The Two Marios

 In the year 2021, YouTuber jan Misali released the video essay "how many Super Mario games are there?", a unique, data-driven look at the "mainline" Mario series.  It, along with its 2024 sequel "how many Super Mario games are there NOW?", are in my opinion some of the best video essays on the entire website, two excellent videos covering how much surprising ambiguity there is in what is one of the most ubiquitous franchises in history.  Utilizing a number of sources, both official and reputable, as well as polling the audience for their own opinions on the topic, jan Misali presents a fascinating look into how up for interpretation this seemingly simple question and, in turn, does not provide an answer, leaving the audience to simply ask what their own version of this same list would be.  And like most people who watched that video, it compelled me to want to form my own list and, moreover, it compelled me to want to go back and finish many loose threads in this series, platformers I had, at various points in my life, started but never finished.  

I learned some interesting things in this little venture, for instance, despite my initial dislike of Yoshi's Island off its first world years ago, the more I played it the more I loved it.  Or that after many years of telling myself that Super Mario 64 has aged, has been supplanted by other Mario games that followed, and that the DS version is clearly superior due to the additional content, I actually love Super Mario 64, almost as much as I love Odyssey, and frankly feel like the DS version I grew up with is by and large the worse version because it is missing the most important thing to 64 as a work of art.  I also confirmed suspicions I had.  I had long thought that Mario 2 was my favorite of the NES Marios and Mario 3 is my least favorite and playing both of them over in what are likely their most definitive releases, the Advance series versions, confirmed this.  Mario 2 is a flawed, weird, but ultimately misunderstood and incredibly interesting game while Mario 3 strives for perfection, succeeds, and kinda ends up boring because of it.  I even learned that I don't like the All-Stars ports of Mario 1 and Lost Levels (not that I like original Lost Levels either, it's not a good game imo), finding its differences in physics from the NES originals very distracting.  But the most interesting thought I had playing through all these NES Mario games finally is how different they are in design philosophy from Mario World, the 2D Mario I grew up with.

In particular Mario 3 was an eye opener as it contained many elements that would later be utilized in World, an overworld map to explore, more characters Mario comes up against, distinctive, themed worlds.  I've even heard the criticism of Mario 3 that it feels like it was just a tech demo for World, a belief not really supported by the knowledge of Mario 3 and Mario World's reasonably well documented development cycles.  But in these similarities, I started to notice how different they were on a fundamental level.  How these two seemingly similar designs were made to accomplish vastly different goals, create different experiences.  And I realized, there might not be just one philosophy of what Mario is in this series.  There might, in fact, be...

...Two Marios

It would be impossible to overstate the influence Super Mario Bros. for the NES has had.  Like, it is video games, everything descends from it.  It's almost self-parody at this point, we take it for granted how much it changed the world.  And I think the biggest thing we take for granted, is the fourth pipe on world 1-1.  It's such common knowledge at this point that you can descend the pipe to find a stash of coins and a shortcut that we forget how mind blowing it must've been to find that for the first time.  To be the first person in your friend group to figure out how to do 1-1 faster than everyone else.  Mario 1 then follows it up with a truly spectacular secret, a Warp Zone, taking you from the first level all the way to the fourth, rewarding players for experimenting in the level and exploring every nook and cranny.  These secrets were not the first in gaming, Adventure for the Atari is widely recognized to have one of if not the first secret(s) in gaming, but they are still incredibly influential and, more relevantly, set up Mario as a series about two things.  Exploration, and speed.

In Mario 1's context the secrets are designed to help the player achieve the endgame faster.  In level shortcuts or entire world skips are common in the level design and famously you can utilize these various tricks to beat Mario 1 in incredibly short times.  At the time I'm writing this, we are rapidly approaching the point of no return on its speed, mere frames remain before we reach the fastest possible time on the game.  The ability to find secrets to impact the gameplay is so inherent to Mario that the "true" sequel to Mario 1, The Lost Levels, parodies this idea, giving players the same generalized idea of "finding secrets to go fast" only for said secrets to be unhelpful and often undo progress.  And it is from these two ideas, exploration and speed, that I am positing the two separate Mario series exist.

Super Mario Bros. 3

Super Mario Bros. 3's secrets are almost as iconic as Mario 1's.  The warp whistle was literally a major plot point in a Hollywood movie designed solely to advertise Super Mario Bros. 3, the Wizard, allowing the main character to defeat his rival in the final big video game competition.  Mario 3 goes bigger and better with its secrets than Mario 1, part of its design goal to be "the best Mario game it can be" based on the context of NES Mario.  There are many secrets so obscure in it that Mario 3 experts are still not totally confident in how to get them, like the secret mushroom houses which require oddly specific coin counts on specific levels to spawn.  But these secrets largely exist to accomplish the central goal of "going fast".  Powerups to skip levels and/or beat them as fast as possible, the aforementioned warp whistles which both exist in World 1 and allow you to immediately skip to the end of the game.  It's very obvious that, taking from Mario 1, Mario 3 sees the purpose of exploring in the game to be "giving the players options to speedrun it".

This is also present in how Super Mario Bros. 3 utilizes its world map.  One may think that Mario 3, having a world map at all, a first for the series, would be focusing more on exploration, filling the nooks and crannies with secret levels and weird alternate routes to take.  In practice, however, the world map ultimately serves as just a way to give players options on what levels they want to complete and, moreover, what levels they want to skip.  To my recollection, the only world that really has anything to explore is the Water World of World 3, where a canoe can take you to a hidden part of the map containing bonus toad houses and minigames.  It is clear the function of the world map is simply to aid in the game's central goal of "go fast".

The level design itself also signals to the player that the goal is speed.  Mario 3's levels are not only typically short but breezy as well.  Even into the late game on my playthrough I often found myself kinda just holding left to win.  Very few levels have puzzles to solve or any real obstacle getting in your way, you just can kinda go.  Especially with the wide range of powerups, many of which are designed to literally let you fly over obstacles, including numerous instances where you obtain a more powerful version of said powerups that act as if you are always going at top speed allowing near infinite flight for the level used.  Mario 3 is, ultimately, a game about speed, it is a game you can get really good at and then beat as a fidget toy in a half hour while you're waiting for something to happen.

