“Mario Mania was weakened somewhat by Super Mario World and
competitors like Sonic coming around. But what finished off Mario
Mania completely was Yoshi’s Island. That game had a huge backlash to
it. The backlash was similar to Wind Waker. People hated the art
style. And the game didn’t act like a Mario game. Too many radical
changes (such as collecting things to truly finish the stage).”
I can’t help it. I lost track of how many times you’ve mentioned this
supposed “backlash” (that you’re always quick to point out was like
Wind Waker), and I now I just can’t help it anymore—I have to write
this e-mail if only just to tell you that your memory is flawed
regarding this game. You’ve mentioned your disinterest in video games
during the SNES era. Could it be that you weren’t really paying
attention to Yoshi’s Island to begin with? Yes, for something that was
branded “Super Mario World 2″, the sales were underwhelming. But so
were the sales of Super Mario RPG, and the last two Donkey Kong
Country games. C’mon, the SNES was just dying, period. That being
said, Yoshi’s Island was a new Mario game, and I played it just as
fanatically as I played all the other ones. Me and my friends had more
fun playing that so-called “collection game” with all the radical
changes that you think would have detered people who were raised on
Mario, than we had playing the original Super Mario World (which, as
great as it was, was a subpar rehash of SMB3). As for people hating
the art style, where is your evidence that anyone hated the art style
other than the executives at Nintendo who were complaining that it
didn’t look enough like DKC? You keep stating this as if it’s a well
known fact but neither I nor any of my Nintendo-loving friends who
grew up in that era of gaming have any idea what you’re talking about.
Could people have been turned off by the whining baby? Yes. Could
someone have quickly labeled it a “kiddy game” based on the graphics?
Sure. But Nintendo has a long history of fighting that “kiddy” image
that people associate with their games, and it dates back to the Sega
Genesis when Sega openly ridiculed Mario in their commercials for
being “nice, wimpy, and lame”. Still, who complained about the art
style? If a group of me + three or four other 11-13 year old boys
didn’t call it a sissy game back then, it’s for me to imagine that
anyone else did.
Once again, your words were “huge backlash”. Really? From where I was
standing, people just didn’t care because the SNES was losing steam
due to competition from the PSX and the N64 was just around the
corner. If you want to talk of Yoshi’s and backlashes, why not mention
Yoshi’s Story and how that backfired?
Pretend we are going ten to twenty years in the future. You say, “Wii was very much hated by the ‘Game Industry’.” Someone who was thirteen years old during the time of the Wii, all grown up, will say, “What! Everyone loved the Wii! All my friends played it. My family played it. Wii was selling left and right. Why are you making up this story that the ‘Game Industry’ hated the Wii?”
The kid isn’t wrong. His perspective is correct. However, the perspective of a thirteen year old kid isn’t on market dynamics at the time.
I’ve noticed there are many Nintendo related “myths” of how children who grew up with the products write about them than in how the products were actually received by the market. Let’s go through a few of them:
MYTH: NES was loved and adored by everyone.
FACT: NES was loved and adored by children and families who were not being served by game centric computers. Gamers on the game centric computer called the NES not real gaming. Western Third parties held out as long as possible from publishing on the NES. Electronic Arts refused to publish games on the NES until Trip Hawkins was told either to publish or lose his job. United States Congress kept attacking Nintendo. Political pressure was propping up Atari’s ridiculous lawsuits on Nintendo that held them in court so long they couldn’t properly expand in Europe for the 8-bit generation. Analysts kept declaring the NES fad over each year.
MYTH: Super Mario Brothers 2 and Zelda 2 were not well received by Mario and Zelda fans.
FACT: Mario 2 and Zelda 2 were sold out everywhere. Parents drove to other states just to get the games. Mario 2 and Zelda 2 may not have been the phenomenons the first ones were, but they were so well received that elements of both games found their ways into the sequels. For Mario 2 this was remarkable since it was actually Doki Doki Panic. To this day, people demand princess to be included in Mario 5 and that she float solely because of the impact of Mario 2.
MYTH: Super Metroid was a big best seller and the pinnacle of the Metroid franchise.
FACT: Super Metroid sold well for a couple of months and then left the sales charts completely. Soon, the game was price slashed. The game failed to create the same cult hit that the NES Metroid or even Gameboy Metroid did. The game was completely overshadowed by Donkey Kong Country which came out months later. There is a reason why Metroid went dormant until Metroid Prime and Fusion.
The game wasn’t very popular at the time and considered more of a re-make of Metroid 1 than an actual sequel. But time has been good to Super Metroid and it has aged like wine. I think growth of its popularity also has to do of how easy and fun it is to play in computer emulators. But the game was never that popular during the SNES era.
