Scotty W
Banned
I think most of us were pleasantly surprised by the Nintendo/Lego partnership which was announced a few months back resulting in this:
The question I want to ask is “Why now?”
The first possible answer is that they never realized what a good idea a Super Mario Lego set would be until 2020.
The second possible answer is that these Lego sets are simply the first products from a deeper partnership, and that in terms of where the Mario series is in its historical development, it Super Mario Lego makes perfect sense as the next Mario game.
We know from interviews and from history the importance Shigeru Miyamoto places on crafting fundamentally new gaming experiences within the context of familiar franchises.
-Mario 64 basically invents the 3d platformer.
-Sunshine, the least innovative game here, designs a game around a water mechanic.
-Galaxy 1&2 destroy the idea of flat surfaces.
-3d Land and World perfect the camera and master a pseudo 2.5d environment.
-Odyssey destroys the idea that Mario is a person. Mario can become anything.
There is an interesting release here that shows Nintendo has at least looked at the idea of putting Mario in a Lego like environment:
It is easy to overlook the Mario Maker games as being outside the cannon, but in a sense they provide Nintendo with a challenge: how do you follow that up? Both in the sense of making a new Mario Maker game, and of actually making a game that can
be interesting to people when there are millions of levels freely available online.
Ok to sum up: The principle of gamers creating content is part of the Mario universe; Galaxy abolished gravity and flat surfaces, Odyssey allows Mario to become almost anything.
There is nowhere for Mario to go except by making him into atoms. And coincidentally Nintendo has entered a business partnership with Lego.
The question I want to ask is “Why now?”
The first possible answer is that they never realized what a good idea a Super Mario Lego set would be until 2020.
The second possible answer is that these Lego sets are simply the first products from a deeper partnership, and that in terms of where the Mario series is in its historical development, it Super Mario Lego makes perfect sense as the next Mario game.
We know from interviews and from history the importance Shigeru Miyamoto places on crafting fundamentally new gaming experiences within the context of familiar franchises.
-Mario 64 basically invents the 3d platformer.
-Sunshine, the least innovative game here, designs a game around a water mechanic.
-Galaxy 1&2 destroy the idea of flat surfaces.
-3d Land and World perfect the camera and master a pseudo 2.5d environment.
-Odyssey destroys the idea that Mario is a person. Mario can become anything.
There is an interesting release here that shows Nintendo has at least looked at the idea of putting Mario in a Lego like environment:
It is easy to overlook the Mario Maker games as being outside the cannon, but in a sense they provide Nintendo with a challenge: how do you follow that up? Both in the sense of making a new Mario Maker game, and of actually making a game that can
be interesting to people when there are millions of levels freely available online.
Ok to sum up: The principle of gamers creating content is part of the Mario universe; Galaxy abolished gravity and flat surfaces, Odyssey allows Mario to become almost anything.
There is nowhere for Mario to go except by making him into atoms. And coincidentally Nintendo has entered a business partnership with Lego.
