Nintendo Is Hurting :(

[dsheinem]

A game doesn't need to spawn clones to be influential, The Tower of Druaga is one of the cornerpieces of Japanese game design, it's cited as an influence by practically everyone and yet there isn't a game quite like it.

Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the referent as far as aural design is concerned. The focus on the environment as opposed to level design or explicit narratives to drive the game foward got popular after these two games were released.

I however disagree with Dsheinem's assertion that Nintendo has always been influential, I think they have always been a very conservative company and nowhere as influential as Sega and Namco have been. High bar, for sure, but these are the Nintendo games that come to me as influential from the top of my head:

Donkey Kong (1981)
Super Mario Bros (1985)
The Legend of Zelda (1986) & Metroid (1986) [Both heavily based on Namco games]
Super Mario 64 (1996)

Heavy hitters, for sure, but while there are very few games that can compare head-on against them they are greatly outnumbered. Nintendo didn't engage in the building of beat'em ups, shooters, racing games or fighters. They never pushed the technological envelope or created big trends in genres beyond the games mentioned.

haha, leave it to you to take it even further in this direction

I think they did a lot of technical innovation in the 1980s and 1990s that would still count as influential - stuff like the scrolling effects in F-Zero or the tricks they pulled off within the confines of the NES hardware. But yeah, maybe Nintendo hasn't ever been a powerhouse of innovation and influence - but at least their consoles were once the home of these things.

[BoneSnapDeez]

A game doesn't need to spawn clones to be influential, The Tower of Druaga is one of the cornerpieces of Japanese game design, it's cited as an influence by practically everyone and yet there isn't a game quite like it.

Dragon Slayer. Released the same year.

Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the referent as far as aural design is concerned. The focus on the environment as opposed to level design or explicit narratives to drive the game foward got popular after these two games were released.

The Legend of Zelda (1986) & Metroid (1986) [Both heavily based on Namco games]

lol Zelda and Metroid are "based on Namco games" yet you don't recognize ICO/SotC as being heavily inspired by Another World/Out of this World and other adventure games?

Nintendo didn't engage in the building of beat'em ups, shooters, racing games or fighters.

Racing games? Mario Kart? F-Zero?

You can't credit any console developer with the building of shooters, fighting games, or beat 'em ups. Those were developed by arcade manufacturers.

This thread seems to have become a dumping ground for baseless Nintendo hate.

[noiseredux]

This thread seems to have become a dumping ground for baseless Nintendo hate.

I'm fairly certain I've also read some baseless Sony/MS hate in this thread as well...

[dsheinem]

This thread seems to have become a dumping ground for baseless Nintendo hate.

Why is it that anytime anyone offers fair criticisms against [beloved company] that it gets twisted into a counterclaim that said arguments are "baseless hate"? I quite like both old, influential Nintendo as well as a lot of newer Nintendo games. Saying they have lost their position of developing or harboring influential console games isn't the same as saying they don't make or harbor good console games that are a lot of fun in their own right.

[Gunstar Green]

I don't think anyone in this thread hates Nintendo (and I know Nintendo hate, I post at Sega-16 where some posters are actively eating pieces of schadenfreude pie and hoping for the Big N to die like the Dreamcast ). I think people are having a reasoned discussion about where Nintendo went wrong and what they think should happen.

Obviously we're not all going to agree, but don't take criticisms as hatred. Get that console war mentality out of here.

[kidfresh]

Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the referent as far as aural design is concerned. The focus on the environment as opposed to level design or explicit narratives to drive the game foward got popular after these two games were released.

The Legend of Zelda (1986) & Metroid (1986) [Both heavily based on Namco games]

lol Zelda and Metroid are "based on Namco games" yet you don't recognize ICO/SotC as being heavily inspired by Another World/Out of this World and other adventure games?

Ugh. Nobody shits anything brand new out. No one. Everyone's shit is gonna smell similar in some way. Nintendo's shit smells like Namco's shit. But it's not (usually) the same shit. Even before video games were inspired by video games, they were inspired by things that happened in real life. Pong was inspired by tennis. Pacman was a game based on eating. And eventually, newer video games were inspired by these classic video games. These are rough examples, I know. But I don't think you can blame any game company for not being original, or cloning other games. Yes, sometimes developers make video games that are *way way waaay* too similar of an experience to a video game previously released. But no matter what, a video game is a video game. They were all inspired by each other, and build off of each other. And all video games are connected in some way.

Cue: http://tinyurl.com/k6c3v4w

You get what I'm throwin down here?

I just think that when you start looking this deep into things, actually enjoying a video game can't be done as often as I feel it should be. Buuuut it's just my opinion.

[Erik_Twice]

Dragon Slayer. Released the same year.

I don't think the games are very similar when it comes down to it. I think the raison d'etre and most influential part of Druaga is the focus on secrets and what you would call "Japanese game logic", as diffuse as that sounds.

lol Zelda and Metroid are "based on Namco games" yet you don't recognize ICO/SotC as being heavily inspired by Another World/Out of this World and other adventure games?

Who says I don't? It's clear one follows the other, but right now the reference is ICO not its precusor.

Racing games? Mario Kart? F-Zero?

Fine games but it's not like you can put them in the same category as Virtua Racing, c'mon! Credit where its due.

I don't know, pal, I just don't think Nintendo has ever been a company that kept pushing the envelope or had many groundbreaking games. That doesn't mean they haven't done some great games or that we are hating on them.

[Gunstar Green]

I do think the "inspiration" topic is a bit of a tangent. An interesting tangent that should be in its own thread maybe, buy a tangent nonetheless. We can guess for hours and hours about what inspired what but we don't really know what went through a developers head unless they come out and tell us and even then we don't know what they were subconsciously inspired by.

I'm pretty sure game developers don't always know what the ur example of every single game mechanic they use is either.

[dsheinem]

I do think the "inspiration" topic is a bit of a tangent.

The reason I brought up the question of influence was to try and explain why gamers such as myself might not be buying the Wii U right away but would instead buy an Xbox One or PS4 at launch. I like platforms that promise to carry titles which are going to be seen as "cutting edge" in some form or fashion of their design (not only graphics), and Sony (and to a much lesser extent MS) has cultivated a development environment where these games are produced with some regularity. These are the kinds of games that people who are most interested in the possibilities and future direction of the medium tend to write about, talk about, think about, etc. and that are most often cited by other contemporary developers as shaping their own work. If one enjoys taking part in that conversation while it is occurring, then it is a consideration when buying a console. In the 20th Century a Nintendo console was an important thing to own if you wanted to keep up. In the 21st Century, it has not been.

[Jmustang1968]

Bah on a lot of this influential talk. You know what is the biggest influencing factor? Sales. $$ talks and everyone copycats or borrows elements from the games that sell well. How many WoW clones have there been? And WoW wasnt innovative, Blizzard just polished everything up.