Where are our third party ports?

It’s really interesting, to me, to see people act like the Wii U being underpowered is the primary cause for the lack of any real support from third parties.

If that was true, than where are all of our ports of seventh gen classics that Wii missed out on? This seemed like an easy sell to me… promote the Wii U was a Wii upgrade that could actually play a lot of seventh gen classics. It would have been a great way to get overlooked projects noticed on new hardware. In fact, we’re seeing quite a lot of ports like that on non Nintendo next gen consoles. In fact, I’d say remastered versions of old content far outstrips original output this gen and is a big reason why people think it’s been a very underwhelming generation so far.

So why didn’t Wii U get the same ports?

“Because of poor sales!”

Right out of the gate? Really?

It would have been reasonable to see third parties release collections of old games on Nintendo hardware to incite people into checking out those versions of the game. We shouldn’t have gotten Batman: Arkham City. We should have gotten the first and second game. We shouldn’t have just gotten Mass Effect 3. We should have gotten the entire trilogy, launching alongside the Dead Space trilogy. We should have gotten Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, The Evil Within, anything would have helped cement the Wii U as having a solid line up.

But that didn’t happen. For no real reason.

People have made excuses. Nintendo is hard to work with, the gamepad gets in the way, porting games is HARD… but none of it is true. Third parties constantly make up excuses to keep their games off of Nintendo hardware, because they know that a Nintendo dominated industry is one that they CANNOT compete in.

 

My Problem with Nintendo Youtubers

I was asked today about why I dislike the TheLonelyGoomba despite not knowing very much about him. My response, essentially, amounted to my dislike of Nintendo related YouTubers in general. This may seem a bit like I’m being a bit too harsh, but I genuinely feel as if the Nintendo YouTube community, as a collective, is extremely toxic and something I am not supportive of in the least.

There are exceptions to this (I like Jwittz just fine, for example) but generally, I strongly dislike gaming channels that cover Nintendo content. And a big reason for that is due to my belief that the majority of these people create videos and content that are clearly meant to appeal to Pretendos, not actual fans.

In short, I dislike this notion among these kinds of people that Nintendo USED to be cool. Arlo, TheBitchBlock, and The Lonely Goomba all make videos surrounding the topic. It feels as if, to me, that this kind of person tries their hardest to find something to hate about Nintendo titles in order to make videos complaining about them being out of touch and not knowing what they’re doing.

You have people like Arlo crying about his favorite games getting spin offs, TheBitchBlock crying about how wants ‘real’ 3D platformers and not things like 3D World, you have Playeressence trying to talk shit about the SteamWorld Heist devs for trying to promote the Wii U port, and I hate it.

I HATE how they pretend great titles have crippling issues that hinder the experience. I hate how they pretend Color Splash suffers because of it’s combat, I hate them pretending as if Star Fox Zero didn’t control well, I hate them pretending that Paper Jam was boring, I hate them pretending that Devil’s Third was a bad game, I hate them crying about censorship, I hate them crying about not having games to play, and I HATE them pretending as if NX will fix all of their issues with the company.

The problem is with them, and how they only seem to care about whether or not a project will do well and not whether it will be fun to play. I don’t think anyone on Youtube gave Codename S.T.E.A.M the coverage it deserved. I see people whine and cry about the Koopalings being in Color Splash because because they want ‘new’ villains. I see people cry about not having new IPs while Nintendo spent a good portion of 2015 on nothing BUT new IPs.

I see people beg for a Metroid game and reject it for being too different.

I see people beg for a Star Fox game and reject it for being too much like 64.

It is simply, in my mind, impossible to take the Youtube community seriously. It’s a circlejerk of fanboys who refuse to allow anyone to have fun in order to pretend as if they have some kind of authority over real fans. These people, Pretendos, like to pretend as if they are being fair in their criticisms towards the company, when nearly all of them are close to pointless. They like to pretend they are being fair minded by being harsh towards the company for any thing that can possibly be seen as a mistake. “Now wasn’t the time for a Metroid spin off, Star Fox is dead because no one wants to buy rail shooters, the Wii U gamepad was a terrible idea and sales show that!”

It doesn’t come off as genuine talk among fans to me. It comes off as people that desperately want to be taken seriously and will come up with outlandish statements to be seen as such.

But people respond to this Nintendoom talk. People subscribe to their channels, like their content, talk to them on social media, just to keep the narrative going. I hate that, I really do. And one of the big reasons why I wanted to start creating my own content was to call these people out.

