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"Something old, something new"

I've just read one of the most fascinating articles on IGN.

The reason it did was because it was staring me straight in the face, a concept developing in my mind and there it was. The entire problem surrounding Nintendo's fall from grace. In a collection of words on a page.

It started to play on my mind when the latest DS title was announced. Super Princess Peach, a tongue in cheek role reversal of Nintendo's classic Mario franchise. The game could well be an innovative and enjoyable new franchise. But it isn't. Not really. Instead it is placed along Nintendo's other DS franchises. These are Animal Crossing DS, Wario Ware DS, Mario Kart DS, Mario Brothers DS, Mario 64 DS, Metroid Prime: Hunters, four swords, Pokemon Dash, Yoshi's Touch and go... and so forth.

All of the above titles try to use (and probably succeed) a new and original form of gameplay. Yet they all, every one of them, share a common issue. They are all established Nintendo franchises. Why could Nintendo not call "Yoshi's Touch and Go" something totally different and remove Mario and Yoshi. Introduce a few new characters. Suddenly a new world is born, suddenly a new franchise is born... Yoshi and Mario could help the game to sell well but... we will never truly know.

It is funny how Nintendo are trying to release the most innovative game system ever... and yet they have not got one original game in the line up. SEGA's XY/XX feel the magic, is in fact the only game I see that isn't a new breed of an old franchise.

You see I, you and the legions of avid Nintendo followers love Nintendo for Mario, for Pokemon and for Zelda. So Nintendo continue to keep their forever falling fan base happy with new iterations of Mario and Zelda. Yet by not making a new "Mario" or a new "Pokemon" how can Nintendo ever hope to expand their fan base?

Metroid Prime was Nintendo "re-inventing" the Metroid brand. It was clever and the game is genius. Introducing the gaming world to something totally new. So why Metroid? Strafio, a massive Metroid fan from these very forums, still craves for a third person action platformer. Was it beyond Nintendo's capacity to make this? This would have satisfied the fan base. And what of Metroid Prime? Well did we have to have Samus in it? Did it have to be based around the Metroid universe?

Sure, Metroid Prime may not have sold as much if Samus and his enemies were not part of the game. And yet I feel we could have seen the birth of a brand new killer Nintendo franchise. Metroid could take the crown from Tomb Raider in the action platform sides of things. Whilst this new innovative First Person Adventure from Nintendo will make Perfect Dark a distant memory.

I shall present Zelda as my next example. A perfectly lovely realistic Zelda would have kept all Nintendo gamers happy. But the Wind Waker ruled did it not? The Wind Waker was a great new addition to the series. Yet why did it have to be Zelda? Could we not have seen a new adventure title from Nintendo? Even an RPG game! A cartoon RPG is a good idea (Namco did it). It did not have to be Zelda. It could have been a different game. A whole new series of Nintendo titles. Maybe next year we'd have the cel-shaded new adventure RPG and a new Zelda game. And the series' need not have anything to do with eachother.

Pokemon saved Nintendo back in 1996 as sales started to fall. It was Nintendo "being original". There was no Mario. There was no Zelda. This was something new. This was to attract new gamers. This was a new game. And like Mario and Zelda before it. It was huge. Now though we do not get that. We get Nintendo putting all their money, resources and efforts into keeping the fan base happy with a new Mario title or a new "Zelda Four Swords adventure". If Nintendo can keep 2 20-year-old franchises such as Mario and Zelda feeling fresh imagine what they could do with a new idea? Imagine if they were asked to make a Bongo action game that had nothing to do with Donkey Kong? We'd be looking at a totally new franchise at the beginning of next year.

What could Nintendo create with that sort of freedom on the Gamecube? Let me tell you. Pikmin. Pikmin started life as a demo featuring 100 Mario's. Imagine if that had stayed the same. Imagine if Olimar was a big Mario and the Pikmin were hundreds of little Mario’s/Luigi's and Peach's being directed to do various tasks to defeat Bowser. Indeed the game would still be original and fun. But instead we got a different world. New characters, a new franchise, new iconography and new landscapes. We got a whole new Nintendo game. One that can stand besides Mario/Zelda and Pokemon as a game that had NOTHING to do with another game. Olimar was never a baddie in Mario Land and Pikmin was never a Pokemon.

