“You can think of it in terms of something similar to Super Mario World or New Super Mario Bros. Wii, where you will have a rather convenient map to navigate. We want players to focus on the joy of the action instead of getting to each game course. We wanted to make it as accessible as possible and as easy as possible for the players. Also because we’re going to incorporate a number of different stars and conquering all the stars is going to be one of the most challenging missions for the player, we want them to understand as easy as possible where they should go next and which places they should go back to in order to get access to the remaining stars.” – Shigeru Miyamoto
Man, I’m actually very disappointed by this news. Even though the Comet Observatory was my least favorite hub in a Mario game, I still enjoyed exploring it. I wonder if this is the end of hubs in 3D Mario titles…