Super Mario World

Juxtapose this with its immediate successor, Super Mario World.  The fourth Mario game in many ways attempts to accomplish many of the same goals as Mario Bros. 3.  Being a launch title for the more powerful Super Nintendo, Mario World intends to go bigger and better than Mario has ever been before.  Unlike Super Mario Bros. 3, however, it does not attempt to do this by trying to produce the most perfect version of what we've seen before, instead serving as something of a reinvention of Mario.  Mario World takes place not in a series of kingdoms ruled by seemingly allied monarchs but, instead, on a distant, foreign island.  The world map, an idea established in Mario 3, is greatly expanded upon,     now being one large, interlocking world instead of a series of individualized maps.  Mario World goes back to basics with its powerup spread, whereas Mario 3 had several different powerups to aid the player in specific circumstances, Mario World goes back to 3, the Mushroom, the Fire Flower, and the games' new addition to the powerup canon, the Super Cape.  Instead of focusing on powerups, Mario World chooses to instead develop an entirely new cast member, the long awaited noble steed to Mario's knight slaying the dragon to rescue the princess archetype, Yoshi.  Yoshi fundamentally changes how Mario interacts with the world, giving Mario a different way of taking out enemies, having his partner eat them to gain other advantages, as well as allowing him to cross certain hazards no issue.

The most relevant thing currently though would be that world map.  A massive, interlocking map of different levels and stages, Dinosaur Land is a far cry from previous Mario games' worlds.  At a first glance it honestly may not seem that special, in fact, if you are just attempting to achieve the goal of "beat the game" it may even seem less impressive than previous maps, as the initial several worlds seem to be a straight, linear path, only divulging in a later world where the map becomes very ambiguous.  But this is where Mario World really hides its true genius, as Mario World is full of secrets and it wants the player to explore its many levels to find them all.

Super Mario World's overworld map conveys levels in many ways but mainly as simple, easy to recognize dots in two colors.  Yellow dots inform the player the level is no frills, a level meant to be played and completed entirely at face value, you get to the goal, it's a-him, Mario.  The red dots though, are interesting.  The red level dots indicate that there is a hidden exit in the level, for the player to find.  Either a proper hidden area or a key hidden level to insert into a lock hidden elsewhere in the same level.  This immediately signals to the player how important level exploration is to Super Mario World, that it is informing you that there are many levels throughout with something more to them.  And here's the biggest break Mario World has from its predecessors; finding secrets within levels does not always make the game go by faster.  In Mario World, the game expands when you find secrets within levels, revealing hidden pathways and unique areas.  There are entire alternate routes with unique stages you would not normally encounter and the linear pathway locked behind in-level secrets.  And many of the Switch Palaces, areas in the game that when reached and completed change the geography of the game's many levels, are hidden, making the player find them within the levels.

But it goes even beyond this as Mario World has an unlockable world for finding hidden paths.  The Star World, a mysterious world containing five levels, has numerous entrances throughout Dinosaur Land, locked away until the player uncovers their secrets.  Star World itself is full of hidden pathways, and as the player accomplishes the objectives within, they are rewarded with a few special unlockables.  The first is the different colored Yoshis.  I had not previously commented on this, waiting for this part of the text, but one of Yoshi's unique powers is that when he eats a Koopa shell, he gains abilities based on the color of said shell.  Red gives him the ability to breathe fire, blue gives him the ability to fly, and yellow makes Yoshi creates shockwaves when he hits the ground.  By completing the Star World levels, you are rewarded with red, yellow, and blue Yoshis who adopt these powers on any Koopa shell eaten on top of powers they would gain.  The second big unlockable is more game.  By finding all the hidden exits in Star World you unlock the Special World, a series of challenge levels with funny names like "Tubular" or "Mondo" for the player to test their skills in.  For the record, I have never found Special Zone despite all my years of playing Mario World, I should probably do that at some point.

The third unlock you get, however, brings us back around to the idea of exploration and speed.  By completing the Star World, you gain the ability to warp directly to the final boss.  The place where Mario World seems the most similar to its predecessor.  If the idea I am putting forward is that there are Two Marios, one of speed and one of exploration, how does the supposed divergence point, Mario World vs. Mario 3, end up at seemingly the same place regardless.  Mario World, for all its focus on exploration, seems to go back to "go fast".  I think of it kind of like the following, and you are welcome to disagree, like jan Misali who started this whole train of thought, I do not seek to provide answers.  My belief in the Two Marios is my own interpretation of the series and it's fine if you don't concur, that's kinda the point of the videos.  

As previously stated, Mario 3 feels as though speed is not simply reward for finding secrets but the purpose of said secrets in the first place.  The intent is almost always focused on the idea of getting to the end of the game faster.  Mario World I feel contrasts this by making the purpose exploration and the reward speed.  Rather than the two being intrinsically linked, existing solely as a unit, they are two concepts working in tandem, a mechanic and a reward.  You don't explore in Mario World to go fast, you explore in Mario World to find secret pathways and new levels and your reward for your due diligence is that you can go fast.  And with this, we establish two ideas of Mario, one of speed, and one of exploration.

3D Mario

I think this dichotomy also manages explain one of the oddest things within the Mario series: Super Mario 64.  When you really think about it, it's weird how we just immediately accept Mario 64 as a Mario game.  Despite its seemingly drastic departure from the gameplay style of the 2D Mario games that came before it, it is almost unquestionable that people believe Mario 64 is a Mario game.  This doesn't really happen for a lot of other series.  When making the jump from 2D to 3D, oftentimes there is considerable controversy about the titles during and after that jump.  Sonic, a series originally designed to combat Mario, is a great example of this.  While nowadays people tend to unquestionably praise the Adventure games, they were controversial for a long time, with many Sonic fans even stating the games weren't true Sonic titles, that they missed the point of the Genesis games.

Meanwhile, Mario 64 exists as an uncontroversial entity.  Sure, some may put forward the argument that Mario 64 begins a subseries within the Mario canon, that all the 3D Marios are in fact a separate series from the 2D games, but I don't think those people are doing it in the sense of "Mario 64 isn't true to the 2D games" but rather that it makes sense for their own interpretation to place the 3D Marios, largely a group of collectathon platformers, in a separate category from the sidescrolling 2D games, a different sort of "Two Marios".  But personally I think this lack of controversy around Mario 64's status is because it is a natural progression in many ways of the philosophy of Mario World, a Mario game that, in my mind, gave birth to the idea of Mario focusing on exploration.

