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