It’s no secret that people of all ages love Nintendo products — consoles, games, franchises, you name it. You’re probably just as likely to see a grown adult man wearing a Mario costume on Halloween as you are a 3-year-old. The sheer number of Switch consoles sold since the launch suggests it can’t possibly just be children playing those games, not to mention the mountain of content about games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made by and for adults. And yet, when it comes time to critique a Nintendo game like the recently released Echoes of Wisdom, that age-old argument often comes to the fore: “The game is for kids, after all.”

In my experience, this statement is most often used to shut down criticism that’s perhaps too specific or complain-y, like my take that Zelda’s smoothies in Echoes of Wisdom evoke diet culture. The assumption that Nintendo games are for kids is in itself flawed, and I don’t think it tracks with what game creators and consumers say they value. Also, why wouldn’t we care about the smallest details in a game that our children will play? (It’s also a strawman argument, and maybe a bit of a hasty generalization, too, if logical fallacies are your thing.)

This common generalization about Nintendo games harkens back to the lazy and untrue perception that many American audiences hold: Anything animated is designed exclusively for children. But at least that opinion has fallen out of favor in American discourse alongside........

© Polygon