Last Ninja 3 review

[Betagam7]

After threatening to take the matter up with UK trading standards I have finally recieved something regarding an adequate response from Nintendo UK on this matter. Here it is:

Thank you for your email.


We passed your email to our European Headquarters, who have now responded that this issue is being investigated. However, as Nintendo would not involved in the development of this port, Nintendo cannot make any changes ourselves. The developers of this port have been contacted, and they have reported that fix is being worked on. I’m afraid we cannot provide any further details in to this situation at the moment.
Kind regards,



Jackson Davies
Customer Service Team Leader

Your Nintendo Team



I still find it unacceptable that the game remains available for download while this "fix being worked on" (currently 9 months and counting) on the grounds that it will eventually be fixed. I would bet a large some of money that this is the reason we have not seen any C64 releases since this game was released in its broken condition.

I have informed them that my complaint to trading standards will proceed while the game remains available for download.

[SKTTR]

I emailed Nintendo Europe last week, they responded they will answer this week, but haven't yet, the week's almost over.

I also emailed [email protected] and got this response:

"Thank you for your email, I have forwarded this to the company that develops the commodore games for the Wii, as soon as I get a reply from them, I will update you accordingly

Best regards,

Taco van Sambeek

Global Product Manager – Commodore Gaming"

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by SKTTR

I emailed Nintendo Europe last week, they responded they will answer this week, but haven't yet, the week's almost over.

I also emailed [email protected] and got this response:

"Thank you for your email, I have forwarded this to the company that develops the commodore games for the Wii, as soon as I get a reply from them, I will update you accordingly

Best regards,

Taco van Sambeek

Global Product Manager – Commodore Gaming"

Interesting how neither is offering a refund of the 500 points people have wasted on this broken product. Or even offering an apology.

[brooks83]

I think that responce from Nintendo is pretty lame. Sure, they aren't responsible for fixing the game, but they can certainly remove it while it is being "fixed" so as not to ripoff potential customers. But now that you guys are lighting a fire under Commodore, hopefully they really will get around to fixing it soon.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

I'd like to see your original messages. Did either of you specifically ask for refunds? Did either of you specifically ask for the game to be taken down until it's fixed?

Neither of the people you got responses from have authority in those arenas anyway, unless the guy Beta contacted might be able to finagle some kind of refund.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

I'd like to see your original messages. Did either of you specifically ask for refunds? Did either of you specifically ask for the game to be taken down until it's fixed?

Neither of the people you got responses from have authority in those arenas anyway, unless the guy Beta contacted might be able to finagle some kind of refund.

You're correct and this is the problem with Nintendo Europe in general. They farm out their customer services to companies like codestorm who preach an idiotic (badly spelled) message that everything is beautiful and nothing hurts and don't take complaints seriously or give them proper investigation.

If you try and contact them at their head office (in Germany) they tell you that the correct people to contact for your region is the UK people (codestorm) who, as we can plainly see, are idiots of the highest caliber (not to mention possibly forum trolls).

I'm not asking them for a refund as I didn't buy the game but I can't see why everyone else shouldn't have received one by now. I hope that the UK Trading Standards people fine their sorry behinds into next week and wake them up a bit.

Last time I checked, it is against the law to knowingly offer for sale faulty or incomplete goods and Nintendo clearly now know that this game is both faulty and incomplete (and have done for over 9 months).

This is the last message I sent them:

Jackson,

Thank you for finally taking this matter up and treating it seriously. I take on board your comments, however I believe that for Nintendo to continue to offer this title for download knowing that it is broken and with seemingly no idea on when it will be fixed (9 months and counting so far) constitutes them knowingly taking people's money in exchange for a faulty product that may never be repaired.

You may therefore inform your European headquarters that my complaint to UK Trading Standards will be proceeding while this faulty piece of software remains available for download as I would suggest that its continued availability for purchase is not encouraging the developers to find a solution while they are making money from it regardless of its quality.

I would also ask that in future you take the complaints raised on "3rd party forums" more seriously than you have done here and train your staff to treat customer complaints with a degree of seriousness instead of the patronising and insultingly poor response my query initially recieved from them.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

I'm not asking them for a refund as I didn't buy the game but I can't see why everyone else shouldn't have received one by now. I hope that the UK Trading Standards people fine there sorry behinds into next week and wake them up a bit.

