It has been awhile since I have thought of a figure idea that Nintendo really needs to make (quite possibly because we’re pretty spoiled at the moment), but I have an idea that at least a small group of people would love.  One of the greatest challenges with making Nintendo action figures, is that accessories are harder to make than with other properties.  For example, most action figures come with a sword, shield, or gun as an accessory which are easy to make but outside of Zelda and Fire Emblem this just wouldn’t work for many Nintendo franchises.  There is however a relatively recent game that would work perfectly as a standard action figure.

Code Name S.T.E.A.M., a strategy game for the 3DS by Intelligent Systems (the makers of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars) made a game with famous literary characters all wielding large and cool looking weapons.  Some of the characters include all of the heroes from Wizard of Oz like Lion, Scarecrow, and Dorothy, John Henry, Tom Sawyer, Queequeg from Moby Dick, and many others.  All of these characters are borrowed from books that are in the public domain and so they are available for anyone to use without paying a licensing fee.  What is cool about Code Name S.T.E.A.M is that every character has their own unique gun and they also have one swappable gun.  They also have a different boiler which looks like a backpack and gives them energy to use each turn in the game.

Imagine if each figure came with one or two guns and one or two boilers and you can peg the boilers in the back of the figure to easily swap them in depending on which one you like or looks best.  This would make the figures versatile and highly customize-able.  It could also make someone want to buy them all, especially if their favorite weapon comes with a character they don’t like that much.  This of course makes the figure line more successful and likely to sell.  The other advantage of these figures is that they have a simple, half-cartoon and half-comic book style that would be easy to turn into an action figure.  Because all of the characters are human or humanoid, they could be pretty articulated and easy to pose.  Even the aliens from the game could make pretty cool figures and it would let kids play with the figures if they want.

The obvious downside to this idea is that Code Name S.T.E.A.M., while a pretty cool game and a bold new idea from Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, has not been a success sales wise.  You can get the game very cheaply and while it is a ton of fun to play, nobody would be crazy enough to make figures for it.  Even though Code Name S.T.E.A.M.’s lack of success is disappointing, it is still amazing to think of how cool these figures could be and whether they were a budget figure around $20 or the more standard $50-$60 for Japanese import, I think there would be enough Nintendo fans (and possibly even people who like the famous literary characters) who would buy these figures.  Have any ideas of your own for new Nintendo figures or toys?  Let us know in the comments below or email me and they can be published on NintendoFigures.com!