impurekind

Seeing the dungeon and Ghirahim from Skyward Sword in this game just proves to me that the original Skyward Sword has much nicer art direction, because none of it looks as good inside Breath of the Wild, especially Ghirahim.

Well this isn't great.

@sleepinglion 100% agree.

Anyone who's played say Virtual Boy Wario Land knows it's genuinelly pretty brilliant, and a stereoscopic 3D version running on 3DS would have just been very cool to see.

There's quite a few Virtual Boy games that could have worked great on 3DS, and the library is so small that Nintendo almost could have just released single Virtual Boy Compilation or something like that and be done with it.

But that's Nintendo for you.

God, this kind of thing is just so dumb. Unless it's someone literally playing just the OST then I don't agree with Sony [or the bot] being able to flag this stuff at all.

It's weird seeing a map laid out like this.

That is bull**** of the highest order. A $150,000 USD fine each for leaking some images of a game from a strategy guide. There's people commiting murder who probably get lesser punishments. I exagerrate but you get the point; there's nothing right about this.

@BlueOcean Actually, the golden age of Nintendo was clearly the NES, SNES and N64. The first two was when Nintendo utterly dominated the gaming landscape with world-leading systems that just had classic after classic on them and were beloved by all, and the N64 was an utterly paradigm-shifting system that helped usher in the true 3D era and is host to some of thee greatest early 3D games ever made. The GC was a solid console but it did nothing particularly different or special compared to the competition of the time, and it lost the battle in terms of sales too. Yeah, it had some very good titles for the time, but that's true of every single Nintendo console, and the three consoles I mentioned did pretty much everything better for their times than the GameCube did in its time. Imo the GC is actually one of Nintendo's most run of the mill home consoles, where almost every game that stood out was imo done better on one or more of the consoles from the previous generations--although I really did love Eternal Darkness. And the Wii and DS were like Nintendo's second renaissance where it just dominated everyone again, at least in terms of popular mindshare and sales numbers and indeed innovation and originality too, and the Switch is currently doing very well on many of those fronts too.

@MightyDemon82 The controller is still one of the most comfortable controller shapes to date, if you actually hold it properly:

https://external-preview.redd.it/SzayNw97nk4Ge3KIbp3GkEq2VTlP2d9H3ZAk7obrWTg.png?auto=webp&s=acff674b4dff07a2f1956b5a3438b9696aee6772

And you say GoldenEye had tank controls . . . yet it's probably the first fps game to offer proper dual analog controls as we recognise them today, if you bother to actually go in and choose that option and use two controllers this way:

https://i.imgur.com/dXdSWsD.png

Look, it's clearly no longer as revolutionary and mind boggling as the day it released, but I think a lot of people like to hate on the N64 controller now kinda out of pure ignorance and sheep-think half of the time rather than any actual objective truth.

A great system with some truly amazing games and a now widely underrated controller.

@TMNHertl Yes, I mean ain terms of Nintendo's games.

Clearly expectations for actual lovely art have dropped in recent times, because this game is just ugly imo, and actually looks to me like they may have just reused the Breath of the Wild Engine/assets to slap together some fugly courses and then slap the Mario characters in there in a visual style that doesn't even match.

They maybe should have put a variation of this in the new Game & Watch rather than the other game they put in.

What a random game to release.

What's the bets this doesn't apply to the likes of IGN and so on.

The Lego Builder game and Woodo, the last one, were the ones that stood out to me the most, mostly because I really like the art styles in them both and they both looked quite simple to just chill and play. Most of the rest honestly looked like they were made with the same game creation tool or something and just blended into each other.

First, I really did like all the main GBA models--can't say the same about the likes of DS with that terrible first FAT version--but the [black] SP was my favourite for sure.

PS. I would personally put [the English fan translation of] Mother 3 right at the top. And if you want to try that yourself: https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/mother-3-is-brilliant/

This asset flipping rubbish is one of the worse things to come out of the whole easy game creation tool revolution.

Liking the second opinion part, which you mentioned on Twitter was something you liked from old magazines and have nicked here.

