Nintendo's (seemingly) new MO of hundreds of collectibles

[Watershed]

People focus on Korok Seeds in this thread but doing all of the shrines is a lot of busywork as well, because quite many of those are duds. Both Mario Odyssey and BotW contain a lot of repetetive, uninteresting tasks to fill the game with "content". It's unfortunate how Nintendo has embraced the Ubisoft game design of filling up a map with shit in their flagship franchises.

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Clearly that is your opinion but for many players the portal-like shrines were great isolated puzzles that were fun to actively seek out and discover. I didn't find them repetitive as the puzzles were varied and some were real brain teasers and the design philosophy of giving the player choice to engage, ignore, return later all help to empower me to craft my own experience. I would say the general consensus is that BOTW in particular is quite un-Ubisoft like despite superficial similarities, the most often cited comparison being the towers in BOTW simply leading to topographic details being filled in and giving the player an in-game vantage point from which to chart their own path as opposed to filling the map with hundreds of markers to check off one at a time.

 

[Megatron]

For Mario I see the moons as a way to let more casual gamers play through the game fairly quickly, and if they get stuck trying to get some moons, well there are always more to be found, since you don't need nearly 800 to just finish the game. And for the more serious gamer, they have more content to explore and play.

 

[808s & Villainy]

People focus on Korok Seeds in this thread but doing all of the shrines is a lot of busywork as well, because quite many of those are duds. Both Mario Odyssey and BotW contain a lot of repetetive, uninteresting tasks to fill the game with "content". It's unfortunate how Nintendo has embraced the Ubisoft game design of filling up a map with shit in their flagship franchises.

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I have no idea what a "dud" shrine means, but there's nothing forcing you to continue beating them after you max our your stamina and hearts. And almost all of them give you weapons with unique bonuses. Some even give you exclusive gear (like the climbing gear or barbarian armor)

 

[Aaronrules380]

I have no idea what a "dude" shrine means, but there's nothing forcing you to continue beating them after you max our your stamina and hearts. And almost all of them give you weapons with unique bonuses. Some even give you exclusive gear (like the climbing gear or barbarian armor)

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duds, not dude. That said, the only shrines that got tiring in my opinion were the combat shrines, but even then I can understand why they'd want to repeat them so that more people would be able to experience them and have access to the weapons you can only get from the enemies there

 

[MegaManTrigger]

My problem is with the sheer amount and how much it feels like there's no thought towards getting some of them. Think of it this way: look at how the Power Moons/Korok Seeds are spread out in the maps of their respective games, and compare that to collectibles of the past that people complained about, specifically games like Banjo Tooie. I had a LTTP thread on Tooie back on GAF and I had no problems with Jiggies requiring one or two steps ahead. What I don't like is senseless placement of collectibles, which is where BOTW and SMO starts to fall flat for me. Even if you argue that it's deconstructing the whole collectibles/OCD element, there are ways of doing that without actually making the collecting seem pointless. After 500 seeds/moons, is there really a point other than flaunting that you maxed out?

At least Shrines were amazing for incentivizing going all out and collecting all spirit orbs through solving puzzles and/or combat, and rewarding you with Life Up and Stamina Up.

 

[Tahnit]

Whats important about the moons in odyssey is that you do not need them. They are just fun to get because the vast majority of them are challenges and new tricks that nintendo came up with. The act of getting them is more important than the actual moon.

 

[TheMisterManGuy]

It's because of the Switch hardware. Much like how Nintendo tried to find uses for it's unique hardware before, Nintendo is designing their Switch games to be enjoyable in smaller, bite-sized increments for mobile play. The dozens of collectables in BotW and Mario Odyssey work because that kind of densely packed gameplay is generally well suited for portable play sessions. You can just wake the Switch from sleep mode, with Mario Odyssey running, collect a few Moons, then put it away again with ease.