This is what Nintendo need. New games. New franchises. They don't HAVE to be adult either, might be helpful but hardly essential. Why does Wario Ware have Wario in it? Is he needed? Why did Dinosaur Planet have Fox in it? It was obviously not a Starfox game!

Nintendo are scared. Releasing a totally new game could mean a disaster. A flop. Would Viewtiful Joe have sold through the roof if it were a Megaman game? Hell yes. But would it be a new franchise on which Capcom can build on? No it could not.

Nintendo tried widening its appeal with new games. Metal Gear and Resident Evil remakes are a prime example. Yet these two games are still "old" games. Nintendo should never have bought the Resident Evil games because they had Eternal Darkness. This game could have been a new Nintendo franchise. An ideal new Nintendo franchise. As it happens it was never needed. It would never sell. Capcom's famous survival horror put pay to that.

RARE were never scared to release a new game. They did sequels too but next to the release of Banjo Tooie came Conker's Bad Fur Day. Next to Donkey Kong 64 came Jet Force Gemini. Besides Killer Instinct Gold there was Blast Corps and Goldeneye. Some were sequels. Most were totally new franchises that branched out to new gamers. What would the N64 have been without RARE? What new franchise did Nintendo create themselves? If it wasn't for the fact Nintendo's brand faces were moving into 3D we would all have wondered "what's new?" Just like we are now. If Nintendo still had RARE we would have had Grabbed by the Gholies and Kameo by now. 2 completley original and new games.

X-box gamers are lucky. Loads of totally new games to play, Knights of the Old Republic was a success, Blinx a failure but an attempt at least... and the biggest success story of this generation. Halo. A game that was so totally fresh that nearly every gamer in the world wants to own it. Even Sony, with Ico, the eye toy games, Rachet and Clank and Sly Cooper can risk a new franchise.

Are Nintendo just a bunch old golden oldies? Making nice games with the same faces over and over again? Are Nintendo out of touch? No I don't think so. Shigeru Miyamoto, a guy that made the original Donkey Kong game decades ago, made Pikmin. He hasn't lost it. He can still create a new world to exploit. A New World to delve into and explore.

Retro, Nintendo's latest acquisition, is one of Nintendo's greatest properties. Metroid Prime is almost a totally new franchise. Sure the name is the same but the game is not. Retro are original and Nintendo need to expand this team and bring Raven Blade and the companies back to the release schedule. Rare, Left Field and Silicon Knights have gone. It was a stupid mistake by the big N. But if only Nintendo themselves can make something new.

Nintendo are innovators. They were once the driving force in the gaming industry. Introducing new characters and new ideas. Now they are just a company growing old. Making the same great games... we need new great games.

Wake up Nintendo.

I don't think you can logically conclude that Nintendo don't take risks.

But I see where you're coming from.

Why?

It doesn't make any sense why Retro, one of greatest first person shooter developers, are being tied down to the constraints of the Metroid Series.

Can't intelligent studios or NTSC make an extremley good Action platformer?? Something like a jumping Jet Force Gemini for the Metroid series?

When Nintendo get new, innovative game ideas why must they apply it to existing franchises? Why does the new Bongo action game have to involve Donkey Kong??

If Nintendo wanted to make a living cartoon great. Good idea. Invent a brand new game and make it this living cartoon. No. Nintendo didn't want to invent a new franchise they wanted to re-invent an old one and changed Zelda into this "living cartoon". These cartoon games could have been a whole new style of game for Nintendo and a whole new reason to own a Gamecube.

If Nintendo wanted to make a first person adventure title great. Invent a whole new world and include this new style of game. A brand new Nintendo franchise. No instead they decided to re-invent Metroid (which a 3D action platformer would have done the same).

Re-inventing is not a bad thing to do. It keeps old franchises feeling fresh. Yet old franchises only appeals to old fans. Nintendo need new fans. Nintendo needs new games that will attract a modern generation over to a Nintendo system. Donkey Kong did it back in 1980, Zelda did it back in 1985, Pokemon did it in 1996... Pikmin tried but didn't attract too many new gamers...

Nintendo need to take risks. They need to develop "new" games. If Nintendo made an action cartoon adventure along side a new Zelda game would any of us whinge? No we'd all brag about this fantastic cool new cartoon game from Nintendo. And those cartoon fans will notice it and perhaps give it a go. There are aspects of Zelda that aren't meant to be a cartoon, it does not work. With a new world to invent and the designer being allowed to use total imagination he/she could create the ultimate cartoon game. That is not constrained by the Zelda series.

