Nintendo's announcement that it is releasing a collection of amiibo cards to accompany Mario Sports Superstars came somewhat out of the blue, but it would seem very little effort has actually been spent on creating said cards.
The artwork on the cards shown so far is lifted directly from previous games in the Super Mario series, with Bowser's art being 12 years old - it's taken from Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, a GameCube game published in 2005.
Luigi's art is taken from Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, while the pitching Mario was previously seen in Mario Super Sluggers. Even the Luigi "scoring a goal" on Bower's card is recycled rather than being a new image. Only Princess Daisy gets "new" artwork - the image of her riding a horse is taken from Mario Sports Superstars itself.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with re-using existing assets, this does feel a bit cheap, especially when the colourful artwork on these cards is one of the key reasons for purchasing them in the first place. Would it really have taken that much effort to produce entirely new art for these cards? Or would do you think that most people won't mind, or possibly even notice the difference? Let us know with a comment.
[source reddit.com]
Comments 50
Nintendo's been doing this for years.
Just look at all the NSMB. game covers.
Hardly a difference.
"C-Tier 3DS Mario spin-off artwork gaffe" is my new favourite Nintendo genre.
Just think of the spaghetti/Mario party scandal. They've been doing this for years.
Once again its all about the money
As if I haven't got enough reason to hate these scourgey vermin SCamiibo. Now they're too lazy to create original art for them. There's thousands of artists out there who would have been only too happy and obliging to create new artwork, some even for free.
Oh Nintendo...
I think it's a delightful way of honouring historic Mario Sports titles and the artists who produced these in the first place. And doubles as a fun game of spot the difference.
Also: Bowser dancing. Nuff said.
Honestly, I don't think many people would notice nor care.
I think this is a case of Nintendo honouring their history, rather than being lazy...
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Nobody is forcing you to buy Amiibos. And as far as I know, they haven't locked anything important behind them.
It would be neat if each character had multiple cards, each one with different artwork. Collecting them would be like collecting baseball cards.
"Shock and dismay as Mario Sports card artwork is taken from Mario Sports games"
Does it reaally matter? It's not like these are going to sell less because of old artwork.
It seems they don't care about these cards as much as we don't care about them!
"Let's produce tons of cool artwork for the game, and then reuse old art in the actual product!"
@BensonUii Yeah, like those, but for non-AC fans.
The quality contrast between the daisy card vs the ancient gamecube renders is pretty funny, they did the same thing in Ultra Smash:
Not really a good sign if they're cutting corners in this game too, these cards look like they're fanmade
@Moon I have to agree with you I dont think most people will notice or care either ., The target audience for these cards will buy them regardless.
Art design doesn't matter.
Unlockable content inside does matter.
@BensonUii Hey, I'd build a Waluigi collection, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I don't care honestly I knew this from the moment I saw the cards but they look great, the art itself is great and fits, why such a fuss?
It's more likely they're just art place holders, I mean Mario Party Star Rush didn't stick with the "Spaghettios" art as far as I'm aware (unless there was a difference in different region cover art).
Uhm, I don't really give a poop about the artwork.. I care more about what they unlock in the game & that they don't cost as much as amiibos.
I think we've all seen Luigi before.
I hardly think it matters, do we need to bring this ongoing negativity towards Nintendo here?
@Decapre
Your namesake is one to talk, Decapre.
@Bunkerneath That was placeholder artworker. Look at the actual box art now.
I'm more impressed they were able to turn Bowser's DDR pose into an amiibo card without it looking out of place.
So, these Mario cards have the same pictures as the previous set of Mario amiibo cards? Oh, what's that, this is the first set of Mario amiibo cards so these are all original Mario cards and aren't copying previous cards? Well what's the problem then, it's not like people hate old stuff.
I can't recall a single person saying, "Don't buy these sneakers, that's old artwork." Not a one.
OK, on to things that matter. are there really only 5 cards, b/c if there are only 5 cards it's going to be hard selling a lot of 5 card blind packs, unless each pack is going to have 5 of the same card. And if there are more than 5 cards, lets see all of them before we go bashing a small sample for old artwork that has never been on an amiibo card before.
Funny thing is, they do already have 'original' artwork for at least Mario on all sports... as well as one for Tennis for Peach, if they really wanna have her depicted as playing tennis. Other characters also already have artwork for the game, with Luigi (soccer), Yoshi (golf) and Bowser (baseball).
