Zero Punctuation: Super Mario Maker

[marioandsonic]

Jesus Christ. That... a lot of the shit he gave Nintendo seemed to be just unnecessary, and now I'm not entirely convinced that he doesn't just hates Nintendo as a whole. I mean... pedophilia, slaughter and subsequent defiling of said corpse out of literally fucking nowhere. Yeah, he likes a few games, and I know that Nintendo isn't good at dealing with Youtubers as a whole, but... I mean... really? It just seemed excessive this time around. Like, this is the sort of thing that he'd do with EA or Activision or any game company that consistently puts out games that no one likes, least of all Yahtzee. And it seems to me that he is convinced that no one likes Nintendo, despite heavy evidence to the contrary.

Didn't seem excessive at all to me, i'm personally getting tired of fanboys blindly defending Nintendo all the time no matter how anti-consumer they get.

Nintendo has never been anti-consumer. Anti-Youtuber, yeah. But Nintendo has always been one of the best examples of pro-consumer in modern day AAA gaming. Free DLC for a lot of their games, Bayonetta 2 came with a free port of Bayonetta 1, Fire Emblem Fates gives you a massive discount on a digital copy of the second game when you buy one of the versions, which differs vastly from each other, mind you, reducing the price of the 3DS by $100, and so many more examples that I can't even name. Yeah, they have made mistakes in the past. The Amiibos were a disaster, and I understand completely why people hate Nintendo's practices towards LPers. But they have never been anti-consumer.

Well there was that thing with Nintendo supporting SOPA, which shows a certain disdain for the general gamer population, and could be argued to be proof of their non-consumerism. And the Fire Emblem thing is debatable too; is it an act of goodwill that the second comes as a discount, or is there some quasi-Stockholm Syndrome going on? I've not measured the filesizes, but I'd wager that the two games could've been on the same cartridge, and been, y'know. One game. This may turn out to be one of the biggest forms of 'day-one DLC' that gaming's ever seen.

(And do note at no point did I claim that MS or Sony are any better/different, before the fanboys start waving their flaccid wangs in my direction)

SOPA was a complete cancer, and I'm glad it died. I don't know why Nintendo or any company found that appealing. (Besides getting to hoard all the money)

I don't really know much about the Fire Emblem thing, as I'm not a fan of the series, but if what you're saying is true, that does sound pretty shitty.

Come to think of it, I'm kinda sick of how there's 2 (sometimes 3) versions of each Pokemen game released these days.

I guess it made sense back in the pre-DS days, where you couldn't trade online and thus had to get one of your friends to trade with you to complete your Pokedex. But now with online trading a thing, it seems unnecessary.

Then again, I never really liked that feature, as I didn't have many friends growing, and none of them played Pokemon. The kids who did I only knew at school, but then my school banned all Gameboys. As a result, I could never trade with anyone.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Come to think of it, I'm kinda sick of how there's 2 (sometimes 3) versions of each Pokemen game released these days.
.

These days? Didn't the very first one do that with red, blue and yellow? In fact, this idea of 'versions'has to be one the first anti consumer practices in gaming history, paying for the same game twice for very small differences. It hasn't gone away either.

Nintendo has never been anti-consumer. Anti-Youtuber, yeah. But Nintendo has always been one of the best examples of pro-consumer in modern day AAA gaming. Free DLC for a lot of their games, Bayonetta 2 came with a free port of Bayonetta 1, Fire Emblem Fates gives you a massive discount on a digital copy of the second game when you buy one of the versions, which differs vastly from each other, mind you, reducing the price of the 3DS by $100, and so many more examples that I can't even name. Yeah, they have made mistakes in the past. The Amiibos were a disaster, and I understand completely why people hate Nintendo's practices towards LPers. But they have never been anti-consumer.

They are where I livein Australia. It is not possible to buy any first party nintendo game in my area for less then $50. I still pokemon black and white for $50 mario galaxy 1 same deal and most of their wiiu games are $80. This is consistent only with first party nintendo games in every electronic store I go to and nintendos official online store. Everything else comes done in price after a year or two. I'd call that a bit anti-consumer. Also getting all the smash bros dlc would cost about $100 where I am. I also don't see how anti-lets players is not anti consumer either considering most of them buy the games.

Anyway, nintendo is a lot better then most companies but I'd say they definitely are willing to screw over the consumers to make a buck occasionally, just like everyone else.

