I've definitely noticed Nintendo shying away from "systems" in recent years (to my own personal disappointment in many cases), but I hadn't considered closely examining every series with the theory in mind. Great point about how this might be why Metroid is mostly MIA.
Hi, Arlo. Having watched all your videos criticizing the modern state of Paper Mario, and now watching this one, I really have no hope left for the series. And Ceave has me fearing for lots of other Nintendo series, too. Depressing.
There needs to be more foresight during development, have them ask each other "Is this FUN, though?" Mario Odyssey gives you a wonderful set of options, but translating that onto an RPG like pepper merio sounds like a task Nintendo may not be ready for, but that's exactly what makes the best Nintendo games when you really think about it, some of the most acclaimed nintendo games always a flair of experimentation. That feeling of uncertainty, of treading new ground with old tools, it should give devs a reason to GET CREATIVE around certain metroid-era limitations in a modern landscape, finding a way to seamlessly incorporate it into their new standard. Nintendo is definitely the best when they have a "new meets old" approach, but not everyone IN the company sees eye to eye on it. I wonder what their playtesters have told them, do they even have playtesters anymore? I dunno, maybe they're afraid of being rude in their culture, but man, if I'm not having fun, then it's not a nintendo game to me.
I think this theory is a lot more plausible than "Nintendo has a big ego". I've had a similar thought to this for a while but you've worded it so perfectly.
The big ego was Arlo's theory, right? The ego is probably part of the reason, but Ceave's explanation was definitely more thought out. To be fair though, Ceave made an entire 30-minute analysis video just about this, and Arlo was just reviewing Paper Mario TOK so he couldn't think that much about this issue.
@@HBKnowItAll also paper jam really didn’t live up to the standards of the first 4 games. While it’s not a bad game, it’s plot is way more generic and I don’t think it introduced a single new character
@@NewSoupWiiHii Good thing they’re just side modes. (Disclaimer: I haven’t actually played the remakes so I don’t know if the side modes are bad or not, but that doesn’t make the whole series rotten if they are).
Mario & Luigi 2 was way too much of a constant dumpster fire for me to bother trying any of the games that came after it. Using the same item over & over to whittle down a boss' gigantic health bar & invalidating my own stat growth in the process is mind numbing beyond words. Shroob Queen is probably the worst boss in any game I've ever played. I'd much rather fight a metal golem from Dragon's Dogma as a mage. I've done that. Also, switching controls because a character got K.O.'d is insanely asinine.
"Nintendo willfully restricts themselves... in order to find more creative and pure solutions" .....That one sentence would explain a *lot* about the things nintendo does. It makes me think back to an Arlo video where he talks about the teams not being *allowed* to create new characters or species, so I wonder.... is that sort a thing a result of this philosophy having gone too strict?
That is more a double edge. Using what is about to build something is a sign of masters but it sometimes need something new to evolve the way. It depends on the situation.
Honestly I think that's a good thing. If Nintendo didn't do this kind of thing we wouldn't even have motion controls today. There's a good chance Nintendo would've be kicked out of the console wars and not made the wii. There's a good chance they couldn't have made the switch. Things like SMO and TLoZ would have never been made if they didn't do this
The issue with religiously following a different design toolkit than everyone else is that between all your games, that toolkit becomes as stale as the one you wanted to avoid.
Ceave answered why they changed Paper Mario, but not why they wanted to change it in the first place. I don't see any reason why they needed to remove as much progression as possible from every game.
@@knosos15 Exactly this - certain game genres like strategy games and RPGs just don't fit this (arguably brilliant) new Nintendo design philosophy well at all compared to open-world action-adventures or platformers
@@ZachAttack6089 Actually it's likely nintendo trying to be different for the sake of newness. If you wanted to keep your games fresh, it would be better to be different then the same. How would nintendo be able to sell a console if they're games we like everyone else?
@@Bezaliel13 every one will end up like that, even if the game make it super easy to you go through without the need of grind, you will grind just for the sake of it.
A quote from Kensuke Tanba stated in an interview with gamerant "since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it's no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario Universe." This sits with the theory that has circulated that their is a regulatory system in place on how the mario franchise can be presented. You can no longer present mario in any way other than mario, and likewise many other super mario characters. But what this means is that characters don't get, well character. This can even be seen in animal crossing. Where personality perks have been reduced to become more simple, while adding new ways to interact with the world instead. As a long time fan of the series, realising I that the animals had no intrinsic desire and very fine relationships with others pushed me away from the game much quicker than any other in the series, and it makes me think games like the original animal crossing where neighbours could just be rude, or creative artstyles that made mario more intense like Mario Strikers will never be greenlit by Nintendo again.
Fun Fact: You mentioned that paper Mario’s badge system is similar to Hollow Knight’s charm system, and there’s a very good reason for that. Team Cherry actually took inspiration directly from Paper Mario when making the charm system.
Thats actually a prime example for how nintendo interacts with the gaming market. Make some cool innovation and drop them as soon as they become mainstream to make new ones. This strategy might not always result in highest sales, but their huge impact on gaming as a whole by being the main force behind innovating and pushing everything forward can't be valued high enough
@@doomse150 that's a fair point, anything great gets picked up by other develops as nintendo moves on to new ideas, though it feels like the "new" paper mario fomula hasn't been edited despite being meh at best
Yes, it's like Nintendo is so focused on making a widely acceptable game that they lost focus on making a game that can have focus, like BOTW and Odyssey have more than enough collectibles to beat the game as to give everyone and avenue to get to the end, but forget about those who WANT to get everything.. they torture them essentially for wanting to experience all the game they own has to offer..
This. The fact that I had to limit myself to using ranged weapons only to make BotW enjoyable was a huge minus for me. It's a stepping stone towards a complete omission of new ideas.
I recall that being a major problem with the Metroid: Other M control scheme, since they deliberately limited themselves to not using all the buttons of the Wiimote and Nunchuck to try and boost their creativity, but instead made the missile system unnecessarily clunky.
That or you just give up and have mario *(spoilers for paper mario oragami king)* collect elemental abilities from the slain corpses of gods of old I'm pretty sure that counts as a metroidvania style progression system
@@bruhboss3141 yes but you aren't allowed to use those elemental abilities enough. I don't think they utilized those abilities to their fullest potential.
The popularity of videos on RUclips about cleaning someone's clogged pores or other, skin conditions is what I immediately thought of as supporting evidence.
I mean, Luigi's Mansion 3 made me fall in love with sucking things up with the Poltergust simply for the action of doing so, so I think the director had a point. Then again, Luigi's Mansion 3 was a SUCCESSFUL version of this mentality Nintendo has, while Origami King missed the mark, so clearly the mentality being outlined is not the issue.
It costs money to open the chest with the Master Sword. In fact, in order to increase/remove durability from an item, you need to pay money to TEMPORARILY do so. More money for a rarer item. Oh yeah, and lootboxes.
To be honest, nowadays it'd probably be along the same lines as what we see with Fenyx Rising: more standard AAA trappings to it with skill trees and upgrades. They also probably wouldn't have made as much of the content optional, in order to tell more of a story in the present Also there'd probably be a lot less variation in the terrain, or there would be multiple different maps, because planets in Star Wars tend to be mono-climates, and it would DEFINITELY be a Star Wars game. Pretty much everything they publish lately is either an established series with its genre set in stone, or it's Star Wars. Microtransactions would probably actually be non-existent or limited to directly purchasable cosmetics, as has been their norm in non-sports games since after Battlefront II.
So if they tossed aside the systems because they were too much like arbitrary rewards, I wonder why they tossed aside the deeper world and character identities?
@@derekw8039 There's been statements about it, where it's been explained that effectively Mario is a brand identity that they need to preserve the image of very tightly so can't do anything "weird" with it. Everything has to be using established characters in standard ways. Which is why everyone is toads.
@@Graknorke I always found that weird. A Toad isn't even a character, they're a species/fantasy race. At least in Pokemon it makes sense that no one nicknames their Pokemon and just refers to them by their species; there are hundreds, even maybe over 1000 by now, so it would make it impossible for fans to remember the difference between the actual designated Pokemon name and the character name. But it's not hard to remember the difference between Toads, Goombas, Koopas, and Boos, come on!
@@Graknorke Even in a world where Odyssey and Luigi's Mansion 3 challenges this, I'm pretty sure people on the dev team at IntSys have stated that they want to keep the series recognizable in the same vein as with SS and CS, intentionally keeping up the restriction.
This is probably the most realistic theory on why Paper Mario changed. I just want to point out why I think this new design philosophy doesn't fit Paper Mario (or Turn-based Strategy/RPGs in general). *1. Creating a character build is fun:* I love TCGs, and part of that love is deck-building. Badges in Paper Mario have a similar feel. Why does it matter if the reward is arbitrary? The reward facilitates other avenues of enjoyment. I barely play competitive Pokemon but I love breeding perfect Pokemon with egg moves and etc. Removing character progression eliminates that enjoyment from the game. *2. Battles should matter:* Some people might find fun in turn-based battles on their own right, and that's fine. But it takes so much more time to kill a Goomba in Paper Mario than regular Mario. So the people who don't find the system itself enjoyable should be able to find other fun. Classic Paper Mario had the badge system, so if you like character building you can test out your setups and that's fun. It also had Action Commands, which I think counts as "part of the system" like the circle puzzle in Origami King. But for people who don't like either of those things, experience points are a permanent progression that makes people feel like their time wasn't wasted. Removing XP inevitably leads to wasting people's time if they're playing for the story/characters/dialogue/puzzles/etc and not the battles. *3: Limited Iterations on Battles:* Despite being a Nintendo game, Origami King does not do enough with its battle system to keep it feeling fresh. The boss battles are the best part of the combat because not only is it a different take on the base system but each boss does something unique. You get far less of that in normal battles. In Classic Paper Mario the freshness comes from unique enemy attacks with their own block timings, a larger pool of badges to build setups with, and new partners with new skills. New Paper Mario takes the "jump these enemies, hammer these other enemies" and "hit A to block when enemy touch you" and leaves everything interesting behind in the name of eliminating character progression. Nintendo cut off its nose to spite its face.
... I think having your tools not degrade utterly helps make N64 PM fun. Finding the quake badge and learning it ignores defense, makes a whole bunch of enemies trivial to fight (the spikey headed rock guys) that are normally really hard to fight, and the game doesn't punish you for over using it, in a random feeling way. (you can always see your fp, and decide to avoid fights if you don't have enough for a fight)
Yeah, also it's so fun seeing so many people make their own fanmade partner OCs and ideas. Partners (for story reasons AND more) and original designs for more than a than just few things were just a fun concept. Also, this is just an observation that hasn't played the game per se but has seen walkthroughs so it should still be a KINDA valid observation, most of the enemies don't really seem that unique to fight from each other, not much making them different besides a few like say Boos which actually play off the gameplay design. And most of the attacks you do see are just generic team up and throw each other at you stuff. I guess that might not matter to some people, but it still kinda kills enemy variety/creativity. Regardless, I feel like most people can agree this series shouldn't be at the point where the only new enemies they can put in the game have to be paper monsters.
I like the way the first 3 M+L games handled combat too. It’s really fun to pull off evasion timings in addition to using bro points for strategy. I enjoy your likening to TCG because deck identity is a lot about theme and progression. I’m still frequent to Duel Links for the new cards even if the pve events aren’t usually all that special.
wow i just realized why the "only to enjoy the story" - difficulty exists in RPG's. I always thought that would be an useless addition, because i could never imagine to play a RPG without playing on highest difficulty to get challanged. But it makes sense if you don't like the combat at all of the game to have an option to still enjoy the story without wasting much time with combat. I always dropped titles if i didn't like the combat, but now maybe i start to use this difficulty instead.
Just seems like they swung the pendulum way too far in the opposite direction. The key word you used was "fun". As it turns out, fun is more important than sticking with some design principle. Maybe some of us enjoy thinking about where something cool could be hidden instead of just constantly hammering things to get paper with one button and then constantly pushing a different button to throw that paper to fill a hole. Super fun...
They didn't have to butcher fun and interesting new characters in Paper Mario just to meet this philosophy. There is so much wrong with the direction they took this franchise.
the company that makes Paper Mario, Intelligent Systems, seems to prefer working on Fire Emblem, IMO. The actual creator of the Paper Mario franchise switched to the Fire Emblem team because he thought Paper Mario was a creative dead end.
Gotta appreciate the fact that we progressed through the video by collecting new information, only to come back to the very beginning in order to use that knowledge and reach a conclusion we weren't able to reach before.
having exploring for the sake of exploring is cool and all but its goes completely against the philosophy of people who wont do anything if there isnt a good reason to
@@GaminGuy_ Yup. I played odessey for 3 hours before becoming completely uninterested in it. Breath of the wild I completed but felt no desire to play beyond the dungeons and castle. They're both the titles I have enjoyed the least of their respective IPs, I can see why people enjoy them but it's just fundamentally unengaging to me.
@@Milkysponge I like both Odyssey and Breath of The Wild. But their problem is that rewards don't feel good because... there's too many of them. In Mario 64 stars felt really good and rewarding to get, they had a self imposed reward and a literal reward. In Odyssey stars are just littered everywhere and don't feel rewarding to get on their own, but instead you kinda just wanted them to get to the next world or next part, in Mario 64 you always wanted to get the stars because they allowed you to go ahead and fight bowser, a necessary 3-time roadblock which structured the game even more. Stars in Mario 64 were tricky, they were challenging, and they had an intuitive total, Moons are littered everywhere in Odyssey and a ton don't even require much effort. But in Mario Odyssey it doesn't feel intuitive to get most of the moons, I like smaller dumb secrets in games, but just make them feel intuitive. Odyssey doesn't even force people to do a ton of things, all you need to do is get the total amount of moons in a world needed to get to the next, sure this allows tons of different ways to play the game. But this makes the player not go out of their comfort zone. Same issue with BOTW.
@@randomguyontheinternet7940 i got bored of BOTW quickly because all there is, is the 4 beast things and Hyrule castle. after i did that there just wasn't anything else apart from the shrines and a bunch of those are the tests of strength which don't require skill just a lot of high damaging weapons which all break and you're left with nothing and on top of that all you get is one bit of armour or a weapon and a single spirit orb. i didn't like the tests of strength.
@@shadejustshade8301 I wonder how many times in my life will I see this same comment. I also wonder when the funny numbers memes will die, or if they will pull a Rick roll and persist for eternity.
“If somebody were to sit down with the goal of getting every moon in Odyssey they would probably have a terrible time” Me, in the middle of a 100% playthrough: That seems about right
There are certain bs moons that I can't even begin to try to get because they're just above my skill level, so I'm just going around each kingdom grabbing all the moons I can actually nab. And I'm having a fun time because I made the choice to play that way. Kinda sucks that Moons and Purple Coins are the only significant collectables (regular coins are feckin everywhere) but I knew what I signed up for and I'm still having an overall good time with Odyssey specifically.
@@christiannorton9400 only moon I couldn’t conceivably get was the 100 jump-rope moon but there’s a glitch to get an infinite score so I kinda lucked out
This is why I pace out most of the games I play with breaks for at least a few weeks every 50 or so hours. Otherwise would be maddening with almost any game. Even the best ones.
no, the patch *tries* to fix them, but all the patch does it make the shrines spawn deathclaws. you've gotta wait for UBOTWBEP (Unofficial BOTW Bethesda Edition Patch) to patch it out
@@Portersona69420 huh? It’s been said multiple times that Nintendo doesn’t allow the paper Mario team to make any new characters or modify existing ones. Could link a RUclips video explaining this?
Oh my gosh. This video nailed it. Nintendo basically has tried removing extrinsic motivation from their games, replacing it purely with intrinsic. RPGs are one of the most extrinsically motivated genres out there, so removing stuff like badges and other RPG trappings from Paper Mario makes so much sense. My mind is actually blown by this. Fantastic video.
