Reblogged from My Nintendo News:

Nintendo reconfirmed to Industry Gamers at this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the company still hasn’t finalised the Wii U controller. IGN previously took issue with the fact that the Wii U controller features Circle Pads instead of Analogue Sticks and that the controller features two traditional shoulder buttons instead of Xbox 360 style triggers. It admittedly seems fairly unlikely that Nintendo will change these features, but you never know. We shall see the final Wii U …

I am excited to see if there are any changes. Chances are they will reveal a surprise or two, as if the controller itself isn’t enough of a surprise already!

If there ever was a generation where people feel like the fool for buying into Sony and Microsoft’s consoles, then this is it.  In no other generation have those two companies blundered so hard or so often, and it seems they are determined to take third party developers down with them.  Who would have thought that it would ever come to this?

One has to wonder, “What if, for example, CAPCOM, or NAMCO, or SQUARESOFT, stepped forward and developed a console to compete with the Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn?  The “Golden Era of Games” started by the SNES may have continued with such consoles, made by companies that are dedicated to games, entering the industry and competing through game development, rather than through PR or forced medium-changes such as Blu-Ray.

Well, the following are my opinion of the best companies to take on Nintendo, and how exactly they would:

First up, CAPCOM: A Capcom console would ship with an arcade stick instead of a controller, no question about it.  It would always launch with a new incarnation of the Street Fighter franchise, report fight statistics to calculate balance updates and tweaks for multiple competitive games throughout the generation.  As far as other games go, a Capcom-console would have at least 3 incarnations of 3 different Mega Man franchises during its lifecycle, along with probably a Resident Evil main-line title and a spinoff or two.  This is not counting what new franchises they come up with in the meantime.  If you’re lucky, you’ll see a new Breath of Fire as well.  The buttons would be arranged 3 by 2, a-la Street Fighter.  You would be able to detach a module from the arcade stick, like the Dreamcast’s VMU, to take your gameplay on the road, and re-upload the data back to your game.  Capcom would probably have snapped up Rare when their contract ran out with Nintendo, and done the Killer Instinct series well with a revival.

Next, NAMCO: A Namco Console would probably be the most balanced of the third parties, or at least of the third parties I’d prefer to have their own console.  The Namco-console would have 4 buttons on its controller, most likely in a square formation as opposed to the diamond you see, to match their fighting series’ arcade incarnations.  It would also ship with a light-gun just as the original NES did.  Similarly, they would produce arcade games such as Soul Calibur and Time Crisis, but also RPGs like those of their (sadly, now defunct) Tales Studio (which is a lesson on third parties not producing or localizing enough of their Nintendo games, but that’s another article all together).  If SEGA still ended up going third party, then they would most likely be on board the Namco console, as it would allow them to explore their House of the Dead, Police 911 and other experimental gun-games such as Ghost Squad without having to develop their own gun-hardware, and releases such as Skies of Arcadia Legends and Phantasy Star Online would fit in with Namco’s infamous Tales of… series titles.

Finally, SQUARESOFT: A Squaresoft console would be my last guess.  Squaresoft was in its prime when they were with Nintendo, so the controller would probably mimic the SNES or Wii Classic Controller.  The console would use regular or larger-sized discs for holding large amounts of voice acting, possibly even multiple language options on a single disc, and videos or scrolling text with exposition would play during load-times as they would be longer to match, but as Square’s forte is slower paced RPGs, its fanbase wouldn’t have minded the longer wait, especially if they were embellished in such a fashion.  Rival Enix would most likely have stuck with Nintendo, as they did support the N64 with Treasure’s Mischief Makers and a sequel to Wonder Project J rather than simply dropping off the map.  This would have allowed them to maintain their rivalry with Square Enix, Dragon Quest battling Final Fantasy every generation for best RPG series.  They may alternatively have jumped on Square’s console, optimised for R.P.G.-ing, and staged the battles on even ground.

There you have it, my small glimpse into an alternate reality in which one or more of the major third parties had stepped forward during the N64 era with their own console and fought games with games, letting the end-products do the talking.  Looking forward in this reality however, it looks like the conglomerate consoles’ plentiful flaws and PR flubs are catching up to them now, optimistically leading to a future where they abandon the game sector all together, leaving room for those third parties to step forward and reclaim the gaming art, for the gaming artists.

You often hear that a recent release is “Good … for a Wii game.“  Some people would go so far as to say that a third party release like Skyrim has some lessons to teach long time franchises such as Zelda.  Well, I got a chance to play that very title a while ago, and Skyrim clearly isn’t good enough to be a Wii (or Wii U) game…yet.  Here’s why, and how to bring it up to Wii game standards and allow Bethesda studios to bask in the warmth (and sales) of the near 100 million active Wii audience of hardcore gamers by making a title that is at least that good:

a number of missed opportunities to increase the immersion factor by creating downloadable minigames through interactive items like these.

“DLC” means downloadable from the Wii to the 3DS, and free.  It’s been widely accepted that paid-for DLC is an insult to gamers, and a failed attempt at getting free-money from them.  Costumes and skins have no play-value, and thus should have no monetary value either, and if they DO have function then they allow people who have disposable money to effectively “Cheat” the system against those who have not, or choose not to pay.  The bottom line is, if you’re going to develop small perks post-release, then make them free, and accessible to everyone.  One aspect of DLC that would be useful for gamers would be the ability to take your game on the road.

To level many skills, you find places like these and press the "Confirm" button over and over.

Allow us to do side jobs such as alchemy and smithing in a set of engaging minigames on the 3DS while we’re on the bus, for example, and upload our potions and armour back to our character when we get back to our Wii.