I really hate the fact that the online community has become something that is more about anticipating new products instead of enjoying the things we already have. It comes off as if the ‘hardcore’ online community is more concerned about backing the winning team and not actually all that invested in playing and enjoying games.

We’ve seen this in the bizarre pushback in the community against Nintendo’s new changes. Seeing these supposedly ‘hardcore’ players struggle with motion controls has been really eye opening to me about what these people actually are. They are frauds, plain and simple. And I hate them for it.

I’ve said this before, but let me see this one time. We will see these people who are spending their days hyping up the NX, a gaming platform they know nothing about, turn their backs on it the instant it is actually revealed. Because it will be something new, something unconventional, something designed to take advantage of the changes in the current market. Not just a Nintendo Playstation Pro.

These people will come crawling back if the console is a success (I’m glad to see Nintendo fix their mistakes!) and won’t if they don’t (We all knew it would fail!) but I think it’s important to highlight just how much of a bandwagon the Pretendo community really is. Nobody really thinks Miyamoto needs to be fired or that Reggie should be replaced… people said that about Iwata, and look where we are now. What I want to highlight, here in this blog, is that the Pretendo community is comprised of fair weather fans. They support Nintendo when it’s the cool thing to do, but hate them when they don’t. It’s that simple. They don’t know anything about the company, the people who make the games, or even understand the games all that well. They simply don’t care, and that’s why I hate them so much.

I’m playing my first ever Dragon Quest came right now, and I’m loving it.

 

The surprising success story of Paper Mario: Color Splash

Out of the three most widely reviled Nintendo exclusives this year, the one I was the most pessimistic about was Color Splash. I had not finished Sticker Star at the time it was revealed, and I was not impressed at all by the early clips they showed in Nintendo Directs. Early on, I was actually planning on skipping it, as I don’t really have a lot of time for games these days anyway. But as time went on, I began to be won over by the game. First by Gamexplain’s analysis of the trailer, than by official gameplay footage, and then by the release of the final product which has, very likely, cemented itself as my personal GOTY.

How exactly did this happen? My expectations early on this year were that Star Fox and Fates would be my game of the year, but that did not happen. A part of that was due to my expectations not being met. Star Fox did not introduce nearly enough new features to keep me playing, and Fates was… well, Fates. But Paper Mario did something different. It delivered a product that no one was expecting, and I think that’s a big part of why people have received it surprisingly well, while pretty much everyone I know, myself included, thought it would do poorly due to it’s association with Sticker Star and how that was a ‘bad’ game.

But that did not happen. Actual numbers aren’t in yet, but the fact that idiots aren’t spamming YouTube videos crying about sales says a lot. I know it topped the eshop charts, and I know even vocal critics of Sticker Star like Gamexplain and the muppet fucker Arlo liked it.

Keep in mind Arlo was the guy TTYD fanboys were posting everywhere to try and ‘prove’ that the new direction Paper Mario was going in was inherently a bad idea. He was the big centerpiece of the backlash, and to see him struggle to try find something wrong with Color Splash says a lot about it’s actual quality. I can confirm all the criticisms he lobbied towards the game, specifically towards the combat, should be ignored because it simply isn’t true. He also tries to make the whole ‘adventuring’ aspect of the game, the overworld, sound boring and tedious when it really isn’t.

Fuck Arlo, but even he gave the game a positive review in spite of his pretty clear bias. I don’t think anyone is really criticizing Color Splash right now. In 2016, this was the last Nintendo game I expected to get a pass from Pretendos and end up well received in spite of the controversy surrounding it. How can that be?

A big part of that is due to the fact that the Pretendos could not decide on what the problem with the game was supposed to be. Initially, people thought that the fact that it was a Sticker Star sequel meant that it would be a carbon copy of that game. The issue, at first, was stripping Paper Mario of it’s personality.

But as time went on, we learned that wasn’t the case. Color Splash was filled to the brim with interesting, funny dialogue that gave a lot of personality to the game and characters within. The game actually has lots of fun little stories going on in it, and it’s really charming to people. It really reminds me of The Thousand Year Door in a lot of ways.

Without that huge, killer aspect to the game, TTYD fans really had nothing else fall back on. The complaints about the world map screen, the combat, the level design,  all of that really started to feel hollow the more we saw from the game. It really felt like, after a while, the only complaint that anyone had was that characters didn’t have discernible traits.

