sdelfin

@Teksette I appreciate you letting me know. I didn't take a close look at that game before, so I'll have to look into it and see if it appeals to me. It looks cool enough at a glance. So good to know Daredevil is in there. Still, I would love to see Daredevil in one of these old school 2D beat-em-up games. They're a perfect fit for him. He punches people and uses a club. How can he not be in these games? Thanks again.

This particular game might not be the best fit, but I would like to see Daredevil in a Marvel beat-em-up. The scope of this one may be wrong, plus they already have an attorney in the game. But a game like this with the scope of the Punisher arcade game(no cosmic stuff) could feature the likes of Punisher, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Black Cat, Black Widow.....and maybe Dazzler.

But this one does have a handful of characters that I'm happy to see in the game, so I'll be fine. Iron Man seems like a good fit for this game too.

Nice that they can still be friends. Things changed for them once Rosalina entered the picture.

There's not much to Europe's cover and I can't say I find it to be particularly good. The NA cover is also not that good. I'm not sure that image makes the best cover image, but at least it's something interesting. My main gripe with the NA cover is the game title covers up the second character and that hurts the overall presentation. But at least I can play it on XBAND with an upside down red A for some reason. Ah, the '90s.

NA is my pick.

"So we built something borderline insane. We implemented a system that had been used in countless games going back to the 8-bit NES, if not even further back."(statement modified for effect)

There, I fixed that for him. I don't know what he's going on about. That was a pretty standard thing in video games that needed variable heights for jumps. To frame it as an insane solution is puzzling. In this context, it doesn't really matter that it's 2D vs. 3D. The concept is the same and just makes sense. What would be different between 2D and 3D would be implementation, things like timing, distance, gravity, etc. But the concept of reading the duration of a button press for that purpose was extremely common. It's insane to think it was novel in 1996.

With that said, a jumping mechanic like that would be a big deal if it's quite different in the remake. Some people say the jump is not fixed, though it clearly sounds different. A change like that will change the way a game feels overall and that could be a big problem for those who are familiar with the original. It would be interesting to hear what those in charge of the remake have to say about it.

Since it came up in a few posts above, I'll share my experiences about the D-pads. I have the original Pro+ controller which is the first of this line and layout. It's the same shape and configuration, but doesn't have the back paddles which is the main difference. The D-pad on that one is one of the best I have ever used in terms of function. I say this as someone who had a Saturn when it was current and consider the Saturn D-pad the best first-party D-pad of all time. In fact, when I started using the 8bitdo Pro+, which I got mostly for the analog and to have a full-featured controller, I was using Saturn pads regularly. The Pro+ D-pad was its equal, and that's despite it being a cross pad, but the D-pad shape isn't as important as the implementation. There is a big downside to the 8bitdo. The button membranes are weak and tear after a while. They are not hard to replace and the replacements are not expensive from what I have seen. I do not have the Pro 2, but it used a different membrane. I don't know how the D-pad compares to the Pro + in function or durability.

I also tried their Ultimate C wired controllers, which have always been a crazy value. I assume the rest of the Ultimate controllers are similar, if not better. The C1 has a stiffer D-pad than the Pro +. It wasn't bad, but required a very different touch. I had to slide my thumb to the edges more than I typically would. So I would consider it a step down. When I finally tried the C2, I immediately noticed the D-pad had a different feel, and was an improvement. In game, it feels just like the Pro +, so I consider the C2 equal with the Pro + and Saturn controller in overall usage(accuracy, responsiveness, feel). I can't vouch for the durability of those as I haven't used them as heavily.

@RupeeClock While I agree with you about the magnetic button tops and the charging dock, I've seen enough people make a fuss about face button layouts and liking changeable labels(like some arcade sticks), so I'm not surprised people like this. Also, I've seen the charging dock for their Ultimate controllers be well received, so I'm not surprised about that either. 8bitdo probably got a lot of feedback on those two things. I've basically gotten used to all the layouts and can adjust on the fly. I think it's better that way.