Alternatively, create DLC according to player’s desires AFTER the game has been out for a couple of months.  Online cooperative challenges?  After-the-end content that requires characters that are trained to levels normally considered “broken”?  Hold a player’s poll and ask your audience what they would like in extension to Skyrim, then develop it for download to be run off the Wii’s SD Card!  Those might be ventures worth paying extra for, since they would take developer time and effort that could be spent on getting Elder Scrolls 6 off the drawing board, and they would “add-on” to the content in Skyrim, rather than just prettying it up.  Speaking of online-play…

If it’s strictly a single player game, then customizing little aspects of the character’s appearance really doesn’t matter if NPCs are the only people that will be looking at it.  Nose height, eye depth, do any of those things actually affect how other NPCs react to you?  Do they affect your Charisma or negotiations with certain characters?  Is there someone in the world of Skyrim who is a sucker for people with wide-set eyes?  Most of the character customization at the beginning is largely fluff that artificially extends gameplay time and wastes the time of core-gamers who are waiting for this game to grab them before THEY drop IT.  And speaking of which…

Grab the player.  The intro to Skyrim starts with the hero waking up and having his backstory handed to him.  You then have to wait through a talk-sequence that really should have just been part of the manual, before you even get to interact with the game. For the Nintendo gamer, you can trim the fat and have the game begin with the execution sequence where the guards ask your name.  When we press “Start” on an RPG, we expect to start RPG-ing right away.  Bethesda could have taken the time and effort it took to make that introductory cutscene and explained it much better as a couple of pages of story in the manual.  We aren’t allergic to reading manuals!

Can you spot the flaws? Other than the obvious ones such as the permanent milk-moustache, the "Too Much Mascara" look, the "We-couldn't-decide-whether-or-not-to-give-her-a-widow's-peak"... ah, nevermind, they're all obvious ones.

Drop unnecessary details, and focus on “functional” beauty.  The days of 720p graphics at 60 frames per second looking realistic are gone, and playing Skyrim makes this painfully evident.  HD graphics weren’t employed to particularly great effect in Skyrim.  The characters look like they were designed for the lowest common system (the low-end computer), they move awkwardly around their own meshes, clothing, and armour as if they were motion-captured by someone in a C-3PO suit, and you can tell that these graphics could have been (and have been) easily bettered on the Gamecube with some of its late-gen releases such as Resident Evil 4, just off the top of my head there.  By “functional” beauty I mean bring the game into a distinctive style rather than trying to jump across (or climb out of) that uncanny valley, go for a distinctive style, and make sure the movements convey what they need to instead of pursuing that single-minded realism and awkwardly struggling around mesh-collisions.  Define brilliant combat special-effects that nobody has ever seen before, fantastic environments that are worthy of their names!  This is a fresh-new fantasy world that we’re playing in here, yet it already feels stagnant.

Fix the dialogue.  Often, you’ll come upon two or more people with something to say to you, and as you approach them, they’ll both start speaking to you (and sometimes each other) at once!  Meanwhile, if you have subtitles on, a set of subtitles will appear, according to the first person to speak, which will then flash to what the other person said before flashing back to the first person’s next line of dialogue!  This becomes especially stressful when you’re trying to get some information from one person, and the other one-or-more are trying to threaten you.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what every little NPC has to say, sure, and some people prefer running through games like these as crazed axe-murderers, leaving nothing standing in their wake.  That just shouldn’t be the only comfortable way to play through this game.

Bethesda needs to hire someone who knows how to compose a melody.  This isn’t the first wRPG to fall victim to this pitfall, but it is the latest in a line that needs to stop.  A lot of Skyrim’s music sounds like the composer fell asleep on a midi keyboard.  You’ll hear one note droning for a long time, then another while he shifts around in his sleep.  Rarely does a Nintendo game release with a soundtrack that the player would want to switch off.  Even Monster Hunter Tri, which follows closer to wRPG styles, has its iconic theme melody and numerous memorable fanfares and ditties (oh thank goodness that cooking song just got stuck in my head, saving me from trying to remember any more of Skyrim’s soundtrack).  Skyrim has the potential to be an epic game for the Wii, it should have a soundtrack to match.

I hope you like gray!

Why so dull and gray?  Historical Mediaeval times weren’t lived in black and white, there’s no reason, if you’re making a fantasy Mediaeval game, to wash the colours out of the ground, the buildings, the hair and cloth you see.  A dull and gray environment will heavily suggest a dull and gray game, the longer you have to look at it.  The emotion is drained from the player, compelling them less to play onward and more to switch to one of the Mario Galaxies for whatever game time they have left in their busy day.  I hope I don’t have to look at dull and gray for 40 hours or more (Spoiler alert!  After about 5 or 6 hours of gameplay, when you leave the gray city, some colours do fade into view, but it may just be my eyes adjusting to the dullness).  For a Wii game though, Skyrim looks like a product that begs to be overlooked and under-rated.

As things currently stand, Skyrim needs a lot of improvement before it can be considered good for a Wii game.  Let’s hope Bethesda rises up to the challenge before Western RPGs like The Elder Scrolls go the way of Wizardry or Krondor.

The way of what?  Exactly.

Developer Red Fly has done a marvelous job with the Sequel to the Force Unleashed for the Wii.  They know the hardware inside out and aren’t afraid to flaunt this knowledge.  Let’s talk about how they can improve on this game’s strengths while fixing its flaws:

Disclaimer:  I’m writing this from a viewpoint that a “Force Unleashed III” or similar game developed for the Wii or Wii U with these tips in mind, may or may not star the same character, and of course, I’m going to try to avoid making any specific plot references to Force Unleashed II, other than the things you’d know from reading the box or seeing trailers.

OTG Attack(s).  Here’s a simple one to start out.  OTG is a term used by fighting fans as an abbreviation for “On The Ground.”  One strategy that I employed against tougher enemies, or enemies that could block, was to knock them down with a Force Push or Force Repel, and then run up to them and start comboing, hoping that some of my attacks would reach them on the ground before they could get back up and start blocking.  It would be nice if there was a formal OTG attack, or a coup de grace, to hit someone on the ground, possibly finishing them off before they can get back up.  The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King for the Gamecube. Star Wars Episode III for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, and other games had attacks that specifically affected someone on the ground, whether it simply dealt damage or finished them off.

Short Company Logos, please.  Nintendo gamers come from an era where, within the time it takes to press the power button on the console and pick up the controller, you can press start and begin play.  It gets annoying to have to sit through the cinematic company logos, even just two of them, every time you start up the game.  If you must have epic video-logos, put them into the cinematic of the “New Game” startup, so that people continuing old games, who’ve already seen the logos, don’t have to sit through them every time they launch the game software.

