Nintendo does sequels and nurtures gaming franchises better than anyone, but there’s a few series they seem to neglect. Any list of Nintendo franchises anyone would like to see come back would be an obvious one- I’ll try my best not be be, but I’m going to start with Pokemon Snap.

We’re not getting a console Pokemon RPG for a while if at all, especially considering Pokemon X and Y have just been announced for 3DS. Pokemon Snap was an awesome spin off game for Nintendo 64 released way back in 1999. It was in essence an on rails shooter, but replaced shooting bullets with shooting pictures.

The player rode a buggy around a Pokemon Island and take amazing pictures of various Pokemon in the wild. When you got back to base, you needed to submit your favourite snaps to Professor Oak who would assess your pictures on various criteria like framing, size of the Pokemon in the shot, what pose the were doing, etc. It was much more fun than it sounds, and the game sold pretty well.

Toys R Us in Australia actually had Pokemon Snap printing booths where you could plug in you N64 Gamepak and print out your favourite snaps.

I see some amazing possibilities for Pokemon Snap on Wii U. How cool would it be to use the gamepad to look around the environments and use the R button to snap a picture? Or have the TV respond to the gamepads movements and have your inventory (like smoke bombs to chase Pokemon out from bushes, etc.) on the gamepad screen for quick deployment? One flick up with a finger deploys an apple to attract Pokemon out for the perfect shot. I’m thinking along the lines of throwing ninja stars in Nintendo Land.

Would you play a new Pokemon Snap? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Sharing your favourite pic on Miiverse would be a given, but it would be awesome to email them to yourself and print them from any printer. What about a dedicated online leader board where players could share their very best pics of each different Pokemon?

The new game could also feature many more Pokemon- there were only sixty something varieties in the first game. Imagine being able to take pics of six hundred something. I can imagine the player having more control over where the buggy goes, too. Multiple paths, different weather conditions and a wider variety of locations would alleviate the main complaints about the first game- it’s short length and repetitiveness.

There’s heaps of franchises Nintendo could do wonders with on Wii U, and I’ll concede that Pokemon Snap is probably pretty far down the list. But considering those awful PokePark games on Wii actually got made, surely there’d be an audience for a new Pokemon Snap? Wii U is supposed to be fun, fresh and innovative. Pokemon Snap was all those things in 1999, so it’s a great fit for the new machine. I’d love to see Nintendo make this happen.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing more of my favourite Nintendo games and franchises I’d like to see make a comeback. You can follow me on twitter: @rustyshell or Miiverse: zinger_AU