Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

It ultimately boils down to lesser of evils, but when thinking about failed industry experiments (such as...well whatever Sonic was doing) compared to extremely safe games that are still technically playing well such as New Super Mario Bros. 2, I'd rather be stuck with the safe ones that play well. If had never played a Super Mario Bros. game before and picked New Super Mario Bros 2, I'd still have a good time with it because I hadn't been exposed to its mechanics before. Whereas, games like Sonic Boom would be unenjoyable to newcomers and veterans alike. I mean, I'd be playing neither of those games to be frank, but I'd stick with the games that actually play well.

Also, what I said about Sticker Star was entirely about its execution of a new mechanic, which was a huge reason it failed.
 
Sometimes you actually have to play it safe if games are expected to get good reception.

Star Fox Zero tried to utilize the Wii U GamePad's motion controls, but that lead to mixed reviews, and some gaming communities even ranked it among the worst games of 2016.

Similarly, Sonic Forces experimented with the custom avatar mechanics, but the game as a whole was just a huge disappointment, especially when you realize that Infinite was nothing more than an expendable pawn in Dr. Eggman's game.
 
Baby Peach being playable in Mario Kart makes as much sense as Fawful would if he were ever added.

Actually this isn't an opinion, it's a FACT. Both characters debuted in Mario & Luigi games. And given Fawful's popularity, why wouldn't he be in spin-offs like Baby Peach?

That she later appeared in Yoshi's Island DS doesn't count, otherwise we would have seen Baby Wario and Baby DK show up more.
 
Considering how rapidly she kept showing up in stuff at that point I'd say Baby Peach was already planned before that and her debut in M&L Partners in time is just a coincidence.

And Fawful is nowhere near as popular as people like to think he is.
 
What doesn't help is that Baby Peach is a form of an existing character being Peach as a cute little tot. She easily meshes with Baby Mario and Baby Luigi as well.
 
Super Radio said:
Baby Peach being playable in Mario Kart makes as much sense as Fawful would if he were ever added.

Actually this isn't an opinion, it's a FACT. Both characters debuted in Mario & Luigi games. And given Fawful's popularity, why wouldn't he be in spin-offs like Baby Peach?

That she later appeared in Yoshi's Island DS doesn't count, otherwise we would have seen Baby Wario and Baby DK show up more.
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that's still an opinion. "makes as much sense" is a subjective claim and thus open to interpretation and disagreements
 
Mcmadness said:
Considering how rapidly she kept showing up in stuff at that point I'd say Baby Peach was already planned before that and her debut in M&L Partners in time is just a coincidence.
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Unfortunately this. I find it pretty sad that the only contribution M&L has "technically" made to the greater Mario series is a coincidence like this, but it's not surprising. It's annoying when people try to use Baby Peach as a "shut up, M&L got its character a long time ago" though.
 
Don't worry, most other series don't contribute anything either.
 
Not even the mainstream platformers contribute as much as you think.
 
Pretty much, most of it's one and done.
 
Mcmadness said:
Don't worry, most other series don't contribute anything either.
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Yeah, but most of them at least get some form of nod (Bowser's Castle from SMRPG being the background of the Bowser's Castle court in Power Tennis, the Star Spirits being hosts in Mario Party 6).
Mario & Luigi's only real nod is Baby Peach which, conceptually, is not very impressive or even original.
 
ThatGuy62 said:
Mcmadness said:
Don't worry, most other series don't contribute anything either.
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Yeah, but most of them at least get some form of nod (Bowser's Castle from SMRPG being the background of the Bowser's Castle court in Power Tennis, the Star Spirits being hosts in Mario Party 6).
Mario & Luigi's only real nod is Baby Peach which, conceptually, is not very impressive or even original.
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The Mario & Luigi series contributed to the Paper Mario genre change post-2004. That counts for something.
 
ThatGuy62 said:
Yeah, but most of them at least get some form of nod (Bowser's Castle from SMRPG being the background of the Bowser's Castle court in Power Tennis, the Star Spirits being hosts in Mario Party 6).
Mario & Luigi's only real nod is Baby Peach which, conceptually, is not very impressive or even original.
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Considering how often Bowser's castle changes it's appearance I would hardly call that much of a contribution.
 
Mcmadness said:
ThatGuy62 said:
Yeah, but most of them at least get some form of nod (Bowser's Castle from SMRPG being the background of the Bowser's Castle court in Power Tennis, the Star Spirits being hosts in Mario Party 6).
Mario & Luigi's only real nod is Baby Peach which, conceptually, is not very impressive or even original.
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Considering how often Bowser's castle changes it's appearance I would hardly call that much of a contribution.
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Well, not really a contribution but more of a nod. Still, it's kinda glaring that Smash is the only thing to directly reference that series (nd even then, it's only some music and some character animations.
 
MnSG said:
Sometimes you actually have to play it safe if games are expected to get good reception.

Star Fox Zero tried to utilize the Wii U GamePad's motion controls, but that lead to mixed reviews, and some gaming communities even ranked it among the worst games of 2016.

