@LikelySatan I have to agree... Blood Omen 2 is mediocre and skippable. It's repetitive, it's clunky, and- this could actually be a positive- it doesn't really contribute to the overall Legacy of Kain storyline, so there's little to lose by going straight from BO1 to Soul Reaver.
PS: You do get to leave the sewers and warehouses eventually, but it takes way too long to get there, and it's not like the gameplay actually changes or deepens along the way.
PPS: Maybe I just needed to have someone watching, like Aniscape did.
@OldManHermit Yeah, I'd put Nightmare (on normal difficulty) about on par with Mother Brain on Hard mode. Actually, I found Fusion in general to be almost as hard as Zero Mission on Hard, i.e., close to 4x as difficult as ZM on Normal mode.
@nocdaes Sorry, my head was apparently in Xbox land when I wrote that. (The recent Xbox port has a 30fps cap and some visual quirks, neither of which applies to the NSO release.)
Disappointing to hear about those glitches on NSO. All I knew about until now was that it had inconsistent performance (still better than the real thing) and certain textures which are tiled too many times. And of course, awkward controls, but that applies to any N64 emulator.
@PinderSchloss ...while this uses that dreaded emulation itself, but delivering a worse experience than the likes of Duckstation. It is disappointing that they're making it look identical to the original. 1080p rendering would be a no-brainer when it comes to matching the experience we already get on other emulators, and widescreen and 60fps (if possible) would make this worth buying for those of us who already have these games on other platforms.
This issue comes up a lot with ports/emulations/remasters: a straight copy is fine for making the games available to those who missed them. But definitive releases are very rare, outside of Nightdive's catalogue. If I'm going to buy these games again, they need to justify it somehow.
@nocdaes Wasn't Goldeneye just accurate to a fault?
For instance, the weird wobble is caused by the N64's geometry precision being limited to whole pixels (at least in some games- Goldeneye and Mario Kart both do it on real hardware, for sure).
Well, there was the 30fps cap, which didn't exist in the original (nor in the NSO version). Though the original might as well have been capped, seeing as going above 30 was nearly impossible on a stock N64.
(EDIT: This is regarding the recent Xbox release. The NSO version is different and has its own bugs.)
The real issue with these re-releases is that they don't really smooth over certain obvious rough edges- whether that's performance, or controls, or whatever.
@JDCII Strange, I'm only seeing a few of my PS1 classics purchased on PS3 carrying over to newer platforms. Not that it matters to me, as I don't have a modern PS console! But like you said, this is a great addition, and I hope it becomes universal across all games from all three companies going forward.
It's perfectly understandable that the licences for 360, Wii, and PS3 games would need to be renegotiated (since those original terms weren't written with the future in mind), but it seems that Microsoft and Sony have both learned from that and started using some kind of open-ended contracts that allow for games to be carried forward to new platforms and distributed indefinitely, until the IP holder cancels.
Nintendo, on the other hand, made the same mistake a second time with the Wii U, again locking everything to a single platform. Let's hope they decided to future-proof the Switch library, at least.
@NeonPizza "I guess Nintendo figures it isn't popular enough to the vast majority of Switch owners to wan't to pay extra."
I think you just touched on a potentially major obstacle to expansion: because NSO's pricing is based on a fixed annual rate, Nintendo isn't going to bring in much more money by adding more games, unless they further fragment the service into "Expansion" packages.
If people are already paying the $20 or $50 or whatever, then why add more games, especially from third parties? That doesn't make more money- rather, it just means the existing money is being spread thinner, as the pie gets split between more games and companies.
My personal tastes aside, this is one big advantage that the old a la carte model had.
@Samalik Like Bratwurst said, there's the boss fight, but I'm pretty sure the move is never mentioned by name in the story. Come to think of it, I'm not sure where it is named- probably on the B button prompt in 2P, i.e., the button icon changes to show "(B) Chaos Spear"? But anyway, it is definitely in SA2.
@Samalik Chaos Control is used during the boss battle for teleportation, and it also stops time in the 2P Battle mode. Chaos Spear is a separate move, where Shadow blasts the opponent with homing shots. Both of these were in Sonic Adventure 2.
I'd have been fine with BG&E being one and done, as that's a great way to encapsulate a great experience, finish strong, and not sully its reputation later... if only it hadn't ended on a cliffhanger!
Yeah, I've thought about the Mario Kart release timings, among other franchises- we were really spoiled back in the day, when you think about how rapidly we would get quality sequels (also Zelda: 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, not even counting the handhelds)! And that's a great point about Switch being both systems in one... wasn't one of the upsides supposed to be that we'd get more games, since devs could focus on one system? Somehow, we're getting fewer than the console line or the handheld line used to!
I don't trust Nintendo EAD or Team Ninja to do 3D Metroid, but I do trust Retro. I think?
I can't blame you, though. I also got the original MK8, and it's a little tiring to see that same game being milked for so long.
