Final Smash Presentation Discussion

[Kayura05]

If you couldn't tell I take my time when I respond to things...I'm not fast.

I would tend to agree. Games should be fun. If they're too hard, they aren't fun. If this was like developing professional skills (carpentry, computer programming, etc), I could understand telling people to tough it out. Most "career gamers" don't seem to care whether a game is hard or not though. They are more worried about whether it makes for entertaining videos. We aren't talking about building trade skills or learning an instrument you can play professionally. We're talking about a hobby, and elitism in a hobby is pointless.

Not sure what you mean there. There are several types of "Career Gamer" and for many of them both complexity and difficulty are required for them to take interest. That's usually how games (even unintentionally) develop competitive scenes, all it takes is enough hidden depth and boom Smash community. I mean look at games like Catherine, if you're familiar, that were never meant to be played as seriously. That's what makes games fun for a lot of people.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Intelligent Systems is a "2nd party developer," which is a fancy way of saying "not Nintendo itself, but might as well be." They develop exclusively for Nintendo, so they are not 1st party only on paper. They also worked on such classics as Metroid, Super Metroid, the Paper Mario series, and Wario Ware games. FE is as much 1st party as any of those. GameFreak of Pokémon fame is another 2nd party developer, but the Pokémon series is treated like Nintendo IP. That's because though they are somewhat independent from Nintendo, they are still owned by it.

Yes I know they aren't 1st party, I believe I mentioned this before as well. That doesn't mean that Fire Emblem is an important series overall in the grand scheme of things. It may have the longevity but it has always been niche and considered such. It only was really popular in Japan until not too recently. Globally it just doesn't rate. Unlike characters from similarly lesser known series like Mr. Game & Watch they have way more characters than you think a series like that needs. Considering that many of the newer FE characters are there for marketing reasons I can sort of understand that.

As for being a "classic," that's a bit arbitrary and I'm not sure how you'd exclude it. The first FE game dates back to the Famicom, so it's old enough to be considered "classic." It has more games than the Metroid, Star Fox, Kid Icarus, and Pikmin games, if we're talking number of games. In terms of popularity, it was a Japan-exclusive for most of the series.I can't say first hand, but Wikipedia suggests the first five were very popular there. It became a hit abroad since FE Awakening. I'm not sure what other metrics one would use to establish a game as a classic.

Age, relative popularity, and number of entries mean nothing next to brand recognition is many cases. With this whole case the situation is almost too unique to really compare it other things but look at heroes that are older than Batman, may outnumber him in issues and can be popular depending on the audience. Many would not be considered as "Classic" as Batman or even as important. Yes that may seem arbitrary or frivolous but perception can be a funny thing like that and there aren't any hard "rules" for that sort of thing.

I reply to the rest later......We should really make a FE thread.

 

[MacSmitty]

I'm going to say what I said in "The Thread in Defense of Corrin" on SmashBoards.
It could've been worse.
I know for a fact that if a character from let's say Mario got in instead of Corrin, people would've flipped their ****.
Of the characters I voted for in the Smash Ballot, my choices were Isaac (Golden Sun) Paper Mario, and Wolf.
If Isaac took Corrin's place, people would've still bitched about him being a swordsman despite the fact that his Earth-Based synergy would make him a unique fighter, just like Corrin and his Dragon Fang.
Paper Mario would've gotten massive amounts of salt for being another Mario, another Mario rep, and complaints about how similar his moveset would be like vanilla Mario's.
Wolf would've caused alot of people complaining on how a clone took priority over a unique character, and sometimes when people say that, I legit wonder if they ever played Brawl.

 

[Kayura05]

So should we call it "Wiferim" now? So any game with a marriage system is a waifu simulator? Is that how this works now?
Or are you running out of straws to grasp?

Would you prefer "Spousu Simulator"? ;)

It's one thing to not agree on how we view the game and I could go into detail about why I feel that way, but I don't mind my criticism being reduced to this. It amuses us.

