And the 3DS may be this zombie's next meal.
Now, the GameCube hardware itself has certainly slipped out of sight. Our purple lunch boxes have been packed away, traded in for GameStop credit or hidden in closets to collect dust for eternity. But it's undeniable that, in nearly every other way, Nintendo's GameCube has kept a subtle pulse pumping ever since 2006.
The first piece of life support came through the Wii's backwards compatibility with Cube software – to this day everyone who buys a Wii is also getting a hidden Cube inside, as that disc slot dutifully boots up every miniature optical disc placed within. The second is that the Cube's controller has lived on, still utilized by Nintendo with new Wii releases that require more complicated input that the lone Wii Remote can provide – Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, and every single Virtual Console title retain compatibility with the pad.
But it's the GameCube's library of software that has continued on to be the most prominent memory of the previous hardware generation here in the current era. Through ports, remakes, and play control overhauls, many of Nintendo's Wii releases have simply been updated editions of games we first played back in the earlier half of the '00 decade. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess launched the Wii this way, as a GameCube swan song shoehorned into motion-control form at the last minute – and titles like Metroid Prime Trilogy, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, and the New Play Control! releases of Pikmin, Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, and Mario Power Tennis have kept the trend going.
And it's that trend that I think may continue on to infect Nintendo's 3DS. The new portable won't play GameCube discs and it won't include a port to plug in an old Cube controller (though that makes for a fun mock-up image). But the 3DS could very well play host to revisited Cube software designs once again, just as the Wii has been doing for four years now. Through more remakes, ports, and sequels, we could see a sizeable chunk of the 3DS portable library stem straight from those titles we first saw on the last generation's console.
Adding further support to that point is the fact that several developers are already suggesting exactly that, bringing up their favorite GameCube projects in interviews about their 3DS development intentions and implying that ports could be done relatively easily.
So why fight the inevitable invasion? Let's embrace the idea that the 3DS may very well serve as the next battlefront for the software of the undying 'Cube, and move forward trying to make the most of it. There are several GameCube games that I wouldn't mind to see make an encore appearance, after all, and many of them could benefit well from the addition of the new machine's stereoscopic 3D effect – so here's a Top 10 list of picks. Read along, see if you agree with the choices, and try to visualize what they might look like if brought back as either remakes or similarly-styled sequels (the screenshots are even formatted to 3DS dimensions to help you get a better sense.) Here we go!
Luigi's Mansion
A second trip through his haunted house.
Hideki Konno wants it to happen. He's the project director for the 3DS hardware today, but a decade ago he was deep into development for the GameCube launch – directing this debut starring role for Mario's twin brother. What's even more interesting is that stereoscopic 3D tech was being worked on with the game at one point. That device (which would have been a TV screen overlay) never made it out of Nintendo's R&D, of course. But it existed.
And Konno is quick to bring the discussion back to Luigi any time he's asked. In Craig's interview with him at this year's E3 he pointed to the Mansion as the one Nintendo property he'd pick out to revisit on the new portable.
"I think Luigi's Mansion, that I created for GameCube, would be a good game for the 3DS. The lighting of the game, and the dollhouse-like environment of the game I think would be very suitable for 3D. I think the depth and the width of the environments, like a box, that we had in Luigi's Mansion would be a very good match for the effects of the 3DS."
That's coming pretty close to a confirmation. A remake or sequel to Luigi's lone title role could also expand the original idea, giving our cowardly ghosthunting hero a larger mansion to explore – and it's been far too long since we've seen the likable Ewok-language-speaking Professor E. Gadd.
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II:
Rogue Leader
Red Five, standing by.
The current era of interactive adventures in George Lucas' galaxy far, far away seems, to me, to be missing one of the main appeals of the entire franchise – the vehicles. Titles like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II and the upcoming Old Republic MMO focus largely on on-foot missions, lightsaber combat, and using the Force. Which is fine. But I miss the epic space battles.
