Mario Bros. Retrospective Part 7: A Link to the Past
In this episode, Mario retreads familiar ground in portable form on both the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, while both he and his brother take center stage in their own 3D adventures on Nintendo's next generation platform.
These are some of the invaluable resources that this project wouldn't have been possible without:
Video Works: https://youtu.be/cdUDvoGFp8s?si=8tZLecvzwVAtWLIJ
The Super Mario Wiki: https://www.mariowiki.com/
The Gaming Historian: https://thegaminghistorian.com/
Leonard Herman: http://www.rolentapress.com/
Supper Mario Broth: https://www.suppermariobroth.com/
Bob Baffy: https://www.bobbaffy.com/
OC Remix: https://ocremix.org/
Transcript of the video:
By the late 1990s, the video game industry had begun to achieve something it hadn’t in over a decade, true mainstream success. Following the North American market crash of the 1980s, games were often viewed as children’s toys, and struggled to find the same degree of acceptance as the film and music industries. But through the brilliance of Sony’s marketing and technological expertise, the PlayStation had become more than just the cool new toy for video game fans. It kicked off a general sense in popular culture that video games weren’t just for kids anymore. The likes of Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, Tomb Raider, and Metal Gear Solid, among others, were designed to appeal directly to more adult-oriented audiences, and their strategy was an extraordinary success.
This paradigm shift worked wonders for Sony, but was extremely detrimental to Nintendo, who had spent the vast majority of their tenure in the video game market presenting their products as being for everyone, including children. The Nintendo 64 found success with more mature hits like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and GoldenEye 007, but their public facing image was inescapably a family friendly one, which at this point in the US was both a blessing, and a curse.
The Nintendo 64 was unable to manage the same degree of mass market appeal as its competition. It was still profitable, but the gap between it and the PlayStation became insurmountable in a very short period of time. Fortunately for Nintendo, their family friendly image had a very different effect on the other half of their gaming business, the Game Boy.
Ever since its launch in 1989, Nintendo’s monochrome handheld had no problem handily dispatching any competition that came its way. Sega’s Game Gear and Atari’s Lynx were formidable opponents with full color, backlit screens, but the Game Boy’s low price, battery efficiency, and exclusive library of games could not be overcome. However, after having been on the market for nearly a decade, the limitations of the Game Boy hardware had become too significant to overlook. Even its redesigned model, the Game Boy Pocket, wasn’t enough to hide the fact that the Game Boy’s architecture had become vastly outdated, and sales began to wane. That is, of course, until the sudden appearance of a game called Pokemon.
On September 28, 1998, Nintendo brought Pokemon to the Game Boy in North America. Released in Japan as Pocket Monsters over two years prior, the game had become a seismic phenomenon in its home territory, and its launch in North America, along with its accompanying animated series and trading card game, had the exact same effect. Pokemon, a game about collecting and battling various brightly colored monsters, quickly became one of the strongest and most popular brands in the world, and the only system it could be played on, was Nintendo’s Game Boy. Sales surged for both the original system and its Pocket counterpart, extending the Game Boy’s life exponentially, and effectively negating the need for Nintendo to offer consumers a proper next generation handheld. Instead, just two months following Pokemon’s North American debut, Nintendo brought another new iteration of the Game Boy, the Game Boy Color, to market. While on the surface it seemed like a mere Game Boy with a color screen, the Game Boy Color was technologically slightly more capable than the original. It was 100% backwards compatible with all existing Game Boy software, but it was also able to play games made with the unique specifications of the platform in mind. It was in this library that fans got to realize an idea that Nintendo had been chasing for generations.
Following the release of Super Mario 64, Mario platformers had hit a bit of a dry spell. The character continued to expand his horizons into other genres, including a Japan-only sequel to Wrecking Crew that changed its formula entirely into a color matching puzzle game, but his traditional adventures had come to a standstill. Now though, thanks to the power of the Game Boy Color, that platforming hiatus would come to an end, with players returning to the character’s roots in a whole new way, as the original Super Mario Bros. could finally be played on the go.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe launched for the Game Boy Color in May 1999, delivering the most accurate portable rendition of Nintendo’s seminal work anyone had ever seen. Where previous portable Mario adventures worked as approximations of their home console counterparts, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe was for all intents and purposes the NES game in portable form. All 32 stages were faithfully recreated in full color, looking, playing, and sounding almost exactly as they did in their original release. However, there were a few technical limitations that the Game Boy still needed to overcome. Aside from certain sounds not being 100% perfect recreations, the handheld’s screen ratio was considerably smaller. A standard NES game runs at 256 x 224 pixels, while the Game Boy Color could only display a mere 160 x 144. Games made specifically for the Game Boy, like Super Mario Land, accounted for this by making character sprites smaller, or in the case of Super Mario Land 2, designing stages around a more limited visible playfield. In order to make Super Mario Bros. an accurate port of the original though, changing the number of pixels per sprite wouldn’t be an option. Instead, they zoomed the camera in, and allowed the player to shift its perspective to see what was above, below, or in front of them. This wasn’t a perfect solution, turning Lakitu’s spiny eggs into off-screen hazards, and certain jumps into blind leaps of faith, but it was a clever compromise that maintained the same sense of fun and adventure that made Super Mario Bros. a classic in the first place.