I also think Mickey looks off on the NA box. Perhaps it's an imposter or impersonator, maybe Morty Mouse or something like that. Mackie Mouse? Anyway, as someone said above, I do like how NA shows Pete and the nephews in the background, but that's not enough to put NA in the lead.

Europe's is way too cramped by all the logos. They just destroy all the space and leave no breathing room at all. The Japanese version is much more pleasant because it's not cropped or crushed by logos. Japan wins.

I hate voting for US N64 covers because the red strip and corner peel just annoy me to no end. It's such bad design. However, the box art here is so strong that it's still superior. This duel is a great demonstration of composition. For the western cover, the X-wing is prominent as it is supposed to be and draws the eye to it. Then you have all the other ships and plenty of other detail behind it and filling in the space around the X-wing. The impressive part is that with all those elements, it still feels like there's lots of breathing room in the frame. The Japanese cover has strange composition. The most prominent element and where my eye is drawn every time I look at it is the TIE Fighter's side panel/wing. The TIE being on the edge of the frame so that it is cropped detracts from the image. The X-wing is partially obscured and positioned so high in the corner that it seems like an afterthought. The NA cover just works so much better.

I will echo what has already been said, whoever made the decision to put Japan and Europe together dropped the ball. They're not vastly different, but they are way more than slightly different. Aside from the different title, the female character is cropped a bit at the bottom for Japan; the character underneath her is totally different; Leon looks to have slightly different coloring, and his position is also different relative to the bullet hole by his gun; Above Leon they have entirely different characters for both remaining slots above Leon(specifically, the zombie directly above Leon for Europe is two slots above him on Japan, but still a major difference), so that's two more differences; There's a zombie that's prominent and colored like the foreground characters right above Leon's gun in the Japanese cover; and in the center, the Euro cover has a plain white background, while Japan has more zombies in monochrome. The two covers are definitely different enough for separate entries and I seem to recall brawls where more similar covers were separate.

With that said, this is all for fun. The NA version feels lazy and overly formulaic to me. Europe is better, but a distant second. Japan's cover has better composition, better use of space including the middle blank space, and much better character choices for the cover, both in terms of composition and aesthetics. My vote is for Japan, and Japan only.

@eaglebob345 Not true. Real people pointed this out on launch day or the day after. It had nothing to do then with DF. It was casual users. With that said, I've heard enough people praise the screen that it doesn't sound widespread enough to even be a real screen lottery. I wonder if those people just got screens or hardware with some kind of defect.

I said previously that there likely is some kind of screen lottery going on. I believe there are two screen manufacturers. And there might be multiple factories per manufacturer, so that could lead to further variation. It's just bizarre to hear from people, even just casual end users, how blurry their screens are that they can't not see it, while others find their Switch 2 screens to be fantastic. That kind of reported blur sounds prominent enough that the crew here at NL would notice, yet it sounds like they're quite happy with their displays.

I believe there are two screen suppliers. I wonder if there's variation between the supplied screens, and perhaps even differences from the same manufacturer if they're using different factories. Someone else mentioned it, but there may be a screen lottery in play. Some people report extreme blur that even casual types can see. Others say their screens have no blur and look amazing. It sounds like not all Switch 2 screens are created equal. Perhaps we'll find out more about that going forward.

The Euro cover is an example of bad composition due to all the wasted space. It's funny how small DK and Diddy are on there. The framing is just not good. The NA cover isn't bad. DK is dynamic and well framed. The background is there, I guess. I like the cel shading. But the cover doesn't grab me. It doesn't at least make me want to know more about it. The Japanese cover is actually interesting to me. The composition of it is excellent. It's very festive in a pleasant way. I like the way DK and Diddy are drawn and colored. Japan's cover is the best one here and is just very nicely done.

My favorite time period of Nintendo is the Gamecube + GBA era. I loved both systems. There were a lot of quality games that I appreciated. Plus, at least on the console side, Nintendo was in the role of underdog, which I thought led to some good things compared to times they were on top.

