Unpopular opinions about the Mario series

While Waluigi tends to be strongly associated with Wario usually, I would like Waluigi to take up more roles independent from Wario. As an example, perhaps in a Mario RPG, Waluigi could be the force of mischief and he would appear in said game without Wario (Mario Tennis Advance Tour almost have a Wario-less game with Waluigi, but there is an argument to be had because Wario's voice appeared, so it's not an inarguable case).

The main reason this would be the case is to allow Waluigi to develop his character further. Certain characters were allowed to develop their character without the involvement of certain characters they are usually paired with, so like Toadette didn't need Toad to always be around, or how Luigi is not always together with Mario.

Thank you for reading.
 
I would prefer Waluigi appear alongside Wario in Wario games like WarioWare and Wario Land. It would really explore their relationship and solidify their status as best friends.
 
I'd like to see Waluigi get a starring role, and my idea for it could technically work with or without Wario. Basically, an evil force captures all the people in the Mushroom Kingdom and turns them into slaves, skipping over Waluigi because that's how little he's taken seriously. But as a result it falls to him to set off and defeat this evil force, fighting brainwashed corruptions of the rest of the cast along the way. Now, my idea was for Wario to be the last of these and essentially mark the finale of the game, but it could just as easily work without him. Since Waluigi's existence is essentially a shadow of a shadow, i feel like corrupting the main cast would make for a good theme for him, plus they could make it suitably bizarre to fit his more eccentric mannerisms. Think of the monstrosity that is Super Dimentio, more stuff like that but creepier. Imagine Waluigi fighting say an eldritch corruption of Toadette.
 
LuigiFan24 said:
Kamek is honestly an underrated villain who deserves his own spinoff game like how Bowser got "Bowser's Inside Story" and Bowser Jr. got "Bowser Jr.'s Journey". I could see Kamek setting out on a mission to get the antidote for an illness his Lord Bowser is sick with, being aided by the Koopalings and Bowser Jr., and having to fight an original bad guy who turned out to be the one who inflicted Bowser with his condition. I'm just throwing this idea out there since Kamek is my favorite Mario villain.
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I would prefer if Kamek is the main villain in the Yoshi games. Unfortunately for Kamek, he's often upstaged by Baby Bowser and in Artoon/Arzest's games, by Bowser himself. The only game that goes far with this is Yoshi's Crafted World, where the bonus boss (and the most difficult boss at that) is Kamek himself using his versions of the bosses encountered in the game before.

Thank you for reading.
 
Now that it's been a few months and the initial new console/launch title hype has died down, I just gotta admit this...Mario Kart World is pretty disappointing and I think the open world thing hinders the game more than it helps.

Like the actual tracks are all great but the open world and especially the intermission sections between tracks are just all so goddamn dull. Especially so with how much you have to travel on them and then you only get one lap on the actual track itself.
 
Wii U was honestly a great console; never owned one myself but my irl friend has it and it's a lot of fun to play!
Plus these great games never came to Switch:
- Mario Party 10
- Paper Mario Color Splash
- Yoshi's Woolly World
 
Pirate Captain Odyssey said:
I would also add to the list
Splatoon
Nintendo Land
Wind Waker/Twilight Princess HD
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I know, I just was thinking Mario games in particular.
I also don't think the Wii U ads were terrible. Especially the one for Yoshi's Woolly World!
"Tap in a Yarn Yoshi Amiibo...whoashi, it's a double Yoshi exploshi!" - Yoshi's Woolly World commercial.
 
The Wii U is an underrated console that gets too much hate. Did it have its problems? Sure. But you had things such as backwards compatibility with all Wii games, free online play, Miiverse, and the Virtual Console, and of course that stellar lineup of first-party games. It deserved to be around longer.
 
Skuchi037 said:
The Wii U is an underrated console that gets too much hate. Did it have its problems? Sure. But you had things such as backwards compatibility with all Wii games, free online play, Miiverse, and the Virtual Console, and of course that stellar lineup of first-party games. It deserved to be around longer.
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Every console has its problems! Even successful ones like the DS and Switch have their problems too!
 
