#nintendo epd

[arkus-rhapsode]

Nintendo Fans vs Fire Emblem, why so much resentment? And why won't Nintendo make something else?: A Video Game Discussion

So for those of you who may have missed it, Nintendo recently had a Direct. Not just a Direct, but currently their longest Direct to date. Despite that, there were quite a few sour emotions: from the rerelease of Mario Galaxy games at full price physically, to the only new Mario games being a tennis game and a Yoshi game, no new information of Splatoon Raiders, a weird new Pokemon game, no new Zelda game only a Warriors spin-off, and of course the big one, the big closer of the Direct-A new Fire Emblem game.

Now as a fan of Fire Emblem I was excited. Even if I had mixed feelings on it (which you can check out here), it's still an entry in one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. However, there were many who were not like me. Some who were very much not happy to see Fire Emblem as the Nintendo Direct's big finisher. Which may be best encapsulated by this some what viral moment by Youtuber Saltydkdan

If you haven't seen it, and don't feel like watching the clip on X, I'll simply describe it as live reacting to the final announcement of the Direct, at first believing it to be a new entry in the Kid Icarus franchise, only to soon be deflated at the fact its a Fire Emblem game. Saltydkdan would post this resulting in a typical Twitter tiff. Fire Emblem fans clowning on the guy and seeing this as just seeking engagement online, while various other seconding the disappointment felt at this announcement. Now I'm not here to be an arbiter on Twitter Drama, I don't know this guy, and I certainly don't know any of the people who took umbrage with the statement. But it got me really thinking about the nature of Fire Emblem and the discourse revolving around those who don't like it.

The easiest thing to do is kinda paint this as all sorta lingering resentment of the mega-cultural ubiquity of the Smash Bros franchise and how hating on Fire Emblem and their numerous additions is a now memetic thing. But personally I feel like that a very small group of people, and why someone may not like something in Smash Bros is not really applicable to a franchise as a whole.

Now I want to make something absolutely clear before we continue, I believe that there is a big difference between "I do not like this series. It's not for me. It's not what I am looking for in a video game experience. I am not going to be excited for something I'm not going to play. " and "I do not like this series because I would like something else to be in its spotlight/get this same level of attention." Because I feel its very easy to characterize the former as being part of the latter, and I feel as the latter is the one where a lot of the meat of this discourse comes from.

First, I want to establish two things: The first is the consistency in which Fire Emblem games are made. Fire Emblem's development is handled by Nintendo second-party studio Intelligent Systems. A developer that are most known for other Nintendo franchises such as Paper Mario, WarioWare, Wars, Pushmo, and more. Fire Emblem is clearly a pride of the studio, and as of 2025 when this post is being written, they have successfully managed to create a new Fire Emblem game almost every 2-3 years since 1990.

Nintendo is often praised for its commitment to maintaining a number of its franchises over the course of decades compared to its competitors. The fact that Intelligent Systems has managed to have such a consistent output for not just one, but three franchises in this day and age where we are constantly told of the issues regarding development time and cost is why we don't see new entries in beloved series while also giving them enough of a breathing room that they don't turn into annual releases is nothing short of admirable.

The other thing to establish is is Fire Emblem's sales. No two ways about it, Fire Emblem is a modest selling franchise compared to other Nintendo franchises.

The series hit a its noticeable uptick in popularity on the 3DS. With Awakening expanding the fanbase and literally saving the franchise from being shelved. Now a series that once struggled to scrape past 500K units sold, was now consistently selling over a million. However, this is Nintendo. A company whose franchise include Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Kirby, and Pokemon. Whose sales reach 10s of millions. With Mario Kart 8 selling 76.66 Million copies.

Let me put this into perspective. Fire Emblem's best selling game (not counting the app game Fire Emblem Heroes) was Fire Emblem Three Houses on the Switch at 4.12 million copies sold. Pokemon's best selling entry, Scarlet & Violet, that was also on the Switch and was riddled with bugs and errors was 27 million copies. It would take almost 7 Fire Emblem Three Houses to be equal to one Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

So we've established that Fire Emblem is a long running series that's managed to have a developer behind it that's managed to consistently put out new games at a respectable clip and that it does modestly well for a franchise that is exclusive to a single platform. SO why does any of that matter?

