The Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective Pt3

So far I’ve talked about why the Switch isn’t appealing to me right now and also the upcoming releases that potentially have the power to change my mind. The concluding part of my Switch ramblings is going to focus on the dream games that would certainly encourage me to part with my money if they were to ever see the light of day. Once more, I’ve organised my picks into a Top Five of no particular arrangement so without any further unnecessary talking…let’s go!

F-Zero

Yes, it’s the game that people have been demanding for years from Nintendo who seem wholly disinterested in bringing Captain Falcon and lightspeed futuristic racing back to a console near you. It didn’t happen on the Wii and it didn’t happen on the Wii-U either but there were a few teases last generation with the F-Zero-inspired Fast Racing Neo plus the F-Zero DLC for Mario Kart 8. A proper F-Zero sequel though? Nah; you’re dreaming, boy! F-Zero GX on the Gamecube was a stunning game: super fast, skill-demanding and beautiful to look at. The soundtrack deserves a huge mention too for being so flippin’ awesome (I have the soundtrack CD and listen to it regularly). True, it was a collab effort with Sega (and some Namco input) but even so, it’s a tragedy that GX remains the last main game in the series at this point in time (I’m not 100% on the release dates of the various GBA games…) and if Nintendo were ever to finally follow it up with a new installment that was at least on par with GX quality-wise, then I would buy a Switch to play it.

Disaster: Day of Crisis

One of the Wii’s true hidden gems, Disaster was a really fun survival game that mixed natural disaster survival with Time Crisis-style shooting sections to great effect. The Wii became known (sadly) for the many bad games that had motion controls shoe-horned in for no good reason other than to be seen to have implemented something. Disaster was one of those games that used motion controls in many different ways but in such ways that actually made sense and made you feel like you were interacting with the game rather than just flailing your arms for the hell of it. There was a cool first-person driving section for example, running away from walls of water or performing CPR. For a game that was stuck in development hell for a long time before finally surfacing, it was impressive that Day of Crisis managed to be so entertaining and that’s why I’d love a sequel. Yes, this is one instance where I would miss motion controls but give us another disaster scenario with some new characters and the same varied gameplay and I’d buy it for a dollar.

A proper Pokemon game

By ‘proper’ I mean a full-on handheld style adventure in 3D on the big screen. This may actually be a possibility if Nintendo do indeed wind their dedicated handheld focus down and pour everything into the Switch given how it is both a home and portable machine. In the past though, we have been cheated (I like to think so anyway) on numerous occasions. The two Pokemon Stadium games on N64 were essentially glorified 3D battles, Pokemon Colisseum on the Gamecube was a heavily simplified take on the traditional formula and its direct sequel – XD: Gale of Darkness – insulted by being more of the same with recycled locations and assets from Colisseum. The rest have been filler games such as Pokemon Channel or the shallow Pokemon Battle Revolution. Imagine if they made a full-on 3D, free-roaming world in a similar vein to Zelda: Breath of the Wild but with a bit more focus on story and (obviously) a more densely populated world? Imagine actually flying on one of your bird Pokemon and searching for new locations or travelling the seas and seeking out new islands just like in Zelda: The Wind Waker? The possibilities are actually huge and even though I’ve kind of fallen out with the franchise after Diamond/Pearl, I’d jump straight back in if my dream style of game hit the Switch.

A proper Paper Mario game

Once upon a time, Nintendo had an extremely endearing Mario spin-off RPG series on its hands. Packed full of charm, humour and challenge, these were seriously good RPG experiences with a beautiful art style to boot and so much creativity. I am of course only referring to the N64 and Gamecube installments of Paper Mario. I do personally like Super Paper Mario on the Wii but it was certainly different to what had come before. The real problems with the series began with Sticker Star on the 3DS and continued with Colour Splash on the Wii-U. It is said that Shigeru Miyamoto made the decision to bin off any original or Paper Mario-exclusive characters and this is why the newer games are populated with Toads, Koopas and…er…not much else. Bad gameplay design also reared its ugly head with certain areas of the games impassable unless you had a specific sticker or card which you may have to return to the hub world for and thus incur lots of painful, backtracking which needn’t have been necessary. Colour Splash did give out hints in advance in fairness but often by the way of cryptic clues which tended to frustrate rather than assist. The RPG style of the previous games was also severely watered-down and to cap it off, battles could often become impossible if you didn’t have the right stickers/cards. I did personally still enjoy these games to an extent (Colour Splash moreso) because the graphical style and creativity has never gone away but if Nintendo could give us a PROPER Paper Mario just like the old days then it would honestly be a system seller in my eyes.

Wave Race

The recent Mario games prove that Nintendo knows how to make beautiful water that you’d just love to leap right into. Couple this with the fact that racing games have never really died in popularity and I can see a Switch sequel to Wave Race being a very fun game. It’s another franchise that Nintendo has left to die in the wilderness with only a brief jet ski racing segment in Wii Sports Resort giving Wave Race fans any hope that something may happen. The major obstacle to a Wave Race resurgence would obviously be its general lack of popularity or recognition amongst the traditional famous Nintendo franchises but since this is a fantasy list, I don’t care. Make it happen and I will open my wallet.

