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Game & Watch (universe): Difference between revisions
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The first ''Game & Watch'' game became the earliest Nintendo electronic product to garner major success, even before the industry-defining success of ''Donkey Kong'' just a year later, and the entire series sold over 43 million copies. The series is credited with making handhelds vastly popular and setting up for Nintendo's future handheld console business with the Game Boy line, as well as inspiring various other toy companies, most notably Tiger Electronics, McDonald's, and the Soviet Union's Elektronika, to create their own dedicated handhelds. The series of dedicated handhelds gradually became more technologically advanced over the years and went through several different models that were designed to deliver some more creative twists to each individual game, including a clam-shell design with two separate screens displaying graphics simultaneously, and a panorama screen that used projections into a mirror to display color graphics. As many modern retrospectives note, this particular "Multi-Screen" design was a forerunner to Nintendo's 21st century dual-screened handheld platforms, the DS and the 3DS, and bore a very close resemblance to them. | The first ''Game & Watch'' game became the earliest Nintendo electronic product to garner major success, even before the industry-defining success of ''Donkey Kong'' just a year later, and the entire series sold over 43 million copies. The series is credited with making handhelds vastly popular and setting up for Nintendo's future handheld console business with the Game Boy line, as well as inspiring various other toy companies, most notably Tiger Electronics, McDonald's, and the Soviet Union's Elektronika, to create their own dedicated handhelds. The series of dedicated handhelds gradually became more technologically advanced over the years and went through several different models that were designed to deliver some more creative twists to each individual game, including a clam-shell design with two separate screens displaying graphics simultaneously, and a panorama screen that used projections into a mirror to display color graphics. As many modern retrospectives note, this particular "Multi-Screen" design was a forerunner to Nintendo's 21st century dual-screened handheld platforms, the DS and the 3DS, and bore a very close resemblance to them. | ||
The ''Game & Watch'' products themselves initially depicted cartoon-shaped characters resembling black silhouettes on white backgrounds, but as the series went on, several games within it based on external IPs unrelated to Nintendo, namely the ''Mickey Mouse'', ''Popeye'' and ''Peanuts'' cartoons, were released. Starting from 1982, ''Game & Watch'' titles also began depicting {{uv|Mario}} and {{uv|Donkey Kong}} characters as Nintendo's business in video games took hold, and near the end of the series' release history, {{uv|Balloon Fight}} and {{uv|The Legend of Zelda}} also made incidental releases in handheld ''Game & Watch'' form, alongside uniquely-themed titles utilizing mechanics and gameplay concepts from NES games such as {{uv|Ice Climber}} (''Climber'') and {{uv|Devil World}} (''Squish''). After the line was retired in 1991, bookended with a remake of ''Ball'' called ''Mario the Juggler'', Nintendo began to make occasional references to, and ports of, the ''Game & Watch'' brand; in between 1995 and 2002, five installments of a series called ''{{s|mariowiki|Game & Watch Gallery}}'' were released on the Game Boy family of consoles, each compiling several of the original games and offering them both in their original monochrome appearances and with remade "Modern" versions featuring ''Mario'' characters and settings alongside up-to-date gaming design elements like health collectibles, extra levels, and faux-3D movement, as well as non-playable "Museum" animations based on extra games - additionally, a variety of ''Game & Watch'' titles, particularly those featuring ''Mario'' characters, would be rereleased by MGA Entertainment in the 2000s as keychains known as ''Nintendo Mini Classics'', alongside new licensed titles based on IPs such as ''Star Trek'', ''The Smurfs'', and ''Harry Potter'', and prior to this in the early 1990s, around the time when the ''Game & Watch'' brand was winding down, Nintendo licensed out their characters for an unrelated but similarly-named brand of LCD games, the ''Game Watch'' by Nelsonic. ''Game & Watch'' games have also been included as minigames in Nintendo titles such as ''Wario Land II'', the Game Boy Camera, ''Personal Trainer: Cooking'', and the Nintendo DS Digital TV Tuner. More famously, a collective representation of the various black-silhouetted characters seen throughout the earlier games, [[Mr. Game & Watch]], debuted as a surprise playable character in 2001's ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]''. After the success of ''Melee'', Nintendo put cameos of this character in several other games, such as [[Wario (universe)| the ''WarioWare'' series]], ''{{s|mariowiki|Super Mario Odyssey}}'', ''Rhythm Heaven Fever'', and ''[[Donkey Kong (universe)|Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'', and while the ''Gallery'' series has never returned, two ''Game & Watch'' compilations were released on the DS for Club Nintendo subscribers, and a variety of games were released as downloadable software for the DSi. Mr. Game & Watch also reprised his role in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'', with an important plot relevance in the game's [[Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary|story mode]], and has appeared in all ''Smash