35 Years of Mario – Games Coming to Switch

Today, both Eurogamer and VGC commented on the new rumour about the possibility of of older Super Mario titles making their way to the Nintendo Switch to celebrate Mario’s 35th anniversary. According to VGC, “As part of its anniversary celebrations, Nintendo will reveal plans to re-release most of Super Mario’s 35-year back catalogue this year, remastered for Nintendo Switch, VGC was told. As VGC’s network partner Eurogamer reported in a follow-up to our story, these remasters will include 1997’s Super Mario 64, 2002’s Super Mario Sunshine and 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy.”

Any re-release of these classic Mario titles will be instant hits on Nintendo Switch, and while I hope Nintendo doesn’t attempt to charge full price for these titles – news flash: they likely will – there is enough desire and nostalgia for these games to basically justify any price Nintendo decides to put on them.

The most intriguing release would be a Super Mario Galaxy Collection. One would assume Nintendo wouldn’t price a collection above the standard 79.99 CAD price point, but if they chose that price point for a collection – as it doesn’t make a lot of sense to release them separately – that would leave other remastered games at the 39.99 CAD or 49.99 CAD price point. It will be interesting to see what Nintendo plans to do with these games as they bring them over to Nintendo Switch.

The rumour also hints at a brand new Paper Mario title in 2020 – Paper Mario has been one of my favourite franchises coming out of the Mushroom Kingdom, but the series has been on a slow and steady decline since The Thousand Year Door released on Nintendo GameCube. Both the GameCube and Nintendo 64 Paper Mario titles were fantastic, but the franchise took a small hit with the Nintendo Wii version, followed by a bigger letdown on the Nintendo Wii U. The 3DS titles were not much better, in our opinion. If Nintendo moves back to something more akin to the original two titles, just let me know where I sign up for a preorder!

But if Nintendo wants to bring the older Paper Mario titles to the Nintendo Switch, I hope they choose to do so in some type of collection, bundled with other games. Whether that’s a great Paper Mario collection with a few of the past title included, or perhaps a Nintendo 64 collection that might include Super Mario 64, Paper Mario 64, and may be Mario Kart 64 – that would be ideal. Even better?

Mario Sports collection. Make it happen, captain!!