So that concludes my series of Switch-related posts. Perhaps I came across as quite negative about Nintendo’s current console in Part 1 but the truth is, there are games on the horizon that could tempt me as well as the above dream sequels which would DEFINITELY tempt me. Thing is though, even leaving aside the fact that I feel burned for being a Wii-U owner, I also have a PS4 and various older machines so for me to invest money and time into another console…well, I need to be persuaded a little harder than others maybe. Thanks for reading and I will hopefully be back with some more regular posts very soon…

The Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective Pt.2

So last time (it’s been a while), I posted about why I haven’t been sold on the Nintendo Switch thus far despite being a Nintendo loyalist (in a non-rabid fanboy way) since the Gamecube. The release schedule of ports, upgraded Wii-U games and a general sense of feeling “forgotten” by Nintendo were my main reasons BUT I concluded by saying that I’d go away, have a look at the upcoming release schedule and report back with some games that might make me change my mind. Due to a bout of sickness (some form of super-cold of doom which is going around here in the UK right now) I haven’t been up to making that follow-up post but I’m back now with a Top Five list of upcoming Wii-U games that might tempt me to buy a Switch…

1. No More Heroes 3

If you’ve read my discussion piece on Suda51 then you’ll know that I’m a bit of a fan of No More Heroes and Suda51 in general. The first two games were a bit ropey as far as the technical side of things went but were immense fun thanks to the sheer style being served up with many side orders of out-there wackiness. I’m no longer 100% confident in saying that a Suda51 game will be definite hit (thanks to a few recent efforts being a bit disappointing) and wouldn’t even say that the likes of NMH3 are antidotes to the mainstream that we desperately need anymore BUT I would still like to play this based on how much I enjoyed the two Wii predecessors. The teaser trailer looks promising too so fingers crossed.

2. Mario Tennis Aces

Mario’s tennis outings have always been some of more enjoyable spin-offs starring Nintendo’s main man but recent installments have dropped the ball (hur, hur) somewhat. I didn’t play the 3DS version and the Wii-U’s Ultra Smash was widely regarded as a huge disappointment due to being a flimsy release with little content. Before that, the Wii received only a port of the Gamecube’s Power Tennis which in itself wasn’t a gold medal-winning game due to the divisive inclusion of super moves and the constant, unskippable cinematic animations that came as part of the deal. It’s actually the GBA version of Power Tennis that was considered to be last great Mario Tennis game and it isn’t hard see why. Gameplay was tight and addictive on the small screen and the accompanying story mode gave players something to sink their teeth into. It was a great game and it’s one that I still have on my shelf. Thankfully, Mario Tennis Aces is looking like it will make up for the run of disappointing sequels thanks to the inclusion of a story mode. I expect that the gameplay will be great as well and to be fair, that side of things hasn’t been the issue over recent years.

3. Fire Emblem Warriors

Okay, I’m kind-of cheating here because this game is already out BUT it made it onto this list because…I hadn’t realised that it had already hit the store shelves months ago! How did that sneak out? Talk about not keeping up with release schedules…sheesh. Anyway, I like Fire Emblem and I like the Warriors games from Koei so this should really be exactly my kind of game. The only sticking point for me is that they went down the fanservice route and filled the roster with Awakening and Fates characters. Understandable seeing as how they have to shift copies of the game but I was hoping for some more variety and not just the usual suspects that we’ve come to expect recently such as Lucina, Robin and Camilla’s over-worked bra. There are no characters from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn for example. Looks like decent fun but I would have to buy it cheap which is never going to happen with the words “Fire” and “Emblem” together on the front cover…

Before I move on though, I will also make an honourable mention for the brand-new (traditional) Fire Emblem game that is slated for a 2018 release. There is no information or images as of yet however so nothing to go on. I will remain cautious due to how I currently feel about the series and the direction that Nintendo/Intelligent Systems have taken in recent years but even so, it’s got to be worth keeping an eye on.

4. Shin Megami Tensei 5

Before the increasingly-popular Persona series of RPG’s stole the limelight, Atlus also pumped out a fair few similarly dark (if not darker) RPG’s under the Shin Megami Tensei umbrella. In fact, many may forget that Persona 1-3 were released with the ‘SMT‘ prefix before the games finally found western fame and it was dropped. The “Megaten” games were great RPGs that offered something different and more niche versus the typical mainstream alternatives such as Final Fantasy and I’ve always been a big fan. Not much is known as of yet about Shin Megami Tensei V for the Switch but it’s being touted as an exclusive RPG for the system and it’s exactly the kind of thing that would make somebody like me sit up, look away from my Playstation and take notice. Of course, there’s every chance that Atlus might decide they need more return on their investment and also release SMT V for the PS4 but we aren’t privy to the details of their deal with Nintendo (if there is some sort of exclusitivity clause in action at all). For now, it makes my list.

5. Yoshi

I was a huge fan of Yoshi’s Woolly World for the Wii-U. The game looked beautiful with its unique thread-based visuals and was actually an extremely tough challenge to achieve 100% on; far more so than the naysayers slating it as a “kiddy” game would have you believe. It was the creativity oozing from what was on-screen that made me fall in love (as with Kirby’s Epic Yarn on the Wii) with Woolly World and Yoshi for the Switch looks set to run with that. The footage so far shows off a heap of interesting twists on the tried-and-tested 2D platformer and I’m impressed that Nintendo can keep finding ways to make their quirky platformers feeling unique. I’m definitely looking forward to this one, whatever the proper title for the game will be.