LuigiFan24 said:
Wii U was honestly a great console; never owned one myself but my irl friend has it and it's a lot of fun to play!
Plus these great games never came to Switch:
- Mario Party 10
- Paper Mario Color Splash
- Yoshi's Woolly World
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Woolly World definitely should have but for the love of god, Mario Party 10 is not great. It should not, and mechanically could not because of the Gamepad, come back. Super Mario Party Jamboree is great and ND Cube needs to keep in that direction.

But anyway, my actual hot take that brought me to this thread is that I could go the rest of my life without hearing the Gusty Garden Galaxy music ever again and I'd be a happier person for it. The Galaxy soundtracks never landed as hard with me as it did for everyone else but I'm so sick of being gaslit into thinking I'm objectively wrong for not liking the Gusty Garden Galaxy music. (also the Koopa's Road remix but I don't like the original of that either)
 
Jasper T. Jerzens said:
Woolly World definitely should have but for the love of god, Mario Party 10 is not great. It should not, and mechanically could not because of the Gamepad, come back. Super Mario Party Jamboree is great and ND Cube needs to keep in that direction.

But anyway, my actual hot take that brought me to this thread is that I could go the rest of my life without hearing the Gusty Garden Galaxy music ever again and I'd be a happier person for it. The Galaxy soundtracks never landed as hard with me as it did for everyone else but I'm so sick of being gaslit into thinking I'm objectively wrong for not liking the Gusty Garden Galaxy music. (also the Koopa's Road remix but I don't like the original of that either)
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It's no worry, to each their own. Mario Party 10 is the kind of game you either love or you hate. Gameplay off YouTube looks fun, but I can understand some people aren't found of the vehicle mechanics. In regards to your opinion on music, I personally love the Galaxy music but my favorite soundtrack comes from the NSMB series or Wonder.
 
Not a huge fan of Lanky Kong since according to the DK RAP: "He has no style, he has no grace, this Kong has a funny face!" His ability is blowing up like a balloon (which Mario and co. can already do), and his face is sort of creepy to me. I'm perfectly alright if Nintendo is trying to forget he ever even existed.
 
I don't mind Mario Kart World gameplay-wise for the most part, I think the routes are a nice addition and my only gripe with them is that they are essentially guaranteed in worldwides and Grand Prix has been entirely gutted to make them take up 90% of each track outside the first one. If we got a traditional Grand Prix (3 laps on all 4 tracks) and could play normal worldwides with only lap-type courses if we choose, I'd have no gripes with them existing at all. Ironically I'm much more bothered by the fandom's normalization of a mistaken name for them, as intermissions are the waiting lobbies between races, not the route tracks.

Other than that all my gripes with MKW gameplay/function-wise are massive nitpicks. Why do the CPUs in free roam try so hard to lose me when i just want to take photos with them for example. Why is it impossible to take photos with two players offline. Photo mode in general is disabled in way too many instances where I'd want to use it. Its filters are also extremely underwhelming compared to Odyssey's, which afaik completely returned in DK Bananza so idk why Kart decided to make the selection significantly lighter.

By far my biggest gripe with World has no bearing on the gameplay itself & is the same one i've had with every Mario Kart before it and likely will continue to have based on Nintendo's refusal to acknowledge this gripe even as a hypothetical. It is far too limited in what from the Marioverse is being pulled from. I've felt this hurt for over a decade as someone who's very much rooted in the Mario RPG corner of the fandom. I just wish my corner wasn't considered too small/insignificant to throw even one bone to. And every other corner of the fandom who has experienced similar disregard should have at least one character as well, at least for subseries that are still actively running. Obviously there has to be some limit, but I think the current one is way too tight and opening it up to all currently running Mario-adjacent subseries, with maybe one or two bones for dormant subseries that have a notable cult following (like Wario Land), should be reasonable.
Yes there will be infighting about certain characters getting in over others, but that's always been the case even now (Kamek & the Koopalings being cut has already been taken out on the NPC drivers for example), and is just a reality of any fandom that shouldn't be taken as a reason to just not bother touching certain parts of it.
 
LuigiFan24 said:
Not a huge fan of Lanky Kong since according to the DK RAP: "He has no style, he has no grace, this Kong has a funny face!" His ability is blowing up like a balloon (which Mario and co. can already do), and his face is sort of creepy to me. I'm perfectly alright if Nintendo is trying to forget he ever even existed.
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He hasn't made an appearance in the Donkey Kong franchise since Barrel Blast was released around 2010, if that's any consolation.
 