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Some people are chasing a feeling with the determination of seemingly wanting to return to a previous time. That can sometimes go too far and lead to some odd rituals and such. That isn't to say it has to be extreme. And then we have unintended nostalgia, which is my favorite kind. And I think so many of us move past certain things or experience times in our lives when fun diversions can take a back seat. Then, some time down the line we come across such things again and the interest returns, but that interest also brings us long dormant reminders of the past, with important memories. I've had that experience with gaming and with old TV shows. In some cases, I can vividly remember experiences I had. And it's even better if this kind of nostalgia can reconnect people the way it has here for the author of the piece.

I remember first seeing this done with Game Boy games. It made a lot of sense for those since their boxes were not proper display boxes, in my opinion, and were often discarded. I thought they looked good and people do a nice job with them, so more power to those that want to do tht for Switch stuff, even if those do have proper game cases.

This one was very easy for me. I chose North America with no hesitation. I just don't like the Euro cover much. The Japanese cover does nothing at all for me. NA has great composition to start. The purple background is nice and helps the colorful characters stand out. The overall design is superior in my opinion.

That's about what I expected to happen. It would have been amusing if the blue shell did a lap around the track before hitting him, though, and that seemed plausible enough.

The western cover has very good composition. It has the typical "let's squeeze a ton of characters in the background" approach, and I'm not as fond of how it's done here. I think less would be more here. I also don't really like Ryu's pose and don't think he looks all that great here. I think Ryu was drawn way better on the Japanese cover and I like the action pose. I also like the composition with Akuma and Chun Li. Chun Li is my favorite element of the cover, in fact. Overall, like the Japanese cover a lot more.

It's nice to see Cyberpunk get a second chance at having a product launch and it not being a disaster this time.

It's so funny how we kids back in the day debated which 2D ninja series was better, and now they're being revived at the same time and by European developers with great track records, and apparently with games coming out a month apart. Ryu Hayabusa and Joe Musashi can't seem to get away from each other. That makes me think that there should be a classic-style anime with them teaming up, maybe with Strider Hiryu joining them. I think both games are looking fantastic in their own ways and I'm excited for both of them.

Regarding the art style of Shinobi, I didn't like the Lizardcube style for Streets of Rage 4. It didn't feel right to me and I had some technical issues with it. But I have to give the developers credit because they did include an unusual, but in a good way in my opinion, CRT filter. I liked the way that looked and I appreciate they included that to let me play the game in a way that looked appealing to me. It's funny that they didn't reveal that prior to release. But the visual style feels like a better fit for Shinobi because it does kind of resemble the same visual style from Okami, like a painting. Plus, they made some adjustments to the art for Shinobi, such as the game not having such thick black outlines like in Streets of Rage 4, and that makes a big difference. I'm not against 2D games trying a more modern, drawn 2D aesthetic over pixel art, and I think Shinobi is coming along very nicely in that style, though I wouldn't be against them continuing to include their CRT filter.

I understand the issue with the art. I think it's just the nature of a lot of digital art where you have a lot of crisp lines and large areas of uniform color without any apparent texture. To be clear, I did not like the Streets of Rage 4 art style(more on that in a moment). But, first, I think the art is a better fit in Shinobi, especially with it being a flat, 2D action game, but also because they made adjustments to the SOR4 art, specifically the black outlines are much thinner than in that game. To give credit to Lizardcube, they included an interesting CRT filter in SOR4. It was a bit unusual in its execution, but I liked it a lot and I was able to enjoy the game with the visuals more to my taste. They didn't even publicize that feature ahead of release. It's quite possible Shinobi will get the same treatment. But I like the general look of this one so far as it reminds me of the vibe Okami had with the visuals.

As for the combo gameplay, as beat-em-ups are my favorite kind of game, I welcome combos into Shinobi. There were additions and changes to the Shinobi games as they went. I think adding combos was a logical next thing to try. It's possible it doesn't work, but I think it will.

@Krull That was quite amusing and I think it needed to be said, so I'm the one saying it. It's also reasonably plausible.

