Blog Archives
[GGM] Nintendon’t Remember Much
After my first encounter with Super Mario Bros, there is a videogame gap. I went from that formative gaming memory to the next gaming memory being “having a lot of Nintendo games.” Were they bought for me? Were they someone else’s? Who owned the Nintendo? It’s a mystery, lost to the ages1.
From this time period, I remember the following:
Top Gun: the Second Mission – Until literally right now, I had not realized that we had the Top Gun sequel and not the original. When looking for a video of the gameplay, I was like “Where is the tree level? There was definitely a tree level.” Anyway, this game was my father’s favorite, primarily because Top Gun was (and probably still is) his favorite movie. It was fun enough for the time period, but none of us ever got past the tree level, so we just played the opening mission a bunch of times.
Super Mario Bros 3 – I ended up playing a lot of SMB3 in this time period, easily 5x as much as any other NES game. I only skimmed a bit of the playthrough video I linked, but I was immediately reminded how much additional depth (and difficulty!) was added to the overall formula over the original. I also very much liked how you had a limited ability to choose the next level you played, rather than being forced into the next one immediately. Also, proper boss fights were memorable.
Zelda II: The Adventures of Link – My first Zelda game… and what a nightmare for young kids to play. Did anyone legitimately beat this without a guide? Much like with Top Gun, I started this game a bunch of times but never really got very far. Or maybe I did, but later? My strongest memories were the fact that the cartridge itself was golden, leaving the main road was scary, and I never got past Mirror Link.
Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse – Funny story with this one. It was around Christmas time, and I remember my parents asking me what game Santa should buy. They had also told me that Santa knows when you have been naughty or nice… even when no one is looking. I was getting older, and this struck me as suspicious. Why would they need to know what Santa should bring me, if the old man had around-the-clock surveillance? So, I hemmed and hawed with my parents all through December, while voicing aloud the game I wanted while alone in my room. The result was Castlevania 3.
It was not the game I had wanted. And so I learned two important lessons that day.
Blaster Master – When I think about my overall favorite game from the NES era, it would be Blaster Master. This is another one of those “start a hundred times, never finish” games, but it is also one that somehow feels way more advanced than its peers. It has side-scrolling action platforming with a tank car that jumps (!!), features progressive movement unlocks that allow you to find more secrets as you backtrack, and has an entirely separate 3/4 perspective dungeon aspect when you leave the vehicle?! Also, while Duck Tales gets a lot of praise for its soundtrack, Blaster Master is on the same tier, IMO.
1 My mother was not in the position to be buying games at the time, so I assume my father bought them. At the same time, it would have been very uncharacteristic for him to do so, especially as evident later in the 16-bit era (foreshadowing!). So, it is possible that they belonged to someone one of them were dating, or maybe someone staying with us, who eventually let me have possession of them later on.
[GGM] In the Beginning
I’m starting a new post series called Gratuitous Gaming Memories, or [GGM]. If you aren’t interested in new lil’ Azuriel lore drops, feel free to bounce when you see it. I’m mostly writing these posts for myself – hence the gratuitousness – and for Little Man to discover later, providing that the internet still exists in a recognizable state in ten years. Let’s roll.
My earliest memory of any videogame was the original Super Mario Bros for Nintendo. Getting there requires some setup.
I grew up in relative poverty, in a very poor state. At the time, I did not realize this, and so it didn’t bother me (neither then or even now); that was just how life was. My mother was young when she had me, like around 20, and my father was not much older. They divorced when I was 2 years old which, again, I did not particularly recognize as being outside the norm. Weekdays were spend with mom, weekends were spent with dad. Luckily, they were pretty amicable. Life moved on.
