Nintendo and Brand Mario

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

"Toads do not deserve to be individuals", my favorite

[@noelmunkhammar9271]

2:55 Mario the idea vs. Mario the man

[@strawb2128]

Perchance

[@GhastandNico]

@@strawb2128you can’t just say perchance

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Honestly I’d like to see Schaff do that as a sequel or something

[@vianabdullah2837]

I suppose some of this explains a question some fans have been asking. In how the mainline 3D Mario games are allowed to go wild with their originality whilst spin-offs like Paper Mario feels a little constrained. I think back on what Takashi Tezuka said when creating Link's Awakening, in that the team would not be allowed to do something like that today because they were creating a "parody" of Zelda.

[@EvilCrash3000]

I love when marin joins you, link lifts her up like you got an item

[@ShyGuyXXL]

This is why I miss the Wario platformers. Since they were not technically Mario games, they had so much more freedom to do weird, wacky and unexpected things, explore all new worlds, introduce all new characters and villains, and overall just have way more fun. With Mario, even after the sucess of Mario Odyssey, it still feels like Mario games are to tread lightly and not have TOO much wacky fun.

[@joshslater2426]

I don’t mind the fact Nintendo has a style guide for Mario, and it’s fine that Nintendo keep some consistent artstyle and designs. It’s nice if they do something creative, but it’s good that they do try and have a brand identity. I do miss Toadsworth though, and I don’t get why Nintendo can’t use him.

[@INFERNO95]

Because he not important.

[@DaNintendude]

Everyone seems to have this idea that Nintendo "cannot use Toadsworth" when we have no idea if that is the case. It seems more likely to me that he is a dormant character. Toadsworth is a very specific character with a very specific purpose. He's not a main character, but a side one. And depending on the story they want to tell, Toadsworth may not have a role to fill. In Super Mario Galaxy, Toadsworth was not present. And if he was... what would he do? Just worry about Peach the whole time? There were a lot of fun side characters in the Galaxy games, including the Toad Brigade, who are far more interesting and malleable than Toadsworth. Toadsworth fits best in games with grander plots with lots of characters. Toadsworth was a staple character in the Mario & Luigi series, because it's the perfect scenario for him to appear. When Toadsworth stopped appearing in mainline games, he slowly stopped appearing in spin-offs. With Toadsworth being less relevant, there isn't much of a reason to include him over other characters who are more immediately recognizable. But this doesn't mean that Toadsworth is no longer able to be used. All it would take is a mainline Mario game deciding to bring him back, and suddenly, he may be appearing in all sorts of games again.

[@serpentmaster1323]

Oh that’s an interesting point. When you said ‘now we can just give our developers our model and they can use that’. For M+R, When Ubisoft made that Mario model, they didn’t just do it so well that Nintendo thought they got one of their models, Nintendo thought they got THE model, the one that now basically is their style guide. Thats why the team was trusted to work on the project so freely. They trusted the team’s creativity would be faithful to the style guide, because it already was when theye were under no obligation to do so in the first place. Interesting stuff.

[@nintendoforecast]

Great point (and an example I meant to reference actually).

[@SuperLegendOf364]

It really seems to be a case by case basis. That said, I've been pretty satisfied with the uniqueness of the Switch era Mario games. Especially in just the last year between Mario Wonder and all the Mario RPGs.

[@Linklex7]

True. It’s all about balance. I don’t want Nintendo to go too crazy with restricting Mario like Marvel does with Spider-Man, but sometimes it’s important to keep an eye on your character. Take the Mario movie for example. It’s been confirmed that Illumination were originally going to make a girlboss movie with Peach as the lead and Mario as her bumbling sidekick. Miyamoto shut that down and we got the now classic film we enjoy today cause of those guidelines.

[@wootmasterzorsx]

I’m a little surprised you went for a Color Splash interview when there was an Origami King interview where it was more outright stated they weren’t allowed to modify existing Mario characters anymore, as part of these mandates. After TTYD remake, however, I’m hopeful that restriction is gone and we can get new characters like Goombella and Koops and Bobbery again. New designs based on existing Mario characters were the charm of your party in those games, plus new species entirely. Paper Mario was a world unto itself, and I hope we see that creativity brought back.

[@GinnyNReviews]

It always felt to me that they did the style guides like between the Gamecube and Wii because they felt they needed to reign a bit what they were doing with Mario, mostly because New Super Mario Bros became super popular by being highly generic between a Mario game. But around Odyssey at least they started to leave more leeway but not that much. Still, I miss Toadworth. Not because he was a great character or something, but mostly because he gave a texture to the world that its a bit needed I feel

[@legoboy7107]

Ironic considering Toadsworth was literally in New Super Mario Bros.

