Topic: Wii Third Party Domination

[NWR_pap64]

Sorry to bump this again, but not only has EA confirmed Wii support, they are also creating a new development studio solely for the Wii.

The GO Nintendo link

I don't care much for EA, but again this is really good. This is also the second company that creates a development group just for the Wii. This is the first time I heard of companies creating development groups for one sole console.

[Amodaus1]

I hate to burst your bubble segagamer but the creator of Street Fighter has long been fired from capcom ever since he announced he was intrested in a follow up to 3rd Strike from Street fighter 3.

Capcom doesn't care anymore.

FACTS:

They destroyed megaman into a repetative formula filled with perdictable power ups and crappy levels.

They closed down clover. I'm still convinced Okami would have been made for the cube, had not capcom decided to be money hungry and go with the PS2, where it didn't make any money, which with the cube it would have, or the wii at least, this game was designed for it, but thats another story.

The fired the creator of street fighter. He did not resign, he was fired. (I'm pretty sure, i could be wrong, but i remember reading he was let go.)

I think the creator of Resident Evil left for clover which is now closed down, so i don't know where he is now. Possibly fired too? At this point capcom only cares about money, and they got Resident Evil 4 out of him already, so they can milk a couple of sequels out of the gameplay with the same engine. I don't see why they need him to stick around.

Capcom isn't very intrested in making 2-D games anymore as they simply do not sell well in the american market.

They made that GOD AWFUL final fight sequel. It was blatantly terrible.



I remember capcom for their glory days on the nes and snes, and to some extend the ps. Lately they don't seem to give a damn about any of their old franchises unless it's about making a compilation for some quick and dirty cash. They have foresaken almost everything, THEY GOT LUCKY that the creator of RE wanted to go ahead and re-invent the series, because those RE: Outbreak games were all sorts of suck, and RE Nemisis / Veronica / and Zero weren't anything that RE 2 didn't achieve. They also got lucky that they stumbled upon Devil May Cry, which they almost fumbled completely with DMC 2 (although, at least the creator was trying to change the game up, now the DMC 2 didn't sell, he reverted back to DMC 1 gameplay in DMC 3, which is alot more of the same, I smell megaman syndrome which should just be called capcom syndrome.)


Sorry for the rant, but Capcom is a SHELL of itself. Its just a name, thats hollow compared to its former greatness. I COULD GO INTO LENGTHS about how this has also happened to square. (which is funny because from nes to snes, every developer ported onto genisis EXCEPT these two developers, its almost as if they were second parties, but now i feel like they hit a crap shoot.)

ut yeah i most certainly hope they DO NOT bring dead rising to the wii. Why? Have youy played grand theft auto? Were you bored out of your skull like i was? Did you manage to withstand the clevarly desguised drive into the glowing circle minigames under different conditions gameplay? Could you bear the total lack of a proper combat system, or the fact that enemy AI consisted of such a bad script that the only way for them to acctually kill you was to overwhelm you?  

Well if you like GTA then maybe Dead rising is for you. I played this game. It is very short. On top of it, its damn annyoing to get where you need to be ON TIME. But it plays ALOT like gta, just no auto-aiming, its manual, and alot less of those "mini-games" or should i say "missions" but at least its not as repetative due to having less "missions" as compared to GTA.


Once again, sorry for the rant. But capcom is dead to me.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Amo you make some good points and it really saddens me because many of the once great companies are turning into shells of their former selves. Whether it be Capcom, Namco, Sega or others. Really the only companies that have managed to maintain high quality out of the originals would have to be Nintendo and Square/Enix (but they are starting to fall into a rut).

[Amodaus1]

To be honest with you i'm dissapointed at alot of game companies.

Capcom i feel is the epitome of them all. They killed one of the franchises that launched them into sucess, which is street fighter. And they basically converted megaman into a pokemon clone on the gba. That last one just gets me damn angry, as megaman is what set capcom off to become succseful.

But i'm also mad at square. I'm tired of them trying to make a movie. Thats all they do. Their gameplay in rpg's has not evloved at all. Mario Rpg and Paper mario is the indicator of where turn based rpg's should go. Interactive battles, that allow player to maximize and minimize damage and perform magical attacks based on SKILL not pointless power leveling that consumes hours of time.

