April 2024 Media diary

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by part this game and by part not really this game's kinda burning me out lol like the games objectively good i think its just the game style and some of the design choices that kind of abbrasively make me not like this game as much as i should like i love goats i love platformers i love metroidvanias but after finishing this game i dont really say i lik it persay but at the end i can only bring myself to only hate aspects of it , more then anything? like the ccombats ok its nothing flashy. and like. the main mechanic of this is wall kicking, whicch feels cool as hell . the movement in this game is great. but with how hands-off it is , and in combination with the nonlinearity and intended sequence breaking you can do, it is * horrifically * easy to get lost. i hear an earlier version of this game didn't even have a map, which is awful for this genre in my opinion. id describe this game as very frustrating and it feels like 90 percent of the time you're hitting your head against a wall trying to go anywhere, which, for some people, is absolutely fantasstic. im sure trying to fedangle around with this moveset is awesome. but i spent most of the game just wanting to get the full moveset as soon as possible, because, allthough a completely deterministic game as far as i'm aware, progressing from place to place feels really convoluted. i feel like in between grunting " ugh " and " I want this to be over with " and " god i wish there was an upgrade for this " and " i'm SO lost..! " the game has great ambiance and area design and theres plenty to do, i just kinda wish you had like . a few more quality of life features in the game. like . idk. like an area completion counter for each area, or a cursor for where you're located on the map.... Then again , i dont think thiss game was designed with that in mind, so i think it's just a shame or for people that just aren't like me. Yea, sybil is cute, i guess. ill give credit for that. i just cant really see that over what's , for the bulk of it, a stressful affair that feels like guesswork and trail and error. if this game ever gets a big qol update, i'd probably love it a whole lot more, but once again, i'm pretty sure thats an intentional artistic decision to reflect the era it's from . i went into this wanting to like it a whole lot more, i promise, but this is like a 5 out of 10 game ( for me personally ) ... i basically spent alot of it mentally appologizing to nmh2 for some reason. i need a break for today. i'm kind of really dissapointed right now THE CROODS video game movie

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Also, on the topic of mario maker 2, which, technically, i finished last month, i DID in fact finish mario maker 2's story mode! i simply neglected to before andd i think it's okay. i think its a little bit better then the 3ds version's array of levels, and, playing them so close together, i'm honestly surprised they didn't try to impliment the acheivements you can get in those levels in this game, given the fact that so much is tracked by clear conditions in MM2. i wonder if that was a prototype feature they tried early in 3ds before implimenting it in the sequel? Oh well. i'm glad they just ddint implliment the clear condition where you cant get grabbed by claws, those are just the absolute worst..!

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This one's actually nice and special, because i can say some friends of mine made it! It's for a gamejam, so it's pretty simple, but i think it's relatively effective for the kind of hectic gameplay they were going for with it. I'm actually a little bit clumsy when it comes to assembling the little " creature " you're putting together by running around the map, and, i get the sense they're supposed to match,but, given my luck / level of coordination, my creatures usually end up looking something like this --

Oops. It very much affectionately reminds me of older styled flash games you'd find on coolmath, though it's definitely a lot more polished then most of the ones i think of aestetically and mechanically. You just kind of dash around and collect charming little monster parts. It's a little hard to figure out what part's a leg or an arm or the like sometimes ( I actually thought my animal's head was an arm ); but i'm really confident in saying thats a genuine creative decision- it's kind of like a cute little cartoon dilema. i absolutely love this game's cute spritework and music!!!!!!!!!! go play it right now stupid!!!!!

( I Got Sidetracked And Am Doing The Entries For Everything Below At The Last Minute Because Of Nocturne ) THE PRINCESS BRIDE

I've seen this movie before, but i think it still holds up good. An overall solid movie with basically everything you could want from a classic film. Very very watchable with people or alone. You can't really complain with the film at all but i dont havve any new thoughtss on it or anything pokemon scarlet violet epilogue

TLDR; techniiicallly i've finished scarlet-violet a long, long time ago, and i mostly just.... forgot about it up until decently recently, after the prior movie i think, and was prodded to give it a try by a friend. I think some of the writing at the start is charming enough and it's not completely a waste like the rest of the game , but i'm still of the strong opinion that this dlc isn't even half the bar set by Swoshi's entire DLC lineup, which is a little bit sad.... I guess that's what happens when you rush out an open world supermassive entry in a series known for scopecreep and capital interest..? That seems a bit cynical, but I don' t really remember much of my thoughts about it in retrospect, now. It's a little out of the way, but i'd hate to see what happens to this event when servers go down and you can't get pecharunt's item anymore.

