"The Divide" - Nintendo vs Third Parties, and Gameplay vs Cinematography

[Luminis]

@Wolfe - the Wii U gamepad is part of why I think a lot of players tend to play third party games on one of the non-Nintendo consoles: Those titles weren't designed for the Wii U (as developers rarely tend to design specifically for the smallest segment of a given market), so what you end up with a port job that doesn't cater to the Wii U's strengths. That goes for both processing power and control schemes. What's the incentive to play a version of a game that offers less visual fidelity, a smaller online community (if that's your thing) and doesn't use what strengths a given system has?

As for story hindering gameplay, yeah, I've encountered those issues as well. I've been meaning to revisit some of the older Final Fantasy games, but whether the story is presented as text, cut scenes or by turning the movie into an interactive movie, if the story was driving the game along back then, chances are that I won't sit through another playthrough. Take Final Fantasy IX, for example. I loved that game (and it isn't plagues by horrible voice acting, either), but I already know how the story goes and the gameplay doesn't offer anything that's particularly compelling to revisit. What I'm trying to say is, whether the story telling is intruding on the gameplay largely depends on the game and story and has to be decided on a case by case basis; the presentation of the story doesn't affect that all that much, I think.

 

[Brend]

Re: people buy Nintendo games for the characters and series'. I just got my first ever Donkey Kong game these past few days! Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze on Wii U. I actually had a lot of unbased hatred for DK as a character before playing this, I'm not sure why but I found him incredibly annoying...but I cannot deny that this is one of the finest platformers I've played mechanics and physics wise. It's just a fantastic game overall so far and with great challenge!(In comparison to recently completed Rayman Legends and LBP3). So, I suppose I'm an 'outlier' in the theory that Nintendo fans buy the games for the series'. I'm just one of those people who buys games that I feel deserve my hard earned attention, Nintendo games happen to strike a chord on the most part with me. Aside from Mario Party and 2D Mario games. No thanks. I'm not even big on Zelda either, never got more than half way through any of them. In fact, the majority of my favourite Nintendo games are technically 'new' IPs: Advance Wars, Battalion Wars, Elite Beat Agents, Kid Icarus(only 2 games in the 'series', never played the first one) and Punch-Out!! The 'staple' series are great and all but when Nintendo flaunt a new IP I always seem to get very hooked. And I don't think thats due to the characters alone.

 

[Wolfe]

I played the original DKC games when I was younger, but haven't had the urge to get either of the new games yet. I tend to be skeptical of the Zelda series because most of them end up saddled with some obnoxious element or another. My career as a Pokémon trainer ended with Pokémon Blue. The last Star Fox game I was interested in was SF64.

My favorite Nintendo IPs are Metroid, Kirby, F-ZERO, and Mario (platformers and karts). I'd try any new IP of theirs -- I've got an eye on Splatoon -- but it seems more often than not they relegate those risks to handhelds, which I don't really play. And some examples like Pikmin just don't belong to a genre I care to play very much.

@Wolfe - the Wii U gamepad is part of why I think a lot of players tend to play third party games on one of the non-Nintendo consoles: Those titles weren't designed for the Wii U (as developers rarely tend to design specifically for the smallest segment of a given market), so what you end up with a port job that doesn't cater to the Wii U's strengths. That goes for both processing power and control schemes. What's the incentive to play a version of a game that offers less visual fidelity, a smaller online community (if that's your thing) and doesn't use what strengths a given system has?

I agree to an extent, and since I sat out on the Wii U for the first year, I completely understand how the GamePad's doesn't seem particularly compelling by itself. But depending on your living situation or daily habits, the mere capability for off-TV play can mean a lot, and of any games I'm aware of that don't go to lengths to utilize the GamePad, they at least offer off-TV play.

...whether the story telling is intruding on the gameplay largely depends on the game and story and has to be decided on a case by case basis; the presentation of the story doesn't affect that all that much, I think.

Eh...I still lean towards the conclusion that text allows more flexibility. Reading dialog quickly or skipping parts of it effectively equate to a "fast forward" feature that cutscenes probably ought to have (plus "rewind" and "pause"). On a repeat playthrough, you can move along more swiftly without necessarily missing crucial information that you might not remember.

The thought of sitting through the dialog of games like the 3D Zeldas or Okami, with properly voice-acted cutscenes you can't hasten (without skipping them entirely), makes me cringe. It would be such a shame for Okami, too, because the story in that game is so charming and English voice acting would completely butcher the Japanese-oriented source material, as English voice acting always does.

 

[Luminis]

I agree to an extent, and since I sat out on the Wii U for the first year, I completely understand how the GamePad's doesn't seem particularly compelling by itself. But depending on your living situation or daily habits, the mere capability for off-TV play can mean a lot, and of any games I'm aware of that don't go to lengths to utilize the GamePad, they at least offer off-TV play.

Eh, I like that idea better than slapping on motion controls as an afterthought as Sony did with the Six Axis, for example. There's some use to be had, it's just that developers don't bother developing for a hardware feature only one out of three consoles offers.

Eh...I still lean towards the conclusion that text allows more flexibility. Reading dialog quickly or skipping parts of it effectively equate to a "fast forward" feature that cutscenes probably ought to have (plus "rewind" and "pause"). On a repeat playthrough, you can move along more swiftly without necessarily missing crucial information that you might not remember.

The thought of sitting through the dialog of games like the 3D Zeldas or Okami, with properly voice-acted cutscenes you can't hasten (without skipping them entirely), makes me cringe. It would be such a shame for Okami, too, because the story in that game is so charming and English voice acting would completely butcher the Japanese-oriented source material, as English voice acting always does.

I tend to agree that you can be more selective with what you want to pick up from the story if it's text based. However, I'd also like to say that, while text is less inconvenient, the cause of the whole ordeal is the story simply getting in the way.

What I'm thinking is that, basically, story "getting in the way" isn't exclusive to modern games, it's not exclusive to action games and it's not exclusive to games that focus on a cinematic experience. It might stand out more in those cases, but it's not something that hasn't been happening before. Likewise, I'd say that the gameplay first approach isn't exclusive to light-hearted games, or to non-action games or to Nintendo games.

 

[Wolfe]

What I'm thinking is that, basically, story "getting in the way" isn't exclusive to modern games, it's not exclusive to action games and it's not exclusive to games that focus on a cinematic experience. It might stand out more in those cases, but it's not something that hasn't been happening before. Likewise, I'd say that the gameplay first approach isn't exclusive to light-hearted games, or to non-action games or to Nintendo games.

I would agree on both, and I've been attempting to clarify my position around that last sentence since I made a mess of establishing the thread subject.