I predict Super Mario Water World. Maybe they could get a JarJar Binks kinda character in there that's goofy and runs around a lot, very emotional, get's excited over everything, swims and lays eggs. Mario will have to guide Peach's ship through the seas while platforming in the water. They will run across other ships, mostly pirate ships, and Mario will have to board them, fight his way through the defenses, get to the captain's room and beat the captain up for a piece of map or compass (or a sextant).

Then there will be the TOAD BRIGADE ships that arrive frequently with new inventions and powers for Mario to use. Mario will have to go on missions to collect components for the neat machine the toads are making for him like the freeze/flame device that can make water into ice so fast you can skate on it. And construct large hollow ice balls that can hold one person so he can sink quickly to the depths and find out why all the horseshoe crabs are dying.

A big sprawling water adventure a buncha cool things added, new songs from Konji Kondo and it would be just magic! And get Konji some cheap help like Michiaki Kato and Shizuru Ohtaka. We're talking big here!

double post

I hope its like SMW, that would be sweat.

Pitfall 2 didn't scroll horizontally either--just vertically.

I don't see how it's possible to say Super Mario Bros was an incremental improvement over other platformers. It was, most definitely, the first fluidly scrolling platformer, and the level design and variety is light years ahead of games that came before it. There's a reason Mario Bros is #1 on a ton of lists of greatest games of all time (in comparison with their own time periods) and Pitfall and the like aren't. Each improvement in SMB mighth ave been incremental over that which came before, but when you add up all of those incremental improvements (and there were a ton in that one game), it did completely redefine platforming.

Another way to think about it--Pitfall is nearly unplayable these days because of it's crudity, simplicity and just complete lack of interesting gamepay. SMB is still playable because despite some crudity of it's own there's a complexity that Pitfall doesn't have, and a playability that transcends time periods in the same way earlier games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong do, or the way Tetris does. And that's because platforming as we know it began with SMB.

Pitfall was 1982.

Donkey Kong was 1981.

But in both games once you started a jump you couldn't turn around in mid-air.

Then with SMB1, he completely re-invented it with adding much more control to jump height, jump distance, jump speed, running speed, ducking/sliding, etc., completely revolutionizing the control and freedom you have with your character.

Honestly, I would really like a solid Mario platformer with a bunch of levels. I don't care if it's 2D or 3D. I don't care if it innovates, I honestly feel like Mario has been innovative enough for 22-3 years and I just want to play some more.

Not that I don't want to see innovation ever again in a Mario game, it's just that I would like a game a little sooner with enough solid platforming to keep me busy for the next 3-5 years.

As much as I love Galaxy, I just don't go back to it to play it over and over like I did with 1,2,3,World, 64, and, yes, even Sunshine (which wasn't as good as Galaxy but did it for me.)

My dream is a 2-D Mario level editor that lets you use all the sprites from SMB1, SMB2, SMB3, and SMW. You could add Shy Guys and Yoshi to SMB1 styled levels, and use a frog suit in the water levels of SMW. Share them online, and BLAM, best game of the forever, and it will never need a sequel and user-generated content will keep that game on the top of the chartz until the planet explodes.

In 2-D, it would be easy to map everything out on the screen with the Wii remote like it was Mario Paint.

But then that might cut into sales of the old games on VC because now people can recreate them, and it might cut into sales of any new 2-D platformers for the rest of gaming history.

But they could still keep making 3-D Marios.

My dreams kick ass.