Nintendo had their not-E3 Nintendo Direct yesterday, a week after not-E3 Summer Games Fest and the rest of the industry's announcements, and it was a quite good show. I'd say that the highlight of the show for sure, though, was the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom... a Zelda game where you actually play as Zelda! And it looks like it's a somewhat traditionally-styled title also, being 2d. As someone who has very little interest in BotW and has never played TotK because I find open world games some of the most boring things ever, I was kind of giving up on the Zelda franchise as something I cared about anymore. Yeah, I used to love Zelda, until they made it into boring open-world games that totally lost me... until this.
Yes, going against all of my expectations given their past comments like "but then what would Link do?", Nintendo is making a Zelda game where you play as Zelda. This is a 2d Zelda game with some unique design elements. Visually the game clearly seems to be running in the Link's Awakening remake engine, and has an overhead view and a similar look to that game. I'd imagine it's by the same developer as that one was. I think the game looks great, I'm quite excited. I'd be almost as excited if you played as Link, too; the main thing I'm excited for is the gameplay. That you actually play as Zelda this time for once makes it even better, but that isn't the main draw.
Here's the trailer:
So yeah, you play as Zelda after Link got kidnapped or something when he fell in a portal that opened up. She can't directly attack enemies, though, and instead uses a summoning rod to summon things to stand on or to fight for her. They showed all kinds of things, including summoning tables to stand on, rocks to throw at enemies, and more. You can combine things too; items can stack, and at one point Zelda is shown carrying around a rock-shooting thing, basically working like a hand cannon. Pretty cool stuff. I think this should lead to some pretty interesting puzzles, and fun combat challenges as well.
Also, there are sure to be more items in this game. An item cross is shown on screen, which means that you will get other things to equip that they haven't mentioned yet. It sounds like Zelda won't get a sword in this game because they want to leave direct combat to Link, but I'm looking forward to seeing what new and interesting items they come up with. The 'summon stuff and do silly or useful things with it' concept is great and should lead to a lot of fun gameplay.
The game is already causing some controversy, though; some people are upset about Zelda's lack of a direct attack, either because they'd rather fight enemies directly instead of having to use slightly indirect means, or because of arguments that it's evidence of Nintendo's sexism or what have you. And like... yeah, that may be in a way true in that they're finding a way to make a Zelda game starring Zelda that sticks to what they have said in the past about Link and Zelda's characters instead of making the "it's the same but as a girl now" game that some want, but this doesn't bother me at all, personally. Nintendo is trying something that is both familiar and new with this game, and the results so far look fantastic. Oh no, Zelda needs to hit enemies with other enemies, tables, rocks, or more instead of cutting them with a sword! How awful! (Yes, I know TP Zelda had a sword. She was no accomplished warrior, though.)
So yeah, this game is looking amazing! The summoning rod is clearly the central item here, but it'll be very interesting to see what other things Zelda gets to use in the game. Will it be a selection of all-new things instead of Link's usual expected selection of items, the bow, bombs, hookshot, etc? If so that will be pretty interesting to see.
As for the graphics, they've gone for a very cutesey style. I do think it works in the overhead view that Echoes of Wisdom uses. Is this my favorite Zelda art style, no, but it looks nice. It's got a similar style to LttP and LA.
A video from one of my favorite deep-dive ROM hackers, making that absolutely incredible new Mario game for the system.
The video outlines two things. One, the N64 actually does have a CPU with a 64 bit mode. Two, it's not a useful mode and actually hurts game clock speed to run any code in that mode. 32 bit code runs better considering all the other limitations of the system, and 64 bit modes were rarely used even by official developers.
A third thing... The Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U all run on 32 bit CPUs that have no 64 bit mode.
Seriously, like a lot of people I was kind of believing that Trump would never actually be convicted of anything, that despite being extremely guilty he'd get away with it all, if just because of some diehard Trumper making it onto the jury...
But no, it didn't happen. Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts he was charged with. Sadly these charges won't lead to the very long prison sentence he richly deserves, but he may get a short prison sentence and it sure was richly deserved. Finally, Trump suffers a real consequence for his actions.
Wow. America, and trials by jury, still may survive this test against it...
Yippee, though way too expensive for what it is. Lego prices for these sets can get ridiculous. I'm curious if Nintendo shouldn't go back to making their own building block toys. I understand their blocks were even compatible with Lego.
