Biggest game system let downs or pleasant surprises?

[Despatche]

Why do so many care about whether or not a system has lots of "third-party titles" specifically?

Little did I know, that it would come at the expense of detail and sound.

The N64 looked a lot better than the other two, usually, and I don't get where the sound complaint is coming from.

Good system, but I doubt it would've survived PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.

Sega and their issues had a lot to do with it, but the other consoles still killed it. Had they come later, I'm sure the Dreamcast would have survived at least for however long that would be.

:saturncrap:

I suggest you take a closer look at the Saturn's total history. Maybe the Dreamcast's as well.

They had the Mother series. In the time between Mother releases, they make 8 or 9 main-title Mario Bros games.

The main guy behind the Mother games isn't really hype enough to do a Mother 4 right now.

I thought the DC was graphically superior to the PS2 for the most part?

I don't know about all that, but the Dreamcast didn't even get far enough to try.

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

This is a true problem only in regards to system design. At least the N64 actually had a decent d-pad for the few games that used it.

I appreciate the whiteknighting of the N64 in this thread; Skykid even mentions Doubutsu no Mori, which is just cool. It's incredibly sad that people would rather pick consoles like these as "greatest let-down" instead of real tripe like the 32X.

[Sumez]

It's a good point, but of course some of that comes from the position in the market Nintendo was in the last generation. If the Genesis hadn't been competition, I think it's possible that the N64 might have done really well because Nintendo would be coming off a PSX-like domination of the market.

You seriously think Nintendo wasn't dominating the market at that point? They had at least the same advantage Sony had after PS1 and PS2 - N64's downfall was a split between its terrible delay (I remember all the mags going "Ultra 64 is coming now!", and then like one and a half year later I saw the "Nintendo 64" show up in stores without any real warning - the internet wasn't anywhere near widespread enough to help spread the hype back then), and the cartridge format which was both extremely expensive compared to PS1 games and very limited in size, forcing developers to drop orchestrated music, voice acting and FMV's, something that was a pretty extreme selling point at the time, especially for Square who dumped Nintendo for the same reason.
I remember N64 slowly fading back into obscurity when no real interesting games would appear for it after Nintendo kicked ass with Mario and Zelda 64. At the time I was certain Nintendo was done for, and it only managed to resurface because of the surprising popularity of Pokémon which not only made the decade old Game Boy start moving units again, but also helped promote new N64 games like Smash Bros. and all those crappy Pokémon spinoffs. I still think Pokémon pretty much saved Nintendo.

The N64 looked a lot better than the other two, usually, and I don't get where the sound complaint is coming from.

N64 is awful at 2D, and 3D graphics were never good back then. It did do 3D a lot better than its competitors though.

[Despatche]

The cartridge format which was both extremely expensive compared to PS1 games and very limited in size, forcing developers to drop orchestrated music, voice acting and FMV's, something that was a pretty extreme selling point at the time.

[...]

I remember N64 slowly fading back into obscurity when no real interesting games would appear for it after Nintendo kicked ass with Mario and Zelda 64.

I would prefer if you or someone else explained all of this thoroughly, and it would help if you or they did a bit of comparison to earlier consoles and provided examples all around. Part of it seems too suspicious/vague, and part of it is simply off.

especially for Square who dumped Nintendo for the same reason

Someone really needs to come out and explain just why Square really left Nintendo, because no one seems to have the "right" answer. No bullshit, just the facts, please.

[Sumez]

Final Fantasy VII took up three or four compact discs. Can you imagine it being released on a cart at all?

[Despatche]

Nice try, but even the example isn't that great. To answer though, yes. With some tweaking, I doubt the game would take more than 3 or 4 carts in turn; there was even tech planned for cart hot-switching, or it could be simulated with Memory Paks. Personally, I think the biggest issue was price, and maybe ease of development. FFVII was three discs, by the way; FFVIII and FFIX used four.

[BryanM]

Why do so many care about whether or not a system has lots of "third-party titles" specifically?

