Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - DADDY SAKURAI'S WILD RIDE HAS CONCLUDED

[Plasme]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Except that isn't the case? First things first, Banjo Kazooie is a golden ticket? Really? Yeah, because they're making so much money for Microsoft doing nothing and being an inactive IP for over a decade now bar an occasional cameo in a promotional video. 

Secondly, you do realise that like none of the characters that are third-party in Smash are freebies right? Because SEGA, Konami, Capcom, and Namco didn't just hand out their third-party characters for free for either A. free publicity, or B. good will.

Nintendo has to pay licensing fees to the companies that own the IPs to various different third parties, and even hypothetically - Nintendo shelling up the cash for licensing fees to Microsoft would be earning MS a lot more money from Banjo Kazooie than they've gotten in a very very long time. On top of that, would Switch even be seen as direct competition? I mean, as much as I like the Switch, I feel like if you're buying one, you're buying it for a totally different purpose than a Xbox One, likely mainly to play handheld mode and occasionally on a TV, where you'd play Xbox and PlayStation for more powerful console games. That's getting more hypothetical at this point but whatever. 

The freebie comment is hyperbole, but it highlights how you wouldn't give someone away who's a huge fan requested character, because the money you would make from it wouldn't be worth it. You'd be giving them too much of a boom to their already very popular game, giving them more exposure and encouraging people who haven't got it yet to go aboard.

And while Banjo hasn't had a game in ages, he's still recognisable today because of YouTube culture and people in their 20s and 30s are familiar with who he is and his legacy. He's a big character. 

[Strickerx5]

5 minutes ago, KHCast said:

 

 

@Strickerx5 when he’s calling people idiots essentially for a reasonable guess, I don’t see why calling him out on that is what gets called out 

Because "It's completely nonsensical and nothing but wistless fan dreaming" doesn't quite equate to the multiple post you made going at this. If you think a member is out of line, please report it rather than going at them yourself.

I'll put this message out for everyone. Be civil and actually report things if they get out of hand.

[KHCast]

7 minutes ago, Plasme said:

The freebie comment is hyperbole, but it highlights how you wouldn't give someone away who's a huge fan requested character, because the money you would make from it wouldn't be worth it.

Where’s the proof of this...? Like I get your general idea, but unless you’re a part of the higher up boardroom at Microsoft, how would you know what isn’t and is enough or what is and isn’t worth it?

5 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

Because "It's completely nonsensical and nothing but wistless fan dreaming" doesn't quite equate to the multiple post you made going at this. If you think a member is out of line, please report it rather than going at them yourself.

Kk

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Plasme said:

The freebie comment is hyperbole, but it highlights how you wouldn't give someone away who's a huge fan requested character, because the money you would make from it wouldn't be worth it. You'd be giving them too much of a boom to their already very popular game, giving them more exposure and encouraging people who haven't got it yet to go aboard.

And while Banjo hasn't had a game in ages, he's still recognisable today because of YouTube culture and people in their 20s and 30s are familiar with who he is and his legacy. He's a big character. 

When Banjo is literally making zero money for Microsoft whatsoever, like literally nothing, bar maybe the very minuscule amount of sales from the 360 remasters that came out over a decade ago, I don't see why they would complain.

And what? Do you really think with Joker, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Bayonetta, Simon Belmont, and many many many more that someone is gonna see Banjo and say "oh well i need a switch and smash now!". If "Banjo being in Smash means competitors will buy it" is their reasoning, it's absolutely ridiculous because either way, those who wanted Smash are going to buy it already because of the massive showcase of characters in it. It should've been obvious from it's very announcement that it was going to launch with massively high sale numbers and boost the Switch further beyond it's original sales either way, because it's Smash, and Smash is a stupidly successful series. With or without Banjo, it would sell, and it would sell well.

So let's look at the logic here - it's better to hold onto the license and character that is making them little to no money in the vain hopes that it'll deter people from buying Smash despite the fact they likely already bought it already - or make an agreement to have Banjo appear, get a nice slice of the Smash pie that's gonna happen with or without Banjo either way, get free promotion for a potential new title in the series from a massive fanbase of Smash players who will remember Banjo and likely hop on board the Xbone train if a new title releases, and on top of that - give yourself and Nintendo healthier business relations that already capitalises on the publicity already built with the Minecraft cross play?

