Jan/02/2002

President of Nintendo Co. Ltd. Hiroshi Yamauchi has today announced that Nintendo - renowned for putting storyline and character development before fancy-arse graphics and special effects - will now be focusing on fancy-arse graphics and special effects.

He said in a statement:

For years Nintendo has prided itself in making games with meaning that are fun to play, educational and well thought out, only to be thanked with low sales and criticism while games like the FMV heavy Final Fantasy games 5 through 10 get rave reviews. The new Zelda was going to have an epic storyline that would span Links entire life, but due to the outcry over the new "childish" graphics, it will now start with a one and a half hour full motion video intro that takes up the first game disc.

Link explores his new realistic environments, courtesy of five thousand whining fanboys.

Shigeru Miyamoto is said to be less than impressed with this decision, and the changes it will force upon all games in production. He said through an interpreter earlier today: "Zelda aside, I think all the games EAD (Entertainment, Analysis and Development -Ed) were working on had decent graphics and story, but this just takes it too far!"

Hiroshi Yamauchi said he came to the decision while he was surfing game forums on the Internet and continually came across comments such as:

"WTF'S g01n6 0|\|? Th4t n3w Ze1d4 l00k 1s SUX war3z!?!?! W00T!"
->Th3-M4d-H4x0r<

and;

"Lugis Manson id fore kids dude lol, and therev'e fukt up zellda :(. I hop Heroshy Yamaha reeds this an dose sumthink about it.<8'7("
-BenF.268

The new Animal Forest + is looking nice. Those trees are pushing, oh I'd say about 800 billion polygons.

"We enter a bold new era, with jaw dropping visuals, lifelike graphics, and, err.. that's about it. None of those annoying storylines that always get in the way." Yamauchi's statement continued.

And he appears to be right. Because of the new focus on visuals, it seems it won't only be the storyline that will be affected. Sound and actual game length will be taking a dramatic hit. According to Miyamoto, while the new new look of his Zelda game is certainly impressive, the code for the graphics take up so much room that there's only about three minutes of actual gameplay, on the third disc.

Controls? Storyline? I'll just quote the whole revised game manual below:

Controls

To move: Use grey stick thingy.

To whack stuff: A or B buttons.

Something else?: One of the other buttons, possibly in combination with the stick thingy.

 

Legend Of Zelda: GCN

This epic tale begins, with you...

"The Princess Zelda has been kidnapped, and it's your mission to resc.."

Asked about the sound quality for the new Zelda, Miyamoto said: "yeah, using some advanced compression techniques I've managed to cram in a three second distorted harmonica loop. It's kind of catchy, I suppose."

And the change hasn't just affected in-house developers either. Rare Ltd. has been told to upgrade all games in production. Chris Stamper told us today that they're moving ahead with Nintendo's wishes; and even sent URNN a secret in game shot of the new realistic looking Donkey Kong Racing under the strict prerequisite that I not publish it, or even mention I'd seen it. I present this screenshot below:

Hmmm, looks good, but how realistic can you make a game that involves apes racing rhinos look anyhow?

So there you have it. Nintendo enters the era of flashy graphics and no gameplay that it has resisted for so long.

Hmmm, I should have just bought a PS2.

-Blake