What are Your Favorite B Series from Nintendo?

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
Simple question. Discuss.

Obviously, since we're talking about B-series, don't talk about Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, or Mario Party.
The one I'm unsure about is Kirby. That's the borderline series. It's right in the middle of Flagship and B series, so I'll let you guys decide how to rank it, but for now, I'm gonna consider it NOT B-series.

One of my favorite series is WarioWare. Smooth Moves is my favorite, as it actually took the zany nature of WarioWare and used the Wii's Motion Controls in a fun, non-gimmicky way. If you've never played this, I'd almost recommend buying someone's old Wii just for this game. There's plenty of Wiis out there collecting dust, and Smooth Moves is rather easy to come by. It's amazing at parties.

Another one of my favorites is Animal Crossing. I had never even considered picking up on the series until I was given New Leaf as a Club Nintendo gift and instantly got hooked. I believe that Nintendo could really profit from making Animal Crossing for mobile phones, as it simply works. When we get Animal Crossing for Switch, I want a companion app to visit my village and perform regular tasks. This would be a huge innovation.

And finally, to throw in a retro game, Balloon Fight is really fun as an arcade-style game. It's not very deep, so there's almost no chance of it ever returning like Kid Icarus, but like Pac-Man, it's simple and fun. It's worth the 5 bucks if you have a Wii U and like arcade-style games.
 

Ampharos

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shit i guess fire emblem's a flagship now isn't it?

warioware's actually a strong contender for me, i guess. gameplay's simple, yet entertaining, and there's a quirkiness to the humor that i adore

i also haven't gotten around to playing the prequel or sequel yet, but i absolutely love everything about earthbound so it probably qualifies

similarly, i haven't played any f-zero games outside of the original, or any star fox games other than 64, but i enjoy those games enough to mention them here as well
 
Animal Crossing is now a flagship Nintendo IP.

Also, you can't group Mario into one category. 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi, etc. are all different tiers.

That said my favorite B tier franchise is Excitebike.
 
One of my favorites (that I need to get around to playing more of) is Golden Sun. I've only played very little of the first game and Dark Dawn, but I enjoy what I've played of it.
 
Starfox. It's fast-paced, it has a decent story, it keeps you alert, and there are some really cool bosses. I only played the 3DS remake but I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll probably revisit it this Summer.
 

Xen

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Definitely Metroid. Whether be it the side scrolling games or the Prime series, the games are a blast to play. Really a shame that Nintendo has basically left the franchise to rot in obscurity, especially when so many fans want a new game.

Another game series that deserves more love is the Punch-Out games. I still remember the feeling of accomplishment when young me and my now brother in-law finally beat the NES game, although now I have PTSD flashbacks everytime I hear or see Mike Tyson.
 

AM

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Metroid. The prime series is a fantastic saga. They couldve continued to make metroid games like those and wouldve benefitted well. A lot of the initial elements like the multiplayer aspect just needed fine tuning. I think it steered off track with metroid 3 trying to put weird elements in but they couldve bounced back. Shame it didnt.
 

churine

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F-Zero is easily the best shit ever its ten times better, harder & faster than Mario Kart and I haven't even got to playing F-Zero GX yet. Makes me sad that it's been 13 years since the last game cause that shit is amazingly fun.
 

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
Animal Crossing is now a flagship Nintendo IP.

Also, you can't group Mario into one category. 3D Mario, 2D Mario, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi, etc. are all different tiers.

That said my favorite B tier franchise is Excitebike.
I should clarify more on the Mario spinoffs. The main series Mario games are flagship. This includes any game that has the name "Super Mario" in the title. The only exception is Super Mario Kart, which is a spinoff, but Mario Kart is also a flagship series.

The Mario RPGs as well as Mario Vs. Donkey Kong and any other spinoff series besides Mario Kart and Mario Party is fair game here.
shit i guess fire emblem's a flagship now isn't it?

warioware's actually a strong contender for me, i guess. gameplay's simple, yet entertaining, and there's a quirkiness to the humor that i adore

i also haven't gotten around to playing the prequel or sequel yet, but i absolutely love everything about earthbound so it probably qualifies

similarly, i haven't played any f-zero games outside of the original, or any star fox games other than 64, but i enjoy those games enough to mention them here as well
Fire Emblem is fair game. It's gotten far more attention recently, but it's still not on par with Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Smash, and Donkey Kong.

For reference, everyone, here's the line.
theline.png


Mario Kart and Mario Party are above the line, as they've sold 114 million and 40 million units respectively.
 
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Colonel M

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Metroid series and Fire Emblem series definitely are way up there. I'm really depressed on the direction that Metroid took - I felt that if Other M focused less on the story it would've been amazing because I liked the gameplay outside of a few quirks. I personally enjoy 2D Metroid a bit more, but Prime series is exceptionally solid. Fire Emblem is one of those that has gained a ton of steam over the years, probably because it does appeal a bit more to a casual crowd, but as a hardcore fan it's still an enjoyable series to me.

Yoshi is an odd one. I actually love a lot of the Yoshi games and I love the different art styles and directions they do with it. The original Yoshi's Island is still probably in my Top 10 games of all time, and stuff like Yoshi's Woolly World looks really creative and easy on the eyes.

