it's pretty wild how well Zelda has been adapted to modern gaming and how mario has basically...not. That plumber was literally the single most recognisable character in gaming history, dropping this ball gotta be one of the most epic fumbles
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What would be the competitors in the last generation? Because I can definitely see it being the pinnacle of that, but not the past 20 years.
Galaxy 1 alone had more things going for it.
I think it's more so that modern gaming has evolved in a way that fits Zelda more than it does Mario. The landscape is a lot more suited to grand, sweeping heroic fantasy adventures, which Zelda games have always been, than it is to platformers and collectathons, Astro Bot's success notwithstanding.
Engaging in good faith because satire is dead and social media basks in the fetor of its corpse:
Personally I wouldn't call what LoZ has done "evolving" nearly as much as I would what Odyssey has done. Odyssey builds on existing Mario staples in a new way; BotW/TotK just threw them out.
Replacing dungeons, puzzles and actual progression for wandering around aimlessly, climbing stamina meters, weapons that break, and no dungeons. I don't really consider playing "Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts now featuring Link from Legend of Zelda" a good replacement for what I played LoZ for.
It does what 3D Zelda has not been able from BotW onward, which is maintain its core appeals, improve them, and do enough new that it feels fresh each time
As you said Zelda kinda tossed most of its past appeals to make open worlds filled with just repetitive 5 min physics puzzles and chores :/
That's an odd take given that Super Mario Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the best games in the series and definitely feels like a modern platformer.
I'd also argue the Zelda games have coasted for quite awhile on stale mechanics. Even BOTW/TOTK have a lot of time-wasting nonsense in them.
someBODY once told me,
Luigi Mangione shot a greedy healthcare CEO dead.
Chronic pain in lower back, so he did a surprise attack,
then into Central Park on e-bike he fled.
Hey now, you're Adjuster, for great justice, go slay...
Beware arches of gold;
if someone sees you, cops will be told.
And the Zeldas too. Somehow peak Zelda was AoL & ALTTP, showing two very different yet worthwhile evolutionary paths the series could take & instead we get these empty walking simulators instead
I agree. But if you leave US then Mario is still the most recognisable game character in every country in the world. Most people don't know about Zelda.
As someone whose first solo-completed Mario game was Odyssey and first solo-completed Zelda game was BotW, I love them both but the playstyles after the minimum requirements are met is completely different (and I'm much less likely to restart BotW from the beginning, but still want more save slots).
Thank god. BotW's gameplay basically amounts to giving the player a "to-do" list, with endless inventory management. It was refreshing for one game, but TotK drove it into the ground hard. If this is what evolution looks like, I'm happy to stay in the past.
Honestly, I felt that while BotW was a decent experience, it hacked out most of what I liked about Zelda and replaced it with a cool physics engine and a sub-par open world experience. TotK significantly improved upon that formula, but physics/vehicle shenanigans isn't what I go to Zelda for.
To me, BotW felt like they spent years making a great physics engine and art style, then a few months before release date they realized that they forgot to put in any narrative, so they made a very abridged bullet point retelling of the story of the excellent Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana.
Nintendo genuinely has some of the worst fanbases and it puts them in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation were innovation is somehow frowned upon, yet fans WILL complain about "copy and paste" if the games are too similar.
Mario games may dabble in gimmicks, but ever since Super Mario 64, that series has been intensely derivative of that formula (a series of bounded stages with multiple collectible macguffins). The aesthetic has barely shifted in the slightest. I’m not saying they aren’t fun, but they aren’t original.
Meanwhile, Zelda as a franchise has tried out multiple graphic styles, experimented with new mechanics and puzzle-solving methods (not all successfully, granted), and expanded the lore tremendously.
Is TotK’s plot a bit too much like OoT? Maybe, but they are hardly the same game otherwise.
what's funny to me is that nintendo has even acknowledged the existence of The Zelda Cycle in interviews - even though TOTK gets quite a bit of heat nowadays, people will probably be hailing it as the greatest once the game after echoes comes out
but thats kinda what I mean. their og flagship character should get a BOTW and they don't seem interested in going that route and it bothers me because I WANT
A full-sized Mario open world would be bad imo. Mario isn't about exploring the spaces in between set pieces, every inch has to have some kind of traversal challenge. Bowser's Fury worked because of the limited scope.
