Video Game News and Miscellany

I would play the shit out of a new Pokemon Snap.

Also I tried to play Yokai Watch and found it extremely boring.
 
I would play the shit out of a new Pokemon Snap.
There's been such a demand for this for so long, and with Nintendo consoles that would be perfect for it, yet all we hear out of Nintendo is that they aren't the ones who made the first one. So? It's your brand, Nintendo. Do something with it.

Also I tried to play Yokai Watch and found it extremely boring.
For all the characterization Yokai Watch has and the feel of an actual RPG, it has near-zero forward momentum. I think I said in the currently playing thread, it was essentially my "I'm feeling rundown/sick today" game because it required very little out of me.

But there are also books for that. Don't think I'd buy another Yokai game ... or main series Pokemon at this point unless it makes some drastic changes.
 
It's moot question at any rate... Level 5 is unsure of HOW they are going to sell Yokai Watch 2 in America (as it's set in America and has some... questionable Yokai) and Yokai Watch hasn't exactly been ripping up the charts here ether.

USA First Ten Weeks (Units)
Week EndingWeekWeeklyChangeTotal
07th November 2015
1​
21,507​
N/A​
21,507​
14th November 2015
2​
6,799​
-68.4%​
28,306​
21st November 2015
3​
5,171​
-23.9%​
33,477​
28th November 2015
4​
9,974​
92.9%​
43,451​
05th December 2015
5​
9,736​
-2.4%​
53,187​
12th December 2015
6​
13,162​
35.2%​
66,349​
19th December 2015
7​
14,434​
9.7%​
80,783​
26th December 2015
8​
13,270​
-8.1%​
94,053​
02nd January 2016
9​
5,277​
-60.2%​
99,330​
Pokemon was a huge, smash hit in the US almost from Day One. Yokai Watch has sort of fallen flat, in no small part due to Disney sticking the TV show on their cartoon network that isn't on all major cable packages, instead of putting it on during the afternoon on Disney proper. If I want to catch an episode of Pokemon, I can watch it usually every day and on basic cable.

And Nintendo has no incentive to help, as Yokai Watch is their direct competitor and eating their lunch back in Japan.

 
TotalBiscuit is disconnecting completely from social media. His reason is that social media makes him miserable, and if he only has 2-3 years left to live, he wants to live it without that stress. Here's his last soundcloud audio log about it.

 

GasBandit

Staff member
Regardless, nearly every episode was them trying to forcibly steal Pokemon. :p
Again, I don't know the show, but "steal" implies the pokemon in question were already owned? I mean, if they went around day after day just capturing wild pokemon... wouldn't that just make them Ash?
 
Again, I don't know the show, but "steal" implies the pokemon in question were already owned? I mean, if they went around day after day just capturing wild pokemon... wouldn't that just make them Ash?
They literally attempt to steal other people's Pokemon almost every show, or at the very least Ash's Pikachu.

The thing that drives me the most nuts about Jessie/James/Meowth is that if they left Team Rocket and became full time salesmen, they'd already be rich. ;)
(And you should see the piles and piles of Pokemon DVDs we own. It's disturbing)
 
ALSO, just to clarify since you don't watch the show, Jessie and James are MEMBERS of Team Rocket, they are not the entirety of Team Rocket. In fact, for the most part, with exceptions of them getting explicit orders from someone who is watching them every step of the way, they are the most inept members of Team Rocket.
 
ALSO, just to clarify since you don't watch the show, Jessie and James are MEMBERS of Team Rocket, they are not the entirety of Team Rocket. In fact, for the most part, with exceptions of them getting explicit orders from someone who is watching them every step of the way, they are the most inept members of Team Rocket.
Jesse and James are only inept when it comes to stealing Pokemon. Any time they do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, they are wildly successful.
 
Jesse and James are only inept when it comes to stealing Pokemon. Any time they do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, they are wildly successful.
That is why they are the most inept members of Team Rocket, and why I also mentioned that same point in the post above. ;)
 
I recall one of the early seasons where the show introduced two additional members of Team Rocket, who were immediately successful in stealing Pikachu and a bunch of other Pokemon. I feel like Jesse and James actually helped stop them, but I can't remember why or if that's even what happened.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Whatever happened to Everquest Next? Remember how cool it sounded it might could be?

Well at some point, SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) stopped existing and became "Daybreak Games." There were some deep staff cuts. Now it seems nobody's heard anything from the devs in at least a year or so (if the subreddit is any indication), John Smedley apparently broke off from Daybreak in July and formed his own company in October, and my guess is EQNext is stillborn. Dang. Now Smedley is kickstarting a pixelart action RPG called Hero's Song, and apparently Patrick Rothfuss is an author for it... Which angers me because people need to STOP DISTRACTING PATRICK FROM WRITING KINGKILLER CHRONICLE.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
That's unfortunate. EQNext was literally the only upcoming MMO that looked interesting at all.
I think the genre may have kind of run its course, really. Nobody seems to want to put the investment in developing an MMO without a guaranteed WOW-like level of return, which is silly because even WOW's runaway success was kind of a surprise. Yeah, you've got some people playing Secret World, and SW:TOR was a thing briefly (but really a massively singleplayer ORPG :p)... but people seem to be content to play games in a non-massive way now. Multiplayer games are either small groups with story driven cooperation or sandboxes with a couple dozen players. And I think I'm OK with that, really.
 
I think the genre may have kind of run its course, really. Nobody seems to want to put the investment in developing an MMO without a guaranteed WOW-like level of return, which is silly because even WOW's runaway success was kind of a surprise. Yeah, you've got some people playing Secret World, and SW:TOR was a thing briefly (but really a massively singleplayer ORPG :p)... but people seem to be content to play games in a non-massive way now. Multiplayer games are either small groups with story driven cooperation or sandboxes with a couple dozen players. And I think I'm OK with that, really.
TOR is much better than it used to be and ESO is pretty fantastic too, though both pale compared to TSW.

