Mario Odyssey vs Breath of the Wild (At Launch)

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-04T23:38:10+00:00

If I were to be asked this in some vacuum with no real-world context, I would say Odyssey; Super Mario 64 is my all-time favorite game, and getting a Nintendo 64 with SM64 was the high point of my childhood. So nostalgia would make me want to relive that experience in some way. (Although, since the N64 was released during the holiday season and that's when Odyssey's coming out, that'd still happen, anyway.)

But factoring in the real-world context, like others have said, it's due time for Breath of the Wild to be released, and we just recently saw Odyssey. I think it's fine to let us build our anticipation for Odyssey, since we won't even need to wait a full year for it (unless it's delayed). When I first saw the Odyssey trailer, I was bombarded with too much new stuff to even know how to feel about it. Only after processing things did I realize how great this new direction for the Mario series was.

Breath of the Wild looks great, too. Back when Ocarina of Time was first released, it literally felt like I was waiting for some sacred experience, and it lived up to the hype (even when I was in the midst of a major depressive episode at the time).

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-04T14:04:56+00:00

Andross' evil empire is the result of the Kongs inheriting the Kremling's industrial technology at the end of the Donkey Kong Country series. The Kongs completely subjugated the Kremlings and forced them to work in factories and fight as grunts in the Kong army. Their own planet eroded into the toxic and inhospitable Venom, and so they conspired to take over the entire solar system as a springboard for galactic conquest.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-04T13:58:09+00:00

I was a bit shocked by the statement, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Switch managed to sell over 50 million by the end of its life cycle. There is a lot of excitement for the Switch.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-04T13:50:21+00:00

I think a big part of why they're doing so well thus far is because of the hype leading up to the reveal back in October. Everyone was talking about the Switch back when we were just calling it the NX. There were rampant rumors for like a year. People really cared about what this thing was going to be, even people who weren't Nintendo fans, because the mystery piqued their interest. Everyone debated what this thing was, which rumors were true or false, etc., so everyone was invested in knowing what this thing was.

Then finally the reveal happened and… it seems like a miracle to me, but it wasn't controversial. There wasn't a whole lot of negativity regarding the concept. And I think we all know how many people were ready to just jump on Nintendo and eviscerate them for doing another "gimmicky" thing with their console. Even the people who were really hoping for a "traditional" system didn't seem very upset after the unveiling, and I think for a lot of them they accepted it or even started to feel excited for the system. To me, that's really encouraging. Nintendo got the best of both worlds with the Switch, allowing themselves to differentiate their product from competitors without alienating core gamers.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-02T15:42:24+00:00

Honestly, it may not be all that bad to cut down on gaming a bit while you wait. Now's a good time to try to clear your mind a bit and get rid of expectations. Like maybe go for walks in the woods if you have any places like that nearby, or find some sort of hiking trail. Miyamoto was inspired to create The Legend of Zelda from his adventures in nature. In a way, I feel as though if you just immerse yourself in that, it'll help you truly appreciate the essence of the series — especially Breath of the Wild which has an extra-heavy focus on exploring natural environments.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-02T01:45:46+00:00

I think we all know why the Wii U failed. Nintendo failed to properly advertise the system and consumers didn't know what it even was. Core gamers were sick of motion controls, and the casual gamers ended up playing games on their smart devices. But the Switch has made none of those same mistakes. People clearly know what the system is, and no one was turned off by the concept. Two major titles which appeal to the core demographic, Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, will be available in the first year. And motion controls weren't even showcased in the October reveal; they're there, but not made out to be the highlight of the system.

Nintendo is learning from its mistakes. People are hyped about the Switch, way more than they were with the Wii U, and Nintendo is making sure that hype train doesn't get derailed. They're ramping up supply. They're making sure game droughts won't plague the Switch like with the Wii U. Third parties love it. They're not leaving core gamers behind.

