We all love a good mainlineNintendocharacter in their iconic games, with Mario, Pikachu, and more receiving plenty of their own titles and spinoffs throughout Nintendo’s storied past in producing some of the best family-friendly games on the market.
But with a treasure trove of characters available in their repertoire, why not put some fan favorites into adventures of their own? These characters have been in the Nintendo canon for as long as we can remember, so here are a handful of Nintendo characters we’re hoping have more time to shine now that the Nintendo Switch 2 is out.
10R.O.B.
If ever Nintendo wanted to run off with the opportunity to sell us an accessory, they’ve got a pretty good shot with R.O.B., your Robotic Operating Buddy from the Nintendo Entertainment System golden days. Back then, he was an underselling stand-in for a second player, but his time could be now.
R.O.B. appeared in 2018’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and turned a whole new generation of gamers into fans of this cute little player two bot. The Famicom even had a different color scheme for R.O.B., so you could even get unique costumes as well.
9Shy Guy
We’re not saying Shy Guy has to have a wild adventure at the scale of Donkey Kong Bananza or anything like that, but we’ve had this little dude around for decades and it’s high time he gets a chance to shine – especially if they ever want to give him a little face lift and turn him into a good guy.
With all the colors the cloaks can be, the various game worlds in which Shy Guy have appeared, and their continued tenure in the spin-off games, Nintendo could easily make a cute platformer with the Shy Guys exploring these games and trying to turn things around.
8Team Rocket
Team Rocket is the original team of antagonists in the Pokemon series, so legendary that you’ll still see references to them in the games even today. Led by the dastardly Giovanni, Team Rocker is always on a mission to kidnap Pokemon for their team, but we’ve had tons of time with the bumbling Jesse and James and would love to see them in the spotlight.
It could be fun to try and assemble a hodge-podge of characters, whoever they can get their hands on, and attempt to plan all kinds of ways to take new, even stronger ones.They had a spotlight in the TCG, so why not the handheld games as well?
7Ganondorf
We’d realistically love any of the Ganon iterations to get their own game. We’ve had tons of adventures with the hero Link, and Zelda even got her own cute little top-town adventure on the last generation’s console. But what would a Ganondorf game look like?
Easy – he’s got plenty of unique forms to switch between, each with a unique series of powers and abilities relevant to the Zelda game in which it appears. You could turn it into an anti-hero adventure, and maybe evenslot it into the timelinewhere Link loses in Ocarina of Time.
6Bowser
Bowser is another character who’s lived a life of menacing the good guys in the Mario games, and we’ve seen him be playable time and time again in the spin-off games. But if Nintendo really wants to dive into a bad-guy game, then we can imagine no more iconic villain than Bowser.
With a slew of kids, tons of helpers in dozens of weird little species, and a seemingly endless goal to kidnap and marry Princess Peach, the possibilities for Bowser having his own game feel almost infinite.
5Meta Knight
For all the times we’ve seen Meta Knight throughout the long-running and much-beloved Kirby series, we’re still not totally clear on who he is or what his backstory is. This masked cohort shows up to help Kirby out in the toughest combat, which Nintendo could definitely use for a fighting game of sorts.
We could follow Meta Knight as he trains and grows into the legendary Knight we know today. We could see even get to see some of the more iconic Kirby moments from another point of view!
4Toadette
We never thought Toad would get his own game, but then, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker launched in 2014 and blew everyone’s mind. This cute little dude was out adventuring to solve puzzles, and if anything, it proves that the Toads are popular enough to stand on their own, even if the game type is a little different.
Toadette more than deserves her time in the spotlight after being an accessory character for this long! As one of the more iconic star vendors in the Mario Party games, maybe her game could have something to do with trying to help the more mainline Mario characters on their adventure in some way.
3Rosalina
Nintendo quite literally has the entire cosmos to play with if they ever decide to give Rosalina her own game. She’s been one of the more popular side characters since her debut in 2007’s hit Wii title, Super Mario Galaxy, and there are tons of ways to use her as a protagonist by now.
Between her cute sidekick in the Lumas and her duty of watching over the galaxy, Rosalina could have a stellar, space-themed adventure to save another world out there, and we bet she’s got the power and the fan love to stand firmly on her own.
2Daisy
Plenty of us here at TheGamer have gone on record to humbly request that Nintendo give Princess Daisy her own title, and we’re reiterating that desire again here and now. Having been in the franchise since 1989 and receiving next to no time in the spotlight since, Daisy is more than due for a turn as the heroine.
We’ve suggested before that Nintendo could easily turn Luigi, their most notorious coward, into a damsel in distress of some kind, with the goal of the game being for the sporty, adventurous Daisy to save the day.
1Waluigi
He’s been snubbed a million times so far. You know the fans would shovel money at you for a game where Waluigi is the protagonist, Nintendo, and we’d do it with gleeful grins. Let us empty our “wah”-lets on this already, guys.