Bros.'' games since then as well. | The ''Game & Watch'' products themselves initially depicted cartoon-shaped characters resembling black silhouettes on white backgrounds, but as the series went on, several games within it based on external IPs unrelated to Nintendo, namely the ''Mickey Mouse'', ''Popeye'' and ''Peanuts'' cartoons, were released. Starting from 1982, ''Game & Watch'' titles also began depicting {{uv|Mario}} and {{uv|Donkey Kong}} characters as Nintendo's business in video games took hold, and near the end of the series' release history, {{uv|Balloon Fight}} and {{uv|The Legend of Zelda}} also made incidental releases in handheld ''Game & Watch'' form, alongside uniquely-themed titles utilizing mechanics and gameplay concepts from NES games such as {{uv|Ice Climber}} (''Climber'') and {{uv|Devil World}} (''Squish''). After the line was retired in 1991, bookended with a remake of ''Ball'' called ''Mario the Juggler'', Nintendo began to make occasional references to, and ports of, the ''Game & Watch'' brand; in between 1995 and 2002, five installments of a series called ''{{s|mariowiki|Game & Watch Gallery}}'' were released on the Game Boy family of consoles, each compiling several of the original games and offering them both in their original monochrome appearances and with remade "Modern" versions featuring ''Mario'' characters and settings alongside up-to-date gaming design elements like health collectibles, extra levels, and faux-3D movement, as well as non-playable "Museum" animations based on extra games - additionally, a variety of ''Game & Watch'' titles, particularly those featuring ''Mario'' characters, would be rereleased by MGA Entertainment in the 2000s as keychains known as ''Nintendo Mini Classics'', alongside new licensed titles based on IPs such as ''Star Trek'', ''The Smurfs'', and ''Harry Potter'', and prior to this in the early 1990s, around the time when the ''Game & Watch'' brand was winding down, Nintendo licensed out their characters for an unrelated but similarly-named brand of LCD games, the ''Game Watch'' by Nelsonic. ''Game & Watch'' games have also been included as minigames in Nintendo titles such as ''Wario Land II'', the Game Boy Camera, ''Personal Trainer: Cooking'', and the Nintendo DS Digital TV Tuner. More famously, a collective representation of the various black-silhouetted characters seen throughout the earlier games, [[Mr. Game & Watch]], debuted as a surprise playable character in 2001's ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]''. After the success of ''Melee'', Nintendo put cameos of this character in several other games, such as [[Wario (universe)| the ''WarioWare'' series]], ''{{s|mariowiki|Super Mario Odyssey}}'', ''Rhythm Heaven Fever'', and ''[[Donkey Kong (universe)|Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'', and while the ''Gallery'' series has never returned, two ''Game & Watch'' compilations were released on the DS for Club Nintendo subscribers, and a variety of games were released as downloadable software for the DSi. Mr. Game & Watch also reprised his role in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'', with an important plot relevance in the game's [[Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary|story mode]], and has appeared in all ''Smash Bros.'' games since then as well. A recreation of the original unit of ''Ball'' was released as a Club Nintendo reward in Japan, albeit with a slightly different exterior to emphasize its status a s a replica. | ||
On September 3, 2020, 29 years after the original Game & Watch series' discontinuation and as part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of ''Super Mario Bros.'' (and to an extent the 40th anniversary of the Game & Watch console series), Nintendo announced ''{{s|mariowiki|Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.}}'', a full-color screen Game & Watch system featuring ports of ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels'' as well as a ''Mario''-themed version of ''Ball''. It has a limited release starting November 13, 2020 and lasted until March 31, 2021. In similar fashion, Nintendo announced the ''{{s|zeldawiki|Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda}}'' during E3 2021 as part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of ''The Legend of Zelda'', featuring ''The Legend of Zelda'', ''Zelda II: The Adventure of Link'', and the non-colorized Game Boy version of ''The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening'' along with a ''Zelda''-themed version of ''{{iw|wikipedia|Vermin|Game & Watch}}''. It was released on November 12, 2021. | On September 3, 2020, 29 years after the original Game & Watch series' discontinuation and as part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of ''Super Mario Bros.'' (and to an extent the 40th anniversary of the Game & Watch console series), Nintendo announced ''{{s|mariowiki|Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.}}'', a full-color screen Game & Watch system featuring ports of ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels'' as well as a ''Mario''-themed version of ''Ball''. It has a limited release starting November 13, 2020 and lasted until March 31, 2021. In similar fashion, Nintendo announced the ''{{s|zeldawiki|Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda}}'' during E3 2021 as part of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of ''The Legend of Zelda'', featuring ''The Legend of Zelda'', ''Zelda II: The Adventure of Link'', and the non-colorized Game Boy version of ''The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening'' along with a ''Zelda''-themed version of ''{{iw|wikipedia|Vermin|Game & Watch}}''. It was released on November 12, 2021. | ||