Modern Gamers Unimpressed by Miyamoto

[Vault101]

well nintendos been dead to me for a while..in fact I never really liked it in the first place

 

[pilouuuu]

I'm unimpressed by you... Do you think you have more imagination than him? Maybe you should be working in Nintendo instead...

Now seriously, the guy created some of the most playable and fun games ever. Even if he never makes a game again, he's part of gaming history.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Japanese developers are still relevant? What?

More than US Some of us don't think their country is the centre of universe.
Look at the most sold games, most of them are from Japan.

I think he means technological innovation. As in, CoD is necessarily going to keep changing and getting better as access to new technology becomes more mainstream.

I don't think that's what he meant at all, but even if it was, COD has been using the exact same engine with only the most minor tweaks since COD4 at least. Maybe longer, but I'm not as familiar with the older games. It's tech is years behind the cutting edge in the industry at this point.

As to the discussion of Miyamoto, I completely agree that he's been coasting on a wave of nostalgia for years. I don't want to take anything away from what that man did for modern gaming and game design. He not only invented more genres than other developers can shake a stick at, he also made sure that when he did come up with something new he did it right. But he's spent the last decade at least riding that wave of success with no progress to show for it. In fact, many of the rehashes of his most successful and loved games take some very major steps backwards in terms of quality and good design from their predecessors. Which is absolutely not to say that he perfected these the first time around and there's nothing to be improved. It's that he and the people at Nintendo working on his classic franchises stopped having the necessary spark of creativity to improve on their work, or to see how others have improved on it and build from there, years ago.

Disagree, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are some of the best games ever and they are from 2007 and 2010. Zelda Skyward Sword may have disapointed some people due to the controls, but is still one of the best games of 2011, for me it was the best.

I don't think my country is the center of the universe, I just haven't bought a Japanese developed game in forever. Partly because I am a PC gamer exclusively now and they don't send a lot of releases my way.
Anyway, I wasn't being entirely serious although I'll admit I can't play a Mario game anymore. It just doesn't hold my attention like it did when I was a little kid. I guess I am also not a big fan of beating franchises into the ground. I like when a game is a new IP.

 

[pure.Wasted]

You have never played Pokemon, did ya? It goes through a shitton of changes with every installment (most mentionworthy the changes in storing mechanics through wich natures and abilities were added and because of that you could not transfer your old Pokes).

Pokemon develops on the technical side of all things. It is not "just new engine", it changed and improved mechanics with every generation.

I have in fact played Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Black, and "beaten" Yellow and Gold, insofar as any Pokemon game can be beaten at all. So I might not be an expert, but I think it's fair to say I'm more than qualified to judge whether the game has actually changed over the years.

Honestly, the technical improvements you're talking about are next to meaningless. The only people who are going to really notice them and care are Pokemon fans to begin with, and if you ask around, I'm sure a Call of Duty fan will be able to match your list of improvements tit-for-tat. As only a casual observer of CoD, I know that perks didn't always exist, unlockable weapons in multiplayer didn't always exist, weapon attachments didn't always exist, killstreaks didn't always exist, deathstreaks didn't always exist, there was a time when vehicles actually played a role in the multiplayer.

At the end of the day, Pokemon is still basically the same game it was 20 years ago. It looks a tiny bit better (not that much), some Pokemon only show up at night or on Mondays, but there's been no attempts to turn it into a world, there's been no attempts to give it amazing graphics that would blow everybody away, there's been no attempts to create a great story with believable and compelling characters, or imbue the game with deeply resonating ideas and themes it never had in the past.

In 16 years of gaming FPS games have gone from

to

In that same timeframe, Pokemon games have gone from

to

You're really going to sit there, with a straight face, and tell me that's not only a fair comparison, but Pokemon actually pulls out in the lead? Really?

(and no, graphics aren't the only important thing out there, but they're pretty damn important. Besides, I've already gone into lots of detail about the innumerable ways in which Call of Duty has redefined FPS storytelling (and to a smaller extent all gaming storytelling), and continues to do so game-in, game-out. Pokemon? I'd love to hear that argument.)

