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16 Jun 2015 16:39 #204446 by Motorik
Plus it would've been a huge P.R. surge for Sony had they just outright funded Shenmue 3 themselves and then bragged about it onstage. I mean it's a multi-billion dollar global conglomerate, what's 2 mil to them? They knew the demand was there, otherwise they wouldn't have brought Suzuki onstage in the first place.
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16 Jun 2015 16:52 - 16 Jun 2015 16:55 #204448 by Mr. White
Cool. Star Fox (along with F-Zero) is one of my favorite Nintendo settings. Is this SF gonna be Multi-player?

The Wii U has MK8, Smash Brothers, access to all the Wii party games, the three NES Castlevanias (the best ones), a few editions of SFII, and some KOEI games. Despite no Gamecube F-Zero, I could own this console forever and be fine.

I see that the Wii U has ports of what were once AAA titles. Deux Ex, Arkham, Assassin's Creed, etc. I don't think I'll ever want to play any of those, but they're all there. Hell, the past decade of Wii games as well as indy virtual games are also available. There's more gaming to be had on my Wii U then I could possibly ever want to do.

It sucks that companies have to ditch systems and create new ones every few years. Flashier graphics don't wow me, so if even they still made SNES quality games I'd be fine.

(I'm also in the anti Amiibo/Skylander/Ifinity camp.)
Last edit: 16 Jun 2015 16:55 by Mr. White.
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16 Jun 2015 17:11 #204449 by Motorik
For me, the problem with Nintendo is they're sitting on all of these iconic, wonderful franchises, yet outside of Mario Kart, Smash Bros and mainline Mario platformers, their franchises feel weirdly neglected, ESPECIALLY in the home console arena. A co-op handheld Metroid with chibi art and a Four Swords-style cute Zelda thing for 3DS merely reemphasize the vacuum left by not having mainline Metroid or Zelda games on their current console. And then there's the next tier of Nintendo properties, stuff like Earthbound (localization of an NES game from 1989 notwithstanding), F-Zero, StarTropics, etc. that seem like obvious candidates for a resurrection but go weirdly ignored. I mean, they'll bring back Kid Icarus, but not THOSE properties? It's just extremely disappointing.
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16 Jun 2015 17:56 #204454 by Michael Barnes
Say whatever you will, the thing with the puppets was WAY more fun and exciting than anything else at E3. Such a heartless, soulless MACHINE of an event cranking out endless murder simulators and power fantasy bullshit, so nice to see something that appeals to someone other than hateful 16 year old boys.

Here's the thing about Nintendo's franchises. I think they understand that part of the power of them is that you can still play the first F-Zero (now almost 25 years old) and it's still awesome. They get- unlike, say, Ubisoft- that a game can be evergreen without annual releases. Isn't it better that there have been three really fucking awesome Metroid Prime games in the past 15 years rather than 10 mediocre ones in the same amount of time?

Regardless of how many Mario games they put out, the truth is that Nintendo treats their core IP a lot like how Disney does with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. Which is to say, they keep them rare so that when something DOES come out it's something special and not just a yearly E3 announcement. I'm all the time saying I want a new F-Zero game too, but the reality is that unlike so many AAA games, you can go back to any of the existing F-Zero games and have just as much fun today as you could when they were first released.

But then you look at something like Kid Icarus, where they did something completely new but it still somehow felt like the original game...it was brilliant. That's the kind of design that doesn't come around every year.

People think that Nintendo is somehow "stupid" for not just cranking out StarTropics games, putting out HD remasters of all the Mother games, etc. but their scarcity is an asset that keeps them fresh. People think that Nintendo "ignores" its history, but look at Smash Bros.- there's a homage to pretty much every game they've ever made in there. They know exactly what they are doing.

And as I've stated before here in this very forum, what Nintendo- the only GAMES company in the race- does is really quite different than what the electronics corporations that manufacture a game console on the side do. They are toymakers, and what they do exists largely outside of the world of fucking "game devs" and all of that shit. People were shocked when Miyamoto stated just a couple of years ago that they didn't realize some of the challenges of developing for HD...but why would they have ever been concerned with it before they had an HD-capable console?

I love that Nintendo is still all about making FUN games for all ages. I'm over the AAA slop, have been for a couple of years now. I love that the Wii U is a GAME CONSOLE, not a cable TV box/advertising delivery device.

So for all of the disappointment, at the end of the day, whatever they do is fine by me. If the Wii U was declared dead tomorrow I still have like 20 absolute top-shelf titles on disc and like 40 VC titles representing some of the very best games ever made on the HDD.
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16 Jun 2015 17:58 #204455 by Michael Barnes
Also, just to illustrate...there have been more Assassin's Creed games in the past two years than there have been Metroid games since 2000.
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16 Jun 2015 18:39 #204459 by Disgustipater
Shouldn't all this go in an E3 thread?
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16 Jun 2015 18:44 #204460 by Michael Barnes
Nah...I think we're done here.

