Dcubed

Glad to see most impressions are positive. It always looked like loads of fun! Also glad to see that there's an inherent sense of teamwork even without voice chat as well - That's a good sign that the co-op gameplay is well designed when it still feels like you're communicating even without talking! (Monster Hunter and Kid Icarus Uprising can feel like that sometimes as well!) Hopefully I'll get a chance to get in on tonight's one... Gonna be cutting it very fine though (do you absolutely HAVE to be in at the very start? Or could you drop in a few minutes later and still get in?)

Majora's Mask 3D defeated! (100% complete!) My thoughts on it are here

So I finally finished it! 100% completion of course (all collectables, Bomber's Notebook complete etc) I'm a bit conflicted about this remake in some respects... While I don't mind the changes to the save system (as it was absolutely necessary for handheld play - and I think it was mostly handled well; though I don't see a good reason why going back in time doesn't save your game in addition to having the save statues) and I generally like the new additions (the touch screen inventory and gyro controls of course work very very well); there are some changes that I think are very questionable... The biggest change really comes in the way that the game signposts everything much more clearly. While I can absolutely see where they were coming from, I reckon that they go a bit overboard in some respects. The addition of the Bombers relaying rumoured events, I reckon, is a little stroke of genius - it makes perfect sense in context of the game (they are supposed to be running an information network after all!) and it gives you a nudge in the right direction without necessarily giving things away; it also acts, in conjunction with the enhanced notebook, as a good way of keeping track of what you have done and what you have yet to do - something that could be difficult in the original N64 version... ... however, some bits just feel a bit insulting, like the way that they turned the Ice Arrows into a glorified key by having it only work on sparkly spots of the water; it makes them feel much less organic and less satisfying to use as a result. With all the signposting that they've added, it does take away from some of the sense of discovery that the original N64 game excelled at, but in turn it does make the game more accessible... There's lots of little changes throughout the game and I feel that they're generally hit and miss for me... Some things, like the speeding up of Goron Link and Zora Link's melee attacks I find to be welcome, but the change to the Zora Link swimming? No... Not happy with it at all... It would take an eternity to go over every little change, so I'm just gonna go over the boss battles because they've seen the biggest and most obvious overhauls and again, I'm kinda split on them. Odolwa has been made more complex, with him generally being more proficient at defence and less susceptible to arrows unless you can hit him from a certain angle - and generally the game encourages you to make better use of Deku Link. On one hand, I like how it encourages you to make more use of your overall arsenal, but on the other; it takes away from some of the organic feeling that the original version had because it kinda funnels the player down a certain path of attack... Goht generally I'd say has been improved though. While the pace of the battle has been slowed down somewhat, I like it for the way it gets you to make use of the Fire Arrows; something that really went underutlised in the original version (and something that really should be used here, since it's the item you obtain in that dungeon). Likewise I'd consider the Gyorg fight to be an overall improvement. I LOVE the way that they moved the fight underwater! It was a really nice and unexpected twist that really made you make use of Zora Link in a different way and really added a nice new layer of variety to the fight! The only bad things I can really say about it are that the camera isn't really well tuned for this fight (it's too slow and doesn't seem to track Gyorg well enough) and that it makes it impossible for you to wail on him with Fierce Deity Link (since you can't use him underwater). The Twinmold fight though? A huge downgrade overall. Not happy with the changes at all. Not only does it take away a huge chunk of the player agency that the original one had (it was great for how many different ways you could choose to tackle it before!) but it's also very very abstract and makes little sense. Why does the red Twinmold get it's health back when it goes under the sand? How is the player supposed to know this? And how is the player supposed to know that they can do extra damage from spinning the C-Pad when swinging him around? Considering how much they went out of their way to better signpost things in this new version, the new Twinmold fight completely spits in the face of this! It's abstract and actually takes a lot of control away from you. Overall, one of the weakest fights in the whole series for me (even though watching giant Link chokeholding a Twinmold is bloody hilarious; the novelty wears out quick once you realise that you're not really controlling it and you've spent like 20 mins wailing on it with it still not being dead!) I feel that the boss fights are sort of representative of my thoughts on the little changes in general as well. Like with Deku Link, while it's nice to be able to have a marker for where you're gonna land, it does end up making the Deku Playground a bit of a joke. Fishing is also a bit of an odd addition, but a solid one. It's pretty well fleshed out and straddles a line of complexity between OoT and TP's fishing; it's also pretty funny to play, considering that it completely goes against the idea of time pressure, leading to hilarious moments like this... You must have JavaScript enabled on your device to view Miiverse posts that have been embedded in a website. View post in Miiverse I think it's a good remake overall. It's not there to replace the original, but rather it's an alternate take on it and I quite appreciate that! I never felt that the original was flawed really, but I can appreciate the thought process behind most of these changes and in many respects it succeeds at making the game more approachable. I don't agree with every change, but I can understand why they made the changes they did. In the end, it's still Majora's Mask and it's still one of the finest games every made! : peace:

