Welcome back to The Nintendo Report, where we’re fighting our way through Nintendo’s list of intellectual properties in alphabetical order to determine just how healthy they all are. This time, we’ll be covering three letters, as there really aren’t all that many game franchises that start with J, K, and L. (Yes, we’re saving The Legend of Zelda for Z). So how are things going? Let’s find out in today’s edition of The Nintendo Report. 

Joy Mech fight

Nintendo is known for a lot of different kinds of games, but with the exception of Super Smash Bros, which is kind of its own thing, they’ve never really been known for fighting games. They have some history with the genre, having been a pretty big part of Killer Instinct’s existence, putting a pretty big promotional push behind ARMS, and even dabbling a bit waaaaay back in the day with Urban Champion. But perhaps their most interesting fighting game property was a game called Joy Mech Fight. Only released in Japan for the Famicom, Joy Mech Fight is kind of a technical marvel. The stuff they made that ancient hardware do was extremely impressive. Similar to the story of Mega Man, the game is about a scientist who took a bunch of robots from his partner and reprogrammed them to be evil, so the good robot, Sukapon, had to fight them so they could be reprogrammed for good. All the robot designs are composed of little floating parts, which helped a lot in the animation department, and resulted in the programmers being able to not only make “large” characters move around the screen remarkably well, but also up the roster to a whopping 36 characters, which is nuts for a Famicom fighting game, even if most of them were just palette swaps! 

Health rating: Basically dead

For as impressive as Joy Mech Fight was, it was only really impressive because of what it was doing on the Famicom, and other more complex fighters on the market were just too much for the game to compete with. Its release being limited to Japan didn’t help with its popularity, either. It never got any follow ups, and outside of its obligatory Smash Bros references, including an assist trophy for Sukapon, Joy Mech Fight remains a single-entry property. It would be neat to see what a modern take on this game could be, but I would be shocked to see it happen. 

Kid Icarus

Kid Icarus is one of Nintendo's most important games. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true! Kid Icarus was one of three games Nintendo released that fundamentally altered the expectations of what home console video games could be, alongside Metroid and The Legend of Zelda. The game’s main character, Pit, even co-starred in the Nintendo-themed cartoon series Captain N: The Game Master! In terms of what Kid Icarus actually is, it’s a goofy take on Greek mythology. Pit is a general in Palutena’s army, and he fights against Medusa and other evil figures with a bow and arrow and a pair of wings that don’t work. 

Health rating: Not so good

The original Kid Icarus never really caught on the same way Metroid and the Legend of Zelda did. Still, Pit appeared right alongside characters like Donkey Kong, Mario, and Link in cameos in F-1 Race and Tetris. Just like Metroid, Kid Icarus got a sequel on Game Boy, but then the franchise hit a wall. There was no Super Kid Icarus, no Kid Icarus 64, nothing. That is, until the Smash Bros. series revived the character in Brawl for Wii, which led to his first all-new game in ages, the brilliant Kid Icarus: Uprising for Nintendo 3DS. 

14-in-1 Universal USB Power Cable

$12.99

14-in-1 Universal USB Power Cable The Tomee Universal Power Cable lets you power up your New Nintendo 2DS® XL/ New Nintendo 3DS ®/ New Nintendo...… read more

Like previous Kid Icarus entries, it was an unusual game, but it was also an extremely ambitious one that reviewed and sold pretty well. Things seemed like they were on track to have Pit take his place alongside Samus as a solid B-tier Nintendo franchise, but then, nothing. The franchise has been completely quiet ever since. Rumors of a sequel have circulated a bit, but not nearly as much as rumors of an HD port of Uprising for Switch, which has, as of yet, never materialized. Nintendo clearly hasn’t forgotten about the franchise, but with a lack of any new releases in over a decade, it’s hard to remain optimistic. 

Kirby

Kirby is one of the pillars of Nintendo’s game library. He’s been around since the Game Boy era, and has been in everything from platformers to golf games. If you’re somehow unfamiliar, he’s a pink little puffball who can float, eat everything, and mimic his enemies powers. He’s also adorable. 

