GameInformer

RezidentHazard, I won't be a blind Nintendo fanboy and say that all the Mario games are grade A. I see that the Mario games are the same and do add very slight changes (I won't agree that Zelda games are all the same. Each game has defining different game play mechanics to separate each one). But I do hold by the philosophy, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." I find CoD to be broken, but Mario isn't. Maybe people will stop buying this Mario, and Nintendo will change it. People tell Activision to change, but they still shell out the same games.

RezidentHazard (rides again):

Ruler 3995:

I was about to bring that up Gaming Warthog. We all (or at least I) hate Call of Duty because it hasn't changed ever, but people buy it and so they make it. Mario is more recognizable than Mickey Mouse himself, so of course they want people to buy his games, and in turn, buy the new system. Maybe when people buy the system buy having them get Mario, they will in turn, revive other franchises.

Super Mario games tend to change even less than Call of Duty games.  What was really new or different about New Super Mario Bros for the Wii U or 3DS?  Some new power-ups, and that's about it.  

Mario Party games feature next to no growth or advancement.

Mario's last actual moment of growth was Super Mario Galaxy 1, and even that was mostly a refined version of the gameplay from Super Mario 64.  Paper Mario changes in smaller increments than Call of Duty.

And let's be perfectly honest here, 90% of the Zelda games made have almost the exact same plot and even many of the exact same items and weapons.  

For that matter, what makes one Pokemon game different from another, besides a 50 new Pokemon in the newer game?

 

I saw three Mario games taking up space at E3.  Aside from a couple items, I didn't see anything fresh or new about any of them.  Worse yet, Nintendo plunges 3- 5 or more Mario-themed games out every single year, and Nintendo gamers swallow this crap, while scolding Activision for having annual releases of a franchise.  

 

Look at this nonsense:  http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/mario-games

 

119 games since 1982, with an average of almost 4 Mario-themed games every single year!  

And Activision releases Call of Duty too frequently?

You do realize the most recent Mario Party is a series oddball right (not trying to defend 2-8). New Super Mario Bros are just rehashs so not defending them, 3d Marios have a certain spirit to them that makes them feel unique, kinda hard to explain, and did you just ignore Super Paper Mario entirely, and the sticker system of sticker star. Most other titles I just consider games with Mario slapped on for publicity *coughsportgamescough*. The amount per year is still downright crazy though, the three at E3 plus Open Tennis equals four this year, at least the devs are different and one is for a spin-off deserving a sequel. I think having two NSMB games in a year is flat out  money grabbing. 

Skyward Sword had an upgrade system and managed to make most items actually useful, even if most people don't use them (I'm guilty of that with the Slingshot). The vast feel of Windwaker with the ability to quickly get where you're going. Sidequests for the first time since Majora's Mask. 

Black and White featured combo attacks, triple and rotation battles, the entralink, the dreamworld, most amount of new Pokemon several of which have many first's with type selections and change up the meta game a lot, TM's no longer break, Hm's not as required, Pokemon musicals (can't beat contests, but they're cute) and an actually good story. Sequel feels a little early, but technicality it came out in 2010, still feels to soon for a sequel though.

COD never interested me, I more hate the 'only play this mentality' most fans have, which is not exclusive to COD. Only reason I don't play COD is because it doesn't interest me. I wish all of the yearly releases would lighten up a bit (COD, AC, Mario).

Nintendo actually has a bit of a dirty trick with Mario now. It's never two Mario Games in the same series in a row for two years (from what I can remember), but there's so many Mario series they can have multiple Mario games out per year without using the same one twice in a row (said pattern was recently broken by NSMB). Which is arguably worse then annual releases due to it's usage of Mascot manipulation. So it's both better (different genres) and worse (all sell due to Mario) then COD.

A bit off-topic but I would happily delay New Super Mario Bros U if it meant a third Sin and Punishment game took it's release day. 

Ruler 3995:

RezidentHazard, I won't be a blind Nintendo fanboy and say that all the Mario games are grade A. I see that the Mario games are the same and do add very slight changes (I won't agree that Zelda games are all the same. Each game has defining different game play mechanics to separate each one). But I do hold by the philosophy, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." I find CoD to be broken, but Mario isn't. Maybe people will stop buying this Mario, and Nintendo will change it. People tell Activision to change, but they still shell out the same games.

I think the number of people telling Activision to change Call of Duty games are a small, but loud minority online, because if there was really a problem, they wouldn't continue to sell in such massive numbers. Obviously, that's what players want.  

By the way, Nintendo fans will buy anything with Mario, regardless of how broken it is.  Case in point, every Mario & Sonic olympic game, and the last few Mario Sports games--all have met generally unimpressive reviews, but still sold like mad.