As a bit of an aside, has anyone else noticed that the traditional partner designs are being referred to as ‘OC’s?’ As in… Original Characters? The exact same phrase that Deviant Art users who draw Sonic recolors use to justify their creativity? Just an observation.

It really did come off as if the only people complaining about Color Splash were a vocal minority of obsessed fans with nothing better to do. The only real problem they had with Color Splash (And Sticker Star) was because they see it was getting in the way of the’real’ TTYD sequel. But that wasn’t enough to keep people from becoming interested in and enjoying the game, despite how badly they tried to pretend as if it were something terrible.

 

They were under the impression that the only way to save Paper Mario was to return to the TTYD formula, while Nintendo knew that the Sticker Star formula was just fine. It just needed a bit of work to really make it shine. I think other unpopular Nintendo games this year, namely Zero and Federation Force, will get sequels that improve on the original in the same way Color Splash did.

When you have real, genuine talent, you can afford to make mistakes.

 

 

 

The Problem with Star Fox Zero

It’s a bad game. The motion controls don’t work. It’s a bad game. It’s a rehash of 64. It’s a bad game. It’s not what we wanted. It’s a bad game.

Today I’d like to focus my attention on Star Fox Zero and the reception it received from the public at large. As I alluded to in my last article, this is actually a topic that greatly interests me, and I strongly desire to be the first to examine the situation in depth. My opinion is that people are merely looking at the face of the issue, and not all of it’s other components.

There continues to be a lot of misinformation being paraded around about the title, even months after it’s release, but as we examine the situation at hand, we will learn just how unsustainable the backlash really is for long term criticism.

The game was formally announced at E3 2015. It kicked off the show, and right from the beginning there was a lot of criticism lobbied towards it. Not because of anything Zero did in and of itself… rather, it was one of the more well received games at the show.However, due to the overwhelming negative reception to the Direct as a whole, mostly due to extremely angry Metroid fans, people took their fury out on Star Fox as well.

Surprisingly, I don’t seem to recall people complaining about the controls at all during the big reveal. The point of contention, at first, was more due to the visuals and art style. Now, this is actually important, because it really highlights a trend I’ve been noticing when it comes to Nintendo games. It’s not about what is actually WRONG with the game. It’s about what people SAY is wrong with the game.

When it comes to Star Fox Zero, the criticism surrounding the title had NOTHING to do with the control scheme, and everything to do with the supposedly lackluster visuals. Idiots like VideoGamesAwesome and Playeressence spent a lot of time talking about how the game ‘isn’t what they wanted’ from the beginning. Keep in mind these were the same people begging for a Star Fox 64 2 for years. In the beginning, you had people say the game didn’t look fun to play, there weren’t enough enemies on screen, the game was too slow, it wasn’t a real Star Fox game.

In hindsight, a lot of those criticisms came from the fact that, initially, Nintendo only showed off the first few areas. The Gyrowing stage and Corneria. And as we now know, those are two beginning levels in the game and that things  become much more hectic later on.

This is actually quite interesting for a number of reasons, but most pressingly, I found it quite shocking how the very same people begging Nintendo for a new Star Fox 64 rejected it so readily and for so little reason. Remember, at this stage, the primary concern was due to nothing more than the visuals. At this stage, the control scheme was nothing more than a passing concern. Most people actually accepted Miyamoto’s explanation that the game would take a lot of practice early on. There were some people complaining about them, but at this stage the issue was entirely due to the visuals.

Early on, it really felt like the unease lobbied at towards the game was more due to the E3 Direct than anything else. We saw lots of really great games, like Paper Jam and Federation Force, be slammed for no real reason as well. Honestly, the only truly bad game shown was Amiibo Festival… and that was not in and of itself enough to ruin the Direct.

People were just that salty at Federation Force, I guess. Nothing about the rest of it really was all that terrible and I personally really enjoyed a lot of the games they showed. Also keep in mind the games they showed in that Direct have ACTUALLY ALL COME OUT… very unlike the Playstation presentation which ‘won’ that conference. What happened to Shenmue III, again?

Anyway, my point is is that every game shown in that Direct had a following of people who wanted to hate on it just for being in that Direct. Paper Jam was hated because it was seen as taking too many influences from Sticker Star, for example. Star Fox Zero was no exception, and in fact was probably the second most criticized game at the showing, as it was the big game they debuted there. But the reasoning for why it was being criticized felt off, from the very beginning. The complaints about the visuals only really seemed to apply to the textures of the Arwing’s and the enemies. I remember specifically thinking the environments, specifically those brief glimpses of Titania, were gorgeous. But the critics for the game didn’t agree with me, and demanded that the game needed to be delayed to make it look better.

