Do We Really Need HD Remakes?

With all the buzz floating around about Twilight Princess HD coming to Wii U, It makes me beg the question "Do we really need HD remakes?" seriously. What are they adding to the experience that we couldn't experience the first time minus prettier graphics or slightly better controls? Where did this obsession with replaying games but prettier come from? I personally would much rather play a whole new game then replay something I've already played before.

 It gets even worse when you look at Playstation 4. The Playstation 3 was already in HD, so why are we getting remakes of The Last of Us, Uncharted, and so on? It makes me want to scream when I go into a store and see a game that just released last gen and there's a remake that say Definitive Edition. What does that even mean anymore? In the SNES vs Genesis days, Definitive edition meant the version that had better gameplay, better music, better graphics, and even better level design and possibly more actions your character can perform.  Now it seems you can just slap "HD","Definitive Edition", or "Game of the Year Edition" on a box and people will buy it all over again. Windwaker is my favorite Zelda game ever, but I refused to buy the HD remake because i don't believe in rebuying something I already own. I'll take a new experience over an old one any day. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time: Be you. Be true. Be human.

Hardcore Gamers Are Killing Creativity

         Yes, I know reading a title like that may upset, anger, or even confuse some of you, but it's true. The whole hardcore mentality is destroying gaming. I'm not saying we should get rid of hardcore gamers or hardcore games. I'm Just saying that developers are apparently more focused on looking dark, gritty, or edgy, than they are on actually making a fun experience. What happened to games that were just fun for fun's sake? What happened to the talking animals, quirky characters, and nonsensical gameplay that captivated us in gaming's younger days? Gaming is in serious need of a wake up call, but it seems the hardcore crowd would rather tease and mock anything that dares to be different than the standard dark, gritty, edgey, motiff.

   one of the greatest  "What the hell?" moments in gaming came for me with the intro to Nintendo's E3 2014 Direct, but it was not because of the Direct itself. It was because of the saddening reaction it received by the supposed hardcore gamers on the internet. The Direct opened with an over the top, anime styled battle between Reggie Fils-aime, and Satoru Iwata. I personally thought it was very entertaining and funny, but apparently the hardcore crowd thought it was immature, childish, or kiddy. At what point did we decide that anything goofy or funny is kiddy? They are a GAME COMPANY. They create VIDEO GAMES. What is serious about video games? nothing? no matter what game you play, there's nothing serious about it, it's still a game. Lighten up! Why does everything have to be dark and edgey now? Even Epic Mickey felt like it was trying to hard to be dark and edgey, and is most likely why I didn't bother to finish it. Though colorful, the colors felts washed out and faded.

  Another example is creativity being killed off by hardcore, lets look at the Final Fantasy XIV Tokyo Gameshow Trailer. Last Time I checked it was called Final FANTASY. Its right there in the title, so how do you not have fantasy elements? They got rid of the chocobos for a convertible car you drive around. I can drive a car in real life. Give me that weird fantasy creature. The entirety of Final Fantasy XIV looks way more Sci Fi than it does fantasy in my opinion. Its trying to hard to be realistic or believable, but why does a GAME have to be believable? Are not the vast majority of games considered to be the greatest game of all time just unrealistic as can be and full of creativity? That is the beauty of games. You don't have to follow any rules whatsoever.

   So, what can be done to revive the creativity of the gaming industry, so that we can see more than urban environments with dark, gritty, edgey elements? to be honest, I have no earthly Idea. I'm still researching trying to figure out when dark and gritty became so popular even with kids. I think maybe the next big thing will have to pop up out the blue to run off this "hardcore" image. Maybe something like Yu-gi-oh!, Pokemon, or Kingdom Hearts will have to surface. Those three took the gaming world by storm and are full of creativity. Sure we have League of Legends and Hearth Stone on the PC, but Why isn't anything like that on the consoles? It seems like the main console that dares to be creative, is the main one being mocked, Wii U. I'm not going to rant about creative Nintendo games being called kiddy, so I'll stop here. I'll close with this prediction: unless hardcore gamers start showing an interest in games that are nonsensical and fun for fun's sake, console gaming will become stagnant and die a horrible slow death.

