JezMM

Just put the dancing in as a minigame or use it for some other purpose, like simple key puzzles (like ocarina songs in Zelda or something). Something cleverer than that as a proper tertiary mechanic would be cool but I'd settle for the former.

Chamomile #117

It's definitely not for me, the idea of playing some of the bigger AAA titles like Zelda and Mario handheld only seems insane to me, playing those for the first time on a TV was incredibly important. But... now that I've finished my first playthrough of them, I almost entirely play my Switch handheld, especially for more casual/non-atmospheric games like Sonic Mania, Mario Maker, Baba is You, etc. I completely understand that a LOT of folks just see video games as an entertainment to pass the time - playing their first playthrough on a TV for the atmospheric experience is not important at all to them. It's definitely a cool alternative to have for those who want it at a cheaper price point. The lack of kickstand is definitely pretty bizarre though, that's the only major fault I have with it - that one thing tips it over from encouraging single player to actively DISCOURAGING local multiplayer". Having said that, pretty much every multiplayer game I'm aware of has multi-console linking so PROBABLY from a business standpoint, Nintendo are more interested in encouraging family-members/friends to buy a Switch Lite each rather than extra joycons for one.

Chamomile #116

The only part of the intro that bothers me is the weird scrolling slideshow of her waking up and looking out her window etc. It went by too fast for me to parse what was even happening until I'd watched a couple of extra times. Embracing the slideshow and using flashes to cut between each panel would've made it a lot clearer, the fact that it scrolls from moment to moment just messes up my ability to interpret the scene for some reason. It's definitely a shame that it's only 30 seconds long, but still, a cool thing to have.

Chamomile #115

A difficult thing with Mania is that, like many, I first played it at launch where it was an incredibly disjointed experience narratively. It still isn't perfect but I wish I could judge the final product with fresh eyes, where the foreshadowing of the Titanic Monarch halfway through would be, y'know, foreshadowing coz I didn't know what the final stage was when I first played - now I do. Etc Etc. I think Colours, Lost World and Forces are all about on equal ground. I definitely appreciated the ATTEMPT at something more serious in Forces but they all fell kinda flat for some reason or another. For Colours, it was nothing becoming of Yacker's disappearance, and the fact that the overall plan is solved by an accident/coincidence that occured in the first zone of the game. Lost World was just all over the place, with Tails being completely overdramatic and the story sending a lot of mixed signals as to whether Sonic was supposed to learn a lesson about acting before thinking or not. And Forces just had a bunch of holes and failed to live up to a bunch of promises the promo material implied (like the returning villians being at all significant). Honestly, Fire & Ice wasn't bad. It didn't resort to a macguffin plot, instead opting for the overall cut-scenes being influenced by a game-long chase sequence, there was plenty of humour and to the GREAT credit of a handheld spin-off title team, all the cut-scenes were fully voiced and animated, no talking heads and text boxes to be found - a series first on handheld. It's only downfall is that there isn't anything to be emotionally invested in and no big drama as the game comes to a climax (instead feeling kind of more like you're just playing a more action-focused episode of the TV show), but at least, unlike the mainline games, it wasn't TRYING to achieve that and failing.

The specific issue is that they were building for more powerful consoles, then SEGA shifted development to the Wii U as part of their three-game exclusive deal going on with Nintendo at the time, and the engine being used for Boom (I think it was Unreal?) had next to no documentation or compatibility with being port to the Wii U. They spent a huge deal of time just trying to get the game to run on the Wii U at all, so if anything major got cut it was likely due to that timesink (although content gets cut from in-development games all the time and it's important to not get too attached to stuff that doesn't show up in the final game - it's often for a good reason or ended up changing into some other content as development progressed).

Chamomile #114

To be fair, while I desperately want the trailer to be representing an experience we have in-gameplay, we can't take anything for granted. For the first 20 hours of BotW I was wondering when I was going to meet up with Zelda in the main quest, because all of her appearances in the trailer implied that it would happen at some point before the end of the game. Of course I had no idea at the time that all those scenes from the trailer were pre-rendered memories.

Honestly if there's just two or three new common enemies and a few new weapon types or gimmicks (elements, armor, or magic buffs etc) that can be applied across the board to all "intelligent" enemies, I'll be satisfied. I'd be happy to see some more traditional Zelda enemies return, but they're probably best limited to particular biomes/dungeons so they don't get old or feel like padding. What I WOULD like to see increased significantly with more uniqueness is big boss enemies. I'd like to see the team take on the same big risk of "quality content that some players may never even see" like they were so brave to do when they made Lurelin Village completely optional in terms of the Main Quest, and have a fair few unique boss enemies that are only found in one place in the world, and the satisfaction of fighting them is the main reward for reaching them over all else. Beyond that I'd definitely like to see a few more boss creatures to be placed around the map repeatedly than what we got - preferrably designed with how they - and you- interact with the geometry around them to add more variety, so one boss design can feel very different depending on whether they're faced in a canyon, an open field, some pokey ruins, etc. Alternatively, more gimmicky versions of the bosses - for each one have like 3-4 variations that could be summed up as "It's <boss>, but the normal way of defeating them makes them do this!" or "It's <boss>", but you aren't able to this!" Examples in the existing game would be that a Stalnox is "It's a Hinox, but attacking their eye makes it fall out, and you only really do damage then!" or a Frost Talus being "It's a Talus, but you can't climb on it unless you can warm it up somehow!" Etc. etc.

