The version I’ve always heard isn’t that the expansion pack “randomly fixed it”, but rather that the issue was a memory leak that would cause the game to run out of RAM and crash after a couple hours. The extra memory of the expansion pack would just delay the crash for an additional 6-7 hours. I’m curious how true this is actually is now, as it seems like it would be easy enough to test.
No, it was inaccurate, even at the time. The Famicom was built to cost and and mainly used cheap off-the-shelf components that were already obsolete when the system first released in 1983. The NES released in North America the same year as the Commodore Amiga, a system that actually was cutting edge, and represented a big leap forward in what home computers could do graphically. By the time Mega Man released, the Amiga was on it’s second revision and other home computers were rapidly catching up to it’s capabilities.
While Mega Man was one of the best games on the NES, it ran at the same resolution as every other game on the system, and was stuck working within the same limited color palette and low sprite limit that were more than five years behind the curve when it released.
I’m pretty sure all the edutainment titles predate Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario, and I don’t think Nintendo would ever make a game like that these days.
Because you’re my 5 year old god daughter who always wants to play as “Uwiigi”.
Do they even need to replace him though? There’s a 25-year back catalog of recorded voice lines to recycle, and most of those consist of “Let’s-a-go” and “Yahoooo!” I think the most complex sentace I’ve ever heard Mario speak in game is “Thank-a-you so much for playing my game”. Combine that with AI voice recreation, and there’s literally no reason to ever hire a replacement. Just cut Martinet a big-ass check for perpetual use of his voice, and they’re golden.
I’m surprised that Gran Turismo was number one is 2005. I remember Star Wars Battlefront II being the hot new game everyone was playing at the time, and Star Wars being huge in general due to Episode III releasing that year. Just the fact that a PS2 exclusive driving sim, beat out a multi-platform Star Wars game that was one of the most hyped releases at the time is insane to me.
I have an autism diagnosis, and I’m pretty sure I have ADHD as well. Literally almost everything on that chart applies to me in a substantial capacity. I’ve never sought a clinical diagnosis as an adult, but if I were to I’m fairly certain I would get one.
The ADHD assessments I had in school were all the stare at a screen and hit a button when a dot appears kind. I think they were expecting me to get bored and mess up, but that’s the kind of task I’m good a hyper-focusing on short periods of time. One time the assessor told me I couldn’t have ADHD because my average reaction time was one of the best she’d ever seen. I think that type of assessment is fundamentally flawed.
Like 90% of these apply to me, though I’ve somehow failed every ADHD assessment I’ve ever taken.
It’s a fundamental limitation of the technology. Anything wireless, when it comes to audio, requires a certain amount of fidelity loss in order maintain real-time transmission without using an astronomical amount of bandwidth. With landline telephones, you have an exclusive, end-to-end physical connection, so you’re free to fully saturate the line with as much information as it can carry. It’s possible to fit multiple analog audio transmissions onto a single copper line, but the signals need a hard frequency cutoff for it to work. This is why long distance and international calls used to sound worse than local ones. In a similar vein, terrestrial radio has to split airspace between multiple stations, which is why it sounds worse than records or reel-to-reel tape, despite each station using a massive amount of bandwidth by modern standards.
Moving into the digital realm, the same principles still apply, but you can push bandwidth requirements way down thanks to the inherent efficiency of digital encoding, plus the magic of digital compression algorithms and error correction. As a result, wireless digital audio transmissions can maintain a much higher level of fidelity than analog ones, compare Bluetooth audio to FM, for example. Quality still needs to be sacrificed somewhere when transmitting wirelessly though, which is why audiophiles bitch about Bluetooth headphones and wireless mics. Even the best digital audio compression can’t compare to a copper cable carrying an unfiltered analog signal.
Digital audio compression is what makes it even remotely possible to have hundreds of real-time audio streams transmitting wirelessly to a cell tower, unfortunately you have to reduce the audio quality down to the absolute limits of usability in order to pull it off. Even if you still have a copper land line, the audio is always going to sound like crap if you talk to someone on a cellphone, it’s just not possible to operate a large cell network with the same level of fidelity.
I like it, but it’s not as good as the original Soul Reaver or Defiance.
The biggest issue this game has is the save system. In the first game where you could save pretty much anywhere and just had to navigate back to the last area you were in after loading. In Soul Reaver 2 you can only save at preset points which can be few and far between. There are sections of the game that take multiple hours to complete on a first playthrough, where you don’t have access to a save point and quitting means losing your progress.
The world design has also been downgraded somewhat IMO. The environments look much nicer and there’s a wider variety of them, but the world as a whole is much less interconnected. The first game was a pseudo metroidvania, where completing an area would unlock shortcuts and everything linked back to a central hub. Soul Reaver 2 is much more linear, and the parts where you do have to backtrack are more tedious as a result.
That would have been the original Soul Reaver. Soul Reaver 2 was a PS2 exclusive
I’m the exact opposite. I love metroidvainas, and will usually tear through them in a few sittings.
A well designed metroidvaina world acts like a single interconnected puzzle box, and unrevealing them is majorly addicting. I go out of my way to backtrack through previous areas whenever I can in order to get every item and find every secret. I very rarely get lost in these games and when I do, figuring out where to go next is usually a simple process of elimination. The real challenge / frustration tends to be figuring out where the last few secrets are hidden after already exploring the whole map map multiple times over.
I absolutely hated Metriod Dread for how linear and hand-holdy is was, and was shocked to find that people actually enjoyed it. Outside of the combat, I had a terrible time with that game. I felt like I was fighting against the level design up until the last 15% or so when it finally opens up and becomes an actual Metroidvaina, albeit not a very good one due to the aggressively linear map structure. Personally, I want to see more games like Dark Souls and Hollow Knight, who’s worlds are so massive and convoluted that I can’t easily intuit exactly where to go and have huge areas that I managed to completely miss on my first play-through.
Personally, I’m interested in the GEX remasters. I’m kind of unclear on how this compares to bog standard emulation, but If they can fix the framerate issues and collision bugs in the 3D games I’ll be sold.
So can this thing actually duplicate the GameCube’s video output? If so, this man’s just created the best worst way to play Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble.
To be fair Nintendo kind of brought that one on themselves by making the cartridges taste bad.
I’m disappointed to not see any mention of Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer. It’s hilarious and definitely one of my favorite games of the year so far.
Alternatively: “well there’s a program for it, but it has a million dependencies and hasn’t been updated in 10 years, just use the command line”
This post makes me want grilled cheese, but I don’t have any bread right now and all the stores are closed because Thanksgiving.