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+--- Thread: Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread (/showthread.php?tid=7011)
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 10th January 2017
Because there's only about two days left until this presentation, video, whatever you call it airs, and I'm pretty excited to see what Nintendo shows! The most important things are the price and release date of course, along with confirmation of the first-party release schedule -- will Zelda be available at launch? When will Mario be out? And such. I hope they show all that info, we need it.
Of course, beyond that it's unclear about how many of them they will actually ship, so how hard the Switch will be to find for some time after it launches is up in the air, but we'll see. I probably won't try to get one right away, particularly with how I want to build a new computer, like, very soon, but I definitely want a Switch sometime this year, and I hope they aren't impossible to find indefinitely. Nintendo likes to undership things sometimes after all...
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 12th January 2017
Gah, why does this presentation have to be at 11pm? I want to see what Nintendo's going to show...
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 12th January 2017
http://www.nintendo.com/switch/
So the conference is over now and... hmm. There was some good and some bad in this conference, but I can easily see why a bunch of people are disappointed, because there were definitely things to be disappointed by here.
On the good side, it launches on March 3, which is fairly soon, and the system is region-free, which is awesome. Also, some good games were shown. Mario Odyssey looks very good, in particular. Some good new stuff was shown too, including the return of Bomberman (this is great news!) and Puyo Puyo Tetris is getting a Switch port and FINALLY a Western release, which is awesome! Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8's port, and some other stuff look good as well (Sonic Mania will be having a Switch port for instance, nice). They also announced that there will be a Fire Emblem Warriors game, following up Hyrule Warriors. Cool, that'll be fun I'm sure. (Oh, and Shin Megami Tensei 5, but that's not a series I've ever actually played.)
On the other hand, outside of some good scenes (combat, big enemies, and such), and there WERE some good bits in this trailer, Zelda doesn't look very interesting. Well, the graphics are good of course, and the combat, but the story, gameplay, and world, not so much. I don't care about the big open world, and will the game have any focus? What focus they do show in the trailer here is some story, which is utterly terrible garbage -- see, Ganon's a threat and you need to save Zelda! Wow! Go away, Nintendo writers, and come back when you can write something that isn't super sexist...
And as for the other games... well, they announced a new Xenoblade game, Xenoblade 2... with new, bad generic Tales-style anime art design and the most boring generic anime-hero-guy protagonist ever. After XC X let you create a character, why go to such bad character design this time? And the art design change makes the already iffy character art of the previous Xenoblade games look good, too. The game could be good and apparently might actually release this year, but seeing that trailer made me want to play XCX more than this one.
Additionally, of course, the system is a bit highly priced at $300, and it will not come with a pack-in game. And Nintendo will be charging for online as well, which is very disappointing; I pay MS for online because I have to, but it's awful and seeing everyone else jump on that bandwagon just because they can is not nice. Additionally, while the paid service will have some features, some of them sound like they will require a smartphone app to work, and won't exist on the Switch itself? What the heck? That's terrible!
The very thin launch lineup and not-much-better list of games announced for 2017 so far is not great either, this system isn't exactly launching with a big library for sure. (And one of those few other launch games, 1-2-Switch, looks like some mediocre $5 downloadable thing... that Nintendo is trying to sell as a $50 boxed product. I hope it has more substance than it appeared in the video.)
So... yeah. I still want a Switch, but not right at launch. It kind of makes me want to get a Wii U more, if the prices on those things go down, but on the other hand I DO want to be able to play Nintendo's upcoming stuff, so... not sure there.
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - Dark Jaguar - 13th January 2017
Did you watch the same trailer I did for Zelda? Seriously, they give Zelda a lot of agency there. I think they did a great job establishing the basic goals and character and mood. Yeah, I'd rather they did something other that have Zelda get captured in it, but in terms of letting her be a well-written character with established motivation and agency (such as stepping in front of Link to directly influence the plot), I think they did very well there. Again, you and I differ quite a bit when it comes to what we care about in a story. I care about how well it is told rather than making it some incredibly complicated narrative filled with twists and turns and major changes to the characters. Read my comments on your review of LTTP for more detail.