In my opinion, a good character trumps representation or some franchise proportion. People can complain about too many FE characters, but I don't think the number should matter if the character is well made and fun to play. If the character was poorly made, that's one thing. It seems that the devs actually tried to make Corrin a genuinely original character though. For me, that carries more weight than having too many characters.

Corrin being a good character isn't the problem, it's rep numbers as we discussed earlier. It all comes down to how we both view this matter but we went over that already.

Final Fantasy and Sonic fandoms are leviathans of true fandom and obnoxious fans in general. Sonic in particular is a case of fans ruining the series. FF is more a case of fans ruining the series for newcomers.

I...don't really know what to make of the Sonic phenomena. It always came across as attracting extremely unique personalities. I try not to speak ill of people from fandoms I know little of (except SU fans) but I am extremely curious as to why many of them act certain ways.

There are actually people who do this. Granted, it's very very niche, but there were actually North American FE fans before it crossed the Pacific. In fact, there was a You Tuber with Channel Awesome who did a series on how to play imported Japanese games if you don't know Japanese. I can't say how good he was (I personally don't care for any of Channel Awesome), but the interest was there. I don't think that factors into them being real fans, but it would show a dedication one would have to admire.

Of course, there were always those people in school who were the "import" kids. They somehow always had games and merch from overseas that simultaneously filled you with awe and envy.

My brother and I made our own. We actually drew our own Super Metroid map. That is something I miss about gaming today: making your own guidebooks. Yeah it was a pain in the ***, but it was fun. It was like keeping a logbook of your journey. I wish I kept our Super Metroid binder.:(

Me and my brothers would each try to memorize different parts of game dungeons so we wouldn't get lost. That's originally how I learned to use the internet so well, between printing out pictures or instructions from the local library or conversing with kids at school it used to make games last longer. It would be a hard thing to replicate the way that era of kids experienced games. It was a entire way to easily socialize with others and have fun, the limited access to the internet made it a more interactive hobby at the time and sometimes more fun.

I'll agree to disagree on this, but I still think it is overblown. If it was just a matter of shipping people, that'd be one thing. There is an actual gameplay mechanic at work though, hence my comparison to Pokémon. The presentation is different (dating vs breeding), but it's the same gimmick: creating more powerful teammates and giving characters abilities they wouldn't be able to get otherwise (like giving male characters Galeforce). Are there a lot of shippers who squee over their ideal matches and claim some girls as their waifu? Sure, but that is on the fans not the game itself. "Waifu" claimers are in every fandom and send nails down the chalkboard of my soul.

Some people overblow it sure, though there is a legitimate criticism to be made. The pokemon comparison isn't ideal as collectible mon are entirely different from characters who were suppose to have personalities (as one note as some are) and be a part of the game. At its core the end result is suppose to be the same but they function differently. Execution and presentation are what really matter to me and Awakening left a lot to be desired.

Most people I know don't really care about the romance aspect: they pair people up to give the children certain skills and stat growths. They may like certain characters more than others, but based their pairings off of state boosts and skill first and foremost. That's what the dating mechanic is there for. In my opinion, people who say it's a dating sim are too caught up in the presentation that they don't see it for the stat/skill transfer that it really is. Literally, its whole function in the game is to create characters that are downright broken.


I think people are crying wolf with this particular thing, possibly because Steam has a ton of ****ty date sim/visual novel games. Dating/marriage has been a long-time component of the Sims, yet there's a lot more to the game than dating. The Harvest Moon/Rune Factory games (which are far more like dating sims than FE:A) makes a big to do about dating, but marriage has very little impact on the games themselves beyond setting up New Game + data with the child character. I think people get fixated on the dating itself and don't realize that it's more-or-less a secondary gimmick/feature in these games. As I've pointed out in Awakening: most people I know who aren't Waifu hunters don't really care about support convos or character pairings; they want to optimize the stats of children characters. If someone turns it into a dating sim, that's something they're imposing on the game not the game itself.

Presentation has a LOT to do with it, there is nothing wrong with the mechanic but the way it appears is another matter. It's not bad per se but its not good either. Even if marriage systems are in other games in the series that's not a shield against people not liking it in Awakening.

