To anyone looking for an actual solution to charging cable troubles, I wholeheartedly recommend getting a cable with a magnetic plug that stays inside your device. The cables can't snap because if you pull too hard, the cable simply disconnects from the plug. The plug automatically snaps back onto the cable if they come near each other, so you don't have to fiddle around with the cable all the time either. Brand-wise I suggest 'WSKEN', their cables are very high quality. Downside is you'll probably have to order them from China as you likely won't find them in a shop near you. Still, if you often suffer cable breakage, definitely look into this.
(This message was not sponsored by magnetic charging cable manufacturers.)
@antdickens But then what was the point of the comment in the first place? If anything, the only person you were arguing with was yourself. Looks like I missed the latest copy of Rhetorical Strategies.
@antdickens (first comment): That has to be the first time I've seen a native speaker argue the wrong semantics so spectacularly. Surely you know the difference between "believing something" and believing in something"?
"I believe you" = "I trust that what you are saying is true" "I believe in you" = "I have faith in you" or "I am of the opinion that you exist"
The real question is: who even used the Global Link website in the first place? I recall making an account for some reason, but I don't recall ever doing anything with it.
@Morrow I don't know where you're located but they're really cheap in North America, and relatively cheap if you can wait for a good deal in Europe. Surely you aren't looking for 'new in box' systems?
I think short games are just fine, as long as they aren't too expensive. The second one felt a little expensive (although the game is excellent), but I'd say this one's actually cheap for what you get. I hope they plan on making more Ittle Dew games.
@BlueOcean "Loot boxes should be banned in video games like in Netherlands and Belgium."
They aren't banned, games just need to be rated 18+ (loot boxes fall under the gambling laws, and it's illegal to (knowingly) offer gambling to anyone under 18). Nintendo (and other companies) don't want to give their cute games 18+ ratings because parents would then wonder why Animal Crossing is considered 18+, and then Nintendo (and other companies) would have to admit that they've added addiction-inducing gambling mechanics to their games for kids to make as much money as possible - so instead of changing the ratings, they just don't make these games available for the Belgian market.
If, by miracle, all countries in the world would agree that digital gambling mechanics should only be in games for adults, thereby forcing Nintendo (and other game companies) to use an 18+ rating for their games all over the world, lootboxes and other such mechanics would immediately be removed.
The real question is: when are they going to create a Pro version of their M30 controller? The six-button Mega Drive / Saturn control pad is basically the perfect (single piece) video game controller, all it needs is joysticks!
So is the Pokéball controller using the same cheapo graphite component as the regular joycons? Its joystick actually feels extremely similar to the Vita's (with an added ability to click it), so I'm not sure.
So far I've luckily only had one joycon develop the issue. I still have to send it in, though.
I didn't buy it, but I loaned the game from a friend and completed the dex. It was uninteresting, the visuals were bland and the performance was dreadful. I did like the 'dress up Pikachu' aspect and the Pokéball controller (despite its pants-on-head control scheme), I liked actually throwing Pokéballs (which, for the record, isn't coming back in SS because, uh, ???), I liked being able to ride on different Pokémon, and some other stuff, but overall it just wasn't a very interesting game.
"All of these games took immense resources"
For Pokkén, sure, the Wii U had a completely different architecture - but at least they could keep all of the assets. For Let's Go, they reused which assets they could from the 3DS (all Pokémon wireframes, for example), and they already had most of the story. The overall gameplay mechanics, although very similar to Pokémon Go, are indeed new and did require significant time in development. However, Pokémon Quest didn't really require a lot of dev time at all. It was already a game built for ARM architecture devices, all they did was hastily slap some physical button compatibility on it, didn't even test said compatibility, and put it on the eShop. I was under the impression Quest was a third party game, but apparently it was made by Game Freak. Oh boy.
@commentlife "Followed by 4 Pokémon titles and counting being released for the system."
It's as if you completely disregarded @Xelha's well-written post. On all previous handheld systems and home consoles, all Pokémon games were unique to that system, the systems didn't have any ports of older games (quite literally none whatsoever). On the Switch, however, Pokkén Tournament is a port of an older Wii U game. Pokémon Let's Go is the umpteenth remake of the first generation games, but this time around it uses 3D models instead of sprites (wow!) and you can no longer battle wild Pokémon. Pokémon Quest is literally a mobile phone game which they ported just because it was easy to port - it's also pretty bad and the button controls are poor. Pokémon SS is the only real new game, and it doesn't look particularly impressive when you compare it to pretty much any other game on the Switch.
@Leinad "from the cardboard cutout "Waifu" protagonist, all the way to the lame plot" Who the hell plays a Castlevania game for the story and characters?
@Octane Speaking of word filters, the Switch has one built into its autocompletion dictionary. Funny thing is that it doesn't do a very good job. For example, it will never suggest 'penis', but 'penisnijd' (Dutch for 'penis envy'), no problem! At least it isn't as overactive as the one built into Pokémon Black and White, where people couldn't give their Cofagrigus the name 'Cofagrigus', because it contains 'fag'. I think the games still don't allow people to name their Pokémon 'Violet' because 'viol' is a mature word in French.
