Hello, Mr Malstrom, just some quick comments:
-First, this guy at Destructoid
He seems to share your disappointment of Megaman 9 and also point out some ideas you have talked about before about what exactly makes a classic game (i.e. developer’s passion) and other interesting stuff about going forward and backward. Hope you find it interesting.
Mega Man 9 was nothing more than a monument that Inafune made to himself of dreaming of his glory days.
Games like Mega Man 2 were true ‘Blue Ocean’ type games. They made customers. The game was certainly easier, but it was also consistently fun.
Mega Man 9 did not even remotely try to be like Mega Man 2. The level design alone shows this. When commentators argued with the blogger saying that Mega Man 9 was ‘expertly designed’, the blogger talked back saying that there was no choice for the player in going through the level. Devices like the rocket sled or the magnet beam allowed players to get past some tricky places in Mega Man 1 or 2. More player control made the game more fun. Mega Man 9 took that control way. It is as if the levels were designed entirely so you couldn’t use a rocket jet to go over Plug Man’s appearing blocks.
I agree with him that the ‘retro-revival’ has been little more than a cash-in. The “game industry” is not interested in bettering the classics, only in exploiting them.
-Second, concerning your prediction of a Metroid game alongside Other M, don’t dispute it but wonder if it’s really good news after all. Not that I’m saying you ever mentioned it being good news at all, I just wonder since Sakamoto is busy developing (the properly named) Manga Metroid, which has fans (yours truly included) from the Old AND the Prime Metroids with very bittersweet feelings (more bitter than sweet), and since Retro Studios
don’t seem to be involved in any Metroid game either atm, what guaranty is there that a 2nd Metroid alongside Other M is a good idea? Considering that Fusion and Zero Mission barely cut it (given the GBA fanbase), “Epic Fail” would have a new meaning if both games fail to meet expectations. No solid reason to look at it this way, it could actually be an awesome game, just like Retro accomplished with the 2D-3D transition, for all we know, nevertheless would be good to know what kind of “strategy” they would take, just like Sakamoto was kind enough of letting us know with Other M.
I’m realizing that no one is defending Metroid: Other M. The ‘defenders’ are only defending Sakamoto. Other M cannot be defended because nothing of the game has been shown other than cutscenes.
I’m not a believer in ‘Game Gods’, and this includes Miyamoto. I think the belief in ‘Game Gods’ is unhealthy for gaming. A game developer should make games, not run around with long hair trying to be a ‘rock star’.
I would like to see someone defend Other M based on Other M and not on Sakamoto. Sakamoto is irrelevant. Sakatomo will not enter your house. In the same way, Miyamoto will not enter your house.
You say that a Metroid Dread may not be a good idea because Sakamoto is involved with Other M. I disagree with the entire premise that Sakamoto, or any game developer, is a ‘Game God’. I also disagree with the conventional wisdom notion of ‘creativity’ (but that is a subject for another day).
Miyamoto’s talent is not that he is some demonic being whose creativity grows from his head like an Athena from Zeus. Miyamoto’s talent is seeing gaming from the heads of customers. In that way, he can ‘backwards engineer’ the fun.
I’ll even say Shakespeare was not a genius in the sense of some magical brainy fountain who bubbled Hamlet and Othello from his imagination.
An engineer, when creating a bridge, has to obey the laws of physics to craft the bridge, does he not? Physical nature is the true designer of bridges. The engineer, of course, is brilliant. But he is not brilliant because bridges appeared in full form from his head. No. The bridges were made in response to the canyon and Nature’s physics.
The same is true in entertainment that an artist has to obey the laws of Human Nature to craft the entertainment. Human nature is the true designer of entertainment.
What is the difference between genius and the intellectual? The genius holds a mirror up to Nature. Shakespeare was very literal about this. The genius reflects, the intellectual tries to shine like a finely cut diamond. The genius becomes influential because he revealed Nature. The intellectual cannot understand how the genius becomes influential. All the intellectual desires is to have status. But it is the influencers who change the world; the status seekers just try to take credit for it.
