Any chef that has earned even one Michelin Star understands that the chasm between good and great is not crossed with acceptance. There is an obsession with forcing even the happiest guest to say how the experience could have been better. Nobody has earned more of these stars than Alain Ducasse, who advised, “Failure is enriching. It’s also important to accept that you’ll make mistakes – it’s how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life’s negative moments.”
Nintendo would certainly earn a Michelin Star if the culinary ranking were to extend to video games.
Nintendo’s accomplishments are worthy of the highest admiration. That being granted, it’s out of love that the following criticisms about the company’s games are delivered. Fans are happy with the Nintendo experience, but if the company wants to improve on greatness, it should take a hard look at the following mechanics. Thankfully, some of these mechanics have improved over the years.
10 Redundant Power-Ups
After a tough fight through the castle, Mario makes his way towards the final boss room. He’s big, but it would really help if he could find a fire flower or a leaf to help him with the major baddie in the next room. There’s a box in front of the room! Mario cracks it open, and out pops…a mushroom to make him big. He’s already big. It does nothing.
The Super Mario Bros series has been the guiltiest offender, but The Legend of Zelda has no problems giving out rupees to a Link with no space either. They should learn from some of the other great action RPGs on the Switch that these kinds of rewards are infuriating.
9 Unhelpful Sidekicks
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had many meme-worthy moments, but were any of them as over-the-top mind-boggling as Navi’s incessant reminders? It’s helpful to know the next stage of a quest, but sometimes Link is finding secrets or special items and this every three-minute reminder needs a permanent snooze button.
The Donkey Kong series is another entry that features a couple of cute chimps doing some combat, but only one is actually functionally doing anything. The other is just following the character around and hoping they don’t both jump off a cliff.
8 Catch-Up
The player is an ace at Mario Kart. Every turn is precise, every shortcut is taken, and every power-up is maximized. For some reason, the second-place player is gaining ground because, well, the game gives them a speed boost for not being as good as the leader. And then the last place racer fires off a blue shell and dooms the player to an unavoidable third-place finish.
Mario Party is one of the best party games of all time, but the catch-up mechanic is nauseating. Players can lose every mini-game and watch as the behind-the-scenes processes pull out every possible stop to give them a chance at victory in spite of their abysmal play.
7 Off-Screen Deaths
Going off the side of the screen in any Nintendo game is pretty much a fatality. But why? Mario frequently makes leaps off of buildings or trees and does not die, so why would this kill him? And why does going too far left or right spell out certain doom?
Super Smash Bros. Melee is worthy of consideration for one of the best fighting games of the 2000s, but why is it that getting sliced with a sword or hit with a cannon is less fatal than flying too high? It makes sense to not want to see a beloved character like Yoshi suffer an on-screen death at the hands of the evil Ganondorf, but some other kind of justification would be nice.
6 Camera Work
When Super Mario 64 came out, seeing the 2D platformer make the jump to 3D generated excitement that fans of the series could hardly restrain. But the fanaticism was reduced when players would try to jump on the very first Goomba and miss while the camera jerked around, forcing a redirection of Mario in mid-air. Every enemy in the game soon became a candidate for the most annoying.
Super Metroid players had to jump down to the next screen, but the camera refused to show whether it was certain death or the right direction until after the leap of faith was already dialed in. And anyone fighting in Smash Bros. on the Hyrule map knows what it’s like when fights are happening from different parts of the map and the camera zooms out until characters are the size of a fly on the screen.
5 Good Touch, Bad Touch
Nintendo’s storylines aren’t the easiest to follow. Even harder to follow is the questions around the damage. Why does touching an enemy minion hurt the protagonist? Nintendo makes the players learn that these heroes are weaker than the weakest enemies in the game unless they touch them just right.
What makes jumping on the top of a turtle shell so powerful? Wouldn’t hitting a Koopa from underneath do a lot more damage? How does a giant necktie-wearing gorilla get hurt by touching a vulture, but the vulture withstands the full weight of the gorilla smashing down on him just fine? Can anybody in a Nintendo game throw a decent punch, please?
4 Discovering Average Items
Link is running around in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, saving the world. He tears down some bushes and finds a few items he’s already maxed-out on. Over the speakers at home, the player hears these worthless items loudly announced.
One has to appreciate what Nintendo is trying to do here; it has fanfares of trumpets and excited voice lines designed to make gamers feel good. But playing the same exciting sequence of events after finding a single Poké Ball makes actually rare items lose their luster.
3 Limited Duration & Durability
It’s a huge Pokémon battle. Snorlax uses his turn to put the opponent’s Charmander to sleep. It works! Then he attacks and Charmander wakes up. Sleep just makes the battle last longer.
Beyond short duration boosts, there are durability problems. The environment of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild overwhelmed fans, but the weapons that shattered after a couple of swings broke their hearts. No wonder the games on the N64 took so long to beat.
2 Teammate Interference
Nintendo might borrow from reality, but it hardly confines itself to real-life situations. Fans of The Sims clamor for real-life crossover, but players of games like Wii Sports are happy to break records in the comfort of their own homes.
Yet Nintendo insists on realistic teammate interference in games with flying turtles, crocodiles with opposable thumbs, and shapeshifting princesses. In the New Super Mario Bros. U, the game was essentially unplayable with more than one player due to a lack of space on the platforms.
1 Everything Is Slippery
Ice levels are a common trope in video games. It adds a layer of challenge that fuses realism with fantasy and it feels really exciting to be engaged in a difficult situation that requires poise next to a snowy cliff edge.
But, sometimes, everything is slippery in the world of Nintendo games. Somehow, the characters haven’t figured out how to get traction on grass or even gravel. When the controls call for exacting jumps, that’s a huge issue.
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