Topic: Is Nintendo Land Too Complex?

[Patchkid15]

An older generation just may not get it.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/32547

Yesterday, when I sat down with Nintendo Land, I was most interested in gathering my family to try out some of the competitive multiplayer events. I expected loud family fun, filled with shouting and laughter. I got quite the opposite. 

First, we dove into Mario Chase, probably the least troublesome of the three competitive games. My family couldn’t understand how to catch somebody, and attempts to coordinate a capture strategy yielded no results. Luigi’s Ghost Mansion created the same problems. Battery mechanics, coupled with strategically hunting down a ghost, were confusing. When I put my family in control of the ghost, they became even more frustrated, as my sibling and I had little issue tracking them down.

The icing on the cake was Animal Crossing: Sweet Day. When my family was collecting candy they had problems managing how much to hold, and when to drop it to successfully evade the guards. They had significant difficulty when playing as the guards. They could not control each guard independent of the other, and instead always ran them in the same direction, making it near impossible for them to ever catch an animal. 

These anecdotes lead me to my main point: is this game too complex for an older generation? Wii Sports used basic motion gaming people of any age could figure out. Some of the simpler Nintendo Land attractions should cause few problems, but the more complicated games may turn people away in the end.

[StrawHousePig]

Easy there, sonny. As an "older" generation gamer I can safely say that it's not too complex for me.

[bernietoast]

I think I can see this happening with my family too, especially with family members who have never used the controller's d-pad. Their is definitely a steeper barrier to entry then Wii.

[S-U-P-E-R]

Time to get a new family, then.

[ShyGuy]

Time to take off the waggle training wheels, Grandpa!

Next Lesson: Kill Death Ratio

[lolmonade]

Nintendoland isn't this generations' "Wii Sports" for this exact reason.  None of the games in Wii Sports really required a tutorial to play, as they were all based in sports that most people know how to play before touching a Wii U.

I've enjoyed Nintendoland so far, but it's taken me a bit to get aquatinted to the controls and rules of each minigame.  I don't see my parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles being patient enough to learn these games.

[Podings]

Not "too complex".


Just too convoluted. It's crazy toy-land versions of franchises they don't know, strung together by a mish-mash of color.


I don't see my dad playing this the same way I played golf and bowling with him. And you know what? He doesn't HAVE to play it. There's other stuff to do, also in games.


This game serves to get those interested familiar with the classic Nintendo franchises, so they can sell some new iterations further down the Wii U's lifeline, which I'm all for.

[Ian Sane]

This always seemed like a weird game to me.  It has the Miis and it's a mini-game comp so it seems like it is aimed at the casual gamers that embraced the Wii.  But then it has all these Nintendo references that would fly right over the heads of that audience.  Yeah Mario and Zelda are well known but F-Zero and Pikmin last appeared on the Gamecube so casuals are not going to get the reference.

The "complexity" of the games just demonstrates the difference between the gimmicks of the Wii and Wii U.  The Wii's motion control was intuitive.  The whole hook was that you swing the remote and the guy on the screen swings his tennis racket or baseball bat in the exact same way.  It's like really low-tech virtual reality.  The Gamepad is really just some other controller.  Having a tablet controller is not necessarily any more intuitive to a non-gamer than a regular controller.  It's still a controller.  The Wii was able to "hide" it's controller.  Mr. Non-Gamer did not think of it as swinging a controller but rather swinging his arm and he just had to hold this thing while he did it.  Nintendo made a big stink about controllers being intimidating.  And the Gamepad isn't?  It's basically an Xbox 360 controller with a screen.

Wii Sports and Wii Fit were like activity simulators.  This was the same appeal for Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  Nintendo Land's mini-games are, well, videogames.  You're not doing some simulation of a real life activity like so many of the big casual games on the Wii did.

The key to grabbing to casuals isn't just gimmick controller and mini-games.  The SPECIFICS of how the Wii did that is what worked and I don't think it can be easily replicated, if at all.

[Stogi]

Ian, their lack of knowledge about the franchises isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's a good thing. It's not nostalgia that's going on here, it's introduction.

"The Wii's motion control was intuitive." I never ever heard you say those words. Why now? Regardless, touch devices are everywhere now. They're like our generations keyboard. How many do you own?

As for the article, I don't think there is a problem here. Yes the games are more complex, but they are also more challenging. And challenge equals fun.

[KDR_11k]

I guess it's not enough of a gateway game then. Board games have a pretty clear path if you want to upgrade someone from Snake & Ladders or Monopoly to something deeper, first you give them Settlers and gradually increase the complexity from there. Maybe NSMB would have worked better as a step between Wii Sports and Nintendo Land?

[Ian Sane]

"The Wii's motion control was intuitive." I never ever heard you say those words. Why now?

For a game like Wii Sports and the audience it was trying to attract it was intuitive.  You swing this remote and the guy on the screen does it too.  Besides my beef with motion control is that it SUCKS.  It is imprecise and unresponsive and it often involves MORE EFFORT than just pushing a button.  But in a game like Wii Sports, it's the dream game that everyone fantasized about (and didn't think about fully, which is why you can't do anything in Wii Baseball but hit and pitch and why Wii Tennis doesn't even let you move).

People are familiar with tablets these days but a console with a tablet isn't something they dreamed about for years.  The Wii looked like a science fiction concept come to life.  The Wii U just isn't that.  The PS4 and Xbox 720 probably won't be either.

[Ceric]

...
The Wii looked like a science fiction concept come to life.
...

That is harder and harder to obtain everyday.

Modern Phones are pretty much the holy grail of pass Science Fiction.  Humanity has known it wanted to be hear since the industrial age.

Next will be affordable self driving cars. Etc.

Its just harder to think of what we want in our lives anymore that doesn't seem achievable beyond say Mutant Powers.

[EasyCure]

I, for one, welcome our new mutant overlords.

[KDR_11k]

More effort than pressing a button can be fine but only if it's deliberately more difficult. Golf and Bowling are sports that have to add contrived systems to require some actual skill because if it was just "Aim with the analog stick, then press A to launch" there wouldn't be a game as the core challenge is to get the ball onto the trajectory you want, motion controls simply add a more natural way to make the player mess up. When motion controls aren't supposed to make things harder but get used instead of buttons anyway the game suffers because it adds unplanned difficulty.

[Caterkiller]

Yeah, I certainly think its too complex. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on it that it would be the spiritual successor to Wii Sports but could tell it would be too much for the casual audience.

I'm looking forward to a 3rd Wii sports. Hopefully it's well received, what else could be added?

[TeaHee]

I don't know.  My wife who is not a gamer, but will play family type games had no problem with it.  As a matter of fact she said, "this is so much more fun than the Wii."  I do not think that any of the chase games are to hard to understand.  You are really just playing tag and hide and go seek.  Everyone knows those games.  It just takes a few times playing to get the hang of it.