Many Nintendo fans are looking forward to the release of Mario Party Superstars on October 29; the second title in the fiesta-focused spin-off series coming to Switch after 2018's Super Mario Party. Though Super Mario Party garnered attention for returning to a more traditional board game format after years of vehicular mechanics, its contents were quickly worn out. Mario Party Superstars appears to have more potential staying power.
A host of options and quality-of-life improvements apparently being introduced are one reason why Superstars could be a big deal for Switch owners. For example, friends playing together online will be able to pause games mid-way through and return to the party later. The game will also be paying homage to classic Mario Party titles using remastered versions of original N64 boards as well as minigames from across the series. However, one revelation about the returning Tug o' War has fans concerned, as it represents Nintendo ignoring a potentially simple accessibility option for the sake of staying true to older games.
Mario Party Superstars' Tug o' War
Tug o' War is a minigame returning from 1998's Mario Party, which is also the source of two remastered boards: Peach's Birthday Cake and Yoshi's Tropical Island. It is a 1v3 game in which player characters stand on either side of a chasm over a giant Piranha Plant. The aim is self-explanatory, with one more powerful player trying to pull a team of three into the Piranha Plant's maw and vice versa.
In the original game, Tug o' War required players to rotate the single analog stick of the N64 controller as quickly as possible. Multiple minigames in Mario Party utilized this control scheme, but problems apparently arose due to the abrasive nature of the N64 analog stick. Enough reports of "burns, lacerations, punctures, cuts, bleeding, and tearing and blistering of skin" arose that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office announced a settlement with Nintendo of America on March 8, 2000.
Five minigames and a practice feature were associated with these injuries according to the press release archived by the New York State Office of the Attorney General, with Paddle Battle, Pedal Power, Cast Aways, Deep Sea Divers, and Mecha Fly Guy also implicated. The release said, "Consumers consistently have reported that they needed to use the palms of their hands to rotate the joystick with sufficient speed to succeed at those game segments, resulting in injury." That's why many were surprised to see Tug o' War appear in pre-release leaks for Mario Party Superstars with just a content warning.
Mario Party Superstars' Content Warning Doesn't Go Far Enough
Screencaps shared on social media sites like Twitter show the minigame content warning, which reads as follows: "To avoid irritation to your skin and/or damage to the control stick, do not rotate it with the palm of your hand." The idea of doing so using a Joy-Con is harder to imagine, but may be an important warning considering new N64 controllers were announced alongside the Switch Online Expansion Pack.
Given this warning comes appears in pre-release leaks, it's entirely possible Nintendo also made changes under the hood to reduce the speed needed for Tug o' War, or included options to change these controls somewhere. However, in lieu of that knowledge, it's fair to say Nintendo can - and should - do a lot more. Bringing back a minigame with controls that have historically done harm to able-bodied gamers is bad enough, but with a larger focus on accessibility in the games industry it's almost inconceivable to imagine Tug o' War returning unchanged.
Content warnings appearing with older, controversial media can be important. When the streaming service HBO Max re-released Gone With The Wind in 2020 alongside a disclaimer about its revisionist take on the history of American slavery, it's easy to see this as a conversation starter so people can appreciate a piece of classic, genre-defining cinema with necessary context. Video games are a different story entirely. It's much more important that interactive games are preserved in ways to make them more accessible to a wider audience than it is to just warn people about their issues.
Mario Party Superstars launches October 29 for Nintendo Switch.
Source: New York State Attorney General