Vote For Iwata's Best Game

An idea entirely provided by Cappa.

Since Mr. Iwata's passing was announced on Monday, we've all reflected on his career with Nintendo. The games in which he has been involved provide a lasting legacy for the industry. Which one, though, was the very best game that Mr. Iwata touched in some way? Let's put it to a vote.

Rules

1) You get ten votes, which you must put in rank order. Your top choice will get 10 points, your second-placed choice 9 points, and so on, until that game in tenth place gets a single point.
2) They must be games that are on the list of games on this page and that you have played. Anything else will have to be checked to see how Mr. Iwata was involved. If no evidence can be found or provided, the voter will be asked to rethink.
3) Votes must be sent by MP to ZeroJones at the usual address.
4) We're cross-posting this on SONM as well. If you are registered there, please note that you can only vote once!

Voting is open now and closes at midday on Friday 24th July. With good luck and a following wind, the first results should be up the next day.

Comments on your choices are welcome and some will be selected in the results list and published anonymously.

If there's anything we've not mentioned, please feel free to let us know!

Zero, I've done a little bit of research - that list does not contain every Iwata game, although I'm willing to reckon that it claims most of them. Iwata was executive producer for MK8 and SSBU, two fine titles not on that list.

Basically, he's done every Nintendo game from the GC era to the present day - although evidence probably required for games off that list. That's a massive amount of games, and so I would strongly advise ten votes per person instead of five.

I've not looked at the list but reckon 10 would better as he must of worked on a lot of games.

Original post updated to reflect a change to ten votes. If a more comprehensive list can be found, I'd be happy to swap to that. In the meantime, I am prepared to do some research on potential Iwata involvement if an off-list game is voted for, but if I can't find anything, the voter will have to provide it themselves or rethink their votes!

Top banana, Zero! I shall send you my choices over the weekend. That's a lot of games to choose from...

Executive Producer on 244 games. That's an incredible amount of games. This should be a really interesting vote, when I have made my decisions I will send them directly to you.

We sticky voting threads around here, we do!

Zero, I'm wondering whether this may be another good list: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,52462/  Contains some of his more recent games. (Careful, though - it lists him as executive producer for Super Mario Bros., say, but that's only the GBA "NES Classics" version...)

This is really going to turn out to be are Top 10 Nintendo games as he worked on so much,

You bring up a question I've got Balla, as not to contradict myself I've looked at my actual Top 25 games in the actual Top ? thread Jimbob made awhile back.

A few games there he has kinda worked on but not the original version like Yoshi's Island he didn't work on it for the SNES but is executive producer of the GBA version (which I've not played but gather it's on par with the SNES).

Where do we stand on things like that, the other game I'm having issues with is more a remake and I have played and enjoyed that very much but still a little iffy picking it as if I were to say which system the game is on I would say N64 not 3DS.

And SMB3 again is one that I know is a fantastic game but he worked on the NES Classic for GBA not the OG on NES, there's also two that he did work on the OG versions and the remakes.

At the moment I've got a top 18, after some claifaction I'll be able to either cut some jut from not counting or I'm going to have a hard time getting to 10.

My idea was to stick precisely to the games on that list. Iwata had nothing to do with Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 back in 1996, but he's credited on the Super Mario 64 DS on Nintendo DS in 2004. Ergo, you shouldn't vote for the N64 version (as it's not "an Iwata game"), but the DS version ("an Iwata game"...and which is a bit mince in comparison) is fine. Just what he's credited on, exactly as it is on the list - that's all that should be considered.

It'll be close to an all-time Nintendo top ten, but not quite. I'd have F-Zero X in my top three, but Satoru Iwata doesn't seem to have been involved in that. Ditto Super Mario 64.

What X over GX mad,

Yeah I wasn't going to vote for Yoshi Island SNES, Ocarina of Time N64, Super Mario Bros. 3 NES, but he is credited on GBA, 3DS, GBA versions of them and none of them a mince versions.

As I saw he worked on SM64DS which is mince.

Cap's got the approach I'm looking for: if it's on the list - or you can prove that Mr. Iwata was involved somehow! - then you can vote for it. I am not going to be able to vote for Super Mario Bros. 3 on that basis...

But he was involved in the GBA NES Classic port of it which I can prove, so are we saying it has to be the core original game then, so is Ocarina of Time out or is 3DS version different enough to count.

I think that's what makes this vote hopefully a little bit more interesting. It's restrictive, but by design - hopefully folk get a bit more creative with their votes.

As I'm away for the weekend I'll get my votes over to you early next week. Whittling it down to a top 20 was difficult enough, and a top 10 seems impossible...then I'll have to rank them in order. This'll take a bit of thought.

I would still like 100% clarification from Zero on SMB3 NES Classic, Yoshi Island: SMA3 and Ocarina of Time 3D which like Zero said I can prove he worked on all of those along with a game that isn't one of those and is a whole new thing that is is on Balla's list but not Zero's let's call it Mario Kart 8 for arguments sakes.

