Topic: People Need To Stop Bitching

[rlse9]

I think as much as the numbers themselves is the quality of games Nintendo has released on the Wii compared to the previous generations.  It seemed like (and maybe I'm wrong and people will bring up examples showing it) for the N64 and Gamecube that if Nintendo developed and released a game, it was going to be good.  It might not necessarily be a game I was interested in but it was a good game.  With Wii that hasn't been true.  Wii Music was pretty much universally considered horrible.  Animal Crossing was one of their laziest releases ever, virtually a complete rehash.  As much as I wanted to have fun with Wii Play, it was not good.  Wii Party was received lukewarmly at best.  Wii Fit was a great idea but Wii Fit Plus was another cash in that left so much untapped potential.  Even their core series have been met with mixed reviews.  That's not to say that they haven't delivered some amazing experiences this generation but it seems more hit and miss than it used to be.

The other than I look at that leaves me a little disappointed by the Wii isn't what is there but what isn't.  How on earth did they not get around to releasing a new Pikmin game?  It was their best new IP of last generation and a perfect fit for pointer controls.  Where was Wave Race?  The original was one of my favorite games for N64 and Blue Storm was a solid follow up.  Where did Star Fox disappear to?  I know the series dropped off a little on the Gamecube but why just ignore it instead of getting back to what made the earlier games so fun?  Where is F Zero?  How about new Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games?  Wii Sports (and later the Tiger Woods games) showed that the Wii had perfect controls for these.  I realize they don't have unlimited resources but it seems like with the huge success the Wii had they could have found ways to keep the games coming strong.

[Kairon]

Wii Music is possibly my favorite game for the Wii. It's something unique and special and new to this world. It reminds me of Mario Paint, not directly, but emotionally. I can understand not everyone liking it, but I am a Nintendo fan and I'm glad it exists and I want more.

[UncleBob]

You'd almost think, with all the complaining that Nintendo needs to try new things, Wii Music would have been celebrated.  At the very least, some of the "try new things!" people would have given it a chance.

Too many people hated on the game based on the E3 performance and never gave it a second look.

[ejamer]

Wii Music is possibly my favorite game for the Wii. It's something unique and special and new to this world. It reminds me of Mario Paint, not directly, but emotionally. I can understand not everyone liking it, but I am a Nintendo fan and I'm glad it exists and I want more.

You aren't alone.  But you are part of a very small minority.


(For what it's worth, I'd rather Nintendo not revisit Wii Music anytime soon.  In my opinion the game isn't as horrible as most people suggest... but it's certainly not good either.  There are much better things Nintendo first-party development studios could be working on.)

[UncleBob]

I agree that they don't need to revisit Wii Music - but it'd be nice if they went head-on developing a game with the same mindset as it appears they used when they created Wii Music.

[Chozo Ghost]

The main reason I wasn't interested in Wii Music is because there was only Nintendo's own compositions, as well as a few public domain songs... who cares about "twinkle twinkle little star"? And another problem was there was no musical peripheral for it. No guitar accessory, no drums, no keyboard, no nothing. You do it with the wiimote/chuck. So that's two areas where it could have been hugely improved. If it was more like Guitar Hero or Rock Band and had popular modern songs people cared about and actual musical peripherals it could have been a very cool product.

[Ian Sane]

Wii Music just seemed like all the worst elements of casual gaming morphed into one title.  Nintendo obviously cheaped out on the music licencing which is lame.  Then there isn't really any "game" to it.  You can't win or lose and there is no real tangible reward for skill or punishment for failure.  You also don't really create music, you just kind of dictate the sounds.  It isn't like you can compose your own material.  To me it seemed pointless and it appears to practically play itself.

I wanted either a game or some sort of musical composition program and Wii Music was NEITHER.  I still don't get the point of it.  I've always felt that the Wii Series heavily implies that its target demo is helpless and stupid and needs its hand held at all times.  That series is patronizing and I grew tired of being patronized when I was seven years old.  Wii Music seems to be the worst offender for this and at the time I felt like Nintendo had pushed this "non-gamers are idiots" assumption too far.

I honestly think you can make games that appeal to this market that do not come across as dumbed down.  Didn't Guitar Hero/Rock Band prove that?  Clearly those are "real" games that require skill to succeed at and offer lots of options, depth and complexity for those that want it and casuals loved those games.  Why did Nintendo think a non-gamer/casual music game had to be so simplistic when a much more complex music game already existed that non gamers and casuals were eating up with a spoon?  Rock Band was already the Wii Music that Wii Sports fans wanted.

[ThePerm]

i havent played it, but that sounds terrible. Thats like when you go to the store and you're in the toy section and they have these kids cheap electronic instruments, and you cant play them, you just press a button and it plays music for you. Its like what type of bullshit is that? If i had a kid, id never give them bullshit like that. They would get real instruments that they could play. After all its fun figuring out songs, or just making noise, but you cant do those on those crappy things.

