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Virtually Overlooked: Punch Ball Mario Bros./Mario Bros. Special
When companies other than Nintendo produce and publish games in Nintendo franchises, the results are invariably freaky. In the worst case, the world ends up with something like Hotel Mario and the CD-I Zelda games: unplayable, amateurish games that would actually harm the console they appeared on if said console were not already doomed to flame out. The best case doesn't actually exist for outside-published games, so we'll say it's when Nintendo publishes a franchise game developed by someone else and it puts a fresh spin on an existing series, like Metroid Prime or Super Mario RPG.The Hudson computer games, like Super Mario Bros. Special, go somewhere in the middle of that ad hoc scale. They don't irrevocably blemish the franchises in which they're made (I still can't think of Zelda, meanwhile, without WONDERING WHAT'S FOR DINNER), but neither are they good enough to contain any ideas that need following up.
