Anticipated Games

So with the 3DS thing:

Mario Maker 3DS- Was excited for this until I discovered it was nixing online support. I'd much rather play this on 3DS, but removing what makes it good? Pass

Yoshi- Torn on this one. On one hand, it'll have new content and I prefer 2D games on handhelds. On the other hand, it feels too good looking a game to not play on an HDTV and it'll probably be cheaper on Wii U when this comes out. Decisions.....

Pikmin- Looks great. Much more up my alley than the other Pikmin games.

Mario Sports- Donkey Kong on a horse. I'm in!

Picross 3D- Don't think I'll get it today, but I'll probably want more of that. The DS one was really good.

I was surprised and impressed with the 3DS announcements. Kind of figured things would be winding down for an all-in approach on NX. Wonder if some of these will end up on NX too. I thought the Pikmin game looked really neat. I like the idea of doing things like that for Nintendo. Odd takes on series between major entries (like Captain Toad or Super Princess Peach). I will definitely play Picross 3D and Mario Sports at some point too.

The 3DS announcements look interesting, but I think that for me, from here on out, 3DS will be all about Dragon Quest. VII this month, VIII whenever. Unless they pull out a HD version on PS4.

The only one I see coming to NX is Mario Maker and I see Nintendo putting that on everything from here on out. I'm still wondering if the NX will be backwards compatible with the 3DS. Obviously won't with the Wii U if the cart rumor is true, but 3DS BC could happen.

Nintendo doesn't even need to make Mario games anymore, as long as there's enough toys in Mario Maker :-p

Mass Effect Andromeda footage. It has jetpacks. I'm stoked

Krubixcube wrote:Nintendo doesn't even need to make Mario games anymore, as long as there's enough toys in Mario Maker :-p

They could do 3-D Mario games, but yes, I'd say that SMM has effectively obsoleted any standalone 2-D Mario games. All Nintendo systems going forward need to come with SMM pre-loaded into them.

I disagree with the idea that 2D Mario games are obsolete because of Mario Maker. At least unless they changed what is pre-made and packed in for future versions of the game. Nintendo's stuff that came with it was more exploring how to create stuff. And I probably don't need to point out the difference between Nintendo-developed Mario and user-created stuff. I think they definitely need a new aesthetic and some creativity pumped into them again though. As much as I enjoyed the NSMB series for the most part, they became pretty tired for various reasons.

On another note, with Gravity Rush 2 and The Last Guardian being released the same week, I'm sort of expecting one of them to get delayed from there? It seems super weird to release them both in the same week.

GR2 I feel will br the one to get delayed. Feel if they announce TLG is coming this year then push it back that would be really bad PR.

As for Mario, I think the NSMB thing is here to stay for a while, but feel Mario Maker can still fix it. Like imagine the next Mario game has world's based on each of the Mario styles or world's that let you switch between them with a button press. Like in SMB3 style it has blocks in the way of a pipe but you get it to SMW and you can spin jump to break them. Would be complicated to start off so they'd need a REALLY good tutorial for it, but feel that could be an interesting take on Mario.

The more games that get pushed out of Christmas season release the better in my opinion. There's always just too much to play.

Anyone notice over the last 4 or 5 years that Sony really likes to release games a round Valentine's day and spring? Seems that is the release time for all of the games they publish for the most part. Even the Vita came out around Valentine's Day. Makes for easy presents for me from the wife though.

I think my argument is that what some people have done with Mario maker is more creative than what Nintendo has done with a 2D mario in years. Hopefully it challenges them into saying "Well, we can't make a 2D mario game now that isn't better than the stuff in Mario Maker."

That would be the best case scenario, anyway

IMO Mario Maker levels are more "Let's put a bunch of crazy stuff in here and see if it works" design as opposed to regular Mario which smartly designs every level to be tough but fair and I'd rather take regular Mario, though ideally would have both together. I really just want new Mario games to have Mario Maker attached like how other games attach multiplayer

Playing people's creations in Mario Maker made me appreciate how good Nintendo is at it even more. So many user levels are either super-gimmicky (guided tour levels, etc.) or overly sadistic. Finding well-made balanced levels was pretty tricky (though I haven't played in a while, so hopefully it got better). There are so many little things Nintendo does right with difficulty balancing, developing proper themes from both obstacle and visual standpoints... there is just a lot of nuance. I even think they showed a much better way to push the difficulty in a fun way with New Luigi U. Mario Maker is awesome, but I feel more for the creators than the players I guess.

Good point.

