I'm currently playing it for the first time.  10$ was a steal.  I don't know if I will play all three of them but I at least needed to play the first.  So far I am impressed, very impressed.  The world design is fantastic and the sound is beautiful and additive, I am also impressed with the open endedness of the gameplay, and how having to read the notes makes it seem like you are truly alone and it feels like a true adventure instead of todays "Go here and do this then come back" approach to most games.  However one thing I am dissapointed with is the constant revival of enemies that take sometimes minutes to kill and yield no reward, it eventually becomes extraordinarily tedious.  But overall I love the game and am very happy Nintendo put it up for sale.  Lets hope they start releasing gamecube games soon!!

Oh yeah, first time through trying to find your way you do end up doing a lot of back and forth looking for the way to progress, which would end up reviving a lot of enemies.

That doesnt last very long.

A few tips to help you alleviate some of that tedium, which overtime will add up to a much more enjoyable experience.

Unless there are locks on the doors, you dont have to defeat the enemies to advance, simply ignore them and head to your next door. Typically, there will only be a destroy all enemies encounter the first time you enter a certain area, although, some notorious do force you to deal with the locked doors every time.

Dont be afraid to use missiles, you will get plenty back, and use charge shots over normal shots for anything that doesnt die with a couple shots. A charge shot is worth more than 10 normal shots, and a missile is worth almost as much as a charge shot, and they both have splash damage,so they can take out multiple foes. Loosing a charged shot followed by a missile is typically enough to send any cannon fodder pirate on its merry way to hell, without you ever stopping your path to the next door.

You will soon start finding weapon power ups. And more weapons powerups. And more weapons powerups. I will not spoil anything for you, but there will soon probably come a time when you could almost start to feel bad with the constant reign of death and status effects spewing out of your arm upon all the hapless respawning baddies that are irritating you now. Metroid in general, but this game in particular, have one of the highest and swiftest rises to power in videogames, you become Techno-God. To emphasise your god like status over the pathetic mortals who are unfortunate enough to exist in the same time space as you, there are also super weapons in the form of beam missile combos. There are 4 total, you only get 1 automatically, the others are hidden, and missable. But oh so damn satisfying and room clearing.

This game has caught my interest, but I'm afraid it won't live up to the souls series before it, which were some of the best games of the last gen.  I will get this game eventually though and i really hope it provides the same controller throwing gameplay of the souls series! IT does look to be quite difficult from the trailer..

The souls games really werent that difficult. They just demanded the most basic of competence in the controls and mechanics, and observation of enemy behavior, instead of smashing buttons and watching the computer do the awesome like in every AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game available today.

If those players cant smash buttons and watch awesome things happen, they cry and scream about how 'the controls are broken!!!!'

Honestly, the combat, while enjoyable really isnt the main draw of the soul series to me. And this combat looks just as servicable, if not more enjoyable, from what little ive seen. What we have no way of judging yet, is whether or not bloodbourne will retain the souls series absolutely fantastic level 4 open world design.

Something I have no reason to doubt whatsoever what with the three souls games and years of kings field (Dark souls before it was called dark souls)

I've actually recently got my hands on the original xenoblade, and I've already logged nearly 50 hours in and i do not see an end in sight.  I cannot wait for this game.  If it is anything like its predecessor I will be a very happy man! I do not care as much about world size as world life, and looking at the trailers i think this world has plenty of that!  Hopefully Aonuma  is taking notes and asking questions.  I'm also quite excited for the online implementation, and to take on some of those late game beasts shown off!

The reason so many people are excited about the world size is because of the original Xenoblade.

Unlike the rest of the open world games, and pretty much all modern sandbox games, Xenoblades terrain was not procedurally generated, it was actually hand designed, every inch of it. Thats the 'secret' to having big worlds that dont suck, the 'secret' being that there is no easy way out, no magic pill, no shortcuts, if you use terrain generation, you are going to have that generic sandbox game world feel, no exceptions. If you want better than that, you have to be prepared to take the time, and actually hand design your game world.... And on top of that, you STILL actually have to be GOOD at world design, Something no AAAAAAAAAAAAAA publisher would ever do today.

Thats the thing that people are so excited about with Xenoblade X's world size that the trolls just cant figure out in their endless ignorant and identical efforts to crap all over the title. Its not that there are no games bigger, there are a lot of games that are bigger.