The Rest of the Series

To finish this out I want to go over my own interpretation of what the Mario series is with this idea in place.  To start, the two Mario 2s, Lost Levels and USA.  They kind of nebulously exist in both categories, mainly due to existing before the divergence point in the series, but I wanted to highlight them anyways because I find them interesting.  Mario USA, in my mind the "true" Mario 2 due to its greater lasting influence on the Mario series, at first feels like it is more in line with Mario World due to its larger levels that frequently are designed to be combed through to find objectives.  And this is certainly true, an earlier idea of this same concept had the divergence be the two Mario 2s, with Lost Levels representing what would become the 3 legacy.  But ultimately Mario USA doesn't do a whole lot past having big levels the exploration of these levels ultimately doesn't accomplish anything in the grander design philosophy which is very much a "get to the end as fast as possible side scroller".  It's sort of a half step between the two, existing in both Marios at once.

The Lost Levels, meanwhile, is bad.  But also surprises me in this context.  I have long thought of the Lost Levels as a game that only technically counts, that a ubiquitous fun fact has turned what is effectively a romhack into the true sequel to Mario 1 and despite this, Lost Levels doesn't really have much legacy in the Mario series.  But, if anything, the Lost Levels is another half step between both Marios.  Like by definition The Lost Levels is like Mario 1 and by extension Mario 3, it is literally Mario 1 but hard now.  Surprisingly though, the Lost Levels does implement a key ideas that would also become part of World and its legacy.  The Lost Levels is full of secret worlds, five of them to be exact, found by accomplishing various goals during gameplay of the "standard game".  Again, it ultimately exists in both of them and honestly leans even more towards 3 than World, but its such an interesting little note about the Lost Levels and a legacy it leaves behind that may be overlooked.

It should come as no surprise that Super Mario Land for the Game Boy is, decidedly, on the speed side of this spectrum.  Like, all Mario Land is, is speed, it's not only a very short Mario game, barely containing over ten levels, but many of these levels take seconds to complete.  It could be argued it shouldn't even count for any metric I put forward, as the only secrets in the levels are coin rooms which give you minor shortcuts.  But like, it's a Super Mario game, what are you going to do.

Mario Land 2, on the other hand, is far more nuanced.  Mario Land 2 has a decently sized, interlocking world map akin to Mario World.  It is, seemingly, a game designed to be explored.  And there are a lot of different places to go to, some of which are hidden behind seemingly innocuous facades that you have to dig deep into.  However, ultimately all of this is required, your exploration is just choosing where you wish to go and what order you wish to do things, you are still attempting to accomplish the goal of getting to the end as fast as possible.  It's a surprisingly tricky entry in the grand scheme of things but, ultimately, I think it's fair to say that it is an exploration game and throw it on that side.  I mean I guess I could always put it in both as well but I don't want to have to do that already 3 games after the split happened.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, arguably shouldn't count.  Like it's not really the third Mario Land game, it's the first Wario Land game, an entirely different series with its own design philosophy.  But a part of me also feels like there's a distinct reason why Wario Land is labeled initially as a Mario game before branching into its own thing, as I could see the argument being made that, in a very generous sense, all Mario spinoff series start off as Super Mario games and then only after do they become their own series, i.e. Super Mario Kart would be a Super Mario game but Mario Kart 64 would not be.  Otherwise, like, how is the series spinning off if it doesn't exist in the original series in the first place.  I won't be doing every spinoff by this logic, don't worry, but I think for Wario Land I'll make an exception and I think Wario Land is pretty decidedly an exploration based game, you are trying to navigate labyrinthian to find and collect treasure.

Speaking of exceptions, another one on the list, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.  Again, this should probably count not as a Mario game but as a Yoshi game but like, I want to count it.  Suffice to say, this is again another exploration game.  Although incredibly linear, with the world map existing as effectively a list that you can scroll across to pick levels, Yoshi's Island is all about exploring its levels' every nook and cranny to find numerous collectibles, accomplishing a final score of 100 and unlocking levels as a result.  It is one of the most nonlinear linear games ever made.

We've already talking about Mario 64, so lets instead talk about its sequel, Super Mario Sunshine.  Sunshine is pretty decidedly an exploration game, but I think it's noteworthy in that we are starting to see a decrease in true exploration for the 3D Marios already.  While Mario 64 allows the player a lot of freedom on what stars to collect, when to collect them and how, only having as single actually required star if the player is playing normally (and for the most part even if they aren't), Mario Sunshine roadblocks the player a lot, having numerous levels with inaccessible elements that will not appear until you beat earlier missions.  There are sadly very few shines you can get out of order, and, ultimately, collecting Shines is not exactly your goal as advertised as ultimately you are attempting to just make it to the seventh mission in each world to beat Shadow Mario.  An argument could certainly be made it belongs in both and maybe even that it is just a speed game.

Super Mario 64 DS is next, it is the only remake I am counting because it is the only Mario remake thus far that I feel is a substantially different enough game from its original counterpart to be a unique entry.  It's Mario 64, you know where it goes.  

New Super Mario Bros.!  I will, against my better judgement, be covering the New Super Mario Bros. games individually even though I'm pretty sure they are all going to have the same verdict.  New Super Mario Bros. is 100% a speed game, the whole purpose of it was to bring back the original Mario gameplay but updated with modern Mario's moveset.  It has warp zones to throw you into different levels and it even forces you to skip several worlds on each playthrough, making the player choose which worlds they want to skip but skipping them all the same, this is a game designed to be beaten as fast as possible if I've ever seen one.

Super Mario Galaxy is up next and, well, it's complicated.  If Sunshine was already starting to kick the can down into speed game territory, Galaxy almost gets it all the way to the junkyard.  Galaxy gives the player a lot of options for nonlinearity but almost every level in Galaxy once you arrive is a pretty simple "get to the goal as fast as possible".  The level design is very linear, having far more in common with the 2D sidescrollers than its 3D predecessors, primarily because the Wii kind of required a more simplified gameplay to be able to function with its more simplified controllers.  My heart says Galaxy is still an exploration game, but this one I could go either way on, ask me again in a month and I'd say speed game.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii!  New Super Mario Bros. Wii is, like its predecessor, absolutely a speed game.  In many ways it's even moreso, New Super Mario Bros. Wii not only has easily accessible secret warp zones to rocket you to other levels and pathing designed only to let you skip over levels to get to the end as fast as possible but the actual levels are this weird blend of overly large and spacious but still fast.  This is of course made to support the four player simultaneous multiplayer, causing the game to just feel a little empty and emptiness makes for faster levels.

