New details on Nintendo Revolution.

[IG-64]

Some of you may have heard that the director of the previous two Smash Bros. Games, and the father of Kirby, Masahiro Sakurai, had left HAL Labs. This brought up questions: Who would direct Smash Bros. Revolution in his place? And would the new director be a potential ruiner of the series? Putting our worries to rest is a recent report of who would be doing the directing this time around.

And it is none other than Masahiro Sakurai.

He may have left the team, but he's not out of the game. He was asked to return to work on Smash Bros. by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, and took the opportunity. This comes as a great relief to fans of the series like me.

 

In other Revolution news, Nintendo is answering the controversial plight of mature video games in the hands of minors with a parental lock system that will be implemented into the Revolution. All games on the Revolution will be tagged with the game's rating. Any game with a rating that exceeds what the parent specifies will be password-protected.

 

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[Lynk Former]

XD And I thought this thread was gonna be about something I haven't heard about already. But anywayz...

 

I wouldn't say a game would be ruined if the director or creator behind it isn't part of it. After all Metroid has gone through a lot of great moments without Gunpei Yokoi. But it is good to see that Iwata-san is taking every step he can to ensure that SSBR will have the same direction style by bringing in Masahiro Sakurai.

 

(Oh and it's also Shiggy's 53rd birthday today (16th))

[IG-64]

XD And I thought this thread was gonna be about something I haven't heard about already.

Well, of course someone like you would've heard about it already.

 

I wouldn't say a game would be ruined if the director or creator behind it isn't part of it. After all Metroid has gone through a lot of great moments without Gunpei Yokoi.

I was thinking more about this. *shivers*

 

(Oh and it's also Shiggy's 53rd birthday today (16th))

Hey, a day after mine.

[Lynk Former]

The problem with Starfox doesn't stem with the fact that the last two games weren't developed by one of Nintendo's EADs. The problem is that Starfox is one of those games were it's nearly impossible to find a good balance and in the end the only great part of the game ends up being what's been there from the very first game. Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike also shared this problem. Even if it was done by Nintendo Starfox would still be in the same position it is today I'm sorry to say.

 

Though there is a way to make Starfox great:p ... Remember those "choose your own adventure" kinda books? Starfox was great cause it would split into three different tracks depending on how well you've done. It would be a good idea to take that to a completely new level by providing a large number of possibilities depending on what you do each mission, how you do it, when you do it, even the most insignificant thing could affect what happens during a mission, which destination you go to next, etc. To add to that, you can choose which character you want to play as and that would add even more layers of possibilities into the mix as each character will end up doing different things and go through different missions than another character at some point. And then there's the idea of having 2, 3, 4 player co-op over LAN or WAN or on that single TV.

 

Doing this would mean that you wouldn't see the same story every time you play, it also adds to the amount of gameplay time you get as people try to discover new variations. And to add to that you could have a percentage meter and timeline to help players figure out exactly what they've seen and how much they've actually uncovered. The higher percentage you get the more you can unlock, like being able to play as the Wolf Squadron members in multiplayer or something...

 

You can go a long way with Starfox if you really think about it, but the fact that it's one of Nintendo's low priority franchises will mean that nothing this big will actually happen with the series.

[IG-64]

I know, but personally, I think they coulda done better with the latest two Star Fox games. Before Star Fox Adventures, I was excpecting the classic fly through space to other planets around the Lylat system. Maybe take it further than before and have land missions on several planets. What I got, however, was a trip through dino-land with the cast of land before time, and a introduction with gratuitous cave-babe fox. There's no creativity in making a female character that's a clone of the main character in a diffrent color. It's been done many times throughout history. Kat (from Star Fox 64) is a good example of a fairly well-done female character.

 

Another thing I didn't like was the characer design of Fox. They made his nose too short, and he looked better with his helmet on. I know that sounds picky, but they established a good character design with the first Star Fox games, and Super Smash Bros., and when they changed it, it wasn't as good. Personally, the Super Smash Bros. Melee Fox and Falco designs were the best.

They made more character design mistakes with Star Fox Assault. This time they succeeded in screwing up all of the original characters to make them look "cool" and added more "cool" characters. I won't say much about that game though, because I never played it.

 

All in all, they made the mistake of drifting too much from what they had established in the first Star Fox games. And hopefuly, they'll regain their footing with revolution and make a more classic style Star Fox game that implements the new controller. That would be cool.

 

Plus, Star Fox 64 was an awesome game that you could play over and over, and it introduced the rumble system. That alone should make it a higher-priority franchise.

 

One more thing. I hope Nintendo keeps with the name Revolution. I liked it from the beginning, and they've advertised it as that for a long time. It's only logical that they should keep it.