 

[ccggenius12]

So, I'm going to choose to take issue with one piece of information presented in the video: the claim that he did his research this time. I will acknowledge that it's probable he did some, as it doesn't seem unlikely that Luigi would be the least valuable amiibo. However, I find it unlikely that it's the one whose image he used for the video, as that is the Super Mario amiibo, not the Smash Bros amiibo. A quick viewing on the local retailer's shelves indicates that the Smash amiibo is a few bucks cheaper than the SMB amiibo. Then again, maybe it really IS that way in Australia, and that's just stores doing the whole "fuck consistent relative pricing" thing. In either case, I much prefer the aesthetics of the one he used in the video to the Smash one, because I find planking to be stupid.

 

[Super Cyborg]

The first rule of escapist: any time Yahtzee posts a Nintendo video, the salt will begin to flow. Nothing has topped the Other M or Smash Brother video from the Wii era.

If I have one complaint about this video, it's more that most Nintendo videos come down to the same thing, where he talks about how iterative it is, make some potshots at the company and fans at times, and that's about it. He has some good points, but hearing it after so many times makes it less funny, no matter how he tries to dress it. If I could give a suggestion, perhaps he should not review the Nintendo games unless there is nothing else, or there is something different for him to say. He did have the question of the need for a stage maker as a game, but it got muddled in with everything else where any entertainment value was lost. If he was a regular critic, this would've been okay. The problem is he is more an entertainer in some aspects, so it didn't work as well. Then again, that's my opinion and perhaps a majority found it funny.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

The fact that you called all the differences between the 4 styles just cosmetics makes me think you didn't even play the game.

You complain how this is to kill ROM hacks and how user created levels are nothing but novelty, ridiculously bad levels, ridiculously hard levels and ridiculously bad and hard levels. Pretty funny because you just described 99% of all ROM hacks.
Saying that a level editor is lazy is just lazy reviewing. Polished and well made level editors are fantastic and it's something people have been asking from Nintendo for years. But now that it's out, every freaking snob pretends like there is no reason for it to exist.

ROM hacks don't invalidate the existence of the game even a tiny bit and here are the mayor differences.
The ROM hack community is basically dead. There is no centralized way to share, rate and play levels. Any more complex maps require you to learn to code.
On the other hand, ROM hacks allow far more freedom and can potentially do more than Super Mario Maker, except for the NSMBU style which can't be done through ROM hacks.

But hey, it's Yahtzee so it's okay.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Oh I think that Nintendo are very anti-consumer with those damn Amiibos by creating artificial shortages and encouraging scalpers to sell them for ridiculous prices, anyone who says that they've never been anti-consumer is in denial.

Except there weren't any artificial shortages and was just Nintendo underestimating demand for them and thus the production of them just couldn't keep up with demand. Which wasn't the first time it happened considering how insanely quick the Wii sold...which also had conspiracy theorists claiming artificial shortages because they clearly couldn't stand anything Nintendo-related being popular.

 

[Ryallen]

Come to think of it, I'm kinda sick of how there's 2 (sometimes 3) versions of each Pokemen game released these days.
.

These days? Didn't the very first one do that with red, blue and yellow? In fact, this idea of 'versions'has to be one the first anti consumer practices in gaming history, paying for the same game twice for very small differences. It hasn't gone away either.

Nintendo has never been anti-consumer. Anti-Youtuber, yeah. But Nintendo has always been one of the best examples of pro-consumer in modern day AAA gaming. Free DLC for a lot of their games, Bayonetta 2 came with a free port of Bayonetta 1, Fire Emblem Fates gives you a massive discount on a digital copy of the second game when you buy one of the versions, which differs vastly from each other, mind you, reducing the price of the 3DS by $100, and so many more examples that I can't even name. Yeah, they have made mistakes in the past. The Amiibos were a disaster, and I understand completely why people hate Nintendo's practices towards LPers. But they have never been anti-consumer.

They are where I livein Australia. It is not possible to buy any first party nintendo game in my area for less then $50. I still pokemon black and white for $50 mario galaxy 1 same deal and most of their wiiu games are $80. This is consistent only with first party nintendo games in every electronic store I go to and nintendos official online store. Everything else comes done in price after a year or two. I'd call that a bit anti-consumer. Also getting all the smash bros dlc would cost about $100 where I am. I also don't see how anti-lets players is not anti consumer either considering most of them buy the games.

Anyway, nintendo is a lot better then most companies but I'd say they definitely are willing to screw over the consumers to make a buck occasionally, just like everyone else.

