Has Nintendo gone lazy?

[Dezm0nd]

Has Nintendo gone lazy?

I've always been a gamer since the commodore 64, but i've never been addicted to games right until the Nintendo 64. Goldeneye 007 imported and a converter started my addiction for gaming, it was just the best and, to me, still is the best shoot 'em up ever created. Every weekend, Goldeneye tourneys were held at my friends house until the late night.

About 8 of us would scream and shout, and this is when i found my favourite game of all time. I still play it weekly to this day, single player only, mind. (no-one will play me at work). I find other gems that are already out by this time, and i realised that i was addicted to Nintendo games. Zelda : Ocarina Of Time was my first Zelda experience, and i was blown away. My love for nintendo increases.

A very obscure title is discovered by my eyes, it's name was none other than Blast Corps. I was once again dwarfed with addiction, such a fine game, which was sorely underrated by the public. I start to realise this little yellow and blue logo in the corner of the box and also appears at the start of Goldeneye and Blast Corps, so i start to investigate further into this company.

After weeks of reading about these people called "Rareware" i have learnt that i'm absolutely gagging for Banjo-Kazooie, which in my eyes, is the finest platform game ever. After many delays, it's released and i'm in love with it. I would sit there and finish it over and over, even managing a stupid time for collecting all the items, something like 4 hours.

After many brilliant games, like Diddy Kong Racing, Super Mario 64, Mario Tennis, Jet Force Gemini i hear news about the gamecube. My eyes
are wide awake and i'm waiting for untold amounts of Rare and Nintendo games. Rare announce Kameo, Donkey Kong Racing and Starfox Adventures. Nintendo announce various games of the usual franchise(s). I am in Love with the cube and it's imported within weeks of the US release.

So, after playing some average, short nintendo games, i wait for Rare's first game.. which was starfox adventures, with strong rumours of a Rare
buyout from Microsoft. At this moment, i've thrashed SFA in about 10 hours and was not overly impressed compared to previous games Rare have made. So now, after a year and a few months, i'm here thinking "What are Nintendo playing at?"

Is it me or have Nintendo lost that magic? I've got Zelda : wind waker and yes, it's amazing. But Mario Sunshine wasn't overly awesome, really.
Other games from Nintendo which should've been better are Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion and what else... Retro did Metroid, but why Retro? I want Nintendo making it. It's not like Retro did a bad job, it was outstanding, but after some thought... are Nintendo getting sloppy and lazy?

Why are Sega doing F-Zero? Why is a 2nd party doing Wario World.... it's just not the same. F-Zero GC is looking Amazing, but what the hell are Nintendo doing right now? they're so secretive it's depressing now. Zelda done by Capcom on the GBA? i mean.. what next, mario done by naughty dog? Hopefully Nintendo can prove me wrong at e3 and announce some good in-house stuff. but we'll see...

Recently, i've got an Xbox and it's getting alot more play than the cube.. Also, with Rare on board now, hopefully we'll see this company keeping their standards high with Kameo and other games they're releasing.

So, Nintendo, please TRY with the gamecube, you're really dissapointing me at the moment. Stop lending out Franchises, it's not what i want.

I had to express my feelings, anyone else got the same feelings or not?

Reply

[marcus]

I was more than happy with the knowledge that my Gamecube would be host to a number of updates to games I loved on earlier Nintendo consoles, thats the reason I bought it because I want to play classic Nintendo games, any other 3rd party software that is notable is a nice bonus.

However either im looking at things with rose tinted glasses, or, as you say, Nintendo have become lazy because the Gamecube so far hasnt screamed "classic games" to me as yet, nowhere near the levels of gaming I experienced with the N64 and even further away from the days of the SNES, I still wait to be stunned by a Nintendo game. I expect Zelda may be the title to acheive this, what I played of the Japanese version was sublime. Its not a desperate situation by any means, or it could simply be that these days I demand more from my games and are far more fussy than at any time before. You tell me...

[Sidez]

Back in the day I didn't like the N64 all that much but Nintendo's constant disappointments with the GC forced me to break down and give the N64 another try. It could just be the passage of time or simply being able to play the games this time in RGB and 60Hz but I love it now. Not as much as some but games like Wave Race 64 and Mario 64 for me are truly excellent. Nintendo were simply not delivering with the Gamecube. Luigi Mansion should have stayed as a tech demo, Pikmin too boring (and I personally love RTS and Lemmings) and Mario Sunshine a terrible game full of frustration and poor design. Then there's Nintendo wasting their time with N64 ports such as Animal Crossing and Doshin. Metroid Prime had terrible combat and Zelda a lame treasure hunt at the end (thankfully improved for the US release). They're no longer a top tier developer for me, Capcom and Sega made me buy the system as opposed to Nintendo. They really need to ditch NST after they messed up Wave Race BS and (according to online impressions) 1080 2 also.

