer for weird, but weird to me is characters like Olimar, Bayonetta, or Peach/Daisy.
Speaking of, Peach/Daisy and Samus/Dark Samus,
Peach is the only Mario character who plays like she does, so a reskin feels less egregious. I'd prefer Daisy was a skin in the same way Olimar/Alf are, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Metroid only has two unique representatives, and the franchise on the whole doesn't have many familiar faces just by proxy of the games being quite the isolated experience. I similarly would prefer if Dark Samus were just a skin and not an actual character slot but that feels like nice fan service for a series that couldn't really be padded up with characters without it. FE already has too many Marth-based sword characters. It didn't need Chrom. it didn't need Lucina given the existence of Roy. Quite different circumstantially, I'd argue.
EDIT: Didn't realise you'd replied to another commenter, comparing her to Ganon is absolutely more fitting than Robin, though I realise you were keeping your comparisons to FE, as I've done in my response here.
Re: Reminder: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's 5th DLC Fighter, Byleth, Arrives Today
Feel like half the problem with this is just the fact Nintendo have had so many FE character iterations in the past and had to add everyone into Ultimate. If Ultimate's FE representation at launch was just Ike, Marth, Robin and Corrin, there'd probably be less uproar. Half the reason Mario and Pokemon haven't been problematic roster size wise is all their movesets are quite different to each other.
Meanwhile FE has Chrom, Roy and Lucina who all rip off the Marth formula, and every single FE character bar Robin plays the same style of keep-out, just at varying paces. For as flashy as Byleth looks, it's a near identical base game strategy to prior FE characters. You can't play Bowser, Peach, Luigi, or Bowser Jr. in the same way at all. Same goes for PT, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, etc.
Less a Byleth problem, more a legacy issue.
Re: Rivals Of Aether - Definitive Edition Arrives On Switch This Summer
@dew12333 There are like less than a dozen fully developed platform fighters total right now. Compare that with the hundreds of traditional fighters, shooters, RPGs, etc. You can be original without inventing a new genre. Compare whats on offer here to whats on offer in Icons: Combat Arena or Brawlout and this game feels pretty dang original if you ask me.
Re: Rivals Of Aether - Definitive Edition Arrives On Switch This Summer
Finally. Superb game. Tightest balanced platform fighter on the market. Really hoping the incessant Smash comparisons work in the game's favour sales-wise because it's so much more than that.
Re: SNK Reveals Second Season Of DLC Fighters For The Samurai Shodown Reboot
@somebread For what its worth, one of those rocking choices seems to be wearing even less clothing than Iroha is
Re: Alienware Reveals Switch-Like Device Capable Of Playing PC Games
Ah yes, the whole "Nintendo big success so third party is rip off" spiel. After some time, surely we have to be fine with similar devices joining the market? The PS4 ripped off the Xbox One. Or was it the other way round? Or did they both rip off each other's previous generation? Both are home consoles with similar looking controllers. The sky is falling.
In other news, this looks cool. It's clearly going to have a very small niche. I'm sure those users will love it. Hopefully Tekken gets a switch port so I don't have to worry about casting my wallet into oblivion.
Re: Splatoon 2 Version 5.1.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
the dev support for this game has been wild
Re: Switch Named Most Fragile Product Of The Year By French Consumer's Association
@XenoEmblem You know, using personal anecdote as an excuse to call an entire group of people "pathetic" is a little bit silly. It just so happens every Fire Emblem and Xenoblade fan I've ever been in contact with is adverse to using hygiene products. I've only met two in the wild, but that's a large enough sample size!
People really be out here creating an account just to call people who are upset their expensive peripheral is suffering from a very specific issue that's got widespread internet coverage "pathetic". Oh, what, your AC doesn't work? Stop whinging about it and use it properly maybe, you absolute stoner. My AC keeps my house cool all through the summer months, as do the ACs of everyone I know! It's a very specific issue among a select brand of ACs that is well documented, to the point its even won awards for its fragility? Must have been your fanboyism.
Re: Switch Named Most Fragile Product Of The Year By French Consumer's Association
How do these "the joycons are fine it's a you problem" conspiracies make a lick of sense? Do other console scenes have this problem? Hoards of PS4 players with qualms about controllers not functioning properly constantly and consistently? Or do other scenes have very fubctional, working peripherals that seemingly never warrant any mass discussion? I haven't seen a single article on pro controllers. Do all the same people who you presume ditch their joycons into the sun every time they lose a round of Garou play with the calmness of a Nepalese monk as soon as the larger controller sinks into their grip? Every time I see someone accuse this inordinately large customer base experiencing this one specific and well documented problem that no other triple A console manufacturer is having anything close to comparable issues of being to blame, my grasp on reality weakens and I fear I'm one pseudo-broken joycon away from passing on into a parallel universe.
