How I'd make Nintendo VS Capcom work

I've read a couple stories lately about the concept of a Nintendo VS Capcom being brought up in interviews with Nintendo and Capcom executives.

Most fans worry about how the endless cast of characters would be balanced. I'll share my Ideas because I'm bored to death at work.

Art Style

The game definitely needs to be sprite-based. The art style needs to be cartoony, with a 16 bit feel, preferably hand-drawn. Ooh! I know, make it like Paper Mario! The good thing about this style is that back in the day most games adhered to a standard scale for characters and levels. Large levels with small sprites would provide for really creative level design and would provide for bonus levels and even boss battles.

Roster

Emphasis should be on characters from all genres, with only a handful of characters from actual fighting games. Obscure characters are a must. Different "costumes" would be awesome, especially with older characters like Mario and Mega Man, who have changed their designs over the decades.

Format

Some say "Make it like the VS series" (IE. Marvel VS Capcom), some say "Make it like the Super Smash Bros. series. My humble proposal: Make it like Pocket Fighter (A.K.A. Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix). This game had a clever way of balancing Street Fighter, DarkStalkers and Red Earth characters: Make them disarmingly cute.

Extras

Besides the brawling, the game should feature stages where the characters can do what they do best: There could be a platforming game, A shooting game where Mega Man and Samus can decide who is the master of the arm-cannon, and other options that don't directly involve punching your opponent repeatedly. These could be implemented in the form of boss battles.

Now that we're taking Pocket Fighter as an example, a Puzzle Fighter (only, like, the best puzzle game ever) mode could be included.

Platform

This game should be made for portable platforms. This would justify a simpler game, which would make it easier to balance all the content. I'm leaning towards the Nintendo 3DS but that may be because I'm an absolute fanboy.

My 3DS

In classic Downcast fashion, I'm posting this waaaay late. You see, I DID get the 3DS on 3/27 at 12:00 AM EASTERN, but I thought I'd really get to know it before I made my judgment. Besides, I was having too much fun to be writing for this pointless little blog.

First issue I want to get out of the way is the 3D effect. Here are the facts:

• It's very impressive. In my launch title of choice, Ridge Racer 3D, the 3D effect really shines. You can see the road stretch forever as your car becomes a blur, then suddenly a little leaf falls and sticks to the "windshield" and steals your heart.
  
• It's really pretty. This is hard to explain without visuals, but having a different image shot at each eyeball doubles the screen resolution! Your brain possesses some epic anti-aliasing effects, especially when the images are in motion!
  
• It definitely adds to the game play. I found it harder to play Ridge Racer with the 3D off, once I had gotten used to it. Some games might not benefit as much, though. It's also well known that Nintendo is working on software titles designed to do things they couldn't do before because of the lack of depth perception, mainly a proper Super Mario Bros. game (I'll have none of this Galaxy nonsense!) in which jumping from one platform to another becomes the main focus of the game again.
  
• It's still tricky. I didn't find the infamous "sweet spot" to be so elusive, (Just keep it centered and parallel to your eyes) but sometimes you tilt the screen a bit when the playing gets too intense, and it's horrible. One of the cleverest features in this system is the 3D analog slider; you can always adjust the effect or turn it off on the fly. I normally turn it down real low when I suspect I will be moving a lot, since the images are not so different the "ghosting" is entirely negligible. Also, after a few hours you'll start holding it at a right angle on muscle memory. If you absolutely hate the 3D, the graphics are still gorgeous on 2D. I just hope software developers eventually start using the user-facing camera and motion sensors to have the software ease off on the 3D when you're breaking the sweet spot.
  
• It has all the nuisances of real-life 3D. Do you know that feeling when someone tries to show you something but holds it too close to your eyes and you find it hard to focus so you instinctively push it away? This does not happen because real life has poorly implemented 3D visuals; that is just the way your eyes work! There may be times in a game when you're looking far into the background then something pops up in front of you, back in the days of 2D this wouldn't be an issue. I hope developers design their game to minimize situations like these.
  
• It takes some getting used to. At first, after some extended play my eyes felt tired, and I was seeing blurry for a bit. I suggest you seriously consider the in game "take a break" warnings, and just turn the 3D off altogether when playing in less-than optimal conditions until you've gotten used to it. It wasn't long at all before my eyes didn't feel tired when I was done playing. Seriously, if you still find it uncomfortable after a week, I suggest you switch the effect off and see an eye doctor.
  

