Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

The problem is that it really wouldn't be fair to say that NSMB Wii, 2, and U are Super Mario Bros. 6, 7, and 8. That would almost be an insult to the Super Mario Bros. series since every game in said series is very original and different from the others (with the obvious exclusion of Lost Levels, which can be considered an expansion of SMB). However, NSMB DS had enough differences from the earlier titles that you could reasonably call it SMB5. Then the rest of the NSMB series would have to go in some sort of other category. So, if you were to give honorary titles to each game, it would go like this:
Super Mario Bros. - Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2 JPN/Lost Levels - Super Mario Bros. Expansion Pack
Super Mario Bros. 2 USA - Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3 - Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World - Super Mario Bros. 4
New Super Mario Bros. - Super Mario Bros. 5
The rest of the NSMB series complicates this, so when I've thought of stuff like this before I'd generally not include NSMB DS, making any potential "reboot" be Super Mario Bros. 5.
 
TheCapeLuigi said:
Mister Wu said:
what was done in the US with naming has little to do with what Nintendo Co., Ltd. actually did. Super Mario Bros. 4 exists and it's also known as Super Mario World, whereas Super Mario World 2 never existed in Japan.
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Thank you for correcting me, I thought that the "Super Mario Bros. 4" title was unused in all regions, but I guess not. Either way, I really don't think making a "Super Mario Bros. 5" would be a good idea, it just feels jarring when you put that against the New Super Mario Bros. series, which would end up both being a revival of the original Super Mario Bros. games, which just feels a little pointless. There's really no reason to have two new Super Mario Bros. games.
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To be fair, what was done with Sonic Mania is even more jarring from this point of view, but I didn't see fans of the Sonic games reacting negatively because of this. Since Nintendo never used the "Super Mario Bros. 5" name, I think they are in a more favorable situation - a fully 2D "Super Mario Bros. 5" wouldn't really go against the 2.5D New Super Mario Bros. games, especially if it presents significant gameplay differences with respect to those games.
 
Luigi 64DD said:
The problem is that it really wouldn't be fair to say that NSMB Wii, 2, and U are Super Mario Bros. 6, 7, and 8. That would almost be an insult to the Super Mario Bros. series since every game in said series is very original and different from the others (with the obvious exclusion of Lost Levels, which can be considered an expansion of SMB). However, NSMB DS had enough differences from the earlier titles that you could reasonably call it SMB5. Then the rest of the NSMB series would have to go in some sort of other category. So, if you were to give honorary titles to each game, it would go like this:
Super Mario Bros. - Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2 JPN/Lost Levels - Super Mario Bros. Expansion Pack
Super Mario Bros. 2 USA - Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3 - Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World - Super Mario Bros. 4
New Super Mario Bros. - Super Mario Bros. 5
The rest of the NSMB series complicates this, so when I've thought of stuff like this before I'd generally not include NSMB DS, making any potential "reboot" be Super Mario Bros. 5.
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Lack of originality did not stop Sonic 4.
Doubly so considering Sonic already had a New Super Mario Bros-esque series (Sonic Advance) at that point (And of course, there's what Mister Wu mentioned regarding Mania).
 
Well, I'd be mad if they released a SMB5 that was like Sonic 4. Thus far the SMB series has had each game being distinct from each other, and I'd hope that they keep that trend going if they released SMB5.
 
It would make very little sense to revive a numbering that was abandoned over a quarter of a century ago. A Mario game with the title Super Mario Bros. 5 would just end up being very confusing to everyone.
 
Magikrazy said:
It would make very little sense to revive a numbering that was abandoned over a quarter of a century ago. A Mario game with the title Super Mario Bros. 5 would just end up being very confusing to everyone.
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This is exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you.

Also, I think it's different because people were willing to give Sega the benefit of the doubt because the Sonic franchise is all over the place and Sega has been trying to fix the franchise for a while now, so I think them doing something that would normally be seen as "unprofessional", like making Sonic Mania despite the existence of Sonic 4, people would be willing to give them a slap on the back for.

