That’s really the issue. The creatures in the game, as I’ve seen pointed out in various places, are much closer in design to actual pokemon designs than in other poke-clone games, with some looking so close they might as well just be a regional form. I don’t even know any of the pals’ names but I can somewhat clearly recall seeing one that’s basically “Luxray at home”. I know the maker of the game has said he doesn’t really value originality, but there’s a difference between being unoriginal and straight-up plagiarism.
This really comes off as someone just looked at a bunch of stuff that’s popular in games and jammed it all together in order to sell millions of copies and make money rather than starting from any real creative vision. Things like that can be fun, especially if well made, but rarely if ever will such a game be truly memorable.
Yep, Embracer bought a LOT of studios expecting this deal to work out, and then it didn’t, so many of those studios are now effectively as good as dead in the water or on their way there. It amazes me how so many people and companies always forget the basic financial idea of “don’t spend money you don’t have”.
Heard about one called Grouvee recently, it’s a site that can help manage your Steam library and backlog. The person who introduced me to it described it as “Goodreads for video games”. Steam already does a good job of keeping track of people’s libraries, but those who have a large library and backlog may find it useful.
Tears of the Kingdom: what else is there to say about this game that hasn’t already been said? It improves on Breath of the Wild in just about every conceivable way. The only real downside to me is that it raises the bar so high for the next new Zelda title that it may not be possible for it to reach that height.
I can’t really think of a game I played that would be considered “bad” this year so I don’t really have a Worst, but just making a post acknowledging that TotK was hands down the best.
That said, I didn’t really play too many new games this year in general, so here is what I did play: Fire Emblem Engage, Persona 5 Royal, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Fire Emblem Echoes, Lunistice, Symphony of War, Super Mario RPG Remake.
If I had to give out a Worst among that list it would probably be Symphony of War because it doesn’t really have the polish of the others, it’s an inexpensive indie title and it shows, but I can’t definitively declare it the Worst because just about all the other games it’s compared to above are from big studios and that’s not fair to it, pretty much an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Not to mention there’s the benefit to companies of being better able to manage the production of the announcements and avoid the random pitfalls that can happen at live shows. They can make sure the games they are announcing look their best and they can control their message. All three major console companies have had their versions of E3 failures that have led to major embarrassments for them in the past. They would rather not have that happen to them again if they can help it.
The “timeline” was a big debate in the Zelda fandom/community for a long time until the Hyrule Historia book introduced an “official timeline” that featured a split three-way timeline centered around Ocarina of Time as the source of the split. That was released after Skyward Sword. Breath of the Wild had some discussion about where it fits but wasn’t really seen as too big a deal, then Tears of the Kingdom all but straight up ignored the “timeline” and introduced a new “canon” founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule, which while I’ve long stopped paying attention to the fandom, I could imagine the timeline debate starting all over again. TLDR: some people take video game lore really seriously.
Nintendo is my favorite gaming company, but man, their IP lawyers are absolutely vicious. Granted they’re also in Japan, the poster boy for a corporate-owned country (I lived there several years, no joke, if you think big corps run the US you ain’t seen nothing yet) which makes American IP law look like Chinese IP law, but even for a Japanese company, they’re brutal. What I find rather ironic about it is that a measure they took to protect their image and that of their brands from controversy over bad gamer behavior, led to bad gamer behavior directed at them. But either way, to these idiots sending threats, it’s a classic instance of “this is why we can’t have nice things”, ruining even the fun we were allowed to have for everyone and probably making it even less likely that Nintendo will reverse their policy.
The original Genesis Sonic trilogy was a constant replay for me as a kid and even on occasion now as an adult. I loved the visuals, the music, learning how to master every level, playing as the different characters. It was all so good to me.
As someone who only got into retro RPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger as an adult, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was the first game to show me how games could tell an epic story. There is a reason it was held up as one of the greatest games ever made during its heyday and even holds up well now. It had huge varied environments for its time, memorable scenes and characters, and IMO a perfect difficulty curve to its dungeons and puzzles. Even after playing many of the later Zelda games, it remained my favorite Zelda game until Breath of the Wild.
And of course, the original Smash Bros 64 started off the ultimate fun party game series, my siblings and I spent hundreds or even thousands of hours playing Smash 64 and Melee growing up.
Mario RPG remake. Actually my first time playing Mario RPG altogether, but I do really enjoy the first couple Paper Mario games, so seeing essentially where the Paper Mario series came from adds to the interest (IIRC, wasn’t the original Paper Mario known as Mario RPG 2 in Japan at least for a while?). The game feels very short, I’m only a couple hours in and already three stars in, but given it was originally a SNES game it makes sense. It’s cool to finally experience a game I was jealous of as a Genesis owner instead of SNES as a kid, even if it’s not 100% to the original, though from what I understand it’s quite a faithful remake, so still pretty close to the original experience.
TBH that goes both ways too. How many people would be upvoting and praising this video if it was coming at the topic from the other direction politically? I would bet it would be a LOT of people here. I get frustrated at hearing everything called “woke” too, but if people are going to ask one “side” to check their biases, they should be able to do the same for themselves.
What gamers want is innovation and overall fun gameplay, sequel or not. I’ve heard rather little coming from AAA studios of interest to me as of late 'cause they’ve all gone to creating endless battle royales, action RPGs or looter-shooters that all play near identically, all with the same military or techno jungle aesthetic that just doesn’t appeal to me. It’s all gunning for their game to get big on that e-sport sponsorship money or find some way to load their games with micro transaction pay to win gambling BS. For the most part, small and indie studios are doing as well as the AAA big boys because they are able to put more creativity into their games on smaller budgets. When a big AAA game such as BG3 does succeed, it’s because they put as much or more effort and care into innovative and entertaining gameplay as they do into fancy ray tracing graphics and cash grab mechanics. Games like BG3 are as praised as they are because they are complete games that work like they should out of the box, no day 1 patch/DLC or extra money required for the full intended experience. We get the quality we expect for our $60-$70. Whether that’s a brand new IP or a sequel doesn’t matter much.
This (along with DK Country) was one of the games I was jealous of as a Sega Genesis kid growing up (then Nintendo from the N64 onward) and never really had much chance to play later. It’s nice to be able to finally play through it (legally) with a nice shiny modern coat of paint. As someone who never did play through the original, having this version be essentially 1:1 to it is appreciated, but I do also feel like they could have maybe added more for those who do know the original well. At least it’s not a Pokemon BDSP situation where the devs already had a much improved version to borrow from and just directly remade the poorly-received original versions.