Nintendo is well known, if not notorious, for keeping a certain handful of their best-selling marquee franchises in constant rotation: Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros.... you get the idea. And while fans are often quite happy to hear about a new installment in one of those series, they often lament that Nintendo isn't creating enough new series/franchises to fill in the gaps. Despite the fact that the more avid of Nintendo's fans could probably put together a decent list of recent new titles having nothing to do with the well they commonly come to drink from (Dillon's Rolling Western, Pushmo, Steel Diver), this nonetheless overlooks the fact that Nintendo actually has an entire backlog of classic games which deserve sequels for one reason or another. That brings us to the following list of titles we would love to see Nintendo breathe new life into for a modern gaming audience, for a variety of reasons. Just a few quick notes about how this list was assembled before we get started. First, this is by no means a complete, comprehensive list; the list could probably push to 30 or more, but a line had to be drawn somewhere (the original asking number was ten, for the record). Neither of us has all day, after all. Second, to help narrow things down, the most recent Nintendo console we're considering is the GameCube. As we're still pretty early in the Wii U cycle, it doesn't seem fair to call out for something that was on the last system they made; maybe they're still getting around to it. So since the Wii had Excite Truck, Excitebots: Trick Racing, and Excitebike: World Rally, that means the Excite franchise is out. Also, we're not including handheld generations on a 1:1 with the consoles, since they tend to come out a few years off of new console releases, and that's just a headache we don't want to deal with. Third, consider this a rough order. A lot of games would fit as well up or down one or two slots from where they are, but the first and last entries aren't really interchangeable. When it comes to deserving sequels, all these games are equal; some are just more equal than others. Finally, no Star Fox. They just announced a new one at E3 less than two months ago, so that one's out of the picture.
Former Nintendo Power writer, current Nintendo Force writer. Wrote the book on Mega Man (The Robot Master Field Guide). Was once fired by Vince McMahon. Dabbles in video games, comic books, toys, and fast food curiosities. Once had a new species of exotic bird named after him. It died.
You can find more of his writings, musings, and other such things on his websites at Nyteworks.net.
