Nintendo have announced a new game development studio, “Sora,” headed by Masahiro Sakurai, the man behind the Smash Bros and Kirby series. A statement on the company’s website states “‬the thoughts of game designer Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo have become one,‭ ‬and a new project has started.‭ ‬In order to expand what can be offered to the world through games,‭ ‬we will have Nintendo’s full cooperation and make something that Nintendo could not do on its own.‭”

The project that the team will be working on has been described by Sakurai as “special” and “something different.” With Sakurai behind the wheel of the new studio, I don’t doubt that the game they produce will be outstanding; Smash Bros. and Kirby have been consistently great series. Although the platform the studio will be developing for is yet to be announced, I have a suspicion that it might be the Wii or the DS.

Ask anybody who had a hand in developing the original Super Smash Brothers for the N64 back in 1999, and they would have told you that they thought that the quirky brawler was destined for the bargain bin. Who knew that a game featuring a battle to the death between all of Nintendo’s famed mascots would become such a sensation? Nintendo fans, that’s who.

And make no mistake, Brawl is a phenomenon. Nintendo has done a masterful job of stoking anticipation for the sequel to the bestselling GameCube game of all time, and it’s backed up the hype with a bona fide system seller. Super Smash Brothers Brawl’s addictive mix of nostalgia, platforming and multiplayer party action is the kind of game that can keep Nintendo fans going for months, if not years.

It’s been said before, but for those picking up the controller for the first time, don’t go in expecting a traditional fighter. Super Smash Brothers will never be as deep as say, Street Fighter III or Soul Calibur, but it doesn’t want to be either.

At the core of the experience is entertaining platform brawling action that is meant to be easy for anybody to pick up while still providing depth for the hardcore fans. Call it the everyman fighter, the kind of party game that leaves even jaded players laughing despite themselves as they get blasted from the stage by a hammer or a well-aimed Pokeball.

Brawl maintains that experience, but also manages to significantly improve upon it, which is no small feat. The graphics in particular have received quite a face lift, with stages like Lylat Tour and the Fire Emblem Castle featuring brilliant pyrotechnics and dizzying (though sometimes distracting) vistas.

In many ways, the lovely stages are almost like characters themselves, with each one lovingly reproduced from the original source material while offering numerous cameo appearances from series appropriate characters.

The improved graphics extend not just to the stages and the more detailed character models (it’s fair to say that Samus has never looked better, perhaps surpassing even Metroid Prime 3), but the new Final Smashes. Designed to keep the game fun for players of all skill levels, Final Smashes will randomly float onto stages in the form of a colored ball at different points throughout the match, prompting all players to immediately drop what they’re doing to try and grab it. Being the closest is no guarantee that you’ll grab it, as even a few well-aimed kicks will probably just send it flying away, and even if you manage to snag it, it can still be knocked away.

After a few seconds of simultaneously laughing and cursing, one player will inevitably be able to activate the powerful attack, with varying degrees of success. Characters like Fox, Kirby, Olimar and Samus sport absolutely devastating final smashes that are simultaneously very pleasing to the eye, while others have somewhat less effective attacks (Donkey Kong, for instance).

Newcomers and casual fans will be pleased with the addition, but more serious players might be turned off by the random element of the attack. Luckily, those seeking a purer experience can off final smashes with the rest of the items.

Super Smash Brothers has traditionally been a multiplayer-centric experience. Melee featured a nice array of challenges and platforming stages in comparison to its N64 predecessor, but Brawl manages to once again up the ante with Subspace Emissary, an adventure mode featuring numerous levels and boss battles.

If you happen to have a friend around, it’ll even let you work together, though sadly not online. The story, which was penned by Final Fantasy VII’s Kazushige Nojima and is primarily told through cutscenes, is largely inconsequential, but it’s still fun to wander through the adventure mode’s expansive worlds in search of new secrets and other easter eggs.

