Good stuff. I'd like to see a Zoom option for the TV mode that mirrors handheld mode. Playing it on TV is hard for me because the units/tiles are too small.
I have nothing but praise for this game. I've listed out the kinks I experienced in another article, but I'll give my biggest issue with the game. Skip animation.
In Advance Wars, you could speed up and slow down the battle cutscenes at will just by holding and releasing B. You could watch the whole sequence in about 2 seconds or less, and still enjoy the satisfaction of sinking that darn Cruiser. If you wanted to outright skip the scenes, well, they had an option in the menu to leave it out entirely.
.) In Wargroove, you also have the option to remove cutscenes, however, there is no speed up. Only a skip that takes 3 seconds. I'm the type of guy that WANTS to see the animations, but those take about 12 seconds or so. The Skip animation feature is pretty useless because all you see is your Swordsmen come up, charge and yell "AAAYYYYEEEE" and right before they swing a satisfying crunch, the cutscene is skipped. So you end up pretty much watching 3 seconds of NOTHING. Please add a feature to speed up the cutscenes, or just have an option to skip IMMEDIATELY.
@Samwise7
I've played Advance Wars extensively, as you can tell by my avatar, but I'd put Wargroove's polish at just a hair below AW.
I feel the gameplay is superior; positioning and money management is FAR better than AW. In AW, most maps boil down to: rush an Infantry to the centermost Factory, defend it, and slowly pump out more units than your opponent. In Wargroove, the capture mechanics are different, and you can't place a tanky unit on top of a Barracks. Also the maps are more balanced as there's no 'Central Factory' to rush to. The capturing mechanic is also made so that change of possession happens more often in contested areas.
.) - Advance Wars is superior in the little things, however, and all these little things add up in a time consuming genre like this. As another user pointed out, the cursor is weaker. It can stray on you if you hold the DPad during any menu/animation. It is also completely silent.
.) - The 'speed up' process is also clunky. In AW, the Fast forward feature is mapped to a different button press than 'Tile Info'. Not the case in WG. They're both mapped to 'B' despite the Switch having MORE much buttons than the GBA and DS. So after my turn ends and the opponent's turn starts, I find myself reading a information on a random tile near the center of the map.
.) - The 'Skip animation' is useless too. AW nailed this feature. In the earlier entries, you could skip the entire animation. Days of Ruin had the best, you can fast forward and slow down the entire scene at will AND still see the satisfaction blowing up the enemy. WG's is clunky. You can Fast forward the movement phase, but once a battle animation starts, it takes at least 3 seconds to skip it. In other words most of the time you'll just watch the slow animation of a group of Swordsmen appearing, yelling 'AAAYYYEEEEE' and then finally rushing the enemy, and right before they deliver the hit the scene FINALLY skips. So you watch all of nothing, and miss all the important info like how much damage you actually did. Also the transition from animation back to Movement phase is quick if you're still holding the fast forward button, so sometimes it's hard to see how much damage I did before the next animation scene starts. know I can just turn the animations off, but again it's nice to see the SATISFACTION of your unit pummeling the other. It's just too damned slow.
.) -The camera 'Pan' feature straight up sucks. If you're playing on a large map, and you want to quickly move your cursor to the other side, too bad, you have to hold DPad until you get there. You can pan the camera, but your cursor stays put on the same tile you left it. If you hit DPad the camera snaps back across the map. In AW, you can hold B to pan, and once you release, your cursor actually followed the camera.
.) -It's VERY easy to outright end your turn if you aren't paying attention. In AW, you press Menu button, End Turn, and move the cursor to Yes to confirm. It's a very quick process yet concise and prompt. In WG, the Menu buttom is ALSO mapped to tile selection, so if you simply click an empty tile, it brings up the menu, and the default cursor location is 'End Turn.' Pressing A again WILL end it. No prompt, no confirmation. In other words, merely pressing A twice with a cursor that isn't precise to begin with (and doesn't have audio) on the movement phase can screw up the entire game. I've done it a few times already when I've had units who haven't acted yet.
Overall WG is a GREAT game! I'm loving it but the minor stuff is adding up. It really is a good mix of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. Chucklefish does a SPLENDID job on the lore of the world, characters and EVEN the units themselves. If they can patch these minor things, then I can confidently put this game up there with AW.
So the only 'New' SMB one I played was NSMB2, and I gotta say it was dissatisfying (I grew up playing every single one of the 2D classics). It was too easy, too many coins, and the soundtrack hurt my ears.
