Rummy

Another super boomp on my part. Out of interest as I never played this(tbh I forgot it exsited til this question came up in my mind) - how good was the Wii U gamepad usage for this, especially in terms of asymmetrical gaming experiences such as like in Nintendoland?

More so Wii than anything; but I got talking to someone at work about the BMJ's general Christmas articles and in looking for the one I was after I came across this one that rather amused me; http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7267

They have to be careful devaluing themselves with it - though I guess with plans to stop production(did this already happen?) it might not be a risk by time NX comes out. Flameboy's just bought one, and there's a decent amount of good content on there if arguably not a wealth of it - I think taking a £100-150 run on it possibly isn't a bad idea but right now I worry it eats into their NX potentials. Bit of a rock and a hard place really. Whilst I agree the wireless was pretty pitiful @Clownferret, I think the Wii U was mostly let down by its lack of parity in terms of online features with the competition, a lack of diversity/wealth/breadth of software and support, lack of very specific Wii U-centric asymmetrical experiences, and its general pricing over time. All easy pitfalls for the NX too(maybe not the asymmetrical gaming experience, but more utilising full potential of whatever approach they've opted to take) if they aren't careful with it. Despite saying all that it has some solid bits to it in places which has made it all the more frustrating as a constant contradiction. Nintendo really is that annoying ex you just can't seem to stop going back to.

Z sounds pretty cool/fun as you describe it. How much difference/similarity would you say there is in essence between the two other than what seems to be a difficulty curve? Kinda sounds strange really that it ended up that way round(tho I'm going mostly on your opinion admittedly). I caved and just grabbed it in Argos earlier so I'll get the other eBay copy shifted once I have it; hopefully gonna check it out this eve as I have an hour or two to kill between work and popping out later! As said I have played Puzzle Quest before which could be a bit mean at times(though generally easy enough/grindable) but I'll take your advice on it and try and start out with Z over Mario later on; will let you know how I go!

Thanks lol, wasn't sure if the joke would come across when everyone's so tense for information. Just seems to be so many people calling it on all sorts of different angles and revising after every time it doesn't happen that I find it quite amusing now I've given up even trying to imagine when it'll be and just waiting for the content of it when it happens. I think the real nail for them here is going to be pricing as I mentioned in the last post - Sony and MS were smart going more off the shelf for the cost reductions it's afforded them over time; it leaves Nintendo in a difficult position of being 'between generations' yet still needing to price competitively. To come back to it - you asked a few posts back if the Wii U ever had an official price cut? I don't know the answer to that, but if you consider it hasn't and(as also mentioned by others in the thread recently) - the PS4 old stock just had a huge retailer-wideish price deal of £199.99 with Fifa 17 or something. Even if you didn't get that deal - if Nintendo come out with something not matching at a higher price than £250-300(taking into account solid handheld/home console hybridity, and not too many half versions on the go) can they really expect to compete, especially with a post-xmas March time(presumed) launch? £300 really seems, to me, like the ideal mental limit for a handheld/home console hybrid from them unless they manage to really show people how it's going to be both a 3DS and a Wii/Wii U for them and hence worth the higher pricing. There's a lot of apprehension/watching waiting approach to Nintendo by many now too - whilst it's not all doom and gloom it is something to certainly be aware/mindful of. Back to that quick point of a Wii U push tho - even at £150 I don't feel it's good enough right now. £100 for the console, maybe £180-190 for the console and 5 premium games(the players choice or whatevs they call them) maybe. It just isn't something I feel generally really worth the price looking at the larger market right now for gamers.

Super boomp! I suddenly remembered this game existed, thought I'd look at prices and turned up a rather handy £10.95 delivered from TheGameCollection via eBay. Wish I'd bought it sooner really as I'd only have probably paid pounds of difference if that, prices haven't shifted too much. Got to thinking my 3DS has seen barely any action in the last year or so barring a Master Quest playthrough and a fair bit of Pokemon shuffling at the earlier part of the year - so I thought why not pick this up to get the full on Match 3 fix!! @Glen\-i I presume you still stand by your advice of playing Z rather than Mario first? I'd obvs prefer the Mario brand side of things for familiarity etc, and I'd be tempted to go for it first at the odds of burning myself out(ha!) on the Z side and taking a break after, but I'll still take advice on board before it arrives! I played Puzzle Quest quite a bit, on DS iirc actually, and didn't get too worn out on grinding up as a Warrior there - so maybe I'll survive both of these. EDIT: Gaaah bloody google shopping! It leaves out Argos for reasons I can't fathom! Cheaper by 96p there for a tenner - should have checked first, doh!