Multi Player Cooperative Missions, or a Multi-Player Cooperative Story.
The versus mode included was nice, but there were some balance issues that needed working out.  Rogue Leader included Rogue Squadron with multi-player cooperative play as a bonus, it would make sense that later Star Wars games would include a feature that allowed multiple people to play together, even if it was as an “aside” from the main game.
On another note, however, Lego Star Wars games were all about multi-player cooperative play.  What better way to attract that audience that to include it in the more ‘canonical’ Star Wars games as part of the main story, as well?

Remove the “recoil” from breaking out of carbonite.  I’m guessing that carbonite is what the big robots use when you’re encased in “stone” and have to struggle-free.  One thing they seem to have overlooked however, was that the last thing you need to have happen immediately when breaking out of a status in which all you can do is take damage, is have a second or two in which you’re forced to stand still and take damage.  In one instance, I broke out of the carbonite just before the robot punched me to death, and I couldn’t even dash out of the way after breaking out because my character was still going through the “reeling” animation.

With his sabres crossed in front of him to reflect blaster lasers, you'll see this pose a lot during The Force Unleashed II

Different Wii remote positions for different stances.  After playing through No More Heroes and getting accustomed to the “High” and “Low” combos for each type of katana, it’s hard to imagine a new-generation combat-action game without multiple stances.  Force Unleashed II allows you to hold your remote sideways (not like the NES controller, but in sort of a parrying pose) as you run and fight so that when you’re not attacking, you reflect blaster-shots.  What if, while fighting in this “defence stance” you reflected shots even mid-swing?  The trade-off could be that you deal less damage, or enemies could block your strikes more easily.  Alternatively, you could also have a “High” stance, where you forego defence entirely, but can melt through armour with more precise and deliberate cuts.  According to Star Wars canon, there are at least seven different Lightsabre combat styles to choose from, with more emerging all the time.  Although dual-wielding is already its own style (Jar’Kai), it would be a step forward in the franchise if the games had developed (and play-tested) styles within dual-sabre wielding.

Replay value, anyone?

Sabre colours affect the personality/development of the character as the story flows, effectiveness of Light/Dark Force powers.  Ever since the early movies, dark-force users would often choose red light sabres, while those that err towards the light side would traditionally pick green, blue, or purple.  The main character of a new Force-Unleashed-styled follow-up could conceivably have his personality development depend on how the player customizes his lightsabres (among other actions throughout the game of course).  It wouldn’t even need to be something complicated (at first), Warmer colours could have the character behave in more and more “Dark Force” ways as the story goes, and dark-abilities like Force Lightning would get a buff on top of however much the player upgraded them.  Whereas the cooler colours would gradually shift him closer to the Light side of the Force, and abilities like Jedi Mind Trick would prove much more effective than if a Dark or Neutral Jedi attempted them.  This would hopefully not go to the end that someone would briefly change their sabre to enhance an ability enough to solve a puzzle before changing it back (it would take time to change the character, and the developers of Force Unleashed II for the Wii seem to have been avoiding making that problem in the first place, level 1 skills can happily solve any puzzle).  That’s what jRPGs are for.  However, it could lead to more replay value, branching paths in the story depending on how the character acted up to that point, and more of a “lead-up” to how the story ultimately resolves.

For those of you that haven’t bought it yet, I sought out a gameplay video from a middle-ish part of the game, showing off a good mix of abilities and a bit of story that doesn’t give away too much:

After training myself up to a level of some competence in Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition and dabbled in Dead or Alive Dimensions, I’ve started exploring the possibilities of Streetpass Mii Plaza, mainly the “Find Mii” little R.P.G. that involves gathering friends and strangers to rescue a captive… you. I was disappointed to find that once you’ve streetpassed someone and played them in Find Mii, they return home, although I understood later on that the game is short enough that you can complete it with level 1 characters, and mercenaries hired through Play Coins (amusingly modelled after cats or dogs, whichever you’ve stated that you prefer in your profile.  As a side note, if a cat or dog mercenary further summons a mercenary of their own, it ends up being a bunny).

Nintendo has recently stated that they were considering a sequel to Find Mii (titled StreetPass Quest in the Japanese release), so it would be in their best interests to explore how such a product could be improved over the existing incarnation.  I have a lot of smaller ideas for this one rather than fewer, larger ideas, just because there are a lot of directions in which a game like this could develop:

Ability to change the order of the characters that enter the rooms.  One of the most frustrating things about StreetPass Mii was ‘The Dark Room,” where all the Miis you’ve collected will go home unless they have a white shirt, at which point the only option is to cast the ‘Light’ spell.  This is probably not a big deal in Japan, where you would StreetPass new people roughly every 10 minutes. In the case where you live in a less densely populated area where you would be lucky to find one or two people per day, it becomes a problem when you’re stuck in a part of this game for what could be weeks on end, possibly to the point of you forgetting to even check it ever again. A simple solution would be to either change the order in which characters enter a room before going in, or just allowing the player to simply select who goes in as it happens.

Multi-Mii parties.  Like in Pokémon, the number of Miis that you can bring into a room may be determined by how many enemies are in the room. 2v2 battles, 3v3, maybe even 4v4 battles could play out.  It could be determined entirely by the player how many people to bring into a room, with the advantages of bringing more people in at a time being balanced by making those people unavailable (exhausted/sent-away/scared-off) for later rooms.

Colour Magic Improvements. There are many ways in which the magic system could be improved. With my favourite colour being Yellow, I was disappointed to see that my magic was one out of many “risk/reward up factors” more than a definite buff or damage-spell.  One possible solution would be to have all magic deal a little damage, plus their normal effect.  Damage-only spells such as red and blue could deal extra damage to compensate, and of course, the monsters would have to be stronger to balance it all out.  This would allow your character to feel useful even if they’re not particularly strong or if they don’t have one of the in-demand spells to cast.

Favourites and Vs. Battles. The Miis you set as your “Favourite” in the Mii maker could be ones that you keep around and accompany you into every journey into Find Mii 2.  Furthermore, you could take your team of favourites and pit them against other teams in multiplayer competitive battles, or team them up with a friend and go on randomly generated sidequests together.

