Your Perspective on the Gaming Market

[Kriven]

Okay here we go.

One of the problems I can only really explain by relating it back to writing. You're going to have to try to fill in the relation yourself, because I won't probably be able to do so adequately. There seems to be an awful lot of telling vs. showing in games lately, which isn't very exciting and makes a lot of things feel very samey and boring. I'll use the newer Mario games as just an example (and this is disregarding the ugly visuals of the past few games.)

In the past when Bowser was angry, you could see it. He would twitch and slouch and try with all his might to kill you. It actually felt like you were being threatened by the fearsome Koopa King. Now it's more like just going through the motions. Instead of showing the tension it's just more like "Okay, Bowser's angry now, guys." And then you battle Bowser, but there doesn't seem to be any real risk. Win or lose is all the same. Just a game. A very different impression from having battled him in Super Mario 64, where it seemed much more like you were fighting for your life.

I suppose this is because of the improvement in software or hardware. Everything seems lifeless now because it's all too perfect. The characters are doing exactly what they're meant to, without any kind of restrictions, There used to be a little more jump to their movements, and I don't know if that was because of more primitive software or because it was intentional, but it added a whole lot of life to the characters.

The other big issue, and this is again mainly a Mario one, is sameness. It's almost like Miyamoto is intentional destroying anything remotely original about Mario. Don't believe me? Of course you don't. Let's look at a few things:

Mushrooms - Mushrooms are shape changing fungi. You get big, you get small. You don't get animal powers. In the RPGs you got few additional mushrooms, but the RPGs have always kind of existed in their own little pocket of the Mario universe. Up until Super Mario Galaxy every power-up, or type of power-up, had a unique item. Mushrooms changed your size, Flowers worked temperatures (this wouldn't be ruined until 3D Land with the introduction of a Boomerang Flower which makes absolutely no fucking sense), and the other power-ups were generally actual suits (with the exception of the Raccoon Leaf, which was its own unique type of plant.)

Suddenly everything is a fucking mushroom. Bee Mario? Bee Mushroom. They couldn't have used a glob of enchanted honey or something, nope. Fucking fuzzy mushroom. Boo Mario? Boo Mushroom. Everything's a god damn mushroom. They at least had the sense not to make everything in 3D Land a mushroom. Oh, but suddenly everything is a fucking leaf, and everyone and their mom has tanooki powers. Where's the fucking variety? Why are you creating something that already serves the exact same purpose as something else? This is like giving the Flash a car.

Anyways, that's about the end of this. I just suddenly lost the motivation to continue analyzing everything.