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That gameplay demo looks terrific to me, I am very excited about this game.

I grabbed a Pac-Man, Greninja, and the Splatoon 3-pack today. (Couldn't find any of the FE amiibos.) I am hopeless.

Only if carving a severed tail, otherwise no. The largest special event beasts, like the Dahren Mohren, have multiple distinct carving spots that might give different stuff, but i'm not sure.

I got one game in and then the whole thing just collapsed in on itself. Looking at some buzz from around various places, it seems to be non-responsive for just about everyone. Oh yes, all the thrills of online gaming have definitely been captured here. Well, they got their stress test, i guess. You go from three hour-long windows to just one, have an influx of people who missed the first few but heard the good buzz, and you get servers exploding and on fire. Makes me a little apprehensive about how the proper launch will go, but at least the audience won't be ridiculously compressed into a small window of time. The biggest bummer is for people who missed the first opportunity and just wanted to try the game though, but maybe they'll expand the window for this thing. (Edit: They did. They resolved whatever issue they were having and ran it for a second mostly-functional hour. Splatoon continues to impress me with its fundamentals, i am extremely curious to see how the full game goes.)

I don't really have anything to add to this conversation specifically, because i honestly don't really have any clear preference, but the question just reminded me of Nier and how it takes its action RPG mechanics and spins them through a variety of genres simply by adjusting the perspective. It can go from third-person to side-scrolling to top-down. It even turns into an isometric dungeon crawler for one area. It's a very playful and cool design, love that game.

I looked into this more since i've been wondering if it was the tablet streaming throwing me off since i've been playing Bayonetta mostly remote-play. (I'm really not impressed with the screen on that thing, the color palette comes across as really brown and washed out compared to the vibrant colors i can see on my TV, but of course it's not going to stand up to a really nice HDTV.) Apparently the streaming tech the Wii U uses is actually pretty top-end though, with less latency than many HDTV's. (I've subsequently played the game more on my properly-configured TV, and it feels about the same there to me, maybe a tiny bit better.) That doesn't mean there isn't anything off though, it could be in the game itself, and i've been able to find a lot of other conversations with anecdotal observations where people are talking about the Wii U port of Bayonetta having tighter windows for dodging and QTE's. It really just feels so weird to me, and i've been pulling in some embarrassingly terrible scores. Perhaps the difference in system architecture led to something going awry in the porting process. (Back to the original versions, it was no secret that the game was built for the 360 and - among other problems - Bayonetta's PS3 version was also noted for, and provably shown to have, more controller lag than the 360 version.) I haven't dug into Bayonetta 2 much yet, but it didn't feel as off as playing through Bayonetta's Wii U port has. (I ran across some conversations about the inconsistent framerate in that game sometimes causing controller latency, but it doesn't generally seem to be the same issue.) Also, i've been playing more Nintendo Land, it's grown on me a lot. (So has 3D World, as an aside, but i still don't think it's quite what people built it up to be. It is not in the upper echelon of Mario games.) Nintendo Land though, It's quite interesting to me that it landed with such a dull thud as a pack-in, because i don't think it would be especially controversial to argue that it's a much better game than Wii Sports. Many of the designs in Nintendo Land could easily support full games, which i don't think could necessarily be argued of Wii Sports. Clearly though, abstracted Nintendo nostalgia didn't land in the way simple, accessible and immediately understandable interpretations of globally known sporting events did. Edit: Oh, and there's another window for the Splatoon demo at 3pm pacific today, don't forget!

Also, once you're into G-rank, you can craft rarity 10 talismans with relative reliability and will also already have a handful of other less costly options with a smaller possibility of rarity 10 talismans, so don't discard useless talismans, keep them for late-game crafting.

The environments in Echoes definitely don't flow together very smoothly, i would agree that there is a bit of a modular feel and a lot of awkward backtracking.

Is it just me, or is the Wii U version of the first Bayonetta way harder than it was on other platforms? I feel like there might be some extra latency happening on that tablet controller or something, because the qte/combo/witchtime windows all feel way off to me. (Granted, i haven't played Bayonetta in years.) Also, i picked up Captain Toad too. That game is wonderful. It kind of evokes Luigi's Mansion for me, actually, even in its presentation. There's so many subtle contextual and incidental animations and barks for Toad, the game is just drowning in understated charm. It's absolutely delightful, and may have made Toad my favorite Mario character. (GO AWAY LUIGI, YOUR YEAR IS OVER.)

I'm cautiously optimistic about this game, Avalanche is a fine developer and this game seems to be aiming for a lot of pretty appealing goals.