This is something I've been saying you guys should add for a while, as well as the particular format of Mean Machine's ratings at the end of their reviews (both the categories and design), which I also really liked.

So, nice.

Also more pics and gameplay vids added into the review would be great too.

But does it have the stereoscopic 3D, kinda like the 3DS has, because if not then they really missed a trick here.

I personally think this was better than most of the examples on your list, and I think the crowd reaction reflects similarly too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt8CBYAnMYc

@EVIL-C I can go play it on my SNES Classic Edition right now. . . .

;-D

Well, the pixel art certainly looks lovely, which is an ideal start for retro-style games like this.

@iuli Indeed, regarding your Edit: 2 point.

North America walks away with this one, which is rare for me to say in these boxart wars.

@iuli Yeah, it doesn't work like that if the person/company that created said character is still around and using that character and indeed still owns and renews the ownership/copyright/trademarks for it whenever necessary. It usually only works the way you think if the creator of a character or story is looong dead and/or no one really owns the rights anymore because the copyright/trademark literally ran out and they entered the public domain. Mickey Mouse and Mario have not entered the public domain, that I'm aware of, and probably won't for a long, long time, if ever. Although, in principle, I kinda agree that after a certain reasonable time that most stuff like this should eventually be released into the public domain, just as characters and stories like King Kong and Jack and the Beanstalk and Pinnochio and Snow White and Hansel and Gretel and Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare's works and Mozart's music and so on are, but that should be an actual reasonable time that allows the original creator(s) to solely and fully take advantage of and profit from their creations, probably like 100 years or something like that (Hint: It's currently 70 years in the UK, and 70 years after the creator's death in Europe).

But, according to a quick search online, [the original Steamboat Willy design for] Mickey Mouse actually comes into the public domain in 2024--unless Disney lobbies the powers that be to once again alter the rules in its favour, as it has already done previously, which is why [the original Steamboat Willy design for] Mickey Mouse isn't already in the public domain right now.

BUT, Disney still has the character Trademarked too, and that apparently doesn't expire until so long as the property is in the public consciousness, which Mickey Mouse clearly is, seeing as he's still used in cartoons and games and so on to this day.

@blodermoder I don't think it works quite like that in this particular case because they've not just taken her work and transformed it for fun and/or educational purposes and/or in some free fan projects; they have used her work directly in their games and have made hundreds of millions of dollars by directly selling and profiting from those games, of which these images/textures are part of. The creator of the original work should be paid when their work is used in cases like this, and this artist clearly wasn't. So, yeah, pay her.

This is not the same thing as when I in particular argue that Nintendo should not be allowed to totally shut down some fan-made project that uses its copyrighted material and is simply being enjoyed and shared by fans where no direct payment is required to enjoy such fan works. When money/profit is involved it's a whole different matter, especially when it's some huge corporation doing the deed that has lawyers and the like that absolutely 100% know better.

OK, Capcom, pay her for her work. It's as simple as that in this case imo.

@Razer Well, let's not get too crazy here. Nintendo has definintely taken advantage of E3s in the past, at least imo, such as when it demoed the N64 with playable Mario 64, Pilotwings, Wave Race 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire in 1996--it was utterly mind blowing for basically everyone at the time to get to play the system and the launch titles like that--or when it had Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie and GoldenEye 007 in 1997, or when it revealed both the "Revolution" and the Game Boy Micro and talked about the Virtual Console in 2005, and stuff like that. But, yeah, in recent times it's almost entirely been rather disappointing and/or totally predictible imo.

What's the bets Nintendo doesn't take full advantage of this, or even any real advantage at all . . . .

These people are just idiots imo.

PS. I suspect this is probably a deliberate marketing ploy by McDonalds to get a few extra bucks from free publicity via gaming "news" media and "social" media coverage by a bunch of people who don't know any better.

This is the world we live in now.

