Nintendo Releases New Wii U Details: PB is Pleased

[Hypershell]

Yes, but Dry Bowser stays because he's too awesome not to. Even if he IS a clone. 

[Protoman Blues]

Yeah, I'm fine with him & Dry Bones. But Metal Mario just urked me.

...Now if it was DR. MARIO, then well, that'd be okay! 

[Phi]

...it's a kart racer.  If they have a unique appearance and voice clips, they're as non-clone as they need to be.

If you want to [sonic slicer] about clones in a Mario sports spinoff, I suggest you take a look at Camelot's recent treatment of Yoshi.

Also, it helps even out the good guy/bad guy count without resorting to playing as random stage enemies.

They're all the same type of creature, size, shape, etc. It's like looking at custom mods of the same character. And I'm not "bitching" about them, so much as I'm referring to the sheer amount. 7 could have been shaved down to 3-4.

Fawful, Starlow or even Pauline, who is barely used, are a few examples that could fill that space.

[Police Girl]

So Japan is getting two Mario Worlds?  Huh.

I don't know why Nintendo keeps pushing Metroid Fusion but not Zero Mission.  It's like their own version of what's going on with Konami and Contra/Super C.

Yeah, they might be trying to get double dippers. But SMA2 is the better version of Mario World.

Maybe they'll be nice and let people get discounts for games they already have on the 3DS. But knowing Nintendo I doubt it.

But yeah, perhaps we'll see Zero Mission at a later date, they probably like putting Fusion out because Zero Mission is a remake and they have a serious hard-on for getting people to buy originals (probably why Mario Bros or original NES games get re-released all the time yet compilations like All-Stars or that collection of Ninja Gaiden games that came out on the SNES never get released.) Why Konami doesn't release Contra is a mystery though.

[Hypershell]

They're all the same type of creature, size, shape, etc. It's like looking at custom mods of the same character. And I'm not "bitching" about them, so much as I'm referring to the sheer amount. 7 could have been shaved down to 3-4.

Fawful, Starlow or even Pauline, who is barely used, are a few examples that could fill that space.

Arbitrarily bringing in half the Koopa Kids only to exclude the others would have been senseless.  And nothing says that any other characters were sacrificed to bring them in.  I'm not aware of any character limit that they were working under.

And...seriously, they're not anymore clones than Mario and Luigi, or Peach and Rosalina.  They are the same creature type but they each have a unique size and appearance.  I know the number 7 seems like a lot but it is kind of an all-or-nothing deal, and I don't believe that the racer-creation process is so complicated that the rest of the roster suffered for it.  We're talking about the franchise that throws Baby-Everyone in just because they can.

Yeah, they might be trying to get double dippers. But SMA2 is the better version of Mario World.

Eh, disagree, the sound difference bothers me there a lot more than it does in Yoshi's Island.  That and the GBA Yoshi's Island actually has more levels to it.  SMA2 is nice for the fact that it fixed Luigi's sprite and offered him as an alternate in single-player, but it did so at the expense of 2-player (which SMA4 preserved somewhat), and it made no other significant changes other than throwing colored Yoshis into regular stages (pointless since this is before Nintendo forgot how to let you keep Yoshi between levels).

[Police Girl]

Eh, disagree, the sound difference bothers me there a lot more than it does in Yoshi's Island.  That and the GBA Yoshi's Island actually has more levels to it.  SMA2 is nice for the fact that it fixed Luigi's sprite and offered him as an alternate in single-player, but it did so at the expense of 2-player (which SMA4 preserved somewhat), and it made no other significant changes other than throwing colored Yoshis into regular stages (pointless since this is before Nintendo forgot how to let you keep Yoshi between levels).

Really? I always thought the sound was so basic in SMW that the sound quality decrease from the GBA's awful soundchip wasn't a big deal at all. In Yoshi's Island songs like the final boss battle don't sound as cool. And I also dislike how the colors are all lightened up. Also I [tornado fang]ing hate that goddamn Yoshi's Story voice they jammed in (Though the addition of voices is something I didn't like in ANY of the Mario Advance Titles, if mostly because they sounded terrible.)

SMW had that issue too but since I don't bother with 2-player anyway it was nice to have Luigi playable as a not-palette swap of Mario.

That, and getting hit didn't force you down to Small Mario like it does in SNES World.

GBA Yoshi's Island's extra stages aren't really good anyway.

Who knows, maybe they'll be smart and make the games sound better, but knowing their insistence on being exactly like the original I doubt it.

[xnamkcor]

Really? I always thought the sound was so basic in SMW that the sound quality decrease from the GBA's awful soundchip wasn't a big deal at all. In Yoshi's Island songs like the final boss battle don't sound as cool. And I also dislike how the colors are all lightened up. Also I [tornado fang]ing hate that goddamn Yoshi's Story voice they jammed in (Though the addition of voices is something I didn't like in ANY of the Mario Advance Titles, if mostly because they sounded terrible.)

SMW had that issue too but since I don't bother with 2-player anyway it was nice to have Luigi playable as a not-palette swap of Mario.

