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Comment by hcks | Hacker News Reader

I mean they’ve been shipping the same game every year for all this time too

Not sure what you're getting at here. The amount of innovation in these Mario games is astonishing. It's not like "Madden" or "Fifa" or goodness knows annual franchises like "Assassin's creed".

In "wonder" for example every single level has some sort of crazy unique mechanic that is distinctive to that level. Videogame dunkey has a good summary of wonder showcasing these innovations specifically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXhfuicuUa0

So it's been almost 11 years since the release of the previous title, New Super Mario Bros. U.

Mouri: Yes. While Super Mario Maker (7), Super Mario Maker 2, and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe were released after the launch of the previous title, this is the first new 2D Mario game in almost 11 years.

I don't think "same game every year" is a fair characterization of what Nintendo is doing. They do the "yearly release" less than almost any major game company.

I think the original Mario brothers, then the 3rd one, then Yoshi’s Island, then 64, then Odyssey, then Wonder— that list (and probably some of the ones I left out) couldn’t in any sane way be considered a list of “same” games.

Yeah, you can see in the interview that they are LOCKED IN to the core Mario concepts. Really get the sense that Mario is an institution, a career at Nintendo.

Explains why the game feels subtly boring, at least from the trailers I watched. They are taking Mario and adding modifiers, not rethinking the foundation. You can't get the wonder + magic back by building off of what everyone already knows.

BotW + TotK were the really creative games, this is just lip service to creativity.

Nintendo is one of the few places where you can see ideas being iterated and improved from game to game. The quality may go down now and then, but they learn from mistakes and try to make the next game better and unique. The Switch generation especially has nailed all their big names.

This is getting downvoted, but I openly wonder how many ports and emulations releases Super Mario Brothers has received.

Down the bottom of the wikipedia page there's a good list;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.

  Super Mario Bros.
  The Lost Levels 1, 2, 3
  Land
  World
  Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
  World 2: Yoshi's Island
  New Wii
  New Super Mario Bros. 2
  New Super Luigi U
  Maker
  Run
  Maker 2
  Wonder

  Super Mario 64
  Sunshine
  Galaxy
  Galaxy 2
  3D Land
  3D World Bowser's Fury
  Odyssey

Spin-offs

  Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
  Super Princess Peach
  Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
  Super Mario Bros. 35
  Princess Peach: Showtime!

Remakes and compilations

  Super Mario All-Stars
  Advance 4
  64 DS
  3D All-Stars
  Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.

I was specifically talking about things like the gameboy advanced release of Super Mario Bros, the 3DS release, the Wii Virtual Console release of Super Mario Bros, and Nintendo Online release of Super Mario Bros, the NES Classic Edition, the Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.

Where literally the exact same game as the 1985 classic is resold.

That's not relevant because if literally the exact same game is resold the dev team won't be involved - it will just be an emulation/port team.

I think it's very relevant to the line "I mean they’ve been shipping the same game every year for all this time too" because every year they literally resell their old games.

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