themblan's blog

Legal Wii, Wii U, and 3DS's Virtual Consoles combined provide access to every game on the SNES Mini besides Star Fox 2. On Wii, to further authenticate the experience, you can buy an SNES-controller along with a Gamecube-to-SNES adapter (raphnet makes a great one) to play the games with a SNES-controller on Wii. Why would you want to do things legally? You know that some of your money is going to the original developers and publishers. Also, when you spend a little money, there's a greater feeling of ownership in the things you buy. Legal Gray-Area Buy a real SNES and cartridges. This will give you the most authentic experience but will be the most expensive. Buy a real SNES and a flash-cartridge. You will be playing on real hardware, with a real controller, but without specific cartridges. The drawback is that not all games are supported on flash-carts yet because of all the different add-on chips for the SNES. Plain emulation Emulation with a SNES-to-USB adapte...

People throw the word 'entitled' around like it's the new fad-word that makes them sound smart. They say stuff like "You sound entitled." You meant to say "You sound like you have a sense of entitlement." It reminds me of people who say, "I could care less." You mean that you could not care less. If you could care less, it means you care enough so that you could care less than you already do. A lot of scalpers and capitalists are saying this to people who are sad that they can't buy an SNES Mini, but it doesn't even apply to this situation. How can we feel entitled to something we have to pay money for? We feel entitled to have to pay money for something we don't need? We want this thing. We just want a fair chance of buying it. If someone thought he or she deserved an SNES Mini for free, then he or she would have a feeling of entitlement. The difference between scalpers and non-scalpers is that we non-scalpers believe...

As Nintendo-fans, we are always getting the short end of the stick. What can we do to cope? We can beg companies for ports, obsessing every day; or we can stop focusing on things we don't have or are not getting, and appreciate what we do have, and are getting. How do we do this, in practice? In practical terms, we play the games we have instead of wasting time whining about games we don't have. Put in more time into the games we already have. I remember I wanted to play Phantasy Star Online online on Sega Dreamcast, but couldn't. So I went back to Diablo II, which had free online play, and I loved it. It eventually became one of my favorite games of all time. Let's crank up that gameplay-hours meter on our NSes, Wii Us, and 3DSes and be the hardcore gamers we were meant to be.

The SNES Mini is not for you, the gamer who has never stopped following the gaming-industry. It is for the lapsed gamer who may have had an SNES with one game, or the Genesis-owner who always wanted one. When 3D consoles like Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo 64 hit the scene, I didn't really care for them. If it weren't for a cousin who showed me Super Mario 64 on Thanksgiving in 1996, I might never have gone back into gaming. The SNES Mini is for these people that never got back into gaming after the SNES. "What if I am a young Nintendo-fan who never had an SNES and wants one?" Sorry, the SNES Mini is not for you, either. I would suggest buying a real SNES or looking into emulation. Nintendo's goal with the SNES Mini is to raise brand-awareness in retail stores. In turn, it will have a transitive effect and spur them to buy 2DSes, 3DSes, and NSes, along with many first-party games, which generates most of their profits. In an ideal world, gamer...

There are surprisingly a lot of people that defend scalpers and are sick of people whining about them. I have come to the conclusion that these scalper-defenders are amoral, and need to be taught the difference between right and wrong, and why scalping is bad. Scalping is bad because it is done purely and maliciously for selfish reasons, and predatorialy against others. Scalping is different from simply selling something for money and making a profit. Scalpers go out of their way to purchase things that they personally don't give a damn about, to sell these things at higher prices to people that actually wanted them in the first place. In a good world, these scalpers would have just not bought it in the first place, and let the people (who actually wanted it) buy it. It's really simple. Do I go to Sephora and buy all the perfume there so that I can resell it on ebay? No, of course not, because I don't like perfume. Why would I buy up all the perfume unless I derive a si...

Super Mario World, Earthbound, Star Fox 2 + 18 more games? Now you’re playing with super power! #SNESClassic launches 9/29. pic.twitter.com/BPPGjpskPT — Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 26, 2017 I don't know why I'm mad. I don't even want this thing. I just foresee millions of disappointed people not being able to buy this (just like the NES Classic Edition), all Nintendo doing is shrugging and saying "Oh well," and that rubs me the wrong way. There are a lot of good games on it, too. Contra III Donkey Kong Country Earthbound Final Fantasy VI F-Zero Kirby's Dream Course Kirby Super Star The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Mega Man X Secret of Mana Star Fox Star Fox 2 Street Fighter II Turbo Super Castlevania IV Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts Super Mario Kart Super Mario RPG Super Mario World Super Metroid Super Punch-Out!! Yoshi's Island

Today, Nintendo talked about a little bit about Breath of the Wild's DLC Pack 1 . One of the more interesting things was this: But as development continued, we concluded that simply placing rocks somewhere isn't intriguing or challenging enough to be rewarding, even if you were to find them. Instead, we suggested hiding some small creatures there for the finding. So that's how these Koroks, who would normally only live in Korok Forest, ended up scattered across remote areas of Hyrule.  Instead of looking for and finding lifeless objects, Breath of the Wild made it far more interesting by 1) hiding them, 2) have them be living beings instead of inanimate objects, and 3) offer congratulatory sound-effects and voice-clips. It's simple, but brilliant.