I agree about the SOPA thing, but to their credit, they did remove themselves from the list and never publicly supported it. And as for the high prices thing, well... I read this article and couldn't really make much sense of it, so I thought that you might like to take a look at it.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/why-do-videogames-cost-so-much/

 

[Ryallen]

Jesus Christ. That... a lot of the shit he gave Nintendo seemed to be just unnecessary, and now I'm not entirely convinced that he doesn't just hates Nintendo as a whole. I mean... pedophilia, slaughter and subsequent defiling of said corpse out of literally fucking nowhere. Yeah, he likes a few games, and I know that Nintendo isn't good at dealing with Youtubers as a whole, but... I mean... really? It just seemed excessive this time around. Like, this is the sort of thing that he'd do with EA or Activision or any game company that consistently puts out games that no one likes, least of all Yahtzee. And it seems to me that he is convinced that no one likes Nintendo, despite heavy evidence to the contrary.

Didn't seem excessive at all to me, i'm personally getting tired of fanboys blindly defending Nintendo all the time no matter how anti-consumer they get.

Nintendo has never been anti-consumer. Anti-Youtuber, yeah. But Nintendo has always been one of the best examples of pro-consumer in modern day AAA gaming. Free DLC for a lot of their games, Bayonetta 2 came with a free port of Bayonetta 1, Fire Emblem Fates gives you a massive discount on a digital copy of the second game when you buy one of the versions, which differs vastly from each other, mind you, reducing the price of the 3DS by $100, and so many more examples that I can't even name. Yeah, they have made mistakes in the past. The Amiibos were a disaster, and I understand completely why people hate Nintendo's practices towards LPers. But they have never been anti-consumer.

Well there was that thing with Nintendo supporting SOPA, which shows a certain disdain for the general gamer population, and could be argued to be proof of their non-consumerism. And the Fire Emblem thing is debatable too; is it an act of goodwill that the second comes as a discount, or is there some quasi-Stockholm Syndrome going on? I've not measured the filesizes, but I'd wager that the two games could've been on the same cartridge, and been, y'know. One game. This may turn out to be one of the biggest forms of 'day-one DLC' that gaming's ever seen.

(And do note at no point did I claim that MS or Sony are any better/different, before the fanboys start waving their flaccid wangs in my direction)

I don't know if both games could have fit on one cartridge, given that when they originally released Fire Emblem: Awakening, they actually removed the feet because they didn't think the whole game would fit onto the one cartridge. And, like I said, both Fire Emblem Fates games are reportedly completely different, with one version having a sort of overworld where you can play battles repeatedly, similar to Awakening and other more recent games and the other version being more linear, similar to earlier Fire Emblem games. I would prefer that both games be on one cartridge if they could, but seeing as how they removed the feet of the characters in an attempt to make the game fit... And, like I said, you get the entire second game as cheaper DLC, which comes to about $15, from what I've read. Which is a hell of a lot better than I know that most other companies would do. I acknowledge that Nintendo isn't perfect. But I can say that they have consistently put out several really good games in past years that aren't just rehashes and have generally developed some goodwill, at least with me and the people that I know in real life.

 

[medv4380]

Sounds like someone couldn't be bothered to check our the filter settings, and instead of IDK changing the difficulty from a default of easy to medium, or hard. Of course all the highly rated levels are auto players when you leave the filter on Easy. You wont see auto play levels on a difficulty higher than easy for a very obvious reason. Now they really do need a Hard, and Near Impossible setting since in hard is where the difficulty can spike to infinity. A Super Easy should also exist since auto play levels are where the difficulty spiked the other way to near impossible to fail.

 

[Silvanus]

The funny thing is that kind of levels aren't much of a novelty in Japan. While in the West the Super Mario ROM-hacks were used for making hardcore and unfair levels, the Japanese used them to create autoscroll levels that played songs with the games' sound effects.

As amusing as they are the first few times, I was a little frustrated to see three of them come up during 100 Mario Challenge. I'm not here to sit and watch!

 

[CaitSeith]

While in the West the Super Mario ROM-hacks were used for making hardcore and unfair levels, the Japanese used them to create autoscroll levels that played songs with the games' sound effects

Wasn't both sides of the Pacific trying to make danmaku levels? ProtonJon's video history is a pretty sound example for that.

Spoiler: More on that topic...

2:40 That part of Youtube... now with Super Mario RPG music!

Game Theory? Okay, now you're acting like you're an idiot.

It's NOT a Game Theory video. It's called Culture Shock, and MatPat has nothing to do with it.

 

[Dark Knifer]

I agree about the SOPA thing, but to their credit, they did remove themselves from the list and never publicly supported it. And as for the high prices thing, well... I read this article and couldn't really make much sense of it, so I thought that you might like to take a look at it.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/why-do-videogames-cost-so-much/

Yeah that sounds about right. Its just weird thats its nintendo its most notable. Is usually the only thing stopping me from buying their games. I want wind waker hd, hyrule warriors, the one of ruby or sapphire but I just can't pay full price for games at the moment. To their credit though their consoles are by far the chepest, got my wiiu preowned for $300 with mario kart 8 on it for no extra cost from a regular retailer.