To be fair I feel like the setting and aesthetic of Zelda gives it more room to grow with how games have improved. Mario is a platformer. I don't want to play an open world Mario exploration game lmao
Imo, I kinda feel like Mario doesn't necessarily need to evolve like other games/series. Like, sure each game is basically a lot of the same, but I feel that's the appeal of Mario. They release slowly, but you always know it's gonna be a similar experience to the last. Mario is a comfort food.
I used to teach my students character design and some were shocked to realise Mario was just Japanese Mickey Mouse. He's been made into a company mascot and should be treated as such
I think thats because Mario has to be kid/family friendly whereas Zelda’s franchise has appealed to an older audience which allows more complexity, maturity and depth when designing games. I cant imagine starting a Mario game watching his arm getting amputated by Bowser.
Personally, I found BOTW and TOTK to be my two least favourite in the series. I like the open world concept but overall found them dull and lacking in any real focus.
There definitely hasn’t been an investment in Mario lore the way there has been with Zelda. Some of the Mario series are very popular (Mario Kart and Mario Party for example), but there’s no plot or anything to connect them with other titles
Peach, Toad, Bowser, the Kongs; have been retouched in design passes starting in the mid 90s. I think that Mario and Luigi remaining as they were, in light of the others being updated, disproves your post. The lack of an updated Mario and Luigi speaks to how strong their early iterations were.
I don't know that it's really apples to apples to compare Mario with Zelda, they're really in different categories. If you compared it with Mario RPG, that might be more apt, but they usually target different groups. Mario games are mostly family friendly casual games, whereas Zelda is an epic RPG.
I would say more like an Action RPG. Link is silent for the most part, allowing the player to inject themselves into the story somewhat as "the hero". It's true it's not a "traditional RPG", it's not turn-based and there's no leveling, but it does have RPG elements here and there.
I don't think Mario needs to adapt, he's just kinda perfect the way he is? it's really not even a matter of sales data it's just the formula is fine as is. In an age where AAA studios are trying to "modernize" their IPs, Mario is a godsend
You know what they say, If it ain't broke don't fix it
I know this is satire. but i hate how they changed zelda. i miss my dungeons, non breaking swords, a reason to play it cause now you can just 'GO ANYWHERE" which gives me no incentive to play. also it's baren since it's the end of times no castle town or kakariko, idk. guess i'm an old head
Unbreakable swords…my god…weapon breaking mechanics are the worst. Sharpening like Monster Hunter or repairing like Diablo is one thing, but weapons just breaking is dogshit.
i don’t understand why weapon breaking is so bad
when i play either botw or totk, i run into issues of having too many weapons much more often than my weapons breaking
weapon durability forces you to use a variety of weapons, and it can add more unpredictabitity to combat
It is, imo, completely predictable that my weapon will break and I’ll be forced to use something inferior or less fun. I don’t like heavy weapons. They don’t fit my play style. The game is less fun when forced into that. And sure I can optimize my play to pick up only swords or whatever, but then it
Just feels tedious. The fact is it does force you to use other weapons, but I don’t see why that’s good. Make those weapons something I want to use instead of forcing my hand. I switched weapons frequently in GoW: Ragnarok because they were all fun to use. I did it in TotK because my master sword
I feel like it makes for an interesting challenge though. For instance in Assassin's creed, you unlock the next level and then never use previous weapons again. In this system, you end up using a much wider variety of weapons. It's like exp share not being able to turn off in pokemon 1/2
I think there are ways to incentivize use a a variety of weapons that don’t involve taking away tools from the player. Make me want to use other weapons, but don’t force me to use them because I’m not allowed to use the one I was having fun with.
While it obviously is stupid and sucks ass, it does make me use a wide variety of Pokémon so I don't over level my faves and make the game way too easy.
The issue isn't the Exp Share, it's the fact you get exp from catching now. It's so easy to overlevel thanks to that. I've done runs where my only catches were the six I planned on using and at the end my levels were right where they were supposed to be.
