Mario Golf will be hitting the Japanese eShop as a Game Boy Color download on October 3 for 600 yen. Screenshots of the game can be found above.
In the past few Mario titles, veteran gamers have been able to obtain large amounts of 1-ups without much effort. That’s in contrast to some of the earlier entries in the franchise. Aside from performing certain tricks in levels, it wasn’t as easy to acquire a large stack of lives.
Game Informer brought up the possibly that 1-ups may have become devalued as a prize over the years while speaking with Takashi Tezuka.
When asked if this was the case, Tezuka responded by noting how it’s tough trying to find the right amount of 1-ups to have to each Mario title. Ultimately though, Nintendo hopes that more players will complete the experience until the very end, so there have been “an increased number of these items.” Tezuka also mentioned that players looking for more of a challenge could try out other modes, perhaps referring to the inclusion of Boost Rush in New Super Mario Bros. U.
“That’s a difficult balancing question for us. I think that those who are experienced Mario players might feel that there are a lot of 1-ups or power-ups or items that help them out. Others, who are maybe not as experienced, would really need that number to be able to progress through the game. The question becomes, ‘Who do we balance the game for? Who do we make this for?’ One of our goals is to increase the number of people who play a Mario title through to the end. With that being one of our goals, we have an increased number of these items. That being said, for players who need more of a challenge or who are looking for some variation, we have included other modes that will allow for them to get that sort of gaming fix. I think we have created something that has a wide range of features that a very wide range of players will be able to enjoy.”
This comes from Tekken Tag Tournament Two (TTTT) producer Katsuhiro Harada:
“That was an an idea from our side that they approved. We also told them we wanted to use the stars for invincibility and they were OK with that. We do use some of the sound effects from Mario and remix some of the music. Some of these are things we really wanted to do, but we thought Nintendo would not be OK with. They actually were and they made it into the game as you can see. They were very cooperative. We didn’t expect to get as far as we did. There aren’t many third party games that go as far with Nintendo properties so you can see how understanding they were this time.”
Sounds like Nintendo might be opening up to a few more developers in the same way that they have with people like Capcom in the past. Though, I doubt that Namco Bandai will be developing any Zelda games anytime soon…
This makes me so very happy. I’m sick of people saying that Japanese games are dying and they’re outdated and not as good as Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed.
Bayonetta/Wonderful 101 developer Platinum Games has chimed in on the matter:
“There are tons of terrible Western developers [too]. I don’t like it when people lump Japanese games developers all together into one group. Frankly, I think it’s a joke. What do these people know?” – Platinum Games’ Atsushi Inaba
I could not agree more, and I’d even make the argument that Japanese games are more original and innovative than western games on the whole. Of course, that matter is left up to subjectivity.
Inaba-san continued:
“Think about Western developers. There are many Western developers making terrible games, and then you see one like Infinity Ward making a game that sells 20 million and everyone goes, ‘hey, Western developers are amazing!’. There are tons of terrible Western developers, just like there are tons of terrible Japanese developers. To lump studios together in great masses misses the point.”
