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Londragon

N-E Café Podcast

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What's even more unforgivable is that after years of teaching American English, I know say the letter Z, as zee not zed, i cringe at myself every time.

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This week has flown by, and with it is another episode of the N-E Café for you to listen to.

We’re back, and so is Greg, with the twelfth N-E Café Podcast.  Including the recent Nintendo News, games we’ve been playing, including Superhot, Graceful Explosion Machine and 198X, and the Topic of the Week, Switch UI revamps.  This is episode 12 of the N-E Café Podcast, an N-Europe Podcast. Enjoy!

 

 

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10 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

I know, I disgust myself, but it's a reflex unfortunately. I've heard people say S-N-E-S so many times now that's it's simply become part of my vocabulary.

I think it's probably because the majority of popular gaming podcasts are US based, meaning that we always hear SNES spoken the US way. Nintendo actually kinda confirmed it in Wario Ware Gold that NES/SNES is the correct way to say it.

I listened to this weeks episode this morning.

  • The Street Fighter V rumour seems a little hard to believe. Sony helped to fund the base game which is why it never appeared on any other console. Saying that, the game has been out for a long time now so maybe there could be some truth it. ::shrug:
  • Strangers Wrath was a fantastic game on the original Xbox. The narrative is pretty good and there's a certain part that has stuck with me to this day. The weapon variety on offer and the creatures you can use make for some fun combat encounters. It's just shame they are pricing the game so high. It's a late port ( been on other consoles for a while now ) and no physical version. If the port is solid I do recommend giving it a go when it's on sale.
  • The GDC surveys are always garbage. As you guys mentioned, the fact that developers say that they are interested in a platform by no means they will actually develop for it. I do think the Switch will be fine once the other consoles release. It will give smaller developers a platform to develop on without having to break the bank. Obviously you won't be getting the AAA titles on it but then the Switch doesn't really get those in the first place.
  • GEM is a great game and i'm happy to see you enjoying it, Nick. It was one of the games I enjoyed playing during the launch period of the Switch. The game does get pretty hard, with the difficulty cranking up pretty quickly. Trying to get the S ranks provides a great and frustrating challenge. Vertex Pop's new game just released the other week (Super Crush KO). The game looks great but apparently it's pretty short. This actually highlights the eShop problem that i've spoken about on here recently. GEM was highly praised and given a lot of attention at the start of the Switch's life. Fast forward now, most people haven't a clue about Super Crush KO because it's been buried by the rest of the games that have been released.
  • In terms of system features, would you guys not like something where you can actually communicate with your friends. For example, someone is playing Mario Kart and you see one of your friends has signed in to the Switch, an invite system or messaging system means that you could easily ask/invite them to play. There's no way to do this on the Switch itself which means you need to arrange this via some other means. You a lot don't want party chat to have a laugh with your friends when playing online? Anti-social gits. :p 
  • Like Nick, i'm also not a fan of not being able to see what people are playing. The Switch has so little going for it in terms of interacting with your friends, so when someone hides their list there is simply nothing to do with that person other than seeing them come online. I like to delete my list at the start of the year and then it's fresh and I can easily keep track of what I have played that year. Saying that, I don't think the list has that many slots to fill up before games start getting bumped off of it.
  • The trophies/achievements system discussion is an interesting one. You guys know I love these systems and would quite happily accept one on the Switch. I've said many times in the past of how these systems have actually pushed me to be a better gamer, with me taking on challenges that I never would have otherwise done. I think you have to be a certain type of gamer to appreciate these systems. Even as a kid I used to try and 100% games that I enjoyed and that mentality is still with me now. Microsoft have done a great thing with their system in recent years in that they set you challenges on the dashboard for certain games. If you unlock these achievements/challenges then you gain points that can be spent on the store. They have given an incentive to players to do these tasks. Who doesn't like free money? Sony also used to do something similar in the US but they've now scrapped that. 
  • The 1 billion spent on Nintendo games is a ridiculous amount of money. Nick where do you stand on this? I know you dislike a lot of the AAA developers due to their scummy practices and really the mobile offerings from Nintendo seem to be just as bad in some cases. 
  • Having Netflix and Youtube on the Switch is fine, IMO. For example, I mainly watch Netflix and YouTube via the apps on my PS4. I imagine Switch only owners would welcome having everything in one place, especially if you don't have a smart TV or tablet. I think there is some weird thing going on with Netflix seeing as it's on every other device under the sun.
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Only partway through, I don't think SFV is coming, either. Sounds like a solid deconfirm.

Can't say I recognize the music, but it sounds very late 90s... Glover, maybe?

