5 Nintendo franchises that deserve more love

I'm not as big into video games as I used to be, but I still like to play them when I can, and I try to keep on top of what's new even if I can't afford it. I was raised on Nintendo, and as such have had a massive bias toward their products and properties. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and others are consistently some of the finest series. Nothing approaches their longevity.

This was the last one really worth playing and you know it, fanboy.

Still, with so many brilliant franchises, there are plenty of more or less equally brilliant games that have been forgotten in Nintendo's 30-year history. Let's finish this introduction and start naming them.

5 Nintendo Franchises in Need of Love

5. Puzzle League/Tetris Attack (First seen - Panel de Pon [1995], Last seen - Planet Puzzle League [2007])

This is your basic block puzzle game, but it's a really good one. The block tower slowly rises, and you have to flip the blocks around to match them by color. Making simple lines to get through the level is easy, the real challenge comes in setting up crazy combos and plus-sized lines for high scores. Like I said, it's nothing particularly unique, but it's fun and addictive. 

Nintendo's kind of pushed it in a corner for discount DS games and WiiWare downloads. Back in the day Nintendo would load the games with characters and designs from popular game series, like Yoshi's Island for Tetris Attack or Pokemon Puzzle League. The tie-ins may be just a quick gimmick to boost sales, but there's something undeniably fun about battling Pokemon through sliding tiles around. The world needs another Pokemon Puzzle League.

4. Custom Robo (First seen - Custom Robo [1999], Last seen - Custom Robo Arena [2007])

I've only played the version on the Gamecube, but it's a lot of fun. The battles are simple, but still have potential for strategy among the button-mashing. Customization is a lot of fun, with plenty of different options for your gun, missile, bombs and body. There's a lot of potential for Wi-fi here, too. I wish this series was more popular so Nintendo would make a version for Wii. I don't see why it isn't, frankly. It's got robots, customization, and is a pretty fun game to boot. If Nintendo would put some effort into it, this could be their killer online game, with fast, frantic multiplayer shootouts.

3. Earthbound/Mother (First seen - Mother [1989], Last seen - Mother 3 [2006])

I've never actually played Earthbound or any of the other games in this mostly Japan-only series, but they look like a lot of fun and seem to have a great sense of humor that plays off of cultural stereotypes of the East and West. We'll probably never see any more of this, which is unfortunate.

2. Tingle spin-offs (Character introduced - Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask [2000], Last seen - Irozuki Tingle no Koi no Balloon Trip [2009])

Screw you, America, I love Tingle. I love when Legend of Zelda gets silly. Wind Waker is still my favorite game in the series. Link was never meant to be a badass generic fantasy hero, he's a small boy who uses magic to battle a pig-wizard. Ocarina of Time is a fun game, I'm not going to argue it isn't, but it ruined the look and feel of the franchise.

I'm trailing off. Tingle, the 35-year-old manchild who wants to be fairy and makes maps. He's had two full games and a minigame of his own in Europe and Japan, but none of these have been released in the U.S. I own Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Ruppeeland, but I can't read Japanese so I've never played it, so I can't say if it's any good or not. Still, I love Tingle and everything he stands for. Please disregard the ignorant Western masses that want Zelda to look like every other fantasy RPG, Nintendo, make Link a kid again and reintroduce Tingle.

1. Ice Climber (First seen - Ice Climber [1985], Characters last seen - Super Smash Bros. Brawl [2008])

Back in the mid '80s, Nintendo had a lot of potential franchises coming out. Things like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid obviously had the upper hand when it came to franchise potential, but many deserving games never saw a sequel. Kid Icarus got a Game Boy sequel, but nothing else. Balloon Fight, a less-bizarre Joust ripoff, has seen nothing but remakes despite plenty of potential to improve. Excitebike has been bastardized in a few spin-offs and a recent WiiWare title, but nothing more. Still, more deserving of another shot than any of these is the great Ice Climber.

To refresh/inform: in Ice Climber, you play as a mountain climber named Popo (his friend Nana joins him in 2-Player mode). You progress up the mountain by breaking through sheets of ice with your giant mallet, fighting birds, polar bears and seals/small abominable snowmen along the way. Once you approach the summit, you have to collect your lost vegetables, most notably your eggplants with eyes, before grabbing onto a condor to fly to the next peak. It's weird. Nintendo needs weird.

Remember when Rareware worked for Nintendo and we got awesome games like Banjo-Kazooie? That was a fantastic, wacky game that is sorely missed on today's platforms (Nuts 'n Bolts doesn't count). If any abandoned franchise is strange and cute enough to fill Banjo's yellow shorts, it's these guys. I want to see it happen. I want a game with massive snowy landscapes, giant vegetables with faces, and a lot of potential for hammer fury. Picture it, and get angry at the fact that it'll never happen.

Honorable mention goes to the aforementioned Kid Icarus and Excitebike, but I didn't really have much to say about them other than they're fun and under-appreciated. Still, there's hope. Somehow Nintendo went back to making Metroid games after ignoring them through the entire Nintendo 64/Game Boy Color era.

So, tune in next week when I don't write about what I say I'm going to write about.