Super Paper Mario may be the most surprising epic I’ve ever found, featuring Mario and Luigi hanging around their house and wishing that something would for crying out loud happen already.  Naturally, they get their wish and Princess Peach has been kidnapped once again.  Suspecting Bowser, King of the Koopa, the brothers rush to his palace only to discover that, for once, he had absolutely nothing to do with it and the plumbers had landed on him while he was planning to do what had already been done.  The discovery is made that a new evil, in the form of Count Bleck, was the one behind the kidnapping.  Count Bleck has a plan that easily trumps anything Bowser ever came up with for terms of sheer catastrophic evil, namely, the summoning of a massive void that will destroy all reality everywhere as the inhabitants know it.  It’s up to Mario to go forth and tangle with Bleck and his numerous minions to rescue the princess and save all reality.

While the game itself controls much like the original Super Mario Brothers, with the Wiimote held like an original two button NES controller, you’ll occasionally use the Wiimote in its newest form to analyze monsters and locations for added effect.  This is a fairly interesting new twist on an old classic, which lends a note of credibility to the proceedings.  But the new twists don’t stop there–early on, Mario is given the ability to “flip” between dimensions, allowing him to go from 2-D to 3-D and back again.  But spending too much time in 3-D is clearly taxing on the normally flat plumber, as spending too long “flipped” causes Mario to take damage.  You’ll be able to collect and use a whole host of items for attack and defense, and you’ll also run into different fairies called Pixls that give Mario various special abilities.

It’s downright surprising to see Mario adapted into RPG status, though it’s happened before with the Paper Mario series, and even farther back with Super Mario RPG.  This time, Super Paper Mario gives us an entire large and sprawling storyline to go with your standard action elements.  Even many of the stages you’ll troop through bear a striking resemblance to those from the original Super Mario Brothers.  I found bonus level pipes in Super Paper Mario through vague half-remembrances of the original game, and this was a development that made me doubly happy.  Sure, the graphics are Wii-standard and lag way behind the next gen, but this is a truly minor point as there are so many good points to this game.  It’s a lot of fun and the control schemes are pretty nicely adapted to the Wii.  I have to admit, I liked this game, and there’s plenty of reason to believe that you’ll like it too.

Some information on Wii Fit Plus was also given, mentioning that it will be an online follow-up of the preceding title. In addition to Internet functionality, more accurate measurement readings will also be included.

Read (N-Philes)

10. Brand Loyalty.

When it comes to video game companies, Nintendo boasts an incredible amount of longevity. Their first console, the Nintendo Entertainment System almost singlehandedly made home gaming popular and they’ve been going strong ever since. People have been buying Nintendo products for years. Sony hasn’t been in the games industry for quite as long and Microsoft is a relative newcomer to the console game.

9. Huge game library.

The Wii has a whole lot of games available with a wide array of appeals and budget ranges. For the cash-heavy there’s all the newest titles with all the bells and whistles. If you’re broke you can pick up bargain basement prices on Gamecube discs that’ll still play perfectly on the Wii or buy some Virtual Console titles. The hardcore gamer has challenging titles like Mario Galaxy, Red Steel and others, with even more on the way. Casual gamers have titles like Mario Party, Wii Sports and others to entertain them. Fans of retro gaming can download classic NES and Sega Genesis titles.\

8. Hype & Word of Mouth

Whether you like it or not, you’ve heard more talk about the Wii than pretty much any other console that’s hit the market. It had the power of much discussion behind it. I’ve spoken to many people; gamers and non-gamers alike that all wanted to try it. The idea of a motion-controlled gaming system was appealing in its simplicity.

7. Intuitive Controls

Everyone remembers the first time a friend, parent or family member sat down to try out this ‘video game thing’. Many of us cut our teeth on the original Nintendo and watched a complete novice run Mario right into a bottomless pit as they frantically flapped the controller up and down, occasionally berating the pixellated plumber for not jumping. Nintendo looked at the growingly complex controllers with more buttons, analog sticks and the like and said “there must be a different way to do all this”. After a time they gave us the Wiimote. Swing it and your character swings their sword/bat/tennis racket. Simple enough for even Grandma to use.

6. Great First-Party Games

Nintendo has always relied very heavily on their stable of existing characters for success. This has been especially evident with the Wii. Seeing Mario, Link or any of the other official Nintendo characters has always been a guarantee of quality development. When the Wii launched there was a lot of griping over the poor quality of most of the titles available, but the first quality titles were all top-notch and drove the initial success of the Wii. While people were shelling out top dollar for Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii and other games, developers were taking not and beginning to turn their eyes towards the console.

5. Family-Friendly Gameplay

Nintendo has generally bucked the modern trend with games. Most of the time there’s a direct correlation between the age of a game’s target audience and the overall quality of its gameplay. Adult-focused games are given much more time and polish, while games for kids are often slapped together rather hastily. With Nintendo it’s rare that you get truly adult content. There’s a certain degree of violence in some series, like the Metroid games and the Legend of Zelda games, but even then it’s usually against space aliens, creepy giant monsters or other assorted beasties. Parents are always happy to give their kids games that they’re not worried about the negative effects of.