[KHCast]

Xbox players aren’t going to drop the Xbox and run out and buy a switch and only play that cause banjo or Steve is in. Some may buy a switch, but there’s nothing to suggest Microsoft would loose sales or fans or player game time

[Plasme]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

When Banjo is literally making zero money for Microsoft whatsoever, like literally nothing, bar maybe the very minuscule amount of sales from the 360 remasters that came out over a decade ago, I don't see why they would complain.

And what? Do you really think with Joker, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Bayonetta, Simon Belmont, and many many many more that someone is gonna see Banjo and say "oh well i need a switch and smash now!". If "Banjo being in Smash means competitors will buy it" is their reasoning, it's absolutely ridiculous because either way, those who wanted Smash are going to buy it already because of the massive showcase of characters in it. It should've been obvious from it's very announcement that it was going to launch with massively high sale numbers and boost the Switch further beyond it's original sales either way, because it's Smash, and Smash is a stupidly successful series. With or without Banjo, it would sell, and it would sell well.

Activision held onto Crash for ages and viciously defended him when they were doing literally nothing with him. It's heavily implied in interviews that Activision wouldn't let him in Playstation All Stars when they were figuring out what to do with him. So holding onto an IP when you are doing nothing with them is not unheard of, especially when the IP's are being handled badly such as in the case of Banjo. 

It's how businesses typically think. The gaming industry is very conservative and averse to taking risks of any kind (which is ironic considering how risky most big budget games really are in practice). So I agree that people wouldn't suddenly jump up to buy Smash because Banjo was in it, but if you are Microsoft and operating in a conservative industry, you aren't going to give your direct competitor even the slightest edge over you. 

[KHCast]

4 minutes ago, Plasme said:

but if you are Microsoft and operating in a conservative industry, you aren't going to give your direct competitor even the slightest edge over you. 

But you’re not Microsoft so how do you know if they subscribe to this? Especially when conservative game market was/is against cross platform play for example, something Microsoft is breaking. 

Like, this paranoia assumption would apply better with Sony if anything 

[Plasme]

3 minutes ago, KHCast said:

But you’re not Microsoft so how do you know if they subscribe to this? Especially when conservative game market was/is against cross platform play, something Microsoft is breaking. 

Because this is how gaming companies almost universally act, and it's more logical to think a company would do what other companies almost always do.

Yes, Microsoft are somewhat more liberal than other companies, and have been instrumental in promoting cross-play, but we've never seen them give the rights for one of their characters in a competitor's game. At least as far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong. I do admit that Jez' statement about the DS games were interesting.

Like, maybe I'm wrong, maybe Banjo does get announced and I look like an idiot. It would be great, I love Banjo too. I agree that it could happen, but I don't see any evidence that Microsoft are so liberal as a company that they would give Nintendo a fan-favourite character for their flagship game which is arguably selling Switches.

[KHCast]

1 minute ago, Plasme said:

but we've never seen them give the rights for one of their characters in a competitor's game. At least as far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong. 

Iirc, Banjo and Master Chief skins were available to switch owners for Minecraft, and I believe those would have had to have been licensed out to Nintendo 

[Plasme]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Iirc, Banjo and Master Chief skins were available to switch owners for Minecraft, and I believe those would have had to have been licensed out to Nintendo 

That's really interesting, could be a positive sign.

Although not requesting something to be pulled from a multi-platform game is different to giving your competitor's exclusive game one of your IPs. Still, it's promising!

[Ryannumber1gamer]

4 minutes ago, Plasme said:

That's really interesting, could be a positive sign.

Although not requesting something to be pulled from a multi-platform game is different to giving your competitor's exclusive game one of your IPs. Still, it's promising!

 

6 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Iirc, Banjo and Master Chief skins were available to switch owners for Minecraft, and I believe those would have had to have been licensed out to Nintendo 

Double checked - yes, there's a skin pack with both Master Chief and Banjo, as well as several other Xbox characters.