Left-handed Characters.  As always, being a lefty, I’d like to see some representation for us in any R.P.G. where the player is presented as a character in-game.

Weapons and armour.  In Find Mii 1, your shirt determined what colour your attacks were, for the purpose of breaking like-coloured shields.  If you couldn’t find a particular shirt, then perhaps you could spend some play-coins on a sword of the appropriate colour?  It would have to be a temporary thing, and would probably break once its purpose has been served, but again, it would open doors that are otherwise closed for people who can’t find particular colours in their normal street-passing haunts.

Equipment adds abilities (Mario hat = fireballs, Kirby hat = copy enemy powers, &c).  Of course, these will be more for fun than the “essential” colour magic, so they’ll just be a bonus more than a complication (avoiding the potential problem of, “I need to find someone with a white shirt AND who’s wearing a kirby hat or else I can’t progress.”)

Equipment earned from third party games that you own. This ties into the previous entry in the way that you can use, for example, a Hadouken from donning Ryu’s gloves or perhaps Noel’s guns from BlazBlue Continuum Shift II against the enemies in Streetpass Find Mii 2.

Although this has been one of the simplest articles I’ve written, it has also been one of the most difficult, just because of how open-ended StreetPass Mii Plaza: Find Mii is as to how it can improve.  There are so many ideas I’m leaving out, just because I can’t decide whether it would clash with one of the previous ones, or whether it would just be too much.  Let’s see some of your ideas in the comments section.

Finally!  Super Street Fighter 4 has released in a form that actually looks and feels complete, on a single system, uniting the fanbase.  No more, “Oh, you have this version, sorry I have that version, I guess we can’t play online together.”

Well, to say that the game is yet complete would be erroneous, as there are a few things both little and large that could make this experience better yet.  It’s actually very difficult to write an article like this, as Capcom releases so many versions of Street Fighter so close to each other that buying any version of Street Fighter seems like buying a piece of plastic that you’re going to throw away the moment the next version releases, and writing an article like this seems to just taunt Capcom to bring their next version out all the sooner.
(Deep Breath)
That said, me being on the fence about actually diving back into Street Fighter after the burn that was Alpha 3 puts me in a position to simply not care if Capcom rushes out 10 more versions of SSF4, 3DE or otherwise.  With that said, I DO like what I have played of SSF43DE, and I do have some suggestions for future versions and sequels that will ensure my (and many other gamers’) continued and increased interest.  Enough of my blabbering.  THE ARTICLE BEGINS NOW…

FIGHT!

Capcom helped design this controller for Monster Hunter Tri. It only makes sense that they develop more games for it.

First and foremost, the next edition should be a Wii version that is connectable with the 3DS version. I had to get the obvious one out of the way first.  Capcom’s shown a lot of love for the Wii system and its audience, not the least of which being bringing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom into existence, and again in bringing it out of Japan, and even going so far as to host consistent online events for Monster Hunter Tri!  To abandon support at this rate would be throwing an immense investment, both in finance and in inter-company relations, down the drain.  Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono had hinted about cross-platform connectivity and play, and basically asked us to wait for an announcement at E3 2011.  It’s common sense that not only CAN Street Fighter be made for the Wii, but made better for it.  By allowing connectivity to the 3DS version, you not only get all the sales of people who are waiting on getting the 3DS until more RPGs come out for it (hint hint: Atlus, Vanillaware, SquareEnix, Jupiter, Intelligent Systems, and SEGA), but you also avoid splitting the userbase by allowing people who bought the Wii version to fight against those that bought the 3DS version.  “Oh.  I got the Wii version.” “Really? I got the 3DS version.”  “I guess we can’t play together OH WAIT, YES WE CAN!”  Bonus: As an incentive to buy both, you can import and synchronize your save data from one game to the other.  Better than paid DLC?  Definitely.

Preview Costumes and Colours.  I liked the old system, archaic as it may seem to some, where pressing Light Punch chose one colour, and pressing Heavy Kick chose a different one, and so on.  There are more customizations to choose from, such as taunts, costumes, and victory sayings, so the additional piece of GUI between character selection and battle start seems the most logical way to handle it.  Still, it would be nice to see what the costumes actually are, like in Street Fighter Alpha where the character sprite’s colour would change to match your selection the moment you made it, except that in this case you’d get a view of what your character looked like before you committed to it.
If loading times are an issue, have a little sprite representing the character.  Negligible loading AND a functional and stylish, extra angle from which to view your favourite fighters.

It just says "Japanese" in Japanese. Speaking of Japanese games that should be localized........

Dual Language Release.  Makoto’s “Chestou!”  Just sounds so dry and underacted when spoken by her English voice actor.  Most of the English actors just don’t seem to put the energy into their characters that the Japanese do.  What’s worse is it doesn’t even seem like the English actor for Ryu even TRIED to pronounce “Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.”  However, it’s understandable that the players will want to understand what their characters are saying if they don’t know Japanese.  The easy solution?  Include both sets of voices!  The long-time, since-Super-Nintendo-fans can enjoy the original “seiyuu” that sound familiar, while the newer, more casual high-definition-fans get the English voices they are comfortable with.

Offer mail-in rebates and trade in deals.  This is more for the inevitable 2nd or 3rd 3DS release of this where they include, hopefully, some of the items on this list!  With recycling motivating companies to use less packaging in their Wii and DS game boxes, why not take it a step further and offer a mail in rebate for people that purchase the next version of SSF4?  Send in your SSF43DE cartridge, box, manual, and get a rebate for your purchase of SSF43DE-Turbo or whatever they call it!

Training system akin to Flying Dragon 64.  I drop that name specifically because Flying Dragon on the N64 had a training system that ran you through each of the character’s moves, specials, supers, and some combos.  Then, you can switch up the training mode so that you’re fighting against a CPU where the lifebars don’t matter.  This way, you can get a constant feed of training time without having to stop and start between matches.  Perfect for practicing strategies against characters that you’re having trouble with.  Here is displayed one of the command-list practice sessions from Flying Dragon:

It's nice to switch to something cooperative, even just for a short while, between heated matches.

