I know that graphics aren't everything but...

If you told me that the Nintendo Showcase was an Indie Showcase, I would have believed you(I am not saying this is a bad thing). I was watching the e3 indie showcase earlier, and graphically they are on par or better looking than what Nintendo is putting out these days and those games cost considerably less(people will buy what they want to buy). I am sure that Advanced Wars 1+2, Metroid Dread will have a great amount of depth and content, but this is just a feeling I had watching the show. I know that Nintendo has not really cared about keeping up with the graphical fidelity of current gen consoles since the gamecube, I just think it is funny that indies have caught up to Nintendo first party games in this area. Do you guys have any thoughts on this

Examples:

Tiny Metal:

Advanced wars Re-boot 1+2:

shadow complex:

Metroid Dread:

@tp0p: Shadow Complex is not really an Indie game. It was made by Chair Entertainment, which is owned by Epic. Epic is one of the largest video game companies in the world.

Advanced Wars Re-Boot is intentionally simple both because it's a lower cost project and because of the source material.

I notice you're not bringing up Breath of the Wild 2 or Age of Calamity or even Mario Golf here.

Different games call for different graphical styles. I don't think that any indies have caught up to Nintendo when it's putting out big budget projects.

But a lot of indie games are really gorgeous in their own way these days. Indie games have come a long way.

I can't really find direct parallels for BOTW 2 or Mario Golf. BOTW 2 is an huge open world game so yes I know that an indie studio cannot do that. But graphically we have things like "Kena" and I really like the look of "Sable"

Kena Bridge of Spirits:

Sable:

Maybe this thread is about just giving indies some love lol

I personally like the look of the Advance Wars reboot a lot more than the look of Tiny Metal, and while Shadow Complex is a top tier game IMO, I think Metroid Dread, so far, is looking like it could surpass it. And I certainly think Metroid Dread surpasses Shadow Complex graphically. (Shadow Complex was a relatively early 360 game, and it shows. I think some people look back at it with rose-tinted glasses.)

Edit to add: That's certainly not meant to take away with some of the downright gorgeous indie games that are out or are on the horizon. Some of that stuff is incredible. I just disagree with the premise of the original post, I guess.

I will agree on the Advance Wars remake. It would be fine as a $10 e-shop game, but I think this is going to be a $60 retail thing.

I mean, they're Nintendo IPs but they're being developed by Wayforward and Mercury Steam respectively. So, yeah, they're basically indie games with a massive publisher behind them. If smaller developers can sign a deal with Nintendo to make smaller $60 games then that's fantastic for them. They worked hard and earned this opportunity.

Also, every game should be at least $20 more than it currently is. Wages have just stagnated so much that developers and publishers have to lowball themselves.

The smaller "less impressive" games Nintendo are currently showing do make me think of the Switch as a handheld, they don't look bad at all but they don't promote the device as a core system, which makes Nintendo prices all the more questionable. It has stunning looking games but they're few and far between, i see great looking games going up on Steam all the time for less than half the price, the Nintendo games are likely to be better made and more fun of course, but talking strictly visually they haven't got impressive stuff at the moment, i'm really surprised Metroid 5 looks so... ordinary.

@judaspete: maybe more like a €40,- game. But you're probably right about it getting the €60,- price tag.

Nintendo is taking pre-orders on Advance Wars for $60, that’s the same price they cost brand new on GBA 20 years ago.

@judaspete: @chillster7000:Those games are selling, even just with cartridge only, for $25-50+ each on eBay. Complete in box for for $50-90+.

There's a lot of demands for those games and the remake looks pretty solid imo. You might not personally like the style, but saying it should cost $10-20 is pretty wildly low.

@sargus: uh also I tried to go back and play some Shadow Complex recently and yeah hoo boy howdy don't do that! Just remember that it was really good and be satisfied.

I played Shadow Complex back when the Epic Launcher launched and it was still a fun experience. Definitly a fairly ugly game at this point, but it works fine. That background fight against the chopper still felt somewhat novel too.

Nintendo's games look like indies (BAD!) because they are superficially similar to games published by Epic and Sony?

I understand that it is pedantic to quibble over the term "indie" in this day and age. But this is ridiculous.

Tiny Metal has a lot more on screen, for better and for worse.

It can make screen readability a load tougher, in comparison to Advance Wars, which has a clearer colour separation between Characters and play space, which helped back in the GBA days, and is simply being mirrored here.

Could they have put a load more effort into it? absolutely, but then it wouldn't be a remaster of the originals (given that it's built from the ground up, they could have added more though) and since it's Wayforaward making it, they've more than likely been told to keep to the original as close as possible.

Now, if it were Intelligent Systems? i'd be arguing tooth and nail for an upgrade, ala Fire Emblem series in the past few years, but i think the gritty DS game killed their interest in trying to make an adult story in AW.

Eh. In a lot of ways, Nintendo is an indie developer. Their big franchises are quirky multiplayer games, tactics games, metroidvanias, platformers, kart racers, and smash-likes. And their general focus on comparatively simple models and texture work also align with indie style

And absolutely nothing is wrong with that. Some of my favorite games of the past year or two have been indie titles

But it DOES make me wonder how many more generations Nintendo has. Because I acknowledge that I don't have much nostalgia for the big n (we had an NES and skipped the SNES. Metroid was my favorite game and Nintendo stopped giving a shit about metroid almost immediately after super metroid and by the time I figured out there were GBA games I had fell in love with Symphony) but it is only a matter of time until the nintendo IP is no longer enough incentive to make people ignore the better "indie" games in those genres.