Well Fire Emblem wasn't Nintendo's only modest seller. Other Franchises such as F-Zero, Metroid, StarFox, Donkey Kong Country, and Kid Icarus sold around and in some cases more than Fire Emblem did. Yet they have either not received any new entry in years or have to wait years for a new entry to come out.

And these franchises have many passionate fans. Some fanbases almost equal to the FE fanbase that have often cried out for a new entry for more of the games that interest them. Yet they're seemingly unheard, why?

Well this is where we get to an unfortunate truth of the video game industry at the turn of the century-games don't get made without teams. Nintendo used to make many of their game franchises internally, however around the N64 and GameCube, you saw that with advancing home console hardware they were unable to make every game like they used to. This is where you would see Nintendo's streak of working with second-party development. Getting developers like Namco and Sega to make StarFox and F-Zero. Metroid would now be in the hands of newly acquired studio Retro Studios. While internally Nintendo worked on their more marquee titles like Mario and Zelda.

This method of game development would continue into the Wii and DS era and beyond. As of 2015, Nintendo has been internally restructured into nine Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) groups. These are the teams responsible for creating many of the games we see as "Nintendo games."

Co-Production Group (Formerly EPD 1&2) is a support studio that works with various external Nintendo studios and franchises such as Metroid, Kirby, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem etc.

EPD 3 develops the Zelda series. They work on nothing but Zelda related products.

EPD 4 develops more casual games such as Brain Age, Nintendo Labo, Big Brain Academy, Ring Fit Adventure, and Miitopia

EPD 5 develops both Splatoon and Animal Crossing

EPD 6 another studio that works external teams primarily western Nintendo developers like Retro Studios and Next Level Games

EPD 7 another studio that works externally and almost exclusively on 2-D Metroid games such as Samus Returns and Metroid Dread. As well as working with MAGES on the Famicom Detective series

EPD 8 which works on 3-D Mario games

EPD 9 Which works on Mario Kart and (surprisingly) ARMS

EPD 10 Who work on 2-D Mario games such as Wonder and also the Pikmin series

Other First Party studios include

Retro Studios who work on Metroid Prime and the Donkey Kong Country Returns games

Nintendo Cube who make the Mario Party games

1-Up Studios the restricted remains of the studio Brownie Brown which works as a support studio for various 3-D Mario projects like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza

Monolith Soft responsible for the Xenoblade series

Next Level Games who handle the Luigi's Mansion and Mario Strikers franchises

Nintendo Software Technology (NST) who work on the Mario vs Donkey Kong series and made F-Zero 99

Shiver Entertainment a port studio

If you do not see any of the series you like on here, that means that Nintendo is leaving them in the hands of second-party studios to develop them. Some such as Bandai Namco, Camelot Software Planning, Game Freak (who is a weird case of having a third of it owned by Nintendo, but not wholly owned), and HAL Laboratories. If you're curious about an even more in-depth look at Nintendo's internal workings regarding development and how they adopted this system-I highly recommend Good Vibes Gaming's video on the topic.

This sort of abandonment from the main internal team can cause a franchise to be thrown all about. A case study is the Donkey Kong series.

While a smash hit in the arcades, hadn't really translated to a new game beyond sequels of the arcade game. Nintendo would allow then second party developer Rare to work on the DK IP resulting in a string of Donkey Kong Country games that came out at a relatively consistent pace. As well as DK spin-off games such as Diddy Kong Racing. However, Microsoft's acquisition of Rare would mean that there'd be no more DK games handled by Rare. It is when we'd see Donkey Kong done by Namco and the DK King of Swing which would be handled by Paon. Weird spin-off titles that didn't bare much similarity to the platformers of the Donkey Kong Country games.

