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Keighly thinking he got a bit scoop, and then getting Cranky Kong'd is still a peak TGA's moment.
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Discussion 10 years ago we were in the middle of arguing about Retro making "****ing Donkey Kong"
- Thread starter Lugia667
- Start date
- Pronouns
- He/him
It's valid to say people were tired of mid 2D platformers back in 2013 due to the state of 2D Mario lacking originality between NSMB2 and NSMBU in the prior year. But the thing with Retro's DK is that it never looked "mid" or had the same criticisms of where 2D Mario was at. In hindsight I think people largely acknowledge that Retro's DK was the brightest spot of Nintendo's 2D platformers in the early 2010's.
NSMB's biggest criticism was the lack of originality and its lacking presentation in its later sequels. Then DKCTF gets shown and it's environments are completely different from Returns, Nintendo shows improved presentation in the graphics between dynamic 3D camera angles and even minor details like DK's new fur, and they announce David Wise is coming back to compose the music. Like comparing NSMB Wii to NSMB U and then DKCR to DKCTF, it's clear the latter pair shows way stronger presentation and a bigger generational leap from game to game.
NSMB's biggest criticism was the lack of originality and its lacking presentation in its later sequels. Then DKCTF gets shown and it's environments are completely different from Returns, Nintendo shows improved presentation in the graphics between dynamic 3D camera angles and even minor details like DK's new fur, and they announce David Wise is coming back to compose the music. Like comparing NSMB Wii to NSMB U and then DKCR to DKCTF, it's clear the latter pair shows way stronger presentation and a bigger generational leap from game to game.
CyberWolfBia
I talk more about games than I play them
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imagine drowning in whole TWO games? there's too much to me to handle! I hope Nintendo takes a break of DK after that, a 10 year hiatus, at that! ;P
-- I can't help but act super cynical on this, when DK was such a rough spot few years earlier.. that the moment the brand was getting some love, people felt the need to rain in our parade.
I'd cut a few of 3DS titles out of their portfolio if I could indeed, but at the end of the day.. I was looking forward games on the Wii U, and Tropical Freeze was just the second Nintendo published sidescroller on the system;
Giancarlo
Nintendo connoiseur
While now about 2 months removed from when it was actually revealed, eh screw it.
10 years ago, the Wii U was struggling out of the gate. No one wanted the system and it was getting outsold by last gen. BUT there was hope. And that hope was
If anyone, ANYONE could save the Wii U it must be them surely! They made the amazing Prime Trilogy and also made a great new DK platformers after almost 2 generations of just spinoffs. If anyone had something BIG and EPIC for the Wii U, the first HD system, it would surely be them. Perhaps after Other M they would go back to Metroid to help right the ship! After all a new hardcore title would be just what the Wii U needed to get back in the game. Or maybe it wouldn't even be Metroid, but a new MATURE IP like Uncharted! Some rumors went even crazier saying they were going to revive STARTROPICS!!!!!!!!!......no not the topics on the websites. That uhhhhh....series on the NES that had 2 games. Apparently it was possible we were going to get a new RETRO STARTROPICS REBOOT. It got even crazier when rumors were floating around at e3 2012 that the game was going to be shown but wasn't due to unforseen bugs. This must mean the game was so epic that they needed more time to iron things out.
Then E3 2013 comes around and Nintendo has the GALL to not to a big live stage conference! This is a MASSIVE mistake and another out of touch decisions. Can you imagine if everyone just did online presentatons instead of big live shows? Ridiculous! It will never happen.
Nevertheless they will techically still be there so this is where we will get the new epic retro title. The presentation starts and we get looks at Pokemon, 3d World, Mario Kart, Wind Waker HD and other stuff and then Iwata says to look at this
A plane drops out with DK esq music and out pops.....THE BIG APE HIMSELF. It seems what we have here is a....DKC Returns sequel.........with underwater being back and viking artic fauna as the villains.
