Games Inbox: The Super Mario Bros. Movie fan reviews

Safely OK
With some trepidation, given the mixed reviews, I watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie and didn’t think it was that bad. It felt like every era of the Mario series got a nod and there were some impressively niche references throughout. However, it’s a fair criticism that the plot is fairly perfunctory and could be swapped with another franchise to tell almost the same story.

My overall impression was it felt very safe and functional, which is perhaps inevitable. The slightly whackier tone of the Mushroom Kingdom took a bit of adjustment and the number of unnecessarily slowed-down shots was really annoying, but hopefully those are things an inevitable sequel addresses given the film barely scratches the surface of characters and settings that could be introduced.
Needlemouse

Top of the list
Saw the Mario Bros. movie at the weekend. I can see why all the adult critics hate it but they aren’t really the target audience. My nephew, who is four, loved it. He sat and watched it all the way through and that’s the first one, which means it’s the best film yet that we’ve been to see.

For me, I enjoyed spotting the Easter eggs (pun intended) and trying to guess the voice actors. It wasn’t the slog that Sonic 2 was. Just the right length, although the whole tutorial part could have been cut to save a few minutes and the usual overuse of slow motion. At least they kept out the fart jokes.
Bobwallett

Dreamworks, I choose you!
It’s hard to argue that this isn’t a milestone moment for Nintendo. I haven’t seen the film, and will probably on bother if it’s on streaming, but that level of success. Like the Reader’s Feature on Nintendo at the weekend said, people turned out for Mario and Nintendo’s legacy and they didn’t care what critics said they just wanted to see it for themselves.

I think Nintendo has a lot of franchises like that too. Maybe not as popular as Mario but someone’s got to have already had the idea to do an animated Pokémon film that’s actually like the mainline games and not some weird spin-off no one played.

Even Pokémon is more serious than Mario though so I don’t know if Illumination has it in them to do it justice. As I understand the same company owns both them and Dreamworks though, so maybe it’d be worth getting them to do the non-Mario stuff. The recent Puss in Boots film was great and I’d much rather see that team tackling Pokémon and, especially Zelda. The thought of a Zelda film by Illumination sounds just awful.
Headly

Cross-compatible
RE: Korbie. If Nintendo don’t upgrade the hardware for Switch 2, to be similar power to the PlayStation 4, it means that developers won’t be able to scale down games from current gen games and will require development from scratch for the Switch, which isn’t really financially viable for many developers.

Switch 2 means they could theoretically continue to release scaled down ports of this gen and last gen games that wouldn’t run on Switch.
Kiran

Un-deliberately bad
As Sony keep mentioning games being deliberately released to a sub-standard, does it not smell slightly off after reading your review of the PC version of The Last Of Us? Is this is not a prime example of a game which is so poor it could be said it was deliberate?
I have no qualms saying Sony are hypocrites in most of what they’ve said recently, regarding the Activision buyout by Microsoft. They’re the first to make games console exclusives.

I’d have have loved to of played Shenmue 3 or the Final Fantasy 7 Remake but, alas, I think people on an Xbox system had no choice in the matter unless they had a PlayStation console or a PC.

I hope the acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through and Sony like it or lump it.
Edd

GC: There’s no benefit in them doing it deliberately, but it certainly was bad timing. We’re not actually sure Sony paid for exclusivity for Shenmue 3, but Epic Games certainly did for the PC version.

What’s in a name?
FIFA and EA football, this could be the first big example of the mass market buying based on a publisher and not a name. I do think it will likely decrease overall players on both.

I think EA could maybe be cheeky and put a tagline on the first EA one as ‘the franchise formally known as FIFA.’
Si
PS: New Zelda looks awesome, I got on a very early pre-order for £40! Did Nintendo ever say if the title was tears (crying) or tears (torn)?

GC: Nintendo has never explained anything. We suspect it might be a reference to things falling from the sky islands.

Bizzaro logic
Last weekend’s Reader’s Feature is spot on. I really am failing to get this gen’s worth. It cannot just be me, can it? We are in a cost of living crisis. Food and fuel skyrocketed and continue to do so. Food banks all over the place. War and uncertainty galore. Remember? this follows directly after a global pandemic. So what does our wee hobby do? Put prices up and lower production.

And even more bizarrely even when the PlayStation 5 has barely three of four great games, and has in no way been pushed to its limits, we have rumours of PS5 Pro and PlayStation 6 (no point talking Xbox, as what in this gen they got?). Developers have barely got 50% out of current hardware and we talking new hardware? Remember for the pandemic years buying a PlayStation 5 was difficult? Games are £70 notes?! I’m finding it hard to bother anymore and as a gamer since the ZX Spectrum 48K maybe it’s age or fatigue?

Anyway, just my ramblings.
Neil

Ace attorney needed
Isn’t there something that can be done about Monster and these other companies trying to sue anyone that even has the same word, or part of a word, in their game? I know there’s laws against individual people and vexatious lawsuits, so how does that not count in this case?

I wish Nintendo had just gone after them hardcore, when they tried to stop them using the name Pokémon. Of all the ridiculous things and Pokémon came out first! I wonder how many other companies are going to put their hand up and say Monster tried to get them too?
Olyphant

Second try
So it seems like the whole VR concept is just not clicking with people, whether they have the money for it or not. I don’t blame them to be honest. It’s as GC has always said when discussing this, you can’t get over the fact that it’s deeply antisocial and you look like an idiot while playing it. Add in the complete lack of killer app games and it’s no surprise to me that people aren’t interested in playing another thinly veiled tech demo.

I didn’t even know Apple were making one, and I like to think myself fairly clued in on the tech scene, but it’s Sony that have fumbled the ball on this one. Releasing the PlayStation VR2 when they did was too early in terms of the pandemic and the launch of the PlayStation 5, so they had every reason to wait until they had the games to prove its worth. They didn’t. They launched with one boring rock climbing sim and haven’t announced a single thing since.

My mate bought one and frankly I’m too embarrassed to even mention it now, considering how much he’s wasted on it. Given how they’ve treated it so far how many new games are we really expecting Sony to release now? If their June showcase is going to be the second phase of PlayStation 5 then I hope it is for PlayStation VR2 as well. Heck, you could argue it hasn’t even had a first phase yet, just a limp introduction.
Artie

Inbox also-rans
Just wanted to point out that you can’t get stuck with useless Xbox Gold subs as you can always feed more Gold into your account – up to a max of three years – which are converted into Game Pass Ultimate membership at a rate of roughly 3 to 1 (1 year Gold = four months of Game Pass Ultimate). All of which begs the question, do you even Game Pass, bro?
Toodles

Say what you will about The Super Mario Bros. Movie but it does have the best song ever written in it. Prove me wrong.
Keggle

GC: We cannot.

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox asks the obvious question of the moment: following the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie what other video game would you like to see turned into an animated film?

It doesn’t have to be Nintendo related, or family friendly, and it can be either CGI or hand animated (or stop motion). Most video game movie ideas are based on the idea that the film would be live action but what do you think would work better animated?

Do you think animation is better for video game adaptations in general and when is live action still preferable? What actors would you imagine for the parts and do you think they’d actually do it?