Nintendo would internally work on Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. Which, while a platformer, wasn't a continuation of DKC. With Donkey Kong Country only Returning (ehhh? get it?) when Retro Studios would work on it. Though this would coincide with a slow-down of Metroid Prime games. And when Retro Studios went back to working on Metroid Prime, we can see another drought in Donkey Kong platformers in... Jesus, 2014... Only now in 2025 would get a brand new 3-D Donkey Kong game done internally by Nintendo for the Switch 2. All of this to say, an IP without a studio or team? Their likelihood for a consistent output goes way down.

Fire Emblem never really ran into this issue. Intelligent Systems had been working on Fire Emblem since its inception. And successfully shepherded the franchise for many console generations. If there was one franchise that was mostly safe when it came to development, it would be Fire Emblem.

So why don't other franchises just go out and get Second-Party partnerships? If all that's required for a Nintendo game to get that sort of security that doesn't have an internal team, why don't we have the same for the likes of other franchises like F-Zero, Star Fox and Kid Icarus? If series like Fire Emblem, Kirby, and (for some reason now) Famicom Detective Club have these second party deals-why can't others?

Well unfortunately, when it comes to Nintendo they may be one of the stingiest people when it comes to letting others touch their IP. In 2022, the CEO of Nightdive Studios Stephen Kick took to social media to speak on how Nightdive was having discussions with Nintendo on remastering some of their older titles. Not new entries, just remasters.

Eternal Darkness was a cult classic GameCube horror game that is totally owned by Nintendo. And while it didn't sell significantly well, it was critically acclaimed. Unfortunately, the studio behind it, Silicon Knights, folded years ago and the chance of this series ever continuing are slim to none. So to see a studio willing to take on the task of remastering it, maybe even renew interest in the franchise as a whole, be denied due to Nintendo's need to be protective of their IP and image, it can be very frustrating.

And if that's just for cult classics, what about classic classics? Well in the case of Kid Icarus, we know that Nintendo had attempted to get Factor 5, the developer behind Star Wars Rogue Squadron, to develop a Kid Icarus game for the Wii. But unfortunately dueling desires for the game would result in the project getting scrapped and Factor 5 shutting down. (If you want a fully story on that, check out Liam Robertson's Unseen64 video on that its wild)

Then of course, Kid Icarus Uprising was only made because Iwata had approached Sakurai to make a game for the 3DS. Which Sakurai originally wanted to be a Star Fox game.

And Sakurai had to have his own small development team Project Sora/Sora LTD make the game.

Sega did work on F-Zero GX, but unfortunately that division in Sega, Amusement Vision, would restructured and become Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios. Yes. That RGG studios. And as you can guess were unavailable for more F-Zero projects.

Then there was Star Fox in Ubisoft's Star Link. And I'll be honest, I'm shocked Nintendo with their bettering relationship with Ubisoft on the Mario + Rabbids franchise never got Ubisoft to maybe helm a star fox game.

And that's just the unsuccessful attempts at getting second party relationship going. I cannot begin to put myself in the shoes of Golden Sun fans. Camelot Software Planning consistently works with Nintendo, they have a good relationship. And yet all they make are Mario Tennis and Mario Golf related games. Without a hint of Golden Sun (and if they do sneak in a reference its edited out in the English version). Platinum Games have worked with Nintendo on Bayonetta and IP that's not owned by Nintendo, but is consistently published, meanwhile Astral Chain, a series that sold about as much as Bayonetta crossing the one million mark and actually being wholly owned by Nintendo, unfortunately doesn't seem like it will be seeing a sequel anytime soon.

And while I've spent this essay basically saying that Intelligent Systems is a consistent second-party developer and that is why Fire Emblem can be made so consistently. It's worth noting Intelligent Systems also had to make some of their own sacrifices. The Wars franchise once helmed by Intelligent Systems would fall to the wayside after the Wii/DS era. Now only with developers WayForward, did we see a remake/reboot of the first two Advanced Wars games. With WayForward's James Montagna mentioned he'd like to do the same for other Nintendo properties like Chibi-Robo or Kuru Kururin.

