Nintendo

So, a couple of weeks ago the Balls Man put up a thread called My Nintendo, which turned out to be about Nintendo's new account thingamabob. When I saw the title, though, I assumed it was going to be a thread where we discussed what the big N means to us. Then, today, I watched Tamashii Hiroka's 20th Anniversary Pokémon video and it brought me the feels. So here is

My Nintendo.

Like most of you, I wasn't the most normal kid. I remember quite distinctly, when I was around 9 or 10, spending my breaks at school sitting in the corner of the playground and reading Frank Herbert's Dune rather than going and playing. When I was born, my mum was still at University and I barely saw my dad. So I grew up in her parents' house, with my uncle and two aunties were still in their teens. I was loved, and most defintiely spoiled, but we weren't a rich family. My early experiences with videogames were on my nan's Master System and my uncles PC, not really being very good but watching them play Sonic, Taz, Ghosts and Ghouls, Street Fighter II and X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter.

I didn't have my own games machine until I got a Game Boy for Christmas one year. It was second hand from one of my auntie's boyfriends, so it came with loads of games- none of which I was any good at. Again, I played it a little, but I think I was only allowed an hour a day or so, and I never even got close to completing any of these games.

No game properly hooked me until Pokémon fever hit the UK. I was obsessed, like most kids were back then, and I was desperate for Pokémon Blue as a Birthday present. I remember being so excited, I edited my Super Mario Land manual so the super balls were a new kind of Pokéball, and all the monsters were Pokémon. Mario's tiny sprite could pass for a Pokémon trainer in a baseball cap, and the Sarasaland was me heading to Pallet Town to see Professor Oak.

When I opened my present, with a new Game Boy Colour to play it on, my life changed. Here was the first game I ever actually played to completion, and from there my Game Boy, and later Game Boy Advance, became my main source of gaming. Pokémon Silver, Pokémon Sapphire, Marios, Zeldas, Simpsons games, Star Wars games... I was always on my Game Boy.

For home consoles, we had my dad's PS1, which was great. I lost countless hours to Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, Digimon World... but other kids had N64. At the time, it wasn't Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time that tempted me, but Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Snap... I would make arrangements to go to sleepovers specifically to stay up late trading and battling Pokémon.

Around my 12th or 13th Birthday, not long after the launch of the Gamecube, we went to Bristol Hot Air Balloon festival, and I played Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Moneky Ball. I was hooked. That birthday, I got my cube. I remember buying Official Nintendo Magazine just prior, and my Grandad saying "but you don't have a Nintendo." I didn't realise it at the time, but he probably knew about the Gamecube and thought I'd cottoned on. In reality, I had no idea and was buying the mag for the GBA coverage.

And that was when Buskalilly was born. I subscribed to NOM, then ONM, then NGamer and Nintendo Gamer. I was an obsessive fanboy. Mario and Zelda became my life, then Metroid and Star Fox and all the rest. I met lots of my best friends; you guys, people at school who recognised me after I went to ONM and appeared in Chain Chomp's Challenges. Mario Kart and Professor Layton have been touchstones of most of the romantic relationships I've ever been part of. Right now, my best friends in the world apart from y'all and Muss, are a group of girls and guys from work who all became friends just because we own Wii Us. We meet almsot every week for a gaming night, we have facebook chats, text conversations, we sit together at work.

For me, Nintendo is a huge part of my identity. In the next month or two, I will be getting a Zelda tattoo on my back. Since the heights of my Playstation-hating, Xbox-bashing fanboy days, I've learned to love all videogames but Nintendo will still be the company I get the most excited for, the consoles I'll always buy at launch. Nintendo, to quote Rab Florence on Satoru Iwata, represent the most adult thing of all: childlike play. I like being silly, bright colours, sitting on a sofa with my friends, saving the world, rescuing the princess, having a good time. Nintendo represents all the values I want to find in myself.

More than just nostalgia for my past, Nintendo represents my dreams for the future, and what I love about my present.

I can't, and anyway wouldn't if I could, be as poetic about my Nintendo feelings.  But I'll try and type something vaguely coherent.  I'll break it down into Nintendo games and Nintendo consoles.  Might put in a last bit about the company as an entity.  They're all very different things in my eyes.


