E3 2012 Predictions / Wishlists

[Luigison]

Wii U:
A camera/sensor to support head/controller tracking like Johnny Lee's old idea: 
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw</a>

Or something like the vitality sensor built into the Wii U controller:


3DS:
A new model with dual sliders and at least one 3D classic like something from Super Mario or The Legend of Zelda.




But who knows.  Not me.  E3 is too far way and I haven't had that second glass of wine yet. 

[CrossEyed7]

Still waiting for F-Zero U.

[WarpRattler]

This seems likely, especially if it just ends up being a digital-only version of the 360 with Kinect built in rather than being a completely new console. I'm hoping it's that so I don't have to look at potential new games I'll never own. Hmm.

I hope Square Enix announces a US release date for Final Fantasy Type-0. I also hope it's not download-exclusive, and for the sake of Vita owners (not that there are a lot of them!), I hope it's not retail-exclusive like some previous releases.

I hope Skullgirls, Fez (lol), and Spelunky! HD (loooool) are out before E3 so I won't be taunted by their existence if any of them are displayed at the show.

[bobbysq1337]

Mario Kart Wii U!
You know it's coming. With Dry Baby Metal Wadaisy © SEGA 1991.

[billy chilly]

Whoa.  If Dry Baby Metal Wawaluigi Jr. is not in Mario Kart U I'm BOYCOTTING. 

Stuff that isn't announced that I'd love to see:
Pikmin 3
F-Zero
Starfox
Wii U's killer app (Mario, Zelda, something new?)
I know it's too early for Smash Bros. news, but I'd still love to hear/see something
Half-Life 3

Stuff that has been announced that I'd love to see more of:
Pokemon Black 2/White 2
Wii U

[bobbysq1337]

Half-Life 3

And Portal 3
And Team Fortress 3
And Mass Effect 4.

[Weegee]

[bobbysq1337]

?

[BP]

?

??

[CrossEyed7]

?

??

!

[Toad]

A sequel to Super Mario 3D Land will be announced/shown, despite being previously mentioned that it would be difficult to make a sequel.

[billy chilly]

I'd love to see Yoshi and true flight (instead of hovering and floating) in Super Mario 3D Land 2. 

[jmdblazer]

Actual flight would kind of screw up stage design though, considering that past attempts at flying Mario in a 3D game were not involved (for the most part) in levels that are of the point-A-to-point-B type.

[CrossEyed7]

Actual flight would mean Nintendo letting go of the leash a little. Flight was always a gamebreaker. Raccoon flight was at least a little limited and a little integrated into gameplay, but the Cape and the P-Wing just let you skip entire levels instead of going through them the way they're meant to be played. And that's why they're fun.

Modern Nintendo is afraid to let go of the player at any point. They could have made the Red Star usable on any level in Galaxy; made it into a P-Wing that just lets you do whatever you want, completely skip over entire sections, go to places you weren't supposed to in ways you weren't supposed to and probably run into glitches, just like you could with a P-Wing or a Cape, but some players might get confused and frustrated at the glitches. But that's what made it fun.

Ultimately, you can't design a game as fun and timeless as SMB3 because, as expertly crafted a game as it is, so much of what makes it perfect wasn't designed at all.

[bobbysq1337]

Actual flight would mean Nintendo letting go of the leash a little. Flight was always a gamebreaker. Raccoon flight was at least a little limited and a little integrated into gameplay, but the Cape and the P-Wing just let you skip entire levels instead of going through them the way they're meant to be played. And that's why they're fun.

Modern Nintendo is afraid to let go of the player at any point. They could have made the Red Star usable on any level in Galaxy; made it into a P-Wing that just lets you do whatever you want, completely skip over entire sections, go to places you weren't supposed to in ways you weren't supposed to and probably run into glitches, just like you could with a P-Wing or a Cape, but some players might get confused and frustrated at the glitches. But that's what made it fun.

Ultimately, you can't design a game as fun and timeless as SMB3 because, as expertly crafted a game as it is, so much of what makes it perfect wasn't designed at all.

I'd put the Minecraft logo here, but that would definitely get me banned from the Mario forum.

[BP]

kill me

[Weegee]

Well put, CE. Recent Mario titles have been notorious for "boxing in" the player with invisible walls and other arbitrary barriers so as not to risk exposing any glitches or design flaws. Imagine if Tanooki Mario could fly in SM3DL, or if Yoshi could be taken into any level in NSMBW.

An unlikely  wish:
Hasbro lets ponies into Super Smash Bros.

[CrossEyed7]

warning: i'm rambling again



If Modern Nintendo made Super Mario Bros. today, the HUD would move out of your way when you went up there on 1-2.