And I'm well acquainted in general with the pain of waiting for sequels! F-Zero GX (released 21 years ago) is one of my all-time favourites, and I've also made the unfortunate decision to play and become fond of Beyond Good and Evil (also 21 years), Metroid Prime (17 years since the last), Legacy of Kain (21 years), Banjo-Kazooie (16- er, I mean, 24 years), Shenmue (enough said), and many others!
@rjejr If everything just ran at 60fps, then this whole topic wouldn't matter to... at least 84% of us, according to the poll! And if everything was 1080p60 specifically, then that'd probably go up to 99%.
We never hear people complaining about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, because it looks great and runs smoothly. What more could you want?
@HammerGalladeBro Thanks for clarifying! That sounds strange to me, seeing as most of these game experiences are nearly identical on Switch. Unless people specifically want to use handheld mode, which would make more sense.
On the plus side, if you share a house with them and ever want a bit of uninterrupted gaming time, you can just grab the trusty Wii U!
@-wc- This. If I had a dollar for every Nintendo Life comment that ended in "but I'll buy it anyway", then I could buy at least one of these remakes at full price!
@HammerGalladeBro When you say, "on original hardware they don't want to play for some reason", do you mean that your friends/family refuse to play the original (Wii U, etc.) versions of these games, but are happy to play the same ones on Switch?
@BrazilRules N64 emulation is great, but there are limits to the enhancements and other mods that can be made.
OoT never had a proper 60fps mod until it was decompiled, as it was too complicated to change all of the timings and such without access to the source code. (Note that many N64 games can run at 60fps just by changing a number, but Zelda had a lot of glitches using that method.)
That's what makes recompilation so exciting: it opens the door to more extensive mods that wouldn't be possible with ROMs in an emulator!
@Mariotag I believe this is mentioned in the video, but yes, this makes it a lot easier to create mods. This quick recomp method isn't as good as a full decompilation like Ocarina of Time already has, however, but it does allow for changes, and is a lot easier than poking at addresses in RAM or ROM!
@Sonicka I think you might've hit on what was bothering me about all this: when the definitions are inconsistent (which they definitely are!), then people view the games inconsistently- or unfairly, as you said.
Plenty of remasters are basically just ports, with the bulk of the "remastering" happening automatically as a result of switching to better hardware. So then, when Metroid Prime: Remastered comes along, and it gets lumped in with those, it seems like people are selling it short, and downplaying all of the work that was put into it. And all the more so, when other games do the same thing, but get to be called "remakes"!
I mean, we can describe those enhanced ports as remasters, anything with fully rebuilt artwork on top of original gameplay (MP Remastered, TTYD, Shadow of the Colossus) as remakes, and full rebuilds like FFVII Remake as "reimaginings". OR we can shift the whole continuum over a notch, and say that HD remasters are just ports, full graphical overhauls are remasters, and FFVII Remake is indeed a remake. I don't care- either one is fine. But let's be consistent!
If rebuilding a game from the ground up makes it a remake (even if the result is identical to the original), then does that mean every port made before 1990 is a remake?
@AlienX Thanks for elaborating on that. Really interesting stuff! It does sound like what Xbox games do, from what little I know. I don't have a whole lot of insight into the inner workings of any of these systems, but I noticed Vexx for Xbox dumping copies of its level data into a cache while I was playing. And Ninja Gaiden Black has a really long load on the first run, with subsequent sessions being a lot faster.
Very unfortunate that Brawl has to flush the cache every time it loads a "masterpiece" emulator. I get that it's most likely launching a whole separate executable, but it's too bad Hal/Sora couldn't find a way to keep the cache in the background (probably some developer standards mandated by Nintendo).
Also interesting is the nature of the files you mentioned: I wonder what Melee does differently, to allow for all data to fit in the system's small amount of RAM. And Echoes of Time's sound caching reminds me of Nobuo Uematsu's comments on sample libraries in PS1 FF games. IIRC, because the console couldn't keep all of the sound data loaded at once, it had to keep reloading it for every battle, and Uematsu kept the loading times down a bit by using somewhat modest, SNES-like samples in FFVII. (As a side note, the entire soundtrack, including One-Winged Angel, is only 700 KB. If the PS1 only had an extra megabyte of RAM like a stock N64, it could have eliminated all mid-game music loading!)
@nocdaes It's brutal. Ten years between Tropical Freeze and now... that's almost the same as the time between DK64 and DKC Returns. Or between DK3 (the old arcade game with the bug spray) and DKC on the SNES!
As others have said, there are so many 2D games out there now- I can even think of two DK-likes from the past 5 or so years.
I'd love to see another 3D Donkey Kong or a proper sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, but I believe that a major ingredient in the "Rare Magic" back in the '90s was their ambition. A fixed-perspective deal like Crash Bandicoot or Mario 3D World would be fine, but I really want to see something grander in scope, like DK64 with its rougher edges sanded off.
@MrGawain Ah, Nintendo... "A follow-up to last year's New Super Mario Bros.? Make new layouts using the same assets, and call it a day." "A follow-up to a 10-year-old DK or 20-year-old F-Zero? We can't! What kind of gimmick or drastic improvement could we add to move the series forward?"
