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Discussion What's your favorite Nintendo game that sold less than 1 million units?

SkaizoAgain

SkaizoAgain

Famicom Detective Club President
If you're looking for sales data for games that never got a digital release, I'd recommend vgchartz.

For me, it would have to be The Last Story, the game everyone knows as being the second game in Operation Rainfall. I'm biased since it was the game that got me into RPGs, but the entire aesthetic of the game and gameplay was just fun to me back in 2012. The characters were also fun too. Even though it was directed by the legendary Hironobu Sakaguchi, it only sold 680,000 copies due to coming out too late in the Wii's lifecycle and not being published by NoA. Still, it somehow outsold the original Xenoblade on Wii in Japan, and was Xseed's best-selling release. I'm crossing my fingers for a remaster.

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What are your favorite games that fall into this category?
 
Maybe Paper Mario Color Splash. Itโ€™s held back a bit by the Gamepad utilization and doesnโ€™t hit the highs of the earlier games or Origami King, but it has fantastic scenario writing and a lot of fun characters and dialogue.
 
F-Zero X Expansion Kit, F-Zero GX and F-Zero Climax are all in my top 5 racing games and fall into this category.
X Expansion Kit might be cheating cause X sold over a million, but the definitive version of the game is not given enough love because of it's life as a failed hardware addon.
GX allegedly sold over a million but Nintendo stopped reporting it's sales somewhere around 600k and was never on their million seller list. Probably didn't.
Climax definitely did not sell over a million, all we know is it sold just over 5000 copies in it's first 3 days, and was japan only. Most JP only games don't break a million, and F-Zero would not be a game to break that.

Speaking of Japan only games, Mother 3 is in the <1 million club too.
 
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This is one of the best games Intelligent Systems has ever put out and I will defend it to my deathbed. Steampunk-meets-silver age comic books-meets-historical literature-meets-Abraham Lincoln is an absolutely absurd concept for a strategy game, but the game is so dedicated to mashing these concepts together that (for me at least) it totally works. It is self aware and campy enough to be fun, while also taking itself seriously enough to never feel like a complete joke. The character designs kick ass, the levels are well designed and tense as hell to play through, and the gameplay feels good. Figuring out how to deal with the evolving alien menace and getting a feel for the new mechanics that each new character and sub-weapon you unlock feels incredibly satisfying.

Sadly the game absolutely bombed and will probably never see the light of day again. :( Special thanks to Smash Ultimate for including a remix of one of the songs from the game, that was an awesome treat.
 
Sin & Punishment Star Successor.
One of the best in its genre, pure adrenaline-pumping awesome from start to finish and batshit insane in the best way.
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The Last Story is also right up there for me too thanks to its fun combat, heartfelt characters, and the sweeping score by Uematsu.
 
The Last Story is such a good pick, I actually came into this thread hoping to be the first to mention it.

It feels like cheating, but you can absolutely make the case for older Fire Emblem games, as Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn likely never saw 1 million sold.
 
I think it's probably Metroid Zero Mission. Fantastic game, just like most Metroid games

Also wanna shout out Mole Mania though. VGchartz doesn't seem to have numbers for it but I'd be surprised if it cracked a million. Which is a bit of a shame; it's probably a top 5 Miyamoto game imo and nobody ever really talks about it. Keep hoping it gets added to GB NSO just so it can get that "everybody's talking about this old game" effect for a couple days
 
Fossil Fighters and Fossil Fighters Champions are both reportedly below 1m sold and are probably some of my favorite Nintendo titles period. It's like the fun cleaning minigame of Spectrobes with a neat position-based combat system, and it's all topped off by being based on wild interpretations of dinosaurs. Just so much fun!
 
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Came out late in the Gamecube's life with not much marketing, still a certified banger and very popular in the FE community today. At this point most of the fandom likely played it on Dolphin.
 
I don't put much faith in VGChartz, but they have Game & Wario at a measly 250,000 units sold. Say what you will about the limited single player content, but the GamePad implementation and multiplayer were the best on the WiiU.

Anyway, according to VGChartz, juggernauts like Fire Emblem (the whole series pretty much until Awakening), Advance Wars (all), Eternal Darkness, NES Remix, etc., didn't crack a million, so the candidate list for favorites under 1M is stacked.
 
I havenโ€™t played many Nintendo games that sold less than a million so by default I think it has to be Metroid: Samus Returns. Itโ€™s completely outclassed by Dread by this point but I liked a lot at the time.

[EDIT]: It doesnโ€™t fit the premise of the thread but Iโ€™m continuously saddened that Twilight Princess HD just barely sold over 1 million lifetime. It seems most Zelda fans donโ€™t like the game these days but I really enjoyed it, it was my first 3D Zelda and got me into the series.
 
