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Episode 428: Ham-Fisted Villain O'Clock

by James Jones, Jon Lindemann, Jonathan Metts, and Guillaume Veillette - May 3, 2015, 7:52 pm EDT
Total comments: 24

RFN gets really real on the decline of Konami, Goldeneye 007 on Wii, and Geometry Wars. Plus: return of the Thunder Round!

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This week's New Business starts off more like business news, as Jon leads us through reactions to Konami's continued retreat from their roots as a video game legend. Gui provides a tonal upturn with his impressions of Amiibo Tap, Heart Beaten, and the obscure Gargoyle's Quest 2. He also looks back at the solo campaign of Eurocom's Goldeneye 007 for Wii, focusing on the other half of a game that we used in RetroActive as a send-off to Nintendo WiFi Connection. James tells us how Wild Arms kept the age of Super Nintendo RPGs going right into the PlayStation era. Jonny bats clean-up with effusive praise for the Mario Kart 8 downloadable content, Geometry Wars 3, and the almost-complete NWR Smash Bros. Tournament.

After the break, we launch into another Thunder Round edition of Listener Mail. This set isn't quite as brisk as the last, but we still covered a lot of ground in about half the usual time. As always, we love hearing from everyone and highly encourage you to send questions and comments to the show. And don't forget about the next RetroActive! You can still join the vibrant discussions in our special forum thread for Twilight Princess.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Bluffs Custom Music.

Talkback

TOPHATANT123May 03, 2015

My favourite James Bond game is Eurocom's The World Is Not Enough for the N64. There was a large variety of gadgets with a greater emphasis on stealth, and the multiplayer had more interesting map design and customisation options compared to GoldenEye

are you kidding me, James Jones?!? Konami is the same company that announced that Blade of time was coming out 1 week before it came out and then failed to stock it anywehere for a week! Tak Fuji couldn't find a copy of his game!

Let's see, how about Silent Hill: Homecoming's release date getting moved after the release date had come and gone? they don't send review copies of games to anybody... hell, we had to have this whole thing with Del Toro go down before Konami would say shit about WTF was going on with Silent Hills!

Konami's PR has been notoriously bad as of late. I'm worried that they will flounder their mass de-listing if they really are just going to back out that hardcore, and that scares me.

DanteMay 04, 2015

Hi, guys! First time posting here but I been listening to the podcast for more than a year now and loving it so far.


I have registered just to point this out, a mistake that you keep making everytime that you mention the first Breath Of Fire. That's a game PRODUCED and published by Capcom in Japan, Squaresoft handled the localization and publishing duty in America (I think this game skipped Europe). And that's all the involment that Square had with that game.


I think that Capcom had zero interest in bringing that game overseas and Square saw potential in that game and having a lot of experience localizing their own RPG's well, it was a very fitting task for them.


I hope you have read that in the most nasal and nerdy voice that you can imagine, because it's the nerdiest post that I have made in years!  ;D


Keep the good work!  :)

azekeMay 04, 2015

Geometry Wars 1 is on Steam. No achievements and it has overly touchy stick deadzone setting but otherwise it's perfectly playable.

also, I'd like to say that i know at least two people, one of them being a very close friend, that counts Wild ARMS as one of their favorite games/JRPG series. I got the game back in the day because one of the Game Informer editors proclaimed it to be one of the PSX's lost gems on a system that piratically DROWNS in mediocre crap JRPGs like Battle Hunter, Breath of Fire IV* (3 is my favorite in the series, IV is a regression to the point that it's even more milquetoast than the first**), evil eyes, and many, many others. I actually think Wild ARMS is more engaging than Grandia, and a lot of people swear by that game too!




*lol@capcom putting BoF4 on PSN but not the third game.





**It has been pointed out by MANY listeners, but Breath of Fire 1 was LOCALIZED by Square. not developed.

Square of japan never TOUCHED the game. their US Division got pulled away from Mystic Quest or Secret of Evermore or whatever they were doing at the time to localize an already complete game. a game completed by capcom.

nobody else.

not square.

not enix.

not konami.

not even natsume.

just Capcom.

Capcom developed Breath of Fire 1.

do you get that Capcom developed BoF1 internally yet? this should help you remember through redundancy

SorenMay 04, 2015

Guillaume: The early cups are indeed easy on 200cc. But try from the Star Cup on. Even better, try going for 3 stars. Then you'll know real pain.

KobeskillzMay 04, 2015

Even though Konami hasn’t done much in the past 10 years or so they were a huge part of my childhood.

Ninja Turtles
Contra
Castlevania

Just to name a few.

I miss that white screen with the logo. Is sad to see what is happening to the Japanese game market and developers and I grew up with their games and tend to favor their style over the US gritty realism.