@NCChris Well, naturally the textures were updated, and some lighting effects were changed. However, the wireframes of the models weren't - though I'm not complaining about that, because the wireframes were/are, other than some minor nitpicks on a handful of models, really good.
Edit: I hadn't seen your second post yet, looks like we don't even disagree.
As some others have said: gyro aiming (not the same as motion controls), please! Lining up headshots is both easier and a lot more fun when you can adjust your aim by tilting the controllers/Switch a bit instead of fiddling to get the reticle to line up with analog sticks.
I don't understand why wireless controllers are still being made at all for anyone/anything other than competitive players with cat reflexes, or super cheap bargain bin one-size-fits-all controllers. My Mega Drive has wireless controllers and that thing was released in 1988, thirty one years ago - admittedly said controllers were only released sometime in the 90s, not sure which year exactly, but still, why do these third parties always make wired controllers?
@Batty5 "a true leap forward as far as the graphics go, compared to the 3DS games."
Might I suggest you look up "Pokémon Sun Citra emulator gameplay" on YouTube? The 3DS games, when played on a high resolution screen, look nearly identical to the Switch games.
@adema16 You certainly aren't wrong that the real blame lies with the executives, but I see it more as though people are saying that the executives are lazy rather than them saying that the actual developers are sloths. If anyone is actually directing their anger toward the employees themselves, they should probably get their heads checked.
However, despite the employees not being the ones to blame for decisions made from higher up, there is simply no denying that Game Freak's programmers (not the artists or writers) quite frankly aren't very good at programming overall. One of the most recent examples is how Viridian Forest suffered from serious slowdown in Pokémon Let's Go. It's an area you enter after less than 20 minutes of playtime in a graphically simple game on the same pretty powerful console that also runs games like Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey or Dragon Quest XI, even Doom and Wolfenstein. You would almost have to be programming it badly on purpose to get it to lag with that much horsepower to tap into, and yet they managed to make it lag. Another slightly older example is how in Sun and Moon (and Ultra Sun/Moon), character models are duplicated across all areas in which they appear, because instead of referencing the model from one folder, Game Freak's programmers decided to copy and paste it to every folder for every environment where that character at any point in the game shows up. Another example: why do you think it can sometimes take a noticeably long time for the opposing trainer to give a command, even though they only have four moves and perhaps another Pokémon to choose from? Because Game Freak's programmers fundamentally misunderstand how to run calculations simultaneously. Or way back in the day, Game Freak could not fit the entirety of the Johto region on one cartridge, until Satoru Iwata single-handedly fixed all of the code and managed to put in the Kanto region as well. That was one guy, who did all of that all by himself, fixing nearly all of Game Freak's bad code, massively optimising it and adding the feature Gold and Silver are so well-known for, the second region - and still, he managed to have a reasonable amount of space left on the cartridges. The guy is a legend for good reason. It's a real shame he's longer here.
@Pokefanmum82 "Stop being a bunch of whiny kids. Until you have run a government you have no room to complain about your country's economy being run into the ground. If it really bugs you so much, don’t vote for those politicians. It’s as simple as that. The world is going to crap and all you care about is your country's economy. If you’re going to complain, complain about the state of the world."
Edit: actually, it's probably more of a false dilemma/red herring (appeal to worse problems) than whataboutism. Still, nothing but a fallacy, as you can see.
@adema16 The thing is that Smash Bros. is actually a balanced game, and even gets regular updates to tweak the balance even further. Pokémon, on the other hand, has about 20 extremely powerful/versatile creatures (not counting Legendary Pokémon, because those are usually banned anyway even if they're really weak) that blow all of the hundreds upon hundreds of others out of the water. Some types are really weak, some are really strong. Game Freak created Fairy type to 'balance out' Dragon type, despite the fact that Dragon isn't even a very good type, it's just that they nearly always give that type to the most powerful Pokémon in the games so it looks like it's more powerful than it really is. Game Freak created Mega Evolutions to balance out the competitive game, but handed out those Mega Evolutions almost exclusively to Pokémon that were already among the most powerful to start with (bar some exceptions like Beedrill), and then proceeded to make those Mega Evolutions extremely powerful in their own right, making the competitive aspect entirely about Mega Evolutions. Pokémon is not a balanced game at all and Game Freak is either clueless or completely uninterested in truly balancing the game to make more than just the handful of Ubers competitively viable.
@dleec8 But you have nothing to say. Of course some people enjoy things for different reasons than others do. If I go to a restaurant, it's because I like good food. Many others go to restaurants to appear interesting on Instagram. Who cares? But if the restaurant I've liked eating at for twenty three years hasn't improved upon any of their recipes for years (whereas all other restaurants both in the area and further away have), and they've even taken some of their best dishes off the menu for no discernable reason, should I not be allowed to at some point say "it's such a shame this restaurant has dropped the ball" because the Instagram people don't go there for the food?