So that’s my top five (or top four if you discount my sly bit of cheating!). The third and final part of this series of Nintendo Switch-themed posts will focus on the games that I’d LIKE to see produced for the Switch…the kind of things that would definitely make me rush out and splurge on a console of my own. With this being Nintendo, there are loads of franchises that could tempt a veteran gamer like me…

Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective

I don’t really want a Switch.

“Well, why are you bothering to waste your time telling us that or moaning about something you don’t like?” I hear you ask.

Well, it’s a reasonable deal in fairness since I’ve been buying Nintendo’s home consoles since the Gamecube. I’ve bought into the platforms that struggled at market and I’ve defended the likes of the GC and it’s excellent first-party software as well as the Wii when uninformed types were saying “it’s shit” without even looking at the games. The Wii-U however? That was one child that needed the a LOT more defending than its older siblings and as an adopter of the console who stuck with it to the end, I actually feel quite aggrieved about the Switch and its success.

Now contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m NOT the kind of person who gets annoyed or even affected in general by the success of a product that I don’t wish to buy into so this isn’t going to be one of those rants where I tell people to “buy a proper console” or whatever. No, my grievance is simply with the fact that I feel at least slightly shafted by Nintendo. After all, some of the big games that have helped make the console so popular are things that I have already paid full-price for and enjoyed on the Wii-U. Mario Kart 8 for example is a fantastic game but I’m not buying it again after paying out over £200 for a Wii-U, £40 (approx) for the game and then the DLC on top of that.

Other must-have games such as Pokken Tournament, Breath of the Wild and the upcoming ports of Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta are all things that I have already played on the Wii-U. I suppose to sum up my gripe with the Switch, I would say that I think Wii-U supporters have quickly been forgotten. The likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe weren’t marketed as brand-new games but they certainly come with that image which is – in fairness – understandable given how a lot of people missed them the first time round on account of the Wii-U being such a relative retail flop.

But I paid a lot of money for these things and stuck by the Wii-U, comfortable with the knowledge that a small but perfectly-rounded library was no bad thing. The result of my loyalty is a follow-up console that I really don’t want when the best games currently available (Mario Odyssey aside) are things that I’ve already finished with. I can’t say that I think Nintendo actually care either because a large portion of the consumer base that have made the Switch a success are bound to be new customers who didn’t care about the Wii-U or even knew that it existed. We helped keep them afloat and now we have been ditched.

I DO want to play this but I can’t justify an entire console for one game. Last time I did that was with the Atari Jaguar for Tempest 2000 and it was daft!

That sounds more than a little bitter doesn’t it? Well, let’s continue with an open mind and have a look at what else is available shall we? The first barrier I hit is a very familiar one that blighted the early days of the Wii-U: updated ports of old games from other consoles. You have the likes of Resident Evil Revelations, Doom, Skyrim and LA Noire – all great games that won’t suddenly become rubbish by being on the Switch but I’m only interested in new experiences. Obviously, these versions of previously-available titles will be improved or more “complete” than the originals and being able to play them away from the TV screen is a fair selling point but they just don’t do it for me. Then there is the pricing issue…Doom for instance is currently £40 on Amazon whereas I can pick up a brand-new copy on the PS4 for between £10-£15.

Yes, these new versions are probably aimed at people who DON’T have loads of consoles or are Nintendo followers only but the fact remains that many gamers have multiple machines beneath the TV these days. Heck, it has become kind of mandatory since the days of the Wii to own a Nintendo console + either a Playstation or an Xbox since multi-platform releases haven’t really been possible since the Gamecube given the technical gulf between Nintendo’s hardware and those of Sony/Microsoft. When they DO arrive they are late and usually compromised in some way.

Ultra Street Fighter II is the kind of game that is certainly my kind of thing given how I’m a die-hard fan of fighting games but the harsh reality is that the game is simply an updated edition of HD Remix which came out years and years ago on PSN/XBLA. It is a superb update of Super Turbo but I don’t fancy buying it again just for Evil Ryu and Violent Ken, unless there is a bit of a bargain to be had of course.

A favourite of mine but again, I’ve already played it. Oh and Capcom? How many more revisions of Street Fighter II have you got left in you? I mean, really!

And away from the un-rewarded loyalty complex that the Switch has given me, this is the other main issue for me: excellent games that are difficult to justify buying unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or are SO Nintendo that even the concept of holding a Dualshock controller is like being asked to stick your naked arm deep into the bowl of a public toilet that has been clogged-up for weeks.

So let’s be clear: I’m not saying that the games are shit, nor am I saying that the hardware is shit. I’m saying that there is little to entice me into getting involved with Nintendo’s latest offering. I’m glad that the Switch has been a success because things didn’t look good for Nintendo during the Wii-U days and as much as I feel part of a forgotten audience, there’s no way I’d have wanted to see them throw in the hardware towel. Ironically, it seems that the Switch is an amazing prospect if you HADN’T shown your support in the previous generation and passed-up the Wii-U because all of a sudden, you have loads of genuinely great games to play that won’t already be familiar territory.