Except this is Nintendo, not Sega, so the situation is very, very different.

Luigi 64DD said:
The problem is that it really wouldn't be fair to say that NSMB Wii, 2, and U are Super Mario Bros. 6, 7, and 8. That would almost be an insult to the Super Mario Bros. series since every game in said series is very original and different from the others (with the obvious exclusion of Lost Levels, which can be considered an expansion of SMB).
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That's a very strong word for you to use, especially when the games do have variation, but the main thing that separated the games for me was their overall look and feel; the original Super Mario Bros. games had different graphical artstyles and environments, that the New Super Mario Bros. series can't do because it uses 3D. At least, theoretically.

Also, Lost Levels absolutely counts, it was supposed to be the sequel of Super Mario Bros. by the developers after they reworked their original prototype into Doki Doki Panic, and this can easily be proven by the fact that it's called "Super Mario Bros. 2". Yes, it's just a harder version of the original with more levels, but it was still intended to be the sequel.

The only time the games were very different from eachother was when the US Super Mario Bros. 2 was released, and in Japan, the jump from their Super Mario Bros. 2 to Super Mario Bros. 3, which had a lot of obvious differences in comparison to eachother.

Super Mario World however, borrows a lot from Super Mario Bros. 3 (although to me it's inferior to SMB3 anyways) and was even supposed to be almost the same game, since the original prototype of World had Raccoon Mario before Cape Mario even existed, and the only reason SMW has differences to SMB3 in the first place is because Miyamoto stepped in and told them that they couldn't "make the same game".

I'd also like to remind you that SMW was built off of what was literally just SMB3 with better graphics, and originally most of the blocks in SMW looked and acted the same way they did in SMB3. If the New series is an insult for a lack of originality, then SMW and SMB2JP/SMB:LL would most certainly count as well.

That's not saying the games don't use original ideas and aren't different from eachother, they are, but they aren't "very original and different", and technically if you're going to write off SMB:LL as an "expansion pack" then you can just write the later New Super Mario Bros. games as just ports or expansion packs as well.
 
When I say "very original and different", I mainly mean visual and just the overall theme. The gameplay of each game is nearly identical even between SMB and SMB3 (besides SMB2 USA), so that doesn't matter. By my definition, SMW is different enough from SMB3 to count. When I say "count", I mean that in my mind, there is a sort of standard of different-ness that a game that is a true sequel should stand up to, which SMW does while SMB:LL and post-DS NSMB don't IMO. Keep in mind that this is only an honorary designation, since SMB:LL is obviously a sequel in reality.

However, if I were to choose between SMB:LL and SMB2 USA for which deserves the title "Super Mario Bros. 2" more, I'd choose SMB2 USA because it keeps the above-mentioned standard more, despite the fact that it was originally not a Mario game and that SMB:LL was originally the direct sequel to SMB (and still is in Japan).

Some reasons why I think SMW deserves the designation of a full-blown sequel more than SMB:LL or most of the NSMB series:
  • SMW was at least somewhat visually different from SMB3.
  • The setting was completely different with Dinosaur Land rather than the Mushroom World.
  • It had completely different music.
Meanwhile, with SMB:LL and the 3 latter NSMB games:
  • SMB and SMB:LL are exactly the same visually. Most NSMB have been very similar to DS visually, although to a lesser degree with U.
  • Setting is identical between SMB and SMB:LL. Setting is also mostly identical throughout the NSMB series, even down to world themes.
  • Music is identical between SMB and SMB:LL. NSMBW had new music, but that has been reused with the exception of a few songs in NSMBU.
So that's my reasoning. The keyword here is "honorary", so which games I think deserve to be a full sequel in the SMB series, which I hold to a higher standard than your average rehash (e.g., Call of Duty or even Mario Kart). Of course, that's very subjective, so you can have a different view than me on that. And yeah, maybe "insult" was a strong word for me to use, but I meant it in a lighter sense, not like they're an abomination or something like that.
 
