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Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 16th June 2015
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.
Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 16th June 2015
Oh, and Nintendo has made an application to allow you to link your 3DS to Wii U smash as a controller. Technically this feature is already built into Smash Bros 3DS, but if you don't have that version, this'll cover you.
http://www.siliconera.com/2015/06/14/you-can-now-use-your-3ds-to-control-super-smash-bros-for-wii-u-without-a-copy-of-the-game/
Oh, and they're charging money for this thing. Great... You know Nintendo, normally "quality of life" applications like this on consoles are given away for free, the idea being to enhance the value of an existing product. Capcom didn't charge extra for their "console linking" application for Monster Hunter 3. I'm not saying you've got no right to charge money for it, I'm just saying it's a bad idea. Mind, it won't affect me too much, since I do own Smash Bros 3DS, but still, for those that this would actually benefit, it's a bit onerous.
It's a similar problem with their Pokemon Bank applications. That yearly fee... I think the thing that gets me the most about it is that I think the bank should allow "local" storage on the system's SD card. Program that in and I can get all the storage I want even should Nintendo's online "bank" servers shut down. Without it, the ability to transfer pokemon from the older DS generations is entirely dependent on an online service still being up. Nintendo needs to think about things like that more often.
Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 16th June 2015
Nintendo did at even more stuff.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/16/8791207/nintendo-e3-star-fox-metroid-yoshi
Mario Maker is really shaping up to be a huge event. I'm really looking forward to it. The new Star Fox seems to implement some long lost plans for the cancelled Star Fox 2, as well as implementing far more "all range" sections. I can't wait for that one, though I hope the storyline isn't just another remake of the first one. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam seems to be condensing the two current Mario RPG series into one, and it also looks good. I mean, what else can I say? Fire Emblem if has been renamed to Fire Emblem Fates. Frankly, I actually prefer the Japanese title for the game. "if" sounds more unique and meaningful than the rather bland "Fates" subtitle. A new Four Swords style Zelda game seems to be coming along, cutting down the playable characters to 3 for... reasons? Along those lines, a new Metroid game is coming out, but it's a relatively minor release, being basically the Metroid answer to Four Swords. Maybe it'll be good? It certainly seems to be taking after Prime instead of Other M, so I think Nintendo got the memo about the latter. Hyrule Warriors is getting a 3DS port. Well, nice I suppose. You can play as Tetra and also the King of Hyrule. Neat, but it's still a port. The ending shot seems to hint that Saria is the next character to be announced. Who's next? Rauru? Mido?
Here's a huge shocker, Nintendo is teaming up with the Skylanders people to make Skylander compatible Amiibos. Wonderful. Actually, it is a pretty big surprise to see those two rivals just combine their two lines of toys into one. What's next? Disney Infinity compatible Amiibo? As if kids don't already confuse Rosalina and Elsa enough. On a related note, when will Skylanders get a Spyro the Dragon toy?
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 16th June 2015
Nintendo's E3 Nintendo Direct was good... for what it showed. The problem is, there were almost no major new titles announced; all we've gotten is a spinoff Metroid shooter for 3DS that looks okay but not great, an Animal Crossing boardgame for Wii U, a Zelda game for 3DS with 3-player co-op, a US release of Mother 1 (Wii U VC), a new Mario Tennis for Wii U, Paper Mario / Mario & Luigi crossover RPG for 3DS, and that's about it. It's an okay lineup of 3DS games, but weak for the Wii U. The absence of any major new announcements is something a lot of people are complaining about, and I do agree that it's a problem; they REALLY needed to show something significant that's new for Wii U. Even just a tiny teaser.
I mean, the big focus on Mario Maker and Star Fox makes sense, since those are their two major Wii U titles for this holiday season, but they needed to also show some stuff for next year. Sony and Nintendo are kind of opposites in this respect, here -- Sony showed nothing for this year except for third-party multiplatform games, while Nintendo showed almost nothing for next year and focused entirely on stuff that releases this year. This left Sony with the much bigger reveals, but they mean little for quite a while.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 17th June 2015
So apparently, the E3 Direct is getting a lot of (overly-) harsh criticism online, because it didn't show much new. I think the critics are going too far, even if they have part of a valid point. The contrast between Nintendo and Sony's conferences this year really was interesting. Nintendo had a very good conference for 2015 games, but showed almost nothing for next year and had no big reveals. Meanwhile, Sony had a very good conference for 2016-2017 games, but showed almost nothing for this year (apart for some multiplatform third-party titles), and had some big reveals that are a year or years away.
