Topic: Your Least Favorite Nintendo franchise & why + Explain it's qualities to the poster above

So, as much as we love Nintendo, I'm sure we all have one franchise we just can't get into. So, here is how this thread will go:

Explain what franchise you don't like from Nintendo, list the reasons why, and the next poster will then have to explain why your choice IS a good franchise (maybe you're just missing something and they'll help you understand it's high points better?) and then they must list the Nintendo franchise THEY feel isn't very good.

My first pick (I have a few) is Kirby. I just feel like it doesn't bring anything new to the table. I've seen it described as Mario with powerups, but... Mario HAS powerups. So, essentially, the only difference is you eat the enemies to get those powers. The level design, while certainly not bad, always seemed a step down in quality from Mario, as well. I've tried to think of Kirby as an entry point to Nintendo for the younger crowd, buuuuuut, again, that's what Mario is billed as!

Again, I just don't get it. I have no problem with "clone" type games that come along, but Kirby is now an established, powerful character & brand, with people looking forward to it's releases. What am I missing? What does the Kirby series (manline games, 2d platformers) offer?

(If you don't appreciate Kirby, just wait until a poster names a game that you do appreciate. The next poster will explain the benefits of Kirby to us and then list HIS/HER franchise that (s)he has trouble getting into)

Kirby is love, Kirby is life. No, but seriously, I like the franchise. I like the simplicity Kirby games have to offer. Sometimes it's nice to sit back and relax and enjoy an easy game. There's usually challenge in completing them, but a general playthrough is usually stress free.

I could never get into Fire Emblem. I'm not a huge RPG fan, and whilst I'm sure most of the games are good, it's the only Nintendo franchise that doesn't really appeal to me.

I never enjoyed the DK franchise, it just never felt fun to me.

Pokemon. They were the best RPGs on the original gameboy but I felt they never really expanded on anything later on in the series. At the time I was rocking Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III while the Pokemon series was still just rehashing and adding more pokemon.

This^
I could never get into the Kirby or Pokemon. Both were either rehashs with different stuff, or spinoffs that were just too easy with poor art style. Seriously, Pokemon art style makes me want to throw up.

Y'all should read the original post

Anyway, I should defend Pokemon since I am a huge fan of it. I don't think they're rehashing the games. Sure they still have 8 gym leaders and elite 4, but with every game they try to expand upon the formula. For example, 3rd gen brought double battles, 4th gen changed up the mechanics in a better way, 5th gen had a good story, rotation battles... and well a LOT.
I guess it is fair to point out that even if they didn't do anything new, I'd still be playing them. There's just something about the Pokemon games that I can sink hours and hours into. I love seeing my Pokemon grow, I love collecting them, I love collecting badges, and I love exploring the world.

Now, for the Nintendo franchise that I can't get into... Star Fox. The series seems awesome, and I'd love to get into it, but I just can't. I couldn't get into Star Fox 64 (I also hated the fact that you couldn't save your progress in the single player mode), and I couldn't get into Star Fox Command, the next one that I bought to give the franchise a second chance. It's one of the reasons I'm not at all excited for Star Fox Zero

On StarFox, to me, I mildly enjoyed the SNES one but StarFox 64 had beautiful graphics, the controls felt so crisp, I enjoy the multiple paths and the characters had so much personality when they received voice actors. I remember marking out when you get to a boss battle where each of the characters have rivals and that Pig says "Slippy..... it's been a long time" or something. Just lol'd that Slippy had a rival, I don't know I found it funny. I've only played the SNES and 64 Star Fox game so I can't comment on any others.

I honestly like them all but I do agree that the Kirby franchise doesn't really add anything for me. The are already over saturated with platromers and I do love the music and characters in Kirby and they have charm but not enough for me to want to buy Rainbow Yarn or his games.

I have yet to play an Animal Crossing game, but to me I guess I'd say maybe Nintendo Land and most of the games starring the Miis. Tomodachi Life got boring to me within two months and while Nintendo Land came with my Wii U, I played it all of one hour before moving on to other games.

I played more of Nintendoland than I have any other Wii U game. I did get it first, but with multiplayer no Wii U game has come close to being as fun for me. Most of the mini-games are great and give a good variety. The Zelda mini-game has been the best use of motion controls that I've experienced (Skyward Sword is a joke by comparison to this mini-game) and it's really satisfying playing as the archer as well. If you don't have people to play with, then it probably isn't worth it, but if you do, I think it can be really enjoyable.

As for Nintendo series I don't like, well there are a bunch, but I'll go with one that I used to love and no longer do, because at least I can give good reasoning. Pokemon. It was far ahead of its time when it came out, and the first three generations of games gave me countless hours of enjoyment. As time went on though the biggest problems with the franchise grew.

