You know... I always wanted a Four Swords game for Wii since we played through A Link to the Past on Virtual Console last year. It felt a lot like playing it on the SNES together and screaming at the TV: "Be careful!" "There's a cave over there!"... etc.

And now I really want a Four Swords for Wii that's as easy to pick up and play as a Mario game. Maybe Level-based instead of one big adventure so you can decide which stage/dungeon to play after you beat it one time. And then add some sort of score at the end of a dungeon so there is a way to "win" the game and laugh at your friends. They could even let you play 2 vs 2 or 1 vs 3 or whatever. There are like a gazillion possibilities for a game like that as long as they don't force you to use your DS or something (because as you said that's enough to break the whole game, really).

But I guess that'll never happen because Nintendo seems to like putting unnecessary things into their experimental games that nobody wants. It's like forcing people to play Mario with one DS for each player and then stating "Yep, Mario games just don't sell".

It seems he never, and appearantly neither any of you, have actually played Wind Waker.

Really, I am not suprised.

And not to mention, why do we absolutely NEED enemies spamming the screen? If you want to play those kind of action games, you would play Dynasty Warriors.

Also incidentally, what happened to the simplicity of just "linking" the articles, rather unnecesarrily and annoyingly lengthen thread?

Cute.

Yes, I played Wind Waker, and Ii played through the many-tiered mini-dungeon where you had to fight about eight squillion enemies. I did the same thing in Twilight Princess. Ditto Spirit Tracks. If there was something similar in Phantom Hourglass I did that too, I just don't remember it offhand. The reason I brought up Link to the Past is because Malstrom is wrong about it, which is both ironic and stupid in the context of his rant.

I agree with you concerning the virtues of linking vs. copy/pasting, but hey, at least try to introduce yourself in a more amicable way. What do you say?

I beg to differ. The number of enemies isn't limited to those mini-dungeons.

Also, I pointed out how the disincrease of enemies is not only not absolute, but also short-sighted, whereas you pointed out in that post how A Link to the Past is where the enemy count dropped.

I like your ability of finding these issues cute for inexplicable reasons. I also like how you find his rant stupid too.

Incidentally, I like how Mr. Malstrom starts gushing about PC gaming and then talk about pinballs after his fan/massive tool starts gushing about Doom(Or rather, "DooM") and how Resident Evil is THE DEFINATIVE EXAMPLE of how bad serious games are.

Oh, and don't you also find it funny how they both gush about Zangeki no Reginleiv, despite the fact that game is still not released outside Japan, therefore they haven't even played it yet.

... Man, there's alot of orgasms in this.

And since I'm here, might as well dissect his rants piece by piece.

"The reaction to Mario 5 is an explanation as to why it keeps staying in the top seller’s list. One thing many people don’t know is that there were many gamers, when Mario Galaxy 1 came out, asked, “Is it a 2d Mario? If it isn’t, I’m not buying the Wii.” Seeing how I bought the DS for NSMB, bought the SNES for SMW, bought the NES for Super Mario Brothers, I think there is a clear pattern. For many people, the Nintendo experience is the 2d Mario experience."

Super Mario Bros. 5? You mean Yoshi's Island? That game was called a sequel(sort of, it's technically a prequel) to Super Mario World, which was sometimes called Super Mario Bros. 4. Or does he mean New. Super Mario Bros. Wii? Why is it called 5? Shouldn't it technically be called 6 or 7? Bleh, whatever, I don't care. I like how he describes 3D Mario games as THE SOURCE OF DEADLY DARKNESS AND TORMENTLY EVIL. I also like how he was just as narrow minded as he is today. For example, personally my Nintendo experience is mostly based on everything BUT Mario.

I still wish I knew the hardware sales estimates Nintendo had for December 2009 for the Wii. I think they had no idea so much hardware would move. They wouldn’t have cut the price if they didn’t think they had a problem moving hardware. One thing is clear, 2d Mario will make people buy Nintendo hardware. Since Nintendo sees the software is responsible for driving the installed base of the hardware, 2d Mario had to have jumped into the upper constellation of Nintendo software to be used to drive hardware momentum. I like Iwata telling Miyamoto, “Oh, you are so going to make more of these…” hahaha. I’ve noticed everyone loves 2d Mario except Nintendo developers and game journalists.