So after a couple of months of this, Nintendo, to my surprise, announced that the title would be delayed until 2016, specifically in response to player feedback at E3. I was disappointed, sure, but knew that they were using the time to improve the game overall. The changes were primarily bent on improving the visuals and giving them more flair, but I believe they also added smart bombs into the game around this time. With the 2015 holiday season loaded as it was, I didn’t mind the delay. In fact, I eventually welcomed it.

That was not the case for those who thought it needed to be improved in the first place. The critics took the delay as ‘proof’ that there was something seriously wrong with the game and scrambled to find something new to blame. Now that the visuals were confirmed to being improved, what else could it be?

What about the control scheme? At this point, this is where people started to take critic complaints that the game had a unwieldy control scheme and started running wild with it. Suddenly the game wasn’t ‘just’ being delayed for visual upgrades. It was being delayed because it was completely broken. Known Nintendo hoaxer and all around fraud Liam Robertson actually played a role in this. He claimed that quality testers are Nintendo of Europe were very unhappy with the control scheme and wanted the game delayed a second time to fix them.

So why is this important? I think this really sets the stage for what the problem is with ‘criticism’ lobbied at Nintendo products. People create a narrative and run with it despite never having actually played the game. People suddenly had this image in their minds of a Star Fox Zero with wonky motion controls and refused to let the idea die, even months after launch.

I think we can divide the backlash towards Star Fox Zero into three phases: Post reveal, post delay, and post launch. People who complain about the controls are still stuck in the post delay phase, since those of us who have actually spent time with the game know that the motion controls are incredibly immersive and add a lot to the gameplay. However, that leads to the problem with the post launch phase… people aren’t spending ENOUGH time with the game. A single playthrough is simply not enough to learn all of the game’s intricacies, which is why a lot of people continue to insist that something is wrong with the game. Whether it be the controls, the way the route system works, anything like that.

It is my opinion that people have become too used to games like Uncharted where you know you have seen everything there is to see in a single playthrough. This is where the post launch complaint about the game not being long enough came from. You are supposed to have fun playing levels over and over again, getting better each time, but people think that clearing each level once means that they are finished with it.

I think this is where post launch opinions differ. You have idiots like SomeCallmeJohnny and DSP calling the game shit because they only played through the game once without bothering to learn the controls (And they have footage recorded online, so I can verify this is the case) and then you have people like myself and the Completionist, who actually spent time playing through the entire game several times. I believe the Completionist took around fifty hours for a complete playthrough. Not exactly what I would refer to as a ‘short’ game, but most people don’t see it that way, and a big reason for that is due to the fact that rail shooters are not very popular right now. Players today are trained to clear a game once, as fast as they can, and then move on to the next shiny thing.

I really enjoyed Star Fox Zero and it’s really sad to see people who haven’t really scratched the surface of the game act as if Nintendo doesn’t know what they are doing. “Fire Miyamoto, he’s the problem!” They cry. Sorry, Pretendos, but Miyamoto isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, if Color Splash is any indication, a sequel improving on Zero is all it will take to make the series truly shoot for the stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kid Icarus 3D: My impressions

I have just finished the original Kid Icarus on my New Nintendo 3DS, so I thought I’d take a little bit of time to talk about it.

In some ways, I find it to have aged fairly well. Some of the sprites are really pleasing to look at. I was actually surprised to see how similar Palutena looked to her portrayal in Uprising. I’m not sure whether they redid some models for this version of the game, but I really liked the way a lot of the enemies look.

I also really like the environments. Specifically how they look and play completely differently as you climb back to Skyworld. It’s an interesting idea, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it return in a future game.

The game mostly suffers, I think, from being tedious in some ways. For example, finding your way through the final dungeon is a pain because the correct path involves taking a really bizarre path that no one would ever consider. Going down, left, up, and right. It’s easy once you figure it out, but I was stuck there for quite some time. The final area, too, is a shmup section that doesn’t play particularly well. Pit is rather slow and it’s hard to dodge enemies. And Medusa takes forever to kill, even if you exploit her AI by hovering in her blind spot.

It’s not a great game, by any means. I feel like there’s a good reason this is one of the properties that Nintendo forgot about for almost twenty years, and I think it’s because Kid Icarus doesn’t really have it’s own identity. Is it a platformer, is it a dungeon crawler, is it a shmup? It seems like they tried to experiment with a lot of different ideas and none of them really panned out well. Personally, I would say the only reason I ever finished the game was because of Uprising, and how much it drew from it. I’m amazed at Sakurai’s creativity, personally. It’s like he took every element in this game and made it work in a really unexpected way.