Having a proper portable version of Super Mario Bros. was a fairly significant selling point on its own, but much to the delight of Mario fans, there was far more to Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. The base game received some small but very much appreciated updates. Sound effects were added for certain events like Mario turning around or Cheep Cheeps jumping out of the water. Luigi was given a new color palate that more closely matched his modern look. Like in Super Mario All-Stars, a chime would let you know if you had chosen the correct path in the maze stages. Water and Lava now moved instead of standing still, and Toad and the Princess no longer remained static, with all-new frames of animation.
But far more substantial was the new content added to the experience. In addition to fun minigames like a fortune teller, calendar, and some Game Boy Printer capabilities, the full Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 could be unlocked. There was also Challenge Mode, where players had to complete every stage in the game while finding secret red coins, Yoshi eggs, and clear specific high score thresholds, as well as an all new surprisingly fun multiplayer mode where two players connected via link cable to race through various obstacle courses with unique blocks and switches.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe may not have been a wholly original Mario game, but it was a remarkably fresh take on one of the most influential titles of all time. Its new content, especially its competitive multiplayer mode, made the game a hit with audiences and critics alike, and is arguably, from a content standpoint, the definitive version of the game to this day. But it also proved once again to Nintendo that a Mario game didn’t have to be entirely new to be a success, and that sprucing up the rest of their existing Mario catalog was a very marketable idea. One that they would revisit, albeit in a somewhat strange way, sooner than later.
Back in the home console front, Nintendo had been working hard on the N64’s Successor, codenamed Project Dolphin, in the face of a quickly evolving marketplace. Sega kicked off the next generation in September 1999 with the Dreamcast. Atari and Panasonic dropped out of the race entirely, Microsoft announced their bid to join the console wars with their new platform, Xbox. And Sony managed to find even more unprecedented success with their DVD-enabled PlayStation 2, which quickly became an unstoppable sales juggernaut. Nintendo’s new system, though, would serve as the centerpiece in an attempt to refresh their entire brand, and see the company endeavor to compete with their rivals on their terms, with a focus on graphical power, and appealing to third party developers looking to create the newest games on the latest technology. It would abandon the cartridge format in favor of disc-based media, feature external ports for a potential modem, and support progressive scan visual output. But if this was going to be a full brand refresh, their handheld division would need to evolve too. Meaning that despite its newfound success, it was finally time for Nintendo to create a true successor to the Game Boy.
At their Spaceworld gaming expo in August 2000, Nintendo unveiled what was referred to as the REAL Future of Gaming, their new home console, the Nintendo GameCube, and their next generation handheld, the Game Boy Advance.
While fully backward compatible with both Game Boy and Game Boy Color software, the Game Boy Advance was a very different machine from its predecessor. It was a 32-bit platform, capable of displaying graphics more advanced than the Super NES, while also supporting high quality sound including voice samples, shoulder buttons, a horizontal layout, and numerous potential peripherals including a cellular phone connection, and a direct link with their new home console. But for as impressive as the Game Boy Advance looked, it was the Nintendo GameCube that stole the show. A demo reel showcasing brief looks at some of their most popular brands in new, high resolution graphics left an undeniable impression on everyone who saw it. Pokemon, Wave Race, Metroid, and a particularly exciting sword fight between Link and Gannondorf from The Legend of Zelda dazzled audiences, but both showcases displayed a surprising omission that people couldn’t help wondering about. Where was Mario?