Gaming Warthog:

 

You do realize the most recent Mario Party is a series oddball right (not trying to defend 2-8). New Super Mario Bros are just rehashs so not defending them, 3d Marios have a certain spirit to them that makes them feel unique, kinda hard to explain, and did you just ignore Super Paper Mario entirely, and the sticker system of sticker star. Most other titles I just consider games with Mario slapped on for publicity *coughsportgamescough*. The amount per year is still downright crazy though, the three at E3 plus Open Tennis equals four this year, at least the devs are different and one is for a spin-off deserving a sequel. I think having two NSMB games in a year is flat out  money grabbing. 

Skyward Sword had an upgrade system and managed to make most items actually useful, even if most people don't use them (I'm guilty of that with the Slingshot). The vast feel of Windwaker with the ability to quickly get where you're going. Sidequests for the first time since Majora's Mask. 

Black and White featured combo attacks, triple and rotation battles, the entralink, the dreamworld, most amount of new Pokemon several of which have many first's with type selections and change up the meta game a lot, TM's no longer break, Hm's not as required, Pokemon musicals (can't beat contests, but they're cute) and an actually good story. Sequel feels a little early, but technicality it came out in 2010, still feels to soon for a sequel though.

COD never interested me, I more hate the 'only play this mentality' most fans have, which is not exclusive to COD. Only reason I don't play COD is because it doesn't interest me. I wish all of the yearly releases would lighten up a bit (COD, AC, Mario).

Nintendo actually has a bit of a dirty trick with Mario now. It's never two Mario Games in the same series in a row for two years (from what I can remember), but there's so many Mario series they can have multiple Mario games out per year without using the same one twice in a row (said pattern was recently broken by NSMB). Which is arguably worse then annual releases due to it's usage of Mascot manipulation. So it's both better (different genres) and worse (all sell due to Mario) then COD.

A bit off-topic but I would happily delay New Super Mario Bros U if it meant a third Sin and Punishment game took it's release day. 

Call of Duty fanboys and Nintendo fanboys have the same exact mentality, but different focuses.  On plays anything from Nintendo, the other plays anything called Call of Duty.  I will choose to side with neither since, as a gamer, I prefer to play lots of games, not the same thing over and over and over again.

I don't have a problem with Skyward Sword, nor Majora's Mask.  Personally, my favorite Zelda games are Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask largely because they were Zelda games without the exact same plot all over again.  (I'll finish Skyward Sword one of these days, but it is clearly a different Zelda game than the bulk.)  The vast majority of Zelda games feature the exact same plot--young boy finds out he's a legendary hero, has part of the Triforce.  His self-discovery parallels that of an evil man (Gannondorf, or Ganon), and the kidnapping a young girl that, oh, look at that, is Zelda.  

Each Zelda, pretty much without skipping a beat, features the same boss battles, same predictable use of weapons (hey, this item I just discovered just happens to be the weakness of the next boss!), many of the same basic items, characters, enemies, and bosses.  

All this damn Mario focus is part of why Nintendo totally lost E3.  Besides ignoring the 3DS almost completely, they made no new announcements, and the new-ish announcements they did make were "hey look, another Mario game exactly like that one you played on the Wii.  No the other one."  Where the hell was a bombastic "HEY CHECK IT OUT, IT'S F-ZERO: MAXIMUM INTENSITY!!" or "YOU PEOPLE LIKE EARTHBOUND, WELL HOW ABOUT AN EARTHBOUND COLLECTION FOR 3DS?!" or "HOLY CRAP IT'S THE MOST AMAZING THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN FROM RETRO STUDIOS?"  

Instead they walked out and said, "hey, I know we teased you with Pikmin for 4 years, but check it out, it's totally almost done" and "you guys like Mario?  Of course you do, it's all you ever buy.  So here's three more Mario games exactly like everything we made before and NintendoLand, which of course, has more Mario stuff in it."

Sorry to say, but pointing out a few small differences in the new Paper Mario and a couple Pokemon games doesn't change the fact that these are very small changes and not new games.  It's still a company scared of trying anything different.  It's still a company playing it safe when they should be blowing our minds with new software for the new hardware.  

Do you really think a minor gameplay element like using stickers is a better use of Nintendo creativity than an earth-shattering announcement of an intense new F-Zero?  Granted, I was never the biggest F-Zero fan, but let's be real here--it's a very popular franchise, and there hasn't been a brand new F-Zero game since the GameCube.  