@dleec8 "When I became addicted to Pokemon Red in the 5th grade in 1998, there were no battle animations beyond the Pokemon sprites shaking forward and backwards, the graphics were comparable to a NES game"
The first game in the entire series, the first product in the entire franchise, which was released twenty three years ago on the Game Boy (with a whopping 8KB of RAM and a 4MHz CPU), didn't look very impressive graphically. What's your point?
@TheBlue10 @Elvie That's basically the way Black and White already looked, no? 2D sprites on 3D but still pixel-art environments? In fact, even Diamond and Pearl already did it, but with a much more laid-back 3D effect.
Edit: without all of the fancy visual effects, of course.
@R_Champ Too bad for you that very literally no one but you even mentioned the "national dex", but don't let that distract you from anxiously trying to come across to strangers on the internet as 'the reasonable adult'.
@Liam_Doolan The title of this article should read "Game Freak Claims It Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield". The current title is uncritically parrotting PR nonsense which anyone can see through. To compare the situation to a tale of one HC Andersen: Game Freak is the emperor, and says it's wearing clothes. Nintendo Life publishes an article: "Emperor Is Most Definitely Wearing Clothes". Unfortunately, Game Freak's wearing its birthday suit.
@forumposter21 "Theyre so busy to appeal to the 'Graphics' generation of gamers" Well, considering they're reusing all assets they can from the 3DS games, I doubt that. Otherwise, you make a good point.
@clvr I agree about clickbait in general (although it seems many people don't seem to understand that 'clicks' are only valuable if the clickers don't have an adblocker), but in this particular case the author just used a common phrase to mean what it always meant. There are much better examples to complain about.
@clvr I'm pretty sure the phrase "shows (the) new X in action" implies that said new X had already been revealed, but is now being shown off properly. At least, that is how I interpreted it, and how I presume most native speakers would also interpret it. If the title had said "trailer shows new Nintendo Switch Lite in action", surely you wouldn't have interpreted that as meaning there's another Switch Lite we hadn't heard about?
@carlos82 "(they probably never would)" They're held in place by a little plastic nub, so eventually they will. Especially if you take them off and put them back on often, the plastic will relatively quickly be scraped off.
@nintendork64 That is wrong. The GB Micro, for example, lost support for GB/GBC games. The NES got a cute top loader redesign that broke support for certain games. The SNES got a redesign with only one kind of video output (not the best one) as opposed to the original's three. The DS no longer supported GB/GBC games either. The DSi, which was definitely an improvement overall, removed the GBA slot altogether (even though the chip that allows it to play GBA games is actually still there). In fact, the DS Lite already made GBA cartridges stick out uncomfortably far. The 2DS no longer had 3D, the later Wii models no longer supported GC controllers and memory cards, and the Wii Mini didn't really support anything other than playing Wii games.
In the end it's hard to say "Nintendo always improved with reiterations, except for this and that and that and that and that and that case". Some reiterations are just meant as cheaper alternatives. Don't worry, a more powerful Switch will inevitably come next year or the year after.
@Ravenmaster "The regular Switch can't even do full 1080p in BotW while docked" That's mostly because BotW is a Wii U game that was quickly ported to the Switch, not because the Switch can't handle it. I'm willing to bet that the sequel will run in 1080p no problem.
In regards to 2160p, first of all it's only an incremental upgrade to 1080p, whereas 1080p was an enormous upgrade to 480p (usually 480i), especially with TV broadcasts in mind. Most importantly, though, only a minority of games actually run in full native 2160p, most use all kinds of optimisation tricks to make the image look like it's 2160p whereas it actually isn't. 2160p (and more) screens are being heavily pushed by the TV industry even though nothing actually properly supports them yet. Technically the same thing happened with 1080p, the PS3 and Xbox 360 mostly played games at 720p, or '1080p' with a boatload of optimisation tricks. The PS4 and Xbox One are really the first consoles to be able to run 1080p properly, and even they still have lots of games running at e.g. 900p, like Breath of the Wild. Even then, for people to even notice any real difference, they need to either have an enormous TV and/or sit right in front of it, as you can see in the graph below. I'm sitting about 3m from a 22 inch 720p TV and, save for some rare occasions with extremely obvious artifacting, cannot truly tell the difference between a 480p and 720p signal. The TV industry luckily isn't as full of snake oil salesmen as e.g. the hifi industry, but there are still many placebo improvements being passed around, and the fact that most TVs available in stores nowadays are 4K has more to do with making money than offering discernible improvements.
@NinChocolate The Vita could have probably really competed with the 3DS (like the PSP did with the DS) if only they didn't make the system so expensive, and if only they didn't make yet another proprietary memory card that was also extremely expensive even for really low storage amounts. Neither the 3DS nor the Vita had a good start, but Nintendo learned from their mistakes and released a string of excellent games in quick succession, and made the system a lot cheaper as well. This got a lot of people buying the console for those games, which in turn got third parties much more interested in releasing games for a popular system. It's as if Nintendo, in response to the really bad initial sales, said "we'll do everything we can to make it a success", and Sony, in turn, said "oh well, looks like no one wants the Vita, let's forget all about it because people must only be interested in mobile games".
