Mario Kart Wii's Gravely Uniform Roster

ChanceTime

ChanceTime

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I swapped the places of two rows for convenience, but look at how dead and soulless this roster looked. It looks like something born purely of obligation and pattern. Double Dash had its reasons but this just looks barren. I know this is hardly timely since there's been two games since, but I cite this as an example of how not to make a character roster. Mario spinoffs are no strangers to including shit characters, but I don't think any convey it quite as bluntly as Mario Kart Wii. Just look at how this thing is laid out.
 
Mario Kart Wii is where the series really started to rely on archetypes way too much, most characters can be categorized into either:

Overall wearing men.
Princesses.
Babys.
Dinosaurs.
Toads.
Kongs.
Bowser & Family.
Mooks.
Or other alternate versions of existing characters.

Double Dash!! had an excuse as mentioned before, but in Wii it was clear that they weren't even trying and with Petey being sadly gone King Boo is the only one on the roster who doesn't fall into any of these types.

The worst part is that a character doesn't even need to be bad in order to be part of the problem, Funky sure as hell isn't a shit character, but then you look at the roster layout and yeah...

It doesn't help that the series has grown a habbit of creating bad "original" characters just for the sake of filling these archetypes, the only Mario Kart created chara that has any ground to stand on is Toadette, who while filling in a role that Toadsworth could have filled as well at least provides us a third distinct recurring a Toad character and a partner that helps putting "THE Toad" on a the pedestal as a main character he should always have and that's not even going into her making appearences in non-spin off games, Pinkgold Peach and Baby Daisy/Rosalina on the other hand are pure trash and only serve to make the rosters they are in even samier then they were before.

The series is in serious need for characters that don't fall into any archetype like E.Gadd, King K Rool, any given Wario/RPG character and maybe an retro oddball like Mouser or Foreman Spike, because as I said even good charas can make a roster feel samier when falling into a specific category, the Koopalings being a good example, as much as I love them and their inclusion in 8, I can't deny that having 7 out of 30 (not counting DLC charas) slots filled with the same type of character doesn't make for the most appealing looking roster.
 
warelander said:
Mario Kart Wii is where the series really started to rely on archetypes way too much, most characters can be categorized into either:

Overall wearing men.
Princesses.
Babys.
Dinosaurs.
Toads.
Kongs.
Bowser & Family.
Mooks.
Or other alternate versions of existing characters.

Double Dash!! had an excuse as mentioned before, but in Wii it was clear that they weren't even trying and with Petey being sadly gone King Boo is the only one on the roster who doesn't fall into any of these types.

The worst part is that a character doesn't even need to be bad in order to be part of the problem, Funky sure as hell isn't a shit character, but then you look at the roster layout and yeah...

It doesn't help that the series has grown a habbit of creating bad "original" characters just for the sake of filling these archetypes, the only Mario Kart created chara that has any ground to stand on is Toadette, who while filling in a role that Toadsworth could have filled as well at least provides us a third distinct recurring a Toad character and a partner that helps putting "THE Toad" on a the pedestal as a main character he should always have and that's not even going into her making appearences in non-spin off games, Pinkgold Peach and Baby Daisy/Rosalina on the other hand are pure trash and only serve to make the rosters they are in even samier then they were before.

The series is in serious need for characters that don't fall into any archetype like E.Gadd, King K Rool, any given Wario/RPG character and maybe an retro oddball like Mouser or Foreman Spike, because as I said even good charas can make a roster feel samier when falling into a specific category, the Koopalings being a good example, as much as I love them and their inclusion in 8, I can't deny that having 7 out of 30 (not counting DLC charas) slots filled with the same type of character doesn't make for the most appealing looking roster.
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Tight sum-up of it, man, nice one.

And indeed on the point of Funky. I don't really think I stated that well enough, but it really isn't to say that all the characters are bad, just that presentation is key, as you say.

