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A Lost Miyamoto Project - Super Mario 128 54

Posted by Zonk from the someday dept.
Wowzer writes "After the 1996 release of Super Mario 64, magazines for years mentioned Super Mario 128 - a game that would feature both Mario & Luigi for release on the N64 or its 64DD add-on. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto lays the game to rest as one of his lost projects. From the article: 'Super Mario 128 was just one of many experimental games we had. Suddenly, everybody started talking about it. I'm in the all-too easy habit of starting a project only to later on not do much of it. There is a great deal of unfinished work on my desk. I worked on a prototype for the Nintendo 64 game with Mario and Luigi in it for some time." As it turns out elements of Super Mario 128 live on in Super Mario Galaxy on Wii.'"
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A Lost Miyamoto Project - Super Mario 128

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  • Didn't they use the basis of this game as a tech demo for the Gamecube at one point?

    (You know, to show of the polygon processing count)
    • Yeah, it's mentioned in TFA.

    • Re:I can't remember exactly... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <<tukaro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Friday July 07, 2006 @12:54PM (#15676583) Homepage Journal
      The "Mario 128" demo you refer to for the Gamecube was nothing more than a tech demo. It had 128 Marios on a small sphere of a world walking around, hitting each other, tripping over each other, and doing a good deal of other stuff.

      Just like the Meowth Pokemon singing video and the Link/Ganon fight, it was purely a tech demo. There was wild speculation about potential games arising from each demo, but I don't believe any of them were fruitful (well, except the Too Human demo, which apparently debuted to lackluster results on the XBox/360.)

      Speaking of the Link/Ganon demo, while the graphics I've seen for Twilight Princess are awesome, I will be disappointed if I don't get some FMVs that look as beautiful as the originall 2001 demo did (especially since I plan on getting the Wii version).

      • Re:I can't remember exactly... (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Too Human was a game that was in development forever ...

        Originally, before SK was a Nintendo second party, Too Human was to be released on the Playstation (in 1997 IIRC); later Nintendo aquired SK and it was announced that Too Human had moved development to the N64 (to be released in 1999 IIRC); then Too Human was moved to the Gamecube where it (pretty much) was just vaporware for a generation and it was finally released on the XBox 360.

        I'm actually surprised it was ever released ...
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:I can't remember exactly... (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        If you do a search for pictures or video of the Spaceworld Link/Ganon demo, It really doesn't look as good as you might remember. The Link and Ganon models in SSB: Melee look infinitely more polished than they looked in the Spaceworld tech demo. IMO the Twilight Princess visuals destroy them.
      • It has been rumored that the Mario 128 demo eventually inspired (or perhaps even evolved into) Pikmin... basically the only carry-over is the idea of having a large number of characters moving around, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if this was the case.

    • Re:Yes, sort of (Score:4, Informative)

      by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @01:10PM (#15676761)
      There was a demo early on showcasing some of the processing power of the Gamecube by displaying dozens of little Mario characters running around on the screen. Some game journalists referred to that as being "Mario 128".

      The tech demo would eventually be reworked and refined to become "Pikmin".

  • Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheDreadSlashdotterD ( 966361 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @12:44PM (#15676478) Homepage
    I would be surprised if he didn't have unfinished work on his desk. The fact that he's using elements from 128 in Galaxies probably means that only the best parts were used and the rest was fodder. The fact that 128 stayed unfinished is probably a good thing.

  • Projects (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CodemasterMM ( 943136 )
    I'm sure there's thousands, if not millions, of ideas and projects that he has thought upon or even started on. To simply badger at him for laying one to rest shouldn't be too harsh; at least he mentioned it was half-alive in Super Mario Galaxy, meaning he combined ideas he had - usually a very difficult thing to do for game designers.

  • Speaking of the 64DD, what ever happened to that thing? So many people used to talk about it, and Nintendo Power had it in its "Most Wanted" list for a long time...and then nothing ever happened. I believe we were promised a new "Earthbound" game, as well, the production of which was delayed so that it could be released as a 64DD game. What happened to that?

    All 64DD indicates to anyone now is Scarlett Johansson's bra size.

  • It was already ported over to Gamecube (sorta). In Super Smash Brothers Melee, one of the challenge states set you up as a huge character versus 128 tiny marios.

    It was hard, even if you did a constant Donkey Kong hand-slap
    • It was already ported over to Gamecube (sorta). In Super Smash Brothers Melee, one of the challenge states set you up as a huge character versus 128 tiny marios.

      That's not the same thing.

      There was a GameCube tech demo shown at E3 and Space World before the GC's release called "128 Marios". A lot of people over the years have confused this with Super Mario 128. They are two different things. 128 Marios was literally just 128 Marios - it was intended to show the power of the GameCube by rendering 128 Mario characters from the N64's Super Mario 64 simultaneously. That idea is what made it into SSBM.

      Super Mario 128 was supposed to be the next actual Mario game after Super Mario 64. The "128" was really just a number, it didn't mean anything, really, and probably would have been changed before the game's release. It was just how Miyamoto and co. referred to the game internally and in the press.

      From what I understand, SMB128 was more of a concept and maybe some early programming demos rather than a nearly-finished game, as some have speculated. But it was supposed to be a real game, not just a bunch of Marios running around, which is what 128 Marios is.

  • Pikmin?! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Krater76 ( 810350 )
    Was it just me or did that video from the article look a lot like Pikmin? The sounds seemed to be the same, and the throwing was similar. It makes sense because he was instrumental in that one too. Pikmin is one of my favorite GC games.

    I think Miyamoto would be a cool guy to talk to for even just 5 minutes. He seems to have a lot going on in his mind yet he somehow manages to keep it all coherent enough to get the relevant information to the right people to make great games. That's impressive.

  • Tech Demo (Score:1, Redundant)

    by zephc ( 225327 )
    IDSJ, but I'm pretty sure that was a GameCube tech demo. The word 'GAMECUBE' on the disc's surface was a give away. I remember seeing this video in fact.

  • What else is Miyamoto experimenting with? And I don't mean that as a joke. I'd love to see an interview where Miyamoto takes someone though all the things he's got in the hopper. I've seen this with writers before -- one of my favorites walked a reporter through about 30 poems he was working on. In some cases the poems had been in development for years. It was fascinating. Creative people can juggle a dizzying number of ideas, for long periods of time.

    -Tony

  • I'd pay a bit for a "beta archive" disc (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Scoth ( 879800 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:25PM (#15681236)
    I'm one of those weirdos who loves betas of games and such. I love seeing the features that never worked out, the levels that were cut, etc. It'd be awesome if Nintendo (or any company really) released a disc full of the various betas, demos, and preleases of major games. I think it'd be cool.

    I bought a gameshark just to play with the stuff in Zelda 64. Who'd a thunk there was a fully-functional arwing enemy left in there that cirlces and takes potshots at Link.

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