Mailbag #3: A game would we would play again for the first time, one we couldn't get into, and where would the Wii be if things were different?

It is finally time again for Netto's Game Room's Mailbag! Our monthly ask us anything where YOU, the community, get a chance to be involved with the blog!

This month marks our 3rd Mailbag, but we're a bit late this time. Life has been crazy for most of us since October, so we actually missed a month... That being said, we have a combination of questions submitted in October, as well as some new November questions below! We're really sorry about the delay, and once again I'd like to thank everyone for their submissions.

This month we are trying out a slightly different format as well, so feel free to let us know what you think! Many of the questions submitted this time were submitted as anonymous, so names have been omitted. Feel free to let us know what you think of the new format (we want to make this as easy to read as possible), and don't forget that you can submit your own questions any time as well.

Anyway thanks again for being a part of Netto's Game Room, and I hope you enjoy reading our responses to your questions!

If you could pick one game to replay for the first time, what would it be?

Glacial:  

Shadow the Hedgehog! I was actually really excited for the game at the time, so imagine my surprise when it was absolutely awful and I couldn’t bring myself to finish a single run. That way I could experience all that awfulness all over again!

But no, if I could play one game for the first time again, it’d be either 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors specifically for the DS or VLR: Virtue’s Last Reward. Those games left me unable to sleep for several days, but they really blew my mind with the twists they had, and flat out told the player at the beginning of the game with the player not noticing. I could obviously play them again if I want, but when I know every twist that’s gonna happen, it just wouldn’t be the same.

Ben: 

Glacial stole my answer…

That being said, there are others!

Steins;Gate is a perfect example of stories I would love to replay for the first time. I remember jumping into it thinking it wouldn’t be much, and found myself extremely annoyed at the characters. I thought the lead character was dumb, I found his friends annoying, and I couldn’t see how it was going to evolve into anything “crazy” like people tried to say. It was boring everyday life stuff, with some mystery, and I just couldn’t see where the game was going.

Then one Thanksgiving night, I didn’t have work the next day, so I decided to spend an hour on the game before moving into something else. I remember turning it on around 7 or 8 PM, and the next thing I knew it was nearly 4 AM and my Vita’s battery was dying. I hit “that” moment, and things were never the same again.

Just…. Dang. I’d love to experience that again for the first time. It is such an amazing story, and that long “boring” build up was very much worth the payoff. Now days that intro is no longer boring to me as I LOVE the characters, but it just isn’t the same as playing it for the first time.

Jonsku: 

If I had to choose it would be the action RPG for the Super Nintendo known as Terranigma, the story, music, setting, battling everything in that game was very ahead of its time and had a big impact on me as a person and as an artist (now if only Square Enix could actually re release it!!!).

Jeremy: 

Pokemon Silver Version. I was 7 years old when Generation 2 came out, and I had been fully obsessed with Pokemon since I was probably 3 or 4. I remember all of the early Internet and playground rumors surrounding the game. A drip feed of leaks were coming out of Japan. It all felt so mysterious. Early images had come out of Marill and the Pokemon fans were going crazy, calling this new Pokemon “Pikablue.” Togepi suddenly started showing up in Pokemon content as well. We knew a whole new set of Pokemon were on the horizon. Playing Silver Version felt like a “canon event” in my life, as the Zoomers would call it. I loved exploring Johto and finding all of the new Pokemon for the first time. And let me tell you, the feeling of discovering that Kanto was playable in the second half of the game, absolutely blew my young mind. It was unbelievable. It made the game feel inconceivably enormous. By the time I played Silver Version, I had probably sunk several hundred hours into Red Version, so I was very familiar with Kanto. It was a surreal feeling seeing Kanto from another trainer’s perspective, and knowing now that it was so close to a whole other region. Don’t get me started on finding Red on Mt. Silver. Moving from Red Version straight to Silver Version, it felt like I was literally battling my old friend that I had spent so much time with. It was so epic. I absolutely folded him in half with my Typhlosion; just dusted his entire team. I could rant and rave like a lunatic about my love of Generation 2 for untold eons. But, to go back and recapture that feeling again would fill me with a wonder that I long to capture again as an adult.

 

Would Ezio’s family be proud of who he became?

Ben: 

It isn’t the life his father would’ve chosen for him, but he would’ve been proud of what his son became for sure. Not only did Ezio fight to make a better world for everyone to live in, but he became a Master Assassin and set the stage for the entire Assassin world going forward. While Altier may have been the first to do a full reform of the order, Ezio is the one who made it what it is today. How could his family not be proud of that?

Why wasn't Fox allowed to bring his gun or equipment to Sauria in Star Fox Adventures?

Ben: 

We have two answers to this question really.

