Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

If you’re attending PAX Prime 2015 this weekend, you may come across a small tribute to Satoru Iwata, who passed away in July. A small area has been set up to honor the late Nintendo president. It’s definitely a classy move from the expo’s organizers!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Let's Talk | 29 Comments

Let’s Talk #21: Indie amiibo you’d like to see

Nintendo and Yacht Club Games made a major announcements during Nindies@Night. The two sides confirmed rumors – plus retail leaks – that Shovel Knight is getting its own amiibo. This is definitely a big move for Nintendo, and third-parties as a whole.

What’s happening with Shovel Knight really presents some interesting opportunities. It now seems like the possibility exists for any character to receive its own amiibo.

But let’s go back to the news about Shovel Knight for a second, and more specifically, independent developers. Indies have become a very important part of Nintendo’s plans over the past few years. Having said that, is there any indie character you’d like to see have an amiibo aside from Shovel Knight? Tell us in the comments below!

Highlights from last week’s topic: What do you want from the next mainline Pokemon?

LittleLynn

This probably sounds like a small, insignificant thing, but I was really disappointed to see trainer customization was absent from OR/AS. It was honestly one of my favorite aspects in X/Y. Between my obsession with collecting things, and my other obsession with making my customizable player characters juuust right in any game where it’s an option, I just always felt excited every time a new town had a clothing store. Plus, it was nice knowing my character wasn’t a carbon copy of approximately half of every other players’ characters. So, whether the next installment is a “third version” to X/Y, or it’s Gen 7, I really want to see that feature come back, and stay for good!

Also, whatever the next game is, it will almost inevitably have Amiibo support with it’s own special Pokemon line. I have no idea what it would do, but hopefully, something actually worth using (and hey, at the very least if character customization comes back, non-Pokemon Amiibo could be used for character-based costumes *wink wink, Nintendo*). Anyway, when it invariably happens, I’m just hoping that at least a few of my favorites will get one.

shinkuu

I’d like to see a bit of a break from the old formula, like with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. With each new generation there’s a new professor, new rival, new gym leaders, etc., and they’re largely forgettable. It might be interesting for new games to be set a bit in the future, with old familiar faces in new roles.

I think there also needs to be a bit of simplification to eliminate the “backwards compatibility” in each new generation. Like, “Oh, this Pokemon couldn’t hold this item before, so that’s why it never evolved” and “Oh, this Pokemon didn’t have this incense before, so that’s why this baby Pokemon never appeared”. Having a dynamic Pokedex that kept related evolutions together, and changed with new additions, might help too.

And finally, I think one of the most appealing aspects of the games is trading with others to get Pokemon you need. It would be interesting if your game’s exclusive Pokemon weren’t simply set by which version you got, but partially randomized, so just buying two copies of the game wouldn’t be a guarantee and you’d HAVE to trade or use the GTS.

Locky Mavo

More Regions with all the Gym Leaders and badges to earn, challenging Pokemon battles from Trainers, Rival, Bad Guy Team, Gym Leaders and Elite 4, at all times. Have the day/night cycle and calendar Pokemon like they had in Gold and Silver. A good story, X and Y did well with that, and some creepy mystery like the ghost girl in X and Y, that was cool.

But ultimately, an open world, home console Pokemon game would be nice, open world with the likes of Xenoblade’s open world feeling. And maybe with some MMO elements would be neat too.

But heck, a Pokemon game where you start in the Kanto region then made your way to the Kalos region would be awesome.

thecrimsonbolt

Aesthetically the game is pretty ok, but I’d lke the next game to look more polished and less rough around the edges.
Pokemon distribution really turned me down in X/Y. The amount of Pokemon was fine, but they were all just thrown in every route, making for some truly bloated routes (route 2 had like 6 different pokemon!) B2/W2 had the same amount of Pokemon, but their distribution was done a lot better (Make more caves and side areas so the distribution is more even).
I loved customization, but it was really biased towards the female side. For every single customization option, females had twice the options as males). Also, I’d like to go hatless as well.
HAVE THE OPTION TO TURN ROLLERSKATES OFF.
Allow Megas to be usable in Amie.
Allow for multiplayer battle backgrounds to be changed. This gen had some amazing backgrounds but for online battles you’re stuck with the boring blue one.
Then I’d like to tweak some of the breeding mechanics. Destiny Knot now passes down the 5 highest IVs instead of 5 random IVs, and make it so both parents can pass down the Pokeball, but in different ratios, (instead of only females passing them down, make it so it’s 25% male and 75% female).
More side areas like caves and forests. These last two gens have felt really linear.
I think that’s pretty much all of what I’d want.

