November 12th, 2012

Oh, so it looks like there isn’t a system-wide achievements system for the Wii U

72 Comments
Scribblenauts Unlimited 7

According to Level-5, the developers of Scribblenauts Unlimited, “There are no Wii U accomplishments that are system wide”, explaining that:

They are up to the developers to include or not include. Scribblenauts Unlimited loosely has them in the form of “Global Starite Shards” which is like a giant checklist of global things to spawn and do in the game that aren’t area specific.

I suspect this will disappoint some people. It is consistent with Nintendo’s lasting philosophy (aka, distaste) in regards to achievements though.

  • Kushi

    good. devs should be spending time putting extra stuff and little easter eggs in the game and making sure it all runs smoothly and is as bug free as possible. not coming up with shitty achievements.

    • xavier

      agreed

    • Total911

      I pretty much agree with what Kushi says but achievements are nice as little mementos. Even so, achievements break the atmosphere in certain games and for some they even spoil the story. I don’t really mind for something as small as that to be omitted.

    • blaxalb

      I´d say Kid Icarus: Uprising is a good example of acheivements done the right way without revealing spoilers.

    • blaxalb

      whoops, a bit late. didn´t see Ice Climbers´ comment below.

    • http://nottoolikely.co.uk Wizzer10

      In my opinion, achievements just lead the way to “little easter eggs” when they’re done properly. They shouldn’t be “complete chapter one,” they should be “complete chapter one without killing anyone” or “get a certain upgrade on your weapon.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ricardo-Lima/100000186228251 Ricardo Lima

    It is kind of disappointing if this is true. We will miss a lot of opportunities and replay value if this is true. That is sad, developers are lazy, I know it because I am a developer myself…

    • http://nottoolikely.co.uk Wizzer10

      But none are as lazy as the ones making the Wii U online system it seems.

  • Discomaster

    Typo, David. It’s 5th Cell, not Level-5. Had me confused there for a minute. :P

    • Soeroah

      I get them confused too. And my name is also David. And I’m Australian…

      Dun dun duuun.

    • HOTPATATO

      HOT PATATO!

  • luke

    David so there isnt a n achievement/ trophy system on the wii u? CAUSE If THIS IS THE CASE its AWESOME and making me cut 1 point in the dislike list and MAKEING ME THINK TO BUY THE WII U :D

  • suportedcofe

    Achievements can be fun but it’s not good to force developers to do stupid stuff like that cause the achievements are usually VERY uncreative and pointless which shows that they don’t really care for it.

    • CBNS

      That’s the problem. There is good challencing achievements in some games like Contra and Smash TV but even in those it’s usually better to have those achievements in savefile so you can just delete your file and try to get those achievements again later.

  • Deboog

    Who cares? You’d have to be stupid to play a game just so a little bleep bloop pops up saying you beat a level without getting hit.

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      No more stupid than playing any game in the first place, as the only purpose of a game is for the thrill of having played it.

  • Hybrilynx

    so? i just want an awesome wii u.

    • AxGamer

      The Wii U is awesome! Why always so damn negative with you?

  • http://twitter.com/Rasdsaase R8i7 D66a

    It
    hardly matters if the system itself has achievements. Developers can
    still program an achievement system in-game and have it so all
    achievements are automatically posted to Miiverse. Essentially
    accomplishing the same thing achievements do on other systems. Also,
    this is REALLY old news. I get that some developers won’t waste time to put achievements into some games on the Wii U but nothing’s really stopping them from doing so. Also, PSN didn’t get trophies until 2 years after the PS3 came out, so it’s always possible that Nintendo could add them in a firmware update.

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      I’m sorry but you are wrong.

      Because I extensively use the ability to pause the game, compare my achievements against friends, or even use my phone to do so.

      If its only supported by the developer not the console then they might not even have any of those options, or I might need to access different websites for different games, it takes the whole fun out of the system because it becomes a chore keeping track.

      I think the biggest issue here is that Nintendo haven’t bothered to read the many complaints about how Sony ended up having to patch things in later, often ending up being half-arsed implementations because of it.

