Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

AgentMuffin said:
I'm way overdue to close this background tab, so I'm going to stop worrying about presenting my opinions perfectly; sorry if they're rough or overwrought or come across the wrong way. If you like the game, more for you. Anyway, let's see.

In terms of gameplay, Odyssey hardly has any good content imo. Almost everything that there is to do is filler. The last four 3D games each offered hundreds of platforming gauntlets, while Odyssey has a dozen forms of trivial, uninspired busywork recycled over a dozen backdrops. Power Moons and regional coins are hidden completely interchangeably—down to a bunch of Power Moons just floating in plain sight—and the lack of other meaningful collectibles heavily damages the game. The dedicated platforming sections, all shoved into sub-areas as if the game is embarrassed of them, are strictly formulaic and often lack appeal. As for the other missions, it's a game's worth of Blue Coins from Sunshine, down to halting the flow of gameplay every time. I usually try to go for 100% with these games, but I got actual burnout trying to force myself to do that, and quit and haven't looked back.

"Will this Power Moon be any fun? No, but I'm already there so I might as well grab it." "Oh, this trivial action can give you a Power Moon, great, now if I want to get everything, I have to try that every single time I see that object from now on." "The Moon Rocks just make you backtrack over places you've already explored for the same kinds of Power Moons? But with compass pins so you can't even miss these ones?! Then what's even the point??" Thoughts like these echoed through my head hundreds of times, yet I've only seen them aired by a handful of other people. I genuinely felt like I was either being pranked or losing my marbles.

I don't even like that much challenge in games, but with most of Odyssey's enemies being powerup dispensers that are most efficiently controlled with shameless waggle (on a portable screen!), the biggest thing the game tests is your patience to slog across a barren plane with an umpteenth seed or Capture—with no obstacles to make these escort sequences more than a pure timesink. By any means, missions like "Love at the Edge of the Desert" or "A Treasure Made from Coins" ought to rival the infamy of the worst parts of TTYD and SPM.

The other elements of the game are barely present enough to be worth commenting on imo. There are a couple cool story sequences, a couple fun pieces of music, but I personally can't help but consider them drops in an ocean of tedium.

This is less of a value judgment than these other takes, but it also seems like it's an unpopular opinion that Odyssey is nothing like Super Mario 64, since it's generally treated as a revival of that style. 64 famously gave you a variety of courses, and you could choose whether or not to play most courses and most missions within them. On a macro-structural level, the first Galaxy is most similar to this, but that gets hastily ignored because some of the missions are linear and that's considered "objectively worse". Meanwhile, Odyssey requires you to get Power Moons in every kingdom, and their value doesn't transfer until the postgame. I really don't see the resemblance in gameplay style, beyond the surface observation that the courses are more open-ended. People are free to like both games but the similarities are overstated.

As long as I'm comparing these games, I vastly prefer Bowser's Fury. Good platforming, item variety, existent obstacles (with a giant, goopy one looming over you, no less). It's not perfect, but at the very least, it hits 100% completion long before it wears out its welcome.
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Basically it comes down to doing literally anything you want, which sounds fine on paper, but comes off as just babying the player. Why bother getting the main one when I can just ground pound a random spot or why bother fighting an optional boss when there's clearly enough out in the open to completely skip the objectives all together? Its get to a point where they reward you for actually doing what you were suppose to do from the beginning(And they absolutely shower you with them).

And this one might just be a me thing, but have you notice how Bowser's just not that interesting in this game? 64 had him take over Peach's castle, Sunshine gave him a son, Galaxy gave him a galactic empire, even 3D Land and World had the chase segments. Odyssey just has him doing what he should of done ages ago, and he doesn't really lean much into the theming either. You think a game where you can possess people with a hat would involve a fight with the main antagonist. But no, he just throws his hat at you, creates easily could jumped over shockwaves, and throws boulders at you. There's just nothing really interesting about the fight besides how he looks and it comes off as incredibly anti-climatic.
 
