• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Can we talk about the state Nintendo launched Tears of the Kingdom in?

Seriously. This shit is ridiculous. This game does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch. And, honestly, I don't hear anyone talking about it.

Tears of the Kingdom was one of the most anticipated video games ever released. It was expected to live up to and surpass its predecessor, which is among the very few highest rated games of all time.

This game launched on now ancient hardware and attempted to create possibly the most unbounded open-world ever. The player is given near limitless freedom to go anywhere, circumvent "expected" paths.

Basically, the player is dared to break the game at every opportunity. And what's the result? As a famous man once said, but couldn't himself ever back it up, "it just works".

In seriousness, the fact that this game doesn't break regardless of how many tools the player is given to do so, is honestly amazing. Games with a tenth of the freedom release with exponentially more issues, while running on significant hardware.

Nintendo has completely taken the excuse away that these games are just expected to be buggy because they are just so big and have so much freedom. No game on this scale has ever had more of an excuse to expect the player to break it, but Tears of the Kingdom is polished to what feels like an impossible level compared to the rest of the industry.

You're making everyone else look incompetent, Nintendo. Stop it. It's rude.
 

Josemayuste

Member
Yes GIF by Brittany Broski
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
💯

Slightly related too, as it is to do with Nintendo and the rest of the industry. But I just watched RGT’s latest upload and I fully agree with a point he made. Nintendo’s withered technology approach is the best approach for consoles (he speculated that it might be). Whilst Microsoft and Sony (and other major devs) are locked in high expense, high risk, high reward cycles - Nintendo for the most part can keep dev costs relatively low. Everyone else is at risk of crashing at the moment IMO.
 
💯

Slightly related too, as it is to do with Nintendo and the rest of the industry. But I just watched RGT’s latest upload and I fully agree with a point he made. Nintendo’s withered technology approach is the best approach for consoles (he speculated that it might be). Whilst Microsoft and Sony (and other major devs) are locked in high expense, high risk, high reward cycles - Nintendo for the most part can keep dev costs relatively low. Everyone else is at risk of crashing at the moment IMO.
I don't know how true that is. Getting games to run well on lesser hardware can be more time consuming. You can't brute force it and have to really optimize everything.

If you watch how NES games were made, you might be amazed how many things they had to account for. Today, a developer can make an NES style game in a fraction of the time because the hardware doesn't have those limitations.
 

Robb

Gold Member
They did admit that the game was done last year and that they were basically just playtesting it up until release.

I guess that’s the issue. Most publishers would just have released the game a year prior.

Releasing a finished and polished product shouldn’t be a big deal at all, but unfortunately it is. It’s ridiculous.
 

feynoob

Member
They delayed the game by 1 year to fix those issues.
Had they released by the original date, the game would not have been the same.

At least nintendo gives their studios time to iron all those mistakes. Thought they cant do that for pokemon games.
 
They did admit that the game was done last year and that they were basically just playtesting it up until release.

I guess that’s the issue. Most publishers would just have released the game a year prior.

Releasing a finished and polished product shouldn’t be a big deal at all, but unfortunately it is. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah, but honestly, how many developers can "finish" a game and then spend another full year paying hundreds of employees to polish it?

I don't even think Nintendo cam afford to do that outside of the few games they feel HAVE to be great.

Hopefully, that's what Starfield is going through with its year delay. That feels like the game MS feels has to be great. Sony might feel similar with something like God of War.
 
They delayed the game by 1 year to fix those issues.
Had they released by the original date, the game would not have been the same.

At least nintendo gives their studios time to iron all those mistakes. Thought they cant do that for pokemon games.
Yeah, well it's not just Nintendo's call with Pokémon. To the Pokémon Company, keeping on schedule with the playing cards, shows, etc is more important than the game quality.

And judging by sales, unfortunately, they seem correct.
 

feynoob

Member
Yeah, well it's not just Nintendo's call with Pokémon. To the Pokémon Company, keeping on schedule with the playing cards, shows, etc is more important than the game quality.

And judging by sales, unfortunately, they seem correct.
Reminds me of cyberpunk2077. Released at shit state, Sold 13m on day1 of release, got a lot of refunds, then went a head and sold alot of copies after that.
By 9/2022, the game had already sold 20m copies.

As long as these companies are seeing these sales, they wont stop it.
 
Reminds me of cyberpunk2077. Released at shit state, Sold 13m on day1 of release, got a lot of refunds, then went a head and sold alot of copies after that.
By 9/2022, the game had already sold 20m copies.

