What is your favourite Nintendo series?
 

Despite there being a Nintendo thread already, it doesn't have such a poll, so I figured no harm could come out of making one.

Well, hard for me to decide. But it's either Mario or Zelda. Smash Bros. and F-Zero come close.

My favorite is the Mario Bros. So many awesome games! My second favorite is Donkey Kong.

U wot m8 :tconfuse:

Gotta go with Smash brothers. It takes elements from some of the best Nintendo series and puts them in death matches. Fantastic

Sorry, I meant Donkey Kong.

SMB. But only games labeled as part of the Super Mario Bros. series. The platformers, not the spinoffs.

That's a hard choice, Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, all so great. Very hard choice...

Pokemon (which I play competitively when I have time--VGC), followed by Mario and Zelda in that order.

My favourite is Pokemon, though I think the series started to go downhill after gen 5. Runner up is Super Mario Bros, though I lost interest in the series years ago. I'm not a big fan of the other franchises.

Out of curiosity, when did you start losing interest in Mario? Was it any game in specific?

I started losing interest in Mario when I played Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii and New Super Mario Bros for the DS. They were boring to me. The last Mario game I played was Bowser's Inside Story.

Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart all get nods from me. I never really played Zelda or Metroid as a kid so i cant really give an opinion on those.

Overall? Zelda.

It's about the games as a whole. But feel free to tell us which series do you think have the better characters, plots, etc.

Zelda, I'd stick with. Even if the chronology of the games is a mess and there's not much sense of "legacy" to any of it... just perennially new games where a new Link fights Ganon, over and over again but with different gimmicks (he's at sea, now he can change into a wolf, fly around, etc.). Whenever a new one comes out I know I'll be riveted for at least a few days.

Metroid has that sense of legacy, but they're just not quite my cup of tea.

The Mario games are always fun, but as kind of empty-headed material. I'm glad they're out there but I have no interest in playing any more of them.

I don't like how Nintendo suddenly decided one day that there's a chronology in the Zelda series. I've always viewed each instalment as either an alternative universe/dimension or as a different incarnation.

You have games like Link's Awakening and Majora´s Mask if you want something different(no Zelda or Ganon) in case you don't know, btw.

I haven't played much of Metroid yet, sadly. I got Prime when I was 15-16 or so but didn't get very far in it until i found it boring. I need to give it another try.

Level designs in Mario games will never stop impressing me but I've played so much of those games that they eventually have become quite easy for me and played without thinking much.

I've played through Link's Awakening and got stuck somewhere in Majora's Mask. Or just lost interest. Probably lost interest, that game didn't feel much like Zelda.

Yeah, it's a pretty bizarre continuity. It actually makes sense (I even ran a Zelda encyclopedia site that figured it all out long before Nintendo made their official Zelda chronology), but none of that changes the fact that whether you're playing Zelda 3 or Zelda 16, there is really no connective tissue narratively to other games. Each one is so disconnected, except for Zelda II.

I seem to remember definitely getting stuck in Metroid Prime and getting discouraged. Some reddish fusion room you have to run in and do... something. But I'd die every time from turrets pelting me from everywhere.

I played some MM as a kid but never got far in it. I guess I'll have to get the 3DS remake then!

Back in the late 90s/early 2000s me and my brother would theorize about the Zelda chronology. At the time there were way less Zeldas than nowadays. Basically my brother said that Ocarina's/Majora's Link was the first one ever and then came ALtttp and then the original Zelda game. At the time none of us had played AoL or the Game Boy games, so he didn't include those.

I actually bought LA's DX version from the eShop yesterday and have cleared the first dungeon of the game a couple of hours ago or so. Let's see how much I like it.

But yeah, Zela's timeline should be nothing but fan theorizing imo. My brother tried to buy that book Nintendo released about it but never got it in the end. Maybe it's for the best.


I don't remember exactly where I stopped playing it, but it was fairly early in the game. That part does ring a bell to me.

I just found it boring to scan stuff.

The Legend of Zelda

Have you beaten Super Mario Bros. 2 (JPN)? "The Lost Levels"?

