Nintendo's Renaissance period

Lately I've been obsessed with a certain era of Nintendo first and second party games. I wondered for a moment whether I was simply pining for my own childhood and better times; however, considering that most of the games of this period that have brought me to feel this way as of late are ones that I had never played or even heard of back then, I'd say that it's more what I claim than what one may suspect. So, I figured I'd catalogue my thoughts on exactly what makes this era that I've danced around naming so great--I am speaking of early to mid-2000s Nintendo: the GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and early Nintendo DS.

That may come as a surprise to some of you. Indeed, many seem to think of this period as, though high quality, rather nondescript as far as Nintendo's generations. It's true, their other gens do have lots of overt personality: the NES was where it all started and many classic franchises were born, and the SNES hosted tons of magnificent RPGs and third party games along with numerous landmark first party classics like Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid. Then came the N64, which also had games like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, and which seems to hold nostalgia for an incredible sum of modern gamers; it was many folks' first system, and it has its distinctly charming early 3D polygons. The Wii, then, was the start of Nintendo's exploration of different controller styles and casualization to appeal to non-gamers; for better or for worse, this certainly did have a distinct character. But what could be said of the GameCube? Sure, it was a game console, and, uh, yeah, I guess it was by Nintendo too. It had solid specs for its time, and a couple of cool games like Melee, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and, uh, I guess Mario Sunshine. But who really cares about it when the PS2 was right next door? The GameCube was just another console, and one that was totally dwarfed by its competition, right?

Well, let me explain. The NES was Nintendo's attempt to save video games altogether. It was ultimately successful, but it was a gamble, and it took a lot of effort; banking on the success of a few of their arcade games, they wound up throwing everything at the wall and hoping that some of it would stick. Some of it, like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem certainly did; others, like Clu Clu Land, Ice Climber, Kid Icarus, and Devil World didn't quite manage. However, what did stick did the trick, and the console succeeded.

Going into the next gen, they seemed to understand exactly what worked, and pursued that--thus followed SMW, ALttP, and Super Metroid. Though spinoffs like Yoshi's Island came about, Mother saw a Western release, and one or two new franchises like Panel de Pon emerged (in Japan), it doesn't seem that Nintendo was quite as eager to experiment. And did they need to? Perhaps not; their third party support from the previous generation of consoles in which they essentially had the market cornered continued. Now, they did finally have some serious competition in the form of the Sega Genesis, but they were still doing quite well for themselves; they did have to compete in advertising in order to keep sales and third parties, but in development, they just had to continue stamping out classics at a comfortable pace.

Enter Sony and the Playstation. Sega was no longer on the radar due to the Saturn flopping hard outside of Japan, but Sony was quite a force to be reckoned with. In addition to a recognizable name, they were willing to give third parties what they wanted, while Nintendo stubbornly stuck to cartridges (better quality graphics and usually no need for memory cards, but harder and more expensive to develop). Not only were discs cheaper and easier for other companies, but they had much more memory, which allowed for system sellers like the 50+ hour Final Fantasy VII as well as Metal Gear Solid with its fully-voiced cutscenes and orchestrated soundtrack. Nintendo was up against a lot, and was outsold; however, they still sold a comfortable amount of units with their brand power, and had a stranglehold on the handheld market. Who needs those third parties anyway when you can keep churning out great entries in immensely popular franchises at the same pace? It doesn't pay much worse, that's for sure.

However, Sony's eventual success in the next generation forced Nintendo into a change of procedure. Riding on the original Playstation's success, the Playstation 2 introduced DVD technology, which brought it to become the biggest selling console of all time. Third parties, most of whom had already all but jumped ship during the previous generation, were now lining right up to get their games on this wildly popular system. The GameCube, on the other hand, did finally begin to use discs, but screwed itself by using unconventional mini discs instead of DVDs, which were again not only awkward to develop, but made Nintendo essentially drop out on one huge selling point that the PS2 had. Nintendo still had a decent deal of brand power (as well as the newfound ace up their sleeve that was Pokemon), but if they wanted to stay relevant in the console market, then they had to find a new way to go up against this titan.

And so they did. If they wanted to compete with the tremendous influx of PS2 exclusives from Konami, Capcom, Square, Rockstar, and many other studios, Nintendo had to have tons of games themselves, and thus they went into maximum overdrive with what they had. They started developing new first party IPs (Pikmin, Chibi-Robo), publishing tons of new second party franchises (Golden Sun, Eternal Darkness), localizing franchises that never made it out of Japan (Fire Emblem, Custom Robo), and pushing out spinoffs both internal (WarioWare, Luigi's Mansion) and from external second parties (Mario & Luigi, Metroid Prime (yeah, I know Retro is owned by Nintendo, but it's basically an external studio in everything but name)). This phenomenon started up during the early days of the GC and GBA, but really picked up steam a little ways in when the situation really seemed to dawn on them, and it continued into the early days of the DS with games like Elite Beat Agents, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, and Magical Starsign. Their competition had been waging a war on them of attempting to brand them as a kiddie platform since the SNES days; so, while Nintendo kept creating kid-friendly games in order to maintain their own family-friendly image (which is a profitable one), they fought back with more mature second party (and "second party") titles such as Eternal Darkness, Geist, and the Metroid Prime series.

