warioswoods

There's just one thing they need to do in order get my purchase: make it an RPG again !!

Camelot was responsible for the most entertaining sports / RPG combinations of all time, and I had a blast with Mario Tennis on the GBA in particular. I can't fathom why they've given that up; without it, these games don't have enough to draw me in.

@16 Believe me, I know that it's a matter of taste, but it's notable as perhaps the only area where my own tastes have diverged sharply from the recent Mario series. If not for the hub / map downgrades, these games would be the perfection of game design.

Pro: propellor blocks in a 3D Mario? Awesome.

Con: looks like another boring, linear level select like in Galaxy 2. I'm rarely disappointed by anything in Mario games, but I've grown very disheartened with their recent abandonment of any kind of interesting hub or over-world.

Super Mario World had its beautiful 2D over-map, Mario 64 had the castle, and Sunshine boasted the greatest 3D hub to date... so Nintendo undoubtedly once understood how to make enjoyable maps and hubs better than anyone. But now... they've just given up. It made Galaxy 2 a much less enjoyable experience than its predecessor, for me, and it makes this game seem less exciting than it should be.

I wish they would release 2 versions, one tailored to the resolution of the 3DS and one for the DSi. If not, I'll probably hate playing it on my 3DS due to the horrible scaling. Fortunately, though, I can download it on both for free and see which I prefer.

Brings back memories of F15 Strike Eagle II on my old Tandy computer, back in the dark ages.

Pop+ Solo is the worst title I've ever downloaded on a Nintendo system... but evidently someone out there finds it fun.

I wouldn't be too quick to believe all this "redesign" nonsense. There's no reason to believe that a redesign is coming anytime soon.

In fact, it's mostly the shoddy journalism of a few sites (Kotaku, for instance) that has pushed this idea of the circle pad add-on being a fix rather than what it is, an optional add-on. It's the Classic Controller for the 3DS. It's not some sort of change in strategy or admission that the system should have used dual analog to begin with.

Furthermore, I actually think it makes sense to handle it this way — ie, I think Nintendo is better off with this as an attachment than having it integrated. Here's the situation: either you want to use your system on-the-go, or you want to experience home-console style games in the comfort of your home but in full 3D. If the latter, now you have a great "grip" that feels and operates just like a home controller. When you're back on the go, however, you don't need that bulk, you just need the single analog + touchscreen controls and smooth form factor.

Defaulting ain't brave.

...but I don't mind, absurd titles are fine by me.

You and up to three of your friends will each don a different coloured tunic

It's just a Classic Controller for the 3DS, and one that will surely remain optional at that. If you prefer to have the big-grip, traditional controller feel and are playing at home, it's an option. If not, or if you're on the go, every one of these games will have touch or gyro controls to use instead.

It is even possible to independently control “each” Link by selecting either of them using the L or R Buttons

So they basically took a cue from the Gamecube game. I sure hope that, somewhere in Nintendo, a team is currently working on a brand new, full-scale 4 Swords. We need it!

I've had this game on my list for a few weeks, but will finally go download it this weekend after reading the interview.

@45

Um... buy the key. They put them in the shops for a reason.

I must admit that it's a little disappointing to hear him say that he's never bothered to complete the first game in the series. There's a lot to learn from the first 2 Zelda games... I've had a great time replaying them on the 3DS after so many years.

Also, agree with Link79 - the second quest is much harder than the first.

OK, so this would seem to be only for Monster Hunter.

Unfortunately, it will be played out like a hardware revision or Nintendo idea. Which is tragic, because...
1 - That's just about the stupidest add-on I've ever seen.
2 - Capcom has no business making hardware. This just further confirms it.
3 - Nintendo's internal developers don't need 2 circle-thingies to make their games work on the system.
4 - This thing will play out terrible in the press as some sort of fix for hardware that was never broken to begin with.

Screw the conventional wisdom... Nintendo would do better to forget the third parties and just make exactly what it wants to make. Expand its internal developers and take on like-minded folks (Retro, etc) if necessary, but stop expecting 3rd parties to sell the platform.

I'm sorry, but third parties almost always fall flat on Nintendo systems. They don't understand and don't want to bother with N's vision, they don't want to invest much dev money in something risky, and they just hope to make a quick buck on a platform that doesn't have a large library.

This is the kind of quirky, varied game I'd like to see on the 3DS. I don't know why they've only put more traditional, console-ish games on their latest handheld... the DS library seems much better suited to handheld gaming than the 3DS to date.

Sail on, chicken man.

I need to see SAGA in action in full 3D before I decide.

Give me a 3D video on the ol' eShop, please.

While the 3DS top screen has a size well-suited to the NES games, I wish they'd given us some sort of retro option analogous to the Game Boy frame with the subtle 3D effect... perhaps a classic TV frame with slight bowing would have worked.

Anyhow, I held START+SELECT on my first boot up just to see, and sure enough there was nothing.

I just want a real Fatal Frame entry, localized.

I need Wario's Woods, dangit! It has ten times the charm and 100 times the gameplay of that green dinosaur's mediocre puzzle game.

