thinkhector

Okay, I never realized that the green glow around Dracula's Castle was actual the moon! For that reason alone I voted for the Japanese box art. You can actually see the entire "circular" form of the moon in the Japanese art while even knowing what it is, the US art still just looks like a glowing green fog. The Japanese one is a bit busy, but the game is called "Circle of the Moon" and the US version really misses the mark on that front.

@StarPoint Agreed. A bit messy. I still voted for it though.

Ah! The GameCube Nintendo/Sega era! While people were hauling around TV's and LAN ports to play Halo together, Nintendo had a neat, overlooked hardware advantage. They had 4 controller ports (PS2 only had 2) and, they made the first wireless controllers! Four wireless controllers plus (timed) exclusives: Sega Soccer Slam, Super Monkey Ball, F-Zero, and Mario Kart Double Dash. You had a great party system right there.

@wuntyme8 Touhou Spell Bubble is a lot like Bust-A-Move. Although it's the complete opposite of F2P. You could go broke trying to get all of the DLC for that game.

@kurtasbestos I am a bit of expert when it comes to the Flip-Grip. (Forced to be since Nintendo doesn't have a category for vertical games.)
Let me highlight some games that are NOT shooters
1. Downwell
2. Pinball FX 3-Williams Collection (22 tables!)
3.Gunbarich (follow this games developer to a trove of vertical shooters)
4. Capcom Arcade Stadium 1--Commando (has a bunch of shooters too)
5. Capcom Arcade Stadium 2-- Gunsmoke, Speed Rumbler, Hissatu Buraiken, Rally 2011, Block Block (also shooters too!)
6. Groove Coaster! (rhythm)
7. Contra Collection--[Arcade ver.] Contra and Super C (Beware: Arcade Archives versions are better [fixes slowdown, retains voice samples] but more expensive)
8. Lost Phone (3 games in series)
9. SkyScrappers (fighting game)
10. SNK Collection--Ikari Warriors, a few other (also shooters included)
11. Namco Museum (Note: other game, PacMan Museum+ DOES NOT have vertical mode)
12. Atari Flashback
13. Taito Milestones
14. SEGA AGES: Gain Ground

Arcade Archives has a crap load of shooters, and a bunch of non-shooters, I'm listing just a few of the non-shooters:
1. Punch Out!
2. Super Punch Out!
3. Donkey Kong
4. Donkey Kong Jr.
5. Donkey Kong 3
6. Pac-Man
7. Super Pac-Man
8. Mat Mania
9. Kiki KaiKai
10. Sasuke vs Commander (seeSNK Collection)
11. Water Ski
12. Burger Time
13. Alpine Ski (see Taito Milestones)
14. Wild Western (see Taito Milestones)
15. Johnny Turbo: Nitro Ball (flips the wrong way, but you can "flip" the FlipGrip)
16. Johnny Turbo: Heavy Barrel (same deal, flips the wrong way)

I will mention just a few offbeat shooters:
1. Switch n Shoot
2. Horizon Shift '81
3. Tube Panic (Arcade Archives)

There other vertical games, puzzle games, that use the touchscreen only:
1. Disney Tsum Tsum
2. Pudding Monsters
3. Sticky Monsters
4. Word Crush Hidden
5. Talking Tom, Candy Run (not sure about this one, but it has vertical elements)

That's about it.

@mrjingles75 The ones in the Konami Collection aren't really fake though. When you add scanlines it (roughly) doubles the size of the image. So if a game starts at full screen and you try to do real scanlines the games picture is gonna be way off the screen. The best way (to me) is to just go full screen and use a filter of some sort. That's what most companies do, but the quality of the filters varies.

@chipia You could do the same thing in Mario Bros.3 P-suit power up. In fact, in Mario Bros. 3 you could just skip certain levels, and another power up just let you walk right over a level without even playing it. So it's not really anything new.

@Elock I mostly have all digital games except the first part Nintendo games. I have to pick those up physical because it's the only great discounts I can find.

@Not_Soos Yeah, I know right? Sonic Colors is the one I'm thinking about picking up. I just finished Origins and Mania. I'm a little hesitant to pick-up Colors only because of the bug issues. I know that the audio being messed up was why I passed on it. I think it's mostly been patched now. Right???

@Kazman2007 If there is no demo, I would wait and chrck out YouTube videos. With over 7,000 games on the Switch, I wouldn't feel any pressure to buy this game. Plenty of other RPG's are getting released. Live A Live just came out and Neir Automata is right behind.

@MrGawain Yeah but emotions can be good or bad or even mild. Plus not every game makes you excited or happy. Sometimes we play games and get frustrated, sometimes we get mad, sometimes the game isn't that good and we get bored. We can also be enjoying a game and then get really, really annoyed at some dumb quest in the middle of our play.

