Ashley

Yeah it was very nothing, particularly from the gaming side. Especially if you discount the customary new gizmos for Unite, Cafe and Go.

Pokémon TCG coming today. Still wish they'd release the sequel too.

Pokémon Stadium 2 dropping today.

Pokémon TCG and Pokémon Stadium 2 coming to NSO "shortly after this presentation"

I am nothing if not forgetful

I was watching a video about the PlayStation All Stars thing (which inspired this thread) and this was an issue that was raised. Even though it was work done for Sony it was a new studio and given a lot of franchisees synonymous with PlayStation are third parties they were reluctant to take a punt (and pointed out it was the third Smash game before third parties got involved). Plus some awkward timing things like Tomb Raider was about to be rebooted so they didn't want the classic Lara in there and it fell through. Nintendo really is the only game developer that easily has access to a wide array of game characters, which I think is why a lot of studios are trying ones based on other media. Although I imagine there's probably still a few annoying rights issues that get in the way as certain franchises will have their videogame rights with different studios.

I do worry it will kill him though.

A lot of developers have tried to create a Smash Bros-esque game bringing together characters from franchises in order to have them beat the crap out of each other and none of them have really made much of a success of it... But let's talk about it. Ready? Go!

With How Do You Live? out now in Japan (and do out in the West "later this year" under the comparatively rubbish name The Boy and the Heron) I thought we could have a chat about the studio given this is once again supposed to be Miyazaki's last film. I watched The Wind Rises last night. Think I watched it around about when it came out but wasn't really in the mood but this time round I really enjoyed it. The biopic with heavy dream sequences vibe worked well and was engrossing. I saw someone mention it's a good double feature with Oppenheimer (although I've not seen that) given they're both about scientists with a passion to create something, which in turn is used by their governments to destroy. Other than that I think I've seen all Ghibli films other than that 3D one, some more times than others. I'm tempted to work my way through them although I am terrible at watching films at home. If anyone has seen, or knows details from, How Do You Live? please use the spoiler tags.

I assume it looked like this?

Pokémon Conquest remake!

I want you to try and pay for the Animal Crossing Lego with fish. I brought a game with bananas once so it could happen! He does employ child labour.

Including having to pay a capitalist a lot of money to start

Plus don't discount people buying the Switch even after it's been replaced as it'll be reduced in price. Hell, some families may buy an additional one for their kids or whatever.

Yeah I think apps are good for practice but the needs of their user base are so varied it is never going to be perfect. And that's fine, you shouldn't expect it. I guess part of it comes down to linguistics (ironically). What is "learning a language"? Mastering/fluency is clear, but does learning a few sentences for a holiday qualify as learning a language? If so then Duolingo does do that. And what I found with Duolingo was you ultimately end up learning the sentences that they repeat at you. It's easy to learn those, rather than learn the reason behind how they work. Which I guess is why apps are moving towards AI-based conversations.

If the games and release dates are all the same in each column why split it out?

It might be that you can choose whoever but the marketing focused on those 3 but I know in the past they have fixed the party so could go either way.

This won't happen but imagine if they released Prime 4 in two parts; part one on Switch and part two on Switch 2. Still complete games in themselves, but essentially a two-parter across consoles. As I said, never going to happen but curious to just see how that would play out.

Well I guess if you start early it helps. Plus some languages have a fair bit of overlap. Saw something the other day that said Italian and Spanish have about a 50-60% similarity and I did notice when in South America knowing Italian did help bridge the gap a bit. And some people are just smart.

Yeah that was the kind of thing. A native speaker would tell him something and he'd repeat or whatever, basically standing in for you. Good to know he's learning a lot!

Oh yeah Duolingo is fine for a bit of practice or the basics and I tend to do similar if I'm going away somewhere, just not great for actually acquiring a language. I attempted Greek a little while ago and used an app to get used to the alphabet itself. I didn't get very far.

Yeah I've tried a few of the coffee break podcasts over the years and they're always pretty decent. Don't know about the German but I know the Italian one is hosted by some Scottish guy (with an Italian woman) and I'm not normally a fan of the accent but it's very calming in that instance.

I was going to create a new thread as I thought this was too old to bump but I can see I last posted last year so whatever. I've recently tried to get into Spanish. Dabbled in the past but now giving it more welly and feeling better about the approach. I did dump Duolingo (Italian), as I said I probably would in my last post. I gave up on day 2222 but was using gems to maintain the streak but was without internet for several days in the Galapagos so now that's gone. But with Spanish I'm trying to be more active. Found a few YouTubers that I'm finding useful. One does videos for about 20-30 minutes going over a concept and just encouraging repetition, another is about 10 minutes and is a mixture between language learning concepts/approaches and actual linguistic topics. In addition I'm reading a book that was highly recommended and is good, although being from the 50s some of the vocab is superfluous (I don't think I'll need to talk about sending a cable or buying a pipe) but it does a good job of teaching through repetition. Next week (I'm away for a few days) going to start building an Anki deck as well based on these resources to help and trying to read and watch more Spanish stuff. Plus I've got the finale of The Good Place dubbed in Spanish saved as an audio file of my phone and listening to that as I've heard suggestions if you listen to the same thing like 50 times your ear becomes more attuned to hearing a foreign language. Overall I think I've got a better approach to learning now and Duolingo was definitely a placebo affect. Which I had known for a while but didn't make the jump.

Ah so they're bringing back The Phantom? A breakout surprise from the first game. Their introducing is a really unique moment.