Tag Archives: Nintendo

Books, Games, Nintendo

Is There a Better Book About Games Than Game Over?

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Game OverIt’s been a while since I’ve written anything about games, mainly because I haven’t been playing them. My free time has been dominated by reading, an ancient form of entertainment made modern and more ubiquitous by the Kindle I got for my last birthday. An ill-advised Goodreads challenge to get through 40 books in 2013 – a lot when you enjoy 1,500-page fantasy epics – and the pressures of another new job have dominated my free time in recent months.

I’m all about efficiency, though, so why not combine my twin loves by gushing over Game Over, David Sheff’s wonderful book about the rise of Nintendo. It’s both, for my money, the best book ever written about games and surely the greatest free gift to accompany a magazine since that before-they-were-popular pack of Pogs I got with the Beano. Like most who’ve read it these days, I got my copy on the cover of the tragically short-lived Arcade magazine in the late 90s.

The rate at which I burn through books and a surfeit of great literature to read means that I rarely read them more than once. The small list that I still return to occasionally goes like this: Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Flies, and Game Over. Spot the odd one out.

Only I don’t think it is out of place there. We have two greats of speculative fiction with important things to say about human nature, a towering giant of fantasy, and a top-tier non-fiction book about business. It being about games dovetails wonderfully with my tastes, of course, but such an engrossing account of any industry in its heyday would be worthy of praise. It’s a comprehensive account of how Nintendo built up the industry as it exists today, the glorious 8- and 16-bit days, and the inner workings of a notoriously secretive company.

In that respect, it’s at least as good as, say, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography – a far better-known account of the rise of a technology giant, but one that’s been documented at least as well elsewhere.

Even speaking as someone without much stake in Nintendo these days, a proper follow-up to Game Over would be one of my dream announcements. An account of this quality to take us through Nintendo’s part in the rise of the PlayStation, the commercial decline of the N64 and GameCube years, and the boom-and-bust DS/Wii-Wii U era would make for arguably more fascinating reading than how Nintendo built the modern industry in the first place.

Now, though, GTA V is here. Finally, a game worth talking about…

Editorials, Games, GOTY, Nintendo

Fire Emblem Awakening

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In a year that’s already showing signs of being a vintage one for gaming, at least compared to the disappointments of 2012, the rush for GOTY titles is going to be fierce. We’ve already had two prime candidates in BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us, which are probably going to clean up in December unless GTA V ends up being something special, but now that we’re past 2013’s halfway point, neither is looking like being my number one.

Fire Emblem Awakening

For the first time in years, it’s a Nintendo game that’s foremost in my thoughts. And for the first time ever, it’s a strategy RPG.

Deciding what it is that Fire Emblem Awakening does so much better than other examples of its genre, which have historically failed to excite me, is difficult. It makes great use of the 3DS hardware, for one, making subtle but pretty use of 3D and taking advantage of system features like StreetPass, while ditching the more annoying gimmicks. It seems Intelligent Systems has worked out that gyro controls break the 3DS’s banner feature before Nintendo. It’s also controlled almost entirely with the buttons, using the touchscreen mainly for information. Thank God.

It’s clearly been put together with great thought. The translation work from 8-4 is witty and full of character, from the support conversations to the quips that accompany critical hits – Frederick’s badass “Pick a god and pray!” is my favourite. The Japanese voices are there for those who prefer their European fantasy setting to have an Asian language and not match up with the translated text. There’s depth to be found in every aspect, from which characters you pair up to how you move them up and down through the classes in an attempt to create an army of supermen.

I came late to this one thanks to my 3DS packing in when I was barely 40 minutes into the campaign, but since my system returns – eight weeks later, but that’s another story – I’ve been hammering this like nothing else. It’s kept me off the new Mario & Luigi and Animal Crossing, and it’s meant my ongoing playthrough of the 50-hour Grandia has taken not the expected couple of weeks but rather two months and counting. It makes a mockery of the RPG collection that I deliberately expanded to cover the lean summer until the next generation begins that my gaming time has been monopolised so willingly by a strategy game in a series that I haven’t afforded much attention until now.

Of course, the people don’t have feet, but we can forgive it that.

Games, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

E3 2013 Conference Review

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Because you can’t have an E3 conference review without Nintendo, I’m putting today’s Nintendo Direct up against Sony and Microsoft’s conferences. I don’t see it as a disadvantage since a load of games shorn (mostly) of awkward executive banter can only be a good thing.

Without further ado, in the order in which they were shown…

Microsoft

The Xbox One had the most to prove after the disastrous reveal and preemptive clarification of the awful DRM policies, and while this showing won’t make that shadow go away, Microsoft did allay some fears. Not all, but some. Presentationally, Microsoft needs someone with charisma, who you could imagine successfully selling a used car; J Allard and Peter Moore are sorely missed when you’re forced to watch the automatons up there now.

