Comments 544

Re: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Devs Explain The Method Behind The Menu Madness

swoose

That Aonuma quote had nothing to do with the menu, he's just talking about using echoes in gameplay. I don't know if control schemes and menus are really his wheelhouse, seems like more of a Miyamoto thing who had no involvement with this title.

I will say the menu wasn't a huge downside for me, I only wish new echoes were automatically at the front of your "last used", instead of the end.

Re: Pokémon Sleep Development To Shift To Internal Subsidiary

swoose

A bit concerning as Select Button only makes bangers... but they've also ONLY made Magikarp Jump and Pokemon Sleep in the past 10 years. I'm guessing they're a smaller studio that mostly does support work, art and UIs and such.

I'll keep an eye out for any negative changes but if this keeps Sleep supported for longer, it's a good thing. The structure of the game is there.

Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Mario & Luigi: Brothership

swoose

A couple misconceptions. The IGN review was written by a superfan of the Mario & Luigi RPGs, who was clearly let down by this entry vs. his expectations. It was not a case of being unfamiliar with the series or biased against Nintendo, Logan Plant is often on their Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. Sometimes the biggest fans are the biggest critics; if NintendoLife asked for my review of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, I might have given that a 5.

Which raises the point: look at the writer, not the website. I keep seeing “but IGN gave [bad game] a 9!” So what? The same reviewer doesn’t give every score, and sites can’t enforce a monolith opinion across their staff. You wouldn’t judge PJ O’Reilly’s review skills by this site’s review of Sonic x Shadow Generations. He didn’t write that one!

Re: Plans To Announce The 'Switch 2' Have Not Changed, Says Nintendo's President

swoose

I think this whole thing was a fumble and uncharacteristic of Nintendo. Why acknowledge a successor this year at all? The damage to their sales momentum has likely already been done by that.

It wasn't just hopium thinking the announcement would have to be this year, with a spring or early summer release. It's now looking like a fall 2025 release at the earliest. That's on a chipset that is already known to be a couple years old, into a market with another year of competition from other entertainment devices. Not to be nintendoomed about it, but the prototype was shown to devs ages ago and this ramp-up seems very slow.

Re: Random: Kit & Krysta Discuss The "Drama" Behind The Switch Reveal Trailer

swoose

Half of every comment section on aggregated Kit & Krysta bits is yelling at the clouds about them being relevant. I don’t follow them but clearly they saw a spot in the media market for views from former Nintendo employees, and people listen to them.

If you object to this so much just stop clicking on their headlines on NintendoLife.

Re: Nintendo Museum Overseas Visitors Reportedly Breaking 'No Photos' Rule

swoose

I was always taught to ask "why?" and consider logic.

There is absolutely zero logic to banning photography. It takes 1 second, is unobtrusive, and deals no damage to the value of the museum. And further it's unenforceable, unless you want to confiscate all smart phones or watch every patron like a hawk. Such an obvious losing battle.

Re: Random: Nintendo's Museum Might Be Emulating SNES Games On Windows PC

swoose

Weirdly defensive stances towards Nintendo here in my opinion. I love their games and products, that doesn't mean we have to love their legal activities and the hypocrisy here is obvious.

They've repeatedly gone after both open-source emulators AND non-profit rom archives, that's the main sore point with people even before they started charging for an emulation experience in their museum.

Re: Talking Point: How Would You Fix Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom's Most Frustrating Feature?

swoose

@Sarkos I know, but that's what I mean by extra inputs that shouldn't be there. They should just be sorted in sequence with my most recently used.

I've taken to stopping what I'm doing, and summoning every single echo as soon as I acquire it to move it to the front. Otherwise I get 10 new echoes and have to remember which ones I've summoned yet or not, and which ones will be in front or back of the line.

Re: Talking Point: How Would You Fix Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom's Most Frustrating Feature?

swoose

I have to think Nintendo has done some design study that shows people visually process items faster if they’re in a single row. The Switch menu has also stuck to this for 7 years. Because otherwise, 2 rows is such an obvious option I can’t believe they didn’t go with it. 1 for objects, 1 for monsters?