• More Pokemon with no reason to go and catch them all outside of 6 you'll need for a team.
• Over 30 "Legendary" Pokemon, raising the question as to why anyone should ever have any non-legendary Pokemon in their party. Seriously; when the 'God' Pokemon isn't an auto-include in your party you know the game world is kind of a joke.
• Catching the Legendary Pokemon isn't hard, it's just a grind.
• Terrible lack of balance. There are almost 1000 Pokemon in all, and the fact that you'll see only about 20 played in most games in major tournaments is just sad. Hundreds are made obsolete by other Pokemon, meaning there's literally no reason to ever play them.
• They stick to a formula with the story, which was quaint as first, but is now just too boring and predictable.
• It has been what, 6/7 generations now, and they still haven't figured out how to fix HM's. They're annoying and the fact that you have to devote a party member to being a HM-slave just isn't fun. Make it so that HM's are extra moves on top of the four basic ones, or so that they don't have an in-battle move, just do something, it's not hard.
• Splitting up their games into two releases for the painfully obvious ploy of making more money in an underhanded fashion. Oh sure it "encourages trading", but there are ways to do that without terrible business practices.
• That's not even going into the 'upgraded' version that they put out afterwards with all the Pokemon and more, kind of defeating the point of 'encouraging trading' there aren't they? It was also obvious that they held back features just to make the third release look better. For example; Pokemon Crystal added animations to all the Pokemon at the start of battle. It wasn't in Gold/Silver but fair enough, they added it later. But then they removed it from Sapphire/Ruby just so that Emerald would have another unique feature. It's really scummy. To be fair though, it seems like they have at least stopped that practice.

I basically quit playing once I found Dragon Quest Monsters which manages to find good ways to fix most of the problems Pokemon has. I play that and enjoy wanting to catch and breed every monster to make more. I go back to Pokemon and wonder why anyone is supposed to care when the biggest mechanic (catching Pokemon) is so dull and reward-less.

Time to defend Animal Crossing! I love Animal Crossing, and while it may seem tedious and boring to others, it's extremely addictive to me :/ . It’s an escape, a world in which life is gentle and hard work pays off. But if you need an explanation, basically, it's a highly customizable life sim where you play as a human mayor of a town full of anthropomorphic animals (it depends, sometimes you are a mayor, and sometimes you are a villager) . There's something to do every day of every month of every year. You help build the town, manage where things go, expand your house, do favors for your villagers, buy/sell furniture, buy/sell/make clothing, plants flowers and trees, go fishing, etc. You can visit other people's towns online or invite people to your town. Every town is different and randomly generated from the start. And that's the fun of it! Just living life as it passes by I guess.

Now for me it's Fire Emblem. I really want to like Fire Emblem, but I just can't. For some reason, it just doesn't interest me... Don't get me wrong, Fire Emblem is awesome, and so is it's fans, and I respect that. Fire Emblem just looks like a regular RPG to me, and I don't really like the "medieval" theme to it, to be honest.

EDIT: Woops, I guess Geonjaha got to Rexcalibr's comment while I was writing this post. But I think I'll keep this up anyway.

You covered a different game, anyway.
I'd say that Animal Crossing is something that you'll either love, or be bored to death with. Get one and try it, and depending on how you enjoy that you should know what to expect from the rest of the franchise.

I will just add this... I never played Fire Emblem other than Fire Emblem: Awakening but it's by far, the best RPG game I've played. Probably my favorite of all time, and I think it blows Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds out of the water.

It may seem like a typical strategy RPG but I think it was one of the most well done, and next to Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG, it is on the top of my list. I prefer this style of RPG over stuff like Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3 (I disliked both of those games).

As far as Animal Crossing, I have heard lots of great things about it but I have yet to play it. I will probably eventually pick up New Leaf because Tomodachi Life was like a piece of bubble gum. You chew on it for a while and once it loses its flavor you spit it out and the game got repetitive quite fast.

They're almost different genres though. They're so different you can't really compare them at all.

I'm a weird guy and has always preferred Nintendo's lesser known franchises(like Starfox, F-Zero, Metroid). I'm not some hipster or anything, I'll gladly play a Mario or Zelda game as some of those are my favorite games ever.

THAT SAID, I could honestly never get into Pokemon or Kirby. Not bad games in any stretch of the word. Heck I loved Pokemon RBY and FireRed/LeafGreen when they came out, and I loved the show when it was on...but after the first gen, I just didn't have any desire to play the other games. I'm not a Gewunner or anything, it just never really crossed my mind to try those games. Same with Kirby, loved the first game, but never really felt like playing anything after that :/

Pikmin and Star Fox. I made a solid effort by playing BOTH Pikmin 1 and 2, but it just didn't click. And as for Star Fox, the characters just weren't that great in my opinion. They were kind of well... annoying. I'm going to give Star Fox Zero a try though!