Bring me back into a game where my character never leaves the inside of a cockpit, I say, just as in this second Day 1 launch title for the GameCube – Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. A sequel to the excellent original Rogue Squadron game from the Nintendo 64, Rogue Leader was the showcase piece for the technical power of the Cube with its brilliantly detailed renderings of several classic Star Wars ships and skies, from the X-Wing and the Tie Fighter to the cloud-shrouded floating city of Bespin.
Factor 5, the studio responsible for developing the Rogue Squadron series years ago, has recently bit the dust – so a direct remake of their titles for the 3DS is probably out of the question. But LucasArts could certainly move forward with a new title that explores the same ideas, focusing fully on the currently-neglected vehicle side of Star Wars action. And just think – the stereoscopic 3D might make it a lot easier to bulls-eye those womp rats in your T-16.
Super Mario Sunshine
Starring Mario's only short-sleeved shirt.
Nintendo launched its original DS hardware with a remake of Super Mario 64. Could Sunshine, then, be in line for a revisit on the 3DS? It might make sense, especially since the vibrant, tropical environments of Isle Delfino could allow the hardware to show off the sunny side of its potential – with the bright sand, toxic sludge and spraying water effects of the title popping off the portable screen with stereoscopic punch.
Super Mario Sunshine just simply deserves another chance to shine, too, after falling to the bottom of the heap of Mario's 3D adventures in popularity – 64, Galaxy, and Galaxy 2 seem to be much more loved. That's a shame, too, as Sunshine was a really remarkable game. Its late debut in August of 2002, nine months or so after the GameCube hardware went on sale, seemed to cripple its reception from the start. But once the game came out, it rocked.
It's like Mr. Miyamoto has said before, "A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever." That quote is ridiculous, by the way. Doesn't even make sense. Lots of games are delayed again and again, and then the final product is still terrible when it does arrive. He should have said something like "A delayed game will eventually come out," giving no indication of its quality when it does. In fact, I think he may have just been misquoted originally, and the misquote has just been perpetuated again and again and . . .
Sorry, where was I? Sunshine. Yes. 3DS remake, please.
Viewtiful Joe
Henshin-a-go-go, baby.
If there's any GameCube-originated, visually dynamic, absolutely bonkers franchise that deserves a chance to be reimagined in stereoscopic 3D, it's Viewtiful Joe. This game was more about the graphics than just about any other title in the entire 'Cube library, constantly zooming, shifting, and speeding up and down the camera to make our hero Joe look as fantastic as possible as he fought to save his sweetheart Sylvia.
Viewtiful Joe did so well for Capcom in its debut that an entire series was spawned, with a sequel that came along one year later, an expansion to other competing hardware platforms, and even a Saturday morning cartoon show. Most relevant to our current discussion, though, is that this GameCube-born series has also gone portable once before – with Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble on the DS. It expanded on the ideas of the original and added new DS-specific VFX powers for Joe that uniquely utilized the touch screen and stylus.
A new 3DS remake or sequel for the series could follow the same path, offering our hero the same basic array of powers and abilities but then supplementing those with some all-new tricks and techniques that take specific advantage of the stereoscopic tech. And while the lack of Viewtiful Joe franchise games through the past five years would seem to argue against the likelihood of a 3DS revival, the character hasn't disappeared. He's just been spending most of the past half-decade fighting foes in Capcom's Vs. games.
1080 Avalanche
Shaun White, make it happen.
With the 3DS hardware still several months away from release at this point, it can be difficult to guess just what kinds of visual effects will work best when presented through its new stereoscopic view. Which environments will look the greatest? Which kinds of graphics will inspire the most awe? But there's one force of nature that I'm already confident would be incredible, and make you say "wow" – 1080's avalanches.
Massive walls of falling snow chasing your snowboarder down the mountain while you desperately try to avoid getting buried already blow me away as an idea alone. Even just standard snowboarding on a normal, fairweather course would be great as trees, rails, and turns would come speeding at you at 70 miles per hour or more. And we could have it all, if Nintendo decided to revive its 1080 franchise for the 3DS.