@@mushroomfusion245 It’s might be theoretically possible but at least in my opinion it would be very difficult. RPG combat is decently fun but ultimately going a bunch of simple turn-based fights against basic trash mobs isn’t all that fun. I enjoy doing it because of the fact that it makes me stronger and I see my character growing and progressing through the game. But when there’s no reward it’s just boring and tedious. To make an intrinsically fun turn-based RPG you’d have to do a lot to make each individual battle feel enjoyable, which, let’s just say is way easier said than done. Probably why that type of game doesn’t really exist.
@@Luigicat11 I hadn’t really thought of that, but yeah, I guess it could sort of count. I also thought of Chrono Trigger, there’s only like 3-4 trash mob encounters per area so it’s easy for each battle to feel interesting and distinct
I could get behind discouraging level grinding for the sake of making the game fun but this doesn't excuse the convoluted combat system that makes random encounters tedious and unenjoyable.
i feel like that game was literally tailored to me, i never liked that you were forced to do pretty much every battle in the older games to be at a good level to fight bosses and such, origami kings system allows me to enjoy battling in that game whenever i want and since there is no progression rewarded from the battles, i dont have to feel stressed to do them and neither does anyone else. If you didnt particularly enjoy battling again and again in the older games you were bascially forced to, but if you dont like the battling in origami king you dont really have to battle much at all and you can still enjoy the game.
@@iamresh i fought pretty much every enemy and still struggled a bit in battles. i played it pretty vanilla tho. another problem with that battle system was the badges were broken as hell
@Mineithebear Not to seem rude, but that sounds like a skill problem on your part. If you're fighting basically every enemy and still struggling in combat, you likely haven't learned superguarding or your stat spreads are bad. Also, badges are very powerful, but they're not "broken." (If they were, you wouldn't be struggling in combat, lol)
"if a person were to sit down, with the honorable goal to binge through odyssey until they picked up each and every moon, this lovely person is probably about to have a horrible time" :|
22:20 "But most importantly, all of this is linked to the baffeling design decisions they made with the paper mario series on 3DS and WiiU" - Talking about the switch exclusive Origami King
Oh, Mega Evolution. You were the only new mechanic I ever loved. Breathing new life into our beloved older gen pokemon, they could have continued making mega evolutions for the rest of pokemon's lifespan. Then gamefreak got gimmick fever and we've had z moves and dynamax since, which were just so, so crap.
@@megamarkread Didn't stop it from selling over 20million copies. Which is proof to me anyone in the same echo chamber is in the minority. Keep being loud about how gamefreak is evil, cause Nintendo isn't gonna care.
I feel an easier name for: "metroid like ability growth" would be: "lock & key abillities". Because there's essentially a lock of an obstacle and then there's the key of an item/upgrade
That sounds good, and the lock and key metaphor jives well with the other term I've heard used for these systems in the past, which is "progression gating". Gates have locks after all
@Darling Vexa Art Yes dude. Not every game need to have a "Lock and Key" involving the abilities and certain areas. But the reverse ALSO applies because not every game needs to have no restrictions where almost everything is optional and there's thousands of different Moon Collectables. Some games like Metroid actively thrive on needing certain abilities to go certain places
Game makers toolkit uses a term like this in there series BossKeys which is based around dismantling and graphing these kinds of lock&key designs in an attempt to discover what makes the difference between a fun and a frustrating Zelda dungeon. its a real neat series that i recommend to anyone that loves game design. I also recommend everything else GMTK makes.
The fact that Nintendo is removing "Metroid-style progression" from their games makes me a bit worried about Metroid Prime 4. Like, imagine a Metroid game without that Metroid-style progression...
@@ce7.0 You mean, because they originally made it without that style of progression, and had to change that, or because they originally made it WITH that kind of progression and are now removing it?
Well, Im pretty sure there would have been a riot if they told us they were making a zelda without lots of dungeons, items like the hook shot, and other things that botw is wholly lacking in. But I don’t understand the metroid series at all so you can just ignore me
This video is mostly centered on Nintendo's main studios. Otherwise, Ceave's claim that Nintendo hasn't made arbitrary rewards would fall flat. Xenoblade is a massive exception. Hell, XC2 has the dogshit awful system of gachas. That is the definition of a most terrible form of arbitrary reward - just go grind a super boss for one hour then MAYBE get the reward, maybe don't. You'd have never grinded the super boss with driver combos otherwise.
@@gemstonegynoid7475 I was a Mario & Luigi fan, and I later got into Paper Mario, now my favorite of the two died and the one that’s left is not to my liking ; _ ;
Wow, they've been like this for the past 10 years huh? I knew something about their games changed but I couldn't figure it out, and now I finally know what it is! It's mad how such a simple change in philosophy can drastically change how a game plays and feels
There’s also the fact that Nintendo got stricter with its IP, causing a lot of the talent and passion at Intelligent Systems to gravitate away from Paper Mario, towards Fire Emblem.
Basically. How much can we strip a game down to a core game play loop and ignore any other aspect of gaming that's emerged since the 90s? Also his point about the Moons I found irritating because compared to Any of the other 3D Mario games (besides Galaxy 2) it was incredibly linear. You absolutely could play any LEVEL you wanted in Mario 64. You ciuld skip multiple whole courses and still beat the game at 70 stars. Since his whole thesis is about avoiding arbitrary rewards, you can say that Yay BotW but you can't discuss Odyssey with the same merits at all.
I think the best way to explain how Oddessy is a very non-linear game in terms of worlds and not progression is to look at the percentage requirements for each game. Super Mario 64 requires you to collect 70 or 58.3% of its star count to beat the game. This means that if we split up the stars into three brakets of difficulty of 40 stars each then players are required to take on some challenging stars to beat the game. Additionally, there are 15 worlds in Mario 64 with 15 secret stars. Let's assume we have a player who gets every secret star so they need 55 more to open the final door. The average star requirement per world is is 3.7 or 4 stars per world. That means a player is on average expected to collect 4 out of the 7 total stars in every world ( or 4 in 6 if they're unaware of 100 coins or hate those stars with a burning passion). That means on average a player is required to get 57.1-66.6% of the stars in every world assuming they get all 15 castle secret stars. If we assume they get 0, then average changes to 4.6 or 5 stars per world which means you're required to get aproximately 71.4-83.3% of every star in the worlds in Super Mario 64. Now obviously, these averages aren't perfect but they showcase that Super Mario 64 does require a significant portion of its worlds and difficult challenges to be played to achieve the 70 star ammount for the average player. Sunshine, meanwhile, is way easier to calculate. It's completely linear in terms of required shines (not neccessarily the order you do them in but they require the same shines every playthrough). 41.7% of shines in the game are mandetory when including blue coin shines for the total 120. Additionally, the game forces you to play harder challenges and adapt to the controls to get those shines. So the average player (since there is a glitch to skip to Shine 7 in Gelato Beach which reduces the requirement by a whooping 6 shines) has to play a significant portion of the game and experience some level of challenge due to the linearity. Since each world has 11 shines, each world statistically requires 63.6% of the shines to be collected in each world for the average player. Galaxy 1 is semi-linear, semi-not. More often than not, the average player gets stars based on when they unlock or difficulty and little else. It's 60 star requirement makes it an easy 50% required star count. Galaxy 2 as you pointed out is fairly linear with only a few different world options in each world and a general 1 star requirement for most. As such, I'm going to ignore the Galaxy games for the most part in this statistical comparision. So then, what about Oddessy? Yes, the order of the worlds is linear. However, the worlds themselves are extremely linear and always 75% or more optional in terms of content. WAIT WHAT? Yes most of Oddessy's worlds are optional because of its rule that you don't need to collect any specific power moon for each world just a certain amount. With a required 124 out of 880 moons though, it has the lowest percentage required at just 14.1%. What's more when you look at required moon percentages, the highest Kingdoms top at 25% required with the lowest at barely 11.9%. You are only required at most to play a quarter of Oddessy's worlds to progress. Yes, you do need to visit each world in a specific order but the amount of time neccessary to spend in each one is minimal and subject to change. Notice how the averages are significantly different in terms of percentages for each game's average player? Both Mario 64 and Sunshine require the player's to play significant dense portions of their worlds for an average playtime. While 64 has some flexibility in that aspect, you will still end up playing anywhere from aproximately 57-83% of each world's content at the minimum unless you go out of your way to go for a 100% in some to avoid hated levels. Sunshine maintains an average in that same spectrume of about 64% of conent in each world being required to beat the game. Oddessy's worlds though requires the barest minimum possible in the vast majority of them. And that's why Oddessy is so nonlinear despite appearing to be one of the more linear games. It's linear in terms of world-to-world progression but extensively non-linear in world exploration. There's so much content you can skip in that game that both Mario 64 and Sunshine still require you to do. And some of the content in Oddessy is really simple moons that speed up this process even more reducing the time you spend in one world down as well. True, you'll tend to spend more time in one world for a significantly longer portion than Sunshine or 64 but you're doing so with the stipulation that there's far more content to cover beyond the bare min you're doing because most of the game is optional wheras the other two aren't.
Lol if ceave ever makes a video covering partners in time I'm gonna lose it. That game was one of my fondest childhood memories. Did like 6 playthroughs because my mum couldnt afford to buy me more games lmao. Ceave please make it happen
Nintendo can be stubbornly stupid when it comes to certain decisions, like instead of different franchises having different systems of progression of play, they'll stick to one way for a number of years and try to force all their franchises to play in this certain way, even if it doesn't work sometimes.
@@neutralnarration1463 Funny enough, the devs should also take their meds, OCD will lead to more rash decisions like that. Absolutist, close minded game philosophy leads to projects with an overly restricted, uniform sense of scope, or lack thereof. Not everyone under Nintendo internalizes and comprehends the mindset of Odyssey of BOTW, they are games that are accessible in a good way. I see the paper mario devs wanting to be original, but that means throwing out what did work and overhauling it with an experimental system, the ring system, cards, stickers, etc, that basically turn this IP into Tofu Mario, a tasteless replacement with a bit of salt. Management should take a few steps back and realize games should be tested more, and tweaked on a case by case basis, I don't mind what they're doing with newer gameplay systems. but pepper mario shows a fundamental misunderstanding of that system.
I like the way Hollow Knight handles Metroidvania-style progression. After the first couple of areas, you are free to explore the rest of the game in pretty much any order you choose. However, instead of just tossing you out on a big, open field where everything is accessible at once, there are still Metroidvania progression locks that need certain abilities to get past; You're just free to go straight to finding those abilities in any order. This approach allows Hollow Knight to have solid structure to its map and tell a deep story, while still allowing the player to interact with the game in virtually any way they choose.
That's the problem with people who often makes a valid point: It becomes twice as hard to spot when they've missed something, simply because we start to believe them on merit alone. Obviously, we knew that something was up in this video, when Ceave said that BoTW was a good game. It's obviously not. BOOO! BAD CEAVE!
The big bosses at Nintendo want their games to be "gameplay driven" as opposed to story driven. But for some reason they cant do both like any other developer
@@calemr and, despite everyone constantly telling them, they refuse to believe that their desperate attempts at trying to make the potential bad parts avoidable are the bad parts.
You didn't mention it, but it's interesting to see how this philosophy is creeping into the Pokemon series. HMs were entirely phased out in gen 7, replaced by ride Pokemon that served the same function of traversal and interacting with the environment. Now in gen 8, the only traversal upgrades are tied to the bike, and only one upgrade expands the areas you can access. I'm really interested in seeing how Pokemon will continue to change in accordance with this philosophy, given that traditional upgrade systems are fundamentally integral to the DNA of the series.
And here we are in gen 9 [shpoilersh]: TMs are craftable, the cover legend is your bike, you do a whole BotW arc to upgrade your lizard bike, so many features of previous games have been removed for literally no reason (mass/egg release why?!), and so much of the game feels both new and fresh while also feeling as stale and dull as the last few entries have. It's very frustrating for me as someone who likes pokemon as a system and rpg, but can't stand the insufferable fluff (and recent handholding / railroading).
18:35 Game Maker’s Toolkit likes to call these locks and keys. He even made a series called “Boss Keys” where he analyzed every Zelda game (as well as a couple of other games)
"It's weird that you don't have any reward after getting more moons than 500" The witness with its environmental puzzles: wait, you should reward people for getting something?
BOTW feels to me like a version of the "Mushroom on a stick" theory: The "Mushroom in a box" theory. This variant gives the players the key to the box alongside a note that says "Open it if you want" and just lets the player do whatever they want to do
But I feel that they still went too far with the ‘no weapon upgrades’. Oh hey, I got this cool shiny new weapon off the enemy in that shrine, I’m gonna use it! *five minutes of combat later* ‘well my cool weapon broke, so I have to go back to using the shitty rusty shiv, which is also about to break, so I’m just gonna not interact with the weapons anymore, I’ll just kill things with bombs. At least they aren’t a limited resource.’ Any combat system that penalizes you for using your cooler weapons, sucks and is terrible. Same with in the newer paper Mario games, Sticker Star and Color Splash, you would begin to actively avoid fights because it just was a waste of time and resources.
At least in BotW potentially deincentivizing combat isn't as bad, given that choosing to avoid combat is still a form of interacting with the gameplay systems, since maneuvering through the environment has its own systems to play around with, as does finding and using tools other than weapons to deal with enemies. ...Avoiding RPG encounters isn't really any kind of gameplay, you're never gaining the opportunity for something else when you run from a fight there, just skipping what the structure of the game makes out to be a core gameplay element.
BotW is just as bad, except they go the opposite direction. It is so devoid of progression, meaningful interaction, or differing rewards that the entire game is optional, repetitive, and ultimately, pointless. Yes, you can do what you want to do, but it gets old very quickly, and you end up not wanting to do anything much, wandering aimlessly and just being bored, until you get fed up and go for ganon. Think about that: the greatest reason to beat the last boss... is being sick of the game.
I am very excited that you tackled this problem. Actually I felt the same the last years with one difference: I do still admire Z-BOTW and SMO for the excellence in core gameplay mechanics and loop, but think that they are way worse games than they could be due to the drastically cut progression systems. There is a reason after all why I bought a Switch under a month after its release but still could not get myself to play further than two titans for almost an entire year, let alone get to Hyrule Castle (imo the best part of the game right after the Great Plateau). It was certainly not for an abundance of titles for this newly released console but more on that later. In a day and age where most developers start to stuff games full of arbitrary "progession" (rather collection-) systems, more than the games could bear - mostly to disguise insane post installation monetization and in game purchasing systems - the one developer who has time in time again shown to have mastered a balance in simple character, weapon or skill progression systems, abondons those completely. Either in search of absolute mastery of pure gameplay by restricting other ways of gratification in their games (as alluded to in the video) or maybe in search of the mastery of their "blue ocean" strategy. The latter because by making any real challenge optional they lower the barrier of entry even more.(I am not gonna explain this further here, please google its origin yourself, dear reader) To be honest - I know the answer just as little as you, my austrian friend, this is also just tin foil hat speculation, but these are the only two things that make sense, and probably the truth is a combination of both, hopefully at least... This decision has one major flaw: By optinalizing every but not all challenges and tasks the player never knows if they are actually supposed to be able to complete the task in front of them just yet. You can actually see they have tried to couteract the problem by completely removing any death penalty in both games - in SMO by removing the 1Up system and only removing ten lousy coins from your inventory, in Botw by autosaving at every second big tree. This sadly only removes the in game penalty due to the missing structure, but makes the player subconsciously trust the game (and its designer) less. This is the same phenomenon as you can currently see in Cyberpunk 2077, when a player gets into a mission and can't find the mission objective, they might tend to expect a bug, even if they have just overseen it because it was well hidden, in turn making them abandon the mission or cunsulting an external walkthrough, to see if the mistake was on their or the developers end. In both cases they are robbed of the gratification and experience of finding the solution themselves or even worse feeling like they were defeated for no reason. Similar problems occurr from missing structure and pacing in the modern open-worldish games from Nintendo, which simply cannot maintain the awesome meticulously planned and tested ebb and flow of gameplay & recovery/upgrade, pacing of increasing difficulty, progressing character build - which in turn changes the gameplay over the course of the game - or a coherent and satisfying story. Sorry for this gigantic rant, I am tired now, if I forgot half of the important things just hit me up. Thank you for this awesome, extra long, piece of content! Danke dir für deine gute investigative Arbeit an Nintendospielen und ciao
Finally, someone with a balanced view who isn't just heaping blind praise on BotW, but sees both the good and the bad. It's a shame that Ceave doesn't seem to read this type of comment, he'd really be better off popping his bubble. (edit: fixed the spelling that my mobile keyboard screwed up)
I don't see that as a flaw, because nowdays nintendo games espect practically nothing from the player, evidenced by the fact that not only practically everything is optional but also nintendo always gives an easy way around any problem the player has (e gadd in luigi's mansion 3, olivia in origami king ot just easier moons in the kingdoms of odyssey that are worth the same as harder moon, making whether you get those moons or the others, or both, completely optional)
Botw was a great game and really captured the essence of zelda 1s exploration but damn I missed OoT style dungeons and would have really liked more ability progression.
