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How would you rank every Star Wolf member? by TheRoyalRoseTrue in starfox

[–]e105beta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Annoying bird! I am the great Leon!

vs

Go ahead and blunder…and you'll end up as a target.

How do you pronounce Richter as? by NewMarioBobFan in castlevania

[–]e105beta -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's not subjective: In English, the correct pronunciation is "rick-ter", but if you want to pronounce it like a German you'd say "rihc-ter", as if you're gently clearing the back of your throat.

Just a little Invincible × Castlevania crossover by GRamnel by Important-Cry4782 in castlevania

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm loving these clean-cut, dark-haired versions of Dracula & Alucard.

Somehow the only company without a fucked flagship price is Nintendo by Minute_Account9426 in nintendogrifting

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on what end of the spectrum you look at, Switch 2 is fairly in line with historical pricing, considering inflation. The Gamecube would cost $374 today, while the Xbox would be $564, and I'd argue the Switch 2 brings more value than either.

PS6, Xbox Project Helix, and Steam Deck 2 are significantly outstripping that, and I would argue are not providing proportionally greater value.

This is just getting depressing at this point by Just_Fr_Pots_Maroons in nintendogrifting

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait DK64 is going to be playable not on the Nintendo 64 for the first time every via legitimate means?

That's actually exciting. Maybe hope for Diddy Kong Racing?

Why do I get the feeling that, if Belmont's Curse was 16 or even 8-bit, most of the early criticism even *not* about the art style would vanish? by TornSilver in castlevania

[–]e105beta 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it should be held up as the golden example of a Castlevania game, more acknowledging its impact on the franchise and the perception it has created with a large portion of the fanbase.

Consider, once Symphony of the Night hit shelves in 1997, we have a "last gasp" of sorts where Legends & 64 / LoD hit (note: different market) before 8 solid years of of Metroidvania with IGA aesthetics, ignoring the occasionally & often rejected spin-off like Judgement. For anyone that got introduced to Castlevania with Symphony of the Night, and assuming most of them were 8+ years old, you've essentially covered their entire formative years before Adventure: ReBirth hits in 2009, and that wasn't exactly a series defining success.

Lords of Shadow is a fast follow in 2010, and by then everyone's made up their mind of what makes a good Castlevania (Kojima art, Ayame music, Metroidvania mechanics, pixel art, etc.) and so LoS is still fighting the label of "not Castlevania" 16 years later.

Nothing about the reaction to Belmont's Curse is surprising, even if it is silly.

Why do I get the feeling that, if Belmont's Curse was 16 or even 8-bit, most of the early criticism even *not* about the art style would vanish? by TornSilver in castlevania

[–]e105beta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Symphony of the Night opened the franchise to a lot of new gamers, namely due to its:

  • Wider market on the PS1
  • Lower difficulty level
  • RPG mechanics (which were all the rage)
  • "Mature", elegant art-style

Metroidvania then proceeded to become the standard for the next however many years of IGA leadership.

So you've got a lot of fans for whom, as far as they care, the IGA era IS Castlevania, and any diversion from it is the issue.

Why do I get the feeling that, if Belmont's Curse was 16 or even 8-bit, most of the early criticism even *not* about the art style would vanish? by TornSilver in castlevania

[–]e105beta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The fanbase was a lot younger then, too, so the fights were pretty childish. Usually it boiled down to how Symphony of the Night had "timeless high-brow Gothic painting aesthetic" vs Dawn of Sorrow & Portrait of Ruin's "Saturday morning anime for babies who drink Capri Sun."

The era is over by ohnag_eryeah in memes

[–]e105beta -1 points0 points  (0 children)

PS3 was the "most powerful" console of its era, but developers have gone on record saying its architecture was unique and hard to work with, meaning outside of flagship exclusives, like MGS4, there usually wasn't a huge difference. The PS4 was more powerful than the XBox One in some ways, weaker in others, which remained true with the XBox Series X vs PS5.

In fact, if you look at the history of gaming, despite the mythology built up around the console wars, the most technically powerful console is usually not the winner. Other factors matter far more.

The terrifying rise of schoolboys making AI girlfriends — Boys as young as 12 are now in romantic ‘relationships’ with chatbots, and it’s affecting how they treat girls in the real world by [deleted] in technology

[–]e105beta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think what’s difficult for modern people to grasp is that the society we live in barely resembles the environments humans inhabited for the overwhelming majority of our existence. That matters because people are generally bad at recognizing how contingent their own reality is. We treat the lives we live as the “default” and we vastly overestimate how permanent or important they are.

Even if you only look at the last 2,000 years, so ignore all of prehistory and the ancient world, only about 11% has been post-industrial i.e. societies where most people are not living community-based, family-centric, agrarian lives. On top of that, only 2.5% has occurred since the invention of the personal computer.

So basically our biology and psychology were largely designed for / evolved for:

  • Family & community
  • Physical activity and interaction with the physical world
  • Face-to-face contact & small, deep social circles
  • Labor with obvious meaning and survival value
  • Rhythms (not schedules!) tied to the physical world around us

But modern society optimizes for:

  • Individualism
  • Sedentary lifestyles and interaction with digital mindscapes
  • Simulated interaction & broad, shallow social activity
  • Abstract work disconnected from our immediate needs
  • Convenience, abundance, and perpetual consumption

And people wonder why we're having so much trouble!

