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Grazza

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Posts posted by Grazza

  2. Posted

    I love it how every seems to be under the impression that Nintendo aren't capable of new IPs. Granted we've yet to see them, but saying they have nothing left to do is preposterous.

     

    I'm not doubting them, I'm just saying 2009 and 2010 gives them plenty of time to release everything important they want to for the Wii.

  4. Posted

    In all likelihood, the PS4 and Xbox 3 will have sophisticated 3D control. Nintendo, though, has created a very strong brand with "Wii", and might get support for Wii 2 in the same way as Super Nintendo and PS2.

     

    From a games point of view, they don't honestly have that much left to do on Wii. The early years were Mario, Metroid and Animal Crossing. The only really big game they've yet to make for Wii is Zelda. Let's say Pikmin 3, Kid Icarus and Zelda Wii arrive in 2009 and 2010, I really don't see much left (Star Fox and Paper Mario 3 would be nice).

  5. Posted

    Wind Waker is not only better than Twilight Princess; it's still the best game of all time! It did the impossible and improved upon the N64 Zeldas. The designers used the extra processing power of the GameCube to truly expand upon what Zelda could be.

     

    They didn’t forget important items that help make Zelda what it is: Power Bracelets, Mirror Shield and Fire, Ice & Light arrows. Those (apart from the arrows) and the sword were upgraded automatically, which was neat.

     

    Visually, it’s unrivalled, with the best-ever character designs for Moblins, Wizrobes and Darknuts, to name three.

     

    It’s the perfect meeting of artistic and technical brilliance. Look at the form of the islands, and how inner and outer correspond, particularly the Forest, Fortress and Dragon Roost, and how you could fly from them to smaller islands by using the Deku Leaf.

     

    I always think the brilliance of the game can be demonstrated by a quick visit to Windfall Island. Sail up to it and there are no loading times. Just hop straight off your boat and onto the island, with no jarring transition of any kind. Enter the windmill, play the “Squid†version of Battleships, climb up the stairs and emerge. Then you can hitch a ride up the top (which you can turn into a lighthouse with the fire arrow) and fly off with the Deku Leaf to one of the nearby buildings; maybe crawl through a hidden passage.

     

    The islands, even the small ones were mysterious and worth a visit. I loved the sailing, the wind control and even the Tri-Force quest, which provided much variety with lots of unique challenges and mini-dungeons. In fact, the game is so advanced, I thought the full-length dungeons were the worst bit.

     

    It’ll be a while before it’s bettered!

  7. Posted

    I think it's funny to complain about Nintendo not having new IPs when most new IPs are just that: new IPs, aside from the name, they're the same games as before.

     

    Yeah, I agree really. To me, the point of a new IP is to demonstrate a new type of gameplay or hardware. In this regard, Wii Sports is as valid as any. For more traditional games, Nintendo has enough characters - Mario, Link, Samus, Pitt - to use.

     

    Completely agree with DCK about horsepower though.

  8. Posted

    Most of my colleagues are very keen Xbox 360 players. Lots of them are very nice and mature, and enjoy talking about games, but whereas I've played Halo and Metal Gear Solid, I've yet to find someone (at this place) who's actually played a Zelda game. Oh well, I suppose it takes too much time and money to try everything. They love Xbox Live and Call of Duty - fair enough.

     

    Of course, there are also Wii owners. Naturally, they don't play Zelda, Metroid etc... ;)

     

    We did all like Sega and Nintendo at school, but those were very different days before PlayStation. Everyone who played was really keen on doing it.

     

    I would call myself a "keen" gamer rather than hardcore. I'm just interested in good game design and want to try all the best. I've been playing ICO, Okami and Shadow of the Colossus, but, I can't help it - Nintendo are the best! I don't think I'm a fanboy - they just put so much care into the design.

     

    PS - Captain Rainbow looks quite a laugh.

  9. Posted

    Maybe I'm gullible, but I'm pleased with what Iwata and Miyamoto have said since E3. Not that the actual week was that bad:

     

    Announcement of MotionPlus - awesome

    Animal Crossing - nice little game

    Wii Sports Resort - introduces MotionPlus

     

    The latter isn't out until next year, so it's a nice way to introduce the peripheral and demonstrate what future games could be like.

     

    As for "Mario and Zelda", well, I didn't expect another Mario. I want Zelda Wii, but didn't expect it to be out this Christmas. It's just that there are a lot of franchises (big and small) they haven't done for the Wii yet.

