The impending 35th anniversary of Super Mario has Nintendo celebrating in many different ways, which honor both the legacy and innovation that’s behind the company’s most popular mascot. One of the big announcements to coincide with Mario’s anniversary is a radical new take on the traditional Super Mario Bros. format.
Super Mario Bros. 35 is a battle royale game that turns Mario into a tumultuous multiplayer experience that allows up to 35 players to engage in combat and prove that they’re the superior plumber. Mario 35 is clearly taking a few cues from Nintendo’s Tetris 99, right down to its name, but there are a handful of features that the new game should both incorporate and discard.
10 Should Take: Team Battle
Part of the joy in the novelty of something like Super Mario Bros. 35 is to take on hordes of people at once and feel overwhelmed by the onslaught. Adding a partner to that chaos doesn’t ruin that experience and it often even makes it better. Tetris 99 offers for a team battle mode and there’s no reason why Mario 35 couldn’t follow suit here.
The controls are simple enough that the Joy-cons can be divided and the concept of having Mario and Luigi working together in these environments hearkens back to the origins of the series.
9 Leave Behind: Only Online Play
Mario 35 has many people excited, but titles of this nature are naturally limiting in the sense that they cater towards online audiences. In the case of both Tetris 99 and Mario 35, both games are available exclusively through the Nintendo Switch Online service (although Tetris 99 later issued a physical release that’s bundled with Switch Online).
This feature is understandable, but it’d be nice if Mario 35 could also feature single player against CPU bots or local multiplayer to appease all gamers. These features were incorporated into Tetris 99 through DLC, but that shouldn’t have to be necessary.
8 Should Take: Maximus Cup And Events
Battle royale titles like Tetris 99 or Super Mario Bros. 35 succeed because every game is an entirely new experience with real players that keep the game fresh even if the content remains the same. This is entertaining, but it’s exciting when the title can add in higher stakes and create some suspense among its audience. Tetris 99 has implemented the Maximus Cup, a tournament that ramps up the competitive aspect of the game, as well as events that allow for something new around the norm. It wouldn’t be difficult for Mario 35 to follow suit in this department.
7 Leave Behind: Badge System
Both Tetris and Super Mario Bros. pull from simple formulas, which make them curious examples for battle royale games, but it’s a satisfying mix of a retro title with modern sensibilities. Tetris 99 throws in lots of extra features and flair to add to the gameplay, like a badge system. Badges are gained by eliminating players and claiming their badges, which in turn increase a player’s attack power. This idea works in Tetris, but it complicates Super Mario is an unnecessary way. This same idea could be implemented through experience points, without then adding another system on top of it.
6 Should Take: Experience Points
The advent of online play to video games has naturally led to a more competitive side of gamers coming forward. Even something passive like a player’s achievements or gamer score have become major areas of pride for many people. Battle royale games like Mario 35 feature rankings between players, but Tetris 99 features a basic incorporation of experience points around victories. Mario 35 could go even further with this idea and feature a leveling up system or some kind of advanced achievements that make use of experience points in different ways.
5 Leave Behind: No Variety In The Player’s Character
Tetris 99 features a few minor ways for players to feel some sense of individuality, but the sense of different characters is largely absent. This isn’t exactly surprising since Tetris is a puzzle series that really doesn’t feature any notable characters. The exact opposite is true with the Super Mario series and so it’d be a shame if this game only allows Mario to be playable. As fun as it can be to see a lot of Marios bouncing about, it’d be even better to see Luigi and Peach in on the action, too.
4 Should Take: Daily And Timed Missions
The difficulty in games like Super Mario Bros. 35 is that they’re often only as good as the competition that’s assembled. This can yield wildly contrasting results, especially when gamers begin to back away from a title. Tetris 99 has worked in daily missions to ensure that players continue to return and offer up an incentive. Even if Mario 35 did weekly missions it would give something new to the player base and go a long ways. It’s a feature of online games that’s so basic that it’d be disappointing to not see some kind of timed content involved.
3 Leave Behind: The Ticket System
Tetris 99 has a surprising amount of features in an attempt to offer up as many different variations on the basic Tetris formula as possible. Tetris 99 involves a system of tickets that can be acquired from the daily missions and the tournaments, which can then be redeemed for things like new themes. Achievements are always a good thing Mario 35 should still provide some sense of accomplishment like this, but tickets feel dangerously close to microtransaction territory, which could ruin a game like this and spoil what it’s trying to do.
2 Should Take: DLC
With modern video games it’s often no longer enough to deliver a satisfying experience out of the box, but there’s the expectation for there to be a continued level of support for the game, especially when it comes to online titles. DLC is a fine way to add in new features and extend a game’s shelf life. Tetris 99 has made excellent use of DLC that actually feels worthwhile. More than anything, fans just want to know that Mario 35 won’t just be abandoned after its brief release window is over. DLC and continued support isn’t an outrageous expectation.
1 Leave Behind: No Story Mode
Tetris is a very unique example that it’s a puzzle franchise that’s been able to gain popularity purely off of its gameplay and hasn’t had to jump through hoops or add a narrative to help drive it forward. For this reason it makes sense that Tetris 99 just focuses on multiplayer, but the Super Mario games have a simple enough story that could still be incorporated in some sense. Even if there was just a ten-level “arcade mode” that featured CPU opponents and plays an easy ending cutscene to mark the achievement would be something the fans would appreciate.