If Nintendo had... In the late 80's

Something I think about from time to time, and have had dreamy conversations with friends, but never got around to starting a topic on, is how I see the video game industry from roughly 1988-1993.

Most on this board would be aware of the fatal mistake, concerning Nintendo and Sony with the SNES CD add on. I personally believe that Nintendo could have made a better decision, before the SNES was even brought to fruition.

If Nintendo had done an upgrade to the NES, in the exact manner of what the TG16 is, then there would have been no concern with competing with Sega. Create a new NES with 200+ colors on screen, and make it compatible with all previous games. Considering everything was going perfectly well for Nintendo in 88-89, there was no reason (quite yet), to move on to a new system.

There will be varying opinions here, but here is my reasoning for this idea.

I would have loved to see a SMB4, to the tune of a sequel to SMB2, also with a full map. Zelda 3 done similar to part 1, and Zelda 4 to continue where part 2 left off. With these two series in particular, I remember with a friend of mine, we drew out all kinds of maps for our Zelda 3 concept. This was in late 1989, and some of the ideas were actually in LttP. I had the idea of several floors, similar to Swords and Serpents on the Intellivision, and an overworld and underworld, similar to Festers Quest . Then there was the artwork we did for our concept on a sequel to SMB2. Our idea consisted of 5-8 levels, and 18 worlds total. Then there was our idea for a SMB5, which would have been almost the same as SMB1 with no maps, but with a minimum of 50 levels.

Other then my dreamy ideas of what could have been produced on the NES, there is the loss of many titles that were never localized, especially FF2 and FF3. I feel like the NES got cut short at the peak of developmental ability. The same is felt concerning the SNES, with great titles coming out from 94-96, many more of which never got localized.

The video game industry took a turn I didnt care for, and I didnt care for 3D graphics, or the primarily violent direction in some of the games. From the mid 90's through the early 00's, I had lost interest in most games. GBC and GBA brought me back into gaming, with the exception of scant PS1 games. It was mostly NES and SNES all along, and it wasnt until early 2006 with DQ8, that I had fully completed and fully enjoyed a 3D game. DS and 3DS have titles since then, that produce the library I like for gaming.

Some of this is opinion about the gaming industry. Some of it is because I love the quality from 1985-1995 primarily. Then there is the fact that I went downhill around 93 with partying, so gaming became sporadic. Not that bad decision making on my part, is of anybodys concern, but it does play a part as to why I primarily like the style of games from that era. 1987-90 with the NES, and 1994-96 with the SNES, is where the magic was with each system. I would have loved to see the NES go strong til 1995, and the SNES all the way through 2005.

One can dream right...

Last thing here, is one of the concepts me and my friend had about Zelda 3. We had drawn maps and hand drawn enemies and items. There was an overworld and underworld, that was completely plagiarized from Festers Quest. There was 27 dungeons total, most with 10-20 rooms. 20-27 were the ones with floors, and the final tower was going to have 27 floors. 5 swords and armor instead of 3, and our ideas were strictly Zelda 1 style, and not to add D&D or RPG aspects. There were only a few new ideas for travel items, but around 10-12 new battle items. Then there was the objective we worked out. 2 towns and 5 dungeons initially available, but with part of the underworld having late game enemies. Then after the northwest corner, you would get the raft, and cross the river to the south and part of the east, where levels 6-19 were.

This is where our broader ideas had fizzled out, with the exception of tons of maps I was making, and enemy and item ideas he was drawing. In the final northern and northeastern part of the map, I came up with an idea that was actually used a year later. Dragon Warrior 2 used the very same thing I had drawn out. There was a massive mountain range, with several dungeon floors to traverse, to make it a valley that was completely enclosed. Sometimes there is an idea that is close, but it was an almost exact match.

Not only did Rhone look identical, but part of the landscape around it as well. Where you enter Rhone cave was almost exact, and Tuhn and moon tower to the west, were in the northeast instead. There was a town with rare items, and a huge tower to climb, before you could open the dungeon through the mountain. In DW2 you have the sea cave which has lava. On the top of this mountain valley, there was a volcanic dungeon, similar to where the monolith to save is. The entrance into Rhone is identical, and if you take Hargons Castle, and bring it 15 tiles south, that is where the final 27 floor tower was.

Wow. I finally told this story. Most of that was described very well actually.

Here is a rough map. L for land, o for ocean, m for mountains, and x for locations

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LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLxooLLLLoooooLmmLLLLLLLLxmo
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLooLLLooooooLmmLLLLLLLLmmLo
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLoooLLLoooooLmmLLLLLLLmmLLo
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Well the CD add on with Sony might of not done as well as many people think. Early CD games for the most part were actually crappy, had terrible load times, ect.
We may never know of what might of happened.

I had these dreamy conversation with my friends or sometime literally just with myself. I did drawing too. I dont remember all the details, but I remember doing a sequel To Xexyz. A Mario game that has a shoot'em up vibe with stage flying on the shell of a Koopa, another sliding from a mountain side on a shell as well, a stage in a submarine made of a shell of a Koopa. Bowser was a power attack that helped Mario and we was playayble in certain mini stage and mini game. They were Fighting together a stronger and badder enemy. A imagined a sci-fi Zelda called Xelda with robots and Aliens and a galaxy To save that was a mix of zelda 1 and 2 and Xexyz. Etc... I really enjoyed it.

I have a question for you TC. What do you think of the new wave? All these Homebrews that coming out ??? Did you played any?

It's an interesting discussion. I also can't stand early 3-D gaming and to this day I mostly stay away from 1st person games. It would have been nice to see what would have come down the line for the NES, though the 93 - 94 era games from Taito and Capcom are a good idea of what would have come.