If something is being taken off the eShop I usually take a hard look at it to pick it up. I purchased Pandemic when it was on sale after the discontinuation was announced. I also picked up Dead By Daylight with the Stranger Things DLC on sale (no longer available.) I looked at the two SNK retro soccer games before they were removed, I passed on those. There was the NES Fire Emblem game, I passed on that (the emulation was poor, everything too dark.) Super Mario 3D All-Stars was also the first physical game I ever purchased on the Switch. My reasoning was have it as a cartridge, so that other people could borrow from me if they missed out. It was also $10 off on physical for some reason at that time.

To me this issue is overstated. The big day one patches are only for really hyped AAA, big budget titles. There are over 7,000 Nintendo Switch games. How many are getting significant patches after release 30? Maybe? You see this more on Xbox, PC, and Sony but even there you must recognized that the games are MUCH bigger in size. Games are getting more complex with more features.
It's like going to a bad restaurant, you will talk about it to everyone you know. So about 30 or 40 games get talked about needing patches endless and everyone ignores the 6,900 games that didn't.

I'm actually surprised by how LOW the Mega Man series sold. I know there 38 million is a lot sold, but since 1985? There are like 50 Mega Man games. There are like 11 mainline games, 6 Gameboy games, 10 Megan X games, like a other 10 Z/ZX games. I don't know about 8 Megan Man Network Games. What like 4 or 5 spinoffs like the fighter games? There a re few 3D games in there too.

@Alphayo I know people that claim that Dragon's Dogma is better than Witcher 3. I haven't played either one of them though.

@KBuckley27 Isn't that every large publisher? I feel like that's why there is this nice space for indie games to experiment in. (And Nintendo has closer to 7 regular IP's now, Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Metroid, and Yoshi all get a game of their own.)

My favorite thing about these games isn't highlighted. Arcade games have a weird distinction of being both hard and easy. As long as you keep putting in 'quarters', you can beat the games easy, and you can clear them without continues if you want with the rewind feature.
Ah, but this where Score Challenge mode comes in. Say good bye to rewind, and you only get one quarter, no continues. Well where is the fun in dying quickly? Well you get system points for how far you get before you die. You might not ever beat the game on one quarter, but the system keeping track of your progress makes you at least want to try and see how good you can get. It's a really nice feature.

@mrjingles75 None of the scanlines in any of the retro collections, including Arcade Archive games are correct. Basically, if the game runs full screen, it doesn't have proper scanlines, but are emulated. Konami Contra end Castlevania games don't run full screen and so have proper scanlines. You can't have both. (I mean you could, but you would need to separate rom files each with their own saves.) It's really a question of how good the fake scanlines are. Sonic Mania has the best fake scanlines I've seen, (it doesn't even use 'lines' but dots to achieve a replica effect.) Capcom could have done a better job with their scanlines, but they still would be authentic, just improved.

@somebread It's worse than that. Capcom Stadium 1 and 2 are both online! They are constantly updated with weekly challenges and such. It seems it would have been easy to make online multiplayer work.

@nessisonett That's an interesting that you would mention the FDS soundchip having any extra channel. That's because the Castlevania 2 tracks are completely missing the percussion sounds from the cartridge release. Sometimes it's not what you can do, but how ya use it. NES Simon's Quest sound wins in this case. However, Japan version of Castlevania 3 DOES have the better soundtrack. (Also has difficulty options which is a good feature.)

@PigmaskFan Wii Sports never had singles tennis. Plus, Nintendo already has THREE products with online singles tennis options. The obvious being Mario Tennis. The others from the Switch Online service, (and to a lesser extent) Mario Tennis 64 and Super Tennis (SNES). I think it's just to differentiate Switch Tennis from everything else out there and offer a unique experience.

@PessitheMystic I'm gonna check out the demo.

@PessitheMystic It's only sad if it doesn't work.

The one thing that bothers me about Ubisoft is that they outsourced the development of UNO to a Chinese developer. Seriously UBISOFT??! You don't have enough resources to internally develop and support an UNO game!?! (UNO's online component is horribly buggy even while STILL getting constant updates! They even replaced the entire game once instead of just doing an update! And guess what? The netcode is still horribly unreliable.) There is 50/50 chance you will actually finish a long UNO game before getting booted out.

I must be experiencing the Mandela Effect because I swore that this game was already on the Switch.

@msvt That's interesting. I was thinking, "When is Nintendo going to try and do a Free-2-Play game?" And then I brick hit me because they already have been doing it. You havr Kirby's Clash, Pokemon Unite, Pokemon Cafe, Pokemon Quest, Tetris 99, Mario 35, Pac-Man 99. With mobile games Mario Kart Tour and Fire Emblem Heros. Nintendo is already DEEP into free-to-play. The question is, what's next?

