Nintendo Switch & Mario Adventure

[Neo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFbDmTjS_MI&t=0s

Literally just spamming their YouTube channel now.

[Crazy Penguin]

Latest Mario Odyssey trailer.

Looks absolutely crazy... in a good way! Seems Mario now has the ability to possess enemies, people and random things like a T-Rex and a taxi. The trailer also features a vocal theme. It's pretty catchy. I also didn't expect to see Pauline in a main series Mario platformer!

I fucking love every single thing about this.

[Frieza2000]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmigJZg4fvM

It's like a fusion of Mario 64 and a Banjo game! And the levels look huge! And yet the attention to detail is still really impressive. I wonder if it shares some code with BotW.

This is the Mario game I've been wanting for the last decade. It just needs an awesome story. But I'll settle for a story at all. Including Pauline and DK already earns it bonus points.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

The possession mechanic reminds me of Space Station Silicon Valley.

It's amusing how blatantly the t. rex is modeled after the Jurassic Park version, when Universal sued Nintendo for infringing on their King Kong trademark way back in the day. Also that Mario attraction being built in Universal's theme park, too.

[Malchik]

OMG MARIO IS APPROPRIATING HISPANIC CULTURE!

[Neo]

The best-a sombreros are-a made in-a Trump Tower Grill! Mario loves-a hispanics! #CincoDeMario

[Jingles]

Fuck me, Neo, you have no idea how hard I laughed at that. ¡Mamma mia!

Is... is the plot of Odyssey that Bowser's trying to marry Peach, and you have to stop him before they seal the deal!? She's very clearly in bridal garb! I know they already got married in Super Paper Mario, but I didn't think Nintendo would be so open about it in a main game! I fucking love it already. I hope there's a bird you can possess so you can just fly over all of the levels, totally ruining the entire thing.

[Crazy Penguin]

OMG MARIO IS APPROPRIATING HISPANIC CULTURE!

And not for the first time!



Odyssey also has the costumes from Yoshi's Cookie, Mario's Picross, NES Open Tournament Golf and Super Mario Maker.

Is... is the plot of Odyssey that Bowser's trying to marry Peach, and you have to stop him before they seal the deal!?

Yes, and the rabbit bosses are the wedding planners.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

And not for the first time!

And not even then!

[Frieza2000]

Is... is the plot of Odyssey that Bowser's trying to marry Peach, and you have to stop him before they seal the deal!? She's very clearly in bridal garb! I know they already got married in Super Paper Mario, but I didn't think Nintendo would be so open about it in a main game!

Not sure if sarcasm or you've never played Mario Sunshine.

What I'm wondering is why Mario's in a white tux. Bowser kidnapping Peach and forcing her into a wedding dress makes sense, but if Mario's dressed up...does that mean they were already in the middle of a wedding when Bowser showed up? Was Mario finally going to walk his brother down the aisle and get the timeline started on the road to Rosalina's birth?

Or maybe he just buys a tux to sneak into Bowser's wedding at the end.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

he was going to audition for the part of Tattoo for the Fantasy Island reboot

[Malchik]

A lot more footage has been released. My one gripe is their is a lot of textual hand holding. Also, the humans from New Donk City are very manikin-esque with little animation. Very Sonic 06 looking.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

My one gripe is their is a lot of textual hand holding.

Par for the course at this point. Games journalists will still get on their knees and suck the big N's dick while extolling SMB1's intuitive first level.

[Malchik]

My one gripe is their is a lot of textual hand holding.

Par for the course at this point. Games journalists will still get on their knees and suck the big N's dick while extolling SMB1's intuitive first level.

Classic games had to demonstrate to the player new mechanics with clever level design. Now they can just lazily tell the player what to do.

I really didn't need to know the purple shit is toxic, Hatter. No, you didn't need to tell me their was a secret platform to cross, Hatter, I didn't assumed the birds sitting in the middle of the air was a oversight and not a clue.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I think it might stem more from a lack of confidence than laziness. Like you pointed out, having something as subtle as birds alighting on an invisible platfrom is clever. But the lowest common denominator doesn't cotton well to subtlety. I remember reading the rationale for putting a tutorial level in Contra 4 was because kids in the focus group weren't savvy enough to crouch. It apparently didn't occur to him that the originals not having tutorials was no impediment to their success, but there you go.

It's like those epilepsy warnings, except nothing's at risk but some idiot's entitlement.

[Jingles]

Do kids really respond that well to having to read so much in their video games, though? I mean, if I were a kid, I'd just be hammering A and discovering all that shit out for myself.

Also, why did they use kids for Contra 4's focus group? It's a T rated game!

[Cuckooguy]

When I was at e3 last week, while I was in the Sonic Mania line I saw a couple people play Green Hill Zone and get stuck at a destructible wall because they didn't know how to spin dash. Didn't realize that move was that unknown!

[Wombatwarlord777]

I don't believe it's as intuitive as we think. I don't know many other examples in platformer where you press down and an action button and expect something to happen. Maybe doubly so in Sonic, since the thing most people know about the games is that they're supposed to be fastfastfastfastfast, and screeching to a halt to do something doesn't strike me as something novices would initially think to do.