I'm sorry that I ended up having to put my reply in a spoiler; I was a little worried about my post becoming a collossal text wall. Hopefully it doesn't impact any of the readability, though.

Luigi 64DD said:
When I say "very original and different", I mainly mean visual and just the overall theme. The gameplay of each game is nearly identical even between SMB and SMB3 (besides SMB2 USA), so that doesn't matter. By my definition, SMW is different enough from SMB3 to count. When I say "count", I mean that in my mind, there is a sort of standard of different-ness that a game that is a true sequel should stand up to, which SMW does while SMB:LL and post-DS NSMB don't IMO. Keep in mind that this is only an honorary designation, since SMB:LL is obviously a sequel in reality.
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I wasn't actually talking about visuals and themes, in-fact I did mention that the themes and visuals between the games were, in-fact, different, but the games themselves aren't too different, which is mostly the point I was trying to prove with my post.

I don't think that graphics should be what ties games together, and while I'm not a fan of the New SMB games re-using graphical themes, I believe the reason is because it's a 3D game, and varying 3D model artstyles without changing character designs is much more complex than 2D sprites. I don't have any confirmation on this, though, it's just a hunch.

Although admittedly, despite my claims the games are mostly the same, SMB and SMB3 are different from eachother in many ways, as I've played both myself, and their differences especially shine in Super Mario Maker; if you compare the Super Mario Bros. playstyle to the SMB3 one, you'll see that they play very differently, almost to the point where a level designed for SMB could have it's design broken when converted to SMB3.

I think this kind of thing is what points out the radical differences between two games. From my experience so far, if you compare SMB3, SMW and NSMBU's playstyles, they all play at least somewhat similarly, while the original Super Mario Bros. is the odd man out, and I believe this is what points out the differences between the games.

Note, I'm not mentioning Mario Maker because it's my only access to these games, I actually had SMB3 and SMB on my Wii before I sold it and I currently have SMW; the only game I don't own that has a playstyle in Mario Maker is New Super Mario Bros. U.

Luigi 64DD said:
However, if I were to choose between SMB:LL and SMB2 USA for which deserves the title "Super Mario Bros. 2" more, I'd choose SMB2 USA because it keeps the above-mentioned standard more, despite the fact that it was originally not a Mario game and that SMB:LL was originally the direct sequel to SMB (and still is in Japan).
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Well, I do prefer SMB2 over SMB:LL (however I haven't played either one) but I was talking more objectively than subjectively about it, and more about what was supposed to be considered the "sequel" until SMB2 USA came along. However, SMB:LL does have graphical differences from the original, it's just that they're not as large in quantity as SMB2 and SMB3, and SMB2's environmental and theme differences are just by complete accident anyways.

And because of that, I kind of believe the idea of changing the overall look and feel of the games started with the team looking at SMB:LL and wanting to do more than just change a couple tiles, which sounds more likely in my mind, than looking at the SMB2 in the US and deciding that the unrelated environments + the mario characters was the way to go.

Luigi 64DD said:
Some reasons why I think SMW deserves the designation of a full-blown sequel more than SMB:LL or most of the NSMB series:
SMW was at least somewhat visually different from SMB3.
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Of course, it's true that it looks different from SMB3, I just wanted to point out that originally that wasn't always the case, and that Nintendo had wanted to do the kind of things they did with NSMB long before it even existed (although that was already pointed out by SMB:LL, which I find it kind of ironic that Miyamoto told them they couldn't make the same game when they had already done it before, but I'm guessing it's because it was supposed to be the SNES's launch title)

The setting was completely different with Dinosaur Land rather than the Mushroom World.
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I don't think that the setting itself is really all that important, especially when despite being a different setting they have a tendency to look at least somewhat of the same regardless of the place the game is actually supposed to be set in, and because of that I wouldn't really care if a new NSMB game took place in the Mushroom Kingdom as long as the levels looked different from the rest of the series.

If anything, the setting itself is just a story thing, and doesn't really impact the game itself unless the game is story-based, but most of the games aren't, whether it's NSMB or SMB.

