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10 CLASSIC GAMES NINTENDO NEEDS TO BRING BACK FOR THE SWITCH

21/3/2017

18 Comments

 
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Yes, yes. We all want a new F-Zero, a new Pikmin, a new Metroid, a new Super Smash Bros and that. This is a given. And, providing the Switch doesn't tank like a Sherman, we'll probably get them.

And yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes - we all want Nintendo to create brand new games... but one of the things which sets the company apart is its heritage. For some reason, though, there are certain iconic Nintendo games which have been all but ignored.

Breath of the Wild has shown how Nintendo can capture its early magic in a way which brings a franchise bang up to date. ​Here are some long-dead Nintendo classics which need to be dragged before the Switch's flattering spotlight.
DUCK HUNT
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I'm not sure tasteful it is in 2017 to release a game where you shoot ducks... though you can slaughter goats and foxes in Breath of the Wild, leaving behind a slab of raw meat.

​But c'mon - Duck Hunt is one of the most iconic Nintendo games of all time, and if anybody can find a way to make hunting palatable - it's Nintendo. Make them robot ducks, or something. I dunno. Do I look like a duck game expert?

Also... having played 1-2-Switch, the JoyCon controllers do a good job of doubling up as pistols - they could work extremely well, potentially, as shooters for a new take on this classic light gun game. 
ETERNAL DARKNESS
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Nintendo's take on the survival horror is overripe for a reappraisal. I loved it at the time, and it remains one of the most original takes on the genre - making your character's sanity one of your most valuable resources. It also jumped around through time, giving you control over protagonists in different eras - from the modern day, to ancient Rome and Persia. Resident Evil it was not.

Nintendo patented the game's novel "sanity meter", which displayed your character's psychological condition, as he or she was assaulted by Lovecraftian foulness.

It's also one of the few games to break the fourth wall between player and game - attempting to trick you into thinking there was something wrong with your Gamecube or TV. For this reason alone, I want to see a new take on it. It would be especially whimsical if the game pretended to break your Switch so effectively that you had it send it away for a replacement.
WAVE RACE
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Given that it was well received on the Nintendo 64, and was considered the successor to F-Zero, it's strange that Nintendo has barely capitalised on Wave Race. For the time, the water effects were astonishing; no word of a lie, playing it actually made me thirsty. Imagine what they could do today; I'd be licking the glass, like a safari park monkey.

Its sequel, Blue Storm, was a GameCube launch title, but since then... nothing. Why you do dis, Nintendo? Hydrophobes, much?
DONKEY KONG
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I never liked the Donkey Kong Country games. Sorry, Rare, but for me you ruined a great and iconic character. Oh, those graphics were nice... but Donkey's loping gait and weird jumping mechanic always felt off. And don't get me started on Diddy Kong - Nintendo's very own Scrappy Doo.

I want a proper Donkey Kong game - inspired by the original, with Mario as the protagonist. Make it a 3D, vertically-climbing platformer, with a series of short stages, where the aim is to reach the top - like in the original. Enough of this jungle nonsense. Let's face it, they're all being cut down anyway. Time to bring apes back to their natural habitat: building sites.
PILOTWINGS
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The lack of a proper Pilotwings since Pilotwings 64 (yes, yes - I know there was Pilotwings Resort on the 3DS) is baffling. A proper iconic Nintendo franchise, it was one of the biggest early hits on the Super NES, and the most palatable and accessible flight simulator ever created.

Given the scale of the world in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it staggers the mind what Nintendo could do with a brand new flying game. Also, you could feature wingsuits, which seem to be all the rage these days - especially among extreme sports twats.
WILD GUNMAN
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Another iconic Nintendo light gun game, if only for its feature appearance in Back to the Future: Part II ("It's like a baby's toy!" whines the young Elijah Wood), Wild Gunman was released in two very different versions. Originally, it boasted live-action footage, but was re-released into arcades - this time utilising sprites, to bring it into line with Nintendo's NES version.

There's a quick-draw game in 1-2-Switch, but how great would it be to see a brand new Wild Gunman using those JoyCon controllers, set in an open world Wild West, created with that unmistakable Nintendo touch. Red Dead Redemption can suck a fat one.
BALLOON FIGHT
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The real killer feature of the Switch is its local two-player mode (which is a bit of a joke given that, once upon a time, this was a given on all consoles, but whatever).

This feature is what I want to see employed in a brand new Balloon Fight - a much-loved NES franchise that has, once again, somehow failed to be revived, barring an obscure Game Boy sequel. Bursting balloons is real big fun, you see. Just ask this guy (there's nothing sexual about it):
ICE CLIMBER
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Until I got an NES Mini for Christmas, I'd never played Ice Climber. It swiftly became my most played game on the retro Nintendo console.

​Not a million miles from Donkey Kong - in that players are required to ascend the screen - in two player mode it's sort of like a proto-Super Smash Bros. (little wonder that the Ice Climbers have been regular fixtures of that series). 

Time to give these Eskimos the headline appearance they deserve.
EARTHBOUND
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Earthbound - otherwise known as Mother 2 (it being sequel to the Japanese-only release Mother) - has become one of the most beloved RPGS ever released. Considering it was a SNES title, which came out in the mid-90s, it had no hesitation in upending RPG tropes, and gently poking fun at the genre. Its stylised Americana setting, tongue-in-cheek humour, and party-based gameplay are gagging for a remake.

Though a flop on its American release - perhaps not helped by the marketing slogan "This game stinks" - it has seen something of a re-evaluation over the years. There have been rumours of a sequel on and off for decades. Now's the time. Breath of the Wild-it-up, big stylee.
STARTROPICS
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Though clearly sporting a shameless Legend of Zelda influence, StarTropics was nevertheless one of the best RPGs ever released for the NES.

