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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo
« Last post by Khushrenada on Today at 05:06:50 AM »Especially in recent years where there's suddenly been all this Gamecube nostalgia and Nintendo fans declaring the Gamecube the greatest system ever made and how the Gamecube era was the best time, when it's like, are you fucking kidding me.
Recent years? The GameCube nostalgia was already happening after a couple of the Wii years. I know. I've been here and I've been part of it! GameCube love has been happening through the Wii U and now. The demand for a GC VC has perhaps been a part of it but I'd say there's also another reason. There's a lot of GC software that hasn't quite been surpassed or is iconic. Like I mentioned about the Mario Party series. The Mario Party games that followed have been kind of off and never quite hit the mark like those games during its prime. F-Zero GX is the best game in that franchise and the last 3D F-Zero game. There's been nothing to surpass it since. Paper Mario:TTYD has been a rallying cry for some that want the series to go back to its RPG roots and keeps getting named as the best game in the series by a bunch of Paper Mario fans.
I believe Smash Bros. Ultimate should be the definitive game for tourneys and stuff going forward but Melee has hung on so long in that tourney sphere and people still can't quite quit it. Melee kept the GameCube controllers going through to today and probably played a factor in the system's legacy getting acclaimed while others soured on Wiimotes and the Wii U Gamepad. Around 2011 or 2012, this site did a tournament to declare the Best Nintendo Game of the past 12 years and Metroid Prime was the winner. Even now, Metroid Prime is often named favorite or best Metroid game by a lot of people when ranking the series or at least the best of the 3D Metroids which isn't a big list. Zelda is a mixed bag. BotW is my rank for number 1 but I still go to Wind Waker for Number 2. Twilight Princess also has its fans. That's why people keep hoping for those games to get ported to Switch. They made an impact with fans of the series and for those that miss the traditional Zelda style that BotW/Totk has deviated from those games are getting more nostalgia love.
There's a lot of sleeper software on the system that has its champions. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was considered the top Fire Emblem game until Awakening came and gave the series greater popularity. Again, Ike in Smash Bros may have further helped keep that title in the minds of Nintendo fans. Chibi-Robo's GC has been that series best outing. The third game might possibly be better but Reggie committed the unforgiveable crime of not porting the game out of Japan after the second game was weirdly released in NA. Nintendo hasn't returned to Wave Race or 1080 snowboarding since the GC. Some still hope for Nintendo to follow up Eternal Darkness or to try porting that game. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat with bongos is still one of the oddest and so-insane-it's-genius games Nintendo's ever released. Another hidden gem is Battalion Wars. There was a sequel with Wii but it wasn't as highly regarded as the first and seemed to bomb sales-wise ending the potential series which is too bad since I like Battalion Wars over Advance Wars. (And here's something weird. I wanted to see how NWR ranked the two but there is no NWR review for BW2 despite the fact that Pale posted in a thread that Karl and him had both received review copies of the game. Way to let everyone down, guys! No wonder staff hardly get review copies now! )
Even with some third party stuff, other companies seemed to have defining entries. Has Resident Evil ever surpassed the heights it seemed to hit with RE4? I don't follow the series well enough to know. Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 seems to be stuck on the Cube with it never being ported or released anywhere else since. There's also RS3 but it wasn't as good as 2. Factor 5 would later go defunct thanks to betting on PS3 so they never surpassed 2. And Sega! The Super Monkey Ball series has somehow continued on all these years despite none of the newer entries surpassing the start of the series at this time with 1 & 2. Even Sonic seems to have had his last few good years at this time. For all their flaws, the two Sonic Adventure games (particularly 2) stay fixed in gamer's minds as some of the highlights of the series particularly in 3D. There's been some other well regarded games like Sonic Colors and Sonic Mania but the brand was much stronger at this time. (It would also crumble at this time with Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog ) Tales of Symphonia often seems to be named as the height of that series with maybe Phantasia or Vesperia as other candidates. That's why people were so upset with how botched the recent Namco port of it was which means the GC version is still the definitive way to play it. In fact, that's happened with a few GC ports in which the best way version is still the GC copy.
However, I didn't really want to get into third party software so much as my focus is more on Nintendo's output which is, what I believe, the original intent of this thread. When Dinar87 talks dry years, he's only talking about what Nintendo's released and not what third parties also released. Likewise, Nintendo's output was also the focus in my earlier post. It's why I've been in the Nintendo ecosystem for more than 30 years ( that long already!) and have stuck with their systems whether it be a Wii U or Switch. It's their franchises and games that I love and I buy pretty much most of the software they put out unless I'm really sure it's not for me like Labo. I'm willing to give it all a fair shake like Wii Fit or Crosswords 3DS. That doesn't mean that everything is an instant winner or a favorite. That's why you see the discussions and arguments about what entries or games people think were well done and which ones weren't and why they think something why some games were more successful than others.
When it comes to the Switch, there will no doubt be titles people will want to see made still available in the future or that Nintendo might release for nostalgia / pleasing the fans like we've seen with the recent Super Mario RPG remake and coming TTYD port. Stuff like BotW, Odyssey, FE:Three Houses, Metroid Prime and even Luigi's Mansion 3 or possibly Smash Ultimate seem like instant candidates. But after that, I'm not so sure. Will there be people wanting Origami King or Yoshi's Crafted World or Kirby Star Allies and other such Nintendo Switch titles at that time?