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With the recent Nintendo announcement of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the Switch is home to nine horde-brawler action games from Koei Tecmo. Their Warriors/musou titles have been known for letting players bash away at clusters of foes in fast-paced combat scenarios.
If nothing else, they're definitely some of the best power fantasy and fan-service offerings out on the market. Their collaboration with Nintendo has gone smoothly so far, resulting in spinoffs for the Zelda and Fire Emblem IPs.
So here are five more Nintendo franchises that would be a good fit for the Warriors formula.
Top 5 games that deserve to be given a place in Nintendo's upcoming works
5) Star Fox
Star Fox has always been one franchise that Nintendo has always played safe with. The sci-fi dogfighter series featuring anthropomorphic characters has been on and off since its Super NES debut. Since then, most future installments have followed the exact same formula, without much change - they could essentially be considered reboots.
The only outlier was Star Fox Adventures on the GameCube which followed in the footsteps of Nintendo's Legend of Zelda games. While the main series of games are focused around on-rails space battles in ships, Adventures was a boots-on-ground, dungeon exploration action-adventure game.
Since the Zelda games have received Warriors treatment, Star Fox looks to be a good idea too - combat can both be on the ground as well as aerial - with the Arwing's (the fighter ships the cast flies around in) manual switching between two modes allowing the best of both worlds. Each of the characters, like Fox, Slippy, Wolf and Falco could have their unique movesets - from close range, to long range to a middle ground.
Interestingly, rumor has it that Koei Tecmo did approach Nintendo for a "Star Fox Warriors" but were turned down - likely thanks to the lukewarm reception of Star Fox Zero on Wii U. It's a fun idea on paper at least.
4) Pokemon
Who doesn't know about Pokemon? The iconic monster-taming franchise has been a household name ever since its inception on Game boy in 1996.
With over 800 Pokemon to date, with the latest generation being Sword & Shield, things could get confusing from a design standpoint as including all of them in a game like this is infeasible. But there are workarounds. A brand new story like the PokePark games on Wii could work for the sake of a spinoff. The Mystery Dungeon games have been competent at storytelling, even more so than some of the mainline games.
The roster, meanwhile, could consist of a handful of popular monsters from each of the 18 Types. Say, Pikachu and Jolteon for the electric type gang. Charizard and Blaziken representing fire types. Lucario, Gallade and Buzzswole from the fighting group. Perhaps even throwing in playable legendaries like Mewtwo and Arceus.
Gameplay can maintain the rock-papers-scissors design of type advantages/weaknesses, with players switching between Pokemon as needed on the fly.
3) Kirby
Everyone's favorite pink puffball is a force to be reckoned with. The traditionally 2D side-scroller franchise is acclaimed for not just its cute aesthetic and charming gameplay, but also the iconic copy mechanic. Kirby can swallow his enemies to gain their powers - these range from being granted a sword, hammer or boomerang to being able to spew fire, shock foes with electricity or chuck bombs at them. There's even weirder stuff, like turning into a rock and literally cooking every foe on screen.
So there's no shortage of ideas for a Warriors game here. Players could also take on the roles of other members of the Kirby universe, like King Dedede and Meta Knight as well as different Kirbies - like Robobot Armor Kirby and Yarn Kirby. Or even Mass Attack Kirby.
2) Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was a surprise reveal at the latest Direct, featuring an all new story in the same universe as the two mainline predecessors. The cult classic open-world JRPG franchise features massive vistas and battles with larger-than-life enemies.
The combat in these games is real time, but governed by an auto-attack system - not unlike MMOs. However, it's the scale that would be impressive to see translated over to a musou game. The series has enough characters to allow for an interesting cast, from Xenoblade 1's Shulk and Fiora, 2's Rex and Pyra/Mythra to the giant mechs called Skells from Xenoblade X.
Given the crossover nature of Koei Tecmo's games, there are a variety of locales and enemies to choose from across three games. The developers have already shown large-scale fights to be doable within the Warriors design with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity's Divine Beasts segments - so there's no excuse for a lack of Xeno Warriors either.
1) Golden Sun
Nintendo may not have many RPGs but this is one franchise that's clamored by fans around the world.
The Golden Sun games have a big focus on magic (called Psynergy) usage for fights and environmental interactions. The Djinn system allows for flexibility not usually seen in magic-oriented combat systems in JRPGs, with different abilities and spells available depending on the type of elemental Djinn equipped/put on standby.
This format would be ideal for a musou game - imagine protagonist Isaac and his buddies slashing their way across the battlefield and blasting away foes with Psynergy. The biggest highlight would be the Djinn summons; majestic otherworldly entities swooping down for massive damage, like the Eclipse's devastating beam.
With all that said, Golden Sun is the best pick among these entries for a Warriors spinoff. Who knows, it just might boost the franchise's popularity, leading to remakes of older games on Nintendo Switch - perhaps even a brand new installment.
