Sheikah

Your last bullet means literally nothing to anyone here, I hope.

Some people don't care about surprises.

I just find it a little strange that you jump on someone for a mistake that they immediately owned up to in another thread, while being seemingly oblivious to misinterpreting somebody's post even when it was pointed out to you. Regardless of Rummy's slight slip up, it's good advice he's giving...so what's there to gain by trying to be smart with him?

Shall we just move it to Thursday? That works with me still. I think Thurs would be better for me actually, one of our radiators just started leaking so need to get it sorted out.

He made a mistake, and unlike you, had the grace to admit fault immediately...

Yeah I should be around!

I have played every Mario Kart and looking at images of the level there's no doubt I will have got the reference when playing it. I just didn't remember it.

Not really that surprising now - 3 people already said they didn't remember it. After looking it up, it doesn't exactly look that thrilling. The general MK theme seems to be the coloured bricks around the edge; it's not like you ride a kart or anything, is it? Well maybe I misread your post but it seemed to be like you were disregarding the possibility that people found it forgettable, by saying "no you must just have just not played it". Maybe some people didn't find it anything special? I feel like you're making my point for me. Yes, they were bitesize and ten a penny - so less memorable. For the most part, the levels also didn't really have a unique theme of their own (most of the themes were ripped from 2D Mario). So we are generally agreed they are less memorable than the N64 levels (whether you feel that's 'fair' or not)? This was a point I originally made in response to "AAA games are forgettable. Well, I found this game forgettable. I don't remember most of the levels!

Nope, I played every level. I didn't know that you knew me better than I knew myself though! Also if you look a little bit above, Eddage doesn't remember it either. I know from Destiny at least that Eddage likes to play through all the content so either we both just decided to skip over a level for some random reason or we really did not remember it! Also it's a perfectly fair comparison; obviously the fact it has more levels that are more bitesize in nature makes the levels less memorable, no denying that. But the levels are what they are because of these choices - fairly forgettable, in my opinion. Similar to that description of triple A above, which is what I originally was commenting on.

Nope, don't remember this being in it at all. Meanwhile, I can remember every single level in Mario 64. A big part of this I think was that SM3DW had no theme of its own - the level themes were mostly taken from the traditional 2D Mario games.

How you describe AAA there is exactly what I thought of NSM3DW. The only level I can really remember was the one at the beginning where they're showing off the cat suits.

Nah... every piece of home console hardware since the SNES has shown this trend. Except for the Wii, which as you often say, was 'bottled lightning'. Obviously a hybrid console will do better since it is basically a handheld so attracts the usual people who like their handheld offerings. If they want some of the traditional home console gamers then they need to do more.

It's drastic measures for a company that can barely sell 13 million home console units. They need lots of new IP to serve more than just their existing fanbase. It's the reason Wii U hardware never increased dramatically when a new big game came out - these games are just selling to the same audience.

If you just get one red shell then they probably cancel it or sometimes it never even reaches them (e.g. terrain reasons). Meanwhile you have used your one shell and because there is a one item limit you are now open to attack yourself. A better balance would be 2 red shells as a semi-rare turnup. Also just my thoughts on this - MK is a casual game in the sense that there are items, and in particular, a near completely unavoidable item that targets first place. So long as they keep items as the 'canon' mode of the game and that these items can knock you into 6th/7th right at the beginning, I believe the items should help you get back just as easily. There are many games out there that are hardcore as fuck, to me MK was always fun for different reasons and I liked Wii for the balance it had.

I found the complete opposite - blue shell was more frequent in Wii so first place got hit a lot more. Although you had two items at the front so did the guy behind you, so there wasn't much difference in that regard. In MK8 you could get the dreaded coin in second/third when what you really needed was a stack of red shells or something...meaning you both can't take out first place or protect yourself. First place becomes easier to defend IMO. And of course the star/power catch up items in Wii meant you could very capably get to the front from near the back and then be breathing down the first place's neck (or even get right into first) - in Wii U the star and such does very little compared to Wii, so first place wasn't really threatened by the people coming from nearer the back. IMO this style of balancing was not what Mario was about and I hope they go back to a more Wii style of game in the future.

I think it was Zechs at the time that summarised the problem I had with MK8. Power ups felt quite underpowered in the lower places - if you were knocked out early in a race to say 6th place it was hard to climb back up because items like the star didn't do very much (especially compared to MK Wii). It felt so easy to get into these scumzones near the start. MK Wii felt a lot more fun to me.

DQX is already confirmed to be ported over to NX.

They're the kind of games that I can easily see people buying both of at the same time as well.

But Wii U was doing this whole staggered release of games and it didn't do much at all for hardware sales. I think Nintendo need to have a very credible launch - get maximum goodwill, sell a lot of systems and tie them into your account and services early, and hopefully have more people already there to buy each game that gets released.

And in order to sell their software to people, what do they first need to buy?

Those developers aren't trying to get a system of theirs to sell during the crucial launch period.

It is frankly bullshit. I want a candid discussion about Nintendo and the direction they're going, without the usual ad hominem and pantomime.

So much to play in the meantime. I can wait!

The Order, Bloodborne, Horizon Zero Dawn, VR stuff, Last Guardian, Driveclub, Knack (lol). I personally think they are doing enough new (although that is obviously down to taste)...and they have the third parties making new types of games to back their system up...which Nintendo don't. The only large scale game on the Wii U that was totally new that I can think of is Splatoon. It was also really well received, so I'd like them to try more totally new ideas.