Topic: What obscure old game deserves the Kid Icarus: Uprising treatment?

[NWR_insanolord]

Last year's Kid Icarus: Uprising, as divisive as it was, was certainly a very creative and thoughtful rebirth to a franchise that had been dead for 20 years. Sakurai used his singular talents to take the core premise of the original NES and Game Boy games and completely revamp the story and gameplay.


This got me to thinking: what other games could benefit from this? There are tons of old 8-bit games that have interesting reputations but haven't been revisited since that era. Is there a game like that that you think would work with this system? Do you think this would even work with another franchise, or was Kid Icarus something of a special case?

[Soren]

Ice Climbers.


Semi realistic. It can keep the same look that's been established in the Smash Brothers games, but set it in the real world. Have them climb the highest peaks in each continent. Each peak is a new challenge. 2 players means built in co-op right there. The gamepad can serve as your backpack, just like in ZombiU. It can be as realistic (battle the elements) or as arcade (kill as many polars) as you want.


Multiplayer can be an asynchronous "race to the summit" mode where you compete with "expeditions" from all over the world to get to the top first. Or it could be direct competitive online multiplayer. There's many ways this could go.

[azeke]

Ice Climbers.

Gets me every single time:

[Caterkiller]

I'd like to see Joy Mech Fight honestly. Maybe keep it as fighting game but with some Vector Man like platforming adventure. Sukapon's design just screams for me to control him

[Adrock]

I'd like to see Nintendo update The Adventure of Link's gameplay, but not as a Zelda game necessarily. Maybe Kung Fu Master as a tribute/parody to Wuxia and Kung Fu films. That could be really fun if done right. And of course:

Nintendo should reboot Ice Climbers as an gritty, arctic survival horror title. Plot twist: Popo gets raped and murdered halfway through and the rest of the game becomes a revenge story where Nana goes apeshit on everything. Hear that? Stunned silence.

[Ian Sane]

If I was going to see Adventure of Link gameplay I would want it in a Zelda game.  My only real beef with Zelda II is that its dated and frustrating to play because of of unpolished mechanics.  Nintendo could easily use that gameplay again and make it something special.  I don't feel that the original Zelda's gameplay was all that hot until A Link to the Past anyway.  Zelda II needs its own LttP.

I would like to see Mach Rider.  I don't think that game is all that hot but the theme of racing around on weaponized motorcyles in the future just has a lot of potential.  The theme is cooler than the actual game it's in, so they could take that cool theme and make a better game for it.

[the asylum]

I would like to see Mach Rider.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants to see Mach Rider get some more love

[Nemo]

Star Tropics.

[Sarail]

Star Tropics.

This this this this this this this THIS. A million times over, THIS.

[Mop it up]

StarTropics would be my number one. I know the games have some similarities to The Legend of Zelda, but I think the different, more modern theme alone opens up enough gameplay possibilities to make it worthwhile. I was also thinking that StarTropics is what they could use to make another "top-down" view Zelda-like game on a console, such as Wii U.

Unfortunately, since these games have never been released in Japan (not even on the VC!), then I don't think we'll ever hear of this franchise again.

Ice Climber is another good pick as someone has mentioned, however I like the basic gameplay idea of the NES game, and so I'd want a new one to still be a co-op mountain climber.

[sweetfeathery]

NES Willow.

[Shaymin]

Metroid.

Oh, sorry, I thought this was the "Which series needs a 2 decade hiatus" thread.

[Adrock]

Ehh, Metroid doesn't need a hiatus. Learn from Other M and it'll be fine.

[NeoStar9X]

StarTropics would be first on my list.

[Wah]

Will there be a new Kid Icarus game? if so YYYYEEEEESSSS!!!!

[Stratos]

One Must Fall 2097
Commander Keen
Descent
StarGoose


Oh... did you mean Nintendo games

Though I do think Kid Icarus was a special case. It had the fanbase/demand to succeed. Other games like Sin & Punishment did not. That game only had 'never released in US' appeal. I would love to see more of there total reboots but unless there is a strong enough interest and demand they won't get far.

[Pixelated Pixies]

Though I do think Kid Icarus was a special case. It had the fanbase/demand to succeed. Other games like Sin & Punishment did not. That game only had 'never released in US' appeal.

Not true. Sin & Punishment had 'incredible game' appeal. Which is more than can be said for any Kid Icarus game.

[Stratos]

Really? I know people said it was good but how do you account for the flop of S&P2?

[Pixelated Pixies]

Really? I know people said it was good but how do you account for the flop of S&P2?