Similarly, Sonic Forces experimented with the custom avatar mechanics, but the game as a whole was just a huge disappointment, especially when you realize that Infinite was nothing more than an expendable pawn in Dr. Eggman's game.
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Actually, Sonic Forces was held back because it played it too safe when it was supposed to be more experimental. It relied on Classic Sonic to carry it to victory, because Sonic Team knew that he rolled in the big cash money with Sonic Generations, without truly understanding why it worked back then and doesn't work now.

Sonic Forces had a lot of ideas that were cut back because Sonic Team just tried to do all the surface-level pandering to the fandom without really considering what makes Sonic games great at all. It's a shame, because Sonic Forces didn't have terrible ideas; they were ideas that worked in other Sonic games, it's just that they didn't bother to put forth the effort. They did the bare minimum.

And tbh, that's what a lot of safe games feel like to me. Putting in the bare minimum.



More related to the current discussion, as resident Mario & Luigi RPG fangirl, I would love to see more references, and while I'm not sure I entirely agree with the fact that Baby Peach is really a M&L RPG staple, I don't see why characters from the M&L RPG series wouldn't fit in. Of course, my priority for side games is that they add mcfreakin' E. Gadd, like c'mon now.
 
ルイージ said:
And tbh, that's what a lot of safe games feel like to me. Putting in the bare minimum.
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I see a pattern with both your posts and my posts. Neither of those games catered to what the fans wanted, and both games had just plain unfun level design and concepts. I was thinking about Mario Party: Island Tour and it had pretty much similar pitifalls as Sonic Forces, a lot of stuff cut back, a lot of ideas that didn't work, a stark lack of content, etc. Only this time, the main ideas are different: Island Tour wanted to innovate too much while Forces played too safe.
 
I liked Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, but the fact that it played it too safe with the crossover concept made it a bit of a disappointment. I liked Paper Jam, but it never realized its full potential and stands as one of the weakest in the series.
 
Ghostly Yoshi said:
I liked Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, but the fact that it played it too safe with the crossover concept made it a bit of a disappointment. I liked Paper Jam, but it never realized its full potential and stands as one of the weakest in the series.
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I actually don't think this is an unpopular opinion. I say that because everyone I've talked to so far has felt the same (me too). I think Paper Jam is one of the best Mario & Luigis mechanically, but it's lacking something that the other four had, and it's a right shame.
 
The idea that it had missed opportunities might not be unpopular but I think the idea that the missed opportunities ruined the game is. As someone who has been a fanboy of both Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, who loves all the unique designs and personalities they introduced in new characters, allies and villains, and has only dreamed of characters introduced in them to ever get to meet each other, for almost a decade now, the fact that they actually crossed them over but avoided the characters drives me insane and actually ruined the game for me. To me it's some good gameplay ideas (and another fantastic soundtrack of course) wasted on an incredibly uninspired and bare-minimum crossover. I'd like it more if it wasn't a crossover actually. Regardless of what AlphaDream "officially stated" I think my belief that this crossover would've been way less conservative had Sticker Star not happened previously is a reasonable belief.
 
Ghostly Yoshi said:
I liked Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, but the fact that it played it too safe with the crossover concept made it a bit of a disappointment. I liked Paper Jam, but it never realized its full potential and stands as one of the weakest in the series.
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Still waiting for somebody to tell me what that so called missed potential was other than cluster fuck fanservice
 
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team art style is the best in the series.
 
Balancing the main cast with various notable exclusive characters from the series, doesn't have to be clusterfuck if it's done well (which I trust AlphaDream has the ability to do).

They sure didn't have an issue throwing in a bunch of main series bosses that have no prior relevance to the M&L or Paper Mario series after all. Those would seem better suited to a new full-on M&L game or Paper Mario game than a game dedicated to combining the two.

J & Siph said:
I hated the separation of the Paper Mario world from the core world.
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Eh, I can forgive that since to be fair it doesn't necessarily remove the Paper Mario series from having happened in the same universe as M&L, it just implies that the events of those games were adapted into books in-universe later (consistent with the storybook openings of the PM series actually).
 
Fawfultheghost64 said:
Balancing the main cast with various notable exclusive characters from the series, doesn't have to be clusterfuck if it's done well (which I trust AlphaDream has the ability to do).
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Considering how their idea of bringing back old characters in DT was to have them do absolutely nothing of note and absolutely no memory of the bros prior. I don't.

Fawfultheghost64 said:
They sure didn't have an issue throwing in a bunch of main series bosses that have no prior relevance to the M&L or Paper Mario series after all. Those would seem better suited to a new full-on M&L game or Paper Mario game than a game dedicated to combining the two.
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Because they were relevant to the current situation. Plus they never re-use past bosses anyhow beyond Wiggler. If they did it the way you are suggesting they would just been thrown out all over the place without rhyme or reason, like those shitty "re-cuts" I keep seeing around on the internet.
 
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