At least the platformers do.
This is the reason the only Mario platformer I've played was the one with WART as the final boss (regardless of it being a rehash of an unrelated game). These recent ones are just bland.
Hoo boy! New Mario game!
Plot? Peach gets kidnapped without any retaliation whatsoever (despite the fact that she was capable of defeating Bowser, albeit only on one occasion).
Same old, same old. So that means the final boss is...
Bowser. Again.
Thank you sir. I'll buy a different game. I hear Skyward Sword is out.
And that's just it. Forget the fact that we've had THE SAME FREAKIN' SCENARIO FOR OVER 20 FREAKIN' YEARS, but even ZELDA has tried new things with their plots. Yeah, sure it involves Zelda being captured by a bad guy, but there's a different motive every time. And we don't constantly get Ganondorf as the final boss over and over and over and over again. It's just really, really lazy. And it's put me off from Mario games for a long time.
Get this. I've owned two Mario games over the course of my life thus far: Super Mario Advance and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
Both games with different plots.
Both games with different villains.
Both games that piqued my interest.
BECAUSE IT WASN'T THE, QUOTE AND UNQUOTE, CLASSIC ALL-TOO-FAMILIAR PLOT LINE (with extra emphasis on "line")!
Now it just feels like Nintendo is low on money and decides to give birth to yet another Mario game with a plot that a 2 year old could memorize just to make more dollars/yen.
AND I FRIGGIN' LOVE NINTENDO!
Just not so much for Mario.
Sure, I might be taking this way too seriously. But keeping things the same for this long goes beyond laziness.
I'm not going to bash on anyone who likes Mario. More power to ya. I won't say the games are bad, and that's not my point either. It's like reading your favorite book. You enjoy it over and again, but try reading that same book for the next 20 years and you'll toss it out to buy a brand new one so you can experience a different story.
That's what it is. There's just no innovation in regards to story. Sure, a plot as simple as that is a classic, but come on. There should be a moment where you say, "You know what? Maybe we can add something new to the story. You know, after TWENTY FRACKIN' YEARS!"
Come on, Mario. Step it up.
Funny you mention Zelda because my two favorite Zeldas don't even have Zelda or Ganondorf in them at all, plotwise, whereas every single one that does that isn't Wind Waker or Skyward Sword is pretty much bland city for me
There's a distinct difference between Zelda and Mario platformers that isn't just gameplay. Mario could care less about his platformer stories because his stories aren't why we play his platform games, and if they are why you play his platform games, then, well, no wonder you're disappointed. What is wrong with you, etc. etc..
Zelda doesn't have a huge emphasis on story either as evidenced by Zelda being the kidnap victim in 100% of the games she's in and the timeline literally just being put together because nobody would shut the hell up about it, but they definitely force it on a lot more because there's prose. Cutscenes to advance the plot. Cinematics and words and the like. And some of the stories, like Wind Waker, Majora's Mask, and Link's Awakening, are great. If the story is bad, like in Twilight Princess, then the game as a whole kind of suffers for it. Whereas in Mario, cutscenes are pretty much delegated to showing how Bowser kidnaps Peach and how you are going to get her back. Sunshine differs in that regard a bit because it has a story that they kind of put effort into but nobody seemed to like it. But a paper-thin story in the Galaxy games doesn't really prevent anybody from having fun with them because nobody cares. It's Mario, and he's in space. The story is literally just there to justify him being in space. Does a game about a plumber rescuing a princess from the clutches of a giant dragon-turtle-thing really need a deep, involved, complex story? People already can't stand the implications of Bowser's son in Sunshine.
Of course, I said "platform games" because the Mario stories in the RPGs obviously get a lot more work since they're a much bigger part of the game (and are one of the best parts of said games). But if you're expecting Peach to not get kidnapped in a Mario game, then, well, you're kind of dumb. Just not gonna lie.
Having said all that, New Super Mario Bros. 2 is a huge disappointment because there was literally nothing in it to distinguish it from other Mario games except the cannon levels. Of which there are five.
Yeah I'm fully aware that Mario doesn't stand out for his stories, but still...I'd like to be surprised once in a while. Instead, I can easily predict how a new game will turn out because it's a formula that's been done to death.
I tend to take an interesting story to heart. Otherwise, I'm not intrigued at all. I may be expecting too much out of Mario by this point. Hasn't changed for years and I don't expect it to either. Well, at least I have the non-platformer titles to look forward to.
(10-03-2012, 07:47 PM)DragonBoy Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah I'm fully aware that Mario doesn't stand out for his stories, but still...I'd like to be surprised once in a while. Instead, I can easily predict how a new game will turn out because it's a formula that's been done to death.
I tend to take an interesting story to heart. Otherwise, I'm not intrigued at all. I may be expecting too much out of Mario by this point. Hasn't changed for years and I don't expect it to either. Well, at least I have the non-platformer titles to look forward to.
