Zero Punctuation: Super Mario Maker

[Something Amyss]

Considering he did nothing out of those things, that list only qualifies as a waste of time.

Or an exercise in irony, since it misportrays Yahtzee over him misportraying a game.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Considering he did nothing out of those things, that list only qualifies as a waste of time.

Or an exercise in irony, since it misportrays Yahtzee over him misportraying a game.

That does happen a lot. "What, Yahtzee reviews a Nintendo game? He hates Nintendo! He's only going to make a fun of it!". Never mind that he argues every single one of his criticisms, or that he's a fan of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Luigi's Mansion, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Bayonetta 2 and the Castlevania games in general. God forbid he makes anybody uncomfortable with an opinion.

 

[VintageTorrie]

More like my point was: "Don't act like Nintendo is the only one in the industry that pulls this kind of crap like 90% of the other haters because you think it makes you look good when it doesn't."

You clearly misread him though, as he was stating that his goodwill was eroding for Nintendo, not the industry as a whole. I love how people always bring up other game companies when someone even dares to criticise Nintendo one teensy little bit.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

We all return from whence we came, Yahtzee. We rise out of the aether in a composed form of energy to experience survival, comedy, music and strawberry cheesecake ice-cream, then we fade back into the aether as energy is disbanded and shared to the rest, along with any other compositions of energy we leave behind in this...bubble? The universe will do the same. Now, with Mario, Nintendo has whipped back so fast, the creative responsibility has somehow launched itself into the consumer's face. Too far, Nintendo. Too far.

Edit: In the case of the ROM hacking point, you are under the assumption this product's target demographic is adult, computer-knoweth and owneth gamers. I was under the impression this was more an attempt at their own little big planet, except simplified to Nintendo standard. A lower age than, say, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. *Sigggh* Good times, they were.

Editception: Did Nintendo not add any of their home made levels for the game? A mini campaign like little big planet? Stephen Fry? Hugh Laurie??
At least a randomise level create option?
Something?
...

 

[Hades]

What is it with Yahtzee and not reviewing Nintendo games? With Kid Icarus he spend half the video reviewing Nintendo and only making a few token jabs at the game that could be brought down very easily(By Yahtzee himself immediately after even).

Now With Mario Maker he's again spending most of the video reviewing Nintendo and only making a few token jabs at the game that can be brought down very easily.

I'm not coming to Yahtzee to hear positive things about the game but to see him tear them to shreds. So why does he have the habit of...not doing so when Nintendo is concerned. With EA and Ubi he talks about the games and makes some jabs at the companies but with Nintendo he often does the opposite.

 

[Carbo]

Pretty poor review, even when you ignore some of the factual mistakes such as the styles not inhibiting explicit differences. It's one thing to find 3D Land / World a lesser game than Galaxy and another to use it as a springboard to downplay whatever dwindling sense of "creativity" or such of the Mario series that you perceive. Super Mario Maker being predominantly put out as a 30th Anniversary Celebration is hardly as cynical as you like to think it is considering the brevity and adaptability of the game's content is something wholly different. Not to mention, taking umbrage to the idea of this game when rom hacks exist is making a pretty large disservice to the game when Super Mario Maker's unique "twists" on the making is something that is creatively removed from the rom hacking community. In it's own merits, it's something wholly unique that provides things no rom hack would have been capable of doing.

Yeah, good levels in Super Mario Maker are few and far between a lot of the time but that is more of a problem with it's user base as opposed to the game. The same thing goes for rom hacks. Can't expect everyone to get into the tedious process of rom hacking regardless if it's just a matter of living up to some creative and simple ideas.

I usually appreciate the cynicism in ZP but the episodes still tend to be masked with a mostly fair undercurrent. It felt completely absent here and as a result the cynicism felt pretty forced in this episode. Even if Yahtzee has insisted that he doesn't dislike Nintendo (and even liked games like Splatoon) I feel like if it's getting to a point that he keeps having to convince people that it's the case, the way these games are reviewed need to be evaluated a little. This review feels like the ultimate example of the reviews having gotten to a point where it's more about whatever perceived opinion you have about a company as opposed to what the game actually is.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I don't get why you're automatically attributing every bloody thing Nintendo does with Mario to desperation. His games sell by the truckload every time, so where the hell does desperation come into this? Miyamoto simply said "I wanna do a level editor", so he made a level editor.
Or is the desperation stuff an ironic inversion, in that you've completely run out of jokes to make about Mario so now you're desperate for material? The fact that you reached for the pedophilia joke at the very start of the video certainly makes it seem so.