@Hikingguy The SEGA third party games are appearing because WE paid for it. Until the price of the service goes up, I wouldn't expect to see the highly regarded third party games. However, with the Cowabunga Collection, it was unlikely those games would ever appear.
It will be interesting to see how many titles they actually do bring to the service. It's possible we get at least 100 NES titles. I know people complain that certain games aren't on there, but I think most people want to see as many games released as possible regardless of the quality of those games.
As far as licensed properties go, I don't even think that's impossible. If you look at the bulk of licensed games, they mostly come from just TWO license holders: Disney/Marvel, and Warner Bros./D.C. You make a deal with either one of them, and it could really open the floodgates.

@Hikingguy Well Konami does have all is heavy hitters on Switch at least: Castlevania Collection, Contra Collection, and, upcoming, Cowabunga Collection. (I wish they would just give us the Fullscreen mode, even though it means dropping the real scanlines mode.) Those collections also feature the Japanese, and European carts, so it's a pretty complete collection.

It was the cheap games for me. I actually moved away from handheld gaming because of smartphones. I was paying just a few dollars for games, and having fun while 3DS games were $40. It was hard to justify. Being able to have that wide range of price points on the eShop made me put away my phone for the better controls and bigger screen.

@CharlieGirl I was thinking about what game I would recommend to someone that has never played a game before. The answer I came up with is INSIDE. Why? Well the controls are very simple. You can't get lost about where to go, since you are always going the same direction. And the game is an experience without being difficult to see how the whole story plays out. And it's not very long.

@solarwolf07 I know! Why does the "Disney Afternoon Collection" exist on other console but NOT Nintendo Switch??

@YoshiFlutterJump The Japanese apps are pretty cool. Once you download the Virtual Consoles you can go ahead and delete you Japanese profiles. (Otherwise you will be getting a ton of Japanese news letters.)
The only console that's an issue is the N64 because it's hard to tell apart from the American app. Luckily with folders you just group them together.

@Tasuki Okay, I just looked at the original Gameboy boxart. That is an atrocious cover. It's so bad, I would say that it definitely hurt sales. (They should have put a ghost on the cover, duh!) I will say that Mega Man 1 has some bad artwork too, so sales can sometimes overcome bad box art.

@Bass_X0 Well looks like you just got your wish. At least you didn't say a anytime soon. But 11 years is better than never.

@Isaix I will say that overall the game music and sound effects are muted. This is most notable in handheld mode. When docked you can just turn up the volume to get it right.
While music is subjective, what I did say about Carnival Zone music is objectively true: It's super repetitive. The loop is like 25 seconds long.
Also, people only mention Act 1 when talking about the music changes. They never mention Act 2! Carnival Zone music from Act 1 and 2 are almost completely identical! And it's already repetitive. The new Carnival Zone music is totally different in Act 2! This goes the same for Ice Cap, where the Act 1 and Act are very similar in original form but Act 1 and Act 2 are very different in Origins.
For Launch Base, I don't like the voice sample in the original where they keep saying "Go!".
I agree on two things. It would be cool if you could use the Premium Songs in the museum in game. They should look to CDify the music as an option in the next collection.
I think the other thing we agree is that nobody likes Sonic 3 sprite. Would have been nice if he looked liked the other version.

@Serpenterror Fans have just released Remasterd SMS/Game Gear Sonic Games. They are in the vein of Sonic Mania features. You can get them free for mobile and Xbox.
As as new Sonic games, they already did EXACTLY what you mapped out. New class Sonic, Sonic Mania, check. New 3D Sonic, Sonic Frontiers, check. Sonic spinoff games, Sonic at the Olympic, check. So they are already following that guide post.

@Isaix Ya know, I was revolted by by the music changes like anyone else. But I have actually had a big change of heart. Everyone likes the original Carnival music, but man is it repetitive, and sounds exactly the same from Acts 1 & 2. The new song isn't immediately catchy, but it has more going for it musically as it changes up.
I thought Ice Cap Zone music was the biggest lose, but again. The new song IS a actually good. It's jarring at first, I agree, but just really listen to it. It's got its own cool, different vibe.
Lastly, we have the new Launch Base Music. There is a big win for Sonic Origins. The new Launch Base music is superior to the old one in every way.
They also changed the Invincibility, Super Sonic tune. Which is good. The old one was annoyingly repetitive. So overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
It's like I say, there are always going to be TWO definitive versions of a game: the unaltered original, and the newest remaster. People will always want to have their cake and eat it too. "I wish they would change that...but why did they change that!" Hopefully, Sonic 3 and Knuckles get it's SEGA Ages release without any changes in the future.

