| S.T.A.G.E. said:
Just because Nintendo publishes a game...doesnt mean its "Nintendo" game that represents Nintendo. Bayonetta is being published by Nintendo but it does not represent the spirit of what Nintendo stands for. Nintendo is Disney...its meant for children and families and just like Disney....the children and family image wears off after certain generations even though it is still universally loved. This is why they are acquiring titles for a broader audience even though they arent internal offerings, no different than Disney bought Marvel and Lucas films. Bayonetta is the purest example of everything Nintendo isn't just like Rare. Rare existed to satisfy an audience Nintendo refuses to satisfy themselves. |
Nintendo does "mature" . Its just not blatant, in-your-face, gritty mature. It's usually a subtle undertone.
Mature, adult themes don't have to come from an M rating, dark and gritty art style, blood-soaked combat, or swearing characters. They can be tackled smartly and maturely in games you would consider "kiddy." Sometimes in these games, those themes are still tackled with more deft than in many of the more "mature" games around. Look at the themes presented with Majora's Mask for example. It deals with people coming to terms with their own mortality, and how people accept, fear, and deny it. How many console games have manged to do this quite as well as that game did? Or look at the opening of Pixar's UP.
Chibi Robo deals with mental disability, drug addiction, death, love, failing marriage and more across the various stories of its characters. It's all very deft, and yet it takes place within a colorful, quirky world of sentient toys.
Fire Emblem deals with death, slavery, political corruption, and on rare occasions, incest, infanticide, racism and genocide, they're not realy subtletly presented either. Even Pokemon had its' brush with genocide in X/Y and childhood abuse in B/W.
OoT had some dark moments with the ruined castle town and the well/shadow temple/ creepy ass forest temple.
Metroid can be pretty dark. In MP: Echoes the world is hostile , the air is poisonous, there are freaky monsters, everything is grim, you are alone. THe MP storyline deals with the decay of civilsation, war between civilisations and I do believe genocide as well.
There are other examples, but the point is Nintendo's approach to game development isn't to create a plot, character or setting, with a "mature" story and gameplay. They didn't set out to build a dark, moody Zelda. They wanted to implement a time mechanic and that lead to a three day cycle that lead to a doomsday scenario that lead to the rest of what we now know about Majora's Mask, same thing with Pikmin. The undertones about loss, mourn, life and death, responsibility, etc emerged from the gameplay design. If it fits the game they will darken things up (like MM) but more often than not they can get away fine with building a game mostly for everyone
Besides, Brain Training, English Training and WiiFit are way more mature than practically any game out there. (lol)
