Welcome back to The Nintendo Report, where we’re taking a look at Nintendo’s intellectual properties and seeing how they’re doing. D was pretty daunting with 11 entries, but E should be easier! We’ve got a handful of really interesting titles to get to this time around, so let’s get down to business. Here’s how Nintendo’s E games are doing in The Nintendo Report. 

Earthbound

Also known as Mother in Japan, EarthBound has had quite an interesting history stateside. The first game in the series was almost released on NES as EarthBound, but wound up being canceled at the last minute thanks to the platform being so far along in its life. But its sequel, Mother 2, did get localized on SNES, and just to make things extra confusing, Nintendo also called that game EarthBound. Fun! It’s a turn-based RPG that eschews the traditional medieval setting for something more contemporary, and it’s got a really weird and wonderful sense of humor to match. It’s easily one of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises. 

Health rating: Basically dead

Regardless of how much people love EarthBound today, back at the time of its release, it was almost completely overlooked. The ad campaign was pretty awful, and the game’s visuals, while timeless and charming, were looked down on by most players of the day who were obsessed with games having “good graphics!” Still, Nintendo continued to keep the franchise alive, even going so far as to show off its sequel at trade shows under the title EarthBound 64. This game never came to be though, and was eventually moved to the Game Boy Advance where it was released in Japan as Mother 3, and never released in North America at all. 

Mother 3’s complete lack of a US release is a point of contention among fans, and one that seemingly will never go away. But the real reason this series is basically dead is because its creator says so. He told the stories he wanted to tell, and that’s kinda it. Of course with Nintendo it’s hard to say anything is ever truly dead, especially when there’s potential money to be made, but as of right now, outside of Smash Bros. and fan projects, EarthBound is effectively retired. 

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Electroplankton

Ahh, Electroplankton. Now here’s Nintendo at its weirdest. It’s sort of a music… application? This DS game revolves around these little creatures floating around the screen that you tap to make all sorts of weird sounds. It’s honestly completely crazy and kinda brilliant. 

Health rating: Basically dead

In North America, Electroplankton was only ever made physically available at the Nintendo World Store in New York City. And even there, it didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. It was then split into a bajillion little parts and released as DSiWare, where I can only assume it didn't fare much better. It’s such an extremely niche title. Of course, it did get its own Smash Bros. stage, but I’m pretty sure that just confused people more than anything. In the age where digital downloads are far more prevalent than they were in the DSiWare days, Electroplankton seems like a much better fit, but as it stands now, Nintendo hasn’t been motivated to revisit the franchise in any meaningful way since 2006. 

Elite Beat Agents

Elite Beat Agents is technically part of a series called Ouendan. The thing is, the Ouendan games were only released in Japan, while Elite Beat Agents was never released in Japan. That’s because these rhythm action games feature popular music, and as you can imagine, popular music is a very regional thing. EBA was Nintendo’s attempt at localizing the Ouendan formula, which is a pretty weird thing when you look at it. At its core, it’s a rhythm game where you have to tap and perform motions on the DS touchscreen to the rhythm of the music. What makes these games so bizarre is the premise. Each game is centered around a team of professional cheerleaders who go out into the world to help people overcome their personal problems by cheering them on with the power of dance and popular music. It’s completely nuts. 

Health rating: Not so good. 

Elite Beat Agents was a very successful translation of Ouendan in every way but one, sales. EBA didn’t really perform well, and as such has been the only release in the series. Ouendan isn’t faring much better either with 2007’s Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 marking the last new entry in the series. It’s such a wild premise though, and one with quite a cult following, that you never really know when it’s going to pop back up. Could be never, could be tomorrow. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. 

Endless Ocean

This was a product of the Wii era if there ever was one. It’s effectively a scuba diving simulation with some light story elements. You control a diver and take pictures of marine life. It’s also known for having an excellent, chill soundtrack. It was developed by Arika, whose more recent works include the excellent 3D Classics line on 3DS, and Tetris 99 for Nintendo Switch. It’s not exactly the kind of game that comes to mind when you think of 1st party Nintendo titles, but it’s for sure got its fans. 