As to me if it's the best of Iwata it should be everything he worked on not just what a list Wiki says (which we could edit to include MK8) that something like MK8 should count but I understand why you wouldn't want SMB3 NES Classic, Yoshi Island: SMA3 and Ocarina of Time 3D to count.

I don't mean to sound offensive, but does the executive producer really have that much involvement in a project?  What I mean is, is it really right to call every game on the list an Iwata game?  I'm sure he had direct input in a good number of them, but games like Xenoblade?  

On the flip side there are plenty of games with sword wielding bishounen rpg protagonists to choose from!  

He might not have been super involved in making the games, but its pretty much down to his decisions that the games exist.

I think I'm going to gear my votes towards games which Iwata was more heavily involved in than others in which he received an executive producer credit - I love Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for example, but Iwata was far more involved with games like Earthbound, Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon Gold/Silver. He was very much responsible for keeping those games alive, and whilst he did have the final say on most of the titles on that list, his involvement wasn't anywhere near as pivotal as it was with those three titles I listed.

masofdas wrote:

I would still like 100% clarification from Zero on SMB3 NES Classic, Yoshi Island: SMA3 and Ocarina of Time 3D which like Zero said I can prove he worked on all of those along with a game that isn't one of those and is a whole new thing that is is on Balla's list but not Zero's let's call it Mario Kart 8 for arguments sakes.

As to me if it's the best of Iwata it should be everything he worked on not just what a list Wiki says (which we could edit to include MK8) that something like MK8 should count but I understand why you wouldn't want SMB3 NES Classic, Yoshi Island: SMA3 and Ocarina of Time 3D to count.

If I can find that Mr. Iwata worked on the game, it's in - remake, update, original, whatever. I can and will do the legwork on that. There should be no restriction.

Athrun888 wrote:

I don't mean to sound offensive, but does the executive producer really have that much involvement in a project?  What I mean is, is it really right to call every game on the list an Iwata game?  I'm sure he had direct input in a good number of them, but games like Xenoblade?  

What I would say is that by the time you have become the president of the company, the influence you have is difficult to measure. Certainly, some games will have felt that less than others. I'm not going to provide any further restrictions on the list, unfortunately, but if anyone wants to apply different personal criteria, that's equally fine... as long as they still count in the stated criteria in the OP.

@Zero I've looked at your list and Balla's list nothing else, so it's easy to find the prove he worked on Super Mario Bros. 3 NES Classic for instance as Executive Producer.

I'm still not 100% sure to include it though OoT3D I am more so as it had a lot of work done to it, where SMB3 kinda feels like a VC release but with Iwata's stamp on it to put it on GBA.

It's hard choice as I want to do Iwata justice but also have the 10 based games, where SMB3 is one of the best games ever but not sure how much credit goes to Iwata in the case of rubber stamping a GBA version, but then again I don't know how much involvement he had in Mario Kart 8 and that's likely so show up on at least one Top 10.

Buskalilly has the right idea. As the executive producer he'll have oversaw the creation and overall direction of the games he's credited for on that list. He'd have been the head honcho. Of course you can't know how much involvement he had in all of those games, but you can assure he that would have had a lot of influence on the way they were when they were released. On the likes of Fire Emblem Radient Dawn (which I had to look up), his involvement might have been pivotal, but then again maybe not. All things considered though, it's hard to doubt Iwata's spectacular influence on Nintendo in his designer, programmer and (executive) producer days. That's really what this thread is about.

Absolutely in agreement with your final two sentences. I think I'm still going to focus on the games which have stories about Iwata's involvement eg. Pokemon Gold/Silver's compression to include Kanto, saving Earthbound's coding at a late stage and so on, because to me, those feel more like Iwata's games. Just a personal preference though - I'll still be including other games on the list which don't have those brilliant stories of his involvement, because he likely still had a major role to play in their development.

Just so you know, this vote is now featured on SONM's front page (:

I just need to decide my votes now!

My Top 10 has been sent I've read what all you had to say, I have gone for two wild cards which I can only see me voting for maybe Drunka on one of them.

This sounds to be getting over complicated, I know it'd lessen the numbers of games we could vote for but I'd prefer if it was only games he was directly involved in as I wouldn't want a Super Mario or a Metroid to steal a top spot when he may have had very little involvement in them & it might also make the votes themselves a little more personal.

I'll probably do what Jay is doing and stick to ones he had a major part in, in fact I may cut out the executive producer ones altogether.

EDIT: Also that list in the first post has no Balloon fight in it but somehow has the e-reader version.

Agree with Balladeer that the list in the OP (which I provided to be fair) isn't really up to scratch. Maybe Balladeer's suggestion would be better.

I wouldn't say that this is a complicated thread at all though. You look at Balladeer's link, see the ten games you like the most and put them in order of preference. Piece of piss, frankly.

Fair enough if you focus on games with stories of Iwata's involvement, but outwith of Gold/Silver, Earthbound and maybe one or two others you're probably humped!