The Nintendo Thread of Existential Doom

[Violentvixen]

my favourite gaming podcast at the moment, Besties, loathed it for reasons that I imagine you would find relevant. Two huge spoilers for things they touched on:
1) They do get back together because of this shared experience and without ever addressing their real problems or feeling like they earned it.
2) All of the hosts were really put off by a section where you have to mutilate and murder their daughter's favourite toy while it begs for mercy, specifically to make her cry.

Wow, I'm glad you let me know. Definitely not touching that as both of those things are really unpleasant to me.

Edit: I was prepared for the first to happen, disappointing as it is, but I'm still kind of reeling from the second one. That's just fucked up.

 

[Paul le Fou]

i think various daylife is a just a good title, full stop, lol

does it sound like natural or native english? no, but who cares, it's a title

is it a memorable brain worm? yes, and precisely because it doesn't sound like natural/native english—native/natural is not necessarily better, and this is a case where it's a better title as is than whatever a localization would flatten it into

Absolutely not, lol

 

[MetManMas]

Yeah, I looked up info on It Takes Two shortly after it won the GOTY but before I did my post-Game Awards Digital Down-Low post back in early December.

Spoiler: But...(It Takes Two spoilers)

That second thing...is why there's another image in the spoilerpop.

 

[ShakeWell]

Basic rule of thumb with games is 100% of the rights belong to the publisher, how a developer is paid/what rights they have is sort of a case by case thing but usually they get paid for their work, turn a game over, and done.

Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day were published by rare themselves. When Microsoft bought them, those rights were included. The bulk of their output prior to that, Goldeneye included, was published by Nintendo, who never gave those rights away. Granted in the case of Goldeneye it's also based on a film and that industry tends to be a bit less absurd about IP rights so presumably they have to sign off on any rereleases, but Goldeneye, the video game for the N64, is property of Nintendo, last I checked.

This is all true, but the persistent rumor w/r/t the re-release had been that it wasn't Nintendo being a problem, it was EON Productions, who owns the Bond film rights.

If I recall the Microsoft remaster got canned mid-development, so they may had originally planned online, but never got that far and now the source code is nearly 20 years old, so they are probably just cleaning up what was functional for release.

I'm not sure they've officially acknowledged it, but this is not the XBLA Remaster. That version had updated textures, etc., like the Perfect Dark XBLA Remaster. By all appearances, this is a (very) gussied up emulation of the original game, which I suspect is why it lacks online.

 

[WildcatJF]

New Genesis games!

 

[Sarge]

I don't have the pricier NSO, but I will recommend to anyone that has never played Beyond Oasis (it's available in a bazillion ways) to play it. It's really, really good.

 

[Issun]

The EShop is having a monster sale, so now is a good time to snap up some games you may have been sitting on

 

[Paul le Fou]

Beyond Oasis was a formative experience for me in my youth, but weirdly, I remember wanting it much more than liking it. Not sure if I ever beat it. But if it's coming to NSO, well, it's high time to finally beat it!

 

[Octopus Prime]

Alisia Dragoon is a game I often confuse with El Viento.

It’s not that game, they are unrelated except in the broadest terms

 

[Sarge]

Weirdly enough, I can see why you'd get them mixed up. I don't love either, personally - I remember having a fairly hard time picking out enemy shots in Alisia Dragoon, which dampened my enthusiasm for it. It's still solid, though. El Viento is... weird, in that Wolf Team sort of way. But it's a fair sight better than Earnest Evans.

 

[Phantoon]

I don't have the pricier NSO, but I will recommend to anyone that has never played Beyond Oasis (it's available in a bazillion ways) to play it. It's really, really good.

It really, really is. And Alisia Dragoon has a lot to recommend, once you get your head round it

 

[ArugulaZ]

As a fan of Thexder, I was big into Alisia Dragoon, and the character designs by Gainax and that masterful soundtrack by Mecano Associates really brought it over the top.

The way I see it, 1992 represented something of a sophomore slump for the Genesis, and it desperately needed something impressive to keep my eyes from wandering to competing systems. Sure, there was Streets of Rage 2 and Sonic 2, but 1992 was also the year that brought us Chakan: The Forever Man and Bart vs. the Space Mutants and Greendog the Beached Surfer Dude and Chase HQ II and Ex-Mutants and Action 52, and a buttload of 16-bit badness. The Genesis needed a game like Alisia Dragoon to balance out the quality of its software library and keep the boat from capsizing during a rough year.

I mean, now I can see the game's flaws. Alisia's homing lightning means that you can't manually aim your attacks, and you often run out of juice, leaving you unarmed and helpless at the worst possible times. But in 1992, I adored Alisia Dragoon. That polished presentation was exactly what that system needed at the time.

 

[balder the brave]

That was about when the trend for bigger character sprites started ruining platformers.

El Viento has a lot of other problems, though. It's totally janky and you just have to tank a lot of hits as I recall.

 

[conchobhar]

Surprised to see the lukewarm reaction to Alisia Dragoon here; in my eyes it's one of the best games in the Genesis library.

