Ranks & Badges Discussion Thread

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

40 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I'd personally consider both as "accessories", but I'm open to discussion on it.

That said, along the same lines, maybe I could be convinced that Pokemon Box is similarly just an accessory - an addon to those specific games.

Yeah, I'd consider the SGB and the GBP to be accessories. Sort of similar to how you can have a "CiB" Wii set without Skylanders.

Box isn't an accessory at all, it's an application. To me, it's like not counting a PS2 seg as complete because you don't have the disk for Netflix But it's entirely up to you, Gloves. 

[Gloves | 11,771]

1 minute ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Yeah, I'd consider the SGB and the GBP to be accessories. Sort of similar to how you can have a "CiB" Wii set without Skylanders.

Box isn't an accessory at all, it's an application. To me, it's like not counting a PS2 seg as complete because you don't have the disk for Netflix But it's entirely up to you, Gloves. 

I mean, technically SGB and GBP are applications, as much as an emulator is. So...

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

17 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I mean, technically SGB and GBP are applications, as much as an emulator is. So...

Damnit Gloves  The GBP isn't an application tho. It requires a disk, but the actual GBP is a piece of hardware. Not sure about the SGB

[Gloves | 11,771]

1 minute ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Damnit Gloves  The GBP isn't an application tho. It requires a disk, but the actual GBP is a piece of hardware. Not sure about the SGB

Yeah but surely the disk is running an application to get the game onscreen. 

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

Just now, Gloves said:

Yeah but surely the disk is running an application to get the game onscreen. 

Sure, but the "Game Boy Player" and the "Game Boy Player Disk" are two separate things. I'm referring to the actually chonky boi itself as an accessory, but the disk, yes that's an application.

[Gloves | 11,771]

4 minutes ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Sure, but the "Game Boy Player" and the "Game Boy Player Disk" are two separate things. I'm referring to the actually chonky boi itself as an accessory, but the disk, yes that's an application.

I hate this and I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

Harumph.

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

5 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I hate this and I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

Harumph.

Technically speaking, games are a type of application.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

6 hours ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Sort of similar to how you can have a "CiB" Wii set without Skylanders.

Wait, no one actually believe this right? To have a CiB Wii set you need to have the Skylanders games. I know some people just get the inner box with manual and disc rather than the big box with the starter figures. 

6 hours ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Box isn't an accessory at all, it's an application. 

But Pokemon Box came with and required the GBA link cable. Technically a complete Pokemon Box has to have the big box and the cable that was packaged with it. Without the cable you can't do anything. 

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

9 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Wait, no one actually believe this right? To have a CiB Wii set you need to have the Skylanders games. I know some people just get the inner box with manual and disc rather than the big box with the starter figures.

Well, if you want a truly CiB Wii Set, you need the Skylanders. The game came with 3 figures, and was only sold in a big box, just like Earthbound. By definition, a "complete copy" comes with everything the original contained, not just some of it. It was never sold as just the "inner box with manual and disc" meaning the three Skylanders are needed for a truly complete set. But part of the joy of fullset collecting is that everyone makes their own rules for complete sets. I've seen people (dude from Nintendo Quest) count their set as complete without Flintstones 2. It's up to the collector.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

50 minutes ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Well, if you want a truly CiB Wii Set, you need the Skylanders. The game came with 3 figures, and was only sold in a big box, just like Earthbound. By definition, a "complete copy" comes with everything the original contained, not just some of it. It was never sold as just the "inner box with manual and disc" meaning the three Skylanders are needed for a truly complete set. But part of the joy of fullset collecting is that everyone makes their own rules for complete sets. I've seen people (dude from Nintendo Quest) count their set as complete without Flintstones 2. It's up to the collector.

Being a supreme Skylanders nerd up until the last couple of games, I'll say that there's the possibility that you're wrong here, as after the first game they introduced "portal owner packs" which weren't simply the big box with figures + portal + Wii clamshell, but were what you bought if you already had the basics and just wanted to get into the gameplay of the new game.  I want to say those shrunk down sets only included the game and maybe whatever gimmick character was included in the big box set that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get.  Don't forget there were four Skylanders games on the Wii, not just the first, so there's a lot more to have to collect if someone's claiming a complete Wii collection.  And I agree with you regarding what's required for a "complete" set, but don't forget that CIB is also accepted as meaning "cartridge, instructions, box," so people who just have the "complete" clamshell on their shelf are also correct, depending on how they're collecting and using that abbreviation.

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

6 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Being a supreme Skylanders nerd up until the last couple of games, I'll say that there's the possibility that you're wrong here, as after the first game they introduced "portal owner packs" which weren't simply the big box with figures + portal + Wii clamshell, but were what you bought if you already had the basics and just wanted to get into the gameplay of the new game.  I want to say those shrunk down sets only included the game and maybe whatever gimmick character was included in the big box set that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get.  Don't forget there were four Skylanders games on the Wii, not just the first, so there's a lot more to have to collect if someone's claiming a complete Wii collection.  And I agree with you regarding what's required for a "complete" set, but don't forget that CIB is also accepted as meaning "cartridge, instructions, box," so people who just have the "complete" clamshell on their shelf are also correct, depending on how they're collecting and using that abbreviation.