No hesitation from me. I voted for the NA cover straight away. To be clear, I found all three of these disappointing. The art itself is fine, but nothing is as dynamic as I'd expect from Marvel stuff of the time. None of these are particularly exciting. While the Japan/Euro art isn't badly executed for what it is, it's not good for a cover. Everything just blends together and nothing particularly stands out. To lump all the characters into one giant mass like that leaves a bunch of characters and important elements obscured. The NA cover is somewhat boring, but it's much more visually coherent and, to me, far more appealing.

Thjey're both good if a bit simple and generic in terms of the key art. I like the background in both as it's unusual in a good way. The border on the Japanese one doesn't really enhance things. I think the logo style and placement works better for the western cover, and that's my preference this week.

@WhiteUmbrella No worries. As I was not talking about this game and was referring to the concept in general, I was intentionally unspecific and didn't think it would draw much attention. I can see how there can be misunderstanding, especially in text form. I think it's much like other concepts in game development in that the implementation is the key. It could be done well or not so much. But I have no problem with fixed camera as a concept when done well.

Just last week I was playing Prince of Persia - Warrior Within which is full 3D, but has fixed-camera sections. There was one part that sticks out in which you're being chased and the camera angle suddenly changes the very moment the character must change directions. It's not the worst thing ever and not super difficult, but it is annoying having the time constraint of the chase and ending up running the wrong way because of the camera change every single time.

@WhiteUmbrella I was talking about other games of that era which used fixed cameras in whole or in part. I have played some recently and they do screw up your ability to control things in the moment. And they weren't using tank controls. I was talking about the concept in general. Some developers may have done it well, but others could have done it better.

@-wc- The only explanation I've seen is that some people get hung up on having a portion of the screen not used. They feel short changed somehow. I've seen people say they prefer 4:3 sources cropped to 16:9 for this reason. Same with stretching the image. It also makes things bigger, but at the huge loss of actually losing parts of the picture. It's very strange.

The only time I can think of when it's not so clear is for open matte films. These are things originally shot in 4:3 but were meant to be cropped to 16:9 for theatrical release. A case could be made that either way is fine, and chances are such things are framed more for one than for the other.

There were some that weren't very fond of the visual style of Streets of Rage 4. I was among them, though I do give the developer credit for including the CRT-ish filters which I thought were good and I preferred the game that way. It was weird that those filters were not known until release day. But I like the visual style here for Shinobi. The style is adjusted a bit from SOR4, specifically the dark outlines aren't so prominent. But I also think this style fits better for Shinobi and I like what I have seen so far. While I love pixel art, not everything is going to be pixel art and other things can also look good and this does look that way to me. I also think the addition of combos could be good. As I'm a big fan of beat-em-up games, I like that, but we'll have to see how the execution is and how well it works with 2D Shonibi.

The problem with fixed-camera in games of that time is how scenes transitioned screwing up your ability to control things, or how developers would choose terrible vantage points for no good reason other than to mess with the player. I've just been playing some PS2 games with certain sections that do that and sometimes it's just puzzling.

Japan! The zoomed in view of the vehicles on the western cover is fine, but it's missing something. It's just so generic. I've said it many times, the NA N64 covers with the giant red strip and annoying corner peel are so bad and the layout detracts from the box art. A game box would have to be extremely superior in execution to overcome the layout in my eyes. This is not that.

@MSaturn I took a look at a video for the first Capcom Fighting Collection and on the game select screen there are extra options on the bottom including "game settings" where the difficulty settings should be per game. I imagine it should be similar to other collections.

This reminds me of a bit from the old Garfield and Friends cartoon. In the show, there was a game show called "Hit the Buzzer, Win a Cookie". This is the mobile version of that. Click the cookie, win more cookies.

I don't know much about the remake(other than it's scheduled for 2021 according to the trailer...ha ha), but I played the original on the Gamecube and loved it. I hadn't played it in ages, but just finished it again last week. I'm working my way through the second game now, which I also played through back in the day. I got the third game, but never got around to playing it due to life things and forgetfulness, so I intend to fix that and go right into it when I finish the second one.

