Virtue's Last Reward is Sooooo Good

After playing a bit of Kisuke's story in Muramasa: Rebirth and deciding I just really don't like Chaos mode because block and attack being bound to the same button but needing a significantly longer hold for the former isn't particularly.....good, I decided it was time to finally play something that's been on my Vita for a good amount of time now.  I've had Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward ever since the night it was made available to US Playstation Plus members and have not so much as opened up to the LiveArea of it, much to my own chagrin.  Too many other games to play.  Too many other things to do.  There was just too much going on before I could delve into the world of Virtue's Last Reward, which I knew would swallow up a good few days or closer to a week of my time.  But with Hotline Miami beaten, my desire to go back to Disgaea 3 with the knowledge that 4 is getting a long-awaited Vita port (and no doubt a localization sometime next year) shaken and my patience with Muramasa at a low-point, today was the perfect day to get into it.

Well, maybe not perfect.  After all, Dynasty Warriors 8 and Shin Megami Tensei IV, both of which I have on pre-order, will drop a mere two days from now and I'll be picking them up then.  I won't be able to play DW8 right away, but I will be sorely tempted to delve into SMT IV for curiosity's sake.  Regardless, sometime soon-ish, Rune Factory 4 will be a game in my possession and thereafter, I will not have what everyone calls "Free time" because my Free time will transmogrify into "Rune Factory time", so I sort of needed to get on this sooner rather than later.  In any case, I'm absolutely ecstatic that I did get on it, because if you couldn't tell, I think it is quite excellent from the short clip of it that I played.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be laughing with the game, considering the dire context of it - The Nonary Game, a game tied implicitly with death - but I simply cannot help myself.  I have no idea if Aksys meant to have done such a humorous localization with Zero III, the above bunny rabbit thing you see, nor do I know if Cindy Robinson was instructed to put as much....character into Zero III, but I'm erring on the side of believing they did.  Simply because it's so well done that I cannot help but think it was intentional.  Zero III simply revels in delight at the plight of our band of nine and the task of running the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition that Virtue's Last Reward revolves around.  While I'm not far enough into it to give you an approximation of its worth in terms of impressions, I'm not overstating anything when I say it was worth the download for Zero III's dialogue alone.

It does seem to play a lot like 999, in terms of having puzzle sections and then story sections and switching between them, which is quite welcome.  The puzzles so far are clever - nothing that's made me go "Fuck it, I'm reading a wiki", even though I've gotten close, which I believe is pretty much the best it can be.  The story so far hasn't really gone places aside from wonderful things with Zero III as mentioned (And Dio, who is voiced by Liam O'Brien which is always welcome), or at least not in a way I can speculate off of, but as stated, I'm in it early.  I do miss 999 a little bit in that nobody really has a....well, a pronounced personality thus far, whereas in 999, you could tell what was going on in the very intro scene of the game when everyone was collected together.  Also 999's character designs are miles better than VLR's, but that's a little thing in the long run, I suppose.

Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game and I'm glad I finally found a bit of time for it since it's been sitting on my Memory Stick for a while now, just waiting for me.  If you haven't grabbed it yet, it's not going to be there for too much longer (if it's not gone already), so I definitely -do- urge you to grab it.  However, if you have access to a DS, even of the 3DS variety, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of 999 to enjoy, because it's quite a good game.  This all does remind me that I never did finish my "Explaining 999's Best Ending" series of posts (which I would advise you to not pursue unless you've played it already) which is something that I -will- rectify eventually.  Promise.

Zero III really is just so good

Deus Ex: The Fall - Tripping Out of the Gate

Ever since Deus Ex: The Fall was announced as a phone/tablet-exclusive game (as part of Squeenix's questionable business reform methods that basically boil down to "MORE TABLET/PHONE GAMES"), it's been seen as something of a bad idea from every angle that was thought possible.  Anyone with a little sense in their head at least wrinkled their nose in confusion at the prospect of controlling a First-Person Shooter (that wasn't on rails) on a device which only has an input method of a touchscreen if they didn't outright denounce it on principle alone.  Others pointed to the efforts made with Human Revolution which, while mostly good, they did leave a little bit to be desired here and there (which is a known quantity, what with the Director's Cut coming out to fix those bits) as a reason to be wary of this game.  And still others didn't find a problem with the game itself, to the point where they just wanted it on other platforms as well.  With all those, there was one angle that nobody thought of because why would you think of this angle?

