Funny you should mention that you’d like to see a 2D Mario with the effort and budget of a 3D Mario, because I feel that DKCR is a 2D platformer with the effort and budget of a Metroid Prime game put into it. I understand that you’re not a fan of DKCR’s controls or some of its design decisions, and I definitely have some big gripes of my own. But when I play DKCR, I can feel that the developers really wanted to make this happen and put in 110% of their effort, which is a vibe I feel is missing from NSMB Wii. I love the sheer variety and non-generic feeling of DKCR’s worlds, and how it all comes together as a fun cohesive adventure. NSMB Wii has better mechanics and more polished level designs, but there’s also a sterile feeling I get from it that makes me think the developers were more interested in mechanics than the feeling of adventure. DKCR was a more satisfying adventure for me despite its big obvious problems.
I get the sterile feeling from all of Nintendo’s games (except Mario Kart). Mario Kart feels more like an adventure than Nintendo’s adventure games and that is saying something.
Zelda, beyond anything, feels entirely sterile. I don’t think Aonuma has ever read a fantasy novel.
Ever since the introduction of Peach’s Castle in Mario 64, the entire Mario franchise has been sterile. This is a big problem because the content of the Mushroom Kingdom, established by Super Mario Brothers 1,2,3, and 4 have been a type of ‘Mushroom Land Capital’ used by all these other spin-offs from sports games, racing games, and RPG games.
Unless the ‘Mushroom Land Capital’ is replenished with new content, the entire Mario Franchise will suffer from sterility and will only sell to children (who haven’t seen prior titles). With how much mileage Nintendo gets out of Mushroom Land, I’m amazed how Nintendo never thinks of establishing and exploring it more.
One thing with Mario 5 is that it was four player multiplayer. This was very hard to do. Nintendo had to totally redo levels and had constant testing just to put in four player multiplayer.
With the Wii U Mario game, Super Mario Mii, what we find instead is the addition of Miis. This is the easiest thing Nintendo could have done. To put into context, when Twilight Princess was finished, the Zelda team relaxed by throwing in Miis into Hyrule. Super Mario Mii is clearly a game Miyamoto does not want to make. And Super Mario Brothers is the most important game series to Nintendo. Right now, the series is still highly revered. Should Nintendo ruin it by making bad 2d Mario games, the result will be like breaking Nintendo’s spine. There is no evidence to say that Nintendo can exist as a console company without 2d Mario. If Nintendo’s market were a tent, 2d Mario would be the center pole that holds everything up. I say take the Mario and Zelda series away from Miyamoto before it is too late, before he destroys both these series to such an extent they cannot come back.
Ever since the N64, there has been two species of Nintendo fans. What we consider the ‘Nintendo fan’ is the N64 fan who thinks Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are the greatest video games of all time (which reveals how little their video game experience is). These fans also like the Gamecube direction of gaming. These Nintendo fans tend to be far younger. Essentially, they grew up with the N64 and Gamecube.
But what about those Nintendo customers who disappeared? Where did they go since they didn’t go to a competitor? They are the Lost Generation. They didn’t leave Nintendo, Nintendo left them. From their perspective, Nintendo stopped making Mario and Zelda. And the controllers and 3d obsession pushed them away.
It is impossible to measure non-sales. People weren’t aware of it, but this Lost Generation has been hanging back and awaiting for Nintendo to come to their senses from their N64 philosophy of gaming. The DS and, especially the Wii, were seen to the Lost Generation as ‘Nintendo returning to their sense’. Wii wasn’t a ‘new’ gaming experience so much as a ‘true’ gaming experience. The Wii did not rely on computer trickery like ‘better graphics’ in order to fool people the games were better.
The DS and Wii sales explosion cannot all be explained by ‘brand new gamers’. Why would Wii sell the most of any game console ever in a month with the release of Super Mario Brothers 5 despite being on the market for three years (and being the best selling home console game in Japan in fifteen years)? Notice that DS sales exploded in America at the same exact time NSMB DS came out. Without a doubt, that Lost Generation came back.
The Lost Generation came back because they thought Nintendo was returning to what gaming actually is. New 2d Mario was proof that Nintendo wasn’t all talk. People bought the DS and Wii not only to get the 2d Mario but to get other games that shared its view of gaming. One of the big stories about the Wii is how despite its sales success, Nintendo core games did not see this success. 3d Mario did not become mainstream. Aonuma Zelda did not become mainstream. But games like Mario Kart shot up because Mario Kart follows a more ‘arcade’ model of gaming.