Honestly, Tetris DS (ie, greatest Tetris game of all time) with a few added 3D effects would be more exciting than the screenshots above. I suppose I just refuse to accept a world without Push mode and retro visual style.

Terrible idea.

Nintendo is like Apple on at least one point: they both see hardware and software as inextricably linked in design. Apple correctly refused to release its OS for other platforms even way back when its computers weren't selling well, and Nintendo likewise wouldn't dream of developing software for hardware, APIs, and controllers that didn't emerge entirely out of itself.

Yay, one step closer to Wario Land, the grand culmination of the SML series.

@TheFox

You mean dubbed anime.

Anyhow, gyroscope look / aim controls like those in Zelda would be perfect for this game. Here's hoping they don't drop the ball on such an obvious feature.

"More rotating, more zoom, more effects, more sprites, more colors, more textures, better framerate, more memory, more 3D"

Not all of the above. These were better on the N64:
rotating / zoom
effects
framerate
3D

These were far better on the SNES (when rendering 2D games):
sprites
textures (the N64 is well known for abysmal texture memory)

(I might go so far as to say that the SNES had better colors, as there is a "gaudy" effect on the N64 due to certain limitations of blurring and whatnot — but I'll call that one a tie.)

It's true that Yoshi's Story and Mischief Makers weren't possible on the SNES. However, it's also true that Super Metroid wasn't possible on the N64. The N64 2D-ish games used new and fancy 3D effects to make up for the lack of 2D capabilities, but that lack was still quite apparent if you compare closely.

The N64 has the "vaseline" blurring effect on everything, whether the game is 2D or 3D. It simply can't store all that much 2D (pixel-accurate) data, which is in fact the reason for the blurring to hide its atrocious textures. Look at Mischief Makers very closely, and you'll see that no single sprite or element on screen is anywhere near as crisp as was possible on the SNES, and that's by necessity. In fact, that's why you see the gigantic characters on all 2D N64 games; notice how large Yoshi and the other characters are, and also in MM. That's due to the fact that the art had to be much blurrier and therefore larger, losing the pixel-accurate crispness needed for the small and detailed sprites of the SNES.

Now, you may prefer the blurry, 3D-hybrid-ish 2D look of Yoshi's Story or Mischief, and that's fine, but those games lost as much (in detail, crispness, number of elements and sprites on screen, etc) as they gained (3D effects of various types).

@SKTTR

"The N64 had better 2D capabilities than the SNES"

I believe you're very wrong on that point. You cite Mischief Makers, as it was one of the only 2D games ever attempted on the N64, yet it actually is not a very advanced or detailed 2D game if you look closely, and makes up for the severe lack of 2D abilities in the system with a few 3D tricks here and there. In fact, it's downright blurry and, like Yoshi's Story, uses a greatly limited number of elements on screen at any point.

Blurry and lacking in detail:

Compared to the detail and pixel-art crispness of Super Metroid:

Again, just think about it: if the N64 were capable of detailed 2D graphics like the SNES, why did it never happen? Why wouldn't Nintendo at least have released a compilation of games (like Mario All Stars), or some example of genuine 2D on par with the SNES? I stand by the notion that the N64 was not even capable of running a game like Super Metroid as is.

The overall specs were higher on the N64, but it had no dedicated 2D hardware, whereas the SNES was built solely for handling complex layered 2D graphics and sprites. Furthermore, the N64 had that horrible lack of texture memory, and without 2D hardware, my understanding is that it essentially had to load 2D graphics in as textures in order to render a 2D game, leaving everything as blurry as you see in Mischief Makers.

Actually, I'm fairly certain (although I don't have evidence to back this up) that the N64 was in fact not capable of rendering 2D graphics at anything near the complexity needed for a good Metroid game. I even doubt that you could port Super Metroid to the N64. It was a machine built for 3D processing, and they pretty much left out everything else.

If it did have those capabilities, someone would have made a decent 2D game somewhere along its lifespan. Sure, Yoshi's Story is neat, but its graphics are actually very simple, low in number of layers, and repetitive in elements. Super Metroid is something entirely different in terms of detail and complexity.

@James

Is Devil Survivor: Overclocked in 3D? Go to the official site and check out the screenshots — they've placed all the primary game action on the lower, 2D screen. It looks like only some menus and stats ever display on the larger, 3D screen... which seems like a terrible design decision and missed opportunity, if true.

Regarding hub world: Dang. Mario games have been retreating on the hub aspect for years now, and it continues to disappoint me greatly.

Sunshine had the greatest hub of just about any 3D platformer in history;
Galaxy's was simpler but still very enjoyable and captured the mood of the game well;
Galaxy 2 gave up on even trying, wasting the opportunity with a small, pointless hub and a dull level select screen (one of the reasons I still consider Galaxy 1 to be a better experience);
NSMB (& Wii) could have taken inspiration from the great 2D maps in Super Mario World, but instead created a mostly bland and mostly linear sequence of levels.

A hub world or map world matters to the game. Without it, the levels just feel random and unorganized, with no sense of progression or overall adventure. I certainly hope they reverse this recent trend at some point.

