Discussion Accessibility options you would like to see in current or future Nintendo titles.

[Irene]

Rather simple question and topic, really. Accessibility is important, and Nintendo are perhaps hardly recognized as the frontrunners of the industry in this regard. Can they do better? What are examples of accessibility features you would like to see in existing titles, or future ones?

 

[Derachi]

So I’m not technically colourblind by any medical definition or diagnosis, but I sometimes struggle with telling certain colours apart. Blues and purples, when standing by themselves, and oftentimes indistinguishable for me.

So on that note: wow, it sure would be nice if Shiny Pokemon had some kind of sparkle effect or something to set them apart. I know Legends Arceus had the chime and that was great, but I need each Pokemon to have some kind of permanent visual not-colour-based effect so I can actually tell when certain Pokemon are actually shiny or not.

 

[Nmanic]

Not just Nintendo specifically, but TEXT SIZE OPTIONS!!! So many games just don't make use of all the space available for text, even within their own text boxes. I don't care if it makes it look less aesthetically pleasing, I'd love the option from just about every game to make the text BIG AND CHONKY

 

[Irene]

Not just Nintendo specifically, but TEXT SIZE OPTIONS!!! So many games just don't make use of all the space available for text, even within their own text boxes. I don't care if it makes it look less aesthetically pleasing, I'd love the option from just about every game to make the text BIG AND CHONKY

Especially since Switch is a handheld. Fire Emblem on the Switch Lite was pain.

 

[doodlewhizz]

I'm fortunate that I rarely need to use accessibility options in games but I have to say the majority of first party titles are abysmal in what options they offer.

As a company I feel they're very 'this is the way to play and have fun' and anything that ends up being good for accessibility is more incidental than intentional.

 

[paranoodle]

Thankfully these days they're pretty good at having the biggest one I need (subtitles), though I wish more games with voice acted cutscenes also had speaker tags and closed captioning for sound cues.

The big one I'd like to see better options for, though, is alternatives to motion controls. I really wish more games could make them optional and it's one of the reasons I never picked up Pokemon Let's Go. Some games allow you to bypass them but only if you play in handheld mode and that's a frustrating compromise.

 

[Mekanos]

Not sure on whether or not this counts as accessibility, but it's ridiculous how rarely Nintendo lets you remap controls.

The big one I'd like to see better options for, though, is alternatives to motion controls. I really wish more games could make them optional and it's one of the reasons I never picked up Pokemon Let's Go. Some games allow you to bypass them but only if you play in handheld mode and that's a frustrating compromise.

Hell, even on my Switch Lite, the motion controls for Let's Go can actually crash the game. I speak from experience on that one. Every time I reloaded my save on trying to catch a Krabby the game crashed, and I got fed up and stopped playing.

 

[paranoodle]

Not sure on whether or not this counts as accessibility, but it's ridiculous how rarely Nintendo lets you remap controls.

Yeah that's absolutely an accessibility thing. Isn't there console-wide remap now at least? Though I guess it's an issue if you need different remaps on a game-by-game basis and it would especially be nice for games to have remap options that aren't "just" button swaps.

Hell, even on my Switch Lite, the motion controls for Let's Go can actually crash the game. I speak from experience on that one. Every time I reloaded my save on trying to catch a Krabby the game crashed, and I got fed up and stopped playing.

Oof that's rough, it's wild that that was just allowed through.

 

[Deleted member 3433]

Standard in-game button mapping, please Nintendo, for goodness' sake!

 

[MSnap]

All of them, really. As much as I love them, Nintendo is a bit behind when it comes to accessibility settings. The Joycons being split was actually a pretty interesting decision as it may have been an unintentional accessibility booster, but they should also consider doing the same as Sony and Microsoft and releasing an accessibility controller.

 

[Mekanos]

Oof that's rough, it's wild that that was just allowed through.

Yeah and it would be one thing if it was just an oversight (Google says it's an uncommon but recurring issue with the motion controls) and they patched it, but I played the game over two years after release. Apparently the only way to fix it is to use actual JoyCons matched to your Switch Lite. It's funny because Krabby was the last Pokemon I needed for my team but I was just so annoyed I stopped playing lol.

 

[OctoSplattack]

Echoing the desire to remap controls in-game. System level remapping is appreciated, but doesn't cut it. I especially want button remapping for NSO titles, because... just... gestures vaguely at the N64 library

 

[Stilt Village]

They've improved a little about this over time, but something more along the lines of Celeste's Assist Mode would be a much cleaner implementation of "help" features in their platformers than anything they've ever done. They like to be nagging or transactional about it for some reason, as with the Retro DKC games, or worse just have no confidence in their designers or audience and water the game down to be "accessible" to everyone via their own strange definition of the word, as with games like 3D Land. None of this would be necessary if they weren't allergic to options. I'm not a big fan of things like difficulty levels myself most of the time, but Nintendo takes it to the point where being able to adjust the volume of music and sound effects is never a guarantee.

Their idea of accessibility seems to solely revolve around paranoia that their games are too complicated to understand for the average person, which is why 3D Mario and Zelda games went all-in on linearity and handholding for a while. I hope the wild success of BotW and TotK has finally killed off that superstition for good.

 

[RingoGaSuki]

How about any options? Switch is horrible for accessibility. ToTK shocked me when it didn’t have any proper options in the menu. Especially since I was coming off Yakuza Ishin which has a huge list of options

I don’t need accessibility features but Nintendo’s whole they need to play the game as we envisioned it schtick must get real old if you do.

 

[BlackthornOrion]

Not just Nintendo specifically, but TEXT SIZE OPTIONS!!! So many games just don't make use of all the space available for text, even within their own text boxes. I don't care if it makes it look less aesthetically pleasing, I'd love the option from just about every game to make the text BIG AND CHONKY

Yeah, I've bounced off some games like Three Houses hard because the text was basically unreadable in handheld.

Would kill for some kind of system-wide "big and readable text/font" setting.

 

[Leica]

Start with the bare minimum, text size options, button remapping, color blindness options, etc. Preferably do way more than that because this area is the one Nintendo just incredibly behind in.

 

[Moth]

So on that note: wow, it sure would be nice if Shiny Pokemon had some kind of sparkle effect or something to set them apart. I know Legends Arceus had the chime and that was great, but I need each Pokemon to have some kind of permanent visual not-colour-based effect so I can actually tell when certain Pokemon are actually shiny or not.

Having the Pokémon actually sparkle continuously on the overworld would be a great compromise in removing the chime (Which still shouldn't have happened anyways) and is a good idea, and thus will not bloody happen because This Is The Pokemon Company.

 

[meatbag]

ALL of the accessibility options. We can start with button remapping and text size sliders.

 

[JorgenRaft]

Honestly any would be a start lol.