I think Nintendo are playing it a little safe this gen but who can blame them after the Wii U. That said Labo, Game Builder Garage and Ring Fit are hardly safe.
That's just rubbish, for Wii U we had Splatoon, Mario Maker, Nintendo Land, Captain Toad... not just creative games but games that are either brand new genres or concepts for Nintendo. Mario 3D World was bursting with creativity, the art style of Yoshi's Woolly World, things like Starfox Guard, anti-gravity Mario Kart, commissioning Bayonetta 3, the entire concept of Miiverse etc etc
This list is very sad
Splatoon? Sure I guess
Mario Maker should have been a launch game, level editors are a thing since way back so this was a no brainer really
Nintendo Land? Yeah remember when people were hugely disappointed that the “one more thing” that E3 was that the Wii U would indeed have a minigame collection as a packed in game. People were sick of minigame collections. Not sure that referencing their series is that creative either
Mario 3D World, along with other Mario games of that era, are basically different flavors of NSMB, sharing the gameplay loop of SMB3. Anyone can point out their “favorite creative levels” from whatever 3D Mario and they will always be more unique than whatever’s in 3D Land/World. Captain Toad isn’t helping your case either, they made a full game out of the puzzle levels from 3D World… gotta fill in those droughts somehow
Yoshi’s Story did it first, Woolly World’s art style was already iterating on Epic Yarn’s, game itself is just Yoshi’s Island but slower
Star Fox Guard is a packed in tower defense game that used the Gamepad, not much else to say about it. The main game in the bundle is, structure-wise, a rehash of past Star Fox games
Anti-gravity Mario Kart is really reaching it, I won’t even comment on this
And now, funding Bayonetta 2… congrats Nintendo, you secured an exclusive stylish action game, a genre your consoles has been starving on since the PS2. Same thing for Hyrule Warriors, that wasn’t bold at all, it was them funding a Warriors game, the COD of Japan. But wait, Nintendo consoles barely had these in the past so this was “fresh”. Finally getting games in genres that other consoles took for granted isn’t exactly creative, especially when they basically funded them
No matter how many Wii U/3DS games are your favorites, gassing up that era will never be convincing. It’s like… say you got a hockey team. You got a good goalie, you got some good players that would be very solid 3rd liners on a good team. However, you have no superstars on the team, no big goal scorer, no elite playmaker, you’re not even close of making the playoffs. That’s how the Wii U library is, it’s just not enough