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…

Is Suda51 Overrated?

Overrate (verb) : to have a higher opinion of (something or someone) than is deserved.

I realise that the very title of this topic may appear sacrilegious to many but it was something that came up when chatting to a friend about games in general and I thought it was worth exploring. This friend (who has been gaming since the SNES days so has an opinion I put some stock in) had recently completed Flower, Sun and Rain for the DS and described it as “horrendous”; one of the worst games he’d ever played. He had then also tried to play through Shadows of the Damned on the Xbox 360 but gave up part-way through on account of the game just not striking him as interesting enough to continue. I’d not played Flower, Sun and Rain myself so I wasn’t able to share (or not share) his scathing criticism of that particular game but I DID have a copy of Shadows of the Damned for PS3 in my (embarassing) stack of unplayed games. Naturally, I decided that it had to be moved up the pile. I had after all purchased it on the back of it a) being a Suda51/Grasshopper-developed game and b) the positive comments that the game seemed to get on forums from those who had played it.

I may not have bothered with this discussion on whether Suda51 is overrated as a developer at all but I did play Shadows of the Damned and I had to agree with my friend. The game was a painfully standard, linear third-person shooter with irritating mechanics, dull/miserable environments and “edgy humour” which amounted to your speaking gun constantly spewing out phallus jokes. I have to stress that the game wasn’t bad: it worked and was perfectly playable but it also did nothing to interest me or keep me playing beyond the first 4-5 levels so I binned it off because I’m not the person who likes to persevere with average games if I have other things to be playing.

It’s far from ugly but we’ve seen all of this before.

This was a genuine disappointment because I’ve always been a big fan of anything that Suda51 and his Grasshopper Manufacture team put out. In a gaming landscape dominated by FPS’s, sports games and seemingly endless sequels to cash-cow franchises, I admired the way in which he pushed forward with risky and incredibly niche concepts that went against what the marketing men wanted. Games like the bizarre Killer 7 or joyfully weird No More Heroes were welcome treats in release schedules that often did little to turn me on. Shadows of the Damned does indeed have some noticeable splashes of Suda51 weirdness but the overriding sense was that I was playing a fairly standard shooter that had had gore, tits, swearing and penis jokes thrown at it. Now these aren’t always bad things in themselves but such additions can come off as lazy attempts to sell a game to an adult audience. I’m not saying that this was the intention but it’s just how Shadows of the Damned rubbed me up personally. Ultimately, it just didn’t sparkle and keep me intrigued as many of Suda51’s previous efforts had done in the past.

This was how I ended up giving a second thought to what my friend had said about beginning to believe that Suda51 is overrated. Had he simply been lucky with his first few “big” releases for us Western gamers? Has he ran out of ideas in recent years? Or were his games actually not all that good when considered as standalone products and not antidotes to what the industry was trying to get us to buy? Before we go any further, I’ve pulled up a list of all the games that Suda51 has been involved in so that there is some sort of reference before I attempt any further analysis. Titles that I have put in bold are the ones that I have personally played.

• Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout (Super Famicom, Director)*
• Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special (Super Famicom, Director)*
• Twilight Syndrome: Search (Playstation, Director)*
• Twilight Syndrome: Investigation (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• Moonlight Syndrome (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• The Silver Case (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• Flower, Sun and Rain (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• Michigan: Report from Hell (Playstation 2, Original Plan/Producer)
• Killer 7 (Gamecube/Playstation 2, Director/Designer/Writer)
• Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• Contact (Nintendo DS, Producer)
• Blood+: One Night Kiss (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii, Director/Designer/Writer)
• Flower, Sun and Rain: Murder and Mystery in Paradise (Nintendo DS, Supervisor/Original Game Staff)
• Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Nintendo Wii, Director/Writer)*
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Nintendo Wii, Executive Director)
• Shadows of the Damned (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Producer/Writer/Story)
• Rebuild of Evagelion: Sound Impact (PSP, Creative Producer)*
• Sine Mora (Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PSVita/PC, Producer)
• Diabolical Pitch (Xbox 360, Producer)
• Lollipop Chainsaw (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Creative Producer)
• Liberation Maiden (Nintendo 3DS/iOS, Original Concept/Creative Director)
• Black Knight Sword (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Producer/Writer)
• Killer Is Dead (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Director/Screenwriter/Story)
• Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day (Playstation 3, Original Story/Scenario Writer/Overseeing Director)
• The Silver Case (Remaster) (Playstation 4/PC, Producer)
• Let It Die (Playstation 4, Executive Director)
• The 25th Ward: The Silver Case (Remake) (Playstation 4, Producer)
• Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes (Nintendo Switch, Director/Writer)

A few things to note from the above list:

1. Games marked with a * were only released in Japan. The bulk of Suda51’s early work didn’t make it to the West save for the few titles that have been remastered/remade in recent years.
2. As you can see, he has had varying roles on different games. It is hard to consider everything Suda51 has been involved with to be all his own for example.