Breadth is nice. NES: Rpgs, shooters, platformers, visual novels, so-so party games etc. Wii: Uh maybe a toy you break out with non gamer friends. Oh, more Mario and Zelda and Metroid Cubed. In case the carecat forced you to use up the Game Cube installments already. Somehow. My carecat is very weak.

I find the Breath of Fire series wholly remarkable. It's like a scrotum being rubbed against your face, and yet it managed to survive thanks to having okay art. Which shows some companies don't have designers capable of making a good game in just any genre, especially when its not in their niche. Atlus would have choked and died if it consistently released stuff 1/2 as bad as BoF.

The main guy behind the Mother games isn't really hype enough to do a Mother 4 right now.

Like I said, Miyamoto pumps out 8 or 9 releases between each installment. Weren't you listening.

How long did it take them to do Mother 64 anyway. Jesus, they literally went from the 64 to the disk drive to the GBA and managed to release juuuuust the weekend before the GBA choked to death on its own vodka.

It's incredibly sad that people would rather pick consoles like these as "greatest let-down" instead of real tripe like the 32X.

We were too cunning to fall for such hijinks.

<- Not cunning enough not to fall for Hellgate London hijinks.

Someone really needs to come out and explain just why Square really left Nintendo, because no one seems to have the "right" answer. No bullshit, just the facts, please.

As a doctor in videogames, I can solve this one very easily:

Squaresoft is a business, and they went in the direction which they believed would maximize their profit.

Yeah, there was some friction and bad blood between the companies (Nintendo did screw them a few times, such as refusing to allow them to use a 12mb cartridge for Romancing SaGa), but it came down to: we want to make a game full of pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs. On a medium with a +$19.50 profit margin, thank you very much.

Is kind of a pity. Four Warriors of Light was pretty nice. Would have been nice to have seen something like it 30 years ago..

With some tweaking, I doubt the game would take more than 3 or 4 carts in turn

Banjo-Tooie is only ~31.2 MB. The core game of FF7 is about 200MB of backgrounds. Each disc's FMVs are in the ~300MB range if I remember correctly.

Each cart made is very expensive. Maybe they could have compressed the shit out of everything and it'd be almost as nice looking as the poo poo pre-rendered levels in Ocarina of Time, and gotten it onto two carts, one for the game and the other for movies and you had to swap the two every thirty minutes... argh.

No, they could not have made Final Fantasy 7 on the N64. They could have made something like the DS Final Fantasys, and it would have been better imo, but... Wouldn't have had sexy commercials for it or an exciting new demographic at the loss of their old fans.

[Despatche]

Breadth is nice. NES: Rpgs, shooters, platformers, visual novels, so-so party games etc. Wii: Uh maybe a toy you break out with non gamer friends. Oh, more Mario and Zelda and Metroid Cubed. In case the carecat forced you to use up the Game Cube installments already. Somehow. My carecat is very weak.

You say this like so much third-party is so great (and that they don't just bring their Metroids and Zeldas and Marios to the next gen every time) and that Nintendo couldn't already do this. It requires some specific people to make such good games, you pointed it out yourself. Companies like Nintendo and Atlus still have this trait, for the most part. In Nintendo's case, they're just playing it safe because that works, and they've even gone and announced madness like Luigi's Mansion 2 for the 3DS. They are not "lost" any more now as they ever have been, as so many people think they are.

Like I said, Miyamoto pumps out 8 or 9 releases between each installment. Weren't you listening.

Miyamoto designs games, because that's what he does. Itoi does a lot of things besides. He just doesn't want to do a Mother 4, and if he doesn't want to do a Mother 4, then it probably wouldn't be good if he tried.

How long did it take them to do Mother 64 anyway. Jesus, they literally went from the 64 to the disk drive to the GBA and managed to release juuuuust the weekend before the GBA choked to death on its own vodka.

Judging from dates, it was originally about as long as Mother 2; 3~5 years. Then development was completely restarted for GBA around... 2003, I guess. Mother 3 is a fairly different game from what had been Mother 64 as a result.

