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Nintendo has been making the same games since the 80s

I would totally welcome something gritty and narrative from Nintendo because I think they have a flair like few other developers.

With Retro not doing Metroid, maybe they could do something like this.
 
Agree OP, if you don't have any nostalgia factor (which I don't since I was a pc gamer when Nintendo was most relevant) then their stable of games have little draw to me

Personally Nintendo should just go 3rd party and concentrate on mobile and family friendly games. It wouldn't change their focus from what it is now but would provide them access to a larger audience.

Are you aware what Nintendo games are, or are you just here to tell us that you don't care in the first place?
 
Those complain are so much annoying for me. Seriously, we already HAVE The Witcher 3, it exists ! We have Dark Souls, we have game like that and others. We have AAA from Ubi Soft, we have deep story driven game from other studios. We have all that already. But only Nintendo and indies make the kind of game you reproach from Nintendo. You said you want game for everyone but that will only make less game diversity. Let Nintendo be Nintendo and wait for other company for other stuff. The title is actually very bad too as it doesn't represent the same points as the message from the OT.

Xenoblade IS a Nintendo Game, Project Zero and Famicom Detective Club too. Earthbound and Mother more than ever. We could even say that stuff like Bayonetta 2, Sin & Punishment or Another Code was heavily under the surveillance of Nintendo. Did you know that Super Paper Mario actually have a very strong narrative ? Fire Emblem exist and Mirage Session Tokyo is not exactly a children game and is made by a collaboration between Nintendo and other studios.

Yes, this company isn't specialized in the kind of game you describe but they actually make a lot of different type of game and no, i don't want them to do The Witcher 3. I want them to do what they want to do and i will like or hate it case by case. And no, they defintly do all kind of game, just not the one you want. You can say you don't like all their offering but saying it's always the same kind of game is not looking farther than Mario & Zelda for me.
 
I think its timw for mario to mature
Here are some sketches with some amazing Ideas

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I can't wait for Five Nights at Mario's.
 
They really haven't. So much so that some of their franchises have suffered in quality in recent years because of how far they've diverged from their older work.

Paper Mario Sticker Star... Zelda Skyward Sword.... Both games that completely threw away what made the series great in their original iteration (PM on 64, LoZ on NES).
 
I went through a period of time where I felt like video games had to be narrative focused to really be taken seriously. I realize now how wrong I was. I don't watch TV or movies (except for a few exceptions) and I just don't have much desire to see a story in video game form, either. What I value the most out of video games is the fun of playing them and so these days I tend to focus on Nintendo games, the huge variety of roguelikes out there, or any type of game where I can just play for a bit and not have to follow along with any kind of story.

I love the Souls series of games and I know they have some lore, but it's fairly hidden and I'm not having to watch cut scenes to follow along with some story, but can instead read it at my leisure if I desire. The main focus of those games for me is the exploration and stellar combat system.

That's not to say that I won't play a narrative-focused game, but there has to be a great playing game there. It's why I haven't been able to force myself to finish The Witcher 3. The combat is not very fun and the main draw is the story, but I just have no desire to follow it to its conclusion. However, I will play a game like Uncharted because I like the exploration/shooting first and enjoy the narrative second.

I'm enjoying the new Hitman because it's fun to figure out how to get your assassination done in different ways, not because I want to see any kind of story (what little there is).

So, for me, I want Nintendo to keep on doing what they do best...make games that are fun to play.

Edit to add my age, which is 43, in case that gives any kind of context to my opinions. I've seen the industry evolve from its very beginnings to where it is today and I've seen games change a great deal over that time. That doesn't give any weight to my opinion (it's just an opinion), but I've played games from the time they were basically only about gameplay and maybe that just colors what I like best. I did spend a great deal of time playing narrative focused games thinking this was the way games should best be done, but I think I'm over that now.
 
I agree with the sentiments of Nintendo embracing more new IPs, and hopefully Splatoon helped show them that they shouldn't be hesitant to throw their bigger teams to such projects, but I don't see any reason why they should go out of their way to apply AAA narratives to a majority of their existing IPs.

There are exceptions though. I feel that Zelda can benefit from improved writing and world design, which hopefully they're in the process of with the latest one. Super Paper Mario in particular had some excellent writing, which made the regression to Sticker Star's story so lackluster to me.

Nintendo can definitely improve in these regards, but their platformers (Mario, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart)? They're fine as is with their game-play oriented focus.

Apologies for the shirts formatting; this was typed from my phone.
I think its timw for mario to mature
Here are some sketches with some amazing Ideas

Please like and subscribe if you agree
Bl4d3 Ma5t3r
i cry everytiem
 
Op you're high. Sorry but no. Nintendo games are not your Sony, Microsoft or PC games. Entirely different animal. They're doing just fine as they are.
 
