FMW

Man, wouldn't that be super cathartic though? You play through the super difficult brutal level as your pilot in full-on Dark Souls punishing difficulty, but when you succeed your reward is to jump into your big ass mech suit and then you can just stop the shit out of all those puny things that were giving you so much trouble before.

That sounds cool! You take the open ended stealth gameplay of Thief and combine it with the tracking/trapping gameplay from Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Every cat will have it's own mannerisms and patterns that the player will need to learn and manipulate to try and actually capture the cat. Cats are a very good subject for this too - they're fast and stealthy and can jump really impressive gaps. A game about cat burglery would be awesome! If the player managed to put together a perfect stealth run, the reward would be nabbing the cat without it ever waking up. That seems like a good reward for skillful play built right into the premise of the game.

Hey, you know that feeling when you have a really great idea for where Capcom should take the MegaMan franchise, or the best crossover idea ever, or realize the one video game that makes sense for a musical theater adaptation? I have the feeling that I just came up with a great idea for a product all the time, so I imagine that other people have that feeling too. So this is where you post your ideas, give us a rough sketch of how they would look, and we talk about them. I'll go first just to give a general idea of what I'm imagining: Katamari Damacy: The Musical You know how cats is basically just a collection of disconnected songs and the "plot" shows up two or three times through the whole show? Do that, except with Katamari Damacy. Every thing rolled into the Katamari has it's own song to sing, and the giant ball of stuff acts as a chorus (so the chorus grows as the show continues). Just have the King of all Cosmos show up at the beginning and end to bookend the experience and give some context to the thing and you're golden! Particular requests for songs are the mailbox song (he's a grump), the skyscraper song (is shaped like a giant penis and he knows it), and the tumbleweed song (the first song in the show, she's free spirited and happy so is NOT thrilled to be stuck in the Katamari). Every object pulled up into the Katamari has it's own very different worldview and they don't all like each other and they don't always fit snugly into the ball (it's a pretty haphazard wreck of a ball after all) and each object maintains his/her own personality after getting sucked up into the chorus. At the end of the show, when the entire world has been rolled up, you tie it all up nicely with a theme about how the Katamari world is just like the real world: we're all different and we don't get along and we don't always fit snugly but we're all stuck in this ball together anyway, so we might was well make the best of it.

Or maybe unblockable instant kill supers are a really good idea for a very different kind of game. To me, that does not sound like a terrible idea at all. Just remember that ideas aren't just stupid or not stupid, and there isn't a single goal for a game like this to shoot for. I would like to rephrase your last statement to something along the lines of: "Great, Seth Killian has a history making my particular favorite brand of fighting game! I hope his influence leads the developers to make this game line up more closely with the past games Seth Killian has worked on that I liked."

I would be far more interested in this game if it featured remixes of classic Final Fantasy songs. I already have the original sound tracks for the FF games I've liked on my iTunes, so as is this game doesn't seem to be offering me a significantly better experience than I can get just playing those songs on audiosurf. Also, there are classic Final Fantasy games I haven't played, so this would be soundtrack spoilers. Yes, that's a real thing that people should worry about.

And I think Nintendo's making a mistake by chasing the enthusiast audience again. But they're committed to shooting for both now, so whatever. We'll see how it plays out.

So here's the interesting thing about the Wii U launch - Nintendo looks like they're honestly shooting for audiences both "broader and deeper" just like they talked about during the initial device reveal. The target market for this device is, quite simply, everyone. Nintendo's three announced first party retail titles for the system demonstrate this. We've got: Pikmin 3: Definitely a hardcore game, and one that's been requested for years by enthusiasts Wii Fit U: Definitely an expanded audience game, building on the 43 million units of Wii Fit sold last console generation New Super Mario Bros U: If sales of NSMB and NSMB Wii are anything to go by, this game appeals to both audiences. It's scary how well the NSMB brand has been selling. So basically we have a casual game, a hardcore game, and an everyone game. Pretty much exactly what Nintendo promised. The problem? By chasing both rabbits, neither is totally locked down. If Wii Fit U was replaced with, say, Golden Sun 4, then we would have a fairly compelling set of titles for enthusiast gamers at launch. And if Pikmin 3 was replaced with, say, Wii U Sports, then there would be plenty of reason for blue ocean buyers to jump on the bandwagon. As is? Neither group necessarily has enough reason to invest in the hardware. But this is where third parties normally step in, no? It's ever been the failing of Nintendo hardware that they succeed or fail on the strength of first party software support, so it's gotten to the point where the rest of the software lineup is being, by and large, ignored. Ubisoft is offering Just Dance and a fitness game for the casual crowd (read: normal people) and they also have Rayman Legends (which is gonna be amazing) for enthusiasts. I don't think anyone is too excited about Batman or Mass Effect this long after their initial launches, but whatever - those are the kind of games that will get picked up by parents as Christmas gifts. Other significant third party contributions for the enthusiast gamer include ZombiU and whatever on earth that goofy Platinum Games project is. I think that, taken as a whole and including third party contributions, the Wii U looks pretty okay as far as it's launch window having software for all sorts. Nothing earth shaking, but there's something for everyone announced I think.