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Mymy64 said:
Odyssey just has him doing what he should of done ages ago, and he lean doesn't really lean much on the theming either.
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I didn't even want to get into the plot or theming in the main post but I think the issues go beyond Bowser.

The idea of Bowser arranging a forced marriage is a solid one. Thing is, it's been done in Super Paper Mario, where it's the first in a series of interesting and high-stakes story beats, so there are more expectations to live up to. Odyssey never gets as far as SPM's title screen cutscene, and never presented things in a way that interested me much in the stolen wedding implements and whatnot.

Peach is trapped with someone who can (presumably) let her possess other beings like the player does. How do they use this? Not at all, to the point that I write "presumably". Tiara was done so dirty. You could write her out entirely, using the attack on Bonneton as Cappy's motivation. And recall that in 3D Land, Peach was able to hold her own for a while. Massive step back for her, and from something most would probably write off as the standard Mario excuse plot. At least give her a more logical reason to be stuck than "character known for floating ability is standing on an aircraft and can bodysnatch her captors and just doesn't,"

And so, Mario repairs a ship to pilot across the world map (SMG2) and has to chase after Bowser and the miniboss squad (NSMB series). Bowser strands him in a tiny abandoned kingdom. Then does it again—because this is Odyssey, why do something once when you can recycle—but now with a realistic dragon that came out of nowhere. Plot twist: The wedding is randomly on the moon. There, Bowser and Peach just push the Binding Band at each other. The guests, all the characters you've met across your journey, just, do nothing to help. This stalemate feels so contrived. Then the floor gives out to send you to the boss arena / escape sequence (SM3DL). This has jack to do with the wedding setpiece the whole game was building up to, rendering that an anticlimax as well.

Finally, Mario proposes to Peach… time and place, dude. The game pulls a "not so different", with him and Bowser fighting for her affection, even though I don't remember Mario ever being so pushy before. Flipped from "surprised to receive a kiss" to "as entitled as the serial kidnapper" real quick. Peach walks away to the ship and starts taking off, which, if you miss the barely audible "Let's go home!", makes it seem like she's stranding Mario on the moon. Now, I don't hate the idea of this scene, and it has some funny imagery. As an ending, though, it raises more than it resolves, and leaves the characters without time to learn. In fact, Mario only digs the hole deeper by consoling Bowser. There's an attempt to show that no one is upset for long, but I still just feel bad and awkward for these people. Sour note to end on. But of course it doesn't end here, you still have a thousand Power Moons to collect—

I remember this being called one of the best and most original stories in the series—at least right around release—so hopefully this second wall of text is still on topic, haha. These complaints are still negligible compared to my aforementioned points, but I think if I'd liked the story as much as other people seemed to, it could have made up for the gameplay (like in SPM proper).
 
  • I've never really liked Toadsworth that much. His main gimmick is worrying about Peach, something that literally any Toad can already do, and he just seems like a wet blanket that would weigh Peach down if he came back. Also I prefer the Chancellor from Super Mario RPG. No they aren't the same character, I reject that headcanon.
  • I still love the Koopalings and think they deserve to continue appearing in both spinoffs and main series titles. I'd be more disappointed by no Koopalings in Mario Kart 9 than no Waluigi or Bowser Jr.
  • I like Mario Sports Mix more than Mario Strikers or other Gamecube-era sports games.
  • 3D World might be my favorite 3D Mario title, it's between that and Galaxy 2.
  • I think Bowser kind of sucked during the Gamecube era. They really leaned too hard into him being a joke to the point where most players wouldn't think he's the franchise's main villain. Pretty much everything between Paper Mario 64 and Galaxy/Bowser's Inside Story was a low point for the character. Also, Paper Mario 64 Bowser is still the best RPG villain, he clears all the one-off schmucks easily.
  • I like all the NSMB games except maybe 2.
  • The Paper Mario franchise is consistently better than Mario & Luigi, even counting modern material. M&L had two really solid games (SS, BIS) and a bunch of mediocrity that loses what made the first game work even as it mostly sticks to the same formula simply by tacking stuff on without considering if it fits the simple appeal of the series. I'd rather have Paper Mario at least doing something completely different than becoming a worse version of PM64 and TTYD. And much as I like TTYD that game was already pretty derivative of the first so I could easily imagine the series becoming tired and stagnant in the same way. That said I wouldn't object to something more akin to "classic" Paper Mario now, I just hope that it still feels like a "new" game instead of trying to make a game people thought they should have made 15 years ago.
 
