Why I still hate Nintendo's design philosophy
Since I saw someone skip entire levels on Super Mario Bros. just by knowing where a hole in the ceiling was, I've disliked one of Nintendo's central design philosophies. Knowledge trumps skill.
It's midnight, and I've just finished a session with the first Wii game I've really liked, which is Metroid Prime: Corruption. I like the control system; it's flexible and fun. BTW, I'm playing on Veteran, with the Lock/Free thing so I always have to aim. My save is at 5% progress into the game.
After doing another ball puzzle and shooting some stuff, I got stuck. There are these things it looks like I can grapple from, but scanning them tells me I don't have access yet. So I explore the level, which isn't horribly huge. I jump to everywhere I can find. It turns out that the only thing that looks like it will help is to pull some panels off a wall with the grapple. But that wall is too far up; I can't get there. I apparently had to do this before falling into a valley. So I'm completely stuck, and there are no clues in the valley section telling me I'm stuck. So I've spent a half hour exploring (and generally being bored and frustrated) only to find that what I have to do is no longer available.
Add to that the dearth of save points (since they also replenish your suit they have to be scarce), and you have a major frustration situation. I had to reset the game, and now I have to redo the first half hour of my session just to get back to where I was. And none of this is because I lack skill with the controls; it's because I was missing a piece of information.
I'm not sure I'll be able to play the game anymore since I'm sure this kind of thing will happen multiple times since it's been a general pattern with Nintendo games since the beginning. I know some people like this puzzle element in games, but games like God of War have them without making me angry.
If there's some little thing I've missed that fixes all this, then there's still a design flaw in the presentation somewhere.
It's midnight, and I've just finished a session with the first Wii game I've really liked, which is Metroid Prime: Corruption. I like the control system; it's flexible and fun. BTW, I'm playing on Veteran, with the Lock/Free thing so I always have to aim. My save is at 5% progress into the game.
After doing another ball puzzle and shooting some stuff, I got stuck. There are these things it looks like I can grapple from, but scanning them tells me I don't have access yet. So I explore the level, which isn't horribly huge. I jump to everywhere I can find. It turns out that the only thing that looks like it will help is to pull some panels off a wall with the grapple. But that wall is too far up; I can't get there. I apparently had to do this before falling into a valley. So I'm completely stuck, and there are no clues in the valley section telling me I'm stuck. So I've spent a half hour exploring (and generally being bored and frustrated) only to find that what I have to do is no longer available.
Add to that the dearth of save points (since they also replenish your suit they have to be scarce), and you have a major frustration situation. I had to reset the game, and now I have to redo the first half hour of my session just to get back to where I was. And none of this is because I lack skill with the controls; it's because I was missing a piece of information.
I'm not sure I'll be able to play the game anymore since I'm sure this kind of thing will happen multiple times since it's been a general pattern with Nintendo games since the beginning. I know some people like this puzzle element in games, but games like God of War have them without making me angry.
If there's some little thing I've missed that fixes all this, then there's still a design flaw in the presentation somewhere.
posted by Almo at 12:10 AM
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