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Isn't it pretty clear Miyamoto hates the "hardcore" crowd by now? I mean, he knows videogames are toys and shouldn't be taken seriously. Him "shitting on modern games" just means he wants people to stop taking games so goddamn seriously all the damn time.

 

[Kahunaburger]

In 16 years of gaming FPS games have gone from

to

Unfortunately

But I do agree with you that pokemon has been pretty static - I mean, seriously, my 10-year-old self had much better ideas to change the game (dynamic monster ecologies, dynamic trainer behavior, better a.i., and so on) than the direction development seems to have taken. Just think about what could be done in those games with procedural level generation alone.

 

[wooty]

Hm, I'd still rather play anything, anything "rehashed" by Miyamoto.than most of.the current modern stuff on the market.

Zelda will always rule supreme.

Hah, if Zelda rules supreme something like the Witcher must be the fucking emperor of the multiverse. If you can't tell I've never found a Nintendo game worth playing.

Then you've neve played a Nintendo gme then. I'm not even a nitendo fan per se, but fun is fun and their games are fun.
Screw the witcher, I guess? Was it good? I honestly dont know. If you think its wort playing then I might pick it up.

The Witcher 1 is my favorite rpg of all time. Heck it's my favorite game of all time.

Ok, now that I'm more sober I guess I will try out the Witcher at some point. I remember hearing some hoo-ha about the second one but not a lot about the first, aside from Yahtzees review of it, but we all know a pinch of salt should be applied to them.

 

[Vivi22]

Disagree, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are some of the best games ever and they are from 2007 and 2010. Zelda Skyward Sword may have disapointed some people due to the controls, but is still one of the best games of 2011, for me it was the best.

It's all fairly subjective, but I hated Mario Galaxy. Mario Galaxy 2 was a bit better than it since it did away with a lot of the tacked on motion control elements, had better level variety, and tended more towards larger levels some of the time, but both still had similar problems. Too many levels are extremely small, and almost every level is extremely linear. Often you couldn't get stars out of order if you wanted to as many simply aren't available unless you choose them when selecting the level, effectively killing any exploration, which was one of the best parts about Mario 64 and even some of the earlier 2D games like Mario 3 and World.

I haven't played Skyward Sword yet, but the last console Zelda I did play, Twilight Princess, was utterly horrible. It wasn't too bad when you're actually exploring the overworld on horseback or working your way through dungeons, even if all of that was almost a carbon copy of the gameplay from OoT, but the fact that they made you suffer through an hour or more of tutorial boredom before you get to the real game and included some stupid wolf form fetch questing made the game an absolute pain to get into let alone continue playing. I didn't even finish it actually. I think I quit a few dungeons in because I was sick of playing a bad OoT rehash. If they're going to keep rehashing a 3D Zelda, they could at least do everyone a favour and make it a Majora's Mask clone.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Heh, funny comparison of pictures. Also funny that you compare a whole GENRE to one single line of games.

Why not? I'm talking about the big picture, video game making philosophy. Specific examples are only there to illustrate the point. If CoD existed 15 years ago, that's exactly what it would have looked like. Because that's how every single FPS looked. That is the leap they have made, because for all their faults (and there are many, just as there are many faults with platformers, action-adventure games, and everything else) they understand that technology marches on, and it's silly not to take advantage of that.

Yeah, looks way more similiar. Actually, for a cynical asshole like me both look nearly identical because MW3 actually looks like shit.

I'm not talking about aesthetics, and I'm not saying that CoD is a better game. If we were going to argue which visual style is prettier or which game was better we'd be here all day, every day, forever. I'm saying that CoD has more ambition and it's always pushing itself to try harder and harder, and I appreciate the fact that by doing this it's pushing many other game makers to try harder and harder, to match it, too. I'm talking about the fact that the graphics engine (and game engine) for CoD titles has become fundamentally more complicated to take advantage of new technologies as they emerge, whether you appreciate this technology is more or less irrelevant. Complex lighting, complex physics, incredibly high-polygon models, fluid animations, water physics and reflections, complex environmental effects like fog or dust or sunlight. You might not like CoD, you might not think it makes great use of all these technologies, but the fact is it's trying, and it's pushing the industry forward by saying that there's no reason games shouldn't look as real as real life, there's no reason any game, no matter how simplistic its core gameplay, shouldn't try to pack a visceral adventure or have an actual plot with actual characters with actual personalities.

