Back at GDC, Nintendo unveiled the first “ground up” 3D Super Mario game for a Nintendo portable, simply titled “Super Mario“. From that game logo, it was clear that Nintendo has gone way back for inspiration… but have they gone too far back?
Firstly, the game visuals are bright and crisp. Nintendo took a “safe” direction with Mario and character design with this traditional Mario 64-like 3D platformer. The controls are quickly recognizable. In this version of Mario, you are back to having a “run” button, and some of his traditional jumps have been modified or removed altogether. What I enjoyed so much about the Galaxy games was that when you got good at judging jumps, you could “long jump” like a mofo and look like an expert when doing so. In this game the long jump is there, technically, but it doesn’t have the distance or arch you may be used to from the other 3D Mario games.
In order to pull this off you hit the shoulder button for Mario to start a somersault roll, and then hit the jump button to follow through. This gives Mario more of a linear jump, which I frankly found disappointing as it hampered my traditional approach to navigating games in the series. Another disappointment was that the “triple” jump seemed to be missing in the demo stages as well, and I don’t think you can expect to see it in the full game. The main reason being the perspective that this iteration gives makes everything feel VERY zoomed in. This is all deliberate; these are not the sprawling worlds of Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 64, these are confined, closed-quarter levels reminiscent of Mario 2D levels, with more of a 2.5D perspective than anything else. Speaking of being reminiscent of the older games, Nintendo has borrowed from one of the black sheep games in the series, Super Mario 2, with the idea of a “charged” jump.
Again, Nintendo seems to be altering Mario’s arsenal of moves here, and instead of being able to just “duck” and hit the jump button to do a back flip, you have to “charge” Mario up, in order to pull off this move. The “charging” doesn’t take long, and during my playthrough didn’t seem to be something that would become annoying once used to it, but it just goes to show that whats old is new again with this release.
There were 4 levels on display in this demo: a traditional out-door level, an underworld area, a more Galaxy-like level with flipping switches and an emphasis on platforming, and an Air Ship Boss Battle, all of which I played… twice. I would say that I probably enjoyed the underworld level best, as this is where you get the classic fire flower, my personal favorite. What is a nice nod from the past games is the power up system. It seems that you can keep your powerups as long as you don’t get hit (possibly even after the level ends), not like in Galaxy where power ups are generally timed.
Because powerups are a Mario staple, they have brought back what is arguably the most popular power up in Mario history, the Tanooki suit. And boy, does Mario look adorable in it. Though, there is a chance some may be disappointed with it’s implementation. At least from the demo, there looks to be no ability to take to the skies and soar, but perhaps that could be in the final release to some extent. For now, the Tanooki suit really just serves as a way to assist your platforming with a fluttering jump, a la Yoshi’s moves. You can also whack enemies with the tail, but as for turning into a statue? Not in this demo at least.
As Super Mario Bros. 3 looks to be the main inspiration for this game, we can see that the Koopa Kids are back as well. The demo’s battle (with Roy) feels much larger and substantial, which I enjoyed as it feels more Boss-like.
To comment further on the mish-mash of past Mario inspirations, the touch screen seems to just serve as an inventory display and some basic “camera” controls, of which you have very limited options. The camera icons, reminiscent of the “C buttons” on the N64, just shift the perspective slightly. Because the perspective is so zoomed-in and deliberate I doubt there will be many times that the camera is an issue as you are very much guided along with the level design.
As for the 3D effects, it may have just been me, but I found it distracting. When the 3DS was first announced and the idea that you could judge jumps in Mario games would bring an improvement to the series, I was intrigued by the possibilities. But in this demo I found it hard to focus, and ended up misjudging jumps that I feel I would have otherwise nailed in previous outings. The best I can say for the 3D is that it added some cool perspectives. For example, when I threw a fireball into a angled wall, and saw it come bouncing back into the screen to take out the stack of goombas, I thought it was pretty cool and interesting.
It may sound as if I am a bit down on Super Mario, but I really did enjoy my time with it. I just have some small doubts about the final game due to the slight changes in the way Mario can navigate the enviornments.
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