The 3DS screens were recycled from phone screens, pretty sure it’s cheaper to recycle screens than make brand new screens.
Nintendo can’t patch games, you think there will be DLC?
You’re also forgetting slow move speed, slow air speed, low hitstun, inability to combo, etc. etc.
There’s not a lot of good solid data on 3DS production cost or 3DS XL production cost, but it’s certainly up there and it isn’t clear how much nintendo actually makes per console sale, the original 3DS was a little over $100 and after the cut nintendo isn’t making that much on each sale because stores take quite a bit of change.
They’re making money sure, but they’re not making a lot when compared to the other titans. Nintendo is a big dog but it certainly isn’t the biggest.
Nintendo patched mario kart 7, made dlc for new Mario bros Wii U, patch frimware like crazy to combat piracy and better the user experience. Not talking about the Wii U and 3ds on the last one.
Edit:
If Miyamoto retires the games are still in good hands. He has relinquished the reins to franchises in the past and turned out really well like F-Zero GX/AX.
Wait did someone complain about the camera in Mario 64 not only did it have a dozen different views it also had an auto centering which kept Mario always in the centre.
Not only was the camera fine it also respected each angle increasing the depth of the game.
These other 3d games look nice but the level design is more linear which takes away the inventiveness required to increase the multimodality of the game environment and Gameplay.
You’re not thinking ahead to what Ocarina would be like if they had actually tried to have any challenging action in it. First off, if you wanted to take advantage of some of the Z-targeted lunge attacks to hit one enemy while dodging attacks from others, you’d have to first sit there tapping Z till the right enemy was randomly selected, which ruins the precise timing required for such a maneuver. As you faced higher and higher quality/quantity of enemies, the Z targeting would become more and more useless, leaving you to just randomly spam imprecise rolls and sword swings and hope for the best.
And think about it - if best case scenario, the Z-targeting always worked, you have a major unnecessary skill cap, because auto-aim is handling 100% of the combat outcome. What happens if you have an enemy that frequently dodges side-to-side? Z-targeting would always cause you to lunge where he is instead of where he’s going, causing you to miss every time. In a self-targeted system, the player would predict where he’s dodging and lunge there - Z-targeting could be modified to lead for you, but then that takes a major point of skill out of the combat.
If you look at skill-based multiplayer games which focused on melee combat, the Ocarina control scheme would not work for them - try Archeblade, Forge, or Unreal Championship 2. Any time a game’s combat mechanics wouldn’t work for multiplayer, it generally indicates huge skillcaps and oversights in the control scheme. To give another example, look at LOTR: War in the North - it’s a flawed game, but combat works seamlessly and is much more fun than Ocarina’s combat, because whether you’re using melee weapons, bows, or magic staffs, everything is aimed with dual analog.
First off, the health/attack/non-powerup system is a joke. Instead of dieing in one hit until you get powerups, you are allowed to take 3-8 hits without dieing, for doing nothing. Instead of starting out only able to kill things by stomping them or knocking bricks out from under them, and then receiving new attacks from powerups, you get an assortment of punches, kicks, sweeps, slide attacks, dive attacks, etc. all right off the bat.
Powerups basically only appear in a few token places on a few levels to be used as keys to access new areas. This means there is no ever-present risk vs. reward system, tempting players to go out of their way and make a precarious jump, or dive into an enemy-infested area, just to get a mushroom or fireflower. Since a lot of those attempts ended in death in the 2d games, that’s another blow to the game’s challenge
To make matters worse, there are few enemies to speak of, even on the harder levels. When there are any, they are usually wandering alone off to the side, where they’re not in your way. When they are in your way, since Nintendo put zero thought into compensating for the new axes, you can easily run around them with no problems. Even if you couldn’t run around them, you can easily punch/kick/sweep them right out of your way. Consequently, there is basically 0 enemy challenge.
So in the end, all the few tough 3D Mario stages have going for them is geometry, with troublesome jumps and absolutely nothing else. You are not constantly worrying about getting powerups to keep your offense and defense up, you never have to worry about enemies in your way…it’s a mere shriveled up shell of what Mario once was.
