SystemsReady

Streetpass is something that'll happen when you just put the system to sleep by closing the 3DS, right? Either I'm doing it wrong or no one up here in ND owns a 3DS

Regarding paying musicians at Super Bowl, I think there is a lack of distinction between what it means on a practical level and what it means on an ethical one. On an ethical level, IMO, it's crummy and a bit cheap of the NFL to not pay people for performing. But on a practical level...yeah, these are people who can rake in thousands of dollars by merely blinking. So yeah, it's true that they don't need the money, and also that they probably have legal teams informing them of not really getting paid for it. So I don't have a strong opinion either way...it's not like these are naive newcomers getting used by this corporation. Now, the NFL not paying taxes is BS. I already have a problem with religious organizations not paying taxes (because a lot of them really do influence politics, which is illegal with their tax-exempt status), and I find it even more ridiculous that the NFL doesn't. What benefit does the NFL provide to society as a whole that, say, the music industry doesn't? Or the NHL? Or any other large entertainment corporation? There is literally no reason for them to not pay taxes.

I'm almost tempted to say that I think Game Freak shuffles around the data locations for items between gens. A lot like how you have abilities/hidden abilities pointing to a slot and the game fetching it from there (so a Scolipede transferred with Quick Feet will have it be Speed Boost instead, because it's pointing to that slot, which has new contents in gen 6). It could be a precaution against someone transferring a Pokemon and having them suddenly hold a different item they're not supposed to be holding, like a key item. Maybe they didn't want to implement code to manually fix transferred items...

Sweeet, I'll add it to my wishlist now and get the demo sometime.

I suppose I can turn in my JRPG-fan-card and say that I really hate Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle system...does Bravely Default use something like it? I prefer actual turn-based battling, so...

I disagree with the OP, honestly. Some of the best music I've ever heard comes from modern games like Skyrim, Okami, and Bastion. Even the newest Pokemon games have great music. Of course, these games are ones with good art direction, so perhaps that has something to do with it, too. You really think a game that already looks drab as hell like CoD would have great music to go with it...? The games I mentioned in the first paragraph have a distinct "feel" to them, and the music is very important in that, I think. If anything, the problem the article mentions isn't the music - the music is a symptom of the disease, that "mainstream" games have gotten more generic over the years.

I'm pretty sure a Mario DDR game is less odd than...what is basically a Persona 4 Project Diva game. At least Mario is already happy and cheery, they basically took a game about murder (well...a happy game about murder) and made a dancing game out of it, lol

Hmmm...Metroid Other M's strongest suit was definitely its gameplay (anything really bad about it seems to be from the original team), and my favorite Zelda titles happen to be Oracle of Ages/Seasons, which were developed by Capcom. So this might actually be decent. Wanna know what'd be amazing? A Vanquish-style Metroid game, developed by Platinum Games and written by one of the lead guys from Retro. I'd pay so much money for that.

Oh goood I hope so badly. I'd kill to see Retro's take on a sidescrolling Metroid title. I almost think Nintendo's sidelined Metroid to 1.) make people forget about Other M and 2.) try their hardest to ensure that the original team doesn't touch Metroid again with a 20-foot pole.

Be careful what you wish for regarding Capcom...I wanted an Okami sequel and we got freaking Okamiden. But yeah...I've wanted Metroid 5 for years now, about a decade. Fusion ended on such a cliffhanger it hurt. But nooooo. I'd love more Metroid. I'd love some new series. But they don't seem keen on making them, and every time I see a new Mario game coming out, my mentality is always to roll my eyes and go "again?".

Except Shadow of the Colossus had an atrocious framerate most of the time, which was the tradeoff for having those good graphics. The vast majority of multiplatform games that I came across or read about generally had their most underpowered version be the PS2 version, even more so when you have sucky programmers on the team (hi there Sonic Team!). Games that were ported to the PS2 from the GCN or Xbox had to be cut down graphically and technically (RE4, Psychonauts are two examples that come to mind). GCN games generally tended to have better textures and higher framerates, and the Xbox's biggest selling point seemed to be Halo and the console's graphical power. And to this day I still haven't come across a PS2 title that pulls off something like Metroid Prime 2 without having an atrocious framerate a la Shadow of the Colossus. I'd dig out my crates of ancient Electronic Gaming Monthly mags to do more research, but they're in storage on the other end of the continent. Yeah, Wind Waker is shorter than Twilight Princess. I'd compare the former to Majora's Mask and the latter to Ocarina of Time: the first is a weird Zelda experience with only a couple of required dungeons and a ton of side content, while the second is a more "traditional" Zelda game with a ton of dungeons. My view is definitely close to yours. While my post was negative about the WiiU...doesn't mean I don't plan on getting one, it was more of me going "I can see where the so-called 'hardcore' slice of CoD-playing gamers are coming from". These people are console gamers...meanwhile, all the games they want come out on PC, that I can probably run on a better framerate, get mods to kill the bugs, and in the case of first-person games, play with far better controls. That makes the "powerful" consoles a bit less appealing to me, compared to something like the WiiU that revolves around Nintendo's first-party titles and whatever weird stuff the occasional dev likes to release on it. At some point I'll probably end up getting a PS4 as well like I did with the PS3, for things like JRPGs and Naughty Dog's inevitable upcoming games. Well...they already do lol Consoles have been underpowered compared to PCs for years now. It's why Deus Ex had massive loading times on the PS2 (because they couldn't load the whole area of a level at the same time, so they broke them down into smaller pieces), and why Crysis took longer to make it consoles after coming out on PC first. This is because the more powerful you want a computer, the more expensive it is, so consoles often have to sacrifice power for a competitive price. Meanwhile, if PCs weren't already running laps around them at launch, they will be by the end of the console's lifespan, because the hardware of consoles stays the same for the entire gen (for the most part) while new hardware is developed and released in the meantime. But yeah, that is my most major problem with the PS4 and the Xbox One...hey look, more zombie games and brown war shooters, with the same art direction, controls, and graphics! Yaaaawn. Thank god for Nintendo and weird PC indie devs...