Right on! But Pikmin 3 not having online multiplayer is not indicative of the hardware not having proper online infrastructure. Pikmin 3 doesn't have online because Nintendo doesn't want it to be online. These are not related things. Different. Things. I highly doubt that whatever Nintendo cooks up for it's Nintendo Network will be equivalent to the competitor's services (what with them being many years old now), but nothing has yet been announced regarding those features and functionality.

I've been playing nothing but JRPG lately... I'm grinding my way through Earthbound, and I'm exploring my way through Xenoblade. There's a reason I used different verbs there - the experiences are very different. In both games I've gotten over the initial hump and am pretty well into the groove. In Earthbound, it's the standard Dragon Quest groove. Go to city, upgrade gear, solve it's problems by beating the boss at the end of a dungeon, move on to the next town. In Xenoblade, I've finally figured out how 90% of the game systems work (by level 40) and am taking some time off to sidequest a bit. But I'm hooked. Extremely hooked.

Oh come on on guys, you're being silly. Whether or not Nintendo will be able to to stay in the home console market beyond the Wii U despite not having the advantages of a large multifaceted corporation (and whether there's a ninth generation of consoles at all) is entirely dependent on other variables. Whether or not Pikmin 3 has online multiplayer isn't gonna sway such things either way. This has been blown WAY out of proportion. Why is anyone even surprised about this? Let me explain matters: 1. Nintendo hasn't had a strong online infrastructure because Nintendo's software engineers aren't very interested in using that technology. The Wii U has greater online capabilities than past Nintendo hardware as a concession to third party developers - not because Nintendo's suddenly changed their development philosophies. I expect Smash Bros and Mario Kart will have online play on the Wii U, but not a whole lot else from first party developers. Just like always. 2. Pikmin 3 is a launch window game. Launch games are always more feature bare than later releases. Developing for unfamiliar hardware and needing to hit a hard date of launch is difficult and most always negatively impacts the product. Consider: Nintendo is perfectionist about their video games, and they don't have a ton of experience making online multiplayer games (much less ones with hundereds of little Pikmin to keep in perfect sync), AND they're developing for the new hardware's launch window. I would have been shocked if this game had online multiplayer. There, does that little bit of context help you folks? Are we through doomsaying just because one particular title doesn't have one particular feature? Remember, Nintendo not taking advantage of online capabilities doesn't mean the console doesn't have those capabilities - it just means Nintendo isn't using them.

Oh god, why would you want online multiplayer in New Super Mario Bros U? The playful friend/enemy relationship in games like NSMB, Zelda Four Swords, or Rayman Origins just completely falls apart online. Pikmin is a shame though, the competitive modes in Pikmin 2 were a blast and I would have loved to play those online.

Exactly. I can only suspect we'll learn more about ZombiU tomorrow during Nintendo's E3 presser though. They've already covered some of the hardware stuff in their pre-show thing, and they've set aside a separate time to talk about 3DS software. All that leaves for the main E3 event is final system specs, price, online features, and then a ton of time for the actual software. Nintendo is trying hard to attract the core gamer with this hardware, so of course they're gonna show off the immature zombie first person shooter Ubisoft is cooking up for launch. Also, the only reason Ubisoft would have announced the game while saying nothing about it is that they know they're using Wii U features still under wraps and/or they already have a slot to sell the game in Nintendo's stage time.

