Author Topic: Boredom and Nintendo  (Read 204 times)

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Offline Dinar87

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Boredom and Nintendo
« on: March 24, 2024, 09:18:39 AM »
The switch has had many great games released over its lifespan such as Metroid Dread and Fire emblem three houses, but for every year we get good games like them, we also get dry years full of waiting.

2018 was just smash ultimate. Kirby star allies was underwhelming to kirby fans. Wii u ports.
2020 obviously.
2021 did give us metroid dread, but that's it. And while I love metroid dread, it's also a very short game.

I blame series like pokemon falling off in quality. If pokemon wasn't completely ruined and was actually good like it was last console gen, it would help a lot filling out the years.

As it stands we're just waiting for the switch 2 with nothing but remakes to play and one princess peach game designed for little kids according to the reviews.

If they're going all in on remakes, how about giving us that Fire emblem 4 remake Nintendo?

Offline Evan_B

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Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2024, 07:24:11 PM »
It sounds like you have very particular tastes in games, and while Nintendo satisfies your proclivities for some, you don't always feel that your tastes are satisfied on a yearly basis.

No platform is wholly represented by its first-party releases, though it might have seemed as such during the N64 and GCN years. The Switch has had an incredibly healthy third party and indie scene, with many games filling the void left by your Fire Emblems and Pokemons and Metroids and whatever. And we're not just talking about old ports to new systems, either.

Asking for recommendations might result in some hidden gems that you may have overlooked.
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Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2024, 02:38:03 PM »
Meant to reply to this a couple days ago earlier but now is as good a time as any.

I agree somewhat with Dinar87 in that Switch has been an odd system for me and my feelings about Nintendo's efforts on it. It was late 2018 when I finally got the system. For me, I played Breath of the Wild on Wii U and so I have a bit of disconnect when thinking of it and Switch. Frankly, it was clearly supposed to be a Wii U game with Gamepad functionality and I wish it could have been released that way but that ship sailed long ago. I did quite enjoy Mario Odyssey and felt it the strongest Mario title since Super Mario Galaxy 2.

I was less enthused with seeing ports of NSMBU and Super Mario 3D World. 3D World is a bit more galling because they added Bowser's Fury which I'd really love to play but have never felt like paying for another copy of 3D World. Playing 3D World through with 4 person co-op did interest me as possibly making the purchase more worth it and different from my Wii U time with it but I'm not sure how easy it would be to wrangle up three other players from the community to set aside time to do that. We can't even get a co-op playthrough of Kirby and the Amazing Mirror happening. :(  It took near the end to finally get a new Mario platformer in Super Mario Wonder. I felt Super Mario Party was the best Mario Party game since probably Mario Party 8. Mario Party: Superstars wasn't the slam-dunk I thought it would be. It just sort of emphasized why my friends and I have often stuck with the GC games. All the orbs and capsules and variety of maps and strong minigames make them the strongest era of Mario Party games still. The Switch games have been unable to surpass them. Mario Kart 8 was pretty close to the same game that was available on the Wii U so it was kind of disappointing in that regard. It obviously greatly expanded on that version by adding all those extra courses over the last  year. Having not played Mario Kart Tour, it meant there were more fresh courses for me than perhaps others yet I'll admit to not really touching that content much as I had recently finishing playing through it and getting 3 Stars for all the Cups a couple months before the content was announced and had my fill of Mario Kart for awhile. Mario's also brought the sports over with Tennis, Golf, and Soccer. Nothing about those titles seemed to be considered a Must-Play or best of the series from what I have seen in fan reaction but they were solid enough entries once all the extra content was eventually added to them.

The one Mario I was quite excited for yet still have yet to touch was Paper Mario: The Origami King. I still get pumped for the Paper Mario series, however, I've also treated as something special in that I'm trying to space out and savor the series and not burn out on it. It's sort of like me and Professor Layton. I'd let a good three years go between each entry or so. I need to finally get around to Azran Legacy. I finished Miracle Mask back around 2020, maybe 2019. I'm ready for more Layton again. Likewise, I finally played through Paper Mario: Color Splash last year so Origami King is all that's left but still feels kind of soon for a new Paper Mario.

