This edition of the mailbag was actually recorded for our second podcast, so if you’d rather listen to it, you can find it by clicking here. If you’re the kind that likes to read the mailbags instead, we’ve gone ahead and transcribed the entire mailbag session after the break. This time, we cover topics including Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Super Paper Mario, third party sales on the Wii, and - of course - Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

You can read the transcript after the break, and find out (just as we did) that our “crutch words” are “like” and “you know.” :P I’ve also thrown in an extended answer to the Fire Emblem question, and you can read Michael’s input on third party sales that was left out of the podcast for time. Enjoy!

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Lots of Guitar Hero III and Mario Galaxy love as of late. Just wondering about Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn…Did you guys (Christian) get the game, or were you like the Best Buy lady who had a)never heard of the game and b)had to go in the back to get me a copy?

As for me, I like the story, but I miss playing with one team the whole game through. As a veteran FE fan, the gameplay is good, but normal difficulty is still really hard, especially with Part One. I also miss the old support system. Impressions?
- drktrpr1

Christian: I did enjoy the game. Obviously, you know, I’m a big Fire Emblem fan. The franchise knows a lot of tradition, especially in terms of difficultly. So I was very happy that the game, you know, it threw you right into the game with a ton of difficulty, and a ton of challenges. Obviously, yes, the support system was changed - that was kind of disappointing. But yes, to answer your question, I have heard of the game. It was enjoyable.

EDIT: To answer your question further, I did like some of the changes to the formula Path of Radiance used. The fact that various teams were used brings back memories of past Fire Emblem games. The first GBA game to hit North America had you play through the first part of the game through Lyn’s perspective and using the characters she met along the way, before you took over from Eliwood’s perspective and, later, Hector’s. In The Sacred Stones for GBA, you actually played the first and last parts with both twins, Ephraim and Eirika, but the middle portion of the game made you pick one as the two split into teams.

Past Fire Emblem games worked similarly, and in fact covered more than one generation. Depending on which characters you’d build supports between in the first part of the game, their offspring in the second portion of the games would have traits from both parents, so supports were a much better part of the strategy when you played through with the first generation team. For more on what I thought of Radiant Dawn for the Wii, however, check out my recent review.

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This whole [Rotation feature in Super Smash Bros. Brawl] thing makes me ask one question, ‘If you could hook up four Wii-motes and four GameCube controllers, why can’t you have the ability for eight player?’
- Big Man

Michael: The short answer is that it would be too hectic, too much going on. The long answer probably deals with hardware limitations and the fact that every single stage would have to be designed with 1-8 players in mind. That’s pretty rough. There is the possibility that Sakurai could limit 8 player stages to a couple of really large stages, but that wouldn’t be fun now would it?

Christian: Another thing to consider, you know, would be team battles. Does anyone really want to play a 7-on-1 battle?

Matt: (sarcastic podcast reference) Yeah, but I can’t touch it until it comes out in Europe.

Christian: So that’s probably why it’s not going to be 8 players, and even, you know, locally or online, you’re never going to see more than 8 players.

Joey: And personally, I’m already really, really concerned about lag with online. And if there were 8 people playing at once all trying to connect to the same game and have 8 different people all communicating with each other I, I just think it’d be almost unplayable, personally.

Matt: Yeah, especially when you have to make the mad dash toward like a certain item.

Joey: And then you’re never sure exactly who got there first because there’s characters all over the screen.

Matt: “Did I get there?” “I don’t know, did you?”

Christian: Especially with 8 players, you know, someone’s bound to be tempted to use that power button on the remote.

Matt: Just imagine eight people in their own rooms playing the game.

Joey: It would be an interesting concept, but I think it might be a little too much.

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This year saw the return of Paper Mario in the Wii’s Super Paper Mario. Which classic side scroller would you like to see get the clever paper treatment?
- Eric S.

Michael: I keep hoping and praying that Donkey Kong Country 4 might eventually lead us down the path of platforming nirvana that the first three helped us travel so easily and frequently. I don’t care if it’s in the form of a highly realistic 2.5D type of thing, or a comedic paper style. Actually, the paper idea could work really well with the Donkey Kong universe. In the end it all boils down to the quality in level design, gameplay and music. As long as those all remain top notch, I’ll be happy.

Matt: Well, if I can’t get my, um, 3D remake of Super Metroid, I guess I can take a paper remake of Super Metroid… Super Paper Metroid? It would be interesting, especially to see how a lot of the characters in the animations would work in a paper environment…like the plasma beam. Let’s do it. Let’s make it. Homebrew. Let’s go. [claps]

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I was just wondering, dont you think that Brawl is finally finished now and is in production!? I was just thinking that the release date is coming up fast, and based on prior knowledge, assuming that they can sell 3 million units on day 1, they would need to be mass producing right now, rite?

Do you think its done and too late for more modifications.

Oh and what characters might we see, levels, and music? Speculate.
- Starrynite

Matt: Well, I’m gonna speculate and say that yes, they’ve already had it in production… and it’s in a little warehouse… in Nevada somewhere… over 5 million copies just waiting to come out.

But in all seriousness, they’re probably fixing some bugs, you know, making it absolutely perfect, to make the delay worth our time.

Christian: It’s definitely on track to be going gold soon. If it’s not already, it’s probably going to be before the New Year holiday.

Matt: I think we would definitely find out when it goes gold.

Christian: It’s about the time, you know, the Japanese launch is, uh, is it January 24th, if I remember? Yeah. January 24th.

Joey: For Brawl? February 10th.

Christian: No, no, for Japan. They’ve got to make those, since Japan wants it, too.

Joey: Well, hopefully… they didn’t want Mario Galaxy… I’m kidding, but, um…

Michael: Maybe.. It shouldn’t take nearly as long to manufacture a videogame as it does for a console, but to manufacture 3 million of them? Who knows?

