Comment by aquova
20 hours ago
I scoffed when I first read this, but the more I think about it, the more that might be correct.
Mario 64 had third-person camera movement, but it was with the N64's C-buttons, and had fixed angles, not free movement. Since it didn't have a second joystick, that rules out the N64 (some games did allow you to use a second controller as a second analog stick, but I don't think any third person games did so).
Likewise, the Dreamcast didn't have a second stick, so it's ruled out too. That basically leaves us with the PS1 or an early PS2/Gamecube game. Apparently Quake II on PS1 did allow for the second stick to aim, but that's not third person. The closest I can find is Ico on PS2, which allowed for analog stick camera movement, but I think only in the horizontal direction. Mario Sunshine might well be the first for full camera angle movement, which honestly really surprises me.
Just piling on to say that there was also Alien: Resurrection on PS1 that used the modern dual-stick movement/aiming setup. It was one of the first FPSes to do so, at least as the default control scheme. Reviewers at the time mostly hated it and called it awkward, probably because they were comparing non-aim-assisted console FPS controls to PC FPSes of the era, which is kind of fair tbh. The game's difficulty was also probably too high for the time, especially given the brand-new control style.
Yeah but the comment you are replying to, and the one before that, talk about third-person games, not first-person games.
Regarding Alien Resurrection: Turok (another FPS game which came out a few years earlier) also had modern FPS controls as default, though movement was done with the d-pad, as the N64 didn't have two sticks.
And inverted the Y-Axis too, which I still do today thanks to this game, I think.