Digerati has announced that Frost, a deck-building survival adventure game, is coming to Switch later this month.
Frost is a solo survival card game set on a harsh, frozen world ravaged by a lethal storm. You must lead a group of nomads in search of the Refuge – a haven away from the Frost’s icy grip. As well as the unrelenting threat of the Frost, your arduous trek will be fraught with many other dangers, such as wolves, cannibals, hunger, and fatigue. Players must manage their cards wisely to stay alive and make it all the way to the Refuge.
Here are some key features:
Key features
• Challenging survival deck-building gameplay, requiring anticipation, strategy, and memory
• Dozens of cards to discover – card types include resources, weapons, ideas, dangers and regions
• An intriguing and immersive world
• Beautiful hand-drawn artwork
• Hours of gameplay with difficulty modes, endless mode, scenarios and new cards to unlock
• Encounter many different characters and make use of their abilities
The game is scheduled to launch on 19th July for $12.99 (other region pricing still to be confirmed).
Do you like the look of this one? Let us know if you'll be drawing this one from the pack with a comment below.
Comments 30
Not my thing, but looks 'interesting'!?!?
Noticed this one on the eShop a while back. It does look and sound interesting but it's one that I'd probably need to hear some impressions before committing to. Hard to get a good read on how good it's going to be.
I love deck-building/card games, always have, so this might be right down my alley, esp. with the survival twist and what looks to be an unique art direction. I need to see some reviews in terms of mechanics and the 'meat' of the game, but I'm definitely intrigued. The Switch lacks CCGs imho. This is a welcome addition then.
Looks like survival/dungeon crawler deckbuilders are becoming more and more popular. Which is interesting, as regular tabletop deckbuilders are usually kind of dull. Even if I'm playing Star Realms on my smartphone a lot, I don't really feel as much drive to do it with the physical version.
I love deckbuilding card games irl. Dominion is sweet!
@Captain_Gonru I doubt it's because it does anything for the game; it's probably just because it's from a video game studio instead of someone with access to a game printer or publisher.
@Ralek85 unless I’m mistaken, Deckbuilders don’t really count as CCGs because you aren’t collecting cards. I haven’t heard of any Deckbuildijg video games though good examples of tabletop ones are Dominion or Legendary. Unlike a CCG, you don’t collect cards and build a deck before a match, instead you buy or draft cards DURING the match just for the duration of that match. Games like Pokémon TCG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, and Hearthstone (the types of games considered CCGs) are not deckbuilders.
I’m interested, I love deckbuilders... the minimalistic art style isn’t exactly grabbing my attention though, perhaps because I’m used to physical deckbuilders. I’ll wait for a review.
@ShadJV There are actually plenty of deckbuilders (though I'm not sure what exactly the definiton here is), but what I mean are games like Slay the Spire or for a classical one PC, Etherlords I/II, but also games like Baten Kaitos actually.
To me these are distinct from what I consider CCGs, like say MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh. I guess, these are more about collecting, with a vastly bigger card pool, and there are no real mechanics outside of the card battles themselves. Still, it's not a clear distinction ... well, other than the former are purely digital games, while the latter also exist as actual physical games of course
@Ralek85 Baren Kaitos isn’t a deckbuilder either actually (though I do love that game). Once again, a deckbuilder involves building your deck DURING the match. If you edit a deck outside of a match, it’s not a deckbuilder, it’s a TCG or CCG. Try Dominion for an example of a deckbuilder. Generally most deckbuilders start your decade with one or two types of cards (often currency and/or points) and every turn you may buy or gain new cards for your deck as you play cards from your hand. When your deck is shuffled, the new cards are added in. Once the match is over, your deck is reset to the couple basic cards that start in your deck.
I think you’re still misunderstanding what a deckbuilder is. Do some online searches for Deckbuilders if you want the details on what separates them from CCGs. I’ve known no examples of digital deck building games aside from adaptations of physical ones. According to any articles on deckbuilding games, Dominion actually created the genre in 2008 (only 10 years ago).
@Ralek85 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck-building_game
Wikipedia isn’t the best source nor do they get too deep into the topic but it’s a good place to start. Just search “deckbuilding games” and you can find lots of lists of popular deckbuilding games, all of which agree Dominion was the first (which was once again only released a decade ago). None of the games you listed as examples are considered deckbuilders.
@ShadJV I'm not insisting on the term, just the structure. Like I said, I was not sure what the definition of deckbuilding games was ... that's why I gave example of what I figured should count (vis-a-vis CCGs). So not deckbuilders then ...
Anyways, I don't see the point in labeling the games I mentioned TCG or CCG, as trading is mostly flat-out impossible - aka not part of the game - and while collecting might be technically possible, it is by no means the focus of the game. Not to mention, that Baten Kaitos for instance, but also Etherlords is also a full-fledged RPG, where the card aspect is really confined to combat. Maybe "card-battler" would be a better term/ genre lable? I dunno. Hearthstone is a CCG, so is Duelyst - at least in my mind. Etherlords, Baten Kaitos and the likes of Slay the Spire (and others with a rogue-lite twist) share similarities, but they are obviously completely different beasts with entirely different structures and gameplay loops.