I believe he means creatively desperate. They appear to be running out of ideas lately. Original ideas at least. Disclaimer: I could be wrong.

 

[Muspelheim]

In brief, more of a Mario-themed playset than a Mario editor.

If it were a model train set, it'd be something like this, I imagine.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Brio_toy_train_track.JPG

But then again, you have to start somewhere. If and when the tools become too limiting, the enthusiasts can always move on to Game Maker or something. Make their own games about little fat European men hopping around, if they want.

 

[1981]

I've really never understood the charge that releasing a level editor is lazy. It's such a nonsensical accusation; level editors are some of the most appreciated and versatile platforms for interacting with a franchise, and Nintendo have more than proven they're willing and capable of making their own fun & functional levels in large numbers.

I've only heard the accusation a couple of times, and it was aimed at indie games that have mediocre content. Maybe it's incompetence rather than laziness. If the devs don't have the skill to design good puzzles and/or platforming sequences, it's unlikely the community has. But people are more invested in established franchises, so it could work.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I fail to see how i'm a "snob" just cause i'm sick of Nintendo's bullshit and i'm not blindly sucking them off like most fanboys are.

Sony doesn't fucking attack Let's Players like their criminals like Nintendo does, I can easily ignore microtransactions and DLC that I don't care about, but when you start fucking with people who only want to share their enjoyment of your games and you try and sue someone for copyright over bullshit reasons, then you've crossed a fucking line, people like you are what's wrong with the gaming industry, blindly defending Nintendo's bullshit practices. If anyone's "not fit to be called a gamer", it's YOU, you're exactly the kind of blindly defensive Nintendo fanboy that Yahtzee has been criticizing for all these years.

Sony also doesn't repay people whose credit card accounts are hacked and barely makes jack all in terms of 1st party exclusives. And the ones they DO make are shameless pandering.

Oh my God! Nintendo would NEVER pander to their fans when they make first party titles, not EVER... except that they do. That's ALL they do anymore. Nintendo is no more or less void of problems than anyone else. Once again, the Standard Nintendo Fan side-steps legitimate criticisms of Nintendo by pointing out what other companies are doing as if we don't already fucking complain about them. It's like Tom Cruise getting upset over South Park making fun of him one week when they're just going to move on and make fun of someone else next week.

The logic behind that kind of defense is like if you were at your job and you screwed something up and your boss came over to talk to you about your performance, but having seen Beth do something wrong last week, you immediately try to throw her under the bus to get out of being criticized. Just because you never grew past Nintendo doesn't make you more or less of a gamer than anyone else.

OT: I thought that the idea of this game would be a fun novelty, but it's a shame that so much got left out. I was looking forward to making Bloopers fly across the screen of vertically made levels all Medusa Head style. They could just as easily include a mode that gives you more control over things like that, although it's hard to tell what goes through Nintendo's head when they're making a game. About the only Mario games I play these days are the Mario & Luigi titles.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

But then again, you have to start somewhere. If and when the tools become too limiting, the enthusiasts can always move on to Game Maker or something. Make their own games about little fat European men hopping around, if they want.

I wonder if this was a reference to Mario or to Yahtzee's Poacher.

 

[Muspelheim]

But then again, you have to start somewhere. If and when the tools become too limiting, the enthusiasts can always move on to Game Maker or something. Make their own games about little fat European men hopping around, if they want.

I wonder if this was a reference to Mario or to Yahtzee's Poacher.

Both, you can get a lot of mileage from little fat European men!

I'd love to see a whole ensemble of them, sometime. Über-Heinrich, Maurice the Magnifique, Wonder-Juan, Sven the Strong, Indefatigable Ivan...

 

[Gorrath]

Oh this was glorious! In my opinion Super Mario Maker is a game that has no right to exist, it seems pointless to spend 60 dollars on something you can do for free with a ROM-hack, which is why Nintendo is using mafia-style tactics to shut down people's content for no good reason.

I'm surprised Yahtzee didn't attack Nintendo for that bullshit Pokemon lawsuit, Nintendo is slowly but surely eroding any remaining goodwill I have for them at this point.

That's because you're a gaming snob and a taint on the industry. Read the rest of the comments. ROM hacks are not only, not official, they're unreliable and not very user friendly to most people. Plus 90% are no better than the novelty levels Yahtzee was complaining about in the video.