I'm personally not a fan of Mario games; there isn't any Metroid coming out because it's probably on a new ten-year-hiatus. And I just realized that I totally forgot Pikmin 3 exists (but it's on my Amazon wishlist). You talk about high standards, and yet we literally have articles on VGN sites about how people will gleefully buy so many indie games on Steam for $10 that they have a backlog of games that aren't played. Standards aren't the problem; interest is. Personally, my problem with the lineup is simple: Nintendo is blatantly overusing Mario (again, a series that I'm not into) and isn't making/releasing any new IPs, or releasing games in their series I AM interested in, on the WiiU (the 3DS, on the other hand, has a ton of titles, first- and third-party, that I want). I literally bought a Wii for Metroid Prime 3 alone, and I haven't been disappointed with my purchase. I don't buy games I'm not interested in, and if I don't know certain games exist because god forbid they're marketed, I can't buy those either. Not to say that lack of interest in the WiiU's current lineup is solely why I don't have one...the only new console I've bought in three or four years was my 3DS. Consoles are damn expensive, ahahahaha. But I'm throwing my viewpoint out there as someone who 1.) is already a fan of Nintendo, 2.) already owns several Nintendo consoles, and 3.) prefers odd, brightly-colored and unique games to grimdark-shooters. If I myself see issues with the lineup, what do other slices of the gamer population see? This can explain why the WiiU isn't doing all that well right now.

I dunno...even blown-up screenshots of 3DS games don't look that good, let alone showing up on massive TVs. Anyway, re:topic, Nintendo needs games. Desperately. Even first-party games. The PS2 was hilariously underpowered compared to its competitors, and it destroyed the competition and even got ports of exclusives on other consoles after the fact when people realized how large of a base it had. It had a huge library of games and a good price point. The Wii dominated sales-wise, too. There are literally two Nintendo titles I'm interested in on the WiiU: Smash Bros 4 and Wind Waker HD. The latter because Wind Waker happens to be my favorite 3D Zelda title. At least the Wii had Metroid Prime 3 and a ton of quirky weird titles that got released on it. The WiiU hardly has anything right now...

Wooooow, that looks terrible. Graphically and animation-wise. Did that bow-wielding rogue try to shoot an arrow at the player while facing away from them? Why are the animations so hilariously and cartoonishly fast? Why does the close combat look like it plays even clunkier than Skyrim?

Yeah, I've been seeing screenshots of the Argonian characters (I always, always play as Argonian), and they look like crap. Not sure if they look better in-game or what (what with not being in the beta, nor being an MMO fan), but...

1392-5304-2378. I have Gabite, Dragonair, Druddigon.

Two forums I can think of that are totally 100% apocalyptic warzones are the Sega of America forums and Dogs on Acid. The former being a seething hive of annoying trolls and the latter being thankfully dead now (karma biting them back after they treated Pendulum like crap for the crime of branching out).

Shin Megami Tensei in general makes people cry, lol. It's a good thing I played and beat FFX before jumping into Persona 3 FES because wow...The Answer is incredibly cruel.

For someone who hadn't played any JRPGs aside from Pokemon before, yeah, FFX's bosses, especially the last four or five, are evil and cruel. I'd probably have less of an issue now that I've thoroughly defeated Personas 3 & 4 and other Shin Megami Tensei titles, but at the time it was really, really hard.

Well, all you have to remember is play the game like it's a Shin Megami Tensei title (buffs buffs buffs buffs and if all else fails, grind grind grind grind), and you'll be fine. :3 But it's less accessible and more unforgiving than even a game like FFX. Of course, I have the GBA Dawn of Souls remake, so I'm unsure if later versions are the same...

That just seals the deal for me in terms of eventually buying this. The script translation, lip-sync, and voice acting were easily the weakest parts of an otherwise awesome game for me.

I started with X and I liked it. Not difficult to grasp like the majority of the series' ATB system - it's straight turn-based, with random encounters, and has that obvious "Final Fantasy" feel to it. Some of the bosses can be stupidly hard and the level-up system is unorthodox compared to the rest of the series, but it was the easiest game I've played in the series to get into (FFI is an unforgiving automated D&D campaign and FFIV was just....what).

Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The first few times I hit Icecap Zone, I found myself starting the game in the morning before walking to class just so I could listen to the theme and get it stuck in my head! So naturally, the first OCRemix album I came across was Project Chaos. :3

Yeah, they were really smart putting the Daycare, Berry Fields, and Battle Chateau on the same route...all time-based things! I'm currently a Marchioness right now...but I'm still fighting LV25 wussies with a LV83 Zygarde

...I'd really like it. >.>;; I happen to have a crap-ton of Togepis with two or three maxed IVs, but I'm not sure if it's good enough... Training takes so long in this game. ;w; My Zygarde takes an eternity to level up...