The Shrine

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Those are tears of joy, my friend.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I'll cry tears of joy when they say it's in 2D, and even more if it looks as nice as the 2D Megaman game coming to the GC later this year.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I'm not opposed to a 3D Castlevania. It didn't go well last time, but they may be able to get it right. There is plenty of precedent - Mario, Zelda, FF and Metroid come to mind.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>FF doesn't really count...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>If you come from the perspective of gameplay, I can see that. But the point is that other franchises have shown that good transitions are possible.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>FF still doesn't count. ;)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, but we're talking platformers, and only Nintendo and Rare have shown they can consistenly do great ones, although Ape Escape and maybe some of the newer Sony ones (Ratchet, Jak) are up there too</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Metroid Prime feels like a platformer sometimes.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's a platformer/FPS/action game</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Right, and it wasn't made by Nintendo. Published by, but not made.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Do you know anything about the development of the game?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>If they give it the same kind of treatment as Contra, it would be very cool.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The game was a co-op job, the actual game design and music was done mostly by Nintendo, the programming and graphics done mostly by retro. The project was headed by Miyamoto.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Nope, I just see "Retro Studios Inc." at the beginning.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Oh shit! Finally! Now I can play a Castlevania game without dealing with the shitty music chip of the GBA.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>First off, Retro Studios is a second-party company, a wholly-owned subsidiary by Nintendo (just like Rare was, but completely owned and controlled by Nintendo, so it acts more like a development house, just not completely internal). It's made up of a bunch of ex-Iguana team members from Acclaim (they're the ones who originally made Turok). The development house was put in charge of 2 projects: Rune, some action RPG game that was supposed to be really neat, and Metroid. Nintendo knew that the US saved their ass in the last generation and knew that Metroid is HUGE here but not very big in Japan, so they wanted a US group to do it. The took Retro in (they liked what the team was able to accomplish in the past) and got them to work at the two projects. About the middle of 2001 (August, I think), Nintendo got an update on the progress of the two games (not the first, I'm sure) and was pissed. They saw that Metroid wasn't coming along very well at all, so they scrapped Rune, laid off about 3/4 of the people working on it, put the rest on Metroid, and made that THE reason for that development house to exist. The game was VERY important to their US strategy, so much so that they had weekly video conferences with Miyamoto on the development of the game.

Needless to say, they ended up with a pretty good game (one of the top games of the new generation, IMO) and a lot of influence came from Japan, from Miyamoto (now director of ALL game development at Nintendo Japan) and his boys. It wasn't just published by Nintendo through a third-party agreement. It was developed by a second-party team with TONS of input from Japan.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Well alright then, now I know. However, while interesting, this is all still tangential to my original point.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>True, it was just FYI. I agree with your original point, BTW</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Blah...Metriod Prime was a different game to the 2D version. I don't want side-scroller to turn into a FPS-style. Mario and Zelda sucked in terms of control.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Sine, you just named 2 of the most influential and revolutionary games of the 32-bit+ eras.......and for the last time, Metroid was never and has never been claimed as a FPS. It's as much an FPS as Morrowind is</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>How much of it have you played?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I'm not saying it's actually defined as a first-person shooter, but it's in that same viewpoint. As far as revolutionary, that just means that it's the first to receive a bug report.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.gamerankings.com/itemranking ... kings=y</a>

Zelda is still considered the best game of all time by most sources</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The highest statistical average score of many reviews does not necessarily give you what most people consider the best game of all time.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>How about the highest rated game ever along with the ungodly high amount of sales that the game received? Also even years later people everywhere jumping left and right to get the re-release?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Nope. Good reason to consider it a serious contender, but not enough to conclude. Of course, what does it really matter?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, uhh...whatever. What happened to GTA: Vice City?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Just that Zelda was, and still is, a great game.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Using these statistics is not good support for that claim. Popularity does not necessarily indicate quality.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The reviews that the score is taken from are BASED on quality, and the popularity shows that a lot of people enjoy it. What more do you want?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '> 18. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City PS2 Rockstar Games 94.2%</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>1) Reviews are one person's opinion - a person who is not in the same position as most people. 2) The numerical score that is given to a review does not necessarily reflect how a reviewer feels, when compared to other numerical scores.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>And to answer the "What more do you want" question, I don't wany anything. I think any attempt to determine the "greatest game of all time" is misguided. The statistics are interesting, but do not lead to the conclusion you have.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>How do you know the reviewer isn't in the same position as most people? Especially in light of the unparrallelled popularity of the game by the actual gamers? Do you think this would have all occured at once if it were a bad game?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>If ANY game has right to claim the spot of greatest of all time, it's Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Most critically acclaimed, unparralleled in popularity (even a half a decade later people are still in a frenzy over it), and you will find people everywhere who agree that it is the greatest.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>You mean other than the fact that it is a reviewer's job to review games? Note that never once did I call it a bad game - in fact, I like it alot. But I repeat, you can not use these methods to objectively declare it the best game of all time.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Yeah, it's really popular, I get the point. That still doesn't mean you can conclude it's the best game of all time.</div>