It's like calling Pokemon and Dark Souls "jRPGs", because they originate from Japan and have strong RPG sensibilities. If anything this turns the genre of jRPG into an extremely vague typology instead of an at least somewhat distinctive classification - or to put it differently: it negates all meaning the term might have held at some point, besides telling you a region of origin and 'it's probably not a shooter' (though you'd probably have to count Nier Automata as well, which has some shooter genes .. so that is probably not even true ^^).
To pick up where you left up: What are these games considered to be then? Because - again - I have no desire to claim a certain term here, just a particular type of design.
@Ralek85 well Baren Kaitos is listen as an RPG “with a card-themed battle system” as well as “elements of collectible card games”. It’d be most accurate to just call it an RPG as its core gameplay is more RPG than card game (the cards are a plot device as well a mechanic, but ultimately the RPG elements outweigh the cards, you can more easily win battles with high levels and bad cards than with low levels and good cards). Perdonally, I’d call it a card based RPG, like Lost Kingdoms (one of my favorite games of all times despite being fairly obscure). Etherlords is, described by the devs, a “mix of turn-based strategy and fantasy trading card game”. I’m not as familiar with it so I don’t know which it veers towards more but it’s tagged with both genres. Slay the Spire comes closest to a deckbuilder, as building your deck is done as you play, but ultimately it’s a roguelike with deckbuilding elements as you carry your deck through multiple
matches.
I apologize if any of my responses came off harshly. I was just trying to clarify the genres. If you want a feel for what a true deckbuilder is like, I recommend checking out Dominion Online, it’s free (at least if you’re not using any expansions, though you can play against players who have expansions and then you both have access to those cards) and a game generally takes half an hour on average (sometimes only 15 minutes, sometimes 45... if you play with a CPU it’s faster because they don’t have to take time to think on their turns and you can quit anytime against CPU without being rude). It’s worth a try since it’s free, and deckbuilders are very fun because you don’t need to plan ahead of time, you just play them, you do learn strategies but for the most part, there’s just a bunch of random cards in a sort of market, you play currency cards to buy the ones you want, and as you go through your deck you shuffle your new cards in so you can do stuff to gain points or make it harder for opponents to gain momentum, it becomes a challenge of balancing resources with actions (too many resources means your turns amount to buying stuff but not actually making progress towards winning, while too many actions means you can’t afford to grow your deck and sorta end up stuck... either way, it slows you down and it’s about balancing your deck as you build it). Aside from the rare digital versions of these games, the one downside is they entail a LOT of shuffling, the starting deck is just a small number of resources so generally you go through the entire deck and reshuffle every 2-3 turns at the start (late game depends on your strategy but you can either end up with a huge deck that can take a dozen turns to cycle through or a streamlined deck where you literally manage to draw and/or play every card in the deck every turn - I prefer the latter because if I’m holding all of my cards at once, I don’t have to worry about not getting the card I need that turn).
I’ll admit genre labels are getting fairly convoluted but tabletop games are a bit better than video games in that regard - perhaps due to the fact that, regardless of how complex tabletop games CAN get, there’s always going to be physical limitations with them, while video games can create ridiculous mashups of possible genres. In truth, video games should be more like tabletop games in their descriptors - one tabletop game can be labeled with anywhere between 2-3 to a dozen genres, while video games tend to get lumped into 1 or 2 genres each, which results in genres being less defined for video games. It would make it easier both in describing games and having concrete genres - because yes, Pokémon falls into the JRPG category but it’s also more of a monster battling game (which is becoming a full genre of its own).
@Ralek85 I love the profile pic. Darth Bane is hands down my favorite Sith.
@ShadJV No worries, you didn't come off as harsh I might check out Dominion, as quite frankly, I don't think I've ever heard of it and it sounds interesting - plus, it's probably the best way to create an enduring mental image of what constitutes a "deck-builder"
As for those genre labels ... yeah, well, it's a bit of a mess all-around in videogames. "RPG" itself is kinda misleading - at least to me - as I always felt "role-playing" as such would demand that you have at least some choice about the story unfolds and how the world around unfolds. In plenty of so-called jRPGs, you are married to a predetermined path though, where basically you are just reenacting a script, if anything. Despite that, I was generally always more into jRPGs than so-called western RPGs, with Baldurs Gate II still being my all-time favorite. By now, all "RPG" really seems to mean is that you have control over at least one character that has some kind of progression system going. You can make a linear shooter, wie little to no story and no mechanics besides 'shooting' ... but as long as you accrue for instance xp points that end up giving you more maximum health, folks will eat-up "RPG elements" as legitimate label no matter what.
Putting all kinds of qualifiers before that label ... well, that kinda makes the label a moot point, as any label that needs a caption box, is not a label that has any practical use.
