In 1995 Nintendo was facing Sega and, for the first time, Sony, and Super Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong Country in the west), which was released in the same December fortnight that the PlayStation and Saturn hit the shelves, was its response to its rivals’ new consoles. Nine months later Yoshi’s Island shipped, just one week after PlayStation arrived in the UK. With its own next-gen console still another nine months from release in Japan and 18 months from release in Europe, October 1995 was Nintendo’s final push to convince players they didn’t need new hardware to get a next-generation experience.

The rejection of the first Super Mario World 2 prototype marked the point at which simply being good was no longer good enough. Movies were suddenly riddled with CGI and arcades were full of polygons and Nintendo’s biggest games had to redefine the console to fight off two 32-bit machines promising perfect arcade ports and Hollywood cutscenes.

Instead of merely mimicking Donkey Kong Country Miyamoto moved the game towards a hand-crafted style, and, by disregarding the CGI fad, he crafted something that could withstand the test of time. Even in 1995 Yoshi’s Island felt new in a way Donkey Kong Country hadn’t one year earlier. While Rare used the most powerful technology of the day to build a perfectly solid Donkey Kong platformer in a graphical style now as eye-stabbingly ugly as an episode of Reboot, Shigeru Miyamoto’s team used their new graphical style and the Super FX chip to build a living cartoon and a different kind of platformer.

Scaling enabled them to make beautiful animations and morphing sprites that would grow to fill the screen, 3D polygons created rolling platforms built to throw off slow Yoshis and the best level designers in the business put their new toys to work in the most imaginative ways. Anyone could have used a new sprite scaler to make giant bosses, but Miyamoto’s team used it to dream up a screen-filling Bashful Burt you’d have to de-pant to beat, a frog you’d fight from the inside out, a struggle for space against two Shy Guys and a potted ghost, an armoured monster who could only be beaten by having the ground removed from beneath his clanking feet and a raven who was ejected from his patchwork moon home with a prod up the bum from a wooden stake.

Back in 1995 those too-rude-for-vicar jokes were a trademark of naughty-minded Japanese developers and games like Legend Of The Mystical Ninja, Parodius and Yoshi’s Island had a keen sense of humour that’s been all but lost in today’s world. The sheer weirdness of Japanese games from the early 1990s is impossible in a globalised gaming universe in which titles cost $50 million to make. Needless to say, no creative director is ticking the box beside the kanji for “poke raven in bottom on moon to win” on a pitch document in the 21st century.

When Nintendo fans talk of the early nineties as a golden era it’s exactly because of moments like these. This was technology put to the most creative uses, not only to render screen-filling monsters, but also to give you something unique to do once they’d swollen to mammoth size. Behind it all is a sophisticated physics model that powers everything from that flutter-jump to the eggs Yoshi fires like cannonballs. Those algorithms provide the magic behind some of the best boss fights of all time, as ping-ponging eggs punch holes in wibbly-wobbly ghosts and Yoshi’s frantic flutter saves you from deadly falls at the very last second.

As a result, Yoshi’s Island is perfectly unique. The box says “Super Mario World 2”, but it is no more a direct Mario World sequel than Super Mario 3D World was a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy. The first four Mario games showed a natural evolution of sorts, but for Super Mario World 2 Shigeru Miyamoto started from scratch and kicked off a kind of lunatic design that persists to this day.

Nintendo always starts from scratch with Mario, not just from game to game, but from level to level. In 1995 you’d Touch Fuzzy and Get Dizzy on one level and morph into a car, or ride a giant Koopa on another. In 2013 you’d be a giant Mario one minute and a cat the next, or racing down rapids, or carrying a friend to the flagpole. There’s always something new to try.

Even today players are finding new things to discover in Yoshi’s Island. Some of it’s useful for speedrunning, like Yoshi’s perfect flutter, which can be chained to flutter entire levels without losing altitude or the ‘gatehack’ that opens pinball bumpers from the wrong side. Others are just pure, show-off silliness, such as Yoshi’s tricky backwards run, or the glitch that launches the lizard into space during one boss fight, or the many ways to juggle eggs.

Yoshi’s Island is an inexhaustible bounty of ideas and innovation and is one of several games that Nintendo banked upon to carry it through its darkest days. From August to December in 1995 this game, Donkey Kong Country 2, Doom, Mortal Kombat 3, Final Fight 3 and Killer Instinct made Nintendo’s case, while Wipeout, Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden represented Sony, but after 20 years Yoshi’s Island stands alone: still good, still funny and still a technical masterwork.

