NINTENDO 3DS

Korg have made a sequel to the DS-10! so on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGgQ4jfBEJk

i love these products cuz they enable my dream of laying down some badass dance grooves (so not gonna happen tho)

Best Buy is running this week a buy one get one free (!) promo on these games:

Pokemon X
Pokemon Y
Kirby Triple Deluxe
Yoshi's New Island
Tomodachi Life
Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Bravely Default
Mario Golf World Tour
Mario Party Island Tour
Disney Magical World

I have Pokemon X and Bravely Default. What should I get in addition to Zelda? Leaning towards Mario Golf, Yoshi or Kirby.

haven't played Kirby but most swear by it

Golf is solid, lots of online tournaments replacing the RPG parts of previous games, challenges are numerous & fun, DLC courses are worth downloading. Haven't played either of them but general feeling seems to be Yoshi is mediocre and Kirby is v good.

Son of a bitch, I should've jumped on this more quickly. All these titles are suddenly store pick-up only, and of course every store is somehow out of these games which they had dozens of copies of last week. I'll have to go in-store and hunt these down locally.

Oh never mind, looks like BB's site is just throwing up

ffff. i have no idea anymore

Currently playing Bravely Default, about ten-fifteen hours in.

Good things:

- Appreciate the difficulty, even early battles are by no means a hold-down-the-X button walk in the park
- Difficulty is largely well-calibrated as you move into new areas. I get cocky, then get my ass kicked, which is how RPGs ought to work
- Job selection mechanic recalls some of my favourite games. Allows a pleasing level of tinkering, inventory faffing and general customization—both for the game as a whole and for individual bosses or areas
- Impressively ugly and threatening monsters
- Beautiful hand-drawn towns that are worth turning on the 3D for
- Dungeon design suits the handheld scenario (individual floors are easy to clear within one session, which sidesteps Why Am I Here? syndrome)

Not as good things:

- Plot is a bit too 80s (defeat the four crystals or whatever), but with layers of tedious innuendo
- Prefer JRPG plots that are more "mature" (ie. incomprehensible political maneuvering between kingdoms)
- Plays better with the sound off (voice acting is unnecessary and overwrought, music is not varied or sophisticated enough—my benchmark for RPG soundtrack is now Fire Emblem: Awakening, which was the last game I played)
- Wailing electric guitar in battle music (big turn off where RPGs are concerned)
- Bosses have more HP than cunning
- Sexist, puerile (at best) representation of female characters. Would young Japanese males (presumably the original target for the game) really care if their video games didn't contain scantily-clad adolescents? Something tells me not much is being gained by Japanese publishers here, while this is actually hurting sales and credibility of the genre in the west more than anyone realizes.

Oh they realize it - they're actually slightly more covered up in the NA version

I read that. They toned it down, but then went and put some really embarrassing cover art on it. At least the EU release cover had the party posed in a strong and defiant way, with Agnès in the lead instead of just looking on in a servile way like some Japanese games (as recent examples, the "Tales of..." series and the "Rune Factory" series routinely have the most abysmally dopey cover art).

Actually, based on the EU cover art and the name, I didn't realize Ringabel is male—his hairstyle rather resembles La Roux's Elly Jackson—and thought maybe the Japanese are starting to get it. Also there are some strong, interesting female characters in the Fire Emblem game like the bookish ice queen Miriel and the courageous tomboy Sully. Based on what I've played of Bravely Default so far (no spoilers), I'm not holding out hope for Ringabel's amnesia to extend to some sort of, uh, gender amnesia, but that would be a pretty cool plot twist based on the overdetermination of his innuendo.

Come to think of it, based on how much I loved the Fire Emblem game, I think I finally get this whole "fanservice" thing. I adored Miriel and Sully immediately and married them off promptly to Virion and Stahl respectively—two of my sturdiest and most reliable henchmen—whereas blonde doe-eyed Lissa was eventually paired off with the Guy Fieri of Fire Emblem, the hapless and similarly blonde Vaike. If this is "fanservice" I dig it, and Fire Emblem has done ridiculously well in North America possibly in part because it hasn't grossed out North Americans.