What it really has in its favour is its eschewing of a cliched fantasy setting; players assume the role of Mike, who travels to a tropical locale to rescue his uncle, who has gone missing as part of an alien plot.

The original game was packaged with an actual letter, which at one point late in the game required players to dip it in water to reveal a secret message. Why don't we get stuff like that with games these days? I'll tell you why: because games companies hate us.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
REMEMBERING THE OTHER INVENTIONS OF SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR
​
NINTENDO: LIFE BEFORE MARIO - A HISTORY
SUPER MARIO: HIS SECRET HISTORY
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18 Comments
Voodoo76
21/3/2017 12:38:29 pm

Extreme sports twats indeed, haha that made me snort part of my lunch over my keyboard! Aw i'd love to see a new Pilotwings.

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Biscuits the character
21/3/2017 01:42:02 pm

re: Eternal Darkness...I really liked the game, but had no time at all for the sanity meter. Isn't it up to me to decide how scared I am? This isn't a stamina meter, or something that dictates on-screen events, it's how I supposedly feel. You cannot dictate this in meter form Nintendo...I liked the 'Hey, your GC is breaking! business though, even if it was done before in MGS2


Wave Race: holy mackerel, what an amazing game, and you're right, the water effects would be absolutely blinding these days...I guess in today's climate they have to figure a way to make it open world though. How about a bunch of tropical islands? And the races you win let you buy upgrades? And then when you get good enough you can plot your own courses? Just let Sega make it because they are still the kings of summery shiny graphics imo

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Biscutes
21/3/2017 02:04:55 pm

Regarding Earthbound's 'this game stinks' tag, how about an article with a look back at the most spectacularly ill-fitting and ill-advised advertising campaign of all time? I'm talkin' SNES in the 90s baby - because everyone associates Nintendo games with a complete lack of charm and abundant gross-out 'humour'

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Chris
21/3/2017 04:03:43 pm

There was a Spectrum compilation called something like "Don't buy this".

Frank Chickens
21/3/2017 04:34:07 pm

Don't Buy This was one of Firebird's biggest selling titles, selling around 250,000 copies despite Firebird giving express permission for people to copy it on the inlay.

Biscuits
21/3/2017 04:36:30 pm

Was 'Don't Buy This' a kind of 'Steal this Book' for the 80s? An anti-capitalism screed, rendered in Spectrum pixels?

IIRC, the idea behind 'this game stinks' was that it came with a scratch and sniff card. Earthbound, that is. Why? A better question is 'why?'. Oh, that was the question. If you've never played Earthbound, it's so sweet and charming and strange, well worth a quick rinse on an emulator

Starbuck
22/3/2017 11:29:41 pm

Happy memories of a friend buying Don't Buy This. Wonderfully terrible, especially knowing I'd not actually bought it myself, and at a premium price to boot.

I remember the videogame mags of the time seemed to savour the rare opportunity to create well-crafted reviews full of comedy / sarcasm / honesty.

King of Duckhenrys
21/3/2017 02:27:34 pm

Never played 'em myself, but aren't the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games on portable systems basically what you're asking for?

Also, wasn't Link's Crossbow on the Wii basically Duck hunt, but instead of shooting mallards, you shot gorons in the nuts?

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Mr Biffo
21/3/2017 02:41:57 pm

Mario Vs Donkey Kong look like the originals... but are puzzle games. BAH.

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VendingMachine
21/3/2017 03:38:52 pm

The water in Waverace still looks good today.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
21/3/2017 03:49:37 pm

The letter in Startropics is an older and stupid version of "look on the back of the box for Meryl's codec number". Both originated at a time when game rentals were a big thing and both guaranteed you could not get past without the actual original box and everything that came in it.

Here in Canada, everything needs to be in English as well as French, which meant that Dr J had written to his bequiffed nephew in both English and French. And then written "this letter is important, so hold onto it until the end of the game" at the bottom. Also in English and French.

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Chris
21/3/2017 04:05:04 pm

Theatre Europe had a telephone number you had to call to get the nuclear release codes.

Mr B can probably find a feature in this sort of nonsense.

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Mark Bothick
21/3/2017 06:40:53 pm

There was a sequal to Earthbound. Mother 3 came out in Japan a decade ago. A translation would be most welcome though!

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Mark
21/3/2017 06:43:10 pm

Don't ask me what a sequal is....

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Iain link
22/3/2017 04:26:23 pm

Mother 3 has a wonderful fan translation available here: http://mother3.fobby.net

I have played around 20 hours via a very old Flash2Advance GBA flash cart (some flash carts don't have enough RAM to load the cart, but this one does). You can also source the GBA cart with fan translation already patched in via eBay. I've played it via the GameCube GameBoy player to get it on the big screen.

I'd love to see it on the Switch, as I finally completed Eathbound on the Wii U (having emulated it to near the end years earlier).

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AcidBeard
21/3/2017 06:54:54 pm

Never even heard of Startropics and I have large ears. Will check that out.

I'm also assuming number 11 is Urban Champion and you pressed the 1 key an extra time and it should have been at number 1.

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Darth Tinder
22/3/2017 10:12:57 am

If (and it's a big if) Nintendo ever end up doing something with VR, then of all their franchises Pilotwings would be the best fit. At the very least they should do something new with the series anyway.

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Roy (Stuart N Hardy fan)
23/3/2017 09:33:33 pm

Wave Race 64.
Best arcade racer in the whole wide world (NTSC version)
I love arcade racers (can't stand the likes of Grand Tourismo or those other ones) but Wave Race 64 is the very best.
I had an N64 the day it was released in Japan (therefore better than all of youse) from Raven Games.
I marvelled at SM64 but Wave Race 64 did it for me.
Best arcade racer still to be bested in my less than humble opine.

Reply



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