I didn't do anything exciting in Earthbound this last play session. Crossed back and forth between Twoson and Happy Town doing some fetch questing and grinding. Nothing main story related. Doing the extra stuff is pretty much necessary though, because your level 1 party member isn't gonna cut it if you try and move forward right away. It's an annoying little artificial roadblock that you just need to work through. So I want to take today to talk about the user interface in this game. I haven't seen another user interface quite like it, so that's a good thing! The bad thing? It's kind of a train wreck. Normally in an RPG overworld you have two key buttons: interact and menu. You use the interact button to open chests, talk to people, pick things up, put things down in their slots to clear dungeon puzzles... it's a convenient context sensitive catch all button. Examples of this are X in Final Fantasy X and A every Tales game ever. Earthbound doesn't do that. They have instead two different kind of interact buttons. There's "talk" which you use only on people and animals, and "check" which you use on everything else. This is kinda weird, but hey, not a huge deal on it's own. Put each of those on a button and I can cope. But that's not how it works. Take a look at this screenshot: Even though you have two different interact functions, only one is mapped to a button. If you want to talk you need to hit the menu button (seen above) and select "Talk to". I don't understand this at all. There's an unused button in this game, why not just put talk on that? Why do you have two separate interact functions anyway? There has not been, so far, any overlap between things I "check" and things I "talk to". I don't see why I can't just have a single interact button then. This system of interacting has unecessary button presses and leads to frequent accidental use of the wrong interact, which brings up an annoying little text box (either "Nothing suspicious here" or "Who are you trying to talk to?"). Some of the other overworld interactions are unnecessarily clunky too. You get money from combat, but it's sent to your bank account. This means that you always need to have your ATM card filling an inventory slot (and inventory space is precious) and before buying things you need to figure out how much you'll need and withdraw that amount. It's also important to go back to the ATM and deposit your money before adventuring anywhere because there's a steep penalty applied to the funds you're carrying on you when you die. It's just extra steps and hassle, and I don't see any benefit over the standard system of having money go into the party's magical money pile that they carry with them everywhere. General item management is a pain too. You can't equp from the standard inventory menu, you need to go into the special equip menu for, as far as I can tell, no particular reason. Limited inventory space is also a bother, as you inevitably collect more items than you can carry. You can have the escargot express service store items for you from any place with a telephone, but better make sure you visit the ATM first because you need to pay for that! You never know what items to keep with you either. Will Apple Kid come up with another invention? I still have his phone... but I could carry one more healing item if I store that and just gamble that I won't need it for awhile. Oh yeah, and you'll also need to visit the ATM if you wanna stay the night in a hotel to heal up, or to get a dead character out of the hospital. And since the game gives you clear incentive not to carry your money on you, I find myself making constant annoying ATM runs. Tomorrow I will talk about positive things, I've been complaining for two days now. I stand by my words though, this UI is a mess.

Update 4! Today I made it all the way through the peaceful valley and actually survived this time. On the other side was a new town with new problems. This game pretty much sticks to the classic dragon quest formula, I expect to spend most of the game moving from town to town solving each town's problems by clearing a dungeon or two. I also expect each town to have gear to buy that's one tier more advanced than was available in the previous town. In Happytown they have a problem with an evil cult that's brainwashing people and painting everything blue. It's a very unhappy cult. I thwarted them and rescued a girl who had been kidnapped for no better reason than to give me a cause to travel to Happy town. That girl has now been rescued and has joined the party. At level 1. Well, I guess tomorrow is grinding day. She's gonna get 1 hit killed by everything. So what noteworthy things did I notice during this stretch of play? What is up with this story guys? It seems hell bent on not taking itself seriously, but it isn't a comedy either. On one hand, there's this evil Giygas dude and he's really evil and scary and actually is a real villain. He sent a robot to kill me from the future even! He's like skynet! Neither Ness nor I have been given a compelling narrative reason to be invested in anything that's going on. Ness was just told by a future bee that he's going to save the world and I guess he's just like "Okay, cool. I'll get right on that." The new party member, Paula, had a psychic vision that Ness is going to save the world so she's decided to tag along and help. That's cool I guess... but where is the investment? Stuff is just kind of happening with no rhyme or reason. My quest is to find 8 magic landmarks in the area to use my magic music rock to record the songs they'll sing for me upon arrival. What will I do with this song? Dunno. Does Ness or anyone else ever question what's going on? Nope. Right now my motivating factor in continuing with the game is the fact that I said I would. Nothing more. It's an old JRPG with clunky menus and punishing combat and, so far, zero emotional investment. Some impressive audio/visual do not mask what I am judging to be shortcomings. And this is how unhappy I am before I spend a day grinding my new party member up to snuff.