I think the developers of the Bravely Default series should probably take note. BD succeeded in North America based on hype, mechanics, and a general starvation for JRPGs. But if they want to excel, they'll deal with some of the representational issues head-on. (They won't, I know.)

So... should I play Shin Megami Tensei IV next? Based on the video reviews I've seen, that seems like a morbidly sexless dungeon crawl that couldn't possibly offend North Americans. Right?

funny you should mention that, was just thinking the other day what would happen if the Christian Right in the US somehow stumbled upon SMT - the outrage would be pretty hilarious

Would I like SMT IV?

Have you played a SMT game before? There's a lot of fun to be had if you like seriousbusiness dungeon crawlers with minimal plot. Choices you make during the game put you on one of three endgames, two of these are heavily signposted though (I deliberately chose the Chaos ending and was not disappointed!). There is no "fan service" that I can remember. The only real complaints I would have about it were the balance felt off, the tutorial rips your head off but the game gets easier as it goes on - and it expects you to have some familiarity with how Tokyo is laid out, I found myself looking up real maps at the beginning when someone said "go to Shibuya" so I knew to head East or whatever.
The soundtrack is excellent, loved running around post apocalyptic Tokyo fighting demons while listening to synth Krautrock http://youtu.be/SG_gB4kb2oA

Great track!

Tomodachi is just doing ridiculously well, no other way to describe it after it hit the top 10 even on the monthly american npd. #1 in several European countries, some for weeks in a row. I haven't bought it yet - still feel I'll enjoy it more as a let's play on youtube than 'playing' through it, but super happy that nintendo gets added motivation to localize oddball titles

I still think it would bore me.

reviews were surprisingly tepid, i guess the marketing has worked

Word of mouth is still a big factor with stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlnt1FE9T6I

"New 3DS"; huh?

Well my xl screen has been mishandled and suffered from it so I'll prob get this next year when MH4U comes out. I mean.. I will definitely get it because that's how I am, but retiring my frankenstick for a new MH seems like a good enough reason.

The exclusive game thing is weird because obviously the audience will be vastly smaller than for regular 3ds games. With the n64 expansion pack at least you could upgrade to play Perfect Dark.

On the other hand it is probably a sound way to push the 3DS series to signficantly bigger sales in total. I'm guessing a handheld successor is a ways off, 2016 holiday maybe, and they need some action.

Exclusives like Xenoblade aside they say upcoming 3ds games may have improved graphics on the new system.

i get the idea of games running better on the iterated device, but exclusive games seems silly, will probably just be a few quick ports though. Xenoblade looked like it ran terribly, and bang goes any hope for an HD version :(
interesting that the control layout now almost exactly mirrors the WiiU gamepad, wonder if you'll be able to use the new 3DS as a WiiU controller?
would not be surprised if they start selling SNES & GBA games exclusively on the new 3DS, those coloured buttons must be there for some reason!

There were also Gameboy Color games that didn't work with the original Gameboy so there's some precedent there.

Xenoblade is early, I imagine it will run pretty smoothly as it is showcase

Quick ports is embarassingly a thimg I want, specifically gc classics like fzero and metroid prime

The gameboy was iterated on for 12 years, crazy in hindsight

sigh damn you nintendo

man, I just bought one of these things a few months ago >:-[

Me too. I hope they don't cheat us out of any good games.

I'm so looking forward to Fantasy Life coming up in a couple months. It looks like a perfect combination of everything I like.

