What are your thoughts on Nintendo?

[Alphachris]

I grew up with Nintendo. The NES was my first console ever and I got it when I was 7. Super Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Duck Tales, Megaman, Castlevania, Punch-Out... fond memories

The SNES was a huge improvement. Super Mario World and Zelda: A Link to the Past where almost perfect games at that time. Super Castlevania, Turtles in Time, Mario Kart, Street Fighter 2, Act Raiser, Terranigma...

But the N64 was another story. I was thrilled when I heard about the next Zelda and Mario 64... but after having played the games with a friend I was very disappointed in the beginning. Zelda has once again dropped the eagle view and was 3D and Mario 64 lost the two-player Mode and was also 3D... I decided to wait fo the console to drop in price... and then I have played the PS1 with a friend. I had never considered the console as an option, but I was deeply impressed. At my next birthday I got a PS1.

Final Fantasy 7 + 8 + 9, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver, Vagrant Story, Suikoden 1+2, Tomb Raider, Front Mission 3, Parasite Eve 2, G-Police, Colony Wars, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot.....

The third party support was amazing. And the cutscenes were awesome. After playing all these games, especially story-centric games like JRPGs or Legacy of Kain I started to feel Nintendo games lacking. They have high production values, but they simply lack the storytelling and character development.

I also skipped the Gamecube and went with the PS2. But I bought a used N64 to be able to play Mario 64 and Zelda. I enjoyed Super Mario 64 and got all stars, but once again I couldn't play Zelda because I was still disappointed that they changed to third person view. I simply could get into it although Zelda was my favourite franchise before.

When I found out that the Wii had the Virtual Console I bought it. But the controller are simply awful. I found out that I despise motion control and gimmicky controls. (I do not like the PS Move or the Vita controls with that damn back touchscreen and the camera either).

I am now mostly a singleplayer gamer who expects a game to have a minimum amount of story and character development. So games like Mario Kart, Smash Brothers or Mario Party are not really an option for me anymore. Super Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros Wii were good games, but Nintendo puts too much focus on gameplay and too little focus on the gameworld, characters and story...

Don't get me wrong, the Mario games are good. But I can get a better entertainment factor from games like Ratchet & Clank or Jak & Daxter, where I found a combination of suberb gameplay with funny characters and dialogues.

So while I hold fond memories of Nintendo I can see some troubles with them. Nintendo tries to innovate with Hardware while it is their software that would need innovation... especially on the story and character front. Nintendo games are still great for handhelds and I will certainly buy the 3DS after i have finally finished my backlog... but on the console front I feel that Nintendo needs to improve their games to be able to compete with the HD twins and their successors. At least, they could try to introduce some more mature games with dialogues and a more serious story approach if they don't want to change their established franchises. Because if Nintendo can show that more mature games can sell on a Nintendo console they wouldn't probably have that much problem with getting third party support for their consoles.