Re: Panty Party On Switch Gets Online Multiplayer Support Next Spring
@Samwise7 you must be new to the switch eshop huh
Re: Panty Party On Switch Gets Online Multiplayer Support Next Spring
@mrmememan they wouldn't have to do a whole lot for this to be the case lmao
Re: Review: The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition - Still A Fine First-Person Puzzler Five Years On
One of the greatest puzzlers ever made as far as I'm concerned. Played it at least once every year since it came out. Find new things to love about it every time. Absolutely going to triple dip with this one.
Very interesting to note that a lot of the concepts in this game and names referenced in the dialogue are eerily similar to those of Soma, to the point that I consider Soma a spiritual prequel to this game. Would highly recommend anyone interested in either game try playing them back to back, Soma first. Likely pure coincidence but the levels of overlap are uncanny.
Re: Review: Shovel Knight Showdown - A Smash Bros. Challenger That's Perfect For Switch Parties
The fact it's a freebie if you own the collection means I have zero gripes with this lacking single player content. This company is too damn good.
Re: Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] Wins The Award For Stupidest Game Title Ever
@SBandy King of Fighters XIII? I'd argue titles like the recent BlazBlue games also look phenomenal. It's worth considering UNIST was developed by a tiny dev team for a very small niche of players, and its reputation as a brilliantly balanced and intricate game has caused its reputation to exceed it's visual fidelity. All this considered, I think it's a fantastic looking game UI aside.
Anime fighters also necessarily have less frames between keyfranes on many attacks than fighters with less of a mobility meta, to the point that even 2.5D titles built on 3D rendering systems like DBFZ or GGXRD intentionally limit frames on many attacks for the sake of reliable visibility during the heat of battle. They compromise that ridiculously smooth aesthetic found on Street Fighter and King of Fighters titles in order to make for a cleaner gameplay experience.
Re: PlayStation Is Taking Part In A Japanese Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament
Theorising about the extended Smash universe is old hat now. The future is theorising about which game devs would win in an alternate Smash reality. I'm putting money down on Kojima and the glorious degenerates behind Melty Blood.
Nintendo should really be included as a synonym for "fun" in standard thesauruses at this point.
Re: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Version 6.1.0 Is Coming "In The Next Few Days"
Hoping Japanese Twitter continues railing against the machine long enough that Captain Falcon gets his turn around speed and rock crocking sorted within the next few patches!
Re: Chinese Video Game Giant Tencent Wants To "Create Console Games With Nintendo Characters"
Alternate title:
Chinese Video Game Giant Tencent Wants To "Make Lots of Money"
Re: Poll: Come On, Tell Us If You've Been Playing As Terry Bogard In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Probably my favourite of the DLC characters so far. There's a bit of jank regarding direction when recovering and some of his weaknesses are glaring but he's got a killer keep-out and punish game. Bamco and Nintendo have done a wonderful job incorporating his iconic moves into what feels like a very tightly balanced kit that slots into the roster wonderfully. The plethora of music added and the inclusion of a very fun and unique stage is more than welcome too!
Re: Ninja Thinks Pro Players And Streamers Who Cheat Should Be Treated Differently
@Dragonstar Musicians should get a real job. They spend all their time getting good with their keyboard so they can entertain people. Music is just a hobby. There's no reason it should be paid work. Anyone can play the piano. Anyone can have a goofy stage presence. Piano recital competitions are pointless. Musicians are cancelled. Etc.
I've never met someone who's fun at parties who says stuff like "video gaming can't be a career, it's just lazy and boring" and while that's certainly anecdotal, your attitude towards this topic seems rather telling. Obviously, every single person who's ever donated money to a streamer is just a huge idiot or a young child and there's no nuance or further reasoning as to why someone might want to send money to an individual who they find entertaining, educational, talented in a certain field, etc. I deeply regret any time I spent money on something for no reason other than I found it enjoyable. I've posted my Switch to Craigslist. Food and water are the only things worth spending money on now.