Don’t get me wrong I like Batman and Gears as much as the next guy but in-between I want me some quirky Japanese games to mix it up and have a nice balance.

azekeMay 04, 2015

Quote from: Kobeskillz

Don’t get me wrong I like Batman and Gears as much as the next guy but in-between I want me some quirky Japanese games to mix it up and have a nice balance.

The fact that japanese games have been reduced to nothing more than "quirky little distraction" in public conscience is the real problem. Especialy when actually both of the western series you mentioned are built on strong foundation that japanese games have built.

ejamerMay 04, 2015

Yeah, I don't see how Castlevania or Contra are "quirky Japanese games".  We must have different definitions of quirky.  :)

EnnerMay 04, 2015

Listening to Guillaume's harsh take and bad experience with Goldeneye 007 Wii's story mode was hard to take. Perhaps this speaks badly of the first-person shooter genre since 2007 (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's year of release), but Goldeneye 007's light stealth elements and relatively low body count is an interesting, novel, and fun experience. This is coming from a person who has played many first-person shooter campaigns as well as playing a no kills and no alerts run of Metal Gear Solid 4 on Liquid Easy (sorry!).


Oh wait, this is coming from the person who ranks Kirby's Adventure so low in the series' pantheon? The game that is on my short-list for quick response to the question, "What's your favorite game of all time?"


Well, that's just bad taste in video games then. :p


-----


Really enjoyed the eulogy for Konami's console game development. I hope these mini-feature discussions on the underpinnings and machinations of the video games industry become a somewhat regular thing, especially during the lean times of new releases. Though, I don't want Radio Free Nintendo to be a video game news show. Your peers are covering that.


Aww, no love for the otaku stuff? Senran Kagura 2 might be a great, voluminous game! Kidding aside, it is very sad to see the shift of Japanese game development in to mobile games. The whimsy, not serious, and sometimes special brand of stupidity of Japanese console video games is most of what video games are to at the moment. With any luck, Japanese independent video game developers and hobbyist software circles will break out of the doujinshi/comiket shell and have their games available around the world on all platforms. That should help things, if only for a little bit.

Enner, late last year some truly independent Japanese titles made a sort of collective sale/debut on Steam. It was nice to see these games get a brief spotlight, because I believe many people in the industry are unaware they even exist.

EnnerMay 05, 2015

Quote from: Crimm

Enner, late last year some truly independent Japanese titles made a sort of collective sale/debut on Steam. It was nice to see these games get a brief spotlight, because I believe many people in the industry are unaware they even exist.

Yup! The doujinshi soft circles that release their independent video games in the twice annual Comic Markets of Japan are slowing selling their 'wares world wide on Steam. Some games like Astebreed have PS4 releases planned. As one who has enjoyed doujinshi games, I hope this trend gets bigger and bigger.

Can't wait to see what new stuff gets announced in this year's BitSummit.

KDR_11kMay 05, 2015

The Wiimote controls in 007 were perfect (I generally prefer near zero deadzones for Wii FPSes), got me loads of kills online. People just fall back to dual analogs because of the familiarity, I was learning both Wiimote and dual analog FPSing at the same time and DA was absurdly clunky and hard to learn in comparison.

Agree, the Wii controls were really good. I think I did tinker with the adjustments a bit though.

I'm in Giillaume's camp for FPSes. I bought 007 for Wii on others' recommendations to see if I could enjoy a "good" FPS, too. I concluded I was terrible at it and also bored by the third mission.

Kirby's Adventure and Kirby 64 are good games, though.

KobeskillzMay 05, 2015

Quote from: Enner

Listening to Guillaume's harsh take and bad experience with Goldeneye 007 Wii's story mode was hard to take. Perhaps this speaks badly of the first-person shooter genre since 2007 (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare's year of release), but Goldeneye 007's light stealth elements and relatively low body count is an interesting, novel, and fun experience. This is coming from a person who has played many first-person shooter campaigns as well as playing a no kills and no alerts run of Metal Gear Solid 4 on Liquid Easy (sorry!).


Oh wait, this is coming from the person who ranks Kirby's Adventure so low in the series' pantheon? The game that is on my short-list for quick response to the question, "What's your favorite game of all time?"


Well, that's just bad taste in video games then. :p


-----


Really enjoyed the eulogy for Konami's console game development. I hope these mini-feature discussions on the underpinnings and machinations of the video games industry become a somewhat regular thing, especially during the lean times of new releases. Though, I don't want Radio Free Nintendo to be a video game news show. Your peers are covering that.


Aww, no love for the otaku stuff? Senran Kagura 2 might be a great, voluminous game! Kidding aside, it is very sad to see the shift of Japanese game development in to mobile games. The whimsy, not serious, and sometimes special brand of stupidity of Japanese console video games is most of what video games are to at the moment. With any luck, Japanese independent video game developers and hobbyist software circles will break out of the doujinshi/comiket shell and have their games available around the world on all platforms. That should help things, if only for a little bit.