People are enraged at this. How could Retro be working on JUST a Donkey Kong game! Some believe it isn't really Retro's next game but farmed out to another studio but alas...it's quickly confirmed it's them
Gaming sites quickly pick up with threads like this:
Retro's Next Big Game Is Another Damn Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Island is overrun by Vikings in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which will be a retail release and a Wii U eShop download when it arrives later this year.kotaku.com
and
Wrestling With Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a fun and beautiful platformer that seems to lack the special something that Retro Studios is capable of.www.gamespot.com
this article in particular had a paragraph that kinda illuminated the general feeling
and who can forget the announcement thread on NeoGaf where the title is
"Retro Studios working on fucking Donkey Kong", the topic reached 33 pages and had to be locked. In it despite arguments about how it made sense that they would want to expand on what they did in Returns and the sales numbers made sense, it didn't matter to man others. This was not a game worthy of Retro's talent to many. It was just a goofy platformer, we have too many of them already! This is Just New Donkey Kong Country U.
And yet when people finally played it, it turned out to be....good? With superb gameplay, level design, music and graphics. Perhaps this game WAS worthy after all. Yet it turned out to be too late....it was doomed to be on the Wii U after all and that was that......
oh and uhhh 4 years later it got a Switch Port or something I dunno....also we are still waiting on Retro's next big game which ironically IS the fabled Metroid that many demanded then. We did get an excellent Prime Remaster this year and there are rumors of the other two games remasters hat may or may not be coming soon.
so were any of you guys there at the time. What was it like for you? Did they game deserve the hate it got at the time? Where gamers simply ungrateful or was the disappointment justified?
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freezy didnt get the praise he deserved, as one of the best 2D games, after Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freezy, i hoped Retro Studios would be the Donkey Kong game that conclude it trilogy, now they are forced to do Metroid Prime 4, when they could easily choose a game to make.
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The fact that these lists are being padded out with ports (on a different system to boot), games that weren't even released or dated, some of them not even announced, stuff that people hadn't even played yet were somehow "drowning" proves more than anything how disingenuous this line of argumentation is. It's fine to have been disappointed in the announcement of Tropical Freeze but some of you must think that we weren't around in 2013.
OP
OP
Lugia667
Gerudo
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It does seem that Nintendo fanbase were alot more at each others throats back then than are now as well, which is a good thing for sure. I remember people complaining about Kid Icarus getting so much attention in Smash 4 when it had literally one game after god knows how long lol
Mer.Saloon
Chain Chomp
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When a port is made on a different system by a first party studio you'd just think that they're wasting resources regardless of whether you buy it or not.
There was a lot of "judge but don't buy" at the time.
OP
OP
Lugia667
Gerudo
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wasn't monster games making the 3ds port though? I guess people didn't really pay attention to that either
Instro
Like Like
Ultimately what happened is that the WiiU was awful, and in that environment Retro/DK got caught in the crossfire. The game is fine, it's just not what people were wanting at a time when they were already pretty disappointed with what Nintendo was doing software wise, and what was going on with their hardware.
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
It’s disingenuous to only look at the Wii U and not look at the 3DS too. The Wii U was already an extremely small user base so who do you think those fans were? Yeah high chance 3DS fans. Nintendo was splitting development, of course, at the time. When you’re seeing platformers on the 3DS and you’re seeing NSMBU months after NSMB 2 it does all compile together.
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It's actually 3.
NMBU
NSLU
DKTF
And in terms of Nintendo published games there were....
8 original Nintendo published titles.
Nintendoland
Pikmin 3
NSMBU
NSLU
Wonderful 101
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze.
Mario 3D World
Those were all of the Nintendo published titles, now if we want to include WWHD since it's a remake, then we can count that.
Around 50% of Nintendo's library at that time on the Wii U, were platformers. 3D world, even though it's in 3D, was still sort of seen more as a traditional style platformer. But it's up in the air whether you want to count that.
3-4 platformers might not seem like a lot in a vaccum, especially in the switch era. But platformers accounted for the majority of Wii U's catalog. And it should be noted, that most of the third party games coming to the system were platformers too, like Rayman Legends.
Remember when people were complaining about the amount of Wii U ports in the first 2 Years of the Switch? It felt very all encompassing. But in reality, Wii U ports were around 20% of Nintendo's catalog at the time. Wii U has it beat when it comes to platformers.
Which comes to why DK got into the crossfire. It's just the lack of games in general, and DKTF did provide any variety to a system that desperately needed it.