I feel like the weapon durability case is somewhat mind-set based. I never felt like the weapons were made of glass because I knew the pace of weapon changing was taking artistic liberties on realism in the same way that I didn't go "What the hell, a day lasts 24 minutes!? What kind of crazy rotation does Hyrule's planet have!?" I feel if durability was longer, players would be even more annoyed when a certain weapon breaks because they've gotten attached to it. I also feel permanent weapons would just destroy any chance of players using a variety unless certain weapons worked better on certain foes, and that runs a risk of just turning the combat into old-3D-Zelda style "use square peg in square hole" item-based combat. Perhaps they could add some new legendary weapons that work like the Master Sword though, breaking for a while rather than permanently if used haphazardly etc. But again there's the fear that it would make the Master Sword less special. It's gonna be a tricky needle to thread, personally I am in the "Enjoyed improvising all the time but better menu please". I'm not sure about auto-switching when a weapon breaks coz it'd suck to waste some durability of one you were saving in a panic, but at the very least I want to be able to drop items from the quick menu by holding down on the d-pad for a half second or something. I wonder how they'll cut off the branches of the wildly different personal stories that the player could experience in BotW too? It'd be kind of neat if you could export over BotW1 save data - it'd be a shame to invalidate a more casual player's experience in which Link never regained his memory - could give some interesting alternate dialogue for Link and Zelda if so. Also, on a vaguely related note, I desperately want them to canonically show or at least imply that Link told Zelda about her father's diary if you found it:

Chamomile #113

So I had my usual pre-Smash music musings, figured I'd share and invite anyone else to mention what their must-have music for Banjo-Kazooie would be (and Dragon Quest if you're so inclined, I don't play those games so whatever from me). Using Joker/Persona's 11 tracks as a baseline to temper expectations, my personal picks for Banjo would be: Banjo-Kazooie: Spiral Mountain (confirmed in trailer) Banjo-Kazooie Main Theme (it's the main theme, obviously) Treasure Trove Cove (one of the most well-loved songs and worlds) Freezeezy Peak (as above) Final Boss (would be good for Smash gameplay, and allows Grunty's recurring theme to show up) Staff Credits (this one is just a biased personal pick, I LOVE this song but - and this is crucial - it NEEDS to include the pretty little melancholy bit before the loop that is almost always missing from soundtrack release versions (which tend to be the most widely circulated versions online and it frustrates me to no end) Banjo-Tooie: Glitter Gulch Mine: Canary Mary Race (nice and energetic, and I feel this task was memory-inducing for a lot of players due to how difficult it was so early on?) Hailfire Peaks: Chilli Billi & Chilly Willy (a personal nostalgia bias I guess, I just thought this was the coolest of the boss songs) I don't have a lot of stock in the Tooie soundtrack for whatever reason. It got the musical and melodic style spot-on and yet almost none of the tunes stick with me like B-K's do. Having said that, when I flicked through the music to try and jog my memory, these two tracks stuck out as ones I had an attachment to as a kid. Nuts & Bolts: Discovering Banjoland (Banjoland's exploration theme - it's a medley of B-K music played with modern instruments so that's pretty convenient for Smash as is) Testing Times (The Test-o-Track theme in Mumbo's Motors - nice and upbeat for fighting and is heard frequently throughout the game - as a bonus it allows Mumbo's recurring theme to make an appearance) Nutty Acres Action (Nutty Acres' Challenge theme - since it's the challenge theme of the first world, it's probably one that most players remember, it's nice and energetic for Smashing, and it's just a nice little nod I think to include a N&B song that was original to the game) If, like Joker, we use 3 remixes as a humble baseline, I'd probably give the second two to Treasure Trove Cove coz you could do some RAD stuff with that track, and Canary Mary Race since I feel the track has great potential but is probably the most in need of an upgrade from N64 midi to achieve it.

Tbh I hope it's not Demise because I don't want it to be Demise. I don't give a shit about literally any of the lore introduced in Skyward Sword because none of it added anything to the lore it was attempting to create a grand origin story for. Ganondorf is the character I'm interested in (though I'd take a new guy too). Also Demise was a chunky lad and I felt it was implied by his design that he was very much not of the physical world, not mortal. And that right there in the trailer looks like one heck of a mortal corpse to me, and a skinny one at that. It doesn't help that Demise was basically just setup to be "evil for evil's sake" with nothing to his character, whereas Ganondorf, a mortal wizard, has a lot more potential for an interesting, conflicted storyline. Hell, one of the most frequent criticisms of BotW's story was Ganon being reduced to a generic evil force rather than a character. If this sequel aims to respond to that criticism, it'd be kind of idiotic for them to say "okay this time the villian will be that other guy who was a boring generic evil force rather than a character!". Even if they do rewrite him into an interesting character, it's like... you're rewriting the wrong one guys! The damage is done, we don't care about that one! Do something cool with Ganondorf this time or write us a new one!