Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

[YoshiFlutterJump]

Do I not sufficiently explain it under my comment for Luvbi on my list? The story of that family is so powerful that I could not bear to dislike any of them. And yes I do remember Jojora having played Superstar Saga for over last summer (Northern Hemisphere) and I didn't find her at all memorable for better or worse.

To each their own. My mind was literally going "yeeeeeeeeees" during Luvbi's sacrifice and was extremely furious when she inexplicably returned.

 

[Jackie Frost]

Well you asked me to explain why I liked Luvbi and I'm saying that I already did under my comment.

I suppose you could argue there is the objective side to think about as well but I feel that with characters it's a lot more personal than games overall so I'm not sure I'd like to try to make that comparison.

 

[Ray Trace]

Count Bleck is my favourite video game character easily because true forbidden love stories have been used in many media prior to SPM but never before in a Mario game, at least not on this scale. And it was truly his presentation and atmosphere that made him so special for me.

E.g. how he is presented at first as a stereotypical heartless villain but then he says "Just as no-one can ease the tempest that rages in my suffering heart" and you start to wonder why and then as the game progresses you realise how hurt he is on the inside and you finally draw the dots with the pictureless stories between chapters and it just comes together so elegantly.

It's the exact reason I dislike it. What the writers just did was lift a cliche story and surgically tie it into a Mario game, with nothing interesting or particularly unique going for it. Anyone with a pencil or a typewriter can write something like this. It's a reason fanfiction has a notorious reputation of being slipshoddy. I also find Bleck's dialogue moaning how much his heart aches to be incredibly sappy, something you'd find in a gooey cliche romance novel. Bleck outright tells you he's suffering internally (he has no reason to let this phrase out as he's committing this atrocity), rather than let the audience implicate how he feels through his actions and body language alone. Dialogue that outright tells the audience how they should feel for him is really, really bad. No one talks like this in real life.

It's fine to like this sort of plot. That's why it's a cliche, because it's commonly relatable, has an interesting conflict, and it's an easy story to tell, and it has roots as far back in the Sumerian times with Pyramus and Thisbe. But to call it "deep" or something remarkable? That's where I strongly disagree. The plot isn't deep. It doesn't go deeper than themes lifted from countless other stories who did this thing better and for ages. There are no subtle, underlying themes that can be unraveled and analyzed from this plot. It's literally just "dad doesn't like this girl, guy suffers and betrays and does evil thing". That's pretty much it. You can summarize Bleck's character with just a simple phrase: heart-broken destroyer.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Mario can't even talk though. He's pretty passive when it comes to development. When I read in Luvbi's article, there's hardly any mention of the Mario characters, no interaction. I don't know if the Wiki has incomplete information, so I can't verify myself (don't feel like sitting through potential hours of footage). Heck, it's stated in the article that she constantly put others down, so she doesn't come off as a pleasant character. Additionally, Luvbi appears to arrive too late in the story, in Chapter 7, to actually have any development with Mario. I have a feeling her relationship with Mario is overstated.

Her character arc revolves around hyping up for her sacrifice only for her to reincarnated inexplicably which, if you take the story seriously, should be a moment of inexcusably poor writing. Even if you care for the character, that should elicit a sense of betrayal by the story-tellers that manipulated your emotions for the result of status quo.

Either way I think any relationship Mario and Luvbi could've salvaged could've been done way better with Luigi or Tippi, one who is directly related to Mario while the other comes much earlier in the game.

And I would argue it would prove my point. Bowser's marrying Peach is all a subversion for the main plot. It's set up literally by one of the villains and revealed almost immediately. They want to set you up thinking it's a Mario story where something surprising happens, a wedding ceremony, but that's not a big part of the story at all. It disintegrates into another kind of love plot that doesn't involve these two all that much. I don't find it all that remarkable myself but I can't blame you since I'm spoiled myself and I also don't prioritize the plot all that well. I might have been impressed when I was 14 and was writing fanfic, but I'm 24 now and my idea of what's a good story has changed.

 

[Jackie Frost]

It's still deep. I went to the theatre a few months back to see R&J and sure it was decent but the gooeyness and clicheness of it all and the fact that its a formal play written by a notorious literaturist (that's hardly a word lol) stops the power of the plot from reaching me. But to see this in Super Paper Mario completely blasted away those inhibitions and allowed me to truly appreciate the power of this plot even if it has been used before.