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31 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

but it sounds very late 90s

Right ballpark. Greg chose the music this week, that could be a clue... :grin:

56 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:
  • GEM is a great game and i'm happy to see you enjoying it, Nick. It was one of the games I enjoyed playing during the launch period of the Switch. The game does get pretty hard, with the difficulty cranking up pretty quickly. Trying to get the S ranks provides a great and frustrating challenge. Vertex Pop's new game just released the other week (Super Crush KO). The game looks great but apparently it's pretty short. This actually highlights the eShop problem that i've spoken about on here recently. GEM was highly praised and given a lot of attention at the start of the Switch's life. Fast forward now, most people haven't a clue about Super Crush KO because it's been buried by the rest of the games that have been released.

I've been enjoying it as you heard, certainly remember the buzz when it came out. A more consumer friendly time it certainly was... Wanted to mention Super Crush KO but never had a chance to check out a trailer before we started recording. It's piqued my interest though and will whack it on the wishlist. 

56 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:
  • The 1 billion spent on Nintendo games is a ridiculous amount of money. Nick where do you stand on this? I know you dislike a lot of the AAA developers due to their scummy practices and really the mobile offerings from Nintendo seem to be just as bad in some cases.

The main difference for me is that these games are F2P. I have no interest in them and understand they're not for me, but I did have a bit of fun with FE:H and Animal Crossing. Never spent a penny. Mario Kart Tour is all kinds of awful. Horrible game, horrible controls, horrible monetization. Who makes a racing game vertical only? :indeed: I can live without it, ignore it, pretend Mario Kart is still a solid franchise. Still F2P though, so micro-transactions are understandable (even if I feel a little bit sick saying that). If they were $60 games with MTs and scummy mechanics, I'd be much more vocal. They've gone down in my estimation after MK. The others seemed to be more acceptable. As long as this stuff doesn't seep into Switch games, I'll be happy. Their DLC offerings on the Switch have been good value for money I think. Bar maybe BOTW, which seemed a bit pointless. Splatoon 2, Xenoblade 2, Smash and FE:3H all seem to have a good balance. Pricey, but meaty DLC. Base game is a full game without it. +$20-30 dollars for those who want more. I can ignore Luigi's Mansion DLC, for example, and not feel like I'm "missing out". I'm a fan of their console game DLC approach. Still surprised we haven't seen any for MK8 or Odyssey. Would have dropped more cash on them for extra content. 

I should mention here as well, probably in contrast to some, that I also liked their approach with Splatoon, ARMS and Mario Tennis. Weak base game that builds over time for free. I feel like I got more mileage out of these games due to there being fresh content to come back to. I think this works particularly well for online games as there's always something new to play every month or so. New tournaments and competitions really add to that feeling. Loved getting the participation badges and playing the tournaments in ARMS.

Edited by Nicktendo
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2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:
  • Strangers Wrath was a fantastic game on the original Xbox. The narrative is pretty good and there's a certain part that has stuck with me to this day. The weapon variety on offer and the creatures you can use make for some fun combat encounters. It's just shame they are pricing the game so high. It's a late port ( been on other consoles for a while now ) and no physical version. If the port is solid I do recommend giving it a go when it's on sale.

There's a physical version on the way, but it's coming at an unspecified later date.

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2 minutes ago, londragon said:

There's a physical version on the way, but it's coming at an unspecified later date.

Is it from Limited Run Games? I know they were the ones who released the PS4/Vita versions.

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18 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Is it from Limited Run Games? I know they were the ones who released the PS4/Vita versions.

It's being published by Microids who will sell the game at retail in Q1 2020.  Apparently they are looking into bringing another 2 physical editions of Oddworld games to the Switch, too.

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8 minutes ago, londragon said:

It's being published by Microids who will sell the game at retail in Q1 2020.  Apparently they are looking into bringing another 2 physical editions of Oddworld games to the Switch, too.

Interesting. I'm not a fan of Limited Run as they tend to charge a lot more than what the games sell for on the eShop. With these games having a different publisher hopefully they will be reasonably priced.

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9 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

Right ballpark. Greg chose the music this week, that could be a clue... :grin:

Well, I just perused the Wave Race ost and didn't hear anything resembling those tunes :heh: Must be 1080 Snowboarding, then.

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No one has correctly guessed the Transition Tunes yet, but nice try @Jonnas.

If you've read the review for Hypercharge: Unboxed fully, then you'll have seen that Sam added an extra tidbit of information regarding a competition coming to the next episode of the Podcast.

You can win your very own European Download Code for HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed, a game that received a Brilliant 8/10 from us.  I'll be talking about the game on the very next episode and dropping the details on how to enter.

How to enter: Just Guess The Transition Tunes.  This is not going to be a first past the post situation, but all correct answers will be put into a literal hat and a single winner will be chosen by my son.  If you want to keep a correct secret, you can by all means PM me through the forums.  @Nicktendo is currently devising a devious retro Transition Tunes for the upcoming podcast and in the event of no correct entry, we'll roll it over to the following week.

I'll be posting the competition across our N-E Cafe social media channels, too (links can be found in the opening post).

So, look forward to next week's episode (number 13) and we'll announce the winner during the following week's podcast.

