Nintendo isn't "unique" anymore

[Booga]

Today BOTW is pretty much following the trends of the modern open world game design.

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I really just wanted to single this out. Open worlds were a "trend" in the early 00s. Just like Platformers were a "trend" in the NES' day. Today having an open world game is simply a design choice like deciding if you want first person, third person, isometric, etc. Having a degree of open world gameplay stopped being a trend a long time ago, and is now just a tool in the box.

 

[Francesco]

Eh nothing. They had a good decade to do it before Nintendo and they didn't.

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What? Who? How?

 

[TsuWave]

Eh nothing. They had a good decade to do it before Nintendo and they didn't.

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ehhhhhhh. BoTW isn't particularly unique aside of its setting being one of the most critically acclaimed series of all time. not saying that's where its greatness solely rests, but it conforms to multiple open world norms. like nintendo can be called unique for multiple reasons, i don't think BoTW is one :/

 

[erikNORML]

Have we finally entered a time where people are on the forum with their first exposure to Nintendo being Wii/ds? That's the only way I feel like one could hold the OP's opinion.

2018 Nintendo is just about as Nintendo as Nintendo has ever been.

 

[no1]

Did you think this through? Or did you just name companies that make open world games and leave it at that... Neither of those companies would ever make a game like BOTW. As close as they would come is open world games, but a game like Zelda? Cmon now...

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latter. I honestly can't really think off anything like Zelda being done in that sense, but really who else is there cdpr, ubi, r* and who else, and I'm not really counting the here and there devs that don't make a shitload or have only one ip being their open world.

 

[JigglesBunny]

Yes they are. These "Nintendo are/aren't" threads are weird.

 

[Watchtower]

I get OP's point to an extent but I would actually consider them all strengths. It's better that Nintendo caters heavily to third-parties than allow itself to be treated as a punchline. It's better that Nintendo copies the existing online services than continually attempt to reinvent the wheel with a service that was woefully behind. It's better that Nintendo has a more conventional but modular controller than force people to waggle a TV remote or work around a tablet. Hell, Nintendo is even marketing to the same young adult audience as the competition with the same techniques, which is better than them exclusively targeting children and parents like before.

More to the point, however, these changes have very clearly worked. Joker in Smash Ultimate worked. Breath of the Wild worked. Odyssey worked. Pokemon Let's Go worked. Fortnite worked so fucking well that it forced Sony to allow shared accounts.

An optimist would say Nintendo's playing a lot smarter. Someone more cynical would say Nintendo's just being more conservative. But either way that Nintendo charm's still there.

 

[Deleted member 2793]

Have we finally entered a time where people are on the forum with their first exposure to Nintendo being Wii/ds? That's the only way I feel like one could hold the OP's opinion.

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Not really. I started with the SNES/GB and I played a bunch of their games for every possible platform besides the Virtual Boy.

Anyway, I'm not feeling like keeping up with this discussion anymore. The kind of gaming I like is going away and that's it, people don't generally share this disappointment, so it's fine.

 

[scare_crow]

Not really. I started with the SNES/GB and I played a bunch of their games for every possible platform besides the Virtual Boy.

Anyway, I'm not feeling like keeping up with this discussion anymore. The kind of gaming I like is going away and that's it, people don't generally share this disappointment, so it's fine.

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My eyes just rolled all the way back to the days when Nintendo was "unique."

 

[Fritz]

Have we finally entered a time where people are on the forum with their first exposure to Nintendo being Wii/ds? That's the only way I feel like one could hold the OP's opinion.

2018 Nintendo is just about as Nintendo as Nintendo has ever been.

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This was my thought reading the OP. This is very much Nintendo. They never cared about expectations and always were about one thing: fun games.

 

[Le Dude]

The hardware itself may not be, but the software was still very unique and different from what others were doing. While everyone was going for realism to showcase tech, Zelda decided to go with a very child-like cell shaded style; Mario's new gameplay mechanic was a weird water pack; Smash Bros added Marth and Roy, Ice Climbers and freaking Game & Watch; Kirby in the GC was a racing game; Metroid went 3D and became a FPS more focused on exploration than actually shooting; DK games used a bongo controller lol.