Outside of a new Mario Kart for the Game Boy Advance and a tech demo for the GameCube called Super Mario 128 which showed a legion of Marios running around, interacting with one another on the surface of a sphere, there were no actual new Mario games to be found. But while Nintendo’s mascot experienced a curious lack of limelight, his little brother found himself at the center of it. During the demo reel, Nintendo showcased footage of a game featuring none other than Luigi wandering around a haunted house, being taunted and terrified by a number of ghosts. It, along with the various other GameCube demos shown, made a bold statement for the company. They were ready to tackle this next generation head on, and they had some very impressive technology on their side. Less than a year later, the first phase of their plan hit store shelves across North America as the Game Boy Advance stood poised to take the world by storm. And it would bring with it a very familiar Mario adventure.
Super Mario Advance was released in June 2001, serving as both the premiere launch title for the Game Boy Advance, and a followup to Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.
Where the Game Boy Color game had been a port of the NES original, Super Mario Advance was actually built on the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2. Stage layouts and visuals were largely the same, but with a few notable changes. Platforms would expand, enemies had new placements and unexpected forms, players could extend their life meters with even more hidden mushrooms, and fresh visual flares brought the world of Subcon to life in fun new ways. But the biggest change to the game wasn’t reflected in its visuals, or even its gameplay. It was in the audio department, specifically in terms of vocals. For nearly every action in the game, an accompanying voice sample was applied. From jumping, to collecting cherries, to throwing enemies, and even encountering bosses, the constant barrage of voice samples was an impressive display of the GBA’s capabilities, but it was also positively overbearing.
The Challenge Mode from Super Mario Bros. Deluxe made its return, featuring red coins and Yoshi eggs to find within the game’s existing levels. Screen cramping was also still an issue, though considerably less so thanks to the Game Boy Advance’s increased screen resolution over the Game Boy Color, a fact that was expressly pointed out on the game’s title screen.
But Super Mario Advance was more than just Super Mario Bros. 2. In place of Deluxe’s brilliant multiplayer mode was a Super Mario All-Stars-style remake of the original Mario Bros. Not only did the stages now scroll vertically, but they featured unique background elements, as well as music. Also, the game’s physics were directly pulled from Super Mario Bros. 2, meaning that Mario now had full control of his movements in midair, similar to the vs. minigame introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3. Completely new to Super Mario Advance though, facilitated by the new larger playfields, was the ability to host up to four players simultaneously, strangely with four different colored Marios instead of the cast of Super Mario Bros. 2, resulting in some very fun, and very chaotic, local multiplayer madness.
A remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 was an odd choice for Nintendo to launch their next generation handheld with, but it ultimately turned out to be a profitable one, with Super Mario Advance selling well over 5 million units. But while the game performed admirably, it still left fans wanting. The version of Super Mario Bros. 2 that Advance was built on was originally a part of a much larger collection, which had now been broken out and was being sold as an individual release. The game’s scope was considerably smaller than Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, offering fewer modes and a much less ambitious multiplayer option. And while the technical tricks on display were impressive, they didn’t add much to the experience. Still, retreading Mario’s earliest adventures had continued to prove to be a worthwhile endeavor, and Nintendo’s handheld division wasted no time beginning work on their next trip down memory lane.
The Game Boy Advance quickly proved to be a tremendous success, but it was also effectively running unopposed as no other major handheld devices were currently on the market. The home console arena though was in a very different position. To call the PlayStation 2 a massive success would be an understatement, as it had already garnered a staggering user base since its North American launch in October 2000, and almost single handedly killed the Sega Dreamcast based on the system’s hype alone. Not only that, but Microsoft’s highly publicized Xbox was slated to release just 3 days before the GameCube in North America.
And then there was the problem of perception. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox were both sleek, futuristic-looking machines that offered multimedia capabilities like DVD playback in addition to more mature games, while the GameCube was a comparatively tiny, adorable purple box with a handle, a proprietary minidisc format that offered a smaller amount of storage than its competition, and as far as anyone knew, no new Mario game on the way.
The GameCube had an uphill battle to contend with, but Nintendo would do their best to address these concerns at Spaceworld 2001.
During the event, Nintendo hosted a presentation called The Nintendo Difference. After some business talk, they showed off some of the titles they had been working on for the GameCube’s launch window. WaveRace: Blue Storm and Eternal Darkness aimed to appeal to the more Mature crowd, while titles like Animal Forest+ and Pikmin were more in line with the company’s traditional fare. But it was Mario fans, after years of waiting, that finally got what they were hoping for, and more. First, the haunted house game from last year’s Spaceworld was shown in more detail. It was now called Luigi’s Mansion, and the presentation, while very short, showed off its impressive visuals and new control style. But the big reveal came just a bit later, as Nintendo pulled back the curtain on the sequel to Super Mario 64, a brand new 3D adventure referred to at the show as Mario Sunshine. The trailer showed Mario running around a tropical environment with a strange contraption strapped to his back. Designer Shigeru Miyamoto reiterated that the game was still in active development and had a long way to go, but the existence of a new Mario game went a long way in assuring potential GameCube owners that they would have plenty to look forward to.
