Tag: Mario

Nintendo Will Reportedly Remaster/Re-Release “Most of Super Mario’s 35 Year Back Catalogue” for the Switch!

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Video Games Chronicle – Multiple sources have told VGC that the platform holder is planning to hold an event to coincide with this year’s anniversary, which marks 35 years since the start of the mainline Super Mario series in 1985.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, Nintendo will reveal plans to re-release most of Super Mario’s 35-year back catalogue this year, remastered for Nintendo Switch, VGC was told.

As VGC’s network partner Eurogamer reported in a follow-up to our story, these remasters will include 1997’s Super Mario 64, 2002’s Super Mario Sunshine and 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy.

Nintendo will also release several other Mario titles in 2020, including a new instalment in the Paper Mario series and a Deluxe version of 2013’s Super Mario 3D World.

LETS GO! Finally some good news after all the doom and gloom we hear all day every day on the TV right now. If theres one thing thats gotten a lot of us through the Quarantine (get off your cross, I know), it’s been video games. All the money I’ve saved from not going out has gone right back into buying new video games. However, one thing Papa Giorgio and I constantly bitch about is how Nintendo is just sitting on a gold mine of IP at a perfect time in history when everyone is home all day and refuses to open the Disney Vaults. You know how much money I would spend re-buying old Nintendo games if they just ported them to Switch? A lot.

So now comes this report that Nintendo is apparently planning to not only re-release, but *remaster* “most of Super Mario’s 35 year back catalogue.” Porting a game is great, but for Nintendo to go back and actually remaster an old favorite is WELL worth my $60 bucks.

Just the other day I pulled my N64 out of the closet and, after about 10 minutes of furiously trying to connect technology that was never meant to be connected, I hooked it up to my flatscreen TV.

Now a remastered Mario 64 would be incredible, but there’s also a ton of Mario games I missed over the years because Switch was the first Nintendo system I actually bought since N64. So the bevy of titles from Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U is the real gold coin here.

Just think of all the Mario games this could potentially include? There’s obviously a laundry list of titles, but lets run through the most likely candidates from any Mario game that was on a console. The titles in bold were ones mentioned in VGC or Eurogamer’s report as specific games to expect.

  • Super Mario 64 – N64
  • Paper Mario – N64
  • Super Mario Sunshine – Gamecube
  • Super Mario Galaxy – Wii
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Wii
  • New Super Mario Bros – Wii
  • New Super Mario Bros U – Wii U
  • Super Mario 3D World – Wii U
  • Super Mario Maker Wii U

That’s a list of console games pre-Nintendo Switch, not including handheld games or anything prior to N64. A lot of the NES and SNES Mario games you can play right now with Nintendo Switch Online too.

However, as we saw with 2019’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Nintendo is not against remastering even old Game Boy games.

So if Nintendo wants to really get nuts, there are a TON of Mario titles to pick from over the last 35 years. Aside from some of the heavy hitters mentioned above, there is one game that I think we all desperately need back in our lives. Yup, thats right. Mario Golf.

Which Mario game do you want to see remastered for Nintendo Switch?

Nintendo Brought the Heat at E3. Lets Break it Down.

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If you’re reading this then I assume you already know, but for those who don’t, E3 is the annual video game convention, Electronic Entertainment Expo, and its where publishers showcase new and upcoming games. Its where new consoles get announced, new titles are revealed, but most of all its where all the blazing hot trailers are released for upcoming video games. And Nintendo brought the heat this year.

To be honest, this is the first year I’ve been excited for Nintendo’s E3 announcements, probably ever. The Switch is the first Nintendo system I’ve owned since N64. As I’ve joked about before I have absolutely zero brand loyalty, so good luck marketing to me. I went from the original Nintendo to Sega to N64 to Dreamcast to PS2 to Xbox 360 back to PS4 to Nintendo Switch. So yea, not a lot of continuity in there. With so few console exclusives that are actually worth it theres little reason to stay loyal to just one system.

But I am back on the Nintendo bandwagon and they’ve crushed it out of the gate with phenomenal games like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Outside of that though theres been a lack of great games on the new system. Nintendo gets accused of going to the well too often rehashing the same franchises over and over again like Mario and Zelda, but when the games are this good then who cares?

The most glaring absence had come from one of Nintendo’s most popular properties ever; Pokemon. Whats unique about Pokemon is that its never made the jump to home consoles for a standalone game. They’ve always developed core games for mobile devices like the Game Boy and the 3Ds. There have been random games like Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap to name a couple on home consoles, but no core games where you gotta catch em all.

That is until now.

Naturally, the news of Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Evee! leaked a few weeks ago so it wasn’t a huge reveal, but it was awesome to see the old Kanto region I grew up in as a fully realized 3D world. I am going to buy the absolute shit out of this game on Day 1.

Its essentially a remake of Pokemon Yellow, which dropped on Game Boy in 1998 and earned a 10/10 from IGN. But it won’t just be a port since they had to build this 3D world from scratch and it will also introduce new elements to the series such as adopting some gameplay features from the massively popular Pokemon Go iOS game. Then of course there’s this little guy.

Its a Pokeball controller that you throw to catch new Pokemon. Lets be honest, it doesn’t really matter what this costs because I am 100% going to buy it.

Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Evee! will both be released on November 16th so get your pre-orders in asap.

Super Mario Party was also announced, which will be the first game to really encourage playing the Switch with friends. You could say Mario Kart already did that, but that was a port of an old Mario Kart game rather than a brand new game so I’m giving the edge to Mario Party here. Plus this is the first game to really take advantage of the Switch technology, just check out the trailer below.  This one drops on October 5th.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was announced and it looks glorious. They really pulled out all the stops for this one by including every single character thats ever appeared in a Smash game. Ever. The roster is gigantic. We got all the originals plus we got Sonic, we got Charizard, hell we got Solid Snake himself. This is going to be the best drinking game since Mario Kart 64.  This one drops on December 7th.

Still no appearances by Fox McCloud though which is a goddamn shame because Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite games of all time and any Star Fox I’ve played since (Gamecube) was hot garbage.

For any Fortnite fans out there, the massively popular free title is now available on Switch too. So you can jump off the flying bus while literally riding the bus.

A couple of other freebies now available on the Switch include Pokemon Quest and Fallout Shelter. Quest is definitely a freemium type of game meaning you’ll likely have to put some money into the game to progress quickly, but I know Fallout Shelter has been out for a while to decent reviews. Both probably aren’t enough to be a great standalone game that you’d pay for, but as a free title you can play on the go? I’ll take that.

So if you were on the fence about buying yet another system, now is a pretty good time to jump into the Switch. Just make sure you get the Pokeball.