The handheld philosophy of gaming is actually the arcade model of gaming (pick up and play). Nintendo never had a problem with handhelds until the 3DS when they decided to change the philosophy of gaming. 3DS gaming experience is more like the N64 and Virtual Boy than it is about the DS and Gameboy.
The Lost Generation (i.e. Nintendo’s actual Core Market) will always have the advantage over the newer Nintendo fans formed in the N64 Era because their type of gaming is what creates new gamers, the machine that turns disinterest into interest or lead into gold. The ‘3d Gaming is Wonderful’ model of gaming has complex controllers and bloated games that makes it difficult to create new gamers.
But lately, I’ve been realizing that Nintendo doesn’t really have a philosophy of gaming. Their software developers are stuck in a psychosis. The reason why I say this is because more and more ‘N64 fans’ want to join the Lost Generation Club.
Ocarina of Time fans are realizing that Nintendo has absolutely no interest in making a game as wonderful as Ocarina. They have been waiting for thirteen years, and they keep seeing the Zelda series decline.
Smash Brothers fans are realizing that Nintendo doesn’t want to make a better Smash Brothers game. They realized something was wrong when Brawl came out. Instead of building off Melee, Brawl was more about things Smash Brothers fans did not care about like ‘single player story’ and ‘RPG stickers’. They are not happy at all to hear the plans for Smash Brothers Wii U to be something other than the craftsmanship that defined the game like in Melee.
Even Mario 64 fans are annoyed at where Nintendo is taking 3d Mario. Mario Galaxy was very linear, even went into 2d platforming mode for no reason. And Super Mario 3d Land is annoying them with its sterile atmosphere and abandonment of what they liked in Mario 64 (like the roaming around the castle garden).
The N64 fans might have hated old Malstrom and said, “But gaming has evolved.” If Nintendo can abandon the Super Mario Brothers crowd, the biggest crowd of any video game and the biggest gaming phenomenon ever, they can, and they will, abandon you. It is inevitable.
What is animating Nintendo isn’t a ‘hardware/software synergy’ but a ‘creativity/technology synergy’. They believe if they combine their AMAZING creativity with ‘new technology’, they make wonders. And this isn’t the case.
Nintendo did not rise because of combination of creativity with ‘new technology’. Nintendo rose because of craftsmanship that was alien to the West but part of Japanese culture just like many other Japanese industries in the 80s that have no relation to video games (like Toyota). Before Super Mario Brothers, we were playing Pitfall. Before Legend of Zelda, we were playing Gauntlet. Before Metroid, we were playing Montezuma’s Revenge. Nintendo did not become popular because it introduced anything new.
Creativity and Technology do not have any factor in video games. When we look at the video game failures, we see games with ‘high creativity’ and we see consoles boasting about their ‘technology’.
There is a correlation that people are willing to buy a new generation of machines when they have new graphics (ex: 8-bit to 16-bit). But is the cause of this due to technology? The winning game console of every generation has always been the technologically inferior console.
“What other answer could it be?” asks the reader.
Craftsmanship. The graphics of 16-bit going from 8-bit isn’t a demonstration of technology but a demonstration of craftsmanship. If it is true that craftsmanship is the true mover of video games, then we would be seeing new generations boast ‘better’ graphics and all the other things. A video game today requires far more art craftmanship than a video game in the 80s with its pixelated form (that the programmers drew and we all know programmers can’t draw).
As computer technology advanced, it allowed more craftsmanship in gaming. It would be a mistake to mistake this correlation to mean video games follow technological advances.
Motion controls are a ‘new’ type of technology for gaming. Yet, no one is benefiting from motion controls except for games like Wii Sports. Not even the third party clones. Why?
Wii Sports is a very well crafted game. It uses motion controls extremely well, better than almost any other motion control game. The evidence points to craftsmanship, not technology, as being the mover for games.
Technology allows greater craftsmanship possibility, but let us not reverse the horse and the cart.
Gamers, what do you want from your games?
Technology? No.
Creativity? No.
Craftsmanship? Yes.
The current that runs through every video game, from fitness simulators to role playing adventures, is a demand for high craftsmanship.
Nintendo gaming, and Japanese gaming, were so popular because of the high craftsmanship of their games. Today, the collapse of Japanese gaming is caused by a dogma that creativity and technology drive video games and not craftsmanship.
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