I think for 95% of Nintendo first party games, they’ll be a kid’s (or someone trying out new genres) first introduction to the genre or play style with added depth/challenge for people that are older/more experienced.
When you consider Luigi’s Mansion as someone’s first horror game, Mario Kart as someone’s first racing game, BoTW as someone’s first open world survival game, or Pokemon as someone’s first RPG - Looking at this ‘aimed at a new player’ angle, then their design and accessibility decisions make a lot more sense, and that generally makes the game popular because its so easy to play.
And of course a popular game is influential.
That also being said, post-BoTW, the glider has become pretty much a staple for the genre. I don’t think it was the first game to do it but you can definitely tell that many games copied BoTW’s implementation.
I think for 95% of Nintendo first party games, they’ll be a kid’s (or someone trying out new genres) first introduction to the genre or play style with added depth/challenge for people that are older/more experienced.
When you consider Luigi’s Mansion as someone’s first horror game, Mario Kart as someone’s first racing game, BoTW as someone’s first open world survival game, or Pokemon as someone’s first RPG - Looking at this ‘aimed at a new player’ angle, then their design and accessibility decisions make a lot more sense, and that generally makes the game popular because its so easy to play.
And of course a popular game is influential.
That also being said, post-BoTW, the glider has become pretty much a staple for the genre. I don’t think it was the first game to do it but you can definitely tell that many games copied BoTW’s implementation.