Thank you.
I’ve been thinking this for a long time now. Especially with Mario games. I have been saying how Super Mario Bros. 3 has yet to be surpassed. But most current players I talk to say this is either impossible or claim that it already has. I know this is probably because what I liked about the game is gone now and what they liked about it has been improved.
I’ve notice this a lot in the GameCube library. Mario Kart Double Dash felt very watered down. The same with Super Mario Sunshine. But I had the same issues just less so with Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64. Even with Super Mario World being my first game I still though Super Mario Bros. 3 was better. (though I might have played SMB3 at my cousins house before then) Thankfully they released Super Mario Bros. All-Stars.
I have to wonder how many people like me have stopped playing these games because of this issue.
_________________________
When this site started, it was for me to study Nintendo. Lately, it has reversed itself. It seems Nintendo is now studying people like me and other gamers like myself who had fallen away over the years. I know some poor soul at Nintendo is assigned to look at this site.
So if you have similar thoughts as the email above, send them to me, and I will put them up. One sign for hope is how much progress has been done at Nintendo on this front. When this generation began, the “Mario game” was considered to be Mario Galaxy in Nintendo. Reggie was once overheard asking game developers (or such) how to market the “sequel to Super Mario World) (referring to Galaxy). So it is no doubt that Nintendo, all the way up to Miyamoto, saw 3d Mario in the same series as 2d Mario. Consumers obviously didn’t.
It had to have been NSMB DS’s sales that woke someone up over there. I heard that even the marketers were surprised by the strong start for Yoshi’s Island DS (which isn’t that great of a game which could explain why it didn’t do too much in the sales).
Our desire for more 2d Mario is not born from some vision of a retro fantasy, it is not a desire to re-live the 80s or early 90s. We know that 2d Mario contains an incredible gameplay that is easy to learn but hard to master. No other game ever made surpasses such a game except perhaps Tetris.
There is one thing the Expanded Audience, Core Audience, and even the “hardcore” agree on: 2d Mario must be continued. People want to see the game grow and evolve since Super Mario World. Everyone wants to see Nintendo compete against Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World.
With Nintendo’s history of video games, the biggest business mistake wasn’t really the Virtual Boy. The biggest mistake is either Nintendo going after Sega in the 16-bit generation (and starting the Red Ocean that began to bleed away Nintendo’s market as well as video games in general) or that Nintendo abandoned 2d Mario. It’s a toss up. In the end, they are likely the same problem. 3d Mario was born from the Red Ocean, to demonstrate that the hardware of the Nintendo 64 could run rings around its competitors. 2d Mario was born from the Blue Ocean when competing computers had 16-bit graphics and thought game consoles were dead.
NSMB DS sales could not have just come from older fans like you and me. They had to struck the Expanded Audience. This, to me, seems perfectly logical. The original Super Mario Brothers struck the Expanded Audience of its time too.
The consumers are trying to indicate to Nintendo which way they want 2d Mario to go next. All the commotion about Princess Peach not being playable is not really about Peach or her dress. The lack of online really isn’t about online.
Consumers do not want Nintendo to expand on 2d Mario with more “Scavenger Hunts for hard-to-get-coins” but with characters and power-ups that add re-playability and greater consumer personality in the game.
The above was genius. Journalists who say that SMB 2 was a “disappointment” forget the game was constantly sold out. But the character selection was just genius. People want the above in the next 2d Mario. They can get more replayability from the game. They can play as Peach and float around or they can be Toad and pick up things fast or whatever. Add in Wario and maybe some other characters, and the game would be really interesting.
And the complaint about no online is really about how a major factor of NSMB Wii is closed unless you have willing participants there with you. Reality is such that this isn’t too easy or convenient to do. Of course, online would be welcomed.
But what I suspect people are really looking for is AI. Games are, fundamentally, a multiplayer experience. This was understood in the past but seems to have been lost over the years. A computer AI was to simulate the other players. An FPS game is a good example where against real people is where it is all about but people also like to shoot at the bots every now and then.
AI in the other players would give the game tremendous more replay value. It would even be cool if you could set the setting to “cooperative” to “hostile”. And you could choose which player the AI is (or let the AI choose himself). You could play a Mario game with a hostile Peach and Wario with a cooperative Toad. You could mix and match and have different and surprising experiences.
Remember when NSMB DS came out and the massive let down there was when the Koopa Kids weren’t in it? I think we are seeing something similar.
No one believes Super Mario Brothers 3 (or Super Mario World, take your pick) have been surpassed. What is distressing is not that they remain unsurpassed but that Nintendo has never even tried to surpass them. 2d Mario fans have been left out in the cold wilderness for decades. And there are all these young kids who did not have a chance to grow up with 2d Mario. It is so sad.
Anyway, if you are from Nintendo and reading this, I will give you some fluffy bunnies to brighten your day. Fluffy bunnies!