... Except for deep gameplay mechanics

interesting that the control layout now almost exactly mirrors the WiiU gamepad, wonder if you'll be able to use the new 3DS as a WiiU controller?
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Saturday, August 30, 2014 5:16 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're clearly moving in this direction as a company and I think it's the most interesting thing about their future.

would help explain why it got a processor spec bump too

And would also open the door for a gamepad-free low end wii u.

trailer for new Ace Attorney game, Layton's ancestor travels to London and meets Sherlock Holmes.
oh and Watson is a 10 year old girl called Alice by the looks of it lololol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4JUnUeATrk

haha not Layton, Phoenix

The second Miles Edgeworth game is much better than the first one. There is a fan translation that is worth pirating.

shin megami tensei iv was really hard to find. sold out from all sorts of official places. had to go for some kind of ENTERTAINMENTFORLESS_A1 seller on Amazon.

Now sitting sealed on my desk. Waiting for the weekend. Also haven't been sober enough to play a JRPG for the past couple of days.

Shin Megami Tensei IV voice acting

addicted to Fantasy Life at the moment. I saw someone call it "a cute Skyrim" which is funny but not totally wrong. It feels a bit like Animal Crossing but with a massive actual gamey game added in - a simple action RPG like Rune Factory or Ys, but with jobs, quests, equipment etc and a main storyline you can dip in and out of.

Very happy with my purchase of SMT IV. For some reason I thought it had just come out (August 2014 instead of August 2013) so was initially feeling baffled at a) how hard it was to find, and b) why nobody was talking about it.

This is absolutely great stuff about 6-7 hours in. It's one of the most batshit game world concepts I think I've ever played... App Store? Medieval France-Japan? A weird sky tunnel that goes from Medieval France-Japan to a weird contemporary Tokyo? I'm also really enjoying how stupid, funny, and plain weird some of the demons are. At some point I feel I'm gonna go up against a tea kettle with wings and a bag of goldfish crackers. (Of course ending up in a ruthless total party kill that causes me to hurl verbal abuse at my 3DS. Goldfish crackers smirks.)

The dialogue is weirdly stilted. "Hey, do you know about demons? I hear there are demons under the city, do you want to find these demons?" But actually I find this is adding to the creepy, hallucinogenic experience.

SMT IV is still great 20–25 hours in. I've been doing side quests and occasionally getting stuck in the main story. One of the great things about this game is how it refuses to hold your hand with regard to progression through the story quests. It feels very old school to have to remember dialogue with NPCs and not have a big blinking quest marker in your face at all times...

Well done, ATLUS! I had always shied away from this series, but I am now legitimately interested in Persona Q and I wish there was more information out there (in English) regarding the gameplay... If it's anything like SMT IV, they've won me over.

from what i understand persona Q is going to be more like etrian odyssey

I started as an Alchemist in Fantasy Life and now I'm trying to decide what I want to add to that. With Alchemist I'm finding I can make money very quickly just buying materials through the artisan district and selling back potions. But taking on monsters in the field is a slog. Something like Hunter/Alchemist/Angler might be fun.

Surprised nobody's playing Smash? But then again, I picked it up at release and haven't opened it...

xpost
I started as Alchemist as well, then went Mercenary then Blacksmith. It's nice that they let you skip the tutorial for every Life after the first one, without any punishment. Reached the end credits at about 40 hours, but feels like I missed about half the content. Game is huge!

homebrew channel is going to be released in a couple of days for the 3DS, and about 12 hours ago the developer let everyone know that it exploits the game Cubic Ninja - yesterday you could buy it for £2.50 from CeX but the price has been going up all day, at the moment the cheapest copy on Amazon is £59.95! Apparently the game is needed to launch the homebrew every time so prices are not going to drop unless Ubisoft who published it reprint the game.

ha, damn, I remember that game getting clearanced out ages ago

exciting but i'll probably just wait until a less cumbersome flashcart hits the market

yeah, seems inevitable

anyone grab persona Q? thinking of grabbing the digital but it's a bit $$$

Persona Q not out til Friday in EU, super excited about it tho
Yumi's Odd Odyssey i.e. Umihara Kawase is currently $10 in the US eshop, buy buy buy this game if a whimsical but ultrachallenging puzzle platformer appeals in any way