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Nintendo's position in today's gaming culture is unique. The company is simultaneously tied to the first memories many players have of gaming, and dedicated to driving innovation. This results in a binary split in the company's releases. Games like Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are made to satisfy the older fans, while newcomers get Wii Fit and Wii Music. Paying homage to the past while offering new experiences seems difficult, if not as impossible as becoming the world's tallest midget. However, as demonstrated by recent DS release, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Nintendo's longevity and success has and continues to be, based on this uniquely retro-futuristic approach.
During the game, the Mario Brothers encounter a group of ambulatory flytrap-looking plants called sockops. These creatures exist to "chug" everything they see (suck into the maws atop their heads), so naturally, one snares Luigi and then passes out from the effort. Once partially submerged in this green sock-looking creature, Luigi gains the ability to hop around and travel safely over spikes, an obscure reference to Kuribo's Shoe—a rarely used power-up from Super Mario Brothers 3. And just in case anyone's thinking this similarity is a coincidence, later on another sockop is identified as Kuribo himself.
Even with this reference to past gameplay, the game constantly moves forward into the bizarre and the experimental. During some boss fights for instance, Bowser grows in size to engage in Godzilla-esque battles against similarly oversized opponents, complete with flaming breath and punches that send both combatants skidding back hundreds of feet. One of the more eyebrow-raising sequences demonstrating gameplay innovation involves the Mario Brothers delivering a back massage to Bowser. Once the massage begins, two toads appear out of nowhere to inform the player that massages of this nature generally take a while, so the player should take a relaxing break from playing. The two toads then enjoy a cup of tea, while the DS plays relaxing music for a few minutes. This isn't something you can skip; it's a forced break similar to Earthbound's coffee breaks. It's through weird little bits like this, that the game simultaneously pays homage to the Mario Brothers legacy while offering something new and unique–a microcosmic example of Nintendo's overreaching philosophy.
Nintendo's main tie to the heritage of video games is the Nintendo Entertainment System which became the first widely successful home console in America. That console authored a powerful legacy for Nintendo that's since spawned a line of kitschy t-shirts, proclaiming one's status as old-school or 8-bit, television shows based around early Nintendo games like GameCenter CX, and even comics like Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, all of which strengthen Nintendo's long-standing pop culture connection. While paying its respects to the past, Nintendo's built their current status on innovation (and shady business deals in the 80s, but that's for another column). The company continues its creative approach to peripherals as first seen in the NES's R.O.B., Zapper, and Power Pad through the Wii's motion controls, balance board, and enough controller extensions to form an impressive tangle of cords and white plastic.
Nintendo also addresses both past and future through its customer relations. Through services like Club Nintendo, loyal customers are rewarded with memorabilia free of charge and the Club Nintendo website feeds fans' penchant for nostalgia by celebrating the company's heritage through its iconic Mario and coin graphics. For all the time Nintendo spends celebrating its illustrious pedigree, it spends equal time dabbling in new concepts. Nintendo's recent patent for in-game walkthroughs and help videos for instance—which will be implemented in the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii—demonstrates the company's willingness to explore new possibilities.
The company's philosophical dichotomy puts it in a delicate and contradictory position. Fans of the company simultaneously expect a celebration of their gaming past while at the same time, clamor for new experiences. This leads to confusing consumer behavior as those gamers now critical of Nintendo for not releasing enough traditional games, once bashed the company for releasing too many Mario spinoffs. Appealing to both old and new gamers simultaneously seems like an unwinnable prospect but Nintendo handles it with remarkable aplomb.
From broad strokes like Club Nintendo to small references like Kuribo's shoe, Nintendo continues to celebrate and embrace its history. At the same time, the company isn't afraid to mix in something new and strange, be it a game with a relaxing tea break or an oversized bathroom scale. No other company today has such contradictory expectations to meet, rendering Nintendo's success all the more impressive.
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