Is Miyamoto a Detriment to Nintendo?

[Jave]

I can't be mad at Miyamoto because thanks to him we ended up getting Splatoon as we know it. Otherwise we could have ended with Tofu Kids or Rabbits instead of the Inklings, or worse, Mario Paintball.

[Magical Glace]

For what it's worth

Miyamoto himself does not like The Lost Levels/Japan!Super Mario Bros. 2

Something about the difficulty being too much.

[The DanMan]

This is insulting that you criticize Shiggie to such a disparaging degree. First of all, he actually is capable of character depth, not the bullshit trope characters Kibayashi came up with. Secondly, you tell me that SMBLL is easy, I dare you. Same goes for Twilight Princess and it's violence. And if you don't think the aforementioned Twilight Princess isn't tragic, watch it's ending after playing the game. Frankly, I feel you lost credibility with the Gyro control argument. Those were games that either revolved around it or didn't suffer from having it. Your exaggerating for the sake of hating.

-Says favorite game is Awakening

-Accuses Fates of "bullshit trope characters"

Anyways: Kibiyashi put out 500 page first drafts for all three routes and suggested My Castle have online functionality; that's it.

First drafts are rarely perfect. IS's "writers" handled the characters and the rest of the story. IS's management approved the concept of three different routes and their story structure.

Whose to blame?

You're exaggerating for the sake of hating.

And I have never touched Twilight Princess in my life or particularly liked motion controls.

[Book Bro]

My opinion on Miyamoto is that he's someone very important to video games who has earned respect and admiration, but has quite an old-fashioned view on how to make games which doesn't really work in the medium anymore, it having evolved so much in such a short time.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

My opinion on Miyamoto is that he's someone very important to video games who has earned respect and admiration, but has quite an old-fashioned view on how to make games which doesn't really work in the medium anymore, it having evolved so much in such a short time.

yeah i think he deserves respect for his past achievements, but i believe its long past his time to have an influence of games now.

[solrocknroll]

real talk: how many people in this topic have even played pikmin

pikmin is pretty much the thing he has the most influence on and it's perfectly fine.

[Moblin Major General]

So is this like a joke or something

Or are you serious

Quality post, ladies and gentlemen. It's actually both, because I feel that undue hate is common on SF, even for trivial things, but at the same time, you guys are really unfair. I said Awakening when I made this account because I had not played Shadow Dragon or Sacred Stones, even though I still enjoy Awakening quite a bit. DanMan, Awakening may have token tropes, but at least they aren't controversial. What happened with Fates never should've happened because IS felt like treating Kibayashi's writing like the script did Corrin. Also, I do believe that both of you read into it too deeply, because I'm preaching to the statues in the graveyard, unmovable and ever judgemental.

[Locke087]

real talk: how many people in this topic have even played pikmin

pikmin is pretty much the thing he has the most influence on and it's perfectly fine.

I have played pikmin 1 & 2 there good games but there are pure gameplay, it is his attitude towards story in games that is the problem (imo).

[solrocknroll]

I have played pikmin 1 & 2 there good games but there are pure gameplay, it is his attitude towards story in games that is the problem (imo).

pikmin always has a pretty big story

I mean, it's not Shakespearean but it gets the job done and had a good about of theories

[Zera]

I can't be mad at Miyamoto because thanks to him we ended up getting Splatoon as we know it. Otherwise we could have ended with Tofu Kids or Rabbits instead of the Inklings, or worse, Mario Paintball.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/splatoon/0/0

Notice that this "Iwata Asks" for Splatoon doesn't really mention Miyamoto at all. The game has two directors, and neither of them are Miyamoto. I don't think he had anything to do with this game at all besides being producer.

[Knight]

...I admit, I should have saw that one coming. I guess I didn't because the game is heavier on that than most Zeldas.

It's worth noting that TMC also got hit by it. It was going to be about creating the Master Sword, Miyamoto said no so it was changed to the Four Sword. Then we actually got the Master Sword creation game.

