meleebrawler

@Biff_ARMStrong Ram Ram by itself isn't anything to write home about. It's when Min-Min enlarges it that it becomes extremely hard to dodge or get around. Best way to deal with it is blocking... but then you have to watch for the throws.

I think something they could do with stuff like Twintelle's slow or Spring Man's parry is have them deteriorate with repeated use.

@CrazedCavalier You basically just described most Pokemon games. Easy campaign, luck-based breeding if you care about IVs, and very straightforward stories. Doesn't stop them from being insanely successful.

The real meat of the games are their multiplayer aspects, and what most players work towards after finishing the campaign. Seems about the same for Stories, though there are also some brutal single-player challenges hidden in the form of quests or post-game dungeons/bosses.

The game seems challenging enough as is, to be frank. So only a few would want to put themselves through ''masochist'' mode. Besides, all difficulty changes in Metroid games have just been damage taken and enemy defense, hardly things that drastically change the game. The only differences were Zero Mission halving the effects of pickups, and Other M eliminating them altogether.

@Varoennauraa ...That's pretty much exactly what the blue shell does in 7 and 8. In fact it's quite easy to nail people right in front of you in those games due to it's fast speed.

Not to the mention, it's been nerfed in 8 to the point that it's impact is no more powerful than a standard shell. If you take issue with it punishing skill there, then chances are you're not winning hard enough.

@The64Master Getting a "grab loop" isn't as easy as it seems; you can vary your getup by going to the sides which works pretty consistently. You can also delay it slightly by not touching any buttons. As it is, getting a grab on someone getting up requires perfect timing and a hard read. Not much different from most fighting games: someone like Zangief is all about piledriving you over and over again if you let him scare you into blocking.

The speed of grabbing is pretty reasonable, too. Especially if you're using slower, indirect arms like dragons, you want something relatively quick and direct to get people off of you, as you described.

And the damage... it's really only slightly higher than a sequence of punches, especially when they're upgraded. And you have to work to land them since they're easily deflected by punches and other grabs. Mummy, in particular does a lot more with his since he doesn't have mobility advantages like others.

@Indielink Not really... most of the competitive Brawl players were so invested into the broken Meta Knight that when he was banned, many of them just stopped playing the game entirely. They only came back after un-banning him and introducing ledge-grab limits, but the damage to the scene was done.

@RupeeClock If you look closely, Hedlok always throws punches on one side in sequence. Therefore, it stands to reason that whenever you throw a right punch, for example, as Hedlok, you'll launch all of your right arms one after the other rapidly. Alternating left and right punches with good timing is what lets Hedlok unleash a seeming never-ending barrage of punches.

The Hinox always guards his eye after you've shot it three times, unless he's holding something.

@Alikan Yep, I don't see how a potential issue with one mode is a big deterrent when the rest of the game is very much a bigger, better version of the first (and only keeps growing). Any problems can easily be fixed with enough feedback and demand, in the form of vocal PLAYERS.

@Kalmaro Those floating platforms, if you can get on them or drop their contents safely, provide very valuable loot early on. The Bokoblins on them almost always have some elemental shot you can take from them (one of them actually seemed to even have a Lynel 3-shot bow!), and the chests tend to have better than average equipment.

I'm pretty sure Helix CAN attack while he's squished down. He just moves really slow when doing so (outside of small bursts of "dashing"), and it does nothing against throws.

Judging by comments I often see on Stories articles, the game definitely seems to be at least somewhat accomplishing it's goal off pulling in new players who couldn't get into core titles. Vets may scoff at it, but familiarity with the monsters in this game may help those newcomers down the line, if they ever do decide to try a main game again.

What did we expect? Capcom never even considers, to put it one way, localizing a Monster Hunter until it actually releases in Japan. And while, yes the 3DS version is released, chances are they're holding off 'till both games are out so that they can release simultaneously in the west, like 3 Ultimate.

We get games in the same order as Japan, and we haven't received Stories yet, which came out before XX.