Personally, I always felt we should strife for a new approach on how games are labeled, marketed and ultimately, yes, perceived of. I'm not sure how to go about it exactly, but at the most basic level, I feel games should be labeled according to what people are primary getting from them. Like ... I mean, Life is Strange for instanced, could be labeled all kinds of things, like adventure, walking simulator, Tell-Tale'esque, crime-drama, coming-of-age-simulator and what have you. All accurate up to a point, and all covering some aspect of the game rather well. To me though, there is a very specific reason and a very particular gain from playing LiS (or something comparable) and while it is hard to put into words, I think that is exactly the kind of effort that should be made. Condensing the experience down to the most essential part, the reason we came back to the game, the reason we still think about. That should define the genre, the game is being put in.
For something like LiS, I dunno it might be something like 'emotional journey' - cheesy as that sounds - or something, anything around those lines. I'm sure if enough folks put enough though into it, a more concise and less chessy breakdown of the essential nature of the experience could be achieved. I feel like that is more important than relying on things like primary mechancis, camera perspective (top-down whatever), region of origin and so on and so forth to define a genre, as these are just singular aspects of a much, much more complex experience.
Finally, thanks for bringing about Lost Kingdoms I meant to try that game forever, but never actually came around to it. I still have my GC around (somewhere in the attic, I think ^^) and I'll get myself a copy online. At least the first game seems to be rather cheap. I might have to see how Dolphin runs it as well, as the GC scaled up to a 4K TV ... probably not the best possible experience. Ah well, we'll see ^^
@ThePathsofPain Thanks and definitely! Too bad that Disney seems intend on ignoring the EU content, even if it was featured in canon shows like Clone Wars. I would absolutely love some movies to cover the Star Wars universe in it's infancy, so to speak. We've all heard about the Sith, but where did the come from? That would be something a (series of) movie(s) could and should explore, because the mainstream public never had any exposure to that part of Star Wars and it is really an exciting one. In parts argueably more exciting that what happens in the movies, esp. in the one about trade talks and the talking lizzard-man
@Ralek85 I’ve been saying for years they need to do TOR movies and the introduction of the Rule of Two. Bane’s story is so good, but I feel we’ll never get more than a book series (that may not even be considered cannon anymore) and a brief cameo in a TV series. There’s so many better directions they can head, but they’re so set on the era they are on. Give the real fans what they want, movies with hundreds of Sith and Jedi battling!!!
(I know the Sith will never win, but I’ll always cheer for them. I have my son’s name and date of birth tattooed on my arm in Common Sith.)
@ThePathsofPain Tattooed? Well, if that ain't true commitment I don't know what is!
But yeah totally, there is so much stuff that they could do and for much of it there exists already a wealth of source material, they could pick'n'choose from at their leisure. Seeing how they are apparently thinking of cutting down on spin-offs entirely, thanks to Solo (the production of which was a mess to say the least) not performing as well as they hoped - assumedly based on performance of Rogue One, I'm afraid it will be a long time before something out-of-the-box like a Bane movie (series) could even receive so much as serious consideration. Sad as that is =(
On the flipside, it's also true that Diseny is doing more than Lucas Films did since ... ever, not to mention that they dive into the Republic ... ah well, we all know how that went
@Ralek85 thank you as well, it was an enjoyable conversation, always nice when two people can just have a discussion and learn some things from it (I know am interested in Etherlords now).
As for Lost Kingdoms... I consider it one of the most underrated games on the GameCube. Possibly the most underrated, with how little I hear of it. I’ve pulled out my copies of both it and the sequel for many people and they almost never have even tried it (few seem to know what it is). It’s another game that doesn’t fit well into current genres (and isn’t even really complex, it’s just very different than pretty much anything else); the most recent person, I told them it was a card based RPG and they pictured something turn based even after I described the gameplay a bit. Honestly, as innovative as the first one is, the sequel is miles better and I played it more... I like the story of the first one a bit more (it’s simpler but simple doesn’t necessarily mean bad), but the mechanics are improved drastically. Specifically, the first one had random encounters that locked you into an area until you killed the enemies (or fled but that had its own costs) while the second one simply had the enemies pop up in the stages and you could fight any, run around them if you are getting low on cards, etc. Plus it added a lot of new features. The plots are only loosely connected. Either way, I highly recommend them, I’d give the first one about a 7.5/10 and the second a 9.5/10. Wish the series continued, suppose its still possible because it was produced by Activision and developed by From Software...
@ShadJV Same here! I'm never got much into the first Etherlords, but the second one is one of my favorite games of all time. I figure it's similar to Lost Kingdom in terms of being underrated, but definitely under appreciated. Etherlords 2 has an excellent and at times seriously challenging SP mode as well as fun multiplayer battle mode. Way back in my youth, it was one of those games me and my friends spend whole winters on, but rarely any else had even heard of them (like the excellent Kohan - which I also highly recommend to anyone who will listen - even though in that instance I prefer the fist one over the sequel).
