Have Nintendo taken "family friendliness" too far?

[HeroLinik]

Back in the '80s and '90s, Mario and Nintendo, as a whole, were really popular, and they sold a lot of copies extremely quickly. The games that they made were very memorable and they appealed to people of all ages.

However, in fact, as much as it may seem, Nintendo did not have a target demographic at the time, and even though its games seems to be family friendly (such as the Super Mario series) there were other games which didn't follow the rule (remember Bombing Bastards' profanity in the title and Super Mario Kart's insane difficulty at 150cc?). However, these games were very memorable and despite not having a target demographic everyone played them and enjoyed them. They still sold very rapidly though.

But what's happening now to Nintendo? Take New Super Mario Bros. 2 for example. This was made at the height of Nintendo's obsession for "family friendliness" and the resulting mixture was a game that was too easy; you can get over 400 lives before even battling Bowser for the first time. What about New Super Mario Bros. U's Boost Mode and the way that this makes the levels too easy as the players can just place blocks and plug pits, or make an artificial path to the top of the flagpole? Or maybe the ridiculous censor in Animal Crossing and the Pokemon games from the fifth gen-onward that can actually restrict certain names (take Conkeldurr for example - that couldn't even be traded on the GTS because the "family-friendly" censor isn't letting it through because of a swear word - "con" - in a different language - French. I'm sure non-French players wouldn't care less about the meaning of the word "con" but it's not even allowing certain nicknames for Pokemon - take "Conner" for example.

The resulting mix has, assumedly, started detracting the quality, playability and the challenge of Nintendo games. Nowadays family friendliness just means, in Nintendo's eyes, a way of making a game easy enough so that a 4-year-old can complete it without getting a Game Over or dying a lot. But what is it for the majority of gamers, who are veterans? Have Nintendo taken their obsession for "family-friendliness" too far that it's started to make their games worse?

Discuss.

[bossedit8]

Well, they do gain a challenge to these games but Family Friends could be a necessarity to even beat a Game for low ages that does not know much about gaming constructions.

I do like those games though, no matter how easy they are.

[Julia Pseudo]

Eh, it's not that bad in my opinion. NSMB2 was too easy, of course, but to be honest lives haven't mattered much since NSMB1 at least. The only thing that really gets to me is the over the top censorship in Pokémon XY, that really pisses me off. You should be able to name Pokémon whatever you want, but then if you trade them and they have illegal nicknames they silently lose their nicknames. Everyone would be satisfied, I think.

[bossedit8]

The only thing that really gets to me is the over the top censorship in Pokémon XY, that really pisses me off. You should be able to name Pokémon whatever you want, but then if you trade them and they have illegal nicknames they silently lose their nicknames. Everyone would be satisfied, I think.

I honestly never noticed that a few Pokemon's Nickname were changed/removed due to Censorships. I never have those games anyway so I wouldn't really know much. Well, normally it is important to do this I guess.

[qig]

there's so many things wrong with this post.
1) difficulty of a game has little to do with family friendliness.
2) amount of lives in a mario game has nothing to do with difficulty.
3) mario games outside of the lost levels have never been difficult.
4) games like donkey kong country returns and tropical freeze are easily at the same level of difficulty as old nintendo games, if not harder.
5) bombing bastards is not a nintendo game, nor was it released in the 80s-90's. as a matter of fact, it was released in july of this year.
6) nintendo is publishing and funding games like Devil's Third and Bayonetta 2, games that likely wouldn't even be allowed on nintendo platforms if they existed in the nes/snes era.

[Black Mamba]

I hated the censorship in newer Pokemon games. In Emerald, I named my Altaria, Dragonfart. When transferring up, I noticed that Dragonfart's name changed back to Altaria. THAT is when I just quit playing pokemon for a while. I went back, but still.

I mean, I understand if someone called an oddish FuckKing or something, but Dragonfart was my dear friend, and I miss his awesome name.

[bossedit8]

I hated the censorship in newer Pokemon games. In Emerald, I named my Altaria, Dragonfart. When transferring up, I noticed that Dragonfart's name changed back to Altaria. THAT is when I just quit playing pokemon for a while. I went back, but still.

I mean, I understand if someone called an oddish FuckKing or something, but Dragonfart was my dear friend, and I miss his awesome name.

Well, that's the point of the whole Censors because they do need a keypoint to just use regular Names and not throw bad words on it. And why quitting a Game just for censorships like this? Seems unnecessary in my opinion.

[Marina]

I hated the censorship in newer Pokemon games. In Emerald, I named my Altaria, Dragonfart. When transferring up, I noticed that Dragonfart's name changed back to Altaria. THAT is when I just quit playing pokemon for a while. I went back, but still.

I mean, I understand if someone called an oddish FuckKing or something, but Dragonfart was my dear friend, and I miss his awesome name.

