MarioWiki Poll Discussion

ahem haven't I already gathered sufficient results for this question?? Lol anyways gotta choose Mario Wonder just bcuz it's one of the few entirely new games and I can't wait to see how it'll play out. One difference I noticed between this and NSMB games is that you're gonna be allowed a lot of flexibility in how you beat the courses, that way you can plan out some strategies instead of plain ol' platforming the same way until you get it.
 
How do you feel about certain playable characters being relegated to "Easy Mode" (Funky Kong, Yoshi, Nabbit, Toadette, etc.)?
  • I am glad that some characters are easier than others, as they allow me to just play the game without getting frustrated.
  • I am okay with some characters being easier than others, because it provides gameplay variety and/or allows everyone to play the game.
  • I am okay with some characters being easier than others, because I would rather just play as the main protagonist, with other characters playing differently.
  • I do not like that some characters are easier than others, because I would like to play as the character I want without compromising the game's challenge.
  • I do not like that some characters are easier than others, because I do not believe that the game should have an easy mode in any form.
  • I think that different characters should have different mechanics, but that they should not be objectively easier than others by a significant degree.
  • I do not care if some characters are easier to play than others, as long as no one is forced to use them in multiplayer content (Nabbit, Toadette, etc.)
  • I have no opinion.

With Super Mario Bros. Wonder (honestly they should have just called it Super Mario Wonder, it sounds so awkward as-is....) around the corner almost literally now, it's time to take a look at one of the more controversial aspects of the mostly anticipated title. While we did have a similar poll a while ago about characters with unique playstyles, today we're focusing just on the easy guys. That's right; Yoshi, Nabbit, Toadette, and Funky... you're on trial this time, and your final judgement is nigh.

...Not really, but I won't lie and say I don't think it's extremely disappointing that some characters are locked to just being an easy mode. A character like Yoshi should be an ideal scenario for a character with a totally unique playstyle - and in a sense that appears to be the case, but arbitrarily he's given borderline cheat-code level invulnerabilities that just make the game less challenging on a near objective level. As someone who enjoys some challenge in a game, I'd be pretty upset if playing as my favorite character would take away significantly from that aspect of the game, and I KNOW Yoshi and Toadette have fans, some of which probably feel the same way. Maybe some people like Nabbit too, I dunno, I've never met them.

Personally I think it's Option 6 for me. I think it's fine if a character makes the game slightly easier by virtue of their unique abilities, like with Yoshi having his iconic flutter jump (which obviously gives him more airtime), but why do you have to make him invincible on top of that? That's not particularly fun for anyone besides actual children, as far as I can tell.
 
Option 2. I'm fine with some characters being relegated to some kind of easy mode as long as it allows you to experience the full game without any costs. Plus, it opens up more variety and encourages those who aren't experienced with action games and small children to get accustomed to the game's controls without being punished from dying a lot.
 
Going to go with Option 6 for basically the reasons FWD said. If Nintendo wants their platformers to be more accessible I don't see why they don't just add an actual Easy Mode instead of forcing significantly easier gameplay on specific characters.
 
Option 4. I am okay with Easy Mode existing but do not want it to be tied to particular playable characters
 
Option 4 is my choice as I had a lot of fun switching between all the playable characters except for Yoshis and Nabbit.

I did play as the Yoshis and Nabbit specifically for those "find the flower coin" challenges, though. I just wish to play them through the regular courses.
 
Alright, I'll talk about the whole "text" thing. So I'm not into the Super Mario RPGs that much, mainly because I'm not a fan of RPGs in general. But, I did pay attention to the fact that some of the text for the upcoming Super Mario RPG remake was changed. Notably, changing Princess Toadstool to Princess Peach. I haven't seen too much of the game, because I'm not that interested, but I did see that Guerrillas now have a slightly different Psychopath/Thought Peek (I'm guessing Nintendo/Square is changing the name because of what most people assume the word, "Physchopath" means), likely matching its Japanese translation. Likewise, a lot of enemies look like they are going to have their correct names. Now, I understand wanting to change the game's text to faithfully match what Nintendo nowadays goes with for newer players. For example, people have grown up in the GameCube era for Super Mario games and are more used to calling the princess Peach nowadays. Plus, a lot of early Super Mario titles did not have a consistent English translation, especially the RPGs. So, they are changing it for newer audiences for a much better translation.

