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greatn posted:What Nintendo does with their games is generally not their problem. It's what they don't do that is a problem. For instance those Mario games would be great with online multiplayer as would donkey Kong which doesn't even have player collision so it would work great. To riff on this, I'd say that Nintendo's first party studios are not any less capable than back in their glory days, and still compare well to the output of other companies. Sure they have some misses (cough other M cough) but their games, by and large, are pretty good. The problem is that they have completely and utterly ignored the evolving tastes of the market. Most popular genres in the west these days? Shooters with multiplayer emphasis and extremely cinematic adventure games. You have you shootmans in the first category and your Assassin's Creeds and Uncharteds and GTAs in the latter. Nintendo has somehow gone backwards in those genres since the days of the N64. As a company, they have a perverse and almost contemptuous desire to ignore and even denigrate what the market wants to buy. That one quote "no one wants to have fun anymore, they want to murder people in HD" from that gamecube article posted earlier sums up the extreme dissonance of Nintendo's mindset the best. So, Nintendo is still awesome at creating really stellar platforming games. Mario 3D World is an impeccably designed game in its genre. But no one (comparatively speaking) gives a gently caress about platforming games anymore. If Nintendo honestly and earnestly wanted to create games to cater to the market's taste they would probably do pretty well! They just seem to have an elitist attitude to their customer base. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 22:24
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I may be the only one thinking this apparently but, I'm fairly sure they've got another Metroid Prime (or at least, something to do with Metroid) in the works at Retro that they're just not ready to announce anything about yet.
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Feb 19, 2014 22:41
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Austrian mook posted:It's a japanese thing, ridiculous CEO wages aren't really a thing by in large over there. Hiroshi Yamauchi (Iwata's predecessor) served as Nintendo's CEO for 53 years. Iwata has been CEO for ~12 years, and has given no indication of stepping down. For most Western compabies, average CEO tenure is 6 years. And as an added note- Japan's CEOs definitely aren't the frugal, humble types that some people in this thread seem to be claiming they are. In 2013, Yamauchi was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world. And even though Iwata isn't as wealthy, he's pretty much guaranteed to be CEO for life. melon cat fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 22:48
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Astro7x posted:This company, I swear... Using social media to promote your latest video game? Man Nintendo is so out of touch. No seriously what is wrong with this? PrBacterio posted:I may be the only one thinking this apparently but, I'm fairly sure they've got another Metroid Prime (or at least, something to do with Metroid) in the works at Retro that they're just not ready to announce anything about yet. To me that's pretty obvious, I don't understand all the complaints about Metroid being dead. I get that Other M was a bad game, that doesn't mean Nintendo pulled the plug on the series. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 22:49
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Louisgod posted:The WiiU WISHES it was in Gamecube country. Right now it's.. I don't know, dead and stuck in purgatory? It's taken the Taxi cab to Nowhere and The Ouya is driving.
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Feb 19, 2014 22:54
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PrBacterio posted:I may be the only one thinking this apparently but, I'm fairly sure they've got another Metroid Prime (or at least, something to do with Metroid) in the works at Retro that they're just not ready to announce anything about yet. That Metroid Pin was the biggest troll ever... Here's CRANKY KONG! Hey guys, did you notice my cool Metroid Pin?
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Feb 19, 2014 23:05
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I know, I was super loving pissed when Billy Mitchell's tie showed up in that one level of Donkey Kong Country Returns and then nothing came from it.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:08
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Kurtofan posted:Using social media to promote your latest video game? Man Nintendo is so out of touch. No seriously what is wrong with this? "Look guys! Cranky Kong's here! Say hi, Cranky!  "
melon cat fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 23:22
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melon cat posted:I'm not sure what Astro7x's issue with it is, but to me it's just a dumb PR move that treats their audience like kids. If this is Nintendo's target audience, fine. But if they expect grown-up gamers to be receptive to a fictional videogame character fielding questions about a new Wii U game, they're in for a surprise. And it would be a shining example of how out of touch they are with their customers. Gearbox has done and continues to do essentially this. https://twitter.com/ECHOcasts
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Feb 19, 2014 23:29
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Kabanaw posted:Gearbox has done and continues to do essentially this. https://twitter.com/ECHOcasts It could be argued that this is far more effective for a game like Blands 2, given the sort of content found in the game. On the other hand, Cranky on twitter might not have the same effect for a variety of reasons.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:33
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PrBacterio posted:I may be the only one thinking this apparently but, I'm fairly sure they've got another Metroid Prime (or at least, something to do with Metroid) in the works at Retro that they're just not ready to announce anything about yet. I'd prefer something different than another Metroid Prime game, because by the 3rd one, it had really worn out it's welcome. I don't know if it is because they made MP3 more combat based in a game engine that has some pretty terrible combat or if it was just the same thing as the first two. But if there is one thing that I will say that Other M did right, it was giving Samus an actual voice. What came out of her mouth was pretty awful, but I prefer my strong female characters to actually have a voice.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:34
