The Nintendo news and discussion thread

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

KSubzero1000 wrote: July 20th, 2019, 3:03 pm... or about trading their old piano in every two years whenever Fazioli brings out a new model, that's for sure.


Surely that argument only works if the latest versions of consoles are exactly the same as the last? People wouldn't trade in a piano every few years because a piano built 200 years ago is virtually identical, technologically speaking, to a piano built today.
KSubzero1000 wrote: July 20th, 2019, 3:03 pmBecause most video game players don't actually respect video games. They view them as convenient shortcuts to their brain's pleasure centers to be consumed at the lowest possible amount of personal investment (be it financial, intellectual, temporal, energetic, etc...) and immediately uninstalled and tossed away afterwards. The entertainment equivalent of fast food. No more, no less.


No, you can't be so dismissive of huge groups of people because they don't have the exact same ideals as you. For most gamers, money is a huge factor. I can't think of many 'gamers' who wouldn't absolutely love a room full of every console and video game, a real shrine to gaming history. I've had something not far from that in the past, but money and space become an issue and most people need to sell old equipment to be able to afford new models, that's the trade off. Just because people don't have the capacity or inclination to deeply analyse and critique certain aspects of games doesn't mean they don't appreciate them.
KSubzero1000 wrote: July 20th, 2019, 3:03 pmVideo games, though? Anything "older" than three months gets shoved into the past tense, to be compartmentalized, derided and ignored. And whenever somebody does take on the burden of playing an "old" game, there are usually gonna be two paragraphs dedicated to mention how hard it is for this poor decrepit fossil to live up to modern standards. Even the phrase "modern standards" is insanely loaded and something you will almost never hear in relation to any other medium. Like I said, our entire culture is basically centered around this stuff. Whenever any classic game is being re-released, just look at how much time reviewers spend talking about the game itself as opposed to all the noise surrounding it.


Anyway, I don't think that the production year of any particular work should dictate its worth, but for a lot of players, it does. I don't have a dog in this specific fight, btw. I never owned a NES and don't share Michiel's affection for most of its library. Just a... wider observation.


...Yes, I know. I'm on my elitist soap box again. /rant over


PS: I'm aware that many of you feel the exact opposite from me on this, and more power to you. Nothing wrong with having preferences. I'm not trying to pick a fight, I promise. :)
But how a game plays now, compared to modern games, is relevant to the discussion. I remember before you used an argument with Resident Evil saying if tank controls were fine back then, they're still fine now. I think tank controls are fine, but that's irrelevant. For many people not used to them or didn't play the games back in the day, then that will be a hurdle to overcome. If you're discussing a game, I believe it can only ever be reviewed or assessed relative to the present day.

The phrase 'by modern standards' does come up quite frequently in film or television discussion, and I don't understand why it shouldn't be. You are watching the film now, you're playing the game now, not 40 years ago. When people discuss the limitations or wonky parts of a game made in 1985, they're discussing how enjoyable the game is to play now, not assessing its quality.

Example, I played Metroid on the NES the other night. Is it a good game? It looks good, plays smooth, even inspired an entire genre. Is it good? Of course its good. But by modern standards did I find it enjoyable? Hell no! There's no map, you can't shoot and crouch, no save system... All things we are used to now, and my enjoyment of the game suffered for the lack of them. I do think a lot of this argument could be avoided by people simply using the word enjoyable instead of good.

And yes, ksub, you're on your elitist soapbox, and that's right where we need you - but I do think it's important not to be so completely dismissive of a large group of gamers. We're all here for the same thing, ultimately.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Some positive words about Punch-Out!!, Contra, Ninja Gaiden and Double Dragon II on NES in the latest Game Sack:

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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at that. I'm sure I'd read DD2 wasn't very well recieved on NES but I never investigated it any further than that. I can definitely see myself spending more time with Ninja Gaiden, but that rewind feature is far too tempting to ignore...
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Like you said, enjoyability is totally subjective, so if that is what adds to your enjoyment, go for it!
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Chopper wrote: July 21st, 2019, 8:49 am I hate how COD and Sports Games are used as a way to dismiss a whole swathe of gamer culture - both have massive and vibrant communities in their own right.
Fair point, but I wasn't trying to dismiss their entire fanbases. I was only using them as examples of games that do have massive casual followings, because that's what sales figures and player data indicate. I have no doubt that they have plenty of more dedicated players, but you also can't deny the sheer number of people who are buying every new iteration sight unseen because they assume that it will automatically be superior to the last one or because they want to keep their kids quiet over the holidays.

