5 Nintendo Series That Peaked With The First Game

Nintendo has been one of the biggest players in the video game space since giving the world the Nintendo Entertainment System in the ’80s. One of the reasons the company has been able to stay on or near the top is that it excels at creating fan-favorite franchises. Usually, Nintendo does a great job of building up those series. Even if the first game is great, the company generally makes sequels even better, giving fans a reason to keep coming back. Every once in a while, Nintendo can’t quite top the first game in a series, despite making multiple attempts to do so.

Here are five Nintendo series that peaked with the first game.

5) Chibi-Robo

The original Chibi-Robo is an inventive platformer on the GameCube. You play as a tiny robot who needs to help a family with various tasks around their house. Complicating this task is the fact that your robot is battery-operated, which means you’ll need to carefully plan your route through the house to stay charged.

Fans loved the wacky storyline, and Nintendo decided to greenlight a sequel on the Nintendo DS. It’s a solid follow-up, but doesn’t have the charm of the original. Then, the Chibi-Robo series got two more games on the 3DS, both of which were incredibly disappointing. Sadly, it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting another Chibi-Robo any time soon. It’s not all bad news, though. Nintendo did release the original game on the Switch 2 via the Nintendo Classics service.

4) Wii Sports

Wii Sports might be the best game Nintendo has ever made, but it’s undoubtedly one of its most popular. The Wii became an overnight revelation for families when it launched, thanks in large part to how fun the motion controls were in Wii Sports. It wasn’t just families, either, as even nursing homes got in on the fun, giving elderly gamers a fun way to stay active.

Unfortunately, capturing that lightning in a bottle a second time has proven nearly impossible. Sports Resort had a few neat games, and Nintendo Switch Sports did the same several years later. However, both games failed to live up to the original. Part of that is that motion controls no longer felt like they were changing the world, but there was something special about that first game that’ll likely never be topped.

3) Metroid Prime

Metroid Prime took the classic series into 3D, letting Samus Aran loose in a captivating world. It mixed the exploration players loved from the 2D series with solid first-person shooting combat. Fans quickly took to the GameCube classic, with many calling it the best game on the system. Nintendo realized it had struck gold with Metroid Prime, and fans got two mainline sequels and two spin-offs over the next five years.

Unfortunately, every time the developers put out a new game, it lost a little of its luster. For whatever reason, the team just could not figure out a way to top the excellence of the original. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still solid games; they just aren’t the original Metroid Prime. The series dropped off for a few years outside of a third spin-off and a remaster, but finally came back in 2025. Tragically, Metroid Prime 4 was a slapdash effort that failed to live up to fan expectations. Hopefully, we get a fifth game that puts us back on track.

2) Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong Country was one of the best-looking games on the Super Nintendo. Developer Rare took the classic Donkey Kong character and made an engrossing world filled with great, original characters and quite a few memorable monsters. The side-scrolling platforming was also some of the best on the system, giving players just enough challenge to keep things interesting, while being easy enough for anyone to pick up.

Since then, DKC fans have gotten four more games in the series. They’re all solid platformers, but none of them could quite recapture the magic of the original. DKC 2 gets the closest. It’s a more challenging platformer that gives players even more mobility thanks to Dixie Kong’s ponytail, but it’s not enough to top the original.

1) Golden Sun

Golden Sun is an all-time great RPG on the Game Boy Advance. Granted, it was developed by Camelot Software, so that’s not a huge surprise. While the team is best known for its work on Mario Golf and Tennis, the mobile versions of those games have always turned the sports action into an in-depth role-playing game. However, Golden Sun let the developer stretch its wings, giving fans a captivating campaign that looks great on the portable system.

One year later, Camelot made The Lost Age, which is another RPG, but doesn’t quite live up to the original. Then, the series went on a hiatus as Camelot focused back on its Mario sports game. Golden Sun made a somewhat surprising comeback eight years later with Dark Dawn, but Camelot has since moved back to the sports world, leaving Golden Sun to rot. All three games are worth checking out, but it’s fair to say that the series slowly dropped off over the years in quality and sales. With that in mind, we’ll probably never see it come back.

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5 Platformer Series That Peaked With The First Game