Do you think the Mario franchise has "lost its magic"?

Ryu said:
During the mid-Wii era, Super Mario was probably at its peak.
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I had to laugh at this because I think the peak of Mario was Super Mario 64. Everything that came after that was ok to bleh except for a few exceptions. The "charm" of SMW and SM64 was amazing but now there's no charm.

It's a soulless franchise.
 
As someone who grew up with the series...I would say: Yeah pretty much. There's nothing really new or exciting or innovating with this series anymore. I think the last fantastic game was Galaxy 1. But everything else after it...I can't recall a single time where I ever got a Game Over, because most of today's games are too easy. Yes I am aware there are World 9s in each game and they are challenging, but that's AFTER you beat the game. I'm not saying the games should go full on Battletoads, but I want Nintendo to stop playing safe and make more Mario games with challenge.
 
Mario platformers have simply become overshadowed by better ones

Especially platformers in the indie sense. Hell, even within Nintendo itself, like DKTF is better than 2D Mario platforming.
 
Definitely yes. The latest Mario games have been incredibly lazily made (I'm looking at you, Mario Kart 8, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash and Mario Party 10). While I dislike Super Mario Maker, I reckon that it's a pretty creative game.

I think Mario needs a new direction and something creative, something completely new. Splatoon would have been a Mario game if the development team hadn't come up with the Inklings. Something original. And while they're at it, make the games that used to be good, be good again (Paper Mario, Mario Tennis, Mario Party).
 
Mario Kart 8 isn't lazily made because they omitted several model swaps and made lazier model swaps. I really don't see how that qualifies for that when everything else had a chock-ton of effort poured into it.
 
I do know that the Mario spin-offs are really giving a good amount of characters the cold shoulder. Mario Kart 8 decides to ditch Diddy, Birdo, and Bowser Jr., which is not right, and we don't need another spin-off exclusive baby; wouldn't a Luma be better than Baby Rosalina!? Pink Gold Peach does give Metal Mario some company though.

Super Mario Maker does enable you to make your own courses, but you're much more restricted with what you can make in that game when compared to most course hacking tools. Even New Super Mario Bros. Wii gave you more freedom with your course designs, but the only downside with Reggie is that you have to constantly change the ISO contents whenever you're making additional changes to your course.
 
Eh. I think some of this franchise games in recent years are some of the best they've ever been, mainly luigi's mansion dark moon, yoshi's woolly world, 3D World (which I personally like more than galaxy) and Mario golf world tour and I love Mario maker as well as MK8 and 7 despite some questionable additions.

However I cannot deny the problems in other locations, the continued blandness of NSMB, the gutting of Mario Tennis (though I partially choc that up to bad timing) Paper Mario hasn't had a noteworthy game since 2004, and while I'd say Paper Jam is the third best Mario & Luigi game, it's starting to get too formulaic.


All that being said I still remain hopeful for the future, I personally think most of these problems are easily solvable and I feel that we shall continue to get fun and enjoyable experiences as the franchise continues.
 
That Awkward Dude said:
At some point, yes. But Mario Kart 8 and Mario Maker(there's still some things that could make it better though) are good.
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Mario Maker is a game for rookie-level designers littered with gimmicks at best. It sucks as a level designer for everyone else. Mario Kart 8 is good, but that was back in 2013, so going on its third year now...
 
To me, yes. But just as I think the Mario series peak was during the N64 and others think it was during the Wii, there are many people who think the peak is during the Wii U, and no one is right. If you asked me, I'd say the series has become incredibly stale and it has mostly stopped innovating, because there's only so many original games you can make. But new gamers will always find their way to the series and it will be magical for them just as it was for us when we discovered it.
 
I'm still hoping the day we're going to get another peak because some games in the Mario series are simply improving, like Mario Kart series for instance. There's still no denying that we have a lot of Mario multiplayer games back at Gamecube and kind of just tapered off at around Mario Sports Mix.
 
