The Old Nintendo Megathread

[Pizza]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpGjKEt8wmwGod damn nintendo making everything super-easy.EDIT: holy mother of god this video makes me physically anxious just REMEMBERING doing this level.

I never beat that level. Now i have to dig my Wii out and play it. Thanks Obama.

[TKz]

Man, moving away from the Wii U topic because my opinion on it is pretty much the furthest thing from you guys, the fucking 3DS man. This console. It just keeps getting great game after great game lately. So glad I ended up picking one up, I never expected it to appeal to me anywhere near as much as it does.

Now just stop being stupid Nintendo and add SNES emulation so I can play Secret of Mana on the go.

[Pizza]

Does the 2DS have any downsides other than lack of 3D support? Are there any games that need 3d or are significantly worse without it? I'm looking into it for my niece to replace the DS she used to have, the 3D probably isn't a good idea for her.

[TKz]

I don't think I've ever used the 3D feature. I accidentally left it on for like, an hour once. Just a little bit and it killed my head. Since then it's stayed off permanently. But other than there (currently) being no larger option ala. 3DSXL, it sounds pretty decent. I guess it's not the most portable is the bigger issue.

[Sousa]

Mario 3D Land is better with 3D on, but very little else is.

[Bobfoc]

When games started coming out that were on the WiiU, 360 and PS3 - my mind would not for a second let me believe that the WiiU would be a viable option. It's just because of the way that Nintendo's hardware has been for the last while... I had a very hard time believing that something could look AMAZING on a Nintendo console is all. And then I started seeing evidence and first hand evidence that stuff like Assassin's Creed III looked BETTER on the WiiU, etc.

Anyone who takes graphics into consideration (and lets be honest, without implicating "snobbery" into it) a lot of people are drawn to what they think is the "best". Think of how many searches there are for things along the line of "best tablet 2013" or "best graphics card 2013". People have been conditioned to think that graphics are everything... and Microsoft and Nintendo certainly come ahead of Nintendo in most people's minds.

Oh, I can see that, definitely.

It just seems, to me, like there was a conscious effort - though not as absurd and conspiracy theorist as this sounds - between Microsoft and Sony to make out that the Wii was "different". And Nintendo obviously played into that too, as a huge part of the marketing of both the Wii and the DS was to appeal to people who aren't conventionally "gamers"; I remember an interview with someone, probably Iwata, who said that the DS was aimed at the sort of person who'd never describe themselves as a "gamer", but who might play Minesweeper for half an hour at work, or play games on his or her phone. It was about reclaiming the notion of "games" for what games actually are - fun distractions, rather than the lifestyle choice that Microsoft and Sony try and market them as, and which too many people eat up the idea of.

It seems that Microsoft and Sony basically marginalised the Wii as "not a games console" to keep up this narrative of a console war between X-Box and Playstation, which drove up sales for both companies, even though it's absurd when the Wii massively outsold them both. You'd have two sets of fans arguing over which console was better, because that's what they'd been conditioned to do, when, really, someone stepping in and saying "actually, this one, this has outsold both of the others by a wide margin". But as soon as you can say "oh, but that one doesn't really count", you can get back to only caring about the "big two".

I can definitely see the graphics thing, though - while I've pretty much never cared for graphics as a major selling point, they're obviously eyecatching and impressive, and if you come from a PC gaming background, graphics almost goes hand-in-hand with playability; if your computer can't handle the graphics, it can't play the game at all. And for consoles, it's your easiest way to sell something new. Graphics can be easily equated with the power of the console.

But ever since the PS1, all I've ever really wanted is for a games company to approach making games in much the same way that they did for 8-bit or 16-bit consoles. Use the expanded storage space and processing power to make the games prettier, sure, but more to make them bigger and better, more fluid, more exciting. I think that's what a lot of great indie games have gone, and that's the most exciting thing in gaming to me right now. But I also think Nintendo have done a good job of it too. And I think Nintendo, with the Wii certainly, did well to stick with more "cartoonish" games, as the dearth in graphical output compared to the other consoles was less obvious there. But, honestly, as much as I find some PS3 games very pretty, and I know full well that it's a massive selling point for a lot of people, I don't think the difference is anything like that big - if I saw a Wii game running side-to-side alongside its PS3 counterpart for comparison, I'm sure it would be a striking difference, but when in real life does that ever happen? It's not like the graphics are so poor as to be detrimental to the experience.

And as for the PS4 and X-Box One...from the footage I've seen, I'm sure the graphics are prettier, but not so much so that I even see it as being a selling point any more. How much better can we get before it just doesn't matter any more? The new Assassins Creed, on the PS3, looks beautiful. I can't imagine it looking substantially better on the PS4, and certainly not to the extent that I would look down upon the PS3 version for it.

Graphics can only go so far, and more often than not, I don't give a shit. You can have the most powerful graphics card in the world, creating photo-realistic images, but when all you have to offer is the grey, brown and more grey of a Call Of Duty or what-have-you, then what's the point? The beauty comes from the art style and the level design, and without a stunning set-piece or a striking style, graphics become irrelevant. This is the Nintendo thread, so I know I'm preaching to the converted for the most part, but there we are.

I actually do think that the Wii could have been considered different, even though the whole "not a games console" argument is silly. Long-term, the Wii existed in its own bubble as a system that provided different experiences to many of those on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and for many so-called "gamers", it wasn't really as much a case of buying one or the other as it was picking up either a PS3 or Xbox 360 alongside a Wii. With the vast majority of major multi-platform titles (Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Rockstar's titles, Mass Effect and the Batman: Arkham games, to name just a few) not making their way over to the Wii, a lot of people made the choice between Sony or Microsoft, and, if those were the experiences they were looking for, that seemed like a sensible decision to make.

