How would you end one of Nintendo's franchises

[rmb073]

End a Nintendo franchise? That would break the hearts of millions of twelve-year-old world-wide. I mean think about it. These things will never really end: They're the parasites of modern gaming. Only a few games were good, but they were enough to make everyone love the crappy ones for all eternity. They border on memes; just casual references in most games now. Nintendo couldn't possibly end any one of it's franchises without customers loosing all faith in it(Except maybe Sonic... I know he's Sega's, but everyone hates him anyways.) Anyways, they'd just re-appear in the next Super Smash Bros./Mario Kart game Nintendo puts out as a cruel reminder of what could have been.

Anyways, no. Nintendo franchises will never end. They'll just sell out.

 

[Crimson King]

I would take a page from the Michael Bay book of [lame] ideas and end the Zelda franchise with whatever planet Link and his friends are on exploding.

 

[Epicspoon]

I would end Zelda with Ganon confessing his love to Link then violently sodomizing him. Excellent.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Bowser would get Peach pregnant with a the half-princess, half-turtle monstrosity that will kill her from the womb, kill Bowser, and then kill Mario by ripping his head off.

Or, you know, Peach could get a restraining order against Bowser, which he defies and gets 20 to life in prison.

[small]This is certainly one of my darkest posts....[/small]

 

[McMarbles]

Golden Sun 4. I'd FINALLY have the big battle with Alex.

 

[Ghengis John]

Technically Zelda did end, with the legend of Zelda II (I think?) everything else has been a prequel to that. So how about we go back to that "first" (or last?) Link. He's married to Zelda, he's the king and he's running Hyrule. It's now a fantasy kingdom sim. Take that. Everyone does a WTF double take and that's all you get from now on. Yes you can sometimes visit with Zelda or enter a dungeon to investigate some claim by worried villagers, but the majority of your time will be spent levying taxes to raise an army to defeat a stalfos onslaught, dispatching soldiers to clear out goriya bandit tunnels and Ganandorf cultists or planning your city's transportation grid in such a manner as to maximize commerce. On the plus side your rupees are now measured in the hundreds of thousands and you can choose to kick the Gerudo ambassador into a pit.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

I would never end a Nintendo franchise. For all their traditions and nostalgia, their games are still unlike any other.

But if I were to end Zelda...I'd have Zelda and Link wish to the Triforce for no more gods. No more chosens, no more prophecies, no more cycles.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Metroid. And it would end by me smothering it under a pillow.

But I be keeping Kirby and Pokemon going forever.

 

[crazyarms33]

Personally I find most Nintendo games to be aimed at a different demographic then me and as such I tend to view them with distaste, largely due to the recycling that they do of their main money makers...looking at you Zelda/Mario. All that being said the one I simply cannot stand is the Zelda series. Loathe it. The way I would ruin it is to bring Navi back and make sure the "Hey! Listen!" loops. Forever. Constantly. And if you mess with it in your menu options, it gets louder and louder. If you turn the volume down, the screen flashes every time she says it. Presuming you play this for more than an hour Link eventually loses his mind and kills himself by jumping into the volcano(isn't there always a volcano?).

 

[LordRoyal]

You do realize that the reason these franchises keep going for so long isn't just that Nintendo likes them, it's that they are so popular.

Zelda fans are fickle as fuck, same with Mario ones. Change something they go "Ruined FOREVER" and don't change anything everyone else goes "So who else is tired with the Zelda Franchise"

I sometimes like it that Nintendo doesn't have the most personal relationship with it's fans that other publishers do. It's because they can't make up their minds.

 

[Yopaz]

Mario dying in a traffic accident in the Mario Kart game that will be released for WiiU.

Not that I would want it to end of course...

Mario: Finally marries Bowser, stops using the princess as a beard.

Zelda: Only a couple of Links are the same ones. They usually get an ending, so just...Don't make any more.

Metroid: At the current rate, Samus settles down, has fifteen babies, and turns her suit into a diaper disposal unit.

Pokémon: PETA intervenes.

If you played Pokemon Black or White something like that actually does happen. The evil organization there is just as evil as Peta with the same MO and just as much bullshit. Since people realize it's bullshit it hasn't been enough to stop us from having pets so it wouldn't stop Pokemon either.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

End Pokemon by having an in-game PETA-like organization that brainwashes everyone into thinking that capturing animals in tiny balls and making them fight each other is actually a bad thing.

(Yes, I know something similar exists, and I know it's wrong, but I can't think of a better way to put it)

Pokemon Black/White did that with Team Plasma, and they wound up being as evil as the real PETA. However, until Pokemon Grey comes out, B/W is probably the best place to end the series, just on its own, so...

