The Nintendo Switch

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Blech... well, I guess even an ace designer can totally phone it in at times.  I honestly thought it was Yuji Shinkawa's handiwork until the credits page at the end.  "Boxy" isn't usually a word that comes in the same sentence with "Shoji Kawamori".

Shoji Kawamori did a bunch of the Armored Core designs (I think... some in the AC3-ish Playstation 2 era, then most of the mecha for 4 and For Answer), so it's not a stretch of the imagination. I got a serious AC vibe, especially hearkening back to the White Glint for some of the designs. The heads also to be iterations on one of the archetypes he likes to stick to - the oblong oval or triangular head with either a clear colored visor (VF-25F) or a "compound eye" series of light-up eyes (White Glint, Aaliyah), and sometimes there's a horn sticking forward or back.

[Lorindor]

13 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Shoji Kawamori did a bunch of the Armored Core designs (I think... some in the AC3-ish Playstation 2 era, then most of the mecha for 4 and For Answer), so it's not a stretch of the imagination. I got a serious AC vibe, especially hearkening back to the White Glint for some of the designs. The heads also to be iterations on one of the archetypes he likes to stick to - the oblong oval or triangular head with either a clear colored visor (VF-25F) or a "compound eye" series of light-up eyes (White Glint, Aaliyah), and sometimes there's a horn sticking forward or back.

Up until the name reveal at the end, I thought that this was a new Armored Core game and was thinking "I dig this, but some fans will absolutely hate the change in art style". I was not surprised when I saw Kawamori's name, the mecha designs are very recognizable as his current style. Gameplay-wise it looks very much like Armored Core 4 Answer (with the fast action, ability to fly and the giant bosses).

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Shoji Kawamori did a bunch of the Armored Core designs (I think... some in the AC3-ish Playstation 2 era, then most of the mecha for 4 and For Answer), so it's not a stretch of the imagination.

It's definitely a departure from his usual art style, which tends to be heavily streamlined and vaguely organic with few hard corners or sharp edges.  There are a few touches here and there that remind me a bit of his work on Aquarion Evol and particularly Nobunaga the Fool, like the bits coming off of the shoulders.

All in all, it feels more evocative of lazy American SF robot design work like classic BattleTech or the ambulatory cardboard box designs of Yuji Shinkawa.  It just looks painfully generic.

 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's definitely a departure from his usual art style, which tends to be heavily streamlined and vaguely organic with few hard corners or sharp edges.  There are a few touches here and there that remind me a bit of his work on Aquarion Evol and particularly Nobunaga the Fool, like the bits coming off of the shoulders.

All in all, it feels more evocative of lazy American SF robot design work like classic BattleTech or the ambulatory cardboard box designs of Yuji Shinkawa.  It just looks painfully generic.

Oh, I wouldn't poo-poo on Yoji Shinkawa. His "cardboard box" designs are mostly relegated to Metal Gear REX and canonically earlier designs, and even then... I mean, REX is a mutha-cluckin' badass. From RAY onward, he's found his own head archetype, that sort of "two trapezoids stacked their short bases" look. It's gotten to the point where he even used it on that Godzilla x Evangelion crossover Mecha-Godzilla-esque thing.

No arguments on Battletech, though. That stuff was... yikes.

[UN Spacy]

OMG they make it the best mecha game ever.

 

 

[UN Spacy]

Thanks to Tochiro for the link...good interview with Kawamori and Tsukada.

 

 

https://www.4gamer.net/games/421/G042156/20180606006/

[UN Spacy]

Microsoft and Nintendo sure are besties right now.

 

 

[UN Spacy]

 

[Black Valkyrie]

 

https://gematsu.com/2018/07/darius-cozmic-collection-announced-for-switch

 

[UN Spacy]

https://twitter.com/NintendoVS/status/1026202051884150784

 

[Mommar]

Finally, Simon Belmont in Smash.

[mikeszekely]

48 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Finally, Simon Belmont in Smash.

And Richter, which I kind of like because I'm a fan of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. But despite Dracula X appearing on the SNES he doesn't strike me as a particularly Nintendo-ish Belmont, as most of my time with him was on Sony consoles. Maybe they could have gone with Trevor, Juste, or Julius instead?

[Mommar]

5 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

And Richter, which I kind of like because I'm a fan of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. But despite Dracula X appearing on the SNES he doesn't strike me as a particularly Nintendo-ish Belmont, as most of my time with him was on Sony consoles. Maybe they could have gone with Trevor, Juste, or Julius instead?

What does that have to do with anything?  Was Cloud a Nintendo-ish character?

[mikeszekely]

33 minutes ago, Mommar said:

What does that have to do with anything?  Was Cloud a Nintendo-ish character?

Cloud was in a Smash game (I haven't played since the GameCube one)? That's pretty ridiculous.

I dunno, maybe I'm off track, or maybe Smash has evolved into something else while I wasn't playing it, but I always saw Smash as a Nintendo brawler. Sure, that wasn't always Nintendo-owned characters, but stuff like classic Mega Man or the original Castlevania games are and were so closely associated with the NES that Mega Man and Simon were main characters on Captain N.

Dumping other characters into the game, especially if they weren't even in a game on a Nintendo console, reduces the Nintendo theme to silly fanservice. They might as well add Master Chief, Godzilla, Batman, and Chuck Norris and call it "Super Smash Bros Reddit."