I will forever be in intelligent systems debt. They are, in my opinion, nintendo's greatest assest. If only they made paper mario more difficult, then i'd be 100% satisfied with them, and not just 99.9%. Advance wars is their master piece.

But yeah. Square, i thought was only good for the period of the snes. And only final fantasy 6 was worth mentioning, not 4, that one sucked. "Hey congrats you collected those X # of crystals, now lets go to the damn moon!" Who the hell thought that one up? The mana series wasn't good either, i hated secret of mana to be honest, and was glad to smite down that stupid dragon at the end. FF 6 was good though, but square is all about Chrono Trigger. If they had never released that game, then i could honestly say i could care less if they had never exsisted.

But i'm dissapointed at others. Sega has been pillaged. I think playmore bought them. That was the death sentence to all their creativity. Not that i like sega mind you, i think the only good thing that came from them was their support for Treasure. Treasure is a studio that has never let me down, and guardian heros (for saturn) is beyond awsome, and remains the last great beat em up side-scroller. I wish nintendo would just buy treasure and let them do whatever they want.

Who else. Namco? they are ok. But no series other then pac-man has really intrested me from them.
Konami is good. In fact i like Konami alot, problem is they never develope for nintendo anymore. I hate that. Whatever, at least the castlevania creator likes keeping the 2D castlevanias on DS. But i'd like to see more Konami support, i'd like to see how elibits turns out.

I'm dissapointed at Nintendo. Yeah, i said it, THEY DISSAPPOINTED ME LIKE HELL THIS PAST GENERATION. Although the 64 had poor third party support, damn did nintendo release some REALLY good games during that period. They translated every franchise into 3D perfectly, almost as well as they perfected every series from the nes into the SNES. But HOLY CRAP did they drop the ball on GC. They didn't perfect the way the did nes to snes, when it came to 64 into GC. WindWaker was a sham. I liked the game, but 4 temples!? THATS IT! AND THEY KNOWING TOLD US THEY CUT OUT THE LAST 3 TO RUSH THE DAMN GAME! AND SO WE HAVE TO GO ON A MONEY COLLECTING SPREE TO BUY STUPID MAPS FROM TINGLE! FROM TINGLE! WHY IS TINGLE EVEN IN THAT GAME!

Sunshine wasn't as good as mario 64, period. All arguements to this are not valid, it's just a fact. There were less challenges, once again substitued with blue coin hunting, which was kinda cool cause it made you explore the levels, but it wasn't enough to substitue a whole challenge. And when you get 120 shines nothing happens... what up with that? Double Dash < Mario Kart 64. Star Fox 64 > everything starfox related in GC.

There is only one game that nintendo did a better job on, and thats melee. They perfected it into a solid conventinal 2-D fighter (which in my opnion rivals Street fighter 3: 3rd strike as best fighting game ever made), and concealed it a party game for casual gamers who can't understand the deeper mechanics. They also did metriod 100% perfect, but they did do metriod in the 64 era, so its not really an upgrade, it a reinvention.


But with all that said. After buying wii, and playing twilight princess i have hope. I liked OoT, but its not my favorite zelda, and i acctually rank it pretty low (lower then ALL of the 2D Zeldas, even links adventure) But Twilight princess is simply amazing. It is everything i ever wanted in zelda (well ok, its not hard, but thats my beef with almost every nintendo game). I urge everyone here, even though its a nintendo forum and you all probably will, to play this game. It is simply great. There are no words for it. If you like Zelda, this is the upgrade nintendo failed to deliver on last generation. It is the perfection of translation, similar to the original zelda into link to the past. This in my opinion this game is not OoT's succesor, it is what OoT SHOULD have been.

But yeah. I hope the wii and nintendo will deliver.  

[IceCold]

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I wish nintendo would just buy treasure and let them do whatever they want.

Them and Amusement Vision (F-Zero GX)..

[Arbok]

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1
Who else. Namco? they are ok. But no series other then pac-man has really intrested me from them.

Tales? Baten Kaitos? Soul Calibur?

I'm more interested in Namco than any other third party developer personally.

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1
There is only one game that nintendo did a better job on, and thats melee. They perfected it into a solid conventinal 2-D fighter (which in my opnion rivals Street fighter 3: 3rd strike as best fighting game ever made), and concealed it a party game for casual gamers who can't understand the deeper mechanics.