After Subspace Emissary is cleared, players will still find plenty to do in the form of numerous challenge scenarios with differing objectives, the usual target practice and home run challenges and a new custom level editor. And if you don’t happen to feel like tackling any of those challenges, there’s still plenty of joy to be found in simply flipping through the game’s hundreds of trophies and stickers. All of this comes even before the multiplayer, which is guaranteed to represent the bulk of your Brawl experience.

Unfortunately, the Wii’s online functionality is notoriously obtuse, and fans aren’t likely to find Brawl a large improvement over other Nintendo games. Random online play is nice, but connections have a habit of dropping when you’re trying to organize a game, and the lack of meaningful worldwide rankings or ladders renders the whole experience a bit meaningless.

More fun is the ability to connect with friends across the Internet and play via friend codes, though the well-documented lack of a universal friend codes system makes it all a bit of a chore. It’s a shame that Sakurai didn’t devote the same care to Brawl’s online play when the upcoming Mario Kart Wii features everything from periodic online competitions to worldwide time trial rankings. For a game that revolves around multiplayer play, you would think that Brawl would naturally lend itself to such features, and they are sorely missed.

Still, despite the disappointing lack of friendly online play (what would Brawl be like on the Xbox 360, I wonder?), it’s a pretty meaty package, especially when compared to pretty much other Wii game on the market. Detractors, and there are plenty of them, are unlikely to find anything that will cause them to warm to the games, but returning fans will be thrilled to find that, after a few tweaks, the series mechanics remain fresh as ever.

It’s the exemplar of Nintendo’s franchise model, providing an experience that’s more of the same, but still manages to raise the bar in almost every way. Like Melee, Brawl will be a multiplayer mainstay for years to come.

“Sorry about that. I’m a bit nervous so I just broke out into song,” joked Masahiro Sakurai, the designer of the Smash Bros. series, after regaling us with a few bars of the chanting trailer soundtrack. He gave an in-depth and very articulate look at the process of developing the latest installment’s character roster.

The line-up was pretty well finalized as early as 2005, with the exception of Sonic, who was added just last year. Characters were selected for their individuality, unique abilities, and balance of both the fighting and game series representation.

After describing some of these choices, Sakurai continued on to discuss how they unified the look of all the characters as much as possible by using intermediate colors, textures, and lighting. Not only does this help make Link and Mario feel natural side by side, but it gives the Smash Brothers team interpretations a lot more detail than the regular models.

He gave special emphasis to their Pit, who, not having had an update in about 20 years, was really fun to design. “Please don’t tell me this isn’t the Pit you all remember, because it is,” he said, even as he pointed out the “pretty cute” Grecian footwear, and the spinning bow attack “sort of like Darth Maul in Star Wars.”

Next he elaborated on how he designed the moves for each character. It starts with brainstorming, which he assumed was the easiest part. There are four parts to each animation: standby, windup, strike, and follow-through. He said they don’t have to be super realistic, because it’s supposed to be more about fun for the player.

To show his team the vision he had for each move, Sakurai posed 4″ Microman action figures and took 30-50 shots per character. He showed lots of side by side pictures with Wario and the figures, Pit and the figures (with twisty tie bow prop), Sonic and the figures (with added visual effects for his spin move), and others. Even for characters like MetaKnight who aren’t really shaped like a standard human being, he said that it was better to have the action figure tool than to just use a text explanation.

“To build the characters you must synthesize the intent of the originals, Smash Bros. game design, and character moves,” Sakurai explained, leading up to his discussion of parameters. He did all the work on this part of the game, which involved refining performance again and again to get the character speeds, throw distances, and other numerical issues just right.

“Hitting the mark here may well be the most important thing…” and he explained that it was very important to go back to the original games and “sniff out” the reasons why, for instance, Mario jumps and falls quickly, while Samus floats. The answer is that Samus needs to aim and shoot while she jumps. Sonic is actually quite slow until he gets going, which is why players feel such intense speed once he’s topped out.

