fchinaski

@kamifox1 No, no, no. Sorry, but even tough I live in Europe I'm from Brazil, and I can say for a fact that the majority of people resort to piracy because they can't afford to buy the games, or because they are so expensive that you can't just buy and resell easily if you don't like them, not because they want to play a handuful of games that were not released/distributed in their territories.

@andreoni79 "even niche ones like Project X Zone and JRPGs like Etrian Odyssey IV and Braverly Default"

I said that Project X Zone was niche, and that EOIV and BD were JRPGs. And SMTIV will come to Europe eventually. If you care so much for the collector's edition, you can buy it anyway afterwards, since the collectibles have nothing to do with the game per se (hence, collectibles). I understand the frustration, but, as I said, I'm past it — too many good games coming on and too little time for me to care.

Frankly, when they announced that the 3DS would be region locked I was pretty annoyed and thought that it was ridiculous etc. Now, seeing that the majority of titles are eventually being released in Europe, even niche ones like Project X Zone and JRPGs like Etrian Odyssey IV and Braverly Default, I stopped caring. Of course, I still would love to see the Dragon Quest series back on PAL territories, but this is a localisation issue, and not a region-lock issue — and, with so many games that I certainly won't have the time to play anyway, even if some games never get to be released outside Japan, tough luck, but I'll live with it.

This looks surprisingly good — except for that horrid CG at the end. Will it be available only through the eShop or will there be a physical release?

The Mega Drive is basically the console that made me fall in love with videogames, so I'll probably back this one up.

@kidicaroots Yeah, this is basically what I've been saying

@Savino Nintendo is not necessarily being greedy. It's a different strategy, they don't want to go to the trouble of investing enough in Brazil and having to comply with our complex tax system and work regulations. It's easier to export from a short-term point of view, especially for a Japanese company. I just don't think it's wise in the long run.

@Nareva My pleasure

As a Brazilian living abroad, I can say that there's no single solution for piracy there, but one of the most effective measures would be to truly invest on Brazil as a booming market not only for consoles, but for electronics in general. Sadly, companies such as Sony and Nintendo still see Brazil as a second-rate market plagued by piracy issues, when Brazilians are more than eager to pay fair prices for original products.

Back in the 8/16-bit era, SEGA saw this opportunity and through a partnership with TecToy basically ruled the console market with the Master System and the Mega Drive. The NES never really entered the Brazilian market (except through clones, the best of them being the Phantom System — which was way cooler than the original NES — and VERY late with a licenced NES manufactured by Playtronic when the SNES was already in the market). The Super Nintendo had to be imported until 1993, when it was again licenced to Playtronic, but the Brazilian SNES was quickly smothered by the first Playstation.

Right now, the only company that's really taking the Brazilian market seriously is MS. They are manufacturing the X1 on Brazilian soil and will sell it at a competitive price. Sony wants to keep selling the PS3 there for some years, since they only managed to really enter the Brazilian market with it on the final years of it's cycle due to very stupid pricing and marketing, which they are repeating with the PS4.

Nintendo apparently doesn't really care, since Reggie stated that "Brazil's manufacturing industry lacks the technical capabilities to produce a Nintendo game system". Which is insulting to say the least, since Microsoft, Intel and even Apple manufacture their products there.

@WhiteTrashGuy I agree. Families aren't flocking towards the Wii U like they did with the Wii. Maybe, and just maybe, Nintendo missed the spot when they tried to make the Wii U a machine aimed to appeal to both casual gamers (families, mostly) and gamers that tend to prefer what MS and Sony have to offer. (I don't like this causal/hardcore division, but it exists to some extent). The latter will probably stick with Sony/MS, the former don't seem to understand what the Wii U is all about. Nintendo will fail in getting the Wii U across if they don't change their strategy asap — people need to know that the system can be as fun as the Wii and better in every way, or they won't jump in.

@unrandomsam Yeah, that's what bothers me the most. But I reckon that they will put the original PS1 version on iOS and Android, and not the 3DS remake.

Being a western Dragon Quest fan is becoming increasingly depressing.

@BlatantlyHeroic Competition is what drives inovation. Competition is healthy, you're mistaking it for fanboyism, which is childish. It's competition that makes companies think: "what can we do differently from the others?"

I understand preferring physical, as a collector I truly do. But when you refrain from buying a game you wanted just because it will be digital only, you indirectly hurt the prospects of future releases (digital or not) of the same games you love. In most cases, smaller companies opt for digital only on the West because the sales estimate wouldn't justify the costs for a physical release in all territories. In the end, as much as love to have a physical copy of my games, when a localization turns out to be digital only I'll buy it anyway just to support the effort of releasing a game that's really just for a small but dedicated niche, especially outside Japan.