So this leaves me one final angle to cover: looking to the future. Are there any brand-new games i.e. not ports/updates inbound for the Switch that would make me want to buy one? Well, there are some that I am aware of but possibly others that I’m not so stay tuned for a follow-up post where I will discuss my findings.

Crystal Dreams

This last week saw me finally polish off the e-shop download of Pokemon Silver Version for 3DS. I ended up spending around 60hrs with the game and in truth, that figure could have easily been shaved by a considerable amount had I not spent ages hunting out my favourite monsters and training them up even though I had no space for them in my final/ideal team. I felt like a bit of a boss taking a Lv60+ team of Lugia, Typhlosion, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Raikou and Gyarados into the final showdown with Red (I would have also taken Ho-Oh but I needed Gyarados as my ‘HM slave’ to navigate Silver Cave) and I managed to beat the toughest trainer in the game on my first attempt. That Snorlax that bothered me so much back in the day? No problem! Typhlosion ended that sucker with a few Dynamic Punches. Yeah!

It was a very nostalgic experience overall and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the classic sound effects, sprites and simpler Pokemon mechanics that I’d been missing with the newer games. Despite the amount of hours I invested into Silver, I’m still keenly waiting for January 26th and the next classic re-release that I’d been hoping for…

Pokemon Crystal Version was the edition that everybody had really been clamouring for when the Gold/Silver re-releases were initially announced and I can only presume that Nintendo held it back on account of it being so similar to G/S that nobody would buy either of those versions. This way, gamers like me will double-dip and I can’t deny that I have fallen for their nefarious marketing tactics! Yellow Version was re-released alongside Red/Blue but that was likely a different scenario given how Yellow had quite a lot of differences compared to the games it was updating and was changed-up to follow the TV show more closely.

Crystal is more of a subtle update over its direct predecessors but is – in my opinion anyway –  the definitive edition of the second generation of games. When this game was originally released, the introduction of animated sprites was incredibly special for example. The first iteration of the Battle Tower debuted in Crystal too (and boy was it brutal!) and a slightly tweaked storyline put Suicune into a position of prominence, allowing the player to eventually battle the legendary Pokemon without worrying about it fleeing as it, Raikou and Entei would immediately do in Gold/Silver.

Gotta love those old sprites!

Crystal is – like most of the early Pokemon games – quite nostalgic for me as I clearly remember receiving it for Christmas on the year of release along with a brand spanking new Gameboy Advance. How ironic that the first game I played on a new system was one via the backwards compatibility! The more advanced (see what I did there?) aesthetics of those shiny new GBA titles didn’t deter me from embarking on a second tour of Johto however and in 2018, history is set to repeat itself. I really cannot wait and I’m fortunate enough to have received a £15 e-shop voucher from my sister at Christmas so I’m saving that for the 26th!

It’s also worth mentioning that Nintendo have slightly tweaked this version of Crystal in a rather special way. Aside from Pokemon Bank compatibility, they have also included a way to battle and capture Celebi without the need for any sort of special ‘event’! Wow! Celebi has long been one of those Pokemon that has been impossible to capture without being fortunate enough to attend a special event and outside of said event for Gold/Silver/Crystal (or the Japanese bonus disc for Pokemon Colosseum), I don’t believe Celebi has been made available since.

Roll on the 26th!

Why I love collecting TCG

Other than videogames, one of my other turbo-nerd interests are trading cards, specifically Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!! I’m no player of either game but I certainly do like to collect the cards and keep up with the current events where Yu-Gi-Oh is concerned since I also operate a very small ebay buying/selling business purely for selling Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I’ve found discovering which cards are worth money and keeping up with what’s trending in the meta to be fascinating and I’ve had some fantastic scores this year alone. But this isn’t a post where I’m going to be blabbering on about investments and my best sales; this is going to be me discussing my personal collections and how I got into these card games in the first place.

The Pokemon Trading Card game was the first obsession and I got into it right at the very beginning when the Base Set came out here in the UK (I believe I actually started with the cards before the Gameboy games) and a friend at school gave me my first card for free. It was either Machop or Charmander (I forget which) but I soon got hold of Koffing too and so the collection began.

Humble beginnings…

Of course, the big problem as a kid was the price of booster packs! At £2.49 for an 11-card pack which often had nothing too interesting inside, it was difficult for my parents to justify buying many for me and so I had to rely on trades, the odd pack here and there (when I was allowed one) and decks for birthdays/Christmas’. Later on when I got an official pocket money (or allowance) sum to last me a month, I could buy more packs BUT I also had to make that money last so I STILL couldn’t go crazy. It was often frustrating to go to school with other kids whose parents bought them tons of packs over the weekends, brand-new binders etc. because every Monday, they’d be showing off all of the new foils or “shinies” that they’d acquired. Still – in hindsight – it was better that I learned the value of money and wasn’t spoilt I guess so there is that little life lesson to be thankful for. Besides, having less to work with made those trades all the sweeter. I once somehow managed to trade a ‘rare’ Base Set Dugtrio for a common Onix by arguing that Onix could “easily swing its tail around a chop Dugtrio’s head off”. Ignoring the dark outcome of that hypothetical battle for the moment, it was an epic trade.

