I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but in order to promote Super Mario 3D Land, Nintendo assembled a mob of Tanooki-Marios in San Diego yesterday and they will do the same thing on Monday in Austin, Texas. The problem you ask?
Take a look at this: http://www.zeldainformer.com/2011/11/tanooki-marios-invade-san-diego.html#more
The problem is that it’s a Raccoon-Mario mob, not a Tanooki one! Seriously, Raccoon-Mario is not even in the game, so why do they use this costume? Do they think the Stupid-2D-Mario-Gamer won’t be able to see the difference? It’s because of those gamers that the Raccoon suit and the Tanooki one are such important symbols in the Mario universe. In my opinion, it is the worst possible way to convince de Super Mario Bros. fans to buy this game.
Personally, as a fan of both 2D and 3D Mario, I don’t know how I feel about 3D Land. The 3D Mario fan in me look at it and think “What did they do to my game?” Just like in Galaxy and Galaxy 2, it seems every platform now floats in the ether. In the Galaxy games, it made sense, it was in space. But now, it’s supposed to be in a Land, but where is the land? I just see a bunch of platforms floating. Super Mario 64 and Sunshine look so much more coherent than this.
And then, the fan of 2D Mario in me is completely enraged against Nintendo. Seriously, you think that if you put a flagpole and the Tanooki Suit in your game, every Mario fan out there will jump on the game? Haven’t we proved over the years that we represent you biggest fan base? So why so much contempt for the games that created you, Nintendo?
I also don’t understand why Nintendo think it’s so important to transfer the 2D Mario fans on 3D Mario. Do we see Aonuma or Sakamoto trying to appeal to the old fans? No, they totally ignore them or try to dismiss them (Have you seen Aonuma last quote about classic Zelda? He says “it’s not very difficult to win, you just have to button-mash” and yet, he can’t handle the Octoroks. So basically he can’t win a game which he describes as easy. What is he? The worst gamer in the universe?).
This is an interesting email. You are a fan of both 2d Mario and 3d Mario and do not like where Nintendo is going with this.
My hostility to 3d Mario has always been rooted in that the game always replaced the 2d Mario game that was supposed to be there. If 3d Mario and 2d Mario were given the same amount of production quality and budget and both came out for each platform, I wouldn’t be hostile to 3d Mario. (I’d probably ignore it like I ignore Kirby games.)
I will say Mario 64 is a fine game. I’ve played it and have gotten every star in it.
I can see why people really like it. I can appreciate the uniqueness Nintendo was striving to do with a game set in 3d. So I can understand why a fan of 3d Mario would be upset at this ‘watering down’ of 3d Mario with un-3d qualities (like linearity).
But then there is you which is a fan of both 3d Mario and 2d Mario. If Nintendo’s plan is to merge 2d Mario and 3d Mario, this should be your dream come true. But it isn’t! You aren’t happy.
Why doesn’t Nintendo just treat them as two distinct separate series? Why is it so crucial for 2d Mario to become 3d Mario?
Emailer, you ask that question and I ask it too. The answer that keeps coming up for me is that Nintendo has already decided the future of video games is 3d. Therefore, Nintendo sees it as its mission to get all gamers on board with the 3d iterations of the franchises.
“How do you know Nintendo has decided the future of all video games is 3d?” Virtual Boy? Nintendo 64? Gamecube? DS was originally a portable N64. Nintendo sees the Wii-mote as a ‘3d controller’. The 3DS, however, is the big sign. The giddy interviews with the 3DS all revolve around, “Now is the time for 3d!” Iwata calls the market reaction to the 3DS a ‘bitter’ wake-up call. But Iwata also already said that the successor to the Wii U will have a 3d output screen. (Reader: “What!?” That’s right. He did.) Why is it so crucial that Nintendo is talking up a separate visual output for the home console? Why separate the home console from the TV? It is because 3d output TVs are not popular and will not be so for quite some time. Nintendo isn’t going to wait. They want 3d output now. Miyamoto is on record for saying that the biggest innovation in video games is 3d (not something like the Internet).
I would disagree with you when you said that Aonuma and Sakamoto do not want old fans. They desperately do. In Aonuma Zelda, you keep seeing references to the classic games that are placed in there on purpose (in Skyward Sword, Link can shoot beams from his sword as an example). In Sakamoto Metroid, you see Sakamoto put in the Varia Suit and other staples of Metroid. They both clearly want the old fans to like their games.
What you’re seeing Aonuma and Sakamoto dismiss is the gameplay of the classics. Sakamoto is a fan of everything about Metroid and Super Metroid except the gameplay. Aonuma has no problem at all with classic Zelda except the gameplay.
What they don’t understand, or choose not to understand, is that Mario, Zelda, and Metroid did not become popular because Samus Aran was a girl or that Link was a boy in green tunic being a hero. It was the gameplay that made these games popular and is why people still play them to this day.
Aonuma saying Classic Zelda gameplay is just ‘button mashing’ is him saying that reflex gameplay is lowbrow while puzzles are highbrow and a sort of sophisticated entertainment.
Above: Nintendo probably thinks Aonuma Zelda is ‘Masterpiece Theater’ like the above and think it is ‘sophisticated entertainment’ unlike that ‘popular garbage’. Sakamoto probably views Other M in the same way.
Maddox, that Internet writer who no longer writes on the Internet, once accurately described this sort of persona as someone who took off one’s socks and inhaled their own aroma with glee. It’s a take of the saying that someone who thinks their own farts smell marvelous. But what is creativity but a brain fart?
I suspect the reason why Japanese video games’ sphere of influence is shrinking while the Western games’ sphere of influence is growing is because Western game makers still view video games in a teleological context. Do you know what ‘cybernetics’ is? It is a term created by the mathematician Wiener to study ‘teleological mechanisms’ between living beings and machines. Video games certainly is a product of that teleological form of thinking.
What’s going on here is an issue bigger than 2d Mario vs. 3d Mario, bigger than an issue of ‘marketing’, and bigger than any ‘console war’. It is about the actual nature of the video game. Are video games merely ‘brain farts’ (i.e. creativity) from certain software developers where their success is dependent on that developer’s personality? Or do video games that sell well do so because the developers (and the company) had a better teleological understanding (of Human nature and how it interacts with games)?
I say it is the latter. The fact that you can switch around the software developers with various game franchises and still have the next iteration of the game sell well and be received by its fans shows that a video game doesn’t revolve around a personality. In other words, there are no ‘Game Gods’.
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