[toms]

Age thing = good idea.

 

SSB director = not that bothered.

 

Lynk's idea on starfox = pretty cool.

Though I always find infinate replayability is a cooler concept in theory than reality. I often have a load of games to play, and its very rare I want to replay the reeated bits of the game just to get to the new content. I've been meaning to replay KOTOR as a dark side character for a year or so now, but i have new games to play.

 

This is even worse if its a long game.

 

What they could do would be to format it like a tv show, with short "episodes" that consist of several joined missions that have the flexibility lynk mentioned. You could even have downloadable episodes.

[manoman81]

Again, Nintendo is thinking about family gaming. And it's not a bad idea, either, I think. I think that the NR will be a huge success (from what I have read here and elsewhere) as long as the have a descent library of new games. Although, I think that having all of the Nintendo games available will make it worth picking up.

 

Now, I dont mean to spread rumors or anything, but I heard that the Revolution will be sold for about $100. My boss came across something saying that, but neither one of us could confirm it. I know it is way too early to confirm or deny this, but does anyone have a clue yet?

[toms]

I think a lot of it will depend on marketing. The marketing for the gamecube was non-existant. The marketing for the DS has been really weird (they've sponsored some very odd choices of late night tv in the uk, and thats about it).

 

When sony and MS are pumping out loads of ads, Nintendo needs to at least do some decent ads to compete.

[Lynk Former]

@ IG-64: But Starfox Adventures isn't a TRUE Starfox game. Remember it started off as Dinosaur Planet however half way through its developement Nintendo sold off Rare. The only way to keep the game on the GameCube was to attach the Starfox brand to it. So it's really Nintendo's own fault. The game had nothing to do with Starfox, no Fox, no Arwings, nothing.

 

Also, Samus has gone through A LOT of design changes in recent years, but you expect that seeing as each generation has a graphical jump allowing you to do more and more things with character designs and styles. I thought that Fox and the others looked pretty good in Assault. Mario has also changed a lot over the years, as well as Link, and pretty much every other character.

 

And yeah, I'd also love to see Nintendo keep the Revolution name, despite the Xbox360 (whoever came up with that name was smart, it really does take a stab at both Sony and Nintendo at the same time lol).

 

 

@ toms: Yeah, you're right in theory it works well, that's why I said "You can go a long way with Starfox if you really think about it, but the fact that it's one of Nintendo's low priority franchises will mean that nothing this big will actually happen with the series." at the end. It would take a great deal of effort to make a game like that.

 

Though Starfox, at least the first two variations, were very short games. From start to finish it took about 20 minutes for those who knew what they were doing, which is why the "choose your own adventure" idea came to mind with the franchise.

 

Also, Nintendo is stepping up with the marketting, after all they really do need to for the NDS and Revolution seeing as those two systems are obviously very different. But also because Nintendo has committed itself to get more and more people into gaming, so to grab their attention they need to really get out there. (http://www.revolutionreport.com/articles/read/183)

 

 

@ manoman81: While I'd love to see the Revolution sold for 100 bucks, it's not gonna happen. However we do have a pretty good idea at what the price may be. Nintendo has sold all of their previous consoles for 199USD as the starting price (except for the N64 that was briefly 249USD then dropped to 199USD).

 

So this means you can pretty much bet that the Revolution will be 199USD - 248USD.

 

 

 

Oh and I can't wait to see the flight controls for a Starfox Revolution game. With the freestyle controller you could have so much fun.

 

The freestyle controller would be great for flight movement, just move the controller the way you want the Arwing to move (don't think this needs to be exxagerated movement, I hear the freestyle controller is sensetive enough where you do need to move it that much at all to get good results). Tilting the controller left or right could make your Arwing roll and barrel roll depending how far you tilt. Moving the controller forward = Boost, moving it back = Brake, B = Primary Weapon, A = Secondary Weapon.

 

You could fit the entire control scheme onto that one controller very easily.

[abespam]

and the flight controls for the next Rogue Squadron game would be just as awesome.

 

@Lynk: Parts of what u mentioned was done in Jet Force Gemini for N64 (as i remember.. tho its been a long time since i played that game).. i'd love to see another game like that on the NRev. As a third person shooter it had an amazin single player game for a console at the time, though having to collect every tribal in every level to finish the game was ridiculously tedious. Seriously with beefed up graphics and an innovative playstyle that would be available with the NRev controller i'd love to see a sequel.

[Lynk Former]

Unfortunately you won't be seeing JFG on the Revolution since it was a Rare game, it'd be more likely that it would be a Xbox360 game if Rare made a sequel. And it's looking like there won't be anymore Rogue Squadron games made since Factor 5 is developing exclusively for the PS3 now.