Resident_Hazard said:
I absolutely love Kirby's Epic Yarn (and find it humorous that it lies, alphabetically, between Manhunt 2, MadWorld, House of the Dead 2&3 and Overkill on my shelf), but it is exactly what you said: A game Nintendo slapped a character into to coast on the name. Kirby fit well into that game, but it was originally just starring that Prince Puff guy. I'm huge on Mario platformers, loved the classic SNES Mario RPG, but have turned against Mario Kart (a game series I have marked as my nemesis due to it's unique ability to drive me to extreme anger at record speed), have no interest in Mario sports games, and have simply stopped caring about Paper Mario. Nintendo used to make a huge variety of games without needing to cram Mario into them, and when they did make a new Mario game--it was cause for celebration. Granted, Ken Griffey Jr retired last year, but they could still make their own "regular" baseball game. I feel like they're freely neglecting any number of franchises just to keep making stuff themed around Mario. Where were F-Zero or StarFox on the Wii? I thought a motion-controlled Arwing would be cool. The system was severly lacking in FPS titles, and yet no upgraded sequel to Geist. It's beating a dead horse to talk about how Nintendo once "ushered in the era of the console FPS" in no small part to Goldeneye and the Turok games being N64 exclusives--only to wonder how they abandoned a genre for no good reason since then. I get this idea that Nintendo seems to be turning into Sega--you know, getting unnecessarily lazy in their game development and design philosophy. Except that Sega didn't get lazy until they no longer had consoles depending on their games being good. In a sense, even Mario Galaxy 2 was lazy--look closely--it's the first Mario sequel since the Japanese Super Mario 2 (our western "Lost Levels," of course) that was built on the same engine as its predecessor. Sure, it was good, but where's the dramatic leap like we had with Super Mario Bros 3 or Mario World? To be fair, a Koopa shell surfing game would probably work. But I'd really rather not see it happen until they can give Mario a little break--and let some of their other franchises (and some new ones) a chance to shine in the spotlight. |
They tried to keep away from Mario at E3 2008, look what happened. The problem is, they seem so insecure about pushing anything other than Mario, (and to a lesser extent, Zelda and Metroid). Like I said, no Mario at E3 2008. They tried to appeal to the hardcore in 09, and look at how they did it, how many Mario games did they show at E3 2009? Then at E3 2010, they show ANOTHER Mario game. I don't think that Nintendo will ever retire Mario completely, but you are right, he needs to take a break.
It seems like,the more money they make off of him, the more they cash in, and Super Mario All Stars is a good example of this.
I don't think they are getting lazy, just look at Zelda, but the amount of effort that goes into Mario games has greatly diminished. Every year Nintendo pumps out another Mario game, the flagship Mario title is usually one of the first games to be confirmed for a new console, and like I said, Mario is the star of every E3.
It seems like Nintendo as a whole is stuck in a rut . The games are getting more and more linear, and the company is getting static. Back in the SNES and N64 days, they had games in every genre, now it's just platformers and Zelda.
BOTTOM LINE: It's time for Nintendo to make a change for the better.