Re: The Overwatch 2 Leak Was Extremely Demoralising For The Development Team
@sanderev Can you please watch the "apology" again and come back and tell me when the dude said anything of consequence? The apology was so vapid and watered down that it ceased becoming an apology a third in and became instead a segue into advertising their new games. NO mention of specifics. Just vague corporate terms and diversity this (50+ countries here at blizzcon woweee!!!!), unison that (lets make something AWESOME gamers, throw your money at us!). If Blizzard were to make a sincere apology, they would have to lose something in the process; they are simply too far into the mud not to get some investor friction if they made a genuine effort to rectify the situation for the actual players. Instead, they made a non-apology that will lose them ZERO investors and segued it into a massive one-two "please forget about the China thing with these two games you keep asking for" punch that solidified the company has no desire to prioritise players and principles over investment.
Re: Review: Skullgirls 2nd Encore - A Western 2D Fighter That Might Surprise You
Weird review. Games got a plethora of single player modes in an era largely lacking in this area (Tekken 7, BBCTB, SoulCalibur, SFV, etc), one of the best fighting game tutorials available, one of the best training modes of any fighter with a plethora of options and data, and one of the most varied rosters in the genre. Why is it then an issue this doesn't have more characters? There's more character variety here than on DBFZ. As much as I love Ultimate, it's character "population" also consists of half a dozen variations of Marth (and the general "swordie" trope that's existed since Melee), three Links, at least a dozen generic reflect/counter specials, several dozen three hit neutral pokes, a plethora of generic kick neutral airs, and so on. It's certainly more varied than SG or DBFZ but I see no reason for you bringing it up in this review. I really wish the equivocation of size and quality would die out pretty soon because it really deters new players from picking up fighters like this.
Re: Here's Your First Look At Rivals Of Aether Running On Switch
@Ludovsky if the gameplay implications of the character designs even remotely interest you, I implore you to give Rivals a try! The roster variety is insane when you consider how few characters have any move overlap (Ultimate has move overlap with: swordie aerials, shoryuken up specials, 3-hit jab combos, tilts all largely being subtle variations of the same handful of ideas, down special counters, etc), with some straight-up bending common notions of platform fighter mechanics (Wrastor, for example, can only perform a smash attack while airborne, Orcane can create teleport locations to allow for impossible recoveries, etc).
I feel the characters have a stronger sense of identity than large swabs of the Smash roster, and I can't really think of a single Rivals character who plays remotely similarly to any given Smash character, barring surface level visual design similarities (Fox/Zetterburn, Wrastor/Falco, etc). None of this is to say Ultimate is lacking, rather just some reasoning as to why I feel more people should really give Rivals a go! Kinda feels complimentary to Smash in the same way an ArcSys title like Guilty Gear feels to Street Fighter.
Re: Here's Your First Look At Rivals Of Aether Running On Switch
@EarthboundBenjy It definitely doesn't pack as much punch aesthetically but it is considerably more acutely designed with competitive play in mind than any Smash title barring Project M. It might be the least party-friendly platform fighter out right now. Every character in the game frequently shows up at the highest tournament level due to insanely tight balancing. Of all the non-Smash platform fighters out there, this one's got the most replay value for people looking to REALLY get good at a platform fighter.
And, well, the combos are so long and intricate that the relative lack of visual and auditory overload is largely compensated for when you manage to carry your opponent from one side of the stage to the other and back before launching them into the fiery depths below without them touching the ground once. Would definitely recommend watching a RoA tournament set if you want to see how crazy this game gets!
(Slap City does slap tho, also eagerly awaiting a port of that one!)
Re: Tekken Producer Has Had Enough With Your Smash Bros. Cameo Requests, So Stop Asking
Bahahahaha, hell yes Harada. It's a shame half the commenters here don't know much about Harada or the reps in the fighting game community in general; all of them are deeply ingrained in fan affairs and have all thusly developed very sarcastic personalities. Harada even competes in Tekken tournaments. Even when delivering a point, there's always a bit of banter.
Re: Overwatch Begins Life On The Switch With Its Annual Halloween Event
@Moistnado I appreciate you assuming a black-or-white fallacy into the conversation. u sure got me
I hope I'm not unfairly overestimating your knowledge on the matter but I figured someone commenting on an Overwatch article on a gaming website would know that shooters other than arena shooters from the 90s and early 2000s do exist. I've noticed you've given Metroid Prime some love. Are the Metroid Prime games just single player Quake Arena, or is there potentially more to it than aim-at-the-bad-guy-in-a-small-room-and-click? If not, well, isn't that something. If it is all the same then you win.
