James McGeachie

The Cel shading is quite a bit beyond what we've seen in previous Tales games, it's just hard to tell as Cel shading is a style where it's already essentially reached a "limit" since it isn't about detail. It's probably the same with battle animations too, I expect there's a lot of complex and frantic action which runs perfectly without a single hitch in framerate on next gen. Overall it seems like a game where though it's not immediately noticible on the surface, I think there's a ton of power put behind polishing the style to perfection. Like most next gen games that do APPEAR to be "do-able" on Wii on surface, it just wont because I don't think most of these companies seem to really want to spend the effort to downgrade their biggest projects just for the sake of having them on Wii when they can just have a lower team working on something Wii centric. Most developers want their biggest projects to be stunning graphically and dont think the Wii's controls can enhance their biggest franchises more than an immersive HD experience can, it's pretty much as simple as that.

That's the same damn amount they have virtually every game for new tracks, while still allowing you to play older tracks online as well as witness upgraded versions of some classic tracks. People don't get that Nintendo aren't about quantity, in not one game will they have more simply for the sake of having more, they're about balance and quality. They could chuck a ton of unnecessary tracks in if they wanted, they just completely choose not to so they can focus on having a refined selection instread.

See that's the thing, with me it's like, snaking feels like a natural technique, once you master item usage, handling, etc, it's the only way to "get better". Then the thing is though, once you get good at it....you have a choice with online...do you deliberately play badly, essentialy lying to the other players about how good you are, simply to be "fair", or do you play the way that's natural and normal to you?

Little disappointed that tons of the music in the game is original versions ripped right out of games. It's forgivable in some instances but....Green Hill Zone and Scrap Brain from Sonic 1 are apparently both untouched originals too...and as much as I like the Megadrive's soundchip I wasn't really expecting to hear much music with synth that dated in the game.

Right because 3 minor retailers sound like a great confirmed source don't they? Nintendo haven't given an official European date to anyone alive.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/review/928518.html You can read some gamer reviews if you want to here by the way. Be warned a few are completely idiotic with things such as giving control 6/10 based solely on Wii-mote play but some of them make good points of how the game will feel to Smash veterans who're into all the hardcore aspects of melee such as wave dashing and l cancelling.

You have to listen to the podcasts to get a feel for what they mean, it's not as literal as the summaries make it seem. They don't really care about it not making sense at all, but it's just that it isn't really that fun to play the 2d levels because well it doesn't feel anything like a platformer even though it kind of tries to be this time and although they have level themes and characters, they don't try to do anything clever with the franchises and you don't have any enemies from most Nintendo games other than the koopas, goombas and a few bosses, though they're going by how far they were in Subspace. It's not an outright "Subspace is bad" it's more like because of how much Nintendo hyped it (calling it like a "whole other game in itself" and all that) it doesn't live up to quite as much potential as it had gameplay wise. It seems to be fairly repetitive and unlike Melee you don't have the bonus of really going through each level as anyone, you can only play the stages with the characters they give you for those stages. They like the cutscenes and stuff though.

The original Metroid 1 is no longer canon really, Ridley is even more huge than usual in his Zero Mission form. Ridley is in Brawl in boss form and is HUGE and awesome looking. I'd rather see him represented in the game in an awesome way than shrunk into some silly looking shell of himself simply to be playable.

Was there actually a time they ever said anything remotely like "flooded with offers"? I recall Megaman's creator mentioned Nintendo hadn't asked them about it and I don't think they'd proposed it either. I don't think most developers even really thought about it that much and from the seems of it Nintendo didn't contact anyone about third party characters, apart from maybe Sega because of the outright demand for Sonic.

Snaking isn't a freaking flaw I can't believe how people wont shut up about that. You know how long it takes to learn if you really practice? A bloody day or two. All it is is mastery of powersliding to use whenever you want, nothing else. It's a completely natural and sensible tactic and it's outrageous that people whine about it when it's not even a hard skill to learn.

F-zero was on Gamecube too. If you're not happy with characters unless they're from the franchises you yourself like then you don't "get" what Smash Brothers is all about.

Not all snakers are like that. It's true though that there is that type out there, but they'd do the exact same thing if snaking wasnt in the game too.