[Catallena]

54 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

When Banjo is literally making zero money for Microsoft whatsoever, like literally nothing, bar maybe the very minuscule amount of sales from the 360 remasters that came out over a decade ago, I don't see why they would complain.

And what? Do you really think with Joker, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Bayonetta, Simon Belmont, and many many many more that someone is gonna see Banjo and say "oh well i need a switch and smash now!". If "Banjo being in Smash means competitors will buy it" is their reasoning, it's absolutely ridiculous because either way, those who wanted Smash are going to buy it already because of the massive showcase of characters in it. It should've been obvious from it's very announcement that it was going to launch with massively high sale numbers and boost the Switch further beyond it's original sales either way, because it's Smash, and Smash is a stupidly successful series. With or without Banjo, it would sell, and it would sell well.

So let's look at the logic here - it's better to hold onto the license and character that is making them little to no money in the vain hopes that it'll deter people from buying Smash despite the fact they likely already bought it already - or make an agreement to have Banjo appear, get a nice slice of the Smash pie that's gonna happen with or without Banjo either way, get free promotion for a potential new title in the series from a massive fanbase of Smash players who will remember Banjo and likely hop on board the Xbone train if a new title releases, and on top of that - give yourself and Nintendo healthier business relations that already capitalises on the publicity already built with the Minecraft cross play?

this is not how intellectual property works and if it was a matter of "because why not" then everyone would have been there from the start. the only arguably whimsical inclusion was snake because kojima quite literally asked for it. as you said yourself this discussion seems to be delving into divination too fast and i wouldn't say it's impossible for banjo kazooie to be there but there not being concrete evidences against does not equal there being concrete evidences for. rather if anything we should be skeptical of every potential addition because after joker it could be more or less anything and infusing our own preferences into our guesses is just bias

[Salamander]

I think this discussion is drifting a bit far from its origins.  I don't think anyone is arguing that it's particularly likely for Banjo and Kazooie to be in the DLC; it's more about looking at a past hoax and asking if it was merely possible, which requires a slightly lower standard of credibility.  My own position is that the proposed roster was always the least plausible thing about the Grinch leak, and nobody believed in it purely because of the characters proposed; they believed in it because the alleged leaker had access to legitimate unreleased publicity material for the Grinch movie - and that's still true.  It may have been a hoax, but it was still an inside job.

[Rowl]

As much as I like to see Banjo and Kazooie making the cut, it is very, very unlikely for them to make it in as DLC. Like people already said, it makes no sense for MS to push one of their lowest IPs into Smash Bros. It would be the same if Sega instead of Sonic would have chosen Vyse from Skies of Arcadia or if Capcom would have chosen Amaterasu over Mega Man and/or Ryu.

B-K and B-T are my favorite games of all time, but even I, as a diehard Banjo-Kazooie fan can see, that bringing them into Smash Bros. would be a bad business strategy. All the people, that grew up with B-K already bought the game and the younger kids today probably never ever heard of B-K. The kids today play Minecraft and Halo. Those are the biggest IPs that MS owns. So why should they promote an Ip that is dead for over a decade?

Also, the current people at Rare do not even respect Banjo-Kazooie and the other old games Rare has created from the past. Banjo-Kazooie is sadly nothing more now a days than a memory from the past.

[Plasme]

I just beat Smash Ultimate's Adventure mode and it's terrible. Absolutely awful. Full thoughts below.

Spoiler

The main problem is that it's too long, repetitive and has a story which is both nonsensical and pretentious at the same time. I mean, let's get the story out the way first. There is basically no story, but what is presented is complete gibberish. Galeem and Dharkon are the embodiment of light and dark and, well, that's kind of it. They have cool designs, but the game's cutscenes seem to be trying to be meaningful and artsy without having the substance to back it up. The true ending is godawful and a complete kick in the teeth for putting so much effort into completing this awful, boring slog. I wouldn't usually mind, but the fact it's vaguely connected to Brawl in its opening cutscene's cliffside really annoys me, because to go from Brawl's nonsensical but fun plot to this pretentious garbage is awful. Brawl at least had personality and charm.