But, maybe I'm giving it some slack when I compare it to some really sexist writing, the Mario games. I know you dislike open world design, but I'm looking forward to the new Mario game. It's clear from both the Mario and Zelda trailers we've seen that they are making a point of making every location well designed instead of just scenery to gawk at. But, well, Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser, and that's it. Zelda has agency in the world and is well written, even if she's probably going to get abducted again at some point. Peach has NONE of those saving graces. She just calls out for help, and that's that. This is a character who was playable in a handful of Mario games (Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario RPG, Super Princess Peach, and Super Mario 3D World are about the only ones outside spinoff titles) but she keeps falling back to this trope, and it's far more painful with her because it's clear they only ever intend it as a throwaway plot with zero chance for any sort of character writing. Heck, I'd probably be okay with the occasional "princess has been kidnapped" story if it was once every decade or two, done as a "throwback", but it's their go-to story they only make exceptions for when she's intended to be playable. The frustrating thing for me is she was written best in the Super Mario Adventure comic and in Super Mario RPG. In BOTH of those stories she got kidnapped, but it was over and done with in seconds, done more or less as a series gag, and she played a part in her own rescue. More to the point, she was written as "demure, up to a point" with those breaking points where she chewed out characters like Bowser being comedy gold. That "short fuse" bit worked well because her getting mad always made sense in context anyway, rather than the "short fuse" itself being played for laughs as "she's so unreasonable" (as in a lot of modern Japanese characters with that trait). She both was allowed to get angry and allowed to be totally justified in her anger, and that was appreciated. So, when the ONLY thing her character does is cry out for Mario or look sad in the new stuff, it annoys me to no end, because she can be so much more than that, EVEN in a "save the princess" story. In Mario, that story should be retired anyway. It's been shown numerous times there's a million and one throwaway motivations to get Mario and the gang to save the day. Heck, I'd even take "oh, that mean ol' bowser just ruined Peach's festive summer party by eating all the lemon cakes!", done in the style of a 1920's era cartoon. Even Moana has moments where the main character needs to get saved, but then she saves the male lead, and it's all balanced out with good writing and character agency and so on. Disney has recently proven you can have a damsel in distress moment so long as it's balanced and the "damsel" isn't treated like an empty headed "prize". (To be fair, at least neither Mario or Zelda have ever treated Peach or Zelda like "prizes" to be won, which has led a lot of Nintendo fans back in the day to endlessly complain that Mario and Link never "get any", much to my disgust.)
As for the Zelda series, I've said it before but there's a lot of possibilities the stories give us to play "Zelda's story". Generally, she clearly is doing something, you just don't actually get to see anything but the results of it. They do a great job of making her importance to the story felt, and she generally is a bit of a chessmaster character, coming up with all the overall plans for defeating looming threats. There isn't even any need to alter half the Zelda stories to make playing her "side" seem compelling. Ocarina of Time is very compelling, what with playing as a ninja running around defending her people and opening the way for the hero of time to gather the seals. She gets abducted for like 5 minutes at the very end, but even then there's reason to think she had expected it to happen. Skyward Sword pretty much shows Zelda running through dungeons and obtaining her necessary preparations throughout the game, and that's one game that really let my imagination soar considering the possible quest we could have played with "her side". Even Zelda 1, a game where she's Ganon's prisoner from the very start, gives a quick blurb in the manual stating that she personally broke up the Triforce of wisdom and hid all 8 pieces in the 8 dungeons herself. That's an 8 dungeon quest right there! There's a major plot hole in Zelda 1, in that there's no reason why she, already having the entire triforce of wisdom, didn't just fight Ganon herself instead of splitting it up and telling some random hero to collect them all over again to defeat evil. A "zeroth quest" where you play as Zelda could actually take a couple seconds to explain why she couldn't do it without help (I'm thinking she got herself caught on purpose to weaken Ganon with the Light Force during Link's final confrontation, meaning she plays the long game). Really, the toughest Zelda game to give her an entire quest for would have to be Link to the Past. Even though she's free for a longer period of time than in Zelda 1, she really doesn't do anything when hiding in that church. I suppose with a bit of a stretch, one could wonder what exactly goes on in that weird crystal world she and the other decedents of the sages are trapped in. Perhaps her quest could take place mostly in that quasi-spiritual realm, which turns out to be far more vast than we first thought. It was created with the power of the Triforce, so maybe it's an entire dimension that functions as a third world mapped onto Hyrule's basic layout. That one requires a bit of retconning, but it is surprising just how often Zelda is an active character with her own quests in the Zelda series.
