It started a few years ago, when Nintendo made Wii Fit and Brain Age. The results are in, and both of those products have been pretty well panned as "basically useless". Neither one can actually accomplish what they claim. Namely, "brain training" exercises have been shown to increase blood flow, but not actual long term skill. There is no actual "brain age", and it seems that particular doctor responsible for this recent fad might have gone the Dr. Oz route.
Wii Fit isn't much better. The exercises themselves are all well and good, just as any exersise is, but nothing about that scale can figure out exactly what your body mass index is, and the recommendations the game makes are, well, just nothing, really. The whole notion of "balance" being so very key to weight loss (with the claim that "restoring" your balance will make you just so much better) and health is a rather outdated yoga concept at that. In fact, Nintendo's official position on the actual health merits of these is that they are "for entertainment use". This is the sort of thing a company says when they want to legally get away with a claim, but look at the boxes and ads for these things. They're CLEARLY trying to market them as products that work.
Basically, Nintendo's "health products" are snake oil, though harmless snake oil (heck it's not like they're offering an alternative to vaccines). So fine, they've done worse (there was an ESP training game for the Famicom, using those cards from Ghost Busters), but they're back to making games, right? Not so fast, because it seems Nintendo is going all-in on this due to this ONE tiny detail: Wii Fit is the best selling game Nintendo has ever had, and perhaps even the best selling game in the world. Only League of Legends beats it, and that's a game that's FREE (so free it can regularly be found on your local library's computer, in spite of their rules for computer use). Nintendo has announced that their "Lifestyle" line will continue as a MAJOR peg of their whole business strategy moving forward. There's a 3DS Brain Age, a Wii U Fitness game, and "more" to come. No clue what that means, but maybe we can expect some sort of "Mario's Chakra Balancer" or "Kirby's Bodily Humours".
Here's the deal. Nintendo has every opportunity to actually produce a scientifically sound set of health products, ones which keep their claims reasonable. A few slight tweaks and Wii Fit could be a worthwhile exercise game. Heck, all they'd need to do is drop basically any claims about the mystical powers of "good balance" and the faulty measuring of BMS, and it's a perfectly fine guide to decent exercise. (I'll say this though. Nintendo's trainers are a LOT nicer than the incredibly loud and obnoxious XBox fitness trainers. When exactly did we as a nation decide the only people interested in our self improvement are the ones belittling us at every step like friggin' sociopaths?) However, a few things stand in the way. For one, once they ditch the BMS thing and the "balance" nonsense, the only thing that scale does is measure your weight (well that's really the only thing it ever did), and thus there's basically no point to it in terms of the "gameplay". So, that's tossed out, and all that's left is a very albino version of those old fitness VHS tapes your parents eventually threw out. What could replace it? Well, they COULD make a tool that actually feeds back real time data about how you are moving, and one that does it WELL unlike that board. But, and here's the rub, that'd be very expensive to both develop and buy. Heck, just making sure the science is sound means hiring science advisors (which, if Pikmin's anything to go by, is something Nintendo has never once done). Nintendo is known, above all else, for making their products affordable. Heck, it's because of them that we just automatically assume portable games cost less (and everyone else has to play BY that standard). The only other option would be MS's solution, an all-seeing body tracking eye. Not only is that STILL a very expensive little toy compared to a weight scale, but Nintendo isn't ignorant to just how well MS's camera was accepted by their loving fans. They won't be repeating that.
So that leaves us here. I hate to say it, but it looks like everything about Nintendo is pushing it towards selling lovable entertainment, and also products that actively MAKE THE WORLD WORSE. They now have a sustainable branch of their company that James Randi would very likely "challenge" if his foundation still did that, and I am not sure I like that.
Not gonna lie, I searched for "Silent Hill" to see if you'd given your opinion on that. Awesome! Even though that game isn't to your liking, I still think it's a big touchstone in gaming. Silent Hill 1 is the first one I played and still my favorite of the series.