They even debuted a bunch of franchises, most of them being extremely weird: Pikmin, Chibi Robo, Eternal Darkness, Odama, Cubivore, Giftpia, Densetsu Quiz, Geist. Had sequels for stuff like Custom Robo, Kururin, Wave Race, etc. And at the same time they had the GBA debuting series such as Golden Sun, Rhythm Heaven and Starfy.

Over the two systems, they pushed a lot of new IPs and experimented with their long running franchises.

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Snipperclips, 1-2-Switch, Arms, Labo, Sushi Striker, Mario + Rabbids, Odyssey lets you turn into a T-Rex with a mustache, Smash Bros is adding Piranha Plant (and there's not nearly as many easy Nintendo picks anymore. Plus the fanbase is massive and has their own ideas of which characters there should be). Plus there's stuff like Fire Emblem/Hyrule Warriors, a Pokemon fighting game, Captain Toad, a partnership for the Bayonetta series, and massive shake-ups to the formula of both Zelda and Pokemon . . . which is easily as significant as Metroid's jump from 2D to 3D and the change in artstyle for Wind Waker. The Switch is only 20 months in too, less than half the time the Gamecube was on the market.

 

[SMD]

Not really. I started with the SNES/GB and I played a bunch of their games for every possible platform besides the Virtual Boy.

Anyway, I'm not feeling like keeping up with this discussion anymore. The kind of gaming I like is going away and that's it, people don't generally share this disappointment, so it's fine.

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This would've been a far more honest title, to be honest.

 

[JeffGubb]

As mentioned, Nintendo has used ARM in the past. On top of that, the Switch is basically an Nvidia Shield tablet with the Nvidia Shield console SoC (it uses the Tegra X1 rather than the K1) and a worse screen. The reason it succeeded where those other devices struggled is because of Nintendo's IP.

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Using ARM in the past or the reason Nintendo is succeeding have nothing to do with what makes Nintendo unique from its most direct competitors.

 

[Unknownlight]

And are people seriously using a Persona cameo as an argument that Nintendo has gone mainstream? Yeah, Persona 5 sold better than past entries, but it's no Pac-Man.

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I feel like that's the funniest part of this thread. Persona is "mainstream" now. Nintendo is selling out by including a character from Persona.

Persona is mainstream. Persona.

 

[Hieroph]

I feel like that's the funniest part of this thread. Persona is "mainstream" now. Nintendo is selling out by including a character from Persona.

Persona is mainstream. Persona.

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Uh, yeah? Maybe you didn't catch the news, but Persona 5 did amazingly well.

You're talking about it like it's Etrian Odyssey or something. Persona started breaking out of its niche status on PS2 and now it's definitely mainstream.

 

[CloseTalker]

Yes they are. These "Nintendo are/aren't" threads are weird.

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Nothing makes for more productive discussions than leading with sweeping declarative statements!

 

[werezompire]

Uh, yeah? Maybe you didn't catch the news, but Persona 5 did amazingly well.

You're talking about it like it's Etrian Odyssey or something. Persona started breaking out of its niche status on PS2 and now it's definitely mainstream.

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Last I heard, Persona 5 sold over 2 million copies worldwide. That's good and a big improvement over past games, but it's no Dark Souls (13 million over 3 games), Nier: Automata (3.5 million worldwide), or Undertale (SteamSpy estimates the Steam version has 2-5 million copies sold plus whatever it sold on PS4 & Switch) and that's just listing a few relatively recent breakout hits. And 2 million copies sold is still nowhere near the kind of figures that a Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, or Pokémon sells.

 

[Deleted member 36708]

My kids got the vehicle labo set for Christmas. I have to disagree with you big time OP. Nothing else like it on the market. They enjoyed putting them together and playing with them. Nintendo will never not be unique.

 

[MagicDoogies]

I mean, Reggie's whole comment unsold me the DLC. I don't care about seeing these characters, if I wanted to play with them I would be doing so on another platform. I would prefer to actually play with character I actually connect to -- from games I actually played and see as part of their systems' DNA, like Smash Bros used to be to me.

