The New Super Mario Brother’s 2 game has already been announced by Nintendo. Following up with the success of the original Nintendo DS’s side scrolling platform, and the success of Mario Land 3DS for the Nintendo 3ds, comes a “brand new” Mario game for the Nintendo 3DS. While Mario may have single handedly saved the 3DS from failure and boosted Nintendo’s fortunes going into 2012 as they also seek to release a new home console, the Nintendo Wii-U, and while it is sure to be a hit and likely to sell one million plus copies, the game is already dusty to many gamers.
The phrase “new” suggests that something is new. What was new about the original “New” Super Mario Brothers? It brought a return to the side scrolling action that had seen itself semi-replaced by 3d adventures such as Mario Galaxy and one could perhaps argue it introduced the traditional style of Mario to a new generation of gamers, but there was near nothing new about it. When Donkey Kong Country returned, they appropriately named it “Donkey Kong Country RETURNS.” When Mario returned for his thousandth installation (hyperbole of course) they called it “new.”
So let’s say we could just ignore this fact. But what then would suggest something is new about a sequel!? NEW 2.0 or the same franchise doesn’t seem very new. It seems like a continued iteration of something that was already old, but was phrased as new, so even now it is no longer new. Why so much concern over the title of a game? Perhaps because this game already game out as Mario Land 3DS…
Super Mario Brothers, Mario World, and Mario Land used to have a differentiation factor about them. The very graphic make up, the control schemes, the immersion and the type of items separated the series. When Mario Land 3DS came out though, it played the exact same as a Mario Brothers game. It was near identical to the game play of Super Mario Brothers 3. Now the series name means nothing, eliminating once differences and blending all the games into one stale idea. With Mario Brothers of the “new” variety 2.0 coming out, what will make it different from the game that was already released just last year on the Nintendo 3DS?
We already seen Bowser and the Koopa Kids, we have already seen near all of the items again, we have already seen the world in 3D, and we have already seen this game… New Super Mario Brothers 2 seems to have little chance of being new. Go ahead and buy it though. Maybe we’ll see Baby Mario. *Rolls eyes. The games may stick to gamers like static electricity, but it needs something new.