Was there even an Ice Climber game besides the original NES one?

no. not even an official sequel

damn

their debut in melee was their true rise to some degree of popularity...which personally is kind of sad but whatever

Huh, I guess its similar with Mr. Game & Watch. If it weren't for Smash, almost no one would know this character.
Though Game & Watch would't really have any potential as a new game, so its understandable there is no new stuff for that.
But Ice Climbers could have a lot of potential. I mean, there are a bunch of popular games nowadays that have their main focus on climbing, so I'm sure Nintendo could easily put something neat together.

nintendo got a lot of things they could dig up and put their nowadays polish on...popo and nana being no exception to that