The Art Of Splatoon Review

For those who don’t know, I’m not someone who has the privilege of making any considerable income off of my online endeavors. Like most of you, I have another ongoing job while this is largely a hobby with the potential to become a side hustle. And to be frank, never go into a passion with the express purpose of being the main gig. If it happens, great. But you’ll more than likely make nothing, or worse, get paid in exposure and burnout faster than a cashier dealing with murderous hyenas on a Black Friday.

But fortunately, one perk in my pedestrian work is a paid week of time off. Usually, I use it during a convention week or to maybe, actually go somewhere. But with the need to replace my car, get a phone, and some unforeseen expenses cropping up I couldn’t really afford to see much of the world, or much beyond my State. So I went with what we call a “STAYcation”. A week where we stay up all night, sleep in or do nothing at all. And we LOVE it.

PROS: 320 pages of assets and artwork associated with Splatoon.

CONS: If you’re not a Splatoon fan you might appreciate it slightly less.

ASPIRING: Artists and developers may want to look into this book as well as fans.

Anyway, if you followed me at all online you would have seen I used a big part of my time moving the needle ahead, then behind, and then ahead again in Splatoon 2’s Ranked Modes. I streamed a large amount of it on my Twitch channel and had a blast most of the time. I even titled them “Staaaaying Fresh on STAYcation.” I thought it was rather clever. Although there was one point where I had a severely bad run and became more tilted than a five-year-old who wasn’t allowed to get an overpriced Superman figure at CVS. At least it wasn’t the breakdown GunstarHeroes had while playing through Battletoads on the Game Gear. Also, you should follow GunstarHeroes because he’s a really swell guy who runs a very entertaining stream whether he’s having a stellar run or not.

But it’s no secret I’m a big fan of Nintendo’s competitive shooter. It has a unique take on the idea and some great implementation of its ideas in more traditional modes. On top of a fantastic single-player campaign. It’s no wonder over two games the new IP has slowly been building a competitive as well as an involved community of fans of all stripes. This is especially true in Japan, where there are even physical releases of the games’ soundtracks. As well as live concerts, albums of those concerts and even a number of behind the scenes books of sorts.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Dark Horse Comics actually published an English translation of one of these books. I found a lone copy on one of my STAYcation days when I went from my area of Connecticut to the Shoreline for a change of scenery and pace. Frankly, it’s amazing. And I don’t only say that as a fan of these video games. Even if you don’t care about the franchise, this is a very insightful book because you can see the amount of love and talent the artists behind the game put into it. There are almost 400 pages of concept art, sketches, preproduction art, postproduction art, test renders, promotional art, animatic layouts, you name it.

Considering how many things go into a game these days the amount of stuff here is staggering. And this focuses solely on art assets. That’s before the soundtrack, sound effects, voice acting, or the coders or animators or the other load of things involved. Unfortunately, I can’t show off a lot of it here seeing how I don’t know how much would get me into hot water. But suffice it to say as a fan of videogames this is something you may consider picking up.

I would also recommend it to anybody who is an aspiring artist because of the peek behind the curtain. You can get a glimpse into some of the techniques that were used for the game and again, you can really appreciate the amount of care and detail in every piece of it. Even seemingly small things like the billboard art and logos for fictional brands, or a texture used for the world’s streets, or a backdrop used for a skybox have an importance you don’t always get to appreciate when you’re busy trying not to get killed by an Octarian sniper as you’re playing a stage.

These are the kinds of hardcovers I wish there were more of, especially for games or other creative endeavors I become a big fan of. But many games don’t foster enough of an audience for publishers to see the return of investment on. While I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see a multitude of things like this for Fortnite, or Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto or Overwatch see the light of day, even popular games like Splatoon have often been seen as not quite popular enough.

Thankfully, this one has done at least well enough that Dark Horse appears to be releasing a translated edition of The Art Of Splatoon 2 later this year. In any case, those who have been interested in seeing just how much goes into the average Nintendo game’s artwork would do well to give this book a look. Or anybody interested in making art assets for any video game for that matter. When we play a game it’s easy to miss a lot of this sort of thing because to take your eyes off of a goal can often lead to a fail state.

Likewise, I would recommend this to artists, or anybody who just appreciates great artwork in general. There are all sorts of styles, techniques and more to be seen here. Watercolors, acrylics, line work, T-poses, even a bit of the bubble method. And even as a novice one can see that any given piece of art in this book took hours, possibly even days to get the way the creators wanted or needed it to be. If this book does nothing else for you, it will make you appreciate the work that goes into games just a little bit more.