He played a bit of the game for us (showing Snake stick a butterfly bomb to Pit’s face and remote detonating it, getting a funny screenshot of Pit’s wings poking through Snake’s back during a grab animation) before ending his talk by reiterating how important it is to market your game effectively. Descending into “dojo update hell” was a necessary task for his dev team, and he wrote the daily updates himself.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl ships for North America, in case you somehow forgot, on March 9th!

“No time machine? Not my problem!”

I admit it, I’m a hypocrite. I have no problem busting Nintendo’s chops on forums across the internet for banking on nostalgia these days, but I’ve got a secret rose-tinted past of my own. Like most of you, I grew up on Nintendo — watched the cartoons, ate the cereal, wore the underoos. But I feel like they’ve left a few of my favorite franchises collecting dust while Mario and Zelda get all the glory. Hit the jump for the top 5 series that I think time (and Nintendo) forgot and how they should be resurrected.

5. Pilotwings

Oh yes, Pilotwings. The flight sim that actually made flight sims fun. I’m also pretty sure it paved the way for hundreds of “fly through the rings” challenges and mind-numbing checkpoint races to come, but it was great stuff back in 1990!

It’s also one of the games that introduced us to the SNES’ ubiquitous Mode 7 technique which allowed flat surfaces to be stretched, scaled, and so on to produce a mock-3D effect. Its only sequel, Pilotwings 64, likewise ushered in a new era as real 3D entered the fray. Using the added dimension to allow players full-freedom flight, it was arguably an even more satisfying experience than its fellow pioneers.

But where did Pilotwings go? 64 really dates the series with its atrocious graphics and Nester cameo (Nintendo Power’s mascot du jour back in the late 80s/early 90s). Its absence is excusable on the GameCube, which had no significantly fresh experience to offer (though Factor 5 was rumored to be making one for awhile), but what about the Wii?

Pilotwings’ penchant for ushering in new technology would’ve made it a perfect fit for showing off motion controls. Even as a Sports-style collection of flight mini-games (which it always kind of has been), it would’ve been fantastic!

Konami and Hudson even tried to fill in the gap with Wing Island, but spectacularly failed at capturing the same magic.

Bringing It Back: It might be too late for this one. Pilotwings has always appeared at the beginning of a console’s life cycle, and we’re a full year past that point with no new iteration in sight. It could still come at some point, but I don’t think it would have quite the same impact. That either game in the series has yet to hit Virtual Console yet is a bit surprising, but it’ll likely happen sooner or later, so it looks like you’ll have to go there for your flight sim fix.

4. Super Mario RPG

I was a giddy little 12-year-old when this came out. It was probably my most anticipated game ever up until that point except for, oddly enough, Earthbound (I was sadly too young to truly appreciate “Mother” back then, but it managed to draw me in anyway).

I remember the day, itself. My buddy got it the same day as I did and told me not to start playing until he got home so that we’d be roughly at the same point. I was weak, I couldn’t do it. I started it up without him. Sure, he got pissed, but the anger soon abated as we delved deeper into the game’s wonderful world.

In retrospect, this probably seemed like a horrible idea at the time. How could you take a platforming series with a rudimentary story and spin it into a full-fledged role-playing epic? Even attempting would normally seem like a waste of time and effort, but Squaresoft was up to the task. To date, few RPG adaptations have even come close to touching the genius of Legend of the Seven Stars.

But, even as the core Mario characters endure, few of the new introductions were even seen again. What about Mallow, Booster, Frogfucious, the Axem Rangers, Smithy, and all the other unique creations? One of Mario’s allies, the possessed doll Geno, did make a small cameo in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, but that’s about it. It’s a shame that some of the less creative characters to come out of the Mario pantheon (Bowser Jr., Piantas, etc.) continue to pop up, while they’ve fallen by the wayside. Wouldn’t you like to see them again?