With that said, it does disappoint me how there isn't an option for users to see the original text, alongside its original oddities. I'm not asking for typos to be brought back or anything, but things like Cheep Cheeps " "Gobys" are something I'd like to see. In other words, these options would let you play the game with how it was like back then. Worse, the original Super Mario RPG is unavailable on the Switch, making this the only way to play a version of it, and a lot of Super Mario games are poorly preserved on the Switch. If you want to see an example of what retroactively changing these can lead to, just look at the original Star Wars trilogy (even the prequel trilogy has its changes). Now, I don't like talking about Star Wars for reasons I won't get into, but when it comes to preservation, it's been sort of terrible. Changes have been made since changing the first movie's name to "A New Hope" and then a boatload of extra changes were made for the "Special Edition" of the film. One of the most infamous is trying to add some adaptational self-defense. And maclunkey. Now, I'm not against making new versions of a work, especially if it's what the creator wants. Creators should have the right to do that. However, people grew up to love the original films so much, that when they want to see them again, they have to watch a version with the changes because the old ones are rather expensive to come by and aren't even in their highest quality (not counting fan edits of course). Now, whether or not you like the changes is irrelevant, the issue comes with preservation. Heck, even the other versions of the changed Star Wars films are not preserved.

I'm mostly going into a rant about preservation now, but I think you can see where my biggest nitpick comes from. It's not really that they changed it, it's more of the fact that it's there is no way to see the original text if you wanted. As I said, I probably would've come up with an idea where you can choose from some different options:

New Translation - More faithful to the original Japanese text
Consistent Translation - Keeps the original text, but the names of the enemies are now consistent with the typical Super Mario franchise.
Original+ Translation - The original text but with its typos fixed. The above options also have typos fixed.
Original Translation - The original text with typos intact

With this, you would be able to appeal to any audience who wants to experience what the game was like back in the day. Really, this is more suited for the toggleable options thread but I do want to become a game developer one day and stuff like this are things I like to look into.
 
When a game is remade, how important is it to you that the game's text (e.g., character dialogue) is faithful to the original?

  • Very important, and I would prefer no changes or additions be made whatsoever.
  • Very important, but I can accept additions so long as any text which existed in the original is unchanged.
  • Somewhat important, but I don't mind some changes, such as more accurate translation in localized versions or fixing mistakes in the original.
  • Not that important, and I don't mind them changing text at their discretion.
  • Not at all important, and I welcome changes to the text in a remake.
  • I don't have an opinion on this.
With the Super Mario RPG remake coming up soon (with a re-translated and tweaked script), and with the TTYD remake looking to have some similar tweaks based on the trailer, it's time to talk about whether that's a good thing, a bad thing, or whether you're going to pick the obligatory no opinion option.

Personally, I think Option 3 is where I'm at. I'm all for fixing random stuff that didn't make sense due to poor translation, or fixing grammatical errors. If a slight retranslation can make a game make more sense or fit into the world better by aligning mistranslated character names with their actual intent rather than I'm good with that. A lot of older games, especially JRPGs, end up needlessly cryptic to a ridiculous extent because the information given is just wrong because of mistranslation. Even SMRPG is full of weirdness where some enemies and characters just use romanized versions of their Japanese names or a strange mishmash of English and Japanese. I think in this case it can be a positive thing to go back and retranslate a game.

That being said, I also think that sometimes a retranslation can take out a lot of, for lack of a better word, "soul" from the game. Sure, SMRPG is keeping funny stuff like the bazooka line, but the removal of some lines like Bowser referring to his army as the "Koopa Troop" (this was changed to just "minions") in the remake just kind of feels like removing character from the game for no real reason. I'm glad that at least SMRPG seems to be picking and choosing the best of both worlds for the most part though despite some choices like that.

Now I just have to pray they don't botch it with TTYD...
 
I guess option 2 in the case of SMRPG, it had all these quirks that made it really cool and it's kind of sad to see Nintendo make it go by the guidelines of modern-day generic Mario consistencies.
 
Option 3. I'm ok with the changes if the original had sayings that might not fly in the modern world, mispellings, poor translations, or pieces of dialogue that don't make sense. But when it comes to changes that aren't warranted (such as changing a character's dialogue to a more general term), I might get a little upset.
 
Option 3. There are some clear cases where text should be added or removed or changed such as to correct errors, improve clarity, etc.

