Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

I would say that me being named after some dude disliking Yoshi games is ironic if it weren't for two things.

1. I liked him because of Mario Kart: Double Dash, not because he was a stolen wallet.
2. Yoshi sucks.
 
so much Yoshi hate

I liked that Yoshi Story as opposed to Island had more expansive courses, that it was designed more to explore than to reach the other side. That every color Yoshi had different stats, and felt the physics and move dynamics are pleasant.

Things that I like from both Story and Island
- the visual & audio themes are cute & beautiful, I love the lullaby esc of it.
- the enemies especially shy guys, bandits, and monkeys- use their surroundings! I think this feature should happen more in the Mario-centric series.
 
I find the first game to be not that great as people say it is, that succeeding Yoshi platformers work off this foundation I don't even like. The first game had new mechanics going for it like the ground pound but the egg throwing cursor I don't like for being unwieldy, flutter jumping doesn't feel fun. The transformations are stupid and lame most of the time. The scoring system is lame and just exaggerated more of the problems I had with "all or nothing" Dragon Coins. Never liked the art style of any of the games, that juvenile "game for babies" style, and all Yoshi games after this one find some way to be miserable in some art-related component either soundtrack, model work, or sprite work, or a combination.
 
I honestly never understood why so many people consider YI1 to be the pinnacle of the Yoshi series. I mean, yes, YI1 is a fantastic game. But are the sequels really any less fantastic? YI2 was basically everything YI1 was but more, and maybe some people don't like the complications that the baby switching throws in, but I thought it was a pretty neat mechanic. YNI is admittedly a bit lazy in how heavily it borrows from YI1, but taken on its own merits, it really does everything that the original did and does it better (plus the new art style was absolutely beautiful, fight me). I also disagree with the notion that the SNES version of YI1 is better than the GBA remake, because it's not.

However, in my eyes, the true pinnacle of the main Yoshi series is the Woolly/Crafted World line of games. I haven't played Crafted yet beyond the demo so I can't definitively determine which is better, but I absolutely adore Woolly World and it easily surpasses all four of its predecessors. Even if it plays a bit differently and is no longer focus on saving babies, it's largely true to the established formula while still throwing in a good number of its own unique tricks. Crafted World looks like a worthy successor and I'm looking forward to playing that.

Story is the weakest of the six main Yoshi games in my eyes, but it's by no means a bad game and I enjoyed its more open and non-linear level design. I'd probably like it a bit more if it were longer.
 
Professor E. Gadd said:
YI2 was basically everything YI1 was but more,
Click to expand...

Yoshi's Island DS had a severe lack of items, which hurt the game immensely. It also had a laughably weak soundtrack, a lot of bad sprites, and some poor implementation of the baby switching mechanics. Baby Luigi also wasn't a usable baby and had to be rescued again which was the game's biggest insult.

I can't do an in-depth critique of DS since I wasn't a huge fan of the original in the first place, but DS had some pretty bad problems.

I do agree that the Advance remake of the original isn't so bad (as it's most people's only access to play the original these days unless they own an SNES Classic or Nintendo's Online Liability). The sound is weaker and the resolution is on a tiny screen but so is like, everything on a GBA so it didn't bother me all that much.
 
I am hoping to see some articles with the flaws of Yoshi's Island DS. Admittedly I have a bit of bias against Yoshi's Island DS for surface reasons like how it used Bowser as a final boss, and how they introduced the Star Children to prop up the importance of established characters.

Also because it introduced Baby Wario, who they (I guess) thought people will care but it turned out that this is his first and last appearance. Even Baby Daisy is a bigger deal than him despite first appearing in a Kart game. I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion itself, but Baby Daisy is a better character than Baby Wario even though the latter appeared in a supposedly more respectable game.

Thank you for reading.