One thing I think should've been kept as a rule but wasn't was the one Koopa-mook rule that Mario Kart DS had. As in, if it were only Dry Bones in Wii as well, and then in 7 and 8 it were only Lakitu. Then whatever Mario Kart could feature a Hammer Bro or whatever, then move on. Things could've been kept fresh in that particular way.
 
I do remember that, now imagine if that came to pass, four Koopa/-based enemies in the same roster, now that would have been absurd.

Just to go on a tangent about 8's DLC characters really quick, I do like the inclusion of Link, but it will never cease to baffle me how the guests actually have effort put behind them while the new Mario charas are all just clones, instead of them FINALLY taking advantage of the monumental amount of charas the Marioverse has to offer: Mona, Captain Syrup, Rawk Hawk, Fawful, Plum (Mario Golf 64), King K Rool, Tumble, Wart, the Dr Mario Viruses, Pauline, etc... all choices that would be interesting and bring much needed diversity to the roster and yet all we get are guests and clones...

Sorry, I know I'm moving away from Mario Kart Wii and the point of this thread at this point, but this is just something I needed to say, because I do find it frustrating.
 
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Yeah, absolutely. I found the DLC absolutely gobsmacking in how disappointing it was. Guests are... fair enough, I guess, but the Mario characters being reskins just sucks ass. The Mario universe is an infinite array of interesting and unique characters, and they simplify it into complete rubbish. It's like they need two of every character, but with Mario and Peach they need about six of those two.
 
ChanceTime said:
In fairness, Mario Kart 7's really good and it's roster's the best for a while. What do you think were your main reasons behind selling it?
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Most reasons are because of MK as a whole, I am not a big fan of the series.

-All modes are boring

-No way to turn off items in singleplayer

-Removal of missions

-Couldn't be hacked like MKDS (300cc was amazing)

-Terrible rubber banding

Really, I just dislike it not being MKDS 2.

Some of the reasons are the same reason why I hate NFS Hot Pursuit too.
 
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warelander said:
I do remember that, now imagine if that came to pass, four Koopa/-based enemies in the same roster, now that would have been absurd.
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Are you saying that never happened yet because out of technicality it's MK: DD. Although I didn't mind the roster because of the gimmick of a different special item(s) for each character and two both have the same special item.
 
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I don't know what you are trying to say here, unless you mean that Bowser and Jr count as Koopa/-based enemies, because they aren't mooks they are characters, otherwise I would have mentioned 7 Koopa/-based enemies in the other post.

For the record I like Double Dash's roster and think that it worked fine for what kind of game it wanted to be, my main issue comes from the later games insistence to keep adding to the same types of character rather then trying to be creative, I mean did anyone seriously want 5 babys?
 
warelander said:
I don't know what you are trying to say here, unless you mean that Bowser and Jr count as Koopa/-based enemies, because they aren't mooks they are characters, otherwise I would have mentioned 7 Koopa/-based enemies in the other post.

For the record I like Double Dash's roster and think that it worked fine for what kind of game it wanted to be, my main issue comes from the later games insistence to keep adding to the same types of character rather then trying to be creative, I mean did anyone seriously want 5 babys?
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It's why I think there's such value to the likes of earlier spinoff games. The smaller rosters mean there's less wrong with them, and they're more concise.

The best example really is Mario Party, in that initially, it's a contest to determine which of the characters deserves to be crowned the Superstar. Considering all of them had been important figures of awesome games, this made sense, and it made it feel as if there was an immense amount of magnitude to the title.

...Can it really be taken as seriously when Blooper could claim the title? It starts to lose its luster.

And the same applies with Mario Kart, as far as I'm concerned. Somewhere along the line it derailed from an allstar cast into a haven for filler. No matter how much you might like the character, who gives a shit if Baby Daisy managed to win the grand prix? Poor rosters undermine achievement and... Really, when you start replicating gimmicks and shit, it becomes a case of tokenism. Like "So-and-so got a baby form, so why not whats-their-face?". Baby Peach and Daisy were basically a shitty yet logical step up from Baby Mario and Luigi, and then Baby Rosalina was there to put her on the same peg as the other two, I guess. Fuck knows who this process appeals to.

