Which Nintendo series has been handled the worst

Nintendo are strawberry floating weird, they seem to love making 'risky' or 'out there ' hardware designs yet at the same time seem totally risk averse with their in-house games, only sticking to tried and tested IPs like Pokemon, Mario and Zelda for the vast majority of releases which they trickle out at a glacial pace.

They also treat their unfathomably loyal customers like gooseberry fool and constantly get away with it.

I've said it a lot but Nintendo's home console output was most inventive during the GameCube days.

It does seem to be better when the console sells badly

Added Extreme Sports series as an option in the poll, re-votinh is allowed.

Ironhide wrote:Nintendo are strawberry floating weird, they seem to love making 'risky' or 'out there ' hardware designs yet at the same time seem totally risk averse with their in-house games, only sticking to tried and tested IPs like Pokemon, Mario and Zelda for the vast majority of releases which they trickle out at a glacial pace.

Don't really think this is true. On Switch we've had hardware specific experiments like Labo, Ring Fit and Mario Kart Live, other new IPs in 1-2-Switch, Arms and Sushi Striker, and publishing of smaller experimental games like Snipperclips, Part Time UFO, The Stretchers and Good Job! - even that skipping game that got released for free because of Covid. They've also lent out their IPs for some well received new takes like Mario + Rabbids, Cadence of Hyrule, Fire Emblem Warriors and Age of Calamity and Starlink.

That's experimental games and new IPs both in house and supported through publishing, and a willingness to let other developers do new things with their popular IPs.

Cuttooth wrote:I've said it a lot but Nintendo's home console output was most inventive during the GameCube days.

I think I agree with this sentiment but I couldn't really come up with many examples why.

I think the need to differentiate themselves from their competitors forced them to try new things. Now they've been largely separated since the Wii era it feels like they don't try so hard and fall back on fairly generic proven success. This could just be my assumption though.

Geist, Eternal Darkness, Pikmin, Chibi Robo were all pretty experimental at the time I guess.

OrangeRKN wrote:
Ironhide wrote:Nintendo are strawberry floating weird, they seem to love making 'risky' or 'out there ' hardware designs yet at the same time seem totally risk averse with their in-house games, only sticking to tried and tested IPs like Pokemon, Mario and Zelda for the vast majority of releases which they trickle out at a glacial pace.

Don't really think this is true. On Switch we've had hardware specific experiments like Labo, Ring Fit and Mario Kart Live, other new IPs in 1-2-Switch, Arms and Sushi Striker, and publishing of smaller experimental games like Snipperclips, Part Time UFO, The Stretchers and Good Job! - even that skipping game that got released for free because of Covid. They've also lent out their IPs for some well received new takes like Mario + Rabbids, Cadence of Hyrule, Fire Emblem Warriors and Age of Calamity and Starlink.

That's experimental games and new IPs both in house and supported through publishing, and a willingness to let other developers do new things with their popular IPs.

Was just about to post exactly this! They've been as creative and experimental as ever with their teams and IP, if anything more so than in previous generations

The things they've done may not ring everyone's bells but you can't claim they've been lazy or risk averse

Captain Kinopio wrote:
Cuttooth wrote:I've said it a lot but Nintendo's home console output was most inventive during the GameCube days.

I think I agree with this sentiment but I couldn't really come up with many examples why.

I think the need to differentiate themselves from their competitors forced them to try new things. Now they've been largely separated since the Wii era it feels like they don't try so hard and fall back on fairly generic proven success. This could just be my assumption though.

Geist, Eternal Darkness, Pikmin, Chibi Robo were all pretty experimental at the time I guess.

Launched their new console with a short form ghost vacuuming game staring Luigi. Gave Mario a jetpack and centred the entire game on one location. Gave Zelda a (somehow controversial) cel shaded art style. Farmed out three big franchises in Metroid, F-Zero, and Star Fox to non-Nintendo developers. Made a garden based RTS game.

All that in, what, four years?

rinks wrote:Doshin the Giant.