Not gonna complain, it went pretty well for me! 100 CC is hilariously slow now!

Seems like the game is unfinished and they're getting the rest of the content out after launch... Considering the situation they're in... I can't really blame them though. At least they're not charging for it!

Oh snap! Forgot to declare my INness this week! Cool theme BTW! Great idea! : peace:

Universal own the theme park rights for Marvel in Japan and east of the Missisipi River in the U.S; while Disney own them everywhere else. No way will Unversal let them go! They probably will refurbish and rebrand some of their existing rides into Nintendo versions, but certainly not the Marvel ones!

Online not available at launch and sold separately, single player mode features an ending that is only unlocked by the Rosalina Amiibo...

Can't wait for Captain Falcon's F-Zero Coaster to rip my face off with the speed!

I go there only for news on Nintendo download stuff because they're the only site that cover eShop (or, well Virtual Console/Wii Ware when it first started) games/news extensively. It was pretty much your only source of news for download games back in the Wii days and it's still the best place for eShop info to this day They do occasionally do some good interviews though! : peace:

It's not really crazy at all, it's the classic psychological "Shrinking Door" phenomenon. Given that you are not using a guide, have no idea what Triple is, does, how rare it is or if there are other ways of getting it, the player is naturally inclined to grab as many of them while they still can; not wanting to risk it being a one time only draw (of which there are a more than a fair few in this game). The difference between previous FF games and FF8 though is that this stuff that is ridiculously obscure/abstract is stuff that you absolutely need to finish the game; where as in the other earlier games it's all optional. You're not getting anywhere without magic to junction, while in say FF7, you really don't need Yuffie or Ultima material for instance. And in no way shape or form should a player be expected to click on an invisible door to find something crucial to beating the game. The pre-rendered backgrounds are not designed with clarity in mind and the world layout is not intuitively designed to point the player in the right direction at all (FF7 suffered from that as well, to be fair, but it at least had the arrow/pointer option there - which was added into the international release because they knew full well that the backgrounds weren't clear at all). Yeah, you can make yourself totally broken if you read up a guide... (though it does basically remove all of the challenge in the process) Otherwise you're stuffed :p

It's not necessarily a fair assumption to make at all. He had no way of knowing whether or not he'd ever have a chance to get it ever again, because the game does such a terrible job of informing the player of other methods of gaining magic - it's a very valid complaint. And even then, drawing is often a necessity anyway. The game was clearly designed with players using the Player's Guide in mind and that really shouldn't be necessary... Refining enemies into cards and then refining magic from them is still ridiculously tedious busywork though - arguably less so, but still just a different form of it. The game simply wastes a ridiculous amount of your time; be it drawing magic, GF rushing everything, or card/item refining; it's all just a big unnecessary time sink that should've been massively cut down (and that's not getting into the rest of the game's problems that he rightfully mentioned too).

