Nintendo Already Tested These NES Remakes, With Mixed Results

A CBR list published July 28 argues five Nintendo Entertainment System games are too small and too era-bound for any modern remake to work. Nintendo has already tested that theory on three of the five, and the record is mixed: one expensive flop, one modest hit, one joke character in Super Smash Bros.

The other two games on the list, Urban Champion and Antarctic Adventure, never even got that chance.

Three Games Already Ran This Experiment

CBR’s list names five NES games it says nobody wants remade: Excitebike, Dr. Mario, Duck Hunt, Urban Champion and Antarctic Adventure. The argument is that each one is too minimal, too tied to 1980s hardware, or too mechanically shallow to survive a modern overhaul without losing what made it work.

Three of the five already lived through some version of that overhaul. Dr. Mario got a free-to-play mobile expansion with new characters and multiplayer modes. Excitebike got a full 3D console sequel. Duck Hunt got folded into one of Nintendo’s biggest modern franchises, as a joke. Each case produced a different verdict, and together they explain why Nintendo treats these games the way it does today.

Dr. Mario World Lasted Two Years and Ended Quietly

Dr. Mario World launched on iOS and Android in July 2019, more than three decades after the NES original. It kept the falling-capsule, clear-the-viruses core intact but layered in playable characters with unique special moves, stage-based level maps and live multiplayer matches, exactly the kind of structural reinvention CBR’s list argues would ruin the formula.

The bet did not pay off. Nintendo ended the game on November 1, 2021, roughly two years and four months after launch. Mobile analytics trackers rated it Nintendo’s weakest-performing app release, trailing even the much-criticized Super Mario Run. Nintendo’s own support page confirming the shutdown notes that purchases of the game’s Diamond currency stopped weeks before the servers went dark.

• Launch: July 2019, on iOS and Android worldwide
• New mechanics: playable characters with special moves, stage maps, live multiplayer battles
• Shutdown: November 1, 2021, roughly two years after release
• Aftermath: replaced by a read-only Dr. Mario World Memories web portal instead of a revival

No sequel or successor app followed. Nintendo has not attempted another standalone Dr. Mario expansion since.

Excitebike Already Went 3D, and Still Got Forgotten

Excitebike’s own publisher tested the modernization theory too, sixteen years after the original launched. Excitebike 64 arrived on Nintendo 64 in 2000, swapping the flat two-lane NES track for full 3D courses, career-style progression and the kind of physics-driven mud and engine tuning CBR’s list warns a remake would need.

Critics loved it. The game holds an 88 score on aggregator Metacritic and drew favorable comparisons to genre leaders like Wave Race 64, with reviewers praising its physics and course design. But sales and cultural footprint never matched the score. Excitebike 64 is now remembered more as a trivia answer than a system-seller, eventually resurfacing on Wii U Virtual Console in 2016 and on Nintendo’s own Classics service in 2023 rather than getting a second expansion.

What Made the Wii’s Punch-Out Work?

Nintendo rebuilt the ring from scratch, kept Little Mac’s pattern-reading combat almost untouched, and shipped it as a full retail release instead of a free download, choices Dr. Mario World and Excitebike 64 each skipped in their own way.

Punch-Out!! arrived on Wii in 2009 as what reviewers at the time called “the most comprehensive remake Nintendo has ever undertaken.” It rebuilt the boxers, animations and soundtrack while leaving the one-hit-KO, memorize-the-pattern combat nearly identical to the 1987 arcade and NES versions. The game went on to sell 1.27 million copies worldwide and drew largely positive reviews for its presentation and faithfulness, with complaints limited mostly to a thin two-player mode and a difficulty curve some critics found gentler than the original outside the late title-defense bouts.

Only one of the four is a true apples-to-apples remake in the traditional sense. Punch-Out already had more mechanical depth to work with than a falling-block puzzle, a two-lane bike track or a light-gun shooting gallery, which may be exactly why it is the one case where a bigger budget helped instead of hurt.

