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Author Topic: Why are game companies bringing back old stuff?  (Read 19655 times)

« on: October 07, 2011, 02:57:32 PM »
Why are they? The Super Leaf hasn't been in a (new) game in ~20 years and it's coming in SM3DL
and MK7. Same for the Frog Suit in PM3D. Has Nintendo run out of ideas?

« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2011, 03:19:51 PM »
I don't think Nintendo is running out of ideas, I think bringing back old ones serves a couple different purposes.

1. Throwing us old farts a bone.  It's nice to see old classics again.
2. Getting the kids acquainted with the bad-[badonkadonk] old school stuff.  SO many kids (probably) missed the old school games we had the benefit of growing up with.  Why not give them a chance too?
3. Taking old ideas and twisting them with new concepts.  I love this, and I think it's probably the best reason to revisit old ideas.  There are SO many more possibilities with video games now than there were x number of years ago.  You can take an old idea and expand on it!  Heck, that's how we got Yoshi in Super Mario World!
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 07:07:33 AM by Sapphira »
Haters gonna hate

« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2011, 09:59:47 PM »
I don't think Nintendo is running out of ideas, I think bringing back old ones serves a couple different purposes.

1. Throwing us old farts a bone.  It's nice to see old classics again.
2. Getting the kids acquainted with the bad-[badonkadonk] old school stuff.  SO many kids (probably) missed the old school games we had the benefit of growing up with.  Why not give them a chance too?
3. Taking old ideas and twisting them with new concepts.  I love this, and I think it's probably the best reason to revisit old ideas.  There are SO many more possibilities with video games now than there were x number of years ago.  You can take an old idea and expand on it!  Heck, that's how we got Yoshi in Super Mario World!
I agree, but all we have seen of power-ups for SM3DL are things that have already been done. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, this will be the 2nd best 3D game in the series. (SM64 pwns all other 3D Mario games) I'm just saying that the old should be balenced with the new.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 07:08:25 AM by Sapphira »

« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2011, 10:13:20 PM »
If that's the case, shouldn't Goombas and Koopas have been replaced years ago?
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2011, 07:21:08 AM »
If that's the case, shouldn't Goombas and Koopas have been replaced years ago?
No, they are good enemies, but they are modified in ways that keep them fresh and new.

« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2011, 10:53:02 AM »
Why are they? The Super Leaf hasn't been in a (new) game in ~20 years and it's coming in SM3DL
and MK7. Same for the Frog Suit in PM3D. Has Nintendo run out of ideas?
Haven't you noticed how everything that's old is getting remade and rebooted? Not just video games.

I mean, it started way back when Rocky 6 came out...17 years after Rocky 5. Then Indy Jones 4, nearly 2 decades after Indy 3. Freaking Tron got a sequel...one of the cheesiest movies of all time, and they even brought THAT back.

There was a new (short lived) Knight Rider show. That new My Little Pony is big with kids and adults for whatever reason. Cartoon Network remade Thundercats. THUNDERCATS.

The Ninja Turtles got a brand new comic to reboot the franchise. DC Comics rebooted their whole lineup. Superman can't even fly anymore. It hasn't been like that since the 1940s.

Back to video games, but not Mario. there's a new Kid Icarus coming out, Punch-Out got a remake. Bionic Commando.

Everybody's going back to old stuff. It's just how society's been for the last 5 years. It's not just Nintendo.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2011, 10:54:57 AM by Red Menace Forman »

ShadowBrain

  • Ridiculously relevant
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2011, 12:20:02 PM »
It's a win-win: We get stuff that's familiar and nostalgic, they don't have to work as hard.
"Mario is your oyster." ~The Chef

The Chef

  • Super
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2011, 03:47:08 PM »
When was the last time Mario got to use the Super Leaf in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario got to fight Boom Boom in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario had to jump onto a flagpole in a 3D game?

....see my point?

« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2011, 04:10:55 PM »
When was the last time Mario got to use the Super Leaf in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario got to fight Boom Boom in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario had to jump onto a flagpole in a 3D game?

....see my point?
Haven't you noticed how everything that's old is getting remade and rebooted? Not just video games.

I mean, it started way back when Rocky 6 came out...17 years after Rocky 5. Then Indy Jones 4, nearly 2 decades after Indy 3. Freaking Tron got a sequel...one of the cheesiest movies of all time, and they even brought THAT back.

There was a new (short lived) Knight Rider show. That new My Little Pony is big with kids and adults for whatever reason. Cartoon Network remade Thundercats. THUNDERCATS.

The Ninja Turtles got a brand new comic to reboot the franchise. DC Comics rebooted their whole lineup. Superman can't even fly anymore. It hasn't been like that since the 1940s.

Back to video games, but not Mario. there's a new Kid Icarus coming out, Punch-Out got a remake. Bionic Commando.

Everybody's going back to old stuff. It's just how society's been for the last 5 years. It's not just Nintendo.
I'm not saying bringing back old stuff is a bad idea, I'm just saying that new stuff needs to be mixed with the old

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2011, 04:41:39 PM »
Friggin' everything is reboots.

I touched on this a little bit the last time I whined about Sonic 4, but Plinkett pretty much covers it in that review (with some potty words). Movies have to all be super-dumbed-down blockbusters based loosely on things everyone remembers, but only using the few things that everyone remembers about it, because they have to have a huge opening weekend to make money*. When people think Star Trek, they think "Beam me up Scotty" and Chekov saying "wessel" and Kirk having sex and things blowing up (which is mostly their memory of Star Wars seeping in). They don't think philosophy, or slow, thoughtful plots, or Q, or anything like that that's more for fans.