The gameplay looks to bring a lot of dynamism to the turn-based strategy with it's environmental features and buddy jumps, which means a lot of different strategies and approaches to fights, such as whether you stick to ranged blasting or sneak in for high-damage smashing.

Can't we just give the Rabbids an honest chance to develop past early Wii gimmicks?

I mean, you can dislike their personality and appearance as much as you want, but don't just act like their presence automatically drops the quality of a game.

@OorWullie It's no longer possible because recovery from falls is much faster than before. Low-acceleration karts will have to deal with the consequences instead of boosting to negate them (even worse with the standstill turbo in Wii).

The Ganondorf bonuses sound like the most fun, if you get an explosive to throw at enemies where there normally is none .

People would be happier if they weren't always trying to attach price tags to the amount of fun they have. Or construing amount of content as an equivalent to the former.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to spend their money, but IMO, the only question you should be asking about whether to buy is if you like classic Bomberman and/or have friends to enjoy it with. I won't pick this up right away... because I'll be busy with Breath Of The Wild, not because this game's price is too high.

Seeing all these "I liked 4U more than Generations" comments just makes me think... did I enjoy playing through the former more than the latter? Yes... the first time. Would I do it again? Heck no.

Replaying for the story is meaningless since you can just re-watch most of the cutscenes from the comfort of your room. And if you don't replay, well, hope you enjoy the fairly narrow selection of endgame monsters, because their gear is clearly a cut above all others. AND you have to put up with arbitrary cycling, get lucky with guild quests, or slog through tougher event versions just to be able to play those quests. This, plus a bunch of other annoying aspects (bloat by superfluous subspecies, apex, inconvenient palico mechanics and gratuitous use of excessively rare materials in crafting) seriously turns me away from ever playing 4U again except for the odd hunt against something not in Generations.

Two things: if anyone has a beef with this practice, it's not with the ones who follow the law, it's the law itself. Second, breaking it is not how you send a message for change, only that you have a disregard for a guideline set in place to help as many people as possible because it inconveniences you and you only. Laws only change when a vocal majority clamors for it, and the fact is the world has bigger fish to fry than a legal dispute over imaginary characters/games.

@theartisanrogue At least a rock can't hurt anyone, verbally or otherwise, unless acted upon by an outside force.

@Lucina My go-to response to wanton flaming and hating is blunt facts whenever they're called for, otherwise stay out of opinion discussions to save time and energy. If you must must counter someone, try asking politely if they're willing to listen or not.

Opinions don't hurt. They shouldn't hurt. Because I y'am what I y'am and know that others aren't. And if someone is too secretly jealous of others finding enjoyment where they don't, like with 3DS Mario Maker or Star Fox Zero, it's their problem.

@Tsurii Fatalis is very much the exception to the norm when it comes to monster motivation, and even then it's debatable due to all of it being speculation. Maybe he just thought that castle would make a good nest, and stormed it because he could, like a lot of predators do given the chance to stake a territory. There are many more cases of elder dragons causing damage unintentionally, like Ceadeus's growing pain earthquakes, or Amatsu and Miralis just happening to be walking natural disasters passing through. Even Shagaru wasn't so much interested in messing with humans as it was in the free meals it's virus provided.

Even in cases where it seems like monsters attack people for no reason, you have to consider that a) nature is unpredictable, and b) WE are the most dangerous living things in the world. When we're not just slaying them, we're slaughtering and stealing everything they want to eat. So it's easy to understand why most monsters have a "kill on sight" mentality towards humans, particularly Diablos defending what little food it can find in the desrt.

@Dandalfa00 I would think a Prowler or monster like Rathalos (if they don't get the boss treatment) is more likely. Or perhaps a Field Horn item that could summon random monsters like a Pokeball.

@Moon Yes they did mention G-rank while talking about the airship hub. Perhaps it's the new Elder Hall?

I do hope they let Diablos have it's full moveset back if basic subspecies aren't a thing.

@CrazedCavalier it seems Brave style is about tanking hits rather than dodging/blocking them (who knows if you actually receive damage doing this like with Great Sword's Brimstone Charge). Seems pretty darn tricky to make it work consistently in multiplayer, though.