...Go figure.

Probably because the game was created by Capcom, and maybe they thought that they didn't deserve that right. I'm pretty sure that by then, the Zelda timeline was probably planned out, and the concept of a Master Sword origin story was already documented in some notes.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/splatoon/0/0

Notice that this "Iwata Asks" for Splatoon doesn't really mention Miyamoto at all. The game has two directors, and neither of them are Miyamoto. I don't think he had anything to do with this game at all besides being producer.

IIRC all he did was give the go-ahead to let them use original characters instead of Mario ones.

[Magical Glace]

real talk: how many people in this topic have even played pikmin

pikmin is pretty much the thing he has the most influence on and it's perfectly fine.

I've played Pikmin

The difference here is plot stuff isn't being cut for no reason beyond "I say so"

Pikmin never left a legacy of cool plots/writing like TTYD, certain FE games, or certain Zeldas did.

In short, the problem here is that he's barring developers from making the game as they want, and from making it the best it can be.

but, I suppose it's fruitless to argue with you.

[solrocknroll]

I've played PikminThe difference here is plot stuff isn't being cut for no reason beyond "I say so"Pikmin never left a legacy of cool plots/writing like TTYD, certain FE games, or certain Zeldas did.In short, the problem here is that he's barring developers from making the game as they want, and from making it the best it can be.but, I suppose it's fruitless to argue with you.

this quote got utterly mutilated for whatever reason but

I think it's a bit much to generalize that Pikmin didn't have good plots or writing. Pikmin 1 is about the struggles of what is basically a space truck driver who has to use the local wildlife to survive. His struggle is perfectly documented in his logs. There's even a log for if you never left the Impact Site that comes up on Day 29. The treasures have amusing descriptions and the enemy names obviously took some hard work to devise.

Pikmin 2 goes for a different approach, but the writing is still phenomenal. The E-Mails, Olimar's notes, the Sales Pitches, Louie's notes, etc.

Pikmin 3 has a heavy plot that even goes for some sequel hooking. The writing is great here too.

I don't really have a problem acknowledging that Miyamoto gets in other people's ways, but I don't enjoy the notion that Pikmin has worse writing than any of the games you listed. It arguably has better writing than any FE ever, most Zeldas, and probably Paper Mario too

[Jave]

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wiiu/splatoon/0/0

Notice that this "Iwata Asks" for Splatoon doesn't really mention Miyamoto at all. The game has two directors, and neither of them are Miyamoto. I don't think he had anything to do with this game at all besides being producer.

Well, the Iwata Asks is not the only source of information:

http://www.gamesradar.com/miyamoto-didnt-splatoon-originally-2/

“[After] the prototype phase, we had all these ideas about the height, the ink, the characters, and the image of the character and the squid,” co-director Tsubasa Sakaguchi tells Edge. “But we couldn’t kind of filter it down to a final result that would result in a simple, fun game. And during this period, we were being scolded by Mr Miyamoto all the time.”

Miyamoto originally didn’t see the attraction. “He was saying, ‘I don’t understand. What do you want to do? There’s no appeal to this game,’” clarifies producer Hisashi Nogami. “We had the basics,” director Yusuke Amano says. “And then we were like, ‘Let’s add the hiding [in ink] feature; let’s add jumping; we need height, because it’s a 3D map.’ And then we thought, ‘We need to be able to shoot up and down.’ And we realised we’d added all this stuff, and we got confused. We didn’t know what the game was about.”

http://time.com/3747708/nintendo-shigeru-miyamoto/

“At one point during development, we held a small internal review of the game,” explains Miyamoto. “We had found that the ink-battle play mechanic was fun, and the team was working very hard to brush up on that aspect at that time, but we were losing the freshness of the game the more the team worked on it. The thing which concerned us most was the main character. It looked as if it could be found in any game and lacked uniqueness. So, I told the game’s producer and the director to even consider using Mario if we could not find the right character. I also explained to them why I was providing such a suggestion.”