I hear you for sure. But I'm ultra old (pre Atari), loved Zelda its whole life, and I still think Breath of the Wild was the best one in 15+ years. It was just SO different, and a real breath (hah) of fresh air compared to the other open world games of the time (and what the prior Zeldas were).
Tears of the Kingdom has dungeons and (no one will tell you this but) you can basically mainline it like a traditional Zelda game. They also more or less solved the durability friction with fuse, which is fun & super rewarding to experiment with
Durability was never an issue anyways because of the absolute plethora of weapons you can find. I was always passing them up because they were so simple to find.
Also, TotK added the ability to repair weapons by using Rock Octoroks. Once per enemy you can let it inhale a weapon and it'll repair it
i wouldn't be foolish enough to argue that they're comparable to games like wind waker or the switch era ones, but sunshine, galaxy and odyssey are very fun
I think that’s because the technology and capacity has empowered Zelda’s original vision, a box garden. Less of an adapted to modernity but a recovery of goals.
I’m not sure Mario had a greater vision than as a platformer.
We're not going to act like Odyssey doesn't exist.
Also, as a guy with a hyrule wedding ring, Zelda has not "adapted" to modern gaming. Its just become modern gaming with a Zelda skin. It isn't Zelda anymore. You can do that with Mario, but they won't because of the brand.
Odyssey was only a few years ago, and it did a lot to redefine games in a series that needs to be a pretty stable baseline for a whole genre, as Mario has a position for it's genre of platforming gamd more than Zelda has for being an adventure game that's not an RPG.
ultimately mario hasnt evolved like zelda has because theres no real need to and its not a real fit for mario. mario evolving looks a lot more like odyssey/wonder/the mario makers for a reason
Lot of brand characters haven't been touched or innovated. When was the last time there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon that was about Mickey and not the Disney Brand?
The massive popularity of the various Mario Parties and Karts, and that Odyssey and 3D World continue to sell well years after release make me wonder what you talking about. That is ignoring the huge movie that came out last year btw.
I think its moreso uniqueness. A lot of platformers nowadays do a lot more to stand out from the others. I feel Odyssey did that, but Wonder did not. Outside of the wonder seed doing wacky stuff, Wonder is just an average platformer with nothing special to set it apart from a million indie games.
I mean, I kinda didn't list it for kinda that reason. I enjoyed my time with it - as an audio/visual experience it's a treat! - but even NSMBU was better as a 2d platformer.
Great memories of Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 and Mario Cart on the Wii & Wii U, but fair point, that's a previous generation. Personally, I never got the urge to play Zelda despite others in the house saying how amazing they were. Horses for courses, I guess.
mario does not need to "adapt" to "modern gaming" because mario is already good and fun. zelda was also already good and fun. why do we have to drop good and fun things for the sake of a larger scope? i like BotW/TotK but there's nothing wrong with mario games....
Zelda doesn’t commit to the 2D cycle nearly as hard as Mario commits to theirs. It *looks* like Super Mario Wonder needed 2x-3x the resources as Echoes of Wisdom did.
Im STILL so mad that mario odyssey wasnt full free roam on a huge map comprised of all the different locations across the entire series. Like, mario 64 but you actually travel to each of paintings on foot. Would have been legendary but NOPE. And the hardware camt be an excuse because loz botw exists
And you also cant use the excuse that "mario wouldn't work for free roam!" Because mario galaxy (which is about as close to free roam as you can get in the mario franchise) is some of the best mario content weve ever gotten. They just cant be bothered i guess :/ or hell, if free roam is such an
Issue, why not more story? I would kill for just a little more personality. Like, could you IMAGINE how good a 3d, mainline mario game with thousand year door levels of storytelling could be. That would be INSANE. But again, Nintendo is allergic to good mario content 🙄
Yeah bowsers fury sucked but that was just a test. They could definitely do FAR better with an actual game. Pipes, the power lines from mario odyssey, those things that fling you to new areas in mario galaxy, the paintings in mario 64. All of that could improve getting around the map. Also, finding
Secrets is a major part of almost every mario game, so that being expanded into a full size map could have a lot of potential. I dont think they should completely switch to making free roam games or anything, i just think it would be interesting just to try. Especially considering botw did it so wel
I think the biggest tech advancement for platformers is VR. Moss is a fantastic game, and has that added dimension other platformers can't properly have. But until Nintendo create their own VR hardware, I doubt we will ever see Nintendo take advantage of it
Zelda adapted to remain popular in the exploration aspect to give ppl something new. Mario remained the same cuz he didn't have to change. He is comfort and co-op oriented. as a figure he's less popular cuz he has a large cast that comes with him, but he is still the face of it all.
