Grant Kirkhope would “love” to work on a Zelda game
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 22 Comments
Grant Kirkhope just wrapped up his work on Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle as the game’s composer. But Mario isn’t the only Nintendo franchise Kirkhope is interested in contributing to.
Speaking with GamesMaster this month, Kirkhope spoke about really wanting “to get on to Zelda”. Part of this is due to Zelda: A Link to the Past being his favorite game of all time, and having a great deal of respect for the soundtrack.
More: Grant Kirkhope, interview, The Legend of Zelda, top
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle creative director: Nintendo is “quite open-minded” to new ideas
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 4 Comments
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a crazy concept in its premise, yet Nintendo ended up signing off on the project. Creative director Davide Soliani told IGN that the company is actually “quite open-minded” to new ideas. You just need to come up with a concept that can justify its existence.
As many of you know, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t want Ubisoft to create a platformer. Instead, he wanted them to come up with their own concept. Ubisoft ran wild with the challenge, and created a turn-based strategy game and gave guns to Mario and the rest of the gang.
FIFA 18 dev on missing content, feels Switch hardware is “very difficult”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 51 Comments
Eurogamer recently spoke with Andrei Lăzărescu, a developer at EA Sports Bucharest working on FIFA 18. The site asked about missing content such as the FUT Champions and Squad Battles modes, and whether this is because they expect more casual play on Switch.
Lăzărescu said in response:
“I see it as being more social. …casual represents different things to different people. I look at them as two different games, two different worlds, that I think we should take for what they are, and keep in mind that we should not try to force people onto certain things just because it works on a certain platform.”
FIFA 18 is using a different engine on Switch than other platforms. On PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, EA is using Frostbite. This is what allows for features like the Journey follow-up, the new ‘cinematic’ Career Mode transfers, a special animation system, and more detailed stadiums and crowds. Lăzărescu feels that the Switch hardware “is very difficult,” and a future mode exactly like the Journey is “unlikely.” He also added that the aforementioned additions “would take an army of people, if it was possible, to be done.”
More: Andrei Lazarescu, EA Sports, FIFA 18, interview
GameStop says demand for Switch is similar to Wii or greater, explains approach to online bundles
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch | 23 Comments
Recently, Rolling Stone spoke with GameStop’s Eric Bright. One topic brought up in the discussion is the continued to demand for Switch, of which Bright said “seems to be similar to the Wii or greater.”
Bright noted:
“We are constantly selling out of our weekly allocations of the Switch. We kind of go up and down with stock. Nintendo did this before with the Wii. It was highly successful and extremely hard to find. Looking at demand – I can’t comment on rate of sale – demand for the Switch seems to be similar to the Wii or greater.”
More: Eric Bright, GameStop, interview, top
Fire Emblem Heroes devs on risque art, overpowered teams, power creep, colorless units
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 46 Comments
Fire Emblem Heroes has been around for about half a year, and the game is starting up its Choose Your Legends bonus banner tomorrow. With that in mind, Polygon spoke with Intelligent Systems director Kouhei Maeda and Nintendo director Shingo Matsushita about the mobile game. Topics include some of the risque art created for Fire Emblem Heroes, overpowered teams, caution over power creep, and player frustration with colorless units.
Read Maeda and Matsushita comments about these points below. You can find the full interview on Polygon here.
World to the West still planned for Wii U, Switch version will feature HD Rumble
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch eShop, Wii U eShop | 1 Comment
Yesterday, Rain Games announced that World to the West is coming to Switch. The Wii U version hasn’t been abandoned, however.
Rain Games shared the following regarding World to the West on Wii U:
“While porting to Switch has been a very smooth and pleasant process so far, Wii U is harder to optimize for, mostly due to the way the hardware is setup, and how the Wii U version is baed on an older version of the engine to ensure full system compatibility.
But we knew this going in, so we made sure that the game could stand up on its own without changing the main gameplay experience. We’re dedicated to making it play well on every platform! As far as an ETA is concerned, we’re hoping to get it out as soon as we can, but we don’t have a way to lock down a date yet, so I can’t get more specific than that.”
More: interview, Rain Games, World to the West
No More Robots will make Descenders “as great as possible” on Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch eShop | 2 Comments
No More Robots and RageSquid are taking Descenders very seriously on Switch. Speaking to Nintendo Life, No More Robots founder Mike Rose said that “the plan is to make sure the Switch version of the game is as great as possible”.
According to Rose, “Nintendo has been super supportive”, and the same goes for Switch fans. We’ll be seeing videos of Descenders running on Switch “soon” so that the community can follow along as the project develops.
Rose’s full comments:
More: Descenders, interview, Mike Rose, No More Robots, RageSquid
EA on why FIFA 18 isn’t using Frostbite on Switch, will be better than last-gen version
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 52 Comments
The Switch version of FIFA 18 doesn’t use Frostbite similar to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. EA did, however, come up with its own custom engine for Nintendo’s console.
Explaining why the team decided against using Frostbite on Switch, developer Andrei Lazarescu noted:
“As much as we would have wanted to (use Frostbite) you can’t without making the whole engine work. We intentionally chose to do a custom engine because we felt that rather and try and get Frostbite running and end up having to downsize things and making it just a smaller, lower-quality version of the PS4 and Xbox One versions, we wanted this to be a FIFA that stands on its own two feet. We want people to recognise it and play it for what it is rather than saying, hey, you’re getting a sh***y, second-rate game. This is a full FIFA that players players will enjoy.”
More: Andrei Lazarescu, EA Sports, FIFA 18, interview
Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 producer says no plans for a Switch version currently
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 100 Comments
Capcom brought the original Mega Man Legacy Collection to 3DS. But as things stand now, the sequel won’t be on any platform – be it 3DS or Switch.
Fans have at least been hoping that Capcom would port Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 to Switch. However, in an interview with TechnoBuffalo, producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya directly stated that there are currently no plans.
The only sort of small hint we’ve seen about Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 on a Nintendo platform came about earlier this month. It was discovered that the game’s code contained several references to 3DS. It’s possible that Capcom is thinking about bringing the compilation to Nintendo’s portable, or was considering it at one point before scrapping those plans.
Thanks to Anthony for the tip.
“There is certainly a chance” of Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition coming to Switch, says director
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 99 Comments
Square Enix’s Hajime Tabata stirred up quite a storm this week. When he appeared on a Twitch stream to promote Final Fantasy XV, he strong hinted that the game will be ending up on Switch in some form.
To recap, Tabata teased:
You asked the question, what other things do we have planned in the future? We can’t give you any complete, solid details right at the moment but for our policy writers we very much do want to move out and do as much as we can with the game, with the franchise. There’s another certain console out there people may be thinking of; sounds little bit like you guys, your name, “Twitch”… I think we’ll just leave it there.
Everyone on Final Fantasy XV, they love this specific console that sounds a lot like “Twitch” – you may want to think something about that in the future.