But hey! You magically knew the sales numbers of Metroid Classic on GBA(which last time I checked is not recorded in anywhere)! How could you not know how many Wiis were sold in December?

AND YES! Nintendo and game journalists HATE 2D Mario! That's why there's only two 2D Marios and two 3D Marios released in recent years! It's not because the developers want to be innovative with 3D Mario which allows more imaginative possibilities, it's because they HATE 2D Mario!

"Anyway, I’ve played Galaxy 2, and I really don’t like it. Galaxy 1 at least had the freshness of the gravity and the ‘epic music’. I hate that big purple ****. Why do I have to talk to these stupid characters? And why is there a map screen but it keeps putting me on my spaceship hub? I don’t want to go to spaceship hub everytime I beat a level. And I certainly don’t want to talk to that big fat purple ****."

No you haven't, stop lying to us, we know how much you hate Nintendo games after 80's. And maybe it's because I haven't actually played Mario Galaxy 2, so I really don't know about this big purple starstarstarstar thing, but I like how patient and tolerant he is. He's truly a great example of inner peace to all of us! And if I'm correct, both Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 had the hubworld and those games were often called the best of the Mario games. So did he always hate the hubworld or does he just hate it when Supe Mario Galaxy 2 uses it?

"If you want a more substantial criticism, let me point out one of the major differences between Mario games and faux Mario games (the 3d Marios). In Mario games, it is all about platforming. And there are multiple ways to get to the end. For example, in Super Mario Brothers 3 I can fly over the level. I can also go through a pipe in the original Super Mario Brothers and bypass some of the evil goombas lurking about in 1-1. I can even use a warp zone and bypass entire worlds! You don’t have any of that freedom or replayability in Galaxy 2. But that is not my ‘substantial complaint’."

Because they are not TRUE Mario games, despite the fact that they are made by the same developer. And wait, if Mario was all about platforming, then why in the hell is a pipe or a warp zone suppose to be a important issues? And I've never understood the appeal of warp zones in the first place. Yes, let's all bypass all of the stages and get straight to the ending, who cares about the game itself when you can get to the ending before you even played it! I also like how this serves as a excuse of why there's no replayability just because there's no pipes and warp zones(I'm pretty sure there were pipes in each level). No cheats? NO GAME!

Super Mario Brothers games has Mario start as Mario. He doesn’t HAVE to get a mushroom or a fire flower or a star to get through a level. You can beat any Super Mario Brothers game with just small Mario if you want.

And let me now ask you a very important question: So what? 

I think it is wrong to even describe the word ‘power-ups’ to the items in Faux Mario. A better term for them should be ‘tools’. If you lose the tool, doesn’t matter, another is around. It feels like a modern Zelda game in many ways (and I don’t like those either). I despise puzzle based gameplay.

Yes, because as we all know, Mr. Malstrom HATES if his entertainment even DARES to challenge his intelligence! How dare games make force us using our brains for once!

I think the power-up issue is one of the big reasons why Faux Mario never jived with me. Consider how perplexed I was the first time I played Faux Mario when I was looking for a mushroom to turn my Mario into Big Mario. But there are no mushrooms in that manner. And the only power-ups are for generally required to get through a part. This is why I reject faux Mario even for the term platformer. It isn’t a platformer. It is more like an arena game where you use tools and stuff to get through.

Platformers: The platform game (or platformer) is a video game genre characterized by jumping to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles. It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps.

I would like to see a true 3d Super Mario Brothers game. Mario Galaxy 2 isn’t anywhere close to getting back to the roots of the series.

SO WHAT!? Is innovation and change such a evil term to Mr. Malstrom? 

"ARGH This is not how things were before, how dare there be change! How dare Lincoln free black people from slavery!?"

"The ‘romantic’ elements of modern gaming are things that drive me away. I don’t need to watch the same exact freaking cutscene of the star twirling around Mario before he squeals at the screen each time I beat a level. And I don’t need the ‘signature theme’ being played over and over and over and over and over again when you get that star. And I most certainly do not need to be back on that spaceship talking to that big fat purple piece of ****!"

