On the topic of character designs, it seems like everyone is going crazy over a Toad NPC who wasn't in the original version. They take it as concrete evidence of the idea that Nintendo have fully eased their supposed Mario mandates. Even Yahoo Finances of all outlets
reported on it.
And my reaction to this is... what's the big deal again? Only the usual attire and color has changed from the Toad template; the character otherwise doesn't have hair nor a different body shape. Toad designs in Color Splash and Origami King were afforded various wear too, and that happened during the "stringent" era of Paper Mario, no? Here are some examples from across these two games:
Am I missing something?