I think I have to disagree with the idea that Super Mario Odyssey was made worse by a lack of progression systems, as they were never even close to a staple of Mario series, and even the examples given in the video aren't really typical progression systems, as they don't give the player new abilities, they just add power-ups to the world. In the case of Sunshine's nozzles, it's not even game-wide, and is instead per area, with the nozzles always being available whenever they're truly needed. The only thing that can stop you from being able to get a shine in a level (IE, not the plaza) is not having gotten Yoshi.
@@shadedepeche2556 I don't wanna be mean but there is a reason that there is a genre of "Metroidvania" and they aren't like "partial open world" games :P
Honestly this explains really well why I tend not to enjoy the modern Nintendo games like others do. I really like that sense of reward and growth and skill trees (within reason) and find it difficult to intrinsically motivate myself to play a game without those. Thanks for putting that into words!
This video is very outdated tho, we've had only in 2022 two Pokémon games, Kirby and the forgotten land, Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a new Mario and Rabbids and a Mario Strikers with unlockable equipment
Playing classic gamecube games ive never played before give me such a fun experience from beginning to end. modern nintendo games never give me that feeling
Ingenius analysis, it explains so much about the way recent games were developed. It also adds fuel to my own conspiracy theory revolving around AlphaDream's bankrupcy. AlphaDream seemingly rebelled against these restrictions, being the intrinsic motivation covered in this video (as well as the character designs that cannot be significantly altered in order to create original characters) to the point of straight up ignoring them because they realised that an RPG would not work without either a progression-reward-system or original narrative-driven characters, simply due to the nature of the genre. We're able to see the effects of this in Paper Mario, who lost its RPG-roots precisely due to these restrictions. Now for the conspiracy part: It is this disobedience that led Nintendo to cut back on resources provided for AlphaDream; financial support, advertising, etc. Then, since new games without those restrictions would no longer be allowed, AlphaDream decided to simply remake what they already had, basically sidestepping the restrictions. In the end, Nintendo deliberatly left them to suffocate, so to speak, simply for transgressing the restrictions they had put into place. AlphaDream died fighting to the bitter end because they knew that their games would not work out in the same way without these mechanics.
@@kennyholmes5196 Pokemon suffers because the teams at Gamefreak are way too small, and because they split off to do seperate projects on top of their already tiny development teams. Also because they are being bled dry by The Pokemon Company because TPC is a greedy corporate entity that thrives off of merchandising and predatory, anti-consumer practices. As long as they are the ones holding the reigns, expect the Pokemon franchise to continue down a steep decline of overpriced DLC, unfinished games, and out-of-game services that cost even more money in addition to the already ludicrously expensive experience that is modern Pokemon. And the braindead consumers that are the Pokemon-obsessed sheep will continue to ignore and obfuscate these facts because "YOU'RE JUST BIASED MAN!!11!" Piggies will eat their slop. Mediocrity thrives off of ignorance.
"It's probably best to think about those abilities like the items that Zelda usually finds in one of the dungeons in the game series named after him." :laughs madly:
@Darling Vexa Art I honestly think it might be part of the reason Nintendo put the restrictions on original characters in the first place. Look at Francis. There's no way the developers didn't cross some kind of line when designing characters like him.
One big issue with their design philosophy is that, in dropping metroidvania mechanics, they ended up backing up into a way worse system: Weapon Consumables/Fragility: a system that results in player disempowerment, which has no place outside of horror. (Note: Skilled developers can make a game challenging without needed to disempower the player.) In practice, it makes obtaining the weapons unsatisfying and encourages the player to avoid combat, which should be intrinsically fun by design-- so the game is fighting the player back for wanting to have fun, and it tells the player to focus on less fun or unfun alternatives. Some games train the player to avoid combat for various reasons and facilitates other avenues as a core part of the experience... but this isn't really the case for games like, say, Sticker Star. It's just bad design. *_I will die on this hill._*
I mean BotW seems to do well with breakable weapons as there is always more around the corner, and you can also use the most OP weapon ever, big metal crates.
@@bestaround3323 Some people like or tolerate it. I don't. BotW is painful to play. Not difficult or anything like that-- just an agonizing chore. It was only recently when I started playing it modded on PC that I was able to get into it. There are many excellent and very enjoyable aspects of BotW (the world, the puzzles, the characters, the lore, et cetera), but there are some small yet major things that really shoot itself in the foot, in my eyes. The biggest of those issues is the weapon fragility system and how utterly poorly it was implemented in so many ways. Weapons are consumables with very limited durability, and you can only hold a very limited number of them, even with upgrades from Hestu. It's The Legend of Zelda: Sticker Star. The system is at least functional in practice, but that doesn't make it satisfying. Or fun. Or enjoyable. Or good. Heavily limited carrying capacities and consumable/fragile weapons should stay in survival horror where they belong. *_I WILL die on this hill!_*
@@Cheerybelle I mean I personally like the system as it encourages me to try different strategies. Plus with how often they drop I don't really worry about them to much. It is a bit more fun abusing the physics system to kill enemies then with weapons anyway. Plus it adds an aspect of inventory management. I understand that you don't like it, but don't say that it is just an awful mechanic.
@@bestaround3323 I mean Botw is one of my favorite games of all time and yet I admit my enjoyment wasn't helped at all by the weapon durability system, That said I kinda feel like it's a necessary evil, as without it all people would do is horde the strongest weapons instead of trying out the more.. unique approaches to combat It's not a good or enjoyable system, but I really don't think the game would work without it
Nintendo: You should fight enemies for coins. Mario: Let's go fight! Mario later: My stickers are gone! Nintendo: Buy new ones. *Mario buys new ones Mario: My coins are gone! Nintendo: You should fight enemies for coins. Mario: :|
I can confirm that in paper jam there is a metroid-like progression system. In the beginning of the game nabbit steals all bros. Attacks and you get them back again throughout the game. You also get beans and overworld abilities to help you go through the world, like the paper drill, paper airplane, and the super hammer
A major exception to the last part is Ring Fit Adventure, It's got multiple skills, it's got powerups that change the abilities that you get in the story and you have XP.
Yeah, it uses *all* those RPG progression tricks to make people want to continue playing even after they stop enjoying the inherent gameplay (exercise).
I've been thinking about this video a lot after watching it, and I've come to a few conclusions. In its current iteration, Nintendo's design philosophy works with Mario and Zelda because of their fundamental enemy interactions. What is Mario's fundamental interaction? He jumps/stomps/use's the current game's gimmick to defeat the enemy. What is Link's fundamental interaction with enemies? He hacks and slashes, dodges, blocks, or uses a bomb/bow and arrow to fight enemies. This general interaction holds true across most Zelda games as well as all of the main Mario games. However, Paper Mario's fundamental enemy interactions are through a turn-based and separate-screen battle. For Paper Mario, the fundamental enemy interaction is, in essence, a minigame. Thus, the HP/FP/BP system works very nicely because they make the minigame generally fun and diverse interactions, and they provide an incentive to engage in the minigame. In the Mario and Zelda series, the incentives for enemy interactions have always been relatively minor. Except for minibosses and bosses, you didn't have much of a reason to engage in combat in Zelda. For BotW, much of this design philosophy holds true. Although enemies can drop items and/or weapons, they're not entirely necessary for the progression of the game. Similarly, with Mario, he never had much reason to attack enemies in any of his core games because progression was always tied with finding an object or objects, but how you interacted with enemies was always consistent. In Paper Mario, each battle encounter took more time than in either the Mario or Zelda series, and, the point of battles was to give progression in the battles (and the boss fights). So when they started changing the battle systems in Super Paper Mario and then the paperbook Mario series, they removed a lot of the point of battles (by taking out the arbitrary progression systems). But because they couldn't remove the battles altogether (though SPM tried), a key part of the Paper Mario games was neutered. Thus, in Paper Mario, enemy encounters are not only fundamentally different but they hold a different emphasis in the games than in Mario or Zelda. Part of me wonders what the games would have been like had they retained more of SPM's real-time battling system with the open-world exploration of Color Splash or Origami King.
Thank you, the "treating certain events like random enemies in classic Mario/Zelda" comparison made this issue very easy to visualize. I'll keep this in mind when analyzing other games.
@@knosos15 Under that logic, Metroid would work fine as an open-world game. Though, there would have to be some tweaks with regards to general game abilities. The interactions between Samus and enemies revolve around shooting and dodging, and thus, Metroid is very similar to Zelda. You don't really want to engage with enemies outside of the minibosses and bosses. You don't gain anything by killing enemies. Your progression is tied to exploration and defeating bosses, just as Link's progression is tied to exploration and defeating bosses (with the occasional side quest). One of the biggest areas of similarity is the real-time combat. Making combat "real-time" means that every non-objective encounter is optional, and when combined with a lack of progression tied to killing enemies, you have a game that is not combat driven despite heavily featuring combat.
@@knosos15 What I would say is that I'm necessarily arguing that Metroid should become an open-world game. I'm just saying what my logic brings us to. However, look at Breath of the Wild. The Legend of Zelda series is very similar in terms of progression to at least the Metroid Prime series. You explore an area, get an item, perhaps defeat a boss with that item, and then use that item to unlock other areas. Both Zelda and Metroid use this gameplay mechanic. I'm sure there were who thought that the Zelda series couldn't be an open-world game, and I'm sure there are people that still think it shouldn't be this type of game. Additionally, I'm also not saying that a potential Metroid game should entirely rid itself of all progression markers. But if the Zelda series could do it (or something similar), why couldn't Metroid?
@@knosos15 Right, it's the dungeon crawling that makes Metroid, Metroid. There are those definite major differences between Zelda and Metroid, though I would say the difference comes more in the layout of the map than in the gameplay. Metroid is in a dungeon, yes, but you're free to explore as far as you can get without having to immediately go for the next time. Similarly, Zelda is in a world, yes, and you are free to explore that world, but you don't really get that far without having to do the first dungeon. In terms of map design, then, Metroid seems to be one giant interconnected dungeon, whereas Zelda is an overworld with several dungeons in it.
I think you're right but disagree that the current philosophy works that well for Zelda. The soul of the franchise is "getting new tools to interact with the world in new ways and reach new places" in a manner very similar to a metroidvania, that's been the core gameplay loop from the very beginning. Hell, in the original Zelda most people probably avoid as much combat as possible, choosing instead to just dash to the next screen in search of the next destination. So in that sense they've actually removed the fundamental interaction from Zelda. BotW still has you walking around stabbing things with a sword and it's obviously a solid game when taken as its own thing, but by design it fails to capture "the Zelda experience" because the current philosophy has removed that experience.
Hot take.. I hated the breakable weapons in BoTW. I thought that weapons as a reward got worthless after a while and didn't like fighting the Silver enemies because they never yielded a return on what they took to beat them.
I hated botw and this had a lot to do with it. Also the lack of variety, music, item progression, unique bosses, and ‘fun’ sidequests too. It didn’t even feel like I was playing Zelda most of the time
It’s actually the most overblown criticism in gaming history, I can’t imagine how boring the game would be if you breeze through using one powerful weapon.
@@نونيم-ي4ح your response is actually totally dog shit, Did I ask for one all powerful weapon that never broke or did you come up with that as a straw man argument
The Metroidvania thing every game does that you talked about in "Losing Metroid", Game Maker's Tool Kit has a name for it, the obstacle is a "Lock" and the thing needed is the "Key"
@@fireflocs Yeah, I like it better when you get a new ability that lets you interact with the whole world in a new way, and then they just make a lock that the ability also works on.
They forgot about the first Zelda game: everything is optional, but you still want to pick up items, find secrets etc... because it just makes you feel safer. Idk why Nintendo dropped this game design philosophy: "we won't force you towards these items, but skip them at your own risk"
@Darling Vexa Art I think it only really destroyed paper Mario. Mario Odyssey and BOTW are incredible masterpieces, I think Luigi's Mansion 3 is great as well and I know I'm not alone. They even went back to the old formula with Super Mario party, which is really fun and miles better than what they released for the wii, wii u and 3ds. Even after their dumb idea of 'we want people to look at the screen all the time", which proves they can drop an idea that just nobody likes... eventually.
@@zandromex8985 I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on the BOTW front. While it is a fun game, the experience feels really hollow when you return for another playthrough, especially if you hundred percented it. Exploration is a big part of the zelda franchise but, so to is the power fantasy. Dropping one in favor of the other crippled the experience as a whole.
@Darling Vexa Art It's a singleplayer game, so it is not really meant to get popularity and mantain it like league, and it's all a matter of taste, I really loved that game.
The value of Paper Mario is about combat and linear story progression, where the Metroid-like Ability Growth occurs linearly with the story. Other games like BOTW or Odyssey are less linear and therefore benefit from the lower progression.
The lack of progression is one of the worst aspects of BotW. It's as bad as - or worse than - an overly linear game, just going in the opposite direction.
The problem with this design philosophy is that it is way harder to pull off in the long term. Odyssey and BotW are brilliant games because of what they are; different and new experiences that we haven't had before, delivered with exceedingly high quality. But where does the Zelda franchise go from here? If BotW 2 is the same formula as BotW, then what of the Zelda game afterwards? Will it also be the same formula as BotW? Or will it return to the classic Zelda formula? If it just keeps going with the BotW formula, then will the game after BotW 2 just be "Here, we designed a new world to explore but not feel obligated to actually do anything in. Go have fun!"? Will ALL the Zelda games after BotW be the same? BotW is a phenomenal game, but... well... as much as I enjoyed the experience of playing it, there is still a bigger place in my heart for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Not just because I played those when I was younger, but because those games were more defined experiences rather than me just going and doing whatever. They still had ample exploration and discovery, but that was built around core systems of game progression. But if the entire Zelda series from now on just becomes "Go look over there! Maybe you'll find a cool experience but nothing really all that useful!" then I don't know if I'll continue to buy them. A game that just says "Go do what you want, and enjoy whatever you please! There is no obligation!" is great. But when all of your games are that, they become stale ironically. If the next 3D Mario is the same exact formula as Odyssey just with a new gimmick (like Cappy or FLUDD), then it will pretty much just be Odyssey 2. The experience is brilliant, but it is not defined. The experience of exploration and freedom is great every once in a while, but you need limiting systems to differentiate games and provide progression both in each individual game as well as across a franchise. Let's not forget that the 'linear' designs of classic Mario and Zelda games became two of the greatest video game franchises of all time. This is also likely the reason why we won't ever really see a Minecraft 2. The core gameplay of Minecraft doesn't lend itself to sequels, because a true Minecraft sequel would basically just be Minecraft but with more content (which is what Mojang ended up doing. Continuing to update Minecraft with more content). Let's also not forget that indie games are rapidly becoming darlings of the game industry. Every year more and more marvelous indie games are adored and earn lifelong fans. Surely, they aren't all great, but some of the top indie games released in modern times earn legend status, while even phenomenal games like BotW and Odyssey merely become "Great entries that depart from the traditions of the franchise". Indie games these days are more caught up in old school or traditional game design, as opposed to most modern triple A titles being designed for 'optimum money making/play time generating', or in Nintendo's case "Make your own experiences! Just have fun!". Bug Fables is a game that heavily leans into the classic Paper Mario formula. You know what happens when I browse over my list of Switch games? I go over BotW and Odyssey and think "Man, what great games", and then I go over Bug Fables and my heart leaps a little in my chest just because I loved it soooo much, even though it wasn't open ended or allowed me to 'create my own experiences'. Even though it was a more rigid linear game, I adored it to a level that placed it above the gaming giants of Mario and Zelda putting out some of their best games in years. Now, maybe I am biased because I adored the original Paper Mario formula when I was a kid. But I've found that in my adult life, I keep wandering into games and franchises with extremely rigid systems that still deliver magnificent experiences. Now, I've played RPGs and JRPGs before, so Persona 4 wasn't an 'entirely new type of experience'. In fact, it was far MORE linear and rigid in design than nearly every other RPG/JRPG I've played. I'd almost describe it as on 'on rails' JRPG. Yet it's one of my favorite games that I've played in the past decade. I will remember that game for years if not decades, while the neat little 'joys of discovery' I had in BotW are pretty much almost forgotten. In fact, my favorite parts of BotW were the shrines! The parts of the game that were most rigid. Rant aside, I suppose what I am trying to say is that these latest successes by Nintendo are kinda like 'cashing in' on their decades of linear, rigid, yet fantastic game design. So now they can make a few "Just do whatever" games and they can greatly succeed. But they need to be VERY careful, because you can NOT build or maintain a franchise like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Starfox, Donkey Kong, etc. etc. etc. off of many games where you 'just do whatever'.