POKEROGUE

There isn't really a good image to represent this game, so just the logo will do, i guess. TLDR, I think this is a fangame with a cute idea, and psudo-decent execution , but it's definitely still a work in progress. the earlygame grind where you're just trying to get started is absolutely brutal in a way that is simply just---- timeconsuming and not that much fun at all. If you want to check out the game yourself, I reccomend catching a paldean tauros as soon as possible so you can use it at the start of future runs. The basegame is set to last around 200 rounds, so it's definitely a massive time commitment to try, but once you do get a run going, it can be fun. I still think the earlygame needs ironing out and some of the moves aren't fully implemented yet because it's still new. I'll be honest and mostly say i jumped on this one out of a bandwagon. If you're curious to see me try a run, this clip might still be up for anyone to watch, but i wouldn't count on it forever - https://streamable.com/44j2v2 STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE

( The first 4 episodes, out of 5 . I ran out of time, once again, thanks to nocturne. Oops! )

SBCGFAP on wiiware is a game based around homestar runner, which i've mostly come to appreciate only recently this year. I got into it around February, where me and my boyfriend incidentally started watching it around the tail end of our trip. A few months later, and i'm super endeared by this show's writing style! It sort of feels like how something like Castlevania or Spore feel like to me now, in that it's not really a thing that's upkept anymore that much, with sparing crumbs of new stuff to see thrown out in little rations . So, when i got home, and, having recently re-modded my wii u ( And, with a Vwii setup, in part due to my sister wanting to play the overseas unreleased Mystery Dungeon games, the means to play wiiware in a way that i'm sure would've been fine to set up, actually, because dolphin is also awesome, just, more convenient for me because it wouldn't be taking up my laptop's storage space ) ; i proposed playing this game with him in call , which we did for a while! I'd say as a complete novice to the Point N' Click and also Telltale Game genre that the writing was pretty suitable. The scenarios are mostly just standard homestar runner stuff, and it did keep a big smile on my face. I actually think my favorite episode so far was the first one, looking back on it, considering how much Homestar is in it and how the puzzles ended up being lighter, but that's to my own preference. I think these games are worth looking into if you have a modded Wii U around, which im sure some people do. I imagine most people getting into HSR would've already watched a lets play or something on youtube already..! Anyway, i think this is good. i think people should give it a try even outside the inherit fact that this game is nearly lost media. I didn't get to finish the trogdor episode more then halfway before getting sidetracked by college preperation stuff. Sorry.. PORTAL 2 - COOPERATIVE TESTING INITATIVE ( technically properly capitalized! )

I've actually never finished any of the portal games! I'm too stupid to finish them ! But my boyfriend is hella into it and I know the story stuff already! And we both haven't done the co-op stuff before! So we did ! On a whim ! And i don't QUITE feel comfortable putting it on my backloggd until i at least finish the singleplayer campaign as well, so that puts me in a neat spot! id like to think i wasnt ccomplete dead weight in this playthrough but i was a little dumb. this game leads to fun banter and silly fun though it lends itself well to being coop and it's not as confusing as it would be when you're working with someone compitent who can backseat you as you completely misinterpret his directions. I'm honestly shocked how high the steam statistic for clearing this mode is , look at this ---

Do a fifth of people really play this???? I can kind of believe that but really ? damn! ! ! ! thats pretty cool you dont usually see numbers like this for modes like this. I'm a little bit sad there aren't more multiplayer co-op experiences like this, but that's kind of what makes them special in the first place. SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI III - NOCTURNE

