Yeah , the continued use of the NSMB artstyle kinda sucks . I mean , it ' s not unappealing , but IMO it ' s quite bland , without much character and it has gotten stale . Just look at the classic SMB games , not including SMB The Lost Levels , all of them look VERY different . I want for 2 D Super Marios to return to that , and it could make more hardcore NintendoMario fans give more of a damn for 2 D Marios again , since they ever since the over exploitation of the New line have gotten a pretty bad rep . Going back to a 816 bit style would be pretty cool , but I think that ' s an artstyle that has been used a bit too much recently mostly because of Indie titles , but this classic SMB artwork idea of mine is one I think would both stand out from other games a lot , while also probably getting very well received across the board . I guess the only reason Nintendo hasn ' t done this yet is because of the huge success of the NSMB games , so they just wanted to continue using that enginestyle , which probably also is very cheap . I think we ' re due for a change now though , which also could be a smart move saleswise . The question is whether Nintendo will go with something like this , or something else like your cellshaded idea . It ' s pretty impossible to say nonetheless , because there are so many different ways they could design the next SMB p