Do you think Nintendo’s recent releases are lacking something … like new characters?
“Super Smash Bros. Brawl” director Masahiro Sakurai seems to. At the end of today’s post on his game’s official Dojo site he had this to say about the past twelve years of Nintendo-developed games:
It’s an incredible number of characters and a group of really well-known series. And to think that they all had their beginnings in Japan…wow!
When they’re all lined up like this, it becomes obvious that there is roughly 6-year blank before and after Pikmin. While there have been big series since then like “Animal Crossing,” “Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day,” and “Wii Sports” it does seem that coming up with a completely new character-driven series has gotten more difficult recently.
Is he right? Have the gaps that surround “Pikmin” upset any gamers out there? It doesn’t appear to have effected Nintendo’s business too much, at least as of late.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I don’t think this is an inherently Nintendo problem. Plus he seems to ignore Pokemon, and while i understand Pokemon is not a Nintendo developed property, the idea of trying to launch any property surrounding that phenomenon would have been silly.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
@ Peter
He actually does account for the Pokemon characters in “Smash Bros.” as beaing released in 02/96, which is actually the last game before “Pikmin” came out.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Does the Japenese Version have more characters or iems or stages than the english version does?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I, for one, think Nintendo treats its roster of characters rather well. Sure, Mario and company appear in a lot of ancillary games, but “franchise” entries, if you will, are few and far between and usually of the highest quality. And even though video games are a relatively young medium, after a while it’s hard to introduce new characters that wouldn’t be redundant or derivative from established ones. Not to mention Nintendo characters are usually tied to a specific gameplay twist; Pokémon and Pikmin are great examples.
I imagine it’s always a tough balancing act at Nintendo between doing something new with iconic properties and building something from the ground up. But in the end, I’d say Nintendo’s lack of new characters speaks more of the strength of its lineup than of a lack of fresh ideas.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I think he’s right that character driven series have gotten harder to come up with lately. That goes for everyone, from Nintendo to Sega to Sony and MS. Master Chief was the last “iconic” character, I’d argue (and personally, I think in 10 years we’ll all be saying, “Master Who??”).
…but on the other hand, Nintendo hasn’t exactly been doing their damnedest to make any new iconic characters lately, either. Chibi Robo and Jill from Drill Dozer are the only two I can think of. Really, I’m surprised Chibo Robo wasn’t in Brawl, especially over R.O.B.
You have characters like Jak and Daxter, Dante or Ratchet & Clank…but compared to Mario and Sonic, they’re B-listers at best (although so is Pikmin..)
Part of the problem is that people don’t want “characters” anymore, methinks. Generic space marine types are more than suffice.
Still, I’d like to see Nintendo try and come up with a character who can stand alongside at least Samus and Pit, if not Mario, Link and Sonic. If anyone can do it, it’s Nintendo if only because their core audience is apparently more into those types of games.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Personally, I feel like this is somewhat a result of other companies’ new/more recent franchise characters struggling. Anyone remember Ty: the Tasmanian Tiger? Blinx? Even Crash Bandicoot eventually faded into the realm of “who cares?”.
I think that there’s a certain length of time that a character has to be able to hold the publics attention, after which, he/she becomes iconic. Once this happens, people want to keep seeing him/her in games, and other characters will seem derivative, unoriginal, uninspired, etc.
I think that in order for any company -not just Nintendo- to create a successful character-driven franchise, they have to make the characters -and the games based around them- wholly unique, original, and just plain new.
There was a time when few people thought a character could compete in the same space with Mario. When Sega introduced Sonic, they had something distinct. Sonic and his games were not bland derivatives or knock-offs of Mario and his games– they were something different… a new experience. He got a following, and thus he’s still considered to be more or less on equal footing with Mario.
I think that the problem is more than just the character… I think it’s also about the games and experiences that said character represents. This, however, is nothing more than a humble opinion from a college music major.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:18 am
I wanted Zack and Wiki to become the new iconic Nintendo characters. Oh well, I guess its not to be.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I think he ignores the fact that not all of those franchises were started in Japan, and he doesn’t even put up American release dates, he is very negative towards the USA.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
What the heck!? Why isn’t characters like bomberman in?? Bomberman maybe old but he deserves the same respect as Mario! If bomberman was in, then I’d be a killing machine, for dang sakes! I mean they put in Sonic, who’s from sega, but not bomberman? Thats not cool.
The super smash series is supposed to be a series with a good balance of characters from different series, which the original did very good, having characters from many different series, but now that balance has been ignored in Brawl.
Graphics, Music, and everything are great in brawl but, sadly, balance doesn’t.
April 6th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I think some people need to stop giving Nintendo a soft landing on every shortcoming presented to them. While I also enjoy Nintendo and their games simply accepting whatever is given to us allows them to continue the same uninspired games over and over when we indeed really want some great iconic characters. I think a lot of the problem is that Nintendo, and the game industry in general, has become too comfortable and focus more on quirky game additions or spiffy specs and neglect the potential for an engaging storyline.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I think they should put in more less famous characters like Bomberman, and Vyse. I know it wont happen, but Lord Bulbin would be fun to use in Brawl. He has that wicked Ax. P.S. I have Ty3 and it is an awesome