Mailbox: The Mario RPG-naissance, Xenosaga Sadness, Golden Days - Nintendo Life Letters

I reckon Xenosaga remasters or remakes must be on the horizon at some point, given how much the series ties in with Xenoblade. Also the linked article is from later 2019, so there has been a lot of time for bamco to reconsider the prospects of such a project and maybe even begin on something, so here's hoping.

I have less hope for Xenogears from square though, they seem to rarely ever do anything with that IP aside from a couple mobile game cameos and a few bits of expensive merch. It'd be very cool to see regardless though. Maybe as an HD-2D remaster?

aghhhh what a good batch this month!!!! underpaid letter readers had me dying

I've never played the Xenosaga games but have always been interested in playing them due to my experiences with the Xenoblade franchise.

I find it a bit strange they claim that Xenosaga wouldn't generate enough interest to warrant the cost of a remaster and yet they went ahead with an HD Release of Baten Kaitos which is even more niche than Xenosaga.

But honestly looking at their past recent efforts I'd be worried to see how Bandai Namco would handle a Xenosaga remaster. Tales of Symphonia HD was as lazy as it gets, Baten Kaitos HD was also a poor effort by Namco where they even removed the English dub of the game for no reason.

Wow, the Lego Idea did reach 10k votes. Good job, Richard must be so happy 😃

@Pastellioli - You're famous!

@FX29
Actually, the remasters for BK made a lot more sense than XenoSaga, as well as losing that horrible English dub. First because BK has a lot more praise overall, including on its battle system, whereas XenoSagas are basically glorified Visual Novels where the battle system is so poor it's embarrassing and the player is interrupted every 10min with 2h of cutscenes. Secondly, the story for BK is complete, which is not the case of Xenosaga who has so many plotholes. XenoSaga got somewhat of a reputation from a loud minority, but they're actually far from being good games besides the technical side.

I do not think these are the golden days. This is obviously my own opinion, but I believe gaming peaked in 1999. The golden era is basically NES through Dreamcast. The launch of the PS2 began the decline of gaming (I know a lot of people love that era but like I said, it’s just my opinion). However I do the the Switch and the now fully mature indie scene have ushered in something that I might call a “silver age”. I don’t know, I mean there have been individual good games all along but that feeling that gaming was just getting better and better ended for me a long time ago.

What? An elite squad, underpaid, and skilled in the magnificent art of letter-reading? Time to get my kidnapping kit out.

Seems opportune to praise Sticker Star, which I only just played after hearing for years how bad it supposedly was. If you pay attention you realize that the complaints tend to boil down to "It isn't TYD" (see the letter above) which, OK, it isn't. But it's a fine game. Better than any Mario & Luigi game I've played, in fact.

Wanted to say thanks for including my letter! Spammy McSpammer will be my new legal name now lol.

I do definitely agree that game editions are super prominent and almost everywhere nowadays. Of course they did exist before, but weren’t marketed or pushed a ton. There are many plausible and obvious reasons for why a game is given a million different game editions, like a way to generate more money, but some people have pointed out it seems to be from FOMO (fear of missing out), if the game edition includes some extras or goodies that might generate that, especially if it’s limited edition, or if the items included with the game are for a limited time and never reproduced again when stock runs out. It could also be the rise of monetization with games, and the game company in question may want a similar way of doing that with their game. Personally, I don’t really mind multiple game editions, also cuz it’s optional to buy, and as long as a standard edition of the game is still available to purchase, plus I think some of the goodies that come with a few editions are really cool. I remember my dad bought this edition of Horizon Zero Dawn, and I may not remember all of what he got, but I recall he got an art book and a nice statue of Aloy, and I remember it being awesome. The goodies were high quality too. I wouldn’t buy a special game edition with extra items (collecting and getting extra items isn’t my thing) but some come with nice items, and of course some game editions are done better than others and feel less money-grabbing than others.

