Words, I don't see why a game's closeness to the creator's vision is a mark of quality. The fact remains that the various 'power moves' in Smash were a big part of what lots of players liked about the game, and their removal, like the removal of snaking, strikes some as an intentional snub. Smash has more of an excuse because wave-dashing isn't really compatible with the new air dodging system, but a lot of changes to recent Nintendo franchises strike both casual and core players as needless snubs and not as changes made to please the other group. The latter is at least understandable - increased accessibility is a reasonable thing for Nintendo to go for. However, lots of changes to Smash and Kart serve to make core players worse off while making casual players no better off, and vice versa. In this case, the problem with the games (particularly Smash) is precisely that they are too close to the creators' visions and they don't acknowledge that people want to play in different ways.

I think that, in general, Nintendo has the wrong idea about what casual players are looking for in Nintendo's core titles. Wii Sports is both accessible and simple, and Nintendo has assumed that they need to make their other titles both more accessible and simpler in order to appeal to the new gamers among Wii owners. But this simply isn't the case. The only thing that casual gamers need is accessibility - all they want is to be able to succeed against some level of computer or to have satisfying matches with similarly unskilled players. The beautiful thing about complexity in games is that it can be ignored. Casuals wouldn't care if Wii Sports Tennis had super-moves and combos (however you'd implement those) - they just wouldn't use them or even be aware of them in most cases. And it's really exactly this sort of complexity that lots of core players are looking for.

They've gotten it right before, and it's paid off tremendously. Mario Kart DS is thought by many long-time fans of the franchise to be one of the best in the series, and it undeniably has an incredible amount of casual appeal.

@Kyros, there are 16 new tracks and 16 retro tracks. That's twice the tracks that MK64 had. Some of the old tracks have new ramps and boosts and things in them. Some of them don't.

Either way, it doesn't play the same way because the game has different steering controls, stunts in the air (not in MK64), drafting (not in MK64), different powersliding, bikes (not in N64), wheelies (not in N64), and different cars with different stats each (not in N64). In MK64 you had one kart per character, and your character was either heavy, medium, or light.

If they were intentionally played the same way in that GameTrailers video, they were just ignoring all the new features to make them look similar to prove their point. It's called an agender.

 I disagree. It is my favorite Mario Kart game

W>>>DD=DS>>>64>>>>>>>SC

IMO.

Never played the original 

I think I killed this topic. ;-;

Mario Kart Wii FTW!!!!