... He might not be serious about this, but then again, this is the same guy who complained about Metroid Zero Mission having barely a minute long cutscenes, so I'm just gonna put it here as a reminder.

YES! Because that's exactly what ALL Zelda fans talk about! They NEVER EVEN ONCE started flamewars about the quality of the gameplay! It was all about the graphics! Because as we all know, ALL Zelda fans ever talk about is graphics!

Relax. I was only pointing out a contradiction in what he was talking about, and then acknowledging that Ocarina of Time was rock bottom in terms of the number of enemies you faced at any given time. That's not a comment on later games except to say that they had more enemies than Ocarina did. I'm fully aware that Wind Waker's enemy numbers are enormous compared to Link to the Past, Ocarina, and Majora's Mask, and ini several places eclipse those of the original game.

I used "cute" sardonically. Your post was unnecessarily abrasive and rude. Still, it was small of me to respond to you that way. I apologize.

You need to understand something about Malstrom before we continue this discussion. There are four primary aspects to his outlook and how he writes that are necessary to understand:

1. Malstrom has a good grasp of the games market, and is usually pretty good at predicting what's going to sell and what isn't. He's not perfect at it, but he has demonstrated that he understands how things work on several ocassions.

2. Malstrom is a rather bad video game critic. He forms coherent opinions and is consistent with them, but the basis for these opinions is often either flimsy or rhetorically incoherent and contradictory. No one - no one - should listen to him about what makes one game more fun than another.

3. Malstrom is a grade A troll. He will phrase statements in the most inflammatory way possible at every opportunity, and has admitted to phrasing things in certain ways just to piss off people on the other side of the fence. The easiest (and most egregious) of these is probably the way he treats 3D Mario games and games that try to tell a story.

4. Malstrom is an old-schhool gamer like you wouldn't believe, one of those who genuinely holds that games used to be better than they are now and for reasons that he believes to be completely concrete.

That last point is the important one, here - I don't know if you played the original Zelda, but in it they would bar your way with tons of enemies that were fairly difficult to kill (there is one room that contains about eight or ten blue Darknuts that still haunts my dreams). The game wasn't puzzle-oriented, it was exploration and combat oriented almost exclusively, and Malstrom thinks that that is the ideal form of all Zelda games because he never got the memo that games can change over time.

Most people excited about Zengeki no Reginleiv are excited about it because of their experiences with other games made by Sandlot, particularly Earth Defense Force 2017 on the 360. Sandlot makes big silly easy-to-produce games that don't ave to sell a million copies to make decent profit, and if you're someone lik Malstrom - someone who prefers giant battles wit no time to breathe between them - then the games are about as awesome as it is possible for games to be. Nobody played Zengeki yet, but excitement for it is pretty standard. Hell, I'm excited for it, assuming it ever sees a Western release.

As to the last part you quoted: he is, of course, referring to Twilight Princess, and taking a rather common complaint (that the opening is slow) and applying his trolling skills to it.

Remember: when in doubt, he's probably trolling.

Ah, good thing we clear that out then.

I have to also point out that my arguements against him were, mostly atleast, made tongue-in-cheek. So if we don't take him seriously, neither do I (even though that does kind of defeat the purpose of having this topic in the first place). Besides, it's always fun pointing out errors.

And I apologize if I sounded a bit rude. That tends to happen to me alot.

I tend to agree with you.

Still, there are a lot of people wo agree with him on a lot of points. That's why this topic is still going.

Some don't want to give the guy more hits by clocking those links. That's why the text is used here.

He's garnered some support because he is putting together a lot of good points about old school gamers, many of whom do prefer the way things used to be (and still clearly are when you look at Nintendo's old school pumps - Excitebike, Mario Wii, Punch Out etc) and he expresses that view well and with good evidence. His opinions are valid and can't really be contradicted by other opinions. I'd just leave him to it. I enjoy reading his articles, finding that much of it resonates with myself (as a gamer for over 30 years I have lived through pretty much everything he talks about) However, I do like Galaxy, but have to say I think I prefer the flexibility of 2d Mario.