My influences for this design: Mario Galaxy, Zack and wiki, the Zelda franchise, Portals, Super Metroid.
Story: who cares.
Gameplay: Every Mario game has several things in common: platforming, a bunch power-ups, quantized levels, item collection. These elements would, of course, have to be maintained. The recent mario games have also included a certain gimmick....here is what I would like to see for the next game.
Level Deformation. Mario will have access to many power-ups and each power up will allow mario to affect the level in some creative way. Now instead of just jumping from platform to platform until you reach the end, you will be forced to use these power-ups solve light puzzle elements to create your own pathway to your goal. With any luck, the levels will be designed in a manner in which they can be solved in many ways depending on how you utilize the power-ups.
So basically a platformer with the problem solving elements of zack and wiki but much less frustrating, maybe closer to zelda style play but quantized into short, specific, and themed levels, creative world deformation power-ups kind of like the portals gun but not the portals gun cause that would be uninspired, and able to exploit power-ups to pass levels in creative ways like in super metroid if you are good at wall jumping.
that's what i would like to see. xD