I also think a justified case for changing text would be to rectify the handling of Vivian in TTYD so that all localisations are in line with the Italian version where she is explicitly described by herself and the game menu as "she used to be a man, but now she's a woman and proud of it" and is misgendered only by Beldam, as opposed to the Japanese version where she's misgendered by the game menu and by Goombella, and the English/German versions where her transness was entirely censored.

Also in TTYD it would be good to extend Rawk Hawk's Smash Melee reference to all versions rather than only Spanish, and to change Craw Daddy "The Dark Gatekeeper"'s line from "the netherworld" to "the underwhere" to reference SPM.

As for SMRPG, I can definitely get behind renaming Psychopath to Thought Peek (it's cuter and its meaning is more obvious) and Exor's mouth being translated as Neosquid is completely bizzare so that can be changed. I can also support Peach being referred to as Peach and not Toadstool. But I don't feel renaming Yardovich and Mack was necessary. Moreover I get wanting to make the text of the remake to make more sense to younger, present-day audiences but I also would feel disappointed if they changed too much such as to deduct from the iconicness and charm of the original.
 
To me it depends on the kind of remake. If the remake is meant to be very faithful to the original than I'd prefer a pragmatic adaptation of no greater than option 3, but if the remake is meant to re-imagine the story and game to the vision of the new designers than options 4 or 5 are acceptable.

Both kinds of remake have their place in my opinion. If the latter approach for remaking a game is taken, then it is best that the owners of the game keep the original game available on newer hardware, so that the original experience may be preserved. Actually, this is good practice even when the remake is of the faithful variety.
 
Super Mario Bros. Wonder features the debut of Kevin Afghani as the new voice of Mario and Luigi. What do you think of his performance?
  • I greatly enjoyed Afghani's performance and prefer it over Martinet's.
  • I enjoyed Afghani's performance and I think he did as good as Martinet.
  • I enjoyed Afghani's performance, but I still think Martinet's work was better.
  • I enjoyed Afghani's portrayal of Mario, but not Luigi.
  • I enjoyed Afghani's portrayal of Luigi, but not Mario.
  • I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I don't think he did a good job portraying the characters.
  • I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I think someone else could have been a better successor for Martinet.
  • I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I would have preferred a more distinct performance from Martinet.
  • I have not heard Afghani's performance, or have no opinion.

This poll, created originally by @Vruet and refined by @Waluigi Time discusses the replacement of Charles Martinet, and people's opinions on the new voice actor, Kevin Afghani. I haven't actually completely Wonder yet, or even gotten close, so I'm not particularly opinionated on this subject personally, however I don't really notice a tangible difference with his Mario specifically. To be honest, a generic, close-enough Mario voice isn't really particularly hard to do in the first place though.

His Luigi on the other hand... it seems off to me. I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's too high pitched compared to Martinet. Martinet in general felt like he could add a slightly gruff or rougher tone to the characters sometimes, which is something that Afghani kind of lacks even in his Mario. I guess I'm an Option 4 voter though. Luigi could use some work in my opinion.

I think we can all agree though, his Wario sucks.
 
Option 2. I enjoyed Afghani's performance and think he is just as good as Charles. I think he did a great job as both Mario and Luigi, to the point where a lot of people won't notice much of a change except for a few distinct lines.
 
Alright, I'll talk about the new voices. Firstly, I want to judge the voices from a regular perspective (AKA, does the voice sound good in general) and from a perspective of the Super Mario franchise. I wish Wario was mentioned in this poll, but I will also bring him up because his voice is controversial. Firstly, to describe Mario, he is meant to be your happy-go-lucky good guy. However, in early games, it's not very clear what his "personality" is. Mario had a pretty blank expression in earlier games, and it took until the 3D era for some level of personality to envelop him. Sure, the cartoons gave him some personality, though it's not like the Mario character today. I haven't seen much of the cartoons. Still, he's like the typical hero who is good and has some sibling problems. I guess the cartoons did influence the games to some degree because we can see some traits in Mario that are pretty similar but downplayed to some degree. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the closest attempt I've seen at giving him a personality, making him a relatively confident and brave hero, despite others talking about how short he is. Though he's still a little different from his game appearances, he is taken somewhat seriously in the film.