[@INFERNO95]

Mario characters had personality in the GC era. By the wiiu era they were nerf making people think mario characters have no personality which is not true. Mario don't even flash the peace sing anymore. It asinine.

[@legoboy7107]

@@INFERNO95 Apparently from what I've heard, the removal of the peace sign (which started in the Gamecube era) was something Miyamoto requested because he didn't like how cutesy it made Mario look, he didn't want Mario to be too cutesy and kiddy like that whereas the person who originally introduced the peace sign thing liked cutesy-ifying things a little.

[@GinnyNReviews]

@@legoboy7107 The peace sign disappeared after Mario 64 if I remember correctly. I say "Around the Cube and the Wii" because around that time New Super Mario Bros was the best selling Mario game by far and I'm assuming they decided with a more strict guideline thanks to that, but that's beyond the point. What I observe is not really the truth but I have being observing for a long time

[@sandwell27]

To me Paper Mario’s fate reads as a combination of brand safety, Miyomoto not really liking RPGs as a genre, and the Paper Mario devs being too afraid of Miyamoto. In making an RPG, they should be able to articulate to their producer why original characters are crucial. As producer, Miyamoto also shouldn’t be making requests like “only use Mario family characters.” The blame goes both ways

[@DaNintendude]

I definitely think a lot of blame is on the dev team. Everyone points at Tanabe, and while he probably played a large role in it, it's more than just him. There's a reason Mario & Luigi: Dream Team was able to do so much, while Sticker Star was not. Is it possible that the Paper Mario dev team gave up on pushing for creative ideas? When it comes to character designs, they have to go back and forth with Nintendo until they get something that is approved. And while AlphaDream would go back and forth a lot, maybe the Paper Mario team didn't? There's not really much to indicate that Miyamoto was against original characters. He was a producer on both PM64 and TTYD. He was merely a supervisor on Super Paper Mario, and given how that game strays pretty far away from the Mario world, it would make sense that Miyamoto wanted something simpler. Something with a simple story and only Mario characters. And of cousre, there's the infamous "Toads are the only friendly species in Mario" comment from Tanabe in one of the interviews. Restrictions absolutely exist, but I'm not convinced that the Paper games couldn't have been much more exciting and interesting if they put in the effort.

[@Linklex7]

The sad thing is Nintendo is still less strict with Mario than Marvel is with Spider-Man. Being a brand sucks. When you’re a character you’re allow to grow and evolve. When you become a brand you’re never allowed to change from the status quo and it’s crippling.

[@Goat0423]

Sonic not following any sort of style guide logic is why it’s in the hellscape lore it’s in today where every game feels like it’s in an entirely different world and yet somehow, it’s all one timeline, one where humans randomly vanish and reappear whenever the writers just feel like it that day and the entire planet layout changes every five seconds, oh yeah and Classic Sonic was “from another dimension” for one game and one game only because I guess the writer just felt like being daring that day only for it to be immediately reversed. Sonic lore is what happens when there’s NO style guide being followed. Do the fake continents from Unleashed actually exist in the world? Is it the set of islands? Are humans really there? Is it called Mobius? Who knows! Whoever manages SEGA clearly doesn’t give a shit, lol. Sonic Team just throws darts at a wall for whether or not certain things will be canon or not game by game because they’re clearly unchecked or completely incompetent.

[@wootmasterzorsx]

You’re right, but they’ve been working more at keeping the lore consistent as of late, since they even hired a lore master to keep things consistent for the franchise. And it shows in all the references that Sonic Twitter hates so much and side materials where they justify how the lore is. Your mileage may vary on how good a job they’re doing, if the references are good or not, and so on. Obviously, not saying things are perfect when they’re trying to push Sonic Prime as a canon thing when it screams “alternate continuity” like the movies. But TODAY, from where I’m sitting, they’re doing a better job getting all their ducks in a row.

[@INFERNO95]

No wonder the sonic games keep bombing. They're a mess whit no sense of direction.

[@pablocasas5906]

It seems SEGA does have some strict rules about how Sonic and his universe should be portrayed. Some of them include: 1) There's only one Sonic, in the most recent animated series, Sonic Prime, there were various alternate universe versions of Sonic's friends and Eggman, but Sonic and Shadow didn't have a single one, that was a mandate from SEGA; 2) Sonic's feet can never be shown. This was something that one of the artists who worked in the movie mentioned; 3) Tails and Eggman are the only inventors. In Sonic Boom, the developers wanted to include an inventor character, but they weren't allowed to

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Ok, but can we also talk about how Nintendo denies Mario from talking like it would literally kill them?

