Hi Malstrom!
I just received my 3DS and I wanted to show you something I found.
Maybe you remember not long after the Wii Sports Resort release, you talked about the idea of a Gauntlet Mii game where Miis would fight little monsters. Well, while exploring the different modes of the 3DS, I discovered a mode called Mii StreetPass Quest where your King-Mii get kidnapped by ghosts and you have to hire knights (basically Miis you find using StreetPass) in order to fight ghosts and rescue the king. You can also hire cats and dogs soldiers using the coins you earns by walking around (pedometer feature) to help you if you don’t have any friends.
Sounds cool? Well, it’s not. Nintendo made it a VERY basic turn-based RPG where you basically have just two attacks (Sword or Magic) and worse, if the Mii don’t kill the ghost on the first try, the ghost scares the Miis, he runs away and you won’t be able to use him again. In the end, unless I have hundreds of StreetPass connection every day, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to beat that little game.
I don’t understand how Nintendo could have thought this would make a good game. All they had to do was to create an action game with different levels and enemies and allow you to fight them and be helped by the StreetPass Miis. This way, anyone, even those who lived in small city would be able to enjoy it. I probably would have bought a game like this. Let’s hope they think about it in the future
As for the system itself, it looks pretty cool in my opinion. I don’t understand people comparing it to the DS Tank. To me, it’s much more like a Lite except for the top part (the one with the 3D screen) which is a little bigger than the lower part (only a few millimeters). What I found strange about it is how complex it looks. When I look at it, I see the depth slider, the sound volume slider, the power button, the wireless button, the wireless light, the StreetPass/SpotPass light, the On/Off light, the charging light. My DS lite looks like a really easy thing to pick up in comparison.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know how Nintendo screwed up one of your ideas. You can look at that video to see it in action. The Quest mode is shown around the 4 minutes mark. http://www.destructoid.com/3ds-video-see-how-street-pass-quest-and-puzzle-work-195357.phtml
I don’t think anything I said got into the 3DS software. If they did, I’d be extremely ashamed.
To new readers, what he is referring to was an idea put forth here when Wii Sports Resort came out. Wii Sports Resort has very fun bow mechanics, swordplay mechanics, and so on. But all you did was attack a target or Miis with colored sticks. Wouldn’t it be more fun to attack monsters? What if all four players could play, and you would be using the Wii Sports Resort type weapons to slay monsters and all? If you got tired of using one item, you could switch to another. So you could swing your sword and switch to bow and arrow. Or perhaps you could use bombs (via the bowling). Perhaps you were a mage and could reflect shots at you by using the ping pong/ tennis mechanic (think LTTP with Link using his sword to deflect shots back at the enemy). And what if you come to a part in the dungeon where it is filled with water? You bring out the canoe and everyone needs to paddle, paddle. You can see where this is going.
I find the idea of a four player game where people work together to go through a dungeon to be highly appealing. In a way, Mario 5 had this effect where people would get together to go through a level. It’s a crying shame these great motion control mechanics are used on nothing more than just attacking sitting targets at Wuhu Island.
I think the Miis look fantastic with swords and shields. The monsters look cute too. They have the theme all there!
The ‘game’, itself, looks atrocious. What type of game is this? You are supposed to just walk around, in real life, and do nothing in order to get through the dungeon? Where’s the gameplay? Where’s the beef?
I really dislike it how Nintendo is trying to create an ‘experience’ (such as ‘surprise’) without any gameplay. Good games are when the game creates experiences. Bad games are when experiences create the game. It’s like those games which is all about the graphics but there is no real game there. The ‘experience’ was to make you go ‘wow’ over the graphics. We all hate those games, though they are raved at when they come out.
I expect ‘games’ like this to age like milk, not wine.