Dating Sims and Visual Novels have predated Steam for over a decade, the existence of bad ones can't be used as a justification for the way its marketed in Awakening. While I ultimately don't and never really did care for support conversations, it is obviously being made to look like a Dating Sim as they have become more popular in the west lately. The lack of impact on the game itself is self apparent but at times it is made to appear more important than it is and can still counted as a fault.


Finally to get back on topic, I don't think we ever really discussed Bayonetta or the poll properly. What were your thoughts? I don't care for her but I do question whether or not the poll was ever really going to be about the most popular choice. I believe she is more of a marketing character as well, both due to low sales of the second game and being easy to implement.

 

[Kayura05]

I'm going to say what I said in "The Thread in Defense of Corrin" on SmashBoards.
It could've been worse.
I know for a fact that if a character from let's say Mario got in instead of Corrin, people would've flipped their ****.
Of the characters I voted for in the Smash Ballot, my choices were Isaac (Golden Sun) Paper Mario, and Wolf.
If Isaac took Corrin's place, people would've still bitched about him being a swordsman despite the fact that his Earth-Based synergy would make him a unique fighter, just like Corrin and his Dragon Fang.
Paper Mario would've gotten massive amounts of salt for being another Mario, another Mario rep, and complaints about how similar his moveset would be like vanilla Mario's.
Wolf would've caused alot of people complaining on how a clone took priority over a unique character, and sometimes when people say that, I legit wonder if they ever played Brawl.

Issac would have been GREAT.

I am actually very surprised at the number of players, casual observers and youtubers who all wanted Wolf. My brothers all wanted him back as well, I wouldn't have minded him at all but as a Ballot character...Most people wanted a new character from the Ballot and we all figured Wolf would arrive the same way Mewtwo, Lucas, and Roy did.

Let's be honest who didn't want something unique and off the wall? I heard more complaints from those not thinking anymore 3rd party characters should be added. Like there were those who felt Shantae and Shovelknight were 'wasted' votes. I am not sure why, but everyone has their own reasons.

 

[BlackZero]

Not sure what you mean there. There are several types of "Career Gamer" and for many of them both complexity and difficulty are required for them to take interest. That's usually how games (even unintentionally) develop competitive scenes, all it takes is enough hidden depth and boom Smash community. I mean look at games like Catherine, if you're familiar, that were never meant to be played as seriously. That's what makes games fun for a lot of people.

I was referring to people who make gaming videos as a source of steady income. Let's Players, for example. Anyone who makes money off of streaming or making video game videos.

Yes I know they aren't 1st party, I believe I mentioned this before as well.

I fear you missed my point. There is no functional difference between Nintendo itself, and a subsidiary of Nintendo that only works on Nintendo projects. Pokemon is considered a Nintendo franchise even though it was made by a company owned by Nintendo and not Nintendo itself. "2nd party" is a term that distiguishes Nintendo from the smaller companies it owns and operates, but really doesn't mean anything as a "2nd party developer" is still owned by Nintendo and its games are exclusive to Ninty.

That doesn't mean that Fire Emblem is an important series overall in the grand scheme of things. It may have the longevity but it has always been niche and considered such. It only was really popular in Japan until not too recently.

This is a matter of opinion with nothing really backing it up. The series was popular when it first came out, then lost popularity. It has since made a comeback. Many franchises do this. It is considered "niche" to Japan simply because it had regional exclusivity. That's not the same thing as having an international release, but only having a cult following. It's not an accurate assessment of it popularity to factor in its lack of popularity in markets where it was not officially released with a marketing campaign. The fact that people in the US imported Japan exclusives to play them speaks highly of its popularity, but I can only factor its popularity in the markets it was released in if I'm going to take an honest look at the series.

Age, relative popularity, and number of entries mean nothing next to brand recognition is many cases. With this whole case the situation is almost too unique to really compare it other things but look at heroes that are older than Batman, may outnumber him in issues and can be popular depending on the audience. Many would not be considered as "Classic" as Batman or even as important. Yes that may seem arbitrary or frivolous but perception can be a funny thing like that and there aren't any hard "rules" for that sort of thing.

