16th June 2015, 6:15 AM
(This post was last modified: 16th June 2015, 12:35 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
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.
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.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)