Zelda and Tearaway show that new hardware is an investment, not an impulse buy

November 26th, 2013, 00:29 Posted By: wraggster

As the new generation of hardware landed Stateside this month, I heard as much post-release grumbling as pre-release hype. “The software line-ups are too similar; there’s no differentiator”. “It’s best to wait”. “They aren’t about games anymore”. “Where’s Drive Club?” All this and the hardware’s only been on retail shelves – or flying off them – for less than a month.Why so cynical? To be honest, I’d been of a similar mind about the current generation of portable gaming consoles until just last week. My 3DS had specks of dust glinting on its cover as if it was a metallic two-tone. My Vita screen had the lone streak of a finger running diagonally across its amazing OLED screen from the last time I’d played Gravity Rush (admittedly, Persona 4 did spring it back to life temporarily, but the dust streaks remained, like scars). 3DS launched over two years ago. Vita launched well over 18 months ago. And, until recently, I hadn’t felt that i’d had nearly the value for money out of either I’d hoped for. I was the post-release grumbler incarnate.And then last week happened. A Link Between Worlds and Tearaway are two of the best games of the year. They’re both perfect partners for their host platforms: inconceivable on any other device – iOS, Android, whatever. How refreshing to see the dedicated portable come back firing on all cylinders after being written off by smartphone evangelists. Every single feature that separates 3DS and Vita from touch devices is used and abused by Nintendo and Media Molecule’s teams. As smartphone titles catch up to the systems and superiority of Nintendo’s canon, the question is often raised as to how Nintendo will be able to justify its higher price-points and refrain from porting titles onto mobile. The answer is A Link Between Worlds.Like the very greatest titles of each generation, they serve to redefine their host hardware, A Link Between Worlds and Tearaway reset all expectations. A Link Between Worlds makes even the 3DS’ sound chip sing; like it was designed with the single purpose of pumping out tweaked and modernised versions of A Link To The Past’s original arrangements. The 3DS itself, it seems, is the real link to the past; the link to Nintendo’s golden age where consumers’ patience was rewarded with its designers’ peerless innovation; a sort of sonic screwdriver that adds new, irresistible features to pre-existing stories and systems making them unimaginable – impossible – on other hardware. A Link Between Worlds offers another strong argument, finally succeeding Mario 3D Land’s bar set two years ago, for glasses-free 3D as a meaningful, affecting device to add texture and sense of place to what might otherwise be unremarkable scenes.Similarly, Tearaway makes you realise what every single function on Vita is for; how it wasn’t a ‘throw everything at the wall’ R&D cock-up; it was a Tearaway machine all along. Built for your face to be plugged into its sun, beaming with delight as you tap, swipe, tear and shout. A Link Between Worlds and Tearaway are more than simply wonderful, genre-defining games, though. They’re important because they douse the flames of doubt that were dancing around their host platforms for so long. They’re a reminder – when all around are questioning the new generation’s features, rightly interrogating their actual present offerings in light of their pre-release promises – that not only does hardware need to mature, but that design teams need to mature alongside them.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/...n-impulse-buy/

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