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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 7, 2020 10:26:49 GMT -5
As usual, Nintendo delivers a presentation, but not the one you were expecting.
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jan 9, 2020 10:02:24 GMT -5
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (the first one), and DLC for Sword and Shield. Looks good, and I'd say it's actually a good example of how modern RPG DLCs should work. Some fans will probably still complain about how it's still not all Pokémon returning, and maybe rant on how they made the base game bad in the first place to push DLC, I guess.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 9, 2020 15:12:30 GMT -5
I'm not into Pokemon. I don't know why I watched this.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 14, 2020 10:31:02 GMT -5
Here's another not-quite Nintendo Direct.
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jan 16, 2020 10:18:01 GMT -5
Byleth is in Smash. Yay!
We finally get a trailer on the Three Houses side story and a very surprising February 13 release date. Double yay!
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 16, 2020 11:15:45 GMT -5
I lol'd.
Wow, there's a lot of dislikes on that YouTube video.
Sakurai: "We couldn't add a Xenoblade Chronicles 2 character because the game was too recent."
Also Sakurai: "Never too early for another Fire Emblem character!"
XD
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Post by nocturnal YL on Jan 16, 2020 13:09:22 GMT -5
I'm not a fan of how the "recent" games like Xenoblade 2 and ARMS were treated. They came to the conclusion that they couldn't be made too early, especially when they planned to have DLC from the very beginning. They really should have waited for DLC for those recent games. Personally, I do like the addition of Byleth for these reasons: - A lot of western Smash fans don't like it, and I find said fans annoying in general (#1 offense, not shutting up about Smash in places that have nothing to do with Smash; #2 offense, mob mentality, focusing too much on too few topics). It may be a bit malicious on my part, but they deserve to be offended.
- Fire Emblem has 3 stages prior to this, and only 1 is based on a specific game. I think it needs more.
- 8 fighters may be too many, but it's also a magic number that fits an 8-player match.
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Post by Nester the Lark on Jan 16, 2020 14:25:41 GMT -5
I understand it was probably a reaction to the previous characters being leaked, but Sakurai's big buildup about how this was a super secret character that even most Nintendo staff didn't know about probably didn't do the reveal any favors. Even if I owned Smash Ultimate, I wouldn't have strong feelings about it. I think most people are excited for Byleth, especially Fire Emblem fans, but yeah, there's also that toxic, vocal segment, too. Also, there's that gif, now, of Sakurai giving the middle finger from when he was using his fingers to count in binary. I have to admit, even as I was watching it, it seemed so non sequitur that I was wondering if it was just his subtle way of flipping people off.  |
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Post by Leon on Jan 16, 2020 16:35:02 GMT -5
Gotta say, I'm feeling pretty good.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jan 16, 2020 23:02:04 GMT -5
I’m quite not interested in Byleth, and let me explain why. This guy right here has a franchise that outsells Fire Emblem by nearly 10m sales, including a single game that is 3m sales shy of having sold as many as all of Fire Emblem. One playable character. Okay, okay. You can reasonably argue that Yoshi’s icon notwithstanding, he’s basically a Mario character. Okay, acceptable argument. Legend of Zelda as a franchise outsells Fire Emblem by an almost 7:1 ratio. 6 characters, 3 of whom are just different iterations of the same fundamental character, in a world where Hyrule Warriors exists. Still not convinced? Okay. Kirby holds double Fire Emblem’s market share. Star Fox is on par with Fire Emblem. My point is: Although it is great to see Fire Emblem being promoted because it is absolutely a great franchise, there are plenty of other franchises which deserve attention as well, and if Fire Emblem warrants this level of attention for Smash Bros., then why don’t we have characters like Kamek, Darunia, Marx, or Krystal? Why do we keep getting Fire Emblem sword-lord after Fire Emblem sword-lord? What do they bring to the table that other characters from other franchises don’t, that makes them deserve almost 10% of the roster space? I’ve discussed this in the past - there was a topic of discussion...I think it was even here at NinDB?...about Earthbound representation while Brawl was still a thing where I basically said “Okay, but there’s basically as much content for DK as for Earthbound.” It’s the same concept in reverse: Fire Emblem’s sales figures do not warrant this kind of representation in comparison to several franchises which aren’t getting it. (I do admit to only using one source for my numbers here, vgsales.fandom.com, so I accept full liability if my numbers are inaccurate or based on outdated data.) Also Cuphead in Smash is great because that team absolutely deserves love. It’s great seeing worthy indie developers finally getting representation in Smash. |