[Luigi Dude]

Well Nintendo also released the Rhythm Heaven series this gen which is the most hardcore music related games on the market.  Unlike Rock Band or Guitar Hero where people just hit the button when the game tells them two, Rhythm Heaven actually requires it's players to learn the actual rhythm of each song.  Plus the later songs are quite brutal with some pretty complicated rhythms as well.  Completing the Rhythm Heaven games require much more dedication and skill then any other music game released on the market.

This is why I always find it kind of ridiculous that people love to bring up Wii Music as an example of Nintendo at there worst, but hardly ever bring up Rhythm Heaven which is a good example of Nintendo at their best.  Everyone loves to b!tch about Wii Music and ignores Rhythm Heaven even though Rhythm Heaven is the much superior Nintendo music game.

[Kairon]

I freely acknowledge that Wii Music isn't the sort of game that everyone will enjoy, or even understand. It's closer to interactive art in conjunction with software than it is traditional challenge-based gameplay. But that doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it as a longtime Nintendo fan, especially one who used to hook up his SNES to the VCR to create audio-visual title screens for family vacation videos with Mario Paint.

I can understand if Nintendo made more or less games for any one particular person in any one particular year. But that's just the way of life, not some personal affront to the world at large. Ultimately Nintendo is making creative, fun, and innovative titles, and they've been doing that for years, and I hope they keep doing that for years to come.

[Louieturkey]

The main reason I wasn't interested in Wii Music is because there was only Nintendo's own compositions, as well as a few public domain songs... who cares about "twinkle twinkle little star"? And another problem was there was no musical peripheral for it. No guitar accessory, no drums, no keyboard, no nothing. You do it with the wiimote/chuck. So that's two areas where it could have been hugely improved. If it was more like Guitar Hero or Rock Band and had popular modern songs people cared about and actual musical peripherals it could have been a very cool product.

So they should just copy Rock Band and not make a Nintendo game?  If they did that, you'd complain that they didn't make a Nintendo game and just a clone of something you could already get with Rock Band.

Wii Music is so much different from other music games.  It's not about trying to play songs that already exist, though you can do that.  It's about taking that song and making it your own.  It's about creativity and experimentation.  It's about finding out if when you say you could make that song better, that you can back that up. 

I feel like the reason Wii Music is hated is because nobody bothered to figure out how to play it.  "You mean I don't get to play this licensed song exactly how it was originally done with a couple button presses?  I'm not bothering with this then."

It's possibly one of the most ambitious games that Nintendo has done.  That's probably the reason why it failed.  Nintendo makes something new, but people hate.  Then they complain about Nintendo never making anything new.  The problem is that the "new" that they want Nintendo to make is basically clones of what everyone else makes.

[Chozo Ghost]

So they should just copy Rock Band and not make a Nintendo game?  If they did that, you'd complain that they didn't make a Nintendo game and just a clone of something you could already get with Rock Band.

At least if they had copied Rock Band/Guitar hero it would have been an actual game. Would I complain about it being a rip off of those games? I don't know... maybe. But again, at least it would have been an actual game and something that was worth a crap as opposed to something no one can understand or make up their minds about what it actually even is.

I don't complain about Wii Music because its something I never tried because I had zero interest in it (for the reasons I pointed out above). Had it been a Rock Band clone I would have had more interest in it and maybe would have given it a try. If I tried it maybe I would have complained, but that would still bea huge improvement over Wii Music which I didn't even want to try period.

[Kairon]

I don't complain about Wii Music because its something I never tried because I had zero interest in it (for the reasons I pointed out above). Had it been a Rock Band clone I would have had more interest in it and maybe would have given it a try. If I tried it maybe I would have complained, but that would still bea huge improvement over Wii Music which I didn't even want to try period.

If you're stating this from a personal standpoint, I'm perfectly fine with that. I think it would be ridiculous to expect everyone to like every single Nintendo game ever made. Myself? I don't see what all the hub-bub about Metroid is. So sue me.

I just don't want think it makes sense to act as if Nintendo has all of a sudden been radically remade by some four-headed-Iwata-beast. (Hmmm... Iwata-beast. Yamauchi-saurus?)

[Ian Sane]

Unless Nintendo could do something really great with it, I sure didn't want Wii Music to be a Rock Band clone.  I would have preferred something like a modern version of Mario Paint's music creator, but enhanced to justify it being its own game.  If that had some sort of Rock Band-like game mode in it as well, all the better.

I wanted like a Nintendo synthesizer and the result was like those little kid music toys that Perm mentioned.

Soloing on a guitar is largely just going through scales.  Stay in the right scale and whatever you do will sound in key.  A music game that keeps the player in the scale but lets him **** around with whatever notes he wants in that scale would allow for non-musicians to jam but would have much more complexity and allow for actually writing original materal.  Something like THAT would be much more interesting than what Wii Music has and would still have casual appeal.

