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Topic: Nintendo Has Created Best Games For Almost Every Genre

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Cia

Platformers: Mario main series
Action Adventure: Zelda OOT, MM
Open World games: Zelda BotW/ TotK
Racers: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Fighters: SSBU
Lifesim: Animal Crossing New Horizons
RPG: Xenoblade 1 and 3
RPG/ strategy: Fire Emblem series
FPS: Metroid Prime
RTS: Pikmin Series
Action: Bayonetta series
2.5D: Metroid Dread, DKC Tropical Freeze

Anything else comes to mind? To me it looks like Nintendo has conquered almost every genre with best games of these genres. Well, maybe not counting sports games such as american football.

[Edited by Cia]

Cia

Cia

@Rambler
Nice suggestions. However, compared to the genres I mentioned those are not too popular. Except MMO, which is at this point the only really popular genre Nintendo has not conquered, apart from certain sports games. I believe WoW is still number 1 mmo?

[Edited by Cia]

Cia

FishyS

Posting a link to the related thread trying to list all Nintendo genres and games in each genre:

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/general_discussion/list_o...

A couple different threads have also mentioned recently that Nintendo could use a good rogue-lite, another popular genre.

In terms of the list in this thread, those are good games, but not always the best in the genre.

Mario Platformers and Mario Kart are certainly very strong contenders. But FPS? Metroid Prime is (comparatively) a niche series and there are a lot of insanely popular FPS games out there. Bayonetta is similarly niche and there are also a ton of popular 'action' franchises across other consoles and pc. I think the more accurate thing to say is that Nintendo has excellent games in a remarkably broad collection of game genres.

FishyS

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Magician

Based

I would agree that Nintendo have popularized several genres.

But in many cases other developers have created better experiences in those genres.

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Cia

@Rambler
GTA open world games are not as highly regarded as BotW/ TotK. In the best case scenario, they're even. By this I mean only GTA V. RDR 2 is a better contender, but even that is not better than BotW or TotK.

The only Souls game that can compete with BotW and TotK is Elden Ring in terms of ratings.

So, we could say the best open world games (in any order based on preference) are BotW, TotK, Elden Ring, GTA V and RDR 2.

Cia

Cia

@FishyS
Metroid Prime has been called the Citizen Kane of video games. It's definitely among the best in terms of both ratings and the actual content.

Cia

iLikeUrAttitude

While those games you listed are good, I wouldn't say even a single one of them is the best in their respective genres, I can easily name multiple games I would put before the ones on your list.
And the waiting line for your picks would get even longer depending on the genre; Action adventure, Action, Open world (this isn't really a genre) and RPGs especially since it's such a wide umbrella.

When Nintendo dips in toes into a genre it usually doesn't I expect a unique take on it most of the time, not "conquering" the genre.A
At the end of the day this is a subjective discussion but I'm just stating my personal take.

[Edited by iLikeUrAttitude]

Good... good
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Snatcher

Nintnedo makes unique takes on a genre, but I can’t really say they created the best game for each, sure platformers and there rpg are amazing, but everything else has been done better I think anyway, but other games.

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FishyS

iLikeUrAttitude wrote:

While those games you listed are good, I wouldn't say even a single one of them is the best in their respective genres, I can easily name multiple games I would put before the ones on your list.
And the waiting line for your picks would get even longer depending on the genre; Action adventure, Action, Open world (this isn't really a genre) and RPGs especially since it's such a wide umbrella.

When Nintendo dips in toes into a genre it usually doesn't I expect a unique take on it most of the time, not "conquering" the genre.A
At the end of the day this is a subjective discussion but I'm just stating my personal take.

Out of curiosity, what would you say is best platformer? This list just said 'Mario' which I admit is pretty vague, but I suppose the question is whether a non-Mario game deserves the title. According to Metacritic, the top 10 rated platformers include top 3 all Mario, a PlayStation 3 game, Celeste, 4 more Marios, and one other game. I wouldn't rate it exactly that way, but I tend to agree with Mario at the tip and Celeste very close — Celeste is excellent but its difficulty makes it less universal so I wouldn't give it number one spot.