The scores were cancelled out by some of the terrible deals that I made though (something I’m sure all TCG collectors can relate to!). One in particular saw me buy a Fossil booster pack for £4.99 from a market before they were officially available in UK shops and pull a holo Hitmonlee card. Needless to say, I was hot stuff come Monday morning in the playground but what did I do? Yep, I traded Hitmonlee away on that first day! Another poor trade was exchanging my booster-fresh Neo Genesis Typhlosion for a Japanese version of the other Typhlosion card from the same set only to later discover that the card I’d received was a fake. Doh!

Anyway, I collected the cards all the way up to Legendary Collection before quitting in secondary school, partly because of growing up and partly because of there simply being nobody to trade with anymore as things such as cool clothes, girls and tech became the things to chase. I briefly returned to collecting current cards during the very early ‘EX’ era and collected from EX-Ruby/Sapphire up to EX-Unseen Forces before binning the hobby for a second time. These new cards just didn’t appeal to me anymore due to poorer (in my opinion) artwork and a focus on the newer generations of monsters that I wasn’t as interested in. The EX holos were usually awesome though, even if the earliest examples were laughably unplayable in the game itself.

Cards like this convinced me to keep collecting into the early EX/Nintendo era of the TCG.

Fortunately,  I didn’t sell my collection of cards once my brief second stint of collecting was done and so when I decided to get back into the hobby again (around 3-4 years or so ago now) I had a pretty good base to build on. After all, I’d always kept my cards in great condition and organised by set so going for full sets of the original Wizards Of The Coasts-published expansions (the most nostalgic sets by far) was more a case of filling in the gaps rather than beginning from scratch. I decided to not bother with Legendary Collection since buying the same cards a third time (if you factor in Base 2 to the mix as well) was a step too much, especially since I had very little from that set in the first place. The same applied to the three Wizards ‘E’ series expansions (Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge) because those sets are huge and the holos extremely valuable in some cases.

So I limited myself to Base 1 through to Neo Destiny and honestly, considering that this period pretty much summed up my original collecting days, it seemed quite fitting and nostalgia-infused to try and complete these sets. The added bonus of this kind of collection also being an investment of sorts is another plus that has to be remembered because these classic cards are constantly going up in value. Obviously nobody can predict the future’s interest in such things but for now, buying old-school Pokemon cards seems a pretty safe investment. Thus far, I have managed to finish Base 1, Jungle, Fossil, Team Rocket and Base 2. I should be working on the Gym sets next but due to rising asking prices, I have decided to skip ahead and try to get Neo Destiny done next since even the core holos from that set can cost between £20-£30 apiece for the most desirable ones – that’s before considering the going rates for the ‘Shining’ cards.

I have very little interest in the new sets of cards to be honest and it’s largely down to the fact that I stopped following the games after Diamond/Pearl so I’m very unfamiliar with the monsters and in any case, I’m no fan of the designs that I have seen or the crazy CG-orientated artwork on a lot of the cards. The days of Ken Sugimori’s simple watercolour artwork or the primitive CG of “CR CG Gangs” is where the appeal lies for me. I DO however pick up some of the full-art cards when I can because they are absolutely stunning at times with their embossed/textured surfaces and artwork which usually impresses me when the regular cards can’t.

It’s incredible to see how much card design has evolved since that all-important debut Base Set.

But it isn’t just the Pokemon TCG that has my collecting attention. At the start of secondary school, I became aware of the existence of Yu-Gi-Oh!! and it didn’t take very long for another collecting bug to infect the inner workings of my impressionable mind. As with Pokemon, it all began innocently enough with my first card being given to me for free. That card was a copy of Succubus Knight from the first booster set (Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon) and so it began. I bought the obligatory copy of Starter Deck Kaiba (in 1st Edition!) and then booster packs from then on when I could. Money was still tight as a teenager however so as with Pokemon, I couldn’t afford to amass as many cards as those I was trading with at school and building a collection was doubly harder given how brutal the pull ratios were in those older Yu-Gi-Oh sets. A standard 24-Pack booster box would only contain six foils, possibly seven if said box also had a “Secret” rare card so as you can imagine, you had to be lucky to pull a foil card. In contrast, twelve out of thirty-six packs in a Pokemon TCG booster box would contain foils so the strike rate was a lot better. Younger Yu-Gi-Oh players/collectors have grown used to kinder box ratios and all packs coming with a Super Rare foil card at the very least so those early days of Yu-Gi-Oh were a very different time.

The first Yu-Gi-Oh card I ever had. It was only in recent years that I discovered that the art was censored!

What really sold Yu-Gi-Oh to me was that even though it was still a children’s card game, the artwork was so much darker and more grown-up. Here we had cards based on dragons, demons and ancient Egyptian evils. Tombs, magic and all manner of bizarre creatures also contributed to my fascination and I was easily hooked. Sadly, the newer sets don’t quite captivate me in the same way because things have grown more cartoon-like with anime-inspired designs and a greater quantity of comical cards or art that simply no longer interests me as a collector. The golden period for me personally was between Labyrinth Of Nightmare and Ancient Sanctuary; this was where the card art peaked with it’s darkest and most fucked-up designs and where some of the most famous (and broken) cards made their debut. In general however I do appreciate the cards right through the GX era and I am usually able to find cards from beyond that which I want in my collection.