lordlaharl said:
M&L had two really solid games (SS, BIS)
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genuinely dont get the partners in time disrespect cuz that game is literally blueprint for the perfect amount of mario and luigi with darker aspects. they permanantly kill toads in that game and shit dawg.

then again saying paper mario is better than mario and luigi already implies you're the kinda guy who likes mario not for mario sooo :P
 
Veneer said:
genuinely dont get the partners in time disrespect cuz that game is literally blueprint for the perfect amount of mario and luigi with darker aspects. they permanantly kill toads in that game and shit dawg.

then again saying paper mario is better than mario and luigi already implies you're the kinda guy who likes mario not for mario sooo :P
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Honestly, SPM is probably my least favorite Paper Mario (I go back and forth between it and Sticker Star), but I can kind of respect it for being just so weird and different, even if I don't think the story is at all a good fit for Mario, or that good beyond being different.

That said... yeah, I just don't care that much for PiT. No overworld, dungeons are weak, the babies don't add much to the gameplay beyond extra steps for basic tasks, bosses take too long to kill, and story-wise the Shroobs are kind of neat but it really should have focused on either being an alien invasion plot or a time travel plot, because outside of the younger selves the time travel aspect adds nothing of value to the story and just makes it confusing why an alien invasion happened in the past that nobody remembers. The aliens weren't using time travel so they were just there, but nobody talks about this happening. I think the plot would have worked better if it had just been "the Shroobs invade present day Mushroom Kingdom".
 
Veneer said:
genuinely dont get the partners in time disrespect cuz that game is literally blueprint for the perfect amount of mario and luigi with darker aspects. they permanantly kill toads in that game and shit dawg.
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No they don't. They just get turned into purple mushrooms.
 
TheBlueCatMenace said:
Please don't hate on me for these unpopular opinions. Mario kart DS is the best Mario kart. Nintendo should abandon the Kongs. Origami king is the best paper Mario. Mario bros. 3 is way better than Mario world. Pleaaaaaase don't hate me.
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These are extremely outdated. MK8DX beats out MKDS, though it is quite close. Origami King is still a great game, but doesn't beat The Thousand Year Door.
 
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lordlaharl said:
I've never really liked Toadsworth that much. His main gimmick is worrying about Peach, something that literally any Toad can already do, and he just seems like a wet blanket that would weigh Peach down if he came back.
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Well yeah that's his job. Like how Kamek worries about Bowser when he's about to get way over his head or goes missing. Toadsworth is that to Peach but obviously being the opposite of Kamek being more protective and a worrywart rather than obedient and encouraging bad behavior.
 
I'm pretty sure most of my opinions would qualify as unpopular so i will only say one of them (for now)

Paper Mario Color Splash is one of the best in the series and my second most favourite out of the ones I've played
 
Woolly World best Yoshi game? It's way more fun to play than the SNES game by a mile. Beyond aesthetics the OG has some crappy level design.

So far my ranking of the games I've played from least good to greatest is..

SNES
New Island
WW
 
Finally, someone else who thinks SNES Yoshi's Island is a heap of trashy shit and YNI is a better game than it.
 
-if you want to 100% the game and you miss even just one key collectible in a level, you have to collect everything again in that level. (30 stars, 20 red coins, 5 flowers.) some fly guys carrying these collectibles only appear for mere seconds, then fly away and don't come back unless you redo the level. this makes for a pretty tense and frustrating gameplay experience.
-there's a long level in World 6 that auto-scrolls sloooowwwwlyyy

those two are pretty much the only things in the game that come close to egregious design choices.
 