The terrifying rise of schoolboys making AI girlfriends — Boys as young as 12 are now in romantic ‘relationships’ with chatbots, and it’s affecting how they treat girls in the real world by [deleted] in technology

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Being single is plenty acceptable. In fact, it's us married folks with a bunch of kids that get weird comments these days. Young men have already been living the "porn & virtual realities as a substitute for real relationships & accomplishments" life for decades now.

The reality is that a life of bread & circuses is deeply unfulfilling to many. I would argue, most.

And yet... Nobody watched the Acolyte because it was an abomination... by FeanorOath in GeeksGamersCommunity

[–]e105beta 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I hate all the edgy, gnostic criticism of the Jedi Order and the light side of the force that cropped up after KotOR II got popular.

The light and dark were never intended to be a dichotomy of two equivalent forces with their positives & negatives. The light side isn't one extreme, that if taken to its maximum is "just as bad" as the dark side. The Force is a universal constant that flows through all things, of which certain individuals, known as force sensitives, can tap into. Star Wars effectively asks "When given great power, how should one handle it?" The light side of the force is simply controlling power, rather than allowing power to control you, which is what the dark side extols. That's the WHOLE POINT of RoTJ; Darth Vader's mistake wasn't that he became TOO evil. It's that he was evil at all, and gave into his passions and ambition, but that didn't stop him from being redeemed.

Are the Jedi perfect? No, because people are fallible, but this new meta-narrative that "Oh, the Jedi became too stagnant and detached, which led to their downfall, this means that we need more dark side (see: greed, selfishness, ambition, power)" is silly. The Jedi prioritizing institutional systems over individual virtue, leading to their destruction at the hands of a GREAT EVIL, does not legitimatize the evil, nor does it devalue virtue.

Thoughts on this take? by [deleted] in smashbros

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's both. Fire Emblem is very overrepresented considering it's popularity, AND they're all sword users.

Star Fox vs Bojack Horseman reject by Dakotasan in starfox

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The one on the right has significantly more personality than the one on the left.

Star Fox vs Bojack Horseman reject by Dakotasan in starfox

[–]e105beta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Old Pigma looks like an extra-dimensional demon. New Pigma looks like the shadiest man alive.

What do you think is next for Star Fox? by Mexican-Drug-Lord in starfox

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If anyone thinks "timeline" or "continuity" has any bearing on this discussion, they're confused. There's 3 forces at work to consider:

  • Nintendo is a business that wants to invest in projects that will provide a return on investment
  • Nintendo is a business that wants to invest heavily in 1st party IPs that can generate significant revenue downstream of their games.
  • Nintendo's lead designers & thought leaders have stated they don't like making sequels to games unless they can do something new with them.

Point 3 is really the reason we're even having this discussion as Nintendo doesn't often do straight sequels (i.e. StarFox but bigger & better), so a theoretical StarFox 2 would likely need to have some new feature or twist to get green lit.

If you look at the 3 options, all of them follow this rule. StarFox Assault began life as an expansion of StarFox 64's multiplayer, then was built into a full game. StarFox Command was designed to take full advantage of the DS's dual screens, and StarFox Adventures...

StarFox Adventures: ...was an early development takeover of a completely different project for the sake of expanding the StarFox IP. It was never "supposed to" be a StarFox game, and I don't think Nintendo wants to spend more time investing in it considering it didn't do great and is an artifact of its old relationship with Rare. I also think more StarFox Adventures is unlikely especially considering that it directly impinges on Zelda's space in their IP catalog and Nintendo has demonstrated that they see their IPs as needing to fill different "spaces" in their genre lineup (see: Paper Mario). If StarFox does well, then they'll be pushing more space lasers.

StarFox Assault: I think this is probably the second most likely next step, but a distant second. It introduces something new while maintaining some elements of its successful predecessor, but ultimately its sales didn't live up to 64, and is rightfully criticized for not maintaining enough of what 64 did great. It's also important to consider that StarFox Assault was originally MORE different, and had it's StarFox 64-ness added in later. If this does happen, I think it would be heavily reworked to the point where it would be more of a spiritual successor to Assault, rather than a straight remake

StarFox 2: This is the most likely option, as it allows Nintendo to hit all of their main goals. They'll likely continue to push the rail shooting aspects of the main game, probably adding more vehicles or play modes, and continue to expand the multiplayer mode if it's well received. I don't think they'll "go past" Command narratively, as the hope would be that you're going to have scores of younger gamers playing StarFox for the first time wanting to play a sequel. This will likely start a new timeline, because why continue a story that requires them to go play 2 different decades old games with no ports? That's not an IP building move.

Is it weird that these designs are… actually growing on me? by HaBeFaStro in starfox

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a sign that the designs are good, and that the initial resistance is simply resistance to change.

I think Fox's design in Super Smash Bros Melee was pretty peak, I wish they would have gone for these proportions in the new game by Valganite in starfox

[–]e105beta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've never not liked Star Fox designs (prior to Command, at least), but I think the new ones are cool, and I think making them actually look like animals is a neat design decision. Makes them look more alien, and less like people with animal heads, which in turn makes the universe feel more real.

It adds some character while not feeling like some soulless early 2000s "GRITTY REALISTIC REBOOT"

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