"Cashing in on" has been Nintendo's game design philosophy for a while now, and it's why I switched over to the indie scene. I do, in fact, plan to get Bug Fables, just as if I want an old school style Zelda or Metroid, I'll look indie. And indie's got good creativity too, some of which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
They aren't brilliant. Odyssey especially sucks to 100%,and is way less engaging than galaxy despite having deeper movement. Because the game is meant for literal babies and you can easily progress by obtaining any moon which are gotten by sneezing on the controller, and they share very repetitive formulas like stack Goomba grow plant break nuts use very limited capture or get it just floating there randomly, the game is full of terrible ubisoft esque filler. But the games like galaxy let you have freedom while having some very good streamlined focused platforming
I’ve been saying this for a little under a decade, and no one has ever understood me. A game is not objectively bad just because it’s “linear.” I like how you describe it. “Definitive” experiences are really what consumers thirst for, not “aimless freedom.” Without a game providing a reason for its existence, there is really no reason for the player to come up with one on their own.
Your thesis is wrong. They can easily maintain franchises like this. What gives wind waker its identity is not the linear progression system. That was in OoT, too. By the same token, you can easily do the same thing with the BOTW formula.
This seems true and it's a massive shame because metroid style powerups are a powerful learning tool that let you develop deeper concepts over time. You find a new toy and now you can think about every place in the world that it can interact with. It's something you discovered so it feels earned and not artificial in the way that Exp does.
It depend on the game through. Most of metroidvania powerup unlock only one part, like in Symphonie of the night and mist form. But if you take a totally different approach like Hollow Knight you get a real masterpiece of exploration
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"If the game is not fun, why bother" - Reggie The quote seemed so simple and straight forward when we first heard it. But when I was watching this video and looking back, I think this is really Nintendo's core design philosophy. Yes, there can be eight different external rewards. Yes there can be tons of progression systems. But if the game is not fun, why bother?
The reason I like “meaningful” progression systems is because of how it changes how you interact with the game. New abilities should meaningfully impact how you play. Hollow Knight is a great example because each new ability and charm changes how you engage not just with enemies, but environments themselves. Meaningless progression systems like leveling up can go die though. Many a good game were ruined by a levelling system.
Leveling up can be used to create a varied on similar to your "meaningful ones" while if the progression is too meaningful it will almost become dull/boring to try anything till you get everything to explore. Hollow Knight as an example also punishes exploration and makes it a chore because you lack X. You're actually pushed away from exploring, because the progression is so meaningful and it becomes a new dead end. It can kill a game just the same. In fact, on the flip side a Level up system can provide a non-linear exploration. Rather then getting the Mantis claws you collect X which give you the Mantis Claw or Shade Cloak. Both of these open whole new areas and if built into learning the lore of the world can offer the same benefits. Basically no system is inherently bad.
@@Buglin_Burger78781) Hollow knight almost always rewards you when you find a ''dead end'', my time never felt wasted because each upgrade counts in this game, whether it's a new charm or a mask or soul upgrade. 2)The thing is, Hollow knight is actually very non-linear, especially for a metroidvania. Even at the begining, at any time while you're getting the vengeful spirit-mothwing cloak-mantis claw tutorial trio, you can go get the dream nail, which rewards you with some early dream warriors fight and then some more rewards for the essence you get from them. Once you have the mantis claw, every area besides Queen's gardens, White palace and most of fog canyon can be accessed. Then, if you don't use sequence breaks, you will eventually find the crystal heart next, which allows you to get either isma's tear or monarch wings, you are free to choose. If you do use basic sequence breaks, you can get to many areas that normally require the monarch wings, including a dreamer and the king's brand, which then leads you to the shade cloak. Besides those main abilities, you can also get the two other spells and their shade upgrades any time you want. Neither are required to beat the game, but both are nice to have, and the down spell is used at a couple places, like accessing most of Royal waterways, including Isma's tear(which is not needed to finish the game). There are also a few literal keys, some are simple and can be used on a number of places, others give you access to specific areas.
Leveling up can be good if doing it can allow you to get new abilities and because it can incentivise actually fighting, but it isn't always great. The Kingdom Hearts games, for example, give you a lot of new abilities when you level up so it makes the combat better, making you want to go out of your way to fight enemies. You don't really have to do it, though, because you can still defeat most enemies without having to level up. A lot of game developers really like to force level systems, though, so I see where your coming from.
Level systems can also be done differently. In games i enjoy, levels provide little bit of stats and skill points that are used in skill trees providing either just stats or unique modifications to gameplay, but you can never "cap" a skill tree. I would agree though that having a stat-only progression system that can be capped is not A Good Thing.
Ori and the will of the wisps also put a good twist on the skill system. You start off with only barely able to jump up ledges but towards the end you can literally deflect bullets, smash enemies with a hammer twice your size, and travel through areas with ease. It’s a progression system that makes the game more fun to play as you advance.
Honestly my favorite game in the series- the gameplay was admittedly tedious at times, but the game is so stuffed with charm and funny characters that it’s impossible to hate imo
I've definitely noticed Nintendo shying away from "systems" in recent years (to my own personal disappointment in many cases), but I hadn't considered closely examining every series with the theory in mind. Great point about how this might be why Metroid is mostly MIA.
Hi, Arlo. Having watched all your videos criticizing the modern state of Paper Mario, and now watching this one, I really have no hope left for the series. And Ceave has me fearing for lots of other Nintendo series, too. Depressing.
There needs to be more foresight during development, have them ask each other "Is this FUN, though?" Mario Odyssey gives you a wonderful set of options, but translating that onto an RPG like pepper merio sounds like a task Nintendo may not be ready for, but that's exactly what makes the best Nintendo games when you really think about it, some of the most acclaimed nintendo games always a flair of experimentation. That feeling of uncertainty, of treading new ground with old tools, it should give devs a reason to GET CREATIVE around certain metroid-era limitations in a modern landscape, finding a way to seamlessly incorporate it into their new standard. Nintendo is definitely the best when they have a "new meets old" approach, but not everyone IN the company sees eye to eye on it. I wonder what their playtesters have told them, do they even have playtesters anymore? I dunno, maybe they're afraid of being rude in their culture, but man, if I'm not having fun, then it's not a nintendo game to me.
Yeah, I agree.
Hey arlo, didn't expect to see you here.
Oh good. I was gonna comment "Someone send this to Arlo." Now I don't have to, even though in a roundabout way I just did.
I think this theory is a lot more plausible than "Nintendo has a big ego". I've had a similar thought to this for a while but you've worded it so perfectly.
I agree, it isn’t just that they “have a big ego” or just can’t do it. It was explained pretty well here.
The big ego was Arlo's theory, right? The ego is probably part of the reason, but Ceave's explanation was definitely more thought out. To be fair though, Ceave made an entire 30-minute analysis video just about this, and Arlo was just reviewing Paper Mario TOK so he couldn't think that much about this issue.
YOOO ITS MAYRO LETS GO
True... Btw, hello!!!
I believe nintendo does have a big ego, but I can't say their big ego is what killed the paper mario series as we knew it
This theory makes more sense
"We don't need two Mario rpg franchises!"
Cool, so now we have none!
@HoneyBunny /ハニーバニー wait until you find out about the side modes in the remakes
@@HBKnowItAll also paper jam really didn’t live up to the standards of the first 4 games. While it’s not a bad game, it’s plot is way more generic and I don’t think it introduced a single new character
@@NewSoupWiiHii Good thing they’re just side modes.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t actually played the remakes so I don’t know if the side modes are bad or not, but that doesn’t make the whole series rotten if they are).
Mario & Luigi 2 was way too much of a constant dumpster fire for me to bother trying any of the games that came after it.
Using the same item over & over to whittle down a boss' gigantic health bar & invalidating my own stat growth in the process is mind numbing beyond words. Shroob Queen is probably the worst boss in any game I've ever played. I'd much rather fight a metal golem from Dragon's Dogma as a mage. I've done that.
Also, switching controls because a character got K.O.'d is insanely asinine.
@@thebestworst8002 it’s funny that paper jam is the only one that haven’t added a new character 🤣
Conspiracy theory: Nintendo replaced EXP with shiny yet deadly coins just to annoy Ceave.
And they infected Mario Kart 8, too
Who needs this video when we have this epic theory
@@ronyrubinov7449 We still need this video
@Gamey Firebro Bandy normally collects all the coins. nicobbq normally hates them
Execution points?
"How do shrines work in Breath of the Wild: Bethesda Edition?"
They don't
No no no, they _just_ work.
They don't until modders come in and force it to
You try to go down the elevator and instead end up clipping through the floor and falling into the abyss. :P
@@azetac_ It just works,it just works
Theres 3 buttons with numbers 1 2 3 on them and a sign thats says "press in order"
Ring Fit Adventure has a skill tree, but that is mostly because the whole game is about making gains.
Yeah
I have been spoiled
:(
If it's about gaining weight, then I must've misunderstood all the marketing.
Yeah, because if just working out was intuitively fun you wouldn't buy a game for it.
Lmao
"Nintendo willfully restricts themselves... in order to find more creative and pure solutions"
.....That one sentence would explain a *lot* about the things nintendo does. It makes me think back to an Arlo video where he talks about the teams not being *allowed* to create new characters or species, so I wonder.... is that sort a thing a result of this philosophy having gone too strict?
Yes
That is more a double edge. Using what is about to build something is a sign of masters but it sometimes need something new to evolve the way. It depends on the situation.
@@Yinyanyeow Two sides of a coin. We could call one head and the other tails, but "nintendo" and "sega" would be simpler.
@@sarowie I Disagree with you there... but I get you
Honestly I think that's a good thing. If Nintendo didn't do this kind of thing we wouldn't even have motion controls today. There's a good chance Nintendo would've be kicked out of the console wars and not made the wii. There's a good chance they couldn't have made the switch. Things like SMO and TLoZ would have never been made if they didn't do this
The issue with religiously following a different design toolkit than everyone else is that between all your games, that toolkit becomes as stale as the one you wanted to avoid.
Ceave answered why they changed Paper Mario, but not why they wanted to change it in the first place. I don't see any reason why they needed to remove as much progression as possible from every game.
@@knosos15 Exactly this - certain game genres like strategy games and RPGs just don't fit this (arguably brilliant) new Nintendo design philosophy well at all compared to open-world action-adventures or platformers
@@ZachAttack6089 Actually it's likely nintendo trying to be different for the sake of newness. If you wanted to keep your games fresh, it would be better to be different then the same. How would nintendo be able to sell a console if they're games we like everyone else?
@@knosos15 Odyssey was an extremley stale game for many people including me, but whatever
@@ZachAttack6089 it was changed for the sake of change.
Paper Mario is that one exception to the Mario execution day on March 31st. Except this time it got executed a long time ago...
First :D
If anyone says wow u are everywhere to sethica they are dumb
wow u are everywhere
wow u are everywhere
@@slimehead1391 Good old Streisand Effect.
Yeah, nintendo be like: "let's do an RPG without any RPG elements"
Getting Max-Up hearts are basically a level up though.
More like "an open sandbox without any RPG elements," but sure.
just so you know, lvl and exp are the worst mechanic of all time for games.
@@TheZenytram
Mostly when you have to *grind or farm* for them.
@@Bezaliel13 every one will end up like that, even if the game make it super easy to you go through without the need of grind, you will grind just for the sake of it.
A quote from Kensuke Tanba stated in an interview with gamerant "since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it's no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario Universe." This sits with the theory that has circulated that their is a regulatory system in place on how the mario franchise can be presented. You can no longer present mario in any way other than mario, and likewise many other super mario characters. But what this means is that characters don't get, well character. This can even be seen in animal crossing. Where personality perks have been reduced to become more simple, while adding new ways to interact with the world instead. As a long time fan of the series, realising I that the animals had no intrinsic desire and very fine relationships with others pushed me away from the game much quicker than any other in the series, and it makes me think games like the original animal crossing where neighbours could just be rude, or creative artstyles that made mario more intense like Mario Strikers will never be greenlit by Nintendo again.
The Mario mandate, as some call it.
I pucked at least 3 times when I read this interview. Also each interview with Tanabe was worst to worst lol.
@@Terranigma23 You mean puked?
@@Pantano63 Yes sorry lol. English is not my native language and it's 3AM at my home.
Odyssey intriduced new characters. Did he mean characters that didn't fit a specific formula?
Fun Fact: You mentioned that paper Mario’s badge system is similar to Hollow Knight’s charm system, and there’s a very good reason for that. Team Cherry actually took inspiration directly from Paper Mario when making the charm system.
now hollow knight is following me smh
Well yeah, it seems pretty obvious
Ok I need to play Hollow Knight now
Thats actually a prime example for how nintendo interacts with the gaming market. Make some cool innovation and drop them as soon as they become mainstream to make new ones. This strategy might not always result in highest sales, but their huge impact on gaming as a whole by being the main force behind innovating and pushing everything forward can't be valued high enough
@@doomse150 that's a fair point, anything great gets picked up by other develops as nintendo moves on to new ideas, though it feels like the "new" paper mario fomula hasn't been edited despite being meh at best
“Humor is top-notch”
*Shows a koopa troopa being murdered*
That was hilarious!
@@albertfanmingo ikr
Better! (Or worse.) A Koopa Troopa is being murdered and his mangled corpse is being reanimated into a mutilated construct!
Funny!
@@cromanticheer h u m o r
restricting oneself via self imposed challenges can induce creativity. but when it goes too far, it can restrict it instead.
Yes, it's like Nintendo is so focused on making a widely acceptable game that they lost focus on making a game that can have focus, like BOTW and Odyssey have more than enough collectibles to beat the game as to give everyone and avenue to get to the end, but forget about those who WANT to get everything.. they torture them essentially for wanting to experience all the game they own has to offer..
This. The fact that I had to limit myself to using ranged weapons only to make BotW enjoyable was a huge minus for me. It's a stepping stone towards a complete omission of new ideas.
I recall that being a major problem with the Metroid: Other M control scheme, since they deliberately limited themselves to not using all the buttons of the Wiimote and Nunchuck to try and boost their creativity, but instead made the missile system unnecessarily clunky.
That or you just give up and have mario *(spoilers for paper mario oragami king)*
collect elemental abilities from the slain corpses of gods of old
I'm pretty sure that counts as a metroidvania style progression system
@@bruhboss3141 yes but you aren't allowed to use those elemental abilities enough. I don't think they utilized those abilities to their fullest potential.
