Why Super Mario Bros. doesn't need innovation.

[wintercoat]

"they are fun" isn't a fact. It's an opinion. People say Super Mario Bros needs innovation because they do not think the games are fun anymore. I'm inclined to agree with them as of late.

Sorry, there's only so much New New New New New Super Mario Bros. with the same levels, the same enemies, the same remixed music, I can play before I just don't bother anymore.

Honestly, I don't see the problem in more of the same thing. If I like a game, then I'm going to want more of it.

That's fine, but some of us actually want a new Mario game.

Not rehashes of 3 over and over again.

Sorry, there's only so much New New New New New Super Mario Bros. with the same levels, the same enemies, the same remixed music, I can play before I just don't bother anymore.

Honestly, I don't see the problem in more of the same thing. If I like a game, then I'm going to want more of it.

Thats totally okay for you. But the rest of us get bored after awhile. And there's pf course no reason to buy a new mario game if you can just reply 3 again.

Have you ever thought that, just maybe, it's you that's in the minority?

New Super Mario Bros. - 29 million
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - 26.8 million
New Super Mario Bros. 2 - 5.8 million

Super Mario Galaxy - 10.8 million
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 7 million

NSMB came out in '06, a year before SMG. It has sold almost 3 times as many games. NSMBWII came out in '09, a year before Galaxy 2. It has sold nearly 4 times as many games. NSMB2 came out late last year. It's about 7 months old and has sold almost as many games as Galaxy 2 has in it's three years.

From a purely numbers perspective, people prefer the "stagnant" games. By a landslide.

Of the Top 10 best selling games of all time, three of them are Mario platformers. If you chop off the top 2 for being console bundle games, and therefor cheaters, you've still got two: New Super Mario Bros., and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Seems to me like the audience has spoken.

I wish they'd go back to the old formula of releasing a new Mario platformer every 5 years or whatever. I feel like there's a lot of fresh, new ideas that can be explored in future Mario platformers, but this is not the way to realize that potential.

That has never been the case. The only time there was a large gap between SMB releases was between 64 and Sunshine, and Sunshine and Galaxy, and there were plenty of re-releases on the GBA to fill the gaps. They pretty much re-released the entire console line on the GBA in that time. Hell, the current release schedule is similar to the release schedule during the late '80s/early '90s.

Spoiler: First-run major Mario game release dates

Spoiler: Release dates counting re-releases

Super Mario Bros. - NES - 1985
Super Mario Bros. 2 - NES - 1988
Super Mario Land - GB - 1989
Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES - 1990
Super Mario World - SNES - 1991
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - GB - 1992
Super Mario All-Stars - SNES - 1993
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - GB - 1994
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - SNES - 1995
Super Mario 64 - N64 - 1996
Super Mario Bros. DX - GBC - 1999
Super Mario Advance - GBA - 2001
Super Mario Advance 2 - GBA - 2001
Super Mario Sunshine - GC - 2002
Super Mario Advance 3 - GBA - 2002
Super Mario Advance 4 - GBA - 2003
Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. - GBA - 2004
Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 - GBA - 2004
Super Mario 64 DS - DS - 2004
New Super Mario Bros. - DS - 2006
Super Mario Galaxy - Wii - 2007
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Wii - 2009
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Wii - 2010
Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition - Wii - 2010
Super Mario 3D Land - 3DS - 2011
New Super Mario Bros. U - Wii U - 2012

That's nearly a yearly release schedule of Mario games. And that's just the platformers.

Captcha: white rabbit. Oh, Captcha, you have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Mario is too iconic for his own good to get innovated. Yahtzee made a pretty good point recently saying that since nobody really gives a shit about Luigi, Nintendo is actually free to play around with him.

Mario is basically just Mickey Mouse now; A static image to sell products.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

The only reason that people are getting pissy is because New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. U released the same year. Furthermore, it also calls to the one thing people don't want to admit: there's really nothing to improve about Mario. Seriously, name me ONE fucking thing that needs to change with Mario due to it being legitimately flawed. I literally cannot think of anything, Mario is the most perfect game series outside of Tetris. There's nothing that needs to be changed about it and because entries in Mario's various series come out once in a blue moon you avoid oversaturation with them.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Are we including the 3D Mario games when we talk about Super Mario Bros, or just the 2D games? What about the spin-offs?