Well, never mind about that for now. I'm interested in the Switch. There's a lot to get excited for in those trailers. Thin launch lineup? Yes, but that's been the case for every console I've ever played. What did the PS4 have at launch? Knack? Sure, there were a number of third party titles (a weakness for Nintendo), but those launch third party titles were, almost without fail, garbage. Heck, the PS4 and XBox One didn't get a decent number of games you actually wanted to play for a few years. Now they're doing a lot better, but at this point, I'm used to weak launch lineups.
32GB of internal memory... Come on literally everyone in the world of mobile! 64GB should have been the minimum by now! That's still not a lot, but 32 is downright silly.
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 15th January 2017
Well, while you are right that Peach is pretty much one of the worst video game characters of all time, overall, at least Nintendo has published Mario games where she is playable! In contrast, as much as as a character Zelda is far better, she has never been playable in a Zelda game made by Nintendo itself, outside of her spirit moving those stone statues around in Spirit Tracks. And as while story does matter I always consider gameplay to be the most important thing, this is a pretty serious indictment of Nintendo's 'not as terribly portrayed' main princess! Yeah, Zelda's a way better character than Peach, often off doing her own things as you say before inevitably getting kidnapped at some point... but she is never playable like she should be, something even Peach manages to do better. And anyway, that fact that she IS off doing her own things makes the fact that she's never playable so much worse! There are so many ways that almost every Zelda game could have had Zelda as a playable character... but, exclusively because of sexism I would say, she never is. It's incredibly disappointing.
Beyond that, a few things from the presentation I didn't mention:
I see many core gamers complaining about the fact that motion controls are back and that Nintendo put that functionality in the controllers, and are working on several major motion titles (1-2-Switch and Arms). Well, I couldn't disagree more with that! I was kind of afraid that Nintendo was going to ditch them, because some motion games are pretty fun, but fortunately they didn't do that. I'm not sold on either of these titles, that is true, as I said 1-2-Switch does not look impressive, but the fact that the Joycon controllers have gyroscopes in them and that there is also a motion-sensing camera in one of them are great things. I do want to see Nintendo making motion games again. Sure, motion is better in VR, but how many people right now can afford a VR headset, much less have the setup to be able to do it justice with a large open space for room-scale stuff? Nintendo knows that VR is not at the point where it's a mass-adoption product yet. It's cool, but niche, and I do think that there is still a place for non-VR motion games.
So what about those two games? Well, 1-2-Switch looks not so great because it seems to be very focused on timing stuff -- it's all about audio, and your reaction time as you try to use the controller in the way that minigame wants you to, at the right time based on audio cues. That's a very limiting concept though as anyone with faster reaction times will win this every time, making for a pretty short-lived experience as a party game I think. And while you can make different motions in different minigames, doesn't this seem to really restrict the actual variety of gameplay in this title, if it really is all about doing motions at just the right moment based on audio cues? This makes me think a bit of rhythm games as well, which of course I hate... (Rhythm Heaven Fever, a pretty popular Wii game from Nintendo, is in my personal bottom 5 worst Wii games list, for example.) Plus, will it have a single player mode, or is it only two player? I have to assume that being a $50 retail title there will be single player, but what will it be? It hasn't been shown. Sure, the games' trailer is amusing, but the actual gameplay? Not so much.
As for the other game, the fighting/boxing game Arms, it has more promise, but also some potential issues. The basic idea here seems to be taking the Wii Sports Boxing title, but expanding it with more depth, moves, and variety, to make it a more complete and fleshed-out title. Wii Sports Boxing is something I played like... maybe once ever, though, so that reference is not a draw for me for sure. I do like fighting games, but not boxing ones in almost all cases; the only boxing game I can think of liking in any way is Teleroboxer for the VB, but that's more because of the VR than anything and even there I have not played much of that game. (I don't believe I have ever played a Punch-Out game.) So, will this be more of a fighting game, or boxing? The trailer did look interesting, as you throw your springy fists at the other player in various different ways, with different arm attachments for varied attacks/motions and such. I don't know if it will work or not, but Arms could be fun, sure. I'd like to try it sometime.