Quote:As in most survival horror games, Silent Hill has slow tank controls
I think you're right that RE paved the way for this. The controls are necessary because of the style of gameplay: you enter arenas that have different camera vantage points. Silent Hill especially uses this in its opening scenes, where you're running through a dark alley. Since you're not a horror aficionado, I can see how this didn't do anything for you. I think the game does a fantastic job of terrorizing the player, though.
But in any case, these controls are necessary, because you would get whiplash trying to keep up with a traditional analog stick. From a practical sense, you have to consistently keep one thumb down to be able to continue running straight, as demons chase you through dark hallways and foggy alleys. One thing SH did better than RE was, instead of having pre-rendered backgrounds everywhere, there were many areas where you could run in all eight directions and look at things.
IMO, the pixelated graphics actually sort of enhance the game. They make it feel vague (which adds to the mystique) but undeniably sinister. Sort of like finding a VHS tape somewhere, having no idea of its origins, but looking at it and seeing something terrifying. It's like Lovecraft said, "The most compelling emotion is fear, and the greatest fear is that of the unknown". I never really made the Lovecraftian connection to the game until now (I know, doi, underground cult that wishes to summon a demi-god into reality, me big dummy, and isn't there a street named after Lovecraft?).
Quote: and nowhere near enough ammunition to actually shoot all of the enemies.
This is a central plank in survival horror. The game forces you to flee enemies, which means you must be on your guard. Seeing your bullet and health counts drop is part of what adds to the terror. I played through the school recently (I began another playthrough this past fall, had to keep with the halloween spirit!). I found it easier to avoid them in places where I reliably could (like corridors) and don't bother clearing them out until you've explored everything.
The advantage is two-fold: a better knowledge of the area, and more opportunities to find/stow health and ammo.
Quote:You do get a few melee weapons, but I found actually trying to hit anything with them impossible, so that's not much help.
Ya, it's all about the timing. I've played the game for years and even I still have trouble with this. The demon babies have varying walking speeds so it's tricky to get them down right. I favor holding down X to deliver a slow but firm blow to knock them back. Those dead babies are still horrifying, oof. You'd think the effect would wear off all these years.
Quote:As an aside, Silent Hill apparently is supposedly in Maine, but I live in Maine. I can say this right now, there's no town or city that looks remotely like this here. But is there any town anywhere with crosswalks this absurdly wide, among other things?
This is very interesting to me too. I've only been in New England to visit Providence, RI and Vermont, neither of which would be what this game is trying to capture. Even so, I figured that the designers nailed that small town look. If there aren't any places like that in Maine I could see them perhaps in Baltimore. I figured they'd at least get the architecture and small shops right. It felt very touristy but spooky. The amount of details are impressive, Kojima and the Silent Team are a true gift to gaming.
I got it now. Nope, didn't get the collector's edition of it, nor did I get the collector's edition of the new 3DS. I tried, I tried and tried so hard, but stock's just too low. That worker's strike at the west coast ports is really hurting stuff like this, and frankly I'm surprised it's not getting treated like a bigger news story. Though, if it's a matter of reporting that or gross violations of basic human rights, yeah, I can see the strike taking a back seat for a bit. (That's not what's happening though, since the news has dedicated a lot of time to the Oscars.)
What's different? Well, Ocarina of Time 3D was pretty much an exact port with some improved visuals. (That may be debatable, as I actually prefer a lot of the original character animations to the newer animations in the 3D version, even if the models do look a lot better.) Aside from a couple of fixed glitches, you can play it just as you did the N64 version. That includes exploits like back flipping from the bomb flower to the top of Dodongo's Cavern to get a piece of heart way earlier than intended. They even put the Master Quest in there, with the only gameplay difference being that they "mirrored" the world (in the same way that the Gamecube and Wii versions of Twilight Princess are mirror images of each other).