Where is the Wii Audience Now?

     It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Wii U is not selling nearly as fast as its predecessor, and one of the main questions people ask is "Where are all those Wii owners?" That very question may seem like it has an easy answer at first, but upon further research, I believed I've found the best way to answer that question. For the most part, the Wii U isn't aimed at them, so they are not buying in to the next generation of gaming.

   Consider this, The Wii was seen by many as the casual console, or the console for the younger audience. In reality in was just the console for the masses, be they casual, hardcore, or nongamer. To first begin answering this question, let us first examine the Playstation 2 and the Playstation 3. The common view is that the Playstation 3 is a hardcore gamer's console, and I'm not going to argue with that, but was the Playstation 2 a hardcore console? If so, why didn't that crowd migrate to Playstation 3? The answer is simple. he Playstation 2 was the same thing as the Wii. It was the console for the masses for it's respective gen. Yes, we often get the argument that the Playstation 2 was more hardcore than the Wii, but when you look at it's staggering install base, and the comparatively small amount of hardcore titles sold, that doesn't seem to be the case. The Wii's Hardcore titles actually sold more than the Playstation 2's, and it did it with a smaller install base. Why? Because it was the console for the masses, as well as for the Nintendo fans. The reason why Wii sold so well, is because those Playstation 2 owners who did not get a Playstation 3, were nongamers and casuals who instead got a Wii. 

       Yes, though the media, your best friend, your brother, and everybody wants you to believe thateveryone who owned a Playstation 2 was playing Hardcore games, thats simply not true. A prime example is  the Guitar Heroes games, Those gamers moved over to Wii. There was also a ton of people who played games like Jambo Safari, Katamari Demacy, and Mr.Mosquito, that migrated to the Wii and began to play games like Wii Sports, Cooking Mama, Just Dance, and Wii Fit. So I would argue that those Wii owners stayed on their Wii. Who could blame them? They moved from Playstation 2 to Wii, so they could play the games that Hardcore and the media call casual and shovelware, but surprisingly, the successor to the Wii has slim picking for people who are into those kinds of games. The Wii U is rather hardcore whether we want to admit it or not. That is one of the main things holding back the Wii owners. Even the Gamepad has a bigger learning curve than the Wii Remote. Its not that they vanished, It's that they have no console to call home this generation. No console has their Cooking Mama, Their Boom Blox, Their Boogie. But even that is just half of the fanbase

     The other half of the Wii owners are those who like Nintendo games, and Exclusives that you can only get on Nintendo Consoles, such as No more Heroes, DragonQuest, Monster Hunter (yea.. it counts now), and this time around even Bayonetta joins that list. If you look at the games that sell best on the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One, you will see mostly multiplatform games in their top 10. The Wii U's Top 10, however, is made up entirely of exclusives. So the people who say 3rd party does not sell on Nintendo consoles is right to a certain degree. 3rd Party multiplats don't sell, but Exclusives sell well. A Nice chunk of the Wii owners were fans of the Lego games, so its no surprise that Lego City Undercover caused a sales boost for 2 weeks for the Wii U, and sold nearly as well as Nintendo's own Pikmin 3. Thats because that game caused a few Wii owners to upgrade, because they couldn't play it on their Wii. For comparison sake, The Skylanders and Disney Infinity games have sold better on Wii than any other console. Its a safe bet that if Nintendo discontinued the Wii and forced Activision to only make a Wii U version, that the Skylanders games would have boosted Wii U sales. As it stands Swap Force on Wii U is outselling the PlayStation 4 and XBox One version 2 to 1. Again, that is  Wii owners who migrated to Wii U, maybe even some of the same who migrated over with Lego City. 

