Star Fox Zero the victim of trying to innovate

what slumping sales? xbox one is outselling xbox 360 at this point. 20 million in 3 years is great numbers.

also by, your logic, why isnt nintendos "amazing wii u library" saving it from its awful sales.

Your comparisons are ridiculous. Why would Drake need underwater propellers or master Chief need a glider. For the record, those small gameplay mechanics in MK8 could easily have been done in MK Wii. Probably even MK7 on 3DS, didnt that game have gliders? Either way, its not Sony or Microsofts problem if Nintendo made a poorly powered console last gen (the wii).

the gameplay, for one: crafting, the pacing, the storytelling, the character development, if you read anything on the development behind the game, the team was afraid the game was going to be a commercial failure because of its slow pacing and stealth based gameplay with limited ammo. Not many games combine all of those things, we havent even really seen scare ammo since the original RE games almost 20 years ago. Last of Us really reinvented that idea and ran with it with the crafting on the fly and upgrade system. Plus, how many awards did the game win for its development of characters and story telling. It was truly unmatched and hardly anything had reached its level...ever.

iMO, (to maintain topic relevancy): Star Fox put all its eggs in the innovative controller basket and failed. They literally took all the same routes, enemies, storylines, etc and redid the same game, which is fine, but tried to pan it off as something completely new, but now with "new controls." thats lazy as hell to me and shows they have no faith in the evolution of the franchise or its ability to stand on its own as a damn good game.

Had they adapted modern gameplay mechanics with it, like say giving it a deeper story, fleshing out the characters, focusing more on world exploration (wide linear like Uncharted 4 would have been perfect), some ground missions with third person shooting mechanics thrown in (as well as hand-to-hand style), mixed with the classic gameplay elements of the star fox series (which are present in SFZ), the game would have been received so much better. It just doesnt have enough meat on its bones, and relied too heavily on one thing, which is obviously a gimmick a large majority didnt want, to push it in sales and reviews.

Starfox zero DID innovate. Play the game. People either love it or hate it. Those that love it take the time to learn the nuances of the control.

The controls were just bad and the game was too short to justify getting used to them. It was a poor choice, probably my least favorite star fox game. The controls ruined dog fights for me. I'm sure they were trying to do something new and innovative, but it just didnt work out

Yup. Fell victim to the nintendo plagued. Great games with terrible controls. I'm lookin at u every DS Zelda game I wish i could play but hate gaming with a stylus. Also 90% of Wii games have terrrrrible controls with the gimicks that got boring after the first few days. Sad too cuz i love Nintendo. They just gotta decide wtf they wanna do with controls already.

Star Fox Zero is amazing. Once you master its ground breaking innovative controls youll be having a blast enjoying one of the best Star Fox installments and freshest games ever made. The game is very complex and difficult, but once you get past its hardcoreness, its smooth sailing featuring a ton of replayability. Star Fox Zero is a cult hit.

@iandizion713:

Yeah. The fact there are people that love the controls and see how they open up the genre is proof of good innovation.

@jcrame10: $200 and it would help, but not much. At $300 people would laugh even more at Nintendo.

@vfighter: a wii u wih pro controller, smash and mario kart is worth more than 200 dollars.

Star Fox is a victim of trying to innovate in the wrong way. Nobody wanted ass-backwards shooting controls that are unwieldy, they wanted bigger and better levels with unique per-level gimmicks and mechanics. If Star Fox was made with the same depth and quality as 3d Mario world, everybody would have loved it. Instead it's just a bland and confusing product, with controls that don't help it in any way.

What? Don't lump SM3DW with SFZ.

I just wanted a new game not star fox 64 directors cut edition. it was still fun though.

There is nothing innovative about SFZ though. Risky and unique? yes, but not innovative

@Vaasman:

It did all those things, and then some. And, of course it's a confusing product amongst a consumer which buys string along movie non games.

Yep. What a waste of Platinum Games.

I'd rather companies try to innovate, take risks and fail than them playing it safe and churn out the same thing each year.

@jg4xchamp That video sums is up perfectly. I think it speaks volumes when the top ranked players in SFZ's leaderboards are frustrated with the control scheme themselves and never feel like they're in full control.

This isn't even one of these A for effort situations on Nintendo's end.

Seem more so rather it's a victim of the wii u

Lol, still butthurt i see. That game is a Platinum game at the core. This dude also is lying for clicks. Star Fox Zero was not first game to require both screens. Kirby Rainbow Curse got assassinated for this requirement. Also, you can turn off the modern controls for more traditional controls.

Also spoiler alert, you do not play this game on two screens at the same time. There is a secret button called the - button that toggles between the two, groundbreaking, i know.

And the training mode is so if you struggle you can train, not so you can train before you even play the game, what kind of fack up advice is that, who would even want the player to do that?

