Nintendo Addresses Criticism Directed at Mario Sequels

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has responded to recent criticism that the company is diluting the quality of its Mario titles by iterating too frequently on its most famous mascot.

It will ration the number of side-scrolling 2D Mario titles.

"We only create a New Super Mario Bros. title one [sic] per platform," said Iwata in an interview with Kotaku. "I think we'll probably go ahead and continue at that pace.

"That being said, that's probably Miyamoto's choice, so I can't give you a 100 per cent guarantee that that's the pace we'll continue at."

Super Mario 3D Land came out towards the end of last year and was the first Mario title to be released on 3DS, receiving great reviews. New Super Mario Bros. 2 came out last week to a more mixed response. And it isn't long before Nintendo releases New Super Mario Bros. U alongside its new console, Wii U (sometime later this year).

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I believe the two titles are unique enough that I wouldn't say that I'm super-worried that people are going to be confused.

Responding to concerns that the two games (New Super Mario Bros. 2 and U) might be too similar, and could suffer from being released just months apart, Iwata stated: "I believe the two titles are unique enough that I wouldn't say that I'm super-worried that people are going to be confused.

Iwata also spoke about the company's approach to DLC. New Super Mario Bros. 2 is the first Mario title to feature downloadable content. Iwata allayed any fears that it might be selling content stripped out of the game, saying: "Our goal is to create DLC in such a way that consumers do not feel that they have been cheated or deceived. Now I believe there are people out there, readers, who have are worried about that, and we just want to ensure them that we have that in mind and want them to know that that's not what we are planning on doing," he concluded.

Daniel is IGN's UK Staff Writer. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.

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North America's Club Nintendo Presents the Golden Nunchuk

Olympic athletes are wearing gold medals around their necks, Mario and Luigi have become obsessed with gold coins in New Super Mario Bros. 2 and now we're getting one more golden object to pine for – a gold-colored Wii Nunchuk controller. The specially painted Nunchuk has just been added as a new selectable reward to the North American Club Nintendo, which, if you're unaware, is a customer loyalty program run by Nintendo that allows fans who buy enough Nintendo goods to exchange earned points for even more, even rarer Nintendo goods.

The Gold Nunchuk demands 900 of those points be redeemed if you'd like to own it, making it the second-most expensive item currently available. Its lustrous finish is made to match the gold-colored Wii Remote that shipped in a bundle package alongside certain copies of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword last holiday season. It's a little late in arriving in that regard, as most every Nintendo fan has certainly already played through Link's latest adventure. But perhaps the delivery of a new, matching Nunchuk will encourage some to give the game a second run – perhaps through the game's more difficult second quest, "Hero Mode."

Club Nintendo has also been keeping its lineup of downloadable game rewards rotating fairly frequently as well. Currently you can score either the WiiWare hit Fluidity or the 3DS Virtual Console re-release of Game Boy Golf for 150 points apiece. Stay tuned here to IGN for more news when and if Nintendo paints anything else gold.

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The Symmetry of New Super Mario Bros. Wii

You'd think there'd be a difference. Mario's been doing this kind of thing for decades – running, jumping, saving the princess. You'd think he'd have some advantage, some noticeably better skillset than a pair of simple upstarts setting out on their first-ever adventure. But, no. Nintendo decided against that. Nintendo decided that, in 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the world's most famous platforming hero would be able to be matched step for step, jump for jump by a couple of nameless, personality-less Toads.

From Mario's perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense. He should run faster. Jump higher. Something. But, from the designers' point of view, it must have been better to make all players created equal.

Realizing a Dream

When New Super Mario Bros. Wii was revealed three years ago and then shipped to stores in late 2009, it sparked a new revival for 2D side-scrolling platformers – but it was a focused one, not just a general revisit to the genre. 2006's first New Super Mario Bros. on the DS had already done that, so the Wii follow-up's larger contribution wasn't just pulling platformers back into the spotlight, but pulling platformers back into the spotlight with a new emphasis on simultaneous multiplayer play.

It was four-player Mario! A design dream that Shigeru Miyamoto had hoped to realize for decades, finally materialized in Nintendo's fifth console generation. At long last you could set out to rescue the kidnapped princess with friends alongside you, having Mario accompanied by his brother Luigi and the two new characters, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad.

Well, calling them new characters is being a bit generous. These two Toads were about as generic as could be, as Nintendo refused to give them any kind of storyline introduction or even their own names. They were simply there to serve as alternate-colored clones of the red- and green-clothed plumbers. Some fans cried foul at the time – why not use established characters like Wario and Waluigi, or the "normal" Toad, or even the Princess herself to fill those spots?