Kogamo

What I want is what I think everyone has wanted since… jeez, the Wii’s launch, maybe? Just a simple open-world, home-console experience, if not containing all regions, at least containing all Pokémon thus far introduced. Where there aren’t two versions, and where coming across Pokémon that would normally be version-exclusive is simply a rare occurrance that isn’t dictated by your color or cover-legendary preferences. ‘Tis beautifully simple to imagine.

Also, the underground from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum is something I’ve wanted again and again since it was removed. Naturally, things that are objective improvements, like character customization and online trading, should return just because there’s no reason to remove them at this point.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, Videos, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Update (8/29): Bumped to the top. We’ve added in Nintendo’s official video below – quality is a bit better!

Nintendo’s Damon Baker held a presentation at Nindies@Night and made a few announcements with indie developers. You can now watch a recording of the full event below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, News, Wii U eShop | 34 Comments

Interview quotes from Nintendo’s Damon Baker have continued to pour in. Baker’s latest comments are once again indie focused. In Game Informer’s interview, he discussed how the uniqueness of the company’s hardware can be beneficial for developers, the company’s interest in brainstorming ideas with ideas, and more.

We’ve picked out some excerpts from the interview below. The full discussion is located here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 18 Comments

Here’s a bit of interesting news. On September 16, Disney XD will be hosting a broadcast of the Nintendo World Championships 2015. I wouldn’t have expected this to air on television – especially since the event took place a few months ago – but it’s a neat move nonetheless!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii U | 2 Comments

The latest episode of Nintendo Minute has now gone live. This week, Kit and Krysta get ready for Super Mario Maker by playing past entries in the franchise. Check out the full video below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments

Game Informer has new quotes up from Yacht Club Games’ Sean Velasco and Nintendo’s Damon Baker. Between the two, we learn about how the Shovel Knight amiibo came to be (including how Miyamoto said “no” to one of the pitch documents), third-party amiibo in general, and more.

Continue on below for a roundup of Velasco and Baker’s comments. The original interview is located here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 3 Comments

Most recently, Mighty No. 9’s was on track for a September 15 launch. But the game was pushed back a few weeks ago, and will now ship in Q1 2016 instead.

The team behind Mighty No. 9 is hoping to make up for the delay to its backers with a special trial on PC. All backers will have access to the download starting on September 15, and it will run for a full month. Included are four stages, relevant cut-scenes, a variety of voice and subtitle options, and Challenge Mode stages 1-6.

Head past the break for the full notice from Comcept and Inti Creates about today’s news.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Polygon recently caught up with Nintendo’s Damon Baker for a chat about all things indie. Baker talked about how the company doesn’t tend to buy exclusives, its openness to multiplatform titles, and more.

You’ll find a summary of what was shared below. Head on over here for the full discussion.

On how Nintendo as a whole has responded well to the different Nindie initiatives…

“Fortunately, the company has been really receptive of it. They’ve embraced the opportunities that we’ve presented to them, and they see the justification.”

On how Nintendo has been supporting indies for a long time, even though the company doesn’t always get the headlines for it…

“I think the other platforms have come out there, and they’ve done a really good job of amplifying their independent support message, and they’ve gained a lot of traction and a lot of visibility for that.”

“I think we’ve stuck to our strategy for some time. We were the first console to promote self-publishing and to allow it on our platforms. And that was going back to the WiiWare and the DSiWare days.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 32 Comments

Shovel Knight is making big waves in the amiibo scene. This is the first time that a company other than Nintendo is handling the distribution of its own figure, and it’s the first licensed amiibo.

In a recent interview, Nintendo’s Damon Baker said that the company “is certainly open” to the possibility of more indie/third-party amiibo. He also said that the Big N will “continue looking at proposals” and “there’s every opportunity”.

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