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Spaceworld
Speculations: Part 2
00-08-25
- Zach - While Dave did promise you a part two
to his speculations,
I became quite busy with school and was unable to deliver my half of the
bargain. Instead, I bring you a look back at what Dave had to say, and in
retrospect he faired rather well. Oh, perhaps I’ll add a brief bit of my
own speculation, to make up for the other night.
Dave: We've got 12 games announced already, most with at least one
screenshot available. Is that enough? In the days before the PSX, I would
have said it's more than I ever could have dreamed of...but now things are
different. I predict that tons of games will be on display. (whee! isn't
that a surprise?)
Sure enough, 10 great looking games were displayed and 41
announced. Can’t ask for much more than that, can we? This means that
games are in the works, and we can all look forward to a plentiful launch.
Dave: The side-scroller genre, despite the protests of....everyone
everywhere, is here to stay until the portable gets full 3-D capabilities.
At least the 1st gen. side-scrollers will be decent, and the graphics will
be impressive enough to help us overlook the flaws. But after that 1st
wave? I predict we'll be seeing, once again, complete and total misuse of
the genre as a panacea for popular licenses combined with lazy (or, to be
fair, under-paid and under-appreciated) developers and short development
times.
Well, Dave was mostly right on this one… IGN Pocket reports that Mr.
Asada of Nintendo "…announced that the GBA would be a dedicated
high-quality two-dimensional game platform, bypassing any mistaken hopes
for a 3-D system, and again stressed the idea of doing one task (2D GFX)
particularly well as opposed to trying to do too many things."
So, no 3-D capabilities for us, oh well. Personally I love side scrollers,
some of the best games ever made were 2D. As for bad games developed with
popular licenses on a Nintendo system, how could that be? *sarcasm*
Dave: This will be the return of the RPG. I believe in it. I know it.
There is no way that true, turn-based, save the world from the evil dude,
can not triumph on the GBA. Anyone who knows anything about gaming can
tell you that the SNES was the golden age of RPGs (perhaps even of gaming
in general), with masterpieces such as Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Chrono
Trigger, and Earthbound, along with great Action-RPG hybrids like Illusion
of Gaia, Secret of Evermore, and Secret of Mana. And now, the GBA is being
heralded as a portable SNES. Can you see my visions of this RPG heaven? If
you can't now, just wait a few days, till we get tons of info on Golden
Sun and other, yet to be announced RPGs.
This little "portable SNES" should provide us with stunning new
RPGs and, hopefully, remakes of a few classics. Announced so far are Golden
Sun, Fire
Emblem, Mega Man EXE,
Dokapon, Momotaro
Festival., and Tactic
Ogre Gaiden (shown). Now, that’s not to shabby. If this type of
pattern holds up, the future looks bright for RPG lovers everywhere.
Dave: Puzzle games are the obvious choice for any handheld system.
Period. As much as I anticipate those RPGs, puzzle games, when done
correctly (a la Tetris, Bust-a-Move, and Hexcite) have limitless replay.
And since Hexcite X has
already been announced, I'm willing to bet we will see more of this genre
than we ever did before. But...puzzle games are very difficult to market,
and despite relatively low development costs and no real need for any
licenses, I predict that publishers will still have a tendency to shy away
from this sometimes risky genre. But...who know...maybe we'll have
screenshots of the next Tetris before the week is over.
Ah, puzzle games. I personally love Tetris, it just never gets old. So far
we just have Hexcite X
(shown) and Kuru Kuru
Kururin. While this isn’t much, I’m confident that in time more
excellent puzzlers will be announced, I hope…
Dave: As a side note: I doubt all this ado about connectivity. While
the idea is very very intriguing and very very interesting and very very
exciting, I think that the cost of buying both the Cube game and the GBA
game, which could easily approach $100, will mostly negate any extra
features. If Nintendo is smart, we might start seeing package
deals...selling the GBA and Cube games in one big box, or putting the 2
separate boxes together and inserting a key chin (whoop-dee-doo-da-day!).
Honestly? I don't see that happening. I can't recall a single instance of
a retailer selling a 64 game and it's GBC counterpart together at a lower
cost...and why should they if consumers will continue to buy them
separately at higher costs?
This is where Dave’s argument falls apart. We have a picture of Cube and
GBA connecting (shown)! While how all this will work has not entirely been
explained, the fact that it is planned from the get go holds great
promise.
Well, that about does it. Personally, all this writing
just makes me long for July, when the GBA will launch here, perhaps I’ll
have to import…
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DMGIce