This game has been one i've been procrastinating on trying since finishing SMT IV and IV-A nearly a year ago now, just in part because of it's reputation as a brutal, arduous journey of an RPG. I've heard many good things about this game. I've heard many bad things about this game. I've heard many things about this game's remaster, and I have it bought on both Steam and PS4. I dunno. Just because it was an SMT game on PS4. The primary thing that's making me finish it now is mostly just in part due to the only game i'm looking forward to, shin megami tensei V - Vengeance, coming out in around a little over a month as of typing this-- and, considering V on switch was how i got into the game, i MOSTLY know what to expect. Though, i never got to finish the DLC in that game . AND if i finished nocturne, i could confidently tackle every ounce of that game's new content under a fresher lens then JUST a series newcomer. I have really high hopes for V-V, but that's not really what this game is about. I knew already in advance that i would need to section off a very large period of time for this game going in , so I basically ended up sticking to logging in a couple of hours over the whole month when not fixating on anything else media wise or when not doing important college preperation shit that I need to get done and in fact STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO FOR. And still i only just barely about had enough time to do it!!! SMT nocturne , for the most part, and as long as you have some expectation and experience in the traditional RPG genre, isn't actually that bad difficulty wise. Like, as long as you're prepared, you'll actually fare way better then in some of the other games in the series that i've played, which is nice. Like, outside something like a super unlucky light / dark magic oneshot hitting you once and a while, as long as you're dilligent and prepare and use the systems you're given, you'll live. Like, i'm not gonna say this is how you get into SMT, but it's reputation is only MOSTLY overblown as unfair and stupidly difficult. But, because i'm stupid, and dont understand the ramifications of my actions, i went for the best ending on my first playthrough, cus, once again, i'm using it as a thing to do before SMT 5 V comes out so i can fully enjoy both. Now, apparently, for most people, it takes 110 hours or so to do the " true demon " ending, but i mostly went in , i dont wanna say rushing, but i mostly went through the game with as little as i'd need to thrive, i guess. optimized? Idk. I think most of the game is very intuitave and very enjoyable. its very somber and very dungeon crawly, and i think its gameplay rules. i think i like IV more still but i think this game is cool most of the time when you don't get cosmiclly unlucky . but like. the final bosses of this game are just fucking cheaterss that kill you . the last dungeon of this game took me like 10 hours by itself its insane thats like my only gripe. like. sometimes id pull up a guide when a boss has like null physical and it kills me because the game doesn't let you double check matchups like the games after it, or when theres a particularly convoluted way forward ( Note - by convoluted, i mostly just mean, i'm too stupid to navigate most 3d games without getting lost at some point unless it's perfectly linear ), or just for convenience, but it's a very fair level of challenge for most of the way if you know what to look out for. my only regret with this game is i'm sorry about any friend discussions ive completely halted by bringing this game up all the time in conversation. oops... That and it takes a surprising amount of effort to go through alos idkd idkd ddikd i just wnana get this log done its way too late at night also i was assuming naively that Nocturne would be my 100th logged game since i've started documenting my own media diaries, but because of how things turned out, it's closer to the 97th on backlogged. Oops! That's an arbitrary achievement only i care enough about! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aloi9Cj6wFA

Okay, a new update:

Been doing lots of therapy (group therapy, individual therapy, art therapy)

Been dealing with lots of pain (protruding disc in back, busted knee, migraines)

Been hanging with friends

Been playing lots of super mario maker and watching game grumps and Critical Role

Anddd I started dating a wonderful cutie

I’ve been making tons of characters

Been toying with a few homebrew ideas

Started coming up with ideas for a new campaign Im starting with my datemate

Working on a character (and a few backups) for a campaign starting tomorrow at my group therapy

Oh, remember my homebrew monster from months ago called the Cimim? Well I think Matt mercer read my blog or hacked into my dndbeyond account, because that rapscallion had a near identical monster in a recent Cr ep.

So, I’ve been pretty busy. I still feel terrible about asking to play and tons of people responding and then I just fell apart for a bit.

Im doing better now, but with these two local campaigns starting I don’t think I’d be able to join any online ones. Im sorry!!!

I will try to update the blog more often though.

Thanks for following and bearing with me!!! 😘💖

Oh and y’all can submit shit too! (And with that said I should probably check my inbox because tumblr sucks at notifying.)

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Upcoming gaming schedule

Alright, so as of this moment the games releasing through the end of 2019 that I’m absolutely 100% getting are Links Awakening/Luigis Mansion 3/Goose Game/Super Monkey Ball/Planet Zoo, likely getting WWE 2K19 solely for Becky on the cover, with Borderlands 3 a possibility and I may break down on Pokemon Sword despite my better judgement. Those first 4 likely won’t take super long to knock out, Planet Zoo/WWE will be ones you kinda pick at here and there. 

Past that I realllly wanna get through the other story paths in Three Houses, plus theres gonna be MUA3 DLC to play. On Switch I wanna *try* to beat FF7 (fat chance) at least, probably Wargroove too, also Snake Pass before the years out, though who knows what’ll strike me. Plus theres dipping into Smash and Mario Maker and SNES games.