The post Why does Yoshis Island remain a classic, 20 years on? appeared first on Game News.

The mandate presented to Nintendo’s elite development team was clear. Its aim, according to Miyamoto, was “to make a 3D home console Super Mario game that people who like the New Super Mario games can also enjoy”. In other words, to forge a stronger link between Mario’s two-dimensional obstacle courses and his more expansive 3D adventures. And not only in design terms, you suspect, but also to bridge the sales gap between the two.

Plans were set in motion after Super Mario Galaxy 2 was completed. “We decided we should make an entirely new title, rather than another in the Galaxy series,” co-director Koichi Hayashida says. “Up until that point, we had only been working on games for the home console, so you might expect that we’d go on to develop a game for Wii U. In fact, we got really interested in creating a 3D Mario game that could be played with the 3D effect of 3DS. That’s why we chose to develop for the handheld system instead. Saying that, though, at that same point we also planned on making a version for Wii U. So, in that sense, you could say the game was in development for over three years.”

Hayashida admits that Nintendo may have had to reconsider its approach had Super Mario 3D Land been a failure. But the critical and commercial success of Mario’s 3DS debut encouraged the company to stay its course. With the help of Nintendo subsidiary 1-Up Studio (formerly known as Brownie Brown, which worked on the likes of Mother 3 and Heroes Of Mana), the largest development team in EAD Tokyo’s history began work on its Wii U spiritual sequel. And with the core concept established at a very early stage, there was plenty of time for experimentation.

Indeed, the finished product bears the hallmarks of an eclectic approach to game design, one actively encouraged by the policies of co-director and team leader Kenta Motokura. Over 100 staff members were asked to come up with ideas, from throwaway gimmicks to entire level concepts, which were then displayed across dozens of Post-it notes stuck to the studio’s walls. So perhaps it’s little wonder 3D World sometimes feels generous to a fault, introducing ideas before throwing them away minutes later. “We discussed and discarded a huge number of ideas during development,” Motokura says. “Sometimes you just can’t tell if an idea is good or bad by looking at it on the drawing board; when this happens, we try it out in-game. If we don’t find the idea fun, it won’t make it into the final product. There was a lot of back and forth on the course designs due to this.”

That sense of restlessness is pronounced in 3D World with its myriad asides, which range from the rapid-fire thrill of the Mystery Houses to the puzzle-led Adventures Of Captain Toad levels, the latter having been particularly warmly received. “We thought they were a lot of fun, so we’re really glad everyone likes them too,” says Hayashida. “If enough fans express such enthusiasm, we’d consider doing something with this feature in future.” It’s tempting to suggest that the rise in popularity of the quick-fix gaming offered by smartphones may have been an inspiration, but it’s a comparison that Motokura is quick to dismiss. “They weren’t inspired by smartphone games. The idea was to design a game that would become even more fun as you play through it, and this influenced the pace of the game, effectively increasing the rhythm. We felt that a short challenge with quick results would be a good motivation for players to advance onto the next course.”

Producer Yoshiaki Koizumi chips in: “We do feel a need to keep delivering games that will surpass our audience’s expectations. As creators, we try to fill our games with as many unique elements as possible. Moving into the future, we want to continue to deliver even more surprises as fast as we can so that it never feels like there aren’t enough.”

Despite having such a vast pool of ideas to draw from, one of 3D World’s very best notions came about by happy accident. The Double Cherry power-up was conceived when one of the level designers accidentally added an extra character model into one of the courses. “We ended up with a single player being able to control two versions of Mario at the same time!” Motokura recalls. “We all tried it and it was really amusing, so we scrambled to readjust the game so that this feature would make it into the final product. If the game had locked up with two identical characters on the level, I don’t think we would have the double Mario feature we have now!”

While the Double Cherry was a latecomer, the Super Bell that allows Mario and company to adopt feline form was introduced nearer the start of development, becoming the signature feature of a game overloaded with playful touches. As with many of the best Nintendo designs, it was simply the most elegant solution to an existing problem, or in this case two: the director’s desire to allow Mario to climb walls, and to provide a way to help novices clear high obstacles. “We wanted Mario to make use of not only the ground but other surfaces, which is what led us to this idea,” Motokura says. “At roughly the same time, we were looking at ideas for more exciting ways for players to run around the courses. One of the things we investigated was having characters scamper around on [all fours]. For both movement styles, the test characters were either a normal-looking Mario or a version with a slight difference in colour. In finally putting all this together into a new Mario ability, we felt that a cat ticked all the boxes… For the final design, we strove to make it as cat-like as possible, while keeping it clearly distinct from [3D Land’s] Tanooki Mario.”

