Super Mario All Stars (+ Super Mario World version) means a lot to me. In fact, I cosplayed it for Anime Boston last year. So there's a bit to unpack towards how I feel about today's announcement.
Even if we didn't have months to speculate what would be put in, plenty of people would surely feel a bit let down with these compared to the slew of quality remakes and remasters of mainline Super Mario platformers that added plenty of content.
Super Mario series has had plenty of enhanced ports before:
5 games in the All Stars format (SMB 1, Lost Levels, 2, 3, World)
2 Deluxe (SMB and NSMBU)
4 advance (SMB2, SMB3, SMW, and YI)
and SM64DS
We had major graphical overhauls for the NES titles. 64 DS had new character models. Advance added cutscenes and (for better and worse) voice acting. There were quality of life improvements such as save files and completionist check lists (SMB 2 and World), glitch removes (which... okay let's be real- that's not always a good thing especially with SMB1), mini games, new bosses (64 DS and SMB2), new levels (Yoshi's Island, 64 DS, SMB3), new playable characters (64 DS, NSMBU Deluxe).
so in comparison what we have for 3D All Stars is
*the first time we experience rumble for SM64 in the states (unless Wii U Virtual Console had it?)
*a soundtrack mode
*improves resolution
*and a screen ratio change for sunshine
*Sunshine is available as an official release after never ever being ported or backwards compatible
I mean... okay? Cool? I mean, I appreciate that especially as plenty of folks can tear apart the other remakes for their flaws (SMB Deluxe's screen, 64 DS requiring either a thumb strap or to make your own out of bread bag twisty ties, etc). I get that those remasters aren't perfect but
apparently this collection isn't developed with the same approach and I can't help but feel sad that this wouldn't be worth my money.
I hope everyone else enjoys it but unless new details emerge, I'm not itching to get this the day it comes out.
Regardless, there was a lot of cool announcements. Not a bad day for a direct especially with the info drought. Here's to hoping a Geno fighter pack 7 unveiling is sooner rather than later.