First of all, Star Fox Adventures was not meant to be a Star Fox game. It was a Rare title being developed as Dinosaur Planet, and it focused on the characters Krystal and Sabre. When the game was turned into a Star Fox title, Krystal remained, while Sabre was replaced by Fox. Despite this change however, the game was still in fact mostly Dinosaur Planet. The Star Fox elements came from the story, and using the Arwing to fly from location to location, while the rest is pretty identical to the original plans for the game. That being said, the original game did not feature high tech stuff, and that includes Fox’s gun.

The second answer is the in game given reason. General Pepper didn’t want Fox bringing his gun to prevent unnecessary deaths and destruction. Fox was sent to “save” the planet, and not destroy it. Of course that doesn’t stop Fox from bringing weapons back years later in Star Fox Assault, but that game wasn’t tied to the development of Dinosaur Planet, and the aliens invading it kinda already went against the whole “planet preservation” thing anyway.

 

Which game no matter how hard you try, you can’t get into?

Glacial: 

People might think me a blasphemer for that, but I’m gonna say most Legend of Zelda games. With the exception of Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, the Oracle games, and the Hyrule Warriors games, I could get into none of them. And I’ve honestly tried.

Ocarina of Time? Amazing manga, but the game was incredibly obtuse and expects the player to do things it doesn’t tell them they can even do. The spider webs in the tree dungeon drove me crazy until I looked up a guide, and the rest of the game wasn’t any different.

Majora’s Mask? An even better manga, but I hated the fact that things the player does are completely gone when having to get more time.

Breath of the Wild? Hated the weapon fragility system with a passion, and I always felt like I’m missing things no matter where I went.

And on and on and on. I’ve played more than a few others, but none have managed to actually get me to enjoy them.

I appreciate the things they were going for, but those games are unfortunately simply not for me.

Ben:  

This is something I’ve wanted to talk about on the blog for quite awhile, but I’ve never found a good way to bring it up. I’m not a fan of Super Mario Galaxy.

When the game was coming out, I was among the people on the Official Nintendo Nsider forums hyping it up. I couldn’t wait for the next Mario game on the (then) upcoming Wii, and it looked so good! Once it finally released it was the number 1 game on my Christmas list, and I couldn’t wait to explore an entire galaxy of sorts. But then something happened… My childhood dog died…

I remember I didn’t go to school that day, and instead me and my family went to the local mall to keep our minds off of it. I walked into GameStop and saw the Mario Galaxy demo, and ended up playing through the entire intro galaxy! It kept my mind off of my poor dog, and I had a lot of fun with the game. It made waiting for Christmas even harder, but also had me more excited!

Well, that’s where my excitement ended.

After getting the game, it became one I played simply because I owned it. I did everything, sure, but before long I realized I was going through the motions. I got tired of the mini planet setup, and each level felt more like a chore rather than being an adventure I wanted to be on. Everything about the game is just a big no from me… But that hasn’t stopped me from playing through it multiple times, and getting it on Switch as well. My opinion hasn’t changed though.

Jonsku:  

Tough question but again if I had to choose it would be Guild wars 2, granted I played through it back in the day in its 1.0 release but after playing the supposed story through I just never wanted to go back. It had a lot of good stuff going for it, rewarding exploration, action focused combat for a mmo, a fully voiced story.

What rubbed me the wrong way personally was that most of the story was locked behind easily missable dungeons since that required you to have a party and back in those days that wasn’t easy to do. I also didn’t like it that as someone that does enjoy supports and healers in mmo’s there wasn’t really a class for me to enjoy in that sense, sure there were some with supportive abilities but nothing like the classic setup of dps, tank and healer. I have heard it has gotten better now but I just can’t personally be bothered to spend more time on it after the 1.0 release.

Jeremy: 

I’d like to take this opportunity to call Ben a blasphemer and an immoral ghoul for his badmouthing of Super Mario Galaxy. I refuse to associate with someone so hate-filled and bigoted.

But for real, my answer would be the Souls franchise as a whole. I love the aesthetic of Bloodborne, Dark Souls and Elden Ring. I’m a huge fantasy geek, and their unique vision of dark fantasy is incredible and has made a huge impact on the genre. Bloodborne’s aesthetic immediately gripped me and has never let me go. I just adore the entire design approach to that game’s world. But, I ultimately do not like the way these games play. The difficulty is off-putting for me, the combat is unsatisfying and I’m not a fan of the actual stage design either. I’d love for these games to be stylish hack and slash titles or action RPGs, like Warhammer 40k: Space Marine or Dragon’s Dogma. The most I ever could get into a Souls game was Dark Souls 3, and I sunk probably 25 hours into it. I was stressed out the entire time playing it and never really got that satisfying victorious feeling that a lot of Souls fans say they get after beating a hard boss.

