Their business practices aren’t perfect, but Nintendo makes games like nobody else. It’s true. They don’t load their games with microtransactions and day one DLC, or ask you for extra money to arbitrarily play their games like 2 days and 6 business hours early. Scam of the decade so far, that one. But they also have their fair share of games that nobody played.
Yoshi’s Safari – SNES
It’s quite challenging to find a Mario game that most people don’t know, which is pretty surprising considering there’s at least like 12 of these things. But there are probably still quite a few of you out there who don’t know that Mario made Yoshi an accomplice to war crimes in 1993.
A first-person shooter (yes) in which Mario rides Yoshi while using a bazooka (yeeees), Yoshi’s Safari follows the pair as they travel to Jewelry Land to help a couple of Princess Peach’s mates, one homicide at a time.
You see, Yoshi’s Safari is a light gun shooter that makes full use of the Super Scope peripheral to allow you to go full Arn Anderson on classic Mario enemies. Rather than jumping on boxes, Mario can instead shoot them for powerups and also find secret areas, all while competing for high scores. It even has a nice touch where Yoshi will look back at you angrily when you accidentally do your best Muldoon and shoot his massive head..
It’s genuinely pretty fun, with reviewers at the time commending its really quite lovely Mode 7 visuals, absolute bopper of a soundtrack, and generally enjoyable gameplay, though the game did really poorly in sales due to that peripheral requirement, and we’ve never even heard of Jewelry Land since. Shigeru Miyamoto himself apparently wasn’t a fan of all the mass murder. Shigsy’s base nature would get the better of him 25 years later in the Kingdom Battle massacre of 2017. Rally? Yes, rally.
Uniracers – SNES
Uniracers, also known as Unirally in Europe, hence that really smooth and natural segue ten seconds ago, is one of the most important video games in history — though not entirely because of the game itself.
But the game is fun, and is basically like a precursor to the Trials series, sort of, a bit, in which seemingly self-powered unicycles zoom around a track and perform stunts to go faster. It’s kinda tricky to perfect, and is an unusual 16-bit game in terms of attention to physics and how you play around with those physics in its 3D space.
For as fun as Uniracers could be, especially in multiplayer, the real impact of the game could be felt in a courtroom. You know Pixar, that animation studio known for spreading joy, happiness, and childlike wonder? Yeah, they decided that they owned the rights to unicycles. They sued developers DMA Design for allegedly infringing on the design of a unicycle in Red’s Dream, which…I dunno. How different can a unicycle look? Do you want them to have two wheels or something?
Bizarrely, Pixar somehow won the lawsuit, and Nintendo were forced to stop printing cartridges for Uniracers. DMA suffered financially thanks to the decision, leading to them being sold on twice in the same year, the second time resulting in them being owned by Take-Two Interactive, who would then make them a subsidiary of Rockstar Games. It was there that DMA Design would turn a game called Race’n’Chase into a little known indie gem by the name of Grand Theft Auto.
There’s something funny about Pixar indirectly willing a dude called Jizzy B into existence. Question time: which was the first Grand Theft Auto game to land on a Nintendo console?
Power Lode Runner – SNES (Super Famicom)
You’re probably looking at Power Lode Runner, an updated version of Lode Runner which originally came out for the NES and a whole host of other platforms, and are thinking, “yep, that’s an early SNES game alright”. Friend, this came out in 1999.
Released solely in Japan for Nintendo Power, not the magazine but a service that allowed users to download games onto a flash memory cartridge for cheap(ish), Power Lode Runner released when the N64 was already well into its life cycle, and just before Nintendo announced the GameCube was on its way.
Fun bonus fact: the original Bomberman for the NES also recolored some robot sprites from Lode Runner for its main character, which has gone on to become the standard Bomberman design.
That’s all quite crazy, but is Power Lode Runner a crazy game?
No.
But, it’s definitely interesting. Power Lode Runner retains the core gameplay from the original game in which you can defend yourself not with a gat like Mario, but by blowing holes into the ground. Enemies can fall into the holes, then you can step over them. If you fall into the hole, you will have to reset your progress.
It’s a neat little puzzle platformer with some nice cutscenes and a fairly charming aesthetic, but as an extremely niche game released for a niche audience, don’t expect the world of it and you might get warlocked in for a couple of hours.
Warlocked – Game Boy Color
It’s really worth at one point doing a whole video on crazily ambitious games in the Game Boy family. The Game Boy Advance had some really wild ones, but Warlocked belongs to the least likely genre to ever come to the Game Boy Color, but somehow pulls it off: the RTS.