Re: Random: Lady Gaga Asks "What's Fortnight", Internet Reacts Exactly As You'd Expect
i thought it was bad enough this ended up on NL but then you had the audacity to feature hbox's response but not m2k's.
god help us.
Re: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Will Headline EVO Japan 2020
@Minfinity I think Splatoon and ARMS would have had a better chance with better matchmaking and a Nintendo Online service model that includes basic things like easy party creation, voice chat, messaging, more fleshed out ELO, etc. A good deal of competitive Smash players won't even play For Glory, rather opting to use Discord to find players to create lobbies with. I imagine EVO's Smash presence would be even stronger if the online functionality of Switch titles for competitive play was anything close to competent.
And yea, ARMS would rule in tournament. I think some of it's depth shortcomings might be a shot in the foot but we already saw the hype potential with Mr Yabuki going ham during the launch invitational in 2017. I'd love to see solid FGC players throw together a legitimate tournament for it, even if it were just once.
Re: Overwatch Begins Life On The Switch With Its Annual Halloween Event
@Moistnado I didn't state I enjoyed it? If your conception of a game similar to Quake Arena is a brief and incomplete description of it's genre, I'll be damned; Mario Kart and Gran Turismo are the same game.
Re: Overwatch Begins Life On The Switch With Its Annual Halloween Event
@DaCh33f OW is a tough sell given the state of Paladins right now for sure
Re: Overwatch Begins Life On The Switch With Its Annual Halloween Event
@Moistnado In what world is Overwatch anything like Quake Arena outside the fact it's a multiplayer FPS? The core competitive Arena experience is 1v1s with weapon pick-ups. The core competitive OW experience is objective based 6v6s with characters who have character-specific weapons and abilities.
You couldn't have picked less of a similar example if you tried.
Re: Sega Rolls Out A Demo For Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD On The Japanese eShop
ive never been so excited at the prospect of throwing my console across the room
Re: Random: Turns Out The Switch Really Can Be Played "Anytime, Anywhere, With Anyone"
@Heavyarms55 Been in similar situations, having a Mario Kart tournament with a few mates in a long bus drive after a night in the city. A few guys at work own Switches and some Friday afternoons we scrap around in Smash or Mario Kart. The Switch is the great uniter. I reckon the world would be a better place if every political conflict legally required opposing sides to duke it out in Mario Kart for a few hours before anything happens.
Re: Feature: Best Nintendo Switch Games Of 2018
gris makes the top 20 as a worse version of every other notable title of its ilk, and gorogoa, one of the best visual puzzlers yet made, doesn't even make the list
a bit sad to see. replayed gris twice over after finishing it the first time to make sure i'd seen all there was to see and it was incredibly tedious. i've replayed gorogoa around six or seven times now and it is just as enrapturing as it was the first time i booted it up.
Re: Video: Streamer Plays Untitled Goose Game Using A Fully Functional Goose Suit
This game is dangerous.
Re: Feature: Best Nintendo Switch Games Of 2017
@Kalmaro Yea, Pokken is fantastic, and a great foundation for a new, more fleshed out release. Alarming levels of depth.
Re: Overwatch Director Would Pick Tracer To Represent The Series In Smash Bros. Ultimate
@Toy_Link I don't think people have any problem with anime sword characters. People have a problem with characters who share 80% of their moveset identity with Marth. Marth, Lucina, Roy, Chrom, Robin, and Hero all share very similar aerial and tilt normals, so even with what quirks they do have individually, there's not much distinguishing their neutral interactions.
Meanwhile over in Mario land, the only characters with comparable play styles are the Peach/Daisy echos. Luigi somehow has less in common with Mario than Robin does Lucina. I reckon Genji's OW moveset would be conducive to a really cool and unique swordie playstyle in Smash!
As for my choice of OW rep in Smash, I think Zenyatta could make for a very interesting set-up based character. The idea of a second hammer heavy in Ultimate is also very appealing so Reinhardt is high up on the wish list!
