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[redcrayon]

Yeah, I guess that's my main problem with the industry. The whole "everyone else is setting budget records chasing COD, let's do it too" hive mindset. It doesn't even make good business sense. I still think that there is a market for this kind of experience, even within well established IPs. Look at the recent Castlevania and Batman titles for 3DS. With a little more polish, resources, and development time, those titles could have been big sellers on modern consoles. So maybe that won't happen on XBox and PS, but that could be a way back to respectability for Wii U. One hypothetical example: Nintendo could money hat Konami to make Contra 5 a Wii U exclusive with a 15 hour campaign, online co-op, and launch with a proper advertising campaign. Then make sure there's a title like that in the pipeline every month in addition to your Marios and Raymans of the world. Bring it back to the 80s when Mario and Simon Belmont sat side-by-side on the same retail shelf and were both highly successful. For the same reason 30 million people bought NSMB Wii, millions would get a New Castlevania or New Mega Man: nostalgia.

Why would Contra V need to have a 15 hour campaign when you can play through the other games in the series in about 30 minutes?

While Castlevania and Metroid are longer games due to exploration or slower combat, Contra is a one-hit-kill arcadey game with snappy combat that doesn't need bloated cut scenes and tutorials and side quests and collectable rubbish to pad out the run time the way some 3D games do. I agree that online co-op (as well as local) would be a good addition, but running time isn't any indication of quality. Contra games are awesome because you want to replay them again and again and you always have time for a quick go so you get better at it. Most modern 3D games I never play more than once but I go back to Contra/Probotector all the time.

 

[Mael]

Being old-school and very difficult hasn't stopped the Souls games from being very successful. The reality is that people are likely just burnt out on platformers. They were basically the go to genre during the 32 bit era, they fell off a bit in the PS2 gen and then saw some new life last gen. I don't think it's any different than how fighting games have once again dropped off in popularity.

Holy revisionist Batman!

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

All of these games are bad except Guacamelee, which is not really a straight platformer. I don't think of Super Metroid as a platformer though.

Hold up LBP is one of the best games of all time!

 

[Wiktor]

Struggle? Since when? Platformers are selling very well these days.

 

[Mael]

Hold up LBP is one of the best games of all time!

As a toolbox, it's arguable.
As a platformer, it have one of the worst gameplay ever seen in a platformer.
It's seriously beyond shit.
It's really beautiful though

 

[StayDead]

The struggle purely because the vast majority of the gaming market these days buy sports games and shooters.

 

[mr_sockochris]

Whether it actually intended to or not I think Crackdown did a great job of being a 'mature platformer'. It had the open world that people seem to crave these days, guns and violence is plentiful too, vehicles and online multiplayer - but for me the actual jumping around from building to building collecting those pesky orbs was the most fun I've had in terms of 3D platforming outside of a Mario game.

 

[VLiberty]

Whether it actually intended to or not I think Crackdown did a great job of being a 'mature platformer'. It had the open world that people seem to crave these days, guns and violence is plentiful too, vehicles and online multiplayer - but for me the actual jumping around from building to building collecting those pesky orbs was the most fun I've had in terms of 3D platforming outside of a Mario game.

The problem is - if they aren't cartoony, people have a hard time calling them platformers.

Think about Ubisoft's Prince of Persia. How many people consider it as a platformer? And then how many consider it as an action or even as an adventure game?


BTW Crackdown will be one of the first games I'll get, once I'll finally get the only last-gen console I've never owned.

 

[Morfeo]

Pretty good opening post here. I definitely agree that the combination of difficulty and seemingly "kiddyness" of these games make them a tough sell, especially for the younger Cod-generations. However, there are still plenty of older gamers to sell too, and it seems to me that plattformers does decently enough, at least on Nintendo systems. Lets hope its enough for them to continue to make high-budget plattformers like DKC for a long time coming!

 

[blizzardjesus]

2d platformers are my #1 genre. We have more coming out now than we did in the n64/ps2 days... and I love it.

 

[More_Badass]

Cloudbuilt release tomorrow on Steam. Should stretch that 3D platformer itch for people
Launch trailer