A shocking number of the effects were practical, though. Things you wouldn't believe could have possibly been practical are practical. It's been quite eye-opening looking at some behind-the-scenes footage of the film. There is so much massive and manic creativity happening in that film, and it's incredible knowing how much of it was done practically. Shots that seem impossible, stunts that seem unfeasibly dangerous. I haven't actually seen the "good" Mad Max movies, i had only ever seen Beyond Thunderdome and i thought it kind of sucked. I recognize it's the black sheep of the franchise, so i'm sure i'd enjoy the other two a lot more, but it's just a series of films i never really had enough interest in to go out of my way to see. So, that in mind, i wasn't planning to go out and see Fury Road until the internet started getting supremely hyperbolic about it, and it turns out that i don't think the internet is at all wrong. In fact, i think it's entered into my short list of favorite films. I've seen some people deride it as having no plot and no characters, and i can't help but wonder if it's a side affect of so many modern action movies teaching audiences to stop thinking while explosions are on screen, because Fury Road is a film where characters continue to exist and have arcs during those giant set pieces. Character beats happen, character development happens, there is even world-building happening during the action scenes. The story does not stop for the action, almost everything in that movie is happening with a narrative purpose. There is virtually no character setup or exposition in that film, but an action scene like the brawl between Furiosa and Max tells you everything you need to know about those two characters. (I mean, and it works in large part due to terrific performances from both Hardy and Theron.) It's so god damn good, it's how action movies should always be. The way the soundtrack is integrated into the film is just so wonderful to me, with diegetic elements and explicit film score playing into eachother. I even love the way shot framerates are manipulated constantly to almost subliminal effects that are far more subtle and unusual than the grossly excessive "check out this cool shit" speed ramping that is so prevalent in other modern action films. I love a lot of the thematic undercurrents. I'm not going to pretend like it's always nuanced in how it approaches things, though it is surprisingly so, and it's layers of additional texture where there didn't have to be. It's also supremely refreshing to see a strong female presence in a huge blockbuster, but there's other things i don't see people talking much about, like Immortant Joe, People Eater, and the Bullet Farmer all being obvious parodies and critiques of blind religion, corrupt business, and unrestrained military. ("Who killed the world?" indeed.) The movie has kind of a great sense of humor too, Max's savvy world-weary awareness creates a bunch of understated absurd beats throughout the film. Nux's arc is great, Immortan Joe is a fantastic villain. Hell, this film even gives a shit about incidental characters that might only appear for a handful of scenes, you're given enough information about them to put together a picture of who they are. It was a "Best. Movie. Ever." kind of viewing experience for me. It's absolutely thrilling to me that, as an adult, i can still have a reaction to a film that is as strong as i had when i saw movies like Indiana Jones and Star Wars as a kid. Fuck yeah, George Miller, way to go. (Now somebody gets to come along and tell me "MEH, IT WAS OKAY.")

Did something happen that i didn't hear about? They had already confirmed that a Wii U Star Fox game is in development. Splatoon, however, strikes me as just so interesting for being the first new IP out of EAD since Pikmin. It seems so much like the kind of game you'd see out of one of Nintendo's satellite studios, and not the kind of thing that would come from the deepest of Nintendo's internal development teams. It has just such an un-Nintendo-like vibe, it actually most reminds me of the kinds of games Sega was making in their Dreamcast days. Sure hope it's good.

It isn't, it's a unique 2 player local game type, there is no party matchmaking in Splatoon.

No, it doesn't seem like you'll be able to swap weapons during a match. You would hope for something like being able to set up a few builds in advance and select from them during pre-match setup, with the rest of your team's selected builds visible and not locked in until the match starts, but don't count on anything like that being present in Splatoon. I haven't seen anything that suggests that the game will be that smart about it, it seems like you'll probably always be going in blind. They do have this notion of having a pair of vote-selected maps rotate in every few hours so you can go into a playlist with a build built around at least having a pretty good idea of where you're fighting, which... Honestly, that seems like a solution to a problem nobody ever has, while also creating a stagnancy issue, and further suggests that they haven't taken a more thought-through approach like what is suggested above. Knowing now that the game has a pretty good foundation has suddenly made me really worried about the ways this game could go wrong, it could just be a terrible waste.

