Topic: Are current Nintendo games challenging?

Compared to their genre's counterparts by other companies, do Nintendo's games still provide a challenge, or have they been toned far back to appeal to appeal to the casual crowd?

Yes they still provide a challenge.

I think Nintendo is the best at finding a way to make a game playable by someone who is considered a casual gamer, but still have plenty of challenge there for the more "hard-core" crowd.
Games like, Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, and any Super Smash Bros game all can pretty easily be picked up and played by anyone. Sure the casual may only play through very easy in classic mode in Smash Bros, but there is also an Intense difficulty that is crazy hard, but can be more rewarding.

Not as some years ago, but still challenging than most of the competition.

They're far more challenging that the other companies. It's practically impossible for normal human beings to finish all the Mario DonKey Kong bonus levels etc

I can only speak for Pokemon, and judging from X/Y no.

Compared to similar games in the same genre? I'd say they're about the same. In some cases Nintendo's games are harder as well. Though Super Mario 3D World was disappointingly easy until the special worlds compared to the Galaxy games.

But in general, most games are waaaaay too easy. Generally you don't really get a challenge until you bump the difficulty up to the max. Both of the Dragon Age games are a good example of this. Though the second one is worse at this than the first (along with being worse at everything else) since AoE doesn't deal friendly fire whatsoever until max difficulty, and the game is very heavily centered on waves upon waves of enemies and thus centered on AoE quite a lot.

Though I do understand why most developers tone it back, when games like the ones Platinum makes have "normal" as a difficulty mode that actually challenges you frequently on your first playthrough, and people whine that the game is too hard. Even when there are easier difficulty modes available, but noooooo, accepting that you're not that good at a game and bumping the difficulty down for a while is seemingly way too dishonorable. The difficulty mode is obviously at fault here, not yourself.

/rantover

World Crown - Crown is hard without powerups or using princess. The rest of 3D World isn't particularly hard.

The hardest bit of Tropical Freeze was 2-K for me.

Loads of super easy levels with a little bit of hard stuff I don't think is much of a compromise.

Tropical Freeze was more challenging than the average game that gets released these days, but there aren't many other examples.

Have you played the last levels of Super Mario 3D World?

Nintendo games are usually harder when you raise the difficulty.

I agree with @Contrite, especially about games by Platinum of which I expect the same difficulty structure in Bayonetta 2. I think the best difficulty approach given is in Kid Icarus Uprising and Smash Bros. 3DS though, I like the concept of choose any difficulty for a chapter/mode at the start and if you die that difficulty slightly decreases. It also makes challenges such as completing Classic/a chapter on 9.0 difficulty much more of an achievement rather than die repeatedly and eventually complete it by luck (like Brawl and CoD Veteran).

I think Nintendo has done more to support core gaming this and last gen then people give them credit for. Gamecube, almost no 2d platformers. N64, same. But on Wii, we got 2d and 3d Mario, 3d DK, etc... Look at the VC. 100s of games to go with the huge library of Wii games. Yea, there was plenty of Wii Sports, Music, fit etc... but 2x 3d Mario games, when has that happened. and SMG2 is hard after 100 stars. 1.5x Zelda games. 2x Metroid, punchout, strikers, kart,brawl. Now with wii u, I have over 200 games installed on it today. VC, Wiiware, Eshop, Wii and Wii U. And you don't have to pay for online services. I have almost no complaints with Nintendo. I was so bored with my Gamecube and ps2 that I sold both way back and almost gave up gaming. Only had a DS and Pc for a while. But Wii came out with motion controls, red steel etc... and it ignited that spark. Now im 33 and have no intention on not gaming since I can play on my Wii U gamepad.

Please stop with all the threads, you've just joined and yet half the threads on the front page are created by you. Surely you can just create one thread for all your questions?

Meh, any game can be easy or challenging these days depending on the settings or 2nd, harder playthroughs.

Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze was quite the challenge.. Nintendo Land as well; getting all those stamps is impossible, I gave up on it.

Sir, are you implying that turn-based JRPGs are EVER difficult and that challenge is even remotely important to this particular genre.

(Before anyone gets up in arms, I'm being dramatic. I'm just pointing a couple things out while I do it.)

Also, I think it's important to denote the difference between good difficulty and bad difficulty. (Real and fake are poor descriptors which I refuse to use, here.) Good difficulty is when everything you need is give to you from the start and nothing but your own lack of skill can stop you from succeeding. Bad difficulty is essentially when you're missing information or the developer expects too much of the player too early in the game. Usually difficulty spikes, even ones involving good difficulty, are considered a sign of poor game design.

Dark Souls is the most obvious and best place to go for examples. Most of this game is about what you, the gamer, can do. They teach you the controls and give you the tools to figure something out. This game encourage you to die and learn from your mistakes. When you die, you lose all the souls you've collected, but you can get them back if you can return to the spot you last died in and live long enough to actually retrieve them. The game rewards players for learning from their mistakes and punishes them for screwing up situations they've already learned the solution to. That much is completely fair.

What is NOT completely fair, is when enemies are waiting just behind a door to murder you when you go through it. There are a number of enemies that can surprise you and ruin your strategy, if you aren't aware that they're there. Sometimes the game doesn't give you time to react before a knight runs up behind you and stabs you through the stomach. The Capra Demon is a particularly egregious offender. Up until this point, you've gotten used to a pattern of white fog being safe in a couple situations between each boss battle. The Capra Demon throws that pattern out the window without even attempting to warn the player. You step through that white door and get mauled.

A better thing to point out is that Nintendo games today have a lot of "good difficulty." Games like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest wouldn't know good difficulty if it punched them in the face. I could keep going, but I think I got the point across, by now.

I think Nintendo's games have just the right level of difficulty. To little difficulty is a bad thing and too much difficulty is a bad thing. There is a nice sweet spot in the middle though, a small range of difficulties that most gamers like to play.

3D World was a tad on the easy side, but began to ramp up after the eighth world. DKC Tropical Freeze was just right. I love that game so much I wish they would release a new one annually. New Super Mario Bros U was just right, and Pikmin 3, though relatively easy, was still just as fun because of the way they structured the game. You were always pushing yourself to find one extra piece of fruit in that 15 minutes.

In the end I think it boils down to what someone said earlier. Nintendo games are easy to learn and play, but hard to master. Everyone has different preferences when it comes to difficulty, but personally I think Nintendo has nailed it more so than any other developer. Although I will say that Monster Hunter does a fine job indeed.