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melon cat posted:I'm not sure what Astro7x's issue with it is, but to me it's just a dumb PR move that treats their audience like kids. If this is Nintendo's target audience, fine. But if they expect grown-up gamers to be receptive to a fictional videogame character fielding questions about a new Wii U game, they're in for a surprise. And it would be a shining example of how out of touch they are with their customers. So what is your response to other developers who have also used their characters in this way? Seriously, of all the things to get upset about, "Nintendo is doing a social media marketing campaign" is not one of them. They're not the first to do something like this and they won't be the last. "In-character" twitter or Reddit or whatever stuff is a thing. Hell, Nintendo has done stuff like this before and met with fairly positive response. (All those goofy videos of 'Mario' answering questions at PAX or whatever.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 23:35
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It's becoming less relevant with the inevitable demise of the system but Nintendo seems to only care about marketing their games in this quirky manner that appeals specifically to people who already own Wii U, rather than try to bring new people in like they seem to claim they are trying to do. They want Wii U to be as much of a hit as Wii but they don't want to do any of the work.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:35
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Quest For Glory II posted:It's becoming less relevant with the inevitable demise of the system but Nintendo seems to only care about marketing their games in this quirky manner that appeals specifically to people who already own Wii U, rather than try to bring new people in like they seem to claim they are trying to do. They want Wii U to be as much of a hit as Wii but they don't want to do any of the work. "Quirky goofy marketing" is not unique to Nintendo. A lot of the most successful marketing campaigns are those which are unusual or interactive or breed some kind of viral response. I'm not saying "ask Cranky Kong" is inherently going to do this but Twitter, by its very nature, is something where it can get noticed just by trending. It's risky because it can trend in bad ways but even that falls into the "there's no such thing as bad publicity" thing that some companies swear by. There have been Facebook pages, Youtube accounts, Twitter accounts, and so-on to promote games, many of which are 'in-character' or 'in-universe.' This is completely unexceptional. Not everything Nintendo does is a mistake or a genius move. This is just completely normal marketing. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 23:39
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I think it would be fine if the person writing Nintendo's tweets were a funny person, it's just that they're not.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:41
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Suspicious Dish posted:The biggest thing with Brawl vs. Melee and Sunshine vs. Galaxy was that the artists and engine technology were better. None of it was caused by newer GPU features. This is really interesting. How did you reverse engineer the model format? That's really cool. Do Nintendo re-use the model format for other games? Like Smash?
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Feb 19, 2014 23:42
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melon cat posted:I'm not sure what Astro7x's issue with it is, but to me it's just a dumb PR move that treats their audience like kids. If this is Nintendo's target audience, fine. But if they expect grown-up gamers to be receptive to a fictional videogame character fielding questions about a new Wii U game, they're in for a surprise. And it would be a shining example of how out of touch they are with their customers. Are you familiar with people who identify with being a "gamer"? They are loving manchildren and will never grow up - they are probably gonna eat this poo poo up.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:47
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melon cat posted:They may not have ridiculous CEO wages, but if Nintendo's any indication of Japanese business culture their CEOs do have ridiculous tenure. And that's just as bad because their CEOs keep their jobs even if the company falters under their leadership. I'm not defending it, it's just different. Buisness is viewed as a family, a son usually works with the company his father worked with, company loyalty is omnipresent, etc.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:53
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melon cat posted:They may not have ridiculous CEO wages, but if Nintendo's any indication of Japanese business culture their CEOs do have ridiculous tenure. And that's just as bad because their CEOs keep their jobs even if the company falters under their leadership. I don't think Yamauchi's tenure is going to be useful in determining what happens with Iwata. When Yamauchi started in 1949, Nintendo was the family business and he was just over a decade into his presidency before the company even went public (1962). Nintendo only posted their first loss in 2012, long after he had left both the presidency (2002) and the board (2005). AFAIK Iwata hasn't married into the Yamauchi family and the company is posting losses so he doesn't have either advantage that Hiroshi Yamauchi had.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:58
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Supercar Gautier posted:I think it would be fine if the person writing Nintendo's tweets were a funny person, it's just that they're not. Could be worse. When they let Charles Martinet go off on his own as a talking Donkey Kong head twenty years ago things just got weird.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:59
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Supercar Gautier posted:I think it would be fine if the person writing Nintendo's tweets were a funny person, it's just that they're not. I also think that Nintendo tremendously overestimates how much of a poo poo people give about Cranky Kong.