Re: Hardware Review: Big Hands, Meet The Hori Split Pad Pro for Switch
Hmm, I was really opposed to this at first reading it has no gyro but I'm starting to come around with some thought. I personally only use gyro when my Switch is docked, and when it is undocked, I'm usually travelling which means sitting on trains, on planes, in cars, etc. Places where gyro becomes a bit difficult to utilise. Thus, I often find myself playing games that don't require gyro while out and about (ARPGs, platformers, fighters, etc). The JoyCon ergonomics are a little too uncomfortable for me for extended periods of time so this could be a nice workaround.
Re: Review: Fight'N Rage - Who Said The Side-Scrolling Brawler Is Dead?
@sword_9mm Not to dogpile but the Wii's motion controls, while burdened with a lot of gimmick utilisation, were actually brilliant for carrying out accurate aiming. I remember jokingly picking up a Call of Duty title on the Wii and coming to find I was considerably better at the game on the Wii than on other consoles. Basically stopped playing console shooters that weren't on Nintendo systems after learning this. Gyro on the Switch isn't quite as precise as what the Wii was running but it's close enough that I'm comfortable using it for shooters.
Re: Review: Fight'N Rage - Who Said The Side-Scrolling Brawler Is Dead?
Solid review, wouldn't have believed this was a one-man project. Never been huge on beat-em-ups but after River City Girls, this looks like a great tonal palette cleanser.
Re: Junichi Masuda Says Cut Pokémon Will "Definitely" Return In Future Games
@GetShulked That's definitely a big help but it still doesn't scratch the surface of the workload required to get everything working properly for a new console, not to mention introducing one new universal animation will require 800 individual animations to be created. @Aeleron0X has provided a post that'll give a brief overview from the standpoint of a dev regarding the workload here:
https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/186632316431/what-do-you-think-about-the-pokemon-sword-and/amp?__twitter_impression=true
@Kmno I wasn't saying it is a hard truth Pokemon games need to come in pairs, rather that's just an expectation from a large portion of the community. It is about as much an "essential" aspect of the series as keeping every single Pokemon in every single game. In fact (and unfortunately), I'd argue releasing multiple games at a time is even more important for Nintendo than keeping all the Pokemon, because technicalities about how many characters you keep in the game go over the heads of the casual audience. Pokemon is an empire at this point. It isn't run by Game Freak. It's run by investors. If you honestly think GF can just pce out with no issue, I think you are underestimating how much power the shareholders pulling the strings have.
Re: Junichi Masuda Says Cut Pokémon Will "Definitely" Return In Future Games
@Xelha Why is there no excuse? It seems there are a lot of people under the assumption the "Catch Em All" catchphrase was the very soul of the series and not simply a catchphrase (enough people that Nintendo even saw it fit to drop it for a few years). You are also insinuating that the "best they can be" means "devoid of roster gaps", and that is nothing more than conjecture. What's your point of reference for this?
Thank you for implying I said SNS was pushing the console to its limits. How generous of you. Has Pokemon ever had a reputation for being a console benchmark? I don't think so. SNS undoubtedly isn't pushing the Switch to its limits. However, there's a big difference between creating something that can bring a console to its knees (and trust me when I say this isn't very difficult to do) and animating dozens of animation cycles for several hundred characters. I could boot up After Effects right now, throw a few dozen particle generators into a 4k project, and crash my PC in a couple of seconds. No matter how I went about it, I would not be able to draw a two second animation cycle for even just a dozen stickmen within 10 minutes because while the level of complexity is miniscule relative to particle generators and shading and fancy doodads, the workload is still necessarily tedious. You can throw as much money at the problem as you want. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is one of the best looking games of recent times and was developed on an indie budget by an indie team. Hours are hours.
Also, I know I wasn't the person you were responding to, but if you honestly think that the removal of characters stagnates competitive scenes, I have to only assume you don't play competitive games. Roster size and competitive health are completely unrelated ideas across every competitive scene I've encountered. I don't know who put that idea in your head but you should seriously think it through a little more.
Re: Junichi Masuda Says Cut Pokémon Will "Definitely" Return In Future Games
@Xelha Nothing, really. Simultaneously, Pokemon is in a unique position where you have a franchise that needs to release two variations of a game every couple of years, each subsequent release needs new characters while retaining all the old ones, the graphical fidelity needs to constantly increase to match with new hardware meaning reworking animations for the hundreds of playable characters from the ground up, and more gameplay options need to be added to compensate for the core gameplay loop revolving around clicking through menus.
At some point something has to give. How large does the character count need to reach before Nintendo are allowed to say "damn, do we really have to rework 1,600 characters and add a few extras this next game haha"?