Support NeoGAF

[Red Devil]

Story.

Doesn't look more complex than Sunshine or Galaxy.

Currency.

Blue coins but in a different color and in a variety of shapes?

Shops/stores.

Yes, but not sure if that was a taboo, again it sort of existed in Sunshine.

Open World.

Not really new, they're just bigger this time around.

Realistic locals.

Now this is the only thing I could think of these was a taboo, but then again it seems to be one world of the whole game.

An actual lyrical theme song.

It's new, but I don't think it was a taboo.

Does anyone know if there is a way to increase the number of hearts Mario has? RPG lite type element?

There's a heart with a crown item, Life-up Heart, it raises your lifebar to 6.

 

[Piscus]

If I laid out this wish list for a 3D Mario platformer game before Odyssey's announcement, I would have been tarred and feathered out of Gaf. Seemingly all fans ever want out of the franchise was to dump Mario in a platformer, no cutscenes or story to speak of, no hubs, no anything other than the game, the end. Maybe a credits sequence.

What are you talking about? GAF has crapped on Mario for years for lacking more, especially if you look at the NSMB series

Spoiler

(I know you said 3D, but still)

.

 

[Lynx_7]

I don't really disagree with OP's premise. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you made a thread a few years ago describing the ideas that have been implemented in Odyssey as a personal wishlist or article, I'm pretty sure there would be significant backlash against it. I also imagine someone describing BOTW before its reveal as a "things I want in the next Zelda" would see similar pushback (open world? RPG elements? Crafting and light survival elements? No item progression? GTFO here).
Fanbases in general will defend any given direction a series is currently heading towards and reject significant changes until they actually get something different. At least that's what I get from quite a few discussions about shaking up certain franchises.

 

[Classicblunder]

- Change in Mario's iconic artstyle. I think biggest taboo could be this. Even a smaller change in Mario's design should be a sin.

Why? I mean, Mario looked wildly different up until Sunshine.

Seems to me the weird thing is to NOT reinvent his look.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Doesn't look more complex than Sunshine or Galaxy.

I vehemently disagree. This is very likely the most story-driven mainline Mario game we've ever had, by far:

I think the discussion about the story is that each kingdom seemingly has its own storyline in this game, whereas in previous Mario games that was never the case. Bowser and the Broodals have stolen something from each kingdom that has apparently caused some sort of disaster, like

Spoiler

the musicians being gone from NDC

and the frozen Desert in Tostarena.

That's much, much more of a story focus than any previous mainline Mario game has had.

EDIT: That's not to say this is a heavily story-based game, but more to say that Mario games have never had much story at all, and this is looking to have a much bigger focus on story than those.

 

[sikkinixx]

Of all the thinsg in the OP the only one I have an issue with is the realistic locales.

I fucking *loathe* New Donk and the forest world. They’re so gross looking that at first I was really bummed out. I’m also totally over the weird food levels that they’ve had since the Wii games.

 

[Hideous Snake]

That's called Nintendo stepping up and I honestly respect and love it.

 

[brad-t]

also, this is the part of the thread where i ask for the same level of formula shake up and challenging of conventions that botw and odyssey have to be applied to pokemon, and all the pokemon avatar wearing fan site owners come out to push up their glasses and re-explain the shit i already know about game frreak's autonomy and relationship with nintendo, to say that what i want will never happen

lol dead on

 

[Bakkus]

There are so many mario games, mainline and otherwise, that I never once considered anything taboo for the series. Didn't even realize people seriously thought that way about Mario

Was there really need to clarify that the OP was referring to the mainline platformer series?

 

[Yohane]

Mario's nipples

 

[L Thammy]

They should make a Mario game where Wario is going around making Mario look bad because civilians can't tell them apart, where Bowser's grandfather (Wario's creator) went insane after his daughter was executed by the military, where Mario jumps into the president's limo to stop him from surrendering to Bowser, and where Mario and Wario team up to fight the final boss in space.

Now that will break some taboos.

Or maybe where Baby Mario comes back in time to destroy Mario, who he believes to have released the apocalyptic monster Wart and ruin the future. But it turns out that this was all a plan by Foreman Spike to destroy Mario and release Wart, his other half, so he can combine with it.

