The singularity has occurred. Nintendo and Apple. Together. Shigeru Miyamoto appeared on stage at an Apple event, and the Earth imploded.
During today’s star-studded reveal of the iPhone 7, it was perhaps a little Japanese company that made the biggest splash. Nintendo, known to be working on a few mobile games, materialized on stage to jaws dropping across the globe. The company’s famous game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo of America’s favorite son Bill Trinen were invited to announce and showcase Super Mario Run, the next 2D Mario game.
While it may not be a full-fledged Mario game, it still manages to capture the feel of the series through its endless runner (and jumper) mechanic. Honestly, this is the only way that I would have enjoyed a side-scrolling Mario game on a touch device, apart from building Mario Maker levels. Super Mario Run takes the (almost exact) visuals from the Wii U’s New Super Mario Bros U and plops them on the iPhone and iPad. Mario runs from left to right, and depending on how the player taps the screen he can do a variety of jumps.
Shigeru Miyamoto was the lead creator for the game, and DeNA are handling the localization across 100 countries and 9 languages.
There are three modes announced for the game. A Challenge Course mode will have Mario traverse levels to get to a flagpole, collecting coins along the way. Every few levels he’ll face Bowser, much like in EVERY MARIO GAME EVER, so jumping over the beast as he falls into a pit of lava can be expected. No finite amount of levels was announced.
The next mode, Toad Rally, will eschew the flagpole for an endless run of coins, a la Jetpack Joyride. When players eventually fall to their deaths, their ghosts are uploaded into the mystical cloud, only to appear in their friends’ games as Toads. It’s an asymmetric competition with friends that mobile gamers will be familiar with.
Finally, there’s a sort of Mushroom Kingdom building aspect to the game. Not much is known about this mode, but coins earned in the game can be used to upgrade and build the player’s Kingdom, and any Toads met in the Rally will appear as residents.
Nintendo made a big deal of noting that the game will not be free to play. Instead. it’ll retail for a price that will give players the full experience… or so it seems. Listed on the game’s page in the App Store is a note about in game microtransactions, which we’re assuming will focus around buying coins for the Mushroom Kingdom mode, or perhaps levels and DLC for the challenge mode. Also listed? A FREE TO PLAY MODE in which a small part of the game will be free, with the ability to purchase the full game afterward. Ahem, I say.
We don’t have too long to wait to find out. The game arrives this December for iPhone and iPad as a timed exclusive, with an Android release probably in 2017. Nintendo plans on more details later this year.
To celebrate Nintendo’s true arrival on iOS (sorry, Miitomo!) Mario stickers will coming to iMessage day and date with the release of iOS 10.
It’s-a you, Mario! 😮😍
Take a closer look at #SuperMarioRun in action. https://t.co/RUoFlEfsyP pic.twitter.com/4d0Ul4FZvz— App Store (@AppStore) September 7, 2016
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