Nintendo is home to some of the best, most important franchises in gaming history. A cursory glance at their roster of 1st party titles shows some of the most innovative, best selling, and world renowned titles from the childhood of 70s and 80s babies all the way up to 2014. The pedigree of Nintendo’s titles cannot be sold short, but if you’ve never been a fan of them there’s been a very annoying problem. Because they’re first party titles, it means you have to own one of Nintendo’s systems to actually play the game. For someone who doesn’t care much for Nintendo’s 3rd party options, it can be a tall task to plop down three hundred bucks (or more) for access to these games. As such, wouldn’t it be great if they licensed them out to other companies? Since that’s (more than likely) never going to happen we can have fun speculating.

Here are five games and franchises I think would make a great transition onto other systems.

1. The Legend of Zelda

An obvious choice, The Legend of Zelda series is home to expansive worlds, carefully crafted dungeons, tight gameplay, and a great story to boot. Can you imagine the power of the Xbox One or the PS4 powering the world of Zelda? I’m not talking about photorealistic graphics. I’m talking about using the power to make an already beautiful game that much better looking. I’d imagine the power could be used to improve the smaller details to make the world really come alive. I’d also imagine the controller inputs would fit better on those respective systems as opposed to a nunchuck or a tablet with buttons on it.

2. Bravely Default

One of the crown jewels on Nintendo’s handheld system, Bravely Default  is probably one of the best RPG’s available on the system. From what I’ve heard about the game, the graphics aren’t one of its strong points and it’s very text heavy. Graphical upgrades and full speech would’ve likely taken the game to the next stratosphere. Sounds like the perfect game for a struggling Sony handheld like the PS Vita. I’m not sure how Default would translate to the home systems, but with the power located in the Vita, I’m sure the developers could’ve done wonders without the limitations of the system it’s currently housed on.

3. The Metroid Series

For some reason, the Metroid series tends to get the “red-headed step child” treatment from Nintendo. There’s hasn’t been a 2-dimensional series on a home console since the Super Nintendo. Nintendo pretty much skipped making them on home consoles with the Nintendo 64 was released, but brought it back for the Gamecube as a first person shooter that was actually pretty good, but had been requested by no one. To add insult to injury, the Wii iteration was made by a 3rd party and met with a decent to lukewarm reception. With the success of the “Metroidvania” formula alive and well in Drinkbox Studios’ Guacamelee, there’s no doubt the series would receive better treatment whether it was on hi-def home boxes or right at home on the Vita.

4. Madworld

Once upon a time, in an effort to fight off the notion of being a child-centric console, Nintendo tried to appease the “rated M for mature” crowd with a lovely title called Madworld. In addition to it being ultraviolent, it happened to be one of the best action games available on the Wii. There’s a certain irony in a Nintendo exclusive being created by former rivals Sega, but irony aside, the Wii’s audience didn’t seem particularly receptive to game. Unsurprising, given the nature of it’s content and the primary audience of the Wii (children and the elderly) at the time.

5. Pokemon

Another one for the Vita, Nintendo essentially created a license to print money when they originally released the Red and Blue versions of Pokemon back on Game Boy. The series has been out since I was a teenager back in the 90s and has only seemed to grown in popularity since then. While Pokemon has never been about the graphics, I’m almost positive a visual upgrade would be welcomed by series’ fans. I’m not going to lie though…the new version of Pokemon on the 3DS looks great and if I had spare change to buy a 3DS…I don’t know if I’d buy one but I’d most certainly look into it but if it came to the Vita? I wouldn’t be able to run to the store fast enough.

Peace.