A Look at the Nintendo Dark Ages (2011-2017)

[killeryoshis]

Poliwrathlord said:

killeryoshis said:

Wow nice, write up. The only big mistake here was saying that Mario Kart 8 wasn't ambitious. It was to a certain extent and it sold lots of hardware. It was one of the few bright spots of the 2011-2016 period. Same goes for Smash 4. Nintendo really had some serious software and hardware problems during those days. It felt like nothing they could do was right. It felt like they were purposely failing honestly. They just could not be that stupid but they did.  I also think the Dark Age ends at 2017, to be honest. I pretty much became disinterested in Nintendo around 2011 and didn't really get back into them until 2017 with the launch of the Switch.

Thank you, I've been meaning to write this for a while and would like to do more essay style threads in the future. 

I just think that the lack of solid single player content really hurt Smash 4 compared to Brawl, but I will admit that the roster was definitely more ambitious in Smash 4. With Mario Kart 8 I just think that DD and Wii added something new, such as the two people karts and motion controls. I do see where you are coming from on both points. 

Mario Kart 8 fixed a lot of things from Mario Kart Wii like the item system. The gameplay changes were made for the better. It was also one of the prettiest games on the Wii U despite Mario Kart games never really looking good before. Mario Kart 8 may not seem ambitious but it is better than Mario Kart Wii in a lot of ways. Sometimes you only need to improve a game rather than reinvent the wheel every time. 

Also for Smash, Ambition is good to have but it needs to be put in the right place. I can be ambitious in basket weaving but that won't mean I will become a good doctor. Smash's bread and butter have always been its local multiplayer and  Smash 4 improves on that greatly. Single player is good for Smash but that's not what will sell the game the most. So the increased quality of the local multiplayer offset the lack of a Subspace adventure mode.