Notably, during the fight with Donkey, he tries to take it seriously and fight him. Sure, there are jokes in there, and even Mario is the butt of being really silly when DK throws him in the air. Still, Mario's character is a bit more serious. Mario is shown in his games to represent the player's "fun," from what I can tell. Typically, he's the setpiece for the machine to work. Afghani goes for the happy-go-lucky voice for Mario, and that works well. Believe it or not, I haven't finished Wonder, so I don't get to hear too much of it. I'm playing as different characters; I barely touch the Mario Bros. But from what I can tell, it doesn't have the same punch as the original. Afghani isn't bringing his characters to life that much. I expected Mario to act stupidly happy in every situation in the game. To be fair, I believe every character in the game is like that, so I guess that's fair. I don't really recall Peach sounding like she's as excited.

Luigi is curious because he has far more character development, thanks to him being put on the sideline by his brother. There have been many enjoyable takes on Luigi, typically giving him the "lovable coward" personality. Luigi starts off as a worse Mario, but over time, he overcomes his fears. It's an inspiring character concept and definitely relates to people who have older siblings. It's well-portrayed in Power Tennis, where Mario steps on his foot after Luigi wins. I don't have siblings, but I know they occasionally bicker, especially twins. From what I can gather, Luigi is explicitly designed for player 2s. Other characters like Diddy and Tails would take heavy inspiration from Luigi, making them awkward versions of their first-player counterparts but also speaking to the younger player 2s.

Interestingly, Luigi is shown to be just as energetic as Mario, in the same vein as trying to make everything "fun." So when Mario is having fun, you're having fun too. Luigi is portrayed just like that, and Afghani does just as good a job as Mario. Honestly, it might even better than Mario. My problem lies in how soft it sounds, though, that appears to be consistent with the rest of Wonder's cast, being a bit subdued. And now there's Wario, notable for having a rather well-written page on him on the wiki. His personality is a lot more detailed, being your gross, greedy guy. He reminds me of Pete from Mickey Mouse, so I expect him to have a rather deep and menacing voice. Of course, he's meant to be silly, but Pete is silly to some degree. His current voice makes him sound like Mr. Krabs. I guess it's not a totally bad voice; I expect something deeper. Though I'm distracted by the older voice in this case. I haven't played the latest WarioWare game, so I can't confirm too much, but the voice sounds alright, if you never heard the previous Wario voices..

Compared to the old voices, they don't beat the originals. And Afghani can't replace Martinet's work, but that's unfair. Charles had a unique voice; no one could top it or even come close to it. The Sonic franchise gives the titular character a somewhat different voice whenever they get a new actor, and here, we are getting an actor trying to do Charles' original voice. It's obviously going to affect those who know the authentic voice, and they can't unhear the original. Therefore, the impressions come off as obvious. It reminds me of the Harrison Ford impressions used for Han Solo and Indiana Jones. However, the latter appears to have more voice impressions. In those instances, they performed similarly to the original character. Still, they put their own spin on it in some way. That and Harrison Ford weren't technically replaced; he's just really damn expensive to get (like, his Force Awakens return was a ton of money?). As for voice impressions, they're great, except for Wario. His voice is very drastic, and I've seen better fan-made attempts at his voice.

As for what I hope for the Super Mario franchise coming forward, part of me hopes that Charles' voice will occasionally be used as archive audio. The latest WarioWare game went out of its way to replace one of Mario's voice clips, and it felt weird there. Nintendo should only use Afghani when they need a new line that Charles never made. It's not a dunk on Afghani; it's just some OCD. If they went to make him revoice everything, that's their right.
 
Option 2 for sure. Kevin did a very good job, and although he does not sound identical to Martinet, it sounds inherently like Mario.
 
if people weren't sure whether this was martinet or not when the reveal trailer for wonder dropped, then that goes to show that afghani makes a good mario, it sounds a little different, but it's definitely still mario
 
As of the announcement that Mario Kart Tour will no longer have new content added, no Mario mobile games are known to be in active development. How would you like Nintendo to proceed with this?
  • I would like to see Nintendo create a new Super Mario game for mobile devices in any form it takes.
  • I would like to see Nintendo create a new Super Mario game for mobile devices, as long as it doesn't have gacha mechanics.
  • I would like Nintendo to return to making more content for their existing Super Mario mobile games.
  • I would not like to see any more Super Mario games on mobile devices, and would prefer if Nintendo exclusively made games for their own consoles.
  • I would not like to see any more Super Mario games on mobile devices, but I would like to see them available on other consoles or PCs.
  • I have no opinion.