  • Wave Race Blue Storm
  • Advance Wars games
  • Pre-3DS Fire Emblem games
  • F-Zero GX (this is surrounded by controversy though)
  • Pre-Switch Xenoblade games
  • Another Code/Trace Memory games
  • Custom Robo games
  • The Last Story
  • Pandora's Tower
  • Soma Bringer
  • Eternal Darkness
  • Disaster: Day of Crisis
  • Sin & Punishment 1 & 2
  • BS Zelda
  • Drill Dozer
  • Magical Vacation games
  • Ever Oasis
  • Crashmo / Pushmo / Stretchmo
Edit:
  • Metroid Samus Returns and Metroid Zero Mission
  • Excite Truck and Excitebots
  • Cruis'n Blast
 
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Stilt Village said:
It's got to be Mother 3. Shocked it sold so little, but EarthBound actually didn't do much better. You always hear about its cultural impact in Japan, but it was vastly outsold by... Wonder Project J, of all things?
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Oh hey, I've heard of that game and it's sequel, if only because it's spritework is absolutely insane. Like, look at this animation.
 
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Stilt Village said:
It's got to be Mother 3. Shocked it sold so little, but EarthBound actually didn't do much better. You always hear about its cultural impact in Japan, but it was vastly outsold by... Wonder Project J, of all things?
Click to expand...
Going to agree here. Mother 3 was criminally overlooked. The entire trilogy deserves a good faith remaster and rerelease.
 
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In terms of games with global releases, probably Elite Beat Agents. I wish I imported the Ouran games when it was more feasible.
Stilt Village said:
It's got to be Mother 3. Shocked it sold so little, but EarthBound actually didn't do much better. You always hear about its cultural impact in Japan, but it was vastly outsold by... Wonder Project J, of all things?
Click to expand...
That said, Mother 3 is a good pick. But yeah, the popularity of the Mother games in Japan is a bit overblown. 1 and 2 were pretty niche compared to the JRPG heavy hitters of that era, and I think by the time 3 came out there just wasn't a ton of interest in a sequel to games over a decade old.
 
Assuming these are accurate and Iโ€™m not messing things up, some of my favorite Nintendo games didnโ€™t sell a million copies:

  • Metroid Zero Mission
  • Advance Wars Dual Strike
  • Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
  • Rhythm Heaven Megamix
  • Planet Puzzle League (this could be one of those DSi versions. Still need a new one).
 
Most of my favorite game have done 1 million+. So I went with recent titles. There are somewhat in the same genre, adventure/VN games.

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WestEgg said:
Maybe Paper Mario Color Splash. Itโ€™s held back a bit by the Gamepad utilization and doesnโ€™t hit the highs of the earlier games or Origami King, but it has fantastic scenario writing and a lot of fun characters and dialogue.
Click to expand...
I still haven't finished (played just a bit, actually) but I was genuinely laughing out loud at the dialogue of that game. It's really good. I can understand people being mad at it not being like the original ones but it seemed like a very nice game, if different, from what I've played.
 
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Most likely for me, ExciteBots: Trick Racing. Such a raucous and ridiculous racing game. Less about just getting first place, and more about doing so in style with as many tricks as such as possible. Such an awesome game that I'm sad sold so poorly on the Wii. I don't think it even released retail in Europe.
 
I think we could adapt this to Nintendo games that sold little in general, or were regarded as failures. So the American release of EarthBound and Drill Dozer would probably sit at the top to me. Sin and Punishment games would come next. And F-Zero GX.

And then Elite Beat Agents and the Ouendan games above all of these. They were the games that brought me back into gaming. I can fathom how they weren't more successful - they should have been revolutionary.

I'm not sure how much it sold, but I think Picross DS should've been a billion seller. (yeah, I wrote billion)
 
PlatinumClover said:
I think we could adapt this to Nintendo games that sold little in general, or were regarded as failures. So the American release of EarthBound and Drill Dozer would probably sit at the top to me. Sin and Punishment games would come next. And F-Zero GX.

And then Elite Beat Agents and the Ouendan games above all of these. They were the games that brought me back into gaming. I can fathom how they weren't more successful - they should have been revolutionary.

I'm not sure how much it sold, but I think Picross DS should've been a billion seller. (yeah, I wrote billion)
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Bossa Nova music is still one of my top 10 all time VGM. No picross game has topped this to me (the tile marking system is so much more intuitive in this game than any of the new ones).
 
DittoM said:
I havenโ€™t played many Nintendo games that sold less than a million so by default I think it has to be Metroid: Samus Returns. Itโ€™s completely outclassed by Dread by this point but I liked a lot at the time.

[EDIT]: It doesnโ€™t fit the premise of the thread but Iโ€™m continuously saddened that Twilight Princess HD just barely sold over 1 million lifetime. It seems most Zelda fans donโ€™t like the game these days but I really enjoyed it, it was my first 3D Zelda and got me into the series.
Click to expand...

Twilight princess HD barely cracking a million had nothing to do with how much the game is liked or not and everything to do with being a Wii U title releasing in 2016.