The important, most prominent titles from his back catalogue for us in the West would arguably have to consist of:

• Killer 7
• No More Heroes
• No More Heroes 2
• Flower, Sun and Rain (DS version)
• Shadows of the Damned
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Killer is Dead

This focused selection of games are what I would consider to be most crucial to us (and this discussion) because despite Suda51’s large portfolio, these are the titles we know him best for. But how do we recognise a Suda51 game without prior knowledge of his involvement? Typically, the games won’t be technical masterpieces and will often be behind the curve in terms of graphics and modern mechanics BUT sheer style tries (and often succeeds) to compensate. We’re talking crazy plots, bizarre characters and moments that make you think “I can’t believe they got away with including this in the game!”. Blood, heavily sexualised females and all manner of self-indulgent elements (such as Suda51’s love of wrestling and America for example) will also inevitably play a part in these experiences which are arguably style over much substance.

Lollipop Chainsaw was gory, sexy and oh so very weird. Unmistakably a Suda51 creation.

[On a brief side note, it is also important to remember that our impressions of Suda51 titles here in the West are skewed by the fact that we only really received the downright bizarre stuff with bloody violence and daring attitude. Some of his earlier works that remained in Japan focus on crime and mystery. It’s a shame that we didn’t really get a lot of those things over here.]

The big draw for a Suda51 game back in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation was the fact that we they were simply different and challenged the status quo. True, oddball games have always existed on any gaming platform but the likes of Killer 7 received a lot of press attention pre-release and these sorts of games were hailed as the antidote within a generation of gaming that had become obsessed with sequels, FPS’s and violent crime titles that were striving to be realistic and gritty/urban. Suda51 games were bright and colourful but also extremely dark and bizarre. No More Heroes on the Wii for example was a breath of fresh air on a console drowning in family-friendly software and fitness aids. The updated ‘Heroes’ Paradise‘ edition on the PS3 made very few waves however, an assessment which could also be levelled at the direct sequel to the original on the Wii which – while being the far better game – failed to garner as much interest and intrigue.

No More Heroes doesn’t hold back on the violence but was a more endearing experience than the senseless violence in the likes of GTA which were striving for realism.

And this for me is the crux of the issue when asking the question “Is Suda51 overrated?”. Once the shock value has worn off, once we’ve become partially desensitised to the wackiness and once we no longer need a cel-shaded champion to save us from being overrun by miserable brown WWII shooters, where does that leave a Suda51 game?

Speaking from my own personal experience, I adored a game like No More Heroes despite the fact that it is a heavily flawed game. It was unable to escape the necessity of motion controls (when the game would have been better without) and the barren open world was pretty awful for travelling around in to name two examples but I was able to forgive it because it was deliciously quirky and just the sort of thing that I wanted more of here in the West. It felt good to support the game on the Wii too at a time when newspapers and parent groups were furiously demanding that their little white family box not be made a home for the likes of NMH, House of the Dead Overkill and Madworld. Thing is, gaming has moved on as have expectations. We are no longer so prepared to put up with clunkiness or terrible game design masked over by style alone. Additionally, the last generation of consoles really opened the gates for more weird Japanese software. The PS3, PS4 and PSVita for example are home to lots of JRPG’s, visual novels and racy games such as Senran Kagura and Valkyrie Drive – all the sorts of games that we used to rarely get and would have to go out of our way to import for modified/hacked hardware capable of playing them. Sure, a Suda51 game will have a billion percent more artistic merit than a game like Senran Kagura but the underlying feeling is that we – as gamers – are no longer starved of ‘different’ experiences.

So to come full circle and return to Shadows of the Damned, it’s entirely possible that I would have really enjoyed this game and been prepared to overlook the flaws had it been a PS2-era release. As a PS3 game however, it simply didn’t excite and tried too hard to be hardcore and openly controversial. The following Lollipop Chainsaw was much more likable but then again it was far more akin the likes of Killer 7 and NMH in its colourful but bloody tone. That said, I’m sure that it failed to impress gamers in general who could look past the short skirts and nutty cutscenes. After all, zombies, linearity and a combo-based grading system were hardly revolutionary concepts.

