Amir0x said:
Of course, I also don't think NSMBW is "great". It is fairly routine until like world 5, and the only truly great worlds is the final and bonus worlds. But the aesthetic is too lacking of any ambition for me to fully enjoy traversing the world, so that's a big negative.
But, say, Mario Sunshine is a tour de force, start to finish?
I do respect your opinion and your passion, but I am confused at how black and white you see the distinction in focus between GC and Wii.
As I experienced it, Nintendo first party started to fix itself towards the end of the GC - Pikmin 2 is much more challenging, deep, and rewarding than its test-of-concept predecessor, and Jungle Beat was (and is) the 2D platformer I'd wanted since Yoshi's Island. They returned to their usual quality as the Wii was being born, and it continued there with Twilight Princess - far more complete than the rushed Wind Waker was.
As for Smash Bros, you may not appreciate it but you must appreciate that many, many gamers adore that game, and making strides to take it on line, and to add a library of Nintendo nostalgia which is unrivalled in all of gaming, was very gamer centric.
Mario Kart, again sidestepping the taste issue, they made significant strides and attempts to reach out to gamers with the online challenges dished out ever couple weeks, some of which were the closest Mario Kart has been to the SNES version since the GBA, in terms of expert racing. Some of those time trials were *exceptionally* challenging, and even offline the heavy focus on ghost racing against NCL staff, and time trials, is much more gamer-y than Double Dash ever got.
Many gamers regret how NCL treated StarFox on the GameCube, so perhaps that was a blessing leaving it off the Wii. however I do desperately want F-Zero GX 2 and on that I think we can agree.
All I'm saying is, the GameCube was great, but Nintendo have taken much bigger strides to please their core base with Wii (they just failed in the marketing). Even Wario Ware didn't get a proper outing on GameCube but at least it got one on Wii (and Rhythm Heaven is the Wario Ware guys, so it's getting TWO!).
We were all bitching about 1080 GC and WaveRace GC and how short Luigi's Mansion was and omg the fetch quest in Wind Waker and SUNSHINE IS NOT PROPER MARIO. They got their act together in 2005 and I'd say they've been working hard to keep it that way. So it's hard for me to understand your fury at the Wii generation.