The Nintendo "Off My Chest" thread (BE CIVIL)

[chocolatejr9]

So what we're saying is, Donkey Kong got dealt a rough hand as early as the third game? Dang...

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

So what we're saying is, Donkey Kong got dealt a rough hand as early as the third game? Dang...

We never discussed the one with Stanley, but yeah I'd argue that one counts too.

 

[Dinoman96]

I just think this is the result of Gregg Mayles clearly not being someone who ever wanted to be stuck in one genre for too long. Like many people know him mainly as "the Banjo and maybe DKC1/2 guy" but the reality is that he's been involved with many different genres and IPs before and after those: he designed the NES and Arcade Battletoads games and also Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Pinata, and in more recent times, Sea of Thieves. He's also been brought on to salvage Everwild as its new creative director.

His tenure on Banjo and DK both have a similar trajectory, when you think about it: worked on the first game, worked on its direct follow up and then decided it was time to move on to greener pastures with a new IP, after DKC2 it was Dream (later Banjo-Kazooie), and after Tooie it was...Grabbed by the Ghoulies, originally planned for the GCN (and not a proper third Banjo platformer, like so many believed).

To me, Nuts & Bolts always felt like a game initially made out of obligation. Like after Ghoulies bombed on Xbox it was clear him and the Banjo team crawled back to the latter and tried to come up new ideas for a new Banjo platformer, like an enhanced remake of the first or even competing against an computer controlled Grunty or something along those lines, but nothing really stuck until they finally came up with the whole vehicle mechanic. This will give you the overall run down on that game's development if you don't know the whole story by now.

Reddit - Dive into anything

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[LiveStudioAudience]

There's something subtly sad about Nuts & Bolts in that Mayles and company seemed to perceive a staleness to the series which they earnestly tried to address with innovative ideas in the aforementioned game only to not have it really land because the audience most willing to buy a Banjo Kazooie game wasn't interested in a title that wasn't Threeie. In that sense, it's almost ironic that Nintendo didn't buy Rare because after 2001 the mentality of trying out new and bold experiments (fan demand be damned) was something they both had in common.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I just think this is the result of Gregg Mayles clearly not being someone who ever wanted to be stuck in one genre for too long. Like many people know him mainly as "the Banjo and maybe DKC1/2 guy" but the reality is that he's been involved with many different genres and IPs before and after those: he designed the NES and Arcade Battletoads games and also Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Pinata, and in more recent times, Sea of Thieves. He's also been brought on to salvage Everwild as its new creative director.

His tenure on Banjo and DK both have a similar trajectory, when you think about it: worked on the first game, worked on its direct follow up and then decided it was time to move on to greener pastures with a new IP, after DKC2 it was Dream (later Banjo-Kazooie), and after Tooie it was...Grabbed by the Ghoulies, originally planned for the GCN (and not a proper third Banjo platformer, like so many believed).

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To me, Nuts & Bolts always felt like a game initially made out of obligation to me. Like after Ghoulies bombed on Xbox it was clear him and the Banjo team crawled back to the latter and tried to come up new ideas for a new Banjo platformer, like an enhanced remake of the first or even competing against an computer controlled Grunty or something along those lines, but nothing really stuck until they finally came up with the whole vehicle mechanic. This will give you the overall run down on that game's development if you don't know the whole story by now.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

I have said a lot and still have a lot to say about Rare fandom and its relationships with both modern Nintendo fandom and Rare itself, but one thing that always sticks out to me is just how much Rare fandom is built on assumptions and speculaiton, both in a meta sense and in terms of the games themselves. Every time I research anything even adjacent to Rare, I find evidence that debunks some famous long-standing myth without even trying, that in any other fandom would've just become meme and fanfiction fodder like Marty the Thwomp or Pikablu and ended there - the amount of blatantly untrue myths about Rare and its games is utterly staggering - from miniscule things like "Rareware" having been the company name or as elaborate as deep multi-game character arcs for Donkey Kong characters - even a lot of the true stuff comes from relatively dubious and likely forgotten sources like foreign marketing materials or game manuals - and they all seem to originate from within the fandom, not from outside. Bubsy has a lot of misconceptions, but most of them come from outside the fandom and are intended to disparage him, (Bubsy being intended as a cool Sonic-type character, Rob Paulson regretting voicing him) while a lot of Rare myths seem to have a more positive slant, and born from a belief that the devs think the way fans do, and Big Bad Bill is getting in the way, that kinda places a Santa element onto them where it's impossible to debunk them without being the heel, even if it's the right thing to do or when those myths are being used maliciously (There's a reason I'll sometimes call Banjo "the mascot of console wars"). I guess it makes sense since these games primarily came out in the late 90s, when internet fandom existed, but we didn't exactly have clear terms like "fan theory" or "headcanon" to distinguish and it was (speaking from experience in the 2000s) very easy to stumble across fan ideas and mistake them for being official.

 

[fogbadge]

There's something subtly sad about Nuts & Bolts in that Mayles and company seemed to perceive a staleness to the series which they earnestly tried to address with innovative ideas in the aforementioned game only to not have it really land because the audience most willing to buy a Banjo Kazooie game wasn't interested in a title that wasn't Threeie. In that sense, it's almost ironic that Nintendo didn't buy Rare because after 2001 the mentality of trying out new and bold experiments (fan demand be damned) was something they both had in common.

iirc people made fun of rare for always making 3D platformers and that’s was one of the factors in them wanting to do something different with the games. I think that also played a factor in the reinventing conker as an adult game. although I don’t recall the sources on this so you’ll forgive me if I’m wrong

I do know that many people said that nuts and bolts was a solid game and speculated that had it been an original IP it would have been better received.