Nintendo is known for thinking about the hardware and how game design and interface meet. So they are very mindful of player actions and the physical experience using the controller. As such first party games tend to have extremely smooth and intuitive controls relative to other games.
So the Gamecube controller is excellent, in that the games Nintendo made with it in mind use it well with button mapping being well considered.
Mario Strikers has a demo out. At the moment it’s just the tutorials, but this weekend you’ll be able to play online matches, but only at certain times of day.
I wonder if they’re going to rely on online play to sell this game. I bet doing a satisfying AI for the opposing team in a game like this will be really really tricky.
Well, they managed before. But, yes, it looks like single player is an after thought for this one, much like the other recent Mario sports games. They still haven’t really said much about it, but it seems you’ll be able to do a single player tournament.
I did the tutorial yesterday and it feels pretty good to play, but man it’s hard to justify their full price on such a shallow game.
I do like their plans for the online leagues. Offline leagues/seasons would be nice/should be expected in 2022.
EDIT: There are only three play modes.
Quick Battle - Single games, online or off.
Cup Battle - A double-elimination tournament vs cpu.
Strikers Club - An online league with weeklong seasons.
I like Clubhouse Games a lot, (probably a sign of age), but holy moly Nine Men’s Morris is crazy. I feel dizzy every time I play it, what a wacky game. One wrong move and you lose the the game - but you can lose it a couple different ways. I guess I need to wrap my head around the ruleset in a way my brain current hasn’t, because the AI trounces me on easy every time.
Yes, the one where they announce the new Switch model every year!
Can’t wait for that-insider-who-is-my-uncle-who-works-at-Nintendo to come out of the closet ;D
I’m hoping they announce another mainline Mario game for next year, based on the work they did for Bowser’s Fury, which was just amazing. A full game of open world Mario like that would be bliss.
I’m hoping they don’t announce anything because I’m well into a time-eating RPG because of someone, and I don’t have that much spare time out of my sleep!
Review are out for Mario Strikers and it’s pretty much what was expected. Solid gameplay, but very little content at launch and heavily multiplayer oriented.
Sample review:
I really don’t understand this strategy by Nintendo, especially since they have a tendency to drop support for multiplayer or multiplayer-adjacent games really quickly even if they have a huge active player base. It makes it very difficult to justifying buying stuff if you’re on the fence. Luckily for Nintendo, I’m all in on this particular one.