Nowadays, DKTF is an amazing game. One of my all time favorites, but honestly, it's not hard to see why the fan base was upset about it. Now, the game has been very redeemed, since the Switch has a lot more variety, and different experiences and genres than the Wii U ever had.
I still don’t enjoy TF. I don’t think it’s “bad” but it’s so far removed from my interests that I couldn’t care less about the game at that time.
To me, it looked and looks incredibly similar to DKC returns, and it was another series going into iterative sequel mode like 2D Mario. That was what was most disappointing to me.
People seem to like it, but I’d like art styles to change like they did in the snes/nes era. I still expect at least some more inventiveness in gameplay from a 2D platformer then say a 3D open world game.
Every time I boot it up, I’m almost immediately bored to death. That’s why Mario wonder looks so good to me.
To me, it looked and looks incredibly similar to DKC returns, and it was another series going into iterative sequel mode like 2D Mario. That was what was most disappointing to me.
People seem to like it, but I’d like art styles to change like they did in the snes/nes era. I still expect at least some more inventiveness in gameplay from a 2D platformer then say a 3D open world game.
Every time I boot it up, I’m almost immediately bored to death. That’s why Mario wonder looks so good to me.
D
Deleted member 645
Guest
Good times. I loved it. People were trying hard to push retro into the conversation with the best developers at the time. That’s why all this crazy rumors were coming up. Donkey Kong made Nintendo sense and didn’t surprise me at all.
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Yeah, the 3DS only had NSMB2 in 2013, no other games that could have saved people from drowning in platformers.
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
I was hoping 3D DK was the next game we’d get after DKCTF…but not looking likely
Professor Chops
Tektite
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The sad reality is that 2D platformers were, and still are, considered "lesser" games by a large percentage of the hardcore gaming community. As an industry, we never evolved past the "3D is inherently better than 2D" rhetoric from the N64/PS1 era. 2D platformers are seen as regressive and relics of a bygone era. Games like Metroid Dread, despite being of enormously high quality, still have to justify themselves as being "worth" $60. The proliferation of 2D platformers in the indie scene, typically retailing for under $20, have made this problem worse. Nowadays, 2D platformers are no longer the default games that kids grow up with. It's normal for an eight-year-old to play something more advanced and mechanically complex like Minecraft, Fortnite, or even Nintendo's own Splatoon. There's a reason why open-air Zelda games are selling better than mainline Mario games for the first time in history. 3D is just… the norm now.
With Tropical Freeze, the backlash was exacerbated by Nintendo's own mismanagement of the Donkey Kong IP during the mid 2000s. Many younger gamers grew up viewing DK as a Mario spin-off character and not a separate, distinct brand with its own identity. Furthermore, Nintendo lost a large part of the "hardcore" gaming marketshare during this era. When it was announced that Retro Studios was making another 2D "Mario" game instead of a 3D game that would validate the Wii U as a platform for "mature" gamers and not just Nintendo fans, the gaming community reacted accordingly. Tropical Freeze didn't give them the validation they were pining for, and they lashed out. I can't imagine how Retro employees felt during this time. Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a game only for it to be called a "waste of talent" by some manchild on an Internet forum.
Some people point to this debacle and blame Metroid fans for the fact that there hasn't been a new DK game in almost a decade, but that's not a fair assessment. I'm sure the initial backlash was incredibly demoralizing, but Tropical Freeze has since been reevaluated as one the best 2D platformers of all-time. The lack of a new game is very simple: There was something else in the works, but plans fell through and Nintendo decided to bring the series home and develop the next game—and possibly all future games—internally, at Miyamoto's behest. Right now, we don't know what form this new game will take. Some people here assume it will be 2D based on job hirings, but I remain unconvinced. I just hope that, whatever the new game is, people give it a fair chance instead of dismissing it for not being what they were expecting. Nintendo is in a much stronger financial position than they were in 2013, so the Switch isn't in need of a "saviour" game like the Wii U was. But it's hard to ignore the anti-2D sentiment that still persists in the online gaming sphere. Super Mario Bros. Wonder will undoubtedly sell gangbusters, but Mario has always been the exception and not the rule. For many people, DK is just more Mario, and the onus is on Nintendo to change that perception.