Frankly i'm pleased that Sega and Namco are doing F-Zero and Starfox as two of their most consistent teams are working on these. It's just too bad that Pikmin is getting a sequel (sure, I know some people liked it but it simply does not need a sequel) when the resources should be spent on something new (a proper Mario 64 sequel with no gimmicks, Kid Icarus update, Pilotwings etc).

I wanted great multiplayer games (Smash Bros DX was brilliant, highly polished and complete) and truly memorable single player epics from Nintendo and so far they haven't delivered. Maybe things will change but they're no longer the innovator they once were. 60fps Nintendo, is that too much to ask for?

[blastre]

I think people are exactly on the ball here.
The N64 was never a true commercial contender to the Playstation but the games were great. The Gamecube is still not a runaway commercial success but unlike it's predecessor it has little in the way of compensation in its games.
Nothing I've seen on the Gamecube has revolutionised gaming. I'd waited for years for a new acrobatic Mario game yet Sunshine's physics had Mario almost rooted to the ground. For all the defence Miyamoto has made of Wind Waker the game is fairly barren and relies far too heavily on all the legwork that was done on the N64. Pikmin and Animal Crossing have both been reasonable diversions but if you're looking for meat and not bamboo shoots Nintendo have simply not delivered. I include Metroid Prime here which, coming from a US developer, was much better than I'd anticpated but it's not something to inspire my dreams.
Now that software developers are jumping ship I wonder whether it's too late to save this console. The magic is being spread too thinly and my hopes at the second are for great new versions of Mario Tennis, Golf and Kart. This is pretty poor as I used to dream of new worlds opening up and believed Nintendo could deliver them as they had been doing repeatedly with the N64.

[macosx!]

it's all a case of rose tinted glasses. Nintendo on the N64 gave us the first 3D incarnations of their franchises and they set a very high benchmark. To expect a quantum leap in gameplay terms from something that was of such a high standard is a bit unrealistic.

[bowser123]

What about Animal Crossing, eh? The most original and interesting game I have played in a very long time. It could possibly be the best game I've ever played. Also, I have have found cube Zelda to be a fantastic game. Sure I can't understand it because its Japanese, but it's made me want to play the US version even more know.
As for Rare, are they getting sloppy? I think so. Look at their last few games- Mickey Speedway USA, Perfect Dark and Banjo-Tooie. All good games but none any where near as good as the games they were following up (Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye and Banjo-Kazooie) or even emulating (the sublime Mario Kart). Then the dire, dull and over easy Starfox Adventures.
I think that the new games Nintendo have released are good but not up to their mega high standards. Pikmin, Mario Sunshine and Luigi show this, but this collection is better than Rare's recent releases.
Anyway, wait for the next few games and I think we will all be blown away. Mario Kart and Tennis, Zelda, Pikmin 2 and pilotwings (pleaseeeeee). And there is sure to be some unannounced goodies waiting.
Just give them time...

[wager]

For me SMS was a major disappointment. The much poorer brother of Mario 64. I was completely underwhelmed by Luigi's Mansion which for me was a borefest. Apart from Metroid Prime nothing else Nintendo has released has interested me, Zelda on pre-order so hopefully that will change.

[Dezm0nd]

Animal Crossing was original, yeah. But with it's real time clock system i felt like i didn't have enough hours in the day or even the right hours in the day to play the game properly. I grew bored of running errands and whatnot and it's gathering dust.

Zelda in JAP was a great experience, it's a great game. Hats off to Nintendo there.

[SharkAttack]

SMS is extremely fun but seems kind of tacked together. No real pattern to it.

Luigi's Mansion was absolutely fantastic while it lasted. If they had added in 1 or 2 more boss fights or a complete side mission the game would have been true AAA (although it still is in my eyes! )

Pikmin was very enjoyable. Finally played through and only got 25 parts first time. Can't wait to play through again. Unique. Camera system feels a bit strange now though after getting used to the Free Cam of SMS.