@MarsOne Hey, if you want to go back and look at a bunch of old magazines to try and gauge the overall sentiment around Nintendo, be my guest!
This is just a common (not universal!) perception or attitude that I remember existing back then in the mainstream (obviously less so among Nintendo fans), and the EGM article I mentioned was one example that stands out in my mind after 20+ years.
@Serpenterror You must be thinking of the slight differences between the GB and SGB, both of which hover around 60fps, but have small discrepancies around clock speeds. SGB is technically "too fast", but we're talking about a 2% difference. The games remain perfectly stable and playable.
Also, 30fps always looks juddery to those of us who notice it, regardless of whether it was the original target or hacked in later. Your mileage may vary, but I find ToS for PC, TTYD for Switch, Breath of the Wild- you name it- all juddery and unpleasant to look at, and I literally can't tell any difference in smoothness between the games that were built for 30fps and those that weren't.
@VinylCreep I'm surprised they were that transparent about it! But you just reminded me of the prevalence of that kind of attitude at the time. I remember when Electronic Gaming Monthly previewed SoulCalibur II, and they compared the exclusive characters for each platform. They implied that the GameCube version was the worst, mentioning that Link was "as cool as a Keebler elf".
People tend to forget about how Nintendo was viewed back then (or just weren't around yet!), but there was a lot of negative sentiment around "kiddy games", and it hindered the GameCube's sales and output, despite that time being one of Nintendo's strongest eras for exclusive games!
A GameCube exclusive that had mediocre sales back in ~2003 could potentially sell millions upon millions today, thanks to the vastly larger audience and different trends and attitudes.
@Ulysses That could be a factor, now that you mention it: if the better screen subjectively makes half of the system's library look worse, then is it really worth the upgrade? (Many would still say "yes", but who knows how Nintendo is looking at it?)
I hope they fully leave 30fps in the past, and at least offer a 60fps option for all first-party titles, but I know that's a pipe dream.
@Ulysses LCDs tend to be quite blurry in motion, so you don't see the judder from flipping through the individual frames as easily, except when very fast movement is involved. OLEDs don't have that blur, so it's easier to see the judder, even at relatively low speeds.
To my knowledge, the only ways to accommodate or adapt to the different display technology are: 1. Smear everything with motion blur, to cover up the OLED judder. 2. Limit camera panning to low speeds (like in the movies). 3. Don't make 30fps games.
If Nintendo wanted to patch ACNH to look better on OLED screens, they'd have to use option 1, since 3 would require better hardware, and 2 would mean redesigning the game! But there's no magic optimization they could do to accommodate the new screen.
@John_Deacon Not likely, unless some specific games are patched to run better on Switch 2. Xbox was able to push a system-level setting that made some games run flawlessly at 60fps, but plenty more games broke, as they had been made to run at 30fps, and their code wasn't touched at all.
Of course, any games with variable performance could see a big improvement, provided Nintendo doesn't cap the system at lower clock speeds while in backwards compatible mode... which, come to think of it, they have always done in the past, so it doesn't bode well.
@WiltonRoots I can't speak to Captain Cluck's setup, but a 21-24" 1080p monitor costs as little as $100 (assuming you don't want to just use your TV), and any half-decent PC from the past 5+ years will be able to handle this game. I've been playing through it on a 10-year-old Intel i5.
I've bought laptops with Ryzen 5 CPUs that would eat this game for breakfast, for just $600 CAD (440 USD) each.
Unfortunately, there are also some real duds out there. The first criteria I look for are a decent amount of RAM (don't bother with less than 16 GB these days) and good ratings on Passmark's CPU list. (For emulation purposes, you can always compare the CPUs head-to-head, to make sure their single-thread performance is higher than my Intel i5-4590.)
@AlienX Whoa, I'd never heard of this before. Do you have any links or details around Brawl's temp file stuff? Is it like all of those Xbox games that would silently cache game data in the background to shorten the load times?
@kalosn Don't mind my goofy comments... it just reminded me of the whole Mario/Wario thing. And then "the absence of yin and yang" seemed like bonus points in describing a rather unbalanced character (or his corresponding game console)!
@kalosn Turning the "M" over to make "Wuji"? Sounds like an evil/chaotic version of the Muji/Switch 2. Launching with Super Wario Odyssey HD, The Legend of Ganon: Breath of the Wizard DX, and Metroid Federation Force: Director's Cut.
@Ryu_Niiyama As far as I know, the matchmaking is done through the official servers, but the actual gameplay in most of these games is all peer-to-peer, meaning the players are directly connected to each other, without a "middle man". The server crews can shut everything down and go home right at the announced time, and they aren't involved after that.
But even if the gameplay itself was hosted via the servers, those could (and would!) be shut down in the middle of a match if necessary, and it'd simply drop the connection and kick everyone off.