Mario Galaxy 2 is up next and when conceiving of this idea initially, I believed genuinely that Mario Galaxy 2 was going to be the breaking point.  I believed we would get to Mario Galaxy 2 and face the reality that 3D Mario was no longer exploration based at all.  Mario Galaxy 2, infamously, walks back on many of the things that the first game was praised for, its sense of scale, its atmosphere, its tone, its story.  And it's all in service of making the most "fun" game possible, something that causes many people, myself included, to kinda feel like it's fun but pretty soulless.  The big thing about Galaxy 2 is that it does adopt classic 2D Mario design ideals and bring them to a 3D space, featuring tons of linear obstacle course levels just floating out in space.  Would you believe me if I told you, though, that Galaxy 2 is not only an exploration game, but its status as one is less ambiguous than the first game.  See, Galaxy 2 features an incredibly extensive post game where you are tasked with revisiting every level in the game to find hidden objectives within.  Meaning that Galaxy 2 ultimately incentivizes the player to find as many collectibles as possible and explore all these levels in depth.  And the goal?  To unlock more levels, in this case a final gauntlet level.  I know, it's wild to me too, but Galaxy 2 is exploration.

Super Mario 3D Land, however, does break our trend of 3D Mario games being exploration based.  Mario 3D Land is, very literally, an adaptation of classic obstacle course style 2D Mario into the 3D space.  In many ways it is a direct successor to Mario 3, one of the games that started this divergence in the first place.  And I know that 3D Land has a ton of unlockable levels, doubling the length of the game, but these unlocks are, as far as I'm aware, essentially automatic once you complete the main game.  This game doesn't really have 8 normal worlds and 8 unlockable worlds, it just has sixteen worlds.

Remember when I said I was gonna do the New Soup games individually.  Well there's three of them in a row so you're getting all of them, sorry, I'm a liar.  New Super Mario Bros. 2, New Super Mario Bros. U, and New Super Luigi U are all speed games.  Especially that last one where you have 1/3 the time to beat every level and they're all designed for Luigi'    s faster gameplay.  Something I haven't brought up about the New Super Mario Bros. series is that it does indeed have exploration mechanics to it, there are collectibles in every level and obtaining them all nets you unlockable bonus levels, one for each world you achieve all collectibles on.  As such the argument could very well be made that they are more ambiguous than I am giving them credit for and could even count as exploration games.  This is a valid viewpoint, of course, and in the same way I think Mario Galaxy could be parsed as a speed game depending on the day I'm asked, the same holds true for the New Soup games.  But I think the reason why I'm hesitant to say they're definitely exploration games is that the exploration is clearly not the main focus of their design philosophy.  They want to be successors to the 2D Mario games a whole and, as such, they end up adopting points from Mario World, but in totality, they have more in common with 1-3.

Super Mario 3D World is easily the most ambiguous game in this exercise.  As a followup to Mario 3D Land, it adopts many of philosophies that game had, choosing to be a collection of pretty generic obstacle courses in the sky rather than having like real explorable 3D worlds (heh) like some of its predecessors.  Contrariwise, a lot of the game is about exploring these levels, there are plenty of secrets hidden throughout, alternate paths to find, unique puzzles for a single playable character.  And these secrets unlock substantial post game content, which itself leads to more exploration.  If any game were too truly be where the two become one once again, it would be 3D World.  But, I'm not going to cop out like that, so I will say, going on the record as I'm writing this, that 3D World is an exploration game.  And if I write anything that says it's a speed game, look dude, it's too hard to determine, I'm sorry.

The third, and final, spinoff exception to the list, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.  This is a weird one, absolutely the most bizarre entry on this list.  I'm frankly only counting it because it is a direct spinoff and continuation of Mario 3D World, and I feel as though I really can't justifiably put Wario Land and Yoshi's Island on this list without also counting Captain Toad.  Despite its oddness though, its placing is clear, it is an exploration based game, you cannot go fast in it even if you wanted to, the whole point is solving these puzzle levels by having Toad explore around and controlling the overall level as he does so.

You know, when I was conceptualizing this as a cool thing to write about, I completely forgot about the Mario Maker games which, according to all official sources, are mainline Mario games.  That's a choice.  The Mario Maker titles are a problem because, while they certainly are full of platforming levels, too full if anything, Mario Maker is not a platformer, it is a stage builder.  The core gameplay is meant to be creating and sharing your levels for other people to play and the ability to play others levels is just part of that stage building community experience.  But they're listed officially so even if I wouldn't put them on my personal list, we gotta put 'em somewhere and I don't think you'll be surprised but both are speed games.  Like regardless of what is implemented into the level to force the player to explore through it, the goal is always going to be at the end "reach the goal as fast as possible".

Super Mario Run, the only game on this list not on a Nintendo console or, for that matter, a game console in general.  Super Mario Run's inclusion may be more controversial than Captain Toad's, all told, just due to that fact that it's a mobile game, a weird attempt at courting a new market at a time where Nintendo's future was very uncertain.  And on top of that, it's arguably not a platformer, instead being of the mobile-friendly genre of endless runners/  But in my mind, its status as a Mario game is unambiguous, it is basically the sixth New Super Mario Bros game.  Surprise surprise, it is, like its brethren, another speed game.

Super Mario Odyssey, my favorite of the Mario games, is up next and like.  Do I even need to say it?  Mario Odyssey is effectively the first 3D Mario game since 64 that isn't even a little ambiguous.  It is an exploration game through and through, it is basically the proposed Super Mario 64 2 given life finally.  Odyssey has just an absurd amount of exploration in it, over 800 moons base and to get to the final boss you barely need 1/4 of them, giving the player tons of freedom to explore on their own.

Super Mario Bros. 35 is on neither list because it doesn't exist anymore.  I kid, I kid, I'm going to classify it.  Mario Bros 35 is a difficult one to parse because we've had games on this list before that are in different genres from the standard "platformer" of the majority.  But I don't think one has been in a genre that makes it as incompatible as 35 does.  See 35 is neither about speed nor exploration, it's about survival.  You don't necessarily want to get to the end as fast as possible, nor do you wish to find secrets and get to warp zones.  In Mario 35 you want to survive the longest.  Ultimately though, I'm going to say speed game, between the two options it objectively fits more than exploration.

Our penultimate game on the list, Bowser's Fury.  Bowser's Fury is kind of a best of 3D Mario, combining the core structure of 3D World and placing it into a more direct collectathon package.  It is effectively a marrying of 3D World and Odyssey, and frankly it's the only reason I feel compelled to buy 3D World in any capacity just to play this.  As such, it is an exploration game, in fact, in many ways it is the first truly open world Mario game, presumably something we can expect from the as of yet unannounced 3D Mario game for the currently upcoming Switch 2.