Majora's Mask however has had much bigger changes. All in all, they seem to have rethought the game in light of various reviewer complaints about the original. (It's funny, all those same reviewers are gushing about Majora's Mask like it's ALWAYS been a classic and as though they never criticized it. Not that I have a problem with criticism, but memory is a funny thing and it's weird how they remember their opinions of it and how it actually went down.) The graphical updates, by and large, are of the same quality as the OOT remake. I think the updated animations are of a higher quality than that remake though. There's a few cases where the artwork was rather significantly altered in this one. The Gero mask, in particular, is entirely different now. The bosses, I should note, have all had their appearances altered a bit. Before, it wasn't entirely clear what these monsters were, and the seemed to all be demon masks separate from Majora that Majora simply commanded. This time, they seem to have a clear physical connection to Majora, as though they were "grown" from Majora's body, like budding but into totally different forms from the original. It makes the whole sequence near the end where Majora/Skullkid talks about friends all the creepier, because now it appears that Majora answered that call by "creating" friends for him.
There have been some significant gameplay changes as well. The changes are the biggest a remake of a Zelda game has ever received, bigger than either the Advance version of Link to the Past or the GBC version of Link's Awakening (which were, all in all, just additions rather than real changes, mostly). Generally, it controls much the same way the original did and it's still clearly rooted in the N64 code. The controls have been mapped to the 3DS just the same as OOT was, so be prepared to use the touch screen to use certain items. The new 3DS could have used those extra shoulder buttons as item slots, but for some reason didn't bother. It does allow you to use that c-stick for camera controls though. That, in and of itself, is a welcome addition. Most of the time, Z-targeting (never got used to saying "L-targeting") will do just fine, but with Majora's Mask bosses in particular, sometimes it really helps to point the camera to the left or right as you run straight ahead. It's a nice addition. The maps have been rather significantly altered. From the town layout to the dungeons, everything's been tweaked in various ways, ranging from minor to major. There's a number of item locations that were clearly adjusted for convenience factor. The bank owner (the one you can "trick" with your stamp into giving you money that isn't actually your's when you reset the day) has been moved to just below the clock tower, letting you get your cash back out all the faster. Frankly, I'd have just done away with the whole "reset your consumables" factor entirely. If you keep everything else when you launch yourself back in time, why bother emptying my quiver, purse, bomb bag and bottles? At any rate, the process is at least made a bit less onerous now. Oh, the bomber's notebook has been expanded. It was always incredibly useful, but now it's been made more manageable, and the links between different character's quest chains are made much clearer as you go through them. You'll be better equipped to see exactly what you have time to do and what needs to be sacrificed.
Lastly, there's the save system. This got loads of criticism, the biggest complaint in fact. Well, that complaint's been resolved. You can now save without resetting the day. Before, they did add in statue saving to the US version, but it was limited to the places already set aside as "quick travel" points with the song of soaring. It's been vastly expanded. First, it no longer auto-deletes your "quick save" when you continue, it's just plain saving now. Secondly, these save points are everywhere now. You can save pretty much any time you need to with nearly minimal fuss. Yes, once again a Zelda game is using save points. It annoys me, since saving was already mastered with games like Link's Awakening, which let you save the game at any time and returned you right back to the last doorway you entered (which is actually even better than restoring your EXACT condition, since you can never get stuck in an unwinnable situation that way unless the designers overlooked something, like they did in Link's Awakening, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword). I'm not sure why Nintendo switched to save points instead of a menu option recently, but I hope they go back soon. At any rate, this system does work pretty well unless you're deep inside a dungeon and need to save and quit right now. Then, you're stuck. You gotta work your way out of that sucker and then find yourself a nearby save point (very few, if any, inside dungeons). The song of time will still take you back though. It won't ask you to save when you reset any more, but it's "close enough" to a "save any time you want" because there's still that save point right next to the clock tower. The backward song of time is made a bit more obvious now as well. With all the streamlining of item locations and the new save system, no one's complained about the limited time ruining play now. There's more than enough time to explore whatever you like, accomplish something, then reset. ABF, there's never been a better time for you to give this game another try. While some of the changes
Note: Veterans of the previous version should be told this ahead of time. I won't really give away any new puzzles, but for this one thing which should save you hours of wasted time. The Giant's Mask in the stone temple has been moved. No, don't bother searching the stone temple for it. Those new to the game already found it on their own way before you did, because you KNEW you needed it for the last boss and weren't going to bother going into that boss room without it. Well, that's the trick you see. The giant's mask is automatically given to you IN the final boss room. There, I just saved you loads of frustration that new players didn't even know they could enjoy. You're WELCOME!