Yeah, I know of three Skylanders games on the Wii. But I was talking more about the first game. It only came in the big box, since you can't play without the base thingy (power portal?) and the physical Skylanders figures. Sure, you could have a "complete" set with only cart, instructions, and box. It's like a CiB snes set without baggies, trays, adverts, inserts, ect. But if you want the truly "complete" set, meaning everything that came with the original games, that's the definition of complete. Like I said before, it's a bit of a blurry line. Entirely depends on your own ideas and beliefs. Whatever you consider to be complete, is complete.

As a Skylanders fan, what exactly did you like about the franchise? To me, it always seemed like a cashgrab, but the earlier games were actually really good. After Swap Force though I felt it went really downhill. Weren't there even like Donkey Kong and Bowser figures at some point?

Edited June 2, 2020 by LaytToTheParty

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

2 minutes ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Yeah, I know of three Skylanders games on the Wii. But I was talking more about the first game. It only came in the big box, since you can't play without the base thingy (power portal?) and the physical Skylanders figures. 

As a Skylanders fan, what exactly did you like about the franchise? To me, it always seemed like a cashgrab, but the earlier games were actually really good. After Swap Force though I felt it went really downhill. Weren't there even like Donkey Kong and Bowser figures at some point?

Actually, thinking about them by name, there are five Skylanders games that came out for the Wii:  Spyro's Adventure, Giants, Swap Force, Trap Team, and SuperChargers (technically "Superchargers Racing" on Wii).  They all had options for the big box, and after the first, looking it up, there were options for Portal Owner's Packs for Giants and then again for Imagintors (Swap Force, Trap Team, and SuperChargergers required new portals at the time they came out due to doing different things with the figures that the previous iterations didn't support).

At the time, they were truly fun games, the characters were fairly great across the board, the toys/figurines well made, and it appealed to the collector in me and a lot of others.  For fans who truly enjoyed the series, it only truly got to be an outright cash grab with the fifth game, when you couldn't build a complete set of figures at retail without buying half a dozen or more different starter packs, including limited edition ("Dark") ones.  You're definitely right about it starting to slow down after Swap Force, although Trap Team was still a good entry, even if the characters weren't quite up to the standards that the previous game had set.  SuperChargers is really where it drove off a cliff (pun intended), with more characters, vehicles, etc., plus specific limits on how you could get them.  My wife and I quit with SuperChargers and intentionally didn't finish the set (we technically missed finishing Trap Team because the last 3 traps were never released in the US and we weren't about to pay $100+ per trap to fill 3 holes in the trap storage chest) the moment that they announced packs including only the special characters you had to purchase certain starter sets to get, something they had specifically, vocally denied would ever happen.

I've seen but never bought or played Imaginators and have no desire to do so.  I was heartened to hear when fans figured out how to undo Activision's locking of the character generation gems after you used them once (basically requiring a gem of each element for every class of character you'd ever want to create, as you could erase characters but not the classes from the gems).  I was reaffirmed in my decision not to go back to the franchise when I first saw it in stores next to big racks of blind bag packs which were required to unlock on-disc equpiment and abilities for your characters.  At this point I'm getting to the point where I'd like to replay the games, especially with my son who's now old enough to actually play and not just swap characters back and forth (like a friends' kid did when the games first came out) but not quite over the disappointment of Activision's utter betrayal of the fans.  Not quite there, but I don't feel the utter disgust when coming across the stuff anymore, so that's a good sign, lol.

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

9 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

At the time, they were truly fun games, the characters were fairly great across the board, the toys/figurines well made, and it appealed to the collector in me and a lot of others.  For fans who truly enjoyed the series, it only truly got to be an outright cash grab with the fifth game, when you couldn't build a complete set of figures at retail without buying half a dozen or more different starter packs, including limited edition ("Dark") ones.  You're definitely right about it starting to slow down after Swap Force, although Trap Team was still a good entry, even if the characters weren't quite up to the standards that the previous game had set.  SuperChargers is really where it drove off a cliff (pun intended), with more characters, vehicles, etc., plus specific limits on how you could get them.  My wife and I quit with SuperChargers and intentionally didn't finish the set (we technically missed finishing Trap Team because the last 3 traps were never released in the US and we weren't about to pay $100+ per trap to fill 3 holes in the trap storage chest) the moment that they announced packs including only the special characters you had to purchase certain starter sets to get, something they had specifically, vocally denied would ever happen.

I've seen but never bought or played Imaginators and have no desire to do so.  I was heartened to hear when fans figured out how to undo Activision's locking of the character generation gems after you used them once (basically requiring a gem of each element for every class of character you'd ever want to create, as you could erase characters but not the classes from the gems).  I was reaffirmed in my decision not to go back to the franchise when I first saw it in stores next to big racks of blind bag packs which were required to unlock on-disc equpiment and abilities for your characters.  At this point I'm getting to the point where I'd like to replay the games, especially with my son who's now old enough to actually play and not just swap characters back and forth (like a friends' kid did when the games first came out) but not quite over the disappointment of Activision's utter betrayal of the fans.  Not quite there, but I don't feel the utter disgust when coming across the stuff anymore, so that's a good sign, lol.

