Nintendo Direct 12/11/2015 (EU): Not-so-live Impressions

It's very late. I'm very tired. It can only be Nintendo Direct Not-so-live Impressions time.

• 00:00 -  Jeez, that YouTube description. Freaking spoilers, Nintendo. :D
• 00:11 - Yay! Shibata!
• 00:28 - Aww. Rest in peace, Mr. Iwata.

• 00:42 - Well bam, there it is: Twilight Princess HD!
• 01:02 - Oh boy. I'm so ready for this. I might have been one of the only ones, but I freaking loved Twilight Princess. I've been hankering to replay it for years, but man, that Wii version looks like jaggedy garbage on a HDTV.

• 01:05 - Hmm. This is maybe not the full visual upgrade I was expecting. :D Looks like a more basic uprezzing. Even so, this is a big step up from that PAL Wii version smeared all over a big TV.
• 01:47 - What's with the music here. Twilight Princess had awesome trailer music and a rad trailer to go with it back in the day.
• 02:17 - Uh Oh! Outsourced remake. Between that and the lack of graphical pizazz here, I'll bet most of GAF is shitting all over this right now. :D

• 02:25 - Oh yes! Oh fuck yes! I will buy the crap out of that amiibo! (Failing to see how this makes it more than "a prettier remake of the same game", but carry on, Shibata.)

• 02:32- Compatible with the existing Zelda amiibos too. Eww, pee column Link. Come on, Nintendo, how about a proper adult Link amiibo?
• 02:39 - Oh. I was kind of expecting this to be releasing imminently. I still have hope that this isn't taking the place of the new Zelda on the Wii U though, but with this releasing next year (almost certainly), we're getting into more dangerous territory on that one, I fear.
• 02:47 - Okay, March 4th. Yeah, that early in the year, I think it's safe to say that they're not positioning this as a sort of consolation prize for Wii U owners. Hype train re-engage!

• 02:56 - Oh snap, it's a retail release. I was thinking digital with the amiibo released to coincide with it, but hell yeah, I'll take this, especially with the soundtrack included (which, surprise, I really loved).

• 03:28 - Oh crap! A wild Zelda Wii U appears! Really wasn't expecting a confirmation of that here, but I'll also take that. Looks more cel shaded than the last time they showed it, I think. And whoa, does Link have brown hair here?

 

• 03:29 - No, it's blonde. He's wearing a hood, not unlike the one Zelda wears in Twilight princess when you first see her actually. Some connection maybe. Time to revise your timelines, everyone.
• 03:44 - Oh? Some stop and swap action with the Wolf Link amiibo. The Twilight Princess connection plot thickens... Or not...
• 04:02 - I'm trying to think what Zelda games they haven't released on the Wii U VC yet. Majora's Mask and.. Minish Cap, maybe?

• 04:07 - Of course! How could I have forgotten the two DS games. Such a great fit for the Wii U. You won't even be able to play these on your TV! :D (2D sprite-based games with minimal touch screen interaction: those are the types of DS games that'll look good and work well on the Wii U, Nintendo. Not these.)
• 04:41 - It's a Zelda-heavy direct. Triforce Heroes now. Yep, still don't even have a 3DS. :D I did just pick up Four Swords Adventures for the Gamecube though, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles actually. Now all I need is a house and three hookers to play them with.

• 06:03 - Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. *Sigh" And all of a sudden the realisation that there's no true Paper Mario sequel on the way becomes a crushing disappointment once again. I'm sure this'll be fine though.

• 07:30 - For a second there I thought they were adding Paper Mario's badges to Mario & Luigi in the form of cards. Nope, these are just glorified items. Wouldn't want to add any interesting wrinkles to that super fun M&L battle system, would we? :D #SoSalty
• 07:47 - Okay, a few of these amiibo cards have badge-like functions, but again, most of these just work as single use, stat-altering items, as far as I can see. 

• 09:28 - You know, the papercraft battles might be the most interesting thing here to me. Well, aside from the story, which I'm sure will be fun.
• 10:22 - Updates for Wii U games in 2015 now. Slopes! Slopes! Slopes!

• 10:36 - Man, I feel terrible for not having played Splatoon yet. Between Yoshi's Wolly World, watching every bit of Glastonbury coverage (it was fun while it lasted, TunnelBear), Mario Maker and a bunch of other things, it just slipped off my radar. Of course I still bought it though. (I mean, it did come with an amiibo. Come on.).
• 11:59 - Cool that they're still supporting it with new content though.. I wonder if this is where they start charging however.

