You may know them from the Super Smash Bros. franchise, but the two-in-one fighters known as the Ice Climbers are actually from their very own arcade game developed by Nintendo in 1984. The game is unique in being a vertical platformer rather than a horizontal one, having the players scale a mountain upwards instead of running to the right like in 2D Super Mario games. There’s only ever been one Ice Climber game, but Nintendo has brought back older franchises like Kid Icarus or the recent Advance Wars with relative success, so why not Ice Climber? And if so, what would that game even look like?
The most obvious answer is another 2D vertical platformer. You could take graphics like we’ve seen in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe but swap in Popo and Nana and a mountainous background. With the original Ice Climber having a two-player mode, I could easily see a platformer built around solving puzzles with a friend like in It Takes Two.
Nintendo could do a complete revamp and make an open-world game. Perhaps the entire map could just be one big mountain that the player tries to climb, unlocking new and better climbing equipment as they play. They’d need to not only traverse up and down the mountain, but around the cliffs along the sides. One thing that this game could do that most open-world games don’t is include a co-op mode, letting multiple players run all around the same world map.
My personal favorite is the idea of Nintendo making a rogue-like game with each new playthrough of the game having a different mountain with different enemies, equipment, puzzles, or landforms. This could make narrative sense too, having the player “fall” down the mountain and needing to climb back up. I can easily see a game like this being easily replayable and amassing its own unique audience.
What do you think? Will Nintendo ever bring Popo and Nana out of their Super Smash Bros. prison, or will they stay as legacy characters until the end of time? Which kind of Ice Climber game would you be most interested in playing? Let us know in a comment down below, or join the conversation on the Boss Rush Discord.
Nintendo Pow Block: The Nintendo Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network
Nintendo Pow Block – Nintendo Pow Block is Boss Rush Media’s Nintendo Podcast. Each week, Edward, Corey, and their friends from around the internet come together to talk about the week that was in the world of Nintendo, including news, rumors, games, fun facts, and more, including fan favorite segments like Snacktendo, Playing with Power, Game Fact Advance, and Question Block. Look for the question thread in the community Discord.
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