 

[zoukka]

Story? Realistic locales? What the fuck is OP smoking.

 

[CelestialWolfZX]

So I guess it's worth wondering if the game will have a Season Pass. Since Nintendo has been making a trend of announcing those at the last minute (A week or 2 just before release) in the format of Small Cosmetic thing right away, Some sort of a challenge mode as part 1 and a bigger expansion in part 2. They've done that with Zelda and Mario X Rabbids now (Last one may be part Ubisoft, but it's style lines up perfectly with how Zelda's was held, and not like Ubisofts... normal methods).

I guess that's the one taboo left, a mario platformer announcing a season pass before launch.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Sure, I appreciate that Nintendo is taking some real risks with their major franchises. Keeping it fresh requires meaningful change so I’m all for 2017 Nintendo in that respect.

... but that thread title? I’m sorry, but no. There isn’t any meaningful exploration of sexuality. There’s no graphic violence. None of the established characters is likely to die, never to return. There isn’t going to be deep dialogue. Or character customization. I’m guessing it won’t feature turn-based combat. Overt drug use will almost certainly be minimal. No political positions of consequence will be taken. Mario won’t be adopting a religion.

In short: all of the usual taboos are still taboo. Nothing has changed in that respect, and I’m fine with that.

 

[zelas]

Guess today now marks the start of ridiculously hyperbolic Odyssey threads.

 

[tkscz]

Open World? Umm... What was Mario 64 and Sunshine?

 

[Metalmarc]

The realistic city setting and meat thing

freak/creeps me out for a Mario Game, like it feels like it reeeeeealy doesnt belong,

It almost put me off the idea of buying the game alltogether, but its not in the game for too long i assume so, i'm ok.

 

[18-Volt]

Why? I mean, Mario looked wildly different up until Sunshine.

Not in-game look. Artstyle. It's been same since the second game on Famicom, only very little minor things have changed.

 

[Neff]

Mario without lives is going to be weird.

 

[TheDinoman]

Mario without lives is going to be weird.

It's definitely for the best, quite frankly. Lives in Mario games haven't mattered since the advent of save systems. It's a relic of the arcade era that should of binned awhile ago.

 

[Various Artists]

I think the discussion about the story is that each kingdom seemingly has its own storyline in this game, whereas in previous Mario games that was never the case. Bowser and the Broodals have stolen something from each kingdom that has apparently caused some sort of disaster, like

Spoiler

the musicians being gone from NDC

and the frozen Desert in Tostarena.

That's much, much more of a story focus than any previous mainline Mario game has had.

So I had originally worded a reply back that was way to sarcastic so I deleted it all to start over because I see your avatar often and I wanted to try a different approach. I don’t harbor the knowledge of every Mario game and there are some I have not played in a long time, so this is just my memory of some of the ones I have played and I am really interested in your response.

In Super Mario Bros King Koopa caused havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom by stealing Toads (was there ever a reason for this? I must admit that it was probably in the instruction manual, something I have not sought out to read ever but now that it is in my mind I will later) and turning some people into blocks but most importantly stealing Princess Toadstool. Mario saves the princess.

Is it ok if we don’t include the US Mario 2 considering it was originally Doki Doki Panic? I like Mario 2 but I feel like if we are honest what we know as Lost Levels is actually the sequel of which I only played in Super Mario All Stars and don’t remember a story, just difficulty. For what it is worth, I wish every sequel went off the rails like US Mario 2 did.

Super Mario 3 has the story of recovering magic wands in each level but if it were made today, you might be calling it kingdom, which are in a state of panic over their Kings. When we reach the end we defeat King Koopa and save Princess Toadstool.

In Super Mario World we play as the brothers again with their new companion Yoshi I believe the story delivered by a speaker box says the Koopa Kids stole Yoshi eggs that again are distributed amongs multiple Castles (kingdoms). We defeat the Koopa Kids, save the Yoshi eggs, defeat King Koopa ( it was 64 when it changed to Peach and Bowser to match the Japanese versions right? I’m still upset about not having Dr Robotnic being a thing. ) and save Princess Toadstool.