I wouldn't say it has lost its magic but I do feel that a whole lot of the recent titles have been plagued with questionable design choices. It's been around 3 years now and people are still on about MK8's roster. It seems like the fallout from Sticker Star is still going on, especially with Color Splash being announced. 3D World was good but felt pretty uninspired. Yoshi's New Island tried way too hard to be playable by everyone that it ended up pleasing nobody. Also the music was godawful with its sassy kazoos. lol, ultra smash.

As far as I'm concerned, the best Mario title this generation was the friggin' golf game on the 3DS.

Baby Luigi said:
Hell, even within Nintendo itself, like DKTF is better than 2D Mario platforming.
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If you don't have Tropical Freeze in your Wii U library then you are really missing out. Hands-down the best platformer on the system.

see also, most kirby titles
 
Threek said:
If you don't have Tropical Freeze in your Wii U library then you are really missing out. Hands-down the best platformer on the system.

see also, most kirby titles
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Meh, Tropical Freeze has to compete with Rayman Legends, which will be tremendously difficult to usurp

It still looks like a good platformer though.
 
Yeah, for me, the Mario games this generation is just disappointment after disappointment. I still try to cling on to an optimistic view that we'll get good Mario Wii U games, but no, I've skipped on so many safe at best Mario games this generation and the latest Nintendo Directs are just... ugh.

Games we got last year

Mario Party 10 (sucks ass)
Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition (probably decent)
Super Mario Maker (good on its own, but I have a lot of personal issues with this game, and I even tried liking but, but no, I loathe this game)
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash (biggest disappointment of this year)
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (probably good)

And that's pretty much it, except for maybe Dr. Mario and Yoshi's Wooly World, but one is a minor game, the other is yet another 2.5D platformer that's on a system that's already littered with good 2.5D platformers, at least four of them being Nintendo property (Kirby, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Maker, and New Super Mario Bros.).

And for next year, we're getting yet another Mario vs. Donkey Kong game and a Mario & Sonic game that'll probably be plagued with problems, seeing that the Nintendo 3DS version probably sucks hard already.

From recent Nintendo Directs, we've been getting nothing but a Paper Mario: Sticker Star sequel.

We're long overdue for a Mario Sports game. Ultra Smash almost broke it, but it ended up sucking so badly that it's depressing.

2015 definitely sucked for Mario, and I'm not really looking forward to 2016, especially when the latest Nintendo Direct has virtually nothing for me to get excited about.
 
We already know that The Rio Olympics of 3DS is somewhat a improvement from the London 3DS olympics.

Yet none of those games can compete with 1 game , and that's the DS version of The Winter games which is superior , and that's really dissapointing to the extend since one would a assume a newer game would easily be better , guess with Nintendo that's never gonna be a safe bet.

I really want to know what on earth is happening to Nintendo when it comes to Mario , there's something that's just lost , way too many games are definetely not a must buy , in fact , a clever costumer would skip games like the recent ones and just keep their money.
 
I think the peak of great Mario games was at the time of the Nintendo GameCube to the beginning of the Wii-era, mostly every Mario games was different from each other and unique.

- Luigi's Mansion (some may not like it like me, I prefer the one on 3DS, but you can not hide the fact that this is a unique game.)
- Super Mario Sunshine (the story is interesting and makes us discover new interesting characters to the franchise, I exclud Bowser Jr.)
- Mario Power Tennis (a great gameplay and interesting mechanics.)
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (a masterpiece to me, everyrthing in this game is great. This game give us, new enemies and interesting new antagonists. Bowser can finally be something other than a final boss)
- Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (I very like this game, but I didn't play this game for a long time and didn't remember what I like about this game)
- Mario Party 4, 5, 6 and 7 (you can surely find a Mario Party that you will like, I prefer Mario Party 6 and considered it the best Mario Party)
- Mario Kart: Double Dash (my second favorite Mario Kart games, my first is Mario Kart 8. This game bring a great mechanics and great tracks)
- Mario Superstar Baseball (they make a new spin-off!!)
- Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix (they try something new, we can say it)
- Super Mario Strikers (I didn't play this game, but I can say they try something new)
- Super Paper Mario (great story)
- Super Mario Galaxy (Rosalina, new theme, very different)