I feel Star Fox sadly died after SF64. I haven't really had much excitement for the game outside of that era, sadly. I think it's because of the Starfox Adventure game just being a massive disappointment. It's just a real damn shame how Rare's IP has been over the years. Donkey Kong at least remains solid, but Starfox, Banjo, and other games have definitely taken a backseat. I still haven't played the new Killer Instinct. :|
 

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
I believe that Splatoon will eventually become a flagship series for Nintendo, as it did amazingly on Wii U despite only 3 people owning the system.
But since it's under the line, it's fair game.
Splatoon is an amazing multiplayer game. Period. It's a completely unique shooter with all the Nintendo charm, proving they can still pump out instant classics. The single player was rather lacking, but hopefully Splatoon 2 will expand that, as it was fun in its own right.
I firmly believe that had Wii U had sold like PS4 that Splatoon would have easily been a 20 million+ seller. This is seriously the greatest new IP of this decade, and if you don't have a Wii U, I'd highly recommend picking up the Switch to experience the sequel when it comes out. (Disclaimer: Splatoon 2 has not been released and could conceivably be a flop, but the multiplayer looks to be the same as the original with new weapons and maps, so that'd be expremely hard to fuck up.)
 

Ampharos

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i'm concerned about spla2n's prospects given that nintendo's unveiling paid online; combined with how subpar their online service typically is, i'm worried that people just won't pay for it, and that spla2n will wind up flopping by no fault of it's own, but because there's just no online playerbase
 
The Mario and Luigi RPG series have been some of my favorite spin-off games for a long time now. I've only played the first two extensively, Superstar Saga and Partners in Time, and a bit of Bowser's Inside Story (haven't finished that one yet for some reason). I really enjoyed the turn-based battle approach, and it made the game really interactive and hands on. The story lines were also pretty unique (other than Peach getting kidnapped every now and then) so it wasn't boring at any stage of the game. Of course there were some flaws, such as some insanely difficult bosses or super annoying and tedious puzzles / maps, but overall I think Nintendo was really successful with this series of games. I can't speak for the most recent versions, as I've never played them (Dream Team and Paper Jam), but if they're anything like their predecessors then they should be just as fun.

As a side note, the music in the games were extremely catchy, and I totally understand why Mario and Luigi are dancing while idling in battle!
 

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
i'm concerned about spla2n's prospects given that nintendo's unveiling paid online; combined with how subpar their online service typically is, i'm worried that people just won't pay for it, and that spla2n will wind up flopping by no fault of it's own, but because there's just no online playerbase
The hope is that they use the price of online to improve their online infrastructure.
Internet simply isn't free. The reason Steam games can have free online play is because a PC's online infrastructure is already highly developed. Consoles have shown that free online simply isn't viable. Nintendo was the last to break, but hopefully we will now have lagless Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.
 

Ampharos

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obviously if nintendo improves their online to xbox live/psn levels (or even just near that) there's no issue; the concern is the potential that they go in a gimmicky nintendo direction that doesn't quite work out
 
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Karxrida

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Kirby, Metroid, and Yoshi. Kirby is simple fun while the Metroid Prime Trilogy (and Super, though I'm still playing it) and the original Yoshi's Island are some of the best games ever made. They make for great speedruns, too.

Also, make another Kirby Air Ride, dammit.
 
I'm surprised Pikmin doesn't perform as well as freaking Big Brain Academy. Anyway, I always humored the idea of everything inexplicably trying to kill the captains and their Pikmin, especially the enemies that don't even eat Pikmin, such as those annoying Wollywogs in the first game.

Also, discussing Pokémon here should go without saying, since Smogon does exactly that everywhere else.
 
Guess it depends where you put Kirby, but always liked it...well the older games anyways, some of the newer ones are kinda...out there...Yoshi I'd say is more A series just by virtue of being with Mario, otherwise we'll just end up segregating out Peach and others.

Fire Emblem is great too, along with Advance Wars; really wish they'd make another Advance Wars series game, but more like the ones that came out for GBA as Days of Ruin was kind of a downer story all around (and lacking in neat CO powers).

I guess for a more obscure (and not really Nintendo franchise and more like C or D series, but still), anything from Suda51. Killer 7, No More Heroes series, all great games and mostly Nintendo exclusive.
 
I think it's tough to compete with F-Zero. That's a racing game series with some real vision that doesn't fuck around. Unlike Mario Kart, the hokey characters don't stop F-Zero from having honest to god competitive mechanics.

F-Zero X is easily my favorite N64 game of all time and if I had loads of money to burn it would be on the Disk Drive complete with japanese N64 and game so I could play the expansion pack, which is two whole cups worth of tracks on top of a vehicle creator and track editor that has all the power and versatility the game devs had.
 
Do third party games/series count...? If so, my favorite is definitely Monster Hunter. It's owned by Capcom, but many of the games have been on Nintendo consoles for the past few years (I think the first was Tri on the Wii? Since then, 4 Ultimate and Generations are exclusive to the 3DS, and XX (DoubleCross) will almost definitely be on the 3DS as well...)

And as for spinoffs and such, my favorite spinoffs are in Pokémon: Ranger, Mystery Dungeon, and even Rumble, Conquest, and Pokepark (though I haven't played those last three in forever; I used to love them when I was younger).
 

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