Here we are with a new mailbag! This time around, we discuss N64 favorites reappearing on the DS, Mario games for launches, the Classic Controller, RPGs and FPSs for the Wii, our recent list of top Sonic games, and even our website’s name! Check it all out after the break.
–Christian
I was looking around places the other day and I have noticed that several games for the DS have been remade N64 games (like Mario KArt, Diddy Kong, and others). I was wondering if anyone knows if they are working on a Paper Mario DS, Mario Party DS, or even a Crash Bandicoot DS.
–Starrynite Christian: To my knowledge, there are no indications that a Paper Mario DS game is in development or even planning stages, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Mario Party DS is not officially in development either, but Shuichiro Nishiya (from Hudson) has stated in the past that the DS, with its many features, would be perfect for a Mario Party game, and that Hudson would love to develop a Mario Party game for it once they gather some great ideas.Crash Bandicoot does have a DS game out, called Crash Boom Bang! The game is a party/board game, similar in style to Mario Party. Nintendo Power gave the game a 4/10 rating, which I believe is one of the higher scores it received.
I like the romanji spelling tanuki better. Is there a reason you choose tanooki?
–Josh
Christian:
I’m not in a position to check my old Super Mario Bros. 3 instruction booklet, but to my recollection, the video game uses the “tanooki” spelling instead of the alternative. As a dedicated Nintendo blog, we felt it was more appropriate to use the spelling that Nintendo used in the game.I have not heard much about any shooter games coming to Wii. It seems like Wii is lacking in this genre. Im talking about games like James Bond or Time Splitters that have good multiplayer. Have you heard of any shooters coming out in the near future? Thanks.
–Tim
Matt:
Well Tim, there actually are quite a few first-person shooters coming out for the Wii. Actually, on March 27th we have TWO coming our way: Brothers in Arms D-Day and Medal of Honor: Vanguard. Not a fan of World War II? Not a problem, since sometime this year we might be seeing a 007 game, Red Steel 2 (hopefully this one won’t suck!), and the next-gen version of Black. There’s also Metroid Prime 3 if you wish to count that…What are your opinions on not having a Mario title for the release of the past two consoles?Also, do you think there’s a reason the Classic Controller has to plug into the Wii Remote, rather than in the Gamecube controller ports? It seems it would unnecessarily drain the batteries.
–Eric SChristian: As a business decision, I really do think Nintendo would have been better off if they had readied a Super Mario platformer for the launch of the GameCube and/or Wii. Mario is a character and franchise that everyone knows about, and out of tradition and expectation from both gamers buying the systems for themselves and parents buying the systems as gifts, launching with Mario would result in an almost 1:1 attach rate.
However, Super Mario Sunshine became extremely repetitive for me very quickly, and I don’t want to think what it would have been like had it been rushed by nearly a year just to make the GameCube launch. In much the same way, I trust Nintendo knows what they’re doing with Galaxy, and that it’s not making launch because it’s simply not ready. From all that we’ve been hearing, Galaxy is going to rock, in which case I’d rather Nintendo take their sweet time with the development.
The Classic Controller does indeed drain the Wii remote’s batteries, but only to transmit the information to the Wii. The big standard Nintendo wants to use with the Wii is wireless technology, and the current setup allows you to use the Classic Controller to play your Virtual Console games without having to sit close enough to the TV and Wii to plug it in. You can have your Classic Controller and Wii remote with you on the couch and not have a giant cable running across the living room. However, if you are worried about battery life, remember that most VC games should work just fine with your GameCube controllers, which plug into the GameCube ports on the top (or side) of your Wii.
A key to the success of the Nintendo Wii (or lack thereof), I believe, will be the inclusion of RPGs. To this day, SNES is the greatest system of all time because of the depth, variety, and consistancy of its RPGs. Think about it: FF II & III, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, 7th Saga, Mario RPG, Breath of Fire I & II. That’s a great list, and I’m not even mentioning some of the hidden gems: Earhtbound, Secret of Evermore, Paladin’s Quest.After Square/Enix bolted for Playstation, Nintendo, in my eyes, took a hit. I haven’t owned a Nintendo system since, until the Wii.Will the Wii be a RPG console that can stand up to XBOX 360/PS3? If not, it looks like the DS may be the best bet for a RPG fan.
Do you think Square-Enix is coming back into the fold with the release of Dragon Quest 9 (for DS) and FF:CC and DQ for the Wii?
I guess I just miss the glory days of the SNES and feel old when I play the overhyped CG sequences of FF12.
–John
Christian: At this point in time, the DS will be the king of RPGs as you expect. DS games don’t take as much time or money to develop, and the growing userbase means developers will be flocking to develop all sorts of games for it, including RPGs. Square-Enix’s decision to make Dragon Quest IX a DS exclusive is a great example of this.
Whether or not the Wii becomes an RPG console worth mentioning depends on whether or not the best RPG developers make games for the system. Even that scenario depends on how well the Wii sells, especially in Japan. All signs are currently pointing to strong sales for the Wii, and it’s becoming clear that Nintendo is making the effort to attract developers like Square.
It may be a long time until we see Square-Enix’s numbered Final Fantasy series return to Nintendo (though it’s starting to feel like that may happen sooner than later), but their RPGs are indeed returning to Nintendo consoles. In addition, Nintendo’s own Intelligent Systems development team has finally come back into the spotlight, with RPGs like Paper Mario, and tactical/strategy RPGs like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. Until each company deals its cards though, I’m inclined to say that the Wii will give the PS3 a run for its money in the RPG department this time around.
Why did you guys rate Sonic Adventure 2 as top 2, and not even rate Sonic Adventure?!?!?!!
