this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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So like, totally veer off the established formula and into new territory then?
Basically the same thing they ended up doing with Zelda when they felt like they'd hit a wall with the formula no longer having tangible new things that you could add to it.
This still I think has the issue of leaving the original fanbase feeling like they haven't gotten a "new star fox" because what they want is a new on-rails shooter.
Don't get me wrong I obviously think that there's problems with capitalism in this whole industry but I can definitely see how these two franchises are incredibly difficult to do something new with.
The one franchise that they've genuinely got no excuse for is Metroid. Metroid is PERFECT for updating with modern open world stuff. I mean fuck, what is a metroid-vania game if not same concept as an open-world game but in 2d? The fact they've slept on Metroid for so long is genuinely baffling. The only reason I can come up with for sleeping on it is that they're worried that it would compete with Splatoon as a shooter on their system. But that still feels wrong because Metroid is not an action shooter it's about exploration more than shooting.
Metroidvanias are defined by gaining new equipment or powers to open new routes - trying to make that experience open world would end up like the new Zeldas, where all the puzzles are kind of flat because the game's designed to allow you to access them in any order. Metroidvanias work best with semi-linear exploration, either the 2d of earlier games and Dread, or the seperated biomes design of Prime.
You can have open worlds where parts of the world are gated by unlocks. That's a feature of a lot of open world games. Even things like GTA have gated the player from parts of the city by having things like the bridges being out until reaching a specific story beat. It's the same principle requiring a specific ability or skill to gain access to a region.
Sure, but you have similar problems of flatness - Look at Arkham Asylum Vs City and onwards - Asylum has a really tight biome-type map that opens up more and more as you get new gadgets, whereas in city you're travelling between different spots on the open map to enter smaller, linear sections that make use of the gadgets you currently have in the story, but don't generally have a reason to be revisited later once you have more gear.
Yeah I agree and don't really have a solution to that.
I think gaming is particularly interesting in how different genres originated from technical limitations as much as anything, and so have maintained designs that simulate situations we now have the technology to just depict in order to preserve the genre - you were kind of right in that metroidvanias are designed to create that perception of a big, open, connected world, and we now have the technology to make open world games, but metroidvanias are actually designed as very tightly developer controlled experiences that steer you through a maze along an ultimately linear path between upgrades and/or bosses. The connection between exploring the maze and unlocking more ways to explore it are really the core gameplay loop, so dropping either part changes the most important parts of the game.
I think open world games can pull some ideas from metroidvanias, but I can't see a way to square the circle of making a maze without the maze.
I don't think they're all linear. Only linear along segments that are strictly limited to requiring a specific tool. Sometimes you can have more than one way to access areas, and thus allow many different routes through the game. In a way BotW 2 enables this kind of approach to breaking the game with the utterly janky physics shit you can pull of in it.
I want to point out that i've never played F-Zero, but i assume it's "just" a racing game:
Why not just make another? They are constantly making new Mario Karts and everyone loves those. Same thing with Street Fighter (yes, a different genre, i know). Just make some cool characters with cool designs, fanartists will do the rest.
New mario karts have consistently had new ideas and gimmicks. The fundamental formula of "battle racing game with karts" is the same but they've added in things like duo-karts or flying karts or bikes and very different race track design to give it a fundamentally "different" element from game to game. You can see a different gimmick in each one.
With F-Zero it's literally just ultra high speed racing with damaging walls that inflict car damage over time until your car explodes. The goal being to race as hard and fast as possible while getting heals each lap and managing your endurance to not blow up.
Street Fighter isn't Nintendo it's Capcom, but they do add a new core mechanic to each game to fundamentally change the game in a way that makes it fresh each time, the current one being Drive Rush.
they haven't made a new mario kart in a decade :<