Making Mario more striking: a retrospective on Next Level Games

Next Level Games is a Canadian game development studio that, as of 2021, was bought by Nintendo. They’ve worked on popular series such as Mario Strikers, Luigi’s Mansion, and even Metroid. While their games are known for being fun and of high quality, they’re also known for bringing a lot of style to the Mario universe, especially amongst the spin-offs.

Nobody would ever doubt the quality of the Mario franchise, but it’s hard to deny that they don’t often innovate with exciting art styles. 2D Mario games have looked the same for more than a few different console generations. Even the tennis, golf, and kart franchises look identical. That’s why in 2005 when Next Level exploded onto the Nintendo scene with Mario Strikers on the Gamecube, people were starstruck. 

The Gamecube is so often described as the era of experimentation. Zelda was taking a new art direction with Wind Waker, Metroid was going first-person, and Mario was getting new sports games, one being Strikers. The art style looks like a rough drawing with dark shades of black outlining covering each character to give the game a more gritty and stylized look. 

The box art features Mario and Donkey Kong angrily facing each other down with fire, and lightning explodes from the soccer ball. Whereas Mario tennis and Golf had a much more “let’s all play together” vibe, Mario Strikers had an “I’m going to destroy you” energy about it. Characters could full-blown tackle each other into the mud or shove each other into electric fences, causing severe damage. With characters being tackled, run over by shells, blown up by bombs, or full-on drop kicked by goalies, the name of the game was mayhem. There was a lot of charm to get behind with Mario Strikers.

This trend continued with its sequel, Mario Strikers Charged, which featured the same intense gameplay, now including online multiplayer. Admittedly, the wi-fi features of the Wii were not great, but Strikers Charged made it work. A big component to online play that’s still rarely implemented in Mario sports titles today, was that the base gameplay mode was casually competitive thanks to the aggressive gameplay loop.

There were leader boards and even a shrine on the main menu, showcasing the top player of the day. Making Mario Strikers more inherently competitive mixed well with the energy the game gave off. Interestingly, neither of these games had any side content; you could play through the main story or play matches against friends or randoms online. They stood on their own feet by having fun, action-packed gameplay that took skill and had a ton of replay value.

Six years after the release of Mario Strikers Charged, Next Level Games would return to the Mario franchise in a new way, with the sequel to a Gamecube classic: Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon. The first Luigi’s Mansion was iconic for having a PG horror vibe and giving Luigi a cowardly personality. The charm was definitely there, but it was Nintendo’s kind of charm.

Things changed with the game’s subsequent two sequels due to Next Level Games being the sole developers. They went from a family-friendly horror vibe to more of a Disney/Pixar look with how expressive their characters were. Luigi, Professor E. Gadd, even the ghosts, would make big gestures, and their emotions would be comically large. Dark Moon felt more like the movie Minions than it did Tales from the Cryptkeeper. 

Luigi’s Mansion 3 took it a step further by making the game more cinematic, which may in part be because it’s the first game in the series to be in HD. Instead of being set in a mansion, this third title instead had Luigi fighting his way to the top of a multi-themed hotel. One floor featured a movie set where Luigi had to reenact scenes from Godzilla, whereas another was an overgrown biome with living, deadly plants.

Next Level games felt like they took an opposite approach to Luigi’s Mansion when compared to Mario Strikers. Whereas Strikers felt dingy and dirty, Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon & 3 felt brighter, cleaner, and more family-friendly. This approach worked as the third game is one of the Nintendo Switch’s best-selling games and won Best Family Game at the 2019 Game Awards.

With such a reputation for exciting art styles and a great gameplay loop, it’s not hard to see why fans of Next Level Games were excited when a new Mario Strikers game was announced during the most recent Nintendo Direct. Although it doesn’t look as dark and gritty as the first two games, the core gameplay and online competitive modes seem to be present. Nintendo made the right call to buy this talented studio with such a track record of quality titles.