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2 days agoPlease give an example of a Nintendo game that you consider to not be “smooth-brained”. Because I’d argue that at least since the 90’s their games have had the same level of simplicity and hand holding. If anything, some of that was stripped back in the switch generation. A lot of the “complexity” and “difficulty” of their older games stemmed from developers not knowing how to make a game approachable or easy to understand because the gaming industry was in it’s infancy. And realistically, if you want to talk about complexity, Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom have physics and cooking systems that are far more complex than any of their old games. So what counts as a complex and challenging game for your massive wrinkled brain?
While I’d agree with you that World 1-1 is a great tutorial, the complexity of the game pretty much boils down to “move left or right, jump over obstacles, touch powerups to get some kind of bonus” Its not hard to convey a small amount of gameplay concepts in an approachable level. But with the amount of different things you can do in a lot of games nowadays, its beneficial to have at least a little explanation on what a button or skill does. That’s not to say we need a pokemon style 15 minute cutscene explaining the basic concept. But like a one time 2 second prompt is a good spot in my opinion. Looking at something like Ocarina of Time in the late 90’s, had kind of a hybrid. They gave you a small sandbox and freedom to explore it. There are also signs around that directly tell you how to do something. But people who never read those signs can end up never learning how to do that thing.
Yes you are right that video games existed for decades before Nintendo made them. But any complexity in those games that was more than “move and press 1 button” required reading through an instruction booklet to understand how to do anything. Playing something like Adventure on Atari without an explanation would be a painful experience.
As far as the puzzles or cooking in Zelda goes, its as complex as you want to make it. The freedom and depth allows you to get creative with solutions that don’t necessarily have to be the intended one. And that’s a highly complex thing that weren’t really in older games unless you brute forced or exploited something. Admittedly I have only played KCD and heve not yet played KCD2, so I don’t know if its significantly different or not. But making potions in KCD, while novel and fun in it’s own game, would be a miserable experience in a Zelda game. Only the most hardcore players would ever even do it. KCD pulls it off, because everything about the game is difficult to do and that is part of the fantasy. It’s more of a realistic simulator than an adventure game.
Nintendo games are designed to be approachable by anyone. Not designed for idiots who are too stupid to figure out a more complex game. It can be figured out by a kid, and it lets a hardcore player get more in depth with it if they want to. That’s a difficult thing to pull off and I’d say its a very complex thing to design in a game. Their games also include parts of them that are actually very challenging to a new player, regardless of your gaming experience. Fighting a Lynel for the first time in BOTW, will absolutely kill you. The last few levels of Super Mario Odyssey are excruciating in their difficulty. But you only have to engage with that kind of difficulty of you want to. And most players prefer not to rip their hair out for the entire game.