Mario Sunshine, though, wasn’t slated to release until 2002, which meant that the position of flagship launch title was awarded to Luigi, a task he faced armed only with a modified Game Boy Color, and a very special vacuum cleaner.
Luigi’s Mansion launched for the Nintendo GameCube in November 2001, giving Luigi his very first Nintendo-developed starring role.
One day, Luigi received a letter in the mail informing him that he had won a mansion in a contest that he had no memory of ever having entered. When he went to go meet his brother Mario to investigate his new real estate, he was accosted by a series of ghosts with Mario nowhere to be found. Fortunately, a tiny scientist named Professor E. Gadd came to his rescue, and brought him back to his lab.
E. Gadd had been studying the ghosts in the mysterious mansion by capturing them with his invention, the Poltergust 3000. This special vacuum could suck up ghosts and capture them so Luigi could bring them to E. Gadd’s lab, where they could be safely turned into paintings. In order to suck up the ghosts though, Luigi would first have to stun them with his flashlight, then begin the process of pulling them in, which was more difficult than it looked.
Luigi was able to find his way around the mansion thanks to the Game Boy Horror, an invention of E. Gadd’s that was designed to mimic the Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Horror was an invaluable tool as Luigi traveled the mansion’s four areas in search of his brother, who as it turned out was captured upon his arrival at the mansion, and turned into a painting by King Boo.
Luigi’s Mansion was in no way a Super Mario game, but it does hold an important place in the series history. It wasn’t technically Luigi’s first solo outing, having first starred in Luigi’s Hammer Toss, a promotional game watch from 1990 distributed at McDonald’s, and then again in 1993’s Mario is Missing, an edutainment title from The Software Toolworks where Luigi had to travel to real-life locations to rescue his brother from Bowser. But this was his first original game published and developed by Nintendo themselves, as well as the first time this degree of characterization had been applied to Mario’s brother in a video game. Luigi’s personality was at the very core of the experience, as players could witness his fear and excitement with spectacular emotive animation. The majority of the game’s soundtrack was actually sung by Luigi himself, with the character humming the game’s theme song through varying degrees of trembling depending on how scared he was at any particular moment. There was even a dedicated button for making Luigi call out Mario’s name.
But perhaps Luigi’s Mansion’s biggest accomplishment was that it proved that Mario’s brother, just like Donkey Kong and Wario before him, could perform just fine on his own. It kicked off the Luigi’s Mansion series which went on to span several successful sequels on both home consoles and in arcades, in addition to its unique world being referenced in other popular Nintendo franchises like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.
Both the GameCube and Luigi’s Mansion enjoyed a very successful launch, ending 2001 on a high note. The competition may have been stiff, but Nintendo had a very big year ahead of them, especially for Mario fans. And it all began with the followup to Super Mario Advance, though not the one anyone was expecting.
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World was released in February 2002, skipping over super Mario Bros. 3 in favor of giving GBA owners a portable rendition of Mario’s first 16-bit adventure. Similar to Super Mario Advance, Super Mario Advance 2 aimed to be an enhanced port of the Super NES game it was based on, but this time around the experience was considerably less ambitious. Apart from a new intro sequence, a few visual flourishes throughout, and thankfully far fewer voiceovers, Super Mario Advance 2 was largely unchanged from its home console counterpart, with the exception of Luigi.
This iteration of the game scrapped the new Luigi sprites created for Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World, and replaced them with new, less bizarre ones that show him throwing fireballs instead of spitting them, and sliding down hills on his backside instead of on his knees. But Luigi’s changes weren’t just cosmetic, as he now played similar to his appearance in Super Mario Advance, with longer jumps and less traction.
Super Mario Advance 2 hit store shelves less than a year after Super Mario Advance, but that didn’t stop it from being yet another fantastic sales success for Nintendo. Super Mario World was still regarded as one of the best platformers ever made, and having an accurate portable rendition available was an enticing proposition for fans.
It was a curious release though, with many wondering exactly why they decided to skip over Super Mario Bros. 3, but little did they know, Nintendo had a plan. One that required Super Mario Bros. 3 to wait just a little bit longer. So while their handheld division quickly shifted development to their next Mario Advance project, Mario made his final preparations to return to living rooms everywhere.