Compare a 1960's Shelby Cobra to a 2016 Honda Civic. One is more widely known than the other. Which car will a classic car collector spend his money on? To say that there is no way to establish whether something is a classic or not is to say that art, car, or antique collectors have no way of appraising their items. A classic anything is like pornography: you know it when you see it.

At its core the end result is suppose to be the same but they function differently. Execution and presentation are what really matter to me and Awakening left a lot to be desired.

Presentation has a LOT to do with it, there is nothing wrong with the mechanic but the way it appears is another matter. It's not bad per se but its not good either. Even if marriage systems are in other games in the series that's not a shield against people not liking it in Awakening.

This goes back to my original point about people simply not liking the game. Alas, we have come full circle.

 

[Flareth]

I... don't quite get the rep argument? I mean, I do understand it, but I don't see why it's an issue?

Also holy crap, it's almost been a month since the Direct and we're still bitching about it?

(Oh, and @BlackZero:

A classic anything is like pornography: you know it when you see it.

This is perfect. Mind if I use this in my signature?)

 

[Kayura05]

sorry double post

 

[Kayura05]

Not complaining so much as discussing, no one is burning their copies or anything. Has it really been a month?

The rep argument is basically, there is no problem with multiple reps from a series but that there are an unusually high amount of them from the FE series. The problem is that FE is not as popular or well known as most of the other series in the game.

I was referring to people who make gaming videos as a source of steady income. Let's Players, for example. Anyone who makes money off of streaming or making video game videos.

Ok, though was there a reason you brought them up? I may have missed that.

I fear you missed my point. There is no functional difference between Nintendo itself, and a subsidiary of Nintendo that only works on Nintendo projects. Pokemon is considered a Nintendo franchise even though it was made by a company owned by Nintendo and not Nintendo itself. "2nd party" is a term that distiguishes Nintendo from the smaller companies it owns and operates, but really doesn't mean anything as a "2nd party developer" is still owned by Nintendo and its games are exclusive to Ninty.

I see what you mean but my point was more about how the game is seen not the developer.

This is a matter of opinion with nothing really backing it up. The series was popular when it first came out, then lost popularity. It has since made a comeback. Many franchises do this. It is considered "niche" to Japan simply because it had regional exclusivity. That's not the same thing as having an international release, but only having a cult following. It's not an accurate assessment of it popularity to factor in its lack of popularity in markets where it was not officially released with a marketing campaign. The fact that people in the US imported Japan exclusives to play them speaks highly of its popularity, but I can only factor its popularity in the markets it was released in if I'm going to take an honest look at the series.

Outside of Awakening it was never that popular comparatively but we may just see things differently.

Compare a 1960's Shelby Cobra to a 2016 Honda Civic. One is more widely known than the other. Which car will a classic car collector spend his money on? To say that there is no way to establish whether something is a classic or not is to say that art, car, or antique collectors have no way of appraising their items. A classic anything is like pornography: you know it when you see it.

Agree to disagree? Also please know that I do not mean to sound argumentative if I am coming off that way. I rarely speak but when I do it all comes out at once.

This goes back to my original point about people simply not liking the game. Alas, we have come full circle.

We may have come full circle as I go back to my point of being able to like the game while criticizing it.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

So now we're measuring how popular the game needs to be?
We've already gotten confirmation on why Corrin was added. That's it. Debate over. Corrin was added because Fates comes out soon. Done. There's nothing more to talk about.

It's become an argument based solely on opinion and opinion alone. "I don't like the game" is what it has diminished to. That's fine, but there is nothing backing that other than your opinion, so essentially, that means absolutely nothing to me or anyone else really. I love the games, all of them, and that holds as much weight as your opinion. If you don't like Corrin being in the game, don't buy them. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy it. You don't want to play fates? Fine, don't get it.

You're sounding a lot like "the real fans of Star Wars" who pick out the few flaws and declare it as a bad movie. It's nitpicky bull****, simple as that. You have every right to feel the way you feel, but that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that because you feel that way others should conform. So much to where they just don't advertise for the game coming out soon.