Yes, a real-time strategy game on the Game Boy Color. This is the same handheld whose first games looked like actual dots.
Developed by Bits Studios and published by Nintendo, Warlocked features two distinct campaigns where players take the reigns of different factions. There’s an expansive range of locations here, with voice samples, cutscenes, and plenty of fortifications to build on top. You can even do things like give the enemy the plague, which is surely the next killstreak Activision will add to Call of Duty right next to literal brainrot.
But the wildest thing is that players can basically collect 27 different wizards to help them cast magic spells, though you can only collect all of them by trading with other players using a Link Cable. Yes, Bits made Warcraft Pokemon! It’s wild.
A sequel called Wizards was planned for the Game Boy Advance, but due to Warlocked’s low sales, not helped by this being a United States exclusive, that never happened. Bits folded in 2008 after pinballing around various licensed games like Constantine.
Odama – GameCube
Yeah, look: it’s not going to take you long to figure out why this one flopped. A tactics game from the mind behind Seaman where players use a giant ball to win on the battlefield? Oh, and also you use a microphone to command your troops?
And it came out in 2006?
Yes, Odama didn’t have much of a chance really. While there was still plenty of interest in Twilight Princess, the GameCube was more or less dead ahead of the release of the Wii in late 2006. The GameCube only got roughly 48 games across the whole of 2006 in the west, and one of them was a kaiju pinball game kinda.
Odama is certainly a unique game, as you use flippers to send the Odama across the battlefield to crush enemy samurai while also somehow tilting the entire world. Don’t worry about it probably. Games absolutely loved their voice commands around this time, and so did Yoot Saito, bringing back the same mechanic from Seaman.
Critics did not absolutely love Odama though, and basically responded to the game’s bally barminess with a resounding “I don’t get it”. It’s also an extremely difficult game, and one that will often make you leave your body and have you questioning “why am I playing a pinball game that hates me” but it’s certainly an interesting curio for an afternoon if you can find a friend to laugh around with. You don’t have to master Odama to have some fun with dis, guys.
Wario: Master of Disguise – DS
If Nintendo has one mascot for the sickos, it’s Wario. I mean, look at him. The alcoholic’s nose. The same pained smile as me when looking through an AI artist’s portfolio. Legs that go for…centimetres. He’s beautiful.
Wario is basically Mario in the completely wrong case, but a case could be made that Wario: Master of Disguise is one of the most forgotten Nintendo games ever.
Released for the Nintendo DS in 2007, Wario: Master of Disguise is a Metroidvania — Wetroidvania? — esque game in which Wario ends up getting sucked into a TV and learns to jazz up his wardrobe thanks to a magic wand, with different outfits giving him different abilities.
Developed by Suzak, who you might remember from the Game Boy Advance spin-offs for F-Zero, Wario: Master of Disguise does look the part of a Wario platformer if slightly basic, and Wario absolutely looks like a million quid in his various little numbers, but it’s just…not very exciting. It simply lacks that Nintendo magic, and that, along with a nonsensical, weird story, even by Wario standards, less than convincing stylus controls, and some infuriating level design make Master of Disguise one of the worst reviewed Nintendo published games of the last 20 years. It’s not an entirely awful game, but it’s quite obvious why this has mostly just been forgotten about entirely.
If you like Wario in general, you might get a kick out of Master of Disguise, though like a Wee Man kick at best. If you enjoy random public domain characters being chucked together, you might get a kick out of this next game too.
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. – 3DS
Yeah, poor Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. A 3DS game that about 8 people played despite Nintendo apparently printing 8 million copies of this thing, I don’t think it was ever gonna build up enough steam to be a success.
It’s just a fairly hard sell for about 95% of players.
Compare it to Super Mario, for instance, OK. Mario: Jump on stuff, beat Bowser. That’s it.
And now Code Name: S.T.E.A.M: a steampunk, third-person shooter turn-based strategy game where you fight aliens, team up with Abraham Lincoln to help save Oz from the Wizard of fame and get your hands on the Necronomicon. Also, Lincoln has a giant mech to help him fight kaiju?
Yeah, so while sickos like you and I will be able to get on Intelligent Systems’ quite insane wavelength, it’s such a weird game to explain succinctly that Nintendo didn’t really bother, with a singalong trailer probably being as much as they did. Does kinda bop, not gonna lie.
It is a decent game, though. It looks lovely with its Silver Age comic stylings, has a pretty stacked voice cast, and its general gameplay can be a lot to wrap your head around but pretty fun when you do. The steam mechanic is a nice touch, as it defines how much attacking or moving you can do in one turn.