All games after this list was great, but I always find that the predecessors (the game from this list) had something better. I also find that Nintendo only renew its series on success and stops trying to innovate and try new things together. Whether they innovates and drop what was fun in the predecessors or they are trying something new, do not innovate and keep the same thing over and over.
 
I personally feel the series is falling off a bit. I haven't been too interested or excited for a new mario game for a while and a lot of new stuff seem meh. Mario maker is fun though. Also rip paper mario.
 
I feel that the RPGs certainly have. So long as Miyamoto keeps ordering the developers not to give the games story and original characters, they will have no soul.

This guy expresses my feelings perfectly:


I'll just leave this here:
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Mario franchise is pretty weak on Wii U.
- Mario Kart 8 may be considered good, but I personally don't like because of its awful item system which makes the game not fun at all.
- Unlike in Gamecube and Wii, Mario sports game are non existant, Ultra Smash is the only one and was obviously rushed.
- Mario 3D World is not bad, but it feels weak compared to the Mario Galaxy games.
- NSMBU is not bad, but for some reason, I find NSMBW to have better level design. Not to mention putting two Toad colors as playable characters again is lame.
- Mario Maker is original but each time I think of something I would make, I realize I can't make it because the options are too limited.
- I loved Mario Party 9, but this isn't the case for Mario Party 10, boards are too short, too dependant on luck, and the content is pretty disappointing compared to Mario Party 9.
 
Cirdec said:
- Mario Kart 8 may be considered good, but I personally don't like because of its awful item system which makes the game not fun at all.
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No, I found that the item system was much more awful in Mario Kart Wii. You could not have 10 seconds without an object that strikes you. Mario Kart 8 is much more balanced in my opinion, the only thing I do not like is the coin. Totally unnecessary to the item system. That's my opinion and I respect yours.
 
Spiny Shells were also more abundant in Mario Kart Wii, and if it ever hits you, you become itemless, and are at the mercy of even more items, and even another Spiny Shell in just a few short seconds.

Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8 did nerf the Spiny Shell so that it won't leave you itemless, and it appears less frequently, but it does murder your triple bananas/shells in Mario Kart 8.
 
LudwigVon said:
Cirdec said:
- Mario Kart 8 may be considered good, but I personally don't like because of its awful item system which makes the game not fun at all.
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No, I found that the item system was much more awful in Mario Kart Wii. You could not have 10 seconds without an object that strikes you. Mario Kart 8 is much more balanced in my opinion, the only thing I do not like is the coin. Totally unnecessary to the item system. That's my opinion and I respect yours.
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Funny you say that because I also feel it when I play Mario Kart 8. This is common to every Mario Kart, but in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7, you can always make a comeback with good item usage. This is not the case in Mario Kart 8, that would be long for me to explain why I feel that.

Also another thing I hate about the item system is it is based on the distance with the first place, not on your rank. I stopped counting the times when at last turn, last wave of items, I get one mushroom while the guy in front of me gets triple mushrooms.
 
Well, the triple-mushrooms-while-you-get-only-one issue comes mainly from item probability distributions that for some reason includes both single and triple versions of items, generating luck-based scenarios, not from the distance-based item probability distribution selector:

http://mkboards.com/forums/threads/a-look-at-the-item-system.14910/

Also the comeback-issue comes mainly from the distributions used. The PRIMA guide states that these distributions (that are pretty much the ones of the current version, save for small differences) were intended for a position-based selector, and I somewhat think that this time the guide wasn't wrong, as Nintendo pretty much never stated that the items obtained depend on the distance from the frontrunner, which by itself is a huge gameplay change.
Oddily enough, Mario Kart 8 with the introduction of the super Horn tried to make the blue shell even less effective than it was in Mario Kart 7, not to say that it also hits all the drivers that are in the middle of the track behind you.

