| Mr Khan said: Well, you can't claim that Nintendo (for better or for worse in a lot of cases) is not trying to constantly re-invent the wheel in its franchises. It may all be Metroid, but Metroid II is not Metroid Prime is not Prime Hunters is not Other M. Similarly Super Mario World is not Super Mario Galaxy, and each generation of Zelda is hard to recognize compared to before. Then there was StarFox... It's really only Pokemon. And Kirby. |
They are probably the best at doing that. Not always with the best results, of course, but there seems to be a coherent idea discernible behind each game. It's just too bad that they'll make something that is mechanically interesting and then slap a coat of Mario paint on it. I totally get why from a commercial standpoint, and obviously Nintendo fans don't mind it, but I find it pretty off-putting. Especially when they are capable of so much more aesthetically (Doshin, Rhythm Heaven, etc.)
It's probably preferable to the rest of the industry focus grouping everything to death in an attempt to reach the broadest audience possible to the point that everything is turning into the same game. See: Dead Space or, more recently, Splinter Cell and Jade Raymond saying that people don't like stealth games. I guess when everything is ridiculously overbudgeted they feel they can't afford to just sell to people who like the survival horror or stealth subgenres, so they try selling it to everyone and in the end wind up selling to no one.
