Oh yeah, and my responce to how I think the new Mario and Zelda will be...
Well, I just don't get my hopes up anymore, I'll put it that way. Everyone knows how I feel about Mario's transition from Sunshine to Galaxy, I thought that was definately a step-down in every measureable way except for graphics. Zelda, I never played the Gamecube version of TP but I got the Wii one, and while it isn't bad the wii-motion attacks just take so much fun out of the game for me that I never had any drive to keep playing the game and beat it. I mean sure, I know TP wasn't meant for the Wii and they only ported it over because of its release timing and the fact that it would sell, but even if it was a perfect port I still probably wouldn't have played through all of it yet.
I don't know...Maybe I just put the Wii on too high of a pedestal back when I first heard about it. I was so disappointed with their marketing tactics when I had a Gamecube, that I wanted to believe Nintendo was really going all the way and making up for the disappointment they caused Gamecube owners with the Wii. I thought everything about it was going to be sleek, futuristic, accurate. Even when I knew it would have no harddrive or traditional controller or next-gen graphics, I still supported the Wii because of this whole idea of the virtual console and being able to download and play all of the games I grew to love over the years, and even ones I missed or never got to experience, or ones that were never released outside of Japan.
And then it was just hit-and-miss. Yeah we got some good games here and there, and yeah we got our online Nintendo system, and yeah we even got our motion control and our virtual console service. But it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Two of my favorite games on the Wii, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn and Super Paper Mario, were originally Gamecube games. I miss the days when Nintendo was a more original company, and could keep up in the console wars and was known for their good, original franchises. I just think technology moved too fast for Nintendo, and they have been struggling to find a way to keep up ever since. People are growing wise to the mistakes of the Wii now, and they realize that it may not be a fulfilling gaming experience. As much as we love Super Mario and Zelda and Kirby and Pokemon and all of these other great franchises, Nintendo isn't handling the direction of these games seriously enough anymore.
Times have changed, I don't even know if Nintendo will still be making consoles and handhelds a few years down the road the way things are going now. What I actually see happening is Nintendo keeps putting out re-hashes of the same Mario and Zelda formula we have seen for years, and people will get sick of it because Nintendo isn't challenging their developers to make original stories or modern features for their games. Eventually, the American and European markets will give their business to Sony and Microsoft because on their consoles developers take things seriously, strive to make good quality games and listen to what their consumers want and integrate that into their games. There is more room for imagination on the other consoles, more room to create and detail and make bigger beyond our wildest fantasies. Unless you think wagging a stick will make your next Mario and Zelda adventures feel more captivating, I don't think we should get our hopes up.
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