"Unfortunately, after sales of Skylanders declined drastically, Activision began to pivot away from single-player titles"
You know, we sometimes talk about companies learning the wrong lessons from the success or failure of a game: e.g., they make a really lame sequel, people don't buy it, and then we're afraid that they'll go "oh, I guess no one is interested in that series".
In this case, the Skylanders fad was waning, and Activision's takeaway was that single-player games don't sell! I always hope and expect that the people in charge of these companies are smart and informed enough to be able to tell the difference. But that optimism was misplaced, it seems.
@Dang_69 I've heard from OLED TV owners that 30fps is especially unbearable on those screens, as the judder shows up very clearly without any LCD blur to mask it. I don't have a newfangled TV, but I can say that the gap between 30 and 60 is much wider on a CRT (with its crystal-clear 60fps and sharp, double-vision 30fps) than on any LCD.
Also, interesting to see that I'm not the only one who has more of an issue with detailed graphics at 30fps. When switching directly from N64 to Xbox 360 games via Rare Replay, I noticed that the newer games were somehow harder to look at by comparison.
@PikminMarioKirby Thanks for clarifying- I'll see if I can verify that later. I distinctly remember a slight stutter outside the train as well, but these are all incredibly tiny nitpicks that take up a few seconds of a what, 30-hour game? (Like 0.01% of playtime.) It just seems disingenuous to say its performance was unstable, if it's anywhere near as good as I'm remembering. (And we could very well see that the Switch version has just as many dips, if not more!)
@swoose Paper Mario 64 is already 30fps, so you should be fine with the TTYD remake- it won't be choppier than that!
I agree with the principle, though: halving the framerate is such a blow to gameplay and graphical quality that there's really no justifying it. In faster-paced games, especially (not TTYD!), all of the detail gained by graphical and resolution upgrades just disappears in a big blur as soon as anything starts to move! So what's the point?
@Not_Soos On the contrary, I imagine that many of the same people who said "be grateful" and "Nintendo doesn't owe you anything" regarding Origami King are the same ones saying "be grateful" and "Nintendo doesn't owe you anything" regarding TTYD.
@PikminMarioKirby The original did run at a stable 60fps the vast majority of the time. I don't know if it was 99.99% of the time, or 99.9999%, or whatever, but any dips were very rare. If you have evidence that there were frequent dips, then show us. Otherwise, please stop spreading this false claim.
@quinnyboy58 Ratchet and Clank is a fantastic game, and I first played it just a few years ago, so there's no nostalgia here! Though I wouldn't say it's a good platformer, specifically. It's more how the whole package is brilliantly put together.
Sly Cooper plays really well, and also brings its own flavour and gameplay twists to the genre.
I've always felt Jak was kind of overrated, though... maybe I just need to give it another chance.
@Ryu_Niiyama My mistake- that was a faulty assumption on my part! I often see older games' graphics sold short because of different display tech, when they literally did look better back in the day.
I've also kept my old games, and it has proven helpful when I want to go back and verify stuff like this (e.g., graphics and performance)- not to mention that they're still fun to play, of course!
Comments 287
Re: Random: New Zelda: OOT Speedrunning Route Requires A Wii U GamePad And A Rubber Band
@Synecdoche Arbitrary rules allow arbitrary code execution.
Seems fitting to me!
Re: Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver I & II Remastered Branding Spotted At SDCC
@LikelySatan I have to agree... Blood Omen 2 is mediocre and skippable.
It's repetitive, it's clunky, and- this could actually be a positive- it doesn't really contribute to the overall Legacy of Kain storyline, so there's little to lose by going straight from BO1 to Soul Reaver.
PS: You do get to leave the sewers and warehouses eventually, but it takes way too long to get there, and it's not like the gameplay actually changes or deepens along the way.
PPS: Maybe I just needed to have someone watching, like Aniscape did.
Re: Soapbox: Metroid’s Mother Brain And The Rewind Dilemma
@OldManHermit Yeah, I'd put Nightmare (on normal difficulty) about on par with Mother Brain on Hard mode. Actually, I found Fusion in general to be almost as hard as Zero Mission on Hard, i.e., close to 4x as difficult as ZM on Normal mode.
Re: Review: Perfect Dark (Nintendo 64) - Perhaps Not Perfect, But Still A Remarkable Achievement
@nocdaes Sorry, my head was apparently in Xbox land when I wrote that. (The recent Xbox port has a 30fps cap and some visual quirks, neither of which applies to the NSO release.)
Disappointing to hear about those glitches on NSO. All I knew about until now was that it had inconsistent performance (still better than the real thing) and certain textures which are tiled too many times. And of course, awkward controls, but that applies to any N64 emulator.
Re: Here's Your First Look At The Gex Trilogy For Nintendo Switch
@PinderSchloss ...while this uses that dreaded emulation itself, but delivering a worse experience than the likes of Duckstation. It is disappointing that they're making it look identical to the original. 1080p rendering would be a no-brainer when it comes to matching the experience we already get on other emulators, and widescreen and 60fps (if possible) would make this worth buying for those of us who already have these games on other platforms.
