Like many Nintendo fans, I was eagerly awaiting some big Mario news during the most recent Nintendo Direct. It’s Mario’s 40th anniversary, surely Nintendo has some grand plans for its flagship franchise, and one of the most iconic mascots in the world?
Five years ago, the 35th anniversary Direct was all about Mario, revealing an updated port of Super Mario All-Stars, a new 3D All-stars compilation, the AR racing game Mario Kart Live, and a weirdly timed competitive multiplayer version of the original Super Mario Bros.
This year’s Nintendo Direct kicked off with an intriguing tease of original Mario concept art, including the iconic menu screen, crica 1985!
Are we getting a retrospective anthology that celebrates the hero’s lucrative and varied career? An entirely new Mario adventure? Super Mario Maker 3!?
Turns out, none of the above.
Instead, we’re getting a new Mario Tennis game, a new Mario-less Yoshi game, and Switch 2 ports of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and the Wii’s Galaxy and Galaxy 2. Oh, and a teaser trailer (not even a full trailer) that revealed the title of the new Mario movie sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Needless to say, I was incredible disappointed.
Mario and Me
I’m almost the exact same age as Mario, and like many folks my age, Super Mario Bros. was one of the first video games I ever played on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The first time I managed to beat the game, I was stunned that I could start over with “a new quest,” upgrading enemies and creating a new hard mode. I left the NES on all day so I could return to it.
I became obsessed with Super Mario Bros. 3 soon after, with its awesome overworld map and big increase in level variety, enemies, and power-ups. I distinctly remember discovering a secret warp whistle location from the back of a cereal box. I was also confused yet intrigued by Super Mario Bros. 2, which a neighbor friend owned. We had no idea at the time it was basically reskinned from a different series.
Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo was a huge leap forward in graphical quality and gameplay, with tons of secrets, a catchy soundtrack, and hours of platforming goodness in a golden age of 16-bit gaming.
Then there was the parade of Mario spin-offs, showcasing the series’ Saturday Morning Cartoon aesthetic and timeless appeal across entirely different genres. Super Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG, and Super Smash Bros. became some of my favorite games of all time, and generated their own hugely successful series over the years and decades to follow.
With the 3D revolution of the mid-90s, I became a crotchety 2D platforming-purist, shunning the early 3D Mario platformers, while first-person games such as GoldenEye 007 (and PC gaming in general) drew my attention. But eventually I came back around, playing through Super Mario 3D world cooperatively with my spouse, while loving the 2D co-op gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and U.
Making Mario
A decade ago, as part of Mario’s 30th anniversary, Super Mario Maker was released. The unique 2D game maker easily became one of the best games, and User Generated Content platforms, on the Wii U. It was a glorious celebration of all things Mario, brilliantly incorporating the touchscreen stylus, and supporting multiple eras of Mario styles, from the early 8-bt adventures to the then-modern Super Mario Bros. U.
Super Mario Maker also nurtured a robust community of fans and creators across multiple generations. It was easy to build, upload, and share increasingly creative (or silly, or challenging) levels; a potentially endless amount of content.
As an older fan, Mario Maker was a euphoric injection of nostalgia for my beloved 2D Mario games.
Four years later we were blessed with Super Mario Maker 2 on the Switch. A lengthy story mode, co-op creation, and world maps were awesome additions. But the Switch is much less touchscreen-friendly, and creating levels became a bigger chore. The sequel also somewhat fractured the audience, with Nintendo shutting down servers for the original Mario Maker after the sequel launched.
Nintendo would support Super Mario Maker 2 for only about a year, with the final update arriving in April 2020.
Would a Super Mario Maker 3 succeed on the Switch 2? I’m not sure, but I’d love to find out. Even if we only stick to 2D (which I love), there were a ton of new ideas and features in Super Mario Bros. Wonder that could be implemented.
What about a celebratory collection of old Mario games? Or a Mario-focused, mini-game-esque NES Remix?
Nintendo has been remaking and remastering its early Mario games since the early 90s, and now could be the perfect time for a nostalgic collection of Mario games, or at least a sampler pack of levels, throughout the eras.
Tetris recently received a lovely compilation that included a fully interactive documentary with Tetris Forever. Surely Mario deserves at least the same treatment?
Despite Nintendo seemingly dropping the ball this time around, I don’t see my love of Nintendo, or Mario, waning any time soon. Mario’s wide appeal for kids, and the adults who grew up with him, has never been in doubt. And yeah, I’m excited to take my kids to another big screen Mario adaptation, while chuckling once more about the truly bizarre Mario Movie from back in my day.
But I can’t help but feel that, especially compared to the 30th and 35th anniversaries, Mario’s major milestone is coming and going with barely a whimper.