When The Fall released last night, people were quick to find out a little quirk that the developers had implemented in the game: If you were playing it on a jail broken device, you couldn't fire a gun.  Of course, the non-skippable tutorial at the start of the game requires you to shoot a gun at least once, so several people were left at a sort of impasse.  They had the game, but they couldn't play it because it requires something that they're not allowed to do.

For the uninitiated, 'jail breaking' your phone basically allows you to toy directly with the workings of the device in ways that makes Apple and everyone else all angry and such.  It is something that has a variety of uses, from simply modifying a thing or two here for purely cosmetic or ease-of-use reasons to, of course, simply pirating the shit out of whatever games you like.  As with simply modifying a device, you have all sorts of people doing it for varieties of reasons - it's the same thing as folks who used to soft-mod Wii's and PS2 to play imported games; they bought the games legally, they had a device that, in theory, was able to play it and simply had to make it so, instead of buying a whole new device that was the exact same thing, but coded to a different region.  Of course, there were also people that modified consoles to play burnt disks, that's just the sort of thing that happens whenever it comes to a simple modification level.

This was of course just an attempt at a sort of 'indirect' anti-piracy measure as we've seen in the past, but the problem was that it very obviously affected people who didn't pirate the game in any way or fashion.  The official App page for the game does say "** Please be aware, the Deus Ex: The Fall play experience is currently restricted on jail broken devices. Do not purchase if you have voided your warranty and have Jail broken your device.", but I cannot definitively say that it -always- said that, even if I am under the impression that it did.  Even if it did, however, it's still pretty much the greyest area one could murk around in at the moment.  Jail breaking, depending on who you ask and in what context, is perfectly legal, even if that does open avenues that are not quite so much.  Denying you the ability to play the game on a device that has been modified, but not denying you the ability to purchase it is the very definition of suspect, and while I don't know piracy rates on Mobile games (though I believe I've heard they're absurdly high), I imagine this sort of thing ended up affecting far more legitimate buyers than pirates.

I personally liken it to people who go into their computers and modify things for performance reasons, perhaps even going so far as to "overclock" certain aspects of it, usually for gaming means.  It's generally not advisable, I'm sure and it voids the warranty (though whether that's technically supposed to be enforceable is up in the air), but it's not an exclusionary matter.  It's not the best example, of course, since it doesn't do anything to the ability to pirate games, but just...roll with me here.  Just imagine a scenario where a game released on Steam, people bought it, and it said "We're sorry, this game isn't playable on PCs with overclocked components." perhaps for the bullshit reason of "This game was designed with X specs in mind" or something like that.  People would lose their shit and rightly so.  There would be no reason for it, just as there's basically no reason for The Fall to be unplayable on jail broken devices, since it doesn't automatically mean anything by that alone.

Thankfully, there's going to be an update coming up soon that will make the game playable for all, but it's a weird bump in the road considering it was completely unnecessary.  It certainly doesn't do Squeenix any favors, either, and they're a company that really needs to have some favors going around at this point in time.  I can't imagine they're the first developer to put this restriction on a game, and they're definitely not going to be the last, but the real issue at hand is whether or not they're going to try it again after this.  They pretty much only focused on the fact that they didn't state clearly enough (read: with big bold letters that you can't miss) that the game could not be played on Jail broken devices, so perhaps they're simply going to make that change next time around?  That wouldn't be the smart move, of course, but when is the smart move ever the Squeenix move?

now just port the damn game to Vita, somebody, anybody

Pokemon X/Y and Insanity

Citing various sources, including a fantastic video game, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and expecting things to turn out different.  This is basically me with Pokemon.  We all know of the Sonic Cycle which is a true thing that happened in times of yore, and essentially, I have my own Pokemon cycle.  Basically I hear of a new Pokemon game and I hope against all hope that this one, this is going to be the different one.  The one that really innovates the series rather than giving us a new area, new pokemon, a few mechanics tweaks and maybe a new type or two which are, by and large, generally more trouble than they're worth.  The one that breaks the conventions of old and ushers in a -new- style of Pokemon game, one that is approachable to both new and old players while also catering to them both, retaining familiarity to draw in and keep new fans, while changing things up to excite veteran ones.  I keep this hope alive while I await new bits of news to come out.