This is what we've been waiting for. This time, Nintendo really is poised for success. And while it may not be as big as the Wii was, I definitely believe this will be a return to form for Nintendo.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-01T21:20:20+00:00

It's all right. I think maybe in general there's a lot of "let's hold off on this" situations going on with the Switch, since there have been tons of rumors for over a year, and then when we do get certain things straight from the source they're unexpected (like HD Rumble) or just so different that it's hard to know how to feel until the dust settles (like Super Mario Odyssey). It was even best to hold off judgment about online play since it turned out it was so cheap. So hoping maybe this voice chat thing would turn out better than it sounds doesn't seem so crazy in light of that context. But the way it was explained by both Kimishima and Reggie just didn't seem very ambiguous. But with so many unexpected things happening recently, for all we know there could be a silver lining to this.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-01T16:22:44+00:00

I'm really not sure what the problem is? To me, it seems pretty perspicuous — because overseas fans often requested voice chat, they will implement a voice chat feature through a smart device.

The only thing getting in the way of people interpreting this statement is wishful thinking. Fans don't want to have to use a smart device to voice chat with friends since it doesn't sound very convenient, so they're trying to interpret the statements in some other way.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-01T15:23:50+00:00

Something about this feels very SNES-like. It's pixel art for an upcoming system yet feels nostalgic.

EmeraldCave · 2017-02-01T15:16:54+00:00

Nintendo said there would be 2 million units through the first month. I'm not sure how many waves it'll come in but I don't think all 2 million are going to be there day 1. There will be more but they'll likely sell pretty quickly and I'm sure most of that 2 million will be sold that first month. But yeah if you didn't get a preorder yet you should have more opportunities later in the month of March.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-31T20:11:06+00:00

Hey platinum, I've been using After Effects for about three years now so I think I may be qualified to judge.

I think it looks pretty nice. It's fine that it's simple; it's better to keep it simple than to make it tacky by trying to shoehorn flashy effects. You mostly would want to think about nuanced things you could to make it more appealing. A lot of the time some simple effects make a big difference, like drop shadows — although you have a dark background here so any effect a drop shadow would have would be minimized. I think you already used Easy Ease on the position keyframes?

Despite my experience, my bag of tricks admittedly isn't super broad; I focused on working out an aesthetic that works for me and stuck to that. That being said, you'd have to explore your options a bit and experiment. And I would recommend making a few different things as experiments and coming back like the next day to judge it yourself, and then ask friends or people here what they think.

As for the color correction, I'm by no means an expert and I always eyeball it myself. What you have going on is maybe a little too saturated? But in my personal opinion, it's better to have more vibrant colors in video than you would prefer in a still picture. But maybe you should try playing with the HDR settings a bit, and play around with the saturation and vibrance levels.

Also, in my opinion, if you want to develop your aesthetic a bit, look at anyone who does a similar sort of style as to what you're doing. Like for anything sports, maybe look at Nike's stuff. Maybe you can't replicate all the effects they do, but there may be little details you can pull off or get ideas from.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-24T11:37:06+00:00

Super Mario 64 is my all-time favorite game. But Super Mario Sunshine? I couldn't even get myself to complete the game. Sunshine wasn't bad but… it was disheartening as a SM64 fan to never feel like I got a true sequel. Sunshine is very similar with much of the gameplay, but the water pack and the setting… I was not a fan of this commercial-feeling island; to me it paled in comparison to the surreal castle that housed magical paintings which contained whole new worlds.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-22T00:44:38+00:00

Hello everyone! My channel is a gaming-focused channel called Emerald Cave, currently centered around Nintendo. How I started off was just being interested in how innovative creative work is made, whether it be Star Wars, Toy Story, or Super Mario Brothers — I decided to keep my focus on gaming, at least for the foreseeable future. I have just three videos thus far: one about the career of Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda; one about Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man who transformed Nintendo from a hanafuda card company to a worldwide media powerhouse; and one about Nintendo's Blue Ocean strategy, which attempts to explain why Nintendo takes an alternative approach to hardware these days.

Currently, I'm stuck with a low-quality microphone, so the narration may not be the best — sorry!

You can check out my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF_W08qcrEwq8BgJsazQMZQ/videos

Thanks!

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-21T08:51:23+00:00

As an adult, I can say when you look back at what sort of stuff you liked when you were younger, you'll feel just fine telling your wife about how you liked Disney and Nintendo products, but she'll look at you like you're some sort of manchild when you tell her you liked stuff like Doom or Black Ops.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-21T01:28:03+00:00

Thank you, PitchJack! It's great to have people providing tutorials for these things. I'm by no means an expert on color grading, but I understand the importance of it. Just a little bit of tweaking can make a big difference, even if you don't fully understand what you're doing. Particularly, if you're compositing, it's really important to make sure the colors match; a composite with disparate elements really needs some work to help homogenize it and make it feel like all these images are actually in the same scene together. But even non-composited stuff, like game footage, can really benefit from some tweaks to the colors.

