Back in 2009 when I reviewed Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection I said that it would be a cold day in hell when Nintendo releases a collection of 16-bit hits. I still can’t see Nintendo sharing their back catalogue in full any time soon, and after reading NGamer Magazine’s review of Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Collection – which they awarding a mediocre 55% review score – I’m so angered by how Nintendo refuse to put proper retro collections together that I’ve had to have this little rant.
The problem NGamer had was not with the games themselves but rather the lack of effort put into it. It is, literally, just Super Mario All-Stars slapped on a Wii disk. The menus, and even the copyright screens showing the year as 1993, are identical. Amazingly, it isn’t even the later version of Super Mario All-Stars that also featured Super Mario World. The music CD that comes with it also sounds like a missed opportunity – it apparently contains one music track from each game (yes, one) and a bunch of sound effects thrown on for shits and giggles. What? Exactly.
It’s Mario’s 25th Anniversary, for fuck’s sake. I’m not expecting stuff like Mario 64 to make it onto the collection seeing it probably sells well on Virtual Console still, but they could have at least put the NES originals and maybe Donkey Kong on there too in order to show everybody Mario’s roots.
Now Sega on the other hand know how to celebrate their history. Sonic Jam on the Sega Saturn only featured four Sonic games but it had a 3D front end that had a number of challenges to beat plus footage of old TV commercials and the like. Then there was Sonic Adventure 2 10th Anniversary Birthday Pack on Dreamcast which had a music CD overflowing with tunes, plus a snazzy case containing a booklet and a gold coin. Lest we forget the aforementioned Mega Drive collection either which had a staggering 40 games on it. A lot of its contents are available on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and Virtual Console so Nintendo can’t really say that they’re going to loose out on cash from downloads by putting together a Mario collection worth having.
I was thinking of pre-ordering a copy, but after reading that review I think I’ll save my money for Donkey Kong Country.
A huge disappointment, this game is. The piece of software produced to celebrate Mario’s 25th anniversary, the one that is a showcase of classic Mario titles should have been far better than this. It really does scream lazy and I see it as utter disservice to Mario’s 25th.
This could have been Mario All-Stars for the 21st Century while including some great extra content to celebrate Mario’s 25th anniversary but instead it’s…1993’s Mario All-Stars. The version without Mario World…
That should have read “this compilation is” on the first sentence. My mistake.
Even more of an insult is that Nintendo Europe have delayed Kirby’s Epic Yarn, meaning that this and DKC are the only two big Xmas Wii games from Nintendo.
This is a big Xmas Wii game!? Seriously?
Third parties complained that as Nintendo’s software was the only stuff that sold well on Wii. So this year Nintendo have stepped back a bit to let GoldenEye and Epic Mickey have a better chance of selling well.
I think FlingSmash is out soon too, but if the review are to go by it’s a bit rubbish.
Well, for all of you that still have the original systems, I’m sure that this is a no big deal and a bit of a dissapointment all around; and especially since all of these games are avaliable on the Wii virtual console as well.
To be honest I don’t think many of the Wii owners know of the networked capabilities, nor what the virtual console even is.
I believe this is geared toward a reminisant crowd as a “limited edition” sales gimic that could have been so much more.
Do I have one? Yes.
Do I wish it had more meet to it? yes I sure do.
Will it sell? Damn skippy, go and try to find one..