So we will be also getting a physical release in Europe? I thought this would be digital only here like Code of Princess, but maybe I just got the busty heroines mixed up.

You gotta hand it to SEGA for never giving up on the blue blur though. Here's to hoping Lost Worlds will be great.

But I gotta say I kind of resent the fact that the 3DS somehow weak hardware will never allow for faithful ports of Wii U games. I reckon this will become more and more evident over the years, as the Wii U reaches its prime.

@FiveDigitLP I wasn't there, but I highly doubt any grandparent would be convinced to dish out an extra $170 because the other one is an "upgrade with more advanced hardware".

@Nintenjoe64 OMG, Swii. I can almost see the kids running around the stores screaming Swiiiii, Swiiiiii!

Yeah, because you should trust underpaid staff who probably hate their jobs anyway to make your choices. I know it's probably a fad, but there's a wonderful thing called internet these days. They say you can find information on it for free about basically everything. And, frankly, I saw a father on Fnac the other day who didn't know the difference between a PSP and a Vita. Ignorant consumers will always exist, as well as uninformed staff on retail shops. This alone will never determine whether a console is sucessful or not.

You know, I remember the joy of getting a video game from my parents as a kid. I didn't get that many, maybe three throughout my childhood/adolescence, but they where the most cherished things of my life at the time. The mere idea of these videos makes me think of that rich brat everyone gets to know at one point of their childhood. That spoiled little person that had it all and didn't value nothing he had, but simply took it all for granted. He was a pretty sad kid, actually.

I really REALLY wish Nintendo Life would stop giving this guy free publicity.

Right now I'm playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and it's downright irritating how the game manages to hold your hand ALL THE TIME in the most obnoxious ways and STILL get you stuck due to stupid design choices, such as the fixed camera and bad level design (objects that should stand out but don't because everything is brown or grey, for instance). It's really the worst of both worlds.

The Wii U is getting more and more interesting by the day. I'll be sure to get mine before the end of the year. And I'll make a point of buying every cross-platform indie game that interest me for it instead to support independent development for Nintendo.

Passionate, yes. Obviously they are putting their hearts on it. But "very well-made" is pushing it.

Gotta love that cover art.

It makes me incredibly sad to see that the West will probably miss out on ALL of the newer DQ titles launched for Wii/Wii U/3DS, since there's not even word of DQ X coming out of Japan. As a DQ collector, I find disheartening that, after the series made an unexpected comeback to Western shores from the seventh iteration onwards, including spin-offs and the wonderful DS remakes, it will most likely plunge into oblivion again for us and become once more a Japan-only franchise.

Too make things worse and decrease the chances of both DQM remakes for the 3DS coming to the West, it seems that the monsters from DQM: Joker 2 Professional, which was never released on the West, can be transferred to DQM:TW3D — so at the most we would received a chopped down version of the first remake. I'm sure that DQM2 will have some sort of connectivity with previous games of the series, so it's kind of safe to assume that Squeenix would not go to the trouble to translate and release such interconnected spin-offs on markets where they'll probably not sell much.

Frankly, I'm glad Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is coming only on 2014. My 3DS backlog is starting to get a little out of control.

@RantingThespian That seems to me a pretty sound advice. Maybe I'll go after this realMyst version for iOS systems you talk about. Thanks!

EDIT: Oh, just a correction: I've just found out that realMyst is iPad only — if you have a iPhone/iPod Touch (like me), you won't be able to play it. The original Myst and Riven are universal, though.

Never got into Myst or Riven, even though some people were pretty crazy about them back in the day. From what I read, I should avoid these ports like the plague, right? I guess that, bad ports aside, some games just don't age well.

Look, I'm not complaining or judging, I'm just saying that I think it doesn't look good so far and I agree with the other user who said that it looks unpolished. (And I know it's VERY EARLY to judge, as I said in the first post.) I saw the trailer and the use of 3D to make Link jump in your face just looked silly and lazy. I'm sorry, but it does. But anyway, it's just my opinion, and it can be different from yours — I sure as hell won't be judging anyone who thinks it's the most beautiful trailer they've ever seen. I also hope it turns out to be a great game. Oh, I'm 32 BTW.

@Fusion14 I see what you mean, I saw the trailer and it looks below par in comparison even to the other portable Zelda games. I know it's very early to judge, but still... I would rather see a portable Zelda in a true 3D environment.

At what time these updates become available? I live in Portugal and so far none of these games are in the 3DS eshop. :/

I love Sonic and all, but there are so many Sonic games featuring basically the same gameplay lately that I can't or don't really want to keep up. Too many good games that don't rely so heavily on the nostalgia factor to play instead.