It's literally just "dad doesn't like this girl, guy suffers and betrays and does evil thing"

I already stated that I disagree with this as Bleck has a lot more depth to him than that and the way that Tippi develops separately and their ultimate reunion was much more unique. But even if it is cliche, it's a lot more fleshed out and dramatic than how you just put it, as I say, the fact that this is a Mario game entirely renders clicheness from ruining the story for me.

To be honest, I don't care if saying your emotions out loud is poor script writing - the thing which sticks with me is that this fellow has deep emotional pain and this is a Mario game and the combination of those two things is so positively unbelieveable not to be my favourite video game.

I suppose there is a difference between subjective and objective though. No matter what I'm too emotionally invested in SPM to ever turn my love away from its story. Objectively, I can see why some would argue that the devs were lazy and just rebrandished R&J and stuck Mario in it and in a way yes they did but that's not the whole picture - the whole picture is that they in many ways took that and made something much more unique and artistic and powerful for many young people such as myself who aren't really into more adult games, films, or books have been moved by. So, it wasn't perfect for sure but it's still outstanding for a Mario game.

I'll go back to defending Luvbi when I find time.

 

[Ray Trace]

It's still deep.

I would like you to please elaborate on why you think Super Paper Mario's plot is "deep". Having an exposition, climax, and characters with basic motivations isn't what makes a plot "deep", it's what makes a plot....a plot.

To be honest, I don't care if saying your emotions out loud is poor script writing - the thing which sticks with me is that this fellow has deep emotional pain and this is a Mario game and the combination of those two things is so positively unbelieveable not to be my favourite video game.

If it's deep emotional pain, then it would be far more powerful if he displayed it in realistic subtle ways like in body language or reading notes from tippi or whatever, not just throwing out there "DIE! DIE! GO ON MY MINIONS. oh btw i got cucked by the dark tribe i'm sad ".

 

[Superchao]

as someone who still considers super paper mario one of his favorite games my apparently-unpopular-among-that-crowd opinion is that the plot isn't the draw for me; i liked it well enough but it's not the reason i rank the game so high on my personal list

i mainly enjoyed gameplay, music, aesthetics, and sidequest collectathons

 

[Ray Trace]

I do think Super Paper Mario has a lot of good ideas. The flipping mechanic could have been more interesting, and the action RPG 2D sidescroller is a pretty ingenious idea for a Mario game (combining the strengths of what Mario is good at-platforming-with Paper Mario's genre is a no-brainer really). I just think its execution was really, really bad. They got rid of a lot of stuff that made Paper Mario fun for me, such as badges, partners, a stronger focus on Mario environments, etc. and filled it in with stuff that are inferior, nothing, or characters I didn't particularly care for. If there was a 2D Paper Mario platformer hybrid thing again, they better have fun badges and Mario-inspired partners following you about.

The story? I can't ignore it. I love harping on it. Maybe not as much as Sonic plots but I love to hate it. I guess that's an aspect that makes it fun to talk about Super Paper Mario for me. You can't exactly shit on Sticker Star the same way (but at least the game gives you SO MUCH MORE to shit on).

 

[Mcmadness]

Until I see a Mario plot talking about hegelian dialectics I'm not going to call any of it's plots "deep"

Deep to me is something you gotta stop and think about to understand or at least get a basic comprehension of. SPM is just "oh gee, should I stop the sad hat man from destroying the multiverse or should I not stop the sad hat man from destroying the multiverse?"

 

[Jackie Frost]

I think we ultimately need to decide what the purpose of this discussion is, but here's my opinions on your opinions.

I don't find it all that remarkable myself but I can't blame you since I'm spoiled myself and I also don't prioritize the plot all that well. I might have been impressed when I was 14 and was writing fanfic, but I'm 24 now and my idea of what's a good story has changed.

I was eight so I first saw this game through my childlike eyes and it was beyond amazing.

I would like you to please elaborate on why you think Super Paper Mario's plot is "deep". Having an exposition, climax, and characters with basic motivations isn't what makes a plot "deep", it's what makes a plot....a plot.

I think my comments in my fav character list explain my opinions enough do they not? And the fact that this game has an existent story is more than can be said for a lot of Mario games.

