Ghost Town Games’ Animal Crossing Couch Co-Op
Like anyone who played brilliantly Animal Crossing the fruity mini-game on Wii U Nintendo Land will tell you this is a party-friendly series. So let’s see what it looks like when the usual relaxing vibes are suppressed for some Overcooked-style stress.
The crafting bench in Animal Crossing is usually nothing more than a stopover, but we imagine Ghost Town Games turning the crafting mechanic into a central gameplay hook. You are given the necessary materials to complete orders, and then must keep up with your villagers’ requests for increasingly complex items of furniture, tools, and clothing. At the end of each level, Tom Nook appears on the screen and tells you how you could have saved money while being more efficient.
It might not be as relaxed as a normal game of collecting shells, but it would be a cute enough way to put your bonds to the test.
Sabotage Studios Kirby RPG
Come on, Kirby is the walking embodiment of the recruitment system.
Bring in a team like Sea of Stars’ Sabotage Studios to provide beautiful pixel art, then design a deep RPG around the central mechanic of Kirby who can take on different roles by inhaling different members of his team. It sounds ominous when we put it that way, but it was supposed to be sweet. Trust us.
We can imagine a vast top-down view of Dreamland, where Kirby walks between kingdoms to settle disputes and recruit new Waddle Dees to his party. Battles would be turn-based (naturally) and the studio could re-implement some of that Mario & Luigi-esque timed button action to really give things a retro feel.
FromSoftware’s Soulsborne Zelda
This is an obvious one, we know – especially since you can spot it Zelda DNA in every FromSoft project from Bloodborne to Elden Ring — but we really, really like the idea of a Zelda game with a healthy dose of danger.
Hyrule’s enemies will be reinforced. The dungeons would be huge labyrinths. All of Link’s rupees would fall to the ground after each death. Ugh. Honestly, this seems like one of the cooler encounters. Nintendo recently discovered a sense of wonder in the Zelda series, and FromSoft’s series of signature difficulties and combat could lead us to the SpaceWorld action/adventure demo level.
Let’s just make sure Link doesn’t make “Hi” sound every time we avoid a tumble. For all our sanity.
Luigi’s Rhythm Mansion from Brace Yourself Games
We were humming the Luigi’s Mansion theme to ourselves as we thought about the best genre path this series could take when we remembered how throbbing that melody is. What if you could still catch ghosts and solve puzzles, but all to the beat of those funky beats?
Yes, this is all very ‘Cadence of Hyrule but Luigi’, although we imagine room for developer Brace Yourself Games to try something a little different from their previous projects. Ghost vacuuming could come with its own rhythmic challenges, stages could light up as you traverse them to keep the horror going.
It seems like an unlikely departure, but so did Cadence from Hyrule, and we all know how good that crossover turned out.
Yoshi Farm Sim by ConcernedApe
Look, Yoshi is one of those little ones who just needs to be comfortable. Of course, the accessible platform structure worked for a while, but the time has come. We want change. We want to taste the good life. We want to see Yoshi in the little straw hat.
We envision a Stardew Valley-style farm simulation, where you (Yoshi) start with your own island, but gradually grow a community of Yoshis through the simple joys of fruits and vegetables. You could pick your produce with your tongue, explore new areas with a fluttery jump, and watch little Yoshis hatch from eggs and run around your farm as you work.
What? We don’t cry. You are crying!
Hello Games’ Star Fox adventure
We’ve tried to go against the grain here, we really have, but really, we can’t think of a studio we’d rather see Star Fox bring into the modern age than No Man’s Sky’s Hello Games.
Vast open space, spaceship battles, room for out-of-cockpit drama à la Star Fox Adventures — Hello Games seems made to take on McCloud. Heck, studio founder Sean Murray even told us so this one would be the Nintendo franchise he would bring to No Man’s Sky, given the chance.
Kid Icarus platform shooter by D-Pad Studio
Kid Icarus is hardly Nintendo’s most prolific franchise, and even from the limited entries, we’ve seen it try two vastly different genres in the form of a platformer and a third-person shooter. In fact, the series has been given so little room to grow that we’d be hesitant to throw it into a completely different format so quickly. But some fine tuning can’t hurt, right?
Let’s combine Kid Icarus’ platforming routes with its Uprising originality to make a pixel art platformer like D-Pad Studios’ Savant Ascent. It makes sense that a Kid Icarus game should have a certain level of verticality and this reboot will see you helping Pete on his way back to Elysium, taking out any pesky enemies that try to get in his way.
Sure, the links to Owlboy’s D-Pad protagonist, Otus, might be a little on the nose (beak?), but all of that would be overlooked if the game had the dynamic action of Uprising with many– improved controls.
Donkey Kong Metroidvania by Moon Studios
Yes, Playtonic might be the more obvious choice here given that it’s made up of Rare alumni, but we’d rather push things a little further. What if Moon Studios could lend their Ori minds to the Donkey Kong Country universe and turn the whole thing into a jungle-exploring Metroidvania?
We imagine beautiful environments. We visualize inventive level designs. We’re stressed about potential boss battles. Okay, we’re getting overexcited.
It’s been way too long since we last saw an original take on DK and honestly, the Metroidvania format just feels good. The jungle setting would seem difficult to navigate at first, but this is a character that has a bunch of unlockable abilities like swing, roll, double jump or cannonball. Why not step away completely and let Moon Studios throw in another heartfelt parenting story? Any excuse to bring in some other Kongos, eh?
Moveable Pikmin from a subset of games
At its core, Pikmin’s embrace the RTS genre has always been a puzzle – get the required number of Pikmin to the fruit and maneuver them back to your ship – it’s also very, very tactical — do it all before sunset or you’ll be eaten — so why not go tactical and conquer the wild world from the alternate realm?
Think Subset Games’ Into The Breach, but instead of dropping mechs onto a Vek-infested planet, you’re Olimar dropping Pikmin onto a Bulborb-covered battlefield. When it’s your turn, you choose which Pikmin to throw where, and each one has a unique ability and can be used to fight enemies, move around the terrain, or collect juicy fruit. Losses are permanent, but you can create more allies by returning items to the base.
hey Pikmin may have ruined any chance of this series ever stepping into another genre again, but we’d love a chance to see things get a boost in the tactics department (at least, anything more than throwing all your Rock Pikmin at one enemy running in the opposite direction).
Hazelight’s Ice Climber Co-op adventure
This one might be a little closer to the realm of ‘Just remake your game but with Nintendo characters’, but hear us out. Ice Climber, if he ever returns, should do so in a big way. So why not entrust it to the more than capable hands of It Takes Two’s Hazelight?
It’s been so long since we’ve seen Nintendo’s mountain explorers that we’re well into reboot territory. This 2D platformer could become a 3D co-op adventure, where your journey to the frozen summit is as much about your teamwork as your platforming skill. With its TGA GOTY award among its gear, Hazelight has the tools for this climb.
Splatoon platformer extremely OK Games
We talked about our desire for more single player action Splatoon for years now, so why not change the formula completely and see how the squid kids would do in a completely different format — say, a punishing but beautiful 2D platformer?
We know that a developer like Extremely OK Games can weave a beautiful story around a simple structure, and the Splatoon universe is full of untapped lore potential just waiting for a chance to shine.
Instead of being all about combat, the challenge of this platformer would be how to use your baby-squid powers to navigate your surroundings. Shooting and drawing would still be present, but the focus would be on movement and flow instead of damage. Oh, and it would need a chip-banging soundtrack, of course.
There are some of our developer/franchise combinations, but which ones can you imagine? Let us know which Nintendo series you want to see in the hands of another studio and share your dream developers.
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