Now that might be too much to ask. The current Nintendo attitude toward sports games seems to be entirely focused on casual players, with Mii characters taking the lead in titles like Wii Sports Resort and the 3DS's upcoming PilotWings Resort. But, hey, that would be fine too. Give us 1080 Resort, or Mii Winter Sports or whatever you want to call it. I just want to see how snowboarding would work on the new portable.
(And a game like this might even be a chance to employ the built-in tilt sensors on the system, too.)
Beyond Good & Evil
Refresh the fan base.
Ubisoft's somehow made this franchise into a modern day cult classic after just one low-profile release. Beyond Good & Evil came to the GameCube (and other platforms) back in 2003, and it enjoyed mild success. It was mostly overlooked at first, but then built up popularity and recognition over the long haul as more and more gamers discovered its unique blend of Zelda-like action, stealth missions, and photography. And, of course, its appealing leading lady, Jade.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 has reportedly been in the works for years now, but its status is all over the place – there's a teaser trailer out, but that was a long time ago and we haven't heard much about it since. If Ubisoft is really serious about bringing out the sequel and expanding BG&E into a real series, though, the company will need to start being more concrete about its plans.
The mystery could be dispersed with the 3DS. Ubisoft is already planning to refresh the fan base and give us all a chance to play the 2003 original game again, to span the 7+ year gap in our memories from the time many of us first played it – that plan's coming in the form of Beyond Good & Evil HD, a remake that's hitting Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network next year. But why leave out the Nintendo fans?
An HD port isn't possible on Wii, but maybe a 3D port on the 3DS could step in instead. The game's already been on the Cube, Xbox and PS2 and is coming to the HD consoles – surely the code could migrate once more. And Jade's use of a camera in-game could be skillfully paired with the 3DS's own picture-taking capabilities, too. She could capture evidence of the DomZ invasion with stereoscopic images this time around.
Chibi-Robo!
Too low on the totem pole for too long.
Chibi-Robo just can't catch a break. His original adventure was a lot of fun, but it came out on the Cube in the no man's land of early 2006 when the hardware was doing very little to stay relevant in the final year before the Wii's release. Its sequel was solid, too, but its potential audience was crippled when it was only sold in Walmart stores. And though the first game was then announced to be coming to the Wii as a New Play Control! series remake, it never did. Nintendo of America cancelled the port before it could happen.
So Chibi-Robo, buddy, I feel for you. You're underappreciated more than any other original Nintendo IP to launch in the past five years, and it's not looking like your luck is going to change. Unless – somehow – the 3DS could come into play.
A fresh remake or sequel for the Chibi-Robo series on Nintendo's new portable could finally be the game to kickstart the franchise and give it the wider recognition it deserves. It would be a great fit, too – it's filled with unique visual environments in a common house that seem massive to his miniature robot eyes (a.k.a. the Toy Story perspective). I wouldn't count out the possibility, either, since this little Robo has done much better for himself in Japan – where the GameCube original, DS sequel, and Wii remake all got a lot more notice than they did here in the States.
Odama
Current President plus Battlestar Admiral.
Speaking of late-generation GameCube releases in the no man's land of 2006, here's Odama. This game was quirk incarnate, a design that endeavored to be the world's first video game hybrid of military strategy and pinball. What's more, it shipped with a GameCube microphone peripheral that you attached to your controller – so you could bark verbal orders to your squads of fighting men while keeping your fingers focused on flicking the flippers.
It was incredibly odd, yes, and understandably ignored by most every owner of the GameCube – but I find myself thinking that its ideas could actually work pretty well if it were brought back around on the 3DS.
The added depth of the stereoscopic view would be a natural match for its pinball-table perspective. The core idea of pinball itself would work better in portable form, as it has for hits like Pokemon Pinball over the years. And, most appropriately, the 3DS has a microphone built right in – Nintendo would no longer need to package the game with an additional peripheral.
