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Episode 601: What Can't a Little Bedroom Farce Improve?

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, Jon Lindemann, and Guillaume Veillette - December 9, 2018, 2:51 pm EST
Total comments: 2

Cinema, for one.

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It's going to be hard to adjust back to normalcy after the party that was Episode 600. I just don't know what we're going to do...

What's that, you say? Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is out? Why yes it is! In this, an all-New Business catch-up show, we instead start the show with the hottest new business. Jon, Greg, and James are all sampling from video game equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet, and devote the opening of the show to their first few hours. Some of this time is stolen to discuss Joker's announced role as the first character in the upcoming DLC pack. After we prattle on about Smash, we turn the floor over to Gui. He's been taking a look at multiple versions of Sonic the Hedgehog, both on 3DS and now on Switch. He also has been working through retro-remake Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. Lastly, he has a report on NAIRI: Tower of Shirin, an adventure/puzzle game where cat bandits are a real thing. Jon did some Black Friday savings, and moved all his Switch data to a new SD card - the hard way. He's got hands-on impressions with Flip Grip, the Switch case for playing in tate mode, something not particularly useful for all the time he's still putting into Diablo III. Lastly, James and Gui report from the battlefields of Valkyria Chronicles 4. The game is good, but has a lot of pitfalls. James has cleared it and has advice for Guillaume, who seems to have given up the fight.

Next week we should be back to our normal show, so please send us your questions.

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 Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See more of his work at his website.

This episode's ending music is Title Theme, from Valkyria Chronicles 4. It was selected by James. All rights reserved by Sega Games Co., Ltd.

Talkback

I do agree with the general sentiment that like Chrono Trigger, the protagonist (Joker) is probably the least interesting character in Persona 5.  Both are very much self insert, mute characters, so that makes it hard for them to have a distinct personality (beyond what you give him in dialogue choices). 

That said, beyond me being a professed big fan of Persona 5, it also means Persona 5 level, music, and possibly all out attack as a final smash, which would be great. 

It also means with an announcement as out of left field as this, that we're in for more surprises.  Given how robust the current roster already is, i'm ready/pumped for a bunch of weird, weird announcements.

I always enjoy these talks about Smash Bros. because it feels like we're on two seperate idealogical planets in two seperate theoretical galaxies supposedly playing the same game, but that's the great thing about individuality.

I have never once thought of Smash Bros. feeling like knock-off product whatsoever. if anything, I think that Super Smash Bros. is the sequel to Kirby Super Star, which was in turn the sequel to Kirby's Adventure. seriously, go play Kirby Super Star. SO much Smash Bros. is there. the unique and stylized UI, the bent of it being better with friends, using directional influence with your attack button to do different attacks or having dash attacks, whielding with a shoulder button that causes a bubble to come around you and protect you, a gauntlet where you fight all your foes in an endurance match with a little rest area with calming music in between, the overall boss design of bosses who like randomly teleporting around before doing a highly telegraphed attack... I think it feels like a Bootleg to Jon because he in turn has such a small opinion of the Kirby franchise.

Secondly,Training mode is a godsend. it is in this game. it is only as boring as you make it out to be. because you have the attention span of a fruit fly who continues to collect garbage around his house in the form of video game boxes, you think it's boring. Training mode is the equivalent of your class' textbook. yes, it may actually indeed suck to sit down and try and digest it all at once, but it's an invaluable tool to your ability to LEARN!!! Training modes in fighting games are getting better and better as the people making fighting games continue to innovate, particularly in the indie space and with the likes of Guilty Gear Xrd and such, which not only go over the basics, but also start to teach you things like Matchup data and how you should approach each opponent. Rivals of Aether has an AMAZING training mode and tutorial system, as does the likes of Them's Fightin' Herds. The granular information you need to succeed is becoming more and more transparent and I love that those tools are there.

How does Smash's training mode fair? well... it has a new training stage with some interesting tools like frame by frame advance to look over your moves, how quickly they become active, etc... and it has an interesting tool of projected launch power of attacks at certain percentages, as well as the training stage having a the blast zones for Battlezone and Final Destination noted on them... this is good, but there also could be a lot more. I wish there was a toggle for rather than the launch projections that they had a DI projection option to see how much your opponent could mitigate your knockback or actual hitboxes  and some other frame data tools like hitstun and blockstun numbers.


That being said, I LOVED world of Light. it is fun seeing how badly you can break it with different combos of spirits and the skills you get off of the skill tree. it's also cute seeing a DEEP Cut and how they attempt to represent these characters through their spirit battles. I thought it didn't get old, even though the game is looong in that regard.


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I actually like Sonic 1 because it concerns itself with being a platforming game first with a little bit of the spectacle here and there rather than being all about the speedy track memorization stuff. I still say best sonic 1 port is the Christian Whitehead one that's in Widescreen and adds playable tails and knuckles complete with alternate paths rather than the M2 ports, but that's just me. I also think that Sonic 1 on the Master System is also REALLy good, because that game is REALLY more concerned about being a platformer than being speedy funtimes, although that game is actually really hard. hard but fair.

I've been wanting to try these wonder boy remake/new game stuff, although the real dream would be fore Monster World IV to get that treatment. then again, we'd be approaching Shantae territory at that point, which is what I'd REALLY love to see; Shantae 1 remake but with the Half-Genie Hero engine... <3

I had to look up Nairi to make sure it wasn't Mutant: Year Zero, because I didn't hear the game's name and just heard something about characters being "Cats, Pigs, and Ducks" and was like, "Oh NO!", because that's a game that I suggest everyone who gives a darn about Digital Rights Management go and find ways to skirt around the developer's defense of Denuvo Anti-tamper.

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