Something about characters by the way. Do people forget that in most fighters, including Melee, most of the time you'd try out some characters a few times then never play again and just stick to your "main" ? It's funny how so many people out there were judging the game's quality by character count when that's the case. It's obvious Sakurai wanted a balanced Roster with some new faces, but was mainly putting his focus into replayability, with tons more collectables, stages, a robust epic story mode, a level editor, etc, etc, etc. Gamefaqs has had like a hundred page's worth of topics since the roster updates happened and most of them are whining, screaming and shit like "Sakurai is worthless" and "The game is ruined". It's so unfathomably pathetic.

I don't find the game fun without snaking now. Thing is lots and lots of people are able to snake and if it was took out of the game, a lot of us wouldn't like it now as it ups the challenge and skill level needed. So it's either the game is aimed solely to the casual MK fans or to both hardcore and casual (snaking included). Snaking is not a glitch or an exploit, it's just complete mastery of an ability that's in the game to use it as often as you want. Oh and since someone else asked, snaking is VERY fun to do when you're good at it. Much more fun than just driving around slowly. It means you're always concentrated on the action, even on straight roads and feel intense speed non-stop, all under your control, one slip up and you can lose! It's a definite thrill.

Same reason they have a zapper? Modern Nintendo like to market obselete useless pieces of junk as new products.

People need to be more realistic with the dates. If NoE knew they were launching it within the next 3 or 4 months, we'd have a date or at least an estimate for that time. They didn't even estimate, or roughly guess, that it'd be out in Europe within the first 6 months of the year. I know that Q1/Q2 release list wasn't "final" but it had several games that dont have dates at all listed as just "Q2". There's no guarantee they'll even be out in Q2 either. Why wouldn't Smash be there if they had a rough idea that they'd be releasing it in the first 2 quarters, even if it wasn't final? I'm being realistic with myself, simply to save disappointment, and hoping for August at earliest.

well at the time of the first video I think that's all they had, a pre-rendered teaser video with some rough ideas for the game

The fact the very idea of a 35 character roster angers people is hilarious. "Only" like, 10 more than Melee or something. It seems people would've only been happy with 50+ and every character with their own fighting style and next to no clones, which is almost asking the impossible considering how unique and varied most characters are as it is. It's also funny that people are taking such a quantity over quality/balance approach but well a lot of these same people I guess judge their opinion of any game by the number of hours it lasts above anything else too so it's not that surprising. Where the heck is "uncreative" and stuff coming too? Not every character can be Captain Olimar because it doesn't make freakin sense for everyone to have a crazy off the wall fighting style and if they did battles could feel ridiculously gimmicky. I'm willing to believe the list of all characters is true. Ridley and K.Rool were never going to be in it, Ridley because of the size and overall design and K.Rool because NoJ rarely ever acknowledges anything coming from Western developers and it's amazing that even Diddy Kong managed to make it in.

Not a chance. Galaxy's score is so high because of how fresh it is and how many crazy new ideas there are, it's very innovative. Brawl is clearly going to be good and score high but at its core it's changed very little since Melee. That's a good thing yes but when it comes to reviews games that break brand new ground entirely always score higher. I don't think final smashes and a more fleshed out singleplayer are really enough for us to see most sites churning out 10's.

If it was delayed it wouldn't have anything to do with development or translation, just a marketing decision, perhaps while they better prepare their advertising campaign (in the hope they have something good....)

Yeah people over exaggerate just how much of "bullshots" those are, plenty of the worst things about the game don't come through in stills, like the chuggy framerate. The only big difference with those screens is that they're rendered at way higher than Wii resolution, giving them a nice crisp and clear look and of course they have full antialiasing. Other than that there's poor shadowing, low res tectures and the lighting is nothing special. All that really makes it feel good looking there is the visual style they had for the character models, which is practically the same in the final game too, just not anywhere near as good looking with tons of aliasing. Also the fact they've got as many things happening as they could friggin fit on the screen to make it look explosive and exciting. Now the first trailer for the game on the other hand, the very first teaser...now THAT was bull. The animation and everything in that was vastly superior to the real game, it was very clearly pre-rendered just to an "approximate level" of how the game would look.