I think this is something that does tend to happen less with the handheld games, mind, the post-64 console games are evidently a lot more guilty.
 
It's so "lazy" when you think of it. It's Nintendo's approach to quantity over quality? Remind me of the Koopalings from MK8... I like them in the game, but they take so much space!

Smash got it right (kinda) with the skins and all. Aside from "Mario & Dr. Mario", "Marth & Lucina" and stuff like that. Even Rosalina plays different that Peach in that game.

In MKWii, Peach Daisy and Rosetta are practically the same, just change the model a bit, change the color pallet and change the stats for a whole new "experiance"...
 
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ChanceTime said:
In fairness, Mario Kart 7's really good and it's roster's the best for a while. What do you think were your main reasons behind selling it?
Click to expand...

Oh sure, I have to agree, MK7 might have one of the best character roster in terms of variaty, MKDS was cool too! I remember the first 3 games had quite a good but small selection of character, no body really asked for more. Since Double Dash, clones started appearing, however, in that game they made sense to pair them up. But in Wii, not really...
 
BlueJackG said:
It's so "lazy" when you think of it. It's Nintendo's approach to quantity over quality? Remind me of the Koopalings from MK8... I like them in the game, but they take so much space!

Smash got it right (kinda) with the skins and all. Aside from "Mario & Dr. Mario", "Marth & Lucina" and stuff like that. Even Rosalina plays different that Peach in that game.

In MKWii, Peach Daisy and Rosetta are practically the same, just change the model a bit, change the color pallet and change the stats for a whole new "experiance"...
Click to expand...

In all fairness I think the koopalings are an example on how to do it right? they might be the same group of characters but they all play differently and have unique personalities. If they were worried about space then removing the babies, metal clones and redundant space fillers would be the first thing to do.

I might be completely mistaken here, but I remember hearing the clones in smash were there because they had enough time for them but not enough for new characters and 'more is always better'. I dunno, even if they try to disguise or excuse it I genuinely hate the direction Ninty's taking with everything regarding its own IPs. It's like they're trying to make everything pass as more content and brag about it when it's all just filler :c
 
Melluh said:
In all fairness I think the koopalings are an example on how to do it right? they might be the same group of characters but they all play differently and have unique personalities. If they were worried about space then removing the babies, metal clones and redundant space fillers would be the first thing to do.

I might be completely mistaken here, but I remember hearing the clones in smash were there because they had enough time for them but not enough for new characters and 'more is always better'. I dunno, even if they try to disguise or excuse it I genuinely hate the direction Ninty's taking with everything regarding its own IPs. It's like they're trying to make everything pass as more content and brag about it when it's all just filler :c
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I agree with you, the Koopalings are a good example of how it should be done. However, they are actually another problem on their own. Personally, I love the Koopalings and I wish they'd come back in the next games. The problem with them is that they were added to Mario Kart as an easy way to fill up the roster. "Ok, what should we add to make a bigger roster of characters?" "Oh! Just add the Koopaling!"

It's weird how they have so many unique characters and they still insist on doing it the lazy/easy way...
 
It's especially frustrating when you think of Mario Maker which featured a buttload of unique and desired character choices like Ashley and Foreman Spike, hell even Waluigi got a plattformer appearence now.

Sure they were simple 8-Bit spritesets, but it shows that EAD isn't activly opposed to adding these characters into their games and Mario Kart is major flagship franchise right up there with 2D Mario, Smash or Zelda, so while these charas would take more time and resources then the upteenth version of Mario or Peach it's not like they won't make that money back, quite the opposite actually.
 
I do wonder why it's the Mario Kart series in particular that does this since the sports and party games tend to have either large yet varied rosters or small but well chosen.
 
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