@NinChocolate I just saw your comment on how Nintendo was the first to do a dockable handheld or a portable home console, technically that honour goes to the PSP Go (which you can even connect a DualShock 3 controller to, which lets you play 2-player PS1 games!), or the Sega Nomad, depending on your preferred description of what the Switch is. Both are almost as simple in use: on the PSP Go, you just hold a button for a couple of seconds and it switches to TV out (provided the cables are connected, but if you use the dock they probably are), and the Nomad was a matter of connecting the cables. Nintendo are definitely the first to do it really well, though.
@MrBlacky What do you mean by "the regular Switch features"? The IR sensor and rumble? Barely any games made use of those anyway. Regardless, you could have posted the same comment when they released the 3DS. No one will make 3D games anymore! Well - other than some games released late in the system's life which were too resource-intensive to get the 3D to work without a significant performance impact - they did, despite the 2DS selling like hotcakes.
@NinChocolate "Sony Vita is the perfect sized handheld." It's pretty good, but this really mostly depends on the size of your hands. Regular New 3DS and the PSP Go are my top picks.
@FargusPelagius You may want to look into getting an SD2Vita adapter, it lets you use MicroSD cards (but it uses the game cart slot, so you have to play digital games only) and will only cost you a dollar, maybe two. There's also an internal modification for the 3G Vita 1000, PSVSD, which replaces the 3G SIM module with an SD card slot (meaning: it lets you use the game cart slot). It does cost significantly more but setting it up is as easy as unscrewing the Vita's backside, taking out the SIM module and putting the PSVSD in its place. You do need to hack your system to be able to use the SD2Vita and/or the PSVSD, though, but it's pretty easy to do. The Vita is such a great handheld, as long as you hack it to overclock, improve the resolution, and other tweaks which make it shine (none of them pose any danger to the system).
@Heavyarms55 Yes, but it's still a system in the 3DS line of products and all games are still sold under the 3DS moniker. Agreed on the cargo pants comment, by the way. It's fine to walk around with but sitting down is impossible unless your pockets are extremely deep.
Comments 385
Re: Random: iPhone Charging Cable On The Fritz? Get A Sleeping Pokémon On It
To anyone looking for an actual solution to charging cable troubles, I wholeheartedly recommend getting a cable with a magnetic plug that stays inside your device. The cables can't snap because if you pull too hard, the cable simply disconnects from the plug. The plug automatically snaps back onto the cable if they come near each other, so you don't have to fiddle around with the cable all the time either. Brand-wise I suggest 'WSKEN', their cables are very high quality. Downside is you'll probably have to order them from China as you likely won't find them in a shop near you. Still, if you often suffer cable breakage, definitely look into this.
(This message was not sponsored by magnetic charging cable manufacturers.)
Re: The 8BitDo M30 Wireless Pad Is The Best Control Option For Your Sega Mega Drive Mini
The best original Mega Drive controller was, of course, the 6-button IR wireless pad:
https://consolevariations.com/variation/controller/remote-arcade-pad
I'm impatiently waiting for 8bitdo's 'Pro' revision of the M30 pad, with double joysticks. It won't get any better than that.
Re: Review: Astral Chain - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
@antdickens But then what was the point of the comment in the first place? If anything, the only person you were arguing with was yourself. Looks like I missed the latest copy of Rhetorical Strategies.
Re: Review: Astral Chain - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
@antdickens (first comment): That has to be the first time I've seen a native speaker argue the wrong semantics so spectacularly. Surely you know the difference between "believing something" and believing in something"?
"I believe you" = "I trust that what you are saying is true"
"I believe in you" = "I have faith in you" or "I am of the opinion that you exist"
Re: The Persona Series Has Now Sold More Than 10 Million Copies Worldwide
@OmegaDestroyer "Hard to really care about a company that doesn't really care too much about Nintendo."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlus_games
Re: Poll: How Do You Pronounce These Nintendo-Related Words?
I thought this would have included the BOB-omb/bob-OMB dispute. Clearly the only proper way to say it is the first one.
Re: Play The Dragon Quest XI S Demo And Receive A Special Spirit In Smash Bros. Ultimate
@Roto13 If you would only listen to artists who aren't insane in the brain, there would be no one to listen to.
Re: Sickhead Games Helped Out With The Grandia HD Collection
@mikegamer That's a shame, but thank you for the heads-up. Looks like the PSP/Vita is still the way to go to play Grandia 1 on the go, then.
Re: Video: The Latest Pokémon Sword And Shield Video Shows A Railway Town Up Close & Personal
Meanwhile, Dragon Quest XI S:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veuP3icch5w
Re: Pokémon Sword And Shield Won't Support Pokémon Global Link
The real question is: who even used the Global Link website in the first place? I recall making an account for some reason, but I don't recall ever doing anything with it.