In addition, Nintendo seemed very willing to experiment and take risks even with familiar franchises. The new 3D Mario was based almost entirely on a new bizarre piece of equipment (a water tank with various nozzles) and its applications...and it was great! Zelda was now a cartoony, cel-shaded game eschewing the traditional landscapes and tried-and-true Hyrule layout for a vast ocean, with the player sailing between islands...and it was great! Metroid was now not only 3D, but a first-person shooter...and it was great! Nintendo was not only being adventurous, but was giving 110% and actually doing new things that were GOOD. That also applies to their manic frenzy of new IPs and spinoffs; they weren't just throwing out tons of crap to have a roster that could equal the competition in size, they were producing and publishing insanely high-quality games at an unprecedented rate. The reason why people seem to see this era as rather nondescript is that, unfortunately, though some managed to catch on, many if not most of these IPs fell by the wayside and went unnoticed. Sure, you know Melee, Sunshine, Prime, and Wind Waker, as well as a couple of GBA series like Mario & Luigi, and you played the GBA and DS Pokemon games. A couple of you even remember Golden Sun or bought the old Fire Emblems. But can I see a show of hands as to who remembers Drill Dozer? How many of you bought that one, or Chibi-Robo, or Magical Starsign, or Custom Robo, or Rhythm Heaven, or Advance Wars, or Hotel Dusk? I certainly didn't.

In other words, though Nintendo did manage to make and publish an unbelievable amount of unbelievably high quality games, their Renaissance period did not succeed in terms of actually managing to equal their competition. Thus, they tried something new and out of the box, which was the Wii. Like each generation before it, their attitude here has its own distinct characteristics, which were shared by the games. This, of course, was an extremely casualized and streamlined one, which brought in tons upon tons of non-gamers (at least for a few weeks), but alienated the core fanbase. There was still a good amount of quality games being made, but even many of those bore the mark of Nintendo's Apple-ization in certain ways. The spirit hadn't wholly left just yet, though, and there was a bit of it to be found extending its dying reach into this period. The DS, having been released prior to the Wii, still carried on the old spirit to some degree or another, even if it sold as wildly as the Wii due to its gimmick, which also brought tons of useless junk preying on the new base of casual "gamers" for a quick buck. The Wii had a couple of cool GameCube-like games as well; though it's apparently cool to hate it now, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a bona fide GameCube-style game (which may be owed slightly to the fact that it was meant to be released for GC a year earlier, but happened to be postponed to be a Wii system seller). Then, though it's another dirty word, I would say that the last true gasp of Nintendo's Renaissance period was Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Now, it's true: Brawl did have many of the marks of Wii-era populism and casualization, most evident in the infamous changes to gameplay; for those who don't know, many advanced mechanics were taken out, the physics were made to be slower and floatier, which prevented much by way of high-level play, ultimately lowering the skill ceiling and raising the floor, which resulte in a more accessible but less interesting and satisfying experience (Though as an aside, many people seem to blame director Sakurai for simply casualizing the game for a bigger audience despite Melee being plenty popular among casuals, but the truth apparently is that Nintendo president Iwata wanted to make the game more playable for first timers who didn't have GameCubes and thus didn't have GC controllers; as a competitive Smash enthusiast, it pains me to say this, but he had a point; after all, can you imagine trying to play Melee with a Wiimote? Consider that Brawl sold five million (5,000,000) more units than Melee, and the latter was the top-selling GameCube game. There really was no other way. But I digress). Even the main theme (cool as it was) and the menus seem to exude the kind of sterilization and inoffensiveness of late 2000s Nintendo, as opposed to the more adventuresome nature and the attitude of Melee's aesthetic, which reflects Nintendo's around that time.