Health rating: Great

I don't think Kirby’s ever had a lull in his entire career. Since his debut in 1992, there have only been 6 years without a Kirby release, and no break has ever been more than a single year long. Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Kirby’s Dream Buffet released in 2022, with Return to Dream Land Deluxe hitting just last year. There aren’t any currently announced Kirby projects on the books, but I suspect that’ll change by the end of the year. Kirby is doing just fine. 

Kururin

This is an odd little series of games. First released on the Game Boy Advance in Japan and Europe, it’s basically a maze navigating game. You play as a rotating stick called Helirin, and while it rotates, you have to maneuver it through a series of stages without touching the walls. It was never released in North America until the Wii U Virtual Console in 2016. 

Health rating: Not so good

Kurukuru Kururin got itself two follow ups, Kururin Paradise on Game Boy Advance in 2002, and Kururin Squash! For GameCube in 2004, neither of which made it out of Japan. I don’t think the series has much of a following, but still, it’s one of those things that seems like it has just enough fans inside Nintendo to keep it around. It was developed by Eighting, who have a pretty strong relationship with Nintendo to this day. Not only was the original game put up as part of Nintendo Switch Online, but they even helped develop Pikmin 4. Sure, it’s been a good 20 years since there was a new release, but if they were to announce a new game tomorrow, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. 

Labo/Game Builder Garage

Oh, Labo. My poor Labo. You were too cool for this world. Labo is one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever seen, and I’m so very glad I bought all four packs when I did. Basically, Labo is about building various Joycon peripherals out of cardboard and rubber bands. It’s crazy off-the-wall and incredibly creative. I built all of these sets with my kids when they came out in 2018, and they played with them for years.

Health rating: Basically dead

You know what? They still occasionally bust them out. It’s not very often, but just a few weeks ago my kids dug the boxes out and played the fishing and VR games. But it seems my kids are the exception to the rule because Labo absolutely did not catch on. Nintendo did kind of spin the whole thing off into Game Builder Garage, removing the physical building part and just focusing on teaching kids basic game programming, but that didn’t really go anywhere either. I don't know what the issue was, because I was absolutely enamored by these products, but well, here we are. I know it’s only been a few years, but this line seems pretty well dead in the water to me. 

The Last Story

This one’s Nintendo connection is a little loose, but they did collaborate in the game’s creation, so I imagine they have some degree of ownership over the brand. The Last Story was created by Final Fantasy legend Hironobu Sakaguchi, who started working on this after he left Square. Get it? Final Fantasy? The Last Story? Pretty clever stuff! 

Anyway, The Last Story was designed specifically for the Wii to buck the trends of where modern RPGs were at the time. It reviewed fairly well, currently sitting at a very respectable 80 Metacritic score. 

Health rating: Basically dead

It’s tough to say for sure why this game was the IP’s only entry. It apparently sold fairly well in every region it was released in, though not exactly Final Fantasy numbers. Nintendo of America chose not to publish the game in the US, but Xseed picked it up and reported that it was one of their best selling games ever. It was no doubt limited by the Wii platform’s audience, as many traditional games didn’t perform all that well on the system, but still, with solid reviews and sales, it’s strange to see it dropped off like that. It seems like the perfect candidate for an HD remaster on modern hardware, but a Switch port remains apparently off the table. Mistwalker, the studio behind it, does seem to have shifted pretty solidly to mobile development following this game’s release, so perhaps it’s simply a lack of interest from them. Regardless, this game’s absence from the modern world of RPGs is a tragic one. 

And that about wraps it up for this one. Slightly shorter than usual, but the next letter’s M, and that’s a BIG one. This one, though, was kind of rough. With the exception of Kirby, nobody’s doing well with these letters. But hopefully that’ll change someday. Kid Icarus will return! (I hope). Are some of the M games doing better than these? Well, with Mario in the mix, I certainly hope so. See you next time!