What a joke:
Subtly, the design of New Super Mario Bros. Wii seems to cleverly address a major criticism of Nintendo titles in the Wii era — that in favor of wider accessibility the company has abandoned the sort of challenge that can satisfy a traditional or more experienced gamer.
Good heavens! I read this and went wide jawed as my cigar fell out of my mouth!
1) The writer of this piece (Leigh Alexander) just throws into a news story that a ‘major criticism of Nintendo titles in the Wii era’ is the abandonment of challenge. Nothing in the story or quotes from Miyamoto supports this. Maybe he did say this, but it is not in the story. I don’t care if hardcore fabricate little imaginary worlds of fantasy for themselves. But I do mind when they are being masqueraded as part of the news. Am I the only one who remembers the severe criticism of how easy Zelda: Wind Waker where no one dies in? Or about Mario Kart Double Dash where the game was going away from the skill required to play games like Super Mario Kart or Mario Kart 64?
2) Cleverly? That is an editorial stance. And even then, it is based on #1.
This is because the multiplayer is designed such that more experienced players have an additional element to work with in the ability to help novice players: They can carry, rescue, or lead younger or less skilled players, and have fun doing so.
In groups, then, the players themselves can create additional layers of complexity in the difficulty level. Playing alone is much harder, while the challenge in playing with others depends in large part on how much players help one another. “Because it is multiplayer, it has some new facets, in the sense that more advanced gamers can take care of novice players that might be playing with them, and …carry them through the levels,” said Miyamoto.
I understand there is tons of idol worship with Miyamoto. But to take that one statement and blow it up to the gigantic grandiose conclusion the writer of the story makes is absurd.
Really, game writers? You think what Miyamoto said there was ‘new’?
And those games are over twenty years old. Even Donkey Kong Country had quasi-co-op. (Even Super Mario Galaxy had a cooperative mode).
What we are witnessing is this:
After the ‘hardcore’ gaggle of game journalists dismissed New Super Mario Brothers at E3 2009, some calling it “Party Game” or “Zelda Four Swords for Mario” and even “casual game”, now they all want to get on board the NSMB Wii bandwagon because it is genuinely fun because 2d Mario is genuinely fun.
What we are witnessing are “game journalists” trying to turn NSMB Wii into a hardcore game and are deliberately turning quotes around to create a fictitious notion that NSMB Wii, and its multiplayer (who just months ago these same hardcore were mocking), were designed expressively for them.
In this story, there is even a quote of Miyamoto saying:
“The original concept was that the Mario Bros. games would be games that two people always played together,” Miyamoto explained, “but of course, the Super Mario Bros. series turned into more of a single-player game.”
Now, Miyamoto did NOT say that multiplayer was added to create more of a challenge to satisfy the hardore. Yet, this is fabricated by the “game journalist”. They are so dumb they even included the contradicting quote in the story. Do these reporters even read their own stories? Apparently not.
These hardcore do not understand old school Mario. They say they do, but their reaction to NSMB Wii and current backpedaling reveals they don’t. 2d Mario was about a multiplayer experience. Remember the original Mario Brothers? That was entirely multiplayer. Super Mario Brothers 3 had the fantastic ‘battle mode’ which was multiplayer. When I played NSMB DS, I was really impressed by the VS mode and said, “That should be made into its own game!”.
Still, Miyamoto has never lost interest in creating meaningful multiplayer experiences, particularly now with the Wii, a console designed for the family living-room setting. That’s why, he says, Nintendo focused its attention on local multiplayer with this title: it’s designed for play in face-to-face groups.
Another contradiction for the author! Multiplayer for family living room settings has nothing to do with “hardcore experiences”. No one looks at ‘living room family experience’ as ‘hardcore’.
By making New Super Mario Bros. Wii a multiplayer game, Miyamoto had simultaneous goals in addition to making a meaningful group experience — he said the experience of playing the game is very different depending on whether it’s being played solo or not.
There is a third contradiction! If multiplayer was “cleverly added” to NSMB Wii for the expressed purpose of creating a ‘hardcore experience’, then why is the game difficult in both solo and multiplayer?
Yet, it still boggles my mind that the writer just throws this in:
Subtly, the design of New Super Mario Bros. Wii seems to cleverly address a major criticism of Nintendo titles in the Wii era — that in favor of wider accessibility the company has abandoned the sort of challenge that can satisfy a traditional or more experienced gamer. This is because the multiplayer is designed such that more experienced players have an additional element to work with in the ability to help novice players.
These are some disturbed people, folks. They make believe that every game is designed for the ‘hardcore’, and when a game isn’t, they pretend it is even ignoring statements that clearly say it wasn’t.
If NSMB Wii was designed for the ‘hardcore’, don’t you think we’d have seen it earlier than 19 years since Super Mario World? NSMB Wii would not exist if it hadn’t been the massive success that is NSMB DS. And it wasn’t the hardcore who made NSMB DS a success, that is for sure.
What goes on in these little minds? “Oh! I want to play this game now! Therefore, I shall now declare it ‘hardcore’!” WTF, seriously WTF.
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