Gamecube
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1080 Avalanche
- Developer: Nintendo Software Technology
- Release: 2003
One of the first games from Nintendo's America-focused branch, 1080 Avalanche is a really fantastic followup to 1080 Snowboarding. Tighter sound effects, more showcased designs, interesting UI and load screens, everything comes together for a much improved sequel. Even though it clearly takes a lot of notes from the now-huge Tony Hawk franchise in the grind meter and licensed soundtrack, it very strongly maintains its own identity. The snow feels fluffier, the ice feels slicker, the jumps feel faster and colder, they really tightened in more than anything the sound of the game, to really fantastic effect. Again, the load screen is especially standout, just fantastic design
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Amazing Island
- Developer: Ancient, Hitmaker
- Release: 2004
- Notable Staff: Koshiro Yuzo - Composer (Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, Sorcerian), Koshiro Ayano - Art (Streets of Rage, ActRaiser), Uchimura Kataru - Design (Legend of Oasis, Planning on Shenmue, Streets of Rage 2)
- Peripherals: GBA Cable
Amazing Island is a very unique monster builder(?) game, most likely inspired by the success of Taito's Rakugaki Oukoku games. In short, you design your own monster, drawing the shapes for each body part and affixing some other parts like eyes, claws, etc. These designs and attributes are then converted into stats, and the game creates your monster for you to use across a variety of minigame courses, with different designs or stats being optimal for each one. It's just a very neat little game, with most of the fun lying in the creature creation
Animal Crossing
- Developer: Nintendo EAD
- Release: 2001
- Notable Staff: Tezuka Takashi - Producer (Director: Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3, as important as Miyamoto for Nintendo), Nogami Hisashi - Director (Character Design: Yoshi's Island, Director: Mii Channel, Creator: Splatoon), Eguchi Katsuya - Director (Director: Star Fox, Wave Race 64, Level/Area Design: Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Story), Totaka Kazumi - Composer (Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, Link's Awakening, Mario Paint, Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin 2. He is KK Slider), Minegishi Toru - Composer (Pokemon Stadium, Twilight Princess, Splatoon 1-3)
- Peripherals: GBA Cable
Animal Crossing is now a juggernaut franchise for Nintendo due to New Horizons, and started as a star-studded project by some of the biggest internal names at Nintendo. Pioneering the social game, it really really is a feat for its time. Utilizing the system clock to track passage of time encouraged long play sessions, keeping it in peoples' minds constantly, and allowing for slow discovery of new things over the course of years. I don't think any other single game creator assigns as much importance to individual expression in games than Nogami Hisashi, considering the impact all of his creations have made (Miis, Splatoon), and Animal Crossing is no exception. The variety of personal clothing and design choices, both personally and within your house and town, plus the social ability to show off your creations to friends via invitation over other memory cards is simply fantastic. The soundtrack of course stands out as well, with one of the single best Nintendo composers, Totaka, at the helm. It just far and away is an experience almost more than just a game, and again is so fantastically designed and something near unrepeatable due to how powerhouse its design staff was. A testament to its quality is it still being worth going back and playing the original title despite the multiple sequels with added content and options, simply due to how perfectly everything feels together
