100% agreed with this. i was always as big of a Nintendo fan as anyone else (Mario 3 was one of the first games i ever played and the first game i was ever obsessed with) but i think realizing this is what put me through a lot of alienation about who they are as a company. i’m far more critical and suspicious of them at this point, especially with all the ways they throw their weight around. but it’s also become impossible to separate Nintendo as an large brand entity from Nintendo as a designer of games the more you see bits and pieces with Miyamoto that reveal more about the behind the scenes. for those of us who are prone to being really into a game’s directors and designers and artists and composers putting their own… perversions into a game it’s really hard to square something when you realize that this thing that seemed so magical and whimsical and unique when you were younger was really just made by this incredibly corporate process. it’s hard to convince yourself the idea that Miyamoto is a genius or an auteur and not just an incredibly skilled craftsman then. and it’s just not something that is very relatable. there’s almost no glimmer of weirdness you see all over a Kojima directed game, or Shinji Mikami, or so many different other figures who might also make relatively mainstream games… but definitely leave their own personal mark on them at the same time. once you know who Nintendo are, they’re not going to surprise you. and that novelty ultimately becomes kind of empty.
the theme park ride aspect is definitely more dominant with Mario, which seems aggressively mandated never to evolve or change past a certain point… but i mean, it’s there in Zelda too. i think Zelda has more longevity because it feels like a more human game with a story and a world that isn’t just a bunch of novelty gimmick props to get you to the next thing. but on a granular level it’s really the same story being told over and over again (with i guess the exception of like Majora’s Mask), and there’s no real hope that it will evolve or escape the confines of the Nintendo brand and try and use that format to say something deeper… why would it?
i mean… i really do think Nintendo are an evil company. not that big companies are inherently non-evil. but i have a hard time separating the games themselves from Nintendo as a corporate behemoth and cultural entity. and i think the power they continue to hold on game designers has been a negative force on the medium as a whole, and has kept a lot of people who go into games from ever moving on from the same old heroes journey, broadly-targeted stuff. there’s this ineffable feeling of “magic” that Nintendo seems to evoke (which becomes less magic the more you understand it) and for some reason that stops so many people from ever feeling the need to challenge any of those ideas. i do also find the Switch-like colorful wholesome flat-shaded aesthetic that’s become increasingly dominant in indie games overwhelming and insufferable… and reflective of a lack of collective imagination or ability to move beyond the formats Nintendo has set out, especially in the mainstream.
I spent yesterday testing-out my new Series S that was successfully delivered to my home address instead of a box of cat litter or something else that was of lower commercial value and of equal weight
It is nice to have MHWorld’s loading times reduced to a blink of an eye and while the 60fps is delicious I am a tad bothered by the game’s muted color palette but will probably do it all over again regardless
The most actual joy I experienced thus far beyond almost getting an online session on Gears 3 Horde was Xeno Crisis; a twin-stick retro shooter where Jill Valentine kills Alien Syndrome knockoffs from a top-down perspective
Otherwise I would make a start on Quantum Break but Nioh 2 (when it’s not crashing) is too much to put down
Played that Triangle Strategy demo. I think the mechanics are Let Us Cling Together enough for it to end up being a decent game by default, but man I am just not enjoying the visuals of it at all. I think if the AO was less pronounced and the colours were like half as saturated it’d be fine, but as it is now it’s all just too intense. Kind of a shame the UI is absolutely not designed for handheld mode either.
Parts of Breath of the Wild feel like a theme park with the walls knocked over with bulldozer and left there. You can approach almost any area from any direction but if you don’t let it lead you, if you employ any creativity you end up approaching paths from the side and you see what it was doing but you missed all the build up. I went straight to Gannon once, went right up the side of the castle and got there without ever once entering its labyrinthine interior. Later I went back and discovered the fairly linear castle exploration sequence. Same with the path into the Zora kingdom as well as others. Its the only game Ive played where feeling like I broke it felt bad right away. The most fun I had were in the more forced linear outdoor sections, the swamp, the maze and other surprises I do not dare spoil. As well as the very open sections with little or no guidance. I kinda hate the mini dungeons and how they never have fun theming.
Triangle Strategy looks so fun but I cant look at 2D graphics with that aggressive bloom and depth of field look. I hate it so much. Let me look where I wanna look jerx.
I play so few games these days Ill prolly get one more big switch game and that will be it. I really regret getting Odyssey full price on the digital store. Its exactly interesting enough for my to decide to keep playing but afterward I’m just left with the feeling of wasted time. It was never hard until the last stage. I never got into the mario flow zone.
In conclusion Im a picky asshole I guess. play indy games.
Getting near the end of MGS5 and still impressed with the mechanical steps it’s willing to take in order to reinforce its narrative. Any game willing to disrupt and permanently affect what’s normally inviolate - in this case a base building, stat stacking metagame - gets my respect.