Preech it!

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1

Sunshine wasn't as good as mario 64, period. All arguements to this are not valid, it's just a fact. There were less challenges, once again substitued with blue coin hunting, which was kinda cool cause it made you explore the levels, but it wasn't enough to substitue a whole challenge. And when you get 120 shines nothing happens... what up with that? Double Dash < Mario Kart 64. Star Fox 64 > everything starfox related in GC.

Haha, so if someone doesn't agree with you that SMS is more fun or a better game than SM64 their opinion is invalid? How I hate stupid statements like that, people have differing opinions and some of us actually prefer SMS. I enjoyed it more than SM64 because I felt it took what made SM64 great and added so much more, the challenges were more diverse with the whole levels sometimes changing with each new sprite to get, the boss fights were better and more varied, characters were more interesting, tighter controls, FLUDD was a blast to use, had some amazing old school platform jumping, better story (ok it wasn't that great but it was better than SM64s, not to mention a solid ending) and had alot more to explore. The only flaws I found with the game was that the final boss fight had alot to be desired, the blue coin searching was lame (then again I thought searching for red coins in SM64 was lame), and the lack of awar for 120 shines was unfortunate (though let's face it, the reward wasn't that great in SM64 either if you look back on it).

In the way of other games for GC that were great, we had the Metroid Prime series (yeah it was made by Retro but they are basically part of Nintendo), Smash Brothers, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, Zelda Wind Waker (Don't care what you think about this game, I still find it to have alot of personality and my 2nd favorite Zelda, even if it was rushed), Fire Emblem, Jungle Beat, and I'm sure there are some others I'm forgetting. I agree though that Mario Kart DD and the Star Fox games were huge dissapointments but then again neither SF game was made by Nintendo, I think one was made by Namco and the other by Rare.

[Amodaus1]

Oh yeah, i forgot about Jungle beat. That was defenitely an upgrade over Donkey Kong 64's collect-o-thon. It was more old school platformer.

I'm willing to listen to opinions and discuss, I merely said the statement to emphasize my point (regarding my statement about SM64 being better than SMS). I don't think SMS stuck out like SM64, FLUDD and the 4 nozzels you can use weren't enough to differentiate the gameplay in my opinion. Although i did like the levels where shadow mario took away your water pack, and you were forced to do some crazy 3-d platforming, but i think when you went back to do it with the pack and under a time limit it always seemed harder.

My point is, i think they rushed sunshine as well. There every level had red coin challenges, sometimes 2!(exluding the sand bird which was awsome) Then we had to collect 100 coins in each level for a shine, Then we had the funness of blue coins, and on top of that some of the hidden shines merely required you to spray some random wall in a level and you got a shine, with no challenge what so ever. This is why i feel SM64 was superior.

Aside from the games made by IS and metriod, which i mentioned before were great, i felt like nintendo dropped the ball on most of its series. Mario not so much as it felt they dropped it on zelda. You might enjoy Windwaker, but after you play TP, i can tell you that you will immediately rank it higher then Windwaker. The game is just made better, has more temples, its more challenging, theres more to do, and it doesn't take 2000 years to sail around in your boat while trying to change the wind. around to be sure you hit your mark.

But yeah back to the topic of 3rd parties. I'd like to see some more 3rd party support, but as i stated earlier, i feel many companies are shells of their former selves, releasing only a few, and by few i mean like 1 or 2 titles, that are worth buying.

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Originally posted by: Arbok

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1
Who else. Namco? they are ok. But no series other then pac-man has really intrested me from them.

Tales? Baten Kaitos? Soul Calibur?

I'm more interested in Namco than any other third party developer personally.

Quote
Originally posted by: Amodaus1
There is only one game that nintendo did a better job on, and thats melee. They perfected it into a solid conventinal 2-D fighter (which in my opnion rivals Street fighter 3: 3rd strike as best fighting game ever made), and concealed it a party game for casual gamers who can't understand the deeper mechanics.

Preech it!

Yeah theres a reason why Smash is the best selling GC game. I surprised at the amount of hardcore fighting gamers it converted into its play. Some of their videos are crazy, i can't even wavedash properly in a match, i don't know how they do it all the time.

