While last week was certainly one of this year's high points with the release of the much anticipated Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I found myself taking a break from exploring the wide open fields of Velen or the back alley streets of Novigrad. I instead opted to take a little vacation in space with my good friend, Mario. That's right, I booted up my Wii U, a console that's usually at the butt end of a joke these days and played what is one of Mario's most unique, innovative and daring adventures yet, Super Mario Galaxy. Hell, my trek across the galaxy also prompted me to find a rather over-priced new physical copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2, a game I actually always wanted to play, but just never got around to. And through my long hours with the pudgy plumber in space, I realized just how much I missed Mario games like these.
Super Mario 64 started an amazing trend that proved 2D platformers can have their place within the 3D world. In future installments, Nintendo continued to prove that even Super Mario, a game about jumping on top of enemies' heads, eating mushrooms and saving princesses could be innovated in ways to make them more insteresting and feel fresh, despite still containing each one of those things.
Look at Super Mario Sunshine, easily one of my favorite Gamecube games. That game turned the typical Mario platformer on its head by including the FLUDD, a water-jet that not only altered Mario's main objective by having to clean up Isle Delfino from disgusting sludge, but also added some new platforming elements. It was gorgeous, challenging and innovative.
Super Mario Galaxy, much like Sunshine, flipped the gameplay on its head, literally, by introducing some amazing gravity based gameplay, and some truly unique levels that played off of the galaxy motif. Traversing stages with Mario was once again more than simply hopping around on enemies. Levels wrapped around each other, or floating next to one another, forcing Mario to literally hop between planets. Of course the sequel added Mario's faithful dinosaur companion, Yoshi, and streamlined the gameplay a bit, but it was just as fantastic as the first.
So why is Nintendo stuck on bringing us 2D Mario platformers over and over again, when they've proved that they can innovate? Why haven't we yet seen a unique Mario game on Nintendo's newest home console? The answer is actually very easy, sales.
In a video by The Game Theorists which was released a little over a year ago, Matthew Patrick made an eye opening revelation. Despite gamers and critics whining about wanting something new and innovative, it's clear that everyone just wants the same thing, albeit with a new paint job. Take a look at this graph:
Matt organized major Mario releases according to their sales in millions. Right off the bat, this graph proves that gamers prefer consistency instead of innovation. The left side of the graph is essentially all of Mario's 2D platforming games, while the right is reserved for innovative 3D platformers. Hell, even Super Mario 64, the game that pioneered 3D platforming pales in comparison to games like New Super Mario Bros.
And of course Nintendo, being rather unsuccessful with Wii U sales, takes notice of this trend. Why continually try to innovate a series that has already had some of the best gameplay innovations, when the payoff is so little? What that gives us is three New Super Mario games, the one for the original DS, Wii and Wii U, all with identical gameplay elements with a few new power-ups, and worst of all, all three with the same damn soundtrack.
Right now the only Mario game on the horizon is yet another 2D side scroller, Mario Maker, though to its credit, it does allow users to make their own 2D Mario levels. But I'm hoping that somewhere at Nintendo, a team is working on something bigger. While I think we've had enough of Mario romping around the Galaxy, there's no denying that the Wii U's name practically lends itself for a game larger than a Galaxy… a Universe.
Granted, Super Mario 3D World was a fairly fantastic take on the 3D platformer, and a big step up from its 3DS predecessor, but the fact is that games like Sunshine and Galaxy have spoiled me. And I certainly wouldn't say Nintendo took a chance on that title.
But perhaps Nintendo isn't done taking chances. They took a chance on Xenoblade Chronicles, Last Story and Pandora's Tower, though it did require some coaxing. Splatoon is a brand new IP as well. Let's just hope that Nintendo still has faith in original Mario games, and maybe, just maybe, an entirely new Mario adventure awaits us in the future.