Health rating: Great 

Endless Ocean got a sequel on Wii in 2010, but then stayed dormant for 14 years before being revived out of nowhere on Switch. Endless Ocean: Luminous just came out as of this writing, and while early reviews haven’t exactly been glowing, the fact that the game exists at all goes to show how much faith Nintendo has in the brand. 

Eternal Darkness

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, we have Eternal Darkness. This GameCube exclusive survival horror/psychological thriller started its life back in the Nintendo 64 days, but was eventually ported to Nintendo’s next generation platform and released during its launch window. It never caught on to the degree of your Resident Evils and Silent Hills, but it did pretty well for itself, thanks to the word of mouth it generated as a result of people playing through its extremely memorable “sanity effects.” 

Health rating: Basically dead

So, Nintendo owns this IP but this was also a Silicon Knights joint, and since they don’t exist anymore, it’s hard to say for sure what the brand’s legal status is. In 2013, several former SK staffers tried to launch a crowdfunded sequel called Shadow of the Eternals, but it never got off the ground. This is the kind of game that Nintendo doesn’t really do, but seems to have a penchant for funding. They also keep renewing the trademark for the game, so while its chances are slim, it would be foolish to write it off completely. 

Ever Oasis

Grezzo has done some outstanding work for Nintendo over the years, much of which has been on some pretty high-profile releases. They’re the team behind the Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask 3D remasters on 3DS, Luigi’s Mansion on 3DS, Link’s Awakening on Switch, and more. So when Nintendo announced the team would be creating a new original IP for the 3DS, it garnered a decent amount of attention. Ever Oasis was that game, and well…

Health rating: Basically dead

This game just came and went with very little fanfare. Ever Oasis suffered from a problem that hit a lot of 3DS games from this time, it was on the 3DS and not the Switch. The 3DS may have had a huge install base in 2017, but audiences in general seemed more than happy to stop playing on the platform in favor of Nintendo’s newest machine. As a result, almost every 3DS project released after 2017 was more or less dead on arrival. It probably didn’t help that reviews were somewhat middling, but the game absolutely had its fans, with the overwhelming sentiment being that it would have performed considerably better had it been on Switch. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been so much as a peep about this action RPG being ported to any new platforms, or a followup of any kind being in the works. 

Excitebike/Truck/Bots

Excitebike is one of the absolute all-time NES classics. Everyone knew someone who owned this game back in the day, and everyone spent countless hours creating their own courses and racing their little hearts out in the hit motocross classic. Given the success of the NES original, you’d think its lineage would be a little more straightforward, but the Excite franchise is anything but normal. 

Health rating: Who knows? 

Seriously, it’s impossible to tell when this series will pop up next. It got a sequel in arcades as part of the Nintendo Vs. system called Vs. Excitebike, which was ported to the Famicom Disk System, but never released in North America for some reason. There was also another Japan-only sequel released on the Satelliview for the Super Famicom, which was actually Mario-themed. The series returned in North America in the form of Excitebike 64, which was much more of a realistic motocross simulation than the goofy NES classic, and then disappeared again until the Wii, where the series got 3 unique entries. First was ExciteTruck, a 3D racer about trucks. Then there was Excitebike: World Rally, which was a modern reimagining of the NES classic which released exclusively on WiiWare so nobody played it, and then ExciteBots: Trick Racing, a super-fun and weird arcade-style racer featuring transforming robots. It received almost no promotions from Nintendo and was basically DOA at retail upon its release. That was back in 2009, and the series has been quiet ever since, unless you count re-releases. The Vs. game was released as part of both Nintendo Switch Online and the Arcade Archives line, and the original game was remade for 3DS as part of the aforementioned Arika 3D Classics series. Excitebike gets referenced all the time, and even though it’s been about 15 years since the last original game, Nintendo has absolutely not forgotten about it. We may not know when it will be back, but there’s no question in my mind that it will be. 

And that wraps up another Nintendo report. When putting this list together I never imagined Endless Ocean would be the healthiest brand on hand, but that’s Nintendo for you. Always keeping us on our toes. Next up is F. Will anything be as healthy as Fire Emblem? Probably not. Nintendo LOVES that series. But I guess time will tell. See you next time!