With Tropical Freeze, the backlash was exacerbated by Nintendo's own mismanagement of the Donkey Kong IP during the mid 2000s. Many younger gamers grew up viewing DK as a Mario spin-off character and not a separate, distinct brand with its own identity. Furthermore, Nintendo lost a large part of the "hardcore" gaming marketshare during this era. When it was announced that Retro Studios was making another 2D "Mario" game instead of a 3D game that would validate the Wii U as a platform for "mature" gamers and not just Nintendo fans, the gaming community reacted accordingly. Tropical Freeze didn't give them the validation they were pining for, and they lashed out. I can't imagine how Retro employees felt during this time. Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a game only for it to be called a "waste of talent" by some manchild on an Internet forum.
Some people point to this debacle and blame Metroid fans for the fact that there hasn't been a new DK game in almost a decade, but that's not a fair assessment. I'm sure the initial backlash was incredibly demoralizing, but Tropical Freeze has since been reevaluated as one the best 2D platformers of all-time. The lack of a new game is very simple: There was something else in the works, but plans fell through and Nintendo decided to bring the series home and develop the next game—and possibly all future games—internally, at Miyamoto's behest. Right now, we don't know what form this new game will take. Some people here assume it will be 2D based on job hirings, but I remain unconvinced. I just hope that, whatever the new game is, people give it a fair chance instead of dismissing it for not being what they were expecting. Nintendo is in a much stronger financial position than they were in 2013, so the Switch isn't in need of a "saviour" game like the Wii U was. But it's hard to ignore the anti-2D sentiment that still persists in the online gaming sphere. Super Mario Bros. Wonder will undoubtedly sell gangbusters, but Mario has always been the exception and not the rule. For many people, DK is just more Mario, and the onus is on Nintendo to change that perception.
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I got caught up in the internet zeitgeist at the time, so I was pissed that they weren't working on Prime 4, but... I don't even like Metroid, and Tropical Freeze is my second favorite game of all time lol. So the lesson kids, is don't get carried away with online hype
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
Lmao this is hilarious
Regulus Tera
Ruffian
If the argument is that TF failed to replicate the successes of Returns and the OG, fair.
If the argument is that TF should have been sidelined for Metroid due to those circumstances, sorry, but no way.
Also TF on Switch is already over 4 million.
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
I’ll see what EPD comes up with. I don’t want some peripheral based or odd DK game. I’m used to the DKC series. Something a little more challenging and not gimmicky. We haven’t had a new game in a decade. Just give me a great DK game and not get cute with it.
Mer.Saloon
Chain Chomp
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Isn't DKC3 considered one of the most "gimmicky" DK games?
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
Nintendo fans when a hugely successful Wii game got a sequel on Wii U:
I think the thing is that the WiiU was in an incredibly dire situation and needed something really big and groundbreaking to save it and then Nintendo announced 3D World and Tropical Freeze as their big titles other than Mario Kart and Smash.
Which were expanded and better sequels to very (but not overwhelmingly) popular games that had recently released.
It was a pretty clear "oh no, this system is doomed" that was also highlighted by Sonic Lost World being the only semi-major third-party game shown at e3 2013.
It was a very weird feeling e3 when the WiiU was dead in the water and needed to find a niche, and Nintendo focused on games that didn't use the gamepad at all, lol.
Mekanos
おっす！
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- he/they
It was silly back then too
Sure? I'm not saying it wasn't, I'm saying evaluating it in the modern context without consideration for what people's headspace looked like at the time makes it look more arbitrary than it was.
Idk I just think it's interesting to look at the 'why' of these moments of friction. The more complicated explanations are more interesting to me than just saying that a bunch of people all resonated with the same irrational take for no reason coincidentally.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
What was Nintendo's internal thinking when they were greenlighting their major WiiU games when they started noticing that none of them other than Nintendo Land used the gamepad in any meaningful way.
Like, you have to start panicking a little when all of your software for your upcoming system... doesn't utilize the system?
Like, you have to start panicking a little when all of your software for your upcoming system... doesn't utilize the system?