And then they announce what the new "Team" is.

And I sigh and resign myself to buying what is essentially Pokemon Ruby for the nth time.  A band of adults running around in some megalomaniacal scheme that inevitably involves some form of Pokemon God that still hasn't been discovered on the grand scale despite it literally being a God and thus something other regions would know of, only to be thwarted by you, a precocious tweenager that's always given their first Pokemon by some Professor that is inevitably Grass, Fire or Water type.  Cut it, print it, gold.

I have made many, many posts about Pokemon and the bulk of them are not celebrating what it is, but rather lamenting that it could be better.  This seems like it is something that is never going to stop happening unless I stop caring about Pokemon entirely, which I don't think is something I'm capable of doing while there is not a proper replacement abound.  I just can't -not- envision a game that is like Pokemon but is also so much -more- than what Nintendo and/or Game Freak restrain the titles to be.  I've said it before that I understand that every Pokemon game is designed with the idea in mind that it's going to be -somebody's- first Pokemon game, but that doesn't excuse anything.  Pokemon Gold/Silver was somebody's first Pokemon game as well, and that has, in many ways, still managed to blow even the newer games away with its scope if nothing else.

Pokemon games can have natural conflict, natural progression without a cartoonishly inept and evil group of malefactors running around and shouting about how bad they're being or being so deluded that it boggles the mind as to how they've avoided the sanitorium.  Indeed, the "Teams" are truly my biggest pet peeve with the entire series since they don't even make sense anymore - they simply exist to exist because they've always existed.  They are basically causality loops of the Pokemon Meta-verse, except nowhere near as complex, yet exactly as illogical.  I imagine it's crazy to think they will ever -not- be there because they have, in fact, -always- been there, apparently.  Perhaps it's some sort of meta-commentary on society when every single area of a given world has the exact same scenario occurring in it at what could or could not be the exact same time.  Or...no, probably not.

All I want, which is appropriate enough for the series, is some form of proper evolution.  I've come up with all sorts of ideas for this which have been the subject of many, many posts before today, which I won't even look for since you have the Pokemon tag link above, but I understand that some of them may just beyond the scope for a short-term change.  Not everything can be out of that scope and an idea comes to mind that takes advantage of mechanics that have already existed and been used in the games that can also mirror....well, every single piece of media surrounding the Pokemon series as a whole.  I understand it's not the easiest thing to implement in the fashion that I imagine it in, but it would be easier than other ideas that would also enrich the game.

Double and even Triple team battles have been a thing in the games so far, and there are even portions of some of the games where you have a partner that follows you around specifically for Double-Battles.  So...why not extend that to the whole game?  In addition to your team of Pokemon, just make it so that some of the characters in the game are 'recruitable' in that you can buddy up with them and travel the region alongside them, with the option of bringing them in on Double-Battles if you so choose.  Have it be so that you can influence their own team, whether or not they evolve their mons, stuff like that.  Just add another layer of depth to the game that can also be completely neglected if you wish, since you wouldn't -have- to recruit any of these characters.  I just think it would be interesting to have a 'friend' mechanic in the game so that your character would have, by extension, a bit more of a personality, or even just a bit of more 'ownership' from you, the player.  "My character is always friends with (Character) and is a dick because he keeps telling them not to evolve their (Mon)." or "My character goes around and makes friends with everyone, making sure they're on the road to having the best mons they can before parting ways."  Just something.