For all we know, SKTTR and that guy from NintendoLaff are the only ones who bought the game, and we know that one (and maybe both) of those people didn't ask for refunds (yet).

It was an awesome idea to report them, though, and I agree that I hope they have the game forcibly removed from the service. Nintendo would have that kind of press (broken game hauled off the VC!) and they'd probably put the pressure on Commodore to get their asses in gear.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

For all we know, SKTTR and that guy from NintendoLaff are the only ones who bought the game, and we know that one (and maybe both) of those people didn't ask for refunds (yet).

It was an awesome idea to report them, though, and I agree that I hope they have the game forcibly removed from the service. Nintendo would have that kind of press (broken game hauled off the VC!) and they'd probably put the pressure on Comoddore to get their asses in gear.

Report filed with Trading Standards this morning.

[Sharecrow]

It's not illegal (in America anyway) to have sold a product that has a defect. For folks that have purchased it, though, the seller would be obligated to either correct the defect (fix it) or restore the customer to the state they were in prior to the purchase (in this case, refund 500 points and remove the defective game entirely from the buyer's account).

It's only been a few days since SKTTR brought this to their attention. Give them some time and I'm certain that the law will be complied with. I'm not sure it's fair to talk about how many months the game has been out since we have no way of knowing how many actual buyers engaged Nintendo to solve the problem.

Involving regulatory agencies usually expedites things, though, so hopefully the game gets fixed soon.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by Sharecrow

It's not illegal (in America anyway) to have sold a product that has a defect. For folks that have purchased it, though, the seller would be obligated to either correct the defect (fix it) or restore the customer to the state they were in prior to the purchase (in this case, refund 500 points and remove the defective game entirely from the buyer's account).

It's only been a few days since SKTTR brought this to their attention. Give them some time and I'm certain that the law will be complied with. I'm not sure it's fair to talk about how many months the game has been out since we have no way of knowing how many actual buyers engaged Nintendo to solve the problem.

Involving regulatory agencies usually expedites things, though, so hopefully the game gets fixed soon.

Nintendolife contacted them a year ago about this problem, ironically Nintendolife changing its review score to 1/10 a year later and me offering this link to them as "proof" appears to have prompted a more professional internal investigation over the matter. This goes to show what I have said all along that whatever you think of the likes of Nintendolife and its kin if they properly addressed faults in there reviews and marked them accordingly companies WOULD start taking notice, i.e PAL conversions.

SKTTR is not the first person to complain to them. They knew the problem existed they just didn't care because it was a minor release that probably only affects the profits of commodore gaming...that's not an excuse to sit on their hands. The game should have been pulled from download as soon as the problem was noted. The game is faulty, defective, broken...it should not be available for consumers to buy.

Another part of the problem here is also the childlike replies that Nintendo UK give to people who email them. It's as if they credit everyone as silly little children who can be waived away. Hopefully reporting them to an official government body will show demonstrate to them that this is not the case.

[Betagam7]

Just had a reply from Consumer Direct who I filed the report through.

They confirm that they have reported Nintendo to Trading Standards for further investigation and also confirm the following:

"You have a contract with them, under the Sales of Goods Act 1979. Under this act the goods should be of satisfactory quality, if they are not the trader should repair/replace the goods in a reasonable time, if this doesn’t resolve the issue then they should provide a refund".

They've also provided me with a template of a letter I can send to Nintendo quoting these various things and demanding a refund. of course I didn't buy the game but if anyone did I will be happy to forward you a copy.

[Tides of Chaos]

Wow, things are really heating up! Bringing the law down on Nintendo and Commodore, way to go!

[Afrancio]

Hopefully by raising attention to this the problem will be fixed by the time they release the game in North America.

Waiting 9 months to update this game in ridiculous.

[Betagam7]

Had a further reply from Jackson Davies regarding my most recent reply, informing them of the report made to trading standards:

thank you for your email.

Once again, we will pass your comments to European headquarters, but I cannot make any guarantees regarding the removal of this particular piece of software from here in the UK. I also apologise if you feel that any previous replies were patronising in any way, but I can assure you that all responses were checked with and advised by Nintendo Europe.


