13 day Nintendo Retrospective (Starts March 19)

Chi-Chi

Chi-Chi

Heart of an ox
Pronouns
Kie/Mer
To celebrate the full reveal of the Switch 2, I will be having a daily Retrospective on Nintendo's consoles and handhelds till that point

Day 1(March 19): Game and Watch
Day 2: (March 20) Famicom/NES
Day 3(March 21) Game Boy
Day 4(March 22) Super Famicom/SNES
Day 5(March 23) N64
Day 6(March 24) Gameboy Color
Day 7 (March 25) Gameboy Advance
Day 8(March 26) GameCube
Day 9(March 27) Nintendo DS
Day 10(March 28) Nintendo Wii
Day 11 (March 29) Nintendo 3DS
Day 12(March 30) Wii U
Day 13(March 31) Nintendo Switch
I have chosen not to include the Color TV Games series, the Virtual Boy and the Pokemon Mini out of the belief that so few people here have played them there won't be much discussion coming out of it
Rules:
You are free to disagree with opinions but don't let that escalate into a full out fight
If you can't think of honestly anything to say about the hardware or games, feel free to skip it
You are free to catch up if you miss one or some of the days but keep it contained to one post
 
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Sounds interesting, I'm looking forward to it! A little disappointed about no Pokemon Mini though. I never had one myself, but I played a ton of Pokemon Channel growing up and remember being able to play several of the Pokemon Mini games in it.
 
Day 1: Game and Watch
I admittedly have never played a real Game and Watch but I have played versions of the games and they are surprisingly still fun for somewhat basic score attack games, way better than the crappy Tiger Handhelds
 
I played so much of Game and Watch Gallery 4 as a kid, re-listening to the OST right now and all the memories are coming back. I also think I had one of the "mini classics" they did, if I didn't at least the packaging stuck in my mind for some reason. A lot less snazzy than the original Game and Watch, but hey when you're a kid Mario is Mario.
smbminiclassics-1659724645871.jpg

On the classic Game and Watch handhelds themselves, I haven't handled one on my own either, but they look very nice and appealing. A lot of LCD games look like cheap plastic, but Game and Watch ones are very classy. It makes sense when you remember the old story of being inspired by seeing a bored salaryman on the train messing with his business card. They look like something a proper businessman would use. The games are also very fun, and the LCD graphics are impressively cartoony. Nintendo managed to put a lot of heart and soul into a very limited game format. They might be basic, but they're distinctly members of that iconic Nintendo quality.
 
Day 2 NES/Famicom
I actually had a real NES for awhile but it kinda showed it's age with hardware problems
But I have played nearly every major game for it and it cemented itself as a classic and while I have played some of it's real stinkers, I can still see how it made Nintendo this super big thing
 
NES, a classic system with classic games.

I never did own one, so most of my experience with NES games was mainly Animal Crossing on gamecube, emulators on websites in the 00s, and virtual console.

I did get to try out an actual NES at a museum which had SMB1. That was cool.
 
Day 3 Gameboy
Of all the older consoles, the original GB is the one I have the least amount of experience with and playing more of it's games and seeing how short most of them are, I can see it had the hardest limits but I appreciate how they got beyond said limits
 
I did have the Gameboy Pocket at some point. I really only remember playing the Pokemon games (Red/Blue/Yellow), which were pretty cool for the time.
 
I actually had the GBA & GB and Shelby (late sis)has a GB, there are two games on it so far.
 
The SNES was amazing. The SNES allowed for better graphics, gameplay, and sound. It literally felt like the next step after the NES. Although some of the fake 3D in some of the games is super dated these days, it was still cool. I also liked the controller with the purple colored buttons and the button layout felt right.

I actually did had a SNES back in the early 00s. Both models in fact. I don't remember why we did, but we no longer have either of them now! 😭

Super Mario World, Super Mario All Stars, Donkey Kong Country were the main games I played during those times. And also through the years I still sometimes try out SNES games I haven't played.

I had to get the SNES classic mini when it came out just for the novelty alone.
 
The N64 was a cool system. I liked that the N64 had 4 controller ports, so you don't need to buy an extra adapter to plug in 4 controllers. The N64 controller was interesting, but yeah its not a controller I want to go back to.

This was the start of the 4 player bangers like Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Mario Party, and others that would continue to this day.

The early 3D graphics of this time period for the most part aren't going to hold up, but honestly I like the polygon characters models and environments in some of the games. Many N64 games did have a lot of framerate drops looking back.

It is a shame that the N64 did miss out on many games of that era. And even in some games that made to N64, there were compromises made due to using carts instead of CDs.

I didn't have a N64 memory card, so for games that required it, we had to finish those in one sitting or at least as long as possible. We didn't have much games that required it so it wasn't a huge deal.
 
Day 6: GBC
I am honestly surprised just how many exclusive games were made for this considering how quickly the GBA took it's place, I also heard it's color is stronger than the NES, if that's true that's really impressive
 
The Game Boy, but with colors.

I did experience a bit more games than with the original gameboy. Still, it was pretty much Pokemon (Gold/Silver/Crystal), Super Mario Bros Deluxe (which was actually the first way I played SMB1), and a couple of licensed games.
 
Day 7 GBA
While the N64 is my first gaming device overall, this along with the GameCube are the first times I got serious about gaming, lot of good memories but it's probably the console that I personally got a lot of it's shovelware for it
 
The last of the Game Boy line. And it was very advanced.

I had both the original GBA and later the GBA SP. When I got the SP, it felt great cause now there's a backlight. The struggles of having to be in a lit area with the GBC and original GBA are now gone. And it now has a charger, so no more having to search for batteries. Both models were able to play GB and GBC games, so getting to play those game with backlight on the SP was also nice.

The games were pretty good as well. Shoutout to the Pokemon games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen), The Mario Advance games, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, Wario Land 4, Minish Cap, the Sonic Advance games, Dragon Ball GBA games, Konami Krazy Racers, and other games.

The GBA is also known for having a lot of SNES ports. Although depending on the game, opinions can vary on the quality of the port job due to the sound, less screen visibility, etc. Personally, I liked being able to play these games on the go at the time.

Also the GBA did have some interesting multiplayer games. Pokemon with trading and battling. The Mario Bros. game included in 5 of the Mario GBA games was chaotic fun. Sonic Advance 3 had Co-op multiplayer which was fun to experience.
 
SMA despite its flaws is really nice. GBA was the last of my devices before I got a DS/3DS.
 
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