Unlike Pokemon however, I did sell my collection off once I’d had enough the first time so getting back into collecting Yu-Gi-Oh was a steeper hill to climb. Fortunately, I’d kept a few cards that I’d held onto for sentimental reasons and these included the likes of my 1st Edition SDK Blue-Eyes White Dragon, secret rare Thousand Dragon and Ultra Rare LOB-coded Red-Eyes Black Dragon so there were a few desirable cards already ticked-off. My second era of collecting started with me simply buying cards that I liked or had fond memories of but due to purchasing many large joblots of cards, I accidentally found myself with lots of semi-complete full sets so after much organisation, I decided to go for full sets from Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon up to Enemy of Justice which was where I’d originally halted buying Yu-Gi-Oh back in the day. I also have many boxes and binders of promos, OCG (Japanese) cards and other stuff that I like enough to keep from sets beyond those that I collect.

So far I have only been able to complete Rise of Destiny but those early GX-era sets are quite small and less valuable so I actually managed that one without intending to and only had to purposely buy the last four cards which weren’t even that expensive. I’m taking my time however since my attention is also focused on Pokemon and the buying/selling side of Yu-Gi-Oh which can be quite lucrative if you know your stuff. I also like to follow the meta and pick up certain cards as future investments since card prices fluctuate massively and old cards can suddenly gain value if the community finds a worthwhile use for them within a new tournament-viable strategy. As well as potentially rewarding, I simply find all of this very interesting which is why I do it!

I do apologise for all the reading in this post but any future TCG-related posts will certainly be shorter and more to the point. This was just an intro of kinds before I start including TCG here on Darkstalker90 Gaming. I will still predominately be focusing on videogames but sometimes there just isn’t anything I feel like talking about so I’d like to have a few different subjects to mix things up a bit, this being one of them.

Has Fire Emblem become a Waifu Simulator?

This question (amongst others that I will discuss here in this post) was on my mind after having just invested 30+ hours into Fire Emblem Fates and deciding that I simply couldn’t be arsed to play the game anymore. A quick bit of background first though because I think that it’s extremely important to remember how the Western exposure of Nintendo/Intelligent Systems’ tactical gem has evolved in recent years. Fire Emblem has been around since the Famicom days in Japan and proved to be popular enough to spawn many sequels heading into the the 16-bit Super Famicom era. Over here however, it was a different story.

The first official Fire Emblem release that we received was for the Gameboy Advance back in 2003. Simply titled ‘Fire Emblem’, it was a prequel to the previous GBA release that remained a Japan-only deal and largely owed its English language existence to the popularity of Marth and Roy, two Fire Emblem protagonists that had been included as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Once our FE cherry had at last been popped, the sequels began to flow in the form of The Sacred Stones (GBA), Path of Radiance (Gamecube) and Radiant Dawn (Wii). A remake of the original Famicom title christened ‘Shadow Dragon’ was also released on the DS in 2008 (2009 for North America).

The graphics in Path of Radiance weren’t the prettiest by Gamecube standards but the gameplay was utter gold.

Up to this point, the series was still relatively niche in the West despite the steady flow of localised sequels in the wake of that initial GBA release. This modest popularity was likely propped up by Nintendo in the form of much smaller print runs of the games than other software releases on the same consoles (Shadow Dragon is a pretty expensive pre-owned game here in Europe for example). It sold well enough for the first 3DS installment – Fire Emblem Awakening – to be given the green light for us however and this is where things began to change. For the better? In some ways…but not ALL ways.

Now, I have to point out that Fire Emblem Awakening is one of my favourite games amongst all games that I have played since I started gaming in the early-mid 90’s. I ploughed around 130 hours into it and enjoyed promoting my characters and embarking on an excessive level of grinding in order to create a formidable army. At the same time, it was apparent that the tone of the series had shifted seismically in many respects. Fire Emblem has always been a series where you will find characters with luminous hair hues for example but with Awakening, the anime tropes were beginning to dominate. You could now advance support links between male and female characters to the point where they would declare their feelings for one another and marry and I actually quite liked this element as I thought it was handled pretty well.

However, the fact that your main character is custom-created at the outset of the game and supposed to reflect YOU, the strategist, meant that you had the choice of who to get it on with in midst of war. Is this a bad thing? No but the fact that the majority of FE players are male really endeared this aspect of Awakening to the “Waifu” crowd. Now for those unfamiliar with the term “waifu”, I’ve gone off and retrieved a definition of the word from one of many online dictionaries:

waifu. Noun. (fandom slang) A fictional character from non-live-action visual media (typically an anime, manga, or video game) that one is attracted to and considers a significant other.

One thing I always admired about Fire Emblem was the way in which it was able to give us attractive/pretty female characters who were also formidable warriors, clad in plate armour and not made to look overly-sexy in a try-hard manner. In Awakening however, these sorts of traditional FE ladies are joined by several more sexualised characters that gained a following all of their own (Tharja for example) and various bits of borderline jailbait clearly not prepped for bloody battlefields.

