Malstrom! I cannot find a copy of Super Mario All Stars anywhere. The
last time I remember not being able to get my hands on a piece of
software I wanted was GoldenEye for the N64.
This is a zero-effort port of ancient games. If what you’ve been saying
about Nintendo is correct, it was released this way because Sales wanted
to release more 2D Mario (the 25th anniversary is a nice excuse) but
Development didn’t want to touch it. Think of how simple and awesome it
would have been to release these with Mario 5 graphics.
And yet, even as an SNES game, it’s apparently one of the must-have
holiday titles.
Surely THIS must make Iwata realize that Miyamoto, Aonuma, Sakamoto,
etc. are out of touch with what the public wants.
I wonder if a Metroid All-Stars would outsell Other M?
Foolish reader! Don’t you know that the only reason why people are buying the Mario Collection is because everyone is dying to get their hands on Kondo’s list of favorite Mario music? This will surely be how Nintendo interprets the Mario Collection reaction.
You know, it isn’t even about the old games vs. newer games. People love Classic Nintendo. Classic Nintendo was a totally different company than Modern Nintendo. Classic Nintendo had the behavior of keeping a core audience (staples) and making brand new games that attracted a new audience (the new franchises). With the NES, the staples were Golf, Tennis, Popeye, Mario Brothers, and Donkey Kong. The new series were games like Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, and Metroid. With the Gameboy, the staples were Golf, Tennis, Super Mario Land, Zelda, and Metroid. New series were games like Kirby and Pokemon (and Tetris of course). With the SNES, the staples would be Super Mario World, Link to the Past, Kirby, Super Metroid, etc. and the new game series would be like Star Fox or Super Mario Kart.
Modern Nintendo’s practice is to completely re-write existing game series to something completely different. The shock gamers had when they played Metroid: Other M is similar to how some gamers had when they played Mario 64 or Wind Waker for the first time.
The Wii actually presented itself to the public as Classic Nintendo, not Modern Nintendo which is a major reason why there was so much enthusiasm about it. The controller was NES-like. The Virtual Console was a homage to that era. The attachments shown like the zapper also seemed like a homage to that era. Wii Sports is similar to the arcade in its simplicity and style.
You know what the Wii did not have? 3d effects. Wii never presented itself as a graphical show-horse. And everyone was fine with that. Nintendo has a very poor track record when it comes to 3d gaming. It was 3d gaming where Nintendo’s empire really fell to ash. It’s only stronghold was handheld gaming which was still overwhelmingly Classic Nintendo with virtually no 3d effects.
What’s a damn shame is that there is no 2d Mario from the N64 Era or Gamecube Era (or latter SNES era) to join together (Voltron like) as a second Mario All-Stars. 2d Mario hasn’t stopped selling since the original Super Mario Brothers.
Above: When 2d Mario games come together, the effect is as awesome as Voltron. And I just now realized that Optimus Prime does the intro to Voltron. Holy cow!