If it's deep emotional pain, then it would be far more powerful if he displayed it in realistic subtle ways like in body language or reading notes from tippi or whatever, not just throwing out there "DIE! DIE! GO ON MY MINIONS. oh btw i got cucked by the dark tribe i'm sad ".

As I've earlier said, SPM's plot can obviously sound stupid when reduced to its bare bones, but that's not the whole picture, I found Bleck's story to be assembled and presented in a very beautiful way which allowed me to at first respect him as an awesome baddass villain and later truly be emotionally touched by him. I don't think I would've picked up on subtle body language or anything when I was that young, as an adult sure, it might have been slightly more interesting had it been presented differently, but idc it's still godlike to me. I suppose one has to appreciate that, being the first Mario game on the Wii, it was always intended that a large proportion of its audience would be children, including myself the first time round.

partners

The Pixls (barring Tippi) are NOT your real partners (just gameplay tools with quirky designs and brief personalities,) Peach Bowser Luigi and Tippi ARE.

Until I see a Mario plot talking about hegelian dialectics I'm not going to call any of it's plots "deep"

I've said this several times before but I am not arguing that Super Paper Mario has the most deep plot I've ever seen in anything, just in Mario games imo.

SPM is just "oh gee, should I stop the sad hat man from destroying the multiverse or should I not stop the sad hat man from destroying the multiverse?"

As I said earlier, Count Bleck's story is a true masterpiece in the way that it is conveyed to the player and it is a lot more thought-provoking than you make it sound. I wrote a 5 page philosophy essay about him and I absolutely loved doing that - my phil teacher gave me a 9/9 score for it.

They got rid of a lot of stuff that made Paper Mario fun for me, such as badges

Well as I said in another post this was my first PM game so I wasn't biased against it. It was always intended to be a different style of gameplay so I think one should judge it not in terms of adding/subtracting from the first two but just for what it is on its own (Which in my opinion is good but substantially flawed.)

I just think its execution was really, really bad.

I agree that it could have been way better, but it was enough for me to enjoy the flipping mechanics and so on for a few playthroughs, and even after several playthroughs I find it tolerable enough so that I can keep coming back to the unforgettable worlds, stories, and characters that I have loved for so long. I hope they remaster this game to ameliorate the level design and rebalance the combat.

 

[Mcmadness]

To put it in perspective on how bland and boring I found Bleck's story to be, Dragon Quest 4, a game on the NES, has beat for beat pretty much the exact same storyline.

And saying "for a Mario game" really means nothing. It's not an accomplishment when the bar is so low to begin with.

 

[Jackie Frost]

Dragon Quest 4, a game on the NES, has beat for beat pretty much the exact same storyline.

Haven't played

And saying "for a Mario game" really means nothing. It's not an accomplishment when the bar is so low to begin with.

I'm saying that per my previous comparison:

I think of it this way: if an author famed for writing a book about deeply emotional romance published a deeply emotional book about romance, sure it might be decent but it wouldn't be anything especially notable. But if a children's cartoon famed for its lightheartedness published exactly the same plot, it would be so much better and more noteworthy because it's so unbelievable, and to see those familar characters engaged in a much more striking plot is so much more heart-touching than just a bunch of arbitrary humans.

I feel the same way about Mario RPGs vs non Nintendo RPGs, though on a lesser scale. As I say I am sure they are decent and I would like to try some of them but it's just not the same as seeing a wonderful RPG world filled with original characters, funny dialogue, and emotional plotlines, in a world-famous franchise almost exclusively thought of in terms of the same plot and characters over and over again and no emotional depth whatsoever. I used to think this was how Mario was and when I first bought Super Paper Mario I just thought it would be exactly like all the other Super Mario games except with a papery artstyle and it's because of how unbelievably wrong I was that that game has held up as my favourite for more than over half my lifetime. It's another good thing that the plot also revolves around familiar characters whom we are familiar with, to see them with much more fleshed out personalities, dialogue, and plot roles.

Mario is just sort of my passion and I always find it easier to attach myself to a game which belongs to my favourite franchise even if it is a perfectly alright game on its own merits.

The fact that it comes from a Mario game rather than a Shakespeare play personally makes it much more powerful to me. And I've looked through the comments sections of countless Paper Mario themed videos on YouTube and I have no doubt that I am very non-unique with this opinion.

