New Review Posted: Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

[Daniel Weissenberger]

Andrew Fletcher uses his access to European release dates to review Minish Cap before us North Americans get a chance to play it:

"I have a confession to make: I don't think I "get" Zelda anymore. Having played most of the titles in the series through to completion, I feel a little immune to seeing the their immense charms recycled yet again for a new generation of gamers, as they are in The Minish Cap. On the one hand, this makes perfect logical sense, of course—familiarity breeding contempt and so forth. Still, I can't help but wonder why one of the finest series of games ever created has left me, one of its biggest fans, behind? Should The Legend of Zelda have changed more over time, and more extensively progressed its 17-year-old template rather than "merely" refined it? Every other adventure game must go that extra mile to compete with and distinguish itself from the latest Zelda instalment, so why should the Zelda series itself be any different?"

The rest of the review is here, so you can read it.

[jwe8k]

The game seemed to really show a lot of promise for me in the beginning with less emphasis on mindless wandering and cool new, interesting items and puzzles but it quickly devolved into just another GB Zelda. The first dungeon was the most different and interesting but the rest were so... done before.

I felt like a bit too much of it was an homage. Oh well.

[Tim Spaeth]

I've never even heard of this game. I thought I was really, really out of it until I read the first line in this thread. A Zelda game released in Europe before the US? This is a rare event, is it not?

[Chi Kong Lui]

Originally Posted by Moron Lite

Playing it Safe

This article is pretty much a fanboy-ish rant. While some of the points may be valid, the writer backs it up with very little facts or numbers. There also seems to be several glaring misperceptions like the N64 was neck and neck with the PlayStation. The writer is also very selective in what titles are cited to make his point.

Chi

[crisdecuba]

I agree with your eval of the article, but the main point (that Nintendo needs to stop just plugging its characters into new situations) is a valid one. When I heard 'Mario Baseball,' I first thought, 'What the hell?? Stop it already!' and 'Oh well, it'll probably be more fun than any other baseball game I'd buy.' I don't know that everyone else would go beyond thought number 1.

*sigh* But by the same token, as long as these titles continue to sell, why would Nintendo stop making them? Mario Party 6 just took off during the Christmas season in Japan (just as Mario Party 5 did before it).

Perhaps Mario Kart for the SNES was also a big experiment to see how well Mario-themed games of different genres would sell -- maybe we (the consumer) only have ourselves to blame in that we bought it and continue to buy the titles in general.

~Cris

[David Stone]

Originally Posted by GC_Chi

There also seems to be several glaring misperceptions like the N64 was neck and neck with the PlayStation.

Actually, the article states: "...not even the colossal success of games like Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were enough to keep the Nintendo 64 on equal footing with the PlayStation."

Sorry, Chi! Gotta call you on that one.

[Chi Kong Lui]

Originally Posted by bassbeast

Actually, the article states: "...not even the colossal success of games like Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were enough to keep the Nintendo 64 on equal footing with the PlayStation."

Sorry, Chi! Gotta call you on that one.

Ha ha. You got me there. I must have misread that one. There's still other points that are purely editorial like his assessment of Double Dash as being uninspired. I was very impressed with DD after playing. Nothing wrong with editorials, but that doesn't seem befitting for a 4 page "analysis" of Nintendo's state.

Chi

[Andrew Fletcher]

The N-Sider feature made some fair (if slightly tired and drawn-out) points, but at times it did kind of sound as if Mr. Van Camp was merely suggesting how Nintendo could stretch out the retail success of existing game ideas by simply adding a new lick of paint to the front end and a new mascot or two. It'd be nice, perhaps; but was Dinosaur Planet really going to be that much better than Starfox Adventures? And would it have been strong enough to mark the start of a new blockbuster franchise? If it's sales figures this guy is worried about, then I don't think Beyond Good & Evil and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time are exactly shining examples of great publishing successes.

On the upside, Nintendo’s backlog of design clichés isn't all bad if it gives great games like Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi and WarioWare Inc. the chance to poke fun at them and subvert them into something fresh for us jaded oldies.

But I'm aware that is a very slim silver lining.

[Chi Kong Lui]

What about the Dreamcast? There was a system that tried to be bold and daring with titles like Phantasy Star Online, Seaman, Shenmue and Space Channel 5. Look at where it got them.

That's not to say that companies shouldn't be more bold and daring, but to imply that Nintendo would be far better off by moving away from its core franchasies is questionable and poorly supported in the article.

Chi

[David Stone]

Back OT:

I finally had a chance to read the review, and thanks o Andrew, I finally feel justified in preferring Majora to Ocarina. Great review!

And on a side note, Gamecritics is finally ahead of the release curve with this one!

[Chi Kong Lui]

Originally Posted by Moron Lite

That's not really fair, Chi. Blaming the Dreamcast's failure on the fact that they tried to be bold and daring is oversimplifying to the extreme.

I wasn't blaming Dreamcast's demise solely on those titles (I needed to elaborate more), but they certainingly didn't save the system as was intended. I thought it was widely agreed upon by most experts that Dreamcast was never able to reach mainsteam popularity and that was the ultimate death blow up against the PS2 juggernaut. I'm sure its not that simple, so I would like to hear other theories if there are any.

Originally Posted by Moron Lite

I personally don't think Nintendo should move away from its core franchises, but I am getting annoyed at the extent to which they're more or less repeating themselves with minor innovations. Far from ditching their core franchises, they have to let them stray from established, familiar ground.

I'm not sure what my expectations of Nintendo are. Like I said before, they always talk a good fight, but have very little to show for it. What's gets me going are these rants against Nintendo usually are ignorant of the business side of things. I have disappointment in Nintendo as much as the next guy, but I'd rather see a financially heathly Nintendo than a bankrupt Square or a defunct Dreamcast.

Chi

[David Stone]

Originally Posted by GC_Chi

I wasn't blaming Dreamcast's demise solely on those titles (I needed to elaborate more), but they certainingly didn't save the system as was intended. I thought it was widely agreed upon by most experts that Dreamcast was never able to reach mainsteam popularity and that was the ultimate death blow up against the PS2 juggernaut. I'm sure its not that simple, so I would like to hear other theories if there are any.

I think the answer is embedded in the quote above.

The PS2.

Let's face it: who was going to buy Sega's product, when Sega was known to abandon the previous three pieces of hardware it had brought out (Sega CD, 32X, Saturn), when Sony - who was still thriving, thank you - was bringing out something that, on paper, was light-years ahead of the DC? Not a hell of a lot. I think the answer to your question is much simpler than the conundrum facing Nintendo. I have no theories about that right now, but I'm tired, hungry and grumpy.

[Andrew Fletcher]

Originally posted by Moron Lite:
There were similar withholdings by other companies across the board.

Yeah, that all brings back some memories. I seem to recall Half-Life being the reason for console gamers to own a Dreamcast at one point. Then it got canned (even though reviews had already been published for it, Juiced-style), only to resurface on PS2 a year later, when no one battered an eyelid.

Funny how these things can seem like such a big deal at the time.

[Dale Weir]

Originally Posted by Moron Lite

Anyway, that's all I can remember for now.

You posted all that from memory?

The funny thing is that almost everything that you wrote that contributed to the Dreamcast's demise can also be attributed to the GameCube leading to its third place status.

Dale

[Boy]

Yeah, especially the part about various instituions of gaming journalism writing biased fanboy rants against the system in question.