• 13:22 - Yes. Give me my slopes. Damn it!
• 13:34 - Just the stuff in the recent update so far. Really happy with checkpoints. Everything else, I could take or leave.

• 14:12 - Ooh yes! Finally some searching options, and tags by the look of things.
• 14:23 - Seriously, Nintendo!? A web site, not something in-game? This is going to used for searching by virtually no one, meanwhile loading up levels within the game alone will be as much of a crapshoot as ever. Plus, Mario Maker Hub is already doing exactly this anyway.
• 14:46 - Okay, there is a little integration with the game. Marking a course as a favorite on the site and having it waiting in the game will make sharing levels a little easier at least. Providing people use this site, that is.
• 15:04 - December for the Mario Maker site. Well, can't hurt to throw my levels up there as well, I guess.
• 15:08 - Queue absolutely none of my levels :D (Giants Rule, people: AA63-0000-0092-A8BD Catch it!)
• 15:21 - I'm somehow not expecting any of Dan Ryckert's atrocities to show up here either. :D

• 16:02 - I hate all these people. :D Also, "Nigge"? Really?

• 16:56 - "Which level will you play first?" None of the above, Nintendo. None of the above. #SoSalty

• 17:18 - Xenoblade Chronicles X, and I think I'm having a Chystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers flashback.

• 17:48 - This still looks great, but, and maybe I'm being a terrible person here, I still haven't played the Wii original, so I'll be skipping out on this one for now come December.

• 18:33 - Speaking of skipping stuff, I hear Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash might be one to miss. Definitely won't be bothering with Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival either. That Tom Nook amiibo though? Maybe.
• 18:43 - Wait!? What the hell was that Mario Tennis song? ♫Tennis. This is Tennis, with Super Mario... something♫. What? I... What!?
• 19:10 - Ooh, a new guy.

• 19:27 - Fast Racing Neo. Graphics look quite nice. Played the demo of the first one on the Wii though and found it a bit unwieldy.
• 19:37 - With the color switching and extreme speed here, I'm getting shades of Ikaruga and Burnout here. Hm, might give this a look if there's a demo on offer.
• 21:07 - Yeah, that looks quite sharp. Man, imagine what a Wii U F-Zero could look like. *sigh*

 *Sorry guys, forgot to turn off YouTube annotations for majority of the following pics. That's why you can see an info link... thing in the top right corner of  most of them. D'oh!

• 21:14 - Typoman: a puzzle-platformer with a unique art style, finally. :D (Actually, the art styles I usually like, but you couldn't get me excited about another indie puzzle-platformer at this point.)
• 21:43 - Yeah, this one's a pass for me, I think.

• 21:59 - Steamworld Heist for 3DS. I should probably play Steamworld Dig at some point, right? 
• 22:17 - Hats! Do people still care about TF2 hats? I'd have to imagine that Dota 2 and those dumb steam cards have eaten into that market a fair bit.
• 22:31 - This seems like a neat game (that I'll probably never play either). :D

• 23:07 - So this is Nintendo Badge Arcade. Decorate your 3DS home menu. No thanks, I'm good.
• 23:15 - Nintendo finally getting into that lucrative desktop theme market.
• 23:27 - Oof, charging for random items in games is always gross.
• 23:57 - Pokémon Picross. I have no thoughts on this whatsoever. :D I should probably play the DS picross games, just not on Wii U.
• 24:00 - Another "free to start" game. DeNaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Another Bloody Reblog: October 2015 Pick-ups and More

Okay, I’ll admit it: it's been me all along! :D

No, not much in the way of rarities here, I’m afraid. This lot's mostly made up of a bundle of Mario-related games I bought a few weeks ago, mostly games I already had in some form, but never on the NES/Famicom. It’s been kind of neat to go back and play Mario 2 and 3 without the Mario All-Stars enhanced graphics for the first time though, and it’s proved to be a great refresher course for Super Mario Maker, even though I didn’t quite plan things out that way.

Also picked up a few Konami classics (the two Wai Wai World games and the Famicom version of Kid Dracula, which is super fun), plus Downtown Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki da yo Zen'in Shūgō, a follow-up to River City Ransom set in old-timey Japan (JiliK: history expert). I was really temped to grab that one up on the Japanese Virtual Console, but there’s far too much text to try and play it in Japanese. Thankfully though there’s a translation patch out there though and with the cart, I can put it to use on my Retron 5.



Picked up a few Super Famicom and Gameboy games too. Puzzle platformers aren’t usually my thing, but I spotted a copy of Mario & Wario going for a few dollars and I couldn’t resist. Mystic Ark was much the same. All I know is that it’s an Enix RPG that involves collecting people that have been turned into dolls, or something. Eh, it was two bucks and there’s a (really well-done so far) translation patch. It’s got to be worth a shot at least.

