The WiiU Should Become a WiiSNES

Argue all you want about the current quality of games, many hardcore gamers will still mention that the Super Nintendo was the greatest gaming console of all-time. It could be the nostalgia, it could be the fact that the better games in the system remain amongst the best ever made, it could be the simplicity of the content, or lastly it might be that the ratio of classic versus regular game is highest for the sophomore Nintendo machine. One thing holds true though: the Super Nintendo is the system we most refer to when talking about Nintendo’s better days. While the Wii and DS became Nintendo’s biggest moneymakers, we still don’t hold a happy candle to those systems when compared to the SNES. So could this explain the sudden glimpsing into the past Nintendo has been doing lately?

Link to the Past has been constantly linked to rumors about a sequel/prequel/remake. Super Mario 4 has been registered—which would potentially make it a sequel to Mario Bros. 3 or even Super Mario World. 2-D Metroid has been rumored on and about. Even good ol’ F-Zero has been brought up as making a comeback. While this is a longshot theory as to why this is happening, one thing remains true: if Nintendo wants to win the hardcore back it must imitate the Super Nintendo.

Super Mario World launched with the SNES, Zelda arrived around a year later, and then after a few old and new franchises sprouted about we got Metroid three years into the SNES lifespan. Lastly, several surprises graced the end of the SNES like the Donkey Kong Country sequels, Kirby Super Star and Dream Land, and of course Super Mario RPG. The WiiU should copy this lifespan down to a T. The last time a Nintendo system launched with Mario was the Nintendo 64—which some will argue was Nintendo’s last truly amazing system.

Super Mario 64 pretty much represented the Nintendo 64 and all it stood for----3-D immersive gaming full of graphical, control, and software innovations. Nintendo serious about Super Mario 4? They need to make Mario the man that will display what the WiiU is capable of---whatever that may be since we are still sorely lacking in details. Super Mario has been the go-to franchise since it never fails to bring in great numbers. The best-selling fighting, racing and platform game involves Super Mario.

We all know Zelda has seen better days, so why not deliver a massive epic 2-D Zelda adventure in Year 2 of the WiiU? It would not be too far off the launch, and would be the first console non 3-D Zelda since Link to the Past—whom most consider to still be the pinnacle of Zelda and adventure games in general. Then Metroid should also get the 2-D treatment as a throwback to Super Metroid—one of the 10 greatest games ever made.

But to win the hardcore back and imitate what the Super Nintendo delivered, Nintendo must do one thing that will alienate companies and may cause some tiffs amongst the industry: control the third-party content. The NES and SNES were the last two systems to have a near-dictatorship like authority over what can and cannot be released. In the NES days, Nintendo only allowed a select few games not from them to grace the system. The SNES days also were quite cruel in making sure nothing was half-arsed before release. The Playstation would be the system to destroy this trend and method of thought as they opened the floodgates to anyone that can make games. This is why the PSX sold more than the N64, had many more games, but at the same time had a much more pitiful ratio of classics. Come on, try naming 10 classic PSX games.

Now think of the SNES---it wasn’t just Nintendo making the classics. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II Turbo, NBA Jam, Super Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Mega Man X, Turtles in Time, and many other gems were made by other companies. While Nintendo may lose the amount of games in the process, they need to set the third-party companies straight and prevent them from just mailing in stupid games like what happened with the Wii. Force the companies to take you seriously, as if you really want to impress the hardcore audience.


Bottom Line: The WIiU is coming out this year, and its success relies on its ability to imitate the SNES: start with Mario, closely follow with Zelda, sprinkle plenty of good-looking games here and there throughout the lifespan, and lastly don’t forget to throw in some good surprises. The Wii lacked true surprises, which is something even the Gamecube had (Rogue Leader, Viewtiful Joe anyone?), and its smaller-profile classics that can really propel a system to new heights of quality. Perhaps Miyamoto realizes that the SNES is the image hardcore gamers rely on when talking about how far Nintendo has separated from its fanbase, which is why we have Super Mario 4, an old-school look at Zelda and Metroid, and even revivals of dead franchises like F-Zero occurring.

While an HD Nintendo system is sure to bring some attention, its going to take a lot more than that to remove the sting the hardcore, long-running Nintendo enthusiasts experienced when seeing what the Wii delivered (er, didn’t deliver).