And its not because its open world. There are a lot of games that are open world.

It's because its the biggest HAND DESIGNED open world game ever made, which null and voids the constant barrage of 'Hurr sure its big but its just going to be another empty open world game like **Names procedurally generated sandbox game every single time**, hurrr hurrr dont you know bigger doesnt mean better?? HUUURRR'

The wording is really weird... Got to love those unofficial translations .

There wont be voice chat with players you are matched with?

So... that means its the nintendo standard of vc with freinds. Otherwise it would have just been 'no voice chat'.

'There wont be bots to fill in online matches'. What about offline? What about sp with bots like kid icarus did? Why didnt they simply so 'no bots'?

Also,bathe opening scene which quite frankly will give me nightmares, is so well done that's quite jarring when it cuts to the standard "regular interactive portion" of the game. Everything is cinematic and crazy!!! Then... Your typical stilted third person view.

I didnt even notice the footstep sounds, lol, audio's never really been my thing.

But I do admit that opening was fantastic. Love those Wherewolf models, in fact, the character models look so good, and animate so well, that they seem to clash with the backgrounds when they start fighting, and nothing in the background moves or reacts at all.

And the rag dolls... Lol, man, somebody needs to make some new ragdoll physics, the ones from the gamecube ps2 and xbox one, er, first, the very first xbox want to be retired already.

Lol, the evil rats base is 15 ft. away from the cat villages mayors hut.

 

So is it being remastered Nintendo style, with cleaned up graphics, and effects, or everyone else style where they increase the res and toss it out the door?

Based on what I've seen and read, on a regular 3ds, it can range anywhere from 25-60.  Depends on how much is going on in the current area.  Cutscenes seem to stay locked at 60, since the game is just running through pre-set animations.  It's certainly never unplayable, if its like the demo.
 
On a new 3ds, it tends to stay locked around 60, occasionally dipping a little if things get really hectic. 
 
I do what I do.
 
On to other things:
 
Another blog from the localization Director: http://www.capcom-un...he-jaws-of-life
 
A user on the Capcom Unity forums made a handy guide for those of us transferring to a new 3ds.  Good stuff to know: http://www.capcom-un...ed-to-know?pg=1
 
Not SUPER relevant I guess, but I finished writing a little thing about the comparisons constantly made between MH and Dark Souls.  Keep seeing people compare and contrast them, and just couldn't stop thinking about it: http://www.ign.com/b...ls-discrepancy/

Seriously, the guides are great stuff man.

People compare ds to mh?

Thats a new one for me, Ive never heard others compare them honestly, the only time I even remotely thought about the two was after I first got my hands on one of those those massively unwieldy weapons that take forever to hit but do ridiculous damage, so I would switch between small weapons to run around, and when I saw an opening switch to the 10 foot sword or whatever and land the hardest attack I could with the big weapons for ridiculous kill bosses in 4-5 hits or less damage, and I thought to myself, after landing the first hit that quartered the bosses life bar, 'oh, you done messed up now game, I play monster hunter.'

Nothing personal, but if there are any doctors named Iosefka, I will never, ever, go to your clinic now.

 

Getting such a badarse Van Hellsing vibe from this.

 

I love it, this rocks.

If Xenoblade etc is exclusive for the new version they must be using the extra CPU power and/or ram. Unfortunately GPU is exact same so yeah, should be interesting to see what they come up with.

The OG 3ds gpu was always better than wii's hollywood. Better Architecture, Better and more effecient shaders, higher clock speed.

The main problem was that the wii's old style design used its broadway cpu NOT the gpu for geometry, Its custom floating point modifications for crunching geometry akin to the old style design which it mantained, something the 3ds really couldnt compete with, with its down clocked arm 11 at only 2 cores, with only 2 vector floating point units, which require very specific work to take advantadge of fast mode, AND having to make twice the draw calls.

the 3ds, was the first Nintendo system designed to switch geometry over to the gpu like modern systems.

Old or not, that 750 was plugged into a wall not a battery, and could still get some work done, the portable gpu, while being completely superior to the wii's gpu, cant match the wii's gpu and cpu together by itself, and its cpu, doesnt even come close to bridging the gap at its clock speed and with just 2 cores.

