The Video Game Critic

The first Nintendo Direct in several months since Iwata passed away was yesterday, and it was pretty disappointing to see where Nintendo's focus is now. Basically, it went through the few titles that remain this year, and pretty much all the way through Spring of next year. Basically, everything that will most likely be released up until next year's E3.

First I'll say the few positive things I saw. It's nice Nintendo's made updated versions of almost all the 3D Legend of Zelda titles now, with Twilight Princess HD coming out next March. It doesn't look like a great graphics upgrade, but that doesn't matter too much to me, just getting some of these older mainline games updated is a good way to transfer them smoothly to HD. Also, Starfox looks a lot better, and the delay to next April seems like it's worth it.

The rest? Lots (and LOTS) of talk of Amiibo, downloadable content, Special Editions, and "free to start - pay to continue" games. I don't think there was a single game that didn't have some sort of gimmick tied into it. Even the Twilight Princess HD game has an ability to transfer some sort of information into the new Zelda game - but only if you have an Amiibo to do so, of course. Fire Emblem has two versions of the same game from different perspectives of characters, and a 'final chapter' downloadable content. All sold in a 'special edition' for $80. There was also 'free to start games' - of Pokemon Picross, where apparently you can buy in-game progression, as well as a Nintendo badge arcade game where you pay $1.00 for five chances to win icons you can put on your 3DS home screen.

It's unfortunate things have gone this way for Nintendo, they were one of the few companies left not engaging in these things, but now every game has some sort of gimmick, be it a figuring you have to buy or some DLC to get the 'full experience.' Also there were extremely odd uses of their franchises. The new Mario & Luigi game has Paper Mario in it ... as a separate character? So there's a Paper Mario and a regular Mario? I thought the purpose when this started way back on N64 was to give a neat perspective on what started with Super Mario RPG . but apparently 5 games later it's turned into it's own character.

Also, of all the crossovers to do, apparently someone thought a Pokemon fighter made by Tekken developers was a good idea. A franchise that appeals almost exclusively to kids being made into a hardcore fighting game? Huh? But probably the weirdest was Nintendo introducing a female "Link" character into the Hyrule Warriors game. No, not Zelda. A girl that is dressed up like Link. and the name? Linkle. Really? That's the name.

I really don't know what's happened to this company, but I thought at least you could rely on some no-frills value gaming, with some creative ideas, but that's gone out the window now it looks like. It's just mind boggling.

IMHO Nintendo is in a tough place. They need to get the NX out the door ASAP while still delivering content to the 3DS and Wii U. If my crystal ball is right the NX may drop during the summer instead of the fall as previously believed.

They've abandoned the Wii U. Now, it's time for them to release the NX with whatever software they can come up with in the time frame they have. Rest assured Zelda will be out on the NX in addition to the Wii U.

I think the graphical overhaul will be a bit more significant than some think it will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSjP7qxsSzk

Sadly the art style isn't as timeless as Wind Waker, a game that still doesn't look like it originally appeared in 2003. So the best that Nintendo can pretty much hope for is that this upgrade makes the game look like how people that last played it nearly a decade ago thought it looked in their memories.

Atariboy wrote:I think the graphical overhaul will be a bit more significant than some think it will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSjP7qxsSzk

Sadly the art style isn't as timeless as Wind Waker, a game that still doesn't look like it originally appeared in 2003. So the best that Nintendo can pretty much hope for is that this upgrade makes the game look like how people that last played it nearly a decade ago thought it looked in their memories.

I don't think it's a significant overhaul at all. Honestly there's a lot of fan emulation projects that add bump mapping, HD textures, and lighting and look incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5exMhQ32o

I don't mind Nintendo's style of updating the games, but I don't consider them a true overhaul. Twilight Princess is actually the only 3D Zelda I've never played. One thing I'll say though, is the new game seems to be MUCH less cloudy and dull looking. The original looks like they put a giant yellow urine filter over the game, and the ground looked brown and ugly. It looks like they removed the cloudyness and yellow filter, and made the ground greener, which looks a TON better by just changing the color palette.

The main complaints I've heard about the game is there is a very long tutorial type start to the game. I hope they axe that, and the rest of the filler. I haven't played this, but I've played Skyward Sword and know EXACTLY what the complaints are. The game got so monotonous of going place to place for no reason other than to complete a mundane task three times.

At that a point on the third 'redo' event, I just stopped playing and didn't go back. Which is the first time I've really ever done that. I was a good 35 hours in thinking I was close to the finish, got to that point, and didn't want to keep going. Then when I looked up what I had left, I was close, but there was still these musical note collection tasks and other things left. Sheesh.

Hopefully Nintendo makes the effort in making a Director's Cut version of this, and Skyward Sword in the future, removing a lot of the monotonous things that held the games back.

These fan projects, while impressive in their own right, don't stay faithful to the original intentions. This is a remastering, not a remake.