Because if we're including the 3D games, I would like someone to explain to me just what in hell was apparently so stagnant about the Galaxy games. Which previous Mario games revolved around jumping around planetoids? Which previous Mario games played so heavily with gravity, space, and pretty much every convention of the platforming genre? There's a reason the Galaxy games are so acclaimed, and it's nothing to do with rehashing anything.

This.

Just because it's the same characters doesn't mean it's the same game. Sometimes I wonder if the people complaining that the games are 'stale' have actually played them at all.

Although they reuse characters and franchises I'd say mostly every game brings something new to the table.

If anything it's nice to not play a shooter.

 

[aba1]

Sorry, there's only so much New New New New New Super Mario Bros. with the same levels, the same enemies, the same remixed music, I can play before I just don't bother anymore.

Once every console is too much?

When there's been 4 of the damn things in the last 7 years?

Yeah.

WOO WOO WOO hold up! This new one is completely different they made it so you play as luigi instead. I swear to god that is literarily the only difference between the new one coming out and the wii one they even advertised it that way I couldn't believe it.

I don't mind Mario games the thing is though whether you are playing the side scroller or the 3d environment ones it all just feels the same to me. When I was playing my galaxy games I was just thinking well I might as well be playing 64 it felt the same and would save me the money same goes for the side scrollers. Now I just pass on mario I guess I just have seen it done it did it. If I miss it I will just play one of my older games it is just about the same thing anyways.

 

[Lightknight]

Mario doesn't need innovation. Nintendo needs innovation. I'm perfectly happy with Mario continuing to bounce around as long as Nintendo starts coming up with new IPs that I haven't been playing for more than 30 years now.

 

[Gorrath]

The thing is though that even with just the 2d sidescrolling platformer Marios there used to be a fair amount of good, useful innovation between the titles. Just look at the difference in gameplay between SMB and SMB 2, it's striking. SMB 3 added to taht formula and refined it, giving us a whole new way to navigate the game and replay previous levels on the map. SMW took what 3 did and expanded it even more, adding tons of levels and new content in the form of enemies, secrets and new gameplay mechanics. Compare those differences to that of NSMB and SMB Wii. They've actually got less content than some of their older counterparts with only the multiplayer mechanic really standing out.

In my humble opinion SMW was the height of the 2d sidescroller Mario as it took what was great in 3 and grew it to new places. Instead of continuing to grow from that, they seem to be moving backwards. They don't have to radically change the formula, just continue creating new and interesting ways of playing that formula. I know from the other nintendo thread that some people will disagree and think that the NSMB franchise IS doing enough to keep things interesting, but I simply can't agree. If you sat me down to play any of those games, I'd reach for SMW in a heartbeat!

 

[EHKOS]

I agree that Nintendo should let Mario stay the same, but because in a world of constant reboots that never live up to the original, studios ruining their star franchises, and an ever changing world, it's nice to have an anchor. I can look at Mario and think "Oh Mario, you'll never change." and mind hug him. I want it to stay that way.

Captcha: sixes and sevens

No, YOU'RE all sixes and sevens!

 

[Kroxile]

Snip

Everything I could possibly say in defense of Mario I think you've already said. Well played, sir.

I want to get a 3ds simply for New Super Mario Bros 2. I gave the series a pass until last christmas when I bought the Wii version for my girlfriend and got hooked on it. Now I own every version of the game but the 3ds one.. and its time is coming.

 

[Terramax]

I dislike Nintendo as a whole lately, partly, as to how they target the ignorant 'X-factor crowd'. Their adverts with celebrities pretending to enjoy their products, or making it out that if they own a Wii, suddenly your typical, disconnected, disfunctional household will become the glamorous picture perfect family every parent dreams about. Seriously, hands up now many think Penelope Cruz plays a DS in her spare time? What drugs do you need to take to make your family as happy as the ones in those adds?

I'm not denying people enjoy Mario, or Nintendo games as a whole. But I know for a fact that many of these people whom buy Nintendo products would have MUCH more fun playing games on other systems. And they're simply buying these games due to Disney-style 'family friendly' marketing campaigns. More families could be enjoying better games on the PS3 or 360, but Nintendo have sold their products so that, if you haven't a clue about video games, you're led to believe Nintendo are the safest option. It sucks because better games out there are not getting the exposure and success they ought to.

Oh, but the games have sold 29million, or whatever, as stated in a previous post.

Well, I'm sure if you marketed just about any non-controversial video game up the bum, so it looked like it turned your household into a god-damn Utopia, with some cheesy mascot slapped on it, that people will buy into simply because they recognise it from many years ago, it'd sell just as well.