And what of all the memorable sequences in the game? Climbing Booster’s tower, fighting Chef Torte’s wedding cake, ascending into Nimbus land, finding all those hidden blocks, or tackling Culex, the hidden Final Fantasy-esque boss even stronger than main villain Smithy?

Bringing It Back: It could happen now that Square-Enix is back in bed with Nintendo. Since they have the rights to certain aspects of the game (like the character Geno), there’s nothing technically stopping a sequel from being made. Well, except that Nintendo’s moved on.

During the infamous split, Intelligent Systems took over RPG duties, creating the Paper Mario series. And then came Mario & Luigi for portables. Though highly creative in its own right, Intelligent Systems’ take on the plumber no doubt took cues from Legend of the Seven Stars from hit timing (to cause more damage or dodge an attack) to utilizing a cast of quirky characters and a plot prone to both the drama and wackiness not typically found in a traditional Mario game.

Considering as much, some would probably say that Super Mario RPG has never really left us. Either way, a sequel feels like it’d work best on the DS for me. The game has never been updated or re-released, so even a version of the original would be more than welcome.

3. Wrecking Crew

Wrecking Crew was one of Nintendo’s earliest NES games, born in a time when Mario still wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he grew up: chocolatier? golfer? pinball master? Nah. But before he settled on “Princess Peach’s savior and part-time plumber” (kind of like those guys on Ghost Hunters, except with more spooks and less wailing females), he tried “demolition man” on for size.

The object of this puzzler was to destroy all the walls and doors on any given level whilst avoiding scary, anthropomorphic tools and a devious evil twin named Spike. It was really quite a good formula for the time, a bit like Lode Runner.

Just as that game did, Wrecking Crew also featured a built-in level editor. Sadly, the Famicom Data Recorder was required to save creations, and considering that it was never released in the US, the options were disabled over here.

Various elements of Wrecking Crew have made cameos in other games over the years (one of 9-volt’s levels in Wario Ware: Twisted!, for instance), and a remake eventually popped up in 1998, appropriately titled Wrecking Crew ‘98, but the gameplay was remarkably changed.

Bringing It Back: Sure, why not? The core mechanics of the game work just as well today as they did over twenty years ago. Puzzle games are timeless, and with a bit of tweaking, there’s no reason why a true sequel couldn’t be produced. It would work well on either the DS (tapping walls to destroy them) or on the Wii (use the remote like a hammer), perhaps as a Wii Ware download instead of a retail release.

Currently, Wrecking Crew is available on Virtual Console, where you can actually save any levels created in the editor. Masahiro Sakurai certainly hasn’t forgotten about it, with the Golden Hammer appearing as a weapon in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

2. The Adventures of Lolo

Speaking of Sakurai, he’s probably one of the only Nintendo alum willing to dig deep enough into the company’s past to dredge up the most obscure bits of nostalgia. Just take a look at the trophy list in any Smash Bros. game, it’s a minefield of fanboy memories!

Sakurai’s perhaps most famous for designing Kirby at the age of 19, though, when he was still an underling at HAL Laboratory. His creation would go on to overshadow my #2, The Adventures of Lolo, turning its titular hero into a villain in Kirby’s Dream Land.

But why has the little blue guy not been able to return for his own game since? Like Wrecking Crew, it was a wonderfully devious puzzler. It was also freaky as hell. Modern horror games have nothing on Lolo’s Medusa Heads or fire-spitting Gols. It was like sitting on pins and needles every time you’d have to pass through the gaze of Medusa, it’s eyes flicking open looking for prey. If you weren’t behind some sort of solid cover, it meant instant death.

With its devious enemies and clever block-pushing game mechanics, Lolo remains both compelling and incredibly difficult even today.

Bringing it Back: Please! Someone! The original is available on Virtual Console, and there are two sequels to work your way through, but an update would go great on the DS. As a bite-sized puzzler, it’s perfect for play on-the-go.