It makes sense on paper but not in practice. Out of the gate, more safe 2D Platformers were not what the Wii U needed commercially. Nintendo was inundated with them and they aren't seen as high profile, "wow-factor'" system sellers.Nintendo fans when a hugely successful Wii game got a sequel on Wii U:
Joe
🦇
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I'm not sure if there is a single aspect of the Wii U's lifecycle, from conception to end, that makes sense. It is the most baffling thing Nintendo has ever done in my opinion.
Mekanos
おっす！
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- he/they
It's not that complicated, a bunch of adults threw a tantrum (some still doing so in this thread) because a new installment in a popular series was announced
And that was the last reveal trailer for a new Retro Studios game to this date.
Mer.Saloon
Chain Chomp
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They probably didn't notice until it was too late to walk things back. A common thread with Nintendo hardware has been that the machine is ready far ahead of time but the software is what takes the longest to set up as the teams try to get stuff ready.
It was probably way too late for Nintendo to walk back the touch screen. It was too integral to the system to make a machine where it totally was irrelevant.
CyberWolfBia
I talk more about games than I play them
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Speaking of Gamepad features... At the time, I still didn't have a HD TV, and my Wii U was hooked at a CRT with composite Wii cables.. so the fact Tropical Freeze at least offered Off-TV Play on the Gamepad, was a god send! I could play the game on its intended aspect ratio, with nothing cutting off and a slight better quality of what I could see on my bedroom TV;
And, you know.. when I opted to use the TV instead on occasion, the Gamepad screen beeing all black was a nice saving battery solution (which many games didn't do, in fact); since the Gamepad's battery was always so short.. and got shorter as the console got older, so this was nice to have;
And, you know.. when I opted to use the TV instead on occasion, the Gamepad screen beeing all black was a nice saving battery solution (which many games didn't do, in fact); since the Gamepad's battery was always so short.. and got shorter as the console got older, so this was nice to have;
Mate, it obviously is more complicated though. People have bad takes all the time; but it's rare for one to be memorable ten years later. The fact it was such a resonant phenomenon at the time is notable. That suggests there was something there beyond a bunch of disconnected individuals behaving inappropriately.
It's totally fine if you don't find that an interesting conversation! But you quoted me first. If you just wanted to dunk on unreasonable DK haters there's a lot of more anti-DK posts you could've used as your jumping off point
jnWake
i have 50 characters and i'll use them, all of 'em
Inundated by the entire sea composed of New Super Mario Bros. U and its DLC you mean? Or you're also including Rayman Legends in this massive sea of 2D platformers on Wii U?
Of course, as we now know, the Wii U would eventually end up inundated with 2D platformers by Nintendo with the releases of Woolly World and Mario Maker for a grand total of four 2D platformers. It'd take years for fans to play all of them.
Stilt Village
GBA
DKC3 is gimmicky in a different way from Jungle Beat. They're both gimmicky because they aren't content to just be a platformer in terms of gameplay, but Jungle Beat is gimmicky in how it controls while DKC3 is gimmicky in how its levels were designed.
The latter is a lot more subtle, because the game itself doesn't revolve around an obvious gimmick. Even though I've played through the game easily 10+ times, I never really felt the full difference until I played a shuffler that would randomly switch between the three games at least once per minute. Getting suddenly thrown into 3 from the other two games is like jumping between a swordfight to the death and filling an assortment of pots with water to the same height. High tension action versus mildly complex busywork. The whiplash was crazy. Playing a shuffler is a brain melting experience that's way harder than it looks, and I just barely scraped by in the first two games even though I've played all of them countless times, but I finished 3 with like 30 extra lives.
This is how it goes with every single Nintendo hardware gimmick since R.O.B., they make one proof of concept game for it and that's usually it because it turns out that actually they came up with something more cumbersome and less precise and versatile than a normal controller again, who could've guessed? Even the DS and Wii had a lot of their features as background noise, like how many games ever actually benefited significantly from waggle or the second screen?
YolkFolk
Tingle
Since you brought it up, I’d go as far as to say that the Wii U was absolutely unacceptable as a product and was pretty much gross negligence. Heads should have rolled.
You know it’s bad when almost everyone was pointing out the flaws over a year before release and instead of fixing them in the near 18 months before launch, they actually doubled down.