Nintendo consoles = gaming for me.  Sure I play the odd Steam game now, but they're time-wasters while I wait for the next big Nintendo-console game.

What I will always hold dear is Nintendo's attempt to be different.  Whether it's Wiimote waggling, the Gamepad, two screens, glasses-free 3D, or just the Gamecube being unafraid to look like a child's toy and be purely a games machine (while the other industry pillars shoved in DVD players).  While Sony and MS forged ahead making BIGGER BETTER MORE consoles, Ninty has tried to do other things with their consoles, and I respect them for that.

This comes with caveats.  The Wii U has been a sharp lesson of the dangers in trying too hard to be different, especially when you don't have the games to back up the idea - games should always come first, and the GC is my favourite console because of it.  And I'm getting to the point where the thing I most love in a game (having a mahoosive world to hoof it across) needs power to run.

But while I won't be sorely disappointed if the NX did go for POWAH, and at this point would almost welcome it, I do hope it does something interesting on top of that.  I know I'll buy it, and I want to be amazed at what it's had the gumption to do.


Part 1 of 3, other parts coming later.

For me Nintendo will always be a safe haven from the rest of the industry, a haven where no matter what dung infested toilet the rest of the industry takes a snorkel in Nintendo'll have my back.

They've been a presence in my life since the age of... six I think, when the Pokemon anime landed and like most children I was swept away to the land of Kanto every morning. Then at ten I got Ocarina of Time, followed a few years later in early high school where I discovered the joys of capturing cute little critters and forcing them to beat the tar out of one another in an effort to be the best there ever was when I got my first gameboy pocket. The rest was history, with Zelda being a present force in my life until a few years back and Pokemon being a permanent presence.

The thing with Nintendo is they're basically the console maker that makes their consoles to release games on, while the other two make games because they have consoles. And the difference shows, Nintendo have some of the most soulful, charming, and enduring characters ever created.

Nintendo is love, Nintendo is life, Nintendo shall be everlasting!

Beautiful, Athrun. Unfortunately I don't feel Ninty is quite immune to industry bullshit, as I'll touch on slightly in this, post 2 of 3.  Onto the games!  In which I include all Nintendo franchise games, by the way, not just those developed centrally.

Nintendo's own games work better than any other games for a variety of reasons.  These include balance, mood, past performance, and it being their own console (as Athers mentioned).  There are others - excellently judged difficulty curves spring to mind. Incidentally, I'm typing this while listening to Buoy Base - I feel that's the right sort of ambience for this post.


Most of Nintendo's own games have a gameplay-story balance that leans strongly towards gameplay.  This is how I like it.  If I want a story-heavy game, I'll play a Phoenix Wright game, or read a book.  While Ninty do have story-focussed games (e.g. Paper Mario & the Thousand-Year Door), these are rare, and all the more special for that.  

A focus on gameplay means that the gameplay's focussed on (funny that), resulting in some of the best controls, level design, and basic mechanics in gaming.  No series exemplifies this more than Zelda, which I'll focus on later.


Another key point is mood.  I'm not fundamentally a happy chappy, and the world's a miserable place.  I like cheerful cartoon worlds with a bit of peril in them.  Nintendo, more often than not, gives me exactly this; and again, when it doesn't (e.g. the Metroid games), the game's more special for it.  (Not LoZTP: that succeeded despite its mood, not because of it.)


Past performance is hopefully an obvious point, but it's the reason why nothing in gaming gets me, or many others, as HYPED as a new Zelda.  Games like OoT, WW, TP, and ALBW have cemented the series' place as one of the all-time greats.  

Meanwhile several other Nintendo games hold places at the top of their respective genres, in my eyes.  Metroid Prime, XC, TTYD, SM64, MK8, SSBU - each of these was, in my opinion, the best in its genre on release.  Apart from SM64, they all still are.


And finally, Nintendo know how to use their own consoles.  As a result, their games are big and beautiful, despite their consoles being comparatively underpowered.  And games like ALBW and Wii Sports Resort show just how well Nintendo can use the machines' other features.  They frequently put other developers on more powerful consoles to shame.

The Wii U, again, is a caveat here.  Nintendo just haven't seemed like they've known what to do with the Gamepad.  Here's hoping the NX goes back to the trends set by previous machines.