I love how it's Nintendo who's eroding your goodwill and not Sony for having bullshit customer service or the numerous 3rd parties shoving microtransactions and day 1 DLC onto their products amongst other scumbag tactics instead. You aren't fit to be called a gamer. Period.

You know, calling someone else a pretentious snob and then claiming they aren't fit to be called a gamer does much more to paint you in a bad light than them. As far as the "why Yahtzee is labeled as a Nintendo hater," that would be because Nintendo fans do what so many other fans do when he makes fun of something they like, take it all way too damned seriously. He makes fun of every game company and every game he reviews and somehow it's all a joke until he gives that treatment to something you like, then it's all serious business! He gets the Nintendo hater label because so many Nintendo fans are wound up so tight with frothing rage that they can't seem to see the forest for the trees. It's hardly a state of mind exclusive to them but it does seem to come rushing forth, tsunami-like, when a bad word is uttered about the big N.

 

[VintageTorrie]

barely makes jack all in terms of 1st party exclusives

I fail to see how this is a bad thing since console exclusives are terrible from a consumer point of view.

 

[bluegate]

First of all, I DID grow past Nintendo. It's not my fault they're the only one of the big 3 that I can trust outside of smaller companies and indie devs. And second, yeah you just proved you are a snob. Just like Yahtzee. I clearly don't see anyone making said complaints on the other companies other than Konami and Capcom and you're complaining about something as superficial as making Bloopers function like Castlevania Medusa Heads? First of all, that's your problem and second, you can just attach Bloopers to tracks for that effect.

I bet you are the kind of guy that people just walk out on mid-conversation because they just can't be bothered to talk with you anymore. If you don't see people complaining about other companies then you simply aren't looking in the right places, because there are a lot of people complaining about a plethora of things regarding other companies.

I do hope people keep replying to people like you, although you guys are a pain to talk with, it's fun to read other people talking with people like you, cheerio!

 

[F-I-D-O]

I fail to see how i'm a "snob" just cause i'm sick of Nintendo's bullshit and i'm not blindly sucking them off like most fanboys are.

Sony doesn't fucking attack Let's Players like their criminals like Nintendo does, I can easily ignore microtransactions and DLC that I don't care about, but when you start fucking with people who only want to share their enjoyment of your games and you try and sue someone for copyright over bullshit reasons, then you've crossed a fucking line, people like you are what's wrong with the gaming industry, blindly defending Nintendo's bullshit practices. If anyone's "not fit to be called a gamer", it's YOU, you're exactly the kind of blindly defensive Nintendo fanboy that Yahtzee has been criticizing for all these years.

Sony also doesn't repay people whose credit card accounts are hacked and barely makes jack all in terms of 1st party exclusives. And the ones they DO make are shameless pandering.

Don't ever say I'm not fit to be a called a gamer! I'm more of one than the modern day gamers that exist today!

BTW:

Also ROM-hacking is NOT illegal, it's amazing how many people are misinformed and ignorant on that subject.

Yes it is! I rest my case.

As someone who had credit card info compromised due to one of the Sony hacks, I got compensated. And then got store credit from them (as per usual company responses, as a way of saying here's some extra money for our system).
And please tell me how:

Journey
Bloodborne
Until Dawn
Infamous: Second Son/First Light
Unfinished Swan
Helldivers
Sound Shapes
LittleBigPlanet series
Twisted Metal

are shameless pandering? Granted, some of those were just published by Sony. Completely different than

Bayonnetta 2
Pokemon
Metroid Prime
Hyrule Warriors
Xenoblade Chronicles
Wonderful 101
Fire Emblem
Star Fox Zero

which are all completely developed by Nintendo, yep.

Nintendo, for all the great things it's done recently, has had equally backward and seemingly random polices that seem counter intuitive to the community they've been growing. Nintendo Direct - great way of showing that they get more of the internet culture than Sony/Microsoft/Ubisoft, and (usually) a fairly watchable presentation. Nintendo Partners program - let's screw over anyone wanting to talk about our games who relies on youtube for an income. Amiibo - people want figures, let's make cheap ones that can be easily mass produced and work with your games! And then artificially create shortages by delivering less to certain regions because there's scalpers and rather respond with inventory we're just abandon your region.
That doesn't make Nintendo better or worse than other companies - it just makes it more disappointing because it gets so many things right, and then fucks it up in the eleventh hour.

Also, the act of hacking and modifying ROMs isn't illegal. Distributing FULL ROMs of game is, hence why many are ROM patches that are applied on top of existing ROMs or to software through homebrew.