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Feb 20, 2014 00:03
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PrBacterio posted:I may be the only one thinking this apparently but, I'm fairly sure they've got another Metroid Prime (or at least, something to do with Metroid) in the works at Retro that they're just not ready to announce anything about yet. I don't think we'll see a Metroid game anytime soon, especially by Retro. The reason Nintendo gave Sakamoto/Team Ninja control over the next Metroid game was because the Prime games weren't selling up to Nintendo's expectations, especially in Japan. I think Nintendo would rather have potentially 4-5 million sales with Retro making Donkey Kong Country rather than have them continue making Metroid games which have lower sales and lacked cross regional appeal. Sakamoto rebooted the series so that it was aimed squarely at Japanese audiences. When Other M bombed and sold worse than the Prime games, it was a very costly failure for Nintendo. Other M had an extensive ad campaign and featured CGI by D-Rockets. In spite of this, I think Other M part 2 is more likely than a new Prime game by Retro. Sakamoto is kind of like royalty in Nintendo of Japan because he has produced several games that went on to be hits in Japan, such as Rhythm Heaven. Maybe his recent bombs made him lose some favor but he's still very close with Iwata. I'd like to be wrong and have a new Metroid game by Retro, even a small handheld/downloadable game, but I don't think Nintendo will make another Metroid game unless it can sell even more than Metroid Prime 1. The_Frag_Man posted:This is really interesting. How did you reverse engineer the model format? That's really cool. Do Nintendo re-use the model format for other games? Like Smash? Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker used the same engine. You could use an emulator to load up a level and other game assets from one game in another game. Unusual for most Japanese developers at that time, Nintendo's Japanese studios share much of their code in order to have teams easily borrow team members depending on a project's needs. You can also read about Galaxy's hidden assets here.
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Feb 20, 2014 00:10
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A big flaming stink posted:To riff on this, I'd say that Nintendo's first party studios are not any less capable than back in their glory days, and still compare well to the output of other companies. Sure they have some misses (cough other M cough) but their games, by and large, are pretty good. GoldenEye was the third best selling game on the Nintendo 64 at 8 million copies, but Nintendo has no interest in the genre any more. Miyamoto has said that he would like to make a game in first person, but that was years ago and he still hasn't produced anything. They could have tried a new IP that lets them experiment with FPS style gameplay without being gritty and realistic, maybe something closer to Team Fortress 2 or Ratchet & Clank. Anyway, Other M wasn't the fault of Nintendo's internal development teams, or even Team Ninja, the people who developed it. They just did the best job with the horrible director they had, Sakamoto.
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Feb 20, 2014 00:27
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Sunning posted:I think Nintendo would rather have potentially 4-5 million sales with Retro making Donkey Kong Country rather than have them continue making Metroid games which have lower sales and lacked cross regional appeal.
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Feb 20, 2014 00:35
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The_Frag_Man posted:This is really interesting. How did you reverse engineer the model format? That's really cool. Do Nintendo re-use the model format for other games? Like Smash? The file formats "BMD" and "BDL" are part of Nintendo's internal SDK. They've been used since Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker. They, or a variant of them are used in pretty much all Nintendo games nowadays. Mario Kart Wii uses them. Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl use them. Here's Noki Bay from Super Mario Sunshine:  I was going to take a screenshot of Outset Island from Wind Waker, but my viewer doesn't seem to like that very much:  (It seems like some I'm messing up one the matrix updates) Variants of the format have also been found in a few external, not-Nintendo games like Elebits, so some suspect that they're part of Nintendo's example SDK. Familiarity with the Gamecube's GPU is a big resource for me: a lot of the format matches the data structures used by the GPU. I didn't reverse engineer the basic structure of it, that was done by a bunch of different modders modding different Nintendo games. There's a "bmdview2.zip" floating around based on the really old bmdview by amnoid. I have my own fork of it here, and the JS port which runs in a browser is over here. A bunch of source code also parses the format. BrawlBox / BrawlLib has some limited code for it. So does Whitehole, an editor for the Super Mario Galaxy 2 engine.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:08
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I've yet to meet a single person who has ever given a poo poo about Cranky kong.....EVER!  But there are droves of people who will write you essays about Samus or Princess Zelda.
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Feb 20, 2014 02:14
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The Taint Reaper posted:I've yet to meet a single person who has ever given a poo poo about Cranky kong.....EVER! 
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Feb 20, 2014 02:31
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Quest For Glory II posted:They're not going to hit that mark with DKR:TF, that's for sure. Also, they gave Retro the choice of DKC or Metroid and Retro chose DKC. And Miyamoto also said he wants Retro to do the next one. So I think Retro working on the next Metroid is a pretty poorly kept secret at this point. But anyone expecting it tomorrow is going to be disappointed. I think Monster Games is being groomed to handle the next Donkey Kong Country game while Retro works on something else. Monster Games worked on the 3DS port of Country Returns, which includes new levels, and they helped Retro with Tropical Freeze. However, they're a small team and would need to bulk up or work with a support studio if it's bigger than a 3DS game.
