The Nintendo Basement – Your source for everything Wii, DS & Retro Nintendo

When Nintendo first announced the New Play Control! (NPC) series many fans were shocked, and at the same time somewhat pleased, to hear that Nintendo would be re-releasing a bunch of GameCube games for the Wii. The selling point of these remakes, or ‘Wii-makes’ as the Australian/New Zealand Official Nintendo Magazine described them, was that they would feature graphical improvements, 16:9 widescreen support and reconfigured Wii Remote controls.

Roughly one year since the announcement of the NPC series, six games, including the two Metroid Prime titles, have washed up on Australian shores, but the question (that technically is two questions) is: was Nintendo’s NPC series actually worthwhile, and did it live up to people’s expectations (assuming that it had expectations to live up to)?

Thankfully, your friendly neighbourhood KK is here to answer these questions by taking a look at the previously released NPC games, their pros and cons, how they have sold and how they have been received by the local critics and the Australian video game community in general. So sit back, relax, go grab your favourite turps rag and get ready for some crazy-fun.

The first NPC title Nintendo released was Donkey Jungle Beat in Japan on December 11, 2008. Soon after, those lucky chaps over in Japan also received the revamped version of Pikmin. Meanwhile, North America, Europe and Australasia were left hanging while Japan was spoilt like a smelly rich kid (as per usual). Eventually, the rest of the world got their hands on the NPC series and they were all able to experience the new version of Pikmin, except North America, who also got Mario Power Tennis.

Some might say that the NPC version of Pikmin was a letdown. Others might say it was glorious. I, however, believe that it was pretty good. But personal feelings about Pikmin aside, the first NPC title was a passable experience that did manage to entertain the majority who had played it before or were experiencing it for the very first time. The pros and cons of the whole NPC deal are fairly equal to one another as well (And on that note, the following pros and cons pretty much cover the NPC series in general).

New Play Control! Pikmin

Those who purchase a NPC game are able to experience a GameCube game with slightly better graphics, arguably easier controls and also play the title in widescreen mode. On top of this, these NPC games also come with reversible covers. Gee whiz, remember how all of us down under were freaking out that Nintendo wouldn’t actually send the reversible covers our way? People were spitting chips at the time. Luckily, however, the entire world – oh… and Australia – all received reversible covers in the end. And in my books reversible covers are definitely another pro to add to the NPC series because in just a few seconds an ugly box art can be converted into an awesome-looking cover. On the Australian front, Club Nintendo point cards are also bundled with the deal and each NPC game gives players a total 150 points, except for the Metroid Prime Trilogy of course, which gives players a total of 250 points, but that is because it is actually 2 NPC games and 1 Wii game combined. These points are another clear pro about the NPC series.

The cons of the NPC series do not seem to outweigh the pros if you look at things from a relatively positive perspective. The only issues with the NPC series is that Nintendo are remaking old (OLD!) and not necessarily classic games for the Wii, when they could be working on totally new (BRAND SPANKING NEW!) games, and also that these NPC games, which are essentially remakes, have a RRP of $40.00. If my memory serves me correctly (Professor Layton quote not intended) they were around $50.00 when they were released and still possibly are at various overpriced gaming outlets (I’m looking at you, EB).

Moving along, the actual sales of the NPC games have been relatively steady. The Japanese crowd lapped the Wii-makes up with the Wii version of Mario Power Tennis selling 56,000 copies during its first four days, quite a lot considering only 377,000 copies of the GameCube version of the game were sold during its whole lifetime. In America sales for NPC games haven’t been going as strong, but they are still bringing in a bit of play money for Nintendo. Back to the beloved NPC game, Pikmin. Roughly 130,000 copies of it have been sold in America so far. This is a reasonable amount of sales considering that it is a remake of a game and it doesn’t have the name ‘Mario’ attached to it. The sales in Australia have been relatively good, but I’m unable to go into much more detail as there weren’t any hard stats publicly accessible. So instead I’m just going to base it on the fact that I’ve bought a few NPC games so far, which pretty much covers the whole of Australia. Well, America and Japan believe we are all one person (Punch-Out!! exclusive to JB, Excitebots not getting released here) so I figure I can judge how well certain games have sold here based on one person’s purchases as well.

New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis

Speaking of Australia, we locals and the many critics amongst us (feel free to call yourself one if you like) have received the NPC games well so far. The majority of the NPC games have been well-rated, but Mario Power Tennis did get a bit of a thrashing. The recent release of the Metroid Prime: Trilogy (two of its games which are part of NPC series) has also gone well, quickly becoming a must buy for any real Nintendo collector – and Japan didn’t get it for once (how good is that?). Take that Japan! At one stage we all feared that these old remakes would be the most hardcore experiences we would be getting for the rest of the Wii’s life, but luckily Nintendo regularly prove themselves with many new hardcore titles…well kind of, New Super Mario Bros. Wii anyone? Haha, just kidding.

Well even after all this blabbering, I still haven’t answered if Nintendo’s NPC series has actually been worthwhile and if it has lived up to people’s expectations? In short, my answer is yes on both counts.

Nintendo haven’t just re-released any GameCube game for the hell of it, they’ve chosen wisely and released games that really do benefit from the Wii Remote and Nunchuk control system and also particular games that were ignored or just weren’t given enough time to flourish during the GameCube’s life. We’ve had Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, the game that was in limited numbers and wasn’t available to everyone due to the cost. Pikmin 1 + 2; titles which were overlooked by many. The Metroid Prime games that go hand in hand with the Wii controls. And Mario Power Tennis which was a safe move, but was actually better off untouched. All of this, in my opinion, makes the NPC series worthwhile – and just for the record, I totally overlooked Mario Power Tennis when typing this sentence.

New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

In relation to people’s expectations of the NPC series, frankly I think that the series has lived up to everybody’s expectations within Australia and also worldwide. Sure, you could say there are one or two duds in amongst the series at the moment, but as far as I’m concerned the games released in the NPC series so far have all been pretty logical decisions and of course Nintendo would never be one to pass up the opportunity to take the money from our pockets. These titles have also given us the opportunity to go back and play some of the titles we missed out on during the GameCube’s life or replay some of our old favourites, and at the same time they’ve managed to entertain us during the dry seasons throughout the Wii’s life.

As for the future of the NPC series, well there isn’t really much of a future at all at the moment. North America, Europe and Australasia are still waiting on Chibi-Robo!, but after it arrives there will be absolutely no NPC games to anticipate. So I guess all we can do until Nintendo’s next NPC announcement is sit here in the land of Oz (epic novel also), twiddle our thumbs and take some guesses at what may be the next GameCube game to be revamped and added to the New Play Control! series.

By Liam Doolan (kksl1der)