As for namco, most of the stuff i like from them is medicore. I'm not a fan of tales, nor do a like soul calibur, i feel that 3D fighters have become dial-combo games, unless we're talking about virtual fighter 4 or 2, the timing is so strick on it that it plays almost like its 2D. And Kaitos i didn't play because i became fed up with turn based rpg's in general. They are simply not progressing in the sense of interaction between the player and the game. And i don't believe hack and slash real time is the answer, thats just copying the sucess of diablo. IS has come up with the sulotion in, my opinion, to the stagnation of turn based rpgs, and yet no one bothers to copy them. i wonder why that is?

[couchmonkey]

Mega Man was turned into a repetitive formula years ago, right around the time Mega Man 4 came out.  It may be even worse these days, but Capcom has always been bad for cash-in sequels.  All the iterations of Street Fighter as well - for every big leap there are three or four incremental upgrades.

I agree on turn-based RPGs getting kind of stale, I'd like to see more following the Mario RPG formula.  No random battles!

I also agree on a lot of Nintendo's first-party games falling below expectations this generation, but I would say that this was a result of Nintendo trying to keep unrealistic release dates.  Instead of delaying games a few extra months like they did all the time on N64, they tried to make the games "on time", but that hurt the quality.  I hope Nintendo has learned its lesson about that - third party support is the only way to make a real difference in your release schedule, tightening up your own release dates just hurts the quality.

[GoldenPhoenix]

I agree Couch,  Nintendo's main problem this last generation was not that they lost the magic but that they tried to rush things out the door. People complained all the time during the N64 era about all the delays, and I think Nintendo started doing what people asked, and well it came back biting everyone in the butt. That is why TP (which I have not yet beaten, which is why I can't rank it in the Zeldas yet) gave me tons of confidence because they actually delayed it a few times, even if one of the times was to implement Wii controls. Even though I do love Wind Waker, I have to agree it felt rushed and even a bit incomplete in areas, in fact I"ve expressed alot of dissatisfaction in the triforce treasure hunt which felt very artificial.

[Amodaus1]

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Even though I do love Wind Waker, I have to agree it felt rushed and even a bit incomplete in areas, in fact I"ve expressed alot of dissatisfaction in the triforce treasure hunt which felt very artificial.

Amen brother.

[segagamer12]

Well those are all fine points many of which I do agree.

All I can say is I havent gotten my hoeps up too high, especially after playign red steel and so far not liking it.

[Kairon]

While I'm of the belief that with the GC, a big factor WAS that Nintendo "lost their magic" (or more precisely, had difficulty innovating), the GC was ALSO the generation when we got a lot of Nintendo titles that disappointed because they felt either unfinished or lacking something essential when released, like you guys said.

Isn't it ironic that the N64 was really such a golden age for Nintendo games, but also the beginning of a downward market spiral?

Anyways, here's to the hope of third party fulfilling the promise of interesting games on the Wii. Seriously, the games don't need to be perfect, but they DO need to give me wii-inspired newness... I WILL buy Red STeel 2.

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1
But i'm also mad at square. I'm tired of them trying to make a movie. Thats all they do. Their gameplay in rpg's has not evloved at all. Mario Rpg and Paper mario is the indicator of where turn based rpg's should go. Interactive battles, that allow player to maximize and minimize damage and perform magical attacks based on SKILL not pointless power leveling that consumes hours of time.

AHHHH! Get OUT of my MIND!!!

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Originally posted by: Amodaus1
...The mana series wasn't good either, i hated secret of mana to be honest, and was glad to smite down that stupid dragon at the end. FF 6 was good though, but square is all about Chrono Trigger. If they had never released that game, then i could honestly say i could care less if they had never exsisted.

Oh, never mind. You're not reading my mind AT ALL. I loved SoM and HATED Chrono... my beef with square is not just your interactive movie complaint, but also that they're stuff is becoming too cross-pollinated with anime cliches...

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[GoldenPhoenix]

Kairon even though I do believe Nintendo has the magic still, I think the N64 stood out because it was Nintendo first foray into 3D gaming and so games appeared more innovative than they really were (Yeah I know pretty strong statement). Not only that but I think Miyamoto taking a more advisory role also was a big factor in the game quality dropping, not to mention getting a new president which is always a shock no matter how smooth the transition may be.

