Don't get me wrong, I love Nintendo, own a Switch, and will happily shell out hundreds of dollars each generation just to get the chance to play 2 or 3 new Mario/Yoshi titles. But from the Wii era on, their hardware and success seems largely based off of gimmicks. Maybe that is what is needed to stand out in an age of increasingly homogenized games and gaming platforms, but for me what makes Nintendo stand out is their 1st party titles that consistently combine nostalgia, excellent gameplay/mechanics, charming visuals, minimal (if any) storytelling, great music, and recently multiplayer co-op (bring your wife and kids!). Ok, I'm a sucker for Mario-type games and have not much been into Zelda since Ocarina, but I struggle to find games with those qualities and quality on any other platform, if at all.

It has nothing to do with the hardware and their gimmicks. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used the Switch outside the house, or seriously played a Wii motion-control game, or a WiiU game that effectively used the dual/touchscreen features (does Mario Maker count?). If Nintendo released Mario Odyssey for PC I'd never even think of purchasing the Switch and very happily play the game at 4k 60fps on my puter. Being able to remap "shake your controller like an idiot" to spin-jump to a button in Dolphin made various Mario New's tolerable.

But yea, that'll never happen. So as long as Nintendo keeps producing on the games front, I'll happily keep biting. Plz take my money.

But how could I go on this rant without diverging into lionizing the glory of the SNES days, when Nintendo and videogames themselves were at a peak which shall never again be reached. The SNES was inarguably (though not at the time, Blast Processing and all) superior in graphics, audio, and control compared to other popular consoles at the time (that being Sega Genesis of course). And developers took advantage of all this power in spades. I'm still impressed by Mode 7 (what, you don't pause SMW when Bowser's clown-ship is zoomed to the max?), and many SNES game music are still among the best examples of VGM, before compressed digital audio removed all constraints on composers (with all due respect to the glorious SOTN and Mario Galaxy compositions).

Many people have stated that early 2d games have aged better than early 3d ones, and I think that is true. The SNES shows this well, with vibrant, colorful, glitzy graphics, and excellent music. But what I think has been lost with the new generation of consoles is unique character. One could tell at a glance whether a game was was produced for the NES, Genesis, or SNES, and even the PS1 and N64. Now that characterness is left up to the developer, and the consoles/PC mostly interchangeable. That's fine I suppose. But there is something impressive, especially as a programmer, about taking these limited machines to their absolute limits, and eking every bit of unexpected power out of them.

I remember once my friend messaged me, he just had to play FF3 (or FF6) like RIGHT NOW. So I sent him the ROM. We then both marveled at how it was only 4 megabytes in size. Kefka is truly rolling in his grave, laughing maniacally.