Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Amber Ahlborn — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:50:39 GMT

Actually, I'll readily admit that TP being an updated OoT is its biggest draw for me. OoT has not aged well for me. I still like it but...yeah. TP freshened up the formula and I enjoyed it. I just wish the world outside the dungeons didn't echo so much.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Roto13 — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:58:50 GMT

Ha ha, yeah. xP People always complained about Majora's Mask and Wind Waker because they weren't Ocarina of Time. (Silly people. That's not how the series works.)

Actually, I STILL saw a few people complaining like that, because Wolf Link wasn't Young Link. *sigh*

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Bob Mackey — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:57:32 GMT

I thought Twilight princess was a good game that was ultimately forgettable and irrelevant if you've played OoT; I seriously can't remember anything about that game other than the dungeon with the Yetis. Chris Kohler once called this game a "grudge-fucking" for Nintendo fans, and ultimately, that's what it felt like. "You want ANOTHER Ocarina of Time? WELL HERE YOU GO."

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Amber Ahlborn — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:09:18 GMT

Not really, no. I own Prime 1 and 2 obviously and they were built around the gamecube control scheme. Pointing and shooting had a lock-on and didn't need the sort of manual accuracy Prime 3 did. Fast weapon and visor switching was more important and that, again, was built around the Gamecube controller. I will probably rent the "Wii-lease" to check it out, but I remain skeptical at this point that the controls will improve in any way. In fact, I'll be curious to see how they avoid making it clunky since there was a lot more going on button wise in Prime 1 and 2. I am happy to see a rerelease though. The more exposure for Metroid the better.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Roto13 — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:02:25 GMT

Well I haven't exactly done any extensive studies about the Metroid Prime fanbase, so all I know is what I've seen on the intarweb. :P

So are you excited about the Wii ports of Metroid Prime 1 and 2, then? Because I'd imagine they'll be integrating the control scheme of Metroid Prime 3.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:45:22 GMT

This Metroid fanatic definitely does not put 3 in the top slot of the trilogy. Hang out on a Metroid fan thread and you'll see a lot of people still consider the first game the best one. If you're curious about my detailed opinion of these games, look no further than my retrospective posts from a couple months ago. In short though, MP3 while having good, quick pacing and benefiting from the pointer, was very Metroid lite, offering the least in the puzzle and exploration departments that it could get away with and still claim to be a Metroid game. Yeah, it was fun, but not nearly as robust as the two Primes that came before it. I would not call this a lowering of quality though. It was just a different direction to take with the series. I will say there was a fall in the quality of certain aspects of the game (embarrassingly bad human models for example).

On Twilight Princess, I really enjoyed the game but feel Nintendo took way too conservative an approach to it. Hmm, I feel another retrospective coming on.

Paper Mario WAS a bore. It did a lot of really interesting things and I think it would have been okay if they'd cut its length down, namely that awful cloud level. Actually, this is definitely a game suffering from Too Many Crayons. It's almost like the dev team got so carried away with being artsy they forgot to add the game.

And yet, none of these games are poor. They didn't live up to the hype (except for Metroid which could have used some hype), but they certainly aren't the worst games Nintendo has put out. I think it might be a little premature to worry. Let's see if Nintendo's next batch of games continues the trend.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

LBD "Nytetrayn" — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:50:53 GMT

In fairness, Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario aren't really Wii titles in the truest sense of the word, given the former was a GameCube title which was added to the Wii roster at the behest of many fans, and Super Paper Mario was similarly booted over when the GameCube's death knell rang.

It's the <em>next</em> Zelda game on the Wii that I think should be viewed as the benchmark for Wii Zelda titles. Of course, that notwithstanding, I've enjoyed my time with Twilight Princess far more than I did Ocarina.

As for Super Paper Mario, it's competent, but the developer's strength with that property clearly lies with pure RPGs, rather than mish-mashed RPG/platformer hybrids. I had a lot of fun with it, but the overall world and characters were less endearing to me than those of The Thousand Year Door or PM64.

I only got to play Metroid Prime briefly, but I think I enjoyed it more than the original, or what I played of it. To me, the Wii remote controls added a lot.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Roto13 — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:27:07 GMT

I haven't played Metroid Prime 3 because I just don't like Metroid games, but fans of the series seem to say it's the best of the trilogy. And I loved Twilight Princess, even if it was the least unique game in the series. It managed to feel fresh enough because it was the first game a lot of people played with the Wiimote. That won't be enough to carry it in he next game, but when you think about it, Ocarina of Time didn't have much going for it besides being 3D as far as innovation was concerned.

I liked Super Paper Mario, but it wasn't nearly as good as The Thousand Year Door. I guess they felt they just couldn't improve on such a masterpiece so they went in an entirely new direction. It was fun, but a lot of the time it felt like it was kind of dragging on.

re: Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:20:14 GMT

Problem here is that I know several thousand gamers who are going to disagree with you about Twilight Princess being "bloated," Metroid Prime 3 being "uncreative" and Paper Mario being a "vicious bore"--myself among them. Well, except paper Mario. That could have been a lot better, considering its pedigree.