I think its timw for mario to mature
Here are some sketches with some amazing Ideas

qoqkPih.jpg

Kp8le7K.jpg


Please like and subscribe if you agree
There's a lot more to Mario games than just their character designs, and some of these ideas would probably better serve a Zelda game than a Mario one.

Like some others said the last one is kind of cool but what purpose would bullets serve in a Mario game? Even in a Zelda game the design wouldn't quite work. Maybe StarFox tho?
 
We're talking about gameplay, not level design

It's a disingenuous to disregard levels design when talking about a platformer since the platforming has everything do with navigation and getting to the goal of the level itself.

A platformer lives or dies entirely on the basis on the quality of the levels to carry the platforming experience. Shit levels usually always translates to shit gameplay, especially so for a platformer.
 
I think people often mistake nintendo not bucking to market trends in an obvious way and keeping their franchises similar to how they've always been as "making the same game." sure they have generally more old school design elements in their games but that's kind of what makes it great.

Also pls explain how games like splatoon and animal crossing could have worked on NES lol
 
I don't like Nintendo games in general but I don't agree with the OP: we don't need more games that are pretty much the same every other company does.

And no, I don't think we need a Souls-like The Legend of Zelda.
 
The witcher 3 is a good example of how a game shouldn't be.

Glad not Nintendo isn't going in that kind of trend. Oh man what if they did, it would be a disaster :)

Witcher 3 is about watching a movie instead of playing a game. It's 9/10 scenes and 1/10 gameplay. A story adventure should happens while you play, not by watching movies.
Still it's a good game-movie


Nintendo is really innovative with their games. Mario Galaxy is one good example. Glad that we have them to set new good trends where gameplay is still at the first place.

Thread should rather be, how much games still is still about gameplay, instead of storytelling.
 
The witcher 3 is a good example of how a game shouldn't be.

Glad not Nintendo isn't going in that kind of trend. Oh man what if they did, it would be a disaster :)

Witcher 3 is about watching a movie instead of playing a game. It's 9/10 scenes and 1/10 gameplay. A story adventure should happens while you play, not by watching movies.
Still it's a good game-movie


Nintendo is really innovative with their games. Mario Galaxy is one good example. Glad that we have them to set new good trends where gameplay is still at the first place.

Thread should rather be, how much games still is still about gameplay, instead of storytelling.

I really doubt you played Witcher 3
 
I really doubt you played Witcher 3

Yeah I'm doubtful of it as well. There is a solid 100+ hours of gameplay content in The Witcher 3 that isn't narrative focused.

To say that The Witcher 3 has more narrative than gameplay portion is gross misrepresentation of the game and the actual gameplay available in terms of locations to discover, dungeons to explore, and quests to complete.

It's akin to saying Xenoblade has 1:10 ratio from it's gameplay to story content which also had a narrative focus. Which is an equally unfair exaggeration to make.
 
Zelda started of very western and got more japanese over the years. Its rooted in both cultures.


Citation needed for Monolith.

Zelda has never had copy/pastey environments. Every object is placed with care in the original TLoZ. It's a hand-crafted game where every tree, rock and bush has a gameplay meaning behind its placement. Again, non-linearity or freedom have nothing to do with being western. It's the idea of having generic landscapes that are nothing more than eye candy.

This is not the case in GTA, Fallout, Witcher or No Man's Sky. It's a western mentality thing to think bigger = better, and in order to make the world vast you have to compromise the quality of gameplay because it's not logistically feasible to fill all that space with various gameplay elements of substance, that's why they are all repetitive in nature.

Final Fantasy games and dungeon crawlers are also generic. In FF most dungeons consist of mazes with no actual puzzles, they lack substantial gameplay. Golden Sun is a counter example because at every turn you have to think about how to interact with the environment to progress or find secrets, whether it's by using psynergy to blow leaves covering up a door, noticing some sort of symmetry or pattern in the environment which hints at the puzzle solution, platforming, rolling log puzzles, or climbing vines; actual gameplay in other words.

If you want a GTA-like open world game that is dense with hand-crafted content, play Lego City Undercover. Yes the gameplay itself is on the simple side (Lego game after all), but in concept it's much better than any AAA open world title because the world is fairly small and segmented, I had a blast finding all collectibles and solving all puzzles because there's meaning behind them. GTA used to be like that, finding packages in the older games was fun because they were carefully placed in clever locations. Now, it feels like some algorithm did that work.
 
The closest we get to that is the Fire Emblem and Metroid series. Nintendo just isn't about that. They aren't going to make really serious and mature games.

I feel like we've been transported back to the n64/GameCube/Nintendo is kiddy days.
 
Just like that other thread about having darker Mario games. Classic GAF thread.

