And I mean if you're at all interested in Nintendo games going forward you'd probably have to pick up a Switch at some point.
Well, these are my thoughts alone, but to be honest with you, after the WiiU, I wonder if I'm even interested in future Nintendo games at all.
It's not even cause I'm upset they dropped the WiiU for the Switch or any of that at all, but that aside, the majority of 1st party titles on both the WiiU and 3DS felt massively underwhelming.
Looking at Smash for example, yeah, while a step up from Brawl, it still left a lot to be desired. At least for me. And I don't mean in terms of characters or content, etc... since I think the roster is the best the franchise has ever, and could ever have, but just mechanically. You need only to play Melee and Smash 4 side by side to see what I mean. I loved Melee, and spent hours playing Melee with my friends back in hs, not cause Melee had Nintendo characters from many different franchises fighting each other, but be cause Melee FELT addictingly good to play. It was a very responsive game, that rewarded skill, and just simply felt good to play. That's the only way I can really describe it. The speed of the engine, and the mechanics were all really good. And you know me, I never really got into that wavesdashing stuff. Compared to most of the community in this site, I'm very much a casual. Playing Smash 4 by comparison just festers into frustration at various aspects of the game. It just doesn't feel the same way. It honestly in many ways doesn't even feel like a competitive fighting game, since it has so many design decisions that are intentionally anti-competitive. Complaints that I've voiced here and in other places before, and to which I was given the advice of "instead of wanting Smash 4 to be a fighting game, or playing it as one when it's not properly designed as one, and feeling frustrated as a result, why don't you pick up a real fighting game like Guilty Gear and play that instead?"
Which is honestly what I did at the end of the day. This generation for me was very much a repeat of last generation. Last gen, I bought a Wii early into the generation, played it, felt bummed by Smash, felt bummed by the lack of games to play, and the deteriorating quality in many of their games, and I bought an Xbox 360 when Halo 3 came out to play with all my friends, and pretty much played games on there like Rock Band, and Gears, and Halo while my Wii collected dust. This gen, I bought the WiiU, felt pissed at the repeating trends despite the promise that "this time it would be different" and bought a PS4 to play Overwatch, and Guilty Gear, and Titanfall 2, and Bloodborne, and the upcoming exclusives with all my friends, literally like a couple days ago.
And it's not just Smash, but while Nintendo might deliver on their promise for a new F-Zero or Metroid, I can't count on them to not **** it up somehow anymore. Just look at Other M, and Sticker Star, and most notably, Star Fox Zero.
When news of that game being a "reimagination" using the same nostalgic elements from the most popular SF game, my interest in it quickly waned. Rather than take advantage of having Plat Games working with them to design a game that built upon the potential of the franchise, and really polishing it up to bring a top notch experience, we instead got a game that... honestly, felt like it didn't quite know which direction it was heading. Like, imagine if Zero had taken the multiplayer element of Assault, which was really good, and polished it up to make it amazing, maybe even give it an online ranking mode, and in addition, added fast twitch railway Arwing segments. Combine that with a new idea for a story, whether it be sequel or prequel, and you've got a top notch game. I know I'm in the minority when I say this, but Assault was a legit good game, it just lacked polish. But the core design elements of that game not only had potential, but were the right direction for StarFox to head into. Not a "re-re-reimagining" of a game most of us played about 4 times by now, with a clunky gimmick tacked on for innovation just for innovation's sake.
And that's my point, you see this again and again with Nintendo IP. Squandered potential left and right. In many ways, Nintendo no longer makes games that appeal to gamers, in fact, they're certainly not catering to us, their fans. We're always an afterthought, and they keep us hooked on their products with their nostalgia drug of "remember how much you used to like this?" all the while forgetting WHY we liked those experiences int he first place. With all the hand-holding, and tutorials, and lowered difficulty curve, and gimmicks, across all their games, it's obvious Nintendo is TRYING to make games that appeal to children first. The irony being that children are more concerned in playing games like GTA and CoD than Mario or Zelda. And I could cite dozens of examples across two generations now, both console and handheld. And that's not even getting into the hardware, and how clunky and awkward Nintendo OS tends to be compared to the competition, or how simple things like, including an ethernet port in your console, or having your consoles be region free, are completely out of mind for Nintendo.
On games alone, it's been two generations of me playing Nintendo games, and just feeling massively underwhelmed. My best experiences on the WiiU were all the few 3rd party exclusives the console had like Bayonetta 2 and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, not the 1st party games. And a similar thing can be said about the Wii with Xenoblade, No More Heroes, and Muramasa; or the DS with TWEWY, Ghost Trick, Radiant Historia, and Shin Megami Tensei. I'll keep an eye out for what the Switch has got down the line, but I'll more than likely be skipping out on this generation to be honest. Due to their games having no community really, and mostly being single player experiences, I no longer see a point in missing out on popular games that NEED live communities to be experienced over games that I can easily play the following gen, at a much cheaper price, especially since Nintendo games NEVER drop in price during their generation.
Capitalism and the Free Market mean that a company has to EARN my money. They have to compete and make products that cater to me, in order for me to be willing to spend money on them. And that's how I feel about Nintendo products going from here forward. Until they start to make games and products that cater toward me instead of children and non-gamers, I won't be spending a dime on their stuff. Brand loyalty to me, isn't a reason for why I should support a company. On the contrary, it's because of brand loyalty that Nintendo products have been stagnating for so long imo. Since they know they don't have to try to retain their loyal fans, they'll always buy their stuff simply because it's Nintendo. But personally, I've grown tired of that, and I really would like to see a Zelda or a Mario or a Metroid that is GOOD outside of its name, that you could slap a different name on the game, and it still be fantastic. Not a Zelda that is "good" because "Zelda games are always good" which certainly isn't true.
Those are my two cents. Sorry for the rant, haha, but I really did try to keep it short. I honestly have a lot more to say on this matter, since it's been two generations of this now, and it's just been building up, and like I've said, I grew up with Nintendo, being a fan of then since the NES. So I feel the most disappointed by their current state of affairs and overall quality, because I KNOW how good their used to be, because I remember when they actually used to compete. I'll be honest. I genuinely regret buying a WiiU. It was a waste of money through and through. Monster Hunter and Bayonetta didn't justify a $350 purchase. But that's just me. I'm not telling anyone NOT to buy Nintendo products, or that the Switch WILL flop, I honestly don't know. But at the same time, if Nintendo keeps going down their current path, I'd much rather they go 3rd party since their IP no longer merit the value of an exclusive console. Not for me at least.