Etherlords, like Kohan, is a game I keep myself finding coming back to even now like 15 years later. It's like Baldur's Gate II or Incubation or the original Fallout (not big on the 3D-'shooter' sequels though). Btw, you can pick up Etherlords II right now on steam for like $1,50 ... it's a steal Sadly, I've never even once seen Kohan on sale =(
I've already found a copy of Lost Kingdom for like 15€, which still seems fair, seeing as it is not available digitally, thus there is only limited stock and some of those niche and rare GC titles can get alot pricier. Case in point, I've go to try the first one before getting into the second one, as that is more 50€ I think I actually stumpled upon after reading up on From Software back in the day, when they first woed me with Demon Souls (another game that - back then - was incredibly underappreciated and in some ways, still is). I was super curious about what else this studio had come up with, seeing as Demon Souls then was like magic to me. It was just something entirely new and grand and almost incomprehensibly beautifuly. I figred that a game like this doesn't just happen, that it takes incredible amounts of talent and therefore there must be something that had come before it. It took me a moment to realize that I actually came across them before back on the PSX with the 1st Armored Core (still have it on Vita to this day). Another game I really loved, but obviously vastly different. It's kinda odd, that I never played anything of theirs between AC1 and Demon Souls ... ah well, that is just how it goes and to be fair, I tried some of the later AC games, as well as the spiritual predecessor to Souls, aka Kings Field, and neither really clicked with me, so it's not like - in this regead - I missed much ^^
@Ralek85 it’s amazing finding hidden gems, they tend to be way more unique than the mainstream hits. GameCube actually had a decent collection of hidden gems, probably due to PS2 being the more popular console back then... so most popular GameCube games were first party games (or at least ones from bigger studios like Capcom, From Software wasn’t as well known yet). I’ll have to check out Etherlords 2 for that price! I wish Lost Kingdoms was more affordable, wasn’t aware how pricy the sequel is, it’s the kind of game I loan out to people though because I just like sharing good games. My best friend and I played through both MANY times... and we’d end up messing around in the battle mode a lot too, trying our decks against each other... he tended to usually beat me even if we had the same cards because he just has better reaction times to be (and being an action RPG, that becomes very important). It’s just... it’s a pipe dream but one of the biggest reasons I’d love GameCube Virtual Console is it at least gives a chance for these games to be available again and, in that slim chance, if it got attention again maybe we could get a third? An HD, larger sized, online enabled LK3 would be amazing!
@ShadJV Yes, absolutely, in a way, those niche games were the indie games of their days We've come a long way since then, and hate Steam or love it, but it's digital distribution modell has opened the door for many creative developers and 'weird' (in a good way or different-from-the-mainstream) game design ideas. Back in the GC days, any of those ideas would still have to find a publishers to cover at least printing and distribution (with often times little to nothing left over for advertisement apparently), and thus it was just that much harder to get something unique of the ground. It's all the more amazing that these games exist at all - and that they got localized on top of that!
Plus, Steam (and really initially Good Old Games) achieved exactly what VC always held (and as you say still does hold) as a promise: Conserving quality content and making it widely available - aka digitally, affordably and compatible with a broad range of current hardware.
It's a real shame that as far as console exclusives games go ... well, we are at the mercy of platform holders, who succeed in this - yeah, I think it's fair to say - duty to varying degrees. Microsoft really is ahead of the pack these days if you ask me, by not actually just conserving games, but allowing you to even take advantage of the newer hardware to upgrade the experience at times, plus if you already bought the content in the past, they are giving you access to it on a new machine for completely free - that goes even for pyhsical version of original Xbox Games, which is still kinda insane to me, that they did that. No one else does this, this kind of free backwards compability going back two generations, plus free upgrades (every other time I turn on my XBX one of my original Xbox or X360 games receives another update, they constantly work even on those decade+ old games emulations, it's really something to be honest).
Sony is a mixed bag, they made some efforts with backwards compatibility on the PS3 initially, before dumping that in favor of a digital service, that never really become exhaustive by any means. Then you have PSX and PSP compability on the Vita, which is nice, but it's also a far cry from being exhaustive, with games like - sigh - Valkyrie Profile for instance still missing (though we should probably blame Square Enxi for that). Plus, you basically have to buy the games again, if you want to use them on your fancy new systems. A bunch of PS2 games have been re-released on the PS4, with added features in terms of e.g. trophies and visuals, but that really boils down to handful of titles, which again, you have to buy all-over if you want to play them on that system.
Nintendo ... well, I don't think I have to really talk about that here at any lengths, as we are probably both painfully aware of Nintendo's approach here. The fact that the VC on the Switch seems to be dead (at least for the forseeable) future, to be replaced with a handful free NES games as part of the Nintendo Online Service ... that is just the saddest thing imagineable for the system. I'm not in favor of cracking a system to e.g. pirate content or cheat online, but I do get why someone would like the chance to use the Switch to play SNES, N64 or Gamecube or even Wii games on it. It's just ... a very natural and understandable inclination if you ask me. I really cannot fathom why Nintendo does not take advantage of their own legacy here. They could easily bolster their somewhat barren release schedule this summer, by pumping out classic games on the Switch, while making a lot of profit (I wager, given the low cost of emulation vis-a-vis building an entirely new product).