The other two SFC games I’ve played a fair bit of already. Magical Taruruuto-kun (top left) looked like a pretty neat cartoony platformer in videos. From what I’ve played of it though, the platforming seems super basic, but the game’s also quite frustrating because if you take a single hit, you not only die, you go back to the freaking map screen. Heisei Inu Monogatari Bow: Pop'n Smash (centre left), I’m enjoying a lot though. It’s a wacky tennis meets soccer game, more or less, where both you and the computer have goals sealed off by blocks. The basic aim of the game is to smash the blocks by lobbing a ball off them with your tennis racket and getting it into your opponent’s goal. There’s definitely a bit of jankiness to it, but it’s been pretty fun, frantic action so far.

On the Gameboy side, I also got the portable version of Kid Dracula, as well as Metroid II and Donkey Kong Land, which I've actually been enjoying quite a bit. It’s impressive how much of the SNES game they managed to cram in there, especially in the animation department. Granted it looks kind of like garbage, and it can be tricky to play with the big character and limited view of your surroundings, but it features all-original levels and the Retron’s save states take a lot of the frustration out. I’d say it’s worth a look if you can get it for cheap and preferably Retron/Retrode it up.



Some new additions to the family. That brings me up to 13 amiibos now. I think. :D Definitely still a few out now that I’m thinking of getting. I’d be surprised if I make it to the end of the year without picking up Sonic and Fox, and maybe the Duck Hunt dog. Overall though, I find most of the amiibos they've released so far either fall into the categories of cool-looking figures for characters I have no attachment to (Palutena, Little Mac, Shulk, ROB) or characters I like with figures that I don’t (Gannondorf, Wario, Link). Chibo Robo will be mine though. Oh yes, he will be mine.



Club Nintendooo!!! Having blown most of my remaining points on the Link Between Worlds soundtrack a few months prior, I was just short of getting the MK8 soundtrack when it appeared, of course, at the eleventh hour before the service shut down, leading me to spend..... too much on eBay for a copy once they started going out to other members. But boy, that soundtrack’s awesome.
That’s not the only Club Nintendo soundtrack I picked up in the last while though. I managed to snag the Ocarina of Time, Animal Crossing and Kid Icarus: Uprising all for about €20 each thanks to a saved search I set up. Not bad. Actually bad though: Pokémon 2BA Master. Thanks, Laser Time.



If the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack hit at the eleventh hour of Club Nintendo, the Endings and Credits CD hit at the twelfth. This time though I wasn’t about to spend *cough* *cough* *cough* euros on the damn thing. Instead, I bought a few unused Club Nintendo codes on eBay, enabling me to clear out the last of my stars in style. (Though it really bums me out to think of how many more I'd still have to play around with if I hadn’t spent all my Gamecube era ones on all those terrible wallpapers. Damn it, Nintendo.)

Also grabbed the Mario 30th Anniversary double CD, and, let’s address the elephant in the room: I bought the Data Discs Shenmue soundtrack...



...which is pretty rad, but it’s the thing that finally got me to cave and get a turntable, and I held out for so long. Vinyl is just something I have no attachment to or nostalgia for. Now I have this bulky-ass player and (already) a stack of records that I don’t know where to put, and I'm just ripping everything to MP3 anyway. Couldn’t we have skipped the middle step and you could have just given me downloadable versions of hard to find/non-existent video game soundtracks, Data Discs/iam8bit?



But no, you had to get me out there buying vinyl-exclusive early Now compilations didn’t you, because hey, I might as well. I’m already swimming in a sea of the stuff!

This Holiday I 'Ave Been Mostly Playing...

Saints Row IV

With it being Christmas, it finally felt appropriate to give How the Saints Saved Christmas a spin, 2013's holiday-themed DLC I somehow never got around to. Didn't really dig it much to be honest. I didn't think the missions were especially great (boy, did I have some trouble delivering freaking presents in the sleigh one). I didn't think it felt Christmassy enough either. Maybe it was the music; They certainly throw enough snow and festive lights at you at least. On top of that, I really didn't care for the story. I was expecting Saint's Row to do something a little different, but all you get here is your typical subversive Santa tale where yes, Santa embodies the festive spirit and all things good, but when Santa needs to kick ass he does, with guns. Same as South Park, same as dozens of other things. And, of course the Saints' boss thinks he's awesome. Yeah, no thanks.

