The Future of Mario

A friend and I discussed Mario's future once, and came to the conclusion that the Mario series is about innovation first and story last. Find one fun game mechanic (playing in 3D, playing with water, playing with gravity)and plumb it to its depths. "What," we asked ourselves, "hasn't been explored yet in platforming, that you could do a lot with?"

The answer that came to us was sculpting, and through that we developed the idea for Super Mario Snowstorm.

A companion game to Sunshine, Snowstorm would involve Mario going on winter vacation at a mountain lodge, and the princess gets captured and blah blah blah. Story comes last, remember. The important part is that Mario has a whole mountainload of snow to play with! He can throw snowballs to attack, roll them on the ground to build walls to climb, forts for defense, igloos, snowmen, and snow angels for more plot-specific missions. Mario can shoosh-boom downhill on skis or a snowboard, skate across frozen ponds, or just roll downhill in a big cartoony snowball. Certain levels would have you teaming up with FLUDD, who now either shoots cold water to turn snow into ice, or hot chocolate to melt snow and ice away.

You can see elements of this idea in a lot of existing games-- Katamari Damacy has the snowball-rolling mechanic, for example-- and Galaxy has mixed a number of them into the Ice Mario power-up. As we all know, though, nothing combines a million little ideas into one magnificent idea like a Mario game.

chainsaws FTW!!!

jk what they need to do is go back to the wall painting but this time Peach did some major redecoration to the castle and it has 5 floors, and we can jump into wall paintings in Super Mario 64 and then the worlds are SPHERICAL like in galaxy andgive us all the power ups from all the games before(i want my FROGSUIT and TANOOKI), and then to addd some replayiblily use the comets from before the cosmic race,puple coins,1 health, time themes but these are only aviable after you beat the gameto every singleWORLD should have all those comet themes, i wouldnt made more monsters here and there

lolag

controlling Mario with your mind... i think that's about the only real step forward they could do

and knowing Nintendo... they'll probably do it

There's nothing wrong with Sunshine, just like the OoT lovers out there. You people are living in the past. Those are great games and, yes they should be enshrined as some of the greatest games of all time, but the dragging down of the current games just makes you sound like a spoiled brat.

Sunshine was attempt to mix it up a bit and it was a great game. Galaxy is the same thing, a little different format, but still Mario.

For you complainers, stop playing the games if you don't like them and go away! Go muck it up in the PS and XBox forums because that is where you belong!

How about Mario in first person. Kind of like what Retro did with Metroid. That would be crazy.

I believe that Nintendo should make a complete Mario 64-****game for their next console, complete with large levels, cannons, stars, castles, paintings, and the beloved Wing Cap. A potential flaw, however, would be a possible risk of lacking innovative flair.Emmenite7

The only thing left for Mario to do is tackle God.rcignoni

Done the Galaxy, where to next... ?

I've been thinking the same thing, and I think obvious they're going to do some time-travelling Mario game soon. I would say in 2 years it would come out.

[QUOTE="flowingluc"]2 words boys....motion controlvashkey

And they were weak. The star pointer was pretty throw away. you didn't need it and it made an already easy game easier. And hopefully you don't think the handful of mini games made Galaxy. And the spin attack could have just as easily been done with a button press.

Again, Galaxy had opprotunity and it passed it up.

When I look back at all of galaxy, what comes to my mind when someone says "motion controls" ?

-spin move
-starbits pointer

In writing this, I just remember then vine spinning.

Somehow I would have like some more motion controls.

Like maybe something like mini-game with a huge hammer (like 10x's mario's size) mario carried around to slam enemies, and to use it, you had to flick the Wiimote forward. That would have been awesome.

I feel like I got more motion controls in metroid... with all the levers and pumps you have to operate by moving the Wiimote. Those things very real because your motion follow the action you saw onscreen... twisting and thrusting. Don't forget yanking back with the nunchuck to grapple objects off of things.

I look at it like this..