Mario Builder 64 is an incredibly cool romhack project just released a few days ago. It's basically a 3d Mario 64 level creator toolkit, inspired by Mario Maker but 3 and it's an actual Nintendo 64 game that does run on real hardware. I'm sure it's possible to make levels that use too many objects and will crash on real hardware, but the tools themselves and at least many of the levels will work on a real N64, which is important to note since a great many Mario 64 hacks don't.
Unlike Mario Maker, the game doesn't have a built in internet connection of course, but being able to play these fan-created stages by just putting files in a folder on your N64 flashcart SD card, instead of having to create a custom rom patch file for every single hack -- seriously, this is a really tedious and time consuming process -- is pretty fantastic. The level creation tools are as easy to learn as they could be for creating levels in a 3d space, too. It does use every button on the N64 controller so you will need to use the d-pad as well as the analog stick and the C-buttons, but oh well, it works.
Of course, the main problem with a 3d level editor is that 3d is much more complex than 2d. Making a platformer level that is as good, or as challenging, as a 2d level is dramatically more difficult. And given the ... suspect ... quality of so many Mario Maker 1 and 2 levels, and yes I love the game as much because of this as despite it, that 3d levels in a widely available official title like this would be .. . mostly really poor, I am sure. I haven't made a level in this yet, but I sure remember quickly giving up on any attempts at making anything in a 3d level editor, after making a few not very good stages in Warcraft II and Starcraft and such. Mario Builder 64 simplifies things by using a block-based design. There can be only one object per block, so you can't just put an enemy on a sloped ramp, you need to put them on the block above that slope's block. Once you start they will fall onto the slope. The game has over a hundred objects, so there's a lot of variety for creators. The one thing it doesn't have is invisible blocks or the ability to place invisible walls in your stages, I'm sure troll and kaizo creators would like that, but who knows, that could be added at some point. Or not, I don't like invisible blocks at all.
Anyway, this thing is amazing, and the polish level is quite impressive as well. It's as simple to control as a 3d level bulder could be and is built off of the mechanics and gameplay of one of gaming's greatest masterpieces, Mario 64. There is no equivalently easy to use level creation tool hack for other official Mario games -- stuff like Lunar Magic, the SMW editor, is a much more complex thing. There are a decent number of fanmade levels already, too. I'm sure many will be large empty spaces with just scattered stuff in them, but again, that's the problem of creation in 3d --- it's HARD to make something good, way harder than it is in 2d. I sure don't know if I could make a 3d level worth playing. I fully understand why Nintendo hasn't made an official product like this, but it's amazing that it exists now.
A very interesting article I found. It looks like after a rather exhaustive search, it's been pretty much confirmed that 2.4 ghz is the only model they ever made of this controller.
Just so everyone understands, Nintendo, along with MS and Sony, have record profits. So, you know, any time they claim that they simply MUST jack up video game prices or do any of these other exploitative things, or in Nintendo's specific case, they simply MUST attack their own biggest fans for making what amounts to interactive fan art or just plain tools, just keep that in mind. They don't have to. They choose to.
And apparently, according to the below video, this chart is already accounting for inflation.
I suppose if there's one thing to take from this, it's that video games aren't too cheap now, they were too expensive in the 80's and 90's! We did already kind of know this. Keep in mind that Sega did pretty well in the US during the 16 era, and they were consistently charging less for their cartridge components than Nintendo. Nintendo themselves also overcharged for their parts during the N64 era, which was a daring move when Sony was able to charge quite a bit less.
And then compare that to today, when manufacturing costs are basically nil because most people already buy digital over physical. Keep in mind that economies of scale matter for file hosting too, so that it's basically free at the scale of a company like Microsoft. They were going to have those servers up ANYWAY, see.
EA is going to implement "thoughtful" ads in their games. The way they're talking about it like it'll be a new thing, it sounds like this is going to be a far cry from the billboards in modern cityscapes that games already do. It sounds like gameplay will be interrupted by advertising. And they want to charge $70 for the privilege. Screw that.
I'll just not buy games that do this. I'm not compromising on this, at all. One game stuck a full game interrupting ad inside back in retro days, and it was done as a joke:
Of course, the Tom's Hardware article got this right from the horse's mouth, so they can't say anything bad about it or risk losing access.
(Yes, I know TP Zelda had a sword. She was no accomplished warrior, though.)
