Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
I buy Nintendo consoles just to play Nintendo first party games. They are the best first party developer on the planet, hands down. In fact, after Square Enix, Nintendo is probably my favorite all time gaming company. Unlike SE, they have not gone recently gone downhill in the quality of games they produce. Mario Galaxy was amazing. Mario Galaxy 2 was, somehow, better, and may even be the greatest Mario game ever made (though SMB3 and SMW probably beat it for the nostalgia factor). DKC Returns was also amazing. I am super stoked for Skyward Sword. Super Smash Bros. blows any other fighting game out of the water.
This is somewhat debatable. I'd agree that Nintendo's quality hasn't slipped enough for me to say they aren't the best first party developer (thanks in large part to some lack luster Sony titles in the last year, and Microsoft being a non-factor), but I haven't really enjoyed any of their flagship titles since the N64. Hell, they've been almost doing nothing but rehashing their older titles, except somehow they're making them worse than the originals. Granted they've shown some improvement since the Gamecube, but games like Mario Galaxy and the recent Zelda titles still pale next to their N64 iterations in terms of originality, and even some of the fundamentals like level design. I actually got so bored with Galaxy that I almost couldn't bring myself to finish it. I'm not even going to touch Smash Bros. simply because I didn't like that game from the beginning, which I'll at least admit in that case is simply because I don't care for the concept or the way it plays, not that I've ever found anything to be fundamentally wrong with it.

So I honestly can't get too excited about anything Nintendo does anymore. They used to be leaders in gameplay innovation. Hell, they basically defined the 3D platformer with their very first attempt at one, not to mention everything else they did on the N64 and in 2D before that. But I feel like it's been a long time since they were that innovative company I grew up with who knew how to do more than make a fairly polished rehash of every title they've ever made.

So long story short, I'm really interested in what the Vita will have going on. Things are looking good to me so far. I can understand complaints about the battery life, though I'm not surprised by it. I personally don't travel very often or far enough to make use of a lot of battery life anyway. Odds are I'd be playing it mostly at home. Anytime I do travel long distances I'm usually doing the driving so aside from the occasional short bus ride downtown I'm not going to need 5+ hours of battery life. And considering the potential for a more console like experience on a handheld I'm all for it.