You can see Miyamoto trying to hold up a mirror to Human nature when he makes something like Wii Fit or Nintendogs (petting puppies) or something else based on Human Nature.
Sakamoto does not have that approach. He has publicly stated that he intends to design games in a way Miyamoto wouldn’t. This is why Other M is not 2d, not 3d, heavily focused on story and character. Sakamoto isn’t holding a mirror up to Human Nature, he wants to be different from Miyamoto. This indicates to me he desires status.
Every genius agrees with this belief: Nature is more ‘creative’ than Humans ever will be.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,. Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5
You are right that a 2d Metroid would be risky. Despite popular wisdom, Super Metroid wasn’t that great of a seller and neither was Metroid Fusion (Zero Mission bombed from what I’ve seen).
The DS install base is larger and healthier than the Gameboy one was. Metroid Dread would be very well suited to the hardware of the DS with its SNES like controls as well as another screen for the map.
But more important, it is LESS RISKY putting out Metroid Dread with Other M than to let Other M go out alone. Other M truly runs the risk of imploding the Metroid series. I see a DS Metroid as an antidote to such implosion.
Nintendo has done this before. When the ‘risky’ Metroid Prime was released, a more traditional 2d Metroid of Fusion was released with it.
Other M is way, WAY out there on the wacko realm and is as untraditional of a Metroid as you can get. The strategy is a contingency plan. If Other M blows up (which is possibly could do due to how ‘untraditional’ it is), a Metroid Dread could absorb the shock.
-Third, does it look like Nintendo has a proclivity to over-confidence? All this UGC mess is embarrassing, yet for me is hardly surprising. It has happened before with the hardware and with the software, seriously, do they have a penchant for being bitch-slapped every time they make a huge worldwide splash, brag about it, then someone comes and eats their cake (or in this case, ruin their own cake)? Nintendo has proved time and time again that they can guarantee professional excellence, yet do they have to wait until it’s the worst of times when the only available option is high risk gamble? It’s like they run like hell when in danger, but when safe they just walk it, whistling about without any care of its surroundings, thinking nobody can take its place…. until they realize they’re last place, danger at its toes. Let me pull a Bible quote:
“Nintendo: I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
VG Business: Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”
I think you have already mentioned it before: the video game business (is that better than “video game industry“?) is like no other, the competition is fierce and it’s very difficult to succeed which should teach anyone easily that plenty of past success is no guaranty of future success (oh, backtesting, you don’t work on video games either), and till this day it seems Nintendo hasn’t learned its damn lesson. Hope the Big N recovers (and learns!) even if it can revive the momentum again.
Nintendo has ruined one of the greatest entertainment phenomenons in history (i.e. the Wii). There is something about video games that makes someone’s success think they are walking on air. Well, maybe it is business in general (there is much money for success in video games). I know people who were very successful in their business, think themselves to be amazing, and then lose it all with their next business venture.
The problem isn’t so much UGC as it was making ALL their games UGC. There was no UGC success story. So why did they go that path? Because Iwata and all are in awe of the computer industry and think UGC is ‘being disruptive’ and ‘getting ahead’? Or is it because Miyamoto wanted people to have the ‘joy of creation’? Either way, it isn’t what gaming is about.
It is very troubling that Nintendo doesn’t see itself in the content business. Perhaps this is why Nintendo can’t do anything more than remake Mario and Zelda each generation with a new gimmick attached and why their consoles became more and more kid centric (kids, who had never played Mario and Zelda before, would see the content as fresh unlike everyone else).
Have you noticed that, recently, it seems Nintendo reps keep saying the word ‘content’ repeatedly? Very curious. Much of the concern over NSMB Wii is that it has no new content, that it is a port of NSMB DS. This is a microcosm of a larger issue that people, in general, do not have faith in Nintendo making new content. And the lack of faith is justified.