One of the things I always remembered with mom were our “expeditions.” Essentially, just walking around town. I do not recall whether it was a matter of necessity (car not working, etc), to combat boredom, and/or conduct healthy exercise. In any case, keeping a 5-6 year old boy occupied and on-task for a multiple-mile walk was difficult, so we often… kicked rocks. As in, I would kick a hefty rock down the sidewalk, then she would, then I would, and so on. Sometimes the rock would hit a crack at a crazy angle or perhaps you put too much force into it, but that was all part of what kept it fun.
At some point during the walk, I kicked the rock a bit too hard and it bounced up and hit the side of a parked car. Which was sitting in front of perhaps the largest, fanciest house in the small town we lived in. I wanted us to flee the scene, but my mother took us to the open front door and wanted to apologize. I’m not quite sure how the conversation went, but at some point I was sent to wait in the living room with the owner’s kids… just as they turned on Super Mario Bros.
I was transfixed. I don’t even really remember if I got a turn with the controller. In fact, I don’t have any memory at all of the following… however long it was. It’s like a dopamine cigarette burn in my head.
Afterwards, we left, and continued on our expedition. After putting some additional distance between us and the fancy house, we found the next rock for us to kick. I remember that very specifically.
But the seed had been planted.
RG35XXSP
In what I like to imagine as an Ocean’s Eleven-style delivery, my Anbernic RG35XXSP (hereafter SP) arrived to its new home two weeks or so ago with its then-current sales price intact, e.g. no surprise tariffs. Unfortunately for anyone currently reading this, Anbernic is suspending shipments to the US. They supposedly have a warehouse in the US they can ship from, but for how long remains to be seen.
Anyway, here is the SP next to the Mini+:
There are plenty of Youtube videos out there with detailed analyses between the two, so I won’t get into that here. What I will say is that if I had to do it all over again… I would have gotten an emulator with a thumbstick. In probably a horizontal orientation. So… maybe just a Retroid Pocket 5.
To be clear, the main “problem” I have is probably N64 envy. When I was looking at the curated list of 100s of games from my youth, the first thing that came to mind to try was Super Mario Kart (SNES). While that was nice, it was also, well, extremely basic. Which, of course it was. So then I moved up to Super Mario Kart Advance (GBA) and that felt a bit better with more interesting tracks and items. And then I took a detour into Super Mario 64 and that… didn’t feel that great. It actually played just fine on the SP, but obviously you have to use the D-pad as an analog stick.
As a somewhat related aside, I’m not sure if this is a handheld issue or an emulator issue or something I’ve just forgotten about in the intervening decades, but holding down B to run and pressing A to jump while moving is… hard? Like, I’m talking in the original Super Mario Bros. If you let go of B in mid-air, you lose any momentum you have when you land, if not while airborne. Did we all just smoosh our thumb-meat inbetween those two buttons and rock it 45 degrees when you needed to jump? I’m tempted to change the controller scheme to add one of the shoulder buttons as a Run button.
Aside from Nintendo, one of the other games I have surprisingly been playing is Xenogears. At first, this felt a bit awkward on the SP considering Xenogears is a 3D game with a spinnable camera and even a jump button… until I realized that the PS1 didn’t have analog sticks either. Oh my. In any case, I’m not certain that I will continue playing Xenogears much on the handheld devices, specifically because when I have the opportunity to do so, I usually can’t have the sound cranked up. Probably half the nostalgia of these games – and especially Squaresoft ones – comes from the soundtrack, so it’s a big loss. All of which brings up my reminder about your use case for emulation. Bring some headphones, at least.
In any event, what I can say is that between the SP and the Mini+, I do prefer the SP. There is an argument that the SP might have a hinge problem in the future, but there is something deeply satisfying about being able to close the clamshell at a moment’s notice and forget about the device in your pocket without having to baby it. I bought the Mini+ with a carrying case, but at that point the “pocket portability” aspect is diminished. The SP is probably not good for my 6-year old who would undoubtedly just open and shut the lid a 1000 times absentmindedly, but it’s certainly safer from a screen point of view once he’s older.