      Achievements are such a fundamentally simple thing to implement in the OS API, the fact they didn’t shows they still have no clue how some people are accustomed to gaming and it WILL be deciding factor for some people to wait on PS4/Xbox720 when they might otherwise have switched to Wii U.

    • Mr. Foogy

      If such a feature was but in by the developers into their game, that would mean you could view the accomplishents IN-GAME, right? You wouldn’t even have to suspend the game to see how your friends are doing.

      And whether or not Nintendo are wrong in not putting in this feature you may argue, but saying they have no clue how to make appealing hardware is just dead wrong, considering their long history of making the most successful video game systems ever.

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/MrKoopan?feature=mhee MrKoopan

    eh, achievements are cool and all, but they don’t really make the game

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      They do if you prefer single-player games but still want a competitive aspect.

      I have also lost count how many times I decided to go back and play an older game purely because I noticed a friend of mine was playing it and had unlocked some achievements I hadn’t.

      Sometimes its even little things like I see an achievement that tells me to do something that ends up revealing easter eggs I would otherwise not have noticed.

      Without achievements, I would likely have played through Elder Scrolls Oblivion in just a few hours, in fact I know someone who did just that on the PC and complained the game was too short.

      However the multitude of achievements gave me a reason to seek out the side quests making the games many times longer than it otherwise would have been.

    • Mr. Foogy

      Shouldn’t the game itself be able to supply the player with interesting content, instead of relying on a feature of the console? I mean, the developers can put this features in themself without it being on a system level.

    • Bleh

      I severely disagree.Achievements create unnecessary and completely pointless things to “100%ing” a game.
      If I want to be a perfectionist and complete it- now I have to get all the “achievements” aka jumping through tons of random hoops (play the level without getting hit! WoooOOOoOOoOo or do a 360 no-scope yeah because that has a ton to do with completing the game). Most of the time I never actually want to do this crap, but if I truly want to 100% it I’m forced into that stupid corner.

      The game itself should have given you reason to seek out sidequests, like Morrowind, everything else is simply bad design.
      Don’t kid yourself.

    • http://www.youtube.com/user/MrKoopan?feature=mhee MrKoopan

      I love singleplayer, but I play for the experience of the game, not to give me some extra gamerscore, achievements are cool and all, but I don’t see a reason to strive for them

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1440100847 Busted Hope

    I can’t say i’m happy, this hits me hard :(

  • Ice Climbers

    If achievements are done, they should be in the fashion of the challenges in Kid Icarus Uprising. Those challenges don’t reveal anything about the game but do give extra replayability to the levels, making the game that much deeper. Uprising did achievements properly.

    • CBNS

      Very properly with all those unlockables and keeping things “?”-marked as long as needed for big surprises. I’m not yet fully finished that game and that’s why i still don’t have any idea how many stages there actually is.

    • toaster

      There is 34 stages. >;)

    • James Nguyen

      Kirby Air Ride and Brawl did it like that first, and it did it right as well.

  • CBNS

    I’m not so happy with low quality of achievements and trophies in games. I like to get all 96 stages completed in Super Mario World and start a new game but i don’t like achievements that makes you play same game seperately in singleplayer, split screen & online, with all 4 difficulties and then finally collect 400 pieces of hidden random crap that doesn’t have any use in whole game.

    I admit that achievements and ranks inside some games are useful so you can check when you have unlocked everything (and you’re ready to delete your savefile and start again) but there isn’t that much use to show those achievements in your Nintendo Network Profile.

    For me a full list of games played would be more useful than achievements for
    online gaming. Atleast if there is a chance to delete old games because then there wont be so much invites to play some games i have sold years ago.

  • http://twitter.com/Revolution5268 Revolution

    i can see it not work on some games like painting and puzzle games.

  • TheWichi

    Two words: “Who cares?”

    • rom

      Perfectionists. I don’t care though. I like achievements that unlock something special. Like in Ratchet and Clank, TF2, SSBB, Kid Icarus.

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      People who play mostly single-player games so use achievements to compete with their friends.
      People who see a friend playing a game they haven’t played in ages, realise they have some achievements they hadn’t gotten, decide to go back on that game.

