WHY? a million times Why. The DS was always a bit casual but it was more of a "hardcore" console then the Wii. Those that buy the games that would use demo play (I assume it wont be on cooking mama or brain training) will NEVER use it. It just goes against the whole Video game concept

I think it is safe to say, this isn't cool.

Psychosocial:
I just don't see how this is in any way good.

The worst case scenario would be if this is in Scribblenauts though. My god..

Actually, since Scribblenauts's lexicon is about five times larger than the average person's it would be cool to use this to see just what it can come up with. This would be especially cool with the mode that doesn't let you use the same word twice. Even limiting it to one of those puzzles would be cool to watch.

I don't get why everyone is reacting so strongly to this. It isn't like you have to use it.

OH NO! NINTENDO IS ADDING A COMPLETELY OPTIONAL FEATURE TO SOME OF THEIR GAMES THAT WILL MAKE THEM PLAYABLE FOR THOSE EVIL CASUAL GAMERS! HOW UTTERLY DISASTEROUS!!

Seriously, if you think you are too 'hardcore' for this feature, simply don't use it. In my opninion this will be a good thing because it allows new gamers to also enjoy these games and this might mean that Nintendo will increase the overall difficulty of the games that have this.

Aardvark Soup:
OH NO! NINTENDO IS ADDING A COMPLETELY OPTIONAL FEATURE TO SOME OF THEIR GAMES THAT WILL MAKE THEM PLAYABLE FOR THOSE EVIL CASUAL GAMERS! HOW UTTERLY DISASTEROUS!!

Seriously, if you think you are too 'hardcore' for this feature, simply don't use it. In my opninion this will be a good thing because it allows new gamers to also enjoy these games and this might mean that Nintendo will increase the overall difficulty of the games that have this.

Well said. As I said above, I really don't get what all the hubbub is about.

Well, I didn't expect this, but I'm not surprised either.

Yeah, moving on...

Wow. Its a tool for noobs to stay noobs. nice and disgusting.

Psychosocial:
Yeah, I don't think so.

The whole problem I have with it is more of what it will cause. Have you ever been braging about having beaten a game? I know I have, and I know alot of people here will agree on that they have as well.

Yeah, that's not really a problem at all.

Let's hope people aren't too braindead to actually use this. Only a loser would. Glad they don't make it mandatory. :D

Here's my take on this:
I don't LIKE the feature. I hate to sound like a snob, but part of the core foundations is problem solving, and I dont think they should take that out for the 'expanded' audience.
That said, We're forgetting the fact that this is _OPTIONAL_. Will it be in the new mario games? Yes. Will it be in Phoenix Wright, Strategy games and JRPG's? Most likely not. Remember this feature is to help newbies get thru casual games, but we are all forgetting 1 thing:
It's got to be a game they actually _WANT_ to play! No one's going to look at, say Final Fantasy Tactics and think 'If I cant beat it I'll use demo mode!'. Most likely they wont give it 5 sec. of their time at wal-mart and instead turn to the shiny Ubisoft™ HorseZ or DogZ games. This will only be in games they want to play, so dont worry. 'Core' games developers who want to stay that way will not be putting this in. Certain games dont grab 'casual' people's attention, so why would developers risk losing the Core gamers just so casuals can be unintrested in the newest JRPG starring a big-chested 11-yr old?

(Just kidding, Jrpg's are cool by me)

Psychosocial:

Yeah, I don't think so.

The whole problem I have with it is more of what it will cause. Have you ever been braging about having beaten a game? I know I have, and I know alot of people here will agree on that they have as well. Well, now you can't do that anymore, now anyone can beat it with no problem and just say "pfft, I did that too.". I know it's not much, but, it's still something, and the feature is still stupid.

Btw, I strongly doubt that they would 1up the difficulty of their games. Considering how they're currently making it playable for people who need easy challenges, why would they increase the difficulty? Doesn't really make sense.

One last thing, who the hell enjoys having the game play itself?

The kind of people who will use this aren't people who are going to 1up you on accomplishment. And all that is necessary is some kind of badge to show you played the game without the feature, which I am pretty sure they are doing, along with disabling saves.

Also no one enjoys having the game play itself completely, but this is no different than when a person asks their sibling to get past a bit for them. My cousin used to ask me all the time, until eventually he stopped because he wanted to do it himself. I don't see this as any different.

I don't get all the complaining, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

This would be a good idea in some FPS games, with it going into third person mode.

I mean you could just waste all your ammo apart from your pistol, and then go into a crowed room and turn demo mode on.

And here's me, who just bought a DS two days ago.

Well, at least now I won't have to actually play any games on it, freeing up more time for work.