 

[BlackZero]

(Oh, and @BlackZero:

This is perfect. Mind if I use this in my signature?)

Go for it, dude.

The problem is that FE is not as popular or well known as most of the other series in the game.

Outside of Awakening it was never that popular comparatively but we may just see things differently.

I feel it is rather safe to say that is false. A person can certainly say they haven't heard of Fire Emblem or don't care for it, but the series was rather popular in Japan before coming to the US. Popularity dropped about the time of Radiant Dawn, then picked back up. I think most people in the US (and possibly EU) get the idea it was an obscure and unpopular franchise due to lack of exposure and it's popularity dropping off shortly after its international debut.

It was also one of the first if not the first of the strategy RPG genre, thus it has also left its mark on gaming history whether people care to acknowledge that or not.

Ok, though was there a reason you brought them up? I may have missed that.

People criticized the game for being too easy and catering to casuals, validating their opinions via "true fan" and "hardcore gamer" arguments. We had a discussion about how the "hardcore gamer" label doesn't mean anything and I cited people who make a living playing video games as an example because they aren't as worried about difficulty as they are entertainment value. You asked me what I meant by "career gamer," and I explained it.

Agree to disagree? Also please know that I do not mean to sound argumentative if I am coming off that way. I rarely speak but when I do it all comes out at once.

Sure. I don't have a problem with people arguing. It means they are thinking for themselves.

We may have come full circle as I go back to my point of being able to like the game while criticizing it.

There's a world of difference between liking a game and criticizing it and saying a game sucks because of a "dating sim" mechanic and the game being too easy. If the dating sim aspect ruins the game for people, why do they not rail against it in other games? We can't say they didn't expect it because FE has used the relationship mechanic for a while now. This was just taking it a step further.

My point is, if you like the game, the "dating sim" mechanic probably didn't bother you too much. A person may not have cared for it, but they are more tolerant of it because they like the game as a whole. If a person didn't like the game as a whole, it gave you another reason no to. The Sims has dating and the Pokémon games are pretty low on difficulty. People don't hold those things against either franchise. Why are they such a game-killing features in Awakening? That is my point. I am not talking about people who enjoyed the game, but pointed out things they thought needed improvement. I'm talking about people who clearly hate the game and use these mechanics as the reason why.

I see this all the time in game reviews, which is why I make an effort to completely ignore gaming "journalists." Reviewers list 101 reasons why a game sucks. Problem is, most of those things they don't like about the game also appear in games they do like. Ultimately, they didn't enjoy the game. These other factors didn't help matters, but are rarely the cause of why a game is bad. People who are honest with themselves acknowledge that, above any technical aspects of a game, they don't like a game simply because they didn't enjoy it.

 

[Draayder]

To be fair some of it isn't hypocrisy so much as not liking the implementation. Some people might be fine with dating aspects to something set in a high school, or in a more casual setting but find it jarring in a combat game (I personally love Bioware's dating portions but found awakenings really boring given they only mandatorily talk 3 times before getting married). Other stuff comes down to what you're expecting, most people don't go to a pokemon game's story to be challenged, but might have historically with fire emblem, so they don't like the change.

Of course there's plenty of hypocrites, and plenty of people just hate to hate, but disliking awakening for being too easy when they like a different series that's easy isn't necessarily hypocritical.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Was Awakening's default difficulty too easy? Because otherwise, I don't really see a problem with a sequel adding in an easier difficulty setting as long as the original difficulty is still there, like with Mega Man 10. Well, as long as they don't mock the player for choosing an easier difficulty. That speaks more of the people making the games than the people who play them.

The Super Monkey Ball games are an example of a series I play for its ridiculous difficulty. Super Monkey Ball 2 added the ability to unlock more lives as you played the game, which made it easier to reach the end but didn't affect the game's actual difficulty, which was up there with the first game. In other words, the game was just as challenging as ever, but it was no longer nearly as punishing. Needless to say, fans of Super Monkey Ball 1 complained that now more people can get to the end. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz gave the monkeys the ability to jump, which people thought would wreck its difficulty, but the stages were now built with jumping in mind. (There are a lot of issues with how the Wii's motion controls were used with it--I didn't have a problem with it, but if it's unintuitive to a lot of people, then that's a genuine problem.)