I’ve yet to play Killer Is Dead but it seems that the critics saw through the style based on the general concensus that it isn’t a particularly fantastic game. Personally this doesn’t bother me and I will of course give the game a go (since I seem to be more forgiving than most…) but it’s interesting to note that there was very little fanfare surrounding its release despite the game – on the surface at least – bearing resemblances to past triumphs.

Killer is Dead certainly looks similar to past Suda51 efforts.

Is Suda51 overrated then? I don’t think so. I think his most lauded games were products of their time, praised in comparison to what was then considered to be stale on the same platforms. Times change as do expectations and what we have access to. His output was – in effect – being rated against what gamers wanted to escape from and therefore I believe that the general perception of what a Suda51 game is has always been a little warped. Personally, I’m a fan but it will be VERY interesting to see how No More Heroes 3 for the Switch fares when it releases. The Switch – in my eyes – is a huge success like the Wii but other than Mario Odyssey (and discounting Wii-U ports) there doesn’t seem to be many must-have “big” games. Could NMH3 tap into that same hunger for something different and exclusive that existed back in the Wii days or has the audience moved on?

Why I love Femme Fatales in Videogames

Contrary to the fact that I’m not posting on here every day, I do actually have a lot of things to say and various topics/reviews semi-written in my mind (just not physically typed-up where it matters…) so it’s a shame that life just loves to get in the way. Anyway, today I have found some time…time to plunge my arm into that insane melting pot of thoughts that is my mind and retrieve this topic centred on Femme Fatales in videogames. Or “Why I find dangerous, psychotic videogame girls sexy”. Yeah, that didn’t sound so great as the official title hence why I didn’t go with it.

So, what is it about femme fatales that I like so much? Well, I’m probably not alone in saying that I find strong women attractive and as much as I will unashamedly confess to having fun with pretty bimbo types in the likes of Dead or Alive Xtreme, I much prefer a strong lead female with a well-written personality/backstory. That’s the normal part. The not-so-normal part is that I find the psychotic, killer archtype pretty damn attractive as well when it comes to videogames (and books and movies too for that matter). Maybe it isn’t so strange though given how many guys seem to get some serious wood over DC’s Harley Quinn?

As well as attractive, I just consider the really bad girls to be straight-up cool and interesting. To better illustrate my point, I’ve compiled a shortlist of some of my favourite femme fatales who immediately spring to mind…

Tira (Soul Calibur III)

Let me begin by saying that Soul Calibur‘s most attractive lady is – without any doubt – Sophitia for her Greek Goddess-like charms and I will always ‘main’ her in any SC installment or at least her style via custom-created characters (the less said about her absence in SCV and poor replacement in the form of her daughter, the better). When Tira was introduced in Soul Calibur III however, I took an immediate liking to her. The blue hair was very out-of-place in the game but otherwise, I really dug her sexy green rags, feathers and pet raven. Most importantly though, her fighting style was new and unique and actually utilised her loopy personality with multiple stances accompanied by visible mood swings for the character. Tira is nuts and loves killing in an excitable child-like way that really does remind my of Harley Quinn. A really fun character that I am pleased to see appear in every installment since her debut.

Jane Doe (Devil’s Third)

Devil’s Third for the Wii-U is no classic. It was in fact, a pretty poor game in my opinion that could (and should) have been something rather more special but the end product was a generic third-person action game full of the cheap crap that should have been left behind years ago in videogames such as invisible walls, inconsistent difficulty spikes and painful linearity. There were a few good elements though and some interesting characters (that were pretty much wasted by being in this game) such as Jane Doe, one of the toughest bosses in the game. A voluptuous Spanish beauty clad in a traditional Japanese kimono (when you first meet her in the game), she soon ditches the far eastern garb for…sexy lingerie and a massive rifle?!? Yep, she’s a bit of a mish-mash of things but all you need to know is that Jane has killer curves and equally dangerous attacks. Fight from a distance and she will try to gun you down but get up close and personal and try to dance toe-to-toe with her? Yeah, you will probably die…a lot. She has several kinky moves involving choking Ivan with her thighs or trying to break his neck while making suggestive groaning noises. If this kind of thing turns you on then repeatedly falling foul of her cheap one-shot kills may not be a terrible thing.