How the WiiU Can Own the Sports Genre

Way back in the N64 days, Nintendo mildly shocked the gaming industry with its inclusion of Nintendo Sports: which was a grouping of sports games that would be made and published by Nintendo, and exclusive only to their systems. Needless to say, Nintendo Sports was a big hit that rarely gets discussed, as the likes of Waverace 64, NBA Courtside, 1080 Snowboarding, WWF No Mercy, Wayne Gretzky’s 3-D Hockey, Mario Golf, and Mario Tennis became phenomenal hits. To add to that, you had underrated gems like Excitebike 64, Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest, All-Star Baseball 2000 grace the system. But for whatever reason starting from the later days of the Gamecube on, Nintendo’s efforts towards sports games greatly diminished.

While EA owned the NFL license, Nintendo still had access to the extreme sports games, baseball, basketball, and more. The Seattle Mariners never made their next-gen baseball game, Kobe only did one more Courtside (which was weak), and the only true sports success story were the Mario sports games—especially Super Mario Strikers. As for the Wii, their potential with sports games was met with ho-hum attempts after monster smash Wii Sports. In the meantime, you saw a rise in baseball and basketball video games while Madden continues to make good money for EA Games. Sports games made excellent money for all three systems in the seventh generation, whether it’s the arcade sports games on the Wii, or the simulators on the competitors. Nintendo however can pull all the stops if they put forth the effort in showing its potential in the upcoming system. Which leads us to the WiiU: If the WiiU wants to truly succeed, they need to become the frontrunner and new frontier for sports games.

The WiiU would be absolutely perfect for most sports games, especially football.
And it has everything to do with the controller/tablet.
Let’s start with football, which would benefit the most from the tablet. Imagine being able to choose plays without having to look at a menu on the screen. You can just look at your controller and scan and pick. Even better the tablet can keep track of your statistic throughout the games, allowing you to alter your strategy depending on the results. Even cooler would be the ability to create your own plays by turning your controller into a whiteboard full of Xs and Os. Imagine being able to create dozens of random plays for your team and then taking it online to take on other opponents and their created plays. While the ability to make plays is nothing new, with the tablet technology it can be driven to a whole new level. Football is a very strategic sport so a tablet controller makes a perfect complement to the game.

Another sport heavy on the strategy would be baseball, which can also benefit well from this tablet. Imagine being able to quickly alter your lineups and shift your infield/outfield without having to press a variety of buttons or refer to a menu screen on the television. Imagine the ability to scan through dozens of statistics of the opposing players like a manager before drawing conclusions as to who is going out there on the field. The tablet for the WiiU will most likely be used for mostly gimmicks, but posing as an information center would be loads of fun and would definitely add depth to the sports simulators.

Then there’s basketball, which can also benefit from the tablet by doubling it as a playmaking whiteboard. Wouldn’t it be awesome to draw out what might be the game-winning play in the playoffs for your team? After years of screaming at the television when a coach makes a dumb move, this tablet allows you to see how you’d manage as a coach of a ballsquad. The only catch to all this is that outside of EA Games, Nintendo would have to whether convince the third-parties to step up in their gameplay to better suit the WiiU, or Nintendo would have to make these games themselves. Left Field Productions, the company that gave the N64 many great sports games, is no longer with them. Which would lead to Camelot and Next Level Games as the lone second-party companies that has sports experience---although both never worked on a true sim.

Bottom Line: Nintendo has a great opportunity to send the sports games to a new level with its tablet. The main issue is, will the other companies be on board with its potential and do something about it? The Wii had some excellent first/second-party games, arguably among the best in recent years. But their third party status is in shambles and has been for quite some time. Yet with a little effort, the likes of Sega, EA, and Next Level Games can produce some fantastic and innovative sports games that uses the tablet to its utmost potential. The entire gaming genre of sports can flip upside down if done correctly.

Until then, we gamers are just dreaming.