Kind regards,




Personally, I have a hard time believing that Sammy Serviceman's cheerful:

"If there was an issue with the game we would have solved it"

was a verbatum transcript from Nintendo of Europe but its evident that Codestorm are now blaming there terrible customer support on orders from their overlords.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

They clearly think their (not "there") control of information flow makes them untouchable. If all communication with their higher-ups has to pass through them—if they can't be reported directly to their employers—then we have no recourse.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

They clearly think their (not "there") control of information flow makes them untouchable. If all communication with their higher-ups has to pass through them—if they can't be reported directly to their employers—then we have no recourse.

Yes, its for this reason that I long ago gave up trying to complain directly about the PAL conversions as these muppets don't even know what I'm talking about and are basically just a glorified cheat line who've had a load of extra duties dumped on them over the years.

Worse than that is that there's not even a direct way to contact the Team Leader (or proof that he even exists) in question as all emails go to a generic inbox which we already know are handled by our friend Sam.

Hopefully Trading Standards will be able to get higher when they investigate.

I do get from his "can't promise that the game will be removed" line though, that he probably agrees with me and has suggested it to whoever his superior is but is aware of just how inefficient and beurocratic Nintendo Europe are.

[pdRydia]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

I also apologise if you feel that any previous replies were patronising in any way, but I can assure you that all responses were checked with and advised by Nintendo Europe.

Doesn't say much for Nintendo Europe.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by pdRydia

Doesn't say much for Nintendo Europe.

He's lying. If all replies have to be read and approved by NoE, then why the hell does NoE spend $£€ to have these chumps respond to inquiries in the first place?

[pdRydia]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

He's lying. If all replies have to be read and approved by NoE, then why the hell does NoE spend $£€ to have these chumps respond to inquiries in the first place?

Or it could just be a fantastically redundant observation. "The message you received from NoE was approved by NoE."

[Betagam7]

Email just in from Nintendo:

I apologise for emailing you directly, but we have today received confirmation that “Last Ninja 3” will be reoved from the European Virtual Console service. Any consumers that have purchased this title will have the Nintendo Points value refunded to their account. Once again, thank you for providing information regarding this title.

Kind regards,
Jackson Davies
Customer Service Team Leader
Your Nintendo Team





A victory of a sorts then, looks like the report to trading standards did its job!

[slangman]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

Email just in from Nintendo:
I apologise for emailing you directly, but we have today received confirmation that “Last Ninja 3” will be reoved from the European Virtual Console service. Any consumers that have purchased this title will have the Nintendo Points value refunded to their account. Once again, thank you for providing information regarding this title.

They are finally taking this broken piece of junk of the shop and refunding people? Cool. I am curious as to what Trading Standards have said to them. Usually Nintendo just shrug off complaints from people.

Pity it took a year and 2 months though for action to finally happen. Now let’s see what will happen regarding Mayham in Monsterland. That should not be on the VC in its current state either.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by slangman

They are finally taking this broken piece of junk of the shop and refunding people? Cool. I am curious as to what Trading Standards have said to them. Usually Nintendo just shrug off complaints from people.

Pity it took a year and 2 months though for action to finally take place.

The important lesson here is that it took a very short time indeed once complaints were channeled via the proper authorities and sites like Nintendolife et al began adjusting their review scores to 1/10. The reason it took so long was simply that people didn't pursue ti with enough vigour.

I've said it many times but companies do listen to complaints when they are channeled in a way that makes an impact. It's apathy that kills them and allows Nintendo et al to continue giving their customers shoddy merchandise.

There's a lesson in there for all the Kawaii's of the world who believe that complaining acheives nothing.

[SKTTR]

Ah, damn! And I hoped they would fix it but no!

Well, I received email from Nintendo last week about the Last Ninja 3 issue.
They wanted my phone number to contact me personally. No calling yet.

At least I get my points back and have beaten stage 1 a couple of times,
but it would be much better if they kick them developers dick to fix that game.
I want to play it, dammit! I really hoped!

Seems like we won't get the trilogy as long as Last Ninja's copyrights is licensed
to the crappy Ironstone Partners.
Honestly, we have German hackers here that emulate C64 games spot on.
And they also got Last Ninja 3 working. Why don't give them a job for a weekend?

Anyway, I suppose, everyone go download Last Ninja 3 now
to play the first stage before they take it down and give your 500pts back!

