Topic: Which Nintendo Franchise Needs A Reboot?

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo has a whole lot of IPs in their stable, and most of them have been around for a long time. Entry after entry, ideas get worn out, and the franchise starts to feel stale.


What Nintendo franchise do you think needs a reboot? Where do you think their developers need to start over and take a franchise in a new direction?

[Adrock]

Metroid and Zelda. Plot-wise, they're both kind of a mess. It's the same reason Castlevania really needed a reboot. They were written into corners and had to cheat to come up with new stories (e.g. The Master Sword sleeps forever, The Last Metroid is in captivity, Dracula can only be resurrected every 100 years). Gameplay-wise, Zelda probably could use a reboot more simply because there are more of them and the gameplay and structure, more or less, is the same in each game. I'm sure Luigi Dude will staunchly defend Skyward Sword, but it wasn't that different in my opinion and the motion control route is not really the direction I want the series to keep going in a number of ways.

Specifically, in Zelda, it needs a less predictable structure. You know what's going to happen. I'd really like Nintendo to focus on the storytelling aspect because there's a really good foundation there with the Triforce and whatnot. However, I think they can let the gameplay tell most of the story. Focusing on story doesn't automatically mean long cutscenes. If a story requires long info dumps, consider rewriting the story or at least that part of it. Other things like more varied enemies and minimizing large spaces of nothing could go a long way. And for the love of Hylia, stop acting like Link is an avatar of the player. That stopped working in Ocarina of Time, maybe even Link's Awakening.

Metroid just needs better organization. Honestly, I would split the 2D and 3D series (or main and Prime, Other M still felt like the 2D games) into completely separate entities if they're not going to interact in a meaningful way. You can make the argument that they felt like part of a single canon before Other M, but once they delved into Samus' past and she didn't mention a doppelgänger, almost being poisoned to the point of DNA mutation, and destroying like two planets and the ecosystem of another, it doesn't work. The Galactic Federation seems kind of corrupt; they could always explore that.

Fortunately, the gameplay still feels fresh and I think it needs tweaks and additions rather than a full-blown overhaul. I suppose actual bounty hunting would be an interesting thing to explore. Does Samus ever get paid?

[Shaymin]

F-Zero needs to be rebooted to get away from the anime influence that caused the second GBA game to tank. Leave that to Captain Falcon in Smash Bros and just focus on high speed racing on insane tracks.

Animal Crossing needs a boot out the door if they can't make anything more than Farmville out of it.

And of course, the comedy StarTropics option.

[NWR_insanolord]

With Metroid there seems to be a limit to what Nintendo will allow. She's nominally a bounty hunter, but Retro wasn't allowed to explore that the way they wanted to. There's a lot of cool storytelling to be had in that universe, but Nintendo seems to be the limiting factor.

[shingi_70]

Metroid doesn't need a reboot as much as it needs to let the story progress. The furthest game in the timeline s Metroid Fusion and whatever comes after that is the most interesting with Samus on the run from the Galactic Federation and being followed by the guy from hunters. The problem is Nintendo for metrodi games isn't intrested it seems in doing the next logical step and instead wanting to do prequels games in the middle of the timeline. (Metroid Prime and Other M).

[BlackNMild2k1]

**** a reboot, what Nintendo franchise needs a resurrection!?

We don't need to keep reusing the same franchises to introduce new ideas, how about some old franchises that would bring with it new ideas.

Let Mario be Mario, Metroid be Metroid and Zelda be Zelda.

How about we bring back something like Star Tropics, which would practically be a new franchise at this point, or any of the other dead and buried franchises of Nintendo's past that keep getting over looked to force yet another gameplay idea into another one of the recycled franchises where you can't fully explore the idea because you have to keep it contained within the limits of the franchise you are shoe-horning it into. [/rant]

[Luigi Dude]

None of Nintendo's franchises require a reboot since most of them are not really all that story heavy.  Even for something like Zelda, most of the games still work as standalone stories just fine and don't require the player to have any knowledge of the previous game.  Plus for the games that are story heavy like Fire Emblem, they basically make only two games that have a connecting story before moving on to something completely new anyway.

Now if you're talking gameplay, most of Nintendo's game already do that.  Nintendo's long running franchises are constanly adding new gameplay elements bewteen installments that change things up between installments which is why they've continued to still be popular for over 20 years.  Most of the problems people have with certain Nintendo games are easily fixable with different gameplay decisions.  None of their franchises have gotten to the point though were they need to be started from the ground up with completely new takes on characters which is what a reboot does. 

[Ceric]

Mario could honestly have a good reboot.
Pokemon in its own way.
Star Fox... Well not really more like a retelling.  HD versions etc.
Zelda yeah probably.
Metroid.  Definitely unfortunately I don't trust them to that and I relatively enjoyed Other M.
Star Tropic might be fun.