Letters to Kanto (Part 2)

Original Article By: Michael Malespin


Pokemon Snap 2 (Wii U; potential part 1 remake on the 3DS)

Pokemon Snap was a very interesting game that came out for the N64 where, as a character named Todd, you went around a bunch of different areas taking the best pictures of Pokemon possible. The game wasn’t large but it was sure more successful than anticipated. Taking a bunch of snapshots of Pokemon and even printing them out on the photo kiosks over at certain Blockbuster stores (remember that?) made the concept pretty cool. With the power of wi-fi, now these pictures can be shared around the world and even saved in an SD card to share on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and even printing them to share around! So what do I have for a Pokemon Snap 2 for the Wii U?

The concept is simple. You pick an area, you get started with a set amount of film, and then you go through the stage trying to snap pictures of Pokemon with the assistance of items. This concept can be brought back but with many different areas and maybe even some new items! Maybe even a bomb to reveal some openings in some of these stages or Scope Lens to spot out ghost Pokemon or camouflage Pokemon lurking about.

So how would the gameplay work? The Wii U tablet is pretty much your camera throughout the entire game so that your aim can be 100% precise when snapping photos and tossing items by moving the tablet in front of the TV while the ZERO-ONE (like the last game) is moving on its own. The touch screen can be used for (maybe) different photographic lens or zooming to get the best Pokemon pictures possible. If you’re not comfortable with using the tablet to move the camera where you want it to get pointed, you can use the tablet as a simple controller and the analog stick would be your camera control. At this rate, unfortunately, the controls to this game can only be using the tablet, 3DS (maybe; utilizing the camera function of the system to serve as your controller), and Classic Controller because, if a lot of these features are added, it would be hard to use just the Wii Remotes. Maybe it can use the Wii Remote with Nunchuck combination but it’s still a little tough to pull off.

Just like the previous game, you might not have guessed it, but let’s split this game into 2 separate versions. A simple red and blue version should be appropriate. Red version would have an enormous amount of Pokemon from a combination of Johto and Sinnoh Pokemon while Blue version will have that same amount but with Hoenn and Unova Pokemon. With this, many Pokemon and areas (with amazing effects like molten lava or shooting stars) will show up in both games in full-fledged 1080p HD. The pictures coming out of them would be phenomenal. To add another fun combination, there could be a 3DS version of this but since I didn’t mention Kanto Pokemon, this could technically be a remake of Pokemon Snap for the N64 only this game will allow you to download 3 version-exclusive stages from both Wii U versions allowing you to download 6 stages from the Wii U game for you to not only increase the duration of the game but allow you to see certain Pokemon outside of Kanto in full 3D!

In terms of multiplayer, the Wii U versions would not have multiplayer but it would have Wi-fi so you can compete against 2-4 others in getting the best score in a set stage! You can keep the photos you take and even post some of your best and funniest photos in a Pokemon Snap Community Channel where people can vote on the best photos and have most popular photos of the week and month to spice up some competition. The 3DS version however can add multiplayer with the same format but allowing you to compete with friends in getting the best scores and even saving the high scores from your friends into your own game. It’s a nice way of keeping track on what Pokemon your friends are good at taking photos of.

Pokemon Puzzle League 2 (Wii U and POSSIBLE 3DS Title; Maybe Wii UWare as one of the 1st games to be launched under that sort of software)

Can anyone believe that this game never came out for Japan? This game actually took the elements of the popular Tetris Attack game for the SNES (and Puzzle League for the GBA did the same thing) and launched it into a Pokemon idea. It was a heavily addicting game that made players on the edge of their seats trying to quickly remove blocks while attacking the opponent. It was a great 2-player game that pushed players to kill each other with massive garbage blocks with their favorite trainers and Pokemon.

Now what can this game do to improve from the prequel? For one thing, this will allow players to be a male/female trainer and pick from a great assortment of Pokemon to compete against a lot of different trainers (the Pokemon SHOULD have their anime voices). You select 3 Pokemon out of (for example) 200 of them (40 each region maybe?) and then you begin. Another concept that can work is that garbage blocks can grow or get chopped down depending on which Pokemon your own Pokemon are facing. Super effective would multiply the garage blocks’ sizes and not very effective would shrink the size of the garage blocks.