He really made a turd here, which makes me wonder if the previous hits he was involved with were actually the result of a few other core people he worked with basically steering everything in the right direction, rather than him being a particularly important or necessary element of some of his greatest hits. A true genius of their field would be able to achieve great results again and again, even with different teams and so on, especially with the kinds of resources and talent available to him that he obviously had a Square Enix. If he truly thought he was making something great with this game then maybe he's not the right man for the job, despite the handful of classics that he's been involved with. And, to be fair, he's only been a director on a couple of those projects anyway, and was a designer on even less, and none of them were masterpieces. He was a programmer or producer on most of the other games he was involved with, which doesn't say much about how capable he is at actually designing and making great games.

How about just charging less, say $30.

I guess everyone is trying to find that next new gimmick to sell their game. Don't think that kind of design philosophy automatially equals a good game, and it really doesn't in most cases I've seen, but this one is kinda quirky and interesting at the very least.

Please do.

I think both Sega and Nintendo should continue to open dedicated amusement arcades and theme parks across the world.

In my opinion they both need to think of themselves as the equivalent of Disney but with a stronger focus on games over everything else, yet still really getting into films and animation and arcades and theme parks and so on.

Best of luck with this.

Maybe it's just me but I think using what looks like a modified version of the Breath of the Wild engine for some of their latest games was a bad move. I've never truly liked the graphics in Breath of the Wild, especially the kind of fake/plastic/glossy "toon" shader effect across everything that gives a really low-res blurry look to all the textures and stuff, and I like them even less when they're in a Pokemon game. I feel it's an overall drop in the quality of art and presentation in the Pokemon games and a step in the wrong direction and potential on a slight downward spiral in terms of aesthetic beauty for their games going forward if they continue on this path. So I'm not happy the having their highest profits ever will probably confirm to them that they are doing the right thing, when I don't think the are in terms of the aesthetic they are embracing in many of their new games. The new Pokemon Snap also looks very generic and kinda soulless "shadery" 3D at times too imo. It's not made me excited for whatever they put out next--that's for sure.

And a lot of it is crap, despite there absolutely being 100+ truly great retro games that could be on there.

Because this is now a paid service and all these games and indeed online play is trapped behind this pay wall, I think it would have been far better if this were basically the equivalent of the original Wii Virtual Console on there for the price of admission, with all the various consoles and games that particular service had in its lifetime, which utterly craps on what Switch owners have got so far, from a very high height.

Basically, put the proper/full "Virtual Console" on there, and I mean a version that's even better and more complete and applicable to today's advances and gamer expections since the original Virtual Console first existed, and this service might be something of genuine worth.

How did Nintendo **** up something that started with such an utterly amazing initial idea and first great step back on the Wii--looking back now it's kinda mind boggling to recall just how good the Virtual Console was (and imagine what it could have been by now if Nintendo had just kept growing and building up that service and library for that last 15 years)--to get to where Switch owners are at now with a [paid] online service and retro game lineup that is ultimately pretty pathetic.

Imagine the rage and uproar if Microsoft was basically deleting and restarting its Xbox Live/Network service from scratch every generation....

If this took some random only a couple of months then just imagine what a well put together official teams at Nintendo could achieve with maybe a whole range of remakes of their 2D classics done even similarly to this....

Then do it--properly.

Actually, I'd say this was the exact opposite of "unsurprisingly".

Okay, but it's kinda imposs to tell who the players and enemies are.

The underlying idea of these Evercade devices is atually pretty compelling imo (having physical [compilation] carts that you own outright and plug 'n' play in a physical console classic old-school style), but I'm just not a fan of the actual designs of the hardware and controllers.

A nice little physical package there with just enough stuff to make it feel special but no so much as to make it feel like a bunch of pointless fluff.

I experienced most of these games running on the Citra emulator inside my Oculus Rift/Quest 2 headsets, which allows me to still view them in stereoscopic 3D, and they're actually very cool. I wish there was an easier and official way to play them now for anyone who doesn't own a 3DS (and still with the stereoscopic 3D too).

@Noid A slight stretch, but it is actually very cool. The stereoscopic 3D and the way it's implemented into the levels and gameplay design is still impressive today imo.