I believe that sums up the state of Mario on Switch releases. As for Zelda, there was another release of Hyrule Warriors which had already seen releases on Wii U and 3DS. There was a sequel to it with Age of Calamity, a game I'll forget exists until I think of the first Hyrule Warriors. Again, from comments I've seen about it, it just seemed like more Hyrule Warriors so if you liked the first then you should like the sequel but it didn't do anything knew to distinguish itself aside from the story setting and bringing in BotW characters to use. Skyward Sword was ported over but I finally played my Wii copy of that either before or around the time of the Switch port. Link's Awakening got the remake treatment. I have meant to play it a few times but keep dragging my feet since I've played the game so it's not exactly a new experience there either. In the end, Tears of the Kingdom will be the first fresh Zelda experience of the Switch for me yet I've held off from playing it since it came out. Partly, I've wanted to get other gaming things done before playing it before I commit to the weeks and months I'd expect to play it and also because seeing a lot of the same world being used has made feel it will be a bit of a let-down to the original BotW in which everything to see was brand new. I know there's been changes to the places seen in BotW and I wonder if it might give the feeling of visiting a town you spent years in and moved away and then came back to visit after sometime. You take in what's new and what's changed. There's still discovery but its not the same type of discovery as a new world. It's one of the things I've always like about Civilization games. Going out and exploring the new world that has been generated for a game. With Age of Calamity and Tears of the Kingdom, it also feels like it has taken over the Zelda brand and Nintendo is milking that for all the can but its also making Zelda feel a bit stale now. Its BotW themed or ports of older games. That just sort of adds to the boredom feeling you are likely talking about.

I'm glad that Metroid Dread got a release. The promise of Metroid Prime 4 made me more motivated to buy a Switch when Nintendo first released the system as it had been so long since MP3. It's been disappointing that after 7 years, there's been absolutely nothing has shown for it yet. Dread helped filled that Metroid craving and I think it's probably the best Metroid game since MP3 but I want to get back to some 3D Metroid again.

I agree that all the Wii U porting of Nintendo games has been disappointing but having 3DS and Wii ports now happening has just further seemed like Nintendo slowing down on new sequels. Even when they've done new sequels, the response has been that the Wii U stuff was better. Yoshi got Yoshi's Crafted World on Switch while Woolly World stayed on Wii U and 3DS but people have ranked the latter game as better than the former. Super Mario Maker 2 did not seem to have as much enthusiasm or love compared to the original on Wii U and 3DS. (At least, not the way this community talks about it on Discord.) Animal Crossing: New Horizon was a phenomenon yet I saw so much outcry from fans about it not being as full of content as New Leaf because Nintendo slowly added events / festivities to it over the course of a year. Now all that has probably been alleviated and it seems to allow for the most customization of things yet. But no one seems to care about it as much as New Leaf. It feels similar to Super Mario Maker 2 at this point. XC2 was not as loved as XCX or the original but XC3 seems to have been the better sequel but it took a long time for that better sequel to show up. Sort of like how Pikmin 3 got an early port to Switch and it was just last year that the sequel of Pikmin 4 was released. Practically 10 years after Pikmin 3 first came out. I haven't really gotten into the Splatoon scene but there, too, it just seems like no one feels 2 or 3 have done anything substantially better than the first game. It's just that Nintendo dropping events for a previous title has caused people to move on to the next. It's really living up to the reputation of possibly being Nintendo's answer to Call of Duty and getting the committed fanbase to move on and buy each new sequel without having to do much to expand the game. Just support the new title with events and let the old one wither away.