@Erufuda (first comment) Haha, true.
Re: Review: Ittle Dew - A Colourful And Funny Little Zelda-Like
@KimBread That is correct.
Re: Power Stone Producer Would Love To See A New Entry On Nintendo Switch
@Morrow I don't know where you're located but they're really cheap in North America, and relatively cheap if you can wait for a good deal in Europe. Surely you aren't looking for 'new in box' systems?
Re: Review: Ittle Dew - A Colourful And Funny Little Zelda-Like
Perhaps the review should have mentioned somewhere that the (improved) sequel was already released on Switch two years ago:
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch/ittle_dew_2plus
I think short games are just fine, as long as they aren't too expensive. The second one felt a little expensive (although the game is excellent), but I'd say this one's actually cheap for what you get. I hope they plan on making more Ittle Dew games.
Re: Power Stone Producer Would Love To See A New Entry On Nintendo Switch
@Morrow Most Dreamcast exclusives (at the time) hold up really well, Power Stone 1 and 2 included.
Re: Nintendo, Sony And Microsoft Will Disclose Loot Box Odds
@BlueOcean "Loot boxes should be banned in video games like in Netherlands and Belgium."
They aren't banned, games just need to be rated 18+ (loot boxes fall under the gambling laws, and it's illegal to (knowingly) offer gambling to anyone under 18). Nintendo (and other companies) don't want to give their cute games 18+ ratings because parents would then wonder why Animal Crossing is considered 18+, and then Nintendo (and other companies) would have to admit that they've added addiction-inducing gambling mechanics to their games for kids to make as much money as possible - so instead of changing the ratings, they just don't make these games available for the Belgian market.
If, by miracle, all countries in the world would agree that digital gambling mechanics should only be in games for adults, thereby forcing Nintendo (and other game companies) to use an 18+ rating for their games all over the world, lootboxes and other such mechanics would immediately be removed.
Re: Hardware Review: 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ - The Best Third-Party Switch Controller Just Got Better
The real question is: when are they going to create a Pro version of their M30 controller? The six-button Mega Drive / Saturn control pad is basically the perfect (single piece) video game controller, all it needs is joysticks!
Re: Pokémon Sword And Shield Will Feature Galarian Forms, New Rivals And Team Yell Revealed
Nice new formes, and it's especially nice that they've given new formes to at least one Pokémon that wasn't part of the first generation.
Re: Upcoming Patch For Pokémon: Let's Go Fixes Some Weird Bugs
@Silly_G Hey, at least they found some bugs and fixed them.
Re: Nintendo Will Reportedly Fix Joy-Con Drift For Free And Refund Customers Who Paid
So is the Pokéball controller using the same cheapo graphite component as the regular joycons? Its joystick actually feels extremely similar to the Vita's (with an added ability to click it), so I'm not sure.
So far I've luckily only had one joycon develop the issue. I still have to send it in, though.
Re: A New Pokémon Game Is On The Way From The Studio Behind Call Of Duty Mobile
@commentlife "Have you played Let’s Go"
I didn't buy it, but I loaned the game from a friend and completed the dex. It was uninteresting, the visuals were bland and the performance was dreadful. I did like the 'dress up Pikachu' aspect and the Pokéball controller (despite its pants-on-head control scheme), I liked actually throwing Pokéballs (which, for the record, isn't coming back in SS because, uh, ???), I liked being able to ride on different Pokémon, and some other stuff, but overall it just wasn't a very interesting game.
"All of these games took immense resources"
For Pokkén, sure, the Wii U had a completely different architecture - but at least they could keep all of the assets. For Let's Go, they reused which assets they could from the 3DS (all Pokémon wireframes, for example), and they already had most of the story. The overall gameplay mechanics, although very similar to Pokémon Go, are indeed new and did require significant time in development. However, Pokémon Quest didn't really require a lot of dev time at all. It was already a game built for ARM architecture devices, all they did was hastily slap some physical button compatibility on it, didn't even test said compatibility, and put it on the eShop. I was under the impression Quest was a third party game, but apparently it was made by Game Freak. Oh boy.
Re: A New Pokémon Game Is On The Way From The Studio Behind Call Of Duty Mobile
@commentlife "Followed by 4 Pokémon titles and counting being released for the system."
It's as if you completely disregarded @Xelha's well-written post. On all previous handheld systems and home consoles, all Pokémon games were unique to that system, the systems didn't have any ports of older games (quite literally none whatsoever). On the Switch, however, Pokkén Tournament is a port of an older Wii U game. Pokémon Let's Go is the umpteenth remake of the first generation games, but this time around it uses 3D models instead of sprites (wow!) and you can no longer battle wild Pokémon. Pokémon Quest is literally a mobile phone game which they ported just because it was easy to port - it's also pretty bad and the button controls are poor. Pokémon SS is the only real new game, and it doesn't look particularly impressive when you compare it to pretty much any other game on the Switch.