And next week too just in case, right :p? Maybe each other week of this year too? Yeah the currency differences are a bit of a shitter - but really they can't go too hard on the price here with the competition being offered by the PS4/XBone; especially with a post-Christmas release. I just don't think they have enough pull to keep people holding their money for it unless they do something absolutely remarkable with this system(such as top value for money, as one example). One thing I do wonder with a falling pound though - are there any potential advantages to it for them? I mean not having a domestic UK arm(as far as I'm aware) makes it a bit rougher, as still going via Germany to here puts the Euro against the GBP; whereas if they'd had more setup over here keeping/using money inside would have been of some better benefit no? Maybe even a good time to take some advantage of the weaker £ to contemplate setting up something even... Of course Brexit might have a harder impact to make it not sensible; but also Brexit might also even possibly necessitate it of them eventually? I don't know either way, free flowing speculation just spilling out as I type atm.

Dammit @Hero\-of\-Time! You've made me torn. Really enjoyed your review @Kaepora_Gaebora, and I felt it was balanced enough in explaining the flaws that it made me more of a £20-30 movement on this. Yet reading Hero's post has thrown me back in the other direction! Whilst I don't know if I'll be too bothered with arbitrary painting completion if it isn't too extensive then I could possibly be convinced by it. I think my real concerns are the same highlighted by the review, and the similarities to Sticker Star and some of its flaws(which I actually still rather enjoyed nonetheless). Never finished Dream Team and subsequently never touched Paper Jam - wondering if this might be the one to get back on board with. (Really do want to see them move back to the Mario RPG/Paper Mario levels of production and style with NX though) EDIT:Unrelated - though mentioned in the review- the complete lack of effort in attempting to change the name to the British spelling strikes me as either strange or just sheer lazy on Nintendo's part.

Welcome to the joys of buying/selling and property law

I think my minimum/most wanted thing is a decent online infrastructure and system at an OS level on par with MS/Sony's current systems. That includes cross-buying between systems etc. Also having sales and monthly offers etc. I wouldn't be abject to paying for an online service and getting free games/free game pick off VC. Obviously with this - needs to be games offering an online experience too. I reckon Splatwoon would go down a treat within the first 18 months - they gotta also work on the aspect of finding games and friends in that too though. Next up would be a sensible level of 3rd party support, hopefully from the bigger studios. I'm presuming Nintendo will court 3rd party indies - but they need to work harder at that and get more common/popular titles too. 1st/2nd party wise - they need to innovate some of their titles/franchies/create new IP. I feel a certain level of franchise fatigue due to not enough innovation between titles; hopefully they'll really work to mix up the next rather than milking the NSMB formula or something similar again. Decent price. I realise it's a hybrid, but you can't quite charge the price of a home console+handheld on a single approach in Nintendo's current situation. Given the dual nature, I think £300 is the highest I'd go but tbh that's still sour in my mouth for Nintendo - maybe £200-250.

Besides which Alak already kinda beat you to that punch yesterday :p AND besides which didn't this get brought up recently by someone else in the thread? Having said all that I never even played BG&E but it does seem likely/true this might be coming to the NX which I guess can't be a bad thing; I understand it was a rather well received game.

I see! Thanks for the reply! I never played Minecraft so don't know to compare the building style - once I got used to this it was quite easy(as you say, double-stacking and moving with the build buttton down easily lets you do a line of bricks without too much fiddling). I'm not sure it's something I'll be picking up at full-price due to general budgets atm, but I'm gonna keep my eye on it and maybe get it around xmas depending what it's going for then - I've still got plenty to play for my PS4 plus a heavy SNES hankering atm(not to mention one of the PS4 titles is Dragon Quest Heroes too).

OK yeah that's amazing to be discovered just now. Presumably intentionally programmed in rather than being a glitch of some sort - love little things like that coming to light ages later!

The Blue Coins felt like a real cop-out disappointment to me. Never bothered with them at all and didn't feel too fussed - as you mentioned Nando too many of them just felt a bit obscure really. Was just too many of them I'd say maybe.