, I've read that NSMB2 is the worst in the 'New' series. Is Deluxe clearly better? Can anyone vouch? I'm on the fence on this game. I'm willing to put up with the soundtrack if the gameplay is interesting.
I've never played a Star Fox game since the SNES, and I never beat it.
I would love to have StarFox Zero on Switch. I understand that it was one of the FEW games that actually required the gamepad, so it wouldn't be just your normal port. The DEVs would actually have to put some work to get its gameplay running on a single screen lol.
I played this ALOT when it was on PS3, so I can attest to a few things mentioned in the article.
Scouts are not overpowered until about mid/late-game. Your scout will get smoked if you try to rush without proper setup early on. Late game, yes, a single scout can capture an entire base without much effort. I also wouldn't call Shocktroopers broken, they are great early and become mediocre late.
The other classes are mostly balanced, but you'll soon find Lancers get outclassed at the one thing they do.
If you've played VC4, yeah, there will be some moments you wished you had a Grenadier or Support Orders from, well, spoilers. But overall the gameplay is the same.
Right? All because Intelligent Systems can't figure out how to incorporate Waifus into a game that revolves around tanks lol. Advance Wars > Fire Emblem!
I got hooked on this website because of the gorgeously written reviews here many years ago. The most recent reviews now are lacking compared to older reviews; not to say they are bad, it's just that they aren't what they used to be.
Seriously, I can go back and read reviews of Wii games and Virtual Consoles and have an absolutely certain idea of how the game plays, now these days the reviews are more or less recaps of the videos that developers themselves release.
I've also noticed that news comes in more quickly, accurate or not. This site used to be on the slow end of the Twitter reactions, but whenever an article DID release it was accurate and informative as heck.
I'd like to see less of the 'Random' and 'Rumour' articles and just stick with SOLID, here-are-the-facts articles that made this site my #1 gaming news source.
And yes, as others have said, there are Clickbait articles, and that goes hand in hand with my point above. Everytime I fall for that trap i lose trust in this website's integrity. Please, just keep a high standard and your readers will also.
Hopefully this is constructive criticism as a long time reader of Nintendolife.
What got me hooked on this website was the flawless transitional writing from the reviews. They would start off talking about the history of the game and end with the technicalities without missing a beat and explaining each new addition or mechanic.
This review starts off well, giving us the background. But then it starts jumping around to 'extras' of the game BEFORE it starts talking about the game. Example, talking about the courts BEFORE mentioning Story mode and Trick shots (and trick shots weren't even discussed).
I get it, most people by now have watched the Direct and do not need reminding of how Trick shots work, but it would be nice to see what the reviewer FELT about the trick shots and power shots. Were they tacky? Do they feel too easy to pull off or unforgiving? Does the match revolve entirely around their usage or is it just situational? Do you feel like the meter charges up too quickly or is it the perfect medium? Give us an opinion and not JUST a description.
Once we understand HOW the game plays, then we can talk about game modes. Single player, exhibition, multi-player, and Online. I have no issues with the article's points, they were just out of place to me.
Next, talk about the refinement/game polish. Here is where you talk about the characters and stages. Do they all add to the experience or do they feel lifeless and rushed? Are they balanced? Uniqueness? How is the music of this game (which wasn't discussed). Overall though, you hit the key points in your opinions.
All that said, I still love the reviews and all the fun references you guys still 'Ace.' Your paragraph comparing the game to a 'fighting' game is gold. THAT's what I'm looking for in a review.
I will check out this game. It will be a day 1 IF AND ONLY IF they confirm an RPG mode, not just a story mode. If you have never played the GBC or GBA Mario Tennis, you don't understand how much DEPTH those two games had. At the very least, Alex, Nina, Clay and the gang need to be playable! PLEASE CAMELOT!
Comments 68
Re: Chucklefish Outlines Upcoming Quality Of Life And Community Feedback Patch For Wargroove
Good stuff. I'd like to see a Zoom option for the TV mode that mirrors handheld mode. Playing it on TV is hard for me because the units/tiles are too small.
Re: Wargroove Players Are Recreating Advance Wars And Fire Emblem Maps In-Game
@Kirby-in-Kirkby
Also unforgivable is that they removed the AW Assist trophy in Smash!
Re: Wargroove's First Patch Has Been Submitted For Approval, Dev Asks For Your Feedback
I have nothing but praise for this game. I've listed out the kinks I experienced in another article, but I'll give my biggest issue with the game. Skip animation.
