5 SERIES WE WANT NINTENDO TO BRING TO MOBILE NEXT

5 Series We Want Nintendo To Bring To Mobile Next

27/9/2019

A couple days ago, Nintendo released the long-awaited Mario Kart: Tour their latest game for the mobile platform. As a massive Nintendo fanboy since birth, it is admittedly a bit bizarre to see games from the big N on anything other than a Nintendo console but, with reports stating that Mario Kart Tour already managed 10.1 million downloads worldwide, clearly, they are onto something. With games in the Mario, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem series and a new IP in the form Dragalia Lost are all already on mobile stores, it got us thinking...what other Nintendo games should come to mobile? Here's what we came up with:

balloon fight/Balloon Trip

Balloon Fight is one of the oldest and perhaps the most obscured game on this list. Originally released on the Nintendo VS. System as Vs. Balloon Fight and later for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1986, Balloon Fight is a perfect representation of Nintendo's game design philosophy of 'Simple Fun'. Here the player controls an unnamed Balloon Fighter with two balloons attached to his helmet. Repeatedly pressing the A button or holding down the B button causes the Balloon Fighter to flap his arms and rise into the air. If a balloon is popped, the player's flotation is decreased, making it harder to rise. A life is lost if both balloons are popped by enemy Balloon Fighters, if the player falls in the water, gets eaten by the large piranha near the surface of the water, or is hit by lightning.

The Original Balloon Fight for the NES in 1986

Balloon Trip, on the other hand, is a single-player game where the goal is to avoid the lightning sparks and collect the balloons, aiming to move up the ranks and compete for the high score. The player starts with one life. And while we would want a Ballon Fight mobile, it is the idea of Balloon Trip mobile that got us salivating at the mouth. Its simple control set up would transfer well to a touch screen interface ala Flappy Birds and would be a good time waster on long commutes or at the doctor's office.

Excitebike

Keeping on the topic of the NES, the next game on our list also hailed from that legendary catalogue. Excitebike is a motocross racing video game franchise made by Nintendo and made its debut for the Famicom in Japan in 1984 and as a launch title for the NES in 1985. The gameplay starts with the player choosing from five tracks in which to race along with whether the player to race solo or against computer-assisted riders. The player controls the position of the red motorcycle with the Y-axis of the directional pad and controls acceleration with the A and B buttons.

In Excitebike World's Rally for the Wii, motion control was used for perfect landing

The real fun in the gameplay came from making sure your rider sticks his landing after catching major air on each ramp. This is where I believe the controls would best be replicated over on mobile. The controls would be similar to what was done with Excitebike World Rally on the WII, where the player on mobile would use gyroscope tilt motions for the landings. Of course, this would require the game to be played in landscape view which would make it the first of all of Nintendo's mobile outings to do so. And...oh! Let's us not forget about the best mode in the series which is the track designer. Thinking the possibility of whipping out my phone to play a few tracks designed by the online community already has me preparing my wallet to be emptied.

Advance wars

We are putting ourselves in the fire line for potential backlash with this one as the much underrated, the much loved Advance Wars is next on our list. Advance Wars is a turn-based tactics video game developed for the Game Boy Advance by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The gameplay is traditional turn base RPG affair with the main objective being to defeat the enemy army. There are two ways to defeat an opponent: destroy every one of the opponent's units on the map or capture the opponent's headquarters. However, some maps have specific objectives, such as capturing a certain number of cities to claim victory.

Advance Wars' sister series, Fire Emblem, saw their own successful launch on mobile last year.

Of course, all sounding pretty similar to the Advance Wars' sister series, Fire Emblem which with their own mobile iteration, Fire Emblem Heroes went on to become one of Nintendo's most profitable mobile game. So, therefore, one would think its a matter of time before Advance Wars mobile becomes a reality. Well...and here's why we are in danger of a backlash, there hasn't been a new game in the series for years and the die-hard fans, as a result, have been making their frustrations known. The idea of this once great series being resurrected on mobile would be the stuff of nightmare for many of those fans. But hey, I would take mobile Advance Wars over no Advance Wars any day.

Warioware

This is without a doubt the most mobile ready series Nintendo has in their stable. Warioware is a series of comedy-based party games published by Nintendo and featuring Mario's doppelganger...Wario. The games in the series are collections of very short and simple games, called "microgames" or "minigames," presented in quick succession.

WarioWare Gold for the 3DS was the last entry in the series.

Quick 'microgames'? Quick 'minigames'? It's as if, someone at Nintendo back in the early 2000s time travelled to our time now to see the evolution of mobile gaming and then return to create Warioware. The 'microgames' are normally quick snippets of gameplay featuring some form of a gimmick. No complicated control schemes needed making it downright perfect for mobile. And since it has been some time since WarioWare Gold on the 3DS perhaps, now is also the perfect time for the series's return.

Wii Sports

By now your eyebrow should be raised and your 'WTF' face is on full display. But, before you write this off as nonsense...hear us out. Wii Sports is a 2006 sports video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. Packed in with Wii, they both went on to be mega cultural phenomenons, selling gangbusters in the process.

There are currently hundreds of Golf Games on mobile but I would prefer to return to Wii Golf

Of course, both the Wii and Wii Sports owed a lot of that success to the then-revolutionary Wii motion controls so, how does a Wii Sports mobile would replicate it? Short answer...it can't. So why would Nintendo make a mobile version? It goes back to what we outlined earlier when speaking about Balloon Fight that Nintendo games are 'Simple Fun'. Except for maybe Wii boxing, each can use simple finger swipes or taps to replicate gameplay. Sure just tapping a button in Wii Sports on a console sounds boring but in quick bursts against online opponents on your phone is a much more tasty concept.

So that is our top 5 list we are mailing to Nintendo HQ as we speak. Also, we must make mention that we didn't include the Zelda series since a mobile game in the series had long been rumoured to already be in production. We will love to hear about your opinion on our list in the comments below.

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