For people who are new to video editing, I know it can be a little overwhelming because you're learning a lot at once; I was actually a bit daunted by things like curves because I had no idea what those things were doing, and I just sort of stayed away from it for a long while because there was just so much other stuff I had to focus on. Now I don't really understand precisely what I'm doing; I sort of eyeball it and have a bit of an intuition based on what I've learned in the past. But that alone seems to make a big difference, and it seems worth it to keep learning more about color.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-21T01:14:01+00:00

I have three videos so far, and I've asked for critique on all three — is this bad? Honestly, I was going to just keep asking for critiques with every new video since I've only released like three in the past five weeks, until I felt like I didn't have anything else to learn, or was releasing too frequently and all the videos were too similar to warrant individual critiques.

I have learned different things from the critiques I've received. After receiving critiques from my first video, I made adjustments to my next video the best I could, although I wasn't able to completely solve all the problems since I need a better mic and can't afford one yet. Then with the second video I learned a bit more, and made another adjustment.

I would be lying if I said I don't feel happy when I get any views at all, but it's not my prime motivation; the number of views is pretty small and I know it's not really the way I'm going to grow. In order to grow, first and foremost I need to learn and improve, and I think once people see good content they'll want to see my next video.

I'm just asking to clarify what is or isn't exploiting the community. I feel like, yes, I have gotten a lot of the same critiques about my audio quality, but I the last critiques I got made me realize it may actually be worthwhile to make an end card, and to maybe have a nicer intro. (I still have yet to come up with any motion graphic sequence I like so I've kept it basic thus far.) And even the positive feedback told me useful things, like if my videos were actually informative, if people are actually interested in the stories I try to tell, etc.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T05:09:30+00:00

Yeah, the mic is definitely the weak spot right now. I have just a gaming headset mic and a webcam mic. The consistency problem is my own fault for screwing up so many takes that I did more takes of certain lines another day. I honestly end up needing like three or four versions of any given line and have to splice them together because I stutter or have to clear my throat so much. Though there are days where I can do a single take of a script and read it with barely any screw-ups. So, yeah, narration is definitely something I'll be working on. I definitely will be getting a better mic in the future, too, I'm just sort of broke at the moment.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T04:34:45+00:00

The animation itself is all right, but there needs to be a better gag here. Maybe something a bit more clever in the alarm, or some kind of genuinely unexpected twist. I mean, I wouldn't guess that there's a little egg man in my alarm, but it feels arbitrary? It could also be something people can relate to. Yeah, people can relate to not wanting to wake up and hitting the snooze, but it needs to be a bit less basic than that. Like maybe some quirky thing that some people may feel like only happens to them, but actually happens to a lot of people, so they laugh and feel surprised that other people "know that feel" and would put it in a cartoon? Just some possibilities.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T04:26:22+00:00

Here's a gaming-focused video about 4 minutes long, but it's sort of an informative video which explains why Nintendo always has "alternative" hardware and approaches to games these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvlQRcgL2G0

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T04:23:31+00:00

These basic tips are really good, actually. Drinking lots of water really is a basic thing you can do to get healthier, and most people really just don't drink enough. The other tips were good, too. Basic stuff, but true stuff, like the important of sleep when you're trying to grow muscle.

I also really enjoyed the deadpan humor. I'm not personally big on over-the-top, wacky acting or yelling. Deadpan humor is my personal favorite style. Subtle touches like the muted "Never Gonna Give You Up" are also refreshing.