Wow, that sounds almost as bad as being a Sonic fan What are your thoughts on the Skylanders competitors? I bought a few Disney Infinity figures, and I bought a few Lego Dimension figures, but never bought the games. Both had high-quality figures, and Lego Chell, Lego Homer Simpson, and Lego Marty McFly are just awesome. And then there's amiibo...

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

3 minutes ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Wow, that sounds almost as bad as being a Sonic fan What are your thoughts on the Skylanders competitors? I bought a few Disney Infinity figures, and I bought a few Lego Dimension figures, but never bought the games. Both had high-quality figures, and Lego Chell, Lego Homer Simpson, and Lego Marty McFly are just awesome. And then there's amiibo...

We saw Infinity as a cheap cash-in, which held pretty much true until the third game, at which point they'd included all of the bits that everybody felt were really necessary (an arena mode, characters not restricted to one franchise during adventure modes, etc.), but at that point they pulled the plug only partway through, which was a huge disappointment.  I actually bought the third game (once the main set/Star Wars box was released) and had some good fun with it.  I regret not having the money available to pick up more figures while every retailer had them on fire sale to clear shelves.

Lego Dimensions was basically another cheap clone that nobody I knew from the Skylanders community bought into.  Lego had already made their own games, so the tie-in of the portal bits were an unnecessary gimmick and more expensive than everybody else for technically less toy to boot.

As far as Amiibos are concerned, we all kind of rolled our eyes at them as, while they were neat, they didn't (and, to a large degree, still don't) really *do* anything beyond a quick unlock of a character or item within a game.  The short lived RFID Pokemon that came out somewhere within the Skylanders timeline (might have been GameStop exclusive, don't remember for certain) were much more interesting (functionality-wise) than Amiibos have ever gotten to be.

Skylanders did it first and, almost entirely across the board, did it best.  The "toy box" mode for Disney Infinity was a really neat concept, but it didn't really become more than a neat idea until the third game (at which point most of the large barriers in the way of being able to just jump in and *play* in said toy box, share creations across networks & platforms [since shut down], etc.), at which point Disney semi-wisely pulled the plug (before plastic fatigue caused them to lose their shirts on the franchise).  I seem to recall someone else trying to come out with something similar to all this a year or two ago and maybe based on space ships?  I know I saw it at retail a time or two and a quick blurb online, but that it didn't pan out (with some trying to say that it was people still being tired of the toys-to-life concept, but in reality the game just didn't have it based on what reviews I saw), then more or less disappeared.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

18 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

I seem to recall someone else trying to come out with something similar to all this a year or two ago and maybe based on space ships?  I know I saw it at retail a time or two and a quick blurb online, but that it didn't pan out (with some trying to say that it was people still being tired of the toys-to-life concept, but in reality the game just didn't have it based on what reviews I saw), then more or less disappeared.

Starlink, from the same company that made Skylanders. Massive failure (I actually played this one, not good).

also this is a huge thread hijack, lets take it somewhere else?

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

2 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Starlink, from the same company that made Skylanders. Massive failure (I actually played this one, not good).

also this is a huge thread hijack, lets take it somewhere else?

Exactly what I was gonna say. Care to do the honors?

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

35 minutes ago, LaytToTheParty said:

Exactly what I was gonna say. Care to do the honors?

 

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

On 2/1/2020 at 10:52 PM, Gloves said:

Want to request that we create a new type of award? Shower the staff with praise for the wicked icon designs? Whine about how Stadium Events shouldn't count for the NES Fullset Charm?

Here's the place.

Any chance at a complete 32x award?

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

Is this about Yoku's Island Express?

[Nes Freak | 584]

im sure this has been asked before but it there a import charm?  NA had the 25 imports badge if i remember correctly.

[Gloves | 11,771]

10 minutes ago, Nes Freak said:

im sure this has been asked before but it there a import charm?  NA had the 25 imports badge if i remember correctly.

Not as yet, but we can certainly add one (and I think we should). 

Just need to design one, really. 

[Nes Freak | 584]

3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Not as yet, but we can certainly add one (and I think we should). 

Just need to design one, really. 

design one eh?  well let me see what i can pull out of my arse for ya lol

[Nes Freak | 584]

3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Not as yet, but we can certainly add one (and I think we should). 

Just need to design one, really. 

hows that?

[T-Pac | 7,533]

@Gloves we've had Import charms since February haha - I didn't realize they weren't available yet. @Nes Freak - believe it or not, they actually look just like that lol! Even down to the yellow cart for the '25' tier and everything!

-CasualCart

     

[Nes Freak | 584]

37 minutes ago, CasualCart said:

@Gloves we've had Import charms since February haha - I didn't realize they weren't available yet. @Nes Freak - believe it or not, they actually look just like that lol! Even down to the yellow cart for the '25' tier and everything!

-CasualCart

     

aw they were already made?   dang i put a fair amount of time in to that.  oh well.  actually i just looked at a copy of super mario 3 for famicom and made a similar graphic.  if you all like these your welcome to use them.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Nes Freak