Did he have any style or grace there? My guess is no.
 
BMfan08 said:
Did he have any style or grace there? My guess is no.
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Given that Donkey Kong Barrel Blast bombed critically and financially in a similar vein to Sonic Free Riders, which was released the same year, Lanky most certainly did not have any style or grace in that game either.
 
Tinselina said:
I don't mind Mario Kart World gameplay-wise for the most part, I think the routes are a nice addition and my only gripe with them is that they are essentially guaranteed in worldwides and Grand Prix has been entirely gutted to make them take up 90% of each track outside the first one. If we got a traditional Grand Prix (3 laps on all 4 tracks) and could play normal worldwides with only lap-type courses if we choose, I'd have no gripes with them existing at all. Ironically I'm much more bothered by the fandom's normalization of a mistaken name for them, as intermissions are the waiting lobbies between races, not the route tracks.

Other than that all my gripes with MKW gameplay/function-wise are massive nitpicks. Why do the CPUs in free roam try so hard to lose me when i just want to take photos with them for example. Why is it impossible to take photos with two players offline. Photo mode in general is disabled in way too many instances where I'd want to use it. Its filters are also extremely underwhelming compared to Odyssey's, which afaik completely returned in DK Bananza so idk why Kart decided to make the selection significantly lighter.

By far my biggest gripe with World has no bearing on the gameplay itself & is the same one i've had with every Mario Kart before it and likely will continue to have based on Nintendo's refusal to acknowledge this gripe even as a hypothetical. It is far too limited in what from the Marioverse is being pulled from. I've felt this hurt for over a decade as someone who's very much rooted in the Mario RPG corner of the fandom. I just wish my corner wasn't considered too small/insignificant to throw even one bone to. And every other corner of the fandom who has experienced similar disregard should have at least one character as well, at least for subseries that are still actively running. Obviously there has to be some limit, but I think the current one is way too tight and opening it up to all currently running Mario-adjacent subseries, with maybe one or two bones for dormant subseries that have a notable cult following (like Wario Land), should be reasonable.
Yes there will be infighting about certain characters getting in over others, but that's always been the case even now (Kamek & the Koopalings being cut has already been taken out on the NPC drivers for example), and is just a reality of any fandom that shouldn't be taken as a reason to just not bother touching certain parts of it.
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I honestly find your "nitpicks" to be symptoms of a bigger problem concerning the design philosophy of Nintendo games and ergo they are bigger and more fundamental problems than your ongoing gripes with the roster and locales.

But one thing we can probably agree on is that this will not change and it's pointless expecting it when they print cash milking from the general audience regardless what they do. Evidently, in the end, these issues, even if they seem to affect you deeply enough to have you write paragraphs about this for decades, still weren't enough to put you off dropping 500 bucks for this. Not intending on looking down on your choices or anything, just making an observation.
 
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I skipped Mario Kart World entirely and just got Sonic Racing Crossworlds instead because I felt Mario Kart had deep running gameplay issues that were prevalent in the franchise for the longest time without being addressed (thanks to Nintendo's design philosophy of forcing you to enjoy the game exactly as they intended it -the update that added the most bare minimum sound options was one of the most pathetic sound mixing accessibility functionality I have ever seen in a video game) and I just plainly got sick and tired of its formula. So much racing games came out between Mario Kart 8's release (one of my most anticipated games of all time btw) and now that Mario Kart's formula simply dropped off hard. Baby Luigi being playable in this and parkour abilities isn't enough to save the gameplay.

Hopefully the new generation gets to enjoy Mario Kart while they can. Free Roam was something I would have loved had I been born earlier, if Mario Kart World was the second Mario Kart I ever played (though single player free roam honestly is a bunch of balls too). This old fart who has played Mario Kart since the 64 days is ready to move on.
 
AgentMuffin said:
The narrative around Galaxy 2 and its beckoning gas pedal is that you're supposed to keep jumping into new courses at a faster pace than the first game, and that's why they switched to a world map. The implementation of the world map menuing is actually much worse for this, though??
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Also, i forgot to mention the awkward shuffle they make you do with Hungry Lumas. In the first game, you just walk up, talk, and feed them. The sequel, which switched to a world map supposedly to speed up entering new galaxies, makes you go up to the map in order to take something off of the map, send it back to the map, and then go back into the map yourself, all with even more menuing at every stage of the process. This is somehow like a posterchild for worthless GamePad novelties without even being for Wii U.

