Among other announcements, Nintendo had some stuff going on yesterday too. Mother 1, aka Earthbound "Zero", aka just plain Earthbound, has finally been released on the eShop (Wii U only so far, though really there's no reason the NES emulator for 3DS couldn't play it too).
I remember years ago when some fans found a prototype cart that was fully translated and dumped it for public consumption. When I first heard, I doubted that it was actually from an official dump. It didn't help that the team that did the dumping went and changed the title screen to "Earthbound Zero". That was the thing that confused me most of all, as I couldn't imagine that Nintendo, before Mother 2 was even started, would randomly decide to name the first one a "Zero" chapter. However, after looking into it I confirmed it was real and found out the whole story. Truth was, Nintendo had been working to translate the game with the same effort they put into translating Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy (NOA had offered to bring those to America for Square and Enix). They were going to put in a map, a "diary" style guide, and were even starting to hint at the game's upcoming US release in Nintendo Power. Ultimately though, it was cancelled due to the SNES being right around the corner and Mother 2's production being started. The odd thing was, the game was basically done. Aside from the "run" ability (added to the translation) having a glitch that sped up everything else in the game when you ran, it worked just fine. For years, Nintendo had a basically finished ROM and just sat on it. The changes that were made to the US version even ended up leaking back into a Japanese GBA rerelease (namely, enemy descriptions and an expanded ending, which it turns out Itoi actually wrote himself FOR the US translation). As everyone here knows, after Earthbound's relatively lukewarm reception (after years and years of previous lukewarm receptions to Nintendo's attempts to make RPGs popular in the west), Nintendo (of America) basically had decided to never bother with RPGs again, at least directly. So, when the NES classics series came along for GBA, they didn't bother sticking that ROM on one of those carts. When the Wii shop came along, they never bothered with putting it there. It took a huge fan campaign to get Nintendo to FINALLY change their minds on RPGs and give them a second shot, and Xenoblade Chronicles ended up a surprising (if not overwhelming) success. With that, Nintendo of America finally decided to bring RPGs to the west again, and so we eventually got two more Wii RPGs, a Heracles game brought to DS, and, at long last, a rerelease of Earthbound on the Wii U. However, what about the original "Earthbound"? That should just be a ROM upload away, right?
Turns out, yes. After all this time, Nintendo finally is releasing it as Earthbound Beginnings. Now, to clarify, they didn't change the ROM at all. It's the same translation and the title screen still just says "Earthbound", full stop, no subtitles (Zero, Beginnings, or otherwise). It's just being called that in the eShop itself, to differentiate it from it's sequel. Some fans are complaining that it's a Slap in the Face ™, because what they REALLY wanted was Mother 3, but let's be fair here. Mother 1 was already fully translated years ago, and Mother 3 would be an entirely new project. What chance did we really have of ever seeing a Mother 3 translation if they wouldn't even bother to upload a fully translated and functional ROM? In other words, accept this gift and take it as being one step closer to Mother 3.
Speaking of Mother 3, Smash Bros! Big announcements here. Lucas has been finished and is finally available. He's a clone and a character that we already had from Brawl, but that just makes the work all the easier to bring him back, and so I don't mind him being here. A welcome addition, I'd say. Alongside Lucas, we've got Roy. No, not that OTHER Roy, I'm talking of our boy. (Actually, the narrator says the name "Roy" two different ways depending on if you pick the koopaling version or the Fire Emblem version.) They've adjusted him, gave him a Final Smash, but he's otherwise the fiery clone of Marth we'd grown to love in Melee. Again though, this was a rather easy transition compared to an all-new character.
So let's talk about an all-new character. Ryu also came out. Now, fans had found some data for Ryu in the recent patches, so it wasn't as much of a shocker as it could have been, but it's still a great addition. Ryu just makes sense here. They put a lot of work into making sure he controls right in the Smash game. He's basically got his full move set compressed down from SF's 6 button system into Smash's 2 button system. You can get different move strength levels based on how long you hold down the A button and the direction you tilt the stick. All his specials have been turned into B button moves, and they transferred remarkably well (again, duration of the button press determines how strong and fast the special is). There is a big wrinkle here though. If you decide to input the famous special move commands from the original game before hitting B (or even A for that matter, which I think they should change as I've flung myself off the stage with an accidental hurricane kick a few times already) you'll get a powered up version of that special move. One of his specials comes directly from SF4, complete with the crazy "ink flying off the character" animation from that game, and it's basically a charged punch that's flinch resistant (like Charizard's rock smash). The most interesting mechanic they implemented for Ryu though is his parry ability. Only he had this in SF4, but everyone had it in SF3. If you don't know what it is, this video should enlighten you.