[sponge]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

Email just in from Nintendo:

I apologise for emailing you directly, but we have today received confirmation that “Last Ninja 3” will be reoved from the European Virtual Console service. Any consumers that have purchased this title will have the Nintendo Points value refunded to their account. Once again, thank you for providing information regarding this title.

Kind regards,
Jackson Davies
Customer Service Team Leader
Your Nintendo Team





A victory of a sorts then, looks like the report to trading standards did its job!

just wanted to say congrats! excellent work sir.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by SKTTR

Ah, damn! And I hoped they would fix it but no!

Well, I received email from Nintendo last week about the Last Ninja 3 issue.
They wanted my phone number to contact me personally. No calling yet.

At least I get my points back and have beaten stage 1 a couple of times,
but it would be much better if they kick them developers dick to fix that game.
I want to play it, dammit! I really hoped!

Seems like we won't get the trilogy as long as Last Ninja's copyrights is licensed
to the crappy Ironstone Partners.
Honestly, we have German hackers here that emulate C64 games spot on.
And they also got Last Ninja 3 working. Why don't give them a job for a weekend?

Anyway, I suppose, everyone go download Last Ninja 3 now
to play the first stage before they take it down and give your 500pts back!

I have actually considered it but at this late stage it might be problematic for me to explain why I did it as my emails were sent from my Wii registered email address. Maybe you can gift it to me and get a double refund

I've emailed them back to see if this means the end for the game (and the C64 in general). I take your point about hackers though, but then again one might ask the same question about why Nintendo doesn't hire better people to block homebrew when hackers seem to find a way around it within 24 hours.

[Tides of Chaos]

It's nice action is being taken....but it's too bad that action isn't fixing the game. I would have liked to see the Commodore 64 getting past this and getting releases again (ones that actually work!). But at this point, it seems possible things might end when NA catches up with Europe's C64 games.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

I'm hoping this removal actually spurs them to fix the game instead of just saying they're going to fix it. There's a slight hope that Last Ninja 3 will be back.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

I'm hoping this removal actually spurs them to fix the game instead of just saying they're going to fix it. There's a slight hope that Last Ninja 3 will be back.

I too hope so, although the fact they are refunding might be a signal that they've given up on it. Or it might just be that the government watchdogs I set on them ordered them to do it.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

I too hope so, although the fact they are refunding might be a signal that they've given up on it. Or it might just be that the government watchdogs I set on them ordered them to do it.

They'd definitely have to refund you. They're not going to keep your money while the product isn't even available on the service anymore, even if they plan to fix it and then give it back to you.

[Tull]

On the bright side; those of you that have it now own a rare VC title.

[Angelic Lapras King]

The war has been won. lol. XD

[SKTTR]

When I looked for todays EU update I got +500 Wii Points back to my account. Last Ninja 3 was removed from the shop AND my account. The account log had 2 new entries "correction" -0/+0 and "refund" -0/+500.

When I went back to the SD Card menu to start Last Ninja 3 (you can still see the icon) it tells you it's not made for your Wii console... the same message you get when you copy games from another Wii and try to run them on yours.
You can't start it anymore.

So gone is the Last Ninja 3, gone is the whole game. Not even any Level 1 fun. But at least we have our full money back.

Still hoping for this game to be fixed some time to have all three games from the series.

Until then... hmm. what could I spent those 500 pts on? With the 200pts left from last time it's 700 pts... but everything I want is 800 or 1000.
Ah well... hoping for some 600 pts Art Style game next month.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by SKTTR

When I looked for todays EU update I got +500 Wii Points back to my account. Last Ninja 3 was removed from the shop AND my account. The account log had 2 new entries "correction" -0/+0 and "refund" -0/+500.

When I went back to the SD Card menu to start Last Ninja 3 (you can still see the icon) it tells you it's not made for your Wii console... the same message you get when you copy games from another Wii and try to run them on yours.
You can't start it anymore.

So gone is the Last Ninja 3, gone is the whole game. Not even any Level 1 fun. But at least we have our full money back.

Still hoping for this game to be fixed some time to have all three games from the series.

Until then... hmm. what could I spent those 500 pts on? With the 200pts left from last time it's 700 pts... but everything I want is 800 or 1000.
Ah well... hoping for some 600 pts Art Style game next month.

So not even an email or a direct apology to the consumer explaining why there game has stopped working. Great customer service Nintendo. How many people won't have made it past the tough first level and will try to get back into the game months down the line with no idea why it no longer works.