Jasperemy said:
But anyway, my actual hot take that brought me to this thread is that I could go the rest of my life without hearing the Gusty Garden Galaxy music ever again and I'd be a happier person for it. The Galaxy soundtracks never landed as hard with me as it did for everyone else but I'm so sick of being gaslit into thinking I'm objectively wrong for not liking the Gusty Garden Galaxy music. (also the Koopa's Road remix but I don't like the original of that either)
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I love the soundtrack and i do not get what's so special about "Gusty Garden". To me, it's an amazing piece of music in a sea of amazing pieces of music, many of which are far more meaningful to me. I too am bitter that everyone treats it as self-evidently transcendent for reasons that are lost on me. Even the composers are in on it, already slipping the melody into other tracks in the same game. I hope you can find this affirming despite my feelings on the soundtrack overall. It seems like one is kind of a microcosm of the other.
 
AgentMuffin said:
I love the soundtrack and i do not get what's so special about "Gusty Garden". To me, it's an amazing piece of music in a sea of amazing pieces of music, many of which are far more meaningful to me. I too am bitter that everyone treats it as self-evidently transcendent for reasons that are lost on me. Even the composers are in on it, already slipping the melody into other tracks in the same game. I hope you can find this affirming despite my feelings on the soundtrack overall. It seems like one is kind of a microcosm of the other.
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I've generally grown frustrated with the orchestrated songs from 3D Mario games because everyone acts like they're the best pieces of music ever created in human history and it's my fault that I'm not that interested in them so yes, I do find it pretty affirming. My problem also extends beyond Galaxy, with Odyssey being a particularly bad offender because of songs like Cascade Kingdom or god forbid, Jump Up Superstar. I'm not going to say those are bad songs, they just don't like align with my tastes. It makes it extremely easy to get sick of these grand, orchestrated songs when they're already not for me but then they show up on every list ever of the greatest Mario/Nintendo music.

That being said though, I don't think the fans are entirely to blame because Nintendo shoves the same ~5-10 songs and motifs into everything to the point that I think people have gaslit themselves into liking them. See: Mario Maker 2 and the constant overuse of the sound effects that play music from 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy. I get why they would pick Slider, Delfino Plaza, and Gusty Garden but like, overexposure to something is a pretty guaranteed way to make me like it less.

If this made no sense, that's because it's 5:21 in the morning and I woke up like 20 minutes ago. Hopefully my points came across somewhat well though.
 
AgentMuffin said:
I love the soundtrack and i do not get what's so special about "Gusty Garden". To me, it's an amazing piece of music in a sea of amazing pieces of music, many of which are far more meaningful to me. I too am bitter that everyone treats it as self-evidently transcendent for reasons that are lost on me. Even the composers are in on it, already slipping the melody into other tracks in the same game. I hope you can find this affirming despite my feelings on the soundtrack overall. It seems like one is kind of a microcosm of the other.
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I totally agree with this too. Gusty Garden Galaxy has great music in its own right, but I never understood why people spoke of it as highly as they do, when in my opinion it isn't one of the standout tracks from the game, and there are several tracks from the game that I found a lot more memorable such as Space Junk Galaxy, Overture, Space Fantasy, Buoy Base Galaxy, and Melty Molten Galaxy.
 
I still hold the opinion that Mario Sports Mix has overall the best soundtrack in the Mario series. Wish more people would gloss up Feed Petey, Toad Park, Daisy Garden, Bob-omb Dodge, and so much more.
 
I really feel the relative absence of tracks like "Space Fantasy", "Pipe Interior", "Observatory Dome", "Space Athletic", and "Drip Drop Galaxy" in SMG2 (though "World 3" recently moved me to tears, so it's not all bad). The more ambient, synthetic half of the soundtrack is also emotionally affecting for me, perhaps even moreso than "Gusty Garden Galaxy" with how much it steps on "Egg Planet" and the far more formative experiences i had with that piece. (That has to be a hot take, right?)
 
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