mZuzek said:
I disagree about ambition being related to the hardware specifically. Take Splatoon for example - maybe with worse graphics it could have been done on the Wii or GameCube, yes (yes?). Still, it was a captivating new IP that got people interested and hyped because it brought new ideas and was an actual game that looked like it had some real effort and money put into making it. I think even something like Tropical Freeze was still fine enough - not ambitious at all, but the fact that it was a full fledged GAME with a lot of content and great artistic direction made it a memorable game. In the end, although we always want some ambitious games, even the unambitious are fine when they're well made. Captain Toad is one of the least ambitious titles Nintendo put out this gen (before 2015) and yet it stood out as a great entry in a year packed with amazing Wii U games. The real problem is when they take away any ambition at all from their games, just making unambitious, uncreative, uninspired filler crap. Which is most of what they've been putting out these last 18 months. |
There is more to ambition than just hardware, I agree, and I have very much enjoyed some unambitious Wii U games, like Captain Toad. Not every game needs to be ambitious.
But when it comes to a console that came out in 2012, I'd prefer that most of its games show me new and cool things that push the envelope and couldn't have been done on its predecessors. I don't buy an 8th gen console to play the same kind of games I played in the 6th gen, just with prettier graphics.
Nintendo is at their best when their games are ambitious; Ocarina of Time, the Metroid Prime trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy, games like these not only felt like they were pushing the limits of what their platforms could do, but also pushing gaming itself forward with bold ideas. Every aspect of them felt like their creators went all out and held nothing back, nothing was skimped on.