Yes, telling the player it takes about 30min to get use to the controls is sooooo freakin evil. Who would ever do such a thing? #worldsocruel

Thank the gods for Miyamoto, without him this industry would be stale and lack true innovation.

Get gud!

P.S. Didnt you love at thee end when he said Platinum makes rich and complex games? How you like me now?

"I do think we can take this control style and still find ways to apply to it, for example, a single screen experience by switching back and forth between different view styles."

Omg, if only he would have done this in the game this whole video would be pointless...o wait...he did implement that shat in the game, this video is pointless.

@OniLordAsmodeus: Guess they had me in mind when they made the game then as I think the controls are awesome. Im pretty grateful of that because the majority of games I see these days are the same old thing over and over again.. At least Platinum know how to satisfy my gaming needs.

Let it go Elsa, the game sucks.

@jg4xchamp: For you ;)

Motion controls should have been a peripheral, albeit it's difficult to argue with the "fad success" of the Wii. Nintendo sort of got lucky in that they had a brilliant PERIPHERAL, that they were able to leverage into 100 million console sales. Unfortunately they didn't back that 100 million sales up with much of anything as far as long term support, they basically squandered the whole thing before last gen was even over.

Motion controllers were brilliant for Wii Sports and for Tiger Woods golf, and maybe a few oddball niche games like Trauma Team. But overall, there were way more games where motion controls were forced into them "just because".

I think people actually take the "price vs hardware" somewhat into consideration, just like they do with PC graphics cards. Yes, I'm sure when it filters down to the "KMART shopper" crowd they aren't doing mathematical calculations that the Wii-U is priced way more per TFLOP then the other consoles. But i do think the general idea that the Wii-U is "last gen tech" kind of resonated.It really isn't much of a mystery at all why the Wii-U failed. It cost $349 at it's launch, yet it's games appeared to be PS3 and 360 style games (i.e. running on last gen graphics engines). It' s main attraction was a controller with a "low end" tablet built in. Nobody wanted that, apparently.

I think the only chance to save the Wii-U would have been to drastically reposition it. It's obviously too late now, but 2 years ago there was still time. They could have dropped the tablet controller, rebundled it with the Pro Controller and 2 games... and made it $249 MSRP or even $199. They could have moved some serious console units that way. Then, later on they could have made a bundle selling just the Tablet Controller and Mario Maker for $99 or perhaps even $149. It was really baffling how the console was languishing, and Nintendo took no action.

Nintendo and quite a few of its games were committed to that tablet controller. aka the gamepad. Removing it and thus making many games unplayable would have been a disaster. I think you make it sound easier than it would have been. Now you have to worry about how many games are now unplayable, or changing the way certain games play, removing features, adding features. Some games don't even support the pro controller at all. This sounds like the obvious answer but it would have been a costly and time consuming effort and for what? Hoping all the kids today who hate Nintendo suddenly change their minds over night? Not worth the investment.

Nintendo needs to open that new section in Universal theme park. They need to get telltales to make a game based on one of their IP's. They need to make sure the next system appeals to kids. The next generation is their only hope. Today's teenagers are hopeless and lost in what they think gaming is or should be.

That's my point. The Tablet/Gamepad was a mistake. The longer they went without correcting that mistake, meant it would be harder to do so. If they had the foresight to quickly "correct" it 1 year after launch, how many games would have been "crippled" by the lack of the gamepad? Not that many, really. It might have been manageable if they did it early on to simply patch the 5 or 10 games that needed patching. It would have been up to 3rd parties to correct their ports, and most of them were "ports" so it really shouldn't be that hard to just toggle the Gamepad features on/off. Each year that went by added a few more games to the pile. Obviously at this point, it no longer matters.

That's just straight up lying, the majority of Nintendo WiiU games are the exact same games they've always made with shitty gimmick controls forced in. They didn't make a single game that NEEDED the tablet, minigames aside. The tablet sucks.

Nintendo in general has been a victim of trying to innovate too hard.

This.

I really dislike the second analog sticks being used for aiming, motion aiming is the way .

How is that a lie? You have to now worry that certain games will lose gamepad functions. Like the second player adding blocks in Super Mario Bros. U. So what do you do now? Add an asterisk to certain features? change the box art to all the old games? There's parts of Wonderful 101 you couldn't play without the gamepad. Now you've divided your user base. Sure, all games going forward could have now made gamepad useless, but then you lose the only feature that makes your console different than the rest.

So no, I did not lie. And think whatever you want of the gamepad but Nintendo made it an intrinsic part of the Wii U that could not be removed without fundamentally changing the system, it's philosophy, and many features in the game library would be gone and certain games would be left unplayable.

I really believe that it wouldn't have mattered. The assholes who hate Nintendo wouldn't have changed their minds. These are the same people that like to tell Nintendo what to do but would never buy a Nintendo console no matter what they did. They'll always have an excuse. Because if you wanted one you'd get it, regardless of price or gamepad use.