@GameManAdvance Still, with a little remapping of the controls, I think it would have been very cool to see these games in a compilation for 3DS that allowed them to be displayed in stereoscopic 3D. The Wario game is still very impressive even today, which I know from having tried it running in an emulator in my VR headset that actually allowed me to view it in proper stereoscopic 3D as if I were looking through an actual Virtual Boy (without the eye strain and headaches) and with controls that actually map basically perfect to the Oculus Touch controllers.

It's worth adding them, but probably as a single compilation of all the games in one. Anything else seems a bit desparate and money-grabbing imo.

Before anyone says anything to the contrary: Emulators are enitrely legal--emulators are not the same thing as pirated games--so the people that make them should be afforded exactly the same copyright protection as a massive multi-billion dollar corporation like Nintendo is. And since many of you will defend Nintendo to the death when you believe its copyright has been infringed, you should be doing exactly the same for the person who made the mGBA emulator, or else you are a total and utter Nintendo fanboy hypocrite.

"Be Happy, This Is The True Golden Age Of Gaming"

Sure, if you like not owning the products you've paid for and having to worry about them being taken from you or deleted at any time and at the whim of the company that actually owns them, having to sign into your consoles and deal with multiple user accounts and convoluted system menus and settings and the like, having to agree to restrictive and abusive EULAs just to play the games you've paid for, having to create accounts that put your credit and personal details online for potential hacking, having to bother with companies constantly trying to force "social" crap into your games and apps and services, worrying about saying the wrong thing during an online game and getting banned from the games you've paid for just because you don't think and speak like everyone else, putting up with games that aren't really complete at launch and then downloading day one patches and regular patches after that, worrying about your controllers suffering from drifting control sticks, paying as much as if not more for digital versions of games where you don't even get a nice box or colour printed instruction manual to hold in your hand, having to worry about scalpers buying up all the shipments of the new consoles before you get a chance to order one and then artificially inflating the prices to ridiculous levels, having to worry that a firmware/software update to either your console or game could change it into something very different that your never wanted or agreed to in the first place but are now stuck with and ultimately have little to no say about, actually having too much choice to the point it all starts to become a bit soulless and empty and unsatisfying because you end up with entire libraries of games you're never going to find the time to even play, having all these different gaming portals/services and desktop clients/launchers like Steam and Epic Games Store and Origin and Apple Store and Android Store and Stadia and xCloud and PlayStation Now and Luna and so on that split things up and convolute things more than ever, and putting up with micro transactions and loot crates, and having to worry about being abused via many other insidious gambling-based addition mechanics like variable ratio reinforcement and avoidance and compulsion loops and so on that are snuck into so many games now and particularly in the mobile space, and now even being forced into signing up to "social" media services that really shouldn't be part of your product and weren't when you first bought it simply to continue to use your product in some cases (Facebook/Oculus) . . .

There is also a lot of good stuff too that goes along with the bad, but I'd rather go back to a time where it was basically only the good stuff, which is actually the case with the SNES Classic Edition for me to be honest, which has got more of a "golden age" feel to it than any other modern console/device and gaming service I can think of, largely because it avoids all of the crap I mentioned above and just delivers a pure and concentrated and highly polished gaming experience.

So, actually, nah, we're really not in the "true golden age of gaming" as far as I'm concerned.

@tankymctankus But still not as close or as cool looking as this imo: https://youtu.be/-CBwIXnbUuY

Which used to be this fan project: https://youtu.be/j_5ljnUCeDU

A small detail, but in 2021 I really think they could have a least had the artist go in and update the medical kit graphic to have the cross on a white box rather than that pink colour. And, yes, they'd probably be best also changing the cross colour/design to avoid some copyright/trademark dispute with the Red Cross too--because the Red Cross is apparently real protective of that.

PS. I think it's clearly the Super Nintendo versions that these games are based on, certainly not the Genesis versions that look quite different, and I don't recall it coming out on other platforms.

PPS. Being able to save is a real welcome tweak. I also wish they'd add is a "Really Easy" option too, and one that maybe had it so enemies only spawn once in the map, and once you've killed them that's them done, which would really make things a lot less frustrating than the constantly spawning enemies that just don't let up and feels quite unfair imo.