#nintendo just likes to reuse terms like this I think | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rnolduga · 2 years ago

Text

Gerudo Height in BotW

NOTE: This is all approximation based on theory, done because simply eyeballing heights wasn't enough for me and I wanted an answer that could at least be explained.

I'll get straight to the point- this started because my fixation on BotW returned and I decided I needed to know Urbosa's height; looking it up rewarded me with poor results, so I decided to find it myself and I spiraled from there. Here we go:

To start, I need a solid metric to measure her height by, as well as something to compare her to. In comes this video by The Bread Pirate, in which he calculates Link's height and comes to the conclusion that he is 5'2", or 1.584 meters. This is perfect, because it just so happens that Link and Urbosa are depicted together on equal level in Memory #15 and that means I can use him to find her height through comparison.

(I had to cut Mipha out from between them for this, rip)

I tried to approximate their heights as accurately as possible, excluding the added height of their hair because. Well. Hair doesn't count. Which is also why in the video, Link was measured in the radiant mask, which flattens his hair.

Now, The Bread Pirate utilizes the BotW memory editor to convert Link's height in in-game pixels to meters, and I can't do that here. So, alternative methods with a common metric have to be used. As seen in the above image, I measured both Link and Urbosa's height from the bottom of their feet to roughly the top of their heads, in red and blue. The black and white lines beside those serve to count each pixel of the lines more clearly, with an added line for Urbosa's heels, which will be subtracted from her total height later. As you can see, Link reaches 122 pixels tall, Urbosa is 175 pixels, and Urbosa's heels are 6 pixels. For simplicity's sake, I'll be measuring height in meters for the math and converting it to feet + inches for those who need it at the end. To find Urbosa's height, we have to find the height of each pixel. For this, we rely on Link's assumed height of 1.584 meters.

1.584 divided by Link's pixel height count, 122, equals 0.01298360655. This means that in this instance, 1 pixel = 0.01298360655 meters.

With that in mind, if Urbosa is 175 pixels tall, then Link's pixel height subtracted from that would give them a 53 pixel difference. 53 pixels, or 0.68813114754 meters.

Link's height of 1.584 meters + their difference of 0.68813114754 meters = 2.27213114754 meters, Urbosa's total height in the above image.

Now, her heels are 6 pixels tall, or 0.0779016393 meters. This, subtracted from her total height, equals 2.19422950824 meters.

So, in simpler terms, Urbosa is roughly:

2.272 meters / 7'5" in heels. 2.194 meters / 7'2" without heels.

That's super tall! Except...

Huh..........................

This got me thinking. I assumed all Gerudo adults except elders used very similar base models and were therefore all the same height, so this was all for the fun of ignoring nintendo's convenient game development method of reusing models to treat each character like an individual, but could they be different heights?

To my surprise, the answer is yes!

Using the same method I did with Urbosa, I approximated the following (heels subtracted from all):

Buliara: 2.315 meters / 7'7"

Guard: 2.112 meters / 6'11"

Avg. Gerudo: 2.019 meters / 6'7"

I left out elderly Gerudo because they're all signifigantly hunched over, making it impossible to get an accurate measurement, as well as Gerudo children, because I'm lazy.

(Side note, that'd make the Gerudo at the bar REALLY tall by their standards. Her in-game model is the same height as other average Gerudo around town, but I'm taking her word on being 8'0" for the sake of maintaining something that is definitively canon lol)

Now, there's just one last thing to mention: Traysi's estimation of average Gerudo height.

Um.

No, pretty sure that's much taller than the average Gerudo, I don't even have to do the math. also that's a cactus not a tree

Anyway. I went into this just wanting to know how tall Urbosa was and ended up doing a lot more math than originally intended to find the heights of other Gerudo too. Worth it tbh.

#botw #legend of zelda #urbosa #gerudo #link #honorary tag bc I couldn't do this without him standing around aimlessly a lot #long post #if anyone can prove me right or wrong with more concrete means I'm all for it pls let me see #idc about being personally right I just like having useless knowledge about things I like #also important to note: the champions' heights seem to be inconsistent in the game #it's most obvious when comparing the scene of them getting their picture taken to the other memories they're in #which I think was probably done so that they'd look good and proportional in a frame all together #which is fine. that stuff is done in production sometimes #but just keep it in mind bc with that being a thing it'd be effectively impossible to find a character height that's 100% consistent #it's for that same reason that I ignore their depictions in age of calamity #different game with different mechanics and probably different heights too #BUT I did see a screenshot of Urbosa next to a Gerudo guard from that game and she looked so tiny I have to laugh #Urbosa being the best warrior the Gerudo had yet significantly shorter than her guards at the time is funny to me

97 notes · View notes

milkpumpkin96 · 11 months ago

Text

Tears of the Kingdom Review

I have always been a massive Legend of Zelda fan since my childhood, and let me tell you . . . ToTK absolutely blew my mind. I personally found it just as magical as my first playthrough of Breath of the Wild.

I have reaped much enjoyment from this game and became devastated when I finished it (I spent 230 hours). I did not want this experience to end: ToTK is easily my personal Game of the Year, and perhaps one of my favorite video games of all time.

This review is very late as it came out May of 2023 . . . but I am mega slow at completing games.

[SPOILER WARNING]

In case you have yet to finish ToTK, I suggest waiting to read this review.

OVERALL SCORE: 9 / 10

I admit that I am inexperienced with critiquing, but in my opinion, I believe that Tears of the Kingdom is a near-perfect Nintendo game. Both ToTK and BoTW are a real treat for experienced players yet it also roped in a whole new audience into the Zelda fanbase. It was exciting to see the amount of attention that this game was receiving earlier in the year (even though this meant near-unavoidable spoilers on social media).

It is no question as to why it was nominated for GOTY 2023 and won the best action/adventure game!

Of course, some may say that it is not too much different than its predecessor Breath of the Wild: the main Hyrule map is the same, the soundtrack is mostly reused and rehashed, and side quests are structurally the same. But well, it is a direct sequel after all.

If anything, I think that Tears of the Kingdom is BoTW on steroids. It is smoother in gameplay, creative enough to be its own separate title, and somehow, for me, it felt more encapsulating. This is coming from someone who struggled to get into Breath of the Wild initially.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

GAMEPLAY: 10 / 10

The beginning part in the Sky Islands dragged on a bit, but mostly because the "tutorial" was not as clear-cut as it was in BoTW. It was super easy to immediately get sidetracked and lost in the sky . . . I spent hours dawdling around the snowy mountains. However, I did not interpret this negatively; I think it was kind of nice engaging in accidental exploration.

Within the tutorial alone, I noticed that the combat mechanics are a bit more difficult than it was in the previous title. For one, it was harder for me to whip out my shield and perfect dodge attacks in ToTK. Also, stronger enemies are immediately available (e.g., gloom hands and Phantom Ganon), and without upgraded armor, most enemies could obliterate Link's hearts.

I think I spent 5-6 hours in the tutorial alone. This was off-putting for some (I know one or two people who as soon as they fell down to Hyrule field, they took a "break" from playing the rest of the game).

----------

In terms of difficulty, I found it relatively perfect: easy enough for newcomers to hop into the game (perhaps with some frustration) yet difficult enough to present challenges to more experienced players. I died quite a few times. A lot of times.

I think the shrines and temples were challenging enough, and since I refused to ever look at any guides, sometimes it could take me hours of struggle. Sure, the temples are noticeably linear, but they remind me of older Zelda games. Plus, the puzzles are fun and elaborate. I do wish the temple bosses were harder, but they were sill enjoyable nonetheless. Marbled Gohma was very straightforward and the easiest for me, Colgera was the most fun (LOVED the boss fight theme and the Rito village quest as a whole), and I suppose Queen Gibdo was the most difficult (Riju likes to run away from you).

Comparatively, BoTW bosses focus on flurry rushing whereas ToTK fights greatly rely on sage abilities and Rauru's arm's abilities (e.g., using ultrahand and ascend on flux constructs).

Many fights were amazing: the Gleeoks are insane, Phantom Ganon was hard at least the first time, and the gloom hands . . . those scared the shit out of me nearly every encounter. There are also arenas within the depths that vary in difficulty. The arena with the six gloom lynels, dear god, probably took me around 15 attempts.

As for the shrines, I generally enjoyed them. I even like the fetch quests for the crystals, and the "proving grounds" shrines are less redundant than the "test of strength" ones in BoTW. There are more shrines overall in ToTK, but they are less integrated into ToTK's story/vibes. So, it might seem weird because these shrines appear as more isolated puzzles than anything, but I do not mind because I like puzzles regardless, even if they are more oblique.

Some critics disliked the amount of Rauru's Blessing shrines. I somewhat agree . . . I faced the occasional disappointment particularly when the trial to get to the shrine was quick and easy. I do think it would be better with fewer of these because there is no need for so many shrines.

----------

I like Link/Rauru's abilities more than what the Sheikah slate offered in BoTW. I do miss the remote bombs, but other than that, I think ToTK is a major upgrade. Initially, it would seem that the zonai abilities would break the game? I mean . . . Link can ascend through ceilings and platforms???

However, this is not the case. Everything works very well with the map's geography and it never felt like I was "cheating" (except for some shrines, I definitely did not figure out some puzzles like I was supposed to).

I mean, Rauru's arm fused to Link is such a neat aesthetic within itself. It is also not as overwhelming: everything was on that Sheikah Slate, but now things are divided between the arm and the Purah Pad.

Ultrahand trumps magnesis, and rewind triumphs over stasis in my opinion. I can make questionable bikes, weapons, and planes now!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MUSIC: 7 / 10

ToTK and BoTW soundtracks are virtually the same, with some slight additions and/or improvements (e.g., additional instruments). Critics complain that these soundtracks are not as memorable nor bombastic as some of the other games in the Zelda franchise.

The music is very ambient and mild. Sometimes I might forget that "music" is actually playing in the background while I am running around. To be honest, I like the ambiance--it feels more realistic (?) as if I am actually traversing a natural landscape. Or at least, it fits the general pacing and atmosphere of the game. I do not expect a constant replay of absolute bangers while I am spending hundreds of hours trying to complete the depths map or finish a bunch of side quests. Most LoZ games are linear and the areas you travel to are typically of great significance; whereas in Tears of the Kingdom, it is such a vast open world and players spend a lot of time grinding and treasure hunting. If the game was full of musical masterpieces at all times, it may become overwhelming and annoying at some point.