I suppose they'll recall the day they got that "free" 500 points and piece it together but either way its a poor show for Nintendo to not even apologise directly to the consumers who's time they have wasted.

[SKTTR]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

So not even an email or a direct apology to the consumer explaining why there game has stopped working. Great customer service Nintendo. How many people won't have made it past the tough first level and will try to get back into the game months down the line with no idea why it no longer works.

I suppose they'll recall the day they got that "free" 500 points and piece it together but either way its a poor show for Nintendo to not even apologise directly to the consumers who's time they have wasted.

No mail and no call yet.

Yeah, i can imagine some people being surprised having +500 points on their account. But as they can have a look at their transfer log on the shop channel anytime, they'll see the added informations "Correction" and "Refund" of the product "Last Ninja 3" marked with "+500 Wii Points".

But yeah, I imagine that's a minority of hardcore Wii-freaks like us and people who never beat Last Ninja 3's first stage just be happy to have some sudden 500 extra points. Of course they'll be curious the next time they try to play Last Ninja 3 seeing it's not working anymore.

[Betagam7]

Originally Posted by SKTTR

No mail and no call yet.

Yeah, i can imagine some people being surprised having +500 points on their account. But as they can have a look at their transfer log on the shop channel anytime, they'll see the added informations "Correction" and "Refund" of the product "Last Ninja 3" marked with "+500 Wii Points".

But yeah, I imagine that's a minority of hardcore Wii-freaks like us and people who never beat Last Ninja 3's first stage just be happy to have some sudden 500 extra points. Of course they'll be curious the next time they try to play Last Ninja 3 seeing it's not working anymore.

It's kind of interesting that they disabled the game completely from working but I'm guessing there is nothing to be read into that other that the liscence simply stopped being linked to the Wii accounts that got refunded. I'm presuming that's Nintendo's standard protocol for people who claim there download doesn't work, to prevent people telling fibs to them and keeping the game and the refund.

[Sharecrow]

Originally Posted by Betagam7

It's kind of interesting that they disabled the game completely from working but I'm guessing there is nothing to be read into that other that the liscence simply stopped being linked to the Wii accounts that got refunded. I'm presuming that's Nintendo's standard protocol for people who claim there download doesn't work, to prevent people telling fibs to them and keeping the game and the refund.

He returned it...basically.

I do still hope that they fix it, but don't know how silly that is of me.

[brooks83]

What's weird is if Commodore Gaming has pretty much given up on the VC, why are they still submitting games to be rated? I think there has been about 5 games that have been rated lately that have yet to be released.

[SKTTR]

Originally Posted by brooks83

What's weird is if Commodore Gaming has pretty much given up on the VC, why are they still submitting games to be rated? I think there has been about 5 games that have been rated lately that have yet to be released.

From what I've heard VC isn't the only platform for Commodore Gaming releasing C64 games.
They support gaming PCs, TV joysticks and iPhone.

Especially iPhone gets great stuff, more stuff, and better versions.

[Betagam7]

Just noticed this in my junkmail, seems to have arrived today:

Dear Customer,

Despite the best effort of the Commodore Gaming development team, the crash in Last Ninja 3 occurring at the end of Level 1 could not be resolved due to a technical problem. Unfortunately this game uses Commodore 64 hardware specific features that can not be emulated by our software.

We are truly sorry for any inconvenience caused by the defective software. We will reimburse the 500 Wii Points you spent to purchase the game.

In order to do so, we would kindly like to ask you to provide the following information:

1. Your Wii serial number
You can find it on the bottom of the console, marked as “Serial No:”. The serial number begins with the letter L and ends with a number in a square.

2. Your contact email address

Please send this information by email to [email protected].

You will receive reimbursement in form of a Wii Points code within ten business days. Please note that, based on your Wii serial number, your purchase of the game will be verified before reimbursement.


***



I thought the refunds were automaticly generated. Hmm, perhaps you should send one off anyway and see if you get a double discount.


The email, incidently, came from Taco Van Seembark at


[email protected]

Never trust a man named after a Mexican food!

EDIT: It's just occured to me that this is probably a way for Nintendo to dodge its responsibilities. Rather than admit culpability by giving a refund to everyone as they have done with SKTTR they are now relying on people finding out about it through this email and taking action to reinburse it.