After a long time, Nintendo has finally started to invest in its franchises beyond games for its consoles, either in theme parks or in a film and series division.
The first major project of this new era is the animated Super Mario Bros. movie, which is already showing signs that it could be a resounding success. Apparently, the film can not only open a range for more projects in theaters but also influence Nintendo games.
While the highly anticipated Mario movie is borrowing a number of ideas from games related to the character, studio Illumination is also bringing some of its own unique designs and style to the film. And while many fans might naturally assume these design changes would only be seen in the movie, it looks like Nintendo could incorporate some of these changes into its own Mario games.
Based on a new rumor from an insider named Zippo, the Super Mario Bros. could prompt Nintendo to make visual changes to Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser and several other characters seen in their games. While it’s not known specifically what these tweaks might look like, the insider states that Nintendo will “gradually pick things up and design elements from the movie going forward”.
An example of this pointed out by Zippo was Mario’s appearance in Super Nintendo World, which is Nintendo’s theme park based around the Mario franchise. While it’s a very minor change in the grand scheme of things, the version of Mario that’s tied into Super Nintendo World contains some minor revisions to his shoes, being more like Mario’s design in the animated film.
As much as the games are extremely popular and franchises like Super Mario are known to the general public, we cannot deny that the premiere in theaters will make even more people know these characters, which explains Nintendo’s idea of wanting to create a standard visual for them.
So, will this visual change do good for the franchise?