It's this default assumption of "XX 2019 > XX 2018" that I take issue with, not so much the games themselves.

Chopper wrote: July 21st, 2019, 8:49 am Beethoven's 5th being performed on NES-equivalent technology
I know you're joking, but I think there is an interesting point to be made here. I will admit that much of the issues I've expressed here can be traced back to gaming's very specific combination of art and technology. Because yes, obviously technology improves over time. Comparing, say, The Witcher 3 with Ocarina of Time is gonna make it very obvious which one is the technologically superior title of the two. And there is nothing wrong with pointing that out and appreciating the audiovisual luxury of modern production values.

The problem is when that same rhetoric is being applied to the artistic side of games or as a way to evaluate design choices that aren't a matter of technological advancement. That's where I think a lot of gaming criticism takes a wrong turn and allows recency bias to creep in.

Chopper wrote: July 21st, 2019, 8:49 am I lean that way for most cuture though. If you compare The daVinci Code to Ulysses, one has brought pleasure to millions, and the other has brought pleasure to thousands. What's best - reaching millions of new and old readers, or catering to the rarefied tastes of the 'elites'? I know which one I enjoyed more.
Again, fair point. But the thing is that those two books aren't at odds with one another. They may have different target audiences, but both are freely available, equally affordable, and the less approachable one is regularly being celebrated as one of the best examples of its craft instead of being smeared for the level of reader investment it requires. People just read the one they prefer and everybody is happy and gets along in the end.

Ulysses is a very interesting choice in terms of an elitist novel that is difficult to enjoy and/or recommend despite its pedigree. Now please compare and contrast the tone and content of the first Ulysses review I found with those of the MGS HD Collection review by IGN. Both reviews are of similar lengths, so I think that's a fair comparison. See what I mean? The first one shortly acknowledges the works's inherent hurdle but primarily focuses on the merits of its prose, plot, structure, etc... Whereas the second one is dripping with recency bias, reads almost like an apology letter by way of obsessing about the technical side of things and barely touches upon the games' main selling point (story) beyond the most superficial of observations. One is a critique, the other is a lowest-common-denominator's buying guide.

Let me put it this way: If the gaming cultural landscape mirrored the literary cultural landscape in terms of logistics, availability, criticism, civility, etc... then believe me, I would be a hell of a lot less salty about everything. :D

Chopper wrote: July 21st, 2019, 8:49 am I can't see it changing much.
Well, me neither. Like you said, it is what it is. But the reason I'm critical of this rampant recency bias is because I see it lay the groundwork for a number of other issues. Most of the problems affecting our medium (creative impoverishment in the AAA sphere, dubious business practices, appalling preservation / archiving standards, to name but a few) can be traced back to the player base's inertia and reluctance to care about anything beyond the latest and shiniest being brought to them on a conveyor belt. Nothing ever exists in a vacuum and I think there is a very unhealthy feedback loop at play here.


Alex79uk wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:14 am Surely that argument only works if the latest versions of consoles are exactly the same as the last? People wouldn't trade in a piano every few years because a piano built 200 years ago is virtually identical, technologically speaking, to a piano built today.
Okay well, let me rephrase it as "you don't see many musicians talking about trading in their violin for a piano every five years." I believe that analogy should work better, no? And the reason you don't see that is because they respect their art form to a much higher degree than we do, as a whole. They manage to look past the price tag and don't regularly trample all over things out of some blatant sense of stinginess and entitlement. That's my point.

Alex79uk wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:14 am No, you can't be so dismissive of huge groups of people because they don't have the exact same ideals as you. For most gamers, money is a huge factor.
Money is a factor when it comes to any hobby and, if anything, gaming has one of the most lenient "price-per-hour of entertainment" ratio out there. It can be a surprisingly cheap endeavor if you include second-hand price deflation, digital sales and console bundles. And yet, video game players spend more time than other communities obsessing about getting the most bang for their buck and I firmly believe that the reason for this are the aforementioned recency bias and a general unwillingness to differentiate between quality and quantity.