Is it really that difficult and/or time consuming to make original artwork for each character's card? This is really stupid.
..still buying though, because I wanna keep my amiibo collection as complete as possible, and it's not like the artwork they use is hideous either, it's just recycled. Already well underway with the Animal Crossing cards too, so I guess these can come as well.
Hopefully there will not be a variant for Pokémon amiibo cards, otherwise my bank account will truly cry. But I'm thinking the regular Pokémon cards kind of prevent them from making amiibo variants.
It's funny how they seem to fit anyway. I'll try and get them when I can.
I don't understand the issue on my side... These cards are collectibles, right ?
Having a card representing an old artwork seems to be the perfect collector item...
Nobody said it was problematic when Nintendo made a 8-bit Mario Amiibo or when they make games based on old sprites such as Zelda 4 swords ou Mario Maker...
Just my opinion though...
@Mega_Yarn_Poochy so therefore these cards could actually be just placeholders and not the true pictures.
Meh that's why I'm not the keen on the cards, all they are a pic of google images with a amiibo chip (or what ever it is inside)
@alasdair91 I think you may be giving them too much credit.
@Rocossa I was gonna point that out myself, if only because I found it pretty amusing.
Based off of the artwork shown(whether some be placeholders or not), the quality difference between the Daisy card and the rest makes it painfully obvious, if it already wasn't enough, haha.
"This is really Dumb" "(opens wallet)".
hmmmmm.
Lol: Re...Re...Recycle...lalala!
Daisy's artwork with the brighter colors looks very jarring next to the other two-generation old designs.
@allav866 think I read somewhere each character had 5 cards each but I may be making that up, hard to keep up with all the rumours/news ATM
There are 90 amiibo cards for this set... people couldn't have expected the company to make 90 new stock images for something as little as amiibo cards.
@Captain_Gonru 90 cards, 16 x 5, but I'll give you credit, that was a really good guess.
So, you watching Riverdale? We won't be, but you probably already figured that.
Clever
I noticed this too, but it's no surprise as Nintendo has been lazy about copy-and-pasting old artwork (especially of Mario characters) everywhere for over the past 10 years or so.
@Rocossa I was just about to mention that. What makes the recycled art worse, in that case, is just how barebones and barren Ultra Smash is. The fact that they couldn't even be bothered to make new art for that game and STILL sold it to consumers at $60 was pretty insulting.
Kinda outlines the issues I've had with Mario's visuals for a while. It's basically just Nintendo clip-art. Sure they tweak the designs a tiny bit each time but there's no big, bold directions with the art anymore. It all feels like we've seen it before. Turns out we literally have here!
To it's credit though, weird 'real' humans aside, Oddessey looks to be shaking it up a lot!
Frankly, I'm not really surprised. Most Mario themed spinoffs are not done internally anyways (barring Mario Kart [EAD] and Paper Mario [Intelligent Systems]). They are outsourced to developers like Camelot (like this project), Namco (also developing this) or Square Enix.
Wouldn't be surprised if Namco is the one handling the card production (Animal Crossings' cards at least look consistent art-wise across the board so it's hard to believe that Nintendo is also in charge of these cards, unless as people pointed out that it's intentional and meant to pay homage to previous sports games).
"Would it really have taken that much effort to produce entirely new art for these cards?"
Yes. Art is work. Hard work.
Should they have done it anyway? Yes, I think so. But let's not discount the amount of effort great art takes.
I don't mind. In fact I wouldn't want them to waste time making new art for Amiibo cards...
About the usual effort Nintendo puts into the Mario series.
@Grawlog
And don't get me started with the Paper Mario and his hammer for network maintenance image!
On the other hand, the amount of work put into the Bowser Parenting commercial was nice. And 100% new!
@Captain_Gonru Archie comics as performed by the cast of Dawson's Creek set in Twin Peaks. A murder mystery love triangle. I've never watched Dawson's Creek, 90210, Pretty Little Liars, The OC, or that one in the apartment complex with the pool. Basically I've never been a teen girl. I did watch the first 3 seasons of Smallville, that's about the extent of my teen soaps. Not even Party of 5.
And you shouldn't need aninimoty for the CW shows, everybody watches those, Kevin Smith approves so it's all good.
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