post any random Mario thought on your mind

I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I think that I like SMB Wonder's "The Final Final Test Badge Marathon" level...Yes I know that it's a Perfect Run/Champion's Road style level, but I don't think it's as challenging as those levels, at least once you've gotten enough practice at it. And it has checkpoints unlike the other finale levels.

What makes this level fun is playing it with the online features enabled and having the live player shadows appear with you in the level. I've had multiple occasions where another player and I decide to get through the level together, and we wait for each other and help revive each other if one dies. One time there were even three of us getting through the level together. It felt really wholesome and I just really like helping other people out and reviving them with my standees to help them clear the level.
 
I really like the NES Mario games stronger combination of fairytale and urban aesthetics. You got Alice in Wonderland shrooms, chestnut people, fungi people, the evil ox dragon king's army travel the skies with their pirate airships, impossibly long vines that reach to a land of clouds... which come out of bricks, and you can travel to anywhere in the world... via its magical plumbing system! I know like warp pipes and brick blocks are still a thing but... that's it, I don't think the series had experimented with this approach enough in my opinion.

The franchise gradually became more self-referential, which is what happens when a series develops its own identity, but I feel that the fairytale elements died off because of that and I want to grieve over the lost mythological flavor first. Like in SMB3 you come across the Takarabune straight up, you can gain the powers of a tanuki and turn into a Jizo statue, these bits of the game share one thing in common, established Japanese myth. This is what I mourn the most, when pieces of mythos and history from the developers' cultural background weren't exclusively reserved for a specific segment of the game like Odyssey. Nintendo mixed the generic European fantasy tropes with what THEY knew even if it wasn't something EVERYONE around the globe could recognize and did so casually.

The special frosting of the original trilogy's worldbuilding cake that makes it especially original is the americana, because of course these games went with two Italian American plumber brothers as protags from Mario Bros for SUPER Mario Bros. So? Bricks, pipes, blocks, a sort of city construction theme but imbued with that unique mix of fantastical attributes. This was done with purpose, this was a deliberate decision to smooth the transition, this wasn't taken as granted. The floating city of New Donk exists but what it brought to the table weren't made a staple, y'know what I mean? This brings me back to what I said about Odyssey earlier, not only were the fairytales isolated but also the urban flavor.

I think as these games grew more popular, fairytales were replaced completely by contemporary cartooniness and the bits of working class American city life subdued. Dunno, I can't say I hate the Mario World after the not even so drastic shift, it built its own great style, but it'd be neat to see'em tinker with what originally made some of the series most famous iconography again, that old blend. I blame replaying All Stars + SMW for all these words.
 
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It would be funny if the next Smash Bros game had a trailer where Nintendo collabs with "WarioWare Inc." Lean into the keyfabe and have Wario say he cut some deals with Nintendo and offered development "advice".
 
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Double Dash's double racer gimmick hasn't returned in Mario Kart World lol. It wasn't essential but it was fun.
 
I don't really want it back, imo it's not a very good coop mechanic. I liked mixing and matching characters together but that's about it.
 
I like how the rear character has visual feedback of the driving. They respond to bumpy roads more exaggerated than seated characters in future games, so idk, it makes driving feel more fun despite the gameplay not actually being changed. It's the same kind of reason people like to switch to first-person mode in racing games, or screenshake is added, or motion blur is added, despite the gameplay not changing.
 
Xiahou Ba said:
I don't really want it back, imo it's not a very good coop mechanic. I liked mixing and matching characters together but that's about it.
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There's honestly not much to go back to in the game other than that.