Extra modes like in Tatsunoko vs Capcom.  Call me spoiled, but there aren’t enough words to describe the quality and quantity of pure win that including something like “Ultimate All-Shooters” in TvC was to me.  Having something like this keeps the matches fresh, allowing you to take a quick break without swapping out the disks or hitting the Wii menu for some VC action, and the best part is, if you’ve been swapping controllers between rounds, now you can all pick up your controllers and join in some 4-player action.  In a Street Fighter 4 remake, this could be as simple as allowing players to practice the bonus rounds, or even turning them into minigames of their own when played indivually, with friends or alone.  The possibilities are endless, and I strongly urge Capcom to explore them.

Bring back the “Dramatic Battle” mode.  One good thing that emerged from Alpha 3 was this mode, which allowed for a two-on-one setup.  I may have mentioned earlier that I love games with cooperative modes, and bringing back Dramatic Battles would make for some fantastic multiplayer, especially if they went as far as to allow for 2-on-2 multiplayer matches as well!
Here’s a demonstration of the Dramatic Battle from the Arcade version of SFA3

Return of Custom Combos.  You may think I’m asking for a lot, but this is the kind of dedication and effort that matches the quality of Nintendo’s in-house first-party efforts.  The appeal of the custom combo is the appeal of creativity, and having a pro-level panic button.  Under LITE-control circumstances, any beginner could use a touch-screen macro (or a controller with a pre-programmed macro button) to activate their Ultra in a sticky situation, whereas a pro would have to calmly enter the command and time the final button press to coincide with the moment of execution.  But even the pros panic at times, and when they activate a custom combo, they have the ability to not only turn the tides, but to do it in their own unique style!  And when they don’t have to panic?  They can bust out their super or ultra whenever they please!  Having that option on the fly is very important to me, and a lot of the reason why Street Fighter Alpha 2 is my favourite Street Fighter of the entire series.  I even bought the SNES version on VC, despite its flaws, just to have quick access to some Super-or-Custom-combo-you’ll-never-guess-until-I-use-it action!  I loved humiliating my opponents in a close match by spending a Level 3 Custom combo on nothing but light punches, ending the match in my favour and netting me a unique victory mark.  It didn’t do much damage, but when you’re both down to 5% or less, the damage it does do counts.
This video shows of a series of pro-level Custom-combos for Sakura.  I love the repeated taunt-attacks against Dan!

Square Enix has finally brought their prime franchise back home.  I’ve played this game all summer, going through the story, visiting the grottoes, connecting with friends online and off… With the ninth story in the Dragon Quest line being their biggest and most ambitious project yet, Square Enix has shown that even their latest and greatest products have some room for improvement if they’re going to readjust for Nintendo’s discriminating audience of long-time gamers.

A map like this is just begging to be written on

+Interactive map. It might be too much to ask to have the map show, say, when alchemy ingredients spawn, but I’d like to see features that you’d have on a mediaeval paper- (or at least mediaeval fantasy paper-) map, such as being able to take a  closer look (a.k.a. zoom in) and see location-names, and make little notes or marks on the map as you discover important areas or details.  I must commend Square Enix and Nintendo on a good job on the map generally, as the little details such as flowers or stony terrain really help players find grottoes.

+”Same commands as last round” functionality. Good when you need your thief to steal a particular item while everyone else defends or protects him.  OR, have battle command macros, a-la Phantasy Star IV.

Mages are generally okay with strategies, but when Priests start attacking when there's allies to be healed, under "Focus on Healing?" We have a problem.

+”Have a battle strategy for class-specific goals.
Priests: buff party, healing only, build MP, &c.
Mage: debuff enemy, build MP, &c.
Thief: Scan unknown enemies, Get items, &c.
Sure, there’s a “Mix it up” option, where you can hope that they do something random related to their class, but I’d like something more specific in that regard.
They could perhaps R&D a “create a custom strategy” option, where you can create one or two strategies per character aside from the selection they give you.  It’d take a lot more development time, but Dragon Quest is be a big enough series to allow for something like that.

With Dragon Quest X for Wii connecting to Dragon Quest IX for DS, a whole new dimension of gaming can be explored.

+Wii/D.S. Connectivity. This could be an amazing feature for the upcoming Dragon Quest X for Wii.  If all the hours you spent in DQIX could somehow be used to give a boost of some sort to your DQX file, then it’d not only give all the Dragon Quest IX players yet another thing to look forward to in the sequel, but also give gamers looking forward to X a reason to pick up DQIX.  Transferral of items, for example, would be a great start.  Let’s say that pouches of coagulant are difficult to find in DQX.  In DQIX, you can just wander outside of Stornway, pick up a few pouches, and transfer them up to your DQX file for easy alchemising!  Speaking of which…

Krak Pot, the "make-stuff" system for Dragon Quest 9

+Have Krak Pot give you clues when you’re close to discovering an alchemy recipe.
“Another Wakerobin might do the trick” or
“Try reducing the number of Mirrorstones”
Currently, it’s difficult to figure out how to discover an alchemy recipe through experimentation when there are so many possibilities!  Not only can you combine not just two, but three items, but you can add more than one of an item at a time!  It’s a little overwhelming when there are so many ingredients to choose from and so many ways in which they can combine.  I feel like I’ve read every bookshelf in the world and still have many recipes left to discover.

+Allow us to enter tag mode, but to keep playing the game normally. Nintendo has stated that the 3DS will allow the player to be in tag mode perpetually, for games that would support such a feature, so this problem may already have been accounted for, but I have found myself wishing I could tag and play while riding the bus to work.  I pass so many people, but at the same time, I don’t want to have to close my D.S., since I brought it along for the sole purpose of passing the time on the ride.  Although we know that Dragon Quest X is going to the Wii, a non-portable console, there have been portable Dragon Quest games other than IX that have featured multi-player capabilities.  A future portable Dragon Quest title for the Nintendo D.S. or 3D.S., “Dragon Quest Monsters 3D,” for example,  could allow the player to share his monster library with other commuters while he’s out in the wild hunting down those elusive Metal Slimes.

