What would the next big Mario game be like?

[jmdblazer]

After playing further in Superstar Saga, I did find all of the Koopalings in Bowser's Castle near the end of the game.

[Zarkanthesmasher]

Easy - it will be like Super Mario Galaxy, only with even more crazy stuff and more references to old mario games. Yeah, real original, aren't I?

[The Chef]

The Koopalings in M&L:SS have no dialog, no souls, no real purpose other than to make Bowser's Castle harder. That and, it's fan service. They may as well have brought back Wart, Tatanga and Stanley the Bugman while they were at it. I wouldn't be surprised if they were added at the last second before the game got released.

What makes you think they couldn't have been anything more than that? There's a thing in this world called "potential". Even Waluigi has it.

[Crazee]

I'd kind of like a Mario game with multiple playable characters, where each character has a different storyline that helps you see the whole picture after you beat them all. It's not very Mario-ish, but it would be interesting and unique enough as a gimmick but still hold to Mario tradition.

[Linkin800]

I always wished for a Mario platforming game that had the same exploration as the Zelda games, so you could explore the whole Mushroom Kingdom.

Oh and is'nt the Koopalings in Super Princess Peach as lost sprites?

[BP]

What makes you think they couldn't have been anything more than that? There's a thing in this world called "potential". Even Waluigi has it.

My point is that it is never used. They will never be given extensive dialog or complex roles. Mario games are pretty simple in that department--nice and easy with the main character count. Eight villains with full voice acting and individual personalities... I can only predict failure. But ignoring all of THAT... I don't see how, in a game with zero dialog, a mummified Pokey boss, a giant Cheep Cheep boss, a giant Goomba boss, a flying Piranha Plant boss, a heavily-armed Rocky Wrench boss and a violent Lakitu boss could possibly be less appreciated than seven larger-than average Koopas with spiky shells.

[CrossEyed7]

Still, seven or eight different looking Koopas would have been better than the same Koopa seven times as midworld bosses.

[The Chef]

Bird Person, if I could send you a copy of Yoshi's Safari with a Super Scope, I honestly would. The Koopalings appeared in that, and had the most varied attack patterns ever. The bosses in NSMB were just plain and generic.

[Reading]

No.  Sega did that with Sonic, and look what happened to him.  Save the the big story lines for the RPGs.

I think the problem has less to do with the story and more to do with gameplay issues. Sonic Adventure 2 had a darker story, and I loved that game. I played Shadow for about 5 minutes and I haven't played "06", but on The Sonic Stadium 06's review actually praised the story-the gameplay faults were what brought the game down. I really, really want to play 06...

I would support a darker, more complex Mario game as well, as long as they still gave the kids something to enjoy. Actually, there's a problem-I'm interested in darker plots and environments, I dislike Mario being thought of as a "kid" franchise, I'm not willing to abandon Mario in favor of something darker, and I think Mario still needs to appeal to the kids. It's an endless loop that I solve by creating my own Mario adventures.

[The Chef]

Here's a pretty decent article from a discontinued blog about ways to make Mario appear less "kiddy" in certain people's minds without overdoing it.

[Trainman]

Well every game should look like or better than galaxy now or Brawl.

Mario Kart Wii- Too much like a desaturated Double Dash (but fun nonetheless.) I think MKWii could've easily looked like Galaxy, at least.

Strikers series- Awesome, actually a concept of time because there are actual shadows and some places are set in the evening, basically. I really, really, hate generic round or dodecagonal shadows under EVERYTHING besides Mario. Also, Mario has a more serious kind of attitude, always looking likes he ****ed/he's a lot cockier, which is cool. (Use that in the next Mario)

I've always envisioned a Mario side scroller that goes like kill-a-guy extreme old-school bringing back everything from the old ones but looking like Brawl (Mushroomy Kingdom, folks) minus the wasteland look. I'd save it for a SMB3 World 2 type thing. Basically, take NSMB, Wii it up, make it cooler, take out those weird, new shell enemy thingies in world 5, and make it about 75 times harder and longer.

Grass is actually blowing in the wind, question blocks glow and illuminate things around them, especially in an evening or night level. In the night it'll be clear enough to see galaxies from SMG or see star bits. You might see Rosalina and the observatory rocket by (don't give me the "she only comes once in 100 years" crap because she's apparently chillin' at Mario's house or the observatory since she's in Mario Kart). Give a sense of time going by!! The smiling clouds in the background should look real and start transforming into cumulonimbus clouds thus turning into an angry face and have a storm happening in the distance (Thank God for SMRPG and MK:SC for bringing them rain for once); have a rainy level for once! The storm could come by and drench you, graze you, completely miss you, etc. When you hit blocks they blow a bit of dust out and crumble to the ground rather than turning into 4 little blocks and falling into the "boyfriend box" (heard from a post long ago). You should see houses, tracks from Mario Kart in the distance, old levels set up in the background, questions blocks and music note blocks floating about in the background (just like the SMW cartoon). Whatever object you're going to encounter on the mini-map (toad house, etc.) should show up in the background when you get to towards the end of the level that precedes it. For example, NSMB- when you go to a warp cannon, the world shown has the corresponding level background for it, which is enjoyable.