Switch 2 Paying Too Much
In the weeks leading up to today, I was actually looking forward to hearing the details about Nintendo’s next console, Switch 2. Which might seem odd, considering I let the entirety of the original Switch lifecycle pass me by. And, actually, the last console of any kind that I purchased was a PS3 and I barely played any of the games I bought on that. I did upgrade my PC in 2022, and that is where I do most of my gaming. But… well, I have recently started being interested in portable gaming and figured that if I were to jump into the waters, maybe the Switch 2 would be as good a place as any.
Except, perhaps, when it costs this fucking much:
- Switch 2 console – $449.99
- Mario Kart World – $79.99 (!!!)
Leaks were suggesting $399, and it’s “just $50 more” as some say… but look at the game prices now. We were just talking about analysts suggesting (and begging) for Grand Theft Auto 6 to launch at $100, and it seemed like an absurdity. But here’s Nintendo leap-frogging the new $70 “standard” and going right for $80. And since it is Nintendo, these game prices are going to basically be set in stone for the decade – no Summer Sales or discounts for us.
Well, aside from the $500 console bundle with Mario Kart, saving you $30 one time.
The grand irony is that I had started getting interested in the Switch 2 because I developed a renewed interest in handheld emulators. I fell into a deep YouTube rabbit-hole around the explosion of these handhelds, and even picked one up myself on the cheap (Miyoo Mini+). This was technically (even more) unnecessary considering I still have a PSP and even an OG DS which are both set up to be emulators. In my mind though, I wanted something dedicated to emulation specifically, with a smaller formfactor, with the assumption that I may give it to my son once he gets into gaming. With me playing it in the meantime, of course.
After playing around with the Miyoo Mini+ though, I discovered strange sort of nostalgia holes. It will play up to PS1 games no problem, but I started thinking about the N64 games I might want to play again. Or GameCube. But not PS2, for some reason. Anyway, once you start looking into that direction, your options shrink until you start hitting the “Steam Deck” tier which is $400 (or more). At which point, well, here we are again. Although potentially tackling my Steam backlog…
…I wonder how long it will take for the Switch 2 to be cracked? Best of all worlds, potentially.
In any case, god damn, Nintendo. There are plenty of talking heads saying that $70/$80 games are “necessary” to “save” the industry. What’s not often mentioned is how many chairs will be remaining once the music stops. Gamers were already spending 60% of their time playing 6+ year old games back in 2023, so how many new $80 titles do you think they’ll be buying in 2025 in this economy? Nintendo will probably be fine. Other studios? Probably not so much.
Nintenwon’t Sue
The meteoric rise of Palworld is a song for the ages. Two weeks ago, it was sitting in 5th place for all-time concurrent Steam numbers. Today, the throne is forever etched with it sitting at #2. Or #1 if you add the 3 million concurrent Xbox/Game Pass players to the Steam total. Overall, there have been 19 million players shooting adorable animals in the face and/or enslaving them in little balls.
Unfortunately, Palworld may have finally gotten to close to the sun. Or has it?
It always seemed a question of “when” rather than “if” Nintendo would sue Palworld over copyright infringement for what the media (and everyone) describes as “Pokemon with Guns.” In the latest Nintendo investor call, someone brought up Palworld and this is what the Nintendo president, Shuntaro Furukawa, said:
We will take appropriate action against those that infringe on our intellectual property rights.
Let’s just take a moment and appreciate the craftmanship of that sentence. It says so much without saying anything at all, which in turn says so much.
Nintendo has never been shy about suing anyone and anything into oblivion for copyright infringement, so the fact that Palworld made it into Early Access at all is indicative that any hypothetical lawsuit was risky. That it continued to make headlines and break records unimpeded further indicates hesitation. And this legalese statement essentially confirms that if Nintendo ever does get around to business, the lawsuit will be from an oblique angle, at best.
