Fire Emblem delayed their 30th anniversary game by two years. It sat, completed, on the shelf with no real proper explanation as to why. Instead they did a temporary release of the original 8-bit version of the first Fire Emblem on the eShop, when a superior version in essentially every way is available on the DS. If all they were going to do was release an original game on the eShop, the least they could have done was do a worldwide release of one of the games in the series that’s still stuck in Japan. Then the actual anniversary game (Engage) finally released two years later, and… it’s mid. Not bad, especially gameplay wise, but held back by a laughably cartoonish story, especially compared to its predecessor Three Houses. The mobile game Heroes has some better stories than Engage.
My entire family is obsessed with Power Wash Simulator right now. Especially my partner who can’t seem to get enough of it.
It is quite soothing though, just empty your head and wash away the filth.
Elder Scrolls Online just is wrapping up it’s 10th anniversary event, and it’s been pretty underwhelming. They basically did what they do for every event, and made it about farming rewards only on specific activities that result in people grinding mindlessly, and too many people congregating on the same things, which causes bugs and issues so many players don’t even get rewards.
I barely partake in ESO events anymore. They’re copy/paste, and hardly any fun. And your reward is often the 10 billionth style you won’t use anyways, but everyone has FOMO so they go nuts.
I would have much preferred unique quest lines revisiting past incidents, stories, characters. Especially if the game detected how long you’ve played and how much content you’ve cleared and sorta systematically gave you a somewhat tailored event to go down memory lane. Or if it had been more broad and not specific to small parts of the game world or specific activities. The only broadly applied stuff were endless loot boxes that get old.
You can grind for great rewards but they also are encouraging easy endeavors for a lot of points and any content is giving the 100% XP bonus which makes even questing feel nicer. There is a grind if you want true flame or one of the other 4 this-time-only items but that’s some people’s enjoyment.
The only ball dropping imo is the PTS debacle but they are giving the affected all the items, like a years endeavors, and a ton of other stuff that seems fair to me.
I think it can be hard for someone if they always feel the need to maximize anything they do, they probably just grind the whole time to earn millions of gold. I did a few grinds to get the loot high but doing dailies I had not tried yet has been fun since I get the 100%xp and an extra loot box for each.
In between waiting for new games from season one, don’t forget to check out all the cool free games and ports you can sideload from itch.io! I love the port of the original Celeste.
Looks interesting , but it has a $200 price tag and while I love old school games, I can buy a $30 gadget that has hundreds of the old games I used to play.
Also, the crank should be able to charge it, that would help with the price tag, you could throw it in a bug out bag
I have a playdate and have seen this sentiment a lot.
Imo the charging mechanic would ruin the usability of the crank in many of the games. Some games require rapid cranking and having a charging mechanic would not only be another point of future mechanical failure, but also slow it down too much.
It’s also worth noting that the device also has a gyroscope so it can detect tilting, shaking etc as well. It’s very versatile for it’s size. It’s NOT an emulator (though it can run an emulator), it’s a fully original handheld console.
$200 is a fair price because that includes something like 15-20 games. Every game for the playdate is original and hasn’t existed before it came out.
The playdate is not meant to replace an emulator and buckets of roms. It’s its own game console with lots of great new games made by passionate devs.
I’ve played more of the 24 pack-in games than I’ve ever spent time actually playing with the multiple emulator station consoles I’ve set up over the years. I love seeing what new games devs put out on the catalog, too. No in-app-purchases or any such BS, so devs just have to try and make a game that’s worth your couple bucks up front.
The creative constraints of the 1-bit color and limited inputs push games in fun directions too. The crank is amazing as an analog rotation input, which has been missing from game consoles since the early 80s. Steering and aiming with the crank is so fluid and intuitive that it really adds to immersion.
It’s not the kind of thing everyone’s going to get $200 of value out of, but if it happens to be up your alley its truly incredible.