I know that some slight Nintendo for lack of innovation.  I'm not one such, obviously.  In fact, while I love the Nintendo who innovates, I probably love the Nintendo who perfects existing recipes more (with exceptions - the NSMB games can push off).  There's enough innovation in the machines; new ideas take time and iterations to perfect; and some of Nintendo's new directions give me cause for concern.

There are the obvious cases, like the diminishing returns of Paper Mario, or the increased linearity of 3D Mario.  But there are also things like poking their toes into the microtransaction space, with Pokémon Picross, Pokémon Shuffle, NBC...  Things we can only expect to see more of as Ninty investigates the mobile space.  

This is the industry bullshit I mentioned at the top, and I'm very worried by this.  And although some may say that The Pokémon Company is the driving force behind many of these, I'm positive that TPC wouldn't use such pricing methods if the Big N strenuously objected.  More in post three, I think.

One final thing we're seeing less of, or so it feels, from Nintendo is big memorable one-player games.  I like these.  More XCX less SM3DW please Nintendo.


So I'm slightly worried about the future of Ninty's games, but also optimistic, and by Shigsy I've got some wonderful memories from them.  Part of that's because I'm a one-platform Ollie, and it's true that I'd probably enjoy yer Skyrims and yer Fallouts and yer Witchers if I could play them.  But would they sparkle with the same charm and... yes, that unquantifiable beast known as "magic"?  I have my doubts.

Well this is all very interesting and I'm going to take you back to the start for me.


It's 1993 (23 years ago that kinda makes me feel old), not sure on the month or why but I get a SEGA Mega Drive, this was my first console from my Uncle. I can't remember everything as there's picture of me with a MK1 where I can only ever remember a MKII which I got when my uncle got his PS1, is my best guess. I had played or messed around with Amiga's and stuff around the time.

I played all sorts on the Mega Drive but most notable was Sonic the Hedgehog, this was the early to mid 90's when he was actually cool. Because he was cool, so was my SEGA where the other main system of the 16 Bit era has slow old boring Mario who was just a plumber.

One Christmas I did get a GameBoy as that was the handheld to have and I played that all the time, I sort of has the best of both worlds SEGA home console and Nintendo portable.  

But won't go into more detail on handhelds as never been a big fan.

Like I said my uncle got a PS1, and as a SEGA kid I wanted a Saturn but I was told by my uncle that it was doomed (he was right) and to get a PS1 as that was the next big thing.

It must of been late 1996 or early 1997 as one evening my uncle showed up out the blue with what would be my PS1 and that was it just as PS1, we went to the local video shop and I bought a extra controller and rented Tomb Raider.

This became one of my favorite consoles ever and introduced me to most of my favorite series such as Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken.

My Nan won a N64 in a Andrex competition and was given to me for Christmas along with my normal gifts one Christmas, this was my first Nintendo home console. Now your all thinking this is what made me love Nintendo, well you be wrong. I got Shadows of Empire from my uncle that Christmas and on boxing day or back then it may of been the day after that, went to the video shop again and rented Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time which had just come out.

I didn't like any of the games, they were to hard and the controller was weird that I went back to my PS1 and the N64 got sold at a boot sale or something.

The next generation was approaching and SEGA was coming out first with the Dreamcast (Bingo card anyone) but as the Saturn was a flop and I was all in with the PS1 with a massive library of games, there was only one option the PS2.

Now by the time the PS2 was coming out, I would save pocket money instead of buying a random toy and ask for money instead of a present at Christmas as now I had to buy a console or game myself.

I started saving for the PS2 but it was dam expensive for me, then I saw in the local paper a brand new SEGA Dreamcast which a bunch of games for £100 and I had this amount with some left over to get more games. I got my granddad to ring up and we went to view the Dreamcast in Exeter, I think I got it for £80. It was a unwanted a gift as they wanted a PS2 but I was over the moon, I got this new console really cheap with money to spare.

You may of guessed that I quite like the Dreamcast, it was utterly fantastic but then it was no more. I had to get another console, this was sort of weird for me as up in till then I sort of only had one console per generation and both lasting a long time with lots of games to play.