This is their most important console since the N64, and what better reason and what better way than to celebrate that by bringing their best games from the last three (!) decades - handheld and console - to the Switch. Talk about a missed opportunity.
Again, I was really almost touched the time I put my copy Panzer Dragoon Orta into my Xbox ... and jesus christ, I was playing of my favorite games from my youth again, in glorious UHD no less - without having to shell out single dime for it. It looks like an entirely new game btw, almost like a remaster (which in a way it is) ... imagine Nintendo pulling something like that? People would go nuts ... rightfully so.
Nintendo on the other hand, cannot even manage to output Mother 3, despite a free translation having being offered and fans been begging for years. And if they finally were to manage to do that, they would probably charge $15 for it, and it would only work on the Switch and no other system before that or after that.
sigh — Anyways, yes Etherlords II at less than two bucks is a must-buy and I'd love to see old series like LK to be revived in some fashion. I've been clamoring for a Baten Kaitos sequel or HD Collection or at least a re-release since the initial WiiU announcement (aka Nintendo's first HD system). Sadly, Nintendo let me down in that regard, quite thoroughly I might mention.
The fact that the Switch will in all likelihood also never see the likes of LK or Baten Kaitos playable (and many, many other fantastic, underappreciated and widely unknown gems), is heart breaking to me as a gamer. It's like ... imagine if the Criterion Collection did not exist, and there was nothing to replace it. As an avid cinephile, knowing what is possible, that would be devastating.
Hell, I'm devasted they haven't really gotten into the 4K-HDR game yet. I need to see The Thin Red Line in HDR ... that movie was already a reference-level stunner on blu-ray and with it's nature-documentary style approach, it will no doubt absolutely kill in this new format.
@Ralek85 fully in agreement, man. I’m not a one platform man but Nintendo has such a rich backcatalog of games and the lack of VC... I get some people don’t care about old games being rereleased but it definitely has merit. And unless they grow the Nintendo Online catalog quickly, the Switch will continue to suffer in that way (though its succeeding in other). Being portable makes a VC all the more exciting... already, I ended up resorting to jailbreak my SNES Classic to have access to games I know they’re never going to give us and I hate that, I’d rather just give them money and have them on Switch. And I would love the chance to reexperience BK in HD, it was another beautiful game. I thought GameCube VC was a stretch on Wii and maybe even Wii U but now it’s been several gens, GCN is now to Switch as SNES was to Wii (three gens back). Of course, that takes away their reason to do remakes like the Luigi’s Mansion coming... but VC releases are still cheaper for them than these remakes AND they could get people to double dip by adding content and value to remakes for people who would want that. I mean, Nintendo loves getting people to double dip. I digress though...
@ShadJV The odd thing is that Nintendo has traditionally been rather shy on putting out 'remasters' of any kind - certainly compared to other publishers (if we view them in that role for this purpose). So in a way, they would have been least, or to be more precisely, only minimal impacted by having one or the other game already available as VC release. Sure, this trend has shifted a bit with the Switch seeing plenty of WiiU 'remasters' - although 'ports' would probably be more accurate anyways - but even so, just look at the example of Luigi's Mansion. That is not even a Switch game, but a 3DS one. Would a Switch VC release of LM cut into the 3DS sales? Quite likely, but at the same time, there is a decent change that long-term having this (and other games) available would make up this potential loss.
And yeah, I agree, I think most people would be more than willing to throw more money at Nintendo for games they've already bought once or twice already. Folks love their games, and that is a unique position - at least to that degree - Nintendo is in. It would make sense to try to make bank on it, but in a reasonable way of course. I would obviously prefer to have at least my WiiU VC purchases to be transfered over, but alas, if that were not "possible, I'd be okay with shelling out again, at least for a number of games, I really just want to have available, if that makes any sense ^^
Mostly though, as I hinted at before, I think it's a missed opportunity to create some positive buzz/PR and just create some good will. Whenever (some) folks felt down on them for whatever reason, my first though was ... just put out Mother 3 already. Not that many folks will buy or play, at least that would be my expectation, but those that were to, will be the dedicated ones and the outspoken ones, that are prone to droning out all the negativity of the rest. It's an easy win, esp. in this day and age of social media. Maybe it honors Nintendo, that they do not fall back on - what they might consider - cheap tricks like this, but frankly I think they might simply not "get it" or they might be to inflexible to pull something like this off without much planning and what not.
The worst part though is their communication. They know people want a VC, they know people do not understand, why it is not happening and they are just like ... "we think Nintendo Online will be the best way to handle this. plz understand. gg & good bye!" ... that is frustrating to say the least and it's not a great way to keep inspiring loyality in consumers. It' one thing to use, who got hooked when we were kids, but I'm not sure that it's an approach that will work forever.
