It is fair to say that Luigi is overall more popular than Mario?

Who do you like more?

  • Mario

    Votes: 4 23.5%

  • Luigi

    Votes: 11 64.7%

  • Both more or less equally

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • Total voters
    17
winstein

winstein

Justice is not limited, it is a universal quality
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winstein
Although Mario has been the star ever since his debut in Donkey Kong, Luigi is considered more popular, at the very least among video game communities. I am not sure if Luigi is more popular than Mario on the outside, but I imagine that Mario's still popular since he's used more often on promotional materials, and he's the face of Nintendo. This is not surprising given that Mario was popular ever since his debut in Donkey Kong, and being designed as a versatile character that stars in some of the best-crafted games has given Mario his place.

On the internet, at the very least, Luigi is the face of certain moments that is considered favourable, or to simply put, meme (sorry I can't properly describe this term, so I have to use the actual word). Some popular ones include "Mama Luigi", "Weegee", "Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing" and "Luigi Death Stare" are among them. With the exception of Mama Luigi, I am not sure if the effect of the moment could properly be replicated by any other character, so for example, I can't imagine the "Daisy Death Stare" or "Donkey Kong wins by doing absolutely nothing" having the same impact. I guess it goes to show that there's something people see in Luigi that made his moments all the more memorable. If you were to press me on what the factor is, I would probably say that it's his versatility as a character that wouldn't be out-of-character for Luigi. Moments like this would likely be one reason Luigi is more popular than Mario, who while has some moments (such as "Mario Head"), didn't have the sheer amount of catchy moments as Luigi does.

Even in the Mario Awards, Luigi often gets a higher vote count for Favourite Major Character, which indicates that he is the most popular Mario character. In fact, Mario is not even considered the second-most popular (that goes to Yoshi)! Luigi didn't go unnoticed by Nintendo, as he's even got a year dedicated to him, and he's got some games focusing on him during this time, like New Super Luigi U, Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Luigi Bros. in Super Mario 3D World, and finally, Dr. Luigi. There's even a strong demand for Luigi being playable in games that didn't include this feature, including Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and most recently Odyssey.

Because of Luigi's popularity, I am beginning to think that liking Mario is considered an unpopular choice! I might be wrong regarding the big picture, so I would like to hear some thoughts on this matter.

Thank you for reading. I can imagine now: if there's a poll between Mario and Luigi, Luigi will definitely win out.
 
Anna said:
Well you know you're probably right because for at least the last three years Luigi has won favorite major character in our yearly awards and probably more. Heck two of the last three, YOSHI got second place and Mario got third.
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Come to think of it, the fact that there are more choices other than Mario and Luigi in those polls might not have been an accurate assessment on this topic. I mean, maybe someone's favourite character is Donkey Kong followed by Mario, so they would have picked DK instead of Mario. This is why I have prepared a poll just to gauge the opinions just between the two of them.

Thank you for reading.
 
It definitely feels like it sometimes, especially in online communities and on various social media platforms. Luigi's popularity has massively spiked a lot since 2013 and continues to grow rapidly with certain internet culture jokes like the infamous death stare and of course WEEGEE adding more fuel to the fire. Though I am happy to see things working out for the lean green ghost bustin' machine and hope things continue to prosper for him down the road.

That being said, I do also hope to see a resurgence in Mario's online popularity as well in hopes of maybe evening things out a bit.
 
Only for the "hardcore" (pft) fanbase. I'd say for the casual audience Mario is still more well liked.
 
i honestly wouldnt know because it always seems divided.

If you go outside and see the marketing and ask people , they would say Mario.

If you log in in forums and step in the warzones of the internet, they all hate Mario and praise any other character, Luigi being a perfect example because it seems he is quite popular with online fans.

Mario is realistically more popular worldwide though.
 
Not speaking for Charles Martinet since I do not know what he thinks, but I think that if you asked him who he likes to voice more, he would have chosen Mario over Luigi. It kind of shows: when you ask him to do Mario impressions, he would be able to do a lot with it. Assuming this is true, I feel this is a factor in Mario being more popular: the person who voiced him enjoys doing this, and it shows.

NanoRim said:
It definitely feels like it sometimes, especially in online communities and on various social media platforms. Luigi's popularity has massively spiked a lot since 2013 and continues to grow rapidly with certain internet culture jokes like the infamous death stare and of course WEEGEE adding more fuel to the fire. Though I am happy to see things working out for the lean green ghost bustin' machine and hope things continue to prosper for him down the road.

That being said, I do also hope to see a resurgence in Mario's online popularity as well in hopes of maybe evening things out a bit.
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With how much Luigi has been improved despite the purpose he's created (basically was created as a second player to accompany Mario), providing him with a distinct personality and adding tons of moments for him to shine really helped a ton in making Mario's brother famous and well-liked. I kind of wish certain other characters were given a similar sort of treatment... which is to say memorable moments that would define their character.

Thank you for reading.
 
Honestly, if you look at the sheer number of users on the wiki and boards that have Luigi in their usernames (including yours truly), you'll see that Luigi is very popular at least with people who are a big enough fan of the Mario franchise to make an account on either site.
 
I think Luigi is popular because he has more depth to him. Granted, it's still not a lot of depth, but he has a very distinct personality compared to Mario.
 
I think with a general audience, Mario is more popular but with a particular rather small subset of the audience, Luigi is generally liked more.
 
my speculation is Mario's more liked in general purely because he's the face of mario games and more people know who the flip he is
 
My wish is that Luigi stops being treated as being unpopular in the games, because he's already confirmed to be popular, so there's no point treating him as such in the games that would normally treat him as such, namely Mario & Luigi.

Shadowshy said:
my speculation is Mario's more liked in general purely because he's the face of mario games and more people know who the flip he is
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This is a good point. I think that Mario benefited from being the first of the two to exists, so when it's time for him to get a game starring him, Mario naturally got the title.

This brings up an interesting possibility: what would happen if Luigi were to replace Mario as the face of his franchise one day? Would Luigi being the face of the franchise benefit the franchise compared to when Mario were to be the star? I am talking large scale name replacements, like ""Luigi Kart", "Luigi Party" or even "Luigi Tennis", and of course, swapping Luigi as the face of the games as opposed to Mario.

Thank you for reading.
 
winstein said:
My wish is that Luigi stops being treated as being unpopular in the games, because he's already confirmed to be popular, so there's no point treating him as such in the games that would normally treat him as such, namely Mario & Luigi.
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The world the games take place in is not the same as real life. It's a joke on how Mario is a much more recognizable face, because for the most part he is.
 
For anyone that doesn't actually play the games much, Mario is more recognisable, but the majority of people who actually play Mario games a fair amount prefer Luigi because he has some personality, unlike Mario who's got pretty much no personality in the majority of the games. Just what I've found with friends irl and people on the internet in general.
 
It's no secret that I like Mario more and Mario is by far my favorite character of all time. Luigi's my second-favorite, however, and I feel people shouldn't always treat these two as if they're entirely independent on each other. They have the twin dynamic going on that I so hope won't get retconned one day, but this dynamic makes them play their personalities off each other. That means Luigi won't be quite the same or as interesting without Mario and vice-versa. It's why I don't like games where Luigi is missing. It just doesn't feel right. Luigi's personality benefits the most when Mario's around, as we have games like Dream Team and, of course, Luigi's Mansion that needs the brother relationship to work best. Mario is generally less dependent on Luigi's presence but it shouldn't have to be that way and IMO they're more interesting when they're together than when they're separate.
 
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