Thoughts on Nintendo

These days I think of the videogames I play in three different ways. There are the ones that I really enjoy playing even if they tend to frustrate me sometimes. Then there are the ones that I’ve played and remember liking enough but haven’t felt the urge to go back and play them. And then there are the ones that made me feel betrayed to the point that I do not acknowledge their existence and we don’t talk about them. No, I will not name any names… at least not today. Instead, I want to talk about where Nintendo fits in this category for me. I have talked before about how much time I have spent playing on Nintendo consoles as I was growing up. Although, more of it was spent on their handhelds then their actual consoles. Let’s face it, you can’t exactly bring consoles to school. And for all of you clever people who thought to point to a Nintendo Switch just now, I want to let you know that we didn’t have those back in 2006. The point is that I spent a lot of my childhood with Nintendo and the main reason was due to the fact that their handhelds were the most accessible. While other consoles may be superior in pure specs, other companies really haven’t even come close when it comes to the handheld market. So I stuck with them for a while because of that. Honestly, wasn’t even aware of the fact that consoles existed until I was like 11. I never really paid attention to well, life so I missed a couple opportunities. Ignore the fact that I had a PS1 as a child. I was dumb as a child. Once again I have gone so far off the mark so I need to bring it on back. What this what meant to convey was how much Nintendo shaped my early childhood and do to this I have a lot of fond memories with them and I still do support them financially. I’m not as gungho about it now, but I do keep an eye on them. So, with all this time and money spent on them over the years, how do I currently feel about them?

Well, remember a paragraph ago when I led with that opening about how I now categorize games. I would put the majority of the Nintendo games I played into the second category with some going into the first and some going into the third. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that many of the games I played were fun, but weren’t worth going back for a repeat playthrough. Truth be told, there aren’t many games that Nintendo has released that I enjoy playing all the way through every single time. The game is The Legend of Zelda series have some exceptions, and there are some other outliers as well, but most of the time they are one and done affairs. Nintendo is great at keeping things consistent and fun throughout their time as game developers, but just because something is fun once, does not mean it is fun to go through it multiple times. That’s why I still haven’t gotten every stamp in Super Mario 3D World. Doing every level with every character is very taxing, especially when you are playing by your lonesome. So I still only have one of them, I’ll bet you can guess which one. Anyway, I noticed that I don’t have a lot of desire to revisit them after playing them once. I realize now that is because there isn’t much reason to explore once you’ve done everything. Sure, I could go play similar levels again and maybe I could find some hidden rooms or pathways, but unfortunately that is just a maybe. What also doesn’t help is my memory is unusually strong when it pertains to secrets in videogames. Certain moments just can’t be experienced twice I’m afraid. Look, it’s fine if there games are fun, I just want a little more being done.

For instance, and you can probably guess what I am going to be talking about, but Pokémon has been one of those franchises that has so much potential and it is taking them years to tap into it. Truth be told, I do not necessarily need a new generation every few years. I would rather they do things like back in the day when they would make a new generation whenever there were big changes to the series or when they had something interesting to bring to the table mechanically. Instead they have kind of been copping out with gimmicks instead for the past few generations. Now we are starting to see some direction and progress, but man has it been a slow boil. Meanwhile there are countless rom-hacks that allow people to experience Pokémon games with creativity using older assets and coding at no cost. What I am saying is that a lot of people are taking inspiration from these games and making them into something new. It isn’t just the Pokémon franchise either. There are other series that are getting similar treatment. i for once have definitely played a few games over the years that have taken some inspiration for certain Nintendo properties and made them into fun games. Heck, the whole concept of Metroidvania was something Nintendo created and now it is more synonymous with random indie titles. Does Nintendo see nothing wrong with this as long as sales don’t change? Well then, I hope they don’t because otherwise who knows what they might do. I’m not trying to light a fire under them, but I want them to know that there are some talented minds out there if you ever need to recruit for new ideas. Just saying. Also, maybe rerelease some more Gamecube games at some point please? Okay, that came out better than expected after recovering from COVID, so I’ll consider this a win. Goodnight everybody.