The answer was simple enough – because the designers wanted everyone to play the same.

Symmetry and Asymmetry

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was designed to offer a wholly symmetric multiplayer experience. You've heard the opposite term thrown around a lot recently. "Asymmetric" gameplay refers to games in which different players experience different things while playing at the same time, and it's a big focus for the upcoming Wii U and its new GamePad controller. "Symmetric" gameplay, then, would refer to games in which every player essentially experiences the same thing. Like New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Whether you're controlling Mario, or Luigi, or Blue or Yellow Toad, your abilities are no different than anyone else's. Everyone runs at the same speed, jumps to the same heights – it's a level playing field for all. And it works well, no doubt about it – New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a brilliantly fun multiplayer experience. It's a good time. Hopping and bopping around, picking up your buddies and tossing them into pits, "bubbling up" when you're about to die and begging your pals to come pop you out so you can keep going. Nintendo's designers picked a good direction for the game.

But it's not the only direction they could have chosen. In the wake of New Super Mario Bros. Wii's success, we got several more examples of ways that four-player simultaneous 2D side-scrolling could be handled with a bit of asymmetry tossed in. Ubisoft's Rayman Origins cloned the approach of pairing two established characters with two generic tag-alongs, but Rayman, Globox and the Teensies all had wildly different animations that made them feel more individual. Kirby's Return to Dream Land took things to the next level by giving each character a different skillset – Kirby could suck up and copy enemy powers as normal, but Meta Knight, Waddle Dee and King Dedede had wholly their own identities wielding a sword, a spear and a giant mallet, respectively.

And Donkey Kong Country Returns, while only two-player, nevertheless made Donkey and Diddy distinct from one another – which enhanced the teamwork element of playing that game with a friend, as you both had your own unique roles to play.

Going Forward

So the question becomes, is there room for a little more asymmetry in the New Super Mario Bros. series, going forward? The upcoming New Super Mario Bros. U will explore one extreme with its "Boost Mode," which will give one player the power to insert blocks into the environment through the GamePad's touch screen while the others run and jump along as normal. Rayman Origins' sequel, Rayman Legends, will similarly invite an extra, fifth player to pick up the GamePad to control the environment-altering new character, Murphy.

But those may be examples of asymmetry taken a bit too far, at least for the crowd who cried foul about the two generic Toad Bros. in 2009 – because the initial expectation for many for a multiplayer Mario design wasn't a game where someone sat off to the side dropping extra bricks into the scene, or even for four players running and jumping around with the exact same skill set. The expectation was more in line with what Kirby's Return to Dream Land delivered – a game in which established individual Mario characters used their established individual skills to each contribute something different to the action.

So you'd have Wario as an option, bulkier and more powerful than the others and unleashing his trademark shoulder-forward bull rushes from his Wario Land series. You'd have Princess Peach, floating through the air with her hovering long jumps, maybe even wielding Parry the Parasol from her standalone platformer Super Princess Peach. Maybe you'd even have Bowser stomping along and breathing fire in playable form, as he has been a time or two in the Mario role-playing games.

The opportunity is there – and, in fact, the template for how it would work was laid down around 25 years ago, way back in Super Mario Bros. 2. Even without letting the villains get into the mix, you've got an established framework for how to make the heroes feel different right there – Mario is the average everyman. Luigi jumps higher than anyone else, kicking his legs wildly in the air. Princess Peach has those floaty long jumps and Toad ("the" Toad) is stronger than the rest. So perhaps it's time for a new Super Mario Bros. 2? (Not to be confused with New Super Mario Bros. 2.)

In Conclusion

The possibilities are there. The template is there. It's just up in the air whether or not Nintendo would ever choose to take New Super Mario Bros. in an asymmetric direction, after setting the definitive symmetric standard three years ago. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was great, and no doubt this year's two new sequels in the series will prove themselves to be solid entries in the franchise as well. But there's an opportunity for Nintendo's designers to refresh this franchise further some time in the future – if they follow the example of games like Kirby's Return to Dream Land and even the old Super Mario Bros. 2, and if they can actually embrace the established diversity of the Mushroom Kingdom's many diverse characters, instead of just tossing us more generic, nameless Toads.

Lucas M. Thomas led the charge to give Blue Toad and Yellow Toad a bit more personality back at E3 '09, and to this day he still personally refers to them as Yvan and Wolley. You can tell him your own nicknames for the Toad Bros by following him on Twitter.

