For Christmas, Santa brought a 3DS XL to my youngest nephew. As he and his brothers were all DS veterans, I thought there would be more excitement over the device. Instead, it became The Lonely 3DS that sat there unplayed and unloved. I was the only one who did anything with it and that was just curiosity. It’s the first time I’ve had some high quality time with the 3DS XL.
After playing a game of Face Raiders, I declared, “I am never going to play this game again.” Who thought this game was a good idea? You actually have to stand up and wave the 3DS around shooting the ‘heads’ that come around. Yeah, no thanks. And you take pictures of people’s faces so you can shoot them. That is extremely weird and made me very uncomfortable. I tried to show other people it, and they thought it was creepy. All the Augmented Reality on the 3DS was just one big flop. Sony flopped with AR on the PSP, why did Nintendo think their AR would be any different?
What I did like about the 3DS XL was the nice large screen on the top. It looked great. It felt like something I could look at a ton. I was less enthused about the voodoo 3d. It just tires out the eyes more, and I saw it brought nothing to the games. It’s like Nintendo went out of its way to throw in as much ‘flying’ as possible to emphasize ‘OMG, it’s 3d’. It seems manipulative, and it also doesn’t work. The 3d did nothing but tire out my eyes more.
My biggest complaint with the 3DS are the damn controls. If we are going to have region locked hardware, why do I have to deal with buttons designed for small Japanese hands? The slide pad was atrocious. I hate that thing. And the buttons just felt uncomfortable. The handheld itself felt uncomfortable. Laugh all you want, but the original brick Gameboy was comfortable to grip and press buttons. The GBA flip device felt cool too. DS was mixed. But the tiny Japanese buttons are reasons why I will never, ever buy a Nintendo handheld again. I feel like this device is exclusive to Japan and shouldn’t be brought out of there. It doesn’t feel like it was designed for me or anyone I know. Certainly not my nephew who didn’t give a damn about it (despite being a huge DS fan).
The game I played the most was Mario Kart 7. Since I have been playing Mario Kart since Super Mario Kart (and bought that game the day it came out to the laughter of my friends until they played it), I was curious what they would do with this. The kites are stupid and are there only for showing off the Voodoo 3d. I was disappointed with the racing and more disappointed with the battle mode. When can we get the amazing battle mode of Super Mario Kart back? I don’t want every battle mode to have a dozen or so people. Why not offer 1 vs 1? Remember that second SNES track with the water ramps? Yeah, that was it, baby!
Mario Kart 7 doesn’t feel like a game, it feels like a formula. There was no surprise. I got bored. New tracks were dull. The entire game felt dull.
I’m sure Nintendo is trying to analyze why do some things sell and why do some things not sell. Let me help. Games do not sell when they feel like a formula. Movies have this problem too. Nintendo doesn’t respect the market and thinks lazily churning out formula driven games will drive momentum. They are wrong, so wrong.
With Mario Kart 7, I feel that Nintendo absolutely refuses to embrace the idea that Mario Kart DS performed so well was because that game was designed to compete with Super Mario Kart. As you all know, in my universe all video games of the past are competing with the video games of the present. Every Mario Kart is competing against every single one made. ‘Innovation’ and ‘surprise’ are meaningless. The game actually has to be better than prior incarnations. In other words, NSMB 2 having the ‘innovation’ or ‘surprise’ about getting a bunch of coins doesn’t work. What will work is making a better game than the prior 2d Mario games. People buy games, not surprises. Unfortunately, Nintendo thinks surprise and games are the same thing. Woe to us!
Nintendo’s differentiating factor from every other video game has been its quality. It was such a stark contrast in the late 80s of these Japanese games, especially Nintendo games, being heads and tails better than any other video game out there. It is more competitive today. Still, everyone who buys a Nintendo console does so because of the quality of Nintendo games.
I have yet to hear anyone say they bought the Nintendo console because of ‘surprise’ or ‘integrated hardware and software’. It is always the games, always the quality games.
I would like to see Nintendo drop all this silliness of ‘integrated hardware and software’, of ‘surprise’, of all these myths they keep conjuring and just focus on making better games than anyone else. What I’m seeing is that all these myths is giving Nintendo the excuse not to focus on making ‘more perfect’ games. The common example is that the formula game uses the ‘unique addition added to the integrated hardware and software’. Whether or not this is any good doesn’t matter. It is added to it, and Nintendo thinks the game is ‘surprising’ and doesn’t have to compete for quality. Wrong. Simply adding motion controls to Wii games where they didn’t belong was something everyone despised. Throwing in 3d in 3DS games is the same. With the Wii U, there will be ‘Gamepad play’ which absolutely no one will care about because it is not about making a better game.
I believe Nintendo is off on how people consume games. No one wants ‘integrated hardware and software’ for their experiences. That’s not the game. The game console is just a box you buy to get to Mario. Look at books. They have been using the same exact format for thousands of years. A book publisher doesn’t try to add spatulas and say, ‘integrated pages and words’. The story in the book is what is engaging. A book is just a box people buy to get to the story. Music and television do not have ‘integrated hardware and software’. Music remains music and television remains television.
Everything revolves around the games. Not the hardware. Not the operating system. Not the brand. The games.
I look at the Wii U with a tragic sense. It’s such a damn shame that a console launches with a 2d Mario that was half assed, it even feels as if the game was beneath the developers’ time, on a console with Big Ass Scary Controller and Operating System From Hell that seeks to embrace Gamecube sequels. And there are no Virtual Console games to tide people over from the lack of software or lack of good software. I’d feel as if I was taken hostage if I bought a Wii U. And as hostage, I’d be spoon-fed all this junk Nintendo is feeding such as Pikmin 3 (because Nintendo thinks we didn’t reject Pikmin 1 or 2, we’re too stupid to understand it).
I want the old Nintendo back. The Classic Nintendo of the NES and SNES or the Renaissance Nintendo of the DS and Early Wii. I want an inclusive Nintendo again that welcomes gamers such as myself. I feel as if I am not welcome on the Nintendo systems. Last time I felt this was with the N64. And I wasn’t the one that changed.