HOWEVER, Brawl nevertheless had a lot going for it from the perspective of a GC-era Nintendo enthusiast. For one thing, the addition of the Assist Trophy item allowed even characters that couldn't make the cut as playable characters to see the fight in at least some capacity; believe me, much as I maintain that it's a travesty that Isaac from Golden Sun didn't make it as a fighter, it was heartwarming to see him manage to get in alongside the elect at least for a minute, as well as other obscure curiosities from around that period such as Jill from Drill Dozer and the Helirin from Kuru Kuru Kururin. Now, Melee had introduced trophies, which, for the uninitiated, featured a 3D model of a character or object from a past Nintendo game, as well as information about the subject; these were collected in various ways throughout gameplay. In line with GC-era Nintendo's giving 110% at all times, Melee featured entirely new models spanning Nintendo's whole history, as opposed to Brawl's mostly reused assets, reflecting Nintendo's Wii-era philosophy of "only try as hard as needed in order to get big bucks from suckers" (okay, that's kind of exaggerated, but not wholly inaccurate). However, this apparent laziness had an unforeseen advantage: the trophies mostly reusing assets meant that nearly all of them came from the GC period, which functions as an accidental love letter to people like me. Furthermore, though many people didn't seem to have much use for the stickers, seeing as they've never been mentioned as often as trophies and didn't return in Smash 4 (once again, for the uninitiated: stickers were essentially pieces of concept art added to an in-game gallery and that could be used for stat boosts in the Subspace Emissary story mode), I personally have recently found myself loving them to death. You see, if playable characters (small base) are the cream of the crop, with Assist Trophies (slightly larger base) then catching some "almost there"-level characters and regular trophies (large base) for the next most notable, then stickers allowed for tons upon tons of obscure and deemed "too unimportant" Nintendo curiosities to make the cut; playable fighters needed detailed models and tons of animations/VA, assist trophies needed a decent-looking model and some very basic animation and maybe a little bit of VA, trophies needed decent models (that had to be posed) and a write-up, while stickers could just be copied and pasted. In other words, even if it was small, this allowed for an unprecedented amount of Nintendo fanservice (and considering that early/mid-2000s Nintendo was the "zillions of awesome but overlooked gems" period, you can guess from whence many of these stickers originated), and has even helped me to find out about plenty of underappreciated GC-era goodness. Even if the Subspace Emissary doesn't have the same replayability and lasting appeal as Melee's Adventure mode, it was fun for what it was--and replaying it now, it always brings a smile to my face when, at the end of a level, I see all of the trophies and stickers that I managed to collect. Then, of course, you have all of the music and stages taken from Renaissance-period games with which Brawl was jam-packed, along with the new character choices. Ultimately, the game was a Wii-era Nintendo game. However, there was enough GC-era Nintendo in there to call it the last gasp of their Renaissance period; in the end, Brawl was your infected best friend looking back at you to make eye contact and smile for the last time as the zombie disease fully envelops him. And it's the most radiant damn smile you've ever seen.

Well, I've said my piece; I fucking love this period, the games, the attitude and aesthetic that it exudes, and everything about it. Thanks for reading all of this rambling; hopefully you've gotten something out of it. As for me, I'm going to go dust off my old Nintendo Power magazines and enjoy some nostalgia (okay, MAYBE it's a little bit about longing for my childhood).

[WIP] Recommended first and second party Renaissance-era Nintendo games (a handful of honorary GC games included):

Advance Wars [Game Boy Advance, 2001]

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising [Game Boy Advance, 2003]

Advance Wars: Dual Strike [Nintendo DS, 2005]

Animal Crossing [GameCube, 2001]

Animal Crossing: Wild World [Nintendo DS, 2005]

Battalion Wars [GameCube, 2005]

Chibi-Robo! [GameCube, 2005]

Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest [GameCube, 2002]

Custom Robo [GameCube, 2004]

Custom Robo Arena [Nintendo DS, 2006]

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat [GameCube, 2004]

Drill Dozer [Game Boy Advance, 2005]

Elite Beat Agents [Nintendo DS, 2006]

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem [GameCube, 2002]

F-Zero GX [GameCube, 2003]

Fire Emblem [Game Boy Advance, 2003]

Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi (Sword of Seals) [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance [GameCube, 2005]

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn [Wii, 2007]

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones [Game Boy Advance, 2004]

Golden Sun [Game Boy Advance, 2001]

Golden Sun: The Lost Age [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 [Nintendo DS, 2007]

Kirby Air Ride [GameCube, 2003]

Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror [Game Boy Advance, 2004]

Kururin Paradise [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Kururin Squash! [GameCube, 2004]

Kuru Kuru Kururin [Game Boy Advance, 2001]

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures [GameCube, 2004]

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap [Game Boy Advance, 2004]

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess [GameCube/Wii, 2006]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker [GameCube, 2002]

Luigi's Mansion [GameCube, 2001]

Magical Starsign [Nintendo DS, 2006]

Magical Vacation [Game Boy Advance, 2001] (fan translation recently released)

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga [Game Boy Advance, 2003]

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time [Nintendo DS, 2005]

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! [GameCube, 2003]

Mario Kart DS [Nintendo DS, 2005]

Metroid Fusion [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Metroid Prime [GameCube, 2002]

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes [GameCube, 2004]

Metroid Prime Hunters [Nintendo DS, 2006]

Metroid: Zero Mission [Game Boy Advance, 2004]

Mother 3 [Game Boy Advance, 2006]

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door [GameCube, 2004]

Pikmin [GameCube, 2001]

Pikmin 2 [GameCube, 2004]

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl [Nintendo DS, 2006]

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen [Game Boy Advance, 2004]

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire [Game Boy Advance, 2002]

Rhythm Tengoku [Game Boy Advance, 2003]

Star Fox Adventures [GameCube, 2002]

Star Fox Assault [GameCube, 2005]

Super Mario Sunshine [GameCube, 2002]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl [Wii, 2008]

Super Smash Bros. Melee [GameCube, 2001]

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! [Game Boy Advance, 2003]

Wario Land 4 [Game Boy Advance, 2001]

Wario World [GameCube, 2003]

Wave Race: Blue Storm [GameCube, 2001]