Of the great video game developers, Nintendo is by far one of the oldest, with games dating back to the 70s and still king. Giants like Atari, Sega and Activision were benchmarks in the industry but fell while Nintendo has survived and today is really strong with Nintendo Switch. But with so many years making Nintendo games and consoles behind them, the normal thing is that one or more games go wrong and even the worst in history.
No one is immune to failure and here we are going to list several of the games that least meet what is expected of Nintendo quality. The rules here are very simple: it has to be a game exclusive to Nintendo consoles in which you have participated in its development or distribution. And we are not going to count mobile games because it would be easy.
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Table of Contents
Devil's third
We would like to know what the directors of Nintendo were thinking when they decided to rescue a game that was in a development hell after many years of silence, made by a new team and with a director best known for giving Dead or Alive sex appeal. Perhaps they were captivated that Tomonobu Itagaki had resurrected Ninja Gaiden and wanted to emulate the success of saving Bayonetta 2 from cancellation and thus have an exclusive adult game for Wii U.
Is Devil's Third bad? Especially technically, because we imagine that an exclusive game would be ideal for architecture, not that on a more powerful console than a PlayStation 3, it seems like a launch game for that previous generation console. And the rest of the game's design didn't support when it was either highly unfair or just not worth remembering. At least it can be said that they tried and saved a game of not seeing the light of day, at least ...
Urban champion
Nintendo likes to re-release its NES classics over and over again. From putting them in Animal Crossing on the GameCube, putting them on the Game Boy Advance or selling them on the Wii Virtual Console, Wii U or Nintendo 3DS. Of course, it has undeniable classics like Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda… And Urban Champion is not one of them.
We can give Urban Champion some ground for being one of the first games of its kind, and long before Street Fighter II it will show how fighting games are made ... But it doesn't mean that it is slow, with very little content and at no time is fun or entertaining. It's a classic simply because it's as old as Super Mario Bros., nothing more. No one will applaud his arrival in the NES games of Nintendo Switch Online.
Star fox zero
Star Fox is a series that was pioneering thanks to introducing revolutionary elements such as chips with polygonal graphics in the Super Nintendo or standardizing the vibration… But its game formula has always been very limited and allows rather little.
Now, imagine waiting ten years for a new installment to be released, which tells the same story as the Nintendo 64 installment, and the control, one of the key pillars of the franchise, is uncomfortable because Nintendo prioritized the need to use the Wii U Gamepad as a second screen. The speedrunners confirm that the control gives many problems of precision and calibration, with which we are facing a game that does not work as a base while it demands precision from the player. It hurts more because of how good it could have been simply to make the control a traditional one and work well.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash
Mario's sports titles are never the pinnacle of the catalog, but they always have a certain fun factor that allows you to enjoy them for a long time. Even Nintendo 64's Mario Tennis, which was fairly basic, offered many hours of fun.
But the delivery of Wii U, and it seems that we have something against the console, but no; it was the best example of having to get something for the last Christmas of the Wii U. There was hardly any content to justify the € 60 that they asked for entry. That Mario tennis Aces comes out on Nintendo Switch only two and a half years later and with more content makes us think that we were facing a full-blown Early Access.
Yoshi's Universal Gravitation
Heck, Nintendo, sometimes you seem to release games just to show off your patents! We are talking about Yoshi's palatial delivery for the Game Boy Advance that was sold for the mere fact of having a gravity sensor with which we can manipulate the scenario. A good idea, on paper, but it had to be accompanied by a good level design ... And here is the problem: they were short, very few, very little varied and not very good.
In two afternoons you could have already reached the end of the game and you would only have to get the best score in all the levels. One of the most sparse content games and one that most misuses that innovation for games on laptops (if we discount Kirby's Tilt n Tumble). And it's a shame that we were given this title instead of the more award-winning Wario Ware Twisted.
Pokemon dash
You had to put a Pokémon game, because of so many games it has had, we could make another list with the worst of the franchise, and possibly we will do it one day. But ... Why is this installment the worst? We could go easy and say Sword and shield for going with the flow by being the most disappointing major installments, but these games were only a year away from development.
What about Pokémon Channel? That game was just watching TV… But that game at least had some charm and things to do. Pokémon Dash is the lowest Pokémon game ever released and is the ultimate “get-out-of-the-box” game, this time to show off playing with the touch screen, but really it felt like we were checking to see if we had won a “scratch card.” Pokémon Dash has nothing to offer as a racing game, Pokémon game, or Nintendo DS game.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Yes, we are totally serious. And no, we can't include the CD-i Zelda or Mario because Nintendo simply gave the licenses and didn't put any money on them, and because they're not really that bad. What makes Skyward Sword worse than Wand of Gamelon, which we put worst on a list of games divisive? That there was some hope that it was a great game. It was the first time that Nintendo would do the equivalent of an AAA in terms of ambition and the most simplified Zelda ever came out.