The Palworld devs aren’t worried. As they noted back in January:
Pocketpair isn’t concerned with the similarities, though. Speaking to Japanese gaming news outlet Automation, company CEO and lead developer Takuro Mizobe said that Palworld has passed all the necessary legal hurdles to clear it of copyright infringement. He also noted that there haven’t been any legal actions taken against Pocketpair for its overt comparisons to Pokémon—at least not yet, anyway.
“We make our games very seriously,” Mizobe said. “And we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.”
Is it hubris? Actually, probably not.
We can say “Palworld is a rip-off of Pokemon,” but that is A) not all that accurate, and B) at best a moral statement. Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. Attacking cute animals in tall grass and then capturing them with spheres is not protected expression. And three cheers for that! Can you imagine if Hit Points, Experience Points, talents, aiming down sights, side-scrolling, or any of the myriad of common mechanics were the exclusive domain of whomever first came up with them?
What about patents though? You may have heard about how Richard Garfield and Wizards of the Coast patented the “tapping” mechanic in Magic: the Gathering back in 1995, e.g. turning a card sideways to indicate its use. And over the intervening years, WotC has successfully sued at least two companies – ironically the Pokemon Company, but also the makers of Hex – into at least settling out of court. When it came to Hex though, they deserved it.
However, there is every indication that WotC’s gambit would not be successful anymore. This article touches on it, but basically a Supreme Court ruling in 2014 (Alice v CLS Bank) and subsequent 2018 Federal Court ruling all but closed the door on abstract game rules being patentable. Nevermind that the patent expired years ago anyway. Tap to your heart’s content! (This is not legal advice)
So, yeah. The Palworld mod that literally put Pokemon into the game? DMCA’d. Regular ole’ Palworld? Completely fine. And, honestly, kind of a perfect example of why none of this sort of thing should be locked down as the exclusive right of one corporation. Are the individual mechanics completely unique? Nope. But rather than the copy & paste shovelware you see in app stores, Pocket Pair is at least trying to take all the fun stuff from the games they like and mash it together and see if the result is just as fun. As armchair devs, we all like to say “I wish I could play X with the mechanic from Y.” Well, here is someone doing exactly that and it’s working. I saw that energy in Craftopia and I see that here in Palworld. We could do with more of that, not less, IMO.
Vote with Your (Whale) Wallet
There was an interesting, albeit depressing, exchange on Reddit concerning the release of Dr. Mario World, Nintendo’s latest foray into mobile nihilism. Basically, it’s Dr. Mario meets Candy Crush (e.g. stamina meters) with a dash of gacha game lootboxes. Which is a little weird, considering Nintendo seems to make a point about not being too greedy with their monetization strategies. What changed?
$$$$$$
Whales vote with their wallets. There is nothing the other 90% of us can do about it. They are an insurmountable minority.
That’s the issue with “vote with your wallets”… the people with more money have more votes.
Five years ago, I made the point that “voting with your wallet” was a losing strategy, in comparison to complaining about things and thereby possibly voting with other peoples’ wallets. That sentiment seems almost quaint these days. The current reality we inhabit is one in which the mere existence of people willing to drop $100 (or $1000) in a sitting dictates how mobile games are developed.
I would like to believe there is some kind of silver lining in all this. And maybe there is. If you are just looking for something to do on your phone, there are tens of thousands of options available for free. Not all of them are even horrible. Hell, go play Dr. Mario World if you want!
As someone who loves the purity of elegant game design though… I’m fucked. I could vow to never play these games again, convince thousands more to join the boycott, and it wouldn’t matter. When 90% of the playerbase is already not paying for anything, and the average lifetime value of paying customers is single digits, one $99 purchase justifies a lot of nonsense. Not just in one game, but every game. There will be exceptions, but they exist as deliberate acts, fighting the ocean current.
When money is speech, the richest speak the loudest.
…er, when did we decide that was a good idea, again?
Pokémon: Go Away
I dislike talking about the same thing as everyone else, but… it’s impossible to ignore.