Although I do agree that I miss some of the older LoZ tracks, however ToTK does have some awesome music: the Colgera battle theme, the Rito Village and Zora Domain themes, most of the temple themes, the tune that plays as you fall into chasms sometimes, and the music that played at the start of the game and again at the end as you walk through Gloom's Origin.

. . . however, the horse riding song still kind of stresses me out for some reason.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORY: 8.5 / 10

I cannot say that Nintendo often produces the most profound, well-developed stories, but I thought that ToTK's plot was interesting enough. Isolating the story from previous LoZ titles, Tears of the Kingdom seems to rebut what Hyrule Historia's timeline established, as well as contradict BoTW--its prequel--itself.

At first, I found this a bit frustrating since I tend to feel satisfied when I can understand a somewhat logical or coherent explanation of order of events and/or lore. ToTK in some way retconned the origin story of Hyrule as what it was told in Skyward Sword. Some fans and critics alike consider ToTK and BoTW a reboot of the entire franchise.

In a way, it is a reboot of the franchise, stylistically, mechanically, and the fact that it drew in many new Zelda fans (who may not be so uptight about timeline theories). And really, it does not matter that ToTK doesn't fit nicely within Hyrule Historia's timeline. Who cares? Do I really think Nintendo cared that much about it? Nope.

It could be wedged into the timeline, in that it brings together the Fallen Hero, Child, and Adult timelines. Maybe the old Hyrule was somehow destroyed and perhaps forgotten, and Rauru and Sonia re-founded and rebuilt it. Or maybe it does not truly contradict Skyward Sword, as Zelda's father's name is Gaepora, and the owl version of Rauru is previous games is named Keepora Gaepora . . .

It is ambiguous at this point. But much discussion can be had on this topic.

----------

Memories, as in BoTW, told the story of Tears of the Kingdom. I enjoyed completing main quest objectives and finding dragon's tears to unlock these memories. It made it even more hard-hitting in retrospect once the player finds out the Zelda herself is the Light Dragon who shed these tears.

One issue I had was not being too certain about the true order of the geoglyphs. I could accidentally discover memory #17 without having seen the previous five memories, and not knowing what the hell was going on! Another issue was the redundancy of the telling of The Great Imprisoning War by the five sages. It makes sense that each descendent had to be told this story, but it came off as repetitive to players . . . especially since the dialogue each time was more or less the same.

Also, the fact that ancient Sheikah technology (e.g., Divine Beasts, guardians, sheikah slate) were hardly mentioned . . . is a bit strange. ToTK is a sequel to BoTW, but the game acts as if the latter barely even happened. The complete removal of elements is seriously odd to me.

----------

Overall, I think there are many cool moments and highlights to the game's story. Despite its flaws and inconsistencies, Tears of the Kingdom's plot definitely had a stronger emotional impact on me than most other games in the franchise.

The beginning cutscene immediately roped me in: the eerie music, the dark atmosphere, and dehydrated Ganon's voicing and lines were performed so perfectly!

"Was that the sword that seals the darkness? A blade that shatters so easily against my power cannot save you from me."

Any scene with Ganondorf, really, filled me with both dread and excitement. I particularly enjoyed what was shown in memories 9, 10, and 14: Ganondorf killing Sonia and smiling SO creepily was bone-chilling and caught me off-guard (especially since I discovered that dragon's tear way out of order), and both his accumulation of power from the secret stone and the duel with former King Rauru was visually amazing and intense. Ganondorf's line delivery during the final fight with Link was also morbidly stellar:

"I will reshape this world as it was meant to be. I will crush any opposition. I will rule. That is what a king must do. Do not look away. You witness a king's revival, and the birth of his new world!"

My jaw dropped when I witnessed Ganondorf in his last-ditch effort consume the secret stone and transform into an immortal dragon. It may have been predictable yet for some reason I was not expecting it?? Regardless, the transformation seen was absolutely awesome and I believe that not only was this the best final fight of any Zelda game I have played, but the whole three-stage sequence of fighting Ganondorf in ToTK is perhaps one of my most enjoyed final boss fights in any video game I have ever played. The fight itself was rather easy but fun to behold.

----------

The best part of the storyline in Tears of the Kingdom was the tragedy of Princess Zelda herself. The memories witnessed through her tears are bittersweet.

Zelda via her time powers traveled back to the era of Hyrule's founding where she encountered King Rauru, Queen Sonia, and the ancestors of the sages. Players get to see her experiences in this era: learning about the Zonia, developing a relationship with her own ancestors, and witnessing The Imprisoning War and Ganondorf's wicked rise to power.

Zelda, in attempts to avenge the late Sonia, recover the Master Sword and save Link and all of Hyrule's inhabitants from rehydrated Ganondorf, proceeds to "unalive" herself by consuming her secret stone. Almost immediately, her heart pounds as her eyes glow a strong cobalt blue and she vehemently transforms into an eternal dragon, calledthe Light Dragon. The Master Sword is lodged in the Light Dragon's skull as it takes thousands of years for it to heal from its decayed state.

After Link saves the Great Deku Tree from the gloom in present day, he tells you that he senses that the lost Master Sword is on the move. This alludes to the fact that the Light Dragon is traveling in the sky carrying the sword, so Link must find the dragon [Zelda] and with enough stamina, pull out the fully healed and functional Master Sword. Once this is done, sad memories proceed to be recovered of Zelda's "death" and final wishes to Link:

"Link . . . PROTECT THEM ALL!"

I found these memories to be incredibly sad and meaningful. Never had I been so teary playing a zelda game. I think these story elements really fleshed out both Link and Zelda's individual characters and their relationship, as well as the "Find Princess Zelda" quest giving Link a more intimate and personal goal.

I think the story would be more impactful if, you know, Princess Zelda actually remained as the Light Dragon for eternity. Of course, this would be incredibly depressing, but I think this alternative would have packed more of a gut punch. It really took away from the morbid finality of Zelda's decision, and Rauru and Sonia's souls(?) aiding in undoing this action was kind of cheesy! Then again, I guess it would be very bad if Zelda was forever comatose, being the incarnation of the Goddess Hylia and all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SETTING: 7 / 10

The overworld map is the same as Breath of the Wild's with some minor changes (due to the Upheaval for the most part). ToTK also comes with the additions of the Sky Islands map and the Depths map.

It never felt like a DLC to me as it did for some people. It felt bittersweet and nostalgic for me to explore Hyrule's entire map again; the differences were noticeable enough; the map is more built towards Link's new zonai abilities; and the characters felt more "alive" as they seemed to have aged or changed in some ways from BoTW.

The sky map was . . . okay. I thought it would be larger than it actually was. Only the beginning island with the Temple of Time was a large chunk of land, plus there were the Lomei Labyrinths as well. The rest of the map is scattered little islands with occasional enemies, treasures, puzzles, shrines, and zonai device dispensers.

Overall, the sky map was underwhelming and tedious, but it had its good moments. Most of the Rito Village quest is in the sky, and the Wind Temple was my favorite of the four temples. The music was suspenseful, Tulin's gust ability and penchant for headshots became useful for the entire rest of the game, and the flying ships were cool. Bravery, Valor, and Courage Islands presented some fun games, the battle against the King Gleeoks were insanely difficult, and I used the sky's crystal refinery for energy wells too.

As for the depths, I also think it was just okay. Initially, I was fascinated: I remember accidentally plummeting down the chasm in Kakariko Village at the start of the game, and I felt a rush of fascination and positive anxiety with its novel eeriness. Overall, I think there is a lot of good stuff down there: challenging enemies and arenas, special clothing items, zonaite mines, and you were given the chance to rematch temple bosses.

However, I think that the depths were redundant as a whole. Aside from some specific areas, the map was practically the same over and over again and constantly throwing brightbloom seeds grew tiresome. Completing the depths was a NIGHTMARE since the lightroots only uncovered little circles of the map. Also, its novelty wore off after several hours.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------COMBAT: 9 / 10

The combat is hardly different from Breath of the Wild, aside from several changes.

There is no major combat strategy in ToTK. Using bows and arrows and bomb flowers is kind of OP and gets you out of most situations (except temple bosses, which are more puzzle and sage-based). I have heard complaints that Tears of the Kingdom would hugely benefit if there were more enemy types, meaning that some are virtually immune to bow and arrows.

----------

ToTK has decayed weapons, unlike BoTW. Some people are not a fan of weapons breaking but I never really cared, and I guess it helps that most of the weapons breaking now are ugly and decayed. Even though decayed weapons are weak, Tears of the Kingdom introduces the fuse ability so now you can really fuse anything to obtain with these weapons and create all sorts of outputs. You can attach a ruby for fire power, or attach monster parts for attack up. You can even attach weapons to each other. Though later in the game, and mostly in the depths, you can find regular, non-decayed weapons.

I think the main reason for the decayed weapons is just to get players to utilize the fuse ability early on, which I think is pretty epic. I love making both cool and goofy-ass swords and sticks! I also enjoy attaching flame and shock emitters to my shield despite it making the shield break more easily.

I thought that the Master Sword was disappointing at first. It is very weak compared to some other weapons (although, it does have the highest base attack stat than the other single-hand weapons without modifiers) and it has to be recharged after using it. However, again, the game developers just really want players to experiment with other weapons and fusing while not only relying on this Master Sword. If it were all-powerful and never were to break, what would be the point of having any other weapon in your inventory?

The purpose of the sword anyways is that it is the sword the seals the darkness, so it is a specialty weapon that is mainly supposed to be used against Ganandorf, and during that fight it IS the most powerful weapon Link wields.

----------

As much as I enjoyed the Divine Beasts from BoTW I do like the temples in ToTK. They are a bit short and more linear, but this fact makes it more like the traditional Zelda dungeons, which is not a bad thing. It was fun to move and manipulate the Divine Beasts and really tested players' spatial awareness and innovation. However, these temples in BoTW were more or less the same every time. In Tears of the Kingdom, each temple was distinct and blended well with the environment around it. I have seen that people found ToTK temples easier but to tell you the truth, I did struggle with some of them. In the Wind Temple, it took me forever to realize that I could enter the flying ship from its side!

