What was Nintendo's golden decade?

[Cobalt Blue]

Its funny how galaxy tried to work on the path sunshine and 64 built -in a sense of giving the player a sense of exploration and discovery-, yet it feels as linear as its sidescroller cousins. almost as if was an on rails adventure. the desings of teh wordls, while beatiful and attractive, end being completely dull when you realise they're nothing but huge bowls were you're forced to move though an specifically and unnavoidable path, with almost minor elements left to the player to hang around and explore.

I, in all honestly, ceased to give a shit about nintendo as a developer for the last 10 or so years. they have proven themselves to be completely useless when it comes to fresh ideas that doesnt involve you acting like a starving puppy when miyamoto speaks some poor engrish on the E3's stage, anouncing the next Mario.

[Davy Jones]

Oh, the linearity didn't bug me about Galaxy.

More the inconsistent music, it would have been better without the cling-clong tracks and more with just these atmospheric music.
The characters... uh, Bowser could have been more intimidating and I think the dialogues for him were better in 64 than in Galaxy. The rest of the crew just lacks humour and Luigi is a jerk.

Also didn't like the chaos comets, they just felt like stretching the game.

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

Im not sure im even interested in modern games

older games have so much more creativity and soul in them

oh okay, you're one of those, great.

Implying his opinion is based solely on nostalgia, lol

your opinion is based solely on nostalgia. "creativity and soul" are timeless, never to be bound to a particular "GEN". saying otherwise is basing yourself purely in your childhood experience when you were basically, a way more naive kid with way less games under your belt.

however, problem arises when the developer doesnt even try to innovate or explore new characters, mainly because they sell games purely based on the title they bear(IE, kirby epic yarn).

it's not anytime someone mentions an old game, it's anytime someone mentions that X Generation was better than X Generation because of Soul and Creativity
i have no problem with old games, Castlevania III is a great game and one of my favorites, but there are still New Games with tons of heart and creativity in them, like God Hand, or Okami, I could keep pointlessly namedropping but the list goes on and on. Part of the reason it doesn't seem like there is though, is because Videogame is very much a culture of immediate death:
When a title releases, that's it. We play it, and discard it. We are done thinking about it, unless it becomes some hallowed treasure or something. You don't see interviews with developers of smaller games after they released like they used to, we don't compare B and C grade games against A list titles. We compare Halo against Halo, and we patiently stop thinking about Halo after it comes out and before the next one is released; that's it, it's over and done with.

[Kriven]

I think one of the biggest factors in the "soulless" department is 3D. It's a lot more difficult to convey some feeling of artistry in an environment that is increasingly pushed to emulate the world as it exists.

[Phaze]

I primarily grew up with Decade 1 but fuck it, Decade 2 really defined things for me. It's where I got my name! (I was once known as Phazon addict )

There's just too much amazement going on in 2. Fuck, TTYD in its own category would probably get me to pick that one.

[Koopaul]

We need the next Pikmin. Since Pikmin, all new IPs were Nintendogs and Miis, that's not very creative is it? While Kriven has a point, if they were focusing on creating new interesting games in the first place (new IPs!!!! I hate throwing this word around, but really) and not re-using old characters, we would have more interesting things.

I still don't think you get it. To Nintendo, new IP's does not mean new game ideas. They don't create a new IP if they think an already existing character would fit just as well. Like Kirby in Epic Yarn. Or Mario for the Kart games.

To them it's like "who the fuck cares if it's Mario or someone else" it's about what you are doing in the game, not who you are playing as.

When they make these games their motto is: "Look what you can do!" and not "Look who you're playing as!"

That's why creating new IP's is the least of their worries. And honestly... from a game making point of view IPs really don't mean a thing to gameplay!

It didn't matter if Epic Yarn was Kirby or some original character. The game would have played exactly the same.

Like I said , gameplay mechanics first, characters second. Atleast for Nintendo.

Its funny how galaxy tried to work on the path sunshine and 64 built -in a sense of giving the player a sense of exploration and discovery-, yet it feels as linear as its sidescroller cousins. almost as if was an on rails adventure. the desings of teh wordls, while beatiful and attractive, end being completely dull when you realise they're nothing but huge bowls were you're forced to move though an specifically and unnavoidable path, with almost minor elements left to the player to hang around and explore.

Nintendo is doing this on purpose. They aren't being less creative for lack of exploration, they just DON'T want exploration.

I've been reading interviews and found out that in Japan linear games are king. Any freedom of exploration just confuses and frustrates them. It has to do with their culture.

In the West we have an Individualist mindset. This reflects much in our media and games, allowing us to set our own path and destiny. In Japan people generally have a Collectivist mindset. They want to follow the path set out before them that pleases others.

In Japan for a long time Zelda hasn't been that popular while it's a HUGE hit in the West. So they've been working hard to streamline Zelda (as evident in Skyward Sword) to please their Japanese crowd.

So yeah just because they aren't making games YOU like doesn't mean they are bad game makers. They are trying to make games that please everyone.

The problem is... they can't. Everyone has different tastes. For the longest time they have been trying to unite the casual audience with their core audience. That's what they have been doing for the past few years. While you may interpret it as them losing their creativity, these are all conscience decisions on their part.

[Mutsukki]

And like I said, I think that's bullshit and totally playing on the safe side. People sometimes get bored of Mario everywhere, they want they concepts, new worlds to explore. If Nintendo can't put these out anymore like they used to, so yeah, I say they lost a part of their creativity. How come what you play at doesn't matter? If Pikmin was a big Mario throwing a bunch of tiny Mario at some giant goomba, would that really be intersting? No. Epic Yarn (as one of the most recent examples) can get away with it because Kirby is in almost anything and fit the cute style, but maybe a new IP would have been something more fresh?

