Category: Nintendo News

It’s fair to say that a group of Switch gamers are rather annoyed at Capcom, even as the company has recently reversed course from minimal support to offering more backing for the popular system. Many are likely Monster Hunter fans that have been used to the series gracing Nintendo hardware and now face a harsh truth – it’s jumped ship.

Just as the ‘main series’ of the IP hopped from Sony hardware to the Wii and then 3DS years ago (with one Wii U entry, too), it’s now jumping back to the so-called ‘current-gen’ hardware of PS4, Xbox One, PC in early 2018. Monster Hunter: World is a notable departure for the series – yes, it has many of the same moves and ideas, but in adopting a more open world, drop in-out online co-op and a revamped visual style the strategy is obvious – hit the mainstream, especially in the West. It might work, too, as it ticks a lot of the boxes that make viral successes out of other games.

I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve been reading some online reactions. Some have loved the early beta on PS4, stating it’s made them day one buyers. Some other people I know, that have enjoyed the series for a number of years, have some concerns – namely that the pursuit of accessibility has stripped the game of the zaniness and charm that’s helped define the IP up to now. I expect it to sell rather well, especially on PS4, as it’s had an impressive marketing campaign; the beta was a brilliant decision, as people love playing something for free and can be sold on what is – outside of Japan – a relatively niche brand.

I think Western sales will be solid then, especially as it’ll be on widely adopted home console hardware, though I have no idea whether it’ll hit Capcom’s internal sales targets. Japan will be interesting though – the Japanese market goes crazy for the series, and all of the 3DS releases in particular sold impressive numbers. In Japan, though, it’s often been most warmly received as a handheld franchise, perhaps partly driven by different gaming habits and culture in comparison to the UK, for example. That said, I feel Capcom saturated its own market too much in the 3DS era, releasing a new entry or glorified expansion almost every year.

This week I tried to play the most recent of these – Monster Hunter XX on Switch. It’s part of the current gripe some have with Capcom – it’s only been released in Japan, so not only is Switch missing out on the shiny new re-imagining of the series, but fans in the West have been passed over for what is a glorified HD port of an expansion to a 3DS game. To clarify, the original ‘Double Cross’ on 3DS was an expanded iteration on what’s known in the West as Monster Hunter Generations; that was the trend on 3DS, the ‘main’ entries got localised – Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (which was treated as ‘new’ because it was a fresh generation of hardware), Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Monster Hunter Generations. Hence my remark about over-saturation – in the West we’ve had three ‘main’ MH games on 3DS, and that wasn’t even all of them.

Though it’s recorded solid numbers on Switch and Capcom has at times talked them up, at launch XX struggled by the IP’s standards in Japan because it was a) a port of a barely needed expansion and b) it arrived after the announcement of World. Some may argue that sales in Japan justify the lack of a Western release but, frankly, Capcom’s own desperate attempts to monetise the series led to those results.

Why did I try to play XX on Switch instead of the current ‘World’ beta? That’s easy, portability. I have returned to the family home for the festive week, packing my Switch but leaving the PS4 behind. We grabbed a copy of XX on Switch a little while ago, and with the World beta passing me by I thought it’d be fun – as an alternative – to see how far I can get playing XX in Japanese. One of my 2018 resolutions will be to start learning Japanese, as a matter of fact, but right now I know nothing; I figured that as I’d played every 3DS entry in the ‘main series’ I’d manage just fine.

Sure enough, the opening village and quest structure is indeed the same as Generations (port of an expansion, remember?), and I dutifully equipped the default Insect Glaive (my favourite weapon) and jumped into a quest. The problems were instant, of course – all of the introductory text and tips were in Japanese, and I was reliant on prior knowledge to get to the quest desk and start one. If I hadn’t played Generations I’d have been completely lost.

Even in a simple early quest I was missing vital details – I could tell the main quest targets thanks to the little icon for the monster type, but I had no idea what was required for the sub-quests. Likewise I could easily identify my core quest items like potions thanks to familiarity with the logos, but when looting the environment I wasn’t clear on what I was picking up.

The language barrier became impenetrable rather quickly, and from experience with the series I knew where I’d get stuck. Forging and buying equipment, eating meals with specific buffs and benefits, reading logs to identify an upcoming monster’s element types – all off the table without diving into research online. Then there’s my weapon of choice, the Insect Glaive. It has a multi-layered and relatively complex upgrade structure, something I couldn’t recreate without booting up Generations on my 3DS and checking comparable menus; at that point I may as well just play Generations.

Looking online I found a small and hardy group of non-Japanese speakers playing XX on Switch, using a mix of online guides and apps to help. One tip was to take pictures of text boxes and run them through Google Translate; it probably works, but it’s a stretch to find time to tackle a deliciously complicated game like MH, never mind having to also take pictures and fiddle around with Google.