Enter the Dominatrix though, was absolutely the Saints Row craziness I was looking for. It's hard to tell what's true and what's fictional, though there's certainly some truth here given the development history of SRIV, but this presents Enter the Dominatrix as this unfinished piece of DLC, abandoned in favour of SRIV that the Saints are being interviewed about making on their ship. That's how each mission gets introduced; the cutscenes are all presented as animated storyboards, property of Volition; and some great use of FMV. It's all super weird, very post-modern and well worth a play-through I'd say.

Mass Effect 3 DLC (360)

After several false starts, I finally knuckled down and played through Leviathan over the break. Gotta say, I found the initial adventure game-y mission where you look for clues in a scientist's house a bit of a chore, which is probably why it took me so many attempts to get started on this. Mainly though, this DLC is made up of two, maybe three fairly standard combat missions. You get some pretty big story bombs dropped at the end, mainly regarding the Reapers, but unless you really like Mass Effect's combat I'd give this a miss and catch the last mission on YouTube instead.

Citadel though, is pretty awesome. It should be too for the price and the 4 gigabyte, two part download (which proved to just a breeze to download with my 360 getting confused as to which part was which *and* freaking Lizard Squad banging at the door of Xbox Live). Somehow I'd gotten the impression that there were no real mission in this one, just a big party in a Citadel apartment, a way of saying goodbye to all the surviving Mass Effect 1-3 squad mates. This isn't the case though. The bulk of the content in this is actually a terrific series of missions across the Citadel (and somewhere else you might not expect) involving every squad member (outside Kasumi and Zaeed, though they do show up later. I'm guessing only if you already had their ME2 DLC though) against quite an unexpected antagonist.

Following that you get to throw the party, which is quite good fun: lots of entertaining situations and some pretty great dialogue. After the party's wrapped up you also get to hang out with pretty much every guest at some location on the new Silversun Strip area of the Citadel, where you get a brief little scene with each of them. You can also invite everyone up to your apartment individually for more scenes and more dialogue. The whole pack's a blast: light-hearted, full of in-jokes, and freaking packed with content. If you like the characters of Mass Effect, this DLC is well worth it.

The Steam Holiday Sale

Hah! Just kidding. The Holiday Sale has been going downhill for several years now, but this one was the worst in a while. Not that I didn't pick up a few odds and ends and constantly keep checking it anyway. I do miss the days of the big daily sale catalogues and the achievement-based holiday events though. The card and gem stuff they've got going on now couldn't be less appealing.

(But you should totally buy them off me anyway.)



Retron 5!

I still can't believe it, but it finally arrived after over a year of waiting. As for the console itself, it it's not the best-looking machine: quite bulky, and long, and the grey is a fair bit darker than I was expecting. The controller ports are a bit of a pain too, being on the sides. Come on, guys, you could have at least stuck one SNES port on the front, they're quite a squeeze to get into when you've got a Wii U on one side and the wall on the other. I'm using them regardless though because the wireless pad the Retron comes with is fucking HORRIBLE. The buttons and the clicky nub thing feel way worse than I'd been led to believe online. Mercifully though, you really don't need the included pad for anything. The Home menu button as well as save states and the like can be remapped to button combos on a real controller. (I'm using Select and R for save state and Select and L for load state. It's working pretty well so far).

As for the cart slots, much derided for their tightness on release: they're fine. I've used the NES, SNES, Genesis and GBA slots so far. The top slots are a little tighter than the original consoles,but I had no difficulty removing carts, and I've never felt that I was in any danger of doing damage to either the carts or the console itself.

For actually playing games though, it's fantastic. Popping in a NES game and having it boot first time, every time feels like freaking sorcery. Everything looks great too. It only upscales games to 720p, but, at least on my 22-inch LED, the games look great. Like in most cases where filtering options are available though, I find the graphics look much better left as they are.

As for Game Boy games: It's a pity there isn't any Super Game Boy functionality built in to the emulator*, but original Game Boy games look nice and sharp; GBC games too; GBA games, I might need to do a little more experimenting to confirm, but this may be the best I've seen them looking on this TV. I'm going to say better than the Wii U or Visual Boy Advance on my PC.

And a final note: the Master System Converter / Power Base Converter (that I specifically bought for this like, nine months ago) totally works. So, anyone know any Master System games worth getting? Anyone?

* EDIT: Turns out I was wrong about Super Gameboy support. Since a software update last September, it now supports both SGB borders and the pre-defined colour palettes that came built into the SGB (as well as the GBC and GBA) for older games like Super Mario Land and Tetris. Pretty freaking awesome.