Okay! Update 3! I said daily updates and I'm gonna keep up! I've actually got some momentum going in this game now! Since I last checked in I cleared that first dungeon and moved on to the second town. Turns out there's nothing to do in Twoson though, so I just went east to the next town. This meant wandering through a section of wilderness overflowing with random encounters. This was a tough stretch of dungeon crawl because there are tons of dead ends and the enemies are pretty tough. I actually made it through on my first try, but I was poisoned and had used up all my HP, SP, and items. Even though I made it to Happy Town, I died before I could find a save point or place to heal. So I was sent back to try again. Lame. At least I kept my experience/money. It's painful to not make it through by such a narrow margin. So that's the basic overview of events. As always though, I noticed interesting things along the way. Off the top of my head right now: I played the NES prequel to this game before playing this one. In most ways, this game is a clear upgrade. Better graphics, better balance, better direction to where you're supposed to go (though it's still not great). The upgrade the original game needed most desperately was a map, and this game got one! My map stopped working once I left Twoson though, so that's a little concerning. I wonder if I need to get new maps as I progress through the game? Anyway, there is one area where Earthbound has yet to measure up to it's predecessor. The music for wandering around is inferior Seriously. Compare this from Earthbound: to this from Mother: The main Mother theme had better show up in this game, and sooner rather than later. The super slow remix they play in Ness' house doesn't cut it (and isn't even as good as the equivalent slow version in the original).

Hey there everyone! I'm awful sorry that I left you guys out in the cold without updates there. I managed to mess up the emulator I was using and I lost my save file... very discouraging. But I finally got back up and at it. At the time of this posting I've cleared out the thugs in town and am grinding my way through the first proper dungeon on the way to Giant's Step. Here's what I've taken away from the experience so far: 1. Having a variety of different battle tunes that cycle around when you jump into battle should be genre standard. It's ridiculous that in these games (JRPGs) where you spend so much time in battle that so many games stick to a single looping track through the entire experience. That's annoying and doesn't cut it. This game has quite a few different battle musics and I'm still discovering more as I go. 2. This game has a feature where you automatically win battles that would just be a waste of your time because they're so easy. This should also be JRPG standard. Seriously. In a game where combat is all menus, easy battles are a complete waste of time. They aren't fun, they take time to load and go to the separate battle screen, there's no strategy... it's super annoying any time you need to backtrack in a JRPG. This game fixes that problem. One kinda weird thing that happened already is the first boss... he's just a dude in this happy little town. He's named Frank. Up until you fight him, everything has been pretty positive and utopian in the game. Then the game announces "Frank brandishes a knife!". Says I, "What?? I have, like, a T ball bat! I don't even kill enemies, I tame them!". It was a bit... dark I guess. Just surprised me is all. Once Frank jumped into his weird steam tank thing then everything was safely back into the style of a little kids fantasy world. P.S. I would like to make it clear that I will be posting spoilers. I don't have any yet, but when they come they will be discussed here. I'm a storytelling in video games enthusiast, so to me writing about an RPG without talking about the story is pretty pointless.

Hello folks! I've never played Earthbound before, but I promised a buddy that I would. I've struggled with it and abandoned it twice in the very early game, so now that I'm attacking it again I'm gonna keep up a daily progress log here to help keep me motivated. I'll try to write funny and/or interesting things so that people actually have a reason to read this. Commenting and conversation is encouraged, spoiling things is not. So this post is kinda just introduction and pre-game. Not much to talk about yet. The game did have a really nice "attract mode" though that it went into when I left it on the title screen. It played an upbeat little ditty and showed little shorts of the little Charlie Brown styled characters just walking around different places. It's a stark contrast to the grim looking and sounding "War Against Giygas!" still you see first. I wonder why they only showed one credit during this montage, there was certainly time and space for plenty more. The whole thing is kind of classy, you can view it here:

Man, from the outside looking in you make this game seem as complicated as hell UA. I mean, I guess that's normal for a JRPG type game though. Just about every game in the genre has you learning attacks, special attacks, team attacks, elemental attacks, and status ailments. If the game is particularly off the wall (Disgaea for example) then that'll just be the start of things.