 

[Mcmadness]

Yeah but when it comes from someone with so little exposure, it feels like I'm looking at someone praising a mcdonalds hamburger as top quality health food because it has a pickle slice on it.

 

[Jackie Frost]

Yeah but when it comes from someone with so little exposure, it feels like I'm looking at someone praising a mcdonalds hamburger as top quality health food because it has a pickle slice on it.

But that's different because if a person ate McDonalds hamburgers for the rest of their life thinking they were healthy they would suffer severe health problems whereas I am perfectly entitled not to want to try non-Nintendo RPGs if I don't want to and this won't necessarily harm me or anybody else by any means.

 

[Mcmadness]

I'd argue it's a form of mentally stunting yourself but that would be getting way too personal.

 

[Jackie Frost]

No it's not it's just personal preference. I like Ocarina of Time but it's just not the same when the plot is about Link instead of Mario.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

But that's different because if a person ate McDonalds hamburgers for the rest of their life thinking they were healthy they would suffer severe health problems whereas I am perfectly entitled not to want to try non-Nintendo RPGs if I don't want to and this won't necessarily harm me or anybody else by any means.

Okay I think a better comparison is that someone that grew up on Panda Express proclaims that Chinese food is great because of Panda Express, but doesn't realize that the authentic stuff absolutely floors it. But you don't want to try authentic because it doesn't have as much beef compared to veggies, has unfamiliar ingredients like offal (beef tendon, pork feet, chicken paw), tung ho, sichaun peppercorn, lotus, duck meat, fermented bean curd, steamed eggplant rather than broccoli and red pepper.

But that's different because if a person ate McDonalds hamburgers for the rest of their life thinking they were healthy they would suffer severe health problems whereas I am perfectly entitled not to want to try non-Nintendo RPGs if I don't want to and this won't necessarily harm me or anybody else by any means.

You're entitled and you won't harm anyone, but it's been stated that the opinions you form work only within a very narrow scope and you're going to find those that disagree with you. Those opinions are built on a more thorough bed of experience, and you need to accept it rather than reinforce your opinions.

No it's not it's just personal preference. I like Ocarina of Time but it's just not the same when the plot is about Link instead of Mario.

Well, erm

 

[Jackie Frost]

Okay I think a better comparison is that someone that grew up on Panda Express proclaims that Chinese food is great because of Panda Express, but doesn't realize that the authentic stuff absolutely floors it. But you don't want to try authentic because it doesn't have as much beef compared to veggies, has unfamiliar ingredients like offal (beef tendon, pork feet, chicken paw), tung ho, sichaun peppercorn, lotus, duck meat, fermented bean curd, steamed eggplant rather than broccoli and red pepper.

If they don't want to they don't have to

You're entitled and you won't harm anyone, but it's been stated that the opinions you form work only within a very narrow scope and you're going to find those that disagree with you. Those opinions are built on a more thorough bed of experience, and you need to accept it rather than reinforce your opinions.

But in the specific opinion I'm presenting in this thread this is not relevant for said reasons.

I've said this several times before but I am not arguing that Super Paper Mario has the most deep plot I've ever seen in anything, just in Mario games imo.

Tbh there is a difference between a subjective opinion and an objective one; the former case is completely my own choice to make, in the latter I can still make comparisons within Mario games, but not outside of them barring the very limited range that I have played. E.g. to say "Super Mario Galaxy has the most refined controls of all Wii games" would not be a justified argument from me because I haven't played close to all Wii games, but to say "SMG controls > DKCR controls" is justified (given further reasoning) as I have played them both.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Didn't say they have to. No one is forcing them. They're entitled to express an opinion but that opinion is also entitled to be challenged. That's what makes debates fun! Even unpopular opinions should be challenged, however. It's just that this thread gives it a bit of a safe disclaimer so people aren't as quick to judge, but it doesn't mean your opinions are immune to being contested.

There are no "objective" opinions. Everything is subjective and relative, colored by personal experience and biases. Saying a game runs with 60 fps with 1024x512 textures and has 60 levels is objective. Saying it runs smoothly with nice textures and has a great amount of levels would be subjective. Even comparison would be subjective here unless you're comparing raw numbers like one game has a higher texture resolution than the other. Knowing that difference will help you form your opinions while also being more tolerant of others. That being said, some opinions are more grounded than others and you still need to support your opinions with reasoning and evidence.