     

    Personally, I don't think it's too early to see glimpses of what'll be out Christmas 2009. It's not like the 30 month wait for Twilight Princess (which, I think, angered people mainly because it was unnecessary. At the end of 2005, the design team considered the game finished). I remember seeing a screenshot of Ocarina of Time years before it was out, and that disappointed no one.

  10. Posted

    I'm sure it'll be like the N64 RAM pack. They were available separately but, if I recall correctly, also came with various games. I bought one for Turok 2 and then got a spare one that came with Majora's Mask.

     

    I think they were about £15 separately. If MotionPlus is no more than £20, I think it'll be fine. The benefits far outweigh the hassle.

     

    By the way, I thought the announcement of MotionPlus was awesome. It was the last thing I was expecting, and I'm very impressed Nintendo are improving the controls (before Wii 2, that is). It's like the beginning of Wii 1.5

     

    I'm glad the release schedule is a bit thin, because I wouldn't want Zelda or Kid Icarus before MotionPlus is out!

  11. Posted

    The similarities to ZeldaTP are pretty huge; wolves, cursed zones, small fairy type things as guides...

     

    Indeed. There was even a dungeon where you had to: [spoiler=]Gather ingredients for a cooking pot.

     

  12. Posted

    It took me 55 hours on PS2, and that's still not 100% completion (close though).

     

    By the way, I was surpised how close they got to Zelda. Not as good as any of the 3D Zeldas, but better than Beyond Good & Evil, in my opinion (this is on PS2 though, I really couldn't say how good the Wii controls are).

  13. Posted

    I think I'd rather see a 2.5D Metroid 5 running off a modified Brawl Engine. One of my favorite parts in the Subspace Emissary was that first bit where you were Zero Suit Samus and then got the Varia suit back soon after.

     

    Sounds good to me. I don't know why I said DS or WiiWare... a full-disc release would be great.

  14. Posted

    That's a good list by Emasher, but I'll just say I think we'll get a proper Wii Zelda and the Mario team are working on Pikmin 3 rather than a new Mario.

     

    Kid Icarus is probably by Factor 5, and hopefully very similar to a 3rd-person Metroid rather than on-the-rails.

     

    Moving into purely what I'd like, the only other thing I really want to see is a 2D Metroid, either on DS or WiiWare: if the latter, it'd be nice if it pushed the Wii regarding sprites, looking more like a good Saturn (Guardian Heroes) or Dreamcast game rather than SNES.

     

    As for Retro Studios, I'd rather they finished Raven Blade (MotionPlus?) than have another 3D Metroid before the Wii 2.

  15. Posted

    And I don't think you would lose the "Zelda-feeling", just think about it: heat-seeker arrows, high-tech boomerang which can leave tiny bombs on enemies, they explode on your command, a master sword which can be on fire, icy, electrified, etc., I mean that does sound appealing, doesn't it??

     

    Yes, very. I wouldn't mind a sci-fi Zelda at all, as I see the series as like Blackadder: the same characters reincarnated in different eras.

     

    Personally, I think the Zelda series needs to improve, but that's just like any other game. I also think it could do with a degree of streamlining, but obviously not too much.

     

    Here’s what I’d like to see:

     

    Overworld

    Fluid, seamless overworld. Dungeons should be simpler and shorter (lots of them, but more like mini dungeons), and more resemble the type of building they’re meant to be (the Forsaken Fortress and Ice Mansion were good starts). More of the action takes place in the overworld. Any item can be used in the same way in any location. No fixed 3D or 2D backgrounds, and you’d be able to switch between 1st- and 3rd-person whenever you liked.

     

    Whole overworld should be a playable, 3D area. Bosses could actively track you down, following you into villages or the field. Bosses and mini-bosses should not only be able to be defeated in their original environment (eg. Big Spider in TP). They can appear as minions in later areas of field, for you to possibly fight two or three of the same type at once.

     

    I loved those secret tunnels you had to crawl through in Wind Waker! Or how about long, underground tunnels that link areas of the overworld? Like the waterways between Lake Hylia and Zora’s Domain in TP, but ones you could walk through at your own pace, finding the occasional shop or dwelling along the way.

     

    The return of Great Fairies (ideally in their WW shell grottoes!)

     

    Flight. Using the Deku Leaf was one of the many highlights of Wind Waker! Imagine gliding down from a mountain in the centre of the overworld, landing anywhere without any loading times. Link could even grow wings later on in the game. Failing that, there could be several mounts, like boars, dragons or eagles.

