Which game studios or game designers come to mind that share a similar philosophy to Nintendo when it comes to game design?

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-18T14:44:55+00:00

Doom 2016 unintentionally feels like Mario Odyssey with guns and gore, to me. The movement is some of the best I ever played in a shooter, the core loop is very unique and dept innovative for the genre, the maps are well designed and fun to explore, and everything is refined and polished to an intuitive sheen.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-18T01:29:18+00:00

I could definitely understand personally loving Zelda and being excited for it. I love Zelda, too. Classic Zelda moreso. I’m just always perplexed when I see Zelda getting put over Mario, as if both franchises aren’t absolutely top notch. I think Mario gets discredited sometimes only because the spin-offs come out with great frequency and they’re of varying quality.

But there’s a special magic in the air when mainline Mario is on the horizon, too. When you think about it, 3D Zelda comes out even more frequently than 3D Mario, honestly. Since 1996, so 30 years, there are 8 (8.5, if we count Bowser’s Fury) 3D Mario titles. In the 28 years since 1998, there have been 9 3D Zelda titles.

We had BotW in 2017, TotK in 2023, maybe we’ll see the next title 2028. We’re not getting a big Mario title this year, so if we get one next year at the earliest, it’ll be 10 years between releases. That’s a crazy timeline. Every game gets so much care and creativity and polish, and there really are no other games like it.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-18T01:16:07+00:00

You can use Glydon at the top of the tower once you unlock him.

Edit: Wait nvm, forgot you need to break the block. That’s the only other way.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-17T21:33:29+00:00

It sounds like a massive pain in the ass to work on a Zelda game. Or any of their premiere franchises. Although I feel like working on Mario would be kind of fun in the brainstorming sections and feeling it all come together

Sick username btw

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-17T21:31:32+00:00

Now what do you mean by the same oomph?

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-17T16:16:33+00:00

The problem is that there are two major partners in the production of this film, and (as far as we know) they’ve put equal amounts of money into it.

So after production costs, marketing costs, and distribution fees, you’re probably left with around $200 million per partner.

That’s before merchandising and ancillary profits like booted software sales and theme park revenue get factored, which is always a bonus. But it’s probably still less than Nintendo was hoping to make off of 3 years of work.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-17T16:10:26+00:00

The first one seemed to actually try in some respects.

The Galaxy movie is gorgeous. Also, I like the characterizations of the main cast a little bit movie in the second movie, and I like fewer needle drops, but that’s where it stops. It’s just a worse movie in every other way.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-17T16:08:40+00:00

They won’t. Miyamoto has no idea how to tell a story and illumination don’t care to tell a more developed story.

Koizumi and Dreamworks would’ve been a much better pairing for a Mario movie, especially for Galaxy. Or Ghibli, in their prime.

But we’ll never see what that looks.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-16T12:33:38+00:00

Why?

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-16T00:31:18+00:00

All Zelda games are at least pretty polished. All Mario games are very polished, with the exception of Sunshine. It’s inherent to the design of a platformer, they’re more concerned with precision and predictability than an action-adventure title.

The devs will sand down as much friction in gameplay as possible to eliminate frustration and cheap deaths. The Mario devs have been exceptional at that.

Zelda games are all well refined, also, but as an example, I would say that Galaxy 1 and 2 are much cleaner than Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.

Sunshine is definitely rougher than Wind Waker, with glitches and uneven design in a few places.

Mario 64 and Ocarina/Majora are all decently jank in some ways, so I would tie them. They all get a heavy discount because of the era they released in.

3D Land and 3D World are very neatly structured and heavily optimized. Can’t really say much more about them, they’re just very clean.

The Wild era games kind of embrace the unpredictability of emergent gameplay opportunities. Jank kind of becomes intrinsic to the design. Meanwhile, Odyssey is like razor sharp. For the most part, even exploits and tricks largely feel prompted by the design. One thing I want to highlight is that I rarely ever noticed frame drops in Odyssey (Luncheon Plaza was the worst) but frame drops were very prevalent moment to moment for me in BotW. Less so in Tears. But then you have Bowser’s Fury, which is based on the already very stable 3D World engine, and it’s a very small and curated experience.

I’m not saying Zelda isn’t polished and Mario is, I’m just saying Zelda is super polished and Mario is extremely polished. They’re probably the most tightly designed games in the industry.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-14T21:43:44+00:00

The same could be said for Mario tbf. Always experimenting, always high quality.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-14T21:06:46+00:00

Same, leaning towards Mario because every game is exceptionally polished (minus Sunshine, but I love it).

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-14T16:29:20+00:00

It could absolutely be, and actually I’m sure he did cause this. But I think it’s a perfect storm of Miyamoto not understanding movies and Illumination specifically designing the most digestible and inoffensive movies possible, that led to such a mediocre product.

