So Zelda for WiiU has been delayed indefinitely. According to this video, the development is going so well that the dev team is discovering all kinds of things they want to add to the game. This fleshing out and completing the game to perfection is the current goal. As such we will not be seeing Zelda WiiU until not 2015.
I am not surprised but I am disappointed. With the maintained lack of third party support Nintendo really needs to bring their A game to any in-house games they release. And with the luke-warm reception of Mario Party 10, they've already used their one "Ok, that one wasn't good, but all their other stuff is, so I'll keep buying" for the year.
As for the Club Nintendo closure, I'm sill frustrated that they didn't roll memberships of Club Nintendo into whatever the new loyalty program is going to be, but I am excited to see what kinds of mobile games are in the works.
I play a lot of mobile mini-games when I'm in between things, and don't necessarily want the extra weight of my 3DS with me. So I can easily see situations where I would want an iPhone/Android game that gives me my Pokemon/Zelda/Mario fix while still wanting and having the full or bigger versions on the 3DS. I know some people think that phone-based mobile games will be the death of handheld consoles, but I still like the separation.
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
Club Nintendo Closing
Nintendo is closing Club Nintendo. This makes me suuuper sad. I mean, I've been a member since before it was even called Club Nintendo.
I registered my GameBoy Advance SP alll the way back in 2004. It became Club Nintendo in 2009.
This was a great way for them to get feedback on Nintendo-published games. Plus, we got awesome loot for being their feedback/survey monkeys.
I still wear my 8-bit Mario t-shirt, I use my Pikmin tote as my lunchbag, the Platinum award several years ago was a sweet statue of most of the main characters from Super Mario.
As a consumer, I'm failing to see the downside to this program.
Further, it's clear they weren't planning on closing it until recently as fairly new games, like Pokemon AlphaSapphire/OmegaRuby have Club Nintendo codes that the expiration date isn't until 2018.
We have until March 31 (also the last day to register both 3DS and WiiU SSB to get Mewtwo) to get all our games registered, and then all codes expire. We have until June 30th to redeem our Coins.
Why, Nintendo, why?
I registered my GameBoy Advance SP alll the way back in 2004. It became Club Nintendo in 2009.
This was a great way for them to get feedback on Nintendo-published games. Plus, we got awesome loot for being their feedback/survey monkeys.
I still wear my 8-bit Mario t-shirt, I use my Pikmin tote as my lunchbag, the Platinum award several years ago was a sweet statue of most of the main characters from Super Mario.
As a consumer, I'm failing to see the downside to this program.
Further, it's clear they weren't planning on closing it until recently as fairly new games, like Pokemon AlphaSapphire/OmegaRuby have Club Nintendo codes that the expiration date isn't until 2018.
We have until March 31 (also the last day to register both 3DS and WiiU SSB to get Mewtwo) to get all our games registered, and then all codes expire. We have until June 30th to redeem our Coins.
Why, Nintendo, why?
Friday, May 9, 2014
2014 Most Anticipated Games
So Husband and I put our heads together and came up with the games we're most excited to see this year.
In no particular order they are:
- the Evil Within--looks to be Shinji Mikami taking survival horror back to its roots. Dark, freaky, and fucked to hell.
- SuperSmash Bros. WiiU/3DS--it's SSB. Of course we're excited. The introduction of MgeaMan to the franchise is just icing on the cake.
- Destiny--as big fans of Diablo and Borderlands, we're hoping Destiny gives us a way geek out over loot piles, while bringing a fresh perspective to the genre.
- Bayonetta 2--Crazy-ass action from Platinum. The first one was a lot of fun, here's to hoping this one lives up to the original.
- The Order: 1886--Because who doesn't want a steampunk shooter?
- Mariokart 8--Dear god, are we at the 8th installment already?
- PhantasyStar Online 2--We'll be excited if and when this one actually happens. I went through the effort of downloading and playing the Japanese edition last year, so I already know it's fun, I just want to be able to read the damn menus.
- Dreamfall Chapters--I am sure you, dear readers, are plenty smart enough to guess my excitement levels, considering this is the (probably) final installment of the series I named this blog after.