     

    Items

    The return of Power Bracelets. One of the highlights of Ocarina of Time (and Wind Waker) was when you could finally throw anything aside!

     

    Link’s standard clothes could be automatically upgraded to an amphibious version, and then later to a light chainmail (which retains the amphibious qualities yet is also fireproof).

     

    The return of the Mirror Shield and shield control (should be possible with MotionPlus). I’d like to see less weapons in general, but it wouldn’t be the same without the hookshot, boomerang, bombs and arrows (upgradeable with fire, ice, light and bombs). I’m not so keen on the context-specific items like the Spinner (as fun as it was).

     

    Items and weapons should be automatically upgraded, like in Wind Waker, and ideally three versions of each item.

     

    Tingle.

     

    Oh yes, and the return of Moblins to their Wind Waker design!

  17. Posted

    I've still got:

     

    Wind Waker (+ Ocarina)

    Super Mario Sunshine

    Twilight Princess

    Zelda: Collector's Edition

     

    I can see me only keeping Wind Waker eventually. I've played more great games on GC than on anything else, but if I like a game, I tend to play it through twice then sell it, which I rarely regret. I think every console generation tends to surpass the games of the last.

  18. Posted

    Well, I certainly didn't want to upset anyone. It was just a suggestion, just a very broad general observation.

     

    You definitely didn't upset me. It's nice to have a debate!

     

    Twilight Princess is incredible. I think it's better than Phantom Hourglass (which I enjoyed very much) and is my 4th favourite Zelda because, quite honestly, I find the 3D ones more stimulating (loved LTTP and Link's Awakening at the time though).

  19. Posted

    I've heard this a few times now; people saying they feel TP was lacking technically. I'm going to say - do you think it's possible that many fans' possessiveness over the GameCube version actually led to them having a worse experience with Twilight Princess?

     

    You're absolutely right. The game ended up customised for the Wii, and so is probably better on that console.

     

    I dare to suggest this, but I did find fans' extreme preference of the GC version mind boggling at the time, and I do think it's harmed the games' reputation as a result.

     

    Well, Nintendo effectively used it to sell GameCubes with that 2004 trailer. And when you see the playable demo at the end of 2005, it's very hard to believe the game wasn't ready. The only noticeable difference in the Forest Temple, for instance, is the removal of the shield control.

     

    Personally, I wanted the version I'd been expecting, and that included camera control and the game world in the correct orientation. It's not just stubborness - one of the joys of Wind Waker was swinging the camera round whenever you liked.

     

    Why should people be so quick to accept the way Nintendo wanted to play it? I love the Zelda games; I don't "support" Nintendo as such. The GameCube, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were worth every penny, but I wasn't willing to buy their new machine for a game they'd promised on GC.

     

    Anyway, I agree with King V, Wind Waker introduced what a generational leap in horsepower could do for Zelda, and it was odd for TP not to feature all of those luxuries.

  20. Posted

    I didn't agree with as many of those points as I thought I would, actually (in the original article). Yeah, there was nothing like owning a Megadrive, and then the excitement of the early polygon games (Star Fox, Star Blade, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing), but I honestly believe better technology allows better games. My favourite game is from this decade - Wind Waker.

     

    For me the main thing that has changed is what types of game are appreciated. When I was at school and we all had SNES and Megadrives, there was a true appreciation of the best games, like Zelda and Landstalker.

     

    Enter the PlayStation, and people would argue with me that Tekken, Ridge Racer and Time Crisis were better than their Sega equivalents, which I disagreed with. You couldn't argue with them though, because of the marketing. PlayStation was trendy.

     

    Today, all my colleagues spend their evenings on Xbox Live, on Call Of Duty 4 and such. They tell me to my face things like "There are no good games on Wii", "Zelda is poor" and "There has never been a good Metroid game". You can't really argue with ignorance like that!

  21. Posted

    There was no back and forth porting, the game was made for GC, they spent an aditional year making the Wii version and tweaking it and that's it.

     

    Regardless, those changes were applied back to the GameCube version, such as the extra padding at the start of the game (2 hours?) It ended up taking too long to introduce the core gameplay.

     

    I would have liked to control the shield like in the previous ones too, although it's useless it was cool

     

    But it was in the playable demo just months before the planned release. Why take it out?