I also prefer the horrifying gloom hands to the rather annoying guardians from BoTW. These gloom hands would always trigger a flight response in me and more often than not I would run for my life (I enjoyed the eerie audio and visual shift)! Even when you defeat the gloom hands, Phantom Ganon appears. Especially early on in the game, this combat is extremely difficult and the hands grabbing and pulling you is a terrifying sight. The Guardians from BoTW were challenging but once you recognize how to time a parry, it was not so bad.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ENJOYMENT: 10 / 10

I deeply enjoyed this game overall. I kept stalling myself from finishing it because I reeeeallllyyyyy did not want it to end. I am already longing for the feeling I experienced when I first begun the game. ToTK is 100% my favorite Legend of Zelda game. In fact, on my personal list, I would rank it #2 in my favorite video games of all time.

I highly recommend playing Tears of the Kingdom if you have not done so, especially if you're either a LoZ fan or someone who likes action/adventure video games. It is a very hefty game--I think the average person may spend 70ish hours if they just want to complete the main story, but it is easily more expansive beyond that.

TOTAL TIME SPENT: 230 hours

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

PLATFORM USED: Nintendo Switch

DATE OF COMPLETION: December 2023

#video games #totk #tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda #totk spoilers #totk review #video game review #nintendo #goty 2023 #sorry that this review is so long #but at least it's overwhelmingly positive!

4 notes · View notes

obsessivelollipoplalala · 1 year ago

Text

I have some criticisms of Tears of the Kingdom but most of the ones I see online are so forced, and so obviously from people who base their personality around being a contrarian about popular media online, that I actually don't even want to listen to any criticism anymore lol. Some people nitpick so hard and act like, "This minor criticism I have actually RUINS the game!1!!1" and it's just whiny.

"It's the same game as BOTW just with some sloppy extras added in!" The map is over double the size as the previous game with literal game-changing mechanics and you know this. Were people complaining this much when Majora's Mask reused all of those assets from Ocarina of Time? I think MM made it work, by the way, I'm just saying that game used a lot from its predecessor, and in terms of plot, it was less of a sequel to OOT than TOK is to BOTW.

"People are just on Nintendo's dick!!!" Have you ever considered that knee-jerk contrarianism isn't actually critical analysis, either? Lol

And then some of the criticisms are like, "This concept is boring after I played the game for 150 hours, therefore it's bad and boring!" Dude, how long do you think any game can possibly stay fresh? And the game is set up so you can play as much or as little as you want. When I felt finished with the game, I beat Ganon and put down the controller lol

#the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom

4 notes · View notes

loopy777 · 1 year ago

Note

Do you think we'll ever get another large scale, 3d zelda game with the kind of story progression and plot that was the norm before Breath of the Wild? Or is the increase in popularity with breath and its open world and story just so decisive that it's new method of telling a story is gonna be the new norm forever?

Well, if there's anything we can depend on Nintendo for, it's to really mix up their formulas out of nowhere. That's not to say they don't settle into comfortable grooves for a while with their various franchises, and I think the Zelda series is one of the more prominent examples of that. But there is a real appetite for innovation in Nintendo, something easy to forget when we only get the glimpses offered by their equally powerful need to polish things to a shine. Nintendo doesn't like to release half-baked things, and they try to pair their innovations and gimmicks with appropriate games and franchises.

That's not to say they don't have some epic misfires and bad decisions. But they have those because they like to experiment.

So I expect the Zelda series to use the BoW formula as a base for a while. Nintendo has never been as interested in plot and story as they are in game mechanics, but they made a big deal of having a voiced Ganondorf in the latest game, so I can see them playing up the characters some more and giving them some more story to chew on. It might just be a trickle added over a few games, but I can see it growing over time.

I think something that may help that along is the effort it takes to develop worlds the size of BoW's, especially as graphical complexity increases. Going more focused via a story, for at least some games, would be a way of creating more a guided gaming tour that doesn't need as expansive a setting.

Or we may even come to an age when games are too expensive to develop to only release a main game and some inessential DLC. Episodes heavily reusing existing assets might become the norm, and a serialized story would be one of the main selling points.

And that's not even speculating about how Nintendo now getting into blockbuster movie franchises might change the company in the long term...

#thekingofwinterblog

0 notes

halorocks1214 · 2 years ago

Text

here's the list maker if you want it

unhinged rambling under read more

Not played Tier

Self-explanatory. I was either a fetus or non-existent when most of these came out, and B&W 2 and Platinum I just never got because I didn't realize they were a thing during my child era of life RIP

Same Gen Games but the not better one /lh Tier

Also self-explanatory. These are just the ones where the box art didn't hit for me like the other one did lmao. I did play Alpha Sapphire and Sun tho because I could afford them and wanted the version exclusive pokemon and had no friends :,)

It's aight Tier

Let's Go, Eevee!: I think it's a cute game with cute mechanics, but it is a Mainline+Pokemon GO mix so it's not gonna be the best in the series. It achieves what it was going for, ya know? I also... still need to properly finish it so WHOOPS

Scarlet Tier

Pokemon Scarlet: So, here's the thing -> The discussion around this game is a mess. I am just one gamer with a decade-long hyperfixation; I am aware I'm biased. However, I think if Game Freak was allowed the time to properly work on a new Mainline title this would have been my favorite. I see so many people say Game Freak as a whole is at fault for stuff when they really aren't, it's the crunching the Devs are being forced into. I can see that the Devs tried their best under their stressed workload, like, the whole thing about Tikatons killing Corvoknights so the taxi bird needed to be different!! There was no need for them to do that or have that detail, they could have easily reused Corvoknight taxies and saved time on making models, but they wanted to make a new game with new experiences and changed it up anyway. This game could have easily been one-of-a-kind, but Game Freak just doesn't seem to understand that people are willing to wait a few years, and that will always be the most disappointing aspect to me :(

I should have named this tier "Justice For Game Freak Devs" tbh

My "First" Game Tier

Weird flex but let me explain

Pokemon (Shining) Pearl: Gen 4 was my first genuine pokemon game, and since the remake is somewhat of a carbon copy I just put it here for prosperity. One thing I dislike about trying to play older games is just how freaken LONG save times are, so Shining Pearl is a big help in allowing me to experience the game that got me into the mess that is the pokemon series <3

Pokemon X: I like to think this was my first pokemon game that I could truly experience myself and not need my mom to help Google walkthroughs all the time. It is the Gen that kinda started dumbing down the gameplay to make it easier for kids, but eh, I was always the person that liked the characters/stories more, not the actual gameplay. I know, absolutely scandalous of me. Also, Mega Evolutions? BANGER IDEA and I hate that Game Freak's line of thought was "let's make new ideas sort of like Megas" instead of "let's make more Megas in the new games" >:[ (PS Fennekin best starter I don't make the rules)

Peak Gameplay Tier

Pokemon Moon: I considered Gen 7 my fave for a long time (not anymore which I will get into) because of how different everything was. No more HMs, the Trials were an awesome idea, the characters and stories SLAPPED. Plus, some of my favorite pokemon ever came out of this Gen, so yea. Game good

Pokemon Omega Ruby: X might be nostalgic for me but the Gen 3-makes are in all honesty better games. It had everything that made Gen 6 awesome and also a killer story along with it. It could also be that ORAS is fresher in my memory compared to X, but being able to ride on Latios; did you ever consider that?

BASED Tier

Pokemon Black: I did actually just start a new run-through of this game a few days ago (mainly in an attempt to get pokemon to eventually send to HOME before Bank closes, darn you nintendo for being dumb about ur old games), and maybe it's peer pressure, but Gen 5? Very good Gen :] Absolutely love the story and characters, the art is some of the best in terms of the era of 2D games, and I also have the faintest memory of experiencing euphoria at FINALLY. BEATING. GHETSIS. LORDT.

Pokemon Sword: LISTEN I completely understand why people rank this Gen so low, I get it, but trying to put this game lower just doesn't feel right personally. I love the Switch, so there could be some bias there in terms of this being the first Mainline game on the console, but it's also just because the characters/story hit my favorite tropes right dead center. Hop and Leon are still fucking incredible, also a lot of great pokemon that rank really high for me come frome here, and thanks to the anime I've come to appreciate the aesthetic that is dynamaxing and gigantimaxing. Plus the gym battle theme is the BIGGEST BOP OF ALL TIME. Always gets my adrenaline going like WOOOOOO

Legends Arceus: I always thought this game was amazing when I first played it, and when I recently went back to shiny hunt in it, I remembered even more why I like this game. It is such a fantastic direction to take the series in not only story but gameplay as well. Those boss fights were STELLAR. The Alpha Rapidash in the starting area was probably the first time a pokemon game made me feel genuine terror since like Gen 5. I sincerely hope Game Freak makes another Legends game and this wasn't a one-time thing. My hope is for either Raikou or Keldeo but the other ideas I've seen floating around aren't bad either ;)

Ultra. Tier

This is a product of me growing older if I'm to be real. When I first got Ultra Moon, I didn't really have too strong of feelings. I already was a big fan of Moon so my emotions piggybacked off of that. I like how the Trial bosses were different, Necrozma was pretty sick, but... really? Did this need to be an entirely new game? At full price? Why. Lusamine combining with the Ultra Beast was such a cool penultimate boss too, so while I like ultra Nebby and the location you fight it in as a concept, it's hard to beat a pokefied human, at least it was to teenage me (tho I still wish we could have fought her directly. That would have been even cooler lmao)

So, with that mess out of the way, I have to say that I am basic and Generation 8 is my favorite Gen over 7. Sword was such a fun title, the Pearl remake, while disappointing, is still a solid game plus I have nostalgia bias, and I don't need to repeat myself when it comes to Legends, do I? Gen 7 has what, games that would have been way better as DLCs and a Pokemon GO tie-in? In terms of main Mainline games, Moon is still in second place, but the surrounding games in the generation, unfortunately, made it switch spots with Sword :P

And there you have it, my arbitrary list of Pokemon games! :D Obligatory "this is my personal list and if you disagree you are valid and super cool" etc etc, also please play New Pokemon Snap that game is a blast and a half. Now I gotta go eat byeee

i got bored and decided to rank all the mainline pokemon games anyone want the list and an essay explaining my choices

#pokemon #my post

2 notes · View notes

sepublic · 3 years ago

Text

Kraid!