My personal guess is that they’re still working on it. Fixing some minor bugs and testing the bejesus out of it.

Matt: As for characters, you know I, I honestly think that we’re done with huge surprises, um, we got Sonic, we have single-player mode, we don’t have Mega Man, as we found out earlier today that, um…

Joey: Mega Man will most likely not be in Brawl.

Matt: Yeah. But I think that all the big secrets are out. But we’re going to speculate on what do you think would be like a huge secret that they would come out with now?

Christian: I think, yeah, like you said, they’ve definitely announced most of the big ones. Obviously, they’re keeping a few secrets, you know, Luigi and Jigglypuff are probably going to be in.

Joey: I still think they’re keeping secrets bigger than that because when [director Masahiro Sakurai] announced the online play, he said that there would be characters that would be spoiled for you. So I think, I have a feeling they’re going to keep a few things secret, and it’ll just blow your mind when you find out. “Whoa, this is actually in there!” So…

Christian: It’s kinda disappointing that some characters will be getting the axe. It’s almost certain now that Ness isn’t coming back. It’s disappointing.

Joey: Sorry Earthbound fans.

Christian: Hey, you’re getting Lucas! Lucas, the one that you don’t really know since you’ve never played his game, and probably never will.

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The big question these days is regarding 3rd party “sales” numbers. It seems that many 3rd party games aren’t selling as well as they should, and a lot of developers are starting to get cold feet. If you (Tanooki Staff) had a chance to sit down with all the developers that have cold feet (Or still on the fence) regarding total Wii support, what would you tell them? What do you think developers need to know before they decide to place all efforts on the XBOX360 or the PS3?
- Billie

Christian: Well, one of the important things to consider is, you know, if you take a look back at the DS - I don’t know when you guys picked up your DSes, but I picked it up at launch - I can’t even name some of the launch titles anymore, some of the third party launch titles. They were B-rate games, you know? They weren’t that great, they weren’t that revolutionary in terms of how they played or memorable in terms of anything.

So it just takes a while. Nintendo developed the system, they know how it works, they’ve come up with ideas how to use it. A lot of these third parties, they’ve only been playing the Wii hardware since, what, E3 2006 maybe? Maybe slightly before that? So it just takes time. Some of the developers and/or publishers are a little frustrated because they’re not able to take advantage of the Wii sales right now, but they’ve got to be patient. I’m sure if they take their time, put time into learning how the system works, figure out some creative ways to use it, I think they’ll come up with some big hits and some original games.

Matt: Take your time to make the games, make them quality. Don’t make them, you know, make a Carnival Games 2.

Christian: Or ports of several games.

Matt: Yeah, like, with Power Pros, it’s like, it was a great game, um, the MLB Power Pros that I reviewed. But the Wii, like the Wii features were just simply tacked on, it was just single-mode that all you had to do… it was even more simplistic than [WiiSports] baseball. And it didn’t control nearly as well, so if they [developers] just take the time to make the game based around the remote concept and make sure that it works very well, people are gonna buy it.

Joey: I also think, in terms of sales, one issue that’s going on right now is a lot of people that are buying the Wii are in the more casual crowd. And, uh, perfect example is I have my uncle. He went out and bought a Wii once he saw and played my Wii, um… but… they went out and bought Wii Play when they…

[everyone laughs]

…yeah, Wii jokes are still funny, Wii jokes are still funny. Anyways, they went and bought, my aunt and uncle, they bought Wii Play when they got the Wii, and they spent easily months, just playing “tanks” and I’d go over to their house and they’d be crazy about the tanks game. While it is a fun game, it’s not really one that held my attention.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, Wii Play is one of the best-selling selling games by far, and I haven’t picked it up. I mean, for actual gamers like us, we just look at it, laugh, and then go, “Nobody’s going to buy it,” and then…

Joey: “When’s Galaxy coming out?”

Matt: Yeah, when’s Galaxy coming out. And then nine months later, or however long, it’s one of the best-selling games. So, it’s one of the downfalls of being, you know, popular, like a pop culture, you know, icon, now.

Joey: I just, I think one of the problems with sales now is that the casual gamers are buying Wii Play and they got WiiSports with the, when they bought their Wii, and these games are still, when they turn on their Wii, they’re still hooked. They’re still enjoying them. And it just takes some time.

Matt: Yeah. Another bad story is I had, um, Thanksgiving, and, you know, I went to Thanksgiving and I’m like, “Where’s all my cousins at?” they’re like, “Oh, they’re playing the Wii downstairs,” I’m like “Sweet, the Wii!” I get downstairs and they’re playing Wii Sports. So I’m like, “Cool, I can do this,” and I’m like “Do you guys have any other games?” they’re like, “No. Just Mario Party.” “OK, cool, I’m gonna go upstairs.” It’s just unfortunate that, you know, just buy more games. That’s all we’re trying to say, just go out there, buy the Metroids, buy, you know.

Joey: Try something new. You did it when you bought the Wii.

Michael: That said, look at some of the third party titles that have been released: Zack and Wiki, Resident Evil 4, Guitar Hero III, etc.. Zack and Wiki is designed for a specific target audience, so that’s probably why it didn’t sell through the roof. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition did remarkably well for a port of a port. Guitar Hero III on the other hand has done fairly well for itself. The problem is not that there isn’t a market for third-party titles on the Wii, it’s just that developers have never worked with anything like the Wii before, and there has not been tremendous support for the Wii in terms of AAA titles. Nintendo has been pulling the Wii almost single-handedly so far, so it’s up to companies like SEGA and EA to step up and deliver.

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That’s it for mailbag’s this year! Feel free to contribute to the first mailbag of 2008 by writing to us. Happy New Year!

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