This one, from @Waluigi Time, discusses mobile gaming and its future now that Nintendo has shut down active development on Mario Kart Tour, the last of its mobile roster.

I normally write a lot for these but... Option 6. I have honestly less than zero interest in any mobile content in the franchise, or even mobile games in general. I don't like the simplicity of many mobile games, the monetization, or touch/tilt exclusive input controls. Nintendo can keep making them if they want, or they could never put another mobile game out, but either way I wouldn't spare them a second thought.
 
Option 6. i haven't played most of Nintendo's mobile offerings besides Super Mario Run, but that game gets extremely repetitive at times. Coupling this with the fact that once I got my new Samsung tablet this year, I stopped playing on my iPad (which had quite a few games on it), and I have little interest in seeing where Nintendo could improve themselves. A lot of their offerings are either also on Switch or have Gacha elements, and those don't appeal to me in the slightest.
 
Option 6. I don't really have much of an opinion, having played both Super Mario Run and Mario Kart Tour and found both mediocre. I much prefer mobile emulators to play much better Mario games, like the Mario RPGs :)
 
  • I would like to see Nintendo create a new Super Mario game for mobile devices, as long as it doesn't have gacha mechanics.
I've only played two Mario mobile games: Dr. Mario World and Super Mario Run.

Dr. Mario World I played because I am most curious on it and puzzles are my kind of thing. The main issue with that game is that certain characters and assistants are locked behind random staffing (gacha in layman's terms) but certain characters are available if you managed to beat certain tough challenges. Other than that, it is a very fresh take for the series, given how much that series never innovate on the consoles. Some might prefer the same old, same old, but eventually the formula wouldn't be able to generate the same excitement. In fact, the only million sellers for this series are the original NES and GB versions. Now this game? It introduced a lot of new things and I am frankly excited about it because it goes in directions the traditional console games have never dared to do. Character select with the regular Mario cast is oddly absent in the series proper (Dr. Mario 64 shouldn't be taken as an example because Wario Land 3's nature is one-and-done), as with a puzzle mode where you are given a themed stage to beat (which Miracle Cure did, but it's only one game).

Super Mario Run is a very good game because it adapted Super Mario's style to suit mobile devices. Notably, it only has one input and that is jumping when the character(s) would run automatically. It doesn't have as much content as the main series but what's there is well-designed. The coloured coins that you have to collect provide a nice sense of challenge, and Remix 10 is a very nice short burst of challenges. However, it can't be overstated that this game has some random drawing involved (again, gacha for the layman) which Remix 10 basically introduced, but if you buy the game, you are given a generous helping of in-game tickets so you basically won't have to worry about being gated.

Between these two games, the best thing is how Nintendo get to design their IPs in a way that they would never would have done on their console games. Super Mario platformers are fine without it, but Dr. Mario notably flourished from this approach. I doubt we'll ever see Dr. Mario ever get this level of improvements if it weren't for mobile, and as such I am very grateful Nintendo did this for Dr. Mario alone. Here's hoping that the great stuff they did for Dr. Mario World eventually carries over to a new Dr. Mario game, either for the Switch or its successor (or both!).

Thank you for reading.
 
Option 2 for me. I loved Super Mario Run, but Mario Kart Tour was so so. I would love for Nintendo to make more mobile games, but the gacha really brings games down, and I wouldn't be dissapointed if they put like a $5 or $10 price tag on the game to download.
 
Nintendo's mobile output has been terrible shit (aside from Dr. Mario World because Dr. Baby Luigi) so it would be no value lost if they ditched that market.
 
Option 4; I remember there was a slightly similar poll by Vruet but for ports of Nintendo games to non-Nintendo consoles last year. I mentioned then that allowing Nintendo games on non-Nintendo consoles would make Nintendo look desperate and hurt sales for their own consoles and still stand by that point, especially when how much of a feeling of exclusivity Nintendo consoles have would wane. Plus my iPhone or iPad has never been my favorite console for playing games anyway.

(EDIT: The option I voted for on that last year poll still supported original game releases on other platforms for Nintendo but now I'm against them on this new poll. I guess I'm just becoming more for Nintendo having exclusive benefits to help their sales than I already was.)
 
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