I had the exact opposite problem going from Sonic 2 to Sonic 1. It took me quite a while to realize that I had to build up speed and then press down to spin through breakable walls in Green Hill. Not having the Spin Dash did baffle me for a little bit.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

But you did suss it out! But games back then had the luxury of being the only thing your childhood self could play for months on end, a weekend rental at the least. There are so many alternatives these days, often gratis*, kids can be feckless and move on to the next thing. Sonic has already become a victim of his own ad campaigns and critically panned twitch schlock, so he has a sizable hill to climb, perhaps grander than dethroning Mario back in '91.

*obligatory asterisk.

[G.Silver]

But you did suss it out! But games back then had the luxury of being the only thing your childhood self could play for months on end, a weekend rental at the least. There are so many alternatives these days, often gratis*, kids can be feckless and move on to the next thing. Sonic has already become a victim of his own ad campaigns and critically panned twitch schlock, so he has a sizable hill to climb, perhaps grander than dethroning Mario back in '91.

*obligatory asterisk.

This is something I don't really understand. It's a basic fact that Sonic requires a certain amount of skill or memorization for the player to go fast. This seemed obvious to me as a kid (age 11), that I'd have to practice if I wanted to blow through a level smoothly, and so the way I played the game was always kind of edging towards top speed but rarely actually maintaining it for long, so if I wasn't going fast, I was in control of how much I needed to slow down. What I don't get is why other people don't do this, they hit the d-pad and never let go, and somehow expect to go fast without any effort. Racing games promise speed, but you have to learn the tracks, when to brake, when to drift. Fighting games promise you'll beat people up, but you have to learn the moves, and how to respond to your opponent's moves. Why are the expectations for Sonic so different? And I've seen this "argument" from people who love challenging games, that Sonic's design is a "failure" because the levels don't let you just rocket through them.

Remember when people used to criticize Sonic games for being too easy? "Just hold forward and jump!"

[Wombatwarlord777]

Different strokes for different folks, but I rarely play Sonic games at full speed. Even in the games where it's a more blantant focus (Colors, Unleashed) I'm really more happy running as opposed to boosting through levels. It comes down to me being terrible at speedruns and being more interested in the exploration aspects of the games.

It's a happy coincidence, then, that the same sets of physics that allow you to blitz through the classic 2D Sonics also allow you to exploit banks and slopes to reach areas in ways you probably weren't expected to. It's been a while, but Green Hill, with its irregular terrain, is a really fun zone to do this in.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Well, confession time: a lot of Sonic's nuances aren't something I grokked until the advent of the internet. Namely, speed-caps and rolling-lock, which finally accounted for Sonic's "quirks." And even some of the finer points of the insta-shield were lost on me, like its function to overwrite rolling-lock, making Sonic more "fluid" than the ostensibly more useful midair maneuvers of Tails and Knuckles.

ST could've possible communicated these more effectively, like having different animations for locked and free rolling, maybe a shockwave when a cap was in effect, but that's hindsight and they probably had their reasons why not. But then locks and caps were inconsistent from game to game. *shrug*

[big_smile]

Even in the games where it's a more blantant focus (Colors, Unleashed) I'm really more happy running as opposed to boosting through levels. It comes down to me being terrible at speedruns and being more interested in the exploration aspects of the games

That's exactly what I love about Sonic. In other platform games, exploring can be tedious as it will inevitably involve backtracking. But that's not a problem with Sonic, as his speed makes quick work of re-traversing previously visited ground.

Plus in the classic games, there's lots of sections where you can find new routes by going against the flow of speed. (Those loops towards the end of Mushroom hill act 1 are good example. If you go with the flow, you'll go really fast, but jump off and you'll find a whole new area). Things like this make the exploration even more enjoyable as they reward thinking and looking for clues that indicate other routes are present.

This is one of the reasons why I found everything from Sonic Adventure onwards to be disappointing, because they don't contain as much exploration. Colours, Generations and the three DS games come close, but they aren't as expansive as Sonic 3.

And I've seen this "argument" from people who love challenging games, that Sonic's design is a "failure" because the levels don't let you just rocket through them.

I wonder if it is the modern games that are clouding people's judgements?

In the modern games failure to memorize the route often results in the punishment of death by bottomless pit. This makes them very frustrating, especially on a first play, where you haven't had the chance to memorize the level yet. (It doesn't help that there's usually a lack of checkpoints, so you then have to repeat a whole chunk and so can easily forget about the bit that killed you). It's very easy to come to the conclusion that the game would be so much better if you could just rocket through.

In the classic games, failure to memorize a route would just lead to being dropped down on a longer path (Or sometimes loss of rings). So it was less frustrating to play.

[Jingles]

Why are the expectations for Sonic so different?

A lot of the time, I've seen people blame the "gotta go fast" advertising for writing a check that the gameplay couldn't cash, as if they expect the series to be some kind of roller coaster simulator. I don't think that's a valid argument, though - no one ever complains that there's not enough plumbing in Super Mario Bros.!

[Neo]

some kind of roller coaster simulator

This is exactly what the 3D games have become since Unleashed. Forces looks to be no different.