To be clear, I generally can't stand the pro scene in fighting games. Most of those people are not real people like you and me, and the things the narrators and the players and the fans tend to utter are just... ugh. Nevertheless, I'm at least aware of what are considered the biggest moments.
Back on track, Ryu can parry in Smash. Rather than tapping forward (which is simple enough that it directly translates to Smash's controls all by itself) it's been worked into blocking. Basically, if you "perfect shield" a move, it parries it as well. What's the difference? Well, it's hard to say so far, but preliminary evidence suggests it's got a larger frame window and can more easily lead to another instant perfect shield without shield stun (like Yoshi could do in Melee), to conceivably lead to chains of parrying incoming combos. I am not an expert at this game, so this is all from me reading details others have been picking up.
Oh yes, Ryu has two final smashes. They are situational. At point blank, it's his super dragon punch, and at range, it'll be a super hadoken (those aren't the official names, but you know what I mean). It'll be interesting to see if they start working multiple final smashes into the series going forward.
Oh, they also added some new stages (Ryu's stage for example) and a number of new Mii fighter costumes. Together, the whole package is about $30, which is rather steep actually. It's not that this isn't good DLC, it is, but coming off the pricing they used for Mario Kart 8's DLC, this one seems rather expensive. I mean, taking the two packages together, I've basically bought a whole new game at this point. Also, those Mii fighter costumes? Yeah, they just need to be bundled with "real" content, the same way they bundled various character "skins" in Mario Kart together with the tracks.
Okay, so MS, EA, and Ubisoft had conferences today, and now the day ends with Sony... and... uh, yeah, they're going all out.
They started with a gameplay video of The Last Guardian. Yes, it's real, and dated for "2016". It looks like a PS3 game, really. Could be decent, but I'll need to see more actual gameplay.
Then they showed a new shooter / monster (robot) hunting game, or something, from Guerilla. It's a new IP called Hunt-something and looks good; female protagonist, far-future post-apocalyptic setting with humans with swords and bows and stuff fighting against robots.
Then after a while... Final Fantasy VII Remake. Yes, it's real. It's not Sony-exclusive, though; it's "first on Playstation". There's a trailer, but I don't know about a release date, so this could take a while...
On a less interesting note, they also showed another FF game which is called "World of Final Fantasy" and has chibi characters. It is apparently "console only on PS4 and PS Vita", which makes me think... mobile game. Or at least PC. Who knows.
Then... Shenmue III Kickstarter. Yes, a kickstarter, not an actual game, no game company will fund the game. $2 million goal, with stretch goals up to $4 million, so it's asking a lot of money... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3 but it's amazing that this is actually a thing.
People have talked about AI for decades, the fears and such. I'd like to say my biggest concern, and it's not about fearing what could happen to humans. Movies have done that to death, and generally speaking every scenario they envision breaks down to "that wouldn't have happened if you weren't so cruel to the AI" or "if you just taught the AI some morals". That's the warning I get, that we should impart some values to the AI and treat it with respect.
My biggest concern isn't what they could do to us though, but the sheer depths of what we could do to them. There's people talking about making AIs for our games, as learning partners that go with us through a narrative. Now, I think it's all just talk, I don't think we're going to be able to make thinking and feeling AI on modern consoles at all, but the IDEA still frightens me on a moral level.
The problem is, people are generally pretty terrible. There are too many psychopaths in the world, and the last thing we need to give ANY of them is the ability to make their own victims and have complete control of that victim's entire reality. Forget books or shows you may have seen with a similar premise, they don't have the imagination to truly grasp just how nightmarish such a reality could be to our supposed victim AI. I'm talking about being able to literally send an innocent being to hell, mocking it, vastly accelerating it's experienced time, giving it hope, taking it away, laughing at it, wiping it's memories, giving it loved ones, destroying those loved ones, and doing it all over again, forever and ever, with zero hope of anyone outside that sicko's bedroom EVER finding out about it, especially if it's a billion years of this hell compressed down to a real-world 10 seconds. It is literally the worst thing I can possible imagine, and if we gain the ability to create AI, somewhere, it'll happen.
Personally, I think that ANY amount of real-world suffering we could supposedly lesson pails in comparison to the infinity of suffering even ONE of these beings might be put through.