Now that I've covered the 3D aspect, let me tell you about everything else. On day 2, while trying out Street Fighter IV 3D in a demo unit at a game store, I overheard a guy saying "It's just a more expensive DS with 3D". Let me assure you it's not. Yes, it is still an upgrade to a DS, I mean, hey only added a "3" to the logo, but so much more has been upgraded. It is indeed the next generation. It's to the DS as the Playstation 2 is to the Playstation.

The wider, sharper top screen is definitely delightful to look at. If you have been spoiled rotten by the iPhone's gorgeous 326 PPI pixel density, this might look disappointing, but I crunched some numbers and turns out the 3DS, in 2D mode, has a 133.28 PPI (pixels per inch) rate but PPI goes up to 238 in 3D. This might be debatable as the screen is split in half for each eye, but remember that the 3DS costs less than half as much as an iPhone and there are no monthly fees. So yeah, for the cost, the screen density is great.

Speaking of things the iPhone doesn't have, the new analog nub is perfect! It's so nice I've brought out my old DS games and have been playing them a lot more now; even with the slight distortion from enlarging the DS-sized picture (polygonal graphics are still rendered in high-res). It's a bummer they didn't include a second nub, as most games nowadays require it, but the touch screen more than makes up for it. The only thing I didn't like at all is the kind of buttons they used for start, select and home; they are almost impossible to find by touch and usually required a bit of extra effort to press, luckily most games don't use them.

Graphics wise, I can say this is the first time I play a handheld with home-console-grade graphics. Traditionally handhelds are two or three generations behind their home counterparts and the graphics on ports feel forced, but that is not the case. The graphics can be easily compared to the previous generation of current home consoles, like Dreamcast, PS2 and even Wii.

Something else that gives it a console-y feel is that the system doesn't have a start-up screen, the first indicator that you're not supposed to turn it off EVER. You're supposed to carry it around wherever you go so it can wirelessly communicate with other 3DS systems and exchange information. Each game you own can be registered for StreetPass and the feature will work even when another game is loaded. This adds yet another social aspect to the whole experience. This way you can share items, scores, characters, and the joy of owning a 3DS with total strangers on the street.

There is a toolbar of sorts on top of the lower screen with four functions that can be used when in the home menu, even when a game is suspended in the background (multitasking!): Notes, Friend List, Notifications and the Web Browser. You can also take pictures by hitting L or R. These applications are pretty self-explanatory. Additionally, this toolbar shows brightness controls, battery status, date, time and steps taken and "coin" balance (more on this later)..

When using the Friend List you can register nearby friends wirelessly or via friend code. When one of them is online, you get a blinking led notification and you can check here for their status and what game they're currently playing. You can even update your "status message" kind of like a social network. When a friend logs on and off the status is updated for you to see even after they're gone. As far as I know, there is no way to exchange messages with your friends.

The system also comes with some neat pre-installed software. Every "game" is obviously designed to be the ultimate marketing tool by showcasing one or more of each of the features of the system. They apparently worked so hard on these that some of the promised software got delayed. The web browser and "app store" equivalent should be available in May along with (hopefully) a few surprises).

With AR Games you can place enhanced-reality cards on a flat surface to make 3D images appear on top of them and interact with them. The games are fine on the long run, but very neat to show off. One of the games lets you use the character-specific cards to see 3D figurines of them. I was blown away when I started switching cards and it responded almost instantly, then I accidentally panned too far to the card pile and it read the card on top as well! Turns out you can use all 6 cards at once! This, together with the wireless capabilities, gives us a pretty clear idea of what the next Pokémon game will be like.

Face Raiders lets you collect "faces" to use into an enhanced-reality shooter. This one showcases the motion sensors as you have to swing the 3DS around scanning your room for… uh, faces. It also showcases the system's cameras and face-recognition capabilities. This is an awesome game and if it didn't make me look so goofy I'd play it all the time. It also has a convenient "show a friend" mode.

Mii Plaza doesn't offer much to show your friends, but does a great job at spreading the joys of streetpass. You send your Mii around with a custom greeting and some basic gaming stats. The Miis you receive can be used in two minigames within. One has you collecting puzzle pieces for different pictures and the other sends the recruited Miis to a dungeon rescue mission. I found the latter to be really addicting.

The new Mii maker (as opposed to the old one on the Wii) can make a Mii (that probably won't look like you) based on your picture. You can proceed to fix it with the enhanced customization options.

There are sound and photo apps like in the DSi, but with a handful of extra features, each. This time around you can play music in most digital formats, and in most cases you can watch pictures that were not taken with the built in cameras.

