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Post by Flip on Apr 26, 2008 9:06:10 GMT -5
Mario Golf was just Hot Shots 64 before Camelot asked to include Mario, Mario Hoops was just "Generic Square Basketball" until they asked to include Mario, and I bet your ass Mario Kart was "Generic New Kart Racing Game" until Miyamoto felt it needed Mario. Mario is just one of those franchises where you can put it on anything to either help it sell or help it make sense.
I remember when I got the original Mario Baseball, it became a huge hit in the dorm and people would just show up with their own personal teams and lineups on a piece of paper, then duke it out in mini-tournaments. It was amazing, and when I asked one guy why he liked it so much he says: "I just love the fact that Mario and Bowser and all their friends just keep fighting again and again, but then can take a break from being evil to each other to go out and play a game of baseball together. It's hilarious!"
And I would say that's the added appeal. Many critics argue that if you remove the Mario (or for that matter, Nintendo) from games like Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Mario Tennis, etc., then it becomes just a generic sports title. But in my mind, they're inseparable. They're all part of the experience. That's like saying if you remove the big names of Skywalker or Harry Potter or Indiana Jones from their respective franchises then they become cookie-cutter stories, but that's not their appeal. People come for the personality, not for the damn plotline. And that's why those critics are wizzleheads ;p
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Post by TV Eye on Apr 26, 2008 10:47:41 GMT -5
That's a good point, Flip. I remember in Mario Golf, I never played as the human characters. Even though you just started out with two generic humans, Baby Mario, and Birdo (I think) I would just use Baby Mario until I unlocked more characters.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2008 11:14:20 GMT -5
I hated Mario Golf for the explicit reason of being forced to play as the generic people in order to unlock Mario characters for various other modes. My friends and I only ever touched the minigolf mode because at least there you could use Mario, Wario and Luigi right off the bat.
I also hated Mario Superstar Baseball, but largely because getting some characters to Superstar status was im-fucking-possible. It required you to have one particular scenario occur by happenstance, and you needed to follow through with the execution correctly - not fun. Add to the fact that Bowser's team cheated regardless of the difficulty you played on, it made the game more frustrating than entertaining.
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Post by Manspeed on Apr 26, 2008 14:21:01 GMT -5
I thought Mario Superstar Baseball's control scheme needed work, and Mario Golf and Tennis were better on the N64 than on the GCN. Other than that, the only games I disliked in the series were Mario Golf GBA and Mario Tennis GBA, if only because they were technically "Golden Sun Golf" and Golden Sun Tennis". Really.
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Post by Da Robot on Apr 26, 2008 18:27:39 GMT -5
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Post by Manspeed on Apr 26, 2008 20:12:43 GMT -5
That billboarding technique they used used to creep me out.
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Post by Flip on Apr 27, 2008 22:54:50 GMT -5
Oy vey... And yeah, billboarding was creepy as hell.
Didn't one of the Mario Party games have Mario Hockey, Volleyball, Poker, and something else? I know MP4 let you unlock Volleyball, but I recall that 5 had other stuff as well.
Also, why are we forgetting Strikers? Those are actually pretty damn good games.
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Post by Sqrt2 on Apr 28, 2008 7:03:01 GMT -5
Also, why are we forgetting Strikers? Those are actually pretty damn good games. I'd say that Strikers was average at best (but considerably better than Strikers Charged). The one reason I didn't own the original Mario Baseball was of the 'cheating' AI (especially when it's the computers turn to field). And I'm not even gonna mention how bad, baseball in Wii Sports is - if this is anything like that, you can count me out. |
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Post by Dances in Undergarments on Apr 28, 2008 8:15:49 GMT -5
How was the original Strikers better than Strikers charged? Far as I can tell Strikers charged is just the original plus more of everything.
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Post by Sqrt2 on Apr 28, 2008 9:24:17 GMT -5
I think the controls are better in strikers, I can't do perfect passes in Charged, and in the original I'm not usually 5-0 down after 30 seconds.
So that's why. ;D
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2008 11:10:17 GMT -5
Hnn, forgot about Strikers...nah, not a big fan of that, either. There's just way too much going on at once that it's impossible for me to keep track of what's going on.
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Post by Smashchu on Apr 28, 2008 12:31:53 GMT -5
I loved Strikers. Crazy zany fun but in a different light. Baseball was also my favorite sport in Wii Sports. Just the AI was better then me.
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Post by Boo Destroyer on May 8, 2008 14:28:18 GMT -5
What I'm not getting is, if they can have multiple Mario characters playable in these kinds of games, why not in the story-driven ones?
Then again, close enough with 64 DS.
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Post by Manspeed on May 8, 2008 16:59:47 GMT -5
I've been wanting that since Mario Party 1. Always felt it should've been a massive platformer adventure with all the stuff it had going on in it.
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Post by Dances in Undergarments on May 8, 2008 19:05:28 GMT -5
What I'm not getting is, why would you want that? Look at Sonic's crappy 'play as every one of his shitty friends' games. Do we really want Mario to do that?
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