Naaaw, I'm going to join the unpopular side of the argument and say that I'm anti-demo play. The sense of satisfaction when you finally crack a difficult bit of game is the whole point, surely!

Furthermore, I started gaming on titles like Super Metroid which isn't exactly a walk in the park when you're seven years old. The learning curve is all part of gaming and I think this move only serves to alienate Nintendo from the gaming community in favour of untapped markets.

It's just like Shamus said, instead of skipping a challenging point of the game, the easy mode of the game should have a checkpoint in front of every somewhat tough spot so you could retry it as many times as you want without having to go through the level over and over again.

Tenmar:
I'm amazed Nintendo is actually implementing their patent into the Nintendo DS. Makes me wonder how though. Will it be a firmware update or will the demo play be in each cartridge?

It's going to be in the individual games, not something you would have to install.

And as long as this doesn't lead to developers adding this as a way of weaseling out of making certain parts of their game actually beatable, I don't mind having this in games. It's not like it's going to make games even easier to play or anything like that.

I first thought what the hell games use to be hard now they play themselves? But really its a good thing because now they could actually make some harder stuff and give the soccer moms and 7 year olds a way out.

ThatJagoGuy:
Naaaw, I'm going to join the unpopular side of the argument and say that I'm anti-demo play. The sense of satisfaction when you finally crack a difficult bit of game is the whole point, surely!

You can still do that, though. It isn't like the demo play mode activates automatically after you fail a certain amount of times. You have to specifically decide to use it for it to do anything for you.

Psychosocial:

randommaster:

Psychosocial:
I just don't see how this is in any way good.

The worst case scenario would be if this is in Scribblenauts though. My god..

Actually, since Scribblenauts's lexicon is about five times larger than the average person's it would be cool to use this to see just what it can come up with. This would be especially cool with the mode that doesn't let you use the same word twice. Even limiting it to one of those puzzles would be cool to watch.

If limited to only ONE puzzle, then it might be cool, but only if it always did the most absurd of absurd things, everytime.

Think about it, you've solved one puzzle seven different ways, but you want to waste some time. With demo mode, the game would have to go through its lexicon and find new ways to solve the puzzle. Even if the game uses five words per solution, that's still two thousand solutions. Once you got past solution fifteen or so, you probably would never have thought of solving the puzzle the way the computer did.

As for demo mode itself, the game will probably reward you for not using it, just so people will know that you did everything yourself.

I'm all for this if they make games harder. Games anymore are so short and easy I could use them as bathroom reading material. I say bring this on if they're going to make games Nintendo Hard again.

Woe Is You:

ThatJagoGuy:
Naaaw, I'm going to join the unpopular side of the argument and say that I'm anti-demo play. The sense of satisfaction when you finally crack a difficult bit of game is the whole point, surely!

You can still do that, though. It isn't like the demo play mode activates automatically after you fail a certain amount of times. You have to specifically decide to use it for it to do anything for you.

I realise this but let's put it this way... would climbing Everest be as satisfying if there were loads of people getting lifts up there in a helicopter? Personally, I don't think so; progression through skill is my reward in games and if I knew other people were getting through without trying, it'd defeat from my satisfaction.

Weird, I know. Other people's game playing should not be affecting my enjoyment, but it does. I'd find it tollerable if perhaps they implemented the sliding difficulty scale of Fallout and Oblivion, but DemoPlay is too far.

When I see a movie, I don't parse together my own choices of separate cuts, and I don't particularly want to do that for a game either.

So what I'd like games that have difficulty and other play-altering settings to do, is to clearly indicate which setting the developers think the game is best experienced at. For an arcade port it would obviously be the difficulty of the original, for a strategy game like Civ it could be the difficulty with the best AI and no boost or handicap, and so forth.

I wouldn't mind if playing on the "optimum" setting or harder was required to reach some portion of the game. Contra: Shattered Soldier does this. You get four selectable levels to start with. Level five opens up after beating the four. Players on Easy difficulty get an ending after level five. Players on Normal continue into levels 6-7, followed by a different ending. As a result, saying you completed the game has a quite specific meaning; you need not specify this setting and that setting. More importantly, the game gives a real reward for your trouble.

Once again the complaints about a feature that isn't even mandatory confuses me. Frankly I don't care if other people use it. Mario was damn hard for a 3 year old to play and I should know because that was me back in 1990. Am I saying I would've used demo play to beat it if it existed? Maybe. But the fact remains this feature is optional and therefore does not actually matter if it exists or not, unless people are so tempted by it...

Personally I'm not going to use it and I'm not going to let its existence bother me.