Regarding Mario specifically, his games just don't play that well for starters. They look like crap nowadays, with the same scenery recycled again, and again, the music sucks, as most Nintendo games' music usually suck, and their games control horribly.

The New Super Mario games are the top of the list. Disregarding all the other criticisms, why is he still such a slippery son-of-a-toad to control? Have Nintendo not played a 2D Sonic game, or Klonoa? THAT'S how you make decent controls for a 2D platformer.

Just because a game sells well, doesn't mean it's a quality product. Not for a game, or any kind of product for that matter. If sales justified quality, then the Transformers movies are the new Citizen Kane' of cinema, and One Direction are the new Beatles.

Now, to reiterate, if you enjoy Nintendo games, I'm happy for you. I have no problem with that, and I don't think anyone should be attacked for liking them. But likewise, don't get offended when others dislike what you like.

On a side note, I wonder how many people who support Nintendo games are the same people that moan about "yet another Call of Duty or Gears of War", etc?

 

[Olas]

Sorry, there's only so much New New New New New Super Mario Bros. with the same levels, the same enemies, the same remixed music, I can play before I just don't bother anymore.

Once every console is too much?

When there's been 4 of the damn things in the last 7 years?

Yeah.

Is that statistic supposed to be alarming?

In that same span of time there have been 4 Halo shooters, 5 God of Wars, at least 5 Assassin's Creeds, 12 Call of Duties (I had to research that one a bit) and none of those AAA series' have exactly been reinventing themselves with each new game.

 

[DrOswald]

I wish they'd go back to the old formula of releasing a new Mario platformer every 5 years or whatever. I feel like there's a lot of fresh, new ideas that can be explored in future Mario platformers, but this is not the way to realize that potential.

Super Mario Bros. - 1985
Super Mario Bros. The lost levels - 1986
Super Mario Bros. 2 - 1988
Super Mario Bros. 3 - 1989
Super Mario Land - 1989
Super Mario World - 1990

6 games in 5 years.

The pattern you are thinking of happened exactly twice, Mario 64 to Sunshine and Sunshine to NSMB. The pattern before and after this period was to release a new Mario game about once a year. And in the case of SMB, SMB3, and SMW the rapid release schedule worked very well. These are often considered the best games in the series, and they were each made on a very short development cycle.

I personally don't see a problem with the current release rate and I personally think NSMBWii was the best game on the Wii, hands down better than either Galaxy title, but I like 2D platformers far more than most.

I would like to see more variety in the games. I want Nintendo to do something unexpected and interesting with the Mario franchise. Give the next 3D Mario title to Retro and say "surprise us."

 

[Terramax]

Is that statistic supposed to be alarming?

In that same span of time there have been 4 Halo shooters, 5 God of Wars, at least 5 Assassin's Creeds, 12 Call of Duties (I had to research that one a bit) and none of those AAA series' have exactly been reinventing themselves with each new game.

What's to say these people don't criticise those games too?

Trying to raise the point "well, others games do far worse" does not justify Nintendo's sales module.

 

[Fappy]

I wish they'd go back to the old formula of releasing a new Mario platformer every 5 years or whatever. I feel like there's a lot of fresh, new ideas that can be explored in future Mario platformers, but this is not the way to realize that potential.

Super Mario Bros. - 1985
Super Mario Bros. The lost levels - 1986
Super Mario Bros. 2 - 1988
Super Mario Bros. 3 - 1989
Super Mario Land - 1989
Super Mario World - 1990

6 games in 5 years.

The pattern you are thinking of happened exactly twice, Mario 64 to Sunshine and Sunshine to NSMB. The pattern before and after this period was to release a new Mario game about once a year. And in the case of SMB, SMB3, and SMW the rapid release schedule worked very well. These are often considered the best games in the series, and they were each made on a very short development cycle.

I personally don't see a problem with the current release rate and I personally think NSMBWii was the best game on the Wii, hands down better than either Galaxy title, but I like 2D platformers far more than most.

I would like to see more variety in the games. I want Nintendo to do something unexpected and interesting with the Mario franchise. Give the next 3D Mario title to Retro and say "surprise us."

The "5 years or whatever" comment was a bit of an exaggeration, I admit. I just want them to do more with the titles instead of grabbing old nostalgic concepts and slapping them into a new game. Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 (sort of counts), 3 and World were all completely different games. I can't say that World was objectively better than 3, they were just different. I want to go back to that.

