the8thark
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2013
- Messages
- 1,273
This is a little opinion article I wrote when this question entered my mind. Is Nintendo Valuing Game Difficulty Over Fun Now? I wanted to try to answer the question in my own opinion. Feel free to give your comments and dissect this article to pieces if you agree or disagree with it. All commentary is greatly accepted.
Ok, below is the article that tries to answer the question in my opinion. It's only a short article but it's how I feel on the topic. I wrote before I decided to post it up here, so excuse the explaining the SSB4 references a little too much. I know everyone here knows SSB4 well.
*****************
I have played a quite a few WiiU games of recent and I have noticed what I think is a worrying trend. These games seem to value extreme difficulty over fun. Without a lot of skill in the WiiU games you are playing, you will not be totally completing the games to 100%. In some cases you will not even get close this goal. This to me is a serious issue that Nintendo need to think about.
In the golden old days, the NES days of the 1980’s there were a lot of difficult games for the console. For people used to gaming on the Atari or thew arcades, this was great. But for everyone else, this difficulty was a serious barrier for them to enter the gaming world. They did not have the skill to get very far in these games and the games did not ease in the player, the difficulty wall hit very early on.
Nintendo by the early 1990’s seemed to realise this issue. By then quite a few of their 1st party games were much easier. Super Mario Bros 3 and Legend of Zelda 1 and 2, are two examples of this. People enjoyed being able to finish the games or getting very far in them. They had more fun for their dollars spent on the games. There was also less frustration as there was no unfairly hard parts in these games. The so called “hardcore” gaming crowd did not even complain that these games were too easy that much. Their complaints were dwarfed by their praise of how well these games were made and the many hours of fun these games had.
Since then on the SNES, N64, Gamecube and Wii nothing much changed. All of these consoles had their hard games. But they also had their fair share of easy games. Probably the most popular game from all these consoles was Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This game was not very hard to complete fully. And most of the gaming community appreciated this. They could enjoy everything this amazing had to offer without facing any serious difficulty walls. The game promoted fun over difficulty. This fun over difficulty seemed to be an unspoken slogan Nintendo has had every since it learnt the error of it’s ways back in the early NES days. If a game has nice aesthetics, plays well and is very fun, people will buy it and enjoy it.
But when the WiiU released everything changed. Nintendo changed it’s stance to “We are not catering for the hardcore gamer”. This is a stance I believe Nintendo didn’t have since the early NES days. A stance which (in my opinion) could do more hard than good. This harm comes from Nintendo’s definition of hardcore gamer. Most people outside Asia feel this “hardcore gamer” term refers to people who really likes their games and plays them a lot. If you live and breathe your games then this term applies to you. It does not matter what actual gaming skill you have. Nintendo on the other hand seem to believe that the hardcore gamer is someone with serious gaming skill. And they are designing their games with this in mind.
There are two examples of this, that describe Nintendo’s idea of the hardcore gamer well.
In Hyrule Warriors the story/Legend mode is relatively easy. This is about 20% of the game. The other 80% is called Adventure mode. The game puts time, damage and kill limits on the player in these already very hard adventure mode stages to earn any weapon, heart piece or costume. The average gamer will seriously struggle with this. Struggling with games in this way is never fun.
In Super Smash Bros for WiiU there are event matches and challenges. Many of these require the player to complete various modes of the game at a very high difficulty. Doing this is optional but if not done, the player misses out on a large amount of the game’s content. There is even a boss fight that only has it’s full form at the highest of game difficulty levels.
Purchasing a game which could cost as much as $100 in some regions and not being able to experience all of the game is not a nice feeling at all.
It is not all doom and gloom for Nintendo. There is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel. Nintendo can keep it’s “hardcore gamer” stance it has recently readopted and also keep the rest of it’s customers happy. This involves introducing variable difficulty into games. This is where the game adjusts it’s difficulty to the skill of the player or where the player can experience most or all of the game at any difficulty. One example of a large gaming developer getting this right is Blizzard Entertainment. In their multiplayer games they have a MMR or Match Making Ranking. It’s a number the player never sees and in short it allows you to vs other players at you skill level and if your skill level changes, then so does the skill level of your opponents till you vs more players at your new skill level. This gives everyone a challenge without any sudden difficulty walls appearing to frustrate the player. The other way Blizzard ensures all players can enjoy the game is having 100% of the game available at all difficulty levels. The player might be able to earn a few more achievements at the higher difficulty levels but apart from that the entire game is there to be played, if you like an easier or a very hard game difficulty.
I believe Nintendo needs to adopt the Blizzard stance with respect to game difficulty, so everyone of all skill levels can enjoy most or all of the game’s content at their own pace and difficulty. having hard difficulty achievements is fine, but keeping all of the main game rewards achievable at all difficulties I believe is key to ensuring that the future Nintendo games are fun. Personally I would not recommend Hyrule Warriors, Smash Bros for WiU, Bayonetta 2 and more for casual gamers looking to take their first few steps into the more time consuming games. They start off easy but their difficulty ramps up much to quickly for anyone without serious gaming skill to enjoy them. Or they can play on the easier parts of the game and never be able to fully enjoy all of the game.
I am not saying that every game released by Nintendo needs to be very casual like Animal Crossing. Nintendo needs to realise that their “we must make games very hard now” stance is not a good thing. In my opinion this is one of the reasons why the WiiU did not sell as well as Nintendo would have hoped it would. The hardware and software design totally alienated the crowds what made the Wii such a hit. Having very hard games to cater for the skilled gamers is a good thing but give the players the choice of what difficulty they want so they can enjoy all of a game’s content at their own pace. And let the player, not the game choose what difficulty they want. Players like choice. And when that choice is taken away, sales start to suffer. Nintendo needs to address this issue ASAP or I believe their next home console will suffer the same fate as the WiiU did.
