Soapbox features allow our writers to express their own opinions on hot topics, opinions that may not necessarily be the voice of the site. After defending a defense on March 31 yesterday, Kate decides to address another hot topic: Why is Nintendo so focused on restoring old games?
Remember a few years ago, when every movie was a remake or a sequel to a ’80s classic? Remember how exhausting this was for people who had little nostalgia in that decade? Maybe not – last year made time turn to a beige mud, so we’re not even sure we remember our zip code, but it was a hard time. Some of us wanted new movies. Innovation. Creativity. Instead, we have Ghostbusters (but women!), Blade Runner (but Deckard is old!), and Prometheus (but he completely misses the point Foreigner series!).
However, it’s okay – now we only have terrible live action remakes of Disney movies and ten thousand Marvel movies and TV shows that you have to keep up with if you want a chance to understand the nuances of the next one. Sigh. If this is the hill of the grumpy old man I’m going to die on, so be it. I want Hollywood to invest a billion dollars in something new.
All aboard the grumpy train, because we’re heading to Complainsville, people: me.
Progress is not made by looking back and trying to recreate our childhood through murky pink specifications. God knows we would all rather go back to our relatively peaceful and uncomplicated childhoods, but they were peaceful and uncomplicated because we were children and did not notice that the world was still full of war, politics, and misery. Relive constantly Goonies it will not take us back to our blinking child.
Likewise, the constant fatigue of the sequels, remakes and ports of the old games becomes, for my money, a little tiring. (I know I’ve recently backed a sequel to Pullblox, but do they contain sets, okay?) A remake or sequel is usually an easy win for an editor: the code base, sketch, and story already exist, so it’s definitely it’s easier to depend on something you’ve already done than to build something from scratch. Of course, there are expectations to be met, and rarely does a sequel or remake meet them – there’s always an artistic or mechanical choice that angers and disappoints fans, such as the new Pokémon Diamond and Pearl chibis, but people will buy the games anyway, so what does it matter?
I’ll get it really grumpy old man here, but sometimes I feel that modern Nintendo is afraid of really big risks. Lately – at least in recent years – Nintendo’s new IP addresses (intellectual property – in short, new ideas, new series and, in general, completely new games) have revolved around presenting the latest technologies. or experiment with new technologies.
I could be wrong here, but me think Ring Fit Adventure is the latest first game from Nintendo that was actually brand new. Before that, it was ARMS; Before that, Splatoon. There’s also the Nintendo Labo, if you want to expand on the definition of “game” and 1-2-Switch, which was little more than a fun technical demonstration for Switch’s underused HD noise. All great games, but hard all the time (except Splatoon, which already produces results) and most of them involve Joy-Cons in a big way, proving what the Switch is capable of.
I know I know. It’s boring to complain that Nintendo doesn’t give me what I want. I warned you that I am entering the gloomiest of my states for the elderly, and I promise to return to the praise of an obscure DS game soon. But I do not want to relive my childhood endlessly with polished remakes. I’d rather be able to access games from my past without paying GBP 100 for a boxless copy of a GameCube game on eBay. I want the technology to be designed to last more than one generation of consoles. I don’t want to be asked to update and update and update before I’m ready to move on.
More than anything, I want new experiences, risks, leaps of faith that seem terrifying at first, but ultimately bear fruit. Nintendo fans (including me, hello) are notoriously hard to please, and there’s always the risk of a completely new series attracting anger like never before – Splatoon seemed weird at first, didn’t it? A Nintendo shooter? No, thank you – but we all know they’ll take it out.
The moment when a business goes from “throwing things to the wall and seeing what sticks” to “this blocked – let’s always do it, now we know it will always remain” is inevitable, because that’s how business works. They have satisfied investors and shareholders, and the risks do not bring money. Mario, Zelda and others like them receive big money, because they turned out to be profitable; Smaller games, such as Pikmin, are stored and occasionally penetrated to please the next cult. It just makes sense.
We ask for new, risky things, with no idea what we really are wantand no guarantee that we would actually buy it is similar to Google’s demand to invest millions in a new line of nuclear-powered tricycles or affordable monthly trips. Sure, they have the money, talent, and connections to do that – but why would they step outside their comfort zone when walking is good?
We now live in a world of extremes, where most things are judged by the masses to be excellent or awful, and everything in between is resigned to the “meh” halls and forgotten forever. Why risk a “meh” when you can ensure an “excellent”? Even the worst mainline title Zelda will not manage to fall below 9/10 these days and even if the test of time finally considers it a bit puzzling – like Skyward Sword – it will still sell, because she’s a Zelda.
If the last few years go by, we can probably expect a new Nintendo idea soon, maybe when all the Zelda / Mario anniversary things have faded a bit. But until then, there are continuations and reconstructions, continuations and reconstructions, up to the bank. I’ll still buy them. Of course it will. I’m a bastard for Nintendo’s work and I’ll point out that none of these sequels or remakes are ever bad. Simply not new – and I don’t want to be stuck in a world where we get the same five games and movies, over and over again, entered our lives like a Ready Player One-scented flavor.
In the meantime, I’ll look at indie to solve my weird and wonderful thing, and I hope someone thinks it’s appropriate to give them a billion-dollar budget one day. A girl can dream.