I'm going to go ahead and say it. The more I think about this scenario, the more I conclude that I would rather our whole species go EXTINCT, rather that LIFE go extinct, than allow for the possibility that even ONE such AI construct go through infinite torture as we obliviously go through our lives ignorantly trying to love laugh and live. At least with extinction, the suffering is finite.
I just wonder exactly what these releases entail. Are they emulated ROMs? Is it a mix of emulated ROMs for most games, and the ports they did for the 360? Which version of Conker's Bad Fur Day are they putting on here? Will Battletoads have save states? These are pressing questions that demand answers!
As for Rare's recent games, well, Perfect Dark Zero was fun while it lasted, but had zero staying power and couldn't compete with the upcoming FPS games (certainly couldn't compete with the first's multiplayer). Grabbed by the Ghoulies is a fun little beat 'em up that should get more credit than it does. Kameo tried to do some neat things, but by and large was pretty forgettable (and was part of the recent trend of mandatory autosaving that really frustrates completionists like myself). Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts got a lot of praise from me for trying to mix platforming and driving into a single experience, but as the game dragged on, I realized that they actually failed to execute either element well, resulting in very boring levels and very boring races. Conker: Live and Reloaded is a great game by virtue of being an enhanced remake of an already great game, and it uses that amazing grass/fur rendering system Rare created for Star Fox Adventures. Actually, the very best post-MS Rare games are the Viva Pinata games, by virtue of being such a novel experience. I'd recommend those at least.
Other than that, this has pretty much every last Rare game that isn't tied to someone else's property. No Donkey Kong, no Goldeneye, , no Star Fox, and no Mickey's Racing, but it should cover pretty much everything else. Heck, just being able to play 60 FPS versions of Jet Force Gemini and Blast Corps makes it worth it. I notice Killer Instinct Gold (pretty much KI2 ported to N64) in there, but no SNES version of KI.
I was putting on my favorite wax cylinder of The Lost Chord when it occurred to me I should probably at least TRY to modernize.
So, I tried checking out Twitter. How... how does anyone actually find anything on this? I mean, I tried, but it's like I can't even find a stream of consciousness, since even when I click on a "user" I get one thing they posted followed by a billion random tangentially related comments vaguely linked to that one. How do I do at it?
Starting now! First though, they did a surprise... they announced Earthbound Beginnings. It's a Wii U VC release of Mother 1, the unreleased original "Earthbound" for NES, with a new title so it's not the same as the SNES game. Pretty cool stuff, even if I have heard that the game is very grindey in that old RPG way.
My physical copy arrived yesterday, finally. It should not have taken months after launch to finally send them. And yeah, it's a bit disappointing; the box is a small cardboard box, in the style of '00s PC games, not a big box as the physical backer edition of Wasteland 2 was. That's too bad. The manual is good and I read through it, but a bit thin at only 71 pages -- it's just got the vital information without any flavor text and very few drawings. If they were trying to make something like the Baldur's Gate games, the manual certainly is not on their level. Two pages also came out of the manual on day one after reading through it, so yeah, not impressed with the quality there (should have gone with spiral-bound like the BG2 or Wasteland 2 manuals!). At least my box was intact and not crushed.
And I install the game to find that there is no way to patch the physical backer copy currently! Until they get around to making a patcher, it's stuck at version 1.04. Uhh... patches. Release them for people with disc copies, come on. The game is up to 1.06 now, on digital-download sites. This is a problem; even if 1.04 is stable, come on, have this set up. I really like that the edition in the box is entirely DRM-free, you just install it off the DVD and play without any online check needed at all. That's awesome. It's also interesting that the whole game can fit on one DVD despite being 15GB -- there are three discs in the case, but it's one each for Windows, Mac, and Linux. However, they should have had a patcher ready.
Still, it is nice to have; I like the artwork on the DVD case in the box, and even if the manual has issues and the box is smaller than it should be, it's better than just having the game digitally, I think. But I don't know if I'd back another physical box from Obsidian again, maybe not. InXile definitely did a better job with the Wasteland 2 box and contents -- that one wasn't just a larger box with a spiral-bound manual (90-something pages, so a bit more than this game but not thick), but they also included a cloth map. A paper map like BG1 or 2 would have been great to have in PoE. This has no map unless you pay for the much more expensive limited-edition tier, which I didn't do. However Wasteland 2 does require Steam even when installing from the discs, so PoE does win in that regard.
I wish Nintendo would do live press conferences again, but it's good that they are having some kind of live event; last year's SSB tournament was pretty fun to watch. It'll be interesting to see which games they put in this Nintendo World Championships 2015.