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New Super Mario Bros 2 Review

You know that fizzy feeling you get in your brain when you play a great Mario game? Where it feels a bit like it did the first time you ever played one, even though you’re so intimately familiar with it? New Super Mario Bros 2 gives you 80-odd levels of perfectly-pitched side-scrolling platforming with a smattering of new features, but it doesn’t give you that feeling. It’s a surprisingly conservative entry in this continually inventive franchise, and though it’s a masterclass in level design and eternally satisfying to play, it doesn’t move the series forward. When it’s as good as it was to begin with, though, it’s hard to find much else to complain about.

New Super Mario Bros 2 stars the Koopalings (Bowser’s long-neglected junior minions) as villains, who crop up in predictable but nonetheless entertaining boss fights at the end of each of the game’s worlds. Coin-collecting is the ancient video game principle at the heart of the game. Those shiny little discs of gold metal are everywhere, erupting in shimmering cascades from pipes and trailing in the wake of Cheep Cheeps underwater. The new power-ups mostly revolve around turning everything into gold; a golden Flower transforms Mario into a tubby little Midas, transmuting everything around him into coins, and coin blocks can be worn on Mario’s head, leaving a trail of twinkling currency as he runs and jumps.

Golden rings, meanwhile, temporarily gild every enemy in the level, giving you greater rewards for bopping them on the head and causing Koopa shells to spew coins in their spinning path. The game keeps track of your cumulative coin total, displaying it right in your face on the world map and popping up with little congratulatory messages when you reach a new milestone. Something happens when you reach one million, we’re told, but it’ll be a while before anyone finds out what.

There are plenty of old power-ups too, of course, like the Fire Flower, Starman and the Super Leaf, which turns Mario into Raccoon Mario (though the resultant powers of flight are tragically under-used for the majority of the game). The Mega and Mini Mushrooms from the original New Super Mario Bros turn up as well, but only once or twice over the course of the entire game, making them feel a lot less gimmicky than they did before.

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Unlike Super Mario 3D Land, it doesn’t feel built for the console

New Super Mario Bros 2’s primary-coloured, whimsical graphical style is as endearing as ever – the Koopas even do a little dance when there’s a trill in the music. Weirdly, though, the 3D effect doesn’t work well at all. Turn the slider up and the detailed 2D backgrounds get blurrier and blurrier, which creates a depth of field effect but also smears all the lovely artwork. Unlike Super Mario 3D Land, it doesn’t feel built for the console – there are no levels with nifty 3D effects, and it’s difficult to find a reason to turn the slider up.

Mario is such a joy to control that he sometimes feels like an extension of your thoughts. He has a perfect sense of weight to him, and the levels are exquisitely designed to take advantage of his acrobatic abilities. Each world has two castles to break up the normal flow, and some worlds have ghost houses that give Mario platforming a puzzley twist, with disappearing doors and mirrored rooms. There are a lot of secrets, too – some of the levels have second exits that lead you to a new place on the map (or a new world entirely), and you’ll constantly be scanning their perfect geometry for the inviting gaps in the scenery or slight anomalies that could point towards something hidden.

Difficulty-wise, New Super Mario Bros 2 is still a long way from the invigorating cruelty of the old 2D Marios, but you won’t be able to skip through the game without ever dying. If you fail a level more than a few times, the white Tanooki Suit – or the You Suck Tanooki Suit, as it’s more colloquially known – lets you run through the levels as an invincible white raccoon Mario, but that still won’t save you from death by deadly purple goop or falling into lava. The difficulty is offset by the sheer proliferation of coins, though – if you’re any good, you’ll have about 100 lives saved up by the time you’re halfway into the game.

The co-op multiplayer is fun, but inessential – on a small screen, the camera often has trouble keeping both of you in focus at once, and it doesn’t let you run off and explore separately. It feels like another missed opportunity, with no bespoke levels made for co-operative play. Where New Super Mario Bros Wii only really came alive when played with friends, the multiplayer here feels like an optional add-on.

Coin Rush Mode has a more competitive aspect, letting you challenge people via Streetpass to amass as many coins as you can without dying over three randomly selected levels – and under a time limit, too, as if that wasn’t enough pressure. This gives New Super Mario Bros 2 a little longevity, which is desperately needs; the single-player game barely lasts five hours on a first playthrough, though secret-searching and collecting star coins takes much longer.

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