Played some NES Remix today...that's a pretty neat concept. It's basically taking pieces of classic NES titles and making bite- sized challenges out of them. Some are easy, like get to the top on Donkey Kong from the next-to-last floor. Some are timed. Some are freaking hard. But the point is you get to play and enjoy these older games in chunks that highlight the best of them without getting completely invested in it. So you can play a couple of Super Mario Bros. challenges and get back to that game in almost a "best of" format.
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16 Jun 2015 20:13 #204463 by Michael Barnes
More on the Shenmue Kickstarter. Sony is actually footing the bill for practically all of it. Considering the first game cost $47 million to make...I don't think the $2 million Kickstarter that funded out of the door will cover it.

It's a sham. It's Sony showing that they are down with the kids. It demonstrates- again- that Kickstarter is just a marketing tool directed primarily at imbeciles that don't understand it. It is not some democratic product development/investment method to Shepard dream projects to market.

Unbelievable.
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16 Jun 2015 22:54 #204466 by jeb
It's a pre-sell for the $100 bonus kits, basically. I guess you all think selling it for $40 to Gamestop so THEY can sell it for $100 is a better plan. Whatever, they get direct access to their biggest fans and the fans don't have to wait in line at Gamestop for something trivial, which I thought was a good thing like three posts ago.

This place is confusing sometimes.

Having some HEARTHSTONE heartbreak of late. The meta has settled and it's tough to find an interesting game through Rank 15 at least. For every Dragon Priest or Aggro Pally you'll see five or six entries from the {Zoo, Patron, Hybrid} set. I don't like playing against the Flamewaker Tempo Mage necessarily, but at least it's different.
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16 Jun 2015 23:29 - 17 Jun 2015 09:24 #204467 by Jackwraith
Heroes. Heroes, Heroes, Heroes. I picked up the beginner's bundle last week because it was on sale for $4.84. It gives you Muradin (warrior), Malfurion (support), and Raynor (assassin), plus a 7-day Stimpack, which gives you +100% XP and 150% gold. Every time you get a hero to level 5, you get 500 gold, even if they're free-to-play. At various levels of player rank, they give you more gold (plus another stimpack.) You also get +50% XP for playing with a friend. Consequently, through not that many hours of play, I've been able to pick up Rehgar (support), Zagara (specialist), Uther (support), and Arthas (warrior.) I also have Valla from pre-ordering the D3 expansion last year. I think I'm running about .500 in Quickmatches so far. Sometimes you get a group and hero combination that works well together. Sometimes you don't. I do kinda wish that they'd limit people to the AI if they're playing their first game with a hero, since you run into a lot of people trying out the F2Ps with no idea how to play them. It's not like it's costing anyone anything to take a loss and you do get more gold for playing with other humans, rather than the computer, but it's annoying when someone spends the whole game trying to be an assassin with Brightwing...

Also, the Haunted Mines map is bloody fucking awful with a random group. Having two levels just requires so much more coordination from a team. That's how you know the matching system still needs a little work, too, as we ran into one group that had a couple maneuvers down to a science. It is, of course, tough to try to match so many players of varying skill and experience and still not leave people hanging in the queue for hours.
Last edit: 17 Jun 2015 09:24 by Jackwraith.
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17 Jun 2015 01:00 - 17 Jun 2015 09:12 #204470 by Mr. White
I have a few more bits to add on the Nintendo and E3 topic.

It seems that in the past when Nintendo would reveal a game from one of their key franchises, detractors would cry that Nintendo has no new ideas and are just milking their cash cows. It looks like the do have some new IPs with Bayonetta, Xenoblade, and that Splatoon thing. Are they no good?

Anyway, here Nintendo aren't showing many of their classic marquee lines and fans are upset? Guess you can't please everyone.

However, when I look at my Wii U I don't see it lacking any titles. I mean, aren't the three Prime games, Super Metroid, and the GBA games all available for the system? How much more Metroid does one need? Would a 4th Prime game be what finally satisfies? How about all the Zelda available for the system? Link to the Past, Wind Waker, and Im sure Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are or will be available. Again, this doesn't count the backwards compatibility with the Wii's Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. I can play almost all the big N titles on this system. There's not much lacking.

Barnes said a lot of what I was gonna say about their titles being timeless. It sort of like TITAN. When I want to play TITAN, I never ask or hope for a new edition. TITAN's gameplay and strategy is still as fresh to me today as it was the first time I played it.

I recall reading an interview once where someone at Nintendo said they haven't done a new F-Zero because they don't know where to take it next. They can't seem to find the 'it' thing that would improve it over F-Zero GX. So, since they can't improve on it at this time, they've withheld from developing a new game. It's the right call. Why dilute and sully the name just to pump out a title? Sure there's the money that could be made, but this stance of theirs is pretty damn admirable.
Last edit: 17 Jun 2015 09:12 by Mr. White.
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17 Jun 2015 08:34 #204472 by SemiColon
Picked up MASSIVE CHALICE (sidenote: love that the game is in all caps in my Steam library) during the steam sale since I've been eyeing it for a while and I'm enjoying the little bit I've played so far.