Shmup is shorthand for shoot-em-up, or 2D shooters like Gradius and Space Invaders. The term was invented for the purpose of abbreviation when writing, or more specifically, typing on the internet. It also serves to further differentiate 2D shooters from First-Person Shooters or Third-Person Shooters. That is all nice and dandy, but it should not be used in speech. "Shmup" sounds a lot like "shmuck," which sounds a lot like "fuck." It's not the most classy-sounding word, and thus, shouldn't be uttered in speech. Leave "shmup" for the written word, and instead say "2D shooter" or even the full "shoot-em-up" to describe the genre.

I admit that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an objectively good game, but even after playing the game for over 120 hours or so, I cannot say that I subjectively like it more than say, Splatoon . I have spent over 1000 hours in Splatoon, and I was addicted from the beginning. It was everything I wanted in a videogame. I think a lot of people shut off their subjective brain and only use their objective one. This can also be viewed in terms of right brain versus left brain. When it comes to videogames, I have trained myself to ignore my left brain that is interested in resolution, framerate, world-size, review-scores, and other nonsense, and have trained myself to embrace my right brain, which is more interested in fun, gameplay, aesthetics, and aural design. Instead of searching for the "best" game, search for games that make you happy and give you joy. What is a game worth? It's subjective. It is however much you're willing to pay, how much you think...

José Otero, a longtime editor of all things Nintendo at IGN, was hired by Nintendo of America. This is not the first time that someone from IGN has left for Nintendo. Rich George and Audrey Drake both jumped from IGN to Nintendo as well. As great as it is for Nintendo to keep hiring fans of their products, they need to hire more people that are not fans of their products. Having someone with an unbiased, contrary, or even hostile view of Nintendo is something that could really benefit them. If all you have are yes-men and yes-women, then you cannot grow as a company. You cannot expand your audience.

The SNES Classic Edition is turning up once again on the rumor-mills, and I believe it's a mistake. It would be better to reprint more NES Classic Editions. The NES is the most beloved, iconic videogame-system ever in the United States. While the SNES may be technologically superior and arguably have better games, it pales in comparison to the universal appeal of the NES. When I was growing up, I knew of only one family that did not have an NES. After Sega Genesis came along and split the market, the Sega-to-Nintendo ratio was 50:50. An SNES CE won't have the same impact that the NES CE did. Before Nintendo Switch launched, Nintendo was building their brand-recognition with Pokemon Go, Pokemon Stars and Moon, and Super Mario Run. The NES CE was there in the conversation, but it wasn't available to anyone, and with no NS to buy, it didn't really translate into more sales of Nintendo-products. Now with Nintendo Switch in the limelight, if they rereleased the NES ...

We all know by now that amiibo unlock certain things in Breath of the Wild, but they generally break the immersion and continuity of the game-world. First you have a chest falling out of the sky out of nowhere. It completely breaks immersion there. Then you get a costume from a previous Zelda-game that doesn't fit in at all with Breath of the Wild. It's a no-brainer. Amiibo are completely unnecessary and even take away from the experience, rather than add to it, like it was probably intended to. Collect them if you like the figure. Don't use them to have chests falling from the sky.

I'm just having a lot of fun playing this game. I originally bought and beat it on 3DS. I bought the DSiWare-version of the game, and it ran at the original DS's 256 × 192 resolution. The second time I bought it was the updated version on 3DS with 16:9 aspect-ratio. I never beat that version. This was the third time I bought Cave Story, and I am swearing to myself that it will be the last. I've been getting the same feelings I got when I first played the DSiWare-version of this game. It feels nostalgic, comfortable, soothing, hopeful, and joyful. These are strange words to describe a videogame, but it's true. I was born in 1982, so I grew up during the NES's heyday, and this game really brings out the good feelings of that era. This has been a great two weeks starting with the beginning of E3, the reveal of two Metroids, the release of ARMS, Cave Story+, and Ever Oasis on Friday.