Squaresoft is a business, and they went in the direction which they believed would maximize their profit.

Yeah, there was some friction and bad blood between the companies (Nintendo did screw them a few times, such as refusing to allow them to use a 12mb cartridge for Romancing SaGa), but it came down to: we want to make a game full of pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs. On a medium with a +$19.50 profit margin, thank you very much.

Is kind of a pity. Four Warriors of Light was pretty nice. Would have been nice to have seen something like it 30 years ago..

Hell yes, someone gets it. I really need to play these new FFG games...

Banjo-Tooie is only ~31.2 MB. The core game of FF7 is about 200MB of backgrounds. Each disc's FMVs are in the ~300MB range if I remember correctly.

Are you sure a lot of that isn't due to crazy compression or the lack thereof? SNES had some pretty crazy shit going on at the 1994~1996 point.

Each cart made is very expensive. Maybe they could have compressed the shit out of everything and it'd be almost as nice looking as the poo poo pre-rendered levels in Ocarina of Time, and gotten it onto two carts, one for the game and the other for movies and you had to swap the two every thirty minutes... argh.

Those movies weren't that great. You may as well just take those out, and make it like Half-Life where pretty much every cutscene is live.

[louisg]

Quote:
Someone really needs to come out and explain just why Square really left Nintendo, because no one seems to have the "right" answer. No bullshit, just the facts, please.

As a doctor in videogames, I can solve this one very easily:

Squaresoft is a business, and they went in the direction which they believed would maximize their profit.

Yeah, there was some friction and bad blood between the companies (Nintendo did screw them a few times, such as refusing to allow them to use a 12mb cartridge for Romancing SaGa), but it came down to: we want to make a game full of pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs. On a medium with a +$19.50 profit margin, thank you very much.

I guess a 'what if' is whether they would've aimed for a FMV-laden game if, say, the N64 hadn't stumbled out the gate and had the bigger userbase. But the profit margin is a pretty big argument too. Though, I am also assuming there is a reason that almost every other single dev ignored the N64 as well, even ones which aren't making games which would have trouble squeezing onto a cart.

I also wonder why voice compression never caught on for N64 games. You can squeeze decent voice into mere bytes per second with those.

You seriously think Nintendo wasn't dominating the market at that point? They had at least the same advantage Sony had after PS1 and PS2

They weren't. The market was split down the middle between them and Sega, especially in the United States. The PS1 era was such that almost literally every single game not made by Nintendo was for the PS1 (or at least made available for it). It was similar to the NES in that way. Nintendo coming off the NES or Sony coming off the PS1 had so much clout that they could have shipped poop in a box for their next system, and people would've bought it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wa ... _figures_4

You say this like so much third-party is so great (and that they don't just bring their Metroids and Zeldas and Marios to the next gen every time) and that Nintendo couldn't already do this. It requires some specific people to make such good games, you pointed it out yourself. Companies like Nintendo and Atlus still have this trait, for the most part. In Nintendo's case, they're just playing it safe because that works, and they've even gone and announced madness like Luigi's Mansion 2 for the 3DS. They are not "lost" any more now as they ever have been, as so many people think they are

I don't think anyone's saying Nintendo doesn't make amazing first party games. If they didn't, the N64 would've been completely dead. And the 3rd party developer argument is because you generally want more than one or two good games a year, which 1st party support doesn't really provide.

We shouldn't turn this thread into a console war. Speaking for myself, I think I can find really good games on nearly every system.

[BryanM]

Oi, Mother 3 took 10 to 12 years to develop. First it was on the SNES. Then the 64DD. Then the Nintendo 64. Then barely squeezed itself out on the GBA, just in time for the DS to drop GBA support a couple years later. You can't blame them for wanting to put off a sequel after all that.

There is some talk out there about the N64 being a rougher platform to develop on - timing across multiple processors etc. With that combined with cartridge costs, can hardly blame the bottom dropping out for it.