This isn't particularly surprising. Not only was the Tegra X1 two years old by the time the Switch came out, but it was also significantly limited in the Switch, but it still turned out fine. Just because this chip may have been ready in 2021 doesn't mean it would have been easy to package it in a Switch Pro at the time at a price that could work. Because this is a fixed spec, developers will likely be able to get more out of this than if it were in a PC. There will be optimizations down the line. Also, I'm not sure how DLSS may work with Switch 2, but that may help get more out of it as well. Regardless, the Switch was a big hit despite its hardware limitations, and the Switch 2 will likely succeed as well, while probably being less limited in relative terms.

Japan is the best. Sure, it's cluttered, but it's well done for what it is and doesn't have the problems of the other two. The Euro covers for the N64 are not good. That border is awful. The art is cropped which makes the framing feel crampled. Since it's the same art as the NA cover, it's cramped there too, except way worse for NA because of all the extra stuff. And as I have said many times, the template for the NA N64 boxes is one of the worst ever done, in my opinion. The giant red strip on the side is obnoxious and a giant waste of space because the icons within the strip are quite small. Speaking of obnoxious, the "only for" corner peel is bad.

@NotASockPuppet According to the scorekeeper for these, that isn't the case. Japan isn't even in the lead. I don't know how many times the European covers have won without being the same as the NA covers, but it has happened and I have voted for European covers several times. In the case of N64, I think the NA cover style is one of the worst there has ever been and think it's the worst of this particular bunch. Nostalgia does skew the polls which puts Euro covers at a disadvantage, but there's no way around that.

As I scrolled down the page, my first thought about the western cover was that it was a bit generic, especially with how you can't see the expression on the person's face. I thought to myself, Japan's cover should be better. Then I saw it. Wow! Japan's cover is impressively horrible. It really does look like a print ad of some sort, though I would not rate it as an especially good one. It does nothing for me. It doesn't even communicate that it's a video game. Those little circular icons add nothing of value to the cover and just don't work. I wonder if they're just there because, otherwise, the extremely poor use of space would be even more glaring. The Japanese cover, to me, is the very definition of lazy design. It is totally inadequate as a game cover. It would be only slightly better if it were a magazine ad, though still not good. It is, frankly, one of the worst covers I've seen.

It's May 1 today. If it was April 1, this news would feel right at home as an April Fool's gag. Even throw in some Half Life 3 into the mix. It is a bizarre bit of news, but at least it's progress. Makes me wonder how far along they are. Just because it will be playable at this museum doesn't mean it will be ready for sale in 2025, but it is a good sign for those waiting for this game eagerly.

Both of these are very nice. As they share the same key art, the other elements make the difference. The Japanese one is less cramped, but there's also empty space. The NA one has more background detail, but is more cramped by the large logo and side bar. While others point to it as a negative, I really like the color choices for the western cover. The subdued blues and boosted reds and yellows are unusual and helps it stand out for me. I think it works well in this case, so my vote is for the western version.

I'm not fond of either one. Japan's is overly basic and not particularly interesting to me. The western cover has action going on, but the composition is messy and does not appear to be meant as a cover. The blurry background also gives it an odd feel. With that said, my preference is for the western cover, largely due to how they adapted the logo.

I clicked to find out about the cow, and not even a single mention of it in the interview....

I mentioned in my comment for the other article that it seems a fitting coincidence that 2D Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi are being revived at the same time. It was always a bit of a friendly rivalry as kids debating which was the better ninja series(spoiler: both!). I never played the 3D Ninja Gaiden games, so I can't say much about any references to them here, but I assumed they would take those into account too. Frankly, since Ninja Gaiden never evolved in 2D during the 16-bit era, it feels like it makes sense to stray from the 8-bit formula more. Also, while I understand some people being cautious about the changes, the fact that they're consulting with Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja gives me some reassurance that the decisions should likely make sense for this property.

This new info today has me more excited than before about both Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi, and I watched both trailers again. They're both looking very nice visually.

