Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

Flygon64 said:
I would go as far to say because it's a SNES game from the 90s, the only reason it's so highly regarded in internet circles is because its player base was the first generation on the web and they got to sing their nostalgic praises for the thing, right before anyone else could get a word in!
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Does anyone else fucking despise it when people brush off praise for something they don't personally like as "WeLL yO'RuE jUsT NoStALgiC"

Edit: I apologize for the way I worded this. You didn't deserve such a rude reaction.
 
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Koopa con Carne said:
Does anyone else fucking despise it when people brush off praise for something they don't personally like as "WeLL yO'RuE jUsT NoStALgiC"
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you don't need to take one line out of an entire post and create a strawman with it just to attack someone because they hate your favourite game ever or something. hating Yoshi's Island is not a personal attack on you and is perfectly okay to do.
 
I didn't "attack" her because I like the game--the criticism of the game is apt and divergences are fine and natural--, I criticized her because she somehow found it suitable to her argument to label an entire group of people. It's disparaging and I will call it out when it happens.

Same thing happened in that Geno thread when people started shit-talking fans of the character (I'm not even really one of them), I'm honestly over it.
 
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AgentMuffin said:
I do have what seems like a similar issue with the original Paper Mario soundtrack. So many pieces sound like variations on the same annoying pastiche of a march, and whenever they run out of ideas, they use this maddeningly monotonous repeating eighth note figure, over and over again. It's half of the main melody of "March Ahead", and it crops back up in "Koopa Village", "Shy Guy's Toy Box", and arguably some other places like the sparse parts of "Forever Forest". I can't tell if it was an intentional idea for a recurring motif, or if some extenuating circumstance left the composer(s) genuinely unable to fill things in with anything more substantive (and less grating) than playing the same note on every onbeat, then again a few steps down, then the most exasperating V7–I resolution. The thematically slipshod and juvenile "Toy Box" theme just ends up sounding like a self-parody of its surroundings.
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See, I actually like the Paper Mario soundtrack and I'll respect your POV, as I get what you're trying to say here.
 
Yeah, was just trying to commiserate to see if we had comparable experiences about different pieces.

It does have some really good tracks in there. I like "Over Shiver Mountain" for one.
 
I do not know if this is an unpopular opinion or if I've mentioned this before, but I think the tropical themes in Mario Kart sounded similar that they are the least exciting music tracks for those games.

Mind Master said:
I know some people might like her but for me baby Rosalina is just stupid first off her inclusion in the Mario Kart games lore wise makes NO sense and he's just another copy cat of baby peach and baby daisy and finally they wasted the chance to have HD Dry bowser in Mario Kart world rather than this copy cat! But still at least it's better thank pink gold peach
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I do not remember where it was said but I think I recall how Miyamoto remarked that the Mario games intentionally do not have a fixed timeline for the games, because doing it that way would limit the roles of the characters. While it's not necessarily related, those words made me think about how Rosalina didn't fit this mould.

I think that of the major Mario characters, Rosalina is unusual in that she is a very developed character (thanks to the storybook), akin to a Mario RPG character. The backlash on Baby Rosalina is probably a result on how having a deeper lore limits how a character can be portrayed, because the backstory established in Galaxy contradict the portrayal in Mario Kart.

All this to say that I can see why the creator of Mario thought it's best that the characters don't have deep characterisation or backstory, since Mario was already decided to be in many more games even back when he was created in 1981.

Even then, that doesn't mean that fans can't come up with their theories and personal characterisations of the characters, though!

Thank you for reading.
 
DK Bananza looks too goofy for Donkey Kong. I prefer the naturalistic look of older games.
 
I think it's neat that Mario Kart World's retro tracks are reimagined versions instead of more traditional remakes. They've been bringing back old courses with a fresh coat of paint since DS, it's cool to see a different approach here.
 
Waluigi Time said:
I think it's neat that Mario Kart World's retro tracks are reimagined versions instead of more traditional remakes. They've been bringing back old courses with a fresh coat of paint since DS, it's cool to see a different approach here.
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If I read it correctly, I think it was a thing since Mario Kart 8's DLC with Cheese Land and Ribbon Road, but revamping retros to look different has been something I'd been wanting for years at that point! When we got by-the-numbers retro tracks, I was like, "why don't they add elevation, tunnels, jumps, etc to some of these old tracks but keep the layout to the point they're like nitros". I'm mostly happy with this direction (and this is where I diverge with my sister on this opinion!).