+Allow animations to include left-handed characters. It might be a small thing, but as a left-handed gamer, I’d like to be able to create left-handed characters if they are customizable.

Bump!

+Enemies who chase the player in a straight line should make the “bump” sound-effect when they crash into a wall. You’ve probably noticed, but some enemies will chase you no matter where you go, while others will just run in a straight line.  This entry was mainly just to get an excuse to revive the “bump” sound effect, as they seem to have revived most of the other 8-bit sound effects somewhat, and it’d be hilarious to implement the old bump-sound in a fashion such as this.  It almost feels like there’s something missing when you cause an enemy to run into a wall and they just stop, although it’s still kind of funny as it is.

+[spoiler] Pavo should give you the ability to open the Rapportal Post-game, since you shouldn’t be able to see her when you became mortal and aren’t able to see Stella and Sterling.  This is more of a minor immersion/plot thing more than something the developers can really do anything about at this point, but it’s an alert to Square-Enix to pay a bit more attention to detail when they write their games.  Nintendo gamers are a lot more alert to little details like this, especially after beautiful works of art such as the Super Mario Galaxies and Fire Emblems we’ve been immersed in all these generations.

Having played this game since launch, it’s amazing to see how much Capcom has progressed in the fighting game genre since Street Fighter 2.  Street fighter 4 was, with all due respect, a disappointment.  Striving too hard to bring “balance” to the series, they removed a lot of what made it enjoyable as a game.  Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom thankfully allows you to play however you want, and even categorizes you as a Fire, Ice, or Lightning-type fighter depending on what kinds of moves you use the most!  As a result, there are a near infinite amount of customizable combos and strategies available.  No two Ryu players will be the same, no two Tekkaman players will use the same combos.  Also, thanks to the Baroque cancels introduced in this game, you can pay your red-health to extend any combo into another, allowing someone on the brink of loss to pull a death-defying stunt and capture a dramatic victory!

Having said that, it’s hard to say what would exactly make this game better, other than the obvious (more characters, stages, music, extras, and so on).  Tatsunoko and Capcom both went the distance to bring a fully realized fighting game to the hardcore audience, and when you have an audience of pretty much every gamer in the world (what are we up to now, 75 million Wii users, 40 million of them online?), you want to make them happy. Figuring that the non-Japanese players would have looked up the animated character-endings on Youtube, they developed an entirely new set of manga-style endings for the worldwide release of the game, giving players both in Japan and out, TWO sets of endings to enjoy for each character.  They even threw in a completely new project, “Ultimate All Shooters,” a side game that you can unlock by playing ANOTHER included minigame during the credits, and collecting glowing letters that spell out “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.”  Both games are enjoyable as a “cool-down” between fighting sessions, and believe me they are needed!  Even after all this play-time, I still find myself shaking after every match, and having trouble writing down the notes I needed for this article.  For Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom 2 for the Wii (Or Wii U now that it has been announced), this is what we’d like to see:

Let’s start with the obvious…

Add Characters, and Don’t Get Rid of Any Characters: Sure, the balance of Tatsunoko characters is slightly skewed towards Yatterman and Gatchaman (a.k.a. “G-Force,” or “Battle of the Planets”) with 3 from each, with the Capcom side being somewhat MegaMan and Street Fighter oriented (although somewhat less, since the characters debuted in different games of the series) but there’s no reason to remove characters for the upcoming game, especially since all the Gatchaman characters play uniquely, unlike say, the Shoto-clones Capcom fighters are famous for.  Even so, who could resist Morrigan’s Charms?  And who could deny themselves the dopamine-rush of unleashing a Shinku Hadoken?

Tatsunoko Side:

Speed Racer – For many western fans, Speed Racer was their most memorable offering of Tatsunoko’s.  Episode after episode of frantic racing adventure, the theme song ringing in their ears, “Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer Goooo!”  I started watching this series in the middle, so I was always  a little bit lost on the in-between episode details and backstory.  Seeing any combination of Speed, the mysterious Racer X, or even Trixie showing up in this series would be a welcome sight.

Samurai Pizza Cats – Whether Speedy Service (pronounced like “Sir-VEE-chay”), Polly Ester, or Guido Anchovy, or even Lucille or The Big Cheese, there’s plenty of powerful, wacky, and interesting characters to draw from in this franchise.  I heard a rumour that they really meant what they said in the English Theme song, and that the writers had never received a script for this show from Japan, so they had to make up just about everything on the spot!  That would certainly explain some things like references to Garfield, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other western-developed shows.  Either way, they did a bang-up job in making a heck of a series, let’s hope they make the cast for what’s gonna be a heck of a sequel to Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom.

Capcom Side:

Megaman Zero / 4 Guardians – Who wouldn’t love to see the playful Fairy Leviathan added to the lineup?  Or how about the tragic Phantom?  I’d be happy to see Inticreates’ M.M.Z.-style Zero show up to slash the giant green nipples off of X-style Zero.  Overall, there are a lot of options, and Inticreates has definitely given enough personality to each of the characters in the Mega Man Zero series to allow any one (or more!) of them some time in the spotlight.

Felicia – It seems like it’s always the girls of the Darkstalkers franchise that get all the popularity, but with Dimitri, The Abominable Snowman, and Anubis all seeming very generic by comparison, how could they not?  That said, this ball of agility and fluff would fit right in with the action of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom 2.  She can put the pressure on up close, or play a distance game, and move in between however she pleases.  Of course, the potential for fanservice can never be ignored (Sorry to those readers who don’t like scantily clad girls in their games!  I am a male of the adult persuation, and it’s unhealthy for us to ignore what our instincts tell us)

Arthur, of [Ghouls and] Ghosts [and Goblins] – Oh my.  Speaking of fanservice, here’s something for the fans of the mans out there.  If you’ve ever played Ghosts and Goblins, or Super Ghouls and Ghosts, or any game in that series, you’ll be familiar with Arthur.  The frustratingly difficult gameplay was broken up by the hilarious fact that Arthur’s armour was made entirely out of popsicle-stick-bombs.  The moment he takes a single hit, POW!  His armour shatters, leaving him to fend for himself in nothing but a pair of heart-print boxers.  It’s a good thing that heart-print-boxers were invented back then.  Arthur would make an excellent counter to other range characters like Saki, although he could probably be demolished by his own projectiles when going against reflectors like Yatterman-2 (Submitted by ECM in the comments!)