2D Mario: -Super Mario Bros...........Super Mario 64 = completely changed respective genres

-Super Mario Bros. 2.......Super Mario Sunshine = liked by some, not as good as mario game before it

-Super Mario Bros. 3.......Super Mario Galaxy = Amazing, adds to the first game's formula's

-Super Mario World.........???????????????? = hopefully another great Mario game

Maybe the next game should be where all of Mushroom Kingdom gets trapped in Bowser's mind from a lab accident after Bowser gets captured and put under an experiment. Bowser was captured by Professor E. Gadd, and is kept alseep in a pod where he can see into his dreams. Sorta like a Matrix thing.The accident is caused by Bowser Jr. as he snoops around in the lab to free Bowser but screws up the machines.With everyone sucked into Bowser's dreams, everything is exactly how he invisions the world should be as he rules the world. And then Mario will have to take down Ninja Goomba's and black-belt Koopa's to make way to the center of Bowser's mind and create havic changing Bowser's dreams into a nightmare for him and save Peach of course. Escape, and then the whole lab self-destructs but all the characters survive including Bowser because they're magical that way. The end. *Credits roll*

The name would be.... SUPER MARIO REVOLUTION

lol

If the next game werent so linear and had adjustable difficulty(Galaxy was a cake walk) then the next mario game might actually be deserving of the title, "Revolutionary".vashkey

I can agree with you on having adjustable difficulty. Galaxy was too easy, even with the harder-to-control Luigi. That was kind of a cheap way to up the difficulty, anyway.

But if you read my earlier response, you'll know that I think the next Mario will be more linear than Galaxy, at least in terms of individual levels. I base this on some statements by the developers in the Iwata Asks interview - they wanted to make a game that was more user-friendly in terms of destination. Simply put, they wanted the player to always know where to go; rather than emphasizing finding the goal, they wanted to emphasize getting there. So we see the 2D platforming areas and the mini-collect-em-all parts pop up. I'd rather do this than wander in each level. Leave the exploring to the hub, which brings me to my next point.

Going back to someone else's analogy that the next Mario will be reminiscent of Super Mario World.... I think you guys might be onto something. The core gameplay of Super Mario World is essentially the same as the NES games; the main difference is more open-endedness on the map. There are different paths and different hidden areas to find in every world. This appeared first in Mario Bros. 3, but Super Mario World greatly expands on it. So maybe the next Mario will have more open-endedness on the map or the hub, while the gameplay in each level will be more linear.

There's no real reason why Nintendo would take this route, but I think it's plausible, and it's something that I'd like to see.

5 Words...........Super Mario UnderwaterBlack747

A friend and I discussed Mario's future once, and came to the conclusion that the Mario series is about innovation first and story last. Find one fun game mechanic (playing in 3D, playing with water, playing with gravity)and plumb it to its depths. "What," we asked ourselves, "hasn't been explored yet in platforming, that you could do a lot with?"

The answer that came to us was sculpting, and through that we developed the idea for Super Mario Snowstorm.

A companion game to Sunshine, Snowstorm would involve Mario going on winter vacation at a mountain lodge, and the princess gets captured and blah blah blah. Story comes last, remember. The important part is that Mario has a whole mountainload of snow to play with! He can throw snowballs to attack, roll them on the ground to build walls to climb, forts for defense, igloos, snowmen, and snow angels for more plot-specific missions. Mario can shoosh-boom downhill on skis or a snowboard, skate across frozen ponds, or just roll downhill in a big cartoony snowball. Certain levels would have you teaming up with FLUDD, who now either shoots cold water to turn snow into ice, or hot chocolate to melt snow and ice away.

You can see elements of this idea in a lot of existing games-- Katamari Damacy has the snowball-rolling mechanic, for example-- and Galaxy has mixed a number of them into the Ice Mario power-up. As we all know, though, nothing combines a million little ideas into one magnificent idea like a Mario game.

Gravidtron

At first glance, I wondered what you were smoking in writing this idea but after reading your entire post, I think that you may be onto something. It seems like they might be able to incorporate plenty of fun elements using this **** Still, a radical idea like this would need serious planning and direction to avoid becoming the next Sunshine. They need to somehow give us a variety of levels and stick to the ****c mario elements if using this snow theme of yours.

Risks aside, this is a good idea. As long as it involves saving baby penguins it should be great.

Just to put this out there, the next Mario NEEDS a good hub world. Something about the castle had an undeniable charm and was like a level in itself. Galaxy's hub world was seriously lacking. Emmenite7

That is so true. The observatory was just bad....