Note that I would consider action-platformers, puzzle-platformers, and metroidvanias different categories so that we don't have to consider e.g.
dark souls in the same category as Mario.

I would say Mario arguably deserves the platformer title (with above caveat), but I'm not sure if Nintendo deserves the number 1 spot in other genres. Although Zelda is so canonical I tend to cheat and say Nintendo has the best Zelda-lke but not the best rpg or adventure game...

[Edited by FishyS]

FishyS

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senaionios

@Cia
It's all subjective of course, but some of your choices I agree with, others I don't.

  • Platformers: I agree with Super Mario being king here, both 2D and 3D
  • Action Adventure: classic Zelda indeed fits that bill
  • Open World games: I'd put Elden Ring above BotW and TotK here
  • Racers: Forza beats Mario Kart when it comes to pure racing
  • Party: a category I added and Nintendo clearly wins with SSBU, Mario Kart and Mario Party
  • Fighters: Street Fighter is still king in that genre for me
  • Lifesim: can't argue with Animal Crossing
  • JRPG: Xenoblade, there's nothing that even comes close imo
  • SRPG: I have no experience with the genre, so I can't agree or disagree with this.
  • FPS: Metroid Prime, Half Life and BioShock are all contesters here. No clear winner for me.
  • RTS: Pikmin is fun, but it pales in comparison to StarCraft
  • Action: I'd give the crown to God of War
  • 2.5D: not sure why this is a category, so let me propose another
  • Metroidvania: Hollow Knight deserves this win

Nintendo does a lot of genres really well, but they're not masters at all of them.

[Edited by senaionios]

Nintendo Gamer & Movie Enthusiast

gcunit

Personally, when comparing broadly similar games from the same genre to determine 'the greatest', I would give extra weighting to any game with universal appeal - so anything with a PEGI 3/7/12 rating may get a boost against a game with a 16/18 rating. And I'd say the same thing for books and movies too.

That's not too say things like GTA, God of War, Elden Ring, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption etc. aren't truly great works, but they are deemed socially inappropriate for a chunk of the population that love games and movies. Thus things like Toy Story, Mario, Zelda, Splatoon tend to win out for me.

When it comes to life Sims, I think only one person can decide...

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Anti-Matter

@gcunit
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gcunit

EaglyPurahfan wrote:

IHowever there are better games just less accessible for instance 2D mario is eclipsed by plenty of platformers like ori or celest however it’s easier to get into.

Your application of better seems subjective - 2D Mario is, objectively, a better multiplayer game than Celeste and Ori by a million miles. Some people's favourite memories include multiplayer gaming and the value of including multiplayer in a game should not be overlooked. A game that is good as a single player and good as a multiplayer is almost automatically better than any single player-only equivalent.

[Edited by gcunit]

You guys had me at blood and semen.

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Princess_Lilly

@Cia as much as I like Nintendo games...

Platformers: Crash series
Action Adventure: Zelda OOT, MM
Open World games: Zelda BotW/ TotK
Racers: Wipeout, TDU, GT, Forza Motorsport 2 - 4, Wipeout
Fighters: SSBU
Lifesim: The Sims 1
RPG: Atelier Series, FF 5-10 (+Morrowind if we count WRPGs)
RPG/ strategy: Phantom Brave, FFT/A/A2
FPS: Half Life 1/2
RTS: Dawn of War + addons
Action: Uncharted 2, Okami, many more
2.5D: Metroid Dread, Klonoa

Bring me the sesame, miso, citrus and pepper flavored fish cakes

Princess_Lilly

gcunit wrote:

That's not too say things like GTA, God of War, Elden Ring, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption etc. aren't truly great works, but they are deemed socially inappropriate for a chunk of the population that love games and movies. Thus things like Toy Story, Mario, Zelda, Splatoon tend to win out for me.