I played Super Mario Land on GB but don’t remember too much so I am going to skip to 2 which if I said the last time I played it was 20 years ago I might be being optimistic. However, I remember having to go around and collect 6 magic coins in a game filled with thousands of regular coins. It seemed silly to me then and now. I still actually really like this one though.

Mario 64 came around and I saved up for a year to get it and Nintendo 64 (another aside I wish they kept the Ultra 64 name and logo) but now we are collecting stars. My train ride is coming to an end so I am going to move faster sorry. We play as the Mario Br... no just Mario that kind of bummed me out. I had this system with 4 controller ports and my little brother can’t play Liugi but that’s irrelevant. I collected my stars saved Peach now from Bowser now. I got a cake and a kiss on the nose and went back to collect the rest of my stars because the Yoshi thing was spoiled for me. I also thought the 100 lives was kind of a useless bonus. Like why have you go through the difficulty of getting everything and then give me 100 lives. I needed those lives in the flying carpet level. Still salty obviously.

Super Mario Sunshine, by this point I wasn’t paying too much to story reveal information from E3 or anything so I didn’t buy it. I told my friend Why partly what is outlined above and he said this one was different. I bought it. It started off ok. In mind I thought “Everyone hated the Ocarina of Time Water Dungeoun and then Nintendo makes a game primarily focused around water physics in a Mario game” but it had no signs of following along with my story grievances so I was happy. Until Bowser Jr steals Peach and I realize that nothing has changed.

I played the 3ds game and liked it. I played the Wii U’s and didn’t. I skipped Wii all together.

So if I am understanding it correctly, Peach has been kidnapped again, by what I think is the worst idea for enemies in that they are evil wedding planners, they have stolen something from each Kingdom (like 3). But this one is special because when you are in the desert the physics may act slippery.

Ending spoilers

Spoiler

Mario saves Peach

I just find it interesting everyone is seemingly ok with the story idea of the inter species physical relationship Nintendo is trying to tell.

 

[Hermii]

I wouldn’t say those are taboos though. Galaxy had sort of a story. Does odyssey really have a story besides peach ka kidnapped again and Bowser tries to marry her? Haven’t seen it in any of the promo stuff.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

It's about as open world as 64 and Sunshine which wasn't even the best part of those games.

 

[1044]

All things you say?

 

[Neff]

It's definitely for the best, quite frankly. Lives in Mario games haven't mattered since the advent of save systems. It's a relic of the arcade era that should of binned awhile ago.

Well losing lives did represent a penalty of sorts, adding to the tension of potential failure vs success. It's not particularly a concept which lends itself well to modern design or expectations, but they did and I'd argue still do have their place, especially in the Mario series.

From what I gather Odyssey swaps lives for currency, and the game will no doubt tailor itself around that, but the media celebration surrounding the move away from lives seems to be a misplaced and gleeful farewell to a mechanic which really had nothing wrong with it in the first place.

Then again, it might be exactly what the game needs to thrive in new ways. We'll see.

 

[Mac the KNife]

All I care about is a return to a deeper moveset. Mario's locomotion in 3D has seriously regressed in the last 20 years.

 

[WhatNXt]

The Sonic Adventure vibe of New Donk City and the lyric-included song were two things that gave me massive pause for concern. I liked SA1 & 2, but in terms of design choices, I kinda just don't want Mario going there. Unless its Chao garden with baby Yoshis or something.

Subsequent videos have sold me on NDC. I still think the song's a bit cheesy, but with how wacky, creative and care free the game looks, I guess it kinda fits. Like.. why not?

 

[Double Donut]

All things you say?

Are you saying that’s not in Odyssey..?

Dropped.

 

[Classicblunder]

Mario's nipples

Actually whats more offensive is that his chest isn't brimming with manly hair. Mario is a plumber, from Brooklyn, and wears a mustache and sideburns. No way that dude waxes.

 

[Skittzo0413]

So I had originally worded a reply back that was way to sarcastic so I deleted it all to start over because I see your avatar often and I wanted to try a different approach. I don’t harbor the knowledge of every Mario game and there are some I have not played in a long time, so this is just my memory of some of the ones I have played and I am really interested in your response.

In Super Mario Bros King Koopa caused havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom by stealing Toads (was there ever a reason for this? I must admit that it was probably in the instruction manual, something I have not sought out to read ever but now that it is in my mind I will later) and turning some people into blocks but most importantly stealing Princess Toadstool. Mario saves the princess.