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. often gets compared to Valkyria Chronicles, except swap out the melancholy with battering giant alien squids and you’re pretty much there. It’s not perfect, but buy this for its like 5 quid market value and let’s get a remaster rumbling.
Pokémon Rumble U – Wii U
Listen, I really thought it was important to get some kinda Wii U rep in. The thing is, basically everything good on the Wii U that was first party has now been ported, and also Devil’s Third…I’m not ready to talk about Devil’s Third yet.
So, I think due to the current Pokemon situation, i.e. grown ass men who absolutely would not tell you they were bitten in a zombie apocalypse, it’d make sense to talk about Pokémon Rumble U, a forgotten Pokemon game in, well, an absolute sea of them.
Right off the bat, Pokémon Rumble U was going to struggle for much love, as the Wii U could feasibly have been the first home Nintendo console to sport a proper Pokemon RPG, and that’s what a lot of fans were not just hoping for, but expecting. What did we get instead? Pokemon Tekken, and Pokemon Skylanders meets basically an illegal cockfighting ring.
Yeah, so Pokemon Rumble U is an arena battler, kind of, where you chuck toy Pokemon into a Beyblade arena and have them fight each other. A sequel to a 3DS game with the Rumble series beginning on the Wii, Pokémon Rumble U didn’t have too much to it, with you basically scrapping to return toy Pokemon to a shop. It even has NFC figurines that you can use to bring specific Pokemon into your game, yes, it’s incredibly 2013.
It’s a game you’ll probably love now if you were young when it came out, but in the cold light of day, Pokemon Rumble U is a pretty limited game with really rudimentary graphics. A 49 Metacritic feels a tad brutal considering this was a low cost eShop download, but the power of teens and kids on their parent’s wallets still meant it probably earned Nintendo some decent change.
DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power – Switch
Where were you when they announced DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power exclusively for the Nintendo Switch in a 2021 Nintendo Direct? Not a Mini or a Partner Direct, a full blown Direct? The same one where everyone was hoping for Tears of the Kingdom news and they just went “nah, got nothing for you”?
It’s funny, but the almost immediate thought I got from DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power was that it was an extremely late Nintendo DS game. That’s not meant as an, um, slur, but it’s the exact kind of licensed game that the DS was propped up by while us sickos tucked into our Chinatown Wars, and it’s the kind of platform exclusive that’s completely disappeared lately.
Published by Nintendo themselves and developed by Toybox, who also developed Deadly Premonition 2???, Teen Power is a licensed game spun off from the TV show reboot of DC Super Hero Girls targeted to a younger girl demographic.
Teen Power is a beat em up in which you can take the reins of DC characters like Harley Quinn, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman, and basically go around and talk to NPCs to start fetch quests and do more beat em upping. You get some visual novel-esque storytelling, a social media app revolving around taking selfies, and some simple character customisation.
And that’s really about it! Just like Cosmic Chaos and The Adventures of Krypto and Ace, this is a DC game ultimately marketed to a younger, less likely to understand what VHS is demographic, with the kinda repetitive but just involved enough gameplay you’d expect. So if you’re looking for the next, I dunno, Arkham game on Switch, Teen Power might be a bit of a stretch.
The Stretchers – Switch
You will not find many more forgotten Switch exclusives by the time the system rolls out its final hentai eShop masterpiece than The Stretchers. Released in November 2019, it’s been like [calculator sounds] coming up on six years since it came out and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it, barely any recognition from Nintendo…guys, it’s not 1-2 Switch! It’s for human beings!
Developed by Tarsier Studios, yes the Little Nightmares guys, alongside Nintendo themselves, with Yoshiaki Koizumi, director of Super Mario Galaxy, and Katsuya Eguchi, the creator of Animal Crossing, in producer roles, The Stretchers has the creative pedigree but not the popularity to match.
In it, you can team up with a pal to help out people who’ve come down with a case of the dizzies across Greenhorn Island. As an EMT, you have to scoop up dizzied denizens, place them on a stretcher, and deal with the wacky physics to load them into your ambulance and eventually drive them to get treatment.
The Stretchers is a pretty limited, short game, but is ultimately just meant to be a silly distraction for an afternoon. It’s a lot of fun, and can genuinely have you cackling at points. If you’re a big fan of things like Moving Out, Fall Guys, and Human Fall Flat, The Stretchers is likely gonna scratch the same slapstick itch.
However, bizarrely for a game like this, and something that’s probably harmed its viability for some YouTubers to make content on it with friends and basically be the best marketing you could ever have, there is no online co-op. Just local.
You’re telling me I can stream this peak on Switch Online but not play The Stretchers online? I need a lie down.
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