How can Nintendo make their games big again?

[curl-6]

spemanig said:

curl-6 said:

I actually agree with you.

Nintendo isn't fulfilling even a fraction of the potential of their IPs these days. Games like Mario 3D World and Tropical Freeze may be polished for what they are, but they play it so safe that they ultimately feel like missed opportunities. Instead of pushing the envelope and aiming for greatness like they did in past gens, they are settling for "good enough" instead.

Not a single game they have released on Wii U has the boundary-shattering magnificence of games like Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, or Ocarina of Time. Not one.

Nobody is going to look back in 10 years and talk about what a timeless classic New Super Mario Bros U was.

I mean, don't get me wrong, they've produced some awesome games for Wii U, but I still feel like the system never had its Galaxy, its Ocarina, its Prime. Maybe Zelda U can be that game, but even if it is, its arriving too late to make much of a difference, and will likely have its impact blunted by being shared with NX.

Yeah. I didn't want to misconstrue that I think Wii U games aren't good, because they are, but Nintendo does not treat these IP like the AAA world stopping block busters that they can be.

I would love for Zelda U to prove me wrong, but I don't think it will. I think it will be pheonominal, but no one is going to look at Zelda U the way they look at Frozen. Or as a more gaming reference, the way they looked at GTAV/TLOU. You can hold whatever perceptions you want about this games, but they stole attention when they came out, and that's because Disney and Rockstar and Sony cared enough to poor as much money as necessary to make sure every aspect of those works were as well produced as monetarily possible.

Zelda's artstyle is beautiful and I'm hoping the animations become less stiff, but the make it or break it will be the script and whether or not it has voice acting and, if it does, the talent and direction of those voice actors. Nintendo aren't some financially bankrupt company. They have the money and the IP to hire TLOU-level voice actors and TLOU-level writers and TLOU level casting directors, and it would single handedly change Zelda U from a game that fans will be happy about to a game that it actually titanic and influential to the entire gaming industry the way OoT was and ALttP was and Mario 64 was. And when I say TLOU-quality, I don't mean some gritty dramatic Zelda. I mean a Zelda with actual production values. People compare Zelda U to Princess Mononoke. How about some Princess Mononoke-level VA and script?

The fact that people actually believe that a game like Zelda can't compete with the biggest releases of this year is embarrasing. The fact that Zelda didn't make a top ten most anticipated games of 2016 list is fucking embarrasing. It doesn't matter if they've barely shown anything. This isn't any game. It's fucking Zelda, and that alone should make it number one, but it's not, because Nintendo has cheapen out on the franchise the past decade to the point where it hasn't resonated with the modern audience of gaming since. With some money and care, it will. The IP is good enough and the team is good enough. Just don't skimp out on anything.

I honestly think the script is as big a sticking point as voice acting in Zelda.

In a post-Uncharted, post-Bioshock, post-TLOU world, most gamers will be rolling their eyes in contempt when "oh brave youth chosen by the gods, a dark evil has awakened..." scrolls across the screen in super slow text yet again. We've all heard it before a billion times before. It's boring. It's lazy.

Hiring an actual writer to pen an actual story would go a long way towards bolstering the franchise's reputation.

PS: Is it only me whose seeing all the recent comments in all italics?