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Honestly comments like this is why I wholeheartedly agree when people say Smash fans are the most entitled pieces of shit to ever exist as a solitary community.
Smash Bros. ALONE this installment and last installment has included obscure historic characters such as R.O.B, Duck Hunt, fucking WII FIT TRAINER, King k. Rool, Ridley, Little Mac, Piranha Plant I can go fucking on.

And all it takes is the announcement of fucking Joker from Persona 5 to suddenly tilt people and accuse Sakurai and the Smash team to not only turn your back to optional DLC in a game that features 75 fighters, but the whole 'mission' of Smash to begin with?

Un fucking real right now. I never thought this damn DLC teaser character would unironically get so many people this fucking tilted.

 

[Deleted member 2793]

Honestly comments like this is why I wholeheartedly agree when people say Smash fans are the most entitled pieces of shit to ever exist as a solitary community.
Smash Bros. ALONE this installment and last installment has included obscure historic characters such as R.O.B, Duck Hunt, fucking WII FIT TRAINER, King k. Rool, Ridley, Little Mac, Piranha Plant I can go fucking on.

And all it takes is the announcement of fucking Joker from Persona 5 to suddenly tilt people and accuse Sakurai and the Smash team to not only turn your back to optional DLC in a game that features 75 fighters, but the whole 'mission' of Smash to begin with?

Un fucking real right now. I never thought this damn DLC teaser character would unironically get so many people this fucking tilted.

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No need to insult me over a videogame. Honestly, since the day I made this thread I noticed I lost interest in games in general, barely read anything about the medium in weeks. Nintendo changed from what I liked, I'm unexcited for series I used to love (Smash, Pokémon, etc), third parties have been mostly increasingly boring to me this whole gen with their focus on "console core gamers" (no hope at all for Atlus to me) and almost no one seems to share these opinions with me, so it's pointless anyway.

Mods can close this thread if they want. I really have no interest in keeping up anymore.

 

[Prof Bathtub]

No need to insult me over a videogame. Honestly, since the day I made this thread I noticed I lost interest in games in general, barely read anything about the medium in weeks. Nintendo changed from what I liked, I'm unexcited for series I used to love (Smash, Pokémon, etc), third parties have been mostly increasingly boring to me this whole gen with their focus on "console core gamers" (no hope at all for Atlus to me) and almost no one seems to share these opinions with me, so it's pointless anyway.

Mods can close this thread if they want. I really have no interest in keeping up anymore.

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You could wait a few weeks until they announce more details/titles for the coming year. Now there will probably be a few titles that deviate from what you enjoy, but there will also be a few unexpected things. If you have no patience for this kind of uncertain schedule in the kinds of entertainment you follow, sure, take a break. Or if it is mostly about one game's four bonus characters whose series of origin is still unknown, I'm not sure how that can be remedied.

 

[Rayman not Ray]

No need to insult me over a videogame. Honestly, since the day I made this thread I noticed I lost interest in games in general, barely read anything about the medium in weeks. Nintendo changed from what I liked, I'm unexcited for series I used to love (Smash, Pokémon, etc), third parties have been mostly increasingly boring to me this whole gen with their focus on "console core gamers" (no hope at all for Atlus to me) and almost no one seems to share these opinions with me, so it's pointless anyway.

Mods can close this thread if they want. I really have no interest in keeping up anymore.

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To be honest I think it's healthy to disconnect from following games too closely. And also the amount of corporate loyalty to Nintendo is unhealthy. I should know, I'm a lifelong Nintendo fanboy.

And I even think some of your criticisms are valid. There's definitely been increased focus on esports type games, even if those games (Splatoon, ARMS) still manage to maintain a lot of weirdo Nintendo charm as far as I'm concerned.

But a lot of people's frustration with your thread probably stems from the fact that you seem to be externalizing what's a mostly internal thing. Namely, you've likely changed, and the fact that you've lost interest in Nintendo probably also says a lot about you and where youre at. Like, people are focusing on the Joker thing because it seems so minor and you've kind of blown it out of proportion. Especially given that both previous Smash games have moved in the direction of more third party characters from non-Nintendo games and series.

So the better explanation is that you've maybe grown out of this, and that's ok. It's much healthier to acknowledge that investing so much of your identity into a company is a bad idea than it is to blame the company for changing and leaving you behind. Know what I mean?

 

[JayC3]

Thread closed per OP request.