Could this be Nintendo's Achievement System?

There's been rumbling for the past few months, especially during the last week, about Nintendo implementing an Achievement System for the Wii U. E3 came and went with no official mention/confirmation by Nintendo. And yet, we have this curious golden "bubble" message from a screen capture of New Super Mario Bros. U. What do you guys think?

I think the bubbles is 'Achievements confirmed' and IW should give me points in the predictathon.

Jerk.

Yeah, thats the only thing we've really seen, but that could also be a "record" of sorts among friends, or something? They've been talking about speedrun stuff a lot, so it sounds like that'll be a focal point. I wonder if there'll be a TON of those things all over the map eventually.

I honestly don't care if there is one or not. Though, I know some people act like they almost need an achievement system to be able to have fun with a game.

@gamewizard65

I like the sort of checklist mentality of it. Just like in Mario games where you wanted to be able to find every secret & coin, thus getting you golden flags on levels or sparkles or whatever.

Really an achievement system is just a sort of standardisation of stuff that already exists in a lot of games. The Treasure Hunt in Kid Icarus is probably the best implementation I've ever seen, if Nintendo did something similar across all WiiU titles...

Well that would be cool.

Mii Plaza has achievements so it only makes sense. I hope they are given more thought than "Beaten under _____ seconds" though.

gamewizard65 said:

I honestly don't care if there is one or not. Though, I know some people act like they almost need an achievement system to be able to have fun with a game.

I love achievements/trophies! I think it's one of the coolest new things from this generation as long as the game achievements/trophies are designed around the game and not the other way around. One of my favorite Achievement/Trophy designs is from the game Assassin's Creed 2. You get one every time you finish a chapter and then there are other achievements for doing other stuff in the game. Some of them are easy and some of them are hard. If it wasn't for the Trophies in AC2, I wouldn't have bothered to learn some skills in the game. So it actually helped me. I also find that achievements give me more of a reason to play after I'm done with the game. So, for me, they extend the replayability of the game and give me new objectives other than finishing it.

I can understand if you don't like Achievements/Trophies and, if so, you're lucky because you can always not pursue them and/or ignore them if they pop up.

I'd hope not but probably. Unless they actually had it mean something.

I want them. And I like the score like the way MS does it. Rewarding to me.

I'm hoping that you can cash in achievements towards things on Nintendo Network. This is one area I think Microsoft dropped the ball. It would be cool if I could spend achievement points buying clothes for my avatars or something like that. Nintendo could continue what they've started with the coins on 3DS. Make more of a 'game' out of the achievement system by making them worth something.

Shadowlink said:

I think the bubbles is 'Achievements confirmed' and IW should give me points in the predictathon.

Jerk.

Harsh but fair. :)

If we'd seen the same message in even one other game I'd have called that true. Nintendo has been extremely cagey about system wide features though. Man. 5 months out from launch, they must have a strong idea of all the features they'll have on board the console, I don't know why they were quite so secretive at the show.

I sure hope so.

I think sirmastersephiroth said it best.

@sirmastersephiroth pretty much this.

Whether or not Nintendo are into it, I think they realise they need some sort of achievement system if for no other reason than to match the competition. What it'll be though, is a total mystery. I was thinking that it would be something simple using stars or medals. A bronze would be something like making it halfway through a game, a silver would be for beating it, and a gold would be from completing it 100%. But that was before E3 I thought this up, so now, I'm thinking it'll be a little different. That gold popup makes me think that the achievements will be tied to Miis and show up in Miiverse.

I'd like to see something more "video gamey" than the current Xbox achievements. One thing that came to mind was Kirby Air Ride's/Brawl's/Kid Icarus Uprising's checklist. Imagine if every game had a full panel of (120?) boxes with a picture behind it, a la Kid Icarus, and you could access them all from the Home Menu. And also like Kid Icarus, clearing squares would actually give you in-game unlockables instead of a GamerScore or whatever. Other players could see how many squares in each games' panel you cleared and...hm, as I'm typing this up I'm wanting it more and more. Now I'm gonna be bummed out if this isn't a feature!

I say no, because if Nintendo was planning to include an achievement system why didn't they mention it at E3? I believe that achievements will be used in some games, but there won't be a central "score" to tie them all together.

@sirmastersephiroth

I never said I didn't like them. I just don't care about them one way or the other. When I owned an Xbox360, I really never pursued them.

@TriforceBun

I'd like something like this. Achievements/Trophies don't really interest me all that much in a general sort of way. I'm playing Tales of Graces F on PS3 and I've unlocked two trophies today and it wasn't for anything special. Getting some amount of titles and getting to a certain point in the story. Not really something I feel like I should be given a medal for, but that is today's age.

If they started tying it back into the actual game itself, that would be great. Even if they kept it the boring "You beat Boss A" or "You cleared Act I" give me something aside from some pointless number next to my name.

While on the subject, they need to start making these things actually worth going for. I shouldn't be rewarded for beating your boss. I should be rewarded for beating your boss without taking a hit. Or without using my primary attack. Or for something that takes you out of your comfort zone in the game and pushes you. Beating some level in 100 seconds isn't really going to feel like much. Cause if you beat it in 30 seconds you're the same as someone that beat it in 99.

gamewizard65 said:

@sirmastersephiroth

I never said I didn't like them. I just don't care about them one way or the other. When I owned an Xbox360, I really never pursued them.

That's good. Maybe Nintendo will win you over with theirs. Now that you mentioned it, I didn't actually pursued them until Sony came out with Trophies. For some reason, I think it could be that I prefer their way of handling achievements/trophies better. I would hope Nintendo can come out with an even better way. And if it's tied to in-game or out-of-game rewards, like others have suggested, then it would make it something worth pursuing.

Yeah, and they'll put a Nintendo spin on it.

They'll have something comparable to achievements, I suspect, but I highly doubt they'll include a master Gamerscore. I'm guessing anything that could make a casual gamer feel inadequate wouldn't be included.

I'll continue to ignore achievements, too.