I ended up doing best with the more accurate of the two rapid fire ones, i was actually going to come here and say that the snipe felt underpowered to me. (When you realize you can rapid fire it and still kill in around 3 hits, it starts working out better, but i certainly did the worst of any of the weapons with it.) Anyways, i got in on all three windows for the demo. The three weapon classes definitely shake out into fairly distinct and interesting roles, and the the interplay between those and the grenades, supers, and traversal mechanics all seemed really solid. To my surprise, i actually ended up switching back to the motion control scheme. That little bit of extra control over my accuracy bolted on top of a dual-stick control scheme actually did make a big difference, once i got used to it. I think there's a good foundation here, i like this game and i think it's something i could get pretty invested in. I just don't know if i like what else Nintendo's been saying about it. Mainly the way they're promising lots of really extensive and wonky progression mechanics, it remains to be seen how that will affect things. (I really don't like progression mechanics in competitive games, because the best case scenario of how it's implemented is still terrible for the game, in that it's harder to get going for new players because entrenched fans are not just more skilled and more knowledgeable about the game, but they're also reinforced by way of those progression mechanics. Fighting against a stacked deck seems kind of antithetical to the sort of approachability Splatoon is aiming for, but hey, people sure love chasing those carrots.) I mean, and there's also the bizarrely impotent local play they're promising, the weirdness with how they're building their matchmaking, and the seemingly enormous chunk of the game that is tied up in amiibos. On the up side, they're promising tons of post-release support, new maps and weapons and modes that will seemingly be delivered as free updates... hopefully. (I would also hope they're not needlessly holding things back from the retail box, but... I mean... Of course they are.) I'm very hesitant to be excited about Splatoon, but i think i'm probably on board, i definitely like the core of what they have there.

I was in there for the first hour. A few tips to help people make the most of the next couple of windows: - There's a bizarre motion control setup that you probably won't like. You'll have a sense of whether or not you want it by the end of the forced tutorial and then you can enable normal dual-stick controls via the motion control toggle in the options. - Grenades and guns share ammo, but your super is charged by a separate meter that grows as you paint ground for your team. (Click the right stick for it.) - The roller seems to by far be the most powerful and important weapon, and if you don't have at least two on your team, you'll probably lose. The held charge attack is an instant kill and covers a lot of ground very quickly for painting. The others pretty much need to maintain a height advantage and snipe from safety. - Keep an eye on your map for any significant turf trades. If your team gets caught up in a big fight while they have one guy disengaged and going around with a roller, you're going to lose. - Touch somebody's name on your tablet map to instantly teleport to them from the spawn point. (This only works from the spawn point... I think?) - There's no way to join friends. Boo. Based on what i played, it seems like a cool game. There's so little there that i can't really make any grand statements about the game's quality and I definitely still have concerns about a number of things, mainly pertaining to balance and matchmaking, but the foundation there was enjoyable enough that i want to play more of it. There's definitely something there.

I'm looking to give it a shot. Hopefully the "join friends" option will at least be available, if not an option for party matches, because it'd be cool to participate in this "beta" with some friends. The way they're running it though, three broken-up hours at some seriously inconvenient times, is kind of awful.

After really enjoying 3D Land, seeing the glowing praise 3D World got, and everybody making absolutely sure to note that it's from the Galaxy team, i feel like i'm doing something wrong because i feel very little compulsion to keep playing it. The cat suit is kind of part of it, the way it overrides a lot of the acrobatics that exist in the 3D Mario games without putting a more interesting mechanic in its place. (I also think that distant locked camera worked better in 3D Land because the stereoscopy gave you the added benefit of depth perception.) I understand the level design is quite good in the back half of the game though, lots of interesting variety? I'll probably just keep at it off and on. It seems like a really interesting, really earnest attempt at supporting the Wii U as a platform from before third-party publishers realized the market wasn't going to be there for it. I have heard some mixed things on it though, so if anybody wants to ward me away, i'll probably listen. (How is uPlay in Ubisoft's Wii U games? It is as obnoxious and unnecessarily gated as it is everywhere else now?) I love Human Revolution quite a bit, definitely wouldn't be bothered playing it again, and haven't already played the director's cut version. I did hear some interesting thing's about the Wii U port, so maybe that might actually be the way to do it, unless somebody wards me off that. The Captain Toad levels have actually kind of been the highlight in 3D World, for me. I think a full thing based around that slight, charming puzzling might be something i'd appreciate. It's probably not at the top of my list, though. So, i really didn't like DKCR. I like Rare's original series well enough, but found that Retro's reboot kind of lost the things i liked most about those earlier games. (The tag-team mechanics, among other things.) With that context, do you still think i should look into Tropical Freeze?

Yeah, definitely play at least until you get the gaur plains. If you still don't like it there, it's probably not going to click, because that area gives you a pretty good sense of how that game actually is. (You should have enough abilities once you've spent some time there to start seeing how some of the combo and positioning stuff works for the combat, in addition to the awesomely weird precognition gimmick.) Even with a few years to think it over, i would still say it's probably one of my personal favorite RPG's.