It really, really is. And Alisia Dragoon has a lot to recommend, once you get your head round it

"Get your head round it" is right; the first time I played it, I got a game over very quickly and didn't understand what I was doing wrong. The key is to realize that despite how it seems, it's not actually a blazing-fast action game, but something a bit more deliberate. Once I started poking around the stages to uncover power-ups, paying attention to which familiar I used, and just taking encounters a bit slower, the whole thing fell into place.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Trick is to realize that it’s a game where your mega buster is automatically charging, and the P-shooter sucks beans

 

[Phantoon]

"Get your head round it" is right; the first time I played it, I got a game over very quickly and didn't understand what I was doing wrong. The key is to realize that despite how it seems, it's not actually a blazing-fast action game, but something a bit more deliberate. Once I started poking around the stages to uncover power-ups, paying attention to which familiar I used, and just taking encounters a bit slower, the whole thing fell into place.

Yeah, once I realised what I was supposed to do I really appreciated it. It's hugely different to everything else and I love games that do that.

 

[ShakeWell]

The way I see it, 1992 represented something of a sophomore slump for the Genesis, and it desperately needed something impressive to keep my eyes from wandering to competing systems. Sure, there was Streets of Rage 2 and Sonic 2, but 1992 was also the year that brought us Chakan: The Forever Man and Bart vs. the Space Mutants and Greendog the Beached Surfer Dude and Chase HQ II and Ex-Mutants and Action 52, and a buttload of 16-bit badness. The Genesis needed a game like Alisia Dragoon to balance out the quality of its software library and keep the boat from capsizing during a rough year.

Every year has more bad games than good one, but SoR2, Sonic 2, Thunder Force IV, and Alisia Dragoon make it a banner year, tbh. Not to mention stuff like Sol-Deace, MERCS, Darius II, Atomic Runner, Krusty's Fun House and Gleylancer. Also, Chakan and Greendog are both totally fine.

Surprised to see the lukewarm reaction to Alisia Dragoon here; in my eyes it's one of the best games in the Genesis library.

Yes.

 

[Phantoon]

It's nice seeing Sol-Deace mentioned there. I got Sol-Feace with my Mega CD and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[muteKi]

Surprised to see the lukewarm reaction to Alisia Dragoon here; in my eyes it's one of the best games in the Genesis library.


"Get your head round it" is right; the first time I played it, I got a game over very quickly and didn't understand what I was doing wrong. The key is to realize that despite how it seems, it's not actually a blazing-fast action game, but something a bit more deliberate. Once I started poking around the stages to uncover power-ups, paying attention to which familiar I used, and just taking encounters a bit slower, the whole thing fell into place.

Yep, it's a similar story to Ranger-X (though that game does, in some places, favor getting in a dude's face with a big gun over being methodical, though it's a strategy that is more likely to murder than help you).

 

[Sarge]

Ranger X is awesome - once I figured out what the game wanted from me, it's one of the best new-to-me experiences I've had with a Genesis game.

 

[Kirin]

So, is there no actual good way to view your Switch library through a web browser?

I googled around and the answer that comes up is go to the Nintendo Account website -> Profile Settings -> Shop Menu -> Purchase History. This shows me a tiny fraction of what's on my Switch. I noticed in tiny print it says that the list only goes back two years of history, so that may be the main problem there. A weird thing is, from the exact same menu, I can instead view my wishlist, which shows in addition to unpurchased games a lot of games it indicates I already purchased that happen to still be on the wishlist... so like, it knows I own these games, even though they don't show up in the history list. Frustrating. Why can't it just generate a list of everything it knows I own?

(I also found a *different* purchase history page through the My Nintendo Store, which shows even *less* of what I own. Yay.)

 

[Positronic Brain]

Why can't it just generate a list of everything it knows I own?

Nintendo gotta Nintendo! Give it a gen or two -they'll fix it as something as they find something else that should be ridiculously intuitive and/or a solved problem but they have to implement their own way.

 

[Tato]

Sure would be nice if I could indicate my interest in buying a N64 controller for Switch Online. Perhaps even "pre-order" one or be added to a list so when one is in stock, I could buy it, rather than just randomly hoping I'm online in the 30 seconds they're restocked. But clearly that's impossible, Nintendo is just doing its best.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Sure would be nice if I could indicate my interest in buying a N64 controller for Switch Online. Perhaps even "pre-order" one or be added to a list so when one is in stock, I could buy it, rather than just randomly hoping I'm online in the 30 seconds they're restocked. But clearly that's impossible, Nintendo is just doing its best.

They always are, and sometimes that's the problem.

 

[RT-55J]

lovely

 

[Bongo]

Seems like they're trying something new with their ads.

 

[RT-55J]

Their recent N64 ads have been bizarrely high-effort. I love it.

 

[muteKi]

I mean I'm pretty sure that as far as any marketing technique for N64 games can be called "objectively correct", this would be it. Guess they're getting fewer takers for their premium online stuff than they expected -- go figure!

 

[Sarge]

Still think they'd do better just selling them separately again.

 

[Phantoon]

They'd make a lot more money out of me if they did