Gaming

You have no idea how excited I am for Super Mario Odyssey, of course I haven’t played it so I can’t actually review it, but it easily looks to be the best 3D Mario ever, to me.

Gorgeous and epic like Galaxy, exploration like 64 and Sunshine. And my favorite 3D Mario games are the open worlded, explorational collect-a-thon types. I miss collect-a-thon platformers. A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee have been two of the biggest Console games I’ve been looking forward to thanks to the fact I miss this genre so much. I’ve been waiting with bated breath for A Hat in Time for years thanks to this. (Go check out A Hat in Time, by the way, it’s amazing and it should be on your radar)

This is THE Mario game I have wanted for over a decade. And I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Galaxy, it is so cinematic, beautiful, and fun, with a fun story. But I also really miss the open and explorational Mario type game. And I’ve missed them for a long time. I am so glad we’re going back to them.

Odyssey may even up being my favorite Mario game of all time, and if not that, my favorite 3D Mario at the very least. Yes, even more than 64, even more than Galaxy. Sunshine is literally my favorite mainline series Mario game of all time. And it has bugs and other problems, but I just love the feeling of immersion and exploration and just general relaxing beach fun the game has. And this game looks to be everything I love about that game, and more. I could not be happier right now.

Oh I just want to play it now, this really is going to be the best Mario game ever, isn’t it?

This presentation alone was made amazing for me just for this game.

As for Xenoblade 2 and why I’m so hayped for it, Monolith Soft has always been a little underwhelming in comparison to other JRPG developers aesthetically for how they handle anime aesthetics. They have done a mixture between anime and realism that can be done right in some cases, like how Square Enix did Final Fantasy XIV, but with Monolith Soft, it’s always felt a bit out of sync. Particularly with the faces, the faces have often been a little odd for my aesthetic tastes, at least. This has been the case since Xenosaga at least, before being acquired by Nintendo. And sadly it still exists to a degree for me with Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Because of this, I had kind of wished they were just go for one or the other, closer to anime or closer to realism or if not, figure out what works.

Of course this is just my personal aesthetic tastes. I don’t mean to offend anyone who thinks that the Xeno series has always had great faces and aesthetic sense. But this has always been a little bit of a disappointment for me for the series.

So to see them just embrace classic anime design and color, I’m very happy. It just looks pretty and like a classic JRPG now. I much prefer this to the fusion look with all of this realistic or gritty or whatever you would call the aesthetic of X. Nothing wrong with realistic or whatever it is they have been adding to the other games. But I kind of just miss the “classic” or “traditional” anime look from Xeno. And I haven’t seen it from the Xeno series since Xenogears.

I love the traditional anime look they’re going back to, it reminds me of a classic JRPG which is something I am so happy to see from Monolith soft again. Makes me feel almost like I’m going to play another Xenogears. Of course, this is totally silly and illogical, it’s just the aesthetic, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be another Xenogears. But watching the trailer and getting these illogical Xenogears vibes feels great. It makes me feel like I’m going to be playing a classic JRPG, and I like that.

I love the character designs. I love the look of the world. I love the voice acting so far. Everything about it looks great.

I also really like that airship town. Reminds me of times playing games like Skies of Arcadia. Again, basically comes back to reminding me of JRPGs I’ve played in older years, from the PS2 and Gamecube era and earlier. And done in a real sense. I feel like I’m not necessarily on the same page with everyone when talking about “classic JRPG” eras. Some of us have different things we liked about classic JRPGs, and I for one love modern JRPGs and have no pretense that JRPGs were this superior. But I do love the sense of pure adventure that I had playing a lot of them.

Adventure, plucky spunky adventure, that’s what I mean. When I look at that trailer, it gives me memories of when I first saw games like Grandia or Xenogears. I would love to play a game that feels like those games again from Monolith Soft. Xenoblade and Xenoblade Chronicles X have great things about them, but they didn’t make me feel like I was about to play something like Grandia again.

I really don’t know better how to explain my hype that that. I miss games like Xenogears and Grandia. And the fact when I watch the trailer it instills that kind of feeling in me has me excited in a way that the original Xenoblade and Chronicles X didn’t. It just has classic JRPG written all over it.

Also, Splatoon 2, do I need to say more? Okay, I have more than 700 hours of my life put into Splatoon for the Wii U and had to literally force myself to stop playing it. It is one of the best games of all time. And if Splatoon is in any way an improvement over the original, then I am in for the time of my life and a dangerous addiction. There are thousands of games I love and Splatoon is probably in my top 20 video games of all time, and I don’t even like competitive shooters. Splatoon is Nintendo’s best franchise in at least a decade and I am an addict. It turned me into an avid fan of a genre I thought I would never enjoy. Ohmigosh Splatoon is just so good. Like I’m not even sure if I can put into words how amazing Splatoon is. Phenomenal? Better than drugs?