The 16-bit era was a glorious time for pre-3D gaming, though I'm in the minority who didn't like A Link to the Past—not to jump on the bandwagon, but the series went from a dark, mysterious theme to a happy, brightly colored fairy world with cartoony characters and elevator music. The "kiddy" reputation that Nintendo forged in the early 1990s would haunt them for a long time to come, even to this day. Your Zelda 3 ideas would have made for a game I bet I would have liked.

It's worth mentioning that there were some very good 2D games in the mid to late 90s - Legacy of Kain, Symphony of the Night, and even games like Yoshi's Island were quality titles. I don't know if a Nintendo / Sony add-on would have changed much, but who knows? It brought Sony into the console world as a major player, and you can make a case that the N64 / Saturn / Dreamcast systems were all rushed to respond to the PSX.

I'm not sure a NES upgrade model would have been the right answer for a better Nintendo. Piles and piles of add-ons without any work on successor hardware (which when finally released, didn't really do anything for the marketplace) certainly didn't help SEGA. Nintendo looked rock solid and unshakable from 1988-1996 (Nintendo faced head-to-head competition from SEGA, which ultimately lead to Genesis' defeat but also two fantastic sets of games for all gamers), so there's nothing from then that a "NES 2" would have benefited Nintendo for. I think the problems for Nintendo stemmed from decisions then whose impact wouldn't be fully realized until some years later. Specifically, treating third parties better and the whole fiasco with the SNES CD/Nintendo Playstation. Some cracks began to show with third party relations in the Genesis era, but the situation became more apparent to the armchair consumer in the PS1 era. Nintendo also shares blame in creating that monster, Sony Playstation, again with less than good third party decisions. That's where I think things went wrong for Nintendo and where they could have improved (though not to take away from anything, as I do like the old fanmade game designs! That's the sort of creative drawing and inspiration I enjoy)
bruplex posted...

The 16-bit era was a glorious time for pre-3D gaming, though I'm in the minority who didn't like A Link to the Past—not to jump on the bandwagon, but the series went from a dark, mysterious theme to a happy, brightly colored fairy world with cartoony characters and elevator music.

A Link to the Past is plenty dark in some places, like people caught up and permanently cemented into the ground as grotesque trees, people getting petrified into stone on-screen, apparent death (apparently, later reversed by the Triforce wish, but still), and other unpleasantries. Certainly no less dark than original Zelda (I'd argue darker if anything). I also don't see anything as elevator music. All my opinion, though.

To answer the question about any homebrew games. I have played many patches from RHDN, and tried a few games from RPG maker.com. I played a little bit of Shovel Knight, Ultimate GnG on PSP, and almost completed Retro Game Challenge on the DS.

Other then that I have been very FF1/DW1/DW2 focused with code searching, for a good 5+ years now. Never completed anything yet, just a mess of notes, and the one upload for documents on FF1 GFF. I am hoping to complete something with DW2 soon, and that is how this story finally came out.

I do agree with some of the feelings with LttP. I didnt care for the direction in the series either, but my biggest complaint with LttP is the 1/4 heart containers, which felt cheap and tedious. Ages and Seasons rectified some of what felt missing from the original, and I never played Links Awakening to know how to judge it.

As far as good games from the mid to late 90's, I played most of the RPG's through the end of the SNES life cycle. SotN and FF7 were heavily played, along with a few others over friends house, as the PS1 does have quite an array of games.

Lastly I do have to agree with Mannycav on his outline of things. Even if Nintendo had released an upgraded capable NES with better graphics, then what about the millions of consoles already out there. The add on thing didnt work well for Sega, and yes, the bogus treatment towards 3rd party developers, was their biggest mistake, even more so then how they handled Sony.

The problem really wasnt a hardware thing actually. The problem was not enough localization, and 2-3 years later meant that many games were lost to our shores. Aside of my frustration with FF2 and 3, there was SD3, and DQ1,2,3,5,6 that never made it here for the SNES. SD3 released in Japan the same time the PS1 released here 8/95, and DQ6 and 3 were in 96, so there was no hope of those making it here. The only real argument I have, is Nintendo should have had a Zelda 3 for us in 1989, on the heals of SMB3, which would have completed what we saw on the NES here in 1990.

Add ons suck. They were smart to cancel the Snes cd. They should’ve made the N64 cd based, and went head to head with Sony. History would’ve been quite different if N64 had final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil in addition to first and 2nd party games.

Joe73ffdq posted...

The problem was not enough localization, and 2-3 years later meant that many games were lost to our shores. Aside of my frustration with FF2 and 3, there was SD3, and DQ1,2,3,5,6 that never made it here for the SNES. SD3 released in Japan the same time the PS1 released here 8/95, and DQ6 and 3 were in 96, so there was no hope of those making it here.

You still had it better than Europe.
First numbered Final Fantasy was 7.
Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Megaman 6? First released as VC titles.
Chrono Trigger? No Snes or PS1 version, the DS version was the first one.
And Europe could get their games 1-2+ years after NA.
Captain Skyhawk was released 4 years later.
Contra almost 3 years later.
Megaman 2 years later.
Ninja Gaiden 2 more than 4 years later.
Track and Field almost 5 years. Heck, it was released after the second game!

Wow, I did read about some of that a few times. Im sure there were many who imported the games though, but that is quite a few good titles that should have made it there. Were games in the NES and SNES days, translated into 4 to 5 languages like with GBA forward?

I totally agree with the mistake, of Nintendo sticking with cartridges. There was another sharp peak of success for Nintendo in 93-95, like in 88-89. Even though their deal didnt go through, they would have continued the success with a CD platform. The SNES would have lasted longer also, as the NES still held some amount of demand for 3 years along the SNES. They also would have likely kept most of their top developers.