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Friday, December 16, 2016

What happened to Mario Sports Superstars and Pikmin 3DS?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Do people still remember these are releasing?

Up until a few hours ago, I pretty much forgot that Mario Sports Superstars and the 2D sidescrolling Pikmin game coming out for the Nintendo 3DS are even existing.

This article existing isn't saying that there is actually anything new about either of these titles since we heard about them for the first (and only) time at the September 1, 2016 Nintendo Direct. That was only three and a half months ago, but I don't even REMEMBER it happening, quite frankly.


Nintendo 3DS Launch Schedule as of October 2016 United States
Mario Sports Superstars is scheduled for Spring 2017.
No one knows when that Pikmin game will exist, just 2017.
Source: The October release schedule.

They announced Mario Sports Superstars at the end of that Direct, and then the Pikmin game right after, as the final content of the video.

I guess one reason there isn't much discussion or even recognition of either of these is because they're both weird spin-offs that we don't know much about. Fair point. But we do know that Mario Sports Superstars has five full-fledged sports in baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, and horse-racing. The one statement of feedback about it came from Rawk, which was “I kind of want this. [...]  Mario Sports Superstars was my favorite thing showed.”

Mario Sports Superstars horse racing horseriding Daisy
We prefer horse-racing with Solitaire combined with it, not Mario Kart on horseback.

Actually, we do know more information about Mario Sports Superstars since at least Nintendo remembered it recently. It'll have eighteen playable characters, including Waluigi, and more supporting characters like Pom-Pom. It'll have a training mode (woop-de-doo), and the horse racing mode actually involves a stable with the horses as possibly their own characters, which might invalidate part of my snarky caption above. Only part of it. I still want Solitaire with my horse-racing.
 
Nintendo Mario Sports Superstars fact sheet description
Can YOU spot Nintendo's homophone typo?

There's online multiplayer, which is interesting because, assuming every sport gets online multiplayer, it means that Baseball would get online multiplayer. I specifically remember apologists for Mario Super Sluggers back when that came out saying that online multiplayer for baseball would just be slow and stall-y. It's the same apology that people use with regards to Mario Party's continued lack of online multiplayer.

As for the Pikmin game... um... Well, Rawk said this about it back in the Direct's log: “I'd rather have this than another 3D one, really.” Vortexica said, “Oh, I need to have this.”

I never felt the same way, and immediately identified it as the Pikmin equivalent of Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash, except without the “if no one buys it this is the last one in the series” omen.

Bulborb boss Pikmin 3DS
The Bulborb may eat these Pikmin, but he won't eat the franchise. I think.

I mean, Pikmin on the 3DS is the kind of game that just deserves to be forgotten about. There's nothing to say about it. There's the Pikmin games on consoles which are big 3D strategic resource-management exploration adventure things, and this sidescroller thing. I mean, it's not TOTALLY different. There's still resources (though we don't know if you can just grow more Pikmin or you start with X amount and you better keep them alive throughout the level or else) and the Pikmin still do your bidding.

It's like Nintendo wants to do the reverse of the Nintendo 64 era where they took their 2D franchises and brought them to 3D. Still, that Nintendo Land Pikmin Adventure game was the most Pikmin-related fun I've had since Pikmin 2, and I liked it a lot more than Pikmin 3.

Not that I plan to buy this, or anything. Mario Sports Superstars is a POSSIBILITY, at least.

I also wonder if these games are Nintendo's idea of the Nintendo 3DS's “support” after the Nintendo Switch is release. ...Hahahahahaaa.


The KoopaTV staff has collectively been wondering when there will be a dedicated article on Pocket Card Jockey, and no one has an answer to that. Look for it having a great performance for KoopaTV's Game of THAT Year 2016 awards.


Ludwig did discuss the September 1, 2016 Direct once after the live reaction log, but it totally ignored the two games this article is about and just focused on the port-mania.
There's no way Nintendo would leave a franchise's fate that they're making random movies for to some irrelevant spin-off, right?
The dedicated Pocket Card Jockey article has finally arrived by February 2017.
Pikmin 3DS is renamed to Hey! Pikmin. There's an eShop demo of it.

6 comments :

  1. Huh. This little announcement and then information gap pattern seems to be one of Nintendo's specialties.

    Reverse of the N64! Really, almost seems that way at times.

    The games themselves seem meh from where we are now; hopefully, they'll show more potential as we get closer to release.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, it varies greatly depending on the game. After all, this site was nothing but just updating on Paper Mario: Color Splash and Pokémon Sun/Moon news drips for a bit.
      For The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, they didn't have information on that for a long time, but people still totally remembered its existence!

      Delete
  2. The 3ds lineup is finally starting to dwindle. The only game that I'm really looking forward to is Lady Layton, and there has not been a lot of information released since its reveal either. Nintendo has said that the Switch will not interfere with the 3ds, but the lack of support is saying otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, so I WANT the Switch to interfere with the 3DS, especially if their idea of 3DS support is this weird Pikmin shit.

      Delete
    2. You think the Switch should interfere with even the New 3DS? I mean, I guess Nintendo hasn't done too great a job with exclusive software for the New 3DS, but it only came out last year. We could at least hope for it to get 3 full years.

      Delete
    3. I wouldn't put too much opinion into the New 3DS being a thing. The Game Boy Micro came out in 2005 (the DS came out in 2004), and the Nintendo DSi XL came out only a year before the first 3DS did.

      Delete

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