  So, What  can Nintendo do to get the rest of the Wii owners back, or at least a decent amount of them? They're already set to do just that. Nintendo will be releasing their own games that use figures, which has been code named NFP. Nintendo must also be aware that the biggest part of the figures and games fanbase is on their console, so if they are to make their own game with figures, those remainders on the Wii and even the other consoles will have to buy a Wii U if they want to play the lastest Figuringe Collection game. Also, Mario Kart 8 will be out shortly after this article is published. The online Mario Kart experience and the new features will only be able to be played on Wii U. Wii's online is going down, so that too will be incentive to upgrade to Wii U. The other thing that Nintendo seems to be doing getting ready to show off the benefits of the gamepad. We all know the Wii audience loves a fancy controller with nice "gimmicks" so that should win back a few of them as well, granted it is not something too complicated. 

   When its all said and done, Nintendo can not win back all of those Wii owners, because a lot of them are happy playing the old Wii Sports every weekend with their parents, friends, or frat buddies, but they can definitely can win back a sizable chunk that gives them a nice sized install base, and possibly even the lead this generation but they will have to shake the hardcore image and once again be the console for the masses like the Wii was, which still was home to some stellar exclusive games. Here's hoping E3 knocks it out of the park.

The Last Story is IttyBittyTitty City

Normally this wouldn't even bother me. But 2 hours in i chased around some dang birds to get invisible armor only to realize EVERY DAMN WOMAN IN THE GAME IS FLAT CHESTED! Don't let the cutscenes or the concept art fool you. When you go to change armor colors or see them in game, the women are flat as Yurick. Why even give me the option for invisble armor? You know if you give a guy that option he's going to be expecting some big knockers, not these little ittybittytitty women. Hell, I hate Princess Peach, but even she has bigger boobs than syrenne. Who's idea was the invisble armor? Was it some sick joke? What the hell? Nobody alive can be satisfied with those little mosquito bites. Again, normally I don't care about small breasts, but damn it. They made me work for those only to be rewarded with flatzilla. I'm convinced they could all run around bare chested and it still be rated T for Teen because it would be just like looking at a guy's chest! Argh! Pissed me the heck off! Its still an awesome game and I love it, but damn it, if there is a sequel they better at least give an NPC some boobs.

Wii got U covered.

 Since its launch, or even before then, The Wii U has been the victim of much criticism. The media argued that Wii U would be for the casuals, then they argued it wasn’t casual enough with Nintendo Land. the argument soon became that the Wii U doesn’t know who it is appealing to and that it has an identity crisis. well, I am here to let you know that all of those views are wrong. Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing with the Wii U. They are doing what they have always done, and that is try to appeal to everyone rather than just one particular crowd.

   The media, (the more western portion anyway) tries to make the Wii U out to be some sort of child toy or lesser than the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One. This is due mainly to the fact that shooters have become the main focus in the western audience, and Nintendo is unapologetically Japanese just as it has always been. Most of the people saying that Nintendo has changed or that they have abandoned their fans, refuse to see the truth, which is the game industry has changed, but Nintendo remained the same. There was once a time where adventure games, RPGs, and platformers were big. That is the time when Nintendo was still considered cool. For comparison sake, Call of Duty is now a big name in the game industry and kids grow up playing Black ops  and Modern Warfare these days, as opposed to playing Mario and Zelda. How can The media write off Nintendo as ignoring it’s fanbase, yet ignore the fact that Playstation purposely ignored some of the franchises that made it famous? Am I the only one that noticed that Spyro games (skylanders included) are now getting advertised more as Nintendo console games even though they began life on Playstation? What about Crash Bandicoot? He’s seen his share of Nintendo exclusive releases, and not a word was said.

  With E3 behind us, Nintendo is now making it very clear who they are pitching their games at, which, I repeat, is everyone. They’ve shown off Bayonetta 2, and the new Monolith RPG known only as X , and Smash Bros. for the hardcore crowd, Wii Fit U and Wii Party U for the casual gamers, and Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario 3D worlds for the mixture of the two. With Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikmin 3, and wonderful 101 all coming before christmas, I find it hard to see how anyone can say Nintendo has forgotten their fans, or is only for the casuals now. It’s gotten so ridiculous that even Reggie Fils-aime himself has gone on the record saying that he doesn’t know why the media say the things they say about Nintendo. One thing is for certain, when the Wii U is set and done, the media will be singing a whole new tune about Nintendo, and if not, the fans certainly will be. There are some big shockers headed our way, wait and see.