![]() ![]() They’re known for producing and publishing many of the most beloved games ever made. It’s unrealistically idealistic to hope for a future where all games will be perfectly preserved forever before they pass into public domain next century or so, but Nintendo is…Nintendo. Sin and Punishment is a fine example of why Nintendo should adopt better digital distribution policies…or better online policies in general, really. ![]() If Sin and Punishment were a PS1 game that otherwise had the same localization woes, I wouldn’t fear for its future as I do right now. If the Switch continues on its current trajectory, we have no reason to assume Sin and Punishment will ever come to the Switch, or even any of Nintendo’s more popular N64 releases.Īn online storefront itself has little say in how long its games remain available. But at least others preserve most of their libraries for longer than their hardware’s shelf life. Even the Wii U only saw a gradual trickle of older WiiWare releases, a fraction of them at that. And comparing Wii and Wii U Virtual Console titles alone, all of the Switch’s classic game options combined are incomplete because they are missing so many games that have not been delisted from the others. What most collectors and consumers want is a single, reliable platform that will host an entire catalog of classic Nintendo games, not a bunch of incomplete platforms. Nintendo announced that they aren’t bringing the Virtual Console to Switch because they already have several other ways of selling classic games on it, but all of those methods lack many previous Virtual Console releases. The fact that I cannot freely re-download the Wii U releases of the exact same WiiWare titles or vice versa makes keeping my collection secure unnecessarily more costly than it is on storefronts with cross-buy support. ![]() But I am disappointed that their Virtual Console policies keep pedaling backward and expedite the shop’s intrinsic flaws. I don’t resent Nintendo releasing one of my favorite games only through digital distribution, as otherwise, I would never have even played it. These fights feel so intuitive yet diverse that it feels as if you’re constantly learning new tricks, constantly making the gameplay feel fresh. Yet another is most vulnerable to its own projectiles, which you’ve probably accidentally learned you can reflect with your sword just by attacking normally. Another scampers around in a circular arena filled with obstacles, requiring you to outsmart its movements to line up your shots. One early boss is resilient to shots but is vulnerable to falling off the stage, as hinted in the cutscene before it. Yet despite the simplicity of this move set, it’s hard to master thanks to the plethora of creative bosses that interact with these abilities and their environments.Įvery stage is full of encounters that bring new gimmicks and challenges, but they all build upon one’s understanding of the core mechanics in an easily understood way (okay, with one exception of a rapidly regenerating jerk). Saki’s context-sensitive sword strikes are extremely intuitive as they’ll occur automatically while you keep rapid firing against close-range threats. In addition to aiming, running, and shooting, you can jump, toggle aiming types, dodge roll, and use melee attacks. Sin and Punishment has a simple but surprisingly deep control scheme for a 3D shmup. This way, cutscenes act as breathers from the high-octane gameplay rather than grind that adrenaline rush to a halt. At any rate, condensing the plot to fit the pace of the game is a better alternative to dragging out the short playtime with lengthy exposition dumps. I consider that a part of its charm, though that may arguably be due to the fact that I’ve replayed it several times and actually know what’s going on in each cutscene. This story rapid-fires so much information it’s hard to follow everything in a single playthrough. Did I mention that Saki gains control of his Ruffian form thanks to the power of love? Because that happens too. Yeah, this plot escalates stupidly quickly. Oh, and the final boss is a fake Earth that you have to destroy while protecting the real Earth’s HP bar. One arc later the whole plot is revealed to be a ploy by Achi, who wants to train Saki to be a weapon against her true enemies whom we never see in this game, which naturally leads to her usurping the role of the main antagonist. I did not know that said captain would transform into a skyscraping Ruffian, prompting Saki to do the same as the proceeding boss battle bathes Tokyo in a sea their own blood (quick aside, it’s very bold and progressive for an early 2000s game to feature a kaiju protagonist). ![]() To be fair, by the time Saki fought an Armed Volunteer captain who attacked by teleporting her own soldiers and throwing them as projectiles, I knew I was in for a weird ride. ![]()
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