When Chris pointed out to me recently that there actually was such a thing as an official Nintendo Fan Club, which came to North America just this past December, I signed up the next day.  It is totally awesome, and if you kept all of those stupid “register your software” cards that come with first party Nintendo games, you can cash in for cool rewards. (You just have to take a survey that lasts about 10 seconds and requires little to no brain power.)  I was, however, disappointed, that I don’t get an actual card to carry, because I like to carry cards that signify my inclusion in things.  Perhaps I will make my own card.  Rest assured, if I do, it will have a Nintendo official seal of quality on it.

While I think I’ve made it pretty obvious that I root for team Nintendo, it hasn’t always been sunshine and roses between myself and my favourite company.  Nope, there have been times that Nintendo has seriously angered/offended/disappointed  me, and I thought, in the interest of full disclosure, that I would share those instances with you.

1) Mario Party 4.  I think I mentioned this briefly in another post once, but Mario Party 4 has a fatal flaw that made me so angry I don’t even like to talk about it.  In the single player mode, each character in the game had their own little house that you filled with collectible items by completing each of the levels with that particular character.  After you finished every level with that character, the Bowser level would open up, and you would get a special Bowser item for their house by beating it.  Unfortunately, if you played through three levels with Peach, and then switched over to Luigi, when you went back to Peach, you could not unlock her Bowser level.  You had to play all the levels in a row to unlock the Bowser level.  I am convinced that this was a bug, since if it was intentional, it might be unforgiveable.  Doesn’t seem like a big deal? It would if you’d logged over 20 hours filling up houses to find out that completing the game was going to be impossible unless you re-did everything.

2) The E-Reader.  This is just the most easily identifiable symptom of a general problem that I sometimes have with Nintendo.  The E-Reader was a $65 attachment for the Game Boy Advance.  You could play classic NES games on it, after purchasing the card packs, and a few games had special content that could only be accessed through e-cards.  One of those games, which I was quite fond of, was Animal Crossing.  So if I wanted special content for a game that I already paid $50 for, I had to also buy a Game Boy Advance, an E-Reader, a link cable, and the cards themselves.  The E-Reader specifically was a giant waste of money, but it isn’t the only instance of a Nintendo game requiring insane amounts of hardware for a little exclusive content.

3) The Wiimote.  I love the Wiimote.  I really, really do.  I think it’s innovative, and it single-handedly catapulted the Wii to success.  However, I don’t love the Wiimote all of the time.  Sometimes, I just want to play a game normally.  You know, with an analog stick?  Please?  Super Monkey Ball Wii was a carpal tunnel disaster, and I really like that series.  On the Wii, however, I couldn’t get through many levels at a time without needing a break.  Would it be inconceivable for that game to have an option to use the nunchuck analog stick, instead of tilting the Wiimote around?  Personally, I think not, but apparently, other people disagree.

4) No More Cartridges.  Nintendo, you broke my heart when you switched to mini cds.  I would gladly pay more for a game that was sturdier, and guaranteed to last longer.  Alas, I have gone on in detail about this already, so I’ll move on.

5) Mario Galaxy Boo Bug.  Hurray, we killed the boo that was holding the key that we need.  Wait, what’s this?  The key is stuck on top of a chandelier that isn’t reachable.  Oh, well, I wanted to re-play the last hour and a half of this game.  No, wait, I didn’t.  I am usually pretty forgiving about bugs in games (unlike my Completionist.com compatriot, who declares everything that doesn’t go his way to be “broken”), but I expect perfection from Nintendo first-party titles, and when I don’t get it, I am confused and hurt.  Why would they do that to me?  Why?

In the end, though, despite the spats that we’ve had in the past, Nintendo and I are still BFF, and I am pretty stoked about getting my Platinum fan club membership reward sometime in the summer.  I recommend joining to any Nintendo fan who likes free stuff.  Who doesn’t like free stuff?  Crazy people, that’s who.