- World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor--We're WoW nerds. Don't judge.
- Pokémon Alpha and Omega--Remakes of the third gen Sapphire and Ruby. Hope they update it to include all the lovely things like the mystery trade from X and Y.
*sigh* and Husband says laundry needs to go get done, so while I'm off doing chores, feel free to post the games ya'll are looking forward to. Did we miss any?
BravelyDefault, First Impressions
So I picked up Bravely Default a few weeks back, and it has taken me until now to get far enough into the game to feel like I have a good grasp of all the mechanics.
Overall, it is a pretty straightforward J-RPG. If you don't like that genre, you probably won't like this game. Personally, I love me some J-RPGs.
The intro was gorgeous. Oddly, you trigger it with an AR-card that is printed on the back of the info booklet provided with the game. You can also download the initial one and some others from the Bravely Default website. I opted to watch the intro with the 3D on. This is the Right Way to start a tale. The narrator fairy (*cough*Navi clone*cough*) jumps out of the AR-card and starts begging you to rescue her friend and partner the Vestal of the Wind. The animation was extremely well done, smooth, and when you moved the 3DS around, you could see different portions of the character who was talking. It really gave the feeling of looking through a window into a different world where faries can just come hurtling at you, begging for help.
The overworld map and overall gameplay feel like an updated Golden Sun, which is enough to endear this game to me, as GS is one of my all time favorite games.
Core gameplay consists of selecting if you are going to attack or defend each turn.
Defending is called "Default." This builds up BP (Brave Points) which will allow you to attack up to 4 times in a single turn. When you select Default, you also take less damage from enemy attacks.
When you attack you have two options, "Brave" or normal attack. An attack uses one BP. You can go into "debt" by up to 4 BP. This is the opposite of storing BP with Default, although the effect of waiting 4 turns before your next move is the same.
So battles are a balance of do you think you can beat the baddie quickly or do you need to be cautious? I've found that I tend toward aggressive (going into BP debt) with my DPS characters, and conservative (storing BP with Default) with my healers.
Add to all of this an astoundingly complex class system called "Jobs" that allows any character to be any class, and you have a recipe for a game that is guaranteed to suck you in for hours at a time.
The last battle mechanic is called SP (Sleep Points) that are earned one of two ways:
You leave the game running for 8 hours in sleep mode (game launched but 3DS is closed)
Pay SquareEnix real money
Yes. You read that right. A full-price full-length 3DS game with goddamned micro-transactions. Not with PlayCoins, not in-game currency, real money.
You can only have 3 SP at any given time, so if you are like me, and leave the game you are currently playing running all the time in your GameBoy, it's easy to not pay. However, what I have not yet figured out is how to turn off the option to buy SP in-game. I hope it's just buried in one of the menus somewhere, where I haven't seen it yet. So any of you with childrens running around, turning off the micro-transactions is a feature you are going to need to dig for.
And what, you may be asking, makes SP so special that it costs real money? Well, it lets you attack with a single member of your party out of turn, even if they are in BP debt. That's it. That is the feature that is so special that they added micro-transactions to this game. Like so many micro-transaction options before it, if you use the SP, the game becomes several degrees easier. It's not quite pay-to-win, since all the SP in the world won't let you beat a boss if you are too low level, but it's close.
The final aspect that makes this game stand out from its peers is the use of StreetPass to help rebuild a city that was destroyed in the intro. People with StreetPass turn into members of the city, which you can then task to help rebuild different shops. This appears to be the way to access many of the more powerful weapons and armor in the game. Again, we have a downside. Not all StreetPass tags count. Only those from people who are also playing BravelyDefault. So give the game a year or two, and new players who don't pick games up when they are still expensive will have a very hard time rebuilding their town, which kind of sucks, given how integral to the game this mechanic seems to be.
As of this writing, I have just completed the Wind temple so I reckon I'm somewhere around the quarter way mark.
I'm not going to brief on story, as I'm not yet far enough in to be able to give a good synopsis without risk of spoilers. Suffice to say, I'm very curious how everything will turn out.