If you're not feeling the challenge of other Mario games, especially recent ones, check it out. It'll ruin level design in the rest of the series for you, since it's so well done in terms of challenge (it basically forces you to learn Mario's momentum inside and out). I'd love another genuinely hard Mario game. From what I hear, New Super Luigi U might hit the mark, but I don't own a Wii U.

Probably my second favorite Mario game after World, which wins out on nostalgia, scope and just being a really pleasant experience, I guess (while also not being totally absent of challenge).

I have and yes, it's insanely hard at times.

I played it through Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. A GBC game which was a remake of the original SMB game. It had the Japanese SMB2 under the "Luigi mode" category, which was unlocked after you beat SMB, iirc.

Never got around to beat it. It's been years since I've played it, though.

Ah, that one's a little rough with the screen-crunch. It does save every level though (thank god, because it'd be nearly impossible with the more limited screen otherwise).

The NES version only saves every world, so it really forces you to learn the levels. There's also an easy trick at the beginning for ~150 lives, though you may still need multiple attempts at the game to make it through on those. I'm now at the point where I can make it through with warps without the 1-Up trick, and safely make it through every level with the 1-Up trick. Still haven't managed each world on its own three-life cycle, but it's doable. The game has a lot of replay value, at least if you're like me, because it just dares you to get better at it.

Worlds A-D are hell. In the original you play them as a replacement game from the title screen after unlocking them, and as far as I know, there's no 1-Up trick, so you just have to learn them.

Oh yeah, it saved after each level. That's why I'd just pick a level at random most of the time I've played it on my brother's GBC/GBA when I was a kid.

I believe you can buy The Lost Levels off the Nintendo eShop. But since it uses the virtual console, you can save it at any time you want, so it's a matter of having some self control, I guess.

I actually did first complete it/learn it on the 3DS Virtual Consile using save states just between levels, when I was really stuck. Eventually I tried going through without, and have actually since downloaded it on my Wii, which doesn't have that option at all (it'll save where you leave off so can do it in multiple sittings, but no save states--a game-over still send you back to the start of the world, and there's nothing you can do about it).

And of course there's the All-Stars version, which saves every level and tacks Worlds A-D on when you finish. In the original, you have to beat the game eight times before unlocking them, which is a little excessive but really just as well, as you have no chance of clearing them without doing a few runs of the game first.

I should also pay a little lip service to the hardest Mario levels ever published by Nintendo, I guess, which are the "Impossible Pack" DLC levels for New Super Mario Bros. 2. I can't even beat the first one. But they're, like, not normal difficulty. They're only a small step below Kaizo Mario and other similar extremely difficult hacks, and only in that they require fewer pixel-perfect bits of movement. Still, you have to clear all three in a row without dying, and with a 100-second timer on each, so it honestly evens out. They're insane.

Wish I could pick both smash bros and pokemon.

However, I don't consider smash bros as a series in the same way as i see other franchises like pokemon and mario so the former gets my vote :)

I'ma say Donkey Kong, even though my favourite Donkey Kong Games were made by Rare and Retro Studios... but I love them so. Some of my fondest memories are playing DKC in the 90s.

Mmm, a part of me wanted to say DK too, but my heart belongs to DKC, not the arcade titles or miscarriages that came out on DS, GC, etc. LOZ has an overall better track-record & I've got a tattoo from it, so that's how it got the Powder vote. :tlol: But in life I have re-visited DKC & its sequels probably more than any other game (sans perhaps Turtles In Time). Or at least, it's what I've had the fondest experiences & least complaints about.

Still haven t played NSMB2. Now Im curious. But that doesnt aound like a fun challwnge on paper. More like extremely frustrating.

Btw, Sunshine had some hard parts as well. Those "special" platform umping levels could BE quite frustrating. That game's difficulty was all over the place. You:d catch a couple of shrines in 15 mins and then take hours to catch the next one. Mind you I have not played Sunahine in agea. As in a decade or even more.

The Legend of Zelda. Especially Majora's Mask.

EarthBound/Mother series, Mario (including the Wario and Paper Mario games), Kirby (especially Nightmare in Dreamland since the Anime had the same main villain), The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Possibly others once I play them.