“A few weeks later, they gingerly approached me with the squid-like character, and we decided on that direction right on the spot. The director and others who nervously brought the squid character to me must have been surprised with my positive reaction, but at the time, I didn’t accept it for lack of better options. I actually thought, ‘This must be it!’ It’s fun to nurture something so unique, and I’m glad that they were able to experience bringing it to fruition.”

As you can see, what happened here was that the directors were stuck in the early development stages due to the lack of connection between the mechanics and the character designs. Miyamoto mentions that the original character designs lacked uniqueness, and he was right. If you look at the "Tofu Kids" designs in the Iwata Asks, you see that they're pretty lifeless and generic. Rabbit characters were also considered, but those were rejected likely because they made no sense in context.

So Miyamoto tells them that if they can't come up with a unique character design, just go ahead and use the Mario characters. Now, it's pretty obvious that the intention of this comment was to motivate the directors to actually come up with a unique character, since none of them really wanted to make another Mario title. So while Miyamoto himself may not created nor designed anything directly for Splatoon, he did give the team the necessary push in order to create the Inkling character. Splatoon then came out... and we all know what happened.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Jave

[Magical Glace]

this quote got utterly mutilated for whatever reason but

I think it's a bit much to generalize that Pikmin didn't have good plots or writing. Pikmin 1 is about the struggles of what is basically a space truck driver who has to use the local wildlife to survive. His struggle is perfectly documented in his logs. There's even a log for if you never left the Impact Site that comes up on Day 29. The treasures have amusing descriptions and the enemy names obviously took some hard work to devise.

Pikmin 2 goes for a different approach, but the writing is still phenomenal. The E-Mails, Olimar's notes, the Sales Pitches, Louie's notes, etc.

Pikmin 3 has a heavy plot that even goes for some sequel hooking. The writing is great here too.

I don't really have a problem acknowledging that Miyamoto gets in other people's ways, but I don't enjoy the notion that Pikmin has worse writing than any of the games you listed. It arguably has better writing than any FE ever, most Zeldas, and probably Paper Mario too

Okay, maybe I went a bit far because I do like Olimar as a character, but the Pikmin series isn't plot heavy as you imply. It's about the same level as most Mario platformers except Galaxy, or maybe the first couple Zeldas. It clearly was not designed with lore/plot in mind, unlike some of what I mentioned (SS, MM and TWW are probably the best examples of plot heavy Zelda, FE4, FE7, and FE9/10 for FE). Of course, none have perfect plots or anything, everything has its issues.

So I'll return to my point. Pikmin's focus on story isn't as strong as any of these, and the problem with Miyamoto does not lie with him messing with a game he's in charge of. It lies with him limiting other developers, out of his own dislike of plot in games/being similar to another game.

That's why there's more complaints about his decisions regarding Skyward Sword and Sticker Star. At least as far as I can observe.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Glaceon Mage

[Zera]

Have you read the complete Piklopedia and Treasure Hoard in Pikmin 2? There's TONS of lore, and it's really good. That's why it's so confusing when Miyamoto slashes story elements in other games.

[Water Mage]

Have you read the complete Piklopedia and Treasure Hoard in Pikmin 2? There's TONS of lore, and it's really good. That's why it's so confusing when Miyamoto slashes story elements in other games.

That's what really irks.

Pikmin has such an interesting lore, and Olimar is such a human character, it shows that Miyamoto has potential for story, he just doesn't use it.

That is, was it Miyamoto that wrote Pikmin's lore?

[kingddd]

Have you read the complete Piklopedia and Treasure Hoard in Pikmin 2? There's TONS of lore, and it's really good. That's why it's so confusing when Miyamoto slashes story elements in other games.

Miyamoto wasn't heavily involved with Pikmin 2. He was just a producer. He gave the developers more freedom to play around with the game at the time of development. This involved completely removing the timer limit and made the game a cakewalk something which most casual players really love but hardcore pikmin fans were against at the time.