This issue comes up a lot with ports/emulations/remasters: a straight copy is fine for making the games available to those who missed them. But definitive releases are very rare, outside of Nightdive's catalogue. If I'm going to buy these games again, they need to justify it somehow.
Re: Review: Perfect Dark (Nintendo 64) - Perhaps Not Perfect, But Still A Remarkable Achievement
@nocdaes Wasn't Goldeneye just accurate to a fault?
For instance, the weird wobble is caused by the N64's geometry precision being limited to whole pixels (at least in some games- Goldeneye and Mario Kart both do it on real hardware, for sure).
Well, there was the 30fps cap, which didn't exist in the original (nor in the NSO version). Though the original might as well have been capped, seeing as going above 30 was nearly impossible on a stock N64.
(EDIT: This is regarding the recent Xbox release. The NSO version is different and has its own bugs.)
The real issue with these re-releases is that they don't really smooth over certain obvious rough edges- whether that's performance, or controls, or whatever.
Re: Nintendo Is Seeking More Talent To Help Run Its Switch Online Service
@JDCII Strange, I'm only seeing a few of my PS1 classics purchased on PS3 carrying over to newer platforms. Not that it matters to me, as I don't have a modern PS console! But like you said, this is a great addition, and I hope it becomes universal across all games from all three companies going forward.
It's perfectly understandable that the licences for 360, Wii, and PS3 games would need to be renegotiated (since those original terms weren't written with the future in mind), but it seems that Microsoft and Sony have both learned from that and started using some kind of open-ended contracts that allow for games to be carried forward to new platforms and distributed indefinitely, until the IP holder cancels.
Nintendo, on the other hand, made the same mistake a second time with the Wii U, again locking everything to a single platform. Let's hope they decided to future-proof the Switch library, at least.
Re: Nintendo Is Seeking More Talent To Help Run Its Switch Online Service
@NeonPizza "I guess Nintendo figures it isn't popular enough to the vast majority of Switch owners to wan't to pay extra."
I think you just touched on a potentially major obstacle to expansion: because NSO's pricing is based on a fixed annual rate, Nintendo isn't going to bring in much more money by adding more games, unless they further fragment the service into "Expansion" packages.
If people are already paying the $20 or $50 or whatever, then why add more games, especially from third parties? That doesn't make more money- rather, it just means the existing money is being spread thinner, as the pie gets split between more games and companies.
My personal tastes aside, this is one big advantage that the old a la carte model had.
Re: Hands On: Sonic X Shadow Generations Is A Love Letter To Sonic Adventure 2
@Samalik Like Bratwurst said, there's the boss fight, but I'm pretty sure the move is never mentioned by name in the story.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure where it is named- probably on the B button prompt in 2P, i.e., the button icon changes to show "(B) Chaos Spear"? But anyway, it is definitely in SA2.
Re: Hands On: Sonic X Shadow Generations Is A Love Letter To Sonic Adventure 2
@Samalik Chaos Control is used during the boss battle for teleportation, and it also stops time in the 2P Battle mode.
Chaos Spear is a separate move, where Shadow blasts the opponent with homing shots. Both of these were in Sonic Adventure 2.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Want Quality And Performance Options For Nintendo's 'Switch 2' Games?
@rjejr
Re: Talking Point: HD-2D Or 3D - How Should Square Enix Remake Chrono Trigger?
The original still looks so good and plays so well that any kind of pixel art remake (including "HD-2D") would be pointless.
Full 3D a la Chrono Resurrection or DQXI, as otherwise, I just see no reason to care.
(Or I guess actual high-res 2D graphics would be neat, too, if they can avoid making it look like a Flash animation.)
Re: Talking Point: Would You Want Quality And Performance Options For Nintendo's 'Switch 2' Games?
@rjejr Ah, you got me!
I can't blame you, though. I also got the original MK8, and it's a little tiring to see that same game being milked for so long.
And I'm well acquainted in general with the pain of waiting for sequels! F-Zero GX (released 21 years ago) is one of my all-time favourites, and I've also made the unfortunate decision to play and become fond of Beyond Good and Evil (also 21 years), Metroid Prime (17 years since the last), Legacy of Kain (21 years), Banjo-Kazooie (16- er, I mean, 24 years), Shenmue (enough said), and many others!
Re: Talking Point: Would You Want Quality And Performance Options For Nintendo's 'Switch 2' Games?
@rjejr If everything just ran at 60fps, then this whole topic wouldn't matter to... at least 84% of us, according to the poll! And if everything was 1080p60 specifically, then that'd probably go up to 99%.
We never hear people complaining about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, because it looks great and runs smoothly. What more could you want?
Re: Poll: Is $60 Too Much For Nintendo's Switch Re-Releases?
@HammerGalladeBro Thanks for clarifying!
That sounds strange to me, seeing as most of these game experiences are nearly identical on Switch. Unless people specifically want to use handheld mode, which would make more sense.
On the plus side, if you share a house with them and ever want a bit of uninterrupted gaming time, you can just grab the trusty Wii U!