Luigi 64DD said:
It had completely different music.
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While I would certainly find it obnoxious if the same music was reused in each installment, the soundtrack wasn't completely different, and SMB2, SMB3 and SMW all re-used music from the original Super Mario Bros. in some form. In-fact, Super Mario World did it twice. Although I'm not so sure about SMB3, because I heard that the SMB underwater theme title music was actually added in All-Stars, so I have no idea.

Luigi 64DD said:
Meanwhile, with SMB:LL and the 3 latter NSMB games:
SMB and SMB:LL are exactly the same visually. Most NSMB have been very similar to DS visually, although to a lesser degree with U.
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Well, actually, SMB and SMB:LL are not exactly the same. Similar, yes, but there are several obvious differences with some of the tiles in the game, like the ground blocks and the game's mushroom powerups, among other things. There isn't a single doubt that the NSMB games look very similar to the DS version, but that's because they're not 2D; they're 3D, despite NSMBDS being arguably 2D, but it was trying to pull off that look in the first place.

Luigi 64DD said:
Setting is identical between SMB and SMB:LL. Setting is also mostly identical throughout the NSMB series, even down to world themes.
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Yes, both games take place in the Mushroom Kingdom, but as I stated before, that doesn't matter, because it's really just a plot element and doesn't have much to do with how the actual game looks. In terms of world themes, yeah, they do seem pretty hackneyed, but from what I've seen in SMBU, they gradually introduced newer ones, like Soda Jungle, and arguably Layer-Cake Desert, but there's still not too many.

Luigi 64DD said:
Music is identical between SMB and SMB:LL. NSMBW had new music, but that has been reused with the exception of a few songs in NSMBU.
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As I said earlier, yeah, I see how it's obnoxious for the music to be reused, but the original SMB games did reuse music, just not as much as the NSMB games because they reused main themes for the main worlds, while the originals only reused them for more minor things, like Star Road in SMW and Subspace in SMB2, to name a few.

Luigi 64DD said:
So that's my reasoning. The keyword here is "honorary", so which games I think deserve to be a full sequel in the SMB series, which I hold to a higher standard than your average rehash (e.g., Call of Duty or even Mario Kart). Of course, that's very subjective, so you can have a different view than me on that. And yeah, maybe "insult" was a strong word for me to use, but I meant it in a lighter sense, not like they're an abomination or something like that.
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Yeah, I'd say that explains our disagreement; I'm being very objective with all of this, not really subjective, and it's perfectly fine for you to have an opinion! It's just that, well, I don't think SMB5 is a really good idea. In-fact, do we really need SMB5? I mean, I really wouldn't want Mario game that uses a pixel artstyle given the ocean of indie games that use "retro" looks, and it just feels a little overdone. Sorry for taking the whole "insult" thing the wrong way, though.

Besides, why not just have a brand new New Super Mario Bros. game that incorporates these elements, instead of just making SMB5? It just feels a little impractical and unidealistic to make Super Mario Bros. 5 just because Sonic did it, especially when by the time Sonic Mania came out the Advance series had long been dead, excluding the Sonic Rush games, with the last Rush game being released almost a decade ago.

Although, funnily enough, I find it pretty ironic I was being objective when this whole thread is about opinions in the first place.

Note: If I sound hostile or aggressive in this post, I apologize, because it really wasn't my intent at all; I just wanted to address some points here.
 
Well, that's way too much text for me to reply to individually. :P You're right that gameplay is a bigger way to differentiate games than aesthetics. However, the side-scrolling Mario games are all supposed to have pretty much identical gameplay. I think the reason SMB is so radically different from SMB3 unlike the later ones is that SMB started the series while SMB3 truly fleshed it out and perfected the gameplay. Therefore, with SMW and the NSMB games, they couldn't improve on something that was already pretty much perfect! Another thing I didn't mention is that NSMB is less creative with their level design than SMW when compared to their respective predecessors.

