User blog comment:Blueyoshi98/Pikmin 3?/@comment-66791-20100822035327/@comment-117653-20100822160456

Next Level Games is amazing. I await the day Nintendo buys them :)

Also, just 'cause I'm in the mood. Here are a few other third party developers that rocked when handling a Nintendo series:


 * Square Enix - Super Mario RPG
 * Flagship/Capcom - Handheld Zelda games (*)
 * Treasure - Wario World
 * Monster Games - Excite series
 * Sega - F-Zero GX
 * Hopefully Team Ninja with Other M

And then, of course, there are the stinkers. The one that still haunts me to this day is Artoon with Yoshi Topsy Turvy. I almost had a heart attack when I found out they were developing Yoshi's Island DS. Thankfully it wasn't a total tragedy, but I feel it would have been much better had it been developed in-house (i.e. EAD4).

But that doesn't mean that Nintendo can't screw up their own games. The most recent example (most of you will disagree with me) being Spirit Tracks. Oh how I loathed that game.

(*): just a quick note: Nintendo hired a lot of former Flagship studios and brought them on board the Nintendo EAD 3 team (Zelda team). The director of Minish Cap is actually directing Skyward Sword.