How Smash Bros. Brawl could make other Nintendo franchises better
by drrandle
Super Smash Bros. Tennis Anyone? by Randy Marr Super Smash Bros. Brawl EU Limited Edition Box Art It's small wonder how the Super Smash Bros. franchise has done so well. It features everybody's favorite things about Nintendo, it's incredibly polished, and it's a fun and original concept. You don't have to be a fan of the Big N to appreciate it, but if you are, there's some deeper substance for...
Super Smash Bros. Tennis Anyone?
by Randy Marr
Super Smash Bros. Brawl EU Limited Edition Box Art It's small wonder how the Super Smash Bros. franchise has done so well. It features everybody's favorite things about Nintendo, it's incredibly polished, and it's a fun and original concept. You don't have to be a fan of the Big N to appreciate it, but if you are, there's some deeper substance for you. What Nintendo needs to do is take this celebration of itself and use it to help revitalize some old franchises and maybe even build new ones."But Benjamin Franklin, what kind of games are you talking about," you might ask, which would be weird because Ben has been dead for over a couple centuries and he wouldn't know anything about video games. But I think I can help you where our dear friend could not...
Mario Party: Nintendo's been throwing these shindigs for over 10 years now and I think it's about time they start letting somebody else crash it. They've really started digging the bottom of the bucket to make Blooper and Birdo playable characters, when what they should have done is started reaching out to games like Metroid and S tar Fox. Suddenly you have boards that aren't generic beaches, but are instead 2D style Metroid maps with space pirates running around for fun. Or maybe you're playing on the deck of The Great Fox. There's a lot more material to mine here and it would be in Nintendo's interest to start exploring it.
Mario Kart: Another one of The Plumber's personal onslaught of franchises, this game seems to enjoy a new iteration with every passing platform, while never really changing the game. It's time to end that by letting in new characters and levels. Like with Party, it's about ditching the more generic levels that are being recycled and moving to new frontiers. Samus could drive around in a kart shaped like her ship, or Link around on some freakish Epona motorcycle. Hyrule Field could be a new course, or maybe an old school F-Zero track just for fun. The other issue here, along with Mario Party, is that the games don't have a great level of polish. They're often very basic and that's fine, but a little attention to detail and fan-service could go along way to elevate peoples opinions of them.
Mario Golf: Samus has a Putter Beam and Link uses the Master Sword as a 9-iron. 'Nuff said.
Mario RPG/Paper Mario: You want them to do the Nintendo universe Kingdom Hearts style and you know it. Hopefully if they did, they remember to make the game not control terribly and have the story make some semblance of coherent sense. Or! How about we start applying the word "Paper" to some other games. Let's take Zelda and Metroid out of their standard and sometimes too-serious worlds and put them in something more humoro us? Even if you want Metroid to stay deep, you could give it a neat RPG with some active combat systems that the series just might lend itself to more than one would think. The fact is the Mario RPG's are some of the best games Nintendo puts out and I would love to see them take some of that cleverness and creativity to their other franchises. (Ice Climbers and the Quest for the Lost Iceberg. Think about it. I haven't.)
What other games or genre's could Nintendo lend it's celebratory concept into? Where else would you like to see the Nintendo fans get their obscure just deserts? Love to hear your ideas in the comments.
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