And undoubtedly, a lot of these omissions have to do with Nintendo perceiving them as too hard to control in 3D. Actually jumping on enemies is already imprecise enough that punching them is always preferable. Hitting blocks and bricks would pose the same problems. Throwing fireballs accurately would have all the same issues as Link’s bows and boomerangs with or without Z-targeting.
Sure, with time, Nintendo has realized these things are controllable to a degree under a simple control scheme - which is why we are finally seeing them return in SM3DW. But undoubtedly, it won’t control as well as it would have if the game adopted dual analog control, and over-the-shoulder camera option, and the ability for each player to have their own screen.
2D Mario never had the ruthless reputation of contemporaries like Contra, Ninja Gaiden, or Battletoads, but it’s still WAY harder than 3D Mario. You can actually die in 2D Mario on any level, due to a split-second slip. In the 3D Mario games you have to be retarded to die on anything but a few of the harder levels. There’s really no comparison.
I’ve been sayin’ for years that the nostalgia glasses really need to come OFF before entering this debate. With them on, you won’t see that Mario 64 and OoT have aged TERRIBLY and the only argument you can give them at all is the pioneer argument. But even in its own generation MediEvil and the Ape Escape series kinda shat on those two in terms of what a 3D platformer should have been about then, forget what other IPs came from the generation following that showed Nintendo that they can’t fucking evolve. Frankly, both M64 and OoT were fairly dull due to the vast expanses with absolutely nothing in them. MediEvil actually threw challenge in your face with more than 1 enemy at a time. A thing that Zelda games haven’t really done all that well since. If 1v1 combat in the midst of a whole lot of nothing in between is your cup of tea, sure, but to me, it just gets stale.
That said, every time I try to play OoT again, I start to ask myself “…I could be playing Twilight Princess. It’s the same damn game, but a hell of a lot more polished.” and then I pop it in instead.
Yeah, I didn’t bother mentioning it, but that always bugged me too and contributed to the general boredom. Normally getting out into the overworld is the point in a Zelda game where you’re thrilled about all the cool stuff to explore and do. In Ocarina, you get out into Hyrule field and you’re stricken by how dull and empty the world is.
In the 2D games, every screen’s length had STUFF in it. If you put Ocarina’s overworld areas in 2D, it’d just be minutes at a time of empty screen followed by empty screen… nothing in em but a grass or dirt tile repeating. The designers really should have mapped out areas like Hyrule Field onto an overhead view, layed a grid over top, and ensured that every ~10-25 yd square had features in it, like trees, bushes, enemies, etc.
The only excuse I can come up with for them is that maybe the N64 didn’t have enough RAM or CPU power to actually run an overworld with stuff in it. Still, shouldn’t breaking the draw distance up with trees and ridges improve performance, rather than break it down? Also if RAM/CPU was the problem, given that the N64DD wouldn’t have changed these limitations, one wonder swhat they had planned to do with all that disc space.
The overworld wasn’t the only offender here either. The dungeons tended to be pretty empty with little going on.
Windwaker had all the same issues, even worse - there’s not even hills or mountain walls at all, just miles of an empty blue sheet. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were huge improvements in this area, but again, it’s not the 3D entries’ only issue.
I wish I could say the same for my 3DS. My Vita gets a lot more face time, but that’s due to its ability to be a decent mobile browser/multimedia device. I don’t game all that much on it right now, mostly ‘cause there’s been a bit of a dead time for it. Lookin’ forward to Ys when it hits, tho.
My 3DS was completely untouched between me getting bored with MH3U and Pokemon’s release, though. I have a feeling that once I go through Zelda, aside from the times I feel like picking at post-game X, my 3DS will go back to being a dust collector. Maybe get some play when Smash hits. I just don’t see anything on the horizon for it that suits my fancy.
not only did it have a dozen different views it also had an auto centering which kept Mario always in the centre.