"the items Zelda acquires throughout the games in the series named after him" lmao
And the "guy called metroid"
This caught me by surprise. Is he just trolling?
Why would he? That's their names
@@jackfelder2560 trolling what? Metroid is a cool dude
yea it hurt me
"Cleaning is an engaging Zen experience." The most Japanese sentence ever
And that sentiment is probably the reason why Mario sunshine exists.
The popularity of videos on RUclips about cleaning someone's clogged pores or other, skin conditions is what I immediately thought of as supporting evidence.
I mean, Luigi's Mansion 3 made me fall in love with sucking things up with the Poltergust simply for the action of doing so, so I think the director had a point.
Then again, Luigi's Mansion 3 was a SUCCESSFUL version of this mentality Nintendo has, while Origami King missed the mark, so clearly the mentality being outlined is not the issue.
@@norsehorse84 Dynamic deformation and sound design plays a part
To be fair, I get a certain satisfaction when playing Chibi Robo and cleaning everything in sight.
no no no you're wrong. The guy's name *is* Zelda. The princess' name is Luigi.
Wait, then who's the dude with the green cap?
A great sin was committed today in jest.
@@amazingfireboy1848 you mean Green Mario?
@@chinodrisdino yea
Is Luigi in another castle?
"What would Breath of the Wild look like if it waa developed by EA"
Cold chills just went down my spine.
It costs money to open the chest with the Master Sword. In fact, in order to increase/remove durability from an item, you need to pay money to TEMPORARILY do so. More money for a rarer item. Oh yeah, and lootboxes.
And an entry fee for hyrule castle
Everything is miles apart and transportation is gated behind loot boxes.
Genshin Impact... but 100% more greedy.
To be honest, nowadays it'd probably be along the same lines as what we see with Fenyx Rising: more standard AAA trappings to it with skill trees and upgrades. They also probably wouldn't have made as much of the content optional, in order to tell more of a story in the present
Also there'd probably be a lot less variation in the terrain, or there would be multiple different maps, because planets in Star Wars tend to be mono-climates, and it would DEFINITELY be a Star Wars game. Pretty much everything they publish lately is either an established series with its genre set in stone, or it's Star Wars.
Microtransactions would probably actually be non-existent or limited to directly purchasable cosmetics, as has been their norm in non-sports games since after Battlefront II.
As much as I want some of the old systems back, I could survive with just having unique characters back. But all we get are toads.
So if they tossed aside the systems because they were too much like arbitrary rewards, I wonder why they tossed aside the deeper world and character identities?
@@derekw8039
There's been statements about it, where it's been explained that effectively Mario is a brand identity that they need to preserve the image of very tightly so can't do anything "weird" with it. Everything has to be using established characters in standard ways. Which is why everyone is toads.
@@Graknorke I always found that weird. A Toad isn't even a character, they're a species/fantasy race. At least in Pokemon it makes sense that no one nicknames their Pokemon and just refers to them by their species; there are hundreds, even maybe over 1000 by now, so it would make it impossible for fans to remember the difference between the actual designated Pokemon name and the character name. But it's not hard to remember the difference between Toads, Goombas, Koopas, and Boos, come on!
@@Graknorke Even in a world where Odyssey and Luigi's Mansion 3 challenges this, I'm pretty sure people on the dev team at IntSys have stated that they want to keep the series recognizable in the same vein as with SS and CS, intentionally keeping up the restriction.
Bup
Restrictions breed creativity, but if they are taken too far, they can restrict creativity instead.
Like auto-erotic asphyxiation :) a little bit is enjoyable but too much and you can hurt yourself.
@@polarknight5376 only for people with that fetish
@@Sandaquaza so everyone?
Jk.
Why is nobody appreciating the fact that ceave put accurate captions on a 30 minute long video?
Oh wow you're right, I just realized that they weren't auto generated
Yep. Pretty nice
He does it on every video
Thank you, Ceave. They really help when I watch the video at double speed.
I wonder if he has a typed script prepared and that makes it easier to copy over. Still insanely impressive.
This is probably the most realistic theory on why Paper Mario changed. I just want to point out why I think this new design philosophy doesn't fit Paper Mario (or Turn-based Strategy/RPGs in general).
*1. Creating a character build is fun:* I love TCGs, and part of that love is deck-building. Badges in Paper Mario have a similar feel. Why does it matter if the reward is arbitrary? The reward facilitates other avenues of enjoyment. I barely play competitive Pokemon but I love breeding perfect Pokemon with egg moves and etc. Removing character progression eliminates that enjoyment from the game.
*2. Battles should matter:* Some people might find fun in turn-based battles on their own right, and that's fine. But it takes so much more time to kill a Goomba in Paper Mario than regular Mario. So the people who don't find the system itself enjoyable should be able to find other fun. Classic Paper Mario had the badge system, so if you like character building you can test out your setups and that's fun. It also had Action Commands, which I think counts as "part of the system" like the circle puzzle in Origami King. But for people who don't like either of those things, experience points are a permanent progression that makes people feel like their time wasn't wasted. Removing XP inevitably leads to wasting people's time if they're playing for the story/characters/dialogue/puzzles/etc and not the battles.
*3: Limited Iterations on Battles:* Despite being a Nintendo game, Origami King does not do enough with its battle system to keep it feeling fresh. The boss battles are the best part of the combat because not only is it a different take on the base system but each boss does something unique. You get far less of that in normal battles. In Classic Paper Mario the freshness comes from unique enemy attacks with their own block timings, a larger pool of badges to build setups with, and new partners with new skills. New Paper Mario takes the "jump these enemies, hammer these other enemies" and "hit A to block when enemy touch you" and leaves everything interesting behind in the name of eliminating character progression. Nintendo cut off its nose to spite its face.
... I think having your tools not degrade utterly helps make N64 PM fun.
Finding the quake badge and learning it ignores defense, makes a whole bunch of enemies trivial to fight (the spikey headed rock guys) that are normally really hard to fight, and the game doesn't punish you for over using it, in a random feeling way. (you can always see your fp, and decide to avoid fights if you don't have enough for a fight)
Yeah, also it's so fun seeing so many people make their own fanmade partner OCs and ideas. Partners (for story reasons AND more) and original designs for more than a than just few things were just a fun concept.
Also, this is just an observation that hasn't played the game per se but has seen walkthroughs so it should still be a KINDA valid observation, most of the enemies don't really seem that unique to fight from each other, not much making them different besides a few like say Boos which actually play off the gameplay design. And most of the attacks you do see are just generic team up and throw each other at you stuff. I guess that might not matter to some people, but it still kinda kills enemy variety/creativity. Regardless, I feel like most people can agree this series shouldn't be at the point where the only new enemies they can put in the game have to be paper monsters.
I like the way the first 3 M+L games handled combat too. It’s really fun to pull off evasion timings in addition to using bro points for strategy. I enjoy your likening to TCG because deck identity is a lot about theme and progression. I’m still frequent to Duel Links for the new cards even if the pve events aren’t usually all that special.
wow i just realized why the "only to enjoy the story" - difficulty exists in RPG's. I always thought that would be an useless addition, because i could never imagine to play a RPG without playing on highest difficulty to get challanged. But it makes sense if you don't like the combat at all of the game to have an option to still enjoy the story without wasting much time with combat. I always dropped titles if i didn't like the combat, but now maybe i start to use this difficulty instead.
Just seems like they swung the pendulum way too far in the opposite direction. The key word you used was "fun". As it turns out, fun is more important than sticking with some design principle. Maybe some of us enjoy thinking about where something cool could be hidden instead of just constantly hammering things to get paper with one button and then constantly pushing a different button to throw that paper to fill a hole. Super fun...
"Will the weapons break in the Ubisoft version?" Dude, EVERYTHING breaks in the Ubisoft version.
He did the same thing when referencing Link opening a chest. Calling Link Zelda as a joke
@@tyranttracergaming I tihnk you replied to the wrong comment.
Bethesda too, except it's the code that constantly breaks
@@nintenprox4639 I have a conspiracy, Bethesda is ran by Yandere Dev.
They didn't have to butcher fun and interesting new characters in Paper Mario just to meet this philosophy. There is so much wrong with the direction they took this franchise.
the company that makes Paper Mario, Intelligent Systems, seems to prefer working on Fire Emblem, IMO.
The actual creator of the Paper Mario franchise switched to the Fire Emblem team because he thought Paper Mario was a creative dead end.
Would you say you had a BAD TIME playing the newer games?
Gotta appreciate the fact that we progressed through the video by collecting new information, only to come back to the very beginning in order to use that knowledge and reach a conclusion we weren't able to reach before.
**Nintendo wants to know your location**
like 69 AW YEAH
@@the_neto06 Sorry for ruining it.
Yeah kind of like a metroidvania...
Ace Attorney moment
the main character, whose _name is metroid_ ... _his_ "turn into a ball" ability .... what a troll
Ceave clearly has had to many interactions like that
zelda in the game named after himself
*Player:* _"I did the thing!"_
*Nintendo:* _"Good for you! ...What? You want a medal or something? Tsk, tsk, tsk..."_
having exploring for the sake of exploring is cool and all but its goes completely against the philosophy of people who wont do anything if there isnt a good reason to
@@GaminGuy_ --like me--
@@GaminGuy_ Yup. I played odessey for 3 hours before becoming completely uninterested in it. Breath of the wild I completed but felt no desire to play beyond the dungeons and castle. They're both the titles I have enjoyed the least of their respective IPs, I can see why people enjoy them but it's just fundamentally unengaging to me.
@@Milkysponge I like both Odyssey and Breath of The Wild. But their problem is that rewards don't feel good because... there's too many of them. In Mario 64 stars felt really good and rewarding to get, they had a self imposed reward and a literal reward. In Odyssey stars are just littered everywhere and don't feel rewarding to get on their own, but instead you kinda just wanted them to get to the next world or next part, in Mario 64 you always wanted to get the stars because they allowed you to go ahead and fight bowser, a necessary 3-time roadblock which structured the game even more. Stars in Mario 64 were tricky, they were challenging, and they had an intuitive total, Moons are littered everywhere in Odyssey and a ton don't even require much effort. But in Mario Odyssey it doesn't feel intuitive to get most of the moons, I like smaller dumb secrets in games, but just make them feel intuitive. Odyssey doesn't even force people to do a ton of things, all you need to do is get the total amount of moons in a world needed to get to the next, sure this allows tons of different ways to play the game. But this makes the player not go out of their comfort zone.
Same issue with BOTW.
@@randomguyontheinternet7940 i got bored of BOTW quickly because all there is, is the 4 beast things and Hyrule castle. after i did that there just wasn't anything else apart from the shrines and a bunch of those are the tests of strength which don't require skill just a lot of high damaging weapons which all break and you're left with nothing and on top of that all you get is one bit of armour or a weapon and a single spirit orb. i didn't like the tests of strength.
Incremental games are the exact opposite of this design philosophy. They literally revolve around seeing meaningless numbers go up.
"Accuracy +1"
AKA clicker games.
incremental?
@@sakesaurus Cookie Clickers.
I'm calling it. In Pikmin 4 you'll start with all Pikmin types, as to prevent metroidlike progress
The Pikmin will have a durability system
Watch it being only one type of pikmin tho...
Knowing Nintendo the purple, white, rock, and flying Pikmin will be paid dlc. Bulbmin sold separately.
@@picklechicken8396 whoa whoa whoa, slow down there. We're talking about Nintendo not gamefreak
@@benthemother3fan884 you’re right. You just never know with Nintendo... you never know...
"This person is, in my subjective opinion, objectively wrong" absolute fire
It is one of the dumbest statements I've ever heard someone saying!
@@parodynet3004 Thanks for sharing!
@@parodynet3004 I take it you dont hear a lot of stuff?
I want to like this comment, butbit has 69 likes, I can't do this
@@shadejustshade8301 I wonder how many times in my life will I see this same comment.
I also wonder when the funny numbers memes will die, or if they will pull a Rick roll and persist for eternity.
“If somebody were to sit down with the goal of getting every moon in Odyssey they would probably have a terrible time”
Me, in the middle of a 100% playthrough: That seems about right
Good luck I did that not fun
Especially the coin grind.....
There are certain bs moons that I can't even begin to try to get because they're just above my skill level, so I'm just going around each kingdom grabbing all the moons I can actually nab. And I'm having a fun time because I made the choice to play that way.
Kinda sucks that Moons and Purple Coins are the only significant collectables (regular coins are feckin everywhere) but I knew what I signed up for and I'm still having an overall good time with Odyssey specifically.
@@christiannorton9400 only moon I couldn’t conceivably get was the 100 jump-rope moon but there’s a glitch to get an infinite score so I kinda lucked out
This is why I pace out most of the games I play with breaks for at least a few weeks every 50 or so hours. Otherwise would be maddening with almost any game. Even the best ones.
"How do shrines work in bethesda edition ?"
They don't until the patch
no, the patch *tries* to fix them, but all the patch does it make the shrines spawn deathclaws. you've gotta wait for UBOTWBEP (Unofficial BOTW Bethesda Edition Patch) to patch it out
They work by grabbing a cone and using it to fly to through the ceiling.
I think you mean until the modding community fixes it for them.
As an Elder Scrolls fan, the accuracy of these comments makes me sad.
"The part of the video that actually is about Paper Mario."
Perfect
Someone on the internet acknowledged Wario Land 3. My life is now complete.
Corenton Dorgueil why didnt you just look up wario land three?
It’s kinda sad that the people who make paper Mario games aren’t allowed to make new characters anymore, I feel bad for them
Damn
Plus, the fact that they can't modify Mario characters, really made the game feel 2-dimensional( Pun intended).
No they actually can, they admited it in an interview. They just choose to ignore all criticisms.
Strange, considering Alpha Dream (rip) kept creating new characters even in the remake of Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story
@@Portersona69420 huh? It’s been said multiple times that Nintendo doesn’t allow the paper Mario team to make any new characters or modify existing ones. Could link a RUclips video explaining this?
Oh my gosh. This video nailed it. Nintendo basically has tried removing extrinsic motivation from their games, replacing it purely with intrinsic. RPGs are one of the most extrinsically motivated genres out there, so removing stuff like badges and other RPG trappings from Paper Mario makes so much sense. My mind is actually blown by this. Fantastic video.
Makes me curious as to if it’s possible to do an intrinsic RPG right.
If you ask me, the permanent equipment pickups are a base minimum of leveling along with health and stamina.
@@mushroomfusion245 It’s might be theoretically possible but at least in my opinion it would be very difficult. RPG combat is decently fun but ultimately going a bunch of simple turn-based fights against basic trash mobs isn’t all that fun. I enjoy doing it because of the fact that it makes me stronger and I see my character growing and progressing through the game. But when there’s no reward it’s just boring and tedious. To make an intrinsically fun turn-based RPG you’d have to do a lot to make each individual battle feel enjoyable, which, let’s just say is way easier said than done. Probably why that type of game doesn’t really exist.
@@IceBlueLugia
Does Undertale count?
@@Luigicat11 I hadn’t really thought of that, but yeah, I guess it could sort of count. I also thought of Chrono Trigger, there’s only like 3-4 trash mob encounters per area so it’s easy for each battle to feel interesting and distinct
I realized at the end that "no paper puns" was the restriction Ceave placed on himself in order to come up with better overall jokes.
Oh but in the end he sort of did with wondering if it was ‘legal’ as in legal paper. Puns are forever whether intentional or not!
@@DarkCrimsonBlade stop reading into it that much, go get some sleep
@@jokerkirby7051 Ah, so you think their argument is paper thin?
@@slucarios I just think it doesn’t have the currency to support the flat basis it’s built on.
Maybe he folded after realising that the jokes would fall flat, so ultimately none made the cut?
Plot twist: Ceave has been right all along and his name IS Zelda.
