If you happened to have caught my E3 2013 press conference coverage, then it’s pretty evident I’m pumped for the next installment in the Super Smash Bros. series. Excuse me, next two installments that is! Seriously, what’s not to love about these games? SSB showcases just how many IP’s this company has where they can have a fighting game with a roster of almost 40 characters. They, unlike Sony, has a treasure trove of characters to pull from. Yeah, I bring up Sony because sure they have a bunch of IP’s, but not enough to make a fighter out of just their own. (PlayStation All Stars had 4 or 5 third party characters/advertisements.)
However unlike Sony, almost every property in SSB hasn’t seen a game in 5 or more years. Everyone remembers the reveal trailer of Super Smash Brothers Brawl when Pitt was shown – that was the first time in more than 10 year’s that the Kid had appeared in any game. It took until 2011 for him to just get another game, and even that wasn’t that great. But today I’m here to talk about Nintendo’s misuse of their many IP’s. First off, the most relevant I feel right now is F-Zero. Captain Falcon,easily one of the most popular characters in the SSB series, hasn’t seen a game in his series since the GameCube! Furthermore, Shigeru Miyamoto recently was interviewed by Richard George of IGN, and when asked if we could expect a new F-Zero game, he responded with:
I’m going to go on a somewhat-related tangent, forgive me. But when I saw Mario Kart 8 (because apparently the series has reached Final Fantasy status with the numbering), I instantly thought of F-Zero. Quite frankly, I have a lot of problems with Miyamoto’s quote. First off, the man says he doesn’t have that many ideas to turn it into a great game again. I’m fucking sorry, but Mario Kart isn’t famous for being a ground-breaking racer that defies the ages and makes you rethink what it means to be a gamer. No, it’s just good ol’ fun. (I think the series’ peak was Double Dash and it has become over-hyped dribble that has been outclassed by several recent racers.)
How hard would it be to seriously bring F-Zero to the new generation? F-Zero in HD, imagine that! Why not add a battle component to the series? Why not add an actual story, hell, maybe an open/expansive world where you play as bounty hunter Captain Falcon? Sorry, that’s telling Nintendo to be creative and go beyond with what is proven to work. And that is why we are seeing an anti-gravity Mario Kart and not F-Zero. Mario Kart sells off name alone. It could be the same game as the Wii version and kids would eat it up because, oooh, its Mario Kart.
Speaking of which, I feel that’s the same reason we are seeing another Donkey Kong Country by Retro and not a Star Fox or new Metroid. Like damn, poor Fox, his last game was a part of Star Fox 64 for the 3DS. Great game, but yawn, nothing new, and that game came out near the system’s launch. Nintendo can’t pull a “well we don’t know what to do”. You’re telling the world that you can’t figure out how to use that gamepad for use with an Airwing or Landmaster? I’ll even accept Star Fox 2 at this point, better late than never. Actually, the Wii U is strong enough they could probably make the graphics look like the creepy Star Fox puppets from the 90’s.
Or what about Metroid? You don’t even have to have it star Samus. Metroid has enough lore in it that you could have it just star a bunch of bounty hunters. Imagine a Metroid online FPS, people would eat that bad boy up! Imagine if it was free to play with micro transactions. You have literally given Nintendo a license to print money. But nope, I guess they’re still sour over that FUCKING HORRIBLE Team Ninja Metroid: Other M.
But that’s the problem. Why can’t Nintendo lend out their properties to other publishers? We live in this day and age where Kickstarter can take an indie company to the mountain top. You give $500,000 to a bunch of young artists and programmers and tell them to make a new entry in (Insert IP here) for the 3Ds or Wii U virtual console, and we would never see the end of Nintendo games. Maybe people would actually buy the Wii U….but more of that in Part Two.
