Dorayaki
King Bowser
In Mario game history, SMB games is somewhat infamous for the problem: keeping using similar damsel-in-distress stories regardless of innovation and story contradictions.
Since 3DS and WiiU come out, more and more titles we were familiar with get their sequels on 3DS and WiiU. However, is the thing for SMB getting to happen to these titles too?
Mario & Luigi series
In the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach's voice is stolen by the evil witch Cackletta and replaced with explosives. After being summoned to the palace by Toad, Mario and Luigi confront Bowser, who coincidentally was just attempting to kidnap Peach. Mario easily subdues him, and learns that Peach's voice was stolen. Bowser decides not to kidnap her now and teams up with Mario to retrieve her true voice back from the Beanbean Kingdom ......
Generally, even though the series do keep some story setting for their own, due to that it's an RPG story and things can't go back, each M&L game features a different core event and is still more innovative than SMB series.
However, we can feel that M&L stories are very close to SMB's backstories, for not using other main characters that seldom appear in SMB, and not as distinctive as Paper stories. In other word, it's like an addition to SMB stories.
About characters, besides Fawful who only apperared to be the bosses of the first three games of M&L, the biggest problem is absolutely Toadsworth, who is questioned for being a Toad lead but absent in recent SMB and spinoffs as a host. Starlow is to be determined, since she just replaced Stuffwell in the first two games and her future is not certain.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong series
With the grand opening for the "Super Mini-Mario World" amusement park based on the highly successful mechanical toys developed by the Mini-Mario Toy Company, Immediately following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mario presents his VIP guest Pauline with a Mini-Mario toy, while at the same time Donkey Kong offers her a Mini-Donkey Kong toy. When Pauline chooses the Mini-Mario toy, Donkey Kong becomes infuriated and storms off with her. Mario, unable to follow, sends the Mini-Mario toys in pursuit to save Pauline.
We know this series try to remake the old arcade Donkey Kong game into a format that new fans can understand more easily. It's also nice to explain more about the relationships between Mario and DK.
However, simply in a view that making Mario series and DK series crossover, it's questioned for lack of participation of both Mario and DK's acquaintances (Diddy, Dixie, Toad, Peach etc), while Nintendo intended to make Pauline return and be a regular character. As result, we have no chance to see interactions between Pauline and other characters created after her, and we know very little about Pauline herself (at least her personality, her career).
Though the ideas of toys and fairyland background are nice, the intention to focus on DK and Mario seems too deliberate.
Luigi's Mansion
Luigi, having won a mansion in a contest he didn't even enter, enters the Boo Woods and locates it. He enters the mansion and is soon attacked by ghosts, but Professor E. Gadd appears and fights off the ghosts with a vacuum. He tells Luigi that the mansion appeared out of thin air and is an illusion, and that Mario was captured by the ghosts living within the mansion. He trains Luigi to use his vacuum invention, the Poltergust 3000, to vacuum up ghosts and the Game Boy Horror to communicate with E. Gadd and see a map of the mansion. He had several ghosts captured and turned into portraits, but they were released by King Boo.
Well, it's too early to call it a series, but we can clearly see that the sequel did few things to make a different story in the same theme. The series not only give Luigi a title, but also make good use of his own personality.
It's nice for King Boo make his major boss appearance in this title, BUT they waste a good chance for Daisy to be a major heroine.. However, compared with King Boo who frequently make guest in many other games, E. Gadd seems not so lucky. More clearly, Gadd is similar with Toadsworth, who appeared frequently at first but is almost forgotten in any other recent game. And ironically Crygor, another scientist created lately, might have better times than his in Wario games.
The real problem could be that even though some original titles were nice at first, Nintendo just try to give new sequels to each titles instead of giving more original games. Especially that Paper series can give more freshness by using a totally different story in its seqeul than any other series above.
And same for SMB games, we can hardly see the common things from general Mario World in these games. Rather than Wario and DK games who have a better natural boundary line with SMB, the titles mentioned above are mostly around SMB or Mario bros themselves, which is very hard to draw a line with each other. Some characters (Toadsworth, Pauline, Gadd) are considered as regulars but can't appear in many other games as other Mario regulars do.