[Soren]

Star Fox. Adventures messed it all up, clumsily tacking on elements of the Star Fox canon to what was essentially a different story. It gave us a really cheap ending (OMG it was Andross all the time!) and an undesirable female lead.

[BranDonk Kong]

God damn it, Insano. Change "What" to "Which" in the title of the thread. Mario Kart needs a reboot, the story has just gotten too convoluted at this point.

[Caterkiller]

I'm worried that when Metroid gets it's go again we'll have another first person adventure again. The back lash is so strong against Other M I bet they avoid 3rd person Metroid for all the wrong reasons. Sadly I'm sure this generation will go with out voice acting in the Metroid series as if that was some major issue that ruined everything.

[shingi_70]

Would love to see a new punch-out game with a more traditional career set up and online  play.


 

[BranDonk Kong]

I HAVE ABSOLUTE POWAR!

On a serious note it's hard to think of a franchise that needs a reboot rather than a really good sequel. Star Fox would probably be a good choice though, and it has to be all in the sky, none of this Star Fox Assault or Adventures crap.

[Caterkiller]

I HAVE ABSOLUTE POWAR!

On a serious note it's hard to think of a franchise that needs a reboot rather than a really good sequel. Star Fox would probably be a good choice though, and it has to be all in the sky, none of this Star Fox Assault or Adventures crap.

I think on rails tank and submarine are suitable as well since they function almost exactly the same as the Arwing. But no on foot-riding on the wings-nonsense. I mean what the heck was that?

I do feel like this generation is the generation Star Fox gets brought back to life. Star Fox 64 3D just acknowledges the series existence.

[lolmonade]

Balloon Kid
Ice Climbers


I'd be curious if Nintendo could pull off expanding off these simple games and create a reboot that would either do something new with them or remake them with some compelling new gameplay features that would add a level of complexity to the core gameplay.


Other than that, I'll second the obvious choice for F-Zero.  I feel a complete void of futuristic racers in my life. 

[shingi_70]

I HAVE ABSOLUTE POWAR!

On a serious note it's hard to think of a franchise that needs a reboot rather than a really good sequel. Star Fox would probably be a good choice though, and it has to be all in the sky, none of this Star Fox Assault or Adventures crap.

I would say prepare to be disapointed. I think whenever we see Star Foz comes back its going to be treated as a light hearted Third Person Shooter/Adventure game with story telling in the vein of Kid Icarus Uprisig and The Wonderful 101.


For Ballon kid just made an expanded version of the Nintendoland game for $15 on the eshop.


Ice Climbers could take ques from pikmin I guess. Or a gripping Survival horror game.

[the asylum]

Metroid doesn't need a reboot so much as it needs the next game to completely ignore Other M (see also: DMC2)

Rebooting F-Zero won't stop the whole FALCON PAWWNNNHCHHHHHH memes. The best way to deal with it is to just ignore it. (although, if rebooting the series DOES finally give us another F-Zero game, I'm all for it)

Star Fox, Zelda, and the rest of Nintendo's established IPs I don't think need a rebooting. It's their older, oft-forgotten ones that could use one. IE: Mach Rider

[Ymeegod]

Excitebike .

Wouldn't mind another RC PRO AM neither but I'm not sure if Nintendo owns the IP or does MS now?

[Ceric]

You know I rather have Excitebike go back to its root as a simplistic Arcade Motorcycle Racer with a solid track designer.

[Caterkiller]

Remember when the biggest concern Zelda had was whether Link would be an adult or child? People are so stupid, me included. I wish that was my biggest concern with Zelda.

[Ian Sane]

In terms of story Zelda is pretty much a reboot every time anyway.  If you made a Zelda game that just had a completely self-contained story and did whatever it wanted it wouldn't look out of place at all and would fit into the timeline as "well" as any other one.

To me the need to do a reboot means the need to just end something.  Rebooting is for hacks with no original ideas.  The only justification to reboot is to keep an IP alive that no longer has any artistic justification to continue.  It is strictly a business decision so I have no interest in reboots.  The only one I ever liked was the Nolan Batman movies but that's kind of different since it was an adaptation of something else.  If a new attempt at Mario movie was made that didn't suck it would seem less like a reboot and more like a second attempt at something that was bungled the first time.  Do you think of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films as a "reboot" of the original failed animated LotR movies?

What Nintendo does need to do is pretend that Other M and Star Fox Adventures never existed.  So every Star Fox game since then gets forgotten about since they all jump from that failed misstep.  Metroid has yet to have anything come out that continues where Other M left off so it would be much easier to just pretend it never existed.