Now for the gameplay. In short, it's dreadful. It takes way too long to unlock characters, there's too many maps, and you fight bosses too often. I must have fought Crazy hand about 5 times. The boss rush at the end was the ultimate piss-take. And while the modifiers on fighters to feel like their spirits was entertaining at first, it sounds stops being fun and turns monotonous and painful. You end up doing the same boring battles over and over and over.

The difficulty curve is also completely off whack. The game is really hard to start with, and has cheap, unfair modifiers. But once you get enough spirits, you can just mindlessly blitz through it. I unlocked Calamity Ganon and literally didn't change my spirit set up at all from that point on because I was so ludicrously powerful. Just mindlessly jab, smash attack, instantly win. Absolutely dire. Even the bosses turned into a complete joke by the end. Galeem and Dharkon were like a walk in the park, but the first time I fought Galleom I was really struggling. What an utter joke of balancing.

In fact, the spirits system in general baffled me. Why am I still unlocking shitty common and advanced spirits 20 hours in? Why are you forced to unlock so many weaker spirits when you will have a super-team of legends who are objectively more powerful. It's just a weak excuse to get more gameplay in, which just results in a repetitive, boring grind-fest. There's no clear sense of progression with them, you can unlock the weakest and most powerful spirits literally one after the other. In a better game, you would unlock progressively more powerful spirits as you go along.

The starting Adventure mode map was also really tedious, as it was just mindless corridors with occasional roadblocks until you unlocked the correct spirit. The only map I really enjoyed was the Zelda map, because I felt that it was the right size, had good fanservice dressing and had more going on than just 'fight enemies on a linear path'. I really liked the puzzles which were put into that map. If every map felt as fleshed out as that Zelda map then the mode would be much more enjoyable. The other maps in the Dark World were a bit better too, which is why I think that the second half of the Adventure mode was better than the first. The maps look nice, I'll give them that.

I really liked the Master Hand secret. That was probably the best part of the mode. But that's not worth dragging yourself through 30 hours or so of gaming torture to get through. 

So in sum, an absolutely dire mode which I hope never comes back or is referred to again.

 

[Diogenes]

38 minutes ago, Plasme said:

There is basically no story, but what is presented is complete gibberish. Galeem and Dharkon are the embodiment of light and dark and, well, that's kind of it. They have cool designs, but the game's cutscenes seem to be trying to be meaningful and artsy without having the substance to back it up.

...what? How can you call something as straightforward as this "gibberish"? There's a bad light monster and you have to save your friends and fight it, then there's a bad dark monster that wants to fight you and the light monster, and then you fight both as they fight each other.

[Plasme]

16 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

...what? How can you call something as straightforward as this "gibberish"? There's a bad light monster and you have to save your friends and fight it, then there's a bad dark monster that wants to fight you and the light monster, and then you fight both as they fight each other.

It's presented in an incredibly pretentious manner:

Spoiler

During the CG cutscenes, the game employs epic camera shots and makes the music artsy and minimalist when Galeem and Dharkon fight each other or kill everyone. The attempt at being artistic is especially egregious in the true ending, where the theme song plays to a really melodramatic scene of spirits going...somewhere? It's really clear that the game is trying to invoke some kind of emotional response, and it's most obvious in the opening cutscene, but it attempts to do so in an utterly baffling way.

It's presented in such an artsty way and it means absolutely nothing. That's what I find so gibberish about it.

That's what's so incredible about it, it has virtually no story, but still manages to be gibberish and pretentious.

[Diogenes]

That's not what "gibberish" means.

You could argue it's pretentious (though I feel like Smash has developed an almost self-mocking gravitas; while it's legitimately paying tribute to decades of gaming icons, it's also narratively and in essence a kid mashing his toys together, and that epic tone plays into that) but everything outside of the ending is straightforward in both literal events and meaning, and the ending being kind of ambiguous doesn't make the whole thing gibberish.

[Plasme]

6 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

That's not what "gibberish" means.

You could argue it's pretentious (though I feel like Smash has developed an almost self-mocking gravitas; while it's legitimately paying tribute to decades of gaming icons, it's also narratively and in essence a kid mashing his toys together, and that epic tone plays into that) but everything outside of the ending is straightforward in both literal events and meaning, and the ending being kind of ambiguous doesn't make the whole thing gibberish.