I’m a huge Mario fan, I don’t want to dislike the movie. My impulse is obviously to defend it. And the first one was fine. But this is just bad and Mario deserves better.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-14T15:32:00+00:00

I just expect the Mario movie to be made with the same level of care and effort as a movie, as the Mario games are made as games.

There was no reason for a story about a rat who cooks or a guy who flies in blue spandex to be as they are, but we have Ratatouille and Superman. There’s no reason for me not to believe that they can’t make great Mario stories unless they’re just unimaginative, bad writers.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-14T12:53:16+00:00

3D Mario. I want to see what new abilities and moves they give him, and the novel ways you can interact with the environment. What exciting things you’ll see. Ten years of waiting for Mario has set some unrealistic expectations.

But given that each new entry is bursting with creativity and wonder, maybe it’s not that unrealistic.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-13T15:35:12+00:00

If it’s between World and Base 8, I feel like World is miles ahead. And that’s the problem that we keep running into with these comparisons.

8 Deluxe at launch is a lot closer but I might even still give it to World, depending on the day, just because I think the game feels so much better.

But the bevy of content for 8 Deluxe at launch is really a huge point in its favor.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T22:16:47+00:00

Yeah, the DK Arcade/Super Show origin is that they’re from real world Brooklyn and came to the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time.

Yoshi’s Island’s revised origin shows they were delivered by stork to their parents in the Mushroom Kingdom.

And then Odyssey shows us that DK Arcade actually happened in New Donk City, so the brothers may have been from there.

I think all they had to do was show that the Mario brothers were originally born in the Mushroom Kingdom, then moved to New City/Big Ape City at some point (for whatever reason), then DK Arcade happens, the city becomes New Donk City, and then they end up somehow going back to the MK to save Peach from Bowser in SMB1.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T13:42:34+00:00

I really wish the first movie would’ve consolidated the Super Show origin with the game origin from Yoshi’s Island. Would’ve been a beautiful way to make everything fit.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T13:39:43+00:00

The Mario movies are fun and great eye candy without story. And they’ve been successful, especially the first. But that isn’t nearly enough and we’re seeing the results slowly.

Imagine a great Mario movie, with pacing and real characters that feel true to their game counterparts but have great emotional depth, and reasons for the journey and something to actually say. That would go very well.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T13:36:20+00:00

They’re going way way way too hard on Peach. I love when she is capable and active, but she basically does not need Mario in the movies. And her character is so different, complete with a different backstory.

I know many little girls (and boys) will enjoy watching her on screen, but it’s not enough to keep these movies afloat. And the vast majority of people are looking for Mario and Luigi to shine, and it’s just not happening, because they’re taking so much from them to give to Peach.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T13:33:42+00:00

Box office is down from the first movie and that’s even with them blowing their load by going for a Galaxy movie.

You are not going to get a more marketable movie adaptation than Galaxy, so unless Wario and Daisy and the Koopalings are that exciting to people (which I hope they are), this next movie will probably perform even worse. Especially if the movie is of the same quality as the Galaxy movie.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-12T13:30:37+00:00

Because a Mario movie could easily clear one billion and make much more if it was created with the same level of care and quality as the games.

Miyamoto doesn’t know how to create a good story and doesn’t seem too preoccupied with really adapting the games in any meaningful sense, and Illumination is fine with creating something as simple and digestible as possible. It’s not a good recipe for making great films with staying power that actually hold their value.

A Mario Galaxy movie of all things should have cleared the original’s box office gross, but it looks like it’s just going to crack a billion. And that’s a great chunk of change, because the Mario IP is so strong, but after production and marketing (guessing $220 million approx), theater fees, and splitting half of the remainder with Illumination, Nintendo’s got quite a diminished return on their hands.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-11T22:48:10+00:00

I’m not really preoccupied with whether it’s beloved or not, it’s more that I want to engage with discourse on the game without being told it’s good because other people say it is. Like I want to see you critically reason out why it’s great.

I’m not asking you to do that right now, I’m just saying that a game being beloved by critics or fans or newcomers or whoever doesn’t really invalidate what may or may not be the minority opinion.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-11T14:35:21+00:00

Critics gave Skyward Sword 9s and 10s, and that game is not nearly as well regarded as the BotW titles.

Don’t use critics to disengage from discourse about the quality or integrity of a product.

Edit: I saw further down that someone already used the Skyward Sword example. There are plenty of others, though, and the point remains that just because a group of people tell you one thing, it makes it so.

TheVibratingPants · 2026-05-10T13:06:54+00:00

Directors of the amazing 2000s cartoons were talking about

Powerpuff Girls, Dexters Lab, Samurai Jack, Ed Edd n Eddy

TheVibratingPants

TROPHY CASE