I don't remember the thread title or GAF user, but every time I see his kid avatar with the god of war marks, I think of that thread immediately.
 
As the saying goes... Mario has the deepest lore... Lol.

But seriously, I appreciate that Nintendo makes their games light on story and heavy on gameplay/controls/mechanics. I respectfully disagree with OP. I don't have a Nintendo system to play Uncharted or Witcher.
 
Even disregarding The Division, Destiny, why can't we have games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, The last of us, with Nintendo's genius puzzle and gameplay design and a more western appealing coat of paint? It's not as if it's beyond their capabilities, but they just don't seem interested in trying.

I can respect this, now you have reworded it slightly. You used the term 'a more western appealing coat of paint' and that's what my problem was before. Now I understand what you mean.

They have tried during the GC era when even Mario Sunshine had a basic plot coupled with voice acting speaking actual english. We had F-Zero, 1080, Star Fox, Metroid, Geist, Eternal Darkness, etc. but it didn't work.

Now I'm perfectly happy with Nintendo's Japan/Nintend fan centric output, but Nintendo needs more than people like me, you and the Nintendo enthusiasts on the internet to survive as a hardware manufacturer. And if 'bowing' to the pressure of market trends is how to do it, then so be it. It won't stop them from making Mario, Zelda et al.

Of course, but I don't want a Zelda with an open world and mature tones (OoT, MM, TP), I prefer cutesy puzzelda (Skyward Sword) which means having things like the cute and charming sounds bokoblins make when they fall and how you see them struggle to balance on the ropes to get to you.

I'm ok with the more epic tone of Mario Galaxy, but if Nintendo wants the AAA multiplat gamer then it has to be a SM64 style adventure and I'm firmly in the colorful obstacle course camp with environments made up of basic geometric shapes (cubes, rectangles, triangles)

As evidenced by the Wii U, that niche isn't enough to sustain healthy hardware sales. When will people begin to understand this? OP's post is the embodiment of the predicament Nintendo is in right now, and they don't seem to have any desire to address it.

Nintendo is targeting a different audience with NX I think, this current gen they have actually taken steps closer to mobile type games than AAA multiplatform gaming. I mean MyNintendo is supposed to be central to the NX experience, yet it's riddled with Mii's, cute animations and very simplistic interfaces. It's pretty clear what's happening here. Think more Angry Birds, less Uncharted.
 
So you basically want Nintendo to be dark and mature like everyone else. No.

"Mature", I've played quite a few Nintendo games that carry themselves with much more maturity than many other games on the market. Even Mario Galaxy in all its whimsy, does not neglect Rosalina's Storybook, which is a powerful and bittersweet coming of age story but does not feel out of place within the atmosphere of the game.
 
I think its timw for mario to mature
Here are some sketches with some amazing Ideas

Please like and subscribe if you agree

That thread by beast is ingrained in my head. I will never forget it for the rest of my life :P

With Wii-Cafe, is it time for Mario and classic Nintendo franchise to evolve?

People used to argue that dated hardware held back Nintendo from "evolving". I was right back then in thinking Nintendo would go even deeper in the family-friendly, colorful and cutesy direction, despite improved hardware, proving once and for all that Galaxy wasn't linear due to weak hardware and all that nonsense. Everything they did was a design preference.

What Nintendo need to do is developer stronger relationships with companies to fill the gaps in their software library, not overhaul the talent they have.

This poster gets it. That's why we have Bayonetta and Xenoblade, they fulfill that role. EAD should focus on their strengths.
 
It's funny how every time this thread pops up, OP has to come up with multiple rules and exceptions in order for the point to be proven.

"This, this, and that don't count because REASONS"
 
"Mature", I've played quite a few Nintendo games that carry themselves with much more maturity than many other games on the market. Even Mario Galaxy in all its whimsy, does not neglect Rosalina's Storybook, which is a powerful and bittersweet coming of age story but does not feel out of place within the atmosphere of the game.

Which is a type of storytelling they've completely dumped from their Mario games. It seems like Koizumi is the only one allowed or able to write stuff like this and Majoras Mask at Nintendo.
 
I die a little everytime someone asks for "deep narration". If you can't see a deep narration in a game like Super Mario Bros, you litterally don't know what videogames are about.
Videogames have a different language tham movies, tv, comics and such. Videogames "talk" though gameplay. The message bheind the iteration between game and player it's something that worlds can't describe. If you don't understand "it" by playing, then you freaking need to look ror another hobby.
Too bad many people are actually seeking to see movies in their videogames. That shit sells. It's either brainless online multiplayers or tv-drama games.
 
Lets dillute all shades of colors until everything is uniform, same color of brown goo, because thats what i like and think everyone should agree.