Smash Ultimate is an odd beast. Clearly, it lived up to its name of ultimate by having every fighter from all past games on the roster and has the most stages of any game. Yet, that also meant it didn't have a lot of new fighters added at first. Likewise, by bringing back mostly previous stages, it also felt a bit more derivative compared to past entries. It's like the next Mario Kart game having 95% tracks from previous games and 5% new. More new characters and stages did come to help create more uniqueness from past entries and freshen up the experience more but it also came at the cost of having to further pay more for that newness. I did pop in Ultimate one night as I flirted with the idea of playing through it for awhile and collecting spirits. I find that mode ok and perhaps it will win me over more when I get back to the game but gol-darn it! I miss trophies!! I understand Sakurai's reasoning on why it added more work and they saw it as unnecessary but to me the collecting of trophies is a core part of the Smash experience and why I play those games. I hardly do it for the multiplayer. Getting the trophies in Melee and seeing these various characters, items, and places and reading the blurbs about them helped get me curious about other Nintendo properties and seeking out past games and current games for these characters. I enjoyed seeing what new trophies would make it into the next game and the reminders of stuff I'd played in between Smash entries or had missed out on still. It's why I didn't care as much about collecting the stickers in Brawl. It's was just promotional art assets being used with no notes compared to the trophies. That's all the Spirits are for me in Ultimate. Just overused promotional artwork I've seen many times before. And that's my Smash rant for today. Thank you all for ignoring it again.

I did not get involved with Labo. The 1-2 Switch games have not been well received. NintendoLand was better for mini-game fun. WarioWare has two entries but WarioWare Gold or earlier entries like Twisted seem to still outshine those new entries on Switch. ARMS has been forgotten. Fire Emblem got two Fire Emblem Warriors games and those seem to have been forgotten as well. Engage was not as well received as Three Houses which you've brought up. Kirby Star Allies was a disappointment for many after Robobot. Kirby's Dream Buffet is nothing special either. Some people seemed to like Kirby Super Clash but I bounced off that game pretty fast. Forgotten World was pretty good but it straddled a line where sometimes I was asking myself "Do I actually like this game?". Pokemon got another remake of Red/Blue with Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee along with a remake/remaster port of Pearl/Diamond and Sword/Shield did not seem to get well received by the fans. But there seems to have been a rebound there with Legends: Arceus and Scarlet/Violet despite technical issues with the latter. Which seems to be part of a trend on Switch where a series might get two entries with one entry being good and the other lackluster.

In that regard, I'm with you Dinar87. Nintendo's output on Switch has been a very mixed bag for me based on my Nintendo gaming history. I also recognize that my situation is different for a lot of other Switch users. Many users could very well be in their teens and twenties and thus not have the back catalogue of games I do or will have played a bunch of these ports on a previous system already. Heck, the Wii U sales numbers indicate that the vast majority of Switch owners likely never played those ported Wii U games before. So, for them, the Switch experience will be totally different. For me, Nintendo's only had a small number of original games for Switch that were really great. Most others have been sort of average. Surprisingly, it has been the third party stuff that's been more unique to me. Having stuck in the Nintendo ecosphere for decades, having ports of all sorts of things like Katamari Damacy, Lumines, Grim Fandango, and Batman: Arkham Asylum that I've always wanted to try out has been great. It's those games that have been getting me to keep playing my Switch more these days. Indie stuff like Hollow Knight, Untitled Goose Game and even Suika Game have provided me with new engaging experiences to keep me invested in my Switch. And there's still so much more in those scenes I'd like to get to such as the recent Tomb Raider Trilogy (never played any of those games) or Cocoon.

Still, a lot of Indie stuff can be rather short and fleeting and third party stuff can lack that Nintendo polish and magic that keeps you wanting more. Nothing hits quite like the hype for a new entry in a Nintendo series you love that looks like it could be blast to play. A sequel to Endless Ocean is surprising but it doesn't hit the same for me compared to seeing a surprise announcement of a brand new 3D F-Zero with 8 Cups and 55 racers. I'm glad that the success of Switch has caused Nintendo to do some obscure porting like Famicom Detective Club and the Another Code games but that stuff is like the dinner rolls and gravy. Where's the sizzling T-Bone steak and twice-baked potato? Stuck in the oven waiting for Switch 2 to finish and so we have to stick it out with some appetizers and try to get hyped on that for now.

I'm definitely curious what Nintendo's software output will be for Switch 2. There's not a lot of Wii U Porting left. Will we see more GC, Wii and 3DS porting to make up for that or will Nintendo slow down on the porting? If they slow down on porting, does that mean original software for the system or just less output by them?
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Online Khushrenada

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Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2024, 02:40:05 PM »
My wall of text aside, one thing I'd like to know from Dinar87 is what are the games/series from Nintendo that you are a fan of and that you want to see new entries for to get hyped? Are there some series you've never played or tried? Are there some you've tried but just don't care for?
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Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2024, 03:14:05 PM »
You really have to look beyond Nintendo published games or you'll never be happy since it's impossible for Nintendo to constantly release certain types of games every single year. 