@Joeynator3000 You mean Black Diablos in disguise? All 4U Diablos did was charge and basic digging attacks. It was the Black one you had to worry about. Still, I've always really liked that monster for it's well-developed ecology and sheer ferocity it shows despite being a herbivore.

The new elder dragon looks to be another in the line of Gore/Shagaru and Gogmazios body types.

Most of all I'm excited for the returns of Barroth (first Brute wyvern! and provider of awesome early game sets) and Barioth.

Interestingly, this title seems to break the trend of providing the usual subspecies a Monster Hunter expansion has like Azure Rathalos, but it still has a G Rank.

@DreamyViridi For now, there's gonna be more stroking egos over perceived IQs for ''predicting'' performances than when the game is mostly forgotten by the masses and have only sales as reference for their knowledge of the game's quality. (Reviews are seldom read afterwards)

@JohnGrey Care to elaborate? Because these days those game's stories just seem seriously overrated. At their cores, the plots are exactly the same as Colour Splash or even Sticker Star: collect X number of Macguffins to defeat the Big Bad. All they really had over the later games was a somewhat more varied cast and a little extra focus on Peach (she still does her info-gathering in Colour Splash, just not on-screen). TTYD also threw a curveball for the final boss, but many of it's chapters include serious amounts of padding to mask how short they'd honestly be.

Super is the only one that has a ''groundbreaking'' story compared to it's peers, due largely to the extensive backstories and how they affect the game's plot (backstories in TTYD are seldom relevant to the main story outside recruitments).

@firstnesfan As if the older (Paper Mario) games did much better...

@CrazedCavalier How old was that son? And would he really have gotten into it the way he did without support from his mother?

The whole point of spin-offs is finding new audiences for a given series without severely altering the main entries. That audience may be near-nonexistent in Japan (Capcom probably intends the game to sell there at least based on brand power alone), but there are certainly more than a few people around here expressing interest for this game while they haven't for any other main entry.

@Equinox Based on what I've heard from gaijinhunter, I'd guess that the difficulty progresses somewhat akin to Pokemon, main campaign isn't too difficult at least until the end, with the main challenge coming from post-game content (High-Rank quests in this case, yes there are quests like the regular games) and player-versus-player combat.

@CrazedCavalier The main series most certainly does not have ''all-ages appeal'', despite the recent entries's attempts to lower the barrier of entry. Games are rated T, and are not forgiving of messing around, especially early in.

Stories is like Pokemon, in that on the surface it seems simple and easy, but dig deeper and a whole bunch of depth and meta turns up. You have monsters that learn particular skills, have different A.I behaviours, meter you need to manage to control said A.I, element matchups, combos for riders as a risk-reward mechanic, items, mixing and matching monsters to tweak the skills you want etc. It certainly helps that the game has multiplayer (not sure about online, though).

The main reason I'd see a game like this flop is, well, stiff competition from Pokemon and possibly Yo-Kai Watch.

Y'know, a lot of the stuff that makes the game easier can be avoided if you REALLY need a significant challenge. Self-imposed ones. Eg: No shopping (except for strict mandatory), no levelling paint capacity, only collect paint from defeated enemies etc.

@MasterWario Not grabbing any of the ''experience'' hammers from defeating enemies to increase your max paint. (Don't know if getting Big Paint Stars also increases it in addition to health, though). Akin to low-level runs in most RPGs, except you don't necessarily HAVE to run from every battle to avoid levelling.

@FNL Probably a good thing my gaming only really started with the Gamecube, Adventures and Assault likely taught me to accept different concepts and controls.

@FNL I also think part of it is that most haters... simply cannot fathom that they may be, at least partially, at fault for not being able to grasp the controls. There really shouldn't be any shame in admitting that, and it's their right to dislike the game because of it, but instead they defensively lash out at the game itself, or worse yet, the players who DID enjoy it, calling them, among other things, liars and "apologists" for daring to suggest that the game isn't as broken as they might think.