So I'm not really in favour in a reboot but rather a retcon where it's as if you travelled through time and erased a mistake from happening.  Anything that generate thought about rebooting was obviously worthwhile at some point so why flush everything away?  Just erase the crap.  I'm sure Metroid could continue without acknowledging Other M since as a prequel the "later" Metroid games already existed without specifically denying or acknowledging it.  And Star Fox would logically have stuff that falls between SF64 and SFA so they could always fill that space.

Of course there is a big problem here.  The main reason to do any of this is for storyline reasons and Nintendo DOES NOT GIVE A ****.  So we'll have Krystal and Other M's bullshit will probably ruin Metroid games from here on out because to Nintendo this is all just product.  Any passion they have is strictly towards the gameplay.  Miyamoto doesn't give two shits if Zelda's storyline makes sense because it's just tacked on to justify the gameplay.  The guys who do care about storyline are guys like Sakamoto so we're fucked either way.

Thinking about it, Zelda could use a "Crisis on Infite Hyrules" storyline to bring it all into one Link and just offer a straightforward narrative.

[Ceric]

Fusion.

Other M is the direct Sequel of Super Metroid and Fusion, ironically, is the weird Sequel thing of Other M.

Unfortunately for the community Other M has more claim to Canon and timeline then any of the Prime games.

[ThePerm]

oh this thread again

[Spak-Spang]

I don't think any of Nintendo's main franchises need a reboot.  Anyone looking for connectivity in the story lines for Nintendo games needs to relax and forget about it.  Almost all of Nintendo's games are reboots in that area.  They are not trying to tell a consistent story throughout each game series.  That is not to say story is not in the games or that story should not be important, but that Nintendo usually looks at each game as an island separate from each other game, even when there is some connectivity to other games it is usually negligible.

So from a story point of view I do not think rebooting anyone of Nintendo's franchises is a priority or necessity.  Game play wise I believe Nintendo usually does reboot it's franchises quite well...with a few minor exceptions.  And in this regard, I would like Nintendo not to reboot but make sure each game series has significant enhancements and to try to take risks more with the overall game design. 

For instance, Mario Kart has basically been the same game every year.  Recently Nintendo has been trying to change things up, but mostly the changes are truly insignificant to the game.  Motorcycles added very little to the actual game.  So did gliding and underwater levels.  They changed the sensations and atmosphere of the game, but the overall game play and did not change.  Nintendo needs to actually try to change the game.  Be it taking a Diddy Kong multiple racing vehicle type game play, to creating a need to boost more performing perfect lines, or having a unique power up system that upgrades as you race.  Something, that makes it truly different from other Mario Kart games, and that can be built up and expanded in the sequels. 

The same can be said with many of the Mario Sports franchises, Mario Party and whatnot. 

So the games I feel Nintendo needs to "reboot" or I would say "rebirth" are the dormant franchises like Kid Icarius which was recently released as an awesome modern franchise.  Look at the dormant franchises and ask, can we use this franchise to fill a void in our current lineup of game types?  Perhaps Star Tropics becomes a more modern Zelda style game or puzzle/mystery game for older players?  I don't know.  But that is what I want to see. 

 

[Mop it up]

I'm not sure I can think of a series that needs a reboot, in the sense that the word is typically used. Mario already kind of had one with New Super Mario Brothers, and then it stuck with that style over three more games. It isn't a "reboot," but I'd like to see more variety in Mario games again. Zelda games have always seemed distinct and unique to me, even something like Majora's Mask which uses the same engine and graphics as the previous game still manages to feel completely different, so I currently have no qualms with Zelda. Metroid has just had one misstep with Other M, and maybe a little with Fusion. But both those games have good qualities too, believe it or not, so I don't want them thrown out entirely.

I can think of things that I would want to come back, like StarTropics, Battalion Wars, the Excite series, etc., but that kind of thing isn't a reboot.

The only thing that's coming to mind that might qualify is Pokémon. I don't know if I necessary want a complete erasure of everything and starting anew from the ground up, but this series has just gotten too convoluted and formulaic for my taste. When I have felt like replaying a Pokémon game, I instead played the next newest one in the series, that's how samey they are to me. I've never liked any of the new stuff they added since Gold/Silver, such as the EV/IV stuff, natures, abilities, etc. I'd like to see the series made simpler and more user-friendly. I'd also like to see more done with the story, I think there's a lot of interesting things they could do with this world, but it's always about simply becoming a champion because it's the cool thing to do, with a little bit of random bad guys or legendary origins thrown in here or there, which is usually stupid.

Now that said, I haven't played Black/White yet, and of course X/Y is due out soon. So I can't speak on those, no idea if they are getting closer to what I want.