I'm not sure if Sin & Punishment 2 was a flop. I can't imagine Treasure or Nintendo had very high expectations for that game.

I do think, however, that it's quite easy to account for the fact that Star Successor wasn't a huge hit. S&P is a hard as nails on-rails shooter, it's very Japanese, and neither Treasure nor Nintendo have done a great job of marketing it. I should say, I'm not disagreeing with your suggestion that S&P has a small fan base (quite clearly it does), but I do disagree with your statement that it's appeal (however limited) derives solely from the fact that it was never released in the West. Any appeal the series does have, I would argue, derives from the fact that both games are fantastic. The fact that the series garnered any attention at all from the West (despite not being released here originally) speaks to the quality of that first game.
 
By comparison Pit saw a NES release, a Gameboy release, he starred in a reasonably popular cartoon and was given a spot in Smash Bros.

[Ian Sane]

S&P is like an anti-Wii game.  The non-gamer audience that made the Wii a runaway hit would have no interest in it and the hardcore audience that would like a game like S&P had written off the Wii by the time the game came out.  Shmups have ironically found an audience on the Xbox 360, despite it having zero foothold in Japan, merely because the hardcore gamers that embrace niche genres like that own that console.  It's a great lesson on the drawbacks of marketing a console too aggressively to only one demographic.

[Luigi Dude]

Any appeal the series does have, I would argue, derives from the fact that both games are fantastic. The fact that the series garnered any attention at all from the West (despite not being released here originally) speaks to the quality of that first game.

Funny thing is it's now way more popular in the West then Japan.  Even though we don't have sales from Europe, NPD leaks had Star Successor around 70k in North America while it was only around 20k in Japan.

S&P is like an anti-Wii game.  The non-gamer audience that made the Wii a runaway hit would have no interest in it and the hardcore audience that would like a game like S&P had written off the Wii by the time the game came out.  Shmups have ironically found an audience on the Xbox 360, despite it having zero foothold in Japan, merely because the hardcore gamers that embrace niche genres like that own that console.  It's a great lesson on the drawbacks of marketing a console too aggressively to only one demographic.

Only it was because of the great Virtual Console sales in North America on the Wii that we got a sequel in the first place.  Star Successor ended up selling over 100k worldwide which is a lot more then those hardcore Shmups on the 360 you're talking about do.  Unlike what you think in your head, there was a good sized amount of true hardcore gamers who owned a Wii its entire life.  This is why a lot of niche games got decent sales on the Wii that were comparable to sales of other niche games on the 360/PS3 and sometimes even better.

[jarodea]

A couple of ideas that spring to mind are Zelda II and Faxanadu.  To give either a Kid Icarus (or Metroid Prime) mold would turn them into quite different games.  Zelda II would become a different take on Ocarina of Time in effect.  There's no reason Faxanadu couldn't see a successful implementation in 3D.  Looking through a list of NES games, I would want most of the games I'd like to see updated, Zelda II, remain 2D so I don't think they really count. 
 
One game I would love to see get this treatment is L'Empreur, a game where you play as low ranking Napoleon and then gain abilities and more options as you gain victories.  You start commanding a single army and, hopefully, end commanding an empire.  I have always wanted a game where you start off a junior officer commanding soldiers like Battalion Wars, rise to commanding a battlefield like Total War, and the running a province/commanding an army like Caesar II, on up to running an empire like Europa Universalis.  The Wii U would offer some great options, but it will never happen much less on the Wii U.

[azeke]

Oh man, i love Caesar III so much. So much.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom from the same developer was just as good. It gives player more control over distribution of goods by adding signposts, but at the same time it also lost some of that geometrical simplicity and beauty that Caesar III had. In CIII, you had zero control how your agents will move and so you had to design your entire future city layout with their roots in mind.

I'd pay high dollar for any kind of city building simulation game on Wii U. I think Tilted Mill is still around...

[Pixelated Pixies]

There's no reason Faxanadu couldn't see a successful implementation in 3D.
 

I would f***ing love to see Faxanadu resurrected. That game was great. As you say though, it would change the game quite drastically. I think I would prefer to simply have a downloadable 2D Faxanadu with really high res art. That would be so awesome.

[MagicCow64]

There's no reason Faxanadu couldn't see a successful implementation in 3D.
 

I would f***ing love to see Faxanadu resurrected. That game was great. As you say though, it would change the game quite drastically. I think I would prefer to simply have a downloadable 2D Faxanadu with really high res art. That would be so awesome.

I dunno, Faxanadu has a pretty interesting texture to it that could possibly be kept intact in a more modern 3D game design. And man, an orchestral version of that shop music!