With a new Super Mario movie on the horizon, a reader hopes that Nintendo turns its attentions to TV and making a cameo-filled Super Smash Bros. show.
We’re all sitting here waiting for a ‘proper’ Nintendo Direct, but we really should’ve learnt by now that Nintendo never give fans what they want, or at least not when they want it. The problem at the moment is that they seem more interested in the new Super Mario Galaxy Movie than any of their games, which is not a priority we’re used to before.
I doubt there are many adult Nintendo fans that care that much about the movie, unless it’s a major step-up from the last one, but nothing from the trailer makes it seem like it is. After that we’ve got the live action Zelda and then who knows what. Nintendo definitely aren’t going to give up at that, whether Zelda’s a hit or not, especially as they have their own animation studio as well.
So far all they’ve done is a few experimental Pikmin shorts, which are pretty good, but what I’d love to see them do is a Super Smash Bros. animated show. Something that could feature every Nintendo character, especially those that will never get their own film.
I was inspired by reading about the show Captain N: The Game Master, which I don’t think was ever shown in the UK and I only recent got to see clips of on YouTube. It’s awful, really awful, but it is basically a prototype of Smash Bros., with not only multiple Nintendo characters hanging out together but also third party characters like Simon Belmont and Mega Man. Sound familiar?
I wouldn’t actually make the show anything like Captain N (it’s all about an ordinary gamer getting sucked into Videoland) but instead use the framework of Smash Bros. competitions to give a spotlight to all the different characters.
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You could make it an anthology, basically, so you’d have a Star Fox episode, a Metroid one, Fire Emblem, and so on. How far you go down the rabbit hole I don’t know but seeing how much I loved all the obscure stickers and statutes in the game, I’d love them to get as weird as possible. Who wouldn’t love to see Takamaru or Mach Rider in animated form?
Some people have joked that the movies could be building up to an Avengers style crossover movie that would basically be Smash Bros. but the Zelda film being live action instantly makes that impossible. Although I doubt they would’ve done that anyway.
Smash Bros. is a pretty weird concept for ordinary people, with dozens of famous characters that have nothing to do with each other fighting for no obvious reason. But I feel an animated show could do better making up a story and having time to focus on each character and franchise properly.
Do I think it’ll happen? No, probably not. But I don’t it’s impossible. After Zelda there’s a massive dip in terms of games that the general public will recognise. I have a feeling they’ll try a Kirby animated movie but after that what is there? A Donkey Kong spin-off, sure, and maybe a Splatoon one but that’s really only popular in Japan.
Most of their other games are really only going to work on streaming, I feel, but I also think that’d work out for the best. They could keep it going and add new characters as new games are released and have third parties in there as well, if they agree to it.
I’d just like to see something animated from Nintendo that had bigger ambitious than the Super Mario movies, which are just doing the most basic nostalgia grab and nothing more. I wouldn’t expect animated show to be super deep, but I would hope it’d be more authentic to the games it’s based on.
By reader Onibee
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