Best part of this game would be finally using this style of gameplay for Wi-fi. Face trainers around the world with your favorites for 3-on-3 matches (potential best 2 out of 3). Nothing fancy and very simple. This gives players that loved playing these types of games a great way to remember how fast they were at acing others at them.
Pokemon Stadium Compilation (leading to bringing back R/B/Y and G/S/C for the 3DS)

A particularly odd thing to pull off but it can work like this: those that miss the old way of playing Pokemon can get Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, or Crystal versions from Virtual Console, play those games, and then use the memory data from the 3DS system with the game to transfer their Pokemon over to this game. Question gets raised here, “How can we trade Pokemon since it was all game link cables and such?” If you manage to get this Game Boy game to work wirelessly as if it were plugged into a cable, it works! But if not, this is why Pokemon Stadium can work in this favor. In the original Pokemon Stadium, trainers were able to trade and battle from that particular game so trainers can simply use this game to do the same.

Why do I say compilation? What if we compiled BOTH Pokemon Stadiums into one game? 6 Stadium Cups, 2 rounds, Triple-sped playing of the Game Boy games, Battle Now, the works! This game will touch the hearts of the lost Pokemon players that played and enjoyed the games in the past. Does it need much more? Not really. It’s like doubling the challenges and mini-games that can be played ALL in 3-D. Seeing Pokemon and attacks in 3-D would attract some of the players that are curious to see a Flamethrower or Hyper Beam looking like it’s coming off the edge of the screen!

Due to the first game idea I threw at you guys and the fact that R/B/Y/G/S/C can be easily saved on the 3DS, this Stadium compilation should come out for just the 3DS. It couldn’t hurt since the 3DS’ capabilities are definitely nothing to scoff at. This system is more than capable of doing all this and then some and not a bad idea if you guys want a great aftermath of the first game idea.

Pokemon Party! (For both systems)

What might this be? If you guys, with Game Freak, can team up with Hudson (partners of the Mario Party series), you guys can pull off a game made up entirely of Pokemon mini-games! Think of the opportunities! You guys can come up with so many mini-games, it would be crazy! The only thing that would make this hard is using the Wii U Tablets for 4 players…we have no confirmation that the Wii U supports more than one tablet at all. Of course, it would be a ton of fun to use the tablet with the 4 Wii Remotes on a lot of the games. It would be a great multi-player game that, with the help of Hudson and the Wii U’s amazing wi-fi, can even be taken online to party with a bunch of people from around the world! This can be added to the list of games children can play online without parents worrying about what they’re getting into in terms of online competitiveness!

How would this work you may ask? Again, this would re-create the ‘Party-like’ gameplay that Hudson is known for. You start off by picking what kind of trainer you want to be (child [boy or girl], Beauty trainer, Cool trainer [boy or girl], Muscleman, Old woman, Old man, and then 2 hidden ones being Red and Crystal). Now…bringing whichever trainer makes no difference as to what Pokemon you get for each mini-game or who has better odds. It just depends on what kind of trainer you like to use. You and 3 other trainers land on a game board with different areas. You roll 2 dices and you walk that certain amount of steps forward; passing through obstacles and landing on spaces that increase your experience points. Your goal is to collect as much Gym Badges as you can to become the greatest trainer in the game (it works since you’re controlling a bunch of Pokemon for the mini-games). You battle in the gym by completing the gyms’ set mini-games and, when you win, you earn the badge!

With Experience, you can purchase the mini-games you’ve played so you can play again and again. With the collected mini-games, tournaments can be played using these mini-games to see who the top underdog in all of them becomes! Wi-fi can really bring a lot of people together into the boards. Thanks to the mini-games, the high scores can be posted online for bragging rights and something to really go after. Even high scores (of experience and gym badges) for each map can be posted online!

The only difference between the Wii U and 3DS versions would be the mini-games and stages. Another way could be that, instead of controlling trainers in the Wii U version, one can control Pokemon and use them for each of the touch screen mini-games. StreetPass can be used to transfer high scores and records to other 3DS systems to give people high scores to aim at!


In conclusion:

The 3DS is still a baby but the Wii U is set to come out soon and, with all this, you guys are going to be dishing out some great games at both of the systems’ disposals. This sounds like a lot of games but these are some cool ideas that would be sweet! I am merely a fan but I can definitely tell you that, if you use most or all of these ideas, the fans will go crazy and these games will sell extremely well. I wish you guys a lot of luck in the future and, thank you for reading this letter.






Sincerely,
Michael Malespin
Just a fan; nothing more