Cat Mario also represented another answer to an ancient problem – that of combat within the context of a 3D platform game. Leaping onto enemies’ heads in two dimensions might not be a issue for most players, but that doesn’t hold true for 3D. It’s a balance that Nintendo has wrestled with for some time, as Hayashida explains: “[This] is why you had the punch in Super Mario 64 and the 360-degree spin attack in Super Mario Galaxy. Since Super Mario 3D Land, though, with the 3D effect, jumping on enemies has become a lot easier, but we still decided to add in the claw attack to give Cat Mario an advantage. Then, of course, there’s Rosalina, the unlockable character for this game, who can perform a spin attack without needing a transformation. I think, when playing as her, you’re really able to feel the difference in playstyles.”

Yet if the five playable characters offer a range of abilities – Toad’s running speed makes him ideal for time attacks, while Peach’s floaty jump acts as a built-in difficulty modulator – the stages were seemingly designed with only one skillset in mind. “If a course is fun to play as Mario, then generally speaking it will also be fun to play using the other characters as well,” Hayashida says.

But the plumber handles differently from his other home console incarnations, the absence of a triple jump being a notable omission. Its exclusion stemmed from a desire to hark back to the simplicity of older Mario games. “Back when we were discussing the character abilities for Super Mario 3D Land,” Motokura says, “we thought about what was the simplest bit of fun that could be had using Mario’s regular abilities. We decided it was jumping across a series of platforms without falling – think back to the doughnut blocks and rotating platform courses in previous games. This decision helped us make comparatively intricate courses for Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World. In contrast, in a game like Super Mario 64, I think the fun needs to be on a slightly larger scale, hence why the triple jump worked so well there. It’s not that one ability is better than the other, it’s just that we use ones that best fit the design of the game.”

Losing 3DS’s stereoscopic effect and its aid to depth perception proved challenging, though, despite Hayashida’s admissions that it was also the root of the biggest hurdles during development of the 3DS title. “With Super Mario 3D Land, we developed the game with the premise of having the 3D effect, but we also had to make sure the game was still fun to play when this effect was turned off; that made things much more difficult. Through a lot of tweaking, I think we managed to make a game that’s also fun to play even without using the 3D feature. We took the lessons we learned here and used them in making Super Mario 3D World.”

Further complicating matters, Nintendo’s team wanted to accommodate four players simultaneously for 3D World. “We had to make sure none of the players would feel left out, even if all four players are moving in different directions,” Hayashida says. “We combined multiple types of camera movements that would adjust to the layout or a given feature in the courses. It was a lot of work setting all this up!”

Miyamoto’s presence was felt at a macro level, but even so he directed the 3D Land and World team to tackle problems it might rather have skipped. “We used the Goal Pole in Super Mario 3D Land, but it was quite a challenge for us,” Hayashida says. “We tentatively asked Mr Miyamoto if we could change this, but he was pretty sure that the Goal Pole is a staple of Mario games. It’s definitely a clear marker, and is easily visible even from afar.”

Its blend of old and new earned Super Mario 3D World universal acclaim, even if it was criticised for being a poor showcase of its host console’s features. “We always try to keep our 3D Mario games both highly intuitive and readily accessible,” Motokura says. “We designed this game so that the players could really sink into it and clear all the courses without having to read lots of text or deal with difficult controls, whether playing by themselves or with others. However, if we were to make another game then we might need to make even more use of the GamePad.”

“For Super Mario 3D Land, we strove to integrate the best elements of 2D Mario games into a 3D Mario game,” Koizumi says. “In a sense, you can also say that we created Super Mario 3D World by rethinking traditional Mario game ideas. In addition to doing this, we went all out inserting elements [that allow] players to further enjoy the sprawling environments. There’s still a lot more room for discovery and invention, and we’ll continue to propose new and exciting game mechanics going into the future.”

Whether that will involve Toad, Luigi and company remains to be seen, but it may have to. After all, now we’ve had a home console 3D Mario with fourplayer co-op, it could be hard to justify a singleplayer-only outing. But will the team’s adventures continue on 3DS or Wii U? “That’s still a secret!” Koizumi laughs. “I can tell you, though, that we’ve already started approaching our next challenge.”

Read more from Edge here. Or take advantage of our subscription offers for print and digital editions.

The post Why double Mario forced Nintendo to change Super Mario 3D World appeared first on Game News.