Finally, Super Mario Bros. Wonder.  In the videos that started me on this whole train, Mario Wonder is unique in that it's the first entry in the series since World that no statistically substantial demographic of people who do not consider it a Super Mario game.  I've always been curious if that data would remain the same asked a few years later, if opinions on Wonder would change as more people analyze it and determine why it's not.  Full disclosure, I don't know a lot about Wonder.  From the game's first reveal, I immediately clocked it as a game I would not like and thus haven't really engaged with it.  But from the things I've been able to parse from my limited experiences with it as well as developer interviews, I am willing to state that it seems like an exploration game.  I know there is a substantial overworld to explore and every level is literally designed with the purpose of finding secrets because the game's design philosophy is built on finding secrets to change how the level plays.

Actually going through this whole thought experiment was very surprising to me.  When I initially conceptualized this idea of the Two Marios, as I was discussing my own experiences playing Mario 3 with people, I initially believed what we would find is twofold.  Firstly, I believed that there would be may more Mario games on the Speed side than the exploration side, I believed as a rule that 2D games would all be on the speed side and that honestly most of the 3D games would be as well.  I fully expected the exploration category to just contain World, World 2, 64, Sunshine, 64 DS, Odyssey, and Bowser's Fury, and for the remaining titles to be speed based.  

Secondly, and more importantly, I found how ambiguous this idea really was, way more than I was assured of.  I still believe in the Two Marios, don't get me wrong, this is my own interpretation of the series, I find this idea of there being two core design philosophies that take turns deciding which one is central to the game in question to be really compelling.  But as you could read when I started classifying, these two categories are themselves ambiguous, and many games could justifiably be put in the other category or put in both.  While my interpretation of the series may be that there's two Marios, this may not stay forever.  I may believe in weeks, months, years that the Super Mario series, rather than being defined by multiple ideologies that change on which one is the dominant one, is instead just one thing, and these ideologies are one and the same.  And you know what, that's fantastic, this ambiguity is what makes this idea of the Super Mario series great and I look forward to how future experiences shape this idea.  It's an exciting prospect to me, and I hope it is to you too.

Random Thoughts and Feelings on Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

 Recently, as part of my foolish attempt to decrease my monstrous backlog, I decided to play one of my oldest hanging threads in it, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.  One of the most beloved games of all time, I acquired it many years ago after watching several of my at the time favorite content creators tackle the game.  At a certain point in time, although I had never finished it myself, I would've even gone so far as to say TTYD is one of my favorite games of all time as, regretfully, much of my own thoughts and opinions were parroting those of people whose content I enjoyed playing games I never thought I would be able to play myself.  Over the years however, my own opinions on gaming and especially TTYD have evolved and now, as an adult, I decided to finally tackle the game in its entirety.  The following are various thoughts and opinions I privately shared with various friends and friend groups but initially I did not wish to share with the masses, due to my own knowledge on, a, how beloved this game is, 2, how passionate its audience tends to be, and lastly, how my own opinions on the game I knew were already and/or going to be pretty mixed.  However, for posterity, I wanted to collect these thoughts and here we are.

11/06/2024

So like, I get the whole philosophy behind having incredibly low damage values and in some way I respect it.  But tbh, it's like the thing I dislike about how Paper Mario handles stats.  Like I get the idea of like "1 damage and 2 damage feel so substantial this way" but I've always felt like it doesn't work as much in practice because it eventually just kinda ends up at "it always feels like I'm not doing enough damage" after a certain point.

Finished Chapter 1.  I'm liking TTYD more than I expected to from previous attempts to play it and from watching other people play it, but I'm not like wowed yet.  Messed up and accidentally upgraded HP, RIP.

11/09/2024

Finished Chapter 2 of TTYD.  Boggly Woods is an absolute vibe, just on vibes this is possibly my favorite chapter in any Paper Mario game I've played so far.  Actually playing it?  It's alright.  I think a thing about TTYD I'm realizing is that areas just feel really small?  Like I don't know if they're actually any smaller than the areas in 64 or Super but the way they're laid out makes them feel so much smaller.

I'm liking the combat more than I have in the past but I think that's mostly because I'm going into it already knowing I gotta do something funny with my build so that battles don't last forever.  We're doing Danger/Peril strats bby, hell yeah.

I'm now a few party members into the game and like, idk if this is just how I'm playing or what, but it kind of feels like Goombella is still the only party member I want to have in combat like 90% of the time?  Like Koops is useful situationally so far and Flurrie's whole gimmick of being a board clear only seems to work on enemies I don't find especially annoying to deal with and doesn't work on like, say, a board of Piranha Plants.  Partner balancing could be better, lol.

I am still liking it way more than I thought I was going to from previous experiences but like, I'm still mostly like "this is fine".

The attack point upgrade in Chapter 2 is decently well timed but an issue I have with like Paper Mario in general, as I've mentioned previously, is that it still always feels like I'm not doing enough damage in this series?  Like it always feels like by the time they give me the option to do 2 damage instead of just 1, you should already be doing 3 damage on your normal attack.  I think I would've just put an attack point on every x amount of levels myself.

(In reply to a friend on the nature of the badge system) I actually feel like I need to grind more with badges so that I have more room for badges to strategize with. Like to me this system is way more dependent on grinding than a traditional stat system because in order to have room to strategize you need to have levels to get the badge points.  Like to me it's very frustrating how quickly it becomes where regular enemy fights are functionally worthless in the chapter.  It's like the game is telling me "okay, you're too strong for this now" but idk.  I don't have traditional stats, I don't really feel stronger, this room full of enemies is going to take me as much time to beat at level 8 as it does at level 7, but now I just get half the EXP for doing so.

11/10/24

Anyways, I'm like halfway through the Glitz Pit and uh.  Fuck this.  Fuck this actually.  This is horrible.

So basically what happened is that I got to the ranked 7th match, the Shellshockers, right?  The Shellshockers legitimately took an hour by themselves because I kept getting bad objective rolls, stuff like "take damage five times" or "don't attack for three turns".  The issue is that the Shellshockers are a team of really strong enemies where, even if I guard, I am still taking 4 damage per hit, so four hits and I'm out.

Now admittedly, part of the reason these objectives were so bad is because I haven't been upgrading HP as up until this point exactly, haven't felt like I've needed it and I like the additional attack points I get from being in Danger/Peril.  That being said, I don't have an option really to rectify this problem because of how Paper Mario handles EXP.  Like I can't go somewhere and grind because I'm now high enough level to where every other area I can access to do said grinding nets me 1 exp per fight.  And also, I don't want to do that, because I don't want to have my spell to double EXP triggering on random fights I'm not getting anything out of, wasting uses.