 

[Jackie Frost]

See my comment under "John's semi-professional opinions."

The extent to which I like any game is influenced by personal biases, but objective judgements are attempts to step away from that bias as much as possible and consider the dev's choices and the properties of the game that make it fulfilling from a rational and less biased perspective. Whilst a human being such as myself could never achieve a perfectly objective judgement, as we cannot help being at least slightly biased, I do not view trying as either impossible or insensible.

 

[Ray Trace]

I think my comments in my fav character list explain my opinions enough do they not? And the fact that this game has an existent story is more than can be said for a lot of Mario games.

No, they don't. It doesn't constitute a deep story.

First of all, WHY is Dimentio a psychotic jester to begin with? It was never explained. He's just power hungry just for the sake of it. He's pretty much a guy who's like "lol I'm the main villain now". Compare this to his direct inspiration, Kefka. Now, I haven't played Final Fantasy 6, but after reading the synopsis for him in his Wikipedia article, he experimented with Magitek, which made him powerful, but the imperfect process corrupted him over time. When he got more powerful, the more nihilistic he got, the bigger his motivations got over the course of the game. THAT is a dynamic character whose motivations gradually evolved over the course of the game. THAT is a far deeper character than Dimentio. You can see how Kefka evolves throughout the game, and how he became corrupted. By comparison, Dimentio is a discount variant of him that pretty much copies his psychotic bits and left out everything else about him that made him compelling.

As for the Tribe of Darkness, it was created because of a random evil Pixl or the Pixl Queen for no reason that was evil for literally no reason other than the exposition dump needed to explain all of this shit or that they read an evil book and....oh my god it's so fucking stupid. All of this serves as boring exposition, and it sucks. Why the fuck is there even an evil book to begin with. Who cursed it? Who decided to write it? Why wasn't it burnt Fahrenheit style? Why are there wars fought over a fucking book? How were the wars like? What were the countries like?

Do you see where I'm getting at? I'm only scratching the surface here. The story isn't deep. Neither are the characters. I've read your piece about Count Bleck on your site. He's literally just a heartbroken destroyer. He's evil but he has a motivation behind it. That's...congrats you have a basic foundation on how to write a compelling villain. He has two traits going for him: loving Timpani, and not giving a crap anymore because of her. His entire character arc is literally only about Timpani. He doesn't have any other interests or goals in life. He doesn't have any other family or friends. What is his personality outside of being tied to a girl's loss?

I said, it's completely fine to like its story. Many people do like it, more power to them. Many people felt emotional about the plight of Count Bleck. What I don't think is fine is to say something it's not. It's not a deep story, and its characters are basic foundations, but that's really all they are.

 

[Jackie Frost]

Well my life is quite busy right now but I'll have to write a rather long response to that.

I found one by FTG here which I more or less agree with: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fqc7kenkVSAuqSJRrWLVCIBSQOQe34RGzqKDwHpbJlQ/edit

Again I think it ultimately needs to be decided what the purpose of our discussion is but I get that you're trying to argue that Super Paper Mario's plot isn't deep (i.e. having a lot of content, being thought-provoking, having emotion, invoking philosophical thought.) And I'm saying that sure, FF6 is probably deeper, but I had never so much of heard of Kefka until reading your comment this evening, so Dimentio truly felt a lot more mysterious when I first encountered him as a child. This kind of plot being in a Mario game gives it a unique charm that has touched my heart as well as no doubt tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of others that have played SPM and loved it for its story. I'm not saying it's deep by movie standards, book standards, or wider RPG standards: I'm saying it's deep by Mario standards and that's why I love it so much.

 

[Superchao]

my unpopular opinion is that i'm pretty sure we've all heard this conversation a hundred times before in this board

do we really need to hear it again, i ask of everyone involved

 

[Jackie Frost]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Ray Trace]

My unpopular opinion is that I'm not tired of it. I enjoy long-winded discussion like this. Just as long as it doesn't devolve into personal attacks, in my unpopular opinion I think it's fine.

I was about to explain why I think prophecy plots suck ass but maybe I should just hold it off and talk about how everyone should play Sonic Adventure 2, but with Mario in it.

Or play GTA V, but with Baby Luigi conducting a heist on a bank.