While it is admirable to make three franchises like Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and WarioWare at the same time. Intelligent Systems did used to make other games like Battle Clash and Pushmo, hell I'm sure there's a few Code S.T.E.A.M. fans out there who would like for Intelligent Systems to come back to that.

Because if you don't like Fire Emblem... That's fine. Maybe its not your thing, maybe you don't like the gameplay, maybe you don't like the writing, maybe its some other third thing. Different strokes, different folks. I cannot force you to enjoy something you don't. And don't think you need to feign happiness for others about something that you aren't going to play.

I am very privileged as a fan of this franchise. That this is a series that Nintendo has the ability to consistently put out while still being somewhat of a niche genre. Even when that games are not as good as I want them to be, I can at least rest safe knowing that in 3 years time I could get another one. Whereas fans of other series may need to take what they can get and have to make due with it for years, decades in some cases. Video games are art, and art is an emotional industry. You cannot simply tell people, “well this is just the way of the industry, so from a logical perspective you shouldn't expect anything if there's no development team and you should always expect and tolerate what does” (And trust me, I've said some things that insinuate that which I am extremely not proud of).

It's hard, its really hard for a thing you like to be tied up in the whims of the company that makes it. If they fail to make these partnerships or expand their internal teams to make these abandoned or less popular games, then you will likely not see them. Obviously, I don't want to see Nintendo start artificially inflating itself, buying up studios and sending them to the mines to work on IP and I'm very thankful that the second-party partnership system has allowed for this more healthy relationship between companies. But I would like to see such a powerful company like Nintendo's expansion be seen in the number of their products produced, and I would like to see them trust their IP more in the hands of others. Not willie-nilly of course, but when I see someone willing to work with you on something like Nightdive, a studio with a proven track record and pedigree, I feel like that's an opportunity that should be taken advantage of.

That's the only real answer that I can come to, and I really hope that when people end up in these sorts of tiffs over "this is not what I want/this is what I want" they think about the state of the Nintendo company. Because I've been on both ends here. There's times I feel like I'm drowning in games for me and other times I feel like someone else is getting everything they want, but not me.

FE fans, Non-FE fans, and whatever spectrum in-between, I hope one day there's a Nintendo Direct that can give everyone a little something of what they wants

If you have any thoughts on this topic yourself, please leave a reply or reblog, I'd love to hear your feelings.

[sparkirby514]

Kirby’s excited for Donkey Kong Bananza!

[everygame]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Nintendo Switch)

Developed/Published by: Nintendo EPD / Nintendo Released: 3/3/2017 Completed: 09/06/2023 Completion: Beat Ganondorf with all memories. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

I’m not going to talk about Breath Of The Wild at length because I’m sure that–as the kind of person who is reading this–you’ve already read hundreds if not thousands of words about what is now generally considered the greatest game of all time (unless it’s been supplanted by Tears Of The Kingdom for sure by now?) 

In that, of course, it supplanted Ocarina of Time, and after playing through Breath Of The Wild and, wildly, having my breath taken by it [“Ah, that’s what you come here for”--Ed.] I’m really struck by what a basic bitch I can be. Even as time passed and people tended to sneer at the idea of Ocarina of Time’s position as the greatest of all time (or perhaps I’m just too Insert Credit-pilled?) while I’d admit the game would probably not be in my top ten now and I have little-to-no urge to replay it, I’d still probably go to bat for it, simply because it’s a game I remember so fondly.

I just remember playing through basically all of it from a bean bag and it maybe being one of the first games where I tried to get as much done as possible before a point-of-no-return, and then trying to basically 100% it before beating the last boss (which I eventually gave up on because I was feeling left behind by the other people I new who had beaten it.) Something I remember playing because I just liked playing it, not because I was trying to finish it or anything.

And bloody hell if that wasn’t Breath Of The Wild–and I’m truly surprised by that. As is my usual behavior, I finally played this because everyone was having fun with Tears Of The Kingdom, but I’d have played it a lot quicker if I hadn’t (weirdly) been waiting to see if Nintendo would ever announce an upgraded Switch or anything after a friend had offhandedly said “oh, I can’t imagine playing that on a Switch Lite.”