The natural thing to get was a PS2 which I wanted anyway, and I got one for Christmas 2001 (I think) and at the time my uncle had a shop that I got loads of games along side it for Christmas. But something was missing, it never clicked with me and I sort of blamed the PS2 for killing of the Dreamcast, which isn't true but was back then to me.

I had find another system and there was only one option to side with the old enemy and get


So May 3, 2002 I bought my first console on launch for £264.99 which got me the console, memory card, extra controller, gba link cable, luigi's mansion, bloody roar, star wars rogue squadron and sonic adventure 2.

The first thing that struck me was that I was playing a Sonic game on a Nintendo console, which was a huge deal for me and I later got super monkey ball from SEGA and these made a big impact in me getting a GameCube.

But dam those games looked excellent and the gameplay on Luigi Mansion was great, I was at a age where gameplay mattered to me, over the Cube's life I played Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, Resident Evil 4, Mario Kart Double Dash, Melee all these were top notch. That the GameCube remains my second favorite console ever.

I did also get a Xbox that year for Christmas but sticking on Nintendo, as my uncle had his shop and people sold games to him and I could work on a weekend in there, I had the pick of the crop that I got a NES, SNES, N64 and a Virtual Boy. I went back to/ play the great games I missed from Nintendo's past and I finished SM64, played Goldeneye with mates, marveled at the graphics of DKC on the SNES coming from someone that played the Mega Drive.

Since then I've bought ever Nintendo system at launch including upgrades like the New 3DS, bought stuff like amiibo of my favorite characters.

To me Nintendo is the Disney of gaming, you can go back to a classic game and it will still be good. I get excited for the new thing, I'll preorder a collector's edition months in advance of the next game in a series as it comes with some random tat but it's cool as it's Wolf Link.

There just plan fun, will I get a NX day one well I say unlikely due to the lackluster 3DS & Wii U launch but it's Nintendo.

I feel like we actually took a very similar route to Nintendo, Mas. The only difference is that when we both arrived at Gamecube, I stuck to that one console for a couple of generations and in that time went back and played a lot of the older Nintendo stuff, developing a deep love for it all. You outgrew your worst excesses of fanboyism a little earlier than I did.

Balla said more or less what I expected him to -- in a more analytical tone than myself, 'natch -- and while I'm more optimistic than him overall, and still disagree with the same sentiments I've chatted about before, can definitely see quotes in there I have a lot of time for.

Balladeer wrote:

What I will always hold dear is Nintendo's attempt to be different.
the best controls, level design, and basic mechanics in gaming
And finally, Nintendo know how to use their own consoles
The Wii U, again, is a caveat here.  Nintendo just haven't seemed like they've known what to do with the Gamepad.

Nintendo games are endlessly inventive in a way that doesn't always translate well to an advert or a review. The surprises come thick and fast in gameplay quirks, control inspirations and clever twists on old formulas. The familiarity of Zelda's central legend lets them push off in gameplay innovations, safe in the knowledge we're all along for the ride. Every Mario game looks the same at first glance, but in reality no two adjacent levels could be more different.

You've hit the nail on the head with Wii U as well. This is the first Nintendo machine that feels like it was built because they needed a machine, then games were added around it. Nintendoland didn't have the immediacy of Wii Sports, and no game has felt like such a perfect wedding of hardware and software as Mario 64, Wind Waker or Skyward Sword.
Or, as it was already eloquently put:

Athrun888 wrote:

The thing with Nintendo is they're basically the console maker that makes their consoles to release games on, while the other two make games because they have consoles. And the difference shows, Nintendo have some of the most soulful, charming, and enduring characters ever created.

I got a lot of enjoyment from my PS3, and I do now from my Xbox One. The thing is, I enjoy each game on its own merit. The software can be excellent, and there is an awful lot of magic to be felt elsewhere in the gaming space, but any game I've played would have been no more or less fun on a Playstation, an Xbox or a PC. Nintendo games feel intrinsically linked to their consoles and this philosophy of play coming first, of being an entertainment company foremost, is so entrenched that a Nintendo console is a joy to take home and switch on even before you buy a game. When I got my Xbox, I was excited to fire up Halo. When I got my Wii U, I was excited to fire up my Wii U.