Re: Class Action Lawsuit Officially Filed Against Nintendo For Switch Joy-Con "Drifting" Issues
@AlternateButtons "I'm shocked how many people don't seem to realize most of my replies are trolling."
https://i.imgur.com/pLOrJ.jpg
Re: Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night Switch Patch Comes With Some Unwelcome Extras
@Leinad "from the cardboard cutout "Waifu" protagonist, all the way to the lame plot" Who the hell plays a Castlevania game for the story and characters?
Re: Nintendo Inexplicably Deletes Popular Mario Maker Streamer's Level
@Octane Speaking of word filters, the Switch has one built into its autocompletion dictionary. Funny thing is that it doesn't do a very good job. For example, it will never suggest 'penis', but 'penisnijd' (Dutch for 'penis envy'), no problem! At least it isn't as overactive as the one built into Pokémon Black and White, where people couldn't give their Cofagrigus the name 'Cofagrigus', because it contains 'fag'. I think the games still don't allow people to name their Pokémon 'Violet' because 'viol' is a mature word in French.
Re: We've Re-Translated That Pokémon Sword and Shield Interview Quote
@NCChris Well, naturally the textures were updated, and some lighting effects were changed. However, the wireframes of the models weren't - though I'm not complaining about that, because the wireframes were/are, other than some minor nitpicks on a handful of models, really good.
Edit: I hadn't seen your second post yet, looks like we don't even disagree.
Re: Resident Evil 5 And 6 Shamble To Switch This October
As some others have said: gyro aiming (not the same as motion controls), please! Lining up headshots is both easier and a lot more fun when you can adjust your aim by tilting the controllers/Switch a bit instead of fiddling to get the reticle to line up with analog sticks.
Re: Use Fortnite Chat In Docked Mode With This Officially Licensed Switch Pad
I don't understand why wireless controllers are still being made at all for anyone/anything other than competitive players with cat reflexes, or super cheap bargain bin one-size-fits-all controllers. My Mega Drive has wireless controllers and that thing was released in 1988, thirty one years ago - admittedly said controllers were only released sometime in the 90s, not sure which year exactly, but still, why do these third parties always make wired controllers?
(And also: how are camo decals still a thing?)
Re: We've Re-Translated That Pokémon Sword and Shield Interview Quote
@Batty5 "a true leap forward as far as the graphics go, compared to the 3DS games."
Might I suggest you look up "Pokémon Sun Citra emulator gameplay" on YouTube? The 3DS games, when played on a high resolution screen, look nearly identical to the Switch games.
Re: We've Re-Translated That Pokémon Sword and Shield Interview Quote
@adema16 You certainly aren't wrong that the real blame lies with the executives, but I see it more as though people are saying that the executives are lazy rather than them saying that the actual developers are sloths. If anyone is actually directing their anger toward the employees themselves, they should probably get their heads checked.
However, despite the employees not being the ones to blame for decisions made from higher up, there is simply no denying that Game Freak's programmers (not the artists or writers) quite frankly aren't very good at programming overall. One of the most recent examples is how Viridian Forest suffered from serious slowdown in Pokémon Let's Go. It's an area you enter after less than 20 minutes of playtime in a graphically simple game on the same pretty powerful console that also runs games like Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey or Dragon Quest XI, even Doom and Wolfenstein. You would almost have to be programming it badly on purpose to get it to lag with that much horsepower to tap into, and yet they managed to make it lag. Another slightly older example is how in Sun and Moon (and Ultra Sun/Moon), character models are duplicated across all areas in which they appear, because instead of referencing the model from one folder, Game Freak's programmers decided to copy and paste it to every folder for every environment where that character at any point in the game shows up. Another example: why do you think it can sometimes take a noticeably long time for the opposing trainer to give a command, even though they only have four moves and perhaps another Pokémon to choose from? Because Game Freak's programmers fundamentally misunderstand how to run calculations simultaneously. Or way back in the day, Game Freak could not fit the entirety of the Johto region on one cartridge, until Satoru Iwata single-handedly fixed all of the code and managed to put in the Kanto region as well. That was one guy, who did all of that all by himself, fixing nearly all of Game Freak's bad code, massively optimising it and adding the feature Gold and Silver are so well-known for, the second region - and still, he managed to have a reasonable amount of space left on the cartridges. The guy is a legend for good reason. It's a real shame he's longer here.
Re: We've Re-Translated That Pokémon Sword and Shield Interview Quote
@Pokefanmum82 "Stop being a bunch of whiny kids. Until you have run a government you have no room to complain about your country's economy being run into the ground. If it really bugs you so much, don’t vote for those politicians. It’s as simple as that. The world is going to crap and all you care about is your country's economy. If you’re going to complain, complain about the state of the world."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Edit: actually, it's probably more of a false dilemma/red herring (appeal to worse problems) than whataboutism. Still, nothing but a fallacy, as you can see.