If Nintendo can re-invent new franchises so well... imagine what they could do when inventing. They are genius' of new genre of games. Sunshine, Wind Waker, Double Dash and Prime are all examples of Nintendo re-inventing decade old franchises. Incredible talent. But an incredible talent wasted?

Possibly.

I agree Nintendo should perhaps not make 'Mario Ball' and just make a damn good and funny pinball game. Starfox Adventures should have been 'New-Character-Adventures'.

But Metroid Prime should have been Metroid.

Dringo wrote:
> Exactly WS, if it plays like Mario it should be like Mario.
>
> But Metroid Prime does not play like Metroid. Not really.

um..not sure what Metroid games you've been playing.

Metroid Prime is pretty much an exact replica of Super Metroid in 3D, whether it's a 1st or 3rd perspective is irrelevant.


> They could adopt entirely new ideas and different moves for the
> character that was not tied down to the Metroid series. We could see
> new imagintive baddies and not 3D versions of Ripley and the Space
> Pirates. We would see brand new environments that didn't have to look
> similar to the past Metroid game.

FACT: There was absolutely nothing bad about Metroid Prime. It's the only 10/10 game of the past two years.

>
> Take Starfox adventures. The final boss was never supposed to be
> Andross and the flying sections were not meant to be there. If RARE
> were not tied down to adding all these Starfox ideas and iconography
> to it they could have made a damn good adventure instead.

Yes, I agree with this point. Starfox should only be space shooters, instead we've got Adventures and this new one, which also heavily features 'on foot' bits and the like.

Starwing and Lylat Wars are brilliant, why the **** haven't we been giving a GC version? If they want to make a crappy blend of shooter and 3rd person action/adventure then they should have put new characters to it.


> Wind Waker is a Zelda game through and through. But Nintendo could
> have made a different game with the "playable Cartoon" idea
> and invent a new franchise rather than waste it on an old one.

Nothing wrong with a new look for an established franchise.

Exactly WS, if it plays like Mario it should be like Mario.

But Metroid Prime does not play like Metroid. Not really. If the game did not have to be Metroid then Retro would not worry about making a good morph ball system as there would be no morph ball. They would not need to introduce any crappy grapple hook system.

They could adopt entirely new ideas and different moves for the character that was not tied down to the Metroid series. We could see new imagintive baddies and not 3D versions of Ripley and the Space Pirates. We would see brand new environments that didn't have to look similar to the past Metroid game.

Take Starfox adventures. The final boss was never supposed to be Andross and the flying sections were not meant to be there. If RARE were not tied down to adding all these Starfox ideas and iconography to it they could have made a damn good adventure instead.

Metroid could have been a totally different franchise entirely to Prime. They didn't have to be alike.

Wind Waker is a Zelda game through and through. But Nintendo could have made a different game with the "playable Cartoon" idea and invent a new franchise rather than waste it on an old one.

No offence but that's balls.


Valve could take Gordon and the aliens out of Half-Life 2, and replace it with some crack addict woman and a race of dangerous cyber monkeys, but what's the ****ing point? You've the same game without the cool characters you like.

They could of made Prime, but do you know what it would have been? A 3D rip off of the Metroid series, which pretty much remains unique even today.


A different character and world does NOT make a 'new' game, you could have put Freeman in Halo and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. A 'new' game has to actually do something new, and a decent game should only the work with it's established characters. They could have made Sunshine with a new character, would that be a new franchise? Would it boll*cks, it'd be a Mario game without Mario in.

Pikmin is a valid new franchise, not only is it a different set of people and worlds, it's a new and different concept as well. It makes sense that if Nintendo are going to make a platform game it might as well be Mario, unless it's going to be substantially different from what we expect of a Nintendo platform game.

Aha yeah... or just go over to IGN and read their article on it.

This was merely my take on it.

The fact they almost totally ignored Metroid Prime dissapointed me.

For anyone who CBA to read all that:

"I think Nintendo should use new characters in their new games instead of the old franchises."

Whitestripes X wrote:
> And Halo was hardly fresh. It's a standard FPS, does nothing many
> other FPS didn't already do.

It was a new world, a new universe. It may not have been a new gaming idea, but it was still a new game.

Dringo wrote:
> Why Whitstripes?
>
> Could a third person action shooter not have done for metroid? A 3D
> version of the 2D games?

NO