was VERY reluctant to buy marvel vs Capcom 3 when it was on sale because of the slop machines that are aaaaaaa devs.
said screw it and pulled the pin. Sat on it for about a week and finally booted it up last night… I absolutely forgot that these AAAA devs used to make games, not stores with games attached.
very refreshing to be bought back to the ¢25 arcade machine games again with no stupid stores, cosmetics, characters locked behind a wallet.
Now if I can just find a street fighter game that is in the same vein that doesn’t have stores with stores and nonstop ads for junk.
I know the hivemind around here has some pretty strong opinions about Nintendo, but I do appreciate that their games still feel normal when nearly every other AAA has pretty thoroughly enshittified.
It’s because their employees don’t leave until retirement. It’s how they can pass on knowledge and experience to the next generation of developers. It’s how the old guard like Shigeru Miyamoto can keep the companies creative direction pointing the right way. This is why they have delivered high quality creative work for decades while others, especially western studios , just die a slow death by a thousands cuts because they fire employees constantly for short term profits. Nintendo trains and nurtures talent and actually keep them on the payroll so the company can benefit from the time they have invested in the employees. Nintendo in Japan is a highly regarded employer with a very good reputation.
Nintendo gets sooo much hate online but I genuinely think they make some of the most solid video games. They innovate, they iterate, they ship rock solid games. Now if only their online wasn’t absolute garbage.
Their games are notably expensive, and they are overly defensive about their IPs, but they haven’t forgotten that the goal is to make fun games first and foremost.
I just like the lightheartedness of a lot of Nintendo games, everything is so serious already. Feel good games.