Oh
i love rescuing link at the end
The Legend of Link: A Zelda Between Worlds
@@cl4655 The Legend of Link: A Zelda to the Past
@@cl4655 a zelda between links legs WAIT WRONG GAME
Origami king is one of those “great ideas shown in the worst way possible”
Or “i love this game, that’s why i hate it”
I could get behind discouraging level grinding for the sake of making the game fun but this doesn't excuse the convoluted combat system that makes random encounters tedious and unenjoyable.
i feel like that game was literally tailored to me, i never liked that you were forced to do pretty much every battle in the older games to be at a good level to fight bosses and such, origami kings system allows me to enjoy battling in that game whenever i want and since there is no progression rewarded from the battles, i dont have to feel stressed to do them and neither does anyone else.
If you didnt particularly enjoy battling again and again in the older games you were bascially forced to, but if you dont like the battling in origami king you dont really have to battle much at all and you can still enjoy the game.
@@edjh9622 you didn't have to fight every, or even most, battles in the originals at all lol
@@iamresh i fought pretty much every enemy and still struggled a bit in battles. i played it pretty vanilla tho. another problem with that battle system was the badges were broken as hell
@Mineithebear Not to seem rude, but that sounds like a skill problem on your part. If you're fighting basically every enemy and still struggling in combat, you likely haven't learned superguarding or your stat spreads are bad. Also, badges are very powerful, but they're not "broken." (If they were, you wouldn't be struggling in combat, lol)
"if a person were to sit down, with the honorable goal to binge through odyssey until they picked up each and every moon, this lovely person is probably about to have a horrible time"
:|
*shudders in volleyball*
I got every moon just because I felt like it and had fun. Jump rope kinda sucks, though. I cheesed volleyball with 2 player mode.
@Alibek Zholaman Switch to 2P mode and control Cappy.
Smallant1 has left the chat
@@redella50 Hahahaha
You should continue the “finding the worst Mario game” series
Oh I totally forgot about that, but you're right
It’s Sticker Star if you don’t count the strange 90’s games
Sticker Star isn’t that bad of a game tbh. PREPARING TO BE ATTACKED
@@diamondranger8602 *ATTACKS*
All toasters toast toast
"One of the items that Zelda picks up in the game series named after him" LMAO
19:00 "In this game the very first thing that our brave hero, called Metroid, has to do is..." Lol
I want (de)Ceave to make more of these jokes
It’s one of the oldest and most overdone jokes about the Zelda series...but it still makes me chuckle every time
@@burnttoast6974 ohh it’s a joke
22:20 "But most importantly, all of this is linked to the baffeling design decisions they made with the paper mario series on 3DS and WiiU" - Talking about the switch exclusive Origami King
Petition to have Ceave add "Are you ready? Lets do this." To the end of the description in future videos
Yes
Where do I sign up?!
mmm
ooo
Yes
>Why does Nintendo refuse to reintroduce mechanics players have been begging for?
Pokemon fans: First time?
Why they got rid of the pokeblock berry minigame :(
@Buff Ringo it exist, its called "pokemon colosseum minigames"
Oh, Mega Evolution. You were the only new mechanic I ever loved. Breathing new life into our beloved older gen pokemon, they could have continued making mega evolutions for the rest of pokemon's lifespan. Then gamefreak got gimmick fever and we've had z moves and dynamax since, which were just so, so crap.
Ahahaha yeah (sniff) (rip mega, z powers, secret bases, battle frontier and contest, we will miss you guys and I'll miss contests)
@@megamarkread Didn't stop it from selling over 20million copies. Which is proof to me anyone in the same echo chamber is in the minority. Keep being loud about how gamefreak is evil, cause Nintendo isn't gonna care.
I feel an easier name for: "metroid like ability growth" would be: "lock & key abillities". Because there's essentially a lock of an obstacle and then there's the key of an item/upgrade
@Darling Vexa Art You do know that pretty much every video game has this? Even the modern ones? This isn't an exclusively Nintendo Thing.
That sounds good, and the lock and key metaphor jives well with the other term I've heard used for these systems in the past, which is "progression gating". Gates have locks after all
I call them progression items
@Darling Vexa Art Yes dude. Not every game need to have a "Lock and Key" involving the abilities and certain areas. But the reverse ALSO applies because not every game needs to have no restrictions where almost everything is optional and there's thousands of different Moon Collectables. Some games like Metroid actively thrive on needing certain abilities to go certain places
Game makers toolkit uses a term like this in there series BossKeys which is based around dismantling and graphing these kinds of lock&key designs in an attempt to discover what makes the difference between a fun and a frustrating Zelda dungeon.
its a real neat series that i recommend to anyone that loves game design.
I also recommend everything else GMTK makes.
Ah yes, metroid, the male protagonist.
@B4n B0n already made that comment.
WHEN HE SAID ZELDA I HAD TO DO A DOUBLE TAKE
@@LocalTorchwoodIntern same here.
@B4n B0n well can't argue with that, he is b4n b0n after all
Famous for his inability to crawl
The fact that Nintendo is removing "Metroid-style progression" from their games makes me a bit worried about Metroid Prime 4. Like, imagine a Metroid game without that Metroid-style progression...
now i'm starting to think that's why they completely restarted development on it
@@ce7.0 You mean, because they originally made it without that style of progression, and had to change that, or because they originally made it WITH that kind of progression and are now removing it?
@@legoboy7107 Man, I was NOT prepared to worry about that
NooOooOoooOo :(
Well,
Im pretty sure there would have been a riot if they told us they were making a zelda without lots of dungeons, items like the hook shot, and other things that botw is wholly lacking in. But I don’t understand the metroid series at all so you can just ignore me
@@legoboy7107 ...
"What does EA's Breath of the Wild looks like"
Euh, I wouldn't want to see it, just imagine all the bugs and microtransactions it would contain!
So Genshin Impact then
@@master_ego94 *_h u h ?_*
Star Wars: The Old Republic?
@@master_ego94 That’s a Chinese game though and it’s far from buggy
Exterminator then?
Anyone else remember Super Paper Mario after hearing the “Mushroom on a stick” thing?
Oh yeah, that was a literal Mimi trap, haha.
I remember lol
The trap in Merlee’s Mansion was literally the first thing that came to my head lmao
ah, thanks for bringing up the memories kid me enjoyed (and found incredibly frightening MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI)
Spp
RIP Mario and Luigi games. We probably won't get another one after AlphaDream literally died. IT WAS MURDER!
doubly harmed by there being two different mario rpg series. mario & luigi and paper mario
This video is mostly centered on Nintendo's main studios. Otherwise, Ceave's claim that Nintendo hasn't made arbitrary rewards would fall flat. Xenoblade is a massive exception. Hell, XC2 has the dogshit awful system of gachas. That is the definition of a most terrible form of arbitrary reward - just go grind a super boss for one hour then MAYBE get the reward, maybe don't. You'd have never grinded the super boss with driver combos otherwise.
@@QuintaFeira12 Pikmin 3 also added an achievement system in the deluxe version
@@gemstonegynoid7475 All they had to do was make Paper Mario the action platformer RPG and ML the turn based one
@@gemstonegynoid7475 I was a Mario & Luigi fan, and I later got into Paper Mario, now my favorite of the two died and the one that’s left is not to my liking ; _ ;
Well it actually makes sense, do you know how long it takes to do origami?!
Wow, they've been like this for the past 10 years huh? I knew something about their games changed but I couldn't figure it out, and now I finally know what it is! It's mad how such a simple change in philosophy can drastically change how a game plays and feels
There’s also the fact that Nintendo got stricter with its IP, causing a lot of the talent and passion at Intelligent Systems to gravitate away from Paper Mario, towards Fire Emblem.
So they made (almost) everything arbitrary to avoid making anything "arbitrary"?
Basically. How much can we strip a game down to a core game play loop and ignore any other aspect of gaming that's emerged since the 90s?
Also his point about the Moons I found irritating because compared to Any of the other 3D Mario games (besides Galaxy 2) it was incredibly linear. You absolutely could play any LEVEL you wanted in Mario 64. You ciuld skip multiple whole courses and still beat the game at 70 stars.
Since his whole thesis is about avoiding arbitrary rewards, you can say that Yay BotW but you can't discuss Odyssey with the same merits at all.
@@R1ckr011 why not just make everything pong without a scoreboard? Or tetris without a ceiling and you just keep going up?
@@polarknight5376 lawl. Right
@@polarknight5376 I don't get it
I think the best way to explain how Oddessy is a very non-linear game in terms of worlds and not progression is to look at the percentage requirements for each game. Super Mario 64 requires you to collect 70 or 58.3% of its star count to beat the game. This means that if we split up the stars into three brakets of difficulty of 40 stars each then players are required to take on some challenging stars to beat the game. Additionally, there are 15 worlds in Mario 64 with 15 secret stars. Let's assume we have a player who gets every secret star so they need 55 more to open the final door. The average star requirement per world is is 3.7 or 4 stars per world. That means a player is on average expected to collect 4 out of the 7 total stars in every world ( or 4 in 6 if they're unaware of 100 coins or hate those stars with a burning passion). That means on average a player is required to get 57.1-66.6% of the stars in every world assuming they get all 15 castle secret stars. If we assume they get 0, then average changes to 4.6 or 5 stars per world which means you're required to get aproximately 71.4-83.3% of every star in the worlds in Super Mario 64. Now obviously, these averages aren't perfect but they showcase that Super Mario 64 does require a significant portion of its worlds and difficult challenges to be played to achieve the 70 star ammount for the average player.
Sunshine, meanwhile, is way easier to calculate. It's completely linear in terms of required shines (not neccessarily the order you do them in but they require the same shines every playthrough). 41.7% of shines in the game are mandetory when including blue coin shines for the total 120. Additionally, the game forces you to play harder challenges and adapt to the controls to get those shines. So the average player (since there is a glitch to skip to Shine 7 in Gelato Beach which reduces the requirement by a whooping 6 shines) has to play a significant portion of the game and experience some level of challenge due to the linearity. Since each world has 11 shines, each world statistically requires 63.6% of the shines to be collected in each world for the average player.
Galaxy 1 is semi-linear, semi-not. More often than not, the average player gets stars based on when they unlock or difficulty and little else. It's 60 star requirement makes it an easy 50% required star count. Galaxy 2 as you pointed out is fairly linear with only a few different world options in each world and a general 1 star requirement for most. As such, I'm going to ignore the Galaxy games for the most part in this statistical comparision.
So then, what about Oddessy? Yes, the order of the worlds is linear. However, the worlds themselves are extremely linear and always 75% or more optional in terms of content. WAIT WHAT? Yes most of Oddessy's worlds are optional because of its rule that you don't need to collect any specific power moon for each world just a certain amount. With a required 124 out of 880 moons though, it has the lowest percentage required at just 14.1%. What's more when you look at required moon percentages, the highest Kingdoms top at 25% required with the lowest at barely 11.9%. You are only required at most to play a quarter of Oddessy's worlds to progress. Yes, you do need to visit each world in a specific order but the amount of time neccessary to spend in each one is minimal and subject to change. Notice how the averages are significantly different in terms of percentages for each game's average player? Both Mario 64 and Sunshine require the player's to play significant dense portions of their worlds for an average playtime. While 64 has some flexibility in that aspect, you will still end up playing anywhere from aproximately 57-83% of each world's content at the minimum unless you go out of your way to go for a 100% in some to avoid hated levels. Sunshine maintains an average in that same spectrume of about 64% of conent in each world being required to beat the game. Oddessy's worlds though requires the barest minimum possible in the vast majority of them. And that's why Oddessy is so nonlinear despite appearing to be one of the more linear games. It's linear in terms of world-to-world progression but extensively non-linear in world exploration. There's so much content you can skip in that game that both Mario 64 and Sunshine still require you to do. And some of the content in Oddessy is really simple moons that speed up this process even more reducing the time you spend in one world down as well. True, you'll tend to spend more time in one world for a significantly longer portion than Sunshine or 64 but you're doing so with the stipulation that there's far more content to cover beyond the bare min you're doing because most of the game is optional wheras the other two aren't.
9:40 uh... I hate the races, I have all of the seed moons, and I’m a lady. I feel called out and seen 😂
you are the ying to his yang
I wonder if he was talking about a certain person
He was specifically calling out you.
He shouldn’t have of assumed like that
Did u ever talked about Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time? I loved it as a kid. Has also skill progression through its playtime.
That game and Pokémon black were my childhood
Lol if ceave ever makes a video covering partners in time I'm gonna lose it. That game was one of my fondest childhood memories. Did like 6 playthroughs because my mum couldnt afford to buy me more games lmao.
Ceave please make it happen
I remember playing it at my friends house but i had bowsers inside story which is one of my favorite ds games
@@Kromer__ yeah Bowsers inside story was also cool. I collected all the cube cats.
Your profile picture is really cursed. I like it.
Nintendo can be stubbornly stupid when it comes to certain decisions, like instead of different franchises having different systems of progression of play, they'll stick to one way for a number of years and try to force all their franchises to play in this certain way, even if it doesn't work sometimes.
20:50 That super quick "They stopped making Metroid games". OUCH
Probably the most plausible theory of this whole situation I've heard so far.
Modern Paper Mario is when you remove an important file from your computer and it doesn't work right anymore
@@neutralnarration1463
Funny enough, the devs should also take their meds, OCD will lead to more rash decisions like that. Absolutist, close minded game philosophy leads to projects with an overly restricted, uniform sense of scope, or lack thereof.
Not everyone under Nintendo internalizes and comprehends the mindset of Odyssey of BOTW, they are games that are accessible in a good way.
I see the paper mario devs wanting to be original, but that means throwing out what did work and overhauling it with an experimental system, the ring system, cards, stickers, etc, that basically turn this IP into Tofu Mario, a tasteless replacement with a bit of salt.
Management should take a few steps back and realize games should be tested more, and tweaked on a case by case basis, I don't mind what they're doing with newer gameplay systems. but pepper mario shows a fundamental misunderstanding of that system.
I like the way Hollow Knight handles Metroidvania-style progression. After the first couple of areas, you are free to explore the rest of the game in pretty much any order you choose. However, instead of just tossing you out on a big, open field where everything is accessible at once, there are still Metroidvania progression locks that need certain abilities to get past; You're just free to go straight to finding those abilities in any order.
This approach allows Hollow Knight to have solid structure to its map and tell a deep story, while still allowing the player to interact with the game in virtually any way they choose.
Ceave: *breathes*
Me: You know, he makes a valid point.
That's the problem with people who often makes a valid point: It becomes twice as hard to spot when they've missed something, simply because we start to believe them on merit alone.
Obviously, we knew that something was up in this video, when Ceave said that BoTW was a good game. It's obviously not. BOOO! BAD CEAVE!
Ah yes, Metroid. The famous male protagonist of the Metroid games.
...wait what
The big bosses at Nintendo want their games to be "gameplay driven" as opposed to story driven. But for some reason they cant do both like any other developer
The way Ceave describes it, it's like they don't trust their own skill. Like they assume part of their own game is bad.
@@calemr and, despite everyone constantly telling them, they refuse to believe that their desperate attempts at trying to make the potential bad parts avoidable are the bad parts.
No, they don't *want* to do both. Big difference
Are you implying the origami king isn’t story driven?
I'd say it's a time investment thing. Just my own tinfoil conspiracy.
Petition of Ceave making a video where he ranks his kitchen appliances (Version 2.0)
You didn't mention it, but it's interesting to see how this philosophy is creeping into the Pokemon series. HMs were entirely phased out in gen 7, replaced by ride Pokemon that served the same function of traversal and interacting with the environment. Now in gen 8, the only traversal upgrades are tied to the bike, and only one upgrade expands the areas you can access.
I'm really interested in seeing how Pokemon will continue to change in accordance with this philosophy, given that traditional upgrade systems are fundamentally integral to the DNA of the series.
And here we are in gen 9 [shpoilersh]:
TMs are craftable, the cover legend is your bike, you do a whole BotW arc to upgrade your lizard bike, so many features of previous games have been removed for literally no reason (mass/egg release why?!), and so much of the game feels both new and fresh while also feeling as stale and dull as the last few entries have. It's very frustrating for me as someone who likes pokemon as a system and rpg, but can't stand the insufferable fluff (and recent handholding / railroading).