The activity log turns your system into a pedometer whenever it's on sleep mode, and awards you points you can exchange in different games. The amount of daily steps is displayed as well as daily game usage. You earn 10 Play Coins for every 100 steps with a maximum of 10 per day and 300 total. I really wish I could earn more coins but I guess they capped it to reduce the need for cheating; I once maxed out my coins on a Sunday without leaving the house.

Now that I mention the pedometer, it's about time I get to the airing of grievances!

On day 2 I took 3,973 steps (Oh yeah, I check the activity log quite regularly), including two train stations and a huge mall with stops in 2 game shops and an arcade. I only got one StreetPass contact! I'm afraid they were thinking the rest of the world is also Tokyo when they designed this. But maybe I'm worrying too much; it'd only been a day since it came out.

So don't have a lot StreetPass "guests", that's OK; I might have to format my 3DS' memory anyway in order to turn it in to have it replaced! I suspect I got a defective right speaker and a slightly wobbly hinge. I did some research and those seem to be common issues with the first shipment, and not really that common. Sometimes I get this buzzing from the right speaker as if it were vibrating against the plastic case, very annoying. It's gone now, but I still worry it may come back; Is it broken or is it just poorly designed and some moving parts inside are rattling loose (the 3d slider maybe?), or maybe the volume control on the software-side is not properly calibrated. The screen only wobbles so slightly, but if the speaker keeps acting up I'm having it replaced. Anyway, when you get yours, test it at the store, there have been reports of defective units.

On the software side, even though we were warned, I can't help to be disappointed that most of the features will be available after the May update. I say this because, together with the underwhelming streetpass support, there is nearly no social aspect to the system unless you buy a game with multiplayer that your friends are into. It gets real lonely, real fast.

Besides that, the system was worth every penny, and it certainly met all my expectations. I'm anxiously waiting to see what's around the corner when the May update comes, meanwhile, at $40 a pop, I should have a rather healthy library of games in no time, so stay tuned for more of my infamous Outdated reviews!

Seriously?

This is some serious bullshit! Why didn't Downcast get a pre-launch 3DS? Pretty much every other gaming site got one! Even Tiny Cartridge got one!

Here at Downcast we are SERIOUS about video game journalism. We have committed countless minutes to seriously hyping the 3DS and being total absolute fanboys about it. And by we I mean I.

I can guarantee at least one sale has come from our hyping (mine is already preordered).

So, Reggie, if you're reading this, drop me a line so I can send you my address and your models can come over (might want to send dudes because the wife will probably be here) with that nifty box and all that software and stuff and we can all just forget about this huge misunderstanding.

Review: Dance Central

Yesterday I had the chance to try (for a few hours) another one of Kinect's flagship titles, Dance Central. Now, I've already about written my opinion on this whole Kinect business, and before I go on, I'll say my opinion remains unchanged; Kinect is stupid.

Now that I've made myself clear, let me tell you, Dance Central was LOTS of fun, and I hate dancing. If I had the money, I'd buy this game (and an Xbox360… and a Kinect, I guess…) right away. The game has a very neat selection of music with songs of most danceable genres from the 70s up to recent hits. Besides that, the dance moves, themselves, were fun. I always played on easy mode, but I suspect even on harder modes there won't be any moves that'll require you to be a professional dancer or gymnast. The graphics were pretty, the menus intuitive. And well… That's it, there isn't much to say, I mean, c'mon, it's just a dance game. I don't think it is possible to lose at that game, though. Your performance is always perfect, OK, or something in between.

I also found navigating the menus a lot better. That the horrid Kinect Adventures. Rather than having you awkwardly reach for the mirror reflection of a button, you just extend your right arm. Point it upwards or downwards to scroll, and swipe left to accept. Swiping your left arm cancels the selection.

Now, you may be wondering how is it that I enjoyed the game so much even when I hate Kinect. Ah, well, it's simple. With Dance Central, you kind of forget the Kinect is (mis)reading your movements. You're having too much fun flailing and gyrating to reverse-engineer it. I did observe it, and I reckon the miss/hit ratio is around 3 out of 10. Meaning, three out of ten times, you'll just flail and it'll still acknowledge that as a successful move. So as long as you keep dancing to the catchy beat you should get a decent score.

Instead of forcing an avatar to mimic your movements, the game features pre-designed characters with different costumes and even voice acting performing a flawless choreography. Little icons, or flags, come up to tell you wish move comes next, and the only indicator you're doing wrong is that sometimes the character's arms, legs or hips are highlighted in red. A small "mirror" shows your silhouette making an ass out of itself. The whole thing is on rails, so if you fail, it's not as if you missed dodging a missile. You do your little jig one step at a time and in about half a second, it adds the corresponding points to your score, accompanied by a comment by the announcer and a flashy visual effect. How much flair depends on how close you were to the dummy, but you never really fail. It is because of this repetitive and predictive dynamic, that Kinect's slow response does not affect your enjoyment of the game.