For its 30th Anniversary Magic the Gathering hyped up the return of $1000 card packs with the CHANCE of pulling non legal reprints of its original Alpha set, including the covered Black Lotus, that is…again…not legally playable in any format and is worth the same as a lotus you get from your home printer. For $1000.
For the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros, Nintendo released Super Mario All Stars for the Wii. It was just an emulation of the SNES game from years before. It was released for $30 even though you could buy all of the original games on the Wii shop for like $21 total. It just reeked of “We know you’ve already bought these games like 4 times, but please buy them again”. They did do a better job on the 35th anniversary though.
They did do a better job on the 35th anniversary though.
No, they didn’t.
For the 35th anniversary, they did all this.
They removed Mario 3D All Stars from the eShop and stopped selling it in stores to get FOMO sales so people would care less that it was a lazy overpriced cash grab collection.
They removed Super Mario Bros. 35 from the eShop and shut down the servers, making it completely unplayable.
They removed the ability to upload levels in Super Mario Maker 1.
The way how Nintendo has a complete inability to understand modern, usually online, entertainment services, is truly an achievement. Just creating an NNID for your console is already a colossal pain in the ass, but it doesn’t begin or stop there. The way how fairly modern games got their entire service lineup completely shutdown is just unacceptable
Well I mean, they also ADDED Super Mario Bros 35 to the eShop, for free. You can’t just mention the removal as if it had always been there. I agree it was shitty for them to remove it though, it was one of my all time favorite games. But I’m at least happy that I got to play it.
Is the 35th anniversary the release of 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy on the Switch? I'd say the artificial scarcity aspect to induce fomo wasn't any better. It might have even been worse.
To be fair the price includes 10 or so original indie titles which if you go by the store front’s average game pricetag ($5.36) that accounts for $53.6 worth. (And that’s really not fair to some of the games I’ve played)
Correction: The first season of games that come with the device total out at 24 so going off of that original 5.36 average you’d actually have about $129 give or take worth of game value, leaving the actual Playdate device at a $71 purchase for the device itself.
That’s… Odd to say the least. 8 hours active battery life doesn’t sound great and it seems kinda gimmicky in general. Can someone sell me on it? When would I want to play this?
It is quite a gimmick, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing tbh. Its neat if you’re a hobbyist dev in particular to expand the way you think about input vs in game design so that when faced with things such as analog triggers, gyro controls or touch surfaces you got a better intuitive thought process.
I will however say that to me, the main use ends there. A neat gimmick in particular for gamedevs.
Does it even have touch capability? Though I could see the logic if there is some way to develop in a way that allows easily exporting to both the Playdate and Android.
Also I'd say a lot of those features are easier had with a Steam controller (or perhaps other gamepad). Granted they are not sold anymore, but I got one in the fire sale and likely a lot of people did as well due to being dirt cheap (PC Gamer says 48 million, 10% of sessions).
I was originally going to reply to @essell on agreement on cost, but the only real substance was
It's not really for me for a lot of reasons (I don't need portability, I don't like buying things generally+use what I have)
I haven't worked my way up to real creation yet (due to a lot of problems) but my desired aesthetic is more like these things I've made animated 2D eye (note:imgur links only work if opened in a private window for me) or 3D plant with only vertex colors.
It’s not a full dedicated gaming console that you’re spending hours and hours playing. It’s a toy that’s great for quick sessions and it’s really fun to develop games for. It’s very well made and the software is great.
It’s not a fair comparison to existing handhelds. It’s niche, and definitely not for everyone. Personally, I love it and think it’s just a unique toy that’s fun to show people. If you’d need to get X hours of gameplay to make it “worth” it to you, it probably isn’t your style.
Some Sekiro, some X3: Terran Conflict. Taking on a whole squadron of enemies with a single (albeit powerful) ship to calmly dispatch them one by one is just the perfect mix of cozy and power fantasy for me to wind down between the more fast-paced sections of “Let’s chop you down as fast as possible because the longer the fight drags on the more mistakes I’ll make”.
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