To sum up: if you enjoy games like Golden Sun or the Tales series, you should probably pick this one up sooner rather than later to get the full experience. If turn-based games annoy you, or if you don't make use of features like StreetPass, I would recommend skipping this one.
Overall, it is a pretty straightforward J-RPG. If you don't like that genre, you probably won't like this game. Personally, I love me some J-RPGs.
The intro was gorgeous. Oddly, you trigger it with an AR-card that is printed on the back of the info booklet provided with the game. You can also download the initial one and some others from the Bravely Default website. I opted to watch the intro with the 3D on. This is the Right Way to start a tale. The narrator fairy (*cough*Navi clone*cough*) jumps out of the AR-card and starts begging you to rescue her friend and partner the Vestal of the Wind. The animation was extremely well done, smooth, and when you moved the 3DS around, you could see different portions of the character who was talking. It really gave the feeling of looking through a window into a different world where faries can just come hurtling at you, begging for help.
The overworld map and overall gameplay feel like an updated Golden Sun, which is enough to endear this game to me, as GS is one of my all time favorite games.
Core gameplay consists of selecting if you are going to attack or defend each turn.
Defending is called "Default." This builds up BP (Brave Points) which will allow you to attack up to 4 times in a single turn. When you select Default, you also take less damage from enemy attacks.
When you attack you have two options, "Brave" or normal attack. An attack uses one BP. You can go into "debt" by up to 4 BP. This is the opposite of storing BP with Default, although the effect of waiting 4 turns before your next move is the same.
So battles are a balance of do you think you can beat the baddie quickly or do you need to be cautious? I've found that I tend toward aggressive (going into BP debt) with my DPS characters, and conservative (storing BP with Default) with my healers.
Add to all of this an astoundingly complex class system called "Jobs" that allows any character to be any class, and you have a recipe for a game that is guaranteed to suck you in for hours at a time.
The last battle mechanic is called SP (Sleep Points) that are earned one of two ways:
You leave the game running for 8 hours in sleep mode (game launched but 3DS is closed)
Pay SquareEnix real money
Yes. You read that right. A full-price full-length 3DS game with goddamned micro-transactions. Not with PlayCoins, not in-game currency, real money.
You can only have 3 SP at any given time, so if you are like me, and leave the game you are currently playing running all the time in your GameBoy, it's easy to not pay. However, what I have not yet figured out is how to turn off the option to buy SP in-game. I hope it's just buried in one of the menus somewhere, where I haven't seen it yet. So any of you with childrens running around, turning off the micro-transactions is a feature you are going to need to dig for.
And what, you may be asking, makes SP so special that it costs real money? Well, it lets you attack with a single member of your party out of turn, even if they are in BP debt. That's it. That is the feature that is so special that they added micro-transactions to this game. Like so many micro-transaction options before it, if you use the SP, the game becomes several degrees easier. It's not quite pay-to-win, since all the SP in the world won't let you beat a boss if you are too low level, but it's close.
The final aspect that makes this game stand out from its peers is the use of StreetPass to help rebuild a city that was destroyed in the intro. People with StreetPass turn into members of the city, which you can then task to help rebuild different shops. This appears to be the way to access many of the more powerful weapons and armor in the game. Again, we have a downside. Not all StreetPass tags count. Only those from people who are also playing BravelyDefault. So give the game a year or two, and new players who don't pick games up when they are still expensive will have a very hard time rebuilding their town, which kind of sucks, given how integral to the game this mechanic seems to be.
As of this writing, I have just completed the Wind temple so I reckon I'm somewhere around the quarter way mark.
I'm not going to brief on story, as I'm not yet far enough in to be able to give a good synopsis without risk of spoilers. Suffice to say, I'm very curious how everything will turn out.
To sum up: if you enjoy games like Golden Sun or the Tales series, you should probably pick this one up sooner rather than later to get the full experience. If turn-based games annoy you, or if you don't make use of features like StreetPass, I would recommend skipping this one.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Lego Marvel Heroes Review
So my super sweet husband gave into my begging and got me Lego Marvel Super Heroes for WiiU. Yes, I could have gotten it cheaper on DS, and yes, he could have gotten it for his Xbox 360 and actually gotten the achievement points for it, but dammit, I wanted a WiiU game. The poor console had been barely used since I finished Pikmin 3 earlier this fall. And this makes me sad because I like my WiiU.