It ran circles around everything else released on the console within the same time frame; Pokken Tournament, Star fox zero/guard, Paper mario color splash, Tokyo Mirage sessions, all did FAR worse than it, making it the best selling Wii U title from 2016. Software had just basically stopped selling by that point.
 
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Stilt Village said:
It's got to be Mother 3. Shocked it sold so little, but EarthBound actually didn't do much better. You always hear about its cultural impact in Japan, but it was vastly outsold by... Wonder Project J, of all things?
Click to expand...
Mother 3 supposedly isn't exactly the most fondly remembered entry in the series in Japan. Wonder Project J was a novel game that really doesn't deserve getting labeled as "that game that outsold Mother 3".
 
SkaizoAgain said:
For me, it would have to be The Last Story, the game everyone knows as being the second game in Operation Rainfall.
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I wouldnโ€™t say everyone knows it as part of โ€˜operation rainfallโ€™, it was just a regular release here. Great game though, one of my favourite on the Wii.

In terms of home consoles, Fire Emblem PoR/RD and Sin & Punishment: Star Successor are both up there too.

Hotel Dusk and Last Window on DS would be on my list too. Made by Cing but published by Nintendo.

How about Golden Sun: Dark Dawn too. Its sales were pretty bad, it managed to limp to 80,000 sales in Japan after 15 months.
en.m.wikipedia.org

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
Dark Dawn sold 46,000 units in its first four days in Japan, and ranked fifth of the period.[42] In the UK, the game was 23rd best-selling Nintendo DS game in its first released weekend.[43] The game has sold 80,000 copies in Japan as of January 2012.[44]
Click to expand...
 
Hailinel said:
Mother 3 supposedly isn't exactly the most fondly remembered entry in the series in Japan. Wonder Project J was a novel game that really doesn't deserve getting labeled as "that game that outsold Mother 3".
Click to expand...
I meant it outsold Mother 2, the one that's talked about as a huge deal. Mother 2 only outsold Mother 3 by around 100,000 copies in Japan, neither came close to selling a million, but Wonder Project J crossed that mark handily.
 
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SkaizoAgain said:
If you're looking for sales data for games that never got a digital release, I'd recommend vgchartz.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't. VGChartz is shit. They literally make up numbers for stuff that doesn't have official data

Anyway. I guess Xenoblade Chronicles X? Don't think it reached a million. Criminally overlooked. Need a port to enlighten the masses
 
~okapi said:
91vjz8-ljkl._sl1500_.jpg

This is one of the best games Intelligent Systems has ever put out and I will defend it to my deathbed. Steampunk-meets-silver age comic books-meets-historical literature-meets-Abraham Lincoln is an absolutely absurd concept for a strategy game, but the game is so dedicated to mashing these concepts together that (for me at least) it totally works. It is self aware and campy enough to be fun, while also taking itself seriously enough to never feel like a complete joke. The character designs kick ass, the levels are well designed and tense as hell to play through, and the gameplay feels good. Figuring out how to deal with the evolving alien menace and getting a feel for the new mechanics that each new character and sub-weapon you unlock feels incredibly satisfying.

Sadly the game absolutely bombed and will probably never see the light of day again. :( Special thanks to Smash Ultimate for including a remix of one of the songs from the game, that was an awesome treat.
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This.

Itโ€™s easily on my 3DS Top 3. And my favorite IS game, Iโ€™m still hoping this hidden gem will have a second chance one day.
 
Super Fossil Fighters nuff said. I wish Nintendo get back into this game and make another one like the 2nd game. The 3rd game is shit and probably is the cause of death of the series.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Twilight princess HD barely cracking a million had nothing to do with how much the game is liked or not and everything to do with being a Wii U title releasing in 2016.

It ran circles around everything else released on the console within the same time frame; Pokken Tournament, Star fox zero/guard, Paper mario color splash, Tokyo Mirage sessions, all did FAR worse than it, making it the best selling Wii U title from 2016. Software had just basically stopped selling by that point.
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True, now that I think about it, were there any first party Wii U games that sold over 1 million after 2014 other than Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, TPHD, and BotW?
 
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zumaddy said:
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Came out late in the Gamecube's life with not much marketing, still a certified banger and very popular in the FE community today. At this point most of the fandom likely played it on Dolphin.
Click to expand...

I remember buying this used at a random GameStop back in 2006/2007. It was $35 at the time when new games were still $50. Turns out that was the deal of the century for a copy of Path of Radiance lol
 
Chibi-Robo and Endless Ocean (1st game barely surpassed 1M but Blue World didn't quite reach the surface, heh).
 
I dunno the exact numbers (and I sure as shit aren't gonna trust VGChartz of all places) but I'm pretty sure Last Window didn't break a million and that game is a top 10 all timer for me.
 
Probably Sin and Punishment. Sold around 100k copies despite being a really fun game with a bonkers story. Also Samus Returns, that game is absolute peak and deserves to be brought to switch a thousand times more then Dark Moon
 
Paper Mario: Color Splash is so much better than anyone gives it credit for. I think I like it more than Origami King.
 
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