@Ralek85 once again, fully agree. VC is easy to fill (at least with first party titles), only reason they aren’t doing it for Switch at this point that I can think of is because they still wanna push NES and SNES minis... but, while the market overlaps, it still reaches different people. I’m frustrated too, I could be playing N64 games on a handheld if they’d just let me buy their games again... haha
Otherwise you’re pretty much echoing all my thoughts. Which I mean, just the fact that we’re in agreement means it can’t be an uncommon thought. But I don’t have my hopes high for VC anymore since they said they don’t plan to have it, all I can do is cross my fingers on more than just NES for Nintendo Online... not that NES was bad but it’s before my time, I grew up with SNES and N64...
@ShadJV I figure most Nintendo fans are really on the same page in their desire for an easy-to-access, exhaustive and affordable Virtual Console on their current system of choice, the Switch, which they can use whenever and wherever.
I mean as far as the minis go, they could have just pushed the games, that are available on those 'systems', to the very end of the release schedule. There ... problem solved, even assuming that they were target at the same audience! That stuff isn't rocket science after all, even Nintendo should be able to figure this much out.
Worst part about Nintendo Online to me is that they are set on NES games ... that's frankly the system I am least interested in, as it was before my time, so I have no real emotional connection with it and it's also the kind of generation I feel like I play only out of some kind of historical curiosity. Those 8-Bit games, to me quite frankly, have not aged all that well in the end. Sure, some SNES 16-bit titles have also not aged well, but overall, they still kinda hit the spot for me. It depends on a lot of factors though, like I really think Banjo Kazooie works still just fine, even today, but say Golden Eye - while amazing at the time - is not something I really go back to and play. I mean, shooters have come a long, long way, esp. on consoles and GE (again, it was one of my most played games back then) is just not remotely up to snuff anymore. It aged really bad if you ask me. Same goes for Perfect Dark. Turok didn't age as badly for some reason, but yeah, a number of factors matter. I'm hard pressed to name any NES game that I really feel I "need" on the Switch right now, something I would instantly pick up and play, if it were available on the e-shop/VC or Nintendo Online.
I could name several SNES and N64 titles and definitely a few GC titles and even a handful Wii ones (the system had a few gems buried under all the shovelware), but the SNES of all things? I have more stuff I want from the original Gameboy than from the NES to be quite honest. It's a total bummer.
@Ralek85 well yeah I think that’s the point, what console games do fans most often complain about the price of buying on VC? The NES, the games aren’t bad but they’re shallow experiences that people often don’t wanna shell out more than a couple bucks for. So Nintendo likely deemed them as having the lowest value and so lumping them into a subscription people are paying for online features ends up costing them the least potential money. And that’s the big difference, NO is a subscription based service unlike VC and, therefore, it’s better financially for them to fill it with “cheaper” titles so other titles are free for them to do whatever with later. Why would a consumer buy 3 SNES games or 2 N64 games on VC when they can, for the same price or less, get them all with the subscription?
Of course, the answer would be some of us like to own our games and not just rent them, but that’s another discussion on what bigger devs often fall to understand... there’s obviously numerous solutions to the rather minor obstacles for VC right now, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is Nintendo is stubborn and can be out of touch with their audience... and people can shout what they want and Nintendo will answer, “We don’t understand, we did this other thing, isn’t that enough for you?” They seem to throw things at the wall to see what sticks, and it ends up very hit and miss, with some things being gold and others being complete flops. They do well enough to stay in the game, but I feel like if they had some younger blood that paid more attention to the consumers then they’d be more consistently competing with Microsoft and Sony. Which isn’t a bad thing, they can still be innovative while also being competitive.
@ShadJV Oh Ninty can definitey be out of touch, as you say. I think in one way, that is a strength, as it has often meant they were looking to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, when everyone else was just peachy with the status quo. And yeah, that mentality extends to virtually all aspects of their business. The side effect of this mentality is as you side a hit-and-miss effect, where sometimes they strike gold in places no one ever before thought to even look, while other times ... they crash and burn ... hard.
I have to say though, I was always confused about how out of touch they can be and how it was possible that they were this inept at balancing their need and capability for innovation and thinking outside the box with a more reasonable and sustainable approach to 'mere' iteration and copy'n'paste that which just works - when appropriate.
It often seems they were trying to reinvent the wheel purely for the sake of the task, while intentionally throwing just everything overboard all the way. Sometimes it does fell like they are zealots in this regard Other companies have good ideas too at times, and some stuff just has always worked and there is no shame in keeping that stuff and improving upon it. Not all trends are 'just trends'. Nintendo missed out big on HD and certainly online play and an online ecosystem. Hell, they are ways from catching up there even now in 2018 ...
I totally agree, that there has to be away they can be alot more consistenly competitive while also staying innovative at the same time. I guess, it must be something about the way their business is structured, the hierarchies over there, because it's not like there is no young talent over there. They might just not be heard or more likely they might not feel it's their place to speak out. I dunno, maybe they would need a more 'global' staff, definitely on the mangerial level and also in terms of tech - hard- and software-wise. Like Sony, which is also a japanese company, but apparently quite a bit more open to outside influence. I mean, they kinda went out of their way to bring a guy like Mark Cerny in for the PS4 (okay, they had quite a bit of history with him, but still ...).