No, the game I had a problem with was Super Monkey Ball 3D. The challenge became near non-existent, and there wasn't an increased difficulty for people who had played the previous games. However, this alone wouldn't be enough for me to dislike the game. It had many other issues. It was also much shorter (70 stages; all previous Super Monkey Ball games had a minimum of 110) and had much less variety (about half of the stages had a groove from beginning to end that you have to keep your monkey on, as opposed to the strangely-shaped and often strangely-moving platforms, accompanied by switches, buttons, bumpers, and so forth in the first three games, where every single stage is unique and memorable). But I think that was a symptom of a bigger problem: Super Monkey Ball 3D was divided into the aforementioned classic mode, plus Monkey Sports and Monkey Battle. The former is the usual collection of sports-themed minigames and the latter is a Smash Bros. clone, only they're all more clumsily executed and sloppily programmed because the production of this game is no longer focused. Basically, Super Monkey Ball 3D tried to be three games and wound up failing at all three because not enough time or effort was put into any of them.

I noticed there have been very few Super Monkey Ball games made since; I'm guessing 3D bombed.

In any case, this is myplaythrough of Super Monkey Ball 2's Expert difficulty; you can see the sheer creativity with the stages, as well as how badly needed the ability to increase lives is:

 

[Draayder]

imo Awakening's difficulty is really... weird? The normal mode is pretty dang easy since A) infinite grinding (you could always not so kind of moot) B) mechanics changes that really altered the difficulty (pair up system kind of broke the game badly) and C) losing a lot of things like shove, clear conditions besides Rout and Capture and other little mechanics, but overall I'm fine with the default being easy.

My issue is more that they did things like playing on classic (characters stay dead) got rid of battle saves, which pretty arbitrarily forced you to replay sometimes HUGE chunks of game play if a character died, and the hardest difficulty forced you to play on casual because it was pretty firmly built AROUND you losing units, which sort of flies in the face of FE tradition. You could take it as a super challenge to get through Lunatic+ without losing anyone, but it was just so over scaled with the auto-activating skills that I didn't want to bother, and playing non-lunatic+ hard modes on classic were frustrating because by nature of them throwing a TON of units at you due to the majority of the maps being rout it ended up being more roll the dice than actual strategy. I'll readily admit that early parts of FE: Radiant Dawn had the same issue, but it got past it once your units were a bit better without ever losing the degree of difficulty AND you always had battle saves.

They don't mock you for it (A+ on that) but with all the mechanics changes it kind of felt like they couldn't really get to the degree of strategy older games did, if they made it harder players would just have to grind forever, but if they made less punishing pair ups would walk all over the game more than they already do. That's my thoughts on it at least.

ON A DIRECTLY SMASH RELATED NOTE I'm super excited for Bayonetta.

 

[BlackZero]

Was Awakening's default difficulty too easy?

The problem was that the US locallization team, for reasons I cannot fathom, changed the two difficulty settings to "Normal" and "Hard." They were actually "Easy" and "Normal" in the original Japanese version. So, they changed the names of the difficulty settings without actually upping the difficulty. This gave the impression that the game was really easy. After all, if you're playing Hard Mode, but the game is set to normal, what else is someone supposed to think? This gave a lot of people a bit of a wake up call going from the so called "Hard Mode" that was fairly easy to the Lunatic Mode that is about as forgiving as Ninja Gaiden II. This caused a bunch of "hard mode is too easy, lunatic it too hard" butthurt because the US localization team decided to change two words.

got rid of battle saves, which pretty arbitrarily forced you to replay sometimes HUGE chunks of game play if a character died

This was probably to stop save abuse. For those who don't know, an RNG determines which and how many stats increase for a character on level-up. People got the idea that they could save mid-battle before a character leveled up, let them level up, then reset until they got a "perfect" level up (5 stats increased). People could abuse this mechanism to create pretty powerful characters. It isn't technically cheating, but it's cheating's bucktoothed horny stepsister.

