How can you say that?! Mario is like, the best character of all freaking time! How can you diss Mario like that?! Darn, you got a cold heart, ya know that?!
Mario's actually an interesting case. Despite having basically no dialogue whenever he appears, he's still sometimes pretty well-written. Most notably, the Paper Mario games do a great job of making Mario interesting without having him really say anything. He adds a lot of good visual humor to the games, and his interactions with other characters give the other character something to play off of and show off their fantastic personalities. That said, despite how well some writing teams can utilize him, he's still probably the most boring character in the main cast (I mean, unless you count characters like Toad or something). And it shows; when you get people together to play a game of Mario Party, for example, rarely will anyone immediately gravitate towards Mario. He's iconic, but he's not an interesting character, which is why almost nobody will say that Mario is their favorite Mario character.
Im like really obsessed with this song atm. Ive listened to it all day today, and I even thought about it all day at work : p
Mostly just that bit between 1:35 and 2:50. I really love that haunting and tragic sound. It really hit me alot when I first heard it. I love that sad accordion too.