Now, the final one I can't get into, is Zelda. I know, I know, the hate will rain down on me! It just doesn't click with me for some reason, there is always something in a Zelda game that ruins the experience for me. I think sailing in wind waker is boring, the time limit in majoras mask isn't fun, etc etc. Can someone help me figure out how to enjoy it? I absolutely adore every other nintendo franchise though! Especially Metroid, Mario, Fire Emblem, and Mother.

I'll be honest... the last Zelda game that really interested me was Link's Awakening. I never actually played Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or any of the newer ones. I own Wind Waker HD and really have a hard time getting into it. I don't know if it it's because it feels dated but I guess I just prefer competitive games more, like Mario Kart 8, Splatoon and Smash Bros. I also own A Link Between Worlds on the 3DS and while I definitely like it since it's a remake of A Link to the Past, I still only got about halfway and sort of gave up on it.... I will definitely keep it and want to buy the Wii U Zelda game coming in 2016 though.

I have not tried Hyrule Warriors but does anyone recommend that? (I know it plays like Dynasty Warriors). Is it multiplayer?

I have never played the Pikmin games but the Wii U one does interest me.

I've never played Pikmin. It just doesn't appeal to me at all despite all of the praise that it receives, and watching my younger brother play it (I bought Pikmin 3 for his birthday 2 years ago) doesn't change my mind on the matter. It just looks really dull (gameplay-wise) and I doubt that I would derive any enjoyment out of it. I don't doubt that it's a good quality game, and I don't necessarily have anything bad to say about it, but it's just one of few Nintendo franchises that I just see myself enjoying in any way.

Another that I'm on the fence with is The Legend of Zelda. Now I own almost every LoZ game in some form or another and I admire the franchise from a distance even though I've played very little of it. I have Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora's Mask 3D, Four Swords Anniversary (DSiWare), Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Link's Awakening, A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Link's Crossbow Training, The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and guess what? I haven't completed not a damn one of them (unless you count the LoZ levels in the NES Remix games =P). It's a franchise that captures my imagination, but there are so many of them now, and I prefer playing them in longer sessions that there are often long periods in between playing the games that I completely forget my progress and I start all over from scratch. The furthest I've ever gone was with Phantom Hourglass, which I'm probably halfway through now, but it has been a few months since I've last played that. I also put in about 5-6 hours into Ocarina of Time 3D but it's been about 2-3 years since I've last played it so I'll need to start again from scratch. Counting OoT, PH and the GBC games, I'm yet to start playing any of the others (though I have no intention of playing or completing the NES games as I'm not particularly fond of games from that era). The games that made me fall in love with the franchise however, were the Oracle games on GBC.

The only Zelda games missing from my collection that I can think of are Wind Waker HD and Hyrule Warriors, both of which are on the back burner considering the sheer volume of Zelda games that I am yet to so much as start playing, let alone finish. I feel like such an idiot for owning almost every game from a franchise even though I only very rarely play them. =P

I for one really disliked the Zelda franchise at first. I still don't like A Link to the Past, but when I got arund to loan OoT from a friend I immediately changed my mind. From then on I've bought almost all Zelda games and I still do. I recently bought and completed Minish Cap on Virtual Console. It wasn't a bad game, but I didn't really like it. The thing with all Zelda games however, is that they are of good quality. They are in general all worth playing and even if you don't finish them you can still enjoy them. That's what I like with Zelda and you know Nintendo won't release a bad game.

I have tried several times to get into the Metroid series, but fails every time. I really like the atmosphere in the games, but not mazes, backtracking and so forth. I own Metroid Prime och Super Metroid, but can't muster the motivation to actually finish them.

I would play Metroid Prime 3 first, as it's the most newcomer-friendly and least backtracky and obtuse of the three. Then go back and play 1 and 2 which, though the combat is a fair bit worse, they have some interesting environments and puzzles. Metroid Prime is like one big Zelda dungeon; just go in the rooms you haven't been in yet using the abilities you get throughout. Most of the backtracking-heavy stuff in Prime 3 is optional for extra bosses, exploration, and upgrades. I also really love Prime 2 Echoes, despite the obnoxious crowing of the anti-fans it's an amazing game. Just such cool visual effects with the visor, environmental details, and lore in the game.

I haven't played the 2D games myself, so perhaps someone else can speak on that.

That's because you've been playing ones with very specific mechanics that are very love or hate in nature. Try A Link Between Worlds, and if you don't enjoy that one, you can probably safely just say that the franchise isn't for you.

Since the post above didn't list what they disliked I'll restart:

Metroid. I love the fact that the protag has always been a strong, independent woman but the desolate, barren atmosphere, generic enemies except bosses, and the pretty sparse story makes the franchise very boring for me. I will say I have played all of them and own most of them, but so far fusion and other m are the ones I like (still don't like the franchise) best. It is a franchise I want to like so I keep buying them hoping this will be the one.

Right behind that is Mother. So boring. If you don't connect with the story it is a grind fest that other rpgs have done better. DQ for example.