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Post by Leon on Jan 17, 2020 15:30:11 GMT -5
My point is: Although it is great to see Fire Emblem being promoted because it is absolutely a great franchise, there are plenty of other franchises which deserve attention as well, and if Fire Emblem warrants this level of attention for Smash Bros., then why don’t we have characters like Kamek, Darunia, Marx, or Krystal? Why do we keep getting Fire Emblem sword-lord after Fire Emblem sword-lord? What do they bring to the table that other characters from other franchises don’t, that makes them deserve almost 10% of the roster space? Byleth is the main character from their game, all those guys are not. |
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jan 17, 2020 16:23:38 GMT -5
My point is: Although it is great to see Fire Emblem being promoted because it is absolutely a great franchise, there are plenty of other franchises which deserve attention as well, and if Fire Emblem warrants this level of attention for Smash Bros., then why don’t we have characters like Kamek, Darunia, Marx, or Krystal? Why do we keep getting Fire Emblem sword-lord after Fire Emblem sword-lord? What do they bring to the table that other characters from other franchises don’t, that makes them deserve almost 10% of the roster space? Byleth is the main character from their game, all those guys are not. From a game in a much larger franchise. Unless you’re suggesting 8 different Pokémon trainers? Or every incarnation of Link? Or that every Fire Emblem game is its own franchise somehow? Like, aside from “Three Houses is the new one,” what justifies Byleth over any other character even just in the Fire Emblem series? What is the main character of one chapter of a sixteen book franchise? And again, how do Fire Emblem’s sales on the order of a franchise justify its scale of representation being third only to Mario and Pokémon? Yeah, Fire Emblem is a great game, exemplary in many ways of the turn-based strategy genre, but again, numbers don’t lie, it’s nowhere near being a bigger series than Zelda, it’s still got a ways to go to be a Yoshi or Kirby, and should be on equal footing - perhaps greater footing for consistent quality - with Star Fox. That’s damning, and speaks to the questionable decision-making that went into this whole thing. |
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Post by Leon on Jan 17, 2020 17:17:34 GMT -5
Fire Emblem always gets new protagonists, it's not FE's fault that Zelda, Kirby or Star Fox always reuse the same characters. If they added some significant new blood, I'm sure Nintendo would request their presence in Smash.
To be quite blunt, I'm not sure why you're bringing up sales as if that's some sort of silver bullet? Who cares if Star Fox used to be a high performing series in the 90's? Today Star Fox doesn't sell, and is no longer a core IP for Nintendo. Fire Emblem in contrast has become a consistent performer for Nintendo, with former NCL president Kimishima even describing it as a major IP for Nintendo. You even neglected to mention Fire Emblem Heroes, which has basically been solely supporting Nintendo's mobile division until Mario Kart Tour launched a few months ago.
Nintendo clearly wanted a character from one of their 2019 games in the DLC, and frankly there aren't a lot of options to go with.
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Post by Shrikeswind on Jan 17, 2020 17:57:49 GMT -5
I’m bringing up sales numbers because that’s a generally good indicator of franchise value. Also, Legend of Zelda does introduce new characters all the time. Hell, the only absolute is Link. You could reasonably have 8 Zelda characters in Smash with maybe 4 recurring characters and most people wouldn’t bat an eye (Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, and choose 5 of Impa, Skull Kid, Tingle, Tetra, Midna, Fi, any unlisted OoT Sage, any unlisted Hyrule Warriors character, or any of the champions from BotW, I say Urbosa but that’s because my favorites tend to predictably be the sexy badasses. =P) There’s a substantial cast to choose from. And like you said, Fire Emblem is absolutely a consistent franchise, but it’s laughable to say that it’s more consistent than Legend of Zelda.
As for Fire Emblem Heroes, I’m willing to concede on the grounds that I’m not going to pretend like I know what I’m talking about when it comes to a mobile game being successful, in part because of my admittedly biased lack of respect for mobile games (a principled one! But my opinions concerning privacy, targeted advertising, and microtransactions aren’t relevant here) and in part because I don’t know how I’d even begin to quantify success for a mobile game.
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Post by Leon on Jan 17, 2020 20:36:54 GMT -5
Supporting characters Urbosa and the sages have not traditionally been added to Smash and you know that. Also none of those characters represent a recent game in Nintendo's lineup.
I would also add that Smash is more than just the fighters, Zelda has plenty of stages, music, spirits, assist trophies, and items. It's hardly under-served in Smash.
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