My experiment didn’t last long, then. For my money the best way to enjoy Monster Hunter games (those on 3DS, in any case) is to let them get their claws into you, to get truly immersed in the detail – you need to do that to equip yourself for the tough endgame, in any case. It’s not possible to do that when playing in another language, and so in most cases I’d suggest an import or Japanese eShop download of XX simply isn’t worthwhile.

More’s the pity, in any case. I’ve become accustomed to the series being best enjoyed on a portable, and I hope that World maintains some of the silliness and quirkiness that I enjoy so much. It’s a shame from a Nintendo perspective, in general – as a series MH has felt at home on the big N’s hardware, but priorities have changed. I understand Capcom’s approach in desiring a sizeable Western breakthrough, which it’ll also hope doesn’t alienate Japanese fans. Frankly, I think it’ll sell well regardless, though how well it fares in Japan will be interesting to see.

The Switch will survive the shun, too, though I’ll definitely be a little sad when World arrives and doesn’t feature on Nintendo’s awesome little hybrid.

Team Meat has announced that Super Meat Boy will be releasing on Nintendo Switch on 11th January, adding a brand new ‘Race Mode’ into the mix.

For anyone not in the know, Super Meat Boy is a tough-as-nails platformer that has been around for several years across various platforms. After receiving a large amount of requests from Switch fans to bring the game to the console, the developer confirmed that a port was in the works in August. Now, thanks to the tweets below, we have confirmation of a release date and even a small glimpse at this new mode coming to the Switch version of the game.

With the amount of body tensing that happens as a result of Super Meat Boy’s challenging levels, perhaps it will be the perfect game to burn off a couple of pounds after the holidays (because that’s much better than doing real exercise, right?). Will you be picking up the game when it releases next month? Let us know with a comment below.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was notable for reinventing the Zelda formula in a significant way, shaking up the basic template and trying something entirely new. One such thing was the removal of the usual dungeon system, replacing it with 120 smaller shrines scattered about the landscape. Considering the heavy emphasis on exploration, it makes sense that this decision was made, but some fans still missed having that familiar dungeon system in place.

In the recent Nintendo Power Podcast, the developers of Breath of the Wild explained the reasoning for the shrines, and why traditional dungeons largely disappeared. Though the Divine Beasts were sort of an exception, the staff didn’t want the players to spend too much time searching around dungeons, so they went with the shrine system to keep players moving around the overworld. Here’s what was said by the game’s director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi:

So in the past Zelda games, one dungeon was very, very long and because this game had a very wide field to explore and one of the themes we had was finding things, we were thinking about what the ratio is for finding Shrines while players are wandering around the field. And when we calculated that, we kind of ended up with 100 or more Shrines. And as for size, we thought about perhaps making long, big dungeons, but that would take long, and players would dedicate their time too long in the dungeons, so we thought perhaps one Shrine is maybe 10 minutes. We’re thinking play would be a good amount.

When we considered that each Shrine would take around 10 minutes, we thought maybe for a Zelda title, it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t meeting that dungeon feel for the game, so we thought maybe for this game, we could incorporate a big dungeon and perhaps one that moves or one that incorporates a gravity movement system and so we considered a big dungeon and that’s how we thought about the Divine Beasts. And so initially when we were thinking about the Divine Beasts, we thought about something that could be seen from afar, and maybe like a humanoid form, but then because these Champions were controlling Divine Beasts, we thought well maybe it would be interesting if the Divine Beasts themselves were a dungeon. And so then that met the requirement of a moving dungeon and also something that could be seen from afar. That’s how we kind of came up with the idea of the Divine Beasts.

What do you think? Did you appreciate the shrine system? Would you like to see the return of traditional dungeons? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

A few weeks ago, Slain: Back From Hell launched on the Switch eShop, and it admittedly didn’t impress all that much. The game had a troubled release cycle, with the main issue being that the difficulty was initially far too high, and the final release didn’t quite shape up to provide what it promised. Even so, desperate fans of the Castlevania games don’t have many more options on the Switch, and Stage Clear Studios is still working on polishing up this release.

A new update just went out for Slain that improves the performance and bumps up the FPS from 30 to 60. Considering that one of the high points of the game is the impressive visuals, this should no doubt come as a pleasant surprise to the fans. Hopefully the developer will continue to provide more updates over time to tweak the game; there certainly is a decent foundation to be worked with.

What do you think? Did you like Slain? How do you think it stacks up to Castlevania? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Mega Cat Studios might not be a household name at present, but the company has been doing some incredible work in the realm of homebrew games development and has produced multiple physical NES carts over the past few years. 

We say down with Zack Manko, Mega Cat co-founder, to chat about the challenges of creating homebrew games for vintage systems, and the company’s plans for the future.

Nintendo Life: What inspired you to establish the studio, and what are you core goals?