Just like every other time, I can only say that this is -not- the Pokemon game that I want.  I want something that expands beyond the boundaries that have been in place for damn near two decades.  Or, more appropriately, the ones that have been in place since Ruby and Sapphire, some 11 years ago.  The game can be so much more, but Game Freak has to try it.  Much like every other time, I will hold out hope that the next game, the next Pokemon iteration, will be the one that I want.  And, to complete the cycle, it just won't be, yet I'll buy it anyway, because it's the only Pokemon fix that I -have-.  Which I can only imagine is the only reason for why Game Freak and Nintendo aren't pushing anything - if you want your Pokemon fix, you have only one place to go.  Maybe when someone finally makes a capable clone, we'll see a shift, but I don't foresee that happening anytime soon.  I can damn well hope for something like that on the Vita, however.  I can hope very hard.

Of course if a Pokemon-like series showed up on the Vita, it wouldn't be 'competition' it would just be called a 'rip-off' and I will just get so angry about that

New Nintendo IP in the Making

I have been complaining for a long, long time that Nintendo seriously needs to reinvigorate its approach to IPs.  The first part of that mostly relies on...making new ones, which Nintendo -has- been doing, obviously, but not on the correct scale and not with the correct weight, is what the problem is.  Which is why, upon hearing the news that Shigeru Miyamoto is busy with a new IP, I'm not immediately jumping with joy.  Yes, it's good that they are working on a new IP, but once upon a time, Nintendogs was a new IP as well, one that Miyamoto personally came up with.  Still, Miyamoto works directly on a lot of games, which is definitely admirable, so his involvement isn't surprising or really different in a sense, nor is it any sort of indication of.....well, anything really.

Which is why I'm not focusing on that aspect, but rather the new IP part of it, since that's what's especially important here.  I'm fully aware that Nintendo has -made- new IPs in previous years.  I'm fully aware that Steel Diver, Xenoblade Chronicles and Pushmo were all new IPs in recent memory.  I'm also pretty sure that those are all of Nintendo's new IPs from recent memory, at least the first-party ones which is honestly what I have to stress the most out of everything that I say.  Second-party IPs are full of muddiness, because of the range of possibilities from whence it came and where it can go in all honesty.  You never know which IPs were born with a developer and then 'bought' by one of the big three to make it happen, which were simply loaned out to an outside developer because their internal studios were too busy and all of the other possibilities that exist.  Second-Party efforts are always, always going to be -close- to First-Party ones, but almost never are they quite there.

Of course, it's not even just about making the IP, but trying to establish it, which is a different beast altogether and one that Nintendo hasn't mastered since the days of yore when Pikmin and Animal Crossing were new and exciting.  They're getting better, of course, because Xenoblade Chronicles is -almost- a good example, given that they're clearly intent on keeping it as a continued thing with a sequel in the works for the Wii U.  The issue I take with it is the lack of faith and follow-up Nintendo had in the title to begin with.  It was one of the three Project Rainfall titles that were almost assuredly not going to see a western release (all three titles ended up getting one) and even when it -was- brought over, there was an incredibly small print-run of it.  Which is...understandable, yes.  Nintendo was wary about its success, or rather its ability to be one, and yet it definitely was a success in all facets.  The problem is that Nintendo...didn't really re-print it.  If they did, they didn't re-print enough of them, because the game reached rare status which should never, ever, ever happen with a First-Party title for any reason whatsoever.

Regardless, that's all negative stuff and we should move away from it far sooner than I managed to.  The question at play here has to be "What kind of game is going to come of this new IP"?  It's a blank slate thematically and realistically.  Genre, setting, characters, all of it is up in the air and it's something that we'll never be able to guess at before it's officially unveiled (likely next year, during E3 Nintendo Directs unless they do a proper presser next year) and that is definitely alluring.  We can analyze what genres Nintendo are filling already and sort of try to go from there, but it's all guesswork.  And if it's all guesswork anyway, why can't we just go full-bore with guessing?  Stop caring about what's there already and try to imagine a scenario with a Nintendo coat of paint.

