Zepherus14 said:
Happyninja42 said:
To be fair, part of the Madden argument is also because it comes out every single year, and that the only difference can really be who is in it since you still need to play Football in it. People's claims that they should just do a patch to update things if far more valid there since at the end of the day, they are only playing Football, and there's no way to really change the gameplay of one game.
But as I said, I'm not saying we can't. Mario Galaxy for example had that, with all the story with Rosalina and the Lunas and Captain Toad. The game starts off with Peach getting kidnapped once again, but we get all this other stuff to go along with it too. I find it laughable though that you say people have gotten tired of it, when you consider that the second grossing game was the one from 2010 which was the one where they steal Peach in a cake, and everyone goes after the Koopas. If everyone is really that tired of it, I can't understand how this one seemed to do so well.
When we see something 'new' as you put it, we usually get it in some change in gameplay, different powerups or environments, which is the staple of what makes a Mario game, a Mario game. The focus of these games is the gameplay, not the story. That doesn't mean we can't have one, but it means that focusing on the story alone is missing out on why people play the game.
I don't think it's laughable, as clearly people find the same trope being used in every game very lame. As is evidenced on this very site, with regular threads discussing this very issue. And playing the "it was financially successful" card doesn't make my statement any less valid. That's basically the Michael Bay routine. His movies suck, but yeah, millions of people go to see them all the time. So what? The two things aren't mutually exclusive. Just like Star Wars Episode 7 might suck worse than The Last Airbender, but I guarantee you it's going to make so much money that Disney will be swimming in it. Why? Because we're all going to see it, because we are fans, and feel we're obligated to do so.
Same goes for Mario fans. Their going to buy the game, it's just a given, but that doesn't mean they don't have the right to complain about a bad storyline, and cliche writing. Or that their complaints are somehow invalid. They're tired of the same plot device being used after decades of seeing it, and they want to see something different as to why they are doing what they are doing. That's not asking a lot, and honestly, after 30 years of it, I'd say it's a fairly valid request. Tons of easily used tropes that don't involve turning Peach into a plot object that simply gets moved around the chess board:
1. Bowser has some big nasty device, that he's going to use to steal all the happiness or sunshine from the world. Mario has to go around and hug every flower in the world to increase the smiles to banish the darkness, while also going to Bowser and shutting down the device. (i'm playing a little sarcastic with the smiles and hugs, but hey they made a game about sunshine, so I guess it's thematically fitting).
2. Bowser steals something that Peach had built to help her kingdom, and without it, things are going bad, Mario has to go retrieve it.
3. Bowser does some magical thing, and unleashes waves of grumpy lemons on the kingdom, and they make everything sour by squirting juice on everyone. Mario has to go and stop the ritual keeping the Lemonpocalypse portal open, before everyone becomes grumpy forever.
I could go on, but it's really not that hard to come up with a plot that isn't simply "Peach is kidnapped, Mario saves her". It can still be as paper thin as Nintendo wants it to be, and be nothing more than a thin excuse to introduce new game mechanics, but at least it's different. It's not that unreasonable of a request from the fanbase in my opinion.