Well, I did anyway and it was fine.

The weird thing about Breath Of The Wild–and the thing you’ve probably heard endlessly about it (I haven’t read much on the game, to be honest)--is just how it trusts the player implicitly in a bafflingly un-Nintendo way. I cannot believe that the game literally starts, gives you like three small tutorial dungeons, and then goes “kill Ganondorf. Er, probably do these other things first, but if you want to try and kill him immediately we won’t stop you.”

It’s wild! And what really blows me away is how for the most part all the game really is is a open-world checklist, and one where the things you are doing are honestly very basic tiny dungeons that usually have nearly no reward at all, and yet… I felt constantly rewarded by it. Is it simply that Nintendo polish? That effort on feel, on visual? When I think about playing something like, say, Days Gone, which actually has perfectly fine moment-to-moment gameplay.. why do I feel like I’m chewing through something endless and repetitive there, but here I climb a tower to unlock the map–the exact kind of thing I’d roll my eyes at in an Ubisoft game–and I’m like “yeahhh dudeeee!!!”

I mean, I guess I’ve got complaints, but I also sort of understand for the most part why those things are the way they are. I wish cooking was easier (holding stuff in your hands and dropping them into a pan sounds cool, but you’re still mostly navigating a menu, and the lack of it recording a cookbook is a bummer). The economy is totally broken (everyone I’ve talked to about this game eventually relied on an exploit like snowman bowling to get enough cash). The “major” dungeons are kinda nothingy. Quests are as unrewarding as the ones in Nier and they’re not even trying to take the piss out of you.

But this the kind of thing that we want to call the greatest game of all time because it just works. You can quibble this, you can quibble that, but it’s a game I played because I liked playing it, and when I was done with it–I’d got a nice horse, I had a nice house, all the armor and weapons I wanted and that–I just… finished it and felt good about it.

Will I ever play it again? I probably could have played it more! But that’s for Tears Of The Kingdom.

Final Thought: I also rather appreciated the game’s attempt at telling a fairly minimal narrative in a non-linear fashion that (at least for me) paid off. I don’t think it was that successful at recontextualising the whole “save the princess” trope or anything, but it was trying something a little thoughtful, so even that got points.

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[surftens]

Metroid Dread


2021, MercurySteam e Nintendo EPD

[randomisedgaming]

Star Fox Guard /  スターフォックス ガード - Wii U - 2016 Developer: Nintendo EPD & PlatinumGames Publisher: Nintendo

Follow Randomised Gaming on Tumblr, for video game, art, reviews, features, videos and more. You can also find us on twitter and subscribe to us on YouTube for even more gaming content!

[bestgameoftheday]

The Best Game of the Day is:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Genre: Action-Adventure Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Wii U Initial Release: 2017 Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+

[everygame]

Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo Switch)

Developed/Published by: Nintendo EPD / Nintendo Released: 27/10/2017 Completed: 08/04/2020 Completion: 516 moons and finished the dark/darker side of the moon. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

This is a bit of a weird one to write, and not just because Odyssey is a complete bastard to spell. It’s because every other Super Mario I’ve ever played I’ve 100%ed. There are some I haven’t played, but definitely since Mario 64 there’s been a satisfaction of polishing off the 120 stars (or equivalent) to say that there’s nothing left to be done. Now, it hasn’t always been pleasant (strong memories of staying up till yon time in order to collect the remaining purple coins in Super Mario Sunshine, which was, honestly, shite) but, yeah, it was nice to at least imagine these games as one long, peerlessly designed product that you should experience in its entirety, whether or not I liked them. Super Mario Odyssey, by comparison, showers every level in enough moons that if they were cut up into four different things (I dunno, stars, moons, two other things you get when you eat a bowl of Lucky Charms) people would say this was as ridiculous as Donkey Kong 64 because there are EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY to collect. I’ve collected 516, without even trying especially hard, in 25 hours.