[@vdpt9911]

The kinds of modifications to existing Mario characters we used to see like Toadsworth, Toadbert, Toadley, etc. (not all Toads but you get my point, see TTYD's partners for more examples) still aren't really present in current games AFAIK. It's just been really well hidden by creation of original races, like the Wattanists in Brothership, but still shows that there's some kind of internal schism or issue, as can be seen in the PM:TOK's postgame museum. There, we can see that plenty of clearly modified existing Mario characters were fully created, not even just early development sketches or screenshots, and yet, pretty much none of them appear in the main game (unless you count the Shangri-Spa toads and the professor and the sailor toad, I guess). I worry that the Wii U/3DS era 'Mario Mandates' are still in full effect, just more hidden than they used to be. While it's clear by Brothership that this kind of restriction isn't as much of a problem as it used to be, falling more into the purview of good amount of restrictions breeding creativity rather than excessively limiting it like in PM:SS or CS, I still feel like this style guide has gone a little too far, and the devs should have more of a choice to bend those rules and apply them themselves, and really only have them strictly considered in the case of something like a Super Paper Mario situation coming up again, what with its heavy, potentially excessive deviation from standard Mario fare.

[@NitwitsWorld]

Even the concept art of TTYD shows the same creativity as well. A certain Captain toad before Captain toad exist. So already there is a lot of creativity they can use for later paper Mario games if they want to. 😅

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

I agree, it still bothered me when among all the unique characters in Brotgership, five generic Toads just showed up

[@NitwitsWorld]

@@geschnitztekiste4111 have you seen the interview with Nintendo about Brothership

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Why does everyone always count out the original Paper Mario? That game had unique designs too

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

@@NitwitsWorld no

[@narcisopedro3474]

Mario has looked the same since I was born. I was born 2002.

[@INFERNO95]

So.

[@BBWahoo]

Odyssey?

[@pablocasas5906]

I was born in the early '90s and it seems Mario's current appearance was set in stone around '91 and '93, and that's why I always find it odd looking at old artwork where his overalls are red and his shirt is blue, now it's the opposite

[@ThePaulineu]

I am just glad that the latest mario RPG, mario and luigi brothership, have a focus on his wholesome bond with Luigi AND has a whole cast of original characters/races. I'm so glad they're getting out of their comfort zone lately, with mario wonder as well!

[@INFERNO95]

Nintendo didn't make that game. They always had a wholesome relationship.

[@serpentmaster1323]

That is some hogwash right there! Eityer opera or eruo pop? Guys. His entire catalog is highly syncopated with jazzy chords sounds and rythums, and his fav music is opera or europop? That is some intense crap. Hes playing a trumpet on official art recently.

[@INFERNO95]

When the promotion art don't match the official Canon lore.

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

He separates his job and his hobbies I guess

[@goranisacson2502]

All I will say is that I hope we get more characters if the survey answers are positive... but then again, how many would even answer the surveys in the first place? How many answers will be seen as 'enough' to decide? Will it move the needle? We do not know... we can only hope.

[@al.bay24]

Soup

[@chuck595]

Mario!

[@AkdmxVEVO]

Luigi!

[@TeltStory]

@@AkdmxVEVO Peach!

[@peenywallie]

My mother-in-law!

[@TheMack625]

