| RolStoppable said: If I had said that, I would have put myself into a corner as well, because Mario is not just about running and jumping. If that were the case, I would never argue that the 3D Mario games are spinoffs, because they are about running and jumping too. Mario Bros. is about running and jumping too, but I ruled out this game as the core of the Mario series too. Same for Donkey Kong. Your crazy Mario porn example would replace SMB as the main series, if it removed the lore of SMB, replaced it with something new and consumers embraced it so much that they wouldn't object to an end of the continuation of the SMB lore. Although the only "realistic" way to outdo the SMB lore seems to be sex which is why you had to choose this theme. It's not just that you are incapable of offering a plausible scenario, you are also unwilling to do so. "Let me make Rol say something stupid", that was your intention. It's clear by the two answers you proposed for me. The "yes" answer would be just as bad for me as the "no" answer. Either way, there was no winning for me. "Yes" leads to what you have written above, "no" leads to 3D Mario being a part of the main series, because it's about running and jumping. I keep saying that SMB is defined as the main Mario series due to its entirity, not just its individual parts, and being the feeding ground for all its legitimate spinoffs. A change of the gameplay skeleton while keeping the lore makes a game a spinoff. 2D and 3D platforming isn't the same, anyone who is familiar with both will tell you the same thing. Realistically, the theoretical ability to replace SMB as the main Mario series is zero as long as Nintendo refrains from deliberate self-sabotage. Consumers would stop buying SMB if it became a bad and dissatisfactory game, obviously. So, Khuutra, is this how you want to end this? Belittling me after it was you who came up with the most out of this world scenario you could think of? I think it's time that I am allowed to ask questions here. Why should the 3D Mario games considered to be part of the main series? |
Now hold on a minute, I never meant to belittle you. I don't think I did, either.
And I think you're honestly missing what I'm trying to say, here: that it's okay to reach a point where you say "No, dammit, that is absurd", or "That is an aspect that is too fundamental to change". It's normal to do that. It's fundamental to our ability to differentiate the realistic from the absurd, which I think you and I will agree is necessary, not just for these discussions but in general.
But on the same note we have to acknowledge that each person's idea of the absurd is different, and plausibility is not something that can have an objective basis in an ontological discussion.
When you refer to "common sense" you are saying that something is true because it is true, without any objective basis. There's nothing wrong with that because objectivity is not really necessary here. You don't need tons of evidence to say that Mario is about running and jumping, just like you don't need tons of evidence to say that Call of Duty is about quick-scoping dudes in multiplayer: both of these things will be true or untrue for different people.
Our ideas of common sense are rooted in fundamental assumptions we make about the objects we're trying to classify. It's acknowledging that there comes a point where we say "I can't give you a good reason for this; I think it is self-evident and should not need explanation." You've done this a couple of times in this thread, and that's fine; it's good, even.
But it illustrates that this whole discussion about the classification of Mario games isn't about objective criteria, regardless of how we try to dress it up. We exclude Super Mario Land because of this and that, or New Super Mario Bros. because of that and this, but we include New Super Mario Bros. Wii in spite of the fact that it has simultaneous cooperative multiplayer. Why? Ultimately because it feels right.
That is the first point: the objective criteria you're setting up, when we dig deep enough, are shown to be "because it feels right", or "because it is true". And again, that's fine.
But it leads into the other point: no one can decide meaning for another person. The majority cannot choose for the minority. Similarly, the minority cannot choose for the majority. No individual can choose for another individual. There are people out there to whom Mario Kart are the only Mario games that matter, or to whom the Mario & Luigi series are the real Mario games because they just are. These people are wrong according to your values, or to mine, but it's not our place to attempt to detract from their values by an insistence on our own, regardless of how many people agree with us.
My opinion on the question of Mario game classification doesn't matter. Of course a Mario pornography game wouldn't be a real Mario game, regardless of how all-encompassing it was - the same is true of a Mario FPS that sold 30 million every year. That shit is absurd! But you know, for some people they would be. That's the point.
Mario to me is not about any objective set of criteria that you can lay down on a spreadsheet, it's about the experience of the game and, deeper than that, how I respond to that experience. A 3D Mario game is a real Mario game for me when it gives me that Mario feeling. I suspect they never do for you, and that's fine - I wouldn't expect them to, and you're not obligated to experience things in a certain way.
The point of this conversation between you and I is an explanation of why I hold the stance that antagonizing people and belittling their view on "real" Mario games, reducing the importance of their experience, is wrong. Man, fuck that. It's bad enough we fight about sales all the time. Do we have to antagonize each other about things we love, about the very experience of loving these games?
I hope you see what I mean.