Re: Poll: Is $60 Too Much For Nintendo's Switch Re-Releases?
@-wc- This.
If I had a dollar for every Nintendo Life comment that ended in "but I'll buy it anyway", then I could buy at least one of these remakes at full price!
Re: Poll: Is $60 Too Much For Nintendo's Switch Re-Releases?
@HammerGalladeBro When you say, "on original hardware they don't want to play for some reason", do you mean that your friends/family refuse to play the original (Wii U, etc.) versions of these games, but are happy to play the same ones on Switch?
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Takes A Look At Zelda 64 Recompiled: Majora's Mask
@Lone_Beagle Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon? That's only 30fps, even on an emulator... but if you have a working 60fps Game Shark code, let me know!
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Takes A Look At Zelda 64 Recompiled: Majora's Mask
@BrazilRules N64 emulation is great, but there are limits to the enhancements and other mods that can be made.
OoT never had a proper 60fps mod until it was decompiled, as it was too complicated to change all of the timings and such without access to the source code. (Note that many N64 games can run at 60fps just by changing a number, but Zelda had a lot of glitches using that method.)
That's what makes recompilation so exciting: it opens the door to more extensive mods that wouldn't be possible with ROMs in an emulator!
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Takes A Look At Zelda 64 Recompiled: Majora's Mask
@Mariotag I believe this is mentioned in the video, but yes, this makes it a lot easier to create mods. This quick recomp method isn't as good as a full decompilation like Ocarina of Time already has, however, but it does allow for changes, and is a lot easier than poking at addresses in RAM or ROM!
Re: Talking Point: 'Remake' Vs. 'Remaster' - What's Your Definition?
@Not_Soos Uhm, ACKSHUALLY, it's "I couldn't care less" đŸ¤“
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.) đŸ˜…
Re: Talking Point: 'Remake' Vs. 'Remaster' - What's Your Definition?
@Sonicka I think you might've hit on what was bothering me about all this: when the definitions are inconsistent (which they definitely are!), then people view the games inconsistently- or unfairly, as you said.
Plenty of remasters are basically just ports, with the bulk of the "remastering" happening automatically as a result of switching to better hardware. So then, when Metroid Prime: Remastered comes along, and it gets lumped in with those, it seems like people are selling it short, and downplaying all of the work that was put into it. And all the more so, when other games do the same thing, but get to be called "remakes"!
I mean, we can describe those enhanced ports as remasters, anything with fully rebuilt artwork on top of original gameplay (MP Remastered, TTYD, Shadow of the Colossus) as remakes, and full rebuilds like FFVII Remake as "reimaginings". OR we can shift the whole continuum over a notch, and say that HD remasters are just ports, full graphical overhauls are remasters, and FFVII Remake is indeed a remake. I don't care- either one is fine. But let's be consistent!
Re: Talking Point: 'Remake' Vs. 'Remaster' - What's Your Definition?
If rebuilding a game from the ground up makes it a remake (even if the result is identical to the original), then does that mean every port made before 1990 is a remake?
Re: Random: Sakurai Cut Dolby Surround From Kirby Game To Trim Player Wait Time
@AlienX Thanks for elaborating on that. Really interesting stuff!
It does sound like what Xbox games do, from what little I know. I don't have a whole lot of insight into the inner workings of any of these systems, but I noticed Vexx for Xbox dumping copies of its level data into a cache while I was playing. And Ninja Gaiden Black has a really long load on the first run, with subsequent sessions being a lot faster.
Very unfortunate that Brawl has to flush the cache every time it loads a "masterpiece" emulator. I get that it's most likely launching a whole separate executable, but it's too bad Hal/Sora couldn't find a way to keep the cache in the background (probably some developer standards mandated by Nintendo).
Also interesting is the nature of the files you mentioned: I wonder what Melee does differently, to allow for all data to fit in the system's small amount of RAM.
And Echoes of Time's sound caching reminds me of Nobuo Uematsu's comments on sample libraries in PS1 FF games. IIRC, because the console couldn't keep all of the sound data loaded at once, it had to keep reloading it for every battle, and Uematsu kept the loading times down a bit by using somewhat modest, SNES-like samples in FFVII. (As a side note, the entire soundtrack, including One-Winged Angel, is only 700 KB. If the PS1 only had an extra megabyte of RAM like a stock N64, it could have eliminated all mid-game music loading!)
Re: Poll: A New Donkey Kong Game Must Be Coming, But What Should It Be?
@nocdaes It's brutal. Ten years between Tropical Freeze and now... that's almost the same as the time between DK64 and DKC Returns.
Or between DK3 (the old arcade game with the bug spray) and DKC on the SNES!
Re: Poll: A New Donkey Kong Game Must Be Coming, But What Should It Be?
As others have said, there are so many 2D games out there now- I can even think of two DK-likes from the past 5 or so years.
I'd love to see another 3D Donkey Kong or a proper sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, but I believe that a major ingredient in the "Rare Magic" back in the '90s was their ambition. A fixed-perspective deal like Crash Bandicoot or Mario 3D World would be fine, but I really want to see something grander in scope, like DK64 with its rougher edges sanded off.