Quote:I know you dislike open world design, but I'm looking forward to the new Mario game. It's clear from both the Mario and Zelda trailers we've seen that they are making a point of making every location well designed instead of just scenery to gawk at.They're comparing this Mario game in design to 64 and Sunshine, so I'm not expecting a true open-world game, but a 3d platformer with big hub worlds. That is something I have liked plenty well, as the games always have something to focus on -- the stars, shines, golden bananas, what have you, and the good 3d platformers come up with some pretty good mission ideas for how to get those items. I'm sure each level here will be a lot bigger than those in Mario 64, but they are themed hubs.
On a related note though, while everything we saw gameplay-wise from Mario Odyssey looked great, returning to my first paragraph of this post, if this game does indeed go back to having only Mario as a playable character as it seems sure to be doing, that will be unfortunate; Mario 3D World did something better there, and it's too bad that they're going back to the awful old standby of "rescue Peach from Bowser" instead of having female characters be playable again. Seriously Miyamoto, it's not, like, 1930 anymore, even cartoon storytelling has advanced past Popeye! Recall how Miyamoto has compared the Mario stories to being Popeye-inspired plays with Mario as Popeye, Bowser as Bluto, and Peach as Olive Oyl, how some Mario games have 'theater' settings, etc. The 'play' setting stuff is kind of clever, but that's no excuse for his "plot = rescue the female" crutch that he inserts in so many games. But anyway... has nobody made a Mario Galaxy hack where you play as Rosalina yet? That should happen someday!
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 18th January 2017
First, we are again hearing that the online player connection service will be a smartphone app: http://nintendotoday.com/switch-app-matchmaking/ ... So, Nintendo is going to make what is the worst online matchmaking service ever, and then charge money for it? What? I hope they either give up on this or it fails badly, because this is a really bad idea. There is no reason whatsoever to force people to use an external device to have online chat and such, that's absurd! And they'd better not require this app to use online gaming on the Switch at all, because that would be incredibly obnoxious, both for forcing people to use multiple devices when they shouldn't have to, and for anyone who doesn't have a compatible device (do you have a Windows phone or tablet or a BlackBerry or something? Too bad, this is sure to be iOS/Android only...). I don't have a smartphone (because, of course, I don't want one) but do have Windows tablet, but somehow I doubt it will be compatible with this thing. But it's not just about me, for so many reasons this is an awful idea.
Oh yeah, and to add insult to injury, there will be no Miiverse on the Switch. I haven't used it all that often and I'm sure there are ways it could be improved, but having a system that lets people comment about individual games is great! Killing it for no good reason doesn't make much sense, particularly when your "replacement" is a phone app, of all things.
Beyond that bad stuff though, Nintendo followed this conference with a Fire Emblem Direct today/yesterday, which had a bunch of interesting announcements!
First, a new Fire Emblem game is announced for the 3DS. It's a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden for the NES/Famicom, with new art and such. It looks interesting, and I hope it's good, unlike Shadow Dragon for the DS. It is nice to see another 3DS FE game, though! And it's coming this spring, too. I'm looking forward to it, despite how frustrating they are the Fire Emblem games are some of Nintendo's best when they are good.
Second, there will be a Fire Emblem game for the Switch next year. No details yet.
Third, they show a bit more of Fire Emblem Warriors. It's a Warriors game of course, and looks like one. Interestingly it is going to release on both New 3DS and the Switch, and it's releasing this fall too. So, this will be the second New 3DS-only retail release, huh? Going by what I've heard about how badly Hyrule Warriors runs on the regular 3DS this is probably a good move... though I have a New 3DS and Hyrule Warriors works just fine on it, so I don't know myself.
And last, they show what the iOS/Android FE game will be. It looks mediocre and has a big random-draw component, as you pay money for random characters to be added to your team. There is a basic strategy game too of course, but they only show single-screen matches with four characters per side, so it's pretty limited. I'm sure people who do like to waste money on random-draw purchases might get hooked to this though. I won't play it.