How can you say that from a game making point of view it doesn't matter? Videogames aren't just gameplay anymore, that's for Atari, even in NES some immersion was required. You can lay out a game and just put characters later, but that's always (supposed to be) a well thought process on how the characters and the game co-relate, not some thing about not caring about characterization. Characterization, immersion and "soul" are really just as important as gameplay.


Now, onto your Galaxy argument. I sure hope that wasn't on purpose, because then they've been shitting on us about Super Mario 3D Land being about taking the linearity of the 2D games into a 3D world for the first time. I actually think Galaxy do have it's fair amount of exploration, but it's nowhere near 64 and Sunshine, and that's not a good thing at all (by the way I love Galaxy 1 and 2, it's one of my favorite games ever, just so you know). They can still make 2D games linear, or even do hybrids like they did, but 3D games should focus on something different, otherwise it's all streamlined and feel the same. I don't think that's what they're striving for at all.

Skyward Sword is a mess. I like the game, but it seriously is. It shows every bad habit Nintendo had aquired during these last years and put it on a game. To annoying in-your-face messages about what do to and what's happening, to the most linear Zelda ever. What you said about Japan and West make zero sense. Japan is a big fan of open world games. Otherwise MMORPGs wouldn't be so popular there, or really, RPGs in a whole. Your argument falls all over the place when you realize Monster Hunter is one of the huggest franchises ever there, and it's nothing but the opposite of linear.

By the way, Japan loves Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker (among..all others), so I don't get where the series isn't popular there. Skyward Sword took the Final Fantasy XIII route, and the Japanese crowd hated that. They hated that their huge world to explore had been dumbed down to a single line moving forward, so that they could please new and casual players.

I'm a huge Nintendo nerd like you wouldn't believe and I'm still buying their games, but I try to be real here and while Nintendo isn't all that bad like Capcom, EA and Activision have been, they sure aren't going on a good path nowadays and I'm pretty sure most things they do (at least Mario and Zelda, which they handle directly) will become stale before long.

[Kriven]

You can be linear and still be fun. Y'know, like SMB-SMB3.

So it isn't the linearity that's making the shit so boring. I honestly prefer a more enclosed gamespace over these massive, confusing worlds to run around in, and I'm still having trouble with a lot of recent games keeping my attention or being very fun.

Although Return to Dreamland looks pretty gooooooddddd~

[Koopaul]

I'm just saying what I've read Nintendo say. This is not what I personally think. This is what they think. Everything I said came from me reading interviews...

The way Skyward Sword was, is a conscious decision:

Aonuma requested that the system you use to choose the field you're adventuring in be simple, streamlined, and compact.

With this Zelda, we went back to the fundamentals. We thought about what sort of gameplay we really wanted to make. There were all these new features we wanted to implement, of course, but instead of shoehorning all of them in, we were looking for that solid core we needed in order to evolve the gameplay of Zelda.

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=166935

On trying to make Zelda a more approachable series for everyone:

"What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?” So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it.

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=178813

On ignoring what the fan's want:

I'll let Kondo-san talk about the music afterwards but from my perspective, and I feel kind of bad saying this, but I generally don't try to take into account the players expectations of what they want from a Zelda game when making a new one.

The reason for that is… players don't necessarily know what they want - we need to be able to surprise them.

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=166105

On how they decide series:

To put it in an extreme way, the ideal for me is to build the play structure up to a certain point, then decide whether to make it Zelda or Mario. It's like building up the engine and chassis, then deciding later what sort of car you want to use it on.

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=166441



This is not to say all people at Nintendo want to make games like this. Koizumi has the exact opposite approach. He is actually the "soul" of most of your favorite games. Without him, there wouldn't be a story in Zelda!

Read this interview:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/12/interview-super/
It's very interesting and let's you know how much of the design process works over there, and how this guy wants to add some art to these games... And Miyamoto doesn't like that.

[Mutsukki]

@Koopaul: I fail to see how this disprove any of the points I made. In fact, it just reinforces them. They're playing it safe, now directed at the casuals. I hate this term, but it's true. Games are games, ok, but when we get dumbed down versions, I think it's pretty obvious what's happening. While what they said about not listening to fans has some truth into it, it seems like a barrier for their mistakes too.

You can be linear and still be fun. Y'know, like SMB-SMB3.

I know, I mentioned how these games can still be linear and it's fine.

However 3D Mario games and Zelda always had that focus on exploration. It makes no sense to take that aspect out as we progress on it.

[Cobalt Blue]

You can be linear and still be fun. Y'know, like SMB-SMB3.

its funny because of all things, smb3 is not linear.

[Iceman404]

Meta, we're not talking about World Maps here, compared to something like Sonic 3, yes 2D Mario games are extremely linear.


Oh, that'd be pretty interesting to see a 2D Mario game with actual path based layouts like classic Sonic games.

[Kriven]

You can be linear and still be fun. Y'know, like SMB-SMB3.

I know, I mentioned how these games can still be linear and it's fine.

However 3D Mario games and Zelda always had that focus on exploration. It makes no sense to take that aspect out as we progress on it.

I think my post was actually more in response to Koopaul blaming Japan for "boring linearity."

Sorry I wasn't clear, it was pretty late.

[Cobalt Blue]

Meta, we're not talking about World Maps here, compared to something like Sonic 3, yes 2D Mario games are extremely linear.


Oh, that'd be pretty interesting to see a 2D Mario game with actual path based layouts like classic Sonic games.

but smb3 later levels arent linear. specially some cave-based ones. the warp pipes and note blocks provide quite a decent amount of optional paths inside a course, let alone the secret spots in some stages.

even smb2 and smb do have their share of optional paths in some stages-

[Kriven]

They're still linear by today's standards, which are increasingly sandbox.