Animal Crossing is a great idea but needs some improvements in areas such as the letter typing and more events that are interactive. More random events needed too.

Wave Race BS was a lazy update to WR64 but still very enjoyable. Not really a game suited to casual multiplayer though IMO as you need to perfect your technique in order to be competitive.

Eternal Darkness fantastic single player epic adventure.

Hopefully Star Fox will be the same (although no doubt much easier).

Super Smash was an addictive, fun and highly polished replay value ladden party fighter.

Metroid Prime and Zelda are supposedly both absolutely fantastic and I hope that proves true once I get to them.

Not a bad line up of games for the first 16 months although Nintendo really do need to pick up the internal polish a bit more. They also need to keep some kind of pattern to their franchises as a lot of the games are starting to feel tacked together rather than set in their own individual fantasy worlds.

[TommyG]

Yeah I agree with all that has been said my xbox is getting far more game time than my cube at the moment. Hopefully E3 will swing the balance back in Nintendo's favour. I feel as thought Nintendo needs to release something Big that's innovative and inspired. That’s going to keep me hooked to my cube. Metroid and Zelda are 2 good examples but I feel as thought there’s just something missing from my cube collection something Genius, something with that Nintendo Magic.

[rjpageuk]

I find most of the comments in this thread so hard to understand as they are coming from Nintendo fans.

I have been a Nintendo fan from way back in the NES era and have always appreciated the quality on offer from Nintendo with each of its hardware incarnations.

I love the Gamecube just as much as I have loved the N64, SNES and NES.

Games like Luigis Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine and Animal Crossing have all of the magic of any Nintendo game ever.

I love these games, in fact I hold each of them in higher esteem than Metroid Prime, which I thought was overrated.

Nintendo havent lost their magic - you have just lost the ability to appreciate it.

[KempStar]

I would agree with that last comment. People who criticse nintendos are often looking through rose tinted specs. Expectations are often unfairly high. Lets look at nintendos output on the GC-

Metroid Prime: superb game. The best in the series by far.
Mario Sunshine: A lovely game. OK, it has some frustrating parts, and its arguably too linear, but its packed with imagination and the so called nintendo "magic". Maybe mario 64 is a better game, but apart from that, what over platform game, EVER, even comes close?? exactly. This just illustrates that the reason why people are disapointed is due to their expectations, not the quality of the software.
Zelda TWW: again a fantastic game. Im going to wait until ive played the US version till i assess it fully, but the dungeons in the japanese game were absolute bliss.

Animal Crossing: wonderfully inventive. very "nintendo"
Pikmin: great fun, but too short
Luigi mansion: great fun, but too short and shallow

Then we have doshin, eternal darkness, wave race and smash brothers.

Every one of these titles mentioned above is a good game, and half of them are excellent.

People need to take the rose tinted specs off. How many developers have come anywhere near? How many developers can you name that released 5 excellent titles last year? my guess is ZERO.

[TommyG]

Nintendo havent lost their magic - you have just lost the ability to appreciate it.

I love Ninty as much as the next man, but imo luigi's mansion is no where near the likes of say Mario 64. Mario Sunshine was great and i loved it but it wasn't as good as Mario 64 either and Shigys himself is aware of this that's why he's working on Mario 128. The magic is there it's just not as strong as it once was imo.

[rjpageuk]

imo luigi's mansion is no where near the likes of say Mario 64.

Luigis Mansion is criminally underrated, sure it isnt as good as SM64, but not much is. The critisisms of it being too short are also unfair IMO when you compare it to the so called classics of the SNES era which are all considerably shorter.

The length of a game is overrated anyhow - it is the enjoyment gained while it lasts which is what counts. See ICO for another example of this.

Mario Sunshine was great and i loved it but it wasn't as good as Mario 64 either and Shigys himself is aware of this

I dont think that is right - I have not seen Miyamoto ever say that SMS is not as good as SM64. I think he saw a lot of the complaints about SMS and is attempting to rectify them in a future Mario release. Nintendo will never be able to make everyone happy though...

I think SMS is a worthy sequel to SM64.

[Sidez]

"I think SMS is a worthy sequel to SM64."

Then more fool you.

"How many developers can you name that released 5 excellent titles last year? my guess is ZERO."

I can name one; Sega. SC5 Part 2, VF4, PDO, JSRF and Gunvalkyrie. Horses for courses. I think Nintendo have been complete **** this generation and it's not me, it's clearly them.