So, this shows that for this year at least the 3DS will still be supported, but that next year's FE game will be a Switch title suggests that they'd like to wind down support by that point, if the Switch does well of course -- just like the GBA/DS "third pillar" stuff pretty much. That's alright, though keeping the 3DS would be nice considering how un-portable the Switch really is -- between the 3 hour battery life and very large unit, that's nowhere near the portability of any model of 3DS.
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - Dark Jaguar - 19th January 2017
That phone based Fire Emblem game sure was a disappointment. The sad thing is, a pure touch screen interface would work fine with Fire Emblem. Heck, I use the touch screen almost exclusively with the current crop of Fire Emblem games as it is. Turn based strategy is a perfect match for that.
At least you see where I'm coming from when it comes to Zelda, and I do get your point of view. I think the main reason Zelda isn't playable in Zelda games comes down to history. Nintendo is just too afraid to mess with their formula. It's the same reason you never play as anyone but Link in the series. There's a good number of games where multiple characters seem to have a lot going on, but it's always Link. I've said it before but Nintendo's biggest barrier is being able to look past their icons for a moment to really come up with some new perspectives in future games in a series. (The most recent Metroid game is an example of that done badly though. Care must be taken.) Heck, the newest Mario game continues the trend (ever since Mario 64) of putting Luigi on the back burner. He gets the occasional breakout oddball game like Luigi's Mansion, but goes largely ignored in the "main" series of Mario games. It's only in the New Super Mario Bros. series where they've seen fit to actually bring him back, but when it comes to stuff like Mario Galaxy and the upcoming one, he's outta there. It's a lot more acceptable with Mario because really the story doesn't matter at all in that series, but it still is a bit of a shame. Peach's character is a sticking point with me because there's plenty of material that gives her a much more compelling and fun personality. Super Mario Adventures and Super Mario RPG are the highlights, and are how I've seen her personality for years now, which is what makes her rather vapid persona in Super Princess Peach so annoying. At any rate, while sexism plays a part (it's how the male leads were picked in the first place when the series were young), the biggest barrier right now seems to be a fear of breaking out of the norms they've set.
I'm with you when it comes to all these complaints. It really does seem to me that people are just looking for things to be mad about when it comes to the switch. There's no shortage of little problems with the thing (the cost of that docking station is ridiculous, and the online being entirely linked to a cell phone that little kids may or may not have is a big mistake if that's the ONLY way to use it), but when people keep asking, nay, DEMANDING that they sell a "version of the switch without the docking station" because they "deserve to have a choice", it really angers up the blood. Get over yourselves, I want to shout at them. The docking station is the entire point, barely adds to the cost at all (in spite of what the individual docking stations are overpriced at) and frankly if they want JUST a switch they can always just buy that part by itself used like anything else. I think MS's whole Kinect debacle really got to these type's heads and now they've convinced themselves they've got every right to demand everything be removed from a system if they don't like it. Heck, why not demand a version of the system without the joycons while you're at it?
There's also the matter of Nintendo once again stating that the time-limited free games will only work for a month. The first time around, I was pretty sure that was a mistranslation of Nintendo saying you could only DOWNLOAD them for one month but they'd stay working forever after. Now I'm not so sure, because if NOA is still working off a mistranslation then at the very least there's a serious communication problem going on there.
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 19th January 2017
Dark Jaguar Wrote:That phone based Fire Emblem game sure was a disappointment. The sad thing is, a pure touch screen interface would work fine with Fire Emblem. Heck, I use the touch screen almost exclusively with the current crop of Fire Emblem games as it is. Turn based strategy is a perfect match for that.The phone game doesn't look good, yeah, but the first half of the video, which covers the other three games, was quite good, with multiple new announcements and some good-looking games shown.
Quote:At least you see where I'm coming from when it comes to Zelda, and I do get your point of view. I think the main reason Zelda isn't playable in Zelda games comes down to history.I know you've said this before, but while I don't disagree, I think that the main reason here is sexism more so than just sticking to what they have done before.
