If there’s one thing I love, it’s a new game. That moment you tear open that evil plastic shrink wrap of death, blow into your cartridge and console to clear out all of that nasty dust, pop your game in and turn on that beautiful machine, and have the game be complete. Nothing like it, right? Alright, well maybe that reference is slightly dated, but still a new game is always a special treat! What’s even better than a new game is a new game that’s amazing.
I read a post on Nintendo’s Facebook page that explained how Shigeru Miyamoto (you know, video game <insert respective diety here>), is pushing Star Fox Zero’s release date back, due to the fact that he feels the game isn’t quite up to snuff yet. He made the decision with the intention of delivering fans a game that could truly be amazing. To this, I say: “Take as much time as you need!”
I come from a time where video games didn’t have DLC, there wasn’t an online source you could rely on for video game dates, and games needed to be complete before they could be distributed. Now I’m not going to say those were better times (yes I am, so deal with it), but the standards for video games were different back then. The online market wasn’t established, as most of us were using dial-up Internet (if we even had computers…). Games needed to be completely done because developers didn’t have a second chance. There weren’t any patches they could later release that could fix a game breaking bug. If your game had an issue, it was stuck there on that tiny cartridge forever. So naturally, developers had to be extra careful not to have super big issues. A lot of time and care was put into titles in order to prevent players from raging.
One of my biggest concerns for video game developers is rushing a title to meet the masses’ demands simply because they said they’d release it when they promised. While I’m sure plenty of fans are quite upset over the delay of this title, I can’t help but feel happy knowing that it means that much to Miyamoto that the game turns out well.
For me, it’s been 18 years since I got to play a strong Star Fox title, and I only say that because the other titles, while fantastic in their own right, don’t quite feel like true successors to the series. Now I know there are some of you out there who will disagree with what I’ve just said, and for that I sincerely apologize, but I’ve always known the Star Fox series to be a healthy dose of Arwingy goodness (The other vehicles are awesome too!).
Growing up with the N64, I played the living circuits out of Star Fox 64. To this day, it’s still on of my top ten titles, so when I heard Nintendo was rebooting the series, you can imagine me jumping around like an elementary school girl when the cutest boy in school asks you to the dance. Ok ok, maybe that analogy wasn’t incredibly accurate, I was a lot more excited.
There are plenty of titles out there that have been rushed simply to meet a deadline (*cough* Sonic Boom *cough*), and in those kinds of situations everyone is a loser. Why bother releasing a title if you know it’s going to be complete garbage? Sure it was one thing in the early 90’s to see a video game or action figure line release to promote the release of a movie, but this is 2015. We’ve got standards now! Plus developing games is expensive! Why waste all that money on a crap title, right?
Miyamoto definitely has a strong passion to deliver titles that fans can really enjoy, and hearing him commit to us fans is honestly the reason why Nintendo will always be my favorite gaming company. It always pleases me to hear developers have dignity and integrity, so thank you Miyamoto, and I very much look forward to this release whenever this title feels ready!