General Mario Thread

Also, are there anyone here who loves the Mario spinoffs? I do. Most of them never fall into crappy quality, landing somewhere between fun/enjoyable and good quality.

Mario spinoffs that I've played:

• Mario Golf N64 (enjoyed)
• Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (enjoyed)
• Mario Golf: Advance Tour (enjoyed)
• Mario Tennis N64 (enjoyed)
• Mario Tennis: Power Tour (enjoyed)
• Mario Party 1 (enjoyed)
• Mario Party 2 (enjoyed)
• Mario Party 3 (enjoyed)
• Mario Party 5 (enjoyed Super Duel Mode and some of the minigames)
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong (enjoyed)
• Mario Pinball (hated)
• Mario Strikers Charged (enjoyed)
• Mario Sports Mix (enjoyed, actually reminded me a bit of Camelot's Golf and Tennis series though it's not completely on par with those)

Didn't include the Mario Kart series as I have played most of them and I love all of them.

edited 28th Aug '11 3:36:35 PM by Folt

Mario Kart I find pretty good.

I don't play Mario sports so I can't give an opinion there.

Haven't played a Mario Party in a long time, but I remember them being good.

Mario Pinball is near impossible.

The Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi games are some of the best games out there, excellent writing and good battle mechanics.

Ah, so you count Mario RP Gs as spinoffs. I usually count them in a separate bunch, but they're all good to me, except Partners in Time (as I haven't played it so I can't comment on that one).

Ooh!

edited 28th Aug '11 6:12:20 PM by Folt

It's a pretty strange case that even the Mario spinoffs are of high quality. I've played a few myself and I know how awesome they are. It's like putting Mario into anything mysteriously makes it good.

Ahem.

I find the effort they put into the stories of the second and third Paper Mario games astounding, considering that the main series has a history for being light on the plot and characterization.

Is it weird that I think Dimentio's cool even though he's far from decent?

An article dealing with how Nintendo treats the Mario brand.

Most of the article didn't make much sense to me. Then again, I don't pay a lot of attention to Nintendo's advertising campaigns. Usually they're quick to advertise everything, and slow to create new games. Per this guy:

I just don't see it. Has anyone else noticed this?

I mean, Mario is a big deal for them. The treat him as iconic and it's no secret he's one of their biggest money makers. But I never got the impression Nintendo treated him with kid gloves. Just the opposite, really.

Exception to the rule. I think we can agree that most of the quality in Mario spinoffs are consistently high.

As for milking the Mario brand and treating him with kid gloves... I mostly got the feeling that the Mario brand is the brand that they use when they need to experiment with something new, or need to pioneer/test a genre. They could make new characters and enemies just for that and we'd usually be okay since the Mushroom Kingdom doesn't look alike in any of the games.

edited 29th Aug '11 3:59:16 AM by Folt

@Good Mario spinoffs: I love Luigi's Mansion, the Mario Kart series, and the Mario & Sonic series. I don't count the RPG's as spin-offs, either.

Why wouldn't the RPG's count as spinoffs...?

They just don't really seem like minor stories or anything, ya know?

@Folt: How about your take on why the RPG's don't seem like spin-offs?

edited 29th Aug '11 11:05:39 AM by Enzeru

Well, in my opinion, some of them surpasses some of the main Mario games in quality, and most of them I feel is on a higher level of quality than other spinoff games. That's why I keep them separate from other spinoffs.

EDIT: In other words, most Mario spinoffs are high quality or enjoyable games, but the Mario RP Gs are the only ones in my mind to actually reach or surpass the main Mario games when it comes to excellent quality. They feel more like main Mario games than spinoffs even though they are quite different from each other.

edited 29th Aug '11 11:13:44 AM by Folt

That's a pretty good way of putting how I feel about them, too.

X however: There's also Mario is Missing and Mario's Time Machine.

Ah, those two too. Still means that most Mario spinoffs have consistently high quality.

Now that's not bad animation.

It's certainly better than those Hotel Mario FMVs.

Speaking of not looking bad, I didn't know Galaxy could look awesome in 1080p.

That slowdown looks painful though.

I'm just wondering about many things about the Wii U Mario. Where can Mario go? He's been inside paintings, on a tropical island, and in space. What will they think of next?

Existential Mario fights himself within his own mind?

The real world, maybe? I could totally see that working, but I know that I'd be hearing screams of Ruined Forever until the game comes out, and then it will be known as a good Mario game on terms with Sunshine, or one of the greatest games ever alongside Galaxy and 64.

@waxingName Other franchises?

http://www.cracked.com/article_18863_5-reasons-bowser-most-successful-video-game-character.html?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=Tech&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=recommended

Funny article from Cracked. YMMW of course.

inb4 "Despite some mistakes in that article"

They forgot two reasons:

• Is such an incredible dancer that he can hold his own against, say, Ulala
• Would probably be able to satisfy anyone in bed