Quote:Nintendo is just too afraid to mess with their formula. It's the same reason you never play as anyone but Link in the series. There's a good number of games where multiple characters seem to have a lot going on, but it's always Link. I've said it before but Nintendo's biggest barrier is being able to look past their icons for a moment to really come up with some new perspectives in future games in a series. (The most recent Metroid game is an example of that done badly though. Care must be taken.) Heck, the newest Mario game continues the trend (ever since Mario 64) of putting Luigi on the back burner. He gets the occasional breakout oddball game like Luigi's Mansion, but goes largely ignored in the "main" series of Mario games. It's only in the New Super Mario Bros. series where they've seen fit to actually bring him back, but when it comes to stuff like Mario Galaxy and the upcoming one, he's outta there. It's a lot more acceptable with Mario because really the story doesn't matter at all in that series, but it still is a bit of a shame.Despite what I said above, you're right, they have done something somewhat similar to Luigi ever since Mario 64. He used to be right there with Mario, but ever since 64, that hasn't happened except in the multiplayer games (NSMBWii/U, SM3DW, and such) and spinoffs. And that is a shame, since green is my favorite color I've always somewhat liked Luigi... though Luigi's Mansion never interested me much so while I did get it a few years ago I've barely played it, and I haven't thought too much about buying the 3DS sequel. But anyway, yeah, not even having Luigi playable in those games, never mind Peach or, in the Galaxy games, Rosalina, does say something about how over-conservatively Nintendo has been with who you play as in their major titles.
Quote:Peach's character is a sticking point with me because there's plenty of material that gives her a much more compelling and fun personality. Super Mario Adventures and Super Mario RPG are the highlights, and are how I've seen her personality for years now, which is what makes her rather vapid persona in Super Princess Peach so annoying. At any rate, while sexism plays a part (it's how the male leads were picked in the first place when the series were young), the biggest barrier right now seems to be a fear of breaking out of the norms they've set.I kind of liked how they played with the usual stereotype of "Peach always gets kidnapped" in Paper Mario. It was clever the first time, and worked. But when Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door did the same thing again, I thought that it wasn't good anymore; you did that once, try something new with her this time, instead of just having her get kidnapped again! But no, for traditionally sexist reasons Nintendo is attached to "rescue the princess" as their favorite plot device, and they refuse to let that go. It's really unfortunate.
Quote:I'm with you when it comes to all these complaints. It really does seem to me that people are just looking for things to be mad about when it comes to the switch. There's no shortage of little problems with the thing (the cost of that docking station is ridiculous, and the online being entirely linked to a cell phone that little kids may or may not have is a big mistake if that's the ONLY way to use it), but when people keep asking, nay, DEMANDING that they sell a "version of the switch without the docking station" because they "deserve to have a choice", it really angers up the blood. Get over yourselves, I want to shout at them. The docking station is the entire point, barely adds to the cost at all (in spite of what the individual docking stations are overpriced at) and frankly if they want JUST a switch they can always just buy that part by itself used like anything else. I think MS's whole Kinect debacle really got to these type's heads and now they've convinced themselves they've got every right to demand everything be removed from a system if they don't like it. Heck, why not demand a version of the system without the joycons while you're at it?Yeah... for the most part I agree, the very negative reactions from some in the press and on gaming forums go way, WAY too far in unfairly attacking Nintendo. There are some real issues about the Switch, with the phone app online service one being maybe first on my list (second might be how 1-2-Switch looks too limited due to its audio-game focus to be a Wii Sports analog), but a lot of the negativity is unwarranted. I think some people are looking for things to criticize Nintendo about, unfortunately.
As for selling it without parts of the system... yes, the vocal critics of motion controls probably would have loved it if this was just a box that came with a controller, no motion anything. As I said earlier though I think Nintendo is right to not take that path, and to make some new motion games. I like that the system still has motion, and I hope some of the critics try motion games again.
As for the idea of selling everything separately, though, that's never going to make financial sense; the main unit's going to be costly regardless, and you'll need Joycons for some things even if you hate motion and mostly want to stick to a Pro Controller, if you ever want to play it portably for instance. And if you had to buy those separately I doubt it'd be cheaper than the system as it is now plus a Pro Controller...
