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8) Balloon Fight
Last Title: Balloon Kid (Game Boy, 1990)
As the opening act for Nintendo’s 30 years, 30 cents anniversary sale on the Wii U Virtual Console, as well as an attraction (in spirit) in Nintendo Land, it’s not like Balloon Fight hasn’t been paying fans any visits. The problem is, this fun, simple concept hasn’t been taken advantage of much in the past 20 years. The original NES Balloon Fight was a 2D action platformer, where the player controlled the iconic Balloon Fighter as he flew around the screen via three balloons tied to his body. The player made the Balloon Fighter fly by rapidly tapping the button to control his ascent and descent, all while careening him into enemies to pop their balloons before they popped his. A second mode of play was Balloon Trip, where the Balloon Fighter avoided obstacles while the screen autoscrolled and forced the player forward.
Balloon Fight’s last appearance was in the Game Boy pseudo-sequel Balloon Kid, which employed similar play-style to Balloon Trip mode for the game’s duration. It had solid aesthetics and fleshed out the other half of the Balloon Fight formula in a subtle but great way. It’s time Balloon Fight found its way back on the heels of its current resurgence. An eShop release, either for 3DS or Wii U, would be able to keep costs down on the retail side, allowing more people to give the game a shot. The series could benefit from a New Super Mario Bros.-style multiplayer element, with that frenetic sort of “help vs. hurt” state of mind taking place in the forced-scrolling environment of Balloon Trip mode. Single player might benefit from having power-ups thrown in to add some variety to the proceedings. There’s a lot of potential here, because Balloon Fight has that timeless, easy-to-learn, hard-to-master type of gameplay of the Mario Bros. games.
I can’t agree with you more on Advance Wars and F-Zero. I distinctly remember Days of Ruin ending on a cliff hanger, and it’s been far too long since the last Advance Wars entry. I also can’t help but feel that F-Zero is perfectly suited for the 3DS, which is currently in dire need of good racing games.
I’d also add Star Fox to this list. Not only has it been a very long time since the last Star Fox game (excluding the 3DS remake), but there has yet to be a game in the series that matches the quality of the Nintendo 64 entry. They didn’t just remake Star Fox 64 for no reason…right? :o
I was within inches of sticking Star Fox in. It’s ironic you mentioned the 3DS remake, because it was the main reason I excluded it; I guess it gave me too much hope when I played it that something would be coming eventually. I actually grappled back and forth over it a lot. I put Excitebike on here despite it getting a 3D remake, too, but I kept it on because it felt like such a minimal tweak. IDK =/
Haha well it was a really good list, so I really have nothing to complain about :)
I’d love to see a return to the Custom Robo series sometime. I only ever played the GameCube game that came out in America, but it was still interesting. It was really a good concept that suffered from some subpar execution. Think about Custom Robo on Wii U: Hundreds (if not thousands) of robot parts could be made available. You could duke it out in online HD robo battles! And the customization could mean millions of different robots!
Great list Robert. Couldn’t agree more with your choices.
Hard to believe it’s been almost 10 years since we’ve had a new entry in the F-Zero franchise.
You touched on a franchise near and dear to my heart: Excitebike. Everything about the original brings on a wave of nostalgia. The original is still fun, but I couldn’t agree more with your ideas about updating World Rally for the Wii U.
I love that you included Waverace. I would love me some HD wave physics.
Makes me wish they’d also update 1080, in the original style, not the trick based Gamecube sequel. The gamecube game was one of those rare Nintendo games that actually copied what every one else was doing at the time (making racing games all about tricks! Thank you very little Tony Hawk.) In my opinion, this made 1080 Avalanche inferior to the N64 original.
Lastly, how about Forgotten Nintendo “Services” that need sequels (or updating.) I’m talking about the virtual console. It is a disgrace. Only 21(?) Nintendo 64 games on the North American Wii version, and ZERO N64 games on the Wii U eShop?! The virtual console just doesn’t live up to its potential. To me, the virtual console is defined by what games it doesn’t have, not what it does have.
The reason I’m mentioning the virtual console here? Because your list made me wish I could play Excitebike 64 again. In my opinion, this was an underrated, and probably underplayed game which was also released (much like the wiiware title) at the wrong time… a little late in the N64’s lifecycle after years of almost constant racing game releases.
Again, great list!