In Advance Wars, you could speed up and slow down the battle cutscenes at will just by holding and releasing B. You could watch the whole sequence in about 2 seconds or less, and still enjoy the satisfaction of sinking that darn Cruiser. If you wanted to outright skip the scenes, well, they had an option in the menu to leave it out entirely.
.) In Wargroove, you also have the option to remove cutscenes, however, there is no speed up. Only a skip that takes 3 seconds. I'm the type of guy that WANTS to see the animations, but those take about 12 seconds or so. The Skip animation feature is pretty useless because all you see is your Swordsmen come up, charge and yell "AAAYYYYEEEE" and right before they swing a satisfying crunch, the cutscene is skipped. So you end up pretty much watching 3 seconds of NOTHING. Please add a feature to speed up the cutscenes, or just have an option to skip IMMEDIATELY.
Re: Wargroove Will Receive Regular Updates, Free Content And DLC
@Samwise7
I've played Advance Wars extensively, as you can tell by my avatar, but I'd put Wargroove's polish at just a hair below AW.
.) - Advance Wars is superior in the little things, however, and all these little things add up in a time consuming genre like this. As another user pointed out, the cursor is weaker. It can stray on you if you hold the DPad during any menu/animation. It is also completely silent.
.) - The 'speed up' process is also clunky. In AW, the Fast forward feature is mapped to a different button press than 'Tile Info'. Not the case in WG. They're both mapped to 'B' despite the Switch having MORE much buttons than the GBA and DS. So after my turn ends and the opponent's turn starts, I find myself reading a information on a random tile near the center of the map.
.) - The 'Skip animation' is useless too. AW nailed this feature. In the earlier entries, you could skip the entire animation. Days of Ruin had the best, you can fast forward and slow down the entire scene at will AND still see the satisfaction blowing up the enemy. WG's is clunky. You can Fast forward the movement phase, but once a battle animation starts, it takes at least 3 seconds to skip it. In other words most of the time you'll just watch the slow animation of a group of Swordsmen appearing, yelling 'AAAYYYEEEEE' and then finally rushing the enemy, and right before they deliver the hit the scene FINALLY skips. So you watch all of nothing, and miss all the important info like how much damage you actually did. Also the transition from animation back to Movement phase is quick if you're still holding the fast forward button, so sometimes it's hard to see how much damage I did before the next animation scene starts. know I can just turn the animations off, but again it's nice to see the SATISFACTION of your unit pummeling the other. It's just too damned slow.
.) -The camera 'Pan' feature straight up sucks. If you're playing on a large map, and you want to quickly move your cursor to the other side, too bad, you have to hold DPad until you get there. You can pan the camera, but your cursor stays put on the same tile you left it. If you hit DPad the camera snaps back across the map. In AW, you can hold B to pan, and once you release, your cursor actually followed the camera.
.) -It's VERY easy to outright end your turn if you aren't paying attention. In AW, you press Menu button, End Turn, and move the cursor to Yes to confirm. It's a very quick process yet concise and prompt. In WG, the Menu buttom is ALSO mapped to tile selection, so if you simply click an empty tile, it brings up the menu, and the default cursor location is 'End Turn.' Pressing A again WILL end it. No prompt, no confirmation. In other words, merely pressing A twice with a cursor that isn't precise to begin with (and doesn't have audio) on the movement phase can screw up the entire game. I've done it a few times already when I've had units who haven't acted yet.
Overall WG is a GREAT game! I'm loving it but the minor stuff is adding up. It really is a good mix of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. Chucklefish does a SPLENDID job on the lore of the world, characters and EVEN the units themselves. If they can patch these minor things, then I can confidently put this game up there with AW.
Re: Review: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - Nintendo Plays It Safe With This Timely Reissue
So the only 'New' SMB one I played was NSMB2, and I gotta say it was dissatisfying (I grew up playing every single one of the 2D classics). It was too easy, too many coins, and the soundtrack hurt my ears.
, I've read that NSMB2 is the worst in the 'New' series. Is Deluxe clearly better? Can anyone vouch? I'm on the fence on this game. I'm willing to put up with the soundtrack if the gameplay is interesting.
Re: Feature: The Final Wii U Games We'd Like To See On Switch In 2019
I've never played a Star Fox game since the SNES, and I never beat it.
I would love to have StarFox Zero on Switch. I understand that it was one of the FEW games that actually required the gamepad, so it wouldn't be just your normal port. The DEVs would actually have to put some work to get its gameplay running on a single screen lol.