So you could say I’m just a quitter and I could do the rest but considering some are found by like… slamming the floor in an area with absolutely no obvious reason to do so and others are scored by being far better at an activity than I’m willing to be (there are some races that can absolutely fuck off, honestly) that I know I’d never get to 880 without serious time and dedication, and fuck that.

Which is sad, really. And I have no idea why this game was designed this way. Why not just give me a smaller bunch of nice challenges I get a star at the end of? That I can select? Now the game just has a big empty list that tells me what to do after I’ve done it, which makes absolutely no fucking sense.

I mean, overall there’s a feeling with this that there’s no consistency in design or thought so they just said “fuck it” and spunked moons all over the levels with abandon. I find something kind of telling that they stick a big “wow” moment for Mario’s possession ability right at the start (where you possess a T-Rex) rather than any build to that, not to mention the way that it sticks loads of moons in the post-game because otherwise you’d just be drowning in them first time round.

Which probably isn’t even my biggest problem with the game when it comes to consistency. Mario games have always (basically) sort of looked like shit once they got into the HD-era, saddled, as they are, with a hero that’s a fucking plumber. Here they’ve just decided to say fuck it and you’ve got levels that are a mess of “real” textures and other levels that are more abstract, clashing totally, and above all you have the “Broodals” who are, without a doubt, the ugliest, most shit character designs Nintendo have ever put their name to. I say it every time (to myself, alone) but what’s fucking wrong with the Koopa Kids, anyway? JUST USE THEM!

Don’t get me started on the weirdness of New Donk City, either.

So it sounds like I’m out to just trash this completely but, of course, it’s still a Mario game, and so Mario controls well, there’s always something to do and turns out that if it’s constantly showering you with moons for like… jumping to a platform it cheaply means you’ll keep having fun because you’re a stupid bitch who is like “more crackers, please!”

*ahem*

What I’m saying is this game is entertaining but it stands against everything Mario was and should be and that’s sad, and bad, and makes me worry for the future.

Will I ever play it again? It’s a good question because what if I did go back and play more of it to get more of them crackers moons? But then I remember the fucking stupid hard bits I’d have to do and the sense of incompletion I’d have so no, I won’t.

Final Thought: It’s weird but this honestly made me quite interested in playing a classic 3D platformer, like maybe Banjo Kazooie or something, in a way that I’ve had no hunger for basically ever. So what I’m saying is I’d rather play a decent-ish knock-off of Mario rather than an actual Mario because that’s what Odde… oddy… this game did to me.

[everygame]

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (iOS)

Developed/Published by: Nintendo EPD, DeNA / Nintendo Released: 21st November, 2017 Completed: n/a Completion: 8 animals in my camp, level 16, etc. Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Normal service will be resumed on Every Game I’ve Finished soon, but here I am to talk about Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, a game I haven’t “finished” as such and which I am still—honestly—turning on here and there. However, I’d argue that I’m basically done with it outside of a kind of sick, lingering habit, and I was done with it within (at best) five days of downloading it playing no more than a couple of times a day. So, why?

Now, I love Animal Crossing. I pumped easily 150+ hours into New Leaf; I put a fair chunk into the Gamecube original and the DS version (I cared not for the Wii version at all however, but then, no one did.) And I was really excited for this one! Because I expected an Animal Crossing game with free-to-play aspects. Instead what we got is… well, the urge is for people to say “a free-to-play game skinned as Animal Crossing” but what’s weird is that that isn’t quite right either. What we actually have is a game that seems to entirely misunderstand what keeps people coming back to both Animal Crossing and free-to-play games. Let’s review!

Animal Crossing is a slow game; a companion game. While it does become easy to binge on it, the idea is that it’s a small world that you will visit somewhere in the region of once or twice a day to every few days. While there you engage in activities, yeah, but the pleasure comes from the relationships with the animals in your town, the growth of shops and amenities due to your care and attention, and sometimes mysterious, sometimes regimented events in the town. The most interesting thing about it all is how slight these systems are; animals don’t really say that much, they’re just very broad stereotypes, and growth is tied to things as simple as “spending X amount of money.” But the game doesn’t tell you any of that.

