Welcome back to The Nintendo Report! This is where we’ve been taking a look at all of Nintendo’s various properties and brands to see how well they’re doing these days (in alphabetical order). Some have been great. Some, not so great. And today, we come to an interesting letter: R. How are the big N’s R properties doing? Let’s find out in The Nintendo Report. 

Radar Mission

Have you ever played the board game Battleship? If so, then you’ve basically played Radar Mission. You have a grid with a handful of ships on it, as does your opponent. You then keep track of your missile launches to try and figure out where your enemy’s ships are, and blow them the heck up. It’s a timeless formula that’s been imitated numerous endlessly, but rarely with such good musical accompaniment! 

Health rating: Basically dead

Radar Mission is a one and done kind of game, but only sort of. While not technically related as far as I can tell, Radar Mission’s second game mode seems to have been the inspiration for Steel Diver, a game that we’ll be sure to cover soon. But the Radar Mission brand itself? Very little has happened with it in the 35-ish years since its release. It found its way to the 3DS Virtual Console, but that’s about it. This seems like the kind of game that could do well as a budget eShop game, but as of now, this is the brand’s only entry. Shame.  

Radar scope

Before entering the home console market, Nintendo made arcade games. Several of them were somewhat derivative works, including Radar Scope. It was a pretty interesting take on the Space Invaders formula, presenting players with a neat, pseudo 3D perspective. Trouble is, even though it was moderately successful in Japan, it landed in the US with an enormous thud. 

Health rating: Basically dead

Radar Scope’s failure is the stuff of legend. Not because the game is particularly bad, but because it led directly to the creation of Donkey Kong, and by extension Mario. If Radar Scope had succeeded, we might not have ever gotten Super Mario Bros., and who wants to live in a world like that? As for Radar Scope itself, as far as I can tell Nintendo has never reissued this game in any form. I suspect it’s toast for good. 

Red Alarm

Nintendo made a number of high-profile missteps with the Virtual Boy, and Red Alarm is certainly one of them, but they can hardly be faulted for making it. Mostly because they didn’t. Red Alarm is technically a 3rd party game from T&E Soft, but Nintendo was involved in its production to some degree (as far as I can tell) and published it themselves. It’s a wireframe 3D action game that probably makes more use of the Virtual Boy’s unique capabilities than any other release for the platform. 

Health rating: Basically dead

Like nearly every Virtual Boy game out there, Red Alarm was yet another one and done. Probably because, while it’s a very impressive game when viewed through the Virtual Boy itself, it isn’t exactly what many would consider “fun.” It didn't have any sort of memorable narrative or even visual design to speak of, either. It looks like a complete mess when viewed anywhere except the Virtual Boy itself, and it still isn’t super easy to tell what’s going on even there. Red Alarm was a valiant effort, but I can’t imagine (with the exception of the upcoming Virtual Boy: Nintendo Classics line for Switch 2) that Red Alarm will ever be back in any meaningful capacity. 

Rhythm Heaven

Rhythm games take many forms, but I would argue that none are anywhere near as charming as Nintendo’s outlandish Rhythm Heaven brand. It’s a collection of rhythm-based mini games that are as fun as they are weird. And when you’ve got lumberjack bears, dancing frogs, baseball in space, and onions in need of hair trimming on hand, you better believe this one’s got weird to spare. 

Health rating: Great

If I had happened to write this just a few months ago, I would have proclaimed this series as Basically Dead. One of the driving forces behind the game, Tsunku, had to have his vocal cords removed due to laryngeal cancer, and the last entry in the series was the 2016 3DS game Rhythm Heaven Megamix, which wasn't even composed of entirely original content. But here we are in 2025 with a brand new Rhythm Heaven game coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2026. It looks great, too! Rhythm Heaven is alive and well, and the world is a better place for it. 

Ring Fit

When Wii Fit U failed to achieve the same numbers as the bajillion-seller Wii Fit, it seemed plausible that Nintendo was going to leave the fitness genre altogether. Thankfully, they didn’t quit, and wound up making the brilliant Ring Fit Adventure instead. Where Wii Fit was a very straightforward fitness program, Ring Fit Adventure is a full on turn-based RPG where you perform various types of exercise with a Joycon strapped to your leg and an electronic pilates ring in your hands to attack and defend. It’s utterly brilliant. 

Health rating: Great

It’s shocking to me that Ring Fit Adventure hasn’t seen any sort of followup yet, but I have to assume it’s inevitable because holy cow did that game sell a lot of copies. Like, a metric ton and a half of copies. I honestly can’t imagine a world where Nintendo just leaves this property alone forever. Ring Fit Adventure 2 is inevitable, and I am 100% here for it. 

R.O.B. 

ROB is such an interesting property because he isn’t a game, he’s a peripheral. And a barely functional one at that! But, I decided to put Gyromite and Stack Up here in this category instead of covering them both separately since they’re both related. ROB is a physical robot that “helps” you play games on NES. You typically control his assumed creator, Professor Hector, while ROB does some very slow rudimentary motions with his um… hands? It’s weird. 

Health rating: Basically dead

For obvious reasons, the actual ROB accessory isn’t still around. It barely functioned at its best, and the two games released to work with him are straight-up unfinished. Still, ROB has endured. He was a playable character in Mario Kart DS and the last few Smash Bros. games, and his iconic design makes him largely still recognizable to this day. I personally think there’s a ton of potential to be had in Professor Hector and ROB’s world, but alas, I seem to be alone in this desire. Gyromite 2: ROB’s Revenge is about as likely as a Virtual Boy 2. 

And that wraps things up for the letter R. Not a spectacular showing on Nintendo’s part, but I suppose it could always be worse. Join us next time for the letter S. Well, the first half of S. There are a LOT of S games. 

See you then!