[ejamer]

Off-topic comment:It's always interesting to see Wii Music discussed and try to guess how many people complaining have actually played the game before (or even after) forming their opinions.  Most complaints are couched behind language that suggests people never gave the game a chance.

It's unlikely that the skeptics would be blown away by what Wii Music had to offer... but many of them might find the game is more interesting than they had expected if given a real chance.

[Louieturkey]

Off-topic comment:It's always interesting to Wii Music discussed and try to guess how many people complaining have actually played the game before (or even after) forming their opinions.  Most complaints are couched behind language that suggests people never gave the game a chance.


It's unlikely that the skeptics would be blown away by what Wii Music had to offer... but many of them might find the game is more interesting they expected if they gave it a real chance.

Very much correct.  90% of the people against it never even picked up a Wiimote to try it or even a demo of it.

[Chozo Ghost]

Soloing on a guitar is largely just going through scales.  Stay in the right scale and whatever you do will sound in key.  A music game that keeps the player in the scale but lets him **** around with whatever notes he wants in that scale would allow for non-musicians to jam but would have much more complexity and allow for actually writing original materal.  Something like THAT would be much more interesting than what Wii Music has and would still have casual appeal.

But how do you pull that functionality off with a wiimote/chuck? That's why I said it needed some sort of musical instrument peripheral to go with it, even if it was just a simple plastic shell for the Wiimote to snap into.

[marty]

Unless Nintendo could do something really great with it, I sure didn't want Wii Music to be a Rock Band clone.  I would have preferred something like a modern version of Mario Paint's music creator, but enhanced to justify it being its own game.  If that had some sort of Rock Band-like game mode in it as well, all the better.

Wii Music was like a coloring book.  Without the actual scoring/game mechanic behind the Rock Band/Guitar Hero/Sing Star type games, I'm not sure how well they would have done with consumers either.

I wanted like a Nintendo synthesizer and the result was like those little kid music toys that Perm mentioned.

There's a lot that Nintendo could have done to make an attractive piece of software.  Korg Ds10 did pretty well and that was pretty bare bones sonically.  It was successful enough to even get a sequel.


Wether or not anyone thinks Wii Music is unfairly judged isn't really important.  What is important is that Nintendo made something that people didn't WANT to play.  Who was Wii Music for?  There's little "game" there where people can do better or worse.  Little in the way of creativity there since you can't compose your own music (something Mario Paint did offer).  Who is the audience?  People that have enough of an interest in music that they want to play along with public domain midi tunes but can't be bothered to turn off the tv or learn any sort of musical instrument? The Korg DS10 has a built in "kaos pad" which lets you play along and compose with very, very little musical knowledge. 


I always see Nintendo talking about games that anyone CAN play and that's why certain considerations are made when it comes to design.  Okay.  Everyone CAN play with a baby's rattle but who would WANT to?  Anyone can play Wii Music, but who would want to?  Music software that offers no scoring system or creative control?  Where do I not sign up!

[UncleBob]

So... you think Nintendo should only ever make games they know in advance people want to play?

Sounds bland.  I like the idea of Nintendo reaching out and developing new kinds of games that I don't know if I even want to play because they don't exist.

[Kairon]

What is important is that Nintendo made something that people didn't WANT to play.

Ummm... yeah. I don't know what to say about this if you really think it's unprecedented for Nintendo to make something that somebody out there isn't interested in playing...

[Chozo Ghost]

So... you think Nintendo should only ever make games they know in advance people want to play?

From what people are saying, its debatable whether Wii Music can even be considered a "game". Sounds like its a bit of "interactive art" that you fiddle around with for fun, but there is no scoring and you don't "win" or "lose".

[ThePerm]

I've never heard of Rhythm Heaven till today, so maybe that's why people don't bring it up. as far as Music games go Nintendo does have Donkey Konga, though it should use more licensed songs than covers.

[Evan_B]

Rhythm Heaven is awesome, BTW. Definitely pick up the one for DS if you want to have a good time.

[marty]

So... you think Nintendo should only ever make games they know in advance people want to play?

Sounds bland.  I like the idea of Nintendo reaching out and developing new kinds of games that I don't know if I even want to play because they don't exist.

You do know Nintendo used to use extensive market testing on their games, before releasing them, right?  Nintendo used to care about what people thought of their games.  Most of Nintendo's games, and all of their big sellers, are based on existing genres (Wii Sports (sports), Wii Fit (sports/fitness), NSMBWii (2d platformer), Mario Kart (arcade racing)).  To say that Nintendo's mission statement is to make new types of games seems like a self induced delusion.  99.9% of all Nintendo games are made of existing, if not well established, ideas.

[marty]

What is important is that Nintendo made something that people didn't WANT to play.

Ummm... yeah. I don't know what to say about this if you really think it's unprecedented for Nintendo to make something that somebody out there isn't interested in playing...

Do you think it is odd that a company lost a half billion dollars despite have a product that was sold out for 3 years and had 5 games selling over 20 million copies?  Does that sound like a company that puts out games that people want to play or like a company that lost the plot?