Nintendo is one of the oldest companies in gaming, and one of the most iconic ones at that, having created some of the most recognizable and influential franchises in the industry. Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Kirby, and others are still huge names to this day. But for every franchise that gets the spotlight each and every year, Nintendo has many series that have lived in the shadows for decades or have been relegated to get entries most fans don't really like.

I've compiled 10 franchises from Nintendo that really deserve more attention than they've been getting for the past few years. The company has been doing a pretty good job of reigniting some of its older series, but there's still a lot that can be done, so let's dive right in.

10 Astral Chain

It's so good

Sure, Astral Chain may be a single game so far, but it's such a good one that I'm pretty upset we haven't received a new entry yet. Astral Chain debuted in 2019 and it was owned jointly by Nintendo and Platinum Games, but Nintendo acquired the full license some time after the game's release, so it's entirely up to the company whether a new entry gets made or not.

The theme and gameplay of Astral Chain are both fantastic. It has an anime-like and futuristic art style that looks absolutely fantastic, even on the Nintendo Switch, and the gameplay is very fun and engaging. You pair your abilities with those of your robotic partners (called Legions) to take on enemies in some pretty cool battles, as well as get help traversing the environment. It's a very cool concept that's executed extremely well. I also really enjoyed the plot, even if it's not exactly groundbreaking. It's one of the best Nintendo Switch games, if you ask me.

Platinum Games is a fantastic studio when it comes to this kind of game, but with some of the recent management changes, it could be a good idea to go to someone else. Maybe Tecmo Koei could deliver on that experience. I just want someone to make a new game in this series.

9 Yoshi

It's time for a return to form

Nintendo's Mario series has given birth multiple spin-offs, but few are as good as the Yoshi franchise. Starting with the stellar Yoshi's Island on the SNES, the Yoshi series has received a few entries, but most titles haven't lived up to the greatness of that original title. The first one to really shine was Yoshi's Woolly World, which had the horrible misfortune of releasing on the Wii U, followed by a very late port to the Nintendo 3DS.

The Switch has received Yoshi's Crafted World, but reception to that game has been far more mixed. A Switch port of Yoshi's Woolly World would be a fantastic start, but the series definitely deserves another new game on the same level as the original Yoshi's Island or Woolly World. It's also been almost six years since the last Yoshi game, so it's about time we got something new.

8 ARMS

It just needs a little more

It's common to hear people criticize Nintendo for not creating new franchises, but at the start of the Switch generation, the company introduced ARMS, which is actually a very fun concept for a fighting game. Primarily focused on motion controls, the game features characters with extendable arms that are used for fighting each other in hand-to-hand combat (for the most part). There's a decent variety of characters and equippable weapons, and the colorful style makes it a treat on the eyes.

The main problem with ARMS is the lack of single-player content that encouraged players to keep coming back for more than a few days. The game relied too heavily on competitive multiplayer to stay engaging, which doesn't work as well when players haven't had enough time to get attached to that world and it doesn't feel like there's much way to progress. If Nintendo just adds a bit more meat to the game a better single-player experience, I think there's potential for it to blossom into a popular franchise.

7 Donkey Kong

It's here, but not how it deserves to be

With how much Nintendo talks about Donkey Kong, you'd think it's a majorly important franchise for Nintendo, and to some extent, I'm sure it is. But it's definitely not where it should be. It's been over 10 years since the last original game in the Donkey Kong franchise, and considering Tropical Freeze is probably the best 2D platformer of all time, it's incomprehensible to me that we haven't seen anything new since then.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze got a good, but overpriced port to the Switch in 2018, and most recently, Nintendo tasked Forever Entertainment with porting Donkey Kong Country Returns as well, which yielded pretty mixed results. Nintendo's favorite ape deserves another game of the same quality as the rest of the Donkey Kong Country franchise, or maybe even someth

ing that translates the formula into 3D. Whatever it is, I really hope to see another Donkey Kong game on the Switch 2.

6 Mario Strikers

That last game deserved so much better

The Mario Strikers series was born on the GameCube and it was quickly followed up on the Wii. Mario Strikers Charged was one of the most fun games I had on that platform, mixing soccer with the frantic nature of Mario party games, with crazy items and stage hazards that always kept you on your toes but had a lot of personality.

This was followed by a 15-year hiatus until Nintendo finally brought the franchise back with Mario Strikers: Battle League, but it just didn't hit right. Much like ARMS, Nintendo failed to provide engaging single-player content, creating a polished but very generic by-the-numbers experience that had a skill barrier too high for everyone to be able to enjoy. It also removed a lot of the fun of the previous game. Items weren't as crazy and overpowered as before, and stages no longer had fun hazards or interesting designs.

I still love Mario Strikers as a concept, and I know the development team at Next Level Games has the chops to make another great entry. I feel like Battle League was hurt by bad management decisions at Nintendo (which affect all of its recent sports games) that will hopefully be corrected for a future entry.

5 Pushmo (or Pullblox)

It's too good to be stuck on the 3DS

The Pushmo series, known in Europe as Pullblox, was one of the new IPs Nintendo created for the 3DS back in 2011, and it was successful enough to warrant three more games in the series with Crashmo (Fallblox), Stretchmo (Fullblox), and Pushmo World (Pullblox World).

