Topic: Nintendo is kiddy, yet most of their franchises are very neutral

A common argument in favor of Nintendo being kiddy is that it's nothing but preschool colors and dancing mushrooms. Yet, lets look at some of their franchises

Zelda - Take Wind Waker out of the equation, look at the overall graphics, tone, and lore of the series. It's not really "Mature" so to speak, but it's not really kiddy either.

Star Fox - Sure it has some silly commentary, but it also has a pretty action packed and cool setting with weapons and giant robots. It's stuff that kids love, but it also doesn't feel like its overly sweet, or bouncy which also makes it appealing to adults. And if you can't get past the talking animals, then you probably shouldn't be playing Ratchet & Clank.

Fire Emblem - This is kind of a reverse exapmle. Fire Emblem deals with mature themes such as death, slavery, political corruption, and on rare occasions, racism and genocide. But it also has a lot of silly, light hearted moments as well with it's quirky characters and witty dialogue, as well as a colorful anime style.

Kid Icarus - This is kind of like Fire Emblem in the sense of its quirky characters and dialogue, but it's not as mature in its lore or themes. Anyway, Kid Icarus never struck me as kiddy, it just has that upbeat, Saturday Morning Cartoon/Shonén Manga vibe to its tone. It never takes itself too seriously, but it doesn't exclude the older audiences either.

F Zero - It has a flashy, colorful, comic book look to it. But again, its not sweet, or storybook like. It's all stuff that appeals to teenage boys.

So you see, Several of Nintendo's beloved franchises are neither "kiddy" or "mature". They're usually in between. Sure you have your Marios, and Kirbys, and Pokémons. But there is also Metroids, Sin and Punishments, and Pandoras Towers. Then there's Wii Fit, Brain Age, and Piccross which are more lifestyle games for adults. Nintendo is a Family Freindly all ages company, not one specifically for kids.

Kirby is a creature that eats everything, even devouring living beings to gain their energy. He's pretty frightening if you think about it.

It's not about kiddie, but some people like photorealistic styles..... and Nintendo has nothing that look photorealistic

Its all down to what people "presume" is mature. The mainstream media conditioned people to think that everything

• with the main color being brown
• that has (space) marines in it
• focusing on guns, war etc
• that is photorealistic
• that features extensive amounts of blood and gore
  is to be seen as mature content. Its not about the content itself anymore. People are judging by the looks and not whats actually inside.

Star Fox deals with a major scale war on an entire solar system, wiping out entire planets or, in command, with a parasitic organism and a rather creepy pigma being assimilated and yet, it has talking animals so it must be kiddy stuff.

If you look into the F-Zero lore, its basicly a pirate story with flying cars really. Its about treachery, backstabbing, gambling and characters who kill competitors in a race for fun and conveniance. Yet, stuff like Octoman make it kiddy.

If you look deeper into nintendos flagship franchises, they often deal with rather mature themes overall, yet are represented in a light hearted tone. This is not kiddy, this is how you give a game a distinctive personality, something unique and outstanding.

Nintendo isn't kiddie.
Reasons:

• Mario kills goombas, which are aware beings
• Link fights evil creatures that can kill him
• Samus splatters alien creatures
• Pit is in hell
• Olimar can die and sends Pikmin to do his bidding
• Little Mac is a boxer that is in the same league as Mike Tyson, who bit a guy's ear off; fights a guy who boxes drunk
• Pikachu loves his trainer so much, that he will fight a legendary Pokemon, no questions asked
• like @skjia says, Kirby devours innocent animals and foes
• James McCloud(Fox's dad) was killed by his own team, which is why Fox fights now
• Nintendo helped Capcom bring Monster Hunter to Nintendo and Capcom knew GCN was awesome, so they put REMake, 0, and RE4 on there(first)
• Captain Falcon can handle a car going way faster than people on a 65mph highway, and avoids accidents more easily
• There are ghosts in alot of Nintendo games

That's all I got. If you really think about it, Nintendo's games are still violent in some way. It's just not represented in bloody or realistic ways. All the kids that thought GCN looking like a lunchbox was kiddie, must have not realized that lunchboxes are a perfectly fine way to carry the lunch.

EDIT: Also, Earthbound is a representation of crime, drugs, and eternal ascension. Let's not forget about Eternal Darkness or Gheist, either. They made those games to appeal to "mature" audiences, but no one bit.

@SCAR392 Keep in mind that the actions of a character also don't define mature or kiddy content, but the context of it.

• While Mario, for example, stomps Goomba's and other creatures (which Paper Mario proved can be very civilised), that is neither outlined as an explicit commitment nor is it focused on. It's not even clarified what happens to a Goomba that was stomped. What if stomping them simply sends them back home? Or, what if all this time, the Goomba's Mario stomped weren't even the actual creatures, but substitues made from coins (like the fake King Koopa's in SMB)?
• The same goes for The Legend of Zelda: Link does fight monsters, and some of them (like moblins) can be very social, but you never see dead bodies - instead, they disappear in a puffy cloud or something similar and leave something behind.
• Metroid is much more explicit in that regard. Especially Metroid Prime shows that killing creatures can be unnecessary (by means of creatures that are docile or simply not in the way), and puts a lot more emphasis on the fact that Tallon IV is a planet full of life which you can explore while leaving most creatures alone. It never outright tells you to kill the local creatures crawling at the wall you never need to climb/jump up, instead showing you in detail how much life there is on the planet, and how Phazon threatens it.

It depends on how the act of violence is portrayed. Is it stressed as an act of aggression, or as a means of combat? If you look at older cartoons (like Tom & Jerry), they also dealt with rather gruesome violence in a lighthearted way by downplaying the consequences.