Bravo @Glen\-i! Glad you enjoyed it more than I did : peace: It does indeed have some good points going for it that you rightfully point out, I just simply can't stand the tedium myself though. It's just such a black mark on the game for me that it literally feels torturous for me to play, but I'm glad that you were able to get past that and see the good bits for what they were! Surprised that you didn't mention anything about Laguna though (or the hilarious porn sounding music for the military facility that they sneak into ) But yeah... The bad points really do deserve to be pointed out for what they are. And they are really bad in this game! Thankfully FF9 and FF10 are much better games, so it's still up from here! Oh and I played through Tengami as well. Really nice little "short story" game, with some clever puzzles, beautiful visuals and DAT David Wise soundtrack! Well worth a punt for anyone looking for a clever little atmospheric and relaxing game!

Yeah, a stereo mix seems weird for a game like this. I'm inclined to believe that the guy messed with his settings or didn't have his Wii U set up properly or something, because I would absolutely expect this game to have a thumping good 5.1 mix! I mean, I suppose that it's possible that they just didn't want to use the rear speakers, but I can't see why

??? News to me! AFAIK, 5.1 support is mandatory, so it really should be there... Maybe it's one of those games that has a weird sound mix, where they just choose not to use the rear speakers even in 5.1 mode? I know that NSMBU and Smash Wii U did that, but I don't see why Xenoblade X wouldn't... (maybe they use the rear speakers for sound effects only and not music? I dunno )

Me neither. I always thought it looked kinda crummy (the fact that it was made by Artoon doesn't help matters) and that it wasn't worth paying full price for. But with it being easily available for £9? I feel like I might give it a go, just to see what it was like!

Well, there is original music as well, but that world has loads of remixes from BK/BT so it makes for a good comparison. I get what you mean by it not quite sounding the same, but I reckon that Grant Kirkhope's style actually translates very well to orchestra; so I'm happy to see them shooting for an orchestral score with Yooka Laylee It's perfectly possible. Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 did that, as does Mario Kart 8, Viva Piñata, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D World. Showdown Town's music is really nice! (and comes along with plenty of variations as you walk around too ) Edit: Should also say that I'm glad to see that they're addressing my concerns about the stretch goals bloating the production and forcing them to expand their focus; with everything extra they're earning being instead put towards polish and stuff outside of the core game development - exactly what I was hoping to hear!

Nuts & Bolts' soundtrack claims otherwise Say what you will about the game, but you can't fault it for it's music

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2015/05/02/red-dwarf-returns-twice/ New Banjo Kazooie successor, then new Red Dwarf!! This has been a good damn week! I actually really quite enjoyed Series X. It wasn't the absolute best the series has ever been, but it was surprisingly good IMO, so high hopes for this one!

The money doesn't get taken out until the 44 days are up; so you can pledge now and the money won't actually be taken until then. I think that they'd be fools to not at least put a bit of funding/support towards Wii U exclusive features... Amiibo and Gamepad dual screen support would be nice...

Started replaying Banjo Kazooie again to celebrate! As for the stretch goals... I hope that they don't go crazy with the scale; they're really dead set on having an "N64 size" team of around 15-ish so I hope that they stick with that. That being said... Orchestrated music and a dedicated QA team should be the first things that they put their money towards! More stuff outside of the core gameplay that won't impact the actual development process so much!

Just pledged £55 (around the price that an N64 game cost back in the day; for that true retro feel!) My first ever Kickstarter I've backed! : peace: I did!! BT's multiplayer was great! Still play it on a semi-regular basis! Great fun!

Too beautiful not to post This thing is gonna hit £1 million before midnight, mark my words! Sometimes good things do happen in this world

This warms the cockles of my blackened heart You tell 'em Grant! YOU BLOODY TELL EM! : peace: This will be my first ever Kickstarter that I'm backing

Of course, I know that these guys know their stuff. It's just that a 3D platformer of this kind of scale is a huge undertaking for a small team like this...