You mention 2018, 2020 and 2021 as dry years when in reality they were anything but.

2018 had 177 games that received positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2018/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

2020 had 149 games that received positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2020/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

2021 had 136 games with positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/2021/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1


We're almost to the end of March and the Switch has had 22 games with positive reviews.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/current-year/metascore/?platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

Plus two of the highest reviewed games are Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Unicorn Overlord.  The new Prince of Persia is a Metroid style game and Unicorn Overlord is a Strategy RPG, the same genre Fire Emblem is in.  That's 2 highly reviewed games that should be appealing directly to you, but you seem to be ignoring them because they're not from Nintendo.


Seriously, this is one of the reason why I've grown distant from many of the hardcore Nintendo fans online.  The Switch has been home to an insane amount of high quality games that just get completely ignored by the kind of people said games are literally being made for.  Especially in recent years where there's suddenly been all this Gamecube nostalgia and Nintendo fans declaring the Gamecube the greatest system ever made and how the Gamecube era was the best time, when it's like, are you fucking kidding me.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/gamecube/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2001&releaseYearMax=2024&platform=gamecube&page=1

The Gamecube had 187 games that received positives reviews its entire lifespan.  In comparison, the Switch in just 2018 alone had 177 positive reviewed games and 2018 was supposed to be such a terrible year with nothing to play.  :rolleyes:

Never before has a Nintendo system offered the variety and gameplay experiences that the Switch has and yet some people are acting like we're in the final days of the Wii all over again.  The Wii in 2011 and 2012 COMBINED had only 19 games with positive reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/wii/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2011&releaseYearMax=2012&platform=wii&page=1

The Switch has literally had more good games released for it in less then 3 months of this year alone, then the Wii had it's entire last 2 years combined.

Still, a lot of Indie stuff can be rather short and fleeting and third party stuff can lack that Nintendo polish and magic that keeps you wanting more. Nothing hits quite like the hype for a new entry in a Nintendo series you love that looks like it could be blast to play.

Only that's not true, there's a lot of indie and third party stuff on Switch that's just as good as the types of games Nintendo releases.  This is N64 Yamauchi era propaganda that too many still have in their heads.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/nintendo-switch/all/all-time/metascore/?releaseYearMin=2017&releaseYearMax=2024&platform=nintendo-switch&page=1

Just go down the list.  Yes, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey and Tear of the Kingdom are at the very top but after them you have lots of third party titles right around what Nintendo's releasing.  Yes every gen the very top Nintendo games like Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime, Mario Galaxy, Breath of the Wild get the best reviews, but those titles are very rare even by Nintendo standards.  Outside of the very top 1-3 Nintendo games each gen, the best third party games are easily competing with everything else.
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Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Reply #5 on: Today at 05:06:50 AM »
Especially in recent years where there's suddenly been all this Gamecube nostalgia and Nintendo fans declaring the Gamecube the greatest system ever made and how the Gamecube era was the best time, when it's like, are you fucking kidding me.

Recent years? The GameCube nostalgia was already happening after a couple of the Wii years. I know. I've been here and I've been part of it!  ;) ;D GameCube love has been happening through the Wii U and now. The demand for a GC VC has perhaps been a part of it but I'd say there's also another reason. There's a lot of GC software that hasn't quite been surpassed or is iconic. Like I mentioned about the Mario Party series. The Mario Party games that followed have been kind of off and never quite hit the mark like those games during its prime. F-Zero GX is the best game in that franchise and the last 3D F-Zero game. There's been nothing to surpass it since. Paper Mario:TTYD has been a rallying cry for some that want the series to go back to its RPG roots and keeps getting named as the best game in the series by a bunch of Paper Mario fans.