Bad Girl (No More Heroes)

Surely a cute blonde in a Little Bo Peep get-up can’t be that dangerous, right? Wrong. The original No More Heroes was one of a slew of games for the Wii that dared to ignore the trend for family-friendly software on Nintendo’s crazy successful lil’ white box and us gamer’s loved Suda51 for it. The sequel is arguably the better and more streamlined game but the original is worth playing, even if it’s just for Bad Girl. That sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt image is quickly discarded as Bad Girl reveals herself to be a foul-mouthed, beer-chugging psychopath with an unpredictable personality and a love for beating bound/gagged male gimps to death with her trusty baseball bat. It’s the kind of madness that can only come from somebody like Suda51 and Travis Touchdown’s encounter with this crazy lady is as memorable as it is fucked-up. Is it wrong to be just a little bit turned-on by Bad Girl’s insanity?

Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles)

Now for character that has partially been ruined on the internet by exaggerated fan art: Selvaria Bles from Sega’s most excellent Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. This is a game that I cannot praise enough and while the sequels are an acquired taste for the truly devoted, the original is an outstanding tactical RPG that was a true breath of fresh air upon release, both in terms of gameplay and world design. The character of Selvaria was one of the best things about the game in my humble opinion. One of the opposing armies’ main generals, Selvaria wields the ancient power of the Valkyrur and is a feared force known to all. On the battlefield she is practically invincible and can destroy tanks with a single shot from her huge energy lance. There is a particular chapter in the game where Selvaria suddenly rocks up midway through the battle and proceeds to utterly demolish a player who foolishly believes that they can actually take her out like any other enemy boss. All you can do is frantically hide and attempt to complete the mission without Selvaria slaughtering all of your units. Valkyria Chronicles’ superb storytelling comes to fore when it initially portrays Selvaria to be a cold, merciless warrior but in reality she is simply being used by Maximillion, loyalty and love for her leader exploited so that he may wield her power in the Europan war. The DLC chapter titled Behind Her Blue Flame is particularly touching as Selvaria is revealed to be warm and caring towards your nameless engineer character. It’s a small bit of quality writing that shows that even the enemy is human and not necessarily evil.
Selvaria makes this list for being a great character in general, a fearsome/memorable enemy boss and a rare example of a female character designed to be attractive but also strong and succeeding on both counts.

Ayane (Dead or Alive)

I suppose when talking about femme fatales, I should be talking about “bad” girls and – as already mentioned – sexy nutcases but Kasumi’s half-sister from Dead or Alive isn’t really either of those things. She’s cocky and arrogant as a character but not an evil/bad person yet I suppose I will say that she leans more in that direction just to get Ayane on a list of some kind – she’s a bad girl at the least in some sense. Whenever I play Dead or Alive, I always ‘main’ Ayane because I love her speed, agility and the way that you maintain a distance from your opponent and punish them when they close in. Of course, it helps a ton that Team Ninja have always made her aesthetically pleasing on the eye and while most fanboys prefer Kasumi, I prefer her purple-haired nemesis for some reason. Surely it couldn’t be because Ayane is one of the most top-heavy of the DOA girls? No (what do you take me for?)…she’s just a cool girl in a cool fighting game. And she’s a ninja – everybody loves ninjas.

Nina Williams (Tekken)

There aren’t may Irish characters in videogames and even less female Irish assassins so Tekken‘s Nina Williams pretty much has the niche to herself although there’s nothing particularly Irish about her, especially with respect to her voice-actress who is…er…not very Irish. This blonde bombshell was clearly Namco’s version of Virtua Fighter‘s Sarah Bryant back in 1994 when the original Tekken was released into arcades and (more importantly) the Playstation. A cool-headed assassin with top-tier combos and a selection of bone-snapping holds, Nina may look like a sexy model but she’s utterly bad-ass and calculating as per her assassin occupation. I’ve always mained Nina in Tekken (after Kazuya) and love her combos plus her variety of special ops-inspired outfits. I even have a soft spot for her solo PS2 game, Death By Degrees, despite the majority of people agreeing that it’s a poor game (possibly something I can properly re-visit and speak about in the future). Also, you have to admire Namco’s way of keeping Nina youthful between Tekken 2 and 3‘s large time lapse by explaining that she’d been placed in cryogenic storage. We certainly weren’t complaining.

There are undoubtedly more great examples of femme fatales that I have forgotten about and countless more from games that I haven’t even played so what do you think? Do you also have a little something for the wackier ladies in gaming? Do you agree or disagree with my choices? Let me know!