One of Nintendo's most senior producers discusses how he wants this year's 3DS Super Mario entry to echo more of the series' roots...

After the two Wii Galaxy games became critical darlings this generation, the Mario series is riding as high as ever going into the release of Super Mario 3DS at the end of this year. However, that doesn't mean Nintendo are simply planning on planting the winning Galaxy formula right onto a handheld.

On the contrary, it seems the team behind the upcoming game are wrapping their heads around what exactly was inherent in the fast-paced Mario games of old that wasn't brought across in Galaxy, or even any of the 3D titles since Super Mario 64.

Speaking to Gamespot, chief producer Yoshiaki Koizumi provided a lengthy explanation of a goal of bringing the "core essence" back to Mario.

"When I worked on Galaxy, as with every Super Mario game I always focus on the surprise and the newness of what we could bring to the gameplay experience. Perhaps that's just my personality. While Galaxy had a lot of very interesting new features that weren't present in other games in the series, I feel like we also were able to sink down to some of the origins of the series at the same time. We put a lot of effort into it as we were working on it.

"Similarly, this time I guess our approach is best described as focusing on how to bring the core essence of the Mario gameplay experience to a game that is presented in 3D. And this is taking us to lots of interesting new ideas that go even beyond what we did in Galaxy... I feel like the core experience is something that we may have started to get away from a little bit when we first started presenting games in 3D like in Super Mario 64. The idea in those games is that you walk around in those environments and give the players a lot of opportunity to explore.

"But the real basics of the Super Mario series is that players have to get to the goal of a level without dying. You have short levels with a very quick tempo, and it should be a very thrilling experience. So some of that was actually missing from Galaxy. The gameplay was a bit slower, and it was so much easier to die, so the core experience of getting to the goal without dying was harder to achieve. This time around, you'll find that we have something closer to the three-minute levels you see in Super Mario Bros., so for me, overall this feels closer to the core of the Super Mario Bros. experience traditionally."

Are you looking forward to reconnecting with Mario's roots? Or would you have preferred more of a continuation of the Galaxy style of games? Let us know your thoughts below...