- Joined
- Oct 28, 2017
The PS2 had a lot of games at launch, but almost every game on that list was either a multiplat or a cross-gen port. And even the ones that weren't, like Orphen, aren't anything to write home about and are, rightly, not talked about much today. And that's not even to say all the games were bad. I'd add Midnight Club: Street Racing, for example, to the list of notably good games, but even I, a fan Midnight Club fan, will completely admit that the original Midnight Club does not compare at all to even the second game, let alone the third or fourth, so I'd be hard pressed to call that a standout title. As for the games you highlighted:
Dynasty Warriors is...Dynasty Warriors. Not a bad game, but it is what it is. Not something unique or remotely memorable like Luigi's Mansion, Rogue Squadron, or Super Monkey Ball.
Ridge Racer games are usually solid, but not particularly notable in the grand scheme of things, and I say this as someone who completely admits that the original Ridge Racer was a standout for the original PSone's launch if only because of the game's great performance. It ain't no Gran Turismo 3, is what I'm trying to say.
Armored Core and Tekken Tag Tournament are good solid games. Though, once again, this is probably a case where later titles have simply overshadowed them. Good games for launch, so I'll give you those if only because they aren't multiplats.
Timesplitters is excellent however.
Gungriffon Blaze is simply not one I'm particularly familiar with sadly, so I can't give that one too many props considering how forgotten that series is today.
Maybe? But the DS was ultimately just a better realized concept and Nintendo supported the hell out of it. Now, I'd give you that both the Vita and 3DS launches were terrible, which is why both had slow starts when they launched, but the 3DS quickly recovered by releasing great games. Vita...didn't.
It was actually a very excellent port because Nintendo handled the development themselves. They even included nice little things like Bowser stomping on your city as a unique disaster!
I was really only talking about the good standouts, like Luigi's Mansion. Rest were just filler, I agree.
I'm really just talking about the concept of cross-platform launch titles. The whole point a of new console is to render the previous one obsolete. Once a new console comes out, its predecessor becomes irrelevant for the majority of the potential customer base. So if you have cross-platform title that appears on an older console that wasn't successful or even flopped, the fact that its a cross-platform title is just not going to matter to anyone because the older console is already a non-consideration for most people. They would never have bought the game otherwise if it wasn't cross-platform because the previous console was already written off as a failure, while it may become a selling point on the newer one, which is a fresh product not weighed down by the screw ups of its predecessor. That's why games like Breath of the Wild get cross-platform releases to begin with.
Once again, I don't think every Gamecube game was a standout, but it did have standout games. The Wii U simply didn't have those standouts, with only two games being really memorable. As for Sonic Racing, I just haven't played it and anything with Sonic in the name immediately gets my hackles up, and I say this as a long time Sonic fan.
Not necessarily. Sometimes, western launches benefited from coming after Japan, as it gave more time for games to be finished for launch. For example, the Gamecube benefited greatly from having more games at launch.
