After four games in the New Super Mario Bros. series, it’s beginning to look a lot less like “new” and more like “copy paste.” However, Nintendo continues to develop them and fans continue to buy them, so is it really a problem? Well, Nintendo is competing with the ideas of innovation and originality. Trying to make a game new while still being attractive to older fans is quite difficult, but there are developers who know how to have balance. Speaking to IGN, producer Takashi Tezuka and director Masataka Takemoto said:
Takemoto: When we finished [New Super Mario Bros. Wii] up, we thought,”It’s gonna be hard to add any new features to this.” Once we started fleshing out the next concept, though, we realized that we could still come up with new ideas for [New Super Mario Bro. U]. Right now, I can’t really say what might come next, but I think we’ll still manage to find new stuff for the series. I think that innovation is important, but it can’t be something that destroys the core fun that defines Mario in 2D. We need innovation that retains 2D Mario’s play sensation.
Tezuka: Of course we devote resources on measures to take advantage of a platform’s features and capabilities, but with a 2D Mario, we don’t want to lose the foundation that so many players already know and love. I think that sense of security helps the team feel like they’ve got some breathing room to work with as they come up with ideas.
Players keep on playing Mario, after all, precisely because it’s easily understandable in a very unique way. That’s a strength that’s hard to imitate for games with shorter heritages, and it’s something I think we need to keep cherishing.
With New Super Luigi U on the way, many fans are hoping for something innovative with the download, but it will likely be successful no matter what. In addition, who doesn’t love Luigi? So do you guys want to see more New Super Mario Bros. or do you want to see something innovative in the series, such as Super Mario 3D Land, for the Wii U?
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