Stage Modes (Day/Night, Clear Skies vs. Storm, etc.) selected in the same way as character colours are selected: It’d streamline the stage-selection process if you wanted, for example, to pick the stage first, and hit ‘L’ or ‘M’ for daytime, and ‘H’ or ‘P’ for night.

Rival Registry without declining rematches: This one’s pretty self explanatory.  If you want to add someone to your rival registry, you have to decline them a rematch.  It’d be nice if you could do that even after you accepted a rematch with them, although I can see how it could be a problem if:
a) …it asked you after every rematch, if you want to add someone to your rival roster, or
b) You decline once, and it doesn’t ask you, but you decide after 5 rematches or so that you want to add them but there’s nothing you can do.
Perhaps adding an option in the rematch question itself.  Yes / No / Add-to-rivals.  That option could appear below the Yes/No options so that the player can hit ‘Down’ to highlight it, press ‘a’ to accept, and hit ‘up’ to go back to the Yes/No option and decide on whether or not to get a rematch.  Similarly, if someone’s already your rival, pressing down to get to that option and hitting ‘a’ would un-rival them.

Browse High Scores while searching for matches: In addition to that, being able to flip to a specific page of the ‘waiting room info’ (for example the explanation of fire/ice/lightning type players) would be a lot better than just sitting through them.  Adding interactivity like this might cause people to accidentally drop while hitting the ‘b’ button or something (I’ve definitely dropped once without meaning to, just by practicing the button combinations for my Variable Aerial Rave combo) so make it a button that’s more difficult to press accidentally, like ‘-’, or make it so that you have to hold ‘b’ for five seconds to drop.

DS Connectivity: I think it’d be just groovy if you could download Ultimate All Shooters to your DS, and take it with you to earn zenny on your daily commute.  Come back home, upload your score back to TvC2, and hit the shops for your extra colours and artwork!

Save Replays to Youtube, or S.D.Card: The Wii has infinite storage capability, thanks to the SD Card slot built right in.  With SD Cards of varying sizes and prices, you can store any amount of data on an affordable card.  Some games (and even built-in Wii channels) take advantage of this by allowing you to stream your own music, like Excite Truck.  Other games let you download extra content directly to the card, as the Guitar Hero series has shown.  Tatsunoko and Capcom could let you save your favourite battles to the card, for turning into GMVs, uploading to Youtube or the video-streaming site of your choice, or even allowing you to upload your fight to either Youtube or a Capcom-hosted video-site directly from the game!

Unlockable Clips from Tatsunoko anime: A franchise like Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is a golden opportunity for Tatsunoko Productions to get their name out to the world.  Giving us a short, sub-titled clip from some of their shows would be a very good way to get the word out about the original or current-running anime that the characters come from!  Just completed the arcade mode with one of the Yatterman cast?  “Yatterman clip-1 became available in the Shop.”  Smashed through the roster with Mega Man Zero?  “Mega Man Zero Collection commercial became available in the shop.”  Yes, it can even work for the Capcom side of things!  Free promotion for upcoming big-name Wii and D.S. games from Capcom!

Dual Voice Release or Subtitles: I’m happy to see that they didn’t mess with the Japanese voices.  However, some gamers might be thrown off by the fact that only one character has spoken English lines.  Taking a page from the Soul Blade/Edge/Calibur series, Tatsunoko and Capcom could call up some of their English voice crew to speak some life into the characters for worldwide release, or if that’s too much, then they could simply subtitle the characters’ spoken dialogue.  In other games, when the option is available, I’d usually switch between the voices, just to to see how a Japanese cultural reference translated over to English, or how an aptly placed English gag was originally done in Japanese.

Like the little slices of ginger on a plate of the finest sashimi.

Expand on Ultimate All Shooters.  It’s fantastic having an included minigame to act as a palate-cleanser between heated matches. On top of that, it’s cooperative, allowing you and your rival (and two more) to join in and fight together against the enemies. That said, it’d be nice to see every character in the main game have an “Ultimate All Shooters” version that is playable, and have the game balanced so that even the seemingly worst character could be the best in the right hands. Taking this idea and running with it, you could include more minigame modes such as “Ultimate All Strategies,” “Ultimate All Puzzles,” whatever basic idea can be implemented in a fun and immersive way for all the characters and settings. Eventually, this series crossing over two of Japan’s bigger entertainment companies could end up the “Ultimate Game,” literally!

Until TvC2 releases, I’ll be playing Tatsunoko vs Capcom, enthusiastically yelling out GOOOLDO LIGHTAAAAAAAN!

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Points that will not be addressed in this article:
“Fix” the Online: Regardless of what you’re playing, the online depends entirely on your internet connection.  I have a pretty low-tier broadband, but I can still buffer movesets decently and air-combo my enemies.  On top of that, I’d almost go so far as to say it’s “too fast,” since I barely had time to write notes between calling up a rematch, selecting a stage, selecting characters, and starting the fight.

Update 2011-03-14: It would seem that Nintendo or Game Freak may have read this article when developing Pokémon White version.  I’ve noticed that the battles play out much more quickly, and with wild double-battles and now triple battles available, there really is less of an incentive to one-monster the game!  That said, there’s always room for improvement, and I’ll be editing this article to keep it up to date.

As an adult gamer, you tend to hear the word Pokémon in two vastly different contexts among other adult gamers. The first being something to the tune of, “POKÉMON? RAGE!” Followed by various forms of shunning, and the other being “Pokémon?  Awesome! Let’s play/duel/trade!”

Many gaming websites tend to fall back on the trusty, “Why Pokémon needs to die” article when they’ve run out of top 10 lists to generate hits with.  Note very constructive, in my opinion.

Instead of writing about why Pokémon is old, or how the “fad” that has passed, or how much you hate that little yellow mascot and want to put him through all sorts of torture implements, why not write about what it would take to get you interested, more interested, or interested again, in playing the games?

