KakuJomics

Comic:

Oh, you know me. Just sitting over here playing a 2-minute match that takes 10 minutes. That’s alright.

I had held out hope that they would implement some kind of penalty system for constantly jamming up the lobbies with a bad connection or some other fix, but with the release of the “final” DLC character, it seems Nintendo is done working on Smash Bros. and the online lag will not be fixed. My favorite thing about the randomly awful matches is that Sakurai himself had this to say:

“Connectivity can depend heavily on location so I really don’t know what to say. At the very least, we’ve confirmed that smooth play is possible under various conditions of external networks. During multi-player, you’re connected with another player and sending light amounts of data back and forth, so if the game feels laggy, it’s due to the connection speed. If you play when it’s laggy, then the person you’re playing with will experience the same lag, so it’s best to play when the connection is clear. During development, there were cases where we had too many people and the connection became sluggish, so we turned off our cell phones and the connection would clear up. It’s best to avoid playing while streaming something or by a tethered connection. Free wi-fi spots are probably not very good either.”
(Source)

Which is effectively deflecting and denying. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not lying. But come oooon, it’s Super Smash Bros. for Wii U! It’s a huge title, and you’re okay with this performance? I wish I still had people nearby I could play side-by-side with– and I do recall Nintendo having a generally strong stance on disliking the idea of playing over the internet as opposed to in person, but at least don’t tease me with this online system and have it be a bag of mixed nuts. It’s not even mixed nuts. It’s nuts mixed with toenails. Sharp toenails. GUH.

Oh, well. Maybe next gen we’ll get dedicated servers.

Video Games:

If you haven’t heard of Stardew Valley, it’s an incredible Harvest Moon-type game made by a US-based indie dev. And it just released today! I’ve been hyped for this game for over a year, and it still exceeded my expectations! All I really wanted out of it was a Harvest Moon without the series’ penchant for being suuuuuper sloowwww (not that that ever deterred me from the franchise in the past; it’d just be nice without it). And I got that! And more! WOWEE!

In a move surprising no one, I’ll be featuring Stardew Valley on my YouTube channel. If I can manage to stay awake a little longer, the first episode should go up today!