20 Classic Nintendo Games That Desperately Deserve Sequels

9. Ice Climber

Ice Climber is such a peculiar part of NIntendo's gaming library. One of the "Black Box" games from the early days of the NES, it has you (and an optional second player) break and scale a series of platforms to reach the top of an icy mountain, fending off polar bears and yetis while trying to harvest the vegetables somehow growing at the top. It's fun, it's charming, and it's been re-released in its original form numerous times. Why is anybody's guess. While people don't seem to outright hate the game as a whole, the almost universally reviled controls are another matter entirely. Uncharacteristically for Nintendo, it's gives you little to no control in the air, and your Ice Climber is more prone to going through the edge of platforms than landing on them - something which might not be such a problem, were it not for the extremely narrow horizontal movement when jumping. As noted, Nintendo has re-released this one far more than anyone would expect - 11 times, counting all the various ports, Japanese-exclusive releases, and the Ambassador Program for Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo has a clear appreciation for the game, yet has never seen fit to update, polish, or further remake it in any way. The mind boggles. The Ice Climbers themselves, Popo and Nana, gained some newfound popularity back in 2001 as director Masahiro Sakurai included them as a two-in-one character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. When one considers what Sakurai managed to do for Pit, another classic Nintendo character brought back into prominence by appearing in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and going on to star in Kid Icarus: Uprising, one has to wonder what he might be able to do for the blue and pink parka-sporting duo. At this point, we'd even be happy to see Nintendo kill two birds with one stone. That is, if they don't want to make another puzzle-platformer with Mario vs. Donkey Kong, then how about doing so with Ice Climber? It would both scratch that itch and raise the Ice Climbers to greater prominence than "those Smash Bros. characters whose other game isn't as much fun." Of course, seeing the differences Sakurai made between the classic NES and Gameboy Kid Icarus titles and the Nintendo 3DS revival, we can only try to imagine what else he could do with Popo and Nana... once the new Super Smash Bros. is complete and he's taken a well-deserved rest, of course.