Zack Manko: We’ve all been doing contract development for most of our professional lives. Some of us were in enterprise development, some with games, and others just hopping freelance gig to gig. If we’re going to take chances, we may as well do it now rather than later.

What many people are involved with Mega Cat Studios?

Zack Manko: Contract game development still takes up half of our bandwidth, and we’re incredibly lucky that we can work on bringing some of our own projects to life with the other half. Split across all teams, we have  around 20 full time team members, and about double that with subcontractors and freelancers!

Talk us through the typical process for creating a game, from conception to physical production – how long does it take and how many steps are involved?

Zack Manko: This definitely varies game by game, and it’s an ever-evolving process for us. We have some great standardized processes now that would have removed months of pain otherwise. The game design process is the most important, just like any current generation game. With retro platforms, you have to budget additionally for graphical optimization, scan line limitations, organizing art into different banks strategically for development later, and physical production. People always ask us at events how we can possibly sustain ourselves making new games for old consoles, and I always tell them the truth: Anyone who’s made a game for old consoles after the original commercial life cycle came to an end did it because they genuinely love the platforms. The look and feel, the limitations and challenges, and all of the nostalgia that’s at the base of retro gaming. As long as we’re around, we’re always going to be working on these platforms, but to make it a scalable company with some forecastable stability, we will be making modern platform ports.  

You’ve produced titles for the NES and Genesis so far – do you have plans for any other classic systems?

Zack Manko: We have two SNES games that have been going through testing and development to be released in 2018!

What would you say are the biggest challenges when it comes to creating homebrew software?

Zack Manko: You can’t patch a physical cartridge after it’s shipped! The modern conveniences of hot fixes, regional updates, and game improvements aren’t on the table when you’re shipping a physical good.

What has been your proudest Mega Cat moment so far?

Zack Manko: My proudest Mega Cat moment so far has been at one of our volunteering events. We’ve set up locally at some Carnegie Science Center/Carnegie Museum, and use it as a fun opportunity to share our projects with the community, non-gamers, casual gamers, and anyone in between. I like to think that 8-year-old Zack would high-five 30-year-old Zack. Giving 30-year-old Zack a chance to talk to actual 8-year-olds about working an and independent game development studio is genuinely fulfilling.  

Coffee Crisis is one of your most notable projects; what was the process for creating this game?

Zack Manko: We’re incredibly lucky, and thankful, that we have some great supporters that share our vision for awesome games with a retro aesthetic. Coffee Crisis was the first game we released for the Sega Genesis. The original plan was to do something we loved (making a new game for one of our favourite consoles) for a good cause (raising money for a small, local business, with a awesome niche: A metal-themed artisan coffee shop). We offered to do it for free, and dove right in!  

A few months down the pipeline, the game scope continued to increase in scope, along with costs. Donating $10,000 of labor, as well as any other opportunity costs for a small team was a huge amount for us. On the other side of it, we didn’t want to leave this huge amount of effort as a sunk cost. We put up our first Kickstarter, crossed our fingers, and inched over our goal. The Kickstarter support was awesome! A game about a small, local coffee shop where aliens come down to steal three of Earth’s most precious resources: coffee, metal music, and WiFi, made for a 25-year-old console, from a brand new company name got funded. We owed it to everyone to circle back around, and redo the art level by level, the animations, and improve what we were going to deliver.

We took to it with all hands on deck, and with less than a week before the Kickstarter closed, the developer for this project incurred some serious personal issues that would make him unavailable for at least weeks, if not months.  

The challenges continued as we had two other developers without any experience in this code base, or access to the custom optimisation tools used for the rest of development. All of the things that could go wrong, did, as we continued to burn capital trying to make this game work, respond to messages as to why the game is late, and ask for mercy. Pro tip: There’s a reason any game company has a buffer for fulfilment time, and it’s even more necessary for cartridge based platforms. Our fulfilment timeline was less than a month after the end of the Kickstarter campaign, and going back to square one with new assets meant an incredible amount of new work that had to be done.

Without a timeline in sight for when the original developer would be well enough to resume, we shipped the best version the second, back up developer for that project could assemble, using only a fraction of the new assets.  The retro community is really pretty incredible, and with few exceptions, enjoyed the game.  

Several weeks later, the original developer returned, unencumbered and eager to help. Despite losing our pants on the project with all of the new hurdles that appeared, we wanted to offer our fans something better, and give them the option to have new copies of the updated, redone, re-optimised, and improved game. We sent emails, Kickstarter messages, and went to work changing out version 1 cartridges. We had some really funny conversations with a lot of our backers, and only half of them even wanted the upgrade. If it was up to us, we’d have a scrap pile of destroyed Version 1 PCB boards melted down into bullets that I can shoot ‘2016 me’ in the leg with.  