SMB is definitely a problem, but I'm not sure if these series are a problem that Nintendo should deal with. We might see the same thing next year or on new consoles (4DS, WiiV), but I believe there are many fans who would like to go with a similar feel for M&L. Maybe the staff should try some innovaition but still don't disgress from the theme of titles.
No matter what, we know who are to be blamed for sure.
Since 3DS and WiiU come out, more and more titles we were familiar with get their sequels on 3DS and WiiU. However, is the thing for SMB getting to happen to these titles too?
Mario & Luigi series
In the Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Peach's voice is stolen by the evil witch Cackletta and replaced with explosives. After being summoned to the palace by Toad, Mario and Luigi confront Bowser, who coincidentally was just attempting to kidnap Peach. Mario easily subdues him, and learns that Peach's voice was stolen. Bowser decides not to kidnap her now and teams up with Mario to retrieve her true voice back from the Beanbean Kingdom ......
Generally, even though the series do keep some story setting for their own, due to that it's an RPG story and things can't go back, each M&L game features a different core event and is still more innovative than SMB series.
However, we can feel that M&L stories are very close to SMB's backstories, for not using other main characters that seldom appear in SMB, and not as distinctive as Paper stories. In other word, it's like an addition to SMB stories.
About characters, besides Fawful who only apperared to be the bosses of the first three games of M&L, the biggest problem is absolutely Toadsworth, who is questioned for being a Toad lead but absent in recent SMB and spinoffs as a host. Starlow is to be determined, since she just replaced Stuffwell in the first two games and her future is not certain.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong series
With the grand opening for the "Super Mini-Mario World" amusement park based on the highly successful mechanical toys developed by the Mini-Mario Toy Company, Immediately following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mario presents his VIP guest Pauline with a Mini-Mario toy, while at the same time Donkey Kong offers her a Mini-Donkey Kong toy. When Pauline chooses the Mini-Mario toy, Donkey Kong becomes infuriated and storms off with her. Mario, unable to follow, sends the Mini-Mario toys in pursuit to save Pauline.
We know this series try to remake the old arcade Donkey Kong game into a format that new fans can understand more easily. It's also nice to explain more about the relationships between Mario and DK.
However, simply in a view that making Mario series and DK series crossover, it's questioned for lack of participation of both Mario and DK's acquaintances (Diddy, Dixie, Toad, Peach etc), while Nintendo intended to make Pauline return and be a regular character. As result, we have no chance to see interactions between Pauline and other characters created after her, and we know very little about Pauline herself (at least her personality, her career).
Though the ideas of toys and fairyland background are nice, the intention to focus on DK and Mario seems too deliberate.
Luigi's Mansion
Luigi, having won a mansion in a contest he didn't even enter, enters the Boo Woods and locates it. He enters the mansion and is soon attacked by ghosts, but Professor E. Gadd appears and fights off the ghosts with a vacuum. He tells Luigi that the mansion appeared out of thin air and is an illusion, and that Mario was captured by the ghosts living within the mansion. He trains Luigi to use his vacuum invention, the Poltergust 3000, to vacuum up ghosts and the Game Boy Horror to communicate with E. Gadd and see a map of the mansion. He had several ghosts captured and turned into portraits, but they were released by King Boo.
Well, it's too early to call it a series, but we can clearly see that the sequel did few things to make a different story in the same theme. The series not only give Luigi a title, but also make good use of his own personality.
It's nice for King Boo make his major boss appearance in this title
The real problem could be that even though some original titles were nice at first, Nintendo just try to give new sequels to each titles instead of giving more original games. Especially that Paper series can give more freshness by using a totally different story in its seqeul than any other series above.
And same for SMB games, we can hardly see the common things from general Mario World in these games. Rather than Wario and DK games who have a better natural boundary line with SMB, the titles mentioned above are mostly around SMB or Mario bros themselves, which is very hard to draw a line with each other. Some characters (Toadsworth, Pauline, Gadd) are considered as regulars but can't appear in many other games as other Mario regulars do.
SMB is definitely a problem, but I'm not sure if these series are a problem that Nintendo should deal with. We might see the same thing next year or on new consoles (4DS, WiiV), but I believe there are many fans who would like to go with a similar feel for M&L. Maybe the staff should try some innovaition but still don't disgress from the theme of titles.
No matter what, we know who are to be blamed for sure.