Well, that's the point of the whole Censors because they do need a keypoint to just use regular Names and not throw bad words on it. And why quitting a Game just for censorships like this? Seems unnecessary in my opinion.

Oh yes, like every child doesn't already know the word "fart".

I feel like it's really stupid sometimes. You can't even trade German Feebas on the GTS bc the German name for Feebas is Barschwa which contains the word "Arsch", which is German for "ass"

It's really ridiculous.

[bossedit8]

@GLuigiX: Oh that's a bit overpowered by the whole censors but still, they have a point of keep everything Family Friendly or so...

[Thundaga_T2]

I thought people were mostly complaining about the anti frustration features in the newer games like the super guide, having lots of extra lives, and the invincibility powerups in the 3D Land/World games.

[MistakesWereMade]

what the fuck does family friendliness have to do with difficulty

donkey kong country returns games are hard, and they still appeal to family audiences, u dont need to give the games names like "Donkey Kong country Returns: Tropical ebola virus"

[Julia Pseudo]

I hated the censorship in newer Pokemon games. In Emerald, I named my Altaria, Dragonfart. When transferring up, I noticed that Dragonfart's name changed back to Altaria. THAT is when I just quit playing pokemon for a while. I went back, but still.

I mean, I understand if someone called an oddish FuckKing or something, but Dragonfart was my dear friend, and I miss his awesome name.

Well, that's the point of the whole Censors because they do need a keypoint to just use regular Names and not throw bad words on it. And why quitting a Game just for censorships like this? Seems unnecessary in my opinion.

Oh yes, like every child doesn't already know the word "fart".

I feel like it's really stupid sometimes. You can't even trade German Feebas on the GTS bc the German name for Feebas is Barschwa which contains the word "Arsch", which is German for "ass"

It's really ridiculous.

Yeah, the default nickname thing is really egregious. There needs to be a filter that prevents default Pokémon names from being censored.

[HeroLinik]

One of the most famous examples of bad censorship in X/Y is the fact that you can't name your Pokemon "Violet". The thing is, it contains "viol" which is French for "rape" but if you think about that, it then doesn't make sense that GF are allowed to ignore the censor and use censored words in whatever way that wanted (first Gym Leader, Viola, anyone, or with a Steelix called "Thumper"?).

However, it is actually possible to call your Pokemon Violet. As "viol" was added in X/Y, you can substitute the L for an uppercase I (as they look the same), and there you go! (I got round it and called my Gardevoir "Hitler" by doing that. Managed to troll a few German players)

[Black Mamba]

One thing I have to say about this argument is that Nintendo recently uploaded llamas with hats on Nintendo Video. Llamas with hats is a youtube series about two llamas in hats and one of them being a psychopathic serial killer. The one that they uploaded, Carl, the psychopath, stabbed someone 37 times in the chest, took his hands, cooked them and ate them.


Nintendo is just trying to compete with the other gore-fest consoles.

[DarkMatt]

Look. I know you're trying to share your grade school essay with us, but this is basically "my nintendos are 2 kid-friendly they're gonna lose the console war" I can honestly summarize this thread down to that.

But I won't shitpost entirely. To this I have one simple question: What is fun to you kids?

(I really don't care about censorship part of this topic. This is Nintendo. They have been doing this since their conception. This is not new.)

[Bomber57]

DKCR is easy? You haven't attempted collecting all the KONG letters in every level and then beating the tediously difficult bonus levels in each world after you collect all the KONG letters and then beat the hardest level in the whole game. I can't say the same for Tropical Freeze as I haven't played it yet, but I doubt its the pushover you say it is.

[zioy]

However, it is actually possible to call your Pokemon Violet. As "viol" was added in X/Y, you can substitute the L for an uppercase I (as they look the same), and there you go! (I got round it and called my Gardevoir "Hitler" by doing that. Managed to troll a few German players)

I chose the perfect font for this

[Hawkeyeone]

Look, It's the guy who made the swear word censor in X & Y!

*picture of a bowl of soup*

[HeroLinik]

However, the censor in Pokemon isn't just not allowing seemingly OK names just because they contain a swear word in the name (usually in a different language) - it's broken.

Apparently you can't name your Pokemon "Spike" because of the first four letters which reveal an ethnic slur "spik", but then you can actually get away with calling a Pokemon "cumbucket" despite the presence of "cum" or "F***K YOU" (written as it is here). Don't ask me why the censor is broken.

[Black Mamba]

It's already pretty much too late to implement a censor in Nintendo games especially how in every other online game ever there are little kids swearin' their asses off like,"F**K YOU YOU F**KING C**T B**CH F***OT!!! GO TO F**ING HELL YOU SON OF A B**CH!"

Uncensored

Spoiler: show

I just cannot even describe how profound the amount bad words there was in that quote. I'm sorry, I just can't.

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for example