By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Aielyn on 22 January 2014
Edit Thread
Soleron said:
Aielyn said:
Nintendo has always prided itself on creating new experiences that people will come to love. 

THIS attitude is horrible. They can make what they want because people will "come" to love it eventually?

Miyamoto tried to get people to love 3D Mario for years. When he gave up and allowed another 2D Mario, it sold out the Wii. The market knows what it wants and attempts to shape it will backfire.

See: Wind Waker. It has always taken the attitude that surprising the gamer is more important than giving them what they say they want, because when it comes down to it, people don't know what they really want, and so they ask for the obvious rather than the best.

he reception to Wind Waker has not improved from 2001 to now. It didn't sell enough to drive hardware then, and WWHD didn't sell enough to drive hardware now.

Individual forum members don't know what they want, sure, but Malstrom's whole point is to look at broad sales trends to decide what to make. Whether the developers like it or not.

The Wii itself, which Malstrom praised as Nintendo's greatest idea since the NES, was based on this idea - sure, they could have just ramped up the power. Nobody was asking for motion controls, before they revealed the Wii.

The Wii was a product of forced change. Core games and high power didn't work on the GC. So Nintendo CHANGED strategy.

With Zelda, they've been a broken record on "surprise" for games and games now. To no success. A change is needed, but Aonuma is still forcing this direction apparently until it works or people like it. That's not good.

Now, what is Aonuma doing with Zelda? He's aiming to make an experience that you can't get anywhere else. And that means leveraging the Wii U's hardware to make a game with a unique feel - which includes the visuals. They could, alternatively, go with graphics that seek out realism... in which case, the game would age rapidly.

On the contrary. The things that Zelda does different are rapidly disappearing to anime visuals, quirky characters, heavy story, puzzles and cutscenes. None of which are in any shortage in other Japanese games. You know what the world is short of? Games where you pick up a sword, explore and grow and feel like a hero. Skyrim came close but it wasn't Nintendo polished.

Note that he never said there wouldn't be a realistic feel to the graphics. He said it's going to have its own feel. This could mean that it'll end up looking much like the Tech Demo, only with more of a, say, futuristic feel to it. Or it might end up looking like a cross between Okami and Epic Mickey. Or like Rayman Legends with a hint of Mario 3D World. Or like Grand Theft Auto crossed with Xenoblade. It could end up great. It could end up simply not looking that good. But the greatest games usually come out of making an effort to do something different, going the more challenging route and refusing to copycat something just because it was successful.

Success actually comes from copying, but better. Games out of left field (Wonderful 101) tend to crash and burn. Wii Sports had abolsutely solid fundamentals: intuitive controls, familiar games (even copying NES Golf course), local multiplayer and minimalist presentation.

When it comes down to it, I'd love for there to be some new Zelda titles made by other producers than Aonuma... but every one of the games he has made so far have been top-notch (yes, including Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks).

And were the sales of those games good? Did they justify the massive time and energy commitment by Nintendo to the series? Zelda should be treated like the niche game it is, OR restored to the mainstream with a strategic change. The current path is not sustainable.

I'll give him free rein to guide things for now, and see where it takes the franchise. This isn't like Sakamoto and Metroid: Other M, we're not talking about a developer trying to insert his grand vision into the game,

His son wanted trains in the game no matter how little sense they made, so he made Spirit Tracks. That's just as arrogant as anything Sakamoto did.

You do understand that the phrase "come to love" refers to the fact that people might be against it at first, but experiencing it changes their mind, right? As for 3D vs 2D Mario, that was a different situation. And sales of NSMB U prove that the massive sales of NSMB Wii were driven by the fact that there hadn't been a 2D Mario in a long time, and the fact that the game was on a system with a massive install base. I remember Malstrom predicting that there wouldn't be another 2D Mario, that 3D Mario would be the focus and that it would be the first Mario title released on the Wii U because reasons. When NSMB U was announced, he didn't recant, he didn't admit to being wrong, he just suggested that Nintendo was clearly doing what it wanted rather than what the public wanted as proven by Wii U itself, and refused to acknowledge the contradiction with his previous statements.

Wind Waker HD isn't selling massively because it's a *remake*. And Wind Waker sold 4.6 million on a console that barely made it to 20 million. Twilight Princess isn't quite up to 7 million, and it's on a console with a 100 million install base, and it released at launch, thus making it a title that people were bound to buy alongside the system itself. Sales of TP come from it being on a more popular system, not an inherent superiority.

You do realise that "doing things differently each time" isn't a consistent strategy, right? It's a change in strategy with each game. Suggesting that this is some sort of "direction" is ludicrous.

I'm sorry, but "anime visuals"? Really? Perhaps you should look at what Anime looks like, because none of the Zeldas have an anime look. But more than that, the one that comes closest is the DS games - PH and ST. And PH is the best-selling handheld Zelda of all time. And I see you've bought into Malstrom's assertion that Zelda has "become" about puzzles and story - it's just nonsense. Zelda has always blended action, puzzle, and story into an overall whole, and each title changes up the balance one way or another. Note that the ones with the most extensive stories were actually OoT and TP, which were the best-selling ones of all. As for puzzles, Phantom Hourglass was heavy with them, and it was the best-selling handheld Zelda. The action Zeldas have actually consistently performed worst of all.

Success comes from copying? I'm sure that Sony and MS love hearing you say that, even if there's no fact behind it. The best games of all time have pretty much always been completely new ideas (gameplay-wise). They often don't have the strongest sales within their franchises, but that's because of business - you have to build the market, it doesn't just magically appear when you release the game. Wonderful 101 suffered from having too high an entry point in a new IP on a new system - there was no existing market to leverage, and people weren't going to get it straight away.

I'm sorry, but did you just suggest that 7.5 million is mainstream, but 5 million is niche? Seriously? And by the way, Wind Waker outsold Twilight Princess in Japan. Phantom Hourglass sold roughly as well as Ocarina of Time in Europe. Each entry has performed differently in different regions. Oh, and Skyward Sword easily outsold Ocarina of Time 3D... by your reasoning (by invoking WWHD), this proves that Skyward Sword is a better game than Ocarina of Time.

You do realise that his son's desire for trains in the game were inspiration, not some master plan like Sakamoto's overarching idea of where Metroid is going, right? That Aonuma tries to make the best game he can, and each time he gets inspiration from different places? Just like Miyamoto did when making various mega-franchises? Or do you believe that the best way to make a game is to colour-by-number, tick all the boxes? Because that's what makes games like Resident Evil 6 (a game where copying from successful games was the whole method of development) - which demonstrates quite nicely that passion and inspiration, combined with new experiences, will always trump copying and incrementally improving a formula. Which is why NSMB 2 and NSMB U are struggling compared with NSMB and NSMB Wii - because the latter just created some new hooks within the formula, rather than changing things up. Super Mario 3D Land is selling better than NSMB 2. If SM3DW remains outsold by NSMB U, it'll only be because of bundling. So much for "3D Mario isn't as popular as 2D Mario".