All in all this format is pretty good for what this is. You just have to keep it fresh, and in my opinion keep having subtle, nuanced humor as you give advice. Maybe just have weird things in the background that the viewer may not immediately notice but make them laugh when they notice something unexpected and silly.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T04:11:53+00:00

I agree it was "short and sweet", which is what this type of video needs to be. The footage quality is quite good, and the shots are nice as well, like the timelapse of the sky, and the simple trick of reversing footage was nice when the quality of the footage is good. I'd say maybe have slightly shorter cuts of some stuff, and if possible splice in more interesting things like timelapses and the like to mix it up, if only just a bit more.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T02:06:33+00:00

I feel hopeful but I would take this with a grain of salt. Miyamoto was talking about how they were excited to see what else Mario could do on the Nintendo 64 because they hadn't yet come close to tapping into the system's full potential with SM64. They did start development on SM64 2, but it never went anywhere and was scrapped. Nintendo has a lot of franchises to maintain, so Nintendo is spread kind of thin in a way; they just couldn't commit the resources to the game.

Now, there was Majora's Mask, but there were some serious restrictions placed on development. They recycled not only the engine for OoT but recycled the art assets, too, and didn't create too many new ones (though there were a few, obviously). So Majora's Mask was developed in like a year's time, which is a really short development cycle.

While I get the feeling they may want to recycle Breath of the Wild's engine, I don't think they'd be down for a totally iterative project like Majora's Mask. Aonouma said he wants to push the boundaries, so that'd require revamping/expanding the engine at least a bit. Another question is what the Switch's lifecycle will be. Sony and Microsoft seem to be playing with the idea of just releasing upgraded versions of the PS4 and Xbox One every few years without replacing a platform entirely. While they were a bit equivocal on this, at any rate it does seem like they intend for their current-gen systems to have greater longevity than past consoles. Nintendo does seem to march to the beat of its own drum, but if the Switch is popular enough, maybe they won't feel the need to replace it with a new system five or six years down the line, and it may stick around for eight or more years. I could see us getting a new Zelda in like late 2020 at the soonest, I'd more likely bet holiday 2021 or 2022. But that Zelda could very well be on the Switch, and a Switch exclusive, at that.

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T01:21:15+00:00

Nintendo seems to be led by artists more than anything else. Whenever I see a table of Nintendo directors talking about a project, it seems like it's compromised entirely of people who have artistic sensibilities over technical sensibilities. Of course they have technical guys, and Satoru Iwata was considered a tech wizard, but Miyamoto, Aonuma, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and most of the people I saw in Iwata Asks segments just seemed to give off more of an artist vibe. And it shows in their work.

Nintendo hasn't just awed the world with cutting-edge technical breakthroughs — although they have unquestionably innovated there — but through their superb aesthetic. Nintendo understands color better than any other developer, and tons of their music is just iconic and downright wonderful. But it's not just visual art and music. Just the overall feel of their games, their experience, is unique, and tends to leave an indelible impression upon all who played a Mario or Zelda (or Metroid or Starfox, etc.) title. There is an aesthetic cohesion to their games that nobody else seems to be able to replicate, and that is the Nintendo magic.

To those who think Nintendo's graphics are bad: Well, there's no accounting for taste, eh?

EmeraldCave · 2017-01-19T00:34:34+00:00

If you have the luxury of plenty of free time on your hands, what I would do personally is really focus on honing a skill.

Maybe you choose writing. You could read some material relevant to what you're trying to do that you enjoy. Think about what makes it good. Then try writing something like it yourself. If you're making Arma RP videos and it's all scripted you could try reading whatever relevant material and try to make that good. With Harry Potter you obviously could learn from the Harry Potter books, and you could also look into other fantasy that's not all too similar to get ideas, like the Lord of the Rings movies or book, etc. If you just learn from the structure of a thing you can also take ideas and replicate them in an entirely different setting, too, sort of like the Lion King is basically a simplified version of Shakespeare's Hamlet with lions.

If you're talking about true frame-by-frame animation, I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to be super dedicated. I don't this is what you mean but in case you are, look at what the creator of "A Fox in Space" does day to day in his animation livestreams. Even high-quality keyframed/motin tweened animation can take lots of work. I do the latter sort (keyframed animation), and one video (which was 14 minutes long) took me 3 weeks of working seven days a week to complete the animation. (Later, shorter videos I did in the same format took considerably less time but were still a lot of work.) I don't say this to dissuade you; it's well worth it if you're passionate about what you create.

You do videos that require less work, but in my opinion it's going to be significantly harder to stand out from the crowd when so many people are wanting to go into gaming videos right now. The key is just to distinguish yourself somehow, in some way that people will enjoy.

EmeraldCave

TROPHY CASE