Alex79uk wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:14 am Just because people don't have the capacity or inclination to deeply analyse and critique certain aspects of games doesn't mean they don't appreciate them.
Oh, I don't doubt that many people "appreciate" plenty of different things for all sorts of reasons. But the word I used was "respect". I stand by that. The video game community at large is constantly showing utter disrespect towards the medium they profess to love, certainly more so than any other similar community I'm aware of.

Don't just take my word for it, btw. Go spend half an hour on the music forum I linked to yesterday if you don't believe me. Pay attention to the way they phrase things. Pay attention to what they're saying and what they're not saying. And then go to any gaming forum of your choice. It's night and day.

Alex79uk wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:14 am But how a game plays now, compared to modern games, is relevant to the discussion. I remember before you used an argument with Resident Evil saying if tank controls were fine back then, they're still fine now. I think tank controls are fine, but that's irrelevant. For many people not used to them or didn't play the games back in the day, then that will be a hurdle to overcome. If you're discussing a game, I believe it can only ever be reviewed or assessed relative to the present day.
Well, I completely disagree with that last sentence. But I also completely understand what you're saying. I think we're just looking at the same subject through two opposite lenses, really. I get the impression that you're viewing video game conversations as being primarily about people's experience and interaction with the material, whereas I'm much more interested in dissecting and criticizing the material itself.

In practice it means that for you, the hurdle you've just described should be part and parcel of the conversation because it is in fact something that will impact many people's experience. I on the other hand think that the onus of dealing with such hurdles should be on the players themselves and that focusing on this type of stuff only ever leads to stacking the deck unfairly against older / atypical works and to a rampant homogenization of the medium.

Looking at it from that perspective, I think we're both right. I'm willing to admit that my approach can be cold and off-putting. And I hope you won't take it the wrong way if I point out that your approach indirectly leads to numerous babies being thrown out with the bathwater.

Alex79uk wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:14 am The phrase 'by modern standards' does come up quite frequently in film or television discussion, and I don't understand why it shouldn't be.
The reason that phrasing is problematic is because it's only ever being used to compare older titles unfavorably to newer ones. 90% of the time that the phrase is being used, it's to establish the older game's inferiority: "Game X doesn't live up to modern standards". The remaining 10%, it's to reluctantly establish some sort of parity: "Surprisingly enough, Game X does hold up to modern standards". But you will never, ever hear it being used as a positive in the form of: "Game X surpasses modern standards". That just doesn't happen. You know why? Because the assumption that modern games are fundamentally superior to older ones by default is completely baked into the cultural context these discussions take place in. According to that premise, the very best an older game can hope for is to be viewed as the basic equivalent of a modern one. And like Michiel pointed out, nobody ever even thinks of judging modern games by "classic standards".

It's not the words themselves that are the problem. It's the way people use them which betrays their innate bias.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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KSubzero1000 wrote: July 21st, 2019, 2:56 pmThe reason that phrasing is problematic is because it's only ever being used to compare older titles unfavorably to newer ones. 90% of the time that the phrase is being used, it's to establish the older game's inferiority: "Game X doesn't live up to modern standards". The remaining 10%, it's to reluctantly establish some sort of parity: "Surprisingly enough, Game X does hold up to modern standards". But you will never, ever hear it being used as a positive in the form of: "Game X surpasses modern standards". That just doesn't happen.
I think you do sometimes. There has been a massive resurgence in 'difficult' games over the last few years, but prior to this it was often discussed that modern games hold your hand too much, and around the time From Software were beginning to cement themselves as makers of 'hard' games, you'd often hear people saying that they welcomed the return of older game standards like the lack of maps, not having invisible walls on the edge of cliffs and punishing difficulty etc. But, I guess that's quite a specific example, and I concede that it's not commonplace.

