Mario Party Superstars comes out in less than a week, and one of the more surprising aspects of the new release isn’t missing content, it’s a minigame that Nintendo has had enough problems with in the past to issue a warning about how to play it properly. Tug o’ War, a Mario Party Superstars minigame, was originally included with the original Mario Party for the Nintendo 64 and caused Nintendo real monetary damages. When opening up the minigame in Superstars, players will receive a warning that tells them not to rotate the stick with the palm of their hand. It might seem baffling at first, but Nintendo has a very good reason for its inclusion that dates back to the first Mario Party.
Fans have already noticed the warning in the new game and are learning of the physical harm caused by the original minigame. And yet, after all this time, Nintendo is going to still include it in the list of Mario Party Superstars minigames, and in a way, it is a part of the franchise’s history. Why Nintendo decided to include this minigame is a mystery given its backstory, but the warning will hopefully serve to keep it from repeating history.
The first time the Tug o' War minigame hit the scene, Nintendo actually got sued, and after an investigation by the New York attorney general (as reported by the LA Times), it eventually committed 80 million dollars towards a quick fix by offering free fingerless gloves to every family who had purchased Mario Party. It makes sense that this minigame has not appeared in any Mario Party game since, but it returns to Mario Party Superstars nonetheless.
Mario Party's Tug O' War Minigame Once Physically Injured Nintendo Players
The way Tug o’ War worked is that players would twirl the Nintendo 64 analog stick in a circular motion to simulate the action of pulling a rope, and the team that did this the fastest would win. Unfortunately, the best way to achieve this circular motion was by placing the center of the palm on the control stick and viciously turning it into a circle. This, combined with the fact that the Nintendo 64’s joystick is small, vaulted, and friction-prone, meant that many children who were playing at the time suffered injuries.
Thankfully, controller technology has made up some ground since those days, though it remains to be seen what the Nintendo 64 and Genesis controllers for Switch Online will truly look like, as pictures show the N64 thumbstick to look like its original counterpart. Most modern analog sticks, including the ones on the Switch Joy-Cons, are softer, non-textured, and generally harder to grab onto with just a palm, but that doesn’t mean that injuries can be completely avoided. Proper use guidelines will help many players who think they’ve discovered the perfect strategy from hurting themselves due to the strange design of the minigame, which is undoubtedly why Nintendo has put the surprising warning in Mario Party Superstars.
Joy-Con drift already plagues the Switch’s control sticks, so Nintendo most likely does not want to exacerbate issues with Tug o’ War’s rigorous control scheme in Mario Party Superstars. It also probably knows the allure of a minigame that has never been rereleased and wants to present it in a remastered form now that a warning has been installed. Whatever the reason, it would be wise to still follow the warning – stabilizing the controller with one hand and using a thumb on the other is a perfectly safe and effective solution to winning this minigame.
Source: Los Angeles Times