Mario Day

Hello and welcome back to this month of Mario, and as we've just had Mario Day (Mar10) what better than to give up some of my ideas for the Brothers.  Our timing couldn't have been better, either, as there's an new Nintendo direct out focusing on Smash Brothers and a new Mario Tennis amongst others.

We of course are not looking at those gaems, as described last week, we are looking at remaking collections of Nintendo games from the earliest days with the following rules.

1. Graphics should be sprites either inspired for the NES or SNES or a more modern style like on the GBA, definitely no Mii avatars or polygons.

2. No lazy virtual console emulation, these are all new games not ROMS.

3. Do not charge full price and do not have in app purchases, these are budget games using obscure or unloved titles and should be priced as such.

Currently Nintendo would break rule two here as they would just reissue Super Mario Allstars for  the umpteenth time.  Look at the much maligned Wii release for the 25th anniversary of Mario and say that you wouldn't like something much better, or at least not a SNES rom and emulator for Wii.

Here's my switch ideas.

 Mario Brothers.
The first game has always been a bit of an oddity, if you treat it like the modern Mario games you'll fail as everything is fatal to the touch. You have to whack  them from below instead of jumping on them.  I'd love to see them do a release where they are brought right up to date like Donkey Kong for  Game Boy, had the first four levels then did its own thing.  A few more monsters from the various Mario games and bosses to fight all on a single screen and power ups too.  Maybe add more players in (4 player), or add a few side modes from the PC88 games such as Punch ball Mario.

Super Mario Brothers.

Nothing too drastic here, as everyone loves this.  Don't just  slap a NES rom on the cart and be done, but rather port across some of the more obscure variants of SMB.  Give us a port of the Arcade version (Kotaku cancer alert) or yet again another of the Hudson Soft conversions with Super Mario Special a flick screen conversion from the PC88.  Failing that remake it in Mario Maker.

Super Mario Brothers 2.

 Of all the games I'd love to see a return to Subcon.  Not the data disk add on for the Famicom Disk System but the reskin of Doki Doki Panic that we got instead.  Either a full blown remake of the GBA game complete with super egg unlockables and new bosses or a single screen game akin to Bubble Bobble.  

I had the idea for a single screen veg flinging game a while ago.  The fan game Cookout had the basics right, but what I really want is a single screen game, where you need to clear enemies with thrown veg and blocks, when its cleared you have to grab the key and go through a door to the next level.  Take too long and Phanto will chase you down.  There would be blocks and all the other power  ups from the original and maybe the return of some long neglected bosses such as Birdo, Mouser and Clawgrip too.

That Fruit Machine from the between stages of Mario 2
 
Failing that give us Toad's house from Mario 3 where we can play the match up game, the slot machine from Mario 2, the pairs game from 3 as well as a few other bits and bobs, such as a sound test.  You could even throw in the mini games from New SMB on the DS version too.  Call it Mario Box and we would be happy.