Re: Poll: A New Donkey Kong Game Must Be Coming, But What Should It Be?
@MrGawain Ah, Nintendo...
"A follow-up to last year's New Super Mario Bros.? Make new layouts using the same assets, and call it a day."
"A follow-up to a 10-year-old DK or 20-year-old F-Zero? We can't! What kind of gimmick or drastic improvement could we add to move the series forward?"
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
@MarsOne Hey, if you want to go back and look at a bunch of old magazines to try and gauge the overall sentiment around Nintendo, be my guest!
This is just a common (not universal!) perception or attitude that I remember existing back then in the mainstream (obviously less so among Nintendo fans), and the EGM article I mentioned was one example that stands out in my mind after 20+ years.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
@Serpenterror You must be thinking of the slight differences between the GB and SGB, both of which hover around 60fps, but have small discrepancies around clock speeds. SGB is technically "too fast", but we're talking about a 2% difference. The games remain perfectly stable and playable.
Also, 30fps always looks juddery to those of us who notice it, regardless of whether it was the original target or hacked in later. Your mileage may vary, but I find ToS for PC, TTYD for Switch, Breath of the Wild- you name it- all juddery and unpleasant to look at, and I literally can't tell any difference in smoothness between the games that were built for 30fps and those that weren't.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
@VinylCreep I'm surprised they were that transparent about it!
But you just reminded me of the prevalence of that kind of attitude at the time. I remember when Electronic Gaming Monthly previewed SoulCalibur II, and they compared the exclusive characters for each platform. They implied that the GameCube version was the worst, mentioning that Link was "as cool as a Keebler elf".
People tend to forget about how Nintendo was viewed back then (or just weren't around yet!), but there was a lot of negative sentiment around "kiddy games", and it hindered the GameCube's sales and output, despite that time being one of Nintendo's strongest eras for exclusive games!
A GameCube exclusive that had mediocre sales back in ~2003 could potentially sell millions upon millions today, thanks to the vastly larger audience and different trends and attitudes.
Re: Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
@Ulysses That could be a factor, now that you mention it: if the better screen subjectively makes half of the system's library look worse, then is it really worth the upgrade? (Many would still say "yes", but who knows how Nintendo is looking at it?)
I hope they fully leave 30fps in the past, and at least offer a 60fps option for all first-party titles, but I know that's a pipe dream.
Re: Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
@koffing I think she means that the areas in TTYD are smaller than the ones in the original Paper Mario.
Re: Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
@Ulysses LCDs tend to be quite blurry in motion, so you don't see the judder from flipping through the individual frames as easily, except when very fast movement is involved.
OLEDs don't have that blur, so it's easier to see the judder, even at relatively low speeds.
To my knowledge, the only ways to accommodate or adapt to the different display technology are:
1. Smear everything with motion blur, to cover up the OLED judder.
2. Limit camera panning to low speeds (like in the movies).
3. Don't make 30fps games.
If Nintendo wanted to patch ACNH to look better on OLED screens, they'd have to use option 1, since 3 would require better hardware, and 2 would mean redesigning the game! But there's no magic optimization they could do to accommodate the new screen.
Re: Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
@John_Deacon Not likely, unless some specific games are patched to run better on Switch 2.
Xbox was able to push a system-level setting that made some games run flawlessly at 60fps, but plenty more games broke, as they had been made to run at 30fps, and their code wasn't touched at all.
Of course, any games with variable performance could see a big improvement, provided Nintendo doesn't cap the system at lower clock speeds while in backwards compatible mode... which, come to think of it, they have always done in the past, so it doesn't bode well.
Re: Review: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
@WiltonRoots I can't speak to Captain Cluck's setup, but a 21-24" 1080p monitor costs as little as $100 (assuming you don't want to just use your TV), and any half-decent PC from the past 5+ years will be able to handle this game. I've been playing through it on a 10-year-old Intel i5.
I've bought laptops with Ryzen 5 CPUs that would eat this game for breakfast, for just $600 CAD (440 USD) each.
Unfortunately, there are also some real duds out there. The first criteria I look for are a decent amount of RAM (don't bother with less than 16 GB these days) and good ratings on Passmark's CPU list. (For emulation purposes, you can always compare the CPUs head-to-head, to make sure their single-thread performance is higher than my Intel i5-4590.)
Re: Random: Sakurai Cut Dolby Surround From Kirby Game To Trim Player Wait Time
@AlienX Whoa, I'd never heard of this before. Do you have any links or details around Brawl's temp file stuff? Is it like all of those Xbox games that would silently cache game data in the background to shorten the load times?
Re: Rumour: Switch Successor's Codename May Have Been Uncovered
@kalosn Don't mind my goofy comments... it just reminded me of the whole Mario/Wario thing.
And then "the absence of yin and yang" seemed like bonus points in describing a rather unbalanced character (or his corresponding game console)!