You come up with perks (a MP only thing), I counter with abilities which have not existed in GEN 1 and 2 and 3 and are mostly a MP thing. Weapon attachments? How about items like choice scarf, band, specs or life orb, leftovers etc which can change the same Poke (aka same IV and EV) so drastically that it plays completely different?

The changes of Pokemon are more subtle... Unless you go into GEN V which was also a huge graphics improvement. 3d environments, moving sprites, I would put it on the same level as the engine change of CoD.

The other changes win in my eyes because they don't force themselfs on the casual player. The casual does play through Pokemon, has his fun and does not have to find out how to EV train his Poke, what items it should hold with what moveset and in what team it does work best.

You said that Pokemon has all these subtle "technical" (I think you meant mechanical) changes. The implication, if I understood you right, was that CoD has not had such changes. I merely set out to prove this suggestion false by listing a couple of examples.

Giving me counter-examples serves no purpose, because I never said that Pokemon has had no changes, and from my own experience with the franchise I know plenty. I merely said that they have been minor ones, and CoD has also had many minor changes, so discussing minor changes is pointless. We'll never settle on which one has more. What we can settle on is which one has had more major changes, and that's without a doubt CoD.

Yes, I sit here with a straight face and say it: Pokemon has developed in those years as far as FPS did. In the 5 gens Pokemon developed more in terms of aesthetics than CoD did. It developed at least as much in terms of mechanics as CoD did. But since I am not comparing just graphics like you do I see this "discussion" as a lost cause.

PS: CoD redefined storytelling? For their own series maybe, call me when they finally can let the NPCs look into my DIRECTION when they're talking to me and not to the spot where the developers think I'd stand. Call me then they achieve the same level of facial animation and subtle storytelling like HL2. Because this three things are the stuff an FPS from 2004 did better than your praised series.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think Call of Duty is some amazing, revolutionary game. It's not. Pokemon is simply that much worse.

I've also specifically said that graphics are NOT my only concern. I addressed this EXTENSIVELY in post #63, going on and on and on about how CoD storytelling has improved in meaningful ways over time.

Go read the plot of Doom 2. Guy lands on a planet where everybody is dead. He picks up a gun. He fights monsters. That's the plot. The end. 10 years later, go read the plot of Modern Warfare 1.

Or here, better yet, go to wikipedia and read the Plot subheading for Modern Warfare 2 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2], and then read the Plot subheading for Pokemon Black/White [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Black_and_White]. Compare them! Do they both sound like plot synopses to you? Here is an excerpt from MW, about 1/6 of the total written up:

"Allen is later sent on an undercover mission in Russia for the CIA under the alias "Alexei Borodin", joining Makarov in a massacre of civilians at the Zakhaev International Airport in Moscow. However, Makarov has been aware of Allen's identity and kills him during extraction, leaving his body behind to spark a war between Russia and the United States. Enraged by what was believed to be an American terrorist attack, Russia declares war on the United States by lanching a massive surprise invasion on the East Coast of the United States after bypassing its early warning system, revealing that the ACS module had already been compromised before its retrieval."

That is a plot. Here is an excerpt from Pokemon, about 1/4 of what is written up:

"Like previous Pokémon games, Black and White's gameplay is linear; the main events occur in a fixed order. The protagonist of Pokémon Black and White is a teenager who sets out on a journey through Unova to become the Pokémon master. At the beginning of the games, the player chooses either Snivy, Tepig, or Oshawott as their starter Pokémon as a gift from Professor Juniper. The protagonist's friends, Cheren and Bianca, are also rival Pokémon Trainers who occasionally battle the player. The player's primary goal is to obtain the eight Gym Badges of Unova and ultimately challenge the Elite Four of the Pokémon League, and its Champion, to win the game."