Athrun888 wrote:

no matter what dung infested toilet the rest of the industry takes a snorkel in

Balladeer wrote:

Unfortunately I don't feel Ninty is quite immune to industry bullshit

Thanks for maintaining the spirit of positivity and reminiscence I created this thread for, guys

Yeah 2002 was the year I stopped being a fanboy as I had all four 6th generation systems and due to my age and benefits of the shop and later market stall. I could go back and get all these retro games and see what everyone else was playing that I once turned my noise up to and since then I've just liked games and all do different things but Nintendos remain the best to play from pure fun.

Wouldn't recommend going back to the CD-i though.

Sorry for being exactly as you expected me to be, Drunka.

You wouldn't be Balla otherwise

My Nintendo.

A potted history of my gaming experience which is nonetheless still really long:

So why do I love Nintendo? Imagine the gaming scene is a big garden. In one corner, two similar boys are playing with toy guns or kicking a ball around, flitting between those two over and over. In another part of the garden there's a different boy, running and jumping around, stopping to look at some ants or play with the cat or use his imagination on some fantastical adventure. The other boys won't play with him - there is fault on both sides there - but he doesn't care. Nintendo potter around the garden of gaming, doing their own thing, taking their own risks, making - 'crafting' might be a better word - their own games their own way. There's a palpable love for the player in the best Nintendo games, a real taking by the hand and leading to some wonderful, joyful thing that they have created just for you.

They have soul.

For me, Nintendo, at their best, are peerless. I've been playing Nintendo games since 1993, and I've always had a Nintendo home console as my 'main' one for almost twenty years. I've considered myself to be a Nintendo Gamer since I first saw the mighty Super Mario 64 being displayed in Beatties across the road from the St. Enoch's Centre in February 1997. What a beautiful thing that was to behold. It was absolutely amazing. I couldn't believe that somebody had made a game that looked better than Sonic 3D: Flickie's Island on the Mega Drive. I just couldn't get my head round it. Or the controls either; I died quite quickly and got a game over. A guy in the queue got a bit angry with me, but i was nine, and he can bite my banger.

The N64 was, of course, the best console ever made, with roughly five thousand triple-A classics. The GameCube was a worthy successor that's aged wonderfully, but a lean spell in 2004-2006 - coupled with the fact that I was a teenager who was more interested in drinking those big three-litre bottles of Strongbow down King Sandy on a Friday night - meant that I really lost interest. I even stopped buying NGC!

Thank fuck for the Wii, though. Playing Wii Sports at a New Year's party in 2006 marked my triumphant return to Nintendo, and I never really stopped after that. I've got about a hundred and fifty Wii games now, and many of my favourite gaming memories are from playing many of those. Especially Cooking Mama, which doesn't work and is hilarious because of it. That's the Wii's true killer app. Superb.

They did the Wii U as well, which was okay.

I got all of the handhelds as well, and, weirdly, I thought they were all a bit rubbish at first, but they all ended up being brilliant in their own ways. I was never more excited for Nintendo hardware was I was for the 3DS in 2011, and, overall, it's been an excellent five years for the handheld. For me, it's probably Nintendo's best ever, and it's definitely the one that I've spent the most time playing.

I can look back on the last twnety years and think of masterclass after masterclass of design, skill, depth and accessibility. Ocarina of Time. Lylat Wars. F-Zero X. Sunshine. Melee. WarioWare. Pikmin 2. Jungle Beat. Nintendogs. Wii Sports. Galaxy and Galaxy 2. New Leaf. Mario Kart 8. Splatoon. Unreal.

I don't know if the two other boys are that similar as the one does take risks with weird stuff.

I was thinking the other day if Nintendo is Disney of gaming which to me they are, what's the other two.

Microsoft from a games studio point of view and what the majority of the audience on Xbox plays/buys, I could think of who I would compare them to in the movie world and that's Michael Bay.

Sony are a little harder to think who I would compare them to as they went after the dudebro crowd and one of there biggest games is all about cinematic set-pieces but then they'll come out with something like Ratchet & Clank which is near enough Nintendo quality like how a good dreamworks film is almost as good as a pixar movie and push some weird indie game that becomes a hit and do sequel to a cult classic. So someone that does big blockbusters, family fun films and indie darlings but not sure who that is.