Somewhat of an ask but since the game is fresh and active (and I am sure it is in there) can you identify which base is just copied whole sale from The Wild Geese?
Still playing Mario Odyssey, I am in the gourmet level. The feeling of theme park is increasing, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s good for chilling out and still springs creativity, although not all levels are charming.
Until now, I must say that the initial desert level, the steam/woods level and the city level are the most inspired. Nothing else is memorable until now, design wise nor gameplay wise.
Platforming, up to this moment, is standard fashion.
The cap gimmick is fine, it’s not too abused although the problem with this game (and perhaps most 3D Mario games) is that it’s not challenging.
The game is overall more interesting than 3D world, in my opinion, who was too centered on the cat suite and also too easy apart from a small handful of unfairly difficult levels.
By the way, the idea that Odyssey is an “open world” game, imo, is plainly wrong. It looks like the opposite, to me. It’s a multi-hub game, where the most challenging parts are taken away and put into separate doorsn perhaps with the purpose of making the game more mobile friendly. For sure, it serves the purpose of making the game much less stressful, as one can go back to a challenging section without having to redo a level partially, the way it would have happened in other 3D platforming games.
every hurdle the latter half of like a dragon has thrown at me feels like something I’ll maybe go to the trouble of surmounting on the basis of how much I like it, and every time I’ve been like “oof I dunno”
a lot of long games lately just haven’t been great
I’m playing Phoenotopia: Awakening and it’s a good Zelda 2-like. I love exploring in this game, how there’s no clear delimitation between dungeons and the rest. How it feels uncaring enough to feel real yet videogamey enough to be stimulating
There are enough weird ideas and mechanics to make it not feel derivative despite it borrowing heavily from Zelda
It has raised the bar for how competent a game can get while still getting absolutely no coverage lol
I’ve tried going back to Fire Emblem Three Houses with the DLC, but my opinion of the game has plummeted now that I’ve played difficult maps
Skills and bataillons, which are hard to mentally keep track of for every unit, could be mostly ignored in the base game but they’re vital there. You just have to deal with this added layer of unnecessary complexity that makes the simplicity of early FE illuminating in comparison.
Like imagine if you had to keep in mind everybody’s zodiac sign and brave / faith value all the time in FFT?
Plus the maps are so ugly and uninteresting! And class balance is terrible! I feel like they only nailed the monastery part of the game and that’s not enough
Orta continues to make me earn my supper and feel like crap for eating it. Such begrudging beauty. A vexing and tediously alluring marathon of Simon Says on deoxyribonucleic acid dragons that I’ll continue to wrestle with, if for no other reason than to unlock the first Panzer Dragoon.
I don’t remember why I bought WarTech: Senko no Ronde as part of my XBox/360 spree other than it was cheap and maybe I read a blurb about it being an unusual shooter. Also I mistook G.rev for some other hip J-developer but anyway they were founded by ex-Taito people so that’s good enough for me. Graduate to this game when the Pokémonisms of Custom Robo are best left to your little brother and you start listening to EDM and watching Evangelion (there’s probably a more apt anime comparison but I’m not terribly anime literate and must confess this game is a little TOO anime at times or maybe just not my style of anime).
The idea of an arena bullet hell fighting game rules! Is this what that game Furi (which has been on my wish list forever) is like? I should play Virtual On. Also Taito made a kind of spiritual predecessor called Psychic Force for PSX? I like this kind of thing! It’s a delicious feeling, boosting round the ring, drifting shots at your opponent while dodging their geometric displays of death (and there’s a limited ability called B.O.S.S Mode that let’s YOU become a projectile puking STG villain!). Ultimately, it’s a dancing game. A techno tango that elevates circle strafing to an artform. And there are circles all over this thing! Arena bounds marking the perimeter, sub-weapon and main weapon gauges orbiting both characters. It’s UI as an aesthetic unto itself, looking like some Kabbalistic version of Crossfire. All the while 1st-gen PS2-style (that’s a compliment) polygonal backdrops barrel beneath you. It’s a bit much, but nothing compared to the cacophonous audio. The music is fine, mostly hyper techno jazz, but on top of that AND all the lasers and explosions, your character is constantly conversing with their opponent, in Japanese, and it’s impossible to read what they’re saying as you juke and jive through lethal laser mazes closing in for the kill. Sound and vision alike become this wave of noise and it’s a wave worth riding! There are 8 playable characters, each with their own stats and story mode. The first one took me about 30-45 minutes to beat. A perfect action platter.
It’s an immediate inspiration for my “on-rails off the rails psychological shooter + adventure game” idea that I’ll probably start in the year 2033.
Anyway, what is this Saturday morning cousin’s-favourite-cartoon cover? As much as WarTech’s style of anime doesn’t really do it for me, it’s way better than this second-rate cereal box blandness.