If not, I'd like to see them also make retro tracks similar to what Smash Bros. Ultimate did, where they returned the stage AND preserved the primitive look of it, but made the graphics higher res to make it nostalgic. I'm fond of what they did with Saffron City and the Mario Stage from Smash 64, for instance, where they kept those 2D trees and Pokemon, but look cleaner.
 
I wasn't sure where to post this, but I figured since most people here liked The Super Mario Bros. Movie, I would say this all here.

I get that Nintendo can't be on a Hollywood studio's case 24/7, but that movie seriously needed at least another rewrite or two. With that in mind, here's what I would've done with a rewrite. Since I admit these points go on for a bit at times, I decided to highlight the main takeaways with bold for people who may be too busy to read the whole thing.

  1. Replace Anya Taylor-Joy and the writing staff with people who liked or at least tolerated Peach the way she already was in the games. That's not to say Peach would be a damsel-in-distress who only meets Mario at the end for the whole film, but I'll get to what I'd do differently with Peach in a bit.
  2. In general, recast all the main characters except for Charlie Day as Luigi and Keegan-Michael Key as Toad. My choices would be Joe Manganiello as Mario, Kristen Bell, Alison Brie, or Anna Kendrick as Peach, and Dave Bautista as Bowser. I didn't mention Donkey Kong for a reason which I'll get to at point five.
  3. Nix the idea of Mario and Luigi being separated. Instead have them join up with Peach and Toad in a throwback to the Super Show. At least until Peach is eventually captured because that happening at some point is kinda essential for a proper Mario movie. My idea would be that Mario and Luigi still nearly separated at a junction in the warp zone, which later turns out to be a chekov's gun during the grand fight with Bowser.
  4. Going off the above point, you can have Peach avoid be kidnapped in subsequent films, but giving the first film a kidnapping out of the games, as in one where Peach cries to Mario for help and all that, should have been an absolute non-negotiable. Even when you don't factor in how Peach could (and indeed should) still get to join some of the action beforehand, the first Paper Mario showed that there are plenty of ways that she could've remained active in the plot afterwards. One idea I remember seeing was one where Peach sabotages the Koopas' karts by pouring cake batter into their engines.
  5. I'd have replaced The Kongs and their kingdom with Princess Daisy and Sarasaland. Not only is Daisy a better fit for the pre-Yoshi's Island Mario lore, but including her would be an efficient way to placate anyone who'd gripe about Peach reprising her damsel-in-distress role even with what I'd do to let Peach remain a major player in the story. Instead, I'd have made a Donkey Kong Country tv or streaming series explicitly set in the same universe as this film.
  6. While I prefer original music, liscenced music is not something I'm inherently against. That said I'd have gone with different songs for different parts of the film. The two that come to mind are "Jump" by Van Halen, which I'd play when Mario and Luigi complete the training course successfully, and "Runnin Down A Dream" by Tom Petty, which I'd have included in the start of the kart sequence.
 
Cornpopio said:
Replace Anya Taylor-Joy and the writing staff with people who liked or at least tolerated Peach the way she already was in the games.
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I really don't think they hated game Peach, moreso that Peach, even in the games, has just evolved past the outdated damsel portrayal they initially created her for. Luigi serves as a better motivation for Mario to quest through this strange new world compared to a random princess he had no prior knowledge of. You have to keep in mind the original Super Mario Bros. wasn't made with making strong narrative sense as a priority. In the movie they had to naturally transition from Mario's Brooklyn origins into the Mushroom Kingdom and "i just got to this world and i'm gonna risk my life to save this princess i've never/only just met" just doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense. But "my brother who i've spent my entire life with is in danger, i will do whatever it takes to save him" does.

It also allows them to play into Luigi's timid and frightened traits seen in Luigi's Mansion, while giving them both a payoff in terms of character growth at the end. Making Peach a strong capable princess is a good change since her being vulnerable and known for getting kidnapped is a relic of a bygone era. There's a good reason that even the most recent 2D Mario game, Wonder, finally bucked that trend.
 