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Feb 20, 2014 03:06
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The problem with having anybody from the DK series answer questions on Twitter is that they don't have a lot of characterization through dialog (Excluding the animated show). I mean, I guess he'll be cranky and probably talk about things back in his day, but I don't see that being a particularly amusing gimmick when answering questions. The game's never been about the story or the characters really, so it just seems so out of left field.Vintersorg posted:Are you familiar with people who identify with being a "gamer"? They are loving manchildren and will never grow up - they are probably gonna eat this poo poo up. Heh, "gamers" right? *goes back to posting about programming, WoW, and comics*
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Feb 20, 2014 03:16
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I like that the DK world is basically completely bonkers. Donkey Kong is this mad despot hoarding more bananas then he will ever eat, and there are no less than three militarized factions of animals trying to get his stuff. He proceeds to ride rocket barrels, beat the poo poo out of everything, and generally go loving nuts collecting bananas. He is characterized basically perfectly as just a crazy cartoon gorilla.
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Feb 20, 2014 03:29
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greatn posted:I like that the DK world is basically completely bonkers. Donkey Kong is this mad despot hoarding more bananas then he will ever eat, and there are no less than three militarized factions of animals trying to get his stuff. He proceeds to ride rocket barrels, beat the poo poo out of everything, and generally go loving nuts collecting bananas. He is characterized basically perfectly as just a crazy cartoon gorilla. The story of Donkey Kong is basically, they stole his bananas and he has to get them back. That's his entire motivation for everything and I love it. It's the same reason I love Kirby's "story" is because it's always like, someone stole his slice of cake or some poo poo and he wants it back!
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Feb 20, 2014 03:31
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Macaluso posted:The story of Donkey Kong is basically, they stole his bananas and he has to get them back. That's his entire motivation for everything and I love it. It's the same reason I love Kirby's "story" is because it's always like, someone stole his slice of cake or some poo poo and he wants it back! Just the way Donkey Kong is animated and his facial expressions, you can tell that if they didn't steal his bananas for him to get back, he'd just be bored and depressed like an animal in captivity.
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Feb 20, 2014 03:34
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Didn't Rare say that the story of the Donkey Kong Country games was basically an indictment of American imperialism in the Carribean and a story of the downtrodden natives getting their revenge?
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Feb 20, 2014 04:02
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Sunning posted:I think Monster Games is being groomed to handle the next Donkey Kong Country game while Retro works on something else. Monster Games worked on the 3DS port of Country Returns, which includes new levels, and they helped Retro with Tropical Freeze. However, they're a small team and would need to bulk up or work with a support studio if it's bigger than a 3DS game. It makes me sad that Monster Games is not working on the next F-Zero. ExciteTruck was great, and I thought the tilt controls would be an excellent fit with leveling the car after big jumps and such.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:05
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greatn posted:Just the way Donkey Kong is animated and his facial expressions, you can tell that if they didn't steal his bananas for him to get back, he'd just be bored and depressed like an animal in captivity. Perhaps this is the message of the entire franchise, and we are truly the animals in captivity, bored and depressed without our bananas getting stolen (video games). Makes you think.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:14
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The Kremlings never seemed to do much with the bananas, so I really like how DKCR and TF really play up the mistreatment and misuse of bananas by the enemies. Like that owl judge in the latest trailer, just being like "What the gently caress is this bullshit fruit? GUILTY" and smashing it for literally no reason, and DK is just aghast.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:23
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Fulchrum posted:Didn't Rare say that the story of the Donkey Kong Country games was basically an indictment of American imperialism in the Carribean and a story of the downtrodden natives getting their revenge? You're getting "people with authority" confused with "random-rear end people on the internet." Don't do that.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:31
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Bruceski posted:You're getting "people with authority" confused with "random-rear end people on the internet." Don't do that. Ah. I thought one of the original creators had commented on it.
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Feb 20, 2014 04:38
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Fulchrum posted:Ah. I thought one of the original creators had commented on it. In the Rare newsletter and/or web column, which was full of satire and not to be taken any more seriously than the plausibleness of whatever the answer in question was. In this case it was obvious bullshit. They made Donkey Kong because Nintendo wanted them to, the bananas were stolen because story didn't mean poo poo for 2D platformers back in the SNES days and the level's setups were, again, those of a platformer in an age of platformers.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:55
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Alright, fine. I just heard that Rare had officially said that, I wasn't told they did so sarcastically. Anyone know how the sales are doing relative to the Xbox One? I keep hearing how the Ps4 outsold the Xbox One 2 to 1, but no-one ever mentions the WiiU in a similar ratio.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:18
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