Zelda II was cryptic because it was not born as Zelda, Phantom Hourglass lacked a touch control that bothered many ... But in addition to having a simplified control from start to finish and minigames to show off the Wii Motion Plus, little difficulty and characters difficult to love. Freedom was more limited than in The Wind Waker, and that's saying a lot. It says a lot when it is the Zelda that fans least want to revisit through history and development, two of the pillars of the franchise, together with motion control.
Metroid Other M
As much as fans insist, Metroid has never been one of Nintendo's biggest franchises in terms of sales. Good games? Yes. But they didn't generate much buzz until Retro Studios said they wanted to do one in first person and they succeeded. After a trilogy of great games, Nintendo decided to give it a Ninja Gaiden-style action approach and had the support of Team Ninja in terms of animations and combat.
Risky idea in concept, but execution is the antithesis of what Metroid is by argumentatively and mechanically limiting the exploration generated by the player's curiosity. And he wasn't even a good Ninja Gaiden impersonator on his part, which didn't convince anyone. And if you are one of those who likes games for the sake of history, put on the cinematics and see how they leave Samus as the personal doll of the game director because he believes that the best thing a woman can do is have a child.
The franchise was dying to see that Retro Studios was not going to make a Prime for many years and it killed it. True, there is Metroid Prime Federation Force but from the first announcement they eliminated all expectations, so we knew they simply wanted to show off the corpse. Hopefully Metroid Prime 4 is good at cleaning these bad tastes from your mouth.
Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival
Nintendo was riding the dollar wave when it saw that its Super Smash Bros amiibo figures were selling a lot and sparking passion. They thought that doing the same with the Animal Crossing characters would give the same result. Now… They had to make a game to justify the existence of the amiibo. How about a complete Animal Crossing game for Wii U that uses New Leaf as a base? No, a board game that is fully controlled by amiibo figures and figures is better. … WHAT?!
But we are not talking about a Mario Party with characters from Animal Crossing, that would have had some curiosity. We are talking about a board game that is pure chance in everything and there is hardly any control on the part of the players and that was shown to us in the first ten seconds of gameplay when it was announced at E3 2015. At least Mario Party had several Interesting boards with many paths and mini-games, but in Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival everything is at the disposal of the dice. There was nothing to expect of him and he was condemned to be sold at a hyper-reduced price and to be forgotten.
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Take the spinoff Paper Mario, loved by many for being an RPG with events of fast action in combat mixed with great depth, charismatic and varied characters, a crazy script and a lot of charm ... And take it all away because Miyamoto thinks that does not like the people. What do you have left? The worst game Nintendo has ever made, because it goes against Paper Mario, RPGs, video game design in general ...
It's hard not to blame Miyamoto and his age, but the interviews with the team reiterated that he changed the combat system to make it different, swapped all the unique characters for generic Toads, divided the structure into disjointed episodes ... The combat system I encouraged you not to go into combat because that would leave you sold in the face of the bosses, who need a consumable attack that you could lose and you needed to retrace your steps and get money to use it again. A game cycle that goes against all progress since the RPG genre began.
Playing Paper Mario Sticker Star for the Nintendo 3DS is seeing how Nintendo falls to the bottom and takes out a game simply because it has invested time and money, and it forgets what users like and on top of that it believes that its fans like it. he is going to like and sets expectations on a project destined to fail. Forget about classics that have aged badly, or projects taken badly by a control or design decision ... This game is wrong in every way, it has nothing to redeem it and it did more harm than good to Nintendo in general, not only to the franchise.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
It would be easy to blame Mario Kart Tour for being a mobile game with outrageously large microtransactions. Worse, it was inevitable that this would happen in that market. On the other hand, Mario Kart Live Home Circuit is an idea that in theory would work great, but then they face reality.
A Mario Kart game where you build your tracks sounds great, ModNation Racers already did it on PS3. What if we do it in real life? So Nintendo sold us radio-controlled cars with Mario kart mechanics and we built our circuits. The ideal gift for Christmas!
But they came face to face with the reality that not many people have organized or large houses that allow their varied circuits to be made, a problem that the Kinect accessory dragged. Add circuit recognition problems and some basic mechanics and you have a game that is not worth its price. And its price is much higher than a novelty game, even a Collector's Edition.
There were many Nintendo games that were worse than Skyward Sword and Other M. In fact, at worst those were just controversial. Urban Champion, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, Mario Party 10, Pokémon Trozei, etc. It is clear that you only wanted to add certain games to gain visits (but other than mine, what other did you receive? I'm the only one who commented here)