MegaJ

Every time I hear about this, from my friends or otherwise, I realise how much I lucked out to get a secondhand NES and games at a town fete in the 90s in the UK, it must have been pretty rare, and I adored that thing, even getting it well after the NES, and even during the early N64 days. I was retro right from the start somehow- I insisted on getting an original Game Boy as a kid instead of a Game Boy Pocket that literally just came out at the time, just because I thought it looked way cooler. Glad I didn't miss out on that nostalgic greenscale screen I look back on fondly now. I still want to get a Pocket, though! They're really cool too!

That's another thing- I've always suspected that the Game Boy did particularly well in the UK, everyone seemed to have one. Whenever anyone talked about a Mario game in generic terms here, they would tend to call it a 'Super Mario Land' game, which kinda indicates how popular the Game Boy was over the Nintendo home consoles back then. I did see the occasional SNES, too- but the Mega Drive (Genesis to Americans- ours was called the Mega Drive, like in Japan) was hugely popular- and Sonic with it. Streets of Rage, too! Man, I love Streets of Rage.

"If a computer does all the hard work, what's the point?"
How can you say this with a straight face as a videogame developer? You make VIDEOGAMES. The entire appeal is the computer doing most of the work. You would just stick to tabletop games if you really believed this. Why use email when you can still write letters?
It's also an inherently privileged and ableist stance to take- AI is democratising software development (and a lot of other aspects of life) and making it far more accessible for people who otherwise genuinely couldn't.
If you code everything by hand- great! Good for you! That's your choice, and I respect it. What I DON'T respect is your disrespect for other ways of doing things.
It's a bit like a professional basketball player turning around to a wheelchair basketball player and saying "What's the point if you don't use your legs?"

The anti-AI sentiment on this site is just getting plain cruel at this point, not to mention stupid.
This is a veteran game developer who has more experience in game development than you'll ever have, and you think you know better than him? How monstrously arrogant and joyless.

This is really cool- fast travel ruins things a bit, though- exploring these games is what most of the gameplay is, and they already have shortcuts and warps built into the level design. Adding fast travel onto that is overkill, and doesn't help with the modern zero attention span tic-tok crowd (and I say this as someone with ADHD).
The other stuff is great and deserves applause, it just kinda feels like that part gives you... less game. Getting deeper into enemy territory bit by bit in Grunty's Lair is a huge part of the game's appeal, and new players not getting the chance to soak that feeling in makes me kinda sad.

Seriously- is this site about gaming, or about AI hand-wringing now? This is getting ridiculous. Almost literally every article I see from this website now.

My thoughts on clicking this were "Ah, something to do with Earthion! Finally, something from that site that isn't just an anti-AI crusade...oh."

I like Time Extension, but I wish every other article wasn't a weird anti-AI crusade about anyone who's even glanced at the tool.

There's only so many times you can clutch pearls and wag fingers puritan-style about a developer using a developer tool.

This looks decent, honestly. I think being too serious about it would be weird- it would be hard to make riding around on that big bird beast and kicking gnomes for magic blue jars NOT silly.
And this is by one of the creators of American Dad- which is honestly one of the best animated comedies out there, once it got going.
And from second ONE of the trailer they show the eagle, and tons of deep-cut parts of the game, so they clearly have a love of the source material.

I think people need to cool their jets and give this more of a chance- I have a feeling it could surprise people.

Then again, so much of nerd culture seems so intent on everything being exactly the same, and being miserable about everything, so I also wouldn't hold my breath on fan response.

Feels more than a bit mean to put a free, unpaid, fanmade, unfinished demo under this much scrutiny.

Streets of Rage 4 is one of the best games of all time in my book- I've played that more than I have any other modern era game for a long time, precisely BECAUSE it kept true to the arcade-style game design philosophy- while also modernising it wonderfully without betraying what made the series so fantastic in the first place. So it's a bummer to hear them have this attitude now.
Please, Lizard Cube- more of THAT! I'm begging you! You did such a phenominal job with that game- don't discard the spirit of a series in gameplay or anything else- embrace it fully like you did there!

Makes sense. Expecting months of free extra labour from someone doing cool stuff for free in the first place just because you don't personally like the tools being used is about as entitled as it gets- good on him for being able to do more of what he loves.

Ah yes, a perfectly relevent thing to use in a weird anti-AI crusade completely unprompted-
...
A game guide for... a game exclusively about... robots... hmm.

I think some irony was missed here.

Either way, a very tacky thing to do.
Let someone's art stand for itself, not as a pawn in a weird moral panic. What a grim state of affairs.

How mean-spirited. Someone is creating art using the tools that they choose, and people take that personally.
Anti-AI rhetoric is so disingenuous and just recycles the same few thoroughly debunked talking points at best, and nazi-style "degenerate art" mentality at worst. It's exhausting. We're all tired of talking about it.
Let people create things.

Every time I come across any new info about this new Castlevania game, the less it actually feels like a Castlevania game.