I feel there are signs of hope though, like Nintendo relinquising some control, and working together with studios like Platinum Games, yes, but also overseas 'outside' companies like Ubisoft for some of their core characters and even franchises. I hope that is a direction they keep moving in!
@Ralek85 well, I think it stems from the upper management having a majority of older Japanese men who are set in their ways (not to generalize, I’m sure there are older Japanese men who are less traditional, heck Miyamoto himself tends to stand apart from that stereotype though he admittedly does like to do his own thing, for better or worse... bless the man though, he’s done monumental things for the industry in his lifetime!) but slowly the management is starting to become younger and, if you count their international offices, more diverse. And I can see it slowly happening, the company is starting to adopt newer strategies, but as you said they have a lot of catching up to do (I’m honestly hoping Nintendo Online helps there, I don’t like an online fee but it may give them motivation to keep their online service competitive now).
And they definitely reinvent the wheel purely for the sake of doing so (see Star Fox, most fans just want them to return to the original style while they’ve been busy trying to make drastically different spinoffs, and even when they try to make something that’s similar to the older ones it ends up being a reboot, Star Fox Zero, and is still packaged with an experimental game, Star Fox Guard), and sometimes when they can’t they just decide there’s no reason to make more games in the series (best example is F-Zero, which they more or less said they haven’t made another because they can’t think of any new ideas for it when fans just want more of the same honestly - it’s not the best selling series but it has enough of a fan base that even a lower budget digital game would be worth pursuing). It baffles me because one moment Nintendo is making random experimental spinoffs and the next they’re releasing another NSMB title, with little middle ground. I think they honestly need to listen to fans more, as their strategy all over the place can be a bit unreliable in the long term. Then again, I guess I don’t run a large AAA game developing company!
@ShadJV Well, I do hope so! I mean, a generational change obviously cannot be avoided entirely and in terms of game design, that is certainly happening since the WiiU days. Miyamoto actually said as much about the team behind Splatoon at the time and yes, I agree, the man is national treasure! (or more like a global one actually! ^^). The degree by which this will impact other parts of the company remains to be seen. From my limited experience and thus perspective, I'd say if you are socalized long enough under a set of given circumstance (and this is probably more true in Japan, with it's rather hierarchical culture), folks tend to adapt to those demands and then start internalizing them, so even if they get to a place of power and they are still 'relatively' young, they see themselves no longer as (potential) agent of changes. But yeah, overall something is probably going to give in terms of a younger and more diverse (how about a female president, I wonder? ^^) top-level staff. It's probably inevitable, if they want to survive and seeing how they worked with Nvidia this closely to come up with this new hybrid device ... certainly proves they are more open than before to outside opportunities.
Anyways, I think you managed to hit the nail on the hat with your pointing out of NSMB. That's something that always bothered me as well. There are several IPs, that have lied dorman for the longest time with Nintendo just say 'we'll bring 'em back, once we have an idea what to do with them' or - in the case of Star Fox - where the IP was kinda abused to just keep trying out new things for decades, while at the same time, they have been pumping out mostly stagnant 2D Mario titles generation after generation. The most confusing and downright maddending thing is, that if you look at the sales numbers for those games compared to their more 'innovative' Mario titles, like Sunshine, Galaxy and so on, then you'll see that their 'stagnat' 2D ones did not just do consistently good anyways, but almost always quite a bit better in terms of sales! It actually boils down the simple more stagnant=more sales forumla at the end of the day .... So, assuming they are in this for money (which is fair of course) and assuming they know their own sales numbers (which ... yeah), it becomes completely inexplicable to me - from a standpoint of reason albeit ^^ - how they could insist on this approach. The only thing I can come up with it, that these IPs just never sold enough to really warrant a comeback, but instead of being honest about that, they just keep leading folks on, after all they never know when they want to use one of those IPs as a testballoon for some new idea and if they so, it would sure be nice if all the old fans show up and boy that game, no matter if its actually what they were asking for or not. It's a cyncial perspective, but it's really the only one I can came up with.
Then again, the importance of online play and also it's potential has been proven for more than a decade now and Nintendo still did not deem it necessary to afford this aspect a reasonable degree of thought, planning and due diligence. We had hot discussion around here about their voice chat solution back then already, but I am still flabbergasted by it to this day. It is a PERFECT example of Nintendo (trying to) reinventing the wheel for no reason what so ever. Carrying over essentialy Xbox Life would have been more than enough, but no, they had to bring smartphones into it and make it complicated and messy and expensive and inconvenient and still super basic and mediocre in terms of performance and features.