YES!!!

Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D (it's long overdue!!) and Dragon Quest VII. Fantasy Life would be nice, also.

@rjejr Your kids have a Dreamcast? Wow, seriously good parenting going on here!

@Stuffgamer1 Well, we haven't miss any of the main entries since VII came out for the PS1 (even if it only came out on NA), including all the DS remakes. I think we'll see both DQX (at least for the Wii U) and DQVII in NA and Europe, but I have my doubts regarding the spin-offs (Rocket Slime 3 and DQM: TW3DS.)

DQ VII remake for Europe please. (I'm losing hope that DQM: Terry's Wonderland 3DS will ever be localized anyways.)

Also, the announcement of the Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover makes me hope that we'll see a localization of SMT IV, but these games take so long to localize that I don't guess we'll see an announcement anytime soon.

Michael Ancel, few months ago:

“What surprises me with Wii U is that we don’t have many technical problems. It’s really running very well, in fact. We’re not obliged to constantly optimize things. Even on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions [of Origins], we had some fill-rate issues and things like that. So it’s partly us – we improved the engine – but I think the console is quite powerful. Surprisingly powerful. And there’ a lot of memory. You can really have huge textures, and it’s crazy because sometimes the graphic artist – we built our textures in very high-dentition. They could be used in a movie. Then we compress them, but sometimes they forget to do the compression and it still works! [Laughs] So yeah, it’s quite powerful. It’s hard sometimes when you’re one of the first developers because it’s up to you to come up with solutions to certain problems. But the core elements of the console are surprisingly powerful.

"And because we’re developing for Wii U, we don’t have to worry about cross-platform optimization.

“We can push what the console can do; push it to its limits. And of course, we have a new lighting engine. In fact, the game engine for Origins was mostly just classic sprites in HD, but now we can light them and add shadows and all these things. So there is some technical innovation with the engine itself."

I gave up on Rabi Laby because the puzzles became ridiculously hard for me at some point. I don't remember it very well, but I got stuck in a stage where you had to pile up some hat looking creatures in an impossible way or something like that. The game was fun at the beggining, but soon it became just downright frustrating.

Now this is a pretty silly trailer with some real bad voice acting going on.

@Pikachupwnage We had to wait a little more than a year to have DQVI for the DS on Western shores, so I guess there's still hope for DQMTW3D.

@nindocrash DQ VII isn't related in any way to previous installments. Basically, you have two trilogies so far (DQ I, II & III and DQ IV, V & VI) and four basically stand-alone titles (DQ VII, VIII, IX and X).

Give me European dates for this one and for DQM: Terry's Wonderland 3D and I will glady become a 3DS owner. It's all I'm waiting for, really.

I'd rather not see this guy mentioned on Nintendo Life or other game-related sites again. This type of idiot revels in this kind of "publicity" and angry comments. If people just chose to ignore him, he wouldn't make tons of money with his "art".

@Advancedcaveman I think you're mixing two very different things here to try to make your point. The achievement/trophy system has got nothing to do with microtransactions or the Free to Play model. They are two very different "problems". And games have been addictive since they appeared as a medium, as those absurdly difficult games in the NES era that made you memorize insane patterns already were. I don't mean to be rude, as I kind of agree with some of the things you say, but they are just not related, at least not in the way you're saying.

Hum, no love for achievements/trophies here. Can't say I'm surprised.

I, personally, would never buy a game solely for the trophies (I'm a PS3 owner) or NOT buy a game because it hasn't got them, but I fairly enjoy them. Of course, they are not NEEDED, but they got me to play games such as Uncharted and God of War III more thoroughly then I would if they were not there. (Especially because playing games on Normal nowadays almost doesn't require skill most of the times, and certainly not in Uncharted's case.)

On the other hand, I'm clocking almost 80 hours on Dragon Quest VI DS trying to do everything and the game doesn't reward you AT ALL (not even for completing the Bestiary, which is quite a feat), so I don't think Nintendo games really NEED them, they are usually good enough to make you want to complete them anyway.

But, having said all that, yes, I would like to see a similar trophy system on the Wii U, I think Nintendo would be able to offer some very creative "trophies". But that's just my opinion.

Isn't this similiar to that Namco X Capcom game for PlayStation 2? Which was a pretty bad game, BTW.

Release this and DQM: Terry's Wonderland 3D in Europe and I'll buy a 3DS. It's simple as that.

I'll wait until 2013 anyway. None of the launch titles seem exciting enough for me to invest on a Wii U this year.