you know you mention mario galaxy and mario sunshine, two games of which i own and have played and two games of which i have never finished. i think you are definitely right about 3d mario, that it really sucks. mario 64 was great though, but after that it just got really sour.
Mario 64 had a great Through the Looking Glass theme of jumping through the paintings. I loved that.
there are other games from nintendo that i also feel has gotten stale. you’ve mentioned metroid and i haven’t replayed metroid prime since a while. i own all of the three metroid prime games and only beaten the first. after reading on some of your articles, espcially the recent one about metroid, i reflected back on my gaming experience with metroid prime 1. the more i look back, the more it felt like a stale game. i don’t even know the story for metroid prime, other then that it involves pirates, space pirates. with the original metroid for nes, you knew the story, to go to some alien planet and destroy some being known as motherbrain which is causing problems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3Ow7cZrUw.
Interestingly, I really liked Metroid Prime. Granted, the pacing wasn’t the best at times, but I thought the game did keep much of the Metroid feel. One technique it did that I really liked was scanning critters and that would give you text which you could, or could not read. I prefer that approach than a game slamming you with cutscenes or ‘information’. Bah!
btw, does motherbrain make a return in metroid other m? there is that moment in the trailer where a big creature shoots a beam from a huge eyeball.
Who knows. It could just as easily be the flashback or the ‘beginning scenes’ that start at the end of Super Metroid.
i’m still hoping maybe they’ll do metroid the same as what they did with mario [new super mario brothers wii] for the wii. i’m still waiting for a big 2d metroid game for the console.
This is not going to happen. The only reason why 2d Mario is made on the console was because NSMB DS outsold almost every other game ever made.
EVEN THEN, Nintendo was shy about it. At the E3 2009 conference, Cammie announces NSMB Wii with a bizarre interlude of the fourth dimension. Why did she do this? It is because Nintendo feared putting up a new 2d Mario game for the console could result in a backlash of people going, “What!? This is going backwards!!” 3d Mario is Mario in the third dimension. This is why she made the comment to the fourth dimension as a way to sell the new Mario game. I wonder if Super Mario Galaxy 2 was made as a contingency plan in case there was a backlash against NSMB Wii.
Nintendo being so scared about 2d Mario on the console just shows how much they don’t know how people look at 2d Mario games. 2d Mario is revered and is up there with Tetris as an example of pure gameplay bliss.
The NSMB DS for Metroid was Zero Mission for GBA. Zero Mission didn’t perform well so there is no incentive for Nintendo to make a 2d Metroid for the console.
”What about Wii-Ware?”
Wii-Ware’s purpose is experimental games. Nintendo will put up artstyle games, but not devote resources to 2d Metroid just for that niche fan.
A new 2d Metroid for the DS is most likely to occur. Since the DS buttons are shaped like the SNES, we can finally get those Super Metroid controls down right!
i asked my sister for her opinion on mario and she says that it’s the over use of his name. mario tennis, mario golf, mario this mario that….which starts to feel stale. what exactly is mario? mario going from a guy to saving princess toadstool [aka princess peach] from donkey kong to a guy saving the princess from king bowser and then to doing golf, tennis and so and so. who exactly are you mario? are you a guy who is to save the princess from distress or are you some sort of a jack of all trade freelancer trying to earn a gig [a job]?
Miyamoto intended Mario to be a jack of all trades, to be someone in many games. Interestingly, he didn’t use a superhero. He used the Common Man. He used a plumber in overalls.
My theory is that Mario was the first Mii. He was to represent us to a degree. Now that we have Miis, Mario has lost his purpose being in every game since that can be performed with Miis. Unless the game heavily uses Mushroom Land, like Mario Kart, Mario’s cameo appearances are obsolete due to the Miis.
zelda twilight princess. wow, what a great game the first time and what a game i may never go back to. i always want to replay twilight princess, but the going back and forth with the shadow world to the real world and the transforming to a dog causes me to hold back. but there were some great dungeons.
When I went back to Twilight Princess, it was extremely annoying at the beginning. I have to go through so much text and stupid narrative just going around the stupid village. And then I have to keep talking to those brats. The first three dungeons are extremely boring. The dog parts are extremely boring. The quest to get the Master Sword is also extremely boring.
The game, however, really picks up at Arbiter’s Grounds (fourth dungeon). I liked the dungeons that followed except for the final one (God, what an anti-climax). The sidequests are so annoying and feel like a waste of time. The Link snowboarding on a frozen leaf made me wince. That ain’t Zelda. It was more of a “Let us show off our motion controls” but it wasn’t integrated into the game. Aiming and all is very nice.
Temple of Time and City of the Sky were my favorite dungeons. I love those little human faced chickens!
I wish I had that ‘automatic play’ feature where I could just skip to Temple of Time and begin playing there instead of spending hours going through all that stuff at the beginning.