I've heard the complaints that it tries to mimic XCOM except that you never grow attached to your characters because you only get to use them in battle 4/5 times before they are too old...but I think I actually like that. I feel like my houses and bloodlines are the "heroes" I care more about continuing. Whenever I play XCOM, even though I try my best not to reload when I lose a powerful guy, I generally fail my willpower roll and do it anyway. In MASSIVE CHALICE it sucks losing a higher level character*, but often that means the character was close to needing to be retired from combat anyway.
Also in XCOM my party was basically the same every time once I had my dudes leveled up, while in MASSIVE CHALICE sometimes you're forced to run with a different composition than you might otherwise because of how your bloodlines are currently set up. Did I mention I enjoy playing Lord of Eugenics and Crossbreeding?

*NOTE: don't put two Alchemists with Unstable Carapace Armor in close proximity to your best Hunter. Lost mine that way from a chain reaction carapace armor explosion.
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17 Jun 2015 09:05 #204473 by Erik Twice

Motorik wrote: For me, the problem with Nintendo is they're sitting on all of these iconic, wonderful franchises, yet outside of Mario Kart, Smash Bros and mainline Mario platformers, their franchises feel weirdly neglected, ESPECIALLY in the home console arena. A co-op handheld Metroid with chibi art and a Four Swords-style cute Zelda thing for 3DS merely reemphasize the vacuum left by not having mainline Metroid or Zelda games on their current console. And then there's the next tier of Nintendo properties, stuff like Earthbound (localization of an NES game from 1989 notwithstanding), F-Zero, StarTropics, etc. that seem like obvious candidates for a resurrection but go weirdly ignored. I mean, they'll bring back Kid Icarus, but not THOSE properties? It's just extremely disappointing.

It's dissapointing but I don't think it makes good bussiness sense for Nintendo to do so.

Here's the thing: if Nintendo had decided to bring back not just Kid Icarus but also Startropics and F-Zero, they wouldn't have gotten three times as many profits. There's a hard limit to how many games someone will buy and having more good games doesn't change that, it just lets you cover more ground and reach a wider audience. And for Nintendo it's not a very big audience, they aren't going to get the player who plays AAA games or the strategic PC gamer, specially without third party support.

In fact, this is the reason why things are noticiably slower on the console arena, making games for those is very expensive. It would be impossible to have a series of dungeon crawlers like Etrian Odyssey or a big JRPG on the Wii U because its potential profit doesn't justify its development costs.
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18 Jun 2015 02:26 #204517 by ThirstyMan

SemiColon wrote: Picked up MASSIVE CHALICE (sidenote: love that the game is in all caps in my Steam library) during the steam sale since I've been eyeing it for a while and I'm enjoying the little bit I've played so far.

I've heard the complaints that it tries to mimic XCOM except that you never grow attached to your characters because you only get to use them in battle 4/5 times before they are too old...but I think I actually like that. I feel like my houses and bloodlines are the "heroes" I care more about continuing. Whenever I play XCOM, even though I try my best not to reload when I lose a powerful guy, I generally fail my willpower roll and do it anyway. In MASSIVE CHALICE it sucks losing a higher level character*, but often that means the character was close to needing to be retired from combat anyway.
Also in XCOM my party was basically the same every time once I had my dudes leveled up, while in MASSIVE CHALICE sometimes you're forced to run with a different composition than you might otherwise because of how your bloodlines are currently set up. Did I mention I enjoy playing Lord of Eugenics and Crossbreeding?

*NOTE: don't put two Alchemists with Unstable Carapace Armor in close proximity to your best Hunter. Lost mine that way from a chain reaction carapace armor explosion.


I also picked this up after reading Tom Chick's review on Quarter to Three. Very good. The things that ARE passed down through the bloodlines are relics (special gear). Even if your main man dies of old age, the relic (Massive Sword of Swinging Cock) gets passed to his son. I like it especially as I'm playing XCom as well, for the first time.
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18 Jun 2015 08:11 #204520 by SemiColon

I also picked this up after reading Tom Chick's review on Quarter to Three. Very good. The things that ARE passed down through the bloodlines are relics (special gear). Even if your main man dies of old age, the relic (Massive Sword of Swinging Cock) gets passed to his son. I like it especially as I'm playing XCom as well, for the first time.


His review and most recent games podcast are what pushed me to get it as well. I haven't been able to find (create?) any relics yet, so I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or just missing out on the random number generator.

Just ran into the Stargate:Atlantis wraith type enemies that age your guys 5 years on every hit. So two hits basically = one less battle they can be used in. That made me focus everything on those guys right away
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