Modern Nintendo would think Mario and the HUD being in the same place would look wrong and not like games are supposed to look and so it should be fixed. But that's why it was so much fun -- it felt like you were doing something you weren't supposed to.



Picture this: You're playing Mario Galaxy 4. First level shows you some Bob-ombs and lets you use their explosions to push things around. Second level is a long hallway where there's one place where it's narrow enough that, if you bring a Bob-omb over there, you can push yourself back fast enough to glitch through the wall. Something like this:

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_e6Fie6J_g" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_e6Fie6J_g</a>

You can turn around and go back into the hallway safely and brush yourself off and finish the level like nothing ever happened, but if you look around a while, you see a red square of blocks in the distance, with three pipes inside of it. Float your way over there and the pipes are labeled with world names, allowing you to skip up to half of the game if you want. Bowser will somehow still be there three worlds ahead of you, which doesn't make sense at all. Not in the "it's scientifically impossible for Megaleg to have traversed this many galaxies in the time since I've last seen him" way or the "why doesn't Peach just jump out of the airship now and also since when is Bowser Jr. bigger than her" way, but in the "this is a video game, and I'm kinda breaking it" way.



The Super Guide does accomplish much of the intended purpose for Warp Zones, but it cannot replace them in practice. Video games are more than what their designers think they are. Just like movies and books, video games are social phenomena, where the intent of the creator and the interpretation of the audience collide and try to form something. Warp Zones may have had the same design intent as the Super Guide, but audiences do not interpret them the same way. Finding a Warp Zone by walking over the top of the level through the HUD makes the player feel like they're breaking the game and discovering something cool (even though it was designed that way) (Same thing in Mario 3 -- the three Warp Whistles you can get come from doing something stupid in an arbitrary place to suddenly go behind the end of the level, flying up over a wall that looks like it just goes up forever, and going off the edge of the map screen. Forget everything you know about Mario for a second and look at the Warp Whistle locations with fresh eyes, and think about how much they play with your preconceived notions of video games. Imagine how awesome it would be if a new Mario game were that postmodern.). Having a Super Guide block appear is cold and sterile and humiliating and patronizing and above all boring. Super Guides are no fun. Warp Zones are a significant portion of the fun of classic Mario.

Edit:
But Nintendo actually does kinda get this sometimes, or at least people near them. Like this in Metroid Fusion, or Grezzo leaving the bugs in in OoT3D (though that may be more of just subscribing to the doctrine of ocarinal inerrancy).

[BP]

Warp Zones are kinda still around though. Both NSMBs have levels with hidden exits that lead to world-skipping cannons.

[CrossEyed7]

The difference, though -- and it's late and I'm tired and I'm not really clear on what my thesis statement for all this was -- is that you have to do them (in the first game). In NSMBDS, it's not world-skipping, it's just two branching paths, both of which you have to take to 100% the game. Warp Zones in Classic Mario are always right on the border of legitimacy -- NSMBDS makes them totally mainstream and therefore no longer cool.

[BP]

...So what, it has style and feels less like a tacked-on afterthought, so it's mainstream now? What were the Star World levels in Super Mario World, then? Or the warp whistles? Or are those underground, too, because of how obscure the locations were?

hipster

And, I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure there were cannons in NSMBDS that worked exactly like in NSMBW. I wasn't even thinking about worlds 4 and 7(?) when I mentioned it.

[Fifth]

Well, the warp zones/whistles also (I'd say primarily) served the purpose of letting you get back to a specific part of the game if you weren't able to finish it in one sitting (assuming you could find them).  And this sort of thing has been made needless once you became able to save your progress.

[WarpRattler]

Sounds like CrossEyed is with Tim Rogers (the proto-hipster, which proves BP's point) on this one.

[BP]

When I was little, I used Warp Zones and Whistles in Super Mario All-Stars, which did have saving. I wasn't good enough to beat all the levels for real so I did it to sample the game beyond the parts I couldn't beat.

That is, in SMB3, I could beat World 1 and World 2, but world 3 was hard. There are fish that eatcha and those jellyfish were hard to swim through once I lost my frog suit from the desert. So I'd warp to World 6 sometimes, and I could beat enough of the levels to get the Hammer Suit. But I couldn't beat the fortress. Or I'd warp to World 5 and go play with the Tanooki Suit and Kuribo's Shoe. But the spiral tower was too hard. But I could get the cool suits from those worlds, save, and use them in the levels I was confident playing.

Nah, I don't use warps when I'm playing a new Mario game, now. But if I were six now, and I could find those cannons, it'd be the same story. Why does it matter how?

[Kimimaru]

Offtopicness:

I can see where CrossEyed is coming from, but remember that the Warp Zone in SMB isn't all that secret, even if you played the game for the first time. I don't remember when I first played it, but I do remember not having a hard time finding it in one of my earlier playthroughs. However, I agree with the idea that it feels like you're breaking the game but you then realize the developers intended this.