 

[DarthFennec]

There it is, that word. "Innovation." The way people throw the word around, they act like it's something that every game requires, that a game can't possibly be enjoyable without somehow doing something new. They say that Mario games are all "rehashes" of the same formula and therefore bad.

Generally, I think the problem with a game that "doesn't do anything new" is not that it's somehow inherently not fun, but that there's no point in playing it because you can get the exact same experience by just playing the game it was copied from. That's why the Madden games are a ripoff, it's not that they're necessarily bad games, it's just that you can get the same experience by playing one of the older versions so there's no reason to get any of the new ones.

For me, Mario is the same way. I love me some Super Mario Bros 3, and beyond that I really couldn't care less about the franchise. Although, honestly, it's not that every single Mario game has been an exact carbon copy of the original or anything. They've all done SOMETHING new, be it new graphics or different maps and stages or adding four-way multiplayer or setting it in a different place or something, so honestly, almost all the Mario games have been innovative to some degree. Maybe not to a very high degree, and that might be part of the appeal, because it feels safe and comfortable and you always know what you're going to get. But if there was absolutely ZERO innovation, that means they would have just ported Super Mario Bros twenty times without changing anything, and I seriously doubt you or anyone else would buy into something like that.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Have you ever thought that, just maybe, it's you that's in the minority?

New Super Mario Bros. - 29 million
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - 26.8 million
New Super Mario Bros. 2 - 5.8 million

Super Mario Galaxy - 10.8 million
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 7 million

NSMB came out in '06, a year before SMG. It has sold almost 3 times as many games. NSMBWII came out in '09, a year before Galaxy 2. It has sold nearly 4 times as many games. NSMB2 came out late last year. It's about 7 months old and has sold almost as many games as Galaxy 2 has in it's three years.

From a purely numbers perspective, people prefer the "stagnant" games. By a landslide.

A games sales don't shield it from valid criticisms. Nor do massive sales mean a game is good. Call Of Duty crushes Mario every year in sales yet people on this site throw the same complaints of stagnant gameplay and lack of innovation at COD. Difference is, there's no COD Defense Force out to pull sales numbers out and try to qualify the game as not boring.

Guitar Hero sold pretty damn well too, but quality of the games decreased, the changes implemented over time because smaller, and the series died due to people being bored.

Spore sold well, wasn't that good. The Fable franchise sold well, but overall is looked at as mediocre.

Yes, the newer Mario games are good, but they are not doing anything to draw in people who have played Mario before. If anything they've been made easier and levels are getting reused to such a degree that I'm close to forgiving Dragon Age 2 for reusing dungeons.

My point is game sales=/=quality of game. Especially when, let's be honest, the numbers you put up can be generally assumed to be the same customers buying Mario games over and over, so it's not like Nintendo is gaining new Mario fans with each release. If that were the case, the WiiU and 3DS would be doing much better in the sales department.

So when you say this:

Have you ever thought that, just maybe, it's you that's in the minority?

I have to say, no I'm not. 29 million copies of New Super Mario Bros doesn't mean much to me in terms of the games quality. Especially when New Super Mario Bros U (which you seem to have left out of your point), is sitting at 2.3 million sold.

Quite a drop.

With just over 3 million WiiUs sold, it's hard to call NSMB U a system seller with such low sales compared to the rest of the games you mentioned, which were put out on consoles that had already had massive hardware sales base to benefit from at the time of their release.

 

[Yopaz]

The thing is Mario hasn't really been stagnant.

Counting the main games there's the first one on the NES which didn't really rip of any previous games.

Then there's the second that didn't get to the west because of how similar it was to the first one, but that did introduce poisonous mushrooms.

Then there's the third game which really did a lot. It introduced flying, it introduced a world map, it introduced items such as hammer bro, tanooku and frog suit. There was something that can be called an objective, rescuing kings that had been turned into animals. It introduced a whole lot to the series.

Then there's Super Mario World. It changed flying completely. You could glide in a way that actually made flying faster than running. You had Yoshis with different abilities, secret paths, secret levels, storing item in case you get hurt. The chance to replay levels after you have beaten them is also a nice touch. Oh, and don't forget the shiny new graphics.

Now there were a lot of other games too at this point, but Yoshi's Island is more of a Yoshi game than a Mario game. The Super Mario RPG is an original spin-off that I wont get into.