KKKKKRRRRAAAAAIIIIIIDDDDD

I was trying to avoid as much of Metroid Dread as possible to be surprised... But then I learned KRAID is back, in glorious HD as part of a mainline game and...

Oh, he’s beautiful!

Seriously, I’ve always wanted to see more of Kraid! Dude was one of the OG Space Pirates alongside Mother Brain and Ridley, who are present throughout the series; And as someone who is apparently Ridley’s Brother-in-Arms, I’m just really curious on what he could be like?

I doubt we’ll get much if anything in terms of personality, but that’s how Metroid games work anyway! Hopefully we get more lore on Kraid, how is he still alive? Does he have regenerative abilities, is he just really incredibly durable? An X-parasite imitation? Fake Kraid has grown up and this is Sclayd? Did the Chozo clone him, maybe even somehow resurrect him from a dead body, or even the afterlife considering their borderline mystical abilities???

Either way, that’s clever of the designers to have Kraid be restrained, as a meta explanation as to why he doesn’t just charge forward- Thus allowing the developers to start off with a traditional take on the Kraid fight... But since he manages to break an arm free in the trailer, the fight might progress and get more deadly, as Kraid becomes more free.

His neck brace will probably be the last to go, to show a sort of natural transition from the traditional style of Kraid fights, to a more modernized take and I am all FOR it! Everyone’s wondering if Ridley will return, but Kraid alone would MORE than make up for his absence, especially since Ridley is already so prevalent while Kraid has only gotten bread crumbs and the Brinstar Depths stage in recent years!

This is like a dream come true... And obviously Kraid is set up to fight Samus, but it’d be kind of neat to see an arc where him and Samus recognize a mutual enemy in the Chozo, and work with each other over it? Probably not, but I feel this would be more plausible than Samus and Ridley working together; A fun thought exercise I’d always entertained, but there really isn’t that personal vitriol between Samus and Kraid.

...I mean, there COULD be if Kraid takes Ridley’s death personally, but who knows, he might hold off on revenge just long enough for a practical escape! Regardless, I utterly adore just how gnarly and twisted this guy looks, it reminds me of Ridley’s Smash Ultimate renders that really modernize his look, breathe a new and alien life to it while still being the same! And the added, slimy body horror, borderline insectoid, like Smash Ridley!

But yes, I appreciate Metroid Dread taking the opportunity to be new, instead of trying to cater to the mainstream audience as an official return to pull them back, especially since we already had Samus Returns do that, especially with Proteus Ridley being thrown in! And with how Proteus was by far the best Ridley fight in the series, I can’t WAIT to see how Mercury Steam gives a new action to a Kraid boss battle!

And it looks like there might be a passageway behind Kraid that he’s guarding... Kind of like his previous appearances, I love Kraid being a giant guard dog- His girth and weight alone makes him an impenetrable wall! Plus he gives immovable object vibes, VS Ridley as an Unstoppable Force.

Ridley moves fast and aggressively leads the charge, while Kraid is less mobile, can’t even fit through most passageways; But holds down the fort and line of defense, tanking damage and shrugging it off compared to someone who heals from it!

Seriously, this is great seeing this under appreciated Space Pirate represented! I’ve always been salty about Meta Kraid being left out of Metroid Prime... And Kraid’s got a distinct identity of his own as one of the biggest bosses in the entire series by a long shot!

His big, colossal, green and chunky frame, that brutishness to Kraid, the size and brawn- It’s a nice contrast and foil to Ridley’ who is memetically huge in general, but from a relative standpoint averagely-sized as a boss, and MUCH scrawnier than the Awakened Behemoth; But he makes up for it wit speed and agility, flight, etc.!

Plus the concept of taking on a full-on Kaiju of the series, Metroid’s Godzilla... I always felt like there was a wasted potential to Kraid and how he stood out as a counterpart to Ridley’ more of the lumbering mountain to scale compared to the acrobatic Cunning God of Death! His Kaiju size, the way the ground could easily tremble from each footstep like Jurassic Park...

If Ridley is a Xenomorph, make Kraid into Godzilla and Rexy and every giant monster whose sheer scale inspires a horror based in awe, one that is huge and grandiose and demands attention and seizes all of it, gloriously basking in full view, in contrast to the more stealthy and subtle Ridley!

They’re both reptilian Space Pirates who debuted with the franchise, serve Mother Brain alongside one another as the two guardians to Tourian. And just like Ridley taking one of the recurring boss themes from Super Metroid and adopting it as HIS theme, Kraid seems to have done the same by Zero Mission!

Plus, Brinstar Depths, AKA Kraid’s Lair, is SUCH a metal soundtrack! It doesn’t necessarily apply to Kraid himself, but I feel like there’s an enigmatic personality hinted with the eerie, melodic tune of this theme... So as someone who’s tried to write him, mostly in my head;

What kind of person is Kraid? What archetypes and roles would he fit? As a more casual type of arch-nemesis, compared to the personal intensity of Ridley? A dumb brute, or smart in his own way? What personality and vibes would make Kraid’s Lair fit as a theme for him?

At the very least, I wonder if we’ll get Space Pirate lore, maybe even origins as to Kraid and Ridley’s species? They’re both huge dragons who took over Zebes... Could there be a connection between Ridley’s species and the Chozo? Will we get a bit of sympathy for Kraid, seeing him captured like an animal by the Chozo, perhaps to test experiments upon and clone?

Will Dread encapsulate the realization of just how much of a bigger scope villain the True Chozo are, experimenting on Kraid the way the Galactic Federation did with Ridley’s clone, another parallel between them? Will we explore the dark past of the Chozo, and a potential tragic look into Kraid’s species- So Samus has a better understanding of how her people have been terrible in many ways, even if that doesn’t at all justify Kraid the person’s actions?

Just... Imagine a storyline where Samus realizes that Kraid was made by the Chozo, or his species was, or they were genetically augmented or massacred, or something like that. Just a twisted moment of realization that explains but doesn’t justify. Which could lead to Samus and Kraid teaming up for a prison breakout at a pivotal moment, Kraid’s girth would make him a helpful ally.

Perhaps Samus could weaponize Kraid in the background to take the brunt of the True Chozo’s attacks, while she takes on the leader? Could he help with environmental terrain, blind to the background as a colossal feature of the environment, a kaiju briefly on your side?

Could we get a Kraid fight where he attacks from the background, instead of to the right? Will he ultimately die helping Samus- More for his own gain and revenge, but still? Maybe even leading to a reluctant salute from Samus as she recognizes them both as people captured, as experimented upon by the Chozo? Apologies for all of the fanon conjecture, my mind is racing...!

I think there’s SO much potential with Kraid and seeing him full, unadulterated HD glory... It’s glorious. It’s magnificent! This is a dream come true, and I hope Kraid finally starts to get the recognition he deserves! Even if he’s just A boss fight, I’m already sated and content here- And I can only imagine the new wave of fan content that will spawn for Kraid, as he’s recognized a defining moment of Dread!

Plus, I’d love to see people characterize and give lore to Kraid... All in all I am LIVING and in triumph here!!! I know I keep using this meme but

Literally this alone, just these shots... Are ALL I really want and need, in the end! Bless you Mercury Steam for this food, for breathing new life into this franchise while renovating what really needs it! I don’t even care if Kraid’s return is never really explained, I’m incredibly happy here!

This new design... It just FITS and works as a new, evergreen design for Kraid honestly! Compared to Ridley who is a lot more varied and arguably inconsistent, even with his Smash render... THIS is the new and definitive Kraid for me, now! I am having the time of my LIFE here!

Ridley the Cunning God has cheated death... is Kraid the Behemoth has reawakened!

(With the idea of Prime Kraid being reused for Metroid Prime 4... I’m wondering if we’ll begin to see an all new Kraid renaissance? 👀 More frequent content as Nintendo starts giving him and more appearances and attention, including in other media and advertising, alongside Ridley???)

#Metroid #metroid dread #kraid #Samus aran #speculation #ramblings

52 notes · View notes

mashounen2003 · 4 years ago

Text

Sonic opinions - 1

Honestly, I think it's time for me to give closure to the “Sonic fan phase” of my life. I’ll keep playing the games if they pique my interest, but in terms of the stories they tell and how their characters are portrayed, these games no longer appeal to me. The comic currently published by IDW isn’t complete garbage nor does it have so much drama and controversy surrounding it, in addition to having Whisper and Tangle, two characters I really like at least on a conceptual level, but the story and characterizations are leaving me deeply disappointed and sometimes fall even lower than the recent games written by Pontac & Graff, namely with regard to the characterization of Sonic himself.

The continuity of the TV series Sonic SatAM and the comics published by Archie was always the branch of the franchise that truly caught my attention and is my main source of inspiration for writing stories; in fact, SatAM was the way I found out about Sonic and became a fan in the first place. But this “North-American continuity” is already as dead as the Mega Man Legends saga, and it looks like the vast majority want to forget it as if each and every one of its elements and ideas inherently had just been a massive nightmare regardless of its execution by the writers. At best, the fandom currently sees this branch of Sonic as some silly “edgy” attempt to take the franchise seriously, something that may have been laudable but was always foolish and doomed to fail and is such a risky gamble that it's not worth trying again.

I'm also getting fed up with the Sonic fandom in general, despite sharing a lot of opinions with some individual fans. Yes, I know there are already many who have declared this for the most varied reasons, be it the “shipp wars”, something in Sonic or even the franchise as a whole suddenly becoming “cringe” due to a whim of a majority portion of the fandom, or the way Sonic reuses "hackneyed" tropes in an alleged demonstration of lack of originality; however, when someone gives Sonic the middle finger for this kind of reasons, they usually do it hypocritically.