Despite its strong launch, things had quickly begun to take a downward turn for Nintendo’s newest home console. Competition from the PlayStation 2 and Xbox continued to steer customers away from Nintendo’s more family friendly image, especially in the face of the latest news regarding some of their most high profile projects. The new Legend of Zelda game had seemingly abandoned its gritty realism in favor of Looney Toons style cartoon antics. The long awaited followup to the Super NES classic Super Metroid was now being developed as a First Person shooter by an unproven North American studio, and Mario, while still as bright and colorful as ever, left fans and members of the media alike concerned over his new game’s water-powered jetpack mechanics. But as always, hype for a proper new Mario game would not be overcome so easily. And after years of re-releases and spinoffs, Mario and his friends were finally ready for their first new, original adventure in over six years.
Super Mario Sunshine was released in August 2002, presenting the world of Mario in high resolution 3D graphics for the very first time. Upon booting the game up, it was immediately apparent that this was by far the most modern take on Mario that Nintendo had ever done, with fully voiced cinematic sequences and highly stylized menus and texts. These cutscenes were naturally used to portray the game’s story, of which, at least by Mario game standards, there was an unprecedented amount. One day, Mario, Peach, and Toadsworth were headed on a vacation to a tropical paradise called Isle Delfino. When their plane landed, Mario was almost immediately arrested as the locals were under the impression that he was responsible for a strange brown goop that was covering their island. This was due to the sudden appearance of Shadow Mario, a strange, dark doppelganger who wielded a magic paintbrush, and was the one truly responsible for the mess. But it was Mario himself, who was sentenced to clean up the grafiti, and thankfully, not alone. The court appointed him a strange, sentient waterpack called FLUDD. This device, created by Professor E. Gadd from Luigi’s Mansion, strapped to Mario’s back, and could be used to either shoot water out ahead of him, or as a liquid fueled jetpack, allowing the player to hover in the air for a brief amount of time.
As a followup to Super Mario 64, the broad strokes of the game functioned largely the same. Delfino Square acted as the central hub world, similar to Peach’s castle. Various graffiti could be used to access different levels, similar to the castle’s paintings. And each world contained numerous objectives that concluded when Mario collected a Shine Sprite, Sunshine’s equivalent to Super Mario 64’s power stars. Mario’s 3D movements were similar as well, with his previous acrobatics now including tightrope walking, a spin jump, and more. But it was Fludd that formed the foundation of the game’s new mechanics.
Nearly everything revolved in some way around spraying water, from basic traversal to boss encounters. Traditional powerups were also gone in favor of new attachments for the water pack including the Rocket Nozzle, which shot Mario remarkably high straight up in the air, and the Turbo Nozzle, which could be used to rocket Mario forward at incredible speed. Yoshi was back too, though even he functioned in a similar fashion as Fludd, with his primary action now being the ability to spit a steady stream of fruit juice in addition to swallowing enemies.
Fludd also introduced a degree of resource management to the game, as its water reserve was finite. Mario had to monitor its levels, and refill it with any water he could find.
As Mario continued to clean the island and collect more Shine Sprites, the island itself became more bright, and the story continued to unfold. In a not-so-shocking reveal, it turned out that Bowser was behind the treachery all along, but this time, there was a twist. Shadow Mario was actually his magical son, Bowser Jr. And his mother, according to him, was Princess Peach. Thankfully, this somewhat disturbing plot thread ultimately turned out to be false.
In the end, after restoring Isle Delfino to its former beauty, Mario traveled deep within Corona Mountain, braved a profoundly frustrating boat segment, and faced off against Bowser and his son in an enormous floating hot tub. With the dastardly duo defeated, peace returned to Delfino, and Mario and Peach could finally enjoy their vacation.
Super Mario Sunshine was a successful game, but its reception at the time was somewhat mixed. Many praised its bright, well realized visuals and extremely catchy music, but the overwhelming focus on the new Fludd accessory was seen by many as a drawback. Throughout the adventure, several bonus areas could be uncovered where Shadow Mario stole Fludd, and the player had to traverse these abstract stages as just Mario, and a common sentiment at the time was that players would have been more than happy to have a game that was just that. Others complained of the general frustrations Super Mario Sunshine presented in some of its later areas, like the Pachinko Machine and Sand Bird stages. Still, even though it wasn’t the smash hit Nintendo was hoping for, the game was generally well liked, and is still considered a highlight in the GameCube’s library today.