18:35 Game Maker’s Toolkit likes to call these locks and keys. He even made a series called “Boss Keys” where he analyzed every Zelda game (as well as a couple of other games)
I call them Abilty shaped key-holes.
"It's weird that you don't have any reward after getting more moons than 500"
The witness with its environmental puzzles: wait, you should reward people for getting something?
Damn you, Jonathan, I need my closure!
The reward is finding them.
@@Yohoat yeah cause that game is actually designed well lmao
The reward is understanding of the mechanics of the puzzle so that you can then go do the one that's actually locking away content in the game.
The game doesn't even reward you for beating it!
BOTW feels to me like a version of the "Mushroom on a stick" theory: The "Mushroom in a box" theory. This variant gives the players the key to the box alongside a note that says "Open it if you want" and just lets the player do whatever they want to do
But I feel that they still went too far with the ‘no weapon upgrades’. Oh hey, I got this cool shiny new weapon off the enemy in that shrine, I’m gonna use it! *five minutes of combat later* ‘well my cool weapon broke, so I have to go back to using the shitty rusty shiv, which is also about to break, so I’m just gonna not interact with the weapons anymore, I’ll just kill things with bombs. At least they aren’t a limited resource.’
Any combat system that penalizes you for using your cooler weapons, sucks and is terrible. Same with in the newer paper Mario games, Sticker Star and Color Splash, you would begin to actively avoid fights because it just was a waste of time and resources.
huh maybe they should make the contents of the box fun next time then will make it alot more fun to play after opening it the first time
@@matthewtalbot6505 stuff breaking is why I don't touch the gold tools in new Horizons.
At least in BotW potentially deincentivizing combat isn't as bad, given that choosing to avoid combat is still a form of interacting with the gameplay systems, since maneuvering through the environment has its own systems to play around with, as does finding and using tools other than weapons to deal with enemies. ...Avoiding RPG encounters isn't really any kind of gameplay, you're never gaining the opportunity for something else when you run from a fight there, just skipping what the structure of the game makes out to be a core gameplay element.
BotW is just as bad, except they go the opposite direction. It is so devoid of progression, meaningful interaction, or differing rewards that the entire game is optional, repetitive, and ultimately, pointless.
Yes, you can do what you want to do, but it gets old very quickly, and you end up not wanting to do anything much, wandering aimlessly and just being bored, until you get fed up and go for ganon. Think about that: the greatest reason to beat the last boss... is being sick of the game.
“or MAGA for shor-“
I died
I looked for this comment XDD
lol
I JUST got that,
I am very excited that you tackled this problem. Actually I felt the same the last years with one difference:
I do still admire Z-BOTW and SMO for the excellence in core gameplay mechanics and loop, but think that they are way worse games than they could be due to the drastically cut progression systems. There is a reason after all why I bought a Switch under a month after its release but still could not get myself to play further than two titans for almost an entire year, let alone get to Hyrule Castle (imo the best part of the game right after the Great Plateau). It was certainly not for an abundance of titles for this newly released console but more on that later.
In a day and age where most developers start to stuff games full of arbitrary "progession" (rather collection-) systems, more than the games could bear - mostly to disguise insane post installation monetization and in game purchasing systems - the one developer who has time in time again shown to have mastered a balance in simple character, weapon or skill progression systems, abondons those completely. Either in search of absolute mastery of pure gameplay by restricting other ways of gratification in their games (as alluded to in the video) or maybe in search of the mastery of their "blue ocean" strategy.
The latter because by making any real challenge optional they lower the barrier of entry even more.(I am not gonna explain this further here, please google its origin yourself, dear reader)
To be honest - I know the answer just as little as you, my austrian friend, this is also just tin foil hat speculation, but these are the only two things that make sense, and probably the truth is a combination of both, hopefully at least...
This decision has one major flaw: By optinalizing every but not all challenges and tasks the player never knows if they are actually supposed to be able to complete the task in front of them just yet. You can actually see they have tried to couteract the problem by completely removing any death penalty in both games - in SMO by removing the 1Up system and only removing ten lousy coins from your inventory, in Botw by autosaving at every second big tree. This sadly only removes the in game penalty due to the missing structure, but makes the player subconsciously trust the game (and its designer) less. This is the same phenomenon as you can currently see in Cyberpunk 2077, when a player gets into a mission and can't find the mission objective, they might tend to expect a bug, even if they have just overseen it because it was well hidden, in turn making them abandon the mission or cunsulting an external walkthrough, to see if the mistake was on their or the developers end. In both cases they are robbed of the gratification and experience of finding the solution themselves or even worse feeling like they were defeated for no reason.
Similar problems occurr from missing structure and pacing in the modern open-worldish games from Nintendo, which simply cannot maintain the awesome meticulously planned and tested ebb and flow of gameplay & recovery/upgrade, pacing of increasing difficulty, progressing character build - which in turn changes the gameplay over the course of the game - or a coherent and satisfying story.
Sorry for this gigantic rant, I am tired now, if I forgot half of the important things just hit me up.
Thank you for this awesome, extra long, piece of content!
Danke dir für deine gute investigative Arbeit an Nintendospielen und ciao
Finally, someone with a balanced view who isn't just heaping blind praise on BotW, but sees both the good and the bad.
It's a shame that Ceave doesn't seem to read this type of comment, he'd really be better off popping his bubble.
(edit: fixed the spelling that my mobile keyboard screwed up)
I don't see that as a flaw, because nowdays nintendo games espect practically nothing from the player, evidenced by the fact that not only practically everything is optional but also nintendo always gives an easy way around any problem the player has (e gadd in luigi's mansion 3, olivia in origami king ot just easier moons in the kingdoms of odyssey that are worth the same as harder moon, making whether you get those moons or the others, or both, completely optional)
Botw was a great game and really captured the essence of zelda 1s exploration but damn I missed OoT style dungeons and would have really liked more ability progression.
I think I have to disagree with the idea that Super Mario Odyssey was made worse by a lack of progression systems, as they were never even close to a staple of Mario series, and even the examples given in the video aren't really typical progression systems, as they don't give the player new abilities, they just add power-ups to the world. In the case of Sunshine's nozzles, it's not even game-wide, and is instead per area, with the nozzles always being available whenever they're truly needed. The only thing that can stop you from being able to get a shine in a level (IE, not the plaza) is not having gotten Yoshi.
"That person, in your SUBJECTIVE opinion, is OBJECTIVELY wrong..." LMAO
as most people are
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and my opinion is that you are not entitled to your opinion!
@@Strakester yeah Mario Odyssey sucks!
I love this video.
ruclips.net/video/CXArovLJ60A/видео.html
This made me REALLY worried about how Metroid Prime 4 is going to turn out
Well I mean done right... open world Metroid sounds alright...
@@BaconNuke They kinda function like open world games already.
@@shadedepeche2556 I don't wanna be mean but there is a reason that there is a genre of "Metroidvania" and they aren't like "partial open world" games :P
@@BaconNuke I meant that they are kinda open world games in the sense that you explore the world you are in.
@@shadedepeche2556 In like every game you explore the world you are in...
Honestly this explains really well why I tend not to enjoy the modern Nintendo games like others do. I really like that sense of reward and growth and skill trees (within reason) and find it difficult to intrinsically motivate myself to play a game without those. Thanks for putting that into words!
This video is very outdated tho, we've had only in 2022 two Pokémon games, Kirby and the forgotten land, Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a new Mario and Rabbids and a Mario Strikers with unlockable equipment
Playing classic gamecube games ive never played before give me such a fun experience from beginning to end. modern nintendo games never give me that feeling
@@RonaKuronaAnd now Pikmin 4
Ingenius analysis, it explains so much about the way recent games were developed.
It also adds fuel to my own conspiracy theory revolving around AlphaDream's bankrupcy.
AlphaDream seemingly rebelled against these restrictions, being the intrinsic motivation covered in this video (as well as the character designs that cannot be significantly altered in order to create original characters) to the point of straight up ignoring them because they realised that an RPG would not work without either a progression-reward-system or original narrative-driven characters, simply due to the nature of the genre. We're able to see the effects of this in Paper Mario, who lost its RPG-roots precisely due to these restrictions.
Now for the conspiracy part: It is this disobedience that led Nintendo to cut back on resources provided for AlphaDream; financial support, advertising, etc. Then, since new games without those restrictions would no longer be allowed, AlphaDream decided to simply remake what they already had, basically sidestepping the restrictions. In the end, Nintendo deliberatly left them to suffocate, so to speak, simply for transgressing the restrictions they had put into place.
AlphaDream died fighting to the bitter end because they knew that their games would not work out in the same way without these mechanics.
That's hard. If that's true I think we need a corporate and bureaucratic reset...
@@Wiimeiser Might be what's causing pokémon to suffer, too.
This is exactly what I was thinking after the video
@@kennyholmes5196
Pokemon suffers because the teams at Gamefreak are way too small, and because they split off to do seperate projects on top of their already tiny development teams. Also because they are being bled dry by The Pokemon Company because TPC is a greedy corporate entity that thrives off of merchandising and predatory, anti-consumer practices. As long as they are the ones holding the reigns, expect the Pokemon franchise to continue down a steep decline of overpriced DLC, unfinished games, and out-of-game services that cost even more money in addition to the already ludicrously expensive experience that is modern Pokemon.
And the braindead consumers that are the Pokemon-obsessed sheep will continue to ignore and obfuscate these facts because "YOU'RE JUST BIASED MAN!!11!"
Piggies will eat their slop. Mediocrity thrives off of ignorance.
I thought Pokémon‘s problem was “The Pokémon Company is calling the shots instead of Game Freak”
"It's probably best to think about those abilities like the items that Zelda usually finds in one of the dungeons in the game series named after him." :laughs madly:
"Only two paper mario games have XP"
Super Paper Mario: Am I a joke to you?
Ironically why I enjoyed SPM a lot-- Jumping on enemies is still rewarding
@Darling Vexa Art I honestly think it might be part of the reason Nintendo put the restrictions on original characters in the first place. Look at Francis. There's no way the developers didn't cross some kind of line when designing characters like him.
@@Marshall.R Yeah, as much as I liked the story and characters in SPM, I think the huge shift away from the Mario universe scared Nintendo badly.
@@Doughboy123x Which is odd because that is the main reason the game is liked at all.
didn't expect large feedback
thanks guys
One big issue with their design philosophy is that, in dropping metroidvania mechanics, they ended up backing up into a way worse system:
Weapon Consumables/Fragility: a system that results in player disempowerment, which has no place outside of horror.
(Note: Skilled developers can make a game challenging without needed to disempower the player.)
In practice, it makes obtaining the weapons unsatisfying and encourages the player to avoid combat, which should be intrinsically fun by design-- so the game is fighting the player back for wanting to have fun, and it tells the player to focus on less fun or unfun alternatives.
Some games train the player to avoid combat for various reasons and facilitates other avenues as a core part of the experience... but this isn't really the case for games like, say, Sticker Star.
It's just bad design.
*_I will die on this hill._*
I mean BotW seems to do well with breakable weapons as there is always more around the corner, and you can also use the most OP weapon ever, big metal crates.
@@bestaround3323
Some people like or tolerate it.
I don't.
BotW is painful to play.
Not difficult or anything like that-- just an agonizing chore.
It was only recently when I started playing it modded on PC that I was able to get into it.
There are many excellent and very enjoyable aspects of BotW (the world, the puzzles, the characters, the lore, et cetera), but there are some small yet major things that really shoot itself in the foot, in my eyes.
The biggest of those issues is the weapon fragility system and how utterly poorly it was implemented in so many ways.
Weapons are consumables with very limited durability, and you can only hold a very limited number of them, even with upgrades from Hestu.
It's The Legend of Zelda: Sticker Star.
The system is at least functional in practice, but that doesn't make it satisfying. Or fun. Or enjoyable. Or good.
Heavily limited carrying capacities and consumable/fragile weapons should stay in survival horror where they belong.
*_I WILL die on this hill!_*
@@Cheerybelle I mean I personally like the system as it encourages me to try different strategies. Plus with how often they drop I don't really worry about them to much. It is a bit more fun abusing the physics system to kill enemies then with weapons anyway. Plus it adds an aspect of inventory management. I understand that you don't like it, but don't say that it is just an awful mechanic.
@@bestaround3323 I mean Botw is one of my favorite games of all time and yet I admit my enjoyment wasn't helped at all by the weapon durability system,
That said I kinda feel like it's a necessary evil, as without it all people would do is horde the strongest weapons instead of trying out the more.. unique approaches to combat
It's not a good or enjoyable system, but I really don't think the game would work without it
Nintendo: You should fight enemies for coins.
Mario: Let's go fight!
Mario later: My stickers are gone!
Nintendo: Buy new ones.
*Mario buys new ones
Mario: My coins are gone!
Nintendo: You should fight enemies for coins.
Mario: :|
I can confirm that in paper jam there is a metroid-like progression system. In the beginning of the game nabbit steals all bros. Attacks and you get them back again throughout the game. You also get beans and overworld abilities to help you go through the world, like the paper drill, paper airplane, and the super hammer
yeah, gameplay-wise, Paper Jam is similar to all its predecessors
AntDude: "B E A N S"
A major exception to the last part is Ring Fit Adventure, It's got multiple skills, it's got powerups that change the abilities that you get in the story and you have XP.
Yeah, it uses *all* those RPG progression tricks to make people want to continue playing even after they stop enjoying the inherent gameplay (exercise).
I've been thinking about this video a lot after watching it, and I've come to a few conclusions.
In its current iteration, Nintendo's design philosophy works with Mario and Zelda because of their fundamental enemy interactions. What is Mario's fundamental interaction? He jumps/stomps/use's the current game's gimmick to defeat the enemy. What is Link's fundamental interaction with enemies? He hacks and slashes, dodges, blocks, or uses a bomb/bow and arrow to fight enemies. This general interaction holds true across most Zelda games as well as all of the main Mario games.
However, Paper Mario's fundamental enemy interactions are through a turn-based and separate-screen battle. For Paper Mario, the fundamental enemy interaction is, in essence, a minigame. Thus, the HP/FP/BP system works very nicely because they make the minigame generally fun and diverse interactions, and they provide an incentive to engage in the minigame.
In the Mario and Zelda series, the incentives for enemy interactions have always been relatively minor. Except for minibosses and bosses, you didn't have much of a reason to engage in combat in Zelda. For BotW, much of this design philosophy holds true. Although enemies can drop items and/or weapons, they're not entirely necessary for the progression of the game. Similarly, with Mario, he never had much reason to attack enemies in any of his core games because progression was always tied with finding an object or objects, but how you interacted with enemies was always consistent.
In Paper Mario, each battle encounter took more time than in either the Mario or Zelda series, and, the point of battles was to give progression in the battles (and the boss fights). So when they started changing the battle systems in Super Paper Mario and then the paperbook Mario series, they removed a lot of the point of battles (by taking out the arbitrary progression systems). But because they couldn't remove the battles altogether (though SPM tried), a key part of the Paper Mario games was neutered.
Thus, in Paper Mario, enemy encounters are not only fundamentally different but they hold a different emphasis in the games than in Mario or Zelda. Part of me wonders what the games would have been like had they retained more of SPM's real-time battling system with the open-world exploration of Color Splash or Origami King.
Thank you, the "treating certain events like random enemies in classic Mario/Zelda" comparison made this issue very easy to visualize. I'll keep this in mind when analyzing other games.
@@knosos15 Under that logic, Metroid would work fine as an open-world game. Though, there would have to be some tweaks with regards to general game abilities.
The interactions between Samus and enemies revolve around shooting and dodging, and thus, Metroid is very similar to Zelda. You don't really want to engage with enemies outside of the minibosses and bosses. You don't gain anything by killing enemies. Your progression is tied to exploration and defeating bosses, just as Link's progression is tied to exploration and defeating bosses (with the occasional side quest).
