All the more recent wariowares feel very sterile in comparison and I suspect it’s related to Nintendo SPD’s dissolution. Intelligent Systems always played a part in the series development but it seems these days they are the sole developer. I feel like all the original “Wario team” got moved around with the company’s restructuring and dumped into Nintendo EPD which is currently responsible for all the big-budget major releases from them… SPD were cool because they felt like they got to make the weirder, more experimental Nintendo stuff (Warioware, Rhythm Heaven, Tomodachi Life…). It’s sad to think that some of those developers are now stuck working on tiny bits of the new Mario Kart and that Donkey Kong game…
While I knew them for most of my life as Nintendo SPD, they used to be Nintendo R&D1 aka the people who made everything from Mario/Wario Land to Metroid to all those original NES titles and some of their cool gameboy spin-offs (Balloon Kid forever remains a favourite, as does The Frog for Whom The Bell Tolls which I maintain is actually way better than any of the 2D Zeldas even if people think I’m crazy for it…) It still boggles my mind that the original Pikmin wasn’t their handiwork because it shares the same peculiar flavour of their games, as does Luigi’s Mansion and the first Animal Crossing. In fact, the Gamecube in general feels like it was “infected” by their bizarre sensibilities… I wonder sometimes if there’s more to that feeling (may have to do some further digging to find out for sure!)
this list is effectively 100% bangers all the way up until 2002!!!
starting with Super Mario Sunshine* metrics of quality for all 3 of average (how good are the games on average), zenith (how good are the best games), and nadir (how good are the worst games) drop precipitously pretty much right on the turnover from 2001 to 2002.
(*just… not a great game. admirably creative, no laurel-resting, but ultimately a misfire imo. still better than galaxy 1 or 2, tho)
average quality remains above-average here (nintendo are kind of absurd in terms of consistency - their worst periods usually involve putting out at least a few gems) but never again do you see that bonkers run of absolute bangers after bangers after bangers for years and years on end.
2001 has Pikmin 1 and Dobutsu no Mori (Animal Crossing in the West) for N64 (god-tier games). looking back, i really feel like 2002 is the cutoff for the end of true peak 1st-party nintendo imo
it’s probably best not to group Nintendo output by studio (other than EAD Tokyo because they’ve become some kind of insane Mario/Donkey Kong factory) but by producer. it’s a lot easier to see the throughline on modern Mario Kart to Arms or Animal Crossing to Splatoon than just looking at where the staff is organizationally located
Konami had the right idea back in the early to mid aughts, where they put the game producer’s name smack dab on the cover, even in the west
Finally finished chapter 3, I got lucky, really lucky…
the final hit was from a charmed enemy and I would have been cooked if it happened a turn later.
I was expecting the rooftop fight to take multiple attempts, seeing what the assassins were capable of but it was a fakeout so I passed with only one attempt
If I was playing this ten or so years ago on my ps1, I think I would have quit here. Playing on emu atleast makes it so that I can quickly start fights again so its not as painful.
I dread that it would only get even harder… I was thinking multiple times when going out on the map to buy various gear and sending underdeveloped units out on propositions that I might make the fights a bit too easy by overleveling/learning powerful job abilities/unlocking calculator and that thought going away when I lose the objective in like 6 turns
The sudden shift in 2002 seems to coincide with the overall workload for games being developed by them growing increasingly out of control. All my favourite Gamecube first party games are the early ones (Pikmin, Luigi’s Mansion, Animal Crossing) which also happen to be considerably smaller in scale. Sunshine and Wind Waker are both way more ambitious in this regard which, when combined with the higher graphical fidelity of the hardware, makes for a hell of a lot more work for the teams making those games. Sunshine and Wind Waker also both are known for having troubled developments which is evidenced in all the tedious padding present in them…
Not to mention the relative financial failure of both the N64 and Gamecube leading to the eventual pivot towards safer bets with titles developed and the introduction of the Wii which further changed priorities for the whole company. It seems like the same forces currently present within the industry and making games generally shitter in various ways (a constant push for increased graphical fidelity, more Content, longer playtimes, etc.) was very much also the contributing factor back then for Nintendo first party gradually becoming less creative and interesting: an ever-increasing and out of control scaling up of everything…
I maintain that some of the best Nintendo games are their smallest ones. Smaller budgets, more creative freedom, less financial risk, smaller workloads due to not chasing technological advancements… All that stuff contributes, in my opinion, to better games. I think a lot of Gunpei Yokoi and his philosophy with the Gameboy of keeping prices down with stuff and not chasing the newest tech…
I kinda hate this argument (no offense) because it completely disregards the entire team of people that make any of these games a reality. Especially with Warioware where there are different members of the team working on their own minigames (the very thing that gives those games their sense of variety and style). It’s the same kinda thinking that leads people to solely credit Donkey Kong '94 or Mole Mania or Pikmin or many, many more games to Miyamoto which is just… false! The role of producer in games is not the same as like a director in film. Sorry, it’s just this framing really irks me…
I think specifically in Nintendo’s org chart, the producer sets some or a lot of the tone w/r/t aesthetic and/or design goals in a more macro sense and then the staff have more control over it in the micro sense
it’s kind of like 70s Hollywood where producers were still important and a driving force for getting things made but they were hiring the New Hollywood Wave to make their movies and they just as much had their stamp over them. Mario Kart and Arms have very similar goals that are informed by sharing a producer and a lot of staff but they take different paths to the same end (to say nothing of 8/DX and Arms being co-developed with Bamco)
I get the idea of what you’re saying but how does that then square with certain games having both a listed producer and a director? Not to mention lead designers… I just feel like there’s generally more roles in the mix that complicates the old Hollywood analogy…
this is why I maintain that Nintendo’s best work in the last decade has been the Splatoon series. feels genuinely unique, was developed out a younger team just fucking around, and (I think) had a smaller budget so they could be riskier
otoh, best Nintendo Game of the GC era is arguably F-Zero GX, which was developed by AV2/SEGA. It took them ages and they haven’t released a faster/proper F-Zero afterwards, which you can interpret as Big N admitting defeat …
this post definitely wasn’t sponsored by the Sonic-Police
, longer playtimes, etc.) was very much also the contributing factor back then for Nintendo first party gradually becoming less creative and interesting: an ever-increasing and out of control scaling up of everything…
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