When people leave Nintendo, it is because they are sick of making the same games over and over. You have to feel sorry for the guys who have to make nothing but Kirby games over and over. Something like Zelda’s declining sales in Japan should tell Nintendo to put Zelda to sleep, to stop visiting a depleted well, to limit Zelda at least to a game per generation. Instead, they don’t stop after Phantom Hourglass. Now we have Zelda on trains.
Now, I love Zelda, but I want good Zelda, not mediocre Zelda. In the 16-bit generation, there was only one Zelda game (Link to the Past), and it was a damn good game. Of course, the NES Zeldas were so different from each other. In fact, so were the Mario games. They visited the Mario well too much, and Mario became ‘uncool’. Smartly, Nintendo has not been plastering Mario everywhere as before.
One of my problems with Other M that I haven’t heard anyone address is that I believe Nintendo is visiting the Metroid well too much to the point that the Metroid franchise is about to implode. Ever since Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion, we have had Zero Mission, Metroid Pinball, Metroid Prime Hunters, Metroid Prime 2, Metroid Prime 3, Metroid Prime Collection, and now Metroid: Other M.
Metroid is not as strong as a franchise as Mario or Zelda. And both Mario and Zelda declined. I think Other M risks being the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
The most successful entertainment franchise in history is likely Star Trek. That show went on for like forty years. There is like seven hundred hours of television, eleven movies, and of course countless video games and other related spin-off entertainment. Yet, when everyone was telling them to stop making so many Star Trek shows, they kept right on. They knew a sharp decline occurred with DS9 and Voyager and both of those shows were ‘remade’ to counter the decline as much as possible (‘remade’ means stuffing as many warships as possible on the screen and as many explosions as possible). Star Trek executives thought with ‘Enterprise’ they could ‘go back to the basics’ (meaning the Kirk/Spock/Mc-Coy triad). Yet, the show didn’t stop the disinterest and declined until the show got canceled.
The biggest complaint of the show was on content. The show was a ‘prequel’ and took place in the lore’s past. People didn’t want to see the past. They wanted to see the ‘future’ beyond what was shown before. The latest ‘Star Trek’ movie was not a change but a continuation of the old strategy: backwards in time and get back to the ‘basics’ (in this case, Kirk and Spock were literally used). The reason why TNG Star Trek began in the first place was because of the phenomenal success of Star Trek IV (which, ironically, didn’t have the Enterprise in it aside from the last two minutes. This should show people aren’t interested in a specific ship, and they don’t all have to be named ‘Enterprise’.) Star Trek IV attracted people who were not even Star Trek fans. Perhaps it was because it was a comedy instead of an opera. Blue Ocean was at work (how many sci fi comedy movies are there? Most sci fi are ‘serious’ operas).
My point is that I believe there is an entertainment pattern of ‘taking too many trips to the well’. Nintendo might believe that it has been re-filling its well, but I disagree. I think major changes such as 3d allowed a re-imagining of them, but these are temporary measures in an otherwise large scale decline.
Mario has been in decline since the 2d Marios (with NSMB DS being the exception).
Zelda has been in decline since Ocarina of Time.
Metroid has been in decline since Metroid Prime.
Nintendo consoles have been in decline since the NES. The Wii, while more successful than past Nintendo consoles, owes its success to Wii Sports and Wii Fit, not Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.
Sure, these are all core games and the Core Market is declining. But the Core Market is the immersion world games. Since all there is today are sequels, there is no new blood entering the Core Market. I think a chief reason for the Core Market decline is the lack of fresh content.
Now, I am not saying Nintendo or anyone else should put out millions for an untested content idea. But I do think smaller games should be carving out new content instead of being obsessed with new gameplay. Even Tetris was bought due to content (the content being Mother Russia).