Your MC in Awakening can marry Nowi. If you feel uncomfortable with that, just constantly remember that she is actually over 1,000 years old.

This aside, there are other things about Awakening that really made me see FE as a series that was pandering to the Otaku types. The increase in crazy, out-there anime style characters for example or the DLC hot springs episode which – of course – included lots of awkward moments as battle-hardened valkyries suddenly switched chain mail for swimsuits or kimonos. I’m not saying that I’m against this kind of thing because I’m as appreciative of a bit of casual titillation as the next male BUT it made no sense in a Fire Emblem game and it was that thought which continued to return to me. On the whole though, Awakening was a great game with the usual excellent gameplay, some fantastic music and – despite some of the weirdos – some brilliant characters. Yes, these new elements felt out of place in an FE game but thanks to how addictive the gameplay itself was, there was a pretty good balance.

Then came Fire Emblem Fates, a follow-up with a brand-new world, storyline and characters unrelated to Awakening as is often the case with FE sequels. The game was unique in that it shipped as two versions, entitled “Birthright” and “Conquest”, with each edition following a different perspective of the storyline’s war. A third segment of Fates called “Revelation” was then released digitally on the e-shop (or available physically in the Collector’s Edition) which tied together both games and acted as a conclusion of sorts. This sounded very interesting to me and I battled for a long time against stock shortages and greedy ebay re-sellers to obtain a Collector’s Edition boxset (and story/saga in itself) so that I could get the cartridge that contained all three parts of the storyline. After the brilliance of Awakening, this had to be the next step up? Wrong.

Oh boy! Somebody forgot their armour…yep, we’re knee-deep in Waifu territory with Fire Emblem Fates.

Aside from my gripes with the gameplay additions (such as new classes that I didn’t particularly like) and the fact that I didn’t care one inch for the storyline, there were many aspects of the game that had fully stepped over that line into Otaku territory. Waifu-ism was rampant now, especially when it came to the eye-poppingly breasty Camilla (pictured above) who thought that wearing some token midriff armour but leaving her overflowing chest and underpants exposed is a good idea when going up against axes and spears. Again, I cannot lie and say that I don’t like her design but I also think that it’s not very Fire Emblem and shouldn’t really belong here.

There are all these female characters for the male Waifu fanatic to choose from and this time, when you marry, the two of you have a little house within your army’s fort and certain ‘events’ trigger upon visiting such as receiving a kiss from your significant other or having them speak to you directly in a first-person viewpoint. Most of these moments are quite touching (if you’re a bit of a softie like me) but time and time again, I felt myself asking “is this just too much?”. Along with wildly mis-matched,  impractical outfits for many of the women, the romance element made me feel that the game was definitely part Waifu simulator.

There were other issues of course. I couldn’t care less about the majority of the characters for example and the usual assortment of stereotypical personalities were gradually drip-fed into my swelling assortment of units. The game also committed the sin (in my opinion anyway) of having a Japanese/Ninja-themed setting in a fictional, fantasy world. What is that all about? Why do developers have to do it? Familiarity for Japanese players perhaps? Possibly but for me, this sort of thing has always struck me as lazy and unispired and yes, I will include the likes of Final Fantasy VII‘s Wutai in that criticism. No game is safe.

Usually, Tharja would probably suck your soul away with the Nosferatu spell but because Waifu culture is a thing, THIS can happen too.

Overall, I simply didn’t enjoy Fates. Once again, I will just reaffirm that I really don’t mind the pervy fanservice-y stuff (such as the above image) but there are games specifically geared towards that kind of stuff and I really don’t think that Fire Emblem is the place for it. Unfortunately, Intelligent Systems likely had no say in the matter because – from what I have read – declining sales of the series (even in Japan) forced Nintendo to issue an ultimatum when it came to Awakening: sell 250,000 units or it will be the final Fire Emblem installment. This would largely explain why they have shifted the tone a little and tried to appeal to that niche but sizeable Otaku crowd. The move clearly paid off but at what price? The series seems secure for now but it has taken a new path that the old-school fans who grew up playing translations of the Famicom/Super Famicom releases may (understandably) turn their noses up at.

One final note/disclaimer from me is just to say that at the time of writing this post, I haven’t played the latest 3DS Fire Emblem game which is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden. Drop me a comment down below and let me know if it is a little more restrained than Fates…

Digital: Pokemon Silver Version (3DS e-shop)

Recently I have had serious trouble finding the time to sit down and really get stuck into a home console game. I have various titles on the go for different machines but work and life in general keep getting in way. Enter the saviour that is handheld gaming. So far on this blog, I have talked about the PSP quite a bit but I owe my interest in handheld gaming to the Gameboy Colour which was my very first machine (discounting the Playstation in the house which wasn’t my own console). As with a lot of people my age, I received the GBC as a Christmas gift purely because I wanted to play Pokemon like all of my friends at school were doing. Red Version was where it all began but it would be the follow-ups, Pokemon Gold/Silver, that would really impress…

This moody title screen was impressive for an 8-Bit handheld…

I can distinctly remember being given some sort of really thick, unofficial Pokemon magazine by my Gran which had loads of information on the upcoming sequels. The magazine mapped out the initial few towns/routes, showed all of the new monsters (with Japanese names) and detailed new features to the series such as berries, the Poke-Gear and the introduction of Dark and Steel types. I absolutely pored over this magazine which was bringing us the latest information straight from Japan and the sequels simply could not come soon enough. I saved money bit by bit (money being difficult to come across as a child!) until I had the required £29.99 put aside in advance and I’ll be completely honest: I miss those days. Being so impressed and excited for a videogame as well as slowly but surely scraping the money together to buy it…so much better than the present day me who thinks “meh” to most game announcements and could afford any new release immediately if I was feeling irresponsible enough to casually drop £40-£50 on a PS4 game (which I very rarely do).