Xbox wise I’m working on MGS5 right now but its sorta overwhelming. Whats also overwhelming are the 450+ other games on my Xbox hard drive (though about a third are Gamepass games so it seems worse than it truly is) and I dont even know where to start with that shit. I wanna get Doom off the hard drive, so thats high on the to do list, as are the assload of Halo games on there. I got a bunch in that Telltale (rip) style to play too I guess, plus a lot of lego type stuff thats quick to knock out probably.

Planet Zoo’s gonna be a real mystery coming up, given that I dunno how well my computers gonna run it, but if its decent im playing the shit outta it.

Not even counting whatever shit I’m gonna buy on sale in whatever store.

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RIP Wii U: Nintendo’s glorious, quirky failure

Nintendo has ceased production of Wii U less than five years after its launch. What went wrong, and what will be its legacy?

In late January it was announced that Nintendo had ceased production of the Wii U console. The follow-up machine to the hugely successful Wii had sold fewer than 15m units worldwide since its launch in 2012. PlayStation 4 sold more in a year. Wii sold more than 100m in its lifetime.

What happened? How did Nintendo, one of the oldest and most respected companies in the video game industry, get it so wrong? And did anything good come out of the Wii U era? How will the machine be remembered, if at all?

Certainly, some believe the console was cursed from the start right from the first announcement at the 2011 E3 video game conference in Los Angeles. Before that, Nintendo had made vague references to Project Cafe, a new piece of hardware deep in development at the companys famed R&D labs, but the nature of the device was unclear. The E3 presentation was supposed to be the big reveal.

Then, there it was at the Nintendo press conference, in front of the whole games industry. Wii U. Reggie-Fils-Aim, head of Nintendo America, gave an obtuse introduction and showed the unique GamePad controller, with its built-in display. After this, came a showreel of gaming moments, then nothing. The crowd whooped, but when the lights went down, a few expressed confusion: was the Wii U GamePad an extension to the original Wii? Was it an entirely new console? That evening, in an interview with the Evening Standard, the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated: Because we put so much emphasis on the controller, there appeared to be some misunderstanding.

The PS4 and Xbox One, high-powered machines arrived and changed the gaming landscape. Composite: Xbox One S v PS 4 Pro v PS4 Slim v Project Scorpio

A masterpiece of understatement. In some ways, that misunderstanding never went away. Even when it became clear that Wii U was a whole new console, with a unique motion-sensitive screen pad, consumers were nonplussed. There had been rumours that, with its custom AMD 7 series graphics chipset and IBM multicore central processor, the machine would be more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 especially as it was arriving years after those machines debuted. But before the launch, developers were already whispering to news sources that this was not the case driving the second-screen would eat up the graphics processing power and the CPU wasnt that special. It was all academic anyway: barely a year later, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One arrived to completely change the technological landscape.

But Nintendo wasnt competing with PlayStation and Xbox, and never really had. Instead, it needed to convert the tens of millions of Wii owners whod rarely bought consoles before; whod been seduced by the Wii Remote controller and the immediate, social experience it promised. Those people were now quietly migrating to other platforms: smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes … Thats who the Wii U was aimed at.

In the months following E3, it was at least picking up interest from the development community. I had done work on the N64, Gameboy, GameCube and Wii and I still maintain they were my favourite systems to work on, so when the WiiU was announced it had me excited, says Byron Atkinson-Jones of Xiotex Studios I wanted to see how far we could go in game design terms with the two screen setup. Were we going to get new game paradigms like we did with the Wii and its controllers?

However, even before the launch, the games media was complaining about a lack of compelling first-party content. The machine would arrive with only two major Nintendo titles, the mini-game collection Nintendo Land, and New Super Mario Bros U, a decent side-scrolling platformer, but by no means a major Mario title with with little involvement from Miyamoto. There were intriguing moments: Nintendo Land has the clever asymmetrical multiplayer action of Luigis Ghost Mansion and the boisterous arena-battler Animal Crossing: Sweet Day. But there was also nothing as immediately compelling as Wii Sports or Wii Play nothing that completely crystallised the idea of the GamePad.