The best thing I can say about Pokémon Go is that it is a case study in accidental viral marketing. Or would it be grassroots social media marketing? I only know my beach vacation went from zero to “pull into that parking lot, honey” within hours on Thursday.
Both Google search trends and Nintendo’s stock prices bear that suddenness out:
And that’s just the generic “Pokemon” term.
By the way, $1000 on Nintendo last Wednesday is $1571 as of Monday night.
The aforementioned request for a detour was from someone who had no interest whatsoever in videogames, and by all indications still has no interest today. But I am absolutely certain that when she is out and about in town this week, she will be taking the “scenic” route through the red zones in order to get some more PokéBalls.
Choose wisely.
The other thing I’ll say about Pokémon Go is that its fascinating witnessing a perfect storm in motion. This isn’t the first Augmented Reality game to come out – Niantic were the ones to release Ingress, whose bones make up the entirety of Pokémon Go. No, this is what it must have felt like back in 2004, when WoW came onto the scene and blew up. Popularity basically beyond all reason.
And that is essentially where I am: watching this “game” be popular beyond all reason. It is impossible to “play” in every context in which I would play any game, it drains battery like nothing else, it gets full access to your Google account, and it’d waste my time even if I had never downloaded it in the first place (i.e. by the detour requests). I get that it’s nice fun for the whole family, blah blah, people actually moving around outside, etc.
Know what I see? A whole lot of more oblivious people walking around staring at their phones.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to clear my plate.
In An Age 
Switch to Switch 2
Aug 12
Posted by Azuriel
Longtime readers may recall that I was debating between the Switch vs Switch 2 last year, once Little Man came to a videogame awakening. I ended up purchasing a new Switch OLED bundle with Mario Kart 8 for $275 total last July. Plus, a kinda dumb amount of games… almost all of which got played! He’s not quite ready for Smash Bros yet. I am overall pleased with how that situation shook out.
Now, a year later and almost exactly to the day, I also bought (and since received) a Switch 2.
The Switch 2 bundle cost a total of $426.60, which is obviously much higher than the original Switch. Plus, you know, I still have the original Switch. What gives? Several kinda sorta related things.
That, no doubt, sounds like a lot of explanation concerning a topic that should warrant none.
“Who you trying to convince?” Yes, me, myself. I routinely agonize over $15 game purchases, and whether 67% off is worth it considering the all-time-low was 70% three months ago. I once bought a game from an overseas storefront and ended up getting my bank account frozen “out of caution,” all trying to save $3 versus just buying it on Steam. I was not in any way depending on that $3, it was just the principle of the thing. I mean, hell, it was a Steam code in the first place!
Whatever. It’s done. The Switch 2 is fully functional – the refurbishment tag apparently referred to the box having beat-up corners – and has replaced the original Switch in all ways. I could sell the original for… looks like $160 on eBay at the moment, but my assumption is that it will stick around. Partly as a backup device, partly as an inheritable device, and partly because my wife mentioned she may want to play stuff on it. Theoretically, I could do local co-op with some games, but I have not yet done the research for which games require two copies and which can be shared.
It is kind of funny/sad looking at the list of games in the Nintendo eShop and realizing how many I already own on Steam, often for much less. Although, now that I’m looking, maybe not. For example, We Love Katamari REROLL is like $7.50 on Switch and the IsThereAnyDeal lowest was $5.77 two years ago. Donut County is $3.24 versus $2.43. I even bought that last one in a bundle deal like two months ago. Huh. For some reason I thought that something like Hollow Knight: Silksong retailed for more on Switch, but apparently the MSRP is the same.
I still prefer gaming on the PC, and Steam allows for me leverage my Retroid Pocket 6 if I need to go mobile, but this is starting to make me think about some things. Not for now, but perhaps in the future.
Posted in Commentary
Leave a comment
Tags: Little Man, Nintendo, Parsimonious, Steam, Switch, Switch 2