That, and getting hit didn't force you down to Small Mario like it does in SNES World.

GBA Yoshi's Island's extra stages aren't really good anyway.

Who knows, maybe they'll be smart and make the games sound better, but knowing their insistence on being exactly like the original I doubt it.

GBA's sound sounds about half to 3/4 SNES's quality. Sony isn't a slouch when it comes to sound. It's not "the best", but it's far from the worst.

[OBJECTION MAN]

On the subject of handhelds coming to WiiU: I am pleased, but it isnt enough of a step in my opinion. I think this should have been announced and done right from the beginning. I think they should have also gone farther and made the WiiU be able to play 3DS games as well. Actual cartridge releases though. Like you could put the DS or 3DS game you already own directly into the system.

So far the WiiU still can't justify itself to me as a result. I don't want to be rebuying the DS (and hypothetically if it played them, 3DS) games to play on the WiiU. It would be nice if you could just type in the serial number on your game cart to get the VC download free though. I think if the WiiU did that I would go out and get one immediately.

You could even extend this concept into the really old games too. Not many people actually keep a game collection, especially after GameStop's trade in program started. They wouldn't be losing much off of it I believe, for the added functionality. I mean, they already log all of this stuff through your Nintendo Account, right? I would jump on the WiiU immediately if it did both DS and 3DS without me having to rebuy the games.

Hell, I would buy an additional 50$ add-on just to do this if they would release it. You know, like the GBA player. It would be worth it to me, and they could still do it now even after releasing the console without it first.

[Police Girl]

GBA's sound sounds about half to 3/4 SNES's quality. Sony isn't a slouch when it comes to sound. It's not "the best", but it's far from the worst.

Yeah, the raw sound is great. But the GBA Soundchip [tornado fang]ing butchers it and makes everything so damn fuzzy sounding.

Compare:

to its GBA counterpart:

Other than some of the samples being different, the stuff that's the same sounds just terrible.

[xnamkcor]

[Police Girl]

You know, Megaman and Bass had a terrible soundtrack regardless save for like two or three tracks.

[xnamkcor]

You know, Megaman and Bass had a terrible soundtrack regardless save for like two or three tracks.

Megaman and Bass was a GBA game.

[Police Girl]

Megaman and Bass was a GBA game.

Which was a port of an SFC game.

And wouldn't you know it, its a shitty port thanks to the gimped controls.

They made some songs a little better, but most still suck and the one or two that were good in the SFC version were made terrible.

Point I'm trying to get across is that GBA games are going to sound TERRIBLE if they strive for accuracy to the real hardware. Worse yet for the SNES ports.

[xnamkcor]

Which was a port of an SFC game.

And wouldn't you know it, its a shitty port thanks to the gimped controls.

They made some songs a little better, but most still suck and the one or two that were good in the SFC version were made terrible.

Point I'm trying to get across is that GBA games are going to sound TERRIBLE if they strive for accuracy to the real hardware. Worse yet for the SNES ports.

Since there was no official English release for SNES, all mentions of Megaman & Bass refer to the GBA game.

[Align]

But you knew what he meant, right?

[xnamkcor]

But you knew what he meant, right?

I cannot read minds.

[Hypershell]

You know, Megaman and Bass had a terrible soundtrack regardless save for like two or three tracks.

I'm an extreme weirdo in the case of MM&B in that I actually prefer the GBA version to SFC, mostly due to the boss battle BGM.

That said, the fact that double-tapping is the only way for Bass to dash kinda stinks.
(PB, before you say anything, Xtreme2 gives you the option of either Down+Jump on the ground or just the Jump button in midair for air-dash)

[The Drunken Dishwasher]

[Mirby]

damn \m/

[Protoman Blues]

I really hope Nintendo World is giving out DK Ties at launch. Cause I might pick it up ASAP then.

[The Drunken Dishwasher]

[Police Girl]

So some stuff from Japan's Wii U GBA games has come up so we can see how games will look on the hardware.

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Unsurprisingly they look kind of... dim.

[Satoryu]

Probably using the same emulator they used for 3DS ambassador then.

[xnamkcor]

Maybe it's one of the later games that were designed with the SP in mind and either was dim by default or had a menu option. It'd be cool if the Wii U or 3DS has an option to stretch the gamut to 000000 to FFFFFF instead of it probably being 080808 to F8F8F8.

[Police Girl]

So hey now we have release dates for the GBA games coming out in April.

April 3
Advance Wars ($7.99)
Metroid Fusion ($7.99)
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga ($7.99)

April 10
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror ($6.99)
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames! ($6.99)

April 17
F-Zero: Terminal Velocity ($6.99)
Golden Sun ($7.99)

April 24
Yoshi's Island ($7.99)

Variable pricing, oh my! So it looks like they'll either cost the same as or a dollar less than SNES games.
And here I thought they'd be a middle ground between SNES and N64.

Oh, and release date for SMB3 finally!

Its april 17th, you know, delaying it as long as humanly [tornado fang]ing possible before NES Remix 2.
Go [tornado fang] yourselves NOA.