4. Good Press

While Microsoft struggles to extricate themselves from the RROD fiasco and Sony keeps beating consumers over the head with arrogant claims of superiority despite evidence to the contrary the folks at Nintendo are keeping things pretty clean. Sure, it’s easier to be polite when you’re thumping your competition as soundly as Nintendo is, but there are probably a lot of companies who wouldn’t be able to resist some trash talking now and then. Stories cropping up about nursing homes buying Wiis for their residents and the Queen of England playing Wii tennis certainly help the console’s publicity. Ironically though, even if Nintendo executives started laying a verbal beat down on Sony and Microsoft every time someone spoke to them it might not affect them too much, since the casual gamers that are buying a lot of Wiis aren’t the type to be browsing gaming news websites.

3. Rise in Casual Gaming

Before the Wii launched casual gaming was already starting to get huge. Companies like Popcap games had been fueling the fire for quite a while with free online games, but the Wii has both influenced and benefited from the casual gaming explosion. The Wii offered up the sort of simple gameplay that casual gamers want with the huge benefit of a more social structure; playing with four people takes away the stigma of gaming being an antisocial, individualistic pass-time.

2. Wii Sports

Many hardcore gamers dropped Wii Sports quite quickly and hunted for more complicated fare, but the inclusion of this well-crafted experience was a linchpin of the success. Nintendo has known for a long time that giving people a game to play along with their console is much appreciated, especially when it’s as well executed as Wii Sports. The gameplay, although not terrible complex, was perfectly crafted and polished, simple to understand yet extremely fun. It was also a great marketing tool; I’d wager that a whole lot of people had never heard of the Wii before they went to a friends house and played a few rounds of tennis or golf, then went out and picked up their own console soon after.

1. Price

It packs less computer power than the Xbox 360 or PS3. It can’t even play regular DVDs much less fancy Blu-ray discs. The graphics of most games aren’t much better than its predecessor, the Gamecube. On paper it’s a pretty unimpressive system, with only the gimmick of motion sensing controls to give it real interest. Yet its low power and lack of bells and whistles has turned out to be one of its greatest strengths. The economics of video game consoles for a long time has been based on a model where companies sell the systems at a loss, making their profits from games and peripherals, but Nintendo went against that idea with the Wii. By keeping things simple Nintendo made the Wii incredibly profitable. The retail price is lower than both the other current-gen consoles and in spite of its bargain-basement price Nintendo actually makes a profit from each console they sell.

That price tag has been a huge seller for the holiday seasons. When parents are out shopping for their kids for birthdays and holidays, price is a HUGE factor, especially with the financial crunch people have been experiencing of late. If Jane Doe is walking through her local Best Buy looking for little Timmy’s Christmas present, she’s going to pass the Xbox 360 and PS3 aisles, noting the big price tag on the systems. Next she sees the array of games- violent looking things like Assassin’s Creed and Gears of War; so many games with gun-toting, aggressive looking characters. Then Mrs. Doe sees the Wii, with its low price and array of games featuring harmless-looking cartoon characters on the cover. I think you can guess which system little Timmy’s going to be unwrapping Christmas morning.

Recent software sales are in and Japan has spoken, they are much more fond of Mario than the Street Fighter series.

This comes as news after Mario & Luigi RPG3 for the Nintendo DS hit Japanese shelves and then proceded to beat out Street Fighter 4 for the number 1 spot by a pretty big margin.

Top 10, courtesy of Kotaku, below:

01. Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!! (DS) – 193,000 / NEW
02. Street Fighter IV (PS3) – 86,000 / NEW
03. Mobile Suit Gundam: Giren no Yabou – Axis no Kyoui V (PSP) – 40,000 / NEW
04. Mobile Suit Gundam: Giren no Yabou – Axis no Kyoui V (PS2) – 38,000 / NEW
05. Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360) – 38,000 / NEW
06. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2009 (PSP) – 27,000 / 175,000
07. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2009 (PS2) – 25,000 / 170,000
08. Demon’s Souls (PS3) – 22,000 / 62,000
09. Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 (PSP) – 22,000 / 280,000
10. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (DS) – 20,000 / 156,000

It’s called Super Mafia Land, and it’s almost a frame-for-frame knockoff of Super Mario Brothers 2.  Call it an homage if you like, but the key thing is that they took it apart pretty nicely and repackaged it.  Basically, it’s the exact same game, only with different characters.  And not even that many different characters, either—I saw Shyguys and Phantos and Birdos running around shooting eggs at me and stuff.  The gameplay is even identical—where you pull vegetables and such out of the ground and throw them at the various monsters.  The only significant difference is we’re not playing with Toad and Luigi any more.  Now it’s Bruno and Giuseppe.

If you’ve been missing Super Mario Brothers 2, and you don’t want to drag your eight-bit Nintendo out of the basement and hook it back up, then Super Mafia Land is just the game for you.

The Official Mario Party DS website is up, but unfortunately only the Japanese version is up at the moment, but expect an English equivalent to arrive some time soon. It’s being created by Hudson again, similar to Mario Party 8 for Wii. If you can’t wait, or similarly can’t read Japanese, then here’s a fansite to tide fans over until something more… English finds the internet. Either way, minigames + stylus = quite a lot of fun to look forward to.