Obviously, for fans of Splatoon, this one really is a no brainer as you’ll get to see the artistic evolution of the character designs, world-building and many of the ideas born during the creation of the original Wii U title. Everything imaginable is here, even including the fonts and typefaces used in the Inkling and Octoling languages throughout the game.

The presentation is great too. Not only is this printed on a very high-quality paper stock but there are even little clear screen printed textures on the hardcover background that only show up in certain angles of light. The Art Of Splatoon may be the art book with SPLATtitude. But the book is one of the best of its kind even rivaling Tim Lapetino’s Art Of Atari which is another fantastic artbook fans of video games ought to check out. If you’re a video game fan interested in seeing the level of work that goes into a game these days, The Art Of Splatoon does indeed, stay fresh.

Final Score: 10 out of 10

Super NES Classic Edition Review

Well, although I’m up, and around again I still haven’t been medically cleared to leave the home on my own, or return to employment yet. So what to do? What to do? Well, when you’re shut in between the rainy weather, and waiting to go in for your follow-up, there’s little you can do. So why not take inspiration from my good friend Peter, and open something some people wouldn’t?

PROS: Respectable build quality. Play Star Fox 2 legitimately!

CONS: Light on extra features. Cannot play Star Fox 2 right away.

SAVINGS: The unit has a number of games that cost a lot on the aftermarket.

To be fair I actually opened up this system a few weeks ago. I won mine at RetroWorld Expo 2018 thanks to the raffle held by the always great Super Retro Throwback Podcast. So do give them a listen, they do some terrific interviews, and discussion with a nice radio morning show feel. In any event, now that I’ve spent some more quality time with it, I figured I would give my impressions.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Deviot, you’re so late to the party on this one. We know it’s pretty damned cool.” But that discounts the plethora of people who still don’t have one, as they were on the fence, or wanted to wait until they saw how the scalper phase went. (It went pretty fast. You can find these things everywhere now.) For those who were on the fence, you’re probably wondering about things like input lag, filters, or simply how well are these games emulated. All of which I’ll get to in due time.

For the five people who don’t already know about the device, it’s the second of Nintendo’s all-in-one plug, and play consoles. Atari’s Flashback, and AtGames’ continuation of the series led to a slew of players in the market. And while AtGames hasn’t done so well with their emulated take on Sega consoles, their takeover of the Atari Flashback line went fairly well. From there they did an Intellivision plug, and play, a Colecovision plug, and play, along with others. Other companies jumped in, and so Nintendo capitalized on the craze by introducing the NES Classic. Which was infamously short-packed, and under-produced leading to the majority of them being scooped up by scalpers. Many thought the Super NES Classic would follow suit, but thankfully it hasn’t, and Nintendo re-released the NES version too. So you can pick either of these up now.

The mini console comes in a box that is very reminiscent of the one the original Super NES came in, with a black background, and grey striping along with stylized lettering. The company did an excellent job of making geezers like me, remember what it was like when we finally got our hands on one back in 1991. Upon opening the kit, you’ll find a poster, and documentation packet. Obviously the mini Super NES control deck, a HDMI cable, a USB cable, a USB Power adapter, and two Super NES controller replicas.

I have to say, I was really impressed with the build quality of the device. Granted, I know there isn’t much to it, as it’s mostly one resin plastic shell in the shape of a Super NES. Still, considering how the company could have opted to go with a flimsy, or brittle plastic to cut costs, they didn’t. It feels very much like the same build as an actual Super Nintendo Entertainment System. So kudos on the presentation. Note that when you actually want to use the thing, the front of the unit is actually a face plate that comes off. It’s tethered to a plastic ribbon so it doesn’t get lost. Behind the faceplate are your controller ports. These are the same ports that you’ll find on the Wiimote controllers for the Nintendo Wii. Which means that if you should ever lose, or break one of these Super NES replica controllers, you can use a Wii Classic controller. It also means that if you have a Wii, or a Wii U with Super NES games you’ve purchased on it, you can use the Super NES Classic’s controllers with those as well. With this in mind you might just want to get the spare controllers for the mini just to use on your Wii U if you find you own most of the included games on it on your Wii U already.

As for the controllers, they feel exactly the same as the ones made for the Super NES back in the 1990’s. The same textured surface. The same glossy buttons. The attention to detail here is wonderful. If you sold or gave away your Super NES years ago, this will feel very familiar to you if you pick one up. It even has the same rubberized Select, and Start buttons. Some have derided the length of the cables, and, I’m not going to lie. They really could stand to be a bit longer. You can buy extension cables, but realistically most of us will have to sit closer to the TV like we did as teenagers.