Duck Hunt’s Second Life Is a Smash Bros Punchline

Nintendo answered the “should Duck Hunt get remade” question back in 2014, just not with a remake. The dog and the duck, plus an unseen hunter firing the NES Zapper, became a three-in-one playable fighter for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, officially revealed during a Nintendo Direct that November after leaking through an ESRB ratings database months earlier.

The character kept its flat NES pixel-art look, ported straight into a modern fighting game as a running gag rather than rebuilt into an actual shooter. It stuck around, returning as a veteran fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That is about as close as Duck Hunt has come to a comeback: a costume inside somebody else’s game, never a game of its own again.

Nintendo’s Real Answer Is a 343-Game Subscription Shelf

While CBR’s list debates hypothetical remakes, Nintendo has already answered the underlying question with a subscription product. Nintendo Switch Online and its Expansion Pack together carry 343 games total, 352 once GameCube titles exclusive to Switch 2 hardware are counted, according to Nintendo’s own classic games library page.

• 95 NES games available at the base Nintendo Switch Online membership tier
• 86 SNES games included at that same base tier
• 45 Game Boy family games unlocked through the Expansion Pack tier
• Nintendo 64, Genesis, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Boy and select GameCube titles rounding out the rest

The company keeps expanding that shelf instead of building standalone remakes. Nintendo’s latest update to the Nintendo Classics library landed this month, adding a four-title Game Boy drop featuring a new Switch Online port of Wario Land rather than a paid standalone release. Microsoft has reached a similar conclusion from the other console camp: instead of funding ground-up remakes of its own back catalog, it spent recent months expanding Xbox backward compatibility to PC, letting old software run on new hardware without touching a line of the original code.

Urban Champion and Antarctic Adventure Never Got the Call

Urban Champion and Antarctic Adventure never got even that treatment. Neither has picked up a sequel, a mobile spinoff, or so much as a cameo in a Smash Bros. lineup that has found room for dozens of fighters. Nintendo owns Urban Champion outright and has simply left it alone since 1984.

Antarctic Adventure is not entirely Nintendo’s call to make in the first place. Konami built and published the original, so any modern version, remake or otherwise, would need Konami’s sign-off alongside Nintendo’s before a single line of code got written. Two companies would have to agree a decades-old penguin runner is worth the effort, and so far neither has bothered.

That is the actual state of CBR’s list. Three of the five already ran the experiment the article says nobody wants, producing one hit, one flop and one costume change. The other two never even got asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Dr. Mario World Coming Back?

No. Nintendo shut the mobile game down for good on November 1, 2021, and instead of reviving it built a standalone Dr. Mario World Memories website where former players can look back at their match history and stats.

Why Does the NES Zapper Need an Old CRT TV to Work?

The Zapper reads a burst of light the television flashes on screen at the exact instant a target should register a hit, a timing trick only cathode ray tube sets can produce. Modern LCD and OLED screens do not flash the same way, which is why original Zapper hardware will not register hits on a modern television.

What Does Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack Add Over the Base Tier?

The base Nintendo Switch Online tier covers the NES and SNES libraries, while the Expansion Pack layers on Nintendo 64, Game Boy family, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance and Virtual Boy titles, plus a handful of GameCube games exclusive to Switch 2 hardware.

Was the Wii’s Punch-Out a Perfect Remake?

Not entirely. Reviewers praised the visuals and faithfulness to the NES original but flagged an underbaked two-player mode and a difficulty curve that felt easier than the original except for a late spike during the title defense matches.

Has Nintendo Turned Other NES Games Into Smash Bros Characters Instead of Remakes?

Yes. R.O.B., originally a robotic peripheral bundled with the NES to play Gyromite and Stack-Up, became a playable Super Smash Bros. fighter years before Duck Hunt did, giving Nintendo a second example of turning a hardware-bound NES-era product into a joke character rather than a full remake.