–Zachary Christian: For those wondering, the list being referred to can be found here. I’ll admit, I liked the overall story in Sonic Adventure, and that final boss fight was probably the most epic and my favorite of all the 3D Sonic games I’ve played. However, as I played all of those games on the GameCube, I played it after Sonic Adventure 2. Compared to SA2, Sonic Adventure’s controls are very loose and hard to control. In addition, I went into the 3D Sonic games hearing about horrible camera systems, only to brush off the overreactions after playing Sonic Adventure 2. I spoke too soon – Sonic Adventure’s loose control and awful camera literally gave me headaches while playing, prompting me to stop each playing session after no more than a half an hour at a time.Despite the decent story and updated graphics of Sonic Adventure on the GameCube, my opinions are based on my gameplay experiences, which unfortunately for Sonic Adventure was unpleasant and annoying. I liked Sonic Adventure much more than Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, but not enough to place it in our Top 5 list.
Matt: Why Sonic Adventure 2 instead of the original? Well, did Sonic Adventure allow you to grind on rails using SOAP SHOES?!?!
No? That’s what I thought…
Well, I’ve heard allot of people bashing the Wii. Some of what they are saying has merit and some doesn’t. So, I thought I’d give my 2 cents.Things I’ve heard,1. The virtual console is just Nintendos way of yet again regurgitating the same old games for yet another medium. Why would people pay money to do this if you could just get all the ROMS you want free?
Although I do agree in part, There are allot of people such, as myself who never bothered to download the ROMS for all the old games. Also nobody is forcing you to buy the games from the VC so if you dont want to then don’t and stop complaining about it.
That said I personall think that the Virtual Console has allot of potential. but, There are a few things that I think would improve it.
a) a VC channel that you can store all the VC games under.
b) not removing features such as cheats and what not from the games.
c) haveing to plug the Classic controller into the wiimote. Isn’t the whole point of a wireless controller to not have a wire? I’m guessing that this was done to make it cheaper but tis annoying none the less.
d) buying Wii points at incriments of $1, NES games cost $5, SNES/SEGA/TG16 games $6-$8, and N64 cost $10. Of course the only way to buy them is with wii points and you can only buy Wii points in quanities of 10,20,30,50. therefore when I bought Kirby for 500 wii points I really had to spend $10 to do it. Sure I have 500 wii points remaining but that will only allow me to buy an NES game, not say Caslevania or Contra. To buy those I’d have to buy more wii points. but adding 1000 wii point will only allow me to buy 1 of those 2 and still i’d have 700 wii points left. which puts me in the same position as before. I’d have to spend another $10 to get the amount of wii points I’d need to buy them both. So now I’ve spent a total of $30 to buy 3 games that should have only cost me $21. As far as I can tell I will always have wii points floating and if I want to buy a game it is going to cost me $10.
2. The second thing that people keep complaining about is the graphics. I’ve heard allot of people bitch and complaining that the graphics are not as good as the ps3 of 360. well we all knew this a long time ago. Before they came out. At a certain point graphics don’t matter. sure you can’t make next-gen games for the NES, it just wouldn’t work but the wii’s graphics are goo enough to allow you to have the same gameplay as on the other systems just with different graphics. I dont think that graphics are what makes me keep coming back to play more games if that were the case then I would probably spend all the time watching movies rather than playing video games. I heard that the wii can’t handle the graphics engines that some publishers have developed for games made for the ps3 and 360. this is the publishers fault. Many publishers had counted Ninetendo out of the console wars a while ago and now they are trying to play catch up so they can sell thier games. These people spent huge amounts of money to develop a game and now found that i cant easily be ported to the wii. How is this Nintendo’s fault? If you really want better graphics buy a ps3.
3. Mini games… Sure mini games have been a major part of the wii games so far. Rayman / monkeyball, and warioware and soon wii will see sonic and mario party that have all been filled with em. personally I like mini games. Sometime you see the same minigame on different games like bowling, wakamole, and what not, but the only games that have been completly based on them have been wario ware and rayman so far. And ganted the minigames are much easier to make therefore It makes since that they will come out early in the Wii’s life. The monkey ball main game is tremendously fun even if its frustratingly hard at times. I’ve been looking forward to sonic now for a while and believe that it will be an amazingly fun game. I believe that down the raod wii will see less mini games once the publishers have had time to fully understand how to incorperate the wii controller into a game. remember most of they got off to a late start. which brings me to the next topic.
4. The Wiimote’s… Well the wii mote is an amazing piece of technology, but allot of people have been complaining that it just replaces button with simple movments. For the most part they are right. Boxing for example, if you try acually boxing like you would in real life you are not going to do so well. But, once you undersand that the movments are just controlls you can do allot better. People seem to think that since the wiimote can sense thier movment it should also be able to incorperate every detail of that movment into the game. This is not a bad idea although it is difficult to accomlish. I believe that in the future the wii games will have more of this type of gameing. give the progamers some time. They have to start thinking of games in a hole new way now.
5. Online Play… Nintendo has yet to release any game with Online play. While I agree that some games would be awesome if they had an online feature. for example wii boxing. Think about being able to have wii boxing matches and work your way up in the ranks to be the Wii Boxing champion of the World. The concept has incredible potenial but would require extensive work and matenince. I’ll put money that Nintendo has this in the works but has other things that are higher priority to work on. I know we all want to see Smash brothers, Metriod and Mario sooner rather than later. And as far as I concerned they can put everything off until then.
Well that’s my opinion
-Sivart
Christian: Some good points there. Thanks, Sivart!
Okay, that’s it for this mailbag. This one took a month to gather together, and while we thank everyone for their submissions, we’d really love to answer mailbag submissions much more frequently. So please, keep sending anything and everything to our mailbag!
