In terms of Mario games, whenever
Daisy and/or Waluigi are involved in a significant manner, I appreciate that game even more. Those two are somehow dismissed for being active in spin-offs in a way that none of the other characters were, and it's wild how it got to that point. Perhaps the chastise they get kind of made me pity them. For example, I consider Daisy to be the most exciting addition to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, even more than Sora, Steve, Sephiroth, or the various guest fighters. Waluigi appearing in Game & Watch Gallery 4 is something to appreciate, since it was the last of the series and I am glad to see him get in when it still continued. If a future Mario RPG has at least one of them in a significant manner (so not like Thousand Year Door where the Waluigi costume was a bonus), it would be a dream come true.
On a more "I feel represented so I appreciate it" manner, whenever a game has something in relation to
Malaysia, like even putting the flag as an option, I feel like this country is noticed. It sounds very cheesy or silly to some people, perhaps a bit nationalistic too, but it's the little things that I love. I need to point out that Mario Kart Tour has courses based on its neighbouring countries (Thailand and Singapore), and personally speaking, I doubt there will be a Malaysia course by the time the game's service end in the future.
To a lesser extent, whenever a
Chinese being represented in video games, it is also really great, especially when done tastefully. It's not uncommon for a character to be represented, for we have characters like Chun-Li for example, or for the culture or story to be represented like Suikoden. A character/setting being represented is one thing, but it's another thing when it developed as a Chinese game. I recently finished a game called "重明鸟Bright Bird" (developed in China), which is a game with gorgeous art inspired by ancient Chinese art, and represents Chinese culture too! In fact, the Mario series heavily references Japanese culture (no guesses on why, you know because Mario is being developed by a Japanese company), but if Mario references something Chinese, I would really appreciate it (the only instance I can think of that references China is the Chai Kingdom in Super Mario Land). You have Mario dressed in various traditional Japanese dresses, but Chinese? I don't feel like there is any official one that I even drew up one:
Finally, the
photoshoot feature. Super Mario Odyssey introduced the ability to not only freeze the scene to take a picture, but also apply various types of filters. Together with how Mario gets to dress in lots of different clothes, I really love this flexibility in how to set up Mario. Smash Bros. technically have the ability to take photos from a frozen scene, but for me, Super Mario Odyssey's implementation made it quite fun that I find myself doing it whenever inspiration strikes.
Thank you for reading.