Regarding the main topic, I feel that Nintendo currently has the trouble that the new Super Mario games don't have the aim of bringing the series forward from where it was with Super Mario Galaxy. That was never the aim of the New Super Mario Bros. series (and I'd say that only now with NSMBU we are reaching all the features that we had in Super Mario World 20 years earlier!), that isn't the aim of the Super Mario 3D games, that offer an alternative classic style immediate gameplay with more linear levels and 3D movements.
I'm under the impression that me and many others here are still waiting for an epic 3D exploration based Super Mario game that might never come as the teams are now more focused on a different gameplay instead, a bit like what is happening with the Paper Mario series.

And speaking about the Paper Mario series, I think it has the trouble of the new team that was formed to make them, so I don't expect the future games to be like the first two as the team is just different (even the change of director from Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Galaxy 2 was obvious, go figure when a whole team is changed!), although since the Sticker Star team seems to be composed of young people, they might still be learning so I will have to see how Color Splash turns out.

On more general terms, I would say that Nintendo is just no longer targeting the gamers of the N64-GCN-early Wii era, and I think both Mario Kart 8, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (some new games that still remind us of the GCN era) tell us why: it is more and more difficult to develop modern GCN-era-style games with the current development teams and deadlines. Paper Jam has many glitches and the story, characters and settings were brutally cut according to the Miiting, Mario Kart 8 has many rushed details (I mentioned them in another thread, to summarize roster, battle mode, HUD, no victory ceremony, some trouble with the item system, exploits in 150cc physics), Mario Tennis Ultra Smash doesn't seem to have much content.
 
Swiftie_Luma said:
We already know that The Rio Olympics of 3DS is somewhat a improvement from the London 3DS olympics.
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From a character-diversity standpoint, it's worse. As much as I use Mario the most in any game he's playable in, something doesn't sit well with me that I can't use Luigi in any event other than Table Tennis and 110m Hurdles. In terms of Mario usage, it's like very small step up, but that's only because I love Mario. I don't like to see any other Mario fans sit out from most events just because their favorite character isn't Mario.

Mister Wu said:
Regarding the main topic, I feel that Nintendo currently has the trouble that the new Super Mario games don't have the aim of bringing the series forward from where it was with Super Mario Galaxy. That was never the aim of the New Super Mario Bros. series (and I'd say that only now with NSMBU we are reaching all the features that we had in Super Mario World 20 years earlier!), that isn't the aim of the Super Mario 3D games, that offer an alternative classic style immediate gameplay with more linear levels and 3D movements.
I'm under the impression that me and many others here are still waiting for an epic 3D exploration based Super Mario game that might never come as the teams are now more focused on a different gameplay instead, a bit like what is happening with the Paper Mario series.

And speaking about the Paper Mario series, I think it has the trouble of the new team that was formed to make them, so I don't expect the future games to be like the first two as the team is just different (even the change of director from Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Galaxy 2 was obvious, go figure when a whole team is changed!), although since the Sticker Star team seems to be composed of young people, they might still be learning so I will have to see how Color Splash turns out.