One thing I enjoyed most in a Mario game was finding all the Star Coins in NSMBW. Some were hidden in the most obscure places, and if you didn't use the little hint videos they had or a strategy guide then you'd have to really think about where the developers placed them. I was doing this with my brother too, so that only enhanced the experience.

I agree with BP about the warp thing: I don't even use them myself anymore because I want to see the whole game, and even if a part was too hard for me I'd keep trying until I beat it (Ex: US version of NES Ninja Gaiden III).

On-topic:

I'd love to see Pikmin 3 announced.

[CrossEyed7]

The line does get more blurred with SMB3 and SMW where the special stuff is a bit more integrated. Still, it's a big difference from, say, SMG. When was the last time there was a Mario game, or pretty much any game in general, where, without any actual cheating, you could get to the final boss from a new save file in fifteen minutes?

...

Actually, now that I do some research on it, both of the NSMBs can be beaten in about 25 minutes by warpcannonning from 1 to 5 to 8, which is only about twice the length of SMB2USA, 3, and W. You were right, BP.

Also, the Blue Shell in NSMBDS is good. Pretty dang close to being an SMB3-caliber powerup, I'd say. Follows nicely in the vein of Kuribo's Shoe and the Hammer and Frog Suit; not required for anything (except maybe some Star Coins? Iunno?), makes things tougher but also cooler and funner, and if you can get through a whole level staying in the shell the whole time, it feels great even though (and maybe a little bit because?) the game doesn't recognize it.

There will be situations in Super Mario Bros. 3 where you can swim while holding a shell: this makes Mario go exponentially faster. However, there’s always a risk: the koopa might awaken, pop out of its shell, and hurt you. In Super Mario Galaxy, there are parts where you must swim with a shell in your hands, and at these times, the shells are provided for free, from a dispenser-like meta-location, and there will never be a koopa inside to hurt you.

This is what I was getting at with the "mainstream" and "sterile" and "you have to do it" stuff, though it doesn't really apply to the Warp Cannons now that I look it up, and also this is not entirely accurate because I just checked and Koopa shells don't seem to make you swim any faster in SMB3, only SMW, where shells are empty, but still, the basic point is there. And it more applies to the 3D games than the NSMBs, though NSMBW's use of Yoshi falls under this. If the Blue Shell were in Galaxy, it would be because there were some stars that required it, and it wouldn't be anywhere else.

I still haven't played 3D Land, but from what I've heard, it does a good job of moving from the puzzle game type stuff of 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy back to the fun run around platforming of the sidescrollers.

Anyway, yeah, I'm still not sure what I was even saying, and this veered off topic a while ago.

Still, though, I'd love to see something in a modern Mario game that plays with our modern expectations of how games work as much as warps did in SMB1 and 3.


More on-topic: GTA6, FF16, and Uncharted 5 as Wii U exclusive launch titles.

[BP]

I think the problem is that for some reason, the 3D games (except SM3DL) want everything to be replenish-able. Powerups cannot be permanently lost (except the Rainbow Stars). Yoshi respawns. Most levels in Super Mario 64 have a heart that can heal you if you run out of coins. Some enemies respawn. Destructible parts of the level often reappear if they leave your sights. It doesn't even matter if it's necessary to complete the mission or not. It's really weird how natural this feels. Imagine if there were Fire Flowers scattered sparingly across an otherwise unchanged Bob-Omb Battlefield, and they made you Fiery until you got hit, and they didn't respawn. You'd run out. Why is that less okay than the same situation in Super Mario World? It is, really. But why?

To be on topic: yeah. E3. Whatever.

[CrossEyed7]

Regeneration made more sense in 64 because it was the most open-world of them all (though less so than Banjo-Kazooie), because it had to show off that it was 3D. Sunshine, Galaxy, and 3D Land gradually return to more level-based (and, by definition, more 2D) play. However, 64 still got a little bit of the spirit of 3 with the Koopa shells. While there are a couple of stars where you're effectively required to use a shell, it's never like Manta Ray Surfing where you go to a level that's specifically built entirely around an obstacle course with a tutorial section explicitly spelling/yelling things out with giant icons showing you how to hold the controller and how not to hold the controller; most of the time when there's a Koopa shell in a level, you don't really even need it -- it's just for fun. Like the one in Lethal Lava Land. That's not required for anything, that's just a total Kuribo's Shoe that lets you turn the whole level into your own personal fiery skate park. And, unless I'm remembering wrong, they don't come back until you die or leave the level.