Those Nintendo Land fireworks will live on in infamy and summed up the life of the entire console.
jnWake
i have 50 characters and i'll use them, all of 'em
Honestly the best use of the Wii U Gamepad was simply as a screen with more information, it made a lot of games better to play with less cluttered UIs. It probably didn't justify all the consequences in terms of pricing for Nintendo though.
But moving from playing Zelda with all the items on the Gamepad to not having that was a big downgrade.
But moving from playing Zelda with all the items on the Gamepad to not having that was a big downgrade.
Mer.Saloon
Chain Chomp
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- He/Him
The Wii was more than waggle though. The IR pointer was very useful for games like Sin and Punishment, and could have made for an incredible Star Fox. Shooters really did use the pointer well too. Just a shame the remote didn't have a stick on it to help take advantage of broader movement. We've seen though how the Wii's motion tech has improved to make Gyro a more standard function in our controllers.
And the DS' screen was great for RPGs, along with the Zelda titles for uncluttered UI and menu navigation. It mainly suffered due to the low resolution of the screen making it so touch functions often got in the way. But then again, the DS touch tech paved the way for a lot of our modern touch interface games.
Sometimes these gimmicks stop being gimmicks and evolve to standards of their own.
Stilt Village
GBA
I specifically didn't mention IR and the touch screen because they're the rare examples of things where a lot of games did find good use for them, even though they were far from the only gimmicks those systems had.
Nintendo gimmicks only really land like 5% of the time, but I guess the revolutionary success of that 5% might be why they keep doing them. Unless someone else had done it earlier, the analog stick on N64 might also qualify for this, and if so that's clearly the biggest success story of all time for Nintendo hardware gimmicks.
Joe
🦇
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ironically enough, I think a Metroid Prime game would have been perfect for the Wii U GamePad, what with the scan visor and all that.
LoneRanger
Chain Chomp
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Still DK Country Returns and Tropical Freeze are 2 of their best 2D platform titles and a very worthy title (Tropical Freeze) if you own a Switch.
Mer.Saloon
Chain Chomp
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You know, fair enough.
Linkstrikesback
Starman
- Pronouns
- He
The thing about that is it still wasn't that good of an implementation. Even if you like not having a cluttered UI, it didn't really work well unless you completely paused the TV screen action, while on the DS and 3DS, you could effortlessly look between them as they were basically always in your line of sight.
JazzPotatoes
Koopa
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- He/Him
The problem with the Wii U was never the touchscreen. When used properly, it was a phenomenal device that allowed for all sorts of new ideas:
- Zombi U having both an incredibly tense single player mechanic (having to divert attention between two screens to avoid the undead) and an incredibly novel multiplayer mechanic (the Gamepad player basically playing a top down Zombie RTS)
- Xenoblade X having an entire resource game built into the map screen, something I've yet to see in any other open world game
- Pikmin 3 allowing you (post patch) to aim using the stylus, as well as giving you a map control screen that allowed you to delegate and multitask commands between captains
The problem with the Wii U was that was the generation where Nintendo failed to adequately staff up for HD development, right when they needed it the most. They had the entire previous gen to read up on how developers had struggled making the jump to HD, and they completely failed to do their due diligence and properly prepare. That was what led to software droughts that killed the Wii U's momentum stone dead.
- Zombi U having both an incredibly tense single player mechanic (having to divert attention between two screens to avoid the undead) and an incredibly novel multiplayer mechanic (the Gamepad player basically playing a top down Zombie RTS)
- Xenoblade X having an entire resource game built into the map screen, something I've yet to see in any other open world game
- Pikmin 3 allowing you (post patch) to aim using the stylus, as well as giving you a map control screen that allowed you to delegate and multitask commands between captains
The problem with the Wii U was that was the generation where Nintendo failed to adequately staff up for HD development, right when they needed it the most. They had the entire previous gen to read up on how developers had struggled making the jump to HD, and they completely failed to do their due diligence and properly prepare. That was what led to software droughts that killed the Wii U's momentum stone dead.
jnWake
i have 50 characters and i'll use them, all of 'em
It's definitely better on a handheld but I still liked it on the Wii U.
I also liked Off TV Play on the Wii U, I played most of the Virtual Console games that way. Of course, the Switch is a massive evolution of that concept.