Pocket Camp, by comparison, portrays itself as a slow companion game, but does exactly what Animal Crossing doesn’t: it makes every single aspect of it an obvious transaction. Where are animals? Well, a timer tells you how long they will stay somewhere. When can you build this? Well, there’s a bar that lets you know when you’ll unlock it. Everything you do for an animal adds to their friendship bar, and your level.

The thing is, this isn’t specifically the problem. The issue is how it is pervasive and doesn’t consider how (and where) they needed to pull back, or offer more “real” Animal Crossing aspects. So, for example, Cyrus telling you it’s going to take six hours to make a table, well, that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that every single animal you will unlock is the exact same animal everyone else unlocks at the same time. Every piece of furniture is unlocked in the same order. You are given the same regimented experience as every other player.

What’s even worse is that the sense of discovery is gone elswhere, too. The design requires that you constantly give stuff to the animals to increase your friendship and gain money and crafting material. However, with bugs, fish, shells and fruit to collect, and animals asking for specific items, they are forced to limit the amount of kinds of fish or bugs you can collect, so you’re literally stuck collecting hundreds of pale chubs or fruit beetles. Within a day you’ve already seen all the creatures in the game. Will that change as seasons change? Well, it might, but it’ll just be a swap of four kinds of fish for four other kinds that the animals suddenly start asking for.

And of course, the animals can’t ask “I want a red fish/big fish” because then that plays havoc with the free-to-play mechanics. So you’re stuck with tedious make-work, all of which gets worse as the animals requests get more extensive and crafts become larger and harder to make.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there, because this doesn’t make it successful as a free-to-play game! The soul of Animal Crossing is sucked out, but the ways to monetise it—paying for leaf tickets to speed construction, or for items to speed collection—still don’t work, because you’re playing a “slow” game; you are incentivised to wait because honestly there’s not that much going on and in Animal Crossing that is fine and good! Even here, they try and draw you into playing longer each day with daily goals, but because of the intentionally-limited content design, you’re stuck with “collect 15 horse mackerels.” If I’m willing to pay actual money to get some fishing nets to speed that, why don’t I just pay actual money to not do that tedious thing in the first place? It’s like they thought through one step, but no further.

I would love to see the design meetings for this game, during which I feel like a lot of conventional wisdom was considered primary over, well, any of the usual Animal Crossing design, which is anything but conventional. Why doesn’t every player get random villagers? Why is every location the same? Why are all items unlocked in the same order? It’s all smoothing of the edges off, and Animal Crossing is the edges. I can’t visit another camp and marvel at what they’ve done; eventually I’ll unlock that, and hell, there’s the same bloody animals everyone else has. People don’t even have unique fruit in their camp; everyone gets it all. So even the reason to visit other players isn’t there; now it’s just to give kudos to hit those daily goals.

What we have here is a game—yes—that only wears the skin of Animal Crossing but isn’t; and which uses the mechanics of free-to-play but in such an inefficiently forced and thoughtless manner that there’s nothing you’d want to spend money on. Is there maybe pleasure to be found still in the small rhythms of unlocks and animal friends? I think there is, but the problem is it’s not the special, magical and mysterious pleasure of Animal Crossing; it’s now just the same as unlocking a new sword, or whatever.

It’s hard to express how fully Nintendo have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here. A chance to offer players their own personal little world that they visit on their phone, maybe forever, that they show and share; replaced with a garbled mess of bars and timers wearing the face of a friend.

Will I ever play it again? I’ll be booting it up for a while yet; I’ll probably even engage in this Christmas event. Each day I check it less, and like Miitomo, the first time I miss a day it’s all over.

Final Thought: You might ask: how can I give it such a relentless kicking and then say I’m still logging in? That maybe it’s doing something right. And I’ve really worked hard to try and find some aspect of it that works; well, that it’s got a skin colour choice at the beginning of the game now? I mean, Nintendo-wise, that’s progress.