Re: Rumour: Switch Successor's Codename May Have Been Uncovered
@kalosn Turning the "M" over to make "Wuji"? Sounds like an evil/chaotic version of the Muji/Switch 2.
Launching with Super Wario Odyssey HD, The Legend of Ganon: Breath of the Wizard DX, and Metroid Federation Force: Director's Cut.
Re: Soapbox: Are We Ready For A 3D Super Mario Maker?
@amongtheworms Hey, hold on, we're in a comment section!
Didn't you know that commenters and gamers don't know anything about game development?
Re: Random: 3DS & Wii U Players Beat 14-Year-Old Halo 2 Server Record
@Ryu_Niiyama As far as I know, the matchmaking is done through the official servers, but the actual gameplay in most of these games is all peer-to-peer, meaning the players are directly connected to each other, without a "middle man". The server crews can shut everything down and go home right at the announced time, and they aren't involved after that.
But even if the gameplay itself was hosted via the servers, those could (and would!) be shut down in the middle of a match if necessary, and it'd simply drop the connection and kick everyone off.
Re: Details Emerge Of A Cancelled Donkey Kong Project From Vicarious Visions
"Unfortunately, after sales of Skylanders declined drastically, Activision began to pivot away from single-player titles"
You know, we sometimes talk about companies learning the wrong lessons from the success or failure of a game: e.g., they make a really lame sequel, people don't buy it, and then we're afraid that they'll go "oh, I guess no one is interested in that series".
In this case, the Skylanders fad was waning, and Activision's takeaway was that single-player games don't sell! I always hope and expect that the people in charge of these companies are smart and informed enough to be able to tell the difference. But that optimism was misplaced, it seems.
Re: Details Emerge Of A Cancelled Donkey Kong Project From Vicarious Visions
"Miyamoto [...] appeared apprehensive about the grinding mechanic, seemingly worried about DK getting rope burn on his feet"
That's classic Miyamoto!
Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate For Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch?
@Dang_69 I've heard from OLED TV owners that 30fps is especially unbearable on those screens, as the judder shows up very clearly without any LCD blur to mask it. I don't have a newfangled TV, but I can say that the gap between 30 and 60 is much wider on a CRT (with its crystal-clear 60fps and sharp, double-vision 30fps) than on any LCD.
Also, interesting to see that I'm not the only one who has more of an issue with detailed graphics at 30fps. When switching directly from N64 to Xbox 360 games via Rare Replay, I noticed that the newer games were somehow harder to look at by comparison.
Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate For Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch?
@PikminMarioKirby Thanks for clarifying- I'll see if I can verify that later.
I distinctly remember a slight stutter outside the train as well, but these are all incredibly tiny nitpicks that take up a few seconds of a what, 30-hour game? (Like 0.01% of playtime.) It just seems disingenuous to say its performance was unstable, if it's anywhere near as good as I'm remembering. (And we could very well see that the Switch version has just as many dips, if not more!)
Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate For Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch?
@swoose Paper Mario 64 is already 30fps, so you should be fine with the TTYD remake- it won't be choppier than that!
I agree with the principle, though: halving the framerate is such a blow to gameplay and graphical quality that there's really no justifying it. In faster-paced games, especially (not TTYD!), all of the detail gained by graphical and resolution upgrades just disappears in a big blur as soon as anything starts to move! So what's the point?
Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate For Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch?
@Not_Soos On the contrary, I imagine that many of the same people who said "be grateful" and "Nintendo doesn't owe you anything" regarding Origami King are the same ones saying "be grateful" and "Nintendo doesn't owe you anything" regarding TTYD.
Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate For Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch?
@PikminMarioKirby The original did run at a stable 60fps the vast majority of the time. I don't know if it was 99.99% of the time, or 99.9999%, or whatever, but any dips were very rare. If you have evidence that there were frequent dips, then show us. Otherwise, please stop spreading this false claim.
Re: Review: Cavern Of Dreams (Switch) - A Rich, Rare Homage To The N64's Finest 'Formers
@quinnyboy58 Ratchet and Clank is a fantastic game, and I first played it just a few years ago, so there's no nostalgia here!
Though I wouldn't say it's a good platformer, specifically. It's more how the whole package is brilliantly put together.
Sly Cooper plays really well, and also brings its own flavour and gameplay twists to the genre.
I've always felt Jak was kind of overrated, though... maybe I just need to give it another chance.
Re: Video: How Does Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch Compare To The Original?
@Ryu_Niiyama My mistake- that was a faulty assumption on my part!
I often see older games' graphics sold short because of different display tech, when they literally did look better back in the day.
I've also kept my old games, and it has proven helpful when I want to go back and verify stuff like this (e.g., graphics and performance)- not to mention that they're still fun to play, of course!
Re: Video: How Does Paper Mario: TTYD On Switch Compare To The Original?
@Ryu_Niiyama These older games don't hold up too well on a modern screen. The reason you remember them looking better is probably because they did!
If we compared 1080p emulator footage to the Switch version, they'd be a lot more comparable (in clarity, that is, not in lighting or reflections)!