I think that is an imagined problem. Where were all these "anti-Nintendo assholes" when everyone and their brother was buying a Wii? 100 Million Wii lifetime sales.

I really think the problem was as simple as this. The dated hardware caught up to the Wii around 2009 or so, and this started to reflect badly on Nintendo. Yes, there were a few great games, but certainly being SD machine in what by then was a fully HD world was a major problem... we had to "tolerate" the SD capabilities just to enjoy playing a Nintendo game. Additionally the motion controls fad had died down big time, the novelty had worn off (even if Wii Sports was absolutely brilliant). So the Wii by then had a strongly declining image, by 2011 people were desperate for new hardware not just to replace the Wii, but it was time to upgrade the "HD twins" which were also having trouble running games at 720p.

Attaching the Wii name, making it appear to be a tablet "add-on" (confused marketing), and having the hardware roughly on par with the lowly PS3/360 (which people were hungry to replace properly) were all basically the most devastating mistakes that could have been made... and Nintendo did all 3.

@2Chalupas: Nintendo still had a bunch of haters during the Wii era too. Many claimed it DoA, said it was a gimmick console, said it would get no games, said it was a joke cause it couldnt play Blurays etc. Even the DS was hated on. People claimed two screens was the stupidest thing since VirtualBoy.

Wii U struggled to appeal to three distinct audiences. Its games didnt appeal to the casuals, the hardcore, and in turn the dudebros too. Its was a total strike-out. At launch Nintendo had nothing to attract either of these, which caused the console to launch poorly and studios to drop support, which caused even more lack of appeal.

We can blame this on anything, but real fault is directly at Nintendo for such weak first party lineup at launch, it took a full year to get a AAA Nintendo game in Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. They put too much faith in third party and by time first party did come, third party left.

The horn in Mario Kart is fucking hilarious.

Man if most gamers made avant garde metal music they will think changing the tempo counts as innovating. lol

and this is partially true. Wii was basically dead by 2008-2009. 2010-2011 was awful for Wii, with mostly shovelware it was long forgotten...

The fact that Wii couldnt play DVDs, and now Wii U cant play blu ray OR DVDS STILL...is sad....

@jcrame10: True, it needed those gimmicks to survive.

what gimmicks? the motion gimmick wore off fairly quickly. it was all the rage in 2006-2007, but started losing momentum fairly quickly after that, actually at a rapid rate. I remember how awful Nintendo E3 was, that wii music presentation..yikes.

Miyamoto himself said that the Wii was underpowered and struggling to keep up with modern games.

yep, most of my games are just fine without the gamepad. Super Mario 3D World is just a mirror reflection of the TV, DK Tropical Freeze shuts the gamepad off, Mario Kart 8/Smash Bros/Bayonetta 2 are far better with a pro controller. Pikmin 3 was neatly done I'll say, but still the horrible battery life means you're constantly plugged into the wall outlet for any length of time playing.

Splatoon, really, could use an update for pro controller support. Im sick of going to play it and the stupid gamepad being dead , from not even using it, just from me watching netflix or playing a game with the pro controller.

@jcrame10: I was talking about the dvd and bluray player gimmick, it would have helped Nintendo a bunch in cool points.

Splatoon with motion aiming is best. Anyone using the analog stick gets killed when I go up against them online. I can tell because they're aiming so damn slow.

those arent gimmicks. dvd players in consoles have been around for 16 years. blu ray has been in for 10 and isnt going anywhere anytime soon. features not the same as gimmicks

i could beat you using sticks.

"innovation"

@jcrame10: You cray cray. Playing movies on a game console is a gimmick to me. Its a gimmick i love. I be loving my gimmicks.

I still prefer the original Starfox. Even with the bland textures, wouldn't mind seeing another just like it, same graphics...maybe just a bit more polygons but oddly enough I enjoy the bland textures, reminds me of old school VR from the early 90's. Now it just kind of looks like a cartoon with nothing unique about it's style.

@pimphand_gamer: I think they might remake it one day. I wish they would remake Metroid on NES.

@iandizion713: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimmick

Wouldn't call the movie player feature to be "of little relevance or use"

@jcrame10: To gaming it is.

The anti-nintendo assholes were quite vocal. They were mostly on their xbox 360's shouting gaming slurs against the ps3 and wii.

I think the Wii proves you don't need these arrogant fucks if you want to sell consoles. Nintendo can do it again. "Hardcore gamers" are a lousy ungrateful bunch. They don't know what they want or how they want it. They buy PS4's with barely any exclusives available. They hate Xbox one despite having tons of third party options. They hate Wii U despite winning on exclusives. They're a vile disgusting bunch. The sweetest plumb is selling 100 million consoles while the hardcore community is crying into their pillows at night about being ignored.

Having all the streaming apps is far more forward thinking than including a bluray player. I don't know a single person in their 20's who buys physical media anymore.