Personally, I want to see Nintendo take on something a little more modern, a little urban.  Nintendo games, at least what they're known for, tend to be fantastical adventure titles in sparsely populated countrysides and it's always nice and cheery and whatnot, but I'm confident they could do something with it.  After all, Earthbound as a series were all games set in a decidedly modern-day setting and fans swear by those.  Of course, we only technically have the one example of three (in an official sense), but still.  I know Nintendo will want to do light-hearted stuff like....well, usual, but there's still plenty of light-hearted things you can do with a  modern, urban setting regardless.  I think my dream game out of this kind of scenario would be an action/adventure affair with light simulation aspects that are carried out through your in-game smartphone/tablet which are, of course, presented ala your Wii U tablet.  Certainly gives a good reason to use the thing and in an intuitive way, which I believe is what Nintendo worries about in actually implementing uses for it.

The other idea in my head is a little more focused, though it's honestly something I could see Nintendo running with.  Once again, it's sort of built-around the tablet, but it's closer to Nintendo's 'comfort zone' in that it offers plenty of room for fantastical adventure and magic and charm and such.  What it ends up being, really, is sort of Nintendo's take on Sorcery in which your apprentice uses spells out of a spellbook rather than a wand.  I understand that it seems a little off-putting at first, the thought of looking down to see a spell before you look back up and cast it, but done right, I think it could really be enjoyable.  If there's anyone I trust with such a task...well, Nintendo's not at the -top- of that list, but they're on it, I assure you.  I just think it would be an interesting mechanic, and Nintendo assuredly wants to put the Tablet out there and see it used in ways that actively enhance or work with the games on the system, rather than the purely peripheral uses it's been seeing so far.  Of course, that does cut out the chance for Remote Play of this game (and the previous suggested), but what's cooler - being able to play a game ten feet away from your console while the TV is doing something else, or being able to play a game that's fully connected and integrated with the giant pad with a screen in your hands?  Personally, I think the latter.

Whatever the new IP is gonna be, there are at least two things it -has- to be.  Namely, it -has- to be a Wii U game (which just seems obvious) and it -has- to be something big that they're willing to push and make a series out of.  One-offs won't do them many favors at the moment or in the future.  Remember, it's not a problem that Nintendo keeps making Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, it's only a problem that it's all they seem to be making.  Yes, we want those games, but we want new things too, not just new mechanics, new coats of paint for the 25-year-old franchises.  Like I've said before, Xenoblade Chronicles is a step in the right direction, so let's hope they keep up that momentum and start really swinging for the fences.

swinging for the fences also includes re-printing Xenoblade Chronicles btw, come on make it happen

Okay, I'm Suddenly Hyped for Grand Theft Auto V

I'm not going to say that before tonight I wasn't looking forward to Grand Theft Auto V, but I can say with certainty that before tonight, I was not exactly excited for the game.  That has been remedied with the latest video straight from Rockstar, showing some gameplay of the game while also explaining many of its new features and the like.  In all honesty, I only saw it because of Chance's post that included it, so credit where it's due, but I'm very glad that I decided to watch it after finding myself completely without something to write about tonight.  News doesn't like to happen when I'm content playing games that I've already brought up on this blog and talked about at length, it seems, which is something of a problem, but that's neither here nor there, because this is just all about GTA V.

It's hard to even pick where to start because it's all just...so good.  It's all just visual confirmation of things we've already known about the game for some time, but that confirmation and seeing it in gameplay (relax, Rockstar, looking at the video, we don't have any doubt that it was made using in-game footage) is just...better than it was on paper, really.  It's just something wholly different than reading that it's going to do this thing and it's going to be awesome even if you can see it in your head, versus actually seeing it and being able to really deem it awesome for yourself.  Though it's true - everything that I read about and felt a little skepticism about has been shown off in the video and put my fears more or less to rest about it, even if it sort of just worked out like I expected.