To this day, I am honestly impressed how they managed to think this outside the box on an issue, I would not even have considered an issue to being with. I would have never occured to me to make this into a subject that needed to be rethought and reworked and for the life of me, even if that had somehow came up during a meeting-turned-acid-trip event, that would have not been the solution that would have occured to me or anyone I know. We might have come up with a proprietary port - like Apple does - or something along those lines, but using an entirely different device to facilitate this and make it wires-only-and-you-need-a-dedicated-adapter ... that is ... I still have no proper words. I mean yes, I have no experience with running a company like this, for sure, but still ... just no!
Honestly I think the Wii U did humble the company a bit which is why they’ve slowly been becoming more open to change. Nintendo has always been very good at riding on brand power and they thought they could do that with the Wii... only to stumble upon the realization that casual gamers don’t have the same level of brand loyalty as their longterm fans. They’re still trying to appeal to casual gamers but I’ve noticed a shift in the past couple years as they try harder to reach both now. Change takes time though, and it’s just notorious in human history that the biggest driver of change is when one generation retires or dies out (sad but true) - the Information Age has sped that up and so younger generations are becoming used to a constantly changing world, but before the past few decades change was always slower... and Nintendo, being the oldest of the Big Three, would probably take the longest to adjust as they’ve been there when change was a slower force (though flexibility has been the company’s strong suit so they always bounce back once they accept the market is different, it’s a balance between that and a bit of stubbornness to exhaust their options before doing so).
Titles like NSMB are safe investments. They don’t cost a ton to develop (they’re quite cheap actually as the engine hasn’t changed much) and they still sell well. Obviously fans hold partial blame as they continue to purchase them (and I won’t pretend I’m not part of that problem), but the bigger problem with other IPs isn’t that they aren’t popular enough - it takes work to grow an audience and it is less likely if the series only makes an appearance every 5-10 years. Look at the trash games (sorry if that’s harsh) that reappear every year or two with few big changes and continue to sell like hot cakes, the Maddens and the Call of Duties of the industry. Why do they continue to make bank? Because they’re consistent. Fans can invest in them knowing the series likely will stick around. As much as it’s ideal to not have every game be a sequel, as much as new IPs matter, as much as people COMPLAIN that these games keep coming out with a new skin, with a few different avatars, with a single new mode, it’s an unfortunate fact that people WANT more of the same. Yes, they want new things now and then but then if they like it they want more of that. If someone has a new food and loves it, generally they want to keep having it, and while there are adventurous people who want to consistently try new foods, the average person wants their comfort foods on the day to day basis, they don’t often want to spend their hard earned money on something they have no idea if they’ll actually like, that’s a special occasion... and there’s a lot of foods to try. And maybe that’s a poor analogy because it’s a bigger thing when the item costs more. I’m not saying only a few people will spend $60 on a completely new game, but for the 99% of the population that doesn’t have money to burn, it’s more interesting to them to spend $60 on a game in a series they love. Maybe it’s human condition, patterns like that exist in movies and TV shows as well. I’m going off on a tangent but the point is... a lot of Nintendo’s IPs don’t sell enough because they’re not consistently releasing new ones. Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon? They constantly get entries, the odds of a player picking one of the annual releases of those series (every other year for Zelda, and including spinoffs for Mario which makes it like 2-3 a year) are increased and once the player is familiar with the series and/or characters the odds of them getting the next one increase even more.
Now Nintendo has a lot of IPs, they can’t afford to release every one every year (or every other even) so... it’s inevitable some become niches. And unfortunate. And so it’s easier and safer to make “Mario and Bomberman Battle Royale” or “Mario Curling” than “Kid Icarus Rebellion” (obviously making up titles for the sake of discussion). Throwing out something generic to an existing audience is much more reliable than fishing for a new one, and it’s hard to blame Nintendo for picking the option more likely to result a mountain of cash. So a solution... is tricky. Some of the IPs they’ve been giving to other studios to give it a try... and maybe the best thing would be to give some up and coming indie devs a chance to work with F-Zero. Do what they’ve let Grezzo do and have younger devs get some experience and churn out something for you that costs you less while building those audiences. I dunno. Just a possibility? Because while I’m not a huge fan of Star Fox or F-Zero (I enjoy them), I still have franchises I love that Nintendo doesn’t give much love to (like Kid Icarus, Pikmin, and Metroid, though the latter two are receiving entries at least... and Pikmin isn’t nearly as abandoned as some, surprisingly).
Voice chat... that’s a can of worms with Nintendo. Because given Fortnite seems to work with headsets, clearly the Switch supports easier methods yet they insist on making it so convuluted you may as well stick to Discord. I’ve given up on defending them on these crazy decisions, I feel like they just don’t want to admit they’ve been wrong and are afraid they’ll look silly doing it like everyone else this after refusing so long... in fact, writing that now, I honestly can believe that. That at this point they’re acting on principle and are trying to come up with a ridiculous solution instead of just accepting that people already had a better solution than them. I hadn’t played any PS4 games online until MHW came out in January... and when I prepared for its release I was almost shocked, like the headset I already had for 5 years can just plug into the controller and that’s it? I’m already ready for chat? Nintendo, why’d you act like this is rocket science?
Tap here to load 30 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...