Interesting video. Going in, I pictured you talking about the Mario Mandates and how that ruined the creative vision of the franchise. While I do like the GCN era (even to the point where my two favorite Mario games are on the console), internally I felt like Mario was straying a bit from his universal appeal. That also helps explain why I liked seeing the original New Super Mario Bros. on release; it got the red plumber back to what put him as a household name. Many Mario historians peg the 2010s as the lowest point of the franchise. Indeed, many of the side games default to the aesthetic introduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Mario and friends are less vocal, generally only having basic one-liners at most. Plus, the RPGs were extremely basic in storytelling, setting, or both. There's certainly many things going against this decade. Even so? I really enjoy the 2010s! Though we got two very similar NSMB games in the same year and things felt rather basic for the scope of the franchise, I found myself enjoying the games more often than not. Super Mario 3D World, Mario Golf: World Tour, Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe), Mario Party: Star Rush, and Super Smash Bros. 4 are some of my most beloved games ever. Another thing I notice about the 2010s is that Mario had even more general family appeal. We saw more videos advertising the games as well as apparel such as backpacks, folders, notebooks, and the like; I would have loved seeing stuff like that more often in the 2000s. Your statements on the third-party companies are interesting; I never knew that they had tight guidelines on how to work with Super Mario. I wonder if that has since changed with the Golf and Tennis games by Camelot. Even with my biases, though, I can see that we are in a new golden age with Mario in the 2020s. We have a full Mario amusement park with Super Nintendo World. 2023 gave us The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which is now my favorite movie. Of course, there's also Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a fresh new 2D adventure with a bold aesthetic, many playable characters, and even a brand-new voice actor for Mario and Luigi, Kevin Afghani. Mario Party has also gone back to its chaotic roots and the RPGs have gotten a renaissance with remakes of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario TTYD plus a new game with Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It's a good time to be a Mario fan. I'm that kind of person who likes every generation of Super Mario. It's nice to hear some stuff about why Nintendo keeps a brand identity with the franchise. Good video.

[@nintendoforecast]

Thanks - interesting thoughts!

[@JustJulyo]

This is probably how they created Waluigi

[@aquinprime]

I adamantly believe that kensuke tanabe was just bullshitting because he was lazy

[@GeoshiTheRed]

Since he wasn't involved with TTYD remake and he was first making excuses with Color Splash it's clear he was BS-ing.

[@DaNintendude]

I don't think he was BS-ing, but the dev team definitely wasn't pushing their limits. There's always IP regulation in 3rd Party Mario games. And Miyamoto's suggestions probably weren't absolute. You can stick to mostly Mario characters while still having creative characters and new species. They just probably weren't trying hard enough. Tanabe still going hard on Miyamoto's Sticker Star suggestions _when Miyamoto wasn't even involved in Color Splash's development_ is literal insanity.

[@t3mp3k-o9m]

Sad how a new franchise like astrobot has obliterated Mario, a 40 yrs old IP easily. Nintendo needs to update their game designs, put full VA, make a good deep mature story and narrative, create a complex characters, and of course better graphical fidelity for all their games if they want to survive this new gen era of gaming.

[@pt8034]

gesundheit

[@EnigmaticGentleman]

You know you should actually play Astro Bot, it is a very good game. And if you'd played it you would know that its story can be summarized in 2 sentences. Not even mentioning you seem to want a super mario game to have a mature story, SUPER MARIO HAS DEPRESSION AFTER BOWSER KILLED HIS BROTHER WAHOOOOO!

[@t3mp3k-o9m]

@@EnigmaticGentleman astrobot the Mario killer got 7 goty nominations. Nintendo could never

[@peenywallie]

​@@t3mp3k-o9m asrobot is just soynygroes soyfacing over references to dead ips from when soyny was good

[@ladysegagenesis]

Can we please stop saying that (Insert here) is a Nintendo killer already? It's starting to get old. Plus, a lot of people that say tons of other games that are in the vein of other games don't tend to last very long (sometimes) in terms of people talking about it. Like remember when people were saying Nick All Star Brawl or Multiverses were the Smash Bros killers, but when they came out, they kind of bombed afterwards? In All Star Brawl's case well, the original lunch started out pretty well it then gained a lot of critique for lacking in content game mode wise, and not having voice acting or more pallet swap choices. (Sure, those may seem like small things, but they play major factors when you actually play it) those these things you could argue are a result of a small team, budget, & deadline what isn't is the fact that some of the character move sets feel like they were made by an armature. Meaning that they don't make since in context in battle sometimes and just feel like they have some moves to sneak in more references to their home series. And while its sequel was much better (including stuff like voice acting & a rouge like mode) it still didn't help because of the reputation the first game had. While Multiverses was received better it suffered heavily from 1 big problem. Being a live service game. Which hammered down the game A TON! Sure the game still has a decent sized audience but a lot of the game suffered from that factor. Why do we even need to compare Astrobit to Mario? Can't Astrobot just be Astrobot and nothing else?

[@sebastianguerrero6617]

Personally I don't think that the more modern paper mario games have been more restricted compared to the older titles. They just went in a different direction and those claims are just from people confused and/or frustrated by those changes

[@goldmemberpb]

The modern paper mario games keeps on using the same sticker star formula with generic models and the fragmented world designs. Even if the devs had the freedom to do that, to us, it does feel very suffocating not having the crazy variety in characters and world designs the older games did.