But yeah, happens all the time here. Damn nice beaches tax.

 

[marioandsonic]

Anyway, nintendo is a lot better then most companies but I'd say they definitely are willing to screw over the consumers to make a buck occasionally, just like everyone else.

I can certainly agree with that.

Let me put it this way: I enjoy Nintendo in the same way that I enjoy Disney: Both were huge cornerstones throughout my childhood, and I still enjoy many of their products. At the same time, they both have made plenty of stupid and/or shady business decisions.

I think this is one of the reasons I've never understood company or brand loyalty. It seems that some people try to paint companies as either good guys or bad guys, with little to no middle ground in between. Hence why some people will demonize one company for doing one thing, but then praise another company for doing the exact same thing.

 

[The Harkinator]

I do wonder how much mileage is left in Mario as a franchise that carries a significant burden of Nintendo's big name games roster. It's practically a given that Mario Bros, Mario Kart, and Mario Party will be released whenever Nintendo have a new console out, but there's only so much you can do with the games in between. The Wii had things like Mario Galaxy and the sequel, but the point raised here that there's little more they can do is interesting.

They've already done "This is your premise in space" what's left? "This is your premise on drugs"?

 

[FPLOON]

The original has the mystery mushroom, where they shoved the obligatory amiibo compatibility, no flying powerup at all

I was really hoping the various retro characters would have something different about them.

The Sonic one rolls into a spike ball like in the first Sonic game, the Pac Man one turns into his OG arcade look while running, and the Mega Man one "jumps and shoots"... I don't know what the other ones do, though...

OT: If this game had slopes, then I would be all up in that Maker shit... especially when making NSMB-based levels...

Other than that, only the gonorrhea bit made me laugh... Not sure why, though...

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I find it hard to believe that Nintendo underestimated demand...

Except that's exactly what happened. They expected the Amiibo to do well. They did NOT expect them to do THAT well i.e. collectors being horrendously rabid (and unfortunately underestimating the douchery of scalpers). It's called getting caught with your pants down, like what happened with the Wii when that exploded far beyond expectations and thus Nintendo was struggling to keep up with demand. Welcome to reality; it's a helluva lot weirder than fiction so learn to live with it.

 

[Super Cyborg]

The first rule of escapist: any time Yahtzee posts a Nintendo video, the salt will begin to flow. Nothing has topped the Other M or Smash Brother video from the Wii era.

If I have one complaint about this video, it's more that most Nintendo videos come down to the same thing, where he talks about how iterative it is, make some potshots at the company and fans at times, and that's about it. He has some good points, but hearing it after so many times makes it less funny, no matter how he tries to dress it. If I could give a suggestion, perhaps he should not review the Nintendo games unless there is nothing else, or there is something different for him to say. He did have the question of the need for a stage maker as a game, but it got muddled in with everything else where any entertainment value was lost. If he was a regular critic, this would've been okay. The problem is he is more an entertainer in some aspects, so it didn't work as well. Then again, that's my opinion and perhaps a majority found it funny.

I found it hysterical, I love it when he rails on Nintendo, because they really have been getting lazy and complacent for a long time, and as someone who once owned a Gamecube, that's a hard thing to admit.

Don't get me wrong, despite still loving their stuff the criticism they get is warranted. It's just like anything with EA, Call of Duty, and other stuff that is constantly brought up anywhere all the time, it gets a bit old after a while. Not saying these problems shouldn't be addressed, just as when it comes to a comedy show it will get stale over time no matter how it's done.

 

[Oldcodger]

I stopped playing Mario games when I stopped playing Donkey Kong in 1982. I can't believe they're still going! Actually, I did get dragged into a Mario Kart game at a party once but I got bored after 30 seconds and stopped. Sod consoles, give me PCs, FPSs and MMORPGs or give me erm... Just gimme them!

 

[Logience]

It's NOT a Game Theory video. It's called Culture Shock, and MatPat has nothing to do with it.

It's made by the Game Theory people, and posted on the Game Theory channel. It's a Game Theory video.

 

[SecondPrize]

When you attempt to redefine what copyrights mean and tear down the rights Nintendo holds for their products, you're attempting to destroy my copyrights as well, Yahtzee. Any of the rights we hold are only as strong for us as they are for any other person. The only difference between Nintendo and I is they have the resources to defend their copyrighted materials from those attempting to monetize them without permission. I can't do much against the people who use my work without payment or even permission. So good on Nintendo for defending our rights. And you, you can piss off for trying to weaken them.