I know I've been critical of your anti-AI articles on here in the comments, but I really want to say how much I appreciate this one- this is important for keeping people informed, and even acknowledging the blurry and often unavoidably hypocrisy-laden tightrope walk you have to walk, I really respect.
Anyway, much appreciated. The amount of people here who somehow think politics doesn't affect them is staggering, and honestly worrying. (And sadly goes a long way to explaining how we are where we are, geopolitically)

@Sketcz Mate- if I click to ignore you on your comment, a box comes up saying "Sorry, you can't ignore members of staff." and it physically doesn't let me. You are literally protected from being "cancelled" here- even from a single personal account like mine who just didn't feel like looking at your comments. The irony is exquisite. It's rich spouting your cancel culture stuff from that ivory tower.

@Snk4ever "Do not think. Buy the console. I am not a corporate shill."

R-Type DX is fantastic, glad more people will get to play these versions!

That's disappointing. Creativity and tool use shouldn't be policed. It should be up to the developer how they choose to develop their game, and up to the audience whether they want to play it or not- a middleman shouldn't be butting in and policing that.

My biggest issue is that this paints a target on the back of developers either way now- this sort of witch hunting should not be encouraged, it's already caused creators a lot of issues elsewhere.
It's getting to a point where this sort of disclaimer is starting to sound along the lines of "No internet was used in the creation of this product", which is absurd.

AI exists and will continue to exist. Get over it. I'm sick of these kinds of articles.
Imagine if when the internet was still newly mainstream, every newspaper article clutched pearls saying 'This was researched using the help of the INTERNET instead of just encyclopedias!!'

I feel for him, wanting to make something cool, and... this happening.

Man, those character redesigns alone are awful, I'm really glad they didn't stick, I don't think anyone liked them. Knuckles looks like he ate Knuckles.

Man, I do not understand why every modern third party N64 controller tries so hard NOT to be an N64 controller. It's basically the same as any other modern controller. I really don't see the point- why not just use any other modern controller instead, if you're not even going to embrace what made it unique and fun? I'll stick with the Switch Online version of a new N64 controller then, thanks.

It just... bums me out when any type of character or texture or anything interesting gets completely flattened in the name of 'modernising' something whose whole appeal is being not modern. It's like... imagine you took the very first Godzilla movie (not a sequel or a more modern one), and kept it exactly the same except for replacing all the visuals of Godzilla himself with modern CGI- what would be the point, at that point? It becomes a totally different thing.

Am I missing something here? A free update adds additional outfits, and people whine about it? Maybe just don't wear them, then?
Good grief, get a grip.

glances at the comment section
"Kids, could you lighten up a little?"

Relax, we all have our different concepts of "retro". They can coexist. It's a subjective term by definition- it wouldn't be if it were like the word 'decade'- which means a specific amount of time- 'retro' does not. 'Cancel culture' is a right-wing dogwhistle- please do not fall for that propaganda- they are not fighting for your free speech- fascists never are- they invented censorship. Remember that. This is also a reminder to not unintentionally do the work of censorship for them, either.

Also, Gamestop is absolutely not able to make this definition of retro ""official"", as they put it.

Use your own minds, enjoy your own lives.
You're not old- you're probably not even 40 yet (which is also not old). Don't count out the majority of your life for a very new, and very targeted set of definitions- and for what other people think in general. Remember that business has an incentive to make things feel throwaway, and to make you feel older than you are.

You can relax.
We good?

Nintendo- sue their sorry asses. I'm behind you 100%.
Absolutely disgusting display of inhumanity.

Man, people seriously need to learn to chill about AI. It breaks my heart that creative people making cool things like this in their spare time as a fun project for the community have to brace for such pointless venom from random people online like this, just because people are so scared of new technology.
This is a cool thing that's been made, and should be appreciated!

From the looks of the artwork, it may as well have used AI. "Inspired By" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

@NoirConceit Why do you feel the need to be told that something is cheaper if you just steal it? What a weird complaint.

I personally don't get the point of an N64 controller that's trying not to be an N64 controller. 🤷🏻‍♀️

"Vibe-coding" is just coding. If they actively ripped off someone's work wholesale, then the criticism is fair enough (assuming it wasn't open source in the first place etc.) but this is just a form of coding otherwise.
AI witch hunts really don't help anyone. If there's bad actors doing bad things then that's one thing, and needs to be pointed out, but the way this article is worded it just comes across as 'ooohh scary AI was used for something' without a whole lot of elaboration on why it might be bad in this case- which it might well be. It frames it as AI being the problem by existing- instead of what they did which was specifically bad- that part is left vague, which isn't helpful. Feels like AI fearmongering clickbait without enough of those details.

What a weird thing to complain about with that thumbnail comment.

The amount of stereotypical gamer entitlement here is gross.
Support indie devs. We need indie devs.
Actually support the artform you're supposedly so passionate about if you want it to survive.

Weird lack of sympathy in the comments here. People can make mistakes like this easily, show some compassion.

The guy literally described himself as a radical zionist. The issue is as cut and dry as it gets- don't support self-proclaimed bigots- but ESPECIALLY don't support self-proclaimed bigots WHO LITERALLY HAVE NO PROBLEMS KILLING PEOPLE AND HAVE A SUCCESSFUL WEAPONS COMPANY DESIGNED TO DO SO.
The line here is so obvious- there is NO grey area here. Let's stop pretending there is- that's a disservice to anyone's intelligence.