For once, the game footage actually looks both vibrant and smooth. I've seen far too many Nintendo commercials or presentations where 3DS or DS games are not smoothed out for the larger view and end up looking horribly pixellated.

Sadly there was one thing lost in the otherwise flawless transition to the Wii: that amazing opening screen.
[youtube:6ED1oGjFUo4]
I can't understand why they dropped it. That and the beautiful glow of the morph ball were the first things that amazed me about this game.

@accc

It's not really much of a puzzle game, more of a maze. Yes, with mazes you try to anticipate the correct route using the available clues, and I certainly did so, just as any other player. However, in the end, there isn't much to it other than picking from maybe 2-3 possible routes at any juncture and following the logical sequences.

That's why most back-of-the-cereal-box mazes are not particularly engaging; you get to pick the best route, but you spend most of your time simply tracing along the obvious courses to the end.

@2, @3

I also hated Mighty Flip Champs. It may have had some visual charm, but its core gameplay was little more than increasingly tedious memorization. Why would one ever replay a level for a better time, when all it comes down to is remembering the sequence then mindlessly executing it? Even the first time through a maze is so very mechanical, trying different paths and retreading when needed.

MFC looked like a classic platformer but was in truth just a maze puzzle that wouldn't stand out at all without the retro graphics. This game, on the other hand, looks like a real platformer, so I'm cautiously interested.

Fall or holiday 2012.

"but all in all this is just as mediocre as its predecessor"

Well, that just simultaneously invalidated the review for me and sold me on this game.

Wii Play wasn't mediocre, it was exactly the kind of simple yet replayable fun that brought everyone together laughing in the living rooms of my family members, back when the Wii was new and I'd bring mine along for a visit. Wii Sports and Wii Play sold the Wii on people who never picked up controllers, no question, and both were full of charm and polish. I'd rather see a future filled with this kind of thing than with any of the traditional gaming genres, so long as we get the polish of these 1st party titles and not the blandness of Deca Sports and other awful knockoffs. Those are mediocre.

Too bad, I prefer this logo.

Lowering the overall price a bit is fine, but I'd have rather see them focus a little of that effort on the game prices. $40 might be acceptable for the big first-party franchises, but little that any 3rd party has or ever will offer is likely to fully justify that price tag, IMO.

Aaaanyhow, as launch-day purchaser, I wouldn't have expected any compensation for a price drop (honestly, early adopters should always expect this, and you were foolish if you felt certain the price would hold indefinitely), so the free games are a fantastic bonus.

Lastly, I don't think Nintendo should ever launch hardware in the early part of the year. Why do that, when its sales are many times stronger in the holiday season? All systems sell more during the holidays, but in Nintendo's case it's a particularly enormous difference. They should take advantage of that in their timing, so that launch sales are through the roof. I'll be shaking my head if the Wii U comes out prior to next fall.

Why are so many of you listing 3rd party games? There's absolutely no reason to expect those, and every announced game (GBA or NES) has been 1st party. Why even bother mentioning Castlevania, etc?

Anyhow, I want Wario's Woods, which would be well suited to the portable format.

I just can't make myself excited for this one. It's... kind of neat, I guess, but somehow it just looks overwhelmingly corny (Pit in particular is just an awful character in my mind, apologies to any fans) and not particularly original.

I want this Mario Party 9 thing.

Always wanted to be an ambassador.

It might help to start printing the scoring policies just under the number, so as to avoid misunderstandings.

6 - Not Bad This game is not good enough to rush out and buy without doing your homework. Whilst you should approach with a degree of caution you might still really enjoy this game.

Harvest Moontang

I may have to pick this one up, just for the classically reproduced cabinet games and CE / Legions all in one package. That's very appealing without even taking the new games into consideration.

The complaints about the size of the game screen on the "classic" games don't dissuade me in the slightest, given the fact that one of my favorite experiences on the 3DS thus far is playing classic Game Boy games in their native resolution with the subtle 3D effect and frame; it feels wonderfully authentic. I never play the GB or GBC games on it in anything but the "tiny" mode, and the size doesn't bother me a bit... and these games actually fill even more of the screen than those.

I would like to hear more about the ports of CE and Legions, and exactly what 3D effects have been applied.

Count me a fan of lighthearted sports-RPG hybrids, ever since the excellent Mario Tennis: Power Tour.

"You can even perform a jump from a long roll"

Can you roll off an edge and then jump from midair? If so (and I hope so), it would be taking its influence more from the Donkey Kong Country series than from Zelda.

@4

For me, classic Dr. Mario > classic Tetris. However, I'd be most excited for a VC release of Tetris Blast.

Great Kirby Games Without Abilities
Kirby's Dream Land
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kirby's Epic Yarn
... Kirby: Mass Attack ?

I say that the abilities are not necessary, and have gotten rather stale anyhow. The very first game in the series didn't have them, many of the greatest entries didn't either, and all the most formulaic and blandly designed games in the series did keep them (K64, Dream Land 2, 3, etc).

Does anyone know who is behind the development on this one? Grezzo was given OoT, but is the updating and porting being handled in-house this time? The results are certainly impressive.