Veteran developer Rhodri Broadbent once worked for Q-Games in Japan, and met Shigeru Miyamoto while making Star Fox Command. He felt there should still have been a role for the Wii Remote in the new era. The fact that Wii U did not come bundled with a Wii Remote was really disappointing to me, he says. I felt that the identity of the Wii Remote was worth continuing, and that combining the jump to HD visuals with the jump to HD motion control of the Wii Remote Plus would have been a smart play. In terms of marketing, the Wii Remote was iconic from the get-go, whereas the GamePad sadly didnt really get to find its identity in either software, nor marketing. There were some truly excellent, best-in-class games released for Wii U, but very few of them gave life or character to the GamePad.

The GamePad, as a unique selling point, was also a unique curse, an albatross around the neck of the whole project. Designers struggled over its multifaceted nature: should they support it as a standalone screen, a second-screen for the TV, or as a device to allow asymmetrical multiplayer experiences (the player with the GamePad is able to have a different experiences to others using Wii Remotes). It was a tough business proposition too. Games publishers like to be able to transition their projects freely between different machines most modern game engines are platform agnostic making this process easier. But Wii Us controller demanded a different approach, so including the console on multiplatform projects was complicated and expensive even if they were just going to use the GamePad as a mini-map, which many did.

Of the third-party games available at launch, most were quick conversions of familiar PlayStation and Xbox titles: Call of Duty, Batman, Fifa… few of these exploited the GamePad feature-set in truly innovative ways. The best was perhaps ZombiU, a fascinating survival horror title with a neat permadeath mechanic, set in a post-apocalyptic London that made inspired use of the GamePad as both an environment scanner and a cellphone. With its tense, gory action, it also brilliantly subverted expectations of a Nintendo launch title. But it wasnt enough.

The problem is, mainstream game development is all about confidence. Console manufacturers have to be certain that third-party publishers will support the device; third-party publishers have to be sure that consumers will buy it, and draw confidence from first-party titles; and consumers wont commit until they know there will be great titles from both first- and third-party studios. Its a vicious circle of reliance, and it often all depends on that launch week. Nintendo just didnt come up with the goods to inspire consumers, and because of this, the likes of Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft were all backing off right from the outset.

Meanwhile, Nintendo was trying to make things easier for independent developers, noticing the huge influx of excellent indie titles on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. After the success of the 3DS eShop in attracting experimental games, the company set out to improve its digital store for the home console experience. However, its legacy was not good. On the Wii, support for smaller studios was patchy: the submissions process was, according to some studios, extremely lengthy, and there were sales thresholds that made it risky to commit to offbeat projects. Even after these problems had been addressed, Wii U had no support for the important multi-platform games engine Unity until much later in the consoles lifespan, strangling its potential with the indie community.

[The Wii U dev kit] was clunky and far more difficult to setup than its predecessors, says Atkinson-Jones. I remember opening the box it came in and there was a warning saying it was very easy to brick the machine so getting it setup was a terrifying prospect. Id love to say I got further than this but the reality is that even though Nintendo had signed So Hungry to appear on WiiU, Unity would not actually be ready for another year its because of this my other game Blast Em! came about and thankfully that game has kept my studio running. Once you got past all the problems of setup and getting a working build of Unity, it was just that much harder than doing any kind of cross platform work – the big difference being the two displays of course.

Nintendos Wii and revolutionary remote. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

So the Wii U had a lot to contend with: a poorly conceived debut, a unique selling point that was difficult to describe, and a hesitant development community unwilling to commit resources to a quirky machine. But it did provide moments of genuine brilliance. The defining first-party titles Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros, Splatoon and Pikmin 3 may not have been top tier Nintendo originals (theres no Miyamoto Mario, no new Zelda), but they were excellent games, filled with interesting ideas and classic moments of design genius.

Pikmin 3 is one of the greatest games I have ever played on any system, says Broadbent. Its mission mode is so tightly balanced, with so many tricks and techniques to optimise battles, find new routes and shave seconds off your time that I can and often did replay the same mission for entire days without noticing that the my weekend had disappeared. Im a big fan of the oft-overlooked, but to my mind never bettered, New Super Mario Bros U, especially the challenge modes. And keeping with Mario, Super Mario Makers musical, whimsical user interface is a masterclass in hiding complexity and infusing character into menus the way the sound effects harmonise with the background music as you place objects on the screen is endlessly charming to me.

There were beautiful third-party games too, sparsely spread out though the machines lifespan perhaps, but certainly there. Cult Japanese studio PlatinumGames, best known for its demanding brawlers, was an unexpected hero producing two masterpieces for the machine: the extravagant Bayonetta 2, and the kookie super hero puzzler, Wonderful 101. Warner Bros brought us the excellent Armored edition of Batman Arkham City, but also the ludicrously overlooked Lego City Undercover, a hilarious Grand Theft Auto pastiche, which is now rightfully being remade for current consoles.