I guess I should start with the obvious before anything else, though.  The game certainly looks like a Grand Theft Auto game, which sort of seems to have its own....style, now.  They're flashy enough without trying for a photo-realistic look and shiny enough while still reminding you that it's a video game, and not a video game trying to look like real life.  That suits GTA quite well, I should say, especially with all the scandals it finds itself in - hard to say, but I imagine there'd be far more fuel on the fire if it looked as good as, say, The Last of Us.  But that would require some wizardry that Rockstar generally places elsewhere.  I'm not...sure where that is, because it's certainly not animations either, but that doesn't matter.  Maybe it's just in the amount of fun you can have not doing anything impactful, since good lord, GTA games offer quite an experience outside of missions that some other open-world games just can't.

Anyway, I can't think of a way to actually just....write about the game, so I'll just sort of list things off that make me giddy with glee:

• Character switching seems easy and quick, not to mention serving a purpose in the overall game
• The game world looks -huge-
• I'm not sure I'm going to -want- to drop in to a character running from a 5-star wanted level, but man....that you can is pretty cool
• Customization in both Cars and weapons is rather encouraging
• Lots of character clothing options is a plus for the crazy person in me who likes playing dress-up
• Diving could be cool.
• Hunting!  Seems to be the thing to add in games these days.
• Humor!  From characters!
• Is that a fucking weapon wheel?  Oh my god it was a weapon wheel
• So I've seen golfing, bike riding, swimming, tennis, parachuting...there isn't going to be a lack of things to do
• Please tell me destructible environments is a thing, don't tease me with that tow truck
• Customized approaches to missions?  Mmmmm
• Stock market?  Hmm.
• Yessss, property purchasing, please make them places we can go in and such (I think it's a given that you can, though)
• Grand Theft Online....looks like there's actually a bunch of people in it.  Interesting!

There's a -lot- in that five minute video and I urge you to watch it if you haven't already.  It sent me from 0 to 60 on the hype meter, and I'm certainly going to make sure I have a pre-order on it next time I'm in GameStop because of this.  I sure didn't see that coming.

I literally went "Eeeee!" the first time I saw the weapon wheel, thank god

Wanted More ZombiU? Well...

Much like the shambling undead in its reboot, the concept of ZombiU as a continuing series has been put down for the foreseeable future.  It's not difficult to find a case where Wii U games sell quite poorly and in fact might just be the exact opposite scenario that's hard to make a case of, so the likes of Ubisoft coming out and stating disappointment in the sales of ZombiU isn't too surprising.  It's worrying all the same, but it's certainly not a surprising thing.  One has to wonder if even Nintendo's titles are selling to expectations considering the Wii U still isn't in nearly as many households as they'd like it to be in by this point in time.  Like in previous console situations, that seems to be the 'draw' to the Wii U, but in a more overwhelming sense, and it's continued to cause quite an unfortunate reaction with the sales of everything else on it.

The way the CEO of Ubisoft talks, it sounds like they may be just about ready to pull out much as EA have already done and this is something that Nintendo would want to desperately avoid.  As much as the Wii apparently -could- survive solely on first-party releases, it's become apparent that the Wii U cannot and it's at the feet of Nintendo to make their console appetizing to bring consumers and developers alike to it and they're just not doing that.  The lackluster sales of ZombiU, for example, confirmed what several people thought at the time of the announcement that Rayman Legends went multi-platform and was delayed for that - it was purely because of the under-performance and it'll keep happening to everything that Nintendo doesn't outright buy.

Specifically, I could predict a scenario where Bayonetta 2 -could- become multi-platform as well.  Before you say, "But Mogs, Nintendo is funding it so it can't!" I can tell you that I have not forgotten that bit of information.  However, unless I'm mistaken, Nintendo has only invested in the project - everything of and related to Bayonetta as an IP is still in the hands of Platinum which means it's theirs to do with what they want.  If a scenario comes up where the numbers show buying out Nintendo's investment and then porting the game would make it profitable, you can bet your ass Platinum might give that idea a thought.  It's a hard scenario to imagine considering porting costs are substantial and Nintendo's investment likely is as well, but if Bayonetta 2 just isn't on track to sell even Bayonetta 1 numbers on the Wii U, it has to be an option.  Developers and Publishers cannot just afford to take that loss sitting down.