I’m getting by fine with the default “recently used” sorting, except whenever getting new echoes (which is constantly). They put those new echoes LAST in the list unless you switch to “recently learned”. The best function would obviously be recently used & learned combined, but that doesn’t exist so I’m doing extra inputs every time to shuffle my new echoes to the front.

Re: Poll: Are You Bothered By The Frame Rate In Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom?

swoose

It gives a feeling of "cheapness" to me moreso than affecting gameplay. And by principle it's a shame since this is a premiere Nintendo franchise and they passed it off to a dev team that can't optimize a top-down, fixed camera game. It's really not much to ask for.

But at least it's not a remake of a 60fps GameCube game that runs worse than its inspiration.

Re: Dragon Quest Creator Chimes In On Characters Showing Less Skin In Upcoming HD-2D Remake

swoose

"Who is really complaining about this" is an apt question only because the answer is no one, no one is complaining. $1000 bounty for anyone who can find complaints from even the most strident activists, that a game lists Male and Female player options. New games come out all the time still bearing those labels, you hear nothing.

And so this change is made voluntarily, because people in development and marketing recognize it's NICE to acknowledge the social and scientific consensus, that sex and gender are separate and on a spectrum. It's appreciated and can be handled elegantly, I've praised this before about Animal Crossing and Splatoon.

Meanwhile you absolutely WILL hear complaints about scantily clad characters, both from those who say it's objectifying women and those who say it's corrupting the youth. My take is we should probably just leave legacy games made by old men like these unaltered, and avoid the tiring discussions. They get a longer leash anyway because of when they were made.

Re: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom's Frame Rate Is "Even Worse" Than Link's Awakening

swoose

Now more than ever, it feels like… Nintendo should develop their 1st party flagship titles internally or find competent development partners, instead of going back to Grezzo who already failed at this while remaking a fixed viewpoint GameBoy game.

Otherwise I’m sorry to say, this will keep happening on the Switch 2. B team devs will keep using middleware, keep pushing too many shaders and effects to justify the Switch 2 exclusivity, and their games will keep running like porridge. It’s always been a problem of dev priorities, not hardware.

Re: Rumour: Supposed 'Switch 2' Design Photos And Specs Surface Online

swoose

The latest is those renders might have been mocked up by an enthusiast, but the factory list and photos of hardware are likely real.

Pro: the face buttons looking larger, even extending to the outer edge. I hope this makes it feel less "cramped" as I've heard good things about the Steam Deck's funny-looking button placement.

Con: Why on earth do they refuse to make the joycon ergonomic. Do they have to be flat on the back?? Would a 2nd hump at the bottom of the joycon be so bad? It would also make it feel more symmetrical held sideways!

Re: PSA: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Has Reportedly Leaked Online In Full

swoose

It’s funny, Nintendo could start selling the game digitally as soon as it goes gold, before cartridges are on shelves. Many people would hate that I’m sure. But it would sure eliminate the market for leaks!

I’ll be getting this game on cartridge, and I see zero reason to care that some people are playing it before me.

Re: New AI Model Can Recreate Super Mario Bros. Footage, But It's Full Of Glitches

swoose

The scope of this is a 64p text to video diffusion model that by the researchers’ admission is “not practical and friendly for interactive video games”. That’s benign and mildly interesting even.

Then the for-profit tech company funding this research says it’s “for the creation of interactive video games” and that the “The era of infinite interactive worlds is here”.

All the “dumb money” flowing into AI research means it always has to justify itself with grand claims like this, so investors don’t worry that it’s another dot com bubble. When the disconnect between practicality and marketing is that huge, no wonder it has become so controversial.

