Miyamoto Scrutinizes Mario, Zelda, Hails Portal

eldavojohn writes "Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that 'What I've been saying to our development teams recently is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing. And while, personally, I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was able to do some things that were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative. This is something I've been talking to both of those teams about ... hopefully [the next Mario and Zelda] will feel newer and fresher than their most recent versions.' MTV Multiplayer also commented on Portal's mechanics and gameplay, to which Miyamoto responded, 'I think Portal was an amazing game, too.' GameSetWatch has a related article criticizing Nintendo for relying on the Wii's input devices to develop game franchises rather than improving actual gameplay."

Comments

Un peu de poids.

[Sulix]

Miyamoto is someone who has a lot of weight behind what he says. You can bet that Valve are grinning like idiots and that the teams working on the next Zelda and Mario are breaking a sweat.

Re:Un peu de poids.

[Spacelem]

The N64 wasn't really a blunder. It had Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which were both considered masters of the genre, and OoT is still considered one of the best games in the world. This was before people started commenting that the series were getting a little stale. Oh, and GoldenEye, and a whole pile of games done by Rare who were so good that Microsoft bought them after Nintendo were found guilty of price fixing and had to sell them off.

In fact I'd say that there were a lot of really awesome games on the N64, just none of them were Final Fantasy. Meanwhile, the N64 had a control stick, and managed to pack an awful lot into those cartridges. It was done to prevent long load times, which it managed. I still love my N64. The worst thing I can say about it is that my control stick got a bit crusty after all these years, and some of games had too low framerates, and it didn't help being in the UK with PAL's higher resolution (although that became less of an issue towards the end of the N64's lifecycle).

The GameCube had the world's most comfortable controller, and I still prefer it to the Wii Remote. It had graphics which were perfectly functional, maybe not as flashy as the other consoles, but I hold that graphics are only a very small part of what makes a game good (proof: if graphics were important, then all older games would suck, and they don't). Nintendo experimented with gameplay, and they came up with some fantastic ideas. They used a very easy SDK, so it was much easier to produce games for the NGC than the PS2, and the X-Box made it too easy to just port PC games.

The N64 and NGC were successful and good consoles, and Nintendo is still in the videogame business despite the heavy competition they faced, and growing stronger than ever. They'd have never made the Wii otherwise.

Re:I love Miyamoto's insight

[Toonol]

Shallow isn't bad. I spent countless hours of my childhood tossing and catching a rubber ball with my friends; I did it for five minutes with my son yesterday. Simple, shallow, but perpetually awesome.

Or, to illustrate it with videogames; Asteroids is shallow as hell, but playing it is a much purer state of videogame zen than gears of war will ever be.

Weird, I disagree with him (sort of)

[7Prime]

While I applaud his candid response, I wouldn't have had anything against him saying, "well folks, we've put out the two best games in their respective series"... because I feel both were. Twilight Princess combind the timeless epic quality of Ocarina of Time, but gave it the drama and heart that I feel that the series has lacked. Mario Galaxy may not quite beat out Mario 3 in my book, but both felt eerily similar in their inspired quality, and I think that Mario Galaxy is the best game since Mario 3. Now, all I feel they need to do with Zelda is do to TP, what Majora's Mask did to OoT, ie: fuck with it, do something out of left field that's not "normal" for Zelda. MM was my favorite game in the series until TP came along. TP is now probably my favorite game... period.

Portal was wonderful, don't get me wrong. However, it didn't present me with a full emotional and gameplay spectrum the way that Zelda or Mario do... it was a short vignette of a game, a very perfect one, for that matter. Don't know why I can put ICO at the top of my list but not Portal (similarly short), but something keeps Portal from reaching that high eschellon for me.

Re:I love Miyamoto's insight

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroids needs achievements. And unlockables.

Re:Fair comments

[sleeponthemic]

That is the problem though - Desires aside, there are not enough actual, proven decent titles coming from the wii catalogue. In a previous post I'd mentioned the realisation that there are very few Wii games reviewed with 85% or higher (compared to other consoles). Something that became increasingly obvious as I checked in bi-monthly to see if there is anything worth playing.

Someone (some awesome individual) then did a bit of stats and posted a very good summation of the situation (deserved to be modded up but too late, I guess). Read these stats and think about how many of the actually good games are franchises.. I will repost it here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1009873& cid=25545311

Ok, let's use Metacritic...

Wii First available: November 19, 2006
Scores 80 and above: 36 games
Scores 85 and above: 13 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/wii/scores/

Xbox 360 First available: November 22, 2005
Scores 80 and above: 122 games
Scores 85 and above: 47 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/scores/

PS3 First available: November 11, 2006
Scores 80 and above: 79 games
Scores 85 and above: 34 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ps3/scores/

PS2 First available: October-November, 2000
Scores 80 and above: 319 games
Scores 85 and above: 149 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ps2/scores/

Nintendo DS First available: November, 2004
Scores 80 and above: 64 games
Scores 85 and above: 25 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ds/scores/

"Good" Game per Month (GGPM) Ratio Since most consoles were released in November, lets round up their ages by year. And assuming the score of 80 qualifies as a "good" game: - Wii: 36/24 = 1.5 GGPM
- 360: 122/36 = 3.39 GGPM
- PS3: 79/24 = 3.29 GGPM
- PS2: 319/96 = 3.32 GGPM (*)
- NDS: 64/48 = 1.33 GGPM

*) The PS2 probably doesn't have many new games anymore in the past few years.

It seems the NDS and Wii are filled with a lot more family and kids-friendly games, and these games tend to not favor the critics, and possibly most hardcore gamers.

I think, given the quality and innovation of SMG, there is enough room for further elaboration on the Wii.

And if you truly actually want decent titles on the Wii rather than noveltyware, right now, you're worried about the future of this console. Very little quality stuff is coming out. It's a complete contradiction to the perpetually sold out status of the console. I'm surprised more people are not complaining about how poor the catalogue is. As it stands, more often than not if I go browse the Wii shelves, I'm standing next to a family who are buying a game on cover alone (and promised novelty mechanics that rarely work). If that is the majority market, I can see why publishers don't give a shit, just turn out turds and watch the dollars roll in :-)

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a "gamer". I just make informed decisions on whether to buy something. Strangely, whenever I check whether I should, I'm confronted with a fairly resounding "nothing to see here" regarding new stuff coming for the Wii.