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| sfried 758th Post
  
PSN: My3DSFriendCode
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|  "Kid Icarus Uprising controls and reboot stuff" , posted Sat 24 Mar 12:48  
I finally got some hands on with this game, and I know a lot of people who have been brought up on dual-analog controls will say that Uprising's is a point of contention all the way to bringing how the 3DS is not meant for this setup despite the fact that Resident Evil: Revelations managed to be fun without the need of a second analog (since you can opt for gyro controls).
In fact, it makes me wonder if most of the hate practically stems from Sakurai not conforming to the "standard" established by many a console FPS in much the same way people will complain about a controller if it does not look like a Dual Shock (which I still believe to be ridiculously too cluttered). I recall Turok 2 having a nice feature called a "look spring" so that your aim depended of the degree of which you tilted the analog stick and returned to its normal horizontal position the moment you release the analog to its neutral position, as opposed to "how much further up does the cursor go" implemented post-Halo. It's too bad the former never caught on, but what if...
That's not what I came to talk today. I wonder if the Kid Icarus franchise will be adopting this game as its reboot (technically its a sequel) with the form of gameplay Uprising currently presents: namely aerial combat followed by a land battle and then boss. It reminds me of a certain dead title Capcom worked on called "Dead Phoenix", which looked like a combination of Musou and this game, incidentally. That's quite a leap from the traditional methodical action platformer with rolling boundaries (as in VVVVVVs certain levels), but understandable considering how much of the mechanics seems "dated" by comparison. in fact, I wonder if the kind of flexibility Uprising had with its update had allowed it to be treated more as a new IP...and yes, I'm aware Sakurai didn't intend this game to be a Kid Icarus one, but just how well he integrated the previous mythology into this one and revamped it all without discrediting the original, so it's hard for me to know where to place this in terms of reboot or sequel. Basically, it didn't felt like how Rare handled Dinosaur Planet and turned it into Star Fox Adventures.
One thing I'm purprised about in Uprising is how they do build on certain characters such as
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
Thanatos being a shapeshifter and hence was merely a snakehead in Medusa's boss battle in the original
End of Spoiler
or the Eggplant Wizard -> Tempura wizard shift. They also somehwat touch upon its source material too
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
with other Greek gods/goddesses showing up
End of Spoiler
. Maybe Sakurai really just does his research...who knows.
Having said that, in what other way would this franchise have been updated? There was already an attempt made previously, but I always wondered if it would've been just as a hit if it had followed through. I've been thinking about how Bionic Commando 2009 was handled and how they used the NES original as the base and built it from there. Rearmed might be a more faithful take but I felt they kind of took themselves too seriously with the "sequel", and that didn't stop them from making Rearmed 2.
(That seemed like a lengthy argument about sequel mechanics...)
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| Grave 1443th Post
PSN: Drakee
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| "In defense of BC 2009" , posted Sun 25 Mar 04:57
While I haven't played Kid Icarus yet (I really want to! Soon!) because I'm drowning in games, I do want to talk a little bit about the 2009 BC and how much I love it.
When the game came out I bought into the hate everyone was spewing and kept my distance. After all, at the time we didn't have a 360 in the house and the only demo they released (multiplayer only?!) wasn't for PS3. Was not in a position to be buying many games back then so I ignored it. Years later, when it's readily available for under $10, I decided to bring a copy home one quiet-looking evening.
Are there problems in the game? Absolutely. The #1 point of contention is the stupid radiation system. It's maybe the laziest, most user-unfriendly system of enforcing artificial boundaries on a player that I've ever seen. Most of the time when you're swinging around at high speeds the radiation warning appears far too late. Safe-looking areas often aren't. A good number of my deaths in combat have come from radiation, not from what's happening in battle. That's not good. The other big problem is, as you said, the story - which is overwrought, completely awful and just plain laughable overall. That said, I think Mike Patton does an admirable job with what he's given. While I wish they didn't decide to ape the overly macho sort of Gears-y feel, I wouldn't say that the game takes itself entirely seriously. And yeah, I hated Spencer's redesign at first and even played with the classic skin you get from having a Rearmed save the first time. But after MvC3 I guess I've come to like that design. Go figure.
Anyway, complaints aside, the game nails what's most important: swinging, shooting, fighting. Once you get a feel for the game's swinging mechanics, the experience is unparalleled. When you're swinging circles around groups of enemies, zipping in to kick some ass then are off again before they can touch you, it's amazing. When you're comfortable with the controls and how combat works everything seems so fluid and responsive. Also, Simon Viklund's music here is excellent. Every time the BC theme plays you will get so pumped. So pumped! You don't even know!