Interestingly enough, Pinball was banned in the United States for about 40 years, because it was considered a form of gambling. It wasn't until a famous court case was held in where a player told the judge what shots he was going to make before making them to prove that it was skill based. Anyways, the bsn was lifted.
There isn't any skill involved with loot boxes. There isn't a way to get "better" at it to improve your odds. Loot boxes don't make games more fun to play, and they don't add any value to the gaming community.

This is what happens when create too many Pokemon. Imagine how many archived material they will have in a hundred years.

How is Liv-a-Liv not one of the options? I think that's how the develope actually pronounces it. It's still gonna be Lie-v Ah Lie-v to me.

@Rykdrew That's good info! I knew there were at least two endings, but seven (+1)? That's crazy. I was only able to get there emeralds and I'm on the final boss now. I was trying to get all the spheres, and just ignored the rings. I thought the rings were for just an extra life. I had no idea about the gold rings.
I got the DLC too, but my guys are still trapped and I aren't playable yet.
Did you know that the Encore characters from the DLC were from a Japan exclusive arcade game? It was a 3 player co-op game, used trackballs for controls, and had the horrible name SegaSonic the HedgeHog. Never played it, but I heard it wasn't any good. Anyways, that's where Ray and Might come from.

So you would rather have to micromanage a bunch of save across 4 different games? Have to manually delete a game every time you wanted to play? Go thru and decide which one to delete? And then start a new save file? There are just many more steps involved with that instead of just pushing a button twice?

@Rykdrew Yeah, I just finished watching Sonic 2 the movie, and I paired that with playing thru Sonic Mania for the first time. I'm on the Oil zone right now.

@UltraZelda64 Completely disagree. I have the original Christian Whitehead Remakes of Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic CD. And the save system is clunky. The beautiful think about Sonic Origins is the SPEED at which you can jump in and out of modes whichout having to manage any of it. I go into the old Christian Whitehead games, I can't remember why I saved any particular game, but all my slots are used up so I have to delete one before starting. Sonic 3 and Knuckles has double the save slots, and once you fill them all up, (and you will), you are not going to remember why you saved any of them, if you stop playing for a couple of weeks. Just look how quickly you can jump from playing Anniversary Mode Sonic 2, and then your suddenly playing Sonic CD Classic mode, like that. Then you go to Sonic 3 & Knuckles and everything comes to a grinding halt as you have to decide which file to delete before you can play. Sonic 3 Knuckles save system is there just because that's how the game was. Putting two save systems into Sonic 3 would have been clunky. I don't think it was the right choice though and they should have unified the new save system.

@Kyurom The Switch has a microphone, sort of. Any headphones you plug into the headphone jack have microphone support.

@SpaceboyScreams Well yes, and no. Not all of the game being released for the Online Virtual console are all winners. And some of the best NES games are sold in other collections. There is also the difficulty of old games. They were pretty much all Dark Souls.

However, there are some games that stand the test time. Punch Out! (NES) is an incredible game that is better than any others that came out. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES & SNES) is a must play. Star Fox 64 (N64) is still the best Star Fox game.
Also don't be surprised that in 20 years, you are playing games that came out in 2020 even though there are "better games" being made.

@mrjingles75 You know what game does really good fake scanlines: "Sonic MANIA". To be fair, they are not even really using lines, but the feel and look of it is a real good approximation. It's funny cause Sonic MANIA is a new games, it never was designed with scanlines.

Does the European Online Virtual Console have any exclusive games?

@steventonysmith This is not a rumor. Microsoft accidentally leaked it. You can find achievements listings for "GoldenEye 007" on Microsoft's official website. It looks like they were going to drop the game. The rumor is only in why it was delayed. The war seems the likely reason given the timing, and the plot of the game. Now, is the game coming to Nintendo? It's at least more likely than not since Banjo-Kazooie made it on. However, there is one good reason it might not be released for Nintendo Online. Licensed games have an expiration date. Meaning even it comes to Nintendo Online, at a later date, they will have to remove it. So I would say it's a YES for Microsoft, and just a likely for Nintendo.

@UltraZelda64 I agree with you on the Sonic CD menu presentation feeling a little outdated, but I strongly disagree with you about the save system.
The save system is rather brilliant. It's actually the save system in S&K3 that's outdated. Why do I like the new save system? It requires ZERO management from the player. You can jump in and out of games quickly and jump between characters quickly. In Sonic 3, you have to manage this system. For example, "Hmmm...I've used all the save files in Sonic 3, but I want to start a new game. Okay which one to delete? Which one was I even playing last? Okay can't just write over the save file. Have to go here and first delete it. Am I sure? Okay I'll delete this one. Okay now go here and start new game." The point is it takes time to manage Sonic 3 saves more than the other games.