That is not a plot. It is a premise, and it is gameplay mechanics. The following paragraph talks a little about a slew of encouters you'll have with the mysterious N (which is only a slight improvement over the "couple of encounters with Team Rocket" they already had in Yellow, 10 years ago), but apart from that, there is no story. There is merely you catching Pokemon and battling trainers. That's not a story.

That's graphics and story, now, where CoD has shown more innovation. Even so, those aren't the only things a game can be ambitious about. There's immersion, creating a believable, atmospheric world full of details that make it come alive. Like... Bioshock, for example, or Red Dead Redemption or LA Noire. They could try this, but they don't want this either, they're content with a simplistic and superficial world that could not take itself less seriously if it tried. I'm not focusing on any one thing. I'm saying that they fail in everything. It is complete and utter stagnation. Look at Bioshock Infinite, a straight sequel to Bioshock... with a completely different world, with a completely different plot, with completely different, compelling characters, with a completely different atmosphere. Never mind all its gameplay differences and the completely new engine it uses.

Meanwhile, Pokemon is coming out with Black and White... 2.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Japanese developers are still relevant? What?

More than US Some of us don't think their country is the centre of universe.
Look at the most sold games, most of them are from Japan.

I think he means technological innovation. As in, CoD is necessarily going to keep changing and getting better as access to new technology becomes more mainstream.

I don't think that's what he meant at all, but even if it was, COD has been using the exact same engine with only the most minor tweaks since COD4 at least. Maybe longer, but I'm not as familiar with the older games. It's tech is years behind the cutting edge in the industry at this point.

As to the discussion of Miyamoto, I completely agree that he's been coasting on a wave of nostalgia for years. I don't want to take anything away from what that man did for modern gaming and game design. He not only invented more genres than other developers can shake a stick at, he also made sure that when he did come up with something new he did it right. But he's spent the last decade at least riding that wave of success with no progress to show for it. In fact, many of the rehashes of his most successful and loved games take some very major steps backwards in terms of quality and good design from their predecessors. Which is absolutely not to say that he perfected these the first time around and there's nothing to be improved. It's that he and the people at Nintendo working on his classic franchises stopped having the necessary spark of creativity to improve on their work, or to see how others have improved on it and build from there, years ago.

Disagree, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are some of the best games ever and they are from 2007 and 2010. Zelda Skyward Sword may have disapointed some people due to the controls, but is still one of the best games of 2011, for me it was the best.

I don't think my country is the center of the universe, I just haven't bought a Japanese developed game in forever. Partly because I am a PC gamer exclusively now and they don't send a lot of releases my way.
Anyway, I wasn't being entirely serious although I'll admit I can't play a Mario game anymore. It just doesn't hold my attention like it did when I was a little kid. I guess I am also not a big fan of beating franchises into the ground. I like when a game is a new IP.

Good for you, keep playing non Japanese games, I keep playing great games, no matter where they're from.

I do play great games no matter where they come from. I don't pre judge a game because it is from a Japanese developer. I am just stating the trend in my gaming purchases lately based on games I have believed to have been of quality. This is amplified by the fact I mostly just play on PC now, which limits my exposure to Japanese games even further.
Where a game is made has no bearing on my decision to purchase it, though.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

I'm guessing I'm the troll? (if not, disregard...)

If you'll note, the guy I was responding to didn't use Mario Galaxy as his example. I don't know why in the world not, because I happen to agree with you that it's by far the most innovative title in the series (in many Nintendo series, in fact) in recent years.

But gameplay is just one area to improve in. Others are story, characters, graphics, physics, the depth and believability of the world in which you're being immersed, spectacle, themes and ideas. Would you really go so far as to say that Mario Galaxy is leading a gaming revolution on any of these fronts? I'd say that by today's standards it's not even competent on most.