Earthworm Jim 3D is a poster child of the platform. There were bad bad bad games on the SNES and NES, but holy hell. Most bad games on the N64 were of Hoshi wo Miru Hito caliber. And if it makes you feel any better, the original creators of Jim rue and regret selling the rights.

Those movies weren't that great. You may as well just take those out, and make it like Half-Life where pretty much every cutscene is live.

Squaresoft feels they're a critical part of their business, considering they've spent spent an ocean of money on them on every intended blockbuster they've made since. You might as well suggest they include pedophilia in their games.

The main purpose of FMV is to run fancy television ads. When they're not run, they are pretty much a money hole: Warhammer Online's FMV just frittered away the workers' kid's college money.

[Stormwatch]

You might as well suggest they include pedophilia in their games.

Implied in Final Fantasy VI.

[BryanM]

You might as well suggest they include pedophilia in their games.

Implied in Final Fantasy VI.

Sorry I couldn't help myself. Wild mangy wolf boys make me hot.

[Stormwatch]

Edgar and Relm, not Gau.

[louisg]

There is some talk out there about the N64 being a rougher platform to develop on - timing across multiple processors etc. With that combined with cartridge costs, can hardly blame the bottom dropping out for it.

That doesn't seem to be a factor as much as market share. The PS2 for example was tricky to program for, and attracted many developers because the user base was huge-- it wound up being *the* system that generation. Cart cost seems more likely, assuming the lower profit margin was passed onto devs (I seem to remember N64 games being monsterously expensive somehow..? I didn't own one myself until it was dead).

Argh, this thread is now a generic console success/fan/whatever discussion.

[BryanM]

Edgar and Relm, not Gau.

I see what I want to see.

[Sumez]

Seriously, if you don't think Square chose PS1 over N64 for the CD-ROM media, I really don't know how to continue this discussion.
This fact is both obvious and common knowledge to anyone who doesn't live in a world where releasing games on multiple expensive cartridges is apparently commonplace.
Either way, I'll at least provide a quote by Sakaguchi himself:

When we discussed designing the field scenes as illustrations or CG based, we came up with the idea to eliminate the connection between movies and the fields. Without using blackout at all, and maintaining quality at the same time, we would make the movie stop at one cut and make the characters move around on it. We tried to make it controllable even during the movies. As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media. It other words, we became too aggressive, and got ourselves into trouble.

Hell, the game's (for the time) pretty FMV's were nearly single-handedly responsible for the game moving the FF series into the mainstream! I remember everyone (other than me ) thinking the game looked absolutely beautiful at the time, and that was obviously only due to the pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs.

[borislaw]

Without a doubt, hands down PS3. I am pretty decisive about that choice, but I the more I think about it, the more I realize that the PS2 was a let down as well. Even though I consider PS2 to be a real good system--one that I enjoyed playing and believe to be worth owning--It still leaves me somewhat disappointed, simply because its library of software illuminates a remarkable decline in the quality of games in comparison to the PS one library. (Perhaps this is far less prevalent with the Japanese version of ps2) Just my opinion of course. My guess is that most fans of classic RPGS and 2D platformers would agree .

Pleasant surprise for me was Game Cube. At the time of its release I thought it was shit. Also, 99% of its games are are a total disgrace and suck completely. This is exactly why I was surprised at the amount of usage and the sheer enjoyment I got out of a used Game Cube that I got for cheap a few years back. Ikaruga, a couple of good Zelda games were definitely all-timers, but really the benefit comes from the Game Boy advance library opened with the use of an easy to find add-on.

[BIL]

I was surprised and delighted to discover that, after all these years, I'd owned a SIN & PUNISHMENT ADAPTOR all along! I've enjoyed many, many hours of high-scoring shooting/slashing action since digging it out of the depths of my wardrobe earlier this year.

[Drum]

I appreciate the whiteknighting of the N64 in this thread; Skykid even mentions Doubutsu no Mori, which is just cool. It's incredibly sad that people would rather pick consoles like these as "greatest let-down" instead of real tripe like the 32X.