Re: We've Re-Translated That Pokémon Sword and Shield Interview Quote
@adema16 The thing is that Smash Bros. is actually a balanced game, and even gets regular updates to tweak the balance even further. Pokémon, on the other hand, has about 20 extremely powerful/versatile creatures (not counting Legendary Pokémon, because those are usually banned anyway even if they're really weak) that blow all of the hundreds upon hundreds of others out of the water. Some types are really weak, some are really strong. Game Freak created Fairy type to 'balance out' Dragon type, despite the fact that Dragon isn't even a very good type, it's just that they nearly always give that type to the most powerful Pokémon in the games so it looks like it's more powerful than it really is. Game Freak created Mega Evolutions to balance out the competitive game, but handed out those Mega Evolutions almost exclusively to Pokémon that were already among the most powerful to start with (bar some exceptions like Beedrill), and then proceeded to make those Mega Evolutions extremely powerful in their own right, making the competitive aspect entirely about Mega Evolutions. Pokémon is not a balanced game at all and Game Freak is either clueless or completely uninterested in truly balancing the game to make more than just the handful of Ubers competitively viable.
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@dleec8 But you have nothing to say. Of course some people enjoy things for different reasons than others do. If I go to a restaurant, it's because I like good food. Many others go to restaurants to appear interesting on Instagram. Who cares? But if the restaurant I've liked eating at for twenty three years hasn't improved upon any of their recipes for years (whereas all other restaurants both in the area and further away have), and they've even taken some of their best dishes off the menu for no discernable reason, should I not be allowed to at some point say "it's such a shame this restaurant has dropped the ball" because the Instagram people don't go there for the food?
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@dleec8 "When I became addicted to Pokemon Red in the 5th grade in 1998, there were no battle animations beyond the Pokemon sprites shaking forward and backwards, the graphics were comparable to a NES game"
The first game in the entire series, the first product in the entire franchise, which was released twenty three years ago on the Game Boy (with a whopping 8KB of RAM and a 4MHz CPU), didn't look very impressive graphically. What's your point?
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@penamiguel92 Hey, good job not reading any preceding comment explaining how from every possible angle you are as demonstrably wrong as it gets.
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@TheBlue10 @Elvie That's basically the way Black and White already looked, no? 2D sprites on 3D but still pixel-art environments? In fact, even Diamond and Pearl already did it, but with a much more laid-back 3D effect.
Edit: without all of the fancy visual effects, of course.
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@R_Champ Too bad for you that very literally no one but you even mentioned the "national dex", but don't let that distract you from anxiously trying to come across to strangers on the internet as 'the reasonable adult'.
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@Liam_Doolan The title of this article should read "Game Freak Claims It Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield". The current title is uncritically parrotting PR nonsense which anyone can see through. To compare the situation to a tale of one HC Andersen: Game Freak is the emperor, and says it's wearing clothes. Nintendo Life publishes an article: "Emperor Is Most Definitely Wearing Clothes". Unfortunately, Game Freak's wearing its birthday suit.
Re: Game Freak Isn't Reusing 3DS Models In Pokémon Sword and Shield
@Wolfgabe A 3D model is like a PNG image, but in 3D. All that's needed is some piece of software to read those files. It's unrelated to the engine.
Re: Video: Latest Japanese Sword And Shield Commerical Shows New Pokémon In Action
@forumposter21 "Theyre so busy to appeal to the 'Graphics' generation of gamers" Well, considering they're reusing all assets they can from the 3DS games, I doubt that. Otherwise, you make a good point.
Re: Video: Latest Japanese Sword And Shield Commerical Shows New Pokémon In Action
@clvr I agree about clickbait in general (although it seems many people don't seem to understand that 'clicks' are only valuable if the clickers don't have an adblocker), but in this particular case the author just used a common phrase to mean what it always meant. There are much better examples to complain about.
Re: Video: Latest Japanese Sword And Shield Commerical Shows New Pokémon In Action
@clvr I'm pretty sure the phrase "shows (the) new X in action" implies that said new X had already been revealed, but is now being shown off properly. At least, that is how I interpreted it, and how I presume most native speakers would also interpret it. If the title had said "trailer shows new Nintendo Switch Lite in action", surely you wouldn't have interpreted that as meaning there's another Switch Lite we hadn't heard about?
Re: Quirky Switch Shooter Morphies Law Returns With New Maps, Modes, Servers And More
Not really my type of game, but I like how they gave the characters philophers' names.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@carlos82 "(they probably never would)" They're held in place by a little plastic nub, so eventually they will. Especially if you take them off and put them back on often, the plastic will relatively quickly be scraped off.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@nintendork64 That is wrong. The GB Micro, for example, lost support for GB/GBC games. The NES got a cute top loader redesign that broke support for certain games. The SNES got a redesign with only one kind of video output (not the best one) as opposed to the original's three. The DS no longer supported GB/GBC games either. The DSi, which was definitely an improvement overall, removed the GBA slot altogether (even though the chip that allows it to play GBA games is actually still there). In fact, the DS Lite already made GBA cartridges stick out uncomfortably far. The 2DS no longer had 3D, the later Wii models no longer supported GC controllers and memory cards, and the Wii Mini didn't really support anything other than playing Wii games.
