Mythmaker1 said:
In terms of story, Nintendo games are on the level of a children's cartoon. Sometimes there's some mature storytelling involved, but those tend to be outliers, and often the less successful entires in their series. In terms of gameplay, there's depth like with titles like Pokemon, but even those titles find most of their depth in the margins of competitive play or optional challenges. The games themselves are a breeze to play on their own, even for kids. In terms of appeal, they're almost all about just being fun. Which is fine, nothing wrong with that. But there's no real edge to that fun, no nuance or depth. And while that can appeal to everyone from time to time, the kind of people who aren't able to look beyond just fun tend to be, well, children. |
I disagree. You seem to be implying that something with a gritty storyline is mature where something that's bright and colourful is not. I think they can both challenge the player in different ways, neither more mature than the other. A meaningful story can engage the player in some ways, while a challenging platformer or puzzle game can push the player to think in other ways; the platforming genre, for instance, is a really great way to challenge and improve one's spatial awareness (something that is often lacking from a lot of the more story-driven games, where grinding or quick-time events are about as much as they demand of the player's skill).
There's also the whole point that most (if not all) games that attempt to be "mature" in the way you're talking about still fall well short of what other media like film and television are able to offer. That's starting to change a bit, but most of the storytelling in video games still lacks the emotional subtlety of, say, a TV show like Six Feet Under or Masters of Sex. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; those other media are already there for that kind of thing. I'm certainly not against video games aiming for that kind of depth but they've got a long way to go before they get there, and I like the other ways video games challenge my brain by means that a film or show can not.