This problem has been alleviated with the new 3ds's additional cpu cores, and vfpu for each additional core. Now we have 3 cpu cores and 4 vector floating point units available to the game, instead of 1 core and 2 vfpu's. That doubling of cpu cores has actually tripled the available processing power of the 3ds.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would definately put my money on those new cpu cores helping out with the geometry crunching and draw calls needed to make a world as big as blade, with everything it has in it.... It would not be possible without the extra cpu power.

As for how the game looks. Its asset identical. Same models, same polygons, same textures, lower resolution screen. Similar performance (there was nothing stable about xenoblades fram rate on wii).

The big difference in quality depends on whether or not Nintendo is going to compress the assets for the eshop, in order to create a managable file size that takes less time to download, or/and screw over physical buyers by using that compressed version on the cartridge.

The original game is 6.46 Gb

To my knowledge, although Nintendo has the technology to release cartridges up to 8 GB, the largest cartridge they currently make is the 4GB cartridge. So, unless Nintendo decides to do the right thing over the cheap thing and start making the 8 (Or even 6) GB cartridges for certain new 3ds games, Xenoblade 3d is going to suffer sound and texture compression to squeeze 6.5 GB of game onto a >4GB cartridge storage space.

So any disparities will be from cartridge size, not processing power.

Lol, they have the platinum poster set I already own and never hung up because I like frames...
 
Honestly, who here wants grill off with ultra hand or the greeting cards? XD

Nintendo collectionists. The product is a direct homage.

The ultra hand was one of Nintendos first forays into the toy business

Now that i think about it, i want to see a 3D metroid with a similar team to dark souls for map design. That game did better than most metroid games in metroidvainia map design, a overworld more similar to what we got there than say prime 3 or another linear game would help greatly.

Loved Dark souls, its a fantastic example of a great 4 design on the open world vs linear scale (My favourite spot on the scale:

http://tvtropes.org/...arityVsOpenness

This IS where the great metroidvanias also reside, but... They also have a specific set of rules and mechanics as well as being a 4, Dark souls is not really a metroidvania as its progression design is not dependant on traversal/ability altering powerups, a criteria equal with having a persistant world not broken up into levels (Looks at Prime 3.... Not a metroidvania, same with Castlevanias Order of Ecclesia)

Even without being a metroidvania, Dark souls did a fantastic job of the level 4 world design... Something I oft complain about the modern metroids falling short of, down to the 3's, or even arguably 2's.(Zeldas as well)

Seeing more footage of Zelda, Star Fox, or a new Metroid game would make me super stoked! I will admit, this will be an excellent year for Wii U. At the moment, I'm REALLY excited for Mortal Kombat X.

A metroid announcement would blow my mind. Now that you mention it... We should be getting something on the new starfox soon, as it should be coming out this year, Mr. Miyamoto said it would actually be releasing before the new Zelda.

It doens't have Monster Hunter specifically but does have some good clones. Not my kinda thing tho I just can never get into Monster Hunter.

You got phantasy star online for that itch on the vita. The games are similar, but also so different, that its just as common to find fans of both as it is to find those that enjoys one but just doesnt get into the other.

My ideal monster hunter would take a page out of pso, the tiny arenas need to go. 4 improves on this, but not in the way they made it sound. Turns out they focused more on a story with characters and dialog, when really what I was wanting was just some good old solid world building. Dragons Dogma really did this for me... So Im keeping a super critical eye on DDO, to make sure its f2p done right, and not greedy explotation of a starved and marginalized audience.

Oh man. This is literally the year ive been waiting for since buying the system, aside the games Im talking about dont get delayed to next year.

Lets see:

1: Xenoblade Chronicles X. We shall be as gods.


2: Legend of Zelda Ive always been excited for and enjoyed Zelda, even though theyve been focusing on parts of the series peicemeal that havent really been what I loved about Zelda, but they have all been more than solid entries (No matter how much I critisize entries like oot and tp) but I am super excited about this one because it seems the revolving door has finally come back to service the exploration/wonder/discovery audience. All 12 of us.

3: Splatoon.

Gameplay this good, with mechanics this fresh, being this solid, is something I just cant ignore.

