| JWeinCom said:
I dunno about the enemies in Mario 3 being fearsome. The only one that could really lay claim to that is that freaking giant fish, and *maybe* the evil sun. Other than that, I wouldn't call anything in Mario fearsome. As for the music, I agree that SMB3 has better music, but that's not a matter of "kiddy" or "adult". It's just a matter of good music and not as good music. Maybe I got off the radar with talk of intrusiveness, but the point is this. Some games exist to convey a story, express an emotion, or something like that. Mario does not exist for those purposes. Mario is just about games for games sense. Miyamato has said himself he's not trying to make art, and that's ok. I wouldn't want That Game Company to start making Mario games anymore than I want Nintendo to start making quirky indy games. I don't think every game necessarily needs to have a story. If you're into Disney, look at Fantasia. Fantasia is a movie that doesn't really have what we could conventially call a story, aside from the Sorceror's Apprentice scene. It's just a series of beautiful images used as visualizations to moving pictures. There is no real plot, no actual characters (Sorceror's Apprentice aside), no conflict, no climax, etc. It's pretty much simply beauty for beauty's sake. A strong plot is nice, but it's not always necessary. In the case of Mario platformers, I don't think it would add much to the experience. I don't need to know why I'm jumping on a turtle's head, I just want to enjoy the bouncy goodness. I could get into a discussion of icons, but it's kind of hard to do because each company has different goals. For example, when wrestling was trying to be edgy in the 90's, their mascot was Steve Austin, a beer swilling rebel. When they made the shift to family friendly entertainment, they went to John Cena, who like Mario and Mickey became more and more bland as time rolled on. In general though, you don't want an edgy or complex mascot, unless you're trying to market an edgy or complex product. At any rate, I don't think you've really shown that Mario is kiddy. You may feel that it is, and that's fine, but I don't find the series to be especially childish, particularly in comparison with older entries of the franchise. |
@Fantasia. Yup, and that's exactly what I was telling you when I said "read Sal's post". The story can be unwritten, with no words, like in Fantasia, just with beauty.
@showing Mario is kiddy. I tried to contrast it with the big Disney classics, but for some reason you don't see the contrast. What I mean by kiddy, is mostly cheesy. Like playschool. It only appeals to kids because it's cheesy. Something that appeals to kids & adults is never cheesy. So the posts at the beginning that said that Mario is all-inclusive were mostly wrong, and the Mario I'm proposing is more all inclusive. The Mario 3 music ties into this because it was of high quality, as compared to the more generic tunes of NSMB, as catchy as they may be. Contrast Clair de Lune with Ice Ice Baby and you'll understand right away.