My other option is to derank, but the problem we're facing there is that because the objectives are, in effect, "let yourself die", I can't derank even if I wanted to without throwing, and I don't want to throw because I know I can beat this stupid fight where I'm at if the game would just stop being horrible to me!  Like I could derank, fight the lower tiers over and over, get more HP, get back to the Shellshockers and then have an objective that would make the grind feel like I wasted my time and actively hurt me longterm because now I just have more HP I need to burn through to get to Danger.  I hate this, I hate this chapter's stupid gimmick so much.

My Yoshi is Orange, btw.  Getting past the Yoshi means I'm probably further now than I ever was in the past?  I don't remember exactly where I stopped in the past and forgot to check before I wiped the save file since I wasn't going to return to it to finish it but I distinctly remember forcing myself to spend the max time to get the white Yoshi to feel special.

If they do another Paper Mario game like the original 2 after TTYD, they gotta do something about the Koopa party member because man.  Kooper and Koops are very clearly like the worst party members in their respective games.

Koops' entire purpose in the party is currently being rendered obsolete by a newborn, I don't believe there is a worse party member than that.  And if there is, holy shit.  Like people have been saying this game is a masterpiece for 20 years but almost half the party members are awful?

11/11/24

Finished Chapter 3 last night.  I didn't like it.  Combat focused chapter, not doing it for me ever.  I already think the combat is the weakest part of this game and boy howdy did this chapter really highlight all my issues.  Like half the required fights are just complete wastes of time but also you can't just easily deal with them because despite the fact that the game is telling you you're too strong for this fight by giving you no EXP, you never feel any stronger because your attack point increases are determined by specific story beats and not by leveling up, meaning a room full of enemies you fight at level 1 can still take as much time to beat as that same room full of enemies at level 11.

And then on top of that, there's a massive difficulty spike halfway through the chapter where fights go from "wastes of time" to "way too rough", where suddenly enemies have an unheard of amount of like attack and defense for this part of the game, with a lot of times them being able to 3HKO me despite blocking.  Again, this is partially my fault, I haven't been upgrading HP and as such I am super squishy.  That being said, I don't know how I'm meant to rectify this when every place I had access to besides the Glitz Pit nets me no exp, it feels like I am simply being punished for my build.

The chapter gimmick also really hurt it for me.  Like I get the flavor, it's wrestling, you're putting on a show, but in practice it just kind made already difficult fights just entirely unreasonable.  Like most of my time spent in this chapter was redoing fights because the clear condition for the fight was causing me to lose.  I understand now why younger me never made it out of this chapter, it's rough, it's really rough.

Because of all of this I ended up not caring about the story, for the record, I was over this chapter before it even really got going.  The Grubba fight was really fun but otherwise the story was like a C.

11/13/24

Twilight Town's back and forth is honestly less annoying to me than Boggly Woods' or Glitzville's and I think it's because you're not like trapped in a single structure for majority of the chapter so it doesn't feel as small as those two did?  Like I think really the reason why TTYD's backtracking tends to be a problem is not because backtracking is a problem, but because of how TTYD, likely in an attempt to get this entire thing on a GameCube disc, tries to get a lot out of very little.  Like Paper Mario 1 has this problem with Shy Guy's Toybox.  Shy Guy's Toybox is a really annoying area full of a bunch of back and forth busywork, but really, you're not actually doing any less back and forth than you would in any other area.  The problem is Shy Guy's Toybox feels so much smaller than all the other areas in the game, so the back and forth becomes way more noticeable.  Also Vivian is just like so good?  Like she's really strong!  Really really strong!  Which I guess makes sense why she would be, given she's the only party member you can use in this chapter.  Like Vivian I've always been told is the opposite end of the partner balancing issue in this game, where she's like way too strong vs. the other party members, but it totally makes sense why they would make her super overpowered as well as she is literally the only party member available for like 50% of Chapter 4.

I still have yet to really find a point where Koops is especially useful.  Like idk, I feel like in most situations where I'd want to use Koops, it's just better to use Yoshi?  Even if I'm not hitting every enemy with Gulp, Gulp deals 5 to 2 enemies instead of 3 to 3+?

I think honestly what Koops needed is an aggro drawing attack, imo.  Like him being able to tank hits better is super helpful, don't get me wrong, but the game being designed around jumping means it's never a guarantee that they're going to hit Koops if he's out front.  I really think I'd use Koops way more if I knew the damage was going to go to him to tank with his defense.

11/14/24

Chapter 4 done.  This was the high point of the playthrough so far.  The atmosphere of the Twilight Woods is just so good, a perfect spooky chapter imo.  And also it' has been the high point of this game's humor so far, the crows that talk about like the burst of the dot com bubble and the depletion of fossil fuels and stuff are such a great bit.  And Doopliss is a perfect Mario RPG villain, as funny as he is threatening.  Big fan of this.

This story also hits really hard.  I think this is what I actually enjoy about TTYD, like, I concur this game's strong point is that it is willing to tell stories Mario never would, but I think that whereas many people point to the Glitz Pit as being an obvious high point in that respect because it's so un-Mario, I think TTYD is actually better off when it is doing stories Mario wouldn't normally but also still don't feel too out there?  Like the Twilight Woods are darker than a normal Mario story but its fairy tale connections still make it not feel like it's out of place, which I kinda feel like the Glitz Pit does?

Also surprisingly this chapter's backtracking didn't bother me that much, despite the fact that you have to cover what is essentially a hallway like five times.  I think that TTYD is trying to make effective use of incredibly limited space, there are bread loaves with more storage than a GameCube disc, and I commend them for getting a game this grand on such a tiny format.  Personally though I wish there were less areas like the Great Tree and more areas like Twilight Town, where, despite the area being small, it doesn't feel it nearly as much because it's still out in the open rather than a very enclosed and claustrophobic dungeon.

I have finally moved away from trying to make Danger strats happen, mostly, I still have a Danger badge equipped as a safety net, but I'm focused more on building around permanent attack buffs.  Here's hoping I don't almost die as much now, lol.  Still ain't upgrading HP tho.

Oh also I got Ms. Mowz.  She doesn't seem very good but at least now I can get all the badges I keep seeing in battle?  I'm a little surprised how easy it is to get her?  Like I figured she'd have a whole sidequest you had to go through where she hid badges in all the locations you spotted her (Hooktail Castle, The Great Tree, Glitzville) and then you'd recruit her after doing that.  Her attack also doesn't work like I expected it to.  I guess when I saw it was flicking I assumed it was going to be like Bow's where it hits for x amount of damage a number of times but instead it just hits once and ignores defense?