I’ve recently tried replaying Windwaker with my now non-green Link. At the start of the game, I am running around doing nothing. Boring. Once I get to the Forgotten Fortress, I think things are going to get interesting. But then they take your sword away. Boring. And then you get stuck on an island and have to find a sail. That is when I turned off the game.
Someone at the Zelda team need to realize that proportion of time until the player can begin running around and attack enemies with their sword is directly correlated to the quality of the Zelda game.
For example:
Zelda I- Didn’t have a sword for like five seconds.
Zelda II- Had to walk out of the palace. Took two seconds.
Link to the Past- Got your sword from your dying uncle under the castle. Took twenty seconds.
N64 games- I forgot…
Windwaker- Five hours into the game and I still am not in a position where I have a sword and can go after enemies. This has to be one of the reasons why this game didn’t sell too well. Horrible, horrible beginning.
Twilight Princess- Took probably an hour or so before you finally got into the first dungeon where you finally had a sword and could attack enemies.
I don’t give a care about Link and his stupid village. I just want a sword, and I want to kick ass. Who is it on the Zelda team that kept putting so much BS at the beginning of the Zelda games?
i’m still surprised you still haven’t owned a ps2. there are some good games to own. i got it just to play metal gear solid 2 after playing metal gear solid 1, then after that checked out what others have said and found some good games. i got hooked on dark alliance [a diablo like game].
Ever since I saw the N64 controller that looks like a spaceship, I said, “NO WAY!” Console gaming stopped being it for me. I despise that controller as well as the Dual Shock. I can understand that controller for racing games. But for FPS? You have to be crazy.
What is there for me on the PS2? I don’t like any of the modern Final Fantasy games. I don’t like the JRPGs. FPS and other Western games I’d rather play on my PC (sorry Xbox). The typical ‘hardcore’ games aren’t for me. Cinema heavy games like Metal Gear Solid turn me off. I look at consoles as a type of arcade gaming. Aside from a handful of shmups and arcade compilations, there were no games for me on the PS2. Compound the problem with that devil controller, I wanted no part in it! PC gaming was for me!
Being a Metroid fan, I got curious in the Gamecube due to Metroid Prime but never made the leap. The Gamecube controller was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen. In early 2006, I did borrow someone’s Gamecube (he wasn’t using it, hahaha), and I did eventually get used to the controller. However, even for an experienced player who did not grow up with that devil controller, it is extremely difficult and takes much patience to learn. I do love the Wavebird. But I hate the modern controller. Wii-mote and Nunchucka are much more natural to me. I don’t understand how the Dual Analog Stick Coalition can exist since playing with the devil controller is like playing with your arms in handcuffs in front of you. I was trying our Gamecube games to see if I would want any to play on the Wii that was coming out. I beat many Gamecube games. I got a 99% completion rating on Metroid Prime. My favorite game though was Ikaruga. I look at consoles as an arcade machine at home.
I would have bought a N64 and Gamecube if there was a 2d Mario on it. Nintendo apparently didn’t want me to buy their systems as they didn’t make any 2d Mario for those systems. I was fine with my old brick Gameboy and even passed on all the Gameboy evolutions. I had no desire to buy a 2d Mario port. But then, at E3 2005, NSMB DS was shown, and I bought a DS soon after just in anticipation for that game. I bought a Wii mostly due to the Virtual Console. I like being able to play all my 2d Marios and other classic games on it. But I also like games like Wii Sports because it is an arcade game experience.
will the nes and snes days software comeback? will we have the same kind of software that were being developed and created as if it was during the nes and snes days?
People will be asking will the DS and Wii software come back twenty years from now. The DS software is already in the legendary status. As for the Wii, that is a more interesting story.
We remember the NES through rose colored lenses. The NES had great games. However, they came out near the second half of its lifespan, and we ignore all the bad games. In America, the NES came out in 1985. It wasn’t until 1988 and 1989, three and four years later, that the games began to get good and that third parties began putting out quality stuff.
The NES software and its history are fun to explore. Decades from now, people will be saying the same about the Wii. Decades from now, motion controls will be perfected. Historians will be interested in how the struggle to that process began and ended. Wii’s software history will eventually end up to be very interesting to explore, to see how companies grew in experience with the motion controls as well as when the quality content began coming.
This Christmas, I can’t think of a better time for a Nintendo platform than the Wii. Super Mario Brothers 5 is coming out. The sequel to the killer app of this generation, Wii Sports Resort, is coming out. Some interesting third party games are coming out like Red Steel 2 and Conduit. Motion Plus is out that is making gameplay much more interesting such as with Tiger Woods Golf (and many people don’t even like golf are playing it).
I think the Wii is beginning to enter its golden age as the NES did starting in 1988. And, like the NES, we won’t know it is a Golden Age until decades later.
Pay attention to the kids on the Wii. They will be writing Wii’s history, not us old dinosaurs.