No, what got me tired of the Sonic fandom is the way everyone becomes obsessed with picking one branch of the franchise, calling it "the true Sonic", claiming this is the only pure and genuine incarnation of the “soul of Sonic” (if there really is such a thing), marking as “foreigner” every character, concept or element from any other branch of the franchise, and demanding from the fans of those other branches to get on their knees and be thankful that the "True Fans (TM)" even allow them to stay in the fandom. Note that I’m not accusing fans of only one specific portion of the franchise: there are such people among fans of the videogames’ continuity, @skull001 being probably the worst offender, but there’s also that kind of people among the SatAM and Archie-Sonic fans, such as the “nostalgic” delusional pissbabies, blatantly homophobic and conservative, who are now supporting Twitter hashtags like “Rally4Sally” and “Udon4Sonic”. You may think this is actually something typical of all fandoms, but it’s not: this is truly something unique to the Sonic fandom; I don't see huge hordes of Mega Man fans bullying the Legends fandom or making fun of them for the way their favourite saga ended two decades ago; even in the Dragon Ball fandom, despite constant discussions about what is canon and what is not, there’s some kind of tacit consensus that GT and Super are two offshoots of the franchise, equally valid although not coexisting in one same fictional universe (although Shūeisha itself seems to officially support this view, which certainly helps prevent some discourse), while the only part of Dragon Ball universally despised (and rightly so) is Dragon Ball Evolution.

I'm sorry if this hurts some people’s sensibilities, but if I decide to write a story with any given set of characters, elements, concepts, setting, internal rules and whatnot, the only thing in my mind will be to write a mildly decent story. I'm not here to “honour” -let alone honour at all costs- some supposed legacy and traditions that some people say should be upheld by each and every Sonic content creator. And let’s be brutally frank: we’re talking about a franchise that started as platformer 16-bit videogames whose sole purpose was to show SEGA’s consoles were better and handled speed better than Nintendo's; SEGA never really intended to tell a story or portray its characters consistently, only later did the cast begin to receive more defined personalities and the games start telling stories because SEGA suddenly saw this would make them sell more, and even that varied wildly according to whatever seemed more convenient at the time; not to mention SEGA's unique habit of entering vicious cycles of failure and over-correction, where Sonic Team makes a few mistakes in a game that did everything else more or less well, SEGA throws away the entire game along with the foundations on which it was built and the story that was told by that game, Sonic Team makes a new game with absolutely everything replaced and makes mistakes again but those mistakes are different from those of the previous game, the process is repeated ad nauseam and no-one is ever satisfied with anything. A few Sonic fans trying to impose on every other fan a supposed single Sonic canon with some kind of official approval seal by SEGA & Sonic Team is something quite backward, because that single official canon almost never really existed, and if it does exist, it makes no sense and is internally inconsistent, dependent on the creation of new games, and very likely to be retconned, overwritten and modified at any time.

There are other "bad habits" of the Sonic fandom that have led me to break ties with them. One of them is the way many fans take one trait of a character, be it simply one of many facets of their personality or even a physical trait, and turn that into the entire personality of the character; many of those same fans are also massive hypocrites, complaining (albeit rightfully) about how SEGA oversimplifies Shadow into either “Sasuke the Hedgehog” or “Vegeta the Hedgehog”, but then they do the same as SEGA. One of the cases in which this is most evident is when they make Sonic's personality boil down to "gotta go fast" and "be a free spirit"; based on that, they denounce that Sonic saying "I would slow down for you" to one of his closest friends (even if Sonic and Sally weren’t a couple when he said that and/or you don’t support that shipp, it can be said she was at least one of his closest friends in the SatAM-Archie continuity) contradicts the very essence of the character, or they do something even worse: saying that "being a free spirit" means being away from your friends and not having "ties" (like... literal ties, made with ropes, the ones that are actually a bad thing) with anything or anyone. It's like when Goku is portrayed by Dragon Ball fans as far more insensitive than the actual way Akira Toriyama had conceived him and always wrote and portrayed him in his official work.

There are also the plainly disturbing ideas many fans seem to have about personal relationships, judging by the opinions they give about the relationships of Sonic and the rest of the cast. In addition to making everything revolve around vaguely defined words and concepts they throw right and left almost without thinking about their actual meaning, they also seem to believe that having friends and caring for them, or any kind of responsibility no matter what kind it is, is nothing but a drag, like rat-s*** stopping you on your way to "freedom" (this is just amazing: they say the entire Western canon is edgy and the British comic’s Sonic is a jerk, but if you think about this for a bit, these fans’ version of Sonic turns out to be even edgier and more of a jerk than Shadow in his spin-off videogame); in the case of Archie-Sonic, there are all the abuse apologists supporting Scourge and Fiona being a couple, even though you don’t need any “meta” analysis to see he’s (at the very least) verbally abusive towards her and had attracted her by posing as someone else in the first place.

9 notes · View notes

eat-the-richard · 4 years ago

Text

Why Super Mario Sunshine is kind of bad (and how to fix it)

It’s safe to say that in our current hellscape that there are few games in the Mario franchise with as strong of a following online than Super Mario Sunshine. And how could it not? It’s so unique and fun that most people could probably have a good time with it. But it’s interesting to note just how much this perspective has changed over time.

When Sunshine came out it was considered by some to be the black sheep of the series. Or at the very least a noticeable step down from 64. There’s quite a lot wrong with Mario Sunshine. While there’s a great game at the core of this thing, there’s certainly a few miles of paint-like goop to sift through.

What’s frustrating is that a lot of these problems could have been solved with just a bit more development time. Mario Sunshine was rushed. This can be observed even without prior knowledge, but it becomes plainly evident when you look at some of the prerelease videos. In some instances it doesn’t even resemble the final product. Even at E3 2002, just three months before launch, there are a lot of noticeable differences to the final product.

Because of this rushed development, a lot of corners needed to be cut to pad out the game’s relatively lacking amount of content. The result is a game that is fun and well designed in some instances but a complete and utter disaster in others.

The issues plaguing Mario Sunshine were emblematic of a Nintendo-wide issue. At the start of the GameCube’s life, many prominent franchises were rushed along development to meet strict deadlines to fill out the console’s thinning library and boost sales. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a textbook example. A lot of people had issues with that one too when it came out. Despite some clearly dumb points about the game’s art style, there’s definitely a lot to say about how Wind Waker pads out limited content. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Thankfully, in 2013, the Wind Waker received an HD rerelease for the Wii U. Alongside a hefty visual overhaul, there were many under the hood changes to make the game an overall smoother experience stemming directly from those 2003 critiques. Sailing is made way simpler and faster in this version and the Tingle-inspired back-half of the game is shortened significantly. These two changes alone make this version superior, at least to me.

In the years since, I believed that Sunshine could have benefited from a rerelease similar to Wind Waker. Not necessarily in terms of its visuals (which I think have held up rather well) but in terms of its structure. Some small changes to the way Sunshine progresses could really benefit it overall, and I believed, erroneously, that it was only a matter of time before it received this treatment.

But we live in a post-3D All Stars world, and Nintendo’s response is clear. They believe Mario Sunshine is perfectly fine as is. Just touch up some of the textures, give it a resolution increase, and you got yourself a solid product. And yeah, its still pretty fun like this. But its hard to look past the missed potential in refining some of Sunshine’s rougher edges.

Which is what I plan to outline in this video. If I were to be given the reigns to nosedive Nintendo’s current plans to revamp a 2002 GameCube game, what would I change? After a suitable amount of complaining, I’ll discuss a fan project that comes close to doing what I think Nintendo should do.

So sit back, relax and let me refresh your body and spirit.

The first changes I’d make have to do with the frame rate. It’s evident that Super Mario Sunshine was supposed to be a 60 frames-per-second game. Some prerelease footage even shows as much. But somewhere late in development, the framerate was capped at 30, making it the only 3D Mario Game post-64 to not reach 60. Using Gecko codes, it’s possible to unlock the framerate and play at a pretty consistent 60. It’s so consistent that it starts raising the question of why Nintendo didn’t implement this into the Switch rerelease. This code isn’t emulator exclusive either, it also works pretty well when used on Wii consoles. Also, a hypothetical rerelease using the source code wouldn’t even have to deal with this anyway. But it’s good that the game works so well like this even without more structural changes. I don’t really need to explain the benefit of an increased framerate, so strike that one down.

And with that out of the way, it’s time to outline the biggest change my hypothetical Mario Sunshine remaster would make. One seemingly small but with major ramifications towards the rest of the game. But first, some background.

Super Mario 64 took a pretty big risk back in 1996 by significantly changing the main objective of playing a platformer. It was no longer about clearing a level. You aren’t going through these areas to reach an end point. The objective is now to find certain major collectibles, in this case power stars. But the game doesn’t want you to collect all of them. I’ve heard a lot of discourse recently about the boot-out system, but even when I was a kid I realized that 64 kicked you out of every level not just to pad out game length but to keep you moving around the castle.

64 is always inviting you to explore new areas with a constant trickle of new content the more total stars you collect. At first, the amount of stars needed to unlock a new level are small. The first area of the castle has every level besides Bob-omb’s Battlefield locked behind a small star total. And the amount needed to progress onto the next full area with five more major levels is only 8. But these star totals gradually increase over time, requiring 30, 50, and finally 70 stars to unlock new content. But what stars you got never mattered, just how many in total. This allows for free exploration where the player doesn’t have to think about where their next objective is. For instance, exploring pretty much every cardinal direction of Lethal Lava Land will lead you in the direction of a star. And because it doesn’t matter which star you get, it allows players to choose how long they invest in each level. Are the constant treks up Tall Tall Mountain or Rainbow Ride annoying you? Well all those stars are completely optional, you just have to compensate by completing more of the other levels. It’s an ingenious system that allows for a lower total amount of levels to feel more rewarding.

Super Mario Sunshine is practically begging to be like this. In fact, for the first few hours, that’s exactly how it works. New levels are unlocked progressively through getting Shines. But it doesn’t work in quite the same way. These shine totals are never outlined to the player. It shows you that you’ll eventually be able to use the Rocket Nozzle and has objects like the pineapple blocking Sirena Beach to make you yearn for a Yoshi. But you’re not told when these things are to be unlocked; it just sort of happens. Which is fine, it definitely makes the game feel more mysterious. But it lacks that forward momentum of 64 where your end goal is always simple and in the back of your mind. Oh, I need 30 stars to unlock this big door. Sunshine doesn’t have this despite literally operating in the same way. But it still maintains the ability to slowly unlock content to players through playing more of the game, which is good. And importantly, which stars you get for these gates aren’t important, just that you’re getting them at all. And if the game stuck to this principle, that would’ve been great.

Except it didn’t.