@Einherjar Well, not trying to nitpick, but F-Zero is hardly about fun and entertainment. While the races are somewhat popular among the public, they hold a very heavy meaning. By winning races, the drivers and/or their employers secure access to favourable transport routes, of which barely any exist due to pirates being everywhere in space. That'S why quite a few drivers are from companies you wouldn't expect in a hyperspeed race.
Also, you should've seen what happened to Pigma in Assault - that's where his appearance in Command is explained to begin with.

@Kaze_Memaryu
I'm just going off what I see on screen. Mario stomps a Goomba and it just flattens and disappears. Unless they turn into Boos or something. We could make up anything we any really, or if they show up as the good mushroom, then Mario eats it anyway.

Also, I was mainly going off of Link dying, or maybe the characters in Majora's Mask. Death and sacrifice was a common theme in the N64 games.

I think i should start killing people now to prove that i'm an adult, since violence seems to be defining maturity these days.

@Cia
As much as I agree that violence isn't really mature, we just have to discuss these games on those terms. If people understood that violence wasn't mature, we would be discussing a different topic entirely, like VC not having enough games or something.

@Kaze_Memaryu Regarding STar Fox: I meant Assault, the GC title, not the DS one, my bad SPOILER Pigma being forcefully assimilated into the collective consciousness and slowly loosing more and more sanity was... unsettling. Especially since that all wasnt a "big bad evil guy" moment, since pigma was more of a side line character at this point.

With F-Zeros "killing pilots for fun" i mainly meant characters like Zoda. He had one mission in GP Legends, were your main goal was to kill every pilot in an official race for him to "warm up a little". And its made very clear through context and explicit dialogue what happens to a pilot once his mashine explodes.
The F-Zero lore is rotten to its core, theres no two ways about it. But its all beneath the surface. At first glance, it comes of as basicly every Nintendo IP: As a fun driven video game. This seriousness is only presented to those, who are interested in it. Everyone else can just enjoy the game as, well, just a game.
And thats what i like about Nintendos IPs. They are as light hearted or serious as you want them to be. The Kirby example for instance. Everything is brightly colored, happy tunes are playing and the platformer gameplay is accessable to basicly everyone. The game is stock full of lovable characters, all playfully animated with cute and cuddly sound cues. And yet, if you want, you can look at it from an entirely different perspective: Kirby is officially a warrior and as such, his job is it to "kill" his opponents. He does it in a way that involves him devouering them alive. You could even go so far and flip the whole story upside down: What if Dedede is the main hero, trying to prevent kirby from devouering everything in the land, from food to people, saving the survivors from starvation afterwards ?
Whatever it is, its as open as the player wants it to be.

Another example would be the Paper Mario series, especially thousand year door or Super Paper Mario. But both are, on the outside, just another, colorful mario adventure.

I'm new to this site, what is this?

No matter what happens, whether there's proof that Nintendo makes matured games or not( To be honest, the kiddy thing people insult to Nintendo is lame as hell!) people are still going to rant out that Nintendo is all kiddy when in reality, its completely false. Think about it, gamers most of the time are not open minded to understand what sort of games Nintendo tries to make. it makes one wonder how a character like Mario being simple with not much thought put into it can sell millions and millions whereas characters like Lara croft can't compete with that amount making gamers and fans furious.

Answer me this. If Nintendo is really that doomed and isn't doing anything about online, VC or heck even a cross buy to begin with, why are people still buying their products without much of demand or force? Its through sheer quality. Nintendo always makes fine quality games and assures people that they made the right decision in buying their games hence the loyal fans support Nintendo as much as they can. I'm still waiting for that damm new Wario Land game for Wii U or 3DS as well as Metroid and Advance Wars.

Point is, just live with it. I'm still mad at what people say bad things about Nintendo but fighting them back isn't making me any different from them so I just ignore the bad stuff and enjoy the awesome games Nintendo makes for me to smile at.

Please tell me we are not being so silly as to make believe mature plots into cartoony Nintendo games?!

Yah there's a certain openness to the worlds where the player's imagination is allowed to take over, but that cuts both ways. Any outlandish plot that you might create to enhance the adventure or make you feel edgy, could be a total non-entity to the next person. It may be a strength of the medium but it's definitely not peculiar to Nintendo.

I don't care if Nintendo games are kiddie or not. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that they deliver fun experience that everyone can enjoy.

The thing about the "kiddie" argument is, its usually eithe younger gamers at that stage in life where they "outgrow" things they used to like, or they don't know how to just say I don't like it/its not for me. That alone isn't enough, they need to justify that opinion, and make it clear they have more mature/refined taste or are more knowledgeable than others. It just comes right back to it being easier to tare someone or something down, and sadly applies to most other arguments within the gaming community.

Nintendo does have a kiddie image, but most of that is due to their policies and things of that nature. The "kiddie" image certianly doesn't hurt their games much, they do just as well if not better than the "mature" ones. 4mil. sales for 3D World isn't anything to sneeze at, and thats on a "dying" console. Nevermind "winning" E3 this year.

Nobody thinks this. Nobody with a brain thinks this.

'kiddie' or not I'll play all games ESPECIALLY Nintendo.

Only people who don't play Nintendo games would say they only do "kiddie" stuff. And I don't blame them, because Nintendo has that image. Mario is their biggest mascot and they emphasize their colorful "E for Everyone" games way more than the games rated higher or those aimed towards other demographics than everybody or kids (e.g. Xenoblade, Metroid etc.).

Wait so Nintendo games aren't kiddy?! I've been had! >:[ I'm gonna sell my piece of junk Nintendo consoles and get a Sega! >:[ >:[ Color me upset!

I think they probably are kiddie but for different reasons. (The design is so that every game would be brilliant if it was the first time in your life you had ever played a game of its type).

All the effort goes into catering for that use case.