Nintendo held another one of their regular “Nintendo Direct” streaming press conferences tonight, and while most of the hour long video was comprised of trailers for games we’ve already heard about, Nintendo did have a few surprise announcements to make.
The biggest news is that the company is making a brand new 2D Mario platformer for the 3DS, predictably entitled New Super Mario Bros 2. The game doesn’t look all that different from the original DS New Super Mario Bros., though Mario now once again has access to the Raccoon Tail power-up. The new 3DS game is not connected to the other new Mario game for Wii U that Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned in a recent interview. Surprisingly, even though the game was only announced today, it actually comes out this August, just a few months from now.
I know games in the New Super Mario Bros. series are big sellers (the original DS NSMB is the third best selling game of all time,) but I would’ve preferred to see something more in line with the more innovative and core focused Super Mario 3D Land or Super Mario Galaxy. But hey, even if it’s not necessarily the style of Mario game that I prefer, I’m still always up for a decent platformer. Let’s just hope this one isn’t insultingly easy.
That love of platformers is also why I’m excited for Nintendo’s other big surprise: to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original release of Kirby’s Dreamland for the OG black and white Gameboy, Nintendo will releasing a special compilation disc that’ll comprise the pink puffball’s greatest hits. While Nintendo didn’t state which games will be part of the collection, I’m sure fan favorite SNES classic Kirby Superstar and the original Kirby’s Dreamland are both no-brainers. Here’s hoping that Nintendo also includes some of Kirby’s more obscure (but fantastic) outings like Kirby’s Adventure (which came out so late in the original NES’ lifespan that it never got the attention it deserved,) or the under-appreciated golf-platformer hybrid Kirby’s Dreamcourse.
In other Nintendo news, the company announced that it will allow developers to patch their games on 3DS. It something that pretty much every non-Nintendo system has done for the past six or seven years, and, as anyone who was affected by the game ending bugs in Metroid: Other M or Zelda will tell you, it’s about time Nintendo realized that it’s not 2005 anymore. The first games to receive patches will be Mario Kart 7 and Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance.