At its onset, Coffee Crisis was meant to be all about community. Things that we love:  

• Retro gaming isn’t just how we grew up, it’s something we love dearly. It takes 2 to 3 times more effort to make a game for something that has 100x less commercial potential. It has a higher cost of goods, higher margin of error, and greater costs for quality control. It’s something you do because you love it: pure, gaming for fun’s sake.  
• Black Forge Coffeehouse espouses community in the truest way. There’s never a month that their calendar isn’t packed. Their first location was funded by their own IndieGo campaign, and as any small business team member, or owner can relate, it’s a 24/7 job. The food is locally sourced, the art is all independent, and the music is awesome.  
• Graywalker, an awesome local metal band, seemed like a perfect fit to collaborate with. There’s a reason that there weren’t many awesome metal tracks on the Genesis, and it’s a real challenge to make a cover like that translate to that medium.

After getting to the other side with this game, and refilling any orders for any players/backers/supporters along the way, we can hold our head high that we saw the project through despite so many unforeseen road blocks.  We created and improved internal processes with standardisation for source control, improved how we approach retro game design, and promised to make sure that we never again allow a game we’re doing for free to expand its boundaries past some type of planned, communicated limitations.  

It’s been much smoother sailing since then, and none of us will ever, ever, forget it. Challenges help teams come together, and we definitely did in every sense of the way. We decided that for the rest of the year, we’d give two copies of Coffee Crisis away for every one that was purchased. There are no words that can possibly express how elated and grateful we all are that this is mostly behind us, and that we’ve managed to move forward, learn, and improve.

We live in a world which is becoming increasingly digital and consumers often choose to rebel against such trends. Do you see the market for physical games growing in the same way that vinyl is booming in the music industry?

Zack Manko: The collector side of me says: “I sure hope so!” There are some incredible projects out there, now more than ever. Aftermarket consoles are widely available and affordable. The art and gameplay is timeless, and no house should go without a cartridge-based console. There are SO many amazing projects and teams surfacing the last few years, it’s incredible. Watermelon Co. is shipping Paprium soon, something I personally backed about four years ago, and would wait another four without hesitation to have it. The game looks amazing, and with the quality being so high in Pier Solar five years ago, I’m greatly looking forward to it. Retrotainment Kickstarted another beautiful looking NES game with Full Quiet, and the NES is just such a beauty. Analogue will be shipping their SNES console soon, and provide fans around the world another reason to have at least one console connected to every TV, in every room. We’re really, really excited to be part of this retro renaissance!

What plans do you have for the future? Will you be sticking to retro consoles or could we see Mega Cat Studios branch out into other realms?

Zack Manko: After the Coffee Crisis was over, we picked ourselves up, dusted off and got to work on our PC games. We definitely have the capabilities, and are genuinely excited to bring some of our own games to market this January. It’s amazing to live in a time where the barrier to entry is so low, games are plentiful and affordable, and Independent developers and studios can bring their ideas to life, and distribute them to the masses. Customer expectations are higher now than ever, and these elements combined make for a great time to love video games in all of their shapes and forms.  

Finally, do you have any message for the readers of Nintendo Life, and Nintendo fans in general?

Zack Manko: From the depths of my being, thank you for an awesome year! The generosity, enthusiasm, and emails are even more impactful when you’re going through what seems like Hell. Every picture of one of our followers sharing one of our games with your son/daughter/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife, every note or mention thanks and happiness is what any Indie Developer wishes they had on tap.  

The community has been amazing to interact with, and we have some great projects under way that will be released in 2018. Spoiler: None of them involve the name Crisis, but one has a pretty cute Gorgon.

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We’d like to thank Zack for his time. You can check out Mega Cat’s site here.

We’re big fans of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Ubisoft’s impressive strategy title that blends intelligent design with a whole lot of whimsy and humour. Pleasingly the development team continues to make adjustments alongside expansion pass content and free goodies, with a fresh update making some welcome changes.

The patch notes explain the addition of hints on the loading screen, tips in the event of a game over in addition to the simple but welcome ability to jump to Battle HQ before a battle. A couple of levels have also had their difficulty adjusted due to the spikes they represented. 

The changelog is below.

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While players are getting ready for their next Battle during a Loading Screen, they will now be able to scroll between different Tips providing advice and details about the game based on its current progression. 

Players will now have direct access to Battle HQ during the preparation phase. Of course, players can still jump directly to the heat of the Battle. But why not take some time upgrading their heroes to try out some of the Tips read during the Loading?

Every time a Battle is lost, the game will now provide Pro Tips to help Players succeed on the next try. Tips are tailored for battles to offer the most relevant advice when needed. 

Two battles are now easier as they represented a difficulty spike in the overall difficulty curve:

• World 2-2 Battle 1: UNDERGARMENT GULCH
• World 2-4 Battle 1: SQUARE ONE

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Have you been enjoying Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle this year?