Just as Nintendo did with Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, using the stylus to creatively control different objects on screen could lend enough innovation to the series to make it feel fresh and new, even to long-time fans.

Come on Hal Labs!

1. StarTropics

Finally, we get to number one! I remember this being a pretty big release back in the day, with a serialized Howard and Nester comic in Nintendo Power and everything. Its rough similarities to Zelda didn’t hurt, either, but StarTropics was still unique enough to stand on its own.

You played as Mike Jones (read: not the rapper), a yo-yo toting youth out to save his archaeologist uncle, Dr. J, from malevolent aliens led by the evil Zoda. Sounds wacky, but the combination worked quite well. Marrying island mysticism with good old sci-fi standbys resulted in a winner.

Immersion was helped along by a letter from Dr. J being included with the game, which asked Mike (i.e. the player) to come and help him. At one point, you’d have to submerge part of the letter in water to reveal a code used to proceed.

Dungeons were great fun, as well. They would consist of all kinds of different traps an enemies with hidden areas and weapons to find. A key component was jumping around on floating tiles in order to figure out which ones would reveal a switch or open a door. Of course, you’d have to be careful, because some were booby-trapped or would sink into the water. Not to mention that there were monsters to be avoided in the process.

StarTropics shared the same sense of exploration and adventure as other key Nintendo franchises of the time like Zelda and Metroid did. Though it enjoyed a less-popular sequel (Zoda’s revenge), there’s no good reason why it can’t be resurrected today.

Bringing It Back: Wii game, hands down. A lot of people have talked about using the Wiimote like a whip for Castlevania games, so why not a yo-yo in StarTropics? The setting is certainly interesting enough and there’s nothing else like it currently on the market.

The main problem might be that it was one of the few games developed by Nintendo R&D3, one of the company’s in-house studios that is primarily responsible for hardware improvements instead of creating software. This, of course, doesn’t mean that another team couldn’t handle a potential update.

Why not give it to Retro? Though I’d prefer it to remain top-down myself, a Metroid Prime-esque first-person interface would work well for exploring intricate island ruins and alien spaceships.

Of all the franchises I’ve listed here, this is hands down the one I’d like to see come back the most.

Conclusion

Nintendo seems fairly set in their ways at this point. With a new demographic to go after, it hardly makes financial sense to chase after old franchises that only the hardcore would still remember.

Sure, we’ve got Smash Bros. Brawl there to remind us of Nintendo’s glorious and unceremoniously forgotten past, and Virtual Console will (or already does) allow us to relive some of these experiences, but I want them renewed.

Even though I listed Super Mario RPG as one of my picks, I’ve begun to resent Nintendo’s mascot in recent years. I owned Mario everything as a kid. Mario sheets draped my bed, Mario Dixie Cups sat next to the sink in my bathroom. I even had the damned board game (oh yes, someone tried to make a board game out of Super Mario Bros.).

Playing Mario Galaxy made me fall in love with platforming all over again, but I could no longer relate to the plumber’s charm. In fact, I was slightly put off by it.

So why the hate? It must have something to do with the way we conceive nostalgia. We love to dredge up artifacts of our past as a confirmation of the great times we used to have. Each of the series I’ve listed can be linked to happy memories, even in the face of tough times. My family didn’t have a whole lot of money when most of these games came out, so I learned to really love and cherish playing them. Some of them I didn’t even own, but rented over and over and over again.

Mario remains with us, though. He’s not the only example, but the strongest one by far. He’s not so much my memory anymore, as he is an over-saturated cultural one. You can find people wearing Mario shirts who haven’t picked up a controller since they were ten. Yet, I’d snap up a StarTropics shirt the second it was available if King of Games suddenly decided they were going to make one. Hey, as I said at the very beginning of this article, I’m a hypocrite. :)

So dig deep into your archives Nintendo and dust off some of these oldies-but-goodies. Give them some fresh air tor breathe. You never know what hidden treasure you might have sitting in the attic!