Music- All the oldies and some new ones but orchestrated with a beautiful concert feel, i've always like violin parts in mario stuff. do it again!

Tons more ideas, but I've typed too much and forgot some, but you catch my drift.

[Zarkanthesmasher]

Well every game should look like or better than galaxy now or Brawl.

Mario Kart Wii- Too much like a desaturated Double Dash (but fun nonetheless.) I think MKWii could've easily looked like Galaxy, at least.

Strikers series- Awesome, actually a concept of time because there are actual shadows and some places are set in the evening, basically. I really, really, hate generic round or dodecagonal shadows under EVERYTHING besides Mario. Also, Mario has a more serious kind of attitude, always looking likes he ****ed/he's a lot cockier, which is cool. (Use that in the next Mario)

I've always envisioned a Mario side scroller that goes like kill-a-guy extreme old-school bringing back everything from the old ones but looking like Brawl (Mushroomy Kingdom, folks) minus the wasteland look. I'd save it for a SMB3 World 2 type thing. Basically, take NSMB, Wii it up, make it cooler, take out those weird, new shell enemy thingies in world 5, and make it about 75 times harder and longer.

Grass is actually blowing in the wind, question blocks glow and illuminate things around them, especially in an evening or night level. In the night it'll be clear enough to see galaxies from SMG or see star bits. You might see Rosalina and the observatory rocket by (don't give me the "she only comes once in 100 years" crap because she's apparently chillin' at Mario's house or the observatory since she's in Mario Kart). Give a sense of time going by!! The smiling clouds in the background should look real and start transforming into cumulonimbus clouds thus turning into an angry face and have a storm happening in the distance (Thank God for SMRPG and MK:SC for bringing them rain for once); have a rainy level for once! The storm could come by and drench you, graze you, completely miss you, etc. When you hit blocks they blow a bit of dust out and crumble to the ground rather than turning into 4 little blocks and falling into the "boyfriend box" (heard from a post long ago). You should see houses, tracks from Mario Kart in the distance, old levels set up in the background, questions blocks and music not blocks floating about in the background (just like the SMW cartoon). Whatever object you're going to encounter on the mini-map (toad house, etc.) should show up in the background when you get to towards the end of the level that precedes it. For example, NSMB- when you go to a warp cannon, the world shown has the corresponding level background for it, which is enjoyable.

Music- All the oldies and some new ones but orchestrated with a beautiful concert feel, i've always like violin parts in mario stuff. do it again!

Tons more ideas, but I've typed too much and forgot some, but you catch my drift.

I would love something just like that - except that if it was 75 times harder than NSMB, it would basically be Lost Levels on a gallon of steroids. I don't think very many fans would play that for more than a few minutes. :P

[Turtlekid1]

Whoa.  That was pretty well thought-out. 
75x longer?  Heck yeah.
75x harder?  Not so much.

[Trainman]

I just noticed and fixed an error: When I said "you should see question blocks and music not blocks" I meant note blocks.

Anyway, 75x longer would be awesome. I dunno, I'm gonna have to say at least 70x harder because NSMB was the one of the FASTEST, EASIEST platformers I've ever played, and Galaxy was waaaaaaay too easy, btw, also.

A STRONG, VERY EMPHASIZED sense of continuity should happen in the next platformer, not story-wise, but series-wise, such as seeing SMB3 blocks (the ones with screws) in the ground like in SMG and Mario Kart, or Cheep-Cheeps and Bloopers flying around bodies of water in the background. Maybe when you're on a a beach level you can see the SMRPG world, or Isle Delfino in the distance! Maybe even SMW's world map and the smoke from Yoshi's House! Nintendo probably wouldn't like to do that though. It's ALWAYS 99% about gameplay, then how everything should look. I think that really, really isolates where the game is taking place to a player. "Oh it's happening in the Mushroom Kingdom, duh of course." ....Well, WHERE? In relation to what? Is World 2 of SMB3 near the border of Bean Bean Kingdom (they're putting an illegal immigration fence up in the Mushroom Kingdom, I hear), is Mario Circuit 3 from SMK near Mario Circuit from Wii? Is Nintendo going to sentence us to a world of 10 foot wide pathways with the abyss on either side like portrayed in Super Paper Mario in 3D going everywhere?
Why is Mario Kart 64 the only game to continue the exact look of Peach's castle from SM64 on Peach Raceway, but not any others? Do they just hire hundreds of Toad contractors over the years to tear up all the racetracks and build another around it... and redesign the castle every single game? Must be costing them billions of coins. No wonder Mario isn't ditching the overalls.

Turtlekid1, zarkanthesmasher, I'm actually really glad you appreciate what I've always thought a Mario game should be. Usually it's ignored with everyone arguing about a post right after mine saying, for example: "THE NEXT MARIO SHOULD BE THE NEXT MARIO and It WiLL be NEaT."

[Chupperson Weird]

Dude, continuity and Mario don't mix.