     

    I'd say it's also quite likely that they took out the Mirror Shield. After all, there's a big gap by the swords and armour where a 3rd (or 4th, technically) shield is missing.

     

    Straying into speculation, imagine if the item for one of the later dungeons was originally the Mirror Shield. If the designers decided this didn't work on Wii (due to no R-trigger), do you really think they'd leave it in the GameCube game? No, they ported all the changes back to make the versions the same.

     

    In the end, you couldn't even lock-on or draw your sword without the shield automatically being raised.

     

    The camera control in Castle Town doesn't have anything to do with buttons or lack of it, it's just that it's easier to design a level, specially if it's a busy town with narrow streets with a fixed camera.

     

    They didn't even let you go into first-person view though. Same applied to the (deserted) passage between the town and castle. This is the first time since OoT this has happened in an outdoor area. In contrast to MM and WW, it didn't feel like you were in a fully-calculated 3D world.

  22. Posted

    I enjoyed Pikmin 2 much more than Pikmin, but I still think it needs simplifying for the third game. I'd go back to using just Olimar for single-player and probably reduce the different types of Pikmin back to three, losing the White and giving the Red Pikmin the strength of the Purple. Having to worry about which types could go through water, fire, electricity or poison was just a bit too much in the deeper caverns.

     

    Frankly, the series also needs a lot more horsepower and, ideally, HD. Zoom out and you can't see it as well as you might. Remember, it wasn't even possible at all until the GameCube.

     

    Other than that I'd have shorter, easier, more enjoyable caverns, even the later ones, and no boss should be as difficult as the last one in Pikmin 2. Again, this largely goes back to having five types of Pikmin and too many types of hazard.

  23. Posted

    I thought there were a lot of problems with Twilight Princess, generally in three categories:

     

    1) Pure design flaws

    2) Limitations of hardware (GameCube)

    3) Porting it to the Wii (and porting it back to the GC). I feel no-one actually got the true game in the end.

     

    One of the biggest problems was that it didn’t feel like a fluid, 3D world. The GameCube version, at least, had terrible load times. You couldn’t run from one part of the overworld (or sections of Castle Town) to another without a good few seconds’ wait. This really ruined the illusion, and was a far cry from the fluid world of Wind Waker where you could sail up to an island, without a pause for the “action†to load up.

     

    The fixed, overhead view in Castle Town ruined my immersion, personally. It was almost like the 2D backgrounds in parts of Ocarina of Time, and felt like a step back from the full, controllable 3D of Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask. Why couldn’t they put the camera at Link’s level? I suspect it had something to do with the Wii not having camera control.

     

    If you stood on the balcony of one of the buildings (the one that the Gorons use as a temporary shop), you get a “fake†view of the market square. I feel this would have been a real-time view in Wind Waker, at least. Also in the “technical limitations†category is the “flat†feeling forest, which does not resemble the 3D forest of the 2004 trailer. But hey, if the GameCube couldn’t handle that in the end, it’s easy to accept.

     

    Then there were the unnecessary design flaws such as putting rupees back, descriptions of rupees etc. In truth, I wasn’t too keen on the wolf and twilight aspects either. The joy of the Zelda games is largely about controlling Link, a one-man army, and deciding which items to use whether you’re in dungeon, field or village: the antithesis of a disjointed RPG (or indeed, Zelda II). The huge circle of items, whilst not a big problem, could have been streamlined. I’d have preferred less items (scrap the spinner, ball & chain etc), but more customisation of existing items, such as fire, ice and light arrows. Improvisation is key.

     

    Speaking of items, my single biggest annoyance with the game is the lack of a mirror shield, not for its own sake, but for what that implies. There is a conspicuous gap after the wooden and Hylian shields. Now, in the September 2005 demo, when the release of the GameCube game was imminent, you could manually alter the angle of the shield, presumably by pressing the R-trigger and analogue stick like in OoT, MM and WW. The game was then delayed and this didn’t make it into the 2006 release, even on GameCube. Like the lack of camera control in Castle Town, I blame the Wii not having the necessary buttons.

     

    Sorry for the long post. Twilight Princess was an amazing game, just with far more problems than any previous Zelda (OoT and WW are essentially perfect; MM’s one “flaw†also makes it interesting). It’s the last game I was really excited about, and feel it would have been better as a pure GameCube game, without the year’s delay. Silly design problems can always be overlooked, but not so much when it was ruined for the sake of another console.

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