General Mario Thread

They sort of have personalities now. I think. At least some do. Let's see. Ludwig is a composer, and possibly an evil mastermind. At least he acts like it, if his harumphing is anything to go by. Wendy likes to sing, but I like thinking of her as a spoiled brat. I think Roy is a tough guy 'cuz he wears sunglasses. Morton is named after a talk show host so I like to think he shares his cartoon counterpart's penchant for talking a lot. I think Iggy is supposed to be a mad scientist. Lemmy is a total nut and would rather go join the circus than fight the Marios. And I have no idea what Larry's deal is. I couldn't tell you one thing about him.

Larry: I'm the baby, gotta love me!

Maybe it's cause of their appearances in the cartoons or because they just aren't memorable bosses(At least with Mario 3 and World, been awhile since I played NSMB Wii and I never played any of the New series after that one), but I've never been a fan of the Koopalings.

I've never liked the Koopalings, either.

They were okay in SMB 3 and SMW. Their cameo in Superstar Saga was nice, and their reappearance in NSMB Wii was surprising.

Now that they're a series staple they're not as exciting since everyone expects them, though.

I have to agree that the Koopalings have been abused too much. Especially since, with the exception of Ludwig, their tactics have barely changed, and they're still easy. Why is it that the 3D Mario games can offer unique bosses while the 2D games are stuck with seven musician-named reptiles?

NSMB for DS may have been far from perfect, but at least it had its own bosses. And several of the other Nintendo series (Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid) have had new bosses per game aside from a few veterans like Gohma, Ganon and Ridley.

So I'd say Paper Jam is looking pretty good:

http://nintendonews.com/2015/11/mario-luigi-paper-jam-review-3ds/

I wish that he had gone into more detail about the story...

I know that it's technically the least important part of a game, but it's an RPG...

Some people set themselves up for disappointment when it comes to the story. Like, I've seen people go "Maybe Dimentio, or Fawful, or even CACKLETTA will team up together to stop the Bros.! It'll be the best game ever!" Like, that sounds like fanfiction material. Besides, they're all dead. Cackletta had her SOUL destroyed, Dimentio died (albeit he was able to leave a shadow behind), and Fawful exploded. This isn't a Bowser situation, them mofos are D E A D.

The story in the previous games were all just passable at best. It's not important here. Writing is important, and it seems that is top notch as usual. Reviews are indicating it's better than Dream Team, but still worse than Bowser's Inside Story.

I might be interested in getting Paper Jam well along with Fire Emblem Fates when I get more money. I wonder if they will do DLC for the game.

edited 30th Nov '15 9:25:14 PM by Mizerous

I'm feeling better about Paper Jam at this point. Maybe I'll look into getting it at some point now. (Probably once I finish Dream Team.)

I'm not going to be particularly excited until we see more original generation presence. One of the worst parts of Sticker Star was the lack of any non-main-series characters or enemies.

Reviews have said that there are basically no original characters. I think the meat of the funny stuff is in the interactions between the regular and paper counterparts, though I've just skimmed reviews to keep spoilers to a minimum personally.

It doesn't need new characters specifically because it's a crossover. The point of a crossover is to utilize what characters already exists and have them interact with each other.

Except it doesn't even seem to utilize any characters from either the M&L or Paper Mario series outside of Starlow. It's all main-series Mario characters.

So, wait, this game features interaction between the normal and paper characters?

...did we just go multiversal?

Yes.

But just the main-series staples like Mario, Luigi, Bowser, and Peach.

No, say, Popple interacting with Ms. Mowz.

Now that would be an interesting interaction. Thief vs. thief. Seems like a missed opportunity to not have characters from both series play off one another.

I very strongly suspect that the spinoff games are no longer allowed to use RPG-exclusive characters. See, that'd be way too creative and interesting, so Shigeru Miyamoto put a stop to it.

"STOP! What are you idiots doing? You're making this game all wrong! The villain show be Bowser, and the levels need to be grasslands, desert, ice world, jungle, and lava castle in that order! Don't you know anything about how to make a proper Mario game?"

It's very suspicious.

I mean, I know Miyamoto asked them to tone down the story for Super Mario Galaxy 2 (and despite the game still being good, I think it was a bad decision) but I can't understand how someone who is all about creativity would actively seek to stifle creativity just because he thinks story shouldn't be more important than gameplay.

I mean, he's not wrong, but there's nothing wrong with a good story. It can enhance the gameplay really.

I don't know what's going on with the Rpg spin-offs, but I won't deny I'm a little concerned.

I'd say it's a misguided attempt at unifying the Mario series and its spin offs in terms of themes. Personally, I hope that this is going to be a temporary Dork Age they're going through with the Mario RP Gs being restrained like that with their stories, because I'd really like them to go back to how they used to do it in the GBA / Game Cube and Wii eras, where the RP Gs were positively wacky (the Shroobs, for instance, or Super Paper Mario's multidimensional fuckery that included one world getting completely erased and a very creepy child that went The Exorcist on us for her transformation sequence)

edited 2nd Dec '15 6:37:30 AM by Jaryl

Miyamoto didn't order IS or Alphadream to not have story or new characters. He recommended to IS that Sticker Star not be too like TTYD, and the rest is all on them. Not completely sure on Paper Jam, but it seems to be more of an asset reuse issue then being against new characters.

I can see why he'd say that to try and make them do something creating and unique but TTYD was such a fantastic game that I don't think it was a good idea.

Not to mention that Miyamoto thinks Sticker Star shouldn't be TTYD 2, but he seems to have no problem with New Stagnant Mario Bros.