Wario rivals Mario in every way. I think that the Wario franchise interests me more, and there should be more Wario games made. One in particular would be-Mario vs. Wario.
As far as Shiggy Miyamoto goes, I don't think he made the Mario and Zelda franchises on his own, and when he trys to speak creatively in interviews he simply makes no sense.
Hiroji kiyotake designed the character Wario to be a rival to Mario, and I think that the Wario character, if more thought was put into him he would even be as profitable or more than one could say for Mario.
The genericness of the NSMB games and many titles taking inspiration from them. Felt like the whole 3DS/Wii U era was one long period of 'lets make the franchise as bland as possible', with the spinoffs then having almost no charm whatsoever.
I also feel like the reluctance for the different developers to use each other's characters hurts things a lot too. I mean, why not having RPG characters in the main series? Spinoff ones in RPGs or the main series? Wario, Donkey Kong and Yoshi games in other games in general?
Makes the Mario universe feel too restrictive if you ask me...
I agree with this so much. I'll be honest, I don't touch much of the Mario series at all because of how stale they become, with some exceptions. The only Mario games I would give the time of the day would be the RPG spinoffs. But even they're starting to devolve into being generic. Looking at you, Sticker Star and Paper Jam.
My favorite Mario game is Super Mario 2, aka Super Mario USA. It was the only Mario game that enabled you to toss foes and lift things like vegetables and mushroom blocks. Thus having the lifting ability came skill. I also like the different attributes of each player and was the first game that was the beginning of defining Luigi as more than just player 2. This game came out when I was 14 going on 15 which was a great year for me which gives this game a nostalgia factor every time I play it which is almost every day.
As far as the new SMB series and SMB 3d land, Nintendo is banking off the nostalgia factor, and automatically thinks fans and new fans will will buy into these games just because. I am sick of Charles Martinet's rendition of Mario's voice. Half the time in these Mario games he, Mario is a mute, but when he is voiced he speaks in broken English which makes Mario sound like he's uneducated. And he being an Italian plumber does not make a good representation for Italians everywhere. Is that what Nintendo thinks is the Italian stereotype?
By the way I do like Martinet's rendition of Wario.
How safe and uncreative the franchise got post Galaxy till Odyssey thanks to the success of NSMBWii. That's not to say the games aren't good as I enjoyed a lot of the games released during the 3DS/Wii U era and there was still plenty of new ideas being shown off, but there was definitely a bit of a creative block during that time and it really affected the franchise as a whole from a creative standpoint (The RPGs being the biggest victim.) Glad Odyssey gave it the kick the franchise it needed and hopefully it will continue towards the future. Oh And this is for 2D Mario specifically but seriously I want more new locales, more new mechanics, more new everything, not just the same old same old. Seriously as much as I enjoy the NSMB games, give us something that is genuinely new and creative instead of rehashing the same worlds, mechanics and soundtrack for the fifth time.
Another thing and this is more spin off related then anything is that despite having this big universe with a large history of worlds and characters. They hardly really use them. Now I'm not saying they shouldn't have any new ideas or have this deep continuity or anything like that, but I would much rather like to see major supporting characters like Kamek, E-Gadd or Pauline over the constant Babies and Metal Clones that we get all the time. And of course, more Wario series and RPG representation would be swell as well on top of that.