[Amodaus1]

i wouldn't go as far to say nintendo "lost thier magic." I concur more with the fact that they were rushing to release thier games. This is true becuase Twilight princess is absolutely great, and i also forgot to mention one title that really surprised me this generation from nintendo, and that was pikmin 2. Pikmin 2 was perfect, nintendo took everything wrong with pikmin 1 and fixed it and then gave you more. The multiplayer was the icing on the cake. I can't believe i forgot about pikmin, but man was that game exellent.

I feel like nintendo doesn't need to innovated to nessesarily make a great title. They just need time. I forgot who posted it, but they were right, that is definetly why wii needs 3rd party support.

[Kairon]

I believe that they did "lose their magic," or more precisely, had real trouble innovating. Mario Sunshine resorted to a water pack to change it's basically identical gameplay. Wind Waker drastically changed the setting, but things like the unsatisfactory conduction aspect and unfulfilled sailing and sidequest elements of the game show that they were having difficulty coming up with exciting game prospects at the basic design level.

Even look at their other franchises: Mario Kart is basically the same, perhaps even worse, with it's only major gameplay change the not-so-consequential driver-passenger aspect. Star Fox they actually farmed out because they probably didn't have any ideas on how to change the series at all. Donkey Kong actually got innovative, but only 3 years in and by resorting to a simpler, throw-back arcade sensibility.

I truly believe that Nintendo, internally, was struggling not just under the pressure to release games earlier, but also the inability of internal teams to come up with new concepts. I have a personal theory that ties this into the Wii and DS: these innovative control hardware solutions have actually revitalized Nintendo's creative capacities in that they are given new ground to break, new challenges to overcome and new limitations to work around.

In fact, we can trace Wii Sport's and the Wii's design sensibilities back to the DS and Brain Age. Brain Age shows that simple can sell, as long as that simple is maddeningly intuitive (using the DS' touch screen) and addictive on a simple and small scale. Just like all you do with Brain Age is talk, or write numbers, all you do in Wii Sports is swing in a number of different contexts. Brain Age and Wii Sports, both amazingly ground-breaking pieces of innovative software, both benefitted from new input type platforms in ways that neither Mario Sunshine nor Wind Waker could.

In this sense, one can say that the Wii is a lot like the N64. Both systems are introducing brand new input concepts that change the player's relationship to the game and thus make old experiences feel new again.

The N64 was host to an explosion of innovation within Nintendo due to its new input system: rumble technology, 3D control, 3D cameras, Z-targetting, Party Software, e-card based game micro sales, handheld-connectivity, and Animal Crossing's social gaming, micro-items, and customizable avatar creation.

What innovations did the GC inspire from Nintendo? ... Pikmin's multiple character group indirect control gameplay, game specific controllers (Donkey Konga, Jungle Beat, Odama, Mario Party 7), and maybe multiple screen simultaneous gaming are the only things that come to mind.

But unlike the GC, the Wii introduces new input philosophies that will, I hope, inspire the innovation from Nintendo that I remember so well from the N64 era and saw so little of in the GC era.

So, in conclusion, I DEFINITELY see Nintendo as having had trouble creting magic, i.e. innovation, with the GC and this now being possibly rectified with the Wii (as my bit about Wii Sports illustrates).

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[GoldenPhoenix]

Kairon I go back to my point that I think much of what caused Nintendo "innovate" was the the jump to 3D and new controls (analog stick). Nintendo's innovation has never been that great when it comes to jumping from one console to another if the control or even the visual setup was the same. Look at NES to SNES, there were no real innovative games (except if you want to count Star Fox) but there were definately great games.

Personally I think innovation is a tad bit overrated, and sometimes if it isn't broke don't fix it like Super Mario Sunshine. Games like SMS or Wind Waker may not have had tons of innovation but they felt like whole new experiences and that is what matters most. Heck look at LTTP or Super Metroid, neither game was truly innovative but they were well designed, and that is what truly made them great even if the play style remained basically the same with a few more bells and whistles.

[zakkiel]

Hmm. I join with Kairon on the SMS and WW front. I was underwhelmed by both. While you can get some mileage out of just adding a few bells and whistles and polishing things up, there's a limit to how far a formula will stretch before you need to change it up. The only exception I've seen is the FPS, which is largely stagnant aside from graphics.  

