The Nintendo news and discussion thread

[Flabyo]

A lot of the dates were different on the EU one.

They also showed Xenoblade Chronicles X which appears to be getting a console hardware bundle too.

[dezm0nd]

Very odd, I posted the Wii U news from the Direct here last night and it's vanished?

[dezm0nd]

Here's a Kotaku run-down of everything that happened last night. (Europe)

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/11/12/ever ... ndo-direct

[seansthomas]

Some solid news in there. They did well to keep Cloud a surprise! Shame a few things leaked or else it might have been one of the great Directs.

I'm still very excited about Fast Racing Neo. Just hope it plays well. Shinen games always look the part buy can play a little mechanically and be slightly soulless I've found in the past. Just hope the gameplay lives up to the visuals!

Good to hear Zelda is still coming to Wii U and might be tempted to replay Twilight Princess if the gameplay tweaks lessen Midnas irritating intersperses, speeds up those first few hours and makes the wolf parts less dull. Won't splash £45 to do so mind.

Splatoon new map looks AMAZING too. Just wish I had a way (and set of friends) to do team death match on it though, as I feel I'm only getting 50% out of how tactically deep that title could be.

Starfox looked a bit better I thought? More going on at least in the bits they showed. And that Mario Maker portal shows they're listening to people and trying to fix it. Which is progress...

[Retrothumbs]

Yes, Starfox looks a lot more promising I must say. I like the idea of using the gamepad. .properly but also like the idea of the i direct thingy dropping out from your ship to go on hack work. It's looking like a decent edition to the Star Fox library!

[Scrustle]

I'm glad Twilight Princess HD turned out to be real. I would have liked it to be more of a graphical upgrade than it looks like it is, but this was expected based on what WWHD was like. They improved the textures a lot though, which was the most important thing I think. I'm a bit surprised on the release date though. I would have thought they would want to put it out this year, to hold people over until Zelda U next year. It being something of an apology for the delays and an ad hoc second stop-gap in the vein of WWHD.

Speaking of Zelda U, that release date actually makes me think the cross-generational thing might not seem as likely after all. With the NX presumably coming out in 2017, I would assume they would want to release it simultaneously, like they did with TP. Then again, maybe it makes sense not to do that, so they can get as much sales as possible out of each version, so impatient super fans will cave and buy it twice. I may or may not fall in to that category...

I'm a little disappointed about Fast Racing Neo still not having a release date. Still "December", which has been their line for a while now. That's only a few weeks away now. Do they really not have it nailed down yet? It's still looking good though. I just want a better idea of when I can play it.

But overall the showing was good, and even a bit better than I was expecting. I wasn't too keen on the new guy they had hosting part the show, as he didn't seem to have that much charisma, and came across as a bit nervous. Maybe if he does some more shows he will improve. The president of Europe guy was good though. He's shown up in other Directs, so we already knew that much.

It did seem like there were a lot of delays though. Star Fox was supposed to be the big game this year. Now it's not. Twilight Princess probably was supposed to be this year as well. I'm sure there's a pretty good and obvious reason why that is though. Just a shame that 2015 doesn't seem to have been a particularly eventful year for the Wii U outside of Splatoon. I guess there's Xenoblade coming up, but I'm not too interested in that myself.

[Retrothumbs]

Just a shame that 2015 doesn't seem to have been a particularly eventful year for the Wii U outside of Splatoon. I guess there's Xenoblade coming up, but I'm not too interested in that myself.

Hey,I agree with that but I really enjoyed Yoshis Wooly World. You can't let 2015 go by without a nod to that title,surely?

[dezm0nd]

I think there's been a steady stream of Nintendo's B-tier games for the Wii U this year. It's the 3DS which I feel has been short changed.

Nintendo have also proven that quality DLC can extend the life of a game. We play the life out of MK8 but the DLC packs did keep us coming back this year. A bit.

Captain Toad, Kirby, Yoshi, Affordable Space Adventures (Nindie), Mario Party 10, Splatoon and Mario Maker are quality releases and with Mario Tennis and Xenoblade X due out soon, I'd say the Wii U has done alright from a 1st party point of view.

[Suits]

Picked up Super Mario All Starts 25th Anni for the Wii last week from eBay - £29.99 .

Expensive but much better than playing the terrible emulated versions from the Wii U shop. Sometimes they don't play sound, and they run like a dog. Shocking how Nintendo put them out like that to be honest.

Alas, I now have the SNES version which has the 16 bit cloud pallets anyway.

[ratsoalbion]

This is curious. I find the Wii U VC versions to be pretty much faultless whereas the Wii 25th Anniversary versions aren't nearly so good in my opinion - especially not the PAL versions which don't run at 60Hz.

[Suits]

This is curious.

Yeah man, I bought the VC NES version of SM3 from the eShop, its shocking. Most of the time it won't load up with any sound and the screen tears are dreadful.

Not sure if it's like that for anyone else TBH.

I find the Wii U VC versions to be pretty much faultless whereas the Wii 25th Anniversary versions aren't nearly so good in my opinion - especially not the PAL versions which don't run at 60Hz.

Yeah, mines only the PAL - didn't even think about a NTSC version .

[ratsoalbion]

Eeks! I have not had any of the probs you cite with the VC versions. Could be worth deleting altogether and re-downloading or something?

Anybody else had issues with Wii U VC? For me the emulation has always seemed pretty much spot-on...

[Suits]

Could be worth deleting altogether and re-downloading or something?

That's not a bad idea.

[Suits]

After a quick little Google, it appears I'm not alone - and that it's not clear cut either

http://www.nintendolife.com/forums/wii_ ... o_problems

[ratsoalbion]

Weird, and interesting.

It could relate to hardware revisions, or output methods/AV set-up, or any number of factors. A difficult thing to pin down for sure.

I'm certainly relieved to be in the 'no problems whatsoever' camp, but I hope someone somewhere works out how to address this for those afflicted.

[dezm0nd]

FAST Racing NEO is getting a lot of positive reviews. One to keep an eye out for sure.

[seansthomas]

FAST Racing NEO is getting a lot of positive reviews. One to keep an eye out for sure.

Indeed! Had my eye on this for a while. Shinen Games tend to be a bit mechanical and soulless I think BUT look amazing and are solid. Reviews seem to back that up, but with this being their best effort yet.

It looks a phenomenal achievement given the team size, budget, download size and scope. I'll be buying it this week.

[ratsoalbion]

It sounds like the presentation is fairly bare-bones off the track but that's no biggie.

[Suits]

Fairly cheap too, for what appears to be a decent title.

I'll be getting this once I finish some of the games I'm currently playing .

[dezm0nd]

We've not had a Wii U game night for a while. If the online features allow for easy custom games, would we entertain a FAST Racing NEO game night over the Christmas break?