Is Mario in a dark age?

Mario123311

Mario123311

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Sonic's been through about two of them now, Mega Man has been in one even though there is a bit of hope, Pac-Man is in one that will seemingly never end and now unfortunately it feels like Mario has fallen victim to a dark age.

The reason I say this is because of the following games and the overall lack of creativity the previous games have had in the past.

-New Super Mario Bros U
-New Super Mario Bros 2
-Paper Mario Sticker Star
-Paper Mario Color Splash
-Yoshi's New Island
-Mario Tennis Ultra Smash
-Mario Party 10

While some may argue about SM3Dw I find that a rare gem we've gotten this generation. But what I really want to ask is what happened? To be simple: I think the franchise as a whole has caught what I like to call "NSMB syndrome". And I don't see it ending anytime soon sadly.
 
Yeah I wholeheartedly agree that Mario is in a bit of a rut, to put it mildly. But I feel that the thing that separates Mario from the likes of Pac-man, Sonic, and other "forgotten" videogame icons, is that Nintendo is imaginative enough to easily pull Mario out of that rut if they actually gave enough of a damn to do so. Whereas Pac-man and Sonic were never really well-equipped to handle the 3D era of gaming to begin with, imo.

The problem is that, as long as NSMB games bring in the money, Nintendo will continue to make them. So my hope is that the masses will eventually get burned out of NSMB games and Nintendo will go back to the drawing board to come up with a new direction for Mario.
 
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Yes.


Yes it is.
 
But anyway, I agree on the lack of creativity in the more recent Mario games. Each game has its own creative elements,
but the games overall are not very creative anymore, and I mostly mean the latest games in the New Super Mario Bros. series
 
i don't think the EAD-developed games are in particular need of "saving", but they really should drop the idea that the spin-off should be uniformised and follow the "main games" in term of art and character/location usage, etc.

like, the changes made to sticker star were partially made in response to SPM... and that game is still the best-selling paper mario, yet they're doubling down on that direction with color splash. how self-defeating.
 
Glowsquid said:
i don't think the EAD-developed games are in particular need of "saving", but they really should drop the idea that the spin-off should be uniformised and follow the "main games" in term of art and character/location usage, etc.

like, the changes made to sticker star were partially made in response to SPM... and that game is still the best-selling paper mario, yet they're doubling down on that direction with color splash. how self-defeating.
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Right, that's exactly the problem with the series now. I don't get why they have to put those sorts of restrictions on other teams when they've been doing their own thing all along.

The EAD Tokyo team still has it in them, as demonstrated by SMG2 and 3D World. (Keep in mind that the reason 3D Land felt so barebones was because it had a small team) We just hope they can continue it some more. Mario Kart's going pretty well too, at least in terms of track aesthetic.



Hopefully, M&L6 could get Alphadream back on track.

And that's another thing. We're overdue for a new kind of Mario RPG now. Not a sequel to SMRPG, not another PM, and not another M&L.
 
If any of you have been up to speed on Kirby Planet Robobot, you'll see that it has sticker of various artwork from the many games in the series. See them here. (Spoilers in the first few parts, so start at 2:10 to go to the past games)


You see how dedicated HAL is?

If the Mario series had something like that, then it would be marvelous. Collectible artwork, going across many different games with artwork of many different characters.

If it's SMG3, perhaps you can put them on your ship. Or if it's another kind of platformer, maybe they don't have to have any special use.
 
What could Mario do that hasn't been done? And no, I'm not talking about an official grim and gritty reboot...well, okay, they could do that, but still.

But I personally think it could use something it hasn't tried already.
 
BooDestroyer said:
If any of you have been up to speed on Kirby Planet Robobot, you'll see that it has sticker of various artwork from the many games in the series. See them here. (Spoilers in the first few parts, so start at 2:10 to go to the past games)


You see how dedicated HAL is?

If the Mario series had something like that, then it would be marvelous. Collectible artwork, going across many different games with artwork of many different characters.
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Well Paper Jam did that with the amiibo cards and some of the 3D World stamps are based on old artwork.

References to older games aren't a rarity either (there is a reason why the Wario references thread exists) and older characters have come back very frequently in recent years (in active roles and not artwork cameos), such as Boom Boom in 3D Land, Reznor in NSMB2, Sidesteppers have been the crab obstacles in the Mario Kart games since DS and just last year we had Foreman Spike and Donkey Kong Jr (among others) as mystery costumes in Mario Maker, so I don't that Mario is lacking in that area, in fact I think the series is doing a fantastic Job in that regard.