On more general terms, I would say that Nintendo is just no longer targeting the gamers of the N64-GCN-early Wii era, and I think both Mario Kart 8, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (some new games that still remind us of the GCN era) tell us why: it is more and more difficult to develop modern GCN-era-style games with the current development teams and deadlines. Paper Jam has many glitches and the story, characters and settings were brutally cut according to the Miiting, Mario Kart 8 has many rushed details (I mentioned them in another thread, to summarize roster, battle mode, HUD, no victory ceremony, some trouble with the item system, exploits in 150cc physics), Mario Tennis Ultra Smash doesn't seem to have much content.
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I think the team is way too focused on pandering to nostalgia instead of trying actually new things or building on gameplay that deviated from most Mario games (like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, even Super Mario Galaxy to an extent). It's why we even got Super Mario 3D Land, which is advertised as a "classic platformer but with a 3D camera". For me, enough of that, of the basic Mario formula that involves hitting blocks and becoming Super Mario and using stomps as a main means of attack. While I'd rather not have another Galaxy sequel, it would be great if we got a Sunshine sequel with third-person shooter elements tacked in. It would be a massive improvement over the original's gameplay, which is about aiming correctly and retaining mobility, and it would open up more opportunities with F.L.U.D.D.. Or they could give Mario more combat options from the first Super Mario 64 game, make more moves viable. In the first game, people would just use their dash attack (the one where Mario slides on his belly) a lot because it's much more effective than punches.

I don't know if increasing standards on video games is putting a dent on Nintendo's development plans, but I think at least coming up with fresh ideas and going with them shouldn't be too much pressure. If other games can accomplish staying fresh and great, I'm sure Nintendo can do the same thing.
 
Striker Mario said:
I don't know if increasing standards on video games is putting a dent on Nintendo's development plans, but I think at least coming up with fresh ideas and going with them shouldn't be too much pressure. If other games can accomplish staying fresh and great, I'm sure Nintendo can do the same thing.
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I would love to fully agree with you, but then I read this, from the Paper Jam Miiting:

[quote author=Shunsuke Kobayashi] We were thinking, since the paper characters were coming all the way from the paper world, let's make the main story something really bizarre, crammed with red herrings and misapprehensions. We had things like going back and forth to the paper world, and the Mushroom Kingdom turning gradually into paper... But we overdid it a bit, and the first draft of the plot ended up being a complete muddle that wouldn't resonate with anyone... So we simplified the script and structured it with greater emphasis on showing the different characters meeting and interacting with each other. We had to do a lot of re-writes...[/quote]
Even apparently simple ideas might have a risk with them, and require much more development time than previously thought.

Incidentally, Miyamoto's guidelines on the Super Mario series and Paper Mario: Sticker Star might indeed lead to less development time:

not concentrating on story and cutscenes means that much less time is spent to create non-gameplay elements, furthermore explorations-based levels (nice that you immediately understood that I was talking about Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and the first Super Mario Galaxy!) require by definition that each area is immediately recognizable in order for the players not to get lost, and also require a big moveset in order to properly interact with the environment in order to reach remote places (it's surprising that Super Mario 64 still has the biggest moveset, the games that came after it seem to have a subset of that moveset!). This means that a huge amount of time is needed to design just one of these levels, and if you want a decent amount of them, it's gonna be gruesome work for the designers.

Regarding Sticker Star, I would guess that much less time was needed to design the NPCs with respect to The Thousand-Year Door, furthermore being based on New Super Mario Bros. series meant that the art designers already had a model from which they could create art for the game. There likely was plently of art to be used as model also for the so common landscapes that, again, mainly stem from the New Super Mario Bros. series. And with a little story you need less characters that appear just once, less work for the scriptwriters and maybe even less complex animations.

By the way, I'm not talking about money here, Nintendo has plenty of them. And this is not a comprehensive analysis, otherwise I should talk about the issue of the Wii U mainly maintained by Nintendo and by its agreements with other third parties, about the new development teams at Nintendo and related teams (the one of Sticker Star is an example) , the issue of clarifying what "Mario" is about, which is important for Nintendo if they want the Mario-related IPs to be immediately recognizable outside the Nintendo fandom, and so on.
I'm not even saying that the developers are being more lazy, quite the contrary: they are so pressed by deadlines that they must do everything they can in order to spare time.
It's just a personal theory founded on recent interviews and features of recent games that, funnily enough, also explains the character restrictions of the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and suggests that a new development model with different deadlines (less likely for public companies) or much bigger development teams might soon be needed to return to the goodness of the GCN era.