It's why Pikmin 3 went back to the Pikmin 1 philosophical design and it had no piklopedia. There still is an element of lore like the Olimar Reports but it's a very minimal story element.

Edited May 3, 2016 by kingddd

[Zera]

Pikmin 2 wasn't really easy, without an overarching time limit it was closer to a straight action game and had many more challenging enemies and bosses. I love Pikmin 2, and I thought I was a hardcore player... it's like, I don't fit in or you're over-generalizing...

[kingddd]

Pikmin 2 wasn't really easy, without an overarching time limit it was closer to a straight action game and had many more challenging enemies and bosses. I love Pikmin 2, and I thought I was a hardcore player... it's like, I don't fit in or you're over-generalizing...

Pikmin 2 suffers from a Fe13 and Fe8 problem where you're given an unlimited resources to the point that all those challenges are almost non existence. Not to mention purple pikmin was completely unbalanced that it became use purple pikmin and win. There is a reason why purple and white pikmin were left out of pikmin 3's main campaign. Miyamoto even admitted the game was made to ease the casual players into the pikmin world much easier than pikmin 1. This led to split in the community where some prefer the more laid back exploration style over the sense urgency of the original game.

Most of the dedicated hardcore pikmin fans prefer the more strategy style of pikmin over the action oriented underground system. As it was designed for you to think, plan and strategize your resources carefully where pikmin 2 did not and offered very little consequences for losing a day. This is why dedicated players love speed running pikmin 1 and pikmin 3.

So in terms of miyamoto involvement with pikmin I think was for the better.

[Nobody]

I don't think Miyamoto is a detriment to Nintendo, quite the contrary, but I definitely don't want him to work on every nintendo series.

Like, his has his beliefs on how games should be, and while those work really well with a lot of video games series, they would be a disaster on others. Just imagine a Fire Emblem game without difficulty settings.

That said, calling the man who created Zelda and Mario and designed games such as Super Mario Galaxy a detriment is definitely odd.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Nobody

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

I don't think Miyamoto is a detriment to Nintendo, quite the contrary, but I definitely don't want him to work on every nintendo series.

Like, his has his beliefs on how games should be, and while those work really well with a lot of video games series, they would be a disaster on others. Just imagine a Fire Emblem game without difficulty settings.

That said, calling the man who created Zelda and Mario and designed games such as Super Mario Galaxy a detriment is definitely odd.

so, fire emblem 1 and 3?

[Nobody]

so, fire emblem 1 and 3?

Or 2 or 4.

Yeah, but things have changed. I meant a fire emblem game being released now without difficulty settings.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Nobody

[Loki Laufeyson]

No i dont, and im not sure if i should even care if people think hes a detriment. I actually do think some games would just do better without too much story. Does Mario platformers need that much story? No, they really dont. And it works better when its subtle (like Super Mario Galaxy) anyway. Whether or not his hand is in the cookie jar makes no real difference to me.

[Alastor15243]

Strangely enough, I feel that Miyamoto should meddle in 2nd party development, particularly Intelligent Systems. At this point, anything would be better than Fates's grotesque, poorly executed, and insulting excuse for anything even related to being a story. Miyamoto would reverse many of the design choices IS has made, particularly the Otaku pandering. Even if it compromised a good story, anything would be better than Fates.

I know you probably didn't mean it like this, and yes, Fates' story, at least as far as I've seen, and particularly Conquest, is atrocious, but having him do to Fire Emblem what he did to Sticker Star strikes me as basically being like Ras Al Ghul saying that Gotham has become a cesspit of crime and bile that cannot be saved and must be destroyed.

I think I get where you're coming from...

But I really think that having Miyamoto step in to that degree would do far more harm than good.

Or more specifically, If I wanted to send somebody in to intervene in IS's storywriting department, Miyamoto is the last person I'd send to do that crucial job.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Alastor15243