Wtf is this thread? We need nintendo's uniqueness more than ever in this cesspool of AAA copycats.
 
i think Nintendo is more mature in their approach to gaming. Mario Maker lets you make levels w other players. SSB and SM3DW both have emphasized local co-op. the widespread adoption of Wii by a mass market and crazy things like people's grandparents buying a Wii for parties. all of it points to a wider adoption, a (yes, gasp, casual!) wider audience.

i think more and more people will get into gaming in the future, so i think this is the future of gaming, co-op, multiplayer, new ways of interaction. Nintendo is there. getting into narrative-heavy cinematic single-player experiences almost seems like a step backwards in time.
 
Well first of all, Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 aren't new IPs since they have a 3 and 4 in their titles. Fallout in particular has been around since the 90s.

Second, Nintendo has done a ton of what you asked since the 80s. Off the top of my head, they have made these new IPs. Keep in mind I'm mostly sticking to major ones, and probably will miss minor ones such as Style Savvy.

Animal Crossing
Pikmin
Sin & Punishment
Splatoon
Warioware (Wario technically wasn't new, but Warioware is basically a new IP)
Brain Age
Wii Sports/Miis in general

They have also done plenty of new directions with their older franchises, many turning out well, and some not so good. The Metroid Prime Trilogy, Kid Icarus Uprising, Mario 3D Land/World, Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy, Captain Toad, Super Smash Bros., and Pokken Tournament are all examples of taking their IPs in new directions turning out well.

I don't know if you consider this worth bringing up, but they have also invested a lot in third party franchises and even had crossovers with them. Examples include Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Bayonetta (this one was particularly unexpected), and others.

Nintendo has done plenty of stuff different from the 80s, you just aren't looking for it.
 
This is like saying that all first person shooters are still just DOOM and all racing games are still just Pole Position, but with a slight decoration change.

No, they have not been making the same games since the 80s. Not in any way.

And I for one love Nintendo for not trying to hide weak gameplay and/or controls behind a foolish story that even in the best scenario still is like a kids story compared to a real book. With Nintendo it's all about gameplay, controls and challenge, and I love them for it, even a simplistic kid friendly title as Captain Toad hides a real gem inside when it comes to varied gameplay and challenge.
 
My .02 cents. Nintendo wouldn't need to do this if they got more third party support. As is they don't have much variety on their systems when they are the main supplier and they don't make a variety of games. It's exactly why I have absolutely no interest in a Nintendo system. I'm not interested in the kind of games they make and they haven't been well supported by third parties in a while.

I think though as long as they keep the systems cheap enough to be considered a second system they can get away with it cause those that really like their kind of games probably don't mind spending a little extra to play them. But unless that's the only kind of game you like, you probably want another system to play other stuff (otherwords I agree with OP that they tend to keep making the same type games and don't branch out much).

There is something to be said that they can only focus on so much so one could argue it makes sense for them to focus on the kind of game they do well and know how to make. But then they either need to realize they can't make too expensive of a system so that people can buy them along with another system for their other gaming wants or they need to work really really hard to get third parties to come back and be able to compete with Sony and MS (I think having Nintendo games would give them an edge cause a lot of people do like their games and I woudl bet they have a stronger following for their first party than either Sony or MS).
 
Nintendo is going to remain Nintendo. Their approach to games is what separates them from the competition and they know it.

They know who their audience is for every IP they own and they're not going to change their approach, ever.

If it's narrative driven RPGs that you're looking for then you know where else to look.

The great thing about today is that there are options, the ones you want just may not lie with Nintendo.
 
Nintendo is going to remain Nintendo. Their approach to games is what separates them from the competition and they know it.

They know who their audience is for every IP they own and they're not going to change their approach, ever.

If it's narrative driven RPGs that you're looking for then you know where else to look.

The great thing about today is that there are options, the ones you want just may not lie with Nintendo.

Nintendo makes story driven RPGs. Funny how that works.
 
This is similar to the argument that Nintendo should just license out their characters and become a third-party developer. Both would mean Nintendo would cease being Nintendo, and become another Ubisoft or Activision, making boring, uninteresting shit that is like everything else on the market. One of the reasons I like Nintendo so much is that they don't do that, and instead make the kind of games they're good at making. If you want darker Nintendo games, fine, but asking them to completely change their business model is insane. Would you want Microsoft to sell Halo and go third-party just because they're losing to Sony? Competition is important, and if Nintendo was forced to become just another [insert random developer here], their games would be a lot less successful and probably a lot less critically acclaimed as well. (Also, Nintendo has plenty of "darker" games out there, ie. Twilight Princess, Eternal Darkness, Metroid: Prime, etc.)
 
What nintendo should do is to stop it with the useless gimmicks so that third parties can bring these games with compelling narratives that you want. Their first party games are good and different from what everyone else offers, it's the hardware that is limiting their library.
 
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