Spoiler: Wall of text about the legality of ROMs, as far as I believe is up to date given current legislation

Getting a ROM is technically not illegal, as there has been no formal (at least in the US) legislation overriding the idea of a customer's right to a personal backup of purchased data. EULAs might have specific wording, but the contradiction has prevented strict, set precedents to be established in courts. Distributing ROMs or selling hacks for personal gain IS strictly illegal, as it infringes on the intellectual property rights outlined under copyright law. Modifying a ROM is no more illegal than rewriting a chapter of Game of Thrones and showing it to a friend. Selling that chapter would be, unless it underwent intense modification to be considered enough of a divergent work (see the publication history of the terrible but in this case relevant fanfiction turned bestseller 50 Shades of Gray). Recording gameplay of a ROM and posting it online remains as unclear as the a strict recording of the original game, legally speaking. However, the act of making and freely distributing ROMs, like the old way method for community made Mario levels, is NOT illegal. It may be frowned upon, but it is currently not defined as an act of piracy. The method taken to get the base ROM itself may have been (and is a different act), but modifying it wasn't.
For similar reasons, people who watch streams of televised shows aren't regularly prosecuted - it's not illegal to watch that type of material, since it's almost impossible to prove in a court that the specific viewed stream was illegal, and that the viewers knew they were watching an illegal distribution of the work.

Granted, all of that could quickly change given Trans-Pacific Partnership and other legislation currently getting debated on/defined currently. There still remains no clear case than can be pointed to for a set legal precedent on ROMs, youtube videos, or similar issues in gaming.

This video shouldn't generate content for the maker/recorder, since it features Mario gameplay AND a Queen song. However, making the level is perfectly fine, and using the song in that level is also legally a-ok. Selling it or attempting to generate revenue from exploiting the derivative work is where the problem arises.

Final point - You play games. Congratulations. Never would have realized that from you posting on a gaming forum on a topic about a review from about a video game. That does not make you more or less of a person who plays games than a six year old playing Bejeweled on their parent's tablet.

 

[F-I-D-O]

I've really never understood the charge that releasing a level editor is lazy. It's such a nonsensical accusation; level editors are some of the most appreciated and versatile platforms for interacting with a franchise, and Nintendo have more than proven they're willing and capable of making their own fun & functional levels in large numbers.

I've only heard the accusation a couple of times, and it was aimed at indie games that have mediocre content. Maybe it's incompetence rather than laziness. If the devs don't have the skill to design good puzzles and/or platforming sequences, it's unlikely the community has. But people are more invested in established franchises, so it could work.

I think the difference is making a glorified text editor to go with minimal content, or making a fleshed out editor on top of an existing, fully featured game. As someone who's made a level editor for a small project, it's a massive pain to get working, and even more to get usable.
Mario Maker is interesting in that it doesn't feature too much in the realm of created content (leading some to think JUST releasing the editor was lazy), but it has a helpful tutorial method, and the amount of depth offered seems to contradict the ease with which levels can be made. It's level creation method of limiting a player to only 10 at first is great for developing a creative community, since it encourages quality levels (which unlock more slots) over throw away ones.
Compared to Little Big Planet, which had a fantastic editor for simple platforming levels, and allowed a large amount of variety, but was hard to wrap around and it's systems weren't particularly suited to the control scheme. Halo's forge had similar issues, but as you said, was associated with a beloved franchise, driving more people to go beneath the initial surface. It's just disappointing seeing no real new levels from Nintendo, as it did make the game a crowd-sourced endeavor. If Maker hadn't sold well, it'd be a ghost town of a game with no content to encourage new players to buy it, compounding the problem (see LittleBigKarting, ModNation Racers, or even EndWar). I think the backlash comes from a fear of the game having no "good" content, which was luckily circumvented by the early adopters.

 

[Logience]

Oh my god, this has got to be the slowest year in video game history.

Just for shits and giggles, does anyone have a video showing those aforementioned autoscroll novelty levels?

 

[marioandsonic]

Considering he did nothing out of those things, that list only qualifies as a waste of time.

Or an exercise in irony, since it misportrays Yahtzee over him misportraying a game.

Honestly? I just wanted an excuse to get drunk.

But yeah, he didn't really do any of that list, so it was a waste of time.

I even got my Skittles-infused vodka out of the freezer for nothing!

...

Well, guess I shouldn't let it go to waste.

*glug glug glug*

 

[mysecondlife]

15 seconds in, I knew where this was going.