I should also note that I played primarily on the GamePad. The switching between the TV and the gamepad wasn't as smooth as it is for Nintendo titles, but it was still easy. I didn't have any lag. The gamepad's battery survived being played almost constantly Saturday and Sunday.
I'll admit, I've been a fan of the X-men comics and cartoons since the early '90's but didn't know much Marvel lore overall until the Marvel Universe movie series started. So, I'm a little bit late to the game.
As such, I can't really speak to how true the game is to the comic-version of the Marvel world, but I do have to say there was something unbelievably awesome swinging around Manhattan as Spider-man, or starting at street level and flying up to the helicarrier as Ironman or Thor.
The story was good if a bit predictable, [spoilers]Loki is the bad guy again, and it used the same MacGuffin as the Avengers movie, the Tesseract., which having seen Thor, The Avengers, and Thor: The Dark World felt overused.[/spoilers] The plot did manage to move forward well, though I wish we would have had more options for which characters to use during the initial play through of each level. The first time you play a level, the game assigns which characters will be needed to complete that level successfully, and so there is little exploration initially. This causes the linearity of the levels to stand out and start feeling old by the end of the game. This was, however, offset by the free play mode that is unlocked for any just-completed level. The free play mode allows for on-the-fly switching between characters during the level, allowing for maximum exploration based on needed abilities and skills.
Second admission. I've never played a Lego game before. This was my introduction to the franchise. As such I found the mechanics easy to learn, although some areas gave far too many hints (Agent Coulson I'm looking at you) and others were trial and error until you found the right piece of the background to break apart and turn into a useful item. I liked the mechanics of building a shield for Captain America to stand on to aim lasers, and a 4 for Mr. Fantastic to use to turn into a special item/action.
I found the controls to be a bit fidgety. It felt like each button did too many tasks, too few of which were context-dependant. For example, if you were Ironman, a double tap of b was fly. Then holding B was go up, and holding A was go down, with a double tap for land. But if you held the left thumbstick in the "up" position, this would "lock" you into accelerating in that direction. Nice if you are trying to get to the helicarrier, annoying if you were just trying to get to the top of a building. Or in fights, Y was your main attack, but a to-long press and you would go into aiming mode. Further, there was no way to select between near or ranged attacks for the characters who had both. You are stuck rapidly pressing Y and hoping you hit the enemy who was attacking you. This leads to visually neat (the characters to multiple different combinations, and there are variations between all the characters I've played with), but tactilely disappointing battles. I would have liked to have some use of either the bumpers or the triggers to perform different kinds of attacks.
Overall I had a lot of fun playing it, I beat it in 15 hours, including some but not all of Deadpool's side missions, and none of the special unlockable characters. The result was it felt a lot shorter than it really was, due to my beating it over one weekend of play. I am usually extremely slow at completing games, even short ones. This feeling of shortness would lead me to recommend waiting to purchase it until the price drops below $50, especially if you are fast or have played Lego games before and know exactly what to look for to solve the puzzles.
I should also note that I played primarily on the GamePad. The switching between the TV and the gamepad wasn't as smooth as it is for Nintendo titles, but it was still easy. I didn't have any lag. The gamepad's battery survived being played almost constantly Saturday and Sunday.
I'll admit, I've been a fan of the X-men comics and cartoons since the early '90's but didn't know much Marvel lore overall until the Marvel Universe movie series started. So, I'm a little bit late to the game.
As such, I can't really speak to how true the game is to the comic-version of the Marvel world, but I do have to say there was something unbelievably awesome swinging around Manhattan as Spider-man, or starting at street level and flying up to the helicarrier as Ironman or Thor.