Hardcore fans will have a blast comparing this game to Uprising, but I say it’s no Super Mario Bros. It has not stood the test of time.

 

The Corrupt Gaming Press: A look at Metacritic!

One of the very first things that people will point out to you when trying to prove that Nintendo is losing relevance in the market are Metacritic scores. On the surface, it’s pretty easy to see why. It’s an aggregate score formed by the opinions of several different critics in the industry, from all kinds of different backgrounds. Surely, there could be no more reliable method of discerning just how popular a game is?

Well, assuming you have been following current events, you are more than well aware that journalism as a whole is extremely corrupt. This sort of thing brings to mind #gamergate quite a bit, but in these terms I am speaking a bit more broadly. #Gamergate became fixated on political issues that drove discussion from game journos in certain ways. I believe that is only an example of the issue, not the problem in and of itself. You see, if the standard of quality is so low in this field that blatantly terrible games like Gone Home and Undertale can become critical successes due to having the right kind of connections, what’s stopping the real powerhouses in the industry from doing the same thing?

Obviously, not all of the corruption in the industry is indistinguishable from one another. I don’t believe the inflated scores for triple A games is due to the same sort of connections that indie games use, rather it’s more due to a mutual interest from both parties, big triple A publishers, and game journos, to sell big games to the public. Publishers want sales, but Game journos want people to click on their news stories. The bigger the release, the more anticipation from the audience,  which leads to a bigger group of people clicking on stories related to that game.

So how does Nintendo fit into this cycle? Well… they don’t, and haven’t really for a long time.

You see, Nintendo does not play by the same rules as everyone else. While other companies took to say, organizing boot camps to ensure positive reviews,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/08/24/metal-gear-solid-v-the-phantom-pain-style-review-events-are-part-of-the-problem/#3c33d3026a09

Nintendo has been taking steps to distance themselves from the press entirely. The famous ‘Nintendo Direct’ is probably the biggest example of that. Generally, the only new announcements we get coming from Nintendo come from them directly in some way. Not the gaming press.

In other words, gaming websites have nothing to cover besides information we already know.

So in other words, there is a very real resentment towards Nintendo in the gaming press, and it’s entirely because of Nintendo not allowing these people to make money off of their products. This extends to non traditional outlets as well, such as Youtubers who can’t monetize gameplay videos. This had created a sort of disdain for the company among the media, and it’s a big part of why Nintendo scores have been slowly ticking downward, despite continuing to impress. In fact, personally I would say Nintendo’s more niche properties are better than ever. Codename S.T.E.A.M, for example, was a fantastic new take on the strategy genre with a surprisingly in depth selection of heroes to use to fight aliens. It was panned by critics and described as being a ‘disaster’ because they thought the art was ugly.

That’s the sort of criticism Nintendo titles generally get these days, and its really sad to see. Especially when their competition is awarded praise no matter how terrible their products are.

Truly, these are the sort of people we can trust.

You have Nintendo games getting panned for the most ridiculous reasons. This year alone got us Metroid Prime: Federation Force’s 69 metacritic review. Why? Because it wasn’t a “Real” Metroid game. We also saw games like Paper Jam, Star Fox Zero, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Color Splash get panned for similarly petty reasons. Star Fox Zero in particular deserves it’s own article. There was a lot of nonsensical criticism lobbied towards that game, and still is to a certain extent.

So what other games get 69 scores? The widely revile No Man’s Sky, the game that completely undelivered on all of it’s promises? Mafia III, a glitch ridden mess of a game that is apparently not been finished? These are the sort of games that are being compared with Federation Force and Star Fox Zero, two games plenty of people absolutely love? Why are Nintendo games automatically lesser just for being Nintendo games?

Critics know they can now start getting away with giving out ludicrously low scores to Nintendo titles for no real reason. Very few of the Nintendo published games that got less than an eighty this year actually deserved it, and it’s getting sad to see people try and refer to this system as a reliable source of information. Certain games get bloated review scores, while others are slammed for no reason. Metacrtitic, and critics in general, are not a reliable source of information for judging how good a game is. it doesn’t demonstrate how appealing it will be to the mass market, it can’t show how well  a game sells, it doesn’t show how fun the game is compared to other games in it’s genre… so why bother with it? No critic in the industry is particularly intelligent or insightful. Everyone in the field was willing to drop their pants and start jacking off in front of a camera to give Undertale GOTY awards, while better games like Splatoon and Codename S.T.E.A.M were ignored… or even criticized due to manufactured ‘issues.’

