This is a huge question that was brought to our attention thanks to Ninja's tweet. Do games have to be fun? Well, let's see what Will Heath has to say.
NE: "We're looking at ACNH and ACNL to determine which is the better game and how future entries can learn from both of them."
After the hype wore off during the height of COVID I found New Horizons disappointing compared to. Ew Leaf
NH gave us a lot more cool features but then took things away which they slowly drip fed us with poor updates
Crazy how much it sold and how popular it was during COVID and it got such terrible support
We need more control in the next game, the fact we couldn’t move the airport or town hall was ridiculous and certain items were randomised, like I could get a black lamppost unless a friend gave me one of his because mine were green.
In the end I still prefer New Leaf, one of the most important factors being the breakable tools. It gets pretty annoying when you have to keep making bug nets, fishing rods etc in New Horizons.
It came out at the perfect time and was completely abandoned save for a couple of small updates. Those months after release could have taken the game to a whole other level but I guess Nintendo wasn’t impressed with the number of active players.
Cultured Vultures: Put on your freshest dungarees and chow down on the ripest mushroom as we reel off the best Mario games ever made to celebrate Mar10 Day.
My top 3 are Mario 3, Mario World and Mario 64. Mario Odyssey is also excellent, and I enjoyed Sunshine but didn't care for the Galaxy series.
You need a reason to fight the good fight. In video games, some of the best antagonists have been female perpetrators.
One of the most memorable fights I ever played. I almost didn't want to pull the trigger at the end.
Fun and engaging are two different things. If it's not fun but engaging then that's great based on the content. I have played games that have unenjoyable content but still engaging. Dystopian titles are good examples of not fun but captivating.
Really depends on what kind of game it is. If the game focuses to deliver fun, then it has to be fun. However, if it doesn't want to be fun, then it can be at the very least engaging (like what NecrumOddBoy said). Story-based and horror games (e.x. Silent Hill, Outlast, The Last of Us, Deadly Premonition) are good examples of games that focuses more on delivering an engaging or intriguing story from start to finish instead of offering a fun experience.
All in all, it really depends on what the developers are trying to deliver with their games.
Looks like Ninja is trying to be a hip Geoff Keighley.
Go ahead, downvote me.
Either that or engaging. By engaging, I mean like a story that keeps you interested and playing, RDR 2 for example. Same thing applies to fun but for gameplay, doom for example. A game that can do both is what makes an amazing game, Gow ps4 for example.
Does this question have to be asked constantly? What I find fun isn't the same as the next guy and vice versa.