More importantly however, there were indie developers who truly embraced the idiosyncracies of the system and its development environment. We enjoy letting the quirks of specific hardware inspire new ideas and features here, so from a design point of view, Wii U was a lot of fun, says Broadbent. Gyros, a camera, a touch screen there was a lot there to use. For Scram Kitty, I had the idea of making the titular cat appear as a sort of sports commentator on the TV while the player focused on the GamePad action, and although in the end that element didnt turn out to be an essential feature of the game, it was a great source of personality for the game, and one which kept throwing up new ideas throughout development.

Highlights included DrinkBox Studios crazed platformer Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition, the lovely retro platformer Shantae and the Pirates Curse, and the intriguing puzzler Art of Balance. Most were multiplatform, but lots used the Wii U capabilities in interesting ways. A key example was the engrossing Affordable Space Adventures from Danish developer KnapNok Games. In this interstellar puzzle game, the GamePad was used to monitor and interact with your crafts primary systems, including engines, anti-gravity controls and scanner, providing a great Star Trek bridge experience.

There were also thoughtful conversions of iOS titles, including Dakko Dakkos translation of the spooky narrative adventure Year Walk. We took a much more all-in approach to the machines feature set, combining the gyros, touch screen, separate displays, and even subtly altering the audio between the gamepad and the TV, to create very satisfying controls and puzzles, says Broadbent. The end result feels uniquely suited to Wii U.

Its also worth remembering Nintendos unique attempts to create friendly online communities around the Wii U. The Miiverse is a family-friendly social network in which players can chat about what theyre playing, draw and share pictures, and seek gaming advice, all within a safe, charming environment populated with customised Mii characters. It was a much more warm, human approach to networked play than Xbox Live or PlayStation Network and, as Jennifer Schneidereit, co-creator of luscious historical adventure Tengami discovered, it allowed unique relationships between developers and players:

It was possible to post to Tengamis Miiverse from within the game, to show level progress or ask other players for help, she says. As a developer I was able to interact with people in Tengamis Miiverse and help with puzzles, answer their questions and listen to their feedback. Because Miiverse posts are not only textual, players can also hand draw and incorporate stamps, it was a real delight to watch players using our stamps to create artwork of their own.

Wii U had a difficult start, with a difficult idea in a difficult era. The E3 presentation blurred what the machine actually was, and the GamePad was never an easy proposition to market unlike the Wii Remote that people could see was fun, just from the adverts. Meanwhile, with Xbox and PlayStation continuing their graphics arms race, and competition coming in from smartphones and tablets, the gaming audience seemed to be stratifying into two groups: the sorts of players who bought consoles and high-end PCs, and the sorts whod quite as happily play Candy Crush Saga for free on their phones. The idea of a console as the central focus of a party or family event, which had peaked between 2005 and 2010 with both the Wii and the rise of music games like Guitar Hero, had drifted out of favour.

Nintendos Shigeru Miyamoto. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Now here comes the Nintendo Switch, a regeneration of the Wii U concept where the GamePad effectively becomes the console, with its own built-in controllers. If anything, it is a more flagrant attempt to seduce casual players away from their phones, while tapping into the family living-room appeal of the original Wii. Broadbent sees Switch as a reconnection with that machine: Im very happy that the joy-cons have so many little tricks in them, and encouraged to see games like ARMS push forward higher-fidelity motion controls right out the gate. But Im mostly happy that Switchs identity as a home console thats not tied to your TV is being communicated so clearly.

Communication, it seems, is key. The Wii did its own communicating: you just watched people playing Tennis or Bowling and you knew it was fun. Nothing Nintendo has done with its hardware since then has been quite so alluring. But to write off Wii U as a creative failure would be a gross disservice. The GamePad actualised a lot of vague entertainment industry hype about the second screen, and lots of games truly illustrated the magic of the concept. And lets not forget that Wii U also saw Nintendos entry into the toys to life market with its Amiibo characters little figurines that could be placed on the screen to interact with games. They sold over 40m of those.

In years to come, people will pick up the console second-hand, with a few games Super Mario 3D World, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8 and theyll realise what it was that Nintendo had in mind, theyll understand the appeal of the hardware. Much too late, of course.

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from RIP Wii U: Nintendo’s glorious, quirky failure