The troll comment was aimed at OP

OK well i'll tackle the area's one by one and explain why I think Mario has gone the route he has
We know the gameplay is greatly improved so skip to

Story, The problem with adding in a complex story is that EVERY gamer is accustomed to the franchise and knows the route story is always Save the princess (except certain titles), I think the problem lies with the franchise having been an 8 bit game originally, where most games' story was as complex as Save the Princess, Rescue the kingdom etc and any change to that lore can end in repeat customers being turned off
Characters suffers from the same as above

Graphics, no need to argue that these have improved, Mario has never looked better than in Galaxy and has been a progression along with the hardware since SMB1

Physics, the varying ways mario can interact in Galaxy was a lot more varied compared to older titles the gravity effects alone were groundbreaking for the series

Depth/believability of the world, This is always going to be an issue with a game as surreal as mario, however everything inside the world is cohesive and doesn't break the settings pre-established themes.

I think i've covered the rest of the points within those categories. I believe the Mario franchise is pushing the industry forward because if you can list ONE 3D platformer that is up to the same quality I will concede my point

 

[Starik20X6]

Miyamoto has provided more joy and happiness in my life than I can possibly quantify.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to collect as many stars and save as many princesses as I want, thank you very much.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

In 16 years of gaming FPS games have gone from

to

In that same timeframe, Pokemon games have gone from

to

You're really going to sit there, with a straight face, and tell me that's not only a fair comparison, but Pokemon actually pulls out in the lead? Really?

Considering the capability gap between something like the DS, which fits in your hand, and at least an Xbox 360 and your graphics whinge sort of falls on its arse: thats like complaining that a Honda Civic isn't as good as a Ferrari F430 by virtue of both having engines, four wheels and a steering system.

Now, I would have liked to see a greater graphical improvement in my Pokemon games, but if they chose to stay a generation behind so they could fit a larger world in, which in Black and White I'd say they have, then I'm cool with that. However this one way I find Pokemon and Call of Duty are actually similar: both have refined the basic gameplay of their respective genre to a fine art.

As for Myiomoto, well, I've played the man's games and they have brought me great joy. He's made his mark and paid his dues. And as a man in the industry, he probably knows more on the subject than you or I.

 

[Vivi22]

Of course it's subjective, but I don't mind people saying they don't like Mario or Zelda, veryone has their own tastes, I do mind when they call them shit or bad games, because they aren't.
On Gameranking and Metacritic both Mario galaxy are on top10, that has to mean something.

No, I would go so far as to say that some of the design choices they made in those games were objectively bad. Case in point, tiny planets in Mario Galaxy leading to the controls being a little confusing at best, bringing back the fire flower but making it so it can only fire in 8 directions if you haven't locked on to something despite the game being 3D, not to mention pairing it with an auto-lock feature that had terrible target priority. And of course there's the tacked on motion controls, and the removal of almost all camera control, even in the larger worlds where it's desperately needed at times. As for Zelda, we've had to suffer through such nonsense as increasingly long and boring introductory sections (whatever happened to handing me a sword and telling me to get going?), the god awful sailing in Wind Waker, and Wolf form in Twilight Princess.

But when it comes right down to it, no one is saying these games are absolute shit. What is being said though is that Nintendo hasn't made any real progress with these titles since the N64, which is a damn shame since they basically defined these genres in 3D when they did them the first time around. But since then, everything they've tried to tack on has not only largely failed to add to the experience, in many cases they actively take away from it. At their best the modern Nintendo franchises can still be enjoyable, but those good parts are largely still rehashes of 14-16 year old games. There's no creativity or innovation left in them.

As for review scores, I have next to no faith in them. Mainstream reviewers are rarely qualified to do their jobs assuming they did them right and weren't subject to editorial mandate and the whims of the marketing department who takes money from these companies to pay their pay cheques. There's a huge conflict of interest there, and to simply ignore it and assume that reviewers don't lie ever is silly. Especially when advertising is now their only source of revenue (whereas they at least used to have subscriptions in the days of magazines). Now sure, not all reviewers are corporate shills, but the number willing to say what they actually think about a game is pretty few and far between. Hell, it's one of the reasons I still enjoy Zero Punctuation. Sure Yahtzee hams it up a bit because his show is funnier when he hates on everything, but you can still generally count on him to be honest about what he didn't like, even if he is hyperbolic about it.