Yeah that was weird. He’s been in a mood the last few podcast or something.

I enjoyed Goldeneye on the Wii a lot and thought the pointer controls were highly customizable and worked just fine IMO.

Hearing him bash that game, and DK64 has been brutal for me. I’m playing DK64 right now and while obviously flawed it’s still a good game IMO. Goldeneye I thought was a very good game that successfully mashed old and new bond into something unique. The multiplayer was tons of fun too.

KobeskillzMay 05, 2015

Quote from: TheYoungerPlumber

I'm in Giillaume's camp for FPSes. I bought 007 for Wii on others' recommendations to see if I could enjoy a "good" FPS, too. I concluded I was terrible at it and also bored by the third mission.

Kirby's Adventure and Kirby 64 are good games, though.

While I disagree about Goldeneye I completely agree about Kirby 64. That was such a great game. Still is actually as I recently passed it again on the VC.

SorenMay 05, 2015

You guys are crazy. The only thing bad about the 007 Wii campaign was the bullet sponge final battle.

ejamerMay 05, 2015

Quote from: Kobeskillz

...
Yeah that was weird. He’s been in a mood the last few podcast or something.
...

Or he just has different opinions and doesn't mind voicing them. (Crazy concept, right?)


I feel GoldenEye (Wii) is a mediocre game, and that Kirby's Adventure (NES) gets more love than it really deserves. Neither game is bad, but neither changed my world or were something I couldn't have lived without.


Gui has slightly different taste in games. Sometimes I agree with his views, sometimes not.  But it's always funny to see people get all up in arms when he doesn't enjoy the same games they do.

KobeskillzMay 06, 2015

Quote from: ejamer

Quote from: Kobeskillz

...
Yeah that was weird. He’s been in a mood the last few podcast or something.
...

Or he just has different opinions and doesn't mind voicing them. (Crazy concept, right?)


I feel GoldenEye (Wii) is a mediocre game, and that Kirby's Adventure (NES) gets more love than it really deserves. Neither game is bad, but neither changed my world or were something I couldn't have lived without.


Gui has slightly different taste in games. Sometimes I agree with his views, sometimes not.  But it's always funny to see people get all up in arms when he doesn't enjoy the same games they do.

Lol calm down lol.

I was just messing about the mood what do I care.

It was a fun poke at him shitting on games lately. Plus is his own self doing since he's playing games he's admitted to not even liking like first person shooters and old school platformers.

I like gui a lot he's my favorite out of the 4 so you don't have to get all defensive.

Goldeneye Wii imo is far from mediocre. You might not like it but it's not a bad game at all. Kirby for the nes always drops my jaw at how damn impressive it looks. This game blew me away graphics wise back on the day. For a nes game.

broodwarsMay 06, 2015

I feel like a lot of the problems with the GoldenEye remake can be directly attributed to them stripping out the escapist gadgets & shoehorning the most boring of the James Bonds in as the lead (Daniel Craig). Yeah, I can't stand Daniel Craig's James Bond. His portrayal has all the personality of a dead fish, and is about as emotive. And so instead of an escapist spy story, we have a guy who runs around gunning hundreds of people down CoD-style while checking the apps on his cellphone. Thrilling.

Despite that, I did like the GoldenEye remake. The stealth elements don't make much logical sense, but with so many shooters focused on how many hundreds of goons you can gun down every few rooms, I enjoyed having the option of exploring the levels to find the right path to take a handful out silently instead.

MASBMay 12, 2015

I think that Konami segment was the most down the crew sounded since the Great Wii U NPD Crisis of December 2013. Sad to think that there may be more times like these in the future with regards to Japanese gaming companies and what affect that may have on Nintendo. Informative, hard-hitting, heartfelt, that's why we tune in (love to Karl) to RFN!

I felt sorry for Gui with the Kirby games letter. I didn't agree with him either, but to hear the sheer unbelieving frustration from James ("Why did you write this email to Guillaume?!") was funny and a highlight.

Geometry Wars 3 sounds great. Something I'll have to look into.

Don't feel bad for me, I was delighted that the e-mail was addressed to the person with the correct opinions.

I'd love it if Nintendo would collaborate with Kojima & Guillermo Del Toro to produce a survival horror game exclusive to Wii U named TP.

The writer of the email on backlogs sounded just like me until he mentioned the spouse that was unsupported of their habit.  On-top of what was said on the podcast, big things that have helped me with backlogs are:

Don't buy a game unless you know it'll jump your to-play list to the top.
Don't fall into the sunk-cost fallacy of "just because you've played some time into the game, you have to beat it" if you're not enjoying yourself.
Don't play a game on your backlog just because you want to whittle down your backlog.  At that point, it turns into work and makes it less fun to play games.

Games are supposed to be a fun past-time, not something that looms over your head as unfinished business.  Too many other parts of life bear down on you like that, why would you want gaming to turn into that?

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