Don't get me wrong, Kirby does great in honoring it's legacy, but as nice as it is to see someone like Ribbon appear as an artwork cameo, it would be nicer for her to actually have an active role again, which is something Mario has done a lot in recent years, with it's old characters and references to older games have always been around and plentyful, which is why I don't see much of a problem in that regard.
 
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warelander said:
Well Paper Jam did that with the amiibo cards and some of the 3D World stamps are based on old artwork.
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But they're all artwork from recent games, and of the characters we already know about. Have you actually seen them? No forgotten characters, no other M&L characters, and no PM characters. Nintendo barely wants anyone to remember Mario's non-main game history.
(Also, the 3D World stamps are tailor-made entirely for 3D World, just using the same oldschool style)

Like Glowsquid said, the problem isn't with the main games themselves (which are admittedly coming up with new characters quite often). It's that they put those idiotic "no new characters or whatever allowed" restrictions on spin-offs and other kinds of Mario games.

References to older games aren't a rarity either (there is a reason why the Wario references thread exists) and older characters have come back very frequently in recent years (in active roles and not artwork cameos), such as Boom Boom in 3D Land, Reznor in NSMB2, Sidesteppers have been the crab obstacles in the Mario Kart games since DS and just last year we had Foreman Spike and Donkey Kong Jr (among others) as mystery costumes in Mario Maker, so I don't that Mario is lacking in that area, in fact I think the series is doing a fantastic Job in that regard.
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Those guys were all made by EAD, though. And is Super Mario Maker really the best outlet for this sort of thing? There seems to be more to come. But when you get random shit like some J-Metal group that nobody outside of Japan knows about...

Don't get me wrong, Kirby does great in honoring it's legacy, but as nice as it is to see someone like Ribbon appear as an artwork cameo, it would be nicer for her to actually have an active role again, which is something Mario has done a lot in recent years, with it's old characters and references to older games have always been around and plentyful, which is why I don't see much of a problem in that regard.
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How likely do you think half of the Mario characters in that other article I linked to are going to reappear in any minor capacity? (It was written in 2010, so I'd take the Koopalings and Poochy out of that list)


...Yeah.

Though to be fair, many of them aren't entirely needed and won't really be missed by anyone. (Granted, there's some Wario characters in there too) Point is, some acknowledgement is better than none, like how these Kirby stickers are doing.

Hell, I can't even see Plessie from 3D World returning. Not even as a new character in Mario Kart (downsized like the Honey Queen in MK7).
 
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Nintendo barely wants anyone to remember Mario's non-main game history.
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So the Mini Toads from the Mario vs DK series being in Mario Kart 8, the Mario Kart DS remix in Mario Golf World Tour and Waluigi having a tennis racket in Mario Maker (and that's just counting stuff from recent years) were all just illusions of mine and not specific very clear references to these games.

Those guys were all made by EAD, though. And is Super Mario Maker really the best outlet for more overlooked characters? There seems to be more to come. But when you get random shit like some J-Metal group that nobody outside of Japan knows about...
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The point is that they are old characters that aren't part of the main cast that we see all the time, that were brought back in active roles, I don't know how these two points are even remotly relevant to what I was saying.

How likely do you think half of the Mario characters in that other article I linked to are going to reappear in any minor capacity? (It was written in 2010, so I'd take the Koopalings out of that list)


...Yeah.
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Well we already got Pauline, the Koopalings, Foreman Spike, Poochy and Donkey Kong Jr back, at least once, along with others that weren't on that list, so you never know what obscure stuff they could revive next, it certainly isn't unheard of from them to bring old and even obscure stuff back.


There are plenty of things about modern Mario that warrant criticism, but a lack of acknowledgement of Mario's history isn't something that I'm seeing, Pink Donkey Kong Jr not making a return isn't exactly a prove of Nintendo not wanting people to remember Mario's history at large.
 
Honestly, I have no qualms with the main games, and they're doing just fine. I like seeing Boom Boom come back (SMB3 was a favorite of mine too), and I do love how Mario Kart has some stellar track designs. And perhaps it's only a matter of time till we also get something new and exciting out of the next big Mario platformer, whatever it may be. There's got to be a point when they start taking some chances.

I just...don't like seeing the non-main games being uniformized when they've clearly been doing their own things all this time.

warelander said:
Pink Donkey Kong Jr not making a return isn't exactly a prove of Nintendo not wanting people to remember Mario's history at large.
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BooDestroyer said:
Though to be fair, many of them aren't entirely needed and won't really be missed by anyone.
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SurrealBrain said:
What could Mario do that hasn't been done? And no, I'm not talking about an official grim and gritty reboot...well, okay, they could do that, but still.

But I personally think it could use something it hasn't tried already.
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They technically tried making a grim/gritty Mario. People like me felt he was really OOC though.
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:U He never smiled once.
 
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