The story moves fast in Sticker Star, with Bowser almost immediately disrupting Sticker Fest, a celebration of the arrival of the mythical Sticker Comet. He and his minions steal the wish-granting power of the comet, using their new strength to wreak havoc on the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario teams up with sassy sprite Kersti–think Ocarina of Time’s Navi, but funny instead of annoying–to reclaim the five Royal Stickers in the hopes of setting things right.

The premise of collecting a handful of magical items to defeat your arch enemy might be pretty predictable. However, Sticker Star casts away many RPG conceits like experience points, equipment, and party members, so the game feels like anything but a retread of the same.

Any attack in battle consumes a sticker, most major plot developments depend on sticker placement, and maintaining your supply of stickers is where much of the strategy comes from. Choosing when and where to use a certain sticker adds tension to every battle, because ending a mundane fight fast with a strong sticker means you won’t have it on hand for the inevitable boss battle. You can build your collection in shops across the world, but many rarer stickers are found few and far between, hidden in the corners of stages.

Underneath all the stickers, the turn-based, reactive combat of previous entries is still intact, where early hits and timing your blocks can mean life or death for Mario. Removing the frills of traditional RPGs lets that gameplay shine even brighter, and by the end of the game you’ll wonder why you ever felt like a Mario RPG needed all that extra fluff. Mario games are at their best when they focus on simple fun, and Sticker Stars proves that once more.

If players’ might have early, misguided doubts about the gameplay, they will likely feel the same about the seemingly linear construction of the map. However, while the map structure of segmenting worlds with “1-1, 1-2, 1-3” and so on may seem too straightforward, in practice Sticker Star is fairly open-ended. When the map opens up, major bosses can be beaten out of order and areas like 5-3 can be explored hours before 4-2, a flow that fits well within the limitations of portable gaming.

For as enjoyable as the gameplay may be, the exceptional script is Sticker Star’s strongest asset. The clever dialogue breathes life into every character, such as Kersti’s continually bossing around Mario and jumping to conclusions, or Bowser Jr.’s insufferably bratty taunts. The writing–supported by expert English localization–is incredibly funny, even by the franchise’s high standards. Also of note is the jazzy soundtrack, one of the best from the series in some time.

As cute as all that can be, a few of those sticker puzzles are also home to Sticker Star’s bigger frustrations. After collecting dozens of real world items (staplers, goats, ect), you end up with so many baubles that some puzzles that should have been amusing end up frustrating ordeals based on trial and error that often aren’t clarified by Kersti’s optional hints. The occasional off the wall solutions mix with the overly open map to cause confused players to aimless roam the map until they finally stumble upon the solution.

But those frustrations are momentary at best, hardly detracting from a can’t miss handheld game. One of the best 3DS games to date, Paper Mario: Sticker Star updates an already great series for handhelds by expertly cutting the fat to make for a digestible portable adventure. RPG lovers might balk at the changes, but after the first few hours they’ll realize that this is just the next evolution in a series that was always quietly innovating its genre.

The post Paper Mario: Sticker Star review appeared first on Game News.

We also particularly enjoyed the new arrangement of the classic Mario soundtrack, with groovy double bass and ‘brush’ snare taps complementing an enjoyable modulation through the familiar overworld theme. We know you were thinking the same thing. Suffice to say, as trailers go, this is a good ‘un. And we’re even more excited for the game now, which is due to launch on November 11 in the US, with Japan and Europe following on December 6 and 7 respectively.

The post Paper Mario: Sticker Star trailer features the word nyarglebargle and a screen-filling goat appeared first on Game News.

That video makes Mario DDR look like a happy memory. Do you see now that Just Dance is so powerful that they can get permission from Nintendo to embarrass Mario to such a degree? Ubisoft can hire some guy, dress him as Mario, stand him in front of a green screen, make him dance, and charge money for it. It costs 250 Nintendo Points, and goes on sale tomorrow on the Wii eShop. Oh well, it can’t be worse than the Smurfs’ dance game.

The post Just Dance 3 Mario DLC has to be seen to be believed appeared first on Game News.

At the start of the above trailer you’ll see the impressive but challenging buzz saw-filled level, and midway through you’ll see boomerang-tossing, but what about that StreetPass stuff? Apparently you’ll exchange Mystery Rooms, cramped cubes containing short challenges where Mario can earn items, 1-ups or Star Medals for his collection. You’ll trade those with other players that leave 3D Land in StreetPass mode. It’s a nice addition and one we’ll certainly use around the office, but is that an interesting hook to our readers not surrounded all day by other 3DS players?

Oct 24, 2011

The post See Super Mario 3D Lands Boomerangs and StreetPass features in new video appeared first on Game News.