Caps regenerate because they're puzzle pieces. In the sidescrollers, powerups are never a requirement to beat the game, outside of that one level in Ice Land (and one or two others I'm forgetting, like that Mini-Fortress somewhere), so you can get a limited number of shots at going for the powerup path, and if you fail them all, you just have to settle for the basic path for now. But in the 3D games, you need those Jiggies, and it would be annoying if you had to start the whole world over again. The caps are also there for fun sometimes, and they regenerate then too, but some of them are required, and for the sake of those, they make them all respawn.*

[[They're not always required -- as I'm sure I've mentioned here before, I first got Mario Wings To The Sky without a Wing Cap. Took a hell of a lot more time and trial and error than I'm willing to devote to most video games today, but I eventually got it. I also took way too long getting Big Bob-Omb On The Summit because it took me forever to get that you were just supposed to drop King Bob-omb on the ground where you were rather than throwing him off the mountain (just having King Bob-omb say "Hey, don't do that!" isn't enough -- video games are always telling you to do things by telling you not to do them; and why should I trust the enemy anyway?). At first I figured you just had to keep throwing him off the mountain a lot of times, but after doing that like maybe twenty times I figured maybe just maybe I should try something different. So I picked him up, walked down the path, and carried him as far down the mountain as I could. Hell, I may have ended up checking a walkthrough online before I finally got that dang star.]]

I'd never really thought about the spinning hearts being there for in case you ate all the coins on the level. That makes sense. Though I still think they were mostly there because it was the first 3D game and they wanted to show off the analog stick (otherwise it would just completely heal you instantly on touching it, like those kind of things always do in modern games).



*- Part of why 64DS sucks is because it took away even the freedom and fun of the multiple caps. Mario in 64 can fly, turn metal, or go invisible, whether he needs to or not. In 64DS, you pick the character the star name tells you to pick and then you simply pick up the one single Context Sensitive Powerup to win with that character's one power. And far too often, the total freedom of the Wing Cap is replaced by the limited Point A to Point B direct vertical conveyance of the P-Balloon.

[WarpRattler]

Back on topic, I forgot about Monster Hunter 3G, but they probably won't call it that because it doesn't match Monster Hunter Tri and having "3G" in the title might trick some people into thinking it's a Vita or cell phone game before they actually see anything about it. This falls firmly under the "predictions" heading because Capcom isn't entirely stupid, but the Internet will scream about it being awesome news anyway.

If nothing's been said before then, I want Nintendo to announce an English release of Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition.

I also want Nintendo to announce GBA games for purchase on the eShop, and to surprise everyone by launching the US version with an English release of MOTHER 3 using Tomato's translation. Would be an incredibly effective (but also incredibly unlikely) PR stunt.

[BriGuy92]

MOTHER 3, etc.

I really do want that to happen, however unlikely it is. But I think it's been discussed before that the fan translation would probably need some modifications in order to meet NoA's standards. The example that sticks out in my mind at the moment is the wine-drinking ghosts. They'd have to be drinking juice, or soda, or something like that. Although, if it meant we got to have an official release, I'm pretty sure I'd be perfectly okay with that.

[WarpRattler]

I hope Skullgirls, Fez (lol), and Spelunky! HD (loooool) are out before E3 so I won't be taunted by their existence if any of them are displayed at the show.

Skullgirls appears to be coming out next week, and Fez was confirmed for an April 13th release a few days ago. Now I just need Derek Yu to pull through.

(Mind you, that Skullgirls release date may be inaccurate, considering they haven't confirmed anything for it on the game's Web site or anywhere else yet. And the Fez release date is still listed on the Xbox Web site as December 31st, 2799...)

Back to June, though, I would also love to see Sega prove me wrong.

[CrossEyed7]

I hope we hear something about Monolith Soft's Wii U project.

[Trainman]

And all of your wishes were just shattered an hour and a half ago.

[Lizard Dude]

BP got some wishes (Miis kicked out of NSMB, Scribblenauts U).

And the Luigi's Mansion Vs. from NintendoLand is kind of like a wish for me.

[BP]

I am not disappointed.

[The Chef]

I got a Nintendo theme park (sorta). So that's one of my wishes fulfilled. :P

[jmdblazer]

For those of you that stuck around after the show and suffered through the horror that was the awkward Nintendo family:

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmw4dIdiMw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmw4dIdiMw</a>

[Trainman]

That needs more views immediately.

EDIT: Just four days after I posted the above sentence, that video skyrocketed from a couple hundred views to almost 80,000.

[Mr. Wiggles]

I got new Fire Emblem and new Pikmin. The only thing that could've made it better was if Sega stopped dying for a moment and announced a Valkyria Chronicles 3 localization with all the extra DLC and stuff from Extended Edition for free in the US.

Alas, we can't win all battles but I'll take what I can.