Also, heck yeah, more N64 NSO games please. I’ll be fine with any game since the N64 one is still too small. Hopefully they can add in some of those titles listed in the letter and a few of the bigger N64 games to go alongside those, and hopefully before the Switch starts getting phased out and eventually replaced with the Switch’s successor. I’m sure you can tell from my avatar which N64 game I really want the most on there… I really want a drop of games later this month or next month, and if they do that, I think the next drop afterward should be in November or December. Let’s hope that they do that and make the N64 NSO apps filled with lots of more games!

@Pastellioli

• wants more N64 games on NSO
• Conker pfp

Checks out.

@Dr_Corndog lol Sticker is NOT better than any Mario & Luigi. In fact, the FIRST Paper Mario is not as good as a few of the Mario & Luigi games. I've come to realize Mario & Luigi in general has a better battle system than any Paper Mario game.

Seeing Donkey Kong Land in that last picture is interesting, as I got that game last week and have been enjoying it off and on. It is absolutely not the same as the SNES game.

@batmanbud2 You're welcome to disagree.

The best Mario RPG series is Mario+Rabbids, and has carried the flame for the concept through most of the switch generation (Origami King and it’s decisiveness withstanding.)

@ScalenePowers Lies, the best Mario RPG series is Super Mario and the One Ring to Rule Them All!!

Epic stuff, I tell ya!!

@Dr_Corndog I think it's really cool that you like sticker star (always nice to see unique opinions), but people do have issues unrelated to TTYD. Less unique characters, unbalanced combat system, overly linear etc. It likely still would have been received poorly if it was the only Paper Mario game. (But still cool that you like it!)

@Bigmanfan The complaints you mentioned relate more the game itself than the ones I usually hear, which are basically just ways in which it differs from TYD.

I don't think the lack of unique characters is a problem. I see it as a joke on the fact that the Mushroom Kingdom is inhabited by legions of identical Toads all named...Toad. The Toads also have their own personalities despite looking the same (although this is a lot more apparent starting in Color Splash).

I also don't think the linearity as being an issue. It's not any more linear than a lot of other RPGs (and I do consider Sticker Star an RPG). More importantly, "linear" has become a dirty word in gaming (much like "downloadable content" and "free-to-play") to the point that a lot of people will rail against a game for being "linear" without considering whether that's even a bad thing. A lot of great games are very linear; a lot of nonlinear games could have benefited from being made more linear.

As for the unbalanced combat system, do you mean the boss battles that were a slog if you didn't have the right card in your inventory, but became trivial if you did? Because that is my one main complaint with the game (if you couldn't already tell). Still, the boss battles are a small part of the game, and I found the regular battles with common grunts very fun. I really enjoyed figuring out how to finish each battle optimally using the stickers I had.

I disagree that the game would have been received poorly under other circumstances, mainly because it wasn't received poorly at all. It has a 75 on Metacritic, and it apparently sold well enough to receive two sequels. The complaints are largely from a vocal subset who went into the game expecting something different and ended up unsatisfied with what they got. I do think it would have had better reception had it been untethered from expectations, but there are still plenty of people who enjoyed it regardless.

Xeno(game) remakes are like "Back to the Future" sequels ... if it's something you want, the reality is that you are probably going to have wait until someone dies. Zemeckis seems to have no interest in doing any more sequels or a re-boot, and the projects can't move forward without him. But given there popularity, the second he's in the grave we'll get a trailer for the so much "Back to the Future" content it's going to make the original DC movie slat like conservative.

Tetsuya Takahashi doesn't want to make re-boots. He doesn't even want to make sequels, but people have always been able to convince him to put numbers in front of his largely unconnected games while reusing a few characters and a cute winged mascot race, just like when he was working on Finial Fantasy.

(Spoilers for Xenoblades 3 start)

One of the core themes of Xenoblades 3 is that people who long for remakes and sequels are back creativity to the point where, to a creator, they are basically evil. You didn't get that? The main bad guys are literally bringing back the same small number of characters and having them play out different scenarios for their amusement rather then allow a new world to be created. That is the actual plot. The heroes give long winded speeches about how the "good" thing to do is let go your favorite stories go and move on from the past so that new ones can be told. A character KILLS THEMSELVES while monologuing about how non-exitance is preferable to having to be part of the same unchanging world or tell the same stories over and over. Another chooses to die just so their "story" gets an ending, actually vocalizing how they hope they are never brought back.