Sure, but quality is not determined by majority. And 18+games tend to be the best, looking at the titles your provided. Normies who find a game socially inappropriate shouldn't even have a say in the matter, if they are choosing not to be able to compare.

gcunit wrote:

Your application of better seems subjective - 2D Mario is, objectively, a better multiplayer game than Celeste and Ori by a million miles. Some people's favourite memories include multiplayer gaming and the value of including multiplayer in a game should not be overlooked. A game that is good as a single player and good as a multiplayer is almost automatically better than any single player-only equivalent.

Every application of "better" is stronly subjective. There is no objectively good or bad game. The fact that there is multiplayer can be a hinderance in the eyes of some poeple. And as for the good single and multi, would you like 2 stale cookies, or one fresh cookie?

Bring me the sesame, miso, citrus and pepper flavored fish cakes

senaionios

gcunit wrote:

Your application of better seems subjective - 2D Mario is, objectively, a better multiplayer game than Celeste and Ori by a million miles. Some people's favourite memories include multiplayer gaming and the value of including multiplayer in a game should not be overlooked. A game that is good as a single player and good as a multiplayer is almost automatically better than any single player-only equivalent.

Hahahaha, NO! Video games are subjective. Lots of people don't care about the multiplayer modes in games and are only interested in single player. So why would a game that has both make it automatically better for them than a single-player only title? Makes no sense.

Nintendo Gamer & Movie Enthusiast

gcunit

Sorry everyone, my bad. New Super Mario Bros. U is only subjectively a better multiplayer game than Ori or Celeste. Thanks for putting me straight on that one.

PS. equivalent - adjective - equal in value. Does that make sense?

Two games, equal in value as single-player experiences, but one also has fun multiplayer. I wish all those who would choose the single player-only game over the other as the greatest the very best in life.

[Edited by gcunit]

You guys had me at blood and semen.

What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?

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My Nintendo: gcunit

Ryu_Niiyama

If Nintendo could figure out a Realistic Military shooter they would bet set. People really like to pantomime killing other people.

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gcunit

@EaglyPurahfan I agree that you're not disrespecting my opinion, but you seem to be misunderstanding what I am saying, so apologies for any confusion.

I was trying to make a general, theoretical, point about comparing two theoretically equivalent games, one that has multiplayer, one that hasn't.

I was not trying to say that NSMBU is objectively better than Ori or Celeste because it has multiplayer. I was just working off example games some else had mentioned above.

To try and make things clearer for those who couldn't follow my meaning from my post, let's try this - we'll take a different game to avoid any confusion:

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Good game. Can be played in single player or two player. We'll call this 'Game A'

Now let's imagine the exact same DKC:TF game, but with the two player functionality stripped from the game, it can only be played in single player. We'll call this 'Game B'.

Is there anybody that disagrees that Game A is indisputably, objectively, a greater game than Game B, because it's the exact same game but offers additional gameplay options and a whole extra experience of playing it in two player mode? It doesn't matter if you think it's better played single player or not. Just the fact that it's the same but with additional functionality must make it greater to any sane person. Surely...

In the hope that we can all accept that Game A is better than Game B in that example above, then can you not see that if you had two different but equivalent single player games (maybe this is Celeste/Ori and NSMBU for some people, maybe it's not - it doesn't actually matter cos we're just taking theoretically!), but one has multiplayer as well and the other doesn't, then the multiplayer game would ultimately have to be seen as greater? Cos that was all my point was. I couldn't actually give a flying frog's crap whether anyone thinks NSMBU is actually greater than Ori/Celeste or not, I just mentioned them as an example cos someone else had.

I hope my point is clearer now. I'm not sure there's much point in trying further after this.

[Edited by gcunit]

You guys had me at blood and semen.

What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.

My Nintendo: gcunit

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