That’s the main purpose of my “How To Better” Articles.  To take my favourite games and point out all the little ways that the developers could tweak and further develop the sequels in ways that would make them more enjoyable.

In today’s case, we take the Pokémon franchise.  Addictive and ever-more balanced for multi-player as each iteration is, there are always little tweaks that the developers may overlook in efforts to improve their big strengths and weaknesses.

MAIN SERIES GAMES

*Battle Speed-Up Option: Take a page out of the books of the Shin Megami Tensei bible and add a “RUSH” feature that lets you skip all the details and pass turns of battle in quick succession, having your monster use attacks either of its own choice, or by having it repeat the last command you gave it until either the battle is over, or your monster faints, or you interrupt the rush with a press of the ‘b’ button to resume command.

A lot of YouTube gamers have to speed up their Pokémon battles so that they don’t put their viewers to sleep.  Gamers, especially R.P.G. gamers, can process information more quickly than game developers give them credit for.

Only at the fifth gym, but already hitting end-game levels

*Incentive not to 1-Monster the game: This seems to be THE way to get through a Pokémon game, initially.  Take one monster and use nothing but that one for all story-based battles.  Going up against the water gym with your fire-starter?  No problem, you monster will have out-levelled the type difference by the time you get to them.  It’d be nice if there were more of an incentive to training a full-team of six, in keeping with the mindset that each monster has an important role to play in your adventure.

This is by no means a complete list, and I’ll probably end up going back to it multiple times to update and change it later on, but I’ll make a quick post and link if something’s changed or updated in this article.  I would encourage you to comment if you have any ideas, as well.

Points that won’t be covered in this article:
*Making a Wii main-series game: The developers have already stated that the main series will stay on portable systems.  Look to my previous article about bringing Shin Megami Tensei series to the Wii, since Atlus has no problem with developing their franchise on non-portables.
*Making an MMO: I’d count that as a new Pokémon game outside the main series, or a spinoff rather than how to improve the main series.

Atlus, to most of you, is the company that made “Trauma Centre” games for your D.S. or Wii.  Some of you might be familiar with a little known R.P.G. of theirs.  Apparently, they’ve been developing this long running series that is pretty big in Japan, and has just started making its public appearance here as of last generation’s P.S.2 and Gameboy Advance games.

The logo for Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for the Nintendo D.S.

I only heard about Shin Megami Tensei when two friends of mine, total fanatics about the series, started flaring up and hype-mongering all over the place when Persona 3 and 4 released here.  The thing about the characters pointing guns at their head to cast magic was kind of wonky, but I guess it’s the shock value of it that attracted at least part of its fan-base.

(Example of S.M.T.:Persona 3 game-play, without a translation)

Looking back, I can see why it never really caught on.  It plunks you into a “real-life” scenario, which you have to balance with a night-life of slaying monsters and generally being a super-hero with your “Personae,” aspects of your personality that manifest as creatures from ancient myths and legends.  It’s like playing two completely different games that influence each other, and have a common element that affects both.  The playstation consoles just doesn’t have the audience for that type of game.  Nintendo gamers are definitely the type to handle more “Harvest Moon” style game-play of balancing simmy situations, in combination with old-school NES-style turn-based R.P.G.-ing hearkening back to the 8-and 16-bit R.P.G.s.  The playstation consoles never existed during the 8- and 16- bit era, so naturally the the concept of a turn-based battle system, let alone the “Press-Turn” battle system implemented by Atlus, is lost on the audience of ACTION-NOW games such as Bayonetta and Grand Theft Auto, and as a result, no S.M.T. released outside of Japan has sold even 1 million copies, even on the most popular playstation systems.

The S.M.T. series started way back on the Nintendo Entertainment System with “Megami Tensei,” which roughly translates as “Goddess Metempsychosis.”  The “Shin” in the titles of the later games, by the way, can be taken as “New” or “True.”  Metempsychosis is sort of another term for resurrection or when someone’s mind is reborn into a new body.  This is an important aspect of S.M.T. games, as they encourage you to combine your minions or Personae, depending on which game you’re playing, to make them into more powerful hybrids.

(An example of SMT1 running with an English translation patch)

(An example of SMT2 running with an English translation patch)

S.M.T. could potentially die out here to Western audiences, since Atlus has put out only a couple of portable games this generation, and seems to have little faith in the series in the West, especially when compared to their Trauma Centre releases here.  For the P.S.P., we know that the system has pretty much been dead for the past couple of years, while for the D.S., it’s difficult to enjoy success with a monster-training game on the same system that has the Pokémon main-series titles on it.  There’s no reason that the Nintendo Wii, this generation’s most popular TV-console worldwide in-case-you-didn’t-know, shouldn’t get some full-on S.M.T. love, since the Pokémon company has already stated that they’re staying away from putting their main series games on non-portables.  Sounds like a wide-open door for Atlus to make 70 million new fans of their long-running franchise.

(SMT3: Nocturne for PS2)

A Shin Megami Tensei 4 Wii would ideally be a well developed, hard-core catered R.P.G. like the runaway success that is Monster Hunter 3.  Promoted like Monster Hunter 3, it could sell to R.P.G. fans in the same way that Mario sells to platforming fans.  Such a game would follow the main series storyline of a progressively more devastated world and the war between Law and Chaos, Light and Darkness.  Gamers can look forward to pure exploration, mapping out dungeons, battling angels and demons, and taking on crazy-powerful beings to shape the story and go after multiple-endings.

(SMT: Persona 4 trailer for PS2.  Although the best selling one, it still only reached 500’000 sales in total.  A remake or new iteration for the Wii would reach a much bigger audience and would easily surpass a mere half-million sales, especially with the brand recognition Atlus built up from their previous DS and Wii games.  They’re practically a second party with those.)

A Persona 5 Wii would introduce 70-million gamers to the world of Shin Megami Tensei through something a bit less intense than a regular S.M.T.  Casual gamers would feel comfortable with the modern setting breaking the up the intensity of the dungeon crawls, whereas hardcore players could micromanage their social links and persona fusion to their hearts’ content.  Meanwile, long-time Nintendo (and Sega) gamers would thrive in both aspects of the game, a-la Rune Factory Frontier.

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