      In other words, they add competition and replay values that a game otherwise might not have had. Even a great game can get left on the shelf if you haven’t played it in a while. Achievements can give you motivation to go back to it.

  • torpedofin

    I don’t mind not having console-wide achievements. I like the idea that you, the player, decides what was an achievement and then you can post that on your profile. Rather than the system deciding what was worthy and spamming your profile with things you don’t really care to share with friends. The mii verse demo showed this when the guy beat his high score in the mario challange and posted a screenshot on his profile.

  • Luciano Fran

    I rather earn myself 3 coin stars in SMB and open a special world then
    work my butt off for a trophie thats just gonna sit there I wanna feel
    like I did something special add something to my game for earning stars
    or coins or whatever you know as a reward for doing something special I
    get to play a special world or unlock something you know what Im
    saying?

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      Achievements can do both, as there is nothing stopping developers from giving you an achievement for earning so many coins/stars AND using those items for in-game currency.

    • CBNS

      i like how uplay uses it’s own achievements as currency that you can spend for some extra maps, game modes and things like that.

  • Link01000

    It doesn’t bother me that there are no achievements, it bothers me that Nintendo worded it earlier in a way that sounded like they did have them, only to disappoint people who did want them.

  • http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3204673/ GameManiac

    I’ve played games without a care in the world about achievements, and I won’t start caring about it.
    If it’s there, it’s there. If not, so what.

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      Finally, a reasonable person.

      I don’t understand the achievement haters, because if you don’t like them you can just ignore them.

      However if you DO like them, you can’t magically make them appear. So its completely unreasonable to count them as a negative.

      Personally I find them get me to do things in games I might not otherwise, replay games I might otherwise forget about, but none of that makes me play a crap game “just” to earn an achievement. They are an incentive to get more out of a game.

    • http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3204673/ GameManiac

      I’ll give you an example to your last paragraph.

      In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, there is a medal system with 200 “achievements” on the list. A good amount of them are challenge-based, accomplishment-based, or completion-based, such as catching X amount of Pokémon or beating the Elite Four with one general type of Pokémon, or just ONE Pokémon in your party, just to name a few.

      As a die-hard Pokémon fan, I’ll bleed my Black 2 game dry by investing 200+ hours on it easily. That medal system, what I see it doing for me, is making the most of my time, by allowing me to use Pokémon that I don’t normally use, and holding onto them until I trade them over to Game Freak’s next entry to the series.

  • boyonthemoon

    damn them!

  • XypherCode

    The PS3 trophy feature was added via an update. Who knows maybe Nintendo will add the feature in Miiverse in due time. xD

  • Swankenstein

    this is not news. this has been stated numerous times since the announcement of the Wii U. I personally enjoy achievements, and they are easily ignored for those that dont. But I prefer tangible rewards to my challenges, something we are seeing less of lately.

  • KarjamP

    I’m actually glad that developers aren’t forced to have achievements like the other consoles do.

  • http://twitter.com/tequatus Jhal Fullantes

    “According to Level-5, the developers of Scribblenauts Unlimited”, 5th Cell silently weeps at the corner of their room………………….

  • Ziggy

    The trophies in angry Birds annoys me, the first time you play it after the trophies update, you get billions of them all at once!!

    • Tails the Foxhound

      Hah, that’s pretty funny actually.

    • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

      That’s because trophies were a half-assed addon and not mandatory.

      Its exactly why this functionality needs to be there at launch and mandatory for all games. Because if they decide to add it on later they are just repeating the PS3 fiasco where some games have them, some don’t, and its not a seamless part of the gaming experience. I mean they actually have to SYNC on PSN.

      As Xbox had them from day-one and the whole OS was designed with that in mind, its all seamless and behind-the-scenes.

    • Ziggy

      Yah, most of them just takes time, and the cruel three-star rating, hate crap like that >:(

  • http://www.facebook.com/AlexAtkinUK Alexander Atkin

    This sucks, as the reason I love achievements is not merely as a list of things to do in the game – its because I can directly compare my progress against my friends at any time. Having to rely on them posting their progress to Miiverse is not the same.