In conclusion, the game is good. Get it of you can, and definitely play it with friends. Just be aware that the Kinect peripheral is going to be useless for any other kind of game.

Killer Apps

Compared with our past products, we have largely enriched the pre-installed software for Nintendo 3DS. As we were internally discussing how we could overcome the hurdle that the 3D viewing of Nintendo 3DS without a need for special glasses can be only appreciated through the users' actual hands–on experience, we made the decision to allocate some of our own development resources to the pre-installed software. - Nintendo's CEO, Satoru Iwata

Lately I've been having second thoughts as of whether I should buy the 3DS at launch or wait. The biggest reason being the minuscule software selection at launch. Wherever I went for information people agreed that the console had been rushed, and developers were not given enough time to come up with the mandatory Mario game. Instead, all we get is a bunch of ports of games that already existed in other platforms.

The people demand a killer app for their brand new machine. Have they forgotten Nintendo is the king of killer apps? Let me bring forth a couple of examples:

Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.

In the days of the NES, when we said "let's play Nintendo" we meant "let's play SMB until our thumbs bleed". This game changed the way video games were thought of. Suddenly there was so much that could be done! When you can run, jump, and stomp on enemies, you've got yourself a solid game. But when you can break brick walls, shoot fireballs, climb vines into the clouds, kick turtle shells around, and freaking SWIM as well… you've got a killer app. SMB fueled the imaginations of this generation, and until recently, most videogames were based on that formula.

Super Mario World

Sure, we had played SMB and its sequels, we knew what could and could not be done in a videogame (because we hadn't seen Yoshi yet), but nothing could prepare us for the beauty of 16-bit graphics. To this day I find the music in SMW glorious, and I seriously believe there is no way you could improve its graphics. Finally, there were so many secrets hidden within the game it kept us going back again and again…

Tetris

Dude, Tetris, c'mon! Only, like the best handheld game ever! Most people who owned Game Boys only owned Tetris, and it was all they needed.

Wii Sports

Just like SMB, when you hear someone say "let's play Wii" you know they probably mean Wii Sports, and just like Tetris, many Wii owners only own Wii Sports. When the console was launched, they had something nobody else had: the motion controls, and the only way to sell this new concept to the masses was to include a game that brilliantly utilized all of these new features, and to make it fun to share. Then they launched the "Wii would like to play" campaign to encourage players to share with their friends and families. My mother owns a Wii. She had never played a video game before and, trust me, we tried.

Did you notice a trend there? Yes, all these games came packed-in with the consoles. The disk or cartridge was in the same box as the hardware. They were one. These games not only DEFINED the system, they SOLD it.

When you're considering the 3DS' launch lineup, don't forget the pack-ins (actually pre-installed this time). You see, it's hard to sell the 3DS to someone who hasn't held it physically because you can't show the 3d effect on print or TV. They need the selling power of the pack-ins more than ever! You will notice each piece of software pre-installed on the 3DS is by itself a "trick" you'd want to show your friends. 3D camera and AR cards show off the 3D cameras, Face Raiders showcases the motion controls, Activity Log highlights active gaming, and the Mii maker and SpotPass games highlight the social gaming aspect. From what I've heard, these games are actually pretty neat, although I don't think they have a lot of long-term replay value.

Don't let fanboy speculation lead you to believe Nintendo is slacking off and relying on third parties for premium software. It's not that the games are late; it's that the console was early. They need the public to be exposed to the hardware so we "understand it" by the time they start stacking software on the shelves. Over the next few weeks after launch, Nintendo will start releasing updates for the system, like the E-shop and web browser, after that the possibilities will be endless.

A secondary effect of this approach is that third-party developers will get more shelf space during launch, increasing sales and increasing third-party support over the life of the system.

So. What am I trying to say with this post? Well, if you're not sure whether you should get a 3DS now or wait, consider these options:

1. If you're a Nintendo fan and you trust them, go ahead and preorder the 3DS, the pack-ins will keep you entertained until the good software starts coming out (if none of the earlier launch titles appeals to you). You get to be the first kid on the block to put an AR card in your grandma's coffee table, thus participating in Nintendo's brilliant marketing plan: the fate of this system relies entirely on the early adopter crowd.
   
2. If you're absolutely positive the preinstalled software is crap, I suggest you wait until a game you really want comes out. In the meantime, keep an eye on the media and talk to your friends; I'm pretty sure one of them already owns a 3DS and is dying to show it to you.