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Nintendo's dip into smartphone apps has been disappointing. At the beginning they were doing some interesting stuff, like Miitomo which was a simple social-medi

by hbn 3y ago

Nintendo's dip into smartphone apps has been disappointing. At the beginning they were doing some interesting stuff, like Miitomo which was a simple social-media-like app where you and your friends basically just answered questions if I recall, I had fun with that for a few months. They released Super Mario Run which wasn't really my thing but it was at least a one-time purchase that got you all the content. But apparently not even Nintendo can overcome the enshittification of mobile app stores, and we have Mario Kart Tour which is just pay-to-win garbage that uses every dirty trick in the book to get your money. They infamously make you do races with fake online players that look like they've been spending money to make you see what you're "missing out on". Even worse, Tour has infected Nintendo's actually good Mario Kart offering on Switch, with recent DLC packs including courses from Tour which are the most bland, uninspired, and boring courses in the game cause it's always just generic city streets with some Toads standing around in the audience. Obviously they do it because they already have moderately high-quality models of the maps that they can just drag into the game from Tour, as opposed to recreating something from e.g. Mario Kart 64 or Super Mario Kart (SNES) to bring it up to modern standards. Or making something new entirely.

bil7 3y ago
While I agree that their monetisation strategies are garbage, I think the Tour maps ported to Switch are quite good and novel. I prefer them to the rehashed SNES maps.
- hbn 3y ago
  I find them really badly telegraphed on where you need to turn. They have these transparent walls with arrows that are kind of non-obvious, and sometimes you have to turn at the wall itself, and sometimes the wall is further back from where the road ends and you need to actually turn. I've never had this issue with any other tracks in the game except for the Tour ones, but I'll constantly be driving along and just run into a wall because I didn't know I was supposed to turn. It's even worse if you're playing split-screen multiplayer with 3 or 4 people and your screen is 1/4 of the TV that's on the other side of the room. It's probably not an issue in Tour where you've got a high-res screen right up close to your face, but it doesn't work on a home console.
  - Laremere 3y ago
    Agreed. The tour tracks are awful on 200cc. Even when you're not confused about what direction you're supposed to be going, it's constant smashing into walls. You can feel how the tracks were not designed around how the karts are tuned in Mario Kart 8. Moreover, the scale is all out of wack. The tour tracks make you feel like you've shrunk. The contrast with the new levels included in the packs is very strong.
- circuit10 3y ago
  The looks don’t fit in with the rest of the game, at least the SNES tracks actually look really good because they completely remodelled them and kept just the layout of the original
  - hbn 3y ago
    Yeah remaking a SNES track would actually be more work than grabbing a map from Tour and doing a few tweaks to make it work in MK8. The SNES maps are actually interesting courses, like Donut Plains has an underwater bit, and the SNES Rainbow Road has thwomps that send shockwaves through the road. They're essentially brand new original courses aside from concept and general layout.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  >I prefer them to the rehashed SNES maps. Anything more reliable than Nintendo resorting to laziness and calling upon nostalgia?
  - mcphage 3y ago
    The rehashed SNES maps are entirely new, they just have the same overhead layout as the SNES tracks. Saying they rely on nostalgia—yeah, that's true. Saying that it's laziness? No, it's no simpler than making a new track from scratch. Probably harder, given they have to make it work with the existing layout, despite the pace and physics being so different.
    - hospitalJail 3y ago
      >No, it's no simpler than making a new track from scratch. No
CM30 3y ago
I wouldn't say it's all bad on the Tour front, the recent city tracks ported from there to 8 Deluxe are much better now (like Amsterdam, Bangkok and Singapore), and the original tracks made for Tour have been excellent additions for the most part (Ninja Hideaway, Merry Mountain, Yoshi's Island, the not yet in 8 Piranha Plant Cove, etc). But it's definitely disappointing to see their designs for mobile games be like all the competition sleaziness wise, with their last remaining mobile games being the worst in that regard. Hopefully they'll leave that market soon enough, especially given talk that they didn't find it worth competing in anymore now that the Switch is a huge success.

by hbn 3y ago

bil7 3y ago

While I agree that their monetisation strategies are garbage, I think the Tour maps ported to Switch are quite good and novel. I prefer them to the rehashed SNES maps.

hbn 3y ago
I find them really badly telegraphed on where you need to turn. They have these transparent walls with arrows that are kind of non-obvious, and sometimes you have to turn at the wall itself, and sometimes the wall is further back from where the road ends and you need to actually turn. I've never had this issue with any other tracks in the game except for the Tour ones, but I'll constantly be driving along and just run into a wall because I didn't know I was supposed to turn. It's even worse if you're playing split-screen multiplayer with 3 or 4 people and your screen is 1/4 of the TV that's on the other side of the room. It's probably not an issue in Tour where you've got a high-res screen right up close to your face, but it doesn't work on a home console.
- Laremere 3y ago
  Agreed. The tour tracks are awful on 200cc. Even when you're not confused about what direction you're supposed to be going, it's constant smashing into walls. You can feel how the tracks were not designed around how the karts are tuned in Mario Kart 8. Moreover, the scale is all out of wack. The tour tracks make you feel like you've shrunk. The contrast with the new levels included in the packs is very strong.
circuit10 3y ago
The looks don’t fit in with the rest of the game, at least the SNES tracks actually look really good because they completely remodelled them and kept just the layout of the original
- hbn 3y ago
  Yeah remaking a SNES track would actually be more work than grabbing a map from Tour and doing a few tweaks to make it work in MK8. The SNES maps are actually interesting courses, like Donut Plains has an underwater bit, and the SNES Rainbow Road has thwomps that send shockwaves through the road. They're essentially brand new original courses aside from concept and general layout.
hospitalJail 3y ago
>I prefer them to the rehashed SNES maps. Anything more reliable than Nintendo resorting to laziness and calling upon nostalgia?
- mcphage 3y ago
  The rehashed SNES maps are entirely new, they just have the same overhead layout as the SNES tracks. Saying they rely on nostalgia—yeah, that's true. Saying that it's laziness? No, it's no simpler than making a new track from scratch. Probably harder, given they have to make it work with the existing layout, despite the pace and physics being so different.
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    >No, it's no simpler than making a new track from scratch. No

CM30 3y ago

I wouldn't say it's all bad on the Tour front, the recent city tracks ported from there to 8 Deluxe are much better now (like Amsterdam, Bangkok and Singapore), and the original tracks made for Tour have been excellent additions for the most part (Ninja Hideaway, Merry Mountain, Yoshi's Island, the not yet in 8 Piranha Plant Cove, etc). But it's definitely disappointing to see their designs for mobile games be like all the competition sleaziness wise, with their last remaining mobile games being the worst in that regard. Hopefully they'll leave that market soon enough, especially given talk that they didn't find it worth competing in anymore now that the Switch is a huge success.