This is why Sonic 4 sucked. There is nothing original in there, other than the stupid un-Sonicy puzzle gameplay in the Labyrinth Zone. They took the blockbuster reboot thing too far.

Nintendo is doing the blockbuster reboot thing too. They need to sell their games to big mass audiences. Part of the reason Super Paper Mario has such a low rating on Amazon is because it was marketed as a blockbuster reboot when it was really a continuation of the Paper Mario series that was even more fancrufty than Thousand-Year Door. People who hadn't played video games in years bought it because they thought it was Super Mario Bros. with smoother graphics, not a text-heavy action RPG with an unskippable 5-minute intro like its predecessors. This is also, I anticipate, why Paper Mario 3DS is looking so generic, and why the only partner we've seen so far is a generic Chomp rather than an actual character. They want to sell it to everyone who never played a Mario game between SMB3 and NSMBW.

It's not going to work, though. The people that stopped playing video games from 1996 to 2006 stopped for one big reason:



The shift from 2D to 3D is too much for them. They don't want to bother with it. And they certainly don't want to use a controller with so many dang buttons on it.

They came back in 2006 for one big reason:



It's a TV remote that works like an NES controller with a gun trigger and a big round button in the middle. To play the game that comes with it, you don't even use the buttons, you just shake it. That's simple. That's manageable.



This is not manageable. Look at the [darn] thing. It's already got sliders and knobs and dials and lights all over it, and now you wanna add this thing onto it to give it another joystick and two more buttons (for a total of four buttons where I can't even see them)? And they think this is going to win back over the crowd that left when they shifted to 3D with a big three-pronged controller? And they think the way to win back that crowd is with 3D? Double 3D -- a 3D game with a stereoscopic display.

No. The reboots will fail, and it's gonna be a Gamecube again. The fans will get their fanservice, and there'll be a second 3DS Paper Mario that has the old Dry Bones design and Goombaloads of fanfic fodder.

*- Complicating this is the way that Hollywood plays stupid accounting tricks to make it look like movies are unprofitable if they need to. The studio will create a separate company to make the movie, which is still entirely controlled and funded by them, and then they'll charge themselves exorbitant amounts for distribution and marketing, so that on paper, the company that made the movie never made a profit, but the actual studio did. David Prowse (the guy in the Darth Vader suit) has never received residuals from Return of the Jedi, because ROTJ, one of the top-grossing films of all time, has officially still not turned a profit. But that's beside the point, mostly.



When was the last time Mario got to use the Super Leaf in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario got to fight Boom Boom in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario had to jump onto a flagpole in a 3D game?

When was the last time Mario did that stuff in a 2D game? Boom Boom and the Super Leaf have only been in one game to date, and flagpoles are only in the original Super Mario Bros., the lazy sequel to the original Super Mario Bros., and the two uncreative rehashes of the original Super Mario Bros.. The point is that before 2005, Mario was always doing new stuff. Now he's riding the nostalgia train.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #10 on: October 08, 2011, 05:28:32 PM »
See, in 2005, Nintendo figured out that there are lots of people out there who loved Super Mario Bros. but haven't played Mario since then, so they figured "Hey, let's remake Super Mario Bros." And that worked. But then they thought all they needed to do is keep the trappings of the old games, and they can fundamentally alter the core gameplay and keep those lapsed gamers so long as it looks like Mario 3 on the outside. But that logic makes no sense, because those lapsed gamers stopped playing when Mario 64 came out, and Mario 64 had Goombas and Koopas and Piranha Plants and Bowser and Lakitus and Peach and Big Bertha and Wiggler and Piranha Plants, but what it didn't have was super-simple controls and gameplay that require no explanation (other than "hold down the freakin run button already gosh").

Make an actual new actual sidescroller and you'll make us all happy.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2011, 05:43:59 PM »
See, in 2005, Nintendo figured out that there are lots of people out there who loved Super Mario Bros. but haven't played Mario since then, so they figured "Hey, let's remake Super Mario Bros." And that worked. But then they thought all they needed to do is keep the trappings of the old games, and they can fundamentally alter the core gameplay and keep those lapsed gamers so long as it looks like Mario 3 on the outside. But that logic makes no sense, because those lapsed gamers stopped playing when Mario 64 came out, and Mario 64 had Goombas and Koopas and Piranha Plants and Bowser and Lakitus and Peach and Big Bertha and Wiggler and Piranha Plants, but what it didn't have was super-simple controls and gameplay that require no explanation (other than "hold down the freakin run button already gosh").

Make an actual new actual sidescroller and you'll make us all happy.
NSMBW was orginal, the DS version was pretty much an enhanced ROM hack.

ShadowBrain

  • Ridiculously relevant
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2011, 06:44:07 PM »
CrossEyed speaks the gospel truth.

...But you're all still going to buy it, aren't you?
"Mario is your oyster." ~The Chef

« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2011, 07:22:24 PM »
CrossEyed speaks the gospel truth.

...But you're all still going to buy it, aren't you?
I will when I get a 3DS.

The Chef

  • Super
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2011, 08:08:41 PM »
Man...CrossEyed's been on the warpath lately.

Though he did manage to say a LOT of what's been on my mind about the whole nostalgia trend. Namco appears to be trying to pull something similar with Pac-Man given the release of Championship Edition and that planned TV series for 2012 that makes absolutely no references to anything Pac-Man related aside from the original game and maaaaaybe the H-B cartoon.

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