Whatever happened to Toadsworth and Professor E. Gadd? They seem like they would be perfect for Mario Kart.
Like I know E. Gadd is still in the Luigi's Mansion games but he used get way more cameos, he was in the Mario and Luigi RPGS (as was Toadsworth), and he was mentioned in Sunshine and Thousand Year Door. Piantas and peaches plane are a couple of other things that used to be everywhere and now aren't.
At least Petey Piranha gets to be in Mario Kart.
I know this is the nerdiest post to make ever, but I was just having shower thoughts and was like, huh what ever happened to Toadsworth? 
I guess The Thousand Year Door remake reminded me he exists.
Also while you're at it Nintendo, bring back Fawful and let the Beanbean people be in more games damn it.
Well, if I were to guess, it has to do with Nintendo's entire "securing the brand" thing back in the late aughts to late 10's. You know, when every single mario game was basically just New Super Mario Bros? When Paper Mario started to really blow? And the party games forgot their entire gameplay loop? I dunno why, but for over a decade Nintendo played everything super safe with the Mario series, there were like 3 new enemy types each game. People like Scott the Woz and Arlo put it much better than I ever could (simply watch 7 hours of Wii U reminiscing), but the point is. Nintendo is scared of a console or franchise doing bad, and they often come to the wrong conclusions as to why their projects fail. The Gamecube wasn't out competed by the PS2 or XBOX cause it was a bad console, but because it didn't offer the conveniences such as dvd playing or catering to the teenage-male-dominated market Nintendo helped to grow the previous two decades. (Talk about getting hoisted.) Nintendo went on to make a more convenient and popular console, sure, but their conclusion was also to play it waaaaaay safer with the Mario brand. Aside from the Galaxy games (all 2 of them), the Mario games lost a lot of their personality. Just look at the travesty that is PM: Sticker Star , or the blandness of NSMB U and NSMB 2. So a lot of their previous decade's catalougue was very lacking in both old "off-brand" characters and new fun ones. And probably for the same weird reasons, Nintendo has an aversion to GC era characters, cause it was one of the worst revenue-wise for Nintendo aside from the Wii U (Which was also created from the same unnecessary caution, wacky, eh?)
Geh, enough ranting, I gotta go get back to playing Mountain of Faith on the Windows PC! (Why don't we have any Reggie Fils-Aíme emotes)
Odyssey at least wasn't too safe what with Mario running around possessing frogs, but yeah I agree. Seems to happen to every brand after a while.
They rereleased the good Paper Mario and tried to be less safe with Wonder, so here's hoping they're starting to let their developers get wacky with it (I'm very sceptical though because corporations rarely do anything good.)
Weird Mario is best Mario imo
Yeah, Odyssey was the exception last decade, and so far Nintendo has definitely let their developers and design teams play more fast and loose with their most recent entries. I think if the games see good sales numbers, then they will keep the trend up into the upcoming "Switch 2" era. But, if the sales numbers are deemed to be disappointing by whatever arbitrary metric is used by the company, then we might just see a reverse in course, and doubling down on the restraint-of-wackiness, "reinforcing the brand" once again so they can profit of Mario and Co's recognizable design for merchandise
and keep the games only to remind people that Mario is in fact a video game character with all his wacky pals (NOT: Toadsworth, King boo, E. Gadd, Any and all Paper Mario characters, Petey, the Piantas, the Lumas, the Bees, those woodcut fellas from Galaxy 2, anything from Odyssey, and many many more characters that will *never* return! 
).
Nintendo: "If its not making us all the money, it might as well be in a 6ft deep grave!" :quark:
100% I hate how capitalism strangles developer creativity
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Indeed.
didn't know creativity was when a company reuses characters that were first introduced when you were a kid but what do i know.
I feel like there was a word to describe enshittifying everything and reducing it to the lowest common denominator in pursuit of maximizing profit primarily above any other consideration.
I'm talking new gameplay innovations, enemies, level designs, movement techniques! The characters are just what bridges it together, the differences between Mario 64, Galaxy 1&2 and Odyssey are miles apart! The only major thing they have common is the standard Mario cast, everything else is new and different.
Bah, I don't even buy Nintendo products anymore (:pirate-jammin:), so I shouldn't care, but I do, cause I still think they're good and innovative games when they put their best into it.