[@ThePaulineu]

Check out mario and luigi brothership, they've used new characters and new original locations!

[@chugiron4698]

There's certainly some amount of restrictions, though I think people heavily over exaggerate it. Given what some devs have said in interviews, Nintendo has made guidelines that prohibit creation of completely new characters in pre-existing Mario species (such as Goombas, Koopas, toads, etc). Paper Mario has taken this in the direction of mostly avoiding new characters at all, and just using the standard species designs to represent new characters (such as Bobby in TOK). This should not be confused with "Mario RPGs aren't allowed to make new characters" though, as Dream Team (which came out around the same time) has tons of new species and characters but actively avoids making spoofs on pre-existing main series species (besides some enemies being recolored in the final boss). Brothership also does this, it makes tons of new characters in new species but still doesn't create new designs for old species since they're not allowed to. The decision to not make completely new characters does seem to be a specific direction that's being used by Paper Mario however. So I think there definetly are more restrictions, but they aren't nearly as wide spanning as a lot of people tend to try and claim.

[@Kolya-chu]

Mario is brat, confirmed

[@DaniloSantosVieira]

"yes, mushroom are his favorite" way to go illumiCRAPtion

[@nas0518]

You mess with Illumination, you'll regret it for life. Keep their names out your damn mouth, pansy!

[@Platitudinous9000]

you're so right for that. shame on Illumination for making such a contradictory portrayal of the character in their fan film. if Nintendo had a say in it, I'm sure things would've turned out differently

[@jacobsargent1476]

While I appreciate Unique Toads from a characterization aspect, I'm of the opinion I prefer them all to be the same and like the simple society Nintendo prefers. You don't have to get to know them too personally, which is why it's hilarious when they spit out something real. You appreciate Toad as a whole, rather than just one or two specific characters.

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

But when one says: „My wife left me“ it seems he’s either lying or doesn’t actually know what that means, considering THERE ARE NO FEMALE TOADS ANYMORE. Similarly, when one of them reminisces about their childhood, it’s just as unsincere because again, you never see any younger Toads. Consistent Toads, ironically enough, destroy the immersion of a consistent world because it poses more questions than answers. This kinda shit just pisses me off.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

I mean, I feel like there’s a balance that can be made. They did it well enough with the plug people in Brothership.

[@DaNintendude]

For the most part, I agree. Toads being mostly identical works really well. But I also think we should see ones with unique design traits more often. I think Paper Mario 64 did this the best. Pretty much every Toad still has the same body. Most standard NPCs wear the standard outfit. But some toads have hair. Some have glasses or different clothing. It shows that as a society, Toads are mostly identical. But there is still room for self-expression.

[@DaNintendude]

@@geschnitztekiste4111 Female Toads still exist, we just don't know which Toads are male and which are female. Toad, as a design, wasn't created with a specific gender in mind. THE Toad is a guy, and Toadette is a girl. But most other Toads don't have a set gender. Any random Toad you meet could be a guy or a girl, we don't know. Just because they don't have long hair or earrings, or shirts covering their chest, doesn't mean they can't be women. We even see this in the Superstar Saga and Bowser's Inside Story remakes. There's an explicitly female Toad in Little Fungi Town that looks like a normal Toad. And all the women in Inside Story's Toad Town are just normal toads with aprons. Even in the original, Toadley's intern was bald, and simply wore earrings. I fully agree that we need to see more explicitly female Toads. And young and old Toads need to return. But if you understand the thought process behind Toad as a species, most of them looking identical makes a lot of sense.

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

@ Superstar Saga originally had more distinct looking Toads, the apron ones had subtle differences, and there were even Toads with longer faces. Regardless of gender, I wish they could still be differently shaped and have more clothing options. And I actually prefer the Bowser’s Inside Story approach to the early Paper Mario approach, I don’t like when they have full hair under their hats, because it implies that these mushroom caps are clothing and not naturally part of their hat. However, I think the early Mario & Luigi games perfected this: subtle design differences like mustaches, inverted hat colors and different body types are perfect to me. They’re all very definitely Toads at first glance, but still individuals with their own lives and background. The remakes made them too identical and fixed something that wasn’t broken, that’s why I don’t like these. But they could at least start giving them different names again, in Brothership you see each characters name above the speech bubble, but the Toads are all just named Toad

[@QuantumChrist]

Everything gone woke except Mario and friends.

[@hypotheticaltapeworm]

What does this mean

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@@hypotheticaltapeworm Ignore them

[@blar3499]

mario would hate you