Hey malstrom
I’m about 30 minutes removed from the opening blitz of Skyward Sword reviews. It’s become ridiculously hard to parse through shameless fanboy shilling that somehow passes itself off as entertainment journalism, but I did manage to find out enough about the game to turn me off of purchasing it, and probably Zelda games for the forseeable future.
I have no doubt there’s some good qualities to the game, but there’s just so much wrong with what’s apparently been delivered. The MotionPlus specific controls are supposedly just reusing elements of Wii Sports Resort gameplay (Fencing, Sky-Diving, Flying, Bowling specifically mentioned). The bird travel is out of Wind Waker, and even with the enhanced speed, some of these reviewers wish for fast travel. There’s collect-a-thon filler from Twilight Princess, but it’s been combined with Phantom Hourglass style gameplay to add frustration to the tedium. There’s fetch quests out of Wind Waker, even at times where there logically shouldn’t be any. Dungeons can take “hours to get to” and are shorter than in the past, because of taking dungeon elements to the outside. There’s backtracking involved to open up new parts of these outside dungeons. The lower world is just made up of sectioned-off, linear areas instead of a larger connected world.
THERE. ARE. NO. CHICKENS.
I think this franchise has lived off of my unconditional love of OoT long enough. I’ve bought and played 5 Zelda video games since OoT, and all 5 haven’t been close to giving me what I’ve wanted. I’m not even sure I want to play OoT anymore, just so I can preserve the great memories I have of it instead of discovering that the game has aged horribly (this happened to me with Mario 64.)
Metroid lost me with Other M, Zelda’s been losing me for over a decade, and Mario 3D Land reviews haven’t exactly set me on fire for the 3DS. I never really understood the NES/SNES player backlash to the N64 because I loved each of those respective console jumps, but I think I’ve got a handle on it now. There is a positive element, though. At the end of the day, for all the disappointment I feel over this, I’m happy that I’m not spending my money on these games and consoles right away. I’ll save it for something that gives me what I want.
Another satisfied customer.
All you wanted were more games that had the quality and general scope of Ocarina of Time. After all, Ocarina of Time was such a success that you assumed Nintendo would continue this ‘good thing’ going forward.
In my case, it was 2d Mario. Super Mario Brothers was and still probably is the biggest phenomenon ever in video games. Every sequel Nintendo made to Super Mario Brothers was a massive hit. Clones of Super Mario Brothers (such as Sonic the Hedgehog) were very popular in themselves. Donkey Kong Country was a big hit. I assumed that Nintendo would continue the ‘Good Thing’.
During the N64 and Gamecube Eras, people like myself thought Nintendo had bought into the ‘3d fad’ that ‘everything had to be in 3d’ and were trying to make Mario into something he is not. This is why we were so happy at the 2d Mario revival in the Seventh Generation.
But then we saw the truth. Nintendo has a ‘3d Manifest Destiny’ and is determined to remove 2d Mario from existence and try to convert it, and its players, to 3d Mario using any means possible.
“But I am not like you,” says the reader. “I didn’t buy Nintendo consoles because of 2d Mario. Why should I care what you say?”
The reason why you should care is that if Nintendo will turn their back on the 2d Mario crowd, the largest phenomenon ever in video games, they will inevitably turn their back on YOU and the games YOU enjoy.
Look at what happened with Metroid.
Look at what Aonuma has done with Zelda.
Smash Brothers fans should be alarmed. What you think Smash Brothers is will not be what the creator thinks it is. Smash Brothers could turn into an entirely different game. “That’s not possible!” screams a reader. But if it happened with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, it is not just possible but inevitable.
The only Nintendo franchise that seems to be doing it right is Mario Kart. Mario Kart is not trying to turn itself into a puzzle game or a RPG or a game revolving around a ‘story’ or ‘atmosphere’.
Your email proves the point that gamers didn’t leave Nintendo, Nintendo left them. Like yourself, I’m quite happy to no longer spend money on Nintendo products. I can spend money on more enjoyable things like television or movies or PC games.
This is revolution’s end. We have come full circle. As soon as Nintendo realized the revolution would dethrone the game god, they immediately changed directions. But the revolution is still going on. The Nintendo ‘game gods’ are going to be dethroned no matter what.
There will be no 3d kingdom. Why? Because it is those ‘peasant’ customers, not ‘aristocrat’ Nintendo developers, who define the future of video games.
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