If nothing else, perhaps Nintendo could explore the Odama idea again as a download through the 3DSWare service. There's one first-party pinball precedent on DSiWare already – Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon.
The Legend of Zelda:
The Wind Waker
In need of a Director's Cut.
There have been three occasions so far of Nintendo taking an established Zelda game, sprucing it up, and then re-releasing it for the company's current portable system. The first was The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, which took the original black and white Link's Awakening and colorized it, while also adding an extra dungeon to explore. The second was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords, which paired a nearly perfect port of the SNES classic with an all-new four-Link multiplayer mode. And the third, coming for the 3DS, is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. You know all about that one.
Nintendo could very well stop after Ocarina's remake. I hope they don't. Because the 3DS seems like it could also be the perfect platform to host another trip to The Wind Waker's endless ocean.
The Wind Waker's cel-shaded style has aged gracefully and would still look great today, even without much touching up. Toon Link's a perfect fit for the portable, as proven by his continued use in The Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. And the added depth of view could make cel-shaded sailing all the more immersive.
But more than any of that, I hope The Wind Waker gets a second chance someday to have its adventure fleshed out a bit more. The game was clearly missing more than one dungeon, and that fact was illustrated egregiously when the giant fish Jabun just tossed you the game's third Pearl in a dialogue sequence (after you had to battle through full dungeons and boss battles to win the first two). Nintendo's developers have commented on how they'll be going back and editing some areas of Ocarina of Time while remaking it – perhaps they could do the same for Wind Waker, and give us back those missing dungeons.
Geist
The perfect game for Halloween.
Our 10th and final pick will be another that, like Luigi's Mansion, has already been suggested for a 3DS port by its own developer – the underrated GameCube first-person shooter Geist. Ted Newman, creative director at developer n-Space, confirmed that there were a lot of similarities between the GameCube and the 3DS under the hood in a recent interview with Evan Campbell of Nintendojo.
He told Campbell it wouldn't be too hard to bring the project over to the portable, saying, "You know, if Nintendo was interested in getting a Geist game on 3DS, it's certainly doable. As a fan of Geist and as someone who worked on it for three-and-a-half years, I'd love to see it. I love the whole mechanic, and I love that whole universe."
The most unique aspect of Geist was its possessions, which allowed you to take control of people and animals after flying into their bodies in spectral form. It was an interesting hook that could merit further exploration – and n-Space is certainly in a position to be able to bring a great FPS experience to the 3DS, too. The company's current projects are both portable first-person shooters – the DS editions of GoldenEye 007 and Call of Duty: Black Ops.
And that's that for the 10 top picks for GameCube-to-3DS ports, remakes, or inspired sequels. You'll notice a couple of key games missing in the list – Twilight Princess, the Metroid Prime series, Pikmin... But that's intentional. Those games have already been remade once before and you're not going to get a more definitive edition of something like Metroid Prime Trilogy even if you made it portable and stereoscopic. If the GameCube's library is going to keep shuffling along, I'd prefer to see some still-untouched originals get electroshocked back to life instead.
And then there are those that aren't worth mentioning, to me, because follow-ups have already been confirmed – GameCube greats like Mario Kart: Double Dash, Animal Crossing, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door already have 3DS sequels announced and on the way. Even more possible picks, like new entries in the Super Smash Bros., Wave Race, and F-Zero series, were discussed in last month's feature The 3DS's N64 Encores. Why not click over there and check out the 10 picks picked from that system, too?
But, of course, your final course of action here should be to weigh in with your own opinion. You've seen my choices – what are yours? Which of these picks do you agree with, and where am I off base? Or maybe the entire premise is flawed to begin with, and the GameCube really isn't as alive as I've suggested. If you think so, let me have it in the Comments box below. I'll take the time to come back and check on your posts after I've finished boarding up my windows and stockpiling weapons for the impending invasion . . .