Guess I'm talking about the madness that is Nintendo today. (The Real Costs of Games #3)

Alright then. There is no way I can not talk about the direct at this point. Regardless of if you or I were to get anything from here or not, this will have impacts on how we all play games.

Outer Platform Highlights.

Although there are plenty of other great partner games that I could talk about, I will only stick with the stuff I find important.

Silksong Deltarune

Now I don't have to hide these from myself. They are coming out this year. Glad to have some new wishlist stars to replace Everhood 2 and ENA: Dream BBQ. I didn't even have Silksong wishlisted so I could forget easier. Glad I can join the hype train on purpose instead of being brought up by everyone else. 

About the games themselves though? Go play them. Nuf said.

1st Party Game Upgrades and Releases.

The only game upgrades that I want to talk about that do not concern the hardware are Breath of the Wild 2 and Tears of the Kingdom 2. There are some interesting stuff there that I don't find worth buying, but there is one thing the app has me concerned about for those who decide to upgrade or play those games on new hardware. There is a button in both games for item sharing. They have opened the outside data modding perms can of worms. This might mean that many of the bugs in both games will be fixed along with the addition of new DRM solutions to prevent cheated item trades. Although I am not sure if that will be the case as the app is just a teaser, it is something to keep an eye on to see how it effects other games.

Now onto the games. We have 3D Donkey Kong for real. Donkey Kong Bananza is a beautiful harmony of platforming are terrain destruction featuring Movie designs. Reminds me of Deep Rock Galactic but we ape. This might be a game I pick up, but as it features the $70 price it's gonna hurt.

Air Riders is coming and the big guy somehow not retired! Hope he is doing well and excited to see Air Ride return. Never played the original so learning this game will be amazing. Oh no, not another game to buy.

Alright, now it's time for the one that would have broken my heart on it's own. Mario Kart World is the name and it seems really fun. When I was first watching it, I saw the theme and the characters dressing up after eating food and immediately though of the old Michelin Guide I have heard about. They are also doing open world racing for the tracks like how Forza Horizon and other similar games which fits perfectly with the theme. Seems moving between tracks dynamically is the new pattern for modern racing games. Glad it's part of a bundle for cheaper, but +$50 is still pricey in my world.

Special Hardware and Games Using It.

Starting with the leaked feature, the mouse controls have been demonstrated really well. Games like DRAGxDRIVE being the tech squeal to Arms and Metroid Prime 4 Beyond show how great it can be. Although, I am still worried that people ruin their hands. Even a normal mouse built to fit can create problems for our hands if used for too long and are not ergonomically designed. These new joy-cons will likely make issues appear much sooner. If anyone will be playing games with the joy-com mouses, take frequent breaks and rest your hands until we can confirm that they are safe.

The other big features are to better connect people socially using the new voice chat and camera extension. These have surprised me, although I will likely be using these during the trial period only because I don't like switch online. Not sure where the back-end for these systems are though. Online form Nintendo historically has not been that good so unless the upgrades they brought up are gonna happen and work well, I recommend freeloading off other social services. Otherwise I'm glad to see it.

I forgot to talk about this when I first wrote this post but DOWNLOAD PLAY IS BACK BABY! It doesn't seem to be called that, but I'm glad that I can now share games I own with friends locally. It even works online as well even if only with select games, but that doesn't matter as a non online user. All I need is to share supported games locally, I won't be asking for more in that regard. Even then, I might have an idea on how I can make it work online without Nintendo.

There are two other notable games that demo this hardware as well, but only one of them seems any good. Unfortunately, I do not hold out hope for NS2 Welcome Tour. I don't want a game simply to justify all the visual feature expenses I will talk about later. Mario Party Jamboree 2 on the other hand seem to better combine all the new features into interesting new experiences.

To close this up, I find the game upgrades system to be interesting but not justified mostly. Maybe it's worth depending on the prices, but anything more than half a game ain't worth it most of the time in my opinion. I'm not gonna upgrade when the new features are gimmicks.

Time to complicate how we all feel.

First of all, why are all these hardware features here? They had to spend a whole section and a demo game just to explain the upgrades to normal folks who don't really know and wouldn't care normally. None of the visual features seem to really grant anything new. These feature have raised the price from the original $300 for the original to $450. No bundle game either, that will be an extra $50. I know inflation is a cruel mistress and they are probably still selling at a loss to profit on the games and subscriptions, but damn.

The next issue I have is that they were prepping us with the mid direct earlier. To all who did find something they liked from that direct, glad you liked it. To all the partners who had their show during it, I feel sorry. To all the people who were disappointed, you ain't getting that time back no refunds. >:p

To keep the cold reality coming, you gotta remember that Nintendo and by extension Game Freak have their hands in killing game preservation and other great works. As one of the members of the ESA, they have made sure that we can't play our games all we want and make us dependent on them to buy access to our old favorite games forever. They also did my old faithful DKCR dirty by lending the work to a studio who only knew how to port the game to Unity and ruin the feel. These are only the stories I remember as of right now. I bet you might know a couple more.

And yet, all these things that make me want to be against them to make games as a whole even, they are instantly melted away by the simple fact that I need to have the latest Mario Kart if I don't want to look like a looser who doesn't bring the latest games. It really sucks that I am reduced to a simple customer despite my desire to better shape the experiences we make. There is no way I will be able to engage with the games and people I want without all the things I stand against found at Nintendo.

What I do to make my games better.

Even if I really want to show that all those bad things Nintendo does is not to their benefit, I don't want to be wasting my life when I have been wanting to make stuff for myself for a long time. That's part of the reason I write all of this. I want to empower people by showing great experiences and educating on where to find great games and to determine the costs of games. I hope doing this blog leads to people making better games and experiences down the line along with everything else in life better. I don't think I'll be thanked by the person who was able to serve me an Italian sub sandwich because of me, but I'd be very happy if I was.

If you somehow read all of this, glad that you are better at reading than I am.

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