Super Mario Advance (Gameboy Advance [via Retron 5)

Here's where the cheating begins. :D After being stuck on Wart since 2012, I busted this out on the Retron and gave 7-2 the save-state-infused business. Actually, the Wart fight, at least in this version, isn't that tough thanks to a set of life-restoring hearts you can go back and grab with the Princess mid-fight. In my defence, I did try and run through the last level again unassisted right after, but just ended up doing in fewer save states. :D Fuck it, I beat this game (somehow) eighteen years ago on the SNES; I'm not going to loose any sleep over it.

Overall: a totally solid port of the Mario All-stars version of Mario 2, but there's really no good reason to get this unless you badly want this version of the game on the go. The additional stuff they added to this port is minor.

Super Mario Deluxe (Gameboy Color [via Retron 5])

Another Mario port that I was stuck pretty far into (this time on 8-2). I didn't abuse the Retron quite as much here though. I set a save state a few seconds into each level and just kept reloading until I nailed each one, leading to the surprising revelation that you can keep small Mario within the arc of the Hammer Brother's and avoid being hit if you just move around a little as they do. (I'm going to thank the epic Rex showdown of Metal Gear Scanlon for the inspiration to try it out.) Also that last level: actually pretty easy, just a bit of a pain to navigate for the first time in many, many years.

Also gave the Mario Vs. Boo mode a spin, which is surprisingly fun. You race through a set of, I think, specially designed levels against a boo to reach the flagpole. The twist is that boo can trigger barriers to impede your progress through the level that that asshole can just pass through. You, on the other hand, need to hit special blocks to temporally deactivate them. About as frustrating as it sounds, but quite tense and again, surprisingly fun. The type of mode that could have really spiced up Super Mario Advance. I guess we were expected to make do with that port of Mario Bros.. Actually, the care and the amount of extra content Nintendo put in here makes me sad that there weren't more of these GBC deluxe re-releases. Too bad Metroid II apparently got canned. As for the main game here, it's definitely a playable version of SMB, with some nice bells and whistles (a map screen!), but the limited amount of screen width can make things a bit challenging at times.



Assassin's Creed Revelations (PS3)

Wrapped up the last few hours of this on Christmas Night (and preceded to spend a very long time sitting through unskippable credits. Seriously, Ubisoft WTF?). I'd put off trying this out for a long time. While I loved Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, I played through just over a year later and it left me kind of cold. I could certainly see that it was a really good game, but it was so similar in so many respects that the whole time I was playing it, it felt like I was just playing through ACII again. Along with the tepid reviews and the apparent in-game emphasis on how old and useless Ezio was now, I was ready to skip over this entry entirely and give ACIII a shot instead. I'm glad I didn't though. Yes, this game is kind of just ACII again, but it turns out stabbing guys in open world, historical setting is still quite entertaining; turns out I just needed more of a break between games.

Gameplay-wise, pretty much everything makes a return from Brotherhood, with relatively few new additions, the main one being a new tower defence mode that you can be sure I avoided like the plague. :D For a now annualized series apparently worked on by thousands, this is also still quite a lovingly-crafted game. The soundtrack is as fantastic as ever, it still looks good, the location, Constantinople here, still has an air of historical authenticity to it.

I was pleased to see too that Ezio's age isn't the big deal it appeared to be in a lot of coverage of the game: You don't have him constantly sputtering and groaning as makes his way across the rooftops; The cutscenes aren't a constant barrage of ageist abuse. It's occasionally acknowledged by the other characters or the NPCs, but other than that, it's mostly just ignored.

While I'm on the subject of the cutscenes, I really need to give the storytelling some props here. Well, at least the in-animus stuff (I never gave a fuck about the modern day Desmond stuff. Seriously all the people who wanted a modern AC starring that freaking nothing character, why? Not only would that lack the best thing about the series, the historical setting, you'd have to play a whole game as, the entire story would revolve around fucking Desmond.). It feels way more focused and coherent than past entries where I always felt like I was missing huge chunks of character and plot development between leaps in time. I guess that's easier when the story spans a much shorter period, but still. (Actually, to be fair to Desmond, some of the childhood back story you get from him in this game, I found quite engaging. It's only when he moved onto the pre-Assassin's Creed 1 stuff that the urge to hit the mute button became almost unbearable. Seriously, fuck Desmond).

I guess my major criticism of the game is that it feels somewhat light in content. I didn't check but it feels like there are far less story missions here than in the last two games. And I want to say there are less side missions too. I suppose that's to be expected for a non-numbered, annualized sequel though. Still, overall I had a blast. I'm almost excited to try AssCreed III now, despite the gigantic u-turn the internet's taken on it over the last two years. Eh, I might learn a bit of American history at the very least. :D