So good that I wouldn’t have played any other games all 2016 if I didn’t force myself to put it down once Splatfest stopped. Good bye my life when Splatoon 2 drops.

And speaking of which, one of my other most played Wii U games was Mario Kart 8. I got seriously into that game. In fact, the two together are my most played games. I wouldn’t have even dropped playing Mario Kart 8 religiously if it weren’t for Splatoon. Literally the only Mario Kart game I hold in higher regard than Double Dash and super addictive. There is just so much content and polish in 8 that I cannot help but give it the spot as my number one Mario Kart game.

I was legitimately super sad when Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario Maker stopped getting more content. So I am super enthused that finally we are getting more Splatoon content and moreMario Kart 8 content. These are literally my top 3 favorite and mot played Wii U games and some of my most played Nintendo games of all time.

Let’s not forget Breath of the Wild. I was waiting for more gripping storytelling and narrative elements and this trailer had them. This may be also the best Zelda yet ever, though I’m not totally convinced it will be, I would not be surprised it it were. And my favorite Zelda ever is still A Link to the Past, so that’s saying something. This game might actually surpass a Link to the Past for me. Originally, this seemed like a better version of Skyrim for me, if Skyrim were awesome enough to have superior(to my taste, at least), Zelda character designs and aesthetic sensibilities and themes. Cool, but big roaming sandbox games already leave me overwhelmed. And I often get tired of playing sandbox games with big open fields to explore and want to go play like an RPG with more town and NPC focus. I was worried Breath of the Wild might induce that kind of over-exploration with not enough character interaction experience that has left me burned out before.

But this trailer really sold me on how epic this game will be. I got to see the darkness and the narrative and how gripping it will be. No longer does it just feel like aimless wandering until you get bored. The game now has a great feeling of narrative and I’m looking forward to it more than ever. Now I’ve seen the emotion behind Breath of the Wild and now I feel invested in it, certainly more than ever before.

So while I’m not as hype for it as I am the new 3D Mario, Splatoon 2, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it looks pretty good and I’m definitely going to have to give the game a buy and at least 40 hours or so of my time. More than anything, I want to see the story now.

So while some of the games I was looking forward to didn’t show up, the games that did made it super hype for me.

The downside is that, indeed, a lot of the games I wanted to see didn’t show up. Lots of games I would have liked to have heard about. But didn’t make an appearance. I’m talking Nintendo games and franchises that didn’t make a show.

So I can only hope that they make the service really appealing like PlayStation Plus has made their service.

Also, I was really hoping for $250. $300 feels a little high, higher than what I wanted to pay. But I’m locked in now, $300 I’ll have to pay, I guess.

Also, Setting up a paywall for online play flies in the face of everything Nintendo claims to be about. So I can only hope that they make the service really appealing like PlayStation Plus has made their service.

Despite the lackluster efforts in the past to engage in online gameplay, I respected Nintendo for keeping their online services free. Nintendo hasalways been about facilitating and encouraging multiplayer interactions with their consoles. From bundling two controllers with the NES, to making 4-player inputs standard with the N64 and even the Switch JoyCons, Nintendo seemed to understand that long-term loyalists could be made simply by allowing friends to play without having to worry about ongoing costs after an initial purchase. I felt that the free online service was simply another facilitation and extension of their core values of bringing people together through gaming.

Splatoon 2 will be completely useless without the service. And what’s worse, is the service will be available for free for the first couple of months after Splatoon 2 comes out and then the trial ends. Are young kids (or their parents) going to pay a monthly bill to continue to play Splatoon after they got to play for free? Smash, Mario Maker, Minecraft, and Mario Kart will also be severely lacking, if not unplayable, if one opts not to pay for the subscription. I think that’s going to be a serious barrier for entry for younger Nintendo fans that want to play online.

Assuming future Pokemon installments will come out for the Switch, will online Pokemon activity require the service? Kind of ruins the camaraderie of the games when many are excluded via real world financial barriers, doesn’t it?

I understand Playstation and Xbox have operated this way for a long time, but that doesn’t make it right. Nintendo has prided themselves with bucking trends in the gaming industry. I’m disappointed they would so blatantly screw fans for a small but steady revenue stream after such a long-standing opposition to such practices. It’s an obvious case of placing shareholders ahead of fans and loyal customers.

And that’s my long review and basic gist of the presentation, I guess. The highs were pretty high to be honest, but a few really disappointing lows, as well. Though the lows were more about what Nintendo is going to do to my wallet more than anything. I sure am glad I got years worth of Pokemon online and months worth of Splatoon for free, at least. Honestly, I wish Nintendo would make a legit MMORPG, now. So that a Nintendo online subsciption would feel like an MMO subsciption, which, olddly enough, I’m more comfortable with paying than just to play video games online which is free on other platforms.