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Last guess: Excitebike 64

Got it in 3??? Nice one Jonnas. Gives Nick another reason to add echo to your name,
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4 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Last guess: Excitebike 64

Haha.. I'm playing through it at the moment on Wii U so suggested it for the Transition Tunes!

I remember it being difficult but it's probably even more ruthless than I thought :eek:

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We're always looking for some listener questions, and this week is no exception.  Anything interesting that has happened you want us to talk about.  Thanks.

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37 minutes ago, londragon said:

We're always looking for some listener questions, and this week is no exception.  Anything interesting that has happened you want us to talk about.  Thanks.

I've no idea if you guys have discussed it before but I wouldn't mind hearing about what you guys think about Nintendo's mobile strategy. I ask this now due to the announcement of Fire Emblem Heroes adding a paid for membership to the game.

Last week Nintendo released their financials and in it were the results for their mobile games. FEH was by far the biggest money maker for them by a country mile. The game has made millions but at what cost? 

I always thought Nintendo were better than this but it's becoming increasingly apparent that Iwata was the one who was stopping this kind of stuff from happening. With him gone the corporate floodgates have been opened and the exploitation methods used by a lot of the AAA developers and other mobile companies are being used in Nintendo's own mobile games. Yes, these are FTP games (well they were before they started adding passes to this, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) that have to get their revenue from somewhere but the gacha mechanics and timed events create FOMO in the customer, thus leading to spending in order to get the goods before they leave.

One of the speculated reasons for Nintendo not allowing messaging and voice/party chat on their consoles is because they want to protect the younger audience but  they seem fine with exploiting them with their mobile games. Again, I know it is a different market but that doesn't make it right. 

Should we be happy that these kind of tactics are at least being kept within their mobile games and not their console experiences or should we be asking ourselves if we are comfortable knowing that the console side of things is being funded by exploiting players in the mobile market?

 

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Fantastic thoughts there @Hero-of-Time should make for an interesting discussion. Thanks.


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40 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I've no idea if you guys have discussed it before but I wouldn't mind hearing about what you guys think about Nintendo's mobile strategy. I ask this now due to the announcement of Fire Emblem Heroes adding a paid for membership to the game.

Last week Nintendo released their financials and in it were the results for their mobile games. FEH was by far the biggest money maker for them by a country mile. The game has made millions but at what cost? 

I always thought Nintendo were better than this but it's becoming increasingly apparent that Iwata was the one who was stopping this kind of stuff from happening. With him gone the corporate floodgates have been opened and the exploitation methods used by a lot of the AAA developers and other mobile companies are being used in Nintendo's own mobile games. Yes, these are FTP games (well they were before they started adding passes to this, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) that have to get their revenue from somewhere but the gacha mechanics and timed events create FOMO in the customer, thus leading to spending in order to get the goods before they leave.

One of the speculated reasons for Nintendo not allowing messaging and voice/party chat on their consoles is because they want to protect the younger audience but  they seem fine with exploiting them with their mobile games. Again, I know it is a different market but that doesn't make it right. 

Should we be happy that these kind of tactics are at least being kept within their mobile games and not their console experiences or should we be asking ourselves if we are comfortable knowing that the console side of things is being funded by exploiting players in the mobile market?

On a similar note, did you read the N-Eaction on Nintendo's Mobile Strategy? Tad out of date with the financial details, but a few N-Europe members gave their thoughts on it.

  N-Eaction:  Nintendo's Mobile Strategy 

content-2-36061-neactionnintendomobilestrategysidebox.jpg

Edited by Glen-i
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25 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

On a similar note, did you read the N-Eaction on Nintendo's Mobile Strategy? Tad out of date with the financial details, but a few N-Europe members gave their thoughts on it.

  N-Eaction:  Nintendo's Mobile Strategy 

content-2-36061-neactionnintendomobilestrategysidebox.jpg

Indeed I did. It was a good read and echoed a lot of my thoughts about the whole thing.

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Dennis has just posted episode 12 to the YouTube channel.
‘N-E Café [012] Revamping the Switch’

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Just finished editing the podcast and it's depressing as hell...

Thanks for the question @Hero-of-Time :laughing:

Ended up getting about 50 minutes out of it. Will be interesting how other people feel on the forum about our... thoughts.

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'N-E Café [013] Please Pay 49p to Unlock This Podcast' is here and don't forget there is the opportunity to win a free Switch game this week. 

A European copy of HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed (not CYBERCHARGE) can be yours if you correctly guess this week's Transition Tunes.  Get on it!

Including: the recent Nintendo News; the winner of the PodPals Kirby Theme; games we’ve been playing, featuring Hypercharge: Unboxed, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Byleth's inclusion in Smash; and a Listener Question, broaching the topic of Nintendo’s Mobile Strategy.

 

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Just started listening to the latest episode.

Greg not knowing who Jason Isaacs is.....
giphy.gif

 

 

 

Edited by Hero-of-Time
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