Once my itch of the first two is at long last scratched, I will probably go on a spree picking up all kinds of the smaller titles and off shoots for discounted prices, and enjoy them much more than I would have at the time they released. Ill eventual

Honestly, there's nothing on that list that excites me. I will be picking up Zelda Wii U (if it really comes out this year), but I'm just meh about it. That's pretty much it.

UNACCEPTABLE OPINION!!! to the Nintendo reprogramming chambers!!!

That is a bummer though, Im super excited, as several of these releasing this year are literally what I bought the system for. Anything in particular you are waiting for that would make you super stoked?

If Monster Hunter was on vita things would be different, in Japan mainly.

And in my pants. I dont think it would do anything to change the horrible way the western AAAAAAAAAAA treats the system, but yeah, monhun is a pretty big deal in all of this. I knew it was something special the moment I found it on that ps2 demo disc.

What Im telling myself is that the game is so massive the direct will be like a drop in the ocean.

 

I hope the video is of a good quality.

 

Really hoping to get a glimpse at monolith softs vertical layering design they used so well with the original xenoblade.

 

One of the coolest thing about Xenoblade, is that your already large areas were often almost doubled (or sometimes more!) in explorable real estate via the way monolith soft layered the maps, Im talking about things like on the bionis leg, where there is an entire section above the windy cave, that you could explore, or drop down into the windy caves, which were a huge expanse the same size as the completely different area atop of it (at the risk of dealing with high level mobs).

 

The addition of flying mechs could allow them to turn the dial on this up to 11, and Im hoping to catch a glimpse of it.

Oi. beat me like bunnitv!

 

I am horribly torn about wether I should watch this or not... I mean

i mean, know im GOING to watch it...

That would be pretty awesome.

 

I use the current solution for streaming from my pc to gamepad, but I would give a standing ovation, and complete support to an official application.

Nah they're talking about the Prime trilogy on Wii being a downgrade from the Gamecube versions. The Wii disc trilogy is the same as the Wii U eShop.
 
 
Anyway I'm enjoying the game so far and I like the motion controls. I had only played the 2D metroid games before this and people told me Prime was a bit like Halo. It's nothing like Halo, it's an adventure game not a shooter.

I dont know who told you that, but they are filthy liars, from the town of liarsville, deep in the heart of liarsvania, where they plot, from atop their throne of lies. Glad you werent fooled by them.

 

Personally I feel the prime games become more and more streamlined as the series progressed, to its own detriment of the adventure appeal.... Although I will never be as harsh on them as 'Mark "our prime games (after the originial) sucked!!!" Pacini', even the prime games I feel are 'lesser' are still fantastic games that stand head and shoulders above their forgotten contemporaries... but... I can understand how he feels about past work in retrospect in my own way.

 

I also feel the classic series suffered the same after super (culminating in other m)...

 

My musings on these subjects lead me to conclude that the best thing for the franchise is a combination of fresh blood, advised but not controlled by series veterans/creators. It seems that a game so focused on wonder, explortion, and discovery, is best served by a team whos doing just that during the creation process, and is ill served once they become comfortable enough to have 'a fortmula'.

 

Its one of the main reasons im super stoked about the next big retro metroid.

*EDIT*
I told you to stop the damn tone policing. You had better start responding to what people have to say instead of your pedantic notions on how they say it.

If you dont know what tone policing is, google it.

If you cant figure out why tone policing is a horrible glib crappy way to behave, (hurr but i use all the 'polite' wordings as i completely dismiss everything they say to change the subject to how its said) then i suggest you just try actually talking about the game for once.

 

This goes for everyone. Tone policing, or the Tone argument fallacy, is a crappy demeaning way to behave, and I will have none of it here, and dont think because you use 'nice' words to do it, (there is no other way to do it) that its going to fool me, I respond to WHAT people SAY, not the way they say it. I expect everyone else to afford others the same respect.

Posts are back on topic now, no more derailing.

going to relive some nostalgia here and hope again for a new game  
 
but... disappointed that it requires wii gear  this wasnt done on the wii channel it was on the U eshop so i hoped it was reworked for the gamepad  
 
but cant even enjoy it now because i have to unpack the sensor bar and buy a new wiimote. 
 
i carefully readcthe description and info before i bought it  but there was no indication it required wii hardware. 
 
to be honest bummed a bit. but still excited at the same time.
 
anyone else playing this?
 
how are you enjoying it?

