I tend to sound overly pessimistic when talking about the Wii. I happen to love the system. I think the funky little box has quite a lot going for it and it’s given me a handful of unforgettable gaming experiences, with Wii Sports and No More Heroes chief among them. No, I’m not overly pessimistic about the Wii. I’m overly pessimistic about Nintendo. As much as I want to be excited about a new Punch-Out!, I can’t help but look at the facts: Nintendo has released more traditional, hardcore games in the Wii’s first two years than they did in the Gamecube’s first four and all of them, with the exceptions of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, have been below the gold standard of Nintendo’s internally developed software from generations past. Super Paper Mario was a vicious bore of a game, Metroid Prime 3 had none of the creative spirit of the first two, Zelda: Twilight Princess was a bloated retread in dire need of an editor, and games like Fire Emblem and Super Mario Strikers were competent, but were simply more of the same. Even after this passed July’s E3, I wasn’t disturbed by Nintendo’s lack of support for hardcore gamers. I was disturbed by the apparent lowering of standards in their software. There are many Wii games that I am very excited to play, like MadWorld, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, House of the Dead: Overkill, Oboro Muramasa, and Fragile. But none of these titles come from Nintendo.
I hate sounding like the disgruntled misanthrope. But I refuse to ask less of a development house that strove for nothing short of perfection in the past.
Related links:
WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out
Disaster: Day of Crisis Comes Out in October. Right. Sure.
E3 Day Two: Spin, Malaise, Sony’s New Clothes, and Nintendo’s True Disruption
Christmas in Nintendoland: The Tokyo Conference