The very best part though was that the game lived up to all the expectations I had and then completely surpassed them. I opted for the Silver version since a) Lugia looked cooler than Ho-oh and b) there was this strange, unspoken sureness that the Gold version would be better because the word ‘Gold’ sounds more impressive than ‘Silver’. This meant that more people at school owned Gold Version and so having the opposite meant that I would be a more attractive trading partner. On a side note, this amusing little quirk also happened with Ruby/Sapphire on the GBA but since then, I think Nintendo haven’t produced a duo of Pokemon games with one version sounding better than the other.

Colour! This was a huge deal back on release.

Fast forward to 2017 and I have just downloaded the digital re-release of the game from Nintendo’s 3DS e-shop service. Initially I’d been intending to pick up the re-release of Red/Blue that has been available for some time now but I’d completely forgotten that Gold/Silver had also been slated for a re-release so when I saw these little beauties were available…well, I HAD to skip a generation unfortunately because Johto was calling and I didn’t have enough shop credit for both. These games retail for £8.99 by the way which is expensive for a digital download of a retro game but I personally think that the price is extremely fair for the size and depth of the games. Don’t forget that original cartridges have shot up in value over the years and that it is depressingly easy to end up with a bootleg copy or a genuine cart with a dead battery that needs replacing. These 3DS downloads bypass all of that and are so convenient. The 3DS’ rubbish battery life also does a great job of emulating the Gameboy Colour gobbling up those AA batteries!

Understandably, I was a little dubious about returning to one of my all-time favourite games in case I’d been looking back through rose-tinted specs all of these years. Thankfully this wasn’t the case and I am happy to say that I am utterly in love with this game all over again. Going so far backwards in a series that has evolved (get it?) so much over the years takes a bit of getting used to, mind. I’ve ploughed hundreds of hours into the GBA games and first generation of DS games (Diamond/Pearl) for example and so returning to a time where there were no passive Pokemon powers, no animated sprites, no weather effects and no many other things takes some getting used to. I keep expecting to be paralysed when hitting an electric type with a physical attack for instance. I imagine it would be even tougher for anybody who has played the DS remakes or the newer 3DS installments, doubly so if they are a younger gamer who only started playing Pokemon with the latest games.

Night-time was another “wow” moment in 2001

Maybe I AM blinded by nostalgia but I personally prefer the older games like this. The more primitive sound effects and old-school sprites invoke a warm fuzziness inside – sights and sounds of a simpler time. I find a lot more charm in these things anyway (regardless of the reason) and also happen to enjoy the more stripped-back simplicity of the game with knocking over the game’s gyms, trashing the Elite Four and swiping as many different Pokemon as possible being your only objectives. Obviously there were a few new distractions added to the second generation of Pokemon games and a lot of these relied on the game’s in-built date/time facility which dictated when certain events such as the bug-catching contest would occur. Other nice touches included trainers calling you on the phone (with pretty terrible conversation it has to be said!), being able to use the radio and different Pokemon appearing depending on whether it was day or night. At the time, these additions were incredible despite how trivial they may seem today. I’ve not played any of the 3DS generations of the games so I imagine that there is so much to do in those versions but I’m in no rush to find out. My Pokemon obsession ended with Diamond so while I am interested in catching up, I would still rather go back to a more focused and ‘innocent’ period in the series’ life such as Silver Version.

My current play-through is going very well and I’ve found myself using Pokemon in my team that I would never have previously even considered such as Slowpoke, Exeggcute and Zubat (mostly all evolved and nicely levelled by now of course). Revisiting all of the old towns and hearing that fantastic 8-Bit music again has been a lovely experience so far but I’m only around halfway through what the game has to offer with one final Johto gym standing in my way. Catching Lugia is my first priority however but the initial attempt didn’t go very well! I completely forgot about how Lugia makes the battle so annoying with its ‘Recover’ move as well as how higher level monsters in these older games simply refuse to be captured, even when at the lowest HP point and hit with a status effect. All good fun though!

So would I recommend this download? Whole heartedly. As I said earlier, the price may look steep for a retro download but considering all that you avoid by not trying to buy a working, genuine original copy then it’s fantastic value and having the game on your 3DS memory card with all of your other stuff is just so convenient and perfect for taking on the move – in perfect keeping with the spirit of the original releases and their pocket nature. I really hope that they also offer Crystal at some point since the remixed storyline, introduction of Pokemon animations and other little tweaks made it an update worth playing through all over again way back when and I’d happily do the same again today. Make it happen Nintendo!.