The big Nintendo success story is Mario Kart. Mario Kart, which was entering decline, is the only franchise truly reverse. And it was reversed by Mario Kart competing with its past (Mario Kart DS was made to be a better game than SNES’s Mario Kart) as well as its content centric drive behind it. By content, I do not mean more levels and karts (though Mario Kart DS and Wii did both and cleverly included ‘retro courses’ of previous Mario Kart games) but in the imagination of the courses and game itself. The tracks in Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash are pretty boring for the most part. But then comes courses like Waluigi Pinball or Tick-Tock Clock or Wario’s Gold Mine. The content is also in all the different ways people can play the game. They can play it alone, with friends, battle mode, online, time trial, there is much content for the player. Mario Kart for the DS and Wii is an extremely easy purchase decision.
I can tell you the original Legend of Zelda sold due to content. People were amazed at how large that game felt (and it had a second quest!). Super Mario Brothers was so freakishly imaginative with beanstalks and raccoon tails. Metroid also felt like an immense world.
Content heavy games are ‘easy buys’ for the consumer (and I don’t mean content in how ‘long’ the game is but in how the game never feels stale or repetitious).
Nintendo will have its Wii lose to the PS3 in Japan entirely on the content issue. PS3′s games at least have content.
Content is also why the DS outsold the PSP. The PSP was filled with PS2 ports and not very well made games. Meanwhile, the DS was getting games like Final Fantasy 3 that totally shocked Square-Enix’s expectations as well as other content rich games.
Games like Nintendogs and Brain Age might have started the ball rolling, but it was the other games that kept the momentum going. With the Wii, Nintendo is getting many people to buy their system and look at it. And the customers are going, “Now what? Where are the games? Where is the content for this motion controller?” Nintendo doesn’t have any content. In fact, Nintendo did not even believe they were in the content business. So customers shrug and say, “There is no point to the Wii then,” and go off and do something else. All the hopes and dreams of various motion controlled games, which was the source behind the Wii’s sales, went out the door when it became clear, years after the Wii’s release, that Nintendo wasn’t putting out the content.
When you look at history and see something like the Virtual Boy, you go, “What could Nintendo have been thinking!?” History will say the same about User Generated Content and Nintendo and be perhaps even harsher in judgment.
Virtual Boy, at least, is a nice collection piece that surprises people with how fun the games are. But UGC games will not be entering anyone’s collection and no one will be playing those games years from now (or even today if the sales are to be believed).
-Your music section is awesome, thanks for bringing attention to so many good tunes I was unaware of. Of these 240 and something, will you include those from N64/PS-like systems and above? Just wondering. Thanks for your patience.
They are too well known though. Also, since most games at the time were on CDs, the music becomes very ‘CD’ quality which doesn’t make it as interesting as musical craftsmanship on the older systems.
I’m trying to focus on music that isn’t really heard or seen too much. This is why Gameboy, Commodore 64, and computer games frequently pop up. For many people today, they probably don’t even think the Gameboy or Commodore 64 had any music in their games!
PD: Will these Nintendo’s sudden strategy changes upset upcoming articles and/or shutting down your blog (I mean shutting it down sooner or later)?
The economic meltdown of latter 2008 shut me down. What is going on in video game land is not really that important when you realize you are on the threshold of a depression.
I look at video game business now as delightful nonsense. They are a bunch of fruit flies running around, living and dying, all very rapidly. It is fun to see how rapidly things change. It has also been fun to try to scratch the surface as to why some games are ‘magical’.
The ‘game business’ initially had non-entertainment companies move in who thought gaming was about technology. They all died. Lately, the trend seems to be entertainment companies, but they are entertainment in something other than games (like Sony and movies). It seems this success is only temporary in the long run. Consumers would be ‘wowed’ by games being like movies, but years later it becomes boring. And I think companies like Sony is going to have a big problem because of that (or throwing technology at the problem).
We still truly don’t understand the entertainment of gaming on the benchmark of gaming. Gaming is too young. I feel like a Conquistador! Gaming is entertainment’s new frontier. While the shores have been mapped, gaming is the unexplored continent of entertainment.
