Sure but it's not much for historical precedent when other series already did that. Like I said, Pac-man was milking the shit out of that stuff when pac-man fever was in full bloom.
I mean, "using different characters in different kinds of ways" isn't exactly a new or innovative concept. Franchising existed long before video games even existed. Heck even in video games Pac-man was doing that before Mario did.
There aren't many Mario games that are super significant. There are a lot of great games in the franchise yes but the actual important ones going by the descriptors given is very small.
Basically like, DK the arcade game, SMB1, and I guess SM64 for it's major innovations to 3D gaming.
I just want to point out that if you are using sonic as an example to be FOR stories in Mario platformers I'd look for a better example because most sonic stories are pretty awful.
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