I think maybe you get the impression I 'don't like' old games, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I grew up with these games and have a massive affection for them. Often I'd rather be playing something from the 8 or 16 bit era than the latest blockbuster. I love them, and I do respect them. I just find some of them more difficult to go back to because of things I've got used to with more modern games. I think the quality of the game is a totally different discussion to whether someone finds a game enjoyable to play or not.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Great points KSub; sorry for not giving a longer reply here but I've gotten myself into a multiplayer game of FOGE with strangers on the internet :o , and every waking moment has been spent learning how to play the faction I've taken (Ptolemaic Egypt)!
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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I'm really enjoying Kirby on the NES Switch games. It's so much fun! Never really played a Kirby game properly before and this is great. I've done a bit of reading and it seems this is the second Kirby game, the first being on the Gameboy, but this is the first in the series which featured the 'swallow enemies to copy their ability' mechanic which has stayed with the series ever since. Seems mad to me that there actually was a Kirby platformer without this aspect of the game!
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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clippa wrote: July 23rd, 2019, 1:14 pm Never got into the kirby games, but I'll tell you what is good, Kirby's Pinball Land on the gameboy! Man, that is soooo good. That hasn't aged at all.
All the Kirby games on the GameBoy are decent but the pinball one is very good.

One of the reasons I taught myself to solder in fact.

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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Alex79uk wrote: July 23rd, 2019, 1:00 pm I've done a bit of reading and it seems this is the second Kirby game, the first being on the Gameboy, but this is the first in the series which featured the 'swallow enemies to copy their ability' mechanic which has stayed with the series ever since. Seems mad to me that there actually was a Kirby platformer without this aspect of the game!
Crazy, isn’t it?

Canvas Curse / Power Paintbrush for DS is great, too. One of the first great releases for that system, together with Metroid Prime Pinball.

I enjoyed Super Star Ultra a ton as well.

Somehow, the laid back nature of the Kirby games makes them very enjoyable as platformers for handheld systems.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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clippa wrote: July 23rd, 2019, 1:14 pm Never got into the kirby games, but I'll tell you what is good, Kirby's Pinball Land on the gameboy! Man, that is soooo good. That hasn't aged at all.
You're absolutely right. This game is fantastic to this day and alongside say Dragon's Fury (Devil Crash) stands up today as some of the finest fantasy pinball you can get regardless of generation. I also like Revenge of the Gator by the same dev, it's similar but not quite as fleshed out.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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The Kirby games also all have pretty crazy speedruns. So much sequence breaking.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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So this stuff is interesting. The joycon drift thing on the Switch (a friend of mine has just had to send his joycons off) has gathered a lot of pace lately, now a class-action lawsuit has been filed in the US: https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/22/class-ac ... -10437900/

Not good. Personally I've had multiple joycons returned due to poor attach build quality, and horrible-feeling clicks when pushing the analogues, but not the drift issue. I'm paranoid it will happen at some point and mine are out of warranty, looks like Nintendo will be forced into offering free out-of-warranty repairs. Quality control on these things when you add in the bluetooth disconnection issues too, has been pretty shocking.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Nintendo has advised its customer service teams to repair faulty Joy-Cons free of charge.
https://www.vg247.com/2019/07/24/ninten ... ee-report/
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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My Red & Blue launch JC’s had a bad fitment. You could wiggle them slightly when they were fitted to the side of the Switch - felt awful.

Since then I’ve had a pair of neon yellows that got hammered and eventually drifted and now I’m on a set of the red Mario odyssey ones, which are currently fine.

Good to see things are being addressed for people with more severe issues.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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As far as I've read, pretty much everyone's wiggle slightly when attached to the screen. Mine do. I don't find it particularly annoying and heard they're supposed to do that rather than be a dead tight fit. Means they don't snap off when you're slightly adjusting your hands etc, is what I read.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Alex79uk wrote: July 24th, 2019, 7:24 pm As far as I've read, pretty much everyone's wiggle slightly when attached to the screen. Mine do. I don't find it particularly annoying and heard they're supposed to do that rather than be a dead tight fit. Means they don't snap off when you're slightly adjusting your hands etc, is what I read.
Gotta be honest dude, I’ve got four pairs of Joy Cons and only one set have wiggled (noticeably).

So in my experience, some do wiggle more than others.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Huh. Damn. Mine wiggle a fair bit. Did you send yours back or just buy new ones?
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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Alex79uk wrote: July 24th, 2019, 9:30 pm Huh. Damn. Mine wiggle a fair bit. Did you send yours back or just buy new ones?
Neither, I just continued to use them without too much concern.

At one point, I switched back to the original black ones and it reminded me how loose the red & blue ones actually were.

Since then I’ve had a set of neon yellows and Mario reds that fitted fine.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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I've not experienced much in the way of drift but I have noticed the joy con not responding properly when changing direction quickly
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