Back in the day, I had a Master System and most of my friends had the NES, so there was a bit of a friendly rivalry over Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden. And that evolved a bit as the Shinobi sequels came out on the Genesis. To be clear, I love both. So it feels fitting that Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden will "face off" again. Back then, it was Sega vs. Tecmo. Now it's Game Kitchen vs. Lizard Cube. Both are looking very nice and I'm excited to play them both. I love me some old-school ninja action. And this coming not long after Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. It's a good time to be a fan of ninja action game revivals.

This one is looking very cool, and the Game Kitchen pixel art is wonderful. This looks pretty different from the old 8-bit games, of course, but I think that makes sense. Ninja Gaiden never evolved in the 16-bit era for some reason. And it's been so long that it feels like it makes sense to reinvent Ninja Gaiden, even though I love the way the original games play, especially parts one and three. I look forward to learning more and seeing how this turns out.

An upgraded Switch is the correct course of action. This is one of the lessons Nintendo learned from the Wii U. They simultaneously learned that changing things up can be a tough sell, and that their marketing needs to be much clearer to avoid confusion, so following Sony's lead of numbering makes sense. The Switch was a great concept that, unsurprisingly, was a smash hit. It makes perfect sense to continue offering the same core experience. The Switch has basically consolidated Nintendo's console and portable businesses. There's no more leaning on the Game Boy and DS as they did in the past. They need the core experience of the Switch 2 to be as appealing as their prior portable systems. Iteration beats innovation there.

Innovation for its own sake is not a good thing. It's even worse when it hurts the core experience. New ideas have to make sense and be compelling. Nintendo is a business too. Again, with a single product line instead of two, they need the Switch to have broad appeal. That means it needs to do the basics right. But Nintendo has innovated in other ways in recent years with the Labo concept, and that augmented reality Mario Kart which was very clever. But you can't innovate every time.

The circle is an odd choice for the NA cover. I don't hate it, but I'm not sure it serves any good purpose. The composition and artwork within it are good. My issue comes at the area outside of the circle. There's wasted space, and the hut and crocodile(?) seem like afterthoughts. I'm assuming they used an existing bit of promo art that was only suitable as a cover if they cropped it.

Not much to say about the Euro/Japan cover other than I think it's better.

Even if I didn't factor in the writing on the boxes like Metroid's, Donkey Kong would be my favorite here. It's just really well executed for what it is. I saw someone above say the Mario Kart cover is cluttered, and I expected that. There is a lot going on, but the composition does a good job of containing it. Mario is the focal point and there's still some space to let everything breath a bit, despite the clutter. It's another strong one. Metroid is another good one, if a bit basic.

None of the Zelda covers do anything for me and are probably the weakest overs of this batch for me. I get what they wanted to depict with the covers and they succeeded, but they're not great as game covers as a result, in my opinion.

"Powered by AI, PLAYi takes away the need to actually play the game in front of you, leaving you time to do all sorts of other things like wash up, go outdoors and question your existence."

All sorts of things, like playing other games while the PLAYi handles my backlog. Brilliant!!!

The NA one is a mess. The little bit of breathing room for the other two covers makes them far easier to look at and understand. On top of the clutter, the NA has a giant logo that makes it worse.

Japan vs. Europe is going to come down to color, logos and banners, and character choices, since they're so similar. I prefer the choices made for the European cover just a bit more. You have Panda man(or is that ManPanda?). I think the dancers look better for Europe too, especially the one on the right. So Europe it is, by a hair.

It's no surprise that massively cropping the vertical original artwork for a horizontal orientation would be difficult. The cropping is well done in this case, but is still not as good as the original, but it's the title and marketing lines that ensure the cover is quite ruined. But at least we know it's the "classic version" as if that means anything. I don't know if the border is normal size here, but it feels gigantic for the NA cover here. It's not good. I voted for Japan.

Layden has the year wrong. The situation happened at CES 1991. This is documented. 1993 is just way too late to be realistic anyway since the PS1 had a 1994 release.