Wyzdom said:
Jeez Miyamoto get back on crack PLEASE!!!!
They don't know the fuck to do with Mario in 3D?? Shit, will i really have to send my designs to them? I can't believe this shit. The futur of Mario in 3D is FREAKIN EASY to forseen.
He wants it to be revolutionary. He wants it to be like Mario 64.
He is, of course, missing a big point about "sequels," you want them to relate to the original in more than cursory ways. (Mario 64 and later Sunshine pushed further and further away from the original SMB games in many aspects, although Sunshine offered a few small gestures, like sustained powerups, if you can call them that, and rideable Yoshi.) He's probably worried that if he doesn't tie his big new ideas to an existing license, they won't sell as well (Pikmin, for example... and even then, the lead (and his brother in the sequel) were named after the famous bros!)... And maybe he's right, maybe that would be an issue. But the best time to start a new franchise (with his new ideas) would be at console launch, really. And as a Mario fan, it's tiring that the "next big game" is now constantly delayed until it can be tied to some new gameplay feature.
Look at how many people are excited about New SMB for the DS, even though it looks a little bland and rough in spots. I'm excited too, I've been wanting a game like that since Melee said, "Look, here's the Mushroom Kingdom... in 3D! Break bricks! Stomp Goombas! Wallkick! Grab powerups! Look at the pretty graphics and listen to the beautiful music!" The 2.5D look and gameplay works well for the series, even a few of the side-scrolling platformer minigames in Hudson's Mario Party 6 worked well (there's a retro one in particular with lifts and everything that's just like, "YEAH, want more of this again!" Not as in "buy an old game again and replay the same thing," but playing a new game designed with these sorts of gameplay concepts).
Mario 128 didn't have to be 2.5D, but this was a chance pre-Rev to make an "easy" sequel in concept, maybe even to let another dev team handle it if Nintendo can't develop all that many games at once (aren't they like the second-largest game development facility worldwide, or is that figure old now?). HAL would've been great, but have probably been too busy with the new Smash Bros. for Rev, and their own Kirby GCN game. I'm not sure I'd trust Hudson to it, but even they've had some moments in the Mario Party games that would've been great for a real one. (The platforming in Mario Party 6 as I remarked above, not to mention a "Chased by a Boulder" minigame I like a lot... and Mario Party 5 had a THREE-STAGE Bowser boss-fight that was well-designed. It felt a little retro, but it was very new. It was about a thousand times better than "Bowser's in a tub, and... that's about it," and you could beat it with any of the single-player characters, which was a nice touch if you wanted Luigi or Peach or Daisy to be the hero for once.) Either way, there's several dev groups that have a good grip on the Mario series, and it would've been nice to see their take on a new game with the classic concepts. (I wonder if AlphaDream is capable with 3D?)
It didn't have to be "the next big gameplay concept," it just would've meant putting together a game with some polished experiences, some favorite powerups and some new ones... Fans would've completely eaten it up, just as they're eating up Twilight Princess. But now it'd be too late to start dev, and they're still determining which "experiment" will make a new Mario game. (I thought they said they already figured out what they concept was going to be! Miyamoto really seems unsure about the new installment...) At least New SMB should fill some of that void, but it's a little depressing that the more classic SMB gameplay is always being relegated to the "weaker" platform, while we're forced to play SMB with a tetherball on the next-gen console.