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: zakkiel
Hmm. I join with Kairon on the SMS and WW front. I was underwhelmed by both. While you can get some mileage out of just adding a few bells and whistles and polishing things up, there's a limit to how far a formula will stretch before you need to change it up. The only exception I've seen is the FPS, which is largely stagnant aside from graphics.

SMS and WW had much more than a few bells and whistles, regardless of what you thought of the water pack it still was a unique feature that added more depth to the gameplay. Wind Waker's sailing added a large change to the Zelda formula, especially when it came to exploration, not to mention one of the best stories and characters within the Zelda series. Neither game should be classified as adding a "few bells and whistles" because that is blatantly not true. I can understand lack of polish, especially for Wind waker, but to deny that they each tried something new is ridiculous. Once again I say the N64 was Nintendo's golden age mainly because of 3 things:

1. Miyamoto
2. The jump to 3D
3. Analog controls

Even games like OOT or Mario 64 still felt like true Mario and Zelda games just in a 3D world. Nothing worries me more than NIntendo fans who want to see Nintendo drastically change the franchises that made them great because of "innovation". Like I stated before some of Nintendo's best games were extensions of previous formulas with small doses of innovation, whether it be Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros 3, SMW, or Super Metroid.  

[Luigi Dude]

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Originally posted by: VGrevolution

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Even games like OOT or Mario 64 still felt like true Mario and Zelda games just in a 3D world. Nothing worries me more than NIntendo fans who want to see Nintendo drastically change the franchises that made them great because of "innovation". Like I stated before some of Nintendo's best games were extensions of previous formulas with small doses of innovation, whether it be Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros 3, SMW, or Super Metroid.

I agree with this completly.  The thing that I never got is how people could say they didn't like Mario Sunshine because it was too similar to Mario 64, yet alot of these same people would say their favorite Mario game is Super Mario World.  This makes no damn since, since there's way more difference between Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine then there was between Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World.  

[Ceric]

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Originally posted by: Luigi Dude

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Originally posted by: VGrevolution

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Even games like OOT or Mario 64 still felt like true Mario and Zelda games just in a 3D world. Nothing worries me more than NIntendo fans who want to see Nintendo drastically change the franchises that made them great because of "innovation". Like I stated before some of Nintendo's best games were extensions of previous formulas with small doses of innovation, whether it be Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros 3, SMW, or Super Metroid.

I agree with this completly.  The thing that I never got is how people could say they didn't like Mario Sunshine because it was too similar to Mario 64, yet alot of these same people would say their favorite Mario game is Super Mario World.  This makes no damn since, since there's way more difference between Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine then there was between Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World.

You right Super Mario Sunshine was better then Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros 3 was better then Super Mario World in that set.

[GoldenPhoenix]

What I think makes Nintendo's games great is that they know how to add enough freshness to a game to avoid the image of it being a quick n dirty seuqel, while still maintaining the gameplay elements that made specific games great. I have a feeling that even Mario Galaxy will take many elements from previous 3D Mario and adding its own freshness, without being too different.  

[IceCold]

Sunshine was awesome.. I like Mario 64 better for sentimental reasons, but the only thing lacking in Sunshine was the level design.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: IceCold
Sunshine was awesome.. I like Mario 64 better for sentimental reasons, but the only thing lacking in Sunshine was the level design.

Yeah some of the level designs had alot to be desired, but the boss fights were tons of fun and the variety in the levels was pretty good. It seemed like with Sunshine Nintendo designed the levels to be more living and changing enviroments since you are constantly interacting with different NPCs and events, which is in real contrast to Mario 64 which was basically platformer based.

[Nick DiMola]

In my personal opinion, I think Nintendo did struggle during the GC era a bit. Regardless, the games they wound up outputting were still fantastic. People wanted the same N64 gameplay stretched onto the Gamecube with better graphics. Nintendo decided to innovate and add new things to change it up a bit which I personally enjoyed. Granted there were some polish issues with a few of the games but, all in all, I would say they were still fantastic overall. Wind Waker for instance, is no Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, but it is flat out gorgeous, one of the most unique Zelda games, and still a blast to play (minus the triforce collection). I wouldn't trade my experiences with the Gamecube for anything, but I'm sure the N64 era Nintendo we all loved will be back strong with the Wii (if Loz: TP and Wii Sports are any indication) for reasons stated earlier by Kairon.