I believe Smash Bros. Ultimate should be the definitive game for tourneys and stuff going forward but Melee has hung on so long in that tourney sphere and people still can't quite quit it. Melee kept the GameCube controllers going through to today and probably played a factor in the system's legacy getting acclaimed while others soured on Wiimotes and the Wii U Gamepad. Around 2011 or 2012, this site did a tournament to declare the Best Nintendo Game of the past 12 years and Metroid Prime was the winner. Even now, Metroid Prime is often named favorite or best Metroid game by a lot of people when ranking the series or at least the best of the 3D Metroids which isn't a big list. Zelda is a mixed bag. BotW is my rank for number 1 but I still go to Wind Waker for Number 2. Twilight Princess also has its fans. That's why people keep hoping for those games to get ported to Switch. They made an impact with fans of the series and for those that miss the traditional Zelda style that BotW/Totk has deviated from those games are getting more nostalgia love.

There's a lot of sleeper software on the system that has its champions. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was considered the top Fire Emblem game until Awakening came and gave the series greater popularity. Again, Ike in Smash Bros may have further helped keep that title in the minds of Nintendo fans. Chibi-Robo's GC has been that series best outing. The third game might possibly be better but Reggie committed the unforgiveable crime of not porting the game out of Japan after the second game was weirdly released in NA. Nintendo hasn't returned to Wave Race or 1080 snowboarding since the GC. Some still hope for Nintendo to follow up Eternal Darkness or to try porting that game. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat with bongos is still one of the oddest and so-insane-it's-genius games Nintendo's ever released. Another hidden gem is Battalion Wars. There was a sequel with Wii but it wasn't as highly regarded as the first and seemed to bomb sales-wise ending the potential series which is too bad since I like Battalion Wars over Advance Wars. (And here's something weird. I wanted to see how NWR ranked the two but there is no NWR review for BW2 despite the fact that Pale posted in a thread that Karl and him had both received review copies of the game. Way to let everyone down, guys! No wonder staff hardly get review copies now!  >:( )

Even with some third party stuff, other companies seemed to have defining entries. Has Resident Evil ever surpassed the heights it seemed to hit with RE4? I don't follow the series well enough to know. Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 seems to be stuck on the Cube with it never being ported or released anywhere else since. There's also RS3 but it wasn't as good as 2. Factor 5 would later go defunct thanks to betting on PS3 so they never surpassed 2. And Sega! The Super Monkey Ball series has somehow continued on all these years despite none of the newer entries surpassing the start of the series at this time with 1 & 2. Even Sonic seems to have had his last few good years at this time. For all their flaws, the two Sonic Adventure games (particularly 2) stay fixed in gamer's minds as some of the highlights of the series particularly in 3D. There's been some other well regarded games like Sonic Colors and Sonic Mania but the brand was much stronger at this time. (It would also crumble at this time with Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog :P ) Tales of Symphonia often seems to be named as the height of that series with maybe Phantasia or Vesperia as other candidates. That's why people were so upset with how botched the recent Namco port of it was which means the GC version is still the definitive way to play it. In fact, that's happened with a few GC ports in which the best way version is still the GC copy.

However, I didn't really want to get into third party software so much as my focus is more on Nintendo's output which is, what I believe, the original intent of this thread. When Dinar87 talks dry years, he's only talking about what Nintendo's released and not what third parties also released. Likewise, Nintendo's output was also the focus in my earlier post. It's why I've been in the Nintendo ecosystem for more than 30 years  (:o that long already!) and have stuck with their systems whether it be a Wii U or Switch. It's their franchises and games that I love and I buy pretty much most of the software they put out unless I'm really sure it's not for me like Labo. I'm willing to give it all a fair shake like Wii Fit or Crosswords 3DS. That doesn't mean that everything is an instant winner or a favorite. That's why you see the discussions and arguments about what entries or games people think were well done and which ones weren't and why they think something why some games were more successful than others.

When it comes to the Switch, there will no doubt be titles people will want to see made still available in the future or that Nintendo might release for nostalgia / pleasing the fans like we've seen with the recent Super Mario RPG remake and coming TTYD port. Stuff like BotW, Odyssey, FE:Three Houses, Metroid Prime and even Luigi's Mansion 3 or possibly Smash Ultimate seem like instant candidates. But after that, I'm not so sure. Will there be people wanting Origami King or Yoshi's Crafted World or Kirby Star Allies and other such Nintendo Switch titles at that time?
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