Which Nintendo series should get the “99” treatment next?
F-Zero 99 is pretty great and continues Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch Online series full of fun, inventive and above all excellent battle royale games. So far we’ve had Tetris 99, Super Mario 35, Pac-Man 99 and now F-Zero 99. All of these entries have remixed classic games we know and love to create insanely fun twists on the originals like competition never before.
That got us thinking: What other Nintendo properties could the Big N revisit for the “99” treatment? It doesn’t even have to be a Nintendo product (like Pac-Man 99 is), but by and large we stuck to first-party Nintendo games for our presentations.
To hear us go through some of these in real time, be sure to check out the latest episode of NVC, but in the meantime, you can watch it below:
Nintendo 99 playing fields
Starfox 99 and Zelda 99
Jada Griffin
Starfox 99 is a battle royale where you compete against 98 or 99 other Arwing pilots for space supremacy. As you take out other users, you will receive items such as upgrades to your lasers, bombs, and health rings that you can collect. It will follow the typical BR format, but to increase the pace, instead of small bursts of damage, there will be waves of explosions that deal massive damage or eliminate anyone outside the arena. The battles take place in various locations, such as asteroid fields in space and on planets such as Corneria or Venom. As you win games you will receive various medals to decorate your Arwing with. If you won your previous game, you also get to fly a gold-colored Arwing to demonstrate your victory.
Instead, Zelda 99 will be a single heart challenge dungeon where players will have to run through a dungeon as quickly as possible using a single heart. Speed is key in Zelda 99. Only one Link can leave the dungeon. You compete against all other players to complete each room in the random dungeon. The rooms of the dungeon alternate puzzles, fights and trap avoidance, with the final rooms combining these elements. In the final room there will also be a random boss that Link must defeat without taking damage as the boss will defeat you in one hit. The first person to clear the dungeon and its boss opens a door to the next room to obtain the Triforce.
Donkey Kong 99
Seth Macy
Picture this: Ninety-nine players are drawn into a match and their first task is to beat the first level of the original arcade game Donkey Kong. If you pick up the hammer and use it to break barrels, they will enter other random players’ games, but will slow you down. The choice then becomes: “Do I want to knock out a bunch of people or do I want to race to the finish?” After clearing the three arcade levels, the remaining players advance to three levels from the Donkey Kong Country series. The gameplay would be similar to Super Mario 35, where the levels were slightly remixed, but essentially took the form of a side-scroller, a minecart, and an underwater level. The goal is simply to reach the end of each level as quickly as possible.
Anyone who makes it to the end of the DKC levels will then find themselves in levels based on Donkey Kong 64. The goal is as simple as the goal of the actual game: collect all the bananas for the monkey assigned to him. Every time you collect a banana, it throws a banana at a random enemy player’s screen until their field of vision eventually becomes a tiny, dangerous one bordered by bananas on all sides. Anyone who survives the time limit will then move on to a modified version of DK64 multiplayer with the normal battle royale rules. The last monkey standing is crowned King of the Kongs.
Earthbound 99
Peer Schneider
Pfff, that’s very simple. EarthBound 99, of course. Ninety-nine players walk into a room and wait for EarthBound to get a sequel or a remake, or for Mother 3 to be localized. The last player to die wins.
Mario Party 96
Reb Valentine
Simple board here: Mario Party 96. 96 players at the same time on a Mario Party board. Everyone takes their turn at the same time (with a time limit so players don’t slow down the game), and at the end of each round everyone plays a mini-game. Most mini-games remain in the traditional four-player format, so Mario Party 96 must be divisible by four. They are randomly divided into groups of four and play a game to win coins. At the end of each mini-game round, the 12 players with the fewest coins/stars are completely eliminated and the game continues until only 12 players remain. In the next two rounds, the last four players are eliminated until in the final round there are only four players left fighting for the superstar.
In a fun twist, players may occasionally end up in a mini-game involving every single player, where everyone receives coins based on their performance. I’m thinking of classic games like Crazy Cutter, Face Lift, Hot Rope Jump, Shy Guy Says, and others, where everyone essentially plays alone and is then “judged.” Hot rope jumping with 96 people sounds particularly strenuous and I want it to happen.
Hexagon Heat 99
Brendan Graeber
Two words: hexagon heat. Mario Party’s biggest minigame (and no, that’s not up for debate), just add 95 more player slots to the minigame! Of course, this can be a bit tricky, as you either need to create hexagons big enough for 99 people or have multiple “real” tiles, similar to Fall Guys’ “Perfect Match” mode. But it would be worth it, believe me.
Egg emergency 99
Casey DeFreitas
I may have recency bias, but the Egg Emergency minigame in Pokemon Stadium 2 would be a great game for 99 people.
Traditionally the concept is pretty simple. As Chansey, your goal is to catch eggs that fall from the top of the screen. If you press the L button, Chansey will tilt to the left to catch the egg in that column, R to the right, and if you don’t press anything, Chansey will stay in the middle. Eventually, the Voltorb begins to fall, threatening to destroy part of the already captured egg. The pace increases, making it harder to catch every egg and dodge every Voltorb.
In Egg Emergency-99 the concept would be retained, but with egg capture streaks you would send hate to enemies, different colors of eggs would grant different buffs, and there would be more than just Voltorbs to avoid with different consequences.
But why actually stop there? Pokemon Stadium-99, with all mini-games for 99 players!
What do you think are 99’s style games with classic franchises? Please start the discussion below. I’m really interested to hear what people say about it.