Of course, my honorary designations have no bearing on what these games would technically be referred to as; a sequel to SMB could have completely different gameplay than it and still technically be a sequel (I'm not sure if it would have to be in the same genre, though). I suppose this shows what I'd like to see in a future 2D Mario. BTW I actually wasn't saying they should call a new game SMB5 per se. However, they should make a game that would be worthy of the honorary title of SMB5, even if they call it Super Mario Kumquat! Lastly, you didn't sound too aggressive, so don't worry about that.
 
Magikrazy said:
It would make very little sense to revive a numbering that was abandoned over a quarter of a century ago. A Mario game with the title Super Mario Bros. 5 would just end up being very confusing to everyone.
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I don't know if this is a good analogy, but I felt the exact same thing with Battlefield 1. I thought, "why is it called Battlefield 1, weren't there other Battlefield games?"
 
Baby Luigi said:
Magikrazy said:
It would make very little sense to revive a numbering that was abandoned over a quarter of a century ago. A Mario game with the title Super Mario Bros. 5 would just end up being very confusing to everyone.
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I don't know if this is a good analogy, but I felt the exact same thing with Battlefield 1. I thought, "why is it called Battlefield 1, weren't there other Battlefield games?"
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Don't forget the classic: Xbox One
 
Baby Luigi said:
Magikrazy said:
It would make very little sense to revive a numbering that was abandoned over a quarter of a century ago. A Mario game with the title Super Mario Bros. 5 would just end up being very confusing to everyone.
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I don't know if this is a good analogy, but I felt the exact same thing with Battlefield 1. I thought, "why is it called Battlefield 1, weren't there other Battlefield games?"
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its the fifth main game in the series, but the first game was called Battlefield 1942, so hopefully there isnt too much confusion. They probably called it Battlefield 1 because it takes place during World War I.
 
A better example is the new Doom.
 
Super Mario Odyssey is a lil' overrated.

Just a lil' overrated.
 
LeftyGreenMario said:
Super Mario Odyssey is a lil' overrated.

Just a lil' overrated.
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What do you find wrong with it? I can't think of anything wrong with it worth mentioning except maybe the motion control stuff that sometimes doesn't work right and feels like it's pressuring you into playing with detached joy-cons. I'm actually curious what flaws you see since I don't see many.
 
I can think of a few.

- Some of the moons are obvious padding. There probably didn't need to be over 800 of them.

- The post-game is great, but after the Mushroom Kingdom, the rewards you get afterward, mainly the boss rush and the super-hard final level feel kind of lacking.

- There was no reason for the Dark Side and the Darker Side to be their own kingdoms on the map. I get that you need moons to unlock them but they really should've just been within the Moon Kingdom proper.

- Both the Cloud Kingdom and the Ruined Kingdom were massive squandered potential. The Ruined Kingdom especially. They should've and could've been full kingdoms.

- The main game is a little bit too easy. They probably could've given the player more moons to collect than they did.

- The amount of moons needed to progress in each kingdom varies wildly when it should really get progressively harder and harder. I didn't get why New Donk and Volbono needed so many more than the other kingdoms.

- It's a little disappointing how some kingdoms are so much smaller than others.

- Shiveria in particular feels a little dull compared to the rest of the kingdoms. That first area glacier is really cool, especially with the snowstorm at the beginning, but past that it feels too much like a generic snow level.

- Volbono is an excellent and challenging level gameplay-wise, but it's kind of visually dull despite the surreal theme it has going on.

- FLYING PENGUINS. GAH.

- I wish Cascade Kingdom had its own set of townspeople instead of just Bonnetonians. I would've loved to see either little dinosaurs or cavemen living in a village of caves or rock houses.

- Sometimes I feel like the game relies a little too much on hidden sub-worlds instead of tying the platform challenges into the kingdoms themselves.

- It got kind of annoying having to do the same tasks in each kingdom, such as breaking open a glowing rock or ground pounding a glowing spot.

- They totally gipped us with that taxi Capture in the trailer.

- I don't like how the dive is harder to pull off than it was in 64 or Sunshine.

