My disappointment with the New Nintendo 3DS explained...
Blog Entry: My disappointment with the New Nintendo 3DS explained...
Blog Entry: My disappointment with the New Nintendo 3DS explained...
The graphics are terrible, that's my reason, but let me elaborate. I will definitely say that Nintendo has some awesome IPs, Mario, Zelda and Pokemon to name a few, but the hardware is just so bad. I expected it to be far inferior to the Vita, so that didn't disappoint me, what did disappoint me was how much better the GBA looked despite being an older handheld from the same company. This is not because the NN3DS is inferior to the GBA, it's a matter of style. The GBA had beautiful pixel graphics, while the NN3DS has ugly polygons and sometimes ugly polygon maps with pixel sprites over them that would look nice if not for the 3D angles making them look deformed (I'm talking about the 3D maps and camera angles, not the system's 3D function.). The NN3DS tries to produce games in a modern style without modern hardware and it looks terrible.
I love both pixels and polygons when they are at a certain level of quality, which is definitely accessible with today's technology. Games like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG which came out for the SNES are still beautiful in my eyes. It's not just nostalgia, give me a new game that looks like that and I'll love how it looks even today. Those games had pixels at their best. Then there's Final Fantasy VII (the original), it has an amazing story but it was ugly back then and it's uglier today, polygons at their worst. However, it's uglyness can be excused, not because of it's amazing story, but because of the limitations in technology. It didn't choose to be ugly, it had no choice and it did make up for those limitations in every other area, but those limitations don't exist today, so looking that bad isn't excusable anymore, even if the story is amazing.
It's true that it takes more than great graphics to make a great game, but we shouldn't have to choose between story and looks when today we can have both. One should be there to enhance the other, not to excuse it's absence, hence great graphics don't excuse the lack of good characters, story, etc. I think the NN3DS disappoints me mainly because it tries to do things it can't. The GBA could handle it's pixels beautifully, but the NN3DS can't handle the polygons very well and they look pixelated and deformed, while the GBA's pixels were displayed how they were supposed to look, without the hardware limitations affecting their aesthetics.
I love high quality graphics, anything Crisis Core level or better is good enough for me when it comes to polygons. Polygons may be more high tech and pretty polygons are my favorite, but pretty pixels are still better than ugly polygons. Ugly pixels are the worse though, pretty pixels don't require a lot of tech, so an ugly pixel game is truly inexcusable; for example Kirby's Adventure for the NES looks really good despite being so old. Games like Final Fantasy VII, pushed the limits of technology and innovated as a result, but systems with self-imposed limitations far below the current standards don't innovate, because overcoming those limitations doesn't mean reaching anything new, it just means lagging a little less behind, but behind nonetheless.
To end this post I invite you to picture this: Nintendo's IPs with Vita quality graphics. I grew up with Nintendo, but nostalgia can only carry me so far. I don't think Nintendo is going out of business any time soon, their IPs are strong enough to carry them for a long time, but I wish they would learn to rely on both IPs and technology, instead of only IPs. I could come up with a long list of reasons why I have a Vita, but for the NN3DS there's only one reason: Pokemon nostalgia, only Pikachu is cute enough to make me look past the low quality graphics, though I still think the GBA Pokemon games look way better than the NN3DS games.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might know that I recently got an NN3DS. I tried a few Pokemon games until the battery died. Then I realized I didn't have a charger, but I just didn't care. If that happened with the Vita or the PSP, I would have been very disappointed and rushed back to the store. For the NN3DS though, I think I'll just let it sit lifeless in a drawer for a few months and pickup a charger at some point in the future when I feel the need to visit Game Stop for some other more important reason. Hopefully when the time comes, adding friends on it will help make it worth keeping, because clearly, the system can't stand on its own. It should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway: these are my opinions and you're free to agree, disagree, or a bit of both.
I love both pixels and polygons when they are at a certain level of quality, which is definitely accessible with today's technology. Games like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG which came out for the SNES are still beautiful in my eyes. It's not just nostalgia, give me a new game that looks like that and I'll love how it looks even today. Those games had pixels at their best. Then there's Final Fantasy VII (the original), it has an amazing story but it was ugly back then and it's uglier today, polygons at their worst. However, it's uglyness can be excused, not because of it's amazing story, but because of the limitations in technology. It didn't choose to be ugly, it had no choice and it did make up for those limitations in every other area, but those limitations don't exist today, so looking that bad isn't excusable anymore, even if the story is amazing.
It's true that it takes more than great graphics to make a great game, but we shouldn't have to choose between story and looks when today we can have both. One should be there to enhance the other, not to excuse it's absence, hence great graphics don't excuse the lack of good characters, story, etc. I think the NN3DS disappoints me mainly because it tries to do things it can't. The GBA could handle it's pixels beautifully, but the NN3DS can't handle the polygons very well and they look pixelated and deformed, while the GBA's pixels were displayed how they were supposed to look, without the hardware limitations affecting their aesthetics.
I love high quality graphics, anything Crisis Core level or better is good enough for me when it comes to polygons. Polygons may be more high tech and pretty polygons are my favorite, but pretty pixels are still better than ugly polygons. Ugly pixels are the worse though, pretty pixels don't require a lot of tech, so an ugly pixel game is truly inexcusable; for example Kirby's Adventure for the NES looks really good despite being so old. Games like Final Fantasy VII, pushed the limits of technology and innovated as a result, but systems with self-imposed limitations far below the current standards don't innovate, because overcoming those limitations doesn't mean reaching anything new, it just means lagging a little less behind, but behind nonetheless.
To end this post I invite you to picture this: Nintendo's IPs with Vita quality graphics. I grew up with Nintendo, but nostalgia can only carry me so far. I don't think Nintendo is going out of business any time soon, their IPs are strong enough to carry them for a long time, but I wish they would learn to rely on both IPs and technology, instead of only IPs. I could come up with a long list of reasons why I have a Vita, but for the NN3DS there's only one reason: Pokemon nostalgia, only Pikachu is cute enough to make me look past the low quality graphics, though I still think the GBA Pokemon games look way better than the NN3DS games.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might know that I recently got an NN3DS. I tried a few Pokemon games until the battery died. Then I realized I didn't have a charger, but I just didn't care. If that happened with the Vita or the PSP, I would have been very disappointed and rushed back to the store. For the NN3DS though, I think I'll just let it sit lifeless in a drawer for a few months and pickup a charger at some point in the future when I feel the need to visit Game Stop for some other more important reason. Hopefully when the time comes, adding friends on it will help make it worth keeping, because clearly, the system can't stand on its own. It should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway: these are my opinions and you're free to agree, disagree, or a bit of both.