[QUOTE="Kuhu"]

Couldn't agree more. Im hoping for some kind of Micro Mario game, where mario goes small.

20fox05

I was thinking the exact same thing. It would be pretty awesome

What if they mixed the galaxy with the micro Mario thing? Like, mario's standing on different spherical atoms, and is held by the atom's generated energy or something. Design of the game could be significantly different even with the galaxy twist. That could actually work...

i think someone might have already said this but idc. i think they should make a game where you have to find your next galaxy/painting. there should be a world. a mushroom kingdom that is made way bigger. kind of like the super mario where you travel across the land in each thing. like the mountains, forests, etc. but you actually get to control the moving mario does. then you find someone who gives you a task type thing. that would be awesome to me. hahablockhead1293

I sort of agree with you. Galaxy was too straightforward to me. There wasn't much else to do but travel down the existing path. Too linear. I want Mario to have access to huge 3D levels. The space idea was great, but it was a little too confining I think.

althoughI loved the time travel idea hasnt that already been done with partners in time?rendai

What is partners in time?

All I know is Mario 1,2,3, Super Mario World, Mario 64, and Mario Galaxy.

Aside from these titles I am aware of, I do not really directly know about all the off-shoot games involving Princess, Toad, Donkey Kong, Luigi, Yoshi... are you saying time travel has already been done in one of those games?

When I look back across that series, there hasn't been a real serious Mario game with time-travel and slow-mo stuff. This seems to me a natural direction now that "Galaxy" is done.

Imagine these elements:

-A father-time type figure that either needs to be rescued (to save the world, of course), is a guide for mario (helping him in his adventure through time), or my favourite... father-time is corrupted and becomes an evil villain that screws up the universe and mario fights in the final battle.

-TONS of fresh new gameplay mechanics with wormholes, lightspeed-whatever, time travel, time zones, stopping time, matrix slow-mo stuff, time limits and countdowns that have a more direct affect on gameplay rather than simply meaning a +/- points or lives, etc (for example, the longer you take to complete a level... the larger koopa's grow and the harder it is to beat them).

-It's really open-ended. Mario can visit alien worlds (LIKE OURS), and different periods of history.

-THIS GAME CAN VISIT HOW THE MARIO WORLD CAME TO BE. None of us really know about that stuff do we. Where do mushrooms come from? What were bowsers doing before they were able to fly pirate ships around?

By the way, can somebody explain what Super Mario World was all about? Where does it stand within the Mario series? I know that Mario Bros. 3 is often considered one of the series' better games, but what did Super Mario World bring to the table?Emmenite7

Well, it was the first time you could ride Yoshi, and it was pretty open-ended for a SNES game, with the secret paths. Also, there was a cape.

What I want to see is a new Baby Mario game, like Yoshi's Island. Or, dare I say it, a new Mario RPG that's actually 3D?

[QUOTE="Emmenite7"]By the way, can somebody explain what Super Mario World was all about? Where does it stand within the Mario series? I know that Mario Bros. 3 is often considered one of the series' better games, but what did Super Mario World bring to the table?Arkthemaniac

Well, it was the first time you could ride Yoshi, and it was pretty open-ended for a SNES game, with the secret paths. Also, there was a cape.

What I want to see is a new Baby Mario game, like Yoshi's Island. Or, dare I say it, a new Mario RPG that's actually 3D?

how about a new paper mario that actually stays true to the series... unlike super paper mario and its non-rpgness

[QUOTE="Arkthemaniac"]

[QUOTE="Emmenite7"]By the way, can somebody explain what Super Mario World was all about? Where does it stand within the Mario series? I know that Mario Bros. 3 is often considered one of the series' better games, but what did Super Mario World bring to the table?PeterPerson

Well, it was the first time you could ride Yoshi, and it was pretty open-ended for a SNES game, with the secret paths. Also, there was a cape.

What I want to see is a new Baby Mario game, like Yoshi's Island. Or, dare I say it, a new Mario RPG that's actually 3D?

how about a new paper mario that actually stays true to the series... unlike super paper mario and its non-rpgness

"non-rpgness?" I busted out laughing after reading that!!!