- I don't like how so many moves require motion controls even if the moves themselves aren't an absolute necessity.

- Forgotten Isle ended up being much more frustrating than it could've otherwise been because the poison water kills you in one hit even though the lava in Volbono doesn't.

- It's really weird how after you've collected every moon, you can still keep buying them until your moon count is maxed out at 999.
I can't tell if this is a bug, or if it's a sign that the game will inevitably get DLC. I really hope it's the latter.

- Isle Delfino was clearly on that billboard ad in Japan but is nowhere to be seen in the actual game. What gives?

Do note that despite all these flaws, I love the game to pieces. More than any game in recent memory. :yoshi:
 
Borp said a few I had a problem with.
The Mushroom Kingdom's level is bland and lifeless as hell. No effing Luigi. Nothing really attempted for the Mario cast beyond the pointless DK Country references in New Donk City. They tried to give the fandom a treat through costumes but massively failed everywhere else. The final platforming level (in the moon) has GOT to be a lava level in the middle of freaking nowhere. Yeah, the game is easy, very easy. The Broodals suck except for the big fat one with the Chain Chomp, and they're pretty much Koopalings making the lack of Koopalings more pointless. The Metro Kingdom has this "designed on a tabletop" layout rather than being a believable city, that ticked me off.

I like the game but IMO all these little flaws add up and sometimes impact my enjoyment. I'd give the game a high 80 or low 90 percent.
 
Borp said:
- Some of the moons are obvious padding. There probably didn't need to be over 800 of them.

- The post-game is great, but after the Mushroom Kingdom, the rewards you get afterward, mainly the boss rush and the super-hard final level feel kind of lacking.

- There was no reason for the Dark Side and the Darker Side to be their own kingdoms on the map. I get that you need moons to unlock them but they really should've just been within the Moon Kingdom proper.

- Both the Cloud Kingdom and the Ruined Kingdom were massive squandered potential. The Ruined Kingdom especially. They should've and could've been full kingdoms.

- The main game is a little bit too easy. They probably could've given the player more moons to collect than they did.

- The amount of moons needed to progress in each kingdom varies wildly when it should really get progressively harder and harder. I didn't get why New Donk and Volbono needed so many more than the other kingdoms.

- It's a little disappointing how some kingdoms are so much smaller than others.

- I wish Cascade Kingdom had its own set of townspeople instead of just Bonnetonians. I would've loved to see either little dinosaurs or cavemen living in a village of caves or rock houses.

- Sometimes I feel like the game relies a little too much on hidden sub-worlds instead of tying the platform challenges into the kingdoms themselves.

- It got kind of annoying having to do the same tasks in each kingdom, such as breaking open a glowing rock or ground pounding a glowing spot.
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This is typically a sign that development aims were too ambitious. Some locations were realized mostly to the full potential, others weren't. Fossil falls is the most evident, it should be themed after finosaurs but it actually only contains two T-rexes. And it's obviously small. On the Ruined Kingdom I wrote about it elsewhere, it stands out because it ended up being isnanely well done, with care for little details while conveying a totally different tone with respect to the Super Mario series. It's like a place where everything is amazing, but you only get a postcard of it and a huge majestic dragon who sadly was too tired to fight properly - he could reduces the place like this, hard to think that he could only fight Mario like that.
After all, I can see the developers reducing the scale and scope of locations and rather trying to give the players a more consistent experience, especially when it comes to abstract locations - that was the weak point of Super Mario Sunshine.

Borp said:
- It's really weird how after you've collected every moon, you can still keep buying them until your moon count is maxed out at 999.
I can't tell if this is a bug, or if it's a sign that the game will inevitably get DLC. I really hope it's the latter.
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Actually, get to that number and you'll see...


Borp said:
- Isle Delfino was clearly on that billboard ad in Japan but is nowhere to be seen in the actual game. What gives?
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I guess they wanted to state that the world was still the one of Super Mario Sunshine and also creating a nice cameo, but it backfired horribly creating expectations that left a bitter taste after the completion rewards were discovered...

