Happy New Year – Zelda & Mario Art
Happy 2017 everybody! We hope your New Year’s festivities were fun and that Nintendo somehow played a part in your enjoyment. I know our group had a fantastic time booting up my Wii U and playing Mario Kart 8, Mario Party 10, Affordable Space Adventures, and Super Mario 3D World.
Nintendo has also celebrated the New Year by releasing a couple pieces of artwork. The first comes from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and features Link on a cliffside overlooking the vast Great Plateau. In the distance is Death Mountain, some wildlife flying about and a beautiful sunset.
If this beautiful artwork looks a bit familiar, it’s probably because its a homage to the original piece of art found in the the NES The Legend of Zelda instruction manual. Here you can see Link in a similar pose looking out across the vast land of Hyrule. This is just one more example of Breath of the Wild taking key concepts from the original game to invoke nostalgia and tie the two games together. We showed off more examples last year.
On its Japanese homepage, Nintendo also showed off a piece of original Mario art that can be saved in different resolutions to be used as a wallpaper for your desktop or mobile device. It features Mario pulling Princess Peach in a carriage with Toad barely hanging on the back. It’s obvious Mario has a serious need for speed here. Could this hint at a new racing game? Probably not, but it’s a fun image!
With 2017 now officially here the Year of the Switch is upon us. In just 11 days we will finally know for certain the release date, pricing, and launch lineup of Nintendo’s new console. A day later press will go hands-on with the device and even more details will be revealed. In just over two months the Switch will be on store shelves! It’s an exciting time for Nintendo fans, and we’re looking forward to every single moment!
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