It took me a while to really get it down, but once I did I totally fell in love with the game, warts and all. The second I finished my playthrough on normal I started another one on hard, though I wandered after a while. I'll likely go back to it once I clear out all my new games. It's definitely worked its way into my "don't sell these" pile, and though I know not everyone who gave the game a real chance felt the way I did, I wish more people would give it a shot. While it's not the sequel anyone really asked for I'm really glad that we got it. Say what you will about the rest of GRIN's work, I think BC's a very good game.
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| sfried 759th Post
PSN: My3DSFriendCode
XBL: isdownbellow
Wii: 279306128909
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| "Re(1):In defense of BC 2009" , posted Sun 25 Mar 14:07
quote:
Anyway, complaints aside, the game nails what's most important: swinging, shooting, fighting. Once you get a feel for the game's swinging mechanics, the experience is unparalleled. When you're swinging circles around groups of enemies, zipping in to kick some ass then are off again before they can touch you, it's amazing. When you're comfortable with the controls and how combat works everything seems so fluid and responsive. Also, Simon Viklund's music here is excellent. Every time the BC theme plays you will get so pumped. So pumped! You don't even know!
That's quite an interesting observation. I somehow realize GRIN knew the essense of the games by releasing REARMED as "proof", then went their way to make a modern interpretation of an old story. I've heard stories about the radiation zone frustration, and I've even watched some playthroughs. But I agree they understood the core concept of the swing mechanics of the game and in some ways enhanced it. But I wonder if an ammo system for weapons was still necessary. (Kinda reminds me of the whole "why does combat suck in Mirror's Edge" argument: That's not the point of the game.)
Perhaps I was wondering how Kid Icarus would've been if it was yet another God of War clone. I still remember how people dislike the latest Castlevania because of it. From the looks of the "proposal" link seen above, it might have been one although I'm not sure how that would even work (since Pit's main weapon is a bow). Still, it would be a rather wierd is errie alternate reality to see how this would've worked out...
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I've yet to play it but I imagine the controls on it are similar to Metroid Prime: Hunters and other FPS games on the DS. My fear isn't that this setup isn't accurate (I think it is) but the fact that the awkward way in which you control the game gives me hands cramps. The same thing is happening with Sumioni on PSVITA which I tried. The fact that Sumioni expects you to use the dpad, buttons, shoulder buttons, touch-screen and backtouch at any time simultaneously is just going overboard. So to condense that, I had to rely on using up on the dpad to jump and tapping the touch screen to attack, completely neglecting the buttons on the right side.
The controls are not at all like Metroid Prime Hunters. It's more like a trackball/globe where you flick the screen left or right to spin your view and stop with a tap of the screen. It will take a while and some Options adjusting to get used to, but once it clicks,you will be hard pressed to go back especially given the instant spin turns you can accomplished.
The bigger worry are the Smash...I mean Dash attacks and running. They are a hell of a pain to execute, and you will take longer trying to acclimate yourself getting used to the concept. A word of advise is to wipe your Pad from sweat every once in a while, and soon you will have a lot of finess controlling Pit.
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| karasu99 887th Post
PSN: robotchris
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| "Re(6): Revival stuff" , posted Tue 3 Apr 03:01
Sfried will be glad to hear (I guess!) that I finally decided to pick up a 3DS. A local retailer had them on sale for a surprising $25 off, so I went for it, and I'm happy I did. The hardware is quite nice-- it's not nearly as pretty as the Vita, but the display compares pretty favorably, and that includes the 3D, which I was a little surprised by. I also think it's pretty classy that Nintendo included a reasonable sized (and here I'm not sure of the exact size since they went with the Wii-style 'blocks' route) SD card, rather that Sony's crappy route of requiring the purchase of an expensive proprietary memory card on top of an already expensive system. Nintendo, I think, wisely stuck with a lot of the design aesthetic of the DS. It's a classy little system, if not as flashy as the Vita.
Since the retailer was sold out of Kid Icarus, I went with Super Mario 3D, which is quite fun, but I was wondering what else the 3DS-enabled here would suggest I try. Kid Icarus is a given, but I'm on the fence about a ton of games, like Tales of the Abyss, Resident Evil Revelations, Shinobi, and so on. Any suggestions?
www.secret-arts.com
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| sfried 766th Post
PSN: My3DSFriendCode
XBL: isdownbellow
Wii: 279306128909
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| "Re(7): Revival stuff" , posted Tue 3 Apr 04:35
quote:
Since the retailer was sold out of Kid Icarus, I went with Super Mario 3D, which is quite fun, but I was wondering what else the 3DS-enabled here would suggest I try. Kid Icarus is a given, but I'm on the fence about a ton of games, like Tales of the Abyss, Resident Evil Revelations, Shinobi, and so on. Any suggestions?
Resident Evil Revelations would be the most reasonable choice for now. Although if you like platformers more SMLand 3D would be preferable.