Another thing I don't understand is the so-called issue of length-to-cost ratio this game has... everyone's tastes will be different, of course, but a game doesn't magically disappear or stop being fun just because you reached the end or got all the items. For me, at least, the game delivers fun, bite-sized whenever the mood strikes, and makes the game worth every penny in my eyes.

All this bashing of the controls that goes on, and yet only ONCE have I heard someone even attempt to explain why they didn't like them. Everyone else just says "controls suk" and expects everyone to understand and agree... because who needs motion controls, AMIRITE?

@NintyFan About the Dino-Rhinos returning, the original Paper Mario actually did feature their last appearance up until this point. Two white ones in the Crystal Palace are the focus of a puzzle.

@Grumblevolcano They're actually called Dino Rhinos. Reznors are the ones in NSMB2 that attack on giant wheels.

The whole scenario is giving me flashbacks to that circus episode in the Super Mario World cartoon...

@Ryu_Niiyama Perhaps it's the other way around, he's sleepy because he HASN'T had his green tea.

@-DEMISE- Both games do give you the the opportunity for a one-chance revive, though. Dark Moon lets you find the gold bone, and Federation Force has the common Auto-Revive MODs.

For my part, I don't find the game is TOO challenging to just beat solo, at least not until the endgame and hard mode... mostly, it's getting a good score (ie, time) that's troublesome.

@SetupDisk How is a demo of an RPG, which normally has levelling and all that jazz not included, or at least severely restricted, supposed to be indicative of the game's true difficulty?

@CrazedCavalier This is the only valid ''criticism'' that really remains in face of all the new info disproving the notion that Color Splash repeats all of Sticker Star's blunders (it's still subjective, though).
Plus, hating on Toads is popular due to their defining role of ''Thank you Mario! But the Princess is in another castle!''

@TeslaChippie If you're talking about Neko (means "Cat"), he's been around since 3 Ultimate, and has a cameo in 4 Ultimate on Cheeko Sands, along with his mentor who you'll eventually encounter in Kokoto, the Argosy Captain, who was introduced in Tri.

@LasermasterA Hey, don't worry! As soon as you do get the game, we can start a new game+ (which is, btw, a thing in Generations, likely for the sole purpose of players wanting to see both male and female versions of armour. You won't keep your endgame stuff, but enough to ease the early grind) to hunt on your level.

Also, all this complaining about story, when a spin-off is coming that literally has it in the title... sheesh.

There's definitely no one true culprit for this game's unfortunate situation... Nintendo's blunder with the Wii U prevented their likely plan to release a mainstream game alongside this, but fans also reacted irrationally.

Whatever you may think of a game, you can express your opinion, but celebrating a failure because it proves your assumptions is incredibly petty, no matter the pedigree of the series in question.

@electrolite77 Why does there have to be only one culprit for poor sales?

@retro_player_22 It has nothing to do with pinball.

@DefHalan has a point. Unlike practically every other sports game, it takes multiple players to move the ball, and not through passing.

Something the review fails to mention is that powerups are dispensed by rapid-firing on the ball, not just randomly. So you have to weigh your options; do you focus on charged shots to move the ball more efficiently, or rapid fire and risk the ball blowing past you while trying to get a powerup to turn the tables?

Comments like these make me really hate the ''customer is always right'' mantra and how people take it way too literally.

Example: I keep hearing people claiming that they want Monster Hunter to come on consoles with better graphics... even though all the console MHs are vastly outsold by portable entries.

Yes, Nintendo clearly was secretly in cahoots with the AM2R developer to have the game released on the 30th anniversary, all so that they could cancel it on that day and annoy the fans, right?

I can't pretend to understand the dev's motivations for releasing the game now, but impulse decisions just to meet some sort of ''anniversary'' rarely turn out well. It's why most of those come in the form of rereleasing old games.

Also, for anyone still paying attention to Smash conquests, the current one is ''Approaching the big 3-0'', including Metroid & Kid Icarus... and you think the former is getting no love?