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Friday, June 28, 2013

Miyamoto Always Arrives Late

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA — Unfortunately, he's no hero. ...He might not even arrive at all.

Shigeru Miyamoto isn't well-liked around these parts of KoopaTV. We've been calling for his retirement for many years now. Almost a decade, actually. Pretty much since F-Zero GX came out (or to be more accurate, after Pikmin 2 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door came out, so that'd be late 2004). Speaking of F-Zero GX, Miyamoto lately said the following to IGN about that franchise:

I certainly understand that people want a new F-Zero game. I think where I struggle is that I don’t really have a good idea for what’s new that we could bring to F-Zero that would really turn it into a great game again. Certainly I can see how people looking at Mario Kart 8 could see, through the anti-gravity, a connection to F-Zero. But I don’t know, at this point, what direction we could go in with a new F-Zero.
He followed up with, 
Obviously in the past we’ve tried to work with other companies, where we’ve let them develop games for us in franchises like Star Fox and F-Zero, but the more we think about it, the more we prefer to be able to create those games internally, on our own. 
Nintendo seems to have absolutely no trouble outsourcing for games from much more important franchises like Yoshi's New Island to absolutely crappy developers like Artoon/Arzest, though.

Speaking of that, maybe if Nintendo named the new F-Zero project "NEW F-ZERO" or "F-NEW-ZERO" or "NEW SUPER F-ZERO BROS. U", they would suddenly have creative inspiration. Or even better, "The Legend of F-Zero GX HD".

F-Zero GX, from what I've heard, is the pinnacle of that franchise. And from what I know, F-Zero as a franchise has one of the largest un-tapped reservoirs of characters with personalities and backstories that Nintendo has. Probably more so than Fire Emblem, because usually in those games their characters conclude nicely. In F-Zero, these guys have active, exciting lives. Now, I'm not advocating an F-Zero RPG (not that I'd have a problem with that) or an F-Zero action game (which would be marvelous and should happen...so I guess I am advocating it), but we have all these unused characters. Going even deeper with those could be the new direction F-Zero takes: Character-based franchising.

F-Zero GX already established a niche among the other racers that Nintendo launched back in 2003, joining Kirby Air Ride and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. It was the only one of those with a legitimate story mode. (It might also have better music than Kirby Air Ride, depending on your tastes.) The way it approached story mode was ground-breaking and, I think, inspirational, for the genre as a whole. And it's an under-capitalized opportunity.

If you look back at E3 with all of those on-stage cars, those cars represented racing games. While the model cars beat the games for lasting attention, those games all had story modes of some sort. Yet they approach it in a way that pales in comparison to how an F-Zero game can, because they all have  generic tough-guy characters no one cares about and are just thin fantasy personas. Even FERGUS from The Crew probably has no comparison to characters like Captain Falcon, Samurai Goroh, or Mrs. Arrow. Detailed story mode campaigns (like GX but not just for Captain Falcon! Other characters too. And take inspiration from the F-Zero anime also!)  + HD graphics + new courses, new music + Miiverse integration + ONLINE multiplayer = Success. And more Mrs. Arrow. She ordered Super Arrow to marry her, according to this interview from KoopaTV's sister station, F-Zero TV.



But Miyamoto doesn't care. All of these character stories probably came from SEGA's half. All Miyamoto cares about are super flashy original gameplay gimmicks like... collecting New Super Mario Bros. 2's 1,000,000 gold coins or wearing Super Mario 3D World's cat suits. If they aren't to Miyamoto's satisfaction, then no new game for you! Yeah, we have to revolutionize the franchise with such innovative concepts. Oh, how about we hold the races in SOCHI this year instead of Beijing, Vancouver, London, or an actual canon location in the franchise? Oh, you know what's REALLY innovative? Having no story, and have the main antagonist have no dialogue at all! AND STICKERS! SHINY! Miyamoto hasn't figured out how to implement sticker-based combat into F-Zero yet, but we'll keep you posted if he ever does.



You won't find Ludwig in the F-Zero Community on Miiverse because the whole thing is just FALCON PUNCH! references. Actually, ever since Miyamoto has said this, fans have taken back that community to tell Miyamoto off, which is a pleasing sight. Again, an action game would totally work for this franchise. You'll find him elsewhere on there, or you could just Follow him at NNID PrinceOfKoopas.


For more Miyamoto bashing, click here!
For more on Miyamoto and Sticker Star, look here.
For more thoughts on the "New" name scheme, click here.
Miyamoto's ignorance specifically on the F-Zero series continues.
Does a "200cc" mode in another game threaten F-Zero?
Mrs. Arrow and Blood Falcon are featured in this article about... pink underwear.

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