Anyway, with this just about every Zelda game is playable on Nintendo's modern consoles. Of course, the very newest ones (Link Between Worlds and Hyrule Warriors) are on the very newest systems. All of the Gameboy, NES, and SNES Zelda games are emulated (Gameboy on 3DS, SNES on Wii U, and NES on both, though I suppose technically Minish Cap isn't emulated (it's being run as native code in GBA mode), nor can it be bought on the 3DS any more, but it can be bought on the Wii U). Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (and Link's Crossbow Training) can be shoved into a Wii U and played there just fine (and will eventually be purchasable as digital download Wii games... except for Link's Crossbow Training...). Wind Waker got the HD treatment on the Wii U (although, I must say, rather than looking like an animated cartoon, the cell shading effect has been altered with bloom and other lighting such that everyone looks like a porcelain doll, though it's not a bad look per se, just not the original intent I think). Other than that, there's the DSi Four Swords remake. That was available for a very limited time, then again last year for another very limited time, and now not available at all, anywhere, so that multiplayer focused game is now very hard to play multiplayer with, for lack of others that actually own it. I got lucky, many didn't, and that artificial scarcity* isn't really excusable. Four Swords Adventures, a Gamecube game, is likewise not available on the newest systems yet. I really enjoyed that one, more so than the first Four Swords and would love to see it ported to a current system so I could play it with more people than just my close group of friends. Along those lines, the remake of Link to the Past isn't available outside the GBA, so the additional content isn't available that way either. Maybe they'll put it on the GBA emulator (or eventually start actually selling the GBA games we already know the 3DS is fully capable of playing natively, even if it does disable all the other background online functions until you quit the game, which isn't that much of a sacrifice anyway). However, going the way of most of Nintendo's "virtual console" efforts, it'll be an incomplete experience. That version of Four Swords won't work without multiplayer, and as a result none of the cross-content unlocks in LTTP will even function, including that bonus dungeon. This could be fixed with a "primed" save file with all the Four Swords unlocks already set, but Nintendo doesn't seem to bother with any sort of hacks like that on virtual console games. Case in point: The Oracle games have permanently locked Advance shops, because Nintendo couldn't be bothered to emulate the flag the Oracle games look for to think they are being played on a GBA. Shantae suffers from the same issue. Still, it's getting there.
*I tried looking up the Wikipedia entry for artificial scarcity. I found the page on scarcity, which had a list of "see also" related topics, one of which was "artificial scarcity". I clicked on that, and it reloaded the page on scarcity "Redirected from artificial scarcity". I broke out of that endless "see also" loop by noting that the page on artificial scarcity was extremely hard to acquire, seemingly made so for no discernible reason. Also I closed the tab.
So do I. There really hasn't been a game in that style since Super Mario Sunshine (later Mario games went for a more linear style, less Super Mario 64 and more Super Mario 3D Land, not that that's a bad thing).
Well, some peoples are making Project Ukulele, a spiritual successor to games like Banjo Kazooie. http://www.playtonicgames.com/ Recently, they've even got the peoples behind the musics of the early DKC games (and Tropical Freeze) on board. Color me stokinated, but wow, lots of these "revival" projects afoot lately.