One of the biggest areas of similarity is the real-time combat. Making combat "real-time" means that every non-objective encounter is optional, and when combined with a lack of progression tied to killing enemies, you have a game that is not combat driven despite heavily featuring combat.
@@knosos15 What I would say is that I'm necessarily arguing that Metroid should become an open-world game. I'm just saying what my logic brings us to.
However, look at Breath of the Wild. The Legend of Zelda series is very similar in terms of progression to at least the Metroid Prime series. You explore an area, get an item, perhaps defeat a boss with that item, and then use that item to unlock other areas. Both Zelda and Metroid use this gameplay mechanic.
I'm sure there were who thought that the Zelda series couldn't be an open-world game, and I'm sure there are people that still think it shouldn't be this type of game.
Additionally, I'm also not saying that a potential Metroid game should entirely rid itself of all progression markers. But if the Zelda series could do it (or something similar), why couldn't Metroid?
@@knosos15 Right, it's the dungeon crawling that makes Metroid, Metroid.
There are those definite major differences between Zelda and Metroid, though I would say the difference comes more in the layout of the map than in the gameplay.
Metroid is in a dungeon, yes, but you're free to explore as far as you can get without having to immediately go for the next time. Similarly, Zelda is in a world, yes, and you are free to explore that world, but you don't really get that far without having to do the first dungeon.
In terms of map design, then, Metroid seems to be one giant interconnected dungeon, whereas Zelda is an overworld with several dungeons in it.
I think you're right but disagree that the current philosophy works that well for Zelda. The soul of the franchise is "getting new tools to interact with the world in new ways and reach new places" in a manner very similar to a metroidvania, that's been the core gameplay loop from the very beginning. Hell, in the original Zelda most people probably avoid as much combat as possible, choosing instead to just dash to the next screen in search of the next destination.
So in that sense they've actually removed the fundamental interaction from Zelda. BotW still has you walking around stabbing things with a sword and it's obviously a solid game when taken as its own thing, but by design it fails to capture "the Zelda experience" because the current philosophy has removed that experience.
Hot take.. I hated the breakable weapons in BoTW. I thought that weapons as a reward got worthless after a while and didn't like fighting the Silver enemies because they never yielded a return on what they took to beat them.
I hated botw and this had a lot to do with it. Also the lack of variety, music, item progression, unique bosses, and ‘fun’ sidequests too.
It didn’t even feel like I was playing Zelda most of the time
@@firenze6478 You right, you very very right.
It’s actually the most overblown criticism in gaming history, I can’t imagine how boring the game would be if you breeze through using one powerful weapon.
@@نونيم-ي4ح games have had solutions for this without relying on busted durability mechanics since the beginning of open world
@@نونيم-ي4ح your response is actually totally dog shit, Did I ask for one all powerful weapon that never broke or did you come up with that as a straw man argument
The Metroidvania thing every game does that you talked about in "Losing Metroid", Game Maker's Tool Kit has a name for it, the obstacle is a "Lock" and the thing needed is the "Key"
@@fireflocs yes
@@fireflocs Yeah, I like it better when you get a new ability that lets you interact with the whole world in a new way, and then they just make a lock that the ability also works on.
“this person, in my subjective opinion, is objectively wrong”
I will be using this
They forgot about the first Zelda game: everything is optional, but you still want to pick up items, find secrets etc... because it just makes you feel safer. Idk why Nintendo dropped this game design philosophy: "we won't force you towards these items, but skip them at your own risk"
@Darling Vexa Art I think it only really destroyed paper Mario. Mario Odyssey and BOTW are incredible masterpieces, I think Luigi's Mansion 3 is great as well and I know I'm not alone. They even went back to the old formula with Super Mario party, which is really fun and miles better than what they released for the wii, wii u and 3ds. Even after their dumb idea of 'we want people to look at the screen all the time", which proves they can drop an idea that just nobody likes... eventually.
@@zandromex8985 I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on the BOTW front. While it is a fun game, the experience feels really hollow when you return for another playthrough, especially if you hundred percented it. Exploration is a big part of the zelda franchise but, so to is the power fantasy. Dropping one in favor of the other crippled the experience as a whole.
@@riseofevillink To each their own. The game just really clicked with me and I had a great time with it.
@Darling Vexa Art It's a singleplayer game, so it is not really meant to get popularity and mantain it like league, and it's all a matter of taste, I really loved that game.
@Darling Vexa Art You're high af bruh
18:50 Mark Brown of Game Maker’s Toolkit calls them “locks and keys,” which I think is apt.
Ah yes, metroid, he is my favorite character.
But why? Why not say Samus who is a girl? Am I missing something here?
@@superepicdudemccraft5076 Yes... The fact it's a
J O K E
@@superepicdudemccraft5076 The same reasson he said that the protag of Zelda is named Zelda
@@Elmom_ I was playing a character so you would have someone to say that to. No need to thank me. :)
...Sure.
The value of Paper Mario is about combat and linear story progression, where the Metroid-like Ability Growth occurs linearly with the story. Other games like BOTW or Odyssey are less linear and therefore benefit from the lower progression.
The lack of progression is one of the worst aspects of BotW. It's as bad as - or worse than - an overly linear game, just going in the opposite direction.
@@christophersavignon4191 absolutely not
@@tmarx1063 You absolutely convinced me.
Paper Mario didn't just die, it was murdered.
Literally the title of the last segment lol
@@OatmealTheCrazy Oh, didnt wazch the video when I made that comment
At least Bug Fables exists, and the devs have stated they want to make a sequel.
When he said “yum yum mushroom,” I felt that
Ceave is the only youtuber who's voice match with his face
ⁱ ᵈⁱᵃᵍʳᵉᵉ
Is he Swedish?
@@superlemons4278 he is an Austrian
@@DerTechniker123 Yes. I heard his german accent instandly, the first time I watched him
Not at all
I like how you say "thanks for watching this little video", even if the video was half an hour long
All this is basically riding a pig in Minecraft, which requires the otherwise useless Carrot-On-A-Stick to do
The problem with this design philosophy is that it is way harder to pull off in the long term. Odyssey and BotW are brilliant games because of what they are; different and new experiences that we haven't had before, delivered with exceedingly high quality. But where does the Zelda franchise go from here? If BotW 2 is the same formula as BotW, then what of the Zelda game afterwards? Will it also be the same formula as BotW? Or will it return to the classic Zelda formula? If it just keeps going with the BotW formula, then will the game after BotW 2 just be "Here, we designed a new world to explore but not feel obligated to actually do anything in. Go have fun!"? Will ALL the Zelda games after BotW be the same? BotW is a phenomenal game, but... well... as much as I enjoyed the experience of playing it, there is still a bigger place in my heart for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Not just because I played those when I was younger, but because those games were more defined experiences rather than me just going and doing whatever. They still had ample exploration and discovery, but that was built around core systems of game progression. But if the entire Zelda series from now on just becomes "Go look over there! Maybe you'll find a cool experience but nothing really all that useful!" then I don't know if I'll continue to buy them.
A game that just says "Go do what you want, and enjoy whatever you please! There is no obligation!" is great. But when all of your games are that, they become stale ironically. If the next 3D Mario is the same exact formula as Odyssey just with a new gimmick (like Cappy or FLUDD), then it will pretty much just be Odyssey 2. The experience is brilliant, but it is not defined. The experience of exploration and freedom is great every once in a while, but you need limiting systems to differentiate games and provide progression both in each individual game as well as across a franchise. Let's not forget that the 'linear' designs of classic Mario and Zelda games became two of the greatest video game franchises of all time. This is also likely the reason why we won't ever really see a Minecraft 2. The core gameplay of Minecraft doesn't lend itself to sequels, because a true Minecraft sequel would basically just be Minecraft but with more content (which is what Mojang ended up doing. Continuing to update Minecraft with more content).
Let's also not forget that indie games are rapidly becoming darlings of the game industry. Every year more and more marvelous indie games are adored and earn lifelong fans. Surely, they aren't all great, but some of the top indie games released in modern times earn legend status, while even phenomenal games like BotW and Odyssey merely become "Great entries that depart from the traditions of the franchise". Indie games these days are more caught up in old school or traditional game design, as opposed to most modern triple A titles being designed for 'optimum money making/play time generating', or in Nintendo's case "Make your own experiences! Just have fun!".
Bug Fables is a game that heavily leans into the classic Paper Mario formula. You know what happens when I browse over my list of Switch games? I go over BotW and Odyssey and think "Man, what great games", and then I go over Bug Fables and my heart leaps a little in my chest just because I loved it soooo much, even though it wasn't open ended or allowed me to 'create my own experiences'. Even though it was a more rigid linear game, I adored it to a level that placed it above the gaming giants of Mario and Zelda putting out some of their best games in years.
Now, maybe I am biased because I adored the original Paper Mario formula when I was a kid. But I've found that in my adult life, I keep wandering into games and franchises with extremely rigid systems that still deliver magnificent experiences. Now, I've played RPGs and JRPGs before, so Persona 4 wasn't an 'entirely new type of experience'. In fact, it was far MORE linear and rigid in design than nearly every other RPG/JRPG I've played. I'd almost describe it as on 'on rails' JRPG. Yet it's one of my favorite games that I've played in the past decade. I will remember that game for years if not decades, while the neat little 'joys of discovery' I had in BotW are pretty much almost forgotten. In fact, my favorite parts of BotW were the shrines! The parts of the game that were most rigid.
Rant aside, I suppose what I am trying to say is that these latest successes by Nintendo are kinda like 'cashing in' on their decades of linear, rigid, yet fantastic game design. So now they can make a few "Just do whatever" games and they can greatly succeed. But they need to be VERY careful, because you can NOT build or maintain a franchise like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Starfox, Donkey Kong, etc. etc. etc. off of many games where you 'just do whatever'.
"Cashing in on" has been Nintendo's game design philosophy for a while now, and it's why I switched over to the indie scene. I do, in fact, plan to get Bug Fables, just as if I want an old school style Zelda or Metroid, I'll look indie. And indie's got good creativity too, some of which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
Bug Fables was cool but it didn’t scratch that itch :(( I just went back and played Paper Mario
They aren't brilliant. Odyssey especially sucks to 100%,and is way less engaging than galaxy despite having deeper movement. Because the game is meant for literal babies and you can easily progress by obtaining any moon which are gotten by sneezing on the controller, and they share very repetitive formulas like stack Goomba grow plant break nuts use very limited capture or get it just floating there randomly, the game is full of terrible ubisoft esque filler.
But the games like galaxy let you have freedom while having some very good streamlined focused platforming
I’ve been saying this for a little under a decade, and no one has ever understood me.
A game is not objectively bad just because it’s “linear.”
I like how you describe it. “Definitive” experiences are really what consumers thirst for, not “aimless freedom.” Without a game providing a reason for its existence, there is really no reason for the player to come up with one on their own.
Your thesis is wrong. They can easily maintain franchises like this.
What gives wind waker its identity is not the linear progression system. That was in OoT, too. By the same token, you can easily do the same thing with the BOTW formula.
This seems true and it's a massive shame because metroid style powerups are a powerful learning tool that let you develop deeper concepts over time. You find a new toy and now you can think about every place in the world that it can interact with. It's something you discovered so it feels earned and not artificial in the way that Exp does.
It depend on the game through.
Most of metroidvania powerup unlock only one part, like in Symphonie of the night and mist form.
But if you take a totally different approach like Hollow Knight you get a real masterpiece of exploration
Paper Mario had to die because it was preparing for Mario’s execution on March 31.
WARNING I am the unprettiest human alive and I need YT to afford my house and the desires of my two girlfriends so please observe my highly stimulating videos, dear 6lt
@@AxxLAfriku cool, didn’t ask
@@AxxLAfriku no
Report AxxL for spam
Umm on March 31 2021 sephroth will return and not miss
Here’s an arbitrary meaningless exploration game: find all the subtle ways ceave trolls someone in this video!
Fire Emblem: "*chuckles* I'm in danger"
Fire Emblem has been trash since Shadow Dragon remake on DS, so thats a bit overdue.
@@bearzdlc2172 idk man. New mystery was good imo. Same with echos and three houses.
@@camharkness no
@@bearzdlc2172 well you have your opinions and I have mine.
@@camharkness yours is wrong
"If the game is not fun, why bother" - Reggie
The quote seemed so simple and straight forward when we first heard it. But when I was watching this video and looking back, I think this is really Nintendo's core design philosophy.
Yes, there can be eight different external rewards. Yes there can be tons of progression systems. But if the game is not fun, why bother?
Was Thousand Year Door not fun?
@@vyor8837 Did I say something that implied that?
@@darkestccino5405 yes
@@vyor8837 At times, but sometimes to get an amazing thing you have to endure some "not so funny" moments.
@@N12015 I can't tell if you're describing existence as a whole or...
The reason I like “meaningful” progression systems is because of how it changes how you interact with the game. New abilities should meaningfully impact how you play. Hollow Knight is a great example because each new ability and charm changes how you engage not just with enemies, but environments themselves.
Meaningless progression systems like leveling up can go die though. Many a good game were ruined by a levelling system.
Leveling up can be used to create a varied on similar to your "meaningful ones" while if the progression is too meaningful it will almost become dull/boring to try anything till you get everything to explore. Hollow Knight as an example also punishes exploration and makes it a chore because you lack X.
You're actually pushed away from exploring, because the progression is so meaningful and it becomes a new dead end.
It can kill a game just the same.
In fact, on the flip side a Level up system can provide a non-linear exploration. Rather then getting the Mantis claws you collect X which give you the Mantis Claw or Shade Cloak. Both of these open whole new areas and if built into learning the lore of the world can offer the same benefits.
Basically no system is inherently bad.
@@Buglin_Burger78781) Hollow knight almost always rewards you when you find a ''dead end'', my time never felt wasted because each upgrade counts in this game, whether it's a new charm or a mask or soul upgrade.
2)The thing is, Hollow knight is actually very non-linear, especially for a metroidvania. Even at the begining, at any time while you're getting the vengeful spirit-mothwing cloak-mantis claw tutorial trio, you can go get the dream nail, which rewards you with some early dream warriors fight and then some more rewards for the essence you get from them. Once you have the mantis claw, every area besides Queen's gardens, White palace and most of fog canyon can be accessed.
Then, if you don't use sequence breaks, you will eventually find the crystal heart next, which allows you to get either isma's tear or monarch wings, you are free to choose. If you do use basic sequence breaks, you can get to many areas that normally require the monarch wings, including a dreamer and the king's brand, which then leads you to the shade cloak.
Besides those main abilities, you can also get the two other spells and their shade upgrades any time you want. Neither are required to beat the game, but both are nice to have, and the down spell is used at a couple places, like accessing most of Royal waterways, including Isma's tear(which is not needed to finish the game). There are also a few literal keys, some are simple and can be used on a number of places, others give you access to specific areas.
Leveling up can be good if doing it can allow you to get new abilities and because it can incentivise actually fighting, but it isn't always great. The Kingdom Hearts games, for example, give you a lot of new abilities when you level up so it makes the combat better, making you want to go out of your way to fight enemies. You don't really have to do it, though, because you can still defeat most enemies without having to level up. A lot of game developers really like to force level systems, though, so I see where your coming from.
Level systems can also be done differently. In games i enjoy, levels provide little bit of stats and skill points that are used in skill trees providing either just stats or unique modifications to gameplay, but you can never "cap" a skill tree.
I would agree though that having a stat-only progression system that can be capped is not A Good Thing.
Ori and the will of the wisps also put a good twist on the skill system. You start off with only barely able to jump up ledges but towards the end you can literally deflect bullets, smash enemies with a hammer twice your size, and travel through areas with ease. It’s a progression system that makes the game more fun to play as you advance.
A tinfoil hat with cat ears is my new asthetic
Super Paper Mario is clinically underrated
agreed
Good story, but no reason to replay it, after you experienced it.
I liked the story but the gameplay is very meh
Honestly my favorite game in the series- the gameplay was admittedly tedious at times, but the game is so stuffed with charm and funny characters that it’s impossible to hate imo
@@mimi.sues. bruh, thousand year door tho