ZeroJones wrote:

'NGamer' (genuinely nearly typed 'GNamer' there! )

I did that in my post, too!

Quote :

They have soul.

That's what it comes down to, really.

My Ninty journey started with a literal journey - a train to York when I was about 6 years old. My parents thought quite rightly that a four year old might be a bit restless on a long train ride, so before we got in the train they stopped into a local games store and bought me a Game Boy Colo(u)r along with Super Mario Land 2 and a pretty naff Star Wars game. Whilst I was initially drawn into the Star Wars game, it was SML2 that grabbed me and ended up being the first game I ever finished. Before then, my gaming experiences had been on a PS1 given to my Dad, and it revolved around me failing to beat Spyro and Crash Bandicoot. Along comes SML2 - a game I was good at, and a game that was brimming with great music and classic Mario platform action. I fell in love.

It was Pokémon Red that hooked me as a Nintendo gamer. I'd been loving the anime and a couple of months after getting my GBC, I was given a copy of Pokémon Red for my birthday. It was everything I'd wanted and more - all the 'Mon I'd seen in the anime, and I could use them. I'd battle my schoolmates at lunchtime and train my team in the evening. When Silver launched a couple of years later, it blew my mind. Seeing Pokémon Stadium and Snap on a friend's N64 made me want to cast aside my PS1 and steal his N64 instead. I had to have a Ninty home console.

But I got a PS2 first. Don't get me wrong, I loved the PS2 as well, but it was the Gamecube I really wanted. And I was fortunate enough to get one not too long after my PS2. Melee, Double Dash!!, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Sunshine... this was the console that introduced me to the wider world of Nintendo outside of Pokémon. Later, I'd pick up a DS Lite - still one of my favourite consoles to date. My love for Nintendo was at a fever pitch around the launch of the Wii - my parents coyly told me that they'd sold out and that it was unlikely I'd get one for Christmas, and I don't think I've ever felt so gutted in my life. Imagine my shock when I opened one up on Christmas Day... and what a Christmas Day it was! Blasting through the opening hours of Twilight Princess, making a plethora of Miis and getting my non-gaming family into Nintendo through Wii Sports. The years rolled on and I continued to love the Wii - Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros. Brawl... not to mention my introduction to many classic Nintendo games through the Virtual Console.

Something changed towards the later years of the Wii's lifespan - I don't know if it was because my friends moved onto the 360 and PS3 or if it was just due to the slower output of killer apps towards the end of the Wii's life, but I moved away from Nintendo for a little while and played a lot on 360, PC and PS3. But I was drawn back in with the 3DS a couple of years ago, and I'm so glad I did. I missed that spark of magic that Nintendo games have which is absent more often than not from Nontendo releases. I've put literally 350 hours into Super Smash Bros. for 3DS. I can't tell you the last time I've spent that long on a game. There's not a single game in my PS4 library that I'd happily spend that long playing. I think that speaks volumes about how important Nintendo is to me, and it's why I'm highly highly likely to buy the NX on launch. I've not had a console on launch for years... I think the Wii was the last, actually. And it would have to be a Nintendo console to get me to buy on launch again.

I've still never finished SML2. And it'd be great if some people other than me did buy the NX at launch, although let's see how that opening line-up goes...

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

The GameCube was a worthy successor that's aged wonderfully, but a lean spell in 2004-2006 - coupled with the fact that I was a teenager who was more interested in drinking those big three-litre bottles of Strongbow down King Sandy on a Friday night - meant that I really lost interest.

Why not both?

I'll be buying an NX at launch even if it comes with an out-of-date FIFA, the same Zelda as Wii U and 2 Funky 2 Barn.

Can't get an NX, even if it launches with Super Mario Galaxy 3, the Batman trilogy and Pokémon Rainbow... saving for a wedding.

I say I won't get one but even with Drunkas line up, I'll likely will but it is Zelda that will make me take the plunge even if the same as Wii U version.

I can't imagine loving a person more than Super Mario Galaxy 3. I'm happy for you, man.

ZeroJones wrote:

Can't get an NX, even if it launches with Super Mario Galaxy 3, the Batman trilogy and Pokémon Rainbow... saving for a wedding.

The NX is your wedding which is why it's important to save for and a well kept secret.