I think what I was trying to say is there has been a lot of innovation using the same building blocks that Mario has had for years. Yes, like most "build-it-yourself" tools, there's a lot of bad (that's why you hire professional game designers). But some of the stuff is great, and I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't done more to shake up their formula. Some of the Mario Maker levels nailed that Rayman-style "run and jump in time to the music" really well, some people have done some really visual puzzles, both of which could have been in 2D marios before Mario Maker but weren't for whatever reason.

I think Nintendo hasn't done much to shake up the formula because that's what they do with other 2D platformers. DKC had them add new characters to base levels around along with a very sharp difficulty spike along with introducing new tricks to the 2.5D formula. Kirby just had a game where a mech suit is one of the core mechanics. Then there's Yoshi's Wooly World, which wasn't innovative gameplay wise, but come one! Look at that game! There's also Chibi Robo and Pikmin which adapted 3D gameplay into 2D sidescrollers.

Another point is, compare the 2D games they were making before New Super Mario Bros to after. DK Jungle Beat, King of Swing, Yoshi Topsy Turvy, Yoshi Touch and Go and Kirby Canvas Curse all had really bizarre ideas for 2D games. Then NSMB broke sales records and even though they still released some doing new ideas like the Mario vs DK games, they saw where the money was, even if the other games weren't all great or easy to market. Now that people got tired of NSMB it's just coming full circle again as Kirby Robotron, Mario Maker, and Wooly World.

I saw some trailers for Forza Horizon 3 and was about to preorder it when I realized I never finished all of the content from Forza Horizon 2. So after I finish up ReCore I'm definitely going to jump back into FH2 and hopefully by the time I do that there will be a good sale on FH3. Those games are about as close to a new Burnout Paradise we're going to get.

I still haven't finished Horizon 1, but feel I got my fill out of it. If I did get 3, it would be cheaper and a huge motivation would be to enjoy those pretty graphics. Forza games always look great.

Pokemon Sun and Moon come out Friday... and that's pretty neat! I don't think I'll ever get sick of those games!

I'm pretty psyched too! Especially with all the changes they're making to the new one, should be interesting.

I'm hoping to get Watch Dogs 2 this week, but I find I'm not as excited for it as I should be. Not really because of the game itself, but because I don't seem to be in the mood for a sandbox/open-world game like that right now. I'm not sure if anyone else runs into this, but sometimes I just don't want to play a certain type of game I guess. Hopefully when I start playing it, I get into it and it isn't an issue.

No, I get that. Like right now I'm in a huge FPS mood so even though I'm back into Doom and Overwatch, I still asked for Titanfall 2 and BF1 for my birthday. Know I'll get burnt out on these in the near future, so I'm milking this while I can.

I'd be more in the mood for something like Titanfall 2 at the moment. Gamefly ended up sending Watch Dogs 2. Hopefully, I will be more into the idea of a sandbox game once I start playing it. Impressions/Reviews have been really positive.

Some interesting news tidbits from this week:

-Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider) and Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex) are working on an Avengers game. This kind of goes along with the stuff Marvel was saying at E3 with the announcement of the Spider-man game that they are taking their games a lot more seriously and approaching quality developers for them.

-Rumors suggest Eidos Montreal is also working on the next Tomb Raider. They admittedly helped on the last two as well, but the vibe is they are leading on this one. Pretty sure CD is also working on one though maybe they are just co-developing again and the rumors are a bit off. Seems Deus Ex is the odd man out here based on what I read.

-Bioware's new IP (from the leads on the original ME trilogy who remain I believe) is supposed to be out by the end of March of 2018. They seem to be indicating it is less RPG than their typical games and has a multiplayer focus. Seen a lot of speculation about something Destiny-esque perhaps. I think that is just as much reading between the lines as looking at industry trends though.

Hey guys...no one cares but Persona 5 is coming out this month...

EDIT: IT WAS DELAYED TO APRIL! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm glad it's delayed for April. I might have time to play it then!

Yeah...I guess....*sulks*

I should probably try Persona 4 again, but I just didn't get it. I was so bad at combat and I'm not sure why.

The combat as is takes a lot of trial and error finding the weaknesses. It's not the best combat system but it's trying to avoid you just blasting through enemies with physical attacks a la Final Fantasy.

Ha, where have you been? P5 was delayed a while back. But it's getting dual audio now which I know will please you

Under a rock, mostly. Working. In Japan. Probably in reverse order.

Also I AM pleased about the dual audio. Mostly because with everything being digital it seems so easy to do (the old excuse was always disk space).