Remember when Splatoon didn’t have any maps and Codename S.T.E.A.M. was unplayable due to being too slow? Good times.

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of games that will go on to become classics this generation are NOT the ones being praised by the media. Overwatch hype has died down, Undertale has been forgotten, and Destiny has become a punch line to a really, really, really, really bad joke.

The harder the media tries to push people into liking shit like No Man’s Sky while begging them to stay away from Federation Force and Color Splash, people will start taking them less and less seriously.

The mess that is Earthbound Beginnings

I’ve always been a bit more critical towards the Mother trilogy as a whole than most. In my mind, most of the praise these games get is coming from hipsters who don’t really play this sort of game in the first place. Over the years, it’s gotten praise for it’s bizarre sense of humor, unique setting, and charming moments.

But what about most important thing… the gameplay?

No one ever seems to talk about it, and for good reason. It’s not all that engaging at all. sure, a lot of enemy designs are fun to look at, but the actual battle system is plain boring, and exploring the map is way too slow paced. This sort of set up sort of works in the much more polished Earthbound, even if I still think it’s quite an overrated game, but Earthbound Beginnings is another beast altogether. Mind you, it’s no Breath of Fire 1 (which I genuinely think may be the worst JRPG I’ve ever played) but the sheer tedious nature of the game, which forces you to spend a significant amount of time leveling up to beat even the simplest of enemies, absolutely kills the experience for me. Especially since the pay off isn’t all that interesting in it’s own right. The game doesn’t even have the same quirk atmosphere that Earthbound is so famous for.

Beginnings is an extremely tedious, boring game, but I still find myself slogging through it just to get to the ending, and a big part of that is because I know it builds up to the vastly superior sequel. I would, personally, only recommend this game to the most die hard Nintendo fans out there who like experiencing pieces of history like this one.

On it’s own merits, Earthbound Beginnings simply does not deliver. It is too tedious for what it is, and there are several other classic Nintendo titles that deserve more recognition than this one.

 

Pretendo Direct: TheGamingBritShow is quite the ‘Savage’ Pretendo.

I think I may have to make something clear here for users who may not be familiar with the concept of a ‘Pretendo.’

Nintendo, as one of the most iconic brands in the industry, as a long history of developing innovative content in a wide variety of genres, for all sorts of different audiences. They were not the first video game company, but they are the one that has stayed successful the longest, and has therefore had a part to play in three decades worth of gamers, serious or no. Writing off the long history of quality content, much of which is considered among the best content ever produced in the medium, is completely laughable.

So how do people who aren’t Nintendo fans, but want to criticize and ridicule their products for their own gain, handle this situation? They ‘Pretend’ to be long time fans of the company that are extremely disappointed with the company’s recent decisions in order to come off as more sincere and genuine. If you’ve been following the Youtube Nintendo community at all in the past few years, you may have noticed that certain users love to act as if Nintendo is this failure of a company, that they are doing everything wrong compared to their competition, and that the company is doomed because they aren’t pandering to their REAL fans, twenty to thirty year old men.

It’s simply all too easy to gain traction on YouTube and social media by having negative opinions towards the company, no matter the situation they are in. People act as if the Wii U is the source of the issue, but a lot of the loudest complainers didn’t like the Wii either. These people are simply ‘Pretending’ to be upset with Nintendo for views and attention.

I think a big part of this site, going forward, is to take a look in depth at certain people guilty of this kind of attitude, people who seem to hate a company that they claim means a lot to them. People who are clearly playing it up for clicks.

So today, I’d like to focus on a big offender, one that has caught my attention for quite some time but has never really merited a response. TheGamingBritShow.

Nintendo fans know that there is absolutely no group of people on the planet who know less about Nintendo than those wankers, but I’ve constantly seen TGBS pop up quite a few times in the past few months whenever he makes a particularly insane statement. I wrote up a short response piece to his allegation that Platinum Games was going downhill, a claim that I found laughable, but this time has seen him go completely off the deep end and claim that Nintendo games no longer have any merit to them whatsoever. TGBS’s ‘Savage Nintendo Rant’ is, quite frankly, a piece of shit. Like his complaints lobbied at Platinum, none of his claims hold up against any scrutiny, and I find myself baffled at just how plain stupid he is at uploading a video talking about how Color Splash doesn’t have a personality… three days after it came out and blew everyone away.