 

[Mafoobula]

Legend of Zelda: Legacy
First and foremost, everybody talks. Including Link.
In the process of saving the world from an evil beyond even Ganondorf, he uses the Ocarina of Time to borrow equipment, skills and magic from the past, in addition to new stuff.
In the end, Zelda unites the power of the sages with the magic of the Ocarina to fire an arrow of Triforce-enhanced light energy from multiple points in time, followed by Link plunging the Master Sword into the ultimate evil's soul. Ganondorf admits that his long life has given him wisdom, and he's the one who wishes for the power of the Triforce to set the world in a state of balance for the rest of time.
Oh, and maybe it's set in a kinda steampunk-ish era, because everything's better with the steampunk motif. No, really, just because they're all set in this ye olde English fantasy-type setting that doesn't mean the whole shtick couldn't work in other time periods.
Annnnnd maybe it's episodic, just to REALLY piss off the fans.


Super Mario... something
Hrm... 3D or 2.5D? Why not both? Play it retro, then switch modes and get a whole new experience. Or maybe mix the two together somehow. I think one of the Paper Mario games did that alright.
No talking except for Peach shouting MARIOOO. Everyone else talks that usual gibberish like the Mario&Luigi RPG games. And Luigi figures into the story, and like Mario 2, he can jump higher than Mario.
Plot: Let Square-Enix handle it, because "Bowser kidnaps Peach" just doesn't cut it for the definitive end to Mario's adventures. But psych out the fans by making it LOOK like that's all that's happening. Bowser kidnaps Peach, you run after them. After a few short introductory levels, the very first castle has Bowser. Turns out he needed Peach so he could talk to Mario about the big evil. Notice a pattern here?
Mechanics: Make a Mario RPG, then throw out (most of) the RPG elements and make it a platformer, with a couple action/adventure mechanics thrown in for good measure. Mario's got a hell of an arm, why not make him punch stuff a few times? Grab a hammer, beat the stuffing out of everything. Bonk a koopa, then use the hammer to send it careening down a hallway, knocking out everything it hits. The sky's the limit.


Metroid: Genesis
Remember Metroid Prime? The creature itself, not just the games. Turns out there are more of them! And a grand matriarch of the whole Metroid race. Anyway, like Metroid 2 (which damn near nobody played) there are different breeds of Metroid in various stages of growth, starting from the floating head-crabs we've come to know and love, and it goes all the way to towering monstrosities designed by H.R. Giger. Oh, and Ridley appears, because he has to.
Mechanics: Full-fledged gunship battles. No compromise. The whole thing is in 3D, but with the press of a button you zoom into "scope" mode to snipe stuff in 1st-person, a la Metroid Prime. OOH, if it's on the Wii U, you can use some of the controls for movement and stuff like normal, but have a button or two and the controller-screen thing for precision aiming and scanning.

 

[Vaar]

How would I like to end Nintendo's franchises?

With a time machine, 10 years ago.

Edit: Man people are going to hate me for that

 

[JesterRaiin]

Mario.
Ending cutscene : dirty, Italiano plumber waking up in some metro wc vomitting after drugs overdose. On his way home he sees policemen with turtle shell-like unifroms, princess - some rock star, and such. He swears to go to rehab.

 

[Freaky Lou]

You know Old Snake from MGS4?

That, except with Samus Aran.

Exactly this. If they're going to continue the Other M version of Samus, best give the real one a hero's exit.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

End a Nintendo franchise? That would break the hearts of millions of twelve-year-old world-wide. I mean think about it. These things will never really end: They're the parasites of modern gaming. Only a few games were good, but they were enough to make everyone love the crappy ones for all eternity. They border on memes; just casual references in most games now. Nintendo couldn't possibly end any one of it's franchises without customers loosing all faith in it(Except maybe Sonic... I know he's Sega's, but everyone hates him anyways.) Anyways, they'd just re-appear in the next Super Smash Bros./Mario Kart game Nintendo puts out as a cruel reminder of what could have been.

Anyways, no. Nintendo franchises will never end. They'll just sell out.

I was thinking about this a few months back. I don't think Nintendo really cares that much if people love their franchises. Most of them are pretty well in the domain of "children's" games (considering contemporary gaming) so there are always new generations who will probably play them and always the fanboys/girls that will buy them just because or to complain about them. I think the real reason they keep them going is because they use them as trademarks. Trademark has much stronger protection than copyright and can theoretically last forever. The problem is that a trademark only lasts as long as you are actually using it. So I am theorizing that Nintendo's continuation ad nauseum of their big name franchises is not so much because of a desire to make profit selling the games as to profit off of maintaining their trademarks. Games like Smash Bros and Mario Kart seem like perfect examples of trademark spam.