About Splatoon not having party matchmaking at launch, that's almost a deal-breaker for me since i generally play online shooters with a group of friends. This just seems like Nintendo not understanding the needs of that genre, realizing they fucked up, and probably taking too long to make good on it. (August?) The voice chat thing... I mean, yeah, i've played enough shooters to know that playing with vocal randoms generally sucks, but it's still incredibly dumb that Nintendo is going to prevent people from effectively coordinating in a team-based shooter they're trying to pitch as fairly role-based. For a group of friends, you could easily enough just setup a chat outside of the game, but again, the game won't launch with party matchmaking. So... HEY THOUGH. WII U THOUGHTS: - I like the Tablet a whole lot more than i was expecting, i think it's a nice controller, just a really nice piece of hardware, and i have constantly been using the remote play potential, to my surprise. - I ran into some really disconcerting UI dead-ends while trying to set the thing up, that stuff is kind of bad. - I still haven't transferred my Wii stuff over, i hope that isn't going to create problems. - 3D World isn't really hitting any notes with me. I've been told a few times if i stick with it, it gets better, but... - Nintendo Land is a strange thing, but it does what it needs to do, it makes some interesting cases for the tablet. - Rainbow Curse came as an additional bundled game and, for all the shit talking the internet has done about it, it has actually clicked with me in a pretty big way. However, it's easy to see why it didn't catch on with people, it's a weird fit for the Wii U and it's uncharacteristically difficult and demanding for a Kirby game. God damn is it beautiful though, there's so much whimsy! Okay, now... What are the available Wii U games that i should consider? (Ignoring upcoming games like Xenoblade X, which i'm of course going to play, it's why it bought this thing.) Bayonetta 2 Wonderful 101 Super Smash Bros for Wii U Captain Toad Hyrule Warriors, perhaps? Wind Waker HD Mario Kart 8 Pikmin 3 Zombi U, maybe? Anybody want to dissuade me on some of those, help me narrow it down to the obvious choices, or recommend something i've missed? (I'm probably going to pick up Bayo 2 soon.) Edit: Speaking of Xenoblade X, that game apparently has an optional ten gig install for the disc version, or you otherwise have to contend with some fairly severe asset pop-in in the open world. That's probably one of the more notable details to come out of the game's japanese launch.

I suspect it's one of the key reasons why Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were the games that finally, finally hit big for From when they had been making similarly sophisticated and obtusely arcane games all along. Their theming was finally in synch with their mechanics, and it set a tone that indicated to players that there were things to be discovered beneath surface level observations. It was the carrot that pushed people to learn about these games when people had never been as willing to learn about their previous efforts and would always write them off as impenetrable and clunky.

Okay, okay, i'm about to get started on this... So it's not like the 3DS transfer, is it then? Does it wipe out the target system? What about the pre-installed bundle games? (Can i redownload those from the eshop? Do they just exist in storage, or are the licenses included in the shop?) At which point in this process should i tie in a Nintendo account? On my Wii, i had a bunch of VC games and some WiiWare games, enough that they didn't all fit into the internal storage of the system, does that cause problems?

Just a heads up for anybody who cares: Capcom has put up two more time-limited free item packs. (These are just normal items, like the limited starter pack they did at launch, so don't worry about missing these too much.) They've also put up the... third? Fourth? Batch of free DLC, a bunch more quests and gear. (Dress yourself up like Samus and your Palico up like Megaman. Or don't.) The first few sets of free DLC's are all still available as well. In other news, i finally got around to hitting G-rank.

I finally bought a Wii U. I am terrified of this setup process, i'm afraid i'm going to obliterate something in a system transfer. Either the licenses and saves i'm trying to move over from my Wii, the games that came pre-installed as part of the bundle i got, or any accounts i need to tie into the thing.

I mean, but at the same time, i'm sure you made lots of mistakes with how you built your character, and that there were many underlying systems whose presence you never intuited. That is everybody's first experience with a souls game, and to say that you still finished the game in spite of it is sort of trying to make a false equivalence with Monster Hunter, because Monster Hunter is a game that has no clear win state. You play until you want to stop playing. You're talking about the camera again, right? The camera is by far the most common complaint i see made about the game. Help me understand something then, because i've played the game almost entirely without the aid of a second stick. Where specifically does it break down for you? Why is the lock-on not enough? Edit: This might be a "me" thing, i'm aware, which is why i'm not particularly trying to take a strong "you're wrong" stance here. When people around me are freaking out about weird control schemes deviating from accepted standards, i'm usually the one that's totally fine with it. So, in this matter at least, i'll just quietly look on disapprovingly.