Is it ok if we don’t include the US Mario 2 considering it was originally Doki Doki Panic? I like Mario 2 but I feel like if we are honest what we know as Lost Levels is actually the sequel of which I only played in Super Mario All Stars and don’t remember a story, just difficulty. For what it is worth, I wish every sequel went off the rails like US Mario 2 did.

Super Mario 3 has the story of recovering magic wands in each level but if it were made today, you might be calling it kingdom, which are in a state of panic over their Kings. When we reach the end we defeat King Koopa and save Princess Toadstool.

In Super Mario World we play as the brothers again with their new companion Yoshi I believe the story delivered by a speaker box says the Koopa Kids stole Yoshi eggs that again are distributed amongs multiple Castles (kingdoms). We defeat the Koopa Kids, save the Yoshi eggs, defeat King Koopa ( it was 64 when it changed to Peach and Bowser to match the Japanese versions right? I’m still upset about not having Dr Robotnic being a thing. ) and save Princess Toadstool.

I played Super Mario Land on GB but don’t remember too much so I am going to skip to 2 which if I said the last time I played it was 20 years ago I might be being optimistic. However, I remember having to go around and collect 6 magic coins in a game filled with thousands of regular coins. It seemed silly to me then and now. I still actually really like this one though.

Mario 64 came around and I saved up for a year to get it and Nintendo 64 (another aside I wish they kept the Ultra 64 name and logo) but now we are collecting stars. My train ride is coming to an end so I am going to move faster sorry. We play as the Mario Br... no just Mario that kind of bummed me out. I had this system with 4 controller ports and my little brother can’t play Liugi but that’s irrelevant. I collected my stars saved Peach now from Bowser now. I got a cake and a kiss on the nose and went back to collect the rest of my stars because the Yoshi thing was spoiled for me. I also thought the 100 lives was kind of a useless bonus. Like why have you go through the difficulty of getting everything and then give me 100 lives. I needed those lives in the flying carpet level. Still salty obviously.

Super Mario Sunshine, by this point I wasn’t paying too much to story reveal information from E3 or anything so I didn’t buy it. I told my friend Why partly what is outlined above and he said this one was different. I bought it. It started off ok. In mind I thought “Everyone hated the Ocarina of Time Water Dungeoun and then Nintendo makes a game primarily focused around water physics in a Mario game” but it had no signs of following along with my story grievances so I was happy. Until Bowser Jr steals Peach and I realize that nothing has changed.

I played the 3ds game and liked it. I played the Wii U’s and didn’t. I skipped Wii all together.

So if I am understanding it correctly, Peach has been kidnapped again, by what I think is the worst idea for enemies in that they are evil wedding planners, they have stolen something from each Kingdom (like 3). But this one is special because when you are in the desert the physics may act slippery.

Ending spoilers

Spoiler

Mario saves Peach

I just find it interesting everyone is seemingly ok with the story idea of the inter species physical relationship Nintendo is trying to tell.

Well for starters, I completely agree that Dr. Robotnick being renamed Eggman is a damn travesty and I will never get over it.

For your main point (I'm not all that sure what it actually is, mind) the story difference between this game and basically every previous Mario game* is that, in addition to the very bare bones over arching plot that they all have, this has individual storylines within each level that directly tie into the main story.

Also are you saying that there are only 3 kingdoms on the game? We know for a fact there are at least 10 confirmed and likely several more, and we know Bowser has stolen something from each kingdom that has caused chaos. I mentioned the Metro and Sand Kingdoms, but there's also the tiara/princess stolen from the Cap Kingdom, the cake or food stolen from the Luncheon Kingdom, and it's all but certain there's the champagne from the Seaside Kingdom, and who knows what else from all of the others.

Again I'm not pretending this has some compelling story in general, just that it's a lot more involved than previous Mario game which barely had any.

*I believe Sunshine had some slight story beats within each level sorta reflected by how they'd change over time but this is on another level.

 

[Triforce141]

- Change in Mario's iconic artstyle. I think biggest taboo could be this. Even a smaller change in Mario's design should be a sin.