[Mommar]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Cloud was in a Smash game (I haven't played since the GameCube one)? That's pretty ridiculous.

I dunno, maybe I'm off track, or maybe Smash has evolved into something else while I wasn't playing it, but I always saw Smash as a Nintendo brawler. Sure, that wasn't always Nintendo-owned characters, but stuff like classic Mega Man or the original Castlevania games are and were so closely associated with the NES that Mega Man and Simon were main characters on Captain N.

Dumping other characters into the game, especially if they weren't even in a game on a Nintendo console, reduces the Nintendo theme to silly fanservice. They might as well add Master Chief, Godzilla, Batman, and Chuck Norris and call it "Super Smash Bros Reddit."

It's Nintendo-centric but it's also being treated as a collection of video game classics characters, not necessarily just characters created by Nintendo.  They've had lots of non-Nintendo Characters in the game.  They're actually all in this one too.  Pac-Man, Mega Man, Snake, Cloud, Bayonetta, Sonic, Ryu and now Simon Belmont (Richter is a bit of a fancy palette swap... though  by your own admission he appeared on an Nintendo system.)  Cloud is technically the only one who hasn't eventually shown up on a Nintendo console ever... unless you count Smash Bros itself.

[UN Spacy]

 

[UN Spacy]

NEW Direct at 3pm PT tomorrow.

 

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1037339567630639109

Edited September 5, 2018 by UN Spacy

[UN Spacy]

NICE...and those were just three days sales. Easily beating Mario Odyssey’s numbers. 

 

[UN Spacy]

THREE MORE WEEKS TILL SMASH ULTIMATE!

 

 

[UN Spacy]

 

[Mommar]

I really wish they would give the option to use the d-pad to control your character in Smash Bros ultimate.  I hate using the analog stick.

[Cowboy17]

Had these made up for the PDP Switch LED dock stand

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Cowboy17 said:

Had these made up for the PDP Switch LED dock stand

 

OK, that is legitimately awesome.

 

Looking at the release calendar, I'm kind of surprised how willing Nintendo seems to be to compromise their normal squeaky clean family-friendly image in this console generation by licensing so many gory survival horror games and risque stuff like Dead or Alive Xtreme and Senran Kagura.  They must be serious about trying to break out from their normal "family entertainment" niche.

[UN Spacy]

 

[mikeszekely]

Was hoping (against hope) for some Metroid news, and that the new Zelda would be a new Zelda. But a Link's Awakening remake and Super Mario Maker 2 should be fun.

EDIT: not that I was expecting it, but how about Switch ports of Super Mario 3D World and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE? Those are basically the last two Wii U games I own that haven't been ported yet.

Edited February 14, 2019 by mikeszekely

[Valkyrie23]

FYI the demo for Daemon x Machina is out on the Eshop. I am sure some Macross fans would like to check this out. 4 missions and a survey for the development team.

[Numbninja]

That tetris game is fire

[Convectuoso]

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/13/18224033/legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-nintendo-switch-release-date-trailer-video-watch

[Mommar]

Daemon X Machina is massively disappointing. You feel like a floating reticle.  There’s no weight, swiftness or anything.  I was pretty excited for it and now I won’t even buy it.  That’s a failure of a demo if I’ve ever played one.

It also looks like utter garbage in handheld mode.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Mommar

[Mommar]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Was hoping (against hope) for some Metroid news, and that the new Zelda would be a new Zelda. But a Link to the Past remake and Super Mario Maker 2 should be fun.

EDIT: not that I was expecting it, but how about Switch ports of Super Mario 3D World and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE? Those are basically the last two Wii U games I own that haven't been ported yet.

What Metroid news would you like?  They scrapped it last week and are totally redoing it with Retro Studios.  Don’t expect anything until 2021.

Also, that’s not A Link to the Past.  It’s Link’s Awakening from the Gameboy.  I hate the gameplay graphics they’ve chosen.

[mikeszekely]

6 minutes ago, Mommar said:

What Metroid news would you like?

The oft-rumored Metroid Prime Trilogy for Switch.  I never did finish 2 or even play the third one.

6 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Also, that’s not A Link to the Past.  It’s Link’s Awakening from the Gameboy.

Yeah, I knew it was the Gameboy one.  Just came out wrong when I typed it.  I'll edit my original post.

[Mommar]

1 minute ago, mikeszekely said:

The oft-rumored Metroid Prime Trilogy for Switch.  I never did finish 2 or even play the third one.

Yeah, I knew it was the Gameboy one.  Just came out wrong when I typed it.  I'll edit my original post.

Suposedly Trilogy has been done for awhile but they’re holding off because they wanted to lead into 4 with it and that’s not happening anytime soon now.  I’d bet nothing until end of this year or more likely 2020.

I’ll bet the people at Retro  are putting in crap-tonnes of overtime already.

[Black Valkyrie]

 

I am going crazy ! 

 

 

 

[Mommar]

I’m torn on bloodstained.  Sometimes it looks great, other times it looks stiff and bland.

[Seto Kaiba]

I have really high hopes for the new Fire Emblem game, but I have to admit the CG character models bug me a bit... something to do with the lack of facial expression beyond that thousand-yard stare.

 

Is SEGA still doing Shining games?  I'd love to see a remastered version of the original Shining Force.