His first complaint is the fact that Nintendo…

1. Makes Empty games about nothing!

A broad statement that honestly doesn’t really make much sense to me, especially since he shows clips from Super Mario 3d World (A well received game in it’s own right, even if I personally am not too fond of it) and Color Splash, a game I am in love with because of it’s writing, humor, and characters… things he specifically says the game lacks.

Keep in mind, this video was uploaded today, which means that he almost certainly didn’t actually play Color Splash before he started bitching about it. A lot of Color Splash’s charm wasn’t evident until people actually started playing it, and I think this points out a core problem with Pretendos in general: They love complaining about games they obviously haven’t actually played. You may have seen this with complaints about Star Fox Zero controls, in which they spent months trying to pretend as if they were downright unusable, but this is just another example of it.

Speaking of Star Fox, he goes on to bitch about Zero being ‘merely’ a remake of 64, in and of itself a laughably ridiculous statement, and complain about Federation Force merely existing. FF is amazing, by the way. Great co-op shooter. He also whines about how 3D world isn’t in an open environment, and I just roll my eyes. It’s almost like I’ve stepped back in time to the first trailer reveal. I don’t even LIKE 3D world and I am telling you he is full of shit.

“Yeah, BOTW looks okay, but it’s too bad that they had to sacrifice everything itself to not make it terrible!” *Shows Skyward Sword*

I’m not even sure what to say to this. This enrages me so much. Like… what? BOTW, just ‘okay?’ That’s possibly going to be the game that redefines open world gameplay. Sacrifice everything else? All of the best games in the past five years have all been Nintendo exclusive! Skyward Sword, bad? What are you talking about? To this day, no one can say anything really bad about it besides Fi.

He goes on talk about the prices for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD. Nothing interesting to see here, he’s ignoring all the genuine improvements and real changes they made in order to whine about something no one really cares about.

And that brings us to his number 2 complaint…

2. Pussy ass censorship!

I didn’t know I was dealing with a Nichegamer poster here. I wonder if he has a little anime girl having an orgasm as his desk top wall paper.

So yes, the censorship issue is something I actually have a bit of history with, and it’s something I genuinely look down on people for. Specifically, fact that it only ever seems to be a problem when Nintendo does it. It is a practice in the industry that’s very important to make games appealing to a wider audience. A simple cut and paste translation does not work.

It’s also funny how he specifically claims Nintendo hates sexy outfits when he shows footage of Xenoblade… which DOES have plenty of sexy outfits. I believe Fatal Frame was adjusted due to licensing issues, and Atlus (Not Nintendo) adjusted TMS due to characters being underage and Gravure modeling having a really negative image in the west. In short, the idea that changes are made in localization are made primarily to keep people from being offended is incorrect, and not something anyone with any real knowledge of the process would try to claim. Keep in mind a big part of this argument is the idea that it’s a part of the ‘creator’s vision’ for them to be in the game, when I know for a fact that the devs for both Xenoblade and FFV came out and praised the localization efforts. That conspiracy theory that some anon on 8chan’s /v/ made up about how NOA is ripping off the company by charging for needless censorship is nonsense.

Reason 3… I think? Is the region lock complaint. I say ‘I think’ because he doesn’t really elaborate on why. Personally, I feel this is a non issue that people try to use to pretend that Nintendo is anti consumer. I simply don’t CARE that some games are released at different times around the world, and even I could, I wouldn’t import a copy of Yakuza 1 and 2 HD without a proper localization because I wouldn’t be able to understand anything anyone was saying.

Reason 4… the eshop.

At first, he praises the Wii U for having BC, surprisingly, but then goes on to imply that Wii doesn’t have any good games to play. Keep in mind to this day I’m still finding new gems, it’s easily the best console last gen and I would very much like to start covering that in depth sometime soon.

But then he says something unforgivable: The virtual console, according to him, is the worst.

I’m sorry, can you say that again? You mean to tell me that the service with games with games from nearly every Nintendo console ever made is bad? Xbox One, to this day, doesn’t have shit for it (WHERE IS MY NINJA GAIDEN BLACK?) and PS3 just has… well, a pretty good selection of classic PS1 and PS2 titles that generally pale in comparison to their Nintendo equivalents. I’ve had my PS3 for longer than my Wii U, and have far fewer games on it, and very few have aged all that well.