ON A DIRECTLY SMASH RELATED NOTE I'm super excited for Bayonetta.

How dare you post on topic. We'll have none of that around here.

 

[Draayder]

Somewhat hilariously the difficulty localization is the opposite problem FE: Radiant Dawn had, which had normal, hard, and lunatic translated to easy, normal, and hard. This led to a LOT of reviewers saying the game was way too hard (and kind of highlighting people's fears of being seen as not "true gamers" if they have to play on a lower difficulty). I can understand wanting to see normal as an intended difficulty that most people can get through without wanting to scream but it more boils down to personal hang ups than a particularly legitimate concern. But then again, Platinum manages to get away with it just fine lol.

Re:battle saves, save scumming is actually like completely unneeded and more of a time waster in awakening unlike basically every other game in the series since you get infinite grinding and infinite reclasses that keep most of the stats. In earlier games it was way better to do since you actually had finite exp and a hard level cap, but I haven't seen a game that required that level of min maxing unless you were really trying to use a bad character/unwilling to drop characters you got some bad rolls on.

One other weird thing difficulty wise was child characters being EXPONENTIALLY better than their parents, especially if you put work into the system. Being able to slap galeforce on any female child who has way better stats than either parent? Hilariously strong to absolutely broken.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Ah, all right then. It sounds like they made a change to the in-game mechanics (well, many changes). I'm guessing there are things I don't really know that would make or break that breeding mechanic, as the devil's in the details, but it doesn't sound much different from IV-breeding in the Pokémon games.

Also, no one should ever feel ashamed of playing on a lower difficulty. Video games are supposed to be fun, and if you have more fun on a lower difficulty, then that's what you should play on. If anything, shaming other people for playing on easier difficulties is the shameful behavior.

The problem was that the US locallization team, for reasons I cannot fathom, changed the two difficulty settings to "Normal" and "Hard." They were actually "Easy" and "Normal" in the original Japanese version. So, they changed the names of the difficulty settings without actually upping the difficulty. This gave the impression that the game was really easy. After all, if you're playing Hard Mode, but the game is set to normal, what else is someone supposed to think? This gave a lot of people a bit of a wake up call going from the so called "Hard Mode" that was fairly easy to the Lunatic Mode that is about as forgiving as Ninja Gaiden II. This caused a bunch of "hard mode is too easy, lunatic it too hard" butthurt because the US localization team decided to change two words.

Heh, goes to show how much you can change a person's attitude about a game simply by switching a few words around. Reminds me of the whole fiasco regarding World of Warcraft's mechanic that encourages players to stop playing after they've been playing for a long time by providing them with perks and benefits. People were complaining that the game was punishing them for playing by denying them these items. Someone at Blizzard realized these complaints were coming from how the game gave players warnings that they were playing too long, and they kept the mechanic unchanged, only now instead of a warning, the game promised to give the player free stuff if they log out and stay logged out for some amount of time. The complaints dried up.

 

[Leronne]

So yesterday i finished bayonetta 1 (the story that is, i still need to unlock a lot of stuff) and will play the sequel soon enough. Really fun game, bayonetta's awesome, combat's awesome, characters/enemies are awesome yadda yadda. Anyways playing the game i realized something, and this is pretty obvious but, if nintendo hadn't published the sequel and was instead published by a different company/not published at all, someone else would have definitely won. Heck, i'd go as far as say she probably wouldn't have gotten as many votes as she did, though she could get quite a lot. But that's just my observation, i could be wrong. Also, does anyone else think corrin's sword attacks seem somewhat slow from the trailer? Honestly i would've been happy with any character as long as they were videogame characters. If someone like goku or spongebon was released, i would've been so pissed. Not because i don't like the character or series (i do btw), but because of how much i feel those types of characters don't fit in smash.

 

[PrinceOfKoopas]

If someone like goku or spongebon was released, i would've been so pissed. Not because i don't like the character or series (i do btw), but because of how much i feel those types of characters don't fit in smash.

The asterisk is your friend.