The games are all about pushing and pulling blocks that are stacked on top of each other in order to create climbable platforms to get to the flagpole at the top. It's a very satisfying and adorable puzzle game that feels very much like Nintendo. Each of the 3DS games introduced a new gimmick, like blocks that fall after you pull the blocks from underneath them, or blocks you can stretch to create additional platforms. Pushmo World on the Wii U was essentially like the original Pushmo, but it included the ability to create and share levels with others, which was also very cool.

Since the Nintendo eShop on both the 3DS and Wii U was killed off in 2023, these games are completely inaccessible via legitimate means, so Nintendo really needs to bring the series back, preferably with brand-new titles.

4 Chibi-Robo!

This will never happen, will it?

Chibi-Robo! is probably one of Nintendo's most mistreated franchises, and even though I may not have much of an interest in it myself, it's impossible to deny that it deserves better than it got. The original game released on the GameCube the same year the Wii came out, and considering the GameCube was already not a very successful platform, the game was already kind of set up for failure. Then the sequel, Chibi-Robo! Park Patrol had the potential to be more successful being that it was on the DS, but Nintendo decided to limit availability to Walmart in the U.S., and it didn't come to Europe at all.

In 2009, a Wii port of the original GameCube game was released, but despite already being fully translated from the GameCube version, Nintendo decided not to launch the game outside of Japan. Similarly, a third entry in the series launched the same year but was also exclusive to Japan.

The franchise then went formant for a few years until Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder on the Nintendo 3DS, which was more of a spin-off game based around taking pictures using the camera on the console. That was then followed up by Zip Lash, a 2D platformer that became infamous for being terrible across the board.

It's been tragedy after tragedy for this franchise, but the games that followed that original formula are still beloved by a small subset of the Nintendo fanbase. The company just needs to take a real shot at it without doing something to cut the game's legs.

3 Wave Race

A great way to show off hardware capabilities

Wave Race 64 is what I'd consider one of the defining games of my childhood. Not that I necessarily loved it, but I definitely played it a good bit on the Nintendo 64, and it received a sequel on the GameCube with Wave Race: Blue Storm, which I acquired more recently and looks fantastic for that platform. The water effects and physics are all very impressive for such an old platform, especially being an early game as it was.

I do find these games to be a little too difficult for my skill level, but I still think they have a ton of potential. Streamlining things a bit with more manageable physics and sprucing things up to take full advantage of the power of the Nintendo Switch 2 could make for a great hardware showcase for that platform, and it would be a very fun game to boot, potentially with a great competitive scene, too. The development team at Nintendo Software Technology has mostly been relegated to helping out with Mario re-releases and smaller projects, but it would be nice to see them tackle this series again.

2 F-Zero

Another hardware showcase

Similar to Wave Race, F-Zero is another racing franchise from Nintendo that could probably be great for showing off new hardware. These games have always been pretty innovative, with the original game using the Mode 7 chip for the SNES, and both F-Zero X and F-Zero GX showing off how it's possible to make incredibly fast-paced games with great visuals for their respective platforms.

Also similar to Wave Race, these games are too difficult for me to really get into based on my experience with the older titles, and I think the series could also benefit from being more beginner-friendly while keeping the skill ceiling very high. To some extent, I think this has been done with F-Zero 99, a battle royale-style game available on Nintendo Switch that's mostly based on the original SNES title. That game is actually a lot of fun, and while Nintendo initially planned to phase out support shortly after launch, it's actually received major updates well past that, so it's clear there are passionate developers wanting to work on this series.

Nintendo has made Mario Kart its single racing franchise, and it's been working out very well for the company, so it's hard to imagine both F-Zero and Wave Race getting a revival. Out of the two, I think F-Zero is the most likely to get a proper revival, and frankly, I'm okay with that.

1 Kid Icarus

Uprising was too good to leave behind

Kid Icarus is an odd franchise. It got its first entry in 1987 (1986 in Japan) and a sequel came to the Game Boy in 1991 in North America, but it didn't release in Japan, despite being developed there. Then, over 15 years of silence until the main character Pit appeared in Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, which seemed like an odd choice considering the franchise was basically dead at this point and never had a huge fanbase to begin with.

It seemed like the director of Super Smash Bros., Masahiro Sakurai, had a special interest in the character, because a few years later, he would take it upon himself to direct Kid Icarus Uprising, a completely new entry in the series that had barely anything to do with the original games. This title was a mostly on-rails shooter with engaging and fun gameplay, a clever difficulty system inspired by Smash Bros., impressive graphics, and hilarious dialogue that was cleverly told during gameplay segments, so it never felt like the game stopped you in your tracks.

Kid Icarus Uprising is one of the very best 3DS games out there, and it's a huge shame that we haven't seen anything new from the series in the 13 years since then. This franchise deserves more entries in the same style, preferably with a control scheme that doesn't hurt as much as it did on the 3DS. If only Nintendo had a console with mouse-like controllers coming out soon...

Will all of these come back?

It's pretty a bit of a crazy dream to wish for all these series to make a return, but frankly, I would be very happy to see any of them. And these are just ten picks, but there's a lot more you could probably think of. My initial list for this included Doshin the Giant or Sin and Punishment, and even that wouldn't make it a complete list. If you have a Nintendo series you want to see return, let us know in the comments below!