I've been playing a lot of the Mario Kart DLC lately and loving playing as Petey Piranha. I almost forgot he existed because he has been in like three games since 2009
sidenote: Anyone remember Toadsworth? The last time he was in a new original Mario game was in 2013. How many Mario characters were killed off in the era of Koopalings? There's gotta be way more than these ones
The devs on Paper Mario: Origami King noted (complained?) that they weren’t allowed to introduce any new character types, or even vary significantly on the established character types. Nintendo can be weirdly neurotic about protecting/limiting their IPs.
- Showthis is the name and design of the most beloved character from that game btw lol
Shy Guys have such a fun design, yet they've been in so few games
Odyssey doesn't really feel like an evolution of "Mario" tbh.
The ways it and most mario games are creative are completely unrelated to the mario brand, mario games are still very stagnant and corporate feeling.. mario wonder takes place in a "new" kingdom but it still fully embraces and accepts most parts of the wii u era mario brand.. the new npc race in this "new and exciting" kingdom is literally just slightly different toads in the same style houses.
The resistance to creating new and interesting characters in mario games is so baffling. The last time Nintendo made a new and interesting character in galaxy they were so popular they were immediately added to every single spin off series, multiple 3d mario games, and also was instantly added to smash bros. Dunno why they wouldn't want to ever have that happen again
yeah Odyssey was fast paced and fun as hell, the movement was amazing.
not including toadsworth is an unforgivable sin though that will ruin the franchise forever /j