This is not my experience at all. My 10 and 14 year old will play any Mario game made, and they keep making them. I have two nieces who have preschool aged kids and their kids LOVE Mario.
I understand what you mean after reading your comments, but I feel like Mario doesn't really need to change the formula. It's one of those, "if it's not broken" kind of situations where the games are still incredibly fun without needing to change too much
Genuine question, because I haven't been paying attention -- have they made, like, a traditional mario game? I know there's mario kart, but it never occured to me to look for a regular game?
Super Mario Odyssey (28 million) and Breath of the Wild (32 million) sold a similar amount of copies. Mario Kart 8 is one of the best selling games of all time. Mario + Rabbids did XCOM better than XCOM itself. Mario has his own RPG universe to which there’s no Zelda equivalent.
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He’s just marketed as a kid’s game first and foremost.
Or are the games not doing well even amongst the preteens?
Galaxy 1 alone had more things going for it.
So I guess I agree but just dislike trends in modern gaming. (At least the ones they’re incorporating. )
Personally I wouldn't call what LoZ has done "evolving" nearly as much as I would what Odyssey has done. Odyssey builds on existing Mario staples in a new way; BotW/TotK just threw them out.
Playing as Mario is always fun and responsive bc that’s the heart of the series, they just add a few fresh elements on top each time the title changes
As you said Zelda kinda tossed most of its past appeals to make open worlds filled with just repetitive 5 min physics puzzles and chores :/
I'd also argue the Zelda games have coasted for quite awhile on stale mechanics. Even BOTW/TOTK have a lot of time-wasting nonsense in them.
Luigi Mangione shot a greedy healthcare CEO dead.
Chronic pain in lower back, so he did a surprise attack,
then into Central Park on e-bike he fled.
Hey now, you're Adjuster, for great justice, go slay...
Beware arches of gold;
if someone sees you, cops will be told.
Meanwhile, Mario games weren't afraid of doing weird shit. The jetpack/hose focus of Sunshine, or the gravity and orbit mechanics of Galaxy.
Is TotK’s plot a bit too much like OoT? Maybe, but they are hardly the same game otherwise.
BOTW killed any interest I had in Zelda. 🤷♂️
Where is he now? A ghost of his former self. Probably sharing a bottle with Q*bert somewhere. The poor guy.
Doing much better with echoes of wisdom.
If they modernized it, Luigi would just be way OP homie. Busting caps in Bowsers ass... you know.
You know what they say, If it ain't broke don't fix it
The slate is cool but I miss all my gear
I hate weapon breaking far too much
when i play either botw or totk, i run into issues of having too many weapons much more often than my weapons breaking
weapon durability forces you to use a variety of weapons, and it can add more unpredictabitity to combat
For me I dont like to change my character's gear often so weapon breaking is a pain because it forces that
also they both have Kakariko village
Also, TotK added the ability to repair weapons by using Rock Octoroks. Once per enemy you can let it inhale a weapon and it'll repair it
I’m not sure Mario had a greater vision than as a platformer.
Also, as a guy with a hyrule wedding ring, Zelda has not "adapted" to modern gaming. Its just become modern gaming with a Zelda skin. It isn't Zelda anymore. You can do that with Mario, but they won't because of the brand.
like dont get me wrong, what theyve done with BOTW/TOTK is a masterclass, but its very much apples/oranges between the two series
"Made me wonder" was an unintentional pun.
Technically there’s better meals, but there’s NOTHING like your mom’s best dish, period.
I love Zelda.
However, Mario is timeless.
Also, always a hit with kids.
All these games you list thrive on very intentional level design in what are basically themed acrobatics courses
They experimented with an open world in Bowser’s Fury, play that, it’s what you’re asking for
Game is neat but it’s just ship travel toward small islands built like Mario levels
Luigi was always more popular. Mario just had a better marketing team.
I did not.
Well played~