I'm not being pessimistic, I just think we are in a transition period now.
 
Striker Mario said:
Swiftie_Luma said:
We already know that The Rio Olympics of 3DS is somewhat a improvement from the London 3DS olympics.
Click to expand...
From a character-diversity standpoint, it's worse. As much as I use Mario the most in any game he's playable in, something doesn't sit well with me that I can't use Luigi in any event other than Table Tennis and 110m Hurdles. In terms of Mario usage, it's like very small step up, but that's only because I love Mario. I don't like to see any other Mario fans sit out from most events just because their favorite character isn't Mario.

Mister Wu said:
Regarding the main topic, I feel that Nintendo currently has the trouble that the new Super Mario games don't have the aim of bringing the series forward from where it was with Super Mario Galaxy. That was never the aim of the New Super Mario Bros. series (and I'd say that only now with NSMBU we are reaching all the features that we had in Super Mario World 20 years earlier!), that isn't the aim of the Super Mario 3D games, that offer an alternative classic style immediate gameplay with more linear levels and 3D movements.
I'm under the impression that me and many others here are still waiting for an epic 3D exploration based Super Mario game that might never come as the teams are now more focused on a different gameplay instead, a bit like what is happening with the Paper Mario series.

And speaking about the Paper Mario series, I think it has the trouble of the new team that was formed to make them, so I don't expect the future games to be like the first two as the team is just different (even the change of director from Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Galaxy 2 was obvious, go figure when a whole team is changed!), although since the Sticker Star team seems to be composed of young people, they might still be learning so I will have to see how Color Splash turns out.

On more general terms, I would say that Nintendo is just no longer targeting the gamers of the N64-GCN-early Wii era, and I think both Mario Kart 8, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (some new games that still remind us of the GCN era) tell us why: it is more and more difficult to develop modern GCN-era-style games with the current development teams and deadlines. Paper Jam has many glitches and the story, characters and settings were brutally cut according to the Miiting, Mario Kart 8 has many rushed details (I mentioned them in another thread, to summarize roster, battle mode, HUD, no victory ceremony, some trouble with the item system, exploits in 150cc physics), Mario Tennis Ultra Smash doesn't seem to have much content.
Click to expand...
I think the team is way too focused on pandering to nostalgia instead of trying actually new things or building on gameplay that deviated from most Mario games (like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, even Super Mario Galaxy to an extent). It's why we even got Super Mario 3D Land, which is advertised as a "classic platformer but with a 3D camera". For me, enough of that, of the basic Mario formula that involves hitting blocks and becoming Super Mario and using stomps as a main means of attack. While I'd rather not have another Galaxy sequel, it would be great if we got a Sunshine sequel with third-person shooter elements tacked in. It would be a massive improvement over the original's gameplay, which is about aiming correctly and retaining mobility, and it would open up more opportunities with F.L.U.D.D.. Or they could give Mario more combat options from the first Super Mario 64 game, make more moves viable. In the first game, people would just use their dash attack (the one where Mario slides on his belly) a lot because it's much more effective than punches.

I don't know if increasing standards on video games is putting a dent on Nintendo's development plans, but I think at least coming up with fresh ideas and going with them shouldn't be too much pressure. If other games can accomplish staying fresh and great, I'm sure Nintendo can do the same thing.
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Excuse me for jumping in here, but there's a bit of a contradiction between wanting the team to try new ideas while also wanting them to build on old ideas. Even if they're not quite the norm, Super Mario 64 is old hat by this point. Nintendo's been in the business for a long time, and there are only so many ways you can get someone to jump on a platform without either copying someone else's ideas or simply retreading old ground. Honestly, I love Sunshine, but I'd be fine without a Sunshine 2, simply because I don't think much of anything new could be done with the formula and I'm iffy about throwing Mario into the shooter genre.
 
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