It also took me like way too long to realize Vivian doesn't have any restrictions on her attack?  Like I intuitively assumed that Vivian had to hit the front opponent because her attack is on the ground but no, she just goes anywhere.  Insane.  It makes sense, as she has to function as the entire party for a chapter, but still.  Like I've heard that criticism towards the game before, that on top of existing party balancing issues where Goombella is pretty clearly the best party member for the first few chapters, Vivian is just ridiculous and changes the balance even more, but also I fully get it.  She literally has to cover the entire party, who were probably all upgraded by this point, for at least 50% of Chapter 4.

11/15/24

Bobbery get!  Funny thing about at least the original release of TTYD, if you go into the menus to heal between you talking to Bobbery in Keelhaul Key and returning with the Chuckola Cola, you can already select Bobbery as a party member to use items on.  There would be no reason to do this, as he has full HP.  But still.

Oh another thing I'm realizing is that Goombella is actually going to lag for me for a specific reason: Multibonk is effectively useless for me because of the input lag of playing a game designed for CRTs on a modern TV!  It's something I've noticed being a problem trying to do Power Bounce too, when the timing gets to its maximum tightness, there's just no shot for me anymore, I'm done.  Superguard is also just a nonstarter for me, I've stopped trying.

It's good though, I have 3 extra BP to play around with that I wouldn't if I were playing this game on a CRT where I would absolutely rock Power Bounce, it's the strongest move in the game.  But because of how timing goes, I'm honestly just not seeing enough benefit off Power Bounce to really warrant trying to run it.  I can do like 10-12 off it but I do 8 with a normal attack due to my build so like.  What's the point.  I'm thankful that, outside of certain difficulty spikes due to chapter gimmicks, I'm not actually feeling like the timing being off is hurting me in any way.  Standard action command timing is very generous, you have like a 20-30 frame window it feels.  I think Vivian's might be even longer, actually, which contributes to her being so good.

I'm curious if Keelhaul Key and Twilight Town were, at one point, swapped during development of TTYD, because I think it's really interesting that like, at the end of Twilight Town you unlock two sidequests which take you back to previous areas of the game but then there's not really a lot to do in them with your newfound abilities, but there would be if you had Bobbery already.  And of course Bobbery, like.  I like him, it is not controversial to say he's a pretty underwhelming final party member though.  But like having a villain join the team, that would've made for an excellent final party member.

Them using Shine Sprites is so weird in hindsight.  Like I get why, it's just so weird how much synergy there was with the brand in regards to Sunshine for a few years when now it's such a clear outlier.

Wandering through the Rogueport Sewers post-chapter 5, Ms. Mowz is surprisingly helpful.  She's just a guarantee to handle the damage I need to stomp out Koopatrols, don't have to worry about their crazy defense complicating things.

Chapter 5 done.  Just like a solid chapter, I liked this one.  Cortez was a really cool fight, the dungeon was fun, just very solid overall.  I think this chapter really follows up well on Chapter 4 too, giving what is a very unusual Mario story but not one that ever feels out of place, further highlighting what I like and appreciate about TTYD.  It seems like the Glitz Pit is going to be the only standout "bad part" for me in this game at this rate. 

I am struck off this chapter, and I know this is heresy to say, by how much I think I'd honestly really adore TTYD if it was more of an adventure game like the series' later entries.  I find that I largely enjoy the game the most when I'm mostly puzzle solving and wandering around collecting stuff, and I tend to enjoy it much less when I'm fighting a bunch of enemies.  Like I think when it comes to boss fights, the combat is very fun and very creative, but during regular enemy fights I find combat pretty simple and kind of lacking.

I haven't commented on this before I don't think but man the music in this game is spectacular.  It felt like a good time to mention it because the Cortez Battle theme is such a standout track but on the whole the music has been a high point.  I am such a massive fan of the Twilight Town tune, y'all don't even know. 

I am super glad the mid game picks up so much because coming off the Glitz Pit I was definitely worried this was going to be another instance of "oh no, I hate one of the greatest games of all time" but nah, this game is good, I may not agree on how good but game is good.

11/16/24

Chapter 6 done.  I'm pretty mixed on this chapter.  On the one hand, like it's a mystery on a train, how can you not love that.  On the other hand this chapter is just super dull gameplay wise, literally being stuck in a claustrophobic hallway running back and forth.  It's a chapter I wish I could love more than I actually do. 

I'm glad to finally have another upgrade to Mario's stats, I feel like if I hadn't been building around power then I would've felt like another attack boost was overdue, it being three chapters since the last one.  I have also ended up back at Danger strats, lol, Sweet Feast makes them just really safe so I'm like "yeah, why not, lol".  Bad time to be doing it because this chapter is kind of a drain on SP due to the Paraspike Tops, but you know!

Having now done most of the game I gotta say, I don't think the Peach and Bowser segments are good.  Like the Peach segments are narratively interesting but I find them to be fairly dull to actually play and I would probably have a much bigger issue with them if they weren't all like 10 minutes max.  And the Bowser segments while at times humorous feel largely pointless, it kinda feels like Bowser is only this game because it's a Mario game, you gotta have Bowser.

Glad this chapter had you jump in a painting though, always a stamp of a quality Mario when you get to jump in paintings.  End game is on the horizon, just gotta do Chapter 7, surely nothing infamously bad happens in Chapter 7, amirite?

11/19/2024

Chapter 7 done.  Guess who finally found the "weak enemies die without you having to fight them" badge 7 chapters in!  The hunt for General White is pretty bad, ngl, while the game does give you a somewhat robust fast travel system, it has one of two big blindspots that still ultimately make this part annoying.  But I also  sympathize with why they wanted the final like main chapter be a world tour chapter, it's a good way to close out your adventure, it's just not executed the best.

Thankfully the Chapter picks up greatly in the second half.  X-Naut Fortress is an absolute jam and it being small works to its advantage after so much of this chapter was giving the players the run around.  And it has Resident Evil keys, who doesn't love Resident Evil keys.  And the ending surprisingly got to me, insofar as a sad moment in a Mario game could get to me.

I take back what I said about Ms. Mowz, her Defense piercing is incredibly helpful.  Like if the enemy only has 1 Defense point, it's not worth it but if you get to 2 or more, Mowz is like THE party member to get in there for damage, it's really handy.  I know that like Koops' big attack and a couple others also do that and are probably more effective in the long run but Ms. Mowz does it for free and that's usually enough, I find myself switching between her and Vivian.