As for the interface it’s simplistic, but nice. There’s a brief setup where you pick your language, and then your thrust into the home screen. If you go poking around though, you will find an options menu. Here you can choose display options like the aspect ratio, filters, and borders. Really the sole filter is a CRT filter which emulates scan lines, and color bleeding. It’s okay if you really prefer the look of an old TV. There’s also the standard 4:3 that doesn’t have the filter, and then there’s pixel perfect, which basically makes the games 4:3, and crisper. But that also means you’ll see every last square that makes up every character, and background. It’s interesting because some games look completely fine, while others like Super Castlevania IV have a bit of inconsistency. My Brother who isn’t nearly as into game collecting as I am noticed this when visiting. There’s nothing wrong with the game, but you can see the backgrounds, and enemies have more details in this display mode, than Simon Belmont appears to. Of course the bigger the TV the more noticeable it is. Still, if this level of crispness turns you off, you can always opt to play the game with the CRT filter on. It really will come down to personal preference.

As for the game selection, it’s a really good one. There are some games I personally may have chosen instead, had I been a Nintendo decision maker. But on the whole, there is a nice variety of games here, covering almost every genre. Final Fantasy III (6), Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Secret Of Mana, and The Legend of Zelda III: A Link To The Past are here for your JRPG/Action RPG/Adventure fix. You also get a lot of classic platformers. Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, Kirby Superstar are all here. Covering your action platforming you have Mega Man X, Super Castlevania IV, and Super Ghouls N’ Ghosts. You’ve got F-Zero, and Super Mario Kart for some arcade racing. Star Fox, and the previously unreleased Star Fox 2 are on the device for rail shooting. Kirby’s Dream Course is the lone puzzle outing, although Superstar does have some puzzle modes. Super Punch-Out!! is an underrated inclusion here, and of course Super Metroid is one of the best exploration games of all time. So naturally that is on here. Street Fighter II’s popularity hit its fevered pitch on the 16-bit consoles, so naturally one of the iterations would have to be included here. Street Fighter II Turbo is the iteration chosen to appear here, and it is definitely one of the fan favorites in the series. Fans who preferred the larger roster in Super Street Fighter II might be disappointed, but there are other inexpensive ways to play the Super NES port of that game elsewhere. Finally, fans of the run n’ gun genre get Contra III: The Alien Wars.

On paper, picking this mini system is worth it for these games alone. Consider that (at the time of this writing) the original physical Game Paks of many of these titles are expensive. Super Metroid goes between $30, and $40 loose, alone. Earthbound is prohibitively expensive for many people often going for well over $100 by itself. For anybody who simply wants to buy one of these games legitimately, and play it, the Super NES Classic Edition is a pretty good value proposition. As for the emulation of the games, they’re very good. All but the most astute fan can go back, and play these without noticing much of a difference. If you go through the extra work of hooking up the original Super NES on a TV, and standing it next to your new HDTV & Super NES Classic setup, you can notice slight differences. Differences in color that might matter to an absolute purist who will insist on playing the original Super Ghouls N’ Ghosts Game Pak. If you absolutely require a 1:1 experience without exception you’ll want to empty your bank account. For everyone else a .98:1 experience is still pretty impressive.

As far as input lag goes, I honestly haven’t noticed much of any, and I’ve played my unit on three modern TVs. A 50″ 4K unit by Samsung, a 20″ 1080p Insignia (Best Buy), and my trusty 32″ 720p Element I keep because it has legacy ports. In every case, the games played fine. Any input lag that is there will be noted by only the most scrupulous players. Top-tier speed runners, and tournament level players may want to spend on the original console, and games for those purposes. But again, for those who want to buy these titles legitimately, the Super NES Classic Edition is a wonderful option.

Even some of those collectors who normally might pass on it may consider giving it a go as it is presently the only way to buy Star Fox 2. And while it won’t wow you the way the original did, or the way Star Fox 64 did on the Nintendo 64, it is still an interesting one. It includes features that weren’t seen until later games in the series. If you’re a big fan of Nintendo’s long running franchise, you may just want one of these for that game. Although it is strangely locked behind the first game’s first stage. You aren’t allowed to actually play it, until you defeat the first boss in the original game. Weird.