Re: Rumour: 'Industry Whispers' Fuel Speculation Of A Switch 2 Reveal This Month

swoose

It would be nice to have something to grab people's attention after Splatoon 3's Grand Festival, which will preoccupy a LOT of players in Japan and feel like the end of an era. Then there's a new 2D Zelda this month, which will have stable enough interest that a future (backwards compatible?) console won't hurt its sales.

The "this is Furukawa" tweet was 4 months ago now, it might make sense to reveal the console sooner rather than later so they're not saying "the Switch successor will not be mentioned" about presentations for the next 4 months. And if Nintendo is moving towards production, they want to get ahead of it so we're not getting news from manufacturer leaks and shipping lists.

Overall the smoke is looking plausible this time.

Re: Soapbox: The Next Pokémon Game Should Rework Old Critters, Not Just Add Dozens More

swoose

@SillyG My gen 2 example was only that it was a small generation. Yes, they were also poorly distributed in Johto. But the following 3 generations all introduced more pokemon than Gen 2, and the last 4 generations have now introduced even fewer. That points to an already downwards trend.

Johto was directly attached to Kanto so it made some sense to heavily feature Kanto mons. It still had its own identity due to innovating the series forward in a number of huge ways (day/night cycle, held items, gender, eggs, special atk/def split, weather conditions)

Re: Soapbox: The Next Pokémon Game Should Rework Old Critters, Not Just Add Dozens More

swoose

Excluding regional and paradox forms, no 3D pokemon game has introduced even 100 new pokemon. That’s how many Gen 2 introduced, and Gen 2 was tiny!!

They’ve clearly already put the brakes on new designs in favor of servicing old ones, and it’s for the worse. Each game used to have its own identity because you saw so many new faces filling up niches in the dex and the game world. Maybe not every game can be Black & White, but I’d settle for a Ruby & Sapphire again! At least the Hoenn dex was over half new.

I play a new Pokemon game to see NEW pokemon. The 3D era has blended together into grey goo because each region is just a staging ground to see old designs over and over.

Re: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Trailer Introduces Us To The 'Still World' And Dungeons

swoose

I was worried the game would suffer for lacking the simple press A, swing sword gameplay that is so polished and satisfying in 2D Zeldas. I'm glad it's in there even if it's a limited capacity.

Between that and all your summons I'm guessing battles will get quite chaotic. Hopefully Grezzo has this game running smoothly, not something they're known for.

Re: Splatoon 3 Version 9.0.0 Announced, Here Are The Full Patch Notes

swoose

Very interesting that they can still tweak things about the connection speed. I remember much was made about Splatoon 2 and 3 having a lower ping than the WiiU game. I assume to give more leeway to the handheld console that most users would be playing on wifi.

Most users will still be playing on wifi. The state of internet infrastructure in the west isn’t getting any better, and wifi isn’t getting any better at stable connections. That’s the single biggest obstacle to a Splatoon where opponents aren’t jumping around the screen or DCing.

Re: Feature: The Company You Can Pay To X-Ray Unopened Pokémon Card Packs Speaks Out

swoose

Used to work at a game store and we would get the irregular customer trying to weigh our packs with a milligram scale. It wasn't allowed. Sometimes they would turn it around and accuse us of weighing the packs first, and taking out the good ones.

To me, there is no replacement for a good brick and mortar store. If you become a regular, you get to know the people behind the counter, and more importantly others in the community who have gotten good pulls there, if everyone is accountable. And at the end of the day, the point of a TCG is having others with whom you can play and trade. There's not much reason to buy blind packs online - at that point, just order the specific cards you want.

Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's GBA Library With Pokémon

swoose

@kkslider5552000 Everything about the story, premise, art, and music of PMD looks fantastic. I think the main turnoff for people is the snail’s pace, repetitive gameplay. It makes the GameBoy Pokemon RPGs look like speedrunning games.

50 floors of procedurally generated dungeon with the same encounters and tile-by-tile turns is pretty much the opposite of a game to me. I’m envious of people who can find fun in that part because they get rewarded with all the other good stuff.