 

What would it have been like if the Wii was as strong as the PS3 and Xbox 360 or stronger?

Glacial: 

It would’ve been more expensive than both, because it would’ve needed to have both equal strength, and the new technology. One of the reasons it saw so much success was just how affordable it was compared to its competition; $249 at launch, and coming with a game you could spend dozens of hours on with friends and family before getting bored, putting it down, and forgetting the Wii even exists is a steal. Also a relatively cheap way for parents to shut their little Timmy up and say ‘we have a consoles for them’s games now.’ It really wouldn’t have seen as much success had it cost $499+.

Ben:  

The Wii for sure wouldn’t have sold like it did, nor would it have been in nearly every hospital, nursing home, and the living room of even non-gamers.

Putting this aside however, the console being stronger could’ve changed what games we saw on the platform, but Nintendo would’ve needed to make more changes to actually compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360.

A stronger console would’ve meant receiving more multiplatform games, and the Wii not needing alternate versions of the ones it did receive. For example, Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop was a remake of Dead Rising made specifically for the Wii. It used the Resident Evil 4 engine, and was a chapter/level based game. The Wii couldn’t handle the original Dead Rising, which featured a larger open world map, with hundreds of enemies on screen at once. With more power it would’ve been able to, but then we might have missed out on the unique experience of Chop Till You Drop.

On the flip side, a stronger console wouldn’t have helped in other areas the Wii was lacking in. Nintendo’s WFC service couldn’t compete with something like Xbox Live, and players would still take note of that. Why play on Wii when Xbox Live offered instant messaging, connected to Windows Live Messenger, had built in voice messaging, and in game voice chat? Not to mention how you could add friends by simply looking for them, versus the Wii which required both parties to enter in a long “friend code” for every single game they wanted to play together. The main Wii friend code? It was only for exchanging short emails. It didn’t impact what games you could play with your friends.

So ultimately, a stronger console would’ve meant more multiplatform titles and less restrictions on first party Nintendo titles, but it would’ve also meant less sales, less non-gamers purchasing it, and other gamers still gravitating towards the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for the more “core” or “main stream” gaming experiences.


Jonsku:  

It is a big what if question but when it comes to Nintendo as a whole they have always aimed for making more innovative and different ways to play with a console rather than attempting to be a PC. Sure that could have meant better third party support and better mainline games but the creatives over at Nintendo usually thrive creatively when they have to get around limitations, which usually leads to more innovations and interesting game play ideas.

But yea the biggest issue would have been the price point with both new technology and high specs.

 

In your opinion, what is the best third entry in a game series?

Glacial: 

Mega Man Battle Network 3. While the first game felt like a prototype and the second actually gave a foundation to work with, the third game actually took what was laid before and gave us an incredible experience, the Navi Customizer with the joke part, and some really incredible fights and story.

It’s honestly one of my favorite gaming series of all time, and that specific game is my favorite of the series to this day, with the sixth game being close second. It was simply a phenomenal game.

Ben: 

I’m going to get hate for this, but Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge!

While I did enjoy the original NG3 for what it was, there is no denying that it was very lacking as a Ninja Gaiden title. Razor’s Edge on the other hand, fixed soooo much of what held it back.

The new version included multiple weapons, multiple level up and skill trees within each weapon branch, fully playable characters like Kasumi and Ayane, new story sections, revised story levels, extra challenges hidden in each stage, the return of Ryu’s old magical abilities, and so much more. Nearly everything missing was brought back, and the entire game was revised to account for these added features. We even get a nice moment where the dual blades are unlocked by Ryu using Hayata’s sword alongside an iconic one from Ninja Gaiden 2. It is details like this that made me love the game even more, and the multiple weapons and characters gave me reason to run through the stages over and over again. (Also as a bonus, the Wii U version had Kasumi unlocked from the start, so that was cool to see.)

I get why people will still say the original Ninja Gaiden 2 is the best in the series, but 3 RE will always be special to me, and my go to game.

Jonsku: 

Easy, Ape Escape 3, has the best music, best characters, best gameplay and most fun levels + design in the franchise. Also you can’t forget the funniest part, hearing Snake from Metal Gear talk to his monkey equivalent in the fun side mode inspired by Metal Gear.

Jeremy: 

Uncharted 3. Most people claim Uncharted 2 is the best in the series, but I think that’s just because it’s such a huge leap from the original game. I think the jump in quality from Uncharted 2 to 3 is a much smaller increase. The plane scene blew my mind, and felt like the natural evolution of the insane train sequence at the beginning of the second game. Overall, Uncharted 3 felt like an improvement in gameplay, graphics and I really enjoyed the plot and the settings.

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