Mario Tennis Aces

Baby Luigi said:
They can give those games development time that they do need, for starters, if they expect us to be excited for those games instead of blowing them out as fast as they could, in the case of say, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash.

I don't think there's any excuse that games that are like, three generations old to have bigger rosters than these modern games. We should have bigger and better rosters, not this stagnant bs that's been happening where there are questionable removals such as those of Diddy and Birdo and the number of characters remains the same as a freaking GCN games.
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Money. Games are more expensive these days. I noticed this years ago when HD gaming started. All the HD sequels to series were shorter than their non HD counterparts.
 
I don't agree with the "games are more expensive to make" excuse for cutting content in video games, especially in a game like Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash which most people hated its puddle-shallow content for a good reason. I really think if Nintendo cared about time and effort in their Mario sports games, they would show it, and they do attempt to showcase this off in Mario Tennis Aces with a story mode and all, which is arguably better than Ultra Smash so far.

I'm cynical, and all I see from the lesser content of HD sequels or versions of video games or whatever is a way to maximize profit of a popular series. I'm glad Mario Tennis Aces doesn't partake in extra terrible monetization strategies unlike for other games which uses the "games are too expensive to make" excuse to shoehorn in microtransactions and loot-boxes, and while I do think it's early to criticize the game's content and their character roster, my fears about a disappointing character roster has pretty much jaded me over time and something I've come to expect.
 
Ultra Smash was a different beast. It was rushed out for christmas. This game isn't.
 
I still don't think any of this excuses strange omissions we have been receiving lately. Games do get more expensive to make, but the technology towards those games also gets cheaper to produce. I don't think it's an excuse for a game to forgo content for a new console installment regardless.
 
Imagine being a game developer who constantly has to keep up with expensive and difficult technology in an rapidly growing industry, only to be belittled by fans on an internet forum because these specific characters weren't programmed in the game instead of other characters under a time limit. No sane publisher is going to give a sports spin-off more than two years of development just so fans can fill out an arbitrary character checklist when money is being spent.

I'm not defending publishers selling incomplete games at full price (like Ultra Smash), but Tennis Aces seems to be anything but.
 
Then again, I still don't understand why Spike out of all characters. Even Sprixie Princess is less boring than Spike and that already has assets. Assuming, of course, Sprixie Princess doesn't return.
 
GmanSir said:
Imagine being a game developer who constantly has to keep up with expensive and difficult technology in an rapidly growing industry, only to be belittled by fans on an internet forum because these specific characters weren't programmed in the game instead of other characters under a time limit. No sane publisher is going to give a sports spin-off more than two years of development just so fans can fill out an arbitrary character checklist when money is being spent.

I'm not defending publishers selling incomplete games at full price (like Ultra Smash), but Tennis Aces seems to be anything but.
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The thing is, characters are a pretty huge deal in a Mario Tennis game. They're nearly the equivalent of playable fighters in Smash Bros. Each character offers a fairly unique play-style and offer their own strengths and weaknesses, even if someone like Mario and Luigi play similarly. Unlike say, Mario Kart, which can get away with a smaller character roster because of the focus on tracks, having a limited character roster in a game like this severely hurts replayability. This doesn't even include Doubles, where you can mix and match characters up.

Also, I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards the series if the roster didn't stay this stagnant. I still think it's a reasonable expectation for a newer generation game with better technology and better power and space to have more playable characters than a game that came out three generations ago. Not to mention, this isn't some small sports game by a smaller developer making its debut attempting to stand out from other competitors in the market. It's Mario Tennis. This game will sell well regardless. One of the main reasons Ultra Smash floundered was solely because it was on the Wii U and because it was rushed for holiday sales.

Mario Tennis is not as big as Mario Kart, sure, but because the first Mario Tennis games, like Mario Tennis 64 and Mario Power Tennis were actually great games that met expectations at the time, I expect Mario Tennis games to be as high-quality as when those games came out at the time. Mario Kart proves that you can keep a consistent quality that exceeds expectations, and I don't see why Mario Tennis necessarily needs to flounder or get hiccups like Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, Mario Sports Superstars, or even Mario Tennis Open to an extent because of the whole "games are too expensive to make" excuse.
 
Mario Kart sells far more than any sports game ever did. So it gets a bigger budget.

Believe me I wish we lived in a world where every new game in a series could get bigger and better with each new installment but we simply don't.

So it's really not all that reasonable an expectation these days I'm afraid.
 
Well, I think that they also have player analytic data that makes it seem like Diddy Kong and Birdo are among the least popular characters. Why do you think Pink Gold Peach exists? Because Metal Mario was very popular in Mario Kart 7, and they wanted a female counterpart.

They must have included Spike because of Mario Party 10. Also, notice that there are no clones in the roster this time around.
 
Pink Gold Peach doesn't exists out of Metal Mario's popularity.

Her presence is more pointed out to be because she was easy to make, she along with Baby Rosalina , were the final characters in MK8 , logically because they were the easiest things the could come out with.

Spike's inclusion doesn't necesarily tie with Mario Party 10, it doesn't even relate, the developers aren't the same and Spike is not a recurring enemy compared to Shy Guy for instance.

You can't even say that he was a popular pick in MP10 because that's not true.

His addition is just as random as Chain Chomp.

Player ''analytic'' is simply not working either because by this logic a lot of characters in Tennis would have been cut since Power Tennis.

Daisy, Toad, DK ... all unpopular picks in the lastest game.