In the end it's hard to say "Nintendo always improved with reiterations, except for this and that and that and that and that and that case". Some reiterations are just meant as cheaper alternatives. Don't worry, a more powerful Switch will inevitably come next year or the year after.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@Ravenmaster "The regular Switch can't even do full 1080p in BotW while docked" That's mostly because BotW is a Wii U game that was quickly ported to the Switch, not because the Switch can't handle it. I'm willing to bet that the sequel will run in 1080p no problem.
In regards to 2160p, first of all it's only an incremental upgrade to 1080p, whereas 1080p was an enormous upgrade to 480p (usually 480i), especially with TV broadcasts in mind. Most importantly, though, only a minority of games actually run in full native 2160p, most use all kinds of optimisation tricks to make the image look like it's 2160p whereas it actually isn't. 2160p (and more) screens are being heavily pushed by the TV industry even though nothing actually properly supports them yet. Technically the same thing happened with 1080p, the PS3 and Xbox 360 mostly played games at 720p, or '1080p' with a boatload of optimisation tricks. The PS4 and Xbox One are really the first consoles to be able to run 1080p properly, and even they still have lots of games running at e.g. 900p, like Breath of the Wild.
Even then, for people to even notice any real difference, they need to either have an enormous TV and/or sit right in front of it, as you can see in the graph below. I'm sitting about 3m from a 22 inch 720p TV and, save for some rare occasions with extremely obvious artifacting, cannot truly tell the difference between a 480p and 720p signal. The TV industry luckily isn't as full of snake oil salesmen as e.g. the hifi industry, but there are still many placebo improvements being passed around, and the fact that most TVs available in stores nowadays are 4K has more to do with making money than offering discernible improvements.
https://i.rtings.com/images/optimal-viewing-distance-television-graph-size.png
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@NinChocolate The Vita could have probably really competed with the 3DS (like the PSP did with the DS) if only they didn't make the system so expensive, and if only they didn't make yet another proprietary memory card that was also extremely expensive even for really low storage amounts. Neither the 3DS nor the Vita had a good start, but Nintendo learned from their mistakes and released a string of excellent games in quick succession, and made the system a lot cheaper as well. This got a lot of people buying the console for those games, which in turn got third parties much more interested in releasing games for a popular system. It's as if Nintendo, in response to the really bad initial sales, said "we'll do everything we can to make it a success", and Sony, in turn, said "oh well, looks like no one wants the Vita, let's forget all about it because people must only be interested in mobile games".
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@NinChocolate I just saw your comment on how Nintendo was the first to do a dockable handheld or a portable home console, technically that honour goes to the PSP Go (which you can even connect a DualShock 3 controller to, which lets you play 2-player PS1 games!), or the Sega Nomad, depending on your preferred description of what the Switch is. Both are almost as simple in use: on the PSP Go, you just hold a button for a couple of seconds and it switches to TV out (provided the cables are connected, but if you use the dock they probably are), and the Nomad was a matter of connecting the cables. Nintendo are definitely the first to do it really well, though.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@beazlen1 There's still a fan:
https://cdn02.nintendo-europe.com/media/images/08_content_images/systems_5/nintendo_switch_3/nintendo_switch_lite_2/NSwitchSpecsTop_en~2.jpg
Also see the comments by @TooBarFoo.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@MrBlacky What do you mean by "the regular Switch features"? The IR sensor and rumble? Barely any games made use of those anyway. Regardless, you could have posted the same comment when they released the 3DS. No one will make 3D games anymore! Well - other than some games released late in the system's life which were too resource-intensive to get the 3D to work without a significant performance impact - they did, despite the 2DS selling like hotcakes.
Re: Switch Lite Reveal Sees Nintendo Shares Soar To Highest Point In Nine Months
@NinChocolate "Sony Vita is the perfect sized handheld." It's pretty good, but this really mostly depends on the size of your hands. Regular New 3DS and the PSP Go are my top picks.
@FargusPelagius You may want to look into getting an SD2Vita adapter, it lets you use MicroSD cards (but it uses the game cart slot, so you have to play digital games only) and will only cost you a dollar, maybe two. There's also an internal modification for the 3G Vita 1000, PSVSD, which replaces the 3G SIM module with an SD card slot (meaning: it lets you use the game cart slot). It does cost significantly more but setting it up is as easy as unscrewing the Vita's backside, taking out the SIM module and putting the PSVSD in its place. You do need to hack your system to be able to use the SD2Vita and/or the PSVSD, though, but it's pretty easy to do. The Vita is such a great handheld, as long as you hack it to overclock, improve the resolution, and other tweaks which make it shine (none of them pose any danger to the system).
@Heavyarms55 Yes, but it's still a system in the 3DS line of products and all games are still sold under the 3DS moniker. Agreed on the cargo pants comment, by the way. It's fine to walk around with but sitting down is impossible unless your pockets are extremely deep.