LeftyGreenMario said:
The Mushroom Kingdom's level is bland and lifeless as hell. No effing Luigi. Nothing really attempted for the Mario cast beyond the pointless DK Country references in New Donk City. They tried to give the fandom a treat through costumes but massively failed everywhere else.
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This was surprising indeed, I guess that just how the locations weren't alll realized to the full potential, so the character cast wasn't as well. There's no reason for Luigi not to be there considering that he's referenced, and the lack Bowser Jr. is also astounding - I'll write in the following box about the Koopalings and about Kamek I already wrote how he's seen in Japan, but I cannot find an excuse for the lack of Bowser Jr., especially after those Switch videos emphasizing him being the son Bowser cares a lot about. Literally, how many characters related to Bowser were at his wedding?

LeftyGreenMario said:
The Broodals suck except for the big fat one with the Chain Chomp, and they're pretty much Koopalings making the lack of Koopalings more pointless.
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I guess this was made to continue the tradition of having 3D Super Mario games with original bosses - even Super Mario 3D Land had Pom Pom - not to say that the complaints surrounding the presence of the Koopalings in the modern games were definitely there, even if they never were in a 3D Super Mario game. I still wonder what was the decisive aspect that led them to make the Koopalings while not making them. Not to say that the idea of rabbits who are wedding planners is indeed conceptually nice, in my opinion. Still, SEGA copying Bowser and the Koopalings with the Deadly Six was understandable, Nintendo copying its own characters rather than just using them is odd at best...

LeftyGreenMario said:
The Metro Kingdom has this "designed on a tabletop" layout rather than being a believable city, that ticked me off.
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Also Tostarena has that odd canyon surrounding it that makes the place feel constrained while it's meant to be a big, open place. Actually, I think bottomless pits surrounding open areas aren't uncommon in this game in general, as also Peach's Castle and Steam Gardens have them. I too am surprised to see them, as I think they defeat the purpose of giving a sense of freedom. Most importantly, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine seemed able to deal wit this problem better, in SMS this was easy as you just put sea that then blends with the skydome, in SM64 some smart design involving invisible walls rather than just bottomless pits was used in places such as Bob-omb Battlefield. Since Cappy is with Mario, they could have pulled a Zelda Wind Waker and put far borders with Cappy telling something to Mario if he tried going out of bounds, I wonder if this smart design causes glitches that ultimately forced the developers to create fully constrained open areas - a bit of an oxymoron...
 
Actually, I think this game makes me realize that a few of Junior's Sunshine character traits are gone. The Magic Brush/graffiti isn't really used that much (Doubly so considering he wasn't in Color Splash either) and he's more likely to just treat the Princess as another enemy or kidnap her for Bowser's sake nowadays. I think Mario + Rabbids was the first game in a while to even reference him using art/creativity in his schemes (and subtly/indirectly). I do wonder if him not being in this game is the nail-in-the-coffin for that bit of characterization.

As for the Broodals/Koopalings, I assume they made the Broodals to connect with the central themes of Odyssey: Hats (Rabbits in hats) and the Moon (Rabbits are said in some folklore to be connected with the Moon). It's good for continuing the theme, but it makes you wonder if they have any staying power outside of this game (in which case, they can just be chalked up to World-Building).

And yeah, Bowser kidnapping random strangers to attend his wedding while his minions/son are either missing or guarding the caves is a bit messed up. Super Mario Adventures never had that problem.
 
Oops, I asked a question that I can't read the answer to because of spoilers. Well, that was dumb. I guess I'll have to wait...
 
BloodySimpsonChibi said:
Unpopular opinion: Rosalina and Yoshi would make a great couple
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I can see those two working well together, as they are willing to take care of children.
 
I don't think that's unpopular.

I think it's just plain idiotic.
 
It's strange and out-of-left-field.

MnSG said:
I can see those two working well together, as they are willing to take care of children.
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This may or may not be similar to the reasoning behind shipping Bowser and Rosalina because they're both single parents.
 
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