The story was good if a bit predictable, [spoilers]Loki is the bad guy again, and it used the same MacGuffin as the Avengers movie, the Tesseract., which having seen Thor, The Avengers, and Thor: The Dark World felt overused.[/spoilers] The plot did manage to move forward well, though I wish we would have had more options for which characters to use during the initial play through of each level. The first time you play a level, the game assigns which characters will be needed to complete that level successfully, and so there is little exploration initially. This causes the linearity of the levels to stand out and start feeling old by the end of the game. This was, however, offset by the free play mode that is unlocked for any just-completed level. The free play mode allows for on-the-fly switching between characters during the level, allowing for maximum exploration based on needed abilities and skills.
Second admission. I've never played a Lego game before. This was my introduction to the franchise. As such I found the mechanics easy to learn, although some areas gave far too many hints (Agent Coulson I'm looking at you) and others were trial and error until you found the right piece of the background to break apart and turn into a useful item. I liked the mechanics of building a shield for Captain America to stand on to aim lasers, and a 4 for Mr. Fantastic to use to turn into a special item/action.
I found the controls to be a bit fidgety. It felt like each button did too many tasks, too few of which were context-dependant. For example, if you were Ironman, a double tap of b was fly. Then holding B was go up, and holding A was go down, with a double tap for land. But if you held the left thumbstick in the "up" position, this would "lock" you into accelerating in that direction. Nice if you are trying to get to the helicarrier, annoying if you were just trying to get to the top of a building. Or in fights, Y was your main attack, but a to-long press and you would go into aiming mode. Further, there was no way to select between near or ranged attacks for the characters who had both. You are stuck rapidly pressing Y and hoping you hit the enemy who was attacking you. This leads to visually neat (the characters to multiple different combinations, and there are variations between all the characters I've played with), but tactilely disappointing battles. I would have liked to have some use of either the bumpers or the triggers to perform different kinds of attacks.
Overall I had a lot of fun playing it, I beat it in 15 hours, including some but not all of Deadpool's side missions, and none of the special unlockable characters. The result was it felt a lot shorter than it really was, due to my beating it over one weekend of play. I am usually extremely slow at completing games, even short ones. This feeling of shortness would lead me to recommend waiting to purchase it until the price drops below $50, especially if you are fast or have played Lego games before and know exactly what to look for to solve the puzzles.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Pokemon X & Y First Impressions
So my wonderful husband read my mind this morning and went to the local big box shop to pick us both up a copy of Pokemon X and Y. He is playing version Y while I am playing X.
This is a first impressions from my first 2 hours of fiddling with the game.
I love the mini games, Pokemon Amie and SuperTrainer. These are available from the start and really bring the interaction of the Pokemon and Trainer to life. Pokemon Amie further has 3 more mini games in it that are basic puzzles to let you 'befriend' your Pokemon more.
The mix of new and old Pokemon so far has been perfect. Enough old faces to trigger Red and Blue nostalgia while having enough new that you are always wondering what will pop out of the tall grass next.
The 3D models and form of the game, as far as the standard graphics go, are nice. It feels like the series has finally matured into current generation gameplay.
I am disappointed that some of the "general" trainers you battle are still in 2-D drawings, which is only stark in contrast to the fact that your character is fully animated.
This is the most fun I've had playing a Pokemon game in several years.
Once I've gotten further in the game, I will post a more comprehensive review.
This is a first impressions from my first 2 hours of fiddling with the game.
I love the mini games, Pokemon Amie and SuperTrainer. These are available from the start and really bring the interaction of the Pokemon and Trainer to life. Pokemon Amie further has 3 more mini games in it that are basic puzzles to let you 'befriend' your Pokemon more.
The mix of new and old Pokemon so far has been perfect. Enough old faces to trigger Red and Blue nostalgia while having enough new that you are always wondering what will pop out of the tall grass next.
The 3D models and form of the game, as far as the standard graphics go, are nice. It feels like the series has finally matured into current generation gameplay.
I am disappointed that some of the "general" trainers you battle are still in 2-D drawings, which is only stark in contrast to the fact that your character is fully animated.
This is the most fun I've had playing a Pokemon game in several years.
Once I've gotten further in the game, I will post a more comprehensive review.
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