If I had to give a little thought as to what the issue with sales for the Wii U is, well, it's a two-pronged thing.  The reason that I think the Wii U isn't selling as a console is simply that Nintendo simply haven't presented it as a thing that you need yet.  All you, a potential customer, know about it without some digging is that it's another Nintendo product and has a tablet for a controller that seems to imply a singular experience.  I bet there are still people who think the tablet controller is still a peripheral for the Wii considering how heavy the Wii was with those and only used them for two or three games here or there.  It's hard to find somebody who honestly knows it has a fully realized network for multiplayer with any game that could ask for it that isn't completely ass-backwards to sign up for.  It's hard to find somebody who knows what the hell Miiverse is.  It's probably hard to find people who know that you can download games onto your Wii U just like the consoles today and the consoles of tomorrow.

My opinion on why software doesn't sell to those who have actually bought a Wii U is because of those issues, but in a more direct sense.  Nintendo has barely made an effort to make the Wii U a unified system, to bring all these things they added to it together in one thing that simply -works-.  Nintendo cultivated two different groups of people with the Wii - people who bought it for the casual experiences, and people who bought it for the Nintendo first-party games - and overlap was the exception, not the rule.  There were very few people who owned another console and yet considered their Wii their primary one.  That in itself is not damning, since your first-party efforts were enough to bring them in, but you have to make it easier for people to turn to the Wii as a primary console and that means cultivating people open to all experiences, including third-party ones which, in turn, bring the third-parties around.

The most egregious example of this type of thing, I think, is the Nintendo Network.  Nintendo made it specifically for the Wii U and designed it to cater to the third-parties who have made Multi-player gaming a thing when it was, by and large, not exactly present in Wii games.  Then, like most things Nintendo makes, they proceeded to not use it at all for gaming.  Two different instances of a multi-player Mario game have been announced since the console was released and neither of them (the more recent one not even scheduled to release until the end of this year or the start of next) even allow for the option of online multi-player.  When you ask Nintendo, they state that it comes from a mindset that wants to ensure couch co-op persists, but guess what?  You can do that while also bringing in online multi as well.  If you don't offer an online component to any of your games, the ones that showcase your console the best, why is anyone going to want to throw in a third-party game and try it out for that?  You just have to give people a little push, you don't have to force it like some people have tried.

But, hey, maybe I'm wrong.

Update!:  I kind of wanted to clarify things a little bit last night, but I couldn't because of storms and it was too much of a pain to try and edit from my Vita.  So I took to my Twitter to try and get the point across that I feel like I muddied up a little.  So allow me to sort of take what I said on Twitter and add more words.

First-party titles are the games that your customers buy your console for and, as such, they should be used as a way to showcase your console like a third-party game simply cannot by virtue of being designed with other machines in mind.  They're the games you're going to bundle -with- your console, meaning they are likely going to be the games that consumers have the first experience with your console with.  Nintendo isn't doing that to the fullest extent with the Wii U by ignoring the Nintendo Network, especially when it comes to a game that would be perfect for it - the first Mario multi-player focused game that was a launch title.  You have to make your customers see how smooth an experience it is (of course, you have to -make- it smooth) so that they go "Oh well, it's good for other games too".  Especially if it's your honest first attempt at a proper network infrastructure like the NN is.  If you don't show the console as a cohesive sum of its parts nobody's going to get excited for the real possibilities so much as they're just going to be excited about the next Mario/Zelda/Smash Bros. game as they have been, which, as shown, isn't exactly the best position for Nintendo to be in despite the obvious.

I will continue to say with everything that no online MP, even secondary, for Super Mario 3D World is a dumb idea

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Public Planning is Bullshit

Continuing the trend of not being able to talk about New Leaf in a completely positive light, I have a whole new complaint about the game now that I've put quite a bit more time into it.  This time around, it's a biggie, unfortunately, because I have a bone to pick with the entire new mechanic they added to New Leaf: The Town-Building aspect.  I was initially intrigued and hopeful for the mechanic, but its become quite clear that it was under-thought and implemented poorly as one might fear.  To be honest, I have a sort of complaint with every single facet of how it's handled, if you can believe that, and it's annoying that I -can- be that bothered by it, since it's really something that shouldn't have been too difficult to implement.  Yet, Nintendo took the route they usually use and over-complicated something that could have been refined and enjoyable instead of obfuscated and tedious.