I've been over this a million times (give or take a few hundred thousand):  No one has the number of franchises that Nintendo has.  And all this company seems to want to do is clog every year with 3-6 Mario games, one "other franchise" title, 2-4 Pokemon-themed games, and every other year or so, "something Zelda" or "something Metroid that they'll probably screw up (a la Other M)."  Beyond this, casual/family/party games and untold numbers of remakes and re-releases (many of which, are Mario games).

 Here are just some of the franchises completely ignored for the Wii, the US Wii, and either ignored or half-assed for the DS:

F-Zero

StarFox

Earthbound

StarTropics

Mach Rider

Ice Climbers

Geist

Eternal Darkness

Fatal Frame (only in Japan)

Disaster (not in the US)

Pandora's Tower (only in Japan)

Wild Gunman or Duck Hunt

Urban Champion (how about a new beat-em-up game instead of a crap 3d upgrade?)

Wario (Adventure/platformer)

Yoshi (platformer or puzzle game)

Tin Star

1080 Snowboarding

Wave Race

Custom Robo (aside from a limited DS release)

Doshin the Giant (a god-game with Wii U power and the GamePad touchscreen?  This sells itself.)

Baten Kaitos

Odama

Not to mention that the "new IP's" tended to be limited to stuff like Wii Play and Wii Party and Brain Age.  That's all well and good, but why not a new hardcore-leaning game?  Oh, like maybe Project HAMMER?

But there was at least 3-6 new games featuring Mario every single year.  I can't seriously be the only person who would've preferred a wider variety of games from Nintendo, not the least of which includes revival of several other franchises.

I mean, check out how many franchises have been largely neglected outside of Virtual Console ports or a single new release over the course of a generation or two:

Punch-Out (one new game since the SNES, and it was a remake.)

Custom Robo (again, just one on the DS)

Chibi-Robo (one on the DS, only sold at Wal-Mart of all places)

Starfy (first time in the States, only on DS)

Golden Sun (third game eventually released on DS, nothing else from it)

Glory of Heracles (one game only, on DS)

Sin & Punishment (one sequel in 15 years)

For that matter, now is the best time to revive any Virtual Boy games for the 3DS, both in Virtual Console ports and in brand new games.  Red Alarm, Galactic Pinball, Wario Land, Panic Bomber, Teleroboxer...

This only scratches the surface of all the available franchises from Nintendo, and it comes back to an issue I've stated before:  Nintendo fanboys are harmful to the company as a whole.  Not only do they tend to ignore 3rd party developers (driving off support), but they're also typically too close-minded to even support the other games Nintendo themselves have made.  Eternal Darkness, Geist, Glory of Heracles, Custom Robo, Sin & Punishment.  I would love to see a new F-Zero, and I would love to see StarTropics return, as well as Earthbound.

It's time to get over Mario and start showing Nintendo that we're not going to swallow the same crap over and over again.  All this potential completely wasted making multiple Mario-themed games every single year.  

Man, that has to be the longest reply I've seen in a forum RezidentHazard. Anyways, I agree, Nintendo's E3 was way kinda suck, but I still don't think it was the worst. I think that's a tie with Microsoft and EA. I hope Nintendo really wows us next year, or maybe even in one of those Nintendo direct things

I'll admit, as a kid, I pretty much bought Mario, Pokemon, Star Fox(back when they made them) and some other games (not Zelda, wasn't into it as a kid), but when Wii came out I started to try new things (Monster Hunter, Muramasa, Sin & Punishment, and Tramua Center to name a few) and pretty much loved them.

Oh and two more things, 1: Why'd you say they'll probably screw up another Metroid? The only reason it sucked so bad because they gave the game to Team Ninja (Which even then, the story was the worst thing about it) 2: I really liked Glory of Heracles, I'm glad I'm not the only one who bought it and actually enjoyed it.

The Monster Hunter:

Oh and two more things, 1: Why'd you say they'll probably screw up another Metroid? The only reason it sucked so bad because they gave the game to Team Ninja (Which even then, the story was the worst thing about it) 2: I really liked Glory of Heracles, I'm glad I'm not the only one who bought it and actually enjoyed it.

It wasn't just Team Ninja that destroyed Metroid, it was Sakamoto himself, one of the men involved in the creation of the franchise.  Nintendo might still have some misplaced faith in the man, regardless of the facts that 

A) He lacks the creativity to come up with new items, weapons, or gameplay elements.

B) He lacks the ability to write believable characters, with normal emotions.  The Other M Samus is emotionally fragile, seriously disturbed, and all the traits that made her strong and impressive for so many years are white-washed to create a wimpering little girl totally incapable of taking care of herself.  Her emotions concerning Adam Malkovich (a contemptible character if ever there was one) are downright troubling, when not flat-out sociopathic.