Which is better? I'm not sure, both have their merits. Had Nintendo had even a single hinted major Wii U game reveal, I think it'd be easy to say they won, because for E3, the game releasing later this year should matter more than games that are a year or more away. Of course, the problem is that they didn't have that, they had only some handheld and minor titles to reveal. And yeah, that's a problem, but I think the haters here are MASSIVELY overstating how bad the conference was. It was, for the most part, a great conference, with no major bad sections, lots of interesting games shown, and some interesting reveals -- the three new 3DS games announced all look good, for sure. Yeah, it was sadly lacking in reveals for the future, but still, it's an okay conference overall.
After watching, I thought 'I wish there had been some more new games shown, particularly for Wii U', but overall I think it was a good conference. And yeah, anyone saying "worst" did not watch 2008 -- this one was many, many times better than that thing was.
Last though, I really do hope that the absence of any major reveals was just because Nintendo was too focused on showing only 2015 stuff, and not because they're giving up on Wii U in favor of NX sooner than they should.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 17th June 2015
Watching some Nintendo Treehouse stuff, the new 3DS Zelda game really looks like great fun. I've been thinking that it's a shame that Nintendo hasn't made another Four Swords game, because FSA on the GC is a great game, but they're finally doing it! And it looks really fun, too. They are emphasizing cooperative play more this time, so the three players share a health bar. This definitely makes things more challenging, but making people work together isn't bad. The graphical look is similar to the previous 3DS Zelda game, but it looks good enough. The different costumes are interesting as well, each one has different abilities. Different costumes will definitely change how you approach some things, and I'm sure there are better costumes for certain stages. Plus it'll have online play too, which is fantastic (FSA relied on GBA links only, of course, and that connectivity thing... wasn't exactly an answer for online play, that's for sure.). It's looking good.
Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 17th June 2015
Yeah, it's a much better mechanic than the "fight it out" focus they had in the Four Swords games. Hey, let's emphasize cooperation instead of rivalry in our COOPERATIVE Zelda game!
Related to this, Super Mario 3D World fixed a lot of the frustrating factors of multiplayer New Super Mario Bros games simply by adding an extra dimension. There's been far less angry shouting about people accidentally flinging and stomping on each other in that entry than previous ones.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 18th June 2015
Yeah, it's like multiplayer in a side-scrolling beat 'em up versus an isometric one -- it's a lot more fun in the isometric game because of the additional space.
Quote: Yeah, it's a much better mechanic than the "fight it out" focus they had in the Four Swords games. Hey, let's emphasize cooperation instead of rivalry in our COOPERATIVE Zelda game!The rivalry stuff was fun, but it did make it hard to actually finish levels sometimes. :P Of course, going by streams of this game I've seen (Treehouse has had it) some people are attacking eachother anyway, but it's to their detriment so they eventually stop and actually play the level, which is good.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 18th June 2015
After watching some footage on the Treehouse stream, Metroid Prime: Federation Force looks pretty good, basically like Metroid Prime but with cartoonier art and 4-player co-op. The character and mech designs definitely could use some work, and hopefully they improve, but otherwise this game looks quite good. The environments look great, very Metroid Prime-styled. The music sounds like MP stuff as well, and the interface and controls also, which is awesome because Metroid Prime is one of the best games ever. So yeah, they have some things to work on, but the game definitely looks quite promising.
So yeah, another thing where the hate is massively overdone. I'm sure they will eventually make another single player-focused Metroid or Metroid Prime game, but this game looks good too.
Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 22nd June 2015
One concern is a large chunk of the old Metroid Prime team left Retro after the Prime trilogy was done. While they do still have a talented team, as the recent Donkey Kong games can attest to, it's a bit worrying so many saw fit to leave.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 22nd June 2015
Federation Force is actually by Next Level, the team that made Luigi's Mansion 2, not Retro. We don't k now what Retro is working on, Nintendo hasn't said. For whatever Retro does next, though, I do agree that Retro's losing staff is a potential issue. I hope they will continue to make games as great as their old ones, but most of the people behind the first Metroid Prime are gone, so would a new one be similar?
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 22nd June 2015
I compiled up my posts here about E3 onlto an article on my site and added some more stuff about specific games, so I'm posting the Nintendo ones below (and one Sony one in the Sony thread).
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes (3DS) – Watching some Nintendo Treehouse stuff, the new 3DS Zelda game really looks like great fun. I’ve been thinking that it’s a shame that Nintendo hasn’t made another Four Swords game, because FSA on the GC is a great game, but they’re finally doing it! And it looks really fun, too. They are emphasizing cooperative play more this time, so the three players share a health bar. This definitely makes things more challenging, but making people work together isn’t bad. The graphical look is similar to the previous 3DS Zelda game, but it looks good enough. The different costumes are interesting as well, each one has different abilities. Different costumes will definitely change how you approach some things, and I’m sure there are better costumes for certain stages. Plus it’ll have online play too, which is fantastic (FSA relied on GBA links only, of course, and that connectivity thing… wasn’t exactly an answer for online play, that’s for sure.). It’s looking great.
Star Fox (Wii U) – I’ve seen some criticism of this game, both visually and in terms of controls, but at least for the graphics, I think the game looks pretty good. And in terms of the gameplay and story, what they showed here aimed straight for the Star Fox 64 fan, and Star Fox 64 is my favorite rail shooter ever so I like that for sure. The gyro controls could be good or bad, and I’ll need to play the game before I know if it’s fun to play that way or not, but at least based on graphics, design, story, and levels, I’m really excited to play this game! It looks good. That Platinum Games are working on the campaign is good news as well, they do great work.
Mario Maker (Wii U) – Mario Maker is probably the most improved game that also showed at least E3. Last year the game looked fairly basic, but now this is a polished, full-featured Mario game creator. From the NWC’15, conference, and Treehouse this game got a lot of focus this E3, and it’s easy to see why. This game looks simple enough that making levels will be easy; the complex editors in some games don’t make me want to try to learn how to make levels, and that interest drops even more when the physics and design have unfixed issues as well (see Little Big Planet), but this game doesn’t have any of those problems, the footage shown made this obvious. This game has only tile-based graphics, which limits you, but it also makes design easier. That’s also how the games actually look, of course. Both making your own levels and playing other peoples’ stages look like great fun.
Game of Show
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes. Zelda is my favorite series, and this game looks like a lot of fun.
Nintendo did at some stuff - Dark Jaguar - 23rd June 2015
I think the main take away here is... wait you've got a web site?
I've actually tried gyro controls on Star Fox 64 3D, and I gotta say I'm not a fan. Is it faster than a traditional analog stick? Yes, absolutely, but it's not nearly as accurate, and that's just not a trade-off I'm willing to make. I play Splatoon without the gyro controls as well, for example. What I'm really excited about is seeing the discarded ideas from Star Fox 2 make their debut at long last.
Nintendo did at some stuff - A Black Falcon - 23rd June 2015
Dark Jaguar Wrote:I think the main take away here is... wait you've got a web site?It's only been linked in my sig for a couple of years now... :p It's just a blog, with stuff on it that I also post on forums. Almost nothing that's only there.
Quote:I've actually tried gyro controls on Star Fox 64 3D, and I gotta say I'm not a fan. Is it faster than a traditional analog stick? Yes, absolutely, but it's not nearly as accurate, and that's just not a trade-off I'm willing to make. I play Splatoon without the gyro controls as well, for example. What I'm really excited about is seeing the discarded ideas from Star Fox 2 make their debut at long last.I've heard a lot of people online say that Splatoon controls better with gyro. I'm not sure, though, but I do of course hate dual-analog FPS controls, so almost anything else is better in my book!
For a flying game, though, an analog stick is likely best, but I'd have to try it myself (in the Wii U game) to be sure.