I've already mentioned that everything costs an exorbitant amount of bells, so I won't harp on that so much aside from reminding that the lowest-cost item is 30,000 bells (a bench) and a project that was 39,800 Bells only raised 1,200 bells in three days in my village, if that much.  As mentioned, you are pretty much going to need to fund these projects yourself, and that means frittering away doing menial side tasks for the express purpose of simply scraping together said amount of bells.  Though, to be fair, they only exist to buy things with - there's no reason to save them in the ATM aside from getting some badges whenever the badge guy decides to stop into town.  Still, gathering Bells without the express intention of doing so is hard to do, and the process of doing so is tedious at best.  It's not a good thing.

Of course, that doesn't even skim upon the issue of actually obtaining things -to- build via the means of throwing bells at a gyroid because your villagers won't do it their damn selves.  The step at the start, simply sitting in the Mayor's chair and picking a project to work on is tricky because you only have a certain caste of things you can pick from initially.  Thereafter, everything else has to be suggested before you can build it.  Some of these are fairly simple - You cannot get a second floor to the museum until you've played for something like 10 days and have at least one piece of work displayed in all four exhibit areas of the museum.  That one's understandable and easy and when the conditions are met, all you have to do is talk to Blathers, and he'll tell you that he's going to suggest it to your secretary.  Next time you're there, you can pick it, and it's just that simple.  The -other- method, unfortunately, is simply walking around by your villagers in the hopes that one of them will make the animation of noticing you and speak to them, hoping that it's a suggestion and not a request for you to find them a common/rare bug/fish or something equally inane.  Suffice to say, it doesn't happen a lot and indeed, I've only gotten three suggestions in my, what, month of playing(?) to add to my list via random suggestion.

Perhaps the most annoying step of the whole process is the actual placement in New Leaf.  You see, once you've figured out what you want to build from the minute list of what you -can- build, you and your secretary have to wander about.  She's looking for you to tell her where a building should go, and it's based on, roughly, where you're standing when you ask her.  It's inelegant, unwieldy and is guaranteed to keep you from putting things where you actually want them.  You pick out the perfect spot and, without fail, Isabelle will inform you that it's too close to a rock or a pond or the City Hall or a bridge or a previously constructed project (by a degree of 'spaces' which aren't...marked in even the slightest bit) and it quickly becomes a game of just trying to figure out where in the hell you can plop down this goddamn fire hydrant so that it'll be out of the way and won't ruin and of your fruit trees.  Oh yeah, picking an area with trees will just sort of get rid of those trees.  Which you only know about when Isabelle says "Oh this is a good spot, here's what it'll look like!" which brings up a flash and then you can see the spot with the project built minus whatever was there previously with no visual indication that anything is, indeed, gone.

It stands to wonder how this couldn't have been handled in...a better way.  You cannot do this sort of thing when your city is open to others, so doing something a little more 'restrictive' but far more precise is...something that comes to mind.  Personally, I would've liked the ability to just use the map on the touch screen that you literally have from the start of the game while in the office to bring up an area.  On the top screen, it shows the building or what have you as an outline (white if viable, red if not) with anything that would be destroyed as a red tinged object.  You know, like every single other game that allows you to plop down buildings too.  That Nintendo missed about two decades of design cues on this very type of idea is nothing short of astounding and disappointing, considering their method of this thing isn't even charming, it's just bad.  The whole of it is just an exercise in frustration and it's bothersome, since this was supposed to be the big draw of the game and it was barely thought-out at all.  I'm...just not sure if I'm surprised by this or not, unfortunately.  Always next game, I suppose.

Isabella, you cannot tell me that this thing is 2 spaces by 4 spaces because I HAVE NO VISUAL CUES AS TO WHAT SPACES ARE