I contemplated writing an entire elaborate article on how to go back yet again to 2D Mario while keeping it fresh. I still may, and this topic is making me want to do so even more, but a few quick points that I think would help keep the series interesting and help recapture that excitement and appeal the series had circa Mario 3/World..
- Up the production value - NSMB was great, but had a pretty cheap and cartoony aesthetic, along with pedestrian, kiddie, and cheapo sounding music. Just because it's 2D doesn't mean it has to look bland, or that the art style can't be interesting.
- New and interesting unique worlds - See DKC for sort of what I'm taking about, with its Industrial world, Theme park world, and giant beehive. Enough with the basic desert land, water land, etc.. Have a candy themed world where you can get stuck in pools of honey, "negative" world where colors and gravity is inverted, or a psychedelic outer space world where Mario can fall into oblivion through black holes. That acidic forest place was about the closest in NSMB to being interesting. You could even have fun with the nostalgia a bit by throwing in a retro world where Mario turns back to 8 bit form similar to those small bits in Odyssey.
- New and more diverse lineup of powerups ala some of the recent 3D Mario games and Mario 3.
- Some sort of permanent upgrade system could be interesting, though I don't think they should push it too much with this so as not to lose the spirit of the simplicity of Mario and get too into RPG territory.
The 2D Mario formula itself is fine and will always have the potential to provide fun gameplay, it's just what Nintendo's doing with it at the moment that is beginning to made the experience border on blandness, as they're not making significant leaps in this series as they did from Mario 1 to 3, and from 3 to World to an extent.
Last edited by DarthMetalliCube - on 21 August 2018
"We hold these truths to be self-evident - all men and women created by the, go-you know.. you know the thing!" - Joe Biden