I think the main issue is that the MMO audience is so fucking fickle because of how much thye have to pay. They are justified to be so, but god damn if it isn't killing the industry.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
TOR is much better than it used to be and ESO is pretty fantastic too, though both pale compared to TSW.

I think the main issue is that the MMO audience is so fucking fickle because of how much thye have to pay. They are justified to be so, but god damn if it isn't killing the industry.
ESO's already too far gone, if you ask me, no matter what they do with it. It all comes around to what we've said from day 1: Nobody wanted Elder Scrolls Online. We wanted 2-4 player drop in/drop out Skyrim co-op, in the manner of Borderlands, Saints Row, or Dying Light. I mean, I've heard good things about ESO's endgame RvR clone (because when Mythic Entertiainment got EA'd, half went to ESO and the other half went to Guild Wars 2, which also had a decent RvR mechanic).

But that brings up another thing - 2 of the last 3 MMOs I played were no-subscription. Warhammer Online had a sub fee (but is now out of business), Planetside 2 has no sub fee and GW2 has no sub fee. Well, I also tried Wildstar, but it was only for a couple days in open beta and it didn't hold my interest.
 
I tihnk the market is moving towards Buy 2 Play: you spend 60 bucks on the game, get ALL of the content at launch + some more down the pipe, and everything else is like 10 bucks as it gets released. It's worked really well in both ESO and TSW. Keeps out the riff-raff too.
 
I tihnk the market is moving towards Buy 2 Play: you spend 60 bucks on the game, get ALL of the content at launch + some more down the pipe, and everything else is like 10 bucks as it gets released. It's worked really well in both ESO and TSW. Keeps out the riff-raff too.
I guess that depends on your definition of Riff raff, because there are plenty of assholes in every online game, regardless of price.
 
I guess that depends on your definition of Riff raff, because there are plenty of assholes in every online game, regardless of price.
Mostly gold sellers and the like. You don't see them at all in ESO or TSW because they ban quick and each attempt is 15-60 dollars.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Virtual idols are nothing new in Japan...
Yeah, we're already long over the fact that people are gathering in a concert hall to watch a fancy transparent-projected TV screen play a prerecorded concert... I think what's surprising now is that these particular characters apparently were popular enough to get their own concert. I mean, I've never played splatoon, but I sure as hell got immersed in the whole YOU'RE A KID YOU'RE A SQUID YOU'RE A KID YOU'RE A SQUID meme stuff for the whole duration, and I'd never heard of this before.
 
TotalBiscuit is disconnecting completely from social media. His reason is that social media makes him miserable, and if he only has 2-3 years left to live, he wants to live it without that stress. Here's his last soundcloud audio log about it.

That's too bad. I like his shtick.

--Patrick
 
Yeah, we're already long over the fact that people are gathering in a concert hall to watch a fancy transparent-projected TV screen play a prerecorded concert... I think what's surprising now is that these particular characters apparently were popular enough to get their own concert. I mean, I've never played splatoon, but I sure as hell got immersed in the whole YOU'RE A KID YOU'RE A SQUID YOU'RE A KID YOU'RE A SQUID meme stuff for the whole duration, and I'd never heard of this before.
Splatoon was big for Nintendo in 2015 and kids especially really gravitated toward it. The Squid Sisters tell about updates and which maps are live at any given time, so they're kind of the mascots for the game. Splatoon probably had a resurgence in popularity recently due to kids getting Wii Us for Christmas.

Since they're ending free DLC and Nintendo is possibly releasing a new console this year, I have a feeling their popularity won't be too long lasting.
 
Splatoon was big for Nintendo in 2015 and kids especially really gravitated toward it. The Squid Sisters tell about updates and which maps are live at any given time, so they're kind of the mascots for the game. Splatoon probably had a resurgence in popularity recently due to kids getting Wii Us for Christmas.

Since they're ending free DLC and Nintendo is possibly releasing a new console this year, I have a feeling their popularity won't be too long lasting.
Unless Splatoon becomes a major franchise for Nintendo and it really should, as it's a niche they weren't currently filling.
 
Unless Splatoon becomes a major franchise for Nintendo and it really should, as it's a niche they weren't currently filling.
Depends how long they take to capitalize on it. I think it'd be a smart move to make Splatoon a big thing amid Nintendo canon, have some presence in the next Smash Bros besides costumes, Splatoon 2, etc. It's arguably their first successful new IP since Pikmin.

I meant the Squid Sisters in particular might not have long-lasting popularity. It depends on whether they become mainstays for the series or if a Splatoon sequel would have new announcers.
 
So apparently the PC port of Tales of Symphonia is pretty trash.

Apparently Durante fixed it in like 14 minutes. How the fucking fuck is one guy better than entire companies of developers at this shit?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=194044875&postcount=612

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1178556

I've never played a Tales game but fuuuuuuck this shit.
Generally speaking, any time a Japanese developer tries to do a PC port, it comes out shit but is easily fixable by people who know what they are doing. This is because most devs in Japan work on consoles, not pcs, and thus have no idea how to take advantage of PC engines.
 
Generally speaking, any time a Japanese developer tries to do a PC port, it comes out shit but is easily fixable by people who know what they are doing. This is because most devs in Japan work on consoles, not pcs, and thus have no idea how to take advantage of PC engines.
For the same reason, they also dedicate literally zero resources. The guys doing the port were probably spending 90% of their time working on other things, and all they needed to street the port was have it run successfully a pithy number of times on what they consider to be "consumer-equivalent" PCs.
 
Top