Ok, below is the article that tries to answer the question in my opinion. It's only a short article but it's how I feel on the topic. I wrote before I decided to post it up here, so excuse the explaining the SSB4 references a little too much. I know everyone here knows SSB4 well.
*****************
I have played a quite a few WiiU games of recent and I have noticed what I think is a worrying trend. These games seem to value extreme difficulty over fun. Without a lot of skill in the WiiU games you are playing, you will not be totally completing the games to 100%. In some cases you will not even get close this goal. This to me is a serious issue that Nintendo need to think about.
In the golden old days, the NES days of the 1980’s there were a lot of difficult games for the console. For people used to gaming on the Atari or thew arcades, this was great. But for everyone else, this difficulty was a serious barrier for them to enter the gaming world. They did not have the skill to get very far in these games and the games did not ease in the player, the difficulty wall hit very early on.
Nintendo by the early 1990’s seemed to realise this issue. By then quite a few of their 1st party games were much easier. Super Mario Bros 3 and Legend of Zelda 1 and 2, are two examples of this. People enjoyed being able to finish the games or getting very far in them. They had more fun for their dollars spent on the games. There was also less frustration as there was no unfairly hard parts in these games. The so called “hardcore” gaming crowd did not even complain that these games were too easy that much. Their complaints were dwarfed by their praise of how well these games were made and the many hours of fun these games had.
Since then on the SNES, N64, Gamecube and Wii nothing much changed. All of these consoles had their hard games. But they also had their fair share of easy games. Probably the most popular game from all these consoles was Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This game was not very hard to complete fully. And most of the gaming community appreciated this. They could enjoy everything this amazing had to offer without facing any serious difficulty walls. The game promoted fun over difficulty. This fun over difficulty seemed to be an unspoken slogan Nintendo has had every since it learnt the error of it’s ways back in the early NES days. If a game has nice aesthetics, plays well and is very fun, people will buy it and enjoy it.
But when the WiiU released everything changed. Nintendo changed it’s stance to “We are not catering for the hardcore gamer”. This is a stance I believe Nintendo didn’t have since the early NES days. A stance which (in my opinion) could do more hard than good. This harm comes from Nintendo’s definition of hardcore gamer. Most people outside Asia feel this “hardcore gamer” term refers to people who really likes their games and plays them a lot. If you live and breathe your games then this term applies to you. It does not matter what actual gaming skill you have. Nintendo on the other hand seem to believe that the hardcore gamer is someone with serious gaming skill. And they are designing their games with this in mind.
There are two examples of this, that describe Nintendo’s idea of the hardcore gamer well.
In Hyrule Warriors the story/Legend mode is relatively easy. This is about 20% of the game. The other 80% is called Adventure mode. The game puts time, damage and kill limits on the player in these already very hard adventure mode stages to earn any weapon, heart piece or costume. The average gamer will seriously struggle with this. Struggling with games in this way is never fun.
In Super Smash Bros for WiiU there are event matches and challenges. Many of these require the player to complete various modes of the game at a very high difficulty. Doing this is optional but if not done, the player misses out on a large amount of the game’s content. There is even a boss fight that only has it’s full form at the highest of game difficulty levels.
Purchasing a game which could cost as much as $100 in some regions and not being able to experience all of the game is not a nice feeling at all.
It is not all doom and gloom for Nintendo. There is a light at the end of this very dark tunnel. Nintendo can keep it’s “hardcore gamer” stance it has recently readopted and also keep the rest of it’s customers happy. This involves introducing variable difficulty into games. This is where the game adjusts it’s difficulty to the skill of the player or where the player can experience most or all of the game at any difficulty. One example of a large gaming developer getting this right is Blizzard Entertainment. In their multiplayer games they have a MMR or Match Making Ranking. It’s a number the player never sees and in short it allows you to vs other players at you skill level and if your skill level changes, then so does the skill level of your opponents till you vs more players at your new skill level. This gives everyone a challenge without any sudden difficulty walls appearing to frustrate the player. The other way Blizzard ensures all players can enjoy the game is having 100% of the game available at all difficulty levels. The player might be able to earn a few more achievements at the higher difficulty levels but apart from that the entire game is there to be played, if you like an easier or a very hard game difficulty.
I believe Nintendo needs to adopt the Blizzard stance with respect to game difficulty, so everyone of all skill levels can enjoy most or all of the game’s content at their own pace and difficulty. having hard difficulty achievements is fine, but keeping all of the main game rewards achievable at all difficulties I believe is key to ensuring that the future Nintendo games are fun. Personally I would not recommend Hyrule Warriors, Smash Bros for WiU, Bayonetta 2 and more for casual gamers looking to take their first few steps into the more time consuming games. They start off easy but their difficulty ramps up much to quickly for anyone without serious gaming skill to enjoy them. Or they can play on the easier parts of the game and never be able to fully enjoy all of the game.
I am not saying that every game released by Nintendo needs to be very casual like Animal Crossing. Nintendo needs to realise that their “we must make games very hard now” stance is not a good thing. In my opinion this is one of the reasons why the WiiU did not sell as well as Nintendo would have hoped it would. The hardware and software design totally alienated the crowds what made the Wii such a hit. Having very hard games to cater for the skilled gamers is a good thing but give the players the choice of what difficulty they want so they can enjoy all of a game’s content at their own pace. And let the player, not the game choose what difficulty they want. Players like choice. And when that choice is taken away, sales start to suffer. Nintendo needs to address this issue ASAP or I believe their next home console will suffer the same fate as the WiiU did.