Wittgenstein said:
I really don't think they hated game Peach, moreso that Peach, even in the games, has just evolved past the outdated damsel portrayal they initially created her for. Luigi serves as a better motivation for Mario to quest through this strange new world compared to a random princess he had no prior knowledge of. You have to keep in mind the original Super Mario Bros. wasn't made with making strong narrative sense as a priority. In the movie they had to naturally transition from Mario's Brooklyn origins into the Mushroom Kingdom and "i just got to this world and i'm gonna risk my life to save this princess i've never/only just met" just doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense. But "my brother who i've spent my entire life with is in danger, i will do whatever it takes to save him" does.

It also allows them to play into Luigi's timid and frightened traits seen in Luigi's Mansion, while giving them both a payoff in terms of character growth at the end. Making Peach a strong capable princess is a good change since her being vulnerable and known for getting kidnapped is a relic of a bygone era. There's a good reason that even the most recent 2D Mario game, Wonder, finally bucked that trend.
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FWIW I spent a good chunk of my list detailing ways Peach could remain a player in the plot even after being kidnapped.
 
my point was moreso her being kidnapped isn't actually a necessary component, it's an outdated trope and we've moved past that. at this point i'd consider any game that falls back on that trope to be uninspired. if they can manage a whole 2D Mario game without it, it's not a necessary trope. it was utilized well in the early Paper Mario games for what they were working with, but I'd prefer the scenario to be more of her willingly entering the enemy base under the GUISE of being kidnapped/surrendering to execute a plan, like she actually does in the movie by pretending to agree to Bowser's proposal. If Peach has to end up somewhere against her will, i'd prefer it to be a scenario where she is not the exclusive/main target of it. Like in SPM where it happens to Bowser and Luigi as well, and Peach is actually the first to escape from it.
 
My biggest unpopular opinion is that licensed music in the Mario movie is orders of magnitude better than the video game music and made the movie better as a result.
 
I like the Tiki Tak Tribe from Returns they had a certain feel to them like an ancient evil being risen up from an age long since past and while I do LOVE Void Co & The Kremlings and thought that the Snowmads where alright I will ALWAYS love the Tiki Tack Tribe because of there unique designs and lore implications.
Also I Don't like that people are dogging them in favor of you know who
 
I personally am not a huge fan of Super Mario Sunshine. I love the storyline and the full dialogue cutscenes, but I honestly found myself getting frustrated with the water spraying mechanics.
 
I would've much preferred if they had made the voice direction for Daisy in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour permanent. It gives off a sassy 'girl next door' vibe that I feel would have not only made Daisy stand out for the better, but also given her a larger fanbase more quickly.
 
ItsAMeWeegee said:
I do agree because Daisy should have gotten her original voice actor and rest in peace to her, but I don't like modern Daisy as she's like too loud and too annoying
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You're referring to Deanna Mustard right? Because she's the one who voiced Daisy in Toadstool Tour, and did a pretty damn good job in that game too.
 
Furthermore, I can't help but let me judgement on the Switch 2 and Mario games for now be clouded by how poorly Nintendo has treated the classic VAs.
 
my point was moreso her being kidnapped isn't actually a necessary component, it's an outdated trope and we've moved past that. at this point i'd consider any game that falls back on that trope to be uninspired. if they can manage a whole 2D Mario game without it, it's not a necessary trope.
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I feel that Peach being the damsel-in-distress is such an iconic part of the series as well as her character that it would be hard to get rid of completely. And it's not like getting kidnapped makes her useless. In fact, that wasn't how she was originally conceived. People forget that when Bowser kidnapped Peach in the original Super Mario Bros, it wasn't because he had a crush on her or for because he was bored, but because as the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, she alone had the power to reverse the damage he had done to her people by turning them into bricks. Imagine if Peach was treated with that much importance in every game she was kidnapped. Really. Do it.

Personally, I would go for a Paper Mario-style approach as Compopio said, where Peach would get kidnapped by Bowser, but still work to help Mario and Luigi however she can.
 
New Super Mario Bros 2 may be super derivative but it's still very fun.
 
I don't think that hammer bros are the most annoying enemies. I think that goes to cheep cheeps, boss bass, porcupuffer, etc. Pretty much any fish enemy that jumps out of the water. The irony is that I love real life fish and sea creatures.
 
hammer bros are barely there but they're annoying af so they deserve to win worst enemy every year
 
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