I have often written about my feelings toward trophies and achievements. While I am most definitely a fan of them, my interest has dropped considerably over the past year or so. Even though I have broken the addiction to collecting them all, I can’t help but feel like the Nintendo Switch needs an achievement system.
Nintendo is not a company to copy an idea from others. They have proven in the past that they like to pave their own road and do their own thing. While this is great, it makes you wonder whether an achievement system is something that is an original idea or something that has now become a standard.
Nintendo introduced a basic online network with the Wii. The Nintendo Switch now has a proper online network similar to the Xbox and PlayStation. Did Nintendo copy them? No, because an online network is now a standard in gaming and not an idea. Considering we now have some kind of award system on PSN, Xbox Live, Steam and even Google Play Games, this doesn’t feel like an idea anymore.
With the popularity of the feature and Nintendos interest in improving Nintendo’s online network and making it something people will pay for, they need to start adding new features to make their offer appealing when compared to their competitors.
I was playing Luigi’s mansion recently and I noticed there was achievement like popups as I was playing through the game. The more unusual part of this was that there was no way, at least that I could find in the menu, to view the achievements that I had unlocked and no way to see what was remaining. This reminds me of the time Devil May Cry 4 got that weird accomplishment system ahead of the launch of the PlayStation trophies system.
It feels like a bit of a waste not to have some sort of network-level system for this. Nintendo is great for coming up with ideas to make things like this better. We have had rumours that it was going to be a sticker system but there has been nothing out of Nintendo’s mouth for this. As they work to improve their online network, I hope this is something that they roll out for gamers.
