Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Games that deserve a sequel

Too many great games have come and gone, without any sort of sequel or follow-up. Here are a few I feel truly deserve a comeback.

Luigi's Mansion
First game's platform: GameCube
Preferred platform of sequel: Wii


When the GameCube launched, this was the closest thing to a new Super Mario game on the market, and having such great expectations about it, many were disappointed. I, on the other hand, greatly enjoyed it. It was new, different, and above all, it starred my favorite Nintendo character of all time, Luigi.

This unique off-shoot starred Luigi as he seemingly wins a mansion in the lottery. A lottery he doesn't recall entering, I might add. When Mario hears the news, he goes off ahead of Luigi to the new house, and promises to meet him there. When Luigi finally finds his way to his prize, he finds something drastically different from the image in the brochure. Instead of an immaculate, sprawling mansion, he is greeted with a dilapidated old structure, crawling with ghosts.

In the mansion, he meets up with an old professor by the name of E. Gadd. Professor E. Gadd studies the paranormal activity in this house that Luigi "won". After hearing of Luigi's lottery winnings, he regrettably informs him that there never was a lottery, and the mansion's resident Boos have instead tricked him into their lair. When Mario arrived, he was swiftly kidnapped by the leader of the ghouls, King Boo, and locked up in the house's basement. It's up to Luigi to capture all of these ghosts and save his big brother, with the help of Professor E. Gadd's specially designed ghost capturing tool, the Poltergust 2000.

Check the first section of this article for more on how I think this game should play.

Pokemon Snap
First game's platform: Nintendo 64
Preferred platform of sequel: Wii


Way back when Pokemon was at the height of it's popularity, it seemed there was a constant stream of spin-offs. So many, in fact, that it was hard to pick one to buy! I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Pokemon Snap, and I loved it from the second I hopped in the ZERO-ONE, the game's on-rails mode of transportation.

This game is really quite unique. The goal of the game is to get the best picture of the many Pokemon you encounter while riding each level's pre-determined course aboard Professor Oak's specially designed vehicle, the ZERO-ONE. Pictures are judged on pose, amount of Pokemon visible and size. So say you caught the ear of a Pikachu a quarter-mile away while it was looking away from you. Yeah, that's a pretty crappy picture there, pal.

There's also a surprising level of skill required to get some Pokemon to appear or evolve. For example, in order to snap a pic of the rare and elusive Zapdos, you first have to coax a Pikachu over to a power conduit. Then, you must play the Pokeflute to make the Pikachu shoot lightning from it's cheeks, powering the conduit. The resulting energy surge shatters the egg the Zapdos is hiding inside of, and there you have your photo-op.

The many facets of this game would lend themselves very well to the Wiimote. Point to look around, hold B to zoom, A to snap a picture, press the 1 or 2 buttons to throw apples or Pester Balls (Respectively), press the D-pad to play the Pokeflute, and so on.

Also, with the comparatively vast storage space of the DVD format over N64 cartridges, there'd be the possibility of every single one of the 493 Pokemon making an appearance in the game. This would add hours to the already expansive adventures of the original game. Add to that more levels and possibly new items, and you've got yourself a winning formula for sure! I really, REALLY hope Nintendo gets working on this! One game is not enough to satisfy this Pokemaniac!

Well, those are two games that I sincerely think deserve to make a comeback sometime soon. What do you think of my picks? Which one-hit-wonders would you like to see return?

The Duck Has Spoken.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, I played the crap out of The original, my little bro made me play it aton! I hate the original now, but would Love TO SEE a new one!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Wrong name, its a me luigi, from the GOnintendo comments!!! HI duck! I love you comments and now i read your blog! GO ME!

PsychoDuck said...

Hey there, Luigi :) Glad to hear you like my blogs and comments!

The Duck Has Spoken.

Anonymous said...

Read your comments on GN. Nice blog you've got here! I never played LM, but I think a sequel would be great!

Anonymous said...

I would love to see both sequels for such great games, specially Pkmn Snap, as you said, WITH ALL THE 493 PKMN.

Besides those two, we're already getting another sequel for one game I loved so much, Battalion Wars! And maybe, a sequel for Kirby Air Ride?

Anonymous said...

YES.

Do you know HOW long a lot of us have been waiting for those sequels?

Which means they probably will never come out, but hey, it's fun to speculate.