As long as these companies are seeing these sales, they wont stop it.
At least they bothered to continue fixing Cyberpunk. Pokémon is like, "yeah, it's broken. What are you gonna do? Not buy it?"
 
Last edited:
Seriously. This shit is ridiculous. This game does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch. And, honestly, I don't hear anyone talking about it.

Tears of the Kingdom was one of the most anticipated video games ever released. It was expected to live up to and surpass its predecessor, which is among the very few highest rated games of all time.

This game launched on now ancient hardware and attempted to create possibly the most unbounded open-world ever. The player is given near limitless freedom to go anywhere, circumvent "expected" paths.

Basically, the player is dared to break the game at every opportunity. And what's the result? As a famous man once said, but couldn't himself ever back it up, "it just works".

In seriousness, the fact that this game doesn't break regardless of how many tools the player is given to do so, is honestly amazing. Games with a tenth of the freedom release with exponentially more issues, while running on significant hardware.

Nintendo has completely taken the excuse away that these games are just expected to be buggy because they are just so big and have so much freedom. No game on this scale has ever had more of an excuse to expect the player to break it, but Tears of the Kingdom is polished to what feels like an impossible level compared to the rest of the industry.

You're making everyone else look incompetent, Nintendo. Stop it. It's rude.
giphy.gif
 

Robb

Gold Member
Yeah, but honestly, how many developers can "finish" a game and then spend another full year paying hundreds of employees to polish it?

I don't even think Nintendo cam afford to do that outside of the few games they feel HAVE to be great.

Hopefully, that's what Starfield is going through with its year delay. That feels like the game MS feels has to be great. Sony might feel similar with something like God of War.
Yeah I agree. But then again maybe devs/publishers should take that stuff into consideration before the project starts so that they don’t need to spend a year playtesting to get something functional out the door.

There’s definitely plenty of games out there that don’t need to be open world, but they are anyway just because. Scale it down if you can’t handle the playtesting (or rather are unwilling to pay for it).
 

Krathoon

Member
The Nintendo developers are the Hong Kong Cavaliers of the gaming industry and Eiji Aonuma is Buckaroo Banzai.
 
  • LOL
Reactions: Isa

Gambit2483

Member
Because Nintendo, as a publisher, still values high quality and polished FUN games whereas most Western Publishers/Management don't give a shit and are fine with putting out mediocre shit filled with as many monetizing models to make as much money as possible.

In other words, Western Publishers (and now some Japanese publishers) value "making money" over making fun games
 
Last edited:

Knightime_X

Member
You can definitely tell it's not up to today's standards in image quality and performance. That's for sure.
Even indie games on any other modern platform curbstomp the switch.

As for the rest, totk is leagues above.
 
Seriously. This shit is ridiculous. This game does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch. And, honestly, I don't hear anyone talking about it.

Tears of the Kingdom was one of the most anticipated video games ever released. It was expected to live up to and surpass its predecessor, which is among the very few highest rated games of all time.

This game launched on now ancient hardware and attempted to create possibly the most unbounded open-world ever. The player is given near limitless freedom to go anywhere, circumvent "expected" paths.

Basically, the player is dared to break the game at every opportunity. And what's the result? As a famous man once said, but couldn't himself ever back it up, "it just works".

In seriousness, the fact that this game doesn't break regardless of how many tools the player is given to do so, is honestly amazing. Games with a tenth of the freedom release with exponentially more issues, while running on significant hardware.

Nintendo has completely taken the excuse away that these games are just expected to be buggy because they are just so big and have so much freedom. No game on this scale has ever had more of an excuse to expect the player to break it, but Tears of the Kingdom is polished to what feels like an impossible level compared to the rest of the industry.

You're making everyone else look incompetent, Nintendo. Stop it. It's rude.

Japan. Japanese companies and developers still care about polish, fun and quality while most other developers outside of Japan release anything and just don’t care. It’s been this way for a very long time and things are getting worst. I have a very strong feeling that FF16 won’t be a broken, buggy mess at launch.
 
Last edited:

Lokaum D+

Member
I can 110% guarantee that if Sony and MS were focusing on low res assets, reused assets 560/900p, sub@30fps most o their games wouldnt take 6 years to be done and u would get a first party game every two years at Max.

For the price of a nextgen ( 70 USD ) Zelda delivers nothing new aside from their DIY gameplay its a 7/10 game at best.
 