After the rocket nozzle is unlocked and Pianta Village becomes accessible, your total amount of Shines is never relevant again. Instead, game progression is contingent upon completing mission 7 of every level. Not every shine is valued the same according to the game. The progression is far more linear than in 64. You can no longer choose to avoid the Chuckster mission. Or the Sand Bird mission. Or the teeth cleaning mission. Or racing Il Piantissimo three times. Or fighting Gooper Blooper three times. Or fighting Petey Pirahna twice. Or defeating these same Piranha Plant Gatekeepers five times. Or even chasing down and squirting on Shadow Mario E L E V E N T I M E S. There’s a lot of repetition here which would’ve been eased simply by allowing the player to avoid doing these missions wherever possible. 64 had similar situations of reused content, but it’s not as egregious when there’s no incentive to collect stars you don’t want to.

This structure is also weird because there’s a ton of extra missions in this game. Some of the game’s most, err, fun segments are hidden away in Delfino Plaza. These can be some pretty time-consuming tasks. You know what I’m talking about. But that’s not all. Every course also has some bonus shines. Every secret stage has an additional Red Coin challenge. There’s some “cleverly” hidden shines even within certain missions. There’s even a mission 8 to every level. Every level also has a 100 coin mission which, just to get it out of the way, should absolutely not spawn the shine somewhere 100 feet away from you AND boot you out of the level upon collection AND not be possible in every mission. Like c’mon, Mario 64 got this right on the first try. So Nintendo went out of their way to put all these extra shines in the game, and yet none of them matter towards game completion. Which makes me wonder what the point of completing them is supposed to be?

All this extra content, regardless of quality, would benefit from a system similar to Mario 64. In its current state, there’s not much of a reason to even bother with these extra missions, especially when some of them are of questionable quality. On that same token, there’s some pretty fun missions hidden in this extra content, and it’s a shame that they aren’t more important.

Well, with that...

B L U E C O I N S

I almost forgot about you!

Blue Coins are pretty despised. But in concept they’re pretty smart to put in a game like this. It’s kind of like the Red Coins but on a broader scale. They’re packed into every little tiny corner of the levels, giving players more of a reason to explore the pretty environments. And once you collect 10 of them, you get a Shine Sprite from the local beavers. If these Blue Coin shines counted towards a grand total for game completion, Blue Coins could give players a nice buffer to replace some of the games more questionable missions. But just like all of the extra content, Blue Coins matter not one iota towards finishing the game. So, the only reason to collect Blue Coins at all is if you wanted to collect them all.

And that’s precisely why people hate them. Because collecting all the Blue Coins is an absolute nightmare. Let’s not even talk about how cryptic some of these coins are because honestly I’ll be here all day. Let’s instead talk about how impossible it is to know how close you are to getting every Blue Coin in a level. You can intuit through previous levels that it caps out at 30 per level, but the game never tells you that. There’s obviously no Blue Coin tracker like there is for shrines in Breath of the Wild, so if you’re frantically darting around Noki Bay looking for the one coin you missed that's hidden inside a wall for some reason, you’ve only got GameFaqs and Jesus to help you at that point.

To top it all off, just like the 100 coins missions, it’s impossible to get every Blue Coin in every mission in a level. Some blue coins are exclusive to certain missions. And it’s impossible to know how many are exclusive, which ones are exclusive, how many exclusives you’ve gotten, how many exclusives you need. Must I continue? This process is a disaster and gives Blue Coins a bad name. If they were put in a game like Mario 64, I feel like these things would have much more of a positive reputation. But as it stands these things are so toxic they’ve been reduced to POW switch fodder in later games.

I think Blue Coins summarize the issue with the extra content pretty succinctly. In a game like Mario 64, they’re harmless. But in a game where none of it is tied to beating the final level, the only purpose they have is 100% completion. And 100% completion should never be the focus of 3D Platformers. Some players prefer playing to completion but there’s a reason why most don’t. Fully completing a game is a soul commitment as much as it is a time commitment. It’s saying to yourself that I am willing to go through all the unfinished, janky, and cryptic content Mario Sunshine has to offer all for the extensive reward of… a different end screen. So yeah, there is no reason to get 100% of Mario Sunshine’s content. Even completionists are going to be disappointed. Not only is this content useless towards Any%, it’s aggravating for 100%, since fully completing the game is so unrewarding.

So, how do we fix this issue? Well to do that, let’s take a look at a mod that, in my opinion, does exactly that: Super Mario Sunburn, made by Epicwade.

The biggest change Sunburn makes is in its requirements for completion. Rather than Bowser being locked behind completing the seven Shadow Mario shines, the door to Corona Mountain is opened when the player attains 70 shines overall. If you recall, that’s the exact same amount 64 requires of the player to reach the final level. This change, by itself, adjusts Sunshine more towards what I would like it to be. But if you’re crazy enough to prefer the previous mode of completion, it’s still there as an option.

That’s not all, though. Now, when you collect a Shine, you’re no longer booted out of the level, and instead are simply asked to save and then you’re free to explore the rest of the level. My feelings on this essentially boil down to which mission I’m playing. I think the first two shines of Bianco Hills show this working pretty much perfectly. You squirt on the gatekeeper to get the first shine and then you’re immediately free to go forward and fight Petey Piranha. This feels far more natural than having to get booted out after the first shine and make the entire trip through the first half of Bianco Hills just to get back to where you just were. So in this case, it’s a positive.

However, Sunshine very often changes its course layout per mission. And when that happens, it feels a bit unnecessary to have to boot out of a level manually and boot back in just to get the next event to trigger. Sometimes you can chain getting a bunch of shines out in the open with a secret stage which resets the level upon entering the newly placed warp pipe at the end of it. But otherwise you’re stuck pausing and exiting. I feel this issue may be able to be streamlined by doing something like Mario Odyssey does, where collecting certain Moons boot you to the beginning of the level with the new mission unlocked. This might be outside of the reach of Sunshine modding at the moment, though.

This isn’t the only change set to make Sunshine more open. One of my favorite parts of the original game was that you could see other levels whenever you looked around. Turning at the start of Bianco Hills and being able to see not only Delfino Plaza but also the yet to be unlocked Ricco Harbor and Pinna Park was fascinating to me when I first played it. Sunburn takes this concept one step further by allowing players to travel from stage to stage. For instance, taking the river in Bianco Hills spits you out Ricco, and climbing a vine in Ricco allows you to travel back. This is a pretty novel idea and definitely makes replaying the game an entirely different experience, especially when combined with the lack of boot out. It does lose me a bit in how it necessitates for every level to be unlocked at the start. As I mentioned previously, slowly unlocking stages to the player by collecting whatever collectible they’re using allows for 3D Platformers to have constant forward momentum, which is lost here. But for those who’ve already played the game I think this is a fun option.

Other quality of life changes are strictly positives. In most instances, Blue Coins are now accessible from any mission in a level. I say most because it’s impossible for some of these coins to make the transition. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s been done. More coins have been added to each stage, along with Red Coins counting as collecting two coins just like in 64. This makes getting 100 coins a lot easier, especially when you’re doing multiple missions of a stage in a row. Two of the game’s weakest sections become far more manageable with these changes. There’s some smaller changes too, like being able to skip cutscenes, Blue Coins no longer bringing up a save screen, and Shadow Mario’s invisible health bar being restored. There’s also new content here, with additional secret stages being accessible from the main courses. Nothing mind-blowing, but it’s at least pretty neat to run around Outset Island as a FLUDD-strapped Mario.

Super Mario Sunburn addresses a lot of my issues with the original version, which was exactly the point. I’m not the first to bring up these issues, nor will I be the last. There’s so much potential within Super Mario Sunshine to be one of the best examples of its genre, so to see it fall short in such fundamental areas is undeniably frustrating. As usual with Nintendo, and even with other publishers, it’s often the community that sees itself to correct the issues with the games they feel deeply passionate about. Basically the only difference between Sunburn and an official Sunshine remake or remaster would be a significant layer of polish. That still might happen, but I’m not holding my breath at this point. So if you find yourself feeling similarly as I do about Sunshine, it might be worth it to check Super Mario Sunburn out. Here’s the download link again if you’re curious.

#mario #super mario sunshine #nintendo #essay #rom hack

3 notes · View notes

titusmoody · 4 years ago

Text

Ranking the SM64 levels

3 Bob-omb Battlefield: I’m starting the list with my third favorite because I can explain every other level in terms of this one. This is easily the most impressive level in terms of design. SM64 sorts its levels into “chunks” that connect in various ways. The exact borders between chunks and how finely we chop the level up into different chunks doesn’t quite matter. I find I like chunks better if they 1) interconnect so you can get to multiple different chunks from wherever you are. Bonus points if the game uses the Y axis to create some one-way connections like Bob-omb battlefield’s bridge that spits you back out near the beginning of the level if you fall. Extra bonus points if you can use some precise jumping to get around those limitations. 2) Has its own distinct element, either visually or mechanically, like the little area with the mounds when you climb up the very first ramp in Bob-omb battlefield. 3) Contains a pretty clear “first star route” to one specific other chunk, like the path up the ramp at the beginning, or the mountain “weenie” that you can see a path to when you get beyond the chain chomp and bridge. 4) There are at least a couple chunks that the first star route doesn’t touch at all, but you can still see. Both the area with the stumps you can run in circles around as well as the floating island you can see from your ascent up the mountain are good examples. The only reason this isn’t #1 on my personal list is because it is focused mainly on beginners who have literally never encountered a 3d game before. Climbing the mountain and freeing the chain chomp are both great, and the mountain contains plenty of opportunities to get up faster using more difficult jumps. On the other hand, it uses the wing cap and fairly precise cannon aiming, the first and second least fun things in the game.

Now, onto the worst levels:

15 Dire, Dire Docks: While swimming isn’t as awful to control as I remember it being when I was a kid, it’s still not great. This level uses currents to suck you towards death pits in a couple places, which isn’t fun. A few of the stars either include or are mostly built around having you navigate the weak end of the current, and there’s just nothing good about it. Plus, what’s the deal with water levels having segments connected only by lengthy narrow tunnels? Probably a loading thing, but it doesn’t help the design. The not-underwater part of this level is only used to make you do cycle-based pole jumping which is even worse than the death currents.

14 Tiny-Huge Island: Eh, this was such a creative idea for a level that I don’t begrudge it for not working. This level has chunks that only connect if you are the appropriate size, which is a good idea. Around half the things you need to do to get the stars are pretty good, too. However, big mario is just too big. If you turn at the wrong time you go into sliding down mode and there’s never a platform big enough for you to get your balance before falling off the mountain to your death. The level also feels a little unvaried. The chunks aren’t distinct and reuse the same few elements throughout without getting more challenging as you progress along the “first star route”.