    In other words, achievements are a social gaming aspect that allows competition when playing single-player games. Typical that Nintendo once again have no clue what makes online gaming work so well on Xbox.

    I had so hoped the Wii U WOULD have accomplishments as that would be worth losing a little bit of graphical fidelity, if I gained the gamepad and the ability to compete with friends on single player games. The gamepad alone is not enough to convince me not to buy PC unless the Wii U version has other compelling features (such as Sonic & All-Star Racing Transformed with its additional multiplayer modes).

    Yet another example of why Nintendo insisting “we do not look at the competition” is a stupid move. They only need take a look as the history of the PS3 to see how long people were begging for achievements, before trophies were implemented. The way Nintendo are going is silly, they just keep making the same mistakes with the OS that Sony did, no cross-gaming chat, no achievements, etc. Seriously Nintendo, LEARN from your competitors mistakes for crying out loud!

    • Duke

      You do realize that people can take screenshots and post it on Miiverse, right? I know it’s not the same as a little pop-up window saying ‘You get 500 gamerscore for walking around.’ But you can take a snapshot of a time on NSMBU for example and say “Beat that” to all of your friends, then they can try to beat it and upload a screen to prove it. I mean, it does create more realistic competition then actual programed achievements.

  • erlendrs93

    This is great news!

    Trophies are for lazy devs

  • Omarsonic9

    Nintendo can put an achievements system in the Wii U with just a software update.

    • Link01000

      That’s kind of a big thing to add in an update. I’m not saying they won’t, but I doubt it…. I would kind of like them, though….

  • 3DSMiiNI

    Thank god! Now my friends might play a little more multiplayer with me rather then saying “Hold on I need to get this achievement for ______”.

    Usually two weeks later they’d come looking to play and I’d be busy with something like schoolwork. At least they got their damn achievements though. :|

  • TheFarmboy

    Achievements would’ve been nice to have. Of course I would have to agree with several people in which it should be used to help extend game play rather than be given one for something insignificant.

  • The Truth

    This is better, all the trophy hunters on PS3 buy awful games for easy platinums, so are your achievement wide trophies actually worth anything? The people with the best overall trophies are normally just rich people who can afford to buy and sit through any crappy game.

    Game specific is much better and much more competitive.

  • CHECKit095

    Maybe Nintendo adds them later. The PS3 didn’t had the trophy system when it launched. That system was added one and a half years after the release…

  • BellaKazza
  • sonicfan1373

    Maybe they can implement an optional system wide one later through a system update. However, I have not really been a fan of achievements for every game, for some games it is a great addition, for others it feels like they were just a badly implemented after thought (namely because some games do not need achievements, and devs spend their time rightfully on other aspects of the game).

  • Mr. Foogy

    I’ve honestly never seen the need for such a feature

  • James Nguyen

    Game to game achievements are best, and even if they’re not it’s not the end of the world. I’ve had no use for Gamerscore/Trophies/Steam Achievements.

  • http://www.facebook.com/JonathanRider Johnny Rider

    I prefer it like that. It means we’re only going to get achievements from developers who want to put in the extra work, we won’t get stupid achievements implemented as last thought.

  • Anon

    No one who knows ever said there WOULD be system wide accomplishments. They were INITIALLY and ALWAYS SINCE known to be at the developers discretion. Reporting like this only aggravates the knowing and misleads the ignorant.

  • Duke

    Guys, don’t forget that you can take screenshots of games and post them on Miiverse, so you can show off you skill that way buy taking a picture of a record time or high score and post for people and friends to beat. Isn’t that a much better system then ‘Press A for achieve?’

  • http://www.facebook.com/B29056 Broady Cats

    AND???????????????????????????? the wii u kicks ass ,and people act like the ps4 and 720 going to be so fucking groundbreaking

  • http://twitter.com/SebasMedel7 Sebastian

    So no trophy’s like PS3!

  • Fstab

    Woohoo! No more people bragging about chevos and buying cheap games for them!