Mario game sequels

[jajaja]

I come to think of something, Nintendo managed to spit out 3 Mario games for NES within 5 years, why didnt they do this with thier other consoles too, or atleast a sequel?

I know that SNES got Yoshi's Island and that it is a Mario game, but on the other hand its not really a Mario game. I wonder why they didnt make a 2nd Mario game that was more like Super Mario World. And why not Mario 64 2 for N64?

[shadowkn55]

The reason is that as consoles get more powerful, it becomes increasingly more complex to program a game and make it play correctly. Just because it a console is more powerful, it doesn't make it any easier to develop for. There are more resources to take advantage of but it takes more skill to use those resources effectively and efficiently. Also, as a company gets bigger, they have projects in their portfolio and can not focus on a few select titles as well if they had less projects.

To go to your second point, game developers try not rehash the same game and concept over and over (unless you are EA sports). It gets old after a while. SMB2j was pretty much the same as SMB1 except it was a bit harder. That was part of the explanation why we got a modded Doki Doki Panic as SMB2.

This part is my personal opinion about Mario 64 2. As far as the sales numbers are concerned, the N64 was a failure as a console. It didn't quite reach the market penetration as Nintendo expected due to their success with the SNES. Making more games for a console with low market share doesn't make much sense as fewer copies of the game would be sold. Might as well save your effort for the next-gen console and make it that much better. Hopefully the sales will be good enough to warrant a sequel.

It's also about timing as well. We also missed out on many great games because a domestic release would have come too close to the next-gen console launch. The game companies would fear nobody would buy the game because they think gamers would forgo the game and save up for the next console. Personally, I don't like to play the waiting game when it comes to next-gen stuff. If there is something that catches my eye, I'll try to get it if I have the money. I don't believe in buying first batch consoles since there are inherent flaws that need to be fixed as companies are rushing product to market. But game companies don't think like me so they'll just try to avoid the risk altogether.

[Kid Ice]

Only two of those NES games were *really* Mario games. In the N64/GC era Mario was franchised out to all kinds of stuff. In the instances of both the N64 and GC, I would say Nintendo began working on the next gen Mario a little early. I could be wrong though.

[Veepa]

Only two of those NES games were *really* Mario games.

True, but there was a genuine Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

But the Japanese Super Mario Bros. was also just barely a sequel, more like a remix or Super Super Mario Bros. Championship Edition or something like that.

I think that Nintendo (or perhaps Miyamoto personally) didn't want to just do that anymore, which is precisely why true Mario games were so few and far between. He didn't want to churn out dozens of superficial sequels like Sega did with Sonic. I don't know, maybe that's reading too much dignity into what is essentially just business, but it's the way it seems to me. I'm glad that Miyamoto has decided to do something different with the series each time--and I would include Yoshi's Island in that counting, too, I don't see any reason to exclude it because it's different since *ALL* the Mario games have been different from one another.


...word s bondage...

[50TBRD]

If your jonesin' for another SMW, then find a hack of it. There are tons of them out there and at least one of them has to be good.

[exit]

Super Mario World didn't need a sequel, it had the perfect blend of challenge and re-play value that made it an instant classic. A direct SMW sequel would have taken away from it all, since direct sequels usually take away more than they give.

[VicViper]

If your jonesin' for another SMW, then find a hack of it. There are tons of them out there and at least one of them has to be good.

Making SMW mods is fairly easy as well. There's a program out there called Lunar Magic (http://fusoya.panicus.org/lm/), which is capable of editing specific levels as well as the overworld. There are a bunch of limitations: such as where and when pipes take a player, what sorts of bricks and enemies can be used on a given level, etc. It's not terribly restrictive though, and while the editor itself takes a little getting used to, working with it is not unlike working with something like Visio.

[RetroYoungen]

Only two of those NES games were *really* Mario games.

True, but there was a genuine Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan.

One could make the argument for SMB2 US, because it was also released in Japan as Super Mario USA. Maybe though it was released to poke fun at American gamers, I dunno. lol

[Greg2600]

Nintendo's poor market sense for sequels IMO could be extended to most of their properties. This is just my personal feeling, but I never liked any of the Donkey Kong games, yet you could say that the DK games, whether Country or Racing or whatever, were technically sequels in a sense to the Mario versions. As you've called Yoshi's SNES a sort of sequel to SMW. While Nintendo sold tons of the Mario platform each time a new console came out, they rarely sequelled those. Perhaps this has prevented them from producing far too many bad sequels, thus killing the franchise? Maybe it's a tradeoff? A little now and then, instead of all at once and never again. You could definitely make that claim to the quick and the dead such as Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. I mean, how many Resident Evil's can a person be expected to play when its the same game, only better graphics? Each Nintendo Mario game is a big change from the last, well, because the consoles changed. That said, I myself bought every NES SMB game when it came out (except those Mario is Missing type junk), every SNES version and SMKart, every N64. But I was willing to buy more. Had they released another Punchout, I would have bought that. I would have bought 5 Mariokart versions. I just never understood how they could pump out DK or Pokemon games all the time, but were not making that many Mario games.

[Lady Jaye]

Not even DK, DK Jr. or DK 94?

[bangtango]

I come to think of something, Nintendo managed to spit out 3 Mario games for NES within 5 years, why didnt they do this with thier other consoles too, or atleast a sequel?

I know that SNES got Yoshi's Island and that it is a Mario game, but on the other hand its not really a Mario game. I wonder why they didnt make a 2nd Mario game that was more like Super Mario World. And why not Mario 64 2 for N64?

They found out that they can make a pretty good living off of reissued/new versions of the first few Mario games. Seeing that Mario games were re-released on the Super NES, Game Boy and DS, it makes sense for them to mine the earlier games, even if it comes at the expense of making "new" games.

It seemed like the Super NES was selling enough with the Mario-based games that were out (and third party titles) that there was no urgent need to do what is essentially a system-seller. As for the N64, it didn't sell well enough to warrant releasing a second Mario game.

I suppose the real reason is that a good Mario game takes forever to conceive, and design, on a current/next generation console.