Thinking about that though, while cost-wise it would make things way too expensive, I do wish that they could have included a Pro Controller in the box too, that'd have been great. For three generations now Nintendo has required people buy those separately, and they're expensive and costs keep going up -- this one will be $70! Yes, it has HD Rumble, an NFC Reader, and gyro controls, so the cost kind of makes sense, but still... that's a lot.
Not requiring people to buy anything other than standard controllers is something the N64 does well, versus other consoles of the time -- where on the PS1 or Saturn you need to buy other special controllers for some kinds of games -- the flight stick, arcade stick, mouse, wheel, and such -- on the N64, almost all games are designed just for the regular controller. The N64 does have a mouse (for some 64DD games only), a keyboard (for the 64DD's now-dead online service only, I believe), and some third-party wheels and arcade sticks, but outside of the 64DD nothing was designed around the idea that players actually have anything other than the regular pad, which puts everyone on an even par in a way that systems which require extra stuff don't do.
In comparison, think of the original Wii. For all the stuff I have, I do not own a Wii Classic Controller or Classic Controller Pro due to how I don't exactly love the design. At various points I've told myself that I would buy one if I found a game that really needs the thing, mostly fighting games then since most other kinds of games play fine with the Wiimote+Nunchuck, but... I've just avoided buying fighting games for the thing, except for the few that work fine with motion or Gamecube controllers. If a CC had come in the box then I'm sure I'd have gotten, like, some Neo-Geo fighters or something, even if that isn't the best controller. So yeah, despite that, it is best to just include everything important in the box. People aren't necessarily going to buy the other stuff.
Quote:There's also the matter of Nintendo once again stating that the time-limited free games will only work for a month. The first time around, I was pretty sure that was a mistranslation of Nintendo saying you could only DOWNLOAD them for one month but they'd stay working forever after. Now I'm not so sure, because if NOA is still working off a mistranslation then at the very least there's a serious communication problem going on there.With how they've repeated this several times, I'm not betting it's a mistranslation... it's just weird. I kind of understand the idea, as it keeps more value for Nintendo games and Nintendo sure has been big on not reducing game prices, rarely putting games on sale at significant discounts, etc.; this is consistent with that. It does hurt the service, though, as if you can't keep the games you get it definitely would greatly reduce my interest in continuing to pay for the service if I was and the subscription expired, as you can't keep the games anyway!
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - Dark Jaguar - 20th January 2017
Both the Mario Adventure comic and Super Mario RPG also played with the idea of the princess always getting kidnapped. It was already considered a comically overdone plot device by the time of Super Mario World. The comic had Luigi get kidnapped because they thought he was the princess and she breaks in to rescue him. Also, she does get kidnapped but breaks out herself (with a massive assortment of explosives). Mario RPG had the game open with Mario already facing off against Bowser while Peach gives him tips and hints on how to beat him. She gets kidnapped AGAIN later by not-Wario and after all that, and being told she would be safer at the castle, she makes a break for it Mary Poppins style and joins your party. Namely, the things she says are pretty hilarious and she's got some pretty good points about all this. (Not to mention Bowser also joins your party. Super Mario RPG is just great.)
Thurs 1/12 Nintendo Switch Presentation Thread - A Black Falcon - 20th January 2017
It's true that she had a pretty decent appearance in Mario RPG, but that was by Square, not an internal Nintendo team. A game by Nintendo itself counts for more I think, since it shows what they think of the franchise and not another team... though, if I'm thinking of a hierarchy, a game from the series' main developer would count for the most, which is why it was pretty cool to see all the major characters finally playable in Mario 3D World... and why it's disappointing that the next one is going back to the not as good old "Mario only" stuff. Or in Zelda, how she is treated even worse because all games with Zelda as an actual playable character are either from external teams or Smash games, never main-series Zelda titles. But yeah, whether you care more about how characters are treated in the story or about who is playable has the key role in deciding who is worse between Zelda and Peach, I agree on that.
(If we're talking playable female characters in main-series Zelda games, there really are only three: the Satellaview game where you play as your Satellaview avatar instead of Link, Zelda's spirit controlling those statues in Spirit Tracks, and Midna in Twilight Princess, who is pretty much playable when you're wolf Link. Of those three the Satellaview game is surely best, but Midna has a pretty good part in TP for sure.)