13 Tall, Tall Mountain: This is one of two linear levels in the game, and is by far the less interesting. SM64 approaches linear levels as spirals upwards. In this case, around the mountain. I think there’s only a single place where you can take two different routes up. There’s not a lot to say. The platforming feels perfectly fine throughout the ascent. The slide is the most well-hidden place in the game, and I might have gotten frustrated looking for it if I hadn’t seen speedruns. This may have been ranked a little higher if it weren’t for the star that requires the most precise cannon aim in the game.

12 Cool, Cool Mountain: It’s a neat idea to start at the top of a level and be asked to descend in various ways. I think the problem is that too much of what you’ll actually be doing is trying to precisely control your slide down the same stretch and jump away at exactly the right place.

11 Rainbow Ride: This level isn’t structured like any other in the game. There are two points where the main path branches--once into three and the other time into two--but none of those branches reconnect, so it’s more like a path with a few self-contained sections off of it. I like the platforming quite a bit in this level, but don’t like how disconnected everything is from everything else. The main problem, though, is that the main path consists mostly of waiting around on a magic carpet with nothing to do but the occasional trivial jump. The difficulty of the platforming this late into the game means that deaths will happen, and it’s really a detriment that there’s no way around waiting on the carpets.

10 Lethal Lava Land: This level gets credit for being exactly what the game needed after the first set of levels + the first boss. Going into the basement for the first time and encountering a completely flat level is a big surprise, and the tiny safe paths surrounded by lava make the level look extremely perilous. The level is actually pretty tiny, which leaves each chunk with only enough space for one (1) thing to do. The interior of the volcano sure does add a lot, though. It’s like a miniature Tall, Tall Mountain with only a couple of stars.

9 Hazy Maze Cave: This level is pretty okay. The clumps are separated from each other by corridors and doors, which is why it seems like a “maze” but if you smushed them together the layout would be pretty typical. The clumps might be the most varied between each other, too. And this is the only level that contains a mini-level that unlocks a different cap.

8 Shifting Sand Land: The pyramid is cool. Having successive stars where you’re asked to: get to it, explore the inside, then find the secret entrance with a boss is unlike anything else in the game, and it’s neat. Things aren’t as interesting outside the pyramid, but there’s just barely enough there with enough variety to keep things fine. The outside is probably about as good as Lethal Lava Land, and the pyramid is vastly better than the inside of the volcano.

7 Jolly Roger Bay: Okay, I lied a little bit about Shifting Sand Land. In Jolly Roger Bay, there is one star you get by swimming into a sunken ship and hitting something that makes the water drain out. And if you’re thinking about it, that must mean that the ship was resurfacing. Sure enough, when you go back in for the next star, there’s a ship on the surface now! I think that is a little like the pyramid situation, though not quite as cool. This one ranks higher because it’s the only other level outside of Bob-omb Battlefield that feels like a playground where you can basically do anything that seems fun without penalty and if you do well, you’ll be rewarded. Unfortunately, it does the same long, narrow tunnel thing as Dire, Dire Docks. It’s also too easy to be particularly interesting, but of course with its placement in the game, it should not be any more difficult.

6 Thwomp’s Fortress: Most people’s second level, I assume. Does a good job at establishing patterns so that you know that Bob-omb Battlefield isn’t just a fluke, the whole game is that way. It’s a little on the small side, and the platforms that retract into the walls result in a lot of deaths that feel cheap for being so early in the game, but aside from that, it’s all pretty solid.

5 Wet-Dry World: Like with Lethal Lava Land, the game knows exactly what to hit us with to open up a new area after a boss. The goals become a lot less obvious here. There is no obvious “path” that leads through the chunks, so you’re mostly on your own. On the other hand, this is another level that doesn’t punish you for doing things wrong, it’s just more picky about rewarding you than earlier levels.

4 Snowman’s Land: More linear and more punishing than Wet-Dry World, SM64 knows when to break its established rules and when not to. This level does pretty much everything right. I particularly like that they brought back the “bullies” from Lethal Lava Land with the added challenge of ice physics, the hidden area in the igloo, and using the penguin as a shield against the wind.

2 Big Boo’s Haunt: This one uses the normal level approach to make the level feel like a real place. The separate, self-contained rooms would be too limiting, but the connections between the first, second, and third floor and the doors between rooms, plus the balconies make it just as nicely interconnected as everything else. In fact, the balconies in particular are clever real-world examples of ways that actual places have similar designs to SM64 levels. Most of the game is openly and even proudly abstract and artificial. The tension between realistic spaces and interesting level design is still being played out in games today, but here in 1996 we already see that Nintendo already knew what they were doing.

1 Tick Tock Clock: Here’s the other linear level. Based on the criteria I laid out right at the beginning, it seems like a linear level couldn’t be placed this highly, but although I’ve only mentioned “platforming” in passing so far, that really is the absolute core of the game. You run and you jump. If those two things didn’t feel good to do, SM64 would be a bad game regardless of how great the level design is. Tick Tock Clock gives you nothing but opportunities to run and jump well. If it’s like any other part of the game, it’s like being outside the castle right when you start, while you’re figuring out what the controls are. Only now, you already know how to do everything you need to do to beat the game, and you get a chance to do a lot of it.

3 notes · View notes

antialiasis · 5 years ago

Note

Hello. I read your post about the National Dex, which I liked so much I reblogged, and I was hoping I could ask you a question. There's this prevailing argument that "the models are re-used from previous games" and I've seen evidence that both contradicts this argument but also supports it. Do you know what the truth is? Are the models re-used? And if they are, do you think this fact actually deserves as much vehemence as it's getting, or is it not a big deal?

The models for the old Pokémon are clearly reused. This was pretty obvious from the first time we saw footage from the game, and was also pretty inevitable before the game was even announced. I don’t know if you saw my earlier post talking about Pokémon’s scope problem (or the various other posts that have gone around talking about the same thing), but it is obviously ridiculous and infeasible to expect them to remodel several hundred Pokémon from scratch for every new game or generation. The very idea is nuts. Before they moved to the 3DS they made future-proof high-poly models with a sensible number of generic animations specifically so that they could continue to use those models in later games on later systems, because if they couldn’t they’d have to spend ridiculous amounts of time and money each time just remaking the models/animations instead of actually working on the actual game. When the Pokémon designs inherently remain the same, and the models are detailed enough, it would be ludicrous to throw them all away and start from scratch just for the principle of the thing (dear people who expect that from them: what even).

So when that one interview came out indicating they had to redo the models, my reaction was “Uhhh, that doesn’t really make any sense”:

Some rumour then started that bizarrely claimed that somebody’s uncle who works at Nintendo (figurative language, I don’t remember exactly how they claimed to know this) said they screwed up an importer program and it destroyed all the models so they had to remake them from scratch. This doesn’t make any technical sense; even if they made an importer that didn’t work properly, it’s not like it’d somehow destroy the model files they already had, and clearly when the alternative is manually remaking a thousand models, you’re instead going to figure out what’s wrong with the import program and fix it.

I’ve since vaguely heard third-hand that it was a funny translation and what they were talking about was probably just in terms of the textures/maps, which would make sense they’d have to redo given Sword and Shield use a new lighting engine. (Disclaimer: I am not an expert on 3D modeling, but based on what I know, that seems like it’d make sense). Again, I heard this very vaguely from a friend, and I don’t speak Japanese and can’t vouch for whether the translation was reasonable, but either way it sounded pretty vague, and all in all I strongly got the impression there was a misunderstanding going on at some level in that interview. There is no way they were actually claiming they had to redo the wireframes from scratch. Anyone can see that they didn’t, and this was kind of obvious even at the time.

So all in all, I’m completely unsurprised by the grand revelation that yes, the wireframes are largely identical. Of course they are. Of course they reused the models, because these models were specifically built to be reused so that the scope problem could remain vaguely manageable. I am not in the least bit upset that they reused the models; I expected them to reuse the models. If they actually tried to claim that they didn’t, that’s some bullshit, but I lean strongly towards “some sort of miscommunication happened there” and not “Game Freak are just lying liars who lie, pointlessly, about something obviously false”.

#pokemon #pokemon swsh #fandom discourse #thenorthernphoenix

30 notes · View notes

wolfgabe · 5 years ago

Text

rI am not exactly a big follower of Pokemon but in a way it kinda makes me sad seeing Gamefreaklied trending on Twitter especially after seeing all the #ThankYouGameFreak posts trending. Just when I thought people were actually starting to lighten up a little here comes the GameFreakLied hashtag all because apparently the models are not entirely original after all which reminded me of two relatively insightful posts on the matter from a blog I have been following called askagamedev. He is basically a legitimate developer who answers questions about video game development and the like and I highly recommend him if you wanna get some good insight into game development and the industry in general

https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/186632316431/what-do-you-think-about-the-pokemon-sword-and

https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/186632974686/ok-but-the-models-for-the-older-pokemon-in-the

I think his posts regarding the development process for Pokemon models help provide greater context to Game Freak’s explanations. Reusing older assets from previous games to help save time is hardly anything new really. While yes the base models are probably from the 3DS everything else about the models likely had to be redone from scratch. That includes new textures to better fit the Switches higher resolution, shadow maps, shaders etc. Considering the situation Game Freak is in it makes sense from a development perspective as only having to make new textures and maps is far less of a time sink than having to build new models entirely from scratch. I don’t think Game Freak truly lied in the sense that they just lazily copied over 3DS assets. Askagamedev explained how when transitioning to new hardware its often expected that what worked on the older system may not work on the new one at least not with a good deal of rejiggering. One good example would be how the Switch handles lighting compared to the 3DS. From my understanding the 3DS models mainly used baked lighting since the 3DS was not capable of dynamic lighting in the transition to switch models now require a proper light map in order to look correct on the newer hardware.

And heres the other thing if Gyardos needs new textures then that also means new normal maps, shadow maps, shadow masks shaders etc. and if Gyrados needs all those thing all the other Pokemon need it too. Now when you consider having to do this for 800+ models one can see where it can quickly start to get out of hand. Among devs this is referred to as multiplicative scale which if not careful can quickly grow out of control in terms of scope. Its pretty telling really how pretty much every other developer AGD has spoken with on this was surprised they didn’t scrap the national dex sooner.