No, because you can't be greatly disappointed by a stop-gap add-on that was clearly a joke from the start. The N64 was the follow-up to the SNES and early games like Mario 64 and Wave Race promised a lot. If this was a worst system/best system thread you'd have a point, but it isn't.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Even though I consider PS2 to be a real good system--one that I enjoyed playing and believe to be worth owning--It still leaves me somewhat disappointed, simply because its library of software illuminates a remarkable decline in the quality of games in comparison to the PS one library. (Perhaps this is far less prevalent with the Japanese version of ps2) Just my opinion of course. My guess is that most fans of classic RPGS and 2D platformers would agree .

I like 2D platformers and traditional jRPGs. As for the latter genre, in my book it began to rot on the PSX and I fail to see how PS2 (with Shin MegaTen: Nocturne/Lucifer's Call and both Digital Devil Sagas being my favourites) fared any worse in the jRPG department. My most sore jRPG disappointment on PS2 was DQVIII (not really a bad game), which was very mild compared to lameness of equally hyped Xenogears and Chrono Cross on the PSX.
As for 2D platformers, PSX may be edging PS2 marginally, but what PS2 brought to the next level are games about dudes running around with swords in 3D: the likes of DMC, Shinobi and Blood Will Tell don't quite have any true equivalents on the PSX (as far as I know).
PS2 had its share of very interesting action sidescrollers as well: ChainDive, Viewtiful Joe (took me a while to appreciate it, but I'd finally got some kick out of it) and Contra: Shattered Soldier.

[louisg]

Without a doubt, hands down PS3. I am pretty decisive about that choice, but I the more I think about it, the more I realize that the PS2 was a let down as well. Even though I consider PS2 to be a real good system--one that I enjoyed playing and believe to be worth owning--It still leaves me somewhat disappointed, simply because its library of software illuminates a remarkable decline in the quality of games in comparison to the PS one library. (Perhaps this is far less prevalent with the Japanese version of ps2) Just my opinion of course. My guess is that most fans of classic RPGS and 2D platformers would agree .

Pleasant surprise for me was Game Cube. At the time of its release I thought it was shit. Also, 99% of its games are are a total disgrace and suck completely. This is exactly why I was surprised at the amount of usage and the sheer enjoyment I got out of a used Game Cube that I got for cheap a few years back. Ikaruga, a couple of good Zelda games were definitely all-timers, but really the benefit comes from the Game Boy advance library opened with the use of an easy to find add-on.

I'd like to hear more about how you think the PS2 games represent a decline from the PS1 era. I was never into either system that much (arcade games appealed to me more than the longer console games). Was it just that PS1 series didn't often have good sequels on the PS2, a matter of changing gameplay styles, or what? I also wonder if age difference comes into play: I was in high school when the PS1 came out, and I think I kept expecting console or arcade games to be more similar to the 16-bit era in terms of pacing, action, and lack of glitches, and was a little disappointed when they weren't. It took me a while to realize that there was some good stuff, but I'd have to shift my expectations a little to appreciate it.

Yeah, the GameCube is really about Nintendo games for the most part. The 3rd party support was generally atrocious on it, though supposedly a few games are better on it than the XBox (Sands of Time and BG&E; I dunno, I didn't play either). BTW I have to recommend DK Jungle Beat if you haven't tried it yet. It's a fun platformer that throws in a chaining system. It's a little like the 2d parts of the Mario Galaxy games, actually.

[dan76]

I'll never forget the day I walked into a small games shop (just of Carnaby Street) and saw Donkey Kong running on an xbox. I looked at it for a while and asked the fella if it was a bonus game or something. That's when the word MAME entered my tiny mind. I walked straight to Electronics Boutique on Oxford street, bought an xbox, returned to the shop and got it chipped. That night I was in arcade heaven and hands down the xbox took the crown. I know MAME was around long before, and I was ignorant of it, but I still use my old xbox - it plays anything I throw at it and can emulate almost everything - on a proper crt.

