Animal Crossing: Lost in Translation
Where did our NES games go, and will the adventure be just as good without them?
by Craig Harris
June 20, 2005 - When Animal Crossing hits the Nintendo DS this year, Nintendo's virtual life game originally produced on the Nintendo 64 and then ported to the GameCube will be enhanced with additional gameplay elements, including the one feature every fan of the game dreamed of since day one of the original release: online multiplayer.
Unfortunately, with the move to the Nintendo DS platform, it seems the designers will omit one of the features that kept gamers coming back: collectible NES games. The inclusion of more than a dozen classic 8-bit Nintendo games not only added an additional layer of gameplay onto the entire Animal Crossing design, they were also a huge incentive to do the menial tasks that are a part of the Animal Crossing whole.
At this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, we had the opportunity to chat with the producer on the Nintendo DS Animal Crossing project, Katsuya Eguchi. In our interview, we asked about the possibility of the NES games moving to the DS design. He responded: "At this time, there are no plans to do this in the Nintendo DS game." After a bit of a stunned reaction on our part, we pressed him for more details on the matter. "The NES games in the GameCube version sort of took players away from the adventure," Eguchi told us. "For the Nintendo DS version we wanted to put more focus on living in the Animal Crossing world."
Collectible NES games were a huge staple of the Animal Crossing design. Right from the start, Nintendo teased owners with a housewarming gift in the GameCube title: on the memory card included with every copy of the game, Nintendo included two "common" NES games so players could go right into the retrogaming if they chose to. It was a perfect tease, a dangling carrot that kept players interested in performing the chores that their animal neighbors request of them. And if it wasn't available as a personal reward, it was offered at the company's Animal Crossing website as a monthly treat. These NES games gave the entire design far more legs because their inclusion were something nearly everyone wanted to collect. And, at least on the GameCube version of the series, these NES titles could then be sent to a Game Boy Advance system for portable play.
Removing these game systems from the Animal Crossing design is clearly not due to cartridge restraints. The original game, produced on the Nintendo 64 in Japan, also contained several Famicom titles and fit on a 512 megabit cartridge, and the GameCube remake loaded entirely into the system's RAM. Animal Crossing DS will most likely end up on the same size or larger cart as the N64 title when it ships by the end of this year, and due to the tiny size of first generation NES games, the 32-128K size per 8-bit game is absolutely miniscule to the entire project. No, the removal more than likely has something to do with the company's future plans for retrogaming
More here http://ds.ign.com/articles/627/627402p1.html
Where did our NES games go, and will the adventure be just as good without them?
by Craig Harris
June 20, 2005 - When Animal Crossing hits the Nintendo DS this year, Nintendo's virtual life game originally produced on the Nintendo 64 and then ported to the GameCube will be enhanced with additional gameplay elements, including the one feature every fan of the game dreamed of since day one of the original release: online multiplayer.
Unfortunately, with the move to the Nintendo DS platform, it seems the designers will omit one of the features that kept gamers coming back: collectible NES games. The inclusion of more than a dozen classic 8-bit Nintendo games not only added an additional layer of gameplay onto the entire Animal Crossing design, they were also a huge incentive to do the menial tasks that are a part of the Animal Crossing whole.
At this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, we had the opportunity to chat with the producer on the Nintendo DS Animal Crossing project, Katsuya Eguchi. In our interview, we asked about the possibility of the NES games moving to the DS design. He responded: "At this time, there are no plans to do this in the Nintendo DS game." After a bit of a stunned reaction on our part, we pressed him for more details on the matter. "The NES games in the GameCube version sort of took players away from the adventure," Eguchi told us. "For the Nintendo DS version we wanted to put more focus on living in the Animal Crossing world."
Collectible NES games were a huge staple of the Animal Crossing design. Right from the start, Nintendo teased owners with a housewarming gift in the GameCube title: on the memory card included with every copy of the game, Nintendo included two "common" NES games so players could go right into the retrogaming if they chose to. It was a perfect tease, a dangling carrot that kept players interested in performing the chores that their animal neighbors request of them. And if it wasn't available as a personal reward, it was offered at the company's Animal Crossing website as a monthly treat. These NES games gave the entire design far more legs because their inclusion were something nearly everyone wanted to collect. And, at least on the GameCube version of the series, these NES titles could then be sent to a Game Boy Advance system for portable play.
Removing these game systems from the Animal Crossing design is clearly not due to cartridge restraints. The original game, produced on the Nintendo 64 in Japan, also contained several Famicom titles and fit on a 512 megabit cartridge, and the GameCube remake loaded entirely into the system's RAM. Animal Crossing DS will most likely end up on the same size or larger cart as the N64 title when it ships by the end of this year, and due to the tiny size of first generation NES games, the 32-128K size per 8-bit game is absolutely miniscule to the entire project. No, the removal more than likely has something to do with the company's future plans for retrogaming
More here http://ds.ign.com/articles/627/627402p1.html