C) His writing is rife with cliches, and ham-fisted "metaphors."

D) Enough plot-holes that the storyline could pass for Swiss cheese.  

E) Every single element that defined all previous Metroid games (except Fusion) were removed from Other M:  Moody atmosphere, deep exploration-based gameplay, non-linear design, solitude, thoughtful boss battles--even the basic component of reviving your health with pick-ups was removed and replaced by a generally non-working "health recharge" move.  

The first three games defined the Metroid experience.  The Prime trilogy perfected those elements, and modernized them, greatly deepening the exploration and non-linear gameplay experience.  Almost 25 years of growth in the franchise were completely up-ended by Other M's endlessly offensive nonsense.  And Nintendo might not have learned their lesson.

Oh, heh, I actually haven't fired up Glory of Heracles yet.  I bought it, but have been trying to get through a large back-log of other DS games first.  Haven't gotten to Golden Sun 3 yet, either, and I waited for years for that game to make an appearance!  It's here, just waiting for me.  I'm literally working through about another half dozen DS and 3DS games right now.

Super Mario RPG is awesome and one of the best RPG's on the SNES (meaning it's one of the best of all time).

I liked the Mario and Luigi games. Very nice twist to turn the classic platformer into an RPG and actually give it a full length story, compared to the typical "Save Peach, beat Bowser" stuff. Hope they make a new one.

In response to RezidentHazard, I get what you're saying, and I don't buy the stupid f***ing Mario and Sonic at the Olympics or Mario Basketball and that type of garbage, but main Mario games like Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. are still as fun as they have ever been. Nintendo's level design is still top notch, and in my opinion, one of the best out there today. If you don't like Mario games, don't buy them, but don't insinuate that people who do are brainless assholes. Obviously I'm not the only person that shares this sentiment as each platformer-focused Mario game sells gangbusters.

Paper Mario but the Wii one wasn't as good as the first two and the 3ds one looks like it will stray away from those ones too. I still have high hopes for the 3ds one though.

While the Paper Mario games are great, I can't see how anyone can favorite them over Super Mario RPG. If Nintendo knows what's best for them, and us, after the release of Paper Mario 3DS, the next Mario RPG should be either a direct sequel to Super Mario RPG (with the return of Geno of course) or a spiritual successor, and either one should be co-developed with Square Enix again.

Developing with Square Enix would be the only way to get Geno in, at least the likeliest way, since Square Enix owns the rights on him. Perhaps a Super Mario RPG sequel that ties into the Super Mario Galaxy games? Does anyone like that idea?

Super Smash Bros. Me and my brothers have spent over 400 hours on the series!

ebilcanival123:

In response to RezidentHazard, I get what you're saying, and I don't buy the stupid f***ing Mario and Sonic at the Olympics or Mario Basketball and that type of garbage, but main Mario games like Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. are still as fun as they have ever been. Nintendo's level design is still top notch, and in my opinion, one of the best out there today. If you don't like Mario games, don't buy them, but don't insinuate that people who do are brainless assholes. Obviously I'm not the only person that shares this sentiment as each platformer-focused Mario game sells gangbusters.

Pretty sure I never called anyone a "brainless ***," just noting that mindlessly supporting even the crappiest offerings from Nintendo just because they have Mario in them is ultimately harmful to the company as a whole.  And in that regard, fanboyism is pretty mindless.  *** is another term entirely.  

It teaches 3rd party companies that the only thing that sells is "any crap with Mario in it," so what's the point in supporting the consoles--which damages the overall library of the console.

And it teaches Nintendo that they don't need to bother making deeper, better games.  You know why it took so long for Xenoblade to come out over here?  Because Reggie knows that Nintendo fans wouldn't care and casual fans wouldn't buy it anyway.  The same judgement was levied against Disaster, Last Story, Fatal Frame, Pandora's Tower, and any number of other foreign or Japan-only Wii games.  

Again, they finally decided to give us Xenoblade because the Wii has almost nothing else this year, and even then, they cared so little about it, it was only released at GameStop.  They completely passed on Last Story, leaving XSEED to take a shot at it.  

And after all this time, and the crying for these games via Operation Rainfall--Xenoblade Chronicles still barely managed to sell a paltry quarter million units in the US.  More than Japan or Europe, but still no where near as high some piece of slapped-together Mario trite.  Mario Party 9 still sold four times better than Xenoblade.

I guess that means Nintendo fanboys prefer that kind of crap over anything like Xenoblade Chronicles.  And they still wonder why Nintendo of America doesn't want to release these games here?  They wonder why third party companies take their business elsewhere.