But apart from that, Microsoft’s comfortably topped the other two for games, which is the important thing at these shows. New games from Swery and the Panzer Dragoon chap bring credibility; Insomniac is a nice coup, albeit not up there with Bungie in my book; Quantum Break, which looks like a serious Ghost Trick, intrigues; and, of course, there’s a new Halo, which gets bonus points for referencing Journey; Battlefield 4 looks like matching its superb predecessor; Metal Gear Solid V looked amazing, albeit multiplatform. Those are just the ones that tickled me; there were plenty more.

It’s just sad that Microsoft had to end on a sour note by saddling the hardware with a £429 price tag. That’s £4 more than I balked at paying for a PS3 back in 2007 – and I won’t be paying it for an Xbox One either. So once it has the DRM patched out, a substantially smaller second model released, and gets a couple of price drops, I’m right on board.

B-

Sony

Sony’s a weird one, as it was the conference that left me with the most positive impression, but one that doesn’t last when you really look at what was shown. Its success was down to the messaging, the flawless capitalisation on Microsoft’s missteps. Does the fact that it’s maintained the status quo by not setting out to control what we can do with our games really deserve to be the factor that ‘wins’ E3? I think it shows how low our expectations have become if it does.

(I must say, however, that I haven’t seen a crowd reaction in a press conference like the one to the announcement of no used game DRM. I hope Microsoft was watching.)

Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III are nice, but Square Enix has forfeited the presumption of quality. We need a couple of releases of PS1/PS2 Squaresoft calibre before I’ll be buying its games regardless of reviews. And as I said, Bungie is a coup and Destiny looks great.

But where was Naughty Dog? Where were all those other great first-party studios? Where was The Last Guardian? Where was anything for the Vita? See what I mean about some notable omissions? I felt like I saw more games at the PS4 reveal back in February, and I pretty much did see as many Vita games.

A solid showing, then, but mainly on the PR front. Thankfully for Sony, that message was good enough to secure my day one preorder.

C+

Nintendo

In shunning the E3 dog and pony show – an approach that has served the company well at the Tokyo Game Show for years now – Nintendo may have set out to lower expections, and I can see why. Mario Kart, Mario, Pokémon, Smash Bros, Donkey Kong Country, The Wind Waker. Notice a pattern? As much as I love Nintendo’s characters, the line-up is depressingly conservative, lacking even the creativity of the GameCube days, where Nintendo published interesting takes on new or forgotten franchises rather than wearing out ideas within a couple of years of their debut.

Nintendo is seemingly a shadow of its former self. Wii U is a sales disaster, third-party support is non-existent, and unlike equivocal successes like the N64 where Nintendo could be counted on to provide classics to make the purchase worthwhile, that’s not happening here. I can see why Nintendo didn’t want to shine the spotlight on this line-up, because it’s worryingly thin.

I’m excited about Bayonetta 2, though, so that’s something.

D

Editorials, Games, Nintendo

Why I won’t be playing Ace Attorney 5

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Phoenix WrightI adore the Ace Attorney series. It’s one of my favourite series on one of my favourite systems, so by default the games are up there in my favourites of all time. Some of the best writing, the best music, the best story in any game. It convinced me of how good the visual novel genre can be, which is another untapped vein of unique gaming experiences.

But as much as I’d like to, I won’t be playing Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, which was today confirmed for an English translation.

Believe me, I really do want to play it. It was a major factor in my decision to finally jump on the 3DS bandwagon, after all. But I won’t as long as my only option to purchase is through Nintendo’s eShop.

For those who don’t know, whereas the likes of Xbox Live Marketplace, PSN, Steam and the App Store attach your digital purchases to your account, allowing you to play them on any compatible platform simply by logging in, the eShop links them to your hardware. This is annoying on the home consoles but, in the eyes of me and many others, an unacceptable risk when buying for portable hardware. If your 3DS is lost, stolen, or breaks outside warranty, you’re at the mercy of Nintendo’s customer support as to whether you can redownload your games. Sell your console without buying a replacement beforehand and you have to let all your games go with it.

Conceivably, a 3DS with an extensive library of games on it could be worth thousands. Good luck getting that much out of your insurance company if your £150 piece of hardware gets nicked.

And of course, none of these are issues for your games on other digital distribution platforms. Losing an iPhone is an annoyance, but get a replacement and you can download every one of your purchases again. Ditto for any other gaming hardware that isn’t manufactured by a company intent on staying a generation behind everyone else.

This is all especially relevant to me at the moment, as my 3DS has been in for repairs for the last three weeks. (That’s some 3-7 day turnaround you’ve got there.) Were a 3DS game I really wanted to play to come out right now, I’d be out of luck. Any current system from any other manufacturer would let me borrow a friend’s machine, log in on my account, and play the new release until my one came back.

That next-generation experience, detaching the games and service from the hardware, is clearly beyond Nintendo, and I won’t be supporting even my favourite series while they’re propping it up.

In a word: OBJECTION!