(Spoilers end)

That didn't tell you anything about the chances we are getting more sequels or reboots? Profitability concerns are always the excuse, but if the studio wanted to make it happen they would. But there are plenty of Japan language interviews where Takahashi talks about just not wanting to do them, and that's the real roadblock.

Will we get sequels and remakes? Yeah, eventually. The second Takahashi loses control or someone offers him something he really want to be able to make them without him, they are going to happen. But I almost don't want them to! I mean, I DO want them to, it's my favorite game series. Niyah and Meria are two of my favorite characters ever. I kept my Wii U plugged in just to go back to X every once in a while. I would LOVE to see these games remade and updated.

But part of me also wants to respect the creator. It's clear to me what he's doing with characters like Ino, showing us that Hana (Poppi) isn't just a character, she's an architype, and every game he ever makes will have a character of the same Architype (incase you missed the less subtle way that applies to the main cast). He's saying don't worry! The next game will have the same "people" and you can fall in love with them all over again.

And if this creator, who's given me so much I love, is practically begging me to look to his NEW work rather then his old ... I'm inclined to give him that.

2 remasters is hardly a "niassance" imo.

Where are the games? i thought Nintendo liked to make them. 🚬😎

About Xenosaga and Xenogears, when you say « It is an odd one, but it comes down to the same old story: not enough gold. » and link to the article about the market study, it is completely false and irrelevant. This market analysis was performed before 2019, so before the release of Xenoblade 1 Definitive Edition and Xenoblade 3, not to mention the inclusion of Pyra and Mythra in Super Smash Bros Ultimate which contributed even more to the success and public awareness of the trilogy.

@Yalloo That NL bump

With regards to power scale, when you look at the 3 current consoles:

The Xbox, which is theoretically the most powerful unit, is selling so poorly that many people are suggesting Microsoft should leave the console space. The only bight spot for Microsoft this generation is that the gambled on a cheaper, less powerful unit and that one is selling ... well still pretty poorly, but better.

The PS5, which most people SEE as the most powerful unit and which focused most of it's marketing around it's graphic power, is doing ... pretty poorly, actual. That's not as hot a take as it sounds. It's selling slower then the PS4 despite the PS5 being cheaper (adjusted for inflation) at launch and the PS5 standing virtually uncontested in the "high end" console market. Because the discourse is generally around how it's selling compared to Xbox things look better then they are. But when you just look at the system itself ... Sony can't be happy with it's performance.

The Switch is slightly less powerful then a graphing calculator, struggles to play games at 30fps at any reasonable resolution, has no marketing around power or graphics, and is going to be the best selling console of all time.

I really don't understand how this is even a debate. It is self evident that the general consumer market is not only fine with low end systems, but that the market for high end systems is small and shrinking. Nintendo isn't going to change course and start making powerful systems. They are going to continue making novel, accessible systems.

@Dr_Corndog You make some fair points, but to be honest i.am not fit to argue against most (I haven't actually played Sticker Star.) I do think what you said about linearity is interesting. While I agree linearity isn't inherently bad, (Anyone who thinks that would honestly be kind of silly) I do think a game being too linear can be an issue. But that's just my take, and the best thing about gaming is people can have different opinions on those sorts of things. I also would argue the metacritic score doesn't mean much. Mario games are basically incapable of being scored badly, even a game as poor as Strikers: Battle League still scored decently. Regardless, I still think it's cool that you have an unpopular opinion. Out of curiosity, have you played TTYD? And if so, thoughts?

@Astropez And Baten Kaitod is probably not selling by the buckets either, Although it deserves to be!

@Bigmanfan It's been a while, but I've played TYD twice. I think it's still the best Paper Mario.

Saga still has a chance to come out, that article was late 2019 before Xenoblade 3 and now those games are trying to weave the connection to Saga together. I think if Bandai works with Nintendo, we could see the game come to light.

@Yousef-

I keep meaning to get back here and say "hello!"

Hello! ☺️