It is interesting how some popular games for consoles, at the time, end up being forgotten and how not very popular games for consoles end up being more popular in the future. River City Ransom for the NES wasn’t popular during the NES era. But it became more popular in the future as people discovered the game via computer emulators and all. It will be interesting to see what people in the future will think about the games currently out.
MYTH: Super Mario World received a fantastic reception.
FACT: Super Mario World was SNES game #1. The SNES was well received, and SMW was quality, but it didn’t live up to expectations. People at the time excused this for being a launch game. They expected Mario 5 to really bring it home. They had no idea they would have to wait 18 years.
SMW’s power-ups were less and weren’t as interesting as Mario 3′s. Dinosaur Land didn’t seem as epic as Mushroom Kingdom. The Koopa Kids seemed like a joke whereas they were more badass in their airships in Mario 3. There was no battle mode (multiplayer mode) in SMW as there was in Mario 3. To its credit, SMW had Yoshi, multiple exits, and was 16-bit.
I got lots of hell of people angry that I could say SMW was somewhat of a letdown at the time. But they were kids at the time growing up with it. It was, to them, their first sidescrolling Mario. It wasn’t until Jeremy Parish of 1up spoke of the same sort of reception Super Mario World had until people stopped giving me hell about the issue. SMW and Mario 3 being constantly debated about which is the better Mario game should be evidence enough to show SMW’s weakness. A game of 16-bit quality being debated if it is better than an 8-bit game? In those days, people couldn’t go back to 8-bit after seeing 16-bit. It shows how weak SMW was in comparison to Mario 3 (but in SMW’s defense, every game could be considered weak compared to Mario 3).
MYTH: Yoshi’s Island was greatly received by the market. Everyone loved the art style.
FACT: No way. The ‘crayon’ art style greatly divided the market. This is why the NOA executives wanted a more realistic art style. They were seeing the backlash. Yoshi’s Island was a side-scrolling Miyamoto game. The lifespan of the SNES doesn’t matter. The sales of a side scrolling Miyamoto game should have been astronomical. Miyamoto was considered god-like at that point and the idea of executives telling the genius what art style to do was unthinkable. The only reason why they were doing it is because of market data.
One of the greatest mysteries in video games is why Nintendo stopped making side scrolling Mario games (since they, alone, placed Nintendo on top of the video game world). I only have speculation. I suspect it could be Donkey Kong Country, not made by Nintendo, being so well received and Yoshi’s Island, made by Miyamoto, was not. Perhaps Miyamoto got peeved and ran to 3d Mario. I don’t know.
An emailer reminded me of one big problem people had with Yoshi’s Island that I had forgotten: the game was a giant retcon. Mario was always portrayed prior to Yoshi’s Island and in the numerous cartoons and books as a plumber from our Earth who got caught up in the Mushroom Kingdom. Yoshi’s Island, by putting baby Mario in the game, made Mario a ‘citizen’ of the Mushroom Kingdom instead of a visitor/stranger. Fans were not happy about this. They also weren’t happy how Mario was portrayed as living in Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario RPG for the same reasons.
Yoshi’s Island is a fantastic game. But it wasn’t a phenomenon as the main Mario games were. People don’t even consider it a Mario game. Once Yoshi’s Island came out, I remember that any anticipation for a sequel to Super Mario World died. This is when Nintendo lost many of its former customers including me.
Yoshi’s Story just continued in the saccharine direction Nintendo developers wanted to take the game. The more saccharine the games got, the more customers fled and the greater stigma of ‘kiddy’ or ‘childish’ was attached to the game.
And this could well explain why NSMB and Mario 5′s art style is so neutral. Nintendo knows full well that the art style that their developers want to use cause customers to run away (such as with Wind Waker). NSMB and Mario 5′s art style was not like Yoshi’s Island for the reason that the masses would reject the game.
Yoshi’s Island’s art style being seen as controversial is a well known fact to older people who lived during the time. Go ask any of them. They will tell you that many people did not like the art style and were angry at Nintendo’s direction with the game. This doesn’t dispute that were people who did love the art style. But those who loved the art style were clearly not the majority of consumers.
Donkey Kong Country came out in November of 1994. The game completely sold out, and it was selling consoles left and right. It pushed the SNES atop the Genesis in the 16-bit console war at the time. Donkey Kong Country brought excitement again to the SNES console.
Yoshi’s Island came out in October of 1995. The game did not sell out. Yoshi’s Island did not move hardware.
You can’t excuse Yoshi’s Island because “SNES was dying”. SNES was dying before Donkey Kong Country. Hell, Donkey Kong Country saved the SNES by providing a massive momentum boost. With Yoshi’s Island being out just one year later, it cannot be denied the game was no killer-app.