Overall, I quite like the Super NES Classic Edition. While I feel it could use some more visual options for those who don’t like how old games look on new displays, and it could have used a more convenient way to create saves (You have to press RESET.), I do find the build quality quite nice. I also found that they added a cool fast forward, and rewind function to the save state software. So you can pinpoint the moment you want to start from. I also like that they put some of the harder to acquire titles on it, and it is nice that Star Fox 2 finally sees the light of day. The controllers are also versatile for Wii, and Wii U owners, as you can use them with games purchased digitally. It’s also a great proposition for those who want to experience what they weren’t around for without having to invest in a 20-year-old or more console, and cartridge technology. Newcomers can get their feet wet here, and see what the fuss over the 16-bit era is all about. Interestingly, Nintendo has put up PDF scans of the Super NES manuals for all of the games included here.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Game Traveler Deluxe Travel Case For Nintendo Switch Review

So now you have the fastest selling Console in American history. It’s going to provide you years of entertainment on your TV. However, you love the portability of tablets. What if you decide to take your Switch to the local Starbucks to get in a few rounds of Ultra Street Fighter II in on your coffee break? You might scratch it, or lose your beloved fighting game somewhere in a seat cushion! What to do?

PROS: Inexpensive. Contoured for the console. Includes some nice perks.

CONS: Not enough space for an extra AC Adapter, or car charger.

CHOOSE: Slightly sturdier plain, or screen printed with your favorite game.

Enter R.D.S. Industries Inc. They produce the Game Traveler series of cases. Notably, today’s case. The Game Traveler Deluxe Travel Case (Say that five times fast.) is an affordable, streamlined case that gives you most of the necessary features  a large case would. For starters, it’s compact. Often times cases for tablets, laptops, and even some phones get bulky, and oversized. Almost defeating the purpose of having a case in some instances.

 

The Game Traveler Deluxe Travel Case has a sculpted, contoured inlay inside. So it fits the Switch easily, and firmly, Just zip it open, take the Switch out of the dock, and put it inside. You’ll notice though a couple of indents that the console will rest over. These house two little plastic cases. One of which will hold four physical Nintendo Switch games. The other will hold a few memory cards.

Above that is a soft cloth pouch that defends the screen from scratches in the event something jostles around while moving. This gets snuggled down with Velcro. On that pouch is a zippered pocket for a few other small items. Perfect for a stylus. The bottom half is constructed of a durable plastic material. So it keeps everything nice, and snug. Depending on the version you pick up, the top half will differ slightly. If you go with the plain, black version it too has the same durable plastic. It’s covered with a nice, nylon texture. And it will have a little Nintendo Switch themed zipper.

However the other models are screen printed, and these prints are done on a soft, vinyl. So they aren’t quite as protective in every situation, though the difference is pretty negligible. The version I ended up going with was the one themed after Splatoon 2. The screen printed versions of the case will have a rubber zipper based on the specific game the art is based on. So in my case, it’s a little squid from the game. But there are other versions based on Zelda games, Mario games, and others. The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version has a little Mario logo for a zipper for example.

It’s a solid, compact case. The times I’ve taken it out to lunch or coffee it’s performed nicely, keeping the console from scratches, and dents if bumped while walking with it. The rubberized handle is a nice touch as well. Now obviously if we’re bringing extreme examples to light, like dropping it from the top floor of the local mall, then going downstairs to see if it survives? I don’t know that it will protect your Switch from something like that. There are all kinds of tales of Nintendo products surviving crazy scenarios. But don’t tempt fate. The case will likely help in a small drop from say your waist to the floor. But if you’re accounting for extreme examples, a better idea would be to buy a third-party warranty that covers accidents, and screen damage. Maybe even get a case made of Tungsten just to be safe.

Really, the sole complaint I have is that it isn’t *quite* big enough. I bought an extra AC Adapter to bring in the rare case that I forget to charge the console’s battery before leaving, and it won’t fit in the case with everything else. So you’ll have to carry one in a separate bag if you ever take it on vacation, and need to charge your Switch in the hotel room. But really, beyond that one annoyance it’s a great case. You can fit everything for a local trip you’d need, and you won’t have to carry 3 or 4 bags the way you did for some retro handhelds like the Game Boy, Game Gear, or Lynx. 

Overall though, I’m happy with the Game Traveler Deluxe Travel Case. It may have a convoluted name, and I have to throw the extra plug in my pocket. But it gets the job done, and is far more convenient than the duffel bag size of some of the other options out there. The fact it can hold some games, and accessories without over stuffing itself is also a nice achievement. It’s a case, and it’s not terribly exciting. But the screen printed art versions do add a dash of fun to the mundane. If you’re going to be using the Switch as a portable, it’s a pretty nice option worth looking into.

Final Score: 8 out of 10