I cannot help but feel sorry for Game Freak I know this decision probably was not an easy one and while yes its easy to knock them for not delaying their game and improving it remember Animal Crossing New Horizons wasn’t part of a larger media franchise under pressure to coincide with so many other things including an anime, toyline, films, and of course a new series of Trading Cards on top of the fact Nintendo is no doubt riding on this game heavily as their big title for the 2019 Holiday season. The whole National Dex fiasco is why I often consider Pokemon Sword and Shield a textbook example of what happens when fan entitlement meets reality. As Askagamedev explains this situation was inevitable since Game Freak cannot stop adding new Pokemon their most viable choice really is to stop supporting every single Pokemon forever as sucky as that may seem.

I can’t help but feel sorry for the people who are attacked and shame simply for wanting to enjoy the game. I get that people are upset but constantly lashing out at the developers does little to solve anything. Its quite sad really seeing the Pokemon fanbase turn into as a friend of mine put it the Sonic fanbase but what I think makes it worse is that I am now starting to see aspects of the worst parts of the Star Wars fandom

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #game freak #askagamedev #thoughts

10 notes · View notes

raccoonfootproductions · 6 years ago

Text

My Most Wanted Remixes in Smash Ultimate

With so many good remixes for the game being revealed lately (with a new arrangement of Kirby Air Ride’s “City Trial” being the latest, at the time I write this), I thought I’d make a list of what I personally want to hear that I haven’t heard yet...

NOTE: I might add more later if I remember some I forgot. For now, these are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head.

Super Mario 3D World - Main Theme

I know everyone’s into Super Mario Odyssey these days and I’m sure that’ll get some remixes, but I feel like we could use some new arrangements of 3D World’s music too. Its main theme was catchy as heck and I’d love to hear a new take on it.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest - Crocodile Cacophony

Assuming King K. Rool makes it into the roster, this would be perfect for his theme. Even if he’s not in the roster, it’d still be nice to have in the game. The Donkey Kong Country series as a whole is pretty lacking in Smash representation in terms of music, so stuff like this would make up for it. We’re already getting a new arrangement of what’s apparently Dixie Beat from DKC3 (heard in Diddy’s character trailer), so let’s keep going and add even more!

Donkey Kong 64 - ANY OF THE MUSIC

Other than the DK Rap (which is once again shortened for Ultimate...), the wonderful soundtrack for this game hasn’t gotten any love in any Smash game.

Earthbound - Pokey Means Business / Giygas Battle

Who wouldn’t want a new arrangement that fuses a rockin’ final boss theme with a downright demonic one? Earthbound had one of the most memorable final bosses in a Nintendo game (partly because of how horrifying it was), so I think Smash should show it some love somehow.

Wario Land 3 - Out of the Woods

One series even less musically represented than DKC is Wario Land. Aside from the ruins theme from Wario Land: Shake It! being reused in Smash Wii U, this series has always been ignored in favor of WarioWare music. If I could have this fixed with just ONE new arrangement, it’d have to be of Wario Land 3′s first level theme. It’s probably the most recognizable theme in the series, to the point of being remixed for two Mario Tennis games.

Sonic the Hedgehog - ANYTHING

SERIOUSLY. Why have we not gotten an original arrangement of any Sonic music since the Angel Island Zone theme in Brawl? I can only assume it was because Sonic was added to SSB4 at the last second, but they better make up for that in Ultimate...

#super smash bros ultimate #super smash bros #nintendo switch #super mario #donkey kong #earthbound #wario land #sonic the hedgehog

7 notes · View notes

yeah-yeah-beebiss-1 · 7 years ago

Note

considering how much Nintendo has as of late been reinventing their series in unique, although common grounds such as with Odyssey and BOTW, do you have any predictions what that will mean for the Pokémon mainline title on the Switch? Or more so what would you personally like to see?

Honestly, I hate to be gloomy about it, but I’m not terribly optimistic about the mainline Switch Pokemon (or at least the first ones), mostly because I don’t feel like I can trust Game Freak to release a finished product at this point. The devs absolutely put a lot of heart and effort into making Sun/Moon a bold step in new directions for the series, but they still pushed it out the door pretty early to hit a 2016 release for the whole 20th anniversary thing, so SM had all these chunks of half-finished plot points and locations and characters (Mina, Ryuki, Wela Volcano Park, the minimal postgame, etc.). Then a year later they literally just copy-pasted the games, added some new minigames and changed the last 20% of the game, and didn’t bother fixing most of the stuff that was cut for time the first go ‘round - and they had the balls to charge another $40 for it.

So when I hear all this talk that they’re shooting for a 2018 release for the Switch game, it leaves me pretty worried. Assuming that Switch dev kits have been in the hands of Nintendo’s second-parties since early 2016 or so, these games will have been in active development for about two years tops, and it’s the first time on a new platform so they don’t have any assets they could reuse. That doesn’t paint a great picture in terms of them being able to create a fleshed-out game with playability beyond the main story, and the continued stellar sales of the 3DS titles have proven that there isn’t much of a financial incentive to hold games back until they can reach their full potential because it’s Pokemon and we all buy it anyway.

What I’d personally like to see is Nintendo stepping in and taking a more direct role in the development of these games. Rather than letting Game Freak rush these games out with a comparatively tiny amount of manpower, they should be more proactive about providing the means to make these games all they can be - they did this for BOTW by bringing in Monolith Soft to shoulder some of the burden, for example, and 1-UP Studio for SMO. Between Nintendo’s internal dev teams and the second-party studios under their wing, they could absolutely split up the work more effectively so that they can release the game as conceived rather than cutting content and rushing it out the door. Failing that, the best thing I think they could do for these games would be to shoot for a 2019 release - focus on Metroid Prime 4 and Fire Emblem as the big 2018 tentpole releases and let Pokemon be the main event for 2019. The Switch has plenty of years ahead of it, so I’d rather they take their time and release a game that does the franchise justice rather than halfassing it just so that there can be a Switch Pokemon game as quickly as possible.

#Anonymous #customer support

54 notes · View notes

burgermiester · 7 years ago

Text

My favorite games of 2017

2017 was one of the most exciting years ive ever had in terms of video games. My two favorite series’ both had releases that I was highly anticipating, a new Nintendo system came out, and I generally discovered a bunch of games that I wound up loving enough that they broke my personal top 20 favorite games list.

5. I am Setsuna

Whats that you say? This came out in 2016? Well the Switch version came out this year and thats the one I played, so I am counting it. Anyway, I dont have a ton to say about this game that I havent said already. It’s greatest strength it its atmosphere. Between the somber piano pieces and the cold winter setting and the general topics covered by the main and side plots and character arcs, the game is very much pushing a main theme of sadness. But the game is never really miserable either, its a very mellow sadness that I have never seen another game really go for. If its spiritual sequel Lost Sphear (coming out next month) has as good of an atmosphere of its predecessor I expect it will be on my list for next year too.

4. Valkyria Revolution:

This is not just the most hated game on my list of favorite games of this year but its probably the most hated game I have ever put on a game of the year list. Even though I love the game I totally understand why its hated. It committed the cardinal sin of being a part of a cult classic series beloved for its one-of-a-kind combat system yet completely abandoning said combat system in favor of a boring action-rpg battle system. On top of that, it feels like it has a budget of about 45$ the way it constantly reuses models and environments. But I still loved it, and if you want to know the secret to my enjoying the game its that I treated it like a visual novel that occasionally wants you to hack and slash. and I do mean occasionally, theres probably one minute of gameplay for every 25 minutes of story. So at the end of the day I dont have a lot to say other than it was a story that I personally loved. I’m a sucker for interesting framing devices in fiction, and I really liked how the story here is told many decades later as a discussion between a teacher and her student where the broad strokes of the narrative are told to the player right off the bat: the good country beats the bad country, the valkyrie gets defeated, but the protagonist and his friends’ plotting is uncovered and they are all executed for treason. Seeing how these things unfold is exciting in its own way, and watching how the characters’ relationships grow and change with the ending always in mind is quite bittersweet. If you like visual novels I cant recommend this game highly enough.

3. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

A new Fire Emblem game came out this year, so its obviously going to be on my list. Surprisingly (to me at least) not at number one, but I was always going to be particular about this game considering how much I love Gaiden. The art, characters, animations, music, and story are all phenomenal, easily my favorite of the 3DSFE games in these regards, but the mechanical changes from Gaiden aside from quality of life stuff like game speed and the turnwheel are all, to me, for the worse. On the spectrum of 3DSFE games I think I liked it more than Fates but less than Awakening. But even though I dont like it as much as Gaiden, its still amazing and close to the best game I have played this year.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles 2:

Ive started to get the impression that this game is a bit divisive among Xenoblade fans so I apologize if this ruffles some feathers but I think Xenoblade 2 is a real triumph of a sequel that takes almost everything that the original classic did well and builds on it to make it even better. I loved the story, I loved the main characters, I loved the music, I loved almost all of the rare blades and finally after 3 games I finally really enjoyed the combat. I do have a few complaints, namely in regards to the weird gatcha system it uses to acquire most rare blades, but overall I cant really quite express how much I enjoyed this game. And at almost 210 hours, its easily my most played game of 2017.

1. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Oh boy oh boy. A game that came out in its original form back in 2006 is my game of the year in 2017. One thing that I need to make clear is that I did not enjoy the original XII. At all. I wont get into a whole tirade here but in general I felt that the things it did well were eclipsed by things that were boring and/or frustrating. Then I heard about the International Zodiac Job System and the massive changes it made to the game, all of which seemed like they would make me love the game. So I waited for the international version to be released...internationally. And I waited. And I waited. I waited all the way till 2017 when it finally came out in English with the addition of a shiny coat of HD paint on top. And it was totally worth the wait. Never in my life have I waited for something for close to a decade and not feel even an ounce of overhype backlash or disappointment except for this game. So for delivering on hype in a way no game ever has or probably will again, for taking one of my least favorite Final Fantasies and making it one of my favorites, and most importantly just being the most fun game I played in 2017, The Zodiac Age is my game of the year.

#personal #year in review #game of the year

11 notes · View notes