Nintendojo’s Take on the Cube’s Later Years

Nintendo discusses the popular first-party games that came out later in the Cube years. 

Wario Land
Featuring: Wario World
The Wario Land series initially began as an extension of the Super Mario Land Game Boy series with the first game being named Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. The game was a variation of the Super Mario Bros. platformers by using a greedy and selfish protoganist who relied on his strength to progress through the game. In the original games, Wario was mostly invincible and required developers to come up with a brand new form of gameplay to fit a new character. The series received great praise and the first game produced three sucessful sequels.

Wario World represented the entrance of the Wario Land series onto a console. Third party Treasure became the developers and focused on the combat features of Wario to create a 3D Platformer. There is a notable absence of power-ups and status effects, both of which were part of the previous games. The game itself received generally negative reviews due to poor game design; more specifically, the game was considered too easy and short. Wario World also never received much publicity since the series attracted a niche audience. The anti-hero’s step into the third dimension proved to be rocky this generation.

Mario Sports
Featuring: Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Mario Power Tennis, Mario Superstar Baseball, Super Mario Strikers

Mario Sports is an unofficial term relating to a series of traditional sports games with enhancements and variations built around the Mario universe. The titles in this category are all developed by third party developers: Camelot Software Planning is responsible for Golf and Tennis, Next Level Games handled Strikers, and Namco was behind the Baseball. As a whole, these sports titles gained popularity on the N64 with the release of Mario Golf and Mario Tennis. During the following generation, sequels were provided for both those games with small upgrades and two new types of sports were added to the series: baseball and soccer.

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour was, in many respects, very similar to its predecessor. Besides the typical addition of characters and courses, a few adjustments were made to the gameplay, particularly in spin mechanics, and a new mode was added– Coin Shoot. The sequel generally satisfied a niche audience, but didn’t expand it in any way and didn’t offer any new experiences. Mario Power Tennis, on the other hand, was a bit more ambitious. The game added to the previous experience by including a variety of thematic minigames such as Artist on the Court, where players rallied back paintballs to paint a mural of a Nintendo character. However the biggest change was the inclusion of the power shot in all gameplay modes. When an offensive or defensive power shot was activated, the game stopped for a brief cutscene that temporarily altered the ball in some way. This was different from the last Mario Tennis in that the gimmicky aspects such as items or power-ups were reserved for separate modes in order to keep the main gameplay focused on traditional tennis. Yet the stalling cinemas of the power moves received some criticism for interrupting and confusing the main gameplay.

Following those two Sports sequels was Mario Superstar Baseball in 2005. It was the first team-based Mario Sports game (doubles tennis notwithstanding) and was significant for establishing the convention of captains, which would be reused in Super Mario Strikers. The game also made another significant addition to team-based gameplay by rewarding and punishing compatible and incompatible characters when they made plays together.

Super Mario Strikers‘ developer, Next Level Games, was also the creator of NHL Hitz, and that developer’s touch generated a slightly different tone than other Sports titles. One of the modes was named Grudge Match, Princess Peach and Daisy wore somewhat more revealing attire, and Wario and Waluigi gave lewd victory poses. Yet the game itself maintained an important aspect about the Mario Sports series– that is, gameplay is of greater importance than simulation. Modifications were made with disregard to traditional soccer rules, such as incorporating an electric fence to keep the ball in constant play rather than following established sports protocol of a throw-in.

Despite the effort, the Mario Sports games didn’t have as much prominence this generation. While developers first experimented with team-based games such as baseball and soccer, their games weren’t met with largely favorable reviews. Established Mario Sports titles maintained the same general framework with gameplay tweaks. One reason for the lack of overall prominence was probably due to the lack of casual gamers owning a GameCube. The original Mario Tennis was popular among casuals, whereas the only game that ended up reaching out to them this generation was Super Mario Strikers. The presence of casuals is likely to affect the popularity of the series for each generation.

More at: http://www.nintendojo.com/specials/view_item.php?1157782402

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