However we move on to Nintendo 64 and the first 3D Mario game and a solid platforming game. It introduced a whole lot of new features and I don't need to tell anyone that it's quite different than Super Mario World.

Again I will skip on elaborating the spin-off titles with Paper Mario (which is one of my favourite N64 games) and the sports games.

Then on the GameCube we get Luigi's Mansion which is actually quite a special game that I haven't seen the like before. It takes an entirely fresh turn and a new setting. It also puts Mario in the position as the one who needs to be saved.

Moving on we have a return to platforming with Super Mario Sunshine. It introduced a new gameplay mechanic using Fludd which could work as a Jetpack, a booster or a rocket to launch you into the air. Entirely new features, and again a new setting. You also got to see the world being filled with more than Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach and the like.

As much as I want to Talk about Paper Mario again I will skip that and move to the Wii and DS and where it soon starts to grow stale.

The Wii and the DS is where it all began. The DS gave us a remake of the N64 game which offered some great new content so I wont complain about that one.

However New Super Mario Bros offered little new. It was a standard 2D sidescroller. It freshened up a little with Super Mario Galaxy, but they used the idea twice and made Super Mario Galaxy 2. It was an improvement to the solid formula of the first one, but for the first time it seemed like Nintendo had given up on creating something new.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii came and another solid 2D sidescroller was released. I love the game, but I feel like it's more of the same.

Super Mario 3D Land freshen up things a little, but New Super Mario Bros. 2 pulls them back down into the pool of stagnation.

Yes, they have always released new versions and kept on selling us the same, but now they aren't even selling us something that looks remotely different.

 

[DrOswald]

I wish they'd go back to the old formula of releasing a new Mario platformer every 5 years or whatever. I feel like there's a lot of fresh, new ideas that can be explored in future Mario platformers, but this is not the way to realize that potential.

Super Mario Bros. - 1985
Super Mario Bros. The lost levels - 1986
Super Mario Bros. 2 - 1988
Super Mario Bros. 3 - 1989
Super Mario Land - 1989
Super Mario World - 1990

6 games in 5 years.

The pattern you are thinking of happened exactly twice, Mario 64 to Sunshine and Sunshine to NSMB. The pattern before and after this period was to release a new Mario game about once a year. And in the case of SMB, SMB3, and SMW the rapid release schedule worked very well. These are often considered the best games in the series, and they were each made on a very short development cycle.

I personally don't see a problem with the current release rate and I personally think NSMBWii was the best game on the Wii, hands down better than either Galaxy title, but I like 2D platformers far more than most.

I would like to see more variety in the games. I want Nintendo to do something unexpected and interesting with the Mario franchise. Give the next 3D Mario title to Retro and say "surprise us."

The "5 years or whatever" comment was a bit of an exaggeration, I admit. I just want them to do more with the titles instead of grabbing old nostalgic concepts and slapping them into a new game. Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 (sort of counts), 3 and World were all completely different games. I can't say that World was objectively better than 3, they were just different. I want to go back to that.

But we do have huge variety in the Mario games now days. Galaxy is nothing like NSMBWii, and Super Mario Land 3D plays very differently that either of those games. The new mechanics added to Galaxy 2 makes the jump from galaxy to galaxy 2 about the same as the jump between SMB3 and SMW (though SMB3 and SMW were just better than the galaxy games and thus feel fresher without actually being so.) The DS and 3DS NSMB titles are essentially the same as the old "land" titles in that they are lesser mobile versions of the console flagship franchise. If anything, the last generation had more variety in Mario games than any other generation.

Now, that is not to say there is no room for improvement. Like I said before, what we need now is something unexpected and wonderful from the Mario franchise. We need a shake up in the franchise, but this has not been the case all along. We just recently reached that point with NSMB U, which was still a very good game but a little samey for my tastes. Claiming that innovation in the Mario franchise is dead simply because the last game did not introduce paradigm breaking mechanics is a little petty in my opinion, but that seems to be what everyone is saying.

That all said, I do think that Nintendo could very easily fall into a rut with Mario. We will find out when the next big Mario title is released.

 

[Lightknight]

I don't really care how often they put out Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Kirby and whatever other games. They can continue to milk them until they're dry (they've got to be chaffing now...).

But they have to make some new titles, entirely new IPs, if they really want to survive. The problem isn't that we hate Mario and the other titles. I do enjoy the new Zelda title from time to time and a decent Mario game does shine through. The problem is that it's all the same thing from a different angle or with new polish. That's not enough.