After seeing just a single piece of concept art, Monolith Soft's mysterious 3DS title is now at the top of my 'day one perch' list

Of course, that's assuming that the illustration below, published late last week on Monolith Soft's Facebook page in an attempt to attract designers, is a piece of concept art from the company's known-to-be-in-the-works 3DS title.



Quite a few people think seem to think that's exactly what it is, though, and, well, that's enough for me at the moment.

The reason some folks think that, by the way, is that the artist responsible for the illustration above is Yasuyuki Honne, who is a member of Monolith Soft's Kyoto-based team that has long been said to be working on a title for the 3DS.

Curiously, someone calling himself (or herself) Instro shared the following illustration on NeoGAF yesterday. It's also the work of Honne and, as such, more than a few people believe it may be related to the image above--and to Monolith Soft's mysterious 3DS game, too.



Although I hope both pieces have something to do with the company's latest portable offering (their last was Project X Zone), I'm especially enthralled by the first one thanks to its trippy, Wizard of Oz-esque overtones.

How about you ladies and gents? Do you also like these illustrations and, if so, do you hope they're indicative of a forthcoming 3DS title?

Is it wrong that this image has singlehandedly changed my opinion of New Super Mario Bros. 2 from 'eh' to 'day one, beyotches'?

When I first heard that Nintendo was prepping a New Super Mario Bros. game for the 3DS, I was stoked. Although I found the DS original to be a snoozefest, I completely adored its Wii-based sequel.

Still, New Super Mario Bros. 2, which will be released throughout North America on Aug. 19 (pre-order a copy here), was rather unceremoniously pushed to the back of my consciousness during E3 2012--thanks in large part to games like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Project P-100, Pikmin 3 and even New Super Mario Bros. U.

The portable-platformer-to-end-all-portable-platformers returned to its position at (or at least near) the front of my mind yesterday, though, after I came across the following piece of New Super Mario Bros. 2 concept art (click on it to take a closer look):

It's funny how expanding the view of this game's box art makes the entire endeavor so much more appealing, isn't it?

Zoom in on Mario and Luigi, a la the above-mentioned cover image, and all you really see is a whole lot of gold. Zoom out a bit, though, and you see colorful blocks that call to mind Super Mario Bros. 3 and a bursting-with-Koopalings Koopa Clown Car that calls to mind Super Mario World.

I'm still not altogether sure what to think of New Super Mario Bros. 2's coin-obsessed storyline, but at the moment I don't much care. Bring on the Koopa Clown Car, I say!

(Via nintendolife.com, by way of tinycartridge.com)