I thought the pointer controls were a massive improvement. Then again, I actually bothered to learn how to use the motion controls and spent the entire generation dissapointed at their wasted potential as 99% of the games never used anything beyond ai livemove mode 1. ie motion record, ie waggle crap.

I was less happy with the visual downgrades, and purposeful removal of primes excellent meta game.

I recall being a bit miffed about prime trilogy not being the definitive version of the first prime, but in perspective, a few dropped lighting effects, water physics effects, and post op effects... sound maybe? don't amount to a bean in the face of the fact you are getting 3 of the best designed games ever made for a steal.

Learn how to use motion controls. Its much better.

Comparing a 4 year old game to a 2015 one? That's sad, I understand you guys are hype about XBC, but abusing Skyrim to make yourself feel better is laugh worthy. Also it's clear that Nintendo and Mon-Soft aren't moving forward if they ain't getting their chosen goals. I just hope the game is known to everyone, as it could be a good sleeper hit.

 

Yeah, too bad we werent the ones who made those comparisons, over, and over, and over, and over and over, and over, and over again. Hell, its STILL being done on other boards. I bet desert punk has found himself a nice echo chamber to circle jerk too after he realized this game was real, and he couldnt use his bad ports=best wii u can do gimmick anymore.
 
So yeah, when we get confirmation that the game was 10x bigger than the game we were repeatedly told the wii u wasnt powerful enough to handle, as they pointed at every crap ps360 port as 'proof' that the wii u was weaker than ps360, yeah, were going to bring it back up and laugh at it. Get off YOUR high horse.

I don't even own any components

 

And I'll try blowing it, I don't really have any better ideas

 

So... Howd blowing your wii go?

 

No seriously though, any luck?

You will all rue the day that shulks potential is realized.

No, Hayao Nakayama was the beginning of the end for Sega. 

 

Technically, yes, since he, against his own wishes, and the entire board of directors made the fateful decision to let Kalinske condition  their audience to be embarrassed of Japanese games, shun, japanese games, not localize most japanese games, and of the japanese games that did make it, if they werent simple fast paced action games, put them on the back burner so they were 3 years old by the time they made it out west. Games that history has loooonnnnggg since confirmed were far, far, FAR superior to the western crap like madden and mortal kombat which he put on a pedestal.

 

And more importantly, he moved the value of  the sega brand away from relying on the quality of their software, and Soley on marketing  lies and attack campaigns directly targeted at a specific demographic, at the shortest, and most obnoxiously stupid point of their lives.

 

You can only lie to a kid for so long telling them their 'cool' console of choice has the raddest graphics, most intense sound, and bodacious system power thanks to made up garbage like 'blast processing' (Technically, blast processing was a dma controller. Big whoop, snes had them too. 8 Channels worth) before he comes face to face with something like super metroid, realizes the snes curb stomps the genesis in system power and audio, and from there, realize that a furry blue rodent with 'attitude' saving little squirrels and birdies, is not more grown up than a plumber riding a dinosaur, and, seeing that kiddy system with games like 'Super Metroid' and the genesis with nothing that can hold a candle to it at all, realize they've been a massive tool.

 

After that point, sega was irredeemable to the west.

 

32x? Nah, Sega lies, games are probably crap. sega cd? Nah, sega lies, games are probably crap. Saturn? Nah, Sega lies, games are probably crap.

 

A victim to Kalinskes OWN 'cool' marketing. Furry hedgehogs? Pfft, thats the stuff I liked when I was a dumb kid who thought he was grown up. Playstation has gran tourismo, and medal of honor, THATS grown up, not sega. Sega is for kiddies, like that nintendo.

 

By the time the dreamcast came out, and Sega put their quality deep japanese games, and not just the simple arcade style ones front and center again, it was too late.

 

Tom Kalinskes temporary sega success is EXACTLY the kind of stuff Nintendo warns about when they tell their investors they dont want to sacrifice their brand image for a temporary boost in profits.

 

Not saying Sega of Japans president and chairmen were without fault, they had their own laundry list of screw ups. Management, all around bad management everywhere in sega, is what destroyed the company.

 

I have  more of an axe to grind with Kalinske, because he didnt just harm sega, he put a lasting stigma on Nintendo as well, and really, Japanese games in general, even now, long after Sega is gone from the console space, his poison is still polluting the well.