You really
are expecting too much out of Mario. His games are meant for gameplay, though they've not been innovating in that department as much lately (NSMB2 is literally stagnant) so I wouldn't blame you.
But like I said, people hated the story in Sunshine so that's probably why Nintendo haven't been trying out a new story since. People didn't want them to, so they stopped.
Honestly, Mario needs more innovative and experimental game play these days. The only time he needs stories are in rpgs, but they need to be done well. Look at Mario and Luigi 1&3, lovely stories, and even somewhat more mature (I mean he was fighting terrorists, who sought control of countries rather than "OH LOOKIE I GOT A PRINCESZ" "FOR NO REAL REASON EITHER, THAN CREATING AN OBJECTIVE". While Mario and Luigi 2, had an interesting concept with time travel, the actual storyline was just plain dumb and rather uninteresting as a whole. I was severely disappointed with M&L2.
Each game did have new and interesting characters, while in the second I just felt they weren't really implemented well.
Also as far as Skyward Sword goes, yes it does have new main adversaries, but they truly aren't anything special and I honestly wish they would have done something much more creative with Ghirahim's fights. They were literally the same fight, just pumped up a bit in difficulty each time (the first part of his final fight does not count as a fight, it counts as a time filler). While the final boss is seemingly out of nowhere in regards to his design and doesn't really fit into game because of it. Not to mention this is very poor build up in terms of his fight, which was so easy the first Ghirahim fight actually seemed more like a final boss because you had to actually follow the movement of his hands( I actually had to fight him 5 to 6 times, before I actually got anywhere, where as the final boss (Demise) only took two tries to figure out his rather bland attack pattern even in the second half of the fight, and then defeat him).
the point of mario games isnt to be innovatives. its just to have an excuse for people to attach to a brand and be aware of what it will give them. mario games(the last two, to say) deliver zero to absolute no challenge at all for anyone who has some sort of experience, wich in turn end up being a rather overdone fomula that died back in the 90's -and that nintendo hasn't even bothered to improve/rework/bothered to do anything to it-.
however, if we give this game to a newer audience who lacks video game experience we get someone who actually can play this game and approach it without fear of it being too complicated. your average casual player with certainly find fun on it and since its related to mario(a face anyway they would know) you'd still get some sort of idea of whats going on. your mom, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. just show her that the A buttons makes mario jump and they'll probably figure out the rest.
On second thought Mario doesn't need too much innovation but it does need to gradually build in difficulty. Mario Galaxy 2 did this flawlessly.
I'd say my only gripe about Mario really comes in with the "New" series. The title in itself is an oxymoron now, it's not new at all.
At least games like 64, Sunshine and Galaxy come along to shake up things. Can't really form an opinion on Galaxy 2 as I haven't played it yet (sshhh, long story).
The 3D Mario games are always spectacular, fresh and innovative for the series. It's these "New" Mario games that really suck lately.
Sounds like someone hasn't played super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, as well as mario and luigi superstar saga, mario and luigi partners in time, as well as the paper mario games all of these are amazing mario games ^^
I always felt that Mario used to introduce new concepts in platform gaming.
There is no denying that Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced some pretty awesome ideas to the platform gaming environment, and from there we had Super Mario World, with introducing Yoshis and other awesome gameplay ideas.
Super Mario 64? I mean the list goes on with introducing new ideas that are exciting and fresh - the problem is that the gaming market has hit a sort of sudden brick wall where it doesn't know what to do any more and the ideas are running fairly dry. 3D is here in full force, HD is now old hat, 3D was a pile of shit, and all that's left is to use the console's gimmick to introduce new ways of playing. Touch screens are the newest fad in gaming, which is why I feel the Wii U might bring something new - like the Wii did for the Galaxy series. Whether that happens or not, we'll see.
But yeah, the NSMB series is just stale and repeated. Nothing new about it, it's just the same game multiple times with minor changes.
Everyone complained about Sunshine because of how different it was, now everyone complains about how the Mario games do the same things.
By the way I love Super Mario Sunshine.
People like Sunshine. They hated the story.
Next Mario game will feature a hedgehog princess that will fall in love with him, but Mario will never acknowledge that. Also Bowser will be a realistic fire breathing dragon. Mario will die in the end, just to be revived at the last minute by the 7 magical stars.
Mario '13
with the ability to fly on boxes by breakdancing on top of them
(10-04-2012, 03:22 AM)м▲я✞H Wrote: [ -> ]People like Sunshine. They hated the story.
I thought they hated the FLUDD. Never heard anyone complain about the story. I really like the story because it isn't rescuing Peach from Bowser... well not in the beginning. I like the fact that Mario had a different goal and motivation for once.