All it needs is to be rendered in HD, for the textures to be uncompressed (Supposedly, they were created at a much higher resolution originally and then downscaled drastically for the 2006 release, an apparently not uncommon practice), select issues to be addressed, and maybe a bit of remixing like a new difficulty mode that doubles the damage that enemies do. Doesn't even need a new lighting engine like Wind Waker HD saw, since there's too much bloom as it is.

I don't even see them touching the tutorial. A few people at places like NeoGaf are really blowing the length of it way out of proportion I think. It's not much of a problem I feel and I actually enjoyed it, but I also didn't mind the shard quest in Wind Waker that some people act like was such an imposition. I doubt it took me an hour to do back in 2003 so I've never understood the hatred of that.

Another thing I'd love to see is for a mirrored Wiimote option to be included so that it's truly the definitive version of the game. Going back and forth between the GCN and Wii versions, it's almost like playing a 2nd quest when I replayed the game on the Wii after originally experiencing the GCN original. Would be nice if there was absolutely no reason to ever look back again for this one by both forms of the title being represented here.

That's an area where Wind Waker HD faltered by not allowing the new lighting engine that drastically changed the look of the game to be optionally disabled. I rather liked how it looked originally and could actually see myself revisiting it someday on the GameCube since I feel like the bloom lighting detracts from the atmosphere rather than adding to it.

Honestly, when has there been a time where Nintendo wasnt about gimmicks? I mean the NES was marketed as a toy with a robot gimmick right out of the gates. Not to mention the bazillion gimmicky peripherals. Every system of theirs is the same. It comes out, and then they push out a bunch of gimmicks to get more money. A lot of their gimmicks are common place now like wireless controls, motion controls, touch controls, rumble, and 3D. They cant really market a bunch of junk peripherals anymore as there is just no market for it since those music games over saturated gaming with endless nonsense noone wanted. DLC and freemium garbage is all the rage, so thats their new gimmick.

NX17 wrote:
The main complaints I've heard about the game is there is a very long tutorial type start to the game. I hope they axe that, and the rest of the filler. I haven't played this, but I've played Skyward Sword and know EXACTLY what the complaints are. The game got so monotonous of going place to place for no reason other than to complete a mundane task three times.

At that a point on the third 'redo' event, I just stopped playing and didn't go back. Which is the first time I've really ever done that. I was a good 35 hours in thinking I was close to the finish, got to that point, and didn't want to keep going. Then when I looked up what I had left, I was close, but there was still these musical note collection tasks and other things left. Sheesh.

Hopefully Nintendo makes the effort in making a Director's Cut version of this, and Skyward Sword in the future, removing a lot of the monotonous things that held the games back.

That is EXACTLY why I lost interest in Skyward Sword all of a sudden, somewhere in the middle. I was having a great time with the game, when I finally arrived at some Castle or something after working my butt off to get there, when what do I discover? Some random object has, of course, been shattered into a dozen bite-sized pieces and scattered all around the castle and I will need to find and reassemble them to get in. Again, until that point I liked the game, but for some reason this REALLY rubbed me the wrong way and I just turned it off in a huff and never played it again.

Apparently it's just too profitable to ignore these business strategies. Free to play, micro transactions & digital distribution means big $$$$. I'm thankful they held out as long as they did. It would be nice if they could embrace both the traditional business model as well as the modern one, but that's probably just too much to ask.

I just wish they had released a 3Ds Player for the Wii U. I guess Virtual Console ruined that.

Nintendo hasn't been my favorite console maker since the SNES days, but they were probably my favorite to collect for. Their consoles are durable & their games tend to age well. I doubt the NX will have any appeal for me.

Tron wrote:I just wish they had released a 3Ds Player for the Wii U. I guess Virtual Console ruined that.

While I'm afraid that it played out just like I had expected, I too wished for such a thing. That said, only DS games are present though on the Wii U eShop, so there would still be a sound business reason that could benefit both platforms.

I've wondered before though if the Wii U technically is even able to do this without the presence of a proprietary expansion port designed for just such a purpose? I always envisioned two USB ports as likely being adequate, but they'd have a lot of content that would have to be passed through. The display of both screens to the Wii U, touch screen and control inputs back to the 3DS Player, and likely it would also piggyback onto the Wii U's own internet connection instead of going to the expense of a dedicated wifi module in the 3DS Player itself. Is that bandwidth enough for all of that, I wonder?

I still hope for an official DS/3DS tv option on next-gen hardware. Hopefully their next-gen handheld is backwards compatible and retains the cartridge slot, perhaps allowing it to stream the upper display to their next-gen console where it's upscaled and sent to your television screen.

Then just maybe we'll get what we wanted and games like Ocarina of Time 3D can finally escape the small screen.

Tron wrote:I doubt the NX will have any appeal for me.

Yeah the NX doesn't need to be a glorified Android tablet. Let's hope it isn't.