Re: Review: Valkyria Chronicles - SEGA's Strategy Classic Still Shines Ten Years Later
I played this ALOT when it was on PS3, so I can attest to a few things mentioned in the article.
Re: WarGroove Will Include Cutscene Editor To Allow Custom Storytelling
@Joeynator3000
Right? All because Intelligent Systems can't figure out how to incorporate Waifus into a game that revolves around tanks lol.
Advance Wars > Fire Emblem!
Re: Site News: We Want Your Help To Become Even Better
I got hooked on this website because of the gorgeously written reviews here many years ago. The most recent reviews now are lacking compared to older reviews; not to say they are bad, it's just that they aren't what they used to be.
Seriously, I can go back and read reviews of Wii games and Virtual Consoles and have an absolutely certain idea of how the game plays, now these days the reviews are more or less recaps of the videos that developers themselves release.
I've also noticed that news comes in more quickly, accurate or not. This site used to be on the slow end of the Twitter reactions, but whenever an article DID release it was accurate and informative as heck.
I'd like to see less of the 'Random' and 'Rumour' articles and just stick with SOLID, here-are-the-facts articles that made this site my #1 gaming news source.
And yes, as others have said, there are Clickbait articles, and that goes hand in hand with my point above. Everytime I fall for that trap i lose trust in this website's integrity. Please, just keep a high standard and your readers will also.
Re: Review: Mario Tennis Aces (Switch)
Hopefully this is constructive criticism as a long time reader of Nintendolife.
What got me hooked on this website was the flawless transitional writing from the reviews. They would start off talking about the history of the game and end with the technicalities without missing a beat and explaining each new addition or mechanic.
This review starts off well, giving us the background. But then it starts jumping around to 'extras' of the game BEFORE it starts talking about the game. Example, talking about the courts BEFORE mentioning Story mode and Trick shots (and trick shots weren't even discussed).
I get it, most people by now have watched the Direct and do not need reminding of how Trick shots work, but it would be nice to see what the reviewer FELT about the trick shots and power shots. Were they tacky? Do they feel too easy to pull off or unforgiving? Does the match revolve entirely around their usage or is it just situational? Do you feel like the meter charges up too quickly or is it the perfect medium? Give us an opinion and not JUST a description.
Once we understand HOW the game plays, then we can talk about game modes. Single player, exhibition, multi-player, and Online. I have no issues with the article's points, they were just out of place to me.
Next, talk about the refinement/game polish. Here is where you talk about the characters and stages. Do they all add to the experience or do they feel lifeless and rushed? Are they balanced? Uniqueness? How is the music of this game (which wasn't discussed). Overall though, you hit the key points in your opinions.
All that said, I still love the reviews and all the fun references you guys still 'Ace.' Your paragraph comparing the game to a 'fighting' game is gold. THAT's what I'm looking for in a review.
Re: Official Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Website Goes Live With Videos, Music And Daily Updates
The arrangement for 'Vega' for Street Fighter is amazing! Can't wait for them to showcase the Splatoon tracklist.
Definitely Splattack, Ink Me Up, Now or Never, and Ebb and Flow are going to be included. Question is, which one will be remixed?!?!
Re: Taiko: Drum Master Will Be Getting An English Option In Japan This August
The Splatoon 2 song is almost certainly Ebb and Flow. Not only is it the 'main' song of Off the Hook, it's heavy on the percussion.
Re: Datamine Reveals 26 Potential Characters For Mario Tennis Aces
If they add characters from the the GBC game (Alex, Nina, Coz Brothers etc.) and GBA game (Clay, Ace etc.) this becomes Day 1 purchase for me.
Re: Video: The 26 Best Game Boy Advance Games of All Time
What's an airport?
Re: Mario Tennis Aces Brings A GBA-Style Story Mode To Switch
I will check out this game. It will be a day 1 IF AND ONLY IF they confirm an RPG mode, not just a story mode. If you have never played the GBC or GBA Mario Tennis, you don't understand how much DEPTH those two games had. At the very least, Alex, Nina, Clay and the gang need to be playable! PLEASE CAMELOT!
Re: Fire Emblem Echoes Developers on How the Game Iterates on Fire Emblem Fates
Wow, he basically confirmed a new Wars game for the Switch kind of sorta!
Re: Talking Point: What We Hope to See in the Fire Emblem Nintendo Direct
@impurekind
Switch will be a Day 1 purchase for me if 'Switch Wars' becomes a thing
Re: Talking Point: What We Hope to See in the Fire Emblem Nintendo Direct
I hope to see a return of the Advance Wars series (or Switch Wars come to think of it).