The 360 might be equal because of the Cave love it gets.

Also the Saturn, as I wasn't expecting much from it but they kept on releasing great games to import.

Biggest letdown - N64.

[BrianC]

Game Gear was a bit of a let down for me. It has some sweet games, but some games fail compared to their SMS counterparts and it fails as a handheld due to limited battery life.

Intellivision was a plesant surprise. Odd controllers that worked better than expected and games that are surprisingly advanced for a console from the late 70s. Some nice surprises with Atarisoft ports like Pac-Man and Defender, Imagic games, including argubly the best port of Atlantis, and sweet Activision games like Beamrider and Dreadnaught Factor. Some of the late releases like Diner, Thunder Castle, Thin Ice (really an unofficial port of the obscure Disco No. 1 with a different theme), and Chip Shot Super Pro Golf are very nice too.

[dunpeal2064]

The N64 was my biggest let down too. No metroid, Mega Man X, RPGs, shmups, and very few 2d fighters, I vastly preferred the ps1, and now the saturn.

Plus, my parents bought me my n64 for christmas, but traded in all my snes stuff, including the console.

The dreamcast was really a suprise for me, being a huge fan of arcade ports now, and especially shmups. A lot of really unique games, but they all manage to have that dreamcast feel to them

[BrianC]

No other major console in the past 20 years has ignored 2D gaming nearly as much as the N64. Somebody please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

At least it had some 2D. It did have Mischief Makers, Kirby 64, a couple Puyo Puyo games, and Goemon's Great Adventure. I heard good things about Planet Puzzle League, as well. The less said about Yoshi's Story, the better, though.

[Despatche]

No shmups

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is a pretty good game, I suggest you give it a shot.

About Metroid, I do question whether it would have been so great on the N64. If it meant that we would have had something like Metroid Prime, but more limited, I would gladly have waited anyway. There was also the chance for Other M done right, but I daresay there was also the chance for a Tomb Raider ripoff.

[null1024]

No shmups

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is a pretty good game, I suggest you give it a shot.

It's barely decent. By no means is it terrible, but it's not very good.

N64 wasn't a letdown too much for me, most of the games I own right now are N64 ones [still mad most of my N64 games got stolen, and my Expansion Pak]. It's a shame the graphics were so ass -- 32x32 textures smeared over half the field anyone? Eeyuch.

Biggest system letdown would have to be the Game Gear for me. Mostly batteries, mostly that the Gameboy got more support in the end, etc. Also, once I bought a wormlight for my Gameboy, there was no way I was playing the GG again, especially with the handful of games I had.

[dannnnn]

I can't say I've felt let down by any game system really apart from the Neo Geo Pocket Color which I bought fairly recently. It seems a great little handheld and most of its games are supposed to be good (I've only played Card Fighters Clash) - but I can't see a bloody thing on that screen!

[dunpeal2064]

No shmups

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is a pretty good game, I suggest you give it a shot.

About Metroid, I do question whether it would have been so great on the N64. If it meant that we would have had something like Metroid Prime, but more limited, I would gladly have waited anyway. There was also the chance for Other M done right, but I daresay there was also the chance for a Tomb Raider ripoff.

Compared to the top 15 shmups on either Saturn or PS1, this game can't hold a candle. Its decent at best, not nearly as good as its TG16 predecessors

And thats literally the only one.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

There was the "Dezaemon 3D" shmup game creator that was released for the Japanese N64 market only courtesy of 3rd-party developer/publisher Athena Co. Ltd. It came with a usual 6,800+ yen price tag back in early April 2000 at one Japanese department store chain that I saw it for sale in.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BryanM]

It's a shame the graphics were so ass -- 32x32 textures smeared over half the field anyone? Eeyuch.

Aw c'mon. You didn't want those textures anyway. Most of the best looking games during the age of Atari 2600-quality 3d used flat color or simple simple textures. Name one exception!