Gibberish doesn't mean that something's hard to follow, it means that it has no substance and is completely nonsensical.

The very little story the game has is completely nonsensical.

 

Spoiler

The opening is not bad, in fact, it's the best part of the game's story by far. Galeem is vague, but it's interesting and makes it a mysterious and compelling villain.

Things go off the deep-end when Dharkon comes in. Who the fuck is Dharkon and why has he never been referenced before? Now there's a war going on between two divine beings which comes out of absolutely nowhere? And among two beings which have virtually no explanation or even the smallest of characterisation. Okay... Sounds totally reasonable to me. 

And I think the nonsensical nature of the true ending is pretty damn important considering how little story the Adventure mode has and, you know, endings being pretty important. The true ending means absolutely nothing, just watching a stream of spirits (I think, it's vague and meaningless) just kind of swirling away...somewhere. It actually reminded me of when Final Fantasy 7 would get really self-indulgent, but at least that game had an actual plot backing it up.

 

[Blacklightning]

1 hour ago, Plasme said:

 

  Hide contents

Why am I still unlocking shitty common and advanced spirits 20 hours in? Why are you forced to unlock so many weaker spirits when you will have a super-team of legends who are objectively more powerful.

 

Spoiler

Short answer: hard counters.

Long answer: There's more to the spirits system than simple power levels, even if they help a lot - it makes a lot more sense if you approach it from a Metroidvania perspective. A lot of fights, yes, initially seem needlessly aggravating if not literally impossible, and a lot of spirits don't have any immediate apparent usefulness until two and two get put together. It's easy to say, for example, that you won't get any use out of a spirit that reduces a single type of damage until you come to another spirit fight whose entire gimmick is doing that kind of damage almost exclusively and being better at it to boot. Just as easy as it is to say that a stamina fight on a stage completely filled with poison is absolute bullshit until you find spirits that completely negate it if not heal you from it. Even the lesser fighter-oriented spirits, assuming they aren't a component in a Summoning recipe, still find use in explorer activities - the more you have, the more regularly you can cycle them and the more regularly their gains will be boosted from it. EDIT: Not to mention, actively using spirits stronger than your opponent's by a large margin just turns off rewards entirely, which you kinda want to not do if you want to get the store-exclusive ones.

This isn't to say World of Light does it particularly well. Above all else, it's just astonishly fucking bad at communicating anything. They don't tell you there's no shame in backing off and coming back later if it feels like you're going to pull your hair out trying to clear one fight. There's no rhyme or reason to the way spirits are placed in most maps, and when a fight is designed with a specific counter in mind they don't tell you that it is, or give any indication of where to look for it. And although most locked routes give an appropriately vague hint as to who you need to get through (Eg: needing the Wild Goose's pilot to get through the F-Zero mini track), sometimes they just flat out refuse to tell you why a pathway is blocked and what you're supposed to do to clear it, to the point that the actual solutions felt completely and utterly arbitary when I did eventually find them.

You're right about one thing though - the early game does a really poor job at balancing the limited options available to you, or emphasizing the ones you do have as hard counters to otherwise needlessly difficult encounters, and that's a poor learning/difficulty curve that follows you all the way up until you can just brute force your way through almost everything.

...also can I just say that I really hate the amount of micromanaging that goes into WoL in general? I miss being able to just pick a fight and get started. It totally fucking sucks to have to mash the recommmended team key and sometimes getting fed up and having to input shit manually because sometimes the game will stubbornly refuse to suggest the best possible team even then. And dojos are just the fucking worst. I don't want to have to spend like ten minutes swapping spirits in and out of places and generally not even fucking noticing the difference it makes ingame until it gets me killed. Most actual RPGs don't have to deal with this kind of tedium, let alone fucking fighting games. Jesus christ.

[Plasme]

8 minutes ago, Blacklightning said:

  Hide contents

Short answer: hard counters.