I am ready for this game to be over.  Like I've definitely enjoyed this game more than I ever thought I was going to, but like.  I've put 33 hours into this game so far and while I don't regret finally sitting down and finishing it, I feel a bit like it was a lot of time to end up at the assessment of TTYD I had before I did this: this game is fine.  I used to say it's a 7/10, my final rating will probably be a 7.5 or 8/10, it is fine.  I guess now that assessment is at least fully informed?

Btw I was doing all the Troubles for some reason, I don't think I mentioned that, I'm not finishing that, you can't make me watch the Blimp boarding cutscene another time.

For the first time in the entire game, now, in chapter 8, I am finally feeling like I need HP.  Mostly because I know the bosses coming up are brutal in terms of damage.  Like I have 15 HP, the Shadow Queen basically 1 shots me.

11/20/2024

 I made it to the Shadow Queen last night and I did two attempts and like.  Man I don't want to have to watch all those cutscenes again.

Also don't ask the Internet for strategy tips on how to beat the Shadow Queen if you're playing the original on modern TVs!  Their advice is literally just "use Power Bounce 4head" and that doesn't work!

I think my next play is going to be rearranging my badges so that I can equip the other Power Plus P badge, that way Koops, Yoshi and Vivian's attacks that hit all opponents will deal 8 damage and take out the Shadow Hands. I'm surprised there's not a pipe right before the final boss room, tbh?  Like that seems like it should be a thing, so players can restock, swap out items, etc.

I think the other thing for me is like.  You can't skip cutscenes, whatever, it's a game from 2004, it was still a 50/50 shot if any game would let you do that, but also the cutscenes don't autoplay.  You have to mash through.

I haven't beaten the final boss yet but I figured since like I should probably do an end of game summary once I do that, I'm just gonna post Chapter 8 reflections.  So uh.  Chapter 8.

The Palace of Shadow is almost the perfect final dungeon for this game, and possibly in Mario RPG history, tbh.  Its dark, spooky, surreal atmosphere is the perfect culmination of the Thousand Year Door's style and themes, being inherently unsettling without pushing it too far and making it un-Mario.  And there are some truly great setpieces in it, the endless hallway that warps you back to the start if you choose a wrong door, the puzzle tower where you have to solve a series of riddles, the clockwork depths, it's all good stuff.

And on top of all of that, it's a dungeon that makes use of every party member and ability you've gained thus far for puzzle solving and I like that a whole lot.  Like it legitimately is almost my favorite chapter in the game because of how on a thematic level and even mostly in a gameplay level it really ties together the entirety of Thousand Year Door.

But there are two things I think kind of weaken it.  One is that it, at times, plays it too safe.  Like this dungeon, for all of its uniqueness, at times just kind of resorts to doing Bowser's Castle stuff, jumping over firebars, dodging long hallways with bullet bills, etc.  I feel like it makes this dungeon just a touch less cool when it reuses traditional Mario set pieces like this.  Speaking of reused set pieces, I like that it chooses to call back to previous dungeons in the game, I'm not as big of a fan that it only has two callbacks and they're both to Hooktail.  I think honestly I would've welcomed just fully reusing entire rooms from previous dungeons, it'd be a nice "look how far we've come" moment and shifting through so many dissonant rooms would really help the atmosphere, imo.

Overall though, still really positive on this chapter, probably my second favorite in the game, tbh.

The final boss is giving me problems.  I've done two attempts, made some decent headway, the issue is that if I lose I don't feel super plussed to immediately jump back in because it means having to go through all the cutscenes.

Alright, I have finished Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door!  Overall, game is good, I enjoyed it, I'm glad I finally sat down and beat it.  It was a very interesting experience, it's always a bit of a crapshoot when I play these games people love, I have a habit of not liking them, I've even joked about it several times on my Twitter the "list of the greatest games of all time that I think aren't as good as Ecco the Dolphin, the bad Genesis game" but this one was good.

I previously stated that it feels a bit like I spent a lot of time just to end up at "this game is fine", an assessment I had before I did this playthrough, I don't necessarily agree with that.  Like, on the whole, I am not as into this game as most people, that much is true, it's not making any "best games of all time" lists for me, but like.  My general assessment of the Paper Mario series has always been "they're all okay, they're all perfectly fine games" but like, having now played at least the original trilogy I'm now more like "TTYD is obviously better than the rest of the ones I played and while I may not be putting as highly as others, I would be dishonest saying it is of the same exact quality as 64 or Super".

I will however hold to my previous assessment that I wish this game was more of an adventure game.  Like, while I ultimately did enjoy some of the RPG elements by the end, I found the badge juggling and build strategizing to be very fun and the boss design is really strong in this game, I mostly didn't care for the actual combat, feeling it very slow and very simple.  Admittedly, the like most in-depth mechanic, Super guarding, didn't work with how I was playing it so that was part of the problem but like, the entire time I was doing combat I was like "man, I wish I were just playing Mario & Luigi now".

I haven't really commented on the story overall, other than praising like Chapter 4, and honestly like.  It's good, it's a good Mario story, but with how people talk about this game I was absolutely expecting more?  Like the story is always talked about like a really high point of this game, people always talk about how amazing it is, and like.  For a Mario game, this is definitely leaps and bounds over what I'm expecting, don't get me wrong.  But I feel like that clause is often left out of the discussion, as if it is meant to be understood people are talking about this in context of it being a Mario game, and like.  It's difficult not to be a bit disappointed in it.  It's okay.  It's fine.

Actually on that note, I kind of hate the ending?  I actually kind of hate the weirdly saccharine note this game ends on where you go through where your party members are post adventure and all their lives are just going great, tonally it feels kind of off for how TTYD's tone and atmosphere typically goes, but also like.  Some of these stories' happy endings aren't that happy?  Like oh boy, Vivian returns to her transphobic family who used her as a pawn in a plot to awaken a centuries old god that was sealed away and then attempted to murder her when she for splitting off.  I'm not even necessarily sure if I hate this overall, I mean the Vivian part will never sit well with me absolutely, but just like.  It doesn't feel good being posted up at the end of TTYD, this is kind of the thing I would see appearing in a later entry in the series.

Overall though, some high highs, some low lows, it is a game I'm glad I've played.  A much younger version of me would probably love this game, I genuinely think that if I had played it when I had bought it and I was more into RPGs, more willing to excuse sometimes unfun gameplay for story, then this would probably make my favorites list.  As it stands, it's making my top 20 this year right now, there's still a month left in the year so whose to say what happens between then but like.  This moment?  It's the 18th best game I've played this year!