I'd argue that the Wii's success, on the other hand, wasn't greatly influenced by the software line-ups sported by Sony and Microsoft, at least as the console cycle went on and the systems became more affordable. For the 360/PS3 players wanting to dabble in the likes of Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros, Zelda, Donkey Kong and the like, and even some of the more 'traditional' exclusives like Xenoblade Chronicles, the Wii remained a viable 'alternative' that could easily complement their primary gaming habits. I know plenty of regular games who own both a Wii and a PS3/360, but much fewer people who bought one or the other, and those I know who only bought a Wii were almost certainly never likely to even consider getting one of the other machines.

Perhaps the big elephant in the room would be the attempts by Sony and Microsoft to grab a piece of the motion control pie a few years into the console generation, but my thought is that that was exactly the point: it wasn't so much an attempt to make customers pick, say, Kinect over the Wii as it was a ploy to lure those already enjoying the Wii experience. When I worked in retail, a lot of customers were interested in Kinect because they already owned Wiis, and they felt that the new, controller-free experience would give them another means to enjoy the aforementioned 'alternative' experiences Nintendo was already providing them with. Looking at the figures, the Kinect ended up selling pretty well, despite unfavourable critical reviews, but I'd bet that a large majority of its owners had also picked up Wiis at some point before then.

And as for the Playstation Move, that always seemed like an idea suggestive of a "the others are doing it, so we might as well" attitude. The fact that Sony shoved out a few half-baked Wii re-hashes, gave the device almost no significant promotion and pretty much abandoned it from the get-go probably tells you all you need to know about how serious they were about gathering some of the Wii crowd.

I think we'll see a similar trend with the WiiU, even if it isn't quite on the same scale. Nintendo has a big enough fanbase that I'm sure the system will do just fine, but, again, I can see it existing in its own space, separate from that of the PS4 and Xbox One going forward. It's pretty much an inevitability that most third-party developers catering to the "hardcore" audience (I really don't like that term) will focus on Sony and Microsoft's systems, as well as the PC, whereas the WiiU has the opportunity to serve as the go-to device for those 'alternative' experiences I keep going on about. And I'm not just talking about the much-maligned "casual" experiences, either; with exclusive rights to such games as Bayonetta 2 and Monolith's next game, there should be enough conventional gaming experiences that can fill some of the gaps left by the other systems, much like Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower did for the Wii.

[Skummy]

Bravely Default is so good, guys.

I downloaded the demo, and it's a lot of fun. The battle system sounds a little complicated, and I'm not a big fan of the whole brave/default system, but you get the hang of it, and it's a twist on a conventional turn-based battle system, at least.

But it's pretty, and lovely, and plays like an early Final Fantasy game and that's great. Some cool little mini-games and extra features, like rebuilding the village, too.

The demo is great, too, and something more RPGs should do - rather than let you play a tiny bit of the full game, which you'll only have to play all over again when you buy the game, it just gives you a little extra bit that only exists in the demo, so you can get the hang of how the game plays and everything, and get a feel for it, without worrying that you're just going to have to do this all over again later. And you can transfer some data from the demo directly to the main game, and find stuff in the demo that gives you bonuses for the full game. Great idea.

[SeanDMan]

SDM's Animal Crossing town is some kind of squalid hole in the mud crawling with vulgar koalas.

...WHAT this is a lie my town is beautiful! It has an opium den, a mafia run after hours club, and a pyramid. Does your town have a pyramid?

[Sousa]

SDM's Animal Crossing town is some kind of squalid hole in the mud crawling with vulgar koalas.

...WHAT this is a lie my town is beautiful! It has an opium den, a mafia run after hours club, and a pyramid. Does your town have a pyramid?

It has a sphinx. No one in town seems to want to propose a pyramid.

[SeanDMan]

I have a pyramid and sphinx. Be jealous.

[Sousa]

I am.

[Pizza]

My niece has a 2DS with Pokemon X and Y! She is crushing me. I miss when we both had DSes and I could trade her Caterpies for Heart Gold starters.

[apsham]

So tomorrow is a pretty huge day Nintendo wise. Who's getting what?

[Berober]

I... I have to buy this...

(Just note that there is a small spoiler at 2 minutes in, but everything you need to know about this is covered by then.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNkfCTHORJU

(Except the rapping janitor)

[Sousa]

Man if somebody has animal crossing and wouldn't mind me coming over and selling some fruit (perfect peaches, your town fruit can't be peaches) it would save me a shit-ton of time.

[thatshortguy]

I'm not saying Super Mario 3D World is the most fun family game I have played in a long time...I am just saying it is worth getting a WiiU for.

[Your Mom]

Man if somebody has animal crossing and wouldn't mind me coming over and selling some fruit (perfect peaches, your town fruit can't be peaches) it would save me a shit-ton of time.

I need to get a 3DS

[apsham]

That's the oddest selling point I've seen so far.

[Sousa]

You know what actually is a 3DS selling point?

Link Between Worlds.

First game yet to make me question Fire Emblem's spot as Sousa's Favorite 3DS Game.

[Your Mom]

That's the oddest selling point I've seen so far.

It wasnt that so much as I love Animal Crossing. Used to play the original DS one all the time