Long answer: There's more to the spirits system than simple power levels, even if they help a lot - it makes a lot more sense if you approach it from a Metroidvania perspective. A lot of fights, yes, initially seem needlessly aggravating if not literally impossible, and a lot of spirits don't have any immediate apparent usefulness until two and two get put together. It's easy to say, for example, that you won't get any use out of a spirit that reduces a single type of damage until you come to another spirit fight whose entire gimmick is doing that kind of damage almost exclusively and being better at it to boot. Just as easy as it is to say that a stamina fight on a stage completely filled with poison is absolute bullshit until you find spirits that completely negate it if not heal you from it. Even the lesser fighter-oriented spirits, assuming they aren't a component in a Summoning recipe, still find use in explorer activities - the more you have, the more regularly you can cycle them and the more regularly their gains will be boosted from it.

...also can I just say that I really hate the amount of micromanaging that goes into WoL in general? I miss being able to just pick a fight and get started. It totally fucking sucks to have to mash the recommmended team key and sometimes getting fed up and having to input shit manually because sometimes the game will stubbornly refuse to suggest the best possible team even then. And dojos are just the fucking worst. I don't want to have to spend like ten minutes swapping spirits in and out of places and generally not even fucking noticing the difference it makes ingame until it gets me killed. Most actual RPGs don't have to deal with this kind of tedium, let alone fucking fighting games. Jesus christ.

Spoiler

I get what you are saying, but I don't even think the hard counters have much merit. For one thing, I can just one smash everything with legend spirits. I got M Bison relatively early, and once I got Calamity Ganon I just destroyed everything without even thinking. So there was no need for hard counters at all.

The other problem is that you stack the good counters, such as wind immunity, early on. There's not much point getting it another four times 10 hours later. And I'm not even mentioning how many pointless primary spirits you get. That's what really bugs me, they are objectively worse than what I already have, but I have to spend 20 hours or so grinding through them as progression.

I also agree with you that the micromanaging is terrible. I get that it's to make getting good rewards easier, but once i maxed out my most powerful spirit, I wasn't levelling up anyone else but for curiosity's sake.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Plasme said:

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I get what you are saying, but I don't even think the hard counters have much merit. For one thing, I can just one smash everything with legend spirits. I got M Bison relatively early, and once I got Calamity Ganon I just destroyed everything without even thinking. So there was no need for hard counters at all.

The other problem is that you stack the good counters, such as wind immunity, early on. There's not much point getting it another four times 10 hours later. And I'm not even mentioning how many pointless primary spirits you get. That's what really bugs me, they are objectively worse than what I already have, but I have to spend 20 hours or so grinding through them as progression.

 

This is all about the rewards system, though. You use overpowered spirits in every battle, you barely get anything for winning. Weaker spirits exist to be used against other weak spirits.

[Plasme]

Just now, Diogenes said:

This is all about the rewards system, though. You use overpowered spirits in every battle, you barely get anything for winning. Weaker spirits exist to be used against other weak spirits.

The rewards system is mostly arbitrary. Who cares about getting snacks and levelling up weaker primary spirits when I have a bunch of legends which are far more powerful than what I will get for the next 10 or so hours? The only genuine point is getting unlocks for the skill tree, which I don't usually think is all that helpful but for a few exceptions. Besides, you usually have far, far, more weak primary spirits than you need only an hour into the game. 

You fight as many pathetic spirits just to pad out the game.

[Diogenes]

You can level up spirits that you want to use for harder fights. You get items you can use in spirit board challenges. You get points you can spend on spirits in the shops, or on more items, or for summoning. And having weaker spirits with varying abilities lets you actually manage the difficulty of fights instead of turning nearly all of them into complete blowouts.

If you approach the whole system by just grinding through with the most powerful spirits, of course it's going to be a tedious grind. That's your fault more than the game's.

[Plasme]

16 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

You can level up spirits that you want to use for harder fights. You get items you can use in spirit board challenges. You get points you can spend on spirits in the shops, or on more items, or for summoning. And having weaker spirits with varying abilities lets you actually manage the difficulty of fights instead of turning nearly all of them into complete blowouts.

If you approach the whole system by just grinding through with the most powerful spirits, of course it's going to be a tedious grind. That's your fault more than the game's.

The Spirit Board is pointless, since again, it gives me spirits which are way weaker than I already have at the 3 hour mark.

It's my fault that I don't play by the game's intended rules if the game gives me a bunch of spirit which breaks the game. Sure.