Robb

Gold Member
The game drops to 12fps quite often... and has plenty of decently long loading screens compared to what contemporary games on modern hardware has to offer 🤷‍♂️
Yeah, every time I enter a shrine I can’t help but think that it could’ve been nothing more but a portal straight trough (instant loading) on a modern system. That’d have been fantastic.
 

brian0057

Banned
Seriously. This shit is ridiculous. This game does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch.
Let's see:
A "standard set by modern AAA games" of broken software at launch that maybe, perhaps, some day, becomes playable after months of patches, running on some of the most powerful machines the industry has to offer.
Or, a few frame drops here and there in a game running on old smartphone hardware.

You're right. Tears of the Kingdom certainly "does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch".
 
Last edited:

Kataploom

Gold Member
Seriously. This shit is ridiculous. This game does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch. And, honestly, I don't hear anyone talking about it.
Depending on what you care about, it exceeds those expectations by quite a big margin.

I get it though, graphics and shit, I play on PC because I don't want 30 fps in my games, they better fucking be Zelda, Xenoblade or something that big to me in order to accept 30 fps.

But you said something important, some were like "they invented nothing" in that other thread, but each of those systems just work better are more complex and work all together at the same time in this game and everything is essential for gameplay's core, there's not anything remotely close to that in the whole industry, and let alone virtually bugs free...
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
💯

Slightly related too, as it is to do with Nintendo and the rest of the industry. But I just watched RGT’s latest upload and I fully agree with a point he made. Nintendo’s withered technology approach is the best approach for consoles (he speculated that it might be). Whilst Microsoft and Sony (and other major devs) are locked in high expense, high risk, high reward cycles - Nintendo for the most part can keep dev costs relatively low. Everyone else is at risk of crashing at the moment IMO.
As much as I agree Nintendo is not immune to flops - GameCube was a weak success, while WiiU was a disaster. I doubt Nintendo can survive two bad consoles in a row.
 

LakeOf9

Member
Let's see:
A "standard set by modern AAA games" of broken software at launch that maybe, perhaps, some day, becomes playable after months of patches, running on some of the most powerful machines the industry has to offer.
Or, a few frame drops here and there in a game running on old smartphone hardware.

You're right. Tears of the Kingdom certainly "does not live up to the standards set by other modern AAA games at launch".
That's what they're saying in the OP lol
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Because Nintendo, as a publisher, still values high quality and polished FUN games whereas most Western Publishers/Management don't give a shit and are fine with putting out mediocre shit filled with as many monetizing models to make as much money as possible.

In other words, Western Publishers (and now some Japanese publishers) value "making money" over making fun games
They all like making money, but Nintendo likes making sustained money over the time instead of release window short term volatile money, that's why they spent so big in their brand prestige, and that includes never reducing the game prices unless there's a reason to do so.
 
Last edited:

MiguelItUp

Member
Nintendo has always deserved kudos for their polish, it's truly impressive, and always has been. TotK is an incredible game, the fact that it can run on the Switch at all is impressive. Just the sheer size of it, the advanced physics, the details, everything. Though it's amusing that the game struggles in a variety of areas. It's just wild to see that performance from a big name and a big AAA title.

Man, would I have killed to see this on a new system with better visuals and better FPS. Nintendo are doing themselves a major disservice in that regard. They need to stop holding themselves back in that area.

I hope that their next console either receives an updated version. Or it can some how play previous games with improved visuals which I doubt would happen.

Seeing the game run on emulation is insane. I hate that I can't just buy and play THAT version, lol.
 
Last edited:

LakeOf9

Member
They all like making money, but Nintendo likes making sustained money over the time instead of release window short term volatile money, that's why they spent so big in their brand prestige, and that includes never reducing the game prices unless there's a reason to do so.
So again, big fan of Nintendo games, but this sucks for me as a customer and not something I like personally. Even though I understand the business reasons and that they have more or less earned it at this point
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
Well, the game is a sequel... and built on an already existing game/engine. And yet, still took 6 years to make.

I like what they have done, but at the same time... I also find it disturbing as to what it really means for the rest of the industry. Especially those trying to replicate feats like this at fidelity standards that Nintendo doesn't even consider.

I don't want to be that guy... but do you guys think Nintendo would have been able to pull off the same feat if TOTK looked like say... HZFW? Not saying their game needs to look like that, just saying that devs are faced with different challenges.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
I mean the majority of clips out there from people testing the game to break and the game impressively just works. ANY game of this scale the internet would have been filled with glitches videos. This game being this complex and running on an ancient technology hardware and 18GB. Absolutely incredible.
 
Top Bottom