So in my opinion:

  • Level design is a mess, the game will throw multiple kinds of shit at you but none of them will stick out because it tries to do everything at once and introduce too many ideas. For example, the game's first Gusty level has only the first section actually be about Gusties, does virtually nothing with it except spam them at you, while you spend the rest of the level underground (the same level also has a very pointless, short, Superstar Mario segment they threw in because hey remember that power-up?). In comparison, I prefer the more modern approach where they introduce Gusty in one level but it makes for a more focused time taking advantage of their mechanics than throw in like, fucking random Baseball Boys segments on top of it.
  • Everything about the collection system is terrible and awful, one of the most miserable games to go for 100% in, it's already laid out in KCC's post but it's such a huge reason I hate the game, especially since extra levels are locked behind it (whether those levels are worth playing or not, idk, the rest of the game isn't worth playing).
  • I spent a level almost getting 100% only to get ambushed by a Bandit at the very end of it, forcing me to farm Red Eggs to replenish my star count (no I don't have the extra stars bonus item). This was not fun.
  • Red coins are awful and everything about them suck, it's not fun to scour every single nook and cranny and pixel and collect every single fucking coin of the level to find them, especially since the levels tend to be big (another reason I prefer New Island is because the more linear level design heavily works in favor of this collection system so you don't have to do tedious back and forth scouring the levels).
  • Repeatedly pausing to check your collectibles is not fun.
  • Terrible Super FX "3D" graphics that look like shit and play and platform like shit that aged terribly. People love to give flak for the mismatched YIDS sprites but none of it compare to the horrible looking corkscrews and Bacura-like flip panels straight from fucking Xevious.
  • The minigame huts, where all minigames are terrible and waste your time.
  • The bonus challenges, where all of them are terrible and waste your time.
  • The vehicle sections, where they are clunky and they play terrible.
  • Oh, Yoshi's New Island has only one autoscrolling level.

Would prefer you don't go piece by piece in my post telling me why I'm wrong and why it's bad that I don't enjoy this platformer, just explaining why I personally don't like it.

The only thing I like about this game is that it looks pretty, that's it. And yeah it's technically Baby Luigi's debut but he's barely in it, Double Dash is where he really debuts in tbh.

I didn't even mention Baby Mario in my post because his crying isn't even that big of a deal lol, especially compared to the tons of obnoxious elements I've mentioned above that makes up for it.
 
Dude, I could literally go on forever with this.

- Baby Park on the DS is just the worst.
- Vancouver Velocity in 8DX is the best track and music. That will never change.
- Moonview Highway is the best Wii track.
- Rainbow Roads are good and all, but are definitely not the best tracks in the series.
- DK Mountain was not made for 200cc and I hate it.
- Double Dash's version of Dry Dry Desert's music is 100% awesome. Period.
- Peach Gardens does not have good music at all.
- Mushroom City is the greatest track that is in desperate need of a remake.
- GBA Bowser Castle 2 DS's music is one of the best Bowser Castle songs ever. (Besides BC3 in 8DX)
- Say what you want, but Ribbon Road looks and sounds way better on the GBA.
- The Crossing Cup in MK8 is an absolute dumpster fire.
Baby Park is awful (I technically already said that)
Wild Woods and Animal Crossing both are just terrible.
Cheese Land is the only good Crossing Cup track.
- Mute City and Big Blue are fine tracks, nothing wrong about them but nothing too crazy for me.
- Grumble Volcano is better than you think.
- Mario Kart 8 easily has the worst Shell Cup.
- The only good thing about Hyrule Circuit is the music.
- Sky Garden's music is the best in Tour.
- Moo Moo Meadows is extremely boring.
- G minor is the best music chord. Special thanks to Piranha Plant Cove.
 
The others just don't make sense man, especially with that star child mumbo jumbo

And we don't even need to explain Baby Rosalina.

But then again, it's all just an opinion at the end of the day.
 
As long as we don't get
Pink gold baby peach
as a playable character then I'll be fine
 
Baby Rosalina and Pink Gold Peach should be playable in more games.
 
As much as I hate them as characters, they kinda should be. They've only existed for, what, 10 years? Nintendo will probably keep on adding them in more Mario titles
 
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