I loved that game!

The Excite Series has been pretty badly handled in my opinion, I dont think its been the worse handled but as no one has mentioned it I thought id bring it up

There the original Excitebike which came to the NES in 1984 and as a Vs.Arcade game seeing a few re-releases including on the Game Boy Advance in2004, as one of the games findable in the original Animal Crossing and on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007

Then there was Excitebike Bunbun Mario Battle - for the Satellaview in 1997 which didn't hit these shores

Excitebike 64 - Nintendo 64 in 2000

Excite Truck for the Wii in 2006 Which I really really love.

Excitebots: Trick Racing - Wii in 2009 Which never made it to Europe so I have no idea about

Excitebike: World Rally - WiiWare in 2009 which was basically a WiiWare updated version of the original Excite bike

So it never got a Gameboy Color version or a proper GBA game (I dont count a nes rerelease on the GBA as a proper GBA game), it didn't hit the DS or 3DS or Wii U

The part of the series I would like to see more of is the Truck part maybe with some bonus bike stages thrown in or something.

Gyromite.

Seriously though, Elite Beat Agents. That game is like an adrenaline shot in the arm. It's constantly engaging and charming as hell. But it sold like gooseberry fool so Nintendo canned it. Boo.

YouTube

Paper mario easily. They just changed the series into something else entirely. It's gooseberry fool, and they're insistent on continuing it.

OrangeRKN wrote:
Ironhide wrote:Nintendo are strawberry floating weird, they seem to love making 'risky' or 'out there ' hardware designs yet at the same time seem totally risk averse with their in-house games, only sticking to tried and tested IPs like Pokemon, Mario and Zelda for the vast majority of releases which they trickle out at a glacial pace.

Don't really think this is true. On Switch we've had hardware specific experiments like Labo, Ring Fit and Mario Kart Live, other new IPs in 1-2-Switch, Arms and Sushi Striker, and publishing of smaller experimental games like Snipperclips, Part Time UFO, The Stretchers and Good Job! - even that skipping game that got released for free because of Covid. They've also lent out their IPs for some well received new takes like Mario + Rabbids, Cadence of Hyrule, Fire Emblem Warriors and Age of Calamity and Starlink.

That's experimental games and new IPs both in house and supported through publishing, and a willingness to let other developers do new things with their popular IPs.

This. (And I'd forgotten about Cadence!)

Nintendo is as good as it ever has been.

I don’t get the argument around FZero and how nothing can be done with it. Nintendo releases Mario Kart over and over again and does very little to the core formula, they simply refine the tracks, visuals and vehicles, this could easily be done with FZero.

The Paper Mario series has become woeful and the way they’ve moved it from an RPG that played wonderful homage to the world of Mario and built upon it to a very generic, cheap feeling game is scandalous.

Out of the ones I’ve played, definitely Paper Mario, I get they’re trying to keep changing it to keep it feeling fresh but for me it’s just not worked in the long run, I still maintain that Super Paper Mario was a nice change from TTYD but I’ve steered well clear of the franchise after Sticker Star :dread:

Colour Splash and Origami King don’t seem to have done much to make me want to return to the series either sadly

SPM was the last game in the series that interested me. That said, it sounds like Origami King might have had some slightly more interesting characters. I wouldn’t know: the battling was too rubbish for me to invest.

Oragami King is a wonderful game. Loved it.

Close tie between Metroid Prime and 1080 for me.

Not sure why they've never revisited 1080. I like snowboarding games but can rarely be bothered with the daunting scale of the likes of Steep. Something really focused and time-trial based would be brilliant, IMO.

Snowboarding games seemed to just slowly die after the PS2/GC/Xbox generation.

Mafro wrote:Snowboarding games seemed to just slowly die after the PS2/GC/Xbox generation.

Probably cause a lot of them were kind of grounded in a certain era's idea of tude

Which Nintendo series has been handled the worst

Which Nintendo series has been handled the worst

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