Mario's technically got a small change in his design, he's got a single strand of gray hair now

 

[Raitaro]

I basically agree with you TC but this is where we part ways. With the large map it feels like Nintendo is creating a fleshed out world

Spoiler

including entire areas from past games.

Everything is now interconnected. But what gets me about Donk City is that it has normal shaped humans where Mario is still cartoony. Mario is a human, and in all Mario games up until now everything you see is cartoony. Why not make the people in Donk city cartoony? Also, we've been to Dinosaur land before. Thats where we met Yoshi!!! but now theres a realistic T-Rex too? It's these style mash-ups in a world that is fully integrated that feels really off to me. I would have been down for a brand new realistic look for Mario if realism is what you're going for. maybe the story will explain all this but so far the few places MO deviates from cartoony fantasy all feel off to me.

anyways, minor quibble. Looking forward to it.

I agree with this, though for me it's more than a minor quibble but quite possibly a deal breaker as I simply have not been able to fully get onboard with the game so far because of this clash of realism with the customary Mario cartoonyness. Things simply look off to me most of the time in this game.

I keep thinking about how big of a missed opportunity it is to have Mario go to a NY style city but not make it his original home in Brooklyn filled with Mario style cartoony humans. I don't care if that is only canon to the oldest arcade games, the manuals or even just the cartoon - it's canon to me for the last 20+ years and as such it disappoints me to see them possibly "retcon" Mario's non-Mushroom Kingdom (Yoshi's Island ignoring) origin and the events in Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong that to me always was so appealing (in the sense of the cartoony everyman visiting a magical kingdom). Those realistic New Donkers simply did not need to exist imo (unless DK originates from here as well, but I fear we might not see him in the game at all despite the Kong references everywhere).

The T-Rex bothers me as well, not just because of Yoshi's cartoony existence but because there seem to be dino-like creatures in other worlds in the same game, such as that water dino that carries you around or that weird flying one Mario can capture, that do look cartoony. To change up this artistic style from world to world so drastically only makes to game world feel less consistent to me; and even if that is their intent all along to increase the sense of visiting strange lands, then I guess I still don't fully know if I can get behind that.

To me artistic consistency trumps all I guess, and while I appreciate their spin on Mario visiting odd worlds, it remains to be seen if playing the game will enable me to appreciate the variety in graphical art styles and worlds or whether I will constantly be taken out of the experience instead because of things looking out of place compared to Mario. Mind you, this is coming from a person who has never been able to fully get into crossover fighting games either, Smash included, because of the clash in character artstyles...so maybe I need to learn to let go of my longing for artistic consistency a bit...

 

[Sardello]

Tbh I don't really like those realistic humans and generally speaking seeing Mario buzzing around in a city with smoking manhole and yellow taxis.

I've never asked anything of the new feature of this Mario and instead of being thrilled, I'm worried and upset.

Only after playing the game I hope I'll change my mind. With Zelda I had the same feelings and I was proven wrong.

 

[Classicblunder]

Tbh I don't really like those realistic humans and generally speaking seeing Mario buzzing around in a city with smoking manhole and yellow taxis.

I've never asked anything of the new feature of this Mario and instead of being thrilled, I'm worried and upset.

Only after playing the game I hope I'll change my mind. With Zelda I had the same feelings and I was proven wrong.

I was fully on board with all the Zelda changes from the start. Still am. But Zelda had consistent art throughout.

 

[Platy]

Relly big things it changed from the mario formula :

no lives
no cohesive artstyle in the worlds
kirby mechanics
one more princess to be rescued
cosmetic changes in mario

 

[Mr. Nice_Guy]

Honestly after what Odyssey offers I can't imagine what the next AAA 3D Mario game will be like.

I said that about Galaxy 1&2 and here we are! Beyond all my expectations.

 

[Godzilla's Left Toe]

still needs voice acting

also, this is the part of the thread where i ask for the same level of formula shake up and challenging of conventions that botw and odyssey have to be applied to pokemon, and all the pokemon avatar wearing fan site owners come out to push up their glasses and re-explain the shit i already know about game frreak's autonomy and relationship with nintendo, to say that what i want will never happen

The voice acting was awful in Sunshine like almost everything in that brutal game.