Games, Nintendo

Radiant Historia

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Back in the glory days when Atlus games could be imported and didn’t acquire major bugs in crossing the Atlantic, a little RPG called Radiant Historia came out, and sold out almost as quickly. Being from Atlus, it was woefully underproduced, quickly reached absurd prices on eBay, and never officially came out in Europe. I, naturally, paid over the odds for it only weeks before a third reprint pushed the price for a new copy down to around the £20 mark, but oh well. It’s a very good game, so I don’t mind.

It’s not the first time it’s happened, so I’ve since sworn to purchase every Atlus game on release, which is probably the idea. Well done, Atlus. Your evil plan has succeeded.

Radiant Historia

It’s hard to mind such a scheme when games are as good as this, though. Radiant Historia harks back to 16-bit RPGs, notably Chrono Trigger – time-travelling storyline, enemies on the world map – with only perfunctory 3D backgrounds to let you know that this game was made this side of 2000.

That’s precisely why I like it. The travails of the JRPG genre in the last generation have been documented, and recently I’ve been playing classics I missed from the PS1 and PS2 genre in a generally successful attempt to recapture the magic of that period when a type of game was at its absolute zenith. While the B-tier has been ripped out of console development, leaving us with nothing between indie darlings and expensive AAA adventures that need 5 million sales to break even, it’s alive and well on handhelds, creating games like this while console RPGs straddle some line between anime and game that pleases nobody.

I’m not meaning to imply that this is anything less than a sterling effort by referring to it as B-tier, however. It’s lengthy (38 hours for me), it breaks tradition by having a main character who’s intelligent and has useful things to say, and the grid-based battle system is empowering as you master it. Apparently developers do get it, but the ones that do are no longer working on console games.

The 3DS is looking like an RPG powerhouse as well – in 2013 alone, we’ve got or are getting Fire Emblem Awakening, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Etrian Odyssey IV, Soul Hackers and Bravely Default, among others – and so it’s taking up an increasing amount of my gaming time. But that said, as I’ve also spent dozens of hours sat in front of my PS3 in recent weeks, playing games like Chrono Cross, Grandia, Xenogears and Dragon Quest VIII, I’m still hoping that affords to rein in development costs next generation with more friendly hardware will see the triumphant return of games like this to their rightful home.

Games, Nintendo

Revisiting The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

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My recent purchase of a 3DS brought with it the ideal opportunity to go back to what many consider to be the greatest game ever, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. I’m ashamed to admit that I never finished it first time around, despite poring over magazines for years beforehand and doing everything short of prostituting myself to get my hands on a copy on day one after my preorder fell through; I think the one-two punch of the Water Temple and the Shadow Temple did it for me, and as a result this has never even been my favourite Zelda game – that would be Link’s Awakening – let alone my favourite game overall.

Ocarina of Time 3D

Although I’m playing the 3DS remake, this is going to be a vehicle for my thoughts on the game itself. Plenty has been written by much more authoritative sources on what’s different and how the versions compare, so I won’t bog this down with my hazy recollections of a game I’ve barely touched since 1998.

One thing I do remember is waxing lyrical with a friend about how “cinematic” Ocarina of Time was. It was unusual for a Nintendo game in that respect, as it seemed preoccupied with making games rather than telling stories, with few games having more story than ‘rescue the princess’ or ‘do a barrel roll’. It still is, and along with Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess, it feels different to the others in the series. The Wind Waker, for all the shock that greeted its unveiling, is thematically and stylistically similar to all the sprite-based instalments, and Skyward Sword seems jovial in response to the misery on display in parts of adult Link’s quest, not to mention the plentiful nightmare fuel of Majora’s Mask.

Ocarina of Time 3D

This came out at a time when developers, particularly ones working with the capacity of CD-ROMs, were learning to blend film and game. Though perhaps only in my nostalgia-addled brain, they were better at it then, imitating the mature tropes of film without going too far in trying to find gaming’s own language of storytelling. There’s no real fan service or an attempt to build an ambitious, overall narrative, which is something that has long weighed down the community without adversely affecting the games, even if it was there all along.

I must say, it’s a lot easier than I remember too. This game was a challenging quest to 13-year-old me, but this time I died once, on one of the bosses. I’m going to hold this up next time I hear someone complain about how easy games are these days. Personally, it’s not a bad thing, as I’d much rather make progress through an enthralling 15-or-so hour quest than have it padded out to 20 by making me traipse back to the boss chamber repeatedly.

Having had an uninterrupted run at the game, I’ve come away with an elevated opinion of Ocarina of Time. Best game ever? No, I still don’t think so. It’s certainly a good shout for an inclusion in my top five, though, and is up there with Link’s Awakening in consideration for my favourite Zelda game. If anything, the main feeling it’s left me with is an increased need for Majora’s Mask 3D – one that the years seem to have turned into a connoisseur’s choice of Zelda – as I barely touched that on release, having long since moved on to better hardware.

Look at me. I’m begging Nintendo for more remakes of old games instead of rolling my eyes. I must be starting to like games again.