Anyways, I wanted to bring back to topic the idea of "franchise revival". Castlevania recently had one, and I hear it's getting a followup(?). There's also Splatterhouse which seemed to take forever to come out, then there's the whole thing about Bionic Commando we talked about. It's funny, because I was also wondering where Maximo would fit under, but from the impressions I got it was a rather humorous take on Ghosts N' Goblins.
What's weird is that Kid Icarus Uprising doesn't itself feel like a reboot, but neither does it really fit the soles of a sequel, yet the game treats itself as such. Sure, it might have something to do with Sakurai not initially thinking of developing the game as a Kid Icarus installment, but a lot of the essence seems to translate really well for a modernization of an action shooting flying/platformer. In contrast to Bionic Commando '09 which focused on the swinging, Uprising seems to pick on bits and pieces of the original/GB sequel and reconstructing them into Sakurai equivalents.
The Eggplant Wizard, for instance, no longer affects your status permanently until you get healed by a Nurse; it's now a timed status effect that disabled you as much as the previous games. To counterbalance this, the game introduces Tempura Wizards with not only disables you but could also initiate an instant kill while in this state.
There's also the concept of video game death having penalties: In Uprising, you can tune up the difficulty for the play session by betting hearts, with the results having better equipment and access to certain segments in the level. The flip-side being upon death, you lose your bet (hearts) and the difficulty gets decreased, meaning the segments that you had access to in higher difficulties are walled off. One thing I really appreciate about this design is how it actually keeps the pace of the game moving forward despite having deaths, but still urges you to keep up with playing at harder difficulties by decreasing your bonuses upon death. The original simply had you continued from the same level, but the diffculty itself was standardized but can be brutal.
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| Amakusa 911th Post
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| "Re(7): Revival stuff" , posted Tue 3 Apr 15:37
quote:
Since the retailer was sold out of Kid Icarus, I went with Super Mario 3D, which is quite fun, but I was wondering what else the 3DS-enabled here would suggest I try. Kid Icarus is a given, but I'm on the fence about a ton of games, like Tales of the Abyss, Resident Evil Revelations, Shinobi, and so on. Any suggestions?
I only own three 3DS games total. I wholeheartedly recommend Samurai Warriors Chronicle and it's in my opinion the best Musou game ever (note: haven't played One Piece or Dynasty Warriors 7 yet, can't make a valid comparison with those). Of course if you don't care much for Musou gameplay you can freely ignore this.
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Back on the topic of Kid Icarus, I haven't actually gone past Level 5 yet. At the moment I'm obsessively trying to find a weapon I like, but something tells me that may not happen until I actually finish the game. Light vs Dark is pretty fun even though I'm at a clear disadvantage against those who beat the game.
I recently discovered that the Hewdraw level changes slightly depending on the order you kill the heads. That was pretty humorous.
I found Kagami's sword in a junk yard.
I will rule the world and find that truly good cup of coffee.
"Dink-a-dink-a-dink-a-do."
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| sfried 767th Post
PSN: My3DSFriendCode
XBL: isdownbellow
Wii: 279306128909
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| "Re(10): Revival stuff" , posted Wed 4 Apr 19:03
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I heard about the betting difficulty stuff, and I thought it was a pretty interesting idea! Those sort of systems are interesting because they put the power in the player's hands, but somehow I'm skeptical. I'm not the type that enjoys grinding for items and all that, so I would hope that the levels are still a challenge the first time through.
Just curious, does the constant chatter during the levels ever get annoying? My roommate says that you just end up zoning it out eventually.
Finally I find it hilarious that all of Sakurai's games have the same silly menus.
Upping the difficulty not only give better drops, but you get access to previous areas otherwise locked away. These may contain optional mini-boss encounters and whatnot. Enemies sometimes get switched for harder ones, making you change your tactics from time to time. How easy it is to defeat certain enemies also depends on the kind of weapon you have. Even while replaying the same levels, I feel there's a certain conservation of health that comes into play.
I have to say, this is the one time where items don't feel out of place or random. For instance, they give you a complementary room clearing bomb to make things more forgiving but you can still be susceptible to screwing up and squandering its use. Even health drops are at key points and appear just when you're at the edge of your health.
I never found the dialogue annoying. It starts out rather meh at first, but then later levels a certain villain and some other characters show up and the dialogue gets pretty intense that you can't help but laugh.
The World Ends With You is a pretty good analogy, although I'm not so familiar with the intricacies of how similar that difficulty system worked.
Trying to look for all of those Zodiac Weapons now. It helps with the weapon fusing.
And yeah, Sakurai has a thing about that layout style. He's been sticking to it since...the first Smash Bros.? He even applied it in Kirby Air Ride, which I recall is the first game to have the "checklist" (proto-Acheivements that unlocked stuff within the game) which he then applied to Brawl and then Uprising.
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
Also if you tap the Cauldron enough times it will get agitated and turn its back on you.
End of Spoiler
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