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What is Your Take on Fanmade Nintendo Games and How Nintendo Handles Them? [roundtable]
 
IGN posted a story today about how files of a fanmade Pokemon game dubbed Prism were leaked onto the internet. The project was recently shut down after Nintendo sent the leads a cease and desist letter. This story is the latest in a long line of Nintendo fan projects that have been shut down by the company for infringing on their intellectual property.



It was just in August that the Metroid 2 remake project was similarly stopped by Nintendo. This project, in particular, was viewed very fondly by the community and Nintendo drew a lot of criticism from people.



Nintendo does not always take down these projects, though. Some like the Mother 3 translation still exist and as far as I can tell have not been interfered with by Nintendo.

So the question for discussion is what do you think about this behaviour? I personally am a bit ambivalent. These games look well crafted and some would be fun to try. Understandably though Nintendo worries about their intellectual property. Their stable of franchises is the best argument as to why someone should buy a Nintendo system. Is it just simply a matter of what they view as competition within their own brand? They have seemingly no issue with fan art or covers of their songs. They try to get a cut of ad revenue on videos using their products but I think with these fan games they are usually free for people to download. Does the shutting down of these projects hurt Nintendo more than it helps them?

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12/30/16, 21:22    Edited: 12/30/16, 21:21
 
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@nate38

It's not about how much work it takes. For goodness sake you could just turn the screen and do the same thing if it is just rotated. I agree with Koovaps, if that's what we are considering "fan made games" then there's nothing at all to be missed. 90 degree angle ports are fan-made? Not a great argument "for" if you ask me.
01/16/17, 19:47   
@J.K. Riki It's not like just turning your TV on its side. The environment is rotated 90 degrees but Samus isn't. So the floor/ceiling are now walls, and vice versa. It's a small tweak to the game that sounds like it would either make it unplayable or broken, but in reality it makes a bizarre, fun new experience out of it (geared primarily towards Super Metroid experts).

But yeah if you want to get technical, it's more of a fan-mod than a fan-game.
01/16/17, 20:00   
@nate38

Yeah, I actually figured that was the case, but to be honest, those types of games have even less interest for me than other fan made games that are just cribbing assets and IP for actual projects. Reworking and modding already existing games has zero appeal to me. I don't have enough time to fully play the original games, let alone wasting time on somebody's clever twist on it. Understand, this is not necessarily an indictment on the quality of these projects.
01/16/17, 20:12   
@Koovaps Right, I gotcha. I haven't played SM Rotation myself and probably never will, but I had the AGDQ speedrun on while I was getting some exercise and just thought it was a clever twist (ha) on a classic game.
01/16/17, 20:19   
As a casual Super Metroid speedrunner, I think that rotation thing looks pretty neat!
01/16/17, 20:29   
@nate38 That's a hilarious idea. I might watch that later.
01/16/17, 22:32   
Gravity, thou art a heartless bitch.
01/16/17, 23:03   
Oh wow Super Metroid Rotation is an awesome idea.

Now someone needs to make Super Mario Bros. Rotation where you just fall towards the flagpole!
01/16/17, 23:17   
@Secret_Tunnel This exists in Super Mario Maker, as best it can anyway (no vertical stages means pipes and doors have to be used to separate it into segments).
01/16/17, 23:24   
Pokemon Uranium is hilarious. You should all shut your mouths.



This is a steel/dragon type pokemon called Tracton. It has a 495 base star total, it has the ability "speed boost" and it has a move called gear shift that raises it's speed by two stages and it's attack by one stage.
01/17/17, 03:38   
Edited: 01/17/17, 03:53
@pokepal148
That is an incredibly stupid looking Pokemon. The move already exists in Pokemon but is exclusive to only a few Pokemon, but coupled with speed boost it just gets silly.
01/17/17, 04:13   
@Pokefreak911



EDIT: Oh man. Now I just had a scenario play in my head where Tracton is all "TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH", and then uses his scoop-head to pick up Trubbish and toss him somewhere far away.

I crack myself up.
01/17/17, 05:36   
Edited: 01/17/17, 05:38
@Shadowlink
The style of Trubbish at least matches Pokemon, even if it's design leaves a lot to be desired for.
01/17/17, 09:27   
@Shadowlink This is Titanice. Yes this is a thing that exists. Your argument is invalid.

01/17/17, 09:52   
@pokepal148

What argument?
01/17/17, 10:11   
@Shadowlink exactly, that's how dead your argument is.

Trubbish has nothing on brailip.

01/17/17, 10:14   
Edited: 01/17/17, 10:23
I watch a Youtuber called The Geek Critique and he just finished up his series on the 2D Metroid games, ending with AM2R. I found it to be a very interesting look at the game, noting a lot of it's callbacks and just how authentic the overall experience was.

03/02/17, 05:52   
Every time I see someone talk about playing pokemon uranium I just tell them that you don't get the HM for fly until after you beat the 8th gym.

And here's the developer's "explanation" for that when someone asked them to make fly available earlier in the game.

Uranium dev said:
Good thing this isn't a gamefreak game then, this wont happen lol.
Edit: seriously why would we encourage you to skip the world that the original devs put effort into creating for you, that's just dumb. Like Sam said you have the metro system which is good enough.
03/02/17, 07:02   
@pokepal148
That just reeks of someone that doesn't understand why fast travel systems like Fly exist in the first place. There is a reason why they are common place: because you don't want to waste your players time.
03/02/17, 08:53   
@pokepal148@Pokefreak911

Yeah that doesn't make much sense. Fly doesn't really let you skip anything. You still have to travel the long way to towns before you can use them as a Fly destination.

I suppose they may have a slight point when it comes to alternate routes- i.e, once you hit Fuchsia City from Cycling Road, you sure as heck don't need to take the long coastal route from Vermillion City/Lavender Town. But hey. Design your game better so people want to explore those things and not skip them.
03/02/17, 09:01   
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