“When Nintendo does release a game…”

Every Thursday. A big part of why I laugh at the ‘Wii U has no games’ crowd.

‘We don’t get releases at the same time as other places in the world!”

Not an issue.

‘You would think they would have all these games slapped out day one for you…’

Again, not an issue. They’re using the Disney Vault method. Things increase in value if they aren’t available all the time. Despite complaints from people like this, it’s actually led me to find lots of hidden gems that get buried in between big releases, like Freedom Planet, Stealth 2, Circle of the Moon, and Battle Network.

Reason 5… Copyright bullshit!

It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about this, and I think I need to address this once more since my move to the new site.

I cannot stand YouTubers who think they can use Nintendo products to pay their bills. It reeks of entitlement to me, and I think it leads to lots of bad practices, like this recent trend where people think they can experience a game without ever having played it.

No, TGBS… Nintendo isn’t coming to come after me for talking about their games. You know why? Because I talk about games in a way that doesn’t infringe on their copyright. I also find it funny how you imply that Youtubers in general are getting slammed by them for this. In reality, they have pretty good relationships with more credible people, like The Completionist and Jwittz, and even invite them to do things with them.

Oh, and he talks about AM2R and sucks up to that, too. “Nintendo doesn’t care about Metroid!” They released a new game not even two weeks later, jackass. I haven’t palyed AM2R, but just looking at it makes me laugh. A ‘better’ Metroid game? Really? I’ve noticed people stopped talking about it like, a week later, and I can see. There’s nothing all that inspired about it. It’s just a fan remake of a game that already exists.

No, AM2R is not better than Federation Force.

“Nintendo never announced big new games after the Wii!”

And there is is. One of the most popular statements used to write off the success of the Wii. It wasn’t popular with REAL gamers, so it wasn’t REALLY a success!”

Let me tell you something: People go on about the casual vs hardcore dynamic when it comes to Wii vs PS360, but in reality, it was young men vs everyone. What I mean by that is that Nintendo made games for everyone and their grandma. Games like Sin and Punishment, The Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, Endless Ocean, Style Savvy, and others were all things that could never have happened on other pieces of hardware. But somehow, being in HD was seen as being much more important by the media, which led to this weird stigma of the Wii not having much serious with young men… despite people like me loving games like Skyward Sword, Sin and Punishment, and No More Heroes.

See, I named three games right there. You faggot. And there are many more.

“Nintendo needs to drop the gimmicks and get more power, everything will be BETTER!”

No, that isn’t true, and I think I should go into depth as to why that is. Power is simply not all that important from a development standpoint. It’s not going to make their games be seen as being ‘cooler’ or get third parties to magically start supporting the console. It’s just going to be too expensive for what it is.

No one wants gimmicks? Ha. Just like no one wanted the d-pad, just like no one wanted the analog stick, just like no one wanted motion controls. You can’t know what you want until you have it. And I think NX, from a design standpoint, will be something that people sorely want, without having to resort to simply taking the PS4 Pro approach, which is proving itself to NOT FUCKING WORK.

All in all, I found his complaints about Nintendo petty and not at all in line with the reality of the situation. I feel as if Nintendo has already addressed their most pressing concern (The rise of mobile) more than adequately, and I’m confident in seeing NX take the industry by storm, as we already know that game library is not going to be at all lacking.

So yes, I think the GamingBritShow is a fag and I was sure to let him know on Twitter. 🙂 Nothing like calling people out in public spaces, and I think he sorely deserves it, like any other Pretendo out there. Speaking of twitter, be sure to follow me at @CodyCoyote64. I’ll be glad to take any questions and requests for the site in the future, and I’ll see you next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Heroes 7: Our Pledge to Nintendo fans

If you have been following gaming news for any length of time, you have heard that Nintendo is doomed.

It is not about games, it is not about consoles, it is not about the people worldwide who love Nintendo and their products.

It is about sales, it is about profits, it’s about complaining about every little thing the company does is another step towards it’s grave. The Wii remote was nothing more than a fad, a gimmick. PSVR is a real innovation.

This hypocrisy has become apparent, blatant, and disgusting, and it is time for all Nintendo fans to take a stand up against it. The reveal of the NX is looming, and it’s up to us to cut through the nonsense and cover content related to Nintendo’s games. Not how Nintendo is ‘irrelevant’ not how Nintendo is out of touch with it’s audiences, actually discussing their releases in depth. We are Nintendo fans, after all, and primarily care about games.

In the name of Nintendo!