With E3 behind me, I've had some time to reflect on what was shown at the expo this year. Nintendo in particular has me intrigued with two of their 3DS titles. As we all know, both StarFox 64 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D were both announced at the show, with StarFox being playable on the show floor.
On first glance, Ocarina of Time makes pretty good sense to bring to the 3DS. It's widely regarded as the greatest game of all-time, and what better could you use to showcase your brand new 3D functionality with? StarFox doesn't quite add up. Sure it's a critically acclaimed title, but over time the series has fallen by the wayside, victim to a slew of third parties desecrating its remains. It makes one question, why bring this title to the 3DS?
After pondering it, and having the chance to see StarFox in person, I feel Nintendo has some other intentions. For those who didn't have a chance to read up on our coverage or listen to our podcasts from the show, StarFox looked pretty amazing in person. Not only was it converted to full 3D, it was clearly redone from the ground up. I found this interesting, especially considering that the title has already seen recent re-release on the Virtual Console.
I'd imagine it can be somewhat pricey to not only port, but engineer an entirely new engine for the 3DS, on top of adding 3D visuals. I suspect that Nintendo is readying these two engines for new games on the system.
A new StarFox game makes sense, and the 3DS is a great platform given the simple gameplay of the series. Not only that, but the series is long overdue for a solid successor to StarFox 64, which has still yet to happen.
With the success of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, I'd imagine that Nintendo is gearing up for another full-fledged portable Zelda adventure. Ocarina of Time would allow them to make some money on creating the engine and work out all of the bugs for an upcoming adventure.
We'll see what Nintendo does, but given what I saw at the show, Nintendo is either intending to go all out on both StarFox and Zelda, or they are readying for something new. You know where my chips lie, what do you guys think?
I wonder how many people will want Nintendo to re-do the water temple.
Aonuma already said he plans on fixing the water temple. That was one of his laments, that he couldn't properly finish it in time before it had to be released.
And I thought it was just because they already ported all the good Mario games. I'd love a direct sequel to OOT but it might ruin some of its mystique YA KNOW?
a direct sequel to OOT? Majora's Mask?
A SECOND ONE. IN HYRULE
It might be cynical, but I think you are looking into things too much. Nintendo is a company who loves to re-release and rehash content, and Nintendo 64 games are pretty good candidates for that: they are early 3D games which can benefit from modern hardware. Nintendo's track record for handhelds tells all. Did anything ever come of all those Mario game ports? The Game Boy Advance never even got a new Mario game. The DS launched with a remake of Super Mario 64, and it was never followed up with anything either.
Well, except for New Super Mario Bros.
I don't mind decent ports and remakes, so long as they've got extra features and things like that.
Arguably there wasn't much done with Super Mario 64 DS. I'm sure it was pretty close to a straight port. I can tell you that the 3DS stuff was anything but. Seems like there is a lot more effort being invested, hence the editorial.
New Super Mario Brothers wasn't a follow-up to Super Mario 64 DS. It didn't build on the game engine or anything like that.
Agree with Kathrine Theidy.
Also, N64 games do not requiere a second analog joystick for things like camera control. That makes them an easier fit than say gamecube games.