Hmm. Constantly tempted. The demo never went beyond just using earth so the upgrading thing is interesting. How much time would you say you've put in so far @Tales, and any issues bugging you about it at all? The demo mostly focused on building with a tad bit of exploring to recruit a dude. Nothing too much on fighting off heavy attacks on the town or anything, mostly just teaching about the range of building/rooms etc. EDIT: Remembered one of my other main issues- text size is terrible on this! I don't know why they go all HD then go for miniscule text like I spent my time sat right up close with my nose to the TV. Admittedly I may be exaggerating slightly but even a 32" at a meter or two is hard to read for me on this.

My understanding is that one is Primary and you can have at least a second, but as Shorty says Flink and Eenuh already have the setup and make it work so best to check with them. I do recall FLink say it was possible to play two people online via the same PS+ tho when it was in relation to Star Wars or so?

Yeah pretty much. I've taken a rather lax attitude to the thread going off-topic because of the epic lack of anything new to really discuss - though I note a few points have been thrown in such as sketches etc and if anyone feels actual genuine NX discussion is getting drowned just give a shout and we'll try to get it back on track! Such a broad topic a lot can be made relevant to it(such as discussion on TVs!) Yeah I thought this was pretty much one of the actual consistent things most people seem to be expecting of it. It's certainly a good idea - just need execution of the system as a whole to be done well, in addition to ensuring there are as few limitations as possible caused by the approach. Sounds re-assuring atm though.

Can you do that game-specifically or is it a system wide thing you'd have to change every time? Dunno how I missed this post earlier but I certainly had a similar issue regarding key bindings(all felt a bit strange to me).

It'd be one of the more sensible options to try to attempt to get a good chunk of the market again though - if they can test the waters of a decent OS/online infrastructure with NX and contemplate competing with the next gen PS5/XBTwon on the same sort of playing field - what wouldn't work? If they came absolutely on par for everything they'd be giving a tough run on the competition. /pipedreams

I personally never noticed those holes - but they are quite glaring but then again; you can't progress so surely you'll find some help somewhere(fortune teller maybe?). I recall finding the ice rod and medallions simply exploring/thinking they were places I could go look. You're quite handheld to Ether, and you can iirc see the Bombos stone/tablet, maybe Quake's missable but you'd probably get it by wondering what's up there in the dark world as I did. As for running out of magic - isn't it possibly just the same as constantly dying/running out of ammo on an old boss? You go off and stock up before coming back!

You know I recall thinking the few NES VC titles I had looked a bit dull/washed out but I never made a connection to it being a system wide thing at the time. Strange to think you'd kill the vibrancy that made these games/Nintendo what they were! As said for someone supposedly so faithful to recreating the original experience that seems a bit strange to me.

Certainly found myself agreeing. I still enjoyed the video as it was - but really it seemed more to be a video about his new dungeon analysis layout schematic rather than enough about the Oracles. Given the sheer breadth of stuff the Oracles brought to the series together(the link ins, items, story, action-er 'vs' puzzle-er approach) and items I would have liked a lot more focus on some of that really. Thought there was actually going to be a second episode follow-up to this with more actual focus on the games. Also, dare I ask, why LttP would be the worst? I don't think it offers particularly better or worse than LA at a minimum.

What were your(and others) thoughts @Josh64? I left the demo last night(thought it was rather comprehensive, wondering when it was going to end!) - ofc I'd had to have left it basically at a bit just before it DID end, but it didn't save all my progress anyway so I quickly re-did some stuff and wrapped it up. I think I like it. Mostly due to the building nature - kind curious as to where it'll go next, what the difficulty will be like throughout, and how generally the 'levelling' system is tied to the building of the town's things. Would be interesting to see how tools go next and further exploration and building after that too. It's got a fairly good humour to it so far that I've enjoyed - but I'm not sure how I feel about it all round. The control/camera feels a bit weak at times, and I end up placing stuff not always where I want which is frustrating. Jumping up/out of places more than 2 blocks high is a bit annoying sometimes too(dug a hole then struggled more than I'd have liked getting out). I reckon it's something I'll def consider picking up when it's a bit cheaper maybe though.

Is the £150 deal all done or is it still possible to get anywhere?

Are you for srs? I'm tempted to buy a second one just because the deals are so bloody insane right now!