But 2002 wasn’t quite done with Mario yet, and in fact, another 2D Mario game was headed to the Game Boy Advance just one month later. And it was yet again, quite the surprising release.
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, a port of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, released on the Game Boy Advance in September 2002, continuing the increasingly confusing sequence of games in the Super Mario Advance series. This one was largely unchanged from its Super NES counterpart, with the exception of the screen cramping thanks to the GBA’s smaller resolution. Yoshi’s Super NES sound effects were replaced by his voice samples used in the Nintendo 64 game Yoshi Story, and there were six unique unlockable stages made specifically for this release, but other than that, the two versions were virtually identical. Due to the nature of the game being so different from traditional Mario paltformers, the inclusion of the Mario Bros. multiplayer mode felt particularly out of place here. But all in all, players were more than happy to have an incredibly faithful port of one of the finest platformers ever made available on the go, and its sales numbers reflected that as Super Mario Advance 3 proved once again to be a big hit for Nintendo.
But this curious release made one lingering question all the more prevalent. Where in the world was Super Mario Bros. 3? Just over one year later, Nintendo would deliver an answer, one that would prove to have been worth the wait.
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, released for the Game Boy Advance in October 2003, continuing to confuse consumers with its bizarre numbering scheme, while finally bringing the last of Mario’s original 2D adventures to Nintendo’s handheld line. Like previous Mario Advance games, this was based on the Super Mario All-Stars version of Mario 3, with several small alterations made to accommodate the Game Boy Advance hardware, in addition to a new intro sequence, and the regular graphical tweaks and voice samples. These changes were more in line with what was done for Super Mario World as opposed to the more sweeping alterations made in the original Super Mario Advance, and once again included the same Mario Bros. multiplayer game as the previous entries, but while the scope of the Super Mario Bros. 3 port itself was still rather modest, it was only one part of the experience.
One month before the launch of Super Mario Advance 4, Nintendo released an accessory for the Game Boy Advance called the e-Reader. This device plugged into the system’s cartridge slot and allowed players to scan special cards that contained game data. And it was through the use of this peripheral that Nintendo would technically release their first new 2D Mario game since Super Mario World, while bringing the entire Super Mario Advance line full circle.
Included with every new copy of Super Mario Advance 4 were a selection of e-reader cards. Some of these could be used to access powerups during regular gameplay, some included demonstrations of how to speedrun certain stages in the game, but others contained something far more exciting, all-new levels. These were called Level Cards, and were sold in packs at various retail outlets. North America only saw the first two series of cards, but in Japan there were four, resulting in 38 brand new levels, referred to in-game as World-e. The reason Super Mario Bros. 3 was the final Super Mario Advance release was that its mechanics were widely regarded as the standard for 2D Mario platformers, hence its unusual release order. Using Super Mario Bros. 3 as its base, with the rest of Mario’s 2D catalog behind it, these new levels incorporated elements from all four Super Mario Advance titles. You could pick up and throw vegetables found in the ground, obtain the cape feather, encounter enemies from Yoshi’s Island, explore Ghost Houses, and even discover an all-new new powerup, the Boomerang. It was an expressly fun celebration of Mario’s 2D outings, but thanks to the e-reader requirement, and many of the cards being completely unavailable outside of Japan, very few actually managed to play through all of World-e, but those that did were treated to some of the most experimental, and creative levels Nintendo had ever released in a 2D Mario game.
Super Mario Advance 4 was a spectacular finish for the handheld series, with the fantastic World-e stages tying it all together magnificently. But for as great as it was, there was no denying that the Mario brand had seen better days. Super Mario Sunshine reviewed well enough, but was still a very divisive title. The Super Mario Advance series provided some fun new takes on Mario’s classics, but were still ultimately just re-releases. And the new content Nintendo had created, was not only locked behind a bizarre peripheral with the bulk of its content only available in one part of the world, but also still only contained 38 levels, a far cry from even the original Super Mario Bros. 3’s 90. Mario was obviously still a very important figure to Nintendo, but his reputation had taken a bit of a hit, as did the company as a whole. But while gaming pundits spread stories about Nintendo’s imminent doom and predicted that they would be making games for competing platforms in short order, Nintendo was already hard at work on their next big ideas. And this time, they would no longer be trying to keep up with the competition. Instead, they would return to their philosophy of playing by their own rules, and change not just the company’s perception, but Revolutionize video games once again.
Join us next time as Mario reaches for the stars, and gets back to 2D basics in an all New way.
